EACH YEAR THE ISRAELI MILITARYDETAINS AND PROSECUTES AROUND700 PALESTINIAN CHILDREN.HELP US END THIS.
The Palestinian Children and Families Act seeks to promote justice, equality and human rights for Palestinian children and families by prohibiting Israeli authorities from using U.S. taxpayer funds to detain and torture Palestinian children, demolish and seize Palestinian homes, and further annex Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
WHAT DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT DO?
This bill aims to promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the occupied West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.
The Palestinian Children and Families Act was reintroduced to the 118th Congress by Rep. Betty McCollum on May 5, 2023.
WHAT ACTIVITIES DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT PROHIBIT USING U.S. FUNDS?
The bill specifically notes that funds will be prohibited for the following uses:
1. Supporting the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in violation of international humanitarian law or to support the use against Palestinian children of any of the following practices:
Torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment
Physical violence, including restraint in stress positions.
Hooding, sensory deprivation, death threats, or other forms of psychological abuse.
Incommunicado detention or solitary confinement
Administrative detention, or imprisonment without charge or trial
Arbitrary detention
Denial of access to parents or legal counsel during interrogations
Confessions obtained by force or coercion
2. Supporting the seizure, appropriation, or destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the Israeli-controlled and occupied West Bank in violation of international humanitarian law.
3. Deploying, or supporting the deployment of, personnel, training, services, lethal materials, equipment, facilities, logistics, transportation, or any other activity to territory in the occupied West Bank to facilitate or support further unilateral annexation by Israel of such territory in violation of international humanitarian law.
HOW DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT HOLD ISRAELI AUTHORITIES ACCOUNTABLE?
The bill requires the Secretary of State to certify annually to the Foreign Affairs Committees and Appropriations Committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate that U.S. financial assistance to Israel was not used to support any of the prohibited activities.
Additionally, the Secretary of State will need to submit reports on a description of the nature and extent of detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli military forces or police in violation of international humanitarian law; the seizure, appropriation, or destruction of Palestinian property in the Israeli-controlled and occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities in violation of international humanitarian law; and Israeli settlement activities, including an assessment of the compliance of the Government of Israel with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016).
Finally, the bill requires the Comptroller General to submit an annual report to Congress that identifies the specific programs and items funds for offshore procurement in Israel have been allocated to, including specific armed forces branches, units, and contractors; assesses executive branch compliance with legislative requirements governing offshore procurements in Israel; identifies, in detail, all end-use monitoring the Government of Israel is subject to with respect to United States-origin defense articles; and analyzes the effects of offshore procurements on Israel’s military budget and domestic economy since 1991, including an assessment of the manner and extent to which these funds have directly or indirectly supported illegal Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
HOW DOES H.R. 3103 RELATED TO PREVIOUS LEGISLATION CHAMPIONED BY REP. MCCOLLUM?
The Palestinian Children and Families Act is the fifth piece of legislation introduced by Congresswoman McCollum that focuses on Palestinian human rights, and the fourth that clearly highlights Palestinian children's rights and the Israeli military detention and court system.
In the 117th Congress, Rep. McCollum introduced the original Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act, or H.R. 2590, which gained the support of 33 members of Congress. Rep. McCollum introduced two bills, H.R. 2407 and H.R. 8050, during the 116th Congress, which ended in January 2021. H.R. 2407, the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act, introduced in April 2019, sought to ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds provided to the Government of Israel were not used to support the widespread and institutionalized ill-treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces and prosecuted in Israeli military courts lacking basic fair trial protections. At the end of the 116th Congress, H.R. 2407 had the support of 25 members of Congress.
She introduced H.R. 8050, The Israeli Annexation Non-Recognition Act, in August 2020. That bill would have prohibited federal departments or agencies from recognizing, or implying recognition of, any claim by Israel of sovereignty over any part of the occupied West Bank in violation of international humanitarian law or customary international law. It also sought to prohibit the use of certain federal funds to support specified activities in West Bank territory that has been unilaterally annexed by Israel or to facilitate or support such annexation. 11 members of Congress cosponsored H.R. 8050.
BACKGROUND ON PALESTINIAN CHILDREN IN ISRAELI MILITARY DETENTION
Children under 18 years old represent around 45 percent of the 2.9 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.
Children within the Israeli military detention system commonly report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations. Under Israeli military law, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer during interrogation.
Ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank has been widely documented. In 2013, UNICEF released a report titled Children in Israeli military detention: Observations and recommendations. The report concluded that “ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.”
Subsequent UNICEF reports show that widespread ill-treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces is the norm rather than the exception.
Regardless of guilt or innocence, children in conflict with the law are entitled to special protections and all due process rights under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
International juvenile justice standards, which Israel has obliged itself to implement by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, demand that children should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort, must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained, and must not be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Despite sustained engagement by UNICEF and repeated calls to end night arrests and ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, Israeli authorities have persistently failed to implement practical changes to end violence against child detainees.
Reforms undertaken by Israeli military authorities so far have tended to be cosmetic in nature rather than substantively addressing physical violence and torture by Israeli military and police forces.
In a military detention system where fair trial guarantees are denied and nearly three out of four Palestinian children experience some form of physical violence after arrest, failing to demand Israeli authorities comply with international law simply works to enable abuse and perpetuate injustice against Palestinian children.
Peace Action is a sponsoring organization ofa letter by Rep. Jamaal Bowman andSenatorBernieSanderspressing the Biden administration calling out Israel’s decades-long oppression of Palestinians in the face of recent violence by the government and settlers.We can now push members of Congress to sign on to the letter as it is circulated for signatures.
The letter pushes the administration to ensure U.S. law is followed -- namely the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act that says that US weapons can only be used for purposes of self-defense and cannot be used to commit human rights abuses
Have you been watching what’s going on in Israel and the West Bank?
Violence by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories is escalating like never before. Meanwhile, Israel’s new extreme-right government is doubling down on its authoritarianism. It’s time for Congress to speak out.
Luckily, Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Bernie Sanders are rallying members of Congress to speak out against the rising violence by Israeli authorities. And they are pushing for an end to a blank check from the U.S. to the Israeli government in terms of U.S. aid.
Bowman and Sanders are gathering signatures on a Congressional letter to the Biden administration that condemns the far-right government's violence against Palestinians. It calls out the expansion of settlements and land annexation that fosters greater conflict and leads to shameful dispossession for the Palestinians. Lobbyists for hawkish Israeli policies will oppose this effort, so YOUR VOICE is needed to make sure your member of Congress supports this letter.
At last, members of Congress are calling to enforce U.S. laws that prohibit U.S. aid from being used to abuse human rights. The letter asks the administration to ensure “that all future foreign assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of gross violations of human rights.”
This action can build momentum toward real accountability. Israel has historically been the greatest recipient of aid from the U.S. – and almost all of that aid is military aid. That makes you and I complicit when that “aid”, i.e. those weapons, are used to violate human rights. It’s time to end U.S. complicity in the oppression of the Palestinian people.
The Right to Return
"Empowered by American money, Israel is occupying land that does not belong to it, is breaking numerous international laws and conventions of which it is a signatory, and is promulgating policies of brutality that have been condemned by the United Nations, the European Union, the National Council of Churches, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and numerous other international bodies. This truth is also rarely reported."
U.S. Aid to Israel and to Palestinians
The U.S. provides Israel nearly$10.5 million*in military aidper day, while it gives the Palestinians$0.71 million**per dayin foreign (non-military) aid.
“Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives over $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”
*Source: The Congressional Research Service's report"U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,"written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated February 18, 2022.
According to the report, the United States gave Israel $3.3 billion for Fiscal Year 2021 in direct bilateral military aid (also referred to as Foreign Military Financing or FMF). Congress also authorized $500 million for "joint" U.S.-Israel missile defense programs (designed to protect Israeli territory from potential outside threats), bringing total military aid to Israel to$3.8 billion per year.
Put another way, American taxpayers give Israel nearly$10.5 million per day.
Over the last 20 years, the U.S. has slowly phased out economic aid to Israel and gradually replacing it with increased military aid. In September 2016, the United States and Israeli governments signed a new ten-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) where the U.S. pledged to give Israel$38 billionin military aid ($33 billion in FMF grants plus $5 billion in missile defense) over the course of 10 years (FY2019 to FY2028). This new MOU replaces the $30 billion 10-year agreement signed by the Bush Administration that expired in 2018.
Israel receives 53% of total U.S. foreign military aid
Israel is by far the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military aid. According to theCRS report, the President's request for Israel for FY 2022 will encompass approximately 53% of total U.S. foreign military financing worldwide. The report continues, " Annual FMF grants to Israel represent approximately 16.5% of the overall Israeli defense budget. Israel’s defense expenditure as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (5.6% in 2020) is one of the highest percentages in the world."
(Like many government policies, this disbursement of U.S. tax money is not because it serves American interests, but instead is the result ofspecial interest lobbying.)
Contrary to ordinary U.S. policy, Israel has been and continues to be allowed to use approximately 26.3% of U.S. military aid to purchase equipment from Israeli manufacturers. According toCRS, “no other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit.”
Thanks in part to this indirect U.S. subsidy, Israel’s arms industry has become one of the strongest in the world. Between 2001 and 2008, Israel was the 7th largest arms supplier to the world, selling $9.9 billion worth of equipment. And it continues to grow stronger. In 2021, Israel sold$11.3 billion in military goodsto other countries.
The former assistant Secretary of Defense from 2007 to 2009 asked, "How inexplicable is it that we are competing against the Israelis in the Indian defense procurement market at the same time we are subsidizing the Israeli defense industry?"
A U.S. government source estimates that Israel is using approximately $1.2 billion each year (38.7% of the aid it receives from the U.S.) to "directly support its domestic budget rather than to build on its arsenal of advanced US equipment."
The United States also contributes funds for a joint U.S.-Israeli Missile Defense Program designed to thwart short-range missiles and rockets fired by non-state actors (such as Hamas and Hezbollah) as well as mid- and longer-range ballistic missiles (this refers to Iran and/or Syria's arsenals). Arrow II, Arrow III, David's Sling, and Iron Dome refer to different projects under the umbrella of this Missile Defense program. For FY2022, Congress authorized $500 million for the second year of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
By all accounts the United States has given more money to Israel than to any other country. TheCongressional Research Service’s conservative estimate oftotal cumulative US aid to Israel from 1946 through 2021 is $150 billion(not adjusted for inflation).
The United States has granted more total aid to Israel since World War II than to any other country.
Cumulative US foreign assistance obligations between 1946 and 2019 to the top ten recipients. Inflation-adjusted to 2019 dollars. (source)
In aWashington Reportarticlepublished in October 2013, Shirl McArthur writes, “[T]he indirect or consequential costs to the American taxpayer as a result of Washington’s blind support for Israel exceed by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel. Some of these ‘indirect or consequential’ costs would include the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the Arab oil embargo and consequent soaring oil prices as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the 1973 war, and the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria. (For a discussion of these larger costs, see‘The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion,’by the late Thomas R. Stauffer, June 2003 Washington Report, p. 20.)”
The U.S. government hasnever provided Palestinians with military aid. "The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 4870), which passed the House in June 2014, contained provisions that would prohibit funds made available by the act from being obligated to the PA (§10033) or from being used to transfer weapons to the PA (§10024)."
Aid to Palestinians is largely designated for humanitarian and development needs that result from the Israeli occupation and to the Palestinian Authority for policing on behalf of Israel. Such funds are only authorized once Congress has received proof that they will be used for "non-lethal assistance." The most recentCRS reporton Palestinian aid states that Palestinian groups received $219 million in economic assistance and$40 millionfor non-lethal security for FY 2022.
Regarding U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, many Palestinian experts assert that the support actuallyhelps Israel maintain its illegal occupationof Palestinian land. "Security collaboration" between the PA and Israel means that Palestinian police are being outsourced to monitor and respond to Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation or protesting against Israel's assaults on Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided the Palestinian people with some indirect economic assistance through funds distributed to U.S.-based NGOs operating in the West Bank and Gaza. According toCRS, "Funds are allocated in this program for projects in sectors such as humanitarian assistance, economic development, democratic reform, improving water access and other infrastructure, health care, education, and vocational training." The program is subject to a vetting process and to yearly audits...
Since its creation in 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has receivedfinancial backingfrom each presidential administration, whether Democrat or Republican. The UNRWA “provides food, shelter, medical care, and education for many of the original refugees from the 1947-1949 Arab-Israeli war and their families—now comprising approximately 5 million Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza." (Learn more about Palestinian refugees.)
Though the United States’ yearly allocation to the UNRWA typically amounted to less than one tenth of its military aid to Israel each year, the funds nonetheless made up nearly a third of the agency’s annual budget. In August of 2018, the Trump administration’s State Department issued a press release announcing an indefinite cessation of all UNRWA funding from the United States effective immediately, a decisiondescribedby the UN Commissioner-General as the agency’s “greatest financial crisis in its history.” UNRWA fundingresumedunder the Biden administration in 2021.
Additionally, "about$50 millionin US assistance to the Palestinians does not flow directly to the PA but instead to Israel, which uses the money in part to pay off Palestinian debts to Israeli service providers such as electricity companies."
U.S. aid to the PA also makes it easier and cheaper for Israel to spend its own US aid on security for its Jewish-only settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land, which is illegal under international law. Recent research has shown that at least78% of international aid moneyto the West Bank and Gaza ends up in Israel's economy.
