December 2020
Israel’s Death App
David Cronin EI 2/12/2020
Killing a Palestinian will soon be as easy as ordering a pizza. That repugnant message – albeit couched in less explicit terms – was delivered through a recent article published by the website IsraelDefense. It quotes Oren Matzliach, a colonel who is overseeing the use of a new app by the Israeli military. The app would allow a commander to type details about a target on a small electronic device and then troops would open fire on that target swiftly.
Ordering an attack will be “like ordering a book on Amazon or a pizza in a pizzeria using your smartphone,” Matzliach said. The causal way in which the colonel speaks about remote-control slaughter should outrage everyone. The Israeli authorities – or high-ranking figures within them – view every Palestinian as a legitimate target.
Palestine in Pictures: November 2020
EI 2/12/2020
Israeli occupation forces killed two Palestinians at military checkpoints in the West Bank during November. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip so far in 2020 or died from injuries sustained during previous years. Soldiers shot and killed Bilal Adnan Rawajba, 29, at Huwwara checkpoint near Nablus on 4 November. . . . . .
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School discrimination suit as Israel tests nationality law
Danny Zaken al-Monitor 2/12/2020
Israel’s 2018 nationality law anchored the Jewish character of the state of Israel. It was first introduced by the Likud and by a few Knesset members of centrist Kadima in 2011, but many legislators were against it, protesting that it discriminated against Israel’s Arab and Druze citizens and also Palestinians. Two years after its adoption, the law continues to evoke bitter debate. In a recent case concerning Arab-Israeli children living in the Jewish-majority town of Carmiel in the Galilee, a judge ruled recently on a petition calling for reimbursing travel to an Arabic-speaking school that the “Jewish character” of Carmiel must be preserved.
Israel kills 6th child in 2020 and then lies
Tamara Nassar EI 5/12/2020
What crime did 15-year-old Ali Ayman Saleh Nasser commit to be killed by occupation soldiers? Observing a protest, apparently. Israeli forces fatally shot Nasser in the stomach in the central West Bank village of al Mughayyir on Friday during a protest against Israeli land theft in the area. Nasser was reportedly not participating in demonstrations when he was killed. All he did was watch, according to field investigations by Defense for Children International Palestine.
The child was taken in a private car to the entrance of a nearby village. From there, an ambulance took him to the Palestine Medical Complex in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. He was pronounced dead shortly afterward. Nasser is the sixth Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank to be killed by Israeli forces this year (2020)
Deprivation of rights within Israel
Alya Zoabi Mondoweiss 10/12/2020
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which was meant to be a temporary regulation yet has been renewed every year since. This law targets families by preventing Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel who are married to residents of the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip or countries that Israel considers “enemy states,” from living with their spouses inside the borders of the green line. The law casts a collective suspicion over the entire Palestinian Arab population living in Israel and prevents them from exercising their basic human right of freedom to choose a spouse and build a normal family. . . . . . . The Kamnitiz Law (the April 2017 Amendment to the 1965 Planning and Building Law), meanwhile, criminalizes building violations and intensifies enforcement of the law through increased home demolitions, larger fines, and heavier sentences for offenders. However, Israeli government policies show a clear unwillingness to approve master plans for Palestinian Arab localities and distribute building permits, leaving many Palestinian Arab citizens with no option other than to build [without a permit].
Calls for Israel to ‘revise’ eviction orders in Jerusalem
MEMO 12/12/2020
On 3 and 23 November, Israeli courts ruled to uphold the evictions of eight Palestinian families in the Batan Al-Hawa neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, affecting 45 people, including small children, according to the statement. It also stated that the Israeli courts ruled to maintain the evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, affecting 32 people, including six children and: “Putting all families at imminent risk of forced transfer.”
Normalising with Israel
Tamara Nassar EI 15/12/2020
. . . . .Indeed, the deal Trump calls “historic” merely formalizes decades of secret military and intelligence cooperation between Israel and Morocco.
Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad and the Jewish Agency smuggled Moroccan Jews out of their country, some by force, in the early days following Israel’s establishment.
In 1965, Morocco allowed Mossad to bug the rooms of Arab officials meeting in Casablanca, giving Israel a leg-up in the 1967 war, according to a New York Times interview with a former Israeli military official. Also in 1965 Mossad colluded in the kidnapping and killing of left-wing Moroccan opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka. . . .
Evictions in East Jerusalem
Kelly Kunzi EI 24/12/2020
. . . . . the family first started receiving warnings in 2007, Dweik said he was approached multiple times by Barak Weinberg, who presented himself as a member of Ateret Cohanim and is an employee of a sister organization, Midreshet Kedma. Weinberg offered to cover costs for a new kidney for Dweik. He offered hefty compensation for the building, too, if the family vacated without resistance. The family is now being sued for around $185,000, said Dweik, the amount Ateret Cohanim claims they owe in rent for the last seven years.
“They [settlers] have all the abilities and resources to make us weak, financially, and emotionally,” said Dweik.
Two other families, the Shweiki and the Odeh families, residents of two other buildings in Batan al-Hawa, were also issued eviction orders after a separate ruling last month.
The 22 members of the Shweiki and Odeh families, all of whom have lived in the neighborhood since they bought properties in the 1960s, received a notice from the Israeli authorities on 29 November demanding that they vacate within less than five weeks.
Protection of Civilians OHCA Report
IMEMC 8-21/12/2020
. . . . A total of 73 Palestinians, including 16 children, were injured in multiple clashes with Israeli forces across the West Bank. The bulk of the injuries (57) were recorded in protests against settlement activities in Kufur Qaddoum (Qalqilia), Al Mughayyir and Kafr Malik (Ramallah). Fourteen Palestinians were injured in clashes during search-and-arrest operations in the cities of Tulkarem and Nablus and in Jaba’ village (Jenin). Two Palestinians were injured near Jenin, while trying to cross into Israel through Barrier breaches. Ten of the Palestinians injured during this period were hit by live ammunition, 17 by rubber bullets, and 40 were treated for inhaling tear gas. . .
Slain Palestinian youth – home to be demolished
IMEMC 22/12/2020
Israeli soldiers summoned for interrogation Omar Sadeq Kamil, the father of the Palestinian teen who was killed by the army, on Monday evening, in occupied Jerusalem, and informed him of intentions to demolish his home.
Red Cross hits a nerve
Jonathan Ofir Mondoweiss 29/12/2020
The International Committee of the Red Cross took to social media to point out all the ways the television show “Fauda” portrays Israeli human rights violations. Israeli media outlets, government officials, and assorted apologists were not happy.
Vaccine rollout excludes Palestinians
Omar Karni EI 29/12/2020
But the rollout is selective. While Israel has secured 8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, for which its two million-strong Palestinian citizens are eligible, no provision has been made for the roughly 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who live under its military occupation. Israel’s public security minister Amir Ohana, meanwhile, has directed the health ministry not to include so-called security prisoners – all of whom are Palestinian – to be included in the second priority group of inoculations. This contradicts health ministry directives, which have deemed prisoners generally as at high risk of exposure. Security prisoners’ guards will still be vaccinated as part of the second phase of Israel’s rollout.
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