"Statehood cannot be declared in press releases while genocide burns Gaza and land is stolen daily in the West Bank. Recognition of Palestine is hollow if it ignores the uprooting of people and the violence that became a daily reality. Better to first recognize the atrocities and confront injustice than to offer symbolic statehood to a people whose very existence is already rooted in their land yet their land, and their lives are under attack." Sliman Mansour of Palestine

                 A caricature that was published in Al Fajr English language newspaper in the 1990’s.

sliman.mansour

Statehood cannot be declared in press releases while genocide burns Gaza and land is stolen daily in the West Bank. Recognition of Palestine is hollow if it ignores the uprooting of people and the violence that became a daily reality. Better to first recognize the atrocities and confront injustice than to offer symbolic statehood to a people whose very existence is already rooted in their land yet their land, and their lives are under attack.

A Palestinian farmer in Gaza discovered this mosaic under his orchard in 2022. Who knows what became of the farmer, his family, his home, and the mosaic: As of 27 May 2025, UNESCO has verified damage to 110 sites since 7 October 2023 – 13 religious sites, 77 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 3 depositories of movable cultural property, 9 monuments, 1 museum and 7 archeological sites.

Photos from 2022 : Byzantine mosaics discovered under Gaza farm

The mosaics, latest in a series of Byzantine archaeological finds in Gaza, are [were]“in a perfect state of conservation”

https://aje.io/poip3g

The son of Palestinian farmer Salman al-Nabahin uses a sponge to uncover Byzantine mosaics that were discovered by his father while ploughing his land in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip. [Mohammed Abed/AFP]

The patch of land holding the mosaic is about 500 square meters (5,400 square feet) and three dug-out spots reveal glimpses of the mosaic. [Mohammed Abed/AFP]

 

This mosaic was discovered by chance by a Palestinian farmer while working in his olive orchard in the Bureij refugee camp  https://aje.io/poip3g

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A Palestinian farmer in Gaza discovered this mosaic under his orchard in 2022. Who knows what became of the farmer, his family, his home, and the mosaic.

A Palestinian farmer in Gaza discovered this mosaic under his orchard in 2022. Who knows what became of the farmer, his family, his home, and the mosaic.

Found in an area less than a kilometre (half a mile) from the often tense border with Israel, the mosaics are "in a perfect state of conservation", said French archaeologist Rene Elter, a researcher associated with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem whose team examined the finds. [Mohammed Abed/AFP]

A Palestinian farmer in Gaza discovered this mosaic under his orchard in 2022. Who knows what became of the farmer, his family, his home, and the mosaic.

So far the damage we know of to historical and cultural sites in Gaza noted by UNESCO

 https://www.unesco.org/en/gaza/assessment

As of 27 May 2025, UNESCO has verified damage to 110 sites since 7 October 2023 –  

13 religious sites,  

77 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 

3 depositories of movable cultural property, 

9 monuments,  

1 museum and 

7 archeological sites.

Hereford Palestine Solidarity Campaign 2024 for Gaza

 

About Hereford Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Hereford PSC was set up to campaign for the rights of the Palestinian people and raise awareness of the appalling situation for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. 

 • We lobby our MPs & put pressure on the Government to work towards a just settlement 

• We support boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its illegal occupation 

 • We are affiliated to the National Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) 

• We oppose all forms of racism, including anti-Jewish prejudice 

• We host speakers, show films, plan activities and join national PSC Campaigns 

• We support Palestinian farmers by selling olive oil, dates, herbs etc. from Palestine

NPR: Israeli settlers step up attacks on Palestinian farms, expanding West Bank outposts: "Think if you got into a fight with your neighbor, and your neighbor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and then all of a sudden, you discover that he's been made chief of police."

 by

Eleanor Beardsley

"....Those soldiers have been sent to the front in Gaza and the embattled northern border with Lebanon.

The reservists now manning the increasing number of checkpoints are the settlers who actually live here.

He [Nadav Weiman*] illustrates the problem with a comparison to America's notorious white supremacist group.

"Think if you got into a fight with your neighbor, and your neighbor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan," he says, "and then all of a sudden, you discover that he's been made chief of police."

The Israeli military has tightened restrictions on Palestinians' movement across the West Bank in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. Many additional roads have been closed with iron barriers or simply blocked with massive mounds of dirt and gravel. Weiman says Palestinians are now forced to take long, circuitous routes just to go between home and work...." READ MORE https://www.npr.org/2024/03/23/1236628495/israel-settlers-attack-west-bank-palestinians-settlement-outposts

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*Weiman was an Israeli special forces soldier between 2005 and 2008 and served all over the West Bank. Today he's deputy director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army veterans that advocates to end Israel's military occupation of the territory.

Nuha Musleh contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank; Eve Guterman contributed reporting from South Hebron Hills in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Abdullah Odeh says all his dreams went up in flames when his business was torched by settlers from the settlement of Yizhar in the occupied West Bank. photo by Ayman Oghanna for NPR.

Israeli settlers steal Palestinian farmers’ land in occupied West Bank: Emboldened by curfews and raids on Palestinians, illegal settlers have stepped up violence and property theft.

