The conclusion of Israeli culpability is hardly news. What makes the announcement infuriating, however, is the way in which the Israeli army has casually confessed to the crime, knowing full well that the shooter will never be punished for the killing, nor will his superiors in government or the military pay a price for peddling falsehoods for months.
Earlier today, Israeli forces killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in cold blood. Tragically, it’s nothing new for Israel, which has made a regular practice of killing reporters.
Mr Netanyahu said the Israeli military had attacked and destroyed Hamas’s extensive tunnel network in Gaza, its rocket factories, weapons laboratories and storage facilities and killed more than 200 militants, including 25 senior operatives.
At least 109 people were killed in Gaza, including 29 children, over the previous four days, Palestinian medical officials said. On Thursday alone, 52 Palestinians were killed in the enclave, the highest single-day figure since Monday.
There are no “clashes” occurring in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians. What we’re seeing is the brutal reality of an occupying power exercising its military might over a people stripped of their human rights.
Weeks of protests in Jerusalem, where Palestinians are resisting an effort by Israeli settlers to force them from their homes and challenging Israeli police restrictions on their freedom to worship at Al Aqsa Mosque, spiraled into armed conflict on Monday, as Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed 24 Palestinians, nine of them children, health officials said, after Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets into Israel.
One of the most outrageous Israeli actions against the Palestinians of East Jerusalem during the past week has been the repeated Israeli assaults on worshipers in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, which is sacred to 1.8 billion Muslims, a fourth of humankind.
An Israeli air strike has destroyed a 13-storey residential block in the Gaza Strip, triggering a Hamas threat to fire 130 rockets into Tel Aviv and its suburbs. Israel threatened yet more air strikes and has tanks massed on the border of Gaza in the worst escalation in violence since 2019. Israel last invaded Gaza in 2014 to stop rocket attacks. Video footage showed three plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the tower, its upper storeys still intact as they fell. The tower houses an office used by the political leadership of Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Electricity in the area around the building went out and residents were using flashlights.
Violence has become a permanent feature of Ramadan for the people of occupied Palestine. The first day of the fasting month this year began with the Israeli army breaking locks and cutting the wires to the loudspeakers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to silence the evening calls to prayer. In yet another provocative move, Israel allowed only 10,000 Palestinians to enter Jerusalem from the West Bank. On the first Friday in the month, only 70,000 Muslims were able to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque; on one Friday in 2019, there were 200,000 worshippers in the Noble Sanctuary. That was not unusual.
The Palestinian health ministry said Monday that Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed nine people including three children—an attack that came the same day Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque and injured hundreds of Palestinians.
The Israeli army claimed firebombs had been hurled at them and that “troops operated to stop the suspects by firing toward them,” according to the Associated Press. But DCIP found Odeh had not been involved in any confrontations between occupation forces and villagers when he was shot. Odeh was hit with live bullets in the back, near his right shoulder and in the pelvis area, with both bullets exiting from the front of his body, according to DCIP. Occupation forces then reportedly shot another youth in the back who tried to reach Odeh to render aid. Israeli soldiers blocked an ambulance from reaching Odeh for 15 minutes. When medics were finally able to reach him, he had no signs of life. Odeh was taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where he was pronounced dead.
Israeli forces killed two protesters in the occupied Gaza Strip on Friday as the UN Human Rights Council condemned the “apparent intentional use of unlawful lethal and other excessive force” against Great March of Return demonstrators.
Around 190 Palestinians were injured during Friday’s protests, more than half of them by live fire, according to Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza. Two were critically injured, the health ministry said.
Four journalists were hit by tear gas canisters and live fire while covering the protests, according to Al Mezan.
Nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed during the Great March of Return mobilizations, including 41 children, two women, two journalists, three paramedics and eight persons with a disability, Al Mezan said.
Israel’s right-wing government has apparently decided that the best way to stop global criticism of its flagrant human rights violations against the Palestinian people is not to stop committing them, but to silence and punish anyone who attempts to document its crimes.
In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 18- 24 February 2016, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces continued systematic crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. The IMEMC is a media collective. We are independent journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. We are located in Beit Sahour, in the Occupied West Bank, and we welcome new volunteers and contributors. IMEMC is a media center developed in collaboration between Palestinian and International journalists to provide independent media coverage of Israel-Palestine.
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