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- [00:06]
A
What happens when the road to peace you're walking down begins to look like a road to nowhere? For Palestinians in the west bank, that question is becoming more urgent by the day. Gaza may dominate the headlines, but beyond it, another crisis is unfolding. Settler violence, economic collapse, and a growing despair that diplomacy can ever deliver justice. Hamza Abu Huwaidi knows the stakes personally, a Gazan refugee and anti Hamas activist now living in Germany. In a previous episode, Hamza told us how he survived Hamas imprisonment and torture and yet remains committed to a peaceful future for his people. In this conversation, we turn from Gaza to the West Bank. Hamza discusses the violence spreading through Palestinian villages, carried out by radical groups like the Hilltop Youth, the unjust legal architecture that leaves Palestinians exposed, the economic crisis hollowing out daily life, and the E1 settlement plan which may finally destroy the geography of a two state. Thomas Small. This is my conflicted conversation with Hamza Abu Huwaydi. Hello, Hamza, it's so nice to see you again. How you doing?
- [01:43]
B
I'm good. It's good to be with you again.
- [01:45]
A
Thanks very much for coming back on Conflicted. You were last year, last April. So that's April 2025 for one of my favorite episodes, I have to say, because as listeners may remember and dear listeners, if you haven't listened to the episode we did with Hamza last year, please go back and listen to it. We will not be repeating ourselves here. In that episode, Hamza, you told us about your remarkable life story, your experience as a Gazan growing up under Hamas rule, your horrible experience after having become an activist inside Hamas prisons where you suffered torture. And eventually, in the months before the 7th of October, you made the decision to leave Gaza and you now live in Europe, in Germany, as a refugee, and have from that point watched since the 7th of October, a whole hell of a lot of stuff happen in the Middle East. So that's the story you told in last year's episode. And again, dear listeners, go back and listen to it if you haven't. And this time, Hamza, you're coming back on the show, well, to kind of talk again about Israel, Palestine, and especially this time you're interested in talking about a subject which you only briefly mentioned last time and which is growing in importance and is in the news more and more. And that's the West Bank. So you want to talk about the West Bank?
- [03:19]
B
Yes. I mean, first, thank you for giving me the opportunity. And I wanted to talk about the west bank because there is a much necessary focus on Gaza and its situation Right now by the mainstream media. But if we looked on the west bank, there is a high scale of violence, a high scale of terrorism happening there, but it goes unreported. And it has been going even before the war. It has been going for a long time. And I think it deserves the opportunity, it deserves the audience to listen to the stories, to the incidents happening there and to help them draw their conclusions on what is the best solution to stop the current scale of terrorism and how the people actually suffer in the West Bank.
- [04:00]
A
So when you say terrorism, I just think we need to make sure that the listener understands you're speaking especially of what is called settler violence, is that right? So this is terrorism against Palestinians in the west bank perpetrated by Jewish Israeli settlers there?
- [04:18]
B
Yes, I. I name it settler terrorism because it's a kind of violence that is being used with a political motive and it's going against the civilians. So this is one thing. It's a violence that is being used against the civilians with a political motive. And I would argue that the political motive behind it is to push away or to displace the Palestinians from the west bank, from their lands to other countries on the hope that these groups hope that Israel can achieve full sovereignty on what they call Judea and Samaria or the occupied West Bank.
- [04:55]
A
Yeah, the topic is. Well, I don't. Is it complicated? I'm always saying things are complicated and obviously everything's complicated. But maybe in the case of settler terrorism in the west bank, it's not so complicated. I mean, it can be confusing. The situation in the west bank is slightly confusing. I mean, ever since the Oslo Accords. Well, I mean, people know that since 1967 and the war in that year, Israel has been militarily occupying the West Bank. Before 67, the West bank was a part of the Kingdom of Jordan. So essentially it was part of Jordan. Jordan had conquered the west bank during the 1948, 1949 war, had held it as part of its territory more or less until 1967, when Israel occupied it and has been occupying it ever since. But then when the Oslo peace process began in the 90s, the West bank was split into three sections. Just outline, sort of, let's say, technically, how the west bank is meant to be administered.
- [06:04]
B
Yes. Area A, Area B and Area C. According to the Oslo Accords, which was. The Oslo Accords was supposed to be a transition period. It wasn't a full solution for the Palestinian Israeli question. Area A was supposed to be fully administered by the Palestinian Authority. Talking about administrative matters and security matters. Area B was supposed to be under the administrative of the Palestinian Authority, but as a joint Palestinian, Israeli security and Area C was under full Israeli security coordination. And the Area C represents more than half of the West Bank. So it's the largest part of the West Bank. All of these areas were supposed to be under a transition period. And then after the Oslo Accords or after the final status matters were supposed to form a Palestinian state that did not materialize until now.
- [07:01]
A
You know, one thing that I think some people maybe get a bit confused about is that though Area A is, in geographical terms, smaller, much smaller than Area C. Area A is where the majority of Palestinian citizens live, live in the West Bank. So as the geographical zones increase in size, the population goes down. And Area C, if I'm not mistaken, is largely agricultural and pastoral area, less settled, and is also therefore where the majority of Israeli settlements have been. Even before the Oslo Accords were signed, there was Israeli settlement in Area C. Did the Oslo process intend to prevent any new settlements in Area C?
- [07:50]
B
What.
- [07:50]
A
How was the Israeli settlement situation meant to be kind of managed by Oslo?
