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Special reports: Updates January and earlier, 2025: What is Israel’s deadly ‘Iron Wall’ military raid in Jenin? & 'Skull without a jaw' & I dream of a quiet, drone-free Gaza & 'Staying alive was luck' Previous reports: The ceasefire will not bring our lives back & No child should ever see the horrors of Gaza & The genocide has left me feeling like a stranger in my own homeland & Why I won't stop telling Gaza’s stories & Israel may burn Gaza schools, but Palestinians shall resist & This is the last phase of Zionism and earler stories  Overview special reports

November 28 - 24 and earler stories, 2024 Is Netanyahu immune from ICC arrest warrant-NO!   TRIBUTES TO MOTHERS AND CHILDREN

Shireen Abu Akleh In commemoration of Shireen Abu Akleh, the 'voice of Al Jazeera' killed while revealing the true face of israel Updated: December 6, 2024: Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war   Click here for earlier stories/news

January 28 - 24, 2025 "Now it's time to grief" If the ones guilty of the genocide let us and it doesn't look like it. By the way, did you know that during WW2 the american allies knew all about the transportation routes that brought the jews to the gaschambers but simply let the trains roll. And now there was this so-called 'holocaust remembrance day' but... too many haven't learned anything from history... Read more and decide for yourself

January 24 - 22, 2025 Food for thought: A ceasefire? Not at the occupied Westbank. And why? 'The show must go on!'? Read more and decide for yourself January 22 - 20, 2025 Food for thought: A ceasefire? Not as far as the idf and its co-genocide-predetators are concerned. 'The show must go on?' Read more and decide for yourself

January 21 - 19, 2025 Food for thought: Let's see what an israeli word is worth. Read more and decide for yourself January 19 - 14, 2025 Pre-ceasefire & Post-Ceasefire December 30 - 26, 2024 'Betrayed' and 'abandoned' Sixth baby dies from severe cold

 When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.


Al Jazeera - Jan 28 2025 - By Al Jazeera Staff
<<‘Five babies in incubator’: HRW on danger to pregnant women, babies in Gaza
Human Rights Watch finds Israel has violated the rights of pregnant women and girls, with no end in sight.
Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza, as well as severe restrictions it imposed on the flow of humanitarian aid and Israeli forces’ attacks on health facilities and targeting of healthcare workers, have led to “life-threatening danger” for pregnant women and babies, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said in a new report. Despite the ongoing ceasefire, the precarious conditions under which women in Gaza are giving birth are unlikely to improve, the group noted in the report published on Tuesday, as Israeli legislation targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and taking effect this week is expected to severely limit the delivery of humanitarian relief to the devastated territory. The group found that women in Gaza have been rushed out of overcrowded hospitals, sometimes within hours of giving birth, in order to make room for war casualties. Newborn care has also been severely impacted, with one doctor at al-Helal al-Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah saying that the facility had so few incubators and so many preterm babies that doctors there were forced to put “four or five babies in one incubator”. “Most of them don’t survive,” the doctor added.
Several babies have died from the lack of shelter amid freezing temperatures.
