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institute for middle east understanding
Killing of Woman Harvester Underscores 'War-Like' Israeli Assault on West Bank Olive Growers
"The olive season has turned into a season of killing for the Palestinian people, whether at the hands of the Israeli army or armed settlers," said one observer.
Oct 18, 2024
The killing of a 59-year-old woman who eyewitnesses said was shot in the back by a member of the Israel Defense Forces while she was harvesting olives on her land in the West Bank on Thursday highlighted what one United Nations official called a "war-like" assault by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory.
Hanan Abu Salameh was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank, when IDF soldiers posted on the nearby separation barrier along the Israeli border opened fire on them, Faris Abu Salameh, the slain woman's son, toldMiddle East Eye.
Abu Salameh—who saw his mother get shot—said his family and other villagers had permission from Israeli occupation authorities to harvest olives on their lands if they stayed at least 100 meters (328 feet) from the wall.
"We were much further than that from the wall," he said. "All of a sudden they started shooting randomly. We started collecting our things to leave and moved away. My father waved his white hat in the air hoping they would stop. They shot her in the back as we were fleeing the shooting."
The IDF said Friday that it has suspended a deputy commander of the battalion in which the soldier who allegedly shot Abu Salameh served.
"An investigation has been opened by the military police investigating the incident," the IDF said in a statement. "The commander of the force at the time of the incident has been suspended from her position until the end of the investigations."
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that it has received reports that settlers have carried out 32 attacks against Palestinians and their property, including farms, this month alone. The agency also said that about 600 olive trees—which take 10 years or more to reach maturity—have been destroyed, stolen, or vandalized by Israeli settler-colonists.
"It is, frankly, very concerning that it's not only attacks on people, but it's attacks on their olive groves as well," OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said at a Geneva press conference on Friday. "The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank."
According to the Palestinian Farmers' Union, olives are the number one agricultural product in the West Bank. Between a quarter and one-third of the West Bank's population is estimated to work with olive trees and associated products, including oil and soap. Israeli occupation forces have severely and systematically restricted Palestinians' access to their own land, causing serious economic losses.
"Israeli forces have been using lethal, war-like tactics in the West Bank, raising serious concerns over excessive use of force and deepening people's humanitarian needs," Laerke added.
Israeli attacks on olive farmers began on the very first day of this year's harvest season earlier this month, when dozens of masked settlers wounded at least 11 Palestinians including women and children. Settlers including members of the violent extremist group Hilltop Youth have also stolen land from Palestinians in the West Bank.
The United States and other nations have imposed sanctions on a handful of the most violent Israeli settlers after incidents including multiple deadly pogroms during which IDF troops have protected and sometimes joined the attackers.
However, the U.S. is also Israel's number one international backer, providing the key Mideast ally with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of multiple U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolutions.
This, even as Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its conduct in a war of annihilation that has left more than 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, homeless, starved, and sickened.
In the West Bank, more than 750 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli soldiers and settlers since last October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. During that same period, more than 40 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed by Palestinians resisting what David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, acknowledged in the 1930s was the "usurpation" of their land by Jewish colonizers.
"The West Bank is Palestinian land," the California-based advocacy group Institute For Middle East Understanding (IMEU) said on social media Friday. "Israeli soldiers have no legal right to be there, yet they have relentlessly invaded Palestinian towns and cities, killing and displacing those who rightfully live there."
More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 140 settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention, both Israel's 57-year occupation of Palestine and its settlements are illegal. In July, the ICJ
issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately.
"The Biden administration has a duty under U.S. and international law to stop arming Israel as it continues its violence across Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon," IMEU added. "Every weapon the U.S. provides enables Israel to kill more civilians and prolong this devastation."
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'Where Can People Go?': Israel Kills 28 in Latest Attack on Gaza School-Turned-Shelter
"By striking these supposed shelters, Israel is intensifying the already catastrophic situation for civilians, many of whom have nowhere left to escape," a human rights group said.
Oct 10, 2024
An Israeli airstrike on a school in central Gaza killed at least 28 people on Thursday, including civilian men, women, and children.
The victims were among the million displaced Palestinians seeking shelter in the city of Deir Al-Balah in Gaza more than one year into Israel's assault on the enclave. The attack came after Israel issued new evacuation orders for northern Gaza on Monday as it escalated its bombardment and invasion of the area, in particular the Jabalia refugee camp.
"By striking these supposed shelters, Israel is intensifying the already catastrophic situation for civilians, many of whom have nowhere left to escape," Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on social media in response to the airstrike.
"This is not just another attack—it's a systematic assault aimed at wiping out entire Palestinian family lines."
Or, as Iftekhar Hammouda, a woman sheltering at the school askedCNN, "Where can people go? Where do they flee? They hit us at our homes, at our tents, on the streets, and at the schools."
The Palestine Red Crescent Society wrote on social media that it had responded to an attack on the Rafida School that killed 28 people and wounded 54.
The death toll was later verified by local hospitals, according to CNN. A rescue worker told the news agency that relatives were searching for their loved ones "in pieces."
Unverified video footage posted online included graphic images of wounded survivors as well as rescue workers handling body parts of those ripped apart by the bombing described as a "horrific massacre."
One of the survivors searching for family, Ayman Abou Khousa, told CNN, "We are dying every day," adding, "The world has sold us out."
