A.H. is undemanding in the life she wants to live. A resident of Hebron’s Old City, she dreams of a normal life for herself and her family, her little girl in particular. “My daughter always clutches her dolly to her chest, crying. She tells me she wants to go outside or go shopping, but she is afraid they might shoot her or shoot us. I swear, this is no life.”
A.H.’s testimony is one among many women living in Hebron’s Old City, who suffer from severe restrictions to their freedom of movement, due to Israeli measures and regulations that dictate to Palestinians where, when and how they are allowed to move throughout their own city.
The Old City of Hebron is a small, enclosed bubble in a larger Israeli system of racial discrimination, set up to protect the few thousand illegal Israeli settlers living in its heart, over the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians who have lived there for centuries. According to OCHA, there ae 22 Israeli settlements in the Hebron district, in addition to 15 illegal settlement outposts and four industrial settlements, in which around 19,000 settlers live in total. The armed settlers in Hebron are deemed the most hostile, even among the other 200,000 West Bank settlers, attacking and harassing Palestinians who live in close proximately to their enclaves. What’s more, there are nearly 100 Israeli military checkpoints peppered throughout the Old City, closing it almost completely off from the rest of Hebron.
While Israeli restrictions curtail the movement and everyday lives of all residents of Hebron, women and girls are affected. Economic hardships hit families in general, but like in the case of “A.H’ the financial squeeze resulting from Israel’s measures has impacted her even more. “My husband used to work in a shoe factory and he used to take additional shifts and stay late so we could cover expenses. But then Israeli occupation authorities imposed stricter curfews and my husband is no longer allowed to stay out late. He has to be home by sunset and this has had a negative impact on our economic and social lives.”
The women living in the Old City think twice about having visitors over because they worry the Israeli occupation army may invade or, even worse, settlers could attack. They are also hesitant to leave their homes to visit family or friends, in fear that they will not be able to return since they are forced to go in and out of Israeli checkpoints whose soldiers harass or close the checkpoints at whim. “I would love to go to a wedding or to visit my parents, but I am always nervous that I won’t be able to get back to my house. The latest I have ever stayed out is 9:00 p.m.” A.H. says.
Freedom of movement is a basic right, guaranteed in all international treaties and conventions and protected under international humanitarian law. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Israel is in flagrant violation of this and other treaties that safeguard this right, given it is the occupying power. For Palestinian women, this violation is compounded in the patriarchal society in which they live. UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed in order to provide protection for women in areas of conflict, but the international community has sorely fallen short of guaranteeing this to Palestinian women under the yoke of Israeli occupation.
As the situation stands, the Israeli colonial-occupation in place has severely stymied the basic right of movement, among other rights. The hundreds of military checkpoints throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, the Annexation Wall and the sporadic, but systematic closure of entrances to cities, towns and villages are some of Israel’s many forms of collective punishment. Palestinian residents of the West Bank cannot visit Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, or Palestinian areas inside the Green Line. They are subject to a humiliating and endless system of permits for travel, whether inside Palestine or abroad. They are insulted, harassed and detained for hours at military checkpoints between cities, camps, towns and villages, and in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are confined to what has been called the biggest open-air prison due to Israel’s siege on it for the past 16 years.
In Hebron, Israel applies all of these tactics in addition to the especially cruel policy of forced expulsion. According to a MIFTAH research on the commercial and tourist situation in Hebron’s Old City, estimated losses from ongoing Israeli closures amounted to approximately $485 million in the past 25 years, or $1.6 million a month. On Shuhada Street alone, 304 stores shut down, 218 by Israeli military order, forcing dozens of families in the Old City to leave their homes. Forced expulsion is a crime against humanity, according to the ICC Rome Statute and is therefore in violation of international law. Israel widely employs this tactic in several parts of Palestine such as the south Hebron district of Masafer Yatta, where 10,000 Palestinians are at risk of forced expulsion by Israeli military order.
All of these and other Israeli policies affect Palestinian women and girls in a way distinct from the rest of society. A.H. is wracked with anguish over concern for her teenage daughters who are often badgered by Israeli soldiers, slinging sexual innuendos at them every time they pass through a checkpoint. “When they get home they always say: ‘Mama, they [soldiers] tell us things we cannot even repeat’”. The fear of sexual assault is real for these girls and their families and prevents them from exercising aspects of their lives most others take for granted.
Palestinians have lived under this Israeli occupation for over 55 years, while the international community allows it to exist and expand unabated. Basic rights are enshrined in international law for a reason. No person, anywhere, should be deprived of this right and no power should be allowed to deny it with impunity.
