January 2021
A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid
B’tselem 12/01/2021
More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common
perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate
side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the
sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million,
all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final
status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation
imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.
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Not even allowed to live in a cave
EI 04/01/2021
Israel’s Civil Administration, the bureaucratic arm of its military occupation, ordered the demolition of Ahmad Amarneh’s small home in the village as he was building it. Amarneh then moved to one of the village’s historic caves, “because it does not require an Israeli permit, or so I thought,” he told The Electronic Intifada. In July, Israeli occupation forces ordered Amarneh to leave the cave.
Israel’s 2020 demolition spree
Tamara Nassar EI 05/01/2021
While people around the world were told to stay home due to the pandemic, Israel made more Palestinians homeless in 2020 than it has in years. Israel demolished and confiscated more than 850 Palestinian structures throughout the year, displacing 1,000 people. More than half of those displaced were children.
Israel targeted almost any kind of structure Palestinians need for sustainable life, including homes, agricultural buildings, infrastructure and water sanitation facilities.
Palestinian paralysed, self-defense claimed
Maureen Clare-Murphy EI 08/01/2021
The Israeli military cleared itself of wrongdoing in the shooting and grave injury of a Palestinian man in the southern West Bank last week, claiming soldiers acted in self-defense. The perfunctory investigation closed less than a week later exemplifies the culture of impunity long decried by human rights organizations seeking war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court. The military claimed that the man who was shot, Harun Abu Aram, was “hit by a stray bullet fired when a Palestinian tried to seize a commander’s weapon,” as the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz reported.
Vaccine Equality?
Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 14/01/2021
Israeli authorities are failing to provide essential information on the vaccine in Arabic, to establish vaccine centers in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and to provide sufficient vaccines in Bedouin clinics in the Negev. These failures are “not a coincidence”, rights groups say.
Israel’s vaccination program is morally indefensible
Omar Karmi EI 15/01/2021
Israel’s exclusion of five million people from its COVID-19 vaccine program continues to raise protest. This week, the UN called on Israel to ensure “swift and equitable access” to the vaccine for Palestinians who live under its occupation. Since Israel began its vaccine rollout, Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations have protested that the country is failing in its obligations as an occupying power by not offering the vaccine to the Palestinians of occupied territory.It is a policy, said Amnesty International on 6 January, that exposes Israel’s “institutional discrimination.”
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