Palestinian refugees flee Israeli brutality during the Nakba (Pic: Flickr/ gnuckx)
‘I was born and raised in a refugee camp, and have to see checkpoints and people getting killed every day. This is the only sort of life that I know.”
These are the words of Mayar, a charity worker speaking to Socialist Worker from the occupied West Bank in Palestine. For her and millions of other Palestinians living under occupation, the Nakba—when Palestinians were expelled from their land—is not a distant memory but a constant reality.
And in the city where Mayar works, Hebron, racist apartheid laws imposed by the Israeli state make the lives of Palestinians near unliveable.
Nisreen Hashem Azzeh is a Palestinian artist who lives in Tel Rumeida, a residential part of Hebron. She knows all too well that racist laws, border walls and checkpoints exist to make the lives of Palestinians hell.
Violence from Israeli soldiers combined with apartheid laws led to the death of Nisreen’s husband, Hashem in 2015. Hashem suffered a heart attack triggered by tear gas thrown by Israeli soldiers at Palestinian protesters.
Due to Israel’s racist laws, ambulances are barred from reaching certain Palestinian neighbourhoods, which meant Hashem couldn’t get the medical attention he desperately needed. He was then rushed to a checkpoint so he could get to the nearest hospital in the centre of Hebron. But he was denied entry by Israeli soldiers, and they had to find an alternative route.
Shortly after he arrived at the hospital, he died.
Nisreem explained to Socialist Worker that the same racist rules that led to her husband’s death make life unbearable for Palestinians. “In my area of Tel Rumeida, there are many barriers and military checkpoints. Relatives are prevented from visiting each other due to the erection of the separation wall. We now must use long, rugged roads to visit other Palestinian cities.
“Palestinian residents are barred from using the main street in their cars. They are only allowed to travel on foot. Even ambulances are prevented from reaching this area.”
“During the harvest season Palestinians are stopped from harvesting their crops, especially during the olive harvest season. The Israeli soldiers let settlers try to stop the harvest, and sometimes they beat us” she added. To get to work in Hebron, Mayar must walk through three checkpoints.
To intimidate Palestinians like her, Israeli guards search bags. Mayar told Socialist Worker that the racist discrimination against Palestinians compared with the freedom of Jewish settlers is plain to see in the city.
“When I get to work I see settlers moving freely,” she said. “They carry weapons with them without being stopped. Sometimes we get attacked, but if we touch any of them, we can be arrested or even beaten up.”
She explained the ordeal Palestinians are forced to go through to visit different parts of the occupied territories, even if they are not far from each other. She added that this is how the Israeli state tries to stop cooperation between Palestinians scattered across occupied Palestine.
“I wanted to visit Jerusalem with some of my friends who are foreigners. To do this, I had to apply for a permit. You can quite easily be denied a permit. If you have the wrong last name you can be denied. If you are affiliated with a certain political party or have been imprisoned, you can be denied.”
“When I got to Jerusalem, I was constantly stopped and asked to show my ID. I saw foreigners and settlers walk right beside me, and they weren’t asked. Only Arabs and Muslims were stopped.”
Hebron was divided into two sectors in 1997, the first known as H1, controlled by the Palestinian National Authority and H2, controlled by the Israeli military. In theory the Hebron protocol, signed by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), handed 20 percent of the city to Jewish settlers.
The remaining 80 percent would remain under the Palestinian authority. But in reality the Israeli state has never given up control of Hebron.
In a city home to some 300,000 Arabs, a tiny number of Israelis live in the city centre, protected by gangs of dedicated soldiers. And on the outskirts of Hebron, settlers have felt even more confident to try and run Palestinians off their land owing to an Israeli government that has been steadily lurching further to the right.
“In reality, the whole city is under occupation,” headteacher Dr Reem Alshareef told Socialist Worker. “H2 is surrounded, and checkpoints enclose it. If you want to go there as a Palestinian, you can’t even step on the street in certain places.
“Around 2,000 Israeli soldiers protect around 500 Israeli settlers that live in the heart of Hebron. That’s too many soldiers for such a small number of settlers.”
“So it’s impossible to feel safe. Children need to feel they won’t be attacked by settlers or the occupation soldiers.”
Both Nisreen and Reem agree that the violence and oppression that Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere face are getting worse. “Things are getting worse in terms of racial discrimination. The youth are being deliberately killed, and Palestinians are being denied their right to work and pray.
“Settlers are continuing to try and steal our land,” said Nisreen. Reem agreed and added, “In 1948, Israel occupied less than half of Palestine. Now the whole country is under occupation.”
“We can’t leave without their permission, and we can’t come home without their permission. Palestinians left and are displaced across the world, but cannot come back. The occupation continues to get worse.”
Mayar explained that the deteriorating situation, made even worse by high unemployment, is pushing mostly young people to look for alternative ways to resist.
“Some of the older generations might have trusted the PA, but the young generation doesn’t. They’ve seen that they have taken part in peace talks that have had no result.
“Now in places like Nablus and Jenin, some young people believe that armed resistance is the way forward. Sadly they are being attacked by both the PA and the occupation forces.
“The PA is even trying to arrest them, claiming this will protect them. I have friends who have been arrested by the PA or occupation forces for Facebook posts. Young people have lost hope that the PA will us lead to liberation.”
For all three women, an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people will not come through peace treaties or parties that bow to the Israeli state or imperialist powers. Instead hope lies with ordinary people both within and outside of Palestine.
Nisreen argued that it’s important to remember that Palestinian resistance can still frighten the Israeli state, like mass protests and strikes did in 2021.
“For me the injustice will not last,” she said. “One day the night will clear.”
In May 1948, the Israeli then-prime minister David Ben‑Gurion signed Israel’s founding declaration. And while the Zionist movement cheered, the Palestinian people describe this day simply as the Nakba—or catastrophe.
The creation of Israel led to the expulsion of nearly one million people from their homes and laid the foundation for an apartheid system built on the oppression of Palestinians.
And it was wholeheartedly backed by imperialist powers. The United Nations signed off on a plan to hand more than half of Palestine to the colonisers just months before the creation of Israel.
But Israel’s founders had no intention of following this scheme. In 1949 Israel invaded Palestine and claimed all the land for itself. Since then it has always been the intention of Israel’s leaders to expand and shore up its control.
To do this the Zionist state has waged war on Palestinians. This goes alongside the development of racist tactics to intimidate, persecute and drive Palestinians from their homes and land that remain in place to this day.
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