Israeli Invasion of Gaza Imminent

Going to do it while everyone is away and not paying attention:

"Israeli leaders plot response as Gaza violence rages" by Josef Federman Associated Press  August 09, 2018


Smoke billowed from buildings in Gaza City on Thursday following an Israeli air strike, one of hundreds by Israel (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images).

Hundreds of air strikes yesterday.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister convened his security Cabinet late Thursday to plot a response to a new burst of violence with Gaza militants, ordering the army to take unspecified ‘‘strong action’’ as the military reinforced units along the border ahead of a possible escalation.

They are going in. You don't mobilize for nothing.

Fighting showed few signs of slowing. Late Thursday, the Israeli military flattened a well-known cultural center in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood, claiming it was a Hamas military base, as militants fired rockets toward Israel throughout the evening.

Related: "The strategy of President Bashar Assad’s forces has been to target precisely those institutions where medical professionals work and civilians shelter, according to rights groups that have been following the seven-year-long conflict....."

In all, Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes during the day, killing at least three Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and her 1-year-old daughter, as Palestinian militants fired scores of rockets into Israel, wounding seven people.

Now the airstrikes are down to dozens while the "militants fired scores of rockets." Little pop gun fireworks is what they are.

The flare-up came as Egypt continued efforts to broker a long-term cease-fire. Israel’s Channel 10 TV said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the meeting of his security Cabinet by two hours to allow the Egyptians to press forward with their work.

How generous.

After a four-hour meeting, the Cabinet issued a short statement, saying it had directed the army ‘‘to continue taking strong action against the terrorist elements.’’ It did not elaborate, but shortly before the meeting, Netanyahu and his defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, met with top military officials to discuss their options.

Only those two need declare war now before it's off you go!

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing closed consultations, said Netanyahu instructed the army to prepare for ‘‘every possibility.’’

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said Israel had ‘‘ground troops that are ready to deploy. We are reinforcing the southern command and Gaza division.’’ He wouldn’t comment on Israeli media reports of troops preparing for a possible ground operation.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Despite the animosity, the enemies have signaled, through their contacts with Egypt, that they want to avoid another war.

They didn't seize control, they won it legitimately in a fair vote over the ineffective and corrupt puppets at the PA. 

You know, when the constantly distort (Russia annexed Crimea, that sort of thing) how are you supposed to believe the version that is in print?

Hamas is demanding the lifting of an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has devastated Gaza’s economy, while Israel wants an end to rocket fire, as well as recent border protests and launches of incendiary balloons, and the return of the remains of two dead soldiers and two Israelis believed to be alive and held by Hamas.

Thursday’s fighting, however, brought back memories of the most recent war, in 2014. Air raid sirens wailed in southern Israel overnight and throughout the day, sending families scrambling into bomb shelters, canceling outdoor summer cultural events, and forcing summer camps indoors.

Total mind fu*k by government on their own citizens. Have 'em cowering in fear of an ineffectual threat.

The Israeli air force, meanwhile, pounded targets across Gaza.

A Palestinian rocket struck the southern city of Beersheba late in the afternoon, landing in an open area. It was the first time a rocket had hit the city since the 2014 war. 

And that justified this?

Shortly after, an Israeli airstrike flattened the five-story cultural center in the Shati refugee camp. The attack set off a powerful explosion and generated a huge plume of black smoke, causing crowds to scream in panic. Medical officials said at least seven bystanders were wounded.

That is when I broke into tears and decided to put all other things aside and get this post up. 

The building is home to a popular theater and exhibits plays and other shows. An Egyptian-Palestinian cultural society also has an office in the building.

Hey, that's supposed to be Assad's shtick!

‘‘The deliberate targeting of a cultural center with airstrikes and destruction . . . is a barbaric act,’’ said Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman. He said the destruction of the Egyptian cultural office was ‘‘an Israeli attempt to sabotage’’ the Egyptian cease-fire efforts.

The Israeli military said the building served as a Palestinian military installation.....

Or a compound.

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I then flip the page and I'm suppose to feel sorry for immigrant kids?

Yup, more wars a'coming so join up and become a citizen of the Empire!

I'm going to float the following out to you, dear readers, and don't go all sour on me if I missed some things. I went back to where I left off and spent the whole morning sifting through stacks of papers.

What I am sure of is the first to Saturdays of May there was no mention of the continuing protests in Gaza, and I noted such on my notepaper outline that goes with each and every edition of the Globe.

"58 Palestinians killed, hundreds wounded from Israeli fire amid embassy move" by David M. Halbfinger New York Times  May 14, 2018

It's a rewrite of what was plastered on the front page on May 15.

JERUSALEM — Across the Gaza Strip on Monday morning, loudspeakers on minarets urged Palestinians to rush the fence bordering Israel, where they were met by army snipers. At least 58 were killed and thousands injured, local officials said — the worst day of carnage there since Israel invaded Gaza in 2014.

Hours later, a beaming Ivanka Trump helped unveil a stone marker etched with her father’s name on the new US embassy in Jerusalem, keeping his campaign promise to officially acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. An audience of 800 religious conservatives and right-wing politicians from both countries sang “Hallelujah.”

“What a glorious day,” exulted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The two scenes, only an hour’s drive apart, illustrated the chasm dividing Israelis and Palestinians more than at any moment in recent history.

For generations, both sides of the conflict have been locked in competing, mutually negating narratives, with only sporadic flickers of hope for peace despite the efforts of a long list of presidents and secretaries of state.

Now, with the militant Hamas movement hanging on to control of Gaza, and Netanyahu backed by President Trump, neither side is even listening to the other, and the Palestinians have lumped the United States together with Israel as an overt adversary.

Hard for them not to see it that way when the U.S. has basically adopted the Israeli position regarding negotiations.

Responsibility for the violence Monday rested “squarely with Hamas,” said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, for “intentionally and cynically provoking” Israel by urging Palestinians to storm the border fence. “Israel has the right to defend itself,” he said.

Yeah, yeah, poor middle Iswail always being provoked.

In Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chief of Hamas, blamed the United States for inciting the violence by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, reversing decades of US policy and defying international consensus. “The American administration bears responsibility for all consequences following the implementation of this unjust decision,” he said.

It wasn't even really about that; the protests began way back in march to draw attention the the siege.

The sides were in equally different worlds when speaking of how the embassy opening would affect the moribund peace process.

Palestinians, who hope to see the eastern part of Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, see the embassy move as an abdication of any vestige of US impartiality in determining the region’s future. Since Trump announced the move in December, Palestinian leaders have flatly rejected the idea of peace talks under American auspices, but Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, predicted that “when there is peace in this region, we will look back upon this day and will remember that the journey to peace started with a strong America recognizing the truth.”

Netanyahu spoke of peace with “all our neighbors” at the embassy dedication, praising Trump and his team as truth-tellers for acknowledging what he called the fact that Israel’s capital was an “eternal, undivided” Jerusalem.

“A peace that is built on lies will crash on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality,” Netanyahu said.

With evangelical pastors preaching and Sheldon G. Adelson, the influential Jewish Republican donor who had pressed Trump to move the embassy, in the front row, the only reference to the Gaza violence came when Kushner said that “those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution.”

They are all basking in it, huh?

For Israelis, the day was one many had dreamed of for generations. Regardless of their politics, it seemed unjust that the international community refused to see Jerusalem as their capital — a position they saw as a denial of the city’s Jewish history.

Aww, the Zionist land-stealers felt a lack of justice. 

My God! Imagine how Palestinians feel!

For Palestinians, the embassy move’s timing on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence — the eve of the day they commemorate the expulsion or flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what became Israel — became the focal point of demonstrations along the Gaza fence for two months leading up to it.

That continue up to this day, and not just the protests. Israel continues to steal land and ethnically cleanse, and hardly anyone raises a bleat.

By midafternoon east of Gaza City on Monday, the scene at the fence resembled a pitched battle — a chaotic panorama of black smoke, wailing sirens, streams of tear gas, and recurring gunfire. Emergency workers with stretchers carried off a stream of injured people, many with leg wounds, some having been shot in the abdomen. A number were teenagers.

A voice on a loudspeaker urged the crowd forward: “Get closer! Get closer!”

The charge was often led by women dressed in black, waving Palestinian flags and urging others to follow. “We don’t want just one or two people to get closer,” said an elderly woman clutching a shoulder bag and a flag. “We want a big group.”

So the Jew York Times is claiming. That's not what I saw when I saw the videos, nor does the Times mention the border fence, then the no-man's land buffer zone that stretches over 100 yards, before another border fence that is electric.

Some in the crowds were planting or hurling explosives, Israel said, and many were flying flaming kites into Israel: At least one kite outside the Nahal Oz kibbutz, across the fence from Gaza City, ignited a wildfire.

It's the Palestinian Air Force come to save the day!

After midday prayers, the atmosphere grew even more charged when officials from Hamas and other militant factions addressed the worshippers, urging them into the fray and claiming — falsely, to all appearances — that the fence had been breached and that Palestinians were flooding into Israel.

That looks more like Israeli scare tactics and propaganda!

Hamas officials vowed that the protests would continue, but also hinted at the possibility of a military strike at Israel by the group’s military wing, the Qassam brigades, a response that could bring about another Gaza war.

