(1) Resources (latest first):
(2) Articles: below (latest first)

• Tamara NASSAR, « Israel ramps up attacks in West Bank » (The Electronic Intifada, Jan 24, 2024): click here.

  Israeli occupation forces shot at a Palestinian child Monday evening and made sure he was dead before they allowed paramedics to reach him. Israeli troops carried out the deadly raid in the town of Arraba, near the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

• Tristan DUNNING & Martin KEAR, « Since the Gaza war began, violence against Palestinians has also surged in the West Bank – and gone virtually unnoticed » (The Conversation, Nov 29, 2023): click here.

  While the world remains fixated on the devastating October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, there has been a pronounced – and mostly unnoticed – escalation in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem

• Amy TEIBEL, « Palestinian death toll in West Bank surges as Israel pursues militants following Hamas rampage » (AP, 2023): click here.

  JERUSALEM (AP) — Deadly violence has been surging in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants in the aftermath of the Hamas attack from Gaza, with more than 90 Palestinians killed in the Israeli-occupied territory in the past two weeks, mainly in clashes with Israeli troops.

• « #FreePalestinianStudents : Raid militaire et vague d’arrestations à l’Université de Birzeit » (Collectif Palestine Vaincra, Sept 25, 2023): click here!

  Dimanche 24 septembre à l’aube, l’occupation israélienne a mené un raid militaire sur le campus de l’Université de Birzeit en Cisjordanie occupée. Après avoir agressé les gardes de l’université, les soldats ont envahi la salle du conseil des étudiants et vandalisé les lieux. Ensuite, ils ont arrêté huit étudiants : le président du Conseil des étudiants, Abdel Majeed Hasan, le coordinateur du Bloc islamique (la première organisation étudiante du campus), Amr Khalil, et les étudiants Abdallah Nejim, Mahmoud Nakhleh, Ahmad Owiedat, Hasan Alwan, Abdallah Abu Qias et Yahya Farah. L’Université de Birzeit, le syndicat des travailleurs, le conseil des étudiants et les blocs étudiants ont appelé à une marche de protestation dans l’enceinte du campus ce 25 septembre pour protester contre cette agression.

• « Israel arrests 8 Palestinian students suspected of planning terror attack » (TOI, Sept 24, 2023): click here.

  Israeli security forces said Sunday they had arrested eight Palestinian students suspected of planning a terror attack in the immediate future. The students, from Birzeit University near Ramallah, were nabbed following an investigation into Hamas cells in Palestinian educational institutions, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet said. They were allegedly recruited by Hamas operatives in Gaza, receiving weaponry intended for the attack.

• Beatrice FARHAT, « More than 200 Palestinians killed in 2023 as Israel detains Lion's Den leader » (Al-Monitor, Sept 22, 2023): click here.

  The spike in Israeli raids and settler attacks this year in the West Bank has killed more than 200 Palestinians and displaced more than 1,000 herders from their land.

• Gideon LEVY: « A Palestinian Ambulance Was Stopped at an East Jerusalem Checkpoint. The Patient Died » (Haaretz, August 5, 2023): click here.

  A Palestinian ambulance carrying an unconscious stroke victim is prevented from passing through an East Jerusalem checkpoint, whereupon he undergoes fruitless attempts at resuscitation. Mundal Jubran, aged 40, died.

• Hagar SHEZAF: « Israel’s High Court Dismisses Appeal Against West Bank Outpost of Homesh » (Haaretz, August 2, 2023): click here.

  Israel’s top court rules that moving the outpost’s buildings to state-owned land invalidates the petitioners’ argument. The state claims the outpost doesn’t bar Palestinians from accessing their privately-owned land, but a military checkpoint prevents their entry.

• Gideon LEVY: « We even destroy their water wells » (Haaretz, 30 July, 2023, via: Jewish Voice for Labour): click here.

  JVL Introduction: "Gideon Levy cannot contain his contempt for those who have just cemented in three water wells near the Fawwar refugee camp in the South Hebron hills. He calls it “the work of the devil” and we would be hard-pressed to dissent. “Arab-hatred, apartheid, brutality and evil” he writes, “now cover the spring and groundwater and the false love for the Land of Israel. If not the most horrific crime of the occupation, he asserts, it is one of the ugliest." We agree.

• “IIsraeli soldiers seal Palestinian well with concrete” (MEMo, July 27, 2023): click here!

  Israeli forces raided Palestinian farmland in occupied Hebron with bulldozers and poured concrete into the water sources to stop agricultural irrigation in an area that serves 25 families.

• Ramzy BAROUD: « The Resistance vs. the Palestinian Authority: Will Abbas lead Palestinians to civil war? » (MEMo, July 17, 2023): click here!

  This is the perfect opportunity for Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to exit the stage. But he will not. Abbas' brief visit to the devastated Jenin refugee camp in the northern Occupied West Bank on 12 July demonstrated the absurdity and danger of the PA and its 87-year-old leader.

• Ramzy BAROUD: « Jenin is Just the Start: A New Generation of Palestinians Has Finally Buried the Ghosts of the Past » (Mint Press, July 14, 2023): click here!

  The deadly Israeli invasion of Jenin on July 3 was not a surprise. Also unsurprising is the fact that the killing of 12 Palestinians, wounding of 120 more and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of the Jenin Refugee Camp’s homes and infrastructure will not make an iota of a difference. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his lofty promises of destroying the “safe haven... of the terrorist enclave in Jenin”, must have known that his bloody exercise was ultimately futile.

• Vera SAJRAWI: « Amid Jenin destruction, Palestinians mobilize with acts of solidarity » (+972, July 13, 2023): click here!

  Palestinians opened their homes, donated supplies, and volunteered to clean up for families after Israel’s invasion of Jenin refugee camp.

• Leila WARAH: « West Bank: Armed Palestinian resistance building in refugee camps over Israeli raids » (Middle East Eye, June 24, 2023): click here!

  Nur Shams in Tulkarem is the latest refugee camp to form brigades as Israeli incursions become a regular feature in Palestinians' lives.

• Ofer ADERET: « Israel Poisoned Palestinian Land to Build West Bank Settlement in 1970s, Documents Reveal » (Haaretz, June 23, 2023): click here!

  A new, publicly accessible archival project shows the inner workings of the Israeli government and military during the early years of the settlement enterprise. ─ Even half a century later, reading minutes from the Israel Defense Forces' Judea and Samaria Division discussions is difficult. Each step in the establishment of a West Bank settlement is cataloged, step by step, from planning to execution. The first step was dispossessing residents of the nearby Palestinian village of their land under the false pretext of making it a military training zone...

• Ramzy BAROUD: « A Man Without a Strategy: How Netanyahu is Provoking Armed Intifada in the West Bank » (Politics For The People, June 31, 2023): click here!

  For Netanyahu, the frequent deadly raids on Palestinian towns and refugee camps translate into political assets that allow him to keep his extremist supporters happy. But this is short-term thinking.

• Naomi SUSSMANN: « Occupation is what drives Israel’s anti-democratic forces » (Times of Israel, June 21, 2023): click here!

  Without addressing 56 years of undemocratic practices used to control Palestinians and expand settlements, the protest can't win.

• Mohammed SAMAANA: "Mohammed Al Tamimi, Age 2: The Latest Victim of Israeli Apartheid Toward Palestinians" (Informed Comment, June 12, 2023): click here!

  Belfast (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Like any other toddler in the world, two and a half years old Palestinian toddler Mohammed Altamimi was with his father in the car at their home entrance in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. All was normal until the Israeli army opened fire at their car. Both were injured but Mohammed was more seriously wounded than his father, since he was hit in the head. He died a few days later in hospital.

• Amira HASS: " Israeli Settlers Allowed to Live in West Bank Firing Zone After Palestinians Were Evacuated" (Haaretz, June 2, 2023): click here!

  Via Jewish Voice for Labour (June 12, 2023): "The occupation entrenches itself deep in Palestinian lands," click here!

• Manal Totry JUBRAN: "The Palestinian Flag Litmus Test for Israel's Democratic Protesters" Haaretz, June 1, 2023): click here!
• Juan COLE: "Smotrich Plans to Send 500k further Israeli Squatters in to Steal More Palestinian Land in West Bank" (Informed Comment, May 20, 2023): click here!

  Yaniv Kubovich and Ben Samuels at Haaretz report that far-right extremist Bezalel Smotrich is preparing to send in another half-million Israeli squatters to steal Palestinian land in the West Bank. Smotrich is the leader of the Religious Zionism bloc in parliament and the finance minister in the Netanyahu cabinet, who also was given responsibility for the Palestinian West Bank.

• Bethan McKERNAN: "A precious resource: how Israel uses water to control the West Bank" (The Guardian, May 17, 2023): click here!

  In occupied West Bank villages, Israeli-owned farms are flourishing, while Palestinians often do not have enough water to drink.

• Amnesty International: « Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories: Automated Apartheid: How facial recognition fragments, segregates and controls Palestinians in the OPT » (AI, May 2, 2023): click here!

  In this report, Amnesty International explores how facial recognition technology is used extensively by the Israeli authorities to support their continued domination and oppression of Palestinians in the OPT. With a record of discriminatory and inhuman acts that maintain a system of apartheid, the Israeli authorities are able to use facial recognition software – in particular at checkpoints – to consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing, segregation, and curbing freedom of movement, violating Palestinians’ basic rights.

• Mariam BARGHOUTI: "Portrait of a grieving father: Amin Khazem mourns his son and resistance fighter, Nidal" (Mondoweiss, April 19, 2023): click here!

  In October, Mariam Barghouti interviewed Palestinian resistance fighter Nidal Khazem. Six months later after Israeli forces assassinated him, Barghouti returned to interview his father and share a previously unheard recording of her interview with Nidal.

• Dana FARRAJ: "Dismantling Abbas’s Rule over the Palestinian Judiciary" (Al-Shabaka, April 19, 2023): click here!

  In October 2022, PA President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree ordering the establishment of the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies and Authorities that he would head. Through this and other decrees, Abbas and the ruling elite entrench the domination of the executive authority over the judiciary. Al-Shabaka policy analyst Dana Farraj examines these decrees and offers recommendations for confronting them.

• Basel ADRA: "Defying PA repression, Palestinian teachers lead biggest strike in years" (+972, April 18, 2023): click here!

  Amid an economic crisis caused by Israeli policies and PA corruption, teachers are bringing schools and streets to a standstill until their demands are met.

• Walid HABBAS: « Shrinking the Conflict: Debunking Israel’s New Strategy » (Al-Shabaka, March 6, 2023): click here!

  Since 2021, Israeli leaders have proposed a new series of economic policies under the approach of “shrinking the conflict.” This strategy aims to afford Palestinians more economic opportunities and so-called freedoms as a way to sustain the Israeli occupation. In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka policy analyst Walid Habbas debunks the framework and explains why Palestinians will not be pacified with economic incentives.

• SAMIDOUN: « Revolutionary intellectual and freedom fighter: The living legacy of Basil al-Araj » (Samidoun, March 6, 2023): click here!

  On the sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of Basil Al-Araj, Palestinian revolutionary intellectual, youth leader and freedom fighter who resisted the occupation until the last moment, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes his living legacy of struggle and resistance that continues to blossom everywhere Palestinians, Arabs and internationals mobilize to seek liberation. He exemplified the integrated approach to resistance, engaging in boycott mobilization and armed struggle, producing thought and intellectual engagement while directly participating in the liberation struggle.

• B'TSELEM: « The Occupied Territories in 2022: largest number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the West Bank since 2004 » (B'Tselem, Open-Fire policy, Jan 8, 2023 ): click here!

  Palestinians killed: In the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Israeli forces killed 146 Palestinians – the largest number since 2004. Among the persons killed were five women and 34 minors, the youngest of them 12 years old; seven were 50 or older, and the eldest was 78 years old...

• Philip WEISS: « Attention must be paid – to the noble death of Harun Abu Aram » (Mondoweiss, February 19, 2023 ): click here!

  One of the greatest lines in western culture is the cry “Attention must be paid!” at the end of “Death of a Salesman.” Willie Loman’s wife demands on his grave that the world acknowledge the injustice Loman suffered– and playwright Arthur Miller made sure that the world paid attention to his embodiment of working-class dignity.

• Adam RAZ: « How Israel Used Flags to Assert Its Rule Over the Palestinians » (Haaretz, February 17, 2023): click here!

  Historical documents expose the abysmal seriousness that Israel devoted to flag waving by Palestinians, and no less to the hoisting of the Israeli flag.

• Mohammed SABER: « "Why the violence between Israel and the Palestinians may be entering a devastating new phase" (The Conversation, February 1, 2023): click here!

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rushed to the Middle East this week to make yet another push for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians following yet another dramatic escalation in violence between the two sides.

• Yaniv KUBOVITCH: « "West Bank IDF Commander Distributed Book to Subordinates on ‘Redeeming the Land’" (Haaretz, February 6, 2023): click here!

  Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth gave his brigade commanders 'Ours in Tabu: The Secrets of Land Redeemers From Our Father Abraham to the Young Settlements' saying it would help them better understand the status of the land.

• Amjad IRAQI: « "The myth of the ‘cycle of violence’" (+972, January 31, 2023): click here!

  Palestinians spotlight Israeli brutality to demand an end to their oppression; Israelis spotlight Palestinian violence to justify that oppression.

• Al Mezan Center for Human Rights: "Israeli District Court rejects Al Mezan’s petition against the use of plastic ties on Palestinian detainees " (press release January 15, 2023): click here!

  In just the first few days of the new year, Israel killed four Palestinians, including three children.

• OCHA: « The humanitarian impact of 20 years of the Barrier - December 2022 »  (30 December 2022): click here!
• Al Mezan Center for Human Rights: "Al Mezan expresses alarm over latest arbitrary measures imposed by new Israeli government against Palestinian detainees" (press release January 10, 2023): click here!

  Al Mezan Center for Human Rights notes with deep concern the new arbitrary measures implemented by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) against Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody. As part of these measures, around 70 Palestinian detainees were transferred from their solitary confinement cell in Hadarim prison to another solitary cell in the notorious Nafha prison, which is considered one of the harshest and most severe of the occupation prisons. This move came after the newly appointed Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited Nafha on Thursday, 5 January 2023.

• Tamara NASSAR, "Israel kills three children as 2023 dawns" (The Electronic Intifada, 5 January, 2023): click here!

  In just the first few days of the new year, Israel killed four Palestinians, including three children.

• Emad MOUSSA, "Palestine: The Fatah ship is sinking fast. Elections must be held now" (Middle East Eye, Jan 2, 2023): click here!

  Under Mahmoud Abbas, the once-revolutionary movement has been reduced to an internally fractured authority happy to maintain the status quo.

• Hurriyah ZIADA, "After 40 years in Israeli prison, Kareem Younis will soon be free. This is how he survived" (Mondoweiss, Dec 30, 2022): click here!

  To endure interrogation, Palestinian political prisoners embody steadfastness. To endure prison life, steadfastness becomes a battle over time.

• Zena AL TAHHAN & Maram HUMAID, "Six major developments that shaped 2022 for Palestinians" (Al Jazeera, Dec 26, 2022): click here!

  The UN called 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 16 years. Here are some of the year’s most important events.

• Daoud KUTTAB, "Will this be Abbas' last Christmas at Bethlehem’s midnight mass? " (Al-Monitor, Palestine Briefing, Dec 20, 2022): click here!

  Ever since Yasser Arafat and other PLO officials returned to Palestine, the one event that Palestinian leaders never miss is the midnight mass at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. The Catholic mass on Dec. 24 — not to be confused with the Orthodox mass on Jan. 6 or the Armenian one on Jan. 18 — is broadcast around the world.

• Juan COLE: "2022 was Deadliest Year for Palestinians under Occupation on Record, with 153 Killed by Israeli Forces, Squatters: UN" (Informed Comment, 17 Dec, 2022): click here!

