Haaretz reports: “A group of around 30 demonstrators from the left-wing Jewish group “If Not Now” gathered Monday in front of the office of Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) to protest Israel’s use of deadly force against thousands of Palestinian demonstrators on the Israel-Gaza border in recent weeks.”
Several Israeli ministers and Knesset members praised an Israeli sniper who cheered after shooting an unarmed Palestinian boy near Gaza’s borders. (See video below.) Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the soldier “deserves an appreciation certificate” for doing his job properly. Education Minister Naftali Bennett said, “Anyone who was ever on the battlefield knows that to sit in Tel Aviv or studios and judge IDF soldiers according to their comments, when they are busy defending our borders, is not something serious.”
Monday Marwan Odah Qdeih, 45, from Khuza‘a in the southern Gaza Strip, died after succumbing to injuries he sustained after Israeli soldiers shot him in Friday’s Great March of Return. Qdeih became the 30th person killed in the border protests, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Palestinian medical sources have reported that an armed Israeli military drone fired a missile at Palestinian protesters near Erez Crossing on Wednesday killing Mojahed Nabil al-Khodary, 23, from Gaza City.
In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Mohammed bin Salman said Israel has the same “right” to their land that the Palestinians have, putting the competing land claims on an equal footing for the first time.
In preparation of the nonviolent Great Return March in Gaza the Israeli military deployed more than 100 snipers, with permission to fire, on the Gaza border. “We have deployed more than 100 sharpshooters who were called up from all of the military’s units, primarily from the special forces … If lives are in jeopardy, there is permission to open fire,” Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot told Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israeli soldiers arrested Asad Al-Din Ibrahim Abulhawa, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy with severe burns on his back, from an East Jerusalem hospital, on charges of throwing a Molotov cocktail at Israeli forces. Police then defied the family and moved the boy to an Israeli hospital.
A Jewish Israeli man was sentenced on Tuesday to 400 hours of community service and a $2,200 fine after participating in a group assault on a Palestinian man returning home from work. Daniel Cohen Shor, along with five others, attacked a 45-year-old Palestinian, hitting him in the ribs and left ear, before beating him as he lay on the ground and racially abusing him. The Jerusalem District Court judge justified the light sentence “because of the man’s personal circumstances and because he accepted responsibility for his actions”.
Human Rights Watch researcher Abier Almasri writes: “Friends and family back home keep asking, ‘How’s life outside Gaza?’ I can’t answer. How to tell people who live on four to six hours of electricity daily that high-rise buildings in New York leave their lights on 24 hours a day, simply because it looks nice?”
Video captured on Monday by Ma’an News shows Israeli forces assaulting Palestinian medics as they were attempting to aid a Palestinian who had been shot during clashes in the area. The four paramedics were beaten, pushed and allegedly threatened by soldiers of being shot and pepper-sprayed before Israeli soldiers opened live fire were in the air above their heads. Despite being beaten and pushed around, video of the assault shows the medics repeatedly attempting to rescue injured youth from Israeli troops.