Israel said no Palestinians had crossed the fence, but said it had repulsed several unsuccessful attempts by Hamas to have armed fighters slip across into Israel and wreak havoc — which Israel has maintained all along has been the true military objective of Hamas.

At least three separate squads of armed fighters “tried to use the commotion and smoke and dynamics of the riots as concealment, and then launched an attack on the fence,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.

One Israeli soldier was wounded by shrapnel from what was believed to be an explosive device, he said, and a variety of explosives were hurled at the Israelis by Palestinians. There had been “numerous shots” fired at Israeli soldiers, the army said.

The attempts to breach the fence expanded from five locations in previous protests to 13, Conricus said, calling Monday’s action an “unprecedented level of violence.”

Israel responded with gunfire and tear gas, and Israeli jets struck five targets in a Hamas military training facility in the northern Gaza Strip, and two other Hamas military positions in the area were hit by an aircraft and a tank.

What is there to say, really? 

Kites and balloons against jets and tanks?

Israel has made clear throughout the protests that it holds Hamas responsible for any violence emanating from Gaza, and Conricus made no apologies for the body count. “Hamas is killing Gaza,” he said. “We, on the other hand, are defending our homes.”

Then you won't mind if Hamas holds you responsible since they are only doing the same thing while trying to break an inhuman siege.

Israel’s military response amounted to restored international attention to the Palestinian cause with each one-sided casualty report, and revived Hamas’ flagging political fortunes.

The rival Palestinian Authority was left to look reactive and meek by comparison. Indeed, protests on the West Bank on Monday were fairly uneventful, and the authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, gave an unusually short speech addressing the Gaza death toll, calling for three days of mourning, a one-day strike, and terming the new embassy “an American settlement outpost in East Jerusalem.”

That's what tools do.

One clear loser, veterans of Israeli-Palestinian talks said, was peace in the region, which seemed ever more distant.

“Israel claims all of Jerusalem, and is doing their best to ensure it remains that way,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. “And the Trump administration is validating that in a way no other administration has.”

The US embassy, he said, is the new symbol of that partnership.

Hamas and other jihadi groups have “a national and religious issue around which to rally: defense of Jerusalem,” Miller said. “The embassy is now the physical manifestation of that campaign.”

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Here is what the Washington ComPost had to say:

"Death toll for Gaza protests rises; more demonstrations expected" by Loveday Morris and Ruth Eglash Washington Post  May 15, 2018


A mother held her 8-months baby, Leila al-Ghandour, at the morgue of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza Cityon Tuesday (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images).

Way too much of that for the last 70 years.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Ahead of another day of protests, the death toll for those killed by Israeli forces at the Gaza boundary fence climbed to 61 on Tuesday after reports that an infant died overnight from tear gas inhalation along with two others, according to local health officials.

Monday’s protests saw a level of bloodshed not seen in Gaza since a 2014 war with Israel and more could be ahead as residents bury the dead and prepare to mark the anniversary of Israel’s founding, known to Palestinians as the ‘‘Nakba,’’ or ‘‘Catastrophe.’’

More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population is descended from refugees who were displaced at the time of Israel’s creation 70 years ago.

Some would call it ethnic cleansing.

Israeli officials, however, justified the military’s tactics as necessary to stop the Palestinians from breaking into Israel, which has blockaded Gaza for more than a decade after the militant group Hamas took control of the area.

That is such a lame ass excuse for butchery, as if those starving and skeletal souls are going to stream into Israel. They want their human dignity recognized and addressed.

The death toll more than doubled the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during six weeks of demonstrations, dubbed the ‘‘March of Return,’’ and came on the same day that a new U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem.

Like a blood sacrifice, huh?

The embassy move from Tel Aviv has been widely denounced as a blow to peace efforts in the region and a slap at Palestinians, who consider part of Jerusalem as the capital of a possible future state.

Tuesday’s protests to mark the Nakba, however, are expected to be significantly smaller, after the organizing committee called for a day of mourning after Monday’s bloodshed.

More than 2,700 people were injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, including 1,359 from live ammunition. The dead included at least seven children under the age of 18, among them a 15-year-old girl, the ministry said. The baby was eight months old and died after inhaling tear gas at the main protest area east of Gaza City, it added.

The U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said Tuesday that while Israel had a right to defend itself, lethal force should be a last resort and was not justified on people just approaching the fence. He condemned Monday’s ‘‘appalling deadly violence.’’

Finally, someone at least spoke up for Palestinians other than bloggers and other conscientious world souls!

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned the continuing ‘‘massacre’’ of the Palestinian people. Turkey and South Africa announced they were recalling their ambassadors from Israel. 

I was wondering who was going to fight or defend them.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called on Muslim countries to review their ties with Israel in the wake of the violence.

That's one thing I like about the Turks; they will call Israel out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later attacked Turkish President Recep Erdogan on Twitter, saying that he ‘‘is one of the great supporters of Hamas, and there is no doubt that he understands terror and the massacres well, and I suggest that he not preach morality to us.’’

Israeli newspapers on Tuesday, contrasted the upbeat inauguration ceremony for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem with pictures of the violence on the border but couched it in terms of the country protecting itself.

‘‘Every country must protect its borders,’’ wrote Netanyahu in a tweet. ‘‘Hamas is a terrorist organization that states its intention to destroy Israel and it sends thousands of people to breach the border fence to realize this goal. We will continue to act firmly to protect our sovereignty and our citizens.’’

Yeah, waves of thousands, and how come Israel is the only one allowed to man, patrol, and "defend" its borders. The rest of the world does it and the Jewi$h pre$$ howls!

He was backed by the Trump administration, which blamed Hamas for the loss of life. ‘‘The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas,’’ deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah told reporters at a briefing.

Proving that despite everything else going on, Israel has a vice grip on the balls of this administration. Maybe Trump thinks if he gives them what they want, they will leave him alone domestically.

Israel’s former national security adviser and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, Yaakov Amidror, said that the people around the world condemning the violence need to understand this isn’t like a protest in Europe.

‘‘They do not take into consideration that this is a cover for a terrorist organization that is attempting to stop Israel from building a system that would stop their underground terror tunnels,’’ he said.

That is their solution to illegal immigration?

Asked if Israel could use less lethal methods to contain the protesters, most of whom were unarmed, Amidror said that such a question was a good example of those who ‘‘can sit in an air-conditioned office, drinking coffee and give advice to the Israeli army that is facing off against many thousands of Palestinians.’’

Yeah, the poor, armed with overwhelming force, Israeli military against weak and starving people being subjected to a siege. No wonder nobody likes the so sweet people who always find themselves in trouble.

Those critics are like the same guys operating drones and working at the Pentagon every day, too.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered on the edges of the fenced-off and blockaded territory from midmorning Monday. Many came to peacefully demonstrate, bringing their children and carrying flags. Food stalls sold snacks and music blared, but the protests appeared to have a more violent edge than in previous weeks. Some young men brought knives and fence cutters. At a gathering point east of Gaza City, organizers urged protesters over loudspeakers to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them.

I'm sick of getting Israel's side of the story all the time.

Israeli snipers were determined not to allow a breach, and Palestinian ambulances soon began screaming back and forth from the fence as gunshots rang out. No Israeli soldiers were injured. 

Like a 21st-century Einsatzgruppen!

In Gaza, Hamas has given its backing to the demonstrations, which have galvanized people around a call to protest the loss of Palestinian homes and villages when Israel was formed in 1948.

Commenting in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharaonot, however, journalist Ben-Dror Temini said that the situation was ‘‘self-inflicted’’ and the Palestinians need to get over the events of 1948.

When you guys quick crying Holocau$t™, 'eh?

‘‘There was a Nakba. The Arabs of Palestine underwent expulsion. Tens of millions of people throughout the entire world, including Jews, underwent similar expulsion. But only the Palestinians adopted an ethos of rejectionism, victimhood, suffering and death,’’ he wrote. ‘‘They aren’t looking to improve things for themselves.’’

Look at this sickening Zionist projection! 

They accuse others of the behavior of which they are guilty!

At Gaza City’s main al-Shifaa hospital, medics said on Monday night they were overwhelmed.

‘‘I don’t know how we will manage,’’ Ayman al-Sahbani, the head of the emergency department, said as families jostled to get in to see injured relatives. ‘‘How long can this go on? How long?’’

Months and only until 2020 -- or maybe not even that long.

‘‘We've reached the critical point now,’’ he said. ‘‘A lot of people need operations soon, but the operation room is full.’’

Israel admits at least 14 Gazans die every day waiting for medical treatment.

Increasing economic hardship has fueled frustrations in Gaza, along with wider despair across Palestinian territories amid moves by a U.S. administration seen as wholeheartedly on Israel’s side in the decades-old conflict.

And you wonder why they are acting out? 

Hey, NOTICE US!

At least 110 Gazans have been killed over the past six weeks, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures.

At the demonstrations east of Gaza City, some said the force used by Israel would only bring further unrest.

Standing a few hundred meters from the fence, Nirma Attalah, 29, said her 22-year-old brother had been killed two weeks ago. ‘‘My brother was shot in the head in this place,’’ she said. She had come on Monday with her whole extended family. ‘‘We are here for Jerusalem, for Palestinian land,’’ she said.

While some said they would abide by official calls to keep the demonstrations peaceful, others talked about their enthusiasm to break into Israel and wreak havoc. 

You will die in the attempt.

