Israeli warplanes continue to strike Gaza City Tuesday despite reports of a ceasefire, Anadolu reports.

According to witnesses, the Israeli bombardment targeted a post belonging to the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, in the town of Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip, causing a huge fire at the nearby Omar bin Abdulaziz Mosque.

It was also reported that Israeli warplanes and artillery units are continuing to strike a large number of agricultural areas in southern, northern and central Gaza.

The Israeli army confirmed that its warplanes had carried out 15 bombardments in the Gaza Strip.

After completing discussions and assessing the situation on the southern front, the Israeli occupation army has likely decided to prepare for a massive ground attack in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported this morning.

“Following the assessment of the situation by the chief of staff, we are currently rapidly transferring two brigades, infantry and armoured corps from training and from their division headquarters to the Southern Command area,” spokesperson of the Israeli army Ronen Manelis said in a statement.

“There is a focused mobilisation of reservists to specific zones, and we are in full readiness for a wide range of scenarios,” the statement continued, noting that the current round of reservists are from intelligence and air defence units.

On the 51st Friday of the Great March of Return protests, march spokesperson Daoud Shehab announced the failure of the indirect talks held between the Palestinian resistance factions and Israel to reach a truce in the Gaza Strip. This news shocked Gazans, who have been waiting for the fruits of these talks for a year.

The next day, MEMO asked senior Hamas member Khalil Al-Hayya about the issue and he said: “This is not true and the Egyptian mediation in this file is still in place.” However, he recognised that “there is a kind of Israeli procrastination.”

Al-Hayya said the talks, which have been taking as a result of the pressure placed by the Great March of Return, “had tangible impacts on the ground”.

Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza with bombs late Monday night and into Tuesday morning, including the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya in Gaza City.

After the Israeli military began its bombardment campaign, dropping close to 100 bombs in the first three hours of Monday evening, Palestinian resistance forces retaliated, firing around 30 homemade shells across the border into Israel, causing no injuries.

Israeli authorities opened public bomb shelters for Israelis living in border towns near the Gaza Strip. Palestinians living in Gaza, numbering nearly two million people, have no bomb shelters.

The Israel army has deployed two infantry and armored divisions to southern Israel, and has begun a limited call for reservists in the intelligence and air defense corps, following rocket fire on central Israel Monday morning, a military spokesman said.

Brigadier General Ronen Manelis alleges that a rocket was fired from Hamas operatives, from a military post in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and had a range of 120 kilometers.

Though default Hamas rockets are little more than hollow tubes stuffed with dynamite, and not equipped with guidance systems, Israeli forces claimed, on Twitter, that a homemade rocket traveled 75 miles, destroying a house in Tel Aviv.

Seven Palestinians were injured as Israel bombarded Gaza on Monday night in what Israel’s acting foreign minister said was the military’s largest offensive there since 2014.

Palestinian factions fired rockets from Gaza towards southern Israel in response. Video showed a home in Sderot that was hit with a rocket fired from Gaza:

The largest open-air prison in the world, Gaza, is facing another brutal bombardment. Last night the IDF continually pounded Gaza with airstrikes, some of which landed in the middle of Gaza city, which is one of the most densely populated areas of the globe. We must respond by standing in unity with the people of Gaza.

This latest attack comes one week after a report adopted by the UN Human Rights Council accused Israel of committing war crimes against unarmed civilians along the Gaza fence, including medics, journalists and children. Since the start of the protest “Great March of Return”, begun on March 30th 2018, over 200 demonstrators have been killed and over 27,000 injured.

Aside from what the photo represents, in the last few days Trump (YOUR TAX DOLLARS) paid for every bomb dropped on Gaza.

Could we call this meddling in the upcoming Israeli election?

Watch what life is like under occupation

The truth is that far from being the poor victim it likes to portray itself as, Israel is in fact the most aggressive and belligerent nation in the region, having invaded pretty much everyone it shares a border with.

The following maps show just who is wiping who off of the map!

Bomb shelters opened ? Thousands of reservists to be called up ? Army warns civilians: Explosions to be heard as part of attack on the Strip ? Three wounded from rocket strike still hospitalized

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted 23-8 for an arms embargo against Israel and the prosecution of Israelis for war crimes over IDF actions along the Gaza border last year.

It was one of five anti-Israel resolutions which the UNHRC approved on Friday in Geneva as it wrapped up its 40th session.

Australia was the only country who voted against all five of the texts. Neither Israel or the United States are members of the council.

Host Simon Spungin talks to senior correspondent Chemi Shalev about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's short trip to the United States, which has been cut short by a rocket attack on a central Israeli moshav: What does the prime minister's hasty retreat tell us about how he thinks his election campaign is going and how will his rivals use his perceived inability to crush Hamas against him?

After U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he planned to unilaterally recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — which is internationally recognized as Syrian territory — some powerful Israeli politicians are now petitioning Trump to also recognize Israeli sovereignty over Palestine’s occupied West Bank.

Young Jews on a Birthright trip to Israel are calling out the organization for distributing maps that erase Palestine

The Israeli Air Force has struck at least two ‘Hamas outposts’ in Gaza in retaliation for what the IDF claimed was an overnight barrage of some ‘300 explosives’ thrown across the border fence at Israeli troops.

The strike came in response to ongoing border disturbances by Hamas’ so-called “night-time unit” which staged a massive demonstration along the Gazan border with Israel on Saturday night, burning tires, throwing homemade explosive devices, and launching incendiary balloons at southern Israel.

