The news cycle never ends in Israel and Palestine, but coverage by mainstream can be extremely spotty. Here are a few recent stories from the region.
compiled by IAK staff
Israeli soldiers, settlers continue to kill Palestinians
At least 214 Palestinians (38 children) and 27 Israelis (5 children) have been killed by someone from the other side in 2023.
IAK’s last report on the killing of a Palestinian was July 20. In the 25 days since, 16 more Palestinians have been killed (3 of them minors). 6 were killed during Israeli invasions of Palestinian towns or refugee camps; 4 in extrajudicial killings; 1 by a settler, and 5 were killed after allegedly opening fire on Israelis.
In at least one case, according to eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers deliberately destroyed surveillance cameras in the area; at other times, they prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded or seized the bodies of the dead.
One Israeli was also killed during this period.
For a complete list of Palestinians and Israelis killed since 2000, please visit Israel-Palestine Timeline
Former Israeli general compares treatment of Palestinians to ‘Nazi Germany’ and ‘apartheid’
Amiram Levin says the Israeli army condones violence by settlers, which could make it liable for ‘war crimes.’
Reposted from Middle East Eye, August 13, 2023
A former top general in the Israeli military has said that Israel‘s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank resembles Nazi Germany and is “total apartheid”.
Amiram Levin, former head of the army’s northern command, made the comments on Sunday on Israeli public broadcaster Kan. “There hasn’t been a democracy there in 57 years. There is total apartheid,” Levin said, referring to the situation in the West Bank.
He said the Israeli army was “forced to exert sovereignty there” and is “rotting from the inside”. “It’s standing by, looking at the settler rioters and is beginning to be a partner to war crimes. These are deep processes.”
Levin went further, comparing those processes to Nazi Germany. “It’s hard for us to say it, but it’s the truth. Walk around Hebron, look at the streets; streets where Arabs are no longer allowed to go on, only Jews,” he said. “That’s exactly what happened there, in that dark country”…[read full article here]
[Editor’s note: In 2002 an Israeli military commander admitted that Israeli forces study military tactics the Nazis used in the Warsaw ghetto, and applying them to the management of Palestinian areas.]
‘Watershed moment’: Over 700 academics equate Israeli occupation with apartheid
Israeli figures who previously refused to equate occupation with apartheid have changed their views amid judicial overhaul and occupied West Bank violence.
Reposted from Middle East Eye, August 8, 2023
More than 700 academics and public figures from Israel, Palestine and other countries have signed an open letter equating Israel’s occupation of the West Bank with apartheid, signalling what supporters say is a “watershed moment” for how Israel’s occupation is viewed.
The letter, which began circulating on Friday, has received around 200 signatures per day with “more coming in, quite literally, by the minute”, Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and organiser of the letter, told Middle East Eye.
The letter featured 752 signatories at the time of publication [on Middle East Eye – as of this repost, the number is above 1,500].
Notably, the letter made a clear reference to “the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid.”
“There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid,” it added…[read full article here]
US civil society groups join anti-Apartheid coalition
The Apartheid-Free Communities movement is growing daily.
Reposted from Middle East Monitor, August 14, 2023
NOTE: find out more about the Apartheid-Free Communities movement here.
READ MORE ABOUT APARTHEID IN ISRAEL:
- Amnesty International: Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians
- Another major human rights org reports: “apartheid” in Israel
- This is apartheid: Jewish supremacy from the River to the Sea
Israeli finance minister freezes funds for Palestinian citizens of Israel
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also holds up educational grants for Palestinians.
Reposted from Middle East Eye, August 8, 2023
Israel has frozen funds for Palestinian towns and Palestinian education programmes in East Jerusalem, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday, leading to charges of racism by opponents.
“The priorities of our national government… are different from those of the previous leftist government and we should not apologise for that,” Smotrich said, saying the funds would have eventually gone to “criminals and terrorists”.
Smotrich, who also took administrative control of large sections of the occupied West Bank from Israel’s military, in a move experts say amounts to “de jure annexation”, is refusing to release about $85.5m in funds previously earmarked for Palestinian municipalities.
