Natasha Roth

Nabi Saleh villagers protest house demolition. Credit: Bilal Tamimi.

First demolition in Nabi Saleh: Warning shot or ominous sign?

Four years ago, the residents of the village received demolition orders, but they were never carried out. On Monday, bulldozers razed an uninhabited house. Now the villagers, who have been protesting every week since 2009, fear that the army will carry out the rest of the demolition orders to collectively punish them. “When we started…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 29, 2015

A Palestinian man takes part in the March of Return, Galilee, April 23, 2015. (Akron Drawshi/Activestills.org)

Thousands return to destroyed Palestinian villages in Israel

The March of Return, which coincides with Israeli Independence Day, calls for the right of return for Palestinians who were expelled from or fled the land in 1948. Approximately 10,000 people of all ages — mostly Palestinian citizens of Israel — took part in the 18th annual March of Return Thursday, on the land where the…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 24, 2015

Soldiers patrol one of the entrances to the West Bank village Hizma. (photo: Tamar Fleishman)

Israeli army encloses 7,000 Palestinians in West Bank village

IDF openly tells the 7,000 residents of Hizma that they are being collectively punished for the stone-throwing of a few Palestinians. The Israeli army and Border Police closed off both entrances to the Palestinian village of Hizma in the West Bank on Monday afternoon, in response to what the military claimed were incidents of stone-throwing…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 18, 2015

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Illustrative photo of a man being arrested. (Shutterstock.com)

‘Price tag’ settler argues in court that revenge isn’t a crime

You would think that sentencing a group of Israelis for setting fire to a Palestinian cafe is a positive development. But a closer look shows that the culture of minimizing the seriousness of price tag attacks is alive and strong. Were people’s lives and livelihoods not at stake, it would have been an almost sublime piece of…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 16, 2015

A Palestinian youth displays a black sponge-tipped bullet shot by Israeli police near the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, November 7, 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Losing sight of the consequences of ‘less-lethal’ weapons

A number of Palestinian children have lost some or all of their sight in the past year as a result of Israeli crowd control measures. Rights group appeals to the attorney general. Following a series of shootings by Israeli security forces which have caused Palestinian minors to lose all or part of their eyesight, Zakariya…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 12, 2015

An ultra-orthodox Jewish man walks in the depopulated Palestinian village of Lifta, located on the edge of West Jerusalem, Israel, March 4, 2014. During the Nakba, the residents of Lifta fled attacks by Zionist militias beginning in December 1947, resulting in the complete evacuation of the village by February 1948. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

The road out of the occupation runs through the Nakba

As long as Israelis deny, distort and repress the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians, we will never truly accept and absorb the end of the occupation. It is difficult to find a view in Lifta that isn’t marred by the words ‘death to Arabs’ graffitied in Hebrew on its hollow buildings. Someone even took the…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 11, 2015

And Israeli policemen confiscates a sign from a protester during a demonstration against the Judaization of Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, March 27, 2015. (photo: Mareike Lauken, Keren Manor/Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: When even holding signs is forbidden by Israeli Police

Dozens of Israeli, Palestinian and international activists protested in the Old City and Sheikh Jarrah against the Judaization of Jerusalem. The police, however, didn’t take kindly to their expressions of free speech. Photos by Mareike Lauken, Keren Manor/Activestills.org Israeli, Palestinian and international activists gathered at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City Friday afternoon, before marching…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland March 27, 2015

An Israeli soldier fires tear gas canisters directly at Palestinian protesters in Nabi Salah, March 13, 2015. (Screenshot by Bilal Tamimi)

WATCH: IDF fires tear gas canisters directly at protesters

Two Palestinian protesters have been killed from the practice in recent years despite it being illegal. In keeping with a recent upsurge in the illegal use of lethal force during weekly Friday demonstrations in Nabi Saleh, video footage emerged last week of an Israeli soldier firing tear gas canisters directly at protesters on March 13,…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland March 24, 2015

A supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a right-wing rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, March 15, 2015. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

[VID] The Bibi circus rolls into town

‘Anyone who isn’t jumping is a leftie,’ chant the settler youths at a right-wing election rally in Tel Aviv, the site of a larger anti-Netanyahu rally a week earlier. Netanyahu the ringmaster is in control of his audience, and the rally itself has the quality of a victory parade. Video by Camilla Schick They came, they…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland March 16, 2015

An Israeli police van outside the City of David archeological park in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. (File photo: Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

Parks and Occupation: Archaeology is the new security

The Biblical blueprint is being dragged up around our feet, seeking to use what is under the ground as evidence of divine right and the political and territorial sovereignty it supposedly affords us. The past makes for prime real estate when you’re developing a national mythology. It’s also a fine way to exert control over…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland March 7, 2015

The Old City of Jerusalem, September 26, 2014. (Photo by Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Activestills.org)

Jerusalem: Against the dying of the light

The streets are seething, a tautness hangs in the air, clinging to one as if walking through cobwebs. Yet in the middle of it all, I find a most profound reparation by the simplest means. A crack of light, and my heart hurts less. “Do not go gentle into that good night.” I am sitting…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland November 19, 2014

When ‘not in my name’ is all you have in the face of a massacre

A name is more human, more familiar and more expansive than any label can ever be. It is something that everyone in the world has in common. It is therefore in that name that I refuse to step in line behind a massacre masquerading as an existential and moral crusade. “Dyke, go live in Gaza.”…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland August 13, 2014

Empty chair at Holot (Photo by Karen Zack)

The other ‘1 percent’: On refugees and Passover

When we look around us this Passover, we are not the ones in need of protection, and we are not the ones escaping slavery. Somehow Israel has missed this role-reversal. Text by Rebecca De Vries and Natasha Roth Photos by Karen Zack Freedom of movement and the right to liberty do not apply to anyone…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 13, 2014