Al Jazeera described the scene at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where the wounded were taken for treatment:
The situations continue to be very difficult inside the emergency department where medical staff are pretty much unable to provide any necessary medical intervention to save lives.
The bomb that was dropped by the F-16 packed with nails, packed with pieces of metals and shrapnel that cut through the flesh and caused severe bleeding.
Many of the victims arriving at the hospital, their blood filled up the courtyard of the hospital the moment the door of the ambulance vehicle opened.
In a statement reported by Reuters, the Israeli military said Thursday's bombardment was a "precise strike on terrorists" who had established a command center in the school. The Israel Defense Forces have long justified their attacks on civilian infrastructure by claiming Hamas uses schools and hospitals as staging grounds for attacks, a charge Hamas denies.
Hammouda told CNN that there was no Hamas presence at the school. Gaza's Government Media Office said the majority of those wounded or killed in the attack were women and children.
"The occupation army was aware that this school included thousands of displaced children and women who were displaced from their homes and whose civilian neighborhoods were bombed," the media office said in a statement reported by Al Jazeera. "It chose the time of the bombing at the peak time when these children and women were moving to get their daily food."
The office continued: "We condemn the Israeli occupation's commission of this new massacre and the ongoing massacres against civilians, children, and women, and we call on all countries of the world to condemn these ongoing crimes against the displaced, against civilians, against children and women."
Israel has bombed almost 85% of the schools in Gaza since it launched its offensive on the strip following Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Recent attacks include two airstrikes last month on a United Nations school in central Gaza that killed at least 18 and a bombing of a school in Gaza City in August that killed at least 12.
"Since Israel began committing genocide in Gaza, it has bombed at least 190 shelters. Places meant to be safe havens have become death traps for families forcibly driven from their homes," The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) wrote on social media.
"In the past year, Israel has deliberately targeted areas where families have taken refuge, knowing they include children and the elderly," the nonprofit continued. "This is not just another attack—it's a systematic assault aimed at wiping out entire Palestinian family lines."
IMEU added that the U.S. government was currently complicit in these attacks: "The U.S. continues to supply Israel with weapons, giving it the means to carry out these war crimes which are made possible by American support. The president must act to end Israel's genocidal campaign now."
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'Shameful': 16 Dems Help GOP Pass Israel Security Assistance Support Act
Even if the bill passes the Senate, President Joe Biden has threatened to veto it.
May 16, 2024
Despite U.S. President Joe Biden's threat to veto the Israel Security Assistance Support Act, 16 Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday voted alongside 208 Republicans to pass the bill, which will now head to the Senate.
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) introduced H.R. 8369, which his office claimed "curbs President Biden's misguided efforts to withhold critical security resources appropriated in U.S. law by compelling the delivery of defense weapons to Israel as they fight to protect themselves against radical terrorists."
The House vote was 224-187, with only three GOP members opposing the legislation—Reps. Warren Davidson (Ohio), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Thomas Massie (Ky.)—and six Republicans and 13 Democrats not voting.
The Democrats who supported the bill are Reps. Matt Cartwright (Pa.), Angie Craig (Minn.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.), Lois Frankel (Fla.), Jared Golden (Maine), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Frank Pallone (N.J.), Mary Sattler Peltola (Alaska), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), David Scott (Ga.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Thomas Suozzi (N.Y.), and Ritchie Torres (N.Y.).
"These are the fringe extremists of the Democratic Party."
"These 16 House Democrats just voted with Republicans to ignore U.S. human rights law and fast-track weapons to Israel," the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project said on social media, listing the lawmakers. "Shameful."
Noting that the bill would cut off funds from the National Security Council as well as the Defense and State departments until withheld weapons were sent to Israel, Justice Democrats declared, "These are the fringe extremists of the Democratic Party."
While generally supporting Israel's seven-month assault of the Gaza Strip—as critics worldwide decry it as genocide—Biden has recently halted the delivery of some weapons and threatened to withhold more from the Middle East ally, which has now killed over 35,272 Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave and wounded another 79,205, according to local officials.
The White House said in a statement earlier this week that the Biden administration "strongly opposes H.R. 8369," which "would undermine the president's ability to execute an effective foreign policy" and "could raise serious concerns about infringement on the president's authorities under Article II of the Constitution."
"The bill is a misguided reaction to a deliberate distortion of the administration's approach to Israel. The president has been clear: We will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself. Our commitment to Israel is ironclad," the White House asserted. "The administration will continue to use all funds appropriated for Israel consistent with legal requirements, including in the recent supplemental, rendering this bill unnecessary and unwise."
"Furthermore, this bill, if enacted, could lead to spiraling unintended consequences, prohibiting the United States from adjusting our security assistance posture with respect to Israel in any way, including to address unanticipated emergent needs, even if Israel and the United States agree that military needs have changed and supplies should change accordingly," the White House warned.
The president has faced mounting pressure—including from some Democrats in Congress—to limit or fully cut off U.S. weapons to Israel, as rights groups have documented Israeli forces' use of American arms to commit alleged war crimes.
Despite such evidence, the Biden administration concluded in a report to Congress last week that Israeli government assurances about U.S. weapons use are "credible and reliable so as to allow the provision of defense articles" to continue.
Politicopointed out Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled the chamber may not even take up the measure, saying that "the president has already said he'd veto it, so it's not going anywhere," while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) pledged that "we will sustain the president's veto, as we have done consistently throughout the 118th Congress."
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