Dr Abu Safia and the commitment to Gaza

Nothing short of a modern-day hero, Dr. Abu Safia was infamously abducted by Israeli forces from Kamal Adwan Hospital on December 27, 2024, marking the start of what the world knew was going to be brutal detainment. According to reports, during his transfer from Gaza, Israeli forces forced him to remove his clothes, tied his hands, and forced him to sit on sharp pebbles for five hours. Upon his arrival at Ofer Prison in the West Bank, Israeli forces subjected him to electric shocks and chest beatings. He spent 24 days in solitary confinement. Over those weeks of torture—including 10 days of near-continuous interrogation—his condition worsened significantly, as he lost about 15 kilograms and now suffers from an enlarged heart. Despite repeated requests, he has been denied access to specialist medical treatment. The reports of his torture are in line with the patterns of violence that Israel has long deployed against Palestinians. 

Dr. Abu Safia being abducted on December 27, 2024

Even though Israel has failed to follow the guidelines of the ceasefire, carrying out several military operations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have shown resolve: An estimated 565,000 people moved north, and 45,500 headed south from the Netzarim corridor—many traveling on foot. 

While humanitarian efforts have intensified with thousands of trucks, including over 1,500 vehicles, delivering food, shelter items, and medicine, it is a logistical nightmare, with nearly 1.9 million people remaining displaced, with widespread destruction of homes, elevated risks of malnutrition, and exposure to explosive hazards. Despite Gaza being effectively inhabitable, Palestinian families have committed to resisting erasure and rebuilding their infrastructure in their lands.

Between October 7, 2023, and February 4, 2025, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that at least 47,540 Palestinians were confirmed and documented killed in the Gaza Strip during the genocide. The total death toll is likely closer to 250,000, with 111,618 confirmed to have sustained injuries.

Israel escalates its attacks in the northern West Bank

Israel’s Central Command has now applied the same policy used during the aggression on Gaza, allowing soldiers to kill any unarmed Palestinian, regardless of whether they are a target. Its intent is to make it easier for soldiers to pull the trigger comes under the direction of Central Command Commander Avi Blot.

Israeli troops involved in the current assault in the West Bank have stated that Blot has granted them permission to shoot with the intent to kill rather than detain Palestinians. The high number of unarmed Palestinian deaths is a direct result of these orders, which authorize them to target any individual suspected of planting explosive devices or "tampering with the land."

The head of the army’s West Bank Division, Yaki Dolf, ordered troops to fire on any vehicle "coming from a combat zone" and approaching a checkpoint. In one recent incident, two Palestinians were killed when soldiers opened fire on a car nearing a military checkpoint in the West Bank.

Israeli outlets are also reporting that, during searches for explosives in buildings, soldiers used Palestinian civilians as human shields—a violation of international humanitarian protections which Israeli forces have used against Palestinians since at least 1948.

With these directives, the Israeli military has sustained its program of indigenous erasure in the West Bank over the past weeks—with a particular focus on Jenin and Tulkarm. The intensity of marked by renewed airstrikes across the West Bank: Israel has carried at least 38 airstrikes in 2025 alone.

In Jenin, a violent campaign now in its third week has resulted in 25 fatalities and numerous injuries. Eyewitnesses reported that six citizens were beaten near the Jalameh checkpoint by Israeli forces, with local Palestinian Red Crescent teams transporting the injured to nearby hospitals. Israeli forces also demolished the house of slain Palestinian youth Nidal Al-Amer’s family in Jenin camp and destroyed streets and properties in the eastern neighborhood. Jenin’s mayor, Mohammad Jarar, noted that repeated raids over the past three years have caused economic losses exceeding two billion dollars and displaced at least 15,000 residents, describing the current situation as a humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, in Tulkarm, the aggression has persisted for over two weeks, with high-intensity raids in both the city and the Nour Shams camp. Israeli forces detained numerous displaced residents following a raid on the Othman bin Affan al-Jadid Mosque in the city center, and early this morning, two women were arrested during home raids in nearby villages. A young man from Kafr al-Labad was injured by live fire, and military outposts have been set up in strategic neighborhoods, curtailing Palestinian movement and access to essential services and implementing collective violence. The closure of the Jabara Bridge at Tulkarm’s southern entrance for the fifth consecutive day has further isolated the community, which, of course, is by design and a tactic they routinely deployed in Gaza. 

After a ten-day aggression marked by widespread demolitions, mass displacement, and severe infrastructure damage, Israeli forces withdrew yesterday from the al-Fara’a camp south of Tubas. During the assault, hundreds of families were forced to flee, and about 30 young men were detained—with 22 later released. As residents begin returning to assess the damage, the humanitarian crisis remains dire, with acute water, food, and medicine shortages.

Some 40,000 are now forcibly displaced in the northern West Bank. 

 

A call for principled solidarity

Much of the international solidarity movement was shocked, caught off guard, and ultimately ill-prepared to articulate political and material forms of solidarity in meaningful ways when the broader zionist movement consolidated imperial violence and waged a program of genocide against the embattled Palestinian enclave of Gaza on October 7, 2023. 

In the United States, the broader NGO system—funded mainly by the institutional caretakers of the neoliberal ecosystem—articulated a strategy of public lamentation towards the Israeli state while obfuscating the ways the Democratic Party was directly involved in animating and maintaining the genocide. They often doubled their commitment to the Democratic Party and captured movement resources to prop up electoral campaigns at the expense of Palestinian solidarity. 

Some small solidarity formations and individual activists on the periphery of the NGO apparatus have continued to finance the charitable organizations rather than donating their money to the people who needed it most: The displaced, starving, and sick people of Gaza. Thousands and thousands of Palestinian crowdfunding pages remained stagnant and unfunded, which has resulted in families being left hungry, unsheltered, and without necessary medical aid. At the same time, NGO workers in the US enjoyed unprecedented financial support.

Celebrity activists, fashioning themselves as experts, used global concern for Palestine to build their personal brand by appearing on reactionary, right-wing talk shows like Piers Morgan. Their presence on these sensationalized debate shows created public space for genocide apologists such as Alan Dershowitz, Shmuley Boteach, Emily Austin, and Batya Ungar-Sargon. Liberal zionists of all types and notorieties all took this moment to launch books to much dismay—including well-known zionist Peter Beinart. Despite this scathing review by Joshua Gutterman Tranen, folks who would identify as being anti-zionist and or a part of so-called “anti-zionist institutions” are embarrassingly still sharing his zionist analysis. 

While it may seem harsh, the last 16 months have revealed the limitations of Palestinian organizing within the liberal confines of NGO structures. There are limited avenues for individual activists and smaller formations to plug into organizing spaces that show a commitment to solidarity and decolonization, and very little understanding internationally of what zionism actually is and more importantly, what anti-zionist praxis should look like. We’d encourage you to read this critical piece on anti-zionist praxis here and this follow-up webinar here as a starting point. 

Like many others, since October 7, 2023, we’ve been taking an honest assessment of what we’re doing well as a collective, where we need to grow, and what areas of liberatory studies we need to invest time in studying. We’ve made more of a commitment to understanding the violence of capitalism and, by extension, imperialism and colonialism. We most recently traveled to Harare, Zimbabwe, to attend the Sam Moyo African Institute Of Agrarian Studies Summer School. We’re sharing some resources that we’ve found helpful in the hopes that you’ll appreciate them, too.