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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-night-raids-terrorising-families-not-over">https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-night-raids-terrorising-families-not-over</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel's night raids on Palestinian families aren't over, whatever the courts say</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Jonathan Cook - June 23, 2021<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRj-GF5dwg" target="_blank">videos</a> are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLg-1lHPO0A" target="_blank">all over</a>
YouTube. Masked Israeli soldiers storm a Palestinian family’s home in
the middle of the night. Parents, dressed in nightwear, are suddenly
surrounded by heavily armed men in balaclavas. </p>
<p>Young children are forced awake. With a mix of bleary-eyed confusion
and fear, they are made to answer questions posed to them in broken
Arabic by these faceless, armed strangers. They are lined up in one room
while the soldiers take photographs of them holding their identity
cards. And then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the masked men
disappear into the night. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reality is that 'mapping' was never really about building up a
more accurate picture of Palestinian society. It has many other, far
more sinister aims</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are no questions beyond identifying the people in the house. No
one is “arrested”. There’s no obvious purpose; just a family’s sense of
security permanently wrecked. </p>
<p>To most people watching these startling videos, such scenes look like
an Orwellian nightmare. And sure enough, Israel has given this
procedure an Orwellian name: “intel mapping”. </p>
<p>Last week, under pressure from the courts, the Israeli army <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-end-to-israeli-nighttime-mapping-raids-on-palestinians-homes-follows-court-order-1.9915774" target="_blank">announced</a>
that it had ended the practice of “mapping”, unless – and this will be a
loophole easily exploited – there are “exceptional circumstances”.</p>
<p>Given that the families whose homes, privacy and dignity are invaded
are not suspected of any offence, it is difficult to imagine what
“exceptional circumstances” could ever justify these degrading and
terrifying raids.</p>
<h3>Masked intruders</h3>
<p>In announcing its decision, the Israeli army said that in the digital
age, there were other tools it could use to gain intelligence on
Palestinians, beyond randomly invading their homes with guns in the
middle of the night. A statement <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-end-to-israeli-nighttime-mapping-raids-on-palestinians-homes-follows-court-order-1.9915774" target="_blank">added</a> that it was a humanitarian gesture aimed at “mitigating the disruption of citizens’ everyday life”.</p>
<p>Except, of course, Palestinians are not Israeli “citizens”; they are
subjects without rights living under a belligerent military occupation.
And this is not about “disruption” – Palestinians aren’t facing an
unexpected train delay – but a form of collective punishment, and
therefore a war crime.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-occupation-natural-order-coming-end" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Abbas%20and%20Natinyaho%20Era%20%20copy.jpg?itok=vlEe4oNz" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Israel-Palestine: The natural order of occupation is coming to an end</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-occupation-natural-order-coming-end" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>As a report by three Israeli human rights organisations published last November <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">observed</a>,
“it is highly doubtful that any instance of mapping could be considered
legal under international law”. Nonetheless, these home invasions are
commonplace. They are integral to the Israeli army’s policy of
surveilling, controlling and persecuting Palestinians. </p>
<p>According to figures compiled by the United Nations, the Israeli army <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">carried out</a>
around 6,400 “search or arrest operations” in 2017 and 2018 alone –
with each operation potentially including more than one home. Research
by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, shows that the vast majority
of such operations start between midnight and 5am.</p>
<p>In a quarter of cases, soldiers break down the door to enter, and in a <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">third of cases</a>, a family member is physically assaulted. Two-thirds of families have experienced these <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">invasions</a> more than once.</p>
<p>“Intel mapping” operations have been particularly difficult for the
army to justify on any kind of security grounds. That led earlier this
year to unwelcome scrutiny from Israel’s top court, which gave the army
until August to divulge the wording of its “mapping” <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-end-to-israeli-nighttime-mapping-raids-on-palestinians-homes-follows-court-order-1.9915774" target="_blank">protocol</a>.
