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-articleTitle: Gaza's grandparents endure one trauma after another
-pageTitle: Gaza's grandparents endure one trauma after another | The Electronic Intifada
-description: A grandmother was struck under rubble for two hours after Israel attacked her home last summer.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:56:58.859Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-grandparents-endure-one-trauma-after-another/14578
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-You are here
-The Electronic Intifada
-4 June 2015
-Rizka Abu Rujeila, 70 years old, holds her grandson outside the hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 24 July. The boy was injured during an attack on the village of Khuzaa. Most residents fled following Israel’s ground invasion and some were attacked as they attempted to leave the village. Khuzaa was cut off for days from the rest of Gaza; Israeli soldiers prevented access to medical workers and journalists. Some residents sought refuge at the hospital, which was overwhelmed by the number of dead and injured.Most of Gaza’s population is very young: the median age is 18, and nearly 45 percent of the Strip’s 1.8 million residents are 14 years old or younger.
-Attention was rightly paid to the plight of Gaza’s children during Israel’s 51 days of bombing last summer. But elderly Palestinians are also among the population’s most vulnerable, and have been subjected to repeated trauma during their lifetime.
-The eldest among them survived the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, when they were forced from their homes and into refugee camps. The Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) was followed by Israeli invasions and massacres in the 1950s, military conquest and occupation in 1967, the imposition of settlement colonies, two popular uprisings and their subsequent crackdowns. And, most recently, nearly a decade of siege and closure and three major military offensives in the span of six years.
-Gaza’s elderly have been subjected to destruction of homes and businesses — the destruction of a life’s work. In some cases they have had to become caretakers again, taking in grandchildren orphaned by Israeli violence and playing a crucial role in keeping families together following profound loss.
-This collection of photographs was built in the last eight months and intends to pay tribute to this generation of Palestinians who have made unimaginable sacrifices.
-Anne Paq is a French freelance photographer and member of the photography collective ActiveStills.
-Salima Smeri, a 62-year-old refugee and mother of six, stands amid the ruins of her home in the village of Qarara on 9 November 2014. She was living in a makeshift shelter at the time. In March 2015, she had a new wooden shelter that was provided by a charity but it was not connected to electricity so she did not stay inside so much. The roof was made of zinc, so it will be very hot in the summer.An elderly displaced Palestinian taking shelter in a United Nations-run school in Jabaliya that had been shelled the previous night by the Israeli army. At least 17 people were killed in the 30 July 2014 attack, which injured nearly 100.Mariam al-Nawasra, photographed on 16 September 2014, cries when recalling the attack on the home of her grandson Awad al-Nawasra. Four members of the family were killed in the afternoon attack on 9 July 2014: her grandson Salah al-Nawasra, his wife Aisha, who was four months pregnant, and Mariam’s grandsons Mohammed Khalaf (2) and Nidal Khalaf (4). Mariam was inside the home at the time of the attack and was stuck under the rubble for two hours. She lost her vision and became deaf in her left ear as a result of her injuries. Her leg was broken and she says she feels pain all over her body. One of her daughters, Filastine, was killed last summer in a separate attack on a Beit Hanoun school being used as a shelter. One of her sons was killed by Israeli forces in 1993 and another of her children, Jawaher, died of natural causes, so she has six surviving children. Mariam, originally from Julis village in the north of historic Palestine, remembers the 1948 Nakba as she was 12 years old at the time.Portraits of Ibrahim Abdallah Abu Aita, 67, and his wife, Jameela Saleem Abu Aita, 55, in the rubble of their Jabaliya refugee camp home where they were killed in an Israeli missile strike on 23 July last year. The couple were killed together with their adult sons Muhammad and Ahmad and their four-year-old grandson Adham. Ibrahim and Jameela’s surviving son Mahmoud said: “According to what I see, I don’t think there will be justice. But I still hope that those responsible for these crimes will be held accountable, especially because we were all civilians.”An elderly Palestinian man fills a container with water in his destroyed home in the Shujaiya district, east of Gaza City on 4 September last. Whole parts of Shujaiya were completely destroyed by the Israeli attacks, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless. Lacking any alternative, many went back after the ceasefire to live in badly damaged and unsafe homes with no connection to water and electricity networks.Ghalia Suleiman Odeh, 70, and her husband Naim, 75, in front of the metal trailer they have been living in after their home was destroyed by Israeli attacks in the village of Khuzaa, photographed on 9 November 2014. There were approximately 400 people living in this new camp for displaced Palestinians. Naim said that he had been living in his home since his childhood and that it was built by his father.Jaber Abu Said, 70, sits outside his family’s makeshift shelter in Juhor al-Dik, eastern Gaza, on 6 November looking in the direction of his home which was destroyed last summer. Abu Said’s home was approximately 400 meters from Gaza’s boundary with Israel. The family had faced many attacks over the years but had remained on their land until last summer. In a July 2010 shelling attack, Nimeh, her daughter-in-law, was killed, leaving five children behind. In July 2014, the home was totally reduced to rubble; their farm was also destroyed by tanks and bulldozers.Jamila Abu Odeh (age unknown) with her grandson in her destroyed Beit Hanoun home. During the 2014 Israeli offensive, her family fled to a UN school. But that would prove no sanctuary as Israel attacked it. The family returned to find their home badly damaged. Jamila said: “In 1948, our home was burned. But the worst was still to come. The last war was the worst ever. I will not see Palestine free. I lost everything.” Jamila, who has ten children, was shot at in 2006 by Israeli soldiers while she was working at her farm at the boundary between Gaza and Israel. She lost an eye as a result. “I talked to the soldiers and told them to stop bulldozing my land, but they shot at me,” she said.Naima, a 74-year-old refugee from Bir al-Saba (Beersheba), with her grandson Ahmed Duhair, whose entire immediate family were killed when they returned to their home for Eid after staying at Naima’s for two weeks. When the family returned to their home, Ahmad insisted on being brought back to his grandmother’s and therefore survived. Twenty-one members of the Duheir family were killed, including Ahmed’s mother, Jamalat (Naima’s daughter), his father Mahmoud and five siblings. Naima’s husband was arrested and killed during the first intifada.
-Tags

+articleTitle: Balata Film Collective Tour in U.S. to visit New York, New Jersey, New Orleans, Chicago and Minneapolis
+pageTitle: Balata Film Collective Tour in U.S. to visit New York, New Jersey, New Orleans, Chicago and Minneapolis | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The Balata Film Collective was initiated to enable young Palestinians from Balata Refugee camp to use film as a method to break their isolation, challenge their oppression, and represent their lives to the world. This May 2006, 3 members of the collective will be touring the U.S. sharing their films and their stories, and hoping to build connections with other film collectives
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:29:57.869Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/balata-film-collective-tour-us-visit-new-york-new-jersey-new-orleans-chicago-and-minneapolis
 ---
+Ruby Said of the Balata Film Collective filming a demonstration.
+The Balata Film Collective was initiated to enable young Palestinians from Balata Refugee camp to use film as a method to break their isolation, challenge their oppression, and represent their lives to the world. This May 2006, 3 members of the collective will be touring the U.S. sharing their films and their stories, and hoping to build connections with other film collectives and film makers involved in the global struggle for justice and liberation.
+The three members of the Balata Film Collective, who will be premiering their new film, Nour’s Dream, on the tour, are Ruby Said, Mohammed Farraj, and Mohammed Hajhamad. The tour will bring them to Bard College, Boston, New York City, New Jersey, New Orleans, Chicago and Minneapolis.
+Ruby Said, 26 years old, who had no prior experience with video cameras or computers, became active in the Balata Film Collective in Spring of 2005. Since then, she has participated in the making of 5 short films and the documentary film “Nour’s Dream”. Ruby is also a women’s rights activist and a secretary at the Yafa Cultural Center where she coordinates children’s activities.
+Mohammed Farraj, 28 years old, helped to found the Balata Film Collective and balatacamp.net news service after he was released from spending 2 years in zionist prisons in winter of 2004. Mohammed is a prisoner rights and human rights activist and a journalism student at An-Najah National University.
+Mohammed Hajhamad, 32 years old, has run many drama programs and summer camps for children in Balata Camp, and he is the head theater trainer of A’edoon (“We Will Return”) Dabke and Art Theater group in Balata Camp’s Yafa Cultural Center. Mohammed has been working in theater since 1993, and has directed many plays, several television pieces, and most recently the documentary film “Nour’s Dream”.
+The Balata Film Collective will be raising funds during their visit to help them achieve the following goals:
+- Founding theaters or cinemas to make our films available for every one who wants to see them.
+- Training children, youth and adults in Balata Camp how to make documentaries and how to use cameras to deliver their ideas.
+- Participating in film festivals to deliver our ideas to the world.
+In New Jersey and New York:
+Thursday, May 11th
+New Brunswick Public Library
+60 Livingston Ave
+New Brunswick, NJ
+7:00 p.m.Click for more information
+Friday, May 12th
+The Bridge (Made in Palestine exhibition space)
+521 W. 26th St. 3rd Floor (b/tw 10th & 11th Ave)
+New York City
+7:00 p.m.Click for more information
+Related Links:
+BY TOPIC: Arts, Music & Culture: Films
+Balata Film Collective

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-articleTitle: A smiling girl, killed by Israel
-pageTitle: A smiling girl, killed by Israel | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Layan al-Shaer was among 17 child victims of the August attack on Gaza.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:02.031Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/smiling-girl-killed-israel/36271
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-Musleh al-Shaer (left) sits beside a pictorial tribute to his daughter Layan, a victim of Israel’s latest major attack on Gaza.
-It was a scorching afternoon in Gaza.
-Layan al-Shaer, 10, wanted to play on the seashore.
-“It was her idea that we go to the beach,” Layan’s mother Haala said. “She was so excited. ‘I want to have a trip to the beach before I go back to school,’ Layan told me.”
-Using a van rented from a neighbor, several members of the extended family set off from where they live in the Khan Younis area.
-Musleh, Layan’s father, stayed at home. Recalling how he waved at Layan as the van drove off, Musleh said: “I didn’t know that this would be the last time I would see the smile of my little girl.”
-Soon after they had set out, a missile was fired at the truck from an Israeli drone. Israel had begun a major attack against Gaza on that day, 5 August.
-“My children and their cousins were chatting and singing,” Halaa, Layan’s mother, said. “Then, in the blink of an eye, there was an explosion and the van’s floor was covered in blood.”
-Realizing that Layan had been badly injured, her cousin Kamal got out of the van and hailed a passing car. Its driver brought Layan to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
-Musleh, Layan’s father, received a phone call from Halaa, his wife. She was so shocked that Musleh had trouble grasping what she was saying.
-“I was just able to understand that the truck was hit in an Israeli strike and that Layan was severely wounded,” Musleh said.
-Heartbroken
-He rushed to Nasser hospital, where Layan was being treated in the intensive care unit. After a few hours, she was transferred to the European Gaza Hospital, also in Khan Younis.
-Layan spent a number of days at the European Hospital. For most of that time, Israel kept on bombarding Gaza.
-As her condition deteriorated, her father insisted that she should be taken outside Gaza for specialized treatment unavailable inside the Strip.
-On 9 August, Layan was driven in an ambulance to al-Makassed hospital in occupied East Jerusalem. Layan’s mother accompanied her.
-Musleh, her father, sought a travel permit from Israel so that he could join them in Jerusalem.
-He was unable to get the documentation in time. Two days later, Layan died.
-“I wanted to see Layan before she died,” Musleh said. “But I couldn’t. This has broken my heart.”
-Targeting civilians
-Layan was among 17 children killed because of Israel’s attack on Gaza last month.
-Israel knows that it can terrorize Palestinians without being held to account.
-The house where Layan al-Shaer lived in the Khan Younis area of Gaza.
-Abdallah al-NaamiThe Israeli authorities even tried to avoid being blamed for some of the deaths.
-For example, Israel’s military initially claimed that a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad caused the deaths of five children in the al-Fallujah cemetery, northern Gaza, on 7 August.
-Later that month, Israel admitted that it killed the five children.
-Defense for Children International-Palestine has established that Israel directly killed three other Palestinian children in airstrikes during the August offensive. The organization’s assessment was published shortly before Layan al-Shaer’s death was announced.
-Al-Haq, another Palestinian human rights group, has documented how Israel repeatedly targeted the homes of civilians last month, including many homes where children lived.
-Targeting civilian homes and infrastructure violates the principle of distinction. Enshrined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, that principle requires warring parties to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
-Al-Haq has contended that Israel’s use of drones and other weapons against civilian buildings “may amount to war crimes.”
-Layan al-Shaer will be remembered for her love of dabke, the traditional Palestinian dance, which she used to practice with the Nawwar Educational Center in Khan Younis.
-Najwa al-Fara, the center’s director, described Layan as “a butterfly on stage,” adding that “she always loved to lead the show.”
-Layan’s cousin Roa (left) often danced with her.
-Abdallah al-NaamiLayan used to dance alongside her cousin Roa. Since Layan’s death, Roa has found it extremely difficult to practice dabke.
-“I cannot imagine the stage without Layan,” Roa said. “We shared everything together, hopes and dreams of better days.”
-Layan wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. Whenever she heard about relatives falling ill, she would ask if there was anything she could do to help them.
-Like so many other children in Gaza, Layan’s future has been stolen by Israel.
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: African Literature Association endorses academic boycott of Israel
+pageTitle: African Literature Association endorses academic boycott of Israel | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The African Literature Association has endorsed the academic boycott of Israel with a statement in the context of historical African resistance to apartheid.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:29:58.073Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jimmy-johnson/african-literature-association-endorses-academic-boycott-israel
 ---
+At its annual meeting, the African Literature Association (ALA) passed a resolution supporting the spirit of the 2004 Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel. The annual meeting took place in April, but the resolution was only publicized this week as Israeli bombs rained down on Gaza.
+Kenyan novelist, political analyst and activist Mukoma Wa Ngugi, an ALA member not directly involved in organizing the boycott vote, commented to me via email: “The African literary tradition has been one in which writers have used their pens to speak out against injustice – so they wielded their pens against colonialism, neocolonialism and concomitant dictatorships and today against unequal globalization.”
+He said that the “ALA endorsement of the boycott falls within the tradition of a literary and intellectual tradition that has often stood on the side of marginalized and ‘dominated.’ In this sense it is not a surprise that the first sentence reaffirms the principle of standing against all forms of racism including ‘including anti-semitism, discrimination, and xenophobia.’”
+He said that the statement was “strongly worded and grounds its rationale in the anti-apartheid tradition of boycotts and sanctions in order ‘to awaken the world’s conscience to a situation that must change.’ It reminds us that Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who once said that South African ’freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,’ have historically stood with the Palestinian people. The rationale is also grounded in the plight of African immigrants and refugees in Israel who have been received with virulent racism.”
+The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel on Tuesday afternoon released a statement praising the ALA’s resolution.
+Also at the annual meeting, a resolution opposing all homophobic legislation was passed. The boycott resolution’s full text is as follows:
+BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
+The ALA supports the Academic Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.
+Whereas the African Literature Association is committed to the pursuit of social justice, to the struggle against all forms of racism, including anti-semitism, discrimination, and xenophobia, and to solidarity with aggrieved peoples in Africa and in the world; Whereas Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the expansion of illegal settlements and the Wall in violation of international law, as well as in supporting the systematic discrimination against Palestinians, has had documented devastating impact on the overall well-being, the exercise of political and human rights, the freedom of movement, and the educational opportunities of Palestinians; Whereas there is no effective or substantive academic freedom for Palestinian students and scholars under conditions of Israeli occupation, and Israeli institutions of higher learning are a party to Israeli state policies that violate human rights and negatively impact the working conditions of Palestinian scholars and students; Whereas the African Literature Association is dedicated to the right of students and scholars to pursue education and research without undue state interference, repression, and military violence, and in keeping with the spirit of its previous statements supports the right of students and scholars to intellectual freedom and to political dissent as citizens and scholars; it is resolved that the African Literature Association (ALA) endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. It is also resolved that the ALA supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.
+Rationale: The resolution is offered in the spirit of the past boycott of Apartheid South Africa, one of the ALA’s earliest efforts at political coalition politics. This boycott has been endorsed by Bishop Desmond Tutu. ln the spirit of his endorsement, and of our commitment to the liberation of dominated people everywhere, we are resolving to act against a state that has taken actions that have resulted in the dispersal of millions of Palestinian people around the Middle East and North Africa (including Egypt and Tunisia), that has targeted African refugees by placing them in internment camps indefinitely, and that has collaborated with authoritarian regimes in Africa, either by their work in extractive industries, or in the shipment of arms to repressive regimes. The resolution, like the long boycott of South Africa and of Southern Rhodesia, is intended to awaken the world’s conscience to a situation that must change.
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-articleTitle: Marking a birthday amid a suspended life
-pageTitle: Marking a birthday amid a suspended life | The Electronic Intifada
-description: University student takes stock of her losses as she looks toward an uncertain future.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:02.731Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/marking-birthday-amid-suspended-life/50425
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-The author at her desk. (Image courtesy of the author)Each year, on the eve of my birthday, I sit alone in my room, facing my desk, surrounded by the silence of the night. I look at myself with honesty and hold myself accountable, writing down what I achieved and where I fell short. I make a list of goals and dreams.
-But this year, as I turn 19, everything feels different. I don’t have the luxury to talk about plans or dreams. Life was suspended on 7 October 2023. It’s like I’m stuck in a loop and days repeat endlessly. They blend together, lose their meaning, and everything feels frozen in time.
-During this time, I lost relatives, friends, teachers and places filled with laughter and memories. I lost Gaza as I knew it and every part of it now carries a story of grief.
-On 1 November 2023, my aunt Asmaa and my uncle’s wife, Neveen, were martyred. I shared many memories with Aunt Asmaa, and Aunt Neveen was a kind and gentle woman whom we all loved. She left this world with her newborn daughter Fatima, who had barely lived two months – as though the world couldn’t handle her light.
-Since then, time has felt meaningless; and I’ve been stuck in an endless cycle of grief and cherished memories of those who I have lost.
-Losses
-On 30 December 2023, my uncle Abd al-Salam, his 13-year-old son, Huthaifa, and his 8-year-old daughter, Hala, were martyred. Abd al-Salam was more than an uncle to me – he was a friend and a brother and a father. I still hear his laughter filling the house in my mind but now it’s just a fading echo. Huthaifa, whose wisdom was far beyond his years, was like a younger brother to me. Losing them feels like losing a part of myself.
-I lost many dear friends too.
-On 15 October 2023, I lost Shimaa Saidam, who had earned Palestine’s top score of the tawjihi secondary school exam. The following day, I lost Raghad al-Nuami.
-The three of us – Shimaa, Raghad and I – were classmates and close friends. The night before Raghad was killed, she and I exchanged messages on WhatsApp praying for Shimaa’s soul, unaware that Raghad would soon follow.
-Every conversation, every dream we shared, now feels like a distant echo. I’m the only one left to tell the story of our friendship. They were part of my daily life and their absence is a wound that never heals.
-I also lost teachers, voices of wisdom now gone.
-I lost places where I had my happiest moments. My grandfather’s house, where I spent my childhood, is now just rubble. The place that embraced me and watched me grow is now a story of loss. All that’s left are the memories.
-The war reached the Islamic University of Gaza, a place I admired since childhood and where I thought I’d build my future. Once a symbol of dreams and hope, the destroyed university now stands in ruins, empty and quiet – as though it is mourning all the aspirations that were lost along with its president and many of its faculty, staff and students.
-Small victories
-Despite all the losses, small victories pull me forward and give me strength to carry on.
-I continued my English literature studies at the Islamic University and completed my first year with honors. This feels like a huge achievement and I’m proud that I didn’t give up.
-Meanwhile, I was accepted into an English language course in October last year. This course offered more than just lessons to improve my skills – it was a portal from which I escaped my harsh and painful reality and entered a world in which dreams are still possible.
-I also wrote and published. Writing became a way for me to deal with reality and this year I took the step of sharing my work with the rest of the world.
-This war forced me to grow up faster than I thought possible. I’m only 19; but it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in the past several months. Every day brings new challenges, but I have learned how to keep going.
-I pray that my 19th year will be filled with achievements, and that God will grant Gaza’s people a recompense that makes us forget the pain we endured. I’ll carry the memories of those I lost in my words and continue writing – for them and for the dreams that remain.
-Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a writer and student of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.
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+articleTitle: More US academics join boycott of Israel
+pageTitle: More US academics join boycott of Israel | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The Critical Ethnic Studies Association links Palestine to global indigenous and decolonization struggles.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:29:58.191Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/more-us-academics-join-boycott-israel
 ---
+The Critical Ethnic Studies Association announced on its website last week that its conference had formally agreed to “endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and honor the call of Palestinian civil society with the passage of a resolution on the academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
+The association represents scholars working in ethnic studies and fields which tackle areas affected by the global history of “racism, settler colonialism, immigration, imperialism, and slavery.”
+According to the association’s website, the move comes after a long period of consultation and workshops on the subject at their 2013 conference and after using online mechanisms.
+In addition to calling for an institutional boycott of Israeli academia, the resolution also notes the repression which has met scholars in the United States who have attempted to speak out on Palestine, especially: “Arab and Muslim, Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latin@, and LGBTQ communities, students, activists, and scholars.”
+This boycott call is particularly strongly worded for an academic statement, condemning “US support for Israeli settler-colonialism, occupation and racism” and linking the fight for justice in Palestine to other indigenous and decolonization struggles around the world.
+The full resolution, which now represents the association’s position on the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, can be read on the association’s website.
+In December, the American Studies Association voted by a landslide to join the academic boycott of Israel. The ASA describes itself as the “nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history.”
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-articleTitle: When Israel killed doctors
-pageTitle: When Israel killed doctors | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Road leading to Gaza's largest hospital badly damaged during massacre.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:03.145Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/when-israel-killed-doctors/33331
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-Health workers came under attack when Israel bombed Gaza last month.
-APA imagesDr. Ayman Abu al-Ouf had finished a busy shift.
-He wrapped it up by checking on patients with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit of al-Shifa hospital.
-As head of internal medicine at the hospital, he was acutely aware that the pandemic had not been paused. Rather, the number of coronavirus infections remained high even though Gaza was in the news internationally due to another emergency – a large-scale Israeli attack.
-Not long after he got home from work, the building where Abu al-Ouf lived was bombed without warning.
-He, his wife Reem and two of their children – Tawfiq and Tala – were killed. So were both his parents and many members of his extended family.
-“Big shock”
-Dr. Ghada Nasser was a colleague of Ayman Abu al-Ouf. She had accompanied him as he checked on patients that evening.
-“He left the hospital to get some rest after a long day,” said Nasser. “It was a big shock to hear that he was then brought back to the hospital a few hours later – as a dead body. It has taken us a long time to absorb that terrible news.”
-Abu al-Ouf was popular.
-He had taught numerous medical students over the years. He was fond of organizing seminars to discuss advances in medicine.
-Patients appreciated his dedication and diligence. “When I told him that I would buy the expensive medicine I needed, he would not hear of it,” said one woman, who had cancer and then a stroke.
-“He did everything possible to ensure I could get the medicine free of charge,” the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added. “He was a kind man.”
-Abu al-Ouf was among two doctors killed during the early hours of 16 May – when Israel committed a massacre in the area surrounding Gaza City’s al-Wihda street.
-The other was Dr. Muin al-Aloul, a neurologist.
-Muin’s 25-year-old daughter Aya recalled that she had been terrified in the moments leading up to the massacre as Gaza had been under intense bombardment. She had gone into her parents’ bedroom to seek a little solace.
-“Suddenly, I found myself covered with rubble,” she said. “The first thing I did was to shout out my parents’ names. My mom heard me and said ‘I am here.’ I asked her about my dad. She didn’t tell me that he was dead.”
-“She didn’t want me to lose consciousness,” Aya added. “People came and dug me and my mom out of the rubble. As soon as I arrived at the hospital, I knew that my dad had been killed.”
-Muin al-Aloul had run several clinics across Gaza.
-“My father went to great lengths so that he could help people,” said Aya. “On many occasions, he asked patients to pray for him, rather than pay him. He was a doctor who people trusted a lot.”
-Pattern of violations
-More than 40 people were killed in the al-Wihda street massacre.
-Israel’s bombardment left a large crater in a road leading to al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility. Ambulances were impeded from traveling to and from the hospital as a consequence.
-It was one of many incidents that had a direct impact on health services in Gaza during last month’s attack.
-Among the facilities destroyed or damaged were Gaza’s only testing center for COVID-19, two Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance stations and a clinic caring for mothers and infants.
-A new analysis by Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, concludes that Israel’s attack “displays a pattern” of international law violations.
-Al-Haq argues that the violations amount to war crimes. The Rome Statute under which the International Criminal Court was established forbids attacks against a civilian population and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
-Many of Gaza’s doctors have paid tribute to the two doctors killed during the massacre on al-Wihda street.
-In one tribute, their colleagues walked from al-Shifa hospital to the site of the buildings which Israel bombed. A section of al-Shifa has been named in Ayman Abu  al-Ouf’s memory.
-“We have just done our little bit to remember the two doctors,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, al-Shifa’s director. “We believe that the best thing we can do for them is to follow the examples they set. That means taking good care of patients.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Film Review: The Chicago Palestine Film Festival's Evening of Shorts
+pageTitle: Film Review: The Chicago Palestine Film Festival's Evening of Shorts | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Rina Khoury's West...East, is a nine minute narrative film about the Palestinian catastrophe that is told through the journey of a blind woman and her son, amidst an ambiguous landscape. Enas Muthaffar's East...West is a sixteen minute documentary film that chronicles her family's expulsion from their home as the apartheid wall encroaches nearby and threatens to segregate them
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:29:59.445Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/film-review-chicago-palestine-film-festivals-evening-shorts/3499
 ---
+A scene from Rina Khoury’s West…East, a short film screened at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival’s Evening of Shorts.
+This year’s Chicago Palestine Film Festival featured a shorts program hosted by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir on Sunday, 7 May.
+Rina Khoury’s West…East, is a nine minute narrative film about the Palestinian catastrophe that is told through the journey of a blind woman and her son, amidst an ambiguous landscape. Enas Muthaffar’s East…West is a sixteen minute documentary film that chronicles her family’s expulsion from their home as the apartheid wall encroaches nearby and threatens to segregate them from their community. Both films were shown in conjunction with two short films by Jacir, Some Crumbs for the Birds and An Explanation (and then burn the ashes).
+A still image from West…East, a short film by Palestinian filmmaker Rina Khoury.
+Some Crumbs for the Birds is a documentary film set in Ruwaished, a remote truck-stop like village in Jordan, one stop away from the Iraqi border. The film was directed by Nassim Amouch with Jacir as the director of photography, while An Explanation is a six-minute experimental short about the witch-hunt of Middle Eastern Studies professors at Columbia University as told through a montage of the University’s architecture coupled with numerous verbal attacks on faculty members via campus voicemail. Albeit the intense narratives of both films, Jacir’s eye for captivating shots distinguishes her cinematic contribution to the festival’s program.
+In Some Crumbs for the Birds, Jacir created a fascinating portrait of some of Ruwaished’s inhabitants, who appear to live on the fringes of Jordanian society. Through interviews and a sorrow-filled song by an Iraqi-Palestinian band, Amouch and Jacir weave complex narratives through a handful of scenes that give insight into the devastating affects of ongoing conflicts in the Arab world. Subtle hints captured in both interviews and Jacir’s shots of the surrounding highway and landscape mark the Jordanian border village as a microcosm of devastated communities that result from war, occupation and economic exploitation.
+Through the individual narratives of Ruwaished’s residents and the interior and exterior spaces which they occupy, Some Crumbs for the Birds takes the viewer through the unseen and often ignored tragedies of the displaced. Whether because of violent political conflict or the struggle for economic survival, many of the residents of the village have been thrown together due to circumstances beyond their control. The final scenes of the documentary take a dramatic turn as the narrative is intensified when the complexity of Ruwaished’s situation is reveled.
+A still image from Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s short film An Explanation (and then burn the ashes), screened at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival.
+In An Explanation (and then burn the ashes) Jacir uses the sterile architecture of Columbia University to almost box the viewer in as they are forced to sit through appalling omissions of bigotry and hate. Strewn throughout the sequences of the prestigious campus are cinematic compositions that could allude to the U.S. military industrial complex and its direct tie to freedom of speech (or lack there of) and even more specifically its creeping into American education. Shots of faceless campus guards and certain architectural features of campus buildings reminiscent of prisons or military barracks, juxtaposed with the violent nature of the verbal attacks on university faculty, create the visual rendering of a military like environment.
+An image from Enas Muthaffar’s short film East…West, shown at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival’s Evening of Shorts.
+Simultaneously, Jacir reminds the viewer of notions of the Western cannon of intellectual endeavor with images of Romanesque architecture that is engraved with the names of those associated with Western Classical thought. The viewer attempts to escape the discomfort of having to listen to the recorded assaults on university faculty, yet refuge can only be sought in the unwelcoming environment Jacir creates in her architectural portrait. The combination serves to recreate the tension surrounding the campus controversy which eventually is brought to a halt in Jacir’s film with a poetic and poignant ending. The brilliance of Jacir’s exploration being that not one human face is placed at the forefront of the controversy; in this regard the issue at hand becomes just a small part of the greater political picture we face in the U.S.
+Maymanah Farhat is a freelance writer and researcher of visual arts and culture, and is a specialist in Modern and Contemporary Arab art. EI has sponsored the Chicago Palestine Film Festival since its inception.
+Related Links:
+Chicago Palestine Film Festival
+BY TOPIC: Arts, Music & Culture: Films

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-articleTitle: Breaking into my home in Gaza City
-pageTitle: Breaking into my home in Gaza City | The Electronic Intifada
-description: I walked from Deir al-Balah to my home in the north and pried open the front door with a hammer.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:03.183Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/breaking-my-home-gaza-city/50422
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-The only sources of light on my walk north from Deir al-Balah were the floodlights set up along the way.
-The night before the ceasefire was announced, I couldn’t sleep. I was so excited I could barely close my eyes.
-We all knew the ceasefire was coming; in the month prior, December 2024, the media had been filled with reports stating as much. And I knew that as soon as the ceasefire was announced I would head back home to northern Gaza.
-I’d been living in a tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, since 13 October 2023. My family and I were forced to leave our home in Gaza City – an apartment on the sixth floor of al-Wihda Tower in the Nasr neighborhood – due to constant and deadly Israeli attacks.
-I was eager to get home and see what could be salvaged.
-On Sunday, 19 January, I called my friend Nafez at 7 am, eager to start our walk north. He told me that there was no rush.
-“We will get ready when the road opens,” he said. “It has not been opened yet.”
-I spent all day in the tent, nervously waiting for the road north to be opened. That day I didn’t even eat. And the waiting was in vain; the occupation did not open the road that day.
-On Monday, I again called Nafez and told him I was ready. But he had already left – he had to head north even earlier to help his brother-in-law and family with their bags.
-It seemed like I would have to make the trip alone.
-“Look at what the war has done to us”
-I set off around 4 pm and headed to al-Rashid Street, to the Nwiri Hill, a high spot in the Nuseirat camp. Before the ceasefire, this hill was the farthest we could go north.
-The crowds were massive on the hill, with everyone on foot and moving north. I followed the crowds north, with no direct route in mind.
-Destruction was omnipresent the entire way. We walked through al-Zahra city, a place I’d been countless times before; but I couldn’t recognize it all, with the buildings and their facades crumbling into the street. I only realized where we were when I asked someone.
-At around 5 pm, I took a minute to rest and ate some bread and drank some water. I was lucky to have these things, as many people endured the journey with barely anything to eat.
-I estimated I had about four hours to go until I reached our neighborhood.
-My cousin Abdul Rahman had said he would try to meet me at the crossroads between the south and the north; but he never made it – the crowds were too large for him to get through.
-Immediately after the ceasefire was announced, crowds in Deir al-Balah gathered to head home to northern Gaza.
-Khaled Al-QershaliIt was getting dark and, with no electricity in Gaza, it was hard to see the path. The only sources of light were the large floodlights set up along the way. The bright lights shone on destroyed buildings and along muddy alleys, serving only to emphasize the vast swaths of darkness that surrounded us.
-My phone rang. It was my friend Muhammad, who had stayed in the north during this genocidal war. He urged me to come and spend the night at our friend Karim’s house. Karim had also come from the south and was relieved to find his house still standing.
-It was 9 pm and I was glad to rest. I was overjoyed to see Muhammad and Karim; we hugged and cried at our reunion.
-“Look at what the war has done to us,” Muhammad said. “We used to see each other every day, and now, because of it, we haven’t met in over a year and a half!”
-Karim and I were exhausted from the long walk, and it was only an hour before we all fell asleep.
-What I found in my home
-I slept deeply. When I woke up around 9 am, I ate a quick breakfast and headed directly to our home in al-Wihda Tower.
-I had already seen photos of our building, so I knew of its current wrecked state. But those photos couldn’t prepare me for what I saw. The building’s walls were filled with gaping holes and other scars from the Israeli shellings and bombings.
-The stairwell was full of rubble, and the stairs themselves were in rough shape – climbing them was like climbing a mountain. I climbed up to the sixth floor and along the way glanced into the apartments below us, which had been completely obliterated by occupation forces.
-Our door had been barricaded a while ago, after our uncle had checked on our apartment and let us know that some of our belongings had been taken. I pried open the door with a hammer and pushed it open.
-My heart pounded, and I prayed that our apartment was in better shape than those below us.
-Our walls were mostly intact, except for holes and cracks throughout. In the middle of the floor, though, there was a large hole. Although the apartment was still standing, it was far from livable.
-Our furniture remained, but not much else. Clothing was torn and covered in dust. All of our shoes were missing. I found my computer keyboard and mouse, but the monitors were gone. The kitchen and bathroom, in the interior of the home, were just as we had left them – except that the mirrors and other glass had shattered from the bombardments.
-I did find a copy of the key to the home. I took it with me, as a memory of the life I once had there.
-Visiting our friend’s grave
-The next day we walked around the area.
-Muhammad, Karim and I went to the Sheikh Radwan graveyard. We visited the grave of our friend Abdallah al-Khaldi, who was killed by the Israeli occupation.
-We stood there for half an hour, whispering prayers for Abdallah, knowing he was in a better place.
-We then visited another somber site – our university. Again, the photos I had seen couldn’t convey the extent of the destruction the occupation had leveled on the Islamic University of Gaza. I barely recognized the remaining shells of buildings. Like all the other places I once loved, it had been completely wiped out.
-The buildings where I studied English literature; the field where I played football with my friends; the cafeteria where we hung out – only hills of sand and rubble remained.
-I had known that I would find only destruction in the north, but it is important to return. Even though everything I once knew was in ruins, it still felt comforting to be in those places again.
-I stayed in the north for 10 days and then went back to Deir al-Balah. My family and I will stay here until my father’s work contract expires, and then we will return north again. But I plan to return even sooner, to visit friends and to remember.
-Khaled Al-Qershali is a writer and translator.
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+articleTitle: "The state is guilty of war crimes": Scotland's national poet endorses Israel boycott
+pageTitle: "The state is guilty of war crimes": Scotland's national poet endorses Israel boycott | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Liz Lochhead calls for Israel's leader to be charged with war crimes, and for an end to Britain's complicity.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:29:59.871Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/state-guilty-war-crimes-scotlands-national-poet-endorses-israel-boycott
 ---
+Scotland’s national poet Liz Lochhead says “we must protest by any means possible Israel’s current actions in Gaza.”
+APA imagesLiz Lochhead, the Makar or National Poet of Scotland, today announced that she is formally endorsing the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.
+Lochhead, who has been involved in a number of cultural exchange initiatives with Palestinian writers, including a recent book of poetry, told The Electronic Intifada by phone that:
+“Last year I wrote that I would sign up to the boycott: I think it’s necessary, we’ve got to use everything in our power. It’s difficult, nobody wants to be against academic activities and the arts, but we’ve got to show that this state is a pariah.”
+Scottish National Poet Liz Lochhead
+Norman McBeathLochhead’s decision to publicly endorse the boycott call now comes in response not only to the current attack on Gaza — of which she commented to The Electronic Intifada that “you could cry every night, watching the news.” It comes also as part of a wider call made by Scottish campaigners to the country’s arts community to resist the presence of an Israeli state-funded theater company at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
+Underbelly, one of the largest players in the Fringe, which is itself the world’s largest arts festival, are hosting Incubator Theater Company’s production of a play called The City. Incubator is a Jerusalem-based group whose participation in the Fringe is being bankrolled by the Israeli Ministry of Culture.
+“A necessary process”
+The Makar’s formal public statement was sent directly to The Electronic Intifada. It reads:
+I, Liz Lochhead, Scots Makar or National Poet of Scotland, wish to sign this letter in support of a Cultural Boycott of Israeli Artists and Academics where they are in any way funded by the State of Israel.
+This is part of a necessary process — this boycotting — if a painful one for all liberals — because we, the international community, must protest by any means possible Israel’s current actions in Gaza, and indeed its ongoing illegal treatment of all Palestinians.
+The State of Israel is guilty of War Crimes. Its leaders should be charged with them. Now.
+We must accuse our own government of complicity in these crimes.
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-articleTitle: Israel blocks visits to jailed Gaza protesters
-pageTitle: Israel blocks visits to jailed Gaza protesters | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Three jailed Gaza March of Return activists face years in Israeli prison.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:03.216Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-blocks-visits-jailed-gaza-protesters/29786
 ---
-Palestinian protesters gather during a demonstration to demand the right to return to their homeland at the Israel-Gaza boundary in the central of Gaza Strip on March 30, 2019.
-APA imagesTime passes slowly for Nadira al-Imam.
-Her son, Moataz Abu Eid, 21, was detained by Israeli troops during a protest as part of the Great March of Return in late April 2018. He has been in an Israeli prison ever since and no one has been able to visit.
-He has left a vacuum, felt especially keenly by his mother.
-“He is my only son, he means everything to me,” said Nadira, 46, whose three adult daughters are all married and live away from her.
-Meanwhile, she has only questions.
-“Why did they take him away? He was peacefully protesting. Why do they deprive me from even paying him a visit?”
-Nadira, a divorcee, is alone now. Moataz was the only child still at home.
-“I work for long hours every day to prepare meals for families,” Nadira said. She is hired by a charity to cook for others, but has had to take extra work without her son to help her.
-“If my son was with me I would not have to work so much,” she added.
-Nadira suffers from hypertension. She needs rest and help from her children.
-Yet she remains proud of her son. Moataz finished his school-leaver exam – the tawjihi – inside prison and has begun a higher education course in social services.
-For now, all Nadira wants is a visit.
-���I want to visit him, even if from behind glass and walls,” she told The Electronic Intifada. “I want to make sure he is fine. I think of him all the time, how he spends these long hours away from us and his friends and relatives.”
-Exceptional cases
-Moataz was detained with two others in the eastern boundary area outside Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Moataz, Salim Abu Daher and Ahmad Amawi were eventually charged with attempting to fly incendiary kites across the boundary from Gaza.
-The three, whose families all reject the charges as false, were originally sentenced to 10 years in prison by a military court before the sentence was lowered to five years.
-They join nearly 300 Palestinians from Gaza now imprisoned by Israel, and are among the only ones arrested while participating in the Great March of Return protests.
-The Israeli military’s response to these demonstrations has otherwise been brutal. More than 200 have been killed and nearly 30,000 injured.
-By end of February, according to prisoner rights group Addameer, Israel held a total of 5,000 Palestinian prisoners.
-Jawaher Abu Daher, 21, explained the circumstances surrounding the detention of her brother, Salim, 23.
-“My oldest brother was passionate about the Great March of Return and everything about it. He and Moataz and Ahmad were enthusiastic participants. They were also unemployed and saw the march as a way to try to end the siege and alleviate Gaza’s poverty.”
-The three men participated several times in the protests, but on that particular Friday none of them returned. Their families were deeply worried.
-“We heard in the news that there had been clashes and smoke was rising from the area,” Jawaher remembered. “It was not until the next day that we heard on Israeli media that the army had captured three young men claiming that they were trying to get closer to the fence.”
-Salim is the eldest in his family; he has eight sisters and one little brother.
-His detention has caused great distress for the family. His mother’s health deteriorated after his capture, and it took her two months to accept the news.
-Amal Abu Eid, Salim’s wife, was five months pregnant when her husband was detained.
-“His detention shocked us. We were waiting for our baby to be delivered to lighten our life, but I did not know that his father would not be here to see that day,” Amal said.
-Born without a father
-Now she is praying for Salim’s release so he can rejoin the family.
-For now, Amal is forced to raise their 1-year-old baby, Younis, alone.
-Unlike the other families, though, Amal and Younis have managed to visit Salim, even if only twice.
-After delivering her baby, Amal went to the International Committee for the Red Cross in Gaza to request a permit to visit her husband with her new-born son. Classed as a humanitarian case, they were granted a permit to visit Ramon Prison, where Salim was being held.
-“Younis was six months old and the trip was very tiring for us,” Amal remembered. “And I was shocked to see how much Salim had changed, he looked so tired and sad. We all burst into tears. He was trembling when he carried his son for the first time. He hugged him a lot and did not want to leave him at all.”
-The visit lasted just 40 minutes after some seven hours of travel and inspection. Two months later, Amal and her baby were permitted another visit that also lasted for less than an hour.
-Since then, however, nothing.
-“In the last six months, I have put in four requests, but every application has been rejected without explanation,” Amal said.
-Ahmad Amawi’s family, like Moataz Abu Eid’s, have been denied any permits to visit. He and his wife Yasmin had been married two years when he was captured, but do not have children.
-“I miss my husband, I dream to see him again,” Yasmin said. “I am not permitted to visit him and this is deeply distressing. I want to start a family just like any other couple.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: American Studies Association national council endorses Israel boycott
+pageTitle: American Studies Association national council endorses Israel boycott | The Electronic Intifada
+description: ASA's decision is a landmark in the movement for academic boycott of Israel within the United States.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:00.028Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/american-studies-association-national-council-endorses-israel-boycott
 ---
+Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian at Hebrew University during a protest against Israel’s attack on Gaza, 20 November 2012.
+APA imagesIn an historic decision, the national council of the American Studies Association (ASA) today announced its endorsement of the Palestinian call for boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
+“The boycott is the best way to protect and expand academic freedom and access to education,” ASA president Curtis Marez said in an email sent to media.
+“Palestinian academics are frequently impeded by Israeli occupation authorities, schools and universities have been bombed by US-supported Israeli military forces, and the Wall blocks educational access for thousands of students. As an association of scholars and educators, the ASA has an ethical responsibility to act.”
+The national council – the ASA’s elected governing body – also called a referendum of the organization’s full membership to endorse its decision.
+The ASA, with 5,000 individual members and 2,200 library and other institutional subscribers, describes itself as the “nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history.”
+“The Council voted for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions as an ethical stance, a form of material and symbolic action. It represents a principle of solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and an aspiration to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians,” a statement on the ASA website says.
+It adds, “boycott is warranted given US military and other support for Israel; Israel’s violation of international law and UN resolutions; the documented impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students; the extent to which Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights; and the support of such a resolution by many members of the ASA.”
+Acknowledging the controversy over the issue, the statement notes that the “ASA is a large organization that represents divergent opinions. Anticipating strong and potentially divided feelings on this question, the Council unanimously decided to ask ASA members to endorse the resolution by a vote.” It provided a link for members to vote on online.
+Heated debate
+The boycott resolution had been the subject of heated debate and efforts by pro-Israel groups to misrepresent and derail it.
+But the initiative received overwhelming support  from dozens of randomly chosen speakers at an open meeting during the ASA’s national conference in Washington, DC last month.
+ASA’s decision follows the lead of the Association for Asian American Studies which approved an academic boycott resolution earlier this year.
+It indicates that the call for the boycott of Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people is gaining ground within US academia, despite strong opposition from university presidents and administrators.
+What boycott means
+ASA also published an FAQ offering guidance on what the boycott means. It includes the clarification that:
+The ASA understands boycott as limited to a refusal on the part of the ASA in its official capacities to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions (such as deans, rectors, presidents and others), or on behalf of the Israeli government, until Israel ceases to violate human rights and international law.
+We are expressly not endorsing a boycott of Israeli scholars engaged in individual-level contacts and ordinary forms of academic exchange, including presentations at conferences, public lectures at campuses, and collaboration on research and publication. US scholars are not discouraged under the terms of the boycott from traveling to Israel for academic purposes, provided they are not engaged in a formal partnership with or sponsorship by Israeli academic institutions.
+Need for support
+While supporters are celebrating today’s decision, they also anticipate further debates ahead as the resolution goes to the membership.
+The ASA Caucus on Academic and Community Activism sent out an action alert by email urging members to “to take further action in expressing your support for the resolution to endorse and honor the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
+“We appeal to you to show support for the Council’s decision, and vote in support of that resolution.”
+“With your endorsement of their vote, the National Committee and the President of ASA will have the broad support of as many members as possible.  Please contact other ASA members and urge them to vote for the resolution also,” the action alert states.
+The Caucus on Academic and Community Activism also welcomed the decision in a press release which “congratulates the National Council on a decision in keeping not only with the spirit of the Open Meeting, but in accord with the principles of the American Studies Association, which has in its recent history expressed a strong commitment to the study and critique of racism, colonialism, and other forms of social injustice.”
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-articleTitle: Love in the time of corona
-pageTitle: Love in the time of corona | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Pandemic restrictions have curtailed wedding celebrations in Gaza. But not the enthusiasm to marry.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:03.702Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/love-time-corona/32271
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-COVID-19 restrictions have hit Gaza’s hospitality sector hard. But lower costs have also seen a spike in the number of marriages.
-APA imagesMosab Abu Zaid and Tasnim El-Khaldi may not have celebrated the wedding of their dreams.
-And though they did miss the traditional hubbub, not having to shoulder the expense was a relief to both of them.
-“I was delighted,” Tasnim, 20, told The Electronic Intifada. “I saw our close relatives. We got to dance and sing. Would it have been nice to celebrate in a fancy hall with a lot of people? Sure. But I am just happy to be married. And I am very satisfied with our wedding.”
-Tasnim and Mosab are not alone in getting wed during lockdown. In fact, the Sharia courts in Gaza, which oversee civil legal matters, registered an increase of more than 20 percent in the number of marriages in 2020, with nearly 21,000 weddings.
-Hassan al-Jojo, head of the Sharia Supreme Court and Higher Sharia Court Council in Gaza, attributed the increase to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that have drastically impacted the cost and manner of weddings in Gaza, where more than half the population lives in poverty.
-Certainly, restrictions have meant that normally elaborate celebrations have been pared down to the basics.
-In Tasnim and Mosab’s case that meant breaking with tradition as there was no party for the groom and his friends, no large wedding hall to be hired and no expensive catering to be arranged.
-Instead, a subtly decorated car picked up the bride from her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, taking her and her immediate family to the groom’s house, where Mosab and his own immediate family had decorated their living room in order to host the celebration at home.
-Neighbors would offer their best wishes from afar but apart from that, no one else attended.
-Costly traditions curtailed
-The “party” was over by 8 pm, when the guests went home, leaving Tasnim and Mosab to start their new lives together.
-“The pandemic has reduced the exceptional costs normally associated with a wedding here,” Mosab, 22, a multimedia graduate from Al-Aqsa University told The Electronic Intifada.
-It was a relief to him. The groom and his family are expected to bear the costs of wedding celebrations. But Mosab is an only son. His father, a resistance fighter, was killed by the Israeli military in the late 1990s, he said, when Mosab was just a toddler. As a result, Mosab is looking after his mother today.
-And in an economic climate in which more than half of Gaza’s two million people are unemployed, every little bit helps.
-“We live in crushing economic times,” said Mosab. “And corona has changed everything. The poor and the rich are the same now.  We all have to adapt and there is no time for luxuries or ostentatious celebrations.”
-Traditionally, weddings in Gaza are elaborate affairs with attendant celebrations that can span several days.
-This is not just about the wedding party, which is usually held in a big hall for as many guests as possible and is a sizable expense in itself.
-Tradition dictates separate parties for the groom and his friends, which should include live music in the streets. The bride, her family and friends participate in a henna party.
-There’s even a party for the groom’s mother, the laiali um al-rees.
-Add to this the costs of transport, catering, entertainment, and the whole affair is a very pricey undertaking, sometimes leaving people in debt for years.
-Pandemic restrictions have changed all this. Judging by the rise in the number of marriages, the reduced costs are to the relief of many.
-“Extravagant costs”
-Sharia courts head al-Jojo told local media that marriages before the pandemic were on the decline, something he attributed to the “extravagant costs” of weddings.
-And restrictions have also forced young couples to be creative with their arrangements.
-Eyad and Iman Abu Mosad celebrated their marriage in, by modern Gaza standards, very unusual style.
-“All the [wedding] halls were closed and my house is small and not appropriate for a party,” Eyad, 26, told The Electronic Intifada. So he turned to his neighbor for help.
-“My kind neighbor offered me his piece of land. I erected a large tent and added color and decorations. That’s where we had our party.”
-Eyad, a farmer like his father, said he was only too happy with the cheaper expenses. Moreover, he said, they had a duty to others.
-“This was a reality that was dictated to us. We have to be responsible and abide by the rules so we do not contribute to the spread of this virus.”
-For her part, Iman, 22, who is a media student at the Islamic University, said she loved her party.
-“The celebrations were lovely and my relatives were happy to see me in the white dress. The only regret is that most of my friends at university were not able to attend because of restrictions on movement.”
-Since the first coronavirus cases were diagnosed in Gaza last March, measures taken by the local authorities have in many ways mirrored those taken everywhere else.
-Travel restrictions have come, gone and come again. Closures have been imposed, lifted and re-imposed. Rates of transmission have gone up and down and up again.
-But Gaza is in a unique situation. After 14 years of an Israeli-Egyptian siege, the economy has taken an enormous hit. Between 2007 and 2018, according to the UN, the blockade caused the area’s GDP per capita to shrink by over a quarter.
-This has drastically reduced people’s capacity to absorb the economic pain brought by the pandemic.
-A sector in decline
-This is true of every industry, including the hospitality sector.
-According to local media reports, lockdown and closures have precipitated the loss of 800 jobs in 150 wedding halls across Gaza.
-Gaza’s interior ministry has taken several measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic, closing down wedding halls, gyms, schools, public markets and similar facilities.
-On 11 December, the ministry also started to impose curfews during Friday and Saturday, the weekend in Gaza, when everything is closed and no movement is permitted anywhere in Gaza.
-During weekdays, people can move until 7 pm, while shops must close at 5 pm.
-Shop owners, particularly those catering to weddings and parties as with clothing stores and beauty salons, have suffered dramatic reductions in revenue as a result.
-Khaled Jaber owns El-Ashi Center, a shop in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle area of the Gaza Strip. He told The Electronic Intifada that he has stopped importing any new dresses for the time being.
-“Fewer people come to see what I have, weddings are now very simple affairs and people do not want to buy expensive dresses to wear at home,” he said.
-Hanan al-Sheikh, who owns Shams Beauty Salon in the Maghazi refugee camp in Deir al-Balah, said she has lost a lot of clients because people are afraid of going out and weddings are now different from what they used to be.
-“Before coronavirus, weddings were big and held in halls with many guests and relatives of the bride and groom. Everyone wanted to have their makeup and hair done. Now, only the bride will come to get ready for her wedding,” al-Sheikh said.
-Worse, she told The Electronic Intifada, she has been forced to lay off two assistants.
-“There is no work and no money. This crisis has affected us all.”
-Nevertheless, young people will get married. And their wedding, regardless of circumstances, will always be “unforgettable,” said Iman.
-Everyone will adapt, agreed Eyad.
-“We are young people. We are full of hope for better days to come. Nothing will stop us from living this life with dignity and happiness.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
-Tags

+articleTitle: Federation of University Unions Calls on All Parties to Uphold Palestinian Call for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
+pageTitle: Federation of University Unions Calls on All Parties to Uphold Palestinian Call for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions | The Electronic Intifada
+description: During a press conference held at Birzeit University's Media Institute on May 25, 2005, the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities' Professors and Employees, Birzeit University Employees Union and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), together stated their support for the courageous decision taken by the Association of
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:01.110Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/federation-university-unions-calls-all-parties-uphold-palestinian-call-boycott-israeli
 ---
+During a press conference held at Birzeit University’s Media Institute on May 25, 2005, the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees, Birzeit University Employees Union and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), together stated their support for the courageous decision taken by the Association of  University Teachers in the United Kingdom (AUT), on 22 April 2005, to boycott Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities in Israel as institutions complicit in the illegal and violent occupation of Palestinian land. They further voiced their strong condemnation of the signing of an agreement between the President of Al Quds University, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, and the President of the Hebrew University.
+Hebrew University of Jerusalem President Prof. Menachem Magidor (left) and Al-Quds University President Prof. Sari Nusseibeh at the signing of a joint statement of cooperation in London. (Photo: Ruth Cooper/HUJI)
+Referring to the agreement, Dr. Mohammad Abu Zaid read out a statement on behalf of the Federation, calling on the Board of Trustees of Al Quds University and the Council of Higher Education to dismiss Dr. Nusseibeh from his post as President of Al Quds University, for his direct breach of the standing position of the Council against cooperation with Israeli academic institutions so long as Israel’s maintains its illegal military occupation.
+“At the height of the Israeli violations against international law and the rights of the Palestinian people, including the construction of the Apartheid Wall and the confiscation and dissection of Palestinian land, the administration of Al Quds University, represented by its President Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, signed a cooperation agreement with the Hebrew University in direct opposition to national aspirations, general public opinion and the stated opinion of a majority of academics and employees of Al Quds University.  The signing of the cooperation agreement with Hebrew University comes at the precise time when efforts are being made to overturn the recent decision by the AUT to boycott two Israeli universities; it therefore entails a political decision to undermine efforts to place pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation and comply with international law”.
+The Birzeit University Union, represented by Dr. Abdelkarim Abu Khashan stated, “The Israeli military occupation, supported by Israeli academic institutions, has attempted to undermine all efforts of Palestinian academics to carry out their academic, social, and cultural mission.  As such, we strongly oppose the development of relations with Israeli academic institutions as it is tantamount to maintaining the current occupation and limiting Palestinians’ right to education.”
+Dr. Islah Jad, a founding member of PACBI, stated during the press conference that it was important for Palestinian, Arab and international academics to unveil the truth about the Israeli illegal military occupation and the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in maintaining the current oppression.  A statement by PACBI stated that despite the possibility that tomorrow’s meeting of the Special Council of AUT may result in revoking the boycott motions made during the AUT regular meeting on 22 April 2005, “the inspiring process of awareness building and mobilizing that was launched in preparation for the AUT’s initial meeting will persist and can only grow… Just as in the South African case, a comprehensive regime of sanctions and boycotts remains not only the most politically effective but also the most morally sound strategy in bringing about Israel’s compliance with international law and universal principles of human rights. With such international pressure, the prospects for a just peace in our region will finally thrive.”
+In response to questions from journalists, Dr. Abu Zaid stated that the Federation was ready to take steps to ensure that the proper authorities take disciplinary action against Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, for his contravention of a Council decision and his deliberate attempt to undermine the international movement working to place the necessary pressure on Israel to end its violent and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and comply with international law.
+Related Links
+BY TOPIC: Academic Boycott
+Birzeit University

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-articleTitle: Genocide in a child's mind
-pageTitle: Genocide in a child's mind | The Electronic Intifada
-description: My daughter Rita turned 5 this month, and it feels impossible to protect her.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:03.996Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/genocide-childs-mind/48406
 ---
-My daughter Rita turned 5 years old this month amid the genocide in Gaza.
-I woke up to a kiss from my daughter on my cheek and she said to me, “Mama, today is my birthday. I want to wear a white dress, and I want a chocolate cake.” My daughter Rita has just turned 5 years old.
-I smiled and hugged her and said, “Happy New Year, Mama.”
-Like any mother who feels happy when she sees her children growing up in front of her, I was grateful that God had granted life to my daughter, but I was sad about the year in which my child experienced a war of genocide in every sense of the word.
-There is a special love between Rita and me, and everyone who has seen this child knows how smart and amazing she is.
-Everyone who sees her says she looks like me.
-I am truly amazed at her resemblance to me in appearance and characteristics to the extent that I see her as a copy of me.
-Trying to give Rita all she needs
-I’ve given her special attention since she was a fetus in my womb. I would talk to her and always tell her that I would be a wonderful mother to her.
-I always tell her: “Don’t be afraid of anything as long as I am with you.”
-For Rita, I’ve always chosen everything carefully: her beautiful room, her toys, her dresses and other clothes, her hairstyles, her kindergarten.
-I was proud of myself and her father as we tried with all our might to provide our daughter with a healthy and safe environment surrounded by warmth and love in which she could grow up far from all the conflicts and challenges that we parents live in – an environment fertile with wars.
-Now, my daughter is experiencing genocide at a very young age.
-Instead of growing up in an atmosphere of love and safety and exercising her right to learn and play, she has lived through more than 300 days of continuous bombing, displacement, hunger and disease.
-I, as a mother, have lived with nine months of anxiety about my daughter and her future. Her simplest needs even became a major challenge. We have suffered a lot in obtaining appropriate food, clothes and clean water for our children.
-I live this war as a journalist, as a mother and as a woman.
-I’m not used to it yet.
-Whenever I see a child’s corpse, it reminds me of the danger facing my daughter here and the sad truth that our children’s lives have no value, as long as the world watches the killing of their childhood and remains silent.
-The war crimes and massacres committed by Israel against us in Gaza have revealed how dangerous life here is for our children, and I always ask: Should I hold on to my land or guarantee the safety of my children and leave?
-I remember well how we suffered with Rita in the 2021 Israeli aggression. She was 2.5 years old when Israeli warplanes carried out a fire belt near us. At that time, my child felt intense fear, and she stopped speaking entirely and would only cry. She would walk and stick her index fingers into her ears all day long.
-We suffered as we treated her for the effects of post-traumatic stress until she returned to being, on the surface, a normal child, playing, laughing and mingling with her peers.
-How can one get used to war’s horrors?
-Today my daughter is experiencing fear again, and I have to explain to her not to be afraid as long as I am by her side, but in reality, I am afraid that parents are expected to get used to it.
-But I don’t want to get used to it.
-Not to killing and the fear of death, not to a situation in which human suffering becomes invisible and the sounds of war become the constant soundtrack of our days.
-I cannot get used to depriving my daughter of the things she loves – for example, her white dress and birthday cake – but it is war.
-My little princess is growing up quickly. I want her to keep something of an innocent childhood.
-The war will end, and I will buy her the Disney and Barbie dresses and bracelets and coloring books that she loves.
-I will always give her love.
-Fedaa al-Qedra is a journalist in Gaza.
-Tags

+articleTitle: Benjamin Doherty's blog
+pageTitle: Benjamin Doherty's blog | The Electronic Intifada
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:09.261Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty
 ---
+WATCH: “Shuja'iyah: Land of the Brave” reveals a crisis of humanity
+Benjamin Doherty
+26 July 2014
+Short video by Palestinian filmmaker Hadeel Assali emphasizes need to scrutinize the priorities of humanitarian institutions. Read more about WATCH: “Shuja'iyah: Land of the Brave” reveals a crisis of humanity
+Watch: Short film reflects on mirror taken from Palestinian village in 1948
+Benjamin Doherty
+18 February 2014
+In “Mirror Image,” Israeli filmmaker Danielle Schwartz negotiates with her family to tell the story of a mirror taken from a Palestinian village in the Nakba. Read more about Watch: Short film reflects on mirror taken from Palestinian village in 1948
+JTA, Jerusalem Post fall for hoax BDS campaign aimed at Rolling Stones
+Benjamin Doherty
+14 February 2014
+The perpetrators of the hoax may aim to discredit Palestine solidarity activists by making it appear as if BDS activists disseminate false information and post anti-Semitic and racist content. Read more about JTA, Jerusalem Post fall for hoax BDS campaign aimed at Rolling Stones
+“Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall?” — new video of Samah Sabawi poem
+Benjamin Doherty
+10 February 2014
+“Defying the Universe” confronts the guilt of a husband leaving his family behind in Palestine. Read more about “Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall?” — new video of Samah Sabawi poem
+Oxfam “ambassador” Scarlett Johansson praised for “strong pro-Israel stance”
+Benjamin Doherty
+29 January 2014
+PR expert says pro-Israel advocacy by Oxfam’s Scarlett Johansson is better than the work done by the Israeli government. Read more about Oxfam “ambassador” Scarlett Johansson praised for “strong pro-Israel stance”
+WATCH: Hip hop artist Jasiri X video “Checkpoint”
+Benjamin Doherty
+28 January 2014
+Hip hop artist Jasiri X recently participated in a delegation to Palestine with other Black American artists, activists, writers and academics. Read more about WATCH: Hip hop artist Jasiri X video “Checkpoint”
+Pinkwashing the animal kingdom: Israeli penguins, Nigerian house cats, Africans and Arabs
+Benjamin Doherty
+28 January 2014
+Arabs and Africans do not deserve western concern presenting zoo animals and pets as models for their sex lives and personal freedoms. Read more about Pinkwashing the animal kingdom: Israeli penguins, Nigerian house cats, Africans and Arabs
+Debunked: the claim that As'ad AbuKhalil worked for the CIA
+Benjamin Doherty
+30 December 2013
+Allegations disseminated by the website Now that As’ad AbuKhalil worked for the CIA are based on nothing more than information harvested from Internet spam sites. Read more about Debunked: the claim that As'ad AbuKhalil worked for the CIA
+Former Harvard president Larry Summers calls for boycott of ASA
+Benjamin Doherty
+13 December 2013
+It is ironic that as a former university president, Summers would propose punitive measures against scholars exercising their freedom of conscience and association. Read more about Former Harvard president Larry Summers calls for boycott of ASA
+In surprise move, opponent votes to endorse ASA's Israel boycott
+Benjamin Doherty
+11 December 2013
+A prominent opponent of the academic boycott of Israel explains why she has changed her position. Read more about In surprise move, opponent votes to endorse ASA's Israel boycott