In the 56-page report, HRW concluded that Israel — as the occupying power in Gaza — has violated the rights of pregnant women and girls, including the right to dignified care in pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, as well as the right to newborn care. The group also stressed that two pieces of legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset last year and taking effect on Tuesday threaten to “further exacerbate the harm to maternal and newborn health”. The bills, which bar UNRWA from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem and the Israeli government from contact with the agency, effectively make it impossible for UNRWA to get permits for its staff and to deliver much-needed aid to Gaza. Belkis Wille, HRW’s associate crisis, conflict and arms director, told Al Jazeera that “despite the fact that the ceasefire could provide an opportunity for the healthcare system in Gaza to begin to be restored, because of the laws coming into effect, banning the operations of UNRWA, the reality is that these coming weeks may lead to pregnant women and newborns suffering even more than they already have”. “The provisions of the ceasefire don’t really address any of the significant needs that are outlined in the report,” Wille added. According to the report, as of this month, emergency obstetric and newborn care is only available at seven out of 18 partially functioning hospitals across Gaza, four out of 11 field hospitals, and one community health centre. All medical facilities operating in Gaza face “unsanitary and overcrowded conditions” and serious shortages of essential healthcare supplies, including medicine and vaccines. And medical workers, “hungry, overworked and at times under military attack”, are scrambling to tend to victims of attacks while also addressing countless cases of waterborne and other communicable diseases, the report adds. HRW conducted interviews with women who were pregnant while living in Gaza during the war, medical workers from Gaza, and international medical staff working with international humanitarian organisations and agencies operating teams in Gaza.
The interviews paint a horrific picture of the war’s impact on access to basic care during pregnancy and birth.
Little information is available on the survival rate of newborns or the number of women experiencing serious complications or dying during pregnancy, birth, or postpartum, HRW notes. But the group points to testimony by maternity health experts who reported that the rate of miscarriage in Gaza had increased by up to 300 percent since war began on October 7, 2023. It also pointed to UN reports that at least eight infants and newborns have died from hypothermia due to lack of basic shelter. Israel’s war has led to an unprecedented displacement of some 90 percent of Gaza’s residents, many of whom were displaced multiple times. That has made it impossible for pregnant women to safely access health services, the report found, noting that mothers and newborns have had almost no access to postnatal care. Late last year, Human Rights Watch concluded in a different report that Israel was committing “acts of genocide” by denying clean water to Palestinians in Gaza. It also found that Israel’s use of “starvation as a method of warfare” led to severe food insecurity. Pregnant women have been particularly impacted by lack of access to food and water, with critical consequences for their own health and for fetal development. Many pregnant women have reported dehydration or being unable to wash themselves, the report added. “Israeli authorities’ blatant and repeated violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Gaza have had a particular and acute impact on pregnant women and girls and newborns,” Wille said. “The ceasefire alone won’t end these horrific conditions. Governments should press Israel to urgently ensure that the needs of pregnant women and girls, newborns, and others requiring health care are met.”>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/28/five-babies-in-incubator-hrw-on-danger-to-pregnant-women-babies-in-gaza

