We visited the West Bank, the largest part of the occupied Palestinian territories. A territory where 60% of Palestinian villages are under the full administrative control of Israel, the so-called Area C, where Palestinians are forced to live under the yoke of occupation on a daily basis. This is where settler gangs operate, the inhabitants of illegal settlements under international law. Armed to the teeth, they attack and burn Palestinian villages with the aim of forcing the local population into a forced exodus so they can occupy their land. But the level of aggression has risen even further in recent months, to the point of using weapons of war, resulting in injuries and murders, which have gone completely unpunished by the Israeli authorities. We have seen and documented a solid complicity between the Israeli army and the organized settler gangs who terrorize the Palestinian population. But that's not all. The most violent groups are politically connected to the majority shareholders of the Netanyahu government, namely Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. They shape the government's decisions, and they are also the ones who provide political cover, through direct connections, to the settlers who commit the worst atrocities. The hate-filled vocabulary of political propaganda is coupled with concrete decisions, such as those related to Israel's annexation of the West Bank. The so-called E1 plan, approved last August, will cut the West Bank in two, separating its North and South through the construction of new illegal settlements. This project is intended to be the tombstone on the possibility of a Palestinian state, breaking the territorial continuity of the West Bank. But despite living under daily attacks, Palestinians continue to resist, calling on the world not to look the other way.
