Israeli flags become settlers’ latest weapon in dominating the West Bank

For 25-year-old Taghreed Yahya, the daily journey from Kafr Ra’i to central Jenin now comes with a painful visual reminder of occupation. Along the main road linking Jenin and Nablus, hundreds of Israeli flags confront Palestinian commuters.

Yahya said the transformation began with “a flag here, an outpost there, a new road cutting through the landscape.” The changes, she told Al Jazeera, have brought sadness, anger, fear and helplessness. At the same time, she said, they strengthen Palestinians’ attachment to their land, memory and identity.

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It makes the scene that was familiar for years change; all of this naturally leaves sadness, anger and fear, in addition to a feeling of helplessness. But at the same time, it strengthens the clinging to the land, memory and identity.

The flag displays form part of what the article describes as an expanding visual assertion of Israeli control. The campaign goes beyond physical outposts and attacks, altering the geographical identity of Palestinian territory. When Israeli settlers uprooted dozens of olive trees belonging to residents of Arrabeh, groups of settlers were also decorating a bypass road in northeastern areas of Jenin with Israeli flags.

The flag-hanging campaigns are often carried out with Israeli military incursions securing the area, the article says. They accompany the rapid placement of mobile homes used to establish settler outposts in new parts of the occupied West Bank.

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I was hit by a lack of understanding of the geography I know, if I may say so. The major change that befell the most prominent landmarks in the streets seemed as if it went through a long time period, but it actually needed less than two months.

For Palestinians traveling to work or home, the disappearance of familiar landmarks has become disorienting. Photographer Faten Abdel Hadi, who regularly travels between Qalqilya, Nablus, Tulkarem and Salfit, said the changes became stark between June and August. “The major change that befell the most prominent landmarks in the streets seemed as if it went through a long time period, but it actually needed less than two months,” she told Al Jazeera.

She said the mobile homes, flags and settler gatherings along main roads were painful reminders that “these people stole our right and our belonging.” The article says the phenomenon intensified after October 7, 2023, as settlement expansion and Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank escalated. It reports that Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,100 Palestinians since then, while a 66th Palestinian village was ethnically...

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This scene is very painful: the scenes of the settlers’ mobile homes and flags, and their gatherings on the sides of the main streets, return us to the truth that these people stole our right and our belonging.