Qassam Muaddi

For years, I believed journalism gave Palestinians a voice, but the people I interviewed taught me that the voice was always theirs. I only needed to learn to listen.

For months, Palestinian farmers in the northern West Bank have watched their water lines cut and their wells marked for demolition in Israel’s slow strangulation of Palestinian agriculture, as farmers tell Mondoweiss “there is no tomorrow” for them.

Agriculture in the northern West Bank could be on the verge of disappearing under the weight of Israeli land confiscation and the destruction of water wells. The Atouf area, in the Tubas governorate in the northeastern West Bank, and long known as the region's “breadbasket,” has been targeted by settler attacks on its water lines. The settler raids complement the Israeli army's ongoing infrastructure projects in the area, which have plowed through Palestinian farmlands and demolished wells.

As settlers besiege Palestinian families in Qusra, Israel’s government responds by handing settlement security to the police of hardline minister Ben-Gvir- a move seen to further entrench Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

As Israeli forces move to take over remaining UNRWA facilities in Jerusalem, residents of Qalandia and Shufaat refugee camps fear the assault on the UN agency is linked to the ongoing Israeli military crackdown on the camps.

Israel's Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has moved to transfer security authority over Israeli settlements and settlers in the occupied West Bank from the Israeli army to the civil police, a decision Palestinians read as a decisive step toward the de facto annexation of the territory, and one that places the settler movement, in effect, in charge of policing itself.

Hamas political chief Khalil al-Hayya, third from right, meets with representatives of Palestinian factions in Cairo. (Photo: Hamas/via Telegram)

A UAE-sponsored plan by exiled Fatah dissident Muhammad Dahlan to “end Palestinian division” has quietly become the working platform for an unlikely electoral alliance with Hamas. Here is what this could mean for the future of Palestinian politics.

I didn’t choose to make my identity political. But for Palestinian journalists, even naming our own grief and experiences gets branded as ‘ideological’.

Since Israel severed the water lines feeding Ras al-Ahmar over a month ago, its 47 farming families have been rationing what little they have and weighing whether to sell their livestock and leave.