The Palestinian Authority cabinet announced yesterday it will hold local elections in Gaza, despite the territory being ruled by Hamas who already stated it will boycott the elections. If municipalities do not participate in voting, the West Bank government may appoint winners of the race.
AFP reports Israel’s cabinet passed a plan for cable cars to run over East Jerusalem, “Israel’s government on Sunday approved plans to install a cable car to Jerusalem’s Old City, a project likely to anger Palestinians and much of the international community.”
Ma’an News Agency reports, “Three Palestinian security guards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem were assaulted and detained by Israeli police on Wednesday, as hundreds of right-wing Israelis and settlers took to the holy site in celebration of ‘Jerusalem Day.'”
![Former presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, leads a prayer for at least 4,000 right-wing Israelis, settlers, and members of Knesset in a 2 a.m. service at Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank near Nablus, Sunday. The convoy of Israelis sparked clashes with Palestinians. Huckabee called for Jewish access to religious sites inside of the occupied Palestinian territory, "[I]t’s my prayer, as I come here with you, that the holy sites that you and that I embrace will be accessible, and that we will not have to come in the dead of night in order to pray and seek the Lord’s face."](https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/huckabee.jpg "Clashes erupt as Mike Huckabee leads 2 a.m. rush of 4,000 right-wing Israelis to pray in West Bank")
Former governor Mike Huckabee is filmed leading thousands of right-wing Israelis in prayer at Joseph’s Tomb outside of Nablus in the early morning hours, prompting clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinians. Ma’an News Agency reports, “Clashes erupted between local Palestinians and Israeli soldiers who escorted some 4,000 right-wing Israelis to Joseph’s Tomb east of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank overnight Sunday, when at least two Palestinians were detained and several others suffered from tear gas inhalation. Among the group of Israelis who arrived to the site under armed protection was Mike Huckabee, former US governor of the state of Arkansas.”
Ma’an News Agency reports, “The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) reported that Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority (PA), maintained a majority of local council seats, despite independent lists having scored a higher number of votes. While approximately 65 percents of seats up for grabs during Saturday’s election went to registered or independent lists in 145 municipalities, another 181 villages and towns mainly saw Fatah lists run unopposed. As anti-PA sentiment has continued to grow over the past year, a number of political factions, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), decided to boycott the elections.”
Haaretz reports the Netanyahu government is mulling over a bill that would prohibit Israeli legal rights groups from representing the interest of Palestinians in Israeli courts, “A bill that would bar nongovernmental organizations from petitioning the High Court of Justice on behalf of Palestinians will be debated by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday. The bill is being proposed following the wave of court petitions filed seeking the evacuation of settlements built on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank.”
Al Jazeera reports Israeli lawmakers will soon vote on a bill that strikes Arabic from the list of official languages, “Israeli ministers have approved a controversial bill that will downgrade Arabic as an official language and define the country as the ‘national home of the Jewish people.’ Ayman Odeh, a parliament member who heads the mainly Arab Joint List alliance, said approving the bill would mean trampling on minority rights, adding it would ‘legally transform us into second-class citizens’.”
The Israeli army fired inside a Ramallah hospital overnight, Ma’an News Agency reports, “Israeli forces fired bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas at a Palestinian hospital in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah at dawn on Thursday, sparking condemnation from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Eyewitnesses told Ma‘an that Israeli soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas inside the Palestinian Medical Complex grounds for more than an hour early on Thursday morning, causing many patients, including children, to suffer from tear gas inhalation.”
Wafa reports that after multiple cancellations, Palestinian Authority elections are back on in the West Bank but Hamas will be boycotting and Gaza will not participate in the vote.
Writing in Haaretz, John Brown asks: “800 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli and PA security forces as a result of a computerized program that tries to predict lone-wolf attacks based on social media posts. But how can you jail someone for a crime they haven’t committed?”