- [07:57]
B
So first I would just point to the reason why we don't have large Palestinian communities in Area C right now. And the major reason behind that is the lack of permissions. Because when Palestinians try to build homes or to build new communities in Area C, they have to get the permission from the Israeli authorities. In the past 10 or 20 years, the rate of acceptance for the Palestinian villages or homes in Area C is less than 10%. So this is one reason why the Palestinian communities cannot be seen in Area C, unlike how it's going for the Jewish residents or the settlers who are occupying this area. I would argue that under the Oslo Accords, it wasn't supposed to be completely clear of Jews or completely without settlements in the West Bank. There were some settlements supposed to stay, or at the very least to give the settlers the options. There was discussions to give the settlers the option of whether they want to move to what is now the State of Israel or to stay in these settlements with one of the two options. One is to stay with the Palestinian citizenship. And I would say that not many settlers would accept such an idea. The other idea was to do land swaps for these areas because it was extremely hard to talk about the point of evacuating these settlements. So there was a suggestion of doing land swaps with Israel, of giving the Palestinians other plans from what is now the State of Israel in exchange of keeping these settlements under security from the Israeli state.
- [09:30]
A
One of the things that's kind of confusing about the whole Israel Palestine problem and the process, as it were, as it's called the peace process, is that there isn't like, strategically joined up thinking. So obviously, in theory, the Oslo process was meant to work towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. And so, as you say, in theory, the settlements, the Jewish settlements in the west bank in Area C. And the assumption would be that in the process of determining that Palestinian state, there would be land swaps or there would be some kind of negotiated solution. And from the Israeli point of view, the settlements were a kind of bargaining chip incentivizing this and that. So that's on one level, but as we all know, on another level, there's a very powerful bloc within Israeli political opinion that does not want a Palestinian state, will never want a Palestinian state, and has been working actively for decades now to undermine that Oslo process. And for them, the settlements function as a way of preventing a Palestinian state or, you know, at its furthest fringe, as you say, maybe even acting to kind of encourage or force Palestinian migration away from the west bank permanently to make room for Israeli occupation, permanent sort of annexation of the west bank and settlement. So do you think that's a fair characterization? So often when talking about settlements, we have to be clear that, you know, on the Israeli side, players aren't often working to the same goal.
- [11:07]
B
Yes. I mean, one point that can give some evidence on that is the number of the settlers in the West Bank. And right now we are talking about more than 500,000 settlers living illegally there. If we counted East Jerusalem, the numbers will be much higher. Regarding the expansion of settlements as a way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Yes, it is to a large extent a reason why they established these settlements, a reason why the ministers within the current coalition, like Wizla Eliz Modric, publicly say that, that we are expanding the settlements in the west bank as a way to prevent the Palestinian state. That was said many times and that was applied with even settlements that on the ground now made the idea of establishing a Palestinian state almost impossible. I'm talking about settlements in areas like E1, which adds more fraction to the 22% of the land that the Palestinians are supposed to have. So establishing settlements in such areas already made it impossible. And this is also an argument that is being debated or talked about within the Palestinian spectrum, which is that we are trying the negotiation way or we are trying the diplomatic way when dealing with Israel. I'm talking about the Palestinian government or the Palestinian Authority, and What we get in response to that is more settlements, more expansion, these settlements. So we can't see any hope for a solution with the Israeli establishment right now.
- [12:36]
A
Yeah. And the problem, I know that concerns you the most because you believe that diplomacy, a peaceful solution, a peaceful two state solution, still needs to be the way forward. I think you would say, on balance, it is the Palestinian Authority and the PLO that need to be the most active partner in that process. So you're kind of hoping to get back on track. The dream of Oslo and what you're afraid of is that the aggressive nature of Jewish settlement in the west bank and this phenomenon of settler terrorism is creating amongst Palestinians total despair in that process. And they will begin more and more and more to agree with those more radical voices within Palestinian politics, obviously like Hamas, who say that only violent resistance will work, that the peace process will never work. So this is your worry.
- [13:31]
B
Yes. And that was actually a slogan that Hamas used for a long time. What was taken with power can only be restored with power, they started to say after the failure of the Oslo peace process. So it has been used for a long time and it's being more used right now. But the expansion of the settlements is one thing and it's taken us to the one state reality, I would argue, because talking about a two state solution right now on papers in the diplomatic circles is nice, but on the ground I cannot see how it will be applied, which takes us to the one state reality, which is whether we like it or not, from a Palestinian perspective, whether Israelis like it or not, as a. From their perspective that they want a Jewish state, we are moving towards that.
- [14:13]
A
Moving towards a one state solution.
- [14:15]
B
You mean right now it's a one state reality? I would say I hope it can be a one state solution. I personally prefer a two state solution, but as I said, I cannot see how it can be applied. I see, I see it cannot be applied. With the, with the, with what we have now on the ground, let's focus
- [14:31]
A
more on the settler terrorism itself. In our pre interview conversation that we had last week, you mentioned the Hilltop Youth. It's a kind of loose organization of radical Jewish settlers in the west bank in Area C mainly, although they are encroaching more and more into zones overlapping with Area B and even Area A. This is part of the problem which you can get into. But first tell us what is the Hilltop Youth?
