The Knesset Parliamentary Group for Ending the Occupation, led by MKs @AidaTuma and @mossi_raz, is holding its first meeting today - marking 55 years of military rule over the oPt.
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@AidaTuma@mossi_raz MK @AidaTuma starts off:
Once, the occupation was considered to be temporary. Today it appears that many around the world have gotten used to the horrors of occupation and siege. In order to perpetuate it and turn it into a done deal, Israel is operating an Apartheid regime.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz > Even the horrific pictures from Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral a few weeks ago didn't make people think about what's going on here. It immediately turned into a debate about who went into the hospital when. Why is it so difficult to say that there's a moral problem here?
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz MK @mossi_raz: occupation is a situation in which a foreign military rules over a civilian population. This situation leads to human rights abuses, resistance, violence and counter-violence.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz Occupation is the child who can't fall asleep for fear that soldiers will burst in to make an arrest. Occupation is the restriction of individual rights, of the right to movement and so on. And that's why we have to bring this situation to an end.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz Our own @origivati speaks about 'Blue Wolf', the facial recognition technology used by soldiers to take pictures of random Palestinians to enter them into a database. The units serving in the oPt are made to compete for prizes to take as many pictures as possible.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati Ori says that his commander told him, when he was serving as a tank commander in the oPt, that the point of their presence their was to make sure the Palestinians "wouldn't be able to lift their heads." By making the Palestinians constantly feel the IDF's presence, the logic is >
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati that they will be afraid to do anything at all that could raise the IDF's suspicion. That's how Palestinians have been living their lives for 55 years now. And it's all in order to further entrench the occupation. That's why we work to expose this reality and bring it to an end.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati Next up: Yahel Gazit, an Israeli volunteer with #SaveMasaferYatta who lives w/ the Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta as part of a solidarity project. She wrote her speech together with @Ali_awad1998, a local activist who's fighting to save his community from mass eviction. >
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998 She says: The Supreme Court of Israel ruled to evict 1,300+ residents from the area. I sit here today and wonder if there's anyone at all who believes that this move is really about creating a military training zone, when right next door settlements are built without any problems
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998 Yahel continues: we're about to turn 1300 people into refugees. Why doesn't this bother anyone? Why can't we let these simple people just tend to their sheep? To live with some self-respect? Let's not repeat the Nakba in 2022.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998@lizzadwoskin@washingtonpost@YeshDin These outposts are normally inhabited by a single couple or family, are not given permits by the State to be there, yet the State supports their existence de facto by letting them stay there and giving them access to funding, infrastructure and military protection.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998@lizzadwoskin@washingtonpost@YeshDin E.g. Shabtai from Havat Avraham in the S Hebron Hills states openly that he controls 9000 dunams, 6x more than he was given. "Wherever we set foot w/ our sheep is ours." Yesh Din documented several violent attacks by settlers from this outpost. This model exists all over the oPt.
A few days ago, we saw the IDF stoop to new lows with the boldness of their attempts to cover up the killing of 15 rescue workers. Now @haaretzcom uncovered new details that show just how deeply flawed and incomplete their alleged “investigation” was. 🧵 haaretz.com/israel-news/20…
Soldiers shot indiscriminately at the rescue workers from close range for 3.5 minutes (!), as they tried to identify themselves. After a short interrogation of the attack's sole survivor by one soldier who doesn't speak Arabic very well, the workers were deemed to be "Hamas."
12 minutes after the first assault, a UN vehicle with an UNRWA volunteer showed up, driving away from the soldiers, slowly, with the lights on. He was shot nonetheless. The IDF still claims 6 of the 15 rescue workers were Hamas, but refuses to say which 6 they're referring to.
Minister Bezalel Smotrich today said that bringing the hostages was “not the most important goal,” secondary to eliminating “the Gaza problem.” On Saturday, he called for a full military occupation of the strip. This seems like the Israeli govt's actual top priority in this war🧵
And if “saving hostages” isn’t the govt’s top priority, “preventing civilian casualties” is even lower on that list. Of the 1,694 people killed in Gaza since the ceasefire was broken, 595 were children, 308 were women, and 105 were elderly, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Some recent IDF actions echo aspects seen in its Oct 2024 siege on northern Gaza, only this time, in southern Gaza:
Mass Displacement
A new IDF corridor cuts Rafah off from the rest of the strip. Its residents were told to evacuate, and the area was swallowed by the “Perimeter”.
The entire city of Rafah is being swallowed up. @yanivkub of @haaretz reports that the IDF is expanding the new Gaza buffer zone to also include Rafah (in blue). This massive death zone, laid out earlier this week in our latest testimony collection, continues to grow by the day🧵
The soldiers’ testimonies describe the annihilation of what once stood in this area — homes, schools, and agricultural lands — which covered 16% of the entire strip. With Rafah included, we’re now looking at reducing at least another 20% of the strip to a complete wasteland.
This is being sold to Israelis as a security necessity, but, in reality, it’s just a continuation of the same policies and paradigms that brought us here. There is no other way to refer to this policy other than as ethnic cleansing, which can and must never be morally justified.
"The Perimeter:" a new collection of testimonies from soldiers who fought in Gaza in 2023-2024. It chronicles the systematic annihilation and expropriation of entire villages and agricultural zones while creating the new Gaza buffer zone, which the IDF “completed” last December🧵 breakingthesilence.org.il/inside/wp-cont…
The logic of maintaining perpetual Israeli military control led to the wholesale destruction of this vast Palestinian territory, where nearly a quarter million people once lived. Annihilation, expropriation, and expulsion are immoral and must never be normalized or legitimized.
Creating this perimeter, which stretches between 800m and 1.5km inward from the Gaza border, constitutes collective punishment and is an obstacle to future reconstruction efforts for Gaza. It’s morally abhorrent, and perpetuates the same paradigm that has led us to this point.
Friday morning, a mob of settlers descends on the small village of Jinba in Masafer Yatta, injuring 5 Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy and a 64-year-old man. The IDF quickly responded - arresting over 20 Palestinians.
From there, it got worse 🧵
Early Saturday morning, over 140 Israelis, soldiers and settlers alike, raided Jinba. They broke TVs, refrigerators, and toilets, ripped out faucets, and dumped large amounts of food onto the ground, preventing them from eating before the day’s fast.
The IDF excuse? “Looking for weapons.” No mention of finding any. And it doesn’t seem to matter. The residents have for years been suffering from IDF raids. In 2012, soldiers turned Jinba “upside down” while failing to find an alleged headquarters for smuggling “infiltrators.”
The assault on Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal this week was horrifying, but it wasn’t a rarity. Similar assaults have become routine in Masafer Yatta. There have been at least 11 serious assaults by settlers on just the small village of Susiya in 2025 alone (!)
Let’s dive deeper 🧵
Last week, another partner of ours, @btselem researcher Naser Nawaj’ah, was also assaulted in Susiya. Police were seen on video letting the assailants escape. At least one assailant was also identified by activists on Monday night as one of the settlers who assaulted Hamdan.
In this video from last August, a settler was seen telling Hamdan he’d like to take him to the infamous Sde Teiman detention facility, for some “rape by the will of god.” Back then, Hamdan’s film hadn’t yet won an Oscar, so this event didn’t make the news