Life under occupation
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| Title | | Description | Date |
| Hundreds of “investigations” in a decade, whitewashing and absurd punishment | | Eyal Sagiv - B`Tselem - On 30 May 2020, Israeli Border Police
officers fatally shot 31-year-old Iyad al-Halaq, a Palestinian from
Wadi al-Joz in East Jerusalem. The young man, who was on the
autistic spectrum, was on his way to the Elwyn Al Quds Center for
individuals with disabilities, which he frequented daily.This
killing may be special, but it is far from the only one. The only
exceptional thing is that since al-Halaq had special needs, he was
not posthumously “convicted” of “terrorism”. This charge, which is
automatically levelled at almost any Palestinian killed by Israeli
security forces, is used to retroactively justify the shooting –
even if the individual did not pose a threat that required deadly
force. [ak] | 9/7/2020 |
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| Expulsion of the Sumarin Family - Jerusalem Offers a Grim Model for a Post-Annexation Future | | New York Times / Associated Press - The Sumarin family has been
locked in a 30-year legal battle to prove ownership of their home in
Silwan, an east Jerusalem neighborhood coveted by Jewish settlers
because of its proximity to holy sites. When the original owner died
in the 1980s, the property was deemed to have "an absentee landlord"
because his four children lived in Jordan. The Israeli branch of the
Jewish National Fund then purchased the property from the state in
1991. Last week, a court ordered the family to vacate the property
by mid-August and to pay around $5,800 in court fees. Family members
say the original owner left it to his nephew, who was born and
raised there, and from whom they are descended. The extended family
living in the home, which now includes 15 men, women and children,
says it will appeal the decision. “Who’s absent? We’re right here.
I’ve been here for 40 years," said Amal Sumarin, the wife of the
nephew`s son. “Where are the families with their children supposed
to go? Every house built in Silwan is under threat.” [ak]
| 9/7/2020 |
| ... |
| PM rejects Likud ally’s dismissal of claim some Israelis can’t afford food | | TOI STAFF - Times of Israel - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on
Saturday distanced himself from comments made by his Likud party ally
Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who dismissed claims that some Israelis
don’t have enough money for food amid the economic crisis as
“bullshit. ”The coronavirus crisis sent unemployment skyrocketing in
Israel and Netanyahu has come under increasing fire for his handling
of the ongoing economic woes. (rh) | 7/7/2020 |
| ... |
| ‘Opposing apartheid is the only way this struggle can go’ | | Meron Rapoport - +972 - Tareq Baconi, a Palestinian political
analyst, sees few reasons for optimism about the outcome of the
annexation debacle — whether it comes to pass or not. Like many other
experts, Baconi doubts the Palestinian Authority’s ability to stop
annexation, and worries that even if de jure annexation does not take
place, the European Union will heave a sigh of relief and go back to
ignoring Israel’s “creeping annexation” of the West Bank. The only
good thing that can come out of the current state of affairs, says
Baconi, is the transition from a Palestinian struggle for
independence and a state of their own, to an anti-colonial struggle.