Palestinian Olive Groves in the West Bank

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...

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 https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/26/israeli-settlers-steal-palestinian-farmers-land-in-occupied-west-bank

Israeli settlers steal Palestinian farmers’ land in occupied West Bank

Emboldened by curfews and raids on Palestinians, illegal settlers have stepped up violence and property theft.

By Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand

Published On 26 Nov 202326 Nov 2023

 

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. ...READ MORE

Mike's beloved grandfather, Abdelkader Tayeh, of Palestine- a fascinating glimpse

Pictured: Mike Hanini Odetalla's photo of his  late mother (ay), uncle, and grandfather AbdelKader Allah Yirhamu circa mid 1960's in #Palestine.

essay by

Mike Hanini Odetalla

 My maternal grandfather, Abdelkader Tayeh, may Allah have mercy on his soul, was the only grandparent that I was fortunate enough to know as a child (my other grandparents passed away well before I was born)...

My memories are of an elegantly dressed man, a Fellah, always in the traditional Palestinian dress of a kunbaaz, hata, wa akhaal, standing tall, never hunched over, dramatic weathered face, chiseled by the Palestinian sun, wind, and life of a true man of the land! He walked, always upright, walking stick in hand, and his ever present pipe, safely tucked in the belt of his kunbaaz.

A widower at a relatively young age, he never remarried, raising his 8 children with love, wisdom, and patience! I used to beg him to show me the battle wounds he suffered serving in the Ottoman Army during WWI, a bullet hole that ripped clear through his shoulder, which amazed me as a child. After the Balfour Declaration, he joined his fellow Palestinian young men in signing a pledge to fight the Zionists....

If one were to paint a picture of a typical Palestinian Fellah (farmer), my grandfather would have served as the perfect model! He knew the land on an intimate basis, and derived great joy being an integral part of it!

His red patterned handkerchief (yes I still remember it well some 49 years later) served as his "lunch box", as he would wrap a piece of fresh baked taboon bread, a tomato, onion, some cracked olives, some zataar, and head for the fields, or hills where he lived, preferring to eat his typical lunch under the shade of an olive tree...I still have images in my mind of him laying down, propped up on one elbow, finding refuge from the hot summer sun under the shade of an olive tree, puffing away on his pipe, the epitome of contentment! No radio, no noise, just the sound of his beloved land, whispering to him through the breeze stirred leaves above...His love for and of the land had a very profound effect on me, still does!

The last time I saw my grandfather was in the summer of 1969, just before we left for the USA! He passed away in 1978, a year before I was to return to Palestine for the first time in 1979...Allah Yirhamu wa Yirham kul imawatna!

UNESCO | Building peace in the minds of men and women... Emergency Nomination- Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, inscribed on World Heritage List and on List of World Heritage in Danger

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http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/palestine_land_of_olives_and_vines_cultural_landscape_of_southern_jerusalem_battir_inscribed_on_world_heritage_list_and_on_list_of_world_heritage_in_danger/#.U6gcwiRRb7k

© Jasmine Salachas/Centre for Cultural Heritage PreservationLand of olives and vines. Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem (Palestine)

Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, inscribed on World Heritage List and on List of World Heritage in Danger

 

The World Heritage Committee today began the examination of 36 sites nominated for inclusion on the World Heritage List. The first property discussed was Palestine: Land of olives and vines, Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, submitted by Palestine as an emergency nomination.

 

The Committee approved the inscription of the site on the World Heritage List. It also inscribed the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger after finding that the landscape had become vulnerable under the impact of socio-cultural and geo-political transformations that could bring irreversible damage to its authenticity and integrity, citing the start of construction of a separation wall that may isolate farmers from fields they have cultivated for centuries. 

Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, is located a few kilometres south-west of Jerusalem, in the Central Highlands between Nablus and Hebron. The Battir hill landscape comprises a series of farmed valleys, known as widian, with characteristic stone terraces, some of which are irrigated for market garden production, while others are dry and planted with grape vines and olive trees. The development of terrace farming in such a mountainous region is supported by a network of irrigation channels fed by underground sources. A traditional system of distribution is then used to share the water collected through this network between families from the nearby village of Battir. 

The 38^th session of the World Heritage Committee began on 15 June and will continue through to 25 June, under the Chair of Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.

                                                           ****

The work of the session can be followed daily via webcast.

UNESCO Media Contact in Doha
Sue Williams, +33(0)6 15 92 93 62 or +974 503 16609
s.williams(at)unesco.org 

• Follow @UNESCO on Twitter using the hashtag #WorldHeritage for breaking information on important World Heritage Committee decisions during the session. Soon after tweeting, UNESCO will issue press releases about these decisions in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
• Daily recaps and discussions will be available on our Facebook page.
• B-rolls of new World Heritage sites will be available as soon as they are inscribed here.
• Photo galleries of new World Heritage sites will also be available here.
  