He is also holding up about $53m slated for education preparatory programmes for young Palestinians, claiming that “Islamic radical cells” had taken root in Israeli colleges and universities.
Smotrich is one of the most far-right ministers in Israel’s government. The leader of the Religious Zionism political alliance previously said that “there were no such thing as Palestinian people”…[read full article here]
READ MORE ABOUT ISRAEL’S EXTREMIST GOVERNMENT:
- Bezalel Smotrich calls a lie “the biblical truth”
- Israeli government: stories you may have missed
- Israel’s new radical government shows itself reckless and racist
Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights documents and investigates Israeli human rights abuses, and provides legal aid, among other services.
Reposted from PCHR, August 10, 2023
Statistics from PCHR’s latest report include:
So far in 2023, IOF attacks have killed 208 Palestinians, including 103 civilians; amongst them 37 children, 6 women and a person with disability…1015 Palestinians, including 150 children, 30 women and 16 journalists, were injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Since the beginning of 2023, IOF have made 136 families homeless, a total of 796 persons, including 174 women and 352 children…IOF also demolished 99 other civilian objects, razed other property, and delivered dozens of notices of demolition and cease-construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Since the beginning of the year, settlers have conducted at least 293 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property. As a result, 9 Palestinians were killed, and dozens of others were injured; most of them due to being beaten and thrown with stones. Also, dozens of houses, vehicles and civilian facilities were set ablaze.
So far in 2023, IOF have established 3,692 temporary checkpoints and arrested tens of Palestinians at those checkpoints…[read full report here]
READ MORE ABOUT ISRAEL’S HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS:
- Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
- Israel committed 3,532 human rights violations against Palestinians in January
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
-
Jewish settlers stormed the Ras Al-Tin school near Ramallah. (photo)
Israeli settlers raid school one week before start of school year
Residents have been facing regular attacks by Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
Reposted from Palestine News and Info Agency (WAFA), August 13, 2023
Israeli occupation settlers Sunday raided Al-Tahadi School in Wadi Al-Siq Bedouin community, to the east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, and vandalized many of its contents, according to local sources.
Hassan Malihat, the general supervisor of Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, told WAFA that a group of Israeli settlers sneaked their way into the school, where they damaged its windows and many of its contents and wrecked havoc inside it…[read full report here]
Jewish Settlers Attack Another Palestinian School
The school is already threatened with demolition by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Reposted from the Palestine Chronicle, August 14, 2023
A group of Jewish settlers stormed the Ras Al-Tin school, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, on Sunday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Local sources told WAFA that a number of settlers stormed the school, smashing its windows and vandalizing its contents.
The school, which is already threatened with demolition by the Israeli occupation authorities, is located in a Bedouin community in the lands of the villages of Kafr Malik, Khirbet Abu Falah, and Al-Mughayer, east of Ramallah…[read full article here]
READ MORE ABOUT ISRAEL’S ACTIONS TOWARD PALESTINIAN SCHOOLS:
- Israel vs Palestinian youth: attacks, killing, demo orders for primary school
- Israeli Soldiers Injure Palestinian Children, Teachers, In Hebron Middle School
Israeli Rabbi Calls for Release of Jewish Israeli Terrorist Who Murdered Palestinian Family
The terrorist arson attack on the Dawabsheh family is considered one of the most heinous acts of Israeli-Jewish terrorism in recent years.
Reposted from Palestine Chronicle, August 13, 2023
The convicted Israeli murderer, Amiram Ben Uliel, is serving three life sentences in addition to 20 years for the deadly arson attack in the village of Duma, southeast of Nablus, in which Riham and Saad Dawabsheh were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad.
Only the couple’s eldest son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, with terrible burns.
Rabbi Tzvi Kostiner was filmed last Thursday claiming that Ben Uliel’s treatment by the courts was “one of the greatest injustices” by the Israeli judiciary.
“Ben Uliel “didn’t do anything, but even if he did — come on, accept him,” Kostiner said in the video…[read full article here]
READ ABOUT ISRAELI LENIENCY TOWARD JEWISH CRIMINALS VS PALESTINIANS:
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