April 26th, 20210Palestinians COVID-19 cases, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant, which was first identified in Britain.
Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic...
April 22nd, 20210JERUSALEM — Nightly clashes and other violent incidents between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem during Ramadan have laid bare simmering tensions in the holy city.
Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police amid a dispute over evening gatherings at Damascus Gate after iftar, the breaking of the daytime fast during the...
April 15th, 20210Australia’s Labor Party’s recognition of Palestine as a state on March 30 is a welcomed position, though it comes with many caveats.
Pro-Palestinian activists are justified to question the sincerity of the ALP’s stance and whether Australia’s Labor is genuinely prepared to fully adopt this position should they form a...
April 14th, 20210The Israeli government’s position regarding an impending investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of alleged war crimes committed in occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to...
April 8th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C./WEST BANK — On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would provide $235 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians, restarting funding for the United Nations agency supporting refugees and restoring other assistance cut off by former President Trump.
The package, including humanitarian, economic and...
April 8th, 20210If imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti becomes the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the status quo will change substantially. For Israel, as well as for the current PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, such a scenario is more dangerous than another strong Hamas showing in the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary...
April 8th, 20210Israel will tell the International Criminal Court (ICC) it does not recognize the authority of the tribunal, which is planning to investigate possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Netanyahu, after meeting with senior ministers and government officials ahead of a Friday...
April 5th, 20210JERUSALEM - An Israeli prosecutor told a court on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had helped a business couple to clinch deals worth hundred of millions of shekels in exchange for favourable coverage of him on a news website they controlled.
Speaking at the opening of Netanyahu’s corruption trial, state prosecutor Liat...
March 24th, 20210Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prospects for another term looked uncertain on Wednesday after partial results from a national election projected no clear path to victory.
Not even his stewardship of Israel’s world-beating COVID-19 vaccination rollout — a central pillar of his campaign — proved enough for...
March 19th, 20210BEIT DAJAN - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian on Friday as demonstrators protesting against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank hurled rocks at soldiers, a Reuters witness said.
The man was shot in the head during a protest near the villlage of Beit Dajan, near Nablus, and was taken to a hospital where he later died,...
March 15th, 20210At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the reasons behind the split are quite different.
As Israel readies for its fourth general elections...
March 5th, 20213CALIFORNIA — Palestinian activist Suhair Nafal has won a defamation lawsuit brought against her by a former Israeli soldier who claimed Nafal’s Facebook post objecting to Israeli war crimes defamed and slandered her.
The former Israeli soldier, Rebecca Rumshiskaya, sued Nafal in September over a viral Facebook post she published...
February 24th, 20210For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homes and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic verse. It is all of this, combined.
The death in Amman of Palestinian poet Mourid...
February 17th, 20210Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former President Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting,...
February 16th, 20210TEL AVIV — The Biden administration and Israel seem to have embarked on an uncertain and rocky relationship, in contrast to what the country's right-wing government enjoyed with former President Trump.
More friction arose this week, with Israel throwing cold water on U.S. hopes to engage with the country on the topic of Iran and its...
February 12th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — Though it took former President Trump a mere two days after his inauguration to call Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, President Biden is yet to do so.
Biden has called many world leaders in the first three weeks of his presidency, including leaders of Russia, China, France, Japan and more.
Israeli diplomats and...
February 6th, 20210The Pakistani government should never, under any circumstances and no matter the pressure, normalize with Israel. Doing so is not only dangerous — as it will embolden an already vile, racist, violent apartheid Israel — but it would also be considered a betrayal of a historic legacy of mutual solidarity, collective affinity and...
February 5th, 20210AMSTERDAM - The International Criminal Court ruled on Friday that it has jurisdiction over war crimes or atrocities committed in the Palestinian Territories, paving the way for a criminal investigation, despite Israeli objections.
Judges said their decision was based on jurisdictional rules in the Hague-based court’s founding...
January 21st, 20210On Jan. 11, the Israeli Lod District Court ruled against a Palestinian film-maker, Mahmoud Bakri, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002, in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp located in the northern occupied West Bank.
The...
January 14th, 20210Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous.
Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar...
January 12th, 202102020 will go down in history as the year that terminated the American-sponsored “peace process.” While 2021 will not reverse the monumental change in the U.S. attitude and objectives in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, the new year presents Palestinians with the opportunity to think outside the American box.
The previous...
January 11th, 20210JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered construction plans advanced on Monday for some 800 Jewish settler homes in the occupied West Bank, anchoring the projects in the final days of the pro-settlement Trump administration.
Palestinians condemned such construction as illegal. The timing of the move appeared to be...
December 23rd, 20200It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty.
Israel is currently at the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years. Even by...
December 16th, 20200December 8 came and went as if it was an ordinary day. For Palestinian political groups, it was another anniversary to be commemorated, however hastily. It was on this day, 33 years ago, that the First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) broke out, and there was nothing ordinary about this historic event.
Today, the uprising is merely...
December 15th, 20200JERUSALEM — For Nabil al-Kurd, being forced out of the East Jerusalem home he has lived in since the 1950s would be a fate worse than death.
But the 76-year-old and his wife and children are among dozens of Palestinians under threat of eviction from two districts of the disputed city, after an Israeli court ruled their properties are...
December 2nd, 20200Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to worry about as Antony J. Blinken, who will directly handle America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a loyal friend of Israel. Crisis averted.
President-elect Joe Biden’s appointment of Antony J. Blinken as his secretary of state was a master stroke,...
December 1st, 20200In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel.
“These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime...
November 14th, 20200“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world.”
These were the words of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh during a virtual meeting with European legislators on November 3. While some may agree with Shtayyeh’s assessment, such...
