Israeli occupation authorities refused to issue travel permits for hundreds of Palestinian Christians from Gaza who planned to visit holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem during Passover, Safa news agency reported yesterday.

Reporting Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Safa said that Israel allowed only 200 Christians from Gaza, who are over 55 years old, to travel to Jordan only and did not issue permits for those wishing to visit the Church of Nativity in occupied Bethlehem or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied Jerusalem.

Israeli rights group Gisha reported complaints against the Israeli occupation regarding the restrictions imposed on people who want to travel during the Jewish Passover holiday which coincides with Easter.

“This is a flagrant violation of the freedom of movement, freedom of worship and freedom of enjoying family life for the Christians in Gaza,” Gisha said, noting that Gaza is an example of a “wider Israeli racist policy”.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit Moscow in the coming months with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After winning the Israeli election with a slim majority, in a campaign that grew more sordid and vilifying by the day, Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to begin his fifth term as Israeli prime minister.

The culmination of his dirty tricks campaign was an election-day stunt in which his Likud party broke regulations – and possibly the law – by arming 1,200 activists with hidden cameras, to film polling stations in communities belonging to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

Netanyahu justified the move by saying it would ensure the election was “kosher”. Yet again, Israel’s prime minister made it clear that the country’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens were unwelcome interlopers in what he regards as an exclusively Jewish political process.

Those who still had doubts, should finally be better informed. “Jewish state”, Zionism and democracy are mutually exclusive. When the beginning of the Passover feast with the first Seder begins this Friday night, it would be time to liberate the country not from bread crumbs but from far-right political politicians who want nothing more than religious Zionism as the weapon of the eternal Judaization. This affects not only the oppressed and occupied Palestinians deprived of their liberty, but also the secular Jewish citizens of Israel.

The Trump administration again named Israelis along with Americans as deserving immunity from International Criminal Court prosecution.

In a statement Friday, President Donald Trump declared victory after the ICC rejected a request to investigate U.S. personnel for actions in Afghanistan.

“Since the creation of the ICC, the United States has consistently declined to join the court because of its broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers; the threat it poses to American national sovereignty; and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate,” the White House said in a statement it attributed to Trump. “Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”

Arab foreign ministers are to meet on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in Palestine at the request of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Wattan Voice reported on Monday.

During his first meeting with his government on Monday, the recently appointed PA Prime Minister Mohammad Ishteya told his colleagues that President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the meeting to lead the discussion.

In the meantime, added Ishteya, Abbas is to discuss the issue of the financial safety network, which was approved at a previous Arab League meeting. The network was established in order to support the Palestinian Authority budget.

A new Miles of Smiles convoy is set to arrive in the Gaza Strip early next month, the Head of the Popular International Committee to Support Gaza has revealed. The announcement was made yesterday by Dr Essam Youssef, who is also the coordinator of the series of convoys which first entered Gaza back in 2009.

The Egyptian authorities have given permission for the group of humanitarian activists to enter the territory through the Rafah Crossing, reported Quds Press.

“The Gaza Strip,” said Youssef, “is under an Israeli-led siege and economic sanctions, so the people need a lot of humanitarian assistance.” The healthcare sector is in particular need of urgent support, he added.

Responding to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for ending the division, Hamas said yesterday that his actions do match his words.

In a press release issued by spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanou, Hamas said: “The continuous sanctions imposed on Gaza by Abbas, as well as his separatist measures do not meet his calls for ending the division.”

Al-Qanou noted that the formation of the ongoing Fatah government was the latest proof that Abbas is reinforcing national division.

Discussions which frame Palestine’s precarious future within the context of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” versus the two-state compromise continue. Apparently with just these two dangerous options on the table, Palestine is being pushed into oblivion.

In anticipation of Trump’s deal, a group of former officials from European countries have sent a letter to EU Foreign Ministers and the EU High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy. They call upon the EU to reject the US deal and affirm “the internationally agreed parameters for a two-state solution.”

Notre Dame de Paris wasn't the only beloved house of worship that caught fire Monday. Part of the Haram ash-Sharif, the huge Jerusalem mosque built where a pivotal event in the prophet Muhammad's life is believed to have occurred, also caught fire, damaging a part of the structure dating to Judean King Herod the Great's reign.

Israeli soldiers attacked, Monday, dozens of schoolchildren and teachers in the southern area of Hebron city, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, causing dozens of teachers and schoolchildren to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation.

Media sources in Hebron said the soldiers fired a barrage of gas bombs and concussion grenades into and around Hebron Elementary School for Boys, Khadija Bint Khweiled Emanatory School for Boys, Thu Nurain Elementary School for Bays, and Tareq Bin Ziad School for Boys, while the students were standing in line, in the yards of their schools, preparing to start the school day.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners entered day five of their mass hunger strike in several Israeli prisons on Friday.

