Israel launches air strikes on Gaza putting fragile ceasefire in jeopardy

Air raids pound Gaza Strip after Palestinians in besieged enclave reportedly sent incendiary balloons into southern Israel


Israeli jets bombed areas across the besieged Palestinian enclave early on 16 June (AFP)

Middle East Eye, 16 June 2021

Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday in response to incendiary balloons reportedly launched from the besieged Palestinian enclave, Israel’s military said.

Potentially shattering a fragile ceasefire that came into effect last month, the air strikes followed a provocative nationalist march through occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City by Jewish nationalists that had drawn threats of action by Hamas, the Palestinian movement that governs Gaza.

The Israeli military said the strikes, which attacked Hamas compounds in Khan Younis and Gaza City, came in response to the launching of the balloons, which reportedly caused 20 fires in open fields near the Gaza border, Haaretz reported.

The Israeli army added that it was “ready for all scenarios, including renewed fighting in the face of continued terrorist acts emanating from Gaza.”

A Hamas spokesman, confirming the Israeli attacks, said the Palestinians would continue to pursue their “brave resistance and defend their rights and sacred sites” in Jerusalem.

Hours earlier, thousands of Israelis took part in the so-called “Flag March” which marks the anniversary of Israel’s 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem.

Israel, which annexed the city’s eastern part in a move that has not won international recognition, regards the entire city as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that would include the West Bank and Gaza.



    Beatings, arrests and chants of ‘Death to Arabs’ at far-
    right march in Jerusalem
    Read More »

Tuesday’s rally came as tensions remain high over Israel’s planned expulsion of Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Ahead of the march, Israeli police forcibly removed dozens of Palestinians from outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate. At least 27 Palestinians were wounded as Israeli police fired rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades in the surrounding areas.

Hundreds of Jewish nationalists participating in the march were heard chanting “Death to Arabs”.

Wednesday’s air strikes mark the first major flare-up since a ceasefire on 21 May ended Israel’s 11-day assault on the territory, which killed 248 Palestinians, including 66 children.

Twelve people in Israel were also killed by rockets fired from the enclave.

End U.S. Tax Dollars for Israel’s Genocide of Palestinians

Leah Muskin-Pierret, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), June 15, 2021

WASHINGTON, DC — 🔥 Statement & Call to Action:

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights condemns the state-sanctioned, racist, anti-Palestinian flag march on June 15, 2021 in Jerusalem and continuing bombing of Palestinians in Gaza and calls for the U.S. to immediately stop funding Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. USCPR also asks people’s movements and organizations to express their support for Palestinian liberation, in order to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who, united, defy these Israeli settlers’ attempts to intimidate them.

The flag march is a blatant display of anti-Palestinian racism, in which Israeli settlers chant “Death to Arabs,” a clear call for genocidal violence against the Palestinian people. The United Nations Genocide Convention recognizes that genocide includes the act of killing members of a group “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The Israeli government backs this violence: the reality of state-sanctioned violence was made extremely clear again today when Israeli soldiers beat a Palestinian young man and a Palestinian woman for raising a Palestinian flag in a sea of Israeli flags, while protecting Israeli Jewish demonstrators calling for burning Palestinian homes. According to latest reports, Israeli forces have assaulted and arrested Palestinian people in Jerusalem today, injuring 33 people, while clearing out shops and closing Damascus Gate for the flag march. This brutal violence cannot be separated from the continuous assaults on the Gaza Strip that have massacred generations of Palestinian families, horrific assaults that Israel is resuming as of 6pm ET today.

Especially at this moment, USCPR calls on members of Congress, leaders, and organizations to condemn this anti-Palestinian racism and violence and to hold Israel accountable for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have been loudly and clearly demanding nothing short of an end to all to all U.S. complicity, but many members of Congress have not even taken the most basic action to support Palestinian rights.

At a bare minimum, members of Congress must cosponsor H.R. 2590, The Palestinian Children and Families Act, which insists on the rights to safety, dignity, and freedom for the Palestinian people: the freedom to thrive, free from child detention, home demolitions, continual Israeli annexation and land theft.

