Palestinian activists shut down a meeting in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday between a delegation from the U.S. Consulate and Palestinian city officials, marking an escalation in the widening rift between Palestinians and the U.S. after Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December. After interrupting the meeting with banners comparing Trump to Nazis and ISIS, and shouting “you are not welcome anymore!” the American officials abruptly walked out of a conference room at the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In Oct. 2017, Al Jazeera said it had done an undercover investigation of the Israel lobby in the U.S. in 2016. But the documentary has never aired — and meanwhile Israel advocates Alan Dershowitz and Mort Klein have visited the monarchy and put pressure on the government to rein in Al Jazeera. The network should air its findings.

Al-Shabaka’s Executive Director Nadia Hijab speaks in London to Palestine solidarity activists: “We badly need a positive, forward-looking narrative of what we are for, a narrative that unifies us and communicates the power of our vision. A narrative that provides a direction for the movement until the time comes for a political outcome. That unifying Palestinian narrative already exists: It’s Freedom. It’s Justice. It’s Equality.”

In his State of the Union speech, Donald Trump extemporized to characterize countries that receive aid from the US but voted against our recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last month as “enemies of America.” That list includes France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan.

In an unprecedented victory for the BDS movement, a federal judge has blocked Kansas from enforcing a state law which punishes those who express support or engage in the boycott of Israel. “The government has no right telling people what they can and can’t support, and this preliminary injunction will protect other Kansans from enduring the First Amendment violation that [Wichita public school teacher Esther] Koontz has endured,” said Micah Kubic, director of the ACLU of Kansas.

Palestinian photographer Hamde Abu Rahme visits Jerusalem for the first time, and posted video: “Finally, after 30 years of waiting, I got the chance to see my beautiful capital Jerusalem, which is only a 30 minute drive from home in the West Bank town of Bil’in… It makes me sad because maybe it will be my last time or maybe I visit this place in another 30 years.”

According to his family, Laith Abu Naim, 16, was unarmed when an Israeli soldier shot the boy at a distance of two meters during clashes in their village of Mughayer, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. “The soldiers killed him from a short range. They could have arrested him; they could have injured him; they could have shot his leg,” Laith’s uncle Marzouq Abu Naim told Palestinian media. “But the soldier meant to kill him. The bullet went through his eye and through the back of his head.” Abu Naim is the fourth Palestinian minor to be shot dead by Israeli forces in 2018 to date.

“We have to remember, it’s a Jewish newspaper,” Israeli author Ben-Dror Yemini says of the New York Times, linking it to the “sickness” of American Jews in seeking meaning by attacking Israel. He spoke at a Reform synagogue on the Upper West Side.

The Israeli Knesset voted earlier this month to amend the penal code in order to remove restriction on judges issuing the death penalty for those involved in murders while carrying out “terrorist operations.” The bill has not been adopted yet. From the monthly report on Palestinian health and human rights from Jewish Voice for Peace.

A hospital in the northern Gaza Strip suspended its services on Monday due to a lack of fuel, the hospital and a spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry said. “All health services provided at Beit Hanoun hospital were suspended due to power cuts and the lack of fuel for the hospital’s backup generators,” the hospital wrote in a statement posted to its official Facebook page.