France24 - January 27, 2025
<<Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians return to devastated northern Gaza
Palestinians began returning to the northern Gaza Strip on Monday amid a fragile ceasefire in the 15-month war that has ravaged the enclave and displaced almost 2 million Gazans, some 650,000 of them from the north. Many have been displaced multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Gaza’s most heavily destroyed area on Monday after Israel opened the north for the first time since the early weeks of the war with Hamas, a dramatic reversal of their exodus 15 months ago. As a fragile ceasefire held into a second week, Israel was told by Hamas that eight of the hostages to be freed during the deal's first phase are dead. Joyous crowds of Palestinians, some holding babies or pushing wheelchairs, walked along a seaside road all day and into the night, carrying bedrolls, bottles of water and other belongings. Armed and masked Hamas fighters flashed a victory sign. The crowd was watched over by Israeli tanks on a nearby hill. The United Nations said over 200,000 people were observed moving north on Monday morning. Palestinians who have been sheltering in squalid tent camps and former schools are eager to return to their homes – even though they are likely damaged or destroyed. Many had feared that Israel would make their displacement permanent. Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) to reach her damaged but habitable Gaza City home. She saw her younger sister for the first time in over a year. “It was a long trip, but a happy one,” she said. Many saw their return as an act of steadfastness after Israel’s military campaign, which was launched in response to the Hamas militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. The return was also seen as a repudiation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that many Palestinians be resettled in Egypt and Jordan. Both countries rejected the idea.
Whether hostages are still alive inside Gaza has been a heartbreaking question for waiting families who have pushed Israel’s government to reach a deal to free them, fearing that time was running out. Before Monday’s announcement, Israel believed that at least 35 of the about 90 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack and still in Gaza were dead. Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists that a list received overnight from Hamas on the status of the 33 hostages being freed under the ceasefire's first phase showed eight were dead. The families have been informed, he said, adding that the information matched what Israeli intelligence had believed. The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas. Militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 assault and abducted another 250. Israel responded with an air and ground war that has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. In all, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, and they face new health risks as they return. Ismail Abu Mattar, a father of four who waited for days near the crossing point for northern Gaza, described scenes of jubilation, with people singing, praying and crying.
“It’s the joy of return,” said Abu Mattar, whose relatives were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. “We had thought we wouldn’t return, like our ancestors.” In the war’s opening days, Israel ordered the evacuation of the north and sealed it off after ground troops moved in. Around a million people fled south while hundreds of thousands remained in the north, which had some of the heaviest fighting and the worst destruction. The opening to the north was delayed for two days as Israel said Hamas had changed the order of the hostages it released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Local medical officials said Israeli forces opened fire at the waiting crowd and killed several Palestinians over the weekend. Israel's military said it fired warning shots at approaching groups it deemed a threat. Mediators resolved the dispute overnight. Hamas called the return “a victory for our people.” Later Monday in central Gaza, Awda hospital said it received the body of a child killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp when returnees were hit. The hospital said three others were wounded. It said three others were wounded in a separate attack near the camp. It was not clear what happened, and Israel's military said it did not carry out any airstrikes in the area during that time. Palestinians were crossing on foot without inspection through part of the Netzarim corridor, a military zone bisecting the territory just south of Gaza City that Israel carved out early in the war. A checkpoint for vehicles opened later on Gaza’s main north-south highway, where traffic was backed up for around 3 kilometers (2 miles). Under the ceasefire agreement, vehicles are to be inspected for weapons before entering the north. An Egyptian official said Egyptian contractors, along with a U.S. firm, run checkpoints that inspect vehicles heading via Salahuddin road. The contractors are part of an Egyptian-Qatari committee implementing the ceasefire, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The contractors are cleared by Israel. Israel had delayed the crossing's opening, which was supposed to happen over the weekend, saying it would not allow Palestinians north until a civilian hostage, Arbel Yehoud, was released. Israel said she should have been released before four female soldiers who were freed on Saturday. Qatar, a key mediator, announced early Monday that Yehoud and two other hostages would be released by Friday. Israel said the release — which will include female soldier Agam Berger — will take place on Thursday. Another three hostages should be released on Saturday as previously planned. There were mixed emotions among Israelis watching the scene in Gaza from the nearby city of Sderot. Some expressed mistrust toward the Palestinians. Others were empathetic. “Let them come back home safely and conduct a normal life,” said one, Rachel Osher. “We also want it. We want the same on both sides of the border.”>>
Video: https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250127-tens-of-thousands-return-to-devastated-north-gaza-after-breakthrough-on-hostages