The Israeli military brought two extra brigades to the Gaza border in preparation for the demonstrations and added additional ‘‘defense lines’’ in an effort to prevent any mass invasion into Israeli communities near the border.

The military said at least 40,000 people protested in 13 places along the fence - more than twice as many locations as in past weeks of protest.

The vast majority of demonstrators were unarmed, but near a parking area, a man pulled out an AK-47 and took aim at an Israeli drone dropping leaflets. He let off a stream of bullets into the air and brought it down. Later, more gunfire was heard as Palestinian factions argued over who would keep the downed drone, onlookers said.

The demonstrations have proved to be a welcome distraction for Hamas, refocusing anger against Israel as frustration built against the group in Gaza.

At a news conference as evening fell, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya said the protests would continue.

‘‘This blood will keep boiling until the occupation leaves forever,’’ he said.... 

I think they are going to make it all Israel. That's why they passed a law enshrining Jewish supremacism. 

--more--"

They don't seem to have too much of a problem with Israeli annexing things.

"Nikki Haley says Israel acted with ‘restraint’ in Gaza response" by Carol Morello Washington Post  May 15, 2018

She must have a warped sense of restraint, although I suppose they could have done far worse.

The US ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday said Israel had reacted with restraint in its military response to protesters at the Gaza border and dismissed suggestions the violence was caused by the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

Nikki Haley told the Security Council that Hamas, backed by Iran, had incited the violence by urging protesters over loudspeakers to burst through the fence separating the borders and flying kites into Israel with Molotov cocktails attached.

‘‘I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: Who among us would accept this type of activity on your border?’’ Haley said. ‘‘No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.’’

Yeah, right. If U.S. agents started shooting immigrants coming over the fence the papers would be screaming about it. The rest of the world is just to let them all in so they can change the character of your nation -- while the Zionists enshrine apartheid in theirs!

The emergency meeting of the Security Council was called by Kuwait to discuss the unrest at Israel’s border with Gaza that has killed at least 60 Palestinians and left thousands wounded after Israeli soldiers and snipers fired into a surging crowd of demonstrators Monday. It was the deadliest day for Gaza in years and came amid celebrations of a US mission in Jerusalem being officially converted into an embassy.

That's pretty ballsy on Kuwait's part, going up against Israel like that.

The debate underscored the gulf between the United States and Israel on one side and most other countries on the other. Sacha Llorenti, Bolivia’s envoy, said, ‘‘The United States, which supports the occupying power, has become an obstacle to peace. It has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.’’

Apparently, Guatemala and Paraguay don't feel the same way.

Karen Pierce, the British ambassador, expressed support for an investigation into Monday’s killings, then stated London’s position on the US Embassy’s opening.

‘‘Our position on the status of Jerusalem and moving the American embassy is well known,’’ she said. ‘‘The status of Jerusalem should be determined in a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians, and Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states.’’

The envoys from China, Sweden, and the Netherlands also went out of their way to reiterate their government’s position that Jerusalem’s status should be left to negotiations and their intention to keep their embassies in Tel Aviv.

But no comments regarding what is happening in Gaza?

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative at the United Nations, said the embassy opening had violated international law and Security Council resolutions.

‘‘No one has the right to imperil our territory and place an embassy in a territory under occupation,’’ he said.

Haley, speaking at the beginning of the session, said the location of the US Embassy has no bearing on whatever Israelis and Palestinians might negotiate and described the opening of the facility as ‘‘a cause for celebration.’’

‘‘It reflects the will of the American people,’’ she said. ‘‘It reflects our sovereign right to decide the location of our embassy. Importantly, moving our embassy to Jerusalem also reflects the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. . . . Recognizing this reality makes real peace more achievable, not less.’’

Haley and Danny Danon, Israel’s UN ambassador, accused Iran of helping foment the violent and deadly clashes along the border with Gaza.

‘‘We do have indications of Iranian funding into Hamas,’’ said Danon, talking to reporters before the Security Council meeting.

‘‘We know the riots are well organized, well funded, and well orchestrated by Hamas,’’ he added. ‘‘Iran is supporting the riots in Gaza.’’

Of course. Ran the blockade, tunneled in and everything without all that Israeli surveillance seeing a thing.

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At least someone is speaking up for Palestinians, like Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, and Janette Hillis-Jaffe, New England regional director of J Street, a liberal Jewish advocacy group.

"Israel rejects UN inquiry on use of force in Gaza" Associated Press  May 18, 2018

JERUSALEM —As hundreds of Palestinians gathered along Gaza’s border with Israel on Friday for an eighth weekly protest, the Israeli government said it ‘‘totally rejects’’ a decision by the UN Human Rights Council to set up a commission of inquiry into recent violence along the border.

The Foreign Ministry said Friday that the UN body is ‘‘made up of a built-in anti-Israel majority, guided by hypocrisy and absurdity.’’

It said, ‘‘Israel will continue to defend itself and citizens against both terrorism and international bodies that attempt to hinder its right to defend itself.’’

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, has led mass protests at the border with Israel.

Israel drew wide criticism after 59 Palestinians were killed at the fence Monday. It says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of the protests.

The Palestinians who joined Friday’s protest generally gathered in tent camps at a safe distance from the border. Dozens got close to the fence, burning tires. Israeli troops responded with tear gas and occasional gunfire.

Hamas has said the rallies will continue until the blockade, which was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group took over Gaza in 2007, is lifted.....

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Related:

"The US Embassy move added fuel to the weekly Palestinian protests in Gaza demanding the right of return to Israel and the lifting of a decade-old naval blockade. The protests culminated last Monday, when Israeli forces killed nearly 60 Palestinians in clashes along the border. In the West Bank on Monday, a small crowd of Palestinian protesters pelted an American diplomatic vehicle with eggs to protest the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. No one was injured. The incident drew an angry American response. The State Department said the diplomats were on a visit to ‘‘promote educational and cultural exchange’’ when they were accosted. ‘‘The objective was clearly intimidation,’’ it said. “The United States absolutely opposes the use of violence and intimidation to express political views.’’

OMFG, did they say that with a straight face?

Won't have to worry about any more cultural exchanges anyway; Israel bombed the center.

Also see: Palestinians Ask I.C.C. to Open Full Inquiry Into Israel

Israel not only rejected it like they always do, but tried to expel the human rights monitor.

And while you were criticizing them over corpses they stole more land!

"Israel defense chief plans 2,500 new West Bank settler homes" by Ilan Ben Zion Associated Press  May 24, 2018

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Thursday he will seek approval next week to fast-track construction of 2,500 new West Bank settlement homes in 2018, an announcement likely to further ratchet up tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Avigdor Lieberman’s office said in a statement that he aimed to fulfill a commitment to expand construction in the West Bank settlements, including some remote outposts and the Jewish settler enclave in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Besides the 2,500, Lieberman said he will advance another 1,400 units that are in preliminary planning stages.

‘‘In the coming months, we will bring for approval thousands more housing units,’’ Lieberman said, according to the statement.

The announcement came two days after Palestinians urged the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to open an investigation into Israeli policies in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, including settlement construction, accusing Israel of systematic crimes, including apartheid in the occupied territories. The request includes the recent round of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli fire killed more than 100 Palestinians during mass protests along the border.

Violence between the sides continued Thursday. The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was ‘‘severely injured’’ when a ‘‘heavy object’’ was thrown at his head during an operation in the West Bank.

Israel has called the Palestinian move at the ICC ‘‘legally invalid.’’ Israel is not a member of the court and argues the court does not have jurisdiction. More than 600,000 Israelis now live in east Jerusalem and West Bank settlements, areas Palestinians seek for their future state.

Then it is a rogue regime!

Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations.

The referral to the ICC would seem to further diminish prospects of success for an expected US peace plan. US officials have said President Trump is to unveil the plan in the coming months.

Why are they still sitting on it?

Israeli watchdog group Peace Now reported earlier this year that settlement construction has surged under the Trump administration, which has taken a softer stance than his predecessors. Trump has asked Israel to show restraint, but has avoided strong condemnations of Israeli settlement construction. His Mideast peace team is dominated by people with ties to the settlement movement.

That's been my only disappointment with him so far.

Peace Now responded to Lieberman’s announcement, calling it a ‘‘scandal’’ and saying on Twitter that the ‘‘messianic right-wing government has distorted priorities, and this morning is proud to approve thousands of new housing units over the Green Line, and gives an incentive to continued creeping annexation.’’

Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi condemned Lieberman’s announcement as ‘‘Israeli colonialism, expansionism and lawlessness’’ and called on the ICC to investigate.

‘‘We appeal to the entire international community to undertake serious and concrete measures to bring about a full cessation of all settlement activities and to hold Israel accountable with punitive measures and sanctions before it is too late,’’ Ashrawi said in a statement.....

Kind of already is if you have seen the maps.

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"Tensions rise as Gaza militants fire more than 50 mortars, rockets into Israel" by Ruth Eglash and Hazem Balousha The Washington Post  May 29, 2018

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 50 rockets and mortar shells into Israel on Tuesday, as tensions escalated between Israelis and Palestinians following weeks of lethal protests and tit-for-tat cross-border attacks.

Israel’s military reported that most of the projectiles were downed by its Iron Dome defense system. Later in the day, Israel reported that seven people were injured by the incoming fire, three of them soldiers. One of the mortars in the first round of fire early Tuesday struck the yard of a kindergarten, drawing angry responses from Israeli leaders, although no children were in the preschool at the time.

