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.”