On 8 April, 400 Palestinians launched an open-ended mass hunger strike with a long list of demands, including improved medical care and conditions, more family visits and access to a public telephone, among others.

Prisoners are also calling for an end to repressive measures imposed by a newly formed committee headed by Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan to worsen conditions for detained Palestinians and reduce their standard of living to “the minimum required,” including imposing water rations.

Along the political spectrum, from the far left to extreme right, and spanning racial and ethnic lines, nearly everyone who has something to say about protesters in Gaza seems to fail the task of recognising Palestinian humanity. If it's coming from the right, the narrative is of terrorists, rockets and Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance fully cemented as the Boogieman in the western imagination.

From the left, the stories are the stuff of legends, portraying unfathomable Palestinian heroism, courage and "sumud", an Arabic word romanticised in English to convey epic Palestinian steadfastness.

An Israeli court ordered the demolition of Palestinian homes because they were allegedly built in the “Peace Forest” but has given settlers permission to build there gives permission for settlers to build their homes, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday.

Palestinian residents of the homes appealed to the Israeli District Court in Jerusalem against the demolition order, but the court turned down their appeal.

According to Haaretz, the Israeli court upheld the demolition because, as claimed by the Israeli municipality, the houses are being built in what the municipality calls the “Peace Forest’ in the Abu Tor neighbourhood. It added that they had also been built without the impossible to obtain building permits.

Israel yesterday withdrew the military forces it had deployed around the Gaza Strip, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.

The Arabic paper said Israel’s Channel 12 revealed that the decision was made after a military evaluation of the current situation in Gaza was carried out. The forces will now return to their bases and resume training to “be ready for any emergency”.

“The Israeli army is still prepared very well for any emergency,” an army spokesperson said.

Israel had deployed reinforcements along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone ahead of the one year anniversary of the Palestinian Great March of return which was due to take place on 30 March.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election pledge to annex the West Bank will not harm the US’ “deal of the century”.

Asked if he thought Netanyahu’s pledge to annex the West Bank would harm the “deal of the century”, Pompeo replied “I do not think so”.

Pompeo told CNN that the US peace plan will present a different model from the ones that have been used.

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has announced that his country understands Israel’s need to have dominant security control in the West Bank as part of any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians. He said that this is because Washington understands the threat to Israel’s existence if Hamas ever took control of the occupied Palestinian territory in the way that it has controlled the Gaza Strip following the evacuation of Israeli settlers in 2005.

This suggests that the “deal of the century” includes a clear position that Israel will not withdraw from the West Bank to ensure that it does not come under Hamas rule. That is also consistent with recent Israeli statements about its protection of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, which would fall immediately into Hamas hands if such protection is lifted.

The video is an apparent attempt to suggest that Mizher forfeited special protection afforded to medics under international law by taking off his vest and throwing a stone at a soldier.

But like most of Israel’s attempts to justify its use of lethal force against Palestinians, it doesn’t hold water.

It is based on a lie, intended to cover up the intentional killing of a medic.

An investigation by the human rights group Al-Haq found that Mizher had not been on the rooftop before he was killed.

Additionally, the figure seen in the video is wearing a white shirt under his high-visibility vest. Mizher was wearing a black shirt under his vest, as is shown in a group photo of the volunteer medics taken hours before a bullet to the stomach took his life, published as an appendix in Al-Haq’s report.

Palestinian activists are talking of a 'new Naqba', a new catastrophe. The murderous attacks on the Right to Return marches are one part of a much wider assault. Most seriously, with the full backing of Donald Trump, a new Netanyahu government looks set to start annexing parts of the West Bank.

Such a move would be an open declaration by Israel and its Western backers that the recognition of Palestine is off the table.

In these circumstances, it is vital the whole of the movement stands with the Palestinians and that we defy the attempts that have been made over the last year to silence us.

Israel annexation of occupied Palestine territories: will Netanyahu decide to act on his threat?

It may be difficult for some to understand the impact that a pop icon has on social and political events, but these cultural figures possess enormous psychological sway in the minds of millions. Their actions make a difference. So it can be quite jarring when one of those icons goes against the justified demands of an entire people, especially when they have been oppressed and persecuted for decades.

This May Madonna is set to perform two songs at Eurovision in Tel Aviv. She will reach an estimated 180 million viewers. She has moneyed backing too. Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams has pledged to pay $1 million dollars for her performance at Eurovision. And she will simultaneously flip the bird to millions of Palestinians who languish under a brutal system of colonial oppression, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Madonna is no stranger to this controversy. In 2012 she launched her MDNA tour in Tel Aviv against the urging of BDS activists.

The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem delivered demolition notices to residential structures in the Issawiya neighbourhood yesterday.

Muhammad Abu Al-Hummus, member of a local follow-up committee, said that joint teams from the Israeli municipality and police raided the neighbourhood and delivered demolition notices for 13 residential structures, under the pretext that they were built without the necessary building permits.

