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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel’s Cabinet has approved a proposal for the construction of 19 new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that violates international law and further threatens the possibility of creating a Palestinian state. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has led Israel’s illegal settlement expansion campaign. There’s been a sharp rise of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank under Israel’s current far-right government, with the latest approval bringing the total number of settlements to at least 210, compared to 141 in 2022, according to the settlement watchdog group Peace Now.
This comes as deadly Israeli raids and settler attacks continue across the West Bank. Palestinian officials reported Saturday Israeli soldiers shot dead a 16-year-old teenager during a raid in Jenin. Israeli forces shot Rayyan Mohammad Abdel Qader Abu Mualla at point-blank range. This is his mother.
IBTIHAL ABU MUALLA: [translated] The Israeli soldier executed my son from point zero. There were snipers who want to kill anyone they see, not only my son, but anyone appears in their face. They could have shot him in the leg. My son didn’t throw anything towards them. The occupation created a fake story that my son threw a stone at them. My son didn’t throw a stone. And there is a video showing what happened. … They took his body. I demand, as a mother of a martyr whose body is being held by the army, and in the name of all the mothers, we need the bodies back. I want to bury my son in dignity.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli forces reportedly blocked medical emergency workers from reach in Qader Abu Mualla, who bled to death. In a separate Israeli raid, 22-year-old Ahmad Zayoud was killed in Jenin.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports Israeli soldiers Monday carried out massive demolitions in East Jerusalem, destroying a residential building with bulldozers as soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas at Palestinian residents.
For more, we go to Ramallah, where we’re joined by Budour Hassan, an Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Thanks so much for being with us, Budour. If you can start off by talking about the Israeli government approving these 19 West Bank settlements, more settlements to build?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Thank you for having me.
So, yes, these 19 settlements that were approved yesterday can be divided into three types: first of all, already-existing outposts that are even illegal according to Israeli law, that were retroactively approved; the second type is neighborhoods inside settlements that were approved as independent settlements; and altogether new settlements that were approved. Just in May, also 22 settlements had already been approved by the Israeli government, which only entrenches the apartheid system we’re seeing in the West Bank, and is showing how intricately related the relationship between settler — state-backed settler violence and Israeli policies to grab more Palestinian land to forcibly transfer Palestinians and to cement the presence of illegal settlements.
Obviously, all settlements are illegal under international law. They are all war crimes. But to see how Israel even retroactively legalizes settlements or outposts, that were even illegal according to its own laws, just shows this really huge relationship between what Israeli settlers are doing on the ground and what Israeli policymakers are putting in law and practice.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain the difference between a settlement and an outpost, Budour.
BUDOUR HASSAN: So, an outpost are a series of structures that are placed by settlers, supposedly without the agreement of Israeli authorities, even in violations of Israel’s illegal and discriminatory planning laws in the occupied West Bank, while settlements are structures that or establishments that receive the authorization of the Israeli authorities.
Of course, this distinction is really arbitrary, because even the outposts receive the support of the Israeli military. They are quickly equipped with electricity, with running water. Roads are paved to facilitate reaching these outposts. They enjoy full security and military support from the Israeli military.
Outposts are also used as a direct way to make Palestinians’ life unbearable in the occupied West Bank, especially in communities across the Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and across Area C, where it’s been increasingly difficult for Palestinians to graze and to farm their lands.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the disengagement law is?
BUDOUR HASSAN: So, the disengagement law was passed by Israel in 2005, and according to which Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip and removed settlements, at least four settlements, existing in the occupied West Bank in the Jenin area. This law was initially canceled, repealed by the Israeli — after a decision by the Israeli government, and it was amended so that the four settlements in the Jenin area now have been renewed, have been approved again. So, earlier this year, we’ve seen the approval for the construction of two of these settlements, and now we’re seeing the two, Kadim and Ghanim, the two settlements near the Jenin area, being approved again.
And we cannot look at this approval of these settlements in separation of the policies that Israel is conducting in the northern West Bank, especially in Jenin refugee camps, in Tulkarm refugee camp and in Nur Shams refugee camp, where Israel’s mass, systematic destruction of Palestinian homes and the mass forcible transfer of Palestinians, prohibiting Palestinian refugees from returning to their land, goes hand in hand with the policies and the approval of these four settlements.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the raids — we just went through the people who have been killed — by Israel just in the last week in the occupied West Bank? And then we’ll ask you about Gaza.
BUDOUR HASSAN: So, as we see killings, unlawful killings, of Palestinians in the West Bank continue, as do demolitions in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem, and as we see that these all are part and parcel of the same policy, which is, again, making Palestinian life unbearable, which is entrenching Israel’s unlawful occupation in violation of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion.
And maybe I just would like to explain to our viewers, Amy, how the system works. For example, last year, in 2024, Israel approved the construction of an outpost, or transformed an outpost, called Evyatar, into an illegal — into a settlement. Now, that outpost was built by Israel settlers in 2021, and it was built as a so-called revenge outpost in the area of Beita. Palestinians in Beita launched weekly and, at the beginning, daily protests against that outpost. After that, Israel came, designated the area as state land. And after the designation of the area as state land, Israel approved the construction of this settlement called Evyatar. So, this is one way how Israel uses settler violence, uses its military raids, uses its arbitrary and discriminatory orders, including designation of land as state land, in order to cement and expand these settlements across the West Bank.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Budour, I wanted to ask you about Amnesty International’s report titled “’Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide,” unquote. At least 14 Palestinians were recently killed as winter storms battered Gaza, including at least two babies who died due to the cold. Respond to what’s happening in Gaza right now, even as there is a so-called truce.
BUDOUR HASSAN: Unfortunately, Amy, even though their endless bombardment has mercifully stopped, Palestinians in Gaza continue to be killed. Four hundred and two Palestinians have been killed since the declaration of the ceasefire, including 148 children. And Israel continues its genocide. Israeli authorities continue to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction. They continue to prevent the entry of shelter supplies, despite the rainy weather. They continue to prevent Palestinians from returning to their lands east of the “yellow line,” which occupies more than 50% of the total area of the Gaza Strip, and which — whose boundaries continue to be shifting all the time. They continue to prevent the entry of vital medical aid. And what we are seeing now with the weather, with homes collapsing on the residents, with people dying after homes are collapsing, is not simply a byproduct of the war. It’s a foreseen consequence of Israel policies to prevent the entry of shelter supplies.
Amy, one of the families we’ve talked to, the Nassar family in Sheikh Radwan, the father of the family told us — Mohammed told us that he’s done everything to protect his family for two years, including being displaced over and over again. And in October, when he came back to his home in Sheikh Radwan, even though the home was dilapidated and in no condition to live in, but he had nowhere else to go, he thought that at least he protected his family, only for his two children, Lina and Ghazi, to be killed on the 12th of December after their home had collapsed on them. And all the effort that he made in order to protect his family went in vain. And this is one of so many stories of Palestinians who physically survived the genocide, only to still be suffering from this ongoing genocide, from the conditions, from the fact that, for some reason, the world has forgotten about Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Budour Hassan, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, speaking to us from Ramallah.
Coming up, climate scientist Michael Mann on the Trump administration’s dismantling of NCAR. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Nowhere Bound” by Steven Michael Gooding.