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@@ -1,72 +1,67 @@
-articleTitle: Israel's war criminals spread fake cheer at Christmas
-pageTitle: Israel's war criminals spread fake cheer at Christmas | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Many applications to travel from Gaza to Bethlehem will almost certainly be rejected.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:04.350Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-war-criminals-spread-fake-cheer-christmas/34481
 ---
-Bethlehem is under military occupation by Israel, with cooperation from the Palestinian Authority.
-APA imagesIsrael’s military frequently poses as a humanitarian organization.
-So it came as little surprise that it recently sought to turn an announcement about Christmas celebrations into a goodwill gesture.
-In reality, the announcement reinforced what every Palestinian knows: Israel dictates what they can and cannot do. For Christians, that includes deciding where they spend Christmas.
-If Israel keeps its word, up to 500 Christians living in Gaza may visit the West Bank, which is also under Israeli military occupation. They can then spend part of the festive season in Bethlehem, where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.
-The Israeli announcement – similar to ones made in previous years – is far from altruistic.
-Because a limit is placed on the number of people who may travel to Bethlehem, such announcements have the effect that family members either spend Christmas apart from each other or that trips to Bethlehem do not go ahead.
-“It is unusual for a whole family to get approval [for traveling to Bethlehem],” said Kamel Ayyad, a spokesperson for the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza. “Sometimes, the Israeli authorities will only grant approval to one or two members of a family. That means the family is forced to cancel their travel plans.”
-At more than 700, the number of applications for travel permits quickly exceeded the quota set by Israel.
-“Everyone should be granted the permit,” said Ayyad. “We all have the right to freedom of movement. And freedom of worship.”
-Christmas in Gaza tends to be subdued. Last year, it was effectively canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
-“Special feeling”
-Palestinian Christians have been long placed under considerable strain by the occupation. Many have grown so frustrated with Israel’s relentless brutality that they have emigrated.
-In Gaza, the number of Christians has fallen from approximately 3,000 in 2010 to only around 1,000 now.
-Hani Farah, a prominent figure in the YMCA’s Gaza branch, is among those who have applied for a permit to visit Bethlehem. He is still waiting to hear whether or not his application is successful.
-“I love to pray at the Church of the Nativity [in Bethlehem],” he said. “It has a special feeling.”
-Farah pointed out that the last two years have been extremely stressful due to both the pandemic and a major Israeli attack. He is hoping that all of his family will be permitted to visit Bethlehem this Christmas.
-“We need this holiday,” he said.
-Bethlehem is just 75 kilometers from Gaza. Accessing the city should be relatively easy with the benefit of modern transportation.
-Yet to have any chance of reaching Bethlehem, it is first necessary to exit Erez, a checkpoint separating Gaza and Israel.
-“We love life”
-The task of deciding who may leave Erez has been assigned to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). That body is now headed by a general named Ghasan Alyan.
-He used to be a commander of the Golani Brigade, an elite unit within Israel’s military.
-Led by Alyan, the Golani Brigade committed a massacre in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City during July 2014. Some 55 Palestinian civilians – 19 of them children – were killed in that massacre.
-This means that decisions about how Gaza’s people may live their lives are rubber stamped by a man who has committed war crimes in Gaza. Far from being punished, Alyan has been promoted.
-Khader Tarazi, 23, has visited Bethlehem just once – when he was a small child. His memories of the trip are patchy, though joyful.
-“Every year I submit an application for a permit,” he said. “But it is rejected for reasons that are not known to me.”
-Israel typically rejects most requests for permits to visit Bethlehem at Christmas. In 2019, around 800 requests were made from Christians in Gaza; Israel granted slightly more than 300 permits.
-While Gaza may not be synonymous with Christmas cheer, those spending the festive season here try their best to have a good time.
-Florence Khouri was one of the guests at a party earlier this month, organized by the YMCA in Gaza City.
-“Turning on the Christmas tree lights has a special meaning in Gaza,” she said. “We love life despite all the darkness.”
-Fedaa al-Qedra is a journalist in Gaza.
 Tags

+articleTitle: “Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall?” — new video of Samah Sabawi poem
+pageTitle: “Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall?” — new video of Samah Sabawi poem | The Electronic Intifada
+description: "Defying the Universe" confronts the guilt of a husband leaving his family behind in Palestine.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:17.126Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/are-your-loved-ones-trapped-behind-wall-new-video-samah-sabawi-poem
 ---
+Marta Jelec has posted a delightful animation of Samah Sabawi’s poem “Defying the Universe”. Jelec is a student of international relations and English literature at the University of Exeter in the UK. She explains:
+I made this stop motion animation for a project that I am doing for a digital and cyberculture studies module at university, looking at how reading has changed in the digital age. Sabawi’s poem, originally written in English and published online, describes the internal struggles her husband faces when confronting the guilt of leaving his family behind in Palestine, while he lives his life of “liberty.” By creating an animation of the poem, I aim to make the poetry more accessible to an English-speaking, non-Palestinian audience, by using non-ethnicized characters and simple and symbolic imagery. I aim to increase the possibility of empathy within digital audiences outside of Palestine.
+Although the poet Samah Sabawi is a long-time contributor to The Electronic Intifada, I was not aware of this poem. It reminded me of the themes of separation and exile raised in Osama Qashoo’s films Inside Outside and No Choice Basis. Jelec gives us a fine reading of Sabawi’s moving poem, which is attached below.
+Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall
+Do they need the army’s permission
+For their prayers to reach the sky
+For their love to cross the ocean
+And touch your thirsty heart
+Are your loved ones trapped
+Do you yearn to be in your family home
+And when you call them
+Do they always say
+“we are well, alhamdollelah”
+Does it surprise you
+That they are whole
+But you… you are broken
+Must they always worry about you
+Urge you to have faith in your exile
+Must they pity you
+For not breathing the air
+Of your ancestors’ land
+Must they always comfort you
+Even when the bombs are falling
+Do you ever wonder who is walled in
+Is it you, or is it them
+And when it finally dawns upon you
+That their dignity sets them free
+Do you feel ashamed of your liberty
+Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall
+Do they tell you stories
+Of how they survive
+The trees they’ve replanted
+The homes they’ve rebuilt
+Do they assure you life goes on
+Old men still fiddle with their prayer beads
+Mothers still bake mamoul on Eid
+Families still gather under the canopies
+With loaded bunches of grapes
+Dangling above their heads
+They nibble on watermelon seeds
+They drink meramiah tea
+Women perfect the art of match-making
+Men talk of freedom and democracy
+Children climb on a sycamore tree
+Lovers woe in secrecy
+And no matter how the conditions are adverse
+Do your loved ones defy this universe
+Your loved ones defy this universe
 Tags

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-articleTitle: Gaza’s widows struggle to care for their children amid devastation
-pageTitle: Gaza’s widows struggle to care for their children amid devastation | The Electronic Intifada
-description: More than 17,000 children lost their fathers or both parents during Israel’s 15-month genocidal aggression.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:04.669Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-widows-struggle-care-their-children-amid-devastation/50413
 ---
-Displaced children play in the rubble near their former homes in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip on 10 February 2025.
-APA imagesKawthar Shomar, 35, wakes up every morning to stand in a long line west of the city of Deir al-Balah to get food for her children.
-As soon as she finishes feeding them, she prepares to go to a stall in the city market. There she will spend the day sewing worn-out shoes to earn money to provide her family with basic needs, including for blankets to protect against a winter that has already claimed several lives.
-Shomar was widowed after an airstrike killed her husband in December 2023 in an attack on the popular Shujaiya market in Gaza City.
-“After my husband was martyred, I went with my four children to the southern Gaza Strip to escape the bombing. I did not know where I would go,” Shomar told The Electronic Intifada in December.
-She and her children were displaced more than six times, during Israel’s genocidal attack, ending up in a tent inside a shelter for displaced people west of Deir al-Balah.
-“I didn’t have any money to buy clothes and food for my children. In the end, I decided to sell my wedding ring,” she said.
-Shomar first found work making pastries and selling them from a small stall, and now she sews worn-out shoes.
-“I feel like I have to be a superwoman, and I am dealing with many difficult responsibilities towards my family. All I want is for my children to feel safe again and for me to regain some of the life that the war stole.”
-A population of widows
-Shomar is far from alone. Israel’s indiscriminate attacks have created a population of widows that need not only provide their children with food, clothing and shelter, but also have to learn alone how to deal with repeated displacements from areas targeted.
-In the Beach refugee camp, west of Gaza City, Hasina Younis said she struggled on the last day of December to fill a plastic gallon with drinking water for her five children amid a crowd of people waiting to do the same.
-Younis, 41, became a widow after an Israeli airstrike killed her husband in March 2024.
-“After I get drinking water, I start kneading flour and baking it in the clay oven I bought to feed my five children,” Younis told The Electronic Intifada by phone.
-She did not, however, obey the Israeli military’s orders to move from the north and insisted instead to stay in her city.
-It was harsh. The Israeli offensive on the north – which lasted from early October until a ceasefire came into force on 19 January – saw those left in the north suffer famine and relentless bombardment. Many died. Those who left, returned to a wasteland.
-Younis used to work as a teacher in a private school that was destroyed in the Israeli attacks. Unable to teach, she has instead found work over the past 16 months embroidering clothes and making perfumes in a small stall that her brother built in a market west of the city.
-Younis feels that widows have been abandoned.
-“No one cares about us,” she said.
-After Younis finishes work, she uses her teaching experience to instruct her children in English, mathematics and science in their small tent that is now home.
-War on women
-“The ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip is a war on women,” Ismail al-Thawabtah of the government media office in Gaza, told The Electronic Intifada on 1 January.
-He said women and children bore the brunt of the aggression, making up some 70 percent of the total casualties. According to the UN, at least 17,000 children lost their fathers or both parents during Israel’s 15-month genocidal aggression.
-In response, volunteers established Al-Barakah camp for displaced widows and their children last April in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis to provide widows and orhpans with a safe environment.
-The camp’s director, Mahmoud Kalakh, said the camp came into existence because of appeals from widows to provide them with their own shelter due a lack of available tents and severe overcrowding in other shelters.
-The camp currently houses about 70 widows and their children.
-According to Kalakh, the camp provides daily meals, drinking water and limited electricity to charge phones and lighting.
-Abla Mansour, 36, whose husband was killed in an Israeli attack last April, lives in the camp with her three children, 4, 10 and 12.
-“Sometimes I have to sleep hungry to leave food for my children,” she said in early January.
-She said her children try to help their mother in any way they can by collecting wood to light fires, standing in long lines to get drinking water for the family or doing various other errands.
-As night fell, Mansour used the dim light of a candle to sew old  clothes that she will try to sell at a nearby market. She said the money she would make would  barely provide for her children’s basic needs.
-However, she refuses to give up.
-“Hope is the only thing we have left,” she said.
-Rasha Abou Jalal is a journalist in Gaza.
 Tags

+articleTitle: JTA, Jerusalem Post fall for hoax BDS campaign aimed at Rolling Stones
+pageTitle: JTA, Jerusalem Post fall for hoax BDS campaign aimed at Rolling Stones | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The perpetrators of the hoax may aim to discredit Palestine solidarity activists by making it appear as if BDS activists disseminate false information and post anti-Semitic and racist content.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:17.967Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/jta-jerusalem-post-fall-hoax-bds-campaign-aimed-rolling-stones
 ---
+A fake boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign disseminated by pro-Israel media appears aimed to discredit Palestine solidarity activists.
+On 13 February, several blogs and publications reported that the BDS movement has called on The Rolling Stones to cancel their recently announced performance at the National Stadium at Ramat Gan in present-day Israel.
+The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), The Jerusalem Post and Algemeiner all cite an anonymous Facebook page called “Rolling Stones: Boycott Israel” as their only source.
+The Jewish Daily Forward picked up and tweeted JTA’s report:
+However, the Facebook page is by all indications a deceptive hoax, including its false claim that it has been endorsed by The Electronic Intifada.
+Attempt to discredit activists?
+The perpetrators of the hoax may aim to discredit Palestine solidarity activists by making it appear as if BDS activists disseminate false information and post anti-Semitic and racist content.
+Instead, the hoax exposes the low journalistic standards of the publications which reported it as truth.
+False attribution and plagiarized content
+Soon after the publication of the JTA report, a post was added to the Facebook page that is actually a near exact copy of a 2007 letter from the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to The Rolling Stones.
+However, instead of the 350 signatories on the original 2007 letter, the perpetrators of the hoax attribute the letter to three signatories: “Electronic Intifada,” “Rolling Stones: Boycott Israel” and “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.”
+The Electronic Intifada’s executive director Ali Abunimah told me:
+We did not sign this letter or have anything to do with it whatsoever. While The Electronic Intifada reports on the BDS movement and individuals who write for it – including me – may support BDS, we do not sign letters like this or endorse specific campaigns in the name of the publication. It should, moreover, be obvious to any serious journalist that the appearance of our name is suspect because the letter was not published on our website, nor did we disseminate it on our own Facebook page or Twitter accounts. The Electronic Intifada has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the “Rolling Stones: Boycott Israel” Facebook page.
+The BDS Movement Facebook page and website also make no reference to this alleged campaign targeting The Rolling Stones.
+Creators unknown
+The “Rolling Stones: Boycott Israel” Facebook page was created on 10 February by people whose identity is unknown. Its logo is lifted from the bdsmovement.net web site.
+Some of the content can be found on other sites and is not original to the Facebook page.
+No apparent effort was made by the publications who reported on the supposed campaign to contact any known activists to verify the content on the Facebook page. None of the stories mention any attempt to contact the maintainers of the hoax campaign page, either.
+So far, there has been no call by any known BDS activists for The Rolling Stones to cancel their show.
+The statements on the Facebook page, some of which were reported to be anti-Semitic, are made anonymously and cannot be attributed to known BDS activists or groups with established records.
+Anti-BDS page participants
+The first posts on the page are stacked with hostile comments from people attacking the alleged BDS campaign.
+JTA and The Jerusalem Post should have been suspicious that Zionists were the very first to be informed about the existence of the campaign while Palestine solidarity activists and BDS movement sources were completely in the dark about it.
+False claim of victory
+At 22:30 UTC on 13 February, the hoax Facebook page posted a message claiming victory:
+Our sources with The Rolling Stones confirm that there will be no announcement about a tour. The Zionists jumped the gun on their announcement and it looks like the whole thing is falling true. Thank you to the good people on staff that realize that playing in Israel is like supporting Apartheid South Africa. To those who already bought fake tickets from other Zionists ripping you off. You deserved it!
+In the past, JTA has accused BDS activists of misrepresenting victories, so it will be interesting to see how they report this hoax campaign’s hoax victory.
+The Jerusalem Post, Algemeiner and JTA should retract their false and misleading stories.
+They should also stop following leads from right-wing Zionist propaganda blogs who were the first to promote the hoax campaign outside Facebook.
+In light of this transparent hoax, serious readers should consider whether The Jerusalem Post and the JTA (and the publications that syndicate it like The Jewish Daily Forward and The Times of Israel) are reliable sources on Palestine solidarity activism.
+Update
+Following the publication of this post, JTA has now reported on the campaign as an “apparent hoax.”
+“A Facebook page claiming victory in getting the Rolling Stones to boycott Israel is an apparent hoax,” they report. They have asked the maintainers of the hoax campaign page to “explain” themselves.
 Tags

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-articleTitle: PA cuts cause shock in Gaza
-pageTitle: PA cuts cause shock in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Education and health bills go unpaid with income shortfall.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:05.097Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/pa-cuts-cause-shock-gaza/29511
 ---
-Inam Ibrahim prepares a meal in her kitchen. Her government benefits have recently been cut by the Palestinian Authority.
-Inam Ibrahim will not soon forget the tiring and disappointing morning she recently endured.
-The 53-year-old woman waited for five hours inside her bank to receive her regular Palestinian Authority allocation. Instead, a clerk told her that her account was empty and there was no money to take.
-“I was anxiously following the news on the radio about the Palestinian Authority’s cutbacks and waiting for anything related to the distribution of benefits last December. I managed to go early to the bank to collect the funds allocated for me and my sister,” she told The Electronic Intifada. “But when I learned that there was nothing to take, I broke into tears and went home with a broken heart.”
-Inam and her sister are both in their fifties, unmarried, and do not have any source of income outside of government support. Every three months, the sisters anticipate a combined $220 allowance to help them meet their financial obligations.
-The allowance is administered by the Palestinian Authority, which is headquartered in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
-“I used to pay for some of my drug treatments for severe back pain from this allowance, and I could visit a doctor frequently,” Inam stated. “My sister Muna, who is 56, takes her share each time to buy what she needs. We also pay grocery debts when we have access to this money.”
-Palestinian Authority benefit cuts have forced people such as Inam Ibrahim to struggle to pay for the medical care they need. She has lived with back pain.
-Abed Zagout“Our parents,” Inam said, “passed away long ago, and our brother lives with his family away from us. He barely can sustain his own family. So, we have nothing but this allowance. We need it back. Poor and hard-pressed people like us must be sheltered from political problems.”
-Shock
-Many other people have confronted the same shock regarding allocation cuts.
-Aziza al-Kahlout, the spokesperson for the Gaza-based social affairs ministry, told The Electronic Intifada more than 1,470 families have endured cuts to their allowances in recent weeks. The ministry has received many complaints and requests from families to investigate the matter.
-“Families are shocked. We have difficulties when we try to explain the situation to them and that we are exerting tremendous efforts to let officials in Ramallah know about their suffering. At the same time, we continue to coordinate with colleagues in Ramallah in order to work out this problem,” al-Kahlout said.
-She added that the ministry’s staff has carried out investigations for all the families affected by the cuts. The ministry has determined that all of them, except for two cases, are eligible to receive the full funds as most are either in dire financial circumstances or suffering from severe illnesses such as cancer and kidney failure.
-Still others are widows or divorced women who have to take care of children or disabled youth.
-“The situation is very tense. I receive visits on a daily basis from people who come to check what has happened with their cases and to learn whether they will be paid or not. These drastic and arbitrary cuts mean that several thousand poor women and children are left without food or treatment,” al-Kahlout noted.
-“We have explained the situation to our colleagues in Ramallah and alerted them to the agony of people here, but so far the situation has not changed.”
-Al-Kahlout also said that her ministry faces many difficulties in following cases, registering them and updating data as the ministry in Ramallah has prevented her colleagues from accessing the file which categorizes all the eligible families.
-“Denying us access to this crucial file has made our work more difficult. We should have access as Gaza has more than 60,000 cases registered in it.”
-Additional assistance to a larger number of people in Gaza is provided by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees. Food aid alone goes to some one million refugees in Gaza.
-Palestinian Authority cutbacks have been widespread and have hit both impoverished Gaza residents and government employees. Some of those employees demonstrated on 6 February in Gaza City.
-Abed Zagout“Future in danger”
-Families in Gaza with medical concerns suffer from the dramatic cuts as do those struggling financially.
-For Muhammad al-Bashiti life has become a living hell with his last source of income gone.
-The 46-year-old man was waiting for the money to pay his son’s university tuition so that the young man could receive his marks for his most recent coursework and register for the new semester.
-“I promised my son, who studies law at Al-Azhar University, that I would give him the needed amount so that he could complete his education. My son’s future is in danger now,” he said.
-Al-Bashiti has six children, all either in university or at school.
-His family is mainly dependent on assistance. They receive food aid, he says, from the United Nations every three months. This helps in providing the family with flour, rice and oil.
-And the allowance from the PA, which is received in cash, helps to cover some other basic expenses.
-“I went to the ministry in Gaza to complain about the cuts and they sent their workers to check my status,” al-Bashiti said. “They found out that I really deserve this assistance. I hope it will not take them a long time to resolve the matter.”
-“We want to be paid what we have lost,” he added, “and never be cut again.”
-Ramallah-based minister of social affairs Ahmad Majdalani said in a statement that more than 100,000 Palestinian families receive this assistance, with some 70,000 of the families located in Gaza.
-He asserted that the last distribution of funds cost more than $27 million – noting that about 2,000 new families were added to the list, 1,500 of them based in Gaza with the other 500 from the West Bank.
-Families, he maintained, are being excluded if they have another source of income and no longer need the funds.
-Yet those explanations fail to alleviate Khalil Abu Amra’s pain and disappointment after he did not receive his funds.
-“I suffer from cancer. I need the money to continue my treatment and save my life so that my four children are not fatherless,” the 39-year-old man said in a broken voice. “We need this problem to be solved quickly. We need our rights back. This is unfair.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: WATCH: “Shuja'iyah: Land of the Brave” reveals a crisis of humanity
+pageTitle: WATCH: “Shuja'iyah: Land of the Brave” reveals a crisis of humanity | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Short video by Palestinian filmmaker Hadeel Assali emphasizes need to scrutinize the priorities of humanitarian institutions.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:18.053Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/watch-shujaiyah-land-brave-reveals-crisis-humanity
 ---
+This short video by Palestinian filmmaker Hadeel Assali displaces the horrifying images of the 19-20 July Shujaiya massacre with sweeter ones she collected during a 2013 visit with her family in Gaza. Most of the video footage comes from Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
+About her video, Assali told me that after she was sent this recorded plea for help from the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, she created this short film “to show what ‘humanity’ means when we say ‘crimes against humanity.’”
+Over Assali’s sentimental and pleasant images we hear the audio from a frantic recording from journalist Samer Zaneed who tells us that residents of Shujaiya reported being abandoned by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during the massacre. As Al Akhbar reported on 21 July, “survivors confirmed that the Red Cross ignored their repeated calls before the communication network stopped completely.”
+Israeli attacks continued through the morning of the massacre. Meanwhile, journalists also contacted the ICRC but their calls were ignored. Al-Akhbar quotes an unnamed journalist who says that the Red Cross finally responded: “This isn’t our responsibility and the Israeli army prevented us from entering the area because it declared it a military zone.”
+The Red Cross responds
+On 22 July, Nasser Najjar, a spokesperson of the ICRC in Gaza, responded to Assali’s video in an email seen by The Electronic Intifada. Najjar wrote that the institution was “extremely concerned about the human toll of the hostilities taking place in Gaza, especially about those civilians who are surrounded by conflict and unable to get help.”
+Najjar added:
+On 20 July we facilitated a humanitarian ceasefire between the IDF [Israeli military] and Hamas which enabled us to evacuate civilians from Shujaiya and yesterday we evacuated the wounded after a hospital was caught in the line of fire in Deir al-Baleh. At times, both ICRC and PRCS [Palestine Red Crescent Society] emergency services have been overwhelmed by thousands of calls for help, especially during intensified hostilities. We’re working at full capacity in complex, dangerous and challenging circumstances and our team in Gaza is doing everything in its power to respond to those in need.
+Both Al-Akhbar and my own sources report that inquiries with ICRC office in Jerusalem about their activities in Gaza are not answered by the Jerusalem office.
+Crisis of humanitarian institutions
+Last month, Ali Abunimah criticized the ICRC when it called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of three Israeli teenagers later found dead in the occupied West Bank, while never making similar demands of Israel which, as of April, held 196 Palestinian children in military custody.
+At the time, the ICRC spokesperson in Jerusalem responded that Israel’s detention and torture of Palestinian children are violations of international humanitarian law and that it was “monitoring” Palestinian children in detention. This passivity suggests that the detention of Palestinian children is considered low priority for the organization, even though it acknowledges its illegality.
+Now the institution’s personnel in Gaza tell us that they are “working at full capacity.” Yet despite their efforts, they are not able to meet people’s dire needs.
+If Palestinian children are not a priority and “full capacity” means human lives are still neglected, then the priorities of the ICRC deserve harsh scrutiny.
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-articleTitle: "This is our sea"
-pageTitle: "This is our sea" | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Suhail al-Amoudi was jailed for 18 months after he tried to break Gaza's blockade.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:05.796Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/our-sea/31651
 ---
-Suhail al-Amoudi (left) still goes to Gaza’s shore every morning, even though Israel has confiscated his fishing boat.
-The Electronic IntifadaSuhail al-Amoudi spends a great deal of time on Gaza’s shore.
-Watching the waves rise and descend fills him with memories. For more than three decades, he supported his family by fishing.
-Al-Amoudi, 58, cannot exercise that profession any longer; Israel has confiscated his boat.
-In July 2018, he used that boat in an attempt to break the blockade of Gaza.
-The attempt took place amid the Great March of Return – weekly protests to demand that Palestinian refugees have their rights fulfilled.
-With al-Amoudi as captain, his boat sailed toward Cyprus. Some of his passengers needed medical treatment, while others wished to study abroad.
-The boat was part of a small flotilla intending to venture farther than the very limited area where Gaza’s fishers may operate.
-When the boat was around 12 miles from the coast, it was surrounded by Israeli naval forces. The Israelis boarded the boat and “there were guns appearing from all sides to attack us – peaceful people with no weapons,” said al-Amoudi.
-By his estimate, there were at least 100 troops involved in attacking the boat. Once they had taken control of the vessel, they towed it to Ashdod, a port in Israel.
-“Tiny and dirty”
-The 16 passengers on the boat were held for a short period, then brought back to Gaza. They reentered it via Erez, an Israeli military checkpoint.
-Al-Amoudi was not among them. He was kept behind Israel’s bars.
-“I was isolated in a cell for a whole month,” he said.
-“It was tiny and dirty. It was the first time in my life I found myself in those kinds of conditions so it was a big shock. I remember the prison guards saying they were going to be tough with me so that nobody else in Gaza would try to break the siege in the way I had done.”
-Al-Amoudi was put on trial. In total, he was brought to court 25 times.
-“It used to take long hours to reach the court,” he said. “All that time I was handcuffed and prevented from using the bathroom. They treated me very badly. I am an old man in his late fifties, but they didn’t show me any respect.”
-Because his lawyer negotiated a plea deal, al-Amoudi was handed a shorter sentence than he had feared. He pleaded guilty to having connections with an organization categorized as “terrorist” and was imprisoned for 18 months.
-Israel brands almost all forms of resistance to its occupation as “terrorism.” Although the Great March of Return was an unarmed protest, the Israeli government alleged that none of the participants were civilians.
-By making that baseless claim, sought to smear people demanding justice as “terrorists.”
-Defiance
-Al-Amoudi met many other Palestinians in Nafha, an Israeli prison. He made some great friends, but that did not compensate for how he was denied any visits throughout his 18 months in captivity.
-Two of his grandsons were born while he was imprisoned, but he could not see them until after his release. Both were named Suhail in his honor.
-“My father is the center of our family,” said Wael, his eldest son. “We counted the days until we saw him again.”
-Israel has threatened al-Amoudi with further imprisonment if he ever tries to break the siege of Gaza again.
-It is, of course, deplorable that he should be treated as a criminal when he was trying to save lives. That fact is underscored by the fact one of the passengers on his 2018 voyage has subsequently died.
-The passenger in question had cancer and needed treatment that was not available in Gaza’s hospitals. According to the World Health Organization, the year prior to al-Amoudi’s initiative, 54 Palestinians from Gaza died following Israel’s military either denying them permission to travel for treatment or delaying necessary permits.
-Israel never returned al-Amoudi’s boat after seizing it when he tried to break the Gaza blockade. So he views going to the shore every morning as an act of defiance.
-Even if he cannot venture out to sea, he likes to advise and assist other fishers.
-The cruelty inflicted on al-Amoudi is in no way unique.
-The waters around Gaza are among the most dangerous in the world – and not because of natural phenomena such as stormy weather.
-After opening fire on fishers off Gaza a total of 350 times last year, Israel has repeatedly employed such violence in 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli forces fired on fishing boats operating inside the permitted area 100 times during the first four months of this year.
-The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has documented how Israel fired on fishing vessels off Gaza at least 12 times last month.
-“Fishing in the sea off Gaza is more than a career,” al-Amoudi said. “It is a form of resistance. When we fish, we expose ourselves to great danger. But we are still willing to defend our rights.”
-“I may be on the shore, but I still try to help my comrades to fish,” he added. “This is our land and this is our sea. We have our roots here and no force can kick us out.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Oxfam “ambassador” Scarlett Johansson praised for “strong pro-Israel stance”
+pageTitle: Oxfam “ambassador” Scarlett Johansson praised for “strong pro-Israel stance” | The Electronic Intifada
+description: PR expert says pro-Israel advocacy by Oxfam's Scarlett Johansson is better than the work done by the Israeli government.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:18.676Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/oxfam-ambassador-scarlett-johansson-praised-strong-pro-israel-stance
 ---
+An artist’s collage juxtaposes the real-life conditions Palestinian workers face in the occupied West Bank with an image of SodaStream and Oxfam spokesmodel Scarlett Johansson’s. (collected online)A prominent pro-Israel public relations specialist has praised Oxfam “Global Ambassador” Scarlett Johansson for her effective propaganda on behalf of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
+Writing in Haaretz, Marco Greenberg lauds the actress’ defense of the occupation-profiteering Israeli firm SodaStream as “a master class in … reputation management and crisis communications.”
+Oxfam is facing growing calls to dump Johansson after the actress signed a lucrative endorsement deal with SodaStream which manufactures home carbonation machines in an illegal Israeli settlement.
+Greenberg, a former “strategic media” advisor in the Israeli army, writes frequently on pro-Israel propaganda – hasbara – initiatives.
+He is also a practioner as president of Thunder11, the firm that produced the homophobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic astroturf initiative Iran180 for their client the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
+“Strong pro-Israel stance”
+Greenberg adds that Johansson’s performance went beyond defending the company but also delivered “a strong pro-Israel stance while expressing nothing but respect for the Palestinians.”
+By “respect” he must mean that Johansson was able to assert a concern for “peace” and development while totally ignoring Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights – a far more sophisticated approach than crude demonization.
+Better than the Israeli government
+Greenberg contrasts SodaStream’s and Johansson’s advocacy with the Israeli foreign ministry’s “well-meaning but too often ill-advised and self-serving attempts to ‘brand Israel.’”
+He argues that SodaStream is a model for how private companies, rather than government, should be at the vanguard of messaging designed to deflect criticism of Israel’s abuses of Palestinians.
+Extending his logic, Johansson’s ongoing association with Oxfam is an added benefit, because it associates Israel and SodaStream with an hitherto highly respected international charity.
+But Greenberg is apparently unware that at least one company founded in Israel, cosmetics brand Yes to Carrots, has preferred to promote its bottom line rather than confront the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) head-on.
+That company has taken deliberate measures to conceal its Israeli roots.
+Greenberg’s praise is likely to heighten the disquiet within Oxfam, among those who see the charity’s ongoing association with Johansson doing serious damage to its reputation and its work with Palestinian partners.
+“Against the occupation” while profiting from it
+In The Jewish Daily Forward, Nathan Jeffay reports very favorably on a visit to the SodaStream factory in the occupied West Bank.
+SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum laments the existence of his company’s factory in the Maaleh Adumim settlement as “a pain in the ass” but says he remains committed to it.
+“We will not throw our employees under the bus to promote anyone’s political agenda,” he says, referring to the BDS movement.
+Birnbaum’s committment to the settlement factory is cast as loyalty to the Palestinian employees.
+But more likely it stems from the fact that Israeli factories can operate in the West Bank with total disregard for environmental laws and employment regulations, while benefitting from tax breaks and heavily-subsidized infrastructure.
+Jeffay misses the bigger picture. As the Palestinian Nongovernmental Organizations Network (PNGO) points out, a few SodaStream jobs  must not obscure the economic destruction and dependency Israeli occupation and colonization causes to millions:
+Palestinians are not employed at the factory of their own free will; the intentional economic suffocation of the occupied Palestinian territories by the Israeli state through extensive taxation, restrictive trade relationships, land annexations and mass resource expropriation puts Palestinians in a desperate position whereby their only means of income is often through illegal Israeli economic endeavors in the occupied lands, such as settlement work.
+Yet Maurice Silber, identified merely as “Birnbaum’s advisor,” tells The Forward that within the company, “everybody is against the occupation.”
+Silber in fact appears to be an important figure in efforts to defend SodaStream and all Israeli companies from campaigns to support Palestinian human rights. He has written in the Israeli media about the BDS movement’s supposed harm to Palestinians and even coordinates and advises pro-Israel activists such as StandWithUs on defensive campaigns.
+Since at least October 2012, he has been quoted in media and identified as an independent advisor to SodaStream’s executives, though he has a sodastream.com email address and no history as an “independent management consulting professional” according to our English and Hebrew language searches.
+Perhaps Oxfam, like Silber, believes that one can be against the occupation while profiting from it. And maybe that explains why the charity is so reluctant to let go of Scarlett Johansson.
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-articleTitle: Displacement gets harder and harder
-pageTitle: Displacement gets harder and harder | The Electronic Intifada
-description: People in Deir al-Balah are forced to live on the sidewalks.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:06.198Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/displacement-gets-harder-and-harder/47926
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-Rana Khaled recently had to rescue two of her children. (Abdallah al-Naami) Simple words have lost their meaning amid the current genocidal war.
-“Safe” is one such word. In Gaza, a zone designated as “safe” by Israel is not safe from bombs, disease, summer heat or even sea waves.
-Rana Khaled is a mother of five.
-In the early stages of the war, she and her family were displaced from northern Gaza. They moved to several places over the past nine months before setting up a tent on the beach in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah.
-A few weeks ago, Rana was preparing breakfast for her children when suddenly a large wave crashed into the tent.
-Rana heard her children screaming. They were crying for help.
-The waves had pulled them from the tent and into the sea.
-“I was terrified,” Rana said.
-“I made my way through the waves as quickly as I could until I reached my youngest son, who was starting to drown,” she added. “Our neighbors helped me to save my other son.”
-One of Rana’s sons – aged 2 – was barely breathing.
-“He had swallowed a large amount of salty seawater,” she said. “He needed to drink some fresh water but we did not have any.”
-Rana had to carry him away from the beach and go searching for water that was fit to drink.
-She had hoped that being beside the sea would offer some respite amid the ongoing genocide. “But that was not the case,” she said.
-Three of Khitam Kuhail’s five children were killed in an Israeli attack that destroyed their Gaza City home.  Another one of her children remains unaccounted for.
-Following the attack, Khitam fled Gaza City with her surviving son, who has a disability.
-First they went to Maghazi refugee camp in the Middle Area. When Israel invaded Maghazi, they fled to Nuseirat, another refugee camp, later leaving it for Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
-Khitam hoped that Rafah would be their final destination during this war. But Israel’s invasion of the city in May uprooted her once more.
-After an arduous journey, she arrived in Deir al-Balah. The city was so crowded that she had to set up a tent on a sidewalk.
-Khitam Kuhail in her Deir al-Balah tent. (Abdallah al-Naami)  Khitam has a heart condition and other chronic medical issues. She has previously lost an eye.
-“All I want is to protect my son and take care of him,” she said, adding that “it gets harder and harder every time” she has been displaced.
-Khitam has to queue for water on a daily basis. She has to wait for hours before she can fill up a container.
-At nighttime, rodents, mosquitoes and other insects “spread from sewage swamps in the area into the streets and tents,” she said.
-“Not only are they annoying and scary, they can transmit dangerous diseases,” she added. “I can’t even leave the tent at night to go to the bathroom because I’m afraid of the stray dogs roaming the streets.”
-A summer of suffering
-Shaaban al-Qayed and his family had to evacuate their Gaza City home in the early stages of the war. The home has been destroyed, causing huge stress for Shaaban.
-He has also required a leg amputation – after a blood clot – during the war.
-Like so many others, the family had relocated to Rafah and then were uprooted by Israel’s invasion of that city.
-The amputation which Shaaban had undergone made his displacement from Rafah extremely difficult.
-Shaaban said “we were shocked to learn” that arranging transportation from Rafah to Deir al-Balah would cost almost $150. “We have not had any income since the beginning of this war,” he added.
-The family managed to scrape together enough money for the journey. In Deir al-Balah, they had to set up a makeshift tent on a sidewalk.
-Shaaban al-Qayed beside his makeshift tent. (Abdallah al-Naami) Ameen al-Qayed –Shaaban’s cousin – and his family also live in a tent on a Deir al-Balah sidewalk.
-It has been a summer of relentless suffering.
-“Our tent does not provide us with any kind of protection from the heat,” Ameen said. “I feel as if I am living inside an oven.”
-Ameen has chronic health issues and has fainted a number of times both inside the tent and on the street. His son experienced a heat stroke recently.
-“We do not have enough water to drink and shower,” Ameen said. “We desperately need water in this hot weather.”
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Watch: Short film reflects on mirror taken from Palestinian village in 1948
+pageTitle: Watch: Short film reflects on mirror taken from Palestinian village in 1948 | The Electronic Intifada
+description: In "Mirror Image," Israeli filmmaker Danielle Schwartz negotiates with her family to tell the story of a mirror taken from a Palestinian village in the Nakba.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:18.774Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/watch-short-film-reflects-mirror-taken-palestinian-village-1948
 ---
+Update
+The film embedded above was accidentally available to the public. The filmmaker Danielle Schwartz will make the film available online later this year after she has exhibited it at other film festivals, which demand exclusive exhibition rights. In the meantime, please check out Schwartz’s other work on Vimeo. Festivals who want to preview or exhibit Mirror Image should send her a message through Vimeo.
+Original post
+In her short film Mirror Image, Israeli filmmaker Danielle Schwartz and her grandparents “negotiate the words to tell the untold history” of a large mirror in their home but also of the Nakba. Schwartz created the film for the International Film Festival on Nakba and Return organized by Zochrot in November 2013.
+The film beings with brief shots of a bucolic garden and a tidy home filled with memories and artifacts
+Aside from the Israeli flag bunting and other details, this home might remind anyone of their own grandparents’ home.
+Schwartz sits with her grandparents at the kitchen table and begins to read the brief story she has written about the mirror, which is known to have been previously owned by a Palestinian household.
+When Schwartz describes the Zionist settlement where her grandfather was born in 1931 near “the Palestinian village of Zarnuqa,” her grandmother interrupts, “In those days we wouldn’t say ‘Palestinian,’ we’d say ‘Arab’ village.”
+Schwartz’s grandmother is more comfortable discussing the past than her husband who displaces his own anxiety on to Schwartz.
+Often the grandmother’s interventions in the discussion serve to elaborate or explain the unspoken but palpable feelings of her husband Yossi about the past.
+When they begin to discuss the history of the mirror itself, the conversation becomes tense and her grandfather resists.
+“What does that have to do with it?” asks Yossi when Schwartz tells that Zarnuqa was conquered by the Givati Brigade in May 1948.
+Grandmother assures everyone at the table that “it’s written in history books… it’s nothing to worry about.”
+However, Schwartz’s telling of the story is continuously interrupted by disputes over word choice. Was Zarnuqa “conquered?” Is the mirror “plundered” or merely “taken?”
+“That’s what happened to the mirror, not to us.”
+Schwartz wants to tell an honest and accurate story, but it has to be one that her grandparents can also recognize and identify with.
+It is not a topic Schwartz’s grandparents would probably ever discuss if it weren’t for their granddaughter’s insistence.
+“It’s clear that we’re only doing this for you. It’s clear… No doubt. We’re going along with things that maybe we wouldn’t do otherwise,” Schwartz’s grandmother reminds her.
+“I hope it’s because you love me but also because you trust me and know that I love you,” Schwartz responds.
+“Nevertheless, there are things that are still hard for us, and even though we trust you, there are things with which we don’t trust you,” her grandmother replies.
+It is easy to identify with this family dynamic.
+Just as Palestinian youth draw out the heavy and shuttered personal stories of the Nakba from their elders, Schwartz is of a new generation of Israeli Jews who challenge the dominant Zionist narrative by pressing her own grandparents for a more honest version of their story.
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-articleTitle: Hope in the shape of a tomato
-pageTitle: Hope in the shape of a tomato | The Electronic Intifada
-description: A sister provides love and nourishment for her children, who repay her with their faith in a better tomorrow.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:06.390Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/hope-shape-tomato/50379
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-Children wait to receive food from charities in Khan Younis on 1 January.
-APA imagesI live with my sister Hanin in a small tent on the outskirts of al-Zawaida near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Before the ceasefire, trying to survive the constant Israeli attacks consumed all our time.
-Hunger made those days pass with slow, unbearable pain.
-Hanin, 26, is a mother to two children, Riad, 5, and Imad, 3. She carries the weight of the world on her shoulders while trying to hide her pain behind a smile that fools no one.
-Every morning, I wake up to the sound of Riad trying to craft a new toy from sticks and stones. “I’ll make a tomato tree, and we’ll eat from it every day,” he says with a voice full of hope. Imad sits beside him, clapping enthusiastically as if cheering his brother on to turn the dream into reality.
-One day in November 2024 we all sat inside our tent, trying to share what little food we had left: A small piece of bread and a bit of olive oil. Imad, too young to grasp the meaning of hunger, stared at the tiny plate in front of him and then at his mother, as if asking why there wasn’t more.
-Riad, with his innocent curiosity, looked at me and asked: “Why can’t we eat until we’re full?”
-I had no answer.
-‘Finding’ a miracle
-Suddenly, Hanin stood up and left the tent. I knew she was going to look for something, anything, to feed her children. After a while, she returned, holding a small withered tomato in her hand. She looked at us with a forced smile and said, “I found this in the nearby field. We’ll add it to our dinner.”
-She sat on the ground, placed the tomato on a piece of stale bread and began cutting it with extreme care. She treated the tomato as if it were the most precious thing she had. The children gathered around her, their eyes shining with excitement.
-She divided the tomato slices among us. Riad took a small piece and looked at it cautiously before asking, “Mama, if I eat it slowly, will it grow bigger?”
-Hanin laughed softly and replied,“Yes, Riad, if you eat it with love, it will feel like it’s growing.”
-Imad ate his slice of the tomato carefully, as if he were afraid it would vanish too quickly. I noticed the
-exhaustion in my sister’ eyes and the worry for her children’s future. I realized hunger wasn’t
-the only weight on her shoulders.
-After we finished eating, Riad went outside the tent and started collecting stones and sticks to craft his “tomato tree.” Imad sat beside him, helping arrange the “tomato fruits” made of small rocks.
-Finding strength
-That night, after the children had fallen asleep, I sat with Hanin outside the tent. The moon illuminated the empty field in front of us. I asked her how she found the strength to keep going.
-She answered quietly, “I have no choice. Riad and Imad think the tomato I brought today was a miracle, and I want to believe that too. They don’t understand that tomorrow might bring nothing.”
-I had no words to offer her. I just sat beside her, watching the field and wondering if more miracles awaited us.
-In the days that followed, Riad and Imad began treating the field outside the tent as if it were a magical farm. They buried seeds they found unsuitable for eating, saying, “When the tomato tree grows, the food will return, and so will Baba.”
-Their father, Mahmoud Sammour, is a teacher at Al-Aqsa University. The Israeli military detained him in November 2023 when the family tried to move to the south for safety. He remains a captive in Israeli detention.
-I watched Hanin, realizing how her children’s simple dream had turned into something resembling faith for her. Every day, she went out with the boys, watering the ground with the little water we had and whispering a quiet prayer no one else could hear: “Maybe the earth will bloom one day.”
-Maybe.
-But I knew that Hanin wasn’t just watering the earth. She was nurturing hope in her children’s hearts – a hope that tomorrow might be less cruel and that life, despite everything, could be reborn from a single tomato.
-Maha Mahdi is a freelance writer in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: UK student union to cancel G4S contract over role in Israeli prisons
+pageTitle: UK student union to cancel G4S contract over role in Israeli prisons | The Electronic Intifada
+description: G4S continues to lose contracts over its deep involvement in Israeli apartheid
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:19.800Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas/uk-student-union-cancel-g4s-contract-over-role-israeli-prisons
 ---
+The campaign against G4S is one way to take action in solidarity with Palestinian political prisonersThe student union at the University of Kent in the southeast of England is to terminate its contract with G4S following an “outcry” over its role in human rights abuses in Palestine, South Africa, the UK and other countries.
+G4S provides security and incarceration “services” to Israeli military bases, checkpoints, illegal settlements and prisons at which Palestinian political prisoners are held without trial and subjected to abuse and torture.
+Kent Union announced during a meeting last week that it is to cancel its contract with G4S, which currently provides the union with cash handling services. The meeting overwhelmingly approved a motion condemning G4S, and the union is holding a student referendum this week to decide whether to launch a campaign to pressure the University of Kent to cancel its own, separate, contract with G4S.
+Kent Union environment officer Tom Currie said the decision was taken following the “huge outcry” among students after details of G4S’ human rights abuses were highlighted on campus by the Palestine Society and other groups. Currie added that he hopes the university will now “respond by terminating their contract with G4S.”
+Tortured to death
+Randa Wahbe, advocacy officer at Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights organization that campaigns against G4S, told The Electronic Intifada that Addameer welcomed the Kent Union decision:
+In light of the fact that two Palestinian prisoners, Husam Omar and Musa Soufian, are currently on hunger strike for 25 days in protest of their solitary confinement in Megiddo, an Israeli prison with G4S surveillance, and that in 2013 a Palestinian prisoner, Arafat Jaradat, was tortured to death in an interrogation cell with surveillance cameras installed by G4S, Addameer commends the student union at the University of Kent for taking a stand against corporate complicity and the human rights violations against Palestinians by terminating its contract with G4S.
+Wahbe is due to visit the University of Kent next week during Israeli Apartheid Week as part of the Palestinian lives, British profits speaking tour organized by campaigning group War on Want that will also visit London, Essex, Durham and Scotland.
+Abuse around the world
+As well as G4S’ role in Israeli apartheid, the student campaign against G4S by Kent students also cites the fact that the company has been widely condemned for its role in human rights abuses while a operating a prison in South Africa and while providing asylum and deportation “services” to the UK government.
+UK authorities are currently deciding whether or not to procecute G4S for its role in the death of Jimmy Mubenga, who died while being “restrained” by G4S guards on a deportation flight in 2010.
+Lost contracts
+The Kent Union boycott of G4S follows similar decisions by student unions at Edinburgh and Dundee and student campaigns that last year suceeded in preventing G4S from being awarded multi-million pound contracts at universities in London and Southampton.
+Clear choice
+Research center Who Profits recently revealed that the contract G4S holds with the Israel Prison Service is due to expire in 2015.
+So G4S now has a clear choice to make in the coming months: either it can choose not to renew its contract with the Israel Prison Service as a first step towards ending its complicity with Israeli apartheid, or it can remain an active participant in torture and detention without trial and continue to lose out on lucrative contracts as a result.
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-articleTitle: Why child labor is common in Gaza
-pageTitle: Why child labor is common in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Sons support unemployed parents by selling drinks and mending shoes.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:06.450Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-child-labor-common-gaza/29221
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-Growing numbers of children have to work as Gaza’s economy deteriorates.
-ActiveStillsIt is cold and windy outside but Anas keeps himself busy.
-The 12-year-old has to get drinks ready for people on the Gaza City seafront. In the summer, he sells fruit juices and ice cream; in the winter, tea, coffee and sahlab – a hot milk pudding.
-Anas performs this task – along with his older brother – each afternoon. He attends school in the morning.
-“I usually don’t do my homework until the evening,” he says. “But if I have an exam the next day, I bring my books with me to work. I study when I have ten minutes off.”
-“Better than begging”
-Though still a child, Anas has to earn money for his family.
-He has five siblings. Their father Adham is in poor health and has long been unemployed.
-“I am thankful that my two sons can do some work so that we can survive in very difficult circumstances,” Adham said. “It is hard for them. But it is better than begging for money.”
-The UN monitoring group OCHA has stated that child labor is a “commonly used mechanism to alleviate poverty” in Gaza.
-OCHA has cited data suggesting that more than 4,800 out of 370,000 children between the ages of 10 and 17 were working full time in Gaza during 2018. A further 1,500 children in that age bracket were working while attending school.
-Such data indicate that at least 2 percent of Gaza’s children work either full or part time.
-The true proportion is likely to be higher. OCHA acknowledged that there are no statistics available for how many children under 10 have to work.
-Children who work receive an average of $28 per month.
-OCHA has found that children are working amid  “an increasingly destabilized economy” in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli siege for more than 12 years.
-Gaza’s unemployment level – for adults – is among the highest in the world.
-Israel’s three major offensives against Gaza since December 2008 have seen numerous businesses destroyed or damaged.
-And Gaza has been hurt by cuts to public sector wages imposed by the Palestinian Authority, as well as by the ending of US aid to Palestinian refugees.
-“I will pay a heavy price”
-Ameen is only 11 yet has already dropped out of school.
-His parents are divorced. To support his mother and his four siblings, Ameen sells sweets and snacks at the entrances to schools and clinics in Maghazi refugee camp.
-He has to toil especially hard on Sundays.
-As many families do their weekly shopping on Sundays, he offers to help them at the local market in return for a small payment. Usually, he approaches women or elderly people and asks if he can carry their groceries.
-He can be paid up to $1.50 for assisting a customer “if people are generous,” he said. Usually, he gets around half that amount.
-Ameen was unhappy in school. Nonetheless, he regrets that he quit.
-“We had problems with money after my parents divorced and I had to do something to help my mom,” he said. “Without a proper education, you cannot dream of a good future. I know that I will pay a heavy price for the difficult situation we found ourselves in.”
-Ismail, 12, works as an assistant to a shoemaker in Nuseirat refugee camp.
-He spends six hours per day at this job. Friday is the only day of the week that he takes off.
-Ismail received the job on the recommendation of his uncle, who is friendly with the shoemaker. The boy’s wages come to approximately $100 per month.
-“It is a tiny wage,” said Ismail. “But it helps us to buy groceries and pay for other basic needs.”
-Ismail’s father is unemployed. As a result, the family has to get by on Ismail’s earnings and aid from the United Nations.
-His family’s situation is shared by many others. Approximately 46 percent of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants are categorized as below the poverty line – defined as living on less than $5.50 per day.
-“The situation in Gaza means that children have to think and act as older than they are,” said Ismail. “We get used to taking responsibility. I know that I have to so that my family can survive.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: London's SOAS backs Israel boycott in referendum landslide
+pageTitle: London's SOAS backs Israel boycott in referendum landslide | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Call to cut ties with Israeli institutions garners 73 percent of vote in referendum of students, faculty and staff.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:20.170Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rana-baker/londons-soas-backs-israel-boycott-referendum-landslide
 ---
+Rally on SOAS campus in support of the call for academic boycott.
+Campaigners at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, are celebrating a big victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement after a referendum to endorse an academic boycott of Israel passed by a landslide.
+The results, released Friday after five days of voting, showed that an overwhelming 73 percent of more than two thousand voters backed the boycott. Those eligible to vote on whether SOAS should cut all ties with Israeli academic institutions included students, faculty and contract staff.
+Although other university communities, student unions and academic bodies in several countries have backed the boycott in referendums, the all-inclusive nature of the SOAS vote is precedent setting.
+Following the announcement of the results, the SOAS “Yes” Campaign issued a statement emphazising that the victory “has demonstrated the popular appeal of BDS as a powerful form of protest and resistance.”
+“By voting in favor of the academic boycott, the SOAS community has confirmed its unwavering commitment to freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and has reasserted its call for an end to Israeli apartheid, oppressive occupation, and settler-colonialism,” the statement, quoted in full below, adds.
+Festive atmosphere
+Students anxiously gathered to await the results before their 7pm release at the SOAS bar.
+Every sector of the SOAS community endorsed the BDS call: 75 percent of students; 91 percent of cleaners, security and catering staff and 60 percent of academics voted in favor of the boycott.
+The atmosphere at the bar was festive. Members and students from all political groups on campus, including the Justice for Cleaners campaign, LGBTQIA+ Society and the Students’ Union celebrated alongside Palestine Society and BDS Working Group members to the melodies of Palestinian folkloric and Arab pop music until late into the night.
+This video, made by Amar Shabandar, records the moment the results were announced.
+The call for academic boycott had already been endorsed by these and other groups at SOAS, including the Tamil Society and Kashmir Solidarity Movement.
+Indeed, the SOAS Students Union has had a BDS policy since 2005. The Students’ Union-run campus shop, for instance, continues to exclude all Israeli products from its shelves.
+Similarly, the LGBTQIA+ Society recently voted in favor of keeping anti-Zionism as part of its safe-space policy. Among the most powerful SOAS supporters of BDS is the Justice for Cleaners campaign, mainly comprised of outsourced SOAS cleaners who have been campaigning for their rights since 2006.
+Journalists affiliated with right-wing newspapers maintained a strong presence on campus yesterday, constantly trying to pressure Palestine Society members into making statements and justifications to them.
+Their efforts having failed, the journalists, together with the “No” campaigners, disappeared before the results were announced.
+Breakdown of the referendum results.
+BDS Working GroupOn Wednesday, the “No” Campaign invited Israeli and pro-Zionist scholars to speak at SOAS. During the event, speakers made racist statements and the Israeli flag kept falling off the wall.
+At least one member of the racist Jewish Defense League (JDL) was present at the event co-organized by the right-wing Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
+Israeli universities backed Gaza attack
+The BDS victory at SOAS is the first step toward putting pressure on management to implement an academic boycott of Israel, particularly against Hebrew University, with which SOAS has institutional ties.
+Hebrew University, along with most other Israeli universities, fully supported Israel’s summer assault on Gaza that killed more than 2,200 people, more than 500 of them children.
+The “Yes” Campaign, run mainly by the BDS Working Group in collaboration with the Students’ Union and Palestine Society, registered more than one victory.
+It has shown the interconnection between liberation struggles against all forms of oppression, whether class-based or patriarchal. It has also been inclusive of Jewish students and academics long denied a platform in Israel and among Zionist groups in the UK.
+The Palestine Society has constantly reaffirmed its commitment to the struggle against racism, including anti-Semitism, and will continue to campaign for a full implementation of the academic boycott. Other universities, in the UK and elsewhere, should follow the path the SOAS community has taken.
+“Yes” Campaign press release
+A historic victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement was achieved today in the referendum on the academic boycott of Israel, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Out of 2,056 votes cast, an overwhelming majority of 73 percent voted in favor of boycotting Israeli academic institutions. This victory reinforces the demands of the BDS call issued in 2005 by Palestinian civil society organizations.
+The voting took place between 23 and 27 February. The referendum was school-wide, that is, it was open to all members of the SOAS community. This included current students, academics, non-academic staff, university governors and outsourced workers such as cleaners, security and catering staff. SOAS represents one of the most diverse student bodies in the UK with roughly 6,000 students and staff of multi-faith backgrounds from over 133 countries. The referendum was called for by the Students’ Union, and was conducted in an open, fair and transparent environment. Both the Yes and No campaigners were given equal platforms to hold panel discussions and debates.
+The academic boycott campaign was led by students and staff from various nationalities, backgrounds, and faith groups reflecting the broad support for the boycott. It has demonstrated the popular appeal of BDS as a powerful form of protest and resistance.
+By voting in favor of the academic boycott, the SOAS community has confirmed its unwavering commitment to freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and has reasserted its call for an end to Israeli apartheid, oppressive occupation, and settler-colonialism.
+Presently, SOAS has ties with the Hebrew University, which unapologetically joined the “war effort” last summer when the Israeli army murdered over 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza. In October 2014, the US weapons-producer Lockheed Martin announced that a cooperation agreement had been signed with Yissum, a technology firm that belongs to the Hebrew University.
+The academic boycott campaign stresses that the boycott does not contradict academic freedom as it targets Israeli institutions complicit in the oppression of Palestinians, not individuals. Open enquiry, free exchange of ideas, and intellectual freedom are crucial to every academic community, but freedom can only be real when it is afforded to all. This has to include the Palestinians.
+The Palestine Society and the BDS campaign at SOAS state:
+“This historic result has brought us one step further in our struggle for freedom and justice. We do not tolerate any collaboration with academic institutions which are complicit in human rights violations and which do not practice the values of academic freedom and equality. We call upon other universities to show their solidarity by joining the academic boycott.”
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-articleTitle: Easing Gaza's pain
-pageTitle: Easing Gaza's pain | The Electronic Intifada
-description: A Jordanian psychiatrist is trying to relieve depression.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:06.559Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/easing-gazas-pain/50228
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-Israel is harming Palestinians both physically and mentally. (APA Images) After months of Israel banning psychiatrists, Dr. Ammar al-Attar was allowed into Gaza on 20 April where he helped launch an online therapy clinic primarily aimed at helping people experiencing trauma and shock during the ongoing genocide.
-In-person follow-up sessions were also offered to those you signed up online.
-“I was surprised by the warm reception at the crossing and the hope Gazans have. For a moment, I forgot that I’m among people who have been at war for a long time,” al-Attar said, referring to Gaza’s Rafah crossing and his three weeks working in the enclave.
-He led a group of 11 Jordanian doctors who, as he described them, are highly experienced in various specialties and have a strong sense of loyalty to their Arab brothers and sisters in occupied Palestine.
-Mental health professionals in Gaza have long argued for a better system to provide medicines to their patients.
-Al-Attar said the needed medicines were collected and transferred through the Rafah crossing, assisted by pharmacies and doctors from Egypt. Then the medicines were originally distributed to two clinics in Rafah, one in Nuseirat (central Gaza) and two in Gaza’s north.
-But Israel has subsequently destroyed the clinics in Rafah and one of the clinics in the north.
-Al-Attar said he was overworked in Gaza as were the other mental health specialists struggling to provide help.
-“I used to meet no less than 30 cases daily and work until 2 am,” al-Attar said.
-He pointed out that “sleep disorders and sleep deprivation lead to most of the psychological problems that Gazans suffer from.”
-Sleeping problems can result in people “imagining things that do not exist and hearing strange sounds,” al-Attar said, with “a lack of sleep leading to tremors in the limbs, physical fatigue, joint pains” and depression.
-He and a group of Jordanian psychiatrists launched in early May an Instagram initiative named Psychological Recovery.
-“When officials communicated with relief and international organizations planning to visit Gaza, there was a great need for surgeons, orthopedists, pediatricians and emergency doctors,” al-Attar said. “However, no one thought of the Palestinians’ psychological conditions, which are as important as the physical one.”
-People considering seeking help from the clinic fill out a form electronically and communicate with their appointed Jordanian psychiatrist through voice or video. Therapy sessions are conducted online mostly, and any needed medication is prescribed and dispensed through a mental health clinic of the Palestinian health ministry.
-Helping boy after suicide attempt
-Ali, 10, lost his legs after an Israeli attack that hit his home leading to his spending two days buried under rubble. His treatment began at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
-He met with al-Attar after being transferred to the European Gaza Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
-“It was not easy to deal with him. He refused to eat or sleep and was disturbed by the reality around him that all children can move freely and play except for him,” al-Attar recalled, highlighting that the boy attempted suicide by wrapping an intravenous solution tube around his neck, and “this was the most shocking part in his case.”
-Al-Attar and other members of the Jordanian psychiatric team met with Ali and his mother and discussed a plan to provide him the treatment he needed.
-Ali started to show improvements in his mood and thinking after about 10 days of treatment and then requested the prosthetic limb doctor to start treatment and psychological rehabilitation sessions, al-Attar recalled.
-The boy’s condition is now stable as he is eating and sleeping normally but still needs to remain in the hospital for additional treatment.
-“I was overwhelmed with joy and happiness seeing Ali’s psychological state and physical condition improve,” al-Attar said.
-Yelling for help under rubble
-He also talked about another client, Husam, 23, who lost his family and the electronic appliance story he ran in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.
-The Israeli military had told Hussam and his family to evacuate from Jabaliya in October 2023 and then bombed their house before they could leave. Al-Attar said Husam remained buried under the rubble for 24 hours before the Palestinian civil defense forces arrived.
-The smoke and dust inside his mouth kept Husam from yelling to be heard at first.
-When he heard that people above him were saying that everyone in the house had been martyred, he managed to scream loudly enough to alert the rescue workers that he was alive under the rubble. They dug him out, and he was sent to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City where he was diagnosed with a fractured pelvis and with bleeding in the pelvic artery.
-“His psychological state was dangerous as he experienced loss, injury, siege and displacement, and the most critical one that affected Husam deeply was staying under rubble for a night,” al-Attar said.
-When Israeli troops besieged al-Shifa hospital and cut off the oxygen from the intensive care unit, seven other patients were martyred in front of him while others were kidnapped, Husam told al-Attar.
-He survived this ordeal and was transferred with the rest of the wounded and other patients to the European Gaza Hospital in the south. There, Husam told al-Attar that he developed strong friendships with the other patients and the medical staff.
-“Psychological sessions improved his condition” as did learning his mother and younger brother were alive and trapped in the north, al-Attar said, adding that Husam’s sleep has started to improve and his stress decrease since he began therapy and taking medication,
-The third case al-Attar discussed involved 12-year-old Fathi, who underwent several operations after being hurt while playing in front of a neighbor’s house when an Israeli bomb exploded.
-Fathi had been waiting to travel abroad for medical treatment to prevent his leg from having to be amputated.
-He and the five other members of his family were staying at al-Shifa hospital sharing only two beds. Fathi’s mother had sustained an eye injury, and his father was injured as well.
-All were on a list to travel abroad for additional medical care.
-After Israel invaded Rafah and closed the border crossing, time ran out on Fathi, and his leg was amputated.
-“’The whole family was in a difficult psychological state and in need of support,” al-Attar said.
-His work with the family helped Fathi and his parents accept that he would be without one leg until he could obtain a prosthetic one and then they all needed to work together to adapt to the situation.
-Leaving Gaza
-Al-Attar, who left Gaza with other members of the Jordanian medical team because of safety concerns, said he gained valuable experience in a very short time working with people in the territory.
-“Gaza has taught and changed me a lot, and I always feel that I’m delinquent no matter how much I do for them,” al-Attar said.
-“I left under the sounds of bombing around Rafah crossing. I left while others were being killed and injured and displaced. I wish I didn’t leave. I wish I was trapped there.”
-“Unlike what’s shown in the media, Gazans love life and joy more than one can imagine,” he said.
-“I was pleased by the weddings in the displacement camp at the European Hospital. I loved night gatherings where I used to gather with displaced Gazans to chat, eat dinner, drink tea and have anthem sessions.”
-Al-Attar wrote the following poem spontaneously about working as a psychiatrist during the Israeli genocide. “I had never written poetry, yet I did the day I left Gaza,” he said.
-This entity and its people have corrupted
-And God has bought souls above them
-They have destroyed the decorated homes of beloved ones
-and bombed the mosques, schools and villages
-They have left no one kneeling or prostrating
-They have mixed the bodies with sand and blood
-The hearts of children in Gaza have been burned
-Motherhood has been mourned with a seen betrayal
-Nisreen Alyan is a writer in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Scottish students say "yes" to boycotting Israel
+pageTitle: Scottish students say "yes" to boycotting Israel | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Union backs Palestinian right to education campaign, with just one vote against.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:20.914Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jalal-abukhater/scottish-students-say-yes-boycotting-israel
 ---
+A Palestine solidarity banner in Dundee, Scotland.
+The Electronic IntifadaThe Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel is continuously winning greater support among students in Britain and Ireland.
+During March, referendums endorsing BDS tactics were carried at the University of Dundee in Scotland, the National University of Ireland - Galway and King’s College London.
+On 27 March, a referendum was held by the Dundee University Student Association (DUSA) for students to vote on twelve different motions put forward by different societies on campus. The motion submitted by the Action Palestine society was approved with the largest majority of students voting ”yes.” Out of 660 votes cast, 479 (72.6 percent) supported the motion.
+DUSA boasts of being the number one student union in Scotland and the result of this poll indicates that students want it to take an ethical stance in opposing injustice in Palestine.
+In a similar referendum earlier that month, students at the National University of Ireland - Galway (NUIG) overwhelmingly voted in support of a call for their union to actively support the BDS movement; it was passed by an almost two to one margin, with 1,954 votes in favor, and 1,054 votes against. Students at Kings College London (KCL) have approved a similar divestment call by 348 votes in favor to 252 against.
+However, KCL students are currently facing a legal attack by pro-Israel groups, seeking to undermine their democratic decision.
+In Dundee, the response from the DUSA executive has been that it couldn’t implement the motion in its entirety, citing restrictions imposed by the UK Education Act of 1994. The association’s response did not explain why it felt restrained by that law.
+The Dundee University Action Palestine society hasn’t released a statement yet as both the society’s members and the DUSA executive are awaiting further details of how the BDS motion will be implemented.
+Supporting right to education
+The motion carried in Dundee calls on the students’ association:
+To ensure that products sold by this union were neither grown nor produced within occupied Palestinian territories nor by companies which are complicit in the occupation of Palestinian territories;
+To resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action or commercial transaction that gives political or economic support to the State of Israel and corporations directly complicit in its violations of international law;
+To endorse the global BDS movement against the State of Israel until it ends the occupation, complies with international law, recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality and respects the Palestinian right of return as stipulated in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
+Last month, the National Union of Students (Scotland) also voted almost unanimously to affiliate with the Right To Education campaign, run by students at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank. The motion succeeded with 100 votes in favor and only one vote against; this vote commits NUS Scotland to demanding international action against Israel’s human rights violations.
+Israel’s efforts to stifle pro-justice grassroots activism on university campuses seem to be fruitless. More and more students are being exposed to the reality of the situation in Palestine.
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-articleTitle: A harvest of heartbreak
-pageTitle: A harvest of heartbreak | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel has carried out more than 40 military incursions in Gaza this year.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:06.612Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/harvest-heartbreak/31851
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-Riyad al-Nisr is determined to keep farming, despite how Israeli forces inflicted permanent injuries on him.
-Yousif Shaheen went to harvest his eggplant crops early on 13 October. His farm – near the city of Khan Younis – is located a few hundred meters from the fence separating Gaza and Israel.
-Suddenly, the farmers noticed that Israeli soldiers were driving three bulldozers toward them.
-“We shouted at the bulldozers,” Shaheen said. “But they did not stop.”
-The Israeli troops bulldozed about 2.5 acres of Shaheen’s land. His entire crop of eggplants and his irrigation systems were destroyed.
-Shaheen believes that the Israeli troops planned the attack so that it would cause major harm to farmers’ livelihoods.
-“They waited until the eggplants were ready to be harvested,” he said. “I was heartbroken seeing my land and my crops obliterated.”
-At least 10 farmers incurred substantial losses because of the attack. The estimated total cost of the damage was approximately $32,000.
-Pattern of terror
-The 13 October incident was one of Israel’s worst attacks on Gaza farmers over the past few years.
-On 13 October, Israel carried out one of its worst attacks against Gaza’s farmers in recent years.
-Ashraf Amra
-APA imagesTwo days later, Israel inflicted terror on Gaza’s farmers once again.
-Ali Abu Said and 12 other farmers were working close to the village of Johr al-Deek on the morning of 15 October. They were around 300 meters from the boundary fence when they noticed a bulldozer and another military vehicle approaching them and Israeli troops shooting in their direction.
-“We started waving pipes [from the irrigation system] and buckets to show that we are just farmers,” Abu Said said. “But the soldiers kept firing bullets and tear gas canisters at us. So we all got on a tractor and drove as far away as we could.”
-On 18 October, Israeli forces again entered Gaza, destroying some farmland and irrigation systems east of Khan Younis.
-Israel sought to defend that incursion by claiming that its purpose was to destroy tunnels dug by Palestinian armed groups. Yet human rights groups contend that Israel has no justification for attacking Palestinian farmers and the land on which they work.
-Israel’s destruction of civilian property violates international law.
-Although Israel evacuated its army from Gaza in 2005, the military occupation has continued.
-The forces of occupation are stationed on the periphery but that does not mean they leave Gaza’s inhabitants alone. For years, Israeli troops have laid waste to Gaza’s farmland, using bulldozers, tanks and toxic chemicals.
-OCHA, a United Nations monitoring agency, has calculated that there have been more than 40 Israeli military incursions into Gaza this year.
-In January, Israel sprayed herbicides on Gaza’s farms, harming an area covering 495 acres. A similar attack occurred in April, when Israel used such chemicals to damage 145 acres of land.
-“My land is my livelihood”
-Mustafa Abu Odeh grows wheat near Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Israel sprayed herbicides on his crops at least five times during 2019.
-“I had to dredge the whole field and plant the wheat again,” he said.
-He is worried that Israel may strike again. “We have planted our wheat for this year,” he added. “The thought that we might have to uproot it and replant is heartbreaking.”
-Between 2017 and last year, Israeli troops carried out ground invasions of Gaza a total of 225 times.
-Riyad al-Nisr – now aged 60 – was shot by Israeli troops both in 2017 and 2018. He has a permanent injury in his right wrist that limits the use of his hand and he had to have two toes amputated from one of his feet as a result.
-Despite his injuries, al-Nisr still works on a farm located near Bureij refugee camp. He is trying to support 17 members of his family.
-“I have been working in agriculture for 42 years,” he said. “It was my grandfather’s profession and now it is my sons’ profession. My land is my livelihood.”
-Mahmoud Abu Shawish and his brother, Bilal, sell food from a cart.
-Abdallah al-NaamiIsrael’s attacks have taken place amid a dire economic situation.
-The siege which Israel has imposed on Gaza for the past 13 years has meant that farmers can only export a fraction of their produce. Seeds and agricultural equipment have become scarce and expensive because Israel has restricted numerous restrictions on imports.
-Sales opportunities for farmers have narrowed further this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Local markets have often been closed by the authorities.
-To try and make ends meet, Mahmoud Abu Shawish has lately tried to sell food from his farm by hauling it around Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
-Every day he loads an animal-drawn cart with fruit and vegetables. He uses a loudspeaker to try and drum up business.
-“I am selling my crops at the lowest prices,” he said. “That’s the only way I can try to compensate for the losses I have made since the pandemic began. It has turned us into street vendors.”
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.

