Israeli authorities granted only 66 building permits to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over an 11-year period, while illegal settlers were given 22,000 permits, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday, Anadolu reports.

 Middle East Monitor

@MiddleEastMnt

 

Israeli authorities granted only 66 building permits to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over an 11-year period, while illegal settlers were given 22,000 permits, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday, Anadolu reports. 

 

According to Haaretz daily, only 66 building permits were issued to Palestinians between 2009 and 2020, while 22,000 permits were granted to illegal Israeli settlers during the same period. 

 

“As most of the West Bank is off-limits to Palestinian development, residents are forced to build without permits,” the paper commented. 

 

It cited widespread demolitions carried out by the Israeli authorities since January in the Taawun neighborhood, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank. 

 

The neighborhood is located in Area C and “did not receive building permits from the Israeli authorities, despite being far from any settlement or access road,” said the daily. 

 

Al-Taawun, it added, is “just one example of the accelerating pace of demolitions across the West Bank.” 

 

 In January alone, the Israeli army demolished a total of 24 Palestinian buildings in Area C due to the lack of building permits. 

 

 Haaretz, citing the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said at least 2,461 Palestinian buildings were demolished over the past two years due to the lack of building permits, up from 4,984 structures over the previous nine years. 

 

As a result, around 3,500 people lost their homes during that two-year period, it added. 

 

OCHA did not specify whether the demolitions took place exclusively in Area C or across the West Bank as a whole. 

 

According to Haaretz, the demolition campaign over the past two years has coincided with the displacement of around 80 Palestinian communities due to the rapid expansion of illegal settler farms and outposts. 

 

The 1995 Oslo II Accord divided the West Bank into three administrative areas: Area A under full Palestinian control; Area B under Palestinian civil administration and Israeli security control; and Area C under full Israeli civil and security control, which covers about 61 percent of the West Bank. https://middleeastmonitor.com/20260222-pales

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"We shouldn’t have to wait for an Israeli newspaper to reveal what has been so painfully obvious about the hunger games operation of shooting at starving Palestinians for target practice daily at these death traps, but here we are." Dr. Omar Suleiman

 

Dr. Omar Suleiman

@omarsuleiman

We shouldn’t have to wait for an Israeli newspaper to reveal what has been so painfully obvious about the hunger games operation of shooting at starving Palestinians for target practice daily at these death traps, but here we are.

Israeli officers and soldiers have told a local newspaper that they were instructed to shoot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid at Israeli-American GHF Gaza "Humanitarian" Foundation designated distribution zones in Gaza, despite the crowds posing no threat.

 

Israeli soldiers say they were ordered to fire at unarmed aid seekers: Report

Israeli officers and soldiers have told a local newspaper that they were instructed to shoot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid at designated distribution zones in Gaza, despite the crowds posing no threat.

Israel’s Haaretz reported that it had learned that the military prosecutor’s office has demanded that the military’s supreme command launch an investigation of suspected war crimes at the aid hubs.

In the report, the soldiers described how they fired on crowds of aid seekers to prevent them approaching or disperse them, rather than using non-lethal crowd control measures.

“It’s a killing field … where I was, between one and five people were killed every day,” one soldier said.

“They fire on them as if they were an attacking force: they don’t use riot control devices, they don’t shoot tear gas, they shoot everything you can think of – a heavy machine gun, a grenade launcher, mortars.

He added: “We communicate with them through fire.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 549 people have been killed near aid centres since they began operating in late May.

The US has just approved $30m in funding for the group, despite the routine violence at its sites and warnings from human rights lawyers that its staff could be held criminally liable for complicity in war crimes.... READ MORE  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/6/27/live-israel-kills-over-70-in-gaza-as-549-killed-seeking-aid-in-past-month?update=3803146

“You have to understand that the progressive forces in the Arab world, those that support having a visible relationship with Israel, cannot reach out to it until the Palestinian problem is resolved,” said one Jordanian official. “Moreover, this should also be Israel’s interest, because the only way to stop the Islamic movements from seizing control in the West Bank is through an agreement with the Palestinians.”

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http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.570661

Jordan's King Abdullah, right, speaking to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Royal Palace in Amman, Jan. 10, 2012. Photo by Reuters

A new, improved Jordanian option

'You have to understand that the progressive forces in the Arab world, those that support having a visible relationship with Israel, cannot reach out to it until the Palestinian problem is resolved,' said one Jordanian official.

By Reuven Pedatzur | Jan. 27, 2014

The recent surprise visit to Jordan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicative of the importance the premier attributes to the Hashemite kingdom’s role in advancing the diplomatic process, and particularly to its role in the future, if and when a Palestinian state is established. The substance of Netanyahu’s talks with King Abdullah a week and a half ago have not leaked, but the king’s positions and strategic plans can be discerned from off-the-record conversations with senior Jordanian officials, some of them with direct access to the royal palace.

The most important message emerging from the talks with the Jordanians is their assessment that it is vital to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement that will lead to the end of the conflict. Such an agreement will not only allow Jordan to publicly improve its relations with Israel, but will have far-reaching implications for Israel’s relations with other countries in the region.. READ MORE

found via ATFP front page   

ATFP (The American Task Force on Palestine) categorically and unequivocally condemns all violence against civilians, no matter the cause and who the victims or perpetrators may be.

