International Criminal Court (ICC) is to hold a public hearing tomorrow to look into the Israeli attack on the humanitarian flotilla the Mavi Marmara in 2010, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege announced yesterday.

Five of the Appeals Chamber judges are to attend the hearing, a statement by the organisation said, adding that they would look into the Public Prosecutor’s decision based on which no investigation was opened on the case.

Earlier, the Appeals Chamber turned down an appeal made by the Public Prosecutor against the Pre-Trial Chamber which requested that the Public Prosecutor review her decision on closing the case without investigation.

“Holding a hearing on this issue is considered very important as it came as a result of the efforts exerted by the legal team of the Freedom Flotilla, which is being recruited by the Turkish IHH, the owner of the Mavi Marmara and member of the Freedom Flotilla,” the statement said.

The Israeli government will subsidise hotels in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as part of a plan to attract more tourists to the area.

According to an article in Arutz Sheva, citing a report by Israel Hayom, Israel’s Tourism Ministry “will aid entrepreneurs who want to invest in building or expanding hotels in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]”.

The entrepreneurs can now apply for a grant of up to 20 per cent of their intended investment.

Israel Hayom reported that a meeting held earlier this year between senior settler officials and the managers of Israeli travel agencies in the occupied West Bank “showed that the number of guest units is insufficient, causing tourists to avoid staying in the area for more than a day”.

According to the report, the government grants “are intended to encourage investors to open additional guest units in [illegal settlements in] Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley [the occupied West Bank]”.

Unemployment in Palestine increased in 2018 to reach about 31 per cent of the labour force compared with about 28 per cent in 2017, where the number of unemployed individuals increased from 377,000 in 2017 to 426,000 in 2018, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) revealed ahead of International Labour Day tomorrow.

Last year, AirBnB declared that it would withdraw listings on its site from Israeli settlers based in Jew-only colonies in the West Bank. All such colonial-settlements are illegal under international law.

The move came after years of campaigning by Palestine solidarity activists. The effect of their efforts was acknowledged by AirBnB when the property lettings company announced the initial withdrawal.

However, under pressure, AirBnB has now capitulated to demands from Israel and its supporters to reverse the move. Part of this pressure was a lawsuit by Israeli and Israeli-American settlers and supporters against the company in a US court.

A recent statement made by the outgoing French Ambassador to the US regarding the nature of Israeli apartheid accentuates a larger ailment that has afflicted the European Union foreign policy.

The EU is simply gutless when it comes to confronting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

Ambassador Gerard Araud was, of course, right when he told the US magazine, the ‘Atlantic’, that Israel is already an apartheid state.

Noting the “disproportion of power” between Israel and the Palestinians, Araud said, “The strongest (meaning Israel) may conclude that they have no interest to make concessions.”

And since Israel “won’t make (Palestinians) citizens of Israel … they will have to make it official, which we know the situation, which is apartheid.” Araud added, “There will be officially an apartheid state. They are in fact already.”

I very much enjoyed contributing to The Guardian. Having previously worked for quite a stuffy publication, it felt liberating to be able to express opinions.

There was one issue, however, on which I felt my freedom curtailed: Palestine. Although The Guardian did publish a few of my articles denouncing Israeli atrocities, I began to encounter obstacles in 2009.

If you have read a recent New York Times op-ed entitled “Care about Gaza? Blame Hamas” written by none other than the White House “special representative for international negotiations” Jason Greenblatt you would understand that the misery being experienced by Palestinians in Gaza is all their own fault. Greenblatt, who is Jewish of the Orthodox persuasion, just happens to be a strong supporter of Israel’s settlements, which he claims are “not an obstacle to peace.” He is very upset because some naysayers are actually putting some of the blame for the human catastrophe in Gaza on Israel, which we Americans all know is our best friend in the whole world and our most loyal ally. If that were not so, the New York Times and those fine people in Congress and the White House would surely inform us otherwise. And anyway, what are a few lies and war crimes between friends?

“You killed him! You killed him!”

So shouts a Palestinian man after Israeli soldiers gun down Muhammad Ali Dar Adwan, 23, in Kufr Aqab, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

“Help him, you killed him!” the man shouts in Hebrew seconds later.

Soldiers carry away Dar Adwan’s body. He is declared dead.

The young man’s killing early on the morning of 2 April is shown in video footage compiled by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem:

Palestinian history is being wiped out in school text books through the Judaisation of the Arab curriculum, the Arab League warned in a meeting this weekend.

During the Palestinian Children Educational Affairs Council meeting, Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and Arab Territories, Ambassador Said Abu-Ali, said education is the most important type of resistance so Israeli occupation authorities are working to undermine it.

Israel is working to impose its syllabus on Palestinian students in Jerusalem in order to erase the Palestinian identity, it also bans new schools from being set up in Arab areas and existing schools from being renovated.

The Arab League official said that this plan aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause and put pressure on the Palestinians to accept a peace plan which offers them far less than the two-state solution.

Israeli occupation authorities allowed settlers to celebrate Passover at the site of the former Amona outpost in the northern West Bank, despite the fact that the location is a closed military zone.

