June 2021
Friends lost and children orphaned Hamza Abu Eltarabesh EI 03/06/2021
. . . Taher was the only survivor of the three people inside that house. His father, Abdel Raheem and mother, Halima, were both killed. Nine relatives who would normally have been there were spared, having spent the evening at a brother’s house. In one of the nearby houses, the entire al-Tanani family was murdered. Four kids, a pregnant mother, and a father were all killed under the rubble.
It’s not clear why the Israelis targeted the bloc. Some say one of the houses there belonged to a leader in the resistance. But that house stood empty. Did the Israeli military really destroy the entire bloc because of one empty house?
It took two days before Taher opened his eyes. I saw him a day before writing this. He told me that his parents had rushed to his side when the strikes started, that he had seen them take their last breaths. He is not the person I knew. When I saw him he was withdrawn and pale. His thoughts are far away from himself. Before the Israeli assault, he was due to be married. Now, he told me, in the three hours we talked, he wants nothing: no family, no wedding, nothing.
Read more: Friends lost and children orphaned | The Electronic Intifada
Tech giants help Israel muzzle Palestinians Jonathan Cook EI 05/06/2021
Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sought to shut down all use of the popular video-sharing app TikTok in Israel last month.
The attempt to censor TikTok, details of which emerged last weekend, is one of a number of reported attempts by Israel to control social media content during last month’s military assault on the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu tried to impose the blackout as Israel faced an international social media outcry over its 11-day attack on Gaza, which killed more than 250 Palestinians, and the violent repression by Israeli police of Palestinian protests in occupied East Jerusalem and inside Israel. Government law officers are understood to have resisted the move.
Benny Gantz, the defense minister, also lobbied senior officials at Facebook and TikTok to crack down on posts critical of Israel, labelling them incitement and support for terror. The tech giants responded by agreeing to act “quickly and effectively,” according to a statement from Gantz’s office.
Read more: Tech giants help Israel muzzle Palestinians | The Electronic Intifada
Israel arrests Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd hours after brutally detaining Palestinian journalist from Sheikh Jarrah Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 06/06/2021
“Israel fights my daughter because she is telling the story of Sheikh Jarrah,” Nabil El-Kurd, Muna and Mohammed’s father, told journalists and supporters outside the police station.
“She is not behaving violently towards anyone. The only purpose here is to silence her and silence the voices of protest in the neighborhood. This is the time for everyone to stand up for this struggle,” he said.
The arrest of Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd caused an uproar on social media in Palestine and across the world, as people called on Israel to release the siblings, and condemned what was largely seen as an attempt by Israeli authorities to silence the siblings over their activism.
Silwan – settlers wage another battle to takeover Palestinian homes
Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 09/06/2021
In short, a right wing settler organization by the name of Ateret Cohanim has been seeking to forcibly evict some 100 families from Batn al-Hawa under the pretext that the land was previously owned by Jews more than 100 years ago.
Through a series of legal mechanisms sanctioned by the Israeli courts, Ateret Cohanim has been filing eviction orders against the families in Batn al-Hawa since 2002, with the goal of putting Jewish settlers in their place.
And while Israeli law allows for property to be transferred to Jews who claim previous ownership from before the establishment of of Israel, that same right is denied to Palestinians who were dispossessed from their homes during the Nakba in 1948.
Israel bombed Gaza’s economy Electronic Intifada 09/06/2021
“This is destruction,” Muhammad Abu Halima, the director of a factory in Gaza, told The Electronic Intifada. “They destroyed our economy, our families, they’ve ruined the workers, the accountants, the companies, the employees. What did they get out of it?”
Israel bombed factories, commercial buildings, stores, farms, restaurants and businesses. More than 500 enterprises were destroyed or damaged, including 50 factories.
Israel bombed the Gaza Industrial Estate, a major economic center southeast of Gaza City founded in 1996 with support from the US government, the European Union and the World Bank.
