The West Bank does not feature much on our daily news feeds. The focus of the world media is understandably currently focused on Hamas’ killing of over 1,400 Israelis, and Israel’s killing of over 8,000 Palestinians in its ongoing siege and bombing of Gaza. However, the human rights situation for Palestinians across the region is a crucial part of the context needed to understand this cycle of violence.
I recently returned home to Galway from the West Bank in occupied Palestine, where I was a human rights monitor with a programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC ).
The programme I served in, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI ), was established by the WCC in 2002, following a request by the heads of Jerusalem's churches to establish a protective presence for Palestinian communities in the West Bank who were vulnerable to attack from the Israeli military and settlers. The protective presence was created in the form of Ecumenical Accompaniers (EA ), who also as monitor and report breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law.
I served as an EA in the area of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. During this and previous visits, I witnessed the reality for Palestinians living under occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
I witnessed the roadblocks regularly set up by the Israeli military blocking exit by Palestinians from small villages, but also big towns like Yatta (population 100,000 ). For days, the entire population was prevented from leaving or entering Yatta and other villages to go to work, school, visit family, medical appointments and so on.
On one occasion, I asked a soldier at a roadblock why they were blocking the exit from Yatta. He answered, “Because I said so."
Teachers working in schools in Masafer Yatta described to me how they were often delayed by the Israeli military as they tried to get to work. On many occasions, their cars were confiscated, leaving them and children in remote areas, with no choice but to walk long distances in the heat to a village for help.
Illegal settlements and demolished homes
Eight Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta are inside what Israel calls 'Firing Zone 918', an area Israel has designated for military training. In May 2022, the Israeli courts confirmed that the residents of these villages, over 1,000 people, can be forcibly removed from their ancestral homes and land. All schools inside Firing Zone 918 have been warned of imminent demolition. From one day to the next, teachers and children never knew if they would arrive to find their school being demolished by the Israeli military.
The combined area of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is 10 per cent smaller than Co Galway, where I live, and it is home to 3.19 million Palestinians. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report on March 28, 2023, there are now more than 700,000 Israeli citizens living illegally in 279 settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
I witnessed the takeover and exploitation by Israel of Palestinian resources, including water resources, most of the fertile land in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere, quarried materials, exploitation of Dead Sea minerals and Israel’s blocking Palestinian access to the Dead Sea.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. As their numbers increase, so do the numbers of Palestinians displaced from their land. These settlements range from formally established Israeli-only villages and towns, to small caravans or tents set up by individual Israelis (outposts ), who illegally occupy many of the hilltops overlooking Palestinian villages and land. On Wednesday, October 4, I saw yet another new outpost with a large flock of sheep. It appeared on Palestinian land on a hill near Tuba village inside the Firing Zone 918.
As more and more Palestinian land is being forcefully taken by Israeli settlers, the grazing space available to Palestinians is shrinking. This forces them to reduce the size of their herds and to spend increasing amounts of money on buying hay and grain to feed their animals. All this has a detrimental effect on their livelihoods.
I witnessed the increasing levels of violence and harassment directed at Palestinian communities from Israeli settlers. I saw Palestinian shepherds harassed as they grazed their flocks, forcing them off their land.
I saw evidence of attacks on the water storage tanks, homes and animal shelters of the villagers. I witnessed the harassment of school children, sometimes by armed settlers, as they made their way to school on paths close to these illegal Israeli settlements.
The opinion of the villagers before October 7 was, "they are tightening the noose around us. They are making our lives impossible so that we have no choice but to leave. Then they will then say that we left voluntarily."
The situation has worsened since October 7.
I continue to receive messages from Palestinians in the villages of Masafer Yatta. They describe how all the roads into and out of their villages are blocked by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers. Not alone are people afraid to leave their homes, it is not possible to leave their villages to get food or medical supplies for their families and animals. It is not safe for children to go to school. Teachers who live outside of the area are unable to travel to their schools.
All of the villagers describe how armed groups of settlers enter their villages at various times. They force them to stay in their homes, threatening that they will kill anyone who doesn’t obey them.
Reality since the October 7 attacks
Since October 7, according to the UN, attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are surging, with at least 115 killed, more than 2,000 injured and nearly 1,000 others forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers. Among the dead are 33 children, according to an update on Sunday, October 29 from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which has been tracking the conflicts.
Although many Israeli settlers are already armed, the Israeli authorities have announced that, due to the 'current security situation' they will distribute additional military-grade M-16 rifles to the settlers. This decision is likely to exacerbate violence against Palestinian civilians, especially those living in isolated villages such as Masafer Yatta.
On September 16, I visited a family in a small village in the south of Masafer Yatta in a very isolated area close to the border with Israel. They told us that there used to be three families in their community. Now there were only two; a few weeks earlier, one of those three families had been forced from their home following several violent attacks by Israeli settlers.
On October 18, we received a message from the family we had visited just one month before. They told us that the second family had now been forced out following a violent attack by settlers. The settlers injured the father of the household. They demolished their home and animal shelters.
Four days later, we received a distressing message from the family stating that they now also had been forced from their home following a settler attack. Eleven family members, consisting of three generations, have been left with nothing. The family have asked me not to give their names, or the name of the area where they lived, as they fear further violence.
Widespread intimidation and forced displacement
This is not an isolated incident. The intimidation and forced displacement reported has been repeated in communities across the West Bank since October 7. Some Palestinian villages in the West Bank have been entirely depopulated. In some cases, homes have been demolished or burned by settlers. When Israeli soldiers are present, they infrequently intervene to protect Palestinians.
A report released on October 19 from Israeli human rights group B’Tselem stated, “Fearing for their lives, and with no way to generate income or obtain food and water, over the past week eight entire communities - home to 87 families numbering 472 people, 136 of them minors - have left their homes. In six additional communities, where only part of the population departed, 11 families left their homes, numbering 80 people, 37 of them minors. In all, 98 families, numbering 552 people including 173 minors, left their homes since Oct 7. Six other Palestinian communities, numbering more than 450 people, have left their homes in the last two years.”
With the attention of the world media elsewhere, a number of settlers in the West Bank are attacking and forcing Palestinians from their small villages like those in Masafer Yatta.
International obligations
Our government have regularly criticised Israeli government policy, in particular, stating its strong opposition to Israeli construction and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the confiscation of Palestinians’ land, the demolition of Palestinians’ homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.
However, Ireland has yet to take concrete action and continues to trade with businesses in the settlements. As a first step, Ireland must end its complicity by immediately passing the Occupied Territories Bill in Dáil Eireann.
The international community is obligated to use its leverage to stop the forcible transfer of these residents and put a stop to the violence against them. The current escalation must be understood in the context of 55 years of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land and 75 years of dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people.
It has been proven time and time again that there can be no military solution. Without an end to the occupation, without equality, and full dignified human rights for all, this cycle of violence will never end.
