AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re continuing our conversation with Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian writer and journalist. She’s speaking to us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Her recent piece for +972 Magazine is headlined “Inside the brutal siege of Jenin.”

You described for us in Part 1 of our conversation, Mariam, the level of destruction of Jenin right now. Can you talk about what it was like to report in Jenin? You would live-stream. Of course, you reported. You did this piece.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: It was truly very difficult to be on the ground in order to cover what is happening in Jenin. Now, it’s very important for media to be on the ground, considering the pattern that the Israeli military has in manipulating and twisting what takes place and why it happens. So, for the media that was there, our access was actively obstructed, not just through the checkpoints that were placed around Jenin to impede access to it, but even with when we enter Jenin, we risk being sniped at. And we actually had other peers have snipers shoot at them, including Faten Elwan, who was covering for AJ+ and TRT in Jenin. And we’ve had at least four journalists get injured between Jenin and Tulkarm, as well.

So, it was truly — it was frightening, because it wasn’t just the snipers. The Israeli military even sent its D9 Caterpillar bulldozers to essentially chase around journalists. And as we have seen in your previous segment, the bulldozers are used to kill people, as in the case of Rachel Corrie — may she rest in peace — as well as what we have seen in Jenin now in terms of continuing that trend more than a decade later.

AMY GOODMAN: Mariam, I wanted you to go into more detail about the shooting of the journalists now. I mean, this is September of 2024. It’s more than two years that on May 11th, 2022, the renowned Palestinian American journalist for Al Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed, shot by an Israeli sniper just outside the Jenin refugee camp. Other reporters were with her. How many — two of the four people that were shot at, the journalists now, were with Shireen more than two years ago?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Yeah. So, the one that was with her, that I know of, is Mujahid, who was just meters away from Shireen when she was killed. And now Mujahid is also a local journalist in Jenin, meaning the odds of risk on his life are increased, not just for while he’s covering, but, again, in terms of the Israeli military targeting Palestinian journalists. We’ve had at least 50 Palestinian journalists being arrested by the Israeli military since October 7th of 2023, and at least 17 remain held, some of whom are being held without trial or charge, as well.

So, it’s clear that the assassination, essentially, of Shireen Abu Akleh, while she was wearing her gear with the press insignia, being shot in the neck, has become protocol for the Israeli military. And again, just on the ground, previously, in coverage, we — in terms even if there was a Palestinian protest, where we would expect tear gas from the Israeli military, now all you see is live ammunition and assault rifles being used against us, snipers and grenades, anti-tank grenades, from the Israeli military. So, it has escalated, and it’s terrifying. It’s, again, really hard to capture, but most importantly is it’s obstructing our work. We are unable to reach people and get their story, as well as their testimony of what is happening.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could tell us about one of the people you interviewed who asked to speak anonymously for fear of Israel’s mass arrest campaign, who said, “You know what Jenin is? It is another Gaza, and Gaza is Palestine. We cannot keep separating them.” Explain what they’re saying and also what you think Israel’s goal is here in raiding all of these camps and areas in the West Bank.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Right. So, the people are afraid to speak with their names, actually. That is a trend, especially in areas like Jenin, where arrest is a pattern from Israel. But it’s also a statement I’ve heard across the different people I’ve spoken with in Jenin, but outside of Jenin, as well, including Tulkarm and in Ramallah. And that is that after the impunity that has been given to the Israeli military — and we have seen we are almost a year into the Israeli aggression on Gaza — it is likely that Israel will continue these patterns in the West Bank in order to depopulate Palestinians.

Now, that is what they mean, “We can’t separate,” because, overall, the Israeli goal, which has been very clear and very explicit from Israeli policymakers and military, is to basically build a Greater Israel, and that means building it over Palestinian lands. So this is what Palestinians mean when they say, you know, Jenin is another Gaza. It’s an emphasis that the practices, the lethal practices, we have seen in Gaza, whether it is the targeting of journalists, the mass killing of civil society and civilians, including children, is being conducted in the West Bank, right? And in the West Bank, again, there isn’t this — the Hamas or the Qassam October 7th association, right? It’s just the Palestinian. And we have seen in your previous segment, Jonathan was explaining how the Israeli military is essentially targeting anyone that would resist its abusive practices. And that’s what we’re seeing in the West Bank, the manifestation of that.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you — you mentioned Jonathan. Jonathan Pollak is the Israeli activist who was with Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi when she died, the Turkish American solidarity activist with the ISM, the International Solidarity Movement, who was just on Friday at the weekly protest in Beita. And I’m wondering if you can talk about the significance of these international solidarity activists. Ayşenur ultimately was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military admitted that their soldiers used live ammunition. They haven’t exactly admitted that they shot Ayşenur, though they haven’t denied it. They said they’ll look into it. The U.S. said that Israel is looking into it. The Turkish President Recep Erdoğan blamed Israel immediately for her death. If you can talk about what these protests mean and exactly what Beita represents?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Right. I remember during — when we found news of Ayşenur’s killing, we were just wrapping up in Jenin, because the military had withdrawn, and then suddenly we got news of an international activist being killed in Beita. Now, it was surprising for us, I assume, because, again, somehow we don’t expect — or we expect, but we don’t — you can’t imagine the escalation that is happening and the speed that it is happening in terms of Israeli violence. So, her killing truly signifies Israel’s feeling of impunity and emboldenment.