  The UN Officer of the High Commissioner on Human Rights has issued a press release detailing the views of its experts on the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians during the past year, which they say has seen the worst death rate among the Occupied population since the organization began systematically tracking fatalities in 2005.

• Amira HASS: "Internal Documents Reveal Israeli Settlers' Dedication to Ousting ‘Arabs’ From West Bank" (Haaretz, Dec 12, 2022): click here!

  An internal Civil Administration document, in the form of a map and Excel spreadsheet, shows the close cooperation of state and settlers in dispossessing Palestinians.

• Mariam BARGHOUTI, "Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigader" (Mondoweiss, 8 Nov, 2022): click here!

  Jenin refugee camp has been turned into a "liberated area" by armed resistance factions. Now the resistance hopes the Jenin model will spread to other parts of the West Bank.

• Awdah HATHALEEN: "In Masafer Yatta, teachers like me can’t guarantee our students an education" (+972, Nov 15, 2022): click here!

  With schools facing demolition orders and soldiers detaining students and teachers for hours, obstacles to education are becoming insurmountable.

• Maureen Clare MURPHY, "Rights group urges ICC to investigate “top-ranking” Israeli military lawyer" (The Electronic Intifada, 1 Nov, 2022): click here!

  A US-based human rights group filed a complaint on Monday calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate Eyal Toledano, a senior Israeli military leader. Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a nonprofit group founded by murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, said that Toledano should be investigated for “war crimes and crime against humanity, including the crime of apartheid.”

• Oren ZIV & Meron RAPOPORT, "Why are Israeli soldiers harvesting Palestinians’ olive groves?" (+972, Oct 19, 2022): click here!

  Soldiers were seen picking the trees after receiving permission from a settler group. When Palestinians went to harvest the next day, police prevented them.

• Faris GIACAMAN, "The battle approaches" (Mondoweiss, Oct 14, 2022): click here!

  The current moment of resistance across the West Bank is unprecedented. Palestinians are returning to a state of refusal of the settler-colonial reality some would have them ignore.

• Ali ABUNIMAH & Maureen Clare MURPHY, "’Is Palestine on the brink of a full-scale revolt? " (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 14, 2022): click here!

  Events in the occupied West Bank over the past week indicate that the Palestinian liberation struggle, and Israel’s efforts to repress it with with brutal violence, have entered a new phase. In this looming scenario, the formerly extremist fringe settlers see themselves represented at the top levels of Israeli government, emboldened and beyond the restraint of the army.

• Yumna PATEL, "’24 hours of hell’: Israeli settler gangs terrorize Palestinian town under army protection " (Mondoweiss, Oct 14, 2022): click here!

  Huwwara has been under near constant attack since Thursday afternoon, when groups of armed settlers began attacking several points in the town as they were escorted and enabled by the Israeli army. .

• Hadeel AL GHERBAWI, "No rest in Gaza, even for the dead " (Al-Monitor, Oct 11, 2022): click here!

  Residents in the Gaza Strip are struggling to find graves to bury their dead.

• Amira HASS: "When Terrorizing Is Intentional" (Haaretz, Oct 10, 2022): click here!

  The website of the Home Front Command says that an earthquake or a missile attack can cause a panic attack, fainting or even a heart attack. That is, even without being injured physically, fear and terror can have clear physical manifestations.

• Haaretz Editorial, "Stop the Killings in the West Bank" (Haaretz, Oct 9, 2022): click here!

  Four people, three of them teenagers, were killed by the Israel Defense Forces over the weekend, and the near-daily killing in the West Bank continues at full force.

• Sewar ELEJLA, "Inside Gaza’s looming mental health crisis" (Mondoweiss, Oct 6, 2022): click here!

  In light of the mental health crisis affecting nearly everyone in Gaza, including medical staff, how long can resilience and steadfastness last?

• Ameer MAKHOUL: "Private militia and remote policing: Israel is ramping up repression of the Palestinians" (MEE, Oct 4, 2022): click here!

  Recent steps by Israeli authorities on both sides of the Green Line point to a coordinated divide-and-conquer strategy.

• +Amira HASS: "The Real Escalation Is the Destruction of Palestinian Space" (Haaretz, Oct 3, 2022): click here!

  Through its conduct since Oslo, Israel has proven what the Palestinians have claimed for more than 100 years – that the goal of Zionism is to dispossess and expel them from their homeland.

• Jack MUKAND, "A year on, Nizar Banat’s killing sheds light on PA corruption, but justice is on hold" (TOI, Oct 3, 2022): click here!

  The activist’s criticism of Palestinian graft and Israel’s role in propping it up made him a target. His alleged PA killers may go free. Could his death be a catalyst for change?

• Amira HASS, "The Real Escalation Is the Destruction of Palestinian Space" (Haaretz, Oct 3, 2022): click here!

  Through its conduct since Oslo, Israel has proven what the Palestinians have claimed for more than 100 years – that the goal of Zionism is to dispossess and expel them from their homeland.

• Ahmad MELHEM, "Israel escalates raids on Palestinian armed groups in West Bank" (Al-Monitor, Oct 3, 2022): click here!

  The security situation in the West Bank continues to worsen as Israel escalates its raids and assassinations inside cities and armed factions retaliate.

• Bethan McKERNAN and Quique KIERSZENBAUM, "‘Every day is worse than the one before’: a Palestinian community fights for survival" (Guardian, Sept 28, 2022): click here!

  One of the biggest expulsion decisions since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories began in 1967 has left an entire community at risk.

• Omar H.RAHMAN, “Why Israel’s plan of subcontracting the occupation is failing” (+972, Sept 27, 2022): click here!

  Rare confrontations in Nablus last week show how the Palestinian Authority, backed by a discordant Israeli policy, has lost legitimacy among its people.

• Ayelett SHANI: « 'I Don't See a Hunger Strike as a Choice. The Occupation Forced It on Them' » (Haaretz, Sept 24, 2022): click here!

  Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan, chairwoman of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, treats Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strikes. She has a bone to pick with her colleagues here.

• "Israel Quickly Advancing Plans to Build Har Gilo West Settlement to Encircle Al-Walaja" (FMEP's Settlement & Annexation Report: Sept 16, 2022): click here!

  Israel is rapidly accelerating the planning of the Har Gilo West settlement, located on geopolitically very sensitive – land on Jerusalem’s southern border. First, on September 11, the Israeli High Planning Council approved a plan to widen a road leading to the Har Gilo settlement, a road that is integral to the planning of the new Har Gilo West settlement.

• Tareq S. HAJJAJ, "The Gaza blockade didn’t begin in 2007" (Mondoweiss, Sept 10, 2022): click here!

  While 2022 marks 15 years since the siege of Gaza officially began, the strangling of the Gaza Strip by the Zionist state started long before that.

• Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC): "International Community Must Take Prompt and Concrete Measures to Halt Israel’s New Procedure for Entry and Residence of Foreigners in the West Bank" (Al Mezan, 8 Sept, 2022): click here!

  The Israeli occupying authorities have imposed further restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals and Palestinians who hold foreign passports and wish to work, volunteer, join their Palestinian family members or act in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the oPt. The constraints of the new procedure, which was published on 4 September 2022 and will enter into force on 20 October 2022, also apply to foreign nationals whose work requires that they stay for any length of time in the West Bank (excluding occupied Jerusalem).

• Yumna PATEL: "One Palestinian killed, over a dozen wounded during military operation in Jenin” (Mondoweiss, Sept 6, 2022): click here!

  Hundreds of Israeli soldiers raided the city in an operation to destroy the home of Raad Hazem, a 28-year-old Palestinian from Jenin who carried out a shooting attack in Tel Aviv earlier this year that killed three people.

• +Hagar SHEZAF, "Israel Moves to Legalize Dozens of West Bank Farm Outposts" (Haaretz, Sept 5, 2022): click here!

  Israeli authorities refrain from enforcing demolition orders issued against the farm outposts, which are extremely common across the West Bank and take over large swaths of land.

• Gisha: "At All Costs" (GISHA, Sept 1, 2022): click here!

  Israel lifted its blanket ban on access by Gaza workers to manual labor jobs in Israel, but continues to treat permits for Palestinians from Gaza as bargaining chips that can be denied at whim, violating its legal obligations towards residents of the Strip and infringing on fundamental rights.

• Nir HASSON: "Families of Palestinian Activists Denied Health Rights Based on Information From Shin Bet" ( Haaretz, Aug 30, 2022): click here!

  National Insurance Institute revoked rights from 20 families, ordered to pay one family compensation.

• Yasmin ABUSAYMA: "Years have passed and we still live in the camp" (The Electronic Intifada, Aug 26 , 2022): click here!

  In 2001, when I was six, I attended my first UNRWA school, the Gaza Elementary School. The walls of the school were painted blue and white to match the logo of the UN agency for Palestine refugees. My uniform, a dress, had similar blue and white pinstripes.

• Vera SAJRAWI: "‘Palestinians handle trauma better when we struggle together to survive’" ( +972, Aug 25, 2022): click here!

  During the May 2021 uprising, Asrar Kayyal was part of a network of psychologists supporting Palestinian victims of Israeli violence and their families. She talks with +972 about the myriad traumas Palestinians endure.

• Awdah AtHALEEN: "An hour and 22 years away: Visiting Jerusalem from the West Bank’" ( +972, Aug 15, 2022): click here!

  Israel's permit regime can make it near-impossible for Palestinians in the West Bank to enter Jerusalem. But after waiting my entire life, I finally made it.

• Judy MALTZ: "‘It Can Be Different’: When Israeli and Palestinian Kids Spend a Rare Day Together" (Haaretz, August 3, 2022): click here!

  About 150 Jewish and Arab moms and kids from across Israel and the West Bank met in Tel Aviv on Tuesday – many of the youngsters swimming in the sea for the first time.

• Sheren Falah SAABI: "Techno, Parties and the Occupation: The Gap Between Young Palestinians and Their Parents" (Haaretz, June 12, 2022): click here!

  In ‘Not Here, Not There’ author Michael Milshtein describes young Palestinians' catch-22.

• Aaron BOXERMAN: "Losing battle with IDF, Palestinians in firing zone face largest expulsion since ’67" (Times of Israel, Aug 12 , 2022): click here!
• Amjad IRAQI: "Palestinian Resistance Tore Down the Green Line Long Ago" (The Nation, Aug 10 , 2022): click here!

  Despite their physical dispersal, the Palestinian people have never been more connected.

• Meron RAPOPORTI: "The Line Separating Israel From Palestine Has Been Erased—What Comes Next?" (The Nation, Aug 10 , 2022): click here!

  For 55 years, the Green Line has shut down our political imagination. Its disappearance gives us a chance to do things differently.

• Press Release: "On the third day of its offensive against Gaza, Israel intensifies attacks and destroys houses without warning" (Al Mezan, 7 Aug , 2022): click here!

  Al Mezan’s documentation shows that Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Strip have so far resulted in the death of 31 Palestinians—including six children and four women—and the injury of 228 others—including 90 children and 33 women. Meanwhile, Gaza crossings remained closed for the sixth consecutive day, leading Gaza’s only power plant to shut down due to the lack of fuel, significant shortages in food and medicine, and increased deterioration of humanitarian conditions.

• "Gaza Under Attack: August 5-8, 2022. Rolling updates on Israel's military offensive and the immediate implications for the lives and health of Palestinians in Gaza" (GISHA, Aug 8, 2022): click here!

  The Gaza Ministry of Health reports 44 people were killed in the Strip since Friday, including 15 children, and 360 were injured. The Gaza Housing Ministry reported 1,675 housing units were damaged, 71 of them to the point that they are no longer inhabitable. Dozens of families are internally displaced.

• Haaretz Editorial: "Jewish National Fund Whitewashes Theft of Palestinian Lands" (Haaretz, Aug 4, 2022): click here!

  If Israel wants to live and thrive, basic change is needed, including the dismantling of national institutions like the JNF. Meanwhile, one can only hope the board does not have a majority in favor of this deal, which would whitewash the theft. We also hope that the court will order the ministry to revoke the order, remove the settlers from the land and return it to its Palestinian owners.

• Ramzy BAROUD, "Why Resistance Matters: Palestinians are Challenging Israel’s Unilateralism, Dominance" (The Palestine Chronicle, Aug 3, 2022): click here!.

  Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides. Now that Israelis are embarking on their fifth election in less than four years, it is important to raise the question: “How do Palestine and the Palestinians factor in Israeli politics?”

• « Press Release: As Israeli authorities close Erez and Karem Abu Salem crossings, Al Mezan warns of deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza» (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, p.r. August 3, 2022): click here!

  On Tuesday morning, 2 August 2022, Israeli authorities unexpectedly closed both Erez and Karem Abu Salem crossings. Al Mezan is particularly concerned about the repercussions brought about by this decision, which will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

• Basil FARRAJ: "The Prison Intifada: Supporting Palestinian Administrative Detainees" (Al-Shabaka, Aug 2, 2022): click here!

  Administrative detention is central to the Israeli regime’s attempts to suppress Palestinian mobilization. Al-Shabaka policy analyst Basil Farraj shows how Palestinian administrative detainees have continuously resisted this policy and demanded an end to its widespread and arbitrary use. He offers recommendations to Palestinian civil society organizations, national stakeholders, and solidarity groups for how to support the ongoing Palestinian prison intifada.

• Hagar SHEZAF: « Israeli Vets Say Denying Palestinians Permits Used to Suppress Hunger Strikes » (Haaretz, August 2, 2022): click here!

  Soldiers who served in the Civil Administration also told left-wing human rights monitor Breaking the Silence that West Bank settlers are directly involved in shaping its policy.

• Basil ADRAA & Yuval ABRAHAM: « Settlers bulldoze shuttered Palestinian stores in Hebron’s Old City» (+972, August 1, 2022): click here!

  For two decades, settlers have looted and burned Palestinian shops closed by the Israeli army. Now, they’re knocking them down to expand a settlement.

• Hagar SHEZAF & Jonathan LIS: « 60 Palestinians Killed by Israeli Forces in First Half of 2022, Nearly as Many as All of 2021 » (Haaretz, July 13, 2022): click here!

  Of the 60 cases where Palestinians were killed in incidents involving the IDF and Border Police in the West Bank, 16 are currently being investigated by the Military Police. There were 70 such deaths last year and 20 in 2019.

• Amira HASS: « ‘How to Chase Palestinians Off Their Land » (Haaretz, July 12, 2022): click here!

  Residents from ten Israeli shepherd outposts north of Ramallah found a formula that works: attack Palestinians, then claim you were attacked first.

• MAP: « “Some women have had to deliver their babies on the side of the road”: Israel’s restrictions on accessing healthcare in Salfit » (Medical Aid for Palestine, July 8, 2022): click here!

  Surrounded by 24 illegal Israeli settlements in the northwest of the occupied West Bank, lies Salfit Governorate. With a population of 82,000, it is the only area of the West Bank where the number of Israeli settlers – more than 100,000 – outweighs the number of Palestinians. Salfit is also located next to the fourth largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank: Ariel.

• Oren ZIV: « ‘Same agenda, just more subtle’: Bennett-Lapid government’s first year in numbers » (+972, June 19, 2022): click here!

  New figures show surge in killings of West Bank Palestinians and no drop in demolitions during the first 12 months of the ‘government of change.’

• Fatima ABDULKARIM: « A walk through Israel’s ever-evolving checkpoint regime » (+972, June 3, 2022): click here!

  The Erez Crossing into Gaza brought back memories of how, from Allenby to Qalandiya, Israel is constantly redesigning its structures of domination.

• Basil AL-ADRAA: "Hamas’ landslide student election win marks major shift in Palestinian politics" (+972, May 31, 2022): click here!

