U.S. Senior Citizen Says Her Skull Was Fractured by Israeli Settlers

Mel Frykberg, March 27, 2023

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Courtesy Cassandra Auren
An American senior citizen allegedly suffered a potentially fatal attack in the West Bank as part of a surge in violence that has gripped the Israeli-occupied region since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of an extreme right-wing coalition.

Local residents told The Daily Beast that Israeli settlers—who are trying to take over Palestinian land—have been emboldened by the radical rhetoric and extremist policies promoted by the new government. Villagers say attacks have become a daily hazard and the Israeli police and military have done little to protect them.

An American mother of two from Wisconsin was caught up in the violence this month. Cassandra Auren, 65, was hospitalized for two days and required six stitches after she suffered a fractured skull and internal bleeding. She told The Daily Beast that she was struck on the head by an Israeli settler with a long wooden stick as she was visiting the village of Tuba in the Massafer Yatta area south of Hebron.

“The attack by the male settler, who had a small child with him, took me totally by surprise as there was no prior confrontation and no provocation on my part. It all happened so fast I had no time to think about whether my life was in danger,” said Auren, a residential carpenter who traveled to the region as a peace activist.

In a video seen by The Daily Beast, another settler armed with a metal pole chased Auren and an Italian woman who was with her.

The doctor’s report said there was a fracture and external bleeding at the site of the trauma. The CT scan showed right subdural hematoma, 3mm in thickness. And the doctor reported decreased hearing in her left ear and said that she continues to suffer from severe headaches. “When I came around my head was painful and I was dizzy.”


A video frame grab shows an Israeli settler chasing Auren.

Although the incident has shaken her badly she has continued to visit the village and remains angry that this behavior often goes unreported.

“I now understand the fear that Palestinians feel all the time, especially the women and children, because at night I also get afraid that the settlers might attack again,” said Auren.

The ancient Hebron hills—with their winding roads that snake around orchards and agricultural fields—have an unmistakable rugged beauty. Generations of Palestinians living in villages and hamlets that dot the territory have earned their living from the land here for hundreds of years. But the unspoilt views can be deceptive—they are hiding a dark side.

Ali Awad, from the village of Tuba in Massafer Yatta, told The Daily Beast that his family and all the other residents are being threatened with expulsion but their livelihoods would be destroyed and they have nowhere else to go.

“Settlers have become emboldened in the last few months and carry out nearly daily attacks on the villages. And if we complain to the police or army when they arrive, we are arrested and told that the land no longer belongs to us and that we have to leave the land,” Awad said.


Cassandra Auren’s head injury.

Last Thursday, he said a Palestinian who confronted a settler on his land was bitten in the face and teargassed while the Israeli army stood by, with residents accusing the settlers of a deliberate policy of intimidation to drive them off their land.

The daily settler attacks have been an ongoing problem for years but with Israel’s new extreme right-wing government their behavior has been given the green light.

Continue reading

Wisconsin volunteer attacked in West Bank

Cassandra Dixon is helped by women from the Palestinian hamlet of Tuba, in the Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank, after she was attacked by a Jewish settler on March 7.

Ed Treleven, Wisconsin State Journal, March 27, 2023

Cassandra Dixon’s work as a volunteer in the Israeli-occupied West Bank puts her in an area where tensions between Palestinians who live in the region and Israeli settlers run high. 

She and other international volunteers are in the region, she said, to monitor and document attacks on Palestinians by settlers, which have become more common in recent months. Three weeks ago, Dixon herself was attacked by a settler and sustained a serious head injury.

Dixon, 64, is a Stevens Point native who works as a carpenter in Madison but lives between Wisconsin Dells and Oxford at a place called Mary House, which provides lodging for low-income people who are visiting incarcerated family members at the Federal Correctional Institution at Oxford.

She said that on March 7, she was in the far southern West Bank hamlet of Tuba, part of a collection of Palestinian hamlets called Masafer Yatta that was the subject of a monumental decision last year by the Israeli Supreme Court that ordered the eviction of as many as 1,500 Palestinians from lands in the area, so Israel could establish a firing zone for military exercises. 

Settlers have also been establishing settlements and outposts in the area, disrupting crops grown by Palestinian shepherds during the region’s short spring growing season to feed their flocks. Settlers have been hostile to Palestinians and attacked some who pass through the settlements, Dixon said, including schoolchildren whose route to school takes them through settlement areas. 

Dixon said she was standing on the outskirts of Tuba, where she had been visiting friends, and was watching a settler with a flock of sheep when four other settlers were spotted running nearby. 

