Shahd Abdulrahman
Mondowesiss / September 2, 2022
Under siege since early August, the West Bank town of Silwad is continuing its long history of resistance as Israel’s policy of collective punishment fails once again.
Ever since August 10, the Israeli army has been implementing a policy of collective punishment against the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah, effectively besieging the village of 11,000 Palestinians by sealing off its entrances and exits, conducting daily raids and home invasions, and arresting dozens of youth.
This latest army campaign comes in response to a recent intensification in the town’s armed resistance activities, specifically in the proliferation of shootings targeting an Israeli military base near the town’s western entrance, as well as a nearby settler road. Newer still are the armed confrontations with the Israeli army during its invasions of the town to make arrests — a unique development in Silwad’s recent history.
Silwad has long been considered one of the most intense points of confrontation with the Israeli military in the West Bank, even in periods of relative calm. But the town’s unbroken tradition of resistance has recently intensified with the latest shooting operations and the determination of Silwad’s youth to face off against the army with rifle and stone.
The Israeli army’s attempt to prevent the development of these resistance activities through collective punishment is nothing new — an extension of the longtime Israeli doctrine of “deterrence” aimed at isolating resistance fighters from their social environment, which it has practiced in the West Bank ever since 1967.
The recent escalations
Tensions escalated on the evening of August 20, when a shooting targeted a settler bus on Highway 60. According to the Israeli military, eight bullets were fired into the bus, and no settlers were injured.
This shooting is notable for taking place in Oyoun al-Haramiya northwest of Silwad, an area with a storied history of shooting operations due to its unique geography. The road carves its way through a valley between Nablus and Ramallah, and is flanked on either side by two hills — allowing gunmen to disappear into the mountains unseen after targeting the road. In recent memory, the most prominent of such operations took place during the Second Intifada in March 2002, when Silwad-born Thaer Hammad singularly carried out a sniper operation that killed 11 Israeli soldiers before he withdrew unseen, and was only arrested two years later after a stalled manhunt. Even further back, the area of Wadi al-Haramiya (which translates to “Valley of Thieves”) witnessed countless armed robberies by highwaymen during the British Mandate period, and later those same thieves became revolutionaries that ambushed British troops on the road during the 1936-1938 Revolt. This history has become a constant source of trepidation for the Israeli army, pushing it to implement draconian measures in an attempt to quash a potential resurgence.
After the shooting of August 20, the army began a manhunt for the perpetrators, starting by sealing off the exits and entrances to the town, and launching daily incursions and conducting arrests. On the fifth day of its campaign, August 27, the army announced it had arrested four young men, among them Kamal Aneed, a former prisoner that spent nine years in Israeli prisons whom the army now accused of carrying out the operation.
The Yamam, an elite Israeli counter-terrorism unit, invaded the town in a white truck before reaching Aneed’s home in an apartment building at the center of town. Aneed’s wife, Ayah Hamed, told Mondoweiss that the army set its K-9 unit on Kamal upon entering the house, and then soldiers proceeded to beat him up in front of her before dragging him away without letting him put on any shoes or clothes.
What makes the Israeli army’s task even more complicated is that the resistance fighters are not organized into traditional military cells, and do not seem to be led by any established political factions or parties
Only one day after the army had announced that it had apprehended those responsible for the shooting, a military outpost located near the western entrance of Silwad was attacked by gunfire on August 28. The armed confrontation continued for ten minutes before the perpetrator withdrew.
This incident indicates that the army is no longer facing lone wolf operations, but a broader moment of collective resistance. What makes the Israeli army’s task even more complicated is that the resistance fighters are not organized into traditional military cells, and do not seem to be led by any established political factions or parties. Moreover, this form of resistance has so far proven stubborn and unwilling to die out, in spite of the policy of deterrence and collective punishment in recent days.
Silwad under siege
Amid the continuation of armed confrontations, the army has intensified its siege of Silwad, sealing its two main entrances connecting the town to Ramallah and the villages to its east, as well as to the main road between Jericho and Ramallah.
Raed Hamed, the mayor of Silwad, told Mondoweiss that the Israeli army sealed off the western entrance to Silwad using dirt piles, completely stopping any movement in and out of the town, while a military checkpoint was placed at the town’s southern entrance, preventing most vehicles from passing through and often subjecting town residents to invasive searches, especially the young men who were subjected to field interrogations.
Hamed added that the people of Silwad and other villages east of Ramallah are now resorting to circuitous back roads in order to reach Ramallah, which takes double the normal amount of time to travel to the city, and has led to an increase in the cost of transportation and subsequent material hardships for the town residents.
“Everything the army is doing is collective punishment.”
Silwad mayor Raed Hamed
The siege on Silwad is also effectively a siege on the neighboring villages, Hamed clarifies, especially the village of Yabrud, which relies on Silwad’s healthcare centers, pharmacies, and schools. Hamed asserted that the closure of the town’s entrances has hindered students and teachers from reaching schools located in the town.
