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Palestinians sense West Bank annexation after Israel approves new rules

Palestinians sense West Bank annexation after Israel approves new rules

Israeli government moves to change rules around land registration in the West Bank, making it easier for Israeli Jews to buy property in the illegally occupied territory, are raising alarm among Palestinians, fearful that the new rules will establish defacto Israeli annexation. The Israeli cabinet announced the decisions on Sunday. In addition to allowing Jews to buy property in the West Bank – a Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967 in defiance of international law – the Israeli government has also ordered that land registries in the West Bank be opened up to the public. That means that it will be easier for Israelis looking to take territory in the West Bank to find out who the owner of the land is, opening them up to harassment and pressure. The cabinet also decreed that authority over building permits for illegal Jewish settlements in Hebron, and the Ibrahimi Mosque compound, would pass to Israel from the Palestinian Hebron municipality. Moataz Abu Sneina has seen Israel’s efforts to seize Palestinian land first hand. He is the director of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, a Palestinian national symbol and an important Islamic holy site due to its connection to the Prophet Ibrahim, also known as Abraham. Abu Sneina said that the latest Israeli decisions reflect a clear intention to increase Israeli control over Hebron’s Old City, and the Ibrahimi Mosque compound. “What is happening today is the most serious development since 1967,” Abu Sneina said. “We view it with grave concern for the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is the symbol and beating heart of Hebron, and the shrine of the patriarchs and prophets.” Advertisement The Ibrahimi Mosque site is also revered by Jews, who refer to it as the Tomb of the Patriarchs. An Israeli Jewish settler killed 29 Palestinians after opening fire on Muslims praying at the mosque in 1994. Shortly afterwards, Israeli authorities divided the site into Jewish and Muslim prayer areas, and far-right Israeli settlers continue to strengthen their control over areas of Hebron. Despite only numbering a few hundred, the settlers have taken over large areas of the city centre, protected by the Israeli military. Abu Sneina explained that Israel has repeatedly attempted to strengthen its foothold inside Hebron and the mosque, and that the latest government moves are a continuation of Israeli policy that has only increased since the October 2023 start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. “This has taken the form of increased settler incursions, restrictions on worshippers, control over entry and exit, and bans on the call to prayer – all part of a systematic policy aimed at complete control over the holy site,” Abu Sneina said. “[Israel] continues to violate all agreements, foremost the Hebron Protocol, closing most entrances to the mosque and leaving only one fully controlled access point,” he added. “This paves the way for a new division or an even harsher reality than the temporal and spatial division imposed since the 1994 massacre.” Taking over Hebron Mohannad al-Jaabari, the director of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, a Palestinian organisation focused on the restoration of Hebron’s Old City, said that the Israeli government was already increasing its presence on the ground, in an effort to take control of the city. He pointed to the confiscation of shops belonging to the Hebron Municipality in the Old City, the construction of dozens of illegal settlement units, and the reconfiguration of water pipes by connecting them to an Israeli water company’s network, creating what he described as “a massive apartheid system”. Al-Jaabari warned that the ultimate goal is to establish a Jewish quarter linking settlements to the Ibrahimi Mosque by emptying Palestinian neighbourhoods of their residents. “All Hebron institutions are preparing for a difficult phase,” he said. “We are bracing for a fierce attack on Palestinian institutions, foremost the Rehabilitation Committee.” The Israeli government’s latest decisions open the door for what has happened in Hebron to happen elsewhere, with Israeli settlers establishing a presence in other Palestinian cities, forcing locals out, experts say. Advertisement Nabil Faraj, a Palestinian journalist and political analyst, called the Israeli government’s moves “dangerous” and added that they “have driven the final nail into the coffin of the peace process”. He explained that Israel is reengineering the geographic landscape of the West Bank, expanding infrastructure to serve settlements, and seeking to strip the Palestinian Authority of administrative and security control. The Hebron model Palestinians in Bethlehem are now worried that they will get a taste of what Hebron has already experienced. One of the Israeli cabinet’s decisions on Sunday stipulated that the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque in the city, known to Jews as Rachel’s Tomb, would be placed under Israeli administration for cleaning and maintenance, after previously being under the jurisdiction of the Bethlehem municipality. The mosque’s cemetery has also been affected. “It will affect the living and the dead,” said Bassam Abu Srour, who lives in Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp. “Annexing the area would prevent burials and visits to the Islamic cemetery. This is extremely serious and completely unacceptable to us.” In Bethlehem, Hebron, and the rest of the West Bank, Palestinians feel powerless to stop what they view as a creeping annexation. Mamdouh al-Natsheh, a shop owner in Hebron, said he now has a growing sense that what is unfolding is an attempt to impose a permanent reality. “The city is being taken from its people step by step,” he said. “Daily restrictions are turning it into a fixed policy that suffocates every detail of life.” He added that the deepest impact is on children and young people, growing up in a city that is “divided and constantly monitored”, stripping them of a natural sense of the future. “I fear the day will come when we are told this area has been officially annexed, and that our presence depends on permits,” al-Natsheh said. “In Hebron, a house is not just walls – it is history and identity. Any annexation means the loss of security