+articleTitle: Activists who blockaded UK arms fair acquitted
+pageTitle: Activists who blockaded UK arms fair acquitted | The Electronic Intifada
+description: More than 100 were arrested while protesting weapons sales to world's worst rights abusers.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:27.052Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/activists-who-blockaded-uk-arms-fair-acquitted
 ---
+Protesters who blockaded a London arms fair celebrate acquittals outside court. (CAAT)Activists who protested against a major arms fair in London last year have been found not guilty of obstruction by a judge who described their actions as “reasonable.”
+More than 100 were arrested during the Defence and Security Equipment International gathering in September 2017, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade said.
+More than 40 people were charged, most with “obstruction of the highway.”
+Nine of the protesters facing charges were acquitted last week by a district court judge, according to the campaign group.
+On Saturday, a further three protesters were acquitted by a second judge.
+“Reasonable”
+Some of the world’s worst human rights abusers buy weapons at Defence and Security Equipment International, which takes place every two years. They include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel.
+A SandCat armored vehicle, made by Plasan, an Israeli company based in a kibbutz built on the ruins of a destroyed Palestinian village, was photographed being transported into the ExCel Centre in east London where the fair was held.
+UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia have increased by nearly 500 percent since it began bombing Yemen in 2015, with more than $6.4 billion worth of weapons sold within the first two years.
+During this period, Saudi Arabia has been accused of breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.
+Yemen is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the conflict, with more than a million children suffering from malnutrition and at risk from cholera.
+In 2007 and 2011, exhibitors at the London arms fair were found to have been promoting unlawful weapons after Amnesty International attended the event. Ever since this was exposed, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, organizers of the arms fair have barred entry to Amnesty.
+Given these circumstances, a district court judge described protesters’ actions as “reasonable” and threw out charges against five demonstrators last Wednesday, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade reported. Four others were found not guilty the following day.
+Court backs the public
+Three additional demonstrators arrested during Stop Arming Israel protests at the arms fair have had charges against them dropped. Others are still awaiting possible charges pending further investigation, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade said.
+However, nine of the 10 protesters tried in January were found guilty, with some ordered to pay court costs.
+There is a risk that the acquittal of the protesters will be appealed.
+The High Court overturned the 2016 acquittal of activists who had protested the arms fair the previous year.
+Chris Cole, one of the anti-arms trade activists found not guilty last week, nonetheless hailed the outcome of the trials as a victory.
+With three other people, Cole had “locked on” in the middle of a road, blocking access to the venue for an hour and a half to prevent set up.
+He told The Electronic Intifada: “The growing gulf between the negative views of the general public on the arms trade and those insisting that selling arms is a normal and legitimate business is likely to see growing protests, particularly at the next [Defence and Security Equipment International] arms fair in 2019.”
+“Given that courts are beginning to back the public on this, politicians and arms companies have some serious thinking to do,” he said.
+London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for the event to be scrapped.
+Right to protest
+Polling published by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade prior to the 2017 arms fair showed huge public opposition to the arms trade, with 76 percent of UK adults opposing weapons exports to repressive regimes.
+Meanwhile, 64 percent were against government support for arms fairs that include representatives from governments with poor human rights records, such as Israel.
+The court rulings are a boost to the right to protest in the face of heavy-handed policing meted out to demonstrators.
+Cole said that when a police officer was asked in the witness stand how senior officers had instructed him to facilitate the activists’ right to protest, he replied that ensuring this right had not been part of his orders at all.
+Cole added that the judge appeared to accept the argument that demonstrators had been exercising their rights under Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action formed part of the democratic toolbox.
+More trials related to the protests are due to be heard in the next two weeks.
+Tags

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-articleTitle: Malnutrition stalks Gaza
-pageTitle: Malnutrition stalks Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: About 86 percent of young children do not have a sufficient diet.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:11.826Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/malnutrition-stalks-gaza/31086
 ---
-The Abu Amra family receives an aid package from the UN agency for Palestine’s refugees every few months.
-The Electronic IntifadaMuhammad Abu Amra has diabetes and cannot afford treatment.
-He needs two insulin injections per day; each costs more than $7. He gets the medicine on credit.
-The debt he owes to two pharmacies is continuously rising.
-Muhammad and his family live in the Deir al-Balah area of central Gaza. Their home is in poor condition. It has holes in the walls and ceiling.
-During the summer, the temperatures have been unbearable. His five children have sustained numerous mosquito bites.
-“I feel helpless and hopeless,” Muhammad, 33, said. “My responsibilities are growing but because of my health I cannot fulfill them. And the economic situation facing my family is very bad.”
-Muhammad, who is unemployed, and his wife Mansoura have little money for groceries.
-“Sometimes I have to get very basic items – diapers, tissues, salt and sugar – on credit,” Mansoura said. She is banned from one supermarket until she pays a $200 bill.
-“Most of the meals I make for my children rely on the cheapest vegetables I can find – like potatoes and eggplants,” Mansoura added.
-“We only eat red meat or chicken once every six months. My children don’t drink milk – I am really concerned that this will harm their health in the long term.”
-Every three or four months, the Abu Amra family receives an aid packet from UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine’s refugees. It consists of flour, rice and cooking oil.
-According to Mansoura, the contents of the packet are generally used up within a month.
-Variety shrinks
-Malnutrition is a serious problem in Gaza, a recent study by the World Food Programme stated. It found that 86 percent of children under the age of 5 living near Gaza’s boundary with Israel did not have a minimal accepted diet.
-The World Food Program reported, too, that 28 percent of lactating women in Gaza have depleted levels of iron.
-An earlier report by the World Food Programme and other aid groups observed that people in Gaza had responded to the harsh economic situation by reducing the variety of food they eat.
-More than 68 percent of Gaza’s two million people are considered as food insecure by the United Nations. Food insecurity has been defined as not having access to or being unable to afford enough nutritious food to lead a healthy and active life.
-Malnutrition has been among the consequences of the tightened blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza. Human rights activists have documented how Israel devised a plan in 2008 aimed at reducing the amount of food available in Gaza.
-Aziza al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for Gaza’s social affairs ministry, said that the surrounding problems have worsened in recent months. Restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to greater unemployment.
-“Many people lost their sources of income – like drivers who no longer have passengers and workers from factories and other businesses that have been closed,” said al-Kahlout. “All of them and their families need urgent support in these difficult times.”
-As the authorities in Gaza are under financial strain, greater support is required from international donors “to stop the humanitarian situation from deteriorating,” said al-Kahlout.
-At least 50 factories have closed as a result of the pandemic and approximately 4,000 jobs have been lost in Gaza, according to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.
-Poor get poorer
-Mahmoud al-Lili runs a stall selling snacks in Maghazi refugee camp. Before the pandemic, he earned at least $5 per day.
-The 26-year-old sometimes makes less than $1 now. Business has plummeted since the Gaza authorities imposed restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.
-“I live with my parents, sisters and my married brother in a small house,” al-Lili said. “I try my best to make some money so we have something to eat for dinner. We are a poor family but the crisis has made us even poorer.”
-Samir al-Sayid is 56 and has a number of health problems, including high blood pressure. His nine-member family share a two-room home in Bureij refugee camp.
-“I do not work and I cannot meet my responsibilities toward my family,” Samir said. “We rely mainly on humanitarian aid to survive.”
-UNRWA’s aid packages are essential for the family.
-“When we get the package, I plan carefully how to get the most out of it and try to make it last for a long time,” said Siham, Samir’s wife. “I cannot buy the food for most of the dishes my children want me to cook. Cooking for my family is a constant nightmare.”
-Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza.
 Tags

+articleTitle: Students protest SOAS director's meeting with Israeli envoy
+pageTitle: Students protest SOAS director's meeting with Israeli envoy | The Electronic Intifada
+description: London college head's meeting with Mark Regev seen as effort to counter BDS.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:27.795Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/shahd-abusalama/students-protest-soas-directors-meeting-israeli-envoy
 ---
+Mark Regev presented his credentials as Israeli ambassador in the UK Monday. (Embassy of Israel, London)Students at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, protested on Thursday over an unannounced meeting between their institution’s director and Mark Regev, the new Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom.
+Previously the Israeli prime minister’s spokesperson, Regev is a familiar face on television screens where he has often defended military attacks on Palestinians.
+He started his new role as ambassador in London on Monday.
+On Wednesday, Regev posted on Twitter a photo of himself posing with SOAS director Valerie Amos, after they had had what he termed a “good meeting.”
+Dozens of students gathered outside SOAS Thursday chanting: “BDS go! Amos and Regev no!”
+A Facebook page set up by protest organizers stated that “by accepting the ambassador’s visit, Valerie Amos and SOAS as an institution are complicit in … ongoing colonialism.”
+Apology demanded
+Students also protested outside Amos’ office, calling for a free Palestine.
+A coalition of student societies issued a statement condemning the meeting, saying they considered it “a flagrant violation of the principles of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which the SOAS Students’ Union overwhelmingly voted to support in the largest student referendum ever held at SOAS last year.”
+The groups demanded an explanation, and for Amos “to apologize for meeting with Mark Regev … and to accept our invitation to work together on applying the result of the democratic BDS referendum to the university.”
+In an emailed response to the student union, Amos said: “I met the Israeli ambassador to follow up on a letter I had sent him about the detention and treatment of a SOAS research student at Ben Gurion airport.” She added that she saw this “as an important part of my responsibility as director.”
+But Zeid Shuaib, a Palestinian student at SOAS, told The Electronic Intifada that “this visit has a political message. This is an attempt to undermine BDS, and specifically the SOAS community’s relentless support for BDS.”
+An Israeli journalist on a visit to the London embassy recently reported on the “war room”-style map which details “the main campuses, the deployment of pro-Israel activists and the location of the ‘enemy forces.’”
+It seems likely SOAS students are considered among such “enemy forces.”
+Boycott
+In February last year, SOAS students celebrated a huge victory after a referendum to endorse an academic boycott of Israel.
+An overwhelming 73 percent voted in favor.
+But the coalition of student groups protesting the Regev meeting charged the administration with disregarding the result.
+“The student societies that supported the BDS referendum have made effort after effort to engage management to ensure that the governance of the university is kept democratic and have only been met with intimidation and aggression,” the groups said.
+Relentless
+While Regev was the Israeli prime minister’s chief spokesperson, he relentlessly justified Israel’s wars to the world’s media, including in the UK.
+Whether it was the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, or its repeated “mowing the lawn” massacres in Gaza, Regev was there to excuse Israel’s killing of civilians.
+SOAS student Roba Salibi said, “we will continue to mobilize and put pressure on the management to turn our BDS referendum result into actions, and ensure that such an offensive and outrageous act does not happen again.”
 Tags

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-articleTitle: Israel attacks fishers at sea and in court
-pageTitle: Israel attacks fishers at sea and in court | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Gaza family is worried that its boat will be confiscated permanently.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:11.961Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-attacks-fishers-sea-and-court/37681
 ---
-Jihad al-Hissi (wearing brown jacket) prepares for a day at sea.
-It is early morning, sunny but with a cool breeze. Jihad al-Hissi is busy helping fellow fishers to prepare a boat for a day at sea.
-There should not be anything unusual about the tasks they perform: fishers around the world do them all the time.  Yet the tension is almost palpable: Jihad, 56, is worried that his boat will not return to the port.
-For eight months last year, the boat was held by the Israeli authorities after its crew ventured a short distance beyond the small zone in which Gaza’s fishers are permitted to operate.
-Being away from the vessel was heartbreaking for Jihad.
-“Feeding our families was very hard during those months,” he said. “All we know how to do in life is fish.”
-Eventually the boat – named Al-Haj Rajab after Jihad’s father – was released to him under strict conditions. He was required to pay approximately $5,500 and warned that he may not go farther than three nautical miles from the shoreline.
-Jihad fears that the boat could be seized once again at any moment. The Israeli authorities have initiated court proceedings in an effort to confiscate the boat permanently.
-“Terrifying and cruel”
-The ordeal began on 14 February 2022.
-On that day, Jihad’s brother Nihad was captaining the boat. Nihad and other members of his extended family were lowering their nets into the sea, when three Israeli naval vessels approached them at high speed.
-The Israelis attacked Nihad and his crew with rubber-coated steel bullets and water cannons. Once they were beside the boat, three Israeli commandos jumped on board, screaming and continuing to shoot.
-“They even used electric shock weapons on us several times,” Nihad said.
-“It was the most terrifying and cruel experience of my life,” he added. “Not only because I was in danger but because it was hard to see my sons and nephews injured and in handcuffs.”
-Nihad al-Hissi, pictured here with his son, was captaining the boat when it was attacked by Israel last year.
-Abdallah al-NaamiAll six fishers, including Nihad, were arrested and brought to Ashdod, a naval base in Israel.
-Later, the fishers were taken to the Erez military checkpoint which separates Israel and Gaza. They were interrogated before being released in the late evening.
-The excuse offered by Israel for its brutality was that the boat was outside the permitted fishing area.
-Nihad pointed out that it is often impossible to catch enough fish inside the permitted zone. Fishers have to go farther in the hope they will have a large enough daily catch.
-Otherwise, their activities would not be economically viable.
-Under the Oslo accords – signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s – Gaza’s fishers may venture up to 20 nautical miles from the shore.
-Israel has not respected the accords.
-Unprecedented
-It has repeatedly changed the limits applying to fishers. At times, Israel has reduced the zone to as little as three nautical miles and even banned fishers from going to sea completely for certain periods.
-While naval attacks on Gaza’s fishers are frequent, the court proceedings Israel has initiated against the al-Hissi family is regarded as unprecedented.
-According to Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the authorities are wrongly trying to invoke provisions of international law. These provisions concern the seizure of enemy ships and, in Gisha’s view, should not be applied to civilians.
-It is deeply ironic that Israel is posing as a defender of international law in this case.
-The restrictions Israel has imposed on fishers and the violence to which Israel has subjected them constitute collective punishment. That crime is outlawed by the Fourth Geneva Convention, a cornerstone of international law.
-Al Mezan, a Gaza-based human rights group, has found that Israel carried out hundreds of attacks on Palestinian fishers in 2022 alone. Such attacks have continued in the first few months of this year.
-Israel’s seizure of his boat caused major problems for Jihad.
-The boat Al-Haj Rajab is named after Jihad’s father, who worked as a fisher in Jaffa.
-Abdallah al-NaamiAs he had no income, his debts mounted. And when the boat was finally handed back to him, it had sustained serious damage.
-Some of the damage resulted directly from the attack. Other damage resulted from the boat’s engine being exposed to the elements during the eight months it was kept in Ashdod.
-Repairing it cost approximately $11,000.
-Jihad also lost nets and other fishing gear that had been cast into the sea just before the attack occurred.
-Replacing the equipment cost an additional $10,000. Jihad had to borrow heavily so that he could pay those bills.
-While many fishers have left the profession since Israel imposed a full blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, Jihad is determined to keep plying his trade.
-He regards it as his duty to do so as he comes from a family of fishers. He recalls hearing stories that his father told him about working as a fisher in Jaffa.
-The family hails from that port city in historic Palestine. They moved to Gaza after being uprooted during the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
-“Even when my boat was taken away from me, I insisted on going down to the port [in Gaza] every morning,” Jihad said. “Life away from the sea’s breeze is unbearable.”
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
-Tags

+articleTitle: Michael Deas's blog
+pageTitle: Michael Deas's blog | The Electronic Intifada
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.047Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas
 ---
+Michael Deas is a Palestine solidarity organiser based in the UK.
+He was formerly a campaigns officer with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian civil society coalition that acts as the Palestinian reference of the movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law. You can get regular BDS updates from the BNC by following @BDSmovement. Michael Tweets from @michaeldeas

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-articleTitle: Israeli occupation forces ransacked my home
-pageTitle: Israeli occupation forces ransacked my home | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Residents of Gaza’s Maghazi camp are still reeling from an Israeli massacre that killed at least 70.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:12.358Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-occupation-forces-ransacked-my-home/46336
 ---
-Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Maghazi refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, 15 April.
-APA imagesOn Sunday evening, 24 December 2023, I was at my home in the Maghazi camp in Gaza, scrolling through my phone, reading news about the latest Israeli bombings, when I heard the deafening sound of a bomb being dropped nearby.
-I tried to cover my ears, but another explosion immediately followed. It was the most violent I had ever experienced. My room lit up red then turned pitch black. Not because the lights went out, but because of the rubble, dust and smoke that filled the room.
-I couldn’t move. I heard debris and rocket shrapnel flying through the windows and falling around me. I heard screams in every direction. I knew that it was either our home or the home next door that was targeted.
-Barefoot, I ran through the rubble and shattered glass to get to my family upstairs. I stopped when I saw a human limb on the stairs. I froze in shock. Even though I had seen such images on screens nonstop over the past months, to see such horror with my own eyes was devastating.
-I have still not recovered from it.
-I had to keep moving. When I reached my family, I was relieved that nobody had been seriously harmed, though later we would discover injuries. The shock and adrenaline had prevented us from noticing at first.
-We went downstairs and gathered in a room without windows. We could hardly breathe from the smoke and dust. The air smelled like explosives and burning human flesh.
-We still had no idea whose house had been bombed.
-No one slept that night. Israeli bombs continued to drop near us. I waited anxiously for the sun to rise, hoping that daylight would bring hope or at least less carnage.
-But when morning arrived, it only revealed further devastation.
-An Israeli tank in front of my home
-Israeli warplanes had targeted two residential buildings in our neighborhood, killing at least 70 people. This is now known as the Maghazi massacre.
-At our home, pieces of human bodies were on our rooftop, in several rooms and under every tree in our garden. We collected what we could and sent them to be buried to honor our neighbors.
-I was heartbroken at the martyrdom of my neighbors and friends. We had grown up together and played and prayed together. Israel had killed them all in an instant.
-In the days to come, those who remained in the neighborhood were now forcibly displaced. Their homes had been damaged, and Israel continued to bomb us day and night.
-The Israeli occupation army invaded al-Bureij refugee camp, which is close to the Maghazi camp.
-We were forced to evacuate. We packed what we could carry and went to my uncle’s house in Deir al-Balah, which the Israeli government had declared a “safe zone.”
-I still remember my first night away from home. I laid on my back in a dark and crowded room, feeling unbearably lonely and thinking of our home.
-A few days later, the occupation army invaded our neighborhood in the western part of Maghazi camp. I saw on the news an image of an Israeli tank in front of our home.
-Although my uncle’s family tried their best to make us feel welcome, our time displaced was incredibly difficult. It was a freezing winter and we didn’t have enough clothing or blankets. There were days I was so cold that I could not feel my fingers or toes.
-The whole time I thought of our home in Maghazi, waiting for the Israeli army to withdraw. I dreamed of the day I would be able to return home.
-My walk home
-Then, in January 2024, I heard the news that the occupation army had withdrawn from Maghazi camp.
-I thought it would finally be time to go home, but the Israeli army was still targeting and killing people as they tried to return home, including two of my relatives, unarmed civilians.
-I waited a few days and then set off to Maghazi on foot. Along the way, I saw an unprecedented amount of destruction, first along Salahuddin Street, where hundreds of warehouses and shops had been leveled by Israeli attacks.
-I’d always enjoyed walking along this street, with its palm trees and shops. Now it was now a total wasteland.
-Growing up in Gaza, I have seen plenty of destruction caused by Israeli attacks. But what I saw that day went beyond anything I’d seen before. It was mass destruction in every direction. No buildings, trees, streets. Just piles of rubble, and tracks left by Israeli tanks.
-I arrived at our neighborhood and I could barely recognize it. No house or street was left untouched. Neighbors searched through the rubble for bodies of loved ones. Others cried next to their destroyed homes. Everyone was so overwhelmed with pain and sorrow that we choked over our words.
-I stopped in front of our house; it was still standing but severely damaged. Several walls had been destroyed by artillery. Two missiles had gone through the roof. Bullet holes covered all sides of the house.
-Our green garden was a pale gray. The flowers were dead and the trees were burnt. Chunks of rubble from our house now littered the ground.
-I made my way over the rubble and entered the house through a hole in the wall. It looked like an earthquake had hit, and all signs indicated that the Israeli army had ransacked our homes.
-I found soldiers’ leftover food and lots of bullet casings. They had broken our furniture, kitchenware and antiques. They even shot up our TVs.
-There are no words to describe how this feels.
-I went to our land located farther outside the city. Our 40 olive trees had been bulldozed, totally wiped out. I had cared for these trees for nine years, watching them grow from saplings into trees; they were like children to me.
-On the way back to Deir al-Balah, I stopped at our home again. I heard a noise from inside. It was our cat, Shujaa, which means “brave” in English. We used to joke that he was more spoiled than brave.
-Seeing him alive filled me with a rare feeling of hope.
-Hope that one day life might come back to our neighborhood.
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
-Tags

+articleTitle: Hilary Aked's blog
+pageTitle: Hilary Aked's blog | The Electronic Intifada
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.340Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked
 ---
+Donate nowGet Updates
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+Activists who blockaded UK arms fair acquitted
+Hilary Aked
+14 February 2018
+More than 100 were arrested while protesting weapons sales to world’s worst rights abusers. Read more about Activists who blockaded UK arms fair acquitted
+Israel lobbyists caught in Presidents Club sexual harassment scandal
+Hilary Aked
+26 January 2018
+Some members of the “men only” club donate to Israel. Read more about Israel lobbyists caught in Presidents Club sexual harassment scandal
+Scottish police must not meddle in Palestine protests, watchdog rules
+Hilary Aked
+20 December 2017
+Officers rapped for warning activist to stay away from demonstration. Read more about Scottish police must not meddle in Palestine protests, watchdog rules
+Did Radiohead’s Thom Yorke swear at fans waving Palestinian flags?
+Hilary Aked
+10 July 2017
+Singer says “some fucking people” as fans urge boycott.  Read more about Did Radiohead’s Thom Yorke swear at fans waving Palestinian flags?
+How a London theater became a BDS battleground
+Hilary Aked
+6 February 2017
+Documents reveal how Israel and its supporters acted to thwart cultural boycott during 2014 Gaza attack. Read more about How a London theater became a BDS battleground
+Violence, abuse by Israel supporters caught on video at London college
+Hilary Aked
+28 October 2016
+Palestine activists were protesting appearance by former Israeli officer at UCL. Read more about Violence, abuse by Israel supporters caught on video at London college
+Why has an Israeli diplomat smeared me?
+Hilary Aked
+12 October 2016
+Apartheid state’s representatives can’t accept that they are not welcome at UK universities. Read more about Why has an Israeli diplomat smeared me?
+Why were Jewish Defense League extremists allowed at London Israel rally?
+Hilary Aked
+8 July 2016
+Zionist activist convicted of assault at Palestine festival seen alongside Conservative lawmaker, Board of Deputies president. Read more about Why were Jewish Defense League extremists allowed at London Israel rally?
+UK anti-Muslim leaders embrace Israel
+Hilary Aked
+9 June 2016
+Planned visit by PEGIDA UK leaders highlights Israel’s appeal to anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic bigots. Read more about UK anti-Muslim leaders embrace Israel
+Trade with Israel stinks, protesters tell London mayor
+Hilary Aked
+20 November 2015
+Protesters dumped sacks of rubbish on the London mayor’s doorstep Thursday morning. Read more about Trade with Israel stinks, protesters tell London mayor
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+Hilary Aked (@hilary_aked) is a London-based freelance writer and researcher, an NCTJ-qualified journalist and a PhD student at the University of Bath researching the pro-Israel lobby in the UK. They also write for Spinwatch, Ceasefire, OpenDemocracy and Huffington Post.
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@@ -1,150 +1,57 @@
-articleTitle: Patients die as Israeli troops storm Gaza hospital
-pageTitle: Patients die as Israeli troops storm Gaza hospital | The Electronic Intifada
-description: UN points to "pattern of attacks" against "life-saving civilian infrastructure."
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:12.657Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/patients-die-israeli-troops-storm-gaza-hospital
 ---
-Family members of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks mourn over their bodies at the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on 15 February.
-APA imagesIsraeli troops escalated their attacks on a major hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Friday while negotiations toward a prisoner exchange and long-term truce between Israel and Hamas continued.
-News reports confirmed that Egypt is clearing land in the northern Sinai to contain people displaced from Gaza in what appears to be a contingency plan for a mass exodus, which Cairo says it opposes.
-The development is heightening fears that the threatened incursion into Rafah, where more than a million people are concentrated after Israel ordered the evacuation of other areas of Gaza, would entail not only a bloodbath but also a mass expulsion of Palestinians from their land.
-The majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians are already refugees following the ethnic cleansing around the time of Israel’s establishment in 1948. Israel prohibits those refugees from exercising their right of return, enshrined in international law, as part of its regime of apartheid facilitating the colonization of Palestinian land.
-The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that an escalation of violence in Rafah poses a “disastrous risk to civilian lives and infrastructure.”
-The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated on Friday that escalated air strikes on Rafah and fears of an Israeli military ground operation “have reportedly led to the movement of people out of Gaza’s southernmost governorate toward Deir al-Balah” in the middle area of the territory.
-Responding to an urgent intervention from South Africa, the International Court of Justice said on Friday that the “perilous situation” in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, “demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court” late last month, but declined to issue any new orders.
-Those measures call on Israel to prevent violations of the Genocide Convention, including killing or causing “serious bodily or mental harm” to Palestinians as a protected group and “deliberately inflicting … conditions of life calculated to bring about [their] physical destruction in whole or in part.”
-The court also prohibited Israel from “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
-Israel has ignored those measures, killing around 3,000 more Palestinians since the court issued its interim ruling, with the Palestinian health ministry on Friday giving a fatality figure of 28,775 since 7 October.
-Hunger, thirst and disease
-Thousands more are missing and presumed dead under the rubble while an untold number of Palestinians have died from hunger and disease in a secondary wave of mortality resulting from Israel’s military offensive and engineered famine.
-Hussam Abu Safiya, a doctor at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, said this week that several children had died in recent days due to thirst and malnutrition amid a general situation of hunger and spread of disease:
-Nursing mothers are malnourished, the doctor added, affecting the health of their babies.
-Al Jazeera footage from Kamal Adwan hospital shows emaciated child patients who were seriously injured after being targeted by Israeli aircraft while their family was looking for food.
-“They are now in grave danger due to food and medical shortages,” according to Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif.
-Food insecurity in Gaza City and northern Gaza “has especially reached an extremely critical state, given significant restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday.
-“In Rafah, humanitarian conditions have become increasingly severe, with continued reports of people stopping aid trucks to take food,” the UN office added.
-“Pattern of attacks” on hospitals
-Israel continues to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza by attacking hospitals, a key feature of its military campaign across the territory.
-The UN human rights office stated on Thursday that it was “deeply worried” by reports of Israel’s raid on Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where thousands of displaced people had been sheltering.
-Israeli troops stormed the medical complex – described by the head of the World Health Organization as the “backbone of the health system in southern Gaza” – on Thursday after cutting supplies for a week and ordering its evacuation on Tuesday.
-“The raid appears to be part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals,” the UN human rights office added.
-“With nearly 70,000 people reportedly injured during this conflict, and a nearly collapsed health system due to attacks on facilities and restrictions on essential humanitarian supplies, the impact on civilians is appalling,” the UN said.
-Israeli troops ordered patients, including people in intensive care and nursery units, to a different building, “exposing patients to grave risks, including the risk of death for the most vulnerable,” the UN office added, echoing testimony from medical staff at Nasser Medical Complex sent to The Electronic Intifada.
-Patients die due to lack of oxygen
-Some of the most vulnerable have lost their lives during the siege on Nasser Medical Complex.
-The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Friday that five patients in intensive care had died after their oxygen supply had run out.
-The World Health Organization said that it was attempting to gain access to the hospital, where “there are still critically injured and sick patients,” said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the UN health body.
-Earlier in the day, the health ministry reported that Israeli troops had detained a World Health Organization convoy carrying fuel, water and food outside the medical complex.
-The ministry said later in the day that troops had detained and were interrogating a large number of medical personnel, patients and displaced people in the hospital’s maternity building, which they had turned into a military barracks.
-Doctors Without Borders said that Israeli forces shelled Nasser Medical Complex on Thursday morning and its staff at the facility “reported a chaotic situation, with an undetermined number of people killed and injured.”
-The organization said that one of its staff was detained by Israeli troops at a checkpoint where they were screening people leaving the hospital. They said that he “remains unaccounted for.”
-On Friday, Medical Aid for Palestinians said that two women had given birth at Nasser Medical Complex “in dire conditions, without electricity, water, food and heating” and that Israeli troops forced women and children to move into the maternity building, “which is under military siege.”
-Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said on Friday that the evacuation orders issued before the “devastating assault” on Nasser Medical Complex “did not provide any adequate responses to guarantee the safe transfer of patients and staff.”
-“Beyond assurances that it will avoid harming evacuees,” the rights group added, “Israel must ensure the availability of intensive care ambulances and secure alternative medical facilities for the complex medical needs of these patients.”
-The group said that “given the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system,” the forced evacuation of Nasser Medical Complex “blatantly contradicts” the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel “to take immediate action to prevent catastrophe.”
-The Israeli military said on Friday that it had arrested more than 20 people at Nasser Medical Complex who they claimed were involved in Hamas’ 7 October attack.
-The military stated on its Telegram channel that its “precise and limited operation” at the complex is based on intelligence “that Hamas activity is being carried out from within the hospital.”
-COGAT – an Israeli military unit that has played a central role in the comprehensive siege imposed on Gaza since 2007 and the resulting deterioration of the capacity of the healthcare system in the territory – alleged that Hamas had turned Nasser Medical Complex “into one of their terror command centers.”
-Israel has made similar unsubstantiated claims regarding other health facilities it has attacked in Gaza over the past four months.
-“Indirect biological warfare”
-While Israel claims that its operations in Gaza are focused on eliminating Hamas, the pattern of attacks and the scale of destruction point to a deliberate campaign to wipe out civilian infrastructure in the territory, thus rendering it uninhabitable.
-Beyond the tens of thousands killed and injured, “modern medical care has largely come to a standstill for 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza,” according to Annie Sparrow and Kenneth Roth in Foreign Policy.
-They note that even before the current aggression, life expectancy in Gaza was “already 10 years shorter than people living a few miles away in Israel” while their “rates of neonatal, infant and maternal mortality [were] nearly five times higher.”
-The authors add that “the combination of forced mass displacement, unhygienic conditions caused by interrupted sanitation services and sewage treatment, and interrupted vaccination will inevitably drive disease outbreaks in the future, functionally resulting in a form of indirect biological warfare.”
-Humanitarian groups attacked
-The French charity Doctors of the World said on Monday that its Gaza City offices, clearly marked and known by Israeli authorities to house a humanitarian organization, had been deliberately demolished days earlier.
-A staff member of the humanitarian group had been sheltering in the offices along with his family, Doctors of the World said.
-“They had boarded themselves in with office cabinets and didn’t dare go outside for fear of being shot at, while many civilians were killed around the building, which was surrounded by explosions,” according to the group.
-Troops entered the offices in early February and “removed elderly people, women and children” and humiliated and degraded the men present by “forcing them to come out naked.”
-The Doctors of the World offices were destroyed at an undetermined point after the forced evacuation.
-The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Friday that its hospital in Khan Younis was targeted by Israeli tank fire on Friday, resulting in severe damage but no injuries.
-Tanks have been stationed outside Al-Amal Hospital for two weeks, “preventing the entry of any aid or logistical supplies,” the humanitarian group added.
-The Red Crescent said that two of its doctors had been released after they were arrested by troops during a raid on Al-Amal one week earlier. Twelve Red Crescent team members “remain under arrest, including seven who were arrested at Al-Amal Hospital,” the humanitarian group said.
-Nine elderly patients who couldn’t be evacuated were arrested along with their companions when the hospital was raided on 9 February, according to the group.
-The Red Crescent rejected the Israeli military’s claim that it had arrested “20 terrorists” when it stormed the facility, calling the allegation “a poor attempt to justify their commission of war crimes.”
-The Red Crescent announced on Friday that despite the siege on Al-Amal, its team successfully carried out an emergency cesarean section for a pregnant woman:
-Biden pushing for “temporary ceasefire”
-Also on Friday, US President Joe Biden said that he had “extensive conversations” with Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days in which he told the Israeli prime minister that “there has to be a temporary ceasefire to get the prisoners out, to get the hostages out.”
-He reiterated his opposition to an invasion of Rafah. Biden’s administration opposes such an operation but says that it would not impose any material consequences on Israel – such as a halt of weapons transfers – if it moves forward.
-Meanwhile, the Biden administration is continuing to obstruct a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN Security Council as sought by Algeria.
-Earlier this month, Netanyahu rejected a proposal put forward by Hamas for a months-long ceasefire and prisoner exchange, insisting that “continued military pressure is a necessary condition for the release of the hostages.”
-Benny Gantz, the opposition leader and member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, stated on Friday that “there will not be a ceasefire of even one day until the hostages are returned.”
-He added that “either the hostages will be returned, or we will extend the fighting to Rafah.”
-That same day, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that there have been many losses of its captives and those who remain alive are in “extremely difficult conditions.”
-He added that “we warned dozens of times about the dangers to which their hostages are being exposed. We didn’t want the situation to reach this stage, but [Israel’s] leadership ignored us.”
-Last Tuesday, the Israeli military’s chief spokesperson said that 31 of the 136 captives remaining in Gaza were dead.
-This week, Israeli media reported on an intelligence ministry document stating that Hamas will survive as a fighting force after the war.
-“There won’t be absolute victory” as promised by Netanyahu, according to Ilana Dayan, a journalist with Israel’s Channel 12 outlet, which first reported on the intelligence ministry document.
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+articleTitle: UK unions urge G4S to end Israel occupation role now
+pageTitle: UK unions urge G4S to end Israel occupation role now | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Firm has long track record of breaking promises to end services to the Israeli military, police and prisons.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.367Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas/uk-unions-urge-g4s-end-israel-occupation-role-now
 ---
+G4S has been protested by Palestine solidarity campaigners worldwide.
+ActiveStillsThe leaders of some of the UK’s biggest trade unions and campaign groups are asking UK-based multinational security firm G4S to clarify its announcement that it “expects to exit” the Israeli market and sell its Israeli subsidiary.
+G4S is being pushed for information about when the sale will take place and to commit to immediately stop working with Israeli bodies that are involved in human rights abuses, such as Israeli occupation forces and the Israel Prison Service.
+The letter is signed by Unite the Union, UNISON, the National Union of Teachers, construction union UCAAT and the Fire Brigades Union, as well as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, War on Want, and the Stop G4S UK campaign.
+Broken pledges
+When G4S announced in March that it intends to sell its Israeli subsidiary, the news was welcomed as a significant step forward for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
+At the same time, it was clear that the pressure had to continue because G4S has a long track record of breaking its promises.
+For example, a pledge G4S made in 2012 to end its involvement in Ofer prison and Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank by the end of 2015 was never translated into reality.
+Now G4S is being pushed to turn its words into actions by trade unions representing millions of workers in the UK.
+“We are concerned that [G4S] continues to provide services to Israeli state bodies that commit serious violations of international law and Palestinian human rights and that the announcement of a sale of G4S Israel may be used to justify ongoing complicity in human rights violations,” the letter states.
+The full text of the letter addressed to G4S CEO Ashley Almanza and the six detailed questions it asks are at the bottom of this article.
+The letter comes ahead of the company’s annual shareholders meeting on 26 May, where activists plan to protest the company’s ongoing complicity.
+The last five annual meetings have been met with strong protests and disruptions by campaigners over the company’s role in human rights abuses in Palestine, the UK and around the world.
+The company has moved this year’s meeting out of Central London to Sutton in the far southwest of the city to try to discourage protests.
+Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights UK recently published an analysis arguing that the G4S announcement that the firm “expects to exit” Israel falls short of a firm commitment and that “withdrawal should take place immediately or as soon as practicable, rather than the nebulous stated period of 12-24 months.”
+Campaign spreads
+The fact that the world’s biggest security company and one of the world’s largest private employers is even talking about exiting the Israeli market is testament to the impact of the international campaign against the company.
+Clearly, all the negative media attention, the lost contracts with businesses, universities and unions and the decision to divest by investors including the Bill Gates Foundation and the United Methodist Church are worrying G4S.
+It is likely that the decisions by three UN bodies in Jordan to stop working with the company and the vote by the executive of the UK Labour Party to stop using the company at its annual conference were all particularly painful for G4S.
+The international campaign against G4S was first activated in Europe but is now increasingly spreading to the Arab World, Latin America and the US.
+Last week, BDS Egypt held the public launch of its campaign against G4S and campaigns against the firm are now ongoing in Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco and Jordan.
+A major restaurant chain in Colombia recently cut its ties with G4S following a campaign by BDS activists in the country and a G4S campaign is ongoing in Brazil.
+The Trade Union Center of G4S employees in Uruguay also endorsed the campaign against G4S.
+A coalition of US groups recently launched the g4sfacts.org website which details the role that the company plays in numerous human rights violations, including in Palestine and in US and UK youth detention facilities.
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-articleTitle: US implicated as Israeli impunity nears its end
-pageTitle: US implicated as Israeli impunity nears its end | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Netanyahu government spreads rumors of imminent arrest warrants.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:17.376Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-implicated-israeli-impunity-nears-its-end
 ---
-Protesters denounce a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in Washington, DC, on 25 March.
-SIPA USAIsrael’s decades of impunity are over, or so its leaders fear and are leaking reports to the media that war crimes arrest warrants are imminent in an effort to get its allies to thwart them.
-The leaked rumors that members of Israel’s war cabinet – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense minister Yoav Gallant and the military chief Herzi Halevi – will soon be indicted may very well be credible.
-Reuters reported on Monday that staff at Gaza hospitals – which over the past several months have been stripped of their ability to provide care and transformed into mass graves – were interviewed by International Criminal Court investigators.
-It is possible that arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials have already been issued in confidentiality.
-An unnamed “Israeli diplomatic source” protested the perceived silence of the Biden administration over the ICC to The Jerusalem Post.
-That unnamed official’s anger at Joe Biden is misplaced.
-Washington’s incantations declaring its “ironclad” support for Israel and Israel’s supposed right to self-defense should be understood as a declaration of preserving Israeli impunity at all costs.
-Informing Israel’s panic over the ICC is the fact that it can only maintain its regime of settler-colonization, apartheid and occupation in Palestine with the support of the world’s sole superpower.
-But that support is eroding due to widespread disgust towards Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
-Decades of bipartisan support for Israel is viewed by many as a strategic liability from which the US gains little benefit – increasingly so as a desperate Netanyahu attempts to drag Washington into a catastrophic regional war.
-The Biden administration’s hands-on role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a legal liability as well. ICC arrest warrants for Israeli war crimes could – and should – implicate US officials.
-Barriers to justice
-There are a number of barriers between senior Biden officials and justice at the ICC.
-Karim Khan, the ICC chief prosecutor who has been dogged by accusations of bias towards powerful states, dropped investigations into war crimes allegedly perpetrated by US personnel in Afghanistan; the court’s Palestine file is headed by a British establishment figure and a former US military prosecutor; and American law authorizes the president to order military action to protect its nationals from prosecution and free them from arrest by the court.
-Like Israel, the US is not a state party to the founding treaty of the ICC. But Palestine has acceded to the Rome Statute and the court has territorial jurisdiction over alleged crimes perpetrated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
-Khan has said that the court also has jurisdiction over alleged crimes perpetrated by actors based in those territories, and he will likely also issue arrest warrants against Hamas leaders in relation to the 7 October attack.
-While the US has had a contemptuous relationship with the ICC, as evidenced by the George W. Bush-era Hague Invasion Act, it has warmed up to the tribunal in recent years in support of its investigation of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
-By doing so, Biden effectively recognized the ICC’s territorial jurisdiction in Ukraine – neither Russia nor Ukraine are state parties to the Rome Statute – and there is bipartisan support for the court’s investigation of Russian officials following that country’s February 2022 invasion.
-The Pentagon opposed Biden’s order for the US government to provide intelligence to the court for its Ukraine investigation, maintaining the previous position of the US that the ICC should not exercise jurisdiction over nationals of non-state parties.
-While accepting the court’s authority to investigate Russian officials, the Biden administration rejects its jurisdiction in the case of Palestine, as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday.
-The US will surely continue to undermine the ICC’s Palestine investigation in a variety of ways. But given its working relationship with the court it may prove difficult to impose economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor and other senior personnel in the event of arrest warrants against Israeli officials, like the Trump administration imposed on Khan’s predecessor.
-In any case, the resulting US double standard position will surely be so huge as to be seen from outer space, as the Biden administration continues to provide cover for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
-Israel breaches US law
-Officials with four US bureaus have told Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, that Israel’s assurances that it is using American weapons in compliance with international law are not “credible or reliable,” according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
-A national security memorandum issued by Biden in February requires Blinken to report to Congress by 8 May on the credibility of Israel’s assurances.
-US law prohibits military assistance to a state that obstructs the delivery of humanitarian aid provided by Washington.
-Officials with USAID, the State Department’s development agency, said in a confidential paper that Israel has breached that US directive.
-A separate internal memo sent to Biden from State Department experts states that “Israeli-imposed administrative challenges are preventing the delivery” of humanitarian aid in Gaza. The subject line of that memo reads “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths,” according to the development publication Devex.
-Additionally, a study by an independent task force on the application of the national security memorandum found “a clear pattern of violations of international law” by Israel in Gaza.
-That nonpartisan group of experts, including former State Department and military officials, points to the systematic disregard of the fundamental principles of the laws of war such as launching attacks “despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects.”
-They also describe “wide area attacks without prior warnings in some of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the world” and direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, “including those indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.”
-DAWN, a human rights watchdog based in Washington, said that these recent reports “conclusively confirm that Israel’s conduct impeding and blocking humanitarian aid has triggered the legal requirement to halt military aid,” irrespective of Blinken’s upcoming report to Congress.
-Blinken, who just reneged on the blacklisting of an Israeli military unit determined by the Biden administration to have committed “gross human rights violations” against Palestinian civilians, will ignore DAWN’s recommendations too.
-But further action by the ICC and the UN’s World Court, also based in The Hague, will trigger global sanctions against Israel, whose days of impunity are numbered.
 Tags

+articleTitle: UK's student union rebukes officer for Israeli embassy plot
+pageTitle: UK's student union rebukes officer for Israeli embassy plot | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Richard Brooks had plotted to bring down the National Union of Students' president.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.639Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas/uks-student-union-rebukes-officer-israeli-embassy-plot
 ---
+Undercover footage of NUS vice president Richard Brooks showed him plotting to overthrow elected union president Malia Bouattia because of her role as a Palestine solidarity campaigner.A senior officer in Britain’s National Union of Students has been censured for his role in a pro-Israel propaganda scandal.
+Earlier this week, the union’s executive council voted that Richard Brooks had “violated democratic procedures of accountability.” Brooks, a vice president with the union, featured in January’s Al Jazeera documentary on Britain’s pro-Israel lobby.
+Undercover footage showed Brooks plotting to oust Malia Bouattia, the union’s overall president and a supporter of Palestinian rights.  Brooks made his comments to a reporter, who had been posing as a youth activist with connections to Israel’s embassy in London.
+In a motion that council members said passed by 15 votes to 13 on Monday, the union said it was unacceptable for a vice president “to discuss the undermining of a democratically elected officer with a student introduced by an embassy and therefore by a foreign government.”
+The union represents more than 7 million students in the UK. According to its rulebook, a censure is a rebuke short of a full no-confidence vote at a union conference – which could remove an officer from their position.
+In a separate motion that passed by 16 votes to 13, the union executive reaffirmed its support for the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and condemned recent participation by some elected union officers in propaganda trips to Israel.
+Shakira Martin, another vice-president, went on a trip to Israel organized by the Union of Jewish Students in January.
+The Union of Jewish Students is a pro-Israel organization that receives funding from the Israeli government.
+A statement signed by Palestinian student groups said such trips serve to “whitewash Israeli crimes and decades-long oppression of our people” and give “a one-sided, pro-apartheid vision of our reality here in Palestine.”
+Martin’s attendance on the trip was surprising given that she had previously stated her support for peace and justice in Palestine and for the BDS movement.
+Angela Alexander, women’s officer for the National Union of Students Scotland, joined the same trip. And Richard Brooks was shown discussing having participated in a previous trip in the Al Jazeera documentary.
+The motion passed on Monday asserts that “international solidarity with a people should be rooted in a principled position of respect for human rights and dignity and against oppression and should not be swayed by full-expense-paid trips.”
+Martin is the union’s vice president for further education. More than 200 further education students signed a letter condemning her attendance on the trip.
+The National Union of Students has held a position in support of the BDS movement for several years. More than 25 individual student unions at universities across the UK have also voted to support BDS.
+BDS campaigns have persuaded a number of universities to cancel contracts with companies that are complicit with Israeli violations of international law such as Eden Springs, G4S and Veolia, which sold its Israeli business as a result of a years-long BDS campaign.
+Resisting attacks on Palestine activism
+Shelly Asquith, another of the union’s vice presidents, said she was pleased that the union’s support for the BDS movement had been reaffirmed.
+“At a time when students’ rights to organize on this issue are increasingly being undermined through programs such as the Prevent agenda, it feels particularly important to re-assert our position,” Asquith told The Electronic Intifada.
+Prevent is a British government program ostensibly designed to stop young people from becoming involved in “terrorism.” Since it was introduced to British schools and universities, police have deemed the reading of literature sympathetic to the Palestinians as evidence of holding “terrorist-like” views.
+The UK government, universities and pro-Israel groups are currently seeking to restrict freedom of speech in order to protect Israel from criticism.
+Last week, management at both the University College London and the University of Central Lancashire withdrew permission for events planned for Israeli Apartheid Week, an annual series of events held by the Palestine solidarity movement.
+However, Israeli Apartheid Week events organized students at both universities are still taking place, as are events at more than 30 other campuses across the UK.
+More than 200 people attended an opening event for Israeli Apartheid Week in London on Tuesday. The event featured Farid Esack, a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist and Aja Monet, a spoken word artist and human rights advocate from the US.
+Attempts to stifle pro-Palestine activism represent a serious attack on freedom of speech. But they are simply failing to deter students from taking principled action in support of Palestinians and their struggle for liberation.
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-articleTitle: Rest in power, Refaat Alareer
-pageTitle: Rest in power, Refaat Alareer | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel killed a man who changed my life.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:17.716Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/rest-power-refaat-alareer/42776
 ---
-Refaat Alareer gave his students a sense of confidence.
-I spent my first and second years in university without caring about studying. At the beginning of the third year, I promised myself that I would stop procrastinating.
-But I needed something to motivate me. Something to keep me going.
-“Wow, the metaphor you used is mindblowing.”
-Those were the words that turned me into a different person.
-They were the words of Dr. Refaat Alareer.
-I was over the moon that Dr. Refaat told me he was impressed by something I had written.
-I started to read more and focus on studying. I wrote many poems just to listen to Dr. Refaat’s comments.
-During my first two years at university, I had not given any presentations. I was always shy.
-I refused to publish anything on social media or to speak in front of people.
-“Are there any other tasks I can do instead of publishing?” I asked Dr. Refaat. “I don’t feel comfortable with the idea and I am shy about doing so.”
-He told me that there were no other tasks.
-“You must tell people that you’re studying English literature.” Dr. Refaat said – in a gentle tone. “You must express and trust yourself, Khaled.”
-Dr. Refaat’s words changed my personality.
-Grabbing our attention
-I had never been an early bird at university. I had never attended any lecture that was scheduled at 8 am.
-But after attending one lecture by Dr. Refaat, I made sure to not miss any of his – even though the lecture was at 8 am. I even made sure to come to the lectures very early so that I could sit near the front and hear him clearly.
-Later, he suggested that we should have channels on YouTube and post our presentations there. I was the first student to tell him that I had posted one of mine.
-He was impressed and said, “You’re an excellent student.”
-I was very happy hearing those words from him. I went to my friends, boasting about how Dr. Refaat praised me.
-He was our friend, too. He taught us how to create memes and use them effectively in our studies.
-If we lost attention in class, he would never get angry. He would instead grab our attention back by telling us a joke.
-I remember when he teased me one day in the Shakespeare course. He was lecturing and saw me distracted and playing with my phone.
-He said in a friendly way: “Notice Al-Qershali, for example, who does not pay attention in lectures and who copies from his friends in exams.”
-My friends and I laughed, regaining our focus.
-Dr. Refaat was more than a teacher of literature. He taught me that words can be used in many ways.
-He has been my role model in defending the Palestinian cause since then.
-I remember when I looked at his Facebook page and saw that he had done interviews with media outlets. I was impressed that Dr. Refaat was not only an educator but a fighter.
-I wanted to be like him.
-I wanted to be a writer, a poet, a journalist. And to defend my cause.
-He was my inspiration.
-He still is.
-He taught my friends Mahmoud and Khaled creative writing at We Are Not Numbers.
-I wanted him to teach how we could defend Palestine by writing stories. Just like he did.
-Now that Israel has assassinated him, Dr. Refaat will obviously not be able to teach in person. But that won’t stop me from following the fine example that he set.
-Dear Dr. Refaat, you are not dead.
-You are still alive in the heart of every student you taught. I will never forget you or your influence on me.
-I promise that I will continue learning, writing and defending Palestine until I see you again in heaven. Inshallah.
-I’m sure that if you were alive, you would tell me, “Good job, Khaled. You must continue writing.”
-Rest in power, dear Dr. Refaat.
-Khaled Al-Qershali is a writer and translator.
 Tags