So we are told even though overstating the capability of a missile defense system is a tradition dating back to the 1991 Gulf War. 

Lying is now a tradition!

Within hours, Israel’s military responded with airstrikes on sites across Gaza. It said the targets were military training bases belonging to both Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group that Israel said was responsible for Tuesday’s salvo.

The sound of sirens and reports of Iron Dome taking down mortars from the skies over southern Israel continued throughout the day.

OMFG!

‘‘The army will respond with great force to these attacks. Israel will exact a heavy price from anyone who tries to attack it, and we view Hamas as responsible for preventing such attacks against us,’’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech. He called for members of the security cabinet to meet later in the evening.

Netanyahu said Israel held Hamas and the Islamic Jihad responsible for the mortar fire. On Sunday, Israeli forces killed three Islamic Jihad militants in retaliation for an explosive device planted along the Gaza border fence. The extremist Palestinian faction promised revenge for that attack.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli army spokesman, said that since early Tuesday morning, dozens of rounds of mortars and rockets had been fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza at Israel and that it was the ‘‘largest amount of rockets and mortars fired at Israel since 2014.’’ He said some of the mortars fired Tuesday were Iranian-made.

Of course.

‘‘This is something we cannot tolerate,’’ said Conricus. ‘‘Hamas is turning the fence into an active combat zone, and we cannot tolerate attacks on Israeli civilians and military targets.’’

Conricus said militant factions in Gaza had been enabled by Hamas over the past few days to place explosive devices along the border and shoot at Israeli troops.

In response to Tuesday’s escalation, he said, the military hit military targets in Gaza and destroyed an additional tunnel built to attack Israel. Conricus said the tunnel was unusual in that it snaked under Gaza’s southern border into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and then made a U-turn back into Israel. He said it was the 10th tunnel discovered and destroyed by Israel since October.

Residents of southern Israeli communities, who were ushered in and out of bomb shelters throughout the day, also told local media that the latest round of fire was the biggest they had seen since the 2014 summer war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

OMFG! 

What a yo-yo jerk of the Israeli public!

Amir Peretz, the former Israeli defense minister who initiated the Iron Dome system, told Israel Army Radio that it was a ‘‘sharp escalation.’’ Peretz, who resides in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, said it was the most serious attack on Israel since 2014.

During the 50-day war that year, Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. The Israeli military responded with force from the air and sea, and a ground invasion into Gaza, a territory from which it withdrew in 2005. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel in that round of fighting, and more than 70 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died.

Tensions have been soaring between Israel and Gaza for the past few months. Residents of the coastal enclave, which has been under land and sea blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas wrestled power over the strip more than a decade ago, have been holding weekly demonstrations at the Israeli border fence. They are demanding a right to return to land that now sits inside Israel and expressing frustration over a growing humanitarian crisis in what they describe as an open-air prison.

WOW! I'm surprised the pre$$ allowed the term to be used because that is what it is: the world's largest concentration camp.

--more--"

Will the fighting ever end?

"Israel and Palestinians trade fire on Gaza border amid cease-fire talk" by Ruth Eglash Washington Post  May 31, 2018

JERUSALEM — An unofficial cease-fire took hold Wednesday in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel after the worst outbreak of fighting since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the beleaguered Palestinian enclave.

During a 24-hour flare-up, militant factions in Gaza, including Hamas, fired more than 100 rockets and mortar shells into Israel starting Tuesday and continuing through Wednesday morning. Israeli jets pounded more than 50 military targets belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in response.

Israel said some of the rockets fired into its territory were Iranian-made. Although the Iron Dome defense system downed most of the rockets, one hit a civilian home and another a kindergarten.

Is it just me, or is this all reading the same?

However, by early Wednesday, spokesmen for Hamas and Islamic Jihad said that a cease-fire with Israel had been brokered by Egypt.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. But after Hamas wrested control of the strip a decade ago, Israel imposed a land and sea blockade on the enclave. Egypt also has kept its crossing into Gaza closed for much of the decade.

Except they didn't wrestle it away, they won it in election.

A growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has pushed its residents to start protesting. In late March, thousands began weekly protests demanding both a right to return to land that is now inside Israel and a solution to the crisis facing more than 2 million residents.

Sorry, but Israel is keeping it.

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, urged calm on both sides.

‘‘Such attacks are unacceptable and undermine the serious efforts by the international community to improve the situation in Gaza,’’ he said.....

--more--"

Just when you think Israel couldn't sink any lower:

"Thousands attend funeral of slain Palestinian paramedic" by Fares Akram Associated Press  June 02, 2018

KHUZAA, Gaza Strip — Thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of medical workers in white uniforms, took part Saturday in the funeral procession of a colleague who was shot to death by Israeli troops the previous day along the Israel-Gaza border.

Relatives say 21-year-old Razan Najjar was a volunteer paramedic who had helped remove and treat the wounded during weeks of cross-border violence.

She was just the second female fatality out of more than 115 killed since the deadly border protest campaign began in late March.

After the funeral, dozens of mourners headed to the fence and started throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers on the other side. The Palestinian Health Ministry said five protesters were wounded by Israeli fire.

Also Saturday, in the West Bank, the Israeli military said its troops shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to ram a tractor into its forces.

The military said its initial investigation revealed that a 35-year-old Palestinian from a village near Hebron tried to run over an officer with a Bobcat tractor.

Uh-huh.

The attacker then turned around and tried to attack nearby Israeli civilians, the military said.

It said a soldier opened fire, killing the assailant. No Israeli troops were harmed.

Or any Israelis at all!

Since 2015, Palestinians have killed at least 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans, and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings, and car-ramming attacks. 

I thought this was about the medic, and now the pre$$ has once again spun it to poor middle Iswail and Jewi$h victimhood.

An estimated 260 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in that time. Israel says most were attackers.

The attacks have petered off in recent months as the Palestinian focus has shifted toward mass protests at the Gaza border.

On Friday, the Palestinians protested for the 10th week in a row. The military said some hurled grenades and pipe bombs at troops behind the security fence. Some 40 Palestinians were wounded and Najjar was the only one killed.

The Khan Younis hospital said Najjar had a gunshot wound in the chest with an exit wound in the back.

The military said its troops operated ‘‘in accordance with standard operating procedures’’ and that it was investigating the shooting. Israel insists that throughout the weeks-long campaign it has only opened fire at instigators, and that Hamas has been cynically using the demonstrations as cover to carry out attacks.

That I can believe.

On Saturday, the military said it thwarted a Palestinian attempt to damage the security fence surrounding Gaza and a group of militants briefly entered Israel before fleeing back into Gaza when Israeli troops opened fire.

However, Palestinians and human rights groups have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force on some occasions, and of killing Palestinians who did not pose an imminent threat both in the West Bank and Gaza.

Najjar’s body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag as the funeral procession started from the hospital and passed near her home in Khuzaa, a village near the Khan Younis that is close to the border and has served as one of five protest encampments across Gaza in recent weeks. She was the eldest of six siblings.

Where is the #MeToo movement when you really need them?

--more--"

And after the appropriate lull of mourning:

"Israel strikes Hamas in Gaza after rocket fire resumes" Associated Press  June 03, 2018

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military struck Hamas militant sites in Gaza early Sunday in response to the resumption of rocket fire toward Israel, which threatened to unravel an informal cease-fire that had held since a flare-up of violence last week.

Israel has also been battling fires caused by kites rigged with incendiary devices, or attached to burning rags, that have been launched by Palestinians in Gaza. Those attacks have damaged forests and burned southern agricultural fields.

The military said it hit 15 Hamas targets, including military compounds, munition factories, and naval forces. The strikes come after militants broke days of calm along the volatile frontier by firing projectiles toward Israeli communities.

Israel’s Iron Done defense system intercepted some and others landed inside Gaza. Sirens wailed in southern Israel overnight warning of incoming rockets. No one was hurt on either side.

OMFG!

Last week, Gaza militants fired dozens of mortar shells and Israel struck back, in the most violent exchange between the two sides since the 2014 war.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the kites flown from Gaza have caused ‘‘widespread damage’’ to forests and fields in dozens of incidents over the past few weeks. He said planes were deployed the day before to douse the flames.

Israel’s Channel 2 News said the flying firebombs have destroyed some 1,000 acres and disrupted daily life in communities near the Gaza Strip.

Is it just me, or do others see how lame and ludicrous is this BS put out by Israel?

Why not wait until the kite floats to the ground and then stamp out the fire?

Neither Israel nor Hamas appears interested in a full-blown conflict, and both exercised restraint. Any time Hamas or the smaller Islamic Jihad group resorts to firing rockets, they risk triggering a fierce Israeli response, especially if there are serious casualties on the Israeli side. 

Yup, Israel never starts anything and I think they want a full-blown conflict.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. 

If you can call them wars; more like shooting fish in a barrel.

Hamas has also been orchestrating weekly violent protests along the Israel-Gaza frontier. More than 115 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire since they began in late March. 

How many Israelis killed? Zero?

On Friday, a 21-year-old volunteer paramedic was shot as she tried to help evacuate wounded protesters near Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza.

