This week we published several stories that, for me, were among some of the hardest to read since this genocidal war began nearly a year ago. Tareq Hajjaj, our Gaza correspondent, reached out to a family that survived a horrible siege of their neighborhood in March, losing one member to an Israeli sniper’s bullet. Amna Shabana is a Palestinian writer in Gaza. She wrote a heartbreaking story of one young girl’s experience navigating and surviving this war.
From Gaza to the West Bank, Israel is intent on destroying Palestinian society. I urge you to read Abdaljawad Omar’s piece, described below, to understand what Israel is doing in the West Bank right now. We are likely witnessing the first steps toward ethnic cleansing there, just as we’re watching in Gaza.
Many of you have already heard about the American citizen, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed on September 6 by an Israeli sniper in the village of Beita. In 2021, Yumna Patel filed a video report on protests in Beita trying to stop the illegal land theft and expansion of the Israeli “outpost” settlement, Evyatar. Be sure to watch it for more context to this developing story.
Cindy and Craig Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie, another U.S. volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who was killed by the Israeli military in 2003, called on the U.S. government to do more for Ayşenur and her family:
Aysenur and her family deserve better than White House and Department of State platitudes and calls for Israeli investigations that never result in truth, action, or enforcement of U.S. law. We are demanding more. The time for accountability is now.
This was a hard week and this is a dark time. I encourage you to reach out to groups organizing for a ceasefire in your community and channel your energy into action.
Ethnic Cleansing
Abdaljawad Omar says Israel is testing the boundaries for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. The current operation in the West Bank, glibly called “Operation Summer Camps,” is meant to test the boundaries of what Israel will be allowed to get away with. It is setting the stage for the forced ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
Must reads
🇺🇸 Mitchell Plitnick says the genocide in Gaza is as much the U.S.’s war as it is Israel’s: “Biden may have a religious zeal about Israel but there is also a sense that, flowery rhetoric aside, movements for justice and human rights are only acceptable if they are in line with the aims of “our side.”
🚨 Michael Arria and Qassam Muaddi report on the brutal murder of an American activist in the West Bank village of Beita. Aysenur Eygi, 26, was killed by an Israeli sniper. Two shots were heard by numerous witnesses. The second of them hit Eygi in the head. She was declared dead a short time later at a nearby hospital. She had been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement, the same organization that Rachel Corrie worked with when she was killed in 2003 and that Tom Hurndall volunteered with when he, too, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.
🔴 David Spero says charges of antisemitism are the new Red Scare: “Real antisemitism is a terrible thing. It led to genocide during World War II and Jews are rightly terrified of it. But this pretend antisemitism dishonors the Jews who have actually suffered.”
🏳️ Shatha Hanaysha filed a powerful story collecting reports from residents of Jenin about the recent 10-day Israeli military invasion. Hundreds of residents were forced to flee holding white flags, while others were trapped in their homes with no food or water. 21 Palestinians were killed. The mayor of Jenin, Nidal Obeidi, estimated that destruction to the city’s infrastructure caused to damages amounting to USD 13.4 million.
🚨 Tareq Hajjaj collected a testimony from the Barbakh family who suffered through the Israeli military’s siege of the area surrounding the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in March of this year. Suhad, a 33-year-old mother of three, was killed by an Israeli sniper as the family huddled in the kitchen of their apartment, trying to hide. They were eventually ordered to leave and were unable to take Suhad’s body with them. It’s a terrible story, one of so many from this genocidal war. Click here to subscribe to Tareq’s Palestine Letter newsletter, if you have not already.
🩹 Samah Jabr writes about the inherent contradiction of Western nations distributing so-called “dignity kits” filled with personal hygiene products to Palestinians in Gaza, while also providing the weapons Israel is using to destroy their communities and lives.
⛺ Amna Shabana relates the moving story of one young girl in Gaza, Tala Dallul, as she traverses the warzone that all of Gaza has become. “There is no heart here,” Tala quotes one of the soldiers as saying, adding that he pointed at his chest.
🎓 Carrie Zaremba reported on the efforts of university administrators across the United States to roll out new policies intended to crush pro-Palestine student activism on campuses this Fall. Indeed, arrests have already happened at some schools.
🗽 James North criticizes the New York Times’s coverage of the polio outbreak that Israel’s genocide brought to Gaza: “From reading the NY Times you would think Gaza’s polio outbreak was just a natural disaster.”
