Over half of the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank has been declared an active military “firing zone” by the Israeli army. The Israeli military conducts military exercises in these areas, even if Palestinian villages still exist there. Ibziq is one such village. Uday Nawaja’a was recently killed there while tending to a flock of goats after stumbling upon an unexploded ordnance left behind by the Israeli army. “I was tending to the flock, as Uday was wandering underneath a tree, about 30 meters away,” Nawaja’a’s uncle told Mondoweiss. “Suddenly, I heard an explosion. I ran over to Uday to see what happened. But a few seconds later, he was dead.”

The West Bank village Shoshahla, located south of Bethlehem, was built in the 1870’s and by 1985 every Palestinian in the village had either been forced out or intimidated to leave by Israeli forces and settlers. But 7 years later one family did the unthinkable — they returned home. And they have been fighting to stay on their land ever since.

Wadi Qana was once a lush valley filled with diverse crops and livestock where dozens of Palestinian families farmed and thrived off the land. Now after years of Israeli settlements dumping their wastewater in the area, there is little life left in the valley.

Almost one month after Israeli forces shot him seven times during a night raid in Deheisha refugee camp, 22-year-old Raed al-Salhi succumbed to his wounds on Sunday in Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital. Israeli forces had warned Raed al-Salhi in late July that they were coming for him. “They called him and told him ‘we will shoot you in front of your mother’,” Khaled, 24, one of Raed’s four older brothers told Mondoweiss. Two weeks after the call, on August 9, 2017,  Israeli forces shot Raed in the courtyard behind his home at 4 a.m, as his mother sat inside the family’s living room just feet away.

In late July, dozens of Israeli settlers raided and occupied the Abu Rajab family home in the Old City of Hebron near the Ibrahimi Mosque. Since then they have slowly moved in under the constant protection of armed Israeli soldiers. Abu Rajab family members are now subjected to daily harassment from the settlers, while soldiers control the family’s every move in and out of the parts of the home where they have been able to remain.

Omri Baranes is a 18-year-old conscientious objector who served 67 days in military prison for resisting Israel’s obligatory military draft in protest of the nearly half-century occupation of Palestine. “Even before I knew anything about the occupation of Palestine, I couldn’t understand why our culture was centered on violence,” Baranes tells Mondoweiss. “It’s like we are born with guns in our hands. Our society is so militant and most Israelis never learn anything else.”