+articleTitle: BDS is free speech, says Dutch government
+pageTitle: BDS is free speech, says Dutch government | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Israel's attack on boycott activism is prompting governments, civil society to declare that movement is legitimate
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.768Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas/bds-free-speech-says-dutch-government
 ---
+An activist holds a sign calling for the boycott of Israel during a demonstration marking the 68th year of the Nabka, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in Berlin, Germany, on 15 May.
+ActiveStillsThe Netherlands has affirmed that activism calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel is a form of free speech.
+In response to parliamentary questions from Green Left MP Rik Grashoff, Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders said that “statements or meetings concerning BDS are protected by freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, as enshrined in the Dutch constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.”
+Koenders also said that the Dutch government regularly discusses BDS with Israel and makes clear to Israel that it “opposes a boycott of Israel, but that endorsing BDS falls under freedom of expression.”
+The Dutch foreign minister’s comments are a serious blow to Israel’s relentless efforts to criminalize BDS and silence supporters of Palestinian rights.
+At Israel’s urging, governments in the US, UK, France, Canada and elsewhere are introducing anti-democratic legislation and taking other repressive measures to undermine the BDS movement.
+Israel recently imposed a de facto travel ban on BDS campaign co-founder and Palestinian human rights defender Omar Barghouti and it seems intent on revoking his residency.
+Israel has also said that it is using its intelligence services to spy on BDS activists overseas.
+The Dutch government’s statement also comes as lawmakers in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, last week rejected a law that would have punished BDS activism.
+Civil liberties groups and legislators had warned that the law would have violated fundamental free speech rights.
+Previously, Sweden had been the only European government to recognize that BDS is a civil society movement and that governments should not try to impede it.
+In March, the Swedish foreign ministry told The Electronic Intifada that BDS “is a civil society movement” and that “governments should not interfere in civil society organization views.”
+Uniting to defend BDS
+In a related development, 352 organizations from across 19 countries have published a statement urging the European Union to protect BDS as a form of free speech.
+It is the most widely signed statement by European organizations on Palestine in many years.
+The list of signatories includes the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions, major Belgian civil society coalition CNCD and French Catholic organization Terre Solidaire.
+Podemos, the leftist Spanish political party that won 21 percent of the popular vote in recent elections, has also backed the statement.
+The groups urge the European Commission, the EU’s governing bureaucracy, to introduce “human rights guidelines guaranteeing freedom of speech and right to boycott and to use all other means you have in your disposal to support European citizens in their struggle to uphold basic human rights.”
+Also among the signatories are six Irish parties including Sinn Féin and the Irish Green Party;  France’s Left Party, Communist Party and New Anti-Capitalist Party and trade unions including Italy’s Fiom/CGIL and France’s Union Syndicale Solidaires.
+In addition, more than 30 Belgian organizations including the ABVV/FGTB trade union federation and major Christian organization Broederlijk Delen have issued their own statement urging the Belgian government to resist calls by pro-Israel groups to legislate against BDS.
+Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also made statements in response to the attacks on the BDS movement and its activists.
+Israel’s dangerous and desperate attacks on the BDS movement appear to be having some unintended consequences: they are prompting European governments and some of the world’s best known organizations to declare their belief that BDS is an entirely legitimate movement.
+UN appeal for #RightToBoycott
+The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is inviting supporters of free speech and Palestinian rights to co-sign an appeal to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urging him to take action to protect the rights of Palestinian, Israeli and international BDS activists.
+The BNC has also published a comprehensive legal briefing, “BDS: a legitimate human rights movement to be respected and protected by states,” that has more useful background and analysis.
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-articleTitle: Israel massacres at least 70 people in Khan Younis
-pageTitle: Israel massacres at least 70 people in Khan Younis | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Palestinians ordered to evacuate found themselves under attack.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:17.874Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-massacres-least-70-people-khan-younis/47881
 ---
-Israel’s orders and attacks caused chaos and panic in Khan Younis on Monday.
-Israel committed a massacre in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday.
-At least 70 Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded.
-The Israelis opened fire on people who were evacuating areas in eastern Khan Younis as they had been ordered to do by the occupying forces. The evacuees were attacked from the air and by ground troops using shells and bullets, resulting in a general state of panic.
-Zainab Abu Taha received a phone call at 9 am. The caller ordered her to evacuate swiftly.
-“I got my children, some clothes and a few essentials ready,” she said.
-When Zainab and other members of her family were about to leave their area in a car “shells were fired directly at us,” she added.
-Her husband and son were killed, along with many other members of her extended family.
-“I saw bodies lying on the ground,” Zainab said. “I feel shocked and very afraid.”
-After being displaced during a previous stage of the current genocidal war, Iman al-Qanou had returned to live in her Khan Younis home. She went back to her house, even though the Israelis had attacked it, causing severe damage.
-She spoke of everything suddenly becoming chaotic on Monday.
-“People said we have to leave,” she said.
-As she evacuated, “the quadcopter fired on us,” she added.
-Iman’s sister was killed.
-“My 5-year-old niece came looking for me in the middle of the chaos,” Iman added. “She said to me, ‘Auntie, I saw my mother dead.’”
-Abdullah Abu Omar said that no warning was given before Israel began firing shells at people.
-“My son is 8 and has lived his whole life in wars,��� Abdullah said. “Today he saw bodies lying in the streets and was screaming in fear.”
-“We are now on the streets because there is nowhere to go,” he added.
-“We have no food, money or anything. The war has exhausted us.”
-A little girl named Rama became separated from her family during the chaos.
-With no way of contacting them, she became extremely distressed.
-Fedaa al-Qedra is a journalist in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: After UK student union backs BDS, Netanyahu falsely claim it supports ISIS
+pageTitle: After UK student union backs BDS, Netanyahu falsely claim it supports ISIS | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Decision by National Union of Students shows that boycotting Israel is now normalized as "commonsense solidarity."
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:28.888Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/after-uk-student-union-backs-bds-netanyahu-falsely-claim-it-supports-isis
 ---
+The national leadership of the UK’s National Union of Students (NUS) has voted to align itself with the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
+In reaction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by smearing the millions-strong organization as supporters of Islamic State, the violent extremist group also known as ISIS or ISIL.
+“In a 19-4 vote with one abstention, the confederation of 600 student unions across the United Kingdom passed the pro-BDS proposal on Tuesday at a meeting of its National Executive Council,” according to JTA.
+The NUS press office could not immediately provide The Electronic Intifada with an official copy of the resolution, but said it would be posted on its website in coming days.
+Netanyahu’s smear
+“This is less than a year after they refused to support a boycott of ISIS,” Netanyahu said in reaction to the vote, during a meeting with Canada’s foreign minister.
+“They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS. That tells you everything you want to know about the BDS movement. They condemn Israel and do not condemn ISIS,” the Israeli prime minister alleged.
+Netanyahu repeated the same claim on Twitter:
+In fact, the NUS national executive council did adopt a resolution at its 3 December 2014 meeting that condemns ISIS “as a reactionary terrorist organization that carries out atrocities” against people of the regions where it operates.
+The previous September, the executive had rejected a motion on Kurdish solidarity that contained similar language, but its decision had nothing to do with the condemnation of ISIS whatsoever.
+As NUS national executive council member Zarah Sultana explained in a December article for The Huffington Post, she and her colleagues deemed the resolution flawed because it encouraged students to spy on each other.
+“In a climate where Muslim communities and student groups are already under heavy scrutiny and subject to targeted surveillance by the Home Office, police, universities, healthcare sector and more – this would only help legitimize further clampdowns and prejudice against Muslims,” Sultana wrote.
+She added: “The motion was voted down on the condition that it would be re-written and brought back to the next National Executive Council meeting, maintaining the spirit of support for the Kurdish people, but free of any of those problematic elements.”
+That is precisely what happened, and the motion passed.
+“Amusing”
+But as part of its escalating campaign to smear supporters of Palestinian rights, Israel is using this procedural history to advance the smear that the NUS are, in effect, ISIS supporters.
+“There’s something very amusing about the government of one of the world’s ‘superpowers’ falling over itself to slander, spread lies and condemn a student organization for boycotting it,” Sultana, who is also on the national committee of the NUS Black Students’ Campaign, told The Electronic Intifada today.
+“But this only confirms what is increasingly becoming apparent to the rest of the world: that Israel is facing a crisis in its ability to justify apartheid, and that it’s reaching an endgame.”
+Sultana also responded to Israel’s smears on Twitter:
+“Massive breakthrough”
+The NUS has long adopted positions in support of Palestinian rights. Last August, amid Israel’s assault on Gaza that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, the union’s national executive council called for an arms embargo on Israel and urged its seven million members to boycott “corporations complicit in financing and aiding Israel’s military, including G4S and Hewlett Packard.”
+The motion that passed last summer “was a massive breakthrough, and the vote this week reaffirms that support, cements it as NUS policy for the next three years, but also signals that the argument for BDS has become normalized within the student movement, as ‘common sense solidarity,’” Sultana told The Electronic Intifada.
+“So in that sense this vote surpasses any form of symbolic win and represents a long battle being won, with credit due to years of work by pro-Palestine activists on the ground.”
+“The fight to get NUS to endorse the BDS movement would not have happened without the NUS Black Students’ Campaign taking a lead on that cause within NUS for many years,” Sultana added.
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-articleTitle: Football dreams battle Israeli bullets
-pageTitle: Football dreams battle Israeli bullets | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Competitive athletes have suffered life-changing injuries in Gaza protests.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:18.108Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/football-dreams-battle-israeli-bullets/24201
 ---
-Muhammad Khalil Obeid has not given up on his dream to play football internationally, despite being shot in both his knees.
-Muhammad Khalil Obeid is refusing to abandon his dream of becoming a professional football player.
-After being shot in both knees by an Israeli sniper on 30 March, Obeid requires major surgery to have any chance of resuming his beloved game. Doctors have told the 23-year-old he would need to travel from Gaza to Germany or Turkey for that surgery.
-Overcoming initial despair and determined that the operation take place, he has decided to search for a charity that will pay his costs.
-“I dream of playing in Europe, I will not kill my dream,” he said. “And I will not let the Israeli occupation kill my dream.”
-Obeid had been part of al-Salah club in Gaza since he was 17. As well as being a talented football player, he finished first in a Gaza marathon that he ran last year.
-He is one of 27 competitive athletes injured during the Great March of Return between late March – when the protests began – and late April, according to Gaza’s youth and sports ministry.
-A video which Obeid made capturing the moment he was shot during the protests has been widely viewed on the Internet. Obeid was accompanied by several other sports enthusiasts from the Deir al-Balah area of central Gaza at the time he was shot.
-Life-changing injuries
-A recent investigation by Amnesty International concluded that Israel may be deliberately causing life-changing injuries to people such as Obeid, who have taken part in the Gaza protests.
-Amnesty has also cited evidence that Israel is using high-velocity rifles and bullets that expand on impact to cause maximum harm against protesters. Many of the weapons used by Israel against protesters are US-made.
-Ata Ahmed Abu al-Hossna was shot by Israeli forces on Friday, 6 April – one week after Obeid.
-The 27-year-old spent much of that day at a protest tent near Jabaliya, northern Gaza. When he saw youth burning tires – an effort to thwart Israel’s detection of targets for sniper fire – Abu al-Hossna decided that he should join them. Shortly afterwards, Israel began shooting live ammunition in the direction of demonstrators.
-As he tried to flee for safety, Abu al-Hossna was shot in the left leg. “I do not remember what happened after that,” he said.
-Athlete Ata Ahmed Abu al-Hossna wants the leadership of global sports bodies to visit Gaza to see how Israel “destroys our dreams.”
-Amjad Ayman YaghiWhen he regained consciousness the following day, Abu al-Hossna was in the intensive care unit of Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital. As the bullets had caused severe damage to the arteries in his legs, he needed prompt surgery, which took place that Sunday.
-He is waiting for a follow-up operation.
-Abu al-Hossna has learned from his doctors that it could take 18 months before he will be able to walk on his left leg again.
-The likelihood that he will have to give up football has depressed him so much that he cannot even watch the sport on television. “I sit alone in my room,” he said.
-As well as playing as a forward for the Namaa football team, Abu al-Hossna had taken part in running and table tennis competitions.
-He argues that representatives of the world’s major sporting organizations should visit Gaza. “These envoys should come and see how the Israeli occupation destroys our dreams,” he said. “We try to follow our dreams despite being under siege.”
-Deep sadness
-Alaa al-Dali, a 21-year-old cyclist, had qualified to represent Palestine at the Asian Games being held in Indonesia this summer.
-Going there will not be possible. On 30 March, he was shot in his right leg by an Israeli sniper. The damage caused was so severe that the leg later had to be amputated.
-Al-Dali had gone to the first Friday in the Great March of Return with some friends. They joined the protest in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza. Al-Dali had gone to the protest by bike and was dressed in cycling shorts and jersey.
-He was shot below the knee that afternoon.
-Cyclist Alaa al-Dali’s leg was amputated weeks before he was set to represent Palestine at the Asian Games.
-Amjad Ayman YaghiThe al-Dali family has accused Israel of denying Alaa permission to leave Gaza for specialist treatment in the occupied West Bank. After he was denied permission to travel, doctors decided it was necessary to amputate his leg. The amputation took place in mid-April.
-The thought that he won’t be able to attend the Asian Games makes him “go into a deep sadness and cry,” al-Dali said. He is nonetheless determined to have a prosthetic leg fitted so that he can resume cycling.
-With bitter irony, al-Dali was shot at a time when Israel was courting cycling fans internationally. The 2018 Giro d’Italia – a major bike race – recently opened in Jerusalem as part of an Israeli propaganda exercise.
-Al-Dali stressed it is necessary that the focus on Israel’s human rights abuses be maintained. “The Israeli occupation has committed brutal crimes against us,” he said. “The world needs to know that the Israeli occupation is cruel.”
-Amjad Ayman Yaghi is a journalist based in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Israelis seek to uncover government's secret war against BDS
+pageTitle: Israelis seek to uncover government's secret war against BDS | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Israel's war on BDS may violate British law, Israeli embassy warns in leaked cable.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:29.022Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israelis-seek-uncover-governments-secret-war-against-bds
 ---
+Israel is trying to stop the growing boycott movement with covert operations targeting activists around the world.
+ActiveStillsA group of Israeli citizens is seeking information on their government’s covert activities against the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
+Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy in London has warned in a leaked cable that some of Israel’s tactics against the BDS movement may violate UK law.
+Attorney Eitay Mack and human rights activists Sahar Vardi, Ofer Neiman, Rachel Giora and Kobi Snitz have filed requests under Israel’s freedom of information law, to both the foreign ministry and the strategic affairs ministry.
+They are asking the government to reveal its financial support to foreign organizations, individuals, journalists or bloggers assisting Israel in its battle against what it calls “delegitimization.”
+The strategic affairs ministry, led by Likud minister Gilad Erdan, has taken the lead, gearing up to fight the nonviolent BDS movement as if it were a military challenge.
+Armed with a $45 million budget for this year, the ministry is engaging in what a veteran Israeli analyst is calling “black ops.”
+This may include defamation campaigns, harassment and threats to the lives of activists as well as infringing on and violating their privacy, according to the analyst.
+“We want most of the [strategic affairs] ministry’s work to be classified,” its director general Sima Vaknin-Gil recently told the transparency committee of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
+Earlier this month, Erdan’s ministry and the Association of University Heads of Israel were linked to a “secret” effort to push for the cancellation of a course on Palestine at the University of California, Berkeley.
+The course was suspended, but later reinstated after an outcry from students, faculty and defenders of academic freedom.
+“The sweeping secrecy exercised by both ministries is inappropriate, especially in view of the Israeli government’s position regarding human rights organizations supported financially by foreign countries,” the Israeli citizens said in a press release.
+Earlier this year Israel adopted a so-called transparency law forcing human rights groups to reveal foreign government funding. Critics say the law is meant to brand human rights groups as illegitimate and chill criticism of Israel’s record.
+Under the freedom of information law, the Israeli ministries have 120 days to respond. If they reject the requests, the citizens seeking the information can file an appeal in court.
+Using Jewish groups
+The information request comes as a cable, leaked to the newspaper Haaretz, has cast more light on the covert efforts against BDS.
+The cable from the Israeli embassy in London to the Israeli foreign ministry complains about the activities of Erdan’s strategic affairs ministry.
+It accuses the ministry of “operating” British Jewish organizations behind the embassy’s back in a way that could put them in violation of UK law.
+The context is a turf war between the two ministries over who should get more money and authority to lead the fight against BDS.
+The foreign ministry has so far been on the losing end of that bureaucratic battle.
+As Haaretz reports, the cable reveals that the embassy met with Erdan’s officials during his visit to London two weeks ago “to coordinate activities against the local boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”
+The embassy officials emphasized that while they would coordinate with Erdan’s operation, only the foreign ministry would work directly with people or organizations overseas.
+Haaretz says Erdan’s officials agreed “not to pose as the embassy.”
+“Behind our backs”
+But just days later, according to Haaretz, Asher Friedman, a senior strategic affairs ministry official, “asked a senior official in Britain’s Jewish community to use his connections to thwart an anti-Israel campaign by the Palestinians.”
+“Attempts to act behind our back have happened before and will again, but ‘operating’ Jewish organizations directly from Jerusalem, with no coordination and no consultation, is liable to be dangerous,” the embassy cable said.
+“Operating like this could encounter opposition from the organizations themselves, given their legal status; Britain isn’t the US,” the cable added.
+It also warned that such behavior “could be considered political activity, or even activity on behalf of a foreign government on British soil,” Haaretz states.
+The leak would seem to confirm that the Israeli government increasingly views Jewish organizations and communities abroad as mere extensions of its state propaganda apparatus.
+This is unlikely to do much to tamp down criticism of Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians, but it does pose a danger to Jews who do not wish to be identified with a foreign government that is increasingly seen as a pariah.
+Notably, as Haaretz reports, it was the British Jewish official himself who “immediately voiced his objections to the embassy, both orally and in writing, as well as to the heads of other British Jewish organizations.”
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-articleTitle: Did Israel fire chemical weapons on Gaza last month?
-pageTitle: Did Israel fire chemical weapons on Gaza last month? | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Health workers have reported finding "abnormal symptoms" among the injured.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:18.400Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/did-israel-fire-chemical-weapons-gaza-last-month/11973
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-Hassan Doghmosh suffers severe burns after his Gaza City neighborhood was bombed last month.
-ActiveStillsSevere burns cover the face and neck of Hassan Doghmosh. Israel’s latest attack on Gaza may have ended but Doghmosh is still suffering its effects.
-Doghmosh, 40, was injured when his home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City was bombed during Israel’s eight-day offensive. With Gaza’s medical facilities overstretched, he was initially treated in Egypt. He is now in the intensive care unit of al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital.
-“There is shrapnel all over his body,” Mohammad Khail, a staff nurse in the hospital, said. “One piece of shrapnel cut an artery in his neck, causing a lot of bleeding. Also, the upper part of his left eye was hurt, causing his eyes to close completely. And he has bad wounds to his chest and abdomen.”
-Six-year-old Mohammad Abu Zour lies on another bed in the intensive care unit. According to medical staff, the little boy suffered a fractured skull. His family’s home in the al-Zaytoun area of Gaza City was hit by Israeli shells three days before a ceasefire was announced.
-Meanwhile, Khail explained how another patient, five-year-old Nesma Qalaja, suffered a wound to her heart that has prevented her blood from flowing normally. She and Mohammad are among the 450 children to have been injured during the eight days of attacks. More than 30 other children were killed.
-According to the Gaza health ministry, Operation Pillar of Cloud — as Israel called its offensive — killed 183 persons. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in a situation report today that 103 Palestinian civilians were killed. Almost 1,400 Palestinians were injured, including 155 elderly persons and 220 women, the health ministry says.
-Abnormal symptoms
-Nema al-Swairki from al-Mughraqa, a town in the central Gaza Strip, was one of those women. “I was close to a water well, when a bombing occurred.” she said. “I rushed to my daughter to try to protect her, then I had fainted. When I woke up, I found myself at the hospital.”
-Al-Swairki, who is in her thirties, was hit in the back. She has a deep and large wound near her kidney.
-Among those receiving treatment in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis is a man who was hit by an Israeli drone that struck a farm owned by his family in southern Gaza. A friend of his was killed in the attack. “I was hit directly in my abdomen and two legs,” said the man, who is in his thirties and asked not to be named.
-Baker al-Derdy, the head nurse in Nasser hospital, said that when this man was first admitted, there was “a strange smell, almost chemical” from him. Al-Derdy pointed to other indications that Israel may have used chemical weapons during its offensive.
-“Some of the symptoms we have seen are abnormal,” al-Derdy added. “The type of burns that appear on the bodies suggest that the weapons employed were not conventional. The burns go deep into the skin and the skin itself turns blue. And I can tell you that the burns hit even the third layer of the skin.”
-Israel is known to have used white phosphorous — a highly combustible substance — during Operation Cast Lead, its three week attack on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. In January 2009, Amnesty International investigators reported finding white phosphorous wedges on residential buildings in Gaza City. Once it comes in contact with human skin, white phosphorous can burn deeply into the muscle and bone (“Israel used white phosphorous in Gaza civilian areas,” 19 January 2009).
-Burnt-out bodies
-Ashraf al-Qedra, a spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza, said that it was not possible to confirm that chemical weapons were used by Israel last month. But al-Qedra also acknowledged that some of the burns witnessed were deeper than those associated with conventional weapons.
-“We in Gaza and health bodies in the West Bank do not have laboratories where we could properly examine what types of weapons have been used in Israeli attacks,” al-Qedra said. “But according to what we have seen so far, it appears that Israel used some explosive weapons or ammunition that caused burns and deep wounds. In most cases of those killed, we have seen that bodies were either torn apart or completely burnt out. Also, many of those injured have had their lower or upper limbs amputated.”
-Approximately 50 of those injured in the latest attack remain in a critical condition. Staff at al-Shifa say they do not have all the equipment needed to treat the injured. As a result, some of them have been transferred to Egyptian hospitals for follow-up care.
-Both local and international human rights groups are continuing to gather information on the types of injuries inflicted. Samir Zaqout, chief researcher for the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, said: “We cannot either deny or confirm Israel’s use of illicit or unconventional weapons or ammunition against the people of Gaza during the last Israeli attack.
-“However, during Operation Cast Lead, international experts came to the territory and investigated. According to these experts, remnants of Israeli weapons, like tank shells and missile shrapnel, contained some very dangerous and poisonous substances. The experts advised us to bury or keep those remnants away from populated areas. These substances cause severe health complications in the long term.”
-Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.
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+articleTitle: Israeli Apartheid Week held at 30 UK universities, despite repression
+pageTitle: Israeli Apartheid Week held at 30 UK universities, despite repression | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Israel lobby groups failed to shut down the annual event in the UK.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:30.435Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-deas/israeli-apartheid-week-held-30-uk-universities-despite-repression
 ---
+Students at the University of Cambridge and five other campuses erected mock apartheid walls during Israeli Apartheid Week.Israeli Apartheid Week took place on more than 30 university campuses across the UK last week despite a massive government backed campaign of repression.
+The week saw some events cancelled, with unprecedented and bizarre restrictions imposed on organizers.
+Israeli Apartheid Week is an annual series of events that last year took place in more than 225 cities across the world to raise awareness about how Israel meets the UN definition of apartheid and to build support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
+Thousands of students and academics attended events as part of what was one of the biggest Israeli Apartheid Weeks in the UK to date.
+This was doubly impressive given the unprecedented campaign of repression launched against Israeli Apartheid Week by the UK government, universities and the pro-Israel lobby. The campaign came in the context of broader attacks on Palestine organizing in the UK and across the world.
+On 13 February, UK universities minister Jo Johnson wrote a letter, seen by The Electronic Intifada, titled “Tackling Anti-semitism on campus” to Nicola Dandridge, the head of Universities UK, the representative organization for universities.
+Apparently signalling that universities should seek to subject Israeli Apartheid Week events to special scrutiny, Johnson wrote that events which “might take place under the banner of ‘Israel Apartheid’ events” must be “properly handled by higher education institutions to ensure that our values, expectations and laws are not violated.”
+Johnson’s letter was passed on to the head of each of the UK’s universities.
+South African anti-apartheid activist and academic Farid Esack spokes to more than 170 at an Israeli Apartheid Week event at the University of Sussex.
+British university staff are also being told to “manage” pro-Palestine events on campus as part of the government’s controversial Prevent anti-extremism strategy, Middle East Eye reported.
+In addition, pro-Israel organizations lobbied universities directly, urging them to cancel Israeli Apartheid Week events and organized mass letter writing campaigns. According to an email newsletter it sent out, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a pro-Israel organization, met with several universities to call for the cancellation of events.
+Apparently urged on by pro-Israel groups, the Charity Commission, the regulating body for UK charities, sent intimidating emails to student unions at many of the universities where Israeli Apartheid Week was taking place.
+Having spoken to different student organizers and student union officers, it is clear the commission asked unions a series of questions about Israeli Apartheid Week. This included insisting that unions reconsider the “suitability of invited speakers” and urging them to take extra measures to ensure that Israeli Apartheid Week events were lawful.
+As part of my organizing on Israeli Apartheid Week, I’ve been speaking to members of the Israeli Apartheid Week UK committee and to organizers on campuses across the country. The way in which universities and some student unions reacted to this external pressure were often dangerously repressive and outright bizarre. They included the following:
+More than 170 people heard from US spoken word artist and organiser Aja Monet at an Israeli Apartheid Week event at the University of Sussex.
+Tamara LasherasYet despite all this, Israeli Apartheid Week events still took place at more than 30 campuses.
+US spoken word artist and organizer Aja Monet and South African anti-apartheid veteran and academic Farid Esack spoke to hundreds of people at events at Kings College London, the University of Manchester and the University of Sussex.
+Monet also performed at a packed out cultural event in London alongside Palestinian spoken word artist and organizer Rafeef Ziadah and Moroccan band N3rdistan.
+Abed Salayma from Hebron-based group Youth Against Settlements spoke out against Israeli apartheid at Portsmouth, University College London, Goldsmiths, Brunel and several Scottish universities.
+At the University of Oxford, talks were given by Palme d’Or winning director Ken Loach and Professor Avi Shlaim.
+The Israel lobby had clearly set its sights on the complete cancellation of Israeli Apartheid Week in the UK.
+Indeed, the Board of Deputies of British Jews sent out an email claiming credit for some of the cancellations of events and other repressive measures enacted by universities.
+The fact that inspiring, impressive and well attended events still took place across the country is down to the way in which students, as well as many student unions, stood up to university management and firmly pushed back against the repression.
+Organizing against repression
+Explaining how Israel meets the UN definition of apartheid and that Palestinians are entitled to the same human rights as everyone else is part of a global anti-racist struggle – despite whatever the Israel lobby claims.
+It’s also significant that academics across the country wrote emails to management and brought up concerns about repression in their departmental meetings. More than 250 academics signed an open letter published in The Guardian denouncing the campaign of repression.
+Prominent anti-Palestinian activist David Collier appeared disappointed that the campaign of repression largely failed, writing “despite one or two cancellations, the government, the university, and elements of our own leadership are letting us down.”
+It’s clear that attempts to repress Palestine solidarity organizing won’t stop students standing up for Palestinian rights.
+In a statement, the Israeli Apartheid Week UK organizing committee said that although the restrictions “created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation on university campuses” attempts to silence the Palestine solidarity movement would fail.
+“Freedom of expression is at stake here not only for campaigning around Palestinian rights, but social justice campaigning more broadly,” the committee said. “The attacks on Palestine campaigning must be situated within today’s overall current political context which facilitates discrimination towards marginalised groups.”
+The committee insisted that “no amount of external meddling to shut down or censor IAW events will work – we will continue to uphold the right to campaign on university campuses and advocate for justice and freedom.”
+Correction: due to a editing error, this article initially stated that more than 2,500 academics signed the open letter in The Guardian. The correct figure is 250. This has been amended in the text.
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-articleTitle: Israel keeps sick prisoners in "slaughterhouse" conditions
-pageTitle: Israel keeps sick prisoners in "slaughterhouse" conditions | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Alyan al-Amour witnessed enormous cruelty during his time behind bars.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:18.515Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-keeps-sick-prisoners-slaughterhouse-conditions/36711
 ---
-Alyan al-Amour was imprisoned by Israel for a total of 16 years.
-Adjusting to reality outside the confines of an Israeli prison is not easy. Alyan al-Amour has found that out.
-“The sense of freedom I have now is strange,” the 43-year-old said. “When I walk, I find it hard to believe I can move without anyone stopping me.”
-On the day after his release in September, Alyan met his fiancee Deena for the first time. The couple got engaged while Alyan was in prison but Deena was never able to visit him.
-Alyan and Deena married within a few weeks of their first meeting. It was an important step toward ensuring that Alyan can rebuild his life.
-The horrors he encountered behind bars cannot be erased from his memory.
-His long period of detention began in September 2006. Alyan was at home in al-Fukhari – near the Gaza city of Khan Younis – when Israeli troops invaded the area and arrested him.
-He was quickly brought to Ashkelon prison inside Israel, where he was kept for 35 days. During that period, he was held underground and was repeatedly beaten and threatened by his Israeli interrogators.
-Alyan believes that his interrogators wanted to coerce him into confessing to something he had not done.
-Over the next three years, Alyan was brought to court on numerous occasions.
-The bus used to transport him “looked good on the outside,” he noted. “But inside there were iron bars, handcuffs and armed soldiers.”
-Although the trip to court should have been short, the Israeli authorities would often keep Alyan handcuffed inside the bus for long periods. It was not unusual for Alyan to be held in the bus for three full days as the drivers transported him and other Palestinians between the court and various prisons.
-Three years after his trial began, Alyan, who had worked in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, was sentenced to a lengthy jail term over allegations that he was involved in resistance activities.
-He spent a total of 16 years behind bars – mostly in Ramon prison.
-Throughout his time in jail, Alyan was held in harsh conditions.
-As he was in reasonably good health, Alyan was arguably a little more fortunate than other prisoners. He became increasingly conscious of how the conditions exacerbated the health problems of prisoners who were unwell.
-Alyan wanted to help those with medical issues. Yet for most of the time, all he was able to do was communicate with them remotely – via lawyers or by sending verbal messages when he met other prisoners on buses heading to and from court – and offer some moral support.
-That changed in 2019.
-Early that year, he submitted a request to join a group of prisoners who work in Ramle prison clinic. His request was accepted by the authorities.
-Leaving in coffins
-Initially, he was excited by how he had an opportunity to do what he wanted. His excitement turned to shock as soon as he saw the cruelty inflicted on patients in Ramle.
-“It was like a slaughterhouse,” he said. “I will never forget the sight of patients on my first day there. Their hands were cuffed to the beds. Their faces looked sad and exhausted. And I could see from their thin bodies how severely ill they were. There was no doubt that the hospital was not taking care of them.”
-.
-Along with a few other prisoners, Alyan assisted patients who required help to eat and take medicine or who had mobility issues. At times, he would raise patients’ complaints with lawyers or with the clinic’s administration.
-A number of the patients Alyan met in Ramle had cancer. The services offered to cancer patients were, he noted, completely inadequate.
-For chemotherapy and other essential treatments, cancer patients were transferred to hospitals that were larger.
-Once a week, guards at the Ramle clinic would carry out an inspection, generally at nighttime. During it, patients were moved to a yard for a number of hours, no matter what the weather was like.
-Prisoners with medical needs frequently face an ordeal. The Israeli authorities can stall on processing prisoners’ applications for hospital treatment.
-It is not uncommon, according to Alyan, for 18 months or two years to elapse between an application for such treatment and a final decision. Sometimes, the authorities reject requests.
-“There are hundreds of prisoners with health problems,” he said. “But they are afraid of the Israeli hospitals because of the deliberate negligence. I haven’t seen a patient get better in the hospital. The patients only leave in coffins. It is very sad.”
-“Death sentence”
-Three of Ramle’s patients died in the few years that Alyan worked in the clinic.
-Among them was Bassam al-Sayih, 46, from Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Al-Sayih had leukemia and died in September 2019.
-“Bassam used to say, ‘I want to go back to Gaza with you and eat fish on the beach,’” Alyan said. “That was in the last few days of his life. I held back my tears and told him it would be wonderful if we could go to the beach in Gaza together.”
-As well as visiting patients in Ramle clinic, Alyan reached out to some other prisoners who were ill.
-One of them, Sami al-Amour, was a relative from Deir al-Balah in Gaza.
-Alyan would send verbal messages to Sami via other prisoners.
-Last year, doctors recommended that Sami should have surgery for blocked arteries. But rather than being taken to hospital, Sami was kept in prison.
-Alyan argued that keeping Sami in prison was tantamount to a “death sentence.”
-“They knew how critical his condition was,” Alyan added.
-Sami died in Israeli custody during November last year. He was only 39.
-The horrors which Alyan al-Amour encountered have been witnessed by so many others.
-According to the most recent statistics, there are now 4,760 Palestinian political prisoners.
-With Israel enjoying huge support from the US and the European Union, it faces no consequences for the abuse of prisoners. Apart from issuing timid statements of “concern,” the powerful allow Israel’s cruelty to go unchallenged.
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Israel lobbyists caught in Presidents Club sexual harassment scandal
+pageTitle: Israel lobbyists caught in Presidents Club sexual harassment scandal | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Some members of the "men only" club donate to Israel.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:37.780Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/israel-lobbyists-caught-presidents-club-sexual-harassment-scandal
 ---
+Disgraced Presidents Club chairman David Meller has also been a leading Conservative Friends of Israel figure. (The Edge Foundation)Current and former trustees of a “men only” club at the heart of a sexual harassment scandal unfolding in the UK have deep ties to the Israel lobby, The Electronic Intifada can reveal.
+Several attendees of a fundraising dinner at London’s elite Dorchester Hotel last week also have significant connections to Israel lobby groups – including funders, founders and sympathetic lawmakers.
+The Presidents Club, a registered charity which organizes the secretive annual event, has sent some of its many donations to the Community Security Trust, a group which works against the Palestinian-led boycott of Israel.
+In the wake of an undercover investigation by The Financial Times, the club on Wednesday announced it was to close, and “distribute remaining funds to children’s charities.”
+But a swathe of medical charities on Wednesday announced they were returning more than $1.7 million worth of donations from the club.
+The paper sent two female investigative reporters posing as hostesses to the event. According to the paper, the women were told to keep attendees “happy — and fetch drinks when required.”
+The group of around 300 men were described by the paper as a “mix of British and foreign businessmen, the odd lord, politicians, oligarchs, property tycoons, film producers, financiers, and chief executives.”
+The exposé, written by undercover reporter Madison Marriage, stated that they and the rest of the women hired to work at event were made to sign nondisclosure agreements, had their phones taken off them, and were told to expect some of the exclusively male guests to be “annoying.”
+The report stated that “all of the women were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels. At an after-party many hostesses — some of them students earning extra cash — were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned.”
+“I was groped several times,” the undercover reporter behind the story told the BBC’s Newsnight program.
+None of the men named in this article are alleged to have directly participated in sexual harassment. Yet with sexism rampant in the British establishment, it is perhaps unsurprising to find the Israel lobby caught up in a sexual harassment scandal – they are part of that very same establishment.
+Conservative Friends of Israel
+On Wednesday Presidents Club trustee David Meller – chairman of the club, which has organized such events for more than 30 years  – was forced to resign his role at the Department of Education.
+An anonymous former colleague of Meller’s told The Guardian that he had “desperately wanted” to be appointed to the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber – “and now he’ll never get his ultimate prize.”
+Meller was a director of the influential lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel between 2013 and 2014.
+He has donated more than $71,000 to the ruling Conservative Party and gave considerable sums to two of its most ardent Israel-supporting lawmakers, Robert Halfon and Michael Gove.
+As The Electronic Intifada reported last year, Meller is particularly close to Gove – currently the environment minister. Meller was a key supporter of the politician’s short-lived campaign to become Conservative Party leader in 2016.
+One of the charities Meller is currently trustee of is the Tel Aviv University Trust.
+Israel lobby donors
+Some of the Presidents Club’s many donations were to the Community Security Trust, an anti-Semitism monitoring charity which has also secretly supported work to undermine the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
+According to Charity Commission accounts, the Trust received donations from the Presidents Club totaling almost $100,000 between 2012 and 2015.
+Gerald Ronson and his friend Harvey Soning. (JTV/JAI)A second Presidents Club trustee, Harvey Soning, is close friends with Community Security Trust founder Gerald Ronson, according to the latter’s autobiography.
+Ronson himself attended a Presidents Club event in 2010, according to an Independent on Sunday column at the time.
+According to the 2010 report and to The Financial Times’ exposé, other past attendees at the men-only event include Leonard Blavatnik and Poju Zabludowicz.
+Music mogul Blavatnik, named Britain’s richest man in 2015, has funded the UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers.
+Poju Zabludowicz (right) with Israel’s then-ambassador to the UK in 2010. (UK in Israel)Zabludowicz, a real estate billionaire and Conservative Party donor, established and bankrolls the major Israel lobby group BICOM – the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre – which seeks to influence what it calls “opinion formers” to support Israel.
+The brochure for the Presidents Club gala last Thursday, published by The Guardian, named Zabludowizc as a patron for 2017-18.
+Labour Friends of Israel
+Another attendee at last week’s event was Labour party fundraiser Jonathan Mendelsohn, a prominent supporter and former chairperson of Labour Friends of Israel, and a member of the House of Lords.
+Presidents Club attendee Jonathan Mendelsohn (right) on a trip to an Israeli “counter-terror” institute last year. (IDC Herzliya)Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday night forced him to step down from his post in the shadow cabinet. A spokesperson for the Labour leader said that “the reports about this appalling event were deeply shocking and there can be no excuse for anyone’s attendance.”
+A former advisor to Tony Blair, Mendelsohn fundraised for the party in the “New Labour” era, and since 2007 has been a director of Progress, the hard-right Labour faction.
+According to The Telegraph, Mendelsohn “made a fortune from sex chatlines and online gambling.”
+Despite Labour under Corbyn breaking with its Blairite past, Mendelsohn had been a party spokesperson for business, energy and industrial strategy.
+In response to The Financial Times revealing that he was listed on the Presidents Club seating plan, Labour spin doctors initially told journalists Mendelsohn “was only present for part of the dinner and wasn’t aware of any of this behavior – he completely condemns it.”
+Labour Friends of Israel has in the past made much of the supposedly “progressive case for Israel,” claiming that “women enjoy equality” in Israel – very much neglecting the rights of Palestinian women.
+No one saw anything
+Conservative minister for children and families Nadhim Zahawi has faced pressure to step down after he confirmed that he was at the event, saying “was truly shocked by the reports that have emerged.”
+Zahawi has posed pro-Israel questions in the House of Commons and last year signed a Conservative Friends of Israel letter praising the Balfour Declaration – which paved the way for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
+Even the Presidents Club itself initially feigned shock at the revelations.
+A spokesperson responded that “organizers are appalled by the allegations of bad behavior at the event … Such behavior is totally unacceptable. The allegations will be investigated fully and promptly.”
+Only the next day, the club announced it was disbanding. An internal investigation seems unlikely.
+The founder of the agency responsible for hiring the women as hostesses told The Financial Times that she was unaware of any sexual harassment allegations but claimed that “with the caliber of guest, I would be astonished.”
+Yet the tone of the evening was clearly set by the event organizers from the start.
+With additional research by Asa Winstanley.
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-articleTitle: No protection from illness in Gaza
-pageTitle: No protection from illness in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Destruction of hospitals described as "heartbreaking."
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:18.798Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/no-protection-illness-gaza/45911
 ---
-A mass grave has been found at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
-APA imagesReem Omar is worried about the health of her family. Two of her four children have contracted hepatitis.
-The first sign of infection came when Reem noticed that her daughter’s face had turned a sickly shade of yellow.
-After a few days, her daughter – who had become quite thin – had a high temperature and diarrhea and started to vomit.
-Reem initially sought help from a medical point. Its workers felt a more thorough examination was necessary and told Reem that her daughter should be taken to the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
-Hepatitis A is closely associated with poor diet and a lack of clean water.
-Reem is convinced that the scarcity of food in Gaza caused her children to become ill. “There are no fruit or healthy sources of nutrition that help children and adults to fight diseases,” she said.
-Following mass displacement, more than 1 million people remain crammed into Rafah despite reports that some have recently left the city.
-Jamal al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti hospital, noted that displaced people are “living in very difficult conditions” and “there is no protection from viruses and epidemics.”
-“We used to receive 100 patients a day in this small and simple hospital,” he added. “Today we are talking about receiving 1,000 or more patients with infectious diseases during a single day, not to mention the many cases of injuries because of the ongoing war on Gaza.”
-The few remaining hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed. Israel has been attacking the healthcare system without mercy.
-The World Health Organization has described the situation as “heartbreaking.”
-Among the sites targeted are al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital. Last month, Israel carried out one of the worst massacres in Palestinian history there.
-Within the past few days, a mass grave has been found at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. It contained at least 180 bodies.
-Unless a ceasefire is called, it appears certain that Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers will be subjected to further attacks, that disease will spread and that more people will die from conditions that are both preventable and curable.
-Fedaa al-Qedra is a journalist in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Gaza's farmers return to find scorched trees, toxic soil
+pageTitle: Gaza's farmers return to find scorched trees, toxic soil | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Northern Gaza’s farms were the hardest hit by Israeli attacks.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:37.974Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-farmers-return-find-scorched-trees-toxic-soil/50485
 ---
+A remnant of an Israeli weapon east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, in November 2023.
+ActiveStillsThe burned-up tractor rested upside down on Mahmoud al-Attar’s farm in Beit Lahiya, the northern Gaza Strip. It’s not clear how the tractor ended up that way, but one can assume, judging by the deep holes in the earth and the destroyed greenhouses, that it was at the hands of the Israeli military.
+On this morning in early February, al-Attar, 52, had returned to his land, which is about 500 meters from the northern boundary with Israel. We can see the occupation tanks at the boundary, and al-Attar always assumes that he is under surveillance, whether from those tanks or the drones that fly above.
+Al-Attar was eager to return to his land after the ceasefire was announced on 19 January. For over a year he had been displaced by Israeli attacks to al-Mawasi, near the southern city of Khan Younis.
+But the trip here was arduous. We rode in a car for one hour and then had to continue on foot for another hour because the roads were blocked by rubble from destroyed homes and buildings.
+When we arrived, the farm was not in much better shape.
+Al-Attar knelt on his knees to inspect the roots of a plant struggling to survive.
+“I returned to find my land as if it were a desert,” he said. “No water, no equipment, not even the safety to work here.”
+The soil was cracked, and the olive trees he had tended for decades had scorched trunks as a result of all the Israeli bombardments.
+Al-Attar pointed to a once-working well near his land that Israeli forces had bulldozed and said that wells have become “scarce.”
+“I will dig a new well that depends on power generators, but fuel is not available,” he said, referring to the Israeli blockade on fuel. “Not to mention that most of the irrigation pipes have been completely destroyed.”
+Al-Attar is ready to start replenishing his land, but every task is complicated by Israel’s restrictions.
+“It is no longer just plowing and planting,” he said. “It is more like a battle for survival, and the farmer is the biggest loser.”
+A new reality of mass destruction
+Now that Gaza’s farmers are returning to their land, they are reckoning with a new reality of mass destruction.
+The United Nations, in its analysis of satellite data, estimates that cropland comprises 41 percent of the Gaza Strip. This used to be a boon for Gaza, since, in 2022, before the war, agriculture was “one of the most important components” of Gaza’s gross domestic product, contributing $343 million to its economy, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
+The bureau now estimates that every day Gaza’s agricultural sector loses nearly $2 million, as nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s croplands have been destroyed by the Israeli military.
+Satellite data shows that agricultural lands in northern Gaza and Gaza City were the hardest hit by Israeli attacks, with up to 71 percent and 81 percent of those lands sustaining damage, respectively.
+Gaza’s farmlands turn into desert
+Farmers like Suleiman al-Najjar, 56, are wondering how they will ever recover. Al-Najjar returned to his farm east of Khan Younis on 22 January and found that his land was in a dire state.
+“Since the first day, I found remnants of shells and shrapnel in the dirt, some buried, some visible on the surface,” he said. “But the disaster is not only in this waste, but in the toxins left in the soil.”
+He tried to plant cucumber seedlings when he returned, but as soon as they started to grow, they withered and died, “as if the soil refused to grow again.”
+A report from the Environment Quality Authority, a governmental agency, stated that the Israeli occupation army has dropped more than 85,000 tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
+Ashraf al-Turk, an official at the Environment Quality Authority, told The Electronic Intifada that the Israeli raids polluted the soil and that this could affect agricultural production for decades.
+The full extent of the long-term harm posed to Gaza’s land, including its soil, is still being assessed, but the United Nations Environmental Programme states that ���damage to agricultural land and natural areas arising from the conflict may reduce the fertility of soil, and increase Gaza’s vulnerability to desertification.”
+Al-Najjar was not the only one whose seedlings withered this year, as many of his farmer neighbors also complained about the dry and dead soil.
+“This land used to give us the best crops of cucumbers and tomatoes,” he said. “Today, even the weeds do not grow as they used to.”
+Back in Beit Lahiya, al-Attar is still on edge, even after the ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal from his land.
+“Any agricultural activity could become a target for them,” he said, referencing the Israeli tanks along the boundary with Israel.
+Despite this, al-Attar says that he will continue to work on his land, and that itself is a form of resistance.
+“We have managed to rely on ourselves to provide some seeds and seedlings,” he said. He hopes that with time and effort, the soil will come to life again, and that his cucumbers and potatoes will thrive.
+Abdullah Younis is a journalist in the Gaza Strip.
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-articleTitle: A long day’s journey to reunite in displacement
-pageTitle: A long day’s journey to reunite in displacement | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Bleeding feet and gunshots cannot stop determined family from reaching relatives in Deir al-Balah.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:18.892Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/long-days-journey-reunite-displacement/48911
 ---
-Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza have been displaced repeatedly over the past 11 months, here on 14 April.
-APA imagesMy immediate family and I decided to evacuate to the south early in this genocide. The Nasser area of Gaza City, especially al-Wihda Tower, where we lived, was a clear target for the Israeli army.
-After all, it was before.
-So on 13 October last year, we headed south after failing to persuade my grandparents, who wanted to stay in their home.
-They did so without major incident until July when my uncle Hazem called one day.
-“Your grandfather’s toes started bleeding, but we did not know why.”
-He said they had been to doctors without much success.
-Over the following weeks, my mother made it her business to try to convince Hazem and the others to travel south.
-“We want to come,” he would repeatedly respond. “We don’t know how. We don’t know if the road is open or not.”
-We had all heard reports of the Israeli army sometimes turning away people and telling them to leave all their possessions, including water, clothes and other personal stuff.
-All the talk on the news was of a possible ceasefire and Hazem preferred to wait.
-Heading south
-However, the bleeding from my grandfather’s toes was getting worse. On 27 July, my uncle took his family and my grandparents and started their journey.
-They took a car from Jabaliya refugee camp and went south until they reached al-Kuwait roundabout.
-Then the journey took a turn.
-Ismail, my 10-year-old cousin, suddenly panicked.
-“‘They saw me, they saw me. Let’s run; they will shoot me’,” Hazem recalled his young son screaming.
-At the same time, two soldiers had fired at two men trying to evacuate south. Hearing the sound of gunfire, my uncle and other family members ran as fast as they could and as far as they could reach.
-When the sound of shooting stopped, they stopped for a five-minute rest and then resumed walking south.
-Under the burning sun, they walked, carrying their stuff and pushing my grandfather in a wheelchair.
-An Israeli soldier stopped them and asked my uncle and grandfather to show their ID cards. After they were allowed to proceed, Hazem said he thought they would find people to help them, but “we were surprised that the area there was empty.”
-“There were not any living creatures,” he said.
-At one point the group stopped walking from exhaustion. At that point, Hazem said, they had walked for about six hours under the scorching sun.
-Hazem called my other uncle, Hussam, and I to see if we could pick them up.
-We had been told that vehicles could not drive out of the area we were in or they would be targeted. I remember seeing at least three Israeli quadcopters flying ahead of us.
-But we had also seen some animal-drawn carts going north.
-Costly reunion
-It used to be that you could rent a cart for about $10 or $20.
-On this boiling July day, we offered a cart driver $100 to pick up Hazem and the others.
-He refused at first, citing the risk involved, but was eventually persuaded when we doubled our offer.
-He asked for a description to identify our relatives, and I offered to go with him, an offer immediately withdrawn with a resounding “no!” from Hussam.
-The cart went and eventually, after much anguished waiting, it returned with the whole family from the north.
-I rushed to embrace my grandfather and Hazem
-“I am so tired,” my grandfather said. “Bring me something, anything to drink.”
-We had brought a couple of bottles filled with cold water. They were quickly consumed.
-And as we began the last stretch to Deir al-Balah, our newly-arrived relatives, like travelers from a distant land, voiced surprise at the things they could see being sold by street-side vendors.
-“Look there, they have fruits and vegetables,”  Hazem’s young daughter, Malak, said. “They also have noodles and chocolates.”
-When the group reached our tent, the scene was emotional.
-For more than 10 minutes, we all kept hugging, crying and kissing each other.
-My mother made a meal for everyone – with chicken!
-And even though we had merely reunited in displacement, it felt like a happy ending.
-Khaled Al-Qershali is a writer and translator.
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+articleTitle: Did Radiohead’s Thom Yorke swear at fans waving Palestinian flags?
+pageTitle: Did Radiohead’s Thom Yorke swear at fans waving Palestinian flags? | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Singer says "some fucking people" as fans urge boycott.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:38.374Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/did-radioheads-thom-yorke-swear-fans-waving-palestinian-flags
 ---
+Palestinian flags on display during a Radiohead performance in Scotland. (Glasgow Palestine Action) Radiohead front man Thom Yorke has apparently stuck up his middle finger up at fans waving Palestinian flags in protest at the band’s decision to play in Israel later this month.
+The singer’s gesture was captured on video during a performance in Glasgow, Scotland at the weekend.
+Prior to the song “Myxomatosis,” the musician repeatedly said “some fucking people” in an apparent swipe at the protesters.
+“Arrogant attitude”
+Struan Mearns from Glasgow Palestine Action, who took part in the demo said:
+“As a lifelong fan of Radiohead and supporter of the Palestinian struggle for justice, it broke my heart when the band decided to play in Israel. When Thom Yorke swore at us I was shocked but given that they’re willing to break the cultural boycott and help the state of Israel whitewash its crimes, that kind of arrogant attitude is actually not that surprising.”
+Other disappointed fans responded to Yorke’s comments at Glasgow’s TRNSMT festival, where Radiohead topped the bill, with memes. One read: “Some fucking people had their homes razed to the ground and you’re going to play on the rubble.”
+Hayarkon Park, the 40,000-capacity Tel Aviv stadium which Radiohead are due to play on 19 July, is built on the ruins of Jarisha, a Palestinian village.
+Since announcing the planned Israel gig, the band have ignored many direct appeals from Palestinian fans to reconsider, including those which drew attention to their prior reputation as politically conscious.
+Lead singer Thom Yorke has been outspoken on climate change and a range of other issues, most recently mocking UK Prime Minister Theresa May on stage at Glastonbury, a major English festival. Previously he has displayed a Tibetan flag onstage.
+But when it comes to Palestinian rights, the band have rebuffed a call to boycott made by 14,000 who signed a petition handed in to the band’s record label in London.
+Similarly, they have rejected attempts to reach out by artists like Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and filmmaker Ken Loach, who has previously said: “Thom’s is a simple choice: will he stand with the oppressor or the oppressed?”
+Yorke’s reaction suggests he has sided with apartheid Israel.
+Disrespectful?
+Prior to the apparent insult to fans in Glasgow, he had already chastised his critics in an interview with music magazine Rolling Stone, calling  the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement “a waste of energy” and “divisive.”
+In June, Yorke complained: “It’s deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw shit at us in public. It’s deeply disrespectful to assume that we’re either being misinformed or that we’re so retarded we can’t make these decisions ourselves.”
+Artists for Palestine UK responded with a statement pointing out that Radiohead’s decision to play in Israel – and the government’s apartheid policies - are “divisive.”
+The band’s recent gigs — from Manchester to Glastonbury — have attracted protests. Last week Ken Loach suggested that if the band go ahead with their Tel Aviv concert “they may never live it down.”
+Fans in Glasgow spoofed the band’s song “Let Down” — from the album OK Computer — to express their dismay at Radiohead’s plan to break the international picket line and Thom Yorke’s aggressive response to criticism.
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-articleTitle: Getting from A to B means risking your life in Gaza
-pageTitle: Getting from A to B means risking your life in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel has frequently opened fire on people traveling from one area to another.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:19.241Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/getting-b-means-risking-your-life-gaza/46606
 ---
-Deir al-Balah has been under frequent attack.
-APA imagesUm Muhammad was in serious danger.
-In the early stages of the current war, she fled her home in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp.
-At first, Um Muhammad, 40, took shelter in a local school. She and members of her extended family remained there for a number of days.
-When Israel’s shelling intensified, Um Muhammad took the difficult decision to leave the school.
-Along with her children, her sister and her brother-in-law, Um Muhammad headed toward Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. There, they also took shelter in a school.
-They stayed in Deir al-Balah for a long period. But on 14 April, Um Muhammad and her daughters set out for Gaza City.
-Um Muhammad hoped that she could return to Beach camp.
-Early that morning, Um Muhammad heard a number of people speaking about those who had returned to Gaza City.
-She gathered her daughters and told them to get ready so that they could begin their journey.
-As they approached an Israeli military checkpoint, some women told Um Muhammad to remain as far away as possible from men who were trying to cross it. Israeli soldiers targeted Palestinian men, the women warned.
-A short while later, Um Muhammad heard a woman close to her screaming. The woman had been shot in the leg.
-“I saw a young man lying on the ground,” Um Muhammad said. “He had been shot dead.”
-Full of fear
-Israeli soldiers opened fire on countless people seeking a return to their homes.
-Some were killed. Others were injured.
-Um Muhammad and her daughters ran. They kept running until they reached Nuseirat, another area in central Gaza.
-Their journey was full of fear. They were especially worried about Um Muhammad’s 17-year-old nephew as they were unsure of his whereabouts.
-After thinking he had been killed, it was a huge relief to know he was still alive.
-The boy was actually “trapped in a mosque with other men,” Um Muhammad said. The Israeli military besieged the mosque, surrounding it with two tanks.
-The boy was able to escape from the mosque through a window.
-Although Um Muhammad’s home in Beach refugee camp had been attacked by Israel, she is still determined to live in it.
-“I have relatives and friends here [in central Gaza],” Um Muhammad said. “But I miss my house in the north. I miss my life.”
-Nevine, 28, had to leave Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza during the current war.
-First, she took shelter at a school in Gaza City. After Israeli soldiers besieged and then invaded the school, Nevine and her three children fled for Deir al-Balah.
-The journey was terrifying.
-Israeli soldiers were firing on people. Nevine and her children could see the Israelis flying American made warplanes overhead.
-Bombs were being dropped from the planes.
-Nevine made sure to hold her children’s hands throughout the journey. They could easily get lost amid the chaos, she felt.
-Heartbreaking
-Her husband has remained in the northern part of Gaza.
-Being away from their father is heartbreaking for the children.
-Nevine recalled that “my eldest son Thaer cried his heart out when he spoke to his dad on the phone” during Eid al-Fitr.
-Her home in Beit Hanoun has been severely damaged but Nevine keeps thinking about returning to it.
-Ahmad, 19, fled Gaza City in the early stages of the war.
-He first went to a school in Deir al-Balah. As the school was overcrowded, he moved into a tent.
-On 14 April, Ahmad set out on a journey back to Gaza City. He recalled how people on the road raised their IDs and white flags.
-That did not prevent the Israeli soldiers from opening fire. “They even started shelling around us,” Ahmad said.
-Ahmad tried to help one person with head injuries.
-“I carried him and kept running until I found a cart,” Ahmad said.
-Ahmad tried to help another person with a leg wound by also placing him in a cart. Then some people that he knew shouted and told Ahmad that his cousin had been injured.
-“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I ran, searching for my cousin.”
-Ahmad found his cousin, carried him and placed him, too, in the cart.
-Ahmad’s family home was destroyed by Israel during the war. So when he set out from Deir al-Balah, his aim was to reach his sister’s home in Gaza City.
-Israel’s extreme violence means that getting from A to B involves risking your life.
-Khaled Al-Qershali is a writer and translator.
-Khaled El-Hissy is a journalist from Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip. Twitter: @khpalestined
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+articleTitle: Palestinian artists take on identity and politics with humor in "Subversion" exhibition
+pageTitle: Palestinian artists take on identity and politics with humor in "Subversion" exhibition | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Subversion, an exhibition at Manchester's Cornerhouse gallery, shows that young Palestinian artists are at the cutting edge of contemporary Arab art.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:38.785Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-artists-take-identity-and-politics-humor-subversion-exhibition/11285
 ---
+View of Larissa Sansour’s “Palistinauts”They may be subject to siege and invasion, cowardly corporate sponsors and the everyday racism of Israeli society, but Subversion, an exhibition at Manchester’s Cornerhouse gallery, shows that young Palestinian artists are at the cutting edge of contemporary Arab art.
+Subversion, described by curator Omar Kholeif as “illustrating fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies interior and exterior visions of the so-called Arab world,” features eleven artists from Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq. Of these, four are Palestinian — Larissa Sansour, from Jerusalem; Sharif Waked, from Nazareth; and Gaza twins Mohamed and Ahmed Abu Nasser, who work under the names Tarzan and Arab.
+Entering the first of the exhibition’s three floors, the visitor encounters Larissa Sansour’s five-minute film A Space Exodus. Playing with images from Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, a space-suited Sansour calls out: “Jerusalem, we have a problem,” before announcing that “the Sunbird has landed” — a reference to the national bird of Palestine. Sansour plants the Palestinian flag on the moon before drifting into deep space, repeating a plaintive “Jerusalem … Jerusalem …?”
+Continuing the playful tone of many of the exhibits, the room surrounding the movie screen and outside into the foyer are crowded with the (frankly cute) foot-high figures of Sansour’s “Palistinauts,” little white space-figures with Palestinian flags printed on their bellies. This is art which pushes the imagination, but also refuses to take itself too seriously.
+A futuristic West Bank located in a skyscraper
+Elsewhere, Subversion previews pieces from Sansour’s “The Nation Estate,” probably her best-known work after French fashion brand Lacoste tried to censor it, throwing Sansour out of the 2011 Elysee Prize.
+The work shows a futuristic West Bank where, under pressure from Israeli settlements, Palestinian life takes place on the floors of a giant skyscraper. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah, complete with life-size models of their cultural and religious sites, occupy floors of the tower, linked by elevators which bypass the checkpoints.
+In one image, Sansour’s own figure stands, watering an olive tree which grows through a cracked concrete floor. The sense of unreality mirrors the incredulity and disbelief with which one must witness the unchecked spread of Israeli settlements.
+View of Tarzan and Arab’s “Gazawood Project”Defying assumptions
+The second Palestinian contribution is Sharif Waked’s “To Be Continued …” Walking into the screening room, a viewer with no knowledge of Arabic would be forgiven for assuming that he or she was seeing a martyrdom video. A serious-looking young man in a black hooded sweatshirt, a khaki combat jacket and a knitted cap sits in front of a green banner emblazoned with Arabic calligraphy and the outlines of AK47s. An automatic weapon rests on the table in front of him as he intones at length in a formal, recitational style. But listen — or read the subtitles — and one finds that he is talking about princesses and viziers, djinns and ifrits, sea voyages and miracles. He is not giving his farewell speech before carrying out acts of warfare, but reading from 1,001 Nights.
+Assumptions about what a young Arab man sitting in front of a video camera might be saying are defied; indeed, if it wasn’t for the subtitles, most Western viewers would have no idea that their stereotypes were wrong. The clues are there — the unexpectedly emotional, pensive style the reader adopts at key points in the text — but as the exhibition catalogue notes, the “mainstream media has conditioned audiences” into a strongly-ingrained set of expectations, to which this piece is a resounding challenge.
+View of Tarzan and Arab’s “Gazawood Project”Gaza parody of action movies
+The final Palestinian contribution is “Gazawood,” by twin al-Aqsa University students known as Tarzan and Arab. In a mocked-up cinema — by the look of it using seats from the Cornerhouse’s own movie theaters downstairs — a short film juxtaposes close-ups of an artist painting in thick, bloody red oils with a parody of action films.
+A grimy, sweating fighter in fatigues hears the electronic message that “everything is over — finished,” and sets off through the bombed-out concrete of Gaza to the top floor of a half-destroyed building. There, he encounters his double — are the twins playing on their identical features to comment on internecine warfare between Fatah and Hamas? The overblown soundtrack, worthy of a Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal action flick, merges into the whirling, chaotic sound of a helicopter.
+Meanwhile, along the back wall of the “cinema,” the twins’ features reappear in a series of posters, ostensibly for similar action films, but all with the names of Israeli military operations against Palestine and the Palestinians — Spring of Youth, Cast Lead, Autumn Clouds and so on. The Abu Nasser twins may have grown up in a Gaza without cinemas, but they twist Hollywood’s own tropes deftly and wryly to comment on the violent environment in which they have grown up.
+Irreverent humor
+The Palestinian contributions represent only, of course, one-third of this exhibition. Other high points include Egyptian artist Khaled Hafez’s high-energy take on politics in his country. In On Presidents and Superheroes, a muscular figure of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis swaggers past half-completed buildings and lines of riot police to a thumping techno soundtrack. Passing a banner reading “presidential elections,” he flicks one letter to make it read “presidential erections” (the joke almost works in Arabic) before heading into a polling booth.
+And in the replica of a tatty Internet cafe — one screen reading “out of service” in Arabic — Wafaa Bilal’s “Virtual Jihadi” is set up on three computers. In a comment on the invention and re-invention of art and identity, a US computer game involving the hunt for Saddam Hussein became, re-designed by al-Qaeda, “The Night of Bush Capturing,” and then in Bilal’s hands was hacked to again change its theme and meaning. On one wall, a small TV, held together by packing tape, shows footage of the work’s showing in the US, where “anti-terrorism” protesters failed to get the joke.
+What ties Subversion together is an overall sense of irreverence combined with real thoughtfulness. The artists make full use of humor to examine identity and politics, but this doesn’t mean they let the viewer off easily. Preconceptions and stereotypes are parodied and challenged; mainstream tropes are subverted and re-appropriated. It’s a lot of fun, but it makes you think.
+All images by Paul Greenwood, courtesy and copyright the artists and Cornerhouse, Manchester.
+The Subversion exhibition runs through 5 June at the Cornerhouse gallery in Manchester, England. More information can be found on the Cornerhouse website.
+Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She is the author of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and co-author, with Sharyn Lock, of Gaza: Beneath the Bombs. Her biography of Leila Khaled will be published in May 2012.
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-articleTitle: Israel's foul play against football in Gaza
-pageTitle: Israel's foul play against football in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Stadiums attacked and players denied freedom of movement.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:19.307Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-foul-play-against-football-gaza/32416
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-Gaping holes in the walls are among the damage caused by Israel’s attack on al-Tuffah stadium.
-The football player Sadiq Lulu was awoken by a big explosion. He could sense that the houses in his neighborhood were shaking.
-It was 26 December and at that early hour Gaza was under a curfew introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the curfew, Lulu decided to check on al-Tuffah stadium, the headquarters of his club.
-Lulu – the team’s 30-year-old captain – was shocked to see the destruction wrought by Israel, which had attacked the grounds.
-“It broke my heart to see the damage to our stadium,” he said. “Al-Tuffah stadium is like a second home. Unfortunately, the bombing of our stadium shows that nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
-Ashraf Humied, the team’s goalkeeper, also went to visit the stadium following the attack. Humied was taken aback when he noticed that its pitch was covered with shrapnel and other debris.
-“There were gaping holes in the walls of the changing rooms,” he said. “There was an abandoned feeling about them. We have nothing to do with politics so why should we be targeted?”
-Ashraf Humeid, al-Tuffah’s goalkeeper, cannot understand why the stadium was targeted. The stadium is of huge importance to the people of al-Tuffah, an area east of Gaza City. As well as hosting football games, it is a popular venue for weddings.
-Its wedding hall had been closed because of the pandemic but there were hopes that it would reopen before long.
-Those hopes have now been dashed. The wedding hall was severely damaged in Israel’s attack.
-Terror targets?
-Israel presented its 26 December airstrikes as a response to rockets fired from Gaza. Its military claimed that it had hit “Hamas terror targets.”
-The military did not mention that three Palestinian civilians – one of them a girl aged six  – were injured in the offensive.
-Nor did it refer to the damage of the football stadium and to other civilian infrastructure – including a mosque, a children’s hospital and a school run by the United Nations.
-The attack on al-Tuffah stadium meant that the local club had to call off its training sessions. The pitch was not in a suitable condition for the following few weeks.
-Yet the team went ahead with matches that had already been arranged, playing in other grounds.
-“We were not physically ready to play so we lost two matches badly,” said Hassan Marzouq, a member of al-Tuffah’s team. “It was sad and embarrassing for us and for our fans.”
-The bombing of al-Tuffah should not be viewed in isolation. Israel has on many occasions behaved aggressively toward Palestinian football players and the facilities they use.
-The wedding hall in al-Tuffah stadium was hit during Israel’s attack.
-Abdallah al-NaamiIsrael has bombed a number of other football stadiums in Gaza during the recent past.
-In 2019, the stadium in the Beit Hanoun area was targeted in an airstrike. And during the major Israeli bombardment of Gaza in November 2012, both the Palestine and Yarmouk stadiums in Gaza City were badly damaged.
-Numerous football players in Gaza were wounded during the Great March of Return – weekly protests held in 2018 and 2019.
-Human rights groups have documented how Israeli snipers shot demonstrators below the knee with high-velocity rifles and bullets that expand on impact. Those affected often required amputations.
-Ordeal
-Israel’s blockade of Gaza has affected the running of football competitions, along with so many other things.
-One consequence is that it has forced the Palestinian Football Association to hold separate leagues for the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
-Since 2015, the winners of each league have vied for the Palestine Cup. The title is awarded to the team which scores the most over two games, one at home, the other away.
-Because Israel denies Palestinians freedom of movement, holding that annual championship has proven an ordeal for players and administrators alike.
-Muhammad Abu Musa has been directly affected by the ordeal.
-In 2016, his club Shabab Khan Younis qualified for the final stages of the Palestine Cup. “I was very excited that I was going to leave Gaza for the first time and visit the West Bank,” he said.
-His excitement soon turned into frustration. Along with five teammates, Abu Musa was denied a travel permit for the West Bank and therefore could not take part in the cup final.
-“I was shocked that I was rejected,” he said. “I did not understand why. I am just a football player.”
-Two years later, Shabab Khan Younis again qualified for the final stages of the Palestine Cup.
-Abu Musa was somewhat luckier that time.
-He was issued a travel permit for the West Bank. But before he could actually begin his journey, he was made to wait for 11 hours at Erez, the military checkpoint separating Gaza and Israel.
-“We had to go through inspections, interrogations and checkpoints,” he said. “It was very exhausting.”
-While he was in the West Bank, Abu Musa signed a contract to play with the Hebron-based club Ahli al-Khalil.
-“That was the chance I had always been waiting for,” he said. “It was like a dream come true. It would have been a real chance for me to be selected for the [Palestinian] national team.”
-Abu Musa returned to Gaza after the 2018 Palestine Cup final. From there he applied for a permit to visit the West Bank so that he could join his new club.
-After a three-month wait, his application was turned down. He has not been able to play even one game for Ahli al-Khalil.
-“Football has always been my passion,” Abu Musa, now aged 28, said. “Losing this opportunity made me feel as if all my dreams had collapsed. I got very depressed.”
-The Palestine Cup has effectively been at a standstill for the past few years.
-In 2019, Israel blocked most players with the Khadamat Rafah team from leaving Gaza for the West Bank. The cup final – between Khadamat Rafah and Markaz Balata – could not take place because of Israel’s intransigence.
-COVID-19 has had adverse effects on football, too.
-Inside Gaza, many players have been infected with the virus and many training sessions were called off. The local league was suspended for lengthy periods.
-And when matches went ahead, they were usually held without spectators.
-“Football puts happiness into my life,” said Sadiq Lulu from al-Tuffah. “For the past 15 years, I have spent most of my time in stadiums, playing football myself or coaching younger players.”
-He added: “Staying away from the stadiums and from training has made me feel sad and lonely.”
-Abdallah al-Naami is a journalist and photographer living in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: French clothing firm Lacoste censors, expels Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from prestigious contest
+pageTitle: French clothing firm Lacoste censors, expels Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from prestigious contest | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The high-end French clothing chain Lacoste has demanded the removal of work by Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from the shortlist for the €25,000 Lacoste Elysee Prize that is awarded by the Swiss Musee de l’Elysee with sponsorship from the firm.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:39.068Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/french-clothing-firm-lacoste-censors-expels-palestinian-artist-larissa-sansour
 ---
+Update: 21 December 2011 at 19:45 GMT
+The Musée de L’Elysée in Lausanne has suspended the 2011 Lacoste Prize.
+Original post
+Image from Larissa Sansour’s Nation Estate project censored by the Lacoste Elysée Prize
+The high-end French clothing chain Lacoste has demanded the removal of work by Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from the shortlist for the €25,000 Lacoste Elysee Prize that is awarded by the Swiss Musee de l’Elysee with sponsorship from the firm.
+A Palestinian who is “too pro-Palestinian”
+Sansour was among eight finalists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. According to a press release issued by Sansour, “Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labelling it ‘too pro-Palestinian.’”
+This latest instance of apparent censorship of Palestinian artists by a cultural institution comes just months after the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California censored an exhibit of art by children in Gaza just before its planned opening under pressure from anti-Palestinian Zionist groups.
+Sansour refuses to sign statement that she withdrew voluntarily
+Sansour, who is based in London, is a native of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. The press release explains:
+As a nominee, Sansour was awarded a bursary of €4,000 and given carte blanche to produce a portfolio of images for the final judging. In November 2011, three photos for Sansour’s Nation Estate project were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism. Sansour’s name was included on all the literature relating to the prize and on the website as an official nominee. Her name has since been removed, just as her project has been withdrawn from an upcoming issue of contemporary art magazine ArtReview introducing the nominated artists.
+In an attempt to mask the reasons for her dismissal, Sansour was asked to approve a statement saying that she withdrew from her nomination ‘in order to pursue other opportunities’. Sansour has refused.
+Søren Lind, Sansour’s assistant, told The Electronic Intifada today that the Lacoste company had yet to give any public response on the matter. A Google-cached image of the official Elysée Prize website captured by The Electronic Intifada proves that Sansour’s name was on the shortlist until at least 12 December, and then removed on the current version.
+Imagining a Palestinian state as science fiction
+Sansour’s multimedia project Nation Estate was “conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Nation Estate depicts a science fiction-style Palestinian state in the form of a single skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population. Inside this new Nation Estate, the residents have recreated their lost cities on separate floors: Jerusalem on 3, Ramallah on 4, Sansour’s own hometown of Bethlehem on 5, etc.”
+Sansour was born in Jerusalem and her multimedia work has been exhibited all over the world. The photo above, from the exhibit, is published courtesy of Sansour. More can be seen at her website.
+A Space Exodus
+A clip from Sansour’s 2009 short film A Space Exodus.
+Full text of press release
+20th December 2011
+LACOSTE: NO ROOM FOR PALESTINIAN ARTIST
+French fashion brand demands the removal of Bethlehem artist Larissa Sansour from major photographic prize.
+The prestigious €25,000 Lacoste Elysée Prize is awarded by the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée with sponsorship from Lacoste, the clothing brand.
+Larissa Sansour was among the eight artists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. In December 2011, Lacoste demanded that her nomination be revoked. Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labelling it ‘too pro-Palestinian’. A special jury will convene in January 2012 to select the winner.
+As a nominee, Sansour was awarded a bursary of €4,000 and given carte blanche to produce a portfolio of images for the final judging. In November 2011, three photos for Sansour’s Nation Estate project were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism. Sansour’s name was included on all the literature relating to the prize and on the website as an official nominee. Her name has since been removed, just as her project has been withdrawn from an upcoming issue of contemporary art magazine ArtReview introducing the nominated artists.
+In an attempt to mask the reasons for her dismissal, Sansour was asked to approve a statement saying that she withdrew from her nomination ‘in order to pursue other opportunities’. Sansour has refused.
+Sansour says: “I am very sad and shocked by this development. This year Palestine was officially admitted to UNESCO, yet we are still being silenced. As a politically involved artist I am no stranger to opposition, but never before have I been censored by the very same people who nominated me in the first place. Lacoste’s prejudice and censorship puts a major dent in the idea of corporate involvement in the arts. It is deeply worrying.”
+Sansour’s shortlisted work, Nation Estate, is conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Nation Estate depicts a science fiction-style Palestinian state in the form of a single skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population. Inside this new Nation Estate, the residents have recreated their lost cities on separate floors: Jerusalem on 3, Ramallah on 4, Sansour’s own hometown of Bethlehem on 5, etc.
+Regretting Lacoste’s decision to censor Sansour’s work, Musée de l’Elysée has offered to exhibit the Nation Estate project outside of the confines of the Lacoste sponsorship. Musée de l’Elysée is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011 is the award’s second edition.
+Please find attached three photos from Sansour’s Nation Estate project.
+BACKGROUND INFORMATION
+Sansour Bio
+Born in Jerusalem, Larissa Sansour studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York. Her work is interdisciplinary, immersed in the current political dialogue and utilises video art, photography, experimental documentary, the book form and the internet.
+Sansour’s work features in galleries, museums, film festivals and art publications worldwide. Recent solo shows include exhibitions at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, Depo in Istanbul, Galerie La BANK in Paris and Jack the Pelican in New York.
+She has participated in the biennials in Istanbul, Busan and Liverpool. Her work has appeared at venues such as Tate Modern, London; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Third Guangzhou Triennial, China; Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Iniva, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Al Hoash, Jerusalem; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; MOCA, Hiroshima; PhotoCairo4, Egypt.
+Sansour’s short film A Space Exodus was nominated in the Best Short category at the Dubai International Film Festival.
+She lives and works in London.
+Image from Larissa Sansour’s Nation Estate project censored by the Lacoste Elysée Prize
+Larissa Sansour
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-articleTitle: Adulthood encroaches during genocide
-pageTitle: Adulthood encroaches during genocide | The Electronic Intifada
-description: There is no privacy. There is no sanitation. There is no break from relentless suffering. There is only the love and understanding of others.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:19.355Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/adulthood-encroaches-during-genocide/50251
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-A family huddles together in their tent in Deir al-Balah. There is no privacy for the 1.9 million people displaced in Gaza.
-APA imagesI was talking to my mother recently about the relentless bombing that rains down on us in northern Gaza and the gnawing hunger that slowly consumes us.
-For her part, my mother shared the harsh realities of their life in a tent and the fear of winter and rain after their displacement to the shores of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
-In the middle of our already depressing conversation, she told me something that filled me with both helplessness and dread.
-My sister, Lina, recently got her first period. Under normal circumstances, this would be a significant moment. But in these conditions, it brought with it a wave of worry.
-My mother’s voice trembled as she recounted the pain Lina was in. She wanted to take her to the hospital but knew there was no point with the endless flood of injured and gravely ill people needing urgent care.
-In the middle of a genocide, a girl’s first menstruation felt like yet another mountain to climb.
-Lina, still very much a child, now finds herself living in a cramped tent with five family members. There’s no privacy.
-“I hear her crying at night, trying to stifle her sobs so her brothers, sleeping beside her, don’t hear,” my mother said. “How can I help her when I have nothing to give?”
-Unattainable luxury
-Privacy, a simple necessity, has become an unattainable luxury in Gaza. Every movement, every moment in that tent felt exposed.
-Then there was the issue of sanitary pads - another scarce commodity in Gaza. Even when available, their prices are exorbitant.
-My mother did her best to improvise, fashioning makeshift pads from old cloth, knowing all the while that these attempts could never truly ease Lina’s discomfort or embarrassment.
-The shared bathroom was another constant source of anxiety. Lina had to wait for hours to use it, and when her turn finally came, she hurried, fearful that someone would knock on the door or interrupt her.
-Every night, the cold wind seeped through the tent’s seams, as if the wind itself was a reminder that worse was still to come.
-In the mornings, her mother would go to the beach to gather seawater, using it to clean Lina’s clothes. The salt would wear down the fabric, but it was all she had. She tried to make more pads from the torn fabric, but it was a temporary solution to a much deeper need.
-In the brief silences during our conversation, I pictured Lina. She was no longer the carefree girl who used to run along the shore collecting seashells. Now she was a girl facing a reality much too large for her — a reality that has taught her, all too quickly, what it means to be a woman in a time of war and deprivation.
-She is forced to confront her changing body and her pain in a world that offers no compassion.
-Yet, in her mother, Lina has found quiet comfort and a sense of safety, even amidst the destruction. Despite everything, our mother has never lost her ability to show love and provide shelter, even when her hands are tied by the conditions.
-It is a battle within a battle. Lina, like so many girls, fights in silence amidst the clamor of bombs, hunger and fear.
-Her battle with pain and inner turmoil might seem small to the outside world, but to us, it is enormous. It is a fight for dignity, a fight to preserve her humanity in a world that has forgotten mercy.
-The author is based in Gaza but has chosen to remain anonymous.
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+articleTitle: Swiss federal police opposed Ali Abunimah entry ban, files reveal
+pageTitle: Swiss federal police opposed Ali Abunimah entry ban, files reveal | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Police, immigration and intelligence services said journalist posed no "security" risk.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:39.323Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/swiss-federal-police-opposed-ali-abunimah-entry-ban-files-reveal/50409
 ---
+Ali Abunimah
+Swiss federal authorities rejected a request to ban Ali Abunimah from entering the country, official documents seen by The Electronic Intifada show.
+But this decision was hastily overturned, possibly due to political interference.
+As a consequence, The Electronic Intifada’s executive director was abducted without warning by undercover police off a Zurich street while on his way to give a talk about Palestine last month.
+The journalist was detained for three days without being allowed to contact his family and then expelled from the country.
+The request to ban Abunimah was submitted to Switzerland’s national authorities by the Zurich cantonal police.
+But even before Abunimah arrived in Switzerland, federal police, immigration authorities and the national intelligence service all concluded that Abunimah was not a threat to Swiss security and that there were no grounds for a ban.
+Posts on Abunimah’s X account were “protected by freedom of speech,” the federal police, or Fedpol, wrote in a confidential assessment.
+Despite all three federal agencies rejecting a ban, Zurich authorities reiterated their request the next day.
+In an email to Fedpol, the Zurich cantonal police claimed that Abunimah’s planned speaking events were “likely to stir up the listeners or the local environment to such an extent that a severe risk to security might be concretely caused by misguided individuals.”
+Ban imposed after entry
+“We request once more that an entry ban against Ali Abunimah be issued,” the police wrote.
+But by then, Abunimah had already entered the country.
+The email is dated Friday, 24 January, 5:01 pm. Abunimah’s flight had already landed in Zurich hours earlier, around 1:40 pm local time, and he received an entry stamp on his passport at the airport soon after.
+Fedpol’s initial decision rejecting a ban was then reversed. At some point that same day, Fedpol issued the entry ban. The following day, Saturday 25 January, the day Abunimah was arrested, Fedpol also issued an expulsion order.
+During a police hearing following his arrest, Abunimah was served with the entry ban and expulsion order and told they were issued because he constituted “a threat to the internal and external security of Switzerland.”
+Abunimah was effectively kidnapped by undercover police, then held without charge.
+He was locked in a cell for 24 hours per day and prohibited from contacting his family. Except after his arrest and once more on the day he was deported, Abunimah was not permitted to see or speak to his lawyer during his detention, despite his repeated requests.
+On Sunday 26 January, as Abunimah recounted on The Electronic Intifada Livestream, he was taken from the cell to meet with Swiss intelligence officers who attempted to question him without notifying or summoning his lawyer and without allowing him to contact her.
+Abunimah was taken to the airport by police and kept in their custody until he was deported on the evening of Monday 27 January.
+It is unclear why this U-turn was made, but political pressure appears likely to be a factor.
+Switzerland is governed under a federal system, where the 26 individual cantons – or member states – wield authority over most areas of domestic policy. The federal government’s powers include national defense, foreign affairs and control over the country’s external borders.
+The Zurich cantonal police first requested that Fedpol ban Abunimah from entering the country on 22 January.
+An “evaluation” document prepared by the Zurich cantonal police dated the same day states that Abunimah’s X account is “peppered with Palestinian victim narratives.” It also accuses him of “anti-Semitism” based on tweets about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
+Fedpol in turn asked for the view of SEM, the Swiss federal migration authority and of the Federal Intelligence Service (or NDB, to use its German acronym).
+The latter responded that “the Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) has no information that could be used to support an entry ban.” The SEM similarly stated that “we see no reasons that would justify an entry ban … he does not appear to have committed criminal acts.”
+Fedpol relayed these two responses to the Zurich cantonal police on 23 January and stated its own view: “Fedpol does not assess the appearance of Ali Abunimah as a risk to the internal or external security [of Switzerland], and consequently does not order an entry ban.”
+“Not substantiated”
+Fedpol stated that although the Zurich cantonal police assessment was “understandable and complete” it also contained “a plurality of hypotheses” and that it “must be viewed critically.”
+Fedpol conducted its own “summary examination of publicly accessible sources” about Abunimah and pushed back against the negative picture of the journalist painted by the Zurich cantonal police.
+Fedpol described a claim by the Zurich cantonal police that Abunimah uses the terms “Zionists,” “Jews” and “Israel” interchangeably as being “not substantiated.”
+The agency also stated that the view that the “historically grown conflict between Hamas and Israel has been one of the causes of the events of 7 October 2023 is an opinion protected by the freedom of speech, similar to the attribution of the Russian war of aggression to NATO’s eastward expansion.”
+With respect to Israel, “the charge of genocide can be expressed and discussed as well, as shown by the International Criminal Court,” Fedpol stated.
+Fedpol added that “criticism of Western states or the rejection of their positions and actions is not an endeavor against the values of democracy and the rule of law.”
+In short, Fedpol rejected all the grounds put forward by the Zurich cantonal police for a ban on Abunimah.
+“It is the task of the state not merely to tolerate the guaranteed pluralism of opinions, but to protect it,” Fedpol concluded. “As long as no concrete violent extremist activities threaten the security of Switzerland, no entry bans can be issued under the authority of Fedpol.”
+Pro-Israel pressure?
+Yet the very next day the entry ban was issued based on the same faulty assessment from the Zurich cantonal police that Fedpol had just rejected.
+Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported on Tuesday that email correspondence between an airport police officer and the Zurich immigration authorities suggests that pressure may have come from a senior pro-Israel Zurich politician.
+“Mario Fehr and Fedpol were involved,” the police officer wrote.
+Fehr is the elected official in charge of security for the canton of Zurich. He regularly attends pro-Israel demonstrations and The Grayzone has described him as a “fanatical pro-Israel activist.”
+The day before Abunimah was arrested, Fehr was quoted in Swiss media describing the journalist as “an Islamist Jew-hater who calls for violence” – a false and defamatory characterization refuted by Fedpol’s analysis.
+In a response to the Tages-Anzeiger, Fehr declined to talk in detail about his involvement in Abunimah’s case, but said: “Naturally, as with all security-related matters in the canton of Zurich, I am kept in the loop in cases like this.”
+In a comment for this article, Abunimah stated: “The unanimous assessments by Fedpol, the Swiss immigration department and the Swiss intelligence service confirm that responsible officials were fully aware that I was never any threat to Switzerland and that the smears and distortions used as a pretext for the abuses against me were false.
+“There was no justification to abduct me off the street and throw me in prison. To this day, I have not been informed of the reasons for my arrest,” Abunimah said. “I can only conclude that my unlawful imprisonment was intended to suppress freedom of expression by preventing me from speaking openly about the genocide in Palestine, as well as to punish me for views I’ve expressed in the past that someone in power did not like.”
+Global criticism
+He added: “I am proceeding with legal action in Switzerland on a number of fronts, to seek accountability for the gross violations of fundamental democratic and human rights to which I was subjected. I want to help ensure they do not happen again to anyone.”
+A crowdfunding campaign has been started to help support Abunimah’s legal action.
+Abunimah’s detention drew global criticism as well as condemnation from Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression as well as Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
+Amnesty International’s EU branch said it was “deeply concerned” by Abunimah’s arrest.
+The human rights group added that the “global crackdown on those who are critical of Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights is alarming and must be immediately stopped.”
+With translation from German by Daniel Shunra.
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-articleTitle: They never came home
-pageTitle: They never came home | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Gaza police officer killed by Israel on 27 December 2008 had planned to propose marriage that same day.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:19.593Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/they-never-came-home/26316
 ---
-Hanaa Irouq bought a shirt for her son on the day he was killed.
-I can still remember the sense of panic at our school on 27 December 2008.
-Suddenly, we heard a series of loud explosions. Everyone started to cry, scream, call their parents or run towards the exit, hoping they could get home before things got worse.
-I lived close to school, so I hurried home. When I left the classroom, it felt like I was entering hell.
-There was smoke everywhere. The main sound I could hear was that of sirens from ambulances. People were running in the streets.
-Operation Cast Lead – Israel’s attack on Gaza 10 years ago – was a horrific time.
-I was in my final year of high school. And I did my best not to let fear defeat me or affect my future. Amid all the destruction, I set myself the challenge of getting top grades in my exams.
-I was lucky. None of my relatives was killed or injured. Our home was not damaged.
-Many others were far less fortunate.
-New shirt
-Hanaa Irouq still has the shirt she had bought for her son Hassan on 27 December 2008.
-She was due to visit a friend later that day. It had been agreed that Hassan would accompany her and propose marriage to her friend’s daughter.
-“That morning I went to the market while Hassan was at work,” Hanaa, a resident of Jabaliya refugee camp, said. “I bought him a new shirt so that he could wear it for our appointment. But he never came home.”
-Hassan – aged 22 – was killed on the first day of Operation Cast Lead. He was a police officer, based at a station near the Palestinian Legislative Council’s headquarters in Gaza City.
-His uncle Mahmoud Irouq was also working at the same station.
-Mahmoud was training a group of 52 officers in the station’s yard in the late morning. He had told the officers to take a break. Just as he was calling on them to resume training, Mahmoud felt himself being pushed backwards by the force of an explosion.
-“After that, I wasn’t able to hear anything or move,” he said. “I only saw black smoke and smelled blood.”
-Mahmoud was in hospital for the next three days. It would take a few months before his hearing was fully restored.
-Now aged 42, Mahmoud has paid tribute to his late nephew by naming one of his own sons Hassan.
-“Even though 10 years have passed, I can still remember every moment of that attack,” Mahmoud said.
-Hanaa Irouq holds a photograph of her son Hassan.
-Abed ZagoutThe Irouq family has shown a determination to be resilient. Five days after Hassan was killed, his father Maher tried to cheer up the family. He organized a large wedding party for Hassan’s brother Midhat.
-But Hanaa – the boys’ mother – was unable to hide her sorrow. As soon as she saw the bride and groom at the ceremony, Hanaa burst into tears. She felt that Hassan should have been the one getting married.
-“Unfortunately, life in Gaza never gives you what you want,” she said.
-Israel attacked numerous police stations in the opening stages of Cast Lead. In total, 248 members of the police were killed during the three-week operation. According to a UN team which investigated Cast Lead, more than one out of every six people killed during the offensive was a police officer.
-Under international law, police officers are regarded as civilians.
-Approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed during Operation Cast Lead.
-Waiting to say goodbye
-Ahmad Saad al-Din was killed, too, on the first day of the attack. Aged 24, he was working in the media relations department at the Muntada building in Gaza City. The Muntada was one of the key buildings for the police administration.
-His family’s pain at losing Ahmad was worsened by their inability to find his body. Each time there was a temporary ceasefire, his father Abd al-Latif looked for the body at the Muntada site.
-“I looked for my son in all hospitals and I searched under the [police station] rubble around 20 times,” said Abd al-Latif. “But every time I came back empty-handed.”
-Operation Cast Lead ended on 18 January 2009. One day later, Abd al-Latif received a phone call from a paramedic, informing him that a body had been recovered under the Muntada station and brought to al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital.
-Abd al-Latif rushed to the hospital. “When I reached the mortuary, I found that Ahmad’s body was torn apart,” he said. “I was only able to recognize him from the watch on his wrist. I had given it to him as a wedding present.”
-“It never occurred to me that I would be happy to see the body of my own son,” Abd al-Latif added. “But I was happy when they found the body – after all the suffering we had gone through during the war. We had waited a long time to say goodbye to Ahmad.”
-Abd al-Rahman Odeh, a police officer, survived the attack on the Muntada station. He had left the station a few minutes before the bombing occurred, with the intention of buying a gift for his wife to mark their second wedding anniversary.
-“I was only a couple of meters away from the building,” he said. “The bomb threw me in the air. When I looked behind me, I saw the site destroyed. There was smoke everywhere.”
-Odeh quickly realized that a number of his friends and colleagues had been killed. He called an ambulance, sitting down near the station until it arrived.
-Now aged 35, Odeh has resumed working in the Muntada station, which has been rebuilt. He has stopped celebrating his wedding anniversary because the 27 December date has become synonymous with the pain of losing friends.
-“He died in front of me”
-Imad al-Khaldi and his brother Bahaa started off 27 December 2008 by having breakfast with their father. Once they had eaten, the two young men left for the police station near the Palestinian Legislative Council.
-Both were taking part in a training session when “day turned to night,” said Imad.
-Imad al-Khaldi sits in front of a tribute to his brother Bahaa, killed by Israel 10 years ago.
-Abed Zagout“When I realized that it was a bomb, I started screaming for my brother but I didn’t get an answer,” he said. “I wasn’t able to stand on my legs, so I started crawling towards my brother. When I reached Bahaa, he was taking his last few breaths. I tried to rescue him by doing artificial respiration. But I was very exhausted and I fainted, falling on his chest.”
-Imad, who had incurred a serious leg injury, remained in a coma for the next week. “I didn’t rescue my brother and I didn’t even say goodbye,” Imad said. “He died in front of me. I can’t describe how I feel about that.”
-At 24, Bahaa was three years younger than Imad. They were very close, to the point that they often shared each other’s clothes.
-Following the attack, Imad received treatment in Saudi Arabia. His medical team was able to save his leg.
-Each December, Imad returns to the site where Bahaa was killed. Imad reflects on his loss, then goes back home.
-A decade later, the pain caused by Cast Lead remains raw.
-Sarah Algherbawi is a freelance writer and translator from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: How a London theater became a BDS battleground
+pageTitle: How a London theater became a BDS battleground | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Documents reveal how Israel and its supporters acted to thwart cultural boycott during 2014 Gaza attack.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:39.476Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/how-london-theater-became-bds-battleground
 ---
+Israel’s UK ambassador and his allies in the British government viewed a 2014 row over the sponsorship of a film festival as a key battle against the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, according to documents released under freedom of information rules.
+London’s Tricycle Theatre had agreed to host the UK Jewish Film Festival that summer. The festival was partly funded by the Israeli embassy in London.
+Yet with Gaza under a major attack, the venue’s board decided in August that it would not accept Israeli government sponsorship for the event.
+After learning of the theater’s decision, Member of Parliament Sajid Javid, then Britain’s culture secretary, acted swiftly to have it overturned.
+Amid a media uproar, he publicly described the theater’s decision as “misguided.” Privately, Javid also sought a meeting with Indhu Rubasingham, artistic director at the Tricycle, a detail not reported before now. He appears to have used the meeting to put pressure on the theater.
+Javid later boasted that he had “made it absolutely clear” to the theater “what might happen to their funding if they, or if anyone, tries that kind of thing again.”
+He appears to have threatened that the Tricycle could lose assistance it receives from the publicly funded Arts Council.
+Praise from Israeli ambassador
+Daniel Taub, then Israel’s ambassador in London, praised Javid for opposing the theater’s stance. Javid’s intervention “constituted an important statement at a time when calls for cultural boycotts and shutting down cultural ties are regrettably gathering stream,” Taub wrote, in a letter acquired under Britain’s freedom of information rules.
+Israel’s grant to the festival was small – less than £1,500 ($2,500 in 2014).
+In August 2014, Rubasingham said, “at this moment, the Tricycle would not accept any sponsorship from any government agency involved in the conflict,” referring to Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. Her comment was made before her meeting with Javid was held.
+While the Tricycle offered to pay the equivalent of Israel’s grant from its own funds, the organizers of the festival decided to withdraw the event from the theater.
+Following Javid’s pressure, however, the Tricycle climbed down. Later in August, it was announced that the theater would be willing to hold the festival “with no restrictions” on Israeli funding. In the end, the festival took place elsewhere.
+“Underhand conduct”
+Two pro-Israel organizations – the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council – argued that the Tricycle’s opposition to Israeli funding had set a “troubling precedent.”
+In a joint letter to Javid, the two groups pointed to how previous questioning of Israeli arts sponsorship in Britain had been made by Palestine solidarity activists. In the row over the film festival, it was a venue in receipt of British public funding that “was making the political demands – not a group of protesters.”
+The groups admitted that there were “limits” to government influence over such venues and claimed to appreciate “artistic independence.” Yet they argued that “Tricycle’s behavior crosses the line into political activism,” adding, “we hope you will find a way to make your views known to the theater.”
+The Arts Council had been contacted by some members of Parliament during the row. In contrast to Javid’s threats, the council’s then CEO Alan Davey made clear that it was not involved in the management of activities by organizations that it funded. “It is not for the Arts Council to second guess whether a sponsorship fit is appropriate,” Davey stated.
+Daniel Taub regarded the Tricycle’s eventual U-turn as a victory for Israel.
+In his letter, Taub thanked Javid for his “quiet and effective intervention.” Taub added that he had recommended to the festival’s organizers that Javid be invited as “a guest of honor” to its opening.
+The government department Javid headed at that time has acknowledged it “kept closely in touch” with Taub during the row over the film festival.
+Javid has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters in the British government over recent years. After holding the culture and media portfolio, he was appointed business secretary in 2015. He used the new post to advocate an expansion of trade between Britain and Israel.
+He has also taken a prominent part in activities organized by Conservative Friends of Israel, a lobby group within the ruling party.
+“Anti-democratic”
+The close ties between Israeli diplomats and some British politicians were recently revealed in a four-part documentary series by Al Jazeera. The investigation showed how lobby groups within Britain’s political parties maintain close working relationships with Israel’s London embassy.
+Riya Hassan, a representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, said British government attempts to punish arts groups or other bodies that take a stance against Israel were “unabashedly repressive and anti-democratic.”
+The attempts, Hassan emphasized, “may also indicate the kind of corruption and co-optation that the recently broadcast Al Jazeera investigative film captures so well.”
+Miranda Pennell, a filmmaker involved in Artists for Palestine UK, said it was “absolutely outrageous” that Javid “summoned the theater’s director to a private meeting at which he appears to have threatened the [Tricycle’s] funding.”
+The affair “shows how UK ministers involved in Conservative Friends of Israel are not only in hock to Israel over foreign policy but are also willing to use underhand conduct and bullying to intimidate independent arts organizations here in Britain on Israel’s behalf,” Pennell added.
+“Political interference of this kind in the affairs of a cultural institution is an abuse of power more fitting of an authoritarian state than a mature democracy.”
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-articleTitle: Wage crisis worsens in Gaza
-pageTitle: Wage crisis worsens in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Employees unpaid for months.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:19.972Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/wage-crisis-worsens-gaza/30771
 ---
-Children play in the alleys of their refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
-IMAGESLIVEOmar Abed lives in uncertainty.
-It has been three months since the Palestinian Authority intelligence officer has been paid. With no indication when his wages will next come through, he is an anxious man
-A father of six – two of them at university, one an infant – Abed has been unable to pay the rent for the house his family lives in.
-“I am unable to provide milk and diapers to my baby. I almost burst out crying when I went to the bank to ask for an advance and they refused,” Abed, 45, told The Electronic Intifada.
-The Palestinian Authority has not paid the full wages of its employees in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since May, citing a severe financial crisis.
-In Gaza, PA employees have received just one half of a monthly wage since May.
-That crisis is in part brought on by the PA’s refusal to accept tax revenues collected on its behalf by Israel. It is doing so in protest at Israeli plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
-On 19 May, Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s president, announced that the authority was no longer bound by its previously signed agreements with Israel, including security and economic agreements.
-According to senior PA sources, after the PA made that announcement, Israel decided to condition payment of the revenues, normally transferred automatically, on coordination with Palestinian officials. Since Abbas had announced an end to all such lines of communication, the PA refused.
-Tax revenues are a critical source of income for the PA, constituting more than 60 percent of its total budget.
-The main effect has been on public sector salaries. The number of PA security and civil servants in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is estimated to be around 140,000, each providing for an average household of five.
-In Gaza, some 38,000 people rely on PA salaries, down from 60,000 in 2017, when the PA began reducing its Gaza wage burden by enforcing early retirement.
-The Fatah-dominated PA and Hamas have been at loggerheads since 2007 when Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza. Fatah had been unwilling to abide by the results of the 2006 parliamentary elections that Hamas had won. The PA nevertheless continued paying salaries to those who had worked in the public sector before the takeover.
-With Israel imposing a blockade on imports and exports from the impoverished Gaza Strip, decimating the economy there, those salaries have proven a cash flow lifeline for Gaza’s collapsing economy.
-The Israeli-imposed siege has rendered living conditions in Gaza desperate. Unemployment and poverty figures exceed 50 percent. Even reduced, the payments PA employees get are crucial, helping not just recipients but trickling into the general economy.
-Barely enough
-The wages are barely enough for most to cover monthly expenses, let alone repayments to banks for any loans people may have incurred over the past years.
-Abed said he is now unable to provide for the needs of his family. Over the past two months, he has spent all his savings in order to make up for the missing wages.
-He is now going into debt to keep up. However, owners of supermarkets have stopped giving customers credit since they too are feeling the squeeze.
-For Abed, all roads seem closed.
-“Because of a sudden and irresponsible decision [by the PA], the employee has turned into a beggar without dignity,” he said.
-Certainly, resolution does not seem in sight. In a statement in late June, the PA’s finance ministry said there were no new developments on wages.
-Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official, had days earlier told reporters that rejecting receipt of tax revenues had “put us in a crisis, but we will not submit to blackmail.”
-Gaza-based business journalist Muhammad Abu Jayab told The Electronic Intifada that the wages are crucially important for Gaza, and that the delay in payments had “completely paralyzed” the economy, significantly undermining the purchasing power of PA employees and, consequently, affected other small businesses.
-“This creates more humanitarian and economic problems for the Gaza Strip,” he said.
-Iman Mansour, a nurse at the Rantisi pediatric hospital, has been forced to do without many of her basic needs.
-Mansour, 38, said the PA had promised to pay a full wage without bank charges before the Eid holiday,
-“This is what happened and we spent it in the month of Ramadan and at Eid Al-Fitr,” she said. Then the PA “surprised us by not paying the wages the following month.”
-Now, she sometimes cannot afford the fare to go to work.
-“Sometimes I have to borrow from my colleagues or from my brother,” the nurse said, adding that she felt under increasing pressure to care for those who depend on her.
-“I have a daughter and I live with my mother and feel responsible and pressure because of my inability to provide for their needs, especially because my mother is sick and needs treatment.”
-Mansour urged the PA to find some way to pay just a fraction of people’s wages in Gaza. A frontline worker, she feels bitter when comparing her situation during the coronavirus pandemic to peers in other parts of the world.
-“I work in the shadow of the pandemic and expose myself to danger,” she said. “In other countries they double the salaries of those dealing with the virus. Here, our salaries have been cut.”
-Fedaa al-Qedra is a journalist in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Scottish police must not meddle in Palestine protests, watchdog rules
+pageTitle: Scottish police must not meddle in Palestine protests, watchdog rules | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Officers rapped for warning activist to stay away from demonstration.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:39.582Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/scottish-police-must-not-meddle-palestine-protests-watchdog-rules
 ---
+Activists in Scotland have scored an important victory for freedom of assembly. (Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign/Facebook)Efforts by Scottish police to quash Palestine solidarity protests risked breaching activists’ human rights, the country’s police watchdog has ruled.
+The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC), which oversees police conduct in Scotland, upheld three complaints by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign in November.
+One concerned a police sergeant and inspector visiting a Palestine solidarity campaigner at his home in Aberdeen during the night. The campaigner was warned that he should not take part in a supermarket demonstration planned for the following day.
+The PIRC ruled that police “cannot impose conditions on the location of a peaceful protest” and to do so “effectively negates the purpose of the protest.”
+It reminded Police Scotland of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights “not to prevent, hinder or restrict peaceful assembly.”
+In another incident, a police sergeant arrived at an activist workshop uninvited following a complaint about the meeting, which had been advertised on social media and was held at an Aberdeen cinema in April 2016.
+Although the police claimed his attendance was to offer “advice and assistance”, the sergeant’s visit in fact appeared to be about intelligence collection. He gathered information about the group, which was then recorded on a police database. The details reported included personal information on one activist.
+Intelligence collection
+The PIRC said that respect for private life and freedom of assembly were put at risk by such activities, since there was no threat to public safety or likelihood that a crime would be committed.
+In a third case, police officers prevented more than 30 Palestine solidarity activists from entering a court to watch a trial while allowing supporters of Israel inside the courtroom.
+The police claimed its actions were to “prevent unnecessary disruption or potential public order issues with an overarching focus on public safety.” Yet the PIRC noted that the grounds for these professed concerns were unclear and “not adequately reasoned.”
+Police Scotland has been ordered to reconsider whether its actions were lawful.
+Damningly, the watchdog also found that officers investigating the original complaints had misrepresented the actions of the police during the incidents. It ordered two of the three cases to be investigated again by different personnel.
+Sofiah MacLeod of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign told The Electronic Intifada: “We are pleased that the pattern of police intimidation has been challenged as has the fact that there was an attempt to cover this up, in effect. It is a victory for the democratic right to protest free of police interference against Israel, a rogue state which violates international law and human rights daily.”
+Intimidation
+The ruling is not only a blow against political policing of Palestine protests but also a significant victory for the right to protest in the UK more generally.
+Alan Speirs, the head of professional standards at Police Scotland, told the press that the force would respond to the PIRC in due course.
+Yet just two weeks after being rapped by the watchdog, Police Scotland again interfered with Palestine solidarity activism.
+Earlier this month, images collected by the Network of Photographers for Palestine were exhibited outside St John’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh. The display elicited a complaint of “anti-Semitism,” believed to have come from a supporter of Israel.
+Police ordered that two of the 11 pictures on display be removed, leading to claims of “censorship” and “ignoring freedom of expression.”
+However, this time - following a complaint -  Richard Thomas, a superintendent with Police Scotland’s Edinburgh division issued a swift apology. The police said that “corrective advice and guidance” would be issued to officers.
+Clearly, these recent developments are a setback for the Israel lobby’s strategy in Scotland of seeking to invoke state power to repress Palestine solidarity activism.
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-articleTitle: The wounded around me
-pageTitle: The wounded around me | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Survivors left stranded yet those injured during Great March of Return still return to protest their rights.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:20.017Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/wounded-around-me/27281
 ---
-Nidal Diab stands with his three young daughters in the narrow alleys of a Gaza refugee camp. Shot in the head during one of the protests of the Great March of Return, he has lost sight in one eye and all sense of smell.
-It’s been more than a year since the Great March of Return protests started in Gaza.
-The weekly demonstrations were launched as a way to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians living under a draconian siege that has left Gaza on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
-They are also a reassertion of the Palestinian right of return to the lands and homes from which Palestinians were dispossessed in 1948. Two-thirds of Gaza’s population of approximately two million people are refugees.
-But the activism of demonstrators has come at a high and deadly cost. Still, people march.
-More than 200 people have been killed and there have been well over 11,000 moderate to serious injuries. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, up to the end of March and after one year of protests, there were 114 amputations because of injuries to protesters.
-There is hardly a person in Gaza who has not, in one way or another, been affected by these stark statistics.
-Relative fortune
-Luckily, I haven’t lost a close friend or a relative. I know, however, plenty of friends, relatives and colleagues who have been wounded.
-One of them, Wael al-Sedawi, is my cousin and childhood friend.
-Wael, 28, almost lost his life on 19 October last year, when he was shot, not once, not twice, but six times, three times in each leg.
-For a while, I watched him hover between life and death in the intensive care section at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza. The tendons in his right leg were torn and his left leg was damaged beyond the capacity of doctors in Gaza to repair.
-But Wael’s father Yousef, 69, initially refused medical advice that his son’s left leg be amputated. Instead, he held out hope that he could secure a permit for his son to be treated in an Israeli hospital, the only place he could think of that might save his son’s leg in time.
-The permit was refused for “security reasons.”
-According to the United Nations, people injured in the Great March of Return protests were overwhelmingly refused treatment in Israel. Less than a fifth of referrals were approved, a situation only partly alleviated by the opening in May of the Rafah crossing to Egypt.
-The newlyweds
-With Wael’s condition deteriorating, doctors urged his family not to delay. Not amputating, they said, could risk his life.
-Four days after Wael had been admitted, Yousef finally agreed to his son’s surgery, having exhausted all hope that his son, newly married, might make a full recovery.
-But by then, Wael had slipped into a coma. For days after the operation, the family prayed. For nearly a week, Wael’s mother, Hanan, my mother’s sister and her spitting image, hardly slept.
-On the morning of the seventh day, Wael woke and asked for water. He had survived.
-Wael is home now with his wife Nadia. He has lost his cleaning job. For the couple who had been married just four months when Wael was discharged, life now consists of endless rehabilitation and medical treatments in one hospital or another.
-“I don’t know what I have to do for my husband,” 19-year-old Nadia said. “It’s a really difficult situation. Instead of living as newlyweds, we’re moving from one hospital to another. I’m still in shock.”
-Wael is on a waiting list for a prosthetic limb. Meanwhile, he is trying to keep his mood up.
-“I lost my leg and job, but I’m grateful that I’m back from death,” he told The Electronic Intifada.
-“I’m waiting for a prosthetic and I hope I can live a normal life and find a job suitable to my health condition.”
-He is receiving physical therapy at the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center in preparation for an artificial limb.
-He might have to wait a long time. The center is under-equipped as a result of the Israeli blockade and under enormous pressure due to the number of new amputees arriving seemingly every week.
-“We can’t meet all the needs of the large number of injured people we are seeing,” Muhammad Dweima, head of the center, told The Electronic Intifada. “The Israeli authorities are also restricting the entry of materials we need to produce limbs.”
-So far, according to Dweima, 76 people injured in the Great March of Return protests have received artificial limbs and rehabilitation treatment from the center. The rest, including Wael, have to wait their turn.
-No protection
-Compared to Yasser Qudih, Wael had an easy ride.
-Yasser, 35, a photojournalist who has extensively covered the Great March of Return protests, believes his survival was miraculous.
-On 14 May last year, when demonstrations fell on a Monday to protest the US embassy move to Jerusalem, Yasir was covering protests in eastern Khan Younis.
-It was a bloody day. In all, 60 unarmed demonstrators were killed and nearly 2,800 people were wounded as the Israeli military clearly felt no pressure to hold back.
-Yasser was wearing the usual press vest that clearly marked him as a journalist.
-It did him no favors. He was shot just above the pelvic area in the left side.
-The bullet shattered his insides. Comatose, he was allowed to exit Gaza by the Israeli military and was transferred to al-Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem.
-His wife and fellow journalist, Rana al-Shrafi, accompanied him. He underwent, she recalled, four emergency surgeries. Part of his stomach, the ureter, liver and spleen were removed. Doctors told Rana that his chances of survival were slim.
-Somehow, he pulled through. On 27 May, nearly two weeks after he was shot, Yasser woke from his coma. The very next day, he had surgery to repair part of his ureter. The next day, he returned to Gaza.
-Yasser had an appointment to return to Jerusalem on 28 August for a full checkup and to undertake additional surgery.
-But shortly before he was due to go he received a phone call.
-“An Israeli officer simply told me that Israel would provide those injured in the Great March of Return protests one permit only,” Yasser told The Electronic Intifada about his attempt in August to keep his appointment at al-Makassed hospital.
-His condition deteriorated. He suffered from inflammation of the stomach and submitted another request for a permit to travel through the Erez checkpoint to Jerusalem. Again he was refused.
-Back at work
-When Yasser slipped back into a coma, he was taken to Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital where doctors diagnosed him with a kidney infection. He was treated and discharged in three days, but he was increasingly concerned about his health and growing ever more desperate to be seen by specialists in Jerusalem.
-“I needed surgery in the urinary system. I submitted a third request on 7 October and a fourth request on 4 November. Both were rejected. I finally gave up hope that I would get a permit to al-Makassed again,” Yasser said.
-He decided to have the surgery in Gaza at al-Quds hospital. The surgery, in November, was successful, but after a few days, doctors discovered that Yasser had been poisoned by a faulty disinfectant.
-He went back to intensive care, this time spending 12 days there before being discharged.
-In early January, he traveled to Egypt for a full examination. There, doctors gave him a clean bill of health and told him he could go back to work.
-On 28 January, he was back covering the protests even though he is convinced – as is the UN’s mission of inquiry – that the Israeli military has deliberately targeted journalists.
-In a year of protests from 30 March 2018, two journalists have been killed at Great March of Return protests and nearly 50 have been wounded with live ammunition, according to Al-Haq.
-It is not deterring Yasser, who took one of the defining pictures of the protests, showing a demonstrator returning an Israeli-fired gas canister with a table tennis bat.
-“I’m not used to staying at home,” Yasser said. “I was always in the field. I have to send a message with my camera. I am a witness.”
-“I miss their smell”
-On 10 August 2018, Nidal Diab, 32, joined thousands in eastern Jabaliya demonstrating for their right of return.
-He had been there only minutes when he was hit in the face with a tear gas grenade.
-The vegetable seller, whose family is originally from Barbara village just north of the Gaza Strip near Ashdod, was promptly taken to the Indonesian hospital in Gaza where doctors started to remove fragments from his face and head.
-He lost consciousness, and a closer examination revealed that a 4-millimeter piece of shrapnel had lodged itself in his skull, causing a crack to the bone.
-He was quickly moved to al-Shifa hospital, where the father of three stayed in a coma for nearly three weeks.
-When he finally regained consciousness, Nidal felt numb.
-“I saw a white color, and I heard a noise like the sound of a bird’s wings flapping.”
-The injury turned out to be more extensive than first thought. Doctors told Nidal that the fragment had damaged a nerve center in the brain related to perception. His hearing was severely affected. He lost all sight in his left eye and all sense of smell.
-The fragment remains lodged in his skull. Doctors have recommended that he get surgery outside of Gaza. But he has so far been unable to secure any support, financial or otherwise.
-“I approached many organizations to help me travel, but I haven’t received a response,” Nidal told The Electronic Intifada. “I miss the smell of my children. I miss their voices and laughter.”
-Reem, Nidal’s wife, said she was happy that her husband had survived, but was deeply concerned about his health.
-“He still suffers from cramps after the injury and he feels dizzy all the time. I hear him crying at night.”
-Despite the pain, Nidal still participates in the protests. He is, however, careful to stay far back.
-And in this, he is similar to countless others who have participated in the Great March of Return and been injured as a result.
-All of these individuals survived, if with damaged bodies. All of them hope that their sacrifices won’t be in vain.
-All of us are inspired by their courage and their sacrifice.
-Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a journalist from Gaza
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+articleTitle: Families obliterated, lives destroyed
+pageTitle: Families obliterated, lives destroyed | The Electronic Intifada
+description: This is Part II of a three-part series that documents the names, faces and stories of some of the victims of Israel's May 2021 attack on Gaza.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:40.004Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/families-obliterated-lives-destroyed/33386
 ---
+A girl walks among the ruins of Israel’s destruction in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, on 21 May.
+ActiveStillsIsrael’s 11-day bombardment of Gaza in May left the coastal enclave in ruins… once again.
+More than 250 Palestinians were killed, including at least 67 children.
+About half of those killed were civilians, according to UN monitoring group OCHA, and 245 were killed by Israeli fire. Some were killed as a result of rockets fired from Gaza that fell short.
+Multiple generations of multiple Palestinian families were in some cases almost completely wiped out. Fourteen families lost three or more members in a single attack, while 19 families lost two or more members.
+In some instances, only one member of a nuclear family survived. In one case, 21 members of the same family were killed.
+This is Part II of a series that documents the names, faces and stories of some of the victims of Israel’s May 2021 attack on Gaza. Read Part I here and Part III here.
+Israel obliterated whole families in their homes during its 11-day attack on Gaza in May, some removed entirely from the population registry.
+Parents and children, cousins and siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles were killed together when Israeli warplanes bombed residential buildings and private homes without warning the families inside.
+Killing multiple members of multiple families has become a hallmark of Israeli wars on Gaza and has led to Palestinians there resurrecting some grisly traditions.
+“People in Gaza have been reviving an old tradition in which some families exchange their kids, so that in case some get bombed, the others would live,” Twitter user Muhammad Qudaih wrote amidst the assault.
+“My family is spread out over three houses in three different locations as if they’re trying to avert a massacre.”
+During Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, more than 140 Palestinian families lost at least three members in a single attack.
+“The numerous incidents then and today attest that these were not mistakes,” Amira Hass of Tel Aviv daily Haaretz wrote in May.
+“The bombing of a house while all its residents are in it follows a decision from higher up, backed by the examination and approval of military jurists.”
+Hass reminded readers that the “Palestinian population registry, including that of Gaza, is in the hands of the Israeli interior ministry,” which includes the names, ages and addresses of Palestinians living in Gaza.
+The fact that the Israeli army and Israel’s domestic spy agency call some Palestinian building owners before they bomb them shows that “the army knows the number and names of children, women and elderly who live in every residential building it bombs for any reason,” and that it has “current phone numbers for people in each structure slated for destruction.”
+But they only call some owners.
+Abu Hatab family, five members killed, and al-Hadidi family, five members killed
+Mourners attend the funeral of the al-Hatab and al-Hadidi families at Beach refugee camp on 15 May.
+Mohammed Zaanoun
+ActiveStillsMaha Muhammad Abu Hatab was visiting her brother Alaa Muhammad Abu Hatab’s house for Eid on 15 May when it was hit with three Israeli missiles, according to Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza.
+There was no warning.
+“My wife and kids went to share the Eid blessings with her brother. They got dressed and went to her brother’s house, innocent children,” Muhammad al-Hadidi said of his wife Maha and their children.
+The attack, at 1:30 in the morning, killed Maha and her children, as well as Alaa’s wife and children.
+Maha was 34. Her children Suhayb al-Hadidi was 12, Abd al-Rahman, 7, and their brother Osama was 5.
+Their 10-year-old brother Yahya was later also confirmed killed in the attack.
+Their cousins Yousif Abu Hatab, 10, and his siblings 9-year-old Bilal, 7-year-old Mariam and 5-year-old Yamen were all killed in the strike. Their mother, Yasmine Muhammad Abu Hatab, 30, was also killed.
+Only Muhammad al-Hadidi’s 5-month old son Omar survived the blast.
+Muhammad al-Hadidi comforts his infant child Omar at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital on 15 May.
+Atia Darwish
+APA imagesAl-Tanani family, six members killed, al-Madhoun family, two members killed
+In the early hours of 13 May, Israeli warplanes dropped 20 missiles on a densely populated neighborhood in Beit Lahiya.
+The blast killed six members of the al-Tanani family.
+Rafat Muhammad Ismail al-Tanani and his wife Rawiya Fathi al-Tanani were killed along with four of their children.
+Ismail, 7, Amir, 6, Adham 4 and their 2-year-old brother Ahmad were all killed in the attack, according to Defense for Children International Palestine.
+A seventh member of the family is still missing, DCIP reported.
+The same blast killed the wife and husband who owned the building where the al-Tanani family was renting their home: Abd al-Rahim Muhammad al-Madhoun, 63, and his wife, Halima Ali Abu Sharakh, 66.
+Stores, lawyers offices, an education center and nine houses were completely destroyed in the strikes.
+Nearby streets were also destroyed, along with water pipes and sewer systems, as well as telephone lines and electricity.
+Mina Sharir succumbed to her wounds on 18 May. (DCIP)Al-Sharir family, four members killed
+An Israeli missile hit a two-story residential building in al-Manara neighborhood in Gaza City on the second day of Israel’s onslaught, killing Iyad Fathi Sharir, 44, and his 40-year-old wife Layali Taha Sharir.
+Their 15-year-old daughter Lina Iyad Sharir was also killed in the blast.
+After being hospitalized with severe burns after the strike, their 2-year-old daughter Mina Iyad Sharir nearly survived the strikes on 11 May.
+But the toddler died from her wounds a week later on 18 May, joining her parents and sister in death.
+Al-Attar family, four members killed
+On 14 May, Israeli warplanes dropped two missiles on agricultural land near a home in Beit Lahiya, killing three children and their mother.
+Islam Muhammad al-Attar, 8, his 6-year-old sister Amira Muhammad al-Attar and their infant brother Muhammad Zain al-Din Muhammad al-Attar were all killed in the attack.
+Their 26-year-old mother Lamia was also killed.
+The family was on the ground floor of their home, according to DCIP, and a concrete pillar fell on them. Their bodies were pulled from under the rubble hours after the attack.
+Lamia al-Attar and her three children. (Amnesty International)Lamia’s father, a civil defense officer, told Amnesty International that he arrived at the scene with an ambulance and a rescue team after a relative called and told him of the attack.
+“I went to the three-story house, where 20 people live, and I tried to find someone, but I couldn’t,” Hasan al-Attar told Amnesty.
+“Then the rescue team came to help and eventually found my daughter, a mother of three, with her children, one of them a baby, under one of the pillars of the house. They were all dead,” he added.
+“It seems the rest of the residents managed to escape the bombing and reached the hospital. I was shocked.”
+Al-Talbani family, three members killed
+In the early hours of 12 May, Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a five-story apartment building in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, killing at least five Palestinians.
+Reem Saad Kamel Saad, 31, a pregnant mother, was killed alongside her 5-year-old son Zaid Muhammad al-Talbani.
+Her toddler Mariam Muhammad al-Talbani’s remains were only found the day a ceasefire was declared.
+“The Israeli attack on Mariam’s home was so huge and violent, and she was so tiny, that it took nine full days to find her body under the rubble,” Miranda Cleland of DCIP wrote on Twitter.
+The children’s father, Muhammad Odeh al-Talbani, was reportedly injured.
+Three others were killed in the same attack: Wael Abd al-Karim Issi, 40, Muhammad Hasan al-Qahwaji, 43, and Hala Hussein al-Rifi, who was 13 years old.
+Iyad Abdul Fattah Salha with his daughter Nagham. (Flickr)Salha family, three members killed
+Iyad Abdul Fattah Salha was home with his wife and toddler one afternoon when an Israeli missile struck on 19 May, killing them all.
+Salha was disabled and used a wheelchair.
+His wife Amany Yusef Imhawish was eight-months pregnant.
+Their toddler daughter Nagham Iyad Salha was killed along with them.
+It remains unclear “whether the missile was fired by an Israeli warplane or a weaponized aerial drone,” according to DCIP.
+Tamara Nassar is associate editor of The Electronic Intifada.
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-articleTitle: Adding pandemic to injury
-pageTitle: Adding pandemic to injury | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Palestinians injured during Great March of Return protests have suffered treatment delays and cancellations.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:27.335Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/adding-pandemic-injury/31266
 ---
-Nearly 8,000 Palestinians were injured during the 21 months of Great March of Return protests, causing a health crisis in Gaza that has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
-APA imagesCOVID-19 has hit Gaza hard in ways that are not always immediately obvious to the outside world.
-With Gaza’s authorities imposing new lockdowns and travel restrictions – adding to those imposed by Egypt and Israel – in response to a new and dangerous spike in virus cases since August, perhaps those who are hit the hardest are those waiting to go abroad for surgery.
-Many of those would-be patients were injured during the Great March of Return demonstrations occurring from March 2018 until December 2019. These saw unarmed protesters gather at the boundary between Gaza and Israel to demand a lifting of the siege against Gaza as well as to assert their right of return to their or their parents’ homes and villages from where they were forcibly removed in the Nakba of 1948-49.
-The Israeli military responded with lethal force. Snipers fired live bullets, some to kill, many deliberately to maim.
-The result is hundreds of injuries that cannot be treated in Gaza where, after nearly a decade and a half of an Israeli-imposed blockade, the needed health sector infrastructure is simply not available.
-Many of these patients today still await treatment, and now also find themselves hostage to a global pandemic that has further restricted their chances of getting medical attention abroad.
-Their plight has resulted not just in physical damage, but psychological, professional and personal harm.
-Nothing but pain
-Ahmad Juha, 30, was injured during a demonstration in September 2018.
-“I was protesting near the boundary with many others when a bullet exploded in my right leg,” Ahmad said.
-Doctors and international organizations have documented several cases like Ahmad’s where bullets have left unusually large exit wounds. Locally, they are known as exploding bullets. And the damage they cause is often irreparable in Gaza.
-Ahmad has had several surgeries to his leg in local hospitals to avoid amputation. But all local attempts have so far failed. In a last-ditch attempt to save his leg, Médecins Sans Frontières arranged for him to travel out of Gaza in March.
-COVID-19 put paid to that hope. In June, doctors informed him that there was no hope to save his leg. He has still to sign the paper giving permission for the amputation, however.
-“I don’t know. I’m afraid to sign. I want every chance to save my leg.”
-The pain, meanwhile, affects him day and night.
-“You feel nothing but the pain. I’ve become moody because of the pain medicine.”
-It has affected his relationships. Injured and depressed, Ahmad is losing everything he once had. His marriage has not survived the strain, his children now live with his mother, and though he used to work at the Taboon, the most famous pizza restaurant in Gaza, he can no longer find work.
-“The protests have stopped. I lost my leg, my job, and I can’t find a new job to afford a decent life for my two daughters,” Ahmad said.
-A Gaza health crisis
-According to Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, more than 7,900 Palestinians were injured with live ammunition during the 21 months the Great March of Return protests lasted.
-MSF told The Electronic Intifada that “more than two years since the beginning of the protests, many of [those injured] still need follow-up surgery, extended treatment for infected wounds, and require long courses of rehabilitation and specialized care.”
-In a briefing paper from MSF, the organization noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected any medical follow-up for injured Palestinians in Gaza.
-“COVID-19 is making their excruciating recovery process even longer and harder, since many medical services and activities have been reduced or temporarily suspended.”
-MSF in Gaza has been trying to coordinate travel to Jordan through the Erez checkpoint to Israel, but the pandemic has prevented many from traveling.
-Ashraf al-Qedra, a spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, told The Electronic Intifada that Israel’s long siege has “weakened our abilities and left us without many needed medicines and equipment.”
-“The needs are only increasing in the face of the challenge of COVID-19.”
-Ahmad Juha (right) and Jaber Suleiman have both had treatments postponed as a result of COVID-19. The two became friends after their injuries, both incurred during protests as part of the Great March of Return.
-Hana AdliRida al-Banna, 46, is the mother of nine children. Her husband suffers severe mood swings and anger management issues that prevent him from working. The family depends on government support and aid from local non-governmental organizations to cover basic needs.
-Rida regularly attended the Great March of Return protests as a volunteer to help those who got injured. But she wound up as one of them, when she herself was shot in the leg during one protest in December 2018.
-Rida was supposed to travel to Luxembourg with MSF coordination to receive treatment, but this has been delayed due to the pandemic.
-For now, Rida has made connections with other people who were injured, as they try to support each other in municipal spaces.
-But that too has become harder.
-“We spend time here to avoid friction with our families. But social distancing rules have increased the pressure on us, and we can’t do any other activities at the moment,” she told The Electronic Intifada.
-A life of dignity
-Muhammad al-Bahtiti, 28, lives in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. He was shot in his leg during a protest in May 2018.
-After nearly a year of treatment, doctors in Gaza decided the leg had to be amputated.
-He underwent the operation in February 2019. But rehabilitation took time and was eventually disrupted by the coronavirus.
-“I was very stressed staying at home during lockdown. Clinic visits were restricted and I was doing physiotherapy sessions by myself, with doctors guiding me over the phone. It was the hardest thing during the pandemic,” the former construction worker told The Electronic Intifada.
-The constant pain made him difficult for others.
-“I was shouting at my wife and angry with my children all the time,” he said.
-To compound the problem, he is now in debt too. His family tried to help out, but that too caused friction.
-“My brothers couldn’t meet my debts while I only sat at home, and they started to blame me for going to the protest for nothing.”
-Muhammad was meant to have traveled to Amman, Jordan in March, but fell foul of the lockdown. As a result, he needed further amputation. Another six centimeters were taken off his leg over the knee.
-Slowly, he is trying to put a life back together. He has started producing soap to sell from his home to market stalls.
-“I will do what I can to provide a life with dignity to my children. We don’t need much,” Muhammad insisted.
-Jaber Suleiman, 28, was shot in 2018.
-He barely survived.
-“After my injury I lost consciousness due to bleeding. The doctors decided to put me in the hospital morgue thinking I was dead. It was my father who discovered I was still alive, so the health ministry had me transferred to Ramallah.”
-But since his return, he was denied a travel permit by Israel seven times before the pandemic struck, he told The Electronic Intifada. Three weeks ago doctors amputated the lower part of his leg.
-Jaber, a resident of the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, was a casual day laborer before his injury, but he will be lucky to get any similar construction work once his treatment is complete.
-He, like thousands of others, is facing a harsh future, trapped as everyone in Gaza is by a hostile military occupation, an economy in ruins and a global pandemic.
-Hana Adli is a journalist based in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: UK government funds pro-genocide University Jewish Chaplaincy
+pageTitle: UK government funds pro-genocide University Jewish Chaplaincy | The Electronic Intifada
+description: "Spiritual" guides have close ties to illegal settlements.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:40.255Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-government-funds-pro-genocide-university-jewish-chaplaincy/50371
 ---
+Rabbi Zecharia Deutch hit headlines in the UK last year after taking leave from his pastoral role at Leeds university to join the Israeli army, from where he sent back videos to his students via WhatsApp.
+XExactly one year on from the start of the genocide in Gaza, the British government announced that it would allocate almost $9 million toward tackling alleged anti-Semitism in education.
+Almost $638,000 of this funding has been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy (UJC) in order to fund “welfare support for Jewish students.”
+But what is the UJC? Just a kindly Jewish religious organization devoted to the welfare, pastoral and spiritual needs of Jewish students?
+Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
+Just days after the government’s announcement, the University of Leeds fired two Israelis, Ariel and Sonia Pariente, as the UJC’s chaplaincy couple on campus. They had only recently been installed in their post.
+Shockingly anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic posts had been found on their social media pages, leading to the outcry which resulted in their sacking.
+The posts – mostly made by Sonia rather than her husband – included her view that Israeli lives were more valuable than those of Palestinians.
+She approvingly posted a statement that read: “After October 7 [2023] I don’t differentiate between Hamas and so-called ‘Palestinians’ … For the next 10 to 20 years, the Palestinian people will pay the bill that Hamas set today. And this bill will be paid in blood.”
+After exposure of the pair’s racism by Palestine solidarity activists who decried their statements online, some of their internet comments were deleted.
+A document uploaded on the UJC website in September stated that the pair were “looking forward” to starting their role. This suggests that they were in post only a matter of weeks.
+It was not the first time that the rabbi for Leeds university had been the source of high profile controversy. The Parientes were in post for such a short period that the Leeds Jewish Society – a student group – had not even yet removed the names of the previous incumbents from its Facebook page before the next pair were fired.
+These were chaplains Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch and his wife Nava.
+In November 2023, it was widely reported that Zecharia Deutsch had circulated videos of himself in the uniform of the Israeli occupation forces.
+He had briefly left Leeds for occupied Palestine to participate in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians.
+“What Israel is trying to do,” he said, “is to destroy the evil – which is the most moral thing possible.”
+Among those with whom he shared the propaganda videos were Jewish students at Leeds and the wider northern region. The Leeds-based chaplaincy is also responsible for six other universities: in York, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Bradford and Hull.
+The UJC defended Deutsch’s video messages.
+Chief executive Sophie Dunoff told The Jewish Chronicle, “Since [he was] in Israel, Rabbi Deutsch has been keeping in touch with the students in his care, updating them and sending messages of goodwill via WhatsApp. None of these messages were inappropriate in any way.”
+She went on: “Some have since been spread beyond the closed WhatsApp and this has resulted in an outpouring of hate, anti-Semitism and lies.”
+She did not prove that any such “hate, anti-Semitism and lies” had actually taken place.
+There was, however, outrage that a university chaplain had whitewashed the genocide to students for whom he had a duty of care.
+Israeli settler fanatics on British campuses
+What is the UJC and how is it related to the Zionist movement?
+The University Jewish Chaplaincy is formally registered as a charity under British law.
+It says that it has around 13 different chaplaincy posts across the country. In practice, however, some chaplains cover two posts and these are often filled by a married “chaplaincy couple” – such as the now-sacked Ariel and Sonia Pariente.
+As well as the University of Leeds, there are significant numbers of other British campuses with extremist connections to the genocidal occupation forces or to illegal settlement initiatives.
+Though the webpage of Ariel and Sonia Pariente has now been deleted from the UJC website, archived copies detail the pair’s Israeli connections.
+“Ariel is Israeli, with a special connection to Leeds as his mother and grandparents grew up and live there,” it stated. “Sonia, originally from Russia, made aliyah to [i.e. settled in] Israel in 2015.”
+Ariel was trained at an establishment named Yeshivat Karney Shomron.
+This yeshiva – or religious school – was established in 1981 as part of Israel’s Hesder yeshiva program. This network of religious-military boot camps combines the study of religious texts with arms training and active service in the Israeli army.
+Many Jewish chaplains at British universities are actually trained at Israeli military-religious organizations, such as this one, Chedvata. The facility says it offers ”a unique combination of Torah study, military service and college training” and aims to cultivate “patriotism toward the State of Israel.”The yeshiva boasts that its rabbis and students “serve in elite combat units of the IDF [Israeli military] in the famed Golani and Givati brigades, some as officers.”
+Pariente’s yeshiva is located in an illegal settlement, south-west of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. The school notes that the students “also carry security … responsibilities in Karnei Shomron, forming a first line of defense and emergency assistance.”
+In other words, these religious students often join the armed settler militias.
+These groups are involved in many abuses against local Palestinians such as the occasion in March 2023 where a settler shot dead a local Palestinian man. Or the occasion in July 2023 when Jewish settlers from Karnei Shomron attacked the residents of the Qufr Selis area with stones, causing four injured Palestinians to be injured – two of them seriously.
+According to the deleted UJC web page, Ariel’s wife Sonia previously worked in the Israeli government press office.
+A document still available (at the time of writing) on the UJC website states only that she worked as a “press officer” but omits any mention of Israel.
+“Obliterating Amalek”
+Zecharia and Nava Deutsch, the previous Jewish chaplains at Leeds, were no better than the Parientes.
+Both claimed on the UJC website to be from “Efrat, Israel.” However, Efrat is not in Israel but in illegally occupied territory in the West Bank.
+Nava is a recent settler-colonist, having grown up in Zurich, Switzerland. Zecharia studied at the yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim, a large settlement in the illegally occupied West Bank.
+Like the religious school Ariel Pariente attended, the yeshiva is also part of the Hesder program which, as previously noted, combines religious study with military training.
+Hesder yeshivas are a device to recruit religious Zionists into the military – especially the traditionally reluctant ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews.
+According to one Zionist account there are over 80 such religious-military training schools, with over 10,000 recruits and “in the current war, thousands of Hesder students have fought for the IDF [Israel’s military].”
+Zecharia and Nava Deutsch both reportedly trained for two years at the Straus-Amiel Institute in the West Bank. The couple’s departure as “emissaries” to Leeds was proudly announced by the institute in July 2021.
+In October 2023, the institute’s president, Rabbi Kenneth Brander, visited Israeli troops bombing Lebanon and wrote a genocidal message on a rocket, stating that the munition’s purpose was “to fulfill the mitzvah [religiously commanded deed] and mission of obliterating Amalek.”
+“Amalek” is a name for a people who, in the mythical Bible narrative, were completely obliterated by the invading Hebrew armies.
+Asaf and Atara Forges, the current UJC chaplaincy couple at the University of Bristol, both trained at an extremist Israeli religious school in the illegally occupied West Bank. (UJC)There are many other such connections between Jewish religious establishments on British campuses and the genocidal Israeli entity.
+At the University of Bristol – David Miller’s former employers – the current chaplaincy couple Asaf and Atara Forges are said to have “come from Israel.”
+However, both trained at the same genocidal Straus-Amiel Institute as Zecheria Deutsch. The institute is based in the occupied West Bank.
+One of the previous chaplaincy couples was Rabbi Alex and Rebbetzin Ahuva Tsykin (2017-19) both of whom were settler colonists in Palestine, he from Melbourne, Australia and she from Costa Rica.
+The university website noted at the time, “The Tsykins previously lived in Israel, teaching and supporting the community in Gush Etzion after realising their passion lay in Jewish education.” Gush Etzion is not in Israel either but in the illegally occupied West Bank.
+The pair studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in the West Bank, one of the largest Hesder yeshivas – the place where the idea of combining religious study with participation in the occupation military first emerged.
+The UK’s “chief rabbi” Ephraim Mirvis also studied at an institute in the West Bank – Har Etzion, in the 1970s. He is president of the UJC according to a copy of its headed notepaper from 2021 – though this is not mentioned on its website.
+A similar picture obtains at many of the other British campuses with Jewish chaplains.
+Genocidal religious extremism
+In Birmingham, chaplain Rabbi Fishel Cohen is a disciple of the extremist Chabad sect. Chabad is also associated with The King’s Torah, a book which justifies the slaughter of Palestinian children – even babies – on the grounds they may one day grow up to threaten Jews.
+According to the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, the followers of an extremist Chabad rabbi are responsible for most so-called “price tag” revenge attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
+In Cambridge, chaplain Atira Baruch moved from New Jersey and settled in occupied Palestine as a teenager and later undertook national service. Her husband Ben went to a Hesder yeshiva in occupied East Jerusalem “for his gap year.”
+In Glasgow and Edinburgh, chaplain Ayalah Shabo is from the illegal settlement of Efrat in the West Bank. She attended Shalem College in occupied East Jerusalem.
+Shabo’s husband Eliran attended the Yeshivat Machanaim, in Migdal Oz, next to Efrat. This yeshiva is another one of the Hesder military-religious boot camps.
+In Nottingham, chaplain Uriya Dvir attended two Hesder military-religious yeshivas in the West Bank for a total of six years.
+In Oxford, the recent chaplain Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler trained at Yeshivat Hamivtar, in Efrat in the occupied West Bank. His wife Tracey was a leader of the racist Zionist youth group Habonim Dror.
+Ideological partisans of genocide
+Overall, the vast majority of the couples chosen by the UJC to minister to the needs and welfare of Jewish students appear to be ideologically extreme Zionists, who have often had direct experience as West Bank settlers.
+There is also a particular preponderance of trainees from the genocidal Straus-Amiel Institute, and they are often recruited from Hesder religious-military training schools.
+The charitable objectives of the UJC state that the group aims to advance the “social welfare, spiritual and educational needs” of Jewish students. This allegedly contributes towards the “public benefit” which all charities are obliged by UK law to demonstrate.
+The UJC is thus arguably breaching this obligation in knowingly employing extremists who have been in breach of international law. They have done so by studying or training in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and by taking part in war crimes with Israeli occupation forces.
+The UJC also appears to have endorsed the participation of some of its staff in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, by allowing them to serve in the occupation forces during their employment with the UJC.
+Jewish students should not be forced to take guidance from chaplains who are ideological partisans of genocide.
+If it was possible for the University Jewish Chaplaincy to disassociate itself from the Zionist movement, drop its insistence of ideological purity for its chaplains and refuse to appoint chaplains who have been educated on illegal settlements, it might be possible for the organization to be reformed.
+This seems an unlikely outcome.
+If such simple reforms cannot be done, the UJC must be shut down. It is breaching its requirements under British law to demonstrate a benefit to the general public.
+But the UJC is only one key node in a network of organizations forming a Zionist radicalization conveyor belt in Britain.
+This extremist network is taking young British Jews and turning them into hardened advocates of genocide – sometimes even into active recruits in that genocide. That can be seen from credible reports that hundreds – perhaps thousands – of British citizens are fighting for the Israeli occupation forces.
+The British government is therefore indirectly supporting the genocide in Gaza via its funding of the UJC.
+The UJC did not respond to a request for comment on the issues raised in this article.
+David Miller is a broadcaster, journalist and academic. He produces and regularly appears on the weekly show Palestine Declassified. Asa Winstanley is an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada.
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-articleTitle: Why won't Israel release Gaza prisoner Ahmed Abu Jazar?
-pageTitle: Why won't Israel release Gaza prisoner Ahmed Abu Jazar? | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel has once again extended the detention of Ahmed Abu Jazar, who has been in prison for nearly two decades.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:30.531Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-wont-israel-release-gaza-prisoner-ahmed-abu-jazar/36396
 ---
-A view of the road to the Erez checkpoint in northern Gaza, where Ahmed Abu Jazar’s family waited for him to return home after his nearly two decades of imprisonment.
-APA imagesFor Aisha Mousa Abu Jazar, the morning of 18 August felt like Eid morning: full of joyful anticipation of the day ahead. The Abu Jazar family left their home in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and traveled north, to the Erez checkpoint.
-“I spent the whole way thinking of the moment I would finally see my son again,” Aisha, 67, said. “I was imagining how I would hug him and cry and tell him how difficult life was without him but also how we would celebrate his release.”
-Aisha’s son, Ahmed Abu Jazar, 37, had been in Israeli prison for nearly two decades, since December 2003. Now, finally, he was set to be released.
-Yet, as the family waited at the Israeli military checkpoint, they received a phone call from Khaled Zabarqa, Ahmed’s lawyer. Israeli occupation authorities had just informed him of a six-month detention renewal order against Ahmed.
-This meant Ahmed would not be released from prison for another six months.
-Aisha was devastated. “This is the second time the occupation spoils our joy, she said. “I am afraid of dying before I can embrace my son.”
-Indeed, this is the second time Israel has extended Ahmed’s initial 17-year sentence. The first instance was in 2019, after the end of Ahmed’s initial sentence, when Israel extended his imprisonment by 20 months.
-Now, Ahmed has been in prison for a total of 19 years, with another six months remaining.
-“Ahmed’s detention was renewed two times based on ‘unspecified reasons,’” said Khaled Abu Jazar, 43, Ahmad’s brother.
-This has left both Ahmed’s family and his lawyer in the dark on why, exactly, Ahmed is still in prison despite the end of his sentence, though Ahmed’s lawyer stated that one possible reason is that Ahmed was allegedly in possession of a mobile phone.
-Arrested at the age of 18
-As of September 2022, Israel imprisons some 4,650 Palestinians. They include 743 Palestinians in administrative detention (imprisonment without charge or trial), according to Addameer, a prisoners’ rights organization.
-“Israeli occupation authorities continue to place Palestinians under administrative detention indefinitely based on ‘secret material’ that is neither disclosed to the detainees nor their lawyers,” Addameer reports.
-“In addition, administrative detention is regularly employed as a coercive and retaliatory measure targeting Palestinian activists, civil society members, students, former prisoners and their family members.”
-Ahmed was arrested – at the age of 18 – in December 2003, at the Abu Holy checkpoint, which divided Gaza’s south and north.
-“In 2003, we were traveling to Gaza City to shop and to buy Eid clothes when the [Israeli] soldiers suddenly blocked the road,” Khaled, Ahmed’s brother, said.
-The soldiers started searches on the Palestinians at the checkpoint, “assaulting some and humiliating others,” Khaled said. “At that time, Ahmed and about five people of his age were detained.”
-Khaled said Ahmed was arrested and charged due to his “affiliation with the Islamic Jihad in Gaza.”
-Israel regularly arrests and detains youths and children. Currently, Israel imprisons 180 children.
-The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by Israel, stipulates that the detention and imprisonment of children should be used “only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
-One 45-minute visit in 19 years
-Even in the cases of youths and children, Israel restricts visits to imprisoned Palestinians.
-Israeli authorities, citing unspecified security reasons, can suspend or outright reject family visits to prisoners.
-In Ahmed’s case, he has been permitted only one visit from family while imprisoned. That was in 2015, when his mother Aisha visited him for 45 minutes.
-“On the day of the visit, I met Ahmed in the visiting room,” she said. “There was a glass window separating us. I talked to him via a telephone.”
-She said that when she saw him, “my heart almost shot out of my body.”
-“I begged the prison guards to allow me to touch or hug my son. But in the prison physical contact with the detainee is generally forbidden.”
-Since then, Ahmed has not been permitted any visits.
-“Israel policy is effectively barring all means of communication between prisoners from Gaza and the outside world,” Khaled Abu Jazar said. “We are not allowed to even hear Ahmed’s voice via a phone call. We don’t even know where they are holding him.”
-Khaled said that they occasionally get news from former detainees. Recently they heard that Ahmed had obtained a master’s degree and that he was working on his Quranic recitation.
-After two years of Israel suspending visitation permits due to COVID-19, the International Committee of the Red Cross facilitated the visits of a number of Palestinian families from Gaza to their relatives in Israeli prisons in March 2022.
-Over the years, many detainees have gone on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. This form of nonviolent protest can be an expression of anger at Israel for arbitrarily renewing detention orders and extending already lengthy sentences.
-“We call on the world to support Ahmed and all Palestinian detainees in their plight and struggle to ensure respect for their rights that are guaranteed by international law,” Khaled Abu Jazar said.
-As Ahmed’s next release date, in February 2023, draws near, his family again anticipates his return.
-They built him a new house in Rafah and are planning to find him a bride so he can finally have a family.
-Rajaa Salah is a freelance writer and translator from Gaza, Palestine.
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+articleTitle: Israeli-trained police invade Baltimore in crackdown on Black Lives Matter
+pageTitle: Israeli-trained police invade Baltimore in crackdown on Black Lives Matter | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Zionist lobby groups organize training for US cops in Israel.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:41.637Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter
 ---
+Paramilitary police forces face off against peaceful protesters outside Baltimore City Hall after 10 pm curfew on Friday, 1 May. (Bryan MacCormack/Left in Focus)
+For the second time in less than a year, an American city was transformed into a hypermilitarized police state to subdue growing resistance to anti-Black police violence.
+Eight months ago, paramilitary forces barreled down the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, following the gruesome police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown.
+Last week, martial law was imposed on the people of Baltimore, Maryland, in yet another crackdown aimed at crushing the Black Lives Matter uprising, galvanized this time by the police murder of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man whose spinal cord was severed while in police custody.
+It was an occupation in the truest sense of the term. However, for Baltimore’s poor Black neighborhoods, it was a hypermilitarized version of the lower intensity occupation they are subjected to on a regular basis.
+Protests demanding justice for Gray had been largely peaceful, until heavy-handed police tactics against Baltimore high school students on 27 April incited a riot.
+Some young people responded by throwing bottles and rocks at police, prompting comparisons to Palestine, where children often toss stones at Israeli occupation forces as a means of resistance and self-defense.
+Windows of police cruisers were smashed, stores were looted and a CVS store was set ablaze, throwing white America into a panicked frenzy that seemed to prioritize broken windows over broken spines, as one activist put it.
+Martial law
+Within hours of the riots, Baltimore city officials declared a state of emergency and instituted a 10pm curfew.
+Practically overnight, Baltimore morphed into a heavily militarized police state with machine-like efficiency, demonstrating America’s frightening capacity to successfully implement martial law in a major US city in a matter of hours.
+By Tuesday, 3,000 National Guard troops were deployed to Baltimore.
+An armored police vehicle passes by the burned down a CVS store on the intersection of North and Pennsylvania avenues in Baltimore on 1 May.  (Bryan MacCormack/Left in Focus)
+With assault rifles in hand, bored US soldiers in official military combat attire roamed the streets of downtown Baltimore, patrolling the National Aquarium, as well as the outlets of Forever 21, Cheesecake Factory and Barnes & Noble that dot the trendy and polished Inner Harbor.
+Serious overkill at the #Baltimore harbor. The aquarium is safe! pic.twitter.com/6VlClpWsx9
+— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) April 30, 2015
+The soldiers were flanked by police from a collection of law enforcement agencies from Maryland and across state lines, all working in concert with Baltimore police to crush the nascent uprising that erupted in the city’s long neglected poor Black neighborhoods. For these communities, martial law presented nothing more than an added layer to the ferocious police violence and intolerable economic deprivation that inform their daily lives.
+Breaking curfew
+On Friday, 1 May, around 80 protesters held their ground in the courtyard in front of City Hall. They were in high spirits and determined to break the 10pm curfew following news that six Baltimore police officers were charged in the killing of Freddie Gray.
+Protesters huddle in the courtyard outside Baltimore City Hall on 1 May 2015, preparing to break the 10 pm curfew.
+The Electronic IntifadaThe courtyard had become an unofficial media headquarters since the state of emergency began, saturated with TV news vans, cable news tents and lighting crews. The area also served as a command center for the National Guard and law enforcement.
+As the curfew went into effect, a line of around a hundred riot police filed into the quad opposite the protesters, who had thinned out from a couple hundred to a few dozen. The mood was tense, but calm.
+Riot police face off against protesters trying to break the curfew outiside Baltimore City Hall on 1 May. (Bryan MacCormack/Left in Focus)
+Minutes later, hidden units of riot police thundered into the crowd, charging at frightened protesters who soon learned there was nowhere to run. Protesters were woefully outnumbered and surrounded, with all possible escape routes cut off by either riot squads, officers on horseback, armored vehicles with rooftop snipers or National Guard troops, reinforced by a police helicopter circling overhead.
+Police officers dressed like storm troopers attacked one protester after the next completely unprovoked. I watched as police all around me tackled civilians, slamming them into the ground face first, piling on top of them and blindly swinging their batons. It was a police riot.
+Police rushed protesters and are violently arresting ppl pic.twitter.com/q9KvmI21fV
+— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) May 2, 2015
+Meanwhile, police closed in on the media, jostling members of the press and repeatedly threatening them to get back.
+It’s riot police versus the media. All protesters have been arrested or dispersed. #Baltimore pic.twitter.com/TFQsIMOgKG
+— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) May 2, 2015
+Mass arrests
+Among those arrested that night was 32-year-old Chicago-based activist Danielle Villarreal, who was knocked to the ground by officers while quietly looking to see which of her comrades had been grabbed.
+Her friend, Jackie Spreadbury, 26, instinctively reached for Villareal’s arm to protect her from police and was instantly thrown against a van and tossed to the ground, her cheek pressed up against the curb.
+“They hit me with their batons on the back of the calf below the knee as I was already down on the ground,” Spreadbury told me, recollecting her arrest. “I didn’t realize at the time that I was getting hit. I was just looking at Danielle to see if she was okay.”
+“A bunch of cops were yelling different things at me. And then they started yelling at me for not listening to all the different things they were demanding,” Spreadbury recalled.
+“I’ve been to lots of demonstrations over the years and I’ve never seen this sort of pre-emptive oppression — outside of NATO in Chicago — where they lunged at us and chased us down without warning, and just pre-emptively attacked people,” said Villarreal, referring to the virtual police state during the NATO summit in Chicago in 2012 that saw protesters corralled, abused and arrested.
+“If you want to see who wants a riot, look at who’s dressed for it,” added Villarreal, noting that police were the ones wearing body armor and carrying billy clubs.
+During their 22 hour stay in jail, the women met countless Baltimore residents who were swept up by police for breaking curfew while going about their daily lives. “They were put in a cell with us — women, mothers daughters — they got picked up because of this police state. There was a 51–year-old woman who was arrested on her way from work at 4:45am during curfew,” said Spreadbury.
+At least 486 people have been arrested in Baltimore since 23 April, a fifth of whom were held for 48 hours without explanation and released without charge.
+Others were given astronomically high bails.
+Allen Bullock, 18, turned himself in at the behest of his parents after a photo of him smashing a police windshield with a traffic cone was plastered in news reports across the country. Bullock is currently being held on a half a million dollar bail that his family can’t possibly afford. In stark contrast, the officers who severed Freddie Gray’s spine received bails no greater than $350,000.
+Palestine contingent lends support
+Building on the deepening bond between the Palestinian and Black liberation struggles, Palestinian civil society organizations issued a declaration of support for those struggling against racial injustice in Baltimore.
+“We send our condolences to the family of Freddie Gray and all those murdered in police custody,” says the statement. “We stand in solidarity with those whose homes have been foreclosed, with those who live under the constant watch of surveillance cameras and under the constant threat of being stopped, harassed, arrested and assaulted by a militarized police force in their own streets. Your struggle for justice, equality and freedom is our struggle.”
+A contingent of Palestine solidarity activists affiliated with Students for Justice with Palestine (SJP) at American University and Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at George Mason University turned those words into action.
+Palestine solidarity activists from Washington, DC, supporting protesters in Baltimore.
+Rania Khalek
+The Electronic IntifadaWearing their kuffiyehs — Palestinian checkered scarves — to remain easily visible to one another amid the likely chaos, the group shuffled back and forth between Washington, DC and Baltimore to lend their support as legal observers and medics.
+“Oftentimes we struggle with wanting to participate because we don’t know if it’s our place and we don’t want to be co-opting,” said Ntebo Maya Mokuena, a 19-year-old member of SJP at AU. “But I think it’s important for people in DC to show solidarity in Baltimore because we’re so close.”
+Mokuena gravitated toward Palestine solidarity work due to her father’s activism against apartheid in South Africa. “I saw the connections between his experiences in South Africa and what happens in Palestine. I thought it was really important to carry on the family legacy,” she told The Electronic Intifada.
+“From Palestine to Baltimore, there are parallels with militarization of police and the tactics they use to take over space in other people’s land. They’re occupying people’s neighborhoods where they live. It’s like the second wave for Baltimore because it’s already economically occupied,” said Mokuena.
+The group managed to avoid arrest during Friday night’s melee, though some told The Electronic Intifada that they were more frightened of police in Baltimore than Israeli forces at protests they had attended in Palestine.
+“Even though I’ve been to protests in Palestine, I saw more physical abuse in Baltimore,” said Tareq Radi, a Palestinian American organizer and founding member of SAIA. Still, what he witnessed in Baltimore reminded him of Israeli crowd control in Palestine. “I went to the ‘day of rage’ protests in the Negev [Naqab] and I saw people getting slammed on the ground, hogtied, police grabbing their arms and legs and throwing them in the paddy wagon — the exact same imagery as Baltimore.”
+“If Baltimore was a Middle Eastern country, we would be calling it a dictatorship,” Radi added.
+Echoes of Israeli tactics in Baltimore
+The similarities in suppression tactics employed by Baltimore and Israeli security forces are no coincidence.
+Under the cover of counterterrorism training, nearly every major police agency in the United States has traveled to Israel for lessons in occupation enforcement, including many of the agencies active in Baltimore last week.
+In 2002, Baltimore city police officers went to Israel on a junket organized by the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), where they studied Israeli occupation tactics used against Palestinians, including “crowd control, and coordination with the media,” according to a JINSA press release. “Participants resolved to begin the process of sharing ‘lessons learned’ in Israel with their law enforcement colleagues in the United States,” boasted JINSA.
+Baltimore city police returned to Israel for more occupation training in a 2009 trip arranged by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange.
+On a 2007 training session in Israel, Baltimore County police reportedly “received valued lessons from Israeli officials … about gathering human and electronic intelligence” that can “apply to investigations into organized crime and gangs.”
+The Montgomery County Police Department, which sent dozens of police officers to assist in the Baltimore crackdown, has attended several training sessions in Israel, including one in 2010 and another in 2012, both hosted by Project Interchange.
+New Jersey State Police, which donated around 150 of its officers to Baltimore’s police state, learned lessons in occupation enforcement on trips to Israel arranged by the Anti-Defamation League in 2011 and 2013, and JINSA in 2004.
+Pennsylvania State Police, which contributed 300 state troopers to Baltimore, studied counterterrorism in Israel in 2004.
+While there is a wealth of scholarship on police militarization in the US, there has been little to no examination of the ways Israel’s security apparatus facilitates it. Instead, the issue is virtually ignored or flat out denied, despite the troubling implications of emulating an apartheid regime actively engaged in ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
+Armed with cameras
+There is something eerily consistent about occupation, whether in the ghettos of Palestine or the United States, including one of the most widely used means of resistance to it.
+“A camera is the most trusted witness and the best protection tool,” Issa Amro, the founder and director of Youth Against Settlements, told me last year after his organization faced violent retaliation for recording Israeli soldiers pointing assault rifles at Palestinian teens in a video that went viral.
+Kevin Moore, who filmed the video of Freddie Gray’s brutal arrest, sees the camera in a similar light.
+“The most powerful weapon that we have against the police right now is a camcorder or any type of record that you can get against them performing those police brutal events,” argued Moore after his video of Gray went viral. After speaking out about Gray’s killing, Moore complained that police were intimidating him. He was later arrested with two activists from Copwatch, the police accountability organization he is a member of and released two hours later without charge.
+Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the chokehold killing of Eric Garner by NYPD officers in Staten Island last year, met an even worse fate. He was arrested along with his mother, brother and wife in what he contends is a campaign of vengeful harassment by the NYPD.
+Meanwhile, not one of the officers who killed Garner on video will face charges; Video evidence of deadly police violence rarely results in accountability.
+Under such intolerable conditions, where even video evidence of their murders isn’t enough to hold their killers accountable, it is no wonder that the oppressed are fighting back, from Baltimore to Ferguson to Palestine.
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-articleTitle: Safe in Egypt, burdened by trauma
-pageTitle: Safe in Egypt, burdened by trauma | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Anxiety and tension shadow new life in Cairo.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:30.658Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/safe-egypt-burdened-trauma/46951
 ---
-Taking a moment to read in the rubble in Gaza City on 23 April 2024 after an Israeli airstrike on a mosque.
-APA imagesWill my family and I – will my people –  ever fully heal from everything we have gone through in Gaza?
-Even though I have now escaped to Egypt, which has been reluctant to take in those fleeing the Gaza genocide, it is difficult to imagine how long I will be entrapped by the shackles of trauma, the heavy cloak of depression, the relentless grip of silence, the haunting specter of fear, and the ever-present trembling of my spirit.
-Anxiety and tension have persistently shadowed me since 7 October. I have come to dwell on the inevitability of mortality.
-I know I am far from alone with my worries.
-On 19 April, the American Psychiatric Association expressed alarm over the psychological and behavioral consequences that will affect the people caught in the violence since 7 October.
-“This crisis underscores the pressing needs of our interdependent world. We must move from anguish and conflict to deeper understanding, compassion, and goodwill,” it said in the statement.
-It was during our initial displacement from our home to my aunt’s residence when I first began to feel unease and apprehension encircling me.
-On my first night there, I struggled to sleep. I lay my head on the unfamiliar pillow and the cold, rigid bed, surrounded by darkness. There was no electricity, there was no light — and no hope.
-I dozed off, but woke up to the sounds of shelling and Israeli warplanes flying above. What was happening I couldn’t determine as there was no consistent access to the internet to keep track of the news.
-The situation became more complicated. We started receiving messages warning us to evacuate the area. Where to, we wondered, since the buzzing drones above continuously monitored our movement through the night.
-Another displacement followed to another shelter in Khan Younis. I longed for home, but thoughts swirled relentlessly: Will we find safety this time? How will we navigate the town amid all the bombings? How can we possibly survive to reach safety?
-The haunting truth is that reaching our destination offered no assurance of salvation.
-Hear it and live
-Fear at first engulfed me in this unfamiliar refuge: Lights flickered, but they were not the soothing glow that I was used to; they heralded death. As the yellow rocket’s glare and its thunderous crash echoed throughout the city they made many of us feel as if we were about to perish in terror twice.
-The rocket we hear doesn’t kill us; everyone knows this. This assurance was shattered when a barrel of rockets fell on our neighborhood. In the rubble, we could not hear the rockets as we lay trapped, uncertain whether we were alive or breathing our last. We could only bleed, unable to lift the stones from our bent bodies.
-I had not shed a tear until that moment and when they came, each one felt like swallowing poison. Survival was paramount. All we could do was to scream and shout to make our trembling, fear-filled voices heard, to prevent us from disappearing.
-A specter from that night lingers in my mind, haunting my reality, my dreams and my every thought, even though we survived.
-The true depth of my shock and the toll of it all became evident when we were displaced again to a new place. Here, for the first time, I began to unravel. Tears began to flow freely, my crying echoing through the room that would become yet another refuge.
-The moment I caught my breath in this place, suspended between life and death, I immediately began biting my nails, an old habit that I had long abandoned.
-Indicators of trauma
-It is difficult to ignore the tension accompanying the constant fear of sudden airstrikes. It’s triggered by the slightest sounds — a chair shifting, a window creaking, a door knocking, the sound of car engines.
-I now struggle to connect with those around me, unable to endure someone speaking for more than five minutes. I have lost my ability to listen patiently to loved ones and engage in lengthy conversations. My soul has devolved into someone unrecognizable — a hardened figure, not expressing any emotions.
-In consequence, I gravitate towards solitude and isolation but lack the space to fully embrace these feelings.
-When I arrived in Egypt after two months under genocide, most of my feelings began to reclaim their space. There were no shellings or bombings, but I was suddenly overwhelmed by waves of unexpected tears. They could come at any time and place.
-There is no apparent explanation for these tears, but I know they result from the culmination of experiences I have endured and that I have never been able to properly process.
-It is also grief and guilt. I shed tears for the loved ones I’ve lost. I am overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness knowing that my friends are still suffering, still displaced, and dying of hunger.
-I lost my home, my work, my life, the projects I planned to work on with a friend I have not heard from in almost four months, as well as my dreams and studies. I could have achieved a lot more had the Israeli aggression not happened. I would have made many more memories in Gaza had it not been for the genocide. My books, school, and university are gone, but they are all alive in me.
-I used to be an avid reader, but I have not been able to pick up a book for over six months.  My hands, eyes, and mind are unwilling to work with me. I used to easily select a book from my cherished library, now reduced to ashes by Israel. As someone who used to write daily, I find it almost impossible to even begin.
-I am more irritable. I have arguments with no cause.
-I, who was normally so laid back.
-Endless nightmares
-I flee from reality, seeking refuge in sleep, only to find that what I try to escape from continues to haunt me.
-I see again the barefooted man in tattered, white clothes chasing an ambulance.
-“That’s my son, my beloved!”
-I hear again the anguished screams of a young man, his hand maimed by shrapnel, reverberating through the area, pleading: “Oh God.”
-Awake, I ask friends whether they had ever considered ending their lives and if they knew of a quick and painless method to do so. One friend, trying to lighten the mood with a joke, suggested jumping from the Cairo Tower, as it is a one-way ticket to God.
-Over the past many months, I have endured this turmoil to the point that I am incapable of coping with it any longer. As a means of releasing my inner turmoil, I return to writing.
-I bought notebooks, wrote everything I had experienced and confronted it on paper. I even read and purchased a few books at book fairs. I re-engaged in social relationships and began discussing my inner turmoil with friends.
-I began taking courses and participating in situations requiring confrontation, conversation, concentration, and effort in order to find solutions, in order to survive.
-The struggle to heal continues. I remain disconnected from the rhythms of daily life, even though I am attempting to cope.
-The longer we continue to live under Israel’s brutal, inhumane occupation, the greater my desire to be free, to achieve the eradication of Israel from our homeland.
-Rania Abu Taima is a writer and translator from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine
+pageTitle: How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine | The Electronic Intifada
+description: "Progressive" newspaper gives a platform to Israel's racists.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.010Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/how-guardian-told-me-steer-clear-palestine
 ---
+Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian’s opinion editor, is an apologist for ethnic cleansing. (Chatham House/Flickr)When I started out as a journalist in the 1980s, I asked an experienced Irish reporter for advice. “Read The Guardian,” he told me.
+The message that there was no better newspaper had a lasting effect. For years, I wanted to write for The Guardian. Eventually, this desire was realized after I emailed the late Georgina Henry, then editor of its Comment is Free section, in 2007. Henry was immediately receptive to my idea of tackling the European Union from a critical, left-wing perspective.
+I very much enjoyed contributing to The Guardian. Having previously worked for quite a stuffy publication, it felt liberating to be able to express opinions.
+There was one issue, however, on which I felt my freedom curtailed: Palestine. Although The Guardian did publish a few of my articles denouncing Israeli atrocities, I began to encounter obstacles in 2009.
+Sensitive
+Early that year, I submitted an exposé of how the pro-Israel lobby operates in Brussels. While waiting to find out if the piece would be used, I phoned Matt Seaton, who had taken over as comment editor. We had a pleasant conversation but Seaton stressed that he regarded the subject as sensitive.
+I, then, modified the piece to make its tone less polemical. Still, it was not published. (Seaton has subsequently moved to The New York Times.)
+A few months later, I paid a visit to Gaza. From there, I contacted The Guardian to say that I had interviewed Sayed Abu Musameh, a founding member of Hamas.
+Abu Musameh had expressed an interest in visiting Belfast to study how the Irish peace process worked. He had already held discussions with Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader who had persuaded the Irish Republican Army to call a ceasefire.
+Abu Musameh, I felt, was saying something that jarred with the official view of Hamas presented by Israel and its Western supporters. Far from being addicted to violence, he was eager to learn about what policy wonks call “conflict resolution.”
+The Guardian was not keen to have me writing from Gaza. Brian Whitaker, a commissioning editor at the time, told me that its comment section received more submissions about Palestine than any other subject. Whitaker, ironically a Middle East specialist, effectively recommended that I stick to writing about the EU. (The recommendation was bizarre both because Palestine is a key issue for the EU and because I am one of the few journalists to examine the Union’s complicity in Israel’s crimes.)
+Frustration
+I have decided to make my frustrating encounters with The Guardian public after reading the diatribe it published last week by Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to the UK. Taub uses a quotation attributed to Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister from 1969 to 1974, to hit back at aid agencies who accuse Israel of impeding Gaza’s reconstruction: “We will only have peace when our enemies love their children more than they hate ours.”
+The inference that Palestinians hate Israelis more than they love their children is a racist caricature brilliantly demolished by Rafeef Ziadah in her poem “We teach life, Sir.” Yet, according to Taub, Meir’s words represent a “bitter truism.”
+The Comment is Free section of The Guardian, where Taub’s nasty rant appears, is now overseen by Jonathan Freedland, a liberal Zionist. I contacted Freedland to enquire if he approved Taub’s article for publication.
+Freedland referred my message to the paper’s “media enquiries” unit. A spokesperson, who did not give his or her name, replied by email that Comment is Free “hosts hundreds of discussions every month on a wide range of topics across the entire political and ideological spectrum.”
+“We receive a huge amount of submissions for articles and aim to publish a plurality of voices from all over the world,” the spokesperson added. “Naturally, not all of these voices reflect The Guardian’s own editorial position.”
+Apologist for ethnic cleansing
+I am not in the least reassured by that response. Taub’s article was the second one published by The Guardian in as many months from a senior Israeli political or diplomatic figure. In February, the paper gave Yair Lapid, until recently Israel’s finance minister, a platform to describe calls for a cultural boycott of Israel as “shallow and lacking in coherence.”
+Lapid’s view chimes with The Guardian’s “own editorial position,” to quote its anonymous spokesperson. While Israel was bombing Gaza last August, it ran a leader accusing London’s Tricycle Theatre of making a “bad error of judgment” in refusing to host a film festival sponsored by Israel.
+As Ben White demonstrated in a trenchant 2014 analysis for Middle East Monitor, Jonathan Freedland is an apologist for ethnic cleansing. Freedland has tried to justify how “400 [Palestinian] villages” were “emptied” by Zionist forces in 1948 on the grounds that “the creation of a Jewish state was a moral necessity.”
+If Freedland is prepared to defend Zionist war crimes, I guess it is not surprising that he is reserving space for naked Israeli propaganda in The Guardian’s comment section. While it is difficult to imagine that this bastion of liberalism would welcome openly racist submissions from far-right organizations like the British National Party or English Defence League, it is somehow acceptable for an Israeli diplomat to peddle bigotry against Palestinians.
+Freedland has been tipped as a contender for The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, a post that is soon to be vacant.
+In a perverse way, it might be a good thing if he gets the job. With Freedland at the helm, it would be easier to show how a supposedly progressive newspaper is in thrall to the toxic ideology of Zionism.
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-articleTitle: Invasions fail to break spirit of resistance in Jabaliya
-pageTitle: Invasions fail to break spirit of resistance in Jabaliya | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Resilience of northern Gaza haunts Israeli military imagination.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:30.846Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/invasions-fail-break-spirit-resistance-jabaliya
 ---
-Palestinians return to their homes following the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Jabaliya area in the northern Gaza Strip, on 31 May.
-APA imagesIsrael declared near total “operational control” in northern Gaza in late December 2023, around two months into its ground invasion of the coastal enclave.
-Efforts to capture the north included an invasion of Jabaliya refugee camp. It was the first of two such invasions, with the second only ending in late May.
-Last week, Israeli military forces withdrew from Jabaliya, a city in northern Gaza, after a 20-day operation that left the area and its refugee camp, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight camps, almost unrecognizable.
-The Israeli army had ordered residents of Jabaliya to evacuate the area earlier in May.
-Israel claimed that the evacuation was required so that it could confront fighters with the Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas. The fighters were allegedly attempting to reassemble in the area months after the initial invasion.
-The latest ground invasion was combined with aerial bombardment. Israel conducted 200 airstrikes in the area during a period of less than three weeks.
-“There is no longer Jabaliya camp, there are no schools and hospitals, the scale of destruction is so great that no one can imagine it, and the destruction cannot be counted,” Palestinian woman Asma al-Masri told Al Jazeera. She had returned to the camp to retrieve supplies for her family in Beit Hanoun, another northern area.
-Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion, and became the epicenter of an Israeli-US manufactured famine that forced people to rely on animal feed and wild plant foraging in order to eat.
-The head of the World Food Program has declared a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza.
-Jabaliya refugee camp was already devastated by Israeli bombings since the early stages of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, when the Israeli airforce conducted multiple massive strikes on the camp’s market, considered one of the liveliest areas in the Strip, as well as a residential block, killing hundreds of people.
-The devastation caused by the Israeli army’s second invasion of the area multiplied. As Palestinians began to return, witnesses described scenes of destruction: heaps of rubble from demolished buildings lined the streets, with decomposing bodies being discovered among the debris.
-Satellite imagery capturing the period between 17 April and 24 May depicts a stark increase in the destruction of residential buildings and vegetation in the area.
-Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera correspondent in Jabaliya, describes in a televised report Israel’s devastation of the central market in the refugee camp, detailing the burning and total destruction of commercial stores.
-“This market was the lifeline of citizens,” he says, lamenting the absence of any remaining operational commercial outlets.
-Resistance
-Back in January, the Israeli military claimed,
-“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas’ military framework in the northern Gaza Strip.”
-“Eliminating the commanders made it difficult for the terrorists to fight organized and led to many of them surrendering,” the military added.
-But the manner in which Palestinian resistance fighters confronted the Israeli invaders does not suggest surrender.
-Despite the devastation caused by the Israeli army, the Palestinian resistance inflicted losses among Israeli soldiers and military vehicles.
-The Qassam Brigades published videos showing its fighters employing a range of tactics to counter the encroachment of the Israeli military, by targeting its armored vehicles and soldiers with sniper operations, tunnel ambushes, mortar shells and attacks on armored vehicles. Yassin 105 anti-tank rockets – a Soviet clone manufactured in Gaza – were widely used by fighters against Israeli army vehicles.
-When the invaders arrived in the camp, the Qassam Brigades launched an attack on Israeli troop carriers using ammunition delivered by an unmanned copter.
-In a video released by the Qassam Brigades, an aircraft is seen positioning itself directly over an Israeli troop carrier, revealing a hatch on its front left side where the Qassam ammunition is deployed.
-“Adnan al-Ghoul started the weapons program with hand grenades, because that was the simplest thing to get in the hand of every fighter,” Jon Elmer, contributing editor of The Electronic Intifada, said on the day 222 livestream. Al-Ghoul was the founder of the Qassam weapons industry and was assassinated in 2004.
-“If you build your own hand grenades and give them to your fighters, it’s easier to have than guns at times, and so hand grenades were the first of Qassam’s weapons industry,” Elmer added.
-The dense urban landscape of Jabaliya and its refugee camp is reflected in the operations carried out by Qassam fighters, as seen in videos published by their media team. These videos depict fighters maneuvering through alleys and buildings, positioning themselves to fire at tanks from close range.
-Even as the Israeli army was on the ground in Jabaliya, the Palestinian resistance managed to launch rockets towards Israel.
-“These are launches from Jabaliya, where an entire Israeli army division is operating, and they’re firing rockets,” Elmer said.
-“The tanks are all over there and they see the rockets go over their head. And it’s a psychological operation.”
-One of the most striking reports by the Qassam Brigades from the battle in Jabaliya was the announcement by their spokesperson Abu Obeida of an operation that involved killing, injuring and capturing soldiers.
-Abu Obeida said that Qassam fighters had lured the invading unit into one of the tunnels in Jabaliya refugee camp.
-“Then fighters attacked the reinforcement force that rushed to the scene with explosive devices and directly hit them,” Abu Obeida said.
-“Then fighters withdrew after blowing up the tunnel used in this operation,” he added.
-Qassam fighters had apparently also seized the unit’s military equipment.
-The Qassam Brigades has released another video revealing a picture of a captured soldier, speculating whether the unit involved was a mercenary unit that the Israeli authorities did not reveal was operating in Gaza.
-“This is the first time since 7 October that a soldier has been captured,” Elmer said on the day 236 livestream.
-“Israel has fought this whole war to avoid their soldiers being captured. That’s why they don’t come out of their tanks until the very last moment. That’s why you never see dismounted soldiers walking alongside tanks covering territory.”
-Meanwhile, during the battle in Jabaliya, footage released by the Israeli army captures three Palestinian fighters positioned on a rooftop in Jabaliya, firing at approaching Israeli forces.
-At some point in the video, one of the fighters is hit and falls to the ground, prompting his comrade to retrieve his weapon and continue firing. Palestinian civil defense workers were reported to have extracted the bodies of the three fighters from the rooftop following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area.
-Footage by Al Jazeera depicts the remnants of Israeli occupation vehicles destroyed by the resistance:
-Jabaliya has a long-standing reputation as a center of Palestinian resistance, dating back to the first intifada that began in the camp in 1987 and expanded to the rest of historic Palestine. The city and its camp have remained a stronghold of armed resistance since then.
-Resilience
-Now, amid the rubble of their destroyed homes, Palestinians are returning to the camp from which they evacuated a few weeks ago.
-They are erecting makeshift tents amid the debris and demonstrating resilience by caring for stray cats, illustrating their determination to revive their community despite the devastation.
-Al Jazeera’s footage captures Palestinians returning to their homes, striving to clean and repair them regardless of the extent of damage incurred by the Israeli invasion:
-A Palestinian man, assessing the destruction, displayed a sense of determination while speaking to Al Jazeera.
-“We stand steadfast here,” he told the network against the backdrop of destruction, “and we will not deviate. We will not leave this land.”
-Jabaliya’s resilience haunts the Israeli army.
-The resilience can be seen in the strong culture of armed struggle in the camp.
-It can be seen, too, in how the community is returning to the camp, rebuilding and resuming life despite the repeated devastation inflicted by the Israeli military.
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+articleTitle: Los Angeles to threaten campus Palestine activists with "law enforcement"
+pageTitle: Los Angeles to threaten campus Palestine activists with "law enforcement" | The Electronic Intifada
+description: A lawyer for families of victims of Israel's attack on the Mavi Marmara aid boat to Gaza in 2010 tells us why the arrest warrants are "historic," students at UCLA sign an ethics statement against paid propaganda trips and UC Santa Cruz passes divestment.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.058Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/los-angeles-threaten-campus-palestine-activists-law-enforcement
 ---
+Palestinian children take part in a rally to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara, which killed ten civilians including one teenaged US citizen.
+APA imagesThis week on The Electronic Intifada podcast:
+The Electronic Intifada podcast is available on iTunes! Click here to view the podcast archive, or subscribe via the iTunes interface (search for The Electronic Intifada).
+Listen to the entire Electronic Intifada podcast:
+Turkish court issues arrest warrants
+Nora Barrows-Friedman: Rabia, the original complaint was filed by 33 relatives of the Turkish citizens who were killed on the Mavi Marmara, and the tenth victim who was injured in the attack in 2010 just passed away about a week ago. Can you talk about the outcome of this sixth hearing in the Mavi Marmara case, and why the judgment was significant? It names names of Israeli military war crimes suspects to be arrested.
+Rabia Yurt: As you said, this was the sixth hearing of this trial, and during the last six trials, the court has heard witness statements from different witnesses from different countries, and because the [Israeli commanders] were tried in absentia, the lawyers and the prosecutor requested the court to issue arrest warrants in order to bring the defendants to Turkey and then be prosecuted.
+So therefore, this arrest warrant is quite important, and it is also the first in history against Israeli officials. This trial is an historic trial. Until now, Israel has committed several, numerous and uncountable crimes — crimes which are the gravest crimes under international law. But until now, there has been no prosecution of any Israeli individual, nor has the State of Israel been held responsible for its crimes. Therefore, this trial, which started in 2012, is very very important and it’s an historic trial.
+NBF: Included in the list of Israeli military commanders and officers is Gabi Ashkenazi; he was the former chief of staff and commander of the Israeli army. And as well as his role in the Mavi Marmara attack, he oversaw the attacks on Gaza in 2008-09 which killed approximately 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands more, and as you said, no Israeli leader — or individual soldier, for that matter — have been prosecuted for their role in this massacre. How likely is it that he and the others named in this recent judgment by the Turkish court will be arrested by Interpol?
+RY: We have to stay optimistic. Of course we can’t deny the fact that the world has closed its eyes to the crimes committed by Israel. And until now, Israel has gotten away with everything that it has done, especially because of the veto rights of America in the [UN] Security Council.
+However, we are optimistic, because Turkey is a democratic country. It is part of and is a signatory to the European extradition convention and signed to Interpol, and therefore all other countries who are also signatories to these conventions and institution have an obligation to indeed arrest these Israeli officials for whom the arrest warrants were issued. So we have to trust [this] and we have to keep our faith in this. And we also know that — remember that this trial started way back in 2012 — the Israeli authorities told their soldiers not to travel around too much, especially not go to Turkey. We know that Israeli soldiers were complaining about this. For instance, there was a case of an Israeli soldier who filed a claim against the State of Israel because he wanted to study in the United States, but because he took part in this operation he could not set foot out of Israel. So because we know this, we are quite optimistic about the arrest warrants, that they will be in fact implemented by other countries.
+NBF: Has Interpol indicated that they are willing and ready and able to pursue these Israeli military commanders under this arrest warrant?
+RY: The arrest warrant is being now prepared by the court in a way that it has to be sent to the ministry of justice, which in turn will send it to Interpol. But we haven’t heard anything from Interpol until now, because the arrest warrant still wasn’t received by them. It’s a very procedural thing, so we have to see what happens in the near future.
+NBF: Rabia, what message does this ruling by the Turkish court send to the perpetrators of the killing of civilians by Israeli military officials?
+RY: I believe that this message is a very, very strong message — the first in history [saying] that from now on, the international community, the courts will not tolerate crimes committed by Israel anymore.
+We will fight against impunity, and this arrest warrant gives the message to Israelis that they have to think twice before they ever commit such crimes again. That until now, no Israeli individual was prosecuted, but from now on, they will be held responsible and they will be brought to justice. So this is a very, very strong message against impunity.
+NBF: What can you tell us about the reaction to this arrest warrant ruling by the court from families and loved ones of the victims on the Mavi Marmara?
+RY: The moment the court ruled the arrest warrants, we were all together in the courtroom, and everybody just screamed out of joy and clapped, they were very pleased, very happy with it. I could tell that the wife of Çetin Topçuoğlu, who was also on the Mavi Marmara — he passed away in the arms of his wife — before the court was going to give its ruling, we were standing outside the courtroom doors, and she was just praying and praying and praying. And this was the third time that actually we had requested an arrest warrant, so we had been disappointed twice before, and when the ruling came, everybody was full of joy.
+NBF: Finally, what’s next in this case on behalf of now ten victims of Israel’s raid, how are you pushing forward in this case?
+RY: In December, there is going to be another hearing, and we’re just going to make sure that the entire world will know about this arrest warrant, that we will follow whether any of these four defendants steps foot outside of Israel. We have lawyers in different countries also working together, and in South Africa, in the UK, many, many countries more — they will also closely follow whether these four defendants will travel in these countries. And then if this is the case, we will immediately take action and make sure that if the country in which one of the four defendants steps foot refuses, or neglects to fulfill its obligation to arrest [the defendant], then we will make sure that that country will not get away with it. And we will push for it, and publicize this as much as we can.
+End transcript.
+Ethics statement at UCLA
+Safwan Ibrahim: We originally wrote the statement — not just SJP but students from other organizations as well, we wrote the statement as a show of good faith with [student] council members, asking them to not to take these paid trips through organizations that are tied to anything that might marginalize other student communities on campus. In the statement, we explicitly make examples of AIPAC and the ADL — the Anti-Defamation League — for their promotion of Islamophobic material and the spreading of that, and also AIPAC because they are consistently complicit with Armenian genocide denial. And there’s a large Armenian community on campus, and of course a large Muslim community on campus, and to have council members who are supposed to represent students associated with these organizations — we were hoping with this statement that we would have council members distance themselves from these organizations.
+If they’re supposed to represent students, and they’re tied to organizations that have a history of Islamophobia and Armenian genocide denial, or really any organization that would marginalize any students on campus, we don’t want council members involved in any of them. The reason why those two were picked out is because the council has a history with them. We’ve had council members before who have gone on trips to AIPAC conferences, gone on trips with the ADL, people involved in student government who are Hasbara Fellows. And all of these organizations — not the students themselves, we can’t say anything about them and we don’t believe that they would have any of these sentiments themselves, personally — but as long as they’re involved, or associated with these organizations, we don’t feel comfortable with them representing us.
+Nora Barrows-Friedman: Safwan, can you talk a little bit more about these propaganda trips and organizations like the Hasbara Fellowships? What happens when these student council members go on these trips, and what message does it send to student communities on campus, especially those from the Arab and Muslim community?
+SI: You have organizations like Hasbara [Fellowships] who, on their website, they promote Islamophobic messages that generalize all of the Muslim world as generally just not accepting the presence of Israel — very problematic messages that if these students are involved in these organizations, going on trips with them, they’re learning these messages and then coming back. The purpose of these organizations for picking out student leaders and students in general is because they want to bring their messages to US campuses. And if these messages are marginalizing or Islamophobic or anything, homophobic, whatever it is, if they’re bringing these messages to campuses, it’s going to cause problems for other students here. Especially if these are student leaders.
+NBF: The city council of Los Angeles says it will vote this week on a resolution denouncing the ethics statement, and their resolution includes stating that the ethics statement is a “tactic of intimidation and harassment,” and the resolution ends by declaring “State Legislative Program Support for administrative action” by the Regents and Janet Napolitano, who’s the president of the UC system, to cultivate new means of addressing “intimidation or harassment of any student,” which include referring “to the proper law enforcement agencies.” The idea that the LA city council is trying to threaten students with legal consequences, saying that they’ll refer such students who sign this ethics pledge to the proper law enforcement agencies — what’s your response to that, how are students organizing around this?
+SI: Honestly, I do think it’s very ironic. The point of the ethics statement was to limit the influence of outside lobbying organizations and lobby groups — to limit their effect on students and student affairs. We want any decisions made in the student council to be reflective of the students on campus. Whatever those decisions may be, we want them to only represent students on campus and not be affiliated, not be influenced by these outside organizations, outside lobbying groups.
+And then, to have the response to that be going and finding outside influence like the city council to come and reprimand us for our — it seems ridiculous. They’re just trying to silence students at this point. By any means, trying to have legal enforcement to prevent students from coming to councilmembers with their concerns.
+The ethics statement is a non-binding agreement, sort of a promise just to show good faith, like I said earlier, with these [student] council members. And to bring the city council into it, I think is just absurd, really.
+The city council’s reason for doing this is they’re accusing us of intimidation and bullying, and they will then go and intimidate and bully students into not speaking out against these lobby groups. And I think that’s crazy. And now our organizing now, we’re going to speak out in whatever media outlets we have to really show what exactly this ethics statement is, and what it was intended to do.
+A lot of the noise around it is from people who didn’t really read the statement or who have only heard one side. You mentioned earlier that [UC] President Napolitano is getting involved in this somehow. She and Chancellor Block both made statements against the joint ethics statement, without having contacted any of the students who were involved in writing it. Without meeting with us. And it really just shows how very one-sided some of the administration’s views are — that they would pass judgment on something without knowing the full story.
+NBF: Safwan Ibrahim, how can people learn more about this ethics statement and what’s the next step here — whether or not the city council votes against this ethics statement or not?
+SI: Well, if you want to actually read the ethics statement, it is online at sjpbruins.com. You can read more about it there. There will be more op-eds coming online as well, and they can just keep up with it that way.
+End transcript.
+UC Santa Cruz passes divestment
+Nora Barrows-Friedman: Joining us last week, just after the divestment vote passed, was Santa Cruz student Elaine Ejigu, who is also a member of the Committee for Justice in Palestine. She began with her reaction to the divestment vote victory.
+Elaine Ejigu: Amazement. Because here, we had JSU [Jewish Student Union] and Hillel, they were huge opposition. At the senate meetings, they were there, at every meeting, using propaganda to sway senators. It really had a big effect in affecting members. In addition to that, we know a few members [of the student government] have gone on pro-Israel propaganda trips. We didn’t feel they were going to be very open to us this year.
+Everybody — the alumni and the current members — felt like we only had a chance last year, but we just went ahead and did it anyway, and to our surprise, it passed.
+NBF: And of course at Santa Cruz, you have Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative, one of the most vicious political groups, who has personally undermined the efforts of Palestine solidarity activism on campus there at Santa Cruz. Can you talk about what message this sends to Israel-aligned organizations and Zionist groups like Amcha?
+EE: This just sends the message that a growing number of students on college campuses [who] are also Jewish and/or Israeli are open to divestment, and are also not anti-Semitic — that’s not the issue here. The issue is the companies and the human rights violations occurring in the occupation.
+NBF: Elaine, what’s next for the Committee for Justice in Palestine at UC Santa Cruz, what comes after this divestment victory for you?
+EE: I’m going to be graduating, but I’m passing the torch on down to four of next year’s signers, who are going to be doing the usual things that we do, which is fundraising, tabling in Quarry plaza, raising awareness, Palestine Awareness Week, movies and educational films, things like that. But also they’re going to be watching out for any attacks on the bill that has been passed. We think that the groups against it may be mobilizing to not reverse it but whatever they can do.
+NBF: If people want to learn more about the Committee for Justice in Palestine at UC Santa Cruz, where can they go?
+EE: We have a Facebook page, UC Santa Cruz Committee for Justice in Palestine, and we have a Twitter account as well: @UCSCCJP.
+End transcript.
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-articleTitle: Smear campaigns won't stop us from telling Refaat's story
-pageTitle: Smear campaigns won't stop us from telling Refaat's story | The Electronic Intifada
-description: A tribute to my teacher and friend.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:30.981Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/smear-campaigns-wont-stop-us-telling-refaats-story/42951
 ---
-Refaat Alareer was adamant that stories are for sharing.
-If there is someone whose story deserves to be told, it is none other than my teacher and friend Dr. Refaat Alareer. Refaat deserves to have his story reach every corner of the world.
-Before I get to his story, let me tell you about how Israel’s supporters have tried to depict him as “controversial.”
-As soon as I posted a tribute to Refaat on Facebook following his assassination, I faced insults directed against both him and me.
-There had been a smear campaign against Refaat in the US before he was killed. The campaign has continued since then.
-It was the first time in my life that such a campaign had also been directed at me. I was surprised at how some people could insult Refaat, a man of high morals, an excellent academic and an ambassador of the Palestinian cause to the outside world.
-Refaat had an exceptional ability to convey the voice of Palestine in English to Western and global media. He used his ability brilliantly to refute the dishonest claims made by supporters of Israel and its state ideology Zionism.
-How could some people in the US insult Refaat, someone who spoke and wrote in their language and taught their language to the youth of Gaza?
-We know that Refaat was not only targeted on social media but that he also received threats from Israelis. He received a phone call from someone claiming to be part of Israeli intelligence shortly before he was assassinated.
-The smear campaign against Refaat cannot be separated from the direct threats against him. Nor can it be separated from his assassination.
-The Western media distorted the truth about Refaat. The BBC, for example, published two contradictory remarks on the website of its Arabic service.
-The first one read, “His admirers describe him as the voice of Gaza and a moderate academic.”
-Others argue, the second remark claimed, that his opinions “tend to be extreme, like someone putting poison in honey.”
-Controversial?
-Refaat was deemed “controversial” by the BBC because he refused to do what it demanded of Palestinians.
-Like other media outlets, the BBC has been focused on urging Palestinians and other Arabs to condemn what it calls “the terrorist attack by Hamas” on 7 October.
-Some people have answered in a vague or diplomatic way to such questions. Some have responded by pointing to Israel’s crimes over the years and stressing that the crimes are continuing.
-Refaat was different.
-In an interview with the BBC, he answered the question about condemning Hamas directly and briefly. Refaat described the 7 October operation as “legitimate and moral.”
-Refaat compared the operation to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The 1943 revolt in German-occupied Poland saw Jews using smuggled weapons to resist Nazi efforts to transport them to an extermination camp.
-In late October, Refaat shared a screenshot of threatening messages he had received online.
-By that time, Refaat and his family were homeless. Israel had bombed the building where he lived in Gaza City and caused major damage to his apartment.
-The tragedy is that when Refaat informed the world that he was under threat, there was no response from powerful governments or institutions. None of them seemed to hear, see or care.
-Words as a weapon
-On 4 December, he posted about the “genocidal maniacs invading my neighborhood and my city.”
-That was just two days before Israel killed him.
-After the 4 December post, we all awaited news from or about our beloved teacher. The news was about his martyrdom.
-Refaat was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his sister’s home in the besieged al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City on 6 December. The only weapons he had at his disposal were his words and his pen.
-Those who knew him wept. So did many people who did not know him personally but were shocked by the horrific nature of his assassination.
-That does not mean Refaat represents some kind of trend. His final poem “If I must die” transcended Gaza and its siege and echoed all over the world.
-Refaat wrote that in the event of his death, “you must live to tell my story.”
-Stories were vital to Refaat and to Palestine’s culture.
-“I learned early in life that it’s both selfish and treacherous to keep a story to myself,” he wrote previously. “If I allowed a story to stop, I would be betraying my legacy, my mother, my grandmother and my homeland.”
-In honor of Refaat, I would like to share some stories about him.
-I  first met Refaat in 2003. I had joined an English as a second language course that he was teaching at the Arab International Language Center next to al-Aqsa University in Gaza City.
-At the time, I had just finished high school and I needed to enhance my English language skills so that I could fulfill my father’s wish. My father wanted me to study physical therapy and to later work with my uncle – a medical rehabilitation specialist – in the US.
-On the first day of the course which Refaat gave, I sat at the back of the classroom, relaxed and observing the other students.
-Among them were a medical doctor with a degree from a French university, engineers aspiring to work in international institutions and an administrative employee at the center, who happened to be the son of the center’s general manager.
-I was the youngest among them and had not yet started university.
-Reputation
-I remember the moments before we met our new teacher.
-We were told that he was a graduate of a British university. He had a good reputation and we all expected to benefit from the course.
-When Refaat entered the room, we noticed that he was slim and young and had colorful eyes. He carried a black leather bag, a cassette player and a box of cassettes.
-He introduced himself in English, telling us where he lived in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. He began talking about the course’s objectives and its contents.
-Then he turned his back and wrote the word “headway” on the board.
-“This is the name of the book we will use during this course,” he said. “Can anyone tell me what this word means?”
-A number of people responded by saying, “The way of the head.”
-I raised my hand from the back row. He didn’t notice me at first but after a while asked me to answer.
-“Progress,” I said.
-He expressed surprise and asked me my name.
-After six classes, he told me that my level was higher than everyone else doing the course. There was no need for me to continue with it, he said, as I was ready to start any university studies that required English.
-It would be another four years before our paths crossed again.
-Then – when I was working for the charity Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin) in 2007 – I met Refaat at the Islamic University of Gaza. I had enrolled in a professional English for business course that he was teaching.
-The course took place in the evenings.  After work, I would rush to the university, sometimes coming from field visits.
-For two hours every week, I got to know Refaat up close. His classes on pronunciation were especially valuable.
-Once again our paths diverged after that year-long course was completed. Yet I had the good fortune to meet up with Refaat in 2011, when both of us were studying in Malaysia.
-I was a master’s student in Johor, southern Malaysia, and Refaat was doing a PhD in Kuala Lumpur. Although we were in different cities, I was determined to meet up with Refaat as soon as I learned he was in Malaysia.
-Humble
-In Gaza, I felt that Refaat was a talented teacher. But when we met in Malaysia, I felt he was a friend.
-I felt he was a friend because he was humble and lovable. He had a social intelligence.
-The fact we were both Palestinian expatriates also meant there was a bond between us.
-We managed to see each other regularly. While in Malaysia, we participated in many Palestine solidarity activities.
-I cherish the photographs of our time together in Malaysia and am committed to preserving those memories.
-I will always remember the time when I was in Kuala Lumpur and called him.
-“Come on over,” he said. “I have prepared a special dish for you. You will be astonished.”
-Tamer Ajrami (left) with Refaat Alareer in Malaysia. (Photo courtesy of Tamer Ajrami) When I arrived at his place, the special treat was none other than lentil soup, a beloved traditional meal for Gazans.
-We parted ways again.
-In 2017, I was working with the Basma Society for Culture and Arts. I met Refaat along with a colleague who asked for his help in teaching her English.
-Refaat gave us books on English grammar and phonetics.
-I did not expect that the meeting would be the last time I would see Refaat. Sadly, that is how it turned out.
-If I had known that it would be, I would have made the meeting longer and captured it with a photo.
-The following year I traveled to the US and then in 2019, I moved to Iceland.
-Since then, I haven’t visited Gaza. But I am committed to telling Refaat’s story.
-Refaat felt that every moment in his life was important. Every moment should be utilized for the benefit of the Palestinian cause on the international stage.
-Refaat epitomized sacrifice.
-I have lost many loved ones, relatives and friends. I have been deprived of seeing others due to the arrogance of the Israeli occupation.
-Losing a wonderfully creative friend like Refaat has impacted me greatly. I am not alone in feeling this way.
-Everyone who knew Refaat – as a student, colleague, friend or neighbor – says the same thing.
-Paying tribute to him – in the knowledge that he has been assassinated – is painful.
-Tamer Ajrami is a student of political science living in Belgium.
 Tags