  The Islamist movement's stunning victory in Birzeit University’s student union vote reflects growing discontent with the West Bank's ruling Fatah party. - The annual elections at Birzeit are widely regarded as a reflection of the broader political mood in the Palestinian street in the occupied West Bank. The university did not hold elections for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making this the first round since 2019. Out of around 12,500 students at the university, four out of five voted in the latest elections, held on May 18, with the voter turnout similar to the rounds in previous years.

• Ali AWAD : « To exact ‘revenge,’ Israeli settlers wreaked havoc in my village » (+972, April 4, 2022): click here!

  Settlers attacked Tuba the day after the Bnei Brak shooting, with soldiers doing nothing to stop them. This is the constant state of terror we live under.

• Ali AWAD and Awdah HATHALEEN: «When an Israeli chicken farm has more rights than a Palestinian village» (+972, March 10, 2022): click here!

  From expropriating our land to poisoning our agriculture, settlement farms serve Israel's goal of forcing us out of our homes in the South Hebron Hills.

• Herman DE LEY: « “The Land of Checkpoints." Israëls Apartheidsregime in de West Bank » (BACBI-Dossier Nr. 5, maart 2022, pdf, 71 blz.): click here!
• Austin AHLMAN: «Israel Surpasses 1,000 Demolitions in the Occupied West Bank Since Joe Biden Took Office» (The Intercept, Feb 25, 2022): click here!

  While the U.S. president refuses to condition military aid, Israel has toppled more than twice as many Palestinian structures in the West Bank than it had by this point in Trump’s term.

• Ali Abo REZEG: «Why is popular resistance in the occupied West Bank increasing?» (MEMo, Jan 4, 2022): click here!

  From expropriating our land to poisoning our agriculture, settlement farms serve Israel's goal of forcing us out of our homes in the South Hebron Hills.

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: «A Short Drive From Tel Aviv, Hundreds Live Without Power or Water» (Haaretz, Aug 19, 2021): click here!

  The blistering heat hasn't stopped Israel from abusing Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley and destroying their property and meager livelihoods. This week the authorities confiscated precious solar panels, decimated dirt roads and uprooted groves there.

• Mohammed NAJIB: " "Palestine runs dry: ‘Our water they steal and sell to us’" (Al Jazeera, July 15, 2021): click here!

  Israeli authorities refuse to grant licenses to Palestinian water authorities to operate freely in areas under complete Israeli security control.

• Aziza NOFAL: "Israel denies travel to Palestinian newborns" (Al-Monitor, Aug 17, 2020): click here!

  To pressure Palestinians and force them to back down from their decision to stop security coordination, Israel is refusing to recognize more than 24,000 Palestinian newborns while preventing their movement through crossings as well as their travel abroad.

• Khaled BARAKAT: "Uphold Palestinian struggle in all its forms" (The Internet Intifada, Aug 13, 2020): click here!

  Fifty years ago, Palestinian intellectual Ghassan Kanafani put forward a clear position about the boycott of Israel. Kanafani was, at the time, not only an esteemed novelist and short story writer. He was also one of the leading spokespeople of the Palestinian armed revolution, representing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine... His own life reflected a complementary approach to Palestinian resistance: armed struggle, cultural work, international solidarity and boycott activity flowing together toward the goals of justice, liberation and return.

• Hagar SHEZAF: "Israel plans new Jewish neighborhood in Hebron’s Arab market" (Haaretz, Dec 1, 2019): click here!

  Bennett announces new neighborhood to replace West Bank city's shuttered market.

• Maureen Clare MURPHY: "No justifying Israel’s bloodshed in Gaza" (The Electronic Intifada, Nov 14, 2019)): click here!

  Israel triggered this latest voluntary confrontation in Gaza by firing a missile into the home of an Islamic Jihad military commander early Tuesday, killing him and his wife. Gaza’s Health ministry stated that Israeli forces killed 34 Palestinians during the fighting, nearly half of them civilians, including eight children and three women. No Israeli fatalities were reported.

• Nir HASSON: "340 Arrests and Only Five Indictments: Summer-long Police Sweep Strikes Fear in Isawiyah" (Haaretz, Aug 28, 2019)): click here!

  Most of those arrested in East Jerusalem neighborhood were released shortly after, and police declines to provide data challenging figures.

• Ben WHITE: "Are new Palestinian construction permits paving the way for annexation?" (MEE, Aug 19, 2019)): click here!

  Israel's decision to approve 715 housing units in Palestinian towns could be a token gesture, or preparation for a broader takeover of West Bank land.

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: "In the Dead of Night, By Brute Force IDF Raids in West Bank Show How Occupation Becomes Routine" (Haaretz, Dec 12, 2018): click here!

  There’s barely a Palestinian family that isn’t familiar with this practice. Israelis don’t get abducted from their homes. This is a feature of the apartheid system.

• Megan GIOVANNETTI: "'They have punished the victims': Hebron struggles 25 years after Ibrahimi mosque massacre" (Middle East Eye, Feb 25, 2019): click here!

  The repercussions of the attack are still felt keenly by Palestinians in Hebron, who have seen their rights eroded and their formerly bustling city centre turn into a ghost town.

• "Protect the Palestinian Village of Al-Mughayyir" (Haaretz Edit. Jan 27, 2019): click here!

  Village residents, like most Palestinians living under the occupation, rightly feel there is no one to defend them and no one to secure their property.

• Gideon LEVY, "In Land of Illegal Outposts and Hate Crimes, Another Palestinian Life Claimed" (Haaretz, Jan 27, 2019): click here!

  Palestinian residents of a West Bank village are being targeted by hate crimes coming from two nearby Jewish outposts.

• Gideon LEVY, "Welcome to the Palestine Circus" (Haaretz, Jan 27, 2019): click here!

  The Israeli trainer and his Qatari and Egyptian assistants throw a few bones, and the caged animal in Gaza surrenders.

• Edo KONRAD, "Israel's permit regime isn't about security, it's about segregation" (+972, Jan 9, 2019): click here!

  The permit system for Palestinians allows Israel to recruit informants, suppress political activity, and create an opaque system of segregation and control. Just don't say it's about security, says Yael Berda. The image should be familiar to every person with even the slightest bit of knowledge about Palestine.

• Haidar EID, “On the 10th anniversary of ‘Cast Lead’ — Palestine’s Sharpeville massacre” (Mondoweiss, Dec 27, 2018): click here!

  This week marks the 10th anniversary of the horror inflicted on the people of the Gaza Strip when Israeli war planes launched massive airstrikes on the besieged strip. Nothing has changed! To add insult to injury, and because the so-called “International Community” did absolutely nothing to put an end to Israel’s war crimes, the latter repeated the attacks in 2012 and in 2014 killing more than 4,000 civilians and injuring tens of thousands.

• "Investigate and Prosecute Pillage, Appropriation and Destruction of Palestinian Natural Resources” (Al-Mezan press release, Oct 26, 2018): click here! Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Submit File to ICC Prosecutor.
• Zena AGHA, “Israel’s Annexation Crusade in Jerusalem: The Role of Ma’ale Adumim and the E1 Corridor” (Al-Shabaka, March 26, 2018): click here!

  In recent months, Israel has made a series of relentless attempts to annex settlements bordering Jerusalem. Buoyed by Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Benjamin Netanyahu government has brazenly presented a slew of plans, resolutions, and bills toward this goal. Israeli politicians, administrators, and planners have also approved thousands of housing units…

• Omar KARMI, “Gaza in a vice” (EI, Feb 13, 2018): click here!

  A US decision to cut funding for the UN’s Relief and Works Agency, the body that caters to Palestinian refugees who in Gaza number 1.3 million or some two-thirds of the population, could push the situation there over the brink.

• Haaretz Editorial: "Hysteria in Military Court” (Haaretz, Jan 19, 2018): click here!

  This unacceptable proceeding doesn’t restore the honor of the IDF or the soldiers involved in the incident…

• Haaretz Editorial: "Stop the Evictions”, (Haaretz, Nov 13, 2017): click here!

  New eviction orders for Palestinians in Jordan Valley 'only' affect 'unauthorized buildings,' but what are the shepherds in the designated area supposed to do?

• Amira HASS: "On the Margins of the Murder”, (Haaretz, Nov 12, 2017): click here!
• Amira HASS: "“The chained jailers of Gaza””, (Haaretz, Nov 7, 2017): click here!

  Israelis refuse to comprehend that Gaza is a huge prison, and that we are the wardens.

• Rasha ABOU JALAL: "Why hasn't Abbas lifted sanctions on Gaza?”, (Al Monitor, Nov 3, 2017): click here!

  Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are outraged that sanctions against Gaza remain in place despite the reconciliation agreement signed Oct. 12 by Fatah and Hamas in Cairo.

• "After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the Roads Not Taken”, by Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, Rashid Khalidi, Najwa al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, Jaber Suleiman, Nadia Hijab on (Al Shabaka, Oct 31, 2017): click here!

  Could history have taken a different trajectory? Were there points during the past century at which the Palestinians could have influenced the course of events in a different direction?

• Sam BAHOUR: "One almighty military order and 49 dead Palestinians" (+972, Oct 29, 2017): click here!

  Sixty years on, the Kafr Qasim massacre is a stark reminder of the buried past of the world’s ‘most moral army.’

• "Demolition and seizure of service infrastructure in Palestinian communities in Area C exacerbates risk of forcible transfer" (OCHA, Oct 11, 2017): click here!

  The targeting of key service infrastructure in already vulnerable communities in Area C in recent months has exacerbated the coercive environment and places residents at risk of forcible transfer. In August, on the eve of the new school year, the Israeli authorities requisitioned nine educational-related structures serving 170 children in three such communities.

• Mariam BARGHOUTI: "Palestinian Women Are Harassed And Humiliated At Checkpoints. Here Are A Few Of Their Stories" (EI, Oct 6, 2017): click here!

  Since 1967, about 40% of the Palestinian male population has been detained by Israel. With their men in jail, Palestinian women are left to continue surviving and ensuring the well-being of their families. From confronting increased Israeli violations to earning a living while also being caregivers, Palestinian women have had to pick up twice the weight, while living under the pressures of Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank.

• Omar KARMI: "Has Palestinian unity finally arrived?" (EI, Oct 6, 2017): click here!

  Until June, Palestinian politics seemed deadlocked, with no prospect of unity, no progress with Israel and no hope for Gaza. Then, two initiatives, both involving Hamas, and the latest promising a breakthrough on reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, came along right after each other.

• Haaretz Editorial, “The Cruelty of Israel's Defense Minister" (Haaretz, Oct 3, 2017): click here!

  Collective punishment has never been proven as an effective deterrent of additional terror attacks. On the contrary: It usually only fuels the violence.

• Barak RAVID, “Netanyahu Slams Palestinian Unity: We Won't Accept Reconciliation at the Expense of Israel's Existence" (Haaretz, Oct 3, 2017): click here!

  Reconciliation efforts must account for recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, dismantling Hamas' military wing and cutting ties with Iran, PM says.

• Peter BEAUMONT, “Netanyahu backs annexation of 19 West Bank settlements" (The Guardian, Oct 3, 2017): click here!

  Israeli PM’s support of bill to bring Jewish areas into Greater Jerusalem shows refusal to revive peace process, say Palestinians.

• “Israel to impose 11-day closure on West Bank, Gaza for Jewish holiday" (Ma'an, Oct 3, 2017): click here!

  Israeli authorities will completely seal off the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip for 11 consecutive days over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when only humanitarian, medical, and exceptional cases will be allowed to exit or enter the territories, according to Israeli media reports.

• Amos HAREL, “Israel Announces Extended, 11-day Closure of West Bank, Gaza for Jewish Holiday" (Haaretz, Oct 1, 2017): click here!

  Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman cited an attack at a settlement last week, in which three Israelis were killed, in ordering the unusually long closure.

• Jack KHOURY, “Palestinian Government to Convene in Gaza for First Time in Years as Hamas, Fatah Work to Bury Hatchet" (Haaretz, Sept 25, 2017): click here!

  Palestinian sources confirm Hamas and Fatah leaders will discuss all issues related to governing Gaza, including control over border crossings.

• Cattlyn ASHLEY, “Drowning in the waste of Israeli settlers" (Al-Jazeera, Sept 18, 2017): click here!

  Some 19 million cubic metres of wastewater from Israeli settlements flows through the occupied West Bank each year.

• Ludo DE BRABANDER, “Gaza wordt in onderontwikkeling geduwd" (Vrede.be, Sept 15, 2017): click here!

  Met twee medewerkers van Vrede vzw namen we deel aan een missie in Gaza van de Nederlandse Stichting Kifaia. Wat volgt zijn enkele algemene indrukken, vaststellingen en politieke conclusies.

• Aziza NOFAL, “Lack of public schools in Ramallah fuels boom in private education" (Al-Monitor, Sept 7, 2017): click here!

  The family of first-grader Jalaluddin Abdul Hadi was still hunting for schools a week after the school year started on Aug. 23. They managed to find a place for him at a public primary school close to their home in central Ramallah...

• Carolien ROELANTS, “Israël is in bezet Palestijns gebied. En blijft. Voorgoed" (nrc.nl, 4 sept 2017): click here!

  Vijftig jaar plus drie maanden heeft het geduurd tot een Israëlische premier onomwonden kon zeggen dat zijn land in bezet Palestijns gebied blijft. Gewoon blijft. Voorgoed.

• Orly NOY, “Former attorney general stands with Palestinians facing eviction" (+972, Aug 13, 2017): click here!

  The feeling of déjà vu that enveloped the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah last Thursday was especially somber. Here we were, once again, standing around on a Friday afternoon, struggling against the eviction and dispossession of Palestinian families.

• Hussein AGHA and Ahmad Samih KHALIDI, “The End of This Road: The Decline of the Palestinian National Movement” " (The New Yorker, Aug 6, 2017): click here!

  As President Trump prepares for yet another attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the ground is shifting under his feet. While Israel’s willingness to offer an acceptable deal is increasingly open to question, with nothing to suggest that its terms are likely to soften with time, the Palestinians are sliding toward the unknown.

• Akiva ELDAR: "For Israeli right, there is no occupation" (Al-Monitor, Aug 29, 2017): click here!

  Why did Israel revoke the press credentials of Al Jazeera correspondent Elias Karam? He has not been accused of inciting violence. He did not commit the ultimate sin of calling for anti-Israel sanctions. He has not even advocated a boycott of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

• Amir ROTEM: "Three years after Protective Edge, Gaza is in free fall" (+972, Aug 25, 2017): click here!

  As internal Palestinian rifts take a heavy toll on Gazans and as shifting geopolitics in the Gulf affect quality of life in Deir al-Balah, Israel is again missing an opportunity to harness the future of its relationship with Gaza.

• Amira HASS: "PA Sanctions Crush Public Jobs, Compound Electricity Woes in Gaza" (Haaretz, Aug 23, 2017): click here!

  Electricity shortages in the Strip continue as thousands of public school teachers, health care workers and other public servants are thrown into job insecurity.

• "Israel halts construction of school in Bethlehem, despite residents receiving permit" (Ma'an, Aug 18, 2017): click here!

  Israeli authorities forcibly halted the construction of a school in Jubbet Al-Dhib village in the eastern part of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank on Thursday, despite Palestinians receiving an Israeli-issued building permit for the project.

• Sheren KHALEL: "Sponge rounds, rubber bullets, and tear gas — how Israel’s non-lethal munitions can kill" (Mondoweiss, Aug 14, 2017): click here!

  Mondoweiss spoke with Doctor Nasser al-Jaberi, the Director of the Emergency Room Department at the West Bank’s Arab Society Hospital, to get a better idea of what these weapons are capable of.

• Nir HASSON: "A Jerusalem Slum Sinks Into Despair After the Murder of the Man Pegged as Its Savior" (Haaretz, Aug 10, 2017): click here!