Read more: Video: How Israel bombed Gaza’s economy | The Electronic Intifada
A trip to Hebron Benjamin Moser Mondoweiss 10/06/2021
To anyone who says the situation in Palestine is complex just tell them to spend an afternoon in Hebron . . . When you get to Hebron, you disembark in a plaza in front of an ugly building named for an Australian Chabadnik called—you can’t make it up—“Diamond Joe” Gutnick. It looks a bit like a roadside attraction you would find at a gas station in rural Brazil, selling tacky souvenirs and offering buffet lunches to passing truckers. It features listening posts and radio masts shaped like palm trees.
Read more: A trip to Hebron – Mondoweiss
Al-Wihda street massacre Tamara Nassar EI 12/06/2021
This is Part I of a three-part series that documents the names, faces and stories of some of the victims of Israel’s May 2021 attack on Gaza. Read: Al-Wihda street massacre | The Electronic Intifada
Families obliterated, lives destroyed Tamara Nassar EI 12/06/2021
This is Part II of a three-part series that documents the names, faces and stories of some of the victims of Israel’s May 2021 attack on Gaza.
Read more: Families obliterated, lives destroyed | The Electronic Intifada
Gaza father tried to console his children, then Israel killed him Tamara Nassar EI 12/06/2021
This is Part III of a three-part series that documents the names, faces and stories of some of the victims of Israel’s May 2021 attack on Gaza.
Read more: Gaza father tried to console his children, then Israel killed him | The Electronic Intifada
Israel uses indefinite detention against its Palestinian citizens Yoav Haifawi 13/06/2021 One of the most extreme measures of military oppression is administrative detention. Under Israel’s “emergency laws” — and mind you the “emergency” in Israel has lasted for the last 73 years since its establishment — the military authorities can order the detention of any person without indictment for up to six months, renewable for an unlimited number of times. Administration detention is commonly used against Palestinians in the territory Israel has occupied since 1967, but there is also a long history of it being used on Palestinian citizens of Israel as well. These types of laws were used to crush the “al-Ard” movement – the first Palestinian political movement that tried to organize in “48 Palestine” in the fifties and sixties.
Read more: Israel renews the use of indefinite detention against Palestinian citizens – Mondoweiss
A placeholder government going nowhere Omar Karmi EI 14/06/2021
Israel’s new coalition has brought about the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s long tenure, who after 12 long years is finally a former prime minister. And it has been particularly amusing to see Netanyahu go full Donald Trump.
Allegations of election fraud caused by a conspiracy of left-wing terror supporters, dog whistles to his base and a final, angry, paranoid farewell speech linking the Jewish holocaust with US policy on Iran. It’s all there.
That, however, is the only positive thing about a new coalition that initially will be led by Naftali Bennett, a man who brags about “killing Arabs,” wants to annex large swathes of the West Bank and supports neither sovereignty for Palestinians nor equal rights.
“I strongly oppose the giving of even one inch of land to the Arabs,” Bennett said in 2020.
Read more: A placeholder government going nowhere | The Electronic Intifada
Israeli mob chants for genocide in Jerusalem Tamara Nassar EI 16/06/21
Thousands of Israeli Jewish nationalists marched through Jerusalem chanting racist and genocidal slogans against Palestinians on Tuesday. This was part of an annual “March of the Flags” by far-right Israeli Jews to celebrate Israel’s occupation and colonization of East Jerusalem. Like in previous years, the mob waving Israeli flags spewed racist and genocidal slogans against Palestinians and denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.
The march was originally planned for 10 May, Israel’s so-called Jerusalem Day, but was canceled due to the strength of protests by Palestinians which forced Israel into a humiliating retreat. Rescheduled for Tuesday, it was kept to a highly restricted route.
While the fanatical mob danced and chanted at Jerusalem’s iconic Damascus Gate, the route approved by police did not allow them to enter the narrow alleys of the Old City’s Muslim Quarter as they have in previous years.
Read more: Israeli mob chants for genocide in Jerusalem | The Electronic Intifada
Palestinians return 1 million Pfizer doses to Israel Mondoweiss 18/06/2021
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said this afternoon shortly after the first shipment of 100,000 doses was transferred into the West Bank, “the specialized teams at the ministry of health found that the vaccines we received today from the Israeli side did not meet the specifications of the deal, so the government decided to return them.”