As Dixon and a companion approached a hill, she said, one of the settlers appeared at the top of the hill, wearing a mask and waving a pointed metal pipe. He and the settler who was tending sheep, who had a stick, began running toward Dixon and the companion. They tried to run but Dixon was struck hard from behind on the right side of her head, hard enough to knock her off her feet.

Continue reading

URGENT! Stand with Masafer Yatta today!

MRSCP has decided to join in an emergency campaign sponsored by Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and Stop the Wall Coalition to provide emergency shelter and schools for the families of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron hills area.

You will hear more from us in the coming week about our portion of the campaign, and about the experiences of MRSCP member Cassandra Dixon who is currently in the area.

MECA has a deadline of March 31 to raise $25,000 to begin the work and we want to encourage all our supporters to give what you can now.

As always, we thank you for your support.

They can demolish our houses, schools, and clinics but they can’t destroy these caves nor our determination to keep steadfast until we have achieved justice and freedom.
— Abu Mahmoud of Masafer Yatta

Dear Madison-Rafah,

I’m sure, like all of us at MECA, you have watched in horror these last few months as Israeli settler and military violence gets more severe and more widespread every day.

Give now for emergency shelter & schools for the families of Masafer Yatta.

Meanwhile, the people in the villages of Masafer Yatta of have suffered some of the worst abuses of Israeli Apartheid. The Israeli government designated Masafer Yatta as a “military zone.” The government and illegal settlers are intent on expelling the Palestinian families who have lived there for hundreds of years.

Last year, after an Israeli court order, bulldozers entered several of the small, rural communities in Masafer Yatta, smashing homes, clinics, and schools to rubble.

While Israeli leaders and US politicians alike watch—even encourage and support—Israeli violence there IS something you can do now to support the people of Masafer Yatta who are steadfast in defending their land and fierce in their commitment to the education of their children.

Masfer Yatta has two very significant resources. They have natural caves which, with your support now, will be turned into homes and schools. They also have the solidarity of people like you who stand against the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Your contribution to MECA now for our joint campaign with Stop the Wall will help to renovate 36 caves to create homes and schools in Masafer Yatta and provide 10 tents and 10 electricity generators as temporary shelter in case of demolition.

This is part of the Defend Masafer Yatta Campaign, and the goal is to raise an initial $25,000 by March 31 to begin the work. Please give the most you can afford today.

Shukran (Thank you),

Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch
Executive Director

P.S. The Defend Masafer Yatta Campaign must eventually raise a total of $70,000 to complete the renovation of caves for homes and schools.  Please make the most generous contribution you can now to start this work immediately and support the steadfastness of the people of Masafer Yatta. Many thanks.

Continue reading

‘Who hits a 64-year-old woman with a bat?’

Cassandra Auren, an American peace activist, was visiting the Palestinian village of Tuba when settlers attacked her with a bat and fractured her skull.

Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine, March 13, 2023

Cassandra Auren seen following a settler attack in the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank, March 7, 2023.Cassandra Auren seen following a settler attack in the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank, March 7, 2023.

In partnership with
A 64-year-old American citizen was attacked last Tuesday by a group of masked settlers in the South Hebron Hills of the occupied West Bank. Cassandra Auren, a peace activist from Wisconsin, was standing with an Italian activist on land that belongs to the residents of the Palestinian village Tuba, when a group of settlers from a nearby outpost, Havat Ma’on, ran toward them. Auren said that one of the attackers stood behind her, and as she was turning to face him, he hit her in the head with a weapon that she described as looking “like a baseball bat.” She immediately passed out from the blow and was hospitalized with a fractured skull and internal bleeding in her head.

Tuba is an unrecognized village in the Masafer Yatta region of the South Hebron Hills. Like other villages in the area, it is slated for demolition, and its residents, who suffer routinely from harassment by settlers and soldiers, are prevented from building or using infrastructure. Long before the demolition and expulsion orders were issued, and green lit by the Supreme Court, residents were routinely denied building permits and any ability to develop the hamlet. Residents also report that, in recent weeks, settlers from Havat Ma’on have been coming to the village to graze their sheep on Palestinian land, destroying the village crops.

Auren said she came to Masafar Yetta out of a sense of responsibility. “[The United States] sends so much support money to Israel,” she explained, “but without knowing how it is being used to violently push Palestinians from their land. This is money that the U.S. gives with no parameters.”