It is time for this community to ‘practice what it preaches’ and implement the many international laws, conventions, treaties and resolutions that call for the protection of people under occupation and of women and girls in particular, who are often the most vulnerable in any society.
This paper was written by Ola Sami, the second scholarship recipient from the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA ) of Sweden in support of women, peace and security in memory of Zaida Catalan.
Joharah Baker contributed to this article
Who will hear their screams?
Date posted: April 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
When Israel claimed women were sexually assaulted on a mass scale on October 7, the world exploded. Almost the entirety of Israel’s genocidal war was based on these and other allegations, many unsubstantiated. We all remember the infamous’40 beheaded babies” story, do we not?
This article is not about Israeli allegations per se, neither will it only focus on violations against Palestinian women. This is about a world that is immediately up in arms when one side merely alleges atrocities while it turns a blind eye to actual documented violations against the “other”.
In Gaza, it is painfully clear that we indeed, are ‘the other’. How else can anyone explain the muted cries of women being stripped, raped, starved and murdered practically in real time, on our phone screens, documented in UN reports and described in horrific detail in eyewitness testimonies? There is no other explanation than that Palestinians are what Arundhati Roy calls “Children of a lesser God”. We are the victims of deep-rooted colonialism, one whose geographic demarcations may have vanished but whose insidious, dehumanizing mentality still prevails and manifests in the ugliest of manners.
For nearly six months, Palestinians have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Israel’s occupying army. Today, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to an emaciated shell of what it once was. As Gaza is being systematically decimated and ethnically cleansed, the world, for the most part, looks on. Barring sympathetic supporters and a few well-intended but timid political actors, nothing has been done to stop the carnage. Palestinians once believed there was no way the world would allow Israel to erase Gaza off the map, no way it could see a live-streamed genocide and do nothing. But that is exactly what is happening.
Then, when we thought things could not get any worse, something unfathomable emerged from the deathtrap of Gaza. When this happened, we were certain it would be the turning point in this hellish nightmare. Well-documented reports, corroborated by the UN and eyewitnesses on the ground, told of harrowing stories of sexual assault against Palestinian women in Gaza.
We were paralysed with horror when we heard of women being raped by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza, assaulted and stripped in front of their families. What’s worse, we all know that in times like these, the undocumented atrocities will far outnumber those documented. Who knows what horrors will unfold once the dust settles in Gaza; no doubt they will be so horrific, our entire nation will be traumatized for years to come.
The real question here is not how Israel’s soldiers perpetrated such gross violations. I think by now we can all agree that this depraved military establishment and its political echelon to boot, has dehumanized and vilified Palestinians so much and for so long, they will justify just about anything. No, the question is more about the moral compass of the rest of the world. While alliances and political interests are always part of the equation, even when the issue pertains to basic human rights, nothing can better explain the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and loss of collective humanity than the deafening silence today.
Our women have not only been killed, starved and displaced, they have been exposed to the very violations that sparked global outrage and a genocidal war against an entire population under occupation, unprecedented in modern history. This is not only unacceptable, it is an indelible stain on humanity. Sexual violence is a crime so heinous it is imperative to condemn and prevent, no matter the perpetrator or the victim. That must always be the baseline in any argument.
Palestinians will never get past this genocide; it is not something you can come back from. However, be assured, this is not only about the Palestinians. The world’s women, the majority of so-called feminists who have remained disgustingly silent, must know this: when you do not stand up for women, all women, no one will stand up for you in your time of need.
A new day will come
Date posted: February 14, 2024
By Joharah Baker
I once heard that anger is not a real emotion, but a cover for other feelings such as sadness, disappointment or fear. You need to peel back that outer layer to understand what is really going on inside.
Strange how this has lately resurfaced for me, but I think I know why. Lately, I and surely, millions of other Palestinians, have been filled with a blinding rage -- at Israel, at the United States, and at the world overall. This is a rage that is all-encompassing, the depth of which is palpable at the cellular level, permeating every molecule and every atom of our being. The genocide in the Gaza Strip has grated our emotions raw and we are left stinging and burning from our head to our toes.
Our anger is like a huge magnetosphere and we are all trapped inside, but its walls are translucent and we can see the source of our rage mocking us from beyond. We Palestinians are angry because we are so disappointed and we are angry because we are disillusioned and we are angry because we are drowning in sorrow.
Our disappointment lies in the fact that the world has failed us in the worst possible way and has allowed the unspeakable to be committed against us. Genocide is the ‘mother of all crimes’ and, contrary to the promises, the conventions and the historical lessons the world was supposed to learn, it has been committed over and over again. The Palestinian genocide, however, is unique in at least one way: it is live-streamed, which means no one can claim ignorance and everyone has a responsibility in stopping it. Hence, our disappointment is not limited to countries, Arab or otherwise, or to international and human rights organizations. It has spread to everyone in our orbit; acquaintances and people we thought were friends, but whose silence towards our slaughter is a deafening betrayal. Our sense of disappointment has discolored every relationship it touches because every relationship for us is a dichotomy: you are either with or against genocide and either support Palestine in word and deed, or not.
