Israeli war chief offers ‘apology’ to Sde Teiman rapists, orders their reinstatement into army

The Cradle

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently met with the soldiers responsible for raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman torture facility, ordering their reinstatement to the army and apologizing to them for the “injustice” they faced. 

The meeting came days after the charges against them were officially dropped. 

According to Hebrew media reports, including Channel 14, the soldiers from Force 100 attended the meeting with Katz wearing masks, in order to conceal their identities.

During the meeting, Katz told the soldiers, “I apologize for the injustice the system has done to you,” referring to the investigations opened against them and the “psychological harm” he said was caused by the military legal process.

Military sources told the Jerusalem Post they were “surprised” by Katz’s order to reinstate the soldiers, as the war chief “has the power to approve or hold up certain senior appointments, but not the power to order the army to return soldiers to service who have been caught up in legal proceedings.”

The sources added that they were “skeptical that any reinstatement would actually occur.”

The meeting came after the Israeli army’s top lawyer ordered the cancellation of the indictment against the five soldiers. 

Among the reasons for the cancellation was “complexity regarding the existing evidence.”

It also cited the five soldiers’ claim of “abuse of process.” A video of the sexual assault had been leaked by Israel’s former military advocate general, resulting in two arrests and a major scandal late last year.

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Israeli Forces Accused Of Executing Unarmed Palestinians After They Surrendered

Zero Hedge

Members of the Israeli border police have been accused of executing two unarmed Palestinian men after they surrendered in the West Bank town of Jenin.

In the incident from Thursday caught on camera, two men can be seen emerging from a doorway of what appears to be a warehouse, lifting their shirts, before they were shot dead by the Israelis. 

The IDF says that the incident is under "review" - but claims that the two men were terrorists who had attacked them earlier. After gathering their bodies, the IDF says that the men were identified as Mahmoud Qassem Abdallah, 26, and Youssef Asasa, 37, and were "wanted individuals who had carried out terror activities, including hurling explosives and firing at security forces." 

"The forces entered the area, enclosed the structure in which the suspects were located and initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours," an IDF spokesman told the Telegraph. "Following the use of engineering tools on the structure, the two suspects exited.

"Following their exit, fire was directed toward the suspects. The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies."

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Israel is killing Gazans trying to return to their homes beyond the ‘yellow line’

Tareq S. Hajjaj | Monodweiss.net

As part of the ceasefire, Gaza has been split in half by the so-called ‘yellow line,’ where Israel’s military controls just over 50% of the Strip. Palestinians are being killed for trying to cross or even get close to the line. 

There is an invisible line dividing Gaza, and any Palestinian who attempts to cross it, or even get close to it, is killed. 

That is what happened to Ibrahim and Mazen al-Najjar, two men from the same family,  on November 5th. Displaced in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, they attempted to go to their home in the eastern part of Khan Younis, to attempt to retrieve some belongings. It was a simple enough task. The only problem was, their home lies behind the ‘yellow line’, which is the area of Gaza under full Israeli military control since the ceasefire on October 10. Ibrahim and Mazen never made it to their home, and returned to their displacement camp in body bags. They were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers while attempting to cross the line.

The al-Najjars are only a few of some 250 Palestinians who have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire began.

Many of those Palestinians have been killed in similar circumstances, while trying to return home. While the ceasefire agreement stipulates a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase, that has not yet begun. The ‘yellow line’ marks the area that Israel now controls in Gaza during this initial ceasefire period. 

This line divides the inner neighborhoods of the Strip into two halves: one where residents are allowed to be present, and another that is forbidden to them. According to Palestinians, anyone who approaches those areas is dealt with by intense force.

The yellow line is a new reality, as it divides the Gaza Strip into two parts, with the eastern part under Israeli army control. According to estimates, there are around 37 Israeli military points and positions within these areas, starting from Rafah to Beit Hanoun. The yellow line passes through the middle of large, densely populated neighborhoods such as Shuja’iyya in eastern Gaza City, Jabalia in the north, and Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, covering about 50% of the total area of the Strip.

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Top IDF lawyer quits over video leak of detainee sexual abuse

Comment: Even among their own, their pathology is beginning fracture the collective...

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RT

The footage reportedly shows Israeli soldiers at a military base assaulting a Palestinian prisoner.

