A Father for 48 Hours Demonstration

Haaretz | Friday, June 4, 2021 5 WEEKEND “unauthorized” settler outpost of Evi- atar on land belonging to Yatma and The Twilight Zone two other villages, Qabalan and Beita. Gideon Levy In the past few weeks, about 20 structures have been put up, suppos- and Alex Levac edly in secret, at Eviatar, to the east of the village. The outpost was estab- lished about a month ago in the olive groves of Jebel Sabih, in response to mar Snobar is brought into a stabbing attack at Tapuah Junction, the room so he can be shown and the veteran settler activist Dani- off, held in the arms of his ella Weiss, eyes glistening, declared Aunt Iman, his father’s sis- its creation on television. This week we ter. Umar is wrapped in a saw the new outpost, which lies along Ulight blue wool blanket. His little head the road that descends to the Jordan turns from side to side, his face is sal- Valley. A huge bulldozer of the Israel low, his hands are miniatures. Defense Forces was in the center of the He’s 2 weeks old. A tense silence falls unauthorized outpost, with a group of in the room at the sight of the newborn. settlers gathered around it. Only his grandmother breaks into quiet When Tareq learned that the road sobs, “Haram [“pity” in Arabic] on the from the village was blocked, he drove baby,” she whispers through her tears. toward the demonstration; with him The other family members stop them- were Hamada and a few friends. Chil- selves from responding like her. dren and teenagers threw stones at the But no one in the room is left indif- soldiers, who fired tear gas, stun gre- ferent at the sight of the infant. No one nades and rubber-tipped metal bullets can remain indifferent, not choke up, at the demonstrators – a familiar Fri- when there’s a 2-week-old orphan. day ritual in the West Bank. According This baby was born into orphan- to Hamada, the soldiers and the demon- hood. Two days after his birth, an Is- strators were about a hundred meters raeli soldier shot and killed his father, apart, and the stones didn’t hit anyone. who was unarmed and was nowhere Hanna Snobar, Tareq’s mother, holding her newborn grandson, Umar. Tareq’s sister Iman is sitting next to them. Hamada says Tareq was frustrated at near the soldier, during a demonstra- not being able to drive to Nablus and tion next to his village. Tareq Snobar may even have been furious, but adds lived only 27 years and was a father for that the two of them didn’t take part in just 48 hours. He saw his firstborn son the stone-throwing and simply watched at his birth but never got to bring him from afar. Then they went home for home, as he had planned to do on the lunch and afterward drove back to the day of his death. A father for 48 hours demonstration. Tareq’s father begged The village of Yatma is east of him not to go, but Tareq was adamant. Tapuah Junction in the center of the At 4 P.M. the soldiers stepped up the West Bank. We were there last Novem- Tareq Snobar was on his way to the hospital to bring his wife and newborn son home. The road from frequency of the gunfire, maybe to end ber with Abdulkarim Sadi, a field re- the demonstration; then they switched searcher for the Israeli human rights his village, however, was blocked by Israeli soldiers because of a demonstration against both the Gaza to live fire. Hamada says another unit group B’Tselem who accompanied us military operation and a new settler outpost. A soldier took aim from afar and killed the new father of soldiers or special-ops police ar- again this time. Back then we were rived in a white van and took position. looking into the circumstances of the The demonstration didn’t abate. At death of 17-year-old Amer Snobar, a that point, only two people had been relative of Tareq who according to Iman, 33, were there, too, along with in her room. a restaurant in Hawara, north of their wanted very much to bring his wife and wounded, by rubber-tipped bullets. witnesses was beaten to death by Is- Hamada Snobar, 31, who was with his It was Friday, May 14, what be- village. Tareq spent four years in an son home and present Umar to the fam- At 7:40 P.M., Tareq and Hamada were raeli troops. This week, waiting in the cousin Tareq when a soldier kneeled, came a black Friday in the West Bank, Israeli prison after being arrested at ily and their neighbors. His plan was to still standing there, still unable to leave living room of Tareq Snobar’s home aimed his rifle and from long range though no one in Israel is aware of it. age 17 for throwing stones and taking go that afternoon to the hospital where the village. Suddenly Hamada spotted a in Yatma were his immediate family, fired one