  When Baha Nababta was shot to death in the Palestinian refugee camp of Shoafat 15 months ago, the hopes for change in this squalid neighborhood died with him. His killer has yet to be found.

• Human Rights Watch: "Israel: Jerusalem Palestinians Stripped of Status. Discriminatory Residency Revocations" (Aug 8, 2017): click here!

  Israel’s revocations of the residency status of thousands of Palestinians from East Jerusalem over the years illustrates the two-tiered system Israel maintains in the city, Human Rights Watch said today. The residency system imposes onerous requirements on Palestinians to maintain their status, with significant consequences for those who don’t.

• Peter BEAUMONT: "'The worst it's been': children continue to swim as raw sewage floods Gaza beach" (The Guardian, July 31, 2017): click here!

  For most of the 2 million people in this overcrowded strip of land – largely cut off from the outside world – the beach and sea are the only affordable form of recreation. The only option now is to swim and even fish in filthy water.

• Gideon LEVY & Jehuda SHAUL: "Hébron, la ville où l’essence de l’apartheid israélien éclate au grand jour" (Pour la Palestine, 31 juillet, 2017): click here!

  “Si vous voulez voir l’apartheid israélien en résumé, allez à Hébron. Il n’y pas d’endroit où l’on puisse mieux voir avec une telle clarté éclatante toute une communauté expulsée des maisons de ses ancêtres, des milliers de personnes chassées de leurs magasins…".

• Muna DAJANI: "The “Apolitical” Approach to Palestine’s Water Crisis” (Al-Shabaka, July 30, 2017): click here!

  Earlier this month, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced a new deal in which Israel will sell the Palestinians 33 million cubic meters of desalinated Red Sea water per year, with 10 million cubic meters transferred to the Gaza Strip and the rest to the West Bank.

• David HEARST: "Palestinians stand alone in Al-Aqsa battle” (Middle East Eye, July 26, 2017): click here!

  it’s the first time in their 50-year struggle against occupation that Palestinians are well and truly alone. Never has the gulf between the Arab street and their governments yawned as wide as it has this week over Palestine.

• Addameer Factsheet: "Facts on Al-Aqsa Uprising: Arrest, Collective Punishment and Extrajudicial Killing" (Addameer, July 26, 2017): click here!

  The policy of collective punishment practiced by the Israeli occupation is a violation of most basic and internationally recognized rights, including the right to freedom of religion, the right to freedom of movement, the right to privacy and self-determination.

• Addameer Factsheet: "Detained Palestinian Legislative Council Members" (Addameer, July 25, 2017): click here!

  According to international law and Israeli courts no one can be detained for their political opinions. This is affirmed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 2, which states that states parties are to ensure “to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.

• Jonathan OFIR: "The long and under-reported history of Judeo-Christian terror around Al-Aqsa” (Mondoweiss, July 23, 2017): click here!

  The current Palestinian protests, related to the shootings at Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem over a week ago and subsequent Israeli altering of security arrangements at the site, could, as some Israeli analysts observe, “turn into an intifada in the blink of an eye.” (Nir Hasson in Haaretz).

• Amira HASS: "Israel's Border Police: Winner of the Cruelty Competition” (Haaretz, July 23, 2017): click here!

  Perhaps more appalling than the sight of the police pointing their rifles at worshippers and sneering is their vanishing humanity.

• Gideon LEVY: "Every Israeli Should Read the Palestinian Assailant’s Last Will and Testament” (Haaretz, July 23, 2017): click here!

  No one dared ask why Omar al-Abed, a 20-year-old with dreams and aspirations, bought a knife and set out to kill.

• Maureen Clare MURPHY: "Why is UN pushing for Gaza’s surrender? ” (EI, July 20, 2017): click here!

  The new report on Gaza by a team led by Robert Piper, the United Nations’ chief humanitarian coordinator in Palestine, makes for disturbing reading... Yet what the report actually does is reveal how the UN has apparently aligned with Israel and its international backers in pushing for Gaza’s total surrender to its tormentors.

• Ilana HAMMERMAN: "The Biggest Attack in Jerusalem ” (Haaretz, July 18, 2017): click here!

  It began in 1967 with the expulsion of hundreds of Arab Jerusalemites from the area of the Western Wall, and continues with a series of Jewish triumphalist projects seeking to blot out the presence of Arabs.

• Maureen Clare MURPHY: "Police, assailants killed in Jerusalem attack, youth slain in raid” (EI, July 14, 2017): click here!

  “Israeli military incursions into Palestinian communities often have fatal consequences for children,” Ayed Abu Eqtaish, a program director at Defense for Children International - Palestine, stated. “Israeli forces routinely employ intentional lethal force in complete disregard of international law, increasingly placing Palestinian children at risk.”

• Haidar EID: "Gaza and the failure of the national project” (EI, July 14, 2017): click here!

  In order to understand the draconian measures taken by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority against the Gaza Strip, which has already been enduring a suffocating, decade-long Israeli siege, one has to scrutinize the Fatah movement’s diminished ideological and national agenda.

• Haidar EID & Ayah ABUBASHEER: "Gaza is Headed for a Deeper Political and Humanitarian Crisis” (Al-Shabaka, July 13, 2017): click here!

  Political players both in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the region are repositioning themselves after the recent emergence of a coalition between Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan, the former leader of Fatah in Gaza and Hamas’s long-standing enemy, as well as the sanctions placed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Why is Mahmoud Abbas letting children die in Gaza?” (EI, 13 July, 2017): click here!

  The deeply unpopular Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is helping Israeli occupation authorities inflict horrendous suffering on people in the blockaded Gaza Strip, as part of a cruel and cynical political game.

• "Articles: 50 Years of Occupation” (Staat van Beleg, juli, 2017): click here!

  100 Selected Readings.

• Tareq BACONI: "How Israel’s 10-Year Blockade Brought Gaza to the Brink of Collapse” (The Nation, July 7, 2017): click here!

  The stories read like dispatches from a nightmare, describing a reality that is almost too extreme to fathom: nearly 2 million people locked inside a land mass the size of Philadelphia, the borders carefully controlled, the movement of goods and humans severely restricted; as much as 72 percent of the population facing food insecurity and 41 percent struggling with unemployment.

• Nur ARAFEH: "The myth of a 'Palestinian economy'” (Al-Jazeera, July 6, 2017): click here!

  Israel has used the last 50 years of occupation to shape the Palestinian economy to suit its own interests.

• Shakked AUERBACH: "No One Actually Knows Where Israel Ends and the Palestinian Territories Begin” (Haaretz, July 6, 2017): click here!

  Israel has worked hard since 1967 to erase the Green Line from public consciousness, even as the invisible border became increasingly impenetrable to Palestinians.

• Don FUTTERMAN: "Let's Talk About (Anything But) the Occupation” (Haaretz, July 5, 2017): click here!

  Let’s enjoy our self-delusionary bubble. Let's not talk about the regime of control we Jews have created to keep Palestinians off-balance and in fear.

• "Residency Revocation: Israel’s Forcible Transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem” (Al-Shabaka, July 3, 2017): click here!

  Since 1967, Israel created and consistently expanded the criteria for revoking the residency status of Palestinians, leading to the revocation of the residency rights of more than 14,500 Palestinians from Jerusalem to date.

• "IOF attack funeral in Jerusalem, injure 35 Palestinians” (Palestine News Network, July 3, 2017): click here!

  Israeli soldiers injured, on Sunday at night, at least 35 Palestinians, including one who suffered a life-threatening injury after being shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the eye, after the army attack a funeral procession in occupied East Jerusalem.

• "Israeli forces detain 18 Palestinians in predawn raids across West Bank” (Ma'an, July 3, 2017): click here!

  Israeli raids in Palestinian towns, villages, and refugee camps are a daily occurrence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with a weekly average of 95 search and detention raids carried out over the course 2016, according to UN documentation.

• Nir HASSON: "After Long Freeze, Israel Again Promoting East Jerusalem Construction for Jews” (Haaretz, July 3, 2017): click here!

  Once Trump took office, right-wing politicians declared the freeze on construction in East Jerusalem over. And the plans require the eviction of several Palestinian families.

• Amira HASS: "130 Diaspora Jews Stand Between the Israeli Army and a Palestinian Cave Village" (Haaretz, July 2, 2017): click here.

  The Palestinian village of Sarura was destroyed in 1997 and its residents have not returned for fear of settler violence. Dozens of Jewish volunteers from the U.S., Canada and Australia have joined Palestinian activists in renovating it.

• Nir HASSON: "In Israel, Attacks on Palestinians by Far-right Jews Are Frequent - and the Police Do Nothing” (Haaretz, July 1, 2017): click here!

  A recent attack on three Palestinians, allegedly by members of the far-right Lehava group, is just the latest in a series of such incidents in Jerusalem.

• Gideon LEVY: "Gaza: Israel's experiment on humans in situations of extreme stress and deprivation” (Middle East Eye, July 1, 2017): click here!

  One experiment: What happens to two million human beings when they are deprived of electricity nearly all the time, day and night?

• Nir HASSON: "Israeli Extremists Beat Three Palestinians in Jerusalem: 'Police Did Nothing'” (Haaretz, June 29, 2017): click here!

  When a Jewish teen who attempted to help Palestinians tried to file a complaint, police said they had no knowledge of the incident.

• "A day in Umm al-Kheir, threatened by demolition by Israeli forces” (International Solidarity Movement, June 29, 2017): click here!

  Our day in Umm al Kheir started with a common flying checkpoint, set up by the Israeli forces in Zif. Our mini-bus driver dind’t want to pass this control so we got out of the car and walked through the control and then waited for our friend from the village to pick us up.

• Alain GRESH: "La question palestinienne reste au centre de toutes les crises au Proche-Orient” (El-Watan, June 29, 2017): click here!

  A l’occasion de la parution de l’ouvrage 'Un chant d’amour : Israël-Palestine, une histoire française', aux éditions La Découverte, Alain Gresh, spécialiste du Proche-Orient et directeur d’Orient XXI, revient dans cet entretien sur l’histoire des relations bilatérales...

• Ahmed AL-KOMI: "Palestinians wary of talk Gaza may be declared 'rebel district'” (Al-Monitor, June 27, 2017): click here!

  The poor living conditions and security situation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could further deteriorate if Palesinian President Mahmoud Abbas declares Gaza a "rebel district."

• "Life imprisoned in a ‘closed military zone’: “Daily Life”?” (International Solidarity Movement, June 26, 2017): click here!

  Israeli forces at Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) have put up yet another sign ‘instructing’ the Palestinian residents on their behavior at the checkpoint.

• "Palestinians celebrating Eid in a ‘closed military zone’” (International Solidarity Movement, June 26, 2017): click here!

  As anywhere all over the world, Palestinian Muslims are celebrating the end of the fasting-month Ramadan with the 3-day feast of Eid. Eid usually is a joyous occasion, everyone dresses up nicely and the most important activity is visiting family.

• Judy MALZ: "Americans Disproportionately Leading the Charge in Settling the West Bank” (Haaretz, June 23, 2017): click here!

  Are they being nudged there by the stealth efforts of the Israeli government and its NGO allies?

• Akiva ELDAR: "Gaza residents abandoned by Hamas, Abbas and Israel” (Al-Monitor, June 22, 2017): click here!

  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu share the shameful responsibility of leaving innocent Gaza residents practically without electricity.

• Bradley BURSTON: "Israel's Plague of Darkness for Gazans Is an Act of Terrorism” (Haaretz, June 21, 2017): click here!

  It's the worst thing Israel's done all year. It's a punishment which targets huge numbers of people who have committed no crime.

• "JOINT PRESS RELEASE: (PHROC) denounces the decision to reduce the power supply to the Gaza Strip and warns of a humanitarian disaster ” (Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, June 21, 2017): click here!

  The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) strongly denounces the decision of the Israeli Occupying Authorities to reduce the amount of electricity provided to the Gaza Strip. PHROC further warns the international community of the dangerous repercussions of this decision, which could exacerbate the humanitarian crisis which Gaza has been under due to Israel’s 10-year long closure.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Israel implements illegal cuts to Gaza’s power supply” (EI, June 19, 2017): click here!

  Israel reduced its supply of electricity to the occupied Gaza Strip on Monday morning, in spite of warnings from human rights groups that the move violates international law. The cuts come despite dire warnings in recent weeks from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and UN officials that the induced electricity shortage is causing a humanitarian catastrophe, as essential health, water and sanitation facilities cannot function.

• Nir HASSON: "50 Years After Six-Day War, East Jerusalem's Palestinian Residents Remain Prisoners in Their City” (Haaretz, June 17, 2017): click here!

  Study shows how ambivalent Israeli policies and denial of the problem have created a status that doesn't exist anywhere else on earth: Native-born residents who are not citizens of the state in whose capital they live.

• Sheren KHALEL: "Israel cancels 250,000 Palestinian permits to enter Israel during Ramadan after deadly attack” (Mondoweiss, June 17, 2017): click here!

  Israeli authorities on Friday rescinded 250,000 Israel entry permits from Palestinians hours after a deadly attack in Jerusalem left four dead and several injured, a spokesperson for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told Mondoweiss.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "Gaza's ticking sewage bomb” (Al-Monitor, June 16, 2017): click here!

  Israeli expert and professor Eilon Adar warns that the electricity crisis in Gaza could provoke an ecological disaster both in the Strip and in Israel.

• Gideon LEVY: "Who's in Favor of a Massacre in Gaza? ” (Haaretz, June 15, 2017): click here!

  One more hour in Gaza without electricity, and the signal there will be given: Qassam rockets. Israel once again will be the victim, and the massacre will begin.

• Karma NABULSI: "La Palestine dans le monde : la solidarité palestinienne et la solidarité avec la Palestine” (Pour la Palestine, 10 juin, 2017): click here!

  La solidarité est l’une des caractéristiques les plus importantes des luttes populaires de libération. Pour la révolution palestinienne, il y eut cinq zones distinctes de solidarité : l’arabe, l’islamique, la tricontinentale, celle du bloc de l’Est et celle de l’Europe et de l’Amérique du Nord. Les mouvements palestiniens recoururent à une diversité d’approches de chacune d’entre elles.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "For Palestinians, the 1967 War Remains an Enduring, Painful Wound” (AURDIP, 10 juin, 2017): click here!

  The scar on my head from a fateful day in June 1967, when that military rule started, is now completely covered by my greying hair, but the scar that day left on my life remains largely raw.

• Ahmad MELHEM: "New chapter begins in Israel-Palestine water dispute” (Al-Monitor, June 9, 2017): click here!

  After a suspension of seven years, the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee is reconvening, but will Palestine finally get a fair share of water?

• Fiona BEN ChEKROUN: "‘Een voortdurende herinnering dat je land je niet toebehoort’” (MO*, 8 juni, 2017): click here!

  We zijn in 2017 en voor bijna 1,4 miljoen kinderen in de Gazastrook vertaalt het dagelijkse leven zich in een permanente gevangenis. ‘Jij bent een getuige nu. Je moet tonen aan de wereld wat wij dagelijks meemaken.’

• Gideon LEVY: "Good Arab, Dead Arab” (Haaretz, June 7, 2017): click here!

  In Israel, police killing a demonstrator is a marginal story, only because the victim is an Arab.

• Sara ROY: "If Israel were smart” (LRB, Vol. 39 No. 12 · 15 June 2017): click here!

  My last visit to Gaza had been in May 2014, just before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, an assault that resulted in the deaths of more than two thousand Gazans – combatants and civilians – and the destruction of eighteen thousand homes. When I went back less than three years later the changes were evident everywhere.

• Michael FRIEDMAN: "Why has the Israeli occupation lasted so long? It’s good for business” (Mondoweiss, June 6, 2017): click here!

  The occupation represents a source for Israel in two senses: economically, it provides a testing ground for the development of weapons, security systems, models of population control and tactics without which Israel would be unable to compete in the international arms and security markets...

