Since 7 August 2023, the Italian philosopher, theorist and activist Franco Berardo “Bifo” has been keeping track of “Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian farmers and the violence of Tsahal’s soldiers against young people imprisoned in the occupied territories or in the Gaza concentration camp, and the profanations of the ultra-Orthodox against the holy places of Islam on the Esplanade of Mosques” as he states in the blog Effimera where his article called “An eye for an eye and all the world in blind” first appeared in Italian. The main source of the information is the ANBAMED agency, edited by Farid Adly.
He adds: “The Italian press that calls Hamas militants terrorists has never called terrorists the Israelis who kill unarmed civilians in cold blood and destroy homes and uproot olive trees on a daily basis”.
Untold Mag translates and re-publish the long track of events from only the two months before the 7th October Hamas incursion in Israel and attack against civilians.
Bifo presents this list of violations this way: “Below you can read the news that the (blind) Western press did not give you in the two months leading up to Hamas’ revenge”.
7 August 2023
A street execution. Three Palestinian youths were slaughtered in their car, completely destroyed by a hail of bullets, in Arraba, south of Jenin. The commando of Israeli elite troops waited for the car at an intersection in the middle of city traffic. The Palestinian Red Crescent denounces that the army prevented aid to the wounded people and waited for them to bleed to death, taking away the wrecked car with their bodies in a tow truck, in the now customary and horrendous operation of seizing the corpses. The Israeli army communiqué speaks of a preventive operation against a cell that was about to carry out an attack against Israeli citizens.
In another incident, a settler deliberately ran over a Palestinian boy near Bethlehem, reducing him to death. The behaviour of the occupation forces towards settler attacks is characterised by abnormal discrimination. No arrests of the attackers, rather their protection from the stones of the Palestinians. If they are murdered, they are put under house arrest and in trials are acquitted for ‘self-defence from certain danger’. As was the case with the two settlers accused of the murder of the young man from Burqa, Qusai Maatan, 19, who was shot dead during a Palestinian demonstration to prevent land grabbing by Israeli Jewish settlers. The two murderers nailed by the videos are at large. This case, for the first time, is described in a US State Department statement as ‘an act of terrorism against the Palestinian population’, calling for those responsible to be punished for their crime.
9 August
A 27-year-old Palestinian youth was killed this morning, Thursday, by occupation troops during a round-up operation in Zuwata, west of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Amir Khalifeh, 27, was hit in the head and chest by war bullets while attempting to counter the troops’ advance by throwing stones.
A street execution that was met with impunity.
On the other hand, the cassation released the two settlers responsible for the killing of the young Palestinian Qusai Maatan, 19, during an occupation raid on agricultural land in Burqa, near Ramallah, last Friday. The two defendants admitted to shooting, “because they were frightened by the stone-throwing by a crowd of Palestinians”. The judge set one of the two free and decided on house arrest for the second, “because there is not enough evidence for their guilt and detention in prison”. The settlers’ raid on Burqa took place under the protection of the army, which did not intervene to stop the armed attack. It was only after Maatan’s death in hospital that the murderers were arrested and, with legal conjecture, released. Another case of colonial apartheid.
10 August
At dawn today, yet another Palestinian youth was killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank. The Tel Aviv army surrounded the city and penetrated with armoured vehicles, setting up snipers on high buildings. Several houses and school buildings were occupied, turning them into military bases. A round-up that is repeated in the West Bank cities under ANP administration almost daily. This is the third armed aggression in a month against a town that resists the arrogance of the military and settlers. A few days ago, soldiers killed a 17-year-old boy with a blow to the head. The Red Crescent complained that the soldiers prevented ambulances from helping the wounded.
14 August
In Aqaba Jabr camp, near Ariha (Jericho), occupation army soldiers killed two Palestinian youths this morning, Tuesday, with gunshots in the chest. The lightning-fast round-up operation lasted less than an hour and was opposed by the youths who threw stones at the soldiers. The hospital in Jericho reported that the two young men were in their early twenties and passed away soon after admission. The soldiers withdrew without arresting anyone. The Israeli army did not provide any information about the operation.
18 August
Israeli occupation forces demolished a primary school in Ain Samyia, West Bank. Only a few weeks before the start of the school year, the destruction of the school, which provided primary education to the children of nomadic shepherds in the area, is aimed at driving the Palestinian population off these lands to make way for Jewish colonisation. In 2023, three schools were demolished under the same conditions. According to a UN report, the Israeli plan threatens 58 more primary schools with demolition.
21 August
The state of alertness of the Israeli occupation troops throughout the West Bank grows, with round-ups and interrogations, in order to identify the perpetrator of the armed attack in Hawwara, which caused the death of two settlers at a washing station. These repressive actions by the army are accompanied by armed settlers’ attacks on Palestinian villages, with the aim of terrorising the population and forcing them to flee and abandon their farmlands.
