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Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh meets with leaders of the Palestinian NGOs raided by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Ramallah on August 18, 2022. (Photo: Shadi Hatem/APA Images)

Israeli forces raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations, confiscated their equipment and materials, and shuttered their offices, claiming they were “unlawful”. The raids are the latest escalation since Israel arbitrarily designated six of the organizations as “terror groups” last year. Defense for Children International – Palestine director Khaled Quzmar tells Mondoweiss the message is clear: “We are under imminent risk now.”

Relatives of five Palestinian children who were killed during an Israeli attack on Gaza hold placards next to their graves, in Jabalia in the northern of Gaza strip on August 16, 2022. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

Israel has admitted to conducting the airstrike that killed five Palestinian children in Gaza after initially blaming their deaths on a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. The strike targeted the al-Faluja cemetery in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, and struck five children, four of whom were from the same family, while they were visiting the grave of their grandfather. The youngest victim of the strike was just three-years-old. 

Mohammed al-Halabi's family inside their home in Gaza City on April 22, 2021. (Photo by Mahmoud Ajjour/APA Images)

In the years I’ve been covering Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it’s an issue that arises time and time again. Palestinians are criminalized and imprisoned, and their lives destroyed all because of a weapon that Israel can yield, without any question or consequence: secret evidence.

On June 1, the Israeli Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a bill pushed by Likud Party MK member, Eli Cohen, to ban the display of “enemy flags” across Israeli state-funded institutions. Although the bill refers to “enemy flags,” the only flag that is explicitly noted is the Palestinian one. The bill must pass three additional Knesset votes before it becomes law. For Palestinians, the bill is not merely an attack on their flag, but is symbolic of a continued and systemic assault on symbols which express Palestinian identity.