[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Palestine and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Palestine Page co-editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each roundup to Palestine@jadaliyya.com.]
The Occupation Forces
The Third of Its Kind, Israeli Authorities Summon Palestinian Child For Interrogation Israeli authorities summoned last night an eight-year-old girl from the southern West Bank city of Hebron for interrogation, reported Palestinian security sources, the third such summons of children in recent days. Israeli police summoned last week four-year-old Mohammad Ilian and six-year-old Qais Obeid, both from Issawiyeh neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem.
Fisherman Abducted By Israeli Navy While Sailing Off Gaza Shore The Israeli navy abducted today a Palestinian fisherman while sailing off the Gaza shore and took him to an undisclosed location, according to fishermen. They told WAFA that the Israeli navy opened fire at several fishing boats that were sailing six nautical miles off the Gaza coast, surrounded one boat and detained a fisherman identified as Awad Tareq Bakr.
IOF Severely Assault, Arrest Guard of Al-Aqsa Mosque Israeli police on Wednesday assaulted al-Aqsa mosque guard Muhannad Idris with severe beatings while they were arresting him in the Bab al-Rahma area of the mosque. Following the attack, 154 Israeli settlers stormed the mosque under heavy Israeli protection. Local sources also reported that the crews uprooted olive trees in the Imam Ghazali square near Bab Asbat.
Palestinian Killed, Three Israeli Soldiers Hurt in Gaza Shooting The Israeli army has said that a Palestinian man crossed from Gaza into Israel overnight and shot at Israeli troops, drawing return fire in an incident that left the Palestinian dead and three Israeli soldiers wounded. According to Wafa News, Palestinian sources have yet to confirm or corroborate the story.
Domestic Policy
President Abbas Chairs Meeting Of Committee On Ending Agreements With Israel Headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, the committee charged with stopping work on the agreements signed with Israel started on Saturday, 3 August, its first meeting in Ramallah in order to determine the mechanisms to complete such a task. The committee is scheduled to provide its recommendations and proposals regarding the matter to the Palestinian leadership soon.
Premier: We Will Treat All Areas As “A” Since Israel Deals With All Areas As “C” Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that since Israel no longer respects any of the signed agreements and is dealing with all areas and classifications as “Area C," then the Palestinian Authority will treat all areas as "A”.
Under Pressure From World Agencies, Israel Allows Palestinians to Continue Import of Vaccines Palestinian and international pressure succeeded in getting Israel to back down on a decision preventing Palestinians from importing vaccines except from countries it specifies, today said Minister of Health May Kailah.
Israeli Elections Committee Hasn't Taken Any Steps to Stop Arab Voter Intimidation On election day in April, the Likud Party sent over one thousand people with hidden cameras into Arab cities and towns as part of an intimidation campaign. PR firm Kaizer-Inbar bragged that “because there were observers on our behalf at every polling station, the [Arab] voting rate dropped by fifty percent–the lowest seen in recent years!”
Queer Palestinian Community Holds 'historic' Protest Against LGBT Violence The queer Palestinian community organized an unprecedented protest in Haifa on Thursday, as approximately two hundred demonstrators arrived at the German Colony, a central area in the city, to protest violence targeting the LGBT community. The protest was organized by thirty organizations, including al-Qaws, Aswat, and Adalah Center.
PA Planning to Use Jordan Ports Instead of Israel’s Palestinian Authority Transportation Minister Asim Salim yesterday revealed discussions had been held to arrange for the Palestinian Authority to use Jordanian ports instead of Israeli harbors, Quds Press reported. It is likely that this is part of the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to completely divest from its agreements with Israel.
Foreign Policy
Socialist International Reaffirms Right of Palestinians to Self-determination, Statehood The Socialist International reaffirmed after two days of meetings in Ramallah and in Tel Aviv the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Hoyer and 41 Democrats Visit Israel on AIPAC-affiliated Junket That Violates ‘spirit as well as the letter of the law’ House Majority Leader Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) landed on Monday in Israel with forty-one other Democratic Representatives for a week-long, all-expenses-paid junket sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the educational branch of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Egypt Proposed National Unity Government for Hamas Senior Hamas official Usama Hamdan revealed on Sunday that Egypt had proposed a national unity government for his movement, al-Wattan Voice has reported.