“Our stance is clear, either [Israel] lifts the blockade [on Gaza] or [Israeli] residents of border communities evacuate,” the statement by the unit read, as its operatives vowed to continue their unrest throughout next week between the hours of 7pm until the first light of dawn.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) begins its annual policy conference Sunday in unusual circumstances.
First, the organization has been the target of antisemitic attacks by a member of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Second, it is being boycotted by left-wing groups that are claiming credit for persuading Democratic presidential candidates to avoid the conference (though few attend in non-election years anyway).

Saikat Chakrabarti, the chief of staff and political strategist for “phenom” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), put the two together late last week and congratulated Omar, effectively, for using antisemitic rhetoric to accomplish the boycott. The fact that Democrats celebrate such tactics, rather than punishing them, is a new and dangerous watershed in American politics. And it is a sign that AIPAC’s traditional façade of bipartisanship is badly damaged.

The Trump Administration has delivered yet another concession to Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of parliamentary elections: the Israeli military occupation of much of the Palestinian West Bank and of the Golan Heights will no longer be referred to in official U.S. government documents as an occupation. America’s so-called Ambassador to Israel is a former Trump lawyer named David Friedman who is more involved in serving Israel than the United States. He personally supports the view that the illegal Jewish settlements are legitimately part of Israel, choosing to ignore their growth even though it has long been U.S. policy to oppose them. He has also long sought to change the State Department’s language on the Israeli control of the West Bank and Golan Heights, being particularly concerned about the expression “occupied,” which has legal implications. Now he appears to have won that fight, to the delight of the Netanyahu government.

At least three Palestinians were injured on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike targeting the area east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Health Ministry in Gaza, told reporters that three men were slightly injured by the shrapnel of a missile fired by an Israeli drone, adding that the injured were sent to hospital for treatment.

Israeli crimes against peaceful Palestinian protesters in Gaza should go to the International Criminal Court (ICC), said the Palestinian ambassador to UN in Geneva on Sunday.

Ibrahim Khraishi’s call came after the UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a resolution on strengthening the UN presence in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

The council said it was “gravely concerned” by the findings of the UN-appointed independent international commission of inquiry, which said Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the peaceful Great March of Return protests.

“That report should be transmitted to the ICC by the commissioner,” Khraishi told Anadolu Agency, referring to Michelle Bachelet, who heads the council.

Khraishi said that Israeli forces target all people, not sparing children, the disabled, the media, or healthcare providers.

Israeli occupation forces arrested a minor during a school raid

Israeli TV images showed a badly damaged residential house which police said had also burst into flames as a result of the direct hit. Though Israeli's foreign ministry was quick to identify the launch as originating in Gaza, the Palestinian side had not confirmed the attack.

Israel and Hamas are on the brink of war – again – just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls to decide whether or not to reelect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Seven people were wounded Monday after a family home north of Tel Aviv was hit by a long-range rocket from the Gaza Strip. The IDF immediately prepared to call up troops and Netanyahu canceled his AIPAC appearance, cutting short his celebratory visit with Trump - to laud U.S. recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

As Chemi Shalev notes, Hamas knew exactly how to rain on Netanyahu’s victory parade. Netanyahu’s rivals were quick to pile on blame and chip away at his security image. Amos Harel explains how this all comes just a day after Netanyahu, in a botched TV interview, raised new questions about his involvement in the ‘submarine and state secrets’ scandal.

While the US president has handed the Israeli prime minister Jerusalem and the Golan and walked away from the Iran deal, the day is approaching when the bill for such goodwill has to be paid - and Trump is determined to push through his 'deal of the century' in the Mideast

Two women were moderately hurt and five others, including an infant, lightly wounded after a rocket fired by Gaza militants struck a residential house in a community northeast of Tel Aviv; Netanyahu cuts his Washington trip short in light of the rocket attack

Palestinian resistance group Hamas sees UN resolution condemning Israel’s human rights violations in occupied Gaza Strip as a “step in the right path”.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Friday passed a draft resolution to strengthen the UN presence in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

“Hamas welcomes the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution that condemns the Israeli occupation for its crimes against the peaceful protesters at the Great Return March east of Gaza,” the group said in a statement.

The resistance group “deems this resolution as a step in the right path towards supporting the Palestinian rights and criminalizing the Israeli occupation at international forums.”

Hamas also stated that the UN rights body’s move “requires effective and practical steps on the ground to hold the Israeli Occupation accountable for its crimes and violations and to mobilise more support for the Palestinian people and their just cause.”

Israeli fighter jets carried out two airstrikes in the Gaza Strip early Sunday following the launch of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian territory, according to the military.

In a statement, the army said the attacks targeted two Hamas posts in the seaside enclave.

According to an Anadolu Agency reporter, the Israeli warplanes struck positions in Al-Awda refugee camp, east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

No injuries were reported.

These airstrikes followed two other airstrikes earlier today, on eastern parts of the Bureyc refugee camp, which injured three Palestinians.

In a 23-8 vote, the UN Human Rights Council voted Friday to endorse a report on Israel’s treatment protests along the Gaza Strip, which determined that the government’s actions amounted to war crimes against civilians in Gaza.

The report itself was published in late February, and found that Israel intentionally shot both children and journalists in the Gaza Strip during those protests. They noted that 154 out of 183 people killed at the time had been unarmed.

Israeli officials insisted at the time the report came out that the killings amounted to the “right of self-defense and the obligation to defend its citizens and borders.” Israeli officials now say the only supporters of the resolution are dictatorships and “hypocrites.”