- [15:02]
B
Okay, so before going to the Hilltop Youth, since we started actually the discussion talking about the war of 1967, I will start from there. In the Aftermath of the 1967 war, we had a religious fundamentalist settler group operating in the West Bank. It can be named as the Kukist group, which is coming from the Rabbi Yehuda Cook, which saw the victory of Israel in the War of 1967 as the Divine Will. And they even saw the occupation of the West Banks, the Sinai, Penezuela and other lands as what they divined wanted from them. And that even made it harder for the Israeli politicians to talk about withdrawing from these areas after that. This movement had gained much influence within the Israeli politics until 1970s or maybe 2005. And the reason behind that is the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula will land in the aftermath of withdrawing from the settlements inside Gaza, they lost their influence. They lost their influence because they did not believe in what Israel was doing back then. And that took this movement to, I would say, cease to exist and to give the influence to other movements. And when I talk about the other movements, I'm talking about two of them. One is the Hardal and one is the Hilltop Youth.
- [16:21]
A
Okay, so just to make sure I've understood, Hamza. Just to make sure I've understood. So for decades following the 1967 war, there was within Israeli political society kind of, let's say, two movements. One that was working towards some kind of peace settlement with Israel's Arab neighbors and with the Palestinians, and one more religiously inclined working as best it could for the end result of Israel fully annexing and taking over the quote, unquote, historic lands of. Of Israel. So in 1979, Israel signing a peace agreement with Egypt, withdrew from the Sinai. And then there was obviously some other movements, including the Oslo Accords itself in the mid-90s. And then in 2005, Israel withdrew from, from Gaza. And in the minds of that right wing, religiously inclined settler movement, this was a setback. But it also meant that they lost power. And when the old right wing kind of lost power, new right wing voices rose, new settler voices rose, Is that what you're saying?
- [17:28]
B
Yes, exactly. This and that gave the influence to the Hardal and the Hilltop Youth groups. Now, the Hardal is also a religious fundamentalist group. The same camp where Bisla El Smotrich, for example, the current finance Minister of Israel, comes from.
- [17:42]
A
Yeah. So this is the Hardal movement, H A R D A L if listeners want to look it up, the Hardal movement, a radical right wing settler movement, which Smotrich comes from.
- [17:53]
B
Yes. And they also believe in undemocratic values, unsecular values, and they don't even believe in much of what, what the State of Israel is doing right now. So you can see these groups, for example, in, in hardline settlements, settlements that, that is even deemed illegal by the State of Israel because we have two different source of settlements. Most of the settlements in the west bank are deemed illegal by the international law. There is other settlements who are deemed illegal by the Israeli law itself. And this is the same camp where this Hadal movement comes from. You can see them in settlements like Kidomim or Betaal, the same settlements where the current Israeli Finance Minister Mizrael Smutrich comes from. And that takes us to the Hilltop Youth group. The Hilltop Youth group is a kind of decentralized youth groups who are operating in the west bank. And they are responsible for most of the violence, most of the terrorist attacks that is happening in the West Bank. From numbers perspective, they do not represent a majority, I would say, even for the settlers themselves, because we are talking about a percentage, close to 15%, I would say more or less. There is no specific numbers in regards of how much do they represent from the Jewish population of Israel because of this problem, problematic situation between the west bank and Israel. But I would say that they represent something between 15 to 20% along with the harder movement. And these decentralized groups are also fundamentalists. They don't believe in the democratic values of the State of Israel itself. They don't even believe in the Israeli Knesset. The Israeli Knesset is the Israeli Parliament. And even when some leaders of this group shifted towards working in the Israeli Knesset, they, they saw them as traitors. This is literally what they say about those people.
- [19:48]
A
Just to give a bit of the history, I think if I'm not mistaken, they're called the Hilltop Youth because in the late 90s, so this is after the Oslo peace process began and it seemed as if an effort was underway in earnest to give the Palestinians a state. And so Ariel Sharon, who would go on to be the Prime Minister of Israel in the late 90s, at one point, basically kind of as a political slogan said, like take the hilltops or something like that, saying to the settlers, the radical settlers, that they should, as much as they could, grab the high ground across Area C, as many of the hilltops as they could take, grab them, settled them so that in this process Israel would have greater and greater leverage and maybe even be able to upset the process entirely. And so that started in the late 90s, this movement of relatively few in number, super, super right wing settlers, often very young, young men grabbing hilltops and then violently defending that occupation of the hilltop and, you know, clashing with the Palestinian agriculturalists and pastoralists and villages around those hilltops. So that's really where this comes from. Have I got that right?
- [21:04]
B
Yes. The problem is that their numbers might not be large, but their effect on the ground is very large to the Palestinian communities. And when I say this, I'm talking about thousands or hundreds of attacks against the Palestinian communities. If we are citing numbers, for example, from the EU and we are talking about more than 1,500 attacks in 2026, in the first quarter, actually, of 2026, and the same goes for 2025, 2024. Now, people might argue that the numbers from the UN data are not the best numbers to cite because the criteria of what counts as an attack for the UN might be problematic for some people because, for example, storming a village would count as an attack for them or storming a place in Jerusalem. But even if you are going to cite numbers from watch groups like the hdini Group or PeaceNow, the numbers are still in hundreds. And if we are talking about the number of attacks that results in casualty or wounded people, we are still talking about hundreds of attacks. In 2024, for example, those groups of settlers killed at least eight Palestinians from the West bank, eight civilian Palestinians. In 2025, they escalated and the number became 16. Now in 2026, we are talking about 17. We are in the first quarter, and they already killed 17 civilians.
