Just because you don’t see Israel/Palestine in the headlines, doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Every day, Palestinian lives are impacted by Israel’s oppression and occupation.
Recent news reports below – click on headlines for full report:
Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Weekly Update 06-12 July 2023)
Death, displacement, settler attacks, military incursions and checkpoints – this week they all continued apace.
Reposted from Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, July 13, 2023
[In the last week,] 5 Palestinians, including a civilian, were killed…So far in 2023, IOF attacks have killed 194 Palestinians, including 96 civilians, amongst them 33 children, 6 women and a person with disability… [In the last week,] IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] displaced 4 families of 15…Since the beginning of 2023, IOF have made 109 families homeless, a total of 671 persons, including 143 women and 299 children…Since the beginning of the year, settlers have conducted at least 268 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property. As a result, 7 Palestinians were killed…
[In the last week,] IOF carried out 196 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem…During those incursions, 97 Palestinians were arrested…So far in 2023, IOF have conducted 5,096 incursions into the West Bank…during which 2,892 Palestinians were arrested…Israeli occupation maintains its illegal and inhuman 16-year closure on the Gaza Strip. Details available in PCHR’s monthly-update at the Gaza crossings…
In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem,…on top of its 110 permanent checkpoints, IOF established 128 temporary military checkpoints…and arrested 5 Palestinians at those checkpoints…So far in 2023, IOF have established 3,193 temporary military checkpoints and arrested 140 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
FURTHER READING ON ISRAEL’S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES:
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- Israel committed 3,532 human rights violations against Palestinians in January
- Amnesty International: Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians
- Another major human rights org reports: “apartheid” in Israel
- Gideon Levy: Palestinians are prohibited from defending their families from violent aggression
An Israeli activist was thrown in jail for a week — over a hat
Police arrested Gil Hammerschlag in Jerusalem, after he attended a protest wearing a cap featuring a photo of a Palestinian shot dead by Israeli forces.
A left-wing Israeli activist who had been in jail for almost a week over a hat he wore to a protest was released by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday morning.
Gil Hammerschlag, 31, was arrested by police in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 4 because his baseball cap featured a photo of a Palestinian man who was killed during a protest in the occupied West Bank two years ago. [NOTE: the victim, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, 45, was shot in the head on March 19, 2021 – read his story here.]
OTHER ISRAELI MILITARY VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS:
- Israel launches massive deadly attack on West Bank city of Jenin
- Israeli forces shoot out child’s eye, abduct & kill people, etc
- Israeli forces shoot dead 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Jenin
- Palestinian girl dies two days after an Israeli bullet to the head
- Israel killed 6+ Palestinians Monday, & many more in previous weeks
“The escalation is frightening”: Jerusalem Christians fear for their future
The city’s dwindling Christian community is facing a spike in hate crimes under the far-right government, with possible ramifications for Israel’s ties abroad.
By Natan Odenheimer, reposted from +972 Magazine, July 14, 2023
In Jerusalem, Christians have been facing increasing harassment by Jews in recent years, and in particular since the swearing in of the current Israeli government. What were once isolated events have become a trend that is forcing members of local Christian communities to reconsider their attitude toward the state and its institutions.
The Israeli government’s response to the attacks and harassment against Christians ranges from weak to non-existent, despite the profound consequences not only for local Christians’ stance toward Israel, but also for the ties between Israel and Christian communities around the world.
FURTHER READING ON CHRISTIANS IN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE:
- Israel is not as Christian-friendly as you think
- Israel severely restricts Orthodox Easter celebration in Jerusalem
- Hundreds of Israelis disrupt prayers in oldest Christian monastery In Palestine
- Israeli Soldiers Attack Palestinian Christians during Palm Sunday Procession (VIDEOS)
Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man killed by an Israeli Border Police officer in 2020. (photo) Caregiver for autistic man killed by Israeli military tells her story
“We talked, me and the soldiers. I told them: ‘I work at the center for people with special needs. Eyad is my patient.’ And Eyad was alive, on the ground, and kept saying, ‘I’m with her.’ And then they shot him again, after five minutes, right in front of me.”
by Jonathan Ofir, reposted from Mondoweiss, July 13, 2023
Last week, the Jerusalem District Court gave a shocking ruling when they acquitted the officer who murdered 32-year-old autistic Palestinian man, Eyad al-Hallaq.
The court said that he acted in “self-defense.” In the process, the acquittal in such a clear case of murderous and racist police violence, exposed the bankruptcy of “Jewish democracy.”
Eyad was a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem. It is unthinkable that, had Eyad been Jewish and his murderer Palestinian, things would have ended like this. Indeed, the murderer would no doubt have been extrajudicially executed himself.
The ruling indirectly confirmed that the mere suspicion or feeling of “being threatened” when it comes to Palestinians naturally merits such extrajudicial execution. The murderer’s “honest mistake” was simply that Eyad wasn’t a terrorist.
MORE ON EYAD AL-HALLAQ:
- Mother of Slain Palestinian: “My Son Was A Child In A Man’s Body”
- Israeli police officer who killed autistic Palestinian gets promotion
- WATCH: Israeli whitewashing & absurd punishment are not exceptions. They are policy.
Ahmad Manasra has been in Israeli prison since 2015, over a year in solitary confinement – in spite of his documented mental illness. We must stand alongside Ahmad Manasra and his family as his solitary confinement continues
Israeli prison authorities refuse to end Ahmad Manasra’s solitary confinement, despite his serious risk of suicide and self-harm. In doing so, Israel is effectively condemning him to a slow death.