The Israel Defense Force's (IDF) top military lawyer has quit after admitting she approved the leak of a video allegedly showing Israeli soldiers abusing a Palestinian prisoner at a military base.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi announced her resignation on Friday, saying she had authorized the release of surveillance footage from Sde Teiman near the Gaza border, which also serves as a detention site. The video, filmed in early July 2024, showed soldiers taking aside a detainee lying face down, then surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility as they allegedly carried out the abuse. The man was later taken for treatment for severe injuries. The leaked clip was aired by Israel's Channel 12 news that August.

In her resignation letter published by The Times of Israel on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi said she approved the release "in an attempt to counter the false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities."

She wrote that while those detained at Sde Teiman "are terrorists and terror operatives of the worst kind," that does not diminish the duty to investigate when there is "reasonable suspicion of violence against a detainee."

Commenting on her resignation, Defense Minister Israel Katz said, "Anyone who spreads blood libels against IDF soldiers is not worthy of wearing the IDF uniform."

Following the Sde Teiman incident, five reservists were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to a detainee, which they have denied. The case sparked outrage among coalition politicians and right-wing activists. Dozens of protesters stormed the military base in an attempt to block the arrests.

The facility, partially converted into a detention camp for Palestinians suspected of militant activity, has faced allegations of widespread torture and abuse. Over 1,000 detainees from Gaza have reportedly passed through the base, including men accused of taking part in Hamas' October 7 attack, which left some 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities, Israeli military action has killed over 68,000 Palestinians since.

The resignation adds to growing scrutiny of Israel's conduct in Gaza, as both sides say they remain committed to a US-brokered truce.  

See also: Israel's Undeniable War Crimes in Gaza

IDF's top lawyer quits; says she approved leak of detainee abuse video

UK defence chiefs made 12 trips to Israel during Gaza war

Ian Overton | Declassified UK

Arms control expert calls the scale of visits “a moral failing of massive proportions”. 

Britain’s most senior military personnel made at least a dozen official visits to Israel during the Gaza war, newly published government data reveals. 

The trips, largely unpublicised, almost entirely took place as Israeli forces barraged Gaza and international calls for an arms embargo intensified. 

The scale of these visits is revealed in recent Ministry of Defence (MoD) expense records and senior staff travel disclosures covering November 2023 to March 2025. 

They detail the costs of visits by officers ranked two-star and above and senior MoD civil servants, including Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton and General Sir James Hockenhull.

Together, the trips cost more than £18,000, excluding several Royal Air Force (RAF) flights recorded as “nil return.”

Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), the London-based research charity which analysed the material, found that Britain’s defence establishment maintained regular contact with Israel’s armed forces throughout the conflict. 

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Scores of Palestinians dead, regular arrests: Israel's ceasefire violations in Gaza so far

Mera Aladam | Middle East Eye

Since the truce came into effect on 11 October, Israeli forces have committed over 80 violations of the agreement 

As Israeli continues its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, the viability of the US-brokered ceasefire is coming into question.

On Sunday, Israel unleashed a deadly wave of bombings on targets in the besieged territory after it alleged that Hamas violated the terms of the truce deal.

The Israeli military said the attacks were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah, which involved rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.

However, the armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, denied any knowledge of the event, or connections to it, and affirmed it remains committed to the ceasefire. 

Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect on 11 October, Israeli forces have committed over 80 violations of its terms.  

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“October 7 was a false flag,” Testified an Israeli Soldier Under Oath

Adame Media 

An Israeli soldier testifies UNDER OATH that October 7th was a FALSE FLAG, and that he was ordered to STAND DOWN from 5:20am to 9am the day of the attack.

You could face up to five years in prison for sharing this video in Israel.

Airstrikes, explosive vehicles, and bulldozers cause 'insane' destruction in Gaza City, eyewitnesses and civil defense say

Mondoweiss | Tareq S. Hajjaj

The Israeli army is using airstrikes, rigged explosive APCs, and bulldozing operations to level neighborhoods and displacement centers in Gaza City. Eyewitnesses and local officials say it is to cause mass flight and prevent residents from returning.

Ahead of its planned full-scale invasion of Gaza City, the Israeli army is causing widespread destruction in the Strip's largest urban center, forcing residents to evacuate ahead of its publicly declared start date: October 7.

Recent reports from eyewitnesses and the Gaza Civil Defense show that the Israeli army has been using retrofitted armored personnel carriers (APCs) that are sent into dense population centers, including neighborhoods and displacement centers, before they are remotely detonated.

