Vetted by NeuralPress's Multi-Agent Verifier for strict factual validity and event relevance. Our compliance engine cross-checks and filters search results to ensure zero false correlations or misleading content.
Primary Sources
'In the days of old, the world was safe': West Bank family's enduring ...
Khirbet al-Marajim, occupied West Bank — The metal door of the Masallam family home still bears the dents from a settler’s axe. Inside, the smell of freshly made cheese hangs beneath a stone-domed ceiling. Mattresses line the circular room, spread across carpets on the hard floor. Prayer beads hang from nails beside the damaged door.On this particular evening, about 20 people are arranged in a circle — four generations of Masallams, plus relatives and a couple of friends — as young children pass small glasses of mint tea around the cosy den.“Quiet, everyone! Let Hajja speak!” called out Thabet, 24, grinning from across the circle. The side conversations and stifled laughter die down in a way only his voice commands around the household.Hajja Latifa, 66, adjusts her white hijab and sits up slightly, her back curved from decades of crouching to milk sheep and goats. She looks around the circle at her stepchildren, step-grandchildren, and step-great-grandchildren for a moment before speaking.“In the days of old, the world was safe,” she says quietly.Hajja Latifa prepares baladi cheese in the courtyard of the Masallam family home in Khirbet al-Marajim [Al Jazeera]That was before her husband was killed. Before the arson. Before the kidnappings. Before the beatings and theft and loss of livelihood.Before the Israeli settlers came.In all, 15 people live across three single-room homes on the family compound, though relatives and friends come most evenings for tea, arghila and conversation, swelling the circle further.The compound is bound by a stone wall, with an open courtyard at its centre where the women wash clothes, make cheese and gather by a fire at night when it is not too cold.Nayef, 52, the stepson of Hajja Latifa, sleeps with his sons in the old stone house, built more than a century ago. Its thick walls and wooden beams support a roof of thorny brush, clay, straw and mud masonry. Beside it stand two newer tin homes: one for his eldest son, Muhammad, Muhammad’s wife Mona, and their young children; the other is where the women of the family sleep.The Masallam compound is one of only two full households occupied year-round in all of Khirbet al-Marajim, a sparsely populated hamlet of rolling hills and an archaeological area that has been inhabited for several millennia. Al-Marajim lies a kilometre southwest of the main Palestinian town and population centre in the area, Duma, in the central West Bank, which sits on a scenic mountain ridge above the Jordan ...
West Bank - Wikipedia
West BankLocation of the West Bank within the claimed territory of PalestineStatus Claimed by Palestine[a][1] Partially administered by the Palestinian National Authority in Areas A and B[2] Under Israeli occupation, which is illegal under international law[3][4] Common languagesArabic, HebrewReligion Islam, Judaism, Christianity, SamaritanismArea• Total5,655 km2 (2,183 sq mi)Population• 2021 estimate2,949,246[b]• Density522/km2 (1,352.0/sq mi)CurrencyIsraeli shekel (ILS)Jordanian dinar (JOD)Time zoneUTC+2 (Palestine Standard Time)• Summer (DST)UTC+3 (Palestine Summer Time)Calling code+970, +972[6]ISO 3166 codePS The West Bank is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up Palestine. A landlocked territory located on the western bank of the Jordan River near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia's Levant region,[7] it is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east, and by Israel (via the Green Line) to the south, west, and north.[8] Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation, which is illegal under international law.[3] The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. Since then, Israel has administered the West Bank (except for East Jerusalem, which was effectively annexed in 1980) as the Judea and Samaria Area. Jordan continued to claim the territory as its own until 1988. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three regional levels of Palestinian sovereignty, via the Palestinian National Authority (PNA): Area A (PNA), Area B (PNA and Israel), and Area C (Israel, comprising 60% of the West Bank). The PNA exercises total or partial civil administration over 165 Palestinian enclaves across the three areas. The West Bank remains central to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisaged state, along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing and religious Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland, with numerous biblical sites.[9] There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land.[9] Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. Area C contains 230 Israeli settlements where Israeli law is applied. Under the Oslo Accords this area was to be mostly transferred to the PNA by 1997, but that did not occur.[10] The internation...
West Bank Articles and latest stories | The Jerusalem Post
The West Bank is a contested region in the Middle East largely under Israeli control. Also known as Judea and Samaria, the name "West Bank" specifically refers to it being along the western bank ...
West Bank - The Times of Israel
Footage shows 14-year-old boy beaten, pepper-sprayed in West Bank village of Jalud; police also arrest 2 more linked to major settler attack last month that injured dozens