deadly round, apparently On that day Israeli soldiers killed no part in disturbances. He was released his son was born two days earlier; no soldier kneeling down and aiming his ri- all very subdued, though the father, with the intent to kill. The soldier cer- fewer than 12 Palestinians in the West in 2015 and two years ago married one imagined that a few hours later fle at them. The soldier was about a hun- 64-year-old Umar, who for most of his tainly didn’t know that Tareq had just Bank, the most on a single day since Ranad; the couple lived in the family he himself would lay dying in another dred meters away, Hamada says. “He’s life worked in construction in Israel, become a father for the first time and 2002, under cover of the war raging home in Yatma. Nablus hospital. At the entrance to the aiming at us!” he shouted to Tareq, but gave us a smile. Tareq’s mother, Han- was thrilled to be on his way to the in the Gaza Strip. Tareq Snobar was On May 14, Tareq returned home village a demonstration was underway too late. One lethal bullet slammed into na, 54, a dialysis patient, was enveloped Anglican Hospital in Nablus to bring one of them. Two years ago, he and his from the restaurant at around 2 P.M. of people from Yatma and nearby to Tareq’s left hip. by her mourning, mute in black. His his son home. The baby’s mother, Rand brother Mohammed opened a restau- It was a holiday, Eid al-Fitr, marking protest the war and killing in Gaza, brother, Mohammed, 28, and his sister, Naanish, 22, from Nablus, was closeted rant in Yatma after previously owning the end of Ramadan fasting, and Tareq and to protest the establishment of the Continued on page 12 The best-laid plans Contrary to the claim that Israel suddenly found itself holding territories after the June '67 war, declassified documents reveal detailed directives drawn up by the IDF ahead of the prolonged policing mission it would be tasked with the Operations Branch), which was then headed by Yitzhak Rabin, drew up a widely circulated directive regarding the organization of the military government in the territories. This order sheds light, in its words, on Israel’s “ex- pected directions of expansion,” which in the assessment of the security per- sonnel would be the focus of the next war. These territories included the West Bank, Sinai, the Syrian heights and Damascus, and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. The August 1963 order was pre- pared following an evaluation two months earlier by the military government unit that controlled the lives of Arabs within Israel. In internal corre- spondence, it suggested that the future organization of rule in the territories had been executed “hastily” to date and “does not completely meet all the needs.” Arab prisoners of war being led blindfolded to interrogation in the Old City of Called the “Organization Order – Jerusalem, June 8, 1967. Goren / AP Military Government in State of Emer- gency,” it stated that, “The IDF’s thrust to transfer the war to the enemy’s ter- Adam Raz preparations that were made in the ritories will necessarily bring about military in the years before 1967, with expansion [into] and conquest of areas the intention of organizing in advance beyond the state’s borders.” Based on or years, most Israeli histori- the control of territories that the de- the Israeli experience in the period fol- ography maintained that the fense establishment assessed – with lowing the Sinai campaign, the docu- country’s decision makers were high certainty – would be conquered ment stated that it would be necessary F taken by surprise by the fruits in the next war. A perusal of the in- to install a military government quick- of the victory that were harvested with formation indicates that the takeover ly, because “these conquests might last lightning speed in June 1967. “The war,” and retention of these areas – the West for a short time only and we will have to Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said, Bank from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula evacuate the territories following inter- three days after its conclusion, “devel- and Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the national pressure or an arrangement.” oped and rolled into fronts that were Golan Heights from Syria – were not The part that followed, however, was not intended and were not preplanned a by-product of the fighting, but the meant for those who would be tasked by anyone, including by me.” On the manifestation of a strategic approach with administering the military gov- basis of these and other statements, the and prior preparations.

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