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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Israeli forces kill American-Turkish activist in the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces kill American-Turkish activist in the occupied West Bank

Al Jazeera reports: Israeli forces have fatally shot an American-Turkish activist at a demonstration in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa and a hospital official say. Twenty-six-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was taking part in the protest against illegal Israeli settlements on Mount Sbeih in Beita, south of Nablus, on Friday when she was shot. Fouad Nafaa, the head of the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, told the news agency Reuters that Ezgi Eygi arrived at the hospital in…

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Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza

Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza

Devi Sridhar writes: In August, a 10-month-old baby in Gaza was partly paralysed from polio, the first confirmed case there in 25 years. The paralysis is probably permanent, and there are no treatments for polio. We have a safe and effective vaccine to prevent serious disease, but the ongoing war in the region has meant vaccination campaigns have stopped. A polio outbreak seems inevitable given that the disease spreads through dirty water and rubbish, which surrounds those living in tents…

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Inside the brutal siege of Jenin

Inside the brutal siege of Jenin

Mariam Barghouti reports: On Aug. 28, Israel launched “Operation Summer Camps,” the largest military invasion witnessed in the northern West Bank in over two decades. In Jenin, Israeli forces first moved into the city before imposing a full-blown siege on the refugee camp within hours; the army simultaneously carried out operations in Tubas, Nablus, Ramallah, and Tulkarem. Since 2021, the Israeli military has repeatedly targeted Jenin refugee camp under the pretext of fighting armed resistance groups. Most of the victims…

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Israel destroyed 70% of Jenin’s streets, infrastructure, says municipality

Israel destroyed 70% of Jenin’s streets, infrastructure, says municipality

Anadolu Agency reports: The Israeli army destroyed about 70% of the streets and infrastructure in Jenin city in the northern West Bank during its ongoing military offensive for the fourth consecutive day, the local municipality said on Saturday. “The occupying (Israeli) forces have demolished more than 70% of the city’s streets completely (…) to a depth of approximately one to one-and-half meters, which has led to the destruction of water and sewage networks, as well as communication and electricity cables,…

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Hersh is gone, sacrificed on the altar of Israel’s ‘total victory’

Hersh is gone, sacrificed on the altar of Israel’s ‘total victory’

Orly Noy writes: It has been 11 months since death arrived on our doorstep — first as an unwanted guest and now, it seems, as a permanent squatter who refuses to leave. Its presence is so intimate yet ethereal. The number of Palestinians that Israel has killed in its Holocaust in Gaza makes it difficult to digest the depth of the horror. How many images of dead Palestinian children can a person see before they all morph into one intangible…

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I’m still hoping to vote for Kamala Harris

I’m still hoping to vote for Kamala Harris

Benjamin Moser writes: You’ll often hear that foreign policy is not a priority of Americans. That may be true of some foreign policy issues, but what most people on every side of this issue understand is that Israel-Palestine is not really foreign policy. We all know that this war is made in America: On Monday, Israel received its 500th shipment of bombs from the United States. We know how many billions of dollars in aid we send Israel, without the slightest restriction. We have…

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‘Sowing the seeds for more hatred’ – UN’s top Gaza official speaks to Mehdi Hasan

‘Sowing the seeds for more hatred’ – UN’s top Gaza official speaks to Mehdi Hasan

  In this episode of “Mehdi Unfiltered,” a discussion about the threats facing Palestinians in Gaza in an exclusive interview with the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Philippe Lazzarini. Mehdi also explores why U.S. news organizations can’t get their coverage of Donald Trump right in a conversation with author Wajahat Ali and James Fallows, former chief speechwriter to President Jimmy Carter. The episode also looks into the situation for women and minorities in Afghanistan with Ali…

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How U.S. universities are trying to muzzle pro-Palestine protests before they restart

How U.S. universities are trying to muzzle pro-Palestine protests before they restart

Middle East Eye reports: The academic semester has kicked off at many US universities this week, and schools are working in a myriad of ways to tamp out the pro-Palestinian and student-led demonstrations that roiled the country this past spring. As students make their way back to campus, familiarising themselves with class schedules and reconnecting with university life, administrations have been working – often in conjunction with the police – to weed out the possibility of a repeat of last…

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‘If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead’: A West Bank village’s night of terror

‘If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead’: A West Bank village’s night of terror

+972 Magazine reports: On Tuesday morning, the streets of Wadi Rahal were littered with stones and bullet casings — evidence of an attack the night before. According to the Palestinian residents of the village, which is located south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, about a dozen Israeli settlers had driven in, some of them armed. They threw stones at cars and houses, and when residents came out to defend themselves, the attackers opened fire. One resident, 47-year-old Khalil…

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New HRW report: Palestinian healthcare workers chained, starved, sexually abused

New HRW report: Palestinian healthcare workers chained, starved, sexually abused

  We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Milena Ansari about the organization’s new report detailing the torture of Palestinian medical workers in Israeli prisons. HRW spoke with eight doctors, paramedics and nurses who were picked up in Gaza before being transferred to the notorious Sde Teiman camp and other facilities, where they say they suffered beatings, starvation, humiliation, electric shocks and other forms of abuse. The men also describe threats of sexual violence during brutal interrogations and seeing another…

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Israeli settler: ‘I think colonialism gets a bad rap’

Israeli settler: ‘I think colonialism gets a bad rap’

  Violence has flared in the Occupied West Bank. At least five Palestinians, including two children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp, and one Palestinian man was shot dead in an attack by Israeli settlers near Bethlehem. The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since the October 7 attacks. 607 Palestinians have been killed, largely in Israeli military raids, while attacks by settlers have displaced more than 1,500. In the same period,…

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In Gaza there are now so many orphans that no agency or aid group can count them

In Gaza there are now so many orphans that no agency or aid group can count them

The New York Times reports: The boys are aching to see their parents again. They are convinced it will happen as soon as they can go back to Gaza City, where they were growing up before the war bulldozed that life. “Baba and mama will be waiting for us there,” they say to their aunt Samar, who is taking care of the four of them, Mohammed, Mahmoud, Ahmed and Abdullah Akeila. They say this even though they were told their…

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Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Meron Rapoport writes: After every war in recent decades that Israelis have fought in, there have been public displays of remorse. This has often been criticized as a mentality of “shooting and crying” — but at least the soldiers were crying. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the hugely successful book “The Seventh Day: Soldiers’ Talk about the Six-Day War” was published, containing testimonies from soldiers trying to grapple with the moral dilemmas they faced during the fighting. After the Sabra…

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Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

  In this special episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’, we’re at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, around the corner from the United Center, at the Palestinian-American owned OUD Coffee and Cafe. Mehdi is joined in this exclusive interview with prominent voices from the Uncommitted Movement – and just moments after it was revealed that the DNC would not be allowing a Palestinian to speak at the convention. Joining ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ are co-chair of the Uncommitted Movement Layla Elabed, who briefly…

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Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

  Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday after a four-day convention in Chicago where her campaign refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage to address Israel’s war on Gaza. We hear Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, who was among the list of speakers offered by the Uncommitted National Movement that the Harris campaign rejected, reading the speech she would have given on the convention floor had the DNC and the Harris campaign allowed her…

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