Category Archives: West Bank

Israeli military detain US and UK volunteers in West Bank including Democratic NY politician Brad Lander

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About 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers held near Nahalin in West Bank and taken to police station

The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.

“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

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Fifth foreign firm pulls out of controversial Israeli cable car project to East Jerusalem

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Rights groups say the planned 1.4km route, which ends at compound run by far-right settler group Elad, will displace Palestinians and reshape the cultural landscape

A fifth foreign company has pulled out of a plan to build a cable car from West to East Jerusalem that threatens to involve the seizure of land and property rights from dozens of Palestinian families along its route, but local authorities insist the scheme is proceeding as planned.

The project appeared to have stalled for four years until late September, just weeks before Israel’s 27 October elections, when the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) issued a notice of intent to award a contract without a public tender to ROPES, a cable car engineering consultancy based in South Tyrol, Italy.

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Israeli police detain 10 people in rare raid against West Bank settlers

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Move comes after US photojournalist and group of European diplomats and Palestinians were assaulted in separate attacks

Israeli police have detained 10 people in a rare raid against settlers, after a weekend of extreme violence in the occupied West Bank including an attack on US photojournalist Heidi Levine, which she described as an “attempted lynching”.

She was knocked down, kicked and beaten by a group of masked Israeli men as she covered the olive harvest in a Palestinian village on Friday. The militants broke four vertebrae and a rip, ripped open her finger so it required surgery and left her with lacerations across her body.

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Guardian reporter filmed masked militants seconds before West Bank attack on French mayor

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New video footage of Israeli settler assault on European delegation as Netanyahu attempts to raise doubt

Hours after Israeli militants attacked a delegation of European diplomats, French clerics and a visiting mayor in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded by questioning the delegation’s account of the assault.

“Serious accusations require serious evidence” was the all-caps headline of a social media post from the office of the prime minister. As news of the attack spread globally there was no pledge to find those accountable and bring them to justice.

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US ambassador to Israel calls West Bank settler attack on American photojournalist ‘terror’

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Mike Huckabee calls for arrest and prosecution of those responsible as Heidi Levine, 63, recovers in hospital in Israel

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has denounced the settler attack that left the Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine badly beaten and needing surgery as a “despicable act of terror” and called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Levine, 63, an award-winning journalist who lives in Israel, was set upon last Friday by masked Israeli settlers who used clubs and other weapons to attack Palestinian people attempting to harvest their olives in occupied West Bank towns.

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Israeli settlers attack olive farmers and Washington Post journalist in West Bank

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Settlers hurl rocks at Palestinians and beat photographer Heidi Levine as part of yearly attacks to disrupt harvest

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in a coordinated movement to disrupt the annual olive harvest, burning cars and trees and injuring Palestinians and a Washington Post photographer.

Masked settlers wielding clubs and other weapons attacked people attempting to harvest their olives in West Bank towns on Friday. Palestinian authorities said they recorded attacks in eight villages, and injuries among at least 20 people.

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New UK sanctions powers will enable action against supporters of illegal Israeli settlements

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Global human rights commitments adopted by government extend reach to enablers of unlawful activity

The UK is expanding its sanctions powers to freeze assets and target entities enabling illegal Israeli settlements, obstructing humanitarian aid or unlawfully holding prisoners.

The statutory instrument introducing the global human rights and international humanitarian law sanctions adds three new grounds to the 2020 regime: serious violations of international humanitarian law, obstruction of humanitarian assistance and serious violations of the right to liberty and security of person.

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Thousands gather in London to express support for Palestinians after three years of ‘genocide’

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Twenty arrested in first march since Ed Miliband declared UK’s position was that Israel’s occupation of West Bank was unlawful

Thousands of people have gathered in central London to express their support for Palestinians after three years of “genocide” carried out against them by Israel.

The demonstrators, many wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags, gathered on the Embankment at midday on Saturday. Some carried placards reading “End the genocide” and “Free Palestine” as they marched towards parliament. A bride and groom appeared to be among those in attendance and a two-minute silence was held to reflect on the lives lost in Gaza.

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British consulate in East Jerusalem will stay open as UK mission, says Ed Miliband

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UK and Israel back away from full diplomatic confrontation, though British presence in Palestine will be much reduced

Israel and the UK have backed away from a full-scale diplomatic confrontation, with Britain announcing it is rebranding its consulate general ⁠building in ⁠East Jerusalem ​as a UK mission, a move that will result in UK diplomats leaving Israel, with only seven to remain in the building. Among those leaving is the consul general, Helen Winterton.

The change was forced on the UK by the Israeli government as punishment for the decision by the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, last month to ban trade with illegal settlements and introduce a tougher sanctions regime against those who aided the building of settlements. The UK is seeking to protect the two-state solution as the best means of ending the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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UK threatens to expel Israeli diplomats over planned East Jerusalem consulate closure

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Tit-for-tat expulsions expected after relations deteriorate as a result of UK ban on goods from illegal settlements

The UK has threatened to expel one Israeli diplomat for every British diplomat forced to leave Israel as a result of Israel’s decision to close the UK consulate in East Jerusalem later this week.