Thousands of people gathered in Gaza on Saturday for the funeral of Razan al-Najjar, the Palestinian paramedic who witnesses say was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.

She's almost forgotten, and will be by next article.

--more--"

Good thing it was Ramadan:

"Ramadan public wakers face arrest, fines in Jerusalem" Associated Press  June 06, 2018

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian men who chant and beat drums to wake up the faithful during Ramadan in Jerusalem’s Old City say they are being unfairly targeted by Israeli police over their early-morning tradition.

The public wakers, known as musaharati, walk through parts of the Old City from 2 a.m., waking up Muslims for the ‘‘suhoor’’ meal ahead of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy month, which ends next week, but since residents began filing complaints with police about the noise, the men say they have been arrested and fined for doing what they say is a part of Palestinian heritage.

‘‘They claim that we disturb them, but that’s not true. They want to erase something called Palestinian Jerusalemite heritage,’’ said Mohamed Hagej, 26, who has worked as a public waker for three years. He said he believes the complaints come from Jewish settlers.

Israel police said they were simply responding to the noise complaints.

What would be a standard dispute between neighbors in another region takes on a political hue in the Old City.

--more--"

Related:

"In the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Health Ministry said Israeli military fire killed four Palestinians at protests along the border. Agence France-Press said one of its photograghers was among the estimated 600 people that Gaza officials say were wounded in the clash....." 

You would think the pre$$ would pitch a fit over that, or at least blame it on Trump!

"Jason Greenblatt, the US special Mideast envoy, lashed out at a veteran Palestinian official on Sunday, saying his ‘‘false claims’’ and rhetoric haven’t brought peace closer. Greenblatt was responding in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper to an earlier op-ed article by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that accused American officials of acting as ‘‘spokespeople’’ for Israel and criticizing the United States for moving its embassy to Jerusalem.  Greenblatt wrote that Erekat’s claims ‘‘were in many respects simply inaccurate.’’ Erekat had condemned the United States for the embassy move, noting it occurred amid violence along the Gaza border, just 45 miles away. On the day of its opening in Jerusalem, an estimated 59 Palestinians were killed in Gaza at a mass rally led by the Islamic militant group Hamas that rules the territory......"

Here is who he is working with:

"Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and top adviser on the Middle East, met twice over two days in Jerusalem with Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and was replete with criticism of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, the aging, unhealthy, and highly unpopular Palestinian leader....."

Looks like they are trying to get rid of Abbas, and they are talking about letting Israel have control of Al-Aqsa Mosque!

That means evictions:

"Israel evicts settlers from homes illegally built on Palestinian land in West Bank" AP  June 13, 2018

JERUSALEM — Israeli police on Tuesday evacuated Jewish settlers from 15 homes built illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Police said some 500 protesters demonstrated against the evacuation, with some throwing stones and bottles at police and several dozen barricading themselves in one house. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six officers were wounded in the scuffles and that police arrested three protesters.

Did Israeli snipers open fire?

Protesters opposed to the move also blocked the entrance to Jerusalem, snarling traffic.

Rosenfeld said the evacuation of most of the houses proceeded smoothly, with families leaving their homes without resisting. 

Just like the Jews who meekly marched into the assassination pits and gas chambers, right?

After the eviction, Israeli forces are expected to demolish the structures in the Netiv HaAvot unauthorized outpost. The government says it will compensate the residents and rebuild their homes on nearby lands that are not privately owned.

But the Palestinians have no right to return and are not compensated. Wow.

Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the eviction in 2016, saying the homes were illegally built on private Palestinian land while not determining the precise ownership of the land. A law passed last year legalizing dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank is currently being challenged at the High Court.

That's what they do: steal the land first, then legalize the theft. 

And they wonder why people don't like them?

Israel captured the West Bank along with East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war, and today about 600,000 settlers live in those areas. Most of the international community considers settlements to be either illegal or illegitimate.

The Palestinians seek the territories along with the Gaza Strip for their hoped-for state.

I would forget that unless.....

--more--"

Also see:

"Israeli police officials are taking testimony from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of an investigation into a conflict of interest case involving a $2 billion purchase of German submarines and some of the Israeli leader’s closest associates. Police were seen arriving at Netanyahu’s official residence and later confirmed in a statement that they had questioned Netanyahu for several hours as part of an investigation in which he has not been named a suspect. Netanyahu was expected to be questioned as a suspect in a separate corruption case involving telecom giant Bezeq. Two Netanyahu confidants have been arrested on suspicion of promoting regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the company....."

Related: Wife of Benjamin Netanyahu charged with fraud, breach of trust

Of course, the cases move as slow as molasses if they move at all.

Prince William to meet Israeli leaders on historic royal visit

Rothschilds are their masters he must have been getting his orders.

Time to break the fast:

"Gaza residents pray near Israel, as Muslims mark major feast" by Wafaa Shurafa Associated Press  June 15, 2018

GAZA CITY — Several thousand Gaza worshipers knelt on prayer rugs spread on sandy soil, near the perimeter fence with Israel, joining hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world Friday in marking the holiday that caps the fasting month of Ramadan.

The three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday is traditionally a time of family visits and festive meals, with children getting new clothes, haircuts, and gifts. In the Middle East, celebrations were once again marred by prolonged conflict in hot spots such as Syria, Afghanistan, and the Gaza Strip.

In Gaza, an Israeli drone attacked a tent used to prepare kites and balloons rigged with incendiary devices for launch into Israel, a witness said. The balloons and kites are the latest tactic in weeks-long protests against a blockade of Gaza, imposed by Israel and Egypt after the 2007 takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Since late March, more than 120 protesters have been killed and more than 3,800 wounded by Israeli army fire in the area of the fence.

Israel’s military said Friday evening that just a few dozen Palestinians protested at the barrier during the day, a sharp contrast to previous weeks.

Earlier Friday, several thousand Gaza worshipers performed the traditional morning prayers of the holiday in areas several hundred yards away from the fence.

Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader, joined worshipers in an area east of Gaza City. Some activists later approached the fence, burning tires.

The protests have been organized by Hamas, but turnout has been driven by growing despair in Gaza about blockade-linked hardships, and by the fact that unemployment approaches 50 percent and electricity is on for just a few hours every day.

I think that last part is very important for a variety of reasons.

Hamas has also billed the protests as the ‘‘Great March of Return,’’ suggesting they would somehow pave the way for a return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants — about two-thirds of Gaza’s residents — to return to ancestral homes in what is now Israel.

It's an invaaaaaysion from the refugee camps!!

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled in the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation.

It's ethnic cleansing on Israel's part, and thus not much of a fuss is made and those that do make one are attacked.

Haniyeh told reporters after Friday’s prayers, which were also being held outdoors in another location east of the town of Khan Younis, that protests would continue.

He said a recent UN General Assembly resolution blaming Israel for the Gaza violence ‘‘shows that the marches of return and breaking the siege revived the Palestinian issue and imposed the issue on the international agenda.’’ The resolution also said Israel had used excessive force against Palestinian protesters.

Except the more powerful and elitist Security Council blocked it thanks to a veto from the United States.

Israel says it is defending its territory and civilians living near Gaza. It has accused Hamas of using the protests as cover for damaging the fence and trying to carry out cross-border attacks. Israel and Egypt argue that the blockade is needed to contain Hamas, which has a history of violence and refuses to disarm.

Even reading their version of events like I am, one can see that is lame.

Later Friday, the Israeli military said an aircraft fired warning shots at Palestinians preparing balloon bombs, and at a nearby vehicle. It said it views the devices with ‘‘great severity’’ and will act against them. Such a device landed in Israel earlier Friday and was detonated by police.

Water balloon? 

But they can't put out the fires, huh?

Israel has been battling large fires caused by kites and balloons rigged with incendiary devices, or attached to burning rags, launched by Palestinians in Gaza that have damaged forests, burned agricultural fields, and killed animals in recent weeks.

Created a..... gulp.... Holocaust™ in Israel, an inferno one might say.

Israel’s Channel 2 News showed footage of dozens of residents of Nir Am, a kibbutz near the Gaza border that has been hit hard by the fire bombs, launching colorful balloons carrying candy toward Gaza. It said Israel will plant trees in areas devastated by the fires Saturday. 

That's one reason there are fires in Israel, and its getting so you can barely breath.

Mohammed al-Tayyar, a member of a Gaza group that calls itself the ‘‘burning kites unit,’’ said Friday large numbers of kites and balloons would be sent in the coming days.

It's a wave of kites!

In Jerusalem, senior Muslim cleric Muhammad Hussein told tens of thousands of worshipers that a plan for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, expected to be unveiled by the Trump administration, is unfair and ‘‘aims at the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.’’

They are only doing what was done to them, or so we have been told.

President Trump has promised to negotiate the ‘‘ultimate deal’’ but the plan’s reported — though unconfirmed — parameters have been dismissed by the Palestinians as favoring Israel.

That's no surprise. It was drawn up by Greenblatt and Kushner.

The Palestinian issue also loomed large in Iran. President Hassan Rouhani said in a holiday message that he believes the ‘‘land of Palestine will be returned to owners of the land with the help of God.’’ Iran and Israel are bitter foes.

Yeah, we know all roads to war end in Tehran.