Al Jazeera - Jan 27 2025 - By Al Jazeera Staff
<<In Pictures - Gallery
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are returning to the heavily destroyed north of the Gaza Strip for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month genocide in Gaza. The return, delayed for two days following a dispute between Hamas and Israel over the release of an Israeli captive, is in accordance with a fragile ceasefire deal agreed a week ago. The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever waged on Gaza, and securing the release of captives and prisoners held by Hamas and Israel, respectively. Palestinians, who for all these months had been sheltering in squalid tent camps and schools-turned-shelters, are eager to return to what is left of their homes, likely damaged or destroyed due to the Israeli assault. Hamas said the return was “a victory for our people, and a declaration of failure and defeat for the [Israeli] occupation and transfer plans”. Israel had ordered the wholesale evacuation of the north in the opening days of the war in October 2023 and sealed it off shortly after ground troops moved in. About a million people fled to the south, while thousands remained in the north, which saw some of the heaviest fighting and the worst destruction caused by the war. Many had feared Israel would make their exodus permanent, and expressed fears of ethnic cleansing after United States President Donald Trump asked Egypt and Jordan to settle Gaza’s Palestinians on their soil.>>
View photos: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/1/27/long-walk-home-palestinians-march-on-foot-to-north-gaza

Al Jazeera - Jan 27 2025
<<UN experts slam Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah’s arrest in Switzerland
Calling the arrest of Electronic Intifada website’s founder ‘shocking’, they say the ‘climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic’. United Nations human rights experts and activists have condemned the arrest of a prominent Palestinian journalist in the Swiss city of Zurich, saying it raised concerns about freedom of speech. Ali Abunimah – the executive director of online publication Electronic Intifada which calls itself “Palestine’s weapon of mass instruction” – was arrested by Swiss police on Saturday before his speech in Zurich, the website said in a statement. Swiss police confirmed that the 53-year-old American citizen had been arrested. They cited an entry ban and said further measures under its immigration law were being considered. The UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, called the arrest “shocking news” and urged Switzerland to investigate and release him in a post on the X social media platform on Sunday. “The climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic, and we should all be concerned,” said Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories. Pro-Palestinian advocacy group Swiss Action for Human Rights launched a petition to release Abunimah on Sunday. A spokesperson for the United States embassy in Bern said it was providing appropriate consular assistance after seeing reports of the arrest of a US citizen, declining further comment. Abunimah’s arrest came a day after he arrived in Zurich for a speaking tour, Electronic Intifada said in a statement. “He is currently being detained and has had access to legal counsel,” it said on Saturday. “When he arrived at Zurich airport on Friday, Abunimah was questioned by police for an hour before being allowed to enter the country.” Describing the arrest as a “growing backlash from Western governments against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people”, the website noted that several activists and journalists were arrested, raided or charged using “counterterror” powers in the United Kingdom last year. They included Asa Winstanley, an associate editor with Electronic Intifada, whose home was raided and computers and phones seized, it said, adding that Winstanley has not been charged with any crime. “Speaking out against injustice in Palestine is not a crime. Journalism is not a crime,” the website said. During a solidarity protest for Palestine on Saturday in Geneva, demonstrators said Abunimah’s arrest “had no legal basis”. “He is defamed by Zurich media,” one of the speakers said. “We have free speech in Switzerland. It is a constitutional right,” she said, calling the arrest “unacceptable”. “We support Ali Abunimah, all the Palestinian activists and activists for human rights,” she said.>>
Read more: NEWS AGENCIES: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/27/un-experts-slam-palestinian-journalist-ali-abunimahs-arrest-in-switzerland

Al Jazeera - Jan 26 2025
<<Israeli forces kill 2-year-old Palestinian girl in occupied West Bank raid
Another Palestinian died from injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in a separate incident in Balata refugee camp.
Israeli forces have shot and killed a two-year-old Palestinian girl as they step up large-scale military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to health officials. In a statement, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Laila al-Khatib died of “critical wounds” after being shot in the head on Saturday by Israeli forces in the Martyrs’ Triangle area of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Media reports said the girl’s pregnant mother was also lightly wounded in the attack. The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident and that its troops opened fire on a building after receiving intelligence on the presence of Palestinian fighters. Speaking to journalists on Sunday, al-Khatib’s grandmother said the family was having dinner when the incident took place. “There was gunfire, and the windows were breaking. When the girls heard the gunfire, they started running inside. Her [al-Khatib’s] mother was feeding her [when] she got a bullet from the sniper in her head,” she said, adding that the girl was her mother’s only child. The Israeli army has in recent years carried out multiple raids and incursions in Jenin, long seen as a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Its latest operation began only a day after a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip, where some 15 months of Israeli attacks have killed more than 47,000 Palestinians. Separately on Saturday, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Ahmad Mahmoud Hashash, 42, also died of his wounds on Saturday after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid on Balata refugee camp in the central West Bank. The ongoing military operation in Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp has killed at least 14 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. Dozens have been wounded while thousands have been forced from their homes. Before the latest Israeli attacks began on Monday, the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, carried out a weeks-long operation to reassert control in Jenin. In addition to the loss of life, the Israeli army raids have caused widespread destruction, including the bulldozing of key roads and the demolition of houses. Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, said last week that Jenin faced being “Gazafied” by the Israeli military, “complete with air strikes and destruction of infrastructure”. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation is aimed at eradicating <terrorism>.>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/israeli-forces-kill-2-year-old-palestinian-girl-in-occupied-west-bank-raid

