At 8:15 am on February 14, 2024, Israeli forces demolished Fakhri Abu Diab's home in Silwan, East Jerusalem. A squadron in battle gear and nearly 20 border patrol officers with guard dogs entered after blowing open the iron gate, and bulldozers flattened the property. The demolition destroyed a fruit tree planted with his mother, rooms of his grandchildren, and the surrounding gardens, causing severe trauma. Abu Diab had long opposed land annexation, anticipated the demolition, and alerted journalists who documented the raid. In 2024 about 100 people from Silwan were forcibly displaced; settler expansion, legal mechanisms, and IDF force continue to colonize occupied land.
Suddenly, the house shuddered from a deafening blast. The Israeli army had blown open the property's iron gate. A squadron in battle gear streamed in, pushing Abu Diab back. It was followed by almost 20 border patrol officers, armed and with guard dogs. After the officers were finished, the bulldozers moved in. They flattened everything: the fruit tree he had planted with his mother as a child, the rooms of his grandchildren, the gardens outside.
Abu Diab had seen this coming. He'd been a prominent activist against Israel's land annexation of Palestinian territories for decades. Israeli forces had been demolishing homes all around him, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before they came for him. He had even alerted journalists, who documented the raid as it happened. But that didn't make the morning any less horrifying-or the lingering trauma any less real.
Some of these structures had stood since before 1967, when Israel first seized East Jerusalem and occupied the West Bank. In the years since, this occupied land has been further colonized by Israeli settlers, who have weaponized Israeli law and used the overwhelming force of the IDF to encroach further and further onto Palestinian land. Current Issue In the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs), there are over 250 Israeli settlements and their precursors, known as outposts.
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