Palestinian American activist arrested and ‘charged for trespassing at a public hearing’. Noura Erakat says a Florida mayor shortened speaking time and banned discussion of investment in Israeli bonds

Noura Erakat poses for the photographer at a ceremony to award honorary degrees at the University of Antwerp on 2 April 2026. Photograph: Jonas Roosens/BELGA MAG/AFP/Getty Images

 Alice Speri

Wed 16 Sep 2026 15.17 EDT

The human rights lawyer Noura Erakat was arrested on Tuesday at a Palm Beach county, Florida, budget hearing about the county’s more than $1bn investments in Israeli bonds.

Erakat, a prominent Palestinian-American activist, legal scholar and Guardian contributor, was one of several people in attendance at the public commission hearing who were forcibly removed by local law enforcement. The removal happened when the group attempted to speak out against the county’s investment in the bonds – the largest by a municipal government.

Representatives for Palm Beach county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a video of Erakat’s arrest posted by Al Jazeera, two law enforcement officers are seen taking her away as she speaks about wanting to exercise “basic free speech”.

Erakat said that she and other critics of the county’s investment in Israeli bonds had planned to make statements at the hearing but that when they arrived there, the county’s mayor, Sara Baxter, told those present they could only speak for one minute as opposed to the slotted three.

She later said only residents would be allowed to speak and that people who applauded would be removed. Erakat also recalled that Baxter said that speakers could not address the Israeli bonds issue because they were a policy matter and not a budget one.

When people spoke about the matter anyway, they were removed from the room. During a recess, police officers entered the room and “handpicked” people to remove, she added.

“I insisted that I had a right to stay, they didn’t know what I was going to talk about, they were racially profiling me,” said Erakat.

Investments in the Israeli bonds have become a controversial issue as US public opinion of Israel has plunged. In Florida, a group of residents sued Palm Beach county last year over the investment, which the group says was carried out in violation of local laws, including requirements that foreign investments meet certain ratings and prohibitions around investing for political reasons. The case was dismissed in August for lack of standing, but the plaintiffs are appealing the decision.

“These millions of dollars should be going to local needs,” Lydia Ghuman, executive director of the Internationalist Law Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in that case, told the Guardian earlier this year. “The fact that they are being invested in bonds that are not beating the rate of inflation and propping up the economy of a foreign government is a sign of the special interests gripping local politics.”

Nationwide, a coalition of groups has launched a “Break the Bonds”campaign encouraging advocacy for divestment at the local level, as well as targeting state and union pension funds and universities’ investments in Israel. Several candidates in recent primaries races have pledged to... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/16/noura-erakat-palestinian-arrested-florida

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An Israeli professor lost a prestigious US job offer after speaking out on Gaza. Now the university is paying him $250,000... The University of Minnesota withdrew an offer for Raz Segal to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies after an organized campaign against his hiring

A few hundred people gather to call for a ceasefire in Gaza before setting up an encampment on the lawn of the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis on 29 April 2024. Photograph: Star Tribune/Getty Images

 Alice Speri

Thu 6 Aug 2026 08.00 EDT

When the University of Minnesota (UMN) extended an offer to historian Raz Segal to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in June 2024, it did so upon the near-unanimous recommendation of a committee of academics after a rigorous search process. The scholars had enthusiastically praised Segal, with one committee member describing a presentation he gave as “breathtaking”.

But five days after making the offer, the university abruptly withdrew it, citing “perspective” it had received from members of the community. The reversal followed backlash over Segal’s criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which he called “a textbook case of genocide” in an October 2023 op-ed published in Jewish Currents. Segal’s critics condemned the piece, published just days after the 7 October attacks in Israel, accusing him of justifying Hamas crimes – an assertion that Segal rejected and the article does not sustain.

Last week, more than two years since the offer was rescinded, Segal reached a $250,000 settlement with the university. As is standard with such settlements, the terms of the deal stipulate the payout is not an admission of wrongdoing on UMN’s part. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

Segal said the significant sum should encourage the dozens of scholars who have been punished for criticizing Israel with firings, suspensions and investigations to “fight back”.

The settlement came after Segal obtained dozens of emails through a public records request, revealing a pressure campaign on university officials by donors, legislators and pro-Israel activists. The documents shared exclusively with the Guardian, reveal how the university shifted from defending Segal to eventually walking back their decision to hire him... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/06/professor-israel-gaza-university-of-minnesota

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"States owe you rights not bruises" Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt

@FranceskAlbs

 

Reminder for Gen Z & beyond: 

 

When your govt raises batons at peaceful protesters, that’s not “order”: it’s a human rights violation. 

 

Int’l law requires: 

 

1. Fulfil -make protest possible 

 

2. Respect -don’t interfere 

 

3. Protect -keep people safe

 

States owe you rights not bruises.

 

https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1985669415849861133 

 

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"The Red Cross say it'll be a "massive challenge" to find the graves of the last Israeli captives under mountains of rubble from Israel's levelling of Gaza. Having created a near-impossible task for Hamas, Israel's using it to justify keeping up its genocidal starvation campaign" Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook

@Jonathan_K_Cook

"The Red Cross say it'll be a "massive challenge" to find the graves of the last Israeli captives under mountains of rubble from Israel's levelling of Gaza. 