• Human Rights Watch: "Israel: 50 Years of Occupation Abuses" (HRW, June 4, 2017): click here!

  Fifty years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it controls these areas through repression, institutionalized discrimination, and systematic abuses of the Palestinian population’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today.

• Amnesty International: "Israel's Occupation: 50 Years of Dispossession" (AI, June, 2017): click here!

  For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there.

• Willem DE MAESENEER: "50 jaar na de Zesdaagse Oorlog: van bezetting naar annexatie" (MO*, 6 juni, 2017): click here!

  Sinds gisteren bezet Israël de Palestijnse gebieden al vijftig jaar. Wat is dat, onder militaire bezetting leven? Hoe is de situatie geëvolueerd in vijftig jaar? ‘Vandaag kunnen we spreken van een feitelijke annexatie’, zegt Hagaï El-Ad van mensenrechtenorganisatie B’Tselem.

• Fiona BEN CHEKROUN: "L'occupation israélienne: "un rappel constant que ton pays ne t'appartient pas"" (Le Vif, 3 juin, 2017): click here!

  Cette semaine nous commémorons les 50 ans d'occupation de la Palestine par Israël. Cinquante longues années d'illégalité, d'injustice, d'impunité, de lutte, de résistance et d'espoir. A cela s'ajoute la commémoration des 10 ans du blocus de la bande de Gaza.

• Gideon LEVY: "Fifty Years, Fifty Lies" (Haaretz, June 1, 2017): click here!

  It’s also convenient to issue the endless daily lies that cover up the crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces, the Border Police, the Shin Bet, the Prison Service and the Civil Administration – the entire apparatus of occupation.

• Edo KONRAD: "The man on the heels of Israel's settlement enterprise" (+972, June 1, 2017): click here!

  Since 1967, the settlements have grown into Israel's greatest national project. Nearly a million Israeli citizens live beyond the Green Line, while their Palestinian neighbors live under military rule. A journey to the heart of the West Bank with Dror Etkes, the man who has dedicated the last two decades to monitoring the goings on in Israel's backyard.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Israel main cause of Palestinian suffering, UN says" (EI, May 31, 2017): click here!

  “The occupation denies Palestinians control over basic aspects of daily life, whether they live in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” according to a report released Wednesday by the UN humanitarian coordination agency OCHA.

• "UN report: Occupation is the main cause of humanitarian needs in the occupied Palestinian territory " (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), May 31, 2017): click here!

  2016 figures indicate fewer fatalities amidst heightened West Bank displacement.

• Jonathan OFIR: "Israel practices aggressive boycott, divestment and sanctions – against Gaza" (Mondoweiss, May 30, 2017): click here!

  Earlier this month, the ICRC warned that Gaza is on the brink of “systemic collapse”. Nearly seven years have passed since the ICRC noted that “The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility”, that “the closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law”, and that “the dire situation in Gaza cannot be resolved by providing humanitarian aid”.

• Amira HASS: "How Israel Prevents Palestinian Farmers From Working Their Lands" (Haaretz, May 26, 2017): click here!

  A months-long strike ended this week when the Civil Administration agreed to reexamine procedures concerning access to farmland beyond the West Bank separation barrier. Have the reasons for the strike really disappeared? Time will tell.

• Mazal MUALEM: "Jerusalem Day celebrations hide sad reality" (Al-Monitor, May 25, 2017): click here!

  The reality of impoverished, neglected and undeveloped East Jerusalem is a far cry from the glossy image of the city presented at the celebration of 50 years of unification.

• Ahmad ABU AMER: "The resurgence of Palestinian tribalism" (Al-Monitor, May 25, 2017): click here!

  The Palestinian local elections held May 13 showed that Palestinians voted for tribal and independent lists instead of political lists, giving serious cause for concern.

• Haidar EID: "On Gaza and the horror of the siege" (Mondoweiss, May 25, 2017): click here!

  In mid-May, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned of the imminent collapse of the Gaza Strip saying, in a grim statement, that: “The scarcity of energy and the severe shortage of fuel in Gaza have damaged all aspects of life in the Strip…”

• "Netanyahu pledges that Al-Aqsa Mosque will remain occupied ‘forever’" (MEMo, May 25, 2017): click here!

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that Al-Aqsa Mosque – which he called the Temple Mount – will remain in Jewish control forever, local media have reported. He made this pledge just one day after the visit of US President Donald Trump to the region.

• Mazin QUMSIYEH: "Hommage à Basil Al-Araj" (Pour la Palestine, 25 mai, 2017): click here!

  Le 6 mars 2017, Basil a été abattu par l’armée israélienne. Il avait 31 ans. D’autres parleront de son martyre, je parlerai de sa vie et de ce qu’il m’a raconté. Basil aurait aimé que ce fût raconté de cette façon. J’ai appris des détails intimes sur Basil et sur sa famille la troisième fois où nous avons été arrêtés ensemble.

• Daniel SEIDEMANN: "Trump Exposed the Fantasy of Netanyahu's 'Undivided Jerusalem'" (Haaretz, May 25, 2017): click here!

  No amount of denial, however sophisticated, will spare Israel from the dire perils of occupation, and no combination of bullying, bluster and hasbara will bring Israeli Jerusalem the recognition it deserves.

• "Collective mobilisation indicates possibilities for Palestinian resistance" (MEMo, May 24, 2017): click here!

  The organised collective hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners headed by imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti has evolved into a fast spreading mobilisation of the Palestinians. Outside the prison walls, Palestinians have put the Palestinian Authority and its lone calls for a day of rage to shame.

• "3 Palestinians shot, injured during Israeli raids in which 48 were detained" (Ma'an, May 18, 2017): click here!

  Detention raids conducted by Israeli forces between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in several villages across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem sparked clashes in at least three cases, according to Israeli and Palestinian sources. Three Palestinians were reported to have been shot in the northern West Bank.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Gaza on brink of “systemic collapse,” ICRC warns" (The Electronic Intifada, May 16, 2017): click here!

  Gaza is on the brink of a “systemic collapse” as the electricity crisis deepens, the International Committee of the Red Cross is warning. “Severe power and fuel shortage has reached a critical point in Gaza, endangering essential services including healthcare, wastewater treatment and water provision,” the ICRC said on Tuesday.

• Alaa TARTIR: "The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security?" (Al-Shabaka, May 16, 2017): click here!

  The Palestinian security sector employs around half of all civil servants, accounts for nearly $1 billion of the PA budget, and receives around 30% of total international aid disbursed to the Palestinians. The security sector consumes more of the PA’s budget than the education, health, and agriculture sectors combined.

• Mersiha GADZO: "Les pêcheurs de Gaza bravent les balles dans une zone de pêche de plus en plus décimée" (Arrêt sur info, 11 mai, 2017): click here!

  Dans la soirée venteuse du 4 janvier, Mouhammad al-Hissi, un pêcheur de 33 ans a eu le pressentiment qu’il ne rentrerait pas chez lui, cette nuit-là, après la pêche. « J’ai peur. Si vous voyez mes feux s’éteindre, venez vite à mon secours. Ne m’oubliez pas. »

• "Peace Now 'deeply concerned' over possible settlement expansions" (Ma'an, May 9, 2017): click here!

  After reports emerged last week that the Israeli government was preparing to advance 15,000 new settlement units in occupied east Jerusalem in contravention of international law, settlement watchdog Peace Now said they were “deeply concerned” over the implications of the possible settlement expansions.

• Lucas CATHERINE: "La nouvelle charte du Hamas, une évolution positive" (Pour la Palestine, 10 mai, 2017): click here!

  Fin avril 2017, l’organisation palestinienne Hamas rendait publique sa nouvelle charte par la bouche de son porte-parole Khaled Meshaal. L’information à ce propos n’était pas toujours équilibrée. Lucas Catherine a lu la nouvelle charte.

• Lucas CATHERINE: "Nieuw Charter Hamas is positieve evolutie" (De Wereld Morgen 7 mei, 2017): click here!

  Eind april 2017 publiceerde de Palestijnse organisatie Hamas zijn nieuwe Charter bij monde van woordvoerder Khaled Meshaal. De berichtgeving erover was niet altijd evenwichtig. De Morgen titelde: 'Hamas roept niet langer op tot de vernietiging van Israël' en De Standaard: 'Hamas aanvaardt grenzen van voor 1967'. Lucas Catherine las het nieuwe Charter.

• Amira HASS: "Abbas' Meeting With Trump Proves the PA Is Strong - Even When It's Weak" (Haaretz, May 5, 2017): click here!

  The Palestinian leadership knows better than Trump that a peace agreement with Israel is farther away than the end of his term. But the leadership allows itself to expect that Trump, a businessman, will understand the severity of Israel’s economic restrictions, and will intervene to soften them.

• Tareq BACONI: "Hamas’s new charter is a historic first step" (The Guardian, May 2, 2017): click here!

  Concerns remain, but efforts to distance the group from antisemitism are an opportunity to be grasped.

• Nir HASSON: "Renewed Work on Separation Barrier to Cut Palestinian Villagers From Their Lands" (Haaretz, 29 April, 2017): click here!

  The farming lands and local spring near al-Walaja are slated to become part of Jerusalem's new urban park, which the Palestinians will be prevented from reaching.

• Jonathan COOK: "Israel celebrates 50 years as occupier" (Redress Information and Analysis, 21 April, 2017): click here!

  Israel is to hold lavish celebrations over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of what it calls the “liberation of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights” – or what the rest of us describe as the birth of the occupation.

• Ilan PAPPE: "Jenin won’t forget Israel’s massacre" (EI, 18 April, 2017): click here!

  Fifteen years ago this month the Israeli army bombarded and assaulted the Jenin refugee camp for more than 10 days. This was part of Israel’s so-called Operation Defensive Shield, during which it sent troops into the heart of six major cities in the occupied West Bank and surrounding towns and refugee camps that were ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control.

• Amira HASS: "Hébron 2017 : « Moins de Palestiniens, davantage de checkpoints »" (Pour la Palestine, 18 avril, 2017): click here!

  Vingt ans après que Hébron a été divisé en deux zones distinctes, les Palestiniens qui sont restés dans la section contrôlée par Israël constituent un témoignage de courage et d’endurance.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "Israel warns that Gaza will face power supply crisis" (Al-Monitor, April 12, 2017): click here!

  An Israeli major general has said that Gaza will face an imminent humanitarian crisis because of a shortage of diesel fuel that is needed to run its only power station.

• Sarah ALGHERBAWI: "How Israel worsened a farm crisis in Gaza" (EI, April 11, 2017): click here!

  Israel stands accused of worsening a crisis in Gaza’s livestock sector. Earlier this year, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred in Gaza. For 17 days, Israel blocked the entry of vaccines required to prevent the virus from spreading, according to Gaza’s veterinary services.

• Rasmieyh ABDELNABI: "Report ”The Concrete Ceiling”: How Gazan Businesswomen Struggle under Israeli Restrictions" (Palestine Square, April 7, 2017): click here!

  Despite disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005 by removing its illegal settlements, Israel continues to maintain a total chokehold on Gaza in a myriad of ways. At times, Israel has displayed its control with violence, such as the Gaza War of 2008/09 (Operation Cast Lead), and the subsequent bloody Israeli offensives of 2012 and 2014. These acts of aggression have put Palestinians in an exhausting state of precarity: constantly rebuilding and constructing their infrastructure, often lacking the necessary materials and tools to do so.

• Willem DE MAESENEER: "Schaamteloos onrecht in het Israëlisch nederzettingenbeleid: ‘Palestina wordt van de kaart geveegd!’" (MO*, 7 april, 2017): click here!

  De Israëlische nederzettingen in Palestijns gebied zijn verstikkend voor de leefbaarheid van een Palestijnse staat. Bovendien maken ze het leven van de Palestijnen onleefbaar. Wat gebeurt er als je buren veel meer rechten en middelen hebben? En wat als ze het dan ook nog gemunt hebben op je achtertuin? Willem De Maeseneer ging ter plaatse kijken.

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: "Des tirs de l’armée israélienne ont paralysé ce jeune Palestinien et toute sa famille" (MO*, 7 avril, 2017): click here!

  Un jeune adolescent palestinien avait été touché par balle à l’estomac et à la colonne vertébrale alors qu’il rentrait chez lui après l’école, déclare sa famille. Après huit ans d’allées et retours dans les hôpitaux, on lui a amputé une jambe.

• "Le parlement israélien adopte une loi pour accélérer les démolitions : 50.000 maisons palestiniennes potentiellement menacées" (Pour la Palestine, 6 avril, 2017): click here!

  Dans le jargon orwellien dont le pouvoir israélien s’est fait une spécialité, les maisons palestiniennes ou les pauvres abris de tôles et de toile qui abritent les familles de Bédouins dont fréquemment qualifiés de “structures illégales”.

• Yosor ABU MIDDAIN: "PA decision to cut 30% of Gaza servants’ salaries outraged their families" (The Gaza Post, April 5, 2017): click here!

  The recent decision of the Palestinian Authority (PA) consensus government in Ramallah to cut 30 percent of the monthly salaries of thousands of civil servants and former security officers in the Gaza Strip had on Wednesday outraged the coastal enclave’s populations.

• Amira HASS: "In the West Bank, the Tail Wags the Dog" (Haaretz, April 2, 2017): click here!

  When civilian security officers are dictating policy on the ground, to whom should Palestinian farmers in Urif turn?

• Amira HASS: "The PA Won’t Employ Violence Against Its Own Citizens, and They in Turn Won’t Accuse It of Treason" (Haaretz, April 2, 2017): click here!

  The beginning of the report discussed the widespread feelings of frustration among the Palestinian public, and especially the young, due to the absence of a political horizon and the high unemployment, as well as the feeling of a lack of personal security due to the Israeli occupation regime and its daily assaults (especially in the refugee camps), executions and arrests. The settlement enterprise, the report added, gives Palestinians a feeling that their very existence, and that of their children, in this land is under threat.

• Peter BEAUMONT: "Israeli guidelines point to largely unconstrained settlement expansion" (The Guardian, March 31, 2017): click here!

  Plan outlined by Benjamin Netanyahu would allow building within boundaries of existing blocks, adjacent to them, or close to the blocs.

• "Israeli forces demolish 2 Palestinian homes in Jabal al-Mukabbir" (Ma'an, March 29, 2017): click here!

  Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian homes in Jabal al-Mukabbir in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday morning without prior notice, under the pretext that the structures lacked licenses required by Israel’s Jerusalem municipality.

• Ayman RABI: "Water apartheid in Palestine - a crime against humanity?" (Ecologist, March 22, 2017): click here!

  Systematic, acute, malicious discrimination in access to water in the West Bank and Gaza, combined with massive resource theft, is operated by the occupation authorities and the private water company Mekorot.

• Nir HASSON: "In Precedent-setting Ruling, Israel's Top Court Recognizes East Jerusalem Arabs as 'Native-born Residents'" (Haaretz, March 16 2017): click here!

  Over 14,000 Arabs have had their residency rights revoked since 1967 because they were absent from Jerusalem for more than 7 years. Court ruling challenges practice that treated them like immigrants in their own city.

• David CRONIN: "Cooperating with Israel: sacred or sinister?" (EI, March 16, 2017): cliquez ici!.

  For Mahmoud Abbas, cooperating with Israel’s military occupation is “sacred.” It is so sacred that Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, apparently bragged about jailing the intellectual and resistance fighter Bassel al-Araj less than a year before his assassination.

• Nirit ANDERMAN: "New Palestinian documentary assaults viewers with uncensored look at last Gaza war" (Haaretz, March 16, 2017): cliquez ici!.

  The seething mass of blood, dust and fear that was hidden behind the dry headlines that summer of 2014 is the focus of a documentary by a Gazan filmmaker who spent the war in an ambulance.

