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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/settlers-burn-palestinian-village-deliver-israels-arsonist-agenda">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Settlers burn Palestinian village, deliver Israel's arsonist agenda</h1>
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<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> -
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">27 May 2023</span></span> </p>
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<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-05/250523_nablus_mn_00_8.jpg?itok=CC2f6CmO×tamp=1685199862" alt="" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="261"></span><p>A
broken window at a home in Burqa village, near the northern West Bank
city of Nablus, after it was attacked by settlers, 25 May.</p><small>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>A <a href="https://twitter.com/ochaopt/status/1660583074764054528">spike</a> in fatalities, <a href="https://twitter.com/ochaopt/status/1661035924900261890">increased</a> settler attacks against Palestinian communities, moves to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/bill-to-bar-flying-of-enemy-flags-passes-initial-reading-in-knesset/">further restrict</a> the political rights of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-stares-failure-face-again/37756">revival</a>
of the assassination of Palestinian faction leaders: five months into
its existence, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, however
fragile and fractious, is delivering on its <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/taking-apartheid-new-extremes/36986">hard-line agenda</a>.</p>
<p>None of these policies are new, of course. But with Israel’s most
openly extremist government yet, and third states providing for an
environment of near total impunity, the situation on the ground for
Palestinians has become ever more dangerous.</p>
<p>This week, the Israeli government passed a budget that, in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/24/good-for-all-israel-passes-controversial-pro-settler-budget">words of Al Jazeera</a>, “solidifies the ruling coalition’s religious, pro-settlement agenda” for the next two years.</p>
<p>After weeks of negotiations, the budget was passed after a promise of
$68 million was made to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s extreme-right Jewish Power
party for settlements in the Naqab and Galilee regions – areas in Israel
populated by Palestinians.</p>
<p>As the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/78f777b5bedd532d80ad1ad40f476e29">reports</a>, the budget also allocates “nearly $4 billion in discretionary funds, much of it for ultra-Orthodox and pro-settler parties.”</p>
<p>This will allow “hard-line pro-settler parties to promote pet projects through the ministries they control.”</p>
<p>It emboldens figures like Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, who has <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-18/ty-article/.premium/far-right-israeli-minister-lays-groundwork-for-doubling-west-bank-settler-population/00000188-2de6-d6e4-ab9d-ede74a3e0000">ordered</a>
the government to prepare for the doubling of the number of settlers in
the West Bank, presenting his plans as a “core mission” for the present
government.</p>
<h2>Settlers set fire to village</h2>
<p>On Thursday, settlers in the northern West Bank <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-25/ty-article/.premium/defense-minister-smotrich-approve-settlers-groundwork-in-contested-west-bank-outpost/00000188-5316-df79-a19d-f31e574a0000">began leveling land</a>
ahead of construction in Homesh, an outpost near the northern West Bank
city of Nablus built on privately owned land belonging to Palestinians
in Burqa village.
</p>
The land leveling commenced one day after settlers accompanied by
soldiers invaded Burqa, burning several homes. The Israeli
anti-settlement group Peace Now <a href="https://twitter.com/peacenowisrael/status/1661769016086605824">said</a>
on Thursday that the groundwork “is the direct result of the pogrom
that took place yesterday … yet again, a clear example of a criminal
government serving the settlers.”
Earlier on Wednesday, diplomats visited Burqa to “learn about the
injustice and danger the villagers face at the hands of violent settlers
from Homesh,” <a href="https://twitter.com/Yesh_Din/status/1661429331736907776">according to</a>
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The attack on Burqa following
the diplomats’ visit was seen as a reprisal by Homesh settlers who have
enacted violence against nearby Palestinian communities for years.
Such visits, led by the European Union, have become a ritual in which
diplomats stage photo-ops feigning solidarity with Palestinians while
their governments continue to offer Israel unconditional support and
political cover for its crimes.