The army’s cancellation of the practice last week means that the
rationale for traumatising thousands of Palestinian families over many
years will continue to be a secret. </p>
<h3>Habitual war crimes</h3>
<p>The reality is that “mapping” was never really about building up a
more accurate picture of Palestinian society. It has many other, far
more sinister aims.</p>
<p>In practical terms, it is used to train young Israeli soldiers,
familiarising them with the techniques of invading Palestinian homes and
intimidating Palestinians – all in a safe environment for the soldiers.
The army knows that Palestinian parents will be primarily concerned
with protecting their children from the terrifying presence of armed
intruders in what should be the family’s safest space.</p>
<p>In testimony to Breaking the Silence, an organisation for whistle-blowing Israeli soldiers, one soldier <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">observed</a>:
“There’s rarely an operational motivation for it. Often, the motivation
is practice, meaning we got a breaching tool [for forcing open doors]
for the first time; no one knows how to use it, so it is decided that we
break into a house now.”</p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/israel%20army%20drill%202018%20afp.jpg" alt="Israeli soldiers and settlers search houses in a West Bank settlement during an all-night army drill in 2018 (AFP)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="446" height="297"></p>
Israeli soldiers and settlers search houses in a West Bank settlement during an all-night army drill in 2018 (AFP)</div>
<p>But there are other, even darker purposes behind these
random "mapping" raids. They are part of the gradual process by which
the army acculturates its young soldiers into a life of committing
habitual war crimes. It breaks down their sense of morality and any
remnants of compassion after years of exposure in Israel’s school system
to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/07/israeli-school-racism-claim" target="_blank">anti-Palestinian racism</a>. </p>
<p>It turns Palestinians into nothing more than objects of suspicion and fear for the soldiers. Or as one Palestinian woman <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">told</a> Yesh Din: “The way they banged and came into the house was like entering somewhere with animals, not people.”</p>
<p>Terrorising Palestinians, even children, quickly becomes part of the humdrum routine of military “duties”. </p>
<h3>Psychological warfare</h3>
<p>But most important of all, home invasions traumatise Palestinians in
ways designed to entrench the occupation and make it more
permanent. They are a form of psychological warfare – a campaign of
terror – against both the families and the communities they live in.
They reinforce the message that the Israeli army is everywhere,
controlling the smallest details of Palestinians’ lives. </p>
<p>Several soldiers told Breaking the Silence that the goal was to make Palestinians feel persecuted. One <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">noted</a>:
“The bigger mission was to instill a sense of persecution in the
Palestinian population. That’s not my phrase, it’s a phrase that
actually appeared in [military] presentations and briefings.”</p>
<p>The soldiers take this guidance to heart. One said he understood the <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">purpose</a> of hiding his face “was to be more intimidating, scarier, and then maybe you get less resistance”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Palestinian men, women and children are reduced to nothing more than pieces to be swept off a chess board</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Mapping” raids are designed to make Palestinians believe that any
kind of opposition to the occupation is futile, or counterproductive.