Other UNHRC resolutions, also opposed as “absurd” by Israel, included an endorsement of the right of Palestinian self-determination, and criticism of Israeli abuses in the occupied territories, and one on the illegality of Israeli settlements.

At the end of nearly 1,000 yards of newly-grown spring grassy turf, a renewed barbed-wire border fence rises three meters up, in anticipation of a million person march next week between Gaza protesters and their well-known antagonist snipers.

A week before the first anniversary of the great March of Return, organizers have pledged larger than usual demonstrations. However, their preparations appeared powerless in yesterday’s renewed protests at Malaka, eastern Gaza City, when hails of Israeli live ammunition and gas canisters killed two Palestinian men and wounded 26 others taking part in weekly demonstrations along the fortified Israel-Gaza border.

The AIPAC policy conference in Washington began today on a defensive note, with the Israel lobby organization’s chief executive saying that Israel’s friends face a terrible new challenge, “the scurrilous charge of dual loyalty” and declaring, “The intense hatred of Israel is now creeping from the margins to the center of our politics.”

The day after several major Democratic candidates announced that they would not be attending the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which begins in Washington on Sunday, President Trump did what he always does, pouring accelerant on an already hot-burning fire of public debate.

“I don’t know what happened to them, but they are anti-Israel,” Trump told reporters on Friday morning on the South Lawn of the White House. “Frankly, I think they are anti-Jews.” Trump thinks himself very much pro-Jews. The day before, he broke through the tweets about Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders staying away from AIPAC with a perfectly timed tweet of his own, one that announced the United States would finally recognize the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel. The contrast was drawn and masterfully so.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan at one point included Jordan giving land to the Palestinian territories and in return getting land from Saudi Arabia, according to a new book on the Kushner family.

The book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, was written by Vicky Ward and released by St. Martin’s Press on Tuesday. The book’s 300 pages detail Jared and Ivanka’s path to involvement in every aspect of White House affairs and their alleged designs to use their influence for personal gain.

Two Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured, including an Anadolu Agency photojournalist, during a Friday rally along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra confirmed that two Palestinians — aged 18 and 29 — had been killed by Israeli army gunfire.

Ali Jadallah, an Anadolu Agency photojournalist, was also reportedly injured during Friday’s demonstration.

Hamas yesterday celebrated the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of the movement, vowing to continue the path of resistance until the liberation of Palestine.

In a statement issued yesterday, Hamas said: “We will continue the resistance path of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Resistance is a legitimate right guaranteed by all religious and international law, in the forefront of which is armed resistance, which is a strategic choice to protect and regain Palestinian rights.”

The statement also said that Yassin put the issue of prisoners on top of Hamas’ agenda and exerted much effort to liberate them.

“Hamas now bears this responsibility and will not let the Israeli occupation continue to inflict suffering on our prisoners,” the statement said, stressing that it would use all means necessary to liberate those prisoners held by Israel.

How is the camel’s back not broken yet?

Fifty years of occupation, twelve years of blockade, 600,000 Israeli settlers, 250 dead unarmed Gazan protesters, three one-sided “wars” in which 3,500 Palestinians in Gaza (and about 150 Israelis) have been killed–that’s not a big enough deal for us to utter a word of reprimand or turn off the financial spigot to Israel.

The US is shelling out $10 million a day, $7,000 a minute in aid–not humanitarian, but military aid, mind you–to a country that last summer passed the openly racist Nation-State Law, that last month saw its prime minister create a coalition including disciples of a Jewish supremacist, that last week disqualified pro-Palestinian parties from even appearing on the election ballot, while welcoming an anti-Palestinian candidate who is a member of a Jewish terror group.

These outrageous acts did not outrage our politicians; Israel’s leaders are emboldened.

More than 97% of the water pumped from the coastal aquifer, in the besieged Gaza Strip, does not meet the water quality standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), leading to the depletion of groundwater reserves, with the groundwater level in the coastal aquifer reaching 19 meters below sea level, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) said on Thursday, in a joint press release, on the occasion of World Water Day.

The joint statement said, “The amount of water extracted from the coastal aquifer for domestic use was 178.7 million cubic meters (MCM) in Gaza Strip in 2017; but this quantity is obtained via unsafe pumping that jeopardizes sustainability of the source knowing that the basin sustainable yield should not exceed 50-60 MCM a year.”

A Vienna museum, Volkskundemuseum, has cancelled an event on Palestinian rights where former minister in Nelson Mandela’s government Ronnie Kasrils was scheduled to speak (Video by Ronnie Kasrils). Kasrils is a renowned South African anti-apartheid activist of Jewish descent, and his address was scheduled for the March 29 event as part of the annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Human rights advocates immediately condemned the cancellation, and called for the event to be reinstated.

The museum caved to pressure from Austria’s Israel lobby. The cancellation comes amid Israel’s ongoing repression of the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. Two IAW events scheduled in France this week were also canceled.

Israeli forces killed two protesters in the occupied Gaza Strip on Friday as the UN Human Rights Council condemned the “apparent intentional use of unlawful lethal and other excessive force” against Great March of Return demonstrators.

The UN body also passed a resolution opposing Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, one day after President Donald Trump tweeted in support of US recognition of Israel’s claims to the Syrian territory.

Gaza’s health ministry identified the Palestinians slain on Friday as 29-year-old Nidal Abd al-Karim Ahmad Shatat, shot in the chest, and 24-year-old Jihad Munir Khalid Harara, shot in the head.

Every year since 1993, the UN has marked March 22 as World Water Day. This date gives us the opportunity to raise the profile of water both as a fundamental need to sustain life, and as a human right – which the UN General Assembly declared it was in July 2010.