--more--"

"Palestinians say 13-year-old is killed along border with Israel" Associated Press  June 29, 2018

GAZA CITY — Two Palestinians including a teenage boy were killed and scores wounded by Israeli fire on Friday, Gaza health officials said, as weekly border rallies organized by the Islamic militant group that rules the territory continued.

They are still at it?

The 13-year-old was fatally shot in the head and a 24-year-old man died of gunshot wounds to his leg and abdomen, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

More than 130 wounded were evacuated to hospitals for treatment with at least three in serious condition, the ministry said. About 90 others received first aid.

A paramedic, Mutasem Khatib, said the teenager was throwing stones ‘‘very close to the fence’’ before he was shot.

Hamas, the group that rules Gaza, has led three months of protests that turned violent. Over 125 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since they began.

Israel says it is defending its border and nearby communities and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the fence and carry out attacks.

That is where my print copy ended.

The Gaza rallies are aimed in part at drawing attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas seized Gaza in 2007. 

They didn't seize anything! 

Awww, what's the use!? 

When is that blockade going to be run, and why didn't I see anything about it in my paper?

Late Friday afternoon, protesters flocked to five tent camps erected about 330 yards away from the Israeli border. A few dozen ventured to the fence and threw stones and fire bombs toward Israeli forces. 

Sort of a David and Goliath situation.

Other Palestinians launched kites and balloons rigged with incendiary materials at neighboring Israeli communities to set fires.

Israel has been battling large fires caused by the flaming kites and arson balloons launched from Gaza that have destroyed forests, burned crops, and killed wildlife and livestock. 

They make it sound like California!

Palestinians said they downed an Israeli drone in central Gaza that was firing tear gas at protesters. Videos of the episode emerged showing dozens of teenagers gathering to pick up the drone and chanting ‘‘God is Great’’ in Arabic while others fired in the air with pistols.....

--more--"

You know what you need amongst all the misery? 

A good laugh:

"Israel says Hamas tried to infiltrate its military using dating and sports apps" by Ruth Eglash Washington Post  July 03, 2018

WHAAAT?!!!

TEL AVIV — The Israeli army said Tuesday that archenemy Hamas, the militant Palestinian Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, has been attempting to infiltrate the military using dating and sports apps on smartphones.

A senior army official in Israel’s intelligence directorate told journalists that the army had detected at least three malicious phone applications, including dating apps named Wink Chat and Glance Love, that contained malware designed to infiltrate networks and steal data.

Are you sure they weren't designed by Israeli intelligence? 

This stinks of a load of propaganda!

One called Golden Cup, which offers real-time information on the soccer World Cup, and other apps had been available in the Google Play store for Android phones.

Israel didn't make it, ha!

The army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with military protocol, said Hamas operatives posing online as young, attractive, and, in most cases, female Israelis attempted to lure Israeli recruits via Facebook and WhatsApp to download the apps.

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!

Once embedded in a person’s phone, the malware in the apps can read text messages, view visual content and other documentation stored on the device, and allow outside sources to listen in on conversations and take photographs remotely.

They will be bubbling under the surface, huh?

‘‘Hamas is understanding how to operate in a cyber era,’’ the official said. ‘‘Technically, they are not that smart, but they have a very good understanding of what Israeli youths are interested in, what they talk about, and their level of Hebrew is excellent.’’

(Wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

The army said the Wink Chat, Glance Love, and Golden Cup apps, which were removed from Google’s app store in the past few months, were downloaded by 400 to 500 people, though not all of them were soldiers.

While it could not give exact numbers on how many soldiers were allegedly approached or duped into conversation with Hamas’s cyberoperatives, the army said hundreds of recruits reported being approached through their Facebook accounts. Only about 2 percent agreed to download the apps. It is possible that more people will come forward now that the information about the purported cyberthreat has been made public.

Oh, does this ever have the rotten stench of pure agenda-pushing, public relations propaganda!

A Hamas official declined to comment.

He laughed and hung up phone!

Israel has fought three wars with Hamas, which also operates from the West Bank and abroad, since the group took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. Hamas, which is viewed as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, has used a variety of means to infiltrate Israel, including tunnels and, more recently, incendiary kites and balloons.

Never mind the reverse. That's how you frame patsies.

Tensions between Israel and Hamas have flared recently as residents of Gaza hold weekly protests that often turn lethal along the border with Israel, demanding the return of land that Palestinians lost when Israel was created and highlighting the humanitarian crisis facing the enclave. Israel and Egypt have imposed a land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over the territory.

This is the second time Hamas allegedly has attempted to infiltrate the Israeli military in this way. In January 2017, the army said it had detected fake Facebook accounts used by Hamas militants to connect with young Israeli recruits in an attempt to gain access to sensitive army information. 

A Hamas honey trap, haw-haw!

It reported then that soldiers, mostly from combat units, were enticed into chatting with people on the social media network who they believed were young, attractive women in Israel and abroad. The soldiers were then duped into downloading chat applications to their cellphones.

Who knew Israel's military was so devoid of morality and could be so easily enticed.

After that purported infiltration, the army changed its rules on using social media and smartphones. It also undertook a vigorous program to increase awareness among troops of cybersecurity concerns. The army periodically tests its troops by sending out messages from fake social media accounts to see whether they are susceptible to entrapment.

OMG!!!!!!!

But I was told it is a Hamas honey pot!!! 

I hope Facebook purged those fake accounts, good Gawd!

Briefing the news media on Tuesday, the Israeli official said the latest attack was more streamlined than in 2017. This time, in addition to connecting with soldiers on Facebook, he said, operatives used WhatsApp, strengthening their fake identities with Israeli phone numbers. He would not say whether those behind the alleged infiltration were in Gaza, the West Bank, or abroad.

That's usually an Israeli shtick to frame patsies!

The official said the Israeli army intelligence unit became aware of the malicious dating apps in January and has been working to prevent the infiltration in an operation called Broken Heart, either a reference to those who might face heartbreak when they realize the people they have been conversing with are really enemy operatives or to when Hamas realizes that Israel has uncovered the alleged operation. 

Awwwww, poor, duped, Israeli soldier, victimized again before starting up the sniping.

--more--"

With power only four hours a day, what does Israel do provide them with broadband and WiFi?!

Time to get back to Gaza:

"Employees of the UN Palestinian refugee agency escalated their protest Wednesday in the Gaza Strip against sweeping pay cuts and dismissals as the organization blamed US funding cuts on the crisis. Hundreds of UNRWA staff continued a sit-in that began Monday at the organization’s Gaza office and announced plans to go on an open-ended strike, demanding the agency cancel recent job eliminations. On Wednesday, UNRWA fired 154 staff, 125 of them in Gaza, where it also downgraded another 580 to contract workers. Amir al-Miss’hal, head of UNRWA’s Palestinian employees union, said the agency technically canceled about 1,000 more jobs by not hiring new employees to fill in for those who retired. One staffer who received a dismissal notice Wednesday attempted to set himself on fire, but bystanders and colleagues stopped him....."

Now THAT is a level of despair that is hard to imagine.

Of course, that protest soon fell off the grid because it is not of the agenda-pushing, controlled opposition variety favored by my pre$$. Time to start rebuilding the tin shacks.

The image is an awful one for Israel, thus we get these:

"Israeli magazine fires cartoonist for depicting Netanyahu as pig" Associated Press  July 27, 2018

JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem-based magazine has laid off a cartoonist for rendering an image of Israel’s prime minister and Likud lawmakers as pig characters from George Orwell’s ‘‘Animal Farm,’’ Israel’s journalists union said Thursday.

The cartoon was meant to criticize the Israeli government’s passage of a controversial law last week enshrining the state’s Jewish character. Critics say the law, which defines Israel as a Jewish state and downgrades the Arabic language’s status, marginalizes the country’s Arab minority.

They did it because they intend to make it a one-state solution, all Israel.

After the bill passed, jubilant supporters took a selfie with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The cartoon by Avi Katz, a cartoonist for the Jerusalem Report, depicted that moment, but his image shows the politicians drawn as pigs. It’s captioned with Orwell’s line: ‘‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.’’

Reached by phone in New York on Thursday, Katz said he saw Olivier Fitoussi’s photograph of ‘‘these fat ugly people taking a congratulatory selfie after they squeezed through this law with some very, very dirty tricks,’’ he said.

The magazine is owned by the Jerusalem Post newspaper. Neither responded to requests for comment..... 

Think about that for a moment. If not even a Jew can criticize Israel.....

--more--"

Related: Israeli appeal to conservative evangelicals renews old fears

Playing you guys for suckers!

"Romanian minister says no offense meant in Auschwitz comment" AP  July 27, 2018

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s agriculture minister said Thursday he did not intend to offend Jews when he compared the incineration of pigs with swine fever to the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

Petre Daea attempted to clarify remarks made in a televised interview this week in which he said the burning of thousands of sick pigs was ‘‘very hard work, it’s like Auschwitz.’’

Daea said that he respected ‘‘all members of the Jewish community’’ and was merely trying to highlight difficulties faced by pig farmers who have been ordered to incinerate their infected livestock.

Look at how western leaders have to bow down low to their masters.

Two opposition parties— the Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union — and others have called for Daea to resign.

Israel’s embassy in Romania expressed ‘‘dismay and disappointment’’ over the remarks Thursday, saying the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust ‘‘should never be forgotten, trivialized, or minimalized.’’

Yup, okay, under attack everywhere, got it.

Some Holocausts™ are more equal than others.

