Friday, May 31, 2019
Israel/Palestine News
Lia Tarachansky unpacks the power struggle between former Defense
Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his former ally Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, and the split between right-wing secularists and
ultra-Orthodox Jews
Palestinians and Israelis who mark the memory and bereavement in a joint
memorial ceremony is one of the most explosive things in Israeli
society. Deborah Gonen, who lost her son and resolutely opposes a joint
ceremony, explains her position. On the other hand, the participants
presented their position in favor of a joint ceremony. What do you
think? The ceremony was held for the 14th time and was initiated by
Combatants for Peace and the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families
Forum.
Israel is facing an unprecedented second election this September after
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government
before a deadline at midnight.
It comes just seven weeks after he claimed a major victory in
parliamentary elections.
Netanyahu's political future is further complicated by his involvement
in three corruption cases.
Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett reports from West Jerusalem
On Sun., 5 May 2019, two soldiers approached Palestinian cars parked
near the closed gate the military had installed to keep cars from
entering the Jaber neighborhood, Hebron. The soldiers demanded that the
cars be moved, and one decided to strike the cars with the barrel of his
gun. The soldiers threatened to damage the cars if their owners parked
there again. Regardless of whether these actions were based on orders or
they were an individual soldier’s initiative, the incident is part of
the military’s abusive policy toward Palestinians in Hebron, which is
why, again, no one will be held to account
Ramadan in the Gaza Strip is different this year.
The fasting month for Muslims began with Israel’s assault, which killed
more than 25 Palestinians.
Many who survived the attacks were left homeless after Israel demolished
residential and commercial buildings.
“[The Israeli army] told us that within five or six minutes, not a
single person should be in the building,” Majdi Dughmush told The
Electronic Intifada. His home was destroyed during the attack on the Abu
Qamar building in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City on 5 May.
“People were barely able to leave and alert each other to leave.”
“The joy of Ramadan is gone, the bombing left a huge impact,” Muhammad
Zayda, another resident of Abu Qamar, told The Electronic Intifada.
“We had bought everything for Ramadan and it was all destroyed at the
same time.”
Still, Palestinians in Gaza insist on resisting Israeli oppression by
celebrating the arrival of Ramadan.
“We will celebrate Ramadan the way we do every year, with our religious
tradition, with our customs,” said Ahmad al-Jaouni, who sells qatayif –
cheese or nut-filled pastries traditionally eaten during the month.
“The Palestinian people were born amid challenges, born to challenge
difficulties. We will overcome and victory is ours.”
Video by Ruwaida Amer and Sanad Ltefa
The vision of the Return Council, which presents an ideological
infrastructure for the implementation of the return of the Palestinian
refugees who were expelled from their land, was read by Rachel Beitarie
in the Palestinian procession of return to village Khuebeiza on 9 May
2019. The Council of Return is a group of Jews and Jews From Israel, who
met in the past two years to prepare a conceptual document that offers
ways to realize the return of the Palestinian refugees as a basis for
peace between the two peoples.
The Israeli government completely ignores the climate crisis, as if the
crisis is taking place on another planet, and not on Earth. At the same
time, we are told that the economy is booming and economic growth is
soaring. So how is it that poverty deepens, food and air quality get
affected, and the earth is showing signs of distress in light of the
growth index's goals? And what efforts does the government make to meet
the goals of Agenda 2030?
Friday, May 24, 2019
Hebron - Palestine ,23th of May 2019
Families are suffering and a world is seen and no action is taken !
A group of Zionist settlers beat and harass the Sharbati family in
Shuhada Street where Mufid al-Sharbati and his sons were assaulted and
then transferred to the hospital for treatment.
The occupation army intervenes only when the Palestinians begin to
gather, where their intervention focuses on preventing the Palestinians
from gathering to protect the family which abused by the settlers .
Here is the importance of the camera that documents the crimes, and here
renews our appeal with your help and support to continue, and here we
say that some human rights institutions are still ignoring the danger we
face, including Amnesty International
Palestinian police say illegal drug production is increasing across the
occupied West Bank, much of it destined for use inside Israel.