The new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has himself bragged about killing Arabs. The root of violence in Israeli policy is Zionism, Israel’s settler colonial project of displacing Palestinians to create an exclusive Jewish homeland in Palestine. Every Israeli government has advanced Israel’s colonialism and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

People power makes political change possible, so USCPR echoes Palestinian calls for solidarity. The Palestinian people, who are rising up for liberation from Israel’s colonialism, are asking for support through boycott, divestment, and sanctions tactics that pressure Israel to stop violating Palestinian rights. Palestinian people in the U.S. have also outlined five vision and policy demands for justice in “Freedom Is The Future”. Read the demands at: www.freedomfuture.org/demands and take immediate action to advance justice and stop U.S. funding for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people at: bit.ly/NoFundsForGenocide.

📢 Take action & amplify Palestinian demands for justice right now:

  1. USCPR Statement — End the Flow of U.S. Tax Dollars to Israel’s Genocide of the Palestinian People: https://uscpr.org/nofundsforgenocide
  2. Take action right now with this Twitter action tool: http://bit.ly/NoFundsForGenocide
  3. Linktree with solidarity resources & actions: linktr.ee/uscpr
  4. Twitter lists on
    Jerusalem: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1404904413370667015 (USCPR new list)
    Gaza: https://twitter.com/i/lists/41289860 (thank you IMEU)
  5. Resources, action tools, & statement on social media:
    #NoFundsForGenocide #GazaUnderAttack #SaveSheikhJarrah #SaveSilwan
  6. Twitter: https://twitter.com/USCPR_/status/1404936692759420936
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQKKacig98e/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uscpalrights/posts/10158761772499442

Update: #SaveSheikhJarrah

Middle East Eye, May 2, 2021

‘If I don’t steal it, someone else is going to steal it.’

An Israeli settler’s attempt to justify a forcible takeover of a Palestinian home in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem has sparked anger online after it was caught on camera.

Update: “Infamous Israeli home thief is federally charged Long Island, NY financial fraudster,” HAMZAH RAZA, The Grayzone, JUNE 9, 2021

VIRTUAL DELEGATIONS TO SILWAN, EAST JERUSALEM

Eyewitness Palestine
June 12, 13, or 16
1:00 – 2:30 pm Central

Participants in this Virtual Delegation will see the ways in which Palestinians in Silwan, East Jerusalem, are resisting Israeli occupation and displacement. In Silwan, Israel and its tourist and archeology industries seek to link the bible story of King David to the modern Israeli state. This controversial reading of archeology and history supports the illusion that Jerusalem has an exclusively Jewish history and that therefore Jews are entitled to the city. This delegation is being co-sponsored by Madaa Creative Center and Art Forces.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION

Update: June 4, 2021
Candle Lit Vigil for Palestine



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UW-Madison Students for Justice in Palestine
UW Library Mall
8:30 PM

Join us to mourn the lives lost, show solidarity to the Palestinian people, and condemn U.S military aid to Israel.

  • Meet at Library Mall
  • Candle walk up to the Capitol
  • Speakers & Open Mic
  • Number of candles provided for the number of lives lost.
    Bring your flags, signs, and keffiyehs!

    Free and open to the public.

    Life Under Occupation: The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict

    An eviction in East Jerusalem lies at the center of a conflict that led to war between Israel and Hamas. But for millions of Palestinians, the routine indignities of occupation are part of daily life.


    Israeli soldiers firing tear gas towards Palestinian protesters in the town of Kfar Qaddum. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    David M. Halbfinger and Adam Rasgon, The New York Times, May 22, 2021

    JERUSALEM — Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born.

    They demolished it together, after Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists.

    Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop installer, had been at work when an inspector confronted his wife with two options: Tear the house down, or the government would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its expenses.

    Such is life for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation: always dreading the knock at the front door.

    The looming removal of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Israel and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has controlled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight.

    For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli occupation in obscurity.

    Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life routinely experience exasperating impossibilities and petty humiliations, bureaucratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its second half-century.

    Underneath that quiet, pressure builds.

    If the eviction dispute in East Jerusalem struck a match, the occupation’s provocations ceaselessly pile up dry kindling. They are a constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf attackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles. And the provocations do not stop when the fighting ends.