Romania’s Anti-Discrimination Council said it would summon Daea to explain the comments.

--more--"

Related: Austrian court acquits 17 defendants in far-right trial

Wasn't that where you-know who was born?

This spate of stories makes you wonder if they are invading Gaza this weekend, especially since I had to go to Fox to see the latest. Nowhere to be found in the Globe. 

I wonder who will come to the Palestinians defense. Sudan (well, I suppose they might)? France (at least they'll get a meal)? Spain? How will they get out with the cabbies on strike?

"Doctor says he’s sorry for posts on white nationalist sites" Associated Press  July 27, 2018

NEW YORK — A New York doctor says that he is sorry for posting comments online supporting a white-only nation and armed racial conflict.

Don't tell me jwho.

Dr. Dov Bechhofer, a resident radiologist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, was removed from duty this week after an anonymous article on the blogging site Medium identified him as an online commenter on a website that promoted white nationalism.

That's no surprise given the Jewish supremacism enshrined into law.

The online poster, who wrote under the name ‘‘Dov,’’ called himself an ethnic nationalist and wrote about his opposition to racial intermarriage and support for proposals to expel nonwhites from the US.

Is he in Washington D.C. this weekend?

He also said he favored ‘‘’tempered’ anti-Semitism’’ despite being Jewish himself.

A self-hating Jew?

Bechhofer confirmed that he had made the comments and expressed remorse in a statement emailed to The Associated Press on Thursday.

‘‘I am ashamed of the hurtful, unjustifiable words that I posted online that showed callous disregard toward certain minority groups and am deeply sorry for these transgressions,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The posts do not reflect how I was raised or how I actually treat others. I will continue to struggle to understand what brought me to write them.’’

He was just doing his part-time job!

Bechhofer’s father is a rabbi who is a leader of the group Orthodox Jews Against Racism and Discrimination, according to The Forward, a news magazine with a mostly Jewish American audience.

Now the good doctor looks like a Hasbara!

Bechhofer began commenting on white-supremacist websites in the fall of 2016. The doctor said he became interested in the websites out of a ‘‘scared curiosity about what was being said on these forums about Jews.’’

‘‘But after spending some time in this toxic corner of the Internet, I eventually became numb to the ugliness of that hateful echo chamber and began participating in the dialogue,’’ he wrote.

AWWW, HE'S A VICTIM!

Montefiore Medical Center placed Bechhofer off duty pending the results of a thorough investigation.

‘‘It’s been very painful for me overall,’’ Bechhofer said in a telephone interview.

POOR, POOR JEW!

--more--"

Related: Vandals target Jewish landmark in Sharon

They made an arrest, and it turns out the vandal was none other than Yerachmiel E. “Rocky” Taube, who once attended temple at Young Israel of Sharon and is still an active member of the synagogue. Hopefully, he gets all the help he needs as this is a “difficult and delicate issue, as you imagine, for the Jewish community of Sharon, praying that the perturbed individual who did this will be able to get better.”  

Enough with the self-serving, false flag terrorism and by deception waging war and $upporting the narrative, 'kay?!

Also see:

"Rabbi Aaron D. Panken, who expanded the ranks and ambitions of liberal Reform Jewish leaders in North America and in Israel, where Orthodox Judaism dominates, died Saturday when a plane he was piloting crashed about 70 miles northwest of Manhattan....."

Who would have wanted him out of the way?

"A prominent builder of celebrity homes was identified by authorities Sunday as being one of four people on board a small plane that crashed off the coast of Long Island, killing two and leaving two missing. East Hampton police identified those on board as builder Bernard Krupinski, 70; Bonnie Krupinski, 70; William Maerov, 22; and Jon Dollard, 47....."

They also found the remains of Lindsey Baum in the wreckage.

"Troops sent to West Bank after Israeli killed in attack" by Shlomo Mor Associated Press  July 27, 2018

Imagine my reaction reading the byline.

Yeah, this will be an objective account.

ADAM, West Bank — Israel’s military on Friday searched the West Bank village of a Palestinian teenager who allegedly broke into a settlement home and stabbed three Israelis, including one who later died from his wounds.

The military said it detained four Palestinians for questioning and set up security checkpoints at entrances to Kauber, the assailant’s village, north of Jerusalem. The attacker, identified as Mohammed Tareq Dar Yousef, 17, by family members was shot and killed at the scene Thursday night.

This is what Palestinians live with every day.

Blood stains were still visible outside the home of the Israeli victim Friday as relatives and friends gathered nearby.

Daniel Nadav said he rushed to his neighbor’s home after hearing screaming. He said he saw 31-year-old Yotam Ovadia ‘‘covered in blood . . . walking slowly toward a car and then falling.’’ Nadav said he saw ‘‘the terrorist stabbing another neighbor.’’ He said the attacker then ran toward him with a knife and tried to stab him.

Nadav said he kicked the attacker in a leg and then got out of his way before another neighbor arrived and shot him dead.

Ovadia, a father of two young children, later died in a hospital.

I just get numbers when it's Palestinians.

Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, issued a statement praising the attack but did not claim responsibility. Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called it a ‘‘brave operation that responds to the daily ugly crimes the occupation commits against our people.’’

He has to now go on social media and attempt to entice Israeli soldiers.

Forces measured the attacker’s house ahead of its planned demolition, the military said. Israel typically demolishes the homes of Palestinian attackers, calling it a deterrent measure, but critics consider the policy collective punishment.

It's okay though, because Israel is above international law.

Israelis have faced a wave of Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, on civilians and soldiers over the past two years but these types of assaults have declined recently.

One always seems to happen when Israel needs it most.

The settlement about 3 miles from Jerusalem is also called Geva Binyamin. Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there.

Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through peace talks.

But not Jerusalem, which is all theirs! 

What unreasonable and insufferable bastards.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement saying ‘‘the best answer to terrorism’’ is Israeli settlement in the West Bank, adding that he will advance the building of hundreds of housing units in Adam in the coming weeks.

You can add that to the 4,0000 already announced.

After Muslim noon prayers Friday, some worshipers at the most sensitive holy site in Jerusalem threw stones and shot fireworks at Israeli officers stationed nearby, police and Palestinian witnesses said. They were the first such clashes in about a year.

The incident occurred at a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews that is ground zero for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The walled compound is home to both the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. It is Islam’s third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. 

Israel messes with that and the whole Muslim world will erupt.

Jews revere the hilltop compound as the Temple Mount, site of the two Jewish biblical temples. It is the holiest site in Judaism and the nearby Western Wall, is the holiest place where Jews can pray.

Only men, of course. 

Somehow, Zionist sexism isn't a problem.

--more--"

It's like same things last year, and I've seen this movie before!!


President-elect Trump became decidedly more pro-Israel as his campaign progressed, and last week aligned with Israel in a recent UN vote from which the US abstained. Above, a placard in Tel-Aviv (Jack Guezjack Guez/AFP/Getty Images/FILE)."

Coming soon: the kingdom of Israel! 

A kingdom you can have pride in, as opposed to that place next door: 

"While the Trump administration has slashed aid elsewhere, the United States has pledged more money to Jordan, which is a hub for thousands of US troops,  but assistance from Saudi Arabia has dried up. Jordan is known for its relative stability in an often-tumultuous region, and US officials looked on with concern last week as this key Middle Eastern ally faced its largest street protests since the Arab Spring unrest of 2011. Jordan is embarking on a three-year program of painful economic measures ordered up by the International Monetary Fund."

Hey, so is Egypt, with the same austerity measures! 

Those Saudi traitors!

"Thousands mourn 11-year-old, two others killed by Israeli army" by Najib Jobain Associated Press  July 28, 2018

GAZA CITY — Thousands attended funerals Saturday of three Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in a border protest a day earlier, including an 11-year-old, a 17-year-old, and a man on crutches. 

More than 140 Palestinians, most of them unarmed, have been killed and several thousand wounded by Israeli troops since March in such protests led by Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the latest deaths brought to 18 the number of minors, age 18 and under, killed in the past four months.

Human rights groups have accused Israel of the unlawful use of lethal force against the protesters.

Israel says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas, a group sworn to its destruction, of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the border fence and attack civilians and soldiers.

Hamas has empowered the Palestinian Authority to negotiate on its behalf, with the resulting deal to be put before Palestinian voters. If they accept it, Hamas has said it will abide by it.

Why doesn't my pre$$ tell you that?

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that Moumin al-Hams, 17, was shot in the chest in the protest on Friday along the fence that separates Gaza and Israel.

Snipers.

Images shared on social media by his friends and relatives show him venturing toward the fence, setting tires ablaze and pushing them toward Israeli forces.

The tires are meant to obscure the vision of snipers, and so far no mention of kites and balloons, nor the no man's land between the fences with the snipers behind berms beyond that.

Funerals were also held Saturday for Majdi al-Satari, 11, whose age was previously announced as 14, and for Ghazi Abu Mustafa, 43.

The Health Ministry initially gave Majdi’s age as 14. On Saturday, it said his age was 12. A relative said the boy had been born Oct. 3, 2006, meaning he was 11 when he was killed. Al-Mezan, a Gaza-based rights groups, confirmed Majdi’s age as 11.

Was he 10, 11, 12, or whatever, does it really matter!!!!????!! 

He's DEAD! 

So if he was 14 that makes it more acceptable than if he were 10, is that the thing?

