No one will forget that night February 26, 2023 inside HuvaraA Palestinian town with a population of more than 6,000 in the north West Bank. hours after two Jewish settlers Shot dead by a Palestinian on the road separating the town armed resistance inside NablusHundreds of settlers flocked to the city. Armed, hooded and ready to burn everything down. “They came wildly and sang along Army“That gave them permission to do almost anything,” he recalls now. undefined Dmaidi. for a few hours They set the houses on firestores and vehicles, plundered as much as they want and they beat dozens of people with sticks and iron rods. Palestinians. When the flames went out, 25 houses, 70 workplaces and 90 vehicles were burned. A neighbor lost his life with a bullet that hit his chest, and many people were injured.
The attack was so brutal Israeli army He even defined it this way: “pogrom”, A term derived from Russian that began to be used since the 19th century. Jewish massacres In the Tsarist Empire, carried out with the intention of ethnic cleansing the communities in which they live. “This is a Night of Broken Glass” said one of the soldiers who was there that night. Breaking the Silence, an organization formed by former Israeli soldiers active against the occupation, described it as an act of aggression. “state-sanctioned violence”. Although more than 400 settlers participated, none of those responsible were punished. But this was just an attack, albeit the most brutal one. huwara under constant siege Since August 2022, one of his neighbors dared to hang him. Palestinian flag on top of a house.
main shopping street The surroundings of the municipality, where the remains of charred life remain, are desert today. Israeli soldiers Equipped for battle, they patrol in groups and peer out of any hole aiming with automatic rifles. All businesses are closed and there is not a single living being on that alleyway that divides Huwara in two. HE 5 Octobertwo days ago Hamas will declare war Israel There are more than a thousand dead around LoopThe army locked him up. Closed military zone. Another gang on the same day messianic jews attacked the town, and a Palestinian who tried to protect his family was shot three times by a police officer. army sniper. Since that day, neighbors have not been able to step onto the street other than crossing the street. Don’t go by car either. To prevent temptations, soldiers blocked all entrances from the town. heaps of soil and stones.
Approximately twenty attacks in one month
“The people who live there I can’t leave the house and they are some 2,500 people“says the unidentified Dmaidi, the person in charge of the town’s Ministry of Education and a resident of what was once the liveliest street in Huwara, where the main road connecting the north to the south of the West Bank passes. “I was like that He was locked in the house for 18 days With my family until we run out of food. Since then, whenever I have to cross, I ask my daughters to go up to the roof to stand guard, and when they see that there are no settlers or soldiers, they tell me to cross.” In just over a month, the town attacked twenty timesaccording to neighbors.
despair The daily terror is profound. “These people come armed to the teeth, and no one here has a gun and no one to protect us,” Dmaidi says. Huwara belongs to this 60% of the West Bank It is completely under the control of the Israeli army. Palestinian police There is no jurisdiction here, which is one of the many benefits. Oslo Accords. They four schools They have been closed for more than a month for fear of being attacked by settlers. same as others 16 training centers from the southern region Nablus. This wouldn’t be the first time. At least two schools in this area have been burned down by Jewish arsonists in the last three years.
Moreover the economy is being destroyed to forced marches where everything was closed for miles and Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank were banned from entering Huwara. “There is nothing to do. Almost everyone stayed.” unemployed And we don’t get salaries for officials because Palestinian authority (ANP) expects Israel to pay its debt taxes“says Dmaidi from a settlement where neighbors have placed five stretchers to treat the injured. In front of him is a man who lost three fingers two weeks ago when some settlers shot him as he walked down the main street to pick up some stretchers from the car.
Threats of ethnic cleansing
Huwara hills are surrounded by Jewish settlementswhich is illegal for the international community and prevents more 460,000 Israelis currently living in the occupied West Bank. colonization One goverment policy. This region, which is at the vanguard of the ethnic cleansing campaign that has accelerated since the start of the war in Gaza, is home to some of the most radical settlers scattered throughout the mountains. “They don’t want us here. They keep repeating that ‘A good Arab is a dead Arab’“says a neighbor. Israeli Finance Minister In March he said Huwara should be “wiped off the map”. And in recent weeks settlers have distributed leaflets asking people to leave the area. Jordan Because you’re running out of patience. The billboards read, “You wanted war, you will experience a great Nakba,” referring to the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948.
He lives at the end of town Moataz Kusravi, It is surrounded by olive groves, fig trees and two settlements. Qusrawi had to bolt the windows and put four locks on the entrance door. settlers They regularly attack your home with showers of stones and threats. Especially at night. Stone recesses are still visible in some rooms. “We live under conditions constant terror, “Everything is so stressful and it’s hard for the whole family to sleep,” says this handyman father of four. His four-year-old son has stopped speaking normally. Every time he hears the word settler, he runs to hide in a room and cries.
Jewish extremists, almost always accompanied by the army, are not separated from their neighbors. Harvest the olive gardens. They set them on fire or steal their products. But nobody does anything. Impunity is complete. “They want to drive us out, but we will not leave. This is our land and we will stay here until the final consequences,” says Kusravi, echoing the common mantra in Huvara. pogrom capital.