(rh) | 7/7/2020 |
| ... |
| ‘Gaza is a one-way ticket’: How Israel’s relocation policy is separating Palestinian communities | | Henriette Chacar - +972 - On March 4, Samar Saoud finally got the
call she had been waiting for. She was told to show up with her three
children at the Erez crossing that coming Sunday, and the family
would leave the Gaza Strip and move to the West Bank city of Nablus,
where Saoud’s parents live. But at Erez, Saoud was told to go back
home. Pleading with the Israeli army officers did not help. The
crossing, which separates Israel from the Gaza Strip, was closed for
the day, likely for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Only exits for
exceptional “humanitarian cases” — such as urgent medical care —
would be permitted. (rh)
| 7/7/2020 |
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| The mechanics of Israel’s annexation in the West Bank | | JONATHAN KUTTAB - Mondoweiss - At a minimum, annexation—or extending
Israeli law and administration to parts of the Jordan Valley—will
require that Israel update, change, adapt, or reaffirm decrees, laws,
and military orders that, since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank,
have governed how the occupying power administers the territory and
its inhabitants. Such laws, decrees, and military orders address
relations with the Palestinians––especially as pertaining to the
post-Oslo Accords and Areas A, B, and C––as well as Israeli settlers
in illegal settlements, the status of these settlements in Israel’s
military doctrine, and economic and social affairs, among other
things. But whatever the new regulations may be, annexation is
bringing new conditions that are likely to sow the seeds for extended
conflict in the future, especially that the Israeli army itself has
apparently been kept in the dark as to the particulars of the
annexation.(rh)
| 7/7/2020 |
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| Despite coronavirus outbreak: Israel ramps up demolition of West Bank Palestinian homes in June | | B`Tselem - In April, Israel pledged before the UN not to demolish homes as long as the health crisis was underway and isolation guidelines were in place... [bz] | 7/7/2020 |
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| A Family to be Evicted from their Home | | Ir Amim - The Sumarin family`s home was built by Musa Sumarin during the time of Jordanian rule over East Jerusalem and he lived there until his death in 1984. (...) In the late 1980`s, an affidavit was filed with the Custodian of Absentee Property, an authority within the Ministry of Finance, attesting that Musa Sumarin was an "absentee" landowner (...) and his property [inhabited by his family] was transferred to the Keren Kayemet L`Yisrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) who demanded the property empty - the beginning of a 30-year legal debate. [bz] | 7/7/2020 |
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| Annexation’s irony: Bringing Israeli politics closer to Palestinian statehood | | HAVIV RETTIG GUR - Times of Israel - In a little noticed video this
week, the founder of the most important Israeli settlement advocacy
group acknowledged that the movement he helped found had long “denied
the reality” of the Palestinian presence in the West Bank — and
suggested it could do so no longer. Israel Harel, 82, was among the
Israeli troops who liberated Jerusalem’s Old City in 1967 before
going on to help found the Ofra settlement and becoming the founding
chairman of the Yesha Council. On Tuesday he joined Rabbi Benny Lau
for a conversation broadcast online as part of Lau’s 929 Bible study
initiative. (rh) | 30/6/2020 |
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| Surviving on, and maybe losing, a contested land | | Kobi Wolf (photographies) - Washington Post - Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel may take control of 30 percent of the
West Bank this week- the parts were Israeli have settled since 1967,
allegedly in violation of International Law. (rh) | 30/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Biden’s toothless position on Israeli annexation: another Middle East mistake? | | Henry Siegman - Responsible Statecraft - Chemi Shalev, who has been
regaling his readership in Haaretz with his excellent reporting on
Israel’s and America’s political realities, recently warned Israelis
that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden just fired
“an annexation warning shot across Bibi’s bow.” It was “a bolt from
the blue,” Shalev wrote, that may herald a new American determination
to preserve the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Shalev was referring to Biden’s criticism, in a speech he
made to a group of Jewish Democratic donors, of Netanyahu’s
determination to annex not only the illegal Jewish settlements, but
larger parts of the West Bank that would deny Palestinians statehood
and national self-determination. Unfortunately, Shalev could not have
been more mistaken. Biden’s statement that elicited Shalev’s optimism
was anything but a “warning shot.” It was his assurance to his
contributors that nothing will change. For Biden explicitly ruled out
denying Israel’s government the vast financial aid it receives from
the United States, not only for its security needs but also for
securing its occupation and disenfranchisement of the Palestinians.
(rh)
| 30/6/2020 |
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| Jerusalem 1967-2020: The Truth About Annexation | | Ir Amim - Arab Media Internet Network - In June of 1967, Israel
conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank (in addition to the Golan
Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip). Later that month,
Israel unilaterally - and in contravention of international law - in
practice annexed the seven square kilometers of East Jerusalem, and
over 60 square kilometers of the West Bank that surrounds it. These
areas were incorporated together into one unit named ‘East
Jerusalem,’ subject to the Jerusalem municipality and to Israeli law.