Our anger is a thin veil concealing our disillusion with the international community and its institutions, supposedly established to protect people in situations precisely like ours. We have confirmed what we knew all along, that these organizations were constructed for some and not all, for colonial powers and not those who suffer beneath them. Even when the highest court in the land rules in our favor, the Global North ensures that its ruling will not be implemented to save us, the oppressed, indigenous brown people whose lives apparently do not matter.
And finally, our anger is a survival mechanism to shield us from our own grief. Our sorrow over the murdered men, women and children, defenseless, homeless, starving and shivering in the cold, is so deep, so immense, we ourselves cannot fathom it. If we dare peek behind this anger and truly feel a fraction of the aching in our hearts, it will paralyze us for sure, because no people can endure the magnitude and scale of such suffering and not lose their minds.
We Palestinians know we cannot let go and that a new day is near. We know we must hold on just a little bit longer, because Palestine depends on it. We are no strangers to oppression, suffering and sacrifice and we know the price of our freedom has and continues to be painfully high. Still, we also know that a life without shackles and the yoke of oppression around our weary necks is the only life worth living.
Killing the flowers will not delay spring
Date posted: February 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker
This may be the hardest article I’ve written so far, for obvious reasons. As the genocide in Gaza grinds on into its fourth month, with winter in full force, the situation is so dire it has been described as hell on earth. To date, some 27,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel, nearly 70% of them women and children. Another 70,000 have been wounded and at least 1.9 million people have been displaced. With only 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip to start with, this computes to 1% of its population being exterminated, and in less than four months.
However, in the midst of these horrific times, let us allow ourselves a sliver of hope. The ICJ ruling, announced on January 26, prompted mixed feelings among Palestinians who naturally, wanted to hear a clear and firm demand on Israel to stop its onslaught. However, even without the express demand for a ceasefire, the ICJ offered something to the Palestinians for which they have been demanding for many years: their suffering, their plight and the brutal oppression they live under, was finally acknowledged by the highest court in the world. More importantly, Israel is being called out for its crimes, displayed in real time for all to see. For this, we will be eternally grateful to South Africa and its exceptional legal team for bringing this case of genocide to the ICJ and forcing the world to look straight down the barrel of Israel’s cruel intentions.
Of course, for the Palestinians, we did not need an international court to tell us that Israel is committing a genocide, but it was cathartic to hear this acknowledged on a global platform. While we are aware that the actual charge of genocide perhaps needs years to prove, it only takes hearing the ruling and the case argued by South Africa to surmise that Israel is as good as convicted.
This is not insignificant, and we will cling to any shred of hope we can find in this unjust world. Having said that, this is no time to rest. If anything, it is time to push even harder because now, we have ICJ rulings in our favor and legal backing to claims we already knew were legitimate.
However, while this may have offered us some ray of light in the darkness in which we are all engulfed, the fact of the matter is that things continue to worsen on the ground in Gaza. This genocide is so heinous, not only in the brutality of the Israeli bombs and denial of basic aid to the people of Gaza, but in the fact that its people are suffering from multiple and simultaneous injustices. That is, those who are being starved are the same people who have been displaced and the same people who have been injured and cannot receive medical attention. They are the same people who have lost their homes and family members and the same people who are under the rubble. One atrocity does not cancel out another in Gaza and that is what makes this genocide so unimaginable.
We have reached a point where it is unnecessary to describe the horrors of life in Gaza because frankly, in the past four months, everyone has seen them. It is not a matter of the world not knowing. This may have been the case in other genocides and atrocities, but not this one. It really boils down to two things: The dehumanization of the Palestinians and Israel’s impunity for its crimes, the latter being a direct result of the former.
Shame on the world for accepting Israel’s vile propaganda, hook, line and sinker. Shame on the “western world” in particular, who we will never forgive. Shame on them all for aiding and abetting the slaughter of our people, their displacement, starvation and annihilation. This will not go unnoticed in the annals of history, which will paint each and every accomplice in the criminal light it deserves.
But these despicable powers do not know the lion-hearts of the Palestinians and their fierce loyalty to Palestine. They will never be able to kill us all and my hope is that this thought haunts them day and night.
A sign held up in one of the many protests around the world reads: “Killing the flowers will not delay spring”. Our Spring is coming, without a doubt.