Abu Al-Hummus pointed out that some of the buildings were erected more than 15 years ago.

A team of Palestinian surgeons at Al-Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem led by professor Nizar Hajja took out a bullet from the heart of Gazan child, Al-Watan Voice reported yesterday.

Eight-year-old Ibrahim was shot while playing with his friends in courtyard outside his house in the north of the Gaza Strip two weeks ago.

Due to the lack of medical equipment in Gaza, Ibrahim was transferred to Al-Makassed where he had a six-hour laparoscopy which allowed doctors to remove the bullet.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials said today in reaction to the results of the Israeli elections that Israelis have voted no to peace and yes to apartheid.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said that after Israeli voters have chosen their representatives, “regrettably, Israelis overwhelmingly voted for candidates that are unequivocally committed to entrenching the status quo of oppression, occupation, annexation and dispossession in Palestine and escalating the assault on Palestinian national and human rights.

Jewish mothers used to go into a cleaning frenzie a week or so before the Festival of Passover. All traces of leaven (chametz) had to be removed from the home before the onset of the holiday.
*
Modern folk have determined that dust is not chametz, so there is less madness involved in the cleaning process, but Israel has added a new dimension to the situation; Arabs must be removed as well as the leaven.

We can assume that after the elections, one way or another, things will get worse than before.

Three Democratic candidates have “slammed” Benjamin Netanyahu over his promise to annex West Bank settlements, NBC says. The slammers are Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg, though Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro have issued milder criticisms of the prime minister.

Buttigieg said of the annexation idea:

This provocation is harmful to Israeli, Palestinian, and American interests. Supporting Israel does not have to mean agreeing with Netanyahu‘s politics. I don’t.

Netanyahu appeals to “racism,” Sanders said. “I’m not a great fan of his, and, frankly, I hope he loses his election.”

Well, not to worry. Here comes the Israel lobby to clean up after the parade. Jewish Insider reports today on several Israel advocates who are already trying to bring the Democrats and Israel back into the fold.

Israel yesterday distributed notices to Palestinians informing it of its plan to seize 95 acres of Palestinian agricultural land in the northern Jordan Valley.

Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley/Tubas district, told Ma’an that the Israeli Civil Administration staff distributed notices to Palestinian residents of Tubas, Tayasir, and Tamoun regarding seizure of their lands.

Bisharat confirmed that 384.49 dunams (about 95 acres) of Palestinian-owned lands would be seized by Israeli authorities.

He added that Israel intends to build new roads for Israeli settlers on the land.

Israeli occupation forces committed 150 violations against Palestinian journalists during the first quarter of 2019, the Journalist Support Committee (JSC) revealed yesterday.

In a report, the JSC said that 66 violations were committed against journalists, including 43 during their coverage of the Great March or Return protests in Gaza Strip.

The report noted that ten were shot with live explosive bullets, 23 were hit directly with tear gas canisters, six fainted due to heavy inhalation of tear gas and four shot with rubber coated metal bullets.

Israeli rights group Peace Now has pointed out that more than 19,000 settlement units were built in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem during the Netanyahu era, Quds Press reported on Tuesday. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

According to the rights group, 13,608 settlement units (70 per cent) were built in isolated settlements which Israel might evacuate if a permanent deal is ever reached with the Palestinians. This number of housing units means an increase in the number of illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories of at least 60,000.

Between 2008 and 2017, Peace Now noted, 132,300 settlers were moved into the occupied territories, raising the total number of settlers to 413,100 by the end of 2017.

The current violence targeting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails dates back to January 2. It was then that Israel’s Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan declared that the “party is over.”

“Every so often, infuriating pictures appear of cooking in the terrorist wings. This party is coming to an end,” Erdan was quoted in the Jerusalem Post.

Then, the so-called Erdan’s Committee recommended various measures aimed at ending the alleged “party”, which included placing limits on prisoners’ use of water, banning food preparations in cells, and installing jamming devices to block the alleged use of smuggled cell phones.

The last measure, in particular, caused outrage among prisoners, for such devices have been linked to severe headaches, fainting, and other long-term ailments.

Erdan followed his decision with a promise of the “use of all means in (Israel’s) disposal” to control any prisoners’ protests in response to the new restrictions.

A high-ranking IDF leader has revealed that Israel orchestrated the downfall of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the rise of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s thinly disguised military dictatorship. Israel preferred this normalizing leader to his somewhat pro-Palestine predecessor.

The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency reports. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.

Deir Yassin was a peaceful village of around 400 people that had signed a non-aggression pact and was excluded from clashes elsewhere. Due to its proximity to West Jerusalem, it came under the UN Partition Plan as part of the independent Jerusalem area.

Airbnb will not implement a planned delisting of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and would donate proceeds from any bookings in the territory to international humanitarian aid organisations, the company said.