    No homeowner welcomes a visit from the code-enforcement officer. But it’s entirely different in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians find it nearly impossible to obtain building permits and most homes were built without them: The penalty is often demolition.


    Mohammed Sandouka amid the ruins of his home in East Jerusalem. Dan Balilty for The New York Times

    Mr. Sandouka grew up just downhill from the Old City’s eastern ramparts, in the valley dividing the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives.

    At 19, he married and moved into an old addition onto his father’s house, then began expanding it. New stone walls tripled the floor area. He laid tile, hung drywall and furnished a cozy kitchen. He spent around $150,000.

    Children came, six in all. Ramadan brought picnickers to the green valley. The kids played host, delivering cold water or hot soup. His wife prepared feasts of maqluba (chicken and rice) and mansaf (lamb in yogurt sauce). He walked with his sons up to Al Aqsa, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

    In 2016, city workers posted an address marker over Mr. Sandouka’s gate. It felt like legitimation.

    But Israel was drifting steadily rightward. The state parks authority fell under the influence of settlers, who seek to expand Jewish control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Citing an old plan for a park encircling the Old City, the authority set about clearing one unpermitted house after another.

    Now it was Mr. Sandouka’s turn.

    Plans showed a corner of the house encroaching on a future tour-bus parking lot.


    Mr. Sandouka’s children salvaging household items as their home is demolished. Dan Balilty for The New York Times

    Zeev Hacohen, an authority official, said erasing Mr. Sandouka’s neighborhood was necessary to restore views of the Old City “as they were in the days of the Bible.”

    “The personal stories are always painful,” he allowed. But the Palestinian neighborhood, he said, “looks like the Third World.”

    Mr. Sandouka hired a lawyer and prayed. But he was at work a few months ago when someone knocked on his door again. This time, his wife told him, crying, it was a police officer.

    The knock at the door is not always just a knock.

    Badr Abu Alia, 50, was awakened around 2 a.m. by the sounds of soldiers breaking into his neighbor’s home in Al Mughrayyir, a village on a ridge in the West Bank.

    When they got to his door, a familiar ritual ensued: His children were rousted from bed. Everyone was herded outside. The soldiers collected IDs, explained nothing and ransacked the house. They left two hours later, taking with them a teenager from next door, blindfolded.

    He had taken part in a protest four days earlier, when an Israeli sniper shot and killed a teenager who was wandering among the rock-throwers and spent tear-gas canisters.


    Badr Abu Alia inside his house in the West Bank town of Al Mughrayyir. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    Al Mughrayyir was one of the few villages still mounting regular Friday protests. They began after settlers cut off access to some of the villagers’ farmland. The boy’s death became a new rallying cry.

    The army says it raids Palestinian homes at night because it is safer, and ransacks them to search for weapons, in routine crackdowns aimed at keeping militance in check.

    But the raids also inspire militance.

    Mr. Abu Alia seethed as he described seeing his son outside in the dark, “afraid, crying because of the soldiers, and I can do nothing to protect him.”

    “It makes you want to take revenge, to defend yourself,” he went on. “But we have nothing to defend ourselves with.”

    Stone-throwing must suffice, he said. “We can’t take an M-16 and go kill every settler. All we have are those stones. A bullet can kill you instantly. A little stone won’t do much. But at least I’m sending a message.”

    Settlers send messages, too. They have cut down hundreds of Al Mughrayyir’s olive trees — vital sources of income and ties to the land — torched a mosque, vandalized cars. In 2019, one was accused of fatally shooting a villager in the back. The case remains open.

    For Majeda al-Rajaby the pain of occupation never goes away. It slices straight through her family.

    A twice-divorced teacher, Ms. al-Rajaby, 45, is divided from her five children by the different ways Israel treats Palestinians depending on where they are from.


    Majeda al-Rajaby teaching children at the UNRWA school in the Shuafat refugee camp. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    She grew up in the West Bank, in Hebron. But both her ex-husbands were Jerusalem residents, allowing them to travel anywhere an Israeli citizen may go. The children were entitled to the blue IDs of Jerusalem residents, too. Hers remained West Bank green.