- [22:32]
A
Yeah, it's a growing problem. So one of the things that is sort of most unjust about the situation in the west bank of Israel's military occupation, when any legal disputes break out between a Jewish settler and a Palestinian Arab resident, on the Palestinian side, it is adjudicated by an Israeli military court. But on the Jewish side or Israeli side, it is administered or adjudicated by an Israeli civilian court. So this means. Well, you can imagine what it means. It means that when Jewish settlers attack Arab communities in the west bank, the justice system simply doesn't work properly. There are military people, you know, on the ground. First they come in. They tend, you know, I think, to side with the Israeli settler in general. Their goal is not to find evidence or build up a case. They're not police officers in the same way as a police situation would be they're military officers. So their goal is to kind of keep the two sides apart, but they're going to tend to side with the Israeli. And anyway, by the time the legal process begins, already the difficulty on the Palestinian side of Raising a case has kind of become overwhelming. And then on the Israeli civil court side there can be, it's easily postponed and the bureaucracy can obfuscate the process and stuff. So for reasons like this, justice is almost impossible to be had by the Palestinians.
- [24:02]
B
So, yes, regarding the legal status of what rules the people in the west bank, that is actually why it's. Many people use the argument that the situation there is a de facto apartheid because you have two laws ruling two different sorts of people living in the same land. So two things to be said here. One is what the army does when they, when they are being called, when there is a problem between the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers. Right now, mostly I would say when Palestinians even report to the army. Right now in many of the cases, we saw video evidence that the army comes and arrests actually the Palestinians who called them because of many reasons, I would say. So the army doesn't have an authority on the settlers. They cannot arrest them. The biggest achievement they would do is just to separate the two. In many of the cases, they actually arrest the Palestinians who reported the problem to the army. Now the Palestinian will be released after one or two days. But this is also makes the Palestinians report less about these problems because they lost the belief that any justice will come out of it. Another indicator of how justice goes for these attacks, if we looked at the numbers of watchdog groups like the Yeshdin, for example. Now, according to the data of Yeshdin,
- [25:18]
A
so this is an Israeli watchdog group, a kind of NGO that keeps an eye on the ground there to try to report facts.
- [25:26]
B
Exactly. From 2005 until 2025, I think more than 93% of the reported crimes by the Palestinians ended up without any indictment. Now only 3% ended up with full or partial indictment. So you can imagine how it feels for the people. And that actually drove the people to report less about these crimes because it's a kind of exhausting legal process that will end up with no outcome, with no justice being happening on the ground.
- [25:59]
A
Well, so let's talk about an event that happened in late March of this year when an incident occurred which is highly contested, where a Palestinian man was accused of ramming his truck into a vehicle being driven by some Jewish settlers. And one of those settlers died. His name was Yehuda Shmuel Sherman. And this became a kind of microcosm of the whole problem. And in microcosm it sort of shows how much tension there is, how little justice there is, and how Israeli right wing politics gets involved in this situation. Could you tell us the story.
- [26:45]
C
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- [28:14]
B
Yeah, so there is two stories of what happened to Yehudah Shmuel. One from the Palestinian side, it was a car accident and they say that even the guy who hit his car tried to help him and they called the ambulances to help him. From the Israeli narrative, it was an intentional actually car ramming and they accused the Palestinian of intentionally harming the Yehuda Shemoh. So we have these two stories, but what matters more than the two stories is what happened after we saw calls from Israeli politicians, including Smotrich and the members of the Knesset, calling for revenge. After these calls of revenge and after calls by the settlers on their telegram groups where they usually coordinate for attacks against the Palestinians, they planned attacks against more than 20 Palestinian villages, burning homes, burning homes while people are inside burning vehicles, shooting, beating, almost all what they could have seen. And it was tens of attacks against more than 20 villages and no one was indicted. After all of this, many people were harmed, many people were wounded, some people were killed. But the indictment rate was zero for these attacks.
- [29:32]
A
And despite the profound injustice of the situation, which is reason enough to be angered, it has the downstream effect, as we were saying before, of increasingly convincing Palestinians in the west bank that Basically, justice is not achievable. The process underway is not in any way oriented towards their rights, certainly not towards them receiving, you know, getting the state that they want and deserve, et cetera. So it's really causing a fraying of Palestinian trust in the process, which will only of course, galvanize those radical voices who say violent resistance is the only way forward. Let's talk about how the settler movement is slowly eroding even the Oslo map, even that splitting up of the west bank into areas A, B and C. Because though I think it's safe to say at the moment there's no real evidence of any formal Israeli government approved settlements inside Area A, there is strong evidence at the moment of the settler movement itself, which has some political backing in Israel, as we've said, that they are pushing the boundaries to an increasing degree, essentially establishing outposts very near areas A and B and launching intimidation raids into area A and B villages to kind of push people away and to extend the scope of settler activity. Another way in which the Oslo process is just being totally hollowed out.
