Updated casualty figures from Gaza, Israel; US blocks UN statement, Israel targets journalists

Israeli warplanes continue to pummel Gaza, Health Ministry now reporting a death toll of 87 Palestinians – 18 of them children – and 530 wounded. Israeli casualties largely unchanged: 7 deaths, several dozen injuries. Biden administration blocks UN statement aimed at reducing violence. Journalism groups condemn Israel’s targeting of journalists.

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue, hundreds now homeless

Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza on are the worst the enclave has seen since 2014, when Israeli forces killed 2,200 Palestinians, and Palestinian resistance fighters killed 72 Israelis. One recent Israeli strike alone made about 80 families homeless. As the deaths, injuries, and damage climb, Palestinian resistance groups launch rockets into Israel. 

The Real Reason Israel Annexed East Jerusalem

Ha’aretz’s correspondent covered the story of the city’s unification after the Six-Day War. Fifty years later he revisits the dramatic decision that changed the face of the Middle East. He reports that this critical act, which for 50 years has prevented peace, was not a result of strategic planning or motivated by existential national need…

Nisreen Hassan spent six years without her children

Nisreen Hassan’s children are doing their best to cope in her absence. However, the realization that she has been taken away from them becomes very sharp. The practice of arresting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and then imprisoning them inside Israel violates international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that people living in an occupied territory may only be detained within that territory.