On Thursday, Israeli bulldozers demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert for the 99th time. A local resident told Quds Press that several Bedouin families became homeless again after Israeli bulldozers escorted by police forces stormed the village and razed all their homes.
During his trial for murdering a Palestinian in Hebron, Elor Azaria’s defense team has cast doubts on the video shot by Imad Abu Shamsiyah showing the execution. The opinion of an expert from the DIFS (Division of Identification and Forensic Science) says that B’Tselem’s videos are authentic.
Sunday June 5th marks the 49th anniversary of the day known to Palestinians as the ‘Naksa’ [‘setback’], the day that the Israeli military occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai peninsula. During the Naksa, around 300,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, and became refugees. 49 years later, the military occupation continues.
On Tuesday, the Knesset “Land of Israel” caucus called to annex the major West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, citing a poll showing nearly 78 percent of Israelis support the move. The push came in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he is open to negotiating based on the Arab Peace Initiative.
The lawyers representing the IDF medic who is charged in the killing of a wounded Palestinian in Hebron in March called yesterday for the return to Israel of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif’s body, which was released on Friday and buried by his family in Hebron on Saturday
Off-duty Border Police officers in civilian clothes savagely assaulted a Palestinian supermarket worker in central Tel Aviv on Sunday after he refused to identify himself because he didn’t know who they were, according to eyewitnesses. “The blows were murderous, from the guy and from one of his friends. I’ve never seen anything like it. Teeth were flying through the air. The Arab was torn apart,” Erez Krispin, an eyewitness, wrote in a Facebook post.
Press release: “Youth Against Settlements is pleased to announce that the closed military zone orders in Hebron were not renewed today by the Israeli military. The Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron had been under closed military zone orders since November 1, 2015 with the order having been renewed at 2-4 week intervals. Youth Against Settlements attributes (YAS) this success to the Open the Zone campaign that YAS and International Solidarity Movement (ISM) launched on May 3. The campaign involved video testimony of families and individuals living in the closed military zone describing the difficulties the closed military zone created for their lives. “
Arab American diplomat, activist and scholar Dr. Clovis Maksoud died Sunday in Washington DC after suffering a severe cerebral hemorrhage. He was 90 years old.
According to a report released on Sunday by al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, the power crisis in Gaza has led to the death of 29 Palestinians, mostly children, since 2010. All those victims either burned alive or suffocated to death by thick smoke after they used unsafe alternative means to light their homes as a result of prolonged power outages.
AP reports: “Each day, millions of gallons of raw sewage pour into the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean beachfront, spewing out of a metal pipe and turning miles of once-scenic coastline into a stagnant dead zone. The sewage has damaged Gaza’s limited fresh water supplies, decimated fishing zones, and after years of neglect, is now floating northward and affecting Israel as well, where a nearby desalination plant was forced to shut down, apparently due to pollution.”