Settlers and Illegal Settlements
Stone-hurling Settlers Attack Palestinian Property South of Nablus Israeli settlers Tuesday overnight hurled stones at a Palestinian house and wedding hall in Urief village, south of Nablus, said a local activist. Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said that settlers stormed the village, where they threw stones and empty bottles at a villager’s house and wedding hall, smashing some of their windows.
Israel Approves 2,300 New Homes For Settlers in West Bank: NGO The Israeli non-governmental organization Peace Now, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said in a statement on Tuesday that the so-called Higher Planning Committee, which is affiliated to the Israeli ministry of military affairs, had issued approvals for 2,304 housing units while meeting over the past couple of days.
Extremist Jewish Groups Call For Mass Raids of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Eid Temple Mount Groups, a body of extremist Jewish organizations, have called for massive raids of al-Aqsa Mosque during the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Arab48 reported yesterday.
Israel’s Right-wing Sign Pledge to Annex 60% of West Bank Candidates of several Israeli right-wing parties yesterday signed a document agreeing to annex sixty percent of the occupied West Bank–in the form of Area C, Quds Press reported.
Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement
House Members Are Again Pushing a Bill That Would Censor Palestine Advocacy on College Campuses On 25 July, Representative Doug Collins (R-GA), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that he was reintroducing The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. This comes as part of a wave of reinvigorated crackdowns on Palestinian and BDS activism, including a house resolution condemning the movement, the Department of Education starting an investigation into “anti-Israel bias” at a conference at Duke University, and several lawsuits against pro-Palestine student groups.
Law
The First Major Legal Win For Campus Palestine Activists Just Happened at Fordham In December 2016, the school vetoed the Student Government’s approval of SJP, but in April 2017 the students sued the university for violating its own rules with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Palestine Legal, and cooperating counsel Alan Levi representing them. Today, the Supreme Court of New York annulled the school’s decision.
NGO: 40 Palestinian Prisoners Launch Hunger Strike in Israel Jails Palestinian Prisoners Club yesterday announced that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are to begin a hunger strike today in support of eight hunger-striking prisoners who have been protesting against their administrative detention, Anadolu reported.
Environment, Economy, and Other
For Sixth Month, Government to Pay 60% of Monthly Payroll The Ministry of Finance announced today that the government will be paying only sixty percent of the monthly payroll of the civil servants and security personnel for the month of July, in the aftermath of Israel’s decision to deduct 502 million shekels a year from the Palestinian tax revenues.
Israeli Occupation Costs Palestine Over Nine Billion Dollars Every Year Putting a price tag on the occupation is a difficult and imprecise task, but a report by the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem has come up with a figure: 9.4588 billion dollars in 2017, representing more than seventy-four percent of Palestinian GDP, which hit 14.5 billion dollars according to the World Bank.
Palestinian App Helps Drivers Uncover Routes, Avoid Israeli Checkpoints in West Bank Launched in June, the app, called Doroob Navigator, is the brainchild of thirty-nine-year-old Mohammad Abdel Haleem, the CEO of Doroob Technologies. Filling in a gap that mainstream providers like Google Maps and Waze fail to provide, Doroob Navigator helps Palestinian drivers uncover routes to their destination that avoid new and moving checkpoints throughout the West Bank.
“Terror” Boot Claim Kicks Up Twitter Scorn A recent tweet by COGAT, the occupation forces’ bureaucratic wing, featured a photo of a man holding three lace-up hiking boots. COGAT states that the shoes “were hidden in a shipment of civilian goods, in an attempt to smuggle them into Gaza for terrorist purposes.” The tweet received some praise, but was also met with a trend of mockery, with one twitter user saying, “shoes are a terrorist threat now?”