According to Haaretz, the site “became a recreation spot for Jewish settlers during the Passover holiday”, even though the Palestinians who own the land on the hill “are still not allowed access”.

The outpost was evacuated in 2017 on orders of the Israeli Supreme Court, who ruled it had been established on privately-owned Palestinian land.

As reported by Haaretz, shortly before the removal of settlers from Amona, “the army issued the order barring access to the site by civilians”, an order “now strictly enforced to keep Palestinian landowners from the nearby villages of Ein Yabrud and Silwad from farming their land at the site”.

Following Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election as Israeli prime minister earlier this month, the New York Times’ editorial board (4/11/19) wrote:

Under Mr. Netanyahu, Israel is on a trajectory to become what critics say will be an apartheid state like the former South Africa—a country in which Palestinians will eventually be a majority, but without the rights of citizens.

A harsh criticism? Actually, the paper has been saying that Israel/Palestine could “become” an apartheid state for the better part of two decades. It ran a piece in 2003 (1/29/03) arguing that

if Israel does not give up the territories, it will face a choice: relinquish either democracy or the ideal of a Jewish state. Granting Palestinians in the territories the right to vote would turn Israel into an Arab state with a Jewish minority. Not allowing them to vote would result in a form of permanent apartheid.

Watch Israeli soldiers laugh and cheer after one of them shoots a Palestinian protester in the village of Madama

There is a story about the Khalifa Umar bin al-Khattab, the Muslim leader who conquered Jerusalem in 637 C.E. It is said that upon entering the city he asked to see the site of the temple built by King Solomon, but could find no one who knew where it was. According to the story, he then came across a poor Jewish beggar sitting in the street. The beggar told the Kalifa that he could take him to the site where the temple once stood. When they arrived at the site Umar realized that the site had been used as the city trash dump. He then went down on his knees and, together with the Jewish beggar, cleaned the site and vowed to build a sanctuary that would for all eternity protect the holy site.

Two of those wounded sustained serious wounds. According to observations by PCHR’s fieldworkers, the Israeli forces who were stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the protesters by firing bullets and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, dozens of the protesters were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.

The Israeli elections on 9 April resulted in the victory of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was officially appointed as the country's prime minister on 17 April. Speaking to Sputnik, Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin shared his opinion on what to expect from the Netanyahu cabinet in the near future.

Avigdor Eskin, an Israeli political analyst and publicist who predicted Netanyahu's victory back in November 2018, believes that Washington and Tel Aviv will continue to strengthen Israel's positions in the region following the de facto recognition of Jerusalem on 14 May 2018 and Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights on 25 March 2019.

"I anticipate Israeli official recognition of towns and villages on the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) as a part of the state and I also anticipate US recognition. We will also see the attempts to negotiate with Gaza. Egypt will play an important role", the Israeli publicist foresees.

An Israeli newspaper close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday accused Switzerland of spending $2 million on legal activities which it says harm Israel.

Israel Hayom claimed that the Swiss foreign ministry sent an estimated $2 million to Israeli and Palestinian NGOs through its diplomatic mission in Ramallah to pay for legal activities which harm Israel.

According to the Israeli newspaper, the funds were paid to the Israel and Palestinian organisations shortly after the Swiss government ended its support for a Palestinian NGO over its support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, noting that the funds went for similar projects.

Israeli occupation authorities will confiscate Palestinian land in order to build a new road connecting illegal settlements in the southern occupied West Bank, reported the Jerusalem Post.

According to the report, the so-called bypass road will expand Road 60 that links the Gush Etzion settlement junction with the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron.

Settlement watchdog NGO Peace Now provided the paper with a copy of a land confiscation order signed by Israeli occupation authorities on 3 April, for a seven kilometre stretch of the new road.

Work on the road could begin as early as this summer.

Peace Now stated that the 401 dunams (99 acres) of Palestinian land from the towns of Beit Ommar and Halhul will be confiscated for the road construction.

“This expropriation is part of the government’s continued capitulation to the settlers, who want to build bypass roads throughout the West Bank,” Peace Now stated.

Some 5,600 Palestinian residents of Hebron must cross a checkpoint on foot to reach their homes, according to a new survey conducted by UN OCHA.

The study of so-called H2, an area of direct Israeli control constituting 20 per cent of Hebron city, looked at the impact on local Palestinians of the Israeli military and settler presence.

Around 33,000 Palestinians live in H2, as well as a few hundred illegal Israeli settlers.

“The centre of Hebron has been physically separated from the rest of the city through the deployment of physical obstacles, among other means,” UN OCHA noted, adding that “currently there are 121 such obstacles, including 21 permanently-staffed checkpoints.”

According to the findings of the survey, “some 5,600 Palestinians in the affected areas must cross a checkpoint on foot to reach their homes, including virtually all those residing in the prohibited area and two thirds of the population in the restricted area.”

Seventy-eight percent of Americans live in states that have laws or policies against boycotting Apartheid Israel or Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report details the immense price Americans pay when exercising their free speech via their purchasing power to push back against human-rights abuses by Israel.