The attacks continue alongside an extensive bulldozing operation in the city and constant aerial bombardment. Between August 12 and August 18, the Israeli army destroyed over 400 buildings in the Zaytoun neighborhood and launched a limited ground incursion at its edges. The army also launched a similar operation in the Sabra neighborhood, west of Gaza City.

Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Mondoweiss that the Israeli army destroyed over 1,500 buildings in Gaza City in aerial strikes alone since August 6, largely in Zaytoun and Sabra.

Basal explained that the Civil Defense continues to receive calls from trapped civilians in the two neighborhoods, but that there is no way to reach them due to heavy shelling and bombardment.

"We're afraid that the Israeli invasion will get even deeper into Gaza City and that Civil Defense crews will be unable to reach the places they bomb. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, whether north or south. Bombs chase residents from their homes, from their displacement centers, and even from their tents."

Abdulwahhab Ismail, a resident of the Saftawi area in northwestern Gaza, evacuated his neighborhood on Tuesday after several buildings on his street were detonated by what he described as explosive "robots."  

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Israel has started the invasion of Gaza City, and is now annihilating one of its most historic neighborhoods

Monodweiss  | Tareq S. Hajjaj

Despite the Israeli army’s announcements that it plans to occupy Gaza City in October, the first stage of the invasion has already begun. It is starting with the flattening of the Zaytoun neighborhood, including the Old City of Gaza. 

Earlier this month, the Israeli army confirmed its plans to occupy Gaza City, with the invasion reportedly set to start on October 7. But on the ground, the invasion has already started. 

On August 10, the Israeli army began invading the eastern parts of Gaza City, with Israeli ground forces moving into one of the city’s largest neighborhoods, al-Zaytoun. The neighborhood borders the Netzarim corridor to the south.    

Locals from the Zaytoun neighborhood told Mondoweiss that they had received orders via phone calls to evacuate their homes to the southern Gaza Strip. Shortly after, the Israeli army started relentlessly bombarding the neighborhood. 

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Israel face-recognition start-up ‘secretly tracking Palestinians’

MEMO| Middle Eastern Monitor

A start-up known as “Israel’s most high-profile biometric recognition firm” is playing a key role in monitoring Palestinians at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, reported Haaretz.

According to the article, Anyvision Interactive Technologies “is taking part in two special projects in assisting the Israeli army in the West Bank”.

One project “involves a system that it has installed at army checkpoints that thousands of Palestinians pass through each day on their way to work from the West Bank.”

In a statement in February, the army said “27 biometric crossings” had been established in the West Bank, as part of a “wide-ranging” effort to “upgrade” the checkpoints in question.

The second project, however, “is much more confidential”, reported Haaretz, and “includes facial recognition technology elsewhere in the West Bank, not just at border crossings”, as “cameras deep inside the West Bank try to spot and monitor potential Palestinian assailants”.

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How NeoCon Billionaire Paul Singer Is Driving the Outsourcing of US Tech Jobs to Israel

Whitney Webb
Mint Press news

WASHINGTON — With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel — a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even “America first” politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.

To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel. This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall U.S. economy, as it accounts for 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.

Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies — known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies — as well as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives. 

This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one leading Republican donor — billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

Singer’s project to bolster Israel’s tech economy at the U.S.’ expense is known as Start-Up Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply with international law in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.

This project is directly linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has publicly mentioned that it has been his “deliberate policy” to have former members of Israel’s “military and intelligence units … merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners” in order to make it all but impossible for major corporations and foreign governments to boycott Israel.

In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

Singer’s nonprofit organization has acted as the vehicle through which Netanyahu’s policy has been realized, via the group’s close connections to the Israeli PM and Singer’s long-time support for Netanyahu and the Likud Party. With deep ties to Netanyahu, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and controversial tech companies — like Amdocs — that spied on the American government, this Singer-funded organization has formed a nexus of connections between the public and private sectors of both the American and Israeli economies with the single goal of making Israel the new technology superpower, largely at the expense of the American economy and government, which currently gives $3.2 billion in aid to Israel annually.

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Report: Israel committed 84 violations against Palestinian journalists in May

Comment: Business as usual for Israel...

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Press TV

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) says the Israeli military committed 84 violations against Palestinian journalists in the month of May as the Tel Aviv regime continues its repressive measures against members of the press both in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip.

MADA, in a report published on Sunday, announced that the number marks a sharp increase compared to the preceding month of April, when 19 violations were documented.