Join us for an upcoming NLG screening of Boycott
We are delighted to invite you to a special screening ofJust Vision’s new documentary,Boycott, onWedn. March 15th at6-8pmCDT. Following the screening, we look forward to hosting a Q&A with the film’s Director Julia Bacha and movement attorneys Meera Shah fromPalestine Legaland Lauren Regan from theCivil Liberties Defense Center.
Boycott follows a news publisher, an attorney, and a speech therapist, who, when forced to choose between their jobs and their political beliefs, launched legal battles that continue to expose an attack on the ability of progressive movements to hold power to account. The film traces the impact of legislation and executive orders passed in 34 states designed to penalize individuals and companies that choose to boycott Israel due to its ongoing violations of Palestinian human rights.
The film’s story is becoming increasingly more urgent. This February, the Supreme Court declined to hear one of the legal cases spearheaded by the ACLU and featured in the film. This missed opportunity to acknowledge the political pedigree of boycott as a cornerstone of civil rights movements across US history should trouble all those fighting for justice. Meanwhile,copy-cat anti-boycott billstargeting those fighting for climate justice, safe abortions, gun control, trans liberation, and Indigenous self-determination continue to be aggressively pushed by the conservative lobby all across the country.
Click here to RSVP. Upon registering, you will receive an email with a unique Zoom link to join the screening and discussion.
As Boycott continues to make its way across the country, we are thrilled to be sharing this timely story with the National Lawyers Guild. We hope you can join us.
All the best, National Lawyers Guild, including the following national committees: the United People of Color Caucus, Anti-Racism Committee, International Committee, and Palestine Sub-Committee
On Sunday in the occupied West Bank, we saw the inevitable outcome of Zionist ideology: Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian homes, livelihoods, and lives in an effort to force Palestinians from their land.
In the worst settler attacks in decades, nearly 300 Israeli settlers rampaged through the Palestinian villages of Huwara, Zatara, and Burin on Sunday, burning homes to the ground, lighting vehicles on fire, and injuring 350 Palestinians. At least one Palestinian, 37-year-old Sameh al-Aqtash, was killed, just days after returning from volunteering with relief efforts in Turkey. Sameh was the father of three children, the youngest a four-month-old girl.
During the attacks, the Israeli military not only failed to protect Palestinians from the settler violence, but also prevented ambulances and medics from treating the injured. Video footage showing Israeli soldiers standing by while settlers undertook attacks next to them makes it indisputably clear: The Israeli settler movement is supported and enabled by the Israeli state.
This mass violence is what Zionism has always been leading towards; Zionism has always required the displacement and removal of Palestinians from their lands to make way for a Jewish state.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the current far-right extremist Israeli government is escalating the ethnic cleansing begun in 1948 with the Nakba, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their land. Make no mistake — the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians and occupation of their land is the root cause of every violent death.
Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace “Members of the Israeli Cabinet publicly encouraged the ransacking of Palestinian villages, and the Israeli military actively enabled the settlers’ violent attacks on Palestinians. As U.S. Jews, we cannot just watch in silent horror as the state of Israel perpetuates settler violence. We have to act. We choose the struggle for justice over silence and complicity.”
Beth Miller, Political Director, Jewish Voice for Peace Action “The Israeli settlers burning down Palestinian homes and attacking Palestinians in the street are supported by the Israeli military and the Israeli government. The same Israeli military that receives $3.8 billion every year from the United States. As long as the U.S. government continues to offer blanket support to Israel, it is also supporting violent settler mobs. The first step to ending this violence is to demand more from our own leaders — we have to end U.S. funding to the Israeli military.”
Fifteen days into 2023, thirteen Palestinians have been killed by Israel. The latest victim, Ahmad Kahala, was shot Sunday at point-blank range, and medics were blocked from saving his life. Saturday, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians, Ezzeddin Hamamra, 24, and Amjad Khaliliyya, 23; the same day, Yazan Ja’bari, 19, died from wounds inflicted by Israeli soldiers earlier this month. Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world.
The Holy Land Five are five Palestinian charity workers in the United States who were relentlessly harassed, targeted and pursued in a travesty of justice, until they were finally convicted for their work providing for people in Palestine living in poverty. Three of the Five remain imprisoned in the U.S. today: Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker, both sentenced to 65 years, and Mufid Abdulqader, sentenced to 20 years.
Recently, Within Our Lifetime, together with organizations like the Coalition for Civil Freedoms and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, re-launched the campaign for their release. Join the Masar Badil for a discussion about the case, the campaign to free these Palestinian political prisoners in U.S. jails, and how you can get involved — in North America and around the world.
Hear from: Nerdeen Kiswani (Within Our Lifetime); Zaira Abu Baker (daughter of Shukri Abu Baker); Charlotte Kates (Samidoun)
Organized by the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), with Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
A four-year-old #Palestinian girl who was hit in the head with a bullet several days ago died at Hadassah University Hospital on Monday #PalestinianLivesMatter
Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed annually on or around 29 November, solemnly commemorating the adoption by the Assembly, on 29 November 1947, of resolution 181 (II), which provided for the partition of Palestine into two States. The observance is held at United Nations Headquarters, the United Nations Offices at Geneva and Vienna and elsewhere. The event includes special meetings at which statements on the question of Palestine are made by high-level officials of the United Nations and intergovernmental organizations and representatives of civil society. The observance also includes cultural events. At other locations, various activities are organized on the occasion of Solidarity Day by governmental bodies and CSOs in cooperation with United Nations information centres around the world. It is also traditionally the day that the United Nations General Assembly undertakes its annual debate on the question of Palestine.
As customary, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (Solidarity Day) will be marked by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) in a Special Meeting where UN Members States express their solidarity with the Palestinian people, through messages by Heads of States and Government. Similar events are held atUNOG, UNON, UNOV and UNICs around the world.
This year, the Special Meeting will be held in person on Tuesday, 29 November from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (New York time) and will be livestreamed onUN WebTV.
The International Day of Solidarity provides an opportunity for the international community to focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine remains unresolved and that the Palestinian people are yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly, namely, the right to self-determination, the right to national independence and sovereignty and the right to return.
The Special Meeting will be presided by the Chair of the Committee, Ambassador Cheikh Niang, who will deliver opening statement, followed by remarks by the President of the General Assembly, the President of the Security Council, and by the Secretary-General, delivered by his Chef de Cabinet. The Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine will deliver a statement on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine. Mr. Shawan Jabarin, General Director of Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, will also share his remarks.
During the event, a video will be screened, which is part of a virtual exhibit titled “Portraits of Palestine,” to be launched online the same day and consisting of videos depicting individual Palestinians’ stories of resilience. The Permanent Observer for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Chair of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, as well as representatives of other intergovernmental organizations will deliver statements in the second part of the Meeting.
Shireen Abu Akleh, aPalestinian-American journalist, was a deeply respected expert in Middle Eastern affairs. On May 11th this year, she was in the West Bank wearing her distinctive blue protective vest and helmet emblazoned with the word “PRESS”. She was gathered with a number of other journalists near the entrance of the Jenin Refugee Camp reporting about near-daily raids by the Israeli Defense Forces. At 6:30 a.m. shots rang out coming from the direction of a Israeli military convoy.
Shireen slumped over immediately. Her colleagues couldn’t get her to respond. When they tried to get her to safety they were repelled by more shots. Losing her created an incalculable void for her family. But the loss also touched the thousands that counted on her work as well as for the many Arabs, particularly women, hoping to work in the field who saw her as a trailblazing role model.
Peace activists know we can’t trust military spokespeople. We also know how important journalists are in covering war and oppression. Israeli officials have dodged and weaved and repeatedly changed their stories. They even tried to pin the blame on journalists saying they were “armed with cameras”. Israeli internal investigations have avoided holding anyone accountable. But media outlets and human rights organizations have done investigations showing that Shireen was shot dead by the IDF in an attack that targeted the journalists and perhaps even the high profile Shireen.[1] It is time for the U.S., Israel's biggest benefactor, to do its own investigation.
The bill is simple but potentially groundbreaking. The Justice for Shireen Act requires the Biden administration to report to Congress about the individuals and units responsible for the killing of Shireen, as well as if U.S. weapons were used. A long term goal of ours has been to restrict U.S. aid so that aid can't be used to support Israel’s brutal oppression and apartheid policies. There are U.S. laws on the books that are supposed to block U.S. support to military units that engage in human human rights violations. It’s time to enforce that law.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that they are launching their own investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. This is a positive step that, if it results in concrete action, would be an unprecedented demand for accountability within the U.S. relationship with Israel. But we need Congress, using Rep. Carson’s legislation, to keep the pressure on to ensure there is real accountability and real consequences. Then we’ll need to build on that to start to truly dismantle the whole system of oppression that the Palestinians suffer under.
Shireen’s family has led an impressive grassroots movement for justice. Momentum is growing in Congress. We need to turn that into concrete results. There needs to be grassroots pressure to ensure that the U.S. takes decisive action. This movement needs your voice to be strong and persistent.
With no exaggeration, living in Palestine this past year has been heartbreaking.
There seems to be no limit to the violence Israel wages on the Palestinian people. I live near the place where 10 days ago, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Fulla Malsameh, a Palestinian girl about to celebrate her 16th birthday. Whenever I drive past this spot, I am reminded of the countless lives the occupiers have taken this year. Last night in Nablus, 16-year-old Ahmed Shehadeh was shot with a bullet to the heart and died instantly. He is the 200th Palestinian and 55th child murdered by Israeli occupying forces in 2022.
Driving across the West Bank, I see the intensification of settler colonialism and occupation. More soldiers, more flying checkpoints, more harassment, and more settler attacks.
No Palestinian is untouched. We are losing our land, our homes, our children, our brothers and fathers, and quite frankly, our minds. There is no room for normalcy. In 1948 lands, the Israeli government used the U.S. playbook of planting drugs in Palestinian communities fueling crime and corruption. In Gaza, the 15-year siege continues to deprive the lives of two million people. In Jerusalem, Palestinian families are under the daily threat of being forced to demolish or leave their homes. In the West Bank, we are confronted by gun-wielding settlers who want to see us dead and Israeli soldiers who do precisely that on command. And in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan – Palestinian refugee families are experiencing life-threatening poverty.
All this paints a bleak picture.
But I promise you that we have not given up. Palestinians continue to resist. We are harvesting our olives, we are teaching our children, and we are building a strong community to weather the storm.
Adalah Justice Project
An FBI investigation into the killing of Shireen is proof that our continuous pressure is critical, and it works
Americans for Justice in Palestine (AJP Action) welcomes the U.S. Justice Department’s announcement that the FBI will be conducting an independent investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military. AJP Action, along with our partners and supporters, has spent considerable energy in recent months lobbying Congress and the State Department, as well as petitioning the White House, to launch this investigation instead of taking Israel’s self-exoneration at face value, and we are glad that the Biden administration has finally come around to doing the right thing.
“While we applaud this critical step to investigate Shireen’s killing, justice will not be served until her killers are held accountable and face the consequences of their murderous actions,”said AJP Action Executive Director Osama Abuirshaid.
“We hope that the Biden administration is committed to seeing this process all the way through. This is critical for Shireen’s family, but also for the sake of all journalists who are targeted by oppressive governments to know they won’t be allowed to get away with it.”
Shortly after the FBI investigation was announced, the Israeli government indicated that it will not cooperate with this investigation. Israel has a lengthy history of refusing cooperation in investigations of its crimes by independent actors–a practice aimed at covering up the atrocities that have become routine against Palestinians.
“It is simply unacceptable that Israel gets billions of our tax dollars every year and then refuses to cooperate with U.S. investigations into the killing of American citizens,”said AJP Action Advocacy Director Ayah Ziyadeh, adding:“It is time to end U.S. funding for the Israeli military until Israel complies with U.S. and international law and respects the basic human rights of Palestinians.”
The announcement of an FBI-led investigation is a step in the right direction, however, our work doesn’t end here. We are deeply committed to continuing to pressure our government until Israel is held responsible for its crime and justice is served.
Americans for Justice in Palestine Action
Israel is waging a full-scale assault on Palestinians.
In the past month, the Israeli military has killed at least 29 Palestinians, almost half of them children and teenagers. Earlier this week, the Israeli military killed six Palestinians across the West Bank. Meanwhile, its 13-day siege of Nablus continues, preventing Palestinians from accessing hospitals or healthcare.
This is a one-sided war where the Israeli military – one of the most powerful in the world – is surrounding Palestinian cities, trapping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians inside, and is then invading to murder Palestinians in cold blood every single night.
The Israeli government, on the brink of elections, is escalating its violence against Palestinians to maintain its brutal apartheid regime, and to steal more and more Palestinian land.
Palestine is under attack, and the media has been all but silent.
Still worse, what little coverage has appeared in mainstream U.S. media is echoing the talking points of the Israeli military, which has a well-documented history of lying to the media and is obscuring the full picture of Israel’s brutal, decades-long oppression of Palestinians and occupation of Palestinian land.
Demand better from the NYT
This is a growing emergency that isn't getting the attention or context it deserves.
President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson:
We, the undersigned, urge you to demand that Israeli authorities immediately end the practice of using solitary confinement on Palestinian child detainees, whether in pretrial detention for interrogation purposes or as a form of punishment. The prohibition must be enshrined in law.
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire brings together sixteen essays and poems by twelve Palestinian writers. The book includes political essays, personal narratives, economic analysis, and poetry. The book is edited by American Friends Service Committee staff Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze and published by Haymarket Books. Read the full press releasehere.