HRW further breaks down the number of states and which kinds of laws they have on the books:

Twenty-seven states have adopted laws or policies that penalize businesses, organizations, or individuals that engage in or call for boycotts against Israel. The laws or policies in 17 of those states explicitly target not only companies that refuse to do business in or with Israel, but also those that refuse to do business in Israeli settlements. Some states whose laws do not explicitly apply to settlements have also penalized companies that cut settlement ties.”

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.

Walid al-Shawa dreamed of a bright future when he was younger. Yet adult life has been cruel despite years of planning.

Starting as a child, Walid spent 10 years moving from one job to another. A permanent job was beyond reach in his besieged Gaza community, which suffered the closure of industrial and commercial institutions.

His future became decidedly more bleak when Israeli forces destroyed his home in March – just three weeks before he was due to get married.

As of 2007, the German edition of Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” appeared, at that time in the publishing Zweitausendeins, and I held the book for the first time in their hands and read it, it was like a horror message – a message that made me to accompanied today. So the incredible crimes in detail before and get portrayed in 1948 after the establishment of the “Jewish state,” this incredible brutality in its mercilessness, just three years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, shocked and left me speechless. I wondered how it is possible that a “Jewish state,” Jewish people, so brutal and forgotten history of another people, so the indigenous population, ethnically cleanse, drive them from their land and property, and murder humiliate could. Had they forgotten everything human, them was the last remnant, lost to morality in order to act so recklessly?

Over one hundred Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday, under the protection of heavily armed Israeli soldiers and police, for the Jewish holiday of Passover, also known as “Pesach”.

Head of the public relations office at the Islamic Endowment Department, Firas al-Dibs, confirmed that some 167 Israeli settlers stormed the compound, through the Moroccan Gate, from the early hours of Sunday and throughout the afternoon.

Armed Israeli soldiers and police provided protection to settlers as they provocatively toured the compound.

In an interview with the Atlantic last Friday, outgoing French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud made headlines after emphatically stating that Israel is already “an apartheid state” and that the Trump administration’s so-called “Deal of the Century” aimed at resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict is “99 percent doomed.”

Araud — whose first government post was in France’s Tel Aviv embassy, and who was the French ambassador to Israel from 2003 to 2006 — made the claim after being asked about his views on the Israel-Palestine “peace process.” After stating that he enjoys a “close” relationship with Jared Kushner — Trump’s son-in-law who has spent the last two years drafting a “peace plan” for the Trump administration — Araud noted that Kushner’s “proposal is very close to what the Israelis want.”

In a dim room in a two-story building in al-Shaboora, Rafah, the poorest refugee camp in the southern Gaza strip, five brothers of the Abu Jazar family recall the details and pains of their multiple injuries by Israeli fire during 55 weeks of the Great March of Return protest.

Despite injuries, the brothers all planned to participate in yesterday’s 56th protest.

Israeli settler kills Palestinian woman after ramming her with car; soldiers shoot and seriously injure teen
IMEMC 18 Apr by Ali Salam –A Palestinian woman was killed, earlier Thursday morning, near her home in Teqoua [Tuqu‘] town, southeast of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, after being rammed by the car of an illegal colonialist settler. During protests during the woman’s funeral, the soldiers shot and seriously injured a Palestinian teen while handcuffed, when he reportedly attempted to escape. The slain Palestinian woman has been identified as Fatima Suleiman, 42. According to eyewitnesses, the assailant was driving a large truck when he struck the woman’s car, throwing her out of the vehicle, and then rammed and killed her, before fleeing the scene. The slain Palestinian woman was a teacher at the Rashayda School. The Israeli Police did come to the scene, but only to remove all security camera footage from a house overlooking the area where the incident took place….

Labour’s Shadow Justice Minister Richard Burgon expressed regret this week for having stated in a speech some years ago that Zionism is the “enemy of peace”. He should not have apologised. His 2014 comments were a simple matter of historical fact, and he should have stood by them.

Liberal and “left” Zionists argue that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly far-right government is a “corruption” of the so-called Zionist dream. This vision represents an egalitarian haven for the world’s oppressed Jewish peoples, we are told.

This is an ahistorical fantasy.

US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan” has been dismissed by Palestinian authorities before its unveiling at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Wednesday that the plan would be unveiled until June.

“We will all have to look for reasonable compromises that will make peace achievable,” Kushner said.

The Mueller Report was released today, and one section reveals that “multiple members” of the Trump transition team, led by Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, “communicated with foreign government officials” in an effort to undermine the Obama White House’s decision to allow the passage of a UN Security Council resolution in December 2016 that was sharply critical of Israeli settlements.

We knew that Trump’s transition tried to block the resolution by reaching out to Russia; former national security adviser Mike Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the matter.

The news here is that “multiple members” of the transition team reached out to other foreign countries. The report suggests that in order “to support Israel,” Jared Kushner issued an all points bulletin throughout the transition team. (The report confirms what the Wall Street Journal characterized as a “blitz” in its own investigation of the incident last year.)

