In April 2003 Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist and photojournalist, was shot in the forehead by an Israeli sniper. Wearing bright orange jacket and trousers to identify him as a peace volunteer, and clearly unarmed, he was trying to rescue a Palestinian child pinned down by gunfire in the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. He died after nine months in a coma.
The Israeli marksman responsible, Taysir Hayb, convicted of manslaughter, obstruction of justice, incitement to…
In its 2010 report ‘Building a Political Firewall Against Israel’s Delegitimization’, the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute speculated that ‘the Jewish world is growing more distant from Israel’ because ‘a growing number of Jews do not have enough historical knowledge’.
In his latest book, Norman Finkelstein argues persuasively that – at least in the case of the US – the reverse is true: namely, that a growing section of the disproportionately liberal US Jewish public (only African-…
Israel’s 45-year occupation of Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip has witnessed its establishment as a ‘legitimate’ player in the global economy and its crippling of Palestinian livelihoods. These two books explore this process of ‘normalisation’ and the apartheid nature of the Israeli state.
The first draws its inspiration from Bertrand Russell’s 1966/67 investigation of the Vietnam War, and contains evidence and testimonies from prominent activists, lawyers and human rights…
On 28 May, charges were at last brought for Israel’s May 2010 assault on a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza (PN 2523- 2524).
The indictments were laid at a Turkish court against four Israeli military leaders, the former chief of staff of the Israeli defence force and the former heads of military intelligence, the navy and the air force. They were indicted for incitement to murder the nine unarmed humanitarian volunteers killed during the assault, and incitement to torture others…
On 30 May, it was announced that Israel is to prosecute a Haaretz journalist, Uri Blau, who demonstrated that senior Israeli officers had authorised the targeted assassination of Palestinians.
Blau drew on 700 classified military documents leaked by Israeli soldier Anat Kamm, who was as a result sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison last year (PN 2540-2541).
Blau is charged with ‘aggravated espionage’, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years.
In May, 1,600 Palestinian prisoners ended their hunger strike against detention without trial and against abusive treatment, in return for major concessions by the Israeli prison service (see PN 2546).
It seems the prison service is not keeping to the agreement. More than 320 Palestinians remain in indefinite detention without trial; 10 prisoners have had their indefinite detention renewed; some prisoners continue to be held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods; prisoners…
The 14 May written agreement, brokered by Egypt, commits the Israeli authorities to: re-starting visits from immediate family; ending ‘long-term’ solitary confinement; creating a prisoner liaison committee; and creating a new framework for Palestinians in ‘administrative detention’.
These 308 prisoners, held without charge or trial, will not be put under new detention orders when their current period of detention ends – unless the secret files on which their detention was based…
On 7 April, a British court lifted a home office ban on sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the largest Palestinian political party in Israel.
In June 2011, after entering the UK for a lecture tour, Salah was detained by British police and served with a deportation order on the grounds that he might incite racial hatred.
After three weeks’ detention, he was released on appeal but…
On 3 April, the international criminal court (ICC) finally decided that it could not decide whether Palestine could become a member nation of the court. The Palestinian Authority had filed a request three years earlier, in the aftermath of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip in Operation Cast Lead.
The ICC ruled it had no authority to decide the question of statehood, which was a matter for the UN general assembly.…
Some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began an open-ended hunger strike on 17 April.
They were protesting against what they call ‘humiliating’ measures in Israeli prisons, including strip searches of visiting family members and night searches of prison cells.
On 21 February, Khader Adnan ended a 66-day hunger strike after the Israeli prison authorities agreed that he…
Their destination was the West Bank in occupied Palestine, where they planned to take part in a cultural project including the building of a school and repairing wells damaged by settlers.
Travellers to the occupied territories are forced to lie in order to pass through Israel, otherwise they are subjected to interrogation, detention and deportation. The ‘Welcome to Palestine’ mass fly-in was endorsed by Desmond Tutu…
‘I created this image in response to Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009. It is part of a two-minute film Breakfast in Gaza. Sadly the bombing and killing still continues and the soil and water in Gaza is contaminated.’
Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Hebron (known in Arabic as Al-Khalil) have been threatened with arrest and death by the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade.
Tensions have escalated since the publication of the CPT report, Under Attack: Golani Brigade’s war on the Palestinian population of Al-Khalil (Hebron), on 15 February.
On 25 February, a Golani soldier aimed his rifle at CPT and international observers, saying: ‘I want to shoot you through the head with a…
On 1 September 2011, ‘audience participation’ organised by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel during a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra led to the concert’s live broadcast being terminated.
On 24 February, the Jewish Chronicle reported that there would be no prosecutions of those evicted because ‘no offences had taken place’; the Albert Hall would not assist the police.
A new Palestinian political prisoner, Hana Shalabi, has been on hunger strike for over a month against her detention without trial.
Palestinian political prisoner Khader Adnan ended his 66-day hunger strike on 21 February (see PN 2543) after winning a commitment from the Israeli authorities that he would be released on 17 April, an unprecedented concession.
On 16 February, Hana Shalabi, 30, was arrested, imprisoned and beaten. She immediately began a hunger strike in…
