الكاتب: kafej

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – It was 1am when the group of first responders in Khan Younis received the call – there had been an Israeli air raid nearby.

Along with his colleagues, Sayyed Mohammed Abu Jamei rushed to the site and started digging through the rubble to find any survivors. In the middle of scrabbling frantically through the debris, Sayyed found himself looking at the body of his own brother, Hussein.

In the early hours of October 24, shocked and grief-stricken, he listened as a nearby wailing grew louder – before realising it was coming from himself.

Hussein’s mother, his wife Hadeel Abu Abed and their children all rushed to the hospital. They arrived only a few moments before he was buried, managing only a rushed final farewell inside a dangerously overcrowded morgue.

“They had one minute to say goodbye,” said Sayyed, 46. “The children were able to kiss him. But his wife and my mother only looked at him for the last time.

“My mother wished she could kiss him, but she couldn’t because of the crowd.”

Talking to Al Jazeera in the hospital’s waiting area, Sayyed’s eyes drifted as he tried to sum up who his brother was: “He was decent, he was level-headed, he was polite,” he repeated, over and over.

Hussein was only 32 when he died – killed by an Israeli missile that hit a residential neighbourhood in southern Khan Younis where he was sheltering with friends and extended family members.

His dream was to pay off some loans he had taken to build a small apartment above his parent’s house and to buy a car. Eventually, he wanted to save up enough to buy a piece of land to build a bigger house for his wife, three children, and unborn baby.

He often told his brother how much wanted his children to have a place where they could create beautiful memories. To achieve this dream, Hussein worked long hours as a driver, doing odd jobs from dusk to dawn in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“My brother was one of those people who you would like from the moment you met,” Sayyed said. “He had an ease and calm about him that would draw people to him.”

Twenty days before he was killed, Hussein had taken his pregnant wife and three children, Abdallah, 10, Ahmed, 7, and Hoda, three, to stay at his in-laws’ home in Bani Souhaila, further south in the strip.

He had also left the family’s apartment in the east of Khan Younis and moved to the south of the city.

A family torn apart

When they fell in love, Hadeel and Hussein had already been neighbours for a while.

They had a traditional Palestinian wedding, complete with a zaffeh (wedding procession) and have celebrated their wedding anniversary every year.

“Hadeel was everything to him,” Sayyed said. “He cherished and respected her, and tried to provide her with everything she needed.

“The day each of his children was born, Hussein was overjoyed and distributed sweets in the neighbourhood to share his joy,” Sayyed added.

“Hussein had a special bond with his kids. He was a child at heart and doted on his children despite the hardships of his life.

“He made sure to take time out of his busy day to play with them and to do the things they liked to do. He even used to play with them in the street.”

Hussein missed his children terribly during the period they were separated, Sayyed said. He tried to go see them as often as he could – the last time was on the day before he was killed. Despite the danger, he checked also on his parents in the al-Zana district in eastern Khan Younis, five kilometres (3.1 miles) away, every two to three days.

“Hussein had a very warm and loving relationship with my parents and siblings. He was very attached to his kids and wife. God help them. He would make sure to help the children with their homework, he wanted them to excel. He would call them ‘Dr Abdallah’, ‘Dr Hoda’,” Sayyed said, his voice trembling.

Asked about how Hussein’s wife was doing, he said despairingly: “We have 10,000 martyrs in Gaza. She reacted like any of the people who have lost loved ones.”

Sombre and exhausted, Sayyed thought about what his brother would have wanted if he had lived.

“He wasn’t a man of grand ambitions. He wanted what an average young man his age wanted: to be content, have a decent life, and live in peace.”

This article was produced in collaboration with Egab.

Ukraine and Russia both claim to have thwarted major drone attacks as a former NATO chief warned against world attention shifting from the ongoing conflict.

Kyiv said its military had destroyed eight of nine unmanned aircraft launched overnight by invading forces.

There were no immediate reports of damage or about where the remaining device had struck.

The attack comes a day after what officials described as Russia’s largest drone offensive of the war.

Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia will target critical infrastructure in a winter aerial campaign, as it did last year.

Meanwhile, Moscow said it had shot down at least 20 drones over Russian territory, including the capital.