As Palestinians face worsening economic conditions, more are turning to
cultivating cannabis for some desperately needed cash.
Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reports from the occupied West Bank
This sweet factory in Gaza is run by workers who are deaf or hard of
hearing.
The Hanan Sweet Factory produces Arab candies and desserts in Gaza City.
“At first I thought it would be difficult, I didn’t know how I would
communicate with him,” Muhammad al-Ghazali, the owner of the factory,
told The Electronic Intifada about hiring the first worker.
“But when he came to work I found he had high concentration and very
good talent.”
“When I first came here, my job was to put nuts on sweets. But I learned
and developed new skills and started making them from scratch,” says
Mouin al-Siksik, a worker at the factory.
Video by Mohammed Asad
An Israel-based campaign to meddle in the elections of several African,
Asian and Latin American countries has been uncovered by social media
giant Facebook.
Facebook announced today that it had deactivated dozens of accounts
found to be spreading disinformation by posing as local journalists and
influencers. The social media giant traced these accounts to Archimedes
Group, a private company based near Tel Aviv which had engineered the
campaign
For the past decade, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of
Nabi Saleh have held weekly demonstrations in protest of Israel’s
encroachment on their land.
Bilal Tamimi, a Palestinian from the village, has made a point to
document Israel’s attacks on the village through his camera.
Tamimi started filming when Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem
asked to have someone in the village document Israeli attacks, around
the same time the demonstrations started in 2009.
The Tamimi family, whose home is in Nabi Saleh, has been subject to
Israeli occupation arrests, harassment, assault, maimings and killings.
“I was targeted by the Israeli army by live ammunition, by tear gas
canisters, which were directly shot at me, by rubber-coated bullets. I
was injured. I was pepper-sprayed in my face. I was arrested many, many
times,” Tamimi told The Electronic Intifada.
Ahed Tamimi, a teenager from Nabi Saleh, was imprisoned for eight
months, and released in July 2018, for shoving and slapping a heavily
armed occupation soldier after Israeli forces had shot and severely
injured her 15-year-old cousin Muhammad Fadel Tamimi.
Bilal Tamimi’s wife Manal and his three children, Osama, 22, Muhammad,
19, and his 11-year-old son Samer, were also detained by Israel at
several points.
Osama, the eldest, was released in September 2018 after spending nine
months in Israeli prison.
His younger brother Muhammad was detained in January 2018 and is
expected to be relased in September of this year.
“Everyone should stand in front of soldiers to document, to take
footage, to show the world exactly what is happening,” Bilal told The
Electronic Intifada.
In the video above, Bilal films an interaction between him and an
Israeli soldier during a night raid on the village.
The soldier asks Bilal if he has a weapon, to which Bilal replies that
the camera is his weapon.
Video by Activestills.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Just a few months after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul, another Arab dissident says his life is
also in danger.
Iyad el-Baghdadi is a pro-democracy activist and strong critic of Saudi
Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The UK's Guardian newspaper reported that Norwegian officials took him
from his home in Oslo to a secure location.
There, he was told the CIA had warned Norway's government the Saudis had
him "in their crosshairs".
El-Baghdadi gained popularity during the Arab Spring when he posted
pro-human rights messages on social media.
The Palestinian activist was granted asylum in Norway four years ago
after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates for criticising
Middle Eastern regimes.
In an exclusive interview, Iyad el-Baghdadi discusses an unlikely
friendship with the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi
and how continuing Khashoggi's work has made him a target of the Saudi
government
Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip today launched the “Gaza
Message” calling for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is being held in
Israel on Saturday, to be boycotted.