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a witness, said that on Friday protesters were trying to cut razor wire about 50 yards away from the actual fence.

He said Majdi was watching from about 100 meters away. ‘‘There were two gunshots from a sniper. One hit one of those cutting the wire in a leg and the other gunshot hit the boy in his head,’’ he said.

Women gathered under the corrugated zinc roofing of the al-Satari’s family’s house for the funeral.

Majdi’s mother, Kholoud, wearing a black robe and face veil, sat on a mattress.

‘‘I don’t know what he did to them [the Israeli soldiers],’’ she said as she burst in tears. She added that his family tried to prevent him from going to the protests and on one occasion tried to lock him indoors. ‘‘It’s his fate,’’ she sighed.

‘‘He is a child. He had no bullets or weapons,’’ said the boy’s grandmother, identified as Umm Ramzi. ‘‘He was standing like all children watching. They shot him from afar. Isn’t he a child? Why are they targeting children?’’

Where were the paramedics (that's ‘‘standard operating procedure’’ for the Israeli military)?

In a nearby town, resident Hassan Najjar said he witnessed the shooting of 43-year-old Abu Mustafa.

He said soldiers shot at a group of Palestinians who rushed to the border and a bullet hit the man sitting about 250 meters away. He said the man had sustained leg wounds at a previous protest and was still using crutches.

Caused by the new butterfly bullets we never read about. Maims and cripples Palestinians forever and makes them a burden to the family.

Hamas has led border protests aimed in part at drawing attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.

Yeah, good thing Gaza has Egypt on one side.

The demonstrations have been fueled in large part by pervasive despair caused by the blockade, which has caused widespread economic hardship.

As if the despair were somehow wrong or just ubiquitous?

Last week a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier. Another soldier was wounded by Palestinian fire on Wednesday.

Yeah, poow Jew again.

I hope they don't suffer PTSD.

--more--"

Time to take the gloves off.

"Palestinian teenager who slapped Israeli soldier is released from jail" by Isabel Kershner New York Times   July 29, 2018

I was shocked at it being the world lead that day.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Prison time is almost a rite of passage for any aspiring Palestinian activist, and Ahed Tamimi, the West Bank teenage firebrand who rose to international prominence after she kicked and slapped an Israeli soldier, tried to use hers profitably.

Yeah, it's a rite of passage even if you never did anything!

“I learned a lot,” Tamimi, 17, said hours after her release Sunday from an Israeli prison, where she served an eight-month term. “I learned how to stay patient, to be in a group. I did my best to use the time to study. I came out more educated, and understand the world better than when I went in.”

That sounds like she has been brainwashed, 'er, tortured, 'er, I mean, undergone reejewkhazion.

She also came out no less feisty.

She now plans to study law with an eye to suing Israel in international courts for what she describes as the violations and war crimes of the occupation.

“Of course I’m not going to forget the cause,” she said in an interview, “but I’m going to invest in my studies, because knowledge is the strongest weapon for a struggler.”

Declaring that the resistance would go on, she said her imprisonment had been “difficult but meaningful.”

Tamimi was arrested in December, days after she was seen on video kicking, hitting, punching, and shoving a heavily armed Israeli soldier at the entrance to her family home in the village of Nabi Saleh. She was 16 at the time. Her mother, Nariman, who relayed the event live on Facebook, was also arrested, as was a cousin who joined in.

The soldier and a comrade stood impassively during the altercation, then left the scene.

The episode occurred shortly after a 15-year-old cousin of Tamimi was shot in the head by a rubber bullet fired by Israeli forces. He was gravely injured but survived.

Many of the 500 or so residents of Nabi Saleh belong to the extended Tamimi clan.

For nearly a decade, the village has been conducting a grassroots campaign of weekly Friday protests against the Israeli occupation, land seizures and an adjacent settlement that has taken control of a village spring. The protests regularly end in stone throwing and clashes with Israeli security forces.

Think about that for a minute. 

Here you are, a Palestinian who has gone to that well your whole life. Then one morning, you go to fetch some water and are met with settlers that block you and say you can't come here anymore.

Family members, including Tamimi’s father, Bassem, have been in and out of prison. Three residents of the village have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

To supporters, Ahed Tamimi is a courageous, consciousness-raising icon of popular Palestinian resistance. Pro-Israeli detractors view her and her family as publicity-seeking agitators who exploit children by putting them at the forefront of the struggle and as experts in what they say staged provocations they call “Pallywood.”

OMG, the insults from the Jewi$h pre$$ are endless. 

This as immigrant kids are waved in our faces and the kids are out on a gun control bus tour!

Yeah, the Palestinians are phonying up videos, not the USraeli propagandists presenting us staged and scripted crisis drills as real or of nonexistent or false flag Syrian chemical weapons attacks, etc, etc. 

Puh-leeze!!

Tamimi is no stranger to the camera. She was recorded on video nearly three years ago biting the hand of another Israeli soldier who was trying to arrest her brother. And in 2012, when she was 11, she was photographed raising her fist and yelling at another soldier.

In March, after being put on trial in an Israeli military court, Tamimi accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to charges including assault and incitement. She was sentenced to eight months, minus time served in detention, and received a fine and a three-year suspended sentence. Her mother accepted a similar deal.

At the time, Israelis argued over whether the soldiers in the video had acted with admirable restraint, or had shown weakness by not arresting Tamimi on the spot.

Some Palestinians also wrestled with the video, debating whether it harmed the cause by showing Israeli soldiers in too gentle a light or helped promote the viability of unarmed resistance.

Tamimi said of the soldiers’ conduct, “Obviously they saw the cameras and that’s why they were so restrained.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong that I should regret,” she added. “At the end of the day, the soldier came to my house. I didn’t go to his house.” Further defending her actions, she said the soldiers “were part of the force who shot my cousin half an hour before.”

Critics of Tamimi point to a part of the video in which she declared, “Our strength is in our stones,” and appeared to condone stabbings, suicide bombings, and other violence.

Only the victims are to be condemned for condoning violence!

The December altercation occurred soon after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, enraging the Palestinians who claim the eastern half of the contested holy city as their own future capital.

Tamimi said Trump must bear responsibility for the reactions that his decision could “bring upon” the Palestinians.

“Everyone must do things so we can unite this way,” she said.

The point is hardly theoretical. Thursday, another Palestinian teenager, Muhammad Yusef, 17, from the village of Kaubar, not far from Nabi Saleh, entered a Jewish settlement and stabbed to death an Israeli man, Yotam Ovadia, 31, and injured two others before one of them fatally shot the assailant.

Tamimi now skirts questions about her position on violent resistance, aware that she is on parole and that any perceived incitement to violence could land her back in jail.

In general, she says, resistance is “a natural reaction to the occupation of our land.”

And, according to the U.N., a perfectly legitimate and legal reaction to an occupier.

“Resistance is not just the stone,” she said. “It is the poems we write. Art.’’ Her father chimed in: “Also the boycott and the isolation of Israel.”

The day had begun at 4:10 a.m. in a prison in northern Israel. A few hours later, the Israelis delivered her and her mother to their village. After a hero’s welcome there, the family set out for Ramallah.

Tamimi paid her respects at the tomb of Yasser Arafat, the father of the Palestinian cause, and was received by his successor, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, who praised her as “a model of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, independence, and statehood,” according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

--more--"

"Israeli-Arab lawmaker resigns over Jewish nation law" Associated Press  July 29, 2018

JERUSALEM — Labor lawmaker Zuhair Bahloul, a former popular sports broadcaster, is regarded as a symbol of Jewish and Arab coexistence.

Problem is he is a Druze.

In a separate development Sunday, Israel’s navy intercepted a ship carrying activists en route to Gaza in the latest attempt to break a blockade on the coastal territory ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, the military said.

It said the passengers were notified they were ‘‘violating the legal naval blockade’’ and that humanitarian aid can be delivered to Gaza in other ways. It said the incident passed ‘‘without exceptional events’’ and that the ship was taken to an Israeli port.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an umbrella group comprising pro-Palestinian and Islamic charities from around the world, said on Twitter that Israel had ‘‘hijacked’’ the vessel.

It said there were activists from 14 countries, mainly from Europe but also Malaysia, the United States, and Israel, on the ship carrying 100 boxes of medical aid for Gaza.

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamic militant group Hamas took over the territory in 2007.

Israel says it is crucial to prevent Hamas, a group sworn to Israel’s destruction, from arming. Critics say it is collective punishment of Gaza’s 2 million people.....

--more--"

"1 killed, 90 wounded by Israel in Gaza protests" Associated Press  August 03, 2018

GAZA CITY — Gaza’s rulers led several thousand Palestinians in a protest along the frontier with Israel on Friday, in an apparent show of presence as Egypt works to broker a broad truce between the Hamas militant group and Israel.

A 25-year-old Palestinian was killed and 90 were wounded by Israeli army fire, Gaza health officials said.

It was the latest in a series of protests along Gaza’s perimeter fence with Israel, aimed in part at trying to break an 11-year-old border blockade. Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza in 2007, after Hamas overran the territory.

Hamas is considering Egyptian proposals for a truce with Israel and the UN-led reconstruction of Gaza.

What reconstruction?

--more--"

Looks like Israel finally made the blacklist, and their response is further ‘descrations’ as the ground assault in Gaza continues.