• "PHROC condemns the assault on the peaceful assembly that took place in front of the Palestinian Court Complex and warns of the consequences of the violations of rights and freedoms" (Addameer, March 13, 2017): cliquez ici!.

  The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council followed up on the Palestinian Security Forces’ forceful assault on the peaceful assembly that took place on Sunday, March 12, 2017 in front of the Palestinian Court Complex in Al-Balou’ area in Al-Bireh City.

• Emilio MINASSIAN: "Basel Al-Araj, martyr de la coopération sécuritaire entre Israël et l’Autorité palestinienne" (orientXXI, 13 mars, 2017): cliquez ici!.

  Le 6 mars 2017, un jeune Palestinien de Cisjordanie, Basel Al-Araj, a été tué par l’armée israélienne, peu de temps après avoir été emprisonné et torturé par l’Autorité palestinienne. Dans les médias et les réseaux sociaux de la région, cet événement a rencontré un écho important, alors que le jeune homme n’appartenait à aucune faction politique.

• Michael Schaeffer OMER MAN: "Who pays when Palestinians are harmed by Israeli forces?" (+972, March 8, 2017): click here!.

  Over the past 20 years, Israel has assembled an entire system to ensure it won’t have to pay compensation to Palestinians harmed by security forces in the occupied territories.

• Noam SHEIZAF: "New entry law a reminder that Palestinians live in Israel's prison" (+972, March 7, 2017): click here!

  The reality in the West Bank is one that resembles a prison, where the prisoners are held for as long as humanly possible. Their release will carry a price — and Israelis are not willing to pay it.

• Maureen Clare MURPHY: "Prominent Palestinian activist killed in Israeli raid" (IE, March 6, 2017): click here!.

  Israeli forces killed a prominent Palestinian activist during a raid on a home in the town of al-Bireh, near the city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, on Monday.

• Oren ZIV: "Israeli soldiers stand by as settlers attack civilians in West Bank village" (+972, March 5, 2017): click here!.

  Instead of attending to protesters wounded by settlers, including an Israeli photographer pushed off a five-foot terrace, a man dressed as a medic assaults another protester.

• Sheren KHALEL: "Palestinians in Hebron plead for international intervention to stop settler violence" (Mondoweiss, Feb 27, 2017): click here!.

  Palestinian activists in Hebron said they are desperate for stronger international intervention during a week-long campaign in commemoration of the 23rd anniversary of the Ibrahimi Massacre.

• Amira HASS: "The Bulldozers and the Bedouin" (Haaretz, Feb 24, 2017): click here!.

  The West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar received a temporary respite this week from seemingly inevitable demolitions.

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: "A Palestinian Was Standing Still at a Checkpoint. Why Did Israeli Troops Shoot Him Dead?" (Haaretz, Feb 24, 2017): click here!.

  A video shows that Nidal Mahdawi, a mentally unstable Palestinian on his way to visit his wife and kids in Israel, could have been arrested without being shot.

• Aline BATARSEH: "The challenges of being Palestinian in East Jerusalem" (Mondoweiss, Feb 22, 2017): click here!.

  Uncertainty. Loss. Instability. These are the words that come to mind when I think of my life as a Palestinian. The loss of homeland is a recent and continuing experience for us. I don’t know a single Palestinian who hasn’t mourned the loss of a home, a plot of land, a loved one, or all of the above, as a result of political circumstances.

• Amira HASS: "The Palestinian heroes of Hebron" (Haaretz, Feb 20, 2017): click here!.

  When you say extreme violence carried out by settlers with official encouragement, you think of Hebron. (With apologies for leaving out of the discussion all the other settlements that enjoy a full measure of transfer-advocating violence.

• "Israeli court sentences Palestinian boy with leukemia to 3 months in prison" (Ma'an, Feb 20, 2017): click here!.

  The Israeli military court at Ofer prison sentenced 15-year-old Ahmad al-Khadour to 91 days in prison and a 3,000-shekel fine (approximately $810), after the boy was accused of throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers.

• "Le livre noir de la colonisation de Jérusalem Est, écrit par les consuls européens sur place" (CAPJPO - EuroPalestine, février 13, 2017): click here!.

  Mediapart publie le rapport confidentiel des consuls européens à Jérusalem et Ramallah, qui vient d’être transmis à Bruxelles. Selon ce texte, dont nous publions quelques extraits, "la situation à Jérusalem n’a jamais été aussi menaçante depuis 1967".

• Sarah HELM: "It's too late to stop the senseless capture of Palestinian land" (The Guardian, Feb 13, 2017): click here!.

  ...our own spineless world leaders who could have implemented international law and stopped the illegal building and the senseless capture of Palestinian land, when they had the chance.

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: "'State of Jenin': A Palestinian Refugee Camp Raided by Israeli Troops Night After Night" (Haaretz, Feb 10, 2017): click here!.

  After a soldier was wounded in Jenin, the IDF intensified its nighttime raids there. 
And when the Israelis don’t enter this West Bank refugee camp, the Palestinian security forces do.

• Philip WEISS: "Israel’s efforts to erase Palestinian history reflect ‘incremental genocide,’ Ehrenreich says" (Mondoweiss, Feb 9, 2017): click here!.

  Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring, the chronicle of heroic resistance to occupation in a Palestinian village, spoke at Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies a week ago, and described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as an “incremental genocide.”

• Gideon LEVY & Alex LEVAC: "An Israeli Army Tactic: Intimidating Palestinian Children in the Night" (Haaretz, Jan 12, 2017): click here!.

  IDF soldiers burst into a Palestinian home after midnight, and awakened two boys to warn them not to take part in protests. On their way out, they tossed stun grenades into neighbors' yards.

• "Editorial: Ahead of a Disaster in Gaza" (Haaretz, Jan 10, 2017): click here!.

  Israel has both the ability and the responsibility to prevent the UN's warning from coming true: that in 2020, Gaza will no longer be fit for human habitation.

• "Israeli army kills Palestinian in West Bank Faraa camp" (Al Jazeera, Jan 10, 2017): click here!.

  Soldiers raided the Faraa refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, shooting dead one Palestinian and arresting three.

• Nada ELIA: "Stop glossing over the siege in Gaza and call it what it is: genocide" (Middle East Eye, Jan 10, 2017): click here!.

  Just as there has been a discursive shift to call the occupation of Palestine an apartheid, we must acknowledge what is really happening in Gaza.

• Ayelett SHANI: "Israeli Witness in Gaza: No Water, No Electricity and Children Dying Unnecessarily" (Haaretz, Jan 6, 2017): click here!.

  Salah Haj Yahya, 50, who lives in Taibeh, runs a mobile clinic on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights and leads medical teams going to Gaza. We met at a Tel Aviv café, on a Thursday morning.

• "PA arrested more than 2000 Palestinians in 2016" (MEMo, Jan 4, 2017): click here!.

  The Arab Organisation for Human Rights has revealed that the Palestinian Authority summonsed and arrested 2,214 Palestinian citizens during 2016, Quds Press reported on Tuesday. In a report, the organisation said that the data it has collected showed an increase in the arrest and summons of Palestinians for political and union activities.

• Amira HASS: “Palestinian Time in Israeli Hands" (Haaretz, Jan 4, 2017): click here!.

  Hours a day, every day, at every gate in the separation fence, at every checkpoint, at every vehicle inspection post, Palestinians' lives come to a halt as they wait for armed Israeli soldiers to let them go past”.

• Griff WITTE: "Israeli settlements grew on Obama’s watch. They may be poised for a boom on Trump’s" (The Washington Post, Jan 2, 2017): click here!.

  Soldiers raided the Faraa refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, shooting dead one Palestinian and arresting three.

• "2016: A deadly year in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel" (Ma'an, Jan 1, 2017): click here!.

  The past year has been a deadly and violent one for Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip. In 2016 alone, more than 100 Palestinians were killed, the majority shot dead by Israeli forces.

• "UN: Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes reach record high in 2016" (Ma'an, Dec 30, 2016): click here!

  Israel demolished more Palestinian homes in the occupied territory in 2016 than in any year since the United Nations began documenting demolitions in 2009, while Israel also increased restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the occupied territory in 2016.

• "Israeli authorities demolish Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem" (Ma'an, Dec 29, 2017): click here!.

  Israel’s Jerusalem municipality demolished Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Wednesday, under the pretext that they lacked Israeli-issued building permits, according to local organization the Wadi Hilweh Information Center.

• Jacob BURNS: "This Is What Being ‘Tough on Terror’ Looks Like In East Jerusalem" (Huffington Post, 29 Oct, 2015/uptdated: Oct 29, 2016): click here!

  At the southern edge of Jabal Mukaber, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, the hills form a wide, natural amphitheatre. Here olive groves adorn the gentle slopes, horses whinny, and birds flit out from the eaves to play in the evening sky. The views out towards Herod’s great fortress Herodion are breathtaking.

• Bo SHACK: "Denied a human standard of living: The Gaza blockade has entered its tenth year" (UNRWA, Oct 21, 2016): click here!

  “I have survived the past three wars, but that is not the problem. In this place, wars come and go. The bigger struggle is not to lose hope. The only way I can do that is to retreat, and create my own world, and become oblivious."

• "Full Text of UNESCO's Contentious Resolution on Jerusalem and the Countries That Voted" (Haaretz, Oct 18, 2016): click here! [The official document: click here.
• Nir HASSON: "UNESCO's Reminder to Israel: Jerusalem Is Occupied Territory" (Haaretz, Oct 14, 2016): click here!

  Contrary to Israeli criticism, UNESCO's resolution on Temple Mount has nothing to do with staking religious claims, and even includes some wins for Israel. If Israel wants the world to recognize Judaism's link to Jerusalem, it must sit down and talk to the Palestinians.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "What's driving Palestinian attacks?" (Al-Monitor, Oct 13, 2016): click here!

  When the wave of Palestinian violence broke out, most of the assailants were youngsters who believed that their acts would bring closer Palestinian statehood; but recent attacks seem motivated largely by religious beliefs.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "Liberman’s punishment strategy brings an end to West Bank calm" (Al-Monitor, Sept 23, 2016): click here!

  Is Israel on the brink of a new wave of terror? According to senior Palestinian security officials, the writing was on the wall from the minute Avigdor Liberman assumed office in late May as Israel’s defense minister and dictated a carrot-and-stick policy of rewards and punishments for Palestinian villages, depending on the origins of Palestinian assailants.

• Haaretz Editorial: "Israel Must End Its Shameful Policy of Collective Punishment " (Haaretz, Sept 21, 2016): click here!

  Every time a police officer closes a store with no legal justification, it just makes it all the more clear to the local residents and the rest of the world that East Jerusalem is occupied territory by any law.

• "Income Stagnation and Worsening Living Standards Continue For Palestinian Families" (The World Bank, Sept 14, 2016): click here!

  The prolonged period of slow economic growth has resulted in persistently high unemployment and stagnation in the average income of Palestinian citizens, according to the latest World Bank report on the Palestinian economy. The economy will not be able to reach its potential without a peace resolution but meaningful steps can avoid further deterioration.

• "UN: Palestinian economy would be twice as large without Israeli occupation" (MEMo, Sept 7, 2016): click here!

  The Palestinian economy would be at least twice as large without the Israeli occupation, according to a new report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

• Jonathan COOK: "Israel’s plan to retool occupation includes color-coding ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Palestinians" (Mondoweiss, Aug 31, 2016): click here!

  Launched this month, as much of the world was on holiday, Avigdor Lieberman’s plan for the Palestinians – retooling Israel’s occupation – received less attention than it should. Defence minister since May, Lieberman has been itching to accelerate Israel’s annexation by stealth of the West Bank.

• "Israeli settlers open the sewage water on the Palestinian fields in Husan Village" (Joint Advocacy Initiative, Aug 30, 2016): click here!

  On the early morning of August 20, 2016 the Israeli settlers from Bitar Eliet settlement opened the sewage water on the fields of the Palestinian farmers in Hussan village which is located west of Bethlehem. More than 40 dunums (1 dunum = 1000 m2) of cultivated lands was affected by the sewage water damage. These fields were owned by 12 families from Hussan.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "Has Israeli defense minister changed IDF's West Bank strategy?" (Al-Monitor, Aug 25, 2016): click here!

  The Israel Defense Forces have been carrying out regular operations in the Dheisheh refugee camp and the villages of Hebron governorate, all inside West Bank's Area A and ostensibly under full Palestinian control.

• "Shaath: 62% of the West Bank Turned into Israeli Settlements" (The Palestine Chronicle, Aug 25, 2016): click here!

  The Commissioner of Intentional Relations of the Fatah Movement, Nabil Shaath, has said in a statement that 62% of Palestinian lands in the West Bank have been turned into Israeli settlements, and the number of Israeli settlers has doubled five times since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993. Shaath added during a meeting with a delegation of Palestinians living in Israel, “The number of Israeli settlers has increased from 160,000 to 780,000 since signing the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.”

• Jonathan COOK: "The Birth of Agro-Resistance in Palestine" (Counterpunch, Aug 24, 2016): click here!

  “The olive is important for our food security and our cultural representation. It is a symbol of our identity. The trees connect us to our land, to a place, to a history and to past generations. They also link us to future generations, to our children and grandchildren. They represent the continuity of a nation and our rootedness in the land.”

• Ylenia GOSTOLI: "Gaza headed for 'environmental catastrophe'" (Al Jazeera, Aug 19, 2016): click here!

  Water crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory is putting Palestinian lives at risk, analysts say.

• "Palestinian school under threat of demolition" (MAP, Aug 19, 2016): click here!

  A report this week said that the school in the Bedouin community of Khan al Ahmar is reportedly facing demolition by the Israeli Government. A petition by a settler group to the Israeli High Court of Justice seeking to compel the Israeli Government to execute the demolition order on the school is under review. The State has requested for and has been granted an extension until the 23 August 2016.

• "Gaza power plant runs out of fuel amid longstanding electricity crisis" (Ma'an, Aug 18, 2016): click here!

  The besieged Gaza Strip’s only power plant announced on Thursday that it was unable to operate on more than one generator after exhausting its fuel reserves.

• Sami ABU SALEM: "Thirsty Gaza" (AURDIP, Aug 17, 2016): click here!

  Pollution, salinity and rationing are threatening Gaza’s water supply. In Jabalia Refugee Camp, north of Gaza, children and old women carrying plastic bottles gather near water taps to fill them with drinking water from a newly established artesian well set up by the municipality.

• Noé GAREL: "Israël multiplie les démolitions en Cisjordanie" (La Croix, Aug 16, 2016): click here!

  La représentante du bureau du Haut-Commissariat des droits de l’homme de l’ONU, Natalie Grove, évoque un « environnement hautement coercitif » dans ce périmètre de la Cisjordanie sous contrôle israélien. À ses yeux, les pressions des autorités pousseraient les Palestiniens à quitter la zone C. Elle qualifie cette politique de « transfert forcé », qui s’assimile à « une grande violation des conventions de Genève ».

• Arik ASCHERMAN: "Idolatry and Causeless Hatred in War Against Susya, Umm Al-Hiran, El-Araqib and Umm Al-Khir" (The Times of Israel, Aug 15, 2016): click here!

  Today we observed the Tisha B’Av fast. Our sages taught that the First Temple was destroyed because of bloodshed, idolatry and sexual crimes. The Second Temple was destroyed because of causeless hatred. Susya is one of the many Palestinian communities on both sides of the Green Line today facing destruction, expulsion and dispossession.

• "Sussia Means Israel Must End Its Policy of Relocating Palestinians" (Haaretz, Aug 14, 2016): click here!

  The residents of the West Bank village are awaiting whether Israel’s hard-line defense minister gives them a chance not to be uprooted.

• Shlomi ELDAR: "Why Israeli NGOs are shifting tactics to stop village demolition" (Al Monitor, Aug 12, 2016): click here!