AFSC is excited to host a speaking tour featuring Asmaa Abu Mezied and Yousef Aljamal, contributors to the Light in Gaza anthology in the following U.S. cities in October.
Saturday, October 29: Milwaukee, WI Islamic Resource Center5235 S 27th St, Greenfield, WI 53221 1:00 p.m. — 3:00 p.m. CT Co-sponsors: Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition, Milwaukee 4 Palestine, PSL Milwaukee
U.S. progressives condemn Israeli army crackdown on Palestinian rights groups– but Israel lobby is quiet
Israel's openly-fascistic move of shutting down seven Palestinian human rights groups was widely condemned by American progressives. But rightwing Israel lobby groups were silent.
“The challenges of journalism under Israeli Military Occupation”with Mondoweiss Senior Palestinian correspondent Mariam Barghouti, and experienced Canadian journalist Warren Caragata.
Our webinar was organized in the wake of the killing of well known Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in May of this year. We wanted to get a better understanding of what it is like to be a journalist in Ramallah, under the hostile eyes of Israeli forces, and sometimes those of the Palestinian Authority as well.
Mariam’s articles appear regularly in Mondoweiss, a high-quality US based digital publication dedicated to news about Israel, Palestine and the middle east.
In our interview with her, Mariam pointed to a number of other sources of information for news from the West Bank and Gaza. Here are five usually reliable sites:
At least 85 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year as Israeli forces have carried out nightly raids in cities, towns and villages, making it the deadliest in the occupied territory since 2016….
It includes several civilians, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone, as well as local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods.
The length and frequency of the raids has pulled into focus Israel's tactics in the West Bank, where nearly 3 million Palestinians live under a decades-long occupation and Palestinians view the military’s presence as a humiliation and a threat.
Israeli troops have regularly operated across the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in 1967….
Palestinians say the raids are aimed at maintaining Israel’s 55-year military rule over territories they want for a future state — a dream that appears as remote as ever, with no serious peace negotiations held in more than a decade..
Israel stepped up the operations this past spring after a string of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis killed 17 people, some carried out by militants from the West Bank. There have been no deadly attacks since May, but the relentless military operations have continued.
With four months still to go this year, the 85 Palestinian dead in the West Bank and East Jerusalem already is the highest yearly toll since 2016, when 91 Palestinians were killed at the tail end of a previous wave of violence, according to data compiled by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
The Palestinian Health Ministry's tally includes… the veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and a 58-year-old man who was shot in the head outside a bakery earlier this month….
Israel is also holding more than 600 Palestinians without charge or trial in what's known as administrative detention — the highest number in six years…
Rights groups say that while some Israeli missions are aimed at combating specific threats, others are intended as a show of force, or to protect the growing population of Jewish settlers.
Ori Givati is the head of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group opposed to the occupation that gathers testimonies of former Israeli soldiers. Some soldiers recall carrying out mock arrests, in which fully armed soldiers raid a home in the middle of the night — for training purposes.
Even more common, Givati says, are so-called “stimulus and response” operations, which he said he took part in himself when he served in the West Bank. In those, Israeli troops roll through Palestinian areas, sometimes with lights and speakers on, hoping to lure stone-throwers or gunmen into the streets so they can arrest or confront them.
“The way we occupy the Palestinians is by creating more and more friction, making our presence felt," Givati said. "We invade their towns, their cities, their homes.”
…Israel says it investigates all cases in which Israeli troops are suspected of killing civilians, but rights groups say most of those investigations are quietly closed, with soldiers rarely facing serious repercussions.
There were two notable exceptions this year.
The killing of Abu Akleh, a veteran on-air correspondent who was a U.S. citizen, prompted numerous independent investigations that concluded she was likely killed by Israeli fire. Israel denies targeting her and says it is still investigating.
There was also the death in January of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old who died shortly after Israeli soldiers bound and blindfolded him and left him in the cold. In that case, senior officers were reprimanded and stripped of leadership roles. Assad, too, was a U.S. citizen.
I joined Rania Khalek on her BreakThrough News show Dispatches for a wide-ranging discussion about Palestine, the right to resist and geopolitics.
Khalek started by asking me why Palestine is still central to anti-imperialist resistance.
I told her that it’s because Israel is the keystone of American imperialism in the region.
Palestine remains the last old-fashioned European-style guns-and-jackboots settler-colony and a major unfinished decolonization struggle of the 20th century.
Israel could not maintain its colonial regime without the support it receives from the United States and Europe.
In many European and American imaginations – though I doubt they would put it this way – Israel represents the lost colonial past that they yearn for. Instead, the West talks about its admiration for Israel in terms of “shared values.”
Israel is their settler-colony: Its defense and maintenance provides a justification for US and European hegemony in Southwest Asia – although Europe can be seen more as the wagging tail of American empire, rather than a power in its own right.
And for people around the world, the struggle of the Palestinians represents a David and Goliath story, where the Palestinian David holding very few weapons is arrayed against the Zionist Goliath.
Those are some of the reasons why the Palestinian struggle remains central. It’s also the context in which we can understand Israel’s most recent massacre in Gaza: This is colonial warfare aimed at subduing natives who refuse to be subjugated by their conquerors.
“To kill and kill and kill”
I told Khalek that Israel’s view is that if it ever stops killing Palestinians it will cease to exist. This is because it is engaged in a demographic war to maintain a regime founded on ethno-racial dominance.
As Israeli government adviser Arnon Sofer put it a year before Israel’s 2005 withdrawal of its soldiers and settlers from the interior of the Gaza Strip, “If we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”
“If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist,” Sofer said. “The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”
As the traumatized survivors of Israel’s successive assaults on Gaza can attest, Sofer meant what he said.
These conditions have made it necessary for Palestinian resistance groups to develop their abilities to fight back, or at least create some measure of deterrence to make Israel think twice before launching its next assault.
Those Israeli attacks, it should be emphasized, are almost always violations by Israel of whatever ceasefire ended the last round of blood-letting, and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza earlier this month was no exception.
Although the situation remains extremely unbalanced, the resistance groups in Gaza went from using missiles that could reach a kilometer or two beyond Gaza’s boundaries to one where they can now reach Tel Aviv and even force a shut down of Israel’s main airport.
Is Palestinian rocket fire illegal?
Khalek and I discussed both the means and legitimacy of Palestinian armed struggle and the support it receives from Iran, in the context of the regional confrontation between US and Israeli-aligned forces and regimes, on the one hand, and local resistance on the other.
I also elaborated on an argument I recently made on Twitter, countering the regular international condemnations that Palestinian rocket fire in response to Israeli attacks is illegal and even a war crime.
If Palestinians in Gaza have no other means to defend themselves or deter Israeli attacks – because no one is willing or able to provide them with the kind of high-precision weapons Israel has – then the rockets cannot be illegal.
International humanitarian law cannot lead to a perverse situation where only technologically advanced states have a presumed right to self-defense, while the only means available to a colonized and occupied people are rendered criminal. In such a situation, the only effective means of defense and deterrence must be deemed lawful by necessity.
The legal doctrine of necessity is commonly formulated as: “That which is otherwise not lawful, is made lawful by necessity.”
While its parameters and interpretations vary, what it generally means is that a person can employ normally unlawful means in self-defense when there is no realistic alternative and the means used cause less harm than the danger they are intended to prevent.
This is arguably the case with Palestinian missiles. In the recent escalation in Gaza, for instance, “indiscriminate” weapons fired by Palestinians in response to Israel’s surprise attack, caused no serious injuries or deaths, while Israel’s “precision” weapons killed dozens of Palestinians, including many children.
Moreover, Palestinian resistance groups limited and calibrated their response to Israel’s attack, with the goal of achieving a ceasefire. That strategy arguably avoided much greater harm especially for Palestinians, but also for Israeli civilians….
As the Chicago Antiwar Coalition (CAWC) has said: We in the Peace & Justice Movement should stand behind the demand for a just solution as codified in UN resolutions 242,338, 194 and numerous others... The Palestinian people will continue to resist plans of the ruling elite of the Israeli Zionists and U.S. imperialists for the liquidation of their rights. And the international community will continue to organize Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns across the world and isolate Israel as the criminal apartheid state that it is What do you think?--Neal
Israeli forces raid and seal shut Defense of Children Int'l Palestine office, leaving official notice declaring organization unlawful
AUG 18, 2022
Ramallah, August 18, 2022—Israeli forces raided Defense for Children International - Palestine’s headquarters in the central occupied West Bank early Thursday morning.
Israeli forces raided DCIP’s headquarters located in Al-Bireh’s Sateh Marhaba neighborhood, located just south of Ramallah around 5:55 a.m. on August 18. More than a dozen Israeli soldiers forced open the office’s locked front door and removed a computer, photocopier, printer, and client files related to Palestinian child detainees represented by DCIP’s lawyers in Israel’s military courts, CCTV footage showed. They exited the office after 45 minutes, welding shut the entry door and leaving a notice taped to the door ordering the office closed declaring DCIP an illegal organization. It is unclear exactly what items were confiscated.
The Biden Administration must stop supporting Israel’s crimes
Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) condemns Israel’s raids on civilian areas in Gaza City today which have killed several Palestinians already, including a 5-year-old girl, and injured dozens more. Israel has a long history of committing war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, including bombing residential areas indiscriminately, and killing thousands of Palestinian civilians since Israel imposed its illegal siege on Gaza 15+ years ago.
This latest unprovoked aggression comes on the heels of weeks of Israeli escalation in the occupied West Bank and after four days of tightening the illegal and suffocating siege on the Gaza Strip, imprisoning Gaza’s population, and preventing the entry of basic goods. It also comes on the heels of President Biden's visit to Israel last month, in which he reaffirmed U.S. complicity in Israel’s occupation bydescribingthe U.S. commitment to maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge” over its victims as “unshakable.” This commitment takes the form of nearly $4 billion in funding for the Israeli military, even as this military continues its pattern of crimes against humanity and war crimes targeting the Palestinian people. If this is not enablement of Israel’s atrocities, what is?
We call on the Biden administration to end its egregious policy of impunity for Israeli crimes and to immediately demand an end to Israel’s military assault on Gaza. We also call on the administration to pressure Israel to end its illegal siege on the Gaza Strip, which is in its 16th year and has brought misery and death to its besieged population for far too long.
Palestinians deserve to live in freedom, without worrying about whether their children will have a future or whether they will be killed by an Israeli military strike at any moment. As Americans, we cannot remain silent while these crimes are being committed with our tax money, which Israel’s apartheid government receives more of in military funding than any other country on the planet.
Change comes through action!For this reason, we invite you to participate in our Virtual Palestine Advocacy Days (VPAD2022) in September to lobby our elected officials on behalf of the oppressed Palestinian people. We must continue placing pressure on our government to do the right thing by firmly standing against Israel's serious crimes and egregious human rights violations.Click here to register, for FREE, now!
Attack on Gaza: Stand with Palestine, the Palestinian people and their Resistance!
5 August 2022
Israeli occupation forces have once again launched a military aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. This aggression has already taken the lives of 9 martyrs of the Palestinian cause — including a 5-year-old girl and senior leader of the Palestnian Islamic Jihad resistance movement, Tayseer al-Jabari — and wounded 55.Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of the Palestinian cause to take action to defend Palestine, the Palestinian people and their Resistance against the Zionist onslaught.
This attack on Gaza specifically comes hand in hand with a series of arrest raids and assassinations targeting Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine, and specifically the arrest of fellow leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, Bassam al-Saadi in Jenin, in which occupation forces killed 17-year old Dirar al-Kafrini. Al-Saadi was beaten during the attack and taken to a hospital before occupation forces posted photos of his wounded face.
For the past several days, Israeli politicians, analysts and Zionist media have been rampant with speculation, especially as the settlements around Gaza have been under curfew, that the response of the Palestinian resistance could undercut the occupation’s ability to arrest and attack Palestinian leaders freely without repercussions. Amid upcoming Israeli elections and internal political chaos among Zionist forces, an assault on Gaza gives current prime minister Yair Lapid and war minister Benny Gantz the opportunity to “campaign” for votes through aggression against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli occupation is calling this aggression an attack on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, but in reality, it is an attack on the entire Palestinian people — in Gaza, throughout occupied Palestine from the river to the sea — and their comprehensive resistance in all forms. Of course, the Palestinian people in Gaza are over 70% refugees, denied their right to return home for 75 years.The Palestinian people and their resistance are unified in confronting this assault and struggling for liberation.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all friends and supporters of Palestine to join together in standing with besieged Gaza, the Palestinian people and their resistance throughout occupied Palestine and in exile and diaspora. As theMasar Badil statement urged, “We call on all to immediately start organizing mass, political and media events in all locations in the diaspora and around the world in order to defend our steadfast Palestinian people against the Zionist aggression and its ongoing tightening of the siege on the Gaza Strip.”
It is clear that the United States, Canada, the European Union countries, Britain and other imperialist powers are fully responsible for the crimes of the occupation, providing it with the weaponry that has been used to commit these killings, and has enabled the ongoing Nakba targeting the Palestinian people for the past 75 years, providing it with military, political, economic and diplomatic support. Rather than recognizing the Palestinian resistance’s legitimacy, these imperialist powers target the resistance organizations with “terrorist designations” and repression. This makes it more urgent for our movements to declare collectively: Resistance is not terror! As we take to the streets and mobilize to stand with the Palestinian people and their resistance, we urge all to take the following actions:
1. Mobilize actions, demonstrations and creative interventions –Take to the streets to defend the Palestinian people and their resistance! As was made clear during the Unity Intifada/Seif al-Quds in May 2021, there is a vast depth of support for the Palestinian people everywhere around the world, including inside the imperialist powers. It is our responsibility to act and make it impossible to continue their support for the crimes against the Palestinian people.
