Activestills Photo Archive

As part of our weekly Tuesday News Bulletin, Jewish Currents is publishing a photograph taken by members of Activestills every week, archiving ongoing dispossession and resistance from the river to the sea. You can find more information on this collaboration here.

On March 15th, Palestinian families and their supporters protested in front of the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem during the final hearing on Israel's plans to expel over 1,000 residents living on their lands in Masafer Yatta (also known as the South Hebron Hills), in the southern West Bank. For decades, the Palestinian residents have been subjected to Israeli demolitions, raids, and arrests and have had their lands declared a "military firing zone" in an attempt to cleanse the area for the benefit of Israeli settlers.

Jewish Ukrainian immigrants descend from a plane landing at Ben Gurion International airport near Tel Aviv on March 6th, 2022. The Israeli government and the Jewish Agency are involved in an ongoing mission to absorb Jewish immigrants from the war in Ukraine. According to media reports, the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division plans to place about 1,000 new portable structures for immigrants from Ukraine, some of them in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. Since 1948, Palestinian refugees have been denied entry and return to their land. And since the arrival of thousands of refugees from Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea in the 2000s, Israel has threatened them with deportation, sent refugees to a detention camp in the desert, and taken money from them.

In this photo taken on Feb. 26th, the Sheikh Ibriq maqam and mosque, near Haifa, is seen completely fenced by the Israeli authorities with signs prohibiting access. The barrier was installed in the past 3-4 months. Sheikh Ibriq (also known as Sheikh Bureik) is one of 531 Palestinian ethnically cleansed villages, towns and urban neighborhoods across Palestine/Israel that were depopulated in the early 20th century and around 1948 in favor of Israel's settler-colonial project.

Israeli forces manhandle a Palestinian woman during a Palestinian protest in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, where Palestinian residents are under the threat of expulsion in favor of Israeli settlers.

On February 13th, tensions erupted between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, as Israeli far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir set up his parliamentary office in the Palestinian neighborhood, declaring “we are the landlords.” Nearby, settlers erected an outpost on the land of the Salem family, whose eviction is set for March in favor of Israeli settlers.

Israeli police forces arrived February 7th to demolish the Mahrab family's home in the Pardes Snir neighborhood of Al-Lydd (Lod) on the last day of the demolition order. The house, home to nine people, received a demolition order after having been rebuilt and renovated after burning down in 2013. Last week, the father of the family was arrested when he fortified himself with gas balloons and was again arrested during the demolition. Pardes Snir is a neighborhood without an outline plan, preventing residents from building legally with a permit. In 1948, only 1,000 Palestinians managed to remain in Al-Lydd out of 50,000 residents (30,000 of which were refugees from the Jaffa area). Today, the city has almost 78,000 residents, only 30% of whom are Palestinian. All refugees from Al-Lydd living in UNRWA refugee camps are still banned from returning by the Israeli state.

On January 16th, Palestinian families awoke to flooding caused by torrential rains that pounded their homes as they slept in Beit Lahia, Northern Gaza Strip. According to the UN, around 56,000 houses in Gaza were damaged during the 11-day Israeli offensive last May, and more than 2,100 houses were destroyed and are unfit for living. Gaza residents, 73% of whom are refugees from ethnically cleansed villages and towns in southern Palestine/Israel, have been living under a strict Israeli siege since 2006.