Updates

A Routine Founded on Violence

Soldiers enter Palestinian home in Ni’lin, rouse all eight residents, ransack contents and vandalize family truck

On Thursday, 16 March 2023, at around 4:00 A.M., dozens of soldiers arrived at the home of the Sarur family in the village of Ni’lin, east of Ramallah, and removed the gate to the yard. Several soldiers entered the first floor apartment, in which Ibrahim (65) and Zohadia (64) live. They ordered Ibrahim, at gunpoint, to gather everyone who was home. Other soldiers went to the second floor, where the couple’s son Diaa’ (38) lives with his wife Maysaa (36) and their three young children. Ibrahim followed the soldiers to the second floor and tried, in vain, to stop them entering the apartment. The soldiers ordered Diaa’ to hand over the cellphones of all the apartment’s inhabitants. A few moments later, the soldiers brought Zohadia and her daughter Fidaa (36), who was sleeping over at her parents’ house, up to Diaa’s apartment, and gathered all the family members in the living room with a soldier guarding them...

1 May 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Military raids Jenin Refugee Camp, killing 10 Palestinians and injuring at least 20

On Thursday, 26 January 2023, at around 7:00 A.M., scores of soldiers, Border Police officers and Israel Security Agency (ISA) personnel raided Jenin Refugee Camp. Some of the forces entered the camp hidden in a refrigeration truck, jumping out soon after it arrived at the camp’s main square. In the half hour that followed, scores of Israeli forces’ vehicles poured into the camp through various entrances...

23 April 2023

Settler Violence = State Violence

Israeli settler shoots and kills Palestinian; soldiers arrive only 30 minutes later, to disperse Palestinians defending their land

On Saturday, 11 February 2023, at around 4:00 P.M., about 30 settlers, some of them armed with handguns and rifles, came to the outskirts of the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan. About 10 of them entered a house still under construction and went up to the second floor, where two brothers were working. The settlers pounced on one of the brothers, punching him. The other got away and alerted local residents. Within a few minutes, his brother also managed to escape the settlers....

20 April 2023

The Gaza Strip

In 2022, too, Israel prevented thousands of Palestinians in need of medical care from leaving Gaza for treatment

The blockade Israel has been imposing on the Gaza Strip for more than 15 years has crushed Gaza’s healthcare system. The level of medical services available falls far short of residents’ needs, and there is a constant shortage of medicines and medical equipment. In 2022, as in previous years, patients who need medical care unavailable in Gaza are the ones to pay the price: Israel forces them to file for permits to leave the Gaza Strip in an exhausting bureaucratic process, extending also to the persons accompanying them...

4 April 2023

The Gaza Strip

Israel preventing Palestinian father of four with kidney failure from leaving Gaza for medical treatment

Khaled al-Bahtini, a 37-year-old father of four daughters between the ages of 3 and 16 from a-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City, has kidney failure. He has been on dialysis for 16 years and was referred to East Jerusalem for an artery transplant as his arteries can no longer be hooked up to the dialysis machine and a graft attempt at a-Shifaa Hospital in Gaza failed. Since December 2022 he has repeatedly applied for a permit, but Israel has denied all his requests on various grounds...

30 March 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers shoot and kill Palestinian teacher (57) trying to evacuate wounded man

On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 2:30 A.M., Israeli troops entered Jenin Refugee Camp. Local youths threw stones at them as soon as they arrived, and the Israeli military claims explosives were thrown as well. Some soldiers made their way into the camp, while others climbed onto the roof of a building. Several entered an apartment on the fifth floor of the building, ordered its occupants to go to another apartment, and then engaged in an exchange of fire with armed Palestinians who were hiding in an alley in the camp...

29 March 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian (16) who threw an iron rod at an armored jeep they were in

On Tuesday, 7 February 2023, at around 2:30 A.M., soldiers, Border Police officers and ISA agents arrived at the neighborhood of al-Masaken a-Sha’biyeh in Nablus and arrested three residents. During the arrest operation, armed Palestinians fired live rounds at the forces and residents threw stones at them. On their way out, at around 3:30 A.M., the forces drove in armored jeeps through a traffic circle where eight local youths were gathered and threw stones at them...

27 March 2023

Settler Violence = State Violence

The pogrom in Huwarah and other Palestinian communities: the Jewish supremacy regime in action

On Sunday, 26 February 2023, at around midday, Palestinian militants shot and killed Israeli brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, who lived in the settlement on a road that runs through the town of Huwarah. That afternoon, hundreds of settlers, escorted by soldiers, invaded several neighborhoods in the town of Huwarah and in nearby villages, and carried out a pogrom. This was no loss of control. In fact, it is exactly what Israel’s control looks like: settlers launch an attack, soldiers guard them, and politicians back them up...