One person was injured in the city of Tula when an intercepted drone hit an apartment building, the region’s governor Alexei Dyumin said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said: “A mass drone attack was attempted overnight.”

Russian media reported flights were delayed or cancelled at Moscow’s main airports due to the drone attack.

Against this backdrop, former NATO secretary-general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen stressed the need for the international focus to “stay on Ukraine”, with the situation in Israel and Gaza dominating much of the news agenda.

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The Labour former defence secretary cautioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be emboldened to extend the attacks beyond Ukraine if foreign governments stop providing weaponry.

Lord Robertson, who led the military alliance between 1999 and 2003, welcomed the temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but said: “I think it is inevitable that because we’re seeing the television from Gaza every day, that people are paying less attention to Ukraine, but that must change.

“We have got to keep the world’s attention focused on Ukraine because they are involved in a fight with Russia that has got huge implications for all of us as well.

“Vladimir Putin is not simply interested in subjugating Ukraine.

“He has got a much bigger agenda in the future, and if he succeeds in Ukraine, who knows where he is going to stop.”

He added: “We cannot allow the Ukraine conflict to go down the attention span. That suits Vladimir Putin and nobody else.

“The fact is that most of his objectives have actually turned to dust. He wanted to stop NATO enlargement, and it is now bigger. He wanted to divide Europe and divide Europe from America, he failed in that respect.

“He wanted to take over the whole of Ukraine and now he is stuck in the Donbas. There’s a miserable failure there by the one man who made the decision to invade Ukraine.

“We have got to change the mind of that one man by staying absolutely united and making sure that Ukrainians get the weaponry and the ammunition they need, when they actually need it.

“That is the only way we’ll change Vladimir Putin’s mind. The stakes are enormously high because if Putin succeeds, he won’t stop at Ukraine.”

Lord Robertson also called for a long-term solution to resolve the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He said: “I think gradually the countries in the region will need to come together to find a long-term solution so that the Israelis and the Palestinians can live in harmony together.

“The present conflict will go on and on for years unless there is a long-term solution.”

Five Palestinians were shot dead in Jenin, while a sixth was killed in the village of Yatma in Nablus on Sunday.

Israeli forces have killed six Palestinians, including one minor, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, taking the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank to 239 since October 7.

Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians in the city of Jenin late on Saturday and early Sunday, and killed a sixth in the village of Yatma, near Nablus, the ministry said on Sunday. Six other Palestinians were injured in the Israeli raid in Jenin.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces stormed Jenin “from several directions, firing bullets and surrounding government hospitals and the headquarters of the Red Crescent Society”.

The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said it was looking into the reports.

The raids come despite an ongoing four-day truce between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas in the war-torn Gaza Strip, where nearly 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes.

Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed in the surprise Hamas attack on October 7, when the Palestinian group took about 240 people captive.

On Saturday, Hamas released 13 Israeli and four Thai captives, while Israel released a first batch of 39 Palestinian prisoners in exchange. More Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners are expected to be freed on Sunday.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 237 Palestinians, including 52 children, in the occupied West Bank, while arresting more than 3,000 people, as it intensified raids in the West Bank since launching its military offensive on Gaza.

Last year was the “deadliest” for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2006, according to the United Nations. Israeli forces had killed 170 Palestinians in those areas in 2022. This year, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 371 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“For every Palestinian prisoner [the Israelis] release, there seems to be a continued disregard for the freedoms of Palestinians they continue to detain, a continuous disregard for Palestinian life as they continue to kill people in very violent and endless raids in the occupied West Bank,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi, reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank.

Seven weeks of relentless Israeli attacks in Gaza killed at least 14,854 Palestinians, more than a third of them children, and displaced at least 1.5 million, according to Gaza officials.

Farmers in the occupied West Bank face near-daily incursions and violence from Israeli settlers, to the point that they live in fear of having their homes and land stolen, they say.

Added to that is the violence they witness in nearby urban areas, like Jenin city and refugee camp that the Israeli army stepped up raids on, killing 10 people and wounding 20 in just one week.

According to the Ministry of Health, at least 237 Palestinians have been killed and about 2,850 others injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7.