- [31:18]
B
Yeah, two things about what options do the Palestinians have in response to the settler attacks. Palestinians have actually two options. One option is to respond violently the same way the settlers did and attack the settlers or try to defend themselves. And that would, I would say, end up with the situation of gazification of the West Bank. We will see a total destruction of the West Bank. We might see even pushing for the Palestinians towards Jordan. And this is what many ministers within the government want to see. The other option that the Palestinians do have is to try diplomacy and to try international law, which is what the Palestinian government tried to do. And they are now talking about getting an arrest warrant for Bizlahili Smoothrich for many crimes, including supporting these groups. Now the response that the Palestinians get from Smotrich is him going publicly and saying this is a declaration of war and we are going to displace, for example, the Palestinian community of Khan Al Ahmar. So those are the options that we have right now. This is one thing. The second perspective about how the settlements are eroding the perspective to a two state solution. Let's take the numbers, for example, from 2022. Numbers from 2022. This is the point when the current coalition took place in Israel. We are talking about more than 100 settlements and outspots being authorized in the occupied West Bank. So as I said in the beginning, we can talk all day about the two state solution. We can talk that it's the right solution, the best solution that can be done, but simply it cannot. How you are going to evacuate these settlements? When the Israeli establishment tried to evacuate a few settlements kotay from Gaza and other settlements, they faced a huge backlash from these communities. So I can't imagine how it will be for the countries.
- [33:12]
A
I think that's part of the political calculation of the right wing settlement movement and their supporters inside Israel that they use the settlers and as you say, there's half a million of them. They can, if necessary, hold a gun to Israel's head saying if you do anything to roll back the settler movement, then we can hurt you, frankly. And then maybe within Israel itself you have a kind of strange underground, explosive, almost terrorist movement attacking the Israeli state, which as you say, many hardline voices within the settler movement don't even approve of in its current formation. It's a really terrible situation. And as for diplomacy, there was in the years following 7 October, an attempt by some international actors to diplomatically support the ongoing movement towards a Palestinian state. As we know, many countries in Europe and elsewhere, beginning in, I think spring of 2024, began formally recognizing a Palestinian state, including the UK where I live, which recognized Palestine as a state in September of last year. In response to this, it seems that the current government basically put in place a plan of essentially annexing an area known as E1 or East1, which is a corridor of land that is formally in the west bank and formally part of the Palestinian Authority's territory or whatever, which would connect Jerusalem to an Israeli settlement, but which if it were to be annexed by Israel would basically bifurcate the west bank in a very undermining way. So tell us about this E1 situation.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah, so this area is right now full of small between communities of Palestinians. And it's, I would say the road that connects to Jerusalem to Nablus. And it's one of the main ways that a Palestinian state is supposed to take a place or a place that connects Palestinian cities altogether.
- [35:20]
A
The idea being that any Palestinian state would have East Jerusalem as its capital. So if you can cut off East Jerusalem, then it can't be the capital. I mean, Smatrich came out explicitly and stated that this movement is in order to erase the Palestinian state. I mean, this is, he said this after some of these international players had recognized the Palestinian state. So clearly within the Israeli government at the moment there are direct attempts to, well, to undermine that whole process.
- [35:50]
B
Yes, exactly. And if they established the settlements that they want right there, I would say that they will separate many Palestinian cities from Each other talking about East Jerusalem and from Ramallah and Bethlehem, for example. So you will end up having small cantons of Palestinians living in the West Bank. You cannot connect any of them. And that will actually achieve what they wanted to achieve, which is preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state and also
- [36:19]
A
as you say, making a two state solution increasingly impossible. What about the west bank as a whole in, let's say, Area A, where most Palestinians live? What is life like there for them? After the 7th of October, the West bank economy just collapsed, frankly. Already the Palestinian Authority was struggling to pay the salaries of its employees. And most Palestinian families in the west bank depend at least to some extent on salaries earned as employees of the Palestinian authority. But after the 7th of October, the economy really collapsed. In the last year it has grown a bit, although it's very murky as to whether that growth, I think it was 3% growth is actually being felt by ordinary people. But. But the economy in the west bank is nowhere near the size it was before the 7th of October. So what is life like now for Palestinians in Area A?
- [37:18]
B
So under the Oslo Accords, Israel is responsible for collecting the tax returns that belongs to the Palestinian Authority and then Israel gives this money back to the Palestinian Authority. And when I talk about the tax returns for the Palestinian Authority, I'm talking about more than 60% of its annual budget. So it's more than half of the annual budget for the Palestinian Authority. From October 7, the Israeli government decided to collectively punish the Palestinian people, including the Palestinian government, by withholding this money. So from October 7, they started to not send this money to the Palestinian Authority. And they cited many reasons for that. One of them was October 7th, another reason that is being used right now, which claims that, that the Palestinian Authority is paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners with the blood on their hands. Now, the Palestinian Authority completely denies that and they say that they reform the system and they do not do this. But still the money is being withheld since October 7th until in 2025, there was a complete cut of the tax returns that belongs to the Palestinian Authority. And that actually made almost every family in the Palestinian Territories, including area of the west bank with no source of income. So families stayed for many months without any salary. In some months they are taking half quarter a salary. Some countries from the Gulf tried to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority because this is the stated goal by Smotridge for doing this is to make the Palestinian Authority collapse. Countries like Saudi Arabia and others try to financially support the Palestinian Authority. And they did. But still it's not a situation that you can live with waiting for the donations coming from the Gulf countries or the European Union. So this is one aspect. The other aspect is the Palestinians who work inside Israel, who also represent a high percentage of the Palestinian annual budget, they are denied from working inside Israel because of October 7th and the aftermath. And the last segment of that is the Palestinian farmers who depend on the olive oil industry. And those people were even harmed. And they were attacked on a very high scale, I would say, in this period, to the extent that they reported the less financial outcomes of this season. So economically, it's a disastrous situation. And I would say that the Palestinians there are on the brink of collapse.
