Testimony from on the ground in Palestine has revealed that Israel have carried out evictions of 40,000 Palestinians in exchange for 400 settlers.  Award-winning and TEDX-featured psychologist and writer Dr Sanah Ahsan has just returned from a visit to the occupied West Bank. The area is under sustained assault from Israel and facing complete annexation by the occupation. Now, Dr Ahsan has published some of what she saw and experienced there as Israel continues its mass displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population to make room for mostly European and US settlers.

Her findings make for particularly grim reading.

Israel evicts Palestinians

She wrote of her visit:

Just landing back from West Bank, and feel like I’ve been turned inside out from what I’ve seen. We witnessed up close the barbaric and intricate mechanics of the occupation. Now being back in the belly of the empire where there is so much denial, dissonance and disconnection — is disorienting to say the least. Here are some snippets from the trip revealing the realities for Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank.

Ahsan noted that Israel has just forced out forty thousand Palestinians from their homes for just four hundred settlers – and the four thousand soldiers guarding them:

She saw the kind of tactics that the settlers use to make Palestinian homes, towns and land uninhabitable for their Palestinian owners:

And she noted how the colonisers particularly target children and women:

Palestinian people are barred from water sources and roads on their own land:

Constant surveillance

Ahsan was in the West Bank with journalist Sangita Myska, who was sacked by the LBC radio station last year for challenging Israeli spokesman Avi Hyman’s false claims that Israel had not attacked Iran’s embassy in Damascus. In a video published by Ahsan, Myska interviews a Palestinian man about the reality of living in the West Bank under Israeli occupation:

Ahsan wrote that even during the interview, Palestinians faced constant threat and surveillance:

Sangita Myska doing what she does best. An honour to witness her journalistic integrity

See the armed soldier in the background. This is a tiny insight into what it’s like for those who haven’t been murdered or forced out — to live under occupation in Hebron. Persistent threat, surveillance, domination and dehumanisation is their daily reality.

Featured image via Instagram/Sanah Ahsan

By Skwawkbox

This post was originally published on Canary.