2. Build the boycott of Israel– This is a critical moment to escalate the campaign to isolate the Israeli regime at all levels, including through boycott campaigns that target the occupation’s economic exploitation of the Palestinian land, people and resources as well as those international corporations, like HP and G4S, that profit from the ongoing colonization of Palestine.
3. Support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people –This aggression is an extension of the siege on Gaza that has been imposed on the resisting and steadfast Strip for over 15 years. At this time, it is important to provide economic and practical support at a popular level to sustain the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in confronting these crime
A conversation with Toufic Haddad and Hadeel Assali, two Palestinian academics who study the political economy and geography of Palestine, to examine the impact of 15 years of Israel’s blockade.
The webinar was moderated by Jehad Abusalim of the American Friends Service Committee. This event is part of our Gaza is Palestine webinar series.
People around the globe have been campaigning and fighting to end Israel’s brutal siege of the Gaza Strip.
Just yesterday, the Presbyterian Church’s International Committee unanimously passed an overture calling on Israel to lift the siege on Gaza.Adalah Justice Project organized video testimonies that were heard by the committee to bring Palestinian voices to the conversation. The overture will now be presented to the entire General Assembly of the Church for approval.
There is so much more to do, but we know every action we take creates openings for a free Palestine.
You can watch our thought-provoking conversation with Hadeel and Toufic in its entirety by clicking here.
We must stretch our imaginations to envision what Gaza can be. As Hadeel reminded us, before there was the Gaza Strip, there was Palestine.
With hope and solidarity,
Sandra Tamari
STOP THE WALLPALESTINIAN GRASSROOTS ANTI-APARTHEID WALL CAMPAIGN
The ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta is well under way. Israeli military and settlers are demolishing homes at increasing speed – and they want the world ignore it!
That’s why yesterday, June 13, 2022, the Israeli military delivered the final demolition order for the center run by Youth of Sumud, in the village of At-Tuwani, Masafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills. The Arabic word ‘sumud’ means steadfastness and Youthth of Sumud peacefully resist Israeli apartheid by helping indigenous Palestinians retain their lands and livelihoods and mobilizing global support. Their center is where local organizing takes place and international activists are hosted. The aim of this further demolition is clear: to repress popular action in Masafer Yatta and hide the ethnic cleansing in front of the world.
Youth of Sumud (YOS) will continue to resist on the ground and we call on you to connect with YOS and the people in Masafer Yatta, amplify their voices and build pressure on Israel to stop the ethnic cleaning of Masafer Yatta Now!
Let’s stop the destruction of Youth of Sumud Center and the ethnic cleansing of the people.
Masafar Yatta, south of Hebron, is composed of 20 Palestinian villages. Palestinians have been living and herding their livestock there since generations. On May 4, Israeli courts gave the green light for the demolition of 8 of these villages (hamlets), home to some 1300 people. Israel can now advance the ethnic cleansing of the area, annex it and further colonize it with illegal settlements.
Demolitions have already started and, if this continues, it would be the largest expulsions carried out by Israel since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967.
Removals of Palestinians, or ethnic cleansing such as in Masafer Yatta, are a core element of Israel’s regime of apartheid.
Did you know that new Israeli procedures set to be implemented next month will greatly restrict our ability to travel to the West Bank, live, work, teach, study, and reunite with family members there? They’ll even force U.S. citizens to provide Israel with incredibly intrusive information about the personal details of anyone we plan to…
Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) is proud to endorse aDear Colleague Letteraddressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and spearheaded by Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO). In the letter, Rep. Bush and several other members call out Israeli war crimes and demand that the U.S. push for Israel's continuous demolitions and displacement campaigns to end.The letter specifically demands the following:
Immediately send a clear message to Israel not to expel the indigenous Palestinian residents of the village of Masafer Yatta.
Call on the Israeli government to end all military training exercises and building activities that will pressure or force the residents of the historic villages of Masafer Yatta to permanently or temporarily leave their homes, or that would otherwise make life unlivable.
Publicly state that any action by the Israeli government to forcibly transfer Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta would be a war crime in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
If Israel proceeds to forcibly displace the indigenous Palestinian residents, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Israel should immediately send observers to document the mass transfer, including details of the military units involved in these operations and the use of any U.S. weapons.
AJP Action reaffirms its call on Congress to demand the State Department rebuke Israel for theforced displacement of over 1000 Palestinians, a clear and reprehensible violation of international and human rights law. Take 1 minute of your day towatch this testimonialfrom a resident of Masafer Yatta, Ali Awad, who describes his dream of living in his homeland without the threat and reality of expulsion and intimidation.
Just last week, our Executive and Advocacy Directors met with the Office of Israeli and Palestinian Affairs (NEA/IPA) at the State Department to deliver a petition calling for Israel to not be admitted into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The petition specifically calls on Secretary Blinken to demand Israel end the disparate treatment of American travelers as a non-negotiable condition in the bilateral relations between the two countries. As a state that constantly violates international law, international conventions, and U.S. laws, Israel does NOT deserve, nor does it meet the requirements, to be admitted into the VWP.
Masafer Yatta. More than 1300 Palestinians in the south Hebron hills face imminent displacement from their ancestral lands. This is the largest single displacement of Palestinians since 1967.
Our speakers Basil Al-Adraa and Ryah Al-Aqel made it clear that the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta will not leave their land and will continue to fight for their existence.
But they cannot not win alone. International pressure is urgently needed.
Here is what you can do to help save Masafer Yatta.
Listen to the full recording of our emergency briefing on Masafer Yatta here.
From Masafer Yatta to Jenin to Haifa, we will continue to rise up for Palestine.
With hope and solidarity, Sandra Tamari
NAKBA DAY- Nakba 74- 74 years of Palestinian resistance. It's also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, which was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 by Israeli colonialism.
We do no forget the mass displacement of the Palestinian people from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of many Palestinian villages that occurred in 1948. For centuries, Palestinians had been living in vibrant towns and cities in Palestine. But in 1948, people who wanted to establish Israel on land where Palestinians were already living forced nearly 75% of the Palestinian population out of their homes and off their land, separating families and destroying entire communities. Today, the Palestinians are among the largest displaced population with over 2 million people who can't return to their homeland.
NAKBA DAY- Nakba 74- 74 years of Palestinian resistance. It's also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, which was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 by Israeli colonialism.
The testimony of Du’aa al-Masri, whose daughter Fatimah died at the age of 19 months after Israel refused to allow her to exit Gaza for medical treatment
ears, Du’aa and Jalal al-Masri unsuccessfully tried to have children. Du’aa underwent multiple miscarriages and many expensive, painful treatments. Until finally, in 2020, their firstborn daughter, Fatimah, pictured here on a family outing to the Gaza beach, came into the world. At nine months old, she needed lifesaving treatment, but Israeli policies have rendered the healthcare system in Gaza unable to provide the care she needed.
Israel would even not let her leave Gaza to receive treatment elsewhere. Fatimah passed away on March 25, 2022, at the age of 19 months. In a testimony she gave B'Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 30 March Du’aa al-Masri recalled:
My husband, Jalal al-Masri (38), and I got married in 2012. For eight years, we unsuccessfully tried to have children. I’ve had several miscarriages and went through lots of treatments, which we sold everything we had to pay for. In the end, I managed to conceive and have Fatimah in 2020, after eight years of suffering from the treatments and medications. She gave me such joy.
Fatimah was born healthy, but at nine months old, she started coughing. A cardiologist who examined her found she had a hole in her heart. She was discharged from the hospital with an inhalation device that was supposed to help her breathe.
Last October, the doctors told us the hole had grown, and she had to go get treatment at al-Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem. We got a referral for treatment outside the Strip right away.
We made an appointment for her for 28 December 2021, and put my mother’s name down as an accompanying person - Yasmin al-Masri (46). The evening before, my mother got a text message that the application was still under review. We had no choice, and we made another appointment for 6 January 2022, but all we were told was that the application is still under review, so we made an appointment for 13 February 2022, and we missed it again - again we were told the application was under review.
Over this time, Fatimah’s condition deteriorated, and she became very sick. The doctors suggested we try to expedite the application. We made another application and got an appointment for 27 March 2022, but the Israeli DCO rejected it because it was less than 14 days since we made the last application. I went back to the hospital and asked for a coverage guarantee for a later date and a new medical report. We filed the application again and got an appointment for 5 April 2022. Fatimah died before, on 25 March 2022.
On that day, at 10:30 A.M., Fatimah woke up and had breakfast. I picked her up and washed her face. She said to me: Mama, I love you. I love baba. As I held her, I felt she was already unconscious. I opened the door of the house and started screaming. My brother-in-law Adham (40) took her from me, and we drove to the hospital right away. At the hospital, they told me she had died. I felt that Fatimah passed while still in my arms. I started screaming and crying.
I can’t get over the shock and the pain. Fatimah was everything to me. Her voice has gone from the house, and I’ll never hear it again. She won’t call me mama and won’t call her father baba.
I can’t look at her toys. I gave them all away, her clothes too. Saying goodbye to Fatimah was hard. She lay in front of me for an hour. I looked at her innocent face. I cried. I held her.
My baby died because Israel wouldn’t let her get treatment. All of this time, we kept getting calls from al-Makassed Hospital, telling us they were waiting for us. Every time, we told them the application was being reviewed by the Israeli coordination.
Fatimah was an innocent baby. If they had told me I had to send her without
Peace Action statement on the murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh and Israeli police riot at her funeral
May 13, 2022
Peace Action shares in the widespread grief and outrage over the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, and the subsequent Israeli police attack on her mourners and pallbearers.
US Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a proud Jewish American and one of the staunchest supporters of Israel in Congress, has called for an independent investigation into the murder.
Peace Action agrees with the need for an independent investigation, and further, calls for re-invigoration of peace efforts to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a halt to further US military aid to Israel. Peace Action supports legislation to advance measures to ensure Palestinian rights while under occupation, such as US Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) bill, The Palestinian Children and Families Act (H.R. 2590), which creates accountability around how U.S. tax dollars are used by Israel. It’s a modest but powerful step that boils down to the boldest piece of U.S. legislation ever introduced on Palestinian human rights.
Here is a first hand description of Shireen Abu Aqleh’s murder, from the website Mondoweiss:
Palestinian journalist, and Mondoweiss contributor Shatha Hanaysha was next to Abu Akleh when she died. Here’s how she described the terrible scene to Middle East Eye:
We made ourselves visible to the soldiers who were stationed hundreds of metres away from us. We remained still for around 10 minutes to make sure they knew we were there as journalists.
When no warning shots were fired at us, we moved uphill towards the camp.
Out of nowhere, we heard the first gunshot.
I turned around and saw my colleague Ali al-Sammoudi on the floor. A bullet hit him in the back but his wound was not serious and he managed to move away from the fire.
A scene of chaos followed.
My colleague Mujahed jumped over a small fence nearby to stay away from the bullets.
“Come over here,” he told me and Shireen, but we were on the other side of the street and couldn’t risk crossing.
“Al-Sammoudi is hit,” Shireen shouted, standing right behind me, as we both stood with our backs to a wall to take cover.
Right then, another bullet pierced Shireen’s neck, and she fell to the ground right next to me.
I called her name but she didn’t move. When I tried to extend my arm to reach her, another bullet was fired, and I had to stay hiding behind a tree.
That tree saved my life, as it was the only thing obstructing the soldiers’ view of me.
According to Hanaysha, the attack was no accident. “What happened was a deliberate attempt to kill us,” she said. Whoever shot at us aimed to kill. And it was an Israeli sniper that shot at us. We were not caught up in crossfire with Palestinian fighters like the Israeli army claimed.”
Ramallah, May 12, 2022—Israeli settlers attacked a human rights field researcher from Defense for Children International - Palestine today near Jenin.
A group of at least 10 Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli forces attacked Hani Nassar, a field researcher at DCIP, around 5:15 p.m. today on Route 60 near the evacuated Israeli settlement of Homesh, south of the northern occupied West Bank city Jenin. Nassar was physically assaulted by the Israeli settlers then Israeli forces sprayed him with pepper spray, according to information collected by DCIP. A large group of at least 50 Israeli settlers approached Nassar and other Palestinians nearby, attacking people and their cars. Nassar was transported to a health clinic in Silat Ad-Dhaher, a Palestinian village located nearby, where he was treated and released.
“Settler violence is state-sanctioned violence as Israeli forces aid and protect Israeli settlers as they carry out attacks against Palestinians,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “This incident accentuates how rampant and unchecked settler violence against Palestinians is due to systemic impunity.”
Nassar joined DCIP as a field researcher in 2011 and works to document human rights violations against Palestinian children living in the northern occupied West Bank. At the time he was attacked, Nassar was driving south toward Nablus after attending a meeting in Jenin and working to document a case involving ill-treatment of a Palestinian child detained by Israeli forces.
While Homesh was officially evacuated in 2005, a group called Homesh First established a Jewish seminary at the site soon after the evacuation, according to Haaretz. The Israeli settlers there are known to be extremely violent, Haaretz reported.
In August 2021, Israeli settlers from Homesh abducted and brutally assaulted 15-year-old Tareq Z. The settlers pursued and struck Tareq with their car, tied him to the vehicle’s hood, hung him by his arms from a tree, and beat him until he lost consciousness, according to information collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine.