Al Jazeera - Jan 26 2025 - By Al Jazeera Staff
<<Ethnic cleansing feared as Trump asks Jordan, Egypt to take Gaza residents
Trump says relocation may be temporary or long-term as he also announces lifting of hold on 2,000-pound bombs for Israel.
United States President Donald Trump says he would like to <just clean out> Gaza, urging Egypt and Jordan to take in more Palestinians from the coastal enclave. Speaking with reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said he had a call earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak with Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi later on Sunday. <I would like Egypt to take people,> Trump said. <You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.'> Trump said he complimented Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king, <I would love for you to take on more, ‘cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.> Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza has displaced almost all of its 2.3 million residents, some of them multiple times. Trump said Gaza’s inhabitants could be moved <temporarily or could be long term>. <It is literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,> he said. <So, I would rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.> Later on Sunday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Amman’s “position is that the two-state solution is the way to achieve peace”. He stressed that Jordan’s “rejection of displacement is fixed and unchangeable” in an apparent veiled response to Trump. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group condemned the US president’s suggestion, calling it an encouragement of “war crimes”. Describing Trump’s idea as “deplorable”, the group, which has fought a war with Israel alongside Hamas until last week’s ceasefire, said his “proposal falls within the framework of encouraging war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land”. It also said Trump’s statement was “in line with the worst of the agenda of the extreme Zionist right and a continuation of the policy of denying the existence of the Palestinian people, their will and their rights” and called on Egypt and Jordan to reject his plan. Abdullah Al-Arian, associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US president’s remarks “should be taken seriously in part because we have seen this specific demand being made for over the last year and a half”. He said some Israeli officials had indicated “very early on in the course of the war” to “ethnically cleanse” as much of the Palestinian territory as possible. “That plan failed for multiple reasons, one of which is that Arab leaders who were approached at that point in time simply declined to take on an additional Palestinian refugee population, in part because it was politically unviable in Egypt in particular, which was mooted as a possible destination for a mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza,” he said. Al-Arian said Palestinians themselves would not be interested in such a proposal by Trump. “They know all too well what it means to leave their home and what the status of Palestinian refugees has looked like for the past 70 years,” he said. Meanwhile, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed Trump’s idea to relocate Gaza’s residents to Egypt and Jordan. <The idea of helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea. After years of glorifying terrorism, they will be able to establish new and good lives in other places,> Smotrich said in a statement. <Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a solution of peace and security,> he said. <I will, with God’s help, work with the prime minister and the cabinet to ensure there is an operational plan to implement this as soon as possible,” Smotrich said. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what they call the “Nakba” or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948. Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which el-Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979. Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.
Sending 2,000-pound bombs
Israel’s 15-month war on the Palestinian enclave has killed more than 47,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, though residents and activists say the actual toll could be much higher. Israel’s ferocious bombardment has also destroyed much of the territory’s civilian infrastructure, with the United Nations estimating the reconstruction will take many years. However, Trump also said he has ended his predecessor’s hold on sending 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs to Israel. <We released them today,> Trump said of the bombs. <They’ve been waiting for them for a long time.” Asked why he lifted the ban on those bombs, Trump responded, “Because they bought them.> Then-President Joe Biden had put a hold on the delivery of those bombs due to concerns over the effect they could have on the civilian population. A 2,000-pound bomb has a destruction radius of 35 metres (115 feet), according to the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA). The US has historically supplied substantial foreign aid to Israel; a total of $297bn (adjusted for inflation) between 1946 and 2023, $216bn of which was in military aid and $81bn in economic aid, according to data from the US Agency for International Aid (USAID). Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US aid since its founding. A ceasefire in Gaza went into effect a week ago and has led to the release of some Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/ethnic-cleansing-feared-as-trump-asks-jordan-egypt-to-take-gaza-residents

Al Jazeera - Jan 25 2025
<<Israeli forces fire on crowds near Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor
Video from near Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor showed crowds ducking and running for cover as Israeli forces opened fire on displaced Palestinians waiting to return to northern Gaza.>>
Video: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2025/1/25/israeli-forces-fire-on-crowds-near-gazas-netzarim-corridor

