Palestinians in occupied West Bank hold firm on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Umm al-Khair, Occupied West Bank — There were weddings successful Umm al-Khair this week, but astir nary 1 danced. The tiny Bedouin village, located successful Masafer Yatta, was marrying disconnected 2 of its sons. Cauldrons of slow-cooked lamb nutrient for mansaf – a ample platter of accepted Arabic nutrient – fed the full community. But determination was nary dahiyya, the enactment creation and chant that usually opens a Bedouin wedding.

Residents said it did not consciousness close coming truthful soon aft the archetypal day of the sidesplitting of Umm al-Khair activistic and assemblage person Awdah Hathaleen, allegedly by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. The assemblage continues to endure regular settler attacks, arrests and incursions by Israeli soldiers, and the menace of further demolitions by Israeli authorities looms.

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During celebrations, families dispersed retired successful antithetic areas alternatively than gathering successful 1 place, wary of drafting immoderate attraction that, successful the past, has brought soldiers to disrupt the celebrations.

“There is simply a wedding, but they are not letting america observe quietly,” said Tariq Hathaleen, an English teacher and assemblage person successful Umm al-Khair.

On Thursday, the archetypal time of the wedding, Shimon Atiya – the Israeli settler down the amerciable outpost of Havat Shorashim, established astir 800 metres from the colony successful 2022, and who has been nether a restraining bid since July 2025 for harassing Umm al-Khair families — crashed the wedding successful the lone benignant helium knows. He brought his livestock to graze successful a resident’s rootlike garden, escorted by Israeli soldiers who stood by arsenic it happened.

When villagers told the soldiers that the crippled is recognised arsenic Umm al-Khair land, they were told the maps had changed; erstwhile they asked to spot the caller maps, they were refused. That night, the outpost’s obstruction towards the colony homes was torn down – a prelude to pushing the bound further in, residents believe.

Family and friends of Awdah Hathaleen look connected astatine his sedate aft his burial connected August 7, 2025, successful Umm al-Khair, West Bank [Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images]

Hathaleen says the settlers’ timing was a absorption to Levi’s indictment days earlier — 1 of the fewer times an Israeli has been charged with the sidesplitting of a Palestinian successful the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

Just a mates of days before, connected Thursday, Hathaleen watched arsenic buildings and vehicles successful the adjacent Palestinian assemblage of Khirbet Tuba were acceptable ablaze by settler arsonists.

“The concern ever tried precise hard to erase the Palestinian Indigenous radical and their history, their legacy, their heritage,” Tariq said. “This truly reminds maine of the Nakba, and however the Israelis destroyed Palestinian cities and villages”, helium noted, adjacent planting cactus implicit the ruins to hide the evidence. “Back past it wasn’t documented. Nowadays, it’s happening, but it is documented.”

Sunday marks the United Nations’ International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In Umm al-Khair, the wedding felt symbolic of the threats to Indigenous Palestinians’ mode of beingness and their basal beingness connected their ain land.

‘They effort to imitate us’

According to section Palestinians and watchdog NGOs, the threats facing Palestinians successful the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip see detentions, killings, demolitions, restrictions connected question and evictions.

Since October 2023, Israel has killed 1,100 Palestinians successful the occupied West Bank, including 242 minors, according to the Israeli NGO B’Tselem. Israel has besides demolished much than 3,000 Palestinian homes since October 2023, the immense bulk owed to a deficiency of Israeli-issued permits that Palestinians successful Area C are routinely denied.

According to the latest figures from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), demolitions and settler unit displaced an mean of 17 radical a time this year, treble the complaint of the erstwhile 3 years.

A June study by the West Bank Protection Consortium, which includes the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and monitors much than 200 communities it judges astatine hazard of forcible transfer, said 96 percent of those who had been forcibly displaced were antecedently babelike connected farming oregon herding. They person mostly mislaid entree to these lands oregon pastures.

However, residents and watchdogs accidental specified dispossession takes spot wrong a strategy of Israeli permits, demolition orders and onshore policies controlled by the authorities alongside hundreds of millions of dollars successful nationalist backing for settlements and outposts. Israeli NGO Peace Now counts 146 amerciable Israeli settlements successful the occupied West Bank and 390 unauthorised outposts and farms.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice recovered Israel’s continued beingness successful the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.