From Palestine Global Mental Health Network, reposted from Mondoweiss, July 13, 2023
In the history of resistance movements, one individual often stands out as emblematic of the injustice endured by an entire people through exposing many levels of oppressive violence.
Such is the story of Ahmad Manasra, now 21 years old and suffering from severe mental illness.
He has languished in the Israeli prison system since his arrest at the age of 13 — despite a global campaign demanding his release. Currently, Ahmad’s situation has become even more desperate.
MORE OF AHMAD MANASRA’S STORY:
- Ahmad Al-Manasra: A Palestinian Child Who Grew up Behind Israeli Bars
- Israel has no mercy on Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra, whose mental health is worsening
- Israel extends solitary confinement of Ahmad Manasra in spite of mental illness
How Israel’s environmental violations sustain its apartheid regime
Israel has long attempted to ethnically cleanse Palestinians by using the occupied West Bank as a toxic waste dumping ground. According to Hala Yacoub, this reinforces why Palestine’s liberation is also an environmental justice struggle.
By Hala Yacoub, reposted from the New Arab, July 13, 2023
The Israeli government recently released over a million documents from their state archives, revealing part of Israel’s plans to create a new stage of Israel’s settler colonial enterprise. This strategy depends on the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to build settlements in the West Bank.
These documents show minutes from meetings held by the Israeli military’s Judea and Samaria Division which depict the stages of the settlement project in the West Bank. According to the documents, the first step would be dispossessing Palestinians from their lands using the legal cover of ‘firing zones’, and if they refuse to leave their homes, they will face oppressive consequences, including the destruction of crops.
In order to achieve their goal, Israeli authorities, including the occupying military, the settlement department at the Jewish Agency and the Custodian of Absentee Property, admitted to employing “a crop duster” in order to spread toxic chemicals which are “lethal for animals and dangerous for humans”. They served to also drastically deter the growth of crops on the land.
MORE ON ISRAEL AND THE ENVIRONMENT:
- Israeli occupation of Palestine is devastating the natural environment
- Israeli trash is poisoning Palestinians in the West Bank
- Video: Israel poisons Gaza’s water, refuses access to UN mitigation team
- Israel is systematically poisoning one million Palestinian children
- Baseline of a Desecrated Place – Synopsis
Israel sets record for illegal settlement approvals
Peace Now said that Israel has approved the construction of almost 13,000 housing units in illegal settlements, the most since the group began tracking.
Reposted from Al Jazeera, July 14, 2023
Israel’s far-right government has approved record construction in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in its first six months in power, according to the left-wing Israeli movement Peace Now.
The organisation said on Thursday that the construction of 12,855 settler housing units had been approved across the West Bank since January, the largest number it has recorded since it started tracking such developments in 2012.
[NOTE: Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal under international law.]
FURTHER READING ON ISRAELI SETTLERS AND SETTLEMENTS:
- The (almost) unbelievable story of an Israeli killer – and the lies that are protecting him
- UN Report On Israeli Settlements Speaks Truth, World Refuses To Listen
- The humanitarian impact of Israeli settlements in Hebron city
- Israeli Settlement Pollutes Palestinian Olive Groves With Sewage Water
- Israeli settlers rampage as killings continue
To Pave Segregated Road, Israeli Soldiers Bulldoze Palestinian Lands Near Salfit
Israeli soldiers attack Palestinians while stealing their land for an apartheid project.
Reposted from IMEMC, the International Middle East Media Center, July 14, 2023
On Thursday, Israeli soldiers started bulldozing and uprooting Palestinian lands in Kafr Ed-Deek town, west of the central West Bank city of Salfit, to prepare for paving a new segregated road for the illegal Israeli colonizers.
Mohammad Naji, the mayor of Kafr Ed-Deek, said two Israeli bulldozers started uprooting the lands to prepare for a 300-meter-long road in the Deeriyya area to link it with the illegal Pedu’el colony, built on stolen Palestinian lands.
Naji added that, while bulldozing their lands, the soldiers attacked the Palestinians with gas bombs and concussion grenades to prevent them from approaching the area. The bulldozed lands are owned by Othman Taha, Ahmad Ali Ahmad, and Atallah Abu Allawi.
He also said bulldozing the lands and creating a new road would lead to further illegal annexations and violations.
MORE ON ISRAELI THEFT OF PALESTINIAN LAND:
- Israel Approves Annexation of Palestinian Lands Near Bethlehem
- Yet another Palestinian protester killed as Israel steals his land
- IDF annexes Palestinian land using flimsy excuses and gibberish
NOTE: The entire West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since 1967; all its official entrances and exits are controlled by Israeli soldiers, making its Palestinian inhabitants virtual prisoners. Many are families that were ethnically cleansed from Israel during Israel’s founding war (see this and this and this) and its 1967 war. Israeli forces often invade them; one example is here.
Israel was established in 1947 through a war of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, both Muslims and Christians, and it continues to steal other people’s land for illegal colonies known as ‘settlements.’ While Palestinians most often use nonviolent resistance, a small number use armed resistance against the invaders.
Thanks to the pro-Israel lobby in the US, Congress disburses over $20 million per day of Americans’ tax money directly to and/or on behalf of Israel.