One of the greatest religious stories shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims is the Exodus of Moses and the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. This weekend the story will be recounted and reflected upon in Jewish households around the world as families come together for the traditional Passover meal.

This annual religious festival frequently coincides with the Christian festival of Easter, when the world’s Christians congregate in their churches to remember what they believe to have been the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. A joyous occasion, it will be celebrated by Christians everywhere.

On 10 April, Palestinian human rights activist and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Omar Barghouti was denied entry into the United States, despite having valid travel documents.

The move was quickly denounced by rights groups as a violation of free speech by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Barghouti was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv and told he would not be allowed to board his flight to the US. He was expected to join a panel in Washington the following day. The campaigner was born in Qatar and has permanent resident status in Israel.

Barghouti joined the panel via a video conference call that was live-streamed on social media. He called for taking Palestinian non-violent resistance to the "global scene" amid failure by the international community to uphold Palestinian rights.

The Israeli army on Thursday announced it would impose a nine-day closure on the West Bank and Gaza for the entirety of Passover, as is standard practice during festivals and holidays.

The closure will begin overnight Thursday-Friday, starting at 12 a.m., and last until 12 a.m. Saturday, April 27.

Encouraged by the Greek government, state-owned public transport firm STASY is bidding for a role in the Jerusalem light rail, which links Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This would make the firms – and the Greek state – complicit in Israel’s illegal colonization.

Greek and Israeli transport ministers signed an agreement to cooperate in transport sectors in 2017.

This came after a summit between the leaders of Israel, Greece and Cyprus aimed at drawing the countries closer together.

Lawmakers in Greece’s nominally left-wing ruling party Syriza are demanding to know why the government is supporting a Greek role in Israel’s colonial expansion.

Metro workers union SELMA has also denounced STASY for its plan to bid for a role in the construction, operation and maintenance of the Israeli project.

Israeli occupation authorities refused to issue travel permits for hundreds of Palestinian Christians from Gaza who planned to visit holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem during Passover, Safa news agency reported yesterday.

Reporting Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Safa said that Israel allowed only 200 Christians from Gaza, who are over 55 years old, to travel to Jordan only and did not issue permits for those wishing to visit the Church of Nativity in occupied Bethlehem or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied Jerusalem.

Israeli rights group Gisha reported complaints against the Israeli occupation regarding the restrictions imposed on people who want to travel during the Jewish Passover holiday which coincides with Easter.

“This is a flagrant violation of the freedom of movement, freedom of worship and freedom of enjoying family life for the Christians in Gaza,” Gisha said, noting that Gaza is an example of a “wider Israeli racist policy”.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit Moscow in the coming months with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After winning the Israeli election with a slim majority, in a campaign that grew more sordid and vilifying by the day, Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to begin his fifth term as Israeli prime minister.

The culmination of his dirty tricks campaign was an election-day stunt in which his Likud party broke regulations – and possibly the law – by arming 1,200 activists with hidden cameras, to film polling stations in communities belonging to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

Netanyahu justified the move by saying it would ensure the election was “kosher”. Yet again, Israel’s prime minister made it clear that the country’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens were unwelcome interlopers in what he regards as an exclusively Jewish political process.

Those who still had doubts, should finally be better informed. “Jewish state”, Zionism and democracy are mutually exclusive. When the beginning of the Passover feast with the first Seder begins this Friday night, it would be time to liberate the country not from bread crumbs but from far-right political politicians who want nothing more than religious Zionism as the weapon of the eternal Judaization. This affects not only the oppressed and occupied Palestinians deprived of their liberty, but also the secular Jewish citizens of Israel.

The Trump administration again named Israelis along with Americans as deserving immunity from International Criminal Court prosecution.

In a statement Friday, President Donald Trump declared victory after the ICC rejected a request to investigate U.S. personnel for actions in Afghanistan.

“Since the creation of the ICC, the United States has consistently declined to join the court because of its broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers; the threat it poses to American national sovereignty; and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate,” the White House said in a statement it attributed to Trump. “Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”

Arab foreign ministers are to meet on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in Palestine at the request of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Wattan Voice reported on Monday.

During his first meeting with his government on Monday, the recently appointed PA Prime Minister Mohammad Ishteya told his colleagues that President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the meeting to lead the discussion.

In the meantime, added Ishteya, Abbas is to discuss the issue of the financial safety network, which was approved at a previous Arab League meeting. The network was established in order to support the Palestinian Authority budget.

A new Miles of Smiles convoy is set to arrive in the Gaza Strip early next month, the Head of the Popular International Committee to Support Gaza has revealed. The announcement was made yesterday by Dr Essam Youssef, who is also the coordinator of the series of convoys which first entered Gaza back in 2009.

The Egyptian authorities have given permission for the group of humanitarian activists to enter the territory through the Rafah Crossing, reported Quds Press.

“The Gaza Strip,” said Youssef, “is under an Israeli-led siege and economic sanctions, so the people need a lot of humanitarian assistance.” The healthcare sector is in particular need of urgent support, he added.