Since 1967 until the present, this is the only area of the West Bank
that has actually been annexed to the State of Israel. Therefore, in
order to understand the consequences of annexation on both Israelis
and Palestinians, it is pertinent to learn from the case of East
Jerusalem. (rh) | 30/6/2020 |
| ... |
| The Israeli police-murder of Ahmad Erekat is latest to show that Palestinian lives don’t matter | | JONATHAN OFIR - Mondoweiss - On Tuesday, Ahmad Erekat, 27, was
murdered by Israeli Border Police officers, at a checkpoint outside
Bethlehem. That is the first thing that needs to be understood. Not
how and why he drove into a checkpoint booth having accelerated one
second before, lightly injuring a Border policewoman; not that he was
preparing for his sister’s wedding. All that is detail. The
singularly important point is that Ahmad Erekat was murdered. He was
shot by Israeli Border Police at close range as he got out of his
car, unarmed and moving away from them; he was left to bleed and
denied medical attention for over an hour. (rh) | 30/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Black Lives Matter and lessons from Palestine | | Yoav Litvin - Aljazeera - On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man,
was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white policeman in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. Floyd`s murder was the latest in a normalised history of
police abuse of Black, brown, Native American, immigrant and other
marginalised communities, carried out with impunity and encouraged by
the racist incitement of United States President Donald Trump and his
white supremacist administration. In response to the murder, people
took to the streets against endemic police brutality, which enforces
the systemic white supremacist subjugation of Black Americans.
Solidarity protests were held across the world, including in the
United Kingdom, Denmark, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Palestine,
Greece, Germany and elsewhere. As these spontaneous, grassroots
protests were met with savage, occupation-style crackdowns by police
- and as military forces and the mainstream media and political
elites tried to smear protesters as "looters" and "thugs", it was
difficult not to draw parallels between this fight against anti-Black
racism and the Palestinian struggle. (rh)
| 30/6/2020 |
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| US Jews will ‘pay a special price’ for annexation as ‘we are held responsible for Israeli policies’ — Greenblatt | | PHILIP WEISS - Mondoweiss - American Jews will “pay a special price”
for Israeli annexation of occupied lands because we “are held
responsible” for Israel’s actions, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-
Defamation League, warned on Tuesday. Greenblatt spoke in a forum
opposing annexation because it forecloses negotiations for a
Palestinian state. He said that annexation “will absolutely create
challenges and tensions as it relates to the different segments of
the Jewish population here in the United States and I think across
the diaspora." (rh) | 30/6/2020 |
| ... |
| PA Calls on Gantz to Halt Annexation of West Bank | | @palestinechron - The Palestinian Authority (PA) has called on
alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz to end the occupation of
Palestinian lands and halt the annexation of the occupied West Bank
before demanding negotiations, Anadolu Agency reports. “Gantz must
think of ending the occupation instead of mobilizing his army to
annex [the West Bank] and consolidate the occupation,” Hussein Al-
Sheikh, the head of the PA General Authority of Civil Affairs, said
on Twitter. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Gantz expressed his
intention to directly negotiate with Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas.(rh)
| 30/6/2020 |
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| UN: 90 Palestinians homeless as Israel demolishes 70 buildings in 2 weeks | | MEMO -
“This represents a 250 per cent increase compared with the weekly average of structures targeted since the beginning of the year,” the report said, noting that “61 of the affected structures were located in Area C, including nine previously provided as humanitarian assistance.”
UNOCHA said that “the increase in demolitions and displacement amidst the ongoing covid-19 pandemic raises serious concern.” [bz] | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Palestinian Shot Dead by Israeli Police in East Jerusalem Checkpoint After Suspected Attack | | Hagar Shezaf, Jack Khoury - Ahmed Mustafa Erekat, 27, from Abu Dis,
was shot several times by police and pronounced dead. The incident
took place at the "container" checkpoint in the neighborhood of Abu
Dis, north of Bethlehem. According to the police statement, the
shooting took place after Erekat accelerated his car and tried
running over a female officer, who was injured lightly and evacuated
to a Jerusalem hospital. His family said they did not believe he had
deliberately tried to attack soldiers, since that was the night of
his sister`s wedding and he was on his way to pick up his sister and
mother. [However, in such cases the Isralei authorities haabitually
take the shooting soldiers` version without any real investigation.