Israeli settlers commit violence against Palestinians and their property daily throughout the occupied West Bank. Between January 1 and April 18, 2022, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) documented 181 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property.
Israel has an obligation as the Occupying Power under international humanitarian law to protect the Palestinian population living under Israeli military occupation. However, DCIP documentation shows that Israeli forces frequently fail to intervene to stop or prevent Israeli settler attacks. Often, Israeli forces protect the Israeli settlers as they carry out attacks and acts of violence against Palestinians and their property.
While they are civilians, Israeli settlers are issued firearms by the Israeli government and many subscribe to ultra-nationalistic beliefs that manifest in extreme violence towards Palestinians, including children. Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians are motivated by the drive to dispossess Palestinians of their land, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.
Despite living in the same territory, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are subject to Israeli military law, while Israeli settlers living illegally in permanent, Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land are subject to the Israeli civilian legal system. Since Israeli forces occupied the West Bank in 1967, Israeli authorities have established more than 200 Jewish-only settlements that house around 700,000 Israeli citizens, according to the Times of Israel.
Impunity is rampant for Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians. According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, 91 percent of investigations into ideological crimes against Palestinians are closed with no indictments filed.
Israeli authorities consistently fail to investigate complaints filed against settlers. According to Yesh Din, between 2005-2019, 82 percent of investigative files on ideological crimes against Palestinians were closed due to police failures.
It is rare for charges to be filed and even rarer for Israeli settlers to be convicted for violence or offenses against Palestinians. One recent exception was when an Israeli court found Israeli settler Amiram Ben-Uleil, 25, guilty of the racially motivated murder of a Palestinian toddler and his parents. In the early hours of July 31, 2015, Ben-Uleil and another masked man threw firebombs into the home of 18-month old Ali Dawabsheh, four-year-old Ahmad, and their parents, Saad and Riham, in the northern occupied West Bank village of Duma. Only Ahmad, who sustained burns to over 60 percent of his body, survived.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits Israel, the Occupying Power, from transferring its civilians to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It also prohibits Israel from transferring Palestinians, the protected population, unless necessary for the protected population’s security or out of military necessity. Violations of Article 49 are grave violations of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes.
The United Nations Security Council reaffirmed the prohibition on establishing settlements in Security Council Resolutions 446, 452, 465, and most recently, 2334. Despite this prohibition, Israel began establishing Jewish-only settlements for Israeli civilians shortly after it occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Israeli authorities frequently displace Palestinian communities and appropriate Palestinian lands to establish these Jewish-only settlements.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Occupied Palestinian territory: Protection of Civilians Report | 5-18 April 2022
On 22 April, an 18-year-old Palestinian man succumbed to wounds sustained on 9 April, when shot by Israeli forces during a search-and-arrest operation in Al Yamun.
On 19 and 20 April, a Palestinian armed group in Gaza fired two rockets towards Israel; three Israeli civilians were reportedly injured while seeking shelter, and damage was reported. Subsequently, Israeli forces launched air strikes hitting military positions in Gaza; there were no Palestinian injuries, but damage was reported.
Highlights from the reporting period
In continuing violence in Israel and the West Bank, 15 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed, and 945 Palestinians and 23 Israelis were injured; multiple search-and-arrest operations and violent clashes took place, and severe access restrictions were implemented.The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, issued astatementon 19 April expressing his concern at the violence and urging leaders to “reduce tensions, create the conditions for calm and ensure the status quo at the Holy Sites is protected.”
Two Israelis were killed, and eleven were injured, in two Palestinian attacks; both perpetrators were subsequently killed.On 7 April, a Palestinian man from Jenin refugee camp shot and killed two Israelis and injured ten others in Tel Aviv (Israel); the next day, one of those injured died of his wounds, and Israeli forces shot and killed the assailant in an exchange of fire. On 10 April, a Palestinian woman allegedly stabbed an Israeli border policeman at the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the H2 area of Hebron city and was shot and killed by Israeli forces. According to eyewitnesses, soldiers prevented medical teams from reaching the woman for about half an hour. Following the attack, Israeli forces intensified restrictions on the entry of Muslim worshippers to the mosque. The bodies of both Palestinians are withheld by the Israeli authorities, as of the end of the reporting period. On 12 April, a Palestinian man from Hebron was shot and killed by Israeli police during a raid on a workplace in Israel suspected of employing Palestinians without Israeli-issued permits. Israeli officials said that the man had stabbed an Israeli police office; Palestinian eyewitnesses said he was asleep and had showed no resistance.
Following the shooting attack in Tel Aviv, Israeli military operations intensified across the West Bank; eleven Palestinians, including three children, were killed by Israeli forces and others were injured during multiple search-and-arrest operations and other circumstances.On 9 April, in Jenin refugee camp, from which the shooter had come, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man and injured another ten, including a 17-year-old child, who died two days later of his wounds; an exchange of fire with Palestinians reportedly took place during the operation. On 10 April, in Husan (Bethlehem), Israeli forces shot and killed an unarmed 45-year-old Palestinian woman with vision impairment after she ignored their calls to stop approaching them, according to Israeli authorities, who opened an investigation into the incident. Also on 10 April, in Al Khadr (Bethlehem), a 21-year-old man was shot and killed after he reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli vehicles, according to Israeli sources. In three separate search-and-arrest operations on 13 and 14 April, Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians and injured another six, including a 17-year-old boy who died of his wounds days later. The three search-and-arrest operations took place in Silwad (Ramallah), Kafr Dan (Jenin) and Beita (Nablus), triggering clashes which erupted over the course of these operations. On 14 April, another 14-year-old boy was killed by Israeli forces at the entrance of Husan (Bethlehem) where Palestinians threw stones at Israeli forces positioned at the entrance of the village, and Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas canisters. On 18 April, a Palestinian woman died of wounds she sustained while in a taxi during an exchange of fire between Palestinians and Israeli forces on 9 April in Jenin.
Another Palestinian man was killed by Israeli forces near Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus on 13 April, which has been a source of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces who have been accompanying Israeli settlers to the site over the years.On 9 April, Palestinians vandalized the compound, setting fire to part of it. The Palestinian Authority announced its intention to repair the structure; however, on 13 April, Israeli settlers and Israeli forces accessed the compound to carry out the repairs. While doing so, Israeli forces fired sound bombs and Palestinians threw stones at them. Subsequently, the forces shot live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas canisters, injuring 26 Palestinians. The man who was killed was in his car taking his nephews to a nearby school when hit by a bullet. On 10 April, Palestinian forces shot and injured two settlers who tried to access Joseph’s Tomb without military accompaniment, and another Israeli settler ran over and injured a Palestinian man while fleeing the area in his vehicle.
Since the beginning of Ramadan, on 2 April, Israeli forces have intensified their presence in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.On 15 and 17 April, Israeli forces raided the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount and used force to evacuate Palestinians. According to the Israeli Police Commissioner, this took place after Palestinians attacked a police station and threatened the safety of Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall. Israeli forces shot stun grenades, sponge-tipped bullets and beat Palestinians with batons, including children, women, journalists and others who were demonstrably not involved in any stone-throwing. A total of 180 Palestinians, including 27 children and four women, were injured. According to Israeli media, three members of Israeli forces were injured by stones. During the 15 April operation, Israeli forces arrested 470 Palestinians, including 60 children, the majority of whom were released later that day.
In addition to the 180 injured in East jerusalem above, another 765 Palestinians, including 35 children, were injured by Israeli forces across the West Bank, representing a 73 per cent increase from the previous reporting period.Most of the injuries (485) were recorded in different demonstrations. These included some 201 injuries reported in eight anti-settlement protests near Beita, Beit Dajan, Burqa and Qaryut (all in Nablus), and Kafr Qaddum (Qalqiliya). Another 284 injuries resulted from demonstrations against the high number of fatalities, with some participants throwing stones and Israeli forces firing teargas canisters, rubber bullets and live ammunition. Another 212 injuries were recorded in 16 search-and-arrest operations across the West Bank, including in Beita (Nablus), when 147 people were injured in a single operation. In total, Israeli forces carried out 109 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 108 Palestinians. On 12 and 13 April, Israeli forces raided the Palestine Technical University in Tulkarm, where they opened fire at students, injuring 68 of them as well as one security guard, who Israeli officials said was suspected of being involved in an attack against Israelis. Of all the Palestinian injuries, 85 were hit by live ammunition, 90 were by rubber bullets and most of the remainder were treated for inhaling teargas.
A total of 130,000 Palestinians holding West Bank IDs entered East Jerusalem on the first and second Fridays of Ramadan (8 and 15 April) through the four designated checkpoints along the Barrier, according to official Israeli figures.The Israeli authorities allowed men above 50 years of age, women of all ages and children below 12 years of age to enter East Jerusalem without permits. This year, the Israeli authorities did not grant Ramadan or Easter permits for residents of Gaza.
The Israeli authorities demolished, confiscated, or forced people to demolish five Palestinian-owned structures in Area C of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, citing the lack of Israeli-issued building permits.As a result, eight people including four children were displaced and the livelihoods of about four others were affected. The decline in demolitions and confiscations witnessed in recent weeks is consistent with the practice in most previous years during the month of Ramadan.
Israeli settlers injured two Palestinians, and people known or believed to be settlers damaged Palestinian property in twelve instances.On 9 April, settlers physically assaulted a Palestinian man grazing livestock near Kafr al Labad (Tulkarm) and another man in the H2 area of Hebron city. Three additional attacks occurred in Qaryut (Nablus), Ras at Tin community (Ramallah), and Wadi Fukin (Bethlehem), including breaking into livelihood structures, stealing agricultural equipment and water tanks and causing damage to a water facility and pipelines. In two incidents, settlers attacked Palestinian herders and their cows in Hammat al Maleh community in the northern Jordan Valley (Tubas) and Palestinian farmers in Kafr ad Dik (Salfit), causing damage to crops. In another five incidents, stones were thrown at Palestinian vehicles near Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus, causing damage to at least eight vehicles.
People known or believed to be Palestinians injured 13 Israeli settlers and damaged seven Israeli vehicles travelling on West Bank roadsby stone-throwing near Nablus, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. Israeli-plated vehicles and buses were damaged by stones or Molotov cocktails thrown at them in eight incidents.
On 18 April, for the first time in over three months, Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket towards southern Israel. The rocket was intercepted by the Israeli military. Subsequently, Israeli forces launched air strikes hitting a military training site in the southern Gaza Strip.No injuries were reported in either incident.
**Also in the Gaza Strip, on at least 38 occasions, Israeli forces opened warning fire near Israel’s perimeter fence or off the coast, presumably to enforce access restrictions. **In two incidents, Israeli forces arrested seven fishermen at sea, injured one of them and confiscated three fishing boats
This report reflects information available as of the time of publication. The most updated data and more breakdowns are available atochaopt.org/data.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.
Ramallah, February 3, 2022—Today, Defense for Children International - Palestine joined other leading Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations to file a procedural objection to the decision by Israeli military authorities declaring DCIP and other groups “unlawful associations.”Ramallah, February 3, 2022—Today, Defense for Children International - Palestine joined other leading Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations to file a procedural objection to the decision by Israeli military authorities declaring DCIP and other groups “unlawful associations.”
On the fourth anniversary of the Great March of Return and on Palestinian Land Day, join Adalah Justice Project and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) for a conversation with Palestinian activists Soheir Asaad, Mariam Barghouti, and Ahmed Abuartema as we share reflections and analyses of the current situation on the ground across Palestine, and what recent moments of popular resistance mean in the broader context of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. Moments and movements such as the 2018 Great March of Return in Gaza and the 2021 Unity Intifada are but two examples from the last few years of a growing movement of popular mass mobilization across Palestine. The first Land Day took place in 1976, when Palestinians organized large demonstrations and a nation-wide strike against Israel's plan to expropriate large swaths of Palestinian land for Jewish-only settlements. They were met with brutal Israeli repression that ultimately led to the massacre of six Palestinians. This resistance to Israel's occupation and expansion is ongoing today— from Gaza and the West Bank, to '48 and the diaspora. Our speakers are Ahmed Abu Artema, Soheir Asaad, and Mariam Barghouti. The panel was moderated by Sandra Tamari, Executive Director of the Adalah Justice Project.
The No Way to Treat a Child campaign's first webinar of the year was on Jan 13, 2022. It was a jam-packed hour that included updates on Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, new resources and tips to help you advocate for Palestinian human rights, an inside look at how AROC pushed Rep. Lee to cosponsor H.R. 2590, and more. If you missed the live webinar or would like to share the recording with a friend, here's the YouTube link.
Approximately 2.9 million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank, of which around 45 percent are children under the age of 18.
Palestinian children in the West Bank, like adults, face arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment under an Israeli military detention system that denies them basic rights.
Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law.
Israel applies civilian criminal law to Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military courts.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.
Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process,” according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reportChildren in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations.
Children typically arrive to interrogation bound, blindfolded, frightened, and sleep deprived.
Children often give confessions after verbal abuse, threats, physical and psychological violence that in some cases amounts to torture.
Israeli military law provides no right to legal counsel during interrogation, and Israeli military court judges seldom exclude confessions obtained by coercion or torture.
From testimonies of 739 Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank and prosecuted in Israeli military courts between 2013 and 2018, DCIP found that:
73 percent experienced physical violence following arrest
95 percentwere hand tied
86 percent were blindfolded
49 percentwere detained from their homes in the middle of the night
64 percent faced verbal abuse, humiliation, or intimidation
74 percent of children were not properly informed of their rights
96 percent were interrogated without the presence of a family member
20 percent were subject to stress positions
49 percentsigned documents in Hebrew, a language most Palestinian children don’t understand
Since 2000, an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank and held in the Israeli military detention system.