    Both her husbands lived in Shuafat refugee camp, a lawless slum inside the Jerusalem city limits but just outside Israel’s security barrier. West Bankers are not allowed to live there, but the rule is not enforced.

    She had thought she was marrying up. Instead, she said her husbands “always made me feel inferior.”


    Ms. al-Rajaby at home in Anata, on the West Bank. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    After the second divorce, she was left on her own, with her green ID, to raise all five children with their blue IDs. The distinction could be life-threatening.

    When a daughter accidentally inhaled housecleaning chemicals, Ms. al-Rajaby tried to race her to the closest hospital, in Jerusalem. Soldiers refused to let her in. As a teacher in Shuafat, she had a permit to enter Jerusalem, but only until 7 p.m. It was 8:00.



    Her children are older now, but the distinction is just as keenly felt: Ms. al-Rajaby allows herself to be excluded from joyful moments and rites of passage so her children can enjoy advantages unavailable to her.

    She stays behind on the Palestinian side of the security barrier while they head off to Jaffa or Haifa, or on shortcuts to Hebron through Jerusalem, a route forbidden to her. “West Banker,” they tease her, waving goodbye.

    One daughter is 21 now and engaged and goes on jaunts into Israel with her fiancé’s mother. “I should be with them,” Ms. al-Rajaby said.

    Last summer, Ms. al-Rajaby moved out of Shuafat to a safer neighborhood just outside the Jerusalem city limits, in the West Bank. That means her children could lose their blue IDs if Israel determined that their primary residence was with her.

    “I’m not allowed to live there,” she said of Shuafat, “and my daughters are not allowed to live here.”

    Constrained as she is, Ms. al-Rajaby wants even more for her children than freedom to move about Israel.

    In 2006, her daughter Rana, then 7, was burned in a cooking accident. An Italian charity paid for treatment at a hospital in Padua. Mother and child stayed for three months.

    The experience opened Ms. al-Rajaby’s eyes. She saw green parks, children in nice clothes, women driving cars.

    “It was the moment of my liberation,” she said. “I started thinking: ‘Why do they have this? Why don’t we?’”

    Today, she urges all her children to see the world, and holds out hope that they might emigrate.

    “Why,” she asked, “should someone keep living under the mercy of people who have no mercy?”

    Try as they might to make their accommodations with Israel, Palestinians often find themselves caught in the occupation’s gears.

    Majed Omar once earned a good living as a construction worker inside Israel. But in 2013, his younger brother was spotted crossing through a gap in Israel’s security barrier. A soldier shot him in the leg.

    Mr. Omar, 45, was collateral damage. Israel revoked his work permit just in case he had ideas about taking revenge — something Israel says happens too often.

    He sat unemployed for 14 months. When Israel reissued his permit, it only allowed him to work in the fast-growing West Bank settlements, where workers are paid half as much, searched each morning and supervised by armed guards all day.


    Majed Omar working construction in the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank.  Dan Balilty for The New York Times

    Which is how he came to be the foreman on a crew that remodels Jewish homes and expands Israeli buildings on land the Palestinians have long demanded as part of their hoped-for state.

    In a small way, it’s like digging his own grave, Mr. Omar said. “But we’re living in a time when everyone sees what’s wrong and still does it.”

    Violence is often sudden and brief. But the nagging dread it instills can be just as debilitating.

    Nael al-Azza, 40, is haunted by the Israeli checkpoint he must pass through while commuting between his home in Bethlehem and his job in Ramallah.

    At home, he lives behind walls and cultivates a lush herb and vegetable garden in the backyard. But nothing protects him on his drive to work, not even his position as a manager in the Palestinian firefighting and ambulance service.

    Recently, he said, a soldier at the checkpoint stopped him, told him to roll down his window, asked if he had a weapon. He said no. She opened his passenger door to take a look, then slammed it shut, hard.

    He wanted to object. But he stopped himself, he said: Too many confrontations with soldiers end with Palestinians being shot.

    “If I want to defend my property and my self-respect, there’s a price for that,” he said.


    Nael al-Azza in his garden outside his house in Bethlehem. Dan Balilty for The New York Times

    His commute is a 14-mile trip as the crow flies, but a 33-mile route, because Palestinians are diverted in a wide loop around Jerusalem along a tortuous two-lane road of steep switchbacks. Even so, it ought to take less an hour — but often takes two or three, because of the checkpoint.