Moreover, Silwad’s main cemetery lies beyond the town’s western entrance, meaning that the town residents are unable to bury their loved ones in the event of a death, said Hamed. He also added that the Silwad municipality’s garbage collection and sewage treatment services have been obstructed by the closure — since the municipality relies on a landfill that lies just beyond the western entrance — which poses an environmental and public health risk to the people of Silwad.
The army also closed off a number of agricultural roads within the town and on its peripheries, preventing farmers from reaching their lands.
“Everything the army is doing is collective punishment,” said Hamed. “These unjust practices are negatively impacting every person in Silwad, regardless of age. These policies are senseless, with no real objective.” He added that despite the army’s claims to be hunting down those responsible for the operations, “the number of arrests have so far greatly exceeded the number of operations…it [the army] is merely trying to justify the crimes that it commits daily against the people of Silwad.”
Violent house raids
After 8 a.m. on August 31, Israeli special forces invaded Silwad and surrounded four houses, arresting four young men, including 23-year-old Abdul Rahman Azzam, who was apprehended after the army shot and injured him.
Ni’ma Faraj, Azzam’s mother, recounts the events of her son’s arrest. She woke up to the sound of gunfire, after which large numbers of Israeli soldiers raided her home, shouting at and assaulting the family members and vandalizing the homes. In the middle of all of this, the army informed the family that it had shot their son, Abdul Rahman.
“I’m so afraid for Abdul Rahman,” Ni’ma told Mondoweiss. “I don’t know what happened to him or anything about his health. The neighbors confirm that they saw the army shoot him and drag him to the military vehicles.” She added that this is the second time that the army raided their home in less than a month, but this time with much greater violence and destruction, especially considering that they shot her son.
“One of the soldiers told me that I would not see Abdul Rahman for many long years,” she added. “But my son hasn’t done anything to deserve all of this — they’re the ones who are committing crimes against us every day, yet they hold us accountable.”
During the same raid, special forces also raided the home of Abdul Qadir Basem Hammad after surrounding it, physically assaulting Abdul Qadir in front of his siblings. Naser, Abdul Qadir’s brother, recounted the invasion to Mondoweiss: “I heard them when they started to surround the house. I approached the door to open it, but they immediately detonated it and blew it open, and then they stormed the house and started attacking us.”
“One of the soldiers attacked Abdul Qadir, who was still asleep,” he added. “They immediately started beating him up and abusing him, despite my scream that he is injured in his foot from a car accident last month.”
This is the seventh time that the army arrested Abdul Qadir, who spent many long years in prison and opened a men’s hair salon after attending a rehabilitation course for ex-prisoners, where he learned how to become a barber.
“But even the barber shop wasn’t spared,” Naser said. “They raided it and completely destroyed it. The place is no longer fit for use.”
Despite the savage nature of the arrests and the fact that the town was crawling with soldiers, that did not stop the exchange of gunfire yet another time. This further confirms the futility of the army’s ineffectual policies — meant to prevent the recurrence of these armed attacks — as it appears that no amount of brutality is likely to deter the town’s youth.
A long history of resistance
For the past three months — and specifically ever since Muhammad Abdullah Hamed, a 16-year-old boy from Silwad, was shot and killed by the Israeli army on June 24 near the settler road — the town has witnessed a rebirth of armed resistance operations. Shooting operations against military targets surrounding the town returned, which was followed by broad arrest campaigns of the town’s youth, and was marked by a noticeable escalation of army brutality during home invasions.
But the town of Silwad is not new to these campaigns of repression, given its history as a focal point of anti-colonial resistance. Awni Faris, a local researcher specializing in the town’s history, said that ever since Silwad fell under the military control of the Israeli occupation in 1967, it has only become further embroiled in resistance activity — more than any other neighboring village. The first military cell to be arrested in the town was in 1968, some of whom were given life sentences. In that same year, the occupation first began its policy of collective punishment against the town, imposing curfews, sealing off its entrances, and demolishing the homes of the families of resistance fighters — all alongside the wide campaign of arrests that would continue into the following decades.
Faris asserts that Silwad’s families have inherited the stories of their forefathers about their participation in the resistance, and they have endeavored to continue that anti-colonial heritage. This is what led numerous Palestinians from Silwad to join the armed resistance during the Second Intifada, carrying out a number of operations, most notably Thaer Hammad’s sniper operation. This same tradition is now being continued.
“What Silwad is experiencing today is nothing new,” Faris said. “It is a continuous state of resistance that rejects the presence of occupation and injustice, and aims to end it.”
This recent campaign of repression, however, is not unique to Silwad, and has in fact been part of a broader Israeli effort to uproot wellsprings of armed resistance in the West Bank, which it has dubbed “Operation Break the Wave.” The recent war in Gaza was a part of that operation, aiming to deal a preemptive blow to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leadership, which Israel claimed was forming military cells in the West Bank. These Israeli fears have been growing ever since the West Bank witnessed a revival of armed resistance in recent months, extending from Jenin, to the Old City of Nablus, to Silwad. The youth at the heart of this resurgence represent a new generation of Palestinians, who after years of official political subservience and capitulation, have taken up the mantle of resistance once more. This is what Israel fears most.
Shahd Abdulrahman is a freelance journalist from Ramallah
