West Bank

Posted by: John Phoenix Some 92 percent (436,000) of housing units in Gaza are destroyed or damaged, in addition to 80 percent of commercial facilities. Much of the damage was done by US-made bombs. (Mahmoud Isleem/Anadolu) Trump fast-tracks another $300m in weapons to Israel – Gaza in limbo Day 10 Compilation of news reports – IAK staff In yet more violations of the ceasefire terms set in January between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces dropped a bomb from a drone in central Gaza on Monday, killing three brothers, and shot a woman to death in Rafah, in southern Gaza. On Monday evening, the Israeli army also fired a missile at a Palestinian east of Rafah, killing him. Five bodies were recovered from under rubble, and 16 wounded were admitted to hospitals in...

Posted by: John Phoenix Israeli soldiers detain a 10-year-old Palestinian boy Ismail en-Nicce in Hebron, West Bank on September 23, 2021. (Anadolu Agency) More than a third of Palestinian child prisoners – over 100 – are administrative detainees, held in Israeli prisons without charge or trial. by Miranda Cleland, reposted from Middle East Eye Palestinian boys – mostly 15 to 17 years of age, but sometimes as young as 12 – have long been targeted by the Israeli military for arrest, detention and prosecution.  Israel is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts, with between 500 and 700 Palestinian children detained and prosecuted annually.  An&n...

Posted by: John Phoenix Photograph Source: SWinxy – CC BY 4.0 As chants of ‘No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!’ echoed through downtown Manhattan on 10 March 2025, I spoke to a person named Richard who had been marching just ahead of me. He declined to give his last name but was eager to speak his piece. ‘We need to be out in the streets and say “This will not fly. This will not happen on our watch”’, he said. The state kidnapping and imminent deportation of recently graduated Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil had brought both Richard and me out into those streets. Khalil was detained by the U.S. government on Saturday, 8 March, at his university-owned residence after returning from an Iftar dinner with his wife, who is a US citizen and eight months...

Posted by: John Phoenix Palestinian Authority Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on 13 September 1993. Image Wikipedia. The ongoing Israeli military assault on Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank is part of a larger Israeli ethnic cleansing plan, a systematic effort to forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes and erase their historical and national identity. As the world watches in silence, the relentless incursions into these camps—home to some of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities—are reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble, killing civilians, and forcing thousands to flee. Meanwhile and as Israel wages a brutal genocidal campaign, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stands idly by, unwilling t...

Posted by: John Phoenix Palestinian farmers’ agriculture fields and greenhouses are damaged after an airstrike by Israeli warplanes on November 22, 2020 in Khan Yunis, Gaza ([Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency]) The bombing has destroyed agricultural land and poisoned the soil, while Israel’s sweeping blockade has made water scarce for farmers who once provided a third of Gaza’s food needs. By Rasha Abou Jalal, Reposted from Drop Site News On an afternoon in early February, Sami Abu Amr, a 61-year-old farmer, walked through his roughly three-acre stretch of land that lies east of the Gaza City neighborhood of Shuja’iyya where he once tended olive trees and grew seasonal vegetables, including cucumbers, tomatoes, and potatoes. Before the war, the sale of his produ...

Posted by: John Phenix Ruth Marcus opposes the ICJ’s ruling to end Israel’s military onslaught in Rafah. (From video) On March 10th Ruth Marcus quit the Washington Post over publisher Jeff Bezos’ new, extremely restrictive policies. Many commentators are outraged at Bezos’ actions, but almost none voiced similar outrage at Marcus’ defense of Israel’s genocidal violence: By Melvin Goodman, reposted from CounterPunch, January, 31, 2025 Ruth Marcus is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington Post, and a regular oped writer for the paper.  Marcus is an attorney, who decided to remain in journalism rather than practice law.  She identifies herself ideologically and politically as a liberal and as a Zionist.  In her most recent oped (“U.N. cou...