Bradley Burston: As Lincoln abolished slavery, Israel must abolish occupation... I realize now that I am an abolitionist and that occupation is slavery. I also realize that I need to pay more attention to Abraham Lincoln, in his ability to remind us all of the wisdom hidden in the obvious.

"I realize now why "apartheid" is too easy, too slick, too Madison Avenue a term, for what occupation truly is and does.

Occupation is slavery.

In the name of occupation, generation after generation of Palestinians have been treated as property. They can be moved at will, shackled at will, tortured at will, have their families separated at will. They can be denied the right to vote, to own property, to meet or speak to family and friends. They can be hounded or even shot dead by their masters, who claim their position by biblical right, and also use them to build and work on the plantations the toilers cannot themselves ever hope to own." Bradley Burston

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/as-lincoln-abolished-slavery-israel-must-abolish-occupation.premium-1.505908

Sally Field and Daniel Day-Lewis appear in a scene from "Lincoln." Photo by AP

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Haaretz Editorial: Nakba is part of Israel's history

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/nakba-is-part-of-israel-s-history-1.430501

Palestinian children hold a key to commemorate Nakba day. Photo by AP

Nakba is part of Israel's history

A person who understands that an Arab citizen should not be forced to sing 'a Jewish soul still yearns' should be expected to let that citizen commemorate the Nakba without having to pay for it.

Haaretz Editorial | May.15, 2012

"I don't expect an Arab national to sing 'A Jewish soul still yearns,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago, after Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran refrained from singing the national anthem. Although the message was conveyed to Joubran indirectly, it reflected Netanyahu's understanding of the fundamental contradiction underlying an anthem that addresses only one people, the Jewish one.

Yet such an understanding is nonexistent when it comes to remembering the Nakba, or "catastrophe" - the Palestinians' term for what happened to them when the state was founded in 1948. This is the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of refugees and their millions of relatives, for whom May 15 - the day the establishment of the State of Israel was announced - symbolizes the day they lost their land, property and status.

The historic controversy over the responsibility for the Palestinian people's tragedy is still pending. It will continue to hover over both nations, and its explosive potential will continue to grow as long as the conflict is not settled at the negotiating table....READ MORE

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The task before us is to make sure that no further nakbas, no more pogroms or unspeakable horrors, ever occur again

A girl leans on a chain, during a protest to mark the 64th anniversary of Nakba, at Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the port-city of Sidon, in south Lebanon May 15, 2012. Nakba, or catastrophe, marks Israel's founding in 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

*******

Bradley Burston:  "And now I learn, from studying the terrible events of a terrible war, that Abu Shusha, the village that had once stood on the slopes of Tel Gezer, overlooking the kibbutz, had been the site of a massacre. 

And that, in the way of catastrophe and of true history, the massacre of the Arabs of the village of Abu Shusha was followed by killings and expulsion of the Jews of Kibbutz Gezer.

On the 13^th of May, 1948, Abu Shusha was stormed by the pre-state Haganah militia. Accounts differ as to how many villagers were killed in the attack, and how many were subsequently lined up against a wall and executed. There were reports of rape. There were reports that only women were left to bury the dead. Several days later, every villager who remained was expelled. 

The next month, just before a UN-imposed truce was scheduled to take effect, a battalion of Arab Legionaires and irregulars, backed by a dozen armored cars, attacked and captured Gezer, shouting "Deir Yassin, Abu Shusha." Here, also, there were executions. Irregulars and neighboring villagers looted the kibbutz. Defenders, who were still alive, were taken prisoner and driven off. 

This is where the story diverges, and the Nakba begins. Gezer was rebuilt, and remains a kibbutz to this day. The people of Abu Shusha lost their village, and were never allowed to return and rebuild. 

The sense that both stories need to be told, informs a remarkable Open Zion essay by Jerusalem-born physician Ziad J. Asali, founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, on the fundamental lessons of Nakba Day. 

Sixty-four years, Dr. Asali writes, "after I lost my home and suddenly found myself a refugee at age six, the task before us is to make sure that no further nakbas, no more pogroms or unspeakable horrors, ever occur again." 

In order that this may happen, "Palestinians must recognize and accept Israel, which is a legitimate member state of the United Nations. The Palestinians must have one place on earth, the territories occupied in 1967, where they can live freely as first class citizens in their own independent state. There is no other way to end the cycle of bloodshed, pain and hatred has that lasted for so long." 

"The only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future for our children free of manmade tragedy. This means making peace fully, completely and without reservation, between Israel and a State of Palestine."

If I had Alex Miller's ear - as he, for better or worse, has mine - I would suggest that on this Nakba Day, there is a Jerusalem physician in exile in America, who has something that Miller needs to hear." 

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/thank-you-russian-immigrant-to-israel-for-nakba-day.premium-1.430577

Thank you, Russian immigrant to Israel, for Nakba Day

Alex Miller will go down in history as the Israeli politician who tried his damnedest to erase the memory of the Nakba - and, in doing so, made the Nakba an indelible part of our lives.

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