3,400 Gazans received their national Palestinian ID cards for the first time following a rare approval from the Israeli government, which controls the Palestinian population registry in the occupied territory, and has put a freeze on issuing IDs for over a decade.
The Palestinian Authority is rife with corruption, which has now started to influence all parts of Palestinian society. The PA will only be forced to respect the rule of law if Palestinians demand it, and the international community cuts off funding until it does.
Israel withholds Palestinian tax funds from the PA so as to enforce its collective punishment of the families of militants. Now Defense Minister Benny Gantz is seeking to “loan” the P.A. that money in line with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s promise to Joe Biden to improve Palestinian conditions.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the city center of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in protest of the Palestinian Authority’s killing of popular activist and dissident Nizar Banat earlier this summer. The demonstration came on the heels of mass arrests by the PA of prominent Palestinian critics of Abbas’ regime. These arrests have caught the eyes of the international community, including some members of Congress.
The Palestinian Authority has announced a new move to limit freedom of expression for Palestinians already living under Israel’s occupation. The PA’s decision comes on the heels of the torture and murder of activist Nizar Banat, and a wave of arrests and intimidation of activists, journalists, and the employees of legal assistance and human rights organizations. Mahmoud Abbas is hoping to extinguish criticism from inside and outside the PA and Fatah, but these repressive policies will generate even greater hostility from Palestinians whose dreams of freedom are being smothered by a corrupt and brutal authority.
Adalah Justice Project’s Sumaya Awad talks with Jehad Abusalim about Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, and the US movement for Palestine in the wake of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza. “It is crucial to understand Gaza and its experience in the context of the Nakba and its unfolding and continuation since 1948. This has to be the starting point if people want to be serious and invested in understanding the current situation in Gaza,” Abusalim explains.
Despite the ongoing crackdown and the harassment campaign targeting activists on social media, protests against the PA and the killing of Nizar Banat are ongoing. On Saturday, Ramallah saw what was perhaps the largest protest against the PA since demonstrations began two weeks ago. People continued to call for the end of the PA, and the immediate fall of Abbas and his regime.
On June 26, 2021, Fatah loyalists from Mahmoud Abbas’s faction, some of which identified as undercover Palestinian security personnel, attacked Palestinian demonstrators with sticks and stones as they made their way to Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah, West Bank. Protesters marched following the extrajudicial killing of prominent opposition activist Nizar Banat by the Palestinian Authority in Hebron three days ago.
One Democratic State Campaign: The killing of opposition activist Nizar Al-Banat shows the status quo cannot continue. The countdown on the Palestinian Authority has begun.
The prospect of holding long awaited legislative elections in Palestine is quickly slipping away, as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is expected to announce that the elections, which have been 15 years in the making, will be delayed. The move comes as internal rifts continue to grow within Abbas’ Fatah party, with multiple contenders challenging the official slate presented by Abbas and his inner circle.