ak] | 23/6/2020 |
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| Israeli military detention disrupts Palestinian students’ secondary school final exams | | Defence children International Palestine - Israeli forces arrested
three Palestinian students in early June disrupting completion of
their high school degrees. Israeli forces detained Amin Al-Sulaibi,
17, around dawn on June 1 from his home in the occupied West Bank
city of Hebron. Saifuddin Najajreh, 17, and Khalaf Shakarneh, 17,
were detained from their homes by Israeli forces in separate pre-dawn
raids on June 9 in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem,
according to information gathered by Defense for Children
International-Palestine (DCIP). (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Qalandiya - the army destroyed again the fruit stand | | Tamar Fleishman - Machsomwatch - One week after the Israeli army
destroyed yet again Abdallah Tamimi’s fruit stand, I came to him as
one paying a condolence visit. I came to Abdallah to tell him,
wordlessly, how sorry I am about what had happened. I came to
Abdallah to hear him, not to ask questions. Abdallah said it was on a
Thursday that they (the soldiers) came to the stand and handed his
father a paper that said that in one week’s time they would destroy
the stand. Why? Because it disturbs traffic. And they (the soldiers)
did come, but not in a week’s time. They 3 days later and
destroyed.The financial damage is estimated at 6000-7000 NIS. (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| The Jewish left is recognizing that apartheid is here : Israel`s Jewish left is abandoning the term `occupation` and adopting the word `apartheid` to describe the reality on the ground. | | Meron Rapoport - +972 - The Israeli right is concerned. Ever since
Saturday night’s mass demonstration against the Israeli government’s
plans to annex large areas of the West Bank, the right has expressed
its worry over the fate of its rivals in the left-wing camp.
Following the protest, prominent right-wing journalist Amit Segal
published an article in which he claimed that should annexation take
place, it will not be due to President Trump or Prime Minister
Netanyahu, but rather because Saturday’s demonstrators waved
Palestinian flags in Rabin Square. Rabin, wrote Segal, would have
been deeply ashamed of such a sight. (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| A Victory Against the Occupation – and the Fight Ahead | | Daniel Sokatch - New Israel Fund - This week, when the law was struck
down, ACRI’s Executive Director Sharon Abraham-Weiss celebrated the
victory, saying that the law’s “entire aim was to legalize serious
violations of stealing land.” According to attorneys from Adalah: The
Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel the Jerusalem Center
for Human Rights, the law left Palestinian subjects in the West Bank
“legally unprotected because it allows them to be dispossessed of
their private property by Israeli West Bank settlers on the basis of
their ethnic-ideological outlook.” Let’s be clear. This court ruling
is a victory for justice – but it is by no means the end of the
road.,This law was part of a broader and ongoing strategy by the
Israeli government to retroactively legalize illegal settlements –
and ultimately steal the land. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, the
plan is now to annex large swaths of the West Bank, either wholesale
or piecemeal, entirely outside the context of negotiations with the
Palestinians. (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israeli security chiefs warn that annexation could ignite the West Bank Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/06/israel-syria-lebanon-palestinians-west-bank-netanyahu-gantz.html#ixzz6QDg7Jss9 | | Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor - Just a week away from the July 1 target
date for the start of official action on possible Israeli annexation
of 30% of the West Bank, Israel’s military and security chiefs have
no earthly idea what is going to happen — how, when and if at all.
The chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the heads
of the Shin Bet security agency and of the Mossad are trying to read
the minds of the decision-makers, meanwhile preparing for every
imaginable scenario. The IDF and Shin Bet have been conducting
discussions in recent weeks about the possible annexation and its
implications, and have drawn up a precise threat map. The Mossad is
conducting a similarly deep assessment. The heads of the security
agencies are awaiting a directive from the political echelons. Before
that happens, an in-depth discussion is planned to allow the defense
and security chiefs to present decision-makers with their views on
the annexation move. (rh)
| 23/6/2020 |
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| Eight Palestinians Injured by Israeli Forces in Jordan Valley Protest | | IMEMCnews- Israeli military forces shot and injured 8 Palestinian
civilians, Monday evening, in Jericho in the occupied Jordan Valley,
Palestinian Information Center reported. Thousands of Palestinians
turned out to the protest against the impending annexation of much of
the Jordan Valley, however, Israeli forces closed entrances to
Jericho city, leading to confrontations between demonstrators and the
Israeli army.(rh) | 23/6/2020 |
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| Bowman draws parallel between US policing and Israeli occupation | | MICHAEL ARRIA = Mondoweiss - Bowman has responded to Weiss with a
letter of his own, clarifying some of his views. In his response,
Bowman makes a direct connection between the protests currently
gripping the United States and the situation in Palestine: The
uprising we’re witnessing across the country against police violence
also makes me empathize with the everyday experience and fear that
comes with living under occupation. Just as the police force is a
violent intimidating force in so many black communities, I can
connect to what it feels like for Palestinians to feel the presence
of the military in their daily lives in the West Bank.On the topic of
BDS, Bowman reiterated that he’s not a supporter, but also seemed to
imply that he would have voted against last summer’s House resolution
condemning the boycott movement, which Weiss asked about
specifically. “I personally oppose the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions movement. But, like civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John
Lewis, I also will defend the rights of all people to express their
First Amendment right to peacefully organize for political change,”
wrote Bowman.(rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Clashes reported as 2,500 Israelis pray at Nablus holy site ahead of annexation | | TOI STAFF - A settler group said Tuesday morning that some 2,500
Israelis visited Joseph’s Tomb, a holy site located inside an area of
the West Bank under full Palestinian control, the night before.
According to Palestinian reports, an unspecified number of
Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israel Defense Forces
troops at the time of the visit. (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel builds new settler-only road near Bethlehem to link settlements | | Middle East Monitor (MEMO) - The new road will link the two illegal Jewish settlements: Beitar Illit and Modi’in Illit, situated west of Bethlehem and east of Lod (Lydda) respectively.
Deputy-Mayor of Nahalin village, Hani Fanoun, told Wafa that Israeli army bulldozers and equipment began expanding the bypass road by a width of ten metres and a length of two kilometres, thus grabbing Palestinian lands in the Ein Fares area.
[bz] | 23/6/2020 |
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| Chokehold on diplomat exposes Israel’s special type of apartheid | | Jonathan Cook - Countercurrents - An Israeli diplomat filed a
complaint last week with police after he was pulled to the ground in
Jerusalem by four security guards, who knelt on his neck for five
minutes as he cried out: “I can’t breathe.” There are obvious echoes
of the treatment of George Floyd, an African-American killed by
police in Minneapolis last month. His death triggered mass protests
against police brutality and reinvigorated the Black Lives Matter
movement. The incident in Jerusalem, by contrast, attracted only
minor attention – even in Israel.xcAn assault by Israeli security
officials on a diplomat sounds like an aberration – a peculiar case
of mistaken identity – quite unlike an established pattern of police
violence against poor black communities in the US. But that
impression would be wrong. (rh) | 23/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israeli Forces Arrest Fourteen Palestinians, Including Two Children | | Ali Salam - IMEMCnews - "The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), reported
that Israeli forces detained fourteen Palestinians across the West Bank, on
Saturday night and Sunday morning, nine of whom were abducted by Israeli
police from Al-‘Isawiya town in East Jerusalem" [ry] | 22/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Palestine Bleeds: Execution of Autistic Man is Not an Exception but the Norm | | Ramzy Baroud - The Palestine Chronicle - A 32-year-old man with the
mental age of an 8-year-old child was executed by Israeli soldiers on
May 30, while crouching behind his teacher near his special needs
school in the Old City of Jerusalem. The cold-blooded murder of Iyad
Hallaq might not have received much attention if it were not for the
fact that it took place five days following the similarly
heartbreaking murder of a 46-year-old black man, George Floyd, in
Minneapolis, at the hands of American police. The two crimes
converge, not only in their repugnancy and the moral decadence of
their perpetrators but also because countless American police
officers have been trained in Israel, by the very Israeli ‘security
forces’ that killed Hallaq. The practice of killing civilians, with
efficiency and callousness, is now a burgeoning market. Israel is the
biggest contributor to this market; the US is the world’s largest
client. (rh) | 16/6/2020 |
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| IDF covered settler aggression in Susiya and Tawane and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Jordan Valley escalates | | Ta`ayush - Week report June 7-13, and a call to join as accompaniment of Palestinian shepherds to grazing grounds involves a great number of activists, and many more are needed during the next few weeks. To join contact 0532363884 and/or 050-5607034
[bz]
| 16/6/2020 |
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| US Ambassador Friedman and Israeli Leaders Fail to Reach Annexation Agreement | | Ramzy Baroud - The Palestine Chronicle - The US Ambassador to Israel,
David M Friedman, and Israeli leaders failed to reach an agreement on
the annexation plan at a meeting yesterday, local media have
reported. Friedman is known to support illegal Jewish settlements
built on Palestinian land. He has said in the past that Israel has
the “right” to annex the settlement blocs, and “does not have to
wait” to do so.(rh) | 16/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel greenlights illegal `Trump` settlement in Golan Heights : sraeli official says `Trump Heights` in the occupied Golan Heights will house 300 Jewish families. | | Aljazeera - An Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday said the government
has approved plans to build a new illegal settlement in the Israeli-
occupied Golan Heights named after US President Donald Trump.
Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely wrote on Facebook that her
ministry will start preparations for Ramat Trump - Hebrew for "Trump
Heights" - to house 300 families. The Jewish settlement is currently
known as Bruchim and is more than 30 years old and has a population
of 10 people. (rh) | 16/6/2020 |
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| From insects to boredom, patients and doctors detail life inside Gaza’s COVID-19 quarantine centers | | SARAH ALGHERBAWI - Mondoweiss - Intense heat, insect infestations and
boredom are some of the descriptions of government-run isolation
centers in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinians who were
recently released from and are still under quarantine. Many praised
the healthcare teams who treated them, spending around a month holed
up in hospitals, schools, and hotel rooms. Most had access to the
internet and could make phone calls to relatives, although some did
not. Mohammed al-Madhoun, a returning medical student who is in
isolation at a school, told me over the phone, “We mix with other
people inside the quarantine center and if it turned out that one of
us is infected that would mean infecting many others.” “Schools are
not equipped well enough to provide for people for 21 days. We don’t
even have a good internet connection, I can’t follow-up with my
university or submit my assignments,” he said. (rh) | 16/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel’s top court strikes settlement Regulation Law | | Rina Bassist - Al-Monitor - Israel’s High Court ordered June 9 the
state to cancel the controversial Regulation Law, with eight justices
to one ruling that the legislation was unconstitutional. The eight
justices said that the law “violates the property rights and equality
of Palestinians, and gives clear priority to the interests of Israeli
settlers over Palestinian residents of the West Bank." The justices
argued that while preventing the demolition of [settlement] homes
might be understandable, this “does not justify such significant
violation of property rights and the rights to dignity and equality
that the Palestinian population [deserves].”(rh)
| 16/6/2020 |
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| Netanyahu’s annexation plan now in Gantz, Ashkenazi’s hands | | Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor - Two former military chiefs, Defense
Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, hold the
key to Israeli annexation of West Bank lands. The two have managed to
position themselves in Washington as crucial to any decision on the
annexation plan. Taking advantage of the leadership`s preoccupation
with the novel coronavirus and police brutality crises, they have
managed to reach an understanding with the Donald Trump
administration according to which President Donald Trump will support
any Israeli decision on annexation as long as it enjoys the full
backing of both government parties — Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz and Ashkenazi’s Blue and White.(rh)
| 16/6/2020 |
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| PA to stop getting IDs authorized by Israel, in move that could strand thousands | | AFP - The Times of Israel - Measure is part of steps taken by Palestinians to cut
cooperation with Israel, in protest at planned annexation of West Bank
settlements and Jordan Valley [ry] | 15/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Palestinian Child Sentenced to Ten Years by Israeli Authorities | | Ali Salam - IMEMCnews - "The Israeli administration, on Sunday, sentenced
Palestinian child, Hammoudeh Khader Sheikh, to 10 years in prison, Quds News
Network reported" [ry] | 15/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel’s One-state Reality is Facilitated by the International Community | | Ramona Wadi - Palestine Chronicle - For several years, the call for a
one-state solution has been part of the alternatives to the two-state
paradigm which forms the backdrop to international diplomacy on
Palestine. “One state” is generally described as a state with equal
rights for all Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, yet the power
imbalance supporting the colonial process makes its implementation
impossible. If it were to come into being, the danger of compromise
when it comes to the rights of the colonized Palestinian population
would still exist, given the international community’s dedication to
generating impunity and power for Israel. If the one-state concept is
applied, there must be a complete overhaul of international diplomacy
when it comes to Palestine, which is unlikely to happen even as
Israel embarks upon the annexation of even more Palestinian land.(rh) | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Palestinian PM: If Israel carries out the annexation, we will declare independence in the 1967 borders | | Elior Levy - Y-net - Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh
said that If Israel annexes part of the West Bank, the Palestinians
