It’s no accident that the Israeli army didn’t stop the violence in Huwara: such intimidation is key to how the state rules over my people
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undreds of Israeli settlers descended on Sunday night on the Palestinian town of Huwara near Nablus in the West Bank. They assaulted Palestinian civilians, shot one dead and set dozens of buildings and cars on fire. Thisrampage occurredin one of the most militarised territories in the world. Yet as far as we were concerned, the Israeli army, the strongest in the Middle East, was missing in action.
Witnessing such a violent rampage, many observers resort to calls for a “return to calm” in Palestine. But such feeble calls are no longer adequate – if they ever were. One cannot ignore the recurrent nature of settlers’ violence and the way it acts as a pillar of Israel’s rule over the Palestinians. The infliction of violence with impunity, the army’s enabling of this violence and the denial of basic rights embody the existing order. Sunday’s rampage is thus a manifestation of the status quo in Palestine, not an exceptional occurrence or momentary disorder.
Even prior to the formation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent cabinet, informed observers noted that settler violence in the West Bank was state sanctioned. But this time the chief arsonists are in government. The settlers’ violence is now effectively encouraged by a government in which far-right, ultra-nationalist settlers are the kingmakers. The cabinet is intent on increasing the demolitions of Palestinian homes, and on expanding settlement activity. It is also leading a vindictive and heavy-handed policy against all Palestinians.
A recent example of this is the Israeli parliament’s enactment of a law, with an overwhelming majority, that empowers the interior minister to revoke the Israeli citizenship or residency status of political prisoners convicted of terror offences who receive financial aid from the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli national security minister, who is leading this campaign, was convicted in 2007 by an Israeli court of “incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation”.
But the clearest example came this week. In an agreement struck between the ruling coalition, the finance minister, himself a settler, received broad responsibilities over civilian matters relating to settlements in the West Bank. The reason this is significant is because the West Bank is supposed to be under a military administration. The new arrangement normalises the settlers’ status in relation to Israeli state authorities. They will be treated as if they were ordinary citizens, even though their very presence in an occupied territory is a war crime.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz called this agreement an advancement of “full-fledged apartheid”. Others called it an act of “de jure annexation”, and thus contrary to rules (recently reaffirmed in the case of Ukraine) that prohibit the acquisition of territory by force.
Although this bureaucratic reorganisation of Israeli rule over the West Bank does not amount to legislative annexation – which the Israeli parliament did in the cases of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – the impact on the lives of Palestinians is the same. The West Bank settlers who siton the supreme court, in the parliament and in government are seeking to consolidate Jewish supremacy over all Palestinians. And this cabinet agreement merely accelerates the process of colonising Palestine. Slowly but surely it would eradicate the legal smokescreen of temporary military occupation that has hitherto disguised Zionist expansionism.
Even prior to the agreement, it has long been evident that the longest military occupation since the second world war cannot be regarded as a temporary occupation. Israel rules over all Palestinians between the river and the sea, does not grant them equal rights and denies millions of them the right to vote. Jewish citizens are systematically privileged over, and segregated from, Palestinians. The “iron wall” doctrine seeks to make Palestinians’ lives miserable so they would leave or acquiesce to their inferior status. Public figures who made threats to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, promising them a “second Nakba”, are part of the mainstream discourse in Israel.
Is it sufficient to call for return to calm after decades of occupation and colonial annexation? In eastern Europe, a swift and unconditional international mobilisation has supported the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian occupation and annexation. Palestinians, too, need support to resist and achieve their rights. Instead of calling for a return to the status quo, we must fundamentally rethink the way things are to ensure freedom and equality for all.
Nimer Sultany is reader in public law at Soas University of London. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel
‘Never like this before’: settler violence in West Bank escalates
Retaliatory rampage in Palestinian village likened to ‘Kristallnacht in Huwara’ with one dead and 350 injured
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here is a large rolling gate at the entrance to the small Palestinian village of Za’atara, in the north of the occupied West Bank, but it is rarely closed. On Sunday, however, wary that Israeli settlers living in the area were seeking revenge for the murder of two brothers shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in nearby Huwara, Za’atara’s residents were braced for retaliatory violence.
