The entire experience of the coronavirus in the West Bank serves as a perfect example of how Israel rules over Palestinians. While the coronavirus doesn’t differentiate between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel sure does. Everything in this country is politicized and affected by the colonial structure. The epidemic is just another perspective to understand it from.
Malek Issa, 8, was shot in the face with a rubber-coated bullet by an Israeli police officer as he was on his way home February 15 in occupied Jerusalem. Israeli police said an officer claimed to have fired his weapon at a wall for “calibration” purposes, and thought Issa was hit by an alleged Palestinian stone-thrower.
The Trump administration has dealt another blow to the the flailing Palestinian Authority (PA) in the form of more budget cuts, this time to the PA’s security forces. It is understood that future funding is contingent upon the PA accepting Trump’s “peace plan” that was released two weeks ago, which they have categorically rejected.
It’s been six months of unrest in Issawiya. Excessive police brutality and indiscriminate daily raids by Israeli forces with no justification have left residents of the East Jerusalem district exhausted – and there is no end in sight.
The Christmas tree is up at the entrance to the Imperial Hotel in Jerusalem, but for its Palestinian hosts there is little festive cheer amid fears they could be evicted in favour of Israeli settlers, the AFP reports.
The New York Times gives Paul Wolfowitz a platform to criticize Trump on the withdrawal from Syria, and the fight against ISIS, without saying a word about the roots of ISIS in the destruction that his project of invading Iraq wrought throughout the region. Wolfowitz should be on trial for major war crimes, Helena Cobban writes, not featured in the New York Times.
This week, the United Nations attempted to put a figure on exactly how much the occupation was costing the Palestinian economy. The number it arrived at — an estimated $48 billion between 2000 and 2017 — was larger than many expected.
Israeli soldiers opened fire on three Palestinian civilians near a settlement west of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian News and Info Agency reported. Badawi Khaled al-Masalma, 18, was seriously wounded and Palestinian medics were not allowed to approach him for several minutes. He later died.
Boston has banned ads for Palestine– and other political causes– in transportation sites, and an anonymous group responded by opening many bus station kiosks this week and replacing advertisements for commercial products with “posters explaining that the good people of Boston lose out on social programming, education, and clean energy because $11 million of this city’s taxes go towards buying guns for Israel every single year.”
Palestinian social media erupted over the weekend as people expressed their outrage over a leaked video showing and Israeli border police officer shooting a Palestinian in the back as the man walked away from the officers, his hands raised in the air.