    The Israelis consider the checkpoint essential to search for fleeing attackers or illegal weapons or to cut the West Bank in two in case of unrest. Palestinians call it a choke point that can be shut off on a soldier’s whim. It is also a friction point, motorists and soldiers each imagining themselves as the other’s target.

    Idling and inching along, Mr. al-Azza compared traffic to blood flow. Searching one car can mean an hour’s delay. The soldiers are so young, he said, “They don’t feel the weight of stopping 5,000 cars.”

    He thinks only of those delayed. “When they impede your movement and cause you to fail at your job, you feel like you’ve lost your value and meaning,” he said.


    Nael al-Azza sitting in traffic while heading to work along the winding road leading from Bethlehem to Ramallah in the West Bank. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    A few nights each week, delays force him to sleep at work and settle for video calls with his three children.

    On weekend outings, the checkpoint takes a different toll on his family.

    “I try to keep my kids from speaking about the conflict,” he said. “But they see and experience things I have no answer for. When we’re driving, we turn the music on. But when we reach the checkpoint, I turn it off. I don’t know why. I’ll see them in the mirror: All of a sudden, they sit upright and look anxious — until we cross and I turn the music back on.”


    Mr. al-Azza inside a small shack outside his house in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    Deadly scenarios constantly play out in Mr. al-Azza’s head: What if a tire blew out or his engine stalled? What if a young soldier, trained to respond instantly, misconstrued it as a threat?

    “It’s not possible to put it out of mind,” he said. “When you’re hungry, you think about food.”

    No Palestinian is insulated from the occupation’s reach — not even in the well-to-do, privileged “bubble” of Ramallah, where Israeli soldiers are seldom seen.

    Everyone Sondos Mleitat knows bears the scars of some trauma. Her own: Hiding with her little brother, then 5, when Israeli tanks rolled into Nablus, where she was raised.

    In the dark, she said, he pulled all his eyelashes out, one by one.

    Today, Ms. Mleitat, 30, runs a website connecting Palestinians with psychotherapists.


    Sondos Mleitat at her office in Ramallah. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    Instead of reckoning with their lingering wounds, she said, people seek safety in social conformity, in religion, in the approval gleaned from Facebook and Instagram likes. But all of those, she said, only reinforce the occupation’s suffocating effects.

    “This is all about control,” she said. “People are going through a type of taming or domestication. They just surrender to it and feel they can’t change anything.”

    After her uncle was killed by Israeli soldiers at a protest, she said, his younger brother was pushed into marriage at 18 “to protect him from going down the same path.”

    But a nation of people who reach adulthood thinking only about settling down, she said, is not a nation that will achieve independence.

    “They think they’re getting out of this bubble, but they’re not,” she said.


    Ms. Mleitat working next to her fiance, Majd, at their office in Ramallah. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

    Mr. Sandouka earns about $1,800 in a good month. He hoped the lawyer could quash the demolition order. “I thought they would just give us a fine,” he said.

    Then he got another panicked call from home: “The police were there, making my family cry.”

    Khalas, he said, enough. He would tear it down himself.

    Early on a Monday, his sons took turns with a borrowed jackhammer. They almost seemed to be having fun, like wrecking a sand castle.

    Finished, their moods darkened. “It’s like we’re lighting ourselves on fire,” said Mousa, 15.

    “They want the land,” said Muataz, 22. “They want all of us to leave Jerusalem.”

    In 2020, 119 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem were demolished, 79 of them by their owners.

    When all was rubble, Mr. Sandouka lit a cigarette and held it with three beefy fingers as it burned. His pants filthy with the dust of his family’s life together, he climbed atop the debris, sent photos to the police and contemplated his options.


    Mr. Sandouka’s children demolishing their home in East Jerusalem. Dan Balilty for The New York Times

    Moving to the West Bank, and sacrificing Jerusalem residency, was unthinkable. Moving elsewhere in Jerusalem was unaffordable.

    A friend offered a couple of spare rooms as a temporary refuge. Mr. Sandouka’s wife demanded permanency.