Israel in 1991 ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that children should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort, must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained, and must not be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Despite sustained engagement by UNICEF and repeated calls to end night arrests and ill treatment and torture of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, Israeli authorities have persistently failed to implement practical changes to stop violence against child detainees.
Reforms undertaken by Israeli military authorities so far have tended to be cosmetic in nature rather than substantively addressing physical violence and torture by Israeli military and police forces.
A Call to Action: Environmental Justice Has No Borders
Our campaign to end greenwashing trips to apartheid Israel is ongoing. Today, alongside our partners in the movement, we put out a call to all organizations, groups, and institutions committed to environmental justice to take a pledge to refuse participation in nature trips on colonized land.
Israel Is Committing the Crime of Apartheid. What Should We Do About It?
The international movement for Palestinian rights laid the ground for declarations by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. We must follow up.
When Amnesty International released its report “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity” earlier the month, it was clearly part of a rapidly expanding trend. Palestinian human rights defenders, members of Congress and faith leaders in the United States, academics, and activists of the Palestinian rights movement around the world have long recognized and condemned Israeli apartheid, and called for accountability.
More recently, influential human rights organizations and experts have produced a spate of reports analyzing and condemning the phenomenon. Amnesty’s report emerged after acclaimed Israeli human rights advocacy organizations published their reports: 18 months after Yesh Din’s “The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion,” and a year after B’tselem’s “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid.” Amnesty’s arrived eight months after Human Rights Watch published “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.
A newstatistical reporton Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza shows theunbearable pricepaid by Palestinians for the maintenance of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Authored by three Palestinian human rights organizations – Al Mezan, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Al-Haq – the report examines the full-scale military offensive endured by Gazans for 11 days in May last year.
The extensive damage that Israel wrought on Gaza “further compounded the long-lasting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip” after 14 years of intensified closure and economic blockade – a form ofcollective punishmentprohibited under international law.
Israel meanwhile closed its crossings with Gaza during the May escalation. Two children referred for medical treatment outside the coastal enclave “died waiting for access,” according to the human rights groups.
A rigorous field survey by those groups found that 240 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces during the 11-day offensive.
Of them, 151 were civilians and 89 belonged to armed groups, though 10 of the latter were not actively participating in hostilities when they were killed.
Among the 151 civilians killed, 59 were children, 54 were men and 38 were women. The vast majority – 111 people – were killed by weapons fired from Israeli fighter jets.
Nearly half of the total of 240 people killed in Gaza during the war, and all but one of the women killed, were at home at the time of the Israeli strike that ended their lives.
One-third of the total of 240 people killed were engaged in military action at the time.
The human rights groups note the “large number of casualties compared to the short duration of the military operation, and the overall number of civilians, including children and women, killed.”
The use of overwhelming force against civilians is a key Israeli military strategy.
That strategy – the“Dahiyeh Doctrine”– is named for the Beirut suburb heavily bombarded by Israel in 2006, when it was roundly defeated by Hizballah.
By using indiscriminate and disproportionate force, Israel aims to restore deterrence and turn the targeted civilian population against the armed resistance, whether it be Hizballah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza.
In both places, the Dahiyeh Doctrine has failed to turn the people against the resistance, which has in both Lebanon and Gaza increased its capacity and capabilities.
During May last year, Palestinian unity across geographic and political divides galvanized in ways not seen in years and inspired renewed global solidarity.
The May war began after Israeli police stormed Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque while it was filled with worshippers, injuring hundreds. Tensions had been brewing in the city for weeks as Israel sought and continues to seek to expel Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and hand them over to Jewish settlers.
Resistance groups in Gaza fired volleys of rockets towards Jerusalem that night after awarningfrom the leader of Hamas’ armed wing over attacks in the city went unheeded by Israel.
Israel began striking northern Gaza, where at least 20 Palestinians, including nine children,were killedon that first day.
The 11-day escalation ended with no decisive Israeli defeat against the resistance in Gaza – an automatic victory for the latter in the context of anti-colonial guerrilla warfare.
The Dahiyeh Doctrine hasn’t achieved what Israel intends though it has inflicted profound harm on targeted civilians.
“We will have to kill and kill and kill”
But so long as Palestinians rightly refuse to submit to their removal and replacement with foreign settlers, Israel as the colonizing powerrequiresa horrendously violent policy like the Dahiyeh Doctrine.
That wasadmittedto by Haifa University demographer Arnon Soffer, a close adviser to the late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, ahead of the latter’s unilateral withdrawal of settlers from Gaza in 2005 and tightened blockade on the territory two years later.
Soffer anticipated that Palestinians in Gaza, isolated and closed off, and with little other means of leveraging pressure on Israel, would rely on firing projectiles to resist what has become a medieval siege enforced by one of the world’s strongest militaries against a population of more than two million stateless people.
“We will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire ten in response. And women and children will be killed and houses will be destroyed,” Soffer explained.
Anticipating the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, Soffer added, “The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”
This violence is necessary to guarantee “a Jewish-Zionist state with an overwhelming majority of Jews,” as Soffer explained.
That is the logic underlying Israel’s violence last May, when defense minister Benny Gantzwarnedthat “no person, area or neighborhood in Gaza is immune.”
And so14 familieslost three or more members when Israel bombed their homes.
Half of all fatalities during the May war occurred in Gaza City, where Israel targeted densely populated neighborhoods andwiped out multiple generationsof individual families.
In addition to those killed, nearly 2,000 people in Gaza were wounded, among them 941 men, 630 children and 397 women.
Meanwhile, more than 1,300 residential units were destroyed and 6,367 sustained significant damage, mainly in northern Gaza and in the Gaza City area.
Some 420 hectares of agricultural land was damaged by Israeli missiles and artillery shells, or because of obstruction to access, affecting more than 5,350 people.
Additionally, more than 220 livestock and poultry farms were damaged, as were 24 water wells, 169 vehicles, 59 manufacturing plants, 483 commercial facilities and 871 other facilities including banks, daycare centers, private offices, schools, houses of worship and government offices.
“Intent to dominate”
The rights groups that authored the statistical report point to Israel’s “broader policy of harm adopted at the highest levels.”
“In particular, the widespread targeting of family homes in Gaza has appeared as a key feature of Israel’s military attacks,” they add.
This conduct “forms part of Israel’s institutionalized system of racial discrimination and intent to dominate and oppress the Palestinian people as a whole – a policy that amounts to the crime of apartheid.”
Amnesty Internationalrecently joinedPalestinian human rights groups calling on the International Criminal Court to “investigate the commission of the crime of apartheid.”
In Gaza, Israel subjects Palestinians to a “blanket ban on movement” as part of its “intent to separate and divide Palestinians and thereby to assert its domination over them, in furtherance of its overarching settler-colonialist agenda,”according toAl Mezan.
The tightened blockade since 2007, along with repeated Israeli military assaults, have “forced Gaza into profound levels of poverty, aid dependency, food insecurity and unemployment, and led to the collapse of essential public services, including healthcare and water, sanitation and hygiene,” Al Mezan adds.
Indeed, according to the human rights group, Israel’s actions have “rendered Gaza all but uninhabitable.”
Israel has killed more than 5,200 Palestinians, including some 1,200 children, during four full-scale military offensives in Gaza since 2008.
The worsening water crisis in the territory is meanwhile tied to Israel’s demographic engineering in Palestine.
As Al Mezan notes, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with two-thirds of its people refugees denied their right to return to their lands on the other side of the Gaza-Israel boundary fence.
Israel’s targeting of Palestinian homes in Gaza, killing their inhabitants, creates a “ ‘coercive environment’ in which families have no choice but to move,” Al Mezan adds.
“This has caused the forced internal displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinian families, a number of whom remain without safe, adequate and/or affordable permanent housing today.”
Israeli officials have admitted that the state is “encouraging” emigration from Gaza. Facing some of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and few prospects, young people with the means of leaving Gaza aredoing so.
Al Mezan observes: “The aim has been to create and maintain an Israeli Jewish superiority, consolidating effective control and dominance, with the aim of gradually eradicating the indigenous Palestinian people.”
One missile, one bullet and one destroyed future at a time.
Rejecting Piecemeal Approaches, Secretary-General Says Concrete Steps Urgently Needed to Achieve Two-State Solution, as Palestinian Rights Committee Begins 2022 Session
Israel Imposing Apartheid Regime against Palestinians, Speakers Stress, Noting 2021 among Deadliest Years in Over a Decade for Civilian Population
Intensified efforts are urgently needed to resolve the Israel-Palestine situation with a view to reaching the overall goal of two States living side by side in peace and security, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said today at the first formal meeting of the Palestinian Rights Committee in 2022.
“There is no plan B,” he told members of the 25-member entity, known formally as the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which the General Assembly established in 1975. “Time is running short. We cannot lose sight of the long-sought goal of ending the occupation and realizing a two-State solution. All parties must take concrete steps to improve the prospects of a negotiated solution and achieve a just and lasting peace.”
Piecemeal approaches to the question of Palestine will only ensure that the underlying issues perpetuating the conflict remain unaddressed, he said, emphasizing that unilateral steps and illegal actions that drive the conflict must stop. Concerned about continued violence across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, he said all settlement activity is illegal and must stop. Continued human rights violations against Palestinians significantly impede their ability to live in security and to develop their communities and economy, he continued, also calling on all parties to preserve the status quo at the holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.
While working towards reviving the political process, he said the international community must support efforts to improve the economic and humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The United Nations Humanitarian Flash Appeal for Gaza has received vital support, reconstruction efforts in Gaza are ongoing and the Organization’s system continues with critical COVID-19 response efforts on the ground. At the same time, concerns remain about the dire fiscal situation facing the Palestinian Authority, which is undermining its institutional stability and ability to provide services to its people. In addition, the existential financial threat facing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is affecting the rights and well-being of Palestine refugees across the region.
Calling on Member States to increase their financial support to the Palestinian people and their contributions to UNRWA, he said Israeli decisions to increase the movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip is not enough. For sustainable improvement to lives and livelihoods in Gaza, it is important to expand such steps and work towards a full lifting of the closures in line with Security Council resolution 1860 (2009). For its part, the United Nations is committed to supporting Palestinians and Israelis to resolve the conflict, he said.
Feda Abdelhady-Nasser, an observer for the State of Palestine, regretted to note that 2022 has begun the same as 2021, as the occupation continues amid violence, displacement and trauma against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Leading human rights organizations have reached the same conclusions: that Israel is imposing an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. As such, the international community must be clear: this is not about antisemitism, but about human rights, based on facts and international law. Citing such incidents as the Gaza blockade, she said there is ample proof that war crimes are being committed. Emphasizing that it is time to change this, she said that without action, the situation will become more deplorable as Israel becomes more bold in its impunity.
The Palestine leadership has proven that it is a partner for peace, she said, reiterating its commitment to using all diplomatic means to bring an end to occupation and achieve freedom and rights for all Palestinians. Calling on the international community and civil society to take action to resolve these serious concerns, she asked the Committee to address the root causes of the current injustices and to work towards achieving a just solution, with two States based on General Assembly resolutions. Reiterating an appeal for assistance for UNRWA, she expressed gratitude to the Secretary-General and the Committee for their tireless efforts and anticipated working with members towards achieving peace.
Cheikh Niang (Senegal), speaking upon his re-election as Committee Chair, thanking members for their hard work and commitment to the Palestinian cause, said the Committee is constantly working to improve and reinvent itself against an ever more uncertain backdrop. In 2021, the Palestinian people faced a particularly challenging year amid the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the further advancement of Israeli settlements, continued movement restrictions and the disproportionate use of force by Israeli security forces, which led to heavy human and material losses in May. As it stands committed to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, the Committee condemns all forms of violence and incitement to hatred, regardless of their perpetrators.
Urging both parties to return to the negotiating table to pursue a lasting peace through the creation of two sovereign States, he underlined the need to shore up the international community’s commitment to a two-State solution, which requires a relaunch of the peace process. The international community and in particular the Middle East Quartet should support the Palestinian Authority in working to bring an end to the conflict, and in facing such challenges as terrorism, poverty, violence, and exclusion. Warning against any unilateral steps by any party, he underlined the need for respect for the region’s holy sites, as well as the right of Muslim people to prayer at them. Meanwhile, UNRWA also needs support to continue providing critical services in education, health care, humanitarian assistance and sustainable development. The Committee will continue to engage with all stakeholders and support any initiative aimed at realizing the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in line with a two-State solution.
Highlighting some of the work ahead, he said the Committee will hold several virtual events during the session, including one in March on the issue of “apartheid” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, featuring prominent human rights organizations, including Amnesty International. Other virtual events include a panel on the margins of the annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women and a discussion on illegal Israeli settlements, with a focus on the case study of Hebron.
The Committee re-elected Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta (Cuba), Arrmanatha Christiawan Nasir (Indonesia), Neville Melvin Gertze (Namibia) and Jaime Hermida Castillo (Nicaragua) as Vice-Chairs. The Committee is still in consultation to fill the vacant posts of Rapporteur and one Vice-Chair.
