As evening turned to night on January 30th in New York City, more than sixty supporters Ahed Tamimi gathered beneath the Amtrak arrivals and departures screen at Penn Station to celebrate her life and demand the 17-year-old’s release. The rally was just one of many around the world on Tamimi’s birthday that brought attention to her case, and the larger struggle for Palestinian liberation that she represents.

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.

After pressure from local pro-Israel organizations, the New Orleans City Council yesterday voted unanimously to rescind a human rights resolution that the body passed exactly two weeks ago. “The hoods are off. We see the way Zionist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federation are willing to kill a human rights resolution and undermine entire movements to protect Israel,” Anna Baltzer, Director of Organizing and Advocacy with the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said.

Eight days have passed since Amer Othman Adi was detained by federal immigration agents upon arrival at a “routine” check-in, as mandated by the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) office in Cleveland. Following his arrest, Adi’s family has applied unrelenting pressure on the immigration agency, both engaging the press and elected officials via social media, letter writing, and direct action. “This isn’t [ICE] deporting immigrants; this is ICE bullying and tricking people,” Lina Adi, Amer’s daughter, tells Mondoweiss “ICE is out of control.”

Palestinian-American business owner Amer Othman al Adi has been in the country nearly 40 years. Today the 57-year-old sits in the Geauga County jail awaiting deportation — the first time Adi has seen the inside of a jail cell, and a shock to his congressman and wife and family, who had been cooperating with immigration authorities.

A day after the New Orleans City Council unanimously approved a resolution to add a human rights standard into the review process for city contracts, which would include companies profiting off of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, city officials have started to distance themselves from the politics behind the legislation. The statements come after backlash from the outgoing mayor’s office, and years of local leaders receiving donations and backing from major pro-Israel organizations who lobby against the law.

The city council of New Orleans unanimously passed a resolution which calls on the city to review and divest from companies that perpetrate human rights violations anywhere in the world. It was proposed by local Palestine solidarity activists who support the BDS movement for Palestinian human rights. “It’s not very different from the stance that a number of entities took when apartheid was commonplace in South Africa,” Councilmember-at-large and cosponsor Jason Williams said in adopting the resolution.

After two decades fighting to remain in the United States, Amer Othman Adi spent the first days of 2018 saying goodbye to his friends and neighbors in his adopted hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. That is until his lawyer and supporters — including a Congressman — secured a final-hour stay of deportation yesterday, just a few days before Adi’s forced deportation to Jordan scheduled for Sunday. “I have been fighting this deportation for almost 23 years; I thought we had it solved,” Adi told a small group of teary-eyed friends and neighbors gathered at the hookah bar on Tuesday. “But when Donald Trump was elected I knew I was in trouble.”

Israel issued a blacklist of 20 organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Among those barred entry are Code Pink, AFSC, American Muslims for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. “We wear this designation as a badge of honor,” said Yousef Munayyer of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Through a bullhorn to cut through the hum of holiday shoppers, some forty people rallied in New York City’s Union Square Friday night in support and solidarity for Ahed Tamimi, the 16-year-old Palestinian girl arrested by Israeli soldiers during a pre-dawn raid of her family’s home in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Mariah Tamimi called Ahed the best representative for her people, telling Mondoweiss, “she inspires me; and I think she inspires the rest of Palestine.”