The report then pointed to the recent closure of Facebook accounts of at least 65 Palestinian journalists and activists in a campaign carried out on May 23 and 24.

MADA further noted that Israeli military aircraft targeted and destroyed the office of Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency, besides the office of Palestine Liberation Organization-affiliated Abdullah al-Hourani Center for Studies and Documentation when they bombed the Gaza Strip on May 4.

The report went on to say that Palestinian photojournalist Mohammed Mahmoud Hassan suffered a gunshot wound as he was covering a weekly demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian lands by the Israeli regime in the village of Kfar Qaddum, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on May 10.

Two journalists, identified as 42-year-old Abdel Rahim Mohammed Khatib and Ramzi Hatem al-Shukrit, 35, were also separately injured during their coverage of the anti-occupation Great March of Return protests east of the border city of Rafah, located 30 kilometers south of Gaza City, on the same day.

One of them was struck by a rubber-coated metal bullet, while the other was directly hit by a tear gas canister.

On May 12, Israeli military forces arrested seven journalists and human rights activists in the northern Jordan Valley area, and prevented them from covering deportations being carried out by the military against Palestinian farmers and residents living there.

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View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza that PBS pulled

  Palestinians in Gaza carry an injured girl on March 31, 2018.
 

Alison Weir
If Americans Knew 

PBS stations around the U.S. were scheduled to show a riveting new Frontline documentary, "One Day in Gaza," but at the last minute PBS pulled it. 

The film is missing important context about the issue, but it includes footage that Americans, as Israel's top funders, should see – including a young, unarmed teen being shot in her head. 

BBC, the coproducer of the film, broadcast it to British viewers. We are posting it below so that Americans can also view it. 

Recently, hundreds of PBS stations around the United States were scheduled to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary: One Day in Gaza. But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced by a slightly updated Frontline report on Robert Mueller that had been broadcast two months before and had been streaming online ever since.

PBS no longer has the Gaza film listed on its schedule.

The documentary was to be aired on the one-year anniversary of events that took place on May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Gaza gathered with the intention of deploying the tactics Gandhi had used in freeing India from British control.

The demonstration that day was the 8th march in what Gazans named the Great March of Return.

Palestinians months earlier had announced their plan for a mass, peaceful demonstration in which Gazans would march for an end to Israel's crippling 12-year blockade and, especially, for  their right to return to homes stolen by Israel in order to create a Jewish state. Palestinians' right to return to their homes and ancestral land is well established in international law. This fundamental right, affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel had responded by immediately deploying a hundred snipers.

In the first seven weekly marches, Israeli forces killed about 50 of the marchers and injured over 7,000.

During the 8th march on May 14, the day depicted in the film, Israeli forces killed 60 more and shot 1,000 – an average of one person every 30 seconds.

While this was going on, a glittering Israeli celebration was taking place as a new, transplanted U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem, a city that Israel illegally annexed following the Six-Day War that Israel launched in 1967. 

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Liberty leads the people: The fight for a decent life in Gaza

Amjad Ayman Yaghi
Electronic Intifada

© Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency

 
David vs Goliath: 20-year-old Palestinian A'ed Abu Amro braving IDF sniper-fire on 22 October 2018. He was shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper two weeks later...

 

The photograph by Mustafa Hassouna that made Aed Abu Amro an instant icon.

When Aed Abu Amro held a Palestinian flag aloft during one of the Great March of Return protests last year on the boundary between Gaza and Israel, the last thought on his mind was that he would become an internet sensation.

But a picture of the shirtless Aed, slingshot and flag in hand and enveloped by the smoke from tear gas, went viral almost instantly.

It sparked comparisons with a painting from the European Romantic period and made him an instant icon of the Palestinian resistance.

The photo was taken on 22 October by Mustafa Hassouna of the Turkish Anadolu press agency. And it so happened that in composition, lighting and motif, the picture closely resembles "Liberty Leading the People," a painting by the French painter Eugène Delacroix.

That the subject of the 1830 painting was the struggle for liberty during the revolution in France the same year - with liberty represented by a woman, bare-chested, carrying a French flag - only added to the poignancy of Hassouna's photo.

For Aed, the global reaction to the photo was an eye-opener.

"I was amazed by how quickly the photo spread," Aed told The Electronic Intifada in a recent interview.

The comparisons to Delacroix's painting made him proud, he said, and have encouraged him to carry on, even if inadvertently becoming an icon has also come with a responsibility.
"People consider the photo a symbol of the resistance. This has made me determined to remain steadfast and stay among those rejecting the Israeli blockade. It's great to become a symbol, but the occupation is still imposing its siege."