- [39:46]
A
And as you've also said, it means that more and more Palestinians will be sympathizing with radical solutions to the problem. Radical, violent resistance, as it's called. So would you say, well, what is Hamas's presence in the west bank like? Is there much of a strong or organized presence in the West Bank? I mean, of Hamas. And what about support for Hamas? Would you say that it's growing amongst West Bankers? What's the reality there?
- [40:15]
B
Yes. So about Hamas precedents in the West Bank, Hamas tried many times to have coordinated proceedings, I would say, in the west bank, but they failed to do so. And the. So they started to cope and change the names of the groups operating those banks, for example, the Lionsdean, for example, a group that operated around Jenin and Nablus. So they tried to cope because of the crash on them by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli military. So right now, Hamas doesn't have material precincts in the West Bank. They just have decentralized, very small groups who on the ground cannot do much. This is one thing from a military perspective, from a political support perspective, of course they do have support. And the reason for that goes back to what we were discussing during, during the podcast, that those people think that the Palestinian Authority failed to support or to protect them from the attacks by the settlers. They failed to protect them also from the military raids in their homes and in their cities. So they believe in a way or another that Hamas is an alternative. But I would argue that this is just support on papers or support on polls, because people tend to be more carish when they are voting in polls. But I wouldn't say that they would take any action on the ground because Hamas themselves issued tens of calls for the people in the West bank since October 7th to join them in the battle against Israel or against the Israeli army. And. And no one actually responded, except for some lone wolves who did some terrorist attacks, ramming or stabbing attacks in the past three years. So you might find some voting for Hamas on polls. But I would say that cannot be materialized. This is one thing. The second thing, from a political perspective right now, it doesn't matter because the Palestinian Authority decided that under any Palestinian elections, any party who wants to join these elections has to agree on the PLO umbrella which recognizes Israel's right to exist under the two state solution framework. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the other Islamist parties, or those who do not believe in Israel's right to exist now cannot participate in the elections because
- [42:35]
A
they refuse to sign up to that PLO program which recognizes Israel's right to exist. But Palestinian national elections, Hamza, have not happened for a long time. I think the last time there were presidential elections was in 2005, and legislative elections haven't happened since 2006. So it's a long time. I know Mahmoud Abbas or the Palestinian Authority have begun talking about elections again in this controlled form. As you say, you have to sign up to a basic PLO framework in order to take part. And there were local elections last month or in April 2026 in the west bank and even in, you know, in one Gaza sort of city, as a kind of symbolic election in Gaza. And apparently there will be National Council elections this coming November. What are electoral politics like in the west bank and in the Palestinian territories? And do you think that through electoral politics progress can be made?
- [43:40]
B
Yes. So what we had in Palestine, in the west bank and in the city of Deird Bellah, was the municipal elections. And the Hamas also couldn't participate, whether in the west bank or in Gaza. So participants who are seen as Fatah participants actually won these elections. I really hope that the national elections can be done in the Palestinian territories as soon as possible, because as you rightfully pointed, it's more than 20 years without elections, and the people deserve the opportunity to elect an alternative. I wouldn't say that we have much fresh blood in these elections. I wouldn't say that we have many new faces in these elections. But still, I really hope that maybe they will show up if a real announcement for the national elections came up.
- [44:28]
A
It's not just Palestinian elections that people are talking about at the moment. Of course, Israel. Israel is also going to, we think, have elections. Though it does seem that Benjamin Netanyahu is doing whatever he can to prevent that eventuality. As has become clear during this conversation since what goes on in the west bank and obviously in Gaza To a large extent depends on Israeli politics. What do you think about the hope for change within the Israeli political scene in the next few months? A lot of people say, I think it's very, very hard to deny this, that as long as this current right wing coalition government led by Bibi Netanyahu is in power, no progress can be made really on any front. I mean, I know Netanyahu still has his fans. It's harder and harder for me to see how anyone could see Netanyahu's leadership as particularly wise or even successful over the last almost 20 years. But what do you think about the Israeli political scene at the moment? And do you feel hopeful at all?
- [45:35]
B
Oh dear, I don't, because. And looking at the polls right now in Israel, Netanyahu is competing between the first and the second position. Netanyahu's coalition. So this is one thing, and even from the Bennett Labid coalition, the, the, the, the new coalition, it's still that we are talking about a right wing government kind of, and it's still a government that doesn't have any perspective for reconciliation with the Palestinians. They do might have a perspective for reconciliation with other Arab neighbors, but they don't have one with the Palestinians. And from their perspectives and their statements on the situation in the West Bank, I cannot say that they will be much different for the Palestinians from the Netanyahu government.
- [46:29]
A
And what about the newly evolved, newly evolving Israeli security doctrine which is clearly being carried out on the ground, a kind of almost, it seems permanent military footing? I mean, here's the thing, Hamza. I mean, obviously the situation isn't just black and white. You know, Iran's proxy network, Iran itself remains remarkably, given everything that's happened against Iran and its proxies in the last three years, it remains intact. It still attacks Israel regularly at the moment, obviously Hezbollah from Lebanon, but you know, Hamas is still there, still in Gaza, refusing to disarm. Just last week, Netanyahu announced that the IDF would be taking even more of Gaza to control it in its attempts to put pressure on Hamas, I suppose to disarm or maybe to keep going towards an eventual annexation of Gaza and pushing the Palestinians away, depending on what you think is really going on there. So it's not black and white. How is an objective listener of conflicted who wants to really understand what's going on and tries to first understand what's going on before judging what's going on. How do you think it's best to understand the geopolitical situation of Israel and its security needs and how that relates to, to the larger question or the, the additional question of Palestinian sovereignty and rights? Because it's all nested together in a complicated way.
