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One human rights group said settlers aim "to impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons."
A day after the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas took effect, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem said Monday that attacks by settlers in the West Bank—carried out with the "full cooperation" of Israeli soldiers, according to one rights group—were meant to "impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians" as part of the truce.
West Bank residents shared accounts—backed up by footage that was verified by The New York Times—of masked Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied territory burning homes and vehicles on Sunday, with gangs of "dozens of men, some carrying slingshots," rampaging through at least three Palestinian villages.
The cease-fire deal reached last week was widely celebrated after more than 15 months of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 46,913 Palestinians.
But some on the far-right in Israel, including settlers in the West Bank, object to the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
In the first phase of the agreement, 33 Israeli hostages are set to be released by Hamas, while 737 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel and 1,167 Palestinians detained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will be freed. On Sunday, the first three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinians were released.
B'Tselem reported that a 15-year-old boy was killed in the West Bank town of Sabastiya by soldiers who "escorted" gangs of settlers on Sunday.
In Sinjil, the Times reported that dozens of men threw stones and set houses ablaze, injuring several people, including an 86-year-old man.
"People screamed as their homes were burning," a resident, Ayed Jafry, told the newspaper.
Villagers in Turmus Aya reported that Israeli police officers did not try to stop at least 20 masked settlers who entered the town and threw stones, and CCTV footage showed Israeli police cars in the area.
Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli Knesset who has expressed support for South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, called on the international community to "enforce accountability on its own and bring these violent, racist criminals to justice."
"If their flames of hatred will not be vanquished," said Cassif, "it will engulf us all."
Israeli forces killed at least 19 Palestinians during the delay, on top of nearly 47,000 others slaughtered since October 2023.
Israeli forces killed at least 19 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning during a three-hour delay in implementing a cease-fire and hostage-release deal that Israel's Cabinet finally approved the previous day.
After over 15 months of a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes on Gaza were set to stop at 8:30 am local time, due to a three-phase agreement negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations.
They did not, with deadly results. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza's Civil Defense, said Sunday that at least 19 people were killed and over 36 were injured from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. That's on top of the tens of thousands of people the Israeli assault and restrictions on humanitarian aid have killed since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
As of midnight Saturday, the Gaza Ministry of Health put the official death toll in the besieged Palestinian enclave at 46,913, with another 110,750 people injured and over 10,000 others missing in the rubble of former homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques, though experts warn the number of deaths is likely far higher.
At 9:17 am on Sunday, the IDF said that it was "continuing to operate and strike terrorist targets in Gaza," adding: "A short while ago, IDF artillery and aircraft struck a number of terrorist targets in northern and central Gaza. The IDF remains ready in offense and defense and will not allow any harm to the citizens of Israel."
Muhammad Shehada, a Gazan writer, called the delay a "last-minute trick" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and explained on social media that it was "under the pretext that Hamas hasn't submitted the list of three captives it'll release today."
As Shehada detailed:
Israel also reneged on the arrangement needed for Hamas to be able to submit such list; suspending surveillance drones and bombardment in the hours preceding the cease-fire so that it becomes logistically possible for Hamas' members on the ground and abroad to contact each other and figure out which hostages are alive and where without compromising their whereabouts and risking being bombed or raided by the IDF.
Hamas was forced to submit the list under fire and spy drones, which meant Israel exploited this to try to locate and snatch some captives last minute. Israel now succeeded in reaching the body of the soldier Oron Shaul, whom Hamas had been holding captive since 2014.
Ultimately, Hamas submitted the list and the pause in fighting took effect—at least for now—enabling displaced Palestinians to start returning to what is left of their communities and the process of releasing captives to begin with three Israelis and 90 Palestinians. During the deal's first 42-day phase, there are plans to free 33 Israelis taken hostage by Palestinian militants, 737 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and 1,167 Palestinians detained by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The three Israeli hostages—Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, and Doron Steinbrecher—were transfered to the International Committee of the Red Cross at a square in central Gaza City. The IDF confirmed that the Red Cross was bringing the women to Israeli troops.
The Associated Press on Sunday obtained from Hamas a list of the first 90 Palestinian prisoners set to be freed. They included 15-year-old Mahmoud Aliowat; 53-year-old Dalal Khaseeb, the sister of former Hamas second-in-command Saleh Arouri; 62-year-old Khalida Jarrar, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader; and 68-year-old Abla Abdelrasoul, the wife of detained PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat.
In less than a year, more than a dozen U.S. officials publicly resigned in protest of Biden's policy on Israel-Palestine. I was one of them.
Every so often, countless young hopefuls arrive in Washington, D.C., eager to help implement policies that improve the lives of Americans. But some quickly come to find out that U.S. imperialism bleeds into all areas of policy, it impacts all facets of government directly or indirectly, and sometimes at the expense of Americans in need. That was my rude awakening, at least.
I was one of those young hopefuls, and two years later, I publicly resigned from my post as a political appointee in the Biden-Harris administration because the cost of U.S. imperialism occupied every one of my thoughts. I felt I strayed away from my goal of pursuing justice through policy every time I thought about the cost of funding destruction and death in Palestine at the expense of us Americans, roughly half of whom are struggling to afford food, clothing, and housing.
And I am not the only one who resigned under President Joe Biden. In less than a year, more than a dozen U.S. officials publicly resigned in protest of Biden's policy on Israel-Palestine, and many others left quietly. This level of dissent within the realm of government is unheard of and it can be characterized as a fight against imperialistic policy.
If, in his final days, Biden strayed away from the norm far enough to pardon his own son, exemplifying the instinct we have to protect our family and keep them safe, he should have known of the hypocrisy in enabling the orphaning and killing of children in Palestine.
The imperialistic features of our government disillusion passionate people, it turns them away from a life of public service. It is difficult to stay motivated while seeing the military spending in our country grow astronomically by the year while education and transportation face steep budget cuts. Americans do not get to see the benefits of high military spending materialized, but they would directly benefit from sufficiently funded schools and public transportation. And imperialism only succeeds abroad in ruining the United States' reputation, casting it as a force wreaking havoc in the Global South. So, when I think about the United States' role in supporting Israel's aggression in Palestine, I wonder what it is all for in the grand scheme of bettering the lives of Americans.
If the administration's insistence on supporting Israel no matter the cost was about maintaining the status quo, something the Biden-Harris administration had no trouble straying away from in other cases, then it was both a failed and hypocritical policy. Biden did not mind the status quo when he chose a woman as a vice president in a historic first or when he nominated the first Black female Supreme Court Justice. One can argue those steps were superficial, but regardless, they signaled progress to some. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the same administration that took those steps tarnished their legacy when they, time and time again, failed Palestine on a catastrophic level.
My generation and community will remember this administration for one thing: genocide. It will go down in history as the administration that could not stray away from the status quo on Israel-Palestine policy at the expense of Americans in need, the lives of American activists like Ayşenur Eygi, and the safety of Arab and Muslim Americans. Not to mention, the Biden-Harris administration and Democratic Party leadership at large sacrificed the 2024 presidential election and Democratic voters in the process when they refused to campaign differently on Palestine.
As the Biden-Harris administration departs, their legacy is being immortalized. The hundreds of thousands of Americans who have advocated for a change in policy since October 2023 can argue that the legacy of the administration becoming stained permanently was avoidable.
If, in his final days, Biden strayed away from the norm far enough to pardon his own son, exemplifying the instinct we have to protect our family and keep them safe, he should have known of the hypocrisy in enabling the orphaning and killing of children in Palestine. If he was able to use his authority for good to commute the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row, he should have known to uphold the law and ensure Israel is not receiving an endless supply of weapons illegally. What may be worse than ignorant leaders are ones who are aware and indifferent, willingly complicit, and that may very well be the Biden administration's legacy.
Some updates have been made throughout this piece at the author's request.