The Israeli army reported hitting a settler by mistake, mistaking him for a Palestinian. The incident took place near the village of Allubban, between Nablus and Ramallah, when a group of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers by throwing stones, with soldiers trapped in the middle. The soldiers mistook the settlers for Palestinians and fired. When they realised their mistake they immediately called the red Star of David ambulances and the wounded man was hospitalised. A textbook case of colonial Apartheid.
22 August
Israeli police north of Jerusalem release a video showing the Star of David stamped, with a sharp instrument, on the face of a Palestinian detainee under interrogation. Twenty Israeli officers are implicated in this criminal affair. Urwa Sheikh, from the Shaafat refugee camp, was arrested on Wednesday 16 August for common offences and according to his lawyer, he was brought before the judge on Thursday 17 August in painful conditions, with his face tattooed on the left side with the Star of David. Many Israeli commentators recalled the obligation imposed by the Nazis on Jews in Germany to wear a Star of David on the left side of their jackets.
A Palestinian armed attack in the province of Al-Khalil (Hebron) killed one Israeli settler and wounded another. The two gunmen managed to lose their tracks and large Israeli military forces are combing the area. The province has been declared a closed military zone, with checkpoints at all major roads. 650,000 Palestinians are prevented from leaving towns and villages, which are besieged with food supplies impossible.
This is the second Palestinian armed attack against settlers in a week. It is a response to the occupation army’s round-ups that invaded many Palestinian towns and villages, killing dozens of people. The Netanyahu government’s aggressive policy has turned out to be a boomerang. To cover up the failure of his security policy in the West Bank, the PM involved Iran in the rise of the Palestinian armed resistance against the occupation.
At dawn today, in Beita, a young Palestinian was shot in the head as he was fleeing after throwing stones at soldiers. He is hospitalised in serious condition.
23 August
A 17-year-old young man was killed by Israeli soldiers’ bullets in Zababda, south of Jenin. Othman Abu-Kharaj was shot in the back of the head as he was fleeing after throwing stones at soldiers of the military occupation. He is the 53rd minor killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since the beginning of the year.
Yesterday, 50 Palestinians were arrested in the various round-ups carried out particularly in the province of Al-Khalil, where there was a Palestinian armed attack two days ago that resulted in the killing of an Israeli woman and the wounding of a man.
25 August
Systematic round-up campaign by the Israeli army in several towns in the occupied West Bank. 40 Palestinians were arrested yesterday alone. In the last three days, the number of those arrested is 120 and since the beginning of the year, it is 5000.
27 August
In addition to razing operations in West Bank towns and villages, armed settler incursions were reported yesterday in agricultural areas near al-Khalil, Nablus and East Jerusalem. Settlers destroyed cultivated land and uprooted fruit and olive trees.
In Tulkarem, 5 Palestinians were injured as Israeli army tanks entered the city.
In the Gaza Sea, Israeli navy units prevented Palestinian fishermen from working, hitting their boats with machine gun fire, forcing them to retreat to port.
29 August
A report by HRW denounces the Israeli escalation against Palestinian youth and in particular minors. In the year 2022 there was a record in the last 15 years and in the first months of 2023 the number of underage victims exceeded that of the entire previous year: 34 Palestinian minors killed by the war bullets of Israeli soldiers. Most of the boys were shot in the head and chest, a sign that the shooter wanted to kill. All cases occurred during the repression of demonstrations and not in armed clashes. Since 2021, the Israeli army has been authorised by the Tel Aviv government to shoot at fleeing demonstrators. A criminal impunity.
31 August
Four young Palestinians were killed yesterday. Two at the hands of Israeli soldiers, in Nablus and East Jerusalem; one at the hands of President Abbas’ police officers; and the fourth in an accidental explosion of a crude bomb he was making at home.
In Nablus, an officer and three Israeli soldiers were injured when a bomb exploded as their truck passed by. The soldiers’ raid in the Palestinian-administered city took place to ensure that extremist Jewish settlers could visit the so-called Tomb of Joseph. Hundreds of youths obstructed the advance of the military trucks by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, but the overwhelming military force prevailed. About fifty youths were arrested.
In Jerusalem, the murder of the young man is explained by the Israeli occupation authorities as an attempt to stab him at a checkpoint.
In Tulkarem, tensions are high after the death of a young man from the bullets of PNA agents. As usual, the government in Ramallah is talking about setting up a commission of enquiry (to cover up the case). The security forces had attempted to remove the barriers set up by the armed resistance to hinder the advance of the Israeli soldiers. Collaborationism with the occupiers threatens to break the solidarity of the Palestinian front. All Palestinian parties, except Al-Fatah, condemned the dangerous drift of the internal confrontation.