Auren contacted the U.S. Embassy about the incident, which confirmed to +972 that an American citizen had been attacked near Tuba, and that the Embassy was providing her with assistance. “These settlers come and hit a 64-year-old woman from Wisconsin with a big bat. Who does that?” she said during our conversation. “And in a place where people live, so close to the village. If this had been my home, [it would be as if the attack was] occurring in my driveway. It’s shocking to me that that kind of violence happens so close to where someone lives. Children have to travel that exact path in order to get to their school.”

Cassandra Oren. (Courtesy)Cassandra Auren.

“I have tended to this land with my family ever since I was a child,” said Ali Awad, a local resident, +972 contributor, and one of the victims of the settler attacks. “This is my grandfather’s land. We have never faced anything like this. Suddenly these settlers are coming. They are a group of shepherds from Havat Ma’on who for three weeks have been coming in every day with their flock to destroy our agriculture.”

Israeli authorities have yet to make any arrests for the assault. A police spokesperson told +972 that the police opened an investigation, which is still ongoing. According to Yesh Din, an anti-occupation organization that monitors settler violence in the West Bank, between 2005-2022, police closed 92 percent of cases of settler attacks on Palestinians without filing any indictments.

Correction: An original version of this article used a misspelling of Cassandra Auren’s last name. 

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

The Heartbreak and Defiance of Occupation

WORT 89.9FM Madison
2023-03-12

The Heartbreak and Defiance of Occupation

At a 1979 meeting of Israel’s “Ministerial Committee for Settlement Matters in the Judea and Samaria area,” created in 1972 for the purpose of establishing new settlements in the West Bank, chairman of the committee Ariel Sharon said of the “firing zones” he moved to create in 1967, “They were all aimed at a single goal, which was to create the option of Jewish settlement in the area. … These firing zones were seized for a single purpose, which was to be our land reserves for settlement.”

In the 1980s, Israel classified most of Masafer Yatta, an area in the south Hebron Hills, as a closed “firing zone,” Firing Zone 918, for military training purposes.

In 1999 Israeli forces expelled all the residents in Masafer Yatta on the grounds that they were living there “illegally” and were not permanent residents, despite most residents having documents proving their ownership of their lands.

A few months after the expulsion, they were permitted to return “temporarily” after an interim injunction from an Israeli court, as they fought for their right to remain on their lands. They suffered under IDF training, the noise of helicopters and tanks and presence of troops on the ground, disrupted access to grazing areas, destruction of crops, anxiety and fear among children and adults, blocked roads, denial of water and electricity. But they were home.

And then in May 2022, more than 20 years after the case began, the Supreme Court in Jerusalem ruled that the residents of Masafer Yassa could be expelled.

Ali Awad, activist and journalist and resident of the village of Tuba in Masafer Yatta talked to Gil Halsted about what is happening now. Awad write for 972 Magazine and posts often on Instagram as ali_awad98.
 

Email Congress Now to keep Jubbet Ahd Dhib School Standing

Dear Friend,

I am writing to you today with an urgent and time sensitive request for intervention, as yet another Palestinian school in the West Bank faces demolition by the Israeli Army. In this case, the the Jubbet Ahd Dhib School was not afforded due process or even given their day in court, and it can now be demolished at any time. Reach out to your Senators and Representative now and ask them to stand up for Palestinian children and their right to an education.

Email Congress Now

  • In 2017, the original school building in Jubbet Ahd Dhib was demolished by the Israeli Army, the night before the first day of the school year
  • The Palestinian Authority then rebuilt the school overnight, and the school has faced harassment at the hands of settlers since
  • Intervention by the U.S. State Department since 2017 has helped keep the school standing – but now it looks like it is in real danger

 

Rebuilding Alliance has been advocating to safeguard Masafer Yatta schools in our Contact Congress briefing series this year, and last year we tried everything we could to save the Sfai school, but to no avail. But out of all of the cases that we have seen, this case is especially horrendous:

– A powerful settler group, Regavim, pushed the government of Israel to demolish the school

– The school has not even gotten the opportunity to be involved in the proceedings of the case, no due process has been afforded to the village, and the village’s petition to appeal was rejected last week.

The children of Jubbet Ahd Dhib have the right to an education, and the right to learn in a safe school that isn’t threatened by settlers and the army. The only thing that can keep their school standing now is political pressure. Please Email Congress now and stand up for the children of Jubbet Ahd Dhib.