will unilaterally declare a state based on the pre-1967 lines. "if
Israel moves ahead with annexation, which is an existential threat
to the Palestinians, it will be a serious violation of all
agreements". For his part Hussein al-Sheikh, the senior aide to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the New York Times: “We are
not nihilists or fools, and we don’t want chaos.We are pragmatic. We
don’t want things to reach a point of no return. But annexation
means no return in the relationship with Israel.” [ak] | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Stop Calling Israel a Jewish Democracy | | Shibley Telhami -Foreign Policy - As Israel contemplates annexing
large parts of the West Bank, in harmony with U.S. President Donald
Trump’s so-called peace plan, some troubling interpretations of
Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, and its relationship to
democracy, have come to the fore. These views of Israel’s Jewish
identity do not only concern Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,
but also the approximately 20 percent of Israeli citizens who
identify as Arab or Palestinian. Now there is a U.S. plan proposing
not only annexing occupied territories, but also carving out towns in
Israel to hand over to the Palestinian Authority, just because their
Israeli inhabitants aren’t Jewish. (rh | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Netanyahu’s dilemma over his annexation plan | | Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor - Jun 5, 2020 Less than a month before the
July 1 target date allowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
bring up to vote annexation of a significant part of the West Bank,
no one has any idea where the country is heading. Netanyahu’s
intentions are unclear. He continues to trumpet the historic
opportunity afforded by the green light for annexation that President
Donald Trump gave Israel in January, but no one knows what Netanyahu
really means to do. Will he take advantage of the opportunity offered
by the Americans to declare Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the West
Bank on July 1? Will he annex a smaller portion of land? Will he
delay the move? Will he forgo the whole idea at this time? (rh)
| 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| ‘Palestine is Gone!’: On the Nakba, Naksa, and Black Lives Matter | | Rima Najjar - Palestine Chronicle - How could I, born in exile just
after the Nakba, in the arid town of Zarka in Jordan, have any sense
of what she had lost, the beauty and richness of what she was holding
onto in her heart, her village of Lifta? Even as she went around
muttering at the poor soil of her Zarka garden and how it yielded
something only with extreme difficulty, I still could not fathom her
deprivation and the enormity of her loss. She was fellaha (farmer)
for whom land and growing things were part of her soul. And now, on
the eve of Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank, I feel the
urge to lament to my children and grandchildren about it, just as she
did to me, but I don’t know how much of the pain they would
understand or absorb.(rh) | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| A radical settler wages war against annexation — but he is far from alone | | SHALOM YERUSHALMI - Times of Israel - “When you’re giving away the
Land of Israel to our worst enemy, that’s the greatest of sins. But
when you’re also severing the connection between the settlements,
that’s no less of a crime. Have we learned nothing? Did we not see
what happened when we left Gush Katif [the Jewish settlements in the
Gaza strip]? Now they’re coming after our land here, in Judea and
Samaria.” Rappaport, 75, has been a radical activist among settlers
in the West Bank for decades — and was a member of the infamous
Jewish Underground terrorist cell, which operated in the 1980s.(rh) | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Excluded from Netanyahu’s annexation plans, military must somehow prepare anyway | | JUDAH ARI GROSS - Times of Israel - With less than a month to go
before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he intends to annex
portions of the West Bank — a move with potentially immense security
and geopolitical ramifications — the country’s security forces remain
overwhelmingly in the dark about what exactly the government plans to
do. A verbal statement that does not actually apply Israeli civil law
over the territory and thus does not have any real-world implications
may result in only limited reactions by Palestinians, but full
annexation of all Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley — which
Netanyahu has indicated he is considering — would likely result in a
far more violent and widespread immediate response. The annexation of
only the Maale Adumim settlement or Etzion bloc — both of which are
almost guaranteed to remain in Israeli control under any political
resolution with the Palestinians — could also result in a potentially
more muted response by both Palestinians and the rest of the world.
