Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt's 1948 letter to the New York Times: They saw the creation of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine at the expense of its indigenous Muslim and Christian population as a profound injustice and moral catastrophe. Einstein and the other signatories explicitly compared Begin’s Herut (Freedom Party), born from the Irgun, to Nazis and Fascists, warning that their ideology of racial superiority and violent ethnic nationalism posed a grave danger to the moral and political future of the new state.

https://x.com/mazzenilsson/status/2058596779835469875/photo/1

    

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https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948/page/n2/mode/1up 

Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt's letter to the New York Times: December 2, 1948 

Signed by Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook, Rabbi Jessurun Cardozo, Irma Lindheim, and 22 other Jewish scholars, writers, and public figures. (Published December 4, 1948, in The New York Times.)

1939, Iqrit, Palestine - At the time of their eviction in November 1948, Iqrit was home to 491 residents, the majority of whom 432 were Melkite (Greek Catholic) Christians living throughout the village, the remaining 59 Muslim inhabitants either rented homes in Iqrit or had built houses in the nearby area of esh-Shafaya. By 1948, the villagers collectively owned around 600 dunams (approximately 600,000 m²) of private land. Much of this area was covered with fig groves that served both the people of Iqrit and neighboring communities....

1939, Iqrit, Palestine

Pals

@palsofnations

1939, Iqrit, Palestine  

 

At the time of their eviction in November 1948, Iqrit was home to 491 residents, the majority of whom 432 were Melkite (Greek Catholic) Christians living throughout the village, the remaining 59 Muslim inhabitants either rented homes in Iqrit or had built houses in the nearby area of esh-Shafaya. 

 

By 1948, the villagers collectively owned around 600 dunams (approximately 600,000 m²) of private land. 

 

Much of this area was covered with fig groves that served both the people of Iqrit and neighboring communities. 

 

These groves spread across the hill of al-Bayad, while the remaining cultivated lands were used to grow lentils, tobacco, and various fruit trees. 

 

Iqrit had a private elementary school managed by the Greek Catholic Archdiocese, as well as a large Melkite church that still stands today. 

 

The village was rich in natural water sources, including two springs, numerous wells, and a large pool that collected rainwater. 

 

Several threshing floors lay between the residential area and the cemetery, reflecting the agricultural life that once flourished in Iqrit.

 https://x.com/palsofnations/status/1983117344466514214

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Palestine Remembered  

 

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details 

 

https://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html 

 

In November 1948, Iqrit was completely ethnically cleansed... by Zionist troops  

 

Some of the refugees were bused to Lebanon, to al-Rashedyah refugee camp, and the rest were bused al-Rama, 20 km south. 

 

Village Before Nakba

The village was located on a steep hill a few kilometers from the Lebanese border. It overlooked uneven terrain on the east and Wadi al-Bassa (which descended towards the sea) on the west. A secondary road, on which a good number of villages were also located, linked it to the Acre-Ra's al-Naqura coastal highway. Iqrit could be traced back to the Canaanites, who erected a statue on the site representing the god Melqart of Tyre. The Crusaders occupied it and called it Acref. Like other villages in Palestine, Iqrit was devastated by the events of the Crusades. It was subsequently rebuilt, and by 1596 this village in the nahiya of Tibnin (liwa' of Safad) had a population of 374. It paid taxes on goats and beehives and on its press, which was used for processing either olives or grapes. In the late nineteenth century, Iqrit had a population of about 100. The buildings in the village were made of stone and included a modern chapel. Situated on a tell, the village was surrounded by arable land, which the villagers planted with fig and olive trees...  READ MORE  https://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html

‘We’re drowning’: Gaza baby dies as storm floods tent encampments Rainwater and sewage flood streets and tents in Gaza as storm brings heavy downpours expected through Friday

By Maha Hussaini and Mohammed al-Hajjar in Gaza City, occupied Palestine

Published date: 11 December 2025

A boy looks out from a tent at a camp sheltering displaced Palestinians, after heavy rains in Gaza City on 11 December 2025 (AFP/Omar al-Qattaa)

A Palestinian infant died from the cold on Thursday as heavy rain across the Gaza Strip continued for a second day, flooding tented encampments and roads.

Eight-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar died in Khan Younis after rainwater leaked into her family’s tent during overnight storms. 

Her family was among hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians awoken in the night as torrential downpours inundated the makeshift shelters they rely on for protection.

