A map redrawn piece by piece: Palestinians describe a
country annexed in plain sight
Annexation in the occupied West Bank has become so
routine that it now unfolds largely unnoticed and rarely reported, Palestinian
human rights activists warn.
Zeynep Conkar
https://www.trtworld.com/article/37e1b713269a
As violence persists in Gaza despite the US-brokered
ceasefire, the occupied West Bank is being altered through a series of small,
largely unpublicised actions that collectively redraw the map, Palestinian
community leaders and human rights groups have warned.
At a virtual press conference, activists and leaders
of civil groups emphasised the broader impacts of ongoing violence,
displacement, and legal impunity, portraying them as different facets of the
same policy aimed at fragmenting, wearing down, and ultimately removing
Palestinians from their land.
“While global attention has understandably centred on
Gaza, as the genocide continues, the (occupied) West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, endures relentless violence and suffering with far too little
visibility or attention from people around the world, including the media,”
said actress and activist Susan Sarandon, a member of Artists4Ceasefire.
“Although President Trump has publicly said West Bank
annexation is not going to happen, the reality on the ground shows annexation
advancing in practice every single day,”
Extensive documentation and ground reports from the
occupied West Bank, reviewed by TRT World, reveal new settlements, parallel road systems, military
checkpoints, and Palestinian communities increasingly confined to isolated
pockets.
Speakers at the presser said that despite video evidence and eyewitness testimonies,
prosecutions are nearly nonexistent. And that settlers operate with near-total
impunity, and it is precisely this lack of accountability that forces
Palestinians to abandon their homes.
‘I needed to document’
From villages in Masafer Yatta, a group of 19
Palestinian hamlets in the southern occupied West Bank, to the centre of
occupied East Jerusalem, communities are facing increasing forced displacement,
according to reports.
For Mohammad Hureini, 20, a youth activist and human
rights defender from At-Tuwani in the Hebron Hills (also known as Mount Hebron)
in the southern occupied West Bank, this has shaped his entire life.
He has been documenting settler violence targeting
rural Palestinian communities in Area C since he was a teenager.
“I was 14 when I decided to carry a camera. I had seen
the demolitions, the settlers, the bulldozers rolling toward my neighbours’
homes. I realised I needed to document what was happening in Masafer Yatta and
show the world what our community is living through,” Hureini said at the press
conference.
His village was the focus of the Oscar-winning
documentary No Other
Land.
“I’m proud to be one of the collaborators on No
Other Land,” he added, describing the film as an unfiltered record of daily
life in his village.
“Ninety-six minutes of harassment, ethnic cleansing,
and apartheid that we live through every single day.”
Hureini said the film’s global success came at a
personal cost.
“After the Oscar win, my cousin Basel Adra and Hamdan
Ballal, the directors, were targeted. Here, under this brutal occupation, being
Palestinian is treated as a crime. No matter who you are or what you’ve
done.”
He described watching his village shrink year after
year, with farmland cut off by new roads and settlers patrolling the hills
around them.
Human rights lawyer Allegra Pacheco, who also took
part in the press conference, described life under occupation in the occupied
West Bank as marked by constant insecurity and a lack of predictability.
“When you are controlled by a foreign military, you
have no control over anything in your life. No safety. You do not know what’s
going to happen when you go to sleep at night. Your house can be raided by the
Israeli army. Your loved ones could be taken away. Every night, every day that
happens, and again, there’s no end in sight.”
“When a settler raids a Palestinian home, if the
Palestinian pushes the settler out of his own home, the Palestinian could be
arrested for attacking the settler, could be shot and killed, and all those
instances have happened,” Pacheco said.
She also highlighted that the Palestinian Authority
is prevented from entering 60 percent of the West Bank.
‘Annexation means permanent’
For Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s Policy Lead in the
occupied Palestinian territories, the issue is deeply personal.
Living in the occupied West Bank while her family
remains in Gaza and cannot visit them, she describes the fragmentation imposed
on Palestinians as “a system that decides who can move, who can stay, and who
is slowly pushed out”.
Khalidi said that this fragmentation affects even the
smallest areas of daily life.
“It shapes your ability to visit your parents, to take
your child to school, to drive to work, and even to sit safely in your own
living room.”
“When I talk about military occupation, collective
punishment, or policies that amount to forcible transfer, I'm not speaking in
legal terms alone. I'm speaking as someone who experiences them. My family, my
neighbours, and my friends experience them.”
Communities disappear from the map, she said, while
settlers enjoy full protection from the army.
“All Palestinians in the West Bank live with the fear
that a new military order or a settler code could make our communities
disappear, just like what has happened to dozens of Palestinian communities, as
we've heard today, that no longer even exist on the map.”
The International Court of Justice has
repeatedly ruled that Israel’s prolonged occupation and
annexationist policies are unlawful.
“If states accept the ICJ conclusions, their policies
must reflect them. You can't condemn annexation at The Hague and then engage in
business as usual on the ground,” Khalidi said.
The Palestinian map, which in 1948 included a much larger share of
territory, is being redrawn in a way that makes the two-state framework
increasingly unworkable, she added.
Palestinians are being pushed into smaller,
disconnected zones that cannot sustain long-term life.
For Khalidi, accountability is the dividing line
between a future in which Palestinians survive and one in which they slowly
disappear.
“The law is absolutely clear. The human impact is
absolutely catastrophic. And I say this as a Palestinian woman living these
policies every day. We cannot survive another decade of statements without
action.”
“If states continue to treat this as a problem to
manage, the Palestinian state won't fail. It will simply disappear.”