This year’s World Water Day theme – “leave no one behind” – has an acutely jarring ring when applied to Israel.

Since 1967 when Israel issued several military orders asserting its control over all water sources in the newly occupied territories (Palestinians were denied the right to drill wells or repair existing ones and the orders decreed that any Palestinian water installation built without a permit would be destroyed), its policies have been aimed at depriving Palestinians access to the water they once enjoyed, and punishing them for further use.

The March of Return is a scream for life so that we may leave the walls of our prison. These are the words repeated by Ahmed Abu Artema in his many lectures and interviews. Abu Artema is the brain behind the most powerful expression of unarmed Palestinian resistance, The March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018, and has become a weekly occurrence in the Gaza Strip for close to a year.

Why would we die here in silence? We want our message to reach the world. We want to say to the world ‘here there is a people. A people searching for a life of dignity, human rights and freedom.'”

Israeli forces shot and killed four young Palestinian men over the course of 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday in the occupied West Bank.

On Tuesday evening, around 7:00 pm, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah-area Abwein village in the central West Bank, in search of 19-year-old Omar Abu Laila, who was believed to be responsible for an attack over the weekend that left one Israeli soldier and a settler dead.

After besieging the village and surrounding the house where Abu Laila had been hiding, Israeli forces engaged in a lengthy shootout, eventually shooting and killing the teenager.

Local media reported that several local youth from Abwein were injured with live ammunition in clashes with Israeli forces during their operation in the town.

As of Thursday, Abu Laila’s body had yet to be returned to his family.

For many years, US corporate media have consistently failed to adequately inform audiences about the Palestinian right of return.

Even though the refugees are a crucial reason that the issue of Israel/Palestine remains unresolved, only a small portion of the coverage addresses the right of return. I used the media aggregator Factiva to search the databases of three major US newspapers: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. In a combined search of these three publications, Factiva returns results for 45,285 pieces that mention the Palestinian issue over the last ten years. Of these, only 624 contain the phrase “right of return.” In other words, since March 2009 these outlets have published 44,661 articles that bring up the Palestinian question while omitting a phrase that is absolutely integral to it, and one of the main reasons that it remains unresolved.

At least seven Palestinians were injured on Thursday night by Israeli artillery shelling on Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip, medics said.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Health Ministry in Gaza, told reporters that seven Palestinians were moderately injured by the shrapnel of the shells fired by Israeli troops stationed on the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel.

Palestinian security officials also said that the Israeli artillery shelling targeted a military lookout post east of the town, destroying the post and wounding seven Palestinians.

An Israeli army spokesman said in a press statement that the artillery shelling was a response to the releasing of arson balloons carrying explosives that exploded in southern Israel. No injuries were reported.

When Dr. Nadav Granat read the Instagram post of Israeli model Rotem Sela in which she reminded the country that “Arabs are also human beings,” he decided he wanted to take action, too. As a religious Jewish doctor who works alongside Arabs every day, he launched his own online campaign to show the inclusive face of Israel.

The campaign has gone viral. This week, the Hebrew news site Mako published a story about Granat, 37, an emergency medical doctor at Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva. Granat called on the public to implement exactly what Sela called for when she asked, “When will anyone in this government tell the public that this is a country of all its citizens, and all people are born equal?”

Israel said on Thursday a U.N. report critical of its use of lethal force during Palestinian protests on the Gaza border was biased and should have included a demand that the enclave’s dominant Hamas group take action to stop anti-Israeli violence.

A U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the demonstrations, which began nearly a year ago, said this week that Israel should investigate the shootings of more than 6,000 people, far beyond the criminal inquiries it has announced into 11 killings.

Israeli occupation forces arrested a 22-year-old Palestinian woman at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron after she posted a comment on Facebook on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Isra’a Hammad Abu Sneineh was detained at the Abu Al-Rish military checkpoint near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

According to the Asra Media Office, Abu Sneineh was arrested at the military checkpoint located at the main entrance to the Old City, west of the Ibrahimi Mosque, as a result of a Facebook post she wrote about Al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Centre (PPC), Israel had arrested more than 500 Palestinians, including women and children, as a result of their social media posts by May last year.

The occupation state uses its “Cyber Unit” to monitor Palestinian social media posts, the centre added.

Britain’s first Member of Parliament of Palestinian descent is preparing for a historic debate on Friday to have the government give official recognition to the state of Palestine in what she says is probably the “most personal and poignant” piece of legislation she has submitted since arriving in Westminster.

Rising political star Layla Moran, a Liberal Democrat, sent shock waves through the ranks of the Conservative Party when she overturned a 10,000 majority at the 2017 General Election to take Oxford West and Abingdon which was previously regarded as a safe Tory seat. Now she’s making more waves with the second reading of her Private Members Bill this week to have Palestine recognised by Britain as a state.

An Israeli group which promotes “separation” from the Palestinians has been slammed for publishing a series of “racist” videos, warning against the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Writing in Local Call, Meron Rapoport took to task a series of election-related clips released by The Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), a so-called non-partisan group of former army commanders and intelligence officials.

According to Rapoport, the videos “can be defined in no other way but racist”.

One video portrays Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem “living in filth, among mountains of garbage”, and moving into Jewish settlements such as French Hill and Givat Ze’ev as a result. “To emphasise the danger,” Rapoport describes, “an anonymous Jewish interviewee tells us that on the opposite street, in Givat Ze’ev, ‘everyone there are Arabs’.”

Israeli occupation forces raided a French government-linked cultural centre in East Jerusalem to shut down a Mother’s Day event, reported AFP.