Mr. Pedroso Cuesta (Cuba), one of the Committee’s newly elected Vice-Chairs, took the floor to stress that resolving the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory requires renewed efforts by the international community. Noting that 2021 was one of the deadliest years for the Palestinian people in more than a decade, he declared: “Israel is criminalizing and attacking civilians and humanitarian workers, and nothing happens.” Emphasizing that the Palestinian people are facing a situation of genuine apartheid, he said it is the global community’s obligation to put an end to such colonial situations. Against that backdrop, he cited the Committee’s 2022 busy programme of work and pledged to work tirelessly towards a two-State solution that will finally ensure the Palestinian people the crucial right to self-determination.
In other business, the Committee adopted its programme of work for 2022 (document A/AC.183/2022/L.2).
The Committee will reconvene at a date and time to be announced.
Discussion
Several Committee members took the floor to express their views on the body’s 2022 programme of work and on its mandate more broadly, as well as on the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The representative ofEgypt, congratulating the newly elected and re-elected members of the Bureau, said the Palestinian cause is currently at a critical juncture and facing a range of serious new threats. While neither side currently wishes to see a change in the status quo, recent months have seen increasing Israeli violations at holy sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as accelerating settlement activities. The Committee has a role to play in ending that worrying situation, including through its awareness-raising activities and by supporting a return to negotiations, he said.
India’s representative said his delegation has long supported the international community’s quest for a two-State solution, as reflected by its support to UNRWA and its bilateral work with the Palestinian Authority. Voicing concern over the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, he warned against unilateral measures that alter the situation on the ground and pose serious challenges to the resumption of peace talks. Urging the parties to focus on constructive measures, he reiterated India’s calls for a resumption of dialogue leading to the establishment of two sovereign States living side by side in line with international agreements and pre-1967 borders.
The representative ofTunisiaechoed other speakers in calling for an end to the long-standing Israeli occupation and the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian State. Expressing support for the Committee’s 2022 programme of work, he welcomed its openness to hearing the voices of civil society members, non-governmental organizations, women leaders, and a range of other crucial stakeholders, while pledging Tunisia’s support for its planned activities and events over the course of the year.
The representative ofIndonesia, pointing out that the situation on the ground remains extremely distant from the vision of a two-State solution, urged the international community to redouble its concerted efforts to achieve that goal. As a member of the Bureau, he pledged his country’s unwavering support to the Palestinian people and vowed to work in defence of their inalienable rights.
Lebanon’s delegate noted the Committee’s outstanding efforts to keep the Palestinian question in the spotlight through conferences, seminars, workshops and activities, as reflected in its programme of work for 2022. Commending efforts to increase the world’s attention and interest in the situation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to shine a spotlight on the daily struggle of Palestinians, he said the Israeli practices of house demolitions, uprooting Palestinians from their homes, arbitrary detention and daily humiliation and aggression continue unabated. “Despite international efforts, multiple peace initiatives and relevant United Nations resolutions, the reality on the ground for the Palestinians has worsened over the last 70 years,” he said, as Israel continues to disregard international law.
The representative ofChina, joining other speakers in commending the Committee’s efforts to carry out its mandate, said 2022 marks the seventy-fifth year that the Question of Palestine will feature on the United Nations agenda. “Let’s hope that 2022 will not be another year without much progress on this file,” he said, urging the two parties to engage in direct negotiations as soon as possible and voicing support for efforts to enhance the Palestinian Authority’s authority in such areas as security and financing. Settlement expansion, evictions and forced demolitions — as well as violence against civilians — only further erodes mutual trust and exacerbates the situation. In that context, he called for the urgent holding of an international peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations and expressed his country’s support for a two-State solution and the peaceful coexistence between Palestine and Israel.
Also speaking were the representatives of Jordan, Turkey, Bangladesh and Venezuela.
On 1 February 2022, Amnesty International released a report based on four years worth of research and documentation, acknowledging that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, under international law. The report builds upon decades of Palestinian activism and work, documenting Israel’s regime of racial domination, cruel control and oppression. Amnesty is joining a long list of organisations charging Israel with the crime of apartheid, including Palestinian civil society organisations such as Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, and other landmarks including Human Rights Watch, UN ESCWA and B’Tselem.
Here are some of the Palestinian takes on the Amnesty apartheid report findings:
The report, taking into account Palestinians’ lived experiences, acknowledges that the system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in 1948, i.e, the Palestinian Nakba, and that it is ongoing to this day:
The enforcement of the Israeli apartheid regime through its governmental and military institutions are not limited to the OPT. On the contrary, it has no geographic restrictions as it is also imposed on the Palestinian refugees and their descendants by continuously negating their right of return; and on ‘48 Palestinians whose citizenship is conditional to facilitate domination and ensure Jewish supremacy over Palestinians wherever they may be.
“Since its inception Israel has pursued a policy of erasure of Palestinians from this land to maintain a Jewish majority” in this short video, Salem Barahmeh breaks down the many ways these crimes have been on full display for decades.
Read these slides to learn more about how Israel imposes its apartheid rule and practices based on who is Jewish or Palestinian.
Following Agnes Callamard’s comment: “This is my first visit to Israel/Palestine, it has shocked me to my core. Why? It’s not the act of violence, I have seen violence before. It is the cruelty of the system, its sheer banality, and at times absurdity.”
Mohammad Al Saffin agreed by saying that “spectacular violence makes the news. The quiet cruelty in between (what Western reporters often refer to as 'calm'), is much harder to show because it permeates every detail of our lives.”
During the Amnesty’s press conference on the report, some reminded that the Israeli occupation forces were committing additional war crimes by demolishing a Palestinian family home in Shufat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem.
On how the Israeli system of apartheid, racial domination and control is maintained:
Israel’s status quo of apartheid is not done independently. Rather, it is emboldened by its international allies through trade of surveillance tech and military equipment, enacting normalization agreements, financing illegal annexation, and supporting the silencing of Palestinian voices through false allegations of terrorism or antisemitism.
“Spectacular violence makes the news. The quiet cruelty in between (what Western reporters often refer to as 'calm'), is much harder to show because it permeates every detail of our lives.”
- Mohammad Al Saffin
While many welcomed the analysis of the report, Palestinians highlighted the limitations of the apartheid framework under international law:
In this article, scholar Yara Hawari, reminds of the shortcomings of the international law framework, which omits the context of settler-colonialism and its ongoing consequences.
The discourse on apartheid risks fixating the Palestinian struggle as one of equality rather than one of decolonial liberation. Scholar Lana Tatour captured this already in 2021, following B'tselem’s report: “By confining ourselves to international law, we risk talking only about racial domination and ignoring colonial domination.”
The Adalah Justice Project welcomed the report, but raised the question on why Amnesty insists on justifying Israel’s assertion as “Jewish state” instead of choosing to challenge the assertion that settlers have a right to self-determination on stolen land.
Censorship and recognition of Palestinian voices, civil society, and international solidarity efforts:
The publication of such report wouldn’t have been possible without the crucial work of Palestinian experts and activists for many years, which came at great personal and professional expense. Journalist Yuman Patel expands more on this in a short thread.
For decades university students worldwide have been organizing an annual Israeli Apartheid Week as an act of international solidarity to educate on the reality of Palestinians and challenge their institutions on complicity with Israel. In her tweet, Palestinian scholar Mezna Qato credits these students: ”You were railroaded, arrested, expelled, stigmatized, cancelled, and blacklisted. You are the bravest report.”
Anti-Palestinian racist remarks from the Israeli regime already surfaced prior to the publication of the report, claiming that Amnesty is an anti-Semitic institution, capitalizing, once again, on pro-Palestinian international support to silence Palestinian voices, and deny the Palestinian experience under ongoing oppression and colonization.
Palestinians have been publicly sharing and documenting their realities living under Israel’s apartheid and settler-colonial regime for decades. As the world turns increasing to reports finally acknowledging Israel’s apartheid regime, Palestinians should remain the central voice and authority documenting the daily torment and oppression under which they live, and which they resist against daily.
Nonetheless, it is crucial that international allies and organizations amplify Palestinians’ lived reality, and to hold Israel accountable and support the Palestinian struggle in bringing it closer to accountability, justice and liberation.
VIDEO: H.R. 2590 EXPLAINED IN ONE MINUTE
Rep. Betty McCollum introduced H.R. 2590, the Palestinian Children and Families Act, on April 15, 2021. Here's what you need to know about this landmark legislation, explained in under a minute.
On April 15, 2021, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced H.R. 2590, the "Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act," or the Palestinian Children and Families Act.
H.R. 2590 seeks to promote justice, equality and human rights for Palestinian children and families by prohibiting Israeli authorities from using U.S. taxpayer funds to detain and torture Palestinian children, demolish and seize Palestinian homes, and further annex Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
WHAT DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT DO?
H.R. 2590 aims to promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the occupied West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.
WHAT ACTIVITIES DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT PROHIBIT USING U.S. FUNDS?
The bill specifically notes that funds will be prohibited for the following uses:
1. Supporting the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in violation of international humanitarian law or to support the use against Palestinian children of any of the following practices:
Torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment
Physical violence, including restraint in stress positions.
Hooding, sensory deprivation, death threats, or other forms of psychological abuse.
Incommunicado detention or solitary confinement
Administrative detention, or imprisonment without charge or trial
Arbitrary detention
Denial of access to parents or legal counsel during interrogations
Confessions obtained by force or coercion
2. Supporting the seizure, appropriation, or destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the Israeli-controlled and occupied West Bank in violation of international humanitarian law.
3. Deploying, or supporting the deployment of, personnel, training, services, lethal materials, equipment, facilities, logistics, transportation, or any other activity to territory in the occupied West Bank to facilitate or support further unilateral annexation by Israel of such territory in violation of international humanitarian law.
HOW DOES THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT HOLD ISRAELI AUTHORITIES ACCOUNTABLE?
The bill requires the Secretary of State to certify annually to the Foreign Affairs Committees and Appropriations Committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate that U.S. financial assistance to Israel was not used to support any of the prohibited activities.
Additionally, the Secretary of State will need to submit reports on a description of the nature and extent of detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli military forces or police in violation of international humanitarian law; the seizure, appropriation, or destruction of Palestinian property in the Israeli-controlled and occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities in violation of international humanitarian law; and Israeli settlement activities, including an assessment of the compliance of the Government of Israel with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016).
Finally, the bill requires the Comptroller General to submit an annual report to Congress that identifies the specific programs and items funds for offshore procurement in Israel have been allocated to, including specific armed forces branches, units, and contractors; assesses executive branch compliance with legislative requirements governing offshore procurements in Israel; identifies, in detail, all end-use monitoring the Government of Israel is subject to with respect to United States-origin defense articles; and analyzes the effects of offshore procurements on Israel’s military budget and domestic economy since 1991, including an assessment of the manner and extent to which these funds have directly or indirectly supported illegal Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
HOW IS THE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT DIFFERENT FROM H.R. 2407 IN THE 116TH CONGRESS?
H.R. 2590 is the fourth piece of legislation that Rep. Betty McCollum has introduced focusing on Palestinian human rights, and the third that clearly highlights Palestinian children's rights and the Israeli military detention system.
H.R. 2407 sought to amend the Leahy Law, an amendment to Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, while H.R. 2590 focuses on certification and reporting in order to enhance transparency regarding financial assistance to Israel, similar to H.R. 4391 in the 115th Congress.
H.R. 2407 included an authorization to the Department of State to provide funding to nongovernmental organizations to monitor and assess incidents of Palestinian children being subjected to Israeli military detention, and provide treatment and rehabilitation for Palestinians under 21 years of age who have been subject to military detention as children. H.R. 2590 does not include a similar authorization.
BACKGROUND ON PALESTINIAN CHILDREN IN ISRAELI MILITARY DETENTION
Children under 18 years old represent around 45 percent of the 2.9 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.
Children within the Israeli military detention system commonly report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations. Under Israeli military law, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer during interrogation.
Ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank has been widely documented. In 2013, UNICEF released a report titled Children in Israeli military detention: Observations and recommendations. The report concluded that “ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.”
Subsequent UNICEF reports show that widespread ill-treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces is the norm rather than the exception.
Regardless of guilt or innocence, children in conflict with the law are entitled to special protections and all due process rights under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
International juvenile justice standards, which Israel has obliged itself to implement by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, demand that children should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort, must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained, and must not be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Despite sustained engagement by UNICEF and repeated calls to end night arrests and ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, Israeli authorities have persistently failed to implement practical changes to end violence against child detainees.
Reforms undertaken by Israeli military authorities so far have tended to be cosmetic in nature rather than substantively addressing physical violence and torture by Israeli military and police forces.
In a military detention system where fair trial guarantees are denied and nearly three out of four Palestinian children experience some form of physical violence after arrest, failing to demand Israeli authorities comply with international law simply works to enable abuse and perpetuate injustice against Palestinian children.
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Demand Israeli authorities immediately end solitary confinement of Palestinian child detainees
Israeli authorities routinely detain Palestinian children in solitary confinement solely for interrogation purposes, a practice that amounts to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, as documented by Defense for Children International - Palestine.
Join us in urging the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to demand that Israeli authorities immediately end the practice of using solitary confinement on Palestinian child detainees, whether in pretrial detention for interrogation purposes or as a form of punishment. The prohibition must be enshrined in law.
Over a four-year period, between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2019, DCIP documented 108 cases where Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military were held in isolation for two or more days during the interrogation period. All were boys aged 14-17. Children were isolated for an average of 14 days and Israeli authorities held one child in solitary confinement for 30 days.