+articleTitle: Students vote to divest at Brown, Swarthmore
+pageTitle: Students vote to divest at Brown, Swarthmore | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Palestinian rights campaigners push for divestment at Cornell University.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.264Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/students-vote-divest-brown-swarthmore
 ---
+In a historic move, Brown University in Rhode Island has become the first US Ivy League institution to pass a student referendum supporting divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s human rights violations.
+The Brown vote follows a similar divestment resolution passed by the student government at Swarthmore College in early March.
+The Brown referendum calls on the administration “to divest all stocks, funds, endowment, and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine, including Boeing, Caterpillar, G4S, Hewlett Packard Enterprise CO, Motorola Solutions Inc., Oaktree Capital Group LLC, Textron, AB Volvo, and The Safariland.”
+It garnered 69 percent of the voting student body’s support, according to students with the Brown Divest campaign, and the voter turnout “was one of the highest in the history of elections held by the Undergraduate Council of Students,” the group adds.
+The 21 March referendum was a “historic day for Brown as we take an emboldened and clear stand against the university’s complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine and in similar systems of oppression across the world,” Brown Divest said.
+Students say that the measure follows years of mobilization and the unity of campus groups, and that they will continue to hold the administration accountable to implement the demands of the student body.
+A student supporter of the referendum who did not wish to be named told The Electronic Intifada that since the measure passed, more than 250 students have applied to join the core group of Brown Divest. Student activists are also preparing to engage in public activism to pressure the administration to implement divestment.
+“The student body has a united stance,” the student said. “They recognize that what’s going on in Palestine is not okay and that we should do something about it.”
+Brown president responds
+Immediately following the outcome of the Brown referendum on divestment, the university’s president emailed the student body denouncing the vote and dismissing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights as “polarizing.”
+In the email, seen by The Electronic Intifada, president Christina Paxson also reiterated her 2013 rejection of calls for academic boycott against Israeli institutions.
+Brown Divest organizers said they are “disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised” by Paxson’s remarks.
+“The history of activism on Palestine is dotted with similar instances, when democracy is pushed aside to stifle Palestinian voices,” the group stated.
+Students were also the target of online intimidation campaigns, the Brown student told The Electronic Intifada. A Facebook group – garnering fewer than 35 “likes” – was set up to harass student supporters of the referendum, and its administrators accused supporters of Palestinian rights of anti-Semitism.
+The student said that they anticipated such tactics. Members of Brown Divest who are also members of the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote an op-ed in the Brown Daily Herald explaining why such smears are mere attempts to silence Israel’s critics.
+With an overwhelming consensus of student support for divestment despite the efforts by Israel supporters to thwart the outcome of the vote, the Brown student told The Electronic Intifada that “clearly, we’re doing something right. It means we’re resilient and we won’t back down. We have information and facts to back up our claims and what we’re fighting for.”
+Watch Brown Divest’s campaign video above.
+Swarthmore students support Palestinian rights
+In Philadelphia, the student government at Swarthmore College voted in favor of a resolution calling on the institution to pull its investments in companies complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, including Boeing, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, Hewlett Packard, Bank Hapoalim, Hyundai and Lockheed Martin.
+The 3 March vote followed an earlier attempt to pass a divestment resolution, which failed in February. The student government had scheduled a re-vote “on the basis that student groups had not been heard out evenly or sufficiently,” according to the campus newspaper.
+Leading up to the vote, students faced relentless smear campaigns and online harassment from Israel-aligned groups.
+A Twitter account calling itself “Stop Hate At Swarthmore,” which began tweeting right before the vote, smeared students who support the resolution as “anti-Semites” and labeled Swarthmore SJP as a “hate group.”
+Attempts by Israel lobby groups to label SJP as a “hate group” are a well-worn tactic, as exposed in the undercover documentary The Lobby–USA.
+Another Israel-aligned Twitter account, @Radical Alerts, “then tweeted the location and time of the … meeting to its roughly 3,000 followers, calling on them to ‘show up and protest this hate’,” according to the Phoenix.
+A student member of an Israel lobby group on campus conceded to a right-wing Zionist publication that the streams by these Twiter accounts of accusations of anti-Semitism “likely helped [to] persuade” the student government to vote in favor of the resolution, according to the Jerusalem Post.
+Prominent scholars and professors including Angela Davis and Robin D.G. Kelley, human rights lawyers Maria LaHood and Noura Erakat, and Jewish Voice for Peace’s executive director Rebecca Vilkmoerson and other leading Palestine rights activists wrote an open letter expressing support for Swarthmore students.
+“This harassment is not happening in isolation and is no accident. Rather, it is part of a deliberate strategy we see on campuses across the country to intimidate and silence those who organize in support of Palestinian lives and dignity,” the letter says.
+When students became aware of the harassment campaigns on social media, “we immediately began informing campus administration about all of the incoming attacks. However, they were not just targeting members of SJP, they were also attacking members of our student government by name,” Joy George, a core member of Swarthmore SJP, told The Electronic Intifada.
+George is also a member of Aja, a healing collective for Black women, femmes and nonbinary folks, and an editor of Voices, Swarthmore’s online newspaper.
+At the vote, “members of SJP were well versed in the tactics and practiced non-engagement so as to minimize harm that would come to our more vulnerable members, but it was certainly stressful considering the disportionate danger to Arab and students of color,” George added.
+She explained that tweets by the “Stop Hate at Swarthmore” account were “coming up as ‘promoted’ on the timelines of other Swarthmore students,” which she said reveals the various attempts to influence the campus climate.
+Students self-organized to defend each other against the harassment tactics, George said. She added that SJP informed members of the student government about the methods Israel lobbies use to pressure and intimidate student leaders.
+“It’s really about making sure everyone knows we’re in this together and we need to support each other when and where we can,” George noted.
+Swarthmore president rejects divestment
+Following the student government’s vote to support divestment, the college’s president stated that the institution’s endowment would not be altered by student consensus on blocking investments in corporations that violate human rights.
+“The policy states that we have a responsibility to manage the endowment to yield the best long-term financial results in order to fulfill Swarthmore’s educational mission, rather than to pursue other social objectives,” President Valerie Smith stated in an email to the campus community, seen by The Electronic Intifada.
+George said she was unhappy with the college position.
+“Personally speaking, it was disappointing to not have the official support of the college in the face of blatant antagonization from external groups, especially where there are students, both Palestinian and allies, in the immediate line of fire.”
+She added that students will continue to meet with Smith “in the hopes that more substantive backing can be garnered.”
+Other administrators, she said, have been helpful in investigating the threats and smears against student supporters of Palestinian rights.
+Cornell pushes for divestment
+Meanwhile, Cornell University’s student government held a debate on 28 March on a resolution that would urge the administration to pull its investments in companies that violate Palestinian rights.
+The divestment campaign is sponsored by the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and is endorsed by nearly two dozen student organizations.
+The president of the Ithaca, New York university has already remarked that she would not support any implementation of divestment over human rights issues and repeated talking points pushed by Israel lobby groups that denigrate and distort the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.
+In a letter to members of Students for Justice in Palestine, seen by The Electronic Intifada, president Martha Pollack claims that “BDS unfairly singles out one country in the world for sanction when there are many countries around the world whose governments’ policies may be viewed as controversial.”
+Students say that the Cornell chapter of Hillel has been attempting to thwart support for divestment on campus.
+Hillel is a national campus organization which explicitly excludes Jewish students who identify as anti-Zionist and has a policy against co-sponsoring any event with a student organization that supports the BDS campaign.
+“Cornell Hillel and its filial groups, in opposition to most every other minority organization on campus, have positioned themselves as the loudest proponents of the State of Israel and detractors of the divestment campaign on campus,” wrote three Jewish students in the Cornell newspaper.
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-articleTitle: The last time I saw Mus'ab
-pageTitle: The last time I saw Mus'ab | The Electronic Intifada
-description: "I follow the lines carefully with my finger on the screen. Mus'ab Jaber was shot dead. Do you ever become accustomed to this, as if it is normal? Why should you? It is not normal. It is excessive, but it never makes it normal. I don't have the forbearance of many of my Arab friends. When I cried out, my Internet folk brought me a glass of water. That wouldn't change the news,
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:32.094Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/last-time-i-saw-musab/4599
 ---
-CAIRO, EGYPT, 25 MAY 2003 — Last time I saw Mus’ab, he was holding a tire in a tub of dirty water checking it for leaks. The auto repair shop is on the Burqin Road between the two main entrances to Jenin Refugee Camp. Mus’ab left high school at age sixteen to provide for the family, because Israel has imprisoned his father without cause in so-called administrative detention since their invasion of the Camp in April 2002.
-Mus’ab had been inviting me repeatedly to visit his family in Burqin village, to which they had relocated after their house was destroyed, like hundreds of homes in the Hawashin and Damaj areas of the Camp. I had rescheduled a couple of times, and this time told him I was going away for a bit, but would be back. He insisted I must come for dinner as soon as I returned. I promised.
-Mus’ab was one of the first people I met on my first trip to Jenin Camp in June 2002. He had stopped by the home of friends a little way up the hill, where I was enjoying a starry evening on the upper-story verandah. A few days later I saw him outside/inside a home at the lower edge of the destroyed area. He was in what should be the inner front room of the house, but with the wall shaved off, the entire room was exposed to the outside. The steps were missing also, so I climbed up the broken concrete foundation to enter the home. His mother greeted me so warmly, and introduced me to his aunt and cousins, including one stocky young boy who could be my own cousin with his red hair and freckles. I sat on a chair facing the rubble of the bulldozed homes, that cataclysmic panorama that the eye grasps long before the intellect does, while the poor heart straggles behind, never quite catching up to how something like this could happen, never fully believing the evidence of the eyes and the mind.
-His mother brought me coffee and joined me, intermittently answering calls on her mobile phone as the lawyer communicated his futile attempts to talk with her husband in prison. Mus’ab’s little sister, about four years old, audibly expressed her desire to go with him as he jumped off the inside floor to the outside ground. His mother asked him to take her along on his errand. I was so touched by what happened next, though not surprised. With a typical Arab man’s tenderness toward children, he turned around and lifted her from the floor to the security of his embrace, kissed her, and she went proudly off, shoulder to shoulder with her big brother.
-I was surprised when his mother told me he was only fifteen. He seemed older, but she said the boys grow up fast here, and she wished he would be more of a child in listening to her. It seemed a fairly typical complaint from the mother of a teenager. She joked about the view from the open wall. This gave me courage to ask if she would take a photo of me with the rubble in the background. It was a documentary shot, but I did not want to pour salt on the wound by focusing on the destruction. However, it’s not something you can hide easily, and people don’t seem sensitive about it. This was the only photo of me in the Camp, and it was among the many pictures that did not come out in the development process. Im Mus’ab/Mus’ab’s mother pointed out the direction where their house had been. When the Israeli Army was bulldozing homes, the family took refuge with relatives in the relative safety of this house across the street. The marathon bulldozing operation crushed the box of toys Mus’ab’s little sister cherished, including her favorite plaything — her toy bulldozer.
-On another day I was so grateful that Im Mus’ab appeared just as I was walking by the house. I only had a little further to go to reach the home where I was staying, but a walk to town under a very hot sun had affected me. It was a great relief to enter the shade of the open front room, and even moreso to enter the inner room where the overhead fan transported me to another atmosphere. As I rested, and they brought me cool water followed by hot coffee from freshly roasted beans, Im Mus’ab told me about her trip to town. She wanted her little girl to choose some new toys to replace those lost in the toy box in their destroyed house, so she took her to a shop and showed her all the dolls and fuzzy animals and cute child-appealing things. Finally, the little girl chose a tank and some other military toys. The mother was deflated to see this, and finally compromised with some colorful little serving trays. I didn’t understand how those could count as toys, but then saw they can be used for playing house and serving guests. Like other mothers I have spoken with, she felt that the worst effect of the Army’s invasion was not the material destruction, but the feeling of vulnerability that leaves children seeking protection and strength in every direction, even in their games. The trays were very appealing, bright oranges and pinks reminiscent of sixties styles in a kind of abstract garden.
-Im Mus’ab showed me how they had been sequestered in the back room of the house, while the Army stationed themselves in the house next door. Occasionally, one brave family member would wend his way to a front window to report on what was taking place, but the danger of being shot near a window was very high. This gave answers to my questions as to why people stayed in dangerous areas during the invasion. What else could they do? When you hear shooting, shelling, and walls falling all around you, you don’t know where they are precisely, but you do know that you will be a target of the munitions if you go outside. It was difficult to imagine that right here where we were having coffee and conversation, the family had been trapped inside, captive to the constant sounds of bombardment, in the darkness with neither electricity nor natural light from the windows. How can you bear something like that? When the circumstances are pressed down on you, you bear them because that is what you can do. Afterwards, your little girl chooses GI-Yousef over Winnie-the-Pooh.
-When I came back to Jenin Camp three months later, Mus’ab was elated to see me. The family were spending more time in their relocated home in Burqin.
-I admit that I experience some trepidation when I read reports of the day’s harvest of killings and injuries, especially from a distance. I had been away from the Internet for a few days, so was catching up with a report from the prior Tuesday, 29 April 2003. News of the Army invasion of Jenin Camp. And a name I know. What happened? Shot dead? Mus’ab Jaber. That’s my Mus’ab! And another youngster injured. Maybe I read it wrong; it’s hard to tell with the skewed margins of the forward. Maybe it’s a different Mus’ab. Maybe he was the one injured. I follow the lines carefully with my finger on the screen. “Mus’ab Jaber was shot dead.” Do you ever become accustomed to this, as if it is normal? Why should you? It is not normal. It is excessive, but it never makes it normal. I don’t have the forbearance of many of my Arab friends. When I cried out, my Internet folk brought me a glass of water. That wouldn’t change the news, but I appreciated the care.
-I went for a walk in the early morning sunshine, across the Nile with comforting ripples carried by a light wind. Every green leaf on the banks brought comfort. I stopped to take in the view of a beautiful bankside garden with bright pink and purple flowers. As I was standing quietly alone, a voice behind me said, “You cannot stop here. This is a military area.” How appropriate for the occasion! Where have I heard that before! The Israeli Army charges into any and every neighborhood, road, field, and orchard, and claims it is a military area, trying to expel those who seek or who bring comfort. At least this soldier was benign, not threatening to shoot.
-I continued walking and crossed back on the next bridge south, enjoying the view of more Nile-side flora as the sun climbed higher. I sat on a bench for a moment, and a gardener from a private club’s garden greeted me. When I arose to go on, his fellow gardener invited me to the garden. It was just the reverse of the episode on the other bank, where I had been driven away from the lush beauty. A forbidden garden view gave way to a permitted one. The universe compensates.
-Still, I could not believe the news. It seems odd, with the number of martyrs Jenin has witnessed since I came back in September, but Mus’ab is the first person I knew well. And so young. Like so many. So unfair. So common.
-I could not bring myself to socialize, though I had made plans to visit some new friends. When they called to check on me, I apologized for my absence, and then told the news of Mus’ab. The response was instant: “Oh, Tahani, don’t be sad! He’s not dead. He’s alive with God!” Heba didn’t have a trace of hesitation or grief, but she insisted that I come and spend time with them so I would feel better. Once again, I heard what I have become gradually less surprised to hear, as she and her sister told me that to be a shahid/martyr is the best way to leave the world, and that they hope for such an end.
-I have now learned that Mus’ab was armed when the Israeli Army shot him dead.  The Army was also armed. In fact, it was an individual in the Army who shot him. One person. One armed person. Person to person. Armed young man to armed younger man. But only one is named in reports, and that one is Mus’ab. His murderer is anonymous. Reports also imply that the deceased deserved his bullet because he was armed, in front of his house. Not his own house, of course, since the Army destroyed it along with hundreds of others, but his relatives’ house. Those whose homes were destroyed are still awaiting restitution. They could not defend their homes.
-I am reminded of my direct ancestor, Ethan Allen of Vermont. Some friends tell me he is still a hero since Revolutionary War days. Others tell me that the man’s character pales in comparison to the legend. Legends are like that. Some views of the history behind the legend show that the American colonies had developed a more participatory form of government, and wanted freedom from the British Crown’s rule and its rules. When the British were attempting to enforce their rule, my ancestor, Ethan Allen, opposed them, and he was armed in doing this. But that is not all; he also mobilized the Green Mountain Boys to be ready to fight the British soldiers, to be ready at any moment to take up arms at home or in the field, to defend their farms and their families. When the British were enforcing their dominion over the population, my ancestor was active in armed opposition, and we call him a hero.
-Suppose he had a young volunteer Green Mountain Boy named Mus’ab, and he got word of the dominator’s invasion of one of the independence seekers’ towns. Do you suppose that this freedom leader would advise Mus’ab thus? “Don’t defend us. Let them come in and do what they have proven themselves expert at doing. Let them murder a few more defenders, grandmothers, schoolchildren, handicapped people, and doctors. Why should you care? Why should you try to protect these community members from deadly sharpshooters and shellers? Relax! Have a glass of coffee from freshly ground beans! Enjoy the view of the carnage. Enjoy the sounds of bullets from the safety of an innermost room they may invade at any moment. Think of it as your own home cinema with sensurround. Most importantly, don’t get involved. Let your neighbors be hunted and killed. Let your little sister be targeted. Don’t get involved.”
-The last time I saw Mus’ab, I had been walking in the road when a man called out to me. I thought maybe I knew him, so I waited for him to catch up to me, and asked if he were working, as his tall rubber boots indicated some kind of local labor. The question started him out on a very long answer about his lack of work, and a large family to support, and the way the Israeli Army is attacking people at all age levels, and making normal things like employment impossible in this society. He pronounced these things very volubly with a great deal of hand-waving, and people in the road looked at me rather pityingly, that I should be accompanied by this madman. His manner was disconcerting, but all of his words were correct. Everything he said was accurate. I thought of deCerteau’s wild man who says what everyone knows is true, but remains silent about, leaving it to the man removed from society in some way, to give voice to. Nonetheless, he was becoming a little attached to my footsteps. When I stopped to say hello to Mus’ab working on the leaky tire, he managed to deter the man from following me further. Very gently. I was reminded of his style with his little sister.
-That morning I had awoken at the home of friends at the top of the hill of Jenin Camp. Before the household awoke, as I looked out across the Camp yielding to the fertile plain, I saw a full rainbow arching from the farmers’ fields in the north across to the village of Burqin. The rainbow faded out and then back in with its full splendor of stripes. Burqin is said to be the village where Christ Jesus performed his first marvel of turning the water into wedding wine, and where he later healed the ten lepers, of whom only the stranger amongst them, the Samaritan, turned and thanked him. Today the rainbow was bringing its prism to Mus’ab’s village.
-I hope to fulfill my promise to Mus’ab, to visit his home in Burqin and dine at his mother’s table. I have not yet seen his memorial poster. I see him as I saw him that day. Last time I saw Mus’ab, he was earnestly fixing the tire, kindly steering the wild man away, looking up at me and smiling.
-Dr. Annie C. Higgins specializes in Arabic and Islamic issues and is conducting research in occupied Palestine. She is currently visiting Cairo.