According to the report, “an order posted on the door of the building by Israeli authorities said that the centre…intended to host an event organised with a women’s association ‘sponsored or financed by the Palestinian Authority [PA]’ and ‘without authorisation’.”

“In a rare move”, Israeli forces actually entered the French foreign ministry-associated centre, a source “with the French consulate” told AFP.

Israel considers any PA activity in occupied East Jerusalem, or events supported by the PA, to be illegal and a challenge to its sovereignty claim in the illegally-annexed part of the city.

“The consulate could not confirm if the association was indeed financed by the PA, but Palestinians who were to participate in the event said the allegation was false,” AFP added.

An Israeli military analyst has urged the army to “adapt” to recent Palestinian resistance operations in the occupied West Bank, accusing forces of a “soft” response to recent events.

Amos Harel, writing in Haaretz, described the West Bank as in a state of “turmoil”, noting the killing of a soldier and settler last Sunday in a combined stabbing and shooting near the illegal Ariel settlement.

The suspected assailant was subsequently killed in a “shoot-out” two days later, the same night as “two Palestinians were killed by IDF fire near Nablus”. On Thursday, meanwhile, “another Palestinian was killed, the fourth one this week and 10th this month, by a soldier near Bethlehem.”

According to Harel, “this was a case of a mistaken shooting”.

On 14 March, scores of Palestinians in the starving Gaza Strip took to the streets in several cities carrying the slogan “We Want to Live”, calling for “equality, dignity, food and job opportunities.” That day passed quietly, but the interior ministry in Gaza warned the protesters not to take to the streets again because Hamas, the Palestinian movement which has been ruling Gaza since 2007, “has been doing its best to afford these just demands.” However, they took to the streets the next day in larger numbers, but they were violent as they burnt tyres and insulted and threw stones at policemen, prompting violent responses.

Boys and young men are seized in the dead of night, blindfolded and cuffed, abused and manipulated to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. Every year Israel arrests almost 1,000 Palestinian youngsters, some of them not yet 13.

Israeli warplanes launch dozens of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for five hours. Two million Palestinians have become victims of collective punishment policy amid a tide of incitement at political and military echelons in Israel. Four Palestinian civilians, including 2 women and a child, were wounded, in addition to damaging a wedding hall, an office belonging to the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. Moreover, several houses sustained material damage. Three Palestinian civilians were killed and 12 others were wounded in different incidents in the West Bank. Israeli forces continued to use excessive force against peaceful protestors in the Gaza Strip.

Three American women were violently assaulted by Israeli occupation forces as they attempted to help a disabled woman at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday, despite showing soldiers their passports.

Virginia nursing student Nour Hawash, who is in Jerusalem on vacation, was taking photos with her mother and sister after midday prayers when Israeli occupation soldiers stormed the compound and started to evacuate the Dome of the Rock.

“Suddenly we heard these shots being fired and people just started running all over the place. We saw the IDF [Israeli soldiers], guns pointed, running, trying to chase people. So we just ran with everyone else to the side,” Nour said.

Syria’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva Hussam el-Din Ala warned on Wednesday against the Israeli malicious attempts to exploit the situation and the latest developments in Syria and the region to consolidate the occupation of Golan in a flagrant violation of UNSC resolutions, particularly resolution No.497 for 1981.

The Syrian permanent mission at the UN in Geneva, in cooperation with the Arab Lawyers Union, organized a symposium under the title “the occupied Syrian Golan… 52 years of Israeli occupation, on the sidelines of the 40th session of the Human rights Council.

Ambassador Ala stressed the importance of this symposium in uncovering the Israeli violations in Golan, synchronizing with the US pressures practiced on member states at the Human Rights Council to cancel the 7th item of the agenda dedicated for observing the Israeli violations in the occupied Arab lands.

A Palestinian peace activist was denied entry to the United States and deported, despite having a valid visa.

Osama Iliwat, 42, was questioned over the course of eight hours by officials from Customs and Border Protection at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City on Feb. 24 before he was sent on a flight back home. He was embarking on a speaking tour for Combatants for Peace, a group of Israelis and Palestinians who, according to its website, “have taken an active part in the cycle of violence; Israelis as soldiers in the Israeli army and Palestinians as part of the violent struggle for Palestinian freedom,” but now advocate joint nonviolent activism.

The UK is set to oppose all resolutions brought to the UN Human Rights Council that condemn Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Jewish Chronicle that resolutions brought to the UNHRC had a "disproportionate and discriminatory" focus on Israel.

Where else can U see this TERRORISM?

Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday night that these four countries would vote “no” on all Agenda Item 7 resolutions to protest the UNHRC’s bias against Israel.

The United States will soon unveil the details of US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" that aimed to solve the long-standing conflict between Palestine and Israel, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said.

Pompeo told Al Arabiya broadcaster that Washington wanted a better life for the Palestinians without violence and soon "the whole world will see how America is thinking about this."

Anyone who’s been watching the recent round of pearl-clutching and political smears directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar might notice that the Congresswoman is under attack for saying things that it seems we all know. That lobbyists use money to influence politicians, that the U.S. has a uniquely intimate relationship with Israel, and that everyday folks are well within their rights to advocate for Palestinian human rights. And yet, she’s under attack from all sides. It’s a frustrating position to be in. At a time when real anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence is growing in the country, we all need to stand up, condemn it, and find ways to protect Jews and other threatened religious groups. There’s no questions of that. But disingenuous accusations of anti-Semitism that are hurled at Palestinians, or at human rights activists cause damage as well. I know this because I’ve been there.