1 September
The Israeli army cracked down on anti-colonisation demonstrations in several locations in the West Bank. Soldiers fired at eye level at activists “armed” with Palestinian flags and stones. A young man was killed in Aqqaba, in the north of the occupied territory. According to the PNA Ministry of Health, about a hundred people were injured by military bullets in various locations where demonstrations were held.
In Gaza, the Israeli military fired at the peaceful gathering of Palestinians, for a flag march, near the barbed wire erected around the large open-air prison that is the Gaza Strip. The demonstration was called in solidarity with the Islamic sites in East Jerusalem, threatened with occupation by extremist settlers.
6 September
A Palestinian boy, Mohammed Zbeidat, 17, was chased and killed by Israeli soldiers north of Ariha (Jericho). The occupation troops razed the village Zbeidat and erected checkpoints. In a statement, the Israeli army speaks of an attempt to shoot at the soldiers, but Palestinian witnesses who witnessed the chase and killing say the boy left bleeding to death without rescue did not have a gun.
Yesterday’s Israeli sweep in the village of Nur Shams, near Tulkarem, which also ended with the killing of a young Palestinian boy, did not stop at patrols and searches, but destroyed infrastructure, houses and public places, with enormous damage to the population and serious consequences for life. Municipal water supply engines, the local power station, and a fuel pump were destroyed. War crime unpunished.
11 September
Two Palestinians were seriously injured in the al-Oroub camp during the funeral of the boy murdered the day before by Israeli soldiers’ bullets. The military commanders did not want the funeral to be held in public, but family members and the population defied the absurd order. The army placed snipers around the cemetery and set up checkpoints with armoured trucks, firing military bullets at a funeral procession.
In several villages and towns in the West Bank, the army carried out round-up operations. Five militants were arrested.
West of Jenin, a resistance group announced that it had fired a homemade rocket at an Israeli settlement. Pictures and videos of the launch were published on social media, but the effects are unknown. According to the Israeli press, it fell in a clear area and caused no damage.
16 September
An Israeli bombardment of Gaza at night. The area bombed is a location in the north of the strip, where protest demonstrations are taking place near the demarcation fence set up by the occupation army. According to Gaza sources, there were only injuries. In the past few days, mass protests have taken place on the demarcation line with burning of tyres and the throwing of incendiary balloons into the sky. The Israeli army fired into the crowd. Yesterday, 12 people were injured, among them a journalist who was covering the protest for an Arab TV station.
19 September
Israeli occupation troops have been besieging the city of Nablus for over 24 hours. The revenge operation is motivated by shots fired at an army checkpoint from a speeding Palestinian car.
In East Jerusalem, a young Palestinian man was shot by the occupation forces. He was taken into custody. He allegedly tried to stab a soldier.
Demolitions of Palestinian homes also continue, under the pretext of lack of permits. Yesterday, three were demolished in the Jordan Valley area.
A report by the Israeli organisation B’Tselem accuses the government in Tel Aviv of aiming at the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their land in the West Bank in order to assign it to Jewish settlers, leaving a free hand to the latter to act undisturbed with armed attacks against Palestinian communities, burning of crops, destruction of wells and uprooting of trees. According to the report, over the past year, 6 Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been forced to abandon their land to escape settler violence.
20 September
Yet another round-up operation in Jenin. Three Palestinians killed and 30 wounded. A group of soldiers in civilian clothes entered the refugee camp on the night of Monday to Tuesday to capture two resistance fighters, but were spotted and surrounded by activists who pelted them with stones and glass bottles. The army sent tanks to their rescue, launched kamikaze drones and flew helicopters over the area. To block the advance of the troops, groups of fighters fired machine gun volleys and threw crude homemade bombs. An Israeli tank was set on fire. By yesterday afternoon, the occupation troops withdrew. An army communiqué mentions the arrest of two resistance men.
21 September
Six young Palestinians murdered yesterday in Israeli attacks in the West Bank and Gaza. Occupation troops carried out two round-up operations yesterday in the Aqabat-Jabr camp near Ariha (Jericho) and in Jenin. In the first operation, a boy was killed when he was hit by bullets during an attempt to block the soldiers’ advance by throwing stones. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the young man was hit in the head and arrived at the hospital already dead. In Jenin, on the other hand, it was carnage: 4 dead in a single attack. The Tel Aviv army used remote-controlled kamikaze drones in this operation. According to local witnesses, the soldiers failed to enter the Jenin refugee camp and the first group of soldiers was besieged by stone throwers. The occupation army sent reinforcements with tanks. The armed resistance destroyed two vehicles with homemade bombs and carried out raids with machine gun fire. The soldiers arrested two people, who were later released, ‘due to the groundlessness of the suspicions against them’, according to the Israeli military communiqué. It was an operation to show muscles.
In Gaza, soldiers fired at Palestinian protesters at the demarcation line, killing one person and wounding 20 others.