It didn’t take long for the settlers to arrive. Villagers said that by dusk, about 100 armed Israelis, accompanied by a dozen Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, had massed on the road outside the entrance, and after the troops tried to intervene several of the settlers began shooting. Sameh Aqtash, a 37-year-old blacksmith who had just returned from earthquake volunteering efforts in Turkey, was shot in the stomach. Because the army would not clear the road for an ambulance to reach him, he bled to death, Aqtash’s nephew Fadi said.
Aqtash was somehow the only fatality during an unprecedented hours-long settler rampage in the vicinity of Huwara overnight: more than 350 Palestinians were injured, while dozens of homes and businesses and hundreds of cars were set alight, according to rights groups and Palestinian officials. In an article published on Monday morning, a prominent rightwing Israeli commentator, appalled by the reported inaction of the IDF, dubbed the events “Kristallnacht in Huwara”.
Sunday’s riot was triggered by the murders of Hillel Yaniv, 22, and Yagel Yaniv, 20, from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha. Route 60, the Israeli road running north to south through the middle of the territory, cuts right through the middle of Huwara, making the village a well-known flashpoint.
A gunman rammed into the brothers’ car while they were driving through, reports said, and shot them several times at point-blank range before fleeing the scene. Israeli forces are still searching for the as-yet unidentified attacker, who is believed to have been able to escape arrest owing to the chaos caused by the settler rampage.
“Of course there are lots of settlers and army around here and sometimes that is difficult but they have never come to Za’atara before like this,” Fadi Aqtash said, as he put his arm around one of Sameh’s five children outside the village mourning tent. Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the distance. “We are very worried about what will happen now,” the 29-year-old said.
Incidents of settler violence across the West Bank happen every day, and have steadily increased over the past few years: many of the 700,000 or so Israelis living in the territory and East Jerusalem are motivated by what they see as a religious mission to restore the historical land of Israel to the Jewish people.
Israeli settlers burn Palestinian homes after brothers shot dead – video
Shootings, knife attacks, burning crops, vandalism and the theft of land and livestock are supposed to make life for Palestinians so unbearable they have no choice but to leave. On many occasions, the Israeli army has been documented failing to stem the violence, or even joining in.
No one the Guardian spoke to in the Huwara area on Monday, however, could recall such an intense and widespread episode, which Palestinians and Israelis fear could lead to more attacks on both sides and a return to full-blown conflict.
Stability in the region has arguably already broken down. Last year was the bloodiest on record in Israel and the West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of the 2000s. About 63 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have been killed so far in 2023, mostly in IDF raids and Palestinian terrorist attacks.
Also on Sunday, Israel and Palestinian security officials met in Jordan for the first high-level talks in years aimed at calming tensions before the imminent Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is often a catalyst for escalation.
It does not seem likely that the situation on the ground can improve. The Palestinian Authority (PA), the West Bank’s semi-autonomous governing body, has all but lost control of several areas in the north of the territory to newly formed militias that do not take orders from the traditional Palestinian factions.
At the same time, Israeli security forces appeared to be unprepared or unwilling to deal with the scale of the settler violence in Huwara on Sunday, despite the fact that settler leaders made public calls for a march to “wipe out” Huwara in revenge for the deaths of the two brothers.
The Israeli military estimated that between 300 and 400 people took part in the rampage, although only 10 arrests have been made, and anonymous security officials told Israeli media that plans made by the IDF’s central command were “faulty”.
A joint communique from the Jordan summit expressing “readiness and commitment to work immediately” to prevent further violence was not just undermined by the rioting in Huwara, but by members of the Israeli government.
Several elements of Israel’s new far-right administration are ardent members of the settler movement, who have variously called for the full annexation of the West Bank, relaxing the rules of engagement for Israel’s police and soldiers, and harsher punishments for Palestinians who commit terror attacks. Their plans to neuter Israel’s supreme court have also prompted the biggest political crisis in the country’s history, bringing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets in protest against moves they say will erode democratic norms.