12 March 2023

East Jerusalem

Wadi Qadum, East Jerusalem: Israel Police detain five Palestinian minors without notifying parents for over 6 hours, and interrogate them without an adult on their behalf present

On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 5:30 P.M., about 10 Israel Police officers arrived in the neighborhood of Wadi Qadum in East Jerusalem and grabbed five Palestinian residents between the ages of 12 and 15. They crowded all five into a police car and held them there for about an hour. At around 6:30, the teens were taken to the police station on Salah a-Din Street. There, they were made to sit on chairs facing a wall in a very cold, air-conditioned room and forbidden to talk to each other. At around 7:00 P.M., a lawyer arrived and explained their rights to them, and only then did the police allow them to use the bathroom. Meanwhile, the parents of four of the boys arrived at the station, but the officers refused to let them in, and they had no choice but to wait for their sons outside for hours...

9 March 2023

The Gaza Strip

International Women's Day 2023 – Blockaded Dreams

More than 1 million Palestinian women and children live in the Gaza Strip – under blockade, deprived of basic rights and denied the ability to leave. To mark International Women’s Day, our field researchers asked three women about their dreams and the harsh reality they live in.

8 March 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli Border Police shoot live fire at Palestinian youths endangering no one in a-Ram, killing one

On Thursday, 26 January 2023, at around 1:30 P.M., Palestinian youths gathered by the northern entrance to the town of a-Ram, north of Jerusalem, to protest the killing of nine Palestinians in Jenin Refugee Camp that morning (another died of his wounds on 29 January) and the wounding of 20 others by Israeli forces. The young men threw stones at a military camp nearby. Dozens of Border Police officers drove out of the camp in several jeeps, stopped at a roundabout about 50 meters away from the youths and fired tear gas canisters at them. At intervals, they also hurled stun grenades and fired rubber-coated metal bullets and live shots at the youths...

7 March 2023

The Gaza Strip

Broken Dawn: Testimonies regarding Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip, August 2022

On 5 Aug. 2022, Israel launched another attack on Gaza, killing 33 Palestinians, including 9 minors and 3 women, in 3 days. B’Tselem’s investigation found that at least 17 of the people killed, including all the minors and women, were not participating in the hostilities. Another 15 Palestinians, 9 of them minors, were killed by Palestinian rockets or mortars that landed in Gaza. Despite the horrific outcomes of Israel’s airstrike policy, the policymakers, legal counsel or troops on the ground are unlikely to be held accountable, yet again.

7 March 2023

Hebron City Center

Hebron city center: Israeli soldiers throw stun grenades into Palestinian shops, demanding the owners close up

On Monday, 23 January 2023, most of the Palestinian shops across from the Jewish settlement of Beit Romano closed up for the day at around 2:00 P.M., as they usually do, for fear of attacks and harassment by settlers that have long since become routine. Only twos stores remained open – an antique shop run by Bader a-Tamimi, and ‘Azzam Abu Khalaf’s toy shop. Roughly an hour later, at around 3:00 P.M., soldiers arrived and hurled two stun grenades at wares a-Tamimi was displaying outside the shop, shattering them. Immediately after that, the soldiers hurled five stun grenades into the store itself, shattering some of the wares inside. ...

22 February 2023

General

Israel is baselessly prosecuting Nasser Nawaj’ah, a Palestinian human rights activist and B’Tselem field researcher

This Thursday (23 February 2023) at 10:00 A.M., a hearing will be held at Ofer military court on an indictment filed by the military prosecution against B'Tselem field researcher Nasser Nawaj’ah, who is being charged with attacking a police officer in September 2021, when settlers entered his village of Khirbet Susiya in the South Hebron Hills. Nawaj’ah, one of the leading human rights activists in the southern West Bank, has been targeted for years by the state and by settler organizations, in an attempt to sabotage his work...

20 February 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Soldiers shoot and kill young Palestinian suspected of nothing and threatening no one, simply because he fled when they raided his friend’s house

On Thursday, 12 January 2023, at around 2:30 P.M., dozens of soldiers and Border Police officers – both uniformed and undercover – and Israel Security Agency personnel raided the town of Qabatiyah in Jenin District and entered the yard of the Kmeil family home. Muhammad Kmeil (26) was working on the house he is building near the main family home, and was sitting in it at the time along with his friend Muhammad ‘Alawneh and his cousin Habiballah Kmeil (26)...

14 February 2023

Open-Fire Policy

The Israeli military lied: Ahmad Kahalah was shot and killed for no reason on his way to work

On Sunday, 15 January 2023, four soldiers set up a checkpoint underneath the Yabrud overpass, which lies north of Ramallah on the road that runs between the towns of Yabrud and Silwad. Local residents, who are accustomed to checkpoints occasionally being set up at the spot, waited in their cars. At around 8:30 A.M., when the soldiers took a long time to search one of the cars, the drivers began honking their horns to protest the delay. In response, one of the soldiers hurled a stun grenade that hit Ahmad Kahalah’s car...