"Airbnb will take no profits from this activity in the region," a statement posted on the company website said on Tuesday.

"Any profits generated for Airbnb by any Airbnb host activity in the entire West Bank will be donated to non-profit organisations dedicated to humanitarian aid that serve people in different parts of the world," it added.

However, the company did not mention that settlers will continue to profit from subletting.

I was shut down in South Africa for speaking out, and I’m disturbed that the same is happening to critics of Israel now

Members of the European Parliament from various political parties sent a letter to High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, calling for the revision of EU-Israel Association Agreement.

The letter recalls findings of the recent report by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry stating that Israel may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Great Return March protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas knows very well that Israeli centrist government are genocidal in their approach to Arabs and Palestinians in particular. Hamas remembers Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. They clearly prefer Bibi. They know very well that Bibi has been anxious to operate in Gaza. Hamas knows very well that Israel is running out of military and political options, let alone solutions to the conflict. Hamas voted Bibi. It entered ceasefire negotiations with Israel just a few days before the election. There is good reason to believe that Hamas would prefer to deal with Netanyahu rather than with a ‘centrist’ party led by three war criminals. Hamas won again, it has pushed Israel into a state of further paralysis. Israel does not have a prospect of a future in the region. Israel may not be defeated by Quasam rockets but by its own Ghetto mentality.

UNICEF is sponsoring a major EU-financed project to link Israeli settlements to Europe’s electricity grid.

The United Nations children’s agency is listed among the “proud supporters” of the EuroAsia Interconnector, a project to build a 1,000-mile subsea cable linking the European electricity grid with Israel via Greece and Cyprus.

This means that Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Syria’s Golan Heights – all illegal under international law – would be linked to the European network and would benefit from Israel’s ability to trade electricity through the interconnector.

A well-known and controversial Israeli settler-activist, Daniella Weiss, recently told Haaretz that her vision of a future Israel, following the impending Israeli annexation of Palestine’s West Bank, includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran. Weiss — former mayor of the illegal West Bank settlement of Kedumim — claimed during the interview that this vision of a future “Greater Israel” was not “extreme” but a “basic Jewish approach” and was “the only way to continue Zionism.”

Interviewed by Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston — who personally opposes illegal, Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank — Weiss expounded at length on her role in making a “two-state solution” impossible by founding and expanding settlements throughout Palestine’s West Bank.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has promised that if a new war begins, the group’s forces will make Israel evacuate not only the settlements near the enclave border, but also some of its main cities, such as Ashdod, Ashkelon, Negev and Tel-Aviv.

“We are ten times stronger than we were in 2014 [Israeli-Gaza conflict],” he said.

At the same time, Sinwar noted that Israel “will only suffer” if the war is “imposed” against the Gaza Strip. He promised that in this case, Hamas would act as “shield and sword” for the inhabitants of the region.

In recent months, Israel has repeatedly bombarded Hamas positions in Gaza in response to missile launches from the enclave’s territory. Despite numerous ceasefire understandings reached, the conflict has been constantly restarted.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return” at the Gaza border, lawyers and jurists around the world are calling on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

Today, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers presented a petition from the International Lawyers Campaign for the Investigation and Prosecution of Crimes Committed Against the Palestinian People to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the ICC. The petition urges Bensouda to initiate a full investigation and prosecute violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed by Israeli officials in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The petition has garnered the support of tens of thousands of lawyers worldwide.

Earlier this year, the UN Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry released their report stating that during the Great March of Return, which commenced on March 30, 2018, Israeli snipers intentionally fired on civilians who presented no danger to them - they shot protesters, medics, journalists, disabled people, and even children.

The February 2019 Situation Report from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that 266 Gazans have been killed since the beginning of the march. But civilian deaths are only part of the story. The report also highlights the fact that in just under one year, 29,130 people - more than 0.01 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip - have been injured. Of those, 6,557 sustained live ammunition gunshot wounds and in 89 percent (5,183) of these cases, the lower limbs were affected.

Israeli authorities declared that all crossings in to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be closed from midnight tonight until midnight on Wednesday, as Israelis prepare to head to the polls.

Entry to Israel for all Israeli-issued permit holders will be banned, excluding humanitarian and medical cases, the announcement continued.

Israelis are due to elect a new government and prime minister today with polling stations set to be open between 07:00 and 22:00 local time [04:00 and 19:00 GMT].

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli media in an interview yesterday that he intends to annex West Bank settlements, “if possible with American support”.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu told Arutz 7 that he intended to “apply Israeli law to the communities in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]” during “the next term”.

Asked whether the Trump administration was aware of these plans, Netanyahu replied: “Sure”, adding: “They [the US] will react as they will react. We will see. These are my principles.”

The Likud leader also doubled down on his vow not to remove illegal settlements.

“If we do not tear out the settlers, then who are they going to live under? They are going to be under Palestinian sovereignty? That is dead,” he declared.