While the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a video statement on Sunday night calling on people not to “take the law into their own hands”, members of his coalition fanned the flames, telling the IDF to show “no mercy” and visiting the scene to support the rioters.
By Monday, they had melted away, and the streets of Huwara were deserted except for soldiers and armoured patrol vehicles that roared up and down the main road. At Tapuach junction, a settlement known for its violent outlook to the south of the village, settlers carrying pistols and automatic rifles mingled with IDF units as they waited to march on Huwara again in the evening as part of the funeral procession for the killed brothers. Meanwhile, in the south of the West Bank, reports emerged of another shooting attack that killed a 27-year-old Israeli.
Inspecting the damage at his workplace in the middle of Huwara, Sakir, a 22-year-old mechanic, said that he thought the Israeli settlers living in the area had grown bolder since the new Israeli government entered office in December. “They know they can do whatever they like,” he said.
Pollutants known as “forever chemicals”, which don’t break down in the environment, build up in the body and may be toxic, have been found at high levels at thousands of sites across the UK and Europe, a major mapping project has revealed.
The map shows that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of about 10,000 chemicals valued for their non-stick and detergent properties, have made their way into water, soils and sediments from a wide range of consumer products, firefighting foams, waste and industrial processes.
Two PFAS have been linked to an array of health problems. PFOA has been connected with kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol and pregnancy-induced hypertension. PFOS has been associated with reproductive, developmental, liver, kidney, and thyroid disease. At lower levels PFAS have been associated with immunotoxicity.
The substances have been found at about 17,000 sites across the UK and Europe. Of these, PFAS have been detected at high concentrations of more than 1,000 nanograms a litre of water at about 640 sites, and above 10,000ng/l at 300 locations.
“These sorts of concentrations raise concerns with me,” said Prof Crispin Halsall, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University. “You have the risk of livestock gaining access to those waters and [then PFAS is] in the human food web.” Halsall says there are also risks involving people “accessing wildlife as food sources like fishing and wildfowl”.
The map shows that Belgium is home to the highest levels of pollution, where PFAS was found in groundwater at concentrations up to 73m ng/l around 3M’s PFAS manufacturing site in Zwijndrecht, Flanders.
People living within 15km (10 miles) of the site have been told not to eat any eggs laid in their gardens and to avoid homegrown vegetables. Meanwhile, 70,000 people living within a 5km (3 mile) radius of the plant have been offered a blood test to look for the presence of PFAS. 3M says it will remediate the site and has “signed an agreement with the Flemish region … with an investment amount of €571m” (£503m). It has also announced plans to exit PFAS manufacturing “and work to discontinue the use of PFAS across its product portfolio by the end of 2025”.
Residents of Zwijndrecht, Antwerp and the surrounding area demonstrate with eggs to request the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into PFOS pollution. Photograph: David Pintens/BELGA/AFP/Getty Images
In the Netherlands, an accident involving PFAS in firefighting foam has contaminated land around Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, resulting in soils containing extremely high levels of PFOS. Some airports and military sites in Germany have been found to have similar problems.
In the UK, the highest levels of PFAS were found in a discharge from a chemicals plant on the River Wyre, above Blackpool. Fish in the river have been found to contain high levels of PFAS, with flounder containing up to 11,000ng/kg, according to data from Defra’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science.
Prof Ian Cousins, an environmental scientist at Stockholm University, said that sites with readings above 1,000ng/kg should be “urgently assessed” so that they can be remediated.
“At [highly] contaminated sites, local authorities should consider testing to ensure that PFAS levels are safe in local produce. This would help determine if local health advisories and publication campaigns to discourage regular consumption of wild fish, shellfish, free range eggs … are needed,” he added.
Halsall said: “PFAS in groundwater is a big problem because if that groundwater is abstracted for farming, or more importantly for humans as a water source, then you’ve got PFAS in your drinking water and it’s very difficult to remove.”
