The Israeli army Thursday allowed dozens of Jewish settlers into Sebastia archeological site in the north of the occupied West Bank despite a Palestinian Authority decision closing tourist sites and banning gatherings in an effort to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
The village of Turmus Ayya, nestled in a valley between the Nablus and Ramallah districts in the northern occupied West Bank, had high hopes when a local Palestinian company proposed constructing a new housing development on the outskirts of the village. But the Netanyahu government wouldn’t allow it. “We learned from the media that Israel was banning construction in Area B, specifically in Turmus Ayya and the villages around the Shilo settlement,” Saeed Hussein, mayor of Turmus Ayya told Mondoweiss. “Since the release of the peace plan, any new policy in Israel can be directly tied to the American government,” Hussein said.
Nour Joudah writes, “the debate, the conversation, the driving force for peace and justice in Israel-Palestine cannot be about salvaging a territory of fragmented Bantustans, pieced together with a highway and tunnel.”
On Wednesday, Palestinian political leaders and civil servants joined UN officials to launch an appeal for $348 million in aid “to provide basic food, protection, health care, shelter, water and sanitation to 1.5 million Palestinians” in Gaza, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Five years ago organized rock climbing in Palestine was non-existent. Then two young American climbing enthusiasts began developing rock climbing sites near Ramallah and refugee camps around the West Bank. “You know there are beautiful areas around Ramallah, but we would not go there if we didn’t climb,” local climber Momen Naeem tells Mondoweiss. “It makes people love the land, makes you love this place more.”
After US Ambassador David Friedman said Israel has a right to annex parts of the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it may file a complaint with the International Criminal Court. “What reasoning could justify Friedman’s logic? International law prohibits the annexation of a land by force,” it said.
Every year during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Israeli authorities approve a package to “relax” the restrictions on movement for West Bank Palestinians to facilitate worshippers’ trips to Jerusalem. As a result, tens of thousands of Palestinians headed to Qalandiya checkpoint, Bethlehem 300 checkpoint, and Zaytoun checkpoint early on Friday mornings to take advantage of the unusual regulations. Ahmad Al-Bazz reports from Qalandiya and Bethlehem to show what life under Israel control looks like.
“I drive through more than 15 checkpoints,” per day, Mahmoud Ali tells Mondoweiss. “That means they take away my freedom 15 times and give it back to me 15 times. My freedom is in their hands, not my hands.”
Michael Oren hangs up on the New Yorker and accuses it of “delegitimization” when reporter Isaac Chotiner asks why he has a right as a Jew born in New York to move to the occupied West Bank. The New Yorker inches closer to the awareness that today’s Zionism is settler-colonialism.
Since Netanyahu’s reelection, mainstream Democrats have taken up ardent opposition to his plan to annex parts of West Bank. Sec’y of State Mike Pompeo won’t say what Trump will do, but MD’s Chris Van Hollen dares to imagine one state with equal rights: “Would you agree that in a one state solution Palestinians should have full and equal political and legal rights with other citizens of that state?”