Responding to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for ending the division, Hamas said yesterday that his actions do match his words.

In a press release issued by spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanou, Hamas said: “The continuous sanctions imposed on Gaza by Abbas, as well as his separatist measures do not meet his calls for ending the division.”

Al-Qanou noted that the formation of the ongoing Fatah government was the latest proof that Abbas is reinforcing national division.

Discussions which frame Palestine’s precarious future within the context of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” versus the two-state compromise continue. Apparently with just these two dangerous options on the table, Palestine is being pushed into oblivion.

In anticipation of Trump’s deal, a group of former officials from European countries have sent a letter to EU Foreign Ministers and the EU High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy. They call upon the EU to reject the US deal and affirm “the internationally agreed parameters for a two-state solution.”

Notre Dame de Paris wasn't the only beloved house of worship that caught fire Monday. Part of the Haram ash-Sharif, the huge Jerusalem mosque built where a pivotal event in the prophet Muhammad's life is believed to have occurred, also caught fire, damaging a part of the structure dating to Judean King Herod the Great's reign.

Israeli soldiers attacked, Monday, dozens of schoolchildren and teachers in the southern area of Hebron city, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, causing dozens of teachers and schoolchildren to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation.

Media sources in Hebron said the soldiers fired a barrage of gas bombs and concussion grenades into and around Hebron Elementary School for Boys, Khadija Bint Khweiled Emanatory School for Boys, Thu Nurain Elementary School for Bays, and Tareq Bin Ziad School for Boys, while the students were standing in line, in the yards of their schools, preparing to start the school day.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners entered day five of their mass hunger strike in several Israeli prisons on Friday.

On 8 April, 400 Palestinians launched an open-ended mass hunger strike with a long list of demands, including improved medical care and conditions, more family visits and access to a public telephone, among others.

Prisoners are also calling for an end to repressive measures imposed by a newly formed committee headed by Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan to worsen conditions for detained Palestinians and reduce their standard of living to “the minimum required,” including imposing water rations.

Along the political spectrum, from the far left to extreme right, and spanning racial and ethnic lines, nearly everyone who has something to say about protesters in Gaza seems to fail the task of recognising Palestinian humanity. If it's coming from the right, the narrative is of terrorists, rockets and Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance fully cemented as the Boogieman in the western imagination.

From the left, the stories are the stuff of legends, portraying unfathomable Palestinian heroism, courage and "sumud", an Arabic word romanticised in English to convey epic Palestinian steadfastness.

An Israeli court ordered the demolition of Palestinian homes because they were allegedly built in the “Peace Forest” but has given settlers permission to build there gives permission for settlers to build their homes, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday.

Palestinian residents of the homes appealed to the Israeli District Court in Jerusalem against the demolition order, but the court turned down their appeal.

According to Haaretz, the Israeli court upheld the demolition because, as claimed by the Israeli municipality, the houses are being built in what the municipality calls the “Peace Forest’ in the Abu Tor neighbourhood. It added that they had also been built without the impossible to obtain building permits.

Israel yesterday withdrew the military forces it had deployed around the Gaza Strip, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.

The Arabic paper said Israel’s Channel 12 revealed that the decision was made after a military evaluation of the current situation in Gaza was carried out. The forces will now return to their bases and resume training to “be ready for any emergency”.

“The Israeli army is still prepared very well for any emergency,” an army spokesperson said.

Israel had deployed reinforcements along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone ahead of the one year anniversary of the Palestinian Great March of return which was due to take place on 30 March.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election pledge to annex the West Bank will not harm the US’ “deal of the century”.

Asked if he thought Netanyahu’s pledge to annex the West Bank would harm the “deal of the century”, Pompeo replied “I do not think so”.

Pompeo told CNN that the US peace plan will present a different model from the ones that have been used.

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has announced that his country understands Israel’s need to have dominant security control in the West Bank as part of any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians. He said that this is because Washington understands the threat to Israel’s existence if Hamas ever took control of the occupied Palestinian territory in the way that it has controlled the Gaza Strip following the evacuation of Israeli settlers in 2005.

This suggests that the “deal of the century” includes a clear position that Israel will not withdraw from the West Bank to ensure that it does not come under Hamas rule. That is also consistent with recent Israeli statements about its protection of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, which would fall immediately into Hamas hands if such protection is lifted.

The video is an apparent attempt to suggest that Mizher forfeited special protection afforded to medics under international law by taking off his vest and throwing a stone at a soldier.

But like most of Israel’s attempts to justify its use of lethal force against Palestinians, it doesn’t hold water.

It is based on a lie, intended to cover up the intentional killing of a medic.

An investigation by the human rights group Al-Haq found that Mizher had not been on the rooftop before he was killed.

Additionally, the figure seen in the video is wearing a white shirt under his high-visibility vest. Mizher was wearing a black shirt under his vest, as is shown in a group photo of the volunteer medics taken hours before a bullet to the stomach took his life, published as an appendix in Al-Haq’s report.

