On August 19, Israeli Advocate Eitay Mack filed a freedom of information request to shed light on the government’s role in the ongoing smear campaign against UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. In an interview with Mondoweiss, Mack spoke about his motivations behind filing such a request, the significance of Israel’s possible interference in UK politics, and the Netanyahu government’s failure to challenge real threats of anti-Semitism in Europe and around the world.
As the long-fought battle to save the village of Khan al-Ahmar from demolition continues, another fight is taking place on the sidelines — one that could have life changing effects on the fate of the Bedouins in Khan al-Ahmar, and the future of the occupied West Bank.
Nestled in the hilltops of the occupied West Bank, an ancient Palestinian Christian village is gearing up for a fight against the Israeli occupation. “My family has owned hundreds of dunums of land in Aboud for centuries. Our roots date so far back, I cannot even count,” seventy-year-old Abdullah Sharqawi tells Mondoweiss. “For now maybe they will let me access the land. But inevitably, with time, they will tell me no, it is not allowed,” he says.
“It was the first time that the Palestinian community moved in buses from our towns and villages to the middle of a Jewish center, Tel Aviv, to challenge the public discourse in Israel,” Jafir Farah of Mossawa center says of massive demonstration on August 11 that united Jews and Palestinians in solidarity against the new nation state of the Jewish people law.
Three Palestinians were killed during pre dawn Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip Thursday. Among the dead were a woman, who was nine months pregnant, and her 18-month-old daughter. Thursday’s events are the latest in a series of severe flare ups over the past few months in Gaza, leading many local and international officials to speculate that another large-scale Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory could be imminent.
On Monday, Israeli forces raided a village in the central West Bank to arrest Palestinian journalist Ibrahim Rantisi. Rantisi’s arrest marked the sixth Palestinian journalist to be detained by Israeli forces in a single week, causing alarm among Palestinian media and journalists that Israel’s suppression of their work, will soon also become a daily occurrence .
The first half of 2018 has been deadly for Palestinian children, with at least 35 children killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip, according to Defense for Children International — Palestine (DCIP). In a report published on Monday, DCIP said that between January and July, the number of slain Palestinian children was three times higher than during the same time period in 2017. According to the group, Israeli forces have killed more Palestinian children since January this year than in any previous year of the past decade, outside of large-scale Israeli military offensives.
An Israeli district court sentenced Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, 36, to five months in prison and a six-month suspended sentence on Tuesday for posting a poem she wrote to social media in 2015.
After eight months in Israeli prison, 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi returned home on Sunday morning to a hero’s welcome in her village of Nabi Saleh, in the central occupied West Bank. Arm in arm with her father Bassem and mother Nariman, who was also released on Sunday along with her daughter, the teenager broke down in tears as she was embraced by her younger brothers, extended family, and fellow residents of Nabi Saleh.
Israeli border police arrested a Palestinian man and two Italian artists next to the Israeli separation wall in occupied Bethlehem on Saturday. The artists had been painting a heroic mural of imprisoned Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi, who is set to be released back to her home tomorrow after serving eight months in prison for slapping an Israeli soldier.