On Friday, Palestinian infant Ashraf al-Qidra died due to severe cold in Gaza. The infant’s family lives in an area heavily damaged during Israel’s summer war on Gaza and they continued living in their damaged home. Ma’an News writes, “Due to lack of alternative shelter, many of the nearly 110,000 Palestinians left homeless by Israeli bombardment have done the same, including many living in just tents.”
Within days of Palestinians announcing they would join the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his country would stop transferring customs revenue to the Palestinian Authority. The punitive move was expected to lead to a crisis for the Palestinian leadership as government services would collapse across the West Bank. But the Palestinian Authority had an unexpected back up plan. The Arab League has agreed to provide emergency funds to cover the VAT-taxes frozen by Israel. This Arab League safety net will help the Palestinians avoid the expected temporary bankruptcy and allow them to move forward with pressing for war crimes at the ICC. In fact, financial support from the Arab League was a key component, along with joining the ICC, of long-term strategy to pressure Israel into negotiations.
California Scholars for Academic Freedom writes the University of Pennsylvania after Chris Hedges is disinvited from speaking for likening ISIS to Israel.
The attack on the satirical French publication Charlie Hebdo, leaving at least 12 dead, has inundated the Western media with the tragedy being touted as a “free speech” issue. While the calamity dominates discussions on social media and the press scrupulously tracks the story, both the press and popular culture continue to ignore Israel’s record of intimidating and deliberately targeting journalists.
Eric Fingerhut, head of Hillel Int’l, says the group Open Hillel is operating deceptively, with the aim of turning Hillel chapters into sites of “anti-Israel agitation,” and citing a biblical lesson of God’s vengeance against a rebel, he says this is beyond the pale.
The door to the Hague may be open, but Abbas is in no hurry to venture through it.
A controversial military investigation is illuminating the deadliest incident of Operation Protective Edge, as well as one of the Israeli army’s most shadowy directives: an order intended to thwart the abduction of IDF soldiers, even at the risk of killing them. Code named Hannibal, the protocol was carried out in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on August 1, 2014, a date now known as Black Friday; the resulting artillery barrage and torrent of airstrikes killed 190 Palestinians in two days, according to Gaza human rights groups, after the suspected capture by Hamas fighters of 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin. Recordings of the IDF assault, publicized last week, suggest a chaotic and undisciplined outburst of violence: “I repeat, stop the shooting!” the brigade commander yells over the field radio. “You’re shooting like retards. You’ll kill one another. Enough!”
Shukri Abu Baker writes a poem about the agony of being separated from his family while in prison as part of the Holy Land Foundation 5.
On May 15, 2014, Mohammad Abu Daher, 16, was fatally shot in the back by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia. One hour earlier, Israeli forces shot and killed Nadeem Nawara, 17, in the same spot. With your help, Defence for Children Palestine can demand accountability for their killing.
A controversy, if you can call it that, has broken over Naftali Bennett’s operational role as an officer during a 1996 attack in Lebanon that killed 102 civilians, including four U.N. officials.