Now, the protests that are happening, especially in Beita, is against settler expansion. Now, Israeli settlers have continued settlement expansion in the West Bank after October 7th at terrifying rates, where we’re seeing new outposts pop up that haven’t been there before October 7th. And I believe at least three-quarters — at least a third — I apologize — of Israeli outposts have erupted after October 7th. So you’re seeing the impunity of it. And what these protests do is that they obstruct, or at least attempt to slow down the process until significant and effective international intervention happens. And that includes an arms embargo against the Israeli military, not just the settlers, as we have seen from the Biden administration, but — and also a clear accountability process for the killings of not just internationals, but Palestinians, whose killing continues without recognition and with impunity.

AMY GOODMAN: In your piece, Mariam, you reference a Palestinian being strapped to the front of an Israeli military vehicle. He had already been shot. Can you describe what took place and when this happened?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: So, a couple of months ago, the Israeli military invaded Jenin refugee camp in an attempt to carry out an extrajudicial assassination of several Palestinians within the camp. Now, they were unsuccessful, but what they were — they actually conducted was, again, a terror campaign against the civil population.

And what they did with Mujahid, the man who they tied on the jeep, is they injured him and then tied him on the jeep as a human shield. And again, this has become common practice by the Israeli military of not just people, adults being injured and tied on the jeep, but we are seeing minors also being used as human shields. And in Jenin refugee camp, the Israeli military brought the male population, blindfolded them, handcuffed them, and made them walk as human chains door to door as they expanded their operation, using them as human shields. So, this is what we have seen, and that was the case that I was referencing in the piece.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, on Friday, when Ayşenur was killed in Beita, you have a 13-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli gunfire as settlers attacked her village.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: This was in Qaryut, near Nablus. If you can explain this area and what happened to her? Her name was Bana Laboum.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: So, what we’re seeing is in — the thing about Nablus is that it’s heavily surrounded by illegal settlements and an expansion of outposts, and that means an increase in settler violence, especially in the last couple of months, when we have seen an arming of these settlers by the Israeli Ministry of National Security, specifically Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister. And that has greenlighted them, essentially, to use these weapons against Palestinians, especially because settlers do not adhere to any military regulations, even though, as we saw in Jenin, these regulations are far too loose to mean anything.

But Bana was killed and shot, and this is not the first incident. In the last two years, Israeli settler attacks specifically against Palestinian civilians has increased at dramatic rates. And the Israeli military, as well as the Israeli government, actually does not hold these settlers accountable. There is no indictment charges filed. There is no sentencing for these settlers for the crimes committed. And since October 7th, as the school year begins now in Palestine, 79 Palestinian schoolchildren will not be in the classroom with their peers — and this is in the West Bank alone. Of course, in Gaza, there are no schools to start with, because they have been bombed. But that’s what we’re seeing, and that’s the reality for Palestinians living between a military and armed settlers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the killing of children in the West Bank and the killing of children in Gaza? We’re talking about over 16,000 children. The number is probably far higher. This picture that went viral recently of the 10-year-old little girl named Tala Abu Ajwa, who was killed in an Israeli attack, the picture is a picture of a little girl with pink roller skates on.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Yes, that was a hurtful picture. It shows you the childhood being stolen. But this has become common for the Palestinian reality. Again, even before October 2023, I have verified and corroborated the medical reports of Palestinian children killed in the West Bank, and what you find is that most of the children killed are killed with kill shots. That means a bullet straight to the head or to the chest. And in other cases, you would also see children being killed from the back, meaning they didn’t really pose a threat, if the Israeli military wanted to make that claim.

And nearly a fifth of Palestinians killed in the West Bank are children. And as we are seeing in Gaza, nearly half of Palestinians killed are children and minors. And this is strategic. This is intentional, and it is not by accident. Killing the children is killing the future. And if you don’t manage to kill all the children, you need to understand that an entire generation is being traumatized with the amount of violence they’re witnessing, and not just being killed, but becoming orphans, losing limbs, losing peers, and, again, not fully being able to understand why this is happening against you. But all they know is that this is the Israeli military that is shooting at you, so you want to try and avoid it. But, unfortunately, as we see with the case of Bana, even when you’re on your rooftop, you can’t avoid the violence.

AMY GOODMAN: You have in Gaza more than 600,000 children who won’t be returning to school this week. You know, here in the United States, this is return-to-school week and month, and it’s being celebrated all over the country as, you know, kids see their parents off. Can you talk about the significance of, well, no school?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: You’re essentially leaving an entire generation without its right to education. And it’s not just children to school. We are seeing an increase of violence against Palestinian universities. Birzeit University, within the Ramallah district, is being raided by the Israeli military, its students arrested. And again, this holds a serious impact on the mental health and well-being of both university students and schoolchildren, and it denies them the right to live normally, to not just live normally, but to be able to nurture themselves and their thinking and their creativity and their imagination. What Israel is essentially also doing is denying these children their capacity not just to learn, but to imagine otherwise.