- [47:59]
B
Yes. So the current Israeli establishment believes that you cannot achieve security without taking so virginity of the lands where you are being attacked from. And by that I'm talking about Lebanon. By that I'm talking about the Gaza Strip. So we do have this. And this is why you might see calls from the Israeli ministers for not withdrawing from Lebanon, not withdrawing from Gaza, having settlements in the Gaza Strip or reoccupying the Gaza Strip. So we do have these calls. And from Hamas perspective, I would say that Hamas doesn't constitute a danger on Israel right now. They might constitute a danger on the Palestinians who are living inside Gaza and they are doing by killing and torturing them. But I would also argue that what Netanyahu is looking for right now is the image of victory, the image of victory. And he can only achieve that with the, with Hamas being disarmed. And they should actually be disarmed for the benefit of the Palestinians inside Gaza and also for the security situation in the Middle East. So far, Hamas refuses to do that. And from Hezbollah perspective, we also saw that the same way Hamas doesn't care about the Palestinians, Hezbollah doesn't care about the Lebanese people, and he even started attacking Israel for no reason other than being asked by the Iranian regime. So I would say that the current Israeli establishment doesn't also believe in half or semi solutions. So they want, as they say, to quote unquote, finish the job. Now how that will be on the ground, I have no idea. But this is. But they say.
- [49:41]
A
But what does that mean? I mean, they think obviously, in addition to any military activity, I mean in any context, a war is politics by other means, as has often been said. So there must be, in order for war itself to have a sustaining rational logic, there must be a political solution at the end of it. That's why war exists. You can't just have a military dimension of a conflict without any political dimension.
- [50:16]
B
It just doesn't make sense for the current Israeli establishment. They believe that, as I said, half or similar solutions don't work. We tried to half destroy Hamas in the past and they regrouped and they re attacked us again. The same goes with Hezbollah. So, so they want a total defeat of these groups and they won the image of victory against these groups by disarming them. So this is one thing regarding a political window. I would say that the current Israeli government doesn't have any. They might have one with Lebanon for peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel or Lebanon joining the Abraham Accords. But when it comes to the Palestinians, they don't have any vision for reconciliation
- [51:02]
A
with the Palestinians and the Gaza situation. I mean, the Board of Peace began last year with great fanfare. It's supposed to be overseeing this peace plan for Gaza, the first stipulation of which is that Hamas disarm. Hamas is refusing to disarm. The Board of Peace itself, it seems, is sitting in Egypt doing very little. I don't think they've even visited Gaza. I'm sure there might be some of the very famous corruption involved in the Board of Peace. But why won't, I mean, not why won't Hamas disarm? Obviously I know why Hamas doesn't want to disarm, but why can't it be disarmed? Doesn't the Board of Peace have any means of forcing disarmament? Or are we just expecting Hamas to do so voluntarily?
- [51:51]
B
I mean, that's actually the question of, okay, we all talk about the necessity of Hamas disarming, but no one have, have an answer on who is going to disarm Hamas. Now, of course, the Palestinians don't believe that the Israeli army is the best alternative to do such a job. And from my personal perspective, I think this should be the responsibility of the new technocratic committee and it's a new police force because they already started forming their new police. The problem is that the technocratic committee said many times that this is not under their responsibilities. This is not what they want to do in, in Gaza. They want to be responsible for rebuilding this trip, which is nice to hear, but still, I would say this is a kind of a problem within this committee because that should be the main job for them to start rebuilding, to start rebuilding the Gaza Strip because you can do so while Hamas is being disarmed. Not only from an Israeli perspective, but also from the perspective of who is going to finance rebuilding Gaza, because apparently none of the Gulf countries are going to finance rebuilding Gaza while Hamas has its arms.
- [53:00]
A
Gosh Hamza, I'm so depressed. How do you even get out of bed in the morning? Honestly, I mean, I know that you see as a fundamental problem in the whole situation, and possibly the most proximate problem, the first problem is the existence of these resistance militias, the axis of resistance. Hamas, Hezbollah, and behind them, Iran at the moment for sure. So in a way you kind of agree with those who are considered more right wing voices who see that military situation, the existence of militias dedicated to the Destruction of Israel, the constant resistance to Israel, the terrorist attacks against Israel, that whole architecture of resistance as like, the problem, this must be ended if there's going to be a solution. And yet you would also say, I think that Israel's way of doing that at the moment is simply guaranteeing in time the growth and strengthening of the resistance movements, that it's not actually going to succeed in destroying these militias and the United States and Israel's efforts to destroy or seriously neutralize the threat of the Islamic Republic in Tehran, that's also. Also hit, hit a huge stumbling block, and it doesn't seem to be working at all. Iran may even emerge stronger from this conflict. So do you have any sense at all about what, what can be done to solve the problem? Or should we even stop talking about it and just throw up our hands and say it's fucked, there's no solution? That's how I feel sometimes. Hamza,
- [54:49]
B
I don't claim you. I know where it's coming from. But I would say that there should be a push. I'm talking about Gaza because it's what matters the most for me. And I would say that there must be actually a push to the Palestinian technocratic committee's police to take the responsibility of disarming Hamas. This is one reason why they should be paid for, because we don't. They did not want to resolve the conflict with the UN umbrella because of how corrupt and how unproductive it is. So we ended up establishing a new UN with how the Board of Peace is functioning right now. So I would say that I think that it should be under the responsibility of the police of the new technocratic committee, the job of disarming Hamas, because they are the best alternative to do so. If not this police, at the very least, it should be done under the, under the, with the support of the Arab countries. And when I say this, I'm talking about countries like Egypt because it's the only country that might be seen as an acceptable party by Hamas. There should be a push. There should be push for this.