  On Aug. 13, Israeli and international human rights organizations will hold another round of protest activities in the Khirbet Susya village in the West Bank in the South Hebron Hills. The activists, who view the Susya campaign as their life work, have recently learned that their protests have borne fruit: The US administration, as well as the European Union and Britain, warned Israel not to demolish the village and expel its residents.

• "Israeli forces demolishes Palestinian structures across West Bank, assault locals" (Ma'an, Aug 9, 2016): click here!

  Israeli authorities carried out multiple demolitions across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning, including residential structures funded by the European Union, in the midst of an unprecedented campaign targeting Palestinian homes, business, and agricultural structures under the pretext of lacking building permits which are nearly impossible to obtain.

• Jamal DAJANI: "Deconstructing Netanyahu’s Settlement Myth" (Huffington Post, Aug 7, 2016): click here!

  For years, Israeli politicians exploited the phrase "ein partner" (there is no partner) in order to dodge substantive peace negotiations with the Palestinians. These days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps repeating that it’s “a myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace.” But as we know, simply repeating something doesn’t make it true; reality shows that the settlements are precisely that - a major impediment to peace.

• "PLO: Leasing private Palestinian land an Israeli move to 'swallow' West Bank" (Ma'an, Aug 6, 2016): click here!

  The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) National Bureau to Defend Land released a statement Saturday warning of the “dangerous” consequences of Israel's policy of legalizing illegal settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, in response to recent recommendations by an Israeli government committee seeking to relocated evacuees of the Amona outpost to privately-owned Palestinian land.

• "How much Palestinian land do Israeli settlements really eat up?" (MEMo, Aug 4, 2016): click here!

  The Israeli government and its supporters routinely play down the significance of West Bank settlements as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. One recent example of this came from a Jewish Agency spokesperson, who tweeted: “Jewish communities in the West Bank take up under 2% of the land; that is, over 98% of the West Bank contains no Jewish residents at all.”

• Yotam BERGER: "Secret 1970 Document Confirms First West Bank Settlements Built on a Lie" (Haaretz, July 28, 2016): click here!

  In minutes of meeting in then-defense minister Moshe Dayan’s office, top Israeli officials discussed how to violate international law in building settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron.

• Robert FANTINA: "Israel Lines Its Pockets With Palestinian Aid — And The US Helps Israel Keep It That Way" MintPress News, July 25, 2016): click here!

  Complicity with Israel’s occupation and corruption in Mr. Abbas’ PA play into another major roadblock on Palestine’s path to recovery: International funds meant for reconstruction efforts in Gaza and other forms of humanitarian aid are routinely diluted by Israel.

• "UNRWA: "Statement on Hebron Closures" (UNRWA, July 25, 2016): click here!

  UNRWA is deeply concerned about the humanitarian impact of the closure applied by the Israeli authorities in the Hebron district, affecting in particular Fawwar refugee camp.

• Basman ALASHI: "My Gaza hospital was destroyed. Why has the world stayed silent?" (The National, July 23, 2016): click here!

  Two years ago, my hospital was destroyed. It was the only dedicated rehabilitation hospital in Gaza, a modern centre of care with 80 beds, a therapeutic garden and state-of-the-art equipment. Our patients are among Gaza’s most vulnerable residents; many are paralysed, some need round-the-clock care.

• "Report: 81 Gaza fishermen arrested during first half of 2016 " (MEMo, July 22, 2016): click here!

  Israeli forces have arrested 81 Palestinian fishermen near the Gaza Strip during the first half of 2016, a new report revealed yesterday. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Centre for Studies said Israeli authorities deliberately target Gaza’s fishermen by shooting them or destroying their boats to further impose the blockade.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Intimate portraits of Gaza’s lost" (The Electronic Intifada, July 19, 2016): click here!

  Obliterated Families is a newly released multimedia project produced by photographer Anne Paq and journalist Ala Qandil. Two years in the making, it profiles ten families from Gaza partially or entirely annihilated during the Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014.

• "5 Palestinians injured with live fire during Israeli demolition of prisoner's home" (Ma'an, July 18, 2016): click here!

  Five Palestinian civilians were injured by Israeli live fire during the pre-dawn hours of Monday, as Israeli forces carried out the punitive home demolition of Palestinian prisoner Bilal Ahmed Abu Zeid.

• Sarah ALGHERBAWI: "Life turned upside down in Gaza"(The Internet Intifada, July 15, 2016): click here!

  Inas Abu Muhadi cannot understand that she will never see her dad again. She remembers that her dad had a scooter. And each time she hears one, she expects to see her dad arriving home.

• Jalal ABUKHATER: "City of Fear" [Jerusalem] (The Internet Intifada, July 14, 2016): click here!

  A few days ago, I was driving through Qalandiya checkpoint for the first time since I came back to Jerusalem. My dad, sitting next to me, had to yell “stop here!” at me as I was queuing behind a car at the checkpoint. "You’re too close,” he said, “stop and wait for them to call you, otherwise they’ll shoot you and not even care.”

• Pierre BARBANCEY: "Israël utiliserait le DIME, une arme particulièrement effroyable"(Humanité, Juillet 13, 2016): click here!

  Selon un chirurgien norvégien venu aider ses confrères à Gaza, l’armée israélienne lance des bombes DIME. Les blessures provoquées sont quasiment incurables et conduisent généralement à l’amputation. Nous l’avons constaté à l’hôpital al-Chifa de Gaza.

• Nir HASSON: "Border Police Deliberately Provoke Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Internal Reports Say" (Haaretz, July 12, 2016): click here!

  In one such initiation of 'friction,' a confrontation was sparked in which a boy was shot in the head with a sponged-tipped bullet, putting him in a coma.

• "PCBS reports Palestinian population growth to 4.81 million" (Ma'an, July 11, 2016): click here!

  On the occasion of International Population Day on Monday, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) revealed new data about the population in the occupied Palestinian territory, which it said now totaled 4.81 million people 2016.

• Tamar FLESICHMAN: "IN PHOTOS: A life of constant dread for one Palestinian village" (+972, July 9, 2016): click here!

  The West Bank village of Hizma, surrounded entirely by the separation wall, is the victim of daily harassment by the army and the police. That hasn’t stopped the residents from opening their homes and businesses to Israeli Jews — even the settlers who live next door.

• "On anniversary, 900 Gazans remain in need of care for injuries sustained in 2014 war" (Ma'an, July 7, 2016): click here!

  Some 900 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to require medical attention as a result of permanent disabilities they sustained during Israel’s devastating 51-day assault on the small territory that began on July 8, 2014, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

• Amjad ALQASIS: "Separation and conquest: Israel’s ideological barrier" (Mondoweiss, July 7, 2016): click here!

  In 2002 the Israeli Government decided to construct “a barrier” separating the West Bank and Israel with the declared purpose of improving the security of Israel by preventing Palestinians from entering Israel without first being cleared at a checkpoint.

• Gidi WEITZ & Jack KHOURY: "Will Marwan Barghouti be the Palestinian Nelson Mandela?" (Haaretz, July 5, 2016): click here!

  Nearly a decade and a half after he began serving multiple life sentences for his role in the killings of the second intifada, Marwan Barghouti is still seen – among most Palestinians, many Israelis and world leaders – as the man who could lead his people to independence. Through a mediator, Barghouti tells Haaretz that he remains a staunch proponent of the two-state solution and that he intends to run for Palestinian president should elections be held.

• Gideon LEVY: "After Shooting a Palestinian With Down Syndrome, Israeli Soldiers Fled Without Looking Back" (Haaretz, July 2, 2016): click here!

  Eyewitnesses say Arif Jaradat, 23, did not endanger anyone when he was shot by Israeli troops. Jaradat, loved by all the children in his village, died of his injuries last week.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Turkey-Israel deal leaves Gaza siege intact" (The Electronic Intifada, June 27, 2016): click here!

  Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expressed anger and dismay on Monday about the deal normalizing relations between Israel and Turkey that leaves them under a suffocating siege. An Israeli human rights group that monitors the decade-old Israeli blockade of Gaza has also confirmed that the deal does not end Israel’s tight control over the territory that has greatly exacerbated the devastation to Gaza’s economy and society from three major Israeli military assaults since 2008.

• "Environ 42 % des résidents de la Cisjordanie et de la bande de Gaza sont des réfugiés " (Pour la Palestine, 22 juin, 2016): click here!

  Quelque 41,6 % des résidents palestiniens de l’État de Palestine sont des réfugiés, a rapporté hier le Bureau central palestinien de la statistique (PCBS), peut-on lire dans Quds Press.

• "Stand Up for Sussia and Against Israel's Demolition of Palestinian Villages" (Haaretz Editorial, June 21, 2016): click here!

  Settler groups and their lawmakers have been pushing for more demolitions as part of their plan to annex Area C. It's not only Sussia and other villages that are at risk, but the possibility of a Palestinian state itself.

• Amira HASS: "‘Israel Plans to Destroy Only Water Source of Shepherds in West Bank Village" (Haaretz, June 18, 2016): click here!

  This, despite the fact that Israel’s coordinator of government activities in the territories (to which the Civil Administration is subordinate) promised representatives of international agencies that there would be no demolitions during the month of Ramadan, except for structures built during this time, Haaretz has learned.

• Ben EHRENREICH: "How Israel Is Inciting Palestinian Violence" (Politico, June 14, 2016): click here!

  Inside the oppressive and far-reaching occupation designed to give Palestinians the “feeling of being chased.”

• Tine DANCKAERS: "‘Een hele Palestijnse generatie is letterlijk in een geblokkeerd leven opgegroeid’" (MO*, 14 juni, 2016): click here!

  Deze maand gaat de Israëlische blokkade van de Gazastrook zijn trieste tiende jaar in. Maar de Israëlische krijtlijnen voor het huidige in- en uitreisverbod voor mensen en goederen lagen al langer vast dan 2007. Dat zegt de Gazaanse mensenrechtenactivist Mahmoud Abu-Rahma.

• "49 facts about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip" (MEMo, June 10, 2016): click here!

  This week marked the 49th anniversary of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So here are 49 facts about a military regime that has lasted almost half a century.

• "Squandered Aid: New report documents Israel’s repetitive destruction of EU-funded projects in Palestine " (Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, June 6, 2016): click here!

  Geneva - Damage to European Union-funded projects in Palestine during Israeli attacks and other incursions is nothing new. However, a new report from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor finds that following the EU’s move last year to label Israeli settlement products, the number of union-funded projects demolished or confiscated by Israel increased dramatically.
  For the full report (pdf, 20p.): click here!

• Charlotte SILVER: "Israel has destroyed $74 million (dollar) worth of EU projects" (The Electronic Intifada, June 5, 2016): click here!

  An $11-million farming project in the Jordan Valley, a $61,200 playground near Nablus and an elementary school serving a Bedouin community east of Jerusalem: all have been destroyed by Israel. These are just a few examples of the at least 150 European-funded structures in the occupied West Bank that Israel demolished in the first three months of 2016.

• Ariel Ben SOLOMON: "Sharp drop in granting of citizenship to Jerusalem's Arabs" (The Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2016): click here!

  Over the past decade, 2,641 of the 7,168 applications were approved, for an acceptance rate of 36.8 percent. By contrast, in 2015 the acceptance rate was 2.9 percent.

• Paige BROWNLOW: "The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development: Sara Roy" (Informed Comment, June 2, 2016): click here!

  “The De-development of the Gaza Strip has arguably reached its logical conclusion with the current, increasingly distorted, reconfiguration of economic activity,” says renowned political economist and Harvard scholar, Dr. Sara Roy.

• "4 Palestinian villages torn apart by illegal Israeli settlement" (Palestinian Information Center, May 30, 2016): click here!

  Israeli military bulldozers in Salfit leveled four ancient Palestinian historical villages in favor of an illegal settlement, locals said Monday.

• "Israeli demolitions displace 49 in Bedouin community visited by UK MPs" (MAP, May 18, 2016): click here!

  On Monday, Israeli security forces demolished a number homes in Jabal al Baba, a Bedouin community in Area C of the West Bank, close to East Jerusalem. They reportedly arrived at 5am, and disassembled seven EU-donated homes and confiscated materials for another three, displacing 49 Palestinians, including 22 children.

• "It's Been a Decade. Open Gaza, the Palestinian Ghetto" (Haaretz Editorial, May 17, 2016): click here!

  The closure of Gaza hasn't stopped the rockets or led to the overthrow of Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel uses it as a bargaining chip, knowing full well that justifications of security are meaningless.

• “Israel Controls More than 85% of the Land of Historical Palestine” (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, May 15, 2016): click here!

  The number of Palestinians worldwide has multiplied about nine-fold — Israel Controls More than 85% of the Land of Historical Palestine.

• Nada ELIA: "Palestinians on Nakba Day 2016 — Defiant, Undeterred and Organizing" (Mondoweiss, May 13, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people seems indeed relentless. The gloves have come off, the masquerade of the peace talks is finally seen by most as a futile waste of time, as Israel bares its unadorned face as an expansionist settler-colonial state. Thus the new deputy foreign minister recently declared “this land is ours. All of it is ours,” while a growing number of Israeli politicians finally acknowledge what Palestinians have been saying for years: it is apartheid.

• "Israëlische vernielingen van Palestijnse eigendommen: tijd voor Europese actie" (Knack, 7 mei, 2016): click here!

  Slopingen zijn geen nieuw fenomeen in bezet Palestijns gebied, maar een essentieel onderdeel van het wrede leven onder de bijna 50 jaar durende Israëlische bezetting. De schaal van de afgelopen maanden is echter ongezien, schrijft 11.11.11.

  Version en français (.docx): "Destructions israéliennes de biens palestiniens : temps pour l’action européenne", cliquez ici.
• Allison DEGER: "Meet the private contractors manning Israel’s checkpoints" (Mondoweiss, May 5, 2016): click here!

  An Israeli investigation has revealed a 23-year old Palestinian woman and her 16-year old brother were killed last week at an army checkpoint in Jerusalem by civilian security contractors, not soldiers.

• Michael Schaeffer OMER-MAN: "The incremental annexation of Palestine" (+972, May 4, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s justice minister announces a plan to apply Israeli law to parts of the West Bank, or in other words, annexation. By taking an incremental approach, she stands a pretty good chance of succeeding. Success, however, will expose the true nature of Israel’s discriminatory regime.

• "On May Day in Palestine, High Unemployment and Harsh Working Conditions" (The Palestine Chronicle, May 1, 2016): click here!

  As the world marks International Workers’ Day (May Day), laborers in the Palestinian territory continue to suffer from soaring unemployment, poverty, and other dire working conditions.

• Mohammed OMER: "Gaza's fishermen risking Israeli bullets to bring home daily catch" (Middle East Eye, April 30, 2016): click here!

  Palestinian fishing crews are coming under fire from patrol boats on a regular basis, despite recent extension of permitted trawling zone.

• Ingrid JARADAT: "New UN database of companies complicit in Israel's occupation" (The Hill, April 20, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s relentlessly expanding settlement enterprise has had an enormous detrimental impact on the lives of millions of Palestinians. We have had our land stolen, our homes and crops destroyed, and our towns and villages cut off from one another and the outside world, turned into easily-controlled Bantustans divided by Israeli settlements, military bases, walls, and Israeli-only roads. In effect, Israel has created an apartheid colonial regime where Palestinians under occupation have no rights while Israeli settlers living nearby enjoy all the right and privileges of Israeli citizenship.

• "Netanyahu: Israeli army to continue incursions in Area A" (Ma'an, 21 avril, 2016): click here!

  In spite of recent talks with Palestinian officials, Israeli armed forces will continue to intervene in parts of the occupied West Bank under full Palestinian Authority (PA) control, high-ranking Israeli officials said on Wednesday.

