March 2021

6th July 2021 6:04 pm

Behind the blockade: “What possible security do you realise by denying a breast cancer patient the standard of care for her disease?”

Thmas H Foster Mondoweiss 01/03/2021

At the Al Awda Hospital, a fluoroscopy system sat dormant awaiting a $3,000 circuit board, the delivery of which Israel had blocked for months. This is common in Gaza. At the Al Quds Red Crescent Hospital, a new CT scanner was delivered, but the workstation that enables its advanced cardiac applications has been held up at by the blockade

Israel, you are well aware that the fluoroscopy board is specific for that imaging system and could not be used for anything else. And the workstation is specific to that Philips CT scanner. Your blockade is capricious; it is malicious. When applied to medical devices and supplies, to isolation of physicians and support staff from their international professional networks, and to technical support from equipment providers, your blockade serves no military or security purpose.

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ICC launch investigation of Israeli war crimes— ‘undiluted antisemitism’

Philip Weiss Mondoweiss 3/03/2021

Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome statute on which the ICC was established. Palestine is, and initiated this case.

“This is definitely a bad day for the state of Israel,” Daniel Reisner, a former Israeli army lawyer, said on i24 News. He said Israel should build political opposition to the decision. It has a “good chance of creating a coalition of likeminded European states” that would regard the decision as “incredibly divisive.” (Michael Sfard says European states that oppose settlements can’t be counted on to oppose the case.)

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Israel confiscates 658 dunams of Palestinian land

IMEMC 7/03/2021

. . . It added that the army wants to illegally annex the lands to build a water reservoir that would benefit the illegal Israeli colonist in the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea areas.

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Soldiers demolish home of wheelchair-bound Palestinian

IMEMC 01/03/2021

Hatem Abu Ryala, said his property was demolished the first time in the year 2009, and added that during the demolition and the assault against the family, he fell from high altitude an issue that led to paralysis due to fractures in his spinal cord. . . “Where are we supposed to go; this is our home, built on our land, but they want to keep demolishing our homes so that they can continue to build and expand their illegal colonies,” the mother said.

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Palestinians in Israel protest police brutality

Tamara Nassar EI 9/03/2021

Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel took to the streets of the northern city of Umm al-Fahm on 5 March to protest Israeli police brutality as well as the state’s failure to address organized crime and internal violence in Palestinian communities in Israel. This was the eighth Friday of weekly protests Palestinian citizens of Israel are holding in their communities against police brutality and the government’s neglect of the rampant violence in Arab localities. . . . Adalah, a group that advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, said Israeli police likely used “deadly” and “extreme, life-threatening” weapons and tactics on 26 February “without any violence on the part of protest participants.”

Those weapons included rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades, according to Adalah. Israeli police injured dozens of protesters during the 26 February demonstrations, and at least 40 required medical treatment. They included Yousef Jabareen, a Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and Umm al-Fahm’s mayor, Samir Sobhi Mahamed, both reportedly injured with stun grenades. Both were hospitalized:

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Soldiers arrest children picking wild flowers

Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 11/03/21

Israeli forces arrested five Palestinian children, ranging between the ages of eight and 13, in the South Hebron Hills of the southern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, sparking outrage among local and international human rights advocates.

Videos of the arrest went viral on social media, showing a large group of masked and armed Israeli soldiers forcibly arresting the children, who were visibly alarmed and frightened as they were dragged into an Israeli military jeep. . .

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Labour women’s candidate Izzy Lenga trained with Israeli army

Asa Winstanley EI 12/03.2021

A pro-Israel activist running in a UK Labour Party election has trained with the Israeli army.

Izzy Lenga is an officer in the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Israel lobby group. She is standing as a right-wing candidate in the election for Labour’s new National Women’s Committee, set to be held later this year.The Electronic Intifada has obtained this photo of Lenga wearing an Israeli army uniform, wrapped in an Israeli flag and carrying an assault rifle – the type of weapon carried by Israeli occupation soldiers when they enforce Israel’s military rule over Palestinians. Sources say that Lenga once “proudly” displayed the photo on her social media.

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UK Green MP stops motion against bogus anti-Semitism definition

Asa Winstanley EI 17/03/2021

UK Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas intervened at a biannual conference to stop her Green Party from passing a motion against a misleading definition of anti-Semitism, activists say. Green activists have accused her of “filibustering” and “cheating,” which she denies.

Although the party leadership is in favor, the Green Party of England and Wales has so far not endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition” of anti-Semitism due to grassroots opposition. The motion, at the party conference online on 7 March, would have committed the Greens to actively campaigning against the bogus definition, which has been pushed by Israel and its lobby for years.

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JNF goes public with its aid to settlers

Jonathan Cook Mondoweiss 17/03/2021

. . . Worried about how this will look outside Israel, and the threat it could pose to the Jewish National Funds’s fundraising activities overseas, five of the JNF’s 32 board members have demanded that the decision be rescinded. . . Unless the decision can be overturned, donors to the JNF – as well as foreign governments that bestow charitable status on the Fund – will be directly and visibly colluding in the development of the settlements and the further erosion of prospects for a Palestinian state.

The JNF’s decision is a dramatic indication of how ultra-nationalists allied to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have co-opted Zionism’s most venerable international organization.Till now, the JNF in Israel has been careful to veil its involvement in the settlements to avoid both alienating more liberal American Jews and endangering its overseas charitable status by openly flouting international law. Instead it has hidden its operations inside the West Bank behind a subsidiary called Himanuta. But that approach has changed since the JNF’s new chairman, Avraham Duvdevani, took office in October. He previously headed the World Zionist Organization, whose settlement division has been the main vehicle by which Israeli governments have laundered public money to expand the settlements, often in breach of Israel’s own laws.

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Palestinians build fence to prevent settlers’ attacks

Taghreed Ali al Monitor 23/03/21

In the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank, Palestinians built an iron fence in a number of alleys and squares to protect themselves from the stones and trash constantly thrown by settlers in a bid to drive Palestinians to other Palestinian towns. . . Abd al-Hadi Hantash, member of the Land Defense Committee in the West Bank and a researcher in settlement affairs in Hebron, told Al-Monitor, “The repeated Israeli attacks on the residents of the Old City of Hebron have prompted some Palestinians to install iron nets inside their yards to protect themselves.

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Approach new definition of anti-Semitism with caution

Nora Barrows-Friedman EI 29/03/2021

A new definition of anti-Semitism has been released, aiming to clarify and “improve” a widely discredited interpretation that has inhibited and threatened advocacy for Palestinian rights. But Palestinian and Jewish civil society groups are urging human rights campaigners to approach the declaration with caution.

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The ongoing Nakba in Jerusalem

Tamara Nassar EI 28/03/2021

Settler organizations are threatening to forcibly evict 15 Palestinian families from their Jerusalem homes in the next few months. This amounts to 37 households and around 195 individuals, according to Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq.

The families reside in the Karm al-Jaouni area of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the Batan al-Hawa area of the Silwan neighborhood.

In November, Israeli courts ruled in favor of settler groups to evict the Palestinian families. The two groups are Nahalat Shimon International – a company registered in the United States, and Ateret Cohanim – a right-wing settlement organization.

Both organizations help implement the Israeli government’s colonization of Palestinian properties in Jerusalem.

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