Home invasions leave <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">permanent scars</a>,
as women often describe feeling violated and losing a sense of pride in
their home, while men suffer from the trauma associated with being
unable to protect their wives and children. Children are left with
anxiety and sleep disorders, and they struggle at school. </p>
<p>There is a further goal to these “mapping” operations when Jewish
settlements have been built close to the Palestinian families being
targeted. Home invasions take place on a regular basis for these
families, serving as a form of pressure to encourage them to abandon
their homes so the settlers can replace them.</p>
<p>A 2019 UN survey of an area of Hebron coveted by settlers found that over a three-year period, 75 percent of <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/h2_spotlight_april_2019.pdf" target="_blank">Palestinian homes</a> in the neighbourhood had been “mapped”. One resident whose home was raided more than 20 times <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">told</a> Yesh Din researchers: “I think the entry [by soldiers] is just harassment, to drive us out of the house.”</p>
<h3>Spying on Palestinians</h3>
<p>Even some former soldiers understand that the intelligence-gathering
rationales for these invasions are bogus. Several told the human rights
groups that the intelligence supposedly gained from these operations was
never put to later use. None could <a href="https://life-exposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Exposed_Life_EN_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">identify</a> a database where the information was being stored.</p>
<p>Even if the mapping raids were primarily about collecting
information, the army has far more effective means to spy on and control
the Palestinian population in the occupied territories of the West Bank
and East Jerusalem.</p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/jerusalem%20camera%202019%20afp.jpg" alt="An Israeli technician installs a surveillance camera in occupied East Jerusalem in 2019 (AFP)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="446" height="276"></p>
An Israeli technician installs a surveillance camera in occupied East Jerusalem in 2019 (AFP)</div>
<p>The job of Unit 8200, one of the Israeli military’s many
intelligence-gathering arms, includes listening in on Palestinian
communications to find secrets that can be used to blackmail and extort
Palestinians to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israel-unit-8200-refuseniks-transcript-interview" target="_blank">collaborate</a> with occupation authorities.</p>
<p>A so-called cyber unit in Israel’s justice ministry is <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/tech-giants-help-israel-muzzle-palestinians/33336" target="_blank">tasked</a> with spying on Palestinians’ internet and social media communications. And Israel has endless other <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-stops-its-mapping-raids-but-constant-surveillance-of-palestinians-remains-1.9916213" target="_blank">sources</a>
of intelligence on Palestinians: collaborators, the Palestinian
population registry that it controls, biometric identity documents,
face-recognition technology, questioning at checkpoints, the use of
drones, and the seizure of Palestinians for interrogation.</p>
<h3>Court complicity</h3>
<p>More importantly, the army knows that it can continue as before with
these home invasions by using other pretexts. It will subsume “mapping”
operations within even more violent categories of night raids – such as
the search for weapons, interrogations of children about stone-throwing,
or arrests. </p>
<p>Sadly, the Israeli courts have always shown a willingness to collude
with the army in precisely these kinds of face-saving deceptions and
cynical manipulations of language. There is no reason to believe that
the Israeli legal system will do anything in practice to ensure that
home invasions, whether for “mapping” or any other purpose, come to an
end.</p>
<p>The record of Israeli courts has been consistently dismal in
protecting Palestinians from Israeli army abuses. Even when the courts
do belatedly rule against army protocols that flagrantly violate
international law, the army invariably finds ways to undercut the ruling
– usually with the court’s complicity. For years, the army has
continued to use Palestinians as human shields, dragging out legal
proceedings by recharacterising the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/3/9/israeli-courts-fail-to-deliver-justice" target="_blank">practice</a> as a so-called “neighbour procedure” or “prior warning”.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-supreme-court-liberal-bastion-or-enforcer-injustice" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/column-image/000_KT744.jpg?itok=nLhZtj3v" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Israel's Supreme Court: Liberal bastion or an enforcer of injustice?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-supreme-court-liberal-bastion-or-enforcer-injustice" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>It is not hard to imagine that “intel mapping” could be given a
similar linguistic makeover. And there is an additional reason to be
sceptical: more than 20 years ago, Israel’s top court banned the torture
of Palestinian detainees – yet, it continued almost unabated because
the court created a loophole for cases defined as “ticking bombs”, when
interrogators supposedly faced a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/1/30/israels-shin-bet-to-face-first-ever-torture-probe" target="_blank">race against time</a> to extract information to save lives.</p>
<p>After the ruling, it seemed that every Palestinian seized by the army
became a “ticking bomb”. Finally, in 2017, the court reversed its 1999
ruling when it permitted torture as long as interrogators did not <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22675&LangID=E" target="_blank">cross a threshold</a> of pain that it declined to determine in advance.</p>
<p>The reality is that when Israel treats its occupation as permanent,
then preserving the occupation’s infrastructure – for surveillance,
control, intimidation and humiliation – becomes an absolute
necessity. When the occupier additionally seeks to drive out
Palestinians to replace them with its own settler population, the rot
runs deeper still. Palestinian men, women and children are reduced to
nothing more than pieces to be swept off a chessboard. </p>
<p>For that reason, home invasions – the terrorising of families in the
middle of the night by masked soldiers – will continue, whatever
euphemism is used to justify it. </p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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