Young and old struggle to get their studies back on track in Gaza

Young and old struggle to get their studies back on track in Gaza

Nuseirat, Gaza Strip – Nibal Abu Armana sits in her tent, where she has been teaching her seven-year-old son, Mohammed, basic literacy and numbers. Nibal, a 38-year-old mother of six, is forced to rely on the dim light from a battery-powered LED lamp. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list After two hours, Nibal and Mohammed’s eyes are exhausted. This is what education is like for many in Gaza. The majority of Palestinians in the enclave live like Nibal and her family: displaced and forced to survive in temporary shelters barely fit for habitation. But Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, has gone on for more than two years, and the necessary reconstruction is unlikely to happen any time soon. The majority of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel, along with the majority of other structures in Gaza. Many of the school structures that remain are now used as shelters for displaced families. And students – both children at schools and young adults at universities – have largely missed any form of regular education since the war began in October 2023. “My children used to have a routine before the war: wake up early, go to school, get back home, have lunch, play, write homework, and sleep early,” Nibal told Al Jazeera. “There was a sense of discipline.” Now, she said, her children’s days are structured around their basic needs: sourcing water, getting meals from a charity kitchen, and finding something to burn on the fire for cooking and warmth. After all of that, there is little time left in the day to study. Advertisement Nibal, originally from the Bureij camp but now living in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, said her children struggled, especially at the start of the war, when all forms of education stopped for months. And now, even though circumstances are getting better, it is hard to catch up. Many older children, who have missed out on education at a vital period of their lives, are unwilling to resume their studies. “My eldest son, Hamza, is 16 years old, and he entirely rejects the idea of going back to school,” Nibal said. “He has been cut off from learning for so long and lived in displacement that he lost interest in education. He has new responsibilities. He works with his dad as a porter, helping people carry their aid boxes. He focuses on working to get money to buy food for us and buy himself clothes.” “He grew up before his time; he bears the responsibilities and thinks like a parent would for his youngest siblings,” she said. Nibal’s second son, 15-year-old Huzaifa, is eager to keep learning, but uncertain of his future, as he thinks it will take him years to make up for the time he has lost being unable to study properly. For now, he is studying, but he is forced to attend classes in a makeshift tent classroom. “I feel tired sitting on the ground, and my back and neck ache while writing and looking at the teachers,” Huzaifa said. Attacks on education Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, 745,000 students have been out of formal schooling, including 88,000 higher education students who have been forced to put their studies on hold. Even with a “ceasefire” being in place since October, which Israel continues to violate, more than 95 percent of the significantly damaged school buildings require rehabilitation or reconstruction, according to UNESCO satellite damage assessments. At least 79 percent of higher education campuses and 60 percent of vocational training centres are also damaged or destroyed. Ahmad al-Turk, the dean of public relations and assistant to the president of the Islamic University of Gaza, said that Israel has been deliberately attacking education. “Targeting professors affects future generations, especially given the experience and skills these professors possess in their fields of specialisation,” al-Turk said. “There is no doubt that the absence of competent professors negatively affects students’ achievement, as well as the research process in the future.” This is particularly worrying for Raed Salha, a professor at the Islamic University and an expert on regional and urban planning. Advertisement “University expertise is not something that can be replaced quickly,” he said. “It is cumulative knowledge built through years of teaching and research. Losing it – whether through death, forced displacement, or prolonged disruption – is a devastating loss for students, academic institutions, and society as a whole.” Most families and university students also struggle with the online education system, as it is difficult to afford to buy electronic devices and mobile phones, even before taking into account the weak internet connection in Gaza. “Teachers are trying to teach; students are trying to follow, but the tools are almost nonexistent,” Salha said. “We cannot recreate the experience of students leaving home in the morning, meeting friends, sitting in university courtyards, libraries, laboratories, or participating in activities and events,” he said. “This experience shaped generations of students’ identities and sense of belonging. Today, it is being taken away from them.” Students sit in a classroom at the Islamic University in Gaza City after partially resuming face-to-face learning [Mustafa Salah/Al Jazeera] University challenges University student Osama Zimmo explained that getting used to online learning has been a challenge. “We became names on screens, not students living a full experience,” the 20-year-old civil engineering student from Gaza City said. Osama had enrolled to study computer systems engineering at Gaza’s al-Azhar University before the war, and completed the first year of his studies. But despite his initial passion for that field, it became difficult to continue his studies online once the university shifted to e-learning. “I found that I didn’t have a laptop, stable electricity, or good internet, and even my phone was old and unreliable,” he said, adding that uncertainty over when the war would end and the impact of artificial intelligence gave him pause about his chosen field. Eventually, he decided to switch his major, starting a