    “She told me if I don’t buy her a home, that’s it — everyone can go their separate ways,” he said.

    He turned his eyes uphill toward the Old City.

    “These people work little by little,” he said. “It’s like a lion that eats one, and then another. It eventually eats everything around it.”

    “FREE PALESTINE RALLY” IN MILWAUKEE DRAWS DIVERSE CROWD


    Lee Matz for the Wiscosin Muslim Journal

    Sandra Whitehead, Wisconsin Muslim Journal, May 21, 2021

    A crowd gathered Thursday evening at “The Calling,” the orange sunburst artwork on the east end of Wisconsin Avenue, for a “Free Palestine” rally planned by a coalition of organizations.

    A post on the Wisconsin Chapter of Bail Out the People listed the sponsors: American Muslims for Palestine, Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace, Voces de la Frontera, Rohingya American Society, several mosques, and Students for Justice in Palestine chapters from Marquette University, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, and Muslim Student Association chapters from MU and UWM.

    Hundreds, possibly 1,000, shouted “Free Palestine,” “End the Seige on Gaza” and other chants to the beat of a snare drum. Big green, white, black and red Palestinian flags waved and signs announced: “We Can’t Breathe Since 1948,” “Pakistan for Palestine,” and “Justice is our Demand,” among countless others. Many wore keffiyehs, the black and white Palestinian scarfs. Passersby in cars honked and waved.

    Speeches in front of “The Calling” bookended a march down Prospect Avenue that stretched from the east end of Wisconsin Avenue almost to Juneau Avenue. Mahdi Jaber, a recent UWM graduate, and others led the lively crowd in chanting between speakers and from the back of a truck as marchers followed.

    Continued at Wisconsin Muslim Journal >>

    Across The U.S., People Protest The Violence In Gaza And Israel

    Jason Breslow, NPR, May 19, 2021


    Crowds gather Tuesday at the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, in solidarity with a general strike by Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Justin L. Stewart/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

    In cities across the U.S., overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian protesters have taken to the streets in solidarity with Palestinian civilians caught in the ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas.

    From Dearborn, Mich., where demonstrators booed President Biden on Tuesday over the administration’s policy toward Israel, to outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, crowds gathered to demand an end to Israeli attacks that have killed 219 people in Gaza, according to health officials.

    Supporters of Israel have also demonstrated in cities such as Los Angeles and New York since the latest conflict erupted 10 days ago, though in far fewer numbers. Thousands of Hamas rockets launched at Israel have killed 12 people, according to the government.

    Outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Tuesday, protesters were draped in the black, white and green of the Palestinian flag. They chanted against the U.S. alliance with Israel and read the names of Palestinians killed in the latest burst of violence over a public address system.

    Among those who gathered outside the embassy was Taher Herzallah, an activist who said he had learned only hours earlier that his relatives in Gaza lost their home in an airstrike. They were unharmed. Still, Herzallah said he wants the lives lost to be known as more than just a death toll.

    “Every single Palestinian life matters. Every single Palestinian soul that was taken matters,” he said. “And that’s why we wanted to make sure that those names were read. These are people who come from us, that are of us.”

    Similar rallies were held in at least 22 cities across North America over the weekend, including in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Dallas.


    Protesters objecting to U.S. policy toward Israel gather Tuesday at Lapeer Park in Dearborn, Mich., during a visit by President Biden to a nearby Ford Motor Co. plant. Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images


    A woman cries as the names of Palestinian children killed in the fighting in Gaza are read during a protest Tuesday in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images


    Ido Shalev, 12, joins other pro-Israel demonstrators last week outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles. Jae C. Hong/AP Photo


    Crowds gather during a pro-Palestinian rally last week at Copley Square in Boston. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images


    Pro-Israel demonstrators gather outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles last week. Jae C. Hong/AP


    Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally Tuesday in New York City’s Times Square. Drew Angerer/Getty Images


    People hold a rally Monday in Tucson, Ariz., in support of Palestinians. Ross D. Franklin/AP

    NPR’s Connor Donevan contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

    American Muslims for Palestine — Milwaukee Rally

    American Muslims for Palestine — Milwaukee Rally to Defend Jerusalem and Palestine, May 12, 2021

    “Over 1,000 people showed up for Wednesday’s AMP-Milwaukee Rally. Milwaukeeans sent a loud message they will not stand for the continued violent occupation of Palestinian lands by Israeli forces.”

