Israeli soldiers arrested the Palestinian head of a Jerusalem Women’s Center and a clothes designer in a raid on an exhibition of traditional Palestinian clothes and objects made by women.
These are their stories: eight short videos about eight short lives…
Israeli police in the village of Isawiyah have an agenda, and it involves brutality, incitement, humiliation, and violence.
The Israeli occupation is a constant, chilling presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and among Palestinians living in Israel: children and adults are routinely abducted, Israeli housing is built on Palestinian land while Palestinian homes are demolished – just a few examples from one “average” day.
For the past six weeks, Israel has been sending paramilitary police forces to raid the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya every evening. The raids, a severe form of collective punishment, have left one young Palestinian dead and hundreds wounded.
Israeli soldiers have killed 1, injured over 95, abducted at least 30 in ongoing invasions since Thursday in East Jerusalem; also imposed sanctions and collective punishment measures against the residents; invaded & ransacked dozens of homes, hospitals and clinics, assaulting physicians, nurses, patients… Part of Israel’s effort to displace Palestinians to create a new “National Garden” in the area…
Israel’s refusal to issue building permits, and calculated policies of expropriation, force Palestinians to build “illegally,” often resulting structures being demolished and families left destitute; meanwhile, Jewish-only neighborhoods spring up on Palestinian land.
A hospital anniversary celebration attended by “dozens of people,” sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, in occupied East Jerusalem was intolerable for Israel. The reason: it would include “Palestinian sovereign symbols such as: playing the Palestinian national anthem, political speeches on behalf of the PA and participation of Palestinian officials.”
The shut-down was ordered because an Israeli law forbids the PA “to hold an assembly or activity within the State of Israel.”
The world (except for Israel) considers East Jerusalem to be occupied, and its annexation to be illegal. That is, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Why would 2019 be any different from 2018? Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes goes on unabated, as though it were a completely legal occurrence. In fact, 2018 saw a 21% increase over 2017.
Israel’s takeover of Arab East Jerusalem has continued unabated since the 1967 war, but has grown more brazen since US President Trump’s decision to move the embassy. Evictions of Palestinians and appropriation of their homes by Israeli settlers is more frequent; Israeli police presence has grown more pervasive; Israel’s parliament is devising more new policies – and its supreme court is upholding them – to dispossess Palestinians. Meanwhile the PA is powerless to respond. It all adds up to ethnic cleansing.