An American citizen was abducted by Israeli forces. His release doesn’t mean the violence stopped.

Members of the Hussein family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, woke up on August 12th to news that their relatives in Palestine had been arrested and illegally detained by Israeli occupation forces during a midnight raid on their family home. 

The family, which lives in the village of Tuqu near Bethlehem, had experienced ongoing attacks and harassment by Israeli settlers in the area. That violence included the theft of livestock and other property, as well as the firing of live ammunition at family members, coupled with arrests that had left several of them behind bars in the confines of Israeli colonial dungeons. August 12th represented yet another escalation against the family, this time with an added layer: Israeli forces had arrested and detained an American citizen.

Hussein Jabarin, a 46-year-old Pennsylvania resident and father of two, was announced by his immediate family in Philadelphia as having been held without charge by his Israeli captors several days after his initial abduction. His family had received little meaningful information about the reasoning for the arrest or his conditions while in Israeli captivity, noting in a private statement “deeply concerning conditions surrounding his detention and a troubling lack of communication and transparency”.

It did not take long after the family’s official announcement of his condition that local Philadelphia organizations and national political figures began making public statements in solidarity with them. Philadelphia’s Democratic Socialists of America released a statement asking for community members to call local and state representatives demanding Hussein’s release. Congressional Representative Rashida Tlaib also took to social media in a video to bring attention to his detention and demand that he be able to return home to the United States. 

These combined efforts seemingly paid off, as Hussein and his brother were released on August 16th. He is now preparing to return to the United States. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his other family members from Tuqu, as many remain behind bars and all remain under Israeli occupation. They’re joined by the other over three million Palestinians currently living in the West Bank, all of whom are seeing their lives disrupted by increasingly violent settler colonial activity as Israel continues its efforts to expand and expel those upon the land it wishes to occupy.

The occupation has been violent since its inception, but settler activity in the West Bank has reached new heights following October 7, 2023. Thousands of Palestinians are currently languishing inside Israeli colonial dungeons, many of them facing administrative detention, held without charge or trial. Those outside the confines of the Israeli carceral system find themselves facing violence all their own, with settlers regularly harassing and assaulting Palestinians in acts that have included raids on refugee camps, the seizure of Palestinian homes, mass violent outbreaks amounting to pogroms, and more. 

Even now, that violence continues. At the same time Hussein was released, Palestinian families in Qusra faced a siege of their homes that is still ongoing. They have been surrounded by Israeli settlers, with food, water, and electricity cut off to their homes as they face down the threat of home invasion and ethnic cleansing. There is not a single community spared from the horrors of Zionist occupation. It is clear that the goal of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military is to do whatever they can to make conditions unlivable for those they wish to displace.

What this amounts to is a systematic effort across the West Bank and the whole of Palestine by settlers to ultimately annihilate the Palestinians who call the land home. Settlers have long set their sights on the land of Palestine, and every day that goes by sees the advancement of a creeping occupation; one that will continue to expand at all costs, no matter the harm done in the process. Palestinians are facing perhaps the most difficult conditions they have experienced in generations, all while the international community continues to extend nearly uninterrupted support to the colony working to replace them on the land.

Hussein was lucky to be released from the dungeons of the Israeli project, but millions across Palestine have not been so lucky. So long as the occupation is allowed to expand unchallenged by the larger international community, these efforts and more will continue. As Hussein returns to the U.S., it is a cruel reminder that the same passport that likely helped aid his release comes from the same project enabling the arrest and detention of those he calls friends and family.

Through arms shipments, economic aid, and broader diplomatic cover, the U.S. and other international partners are enabling the colonial advancement of the project to occur. Palestinians will continue facing their daily reality, but it remains on the international community to enact arms embargoes and other measures against the Israeli colony to ensure Palestinians have the best conditions possible with which to end the occupation. Until that point, however, at the very least, one family in Philadelphia is experiencing a moment of relief.