This could mean as many as 27 Israeli diplomats being expelled from the UK, a step that would arguably mark the lowest point in British-Israeli diplomatic relations since the formation of the state of Israel.

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Israeli forces overwhelmed by violent settlers in ‘terrorist attack’ on Palestinian family

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Settler violence in West Bank makes everyday life ‘untenable’ for Palestinians, says ICRC after assault on family trying to return home in Jalud

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has made everyday life for Palestinians “untenable”, as a mob attack on Palestinians trying to return home prompted one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rivals to warn of a campaign of settler terror.

More than 100 militant settlers overwhelmed Israeli security forces early on Tuesday to attack a Palestinian family as they attempted to reclaim their homes which had been seized by settlers in the West Bank village of Jalud. Three Israeli security officials were injured and houses were set on fire.

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‘You were right’: Ed Miliband tells critics Labour was wrong on Gaza

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Foreign secretary will tell party’s conference ‘we are not here to accept the status quo but to change it’

Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians they were right that Labour’s approach had not been enough, saying he was heeding the calls of millions of people by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements.

The foreign secretary will tell the Labour party conference that the government will take more explicitly progressive foreign policy positions under Andy Burnham, and that the UK will be a leader among like-minded countries in a new age of diplomacy.

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UN adds 61 firms to settlements blacklist over alleged human rights violations against Palestinians

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Israel ‘categorically rejects’ publication and says businesses on database have committed no wrongdoing

The UN human rights office has added 61 more companies to a blacklist of firms that it says are involved in violating Palestinian human rights through business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The vast majority of the total 214 companies, which are based in 11 countries, are Israeli. Five of the 158 companies listed last year were removed in the latest update.

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British banks warned not to invest in planned Israeli settlement before UK trade ban begins

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MPs send out letter as Israeli government seeks bids for construction of large E1 settlement in West Bank

British banks and financial institutions are receiving written warnings from MPs that they should not invest in Israel’s E1 settlement project even though new UK laws banning trade with illegal settlements are unlikely to be in place for months.

A letter was sent to banks on Tuesday by the all-party Britain-Palestine group of MPs saying the onus was now on banks to review their obligations not to cooperate with new settlements.

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Israeli president pardons combat medic who shot dead wounded Palestinian attacker

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Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter of man who stabbed soldier continues to divide country

Israel’s president has pardoned a combat medic who shot dead a badly wounded Palestinian attacker who had stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank, in a case that divided the country a decade ago.

Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter and his release after serving two-thirds of his 18-month sentence drew enormous attention in Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jewish men.

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Trump administration again denies entry visas to Palestinian officials ahead of UN general assembly

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For the second year in a row, the administration has barred the Palestinian delegation from US travel for the forum

The US state department said on Wednesday that it had again denied entry visas to Palestinian officials ahead next week’s United Nations general assembly gathering in New York.

The state department said in a statement the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had “failed to live up to their commitments”, accusing the groups of “taking actions to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict including through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ)” and of “glorifying terrorism” among other allegations.

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IDF soldier filmed shooting Palestinian in leg amid West Bank settler standoff

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Incident is latest to raise questions over Israel’s ability or willingness to stop violent settlers in occupied territory

An Israeli soldier has shot a Palestinian man, wounding him in the leg, as settlers confronted villagers by grazing livestock on Palestinian-owned land in the town of Faqqua in the occupied West Bank.

Witnesses said a group of settlers had entered the area with their livestock, prompting residents to try to stop them. Israeli forces then intervened and, according to men at the scene, opened fire at residents. One of them shot Qassem Hussam, a Palestinian man in his mid-30s, wounding him in the leg.

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Senior UK rabbis come out in support of sanctions on Israeli settlements

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Spiritual leaders stress diversity of views within Jewish community and warn against inaction on settler violence

Prominent British rabbis have backed Ed Miliband’s sanctions on Israeli settlements, warning that the time for inaction on settler violence must come to an end.

The intervention comes after the UK’s chief rabbi, the spiritual leader of mainstream Orthodox Jews in the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, described UK sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as a “dark day for British Jews” and warned they could embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews”.

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‘It’s a good start’: prominent Israelis welcome UK sanctions on illegal settlements

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Ed Miliband’s intervention was ‘inevitable’ after Israeli government and security failures, say former ministers and diplomats

Prominent Israelis have welcomed new UK sanctions as a necessary response to settlement expansion and spiralling violence in the occupied West Bank.

The intervention was described – by the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a former prime minister, an ex-head of the army and former ministers and diplomats – as an “inevitable consequence” of Israeli government and security failures.

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Israel sanctions will not hurt intelligence sharing between spy agencies, says Miliband

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UK foreign secretary says international community including US shares ‘frustration’ at Israel’s failure to constrain illegal settlers

British intelligence has been given assurances by its Israeli counterpart that information sharing with the UK will continue as before, Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, has said.

The disclosure counters predictions that his decision to impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements would lead to a collapse in cooperation between the agencies.

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