9 February 2023

Settler Violence = State Violence

Olive harvest 2022: Another display of state-sanctioned violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinian farmers

Throughout the last olive harvest in the West Bank, B’Tselem documented 48 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property, sometimes with soldiers participating and always with full state support. Many farmers were left without an expected income they worked for over the year or oil for their domestic use. Military-backed settler violence is not unique to the olive harvest season, but a permanent reality for Palestinians in the West Bank. It is one of the methods the state uses to to gain control of more land in the West bank.

31 January 2023

The Gaza Strip

Akram a-Sultan (61), from Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, died suffering after Israel repeatedly rejected his applications to travel for cancer treatment in East Jerusalem

In late May 2022, Akram a-Sultan was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. The disease had caused a fracture in one of his vertebrae, and he was suffering from severe pain. His physicians referred him to Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem for radiotherapy, which is not available in the Gaza Strip, partly due to Israel’s policy. His son, Hazem a-Sultan (37), filed four applications for an entry permit on his behalf, but all were rejected. Following one of the applications, the father was summoned for a meeting with the Israel Security Agency (ISA) at Erez Crossing, where he was kept waiting for three hours before simply being sent away without meeting anyone. On 17 October 2022, Akram a-Sultan died at home after five months of torment.

16 January 2023

The Gaza Strip

Mahmoud al-Kurd (45) from Deir al-Balah had metastatic cancer and waited about five months for a permit to enter the West Bank for radiotherapy – which Israel only issued after he was beyond help

Mahmoud al-Kurd, from Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, died on 16 December 2022 at the age of 45 from advanced-stage lung cancer that had spread to his brain. He left behind a wife and six children – Muhammad (20), ‘Abdallah (19), Ibrahim (18), Afnan (17), ‘Abd a-Rahman (14) and ‘Obaydah (7). In August 2020, cancerous tumors were found in al-Kurd’s lungs and throat. He received chemotherapy in various hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but his condition deteriorated. About a year after the diagnosis, he went to Egypt for three months, where he underwent tests and received additional chemotherapy.

15 January 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers shoot and kill Palestinian youth fleeing them and posing no danger to anyone in al-Mughayir. Military falsely claims he hurled a Molotov cocktail

On Tuesday, 29 November 2022, at around 3:30 P.M., soldiers and Civil Administration officials came to the area of al-Kiba, which lies east of the village of al-Mughayir in Ramallah District, and served stop-work orders for three structures. About 10 teens threw stones at them, and the forces fired rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas canisters and live rounds at them and then left the area and drove towards the village. No one was hurt. At the same time, about 20 young men gathered near a mosque and used tires and rocks to block a dirt road leading out of the village, towards which the forces were advancing. When the military jeeps reached the mosque on their way to the dirt road, the young men threw stones at them. The soldiers hurled a stun grenade at the men and then turned onto the dirt road, but had to double back as it was blocked. The young men threw stones at them again and then fled. Read more

12 January 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers fatally shoot Mufid Khlayel in the head as he films them clashing with Palestinian youths, Beit Ummar, 28 Nov. 2022

On Monday, 28 November 2022, at around 10:30 P.M., a military jeep entered an alley in the town of Beit Ummar, apparently having taken a wrong turn. Some young men who arrived in the area threw stones at it. The driver tried to turn around and got stuck, and the youths kept throwing stones at the jeep. After about 10 minutes, the soldiers fired live rounds from inside the jeep, both in the air and at the young men. Shortly afterwards, dozens of soldiers and Border Police officers arrived in about 20 military vehicles. They tried to drive the youths away with tear gas canisters, but the wind blew the gas back at the troops. The young men also threw stones at them, as well as firecrackers and Molotov cocktails. The forces first responded by firing tear gas canisters and went on to use live fire and rubber-coated metal bullets, as well. While some of the forces worked on extricating the jeep, soldiers climbed onto the roofs of several buildings in the area and fired live rounds at the youths who were throwing stones. Read more

12 January 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers fire at Palestinian car, killing 14-year-old and wounding driver

On Monday, 14 November 2022, at around 4:00 A.M., dozens of soldiers entered the town of Bitunya, near Ramallah. They arrested a local resident in his home, tied his hands behind his back and led him to the ground floor of a building across the street. Just then, Anas Hasunah (26) drove by in a car with Fullah Maluh (14), a girl on the autism spectrum, sitting next to him. The soldiers – some of whom were guarding the detainee and others standing further down the street – opened fire at the car, hitting both Hasunah and Maluh. Read more

12 January 2023

Open-Fire Policy

Lethal routine: Israeli forces kill 19 Palestinians in November 2022

Throughout November 2022, Israeli forces killed 19 Palestinians in the West Bank. Five of them were minors. B’Tselem’s investigations have found that soldiers and police routinely shoot and kill Palestinians even when they pose no danger. Israel’s apartheid regime uses violence against Palestinians as a way to cement Jewish supremacy in the area under its control. That is why no one will be held to account for these unjustified killings.

12 January 2023