(rh) | 9/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel to demolish 200 Palestinian buildings and structures in East Jerusalem | | Middle East Monitor - The chairman of East Jerusalem’s Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kamal Obeidat, told Wafa that the order was made by recommendation of the Israeli Planning and Zoning Committee and will demolish up to 200 structures including car repair shops, restaurants and other facilities. [bz] | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Slapping Israeli Apartheid — the sentencing of Yifat Doron | | JONATHAN OFIR - Mondoweiss - More than two years ago, the young
Palestinian resistance icon Ahed Tamimi shook the world with a slap
to an Israeli occupation soldier in Nabi Saleh. During Ahed’s
sentencing hearing, Israeli peace activist Yifat Doron slapped the
chief military prosecutor. It came out of her as a spontaneous
reaction to oppression: “The way I see it, this was in reaction to
seeing my friend in distress,” Doron said in an interview with +972.
On Wednesday, Doron was sentenced to eight months prison, plus a fine
of 3,000 Shekels and probation entailing a potential 4 months to 3
years prison if she would be convicted of additional ‘violent
offenses’. The case was of course held at a civilian court – the
Jerusalem Magistrates Court – not the military court in which
Palestinians are tried.(rh) | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Israel put itself in a corner | | Sam Bahour -Responsible Statekraft - Anyone following the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict is sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to
see if the new Israeli coalition government currently being formed
will act on the green light the Trump administration has given it for
additional acts of annexation of parts of the West Bank. Another act
of annexation or not, Israel has already lost.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 16-hour trip to Israel last week
raised red flags for some. Could it be that the Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu, drunk on power and impunity, was taking Trump’s
“Deal of the Century” and implementing it faster than the U.S.
administration desires? Clearly, the world did not buy any part of
Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” fiasco — not the Palestinians, not the
Arab states, not the EU, and not many Israelis and devoted supporters
of Israel as well. (rh) | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
| This is Jerusalem: Violence and Dispossession in al-‘Esawiyah | | B`Tselem - Since April 2019, the Israel Police has been engaged in a
campaign of abuse and collective punishment against the neighborhood
of al-‘Esawiyah in East Jerusalem. The operation continues, despite
social distancing restrictions announced by the government, putting
local residents in danger. One of the poorest neighborhoods in
Jerusalem, al-‘Esawiyah lies on the eastern slopes of the Mount
Scopus ridge, hemmed in by an array of Israeli institutions, Jewish
neighborhoods, military bases and roads built on its land. The
neighborhood is estimated to have 22,000 residents, and its
population density is 3.5 times the average population density in
Jerusalem. (rh) | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
| West Bank annexation could be delayed for days or weeks, Likud minister says | | TOI STAFF - Times of Israel - Just days after Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu told ministers that he had set a July date for the
annexation of parts of the West Bank and had no intention of changing
it, a minister in his Likud party said Sunday that the timing could
be delayed by days or weeks. Ze’ev Elkin, a member of the top-level
security cabinet, told Army Radio that the July 1 date cited in the
coalition deal signed with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party wasn’t
set in stone.(rh) | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
| Netanyahu urges doubtful settler chiefs to get behind ‘historic’ West Bank plan | | JACOB MAGID - Times of Israel - Settler leaders have lamented being
left out of the loop of the committee’s meetings, asserting that the
conceptual map presented by the Trump administration at the plan’s
January unveiling results in 15 Israeli settlements becoming isolated
enclaves encircled by a future Palestinian state — an entity whose
establishment they fundamentally oppose.(rh) | 2/6/2020 |
| ... |
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