Sincerely,

Nisreen Malley, Advocacy Coordinator
Rebuilding Alliance

P.S. If possible, please take a moment to support Rebuilding Alliance’s work. You can donate online, or if you prefer to use mail, please make your check out to ‘Rebuilding Alliance’ and mail to: Rebuilding Alliance, 50 Woodside Plaza Ste. 627, Redwood City CA 94061

Upcoming Events: March 12-16, 2023

Sunday, March 12: WORT interview with Masafer Yatta Activist
Thursday, March 16: Cindy and Craig Corrie on WORT
Thursday, March 16: Tantura Film and Discussion


 
On Sunday March 12 at 5 pm, tune into WORT’s World View program for a taped interview with Masafer Yatta activist Ali, who will discuss the current situation of Israeli army and settler attacks and Palestinian resistance there.  (The interview will be aired after the news.)

Thursday March 16, 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie in Rafah. We continue to mourn her loss and celebrate her life. We will never forget her.

Locally, we invite you to tune in to WORT Radio’s A Public Affair with host Allen Ruff at 12 noon on Thursday March 16, 89.9 FM or listen on line for a live conversation with Rachel’s parents Cindy and Craig. 

A Public Affair with host Allen Ruff
WORT 89.9 FM Madison

Live Interview with Cindy & Craig Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie
Thursday, March 16, 2023 10-11 am PDT; Noon-1pm CDT; 1-2 pm EDT

The Corries will talk with host Allen Ruff about their daughter, 20 years of the Rachel Corrie Foundation, RCF’s kinship with the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, and the foundation’s commitment to Gaza and to Palestinian rights today, as startling events continue to unfold in the region.

The hour-long program can be heard live at the WORT 89.9 FM website here. The program will be archived at the WORT 89.9 website for later listening, as well.

At 9 pm CT on March 16, we also invite you to join a zoom showing and discussion of the new film Tantura, about the 1948 massacre in that village, co-sponsored by the Rachel Corrie Foundation as part of a year-long commemoration. 

Mideast Focus Ministry 10th Annual Film Series
Break the Silence – Stories of Occupation
Tantura: Film & Discussion

Thursday – March 16, 2023, 7 pm PT

Zoom only: Register for a link to this film and discussion by requesting a link at seattlemideastfocus@gmail.com

Continue reading

The Huwara pogroms by Israeli settlers and military

Demolition Report

Good Shepherd Collective, 3 March 2023

Palestinians walking across the desert after the Israeli military demolished their homes.
Over $5,000,000 in reported damages after the Huwara pogroms — a collobrative night of violence organized by the Israeli settler movement and the Israeli military. Over 30 homes and 100 cars were burnt, as well several injured and one Palestinian killed.

Demolition Data

It’s critical to remember that while Israel’s use of home demolitions is a constant tool for indigenous displacement and erasure, the ebbs and flows of this formal policy’s execution are shaped by different political formations. A rise in home demolitions almost always corresponds to the power of the most fascist, right-wing elements in Israeli society. Therefore, it is no surprise that demolition metrics are up across the board. There is a 155% increase in displaced people compared to last year’s timeframe (January 1 through March 2, 2022, compared to January 1 through March 2, 2023). These numbers don’t account for the number of demolitions that happen inside the Green Line in places like the Naqab or the Galilee regions as well as other non-Jewish communities.

Organizations like Regavim, Ir David, the Hebron, and Ateret Cohanim have all funneled hundreds of millions of charitable donations through channels in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. to develop political programs that ushered in more robust, aggressive, and permanent policies that structured to erase Palestinian communities and replace them.

These financial structures have been essential in financing the ultra right-wing government, with members of the aforementioned organizations all utilizing their previous organizations to make inroads into the government and ultimately gaining MK positions — like Bezalel Smotrich — the co-founder of Regavim.

Dismantling the financial mechanisms that underpin the settler movement must take an elevated position within the Palestinian movement for liberation if we want to prevent the next Huwara. Learn more at defundracism.org

 Data from January 1, 2023 to March 2, 2023.
 Donor
 Funded
 Structures
 Demolished
 Israeli
 Operations
 35  226  93
Impact on Palestinian Lives
 Type  Displaced  Affected  Structures
Households  59  1,778  Residential: 60
People  318  10,851  Agricultural: 73
Males  163  5,704  Livelihood: 35
Females  143  5,159  WASH: 21
Children  150  4,724  Infrastructure: 4
 Others: 12

The State Department Should Deny Smotrich Entry

Please take this action aimed at the State Department. It is outrageous (and against US law) that someone who openly advocates for the genocidal “erasing” of an entire Palestinian town is allowed to freely visit the U.S. and spread his venomous hatred.

We are informed that the main restraint of Israeli ethnic cleansing in Massafer Yatta and other areas is the opposition of the U.S. State Department. They need to know that there’s a large constituency for Palestine.