 

Having created a near-impossible task for Hamas, Israel's using it to justify keeping up its genocidal starvation campaign"

 

Jonathan Cook

@Jonathan_K_Cook

 

"Israel's levelling of Gaza City in the days before the ceasefire has doubtless made it far harder for Hamas to locate dead Israeli captives under the rubble. Which gives Israel the pretext to continue starving Gaza – collective punishment that Israel has utterly normalised."

 

 

Jonathan Cook

@Jonathan_K_Cook

 

"Israel is the excuse to snatch away freedoms we once took for granted

In interviews and a comment article over the weekend, the UK education secretary Bridget Phillipson made clear she plans to exploit the pause in the Gaza genocide to snuff out criticism of Israel’s criminal actions – and, of course, her own government’s collusion in that criminality.

 

Naturally, the British establishment media have been keen to amplify her message that there will be painful consequences both for individuals who continue protesting against Israeli atrocities and for institutions, such as universities, that mistakenly assume they have a duty to uphold centuries-old freedoms by tolerating such protests.

 

These protests, let us remember, are fully in line with a ruling last year from the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, which declared:

 

a) Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory and enforcing a system of apartheid rule over the Palestinian populations there – and has been doing so for decades.

 

b) Western governments are obligated to do what they can to bring that illegal occupation and Israel’s apartheid system to an end as quickly as possible.

 

Instead, those same governments are violating the ruling, and international law, both by continuing to support Israel’s criminality and by preventing their own citizens from putting pressure on them to end their support.

 

 The government of Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has even categorised protest against genocide as “support for terrorism”. For the first time in British history, a direct-action group, Palestine Action, has been banned..." READ MORE  https://x.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1977756356833665084

 

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I saw many atrocities as a senior aid official in Gaza. Now Israeli authorities are trying to silence us. Devastated hospitals, mass graves, bodies eaten by dogs in the street. After speaking out, I discovered my visa will not be renewed

Palestinians after a limited aid distribution in Gaza City, 1 August 2025. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

by Jonathan Whittall

Devastated hospitals, mass graves, bodies eaten by dogs in the street. After speaking out, I discovered my visa will not be renewed

• Jonathan Whittall is head of office at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory. He writes here in a personal capacity

Gaza has been held under water for 22 months, allowed to gasp for air only when Israeli authorities have succumbed to political pressure from those with more leverage than international law itself. After months of relentless bombardment, forced displacement and deprivation, the impact of Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza’s people has never been more devastating.

I have been part of coordinating humanitarian efforts in Gaza since October 2023. Whatever lifesaving aid has entered since then has been the exception, not the rule. More than a year after the international court of justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide – and despite all our warnings – we are still witnessing starvation, insufficient access to water, a sanitation crisis and a crumbling health system against a backdrop of ongoing violence that is resulting in scores of Palestinians being killed daily, including children.

Powerless to change this, we humanitarians have resorted to using our voices – alongside those of Palestinian journalists who risk everything – to describe the appalling, inhuman conditions in Gaza. Speaking out, as I’m doing now, in the face of deliberate, preventable suffering is part of our role to promote respect for international law.

But doing so comes at a price. After I held a press briefing in Gaza on 22 June in which I described how starving civilians were being shot while trying to reach food – what I called “conditions created to kill” – the Israeli minister of foreign affairs announced in a post on X that my visa would not been renewed. The Israeli permanent representative to the UN followed up at the security council announcing that I would be expected to leave by 29 July.

This silencing is part of a broader pattern. International NGOs face increasingly restrictive registration requirements, including clauses that prohibit certain criticism of Israel. Palestinian NGOs that, against the odds, continue to save lives daily are cut off from the resources they need to operate. UN agencies are increasingly being issued only six, three or one-month visas based on whether they are considered “good, bad or ugly”. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unwra) has been targeted through legislation, its international staff barred from entry and its operations slowly suffocated.

These reprisals cannot erase the reality we’ve witnessed – day in, day out – not just in Gaza but in the West Bank too... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/03/gaza-aid-israel-authorities-hospitals

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It's really like this...

CSM- In Israel’s democracy battle, an added front: Politicized police "a mass protest movement – unprecedented in size and duration in Israel’s history – was mobilized to counter what democracy activists portrayed as a naked power grab. Demonstrations packed streets around the country for about 40 weeks straight, until the devastating Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault thrust the country into war and brought the overhaul efforts to a halt."

• 
  By Dina Kraft Special correspondent

  @dinakraft

Jan. 10, 2025, 9:19 a.m. ET | TEL AVIV, Israel

Blocking Arab citizens’ protests against the war in Gaza. Making a mid-level officer who ordered aggressive tactics against anti-government demonstrators the head of Israel’s national police force. Another officer’s refusal to arrest violent Jewish settlers in the hopes of currying favor with his boss.

This is just a partial list of how the Israeli police force has been politicized under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The process has proceeded relentlessly since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power two years ago and gave Mr. Ben-Gvir, an extremist settler provocateur with his own long rap sheet, the highest law enforcement job in the country... READ MORE

Why We [CSM] Wrote This

A story focused on

Justice

How central is an independent police force to democracy? In Israel, the politicization of the national police is seen as part of the hard-line government’s revived judicial overhaul program, which sparked a mass pro-democracy protest movement.

"... For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the heavy-handed police stifling of dissent is nothing new. But the rise in systemic targeting of the community, especially when it comes to freedom of speech and the right to protest under Mr. Ben-Gvir and more so since the war began, has been marked.

Some 200