Dozens of students in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah clashed with Israeli forces as they protested the killing of three Palestinians.

Students from Birzeit University protested north of Ramallah near an Israeli checkpoint against the army killing of three young Palestinians near Ramallah and in Nablus the night before.

Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets at the students, injuring three while suffocating others.

The AIPAC convention is a celebration of the most repressive elements of the Israeli state, featuring those most engaged in curtailing Palestine freedom. This year is no exception and the conference is struggling to mask it’s true nature. In 2016, Bernie Sanders skipped the AIPAC conference and in 2020, Elizabeth Warren has announced she would not attend AIPAC. The tide is turning as more and more progressives distance themselves from Israel’s brutal regime of occupation.

Not only has AIPAC’s headlining speaker Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed an alliance with an Israeli political party so extreme they are referred to as the Jewish KKK. Last month, he also confirmed the systemic racism that exists in Israel when he commented that, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. It’s the nation-state of the Jewish people — and them alone.”

On March 19th, with no advance warning, Israel evacuated a Palestinian school in Shaufat, Occupied East Jerusalem, then demolished it. The school’s principal reports that no official reason has been given.

An illegal Israeli colonialist settler rammed, Thursday, a Palestinian man with his car, and fled the scene, before Palestinian medics rushed the wounded man to a hospital, in Hebron city, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.

Aref Jaber, a nonviolent activist with the Human Rights Coalition in Hebron, said the colonist rammed a Palestinian, identified as Jom’a Qfeisha, before fleeing the scene.

Jaber added that the wounded man works for the Hebron Reconstruction Committee, and suffered a fracture in his arm, in addition to various cuts and bruises.

An Israeli military drone fired, on Wednesday at night, a missile at young Palestinian protesters in the Central District of the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses said the drone fire a missile at the young men, east of the al-Boreij refugee camp, and added that the missile detonated close to the protesters but did not lead to casualties.

On its part, the Israeli army claimed its missile targeted Palestinians “flying flammable balloons” into nearby Israeli areas.

The UN Human Rights Council voted, on March 15, to conduct an investigation into the Israeli army’s killing of peaceful Palestinian protesters along the eastern parts of Gaza, near the Israeli separation fence.

The council voted 29 in favor and two against, while 14 countries abstained. Australia and the US were the two countries in opposition to the decision. The council condemned “the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians.”

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 21, the UN High Commission for Human Rights will vote on the report of the UN investigation committee, which confirmed Israeli violations against the protesters in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Two Palestinians in the United States are suing Israeli settlers for profiting from property stolen from their families in the occupied West Bank, by listing them on the home rental website Airbnb.

The lawsuit is in the form of a counterclaim against the settlers, who themselves filed a lawsuit against Airbnb over its decision last year to remove listings of settlement properties.

The two Palestinians, Ziad Alwan and Randa Wahbe, are being joined in their lawsuit by two towns in the occupied West Bank, the municipality of Anata, east of Jerusalem, and the village council of Jalud, near Nablus.

They are being represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the counterclaim in federal court in Delaware on Monday.

Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank overnight Tuesday and on Wednesday.

The slain men include a Palestinian suspected by Israel of fatally injuring a soldier and a settler, and two young men who Israel claims threw an explosive device at soldiers guarding hundreds of settlers who had raided Joseph’s Tomb in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Local eyewitnesses contradicted the Israeli account of the killings in Nablus and said the car in which the two young men were traveling was fired on and then pushed by a bulldozer with them inside.

A UN fact-finding mission says Israeli forces committed rights violations during their crackdown against Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip last year that may amount to “war crimes,” urging the regime’s military to prevent its snipers from using lethal force against the demonstrators.

The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory presented its full report on Monday, saying Israeli forces breached international human rights by using live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian protesters during the anti-Israel protests in Gaza.

The Israeli forces “committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” said UN Commissioner Kaari Betty Murungi. “Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel.”

The UN special rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories says Israel deprives the Palestinians of clean water. In a report, Michael Lynk, has described as an act of pillage, Israel’s control over Palestinian water resources.

UN war crimes investigators yesterday called on Israel to stop its snipers using lethal force against protesters in the Gaza Strip, as the anniversary approached of the start of demonstrations there, Reuters reported.

The Commission of Inquiry said Israel should investigate the shooting of more than 6,000 people, far beyond the criminal inquiries it has announced into 11 killings.

“The most important thing for the government of Israel is to review the rules of engagement immediately and to ensure that the rules of engagement are according to accepted international law standards,” the commission’s chairman Santiago Canton told the Human Rights Council.

Israel says the UN council is biased, and it boycotted the day-long debate.

Canton said Israel’s Supreme Court should review the confidential rules governing lethal force after the panel found it had been “in the majority of cases authorised unlawfully”.

In a new report (Word file) issued Monday by the UN Human Rights Council, officials condemned a number of Israel’s ongoing policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and its impacts on the environment, and the catastrophic effects the 12-year siege has had on the Gaza Strip.

The report states that as an occupying power, Israel has a responsibility to ensure that Palestinians enjoy “the full panoply of human rights enshrined in international law, in order to protect their sovereignty over their natural wealth.”

In what could amount to several human rights violations, Israel has overseen the degradation of the Palestinian water supply, the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources, and the defacing of their environment.

Bernie Sanders is officially running against Israeli apartheid! Yesterday Sanders posted an ad on his Facebook page featuring excerpts from activist Shaun King’s introduction of the Vermont senator at his Brooklyn College campaign launch March 2. King embraced the label that Donald Trump has given Sanders, of being crazy.