<p>As the latest visit to Burqa underscores, these visits do absolutely nothing to protect Palestinians.</p>
<h2>Violent friction</h2>
<p>Homesh, first built as a military base on land belonging to
Palestinians in Burqa in 1978, was evacuated in 2005 as part of
then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.</p>
<p>As Oren Ziv <a href="https://www.972mag.com/homesh-outpost-burqa-settlers/">writes</a> for <em>+972 Magazine</em>,
“the Israeli logic behind originally dismantling Homesh … was that it
was an isolated community surrounded by Palestinian villages and cities
which required more resources than it was strategically worth.”</p>
<p>Despite the withdrawal nearly 20 years ago, settlers maintained a
presence at the outpost, causing violent friction between Palestinians
and Israeli settlers.</p>
<p>Ziv adds that between 2017 and 2021, the Israeli human rights group
Yesh Din, which petitioned Israel’s high court on behalf of Palestinian
residents, “<a href="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/burqa_homesh_2020/Olam+Hafuch_HEB.pdf">documented</a> 27 settler attacks in the Homesh area, including both physical bodily violence and property damage.”</p>
<p>In August 2021, settlers from Homesh abducted and tortured a
15-year-old Palestinian boy, hitting him with their car and tying him to
the vehicle before beating him and roping him to a tree in an isolated
area, where they “sprayed him with pepper spray, electrocuted him, and
then burned him with the car’s cigarette lighter,” <a href="https://www.972mag.com/settler-attack-teen-palestinian/">according to</a> <em>+972 Magazine</em>.</p>
<p>Rampaging settlers <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/settlers-vow-revenge-attack-palestinians-after-shooting">terrorized</a>
Qaryut, a nearby Palestinian village, after a settler was shot and
killed in late 2021 while driving away from a religious school that
continued to operate in Homesh.</p>
<p>Palestinians in communities near Homesh have also been killed and
injured by the Israeli military. In March 2022, Ahmad Hikmat Seif, 23, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-03-09/ty-article/palestinian-protester-shot-by-israeli-army-last-week-dies-of-wounds/0000017f-e228-d804-ad7f-f3fa174d0000">succumbed to injuries</a> sustained during a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Burqa.</p>
<p>Dozens of Palestinians were injured by rubber-coated bullets and tear
gas fired by the military in April last year, when thousands of Jews,
including several Israeli lawmakers, <a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-army-escorts-far-right-march-west-bank-outpost">among them</a> Smotrich, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/19/palestinians-injured-after-israeli-settlers-march-outpost">marched to Homesh</a>.</p>
<p>The Tel Aviv daily <em>Haaretz</em> <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-24/ty-article/.premium/eighty-israeli-soldiers-for-30-settlers-inside-homeshs-revival/00000188-4d63-dde3-abf9-fd6b18020000">notes</a>
that following the killing of the settler in late 2021, Homesh
“effectively [became] a fortified army base,” with some 80 soldiers
guarding 30 settlers.</p>
<p>In March this year, Israel’s parliament paved the way to formally recognize Homesh, along with several other outposts, despite <a href="https://il.usembassy.gov/settlements-in-the-west-bank/">opposition</a>
by the Biden administration in Washington, which says that a settlement
at the site between Nablus and Jenin would prevent a contiguous
Palestinian state.</p>
<p>Israel insists that it is moving Homesh from private land to what it
says is state land – in other words, land that is de facto annexed in
violation of international law. Israeli officials admitted to their US
counterparts that the move “was in response to domestic political
constraints and to prevent Netanyahu’s radical right-wing coalition
partners from destabilizing the government,” the online publication <em>Axios</em> <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/israel-homesh-settlement-palestinians-west-bank">reported</a>.</p>
<p><em>Haaretz</em> observes that the supposedly “state-owned plots are not contiguous and surrounded by Palestinian-owned land.”</p>
<p>Thus, even if the Homesh religious school “is moved to state-owned
land, the Palestinians are not expected to be able to get access to
their land” and the relocation “would risk greater friction between the
two sides than has been the case so far.”</p>
<h2>Farmers attacked near Ramallah</h2>
<p>Following their ineffectual visit, European diplomats condemned the
settler attack on Burqa this week, as well as a similar assault on
Palestinian farmers near Ramallah on Friday.</p>
<p>During Friday’s attack, a Palestinian man was shot in the head and seriously injured, <a href="https://www.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/71972">according to WAFA</a>, the official Palestinian news agency.</p>
<p>Under the protection of Israeli troops, settlers burned several vehicles belonging to farmers as well as 270 bales of hay.
</p>
The United Nations meanwhile <a href="https://ochaopt.org/content/palestinian-community-compelled-relocate-amid-israeli-settlement-practices">protested</a> the forced evacuation of the Palestinian herding community of Ein Samiya near Ramallah.
<p>“These families are not leaving by choice; the Israeli authorities
have repeatedly demolished homes and other structures they own and have
threatened to destroy their only school,” Yvonne Helle, the UN’s acting
humanitarian coordinator for the West Bank and Gaza, said on Thursday.</p>
<p>“At the same time, land available for the grazing of livestock has
decreased due to settlement expansion and both children and adults have
been subjected to settler violence,” Helle added.</p>
<p>“We are witnessing the tragic consequences of long standing Israeli practices and settler violence.”</p>
<p>Nearly 30 Palestinian families left the rural village, their home for
more than 40 years, “after months of escalating Israeli violence,”
Basel Adra <a href="https://www.972mag.com/ein-samia-settler-violence/">reported</a> for <em>+972 Magazine.</em></p>
<p>“Residents say they were compelled to leave after a fierce spate of
violence over the previous five days, during which settlers attacked
them at night, blocked the roads to the village, and threw stones at the
old homes,” according to Adra.</p>
<p>“The mental toll of the attacks, especially on the children, was the
decisive factor in the residents’ choice to destroy the village and move
away.”</p>
<p>While worsened in recent days, settler harassment and physical
violence against Palestinians in Ein Samiya predates the current Israeli
government.</p>
<p>“Before this, settlers would come at night, parking their cars at the
entrance to the village. They blocked us from getting in or out, and
they beat anyone who walked on the road,” Hazem Ka’abneh, a resident of
Ein Samiya, told <em>+972 Magazine.</em></p>
<p>Israel denied residents building permits and destroyed homes when
villagers would construct them anyways. Palestinians in Ein Samiya were
not connected to basic services like water and electricity, unlike Jews
living in nearby settlement outposts unauthorized by the Israeli
government.</p>
<p>As Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, <a href="https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1661875009319575552">stated</a> on Thursday, the West Bank “continues to be vandalized, torched, robbed inch by inch, its people brutalized day after day.”</p>
<p>And the arsonists heading the Israeli government are fueling the
fire, working in tandem with the settlers to push Palestinians off of
their land.</p>
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