Al Jazeera - Jan 24 2025 - By Mat Nashed
<<‘Less than slaves’: The Palestinians detained by Israel despite ceasefire
Israel has arrested more Palestinians than it has released as a result of its ceasefire deal with Hamas.
When the Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced on January 15, Ghassan Alyeean says his first feeling was relief that the mass killing of his countrymen might finally end. Like everyone in the occupied West Bank, Alyeean was looking forward to celebrating the freedom of 90 Palestinian prisoners who were to be released in the coming days in exchange for three Israeli captives as part of the ceasefire deal.
But the next day – January 16, three days before the ceasefire took effect – Israeli soldiers raided Alyeean’s home in Bethlehem and abducted his 22-year-old son, Adam, who was supposed to sit university exams in the coming days. “They took him for no reason,” Alyeean, 60, told Al Jazeera over the phone. “There was no way to defend him or my family. “We are not saboteurs,” he said, meaning they were not resisting or causing unrest.
Since the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire, Israel has arrested at least 95 Palestinians in raids and at checkpoints for no clear reasons across the West Bank, according to Jenna Abu Hasna, a researcher with Addameer, a Palestinian civil society organisation monitoring arrests and detentions in the occupied territory. Many of them were arrested in the few days around the onset of the ceasefire which took effect on January 19. The mass incarceration of Palestinians is just one feature of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, which also involves expanding illegal Israeli settlements and the mass killing, injuring and dispossession of civilians, according to rights groups and prisoners’ families. “The situation we are living through is really difficult right now. We are treated as slaves … or even less than slaves,” said Alyeean, from his home.
Tool of repression
Since Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has imprisoned some 800,000 Palestinians across the occupied territory, according to the UN and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation. “[Mass incarceration] is part of the apartheid regime,” Sharon Parnes, spokesperson for B’Tselem, told Al Jazeera. “It is part of trying to make Palestinian life miserable in order to make them want to leave,” he added. Abuhasna from Addameer also said Israel has a track record of rearresting dozens – sometimes hundreds – of Palestinians who have been released in “captive deals”. Sometimes this happens straight after a deal is actioned, sometimes months or even years later. She referenced the captive deal for the return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas during a cross-border raid and brought back to Gaza in 2005. Five years later, Shalit was finally released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar who helped orchestrate the October 7 attacks and who Israel killed in Gaza in October last year. Three years later, Israel raided homes and rearrested dozens of Palestinians who had been released in the Shalit deal for no obvious reason. Furthermore, Israel has arrested and rearrested hundreds of people in the West Bank since it struck a captive deal with Hamas during a temporary ceasefire between the two warring parties in November 2023, said Abuhasna. “The tactic of detaining Palestinians, even during an agreement or when a prisoner exchange is occurring is nothing new,” she told Al Jazeera. “[The Israeli] occupation continues to detain Palestinians during the same day when prisoners are released and sometimes days or years after because that is what an occupation does: It violates international law,” she added.
A revolving door
Despite the recent arrests, many Palestinian families have been able to welcome loved ones back home after the latest captive exchange on January 20. Mohamed Amro, a 55-year-old father of seven who lives in Hebron, said he was finally reunited with his 23-year-old daughter, Janin, who had been abducted in the middle of the night from the family’s home during an Israeli raid on December 3, 2023 – less than two months after the start of the war on Gaza. He still recalls the events of that harrowing night, which have become a common experience for many Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank. “The occupation soldiers broke down the door and stormed in and then abducted her from her bed,” Amro told Al Jazeera. Janin was held in administrative detention, a process inherited from the United Kingdom’s colonial mandate in Palestine which lasted from 1920 until 1948. During that time, the UK often jailed Palestinian critics and resistance fighters without reason and without trial and on secret charges. When Israel gained statehood after expelling Palestinians from their land in 1948 – an event referred to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – it integrated this process in order to try Palestinians in military courts rather than civilian courts where Israelis are tried. Amro said his daughter still does not know of any charges brought against her and says she was subjected to extreme mistreatment in prison. “From the day she was taken until the day she was released, Janin slept and woke up on the cold floor every night. Her room was also really freezing … and she was constantly scared,” he said.
Threats and intimidation
Amro was one of hundreds of people waiting out in the cold for about 10 hours in Beitounia, West Bank until Palestinian prisoners from the captive exchange were released. The prisoners were supposed to be released around 4pm (14:00 GMT) in the late afternoon on January 19, but this was delayed until 2am (00:00 GMT) the next morning. When he finally saw Janin stagger out, he immediately saw that she had lost considerable weight and had dark bags under her eyes from sleep deprivation. Amro quickly took his daughter home, so she could rest and finally get a good night’s sleep after spending more than a year in prison. “She was traumatised,” Amro told Al Jazeera. “She wasn’t able to fully explain how they treated her in prison.” The next day, Israeli soldiers banged on Amro’s door and warned him not to have a party or celebrate Janin’s release, or else they would arrest her again. He promised he wouldn’t, but he remains terrified that Israeli soldiers will raid his home again to arrest Janin or one of his other children. Part of living under occupation, he explained, is realising that your loved ones can be arrested at any time for no obvious reason. “There is a lot of fear right now because of the escalating situation in the West Bank,” he said, in resignation.
“Every day, the occupation [army] arrests 30 to 40 or even 50 new prisoners.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/1/24/less-than-slaves-the-palestinians-detained-by-israel-despite-ceasefire
 

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