For the third time, settlers this morning locked shut a mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

According to eyewitnesses, the official responsible for opening and closing the mosque was surprised by the presence of an adhesive on the door to the Sheikh Makki Mosque in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem. Nails had also been used to lock the door shut.

Witnesses added that the settlers attacked the mosque twice last month by placing adhesive material on its door in an attempt to keep it closed during prayer times. The mosque is normally open at noon and closes again after evening prayers.

There is nothing left of the rotten fig leaves which have been used to cover Israeli Apartheid. On 19 July last year, Israel’s parliament and main democratic institution, the Knesset, passed the racist Nation-State Law, which gave the right to self-determination in Israel only to Jews. In the run up to tomorrow’s General Election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed Israel’s Arab citizens to the 22 Arab countries to which they could move.

Emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights, Netanyahu’s appetite for more land theft has turned to the West Bank. He declared that Israel must exercise security control west of the River Jordan and insisted that he will not move a single Jewish settler out of the illegal settlements, whether in the blocs or isolated areas.

Two Palestinian villages in the West Bank received demolition orders Sunday from Israeli authorities, one in Hebron district, and the other in Bethlehem district, according to Wafa News Agency.

9 residential structures, in addition to caravans and animal barns, have been ordered to be destroyed in the village of Tuwanah, in the southern occupied West Bank region of Masser Yatta.

The landowners Ra’ed, Morad, Amer, Mahmoud and Mohammad Hamamdeh, supposedly lack the necessary Israeli permit for the structures. The occupation authorities ostensibly have the right to destroy their property.

Looking to continue his bid to court right-wing voters on the eve of the election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took extra steps to announce that not only will the Palestinians never have their own state, but that he, assuming he is reelected, will immediately start annexing the occupied West Bank into Israel, starting with settlements.

Netanyahu ruled out ever evacuating any “community” built in occupied territory, and insisted that the realization of a Palestinian state would necessarily “endanger our existence.” He took credit for the last eight years of the Palestinians not getting a state, saying no one had ever had to withstand such pressure.

Whether this is just usual pre-election bluster or a statement of policy is unclear. Netanyahu claimed to have already informed Trump of his intentions, saying that he would prefer to do the annexations gradually, with US support, but would do it either way.

Cookie-cutter homes dotted with swimming pools, well-tended gardens and spacious playgrounds for children. The city of Caesarea, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu owns a house, has long been associated with luxury villas and the super-rich.

But for the Palestinian citizens of Israel living just across the other side of the city's land barrier, the reality is markedly different.

Jisr al-Zarqa, the last remaining Palestinian town on Israel's coast, is among the poorest and most densely populated in the country. Here, buildings are packed on every available plot of land, with barely any trees left.

Around 100 members of the next Knesset will be supporters of apartheid. This has no precedent in any democracy. A hundred out of 120 legislators, an absolute of absolute majorities, one that supports maintaining the current situation, which is apartheid.

Some of the more advanced Israel/Palestine commentators have agreed amongst themselves that the ‘one-state solution’ amounts to empty talk for the simple reason that Palestine is ‘one-state’ already: It has natural borders, one electric grid and even one international pre-dial number (+972). But this beautiful and historic land, stretched from the river to the sea, is dominated by a foreign and hostile ideology that is racially supremacist and vile towards the indigenous people of the land.

Some of those perceptive analysts have been bewildered following a peculiar shift in Israeli politics: while the so-called Israeli ‘Left’ has been advocating racial and ethnic segregation between Jews and Palestinians by adopting the two-state solution, it is actually the Zionist ultra-right that has been pushing constantly for an integration of the ‘land’ by means of Israeli annexation.

(Haaretz) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Saturday evening that he will start extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank if re-elected prime minister in the election on April 9.

It remains unclear at this point whether Netanyahu was referring to all of the West Bank, or only parts of it.

“A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years, no prime minister has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny,” the premier said.

Israeli soldiers have reported that a Palestinian was killed, and another injured [on Wednesday], when an Israeli settler [reported by Ma‘an to be Joshua Sherman, from the illegal settlement of Elon Moreh] opened fire on them near Beita town, south of Nablus. The Palestinian who was killed was identified as Mohammad Abdul-Mon’em Abdel-Fattah, 23, from Khirbet Qeis village in the Salfit district, in the northern West Bank. The one who was injured has been identified as Khaled Salah Rawajba, a 26-year-old resident of the village of Rojeeb, east of Nablus. He was shot in the abdomen and taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where he remains in a moderate condition. The Israeli settler who shot and killed the young man tried to claim that “he had a knife” – but video footage taken by another Israeli settler on the scene, showing the brutal and callous treatment of Adel-Fattah’s body after he was killed, shows that there was no weapon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that he would annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank if he wins another term in office, a last-minute pre-election promise likely to enrage Palestinians and the Arab world.