Gaza’s war-damaged sewage system also overflowed under the heavy rain.

“We are drowning in rainwater mixed with sewage,” said Amal Eleiwa from Gaza City.

Originally from the Shujaiya neighbourhood, Amal's home was destroyed in the war, forcing her to flee from shelter to shelter at least 10 times.

“Water comes in from both above and below. Our blankets are soaked – so are our children,” she said. 

With their home destroyed, the family of 10, including seven children, was living in a single tent. 

“We have nowhere else to go.”

The heavy rain also caused at least three buildings to collapse, according to local media.

Moamen Riyadji rented a damaged house just before the storm, after warnings that it could be catastrophic for displaced people in tents.

He tried to cover the partly open roof, damaged in Israeli strikes, but flooding still reached more than 15 centimetres.

“Last night was some of the worst we have experienced. We couldn’t even sleep,” he told Middle East Eye. 

“God knows what will happen to us. But if things stay like this, I may have to find another place – maybe a tent would be safer.”

Storm Byron has hit Palestine and Israel earlier this week and is expected to last until Friday, with the heaviest downpours still to come.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) warned on Wednesday that low temperatures and heavy rains place vulnerable populations at extreme risk, particularly newborns.

In a post on X on Thursday, the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said winter rains are "bringing new hardships" across the besieged enclave. 

“Flooded streets and soaked tents are making already dire living conditions even more dangerous,” it said. "Cold, overcrowded and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection."

Worn-out tents 

An estimated 1.5 million people live in worn-out tents across the Gaza Strip, displaced after nearly 80 percent of structures were destroyed by Israel in two years of genocidal war.

Last month, heavy rains destroyed around 13,000 tents....  READ MORE   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-baby-dies-storm-floods-tent-encampments-gaza

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Count Folke Bernadotte- On Friday 17 September 1948, four members of the Zionist paramilitary militant organization Lehi, sometimes referred to in the West as the Stern Gang, dressed in the uniforms of IDF soldiers and attacked Bernadotte's UN convoy as it drove through West Jerusalem, killing him as well as the French officer riding next to him, Colonel André Serot.

Greve Folke Bernadotte, sculpture in Kruså, Den.

Greve Folke Bernadotte, Swedish diplomat

Sep. 13, 2025 •Article History

Born:  Jan. 2, 1895, Stockholm, Swed.

Died:  Sept. 17, 1948, Jerusalem (aged 53)

Role In:  1948 Arab-Israeli War

World War II

Greve Folke Bernadotte (af Wisborg) (born Jan. 2, 1895, Stockholm, Swed.—died Sept. 17, 1948, Jerusalem) was a Swedish soldier, humanitarian, and diplomat who was assassinated while serving the United Nations (UN) as mediator between the Arabs and the Israelis.

Bernadotte, a nephew of King Gustav V of Sweden, was commissioned in the Swedish army in 1918. He became an official of the Boy Scout movement, and during World War II (1939–45) he headed the Swedish Red Cross, securing the exchange of many prisoners of war and being credited with saving some 20,000 inmates of German concentration camps. His excellent reputation among all the combatant nations in Europe during the war led the Nazi Party official Heinrich Himmler to employ him to transmit a fruitless offer (April 24, 1945) for Germany to surrender unconditionally to the United Kingdom and the United States but not to the Soviet Union.

Appointed mediator in Palestine by the UN Security Council on May 20, 1948, Bernadotte obtained the grudging acceptance by the Arab states and Israel of a UN cease-fire order, effective June 11. He soon made enemies by his proposal that Arab refugees be allowed to return to their homes in what had become the State of Israel. After a number of threats against his life, he and André-Pierre Serot, a French air force colonel and UN observer, were murdered by members of the Jewish extremist Stern Gang. Bernadotte’s efforts laid the foundation for both the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, which monitors cease-fires and assists peacekeeping operations in the region, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which was created to provide relief services for Palestinians who lost their homes and means of livelihood following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Greve-Folke-Bernadotte-af-Wisborg 

Feast of the Holy Innocents: Christian children in Bethlehem lay olivewood hearts, each representing a child killed in the Holy Land since October 7

Christian children in Bethlehem lay olivewood hearts, each representing a child killed in the Holy Land since October 7 2023-Dec 29 2024

 

Christian children in Bethlehem lay olivewood hearts, each representing a child killed in the Holy Land since October 7 2023- Dec 29 2024