To launch the message, the Jusoor International Communications Group
held a concert on the ruins of the home of the Abu Amar family, which
was bombed by Israeli warplanes during the latest round of attacks on
4-6 May
The issue of African asylum seekers has almost disappeared from the
public's agenda, but the play "An Illegal Human Being" at the Sheikh
Abrek Festival in Tivon tries to show to the Israeli public the complex
reality of tens of thousands of people who still live here without
status and without the ability to dream. The legislative theater was
established by Dr. Chen Alon (as part of a joint project with film
director Avi Mograbi), using the method called the Theater of the
Oppressed by Augusto Boal. An Illegal Person is the third play of the
theater, that is based on Israeli actors and asylum seekers from Africa
In "Targeted by a Text", Fault Lines investigates how a powerful
technology, Pegasus, is being used to hack into the iPhones of human
rights activists, dissidents, lawyers and journalists.
After the killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, it was revealed
that one of his associates, a Saudi dissident based in Canada, was
targeted by Pegasus, a software suite with the ability to take advantage
of vulnerabilities in the iPhone's operating system.
Saudi Arabia is one of several countries that purchased the product,
which was developed by NSO Group, a secretive Israeli company. While the
company claims its tool is used to target criminals and terrorists,
there is evidence to suggest it has been used against family members of
murder victims and human rights investigators.
The film shows how NSO Group operates among a burgeoning global industry
of shadowy cyber-weapons sellers, competing with one another for
lucrative government contracts and what this means for the privacy of
people who challenge the authority of their country's elite.
In Mexico, we'll talk to journalists targeted with Pegasus attacks. In
London, we'll meet Yahya Assiri, a Saudi dissident living in self-exile
and Pegasus target, who was in daily contact with Jamal Khashoggi. Most
of what is known about Pegasus and NSO Group comes from the research at
CitizenLab. The director will walk us through how they have created a
global map of Pegasus infections
Journalist David Sheen responds to a question after giving his lecture
"Judea-Africa-America – our racial relationship history and the crisis
in Israel*Palestine" [ 111 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEfxI...
] at the historic Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta, GA on 14
March 2019. The first section of the lecture [ 22 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoEB4...
] deals with the Jewish communal response to the trans-Atlantic slave
trade. After the lecture, the moderator asks Sheen about the Nation of
Islam and their book "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" –
which also deals with the same subject matter
Software created by an Israeli spyware firm with links to the murder of
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been used to hack messaging app
WhatsApp.
The software in question was developed by Israel’s NSO Group, famous for
manufacturing the notorious “Pegasus” spyware. It is thought that NSO’s
software took advantage of a loophole in WhatsApp, which the latter was
still working to fix as late as this weekend. WhatsApp is now urging
its 1.5 billion global users to update their app to reduce the risk of
further attacks
These Palestinians in Gaza make sculptures and art pieces out of
Israel’s weapons.
Majdi Abu Taqiyeh, 40, got the idea of making sculptures out of Israeli
bullets when his brother was shot during the Great March of Return
demonstrations along Gaza’s eastern boundary.
Israeli snipers have killed more than 200 Palestinians since the
demonstrations started in March last year.
“I chose the occupation’s bullets as a medium to work with so they
become messages to the world,” Abu Taqiyeh told The Electronic Intifada.
“I wanted to make human figures out of bullets to represent the lives of
martyrs who died from those bullets and others who were injured.”
Ahmad Abu Ataya, 47, makes prayer beads, flower pots and canes out of
tear gas canisters he collects during demonstrations.
“If this life isn’t ours, it’ll be for our children,” says Abu Ataya.
“We go to the boundary fence for our rights so we can live.”
Abu Ataya says his art “is proof of life.”
“The Israelis throw death at us, and we make life out of death.”
Video by Ruwaida Amer and Sanad Ltefa
Israeli soldiers assaulted the family of activist Imad Abu Shamsiah,
where the entire family was beaten and harassed. Their 21-year-old son
Awni and 18-year-old Mohammed were arrested in the Tel Rumeida area of
Hebron. They arrested their friend Tariq Salhab. While the settler
settler Baruch Marzel incited the soldiers
Occupation soldiers harassed and assaulted human rights activist Badee
Dwaik last night, when he was documenting the storming of occupation
soldiers to the neighborhood Jabal al-Rahma. The occupation soldiers
were stopping cars to force the owners out of them, harassing and
abusing them and the soldiers were even breaking in into some houses.