AMY GOODMAN: I finally wanted to ask you about what it’s like to report on Jenin. Again, we will link to your latest piece on Jenin. But how you even get there? You’re based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. How do you go from Ramallah to Jenin? And for people who are not familiar with the West Bank, I mean, the distances are so close between these cities, these towns, these refugee camps, but how long it takes to get everywhere?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: It’s a good question. But in terms of how long to get anywhere, you can’t really tell. So, to Jenin, it can be between an hour and 45, if there aren’t any Israeli military checkpoints erected between Ramallah and Jenin in the north, or it can take up to five hours, which it has taken me that long before. And again, that is because there are Israeli military checkpoints, whether it’s flying checkpoints or built in, that you’re stopped at and you are checked. And, of course, when they find out you’re press, you’re even obstructed further, whether you are told to wait, whether you are detained indefinitely.

So, the journey to Jenin is actually risky. And it’s on Route 60, meaning that Israeli settlers also drive on this route, and you risk being attacked by Israeli settlers, because West Bank car plates are either white or green, and Israeli car plates are yellow, so you can tell who’s who. So you risk that, and you risk, again, being shot by the Israeli military.

And in terms of actually covering Jenin, it’s dangerous in that — not just on the ground if the Israeli military is present, but it’s dangerous and hinders my job when I’m gathering testimonies and trying to understand the layers of the story by not just speaking to the civilians within Jenin refugee camp, but also the combatants, to understand why they do what they do, what they have experienced. Israel impedes you specifically from doing that job, again because they want to control the narrative of what is happening, emphasizing that Israel is, quote-unquote, “defending itself against terrorism,” when it is actually defending the Israeli right to continue abusing Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned the combatants. Describe who they are and what you feel it’s important for people to understand.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: So, the Palestinian combatants, you need to understand they’re not an official army. They don’t really receive the training that the Israeli military receives in conjunction with the American military, nor do they receive any resources, such as — the M16s that they have is either put together from different scrap metal pieces, or they’re, again, M16s that are hijacked and stolen from the Israeli military. And it’s whatever they can get their hands on, and it’s truly limited, or homemade IEDs, improvised explosive devices. Again, that is nothing compared to the Israeli anti-tank grenade.

So, these youth, essentially, would tell you, “The reason we took up arms is because we can’t keep living like this.” And, you know, again, a lot of them had served time inside Israeli prisons, being subject to torture and ill-treatment. The combatants I have spoken with would tell me, “I would rather be killed than go back to that torture chamber.” And it’s really significant that not just had they been in Israeli prisons prior to choosing to take up arms, but they were taken to prison as minors. So, the Israeli regime is essentially designed in which resistance is inevitable, because, truly, you can see how they reach a point where it’s enough. It’s truly enough. And they will try any means possible to try and gain their liberation and their freedom and the recognition that they are protecting not just themselves, but, to the best of their capacity, their community, against these Israeli incursions, as we have seen, which are always lethal and target civilian infrastructure.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, can you talk about the protests? They’re being talked about as the largest protests in Israeli history. Over this weekend, something like 750,000 Israelis went out onto the streets calling for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. What do they mean to people in the West Bank, where you are?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: I think it means nothing to Palestinians in the West Bank. Essentially, what the Israeli public is protesting is the Israeli right to live, not human life, right? So, they’re prioritizing again the Israeli hostages, asking for a ceasefire for the release of the hostages. But what does that mean? That Israel can go back to bombing Gaza to smithereens after the hostages are released and expand towards the West Bank? So these protests are seen for the insincerity that they hold, and they’re also seen for the very focused demands that the Israeli public is making. Again, they’re essentially legitimizing Israeli abuses against Palestinians, but they’re wanting a pause or a halt just to manage taking out the Israeli hostages. Again, no talk about the Palestinians, the thousands of Palestinians, including minors, being held essentially captive and as hostages by the Israeli regime — no trial, no charge, only torture.

AMY GOODMAN: How many Palestinians just in the West Bank alone have been arrested, being held in prisons in this past year, since October 7th?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: So, what we have seen is the number of Palestinian detainees within the West Bank has nearly not doubled, but tripled. It was near 4,000 Palestinian detainees before October 7th. We’re almost at 14,000 Palestinians being detained by the Israeli military. And if you are not detained for months at a time, we’re seeing an increase of Palestinians being arrested daily in the dozens. Whether they’re released after a few days or a week, they’re still being put and subject to ill-treatment and torture and conditions that are truly horrifying, according to the few lawyers that manage to speak with them.

AMY GOODMAN: Mariam, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian writer and journalist based in Ramallah. We’ll link to your piece in +972 Magazine, “Inside the brutal siege of Jenin.” To see Part 1 of our conversation, go to democracynow.org.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.