In an interview with Israeli Channel 12 News three days ahead of the 9 April poll, Netanyahu was asked why he had not extended sovereignty to large West Bank settlements, as Israel did without international recognition in east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, both captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

“Who says that we won’t do it? We are on the way and we are discussing it,” Netanyahu said.

“You are asking whether we are moving on to the next stage – the answer is yes, we will move to the next stage. I am going to extend (Israeli) sovereignty and I don’t distinguish between settlement blocs and the isolated settlements.”

Turkey on Sunday criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “irresponsible” for saying he would annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank if he wins Tuesday’s election.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war, was Palestinian territory and Israel’s occupation violated international law.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s irresponsible statement to seek votes just before the Israeli general elections cannot and will not change this fact,” Cavusoglu tweeted.

Netanyahu, asked why he had not declared Israeli sovereignty over large West Bank settlements as Israel has already done in the occupied Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, said he was already discussing the move.

Amidst calls from the organisers to be completely peaceful, thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip yesterday once again took part in the Great March of Return (GMoR) protests along the eastern fence of the besieged enclave.

However, the peaceful protesters were met with a brutal Israeli crackdown, as Israeli forces used live ammunition and a new kind of teargas. This left 83 protesters wounded, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said, including one who sustained critical wounds to his face.

This is the first Friday after the one-million-man protest – which marked the first anniversary of the start of the Great March – in which peaceful protesters were met with a brutal Israeli crackdown, killing five protesters and wounding 315 others.

Speaking to MEMO, Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Al-Qanou said: “The GMoR protests will continue until the achievement of their main goal – the termination of the 12-year-old Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza.”

Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he would annex illegal settlements in the occupied west bank if he wins another term in office

This is a recorded message of the international Academy Award Winner Shaun Tan in support of Gaza Children Cinema.

Just before the polls open in the Israeli general election, Prime Minister Netanyahu will do or say anything to remain in office - including promising to annex large parts of the West Bank. PLUS: Why Israel could face weeks of political stalemate.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return” at the Gaza border, lawyers and jurists around the world are calling on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

A 16-year-old Palestinian on Friday was seriously injured after being run over by a Jewish settler in the southern West Bank, according to a Palestinian official, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Ays Mahmoud Houshiyeh, 16, from the city of Hebron [Al-Khalil] was run over by an Israeli settler while he was walking down the city’s main street,” Ibrahim Abu Zara, governor of Hebron’s Yatta municipality, told Anadolu Agency.

Houshiyeh has since been taken to a nearby hospital, Abu Zara said, where he is being treated for serious head injuries.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel used force “wisely” in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli soldiers have killed “more than 300” Palestinians near the eastern fence of the besieged enclave.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, Netanyahu said: “More than 300 Palestinians have been killed near the border when they tried to breach the fence and abduct our soldiers. We have used force wisely, and powerfully.”

Netanyahu also said that his government’s policy led Hamas, the ruler of the besieged Strip, to suffer the severest economic crisis. “They [Gazans] are in enormous economic distress, and Hamas is in check and wants some quiet so it can stand up to the huge pressure in Gaza,” he said.

Most Israelis don’t have much sympathy for Palestinians. A recent poll showed that 53 percent of Israelis thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent bombardment of Gaza following the rocket attack was “too weak” while only 3 percent believed it to be excessive.

Though the Deal of the Century will try to eliminate the Palestinian issue for good, what the architects of the “Deal” in their arrogance fail to see is that this so-called “Deal” is nothing more than an irresponsible, impractical and precarious plan that will fall just as soon as it is raised.

When the New York Times (3/26/19) reported on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fait accompli pronouncement that nation-states can now seize territories acquired in defensive wars—after President Donald Trump announced via tweet that the United States asserts Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights—it seriously misled readers on the status of Israel’s illegal settlements on the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

While the Washington Post’s report (3/26/19) on Netanyahu’s pronouncement made it clear that UN Security Council Resolution 497 in 1981 condemned Israel’s formal takeover of the Golan Heights as “null and void and without international legal effect,” the Times report, by David Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner, obscures the illegality of Israeli settlements by attempting to make “practical and legal distinctions” between the settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Israeli forces have been using the Great Return March and its thousands of protesters as a sort of testing ground for new forms of weaponry and crowd control, say physicians in the Gaza Strip. They talk of explosive bullets and an unknown gas that causes severe convulsions and loss of consciousness, among other symptoms.

“We are being used as guinea pigs to test new weapons, as the case in past Israeli wars on Gaza,” says Ashraf al-Qedra, MD, spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry.

Local sources said that Israeli forces used an unknown kind of teargas against peaceful protesters on the 53rd Friday of the Great March of Return.

Israeli occupation forces stormed into Al-Khalil (Hebron) and fired live ammunition at protesters, after bombarding the city with tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber-coated steel bullets.

