‘The people want someone to stand by them. To at least feel that we are not alone’

Palestinians speak out as army bulldozers raze villages in the West Bank. And with the recent announcement of 22 new Israeli settlements, locals are losing hope. Alex Croft reports

- Alex Croft

Jaber Dabbaseh sits upon a pile of dust-strewn rubble.

“We feel oppressed, let down by a world that claims to be humane, while it does nothing,” the father-of-five says. The ruins once formed his family home in Khalet al-Daba’a in the occupied West Bank, before his village was almost entirely demolished by Israeli bulldozers.

A crippling 2025 for Palestinians in the West Bank has seen 14 children among 80 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the north of the territory alone. In late May came a hammer blow when Israel announced that 22 new settlements had been approved. Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich warned Israel would “not stop until the entire area receives its full legal status and becomes an inseparable part of the State of Israel”, a lucid illustration of the aggressive pro-settlement policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

On Thursday 5 June Palestinians marked Naksa Day, a commemoration of the forced displacement of around 300,000 Palestinians during the June 1967 war. Nearly six decades on, demoralised West Bank residents tell The Independent that the current situation is worse than ever.

“Their future is lost and we cannot provide for them, even a little,” says Mr Dabbaseh, lamenting the life awaiting his five boys. “The situation is very, very tragic.”

Mr Dabbaseh is one of the residents of Khalet al-Daba’a that have remained on the land, living in tents and residential caves since Israeli machinery razed it to the ground on 5 May. The IDF says the village is “built illegally within a military firing zone” and that Palestinians live there illegally. This is disputed by the UN, EU, and rights organisations who say the forced expulsion of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta is illegal.