This morning, 200 soldiers entered the Palestinian town of Ni’lin, the WB, and took over a residential building, seizing the two upper floors and forcing the families down to the ground floor. They also seized several nearby unoccupied houses. Why? It’s called “Straw Widow” 🧵 It is an IDF procedure that involves taking over a private Palestinian home to establish a military outpost. The homeowners in Ni’lin are not suspected of any wrongdoing, yet under military dictatorship, the Palestinian right to property is, like many other rights, nonexistent.

Yesterday morning, we woke up to rocket alerts. Israel began bombing Iran. As often happens when the media attention shifts, Israel seized the moment to intensify its attacks against Palestinians. Here’s what happened while the world was looking the other way🧵 With the first bombings in Iran, settlers intensified their attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Armed with rifles, clubs, and pepper spray, settler terrorists attacked villages in Masafer Yatta, firing live fire at children who were picking akoub.

For 22 years we’ve led tours to Hebron, so we know for certain: the Jewish settlement there is constantly expanding. Hebron is a microcosm of the occupation, where its mechanisms are most exposed. Understand Hebron, and you’ll understand how the occupation operates as a whole 🧵 1. Increased military presence. Right before the establishment of the new settlement, the IDF conducted a raid in the same neighbourhood, arresting dozens.

🔴Has Israel annexed the West Bank? A tectonic change has happened, and they're counting on you not to understand it. Stay with us. It is critically important. Here is the explanation 🧵 First of all, the West Bank has been de facto annexed for a long time. On paper, it remains under occupation, which is meant to be a temporary arrangement until the territory is transferred to its legal sovereign, a representative of the Palestinian people.

Has your lecture been cancelled because the IDF broke into the university with live fire and stun grenades? For the third time in the course of three months, the IDF raided Birzeit. Why? Let's talk about Order 101, the IDF’s law banning freedom of speech and assembly🧵 Order 101, aka “Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda”, is a military decree that the IDF issued just two months after it occupied the West Bank in 1967. This order criminalises a wide array of civic activities.

🟨IDF’s Yellow Line in Gaza.
56% of Gaza’s territory is now under Israel’s military control. The new temporary border, the Yellow Line, may become permanent. We can’t let this happen. What you must know about the Yellow Line (Fire-policy, destruction, settlements) 🧵 According to the plan, the IDF will withdraw from the Yellow Line to a more distant perimeter within the Gaza Strip and will be replaced by an International Stabilization Force. Meanwhile, Israel’s actions indicate a lack of any genuine commitment to withdrawal.

On Friday, a horrifying terror attack took place inside Israel in which two Israelis were brutally murdered. However, it’s the aftermath of the attack that provides us with a clear example of how Israel’s security establishment operates. Here’s why: The terrorist, who entered Israel through a hole in the separation barrier, apparently came from the city of Qabatiya in the West Bank. Immediately after the attack, security forces raided the city, using air support and mortar fire. Many were arrested, and a curfew was imposed.

For the past two years, the IDF has systematically been using Palestinians as human shields. Here is an especially chilling testimony from a soldier who served in Gaza: “One was 16 years old [...] if there’s an IED [an explosive device], they get blown up.” >>> “In one of my last deployments [to Gaza], a debate started after an incident referred to as the “mosquito protocol.” We were on the coastal road, and lots of people were walking towards Rafah, and then, they grabbed these two guys and used them to open up locations”

Here's the gist: the IDF is still using food as a weapon.
Today, the IDF announced daily “humanitarian pauses” and resumed airdrops of aid into Gaza. But this doesn’t mark a policy shift, just a new phase in the same twisted logic of control through aid🧵 As early as the first days of the war, the IDF has sporadically restricted food access in Gaza, deliberately limiting what goes in and when. By March 2, 2025, this escalated into a total siege. For 11 weeks, no food was allowed in.

timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry…

Muhammad Al-Fara, an elderly man with special needs, was killed by a targeted strike in Khan Younis earlier this year. Why? According to the IDF, “he was marked as a terrorist.”
So what qualifies someone as a terrorist according to the IDF? >>> “You detect a threat or something — you shoot”

Soldiers who testified to Breaking the Silence described extremely lax rules of engagement, where many times suspicion alone can justify lethal force:

Haaretz just revealed, based on conversations with soldiers, that commanders instructed them to fire at crowds near the GHF aid distribution centers to drive them away — even when it was clear the crowds posed no danger. Here’s how the soldiers described the horrific scenes: “In the place where I was, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re fired upon as if they were an attacking force: no crowd-dispersal methods are used, no tear gas — they shoot with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade machine guns, mortars

Haaretz just published an article detailing the scale of destruction in Gaza over the past 20 months. The devastation caused by the IDF stands out, even when compared to some of the most extreme cases in modern history. Here are a few astonishing key findings from the article: In total, two-thirds of the buildings in the Strip were destroyed or damaged—174,000 out of approximately 250,000 structures. Shuja’iyya, the large eastern neighborhood of Gaza, was wiped off the map. The same goes for Rafah city.
Map: Red indicates areas that were destroyed.

For months, Israel has used starvation as a weapon of war. Now, it’s pressing further, increasing its chokehold on aid through displacement and deadly chaos. This is not a humanitarian effort. It is part of a policy of ethnic cleansing, carried out in plain sight 🧵 This week, we saw starving people walk for miles, herded into overcrowded pens, and then met with gunfire once chaos inevitably erupted. This is not a humanitarian aid distribution plan—it’s aid being used as a weapon of war and ethnic cleansing>>

Israel's security cabinet unanimously approved a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza, prolonged military control over the Strip, and the potential forced transfer of millions.

After 17 months, they admit what we all knew: It’s not about hostages or security, it’s about land 🧵 Hostage families are outraged at the decision. Even IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir told ministers, “Keep in mind, we may lose the hostages,” but far-right minister Smotrich said the cabinet decision means Israel won’t retreat from any land conquered, even in exchange for hostages.

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."

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.

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.

"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.

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 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.

https://x.com/btselem/status/1901643408612958658

Last night, over 400 Palestinians were reportedly killed by IDF airstrikes. Many were civilians. Children, men, women - gone. A one-sided violation to bury the ceasefire deal.

Nothing justifies this. The usual excuse of “defeating Hamas” is remarkably unconvincing. Here’s why 🧵 First of all, Hamas’ manpower has reportedly bounced back to over 25,000 combatants, around the same as was estimated before October 7th. 15 months of all-out destruction, countless thousands of innocent deaths written off as “collateral damage” - but our government survived.