    All photos: Joe Brusky. More information: AMP-Milwaukee


    Emergency Aid Appeal

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    First of all, thanks to those who turned out for yesterday’s banner drop and today’s demonstration at the Capitol covered by Channel 27 News. Demonstrations were held all over the world yesterday and today, even in France where they were prohibited by the Macron government at the last minute.

    As I write this, live media coverage out of Gaza by Arabic channels is showing the constant bombardment of Gaza that takes place every night. As you may have heard, Israel destroyed yet another high rise building in Gaza, this time the one that also houses many press agencies including AP. Here is a video of the building owner pleading for just 10 extra minutes.

    This was preceded by the destruction of 17 media offices and the wounding of 3 journalists in Gaza. Clearly Israel does not want anyone to know what is really going on.

    Israel also destroyed a house in Shati (Beach) Camp and killed 10 members of one family.

    And there were many injuries as Palestinians protested across the West Bank. Yesterday, 11 were killed by Israel.

    The U.S. media is barely reporting and certainly not showing the extent of the damage and casualties. If you want know the reality including pictures please go to Al Jazeera English and Middle East Eye.

    Also, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza issues daily reports documenting in excruciating detail the damage, deaths and injuries, including what is happening in the West Bank and to Israel’s Palestinian population.

    And for direct, personal experiences and perspectives on life in Gaza be sure to regularly check out We Are Not Numbers.

    WHAT CAN YOU DO?

    Emergency Relief: At this time the Middle East Children’s Alliance recommends donations to the Paliroots Food Project.

    Action: Four Things Recommended by MRSCP: (from our Op-Ed of today in The Capital Times)

    1. Demand that the Biden administration denounce Israel’s illegal expulsions of Palestinians and the demolition of their homes & property. Ask Senator Tammy Baldwin to follow the lead of Rep. Mark Pocan and others in Congress and do the same.
    2. Listen to and share the voices of Palestinians. Post those stories and photos on social media; Use #SaveSheikhJarrah and #SaveSilwan in all your social media posts.
    3. Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it lives up to its obligations under international law.
    4. Urge your representatives to support HR 2590, the Palestinian Children and Families Act, which is the first legislation of its kind to have the U.S. taxpayer stop paying for Israel’s arrest, torture, and imprisonment of Palestinian children, its demolition and destruction of Palestinian homes and communities, and the further annexation of Palestinian land. (Pocan is a co-sponsor, so thank him.)
    5. As always, thanks for your support, and remember the people of Palestine, especially Gaza.

      Barb O.

    Update: May 15, 2021
    Palestine Can’t Breathe Demonstration

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    Reshaping Madison Together Event

    Occupation is a CRIME!

    Right now, near the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba and during Ramadan (Muslims’ most sacred time of the year), the Palestinian village of Sheikh Jarrah is being forcefully “evicted” by Israel as settlers try to STEAL the Palestinian homes. The government-sanctioned theft-in-progress sparked a Palestinian uprising against their brutal oppressors. Since then, at least an estimated 70 Palestinians, including dozens of children, have been murdered by Israel’s death squad, otherwise known as the IDF.

    Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Our struggles are all connected and none of us are truly liberated until the oppressed are liberated worldwide.

    We can’t breathe in part because Palestine can’t breathe. Did you know that American police are trained to use the very same disgusting, inhumane tactics that IDF (Israeli soldiers) uses to terrorize Palestinians on a daily basis? Police brutality in America is directly linked to our government’s unwavering military, financial, and political support of Israel’s fascist regime — and we can stand for it no longer.

    Join us as we stand with our comrades in Palestine fighting for their right simply to exist and to live free from Israeli tyranny. Bring your Palestinian flags, signs, and banners. Don’t forget to wear your keffiyahs!

    #SaveSheikhJarrah
    #FreePalestine
    #EndTheOccupation
    #Nakba73

    Hosted by Reshaping Madison Together