Then they came unto activist Badee Dwaik, to prevented him to film this
injustice
Israeli occupation forces attacked worshippers leading the old city
through Damascus Gate after
performing night prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque last night.
In video footage which has circulated on social media, occupation
officers could be seen assaulting Palestinians in the area before sound
bombs and tear gas were used to disperse the peaceful crowds. No
injuries were reported
Friday, May 10, 2019
Israel/Palestine News
During 2018, a group of Israelis took part in a learning workshop about
the return of Palestinian refugees. This workshop is part of Zochrot’s
activity to promote the discourse on the realization of return and the
understanding of its spatial implications.
The workshop focused on the Zochrot area, and included tours among the
ruins of the Palestinian villages of Dayr Aban (H. Mahseya), Zakariyya
(Zekharia), Bayt Nattif (Netiv HaLamed-Heh), and Bayt Jibrin (Beit
Guvrin), where Palestinians used to live until uprooted by the newly
established State of Israel in 1948. Many of the Palestinians still live
in refugee camps in the Bethlehem area.
During the tours, the participants were interviewed, knowing that their
statements will be presented publicly. This included refugees who used
to live in the villages and their family members
The CIA has warned a Palestinian activist who is living under asylum in Norway that there are
potential threats against him from Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reported today.
Iyad El-Baghdadi, a pro-democracy activist and critic of Crown Prince
Mohammed Bin Salman, was alerted to the threat on 25 April when
Norwegian authorities moved him to a secure location.
The buzz surrounding President Trump's "deal of the century" is reaching
a fever pitch. With countless speculations as to what the plan will
include and very little confirmation from the administration, not much
is actually known about the elusive plan. What we do know, is Trump's
son-in-law Jared Kushner, a staunch supporter of Israel and the
Netanyahu government, plans to emphasize Israeli "security" and
"economic opportunities" for Palestinians. With no mention so far of
Palestinian sovereignty and statehood, we asked Palestinians in the West
Bank what they think of the peace proposal and its impending release
Why did the State of Israel, which arose after the Holocaust, that said
"Never Again" is selling arms, ammunition and military training to
murderous regimes and dictators? Moreover, a recent survey shows that 70
percent of the Israeli public is prepared to violate the UN resolution
banning the export of arms to human rights violators, as long as the
compensation is for money or diplomatic support. On activists' activity
against military aid to murderous countries under the auspices of
Israeli governments and in the High Court of Justice, the massacre in
Rwanda, and selling arms.
Friday, May 3, 2019
In 2019, the incidence of East Jerusalem Palestinians demolishing their
own homes, having built without permits, increased significantly.
Residents do this to avoid thousands the city would have charged them
had it carried out the demolition itself. So far this year, 15 homes
have been demolished this way. Not seeing East Jerusalem residents as
equal citizens, Israel hardly allows them legal construction and
demolishes homes built without permits for lack of choice, all as part
of the effort to achieve its goal of a Jewish only city.
Suleiman Jibril Abu Taima challenges gender norms in Gaza by practicing
traditional embroidery.
Usually done by women, embroidery is a cherished part of Palestinian
heritage.
Abu Taima was displaced from his home in Khan Younis in the south of
Gaza, during Israel’s 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip and forced to seek
refuge in a school run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees,
where he taught girls how to embroider.
More than 2,250 Palestinians were killed during that assault – about one
in every 1,000 Gaza residents. Israeli fatalities included more than 60
soldiers and six civilians.
Abu Taima faced social judgments for taking up embroidery during that
time, and he stopped practicing it until he met his fiancee Ferial
Fisefas, who encouraged him to continue.
“Israel is trying to obliterate the Palestinian cause and Palestinian
heritage,” Abu Taima told The Electronic Intifada, which is why he says
he holds on to it.
Video by Amjad Ayman Yaghi, Sanad Ltefa and Ismail Abu Hatab
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