Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine
by Carmen L Gatmaytan
One of the critical tasks of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) is to provide protective presence to people at risk of human rights violations. In Palestine, the need for protective presence is especially urgent, and crucial in ensuring the protection of women and children.
Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine (UCPiP) has been tried and tested with the use of creative non-violent means to deter, prevent, and mitigate human rights violations against Palestinian villagers, especially during periods of mounting violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers. Under the guise of grazing herds of goats, sheep, and camels, these settlers posing as shepherds intrude into or trespass on Palestinian villages, endangering the safety and security of households, properties, and livelihood, and at times threatening the lives of school children.
Over the course of our work on protective presence, our team decided to be more proactive. We realized the persistent and consistent harassment by Israeli settlers who enter Palestinian communities with their herd of animals, targeting specific clans or families to disturb their peace, and threatening the security of Palestinian lives and properties. Our team decided to undertake proactive protective presence that entails staying in the homes of villagers overnight, or being present at the actual site even before any call from the villagers is received. We had been doing this for a few days when we witnessed other forms of harassment by the settlers. At one point, they overwhelmed us with the simultaneous arrival of different herds of animals from all directions. I thought this was a deliberate strategy to confuse those of us who were providing protective presence in the area. On another occasion, one of our team members was arrested and interrogated over another issue—an alleged case of animal abuse—meanwhile, a group of five Palestinian residents were arrested on trumped-up charges of attacking settlers.
The threat intensified, and violence became more pronounced as the day of Sabbath approached. It has always been intense on the Sabbath especially. With UCPiP members present on the ground, more Israeli human rights activists from Mistaklim (Looking the Occupation in the Eye) organization joined in the work of protective presence in the area. The threat to the community escalated as settlers acted with increasing aggression, displaying hostility with greater force and more frequently with each passing day. At one point, they even blatantly plowed privately owned tracts of land.
This, obviously, is part of the government’s settlement plan in line with the occupation policy. The clearing and plowing of vast tracts of Palestinian land, we suspect, lays the groundwork for the establishment of new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. On the day that this plowing of privately-owned land occurred, the community’s sense of insecurity deepened. The “shepherd” settlers remained on the plowed land and set up a campsite which, we believed, was intended as a stake-out base or temporary outpost, built in anticipation of another permanent outpost surrounding the Palestinian villages. That same night, our team, along with the Israeli human rights activists, stayed in the homes of villagers.
Following this situation, the community expressed the need for the accompaniment of their children on their way to school. I remember how a mother worriedly approached me, speaking in Arabic, which I cannot understand. So I had to bring her to my teammate who did speak the language. She just wanted to tell us that she wants their children accompanied to school the next morning. In response, we organized ourselves into a buddy system to accompany the children from their houses to the school and back home. We escorted the school children on foot, while the Israeli activists guarded from inside cars at the tail end of our group. We committed to carrying out this strategy as part of our task of providing protective presence in the community. This was practiced throughout the following week until the threat of harassment of school children subsided.
On that same day, I remember staying within the village perimeter with another teammate per request of the villagers, to track the movements of the “shepherds” in their installed campsite. It so happened that, after school, there was a small group of children coming back home on foot. My heart raced in panic when I saw an approaching All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) driven by settlers, beginning to chase after the children. This, to me, was a direct attack. I screamed my heart out, frightened by the sight of the ATV directly attacking the children as they scattered around running for safety. Witnessing such violence perpetrated against children was a terrifying experience. It took a couple of nights for me to recover from what seemed like a nightmare; I just couldn’t imagine how the ATV might have actually struck these children. After that incident, we gave clear instructions that no children be allowed to leave school by themselves. They are to gather together in our Madafe before returning home, and be ferried by our team in a carpool arrangement.
In the days following the escalation of violence, it no longer came as a surprise to me that the specific families targeted by settler harassment decided to leave the village and move to another place. From Area C where we were present, I heard they moved to Area A in the West Bank. The Oslo Accords in 1993 divided the Palestinian West Bank into three administrative zones: Area A, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) administers civil and security matters; Area B, where Israel and PA have shared jurisdiction with PA administering only civil matters; and Area C, where Israel maintains full control. This categorization remains in force today despite the collapse of the Oslo peace agreement.
How else can we protect them more effectively? Protective presence by unarmed civilians like us responds to the need of the community as requested, employing all creative or innovative ways we can think of. We work in close coordination with community leaders and other local actors. We endeavor to be effective as long as necessary to protect Palestinians from attacks, intrusion, and destruction of properties from the settlers. The protective accompaniment of vulnerable members of communities such as children—whose lives have been put at risk from settler intimidation and harassment—was a critical intervention carried out during the time it was called for urgently. In the face of Israel’s Zionist violent extremism and impunity, protective presence can only do so much.
Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine was established, without the illusion of being able to stop Israel’s impunity in its relentless illegal occupation of Palestine, much as this is more of our desired result, but more realistically what UCP can only do is to mitigate the impact of Zionist violence, protect human rights of the Palestinian people, deter or prevent human rights violations such as destruction and injury to lives and properties, and maintain the peace in the community, no matter how tenuous or fragile. If there is one significant contribution that UCP’s protective presence can make in Palestine, it is the unequivocal demonstration of solidarity by the international community to the struggle of the Palestinian people in the face of Israel’s continuing violent occupation.
How much more can the international community express its solidarity more boldly? International volunteers doing protective presence and accompaniment who are willing to serve in Palestine are necessary and relevant in the face of Israel’s occupation policy. Solidarity actions such as mobilizations and campaigns are indispensable if only to ensure that the issue of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine remains a global agenda. But being present on-site, being personally grounded, serving as the eyes, ears, and voice for the Palestinian people are invaluable, as witnessing the violations perpetrated by the Zionist agenda of violent occupation and blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law, provides us with firsthand accounts of the experiences of the people in the West Bank. Documentation is important in any advocacy work. To effectively advocate for the rights of the Palestinian people, to illustrate the forced displacement and land-grabbing perpetrated against the Palestinian people, to feel the pain of mothers and women of Palestine, to see the fear and anxiety in the eyes of their children; all these are only possible if one is present where suffering is. That is the value of protective presence. This is the reason why we must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, through the UCPiP’s Unarmed Civilian Protection work in beleaguered communities in the West Bank.
Carmen L. Gatmaytan, Philippines
UCPiP Team 3
The UCP in Palestine Project provides a nonviolent, practical, and proven approach to deliver immediate protection to both Palestinian and Israeli civilians at this critical juncture. The project was created to enter into partnerships with local communities to create effective, community centered, nonviolent ways for civilians to prevent violence in their communities. Grounded in a feasibility assessment conducted in July 2024, UCPiP works to protect civilians in Palestine through nonviolence, accompaniment, and global advocacy. Learn more about UCPiP here.