  Palestine: Land of olives and vines. Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem

  Located a few kilometres south-west of Jerusalem, in the Central Highlands between Nablus and Hebron, the Battir hill landscape comprises a series of farmed valleys, known as widian, with characteristic stone terraces, some of which are irrigated for market garden production, while others are dry and planted with grape vines and olive trees. The development of terrace farming in such a mountainous region is supported by a network of irrigation channels fed by underground sources. A traditional system of distribution is then used to share the water collected through this network between families from the nearby village of Battir. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  UNESCO | Building peace in the minds of men and women

  
  
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UNESCO grants Battir endangered heritage status

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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=706403

(MaanImages/file)

DOHA (AFP) -- UN cultural agency UNESCO on Friday granted endangered World Heritage status to ancient terraces in the West Bank that are under threat from the Israeli separation barrier.

After an emergency nomination by Palestinian officials, UNESCO's annual World Heritage Committee gathering in Doha voted to grant the protected status to the agricultural community of Battir, which straddles the Green Line just south of Jerusalem and where Israel plans to erect part of its separation wall.

The granting of the status is likely to boost the efforts of local residents locked in a high-profile court battle to change the route of the barrier.

"The site is inscribed, congratulations to Palestine," committee chairwoman Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani said after the resolution was narrowly approved, against the recommendations of UNESCO experts.

The Palestinian delegation rejoiced at the vote, hugging and cheering.

Battir is famous for its ancient terraces and Roman-era irrigation system which is still used by villagers for their crops.

But the village has come under threat from Israeli plans to erect part of the West Bank separation barrier there, which experts say will irretrievably damage the water system.

The Palestinians won membership in UNESCO in October 2011 and quickly moved to submit a number of sites for recognition, including an emergency application for Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity which was approved in June the following year, despite Israeli objections.

 

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Palestinian farmers in Battir, a West Bank village near Bethlehem, use a Roman-era irrigation system to water their crops. New York Times 2012

A Palestinian Village Tries to Protect a Terraced Ancient Wonder of Agriculture

  

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 http://gulftoday.ae/portal/a1228c7f-5204-4e94-99a4-e3ddafc92621.aspx

RAMALLAH: The United Nations cultural agency has listed the Palestinian village of Battir as a World Heritage site in danger, raising hopes among residents on Saturday that this will protect their community against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.

Battir, located just south of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, is known for its ancient farming terraces and an irrigation system from Roman times. In listing Battir on Friday, Unesco said the village faces “irreversible damage,” citing “the start of construction of a separation wall that may isolate farmers from fields they have cultivated for centuries.”

Israel began building a separation barrier in the West Bank more than a decade ago, saying it’s meant to keep out Palestinian fighters.

The Palestinians say the barrier has turned out to be a land grab because it slices off almost 10 per cent of the West Bank.

The route of the barrier in the Battir area is before Israel’s Supreme Court.

The lawyer representing village residents, Ghiath Nasser, said Saturday he hopes that the Unesco recognition will help sway the judges to rule in favor of them.

Friends of the Earth Middle East, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian group that joined the high court appeal against the barrier, said Israel needs to find another solution in this part of the West Bank. The Israeli military “failed to strike the needed balance between the interest of security and cultural heritage preservation,” said Gidon Bromberg, a member of the group.

Arbil Citadel

Meanwhile, the Arbil Citadel that dominates the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan was granted World Heritage Site status on Saturday in a move praised as a rare “note of optimism” amid the country’s violence.

Delegates at Unesco’s World Heritage Committee voted to grant the coveted status at a gathering in Doha, where they are considering some 40 cultural and natural wonders for inclusion on the UN list.

A member of the Iraqi delegation praised the inclusion as “a gift you have made to my people and all the communities of Iraq... who are in such need of a note of optimism right now.”

The Arbil Citadel is a formerly fortified occupied mound in the centre of Erbil that is among the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the world, dating back at least 6,000 years.
 

A Palestinian Christian family that preaches non-violence from a farm in the West Bank is battling to hold on to land it has owned for 98 years. Now surrounded by Israeli settlements, the family is a living example of the idea of peaceful resistance.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27883685 

Palestinians have a word that captures this refusal to be provoked or demoralized: sumud. Sometimes translated as 'steadfastness', sumud describes the stubborn, patient determination to stay on the land and to carry on in spite of all the difficulties of living under military occupation.

It is a quality embodied by Daher Nassar, who, even as he walks across a scarred and empty field, is imagining the orchard he'll harvest 10 years from now.

"I will plant more trees," he says... READ MORE

The Christian family refusing to give up its Bethlehem hill farm

Israeli soldiers assault Palestinian farmer near Hebron

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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=632122
Published today 00:19

HEBRON (Ma’an) – Israeli forces assaulted a Palestinian farmer from the Hebron area in the southern West Bank after they broke though his home in his own olive field.

Ahmad Salamah Atawna told Ma’an that a group of Israeli soldiers broke into his house in Khirbet Jamrura neighborhood of Beit Kahil village to deliver a demolition order. He highlighted that the soldiers broke windows and doors in his two-room house in the middle of an olive field near Israel’s separation wall.

Atawna appealed to the Palestinian ministry of local governance urging them to provide the area with an electricity line so as to help the residents remain steadfast on their land.

The neighborhood measures about 1,200 acres located near the separation wall and Tarqumia checkpoint.