On Sunday night, Israeli forces stormed the Palestinian National Theater, El-Hakawati, in occupied East Jerusalem, shutting down a children’s musical show titled “Dreams Under the Olive Trees.”
Following direct instructions from far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the theater was raided and closed down just before a group of children were scheduled to perform.
In a short video uploaded by Middle East Eye, a man can be seen demanding that all participants vacate the building within five minutes. A young Palestinian girl can also been seen crying.
“I don’t want to see anyone here in 5 minutes.”
Israeli intelligence forces stormed the Hakawati Theatre, also known as the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem, and abruptly shut down a children’s performance, threatening the audience with just five minutes to leave.… pic.twitter.com/llDo6OHpIr
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 24, 2025
In another video, posted to X by Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson, a group of children, still in their performance costumes, can be seen weeping and panicking as they are ordered from the building.
כאן הילדים, עדיין בתלבושות ההצגה, בפאניקה אחרי הפיזור האלים. אין בכלל ספק שהשוטרים תרמו רבות לביטחון וריבונות הישראלית בירושלים הבוקר. pic.twitter.com/r2IKMQ5hRz
— نير حسون Nir Hasson ניר חסון (@nirhasson) November 24, 2025
An independent institution that receives no funding from either the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli government, El-Hakawati is a major hub for Palestinian culture and artistic resistance to occupation, and as such has faced repeated threats and closures by Israeli authorities over the years.
In May 2009, Jerusalem police, acting on an order issued by then-Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, shut down the opening event of the Palestinian Literature Festival held there. In June 2013, Aharonovitch ordered the theater closed for eight days, preventing a planned puppet theater festival on the grounds that it was funded by the Palestinian Authority in violation of the Oslo framework. In 2016, an event titled “Reviving Palestinian Culture” was banned because one of the invited guests was the Palestinian Authority’s then-Culture Minister, poet Ehab Bessaiso.
This raid is the latest in a series of attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers on Palestinian cultural institutions across the West Bank since October 7, 2023. In February of this year, Israeli police raided two Palestinian bookstores in occupied east Jerusalem, confiscating books and arresting one of the owners and his nephew. A year prior, the IDF raided and destroyed two publishing houses in Ramallah. In December 2023, Israeli soldiers ransacked, vandalized, and forced the closure of the Freedom Theater, the Palestinian community-based theater and cultural center located within the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
These attacks on West Bank cultural institutions came amid the near-complete destruction of Gaza’s cultural sector by Israeli bombardment.