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American Jewish Council misrepresents facts about Gaza

If Americans Knew

The latest United Nations report on Israeli violence at the Gaza border, was vehemently rebutted by the American Jewish Committee; however the AJC defense came up very short on facts.

by Kathryn Shihadah, reposted from Palestine Home

AJC, the American Jewish Committee, released a statement last Friday rejecting the recent report from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The AJC statement includes decontextualizations and inaccuracies that deserve to be addressed. Below is their statement in italics, with responses.

“AJC denounces the latest UN Human Rights Council report singling out Israel for condemnation. The report was prepared by an “independent international commission of inquiry” established by the Council to investigate the violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border from March 30 to December 31, 2018.”

Note: the “violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border” is essentially one-sided: a nonviolent protest by Palestinians has been met week after week for almost a year by Israeli sniper fire, resulting in the deaths of at least 250 Palestinians. One Israeli soldier and zero Israeli civilians have been killed.

 

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UN report finds Israel intentionally shot children, journalists & the disabled during Gaza protests

Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman's guest is Sara Hossain, a member of the U.N. independent commission that led the Gaza investigation. 

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


  AMY GOODMAN: A United Nations inquiry has found Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed children, journalists and the disabled in Gaza. The report, released by the U.N. Human Rights Council Thursday, looked at Israel's bloody response to weekly Great March of Return demonstrations, launched by Palestinians in Gaza nearly a year ago, targeting Israel's heavily militarized separation barrier. The report found Israeli forces have killed 183 Palestinians, almost all of them with live ammunition. The dead included 35 children. Twenty-three thousand people were injured, including over 6,000 shot by live ammunition. Santiago Canton chaired the U.N. commission.

SANTIAGO CANTON: The commission has found reasonable grounds to believe that the Israeli security forces committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These violations clearly warrant criminal investigation and prosecution, and we call on Israel to conduct meaningful investigations into these serious violations and to provide timely justice and reparations for those killed and injured.

AMY GOODMAN: Another member of the U.N. independent commission, Sara Hossain, described how Israeli forces targeted civilians and journalists in Gaza.

SARA HOSSAIN: We are saying that they have intentionally shot children, they have intentionally shot people with disabilities, they have intentionally shot journalists, knowing them to be children, people with disabilities and journalists. And some of the children-not all of the children are visibly children perhaps, but many of them are. As Commissioner Murungi just said, the journalists were all marked with press vests, that we investigated. And the people with disabilities, as I said, a double amputee in a wheelchair, a person using crutches, they were visibly that. And they've been shot at by snipers, who also have spotters available with them, who have very high-level technology available to see who is out there in the field.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. report called on nations to arrest, quote, "persons alleged to have committed, or ordered to have committed, the international crimes," unquote, or to seek their extradition. The U.N. also demanded Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza. Israel's acting foreign minister dismissed the report as "theater of the absurd." However, grieving Palestinians welcomed the report, including Raeda Ayoub, whose teenage son Mohammad was killed during the Gaza protests.

RAEDA AYOUB: [translated] We are happy that someone is supporting Gaza's children, and we are happy that they are supporting us to defend Gaza's children and youth in Gaza against the crimes committed by the occupation.

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Illegal Israeli squatters seize over half a square kilometer of Palestinian land in Jordan Valley

PressTV

A number of Israeli settlers escorted by troops have confiscated a large area of Palestinian land in northern Jordan Valley in the West Bank despite the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime's land expropriation policies in the occupied territories.

Local Palestinian media reports said on Monday that the group placed barbed wire and electric fence around more than 600 dunams (0.6 square kilometers) of Palestinian-owned land in Khillet al-Oqda and al-Sweideh areas of the valley, which comprises a third of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli troops have also installed surveillance cameras on the seized land.

The illegal Israeli land grab in the occupied Jordan Valley is a regular occurrence by the extremist settlers and the Israeli military.

The Palestinian territories are seized by the Tel Aviv regime under the contested Absentee Property Law, which paves the way for Israel to take over the property of Palestinians who have been forced from their homeland following the 1948 war. 

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Israeli forces assault residents of Khan al-Ahmar, prepare to demolish village

Ma'an News Agency

Israeli forces assaulted residents alongside activists and supporters of the Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin village east of Jerusalem in the central occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

Activists from the Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee and others have been stationed in the village for weeks, as a form of protest against the planned demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and the displacement of its people.