+articleTitle: UK Labour Party student officials face backlash over free tour of Israel, settlements
+pageTitle: UK Labour Party student officials face backlash over free tour of Israel, settlements | The Electronic Intifada
+description: A member of the UK's National Union of Students Executive Council has denounced several youth and student officers from the opposition Labour Party for taking part in an all-expenses-paid tour of Israel and its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Labour students delegation met with Captain Barak Raz, an Israeli army spokesperson and other Israeli officials. The
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.556Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-labour-party-student-officials-face-backlash-over-free-tour-israel-settlements/10819
 ---
+A member of the UK’s National Union of Students Executive Council has denounced several youth and student officers from the opposition Labour Party for taking part in an all-expenses-paid tour of Israel and its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Labour students delegation met with Captain Barak Raz, an Israeli army spokesperson and other Israeli officials.
+The Union of Jewish Students (UJS), a pro-Israel group, paid for the entire junket. The 4-9 January tour was led by Dan Sheldon, UJS campaigns officer. It included meetings with Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister who now works as a representative of the Middle East “Quartet” (the US, European Union, UN and Russia), and Mark Regev, chief spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
+Delegation member Joe Vinson told The Electronic Intifada that the group had “visited the [Israeli] settlements” in the West Bank as well as “various religious landmarks” on a “fact-finding mission to explore the conflict.” Of the settlements, Vinson said it was “not ideal that Israel is building on Palestinian territory.” All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, a position upheld by successive UK governments. Vinson is president of Cornwall College Students’ Union.
+Vinson defended the tour, claiming it had given the Palestinian perspective as well as the Israeli. “We didn’t control the agenda,” it was set by the UJS, Vinson said. “Not for one minute do I think that the UJS tried to use it as a Zionist propaganda trip, they were very conscious to give the two sides of the argument throughout the whole trip.”
+“Unbiased” propagadanda
+Vinson said that Captain Raz “didn’t give us much opinion, it was very much an unbiased point of view that he gave us. It was mostly information about what they do to ensure that peace is consistent in the West Bank.” He added, “it was interesting, but didn’t really give us much to go on.” During the trip, Vinson wrote on his Twitter account that he had been “Really glad to meet” Captain Raz.
+Asked if he thought it was problematic to visit settlements as part of an Israeli delegation, Vinson said, “I certainly see the issues that surround that and the international law” but that it was crucial “to get opinions from all sides of the argument.”
+When pressed, Vinson said OneVoice Palestine was the only Palestinian group his delegation had met. OneVoice is an Israeli-Palestinian group founded by Israeli businessman Daniel Lubetzky. It has often been criticized by Palestinians for encouraging normalization between Israelis and Palestinians in violation of the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel.
+A “Palestinian perspective” given by Israelis
+Vinson admitted that “we didn’t meet with as many Palestinians as we did Israelis” but said that the guide for the tour “was always trying to put the Palestinian perspective across, we were always asking him questions about things from a Palestinian perspective.” According to other members of the delegation writing on Twitter, this guide who supposedly gave “the Palestinian perspective” was Jeremy Leigh of tour group Jewish Journeys. “Born in the UK and a graduate of the Reform Zionist youth movement, RSY-Netzer, [Leigh] has been living in Israel since 1992,” says the group’s website.
+The Electronic Intifada asked Vinson what he thought qualified Leigh to give a “Palestinian perspective.” He replied: “the fact that he’s lived there for 20 plus years and I guess he acknowledges both sides of the argument.”
+Also on the delegation were: Emma Meehan, the secretary of Scottish Young Labour and a vice-president of Edinburgh University’s Students’ Union; Ruth Brewer, of Liverpool Labour Students; Jess Leigh, the vice-chairperson of Labour Students; Sam Woodcock, co-chairperson of Manchester Labour Students; and Nick Pringle, northern coordinating officer of Labour Students. Labour is now Britain’s main opposition party, having been in government from 1997 to 2010.
+Student activists denounce tour
+James Haywood of the National Union of Students (NUS) Executive Council denounced the tour. Haywood said, “for elected officers to accept all-expenses-paid trips to Israel is scandalous, all the more so that it was arranged by an openly pro-Israel organization. I’m not surprised that these officers didn’t meet Palestinian refugees, students and activists — because they would have seen the truth of the racism and oppression they suffer from daily.”
+Haywood, a Palestine solidarity activist and an elected student officer, is on the same NUS Society and Citizenship committee as Vinson.
+Majdi Hafi, president of the Student Council for Birzeit University in the West Bank told Edinburgh student newspaper The Journal he was “very disappointed and shocked” to learn of the trip.
+“As students at Birzeit University we were looking forward to working towards forming closer relations” with the Edinburgh Students’ Union, he wrote. But he said the trip’s “sole aim is to whitewash Israel’s crimes and the suffering of the Palestinians.”
+He said the delegates had shown “a blatant disregard for the history of student activism for human rights at Edinburgh University,” and called upon “the other sabbatical officers, and the wider student body [to] distance themselves from this shameful trip and condemn Ms. Meehan for taking part.”
+Liam O’Hare, president of Edinburgh Students for Justice in Palestine, told The Journal he was “horrified” that Meehan had chosen to join the trip, which he said was “designed to whitewash the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” The trip “has brought the union into disrepute,” he said, promising to protest against it in all relevant forums.
+Shallow understanding
+Vinson said the tour was a fact-finding mission to encourage debate and improve understanding. If that was really its aim, it seems to have been pretty unsuccessful judging from what delegates have publicly discussed about their trip.
+In one now-deleted Tweet, Ruth Brewer commented on the looks of Israelis: “I don’t understand why people boycott Israeli goods, the lads here are fine to dine.”
+The Electronic Intifada asked Vinson how the trip facilitated discussion when they had met with only one Palestinian group, and he had mentioned not discussing the conflict with Captain Raz. He confusingly replied they they had asked Raz “why some Palestinian settlements were being pulled down in Israeli areas and vice versa.” When asked if he meant Israeli settlements, Vinson said “sorry, other way around.”
+Brewer tweeted that they had spent the day in East Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement, then “took a short cut through the West Bank” to Tel Aviv where she was “enjoying cocktails.” She later deleted this tweet and several others.
+Other members of the delegation tweeted enthusiastically about their free trip to Israel, thanking the UJS for arranging it. The highlight for many seems to have been their meeting with Tony Blair. They came across as star struck after the official Twitter account of Blair’s office wrote to delegation members: “Thanks for coming along. Was good to meet you all here.”
+The mapping information on various tweets from the meeting shows it took place in eastern Jerusalem (illegally occupied by Israel since 1967), near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Blair is known to have his office in this area.
+On the frontline of Zionism
+Dan Sheldon of the UJS did not reply to an email asking for comment.
+Asked about the UJS’ objectives, Vinson said: “I don’t think it’s fair to call them a pro-Israel group, I’d say they’re a pro-two-state-solution group.” He accepted the free trip because “I didn’t know much about the conflict before,” wanted to experience what it was like first hand, and “figured I’d probably never get the chance to go to Israel again, so it seemed like a good opportunity.” Of the clause in the UJS constitution that calls for “inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment” to Israel, Vinson said he hadn’t been aware of it before he went.
+At a recent conference, Sheldon said that UJS had “been at the center of the debate about how we should do Israel for many decades. Many consider us to be on the ‘frontline’ in the battle for Israel — our campuses have been playing out a shadow conflict for as long as anyone can remember.”
+Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who writes about Palestine. www.winstanleys.org.
+Tags