At around 1pm, soldiers invaded Al-Khalil through checkpoint 56, where the soldiers fired stun grenades at protesters. Immediately following the assault with stun grenades, the soldiers fired tear gas into the street, forcing the protesters and press personnel to move. As the tear gas disappeared, protests continued. Israeli soldiers then proceeded to shoot protesters with rubber-coated bullets while continuing to fire stun grenades at protesters.

At one point, the soldiers switched from rubber-coated bullets to live ammunition. For approximately an hour, soldiers fired live ammunition and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters until eventually retiring behind the checkpoint, which was closed to the public at this time.

When Aed Abu Amro held a Palestinian flag aloft during one of the Great March of Return protests last year on the boundary between Gaza and Israel, the last thought on his mind was that he would become an internet sensation.

But a picture of the shirtless Aed, slingshot and flag in hand and enveloped by the smoke from tear gas, went viral almost instantly.

It sparked comparisons with a painting from the European Romantic period and made him an instant icon of the Palestinian resistance.

The photo was taken on 22 October by Mustafa Hassouna of the Turkish Anadolu press agency. And it so happened that in composition, lighting and motif, the picture closely resembles “Liberty Leading the People,” a painting by the French painter Eugène Delacroix.

A Palestinian woman holds an olive tree as Land Day is observed in the West Bank village of Qalandiya on 30 March. Land Day is the annual commemoration of six Palestinians killed during protests against Israeli land confiscation in the Galilee in 1976. Anne Paq ActiveStills

Twenty Palestinians, four of them children,
were fatally injured by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip during the month of March, or died from injuries sustained previously.

Palestinians in Gaza marked the first anniversary of the Great March of Return on 30 March. Four Palestinians were fatally injured during the anniversary protests, including two children. A fifth Palestinian was killed before protests set off that day while he was 100 meters from the boundary fence.

A total of 10 Palestinians were fatally injured while protesting along Gaza’s eastern and northern boundary with Israel during March, or died from injuries sustained during protests in previous months.

As their rickety motorboats puttered out into deep Mediterranean waters for the first time in almost two decades, the Palestinian fishermen prayed for deepwater mackerel and tuna to supplement Gaza's usual shallows fare of sardines, shrimp and crab.

This week, as part of Egyptian-mediated efforts to ease the plight of 2 million residents of the blockaded Gaza Strip, Israel has extended the area where it permits Palestinians to fish.

"Such a distance has been off-limits. And hopefully there are lots of fish to bring back," said 69-year-old fisherman Ahmed al-Amoudi.

Last May, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg went to Israel with the American Jewish Committee and two weeks later discussed his trip with that organization. At the time Israel was killing Palestinian protesters at the Gaza fence– 60 on one day within days of Buttigieg’s visit, getting global attention — yet Buttigieg repeatedly praised Israel’s security arrangements as “moving” and “clear-eyed”, said the U.S. could learn something from them, and blamed Palestinians and Hamas for the “misery” in Gaza.

He also faulted fellow Democrats for making snap judgments based on “90-second cable news versions of what’s going on over there.”

“This sends a wider message that saying anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian things comes with consequences.”

The dismissal came as a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Jewish, immigrant and civil rights groups announced it was planning a protest on City Hall’s steps later this week.

Thousands of Palestinians along the border fence to the “Jewish State” have shown the international community what dignity and resistance means. It is frightening how the German press portrays this march and falsifies facts. When one reads the German editorial (D) media, one is already used to a lot of distortions, but what was reported this time to cover the first anniversary of the Great March of Return, exceeded any measure of objective reporting. Many of the articles read such that the inexperienced reader might think that it is not the Zionist occupiers but Hamas who are responsible for the blockade and misery in the Gaza concentration camp.

Harvard University’s Undergraduate Council (UC) voted to allocate the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) $2,050 to host Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) at Sunday’s general meeting.

According to student newspaper the Crimson, “the bill to fund IAW passed 21-13-4 and drew money from the UC’s Grant for an Open Harvard College, which subsidizes student initiatives that address one of the UC’s indicated ‘compelling interests’.”

The interests for the 2018-19 academic year are “mental health, race, culture, and faith relations, sexual assault and harassment prevention, social spaces, and financial accessibility.”

The report stated that “the PSC planned much of the programming of Harvard’s event, which began on March 30 and runs until April 4”, including “Palestinian speakers, a student panel, an unveiling of a physical Wall of Resistance, and a movie screening”.

A Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces near Jerusalem overnight, the Palestinian health ministry and residents said on Tuesday.

The ministry said Mohammed Adwan, 23, was killed and three others were wounded, the AFP news agency reported.

Two residents said soldiers arrived in the Qalandiya area early on Tuesday to carry out arrests and young men threw stones at them.