Israeli forces and military vehicles had surrounded Khan al-Ahmar in the early morning hours on Wednesday.

The land on which the Bedouin village is built is entirely owned by and registered at the Land Registration for the residents of the nearby village of Anata.

Israeli forces have been attempting to displace the residents of the Bedouin village, inhabited by 181 people, half of whom are children. Earlier this week, Israeli forces raided Khan al-Ahmar, in preparation to demolish the village which would displace more than 35 Palestinian families, as part of an Israeli plan to expand the nearby Kfar Adummim settlement.

Although international humanitarian law prohibits the demolition of the village and illegal confiscation of private property, Israeli forces continue their planned expansion by forcing evictions and violating basic human rights of the people.

Sources added that Israeli police deployed near the Bedouin village blocked the main road. Buses were also called by the Israeli authorities to transfer the residents to the village of al-Eizariya, east of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that 35 people were injured and treated in the field, while 4 were sent to hospitals for treatment.

Israel has been constantly trying to uproot Bedouin communities from the east of Jerusalem area to allow settlement expansion in the area, which would later turn the entire eastern part of the West Bank into a settlement zone.

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‘New York Times’ teams up with Israel to smear slain medic Razzan al-Najjar as ‘complex,’ not innocent

Donald Johnson, James North and Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss

The New York Times today printed a long article giving credence to Israeli claims that Razzan al-Najjar, the young medic killed by an Israeli sniper a week ago, was not innocent. The article takes at face value Israel's desperate efforts to taint the young woman, whom the army has previously maintained it killed by accident.

The first paragraph announces the Times' service to Israel:

The Israeli military published a brief video on Thursday aimed at showing that a Palestinian medic killed by Israeli forces last week was not the neutral health care worker she has been portrayed as.

The article parrots Israeli hasbara, or propaganda, about al-Najjar: that in a video interview of the medic that the Israelis passed along she described herself as a "human shield." 

Razan Ashraf Al-Najjar, 21, nurse killed in Gaza, June 1, 2018.

Not till paragraph 20 of 22, does the Times state what Jonathan Ofir reported yesterday, the Israeli video cut short al-Najjar's actual statement in an effort to misrepresent her.

In the longer video, the comment that the military translated as "I act as a human shield" was part of a sentence in which Ms. Najjar said, "I'm acting as a human rescue shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line."

Nonetheless, Times author Herbert Buchsbaum, a desk editor in New York, chimes in: al-Najjar "may have been a more complex person than either side is making her out to be."

What can the Times mean by "more complex"?

That is, she was not only saving lives, but was part of the protest. Apparently there is something "complex" about this and therefore Israel isn't really guilty of lying, just oversimplifying. That is obfuscation. Everyone knows what this woman was doing: protesting and saving lives. Calling this "complex" is just the NY Times saying she wasn't really sweet and innocent. If Russia did this the Times would call it the cynical slander and lie that it is. But since it is Israel they have to make this into a he said/she said debate. There is a "battle" of narratives about al-Najjar, the Times says. There is no debate. Israel has lied about the al-Najjar case repeatedly.

Read  more 

See also: Israel edited video to misleadingly justify shooting Palestinian medic

‘Deliberate war crime’: Palestinians decry murder of 21yo female paramedic at Gaza border

RT

The killing of a 21-year-old female medical worker during the Great March of Return at the Gaza border is nothing short of a war crime, Palestinian officials said, calling on the international community to hold Israel responsible.

The murder of 21-year-old medical volunteer, Razan Al-Najar, is a direct violation of all “international treaties and conventions” that ensure the protection of the medical staff in the conflict zones, Palestinian Minister of Health, Jawad Awwad, said late Friday, noting that the shooting of the paramedic must have been “deliberate” and amounted to a “war crime.”

The volunteer was shot in the chest by the Israeli Defense Forces on Friday near the border fence east of Khan Younes, in the southern Gaza Strip, while she was helping wounded Palestinians.

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While the Israeli military has yet to comment on Najar's death, an anonymous witness told Reuters that, at the time of the tragedy, the medical worker wore a white uniform, which clearly distinguished her from the rest of the Palestinian crowd taking part in the 10th weekly Great March of Return protests.

Furthermore, the medical volunteer “raised her hands high in a clear way, but Israeli soldiers fired and she was hit in the chest,” the witness told Reuters.

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