The map shows that drinking water sources in the UK have been contaminated with PFAS but water companies say that the chemicals do not make it into the final tap water because it would first either be blended with another source to dilute the PFAS, or it would undergo a specialised treatment process and be removed.
Data obtained from water companies and the Environment Agency by the Guardian and Watershed shows that since 2006 about 120 samples of drinking water sources have been found to contain concentrations of PFOS or PFOA at above the 100ng/l level – the point at which the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s (DWI) guidelines state that water companies should take action to reduce it before supplying it to people’s homes. Until 2009, the DWI guideline limit was much higher, at 3,000ng/l.
The guideline limits for PFAS in drinking water are much lower in the US, where the Environmental Protection Agency has set a health advisory limit of 0.004ng/l for PFOA and 0.02ng/l for PFOS. In Denmark, the Environmental Protection Agency stipulates that drinking water must not contain more than 2ng/l for the sum of four PFASs.
Drinking water limits for PFAS continue to be brought down in response to growing evidence about their health impacts, according to Rita Loch-Caruso, a professor of toxicology at the University of Michigan. “We’re finding health effects at lower and lower concentrations – in the single digits,” she said.
Chemist and PFAS expert Roger Klein said he believes the UK’s “DWI limits are ridiculously high by current international standards”.
He also believes the practice of blending water to dilute the PFAS is wrong. “It is the lazy way out and it doesn’t remove the PFAS, which remains a problem since [they are] highly persistent and bioaccumulative.”
A Defra spokesperson said the UK had “very high standards” for drinking water and that water companies were “required to carry out regular risk assessments and sampling for PFAS to ensure the drinking water supply remains safe.
“PFAS chemicals are in the environment because they have been used widely in products and are extremely persistent. Since the 2000s we have taken action to increase monitoring and support a ban or highly restricting specific PFAS both domestically and internationally,” they said, adding that the department would continue to work with regulators to understand the risks.
Despite the large number of detections revealed by the map, it is thought to be the tip of the iceberg. The Environment Agency has admitted that PFOS – known to be toxic to fish and other aquatic life – is ubiquitous in the environment and that the presence of PFOS in rivers will mean that many will not meet water quality standards until 2039.
In the UK just PFOS and PFOA are regulated. In the EU, there is a proposal to regulate PFASs as one class, rather than to attempt to deal with each substance independently. The European Chemicals Agency says that about 4.4m tonnes of PFAS will end up in the environment over the next 30 years unless action is taken.
The Fluoropolymers Product Group (FPG) opposes the EU’s moves to treat all PFAS as one class, instead advocating differentiating between fluoropolymers and other PFAS groups, and considering the different risk profiles and uses of each group separately. “While the FPG understands the concerns related to the potential persistency of most of PFAS, we consider that this concern for the environment can be managed through alternative restrictions rather than a ban,” said Nicolas Robin, director of the FPG.
“[PFAS pollution] is similar to plastic pollution in that these chemicals are not degradable, [but] in the case of PFAS it is invisible,” said Cousins. “We continuously release them, so the levels in the environment will continue to increase and it’s only a matter of time before the levels of PFAS in the environment or in our bodies pass the threshold where there will be an effect on human health,” he said.
The Forever Pollution Project was initially developed by Le Monde (France), NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), RADAR Magazine and Le Scienze (Italy), The Investigative Desk and NRC (Netherlands) with the financial support of Journalismfund.eu and Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU); further investigated and published by Knack (Belgium), Denik Referendum (Czech Republic), Politiken (Denmark), YLE (Finland), Reporters United (Greece), Latvian Radio (Latvia), Datadista (Spain), SRF (Switzerland), Watershed Investigations/The Guardian (UK); and supported by Arena for Journalism in Europe for cross-border collaboration.
Some areas may appear on the map to have worse pollution problems than others but this could be a result of that region having a more rigorous monitoring regime in place, or being more willing to share data. For water concentrations, 1 ng/l is equivalent to 1ng/kg. Every effort has been made to ensure that the data, collected from a wide range of sources across the UK and Europe, is correct.