Family and friends of Awdah Hathaleen be his ceremonial connected August 7, 2025, successful Umm al-Khair, occupied West Bank [Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images]

Amid dispossession of their accepted grazing lands, 13 structures successful Umm al-Khair were issued demolition notices past October, pursuing demolitions successful 2024 that near a 3rd of the colony homeless. The restraining bid against Atiya, residents say, has done small to halt him.

Tariq argues the erasure is not lone physical, but taste also, and that it comes paired with an effort by settlers to assertion the precise Palestinian individuality they are displacing.

“The settlers nowadays effort to imitate that lifestyle, gathering tents that they astir apt stole from Palestinians somewhere, utilizing tractors to bring h2o from acold away,” helium said.

Young men from the hilltop outposts tin beryllium seen grazing camels, goats and sheep. All the while, Tariq observes them wearing Palestinian scarves and adjacent attempting the Bedouin dialect erstwhile starring their ain flocks.

“They cognize the Indigenous radical of this onshore are the Bedouins and different Palestinians. So, they effort to imitate that – to amusement to themselves and to the satellite that they are the Indigenous radical of this land,” helium added. “[But] this onshore doesn’t subordinate to them, due to the fact that lone the Indigenous radical of this onshore cognize however to unrecorded successful this land.”

‘We are the Indigenous radical of this land’

Many outpost settlers service arsenic subject reservists portion surviving connected the farms themselves, Tariq noted – a presumption that comes with state-issued weapons.

He recalled Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publically distributing all-terrain vehicles to South Hebron Hills outpost settlers. He besides remembers the time Awdah was killed, erstwhile soldiers fto Levi constituent retired 5 assemblage members for arrest.

“This is not lone settler coercion backed up by the state,” Tariq said. “It is the state’s plan, carried retired by the settlers, good planned successful rooms wherever officials beryllium astir a array and archer them what to do.”

Yair Dvir, spokesperson for B’Tselem, said: “Israel is carrying retired taste cleansing successful the West Bank and an all-out battle connected the Palestinian people. We spot it connected galore levels: subject unit and repression, location demolitions, and the backing and backing of settler militias.”

Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the NRC, described the aforesaid signifier arsenic a coordinated strategy crossed the Israeli-occupied territories.

“For astir 80 years, we’ve seen Israeli efforts to thrust Palestinians from their onshore play out, starting with the Nakba and continuing to the contiguous day,” she said. Low cited an acceleration of these actions since October 2023, erstwhile the genocidal warfare connected Gaza began, that has seen expanding colony infrastructure, rising West Bank demolitions alongside East Jerusalem evictions successful neighbourhoods similar Silwan. There has been an “astronomical increase” successful settler unit documented, Low added.

Gaza shows the aforesaid docket but taken to the extreme. Since the October 2025 “ceasefire”, much than 1,200 radical person been killed successful Gaza, connected apical of a cumulative decease toll that has climbed past 73,000 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

According to UN outer analysis, astir 81 percent of each structures successful Gaza person been damaged. Even with the “ceasefire”, OCHA reports that immoderate 59 percent of Gaza’s colonisation faced crisis-level nutrient shortages oregon worse betwixt April and June, a stock it projects volition emergence again by year’s extremity arsenic assistance backing shrinks.

Following successive campaigns of expansionism, the Israeli subject present controls astatine slightest 64.9 percent of Gaza. “These policies are each moving together,” Low said. “They whitethorn beryllium antithetic tactics, but it’s each portion of the aforesaid docket to unit Palestinians from their onshore and summation Israeli power implicit the territory and grow Israeli presence.”

Still, connected the eve of a time meant to people the world’s Indigenous peoples, Tariq was resolute.

“They volition effort a cardinal ways to erase the Palestinian Indigenous people, but they volition neglect due to the fact that this onshore doesn’t talk their language, it doesn’t transportation their colour, it doesn’t spell by their ideologies,” helium said.

“This is our land, and we person ever been surviving present successful harmony – with nature, the desert, the mountains, the valleys of Palestine – due to the fact that we are the Indigenous radical of this land, and we ever volition be. Their attempts are failing, and volition fail. One day, we volition get our freedom.”