Nablus- “Put down your weapons, terrorism is the sure path to death,” “Give yourself up for the sake of your family,” “You must evacuate your homes in order to be surrendered.” With these and other phrases, Israel launched its psychological war on the Palestinians, through overt and hidden threats and prior warning to undermine their resolve.
In a line parallel to the armed aggression, the Israeli occupation is trying to spread terror and intimidate the Palestinians with paper leaflets dropped by its planes from the air, and others dropped by the occupation soldiers during storming villages and cities, or with messages via cell phone, as well as drones equipped with a recording device and a sound amplifier.
These leaflets take various forms, including white pieces of paper bearing the logo of the occupation army, and others in the form of counterfeit banknotes for the Israeli shekel currency, and their phrases are often written in broken Arabic.
The settlers’ terrorism against the Palestinians was no less severe, as their publications came in the form of direct incitement, calling for the killing of certain names and publishing their pictures under the phrase “precious hunting”, in addition to persecuting them inside their shops and facilities.
Feast and displacement
Israel has recently escalated these methods, especially after the escalation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip, and has concentrated in the areas most invaded and targeted by the occupation, where it pursues resistance fighters and wanted persons.
While the threatening posts in Gaza focused more on calling on citizens to evacuate their homes, in the West Bank they carried a threat and threat to citizens against harboring wanted persons and demanding their extradition, or warning them against dealing with resistance factions and supporting them in one way or another.
In the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, the Palestinians refused to deal with it categorically, as did citizen Shafee Al-Saadi, who said that the publications that had recently increased in frequency called on them, if they wanted to “live in peace,” to help the occupation arrest the wanted persons, amid threats to prolong the raids and destruction in the camp.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Al-Saadi added, “All attempts by the occupation to influence the people have failed. It has committed killing, arrest, and destruction of the entire infrastructure, and today it is trying to spread terror among the citizens, but they are steadfast and do not care about its plans, because they protect and embrace their resisting sons.”
Speaking marches
Like the Jenin camp, the occupation targeted other villages and cities with these leaflets, but they reached citizen Bassam Nawaj’a via a speaking drone in the village of “Umm al-Amad” near the city of Yatta in the Hebron Governorate in the south of the West Bank.
This plane, Nawajaa says, constantly targets them and disturbs them with sound and annoying laser light, and with an increase in intimidation, the occupation intensified its sending of these planes coinciding with the war on Gaza two months ago. He added, “These drones penetrate the privacy of homes and break into them, and while broadcasting the audio broadcast, they also photograph us.”
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Nawajaa conveyed the content of one of those messages, which says, “Be careful and warn your children. Anyone who thinks about doing something against the army, we will reach him and we will kill him.”
The occupation does not want Nawajaa and the residents there to approach the new settlement road they built to reach the “Otnael” settlement, which is located on their lands. Nawajaa says, “The occupation army attacked us more than once, and now it resorts to threats through these leaflets that will not intimidate us or force us to leave.”
Awareness is required
Doesn’t reduce Security expert Retired Major General Wassef Erekat appreciates these publications and links them to the military war waged by the occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. He says that Israel excelled at them in the past and has excelled at them today, and that the Palestinians now have sufficient and comprehensive experience with them.
Erekat added to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that Israel believes that these methods affect the Palestinian internal front to dissuade it and break its will, and resort to it as a method in support of the military war represented by killing and displacement. He adds that what is required of the Palestinians is “awareness and knowledge of the Israeli purpose behind these publications.”
Monitoring method
In this context, the researcher at the Palestinian Center for Israeli Studies (MADAR) said: Walid Habas,The occupation army is immoral, and violates many of the laws regulating the form of war by attacks on civilians, and realizes that this will expose it to international accountability before the world and international organizations that can investigate the war.”
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Habas added, “Therefore He sets himself a so-called rescue plan to preserve the line of return in case he is legally held accountable, and claims that he has taken all the correct measures and lifted his responsibility by informing those concerned through these publications, and that the people who were killed, even if they were in the thousands, bear responsibility for themselves, and even the targets that planes hit, such as residential towers, are there. “A prior protocol to justify this targeting.”
Even in areas of the West Bank, especially in resistance sites such as the Jenin camp and others, Habbas believes that psychological warfare, although these leaflets are part of it, is that in addition to using them to escape legal responsibility, the Israeli security system monitors through these leaflets the communications and movements of the resistance fighters.
Attempts at displacement
Raafat Abu Khader, a researcher at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, follows up on the effects of the occupation’s attacks. He says that these leaflets are psychological warfare, but their goal is to displace all Palestinians, whether in Gaza from one area to another or in the West Bank from one house to another and from one camp to another.
In light of the killing of civilians and destruction of their homes that may result from these publications, the Palestinians are trying to deal with parts of them that demand that they evacuate their homes immediately instead of demolishing them or targeting them inside them, and this – according to Abu Khader’s statement to Tel Aviv Tribune Net – “may provide protection for themselves after the world has closed its eyes.” And his silence about the crimes of the occupation.”