Palestinian activists are talking of a 'new Naqba', a new catastrophe. The murderous attacks on the Right to Return marches are one part of a much wider assault. Most seriously, with the full backing of Donald Trump, a new Netanyahu government looks set to start annexing parts of the West Bank.

Such a move would be an open declaration by Israel and its Western backers that the recognition of Palestine is off the table.

In these circumstances, it is vital the whole of the movement stands with the Palestinians and that we defy the attempts that have been made over the last year to silence us.

Israel annexation of occupied Palestine territories: will Netanyahu decide to act on his threat?

It may be difficult for some to understand the impact that a pop icon has on social and political events, but these cultural figures possess enormous psychological sway in the minds of millions. Their actions make a difference. So it can be quite jarring when one of those icons goes against the justified demands of an entire people, especially when they have been oppressed and persecuted for decades.

This May Madonna is set to perform two songs at Eurovision in Tel Aviv. She will reach an estimated 180 million viewers. She has moneyed backing too. Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams has pledged to pay $1 million dollars for her performance at Eurovision. And she will simultaneously flip the bird to millions of Palestinians who languish under a brutal system of colonial oppression, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Madonna is no stranger to this controversy. In 2012 she launched her MDNA tour in Tel Aviv against the urging of BDS activists.

The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem delivered demolition notices to residential structures in the Issawiya neighbourhood yesterday.

Muhammad Abu Al-Hummus, member of a local follow-up committee, said that joint teams from the Israeli municipality and police raided the neighbourhood and delivered demolition notices for 13 residential structures, under the pretext that they were built without the necessary building permits.

Abu Al-Hummus pointed out that some of the buildings were erected more than 15 years ago.

A team of Palestinian surgeons at Al-Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem led by professor Nizar Hajja took out a bullet from the heart of Gazan child, Al-Watan Voice reported yesterday.

Eight-year-old Ibrahim was shot while playing with his friends in courtyard outside his house in the north of the Gaza Strip two weeks ago.

Due to the lack of medical equipment in Gaza, Ibrahim was transferred to Al-Makassed where he had a six-hour laparoscopy which allowed doctors to remove the bullet.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials said today in reaction to the results of the Israeli elections that Israelis have voted no to peace and yes to apartheid.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said that after Israeli voters have chosen their representatives, “regrettably, Israelis overwhelmingly voted for candidates that are unequivocally committed to entrenching the status quo of oppression, occupation, annexation and dispossession in Palestine and escalating the assault on Palestinian national and human rights.

Jewish mothers used to go into a cleaning frenzie a week or so before the Festival of Passover. All traces of leaven (chametz) had to be removed from the home before the onset of the holiday.
*
Modern folk have determined that dust is not chametz, so there is less madness involved in the cleaning process, but Israel has added a new dimension to the situation; Arabs must be removed as well as the leaven.

We can assume that after the elections, one way or another, things will get worse than before.

Three Democratic candidates have “slammed” Benjamin Netanyahu over his promise to annex West Bank settlements, NBC says. The slammers are Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg, though Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro have issued milder criticisms of the prime minister.

Buttigieg said of the annexation idea:

This provocation is harmful to Israeli, Palestinian, and American interests. Supporting Israel does not have to mean agreeing with Netanyahu‘s politics. I don’t.

Netanyahu appeals to “racism,” Sanders said. “I’m not a great fan of his, and, frankly, I hope he loses his election.”

Well, not to worry. Here comes the Israel lobby to clean up after the parade. Jewish Insider reports today on several Israel advocates who are already trying to bring the Democrats and Israel back into the fold.

Israel yesterday distributed notices to Palestinians informing it of its plan to seize 95 acres of Palestinian agricultural land in the northern Jordan Valley.

Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley/Tubas district, told Ma’an that the Israeli Civil Administration staff distributed notices to Palestinian residents of Tubas, Tayasir, and Tamoun regarding seizure of their lands.

Bisharat confirmed that 384.49 dunams (about 95 acres) of Palestinian-owned lands would be seized by Israeli authorities.

He added that Israel intends to build new roads for Israeli settlers on the land.

Israeli occupation forces committed 150 violations against Palestinian journalists during the first quarter of 2019, the Journalist Support Committee (JSC) revealed yesterday.

In a report, the JSC said that 66 violations were committed against journalists, including 43 during their coverage of the Great March or Return protests in Gaza Strip.

The report noted that ten were shot with live explosive bullets, 23 were hit directly with tear gas canisters, six fainted due to heavy inhalation of tear gas and four shot with rubber coated metal bullets.

Israeli rights group Peace Now has pointed out that more than 19,000 settlement units were built in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem during the Netanyahu era, Quds Press reported on Tuesday. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

According to the rights group, 13,608 settlement units (70 per cent) were built in isolated settlements which Israel might evacuate if a permanent deal is ever reached with the Palestinians. This number of housing units means an increase in the number of illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories of at least 60,000.

Between 2008 and 2017, Peace Now noted, 132,300 settlers were moved into the occupied territories, raising the total number of settlers to 413,100 by the end of 2017.