- [56:08]
A
But I think, Hamza, we know that Egypt is never going to do that. Egypt's own military is still totally wedded in itself. I mean, I know that on paper Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel and has long had one since 1979. Though I think in Egypt's own military, they consider that more like a ceasefire and an armistice in their minds. They often don't think of it as a peace deal. And they still are very much wedded to the old nasirist rejectionism of Israel. They will never allow themselves to be seen to be militarily engaged in anything that seems to be benefiting the Israeli state, and that's just Egypt, not to mention other Arab states, which I think find themselves in the same position. They just can't act in the interests of Israel. That's the trouble. I mean, one thing I do wonder, I'd like to know what you think about this is if there's any hope on the ground in terms of the young generation of Middle Easterners, of Arabs, maybe even of Palestinians. I know in general, as you said before, Palestinian public opinion increasingly tends to be favoring a more radical, violent resistance kind of narrative in the face of the injustice that they face. But maybe in a general sense, the younger generation of Palestinians and Arabs more widely are sort of sick of the old framing of the problem of the old ideological narratives. If so, there's a kind of irony about that because as we've seen, and as you know yourself, because you're a Palestinian refugee now living in the west. In the west, those old radical narratives of anti Zionist, anti Israel, pro Palestinian radicalism is on the rise. That old framework is being more and more embraced by the young. Do you think that's true in the Arab world, or is there an irony? Is the Arab world trying to reconsider those old narratives just as the Western world is embracing them?
- [58:09]
B
Yes. So in the Arab world, you rightfully pointed that the people are shifting away from these narratives, especially the narrative of armed resistance, the narrative of the axis of the resistance, simply because, including me, we paid the price of these slogans. We pay the price of these strategies with the lives of our loved ones, with what we had in our home countries. So we are looking for an alternative. We are looking for a new way. We saw not only the Israeli response inside Gaza, but even what the Iranian regime, for example, did in the Arab countries, talking about Lebanon, talking about Yemen, talking about Iraq, Syria, and the list goes on. So we saw that it might sound as a nice slogan to shout in a protest in the street, but on the ground, it's taken the lives of our loved ones. So this is one thing. Unfortunately, in the west, it's going in the opposite direction. What is the reason for that? I have no idea. But it's really sad to see people in the west supporting right now the Iranian regime because it's fighting against the west or fighting against America. So it's a very sad thing to see. But it's happening. It's happening in the west. And the support for this narrative is larger in the West. Now.
- [59:22]
A
What do you think the evidence is that that Arabs, maybe even especially younger Arabs in the Middle east, are changing their views, are rethinking the old narratives. What's the evidence for that?
- [59:35]
B
I mean, you can look at the discussions that is being done in countries, for example, like Lebanon, where the younger generation is talking about having peace treaties with Israel. Even journalists asking these questions in the streets, and no one could have imagined that 10 years back in Lebanon, anyone who would have asked such a question would might have ended up in a very bad situation. In Syria, the same goes. Yes, we do have Islamists there that I'm in no way supportive of, nor that I trust them, but still, they are also talking about having a security treaty or a peace treaty with Israel. Some people even talk about them joining the Abraham Accord. So we are having these discussions that were prohibited long time ago.
- [60:20]
A
Well, Hamza, I'll let you go. Thank you very much for coming back on Conflicted and giving us your views on this very tragic, very horrible, you know, situation. It's. It's just, you know, I was born in 1979, the year that Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty, an event which was supposed to inaugurate a process leading to a Palestinian solution that granted Palestinians dignity, sovereignty, etc. It still isn't here, nowhere even close. 47 years later, it's easy to be very, very discouraged. So anyway, thank you at least for telling us as best you can what's going on on the ground. Dear listeners, if you speak or read German, you might be interested to buy a copy of Hamza's new memoir, which in German is called Muschelnam Strand von Gasser. That translates as Seashells on the beach in Gaza. Memories of a Destroyed country. I'm sure it is well worth reading. I don't read German, Hamza, so I can't read it. Any plans at all to issue the book in English?
- [61:32]
B
The plans right now is to get it in Hebrew and Arabic. I would say the priority and then I will see how I will get it in English.
- [61:39]
A
That's the best possible answer. Well done, sir. Thank you very much, Hamza Al Hawaidi, for coming back on Conflicted. It's great to see you. As I always tell you whenever I talk, I have sympathy and warm feelings for you. I think you are a wonderful spirit, a wonderful man. You've gone through hell. You've come back with a peaceful spirit. And that is what we need. People who, despite their suffering, do not choose anger, but choose peace. So, Hamza, thank you for all the work that you do. I really appreciate it. And I'm sure our listeners do, too. Thank you.
- [62:08]
B
Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.
- [62:12]
A
That was Hamza Abu Huedi. His new book, Seashells on the beach in Memories of a Destroyed country, is available in German from all good German booksellers. And remember, for deeper dives into the ideas we explore on this show, including extended conversations and Q&As with my CO host, Eamon Dean. Check the show notes for details on how to join the conflicted community. I'm Thomas Small. Conflicted is a message Heard. Production Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.