The State Department must follow its condemnation of settler attacks on Hawara with action

One of the highest Israeli officials who endorsed the recent settler attacks in the town of Hawara and has publicly stated Israel should “erase” the town is planning to visit the US next week, while the affected town is still grappling with the aftermath of the brutal assault.

Sign our petition to call on the U.S. government to cancel Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s visa and deny him entry into the United States. The Biden Administration should make it clear that criminals advocating for genocide are not welcome in our country.

On February 26, 2023, armed Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Hawara, Burin, Zaatara, and Asira al-Qibliya in a pre-planned raid. Now, Israeli media reports that the army knew of the intention of the settlers to attack Hawara and did nothing to stop them. Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns on Sunday night, torching cars and homes, injuring more than 100 Palestinian civilians, and killing Sameh Aqtash in his home. Earlier that day calls to descend on the villages were shared on social media networks. Prior to the attacks, Bezalel Smotrich “liked” a tweet posted by settler leader Davidi Ben Zion, who said the town of Huwara should be “erased.” Given a chance to explain himself the next day, Smotrich doubled down, saying: “I think that the town of Hawara needs to be erased. The State of Israel needs to do it, and not, heaven forbid, private citizens.”

After the attacks, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price condemned the statements, saying “I want to be very clear about this. These comments were irresponsible. They were repugnant. They were disgusting.” Condemnation is good, but words are not good enough and condemnation is only valid when followed by real, substantive action.

Sign our petition now urging the Biden Administration to deny Smotrich’s visa to the United States! AJP Action will hand deliver the petition to U.S. officials at the Department of State next week.

According to US law, the State Department can, and should, deny visas to any individuals who incite violence against civilians. Not only that, some human rights organizations believe that Smotrich has possibly committed the act of incitement to genocide, which also would prevent him from acquiring a U.S. visa under US law. If the US truly condemns such behavior, denying him entry should be a given.

Sign our petition today and spread it far and wide. Let’s say it loud and clear: genocidal racist Israeli leaders are not welcome here, and the United States must take the necessary steps to end its long-standing enablement and abetting of Israel’s apartheid against the Palestinian people.

Sign Our Petition Here

In solidarity,
Ayah Ziyadeh
Advocacy Director, AJP Action

 

Global Day of Online Action #EndEthnicCleansing

Palestine is on fire. Since yesterday night, Palestinian villages of Huwara, Burin, Asira Qabliya, Beita, Beit Furiq and Za’atara in South Nablus district have been under full attack by Israeli settlers, supported by their military. Settlers all across the West Bank have attacked people and their lands, burned their homes, streets and cars. Over 100 Palestinians have been injured.

This is part of apartheid Israel’s long term – and now dramatically escalating – strategy to deny Palestinians their very right to exist, destroy their villages and to ethnically cleanse them from their land.

TODAY the UN Human Rights Council starts its sessions. It is time to act NOW.

Israels latest onslaught makes today’s Global Day of Online Action, prepared together with the #EndEthnicCleansing network, ever more urgent.

Please join us to tell the UN it’s time to:

  • Uphold Palestinian rights
  • Stop Israel’s impunity
  • Dismantle Israeli apartheid.

You can find more about how to join below.

United we prevail,
Stop the Wall Campaign, February 27, 2023

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLKIT

Global Day of Online Action

#EndEthnicCleansing #DefendMasaferYatta

Monday February 27

Aims

In the occasion of the start of the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the #EndEthnicCleansing network promotes this Global Day of Online Action to:

  • Raise awareness that Israel’s 75 years old ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is intensifying. 
  • Demand concrete international action to end Israel’s impunity, including through sanctions and an end to military and security ties – Let’s tell them that time has run out to deplore and condemn.
  • Call on the UN to comply with its duty to end apartheid and demand it re-activates its mechanisms to fight apartheid.
  • Join boycott and divestment campaigns against bulldozer companies JCB (@JCBmachines), Hyundai Heavy Industries (@HyundaiHeavyInd), Volvo (@VolvoGroup) and other corporations that enable and profit from Israel’s ethnic cleansing.
  • Support Palestinian steadfastness against the ongoing colonization of their land.

The imminent threat of the ethnic cleansing of over 1000 people in 14 villages in Masafer Yatta region is paradigmatic. Unfortunately, it is only one of many places where Palestinians are resisting apartheid Israel’s strategy of expulsion that stretches from the Galilee to the Jordan Valley, spanning almost the entire area C of the occupied West Bank and reaching the Naqab in the south.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLKIT

Continue reading