The current violence targeting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails dates back to January 2. It was then that Israel’s Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan declared that the “party is over.”

“Every so often, infuriating pictures appear of cooking in the terrorist wings. This party is coming to an end,” Erdan was quoted in the Jerusalem Post.

Then, the so-called Erdan’s Committee recommended various measures aimed at ending the alleged “party”, which included placing limits on prisoners’ use of water, banning food preparations in cells, and installing jamming devices to block the alleged use of smuggled cell phones.

The last measure, in particular, caused outrage among prisoners, for such devices have been linked to severe headaches, fainting, and other long-term ailments.

Erdan followed his decision with a promise of the “use of all means in (Israel’s) disposal” to control any prisoners’ protests in response to the new restrictions.

A high-ranking IDF leader has revealed that Israel orchestrated the downfall of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the rise of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s thinly disguised military dictatorship. Israel preferred this normalizing leader to his somewhat pro-Palestine predecessor.

The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency reports. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.

Deir Yassin was a peaceful village of around 400 people that had signed a non-aggression pact and was excluded from clashes elsewhere. Due to its proximity to West Jerusalem, it came under the UN Partition Plan as part of the independent Jerusalem area.

Airbnb will not implement a planned delisting of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and would donate proceeds from any bookings in the territory to international humanitarian aid organisations, the company said.

"Airbnb will take no profits from this activity in the region," a statement posted on the company website said on Tuesday.

"Any profits generated for Airbnb by any Airbnb host activity in the entire West Bank will be donated to non-profit organisations dedicated to humanitarian aid that serve people in different parts of the world," it added.

However, the company did not mention that settlers will continue to profit from subletting.

I was shut down in South Africa for speaking out, and I’m disturbed that the same is happening to critics of Israel now

Members of the European Parliament from various political parties sent a letter to High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, calling for the revision of EU-Israel Association Agreement.

The letter recalls findings of the recent report by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry stating that Israel may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Great Return March protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas knows very well that Israeli centrist government are genocidal in their approach to Arabs and Palestinians in particular. Hamas remembers Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. They clearly prefer Bibi. They know very well that Bibi has been anxious to operate in Gaza. Hamas knows very well that Israel is running out of military and political options, let alone solutions to the conflict. Hamas voted Bibi. It entered ceasefire negotiations with Israel just a few days before the election. There is good reason to believe that Hamas would prefer to deal with Netanyahu rather than with a ‘centrist’ party led by three war criminals. Hamas won again, it has pushed Israel into a state of further paralysis. Israel does not have a prospect of a future in the region. Israel may not be defeated by Quasam rockets but by its own Ghetto mentality.

UNICEF is sponsoring a major EU-financed project to link Israeli settlements to Europe’s electricity grid.

The United Nations children’s agency is listed among the “proud supporters” of the EuroAsia Interconnector, a project to build a 1,000-mile subsea cable linking the European electricity grid with Israel via Greece and Cyprus.

This means that Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Syria’s Golan Heights – all illegal under international law – would be linked to the European network and would benefit from Israel’s ability to trade electricity through the interconnector.

A well-known and controversial Israeli settler-activist, Daniella Weiss, recently told Haaretz that her vision of a future Israel, following the impending Israeli annexation of Palestine’s West Bank, includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran. Weiss — former mayor of the illegal West Bank settlement of Kedumim — claimed during the interview that this vision of a future “Greater Israel” was not “extreme” but a “basic Jewish approach” and was “the only way to continue Zionism.”

Interviewed by Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston — who personally opposes illegal, Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank — Weiss expounded at length on her role in making a “two-state solution” impossible by founding and expanding settlements throughout Palestine’s West Bank.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has promised that if a new war begins, the group’s forces will make Israel evacuate not only the settlements near the enclave border, but also some of its main cities, such as Ashdod, Ashkelon, Negev and Tel-Aviv.

“We are ten times stronger than we were in 2014 [Israeli-Gaza conflict],” he said.

At the same time, Sinwar noted that Israel “will only suffer” if the war is “imposed” against the Gaza Strip. He promised that in this case, Hamas would act as “shield and sword” for the inhabitants of the region.

In recent months, Israel has repeatedly bombarded Hamas positions in Gaza in response to missile launches from the enclave’s territory. Despite numerous ceasefire understandings reached, the conflict has been constantly restarted.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return” at the Gaza border, lawyers and jurists around the world are calling on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

Today, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers presented a petition from the International Lawyers Campaign for the Investigation and Prosecution of Crimes Committed Against the Palestinian People to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the ICC. The petition urges Bensouda to initiate a full investigation and prosecute violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed by Israeli officials in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The petition has garnered the support of tens of thousands of lawyers worldwide.

Earlier this year, the UN Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry released their report stating that during the Great March of Return, which commenced on March 30, 2018, Israeli snipers intentionally fired on civilians who presented no danger to them - they shot protesters, medics, journalists, disabled people, and even children.

