In West Bank, a glimpse at how war has hardened Palestinian views
| Kobar, West Bank
Since Hamas’ attack Oct. 7, officials say some 6,540 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank, with more than half of them held under “administrative detention” – without trial or charge. The arrests are one part of a broader mosaic of Israeli actions that Palestinians say have boosted defiance against the occupation and support for armed resistance.
Nida al-Barghouti’s son, a university student, was among those recently detained. “He did nothing,” says Ms. Barghouti, who has spent decades in close proximity to Palestinian politics and resistance. She says the family hasn’t heard any news about him since his arrest. “How can you convince these young people to go for peace?”
Why We Wrote This
If the Gaza Strip is the main battlefield in the Israel-Hamas war, the West Bank is still very much part of the conflict. And Israeli arrests and raids there are only reinforcing a wartime radicalization of the Palestinian population.
Suhair al-Barghouti, a veteran resistance activist who goes by the name Umm Asif, was arrested Oct. 26, then released during a Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange Nov. 30.
Her late husband was a senior Hamas figure who spent a total of 27 years in Israeli prisons. One son was shot dead by Israeli security forces in 2019 just days after he was suspected of taking part in a shooting. Another son is serving a life sentence.
Umm Asif’s defiance is undimmed: “We have every right for resistance. The only hope left for us is the resistance,” she says. “We don’t know where this will take us.”
When Israeli soldiers came for Baleegh al-Barghouti, before dawn one morning in late November, the Palestinian college student and his family were at their West Bank home – ready, and expecting the arrest.
They raced downstairs to open the door before the Israeli foot patrol could break it down, and were told Mr. Barghouti was wanted for a “quick conversation.”
Yet the family has heard no news of Mr. Barghouti since he was added to the growing ranks of Palestinians put under “administrative detention” – held without trial or charge. Since Hamas’ attack from Gaza Oct. 7, the status has been applied to more than half of the 6,540 Palestinians swept up in the West Bank, Palestinian officials say.
Why We Wrote This
If the Gaza Strip is the main battlefield in the Israel-Hamas war, the West Bank is still very much part of the conflict. And Israeli arrests and raids there are only reinforcing a wartime radicalization of the Palestinian population.
“He did nothing. We saw them kicking and hitting him. How can you convince these young people to go for peace?” says Mr. Barghouti’s mother, Nida, who wears a white headscarf and has spent decades in close proximity to Palestinian politics and resistance.
“I don’t know how this is affecting his well-being at the moment, [or] what he will be thinking in the future,” she says.
The wave of arrests and raids in the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7 is one part of a broader mosaic of Israeli actions that Palestinians say have boosted both defiance against the occupation and support for armed resistance. Both have surged in the aftermath of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and provoked an Israeli offensive in Gaza that local authorities say has killed 27,365 Palestinians.
Increasingly hostile attitudes among Palestinians and Israelis alike have been nurtured, too, by opposing narratives about who is the greater victim, and who is the greater assailant.
Among Palestinians, for example, there is wide public support for the Hamas attack, with Hamas’ popularity in the West Bank, especially, tripling from pre-Oct. 7 levels to 85%, according to a mid-December poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
That poll showed that 95% of Palestinians believe Israel has committed war crimes during the current war, but that only 10% believe Hamas had done so. Likewise, 85% of Palestinians had not seen videos of Hamas atrocities, such as killing women and children in their homes – many taken from Hamas fighters’ own body cameras – which have been daily fare for Israelis and stoked broad public support for the fight in Gaza.
Impact of events
Palestinians in the West Bank say the long-term negative impact of current events, including a surge of Israeli settler violence, the rising death toll in Gaza, and even arrest cases as simple as Mr. Barghouti’s, can’t be calculated.
Mr. Barghouti had been released by Israel in January 2023, after spending two years in prison for infractions such as stone-throwing as a teenager. His family says he emerged a more circumspect man.
“He was determined not to get into trouble,” recalls his mother. “He said, ‘I don’t want to go back to prison; that’s it.’” The 23-year-old enrolled at Birzeit University and “was very committed to his studies.”
The family says they will now support any choice their son makes, about the resistance or otherwise, when he gets out.
Mr. Barghouti’s father, Moqbel al-Barghouti, who works with prisoners’ families and was himself held for two years in the 1980s, says more than 1 million Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel since 1967.
“A very significant chunk of them, when they were released, came back to resistance – Yahya Sinwar is one of them,” says the elder Barghouti, referring to the Hamas military chief in Gaza who was freed in a 2011 prisoner exchange after 22 years behind bars, only to mastermind the October attack.
“This sequence will not end. They take revenge now, we will take revenge later, and this will go on for generations,” he adds. “As long as the occupation continues, there will be resistance. As long as they continue to kill, we will continue to fight back.”
Undimmed defiance
That view is echoed by Suhair al-Barghouti, a veteran resistance activist who goes by the name Umm Asif and who was arrested in a 2 a.m. raid on her house in Kobar Oct. 26, then released during a Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange Nov. 30.
In her living room hang portraits of her late husband, Omar al-Barghouti, a senior Hamas figure who spent a total of 27 years in Israeli prisons and died of COVID-19 in 2021. One son was shot dead by Israeli security forces in 2019, in what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called an “apparent extrajudicial killing,” just days after he was suspected of taking part in a drive-by shooting that wounded seven Israeli settlers. Another son is serving a life sentence.
“You are a terrorist. You raise terrorists. ... We treat you like animals,” Umm Asif says she was told during her arrest. When she was released, she says her interrogator told her, “If you raise one flag, if you do any celebration, I will round you up again.”
But Umm Asif’s defiance is undimmed: “We have every right for resistance. The only hope left for us is the resistance,” she says. “We don’t know where this will take us.”
Like many Palestinians in the West Bank, Umm Asif rejects allegations that Hamas engaged in well-documented atrocities such as rape and sexual mutilation.
“This could never happen from our men. They have the Quran in their hearts,” asserts Um Asif. “God willing, [Israel] will not defeat Hamas. At least they have God’s divine protection, because they are people of a just cause.”
While released detainees often embrace resistance, one high-profile prisoner may choose another path. Palestinians often refer to apartheid-era South Africa in the early 1990s, when then-President F.W. de Klerk released Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison and ended white minority rule.
“Israel needs a De Klerk who will have the courage to sign a peace deal ... with our Mandela,” says Moqbel Barghouti, pointing to the stylized portrait above his couch that shows his brother, Marwan al-Barghouti, a Fatah leader convicted of directing deadly attacks in the second intifada and now serving multiple life sentences.
Amid deliberations by Hamas and Israel over a potential new cease-fire agreement, a Hamas official in Beirut said the organization wants Marwan Barghouti released as part of any hostages-for-prisoners swap.
Polls show that, even from behind bars, he retains widespread popular support and has emphasized the need for national reconciliation.
“Our message for Israelis is: Look for whoever will bring you peace,” says Moqbel Barghouti. “Because not just Palestinians need it, but Israelis need it.”
