Image by Ahmed Abu Hameeda.

“We were so close,” Cassandra Dixon wrote, from Malta -where she had hoped to board Conscience, the aptly named Freedom Flotilla ship which two weaponized drones bombed on May 2, 2025, almost certainly launched by Israel. Cassandra had traveled to Malta after spending six weeks in Masafer Yatta, the West Bank region where, for two months, she lived among villagers whom local Israeli settlers constantly persecuted.

In a blog post entitled Hard Days in Masafer Yatta, Cassandra told of villagers stunned and bewildered by round after round of violent attacks. Vehicles torched, olive trees destroyed, wells poisoned. Settlers barged into homes, beating villagers who had been sound asleep. With their vehicles destroyed, villagers relied on a hostile Israeli military for transport to emergency rooms and intensive care units. The military would then arrest dozens of young villagers for indefinite detention without trial.

In a recent letter, Cassandra wrote about a man who lay on the ground, bleeding, after attacking settlers shot his leg. Soldiers chatted amiably with the settlers before finally arresting him, shackling him to a gurney, and taking him to an Israeli hospital where a surgeon amputated his leg.

During a 2023 sojourn among villagers in the south Hebron hills, a settler fractured Cassandra’s skull with a heavy stick. Not one to draw attention to herself, she persisted with a court case in hopes of building precedents to protect vulnerable Palestinians.

She and her companions aiming to reach Gaza insist on breaking the siege. Their effort to deliver food, fuel, medicine, tents, and water represents international sanity, a symbolic, challenging effort to nonviolently resist Israel’s savagery.

They long to reach Gaza’s shore with supplies for victims of Israeli bombardment, knowing the victims’ skin grafts will not heal without adequate nutrients. They want to help doctors in Gaza’s hospitals treat diabetes patients denied insulin by the Israeli blockade. They know the heart-wrenching consequences when hospitals lack cardiac catheters, blood pressure medicines, and potable........

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