The February 2019 Situation Report from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that 266 Gazans have been killed since the beginning of the march. But civilian deaths are only part of the story. The report also highlights the fact that in just under one year, 29,130 people - more than 0.01 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip - have been injured. Of those, 6,557 sustained live ammunition gunshot wounds and in 89 percent (5,183) of these cases, the lower limbs were affected.

Israeli authorities declared that all crossings in to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be closed from midnight tonight until midnight on Wednesday, as Israelis prepare to head to the polls.

Entry to Israel for all Israeli-issued permit holders will be banned, excluding humanitarian and medical cases, the announcement continued.

Israelis are due to elect a new government and prime minister today with polling stations set to be open between 07:00 and 22:00 local time [04:00 and 19:00 GMT].

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli media in an interview yesterday that he intends to annex West Bank settlements, “if possible with American support”.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu told Arutz 7 that he intended to “apply Israeli law to the communities in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]” during “the next term”.

Asked whether the Trump administration was aware of these plans, Netanyahu replied: “Sure”, adding: “They [the US] will react as they will react. We will see. These are my principles.”

The Likud leader also doubled down on his vow not to remove illegal settlements.

“If we do not tear out the settlers, then who are they going to live under? They are going to be under Palestinian sovereignty? That is dead,” he declared.

For the third time, settlers this morning locked shut a mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

According to eyewitnesses, the official responsible for opening and closing the mosque was surprised by the presence of an adhesive on the door to the Sheikh Makki Mosque in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem. Nails had also been used to lock the door shut.

Witnesses added that the settlers attacked the mosque twice last month by placing adhesive material on its door in an attempt to keep it closed during prayer times. The mosque is normally open at noon and closes again after evening prayers.

There is nothing left of the rotten fig leaves which have been used to cover Israeli Apartheid. On 19 July last year, Israel’s parliament and main democratic institution, the Knesset, passed the racist Nation-State Law, which gave the right to self-determination in Israel only to Jews. In the run up to tomorrow’s General Election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed Israel’s Arab citizens to the 22 Arab countries to which they could move.

Emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights, Netanyahu’s appetite for more land theft has turned to the West Bank. He declared that Israel must exercise security control west of the River Jordan and insisted that he will not move a single Jewish settler out of the illegal settlements, whether in the blocs or isolated areas.

Two Palestinian villages in the West Bank received demolition orders Sunday from Israeli authorities, one in Hebron district, and the other in Bethlehem district, according to Wafa News Agency.

9 residential structures, in addition to caravans and animal barns, have been ordered to be destroyed in the village of Tuwanah, in the southern occupied West Bank region of Masser Yatta.

The landowners Ra’ed, Morad, Amer, Mahmoud and Mohammad Hamamdeh, supposedly lack the necessary Israeli permit for the structures. The occupation authorities ostensibly have the right to destroy their property.

Looking to continue his bid to court right-wing voters on the eve of the election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took extra steps to announce that not only will the Palestinians never have their own state, but that he, assuming he is reelected, will immediately start annexing the occupied West Bank into Israel, starting with settlements.

Netanyahu ruled out ever evacuating any “community” built in occupied territory, and insisted that the realization of a Palestinian state would necessarily “endanger our existence.” He took credit for the last eight years of the Palestinians not getting a state, saying no one had ever had to withstand such pressure.

Whether this is just usual pre-election bluster or a statement of policy is unclear. Netanyahu claimed to have already informed Trump of his intentions, saying that he would prefer to do the annexations gradually, with US support, but would do it either way.

Cookie-cutter homes dotted with swimming pools, well-tended gardens and spacious playgrounds for children. The city of Caesarea, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu owns a house, has long been associated with luxury villas and the super-rich.

But for the Palestinian citizens of Israel living just across the other side of the city's land barrier, the reality is markedly different.

Jisr al-Zarqa, the last remaining Palestinian town on Israel's coast, is among the poorest and most densely populated in the country. Here, buildings are packed on every available plot of land, with barely any trees left.

Around 100 members of the next Knesset will be supporters of apartheid. This has no precedent in any democracy. A hundred out of 120 legislators, an absolute of absolute majorities, one that supports maintaining the current situation, which is apartheid.

Some of the more advanced Israel/Palestine commentators have agreed amongst themselves that the ‘one-state solution’ amounts to empty talk for the simple reason that Palestine is ‘one-state’ already: It has natural borders, one electric grid and even one international pre-dial number (+972). But this beautiful and historic land, stretched from the river to the sea, is dominated by a foreign and hostile ideology that is racially supremacist and vile towards the indigenous people of the land.

Some of those perceptive analysts have been bewildered following a peculiar shift in Israeli politics: while the so-called Israeli ‘Left’ has been advocating racial and ethnic segregation between Jews and Palestinians by adopting the two-state solution, it is actually the Zionist ultra-right that has been pushing constantly for an integration of the ‘land’ by means of Israeli annexation.

(Haaretz) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Saturday evening that he will start extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank if re-elected prime minister in the election on April 9.

It remains unclear at this point whether Netanyahu was referring to all of the West Bank, or only parts of it.

“A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years, no prime minister has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny,” the premier said.