Palestinian lives, deaths, constraints and heartbreak in Hebron
JVL Introduction
I was pleased to discover this powerful, intensively moving essay by Bayan Haddad: published two days ago, before this latest atrocity. She writes of the daily lives and the all too frequent deaths, the impact on children and on childhood itself.
She says: “The shattering of lives, of life, accrues. Hannah Arendt’s phrase, the banality of evil, calls for a reversal. What Palestine knows is evil as banality. The monstrous has been made ordinary. Banality is the achievement of the system the soldier and the settler serve, a routine of killing so regular and so methodical that killing is not treated as an event. No event, no rupture, no judgment. Impunity produces the banality, and the banality allows the repetition.”
And now, two Israeli soldiers have been killed and others wounded. Not only has Israel killed those who they say fired the shots but have now imposed a lockdown on the whole West Bank and demolition of hundreds of homes in Hebron, leading to massive displacement. This is how the occupation works, exactly as Bayan Haddad set out.
On October 24th 2026, Issa Amro a Palestinian human rights and peace activist from Hebron posted this on his social media:
HEBRON IS UNDER SIEGE. FAMILIES ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES.
Since yesterday, 250 families have been displaced in Hebron, including my own sister, Hayat, and her seven children. Homes and shops are being demolished by the Israeli military. Around 250,000 people are trapped in the city, while 1,000 families in H2 remain confined to their homes. We are being collectively punished for something we neither did nor supported. Our suffering is being turned into political material for Israel’s elections, while innocent families pay the price. My sister Hayat and her seven children are not political tools. They are human beings who deserve safety, dignity, and freedom.I call on the international community, the UN, and human rights organisations to act NOW. Stop the demolitions and forced displacement. Protect civilians. End the siege and ensure immediate humanitarian access. How many more families must lose everything before the world acts?
This article was originally published by Communis on Thu 22 Oct 2026. Read the original here.
Peace Street
“Peace Street,” by Bayan Haddad, is a Communis original feature.
“Re-membering is the work of putting things back where they belong. It is not justice waited for. It is justice begun, in its first motions, on foot, by the people to whom it is owed.”—Bayan Haddad
“Stories, like meanings, are strewn about the streets, al-Jahiz told us long ago. We have to pick them up, collect them, and narrate them if we are to build mirrors to our souls.” Elias Khoury, Finding a New Idiom, 2021.
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Amazinkly powerful