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-articleTitle: Israel is committing the crime of extermination -- UN inquiry
-pageTitle: Israel is committing the crime of extermination -- UN inquiry | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Renewed wave of genocidal violence against Palestinians in northern Gaza.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:32.157Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-committing-crime-extermination-un-inquiry
 ---
-Palestinians walk during the evacuation of Jabaliya refugee camp and the Sheikh Radwan and Abu Iskandar neighborhoods of northern Gaza City on 12 October.
-ZUMA PressIsrael is tightening its vise on civilians in both Gaza and in Lebanon, issuing new evacuation orders in both places on Saturday.
-“The conflict in Lebanon, coupled with intensified strikes in Syria and the raging violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, points to a region dangerously teetering on the brink of an all-out war,” a senior UN official warned the Security Council on Thursday.
-Rosemary DiCarlo, the under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, made those remarks after an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in a suburb of Damascus on Tuesday, killing seven civilians, including women and children.
-More than 300 people were killed in Lebanon in the past week alone, DiCarlo told the UN body, warning that time for a diplomatic resolution was quickly running out.
-Hizballah continued to fire rockets and drones into Israel from Lebanon on Friday and Saturday, with a drone striking a residential building in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, on Friday evening and causing no injuries.
-Washington was reportedly viewing the crisis in Lebanon and the perceived weakened position of Hizballah following the assassination of key leaders as an opportunity to break the political impasse in that country, which has been without a president for nearly two years.
-The US seeks to sideline Hizballah, which it has designated as a terrorist organization, and install a new president in Lebanon as it seeks to remove Hamas as the de facto governing authority over Palestinians’ internal affairs in Gaza.
-Main parties including the US have seemingly dropped any pretense of a diplomatic track to end a year of catastrophic violence in Gaza and now Lebanon, ushering in unprecedented catastrophe and bloodshed.
-Amal Saad, an analyst and expert on Hizballah, said that we are witnessing not only “the end of international law, but the possible demise of diplomacy itself, which predates it by millennia.”
-Saad added that “the US’ weaponization of ceasefire negotiations to systematically ravage Gaza and Lebanon have turned US diplomacy into a weapon of mass destruction.”
-Israel besieges northern Gaza
-Al Mezan, a prominent Palestinian human rights group, warned that since last Saturday, Israel had “unleashed a renewed wave of genocidal violence against Palestinians in northern Gaza … with the clear intent of eliminating any Palestinian presence” in the area.
-This has involved the Israeli military dropping new evacuation orders in northern Gaza and announcing “a new phase of the war.”
-The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of two neighborhoods in northern Gaza City on Saturday.
-At least 150 people have been killed in the new offensive in northern Gaza that began a week ago.
-No food has entered northern Gaza since the beginning of the month, putting one million people at risk of starvation, according to the World Food Program.
-“Some 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza are facing threats of either displacement or death,” Al Mezan stated.
-On Tuesday, Israel ordered the evacuation of three hospitals in northern Gaza and besieged Jabaliya refugee camp – the largest refugee camp in the territory, established after the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian cities and villages around during Israel’s establishment in 1948.
-The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that Israeli warplanes attacked homes and other buildings near Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, that same day, “inflicting massive damage and injuries.”
-Meanwhile, Israeli drones “opened fire on anyone moving through the main and side streets in the area,” preventing casualties from being transferred to the hospital “and spreading panic among patients and medical teams,” PCHR said.
-Israeli forces bombed a group of people outside a bakery in Jabaliya refugee camp killing 13 people, the rights group added. The attack on one of the only bakeries still operating in the area proves Israel’s “intent to deliberately destroy all facilities indispensable for the population’s survival,” according to PCHR.
-Journalist killed, another critically injured
-On Wednesday, Israel launched airstrikes on tents sheltering displaced people in the yard of al-Yemen al-Saeed Hospital in Jabaliya camp, killing 17 Palestinians.
-That same day, Israeli warplanes struck a group of journalists at a roundabout west of the camp, killing Mohammad al-Tanani and injuring Tamer Lubbad. A third journalist, Al Jazeera’s Fadi al-Wahidi, was shot in the chest and critically injured.
-Al-Wahidi’s colleagues appealed for his urgent evacuation outside of Gaza for life-saving medical treatment:
-More than 10,000 patients requiring urgent medical treatment unavailable in Gaza have been prevented from evacuating after the Rafah crossing with Egypt was shuttered in May, according to the World Health Organization.
-Israel claims its renewed siege on Jabaliya and other areas of northern Gaza is aimed at routing regrouped Hamas forces. Three reserve soldiers were killed while fighting in northern Gaza on Thursday.
-Entire families were being killed in their homes in the camp, where thousands of people are trapped and starving.
-“Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot,” Sarah Vuylsteke, a project coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, stated.
-The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said its researchers had “received reports of several dead bodies and injured people strewn across the streets and under the rubble of homes as it is incredibly difficult for rescue teams and civil defense to move and retrieve them.”
-Israel has imposed a total siege on northern Gaza, “preventing the entry of food, water and medicine,” according to Al Mezan.
-Dr. Husam Abu Safieh, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, warned that hospitals in the north would be turned into mass graves if hospitals were forced to evacuate. He said that dialysis patients, including children, have gone for eight days without dialysis treatment due to lack of fuel:
-The Palestine Red Crescent Society and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday that humanitarian personnel were unable to reach the hospital for three consecutive days:
-The World Health Organization said that seven missions to northern Gaza “were denied or impeded” over the past week and urged Israel to “stop evacuation orders and protect hospitals.”
-“North Gaza has barely any health services left,” the UN health organization added.
-Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of WHO, called for a commitment to uphold humanitarian pauses, “especially given the evacuation orders in the north of Gaza,” for the implementation of a second round of polio vaccinations scheduled to begin on 14 October.
-“To stop transmission, at least 90 percent of all children need two doses,” Ghebreyesus said.
-Al Mezan, the human rights group, warned that developments on the ground indicate that the Israeli military is carrying out the “Generals’ Plan” devised by reservist commanders and soldiers to systematically depopulate northern Gaza “through atrocity crimes, including mass killings, displacement and starvation.”
-Aid organizations said on Wednesday that “Israel intends to expand the Netzarim corridor to reinforce the separation between the north and south [of Gaza], effectively preventing people from returning north and further restricting aid flow to a population already enduring catastrophic levels of hunger.”
-Mothers, children, health workers killed
-“Nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians,” the aid organizations warned once again.
-Israel continues to attack schools and other facilities being used as shelter for displaced Palestinians throughout Gaza. At least 28 people were killed and more than 50 injured in an Israeli attack on school being used as a shelter in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on Thursday.
-While Israel claimed to have targeted a Hamas “command and control center” in a “precise strike” – as it has claimed without evidence in countless other attacks on shelters for civilians its military has displaced – witnesses told the BBC that “there were two air strikes that hit two rooms in the school where food aid was being stored and distributed.”
-“Many mothers and children queuing at a malnutrition point were killed and injured” in the attack, Adele Khodr, a regional director for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said. Two health workers belonging to a UNICEF partner organization were among those killed, Khodr added.
-Aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months, the UN monitoring office OCHA warned. “People have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed and the risk of famine persists,” the office said.
-Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that far-right and virulently anti-Palestinian ministers allied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are moving for the Israeli military to “take responsibility for every stage” of the aid distribution process in Gaza – “purchasing the aid, transporting it, securing it and distributing it to Gaza’s residents.”
-Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who recently complained that international pressure was preventing Israel from starving Palestinians in Gaza to death, controls COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that would oversee and coordinate the aid distribution process.
-As reported by Haaretz, COGAT infamously “calculated the number of calories a person needs to avoid starving” and from there “calculated the amounts and types of food that would be allowed to enter Gaza” and the number of trucks to bring in that food.
-“The figure came to precisely 170.4 trucks five days a week, excluding the 68.8 truckloads that were equivalent back then to Gaza’s own food production, which today is virtually nonexistent,” according to Haaretz.
-“There’s no reason to think the menu of calories drafted in 2008 would change under the brink-of-starvation regimen Smotrich would institute in Gaza,” the paper added.
-Deadly Beirut attack
-Meanwhile, in Lebanon, an Israeli air raid on a densely populated residential area in central Beirut killed 22 people on Thursday – “marking the third significant attack on the city center since 23 September,” according to OCHA.
-The apparent target, senior Hizballah official Wafiq Safa, survived the deadly strike, which occurred without warning, according to reports.
-“Among the dead was a family of eight, including three children, who had evacuated from the south,” Reuters reported, citing an unnamed security source.
-An Israeli strike injured two UN peacekeepers from Sri Lanka in south Lebanon on Friday, prompting France to summon Israel’s ambassador to the country and provoking outrage from Russia.
-Two other UN peacekeepers from Indonesia were injured on Thursday after they fell from a watchtower following Israeli tank fire, Reuters reported.
-Also on Friday, a Thai worker was killed by a munition in northern Israel.
-Two people were killed in Kiryat Shmona, a town in northern Israel, on Wednesday. Hizballah said it fired at least 360 missiles towards Israel from Lebanon on Wednesday and Thursday.
-The UN children’s fund UNICEF said in a situation report published on Friday that among the 2,110 people killed in Lebanon since October 2023 and through 8 October 2024, 127 were children, with around 70 percent of casualties occurring over the past three weeks.
-There have been more than 9,400 strikes in Lebanon over the past year, according to UN figures.
-“The escalation in violence in the week of 23 September 2024 has broadened the scope of attacks, causing the deadliest period and largest displacement surge Lebanon has seen
-in decades,” according to UNICEF.
-The new school year has been postponed in Lebanon as more than half of all schools in the country are being used as shelters for displaced people. Around 40 percent of the 1.5 million children registered in Lebanese schools are currently displaced.
-Around 1.2 million people – one-fifth of the country’s population – have been internally displaced within Lebanon, according to Save the Children.
-On Saturday, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of 23 villages in southern Lebanon, instructing residents to move north of the Awali River.
-Between 23 September and 9 October, more than 310,000 Syrians and nearly 110,000 Lebanese citizens fled Lebanon to Syria.
-“Israeli airstrikes have not only intensified but also expanded into previously unaffected areas and increasingly targeted critical civilian infrastructure,” OCHA stated on Wednesday.
-At least 12 facilities in Lebanon run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, are being used as shelters and three Palestinian refugee camps have been “affected by airstrikes,” according to UNICEF. The agency added that around 24,500 Palestinians have fled refugee camps “due to the recent attacks.”
-Meanwhile, 12 hospitals in the country have reportedly been damaged and around one-third of all primary health centers in Lebanon have closed.
-“Destruction of generations of Palestinian children”
-More than 100 health workers and emergency personnel have been killed in Lebanon over the past year, according to the UN human rights office.
-“Hospitals in southern Lebanon are shutting down due to damage sustained in attacks and supply shortages, with at least three suspending operations entirely,” according to UN OCHA.
-According to Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British-Palestinian surgeon who worked in Gaza during the first weeks of the genocide and is currently in Lebanon, “we’re … witnessing a similar pattern to what was happening in Gaza, in that the Lebanese health system is being targeted.”
-A new report by an independent UN commission of inquiry found based on its investigation of attacks on four hospitals in Gaza that Israeli forces “attacked these facilities in a similar manner, suggesting the existence of operational plans and procedures for attacking healthcare facilities.”
-The commission added that “attacks on healthcare facilities are an intrinsic element” of Israel’s “broader assault on Palestinians in Gaza and the physical and demographic infrastructure of Gaza, as well as of efforts to expand the occupation.”
-Attacks against healthcare facilities, directly resulting in the killing of civilians, including people receiving medical treatment or seeking shelter, constitute “a violation of the Palestinians’ right to life,” according to the commission.
-“Such acts constitute the crime against humanity of extermination,” the commission added.
-The commission also said that attacks on medical facilities providing pediatric and neonatal care “have led to incalculable suffering of child patients, including newborns.”
-The commission added: “Israel has violated children’s right to life, denied children access to basic healthcare, and deliberately inflicted conditions of life resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group.”
 Tags

+articleTitle: Trouble ahead as Israel swears in new government
+pageTitle: Trouble ahead as Israel swears in new government | The Electronic Intifada
+description: More of the same, but more loudly and with more pain.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.691Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/trouble-ahead-israel-swears-new-government
 ---
+Israel’s new coalition government was sworn in on 29 December.
+UPIThe advent of Israel’s new coalition government, sworn in on Thursday, presents a problem: How best to describe it?
+Rightist? Ultra-rightist? Ultra-ultra-ultra rightist? Extremist? Racist? Aparthei…er…dist?
+Any and all of these descriptions could accurately apply.
+This is a government that intends to “legalize” settlement outposts – that is, make them legal under Israeli law rather than international law, under which all settlements in occupied territory are illegal.
+It considers, in the words of Israel’s perennial prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the “Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel.” Those areas apparently include the Golan Heights and “Judea and Samaria,” better known as the West Bank – all occupied territory.
+Asserting one set of people’s primacy over another in any context, but especially in an area with population parity, while unashamedly sticking a middle finger up to international law would normally be considered extremist at best, or, conservatively, outright racist.
+The problem with applying these epithets is they create a sense that this new government is somehow a departure from past Israeli governments.
+It is not.
+Same as the old boss?
+It’s not long ago that Israel was set to annex swathes of occupied territory, under a previous Netanyahu-led government, when former US president Donald Trump was in charge.
+Trump’s “peace” plan was widely derided and annexation plans were shelved, even if Israel won US recognition for its 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights, in contravention of international law, which forbids the acquisition of territory by force.
+That didn’t deter the formation of an anything-but-Netanyahu coalition that may have included an “Arab” party but was also led by Naftali Bennett, a former head of the Yesha council, which oversees Israel’s settlements in occupied territory, who opposed equal rights, promoted settlement construction and bragged about “killing Arabs.”
+Such policies are also not merely a recent phenomenon. Israel’s annexation plans for the West Bank began the minute Jewish settlement there got properly underway, which was immediately after the 1967 occupation. After all, why move civilians – if armed settlers can be described that way – into militarily occupied territory if there is no intention of holding on to that territory?
+In terms of 1967 occupied territory, the new government promises more of the same. Perhaps more loudly and more obviously: The assertion that this territory is the “exclusive and unquestionable” property of the Jewish people certainly goes further than even Israel’s discriminatory nation state law.
+But the same nonetheless. Will Israel formally annex more territory? It might, though Netanyahu, as usual, talks a bigger game than he plays, and he has already tried to “reassure” allies that it will be business as usual.
+Blurring the lines
+There is some difference. The expansion of powers of the new “national security” ministry under Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the supremacist Jewish Power party, includes more control over Israel’s police (watch out, Palestinians inside the 1948 boundaries!) as well as the transfer to the ministry of the so-called Border Police, usually deployed against Palestinians in occupied territory.
+This is another blurring of distinction between Israel inside 1948 boundaries – minus the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza – and the 1967 occupied territories, all, remember, the “exclusive” domain of the Jewish people. Moreover, Ben-Gvir’s open support for Jewish prayer at the al-Aqsa mosque compound is bound to become a source of serious tension.
+The appointment of Bezalel Smotrich, of the Religious Zionism party, also Jewish supremacists, as finance minister means settlers will also not lack for cash.
+In addition, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have lobbied to increase government control over Israel’s judiciary. This paves the way for the potential cancellation of still ongoing corruption charges against Netanyahu, as well as ending a (clearly badly observed) ban on parliamentarians who incite racism.
+The transfer to the defense ministry, meanwhile, of the power to appoint legal counsel to the branch of the military overseeing the occupation is a further step toward unifying Israel with the West Bank. It also signals “a significant step towards annexation and towards consolidating Israel’s apartheid regime in the West Bank,” according to several human rights groups in Israel.
+Further afield, Iran now again finds itself in the crosshairs. Netanyahu has appointed Tzachi Hanegbi as head of Israel’s security council. Hanegbi, a veteran Iran hawk, has already said Netanyahu would authorize a unilateral strike on Iran should Washington and Tehran fail to reach a nuclear agreement.
+Hand wringing
+Expect much hand wringing from Israel’s western allies, whose support for Israel and asserted commitments to international law are in constant contradiction.
+The focus will be on Washington – the EU is a longstanding payer, not a player, and in any case was never too bothered by earlier Netanyahu governments.
+No doubt, US President Joe Biden will consider the new coalition a headache.
+But Biden is staunchly pro-Israel. When he called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election victory he told him: “We’re brothers. We’ll make history together.”
+The US also has far bigger things on its plate with Russia and Ukraine the immediate priority and China the long-term one. Absent serious conflagration – and assuming Netanyahu is not interested in opening up any division with the US and can exert control over people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich – pursuing the usual annexation-by-stealth apartheid policies could suit both parties.
+Israel’s newfound Arab friends may also find their position harder to defend. And suggestions that Saudi Arabia might sign a normalization agreement to stave off impending annexation should be harder for Riyadh to contemplate given the little impact on Israel’s behavior the “Abraham Accords” have had.
+Palestinians will pay the price, as usual. And perhaps the Palestinian Authority will pay the ultimate price. Reduced to the role of dispenser of international aid and security subcontractor, the PA leadership has long been taken for granted by Israel, ignored by international actors and disdained by most Palestinians.
+Pain ahead
+The fate of the PA – a state-in-waiting with no statehood on the horizon – will be questioned with increasing regularity and may soon reach the inevitable conclusion.
+Whether or not the PA collapses under the weight of its own irrelevancy, Palestinians will have to rely on (substantial) global popular support and hope that Israel’s supremacist government will accelerate what has so far been a glacial but significant shift in popular perceptions in the US, not least among American Jews.
+There may also be a glimmer of hope in the International Criminal Court’s assertion that it will move forward with a war crimes probe, if it ever gets around to it.
+Will the ICC begin proceedings against Netanyahu for the crime of apartheid? Will Israel annex all or parts of the West Bank? Will the PA collapse? Will Israel bomb Iran?
+These questions and many others will be answered in the weeks, months and (possibly, but unlikely, given the average lifespan of an Israeli government) years ahead.
+One thing at least is certain: there will be more pain for Palestinians, even if Israel’s friends and supporters will find it increasingly hard to present a coherent defense of Israel’s “values.”
 Tags

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-articleTitle: Refaat was determined to deliver his message -- family
-pageTitle: Refaat was determined to deliver his message -- family | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Wife of gifted teacher says he frequently risked his life.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:33.585Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/refaat-was-determined-deliver-his-message-family/47836
 ---
-A tribute to Refaat Alareer at a student encapment in the Belgian city of Ghent. (Nicolas Maeterlinck / Belga via ZUMA Press) Refaat Alareer was carrying cans of fava beans and chickpeas in his bag.
-He brought them to his children at the school where they were taking shelter. His wife Nusayba was baking bread at the time, using some flour that the family had recently managed to buy.
-Refaat pulled her aside for a brief conversation. It was rare that they could have a moment in private amid the genocidal war Israel had declared on Gaza.
-From his pocket, Refaat produced a piece of chocolate. He implored Nusayba to eat it herself, rather than giving it to the children, as she usually would.
-It would be the last time Nusayba and her children saw Refaat alive.
-On 6 December, Refaat was one of many people from his extended family killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting his sister Asmaa’s Gaza City apartment.
-Refaat, a well-known teacher and writer, had gone to stay with Asmaa soon after receiving a threatening phone call. The caller – claiming to be from the Israeli military – had said they knew the location of the school where Refaat was sheltering.
-Israel’s war machine had directly harmed Refaat in the past.
-He wrote about how he was injured by the occupation in a chapter titled “Gaza Asks, When Shall This Pass?” That was his contribution to the book Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire.
-During the current genocidal war Refaat’s daughter Lina had pleaded with him to go on television less frequently. “It’s dangerous,” she said.
-Refaat listened to her.
-“But it was useless,” she said. “He couldn’t stop.”
-According to Lina, Refaat constantly wrote, sent messages, made phone calls and did interviews.
-Nusayba recalled how the family had previously taken shelter at Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza City.
-“The internet was very weak, so he walked to al-Shifa hospital, risking his life to upload a recording or send a text,” she said. “When Refaat had a message, he was determined to deliver it.”
-Refaat was devoted to his family.
-“His giving knew no bounds, neither material nor emotional,” Nusayba said. “And it was always without expectation or condition.”
-“He was exceptionally affectionate, always reminding our children to thank me for any meal I prepared or other effort I went to,” she said. “He would urge them to say, ‘bless your hands, Mama, thank you.’”
-Even amid Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Refaat “wouldn’t let a birthday pass without marking it,” Nusayba added.
-Passion for education
-Refaat had a strong sense of humor.
-When the couple were engaged, Refaat handed Nusayba what appeared to be a gift. When Nusayba opened the box, “there was a fake ring inside,” she said.
-“After laughing at my reaction, he pulled out the real ring from his pocket, and we laughed together. He loved jokes and pranks.”
-Nusayba fell silent. “We have forgotten our lives before the war,” she said.
-As befits a teacher, Refaat was passionate about education: both of his students and his own children.
-“Dad was always delighted when I told him I’d read a book,” Lina said. “He always gave me a reward each time I finished one.”
-Nusayba recalled a visit to a book fair at the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center – which has been destroyed during the current war.
-“I told the kids they could each get one book,” she said.
-“But they all returned with five or six each. Refaat was overjoyed.”
-Refaat hailed from Shujaiya. Although often described as a suburb of Gaza City, it contains much farmland.
-Refaat participated in olive harvesting. While his children still complain that the harvests were exhausting, their mother has fonder memories.
-“Those were sweet days,” Nusayba said. “I loved our trips to our land in Shujaiya more than going to the beach but the kids didn’t.”
-Refaat became a grandfather posthumously.
-Israel killed Abd al-Rahman – the grandson he never got to see – in April, along with the baby’s parents Shymaa (Refaat’s daughter) and Muhammad.
-“Shymaa had the tenderness of her father’s heart,” Nusayba said, adding that their daughter was a gifted artist.
-“Shymaa was always here after her father’s assassination and she tried to support her younger brothers and sisters,” Nusabya added.
-“Her husband Muhammad visited us every day to check if we needed anything. Muhammad felt that it was his duty to stand with us and he did it well.”
-Refaat’s family have had to stay in various locations amid the current war.
-They were forced out of their home in October. Israel bombed the building where they lived in Tel al-Hawa, a Gaza City neighborhood.
-Our conversation with the family’s surviving members was interrupted by the delivery of water to an area where they are now sheltering.
-Ahmad, Refaat’s son, rushed to tell his mother that they must collect some water.
-That prompted Nusayba to remark on the similarities between Ahmad and his father.
-Ahmad was “always accompanying” Refaat to farmer’s markets in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, she noted.
-“They’d buy green almonds and Armenian cucumbers in large quantities and distribute them to neighbors, friends and relatives,” she said. “Refaat loved feeding those around him.”
-Nusayba is finding it hard to accept that she will never see Refaat or Shymaa again. She speaks of “deep grief” and “endless loss.”
-The fact that Refaat’s name has appeared on placards at protests in many countries is a testament to his enduring legacy.
-Refaat summed up his philosophy in the aforementioned chapter “Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?”
-“It shall pass, I keep hoping,” he wrote. “It shall pass, I keep saying. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes, I don’t.”
-“And as Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and to tell her stories. For Palestine.”
-Asmaa Abdu and Ahmed Nehad studied and worked with Refaat Alareer in Gaza.
 Tags

+articleTitle: Israel marriage ban too racist even for apartheid South Africa
+pageTitle: Israel marriage ban too racist even for apartheid South Africa | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Palestinians invisible to many protesting in defense of Israeli "democracy."
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:42.843Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-marriage-ban-too-racist-even-apartheid-south-africa
 ---
+Israel’s restrictions on marriage are reminiscent of laws against race mixing that existed in the United States and apartheid South Africa.
+Library of CongressIsrael is a country where people “can be assured they will not be persecuted or discriminated against because of what they believe or whom they love,” former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg boldly asserts.
+Writing in The New York Times on 5 March, the billionaire appears to suggest – in line with standard pinkwashing propaganda – that Israel’s recognition of same-sex marriages makes it an exemplar of respect for individual rights.
+As such, Bloomberg warns, Israel’s shining democracy needs to be defended from legal reforms proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
+Those proposals have spurred thousands of Israelis to protests in the streets for weeks against what many are calling a judicial coup.
+Like other liberal Zionists, Bloomberg fears that the changes would rob Israel’s judiciary of its supposedly enlightened independence as well as stoking capital flight that could endanger the country’s alleged position as a technological “start-up nation.”
+Bloomberg paints a picture of an Israel built on the “shared values” of “freedom, equality [and] democracy” all “sustained by a commitment to the rule of law.”
+But like so much else in Bloomberg’s article, the Israel of his imagination is totally unrecognizable to anyone with even a tenuous hold on reality.
+You can’t just marry who you want
+In fact, Israel does not permit same-sex marriage, although it does recognize such marriages if performed abroad.
+Israel does not even allow marriages between a man and a woman unless they are of the same religion. Mixed religious marriages are banned and there is no option for civil marriage – although, again, Israel does recognize such marriages only if they are performed in another country.
+But the Jewish state’s persecution and discrimination against people based on what they believe and whom they love does not end there.
+In 2003, Israel adopted a law prohibiting Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, or nationals from several other regional states, from living with their spouse in Israel.
+The “emergency measure” has been renewed every year – except in 2021 – when it fell victim to Netanyahu’s efforts to discredit the coalition that briefly ousted him from the prime minister’s office.
+But in March 2022, Israeli Jewish racists were able to come together across party lines to renew the legislation.
+Although nominally justified as a “security” measure, Israeli leaders have never been shy about admitting the true purpose of the law: to prevent the growth of the Palestinian population within Israel.
+Indeed, last year they dropped the “security” pretense and inserted a clause confirming that the law’s purpose is to “establish restrictions on citizenship and residence” that take into consideration “the fact that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state.”
+All of Israel’s tight restrictions on who can marry whom are aimed at ensuring continued Jewish demographic and political supremacy.
+As such, even if they differ in the details, Israel’s policies are very much in line with the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act that existed in apartheid South Africa, or the bans on interracial marriages that existed in some US states until they were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1967.
+And because they are aimed at ensuring the domination of one racial group over another, these restrictions are part of how Israel perpetrates the internationally recognized crime of apartheid.
+Targeting Palestinians
+The 2003 law reinforced the already existing restrictions on Israeli Jews and Palestinians marrying one another, but its main target was always Palestinian citizens of Israel, who most often marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza due to close familial and communal ties.
+From the Zionist perspective, the law not only prevents more Palestinians from coming to Israel, but has the added benefit of forcing any of the two million Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship or residency to leave the country if they want to marry and start a family with the person they love.
+“This extreme racist measure, practiced against Palestinians for over 20 years, would not have passed even in apartheid South Africa,” Adalah, a group that is mounting legal challenges to the law, said after the Knesset renewed it once again on 5 March.
+“This law is not just another one of the countless forms of discrimination against Palestinians by Israel; it is a violation of the most basic human rights and an invasion of the most intimate space of the family unit,” the group added.
+Adalah points out that “even the South African Supreme Court struck down similar measures during apartheid.”
+Not so surprisingly, I’ve found virtually no coverage of this latest reaffirmation of Israeli apartheid and even less international criticism.
+Adalah, which advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, is taking inspiration from the successful battle waged decades ago by South African activists, lawyers and ordinary people against that country’s racist marriage laws.
+In December, Israel’s high court heard petitions against the 2003 law. The court, which almost always ends up giving “legal” cover to Israel’s most racist and violent practices against Palestinians, has yet to rule.
+But given its history there’s little reason to be hopeful – whether Netanyahu’s reforms go through or not.
+As for Michael Bloomberg, he reminds us that throughout his public life he has “steadfastly supported Israel” and has “never gotten involved in its domestic politics or criticized its government initiatives.”
+He brags that while Israel was bombing Gaza in the summer of 2014, killing an average of 11 Palestinian children per day for 51 days, he hopped on a plane to Tel Aviv to demonstrate his unconditional support.
+Invisible Palestinians
+Now, however, with Netanyahu’s proposed reforms threatening rights that Jews enjoy, but that have always been denied to Palestinians, Bloomberg declares that “my love for Israel, my respect for its people and my concern about its future are now leading me to speak out against the current government’s attempt to effectively abolish the nation’s independent judiciary.”
+Meanwhile, his entire article contains one throwaway reference to Palestinians and claims that Israel exists “in one of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods” – a racist trope that directly evokes how many white Americans stoke fear about and justify pervasive police violence in predominantly Black urban areas.
+That said, Bloomberg, just like other prominent American Jewish supporters of Israel who are now speaking out in defense of Israel’s supposed democracy, surely knows the horrific reality that Palestinians are subjected to – even if they won’t admit it.
+It is precisely the ruse that measures like the racist marriage law are “temporary” – even after 20 years – just like the notion that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is “temporary” even after 55 years – that allows liberal Zionists to pretend Israel is anything other than what it is: a grotesque settler-colonial apartheid regime that practices the worst forms of racism and discrimination known to humanity.
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-articleTitle: Nablus: 'Get the soldiers out of my town, I want to live too'
-pageTitle: Nablus: 'Get the soldiers out of my town, I want to live too' | The Electronic Intifada
-description: 'I want to go to school and play with my friends. We cannot get our of our homes. We cannot buy books. We cannot play. The summer holiday is finished and we spent it all locked up in our homes under Israeli curfew', writes 10-years old Nabih, who is a seventh grade student.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:38.616Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/nablus-get-soldiers-out-my-town-i-want-live-too/4081
 ---
-‘I want to go to school and play with my friends. We cannot get our of our homes. We cannot buy books. We cannot play. The summer holiday is finished and we spent it all locked up in our homes under Israeli curfew’, writes 10-years old Nabih, who is a seventh grade student.
-Hilmi is six years old. He wants to go to school. He drew his teacher, his friend Elyas and his classmates at school.
-‘My friend Elyas, me Hilmi’
-Since June 21, Nablus has been continuously under curfew. With an admirable will and determination to finish their high school, ‘Tawjihi’ (highschool) students had to face Israeli tanks and break the curfew to attend their final exams.
-The academic year 2001/2002 ended two weeks before the occupier’s latest invasion of Nablus. Despite frustrations, stress, fear, sadness and anger that filled their minds and souls, following the occupier’s April invasion, the students managed to finish their academic year. They thought that their nightmare was over and they dreamt of a peaceful summer vacation, followed by a new normal academic year.
-Faris Odeh, who was shot in the neck by Israeli occupiers and left to bleed to death,  on November 9, 2000.
-On June 21, the occupier woke them up, disturbed their dreams and faced them with the bitter fact: this summer, their simple dreams will not be translated into reality, perhaps next summer, or maybe after that. For those ‘terrorists’ among them, who express their anger by throwing a stone towards an occupier’s tank, their peaceful dream will be destroyed with a bullet. Remember Faris Odeh?
-In an attempt to bring enlightment for the second part of their children’s dream, families in various neighborhoods in Nablus have set up classes for every school level. Volunteers teach groups of students in each neighborhood. Some families offered accomodation, garages and empty rooms, turned into classrooms.
-Each student brings a chair from home to sit on. Money was collected to buy black boards, pens and books. However, this can never replace proper teaching in schools.
-There aren’t enough books. Not all volunteers have experience in teaching. There are no playgrounds, nor teaching equipment. Moreover, parents, children and volunteers take a high risk setting this up under curfew. Two days ago, the occupier tear gassed a school where alternative education was taking place.
-Salma (8) and her sister Zbaideh (7) wrote: ‘All students around the world sleep early every night to go to school in the morning. But me, my sister and all my friends here in Nablus don’t. Why? Because tanks are all over the streets of my town. Curfew has been imposed on us. We are all locked up at home. I miss my school, my classroom, my teachers and friends. I miss my uniform and my schoolbag. I am telling all the students in the world that they are lucky. Every morning, when you go to school, please remember that Salma and Zbaideh are at home, not allowed to go to school and learn’.
-Although time is running out, children in Nablus believe that time hasn’t ran out from them. They still could start a proper academic year in their schools and classrooms, at their own desks, beside their own friends, and under the supervision of their experienced teachers.
-Tarab is twelve years old. She is a seventh grade student. She wrote: ‘I really want to go to school. I miss my friends and teachers and I want to learn. Time is passing quickly and I don’t want to loose a year. I learn and study a few things at home. My mother and my neighbor teach me, but it is not enough for us. We don’t have our books from school yet. I wish the curfew will end very soon. I want to see my cousins and uncles and my grandparents. I miss them very much. I want to play outside my home, without being afraid that soldiers can see us, or that tanks will come to our street. I want to go to the shops and visit my friends, like I used to do. I counted the hours that the curfew was lifted, 70. During those hours I was never able to see any of my friends. Everybody ran to do their shopping or visit a doctor. Every night, I go to bed hoping that the curfew will be lifted the next morning. I wake up to find it is still on. I am very bored at home’.
-The children in Nablus are determined to translate the second part of their dream into reality. In their appeals, they touch humanity and expect a helping hand to open their schools. The children in Nablus are raising their voices, hoping that there are people who care and listen and act upon their needs.
-Yousef is six years old and a first grade student. He said that he lives in Nablus under curfew. He writes: ‘I want to go to school but it seems that few in the world care. I bought a schoolbag with my friends. Pens and pencils and a bottle of glue. Going to school with the children of the world is all I want to do. Get the soldiers out of my town, I want to live too’.

+articleTitle: UK students resist Israeli diplomats' campus offensive, despite repression
+pageTitle: UK students resist Israeli diplomats' campus offensive, despite repression | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Israeli ambassadors have dispatched their "explainers" to campuses across the UK to combat activism such as Israeli Apartheid Week, but with decidedly mixed results.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.145Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-students-resist-israeli-diplomats-campus-offensive-despite-repression
 ---
+Updated below
+The ninth annual Israeli Apartheid Week began in the UK on 25 February, and campuses across the country were hives of activity as students held various events to educate people about Palestine.
+Israeli diplomats in the UK have also gone on a propaganda offensive, seeking to turn back a popular tide of criticism of Israeli human rights abuses, war crimes and apartheid.
+In recent weeks, the Israeli embassy in London dispatched various diplomats, including the ambassador Daniel Taub, to various campuses to explain to students why they are supposedly so mistaken and how there is in fact no such thing as Israeli apartheid.
+But opposition from students has meant these events are usually held under a veil of secrecy. Fear of protest often restricts these events to select audiences, with some being prevented altogether.
+Essex repercussions
+The week before Israeli Apartheid Week, Essex University students held protests outside and inside an attempted lecture by deputy ambassador Alon Roth-Snir.
+Roth-Snir had said little more than “hello” before students in the invite-only audience stood up and started reading from a prepared statement, filibustering his talk. As I reported at the time, the lecture was soon abandoned, and Roth-Snir ultimately left campus with his tail between his legs.
+Last week the university’s Vice-Chancellor Anthony Forster sent an email to all staff and students, seen by The Electronic Intifada. In it he threatened “an investigation into potential breaches of the University’s Disciplinary Regulations” over the protests of students against the aborted lecture.
+He also wrote that the university would ask the the Students’ Union if it considered whether the actions breached their Code of Conduct.
+Student Union President Nathan Bolton soon hit back. “It is not up to the University to define legitimate protest when we face a representative of a state who commits crimes every day,” he responded on Facebook.
+He also demanded that no disciplinary action be taken against the students, and for full disclosure over how the event was organized.
+At least one member of the university department that hosted Roth-Snir has denied to students that they invited the Israeli representative.
+Students have told me they think that the Israeli embassy effectively invited themselves and that many staff in the department were opposed to his talk.
+Mossad-linked “security” charity stalks London campus
+Meanwhile, over at the London School of Economics, the supposedly apolitical anti-Semitism watchdog the Community Security Trust (CST) was called onto campus to support pro-Israel student activity to combat Israeli Apartheid Week last week.
+The campus Palestine society planned a stall for Tuesday, but moved it to Thursday after the Israel society announced it would set up a “Peace Tent” nearby, accompanied by CST security guards.
+Israeli society president Carl Loof told student paper The Beaver that the CST’s presence was “an unfortunate but warranted need.”
+This is extreme chutzpah considering that it was members of his society that attacked a Palestine society-organized street theater at Israeli Apartheid Week last year.
+The Beaver report states that:
+a series of meetings were held between the organisers as well as the Dean, the Chaplain and certain Sabbatical officers. According to [Palestine society president Anisa] Ahmed, all the members of the meeting were opposed to external security being brought in by the Israel Society, but there was very little that the university could do as Houghton Street is a public thoroughfare.
+(As an inner-city university, LSE is spread across parts of London rather than having a clearly-delineated campus.)
+As I’ve written numerous times here at The Electronic Intifada, the CST is known to receive training from the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. It’s no wonder students involved in Palestine solidarity activism found their presence a provocation.
+This is the first time CST security guards have been called to a campus, to my knowledge.
+Israeli ambassador to UK in secret Irish visit
+Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub seems to have made a secretive visit to a selected audience at Queens University Belfast in the north of Ireland last month.
+According to Gary Spedding, vice president of the university’s Palestine Solidarity Society:
+On Tuesday 19th February 2013 the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, H.E. Daniel Taub visited our University as part of his trip to Northern Ireland where he met with university officials and according to information our society has received was also able to address a hand-picked number of students and staff in the School of Politics.
+Spedding wrote this a few days later in a letter addressed to the student union, seen by The Electronic Intifada. He added:
+A student who contacted us has passed on information and accusations that we would request the Students’ Union investigate at the earliest possible opportunity. We are concerned by how under-the-radar this talk has been kept and organised.
+Unlike Essex university students, Spedding says in the letter he does not oppose Taub’s presence on campus entirely:
+our preferred channel of discourse is to be permitted a voice (something we view as a democratic right) in order to challenge, through the use of polite and progressive engagement, any political officials that visit our academic institution.
+One example of the society’s work is how it lobbied the Northern Ireland Assembly to establish a boycott of products from Israeli settlements last week.
+Spedding told me today over email that he has so far received no reply from the university or the union to his letter. The Israeli embassy and the university seem to have nothing on their websites about the visit.
+The university’s communications department did not return an email asking for comment, and its out-of-hours mobile number went straight to voicemail.
+Update, 11 March: The university replied tersely to my email this afternoon to confirm that “a private meeting” did indeed take place at Queens University Belfast.
+Why does the Israeli embassy feel the need for such secrecy?
+It’s a growing pattern. Essex students told me how Roth-Snir’s visit was only announced at the last minute. In fact, pro-Israel groups in general often leave the location of their events in London deliberately vague (“central London venue”) to avoid protests outside or dissenters inside.
+In its propaganda, Israel likes to talk about “dialogue” but this is to take place only on its own terms, it seems.
+Taub is due to speak at Cambridge Union Society next week.
+Tags

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-articleTitle: Everything I loved has gone
-pageTitle: Everything I loved has gone | The Electronic Intifada
-description: A nightmarish scene in Jabaliya refugee camp.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:38.790Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/everything-i-loved-has-gone/46781
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-Returning to what remains of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
-APA imagesI read the news on Telegram: Israel had withdrawn from parts of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. That is where I was born and raised.
-As soon as I heard about the withdrawal, I couldn’t wait to return to Jabaliya. I had been forced to leave there a few weeks earlier – when Israel began its latest ground invasion of the camp.
-So I rushed back to my neighborhood, despite how it was risky to do so. The information I had seen was still not confirmed.
-As there was no fuel for transportation, I had to make the trip on foot.
-On my way back, the scene was ghostly. Most of the buildings I saw were destroyed or damaged.
-The streets had been bulldozed. Dead bodies were scattered everywhere.
-I wasn’t expecting that my area would be the worst. Yet when I reached it, I could not recognize the place.
-I doubted whether I was really in my area. Only one thing made me certain that I was – meeting my neighbors and friends.
-They all looked exhausted and downcast. The massive destruction inflicted on the camp clearly had a profound effect on them.
-While walking over the rubble in the neighborhood, I saw and heard both women and men crying and screaming. It was horrifying.
-Nightmare
-I could not believe what I was seeing. It felt like I was in a nightmare.
-I rubbed my eyes to try and get a clearer view. Nothing changed.
-While walking, I saw civil defense crews pulling dead bodies from under the rubble of houses in the camp.
-Many houses had been attacked with their inhabitants inside them.
-People took their last breath beneath the rubble. Civil defense teams were unable to reach the camp as the bombardment was so intense.
-Many of the bodies were decomposed. Heads had been separated from other body parts.
-I had never seen such horrifying scenes before. The decaying bodies smelled so bad that I thought I would throw up.
-While on the way to where I lived, I saw the three schools I had attended. They were destroyed.
-They are no longer schools.
-Next, I passed by a clinic that had been run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). It was set up to serve families like ours, who had been uprooted from our homes during the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine between 1947 and 1949.
-I got free care in this clinic when I was sick. Now most sections of the clinic are either damaged or destroyed.
-The clinic and UNRWA’s schools were near the popular Jabaliya market. It is no longer a market.
-Before the current war, its shops sold fruit, vegetables, clothes, jewelry and cosmetics. The shops don’t exist any more as Israel has obliterated them.
-My favorite café was named Raba. I used to meet my friends there in the evening.
-We would talk about how to improve our lives.
-Like so many of my peers, I was unemployed after graduating from college. With Gaza under a blockade long before the current war, we had very few opportunities.
-The café doesn’t exist any more either.
-Even the grounds of my favorite football club – Jabalia Services – have gone.
-Everything in the camp has gone. None of the places that I loved remain.
-Shock
-My greatest shock came when I saw that our two-story house was in ruins. I felt that my heart was escaping from my body.
-I couldn’t hold my tears back as I looked under the rubble for any of our belongings that might remain.
-After a long search, I found my watch. My brother, who now lives in Belgium, had given it to me as a birthday present.
-My hands were shaking as I picked it up and held it. For a moment, I smiled.
-The remains of Osama Abu Jaser’s home. I also found some clothes and things from our kitchen.
-Nothing else.
-Our house provided shelter to my parents and my five siblings, including my widowed sister. Her two children also lived with us.
-And during the current war we had hosted 20 relatives following their displacement.
-We are homeless now. We have no choice than to be scattered between different houses of our relatives, who live in western Gaza.
-We have stayed with them since the latest ground invasion.
-Even if my family considered pitching a tent on the rubble of our home, we would have no water. The wells in the camp were destroyed, too.
-Nobody can live without water.
-My heart was full of sorrow as I left the camp after seeing our destroyed home.
-My mind was full of questions.
-How will we live after the war ends?
-Where will we go?
-Who will rebuild our home?
-How long will it take for it to be rebuilt?
-I asked these and other questions all the way to the house where I am taking shelter. Then I became extremely tired.
-I forced myself not to think about our circumstances.
-So long as this war continues, we do not know if we will still be alive tomorrow.
-We have lost our home. Nothing is left but our souls.
-Osama Abu Jaser is a writer based in Gaza.
 Tags