Farmer Ayman Assad, 45, and his family can clearly hear the attacks from their home just 2km (1.2 miles) from the camp and they have made the past few weeks a nightmare for him, his wife and five children.

“The children are constantly scared, and they don’t play outside any more, it’s too dangerous,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We can hear the attacks on the refugee camp, explosions and gunshots.”

Assad said his children are no longer going to school because even if they were to brave the route there, the Israeli army is blocking many of the roads in the area. All classes have gone online.

The greatest worry right now is that his chicken farm, which is further away in Area C of the West Bank, will be attacked by Israeli settlers while he is unable to defend it. “I’m scared my land will be stolen.”

Palestine is known for its olives, olive oil and vegetables, which are exported far and wide. The olive trees, in particular, are an important symbol of Palestinians’ attachment to their land.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Since then, about 700,000 Israeli settlers have illegally settled in the Palestinian territory. and have been stealing from, attacking and destroying olive groves, farmland and property there for years.

But these incursions have stepped up in recent weeks, as Israeli forces and settlers mount armed raids while Palestinians are confined to their homes under curfew, Abbas Milhem, director of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union (PAFU) in Ramallah said. His own family’s farm was among those targeted.

‘A second war is happening in the West Bank’

Just over two weeks ago, armed Israeli settlers invaded the Milhem farm, fired guns in the direction of the people working on the harvest and stole olives.

One of the workers at the farm, Iman Abdallah Jawabri, 45, was harvesting olives in a crew that included her husband when five settlers came in.

“They shot towards us as if they wanted to scare us, then when they came closer, they took our phones to prevent us from taking photos of them. Then they told all the women to leave and started hitting the men, forcing them to sit on the ground under the olive trees.

“We (the women) were still looking at them from afar. After this, they took all of our olives and forced us to leave.”

The farm is now under military control despite being in Area B of the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority technically controls civilian matters. The Milhems and their workers have been unable to return.

“The farmers are afraid of being shot if they do,” said Iman.

“I have several grandchildren and fear for the future, but I also thank God for what we have and pray for the people of Gaza,” she added.

“There is a second war in Palestine which is happening in the occupied West Bank,” said Milhem. “It is also crucial to understand how it affects farmers in the occupied West Bank.”

He added that he cannot travel to visit his ageing mother in Jenin because Israeli forces have blocked many of the roads.

“I am also afraid when my sons go out at night, and I call them constantly to see if they are OK,” he said.

‘They have guns – I only have my hands’

According to Human Rights Watch, Israeli security forces have killed more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank between January 1 and October 6 this year than in any year since 2005, when the United Nations began recording fatalities. This has raised Palestinian fears for their safety and the safety of their families, in addition to their fears for their livelihoods.

Being unable to move around the West Bank to work since October 7 due to the vastly increased raids and curfews by Israeli forces and armed settlers means Palestinians are facing a crisis.

According to the UN, poverty has increased by 20 percent and gross domestic product declined by 4.2 percent since October 7.

Milhem said exports have completely stopped and nearly 50 percent of olives have not been harvested because of restrictions by the Israeli army on Palestinians’ movement.

Another Palestinian farmer, Salah Awwad, 28, lost his home and land in Wadi Tahta in the south of the occupied West Bank in August. Settlers invaded his land, poured benzene around his property and set it on fire, destroying his beehives.

They took over the land and Awwad was forced to flee with his family of eight children. After a few days, he said, he was able to retrieve his 100 sheep, but he can no longer return to the land.

Since October 7, conditions at his new home in Sha’ab Tariq, 9km (5.6 miles) away, have worsened and now his livelihood is in the balance: he is not allowed to let his sheep graze, he told Al Jazeera.

“The settlers are surrounding my home, and they are not letting me work,” he said. “I am afraid I might be shot, as they carry guns. What can I do? They have their weapons; I only have my hands.”

Awwad added that, while life was difficult before the war began, prices have now risen sharply, particularly for farmers. The price of fodder for his sheep has risen by more than one-third since October 7.

“No one is looking at us, only God,” he said. “But I will not move again, even if they try to force me.”