"I have never chosen to adopt the title of 'refugee,' yet it keeps haunting me. It is scribbled on my Palestinian national identification card and follows my name in human rights conferences."
Taybeh, a small hilltop town in the heart of the West Bank, is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, now feeling under siege and fighting for its existence.
On March 1, Israel closed Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt. The Israeli military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the move was a part of several necessary security adjustments that have been implemented in the region due to the war with Iran. The Rafah crossing is considered vital for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of critically ill patients from Gaza.
For a mayor who has become so closely associated with a foreign policy conflict thousands of miles away, Zohran Mamdani does relatively little to directly address it. Follow his public pronouncements, press conferences, and social media posts, and you'll find a relentless focus on the local: an executive order cutting fees for small businesses, a mayoral appointment to combat racial discrimination, a ride in a taxi to announce a new TLC commissioner.
While the world's attention is on the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, the Israeli military has placed the West Bank under a functional lockdown. Checkpoints in and out of most major cities are closed, and Palestinians have been left to look for other travel arrangements. Some residents who spoke with Truthout said they traveled for hours through village back roads in an attempt to reach their destinations.
Through a new land registration drive, Israel is trying to secure through paperwork what warfare alone has failed to deliver. Israel always had a plan to annex more land in the occupied West Bank, and its actions prove it. This week, the Israeli cabinet approved a plan to claim Palestinian lands in the West Bank as state land. The proposal, pushed by far-right Israeli leaders, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz, emphasises Israeli supremacy over Palestinians.
Israel plans to start work next month on a bypass road that will close off the heart of the occupied West Bank to Palestinians and cement the de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state. The road is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli government has approved a plan to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, meaning it will be able to seize land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership. For the first time since Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it will register such land as property of the state also known as settlement of land title in Area C of the occupied West Bank.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has reopened partially for a few Palestinians after an 18-month closure in tandem with an added restriction to control the movement of returnees. The Israeli army has set up a checkpoint called Regavim in an area under its control outside the crossing for those entering Gaza from Egypt. As the first trickle of humanity passed through the gates on Monday, official Israeli military documents gave it a name that indicates the facility is no longer being treated as a border crossing but as an operation for population control.