24 September
At dawn today Sunday, Israeli troops murdered two Palestinian youths in the Nour Shams camp, east of Tulkarem. Hospital doctors pointed out that the two victims were shot in the head, a sign that the shooter intended to kill. Israeli troops introduced bulldozers into the camp to destroy the road surface and utility networks (electricity, water and sewage), to make life impossible for the camp inhabitants who did not surrender to the diktats of Israeli colonialism. The soldiers’ advance was countered by throwing stones and glass bottles.
The Israeli occupation army announced the hermetic closure of the West Bank and Gaza for 48 hours, from yesterday Saturday until the evening of tomorrow Monday, to mark the Jewish holidays. All crossing points into Israeli territory have been closed to traffic of people and goods.
Yesterday, a large-scale round-up operation took place in the town of Issawia, east of Jerusalem, during which three young Palestinians were wounded by gunfire. In Kfar Qaddum, in the West Bank, Israeli troops dispersed the customary anti-colonial demonstration of the population, held once a week, to oppose the confiscation of agricultural land by the army in favour of Jewish settlers.
27 September
Israeli fighters bombed Gaza yesterday in an attempt to deter Palestinians from demonstrating on the demarcation line. The target of the air strikes are observation and monitoring posts. There are no reports of casualties. Against the protests near the separation fence, Tel Aviv soldiers fired at eye level injuring more than 20 people, including medical personnel and journalists.
Meanwhile, the total closure of border crossings for the passage of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip continues.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army’s general offensive against the population south of Jenin continues. Armoured troops entered Yaabad west of the capital and several other villages. Raids and checkpoints were met with stone throwing by the youth of the new Intifada.
29 September
The Israeli army destroyed the village of Al-Araaqeeb, north of Beersheba in the Negev, for the 222nd time. It is the second time in this month of September. The desert village inhabited by Palestinian shepherds fell into the Israeli government’s crosshairs in order to use its land for the enlargement of the nearby Jewish town. The village is built of cardboard, plastic and sheet metal and the 22 resistant families have never left their land since their new ordeal began in 2010. Every time the military destroys it with bulldozers, they salvage the material and rebuild it. The world is silent about these Apartheid crimes.
30 September
An 18-year-old young man was killed by Israeli soldiers in El-Bira and another seriously injured. City mourning was declared in the town. The occupation army said the soldiers fired on the suspicion that the two youths were trying to throw bottles at a checkpoint at the entrance to a Jewish settlement. Palestinian drivers passing through the area denied the occupiers’ version of convenience. The victim’s body was seized by the army and not handed over to the family; a hateful inhuman vindictive practice.
5 October
At dawn today a round-up in Tulkarem. Hundreds of soldiers and special agents in civilian clothes entered the refugee camp and devastated the infrastructure. An Israeli bulldozer ran over a van of Palestinian workers, destroying it, but fortunately without casualties.
Yesterday, Israeli troops entered Nablus, with some 40 armoured vehicles, drones and snipers, to secure the visit of Jewish settlers to the so-called tomb of Joseph. It is a tomb inside a mosque of a Palestinian man who died in the 1800s, two centuries ago, but religious Zionist fanatics claim it is that of the prophet Joseph and organise collective visits for Jewish prayer gatherings inside the Muslim place of worship. After the army intervened to quell the protests of Palestinian youth, 40 buses entered the city loaded with fanatics.
Also in East Jerusalem, the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was repeated for the fifth day. A thousand Jewish extremists entered the place of worship, protected by the occupation forces.
6 October
It is undeclared war. Military operations by the occupation forces in Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Hawwara and Nablus. 3 Palestinian youths were killed and dozens injured and as many arrested. The bloodiest operations took place in Tulkarem, where armoured troops attempted to invade the refugee camp, as early as dawn yesterday, but were repulsed by the resistance of the youth with stone throwing and Molotov bottles. A military vehicle was set on fire and there were injuries among the attacking soldiers. Two Palestinian youths, hit by the soldiers’ bullets, died in the streets of the city before the troops withdrew. The third young man was murdered in Hawwara, the martyred town burnt down months ago by the fury of the murderous settlers. Raids also took place in Nablus and Bethlehem. Practically the Oslo agreement, for the government in Tel Aviv, is dead. Even the towns under the administrative and security control of the PNA (Zone A) are a theatre of daily military operations.
In addition to these actions by the army, there have been armed assaults by settlers. In the Jordan Valley, they ploughed Palestinian land with bulldozers in order to take it over. In a village near Salfit, settlers uprooted 40 olive trees. The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Observatory submitted a report on settler violence against Palestinians to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The report notes that in the first six months of this year there were 1148 attacks by settlers. All the attacks took place under the protection of the army and with the complicity of the Israeli government and judiciary. The report clearly speaks of an Apartheid regime and violation of international laws for the occupied territories.