+articleTitle: Why can't US students accuse Israel of genocide?
+pageTitle: Why can't US students accuse Israel of genocide? | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Media coverage of pro-Palestine chalkings at UW-Madison conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.274Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-cant-us-students-accuse-israel-genocide/36451
 ---
+At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a series of pro-Palestine chalk messages have provoked unfounded claims of anti-Semitism in local media outlets. (SK/Flickr)On 6 September, students arriving for their first day of class at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW-Madison) came upon statements written in chalk near and around the university’s Memorial Union Terrace, a popular and scenic lakefront student center.
+Just a few feet from the steps to the entrance of the student union were the messages: “Zionism is racism,” “Zionism is genocide” and ��There are 5+ Zionist orgs @ UW – They have blood on their hands.” Other messages specifically named the organizations.
+These messages in this high-traffic area of campus drew attention to UW-Madison’s normalization of Israel’s human rights violations through its serving as a home for student organizations that tacitly, or openly, support Zionism.
+The reaction to the chalk messages on social media was immediate and coverage from news outlets soon followed.
+At least 20 mainstream news outlets covered the story, with most using the claim of anti-Semitism to launch a smear campaign against the growing pro-Palestinian liberation activist community in Madison.
+Yet not one outlet explored the difference between anti-Zionism – opposition to the ongoing settler-colonial and illegal occupation of Palestinian land – and anti-Jewish sentiment or bigotry.
+Not one story put into context the number of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military over decades of occupation, or the May 2022 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli soldier.
+Neither was there any mention of the 15-year blockade of Gaza or the Israeli military offensives that terrorize its inhabitants every few years. Nothing about settlement expansion, the ongoing International Criminal Court investigation into Israeli crimes or the scores of artists and academics who have joined the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
+Instead, a statement from the leadership of the Jewish Federation of Madison and the Wisconsin Jewish Conference, released on 13 September, demanded the university investigate who was behind the “hateful speech” to “ensure that any necessary education and accountability can be pursued.”
+Jennifer Mnookin, the newly appointed UW-Madison chancellor, expressed her “tremendous disappointment” about the chalk messages and vowed to see that there be more opportunities on campus for “education about the harm caused by anti-Semitism.”
+Perhaps provoking administrators’ ire the most was the use of the word “genocide.”
+It was apparent that the optics of Israel – and Zionist organizations at UW-Madison – being accused of complicity in genocide was more upsetting than the actual genocide of Palestinian people.
+In another statement, Vice Chancellor Lori Reesor and Deputy Vice Chancellor LaVar Charleston condemned the chalkings, stating that while the university has a “commitment to free speech,” the chalkings “violate our norms and actively work against the culture of belonging for which we are striving.”
+Apparently, administrators didn’t go far enough attacking the “anti-Semitic graffiti,” as Charleston, who also serves as the vice chancellor of diversity and inclusion, became the subject of a call to be fired in a campus newspaper editorial.
+Harassment and intimidation of pro-Palestinian activists
+Since the chalking, Palestinians and their Turtle Island Indigenous allies in Madison have been harassed and intimidated.
+One such incident occurred at a 19 September tabling event on campus, where some of the members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were spit at, shouted at and called “terrorists.”
+Though this incident was shared on social media and brought to the attention of the university and local media, not a single entity or individual reached out to the targets to discuss the harassment.
+Among the few attempts to reach Palestinians, via SJP, involved one reporter asking to “preferably speak to a Jewish member.”
+Another reporter was only interested in discovering who had written the chalk messages. And then the university reached out in an attempt to “educate” the students.
+As of 5 October, UW SJP’s statement in response to the university’s backlash against the anti-Zionist chalk messages has been signed by 81 local and national organizational bodies and 437 individuals.
+“As students who benefit from attending a university currently occupying Ho-Chunk land,” the statement reads, “we believe that it is every student’s moral obligation to speak out against organizations on campus that engage in or support colonialism, racism and genocide.”
+However, consistent with the well-documented social media censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian accounts, when the link to the statement was shared from the US Palestinian Community Network’s (USPCN) Twitter account, it was marked by Twitter as “unsafe” within 20 minutes of posting on 14 September.
+The situation in Madison is unfortunately not unique. There is a long history of seemingly coordinated Zionist responses to explicitly discredit anti-Zionist actions, individuals and groups across the country.
+Recently, the punitive hammer of organized Zionism came down on the University of Vermont’s president, with some media outlets calling to defund the university when he failed to satisfactorily respond to complaints about a student teacher who posted comments critical of Zionism on social media.
+The brutal truth
+UW SJP’s unrelenting response to the university could be viewed as part of a larger, more vocal anti-Zionist movement, as principled voices are resisting Zionism off campus and around the world.
+Palestinian and allied resistance continues to grow more fearless: from UK-based Palestine Action working to shut down Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, to USPCN confronting normalization with Israel and challenging US legislators who are “progressive except for Palestine,” to Palestinian hunger strikers protesting wrongful administrative detention and to our fight simply to be able express ourselves in Madison, Wisconsin.
+The once tried-and-true, dissent-quelling tactic of falsely labeling someone an “anti-Semite” could be losing some of its power.
+Despite the overwhelming public condemnation of the anti-Zionist chalk and of anti-Zionists in Madison, our movement in support of Palestinian liberation has gained momentum and new allies.
+This solidarity reminds us that the liberation of Palestinians is entwined in the liberation of all people living under colonialism and imperialism.
+Palestinian revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani once said, “The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever he is, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.”
+What is needed now at UW-Madison is what is needed everywhere: for students and community members to stand in support of Palestinian liberation and in condemnation of Zionist attempts at repression.
+When students or anyone else scrawls chalk messages criticizing the occupation and colonization of Palestine, they are telling the brutal truth. If that truth isn’t allowed in a university, what kind of precedent for liberation struggles are we allowing to be set anywhere?
+Layal Khreis is an active SJP member in her senior year at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
+Ashley Hudson is a co-founder of Madison for Palestine and a member of the US Palestinian Community Network.
+R.E. McGowan is a member of Madison for Palestine and a local activist for single-payer universal healthcare in the United States.
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-articleTitle: Attacks on ancient church part of a deliberate assault on Gaza’s heritage
-pageTitle: Attacks on ancient church part of a deliberate assault on Gaza’s heritage | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel's genocidal violence targeting historical and religious sites an attempt at silencing a part of the human story.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:38.911Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/attacks-ancient-church-part-deliberate-assault-gazas-heritage/50046
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-Palestinians celebrate Orthodox Easter in Saint Porphyrius church in Gaza CIty in 2022. Israel has bombed the church, one of the oldest in the world, repeatedly since last October.
-APA imagesOver the past year, Israel has repeatedly targeted historical and cultural landmarks in the Gaza Strip in what appears a deliberate attempt at erasing Gaza’s rich heritage.
-The Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, named after the first bishop of Gaza who is said to be buried in the courtyard, was bombed soon after the Israeli military attacks began in October 2023.
-I visited this church in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of the old city of Gaza in years past and always marveled at its tall stained-glass windows, which reflected the light in a way that can only be described as inducing a sense of spirituality.
-The windows are adorned with religious depictions of saints and scenes from the Bible and with icons illustrating the ancient and modern history of Gaza.
-The church dates back to the 5th century and is one of the oldest in the world. It boasts traditional Byzantine architecture consisting of a square structure with a domed roof. At its center is an apse topped by a large dome with a cross.
-The church is an integral part of the religious fabric of Gaza. It has served as a center for worship and reflection, a beacon of hope amid so much chaos for the Christian community.
-During the current Israeli genocide, hundreds of Palestinians from various faiths have sought refuge within its this stone walls. That has not stopped Israel’s military from attacking the church, however, and the church has sustained heavy damage, including the destruction of many relics and artifacts that date back more than 1,500 years.
-Targeting Gaza’s cultural heritage
-I believe that the targeting of the church was not accidental. I believe it is part of Israel’s genocidal violence, a deliberate attack on the identity of an entire community.
-The Church of Saint Porphyrius has been more than just a place of worship and a house of prayer. It has been a central hub for Gaza’s small Christian community and has borne witness to a rich history of diverse civilizations that have come and gone over the last 16 centuries.
-In modern times, the church was a gathering place for people of different faiths, building bridges between Christians and Muslims, and fostering unity among Gaza’s inhabitants. It has hosted local celebrations and events for both religious and social activities.
-The destruction of cultural and historical treasures is a profound loss not only to Palestinians in Gaza but to humanity itself. Every missing stone, every lost manuscript, every shattered window is an erasure of a piece of the collective memory of our common humanity. History is being erased from the hearts and souls of people.
-The Israeli assaults have not been limited to Christian landmarks, of course. According to local authorities Israel has bombed 79 percent of all mosques in the territory. Museums and cultural centers have also been targeted.
-There was al-Bashir Mosque in Deir al-Balah, which stood in the middle of a residential block, and was obliterated in April along with the entire neighborhood, leaving behind numerous dead and injured people.
-Al-Qarara Cultural Museum in Khan Younis was destroyed, as was the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza. The list is long and suggests a deliberate targeting of Gaza’s cultural heritage.
-“The crime of targeting and destroying archaeological sites should spur the world and UNESCO into action to preserve this great civilisational and cultural heritage,” Gaza’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement after the Great Omari Mosque was nearly completely destroyed in an Israeli air strike on 8 December.
-The Omari mosque, 1,400 years old and one of the largest in Gaza City, had historical significance dating back to the early Islamic period. Only its minaret has been left intact.
-Preservation
-The loss of such irreplaceable treasures – whether ancient artifacts, historical landmarks or cultural centers – represents more than just the destruction of objects. It’s an erosion of humanity’s shared identity, history and values. These treasures tell stories of who we are, where we’ve come from, and the lessons we’ve learned.
-The preservation of these symbols is not merely a local responsibility; it is a global duty that demands immediate action before the remnants of our shared history fade beyond recovery.
-The ruins of these sacred spaces and the artifacts they housed is more than just a material loss. The items being destroyed are pieces of a shared global heritage, which tells the stories of civilizations, of faith, of the human spirit’s endurance across centuries. When such landmarks are obliterated, a part of the entire human story is silenced forever.
-The Church of Saint Porphyrius, along with countless other cultural and religious treasures in Gaza, may stand in ruins today, but they also stand as a testament to the unshakable spirit of  a people who refuses to be erased.
-It is incumbent upon the international community to acknowledge this cultural vandalism for what it is – an attack on the collective memory of humanity.
-Without action, the sands of time will cover the remnants of these monuments, and future generations will be left to wonder what stories were lost, or, worse, remain in unconscious ignorance that they ever existed.
-Now more than ever, we must act to preserve the heritage that defines us, before it is wiped from the face of the earth.
-Nour Khalil Khattab is a journalist and translator in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Why campuses need non-Zionist Jewish spaces
+pageTitle: Why campuses need non-Zionist Jewish spaces | The Electronic Intifada
+description: The conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism only acts to stifle freedom of expression and perpetuate injustice.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.388Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-campuses-need-non-zionist-jewish-spaces/30996
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+Pro-Palestine activists scuffle with campus police at UC-Berkeley in 2002. By conflating Judaism with Zionism, campus organizations like Hillel perpetuate the myth of a religious conflict in Palestine, instead of a national liberation struggle.
+KRTIt is far too often the case that the only spaces dedicated to Judaism and Jewish culture on college campuses in the US and beyond are also affiliated with Zionism.
+When it comes to campus discussion on Palestine, this leaves little room for exposure to any Jewish-led narrative outside of Zionism, fueling the misconception that Palestine’s struggle for liberation is a religious conflict. This not only harms the liberation movement, but also students.
+One of the best known campus organizations to claim affiliation with Judaism is Hillel. Most Hillels on university campuses are tied to Hillel International, an explicitly Zionist organization.
+According to Hillel International guidelines, a campus Hillel cannot partner with or host any organization that “delegitimizes, demonizes, or applies a double standard” to Israel. Restricting free speech is certainly an interesting approach for a group that claims to “pursue social justice”.
+Negative effects on students
+As the self-proclaimed “largest Jewish campus organization in the world,” Hillel’s ties to Zionism make it appear to students who have not critically engaged with the literature or issues surrounding settler-colonialism, apartheid, or self-determination, that Judaism and Jews are inextricably linked with Israel.
+Palestinian human rights advocates on campuses are frequently put on the defensive where they must respond to false claims of anti-Semitism for simply speaking out against Israeli apartheid. These claims can come from Zionists or others who conflate Zionism and Israel with Judaism.
+Hillel’s erasure of anti-Zionist Jewish students’ perspectives causes further damage. It is particularly harmful when the sole campus organization dedicated to Jewish culture is Hillel or any other Zionist organization. Non- or anti-Zionist Jews do not have a space that represents their identity or values, and they are excluded and shut out.
+Hillel’s existence on campuses meanwhile promotes the idea that Judaism and Jews are all in accordance when it comes to Israel. One of Hillel’s mottos, “Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel,” is incredibly alienating to Jewish students who are critical of Israel.
+Negative effects on the liberation movement
+The conflation of Zionism with Judaism is not new. That it persists on campuses deters the Palestinian liberation movement through the way it is perceived by the community. Palestinians and Jewish identities are presented as rigid dichotomies.
+Students involved in the liberation movement must dedicate time and energy to explaining to peers the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism instead of pushing forward with more radical or direct actions.
+In a campus environment where there is a Hillel group and a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the perception is that a Jewish-affiliated organization and a Palestine solidarity organization are in continual direct opposition. The perception entrenches the idea that the Palestinian liberation movement is somehow a religious conflict instead of a human rights issue.
+The normalization or acceptance of Israeli apartheid is an overlooked consequence of when the only organization on campus dedicated to Judaism and Jewish culture is linked to Zionism. Any activity or programming by such an organization will inevitably normalize Israeli apartheid by ignoring that reality while promoting a more positive image of Israel, whether these concern technology, LGBTQ+ rights, or the environment.
+To be sure, there can simultaneously be Zionist organizatons and groups on campus who actively speak out against Israel. However, students, faculty, staff and administrators committed to peace, justice, and anti-racism efforts should question why their only Jewish-affiliated organization on campus has a political agenda that serves a foreign state.
+Lessons learned
+My experience as a student organizer revealed that the majority of my peers on campus either suffered from a gross lack of knowledge or were exposed to Zionist propaganda. It often means that when Students for Justice in Palestine issues a statement or holds an event, organizers first have to deal with the prevalent and false belief that Palestine is an issue in which two equally powerful sides hold equally valid positions.
+Defaulting to this position seems especially easy for a college student, in part due to the way many are introduced to the topic. Most often, Palestine is introduced under the guise of the “Israel/Palestine conflict” and not “Israel is an apartheid state” or “occupier versus occupied.”
+The depth of ignorance regarding Palestinian liberation even crept into my work with the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab, an undergraduate student think tank at Indianapolis’ Butler University dedicated to research, activism, dialogue and advocacy.
+There were objections within the peace lab’s membership regarding the decision to support a boycott of Hillel’s hosting of A Wider Bridge, an Israel lobby group that engages in  pinkwashing.
+The irony is that Desmond Tutu, for whom the peace lab is named, has characterized Israel as an apartheid state. Yet here peace lab members were demanding that “both sides” be represented in order to remain “unbiased.”
+It is deeply concerning when organizations dedicated to peace and social justice struggle with basic understandings of injustice and human rights.
+Zionism should have no place or standing in such organizations on college campuses. Zionist organizations like Hillel only perpetuate narrow-minded thinking and reinforce racism.
+Reilly Simmons is a graduate student at American University’s School of International Service.
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-articleTitle: The unseen wounds of displacement
-pageTitle: The unseen wounds of displacement | The Electronic Intifada
-description: “Displacement is not just about the loss of a home. It is the slow, agonizing loss of a piece of yourself.”
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:40.752Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/unseen-wounds-displacement/48906
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-Displaced again. Three people carry their belongings as they leave an area in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip after an Israeli attack there killed nine on 17 September
-APA imagesIn Gaza, forced displacement is a relentless reality.
-It is also an historical trauma.
-For those of us who grew up with the stories of the Nakba — our grandparents’ forced exile in 1948 — displacement was a wound passed down through generations that felt a distant tragedy of the past.
-That distance shattered for me when Israel’s military aggression turned my life into a cycle of endless displacements, each more harrowing than the last.
-In the heart of Gaza City’s south, our neighborhood of Sheikh Ijleen became a ghost town as families fled due to the Israeli military’s threats.
-My family, the only one that refused to leave, held onto our home with a resolve that felt almost reckless. We didn’t know then that this decision would lead to a month of nights that felt like an eternity — nights of relentless bombing, where survival felt more like a cruel game of chance.
-Each evening, as the sun hid below the horizon, the bombardment would begin, and I would brace myself, knowing that the next missile could be the one to end it all.
-The last day of last October stands out in my memory as the worst night of all. The bombing was so intense that shrapnel rained down on our building, the walls shuddering under the impact, windows shattering into shards, and our garden transforming into a graveyard of metal debris.
-The flash of a quadcopter drone, the constant thud of explosions, and the screams of terror from the families sheltering with us — these are memories that haunt me.
-By dawn, it was clear we could no longer stay. The five families that had huddled together made a collective decision to leave. Within minutes, we packed whatever we could carry and fled to the al-Daraj neighborhood.
-As we drove through the city, I saw Gaza not as the home I loved but as a city in ruins, a place I could no longer recognize. It was during that time that I first tasted the bitter feeling of displacement though I didn’t yet have the words to describe it.
-January siege
-January brought another displacement.
-We had sought refuge near the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City, when rumors spread that the Israeli military was advancing and might invade the western part of the city. We prepared ourselves to run, but when relatives reached the door, they turned back in fear — an Israeli tank was right outside the door.
-For two days, we were trapped, unable to leave, paralyzed by uncertainty. Questions plagued our minds:
-Would we be displaced again?
-Where would we go?
-How would we escape?
-Would the soldiers break into our building and force us to go south?
-Would they kill us?
-Or would they march us out with tanks at our backs, like cattle to slaughter?
-The children’s cries, the whispered fears of the adults and the crushing sense of helplessness filled every corner of that building.
-Then, unexpectedly, the soldiers did not charge the buildings. The men in our family, risking their lives, peeked through the windows — a dangerous act that could easily have been a death sentence.
-But then again: what did they have left to lose after months of merciless genocide?
-To their shock, they saw the tank pulling back, retreating out of sight.
-“Let’s go! This is our chance!” they shouted.
-We ran, our hearts pounding as we fled the building. The tank, however, came back, moving toward us. We didn’t stop. By some miracle, we made it to the eastern part of Gaza City, alive but displaced once again. This time, though, the terror we felt was like nothing before. The fragility of life, the ease with which it could be snuffed out, left an indelible mark on all of us.
-An unfamiliar sky
-April’s displacement brought a sorrow so profound that I can still feel it.
-We headed to southern Gaza along al-Rashid Street. It was unrecognizable. The destruction was comprehensive, the street was torn up and the buildings I had grown up with turned to rubble.
-I saw the sea — the sea that had always been a symbol of freedom, a place of solace for me — filled with soldiers and machines of war. Their presence tainted the beauty of the sea, a stark reminder that nothing in Gaza was truly ours anymore.
-Walking through a checkpoint for the first time in my life, seeing soldiers up close, roaming freely in what was once our home, felt like a violation, a desecration of everything I held dear.
-The memories I clung to, the images of a peaceful Gaza, were now stained with the reality of war and genocide. I no longer saw my city the way I once did; the innocence of those memories was lost forever.
-I held onto the memory of my house through more than 10 displacements, dreaming of the day I could return. But that hope was crushed when I learned that the military had turned our area into a military camp, reducing my neighborhood to rubble.
-The place that had once been my sanctuary is now a barren wasteland.
-Displacement is not just about the loss of a home. It is the slow, agonizing loss of a piece of yourself. It’s the bitter truth that no matter where your feet may tread, you will never truly belong.
-Here, in Egypt, I am a wanderer under a sky that is not my own, adrift in a land that offers no solace, only the cold reminder of what has been taken from me.
-Gaza is not just a place; it is the very essence of who I am. Every grain of sand, every wave that kissed its shores, every memory now veiled in dust and rubble — they are all woven into the fabric of my soul. Displacement may have pushed my body to a foreign land, but it has not severed the bond that ties me to Gaza.
-One day, I will return, flesh and blood, to the place where my heart was forged in the fires of love and loss. But even if that day never comes, let my longing be carried by the winds, back across the desert, to rest upon the sands of Gaza.
-For even in ruins, Gaza is more my home than any other place on earth. In my Gaza’s embrace, I will find the peace that no other land can offer. Whether in life or memory, I will be home.
-Roaa Shamallakh is a writer and translator from Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Jewish Community Federation admits it secretly funded Canary Mission
+pageTitle: Jewish Community Federation admits it secretly funded Canary Mission | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Documents prove that Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs uses blacklisting website to deny entry to Americans.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.559Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/jewish-community-federation-admits-it-secretly-funded-canary-mission
 ---
+Israel and US-based lobby groups have waged a war on the growing movement for Palestinian rights. (Joe Catron)The once shadowy funding structures and partnerships between US-based Israel lobby groups and the Israeli government to spy on, blacklist and threaten American activists are increasingly emerging into the cold hard light of day, as revelation has followed revelation over the past weeks.
+An investigation by The Forward on Wednesday revealed that a major San Francisco-based Jewish communal organization has been a top funder of Canary Mission, the anonymous website that aims to tarnish the reputations of US supporters of Palestinian rights.
+Meanwhile, documents now prove that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs has been using Canary Mission “to bar political activists from entering Israel,” according to Israeli daily Haaretz, corroborating testimonies by activists, students and human rights lawyers.
+The ministry is in charge of Israel’s global war against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, an effort that reportedly involves the use of clandestine “black ops.”
+Barring entry
+The documents were released as part of a legal appeal filed by Florida graduate student Lara Alqasem, who was detained by Israeli airport officials earlier this week.
+Alqasem lost the appeal on Thursday and could be deported based on information compiled by Canary Mission, which listed her support of the BDS campaign and her involvement with Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida.
+She has appealed her deportation order.
+Upon her entry to Ben Gurion airport, she was reportedly racially profiled on the basis of her perceived Palestinian ancestry. Airport officials searched for her on Canary Mission, then “passed her name on for ‘continued handling’ by the ministry because of ‘suspicion of boycott activity,’” Haaretz reports.
+Alqasem had a visa, granted by the Israeli consulate in Miami, Florida, to study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
+The ministry also cited the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter’s 2016 call for a boycott of Sabra hummus, even though Alqasem said she had not taken an active part in the campaign, according to Haaretz.
+This past January, Israel’s strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan announced a blacklist specifically barring members of 20 human rights organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine, from territory it controls.
+In 2017, Israel passed a law that bars entry or residency to non-Israelis who advocate for a boycott, including a boycott of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
+Coordinating activities
+The latest revelations about Canary Mission follow those coming out of a censored Al Jazeera investigative film.
+In late August, The Electronic Intifada published exclusive excerpts revealing that operatives who rely on information provided by Canary Mission “coordinate” their activities with the Israeli government.
+The revelations helped to explain recent reports that Canary Mission profiles are being used by Israeli border officials to deny Palestinian Americans entry to their homeland.
+The Al Jazeera film also exposed one major funder of Canary Mission: Adam Milstein, a high-profile figure in the Israel lobby, and the head of The Israel Project.
+His foundation funds such anti-Palestinian organizations as the Israel on Campus Coalition, StandWithUs, CAMERA, the AMCHA Initiative and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
+Milstein has denied any links to Canary Mission.
+“Within their own ranks”
+On Wednesday, The Forward revealed another top donor to the blacklisting website: the Helen Diller Family Foundation, controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.
+Jaclyn Saifer, president of the Diller Foundation board, has also been a member of the board of visitors of the University of California, Berkeley since 2015.
+“Mainstream American Jewish leaders have claimed not to know who funds Canary Mission. As it turns out, a big chunk of the money came from within their own ranks,” noted reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis in The Forward.
+According to tax filings, the Diller Foundation gave $100,000 to Canary Mission in 2016 via the Central Fund of Israel, a major donor to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
+The Central Fund of Israel was named in a 2013 lawsuit brought by Palestinians as one of several US-based Jewish charities accused of supporting violent Israeli settlers with tax-exempt donations from Americans.
+The Diller Foundation listed the purpose of the $100,000 grant as “Canary Mission for Megamot Shalom,” according to the tax filings.
+Megamot Shalom, The Forward reports, whose address leads to an abandoned office west of Jerusalem, “appears to be an Israeli public benefit corporation that operates or operated Canary Mission.”
+Its 2016 financial reports were signed by Jonathan Bash, a British-born Jerusalem resident who Nathan-Kazis had identified in August as Canary Mission’s operator.
+Just hours after The Forward’s article was published, the Jewish Community Federation issued a statement admitting that it had authorized the Diller Foundation to fund Canary Mission through the Central Fund of Israel.
+The Federation noted that during an unspecified review process last year, it had found that the Central Fund of Israel “is not in compliance with our guidelines” and that neither it nor the Helen Diller Family Foundation would support Canary Mission “in the future.”
+Rebecca Pierce, a filmmaker and contributor to The Electronic Intifada who has been targeted by Canary Mission, called on other mainstream Jewish communal groups to come forward.
+Writing for The Forward in the wake of Nathan-Kazis’s published article, Pierce admonished the Federation’s attempt at hiding its involvement with the website until it was forced to admit it.
+“While I welcome this announcement, it’s time for all mainstream Jewish groups to stop supporting Canary Mission, both financially and rhetorically,” Pierce wrote.
+“It’s time for them to redirect their resources towards efforts that atone for both the deep harm this hate site and others like it have caused Palestinians, and the stunning betrayal of the Jewish communities they purport to represent,” she added.
+On Thursday, the Israel lobby group J Street called on US Jewish leaders to denounce Canary Mission and “other federations and campus-based Jewish institutions” to follow the Federation’s “commitment” not to fund the blacklist.
+A leader of the J Street chapter at UC Berkeley claimed she was not aware of the connection between Canary Mission and the campus’ Board of Visitors “and could not comment” on the involvement of the Diller Foundation’s president, according to the Daily Californian.
+A top official of the Zionist Organization of America, however, boasted of his personal support of Canary Mission, smearing the activists and scholars it lists as “anti-Semites.”
+Progressive Jewish activists slammed the financial support of Canary Mission by Jewish communal groups.
+Simone Zimmerman of the anti-occupation organization IfNotNow told Haaretz that the Federation’s secretive funding of Canary Mission “highlights their desperation. They know how immoral this is and how bad it looks.”
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-articleTitle: Gaza facing a Christmas genocide
-pageTitle: Gaza facing a Christmas genocide | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Churches, church hospitals and cultural centers have all been targeted endangering the existence of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:44.724Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-facing-christmas-genocide/43041
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-An Israeli airstrike caused a building belonging the the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza to collapse on 20 October.
-APA imagesPalestine’s Christian community is – not surprisingly – the oldest in the world, dating back to the first century.
-In Gaza, the community is now tiny, with just some 800 to 1,000 Christians remaining. But Gaza’s churches are some of the oldest in existence anywhere on the planet.
-Now these churches are shelters for refugees, and Christians are targets of Israel’s genocidal violence.
-On 19 October, the third oldest church in the world, the Church of Saint Porphyrius, was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing 18 people.
-Ibrahim Jahsan survived the strike and continues to shelter there with his family.  He told Al Jazeera, “We were baptized here and we will die here.”
-Two weeks later, the Israeli military bombed the Greek Orthodox Cultural Center in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa.
-Food, blankets, gas cylinders and other much needed supplies were destroyed in the blast. The destruction of cultural centers and religious sites features as part of the definition of genocide.
-The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem released a statement condemning the attack.
-“Such attacks on civilians, particularly children, and the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, cannot be justified on rational or humanitarian grounds and are fundamentally at odds with even the most basic moral values.”
-The World Council of Churches joined in condemning the attacks, calling them a “clear violation of international law.”
-Gaza’s only Christian hospital was also bombed. A blast rocked Gaza City’s al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in October. Hundreds died in the explosion, hundreds were injured. Israel denied responsibility for the carnage.
-In cold blood
-Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta described the scene to NBC News. He was in an operating room when the ceiling collapsed on him. He says he made his way to the exit where he witnessed “people carrying wounded and walking wounded with blood streaming down covered in dust.”
-Both the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders condemned the attack.
-On 16 December, Nahida Antoun and her daughter Samar Antoun were shot to death by Israeli snipers as they walked inside the grounds of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza. At least seven other members of Gaza’s only Catholic Church were wounded by sniper fire.
-The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said: “One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety.”
-“They were shot in cold blood.”
-The patriarchate posted photos of damage to the Church from missile attacks. The damage shows fires and extreme destruction to the convent. The tweet indicates that “deaths and injuries of a number of citizens in the Latin convent of Gaza” occurred and calls for an “end [to] this senseless conflict.”
-Pope Francis condemned the attack: “Unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at, and this has happened inside the Holy Family Parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, sick people with disabilities, nuns.”
-The Pope continued, “Some say, ‘It’s terrorism, it’s war.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism.”
-This is the second time the Pope has accused Israel of terrorism. On 22 November, the pontiff said Israel had gone beyond war: “This is not war. This is terrorism.”
-Indeed, it is terrorism. It is terrorism against Palestinians, and some of the most vulnerable Palestinians are the minority Christian population now besieged in the few churches in Gaza.
-Israel is targeting this small population of Christians and they’re doing it at Christmas.
-The Israeli military is bombing churches, destroying Christian community centers, and sending snipers to shoot Christian women to death while the world watches, all part of the ninth stage of genocide: Extermination.
-How many Christians will be left when Israel is done?
-Jennifer Welborn Williams has a postgraduate degree in history and is a freelance writer.
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+articleTitle: As Israel assaults Gaza, BBC reporting assaults the truth
+pageTitle: As Israel assaults Gaza, BBC reporting assaults the truth | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Shortcomings identified by 2006 independent report on BBC's Palestine coverage exemplified over past few days.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.709Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-assaults-gaza-bbc-reporting-assaults-truth/11894
 ---
+BBC has shown deference to Israeli goverment line in its reporting on Gaza in recent days.
+APA imagesIn 2006, an independent panel of senior public figures published a report assessing the impartiality of the BBC’s coverage of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
+The panel, chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas, a senior figure in the British Home Office, found “identifiable shortcomings, particularly in respect of gaps in coverage, analysis, context and perspective and in the consistent maintenance of the BBC’s own editorial standards.”
+The Thomas Report, as it became known, was quickly shoved under the carpet by the BBC, even though it had originally been commissioned by the corporation’s own governors, and business continued as usual (“Report of the Independent Panel for the BBC Governors on Impartiality of BBC Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” April 2006, available on the Internet Archive).
+In the last few days, the shortcomings highlighted in the report have never seemed so glaring.
+Gaza reported without context
+Across the BBC’s output, from the 24 hour rolling news channel, BBC News, to its flagship news and current affairs program Today on Radio 4, the Israeli assault on Gaza has been reported without context, without perspective and with a bias that has wholly favored the heavily-armed, nuclear state of Israel against the mostly refugee population of the besieged Gaza Strip.
+This pattern of partiality was noted by Thomas and his panel. They made several mentions in their report to the “asymmetry of power between the two sides” and noted that “given this asymmetry, the BBC’s concern with balance gave an impression of equality between the two sides which was fundamentally, if unintentionally, misleading.”
+To counter this flaw, the Thomas Report recommended that the BBC “should make purposive, and not merely reactive, efforts to explain the complexities of the conflict in the round, including the marked disparity between the position of the two sides.”
+Yet, rather than providing information to its global audience which would make clear that Israel is deploying a vast arsenal of high tech armory against Gaza’s civilian population, to which the response is crude rockets, the BBC’s coverage of the past days has portrayed the stateless Palestinians as vicious aggressors against an exhausted Israel.
+On the morning of 15 November, the day after Israel carried out the extrajudicial killing of Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari and unleashed a wave of terror against Gaza’s civilian population, the BBC put an article onto its website headlined: “Gaza rocket arsenal problem for Israel.”
+The article goes into minute detail about what the BBC’s diplomatic and defense correspondent Jonathan Marcus describes as “the Palestinian rocket arsenal.”
+There are descriptions of the types of rockets in the “arsenal,” their range, their design, their country of origin, the threat they pose to Israel, the towns in Israel they might be capable of reaching. Marcus also spends time discussing the capability of Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense and Israeli allegations of shipments of arms coming via Sudan to Gaza.
+Israeli arsenals unreported by the BBC
+Nowhere in the article, or elsewhere on the BBC, does Marcus investigate Israel’s weapons stockpile, which is funded to the tune of $3 billion a year by the United States.
+There are no reams of paragraphs devoted to describing the different types of bombs, mortar shells, drones, fighter jets, gunboats, tanks, guns, nuclear warheads or white phosphorus shells that are in Israel’s arsenal. Yet, with the exception of nuclear missiles, all of these have been used at some point against the people of Gaza with devastating consequences.
+A second article published on the BBC website the same morning is headlined: “Escalating violence takes its toll on Israelis.” Here we have journalist Yolande Knell putting a human face on the Israelis who have faced rocket attacks in the towns of Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi over the last two days.
+There are interviews with Israeli men and women describing their fear, their pain at the previous day’s fatalities in Kiryat Malachi, their scramble to find shelter when the air raid sirens sound and the damage to their buildings. Knell describes “eerily quiet” streets in Ashkelon, closed restaurants and schools and how “normal life here remains on hold.”
+Minimizing Palestinian voices
+Yet when it comes to how Palestinians in Gaza endure frequent Israeli bombardment, Palestinian voices and their pain are minimized.
+A BBC article in March claimed the people of Gaza are “almost inured to the endless conflict” and life in the Gaza Strip carries on as normal — a report based on the perspective of BBC correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, rather than interviews with the Palestinians themselves.
+When the Palestine Solidarity Campaign complained about the bias inherent in Wingfield-Hayes extraordinary claims, which were juxtaposed alongside an article by Kevin Connolly describing the “dread” felt by Israelis during rocket strikes, a reply was received from Fraser Steel, Head of Editorial Complaints at the BBC.
+He wrote: “I have to say it seems to me that the aspects of the reports which you single out for criticism can be interpreted as evidence of bias only if one approaches them with a prior assumption of bias on the part of the authors.”
+The bias that PSC was highlighting is not on the part of the authors, but on the part of their employers, the BBC, and with good reason.
+Israeli spokespeople unchallenged
+Since al-Jabari’s assassination on 14 November, the BBC has rolled out all the Israeli heavyweights across its programming: Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador to the UN; Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister; Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesperson; and Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to the UK.
+All have been allowed to disseminate, with virtually no interruption or correction, the propaganda line Israel is using for the duration of this assault on Gaza: that Israel withdrew its settlers in 2005 in order to allow Gaza to live in peace but Hamas insisted on a war which Israel has so far resisted, but is now being reluctantly drawn into in order to protect its citizens.
+On the Today program on 15 November, Taub was interviewed by BBC heavyweight John Humphrys. For four minutes he was allowed to expound Israel’s hasbara line that Hamas rockets rain down on southern Israel with no response from Israel and that no other country but Israel would be so understanding.
+Humphrys gave no challenge when Taub said: “We have to recognize, seven years ago, we pulled out of every inch of Gaza. We removed 9,000 Israeli civilians along with their homes, their schools, their kindergartens, in order to try and have a peaceful situation with Gaza … Tragically, that opportunity was not taken up. Hamas took over and since then has been waging an intensive war.”
+The BBC’s major evening current affairs program Newsnight was used as a vehicle for similar hasbara the previous evening by Danny Ayalon, who enjoyed an uninterrupted three minute interview with presenter Gavin Esler.
+At the very end of the interview Ayalon said: “Not only do they [Hamas] target the civilian population in Israel, but they implant themselves in the midst of the civilian population in Gaza, so in fact they use a population as a human shield for their hideous attacks.”
+To which Esler replied: “Ok, we’ll leave it there. Danny Ayalon, thank you very much.”
+There was no attempt, or even it seems a willingness, by this senior BBC journalist to confront and challenge Israeli propaganda and falsehoods.
+Meanwhile Zionist activist Jonathan Sacerdoti appeared four times as a guest on different BBC television news programs during the first two days of the Israeli assault. The BBC allowed him to pose as an independent expert, neglecting to mention his past work for the Zionist Federation and current role at the Board of Deputies of British Jews (“Who is Jonathan Sacerdoti, the BBC’s Go-To Man on Gaza?” New Left Project, 16 November).
+BBC failure
+The findings of the Thomas Report from 2006 are holding true during this latest onslaught on Gaza. This unwillingness by both Humphrys and Esler, together with the presenters on television and radio news, to point out the facts to their Israeli government interviewees is just a symptom of the BBC’s failure to provide context and perspective, as highlighted by the report.
+And so BBC audiences listen to Regev and the rest without being made aware that Israel is considered by the UN to be an occupying power in Gaza with obligations under the Geneva Conventions to protect the inhabitants.
+Taub is allowed to freely say that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, without being made to explain how he can make such a travesty of the truth when Israel holds Gaza under tight military siege, restricting access to food, medicines, water, fuel and other essentials, and restricts the free movement of Gaza’s people in and out of the territory.
+Prosser can stand in Kiryat Malachi condemning Palestinian rocket attacks, as he did on the BBC News channel on 14 November, and not be asked to comment on Israel’s massacre of 1,400 Palestinians in three weeks in 2008-09 or its continuous bombing and shelling of Gaza since then.
+And that is how Ayalon can barefacedly mislead BBC viewers with the human shield fallacy, because nowhere on the BBC, including Newsnight will its audience be told that 1.6 million people are crammed into a strip of land about 20 miles long and four miles wide, and consequently there is nowhere that is not inhabited.
+In its final points, the Thomas Report summed up: “some of the deficiencies are serious and … [the BBC’s coverage] could be a great deal better: more distinctive, challenging and informative.”
+If only it were. Imagine how many people around the world and those paying the licence fee in the UK would become aware of Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians, its daily violations of international law, its lies and deceits.
+One presumes this is why the Thomas Report has rarely seen light of day since its publication.
+Amena Saleem is active with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK and keeps a close eye on the media’s coverage of Palestine as part of her brief. She has twice driven on convoys to Gaza for PSC. More information on PSC is available at www.palestinecampaign.org.
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-articleTitle: Gaza's churches are under attack at Christmas
-pageTitle: Gaza's churches are under attack at Christmas | The Electronic Intifada
-description: Israel's snipers and warplanes don't spare places of worship.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:44.969Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-churches-are-under-attack-christmas/43101
 ---
-Gaza’s churches and the areas surrounding them have been under attack since the early stages of Israel’s latest war on Gaza.
-DPA via ZUMA PressThe 1,000 Christians living in Gaza have dreams. They want a better future.
-The war came suddenly, forcing people to leave their homes. Many went to churches, hoping they would provide safety.
-The fear of Christians has been heightened as Israeli tanks have been surrounding them. An elderly woman and her daughter taking shelter at the Holy Family church in Gaza City were killed earlier this month by an Israeli sniper.
-Suhail Saba is among those who have taken shelter in the Holy Family church.
-She is a survivor of the massacre Israel carried out at the nearby Church of Saint Porphyrius during October. Eighteen people were killed in that massacre.
-“The bombing was violent, like an earthquake,” she recalled. “The walls were broken and I was thrown from one place to another. People were tripping over me and I could hear the screams of children and women.”
-Multiple members of one family were “instantly killed” when one missile fell on the church, she said.
-Saba herself was wounded in the head, back and legs.
-“No joy”
-Ramez al-Souri lost three children during the attack on the Church of Saint Porphyrius. Israel’s attacks are carried out with weapons supplied by the US.
-“I left my home and came to the church because it was supposed to be a safe place,” al-Souri said. “My children were sleeping in the building. Suddenly the place was bombed with a missile from a warplane.”
-He added, “I cannot believe that I lost my children. I feel like I am in a nightmare. America and Israel killed my children while they were sleeping in a place of worship.”
-Kamel Ayyad notes that conditions in churches have been harsh since the beginning of the war. He had taken shelter in the Church of Saint Porphyrius before the October attack on that building.
-“It is painful that the church was targeted while they [the Israelis] knew that the displaced people inside it were civilians,” he said. “We had gone to the church in search of safety.”
-Christmas will be very different for his family than it was in 2022.
-“Last year we celebrated the holidays with the family,” he said. “We decorated the house and had lights on the Christmas tree. We went to Bethlehem and visited the Church of the Nativity. This year we are suffering from loss and destruction.”
-“There is no joy in anyone’s heart these days,” he added. “Everyone is crying for those they have lost.”
-In previous years, Christians in Gaza applied for permits from the Israeli occupation so that they could visit Bethlehem in the West Bank during the festive season.
-Nobody is waiting for permits this year. Like their Muslim friends and neighbors, Christians in Gaza are under siege.
-They have very little to eat and drink. And they fear being killed by snipers or by other forms of Israeli violence.
-Ruwaida Amer is a journalist based in Gaza.
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+articleTitle: Love Israel? If you're a British MP, join the queue
+pageTitle: Love Israel? If you're a British MP, join the queue | The Electronic Intifada
+description: Labor leader Ed Miliband's recent declaration of support for Zionism follows a familiar pattern among the British ruling elite.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:43.859Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/love-israel-if-youre-british-mp-join-queue
 ---
+David Cameron’s belief in Israel is “unbreakable” (unlike the beer bottle he is clutching).
+The White HouseJust over a week ago, Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition in Britain’s Parliament, was asked at a public meeting if he is a Zionist.
+The Labor Party head replied: “The answer to that is yes, because I consider myself a supporter of Israel.”
+Speaking at an event organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Miliband continued: “I think it’s very, very important that as somebody who supports not only Israel’s right to exist but has huge respect for what Israel does that I count myself in that category.”
+Miliband did not specify whether his “huge respect for what Israel does” includes its occupation, control and subjugation of an entire group of people, its war crimes against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, or its refusal to abide by the international laws which are supposed to govern civilized nations.
+He did not comment on whether the category of supporters in which he feels it is so important to be counted is the category which supports the apartheid system which Israel has created in order to keep Palestinians segregated from Israelis, in both the West Bank and within Israel.
+He did, however, use his question and answer session to make one thing quite clear — he has no time for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
+“Unbreakable” belief in Israel
+Ignoring the fact that he was elected to his current position thanks to the backing of Britain’s trade unions who formally backed a boycott of goods from Israeli settlements in 2009, Miliband declared: “I think the boycotts of Israel are totally wrong. We should have no tolerance for boycotts. I’d say that to any union leader, any Labor Party member. How do you create a two-state solution? Not with boycotts — you’ve got my very clear view on that.”
+It would seem that the call from Palestinians to the world to divest from and boycott the firms which are complicit in Israel’s theft and occupation of Palestinian land is not compatible with the Labor leader’s overriding support for the occupier.
+One-sided though his position and his views may seem, Miliband is not alone within the British Parliament in his staunch support for a state which has just proposed legislation to define itself as the “national state of the Jewish people,” condemning its 20 percent Palestinian population to eternal apartheid.
+In October 2012, David Cameron, the leader of the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, told his audience at the annual dinner of the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA): “With me you have a prime minister whose belief in Israel is unbreakable.”
+Outlining what he called his “non-negotiable” commitment to Israel’s security, Cameron went on to describe Iran as a threat “not just to Israel. It is a threat to the world.”
+“Let’s be clear about the facts. Iran is flouting six United Nations resolutions,” Cameron told a delighted audience. Needless to say, the prime minister left out other facts that would not have gone down so well with the UJIA crowd, namely that Israel is in breach of more UN resolutions than any other country in the world and — unlike Iran — has a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
+Cameron concluded his speech by dragging his entire electorate into his blinkered support for a country which, just a month later, would proceed to massacre more than 170 Palestinians in Gaza in the space of a week.
+Addressing the chairman of UJIA, Cameron announced: “Brett, in your introduction you said that support for Israel was in the DNA of the political party I lead. It is. But I believe it is in the DNA of the country I lead too.”
+Productive year for Israel lobbyists
+Leaving aside Cameron’s disturbing claim that support for an apartheid state is bred into the genes of the British, his hosts were right at least in their observation that support for Israel is part of the DNA of the Conservative Party.
+In an article in The Daily Telegraph in December 2012, the journalist Peter Oborne, who has done much to campaign for transparency in Britain’s policy towards Israel, noted the influence of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) on the party.
+“Some 80 percent of all Tory MPs are members, including most cabinet ministers,” he wrote. “No other lobbying organization — and certainly not one that acts in the interests of a foreign country — carries as much weight at Westminster.
+“Every year, it takes a significant number of parliamentarians to Israel. Meanwhile, its sponsors play an important role in financing both the Tories nationally, and MPs [members of parliament] at the local level.”
+In 2012, CFI was present at the Conservative Party conference, where its “annual delegates reception” hosted 400 and was addressed by the Foreign Secretary William Hague; it hosted an “annual business lunch” in December at which Cameron was the guest of honor, giving a speech to more than 500 businessmen, alongside 140 Conservative politicians; and it held its “annual members reception” on the House of Commons’ Terrace in September with Alistair Burt, a Foreign Office minister, and Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to London, along with more than 250 members and 100 Conservative MPs.
+As Oborne has noted: “The Palestinians enjoy no such access. They would be lucky to get a single Conservative MP in the audience for their events, and perhaps some moribund peer [member of the House of Lords] to make an address. There is no such organization as the Conservative Friends of Palestinians.”
+CFI is well aware of its success in lobbying at the highest levels of the Conservative Party, and therefore of government. In its “Year in Review 2012,” sent by email to members last month, and seen by this writer, it proudly detailed the events listed above, describing 2012 as “an incredibly busy and productive year for all concerned with the Conservative Friends of Israel.”
+Three CFI-led or coordinated trips to Israel for Conservative MPs were also mentioned, including one which took place during Israel’s November onslaught on Gaza. The email noted: “CFI’s November delegation, which coincided with Operation Pillar of Defense, gave MPs an immediate insight into the many security threats facing Israel.”
+Ruling elite
+One day into the November assault, Foreign Secretary William Hague appeared on television on Sky News and said ”it is Hamas that bears principal responsibility for starting all of this.”
+This position, with its complete lack of political balance, was reiterated in letters sent by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and others who wrote to question Hague’s statement.
+When the PSC wrote to the Foreign Office for a second time to ask where it was getting the facts to make such an unbalanced judgment, it received this response: “Alistair Burt, the FCO minister responsible for our relations with the Middle East, visited the areas of southern Israel targeted by the rockets during his recent visit to Israel.”
+Burt, remember, was hobnobbing with the Israeli ambassador on the House of Commons’ Terrace at a CFI party just a few months earlier.
+In its “Year in Review,” CFI was quick to chalk up the victory. It stated: “The government showed support for Israel throughout Operation Pillar of Defense with assertions that Hamas ‘bears principal responsibility’ for the violence and strong condemnation of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza.”
+Similar support for the Palestinians as they came under sustained air and sea bombardment was not forthcoming, nor was there “strong condemnation” of Israeli attacks. Later in November, the British government abstained from the vote which resulted in Palestine being recognized as a non-member observer state in the UN.
+Labor Friends of Israel (LFI) is also well-connected to the political party it lobbies and involvement is viewed by young, ambitious Labor MPs as a good way to get ahead in politics. In the last Labor government, James Purnell and Jim Murphy both held the positions of chairmen of LFI and went on to become ministers. Ivan Lewis, who served as foreign minister with responsibility for the Middle East, was a former LFI vice-chairman. Tony Blair, currently the Middle East “peace envoy,” joined LFI in 1983 when he was first elected as an MP.
+Ed Miliband, then, with his unabashed and enthusiastic support for a state which uses race to distinguish between its treatment of two groups of people, is following, not just in the tradition of past Labor leaders, but of the British ruling elite. This elite doesn’t seem to have progressed much in its thinking since 1917, when Arthur James Balfour, then foreign secretary, effectively handed over Palestine to the Zionist movement.
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-articleTitle: Israel to take part in Dubai's Expo 2020
-pageTitle: Israel to take part in Dubai's Expo 2020 | The Electronic Intifada
-description: UAE politicians and elite call for more normalization between Israel and Gulf state.
-dataScrapedDate: 2025-03-23T19:57:45.060Z
-url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-take-part-dubais-expo-2020
 ---
-Ami Marom, the Israeli founder of normalizing outfit Gulf Red Med, in Bahrain in January. (Facebook)Israel will participate in next year’s Expo 2020 in the United Arab Emirates despite there being no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries.
-Dubai will be hosting delegations from about 190 nations to experience the “UAE’s values of inclusion, tolerance and cooperation,” according to the exposition’s website.
-Israel’s foreign ministry announced the country’s participation, adding that it looks “forward to sharing our innovative spirit and the advances our entrepreneurs and innovators are making in the various fields such as water, information and medical technologies.”
-In a tweet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Israel’s participation, calling it “another expression of Israel’s rising status in the world and the region.”
-US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt also celebrated the Gulf country’s invitation to Israel, calling the United Arab Emirates a “great friend and ally.”
-Emirati officials told Israeli media that the invite “does not signal a change in relations between the UAE and Israel in the diplomatic arena or any other area.”
-The invitation is only the most recent sign of warming ties in a growing blitz of covert and overt normalization between Gulf states and Israel.
-Saudi Arabia has been paving the way for Israel’s embrace by rulers in the region, with a mutual enmity towards Iran at the core of warming relations.
-Predicting more normalization
-While UAE collaboration with Israel dates back to the 1990s, it has been moving out of the shadows as of recently, with Gulf elites and politicians calling for open ties.
-Last month, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash condemned the lack of formal ties between Arab states and Israel in an interview with UAE newspaper The National.
-“Many, many years ago, when there was an Arab decision not to have contact with Israel, that was a very, very wrong decision, looking back,” he said.
-“Because clearly, you have to really dissect and divide between having a political issue and keeping your lines of communication open.”
-According to the newspaper, Gargash alluded to more normalizing gestures between Arab states and Israel, “such as small bilateral deals and visits by politicians and sports players” in the next few years.
-That statement serves as confirmation that supposedly cultural or sporting ties are part of a larger political design to normalize ties with Israel despite its escalating violations of Palestinian rights.
-In October, Israel’s sports and culture minister Miri Regev visited the Emirates along with her country’s judo team, and cried with emotion as the Israeli national anthem was played in Abu Dhabi.
-The Israeli politician also paid a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque – the largest in the United Arab Emirates – boasting that it was the first time an Israeli government minister had visited the shrine.
-Gargash said that a “strategic shift” must take place, adding that “if we continue on the current trajectory, I think the conversation in 15 years time will really be about equal rights in one state.”
-The Emirati minister’s remarks almost acknowledge the reality of the one-state solution as the only viable option for peace, but fail to mention that holding Israel accountable for atrocities by refusing to normalize relations is crucial to achieving a just resolution.
-Earlier this year, UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan defended Israel’s so called “right to defend itself” when asked about Israel’s military attacks on Syria in a video of a closed-door meeting at a Warsaw conference leaked and then deleted by Netanyahu’s office.
-The video showed officials from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates spewing invective against Iran and defending Israel.
-Billionaire calls for formal ties
-Meanwhile, Dubai-based billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor posted videos on social media last month calling on Gulf countries and Israel to open full relations.
-In videos posted to Twitter in English and Arabic, Al Habtoor prefaces his remarks by saying he expects mockery from those “who speak of nationalisms and of resistance,” but that despite this he wants “to talk about Israel.”
-Al Habtoor states that there is “no country economically stronger than Israel,” and that Gulf countries must “cooperate with them economically, commercially, agriculturally and even in the area of defense” as well as “every single thing.”
-He asserts that Israel is “not our enemy,” and that “Netanyahu and his group must decide on this issue and declare overt peace instead of hiding,” making the Gulf Cooperation Council and Israel “one big family.”
-Al Habtoor says nothing about Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and violations of international law, nor that these should be ended before moving towards fully normalized relations. In any case, the Emirati billionaire does not see Israel as a regional threat, but rather as an ally.
-“We have to be clear and frank and they are better than others. Our biggest enemy is Iran, not Israel,” he says in the Arabic-language video, which was promoted on Israel’s Arabic-language propaganda Twitter account:
-Al Habtoor does not mention Iran in the English-language video. He posted two more videos a few days later doubling down on his original remarks.
-With more than $3 billion in family and company assets, Al Habtoor is one of the richest people in the United Arab Emirates.
-He is a founder of Al Habtoor Group, a conglomerate that built Dubai International Airport and numerous high-rises in the city, as well as being a dealer in luxury cars.
-The Dubai billionaire published a piece in Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz last year urging Arabs to “deal with” Israel, and Palestinians and neighboring countries to “put a lid” on their “emotional baggage and bad experience” and to move forward because “Israel with its nuclear weapons and military might is going nowhere.”
-In the Haaretz piece, Al Habtoor affirms that Palestinians and Israelis “must coexist in one state as equal citizens with the same rights,” but does not demand Israeli respect for Palestinian rights as a condition for economic, political, technological and military cooperation.
-Israel and the UAE participated in the Iniohos 2019 joint military exercises last month hosted by Greece, as they did in the past two years.
-The Israeli air force has killed and injured thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and the United Arab Emirates air force has done the same in Yemen.
-Last July, Israeli media reported that the Israeli military hosted members of the Emirates armed forces.
-The Israeli military denied those claims.
-Bahrain hosts Israelis
-Despite allegedly canceling its participation in a conference in Bahrain, an Israeli delegation appears to have traveled to the Gulf island state’s capital Manama late last month, according to Israeli media.
-Israel’s economy minister Eli Cohen was supposed to be heading the 30-person delegation, which included Israeli government officials and business people, but the delegation announced its withdrawal after widespread protests against its visit.
-The Israelis were set to participate in the Global Entrepreneurship Congress.
-Ami Marom, the Israeli founder of normalizing outfit Gulf Red Med, posted pictures and videos on Facebook showing his group attending the conference, as it was set to do.
-In one post, Marom claims that the Bahraini government paid for the group’s $500 dinner.
-Marom has been posting pictures and videos of his stay in Bahrain for the past two weeks, spending time in luxurious hotels and restaurants around the city.
-It is not clear what Marom is still doing in Manama, with his most recent post dating from 1 May.
-Marom posted pictures in Bahrain that date back to January, as well as some in Muscat, the capital of Oman.
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+articleTitle: Israel's upheaval is Palestine's opportunity
+pageTitle: Israel's upheaval is Palestine's opportunity | The Electronic Intifada
+description: BDS movement report only serious analysis of current situation.
+dataScrapedDate: 2025-10-25T19:30:44.693Z
+url: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-upheaval-palestines-opportunity/37896
 ---
+Israel divided: A supporter of Israel’s judicial reforms holds up a sign equating anti-government airforce pilots refusing service with traitors.
+ZUMAPRESSHow are we to understand the incredible events in Israel since January 2023?
+On the one hand, there is the amazing invention and deep commitment of the hundreds of thousands who come out weekly to protest proposed judicial reforms – with their witty hand-painted posters, their music and their high morale despite the dire situation.
+In some pockets or on the sidelines, one may even spot a few Palestinian flags and hear calls against apartheid and occupation.
+Elsewhere, we see the pretend radicalism of generals, who count in the thousands their Palestinian victims, and their hypocritical calls for Jewish democracy and a proper judicial system (because otherwise they might find themselves in the International Criminal Court for the war crimes they committed).
+They speak as if the current judicial system is just and democratic. But when has it ever served any form of justice to its Palestinian subjects?
+Indeed, the main issue facing this settler-colonial society since at least 1948 is never mentioned by these speakers. It is censored from the speeches of the few Palestinians allowed a voice.
+How is one to understand the central role played by Mossad, ex-generals and groups of reservists refusing military service in the name of Israeli patriotism, which for them seems to denote colonial militarism?
+The demonstrations have created a real difficulty for Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest government. The crisis was reaching a breaking point just before the Passover holiday, when the role of army reservists, as well as retired generals, was reaching a high point.
+The usual medicine
+Netanyahu was forced to delay implementation of his judicial “reforms” – more accurately described as a coup – by a few weeks.
+From his point of view, this was a wise move to take much of the wind out of opposition sails. But the demonstrations have continued, even as some of the leaders of the opposition like Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, have willingly given in and joined “discussions” at the presidential residence, designed to disarm the protests.
+As a stronger measure aimed at demonstrators, Netanyahu resorted to traditional medicine – a brutal attack on Gaza. This was used to send many of the protesting reservist pilots to do what they specialize in doing – the mass killing and maiming of civilians.
+Many other reservists were also called up, and the Israeli media went into default mode – denial of and lying about civilian casualties, and “uniting the nation” through a broadcasting campaign directed by government hasbara (propaganda).
+The reaction of the population immediately seems to have reverted to knee jerk anti-Palestinian adulation of the military – the main force holding Israel’s opposing factions together. The level and numbers of demonstrators have been seriously reduced, though demonstrations continue to disturb the government, though still unable to stop the government’s legal offensive in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
+Israel even had real problems extricating itself from its Gaza assault –  a pattern we have seen increasingly over the years.
+Despite the great heaps of journalistic hype, support for, as well as opposition to, this “uprising” against the Netanyahu administration’s judicial reforms – unparalleled in Israel’s history – we have seen little analytical writing worthy of the name, dealing with this extraordinary social upheaval.
+Most articles either report events or present opinions, in both cases doing so without a proper theoretical framework or historical background.
+The long view
+Such paucity of political analysis should not surprise us. It reveals the great weakness of the Israeli (pseudo) left, a spent social force that is unable to present a progressive political program to voters.
+This weakness goes back to a period well before 1967, even before 1948. After all, it was David Ben Gurion’s “left,” in 1948 and afterwards, that enacted the Nakba and the military rule imposed on the few remaining Palestinians in what became Israel.
+The only ripple in the becalmed sea of leftist action before 1967 was the emergence of Matzpen – a revolutionary socialist movement calling for a regional progressive solution to the Palestine colonial conflict by building a coalition of Middle Eastern socialist administrations.
+It was a visionary but unrealistic objective. Real socialism was not evident anywhere in the region, least of all in Jerusalem.
+The ineffective opposition appearing after 1967 and the start of the settler colonization of the occupied territories – in Syria, Palestine and Egypt – perceived itself as left-wing, but was nothing of the sort.
+It lacked analytical edge or an anti-colonial critique, relying instead on emotional arguments against the occupation. It was concerned with the corrosive effect on the occupiers rather than the terrifying price exacted from Palestinians.
+Not for nothing was the movement dubbed Yorim U’Bochim — “they shoot and cry.” The name stuck because it was accurate.
+It pointed to the deep hypocrisy embedded in the left Zionist position.
+While Peace Now pondered its belly-button, the old Israeli elite (of which the advocacy group was an important part) enacted policies of settler-colonialism – the unlikely paradigm chosen by Theodor Herzl and all who followed him. There was no other method of getting control of Palestine and carrying out large-scale ethnic cleansing.
+Theodor Herzl, a right-wing liberal thinker, was, like most of his ilk in the 19th century, a fervent colonialist. He carefully planned the process of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in his secret diary, though not the military means.
+He pretended to believe that such population transfer was possible by offering the “paupers” work in what he termed the “transit countries” surrounding Palestine, and denying them entry if they tried to return.
+But by 1967, left Zionism itself was on the way out.
+It had fulfilled its historic mission and now had to leave the stage to the growing force of liberal-right Zionism. The latter was a social force much closer to Herzlian Zionism, about to upset the apple cart of exclusivist Jewish-only socialism by reinforcing it with a privatized market economy and a right-wing nationalism, which had its historical roots in Prussian nationalism and strong links to Italian fascism.
+Coming of age
+While many of the articles now published on the “left” oppose Netanyahu and his judicial coup, they do not oppose the occupation and its militarism. Indeed, many of the pieces blame Netanyahu for endangering Israeli cohesion, leading to civil war by pushing through the coup despite the fact that high-ranking military figures are against it, including Yoav Gallant, his defense minister, sacked, then unsacked.
+Both sides accuse each other of the same capital crime, undermining national security, while the country is supposedly faced with the threat of an Iranian nuclear project. There is little help for the uninitiated to make sense of the situation in most of this print and broadcast deluge, as there is no left left in the country, to provide proper analysis.
+Into this analytical vacuum walks a large and influential Palestinian body – the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement – offering the only example of methodical and reasoned analysis of the events, their context, their likely outcomes and influence, as well as the few benefits they may produce to those of a real progressive bent.
+In a recent report published by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the events are deconstructed, catalogued and analyzed with great care and attention to detail, in a manner absent from the Israeli side.
+Starting with a description of the Huwwara pogrom, the report presents the violence as perpetrated by “fascist Jewish-Israeli militias” quoting its main instigator and ideologue, senior Israeli government minister, Bezalel Smotrich: “I think Huwwara needs to be erased. The state should be the one to do that.”
+This pogrom is not seen as exceptional or unusual, but as a ratcheting up of settler colonial violence that was there from the beginning.
+“Israel’s new far-right government is the most racist, fundamentalist, sexist, corrupt, authoritarian and homophobic ever,” the report states, a situation that has been prepared by decades of increasing hatred, oppression and racism by Israel’s Jewish community, inseparable from the Zionist militarized colonial project.
+Democracy (for Jews only) threatened
+Each atrocity then becomes normalized, a new zero from which the project advances to a higher, terrifying normal.
+While this process is not new, it has a new aspect: The old elite insisted on covering its tracks; the new regime sees no need for such evasion.
+Israel’s support is secure, immune to public pressure and international sanctions.
+This new trend worries the old elite, the military, the police and the intelligence agencies.
+The report finds that these “attacks on a sitting Israeli government from within the Israeli establishment reflect genuine fear that its ‘irrational’ and ‘irresponsible’ plans may expose the true face of Israel’s regime of oppression and unravel fundamental aspects of Israel’s colonial settler democracy.”
+Quoting Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, the report argues protesters see a danger to their Jewish democracy: “Israel is a ‘Herrenvolk democracy, democracy only for the masters.’”
+It is this Herrenvolk democracy, or what Peter Beinart calls “liberal democracy for Jews,” that is being undermined.
+The authors consider the role played in the “re-inventing of the settler colony” by religionizing the settlements as crucial. The process of judaizing Zionism and the occupation, now advances to judaizing the entire society, threatening the secular Jews of the old elite, thus underlying their opposition to the judicial coup.
+Lacking a constitution, a time limit on serving premiers, no upper house to monitor legislation, no constitutionally anchored rights; with apartheid legislation such as the Nation State Law or the Law of Return; and without the many other democratic safeguards used by other states to defend human rights, the changes now proposed to the legal system will offer a clear run for fascists not just for further racist and exclusivist legislation, but for mass expulsions of Palestinians.
+With “neo-Nazi ministers,” as per historian Daniel Blatman, in control of the occupation and settlements and the life of millions of Palestinians, including some two million Palestinian citizens of Israel, the few human rights of any Palestinian are clearly on the way out.
+The report describes the “unprecedented responses” to the government plans and actions since early January across Israeli Jewish society. The range of civic, military reserves, judicial, media, social and cultural activities against the government, in tandem with a financial crisis, and the drying up of investments, diplomatic pressures seriously affecting exports and profits, and the danger of war, all outline the severity of situation.
+Potential for change
+An important section of the BNC report deals with the collapse of key military systems and the industries aligned with the military, such as Israel’s military industrial complex and the hi-tech sector.
+The special role played by the intelligence community – responsible for Israel’s advanced tools for hacking mobile phones, computers and other digital systems – as well as the collapse of the education and especially the university and college sectors, are all signs of systemic collapse, regardless of Netanyahu’s denials.
+The role of solidarity with Palestine, inside Israel and abroad, in this trying and dangerous period, as well as the difficulties for solidarity action in the more favorable atmosphere created by the protests, is given much space.
+In its conclusion, the report’s authors try to balance the real dangers with the potential for solidarity activity, putting special stress on the urgency of such action. The upheavals are an opportunity and solidarity activists need to use this window of opportunity to change the parameters of debate from one of Jewish democracy and judicial reform to redressing the great injustices that have been done to Palestine and Palestinians.
+What is especially impressive about the report is the depth and breadth of its argumentation and analysis, its realistic and focused nature, its clear-eyed attention to all areas of potential advantage for the Palestine cause, and the fact that it recognizes a radicalization potential within the Israeli protest movement,.
+The report should be carefully read by Israelis, solidarity activists, politicians everywhere and all who are interested in a just and peaceful solution to the colonial conflict created by the Zionist project.
+Whichever way the conflict between the old and new elites in Israel resolves itself, it cannot resolve the deep and fundamental issues now introduced by the fascist and neo-Nazi factions in government. The debate within the Jewish colonial community will continue to feed a bitter inner conflict for years to come.
+But now that Zionism is clearly seen as the problem, even by many Jews in Israel and the diaspora, the solidarity potential for changing hearts and minds has never been greater.
+The potential for change comes with a danger of escalation and new and massive ethnic cleansing. It is up to us all to act decisively and positively bring an end to  growing Zionist racism, and advance toward a society of Israeli Jews and Palestinians living in peace, justice and equality, between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
+That will be the real democracy, not the racist one now defended by a deluded protest movement.
+Haim Bresheeth-Žabner is a professorial research associate at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defence Forces Made a Nation (Verso).
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