Evidence and documentation collected by DCIP overwhelmingly indicate that the isolation of Palestinian children within the Israeli military detention system is practiced solely to obtain a confession for a specific offense or to gather intelligence under interrogation. DCIP has found no evidence demonstrating a legally justifiable use of isolation of Palestinian child detainees, such as for disciplinary, protective, or medical reasons. Solitary confinement has been used, almost exclusively, during pre-charge and pretrial detention. Solitary confinement is designed to psychologically break children and coerce them into confessing.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically detains and prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel detains and prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year. Nearly three out of four Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces experience some form of physical violence, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson:
We, the undersigned, urge you to demand that Israeli authorities immediately end the practice of using solitary confinement on Palestinian child detainees, whether in pretrial detention for interrogation purposes or as a form of punishment. The prohibition must be enshrined in law.
On 1 February 2022, Amnesty International released a report based on four years worth of research and documentation, acknowledging that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, under international law. The report builds upon decades of Palestinian activism and work, documenting Israel’s regime of racial domination, cruel control and oppression. Amnesty is joining a long list of organisations charging Israel with the crime of apartheid, including Palestinian civil society organisations such as Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, and other landmarks including Human Rights Watch, UN ESCWA and B’Tselem.
Here are some of the Palestinian takes on the Amnesty apartheid report findings:
The report, taking into account Palestinians’ lived experiences, acknowledges that the system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in 1948, i.e, the Palestinian Nakba, and that it is ongoing to this day:
The enforcement of the Israeli apartheid regime through its governmental and military institutions are not limited to the OPT. On the contrary, it has no geographic restrictions as it is also imposed on the Palestinian refugees and their descendants by continuously negating their right of return; and on ‘48 Palestinians whose citizenship is conditional to facilitate domination and ensure Jewish supremacy over Palestinians wherever they may be.
“Since its inception Israel has pursued a policy of erasure of Palestinians from this land to maintain a Jewish majority” in this short video, Salem Barahmeh breaks down the many ways these crimes have been on full display for decades.
Read these slides to learn more about how Israel imposes its apartheid rule and practices based on who is Jewish or Palestinian.
Following Agnes Callamard’s comment: “This is my first visit to Israel/Palestine, it has shocked me to my core. Why? It’s not the act of violence, I have seen violence before. It is the cruelty of the system, its sheer banality, and at times absurdity.”
Mohammad Al Saffin agreed by saying that “spectacular violence makes the news. The quiet cruelty in between (what Western reporters often refer to as 'calm'), is much harder to show because it permeates every detail of our lives.”
During the Amnesty’s press conference on the report, some reminded that the Israeli occupation forces were committing additional war crimes by demolishing a Palestinian family home in Shufat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem.
On how the Israeli system of apartheid, racial domination and control is maintained:
Israel’s status quo of apartheid is not done independently. Rather, it is emboldened by its international allies through trade of surveillance tech and military equipment, enacting normalization agreements, financing illegal annexation, and supporting the silencing of Palestinian voices through false allegations of terrorism or antisemitism.
“Spectacular violence makes the news. The quiet cruelty in between (what Western reporters often refer to as 'calm'), is much harder to show because it permeates every detail of our lives.”
- Mohammad Al Saffin
While many welcomed the analysis of the report, Palestinians highlighted the limitations of the apartheid framework under international law:
In this article, scholar Yara Hawari, reminds of the shortcomings of the international law framework, which omits the context of settler-colonialism and its ongoing consequences.
The discourse on apartheid risks fixating the Palestinian struggle as one of equality rather than one of decolonial liberation. Scholar Lana Tatour captured this already in 2021, following B'tselem’s report: “By confining ourselves to international law, we risk talking only about racial domination and ignoring colonial domination.”
The Adalah Justice Project welcomed the report, but raised the question on why Amnesty insists on justifying Israel’s assertion as “Jewish state” instead of choosing to challenge the assertion that settlers have a right to self-determination on stolen land.
Censorship and recognition of Palestinian voices, civil society, and international solidarity efforts:
The publication of such report wouldn’t have been possible without the crucial work of Palestinian experts and activists for many years, which came at great personal and professional expense. Journalist Yuman Patel expands more on this in a short thread.
For decades university students worldwide have been organizing an annual Israeli Apartheid Week as an act of international solidarity to educate on the reality of Palestinians and challenge their institutions on complicity with Israel. In her tweet, Palestinian scholar Mezna Qato credits these students: ”You were railroaded, arrested, expelled, stigmatized, cancelled, and blacklisted. You are the bravest report.”
Anti-Palestinian racist remarks from the Israeli regime already surfaced prior to the publication of the report, claiming that Amnesty is an anti-Semitic institution, capitalizing, once again, on pro-Palestinian international support to silence Palestinian voices, and deny the Palestinian experience under ongoing oppression and colonization.
Palestinians have been publicly sharing and documenting their realities living under Israel’s apartheid and settler-colonial regime for decades. As the world turns increasing to reports finally acknowledging Israel’s apartheid regime, Palestinians should remain the central voice and authority documenting the daily torment and oppression under which they live, and which they resist against daily.
Nonetheless, it is crucial that international allies and organizations amplify Palestinians’ lived reality, and to hold Israel accountable and support the Palestinian struggle in bringing it closer to accountability, justice and liberation.
HOW ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE INTENSIFIES CLIMATE CHANGE
Above Photo: Bedouin protesters clash with Israeli forces following a protest against an afforestation project by the Jewish National Fund in the Negev Desert, Jan. 13, 2022. Tsafrir Abayov / AP.
“Israel’s Actions Over The Last Almost 75 Years Demonstrate That There Is Very Little Regard For The Indigenous Landscape, The Indigenous Flora And Fauna, The Wildlife Population, And The Indigenous People.” – Zena Agha, Middle East Institute.
Al-Naqab — On Sunday, roughly 200 activists demonstrated outside Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office in Jerusalem against the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) tree-planting project in al-Naqab, maintaining the forestation is an attempt to displace the indigenous Bedouin population.
Contracted by the Israeli government, the JNF razed fruit trees and seeded fields in al-Naqab in January to “make the desert bloom” with non-native plants. The purported environmental project has been met with fierce protest from the local villagers, with more than 60 Bedouin arrested in the last few weeks.
JNF maintains that its actions in al-Naqab encourage sustainability, but other organizations disagree. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel took the JNF to the Supreme Court last year after its research found that JNF’s afforestation will harm the area’s biodiversity. The High Court sided with the JNF.
Greenwashing is a cornerstone of the Zionist movement, in which Israel tries to paint Palestine as a desolate wasteland in need of a Jewish green thumb. While these environmental projects might appear well-intentioned in an area warming faster than the global average, experts and activists agree that Israel’s occupation is making climate change worse.
The Environmental Issue In Palestine
Palestine is particularly vulnerable to climate change. ClimaSouth, a European Union-funded project supporting climate-change mitigation in Mediterranean countries, predicts annual rainfall will drop by 30% in the eastern Mediterranean region by the end of the 21st century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the southern and eastern Mediterranean areas will warm at a higher rate than the rest of the world over the next century. According to the United Nations Environment Program, Palestine may see an increase in temperature of more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Sea levels are also expected to rise by 1.2 to 3.3 feet by 2100.
Zena Agha, Palestinian-Iraqi writer and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, explained that these climate change effects translate to significant political consequences for Palestinians:
Although Palestinians and Israelis inhabit the same territory — whether they’re settlers living in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian citizens of Israel living on the seafront, or Palestinians living in Gaza — Palestinians will always suffer the effects of climate change more starkly as a direct response to Israeli policy.”
Israel Wrecking Palestinians’ Climate Resilience
Palestine’s location makes it particularly susceptible to global warming, but for a people under military occupation the threat of climate catastrophe is multiplied and their ability to adapt to it is severely impacted.
Climate-related hazards have already manifested as a result of Israeli policy. Research from Visualizing Palestine, an organization developing data-driven tools to better understand Palestine, found that Palestinians are experiencing food insecurity, land and soil degradation, and water scarcity owing to the occupation. According to figures cited in their “Environmental Justice in Palestine” visual series, 85% of the West Bank’s water resources are controlled by Israel, and 69% of Gaza and 33% of West Bank households are food insecure.
In mid-January, Gaza’s streets were ravaged by flooding after several days of heavy rainfall. The municipality of Gaza City blamed Israel’s assault on the Strip in May for damaging its infrastructure, making it more prone to flooding.
During a webinar hosted by Visualizing Palestine, Asmaa Abu Mezied, an economic-development and social-inclusion specialist working with Oxfam, explained how Israel’s 14-year blockade on Gaza — in which the state controls what goes in and out of Gaza — has also dramatically affected the besieged Strip’s resilience to climate change. “What the Palestinians are witnessing in Gaza is their adaptive capacity has already been exhausted financially, socially, and economically over the past decade because of the blockade, and that would leave them much more vulnerable to floods,” Abu Mezied said.
Natasha Westheimer, a water-management specialist, explained to MintPress News how Israeli policy restricts Palestine’s ability to develop sustainable and reliable water resources:
The occupation makes it really difficult for Palestinians to build resilience to the climate crisis because it essentially removes capacity for self-determination and for building out resources that can support in building preparedness to adapt to the impacts of climate change. And you see that pretty acutely with the water sector.”
Westheimer explained that this injustice is demonstrated on both the local scale and on the national level. In the southern West Bank, communities don’t have access to a continuous supply of water and so rely on expensive water trucks or rainwater collection. Yet their water infrastructure is often targeted and destroyed by the Israeli military and settlers.
Nationally, 97% of Gaza’s coastal aquifer — the area’s main water supply — is unfit for drinking. The Strip’s efforts to expand its water access through a desalination plant are hampered, moreover, by the Israeli blockade. Westheimer explained that most materials needed for a desalination plant are considered dual-use materials by Israel, meaning they can be used for civilian and military purposes, and so the state puts restrictions on these materials’ import into Gaza. “The project faces a number of what Israel calls bureaucratic obstacles, but is mainly a system of blockade, seizure, and control, and it’s eliminating Gaza’s ability to meet the basic needs of its population,” Westheimer said.
In addition to harming its adaptive capabilities, Israel’s near 74-year occupation has also drastically deteriorated Palestine’s environment. Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, founder and director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability of Bethlehem University, detailed the myriad of ways Israeli control has damaged ecosystems.
He cited the razing of native trees to plant European pine trees; diversion of the Jordan Valley’s water; draining of wetlands; how the building of the apartheid wall uprooted more than 2 million trees; and how industrial settlements have turned the West Bank into a toxic waste dumpsite. “All of this has damaged the Palestinian environment and transformed the landscape and transformed the communities,” Qumsiyeh told MintPress News.
As explained in Visualizing Palestine’s webinar and illustrated in its Environmental Justice in Palestine infographics, Israel’s environmental racism and green colonialism has made the land almost uninhabitable for Palestinians.
Israel uses parks and nature reserves to hide the ruins of Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba, Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestine in 1947-48. These green spaces also act as a way to further displace Palestinians and restrict their development.
Fifteen Israeli facilities process waste in the West Bank, in violation of international law. Settlement industrial zones in the West Bank also adhere to less rigorous environmental standards. Israeli control of building permits in Area C of the West Bank has stunted the area’s ability to develop proper waste infrastructure. How Israel treats waste here has then turned the West Bank into a land plagued by garbage.
Israel is a militarized and industrialized society. These two factors, Qumsiyeh explained, have increased its greenhouse gas emissions. “Like the United States, [Israel] has a very big military compared to its GDP. And the military is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions,” Qumsiyeh said. “The Palestinian areas being dedeveloped and deindustrialized contribute very little to the global greenhouse gases, but we are more impacted by climate change.”
Jessica Anderson, deputy director at Visualizing Palestine, stressed how this environmental measurement illustrates the extreme inequality produced by occupation and oppression.
“Israel is not unique in its contributions to climate change,” Anderson said. “It’s part of this global cadre of governments and corporations that exacerbate the climate crisis through their heavy military investments, resource hoarding, overconsumption, and extractive economies.”
Last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP26) exemplifies how the international community is approaching the climate issue, Anderson said, in a way that ignores indigenous populations. While Israel was able to send 120 delegates to the conference, Palestinians from the occupied territories couldn’t participate because their vaccines weren’t recognized.
“Platforms like this are marginalizing people that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis while providing a platform for governments and corporations to greenwash their image,” Anderson said. “So, there’s a failure to grapple with the systemic and political dimensions of the climate crisis that leaves Palestinians out and allows Israel to be highlighted.”
During Visualizing Palestine’s webinar, Agha stated the relationship between the international community and the Palestinian Authority (PA) warrants scrutiny. She emphasized what she labeled the paradox of the PA, whereby the international community is applying the same metrics to Palestine and Israel in assessing their environmental progress.“ The PA has little sovereign jurisdiction over its natural resources nor over large swathes of its territory,” Agha told MintPress News. “It wields no independent political will over how to manage climate change, yet it’s still tasked with addressing climate change.”
Palestine’s fragmented political landscape, in which Gaza is ruled by the political party Hamas and the West Bank by the political party Fatah, also weakens its ability to manage a crisis of this magnitude.
For Agha, the international and donor communities’ treatment of the climate crisis in Palestine as a socioeconomic catastrophe and not a political catastrophe is part of the problem and creates unproductive solutions. But from her perspective, it’s important to remember the real culprit here: occupation. “Israel’s actions over the last almost 75 years demonstrate that there is very little regard for the indigenous landscape, the indigenous flora and fauna, the wildlife population, and the indigenous people,” she sai
(Source)
HEADLINES FROM THE REGION
Life goes on
