In the past 10 years, the Israeli government has seized and demolished over 1,100 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, leaving over 5,000 people homeless––half of them children.

Enjoying total impunity with the protection of the US Empire, home demolitions by Israel in the West Bank has hit a ten-year high.

Over 200 homes have been demolished in 2016 alone, leaving 800 people homeless––400 of them children. Many hundreds more have orders to evacuate their homes and businesses for demolition.

While this activity led by the fanatical settler movement is illegal under international law, it is completely aided and abetted by the Israeli government.

With hundreds on notice to be evicted and their homes destroyed, Abby Martin goes on-the-ground throughout the West Bank investigating this dire human rights situation. She speaks to residents living under regular settler attacks from encroaching settlements and outposts illegal even under Israeli law, and sees first-hand how this crisis is worsening.

Home Demolitions for Illegal Settlements Surging

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WATCH PART II // Inside the Hotbeds of Israeli Settler Terror

FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles & @AbbyMartin

In her first on-the-ground report from Palestine, Abby Martin gives a first-hand look into two of the most attacked refugee camps in the West Bank: Balata and Aida camps. 

With millions of displaced Palestinians around the world, hundreds of thousands are refugees in their own country—many have lived packed into these refugee camps after being ethnically cleansed from their villages just miles away.

Inside Palestine’s Refugee Camps

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Aida camp is located between the municipalities of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Jerusalem and is near two large Israeli settlements – Har Homa and Gilo – considered illegal by the international community.

“Gilo is less than two km away and they have 24-hour fresh water, gardens and schools for children. We live just next to this settlement and we suffer from lack of all of these. We’ll never accept this. My home village is 40 minutes distant and I can’t reach it. It is not easy to be a refugee in my country,” Alazzo complained.

Aida has been a hot spot since the Second Intifada (also called as Al-Aqsa, a Palestinian uprising started in 2000) and refugees became highly exposed to violence as a result of military operations.

The increasing number of injuries in the camp are due to excessive force documented by the UN. In 2015, there were 84 incursions by Israeli security forces, 57 injuries (21 were minors), 44 arrests (including 13 minors), and one fatality with the death of a minor.

Walking through the alleys and narrow streets of Aida, it is common to hear stories about men and boys taken from their homes by Israeli security forces.

“We’re always afraid of our sons being taken by Israeli army. I never leave them alone. It is normal for the Israeli soldiers to take kids. It’s a scary life,” Sumayah Asad, a 40-year-old mother of six, told IPS.

It was a Friday morning, a sacred day for the Muslims, and she was handing out chocolates and sweets as gifts to whoever passed in front of her house. Asad said she was celebrating her 12-year-old son’s release after five days in detention.

“I’m happy now to see my son released from the Israeli occupation. Soldiers came to my house at three in the morning and caught my boy. They let him out after discovering he hadn’t done anything. Kids should be playing or be in the school, not in jail,” she said.

Although not everyone agrees that coexistence is possible among Jews and Palestinians, Munther Amira, 45, who was born in Aida and whose family came from the village Dier Aban (South Jerusalem), remains optimistic that peaceful change can be achieved.

“Yes, we can coexist. The idea of coexistence is based on human rights and should include our right of return. Here in Palestine, Christians and Muslims already live together. It’s difficult to develop a democracy under an occupation,” he told IPS.

By Fabíola Ortiz of Inter Press Service

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Watch a crucial introduction to The Empire Files coverage from Palestine, How Palestine Became Colonized.

Listen to Abby’s firsthand account of life under occupation in the West Bank, settler terror & being banned from Gaza during her trip to Palestine on Media Roots Radio.

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FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles & @AbbyMartin

WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles

The Empire Files looks at the long history of Zionist colonization, expansion and expulsion of the country’s indigenous inhabitants.

Giving critical historical context the occupation today, this timeline explores the creation of the state of Israel and how it came to cover so much land since.

From the early settlements, to the Nakba, to its conquest of the West Bank, Abby Martin reveals the brutally honest root of what is behind the so-called “Israel-Palestine conflict.”

How Palestine Became Colonized

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Listen to Abby’s firsthand account of life under occupation in the West Bank, settler terror & being banned from Gaza during her trip to Palestine on Media Roots Radio. 

Watch Abby’s first on-the-ground investigation inside two of Palestine’s most attacked refugee camps, Aida and Balata.

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FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles & @AbbyMartin

WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles

Recently I traveled for a month through the West Bank in Palestine. Despite all the things I’ve read and seen, nothing could have prepared me for what it was like on the ground.

The entire West Bank is under martial law style occupation, where Israeli forces brutalize and harass Palestinians on a daily basis. For just traveling with Palestinians we had M16s pointed in our faces several times. A man almost got executed just feet from us. It’s a war zone–except only one side has military might. 

One of the most underreported realities is that Israel is becoming a fascist theocracy, with every administration becoming more fanatical than the last. From life inside the refugee camps to under occupation and settler terror, I give a first-hand account of the real Israel/Palestine on a special two hour edition of Media Roots Radio.

Watch the first segment of The Empire Files’ Palestine series that covers the history of Zionism and brutally honest root of what is behind the so-called “Israel-Palestine conflict.”

Listen to all previous episodes of Media Roots Radio on soundcloud.

Follow me @AbbyMartin | @FluorescentGrey

As Palestine makes its way into the headlines again, it’s necessary to examine not only the history of the near 70 year occupation, but the media’s culpability in pushing a devotedly pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian narrative.

During the most recent assault against the besieged Gaza Strip, even the most progressive news outlets attempted to present “both sides” of what was transpiring, as though it was anything less than a horrific attack against an occupied people who continue to struggle for their survival.

The disingenuous mainstream rhetoric writes off Palestinians as being brutal savages or human shields. The human shield myth is especially pervasive throughout the Empire’s historical revisionism, despite there being usually no evidence to back it up. In this episode, Dan Cohen, an independent journalist who lived in Gaza throughout the last weeks of the war, speaks about the terrifying moments he was made to be a human shield, not by Palestinians – but by Israeli forces.

Dan Cohen and Rania Khalek, associate editor at Electronic Intifada, join Abby Martin as she investigates the US media’s pro-Israel narrative and deep-rooted propaganda inside the settler colonial state.

The Distortion & Death Behind Israel/Palestine Coverage

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FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles and @AbbyMartin

WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles

Image by flickr user Jordi Bernabeu Farrus