Listen, he has always rejected the status quo. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa when crazily that was an unpopular thing to do. And even today he speaks out against apartheid-like conditions in Palestine even though it’s not popular. Listen, I don’t care if 45 calls him Crazy Bernie because he is a little crazy.

The ad uses the apartheid reference with the graphics above and below, including the statement, “Bernie smashes the Israel status quo.”

Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Yoav Galant along with Mayor of Ariel Eli Shaviro yesterday laid the cornerstone of new a settlement project comprising 839 settlement units in the illegal settlement, Arab48 reported.

The new project is expected to attract hundreds of young settler families to the second largest Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

According to Arab48, the project includes new malls, education facilities, parks and attraction sites serving the new illegal Jewish community.

Shapiro said that this settlement project came in response to the killing of an Israeli soldier and a settler near the illegal settlement, which is built on the occupied land of the Palestinian city of Salfit.

Last Thursday, Pitzer College’s governing council took a historic vote to suspend a program of study at the University of Haifa because of Israel’s discriminatory policies. And just three hours later that resolution was vetoed, emphatically, by the college president.

I am told that President Melvin Oliver’s veto is now roiling the small progressive college in Claremont, California. Pitzer presidents have never vetoed a College Council resolution before, per the press. Pitzer prides itself on democratic governance, giving students a voice in school policies. The vote to suspend the program was overwhelming, 67-28; and the voters comprised nearly 60 faculty, about 35 students, and some 10 staff too.

Many are reportedly angry about the veto, and students have circulated a petition condemning Oliver that has gotten several hundred signatures nationwide, some with real throw-weight.

Ahead of the UN Human Rights Council meeting Monday, 18 March 2019 on the findings of the UN commission of inquiry into the 2018 Gaza protests, B’Tselem issued a position paper explaining that Israel’s promise to “investigate” 11 incidents in which protesters were killed is mere propaganda. In a letter, B’Tselem’s director, Hagai El-Ad called upon the head of the commission, Santiago Canton, to reject the tapestry of lies Israel has woven while killing more unarmed protesters: “A real change in Israeli policy will only take place if the international community demands it clearly and unequivocally, and if it stops allowing Israel to do no more than offer hollow promises of ‘investigation’.”

In the position paper, B’Tselem explains why announcing investigations is a standard ploy that Israel employs to ease international pressure whenever its unlawful policy elicits criticism.

Israeli bulldozers, today, demolished an under-construction building belonging to a Palestinian school in the Shu’fat refugee camp of occupied East Jerusalem, on Tuesday.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers escorted bulldozers into the refugee camp, surrounded the al-Razi School and went up rooftops of nearby buildings as drones flew overhead; Israeli bulldozers then began to demolish the school’s building.

Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets towards locals in the refugee camp.

Israel on Tuesday asked 26 countries for support against a UN vote that singles out its violation of international human rights and humanitarian law in the occupied Gaza Strip, according to local media, Anadolu reports.

Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz wrote in a letter to the countries not to vote in favour of Israel’s alleged violations against Palestinian demonstrators that could be covered by war crimes and crimes against humanity at the UN Human Rights Council.

He said a UN report ignored Hamas’ rockets and lacked understanding of security concerns of Israel.

The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said Monday that Israeli Security Forces violated international human rights and humanitarian law in Palestine’s occupied Gaza Strip.

Imagine a situation in which an extremist British government introduces a law which determines that only British Christians have a right to self-determination in the country, and that settlements built only for Christians should be encouraged.

At a stroke, non-Christian Brits are explicitly turned into second-class citizens. Communities with majority Christian populations set up “admissions committees”, to which those wishing to move need to apply for admission, which can be refused. Sound bizarre? Read on.

'The land is theirs'

One morning, you wake up and look out your window, only to find that a group of strangers have forced their way into your back garden, cordoned part of it off and started digging. You challenge them, and they tell you that this is Christian Britain, and as Christian Brits, they can build anywhere because “the land is theirs”.

Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on Tuesday evening on a military facility, while several people were injured during clashes with Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics and security sources said.

The security sources said that an Israeli warplane fired at least one missile at a training facility that belongs to Islamic Hamas movement in eastern Gaza; no injuries reported.

Meanwhile, medics said that 13 Palestinian demonstrators were injured on Tuesday night during clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed at the border between northern Gaza Strip and Israel.

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission into last year’s protests at the Gaza border presented its full report on Monday, saying it had compiled a list of Israelis suspected of serious crimes that it will make available to the International Criminal Court and other bodies.

The database, which was not made public, contains information about “military and civilian structures in Israel” that are allegedly responsible for violations of international humanitarian law, as well as the institutions that fail to investigate them, according to the report.

The 10-year-old is one of many hundreds of Palestinian children whom Israel arrests every year: The estimates range between 800 and 1,000. Some are under the age of 15; some are even preteens. A mapping of the locales where these detentions take place reveals a certain pattern: The closer a Palestinian village is to a settlement, the more likely it is that the minors residing there will find themselves in Israeli custody. For example, in the town of Azzun, west of the Karnei Shomron settlement, there’s hardly a household that hasn’t experienced an arrest. Residents say that in the past five years, more than 150 pupils from the town’s only high school have been arrested.

Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh was banned from speaking at a public meeting marking International Women’s Day in Berlin on Friday after German officials revoked her visa.

The event was titled “Palestinian Women in the Liberation Struggle.”

The Israeli government claimed credit for the action.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

A UN inquiry finds Israel used live ammunition against unarmed protesters, killing at least 189 Palestinians last year.