• Franklin SPINNEY: "The Palestinian Question: Why the Two-State Solution is Kaput". Water and the Creeping Annexation of the West Bank (CounterPunch, 20 April, 2016): click here!
• Adnan ABU AMER: "Does Israel have justification to enter West Bank's Area A?" (Al Monitor, April 14, 2016): click here!

  Israel does not seem inclined to halt its hot pursuits against Palestinian fugitives anytime soon, amid the ongoing intifada and the helpless PA’s failure to end it or contain it, neither politically nor militarily. As a result, what is remaining of the PA’s imaginary sovereignty over the West Bank, as per the Oslo Accord, is gradually waning.

• Munir NUSEIBAH: "Israel’s Dangerous New Transfer Tactic in Jerusalem" (Al Shabaka, April 12, 2016): click here!

  Israel is adept at creating new Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, taking advantage of every opportunity to do so and exploiting temporary crises to promote permanent measures.

• Amira HASS: "Corrupt Palestinian Officials Too Comfortable to Resist the Israeli Occupation " (Haaretz, April 11, 2016): click here!

  Palestinians don’t need the Panama Papers to expose what they see as corruption in the ranks of their leaders — there is visible concrete evidence of it everywhere.

• "Five Palestinians Detained and Tortured by the Palestinian Security Forces" (Addameer, April 11, 2016): click here!

  Addameer considers the actions of the Palestinian Security Forces to be in contravention with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as the Convention Against Torture (CAT), both of which the Palestinian Authority is a party.

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "Brutal, ugly & illegal: 9 things you need to know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine" (Salon, April 10, 2016): click here!

  As this story goes to press, the American Anthropological Association is voting on an academic boycott resolution in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

• "No olives for Palestine: Israel's latest barrier-building" (The New Arab, April 8, 2016): click here!

  Israel has started construction on a new part of its controversial separation barrier which would isolate Palestinian communities from their olive groves in the occupied West Bank. The construction began with the lifting of several eight-metre-high blocks expected to complete the 670km (420 mile) barrier.

• "77,000 Jewish settlers to move to new illegal West Bank settlements" (MEMo, April 5, 2016): click here!

  Some 77,000 Jewish settlers are due to be relocated to illegal Israeli settlements around the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, an Israeli rights group revealed yesterday.

• Gideon LEVY: "Hebron Murder Was No Exception, but the Inevitable Result" (Haaretz, March 27, 2016: click here!

  It’s the present and the future. It’s impossible to maintain the occupation without such murders, their number will only mount.

• Steven SALAITA: "The Native American model of Palestine’s future" (The Electronic Intifada, March 10, 2016: click here!

  Comparison of Native Americans and Palestinians has become increasingly common. Thus arises a corresponding need to assess the problems and prospects of comparative analysis. Because I teach American Indian and Indigenous Studies in the Arab World, I’ve been thinking frequently about how we might productively engage Natives from spaces of Palestine solidarity.

• Philip WEISS: "‘We wasted 40 years talking about nothing, doing nothing’ — Pappe demolishes peace process" (Monoweiss, March 4, 2016: click here!

  For decades, intellectuals tried and failed to explain the root of the conflict as a settler-colonial project. Now at last that paradigm has come into fashion in academia; and it is acute and powerful, and helps explain the relevance of Palestine to the Middle East and the world at large.

• Yesh Din, written by Yossi Gurvitz: "Shhhhhh, we’re annexing" (+972, Feb 27, 2016)): click here!

  A new position paper by human rights organization Yesh Din looks at steps being taken by the Israeli government toward the de facto annexation of the West Bank.

• Barbara ERICKSON: "When Israel’s bulldozers escape our attention" (The Electronic Intifada, Feb 22, 2016)): click here!

  OCHA field reports indicate that during 2015, the Israeli army destroyed some 170 housing units in Area C and East Jerusalem, along with shops and other commercial facilities. Israel razed orchards, burned wheat fields and demolished cisterns, wells, an elementary school (donor built), a greenhouse, a plant nursery, workshops, stores, outdoor kitchens, latrines, rest shelters and more.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "South African water conference called off amid protest at Israel’s role" (The Electronic Intifada, Feb 19, 2016)): click here!

  About 80 percent of all water drilled in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley is consumed by Israel and its settlements, all of which are illegal under international law. Many Palestinian wells and springs have dried up due to deep water drillings by Israel’s national water company Mekorot and agri-food companies.

• Ine ROOX: "Israël drijft sloop EU-projecten fors op" (De Standaard, 14 feb, 2016): click here!

  ‘Het is behoorlijk frustrerend’, reageert een Europese bron. ‘Dat Israël projecten en structuren in zone C van de Westelijke Jordaanoever vernielt, is niets nieuws, maar het gebeurt veel meer uitgesproken dan vroeger’.

• Engelbert LUITSZ: "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" (Alexandrina, 14 feb, 2016): click here!

  Drie Palestijnse kinderen zijn vandaag vermoord en een meisje liet men bijna doodbloeden, nadat mensen die te hulp kwamen met geweld werden verwijderd. Of zij het zal overleven is nog maar de vraag.

• "EP Delegation Calls for Immediate End to Israeli Settlements, Demolitions" (IMEMC, Feb 13, 2016): click here!

  The European Parliament (EP’s) Delegation for relations with Palestine, expressed alarm at the deteriorating situation on the ground, calling for an immediate stop to Israeli expansion of settlements, and demolitions, said a press statement by EP delegation... On 18 January Foreign Ministers in the Council conclusions confirmed the EU's firm opposition to Israel's settlement policy and actions taken in this context, including demolitions and confiscation, evictions, forced transfers or restrictions of movement and access.

• "Israeli Soldiers Open Fire On Gaza Farmers And Fishers" (IMEMC, Feb 8, 2016): click here!

  The soldiers, stationed behind the border fence, east of the al-Boreij refugee camp, in central Gaza, fired dozens of rounds of live ammunition into Palestinian farmlands, forcing the Palestinians to leave. In addition, Israeli navy ships fired several live rounds on Palestinian fishing boats, in the Sudaniyya area, in Gaza, causing significant damage to at least one boat, and forcing the fishers back to shore.

• "100 days of collective punishment for Hebron residentss" (International Solidarity Movement, Feb 7, 2016): click here!

  February 8th marks one hundred days since Israeli forces declared the Tel Rumeida neighborhood and the adjacent portion of Shuhada Street a “closed military zone,” requiring residents to register with the Israeli military and be assigned numbers in order to be allowed to access their homes while all other Palestinians and international human rights defenders are barred from entering the area. On February 5th the Israeli military issued an order officially extending the closed military zone until the 1st of March, with the possibility for further renewal.

• Gilles DEVERS: "Israël détruit les maisons palestiniennes financées par l’Europe : Les citoyens européens doivent réagir" (blog Actualités du droit, 3 février 2016): click here!

  Tout ceci relève de la Cour pénale internationale, mais hélas, l’Autorité palestinienne a décidé de ne rien faire à part des discours, et elle refuse obstinément de déposer plainte devant la Cour. Elle entretient la culture de l’impunité, préférant gérer les subventions européennes que défendre la souveraineté palestinienne...

• Ghada AGEEL: "Gaza under siege: The conditions of slavery" (Middle East Eye, Jan 19, 2016): click here!

  When 70 percent of the Palestinian population “live in conditions in which their freedom, honour, physical integrity, capacity to work, acquire property, marry and, more generally, plan for the future are alienated to the will and power of their Israeli masters, these conditions can only be named by their proper name: conditions of slavery.”

• Miko PELED: "The emperor has no clothes: The West Bank, settlements and the two State Solution " (American Herald Tribune, Jan 30, 2016): click here!

  Sadly, over the last seventy years Israel has had many successes at the expense of the Palestinian people. But the one success that is the most remarkable is getting Palestinians and the world to buy into the notion that the occupation of Palestine began in 1967, and that therefore, the solution to the Palestinian question is what is known as the two State Solution. This is a manipulation of reality that would make any magician proud.

• Engelbert LUITSZ: "Wanneer komt de volgende aanval op Gaza?" (Alexandrina, 29 jan 2016): click here!

  De Palestijnen fungeren als de kanarie in de kolenmijn. Zolang er nog verzet is, is er leven. Zij tonen – voor wie de moeite neemt te kijken naar wat er echt gebeurt in Palestina – een beeld van een verstikkende overheerser. Zij tonen vooral de mentaliteit, het sadisme en de schaamteloze propaganda op een concrete wijze. Zij tonen het menselijk lijden als direct gevolg van een bezetter die zelfs zijn plicht als bezetter niet nakomt, namelijk het garanderen van de veiligheid in de bezette gebieden.

• Gideon LEVY: "Hating the Occupation, Not the Jews" (Haaretz, Jan 29, 2016): click here!

  They set out to stab or run people over by car because they’re conquerors. They set out to kill their conquerors. They chose violence as a means of resisting a more pernicious violence, that of the occupation. They wanted to hurt Israelis, especially soldiers and settlers, because of the occupation, not because they’re Jewish. Their Jewishness has nothing to do with it. For the Palestinians, there’s no difference between a soldier who’s Jewish, Druze or Bedouin and a settler from the tribe of Menashe... The thought that dozens of Palestinians have already set out to commit spontaneous acts of stabbing or car-ramming, with hundreds, maybe thousands or tens of thousands considering doing the same, should have provoked some thinking in Israel. Not the thinking of a victim who is being attacked again, but a consideration of what drives desperate children and adults to do this, in the knowledge that their chances of survival are slim. But this might only raise questions that Israelis run away from as is from a fire.

• Eyal PRESS: "When ‘Made in Israel’ Is a Human Rights Abuse" (The New York Times, Jan 26, 2016): click here!

  ...The more the line between Israel and the occupied territories is blurred, the more likely the rest of the world will be to question the legitimacy of not just the settlements but Israel itself. In the long run, this will not prevent Israel from being depicted as a pariah state, but instead will provide powerful ammunition to those who see it as such.

• Ramzy BAROUD: "Gaza Speaks: This is What the Decade-long Siege Has Done to Us" (The Palestine Chronicle, Jan 26, 2016): click here!

  Whenever Mariam Aljamal’s children hear the sound of thunder at night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza Strip.

• Ben WHITE: "Why Israel invented the concept of ‘settlement blocs’" (Middle East Eye, Jan 25, 2016): click here!

  The irony is that "settlement blocs" are cited by Israeli officials and apologists as evidence of the feasibility of a viable Palestinian state, when in fact, their establishment on the ground has been designed to preclude precisely that scenario. The creation of the concept must not be allowed to confuse: the "blocs"must be seen for what they are.

• Léopold LAMBERT: "Towards a Post-Apartheid Palestine: Atlas of the Israeli Settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem" (The Funambulist, Jan 22, 2016): click here!

  The following Atlas is therefore less the inventory of evidences of the current state of apartheid — although it clearly shows an important part of its materialization — than a toolbox to imagine a post-apartheid Palestine scenario in which the problem/opportunity constituted by the settlement can be fully investigated.

• "Israel affirms plans to grab Palestinian land in West Bank" (presstv.com, Jan 21, 2016): click here!

  The Israeli regime has confirmed plans to seize a large tract of fertile Palestinian land for the purpose of expanding its illegal settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

• "Special Focus: A Review of the Situation in the OPT in 2015 " (Al-Haq, Jan 20, 2016): click here!

  In 2015, Israel’s intentions towards the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the Palestinian population were made clear through the unabashed extreme rhetoric of government officials and a deepening of various practices that violate Palestinian rights.

• "UN decries Abu Nuwar demolitions, calls for immediate end to planned transfers" (Medical Aid for Palestinians, MAP, Jan 20, 2016): click here!

  Today, the Coordinator for Humanitarian and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Robert Piper, and the Director of UNRWA Operations West Bank, Felipe Sanchez, called for an immediate end to Israeli plans to transfer Palestinian Bedouin currently living within the occupied Palestinian territory in the Jerusalem area.

• Sergio YAHNI: "Hebron: land, settlements and settlers" (alternativenews.org, Jan 19, 2016): click here!

  Constant friction with the Israeli army and settlers has transformed Hebron into the centre of Palestinian resistance.

• "HRW calls on businesses to withdraw from Israeli settlements" (Ma'an News Agency, Jan 19, 2016): click here!

  The international rights group said in a statement that Israel's violations of Palestinian rights -- as well as international humanitarian law -- were "intrinsic to abusive, harmful, and longstanding policies in the West Bank."

• Human Rights Watch: “Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights” (Jan 19, 2016): click here!

  This report details the ways in which Israeli and international businesses have helped to build, finance, service, and market settlement communities.

• Robert FANTINA: "From Banned Crayons To Concrete, Gaza Struggles To Rebuild After A Decade Of Israeli Blockade" (MintPress News, Jan 14, 2016): click here!

  In addition to essential building supplies like boards and concrete, Israel’s blocked crayons, soccer balls, musical instruments and even potato chips from entering Gaza.

• Jonathan COOK: "Why Israel has silenced the 1948 story of Nazareth’s survival" (Mondoweiss, Jan 12, 2016): click here!

  A rarely told story of the 1948 war that founded Israel concerns Nazareth’s survival. It is the only Palestinian city in what is today Israel that was not ethnically cleansed during the year-long fighting. Other cities, such as Jaffa, Lydd, Ramleh, Haifa and Acre, now have small Palestinian populations that mostly live in ghetto-like conditions in what have become Jewish cities. Still others, like Tiberias and Safad, have no Palestinians left in them at all.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Jerusalem children squeezed out of school by Israeli discrimination" (The Electronic Intifada, 3 Jan, 2016): click here!

  Every year, around 300 boys in the Jabal al-Mukabir neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem complete middle school and are ready to advance to the next grade. But fewer than half of them are able to find a spot in the only secondary school in the neighborhood, Sakhnin High School. Many just drop out altogether.

• Jacob BURNS: "This Is What Being ‘Tough on Terror’ Looks Like In East Jerusalem" (Huffington Post, 29 Oct, 2015): click here!

  At the southern edge of Jabal Mukaber, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, the hills form a wide, natural amphitheatre. Here olive groves adorn the gentle slopes, horses whinny, and birds flit out from the eaves to play in the evening sky. The views out towards Herod’s great fortress Herodion are breathtaking.

• Chaim LEVINSON: "2,026 Settlement Homes Built on Private Palestinian Land, Right-wing Study Finds" (Haaretz, May 3, 2015): click here!

  Study conducted in support of possible legislation to expropriate land from Palestinians in exchange for reparations.

• Ibrahim SHIKAKI & Joanna SPRINGER: "Building a Failed State: Palestine’s Governance and Economy Delinked" (Al-Shabaka, April 21, 2015): click here!

  Since its inception, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been heavily handicapped. Israel not only failed to transfer control over the powers and resources necessary for governance: It effectively transferred the burden of governance to the PA.

• "One Rule, Two Legal Systems: Israel’s Regime of Laws in the West Bank". A New Report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Nov 24, 2014: click here!

  A new report published by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) outlines the nature of the legal regime currently operating in the West Bank. Two systems of law are applied in a single territory: one – a civilian legal system for Israeli citizens, and a second – a military court system for Palestinian residents. The result: institutionalized discrimination.

• Paola MANDUCA, Iain CHALMERS, Derek SUMMERFIELD, Mads GILBERT, Swee ANG e.a.: "An open letter for the people in Gaza" (The Lancet, 23 July, 2014): click here!

  We are doctors and scientists, who spend our lives developing means to care and protect health and lives. We are also informed people; we teach the ethics of our professions, together with the knowledge and practice of it. We all have worked in and known the situation of Gaza for years.

• Stuart LITTLEWOOD: "Stealing Palestine: interview with Richard Falk” (Redress Information & Analysis, Dec 16, 2013): click here!

  Creeping annexation, ethnic cleansing and “the politics of fragmentation” inflicted by criminals who strut the world stage and thumb their noses at international law.