. . . . While Palestinians have long called for Israel to step in and provide vaccine cover, something that has happened in the past, the deal was not a straightforward act of charity. In exchange for transferring the doses, Israel would receive a replacement allocation from Pfizer, matching the amount it releases to the Palestinians. Those new vaccines, with a later expiration date, are due to arrive in September and October 2021.
Read more: ‘We returned them’ — Palestinians axe 1 million Pfizer dose deal with Israel – Mondoweiss
Trapped in Gaza Hana Salah al Monitor 18/06/2021
Since the first day of the war on Gaza on May 10, Israel has prevented paper mail from leaving the West Bank or entering Gaza. Passport transactions in Gaza are approved and issued by the Palestinian government in the West Bank.
Mahmoud Faraj, director of the Marrakech Express freight and cargo company in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, “Since May 11, thousands of passport and visa transactions have been piling up at our company due to the closure of the Erez crossing, and many people are prevented from traveling, be it through Egypt or Israel.” . . . Faraj called for urgent intervention so that Israel will open the crossing and allow mail to enter the besieged enclave in order to tend to many humanitarian cases, whether for medical treatment or financial and social transactions that are waiting for paperwork to arrive from the West Bank.
Expanding settlements threaten homes in Hebron Aziza Nofal al Monitor 16/06/2021 . . . Hantash said Khirbet al-Aida is inhabited by 30 Palestinian families, with a total of roughly 300 people. They previously depended on agriculture before turning to work in construction and other sectors due to Israeli restrictions. He added, “The expansion toward the area’s lands began 12 years ago, through plans to link the settlement of Kharsina and Kiryat Arba, and it recently increased, as part of the annexation operations in the West Bank.”
Palestinians who try to expand construction in the area are pursued by the Israeli forces with demolition notices, under the pretext that they are lands owned by the state of Israel, although all of them are registered in the names of their owners in the Ottoman title deeds.
Gaza antiquities suffer again Hadeel Al Gherbawi al Monitor 20/06/2021
“Everyone was targeted in Gaza during the aggression. Israel does not differentiate between Muslims or Christians. We were all at risk. The aggression did not spare places of worship. Although deemed part of Gaza’s historical heritage and of cultural value, these premises were targeted or damaged due to the bombing of surrounding areas. Prayers and rituals were interrupted by the intensity of the strikes. Worshipers were afraid to reach the church. We moved to other facilities affiliated with the church, such as the Rosary Sisters School or even to the homes of our parishioners to hold prayers,” Asaad continued.
. . . . In bombing the Gaza Strip, Israel has once again completely disregarded the international agreements and conventions that protect Palestinian antiquities and heritage sites.
Read more: Gaza antiquities suffer again
After the slaughter Raab tells Netanyahu: “You can always count on us” Stuart Littlewood Redress Information & Analysis 03/06/2021
When UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab visited Israel immediately after the 11-day onslaught against Gaza which killed some 250 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told him: “Thank you and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for the staunch, unwavering support of our right to self-defence during the recent operation. It’s much appreciated.”
Raab responded: “You can always count on us.”
Raab then met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and tweeted: “I reiterated UK support for the Palestinian people and expressed condolences for civilians killed in recent hostilities.”
Labour bans Israel sanctions debate Asa Winstanley EI 25/06/2021UK Labour officials have prevented a party debate on sanctions against Israel, which had been planned for Thursday night. The officials claimed that the discussion could lead to “anti-Semitic behavior.”
A motion, passed by a local Labour branch, calls for Israel to “end its violation of the human rights of Palestinians” and for the UK government to “impose legal sanctions on Israel,” specifically an end to arms sales and “trade with illegal settlements.”The motion also called for “an end to the illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
. . . The discussion “would undermine the party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming space for all members, in particular Jewish members,” a regional party officer had advised her, Bolton stated.
Read more: Labour bans Israel sanctions debate | The Electronic Intifada
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