Debra Kamin’s March 14, 2019 New York Times Travel section piece, “Jaffa Is Tel Aviv’s Unexpected Luxury Hotspot,” follows the familiar pattern of Zionist revisionist history that completely ignores Palestinian history. The article refers to Jaffa only as an “ancient neighborhood” of modern Tel Aviv, and focuses on the upscale Jewish real-estate boom in the old Palestinian city, complete with gorgeous photos to accompany the piece.

The article offers a sanitized Jaffa that avoids any mention of the Palestinian point of view, likening the relationship between Jaffa and Tel Aviv to the famous American comedy duo:

Jaffa, the age-old Abbott to youthful Tel Aviv’s Costello, is an ancient port in the midst of a luxury renaissance. This 3,000-year-old harbor is a labyrinth of white stone alleys, hushed mosques and markets brimming with antiques and spices.

Criticism of Israel was once confined to the margins of the Jewish-American community. But now activists say dissent is 'bigger and louder' than ever before

Israel is depriving millions of Palestinians of access to a regular supply of clean water while stripping their land of minerals "in an apparent act of pillage", a United Nations human rights investigator said on Monday.

Michael Lynk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said that Israel "continues full-steam with settlement expansion" in the West Bank, which the United Nations and many countries deem illegal. There are some 20-25,000 new settlers a year, he said.

U.N. war crimes investigators called on Israel on Monday to stop its snipers using lethal force against protesters on the border with Gaza, as the anniversary approached of the start of demonstrations there last year in which 189 Palestinians were killed.

Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted for her part in a 1969 bombing that killed two Israeli students, was scheduled to speak at the Berlin event

Germany announced Saturday it would revoke the visa of a Palestinian woman convicted on terrorism charges in Israel, preventing her participation in a cultural event in Berlin organized by a group that supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

The Israeli Embassy in Germany, in cooperation with the Strategic Affairs Ministry, has acted over the last few days to block Rasmea Odeh from taking part in a protest event in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood. The event, titled "Palestinian Women in the Liberation Struggle," was scheduled for Saturday night.

Jordanian lawmakers on Monday sought to expel the Israeli ambassador from the kingdom in response to “ongoing Israeli aggression” at holy sites in Jerusalem.

Amman is the official custodian of Jerusalem’s holy Muslim sites. The parliamentary session followed an Israeli court ruling on the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

“The parliament recommended the government recall the Jordanian ambassador from Israel and expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman to confront the ongoing Israeli aggression at holy sites in occupied Jerusalem,” reported the official Petra news agency.

Lawmakers also called on the government to address the UN Security Council about “stopping Israeli violations and protecting the Palestinian people.”

Jordan is the only Arab country apart from Egypt to have a peace deal with Israel. But the treaty is overwhelmingly opposed by Jordanians, more than half of whom are of Palestinian origin.

Global Actions Follow Record Turnout at Palestinian National BDS Conference
The 15th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), the largest global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) mobilization for Palestinian rights, opens today with more than 80 events in 40 cities across Europe, North America and Palestine, featuring protests, lectures, film screenings, and cultural events. IAW is expected to be held in more than 200 cities worldwide. IAW officially kicked off Saturday the 16th in the occupied Palestinian city of Al-Bireh, where the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) convened the Sixth National BDS Conference – a grassroots, civil society gathering with over 900 participants.

The number of illegal Jewish settlers who live in the occupied West Bank reached 449,805 in January this year, Israeli TV Channel 7 reported yesterday.

According to the station, these Jewish settlers are distributed among 11 illegal settlement blocks across the occupied West Bank.

Settlements are illegal under international law, however, Israel continues with the policy with US backing.

Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Mounir Kleibo said yesterday that unemployment and poverty rates in the Gaza Strip hit record highs in recent history, Felesteen.ps reported.

Kleibo made his remarks during a visit of the ILO’s fact-finding mission to Gaza which lasted two days and aimed to document the Israeli violations in the occupied lands.

The members of the mission met with representatives of the Palestine Workers’ Union, public and private sectors and the Social Welfare Fund. They listened to briefs about the situation of workers in Gaza from these representatives.

The Gaza Strip has been crippled by a 12-year Israeli imposed siege which has led the UN to warn the enclave will be “unlivable” by 2020.

Without making any apparent effort to check the facts about the disturbances in Gaza, Greenblatt took aim indiscriminately at the Palestinian factions in the besieged territory. The Israeli-led siege and occupation did not figure in his calculations, of course. Not only did he criticise Hamas, but he also targeted Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, even though both factions are themselves critical of the movement. This suggests very strongly that the “Special Envoy” — for which read “there to advance Israel’s interests only” — was not concerned about the Palestinians or the alleged “violence” inflicted upon them by Hamas; that his sole aim was to demonise the Palestinian resistance factions, including Hamas, because they oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Rami Dababish was trying to help the wounded when he found himself facing a thick cloud of tear gas. Feeling the suffocating effects of the gas, he stepped back and squatted on the ground. Then he noticed there was a teenage boy beside him.

Dababish, a field medic, told the boy not to venture any farther. But the instructions made no difference. A short while later, Dababish saw the boy fall over.

Running towards the boy, “I found blood flowing out of his neck,” Dababish said. “I tried to stop the bleeding by putting gauze on the injury and pressing on it. Then his face turned blue. It was only a few minutes before he died.”

This killing occurred on 8 February during the Great March of Return, weekly protests in Gaza demanding that Palestine refugees be allowed go home to the towns and villages from which Zionist forces expelled them in 1948. The victim’s name was Hamza Ishtaiwi. He was 17.