Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap!

On July 24, armed Israeli settlers entered a Palestinian village in the West Bank, triggering a deadly scuffle. The Israeli army quickly labeled it a “terror attack” and said it had “neutralized” the alleged attacker. But as a video investigation by Local Call’s Oren Ziv with Ariel Caine revealed, the Palestinian who managed to disarm a settler was later executed while unarmed — likely by another settler. 

As Israeli settler pogroms continue to sweep the West Bank with impunity, Mohammad Hesham Huraini detailed what it feels like to be inside one. He described finding himself completely helpless: His car was engulfed in flames, but all that mattered to him was his family’s survival. 

The village of Umm Al-Khair in the southern West Bank is facing both violent settler expansion and the looming threat of demolition by Israeli authorities. A year after the killing of community leader and +972 contributor Awdah Hathaleen, Basel Adra wrote about how the entire village is now fighting for its own survival.

From Shin Bet recruitment drives to military training programs, Israel’s defense establishment is becoming increasingly embedded in academic life. Meron Rapoport and Aharon Porath drew on a recent controversial graduation speech to examine how Tel Aviv University serves Israel’s security state (originally published on Local Call).

A new book documents ongoing efforts to preserve Gaza’s millennia-old cultural heritage amid the genocide. Samah Salaime spoke to the editors and some of the featured artists, who explained how archiving serves as a form of resistance: refusing to surrender to the enclave’s destruction while laying foundations for its future (originally published on Local Call).

And in the latest episode of The +972 Podcast, Alaa Salama spoke to Nadim Nashif, executive director of the Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh, whose latest report investigated more than 3,500 cases of Meta suppressing content relating to Palestine. The findings prove beyond any doubt that Palestinians are being systematically censored on some of the world’s most popular social media platforms. 

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