The Israeli army said there was a "riot" during an operation in the nearby Kafr Aqab area, and "rocks and explosive devices were hurled at the troops, who responded with fire".

"A report was received regarding an injured Palestinian. The incident will be examined," the army statement said.

Israeli snipers have intentionally maimed Palestinians protesting in Gaza over the past year, creating a generation of disabled youth and overwhelming the territory's already crippled medical system, frontline doctors tell Middle East Eye.

According to a United Nations inquiry released this month, over 80 percent of the 6,106 protesters wounded in the first nine months of the Great March of Return were shot in the lower limbs.

Israeli soldiers intentionally shot civilians and may have committed war crimes in their heavy-handed response to the protests, which have been held regularly across Gaza since 30 March 2018, the report concluded.

Healthcare providers say the pattern of wounds shows that Israeli soldiers are purposefully shooting to maim protesters, most of whom are in their 20s and now require long-term medical care.

A Jewish New York City councilman was removed from the immigration committee Monday, days after he received backlash for tweeting, “Palestine does not exist.”

Kalman Yeger tweeted, “Palestine does not exist. There, I said it again. Also, Congresswoman Omar is an antisemite. Said that too. Thanks for following me,” last week, in response to Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar being critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for focusing on her during his speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference.

Ireland votes to ban Israeli goods by an overwhelming majority of their legislature.

Jimmy Dore explains why.

In contrast: The US wants to ban the *banning* of Israeli goods.

Israel fascist government whines: “You’re picking on us.”

Israeli snipers shot dead four in the Gaza Strip and injured over 200 this Saturday.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, four Palestinians have been confirmed dead and 244 injured.

Those killed were identified as Mohammed Jehad sa’ad (20 years old), Adham Nedal Amara (17 years old), Hashem Abu Alkhair (17 years old) and Bilal Al-Najjar (17 years old).

Three ambulances were attacked today, as well as six journalists and 3 medical staff.

Thousands of Palestinians took part in demonstrations at the Israel-Gaza border on Saturday, as people gathered to mark the Great March of Return’s first year anniversary.

Israeli forces used lethal force against hundreds of thousands of Palestinian protesters marking a year since the beginning of the Gaza Great Return March and commemorating Land Day. Among the wounded are 86 children and 29 women. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports that Israeli soldiers have killed 266 Palestinians and injured 30398 others since the Return March processions started on March 30, 2018.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman has accused Palestinian women protesting in Gaza of being affiliated to Daesh, in a renewed bid to smear demonstrators participating in the Great March of Return.

Ofir Gendelman, the prime minister’s spokesman for Arab media, tweeted a picture of veiled women holding Palestinian flags this weekend, alleging they were members of Daesh, claiming this was evidence that Gaza Strip authority Hamas was also part of the terror group in Iraq and Syria.

The organisers of the Palestinian protests dubbed the 'Great March of Return' plan to mark the first anniversary along the borders of the Gaza Strip on Saturday with large-scale rallies. The Israeli military reported that they had completed preparations for the Saturday events, reinforcing the southern district with forces and equipment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops concentrated around the Gaza Strip on Thursday. At the end of the trip, he assured that he would not hesitate to launch a large-scale military campaign, if other means did not work.

The so-called the 'Great March of Return' protests have been ongoing on the Gaza-Israel border since March 30 last year. Each week, at least thousands of people from the enclave gather at the border of the Gaza Strip, with the protests often escalating into Palestinians' clashes with Israeli troops.

According to a statement made by the IDF on Sunday, five rockets were launched from Gaza at Israel.

Explosions were heard and rockets fell in open territory, an Eshkol Regional Council spokesperson said, cited by the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli forces have killed three Palestinians and injured more than 200 others as people of Gaza start their mass protests marking the anniversary of the Great March of Return and the Palestinian Land Day.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 17-year-old Adham Amara was killed on Saturday after being shot by Israeli fire in east Gaza City. The ministry said that the teenager had been wounded in the face.

Earlier on Saturday, Gaza health officials said Israeli troops had shot and killed a Palestinian man.

Mohammed Saad, 20, died after being hit in the head by shrapnel. Protesters at the site said he had been taking part in an overnight rally ahead of the massive demonstrations scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

Details about the third fatality are not available yet.

Despite the horrors, our children never give up hope

Amid a festive atmosphere, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza along the boundary fence with Israel on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the Great March of Return.

They were also marking Land Day, the annual commemoration of Israel’s lethal suppression of protests against land confiscations in the Galilee in 1976.

Like every week over the last year, unarmed protesters demanded an end to the decade-long siege of Gaza and asserted their right to return to familial lands now in Israel and were met with lethal force by Israeli occupation forces stationed across the fence.

Adham Nidal Amara, 17, was directly injured in the face and killed as he took part in the rallies east of Gaza City, and Tamer Hisham Abu al-Khair, also 17, was fatally shot in the chest, east of Khan Younis.