LEILA FADEL, HOST:
We've been looking this week at how people's lives in the Middle East have been upended in the year since the war in Gaza began. Today, we turn to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli violence against Palestinians there has erupted both from settlers and the military. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports. And a warning - some of what you're about to hear is disturbing.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: This is one of the youngest classes at a primary school in Mu'arrajat, a rural Palestinian Bedouin community tucked into the rolling hills of the Jordan Valley near Jericho.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: On this day, the littlest ones are learning to count. But just a few days ago, the scene here was much, much different. When extremist Israeli settlers stormed the school, while it was in session, they wielded wooden bats and tried to break into locked classrooms where students were sheltering. In this video filmed that day by an Israeli human rights activist, you can see the Israeli settlers beat a young teacher and attack the activists who's filming.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Shouting).
LONSDORF: Nine-year-old Obeida Mleihat was there the day of the attack. NPR visited the next morning, and he showed us where he hid in his classroom.
OBEIDA MLEIHAT: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: Behind a fan in the corner, away from the door, he says. It was scary, he says.
SULEMAN MLEIHAT: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: Obeida's dad, Suleman Mleihat, is head of the community. He says he rushed to the school when he heard the attack was happening. He had two young kids there. He says the Israeli military showed up and blocked him and other parents from entering, but also didn't stop the settlers.
S MLEIHAT: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: My children are my soul, he says. So it was incredibly difficult to not know if they were OK. When he finally did get to them, he says he hugged them very tight. Suleman says he recognized this group of settlers. They've attacked the community before, poisoning sheep and hurting people. This, coming to the school, threatening children - this is new. They're trying to get us to leave, he says, to evict us. He says it might happen if attacks like this continue.
ALLEGRA PACHECO: Settler violence isn't about a group of young guys on a hilltop anymore.
LONSDORF: Allegra Pacheco is an American attorney who heads the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of international NGOs focused on protecting the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank from forced displacement and attacks. Pacheco has been working in the West Bank for decades. She says before October 7, most Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law, were relatively unconcerned with nearby Palestinians as long as they didn't interfere with settler life.
PACHECO: Now we're seeing much more rhetoric. Palestinians are the enemies, that they're legitimate targets.
LONSDORF: Rhetoric that has become mainstream.
PACHECO: And then that, of course, transfers into the violence that we're seeing.
LONSDORF: Attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank skyrocketed after October 7. The U.N. documented nearly 1,400 attacks which don't include harassment or threats in the past year, the highest number since the organization began collecting data nearly 20 years ago. The attacks are often orchestrated to intimidate Palestinians into leaving their land. Pacheco says about 17 communities have been forcefully displaced this way in the past year.
PACHECO: Once the Palestinians are chased out of these areas, the settlements move in and make it much harder to give back the land to the Palestinians.
LONSDORF: That is the goal. The Yesha Council, the Israeli umbrella organization for all the settlements in the West Bank, has it listed on its website in English - quote, "to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, with ultra-nationalist lawmakers in major positions of power overseeing the West Bank, encourages the expansion of illegal settlements and instructs the Israeli police and military to protect them. Meanwhile...
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time.
LONSDORF: ...World leaders like President Biden in his State of the Union address earlier this year are still pushing for a two-state solution. In the more heavily populated areas of the West Bank, violence has also upended Palestinian life in the form of longer, more destructive, and more deadly raids by the Israeli military, which have killed at least 678 Palestinians since October 7, according to the U.N. This is Jenin. In late August, the Israeli military launched one of its most extensive and deadliest raids in the West Bank in years. Jenin was the epicenter.
FARHA ABU HEJAH: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: Farha Abu Hejah is a community leader here. She points out all the damage done by the Israeli military in this recent operation, which lasted 10 days and killed 28 people.
ABU HEJAH: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: The streets have been ripped up - giant potholes from explosions. Much of the infrastructure was damaged too. Water and sewage flow through the streets, and power lines are ripped down. The Israeli military says operations like this are necessary for counter-terrorism. Jenin and other cities in the West Bank have long been militant strongholds, which have also grown more active since October 7. We get out of the car and Farha shows us through the streets. It's much worse here than before, she says, a complete destruction of life and infrastructure. Looks like Gaza, she says. Jenin is Gaza, but in the West Bank.
KHALIL SHIKAKI: This last three months have essentially brought in, I would say, tremendous fears that the destruction in Gaza is going to happen in the West Bank, as well.
LONSDORF: Khalil Shikaki is a political scientist and pollster in Ramallah. He says Palestinians in the West Bank are feeling increasingly unsafe, unprotected, and at the mercy of Israeli troops and even air strikes, which have restarted in the West Bank after many, many years.
SHIKAKI: And this has led to a significant rise in the perception of West Bankers that Gaza is coming to them.
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LONSDORF: Farha brings us to the Abu Ali family home, where 26 members of the extended family were living, including eight children, spread over three floors. Now the main floor apartment is charred, completely black, covered in debris. The back wall is blasted with a giant gaping hole. The matriarch of the family, Raeda, says that Israeli soldiers arrived in the night and ordered everyone out of the house. They carried a gas canister into the back room.
RAEDA: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: They told them, count to three, and you'll hear it explode. The children all covered their ears. That was a terrible moment she says, listening to her home blow up. She says the soldiers gave no reason for why they blew up the house. No one in her family is affiliated with any militant groups, she says. The Israeli military told NPR that it was not aware of this specific incident.
RAEDA: (Non-English language spoken).
LONSDORF: Raeda says they hope to rebuild, although she worries their home could be destroyed again. As Raeda speaks, her sister-in-law Samira begins weeding the front garden. Her 3-year-old son plays at her feet. Samira says these plants were blown across the courtyard in the explosion, but she picked them up and replanted them. She points to a small red flower and smiles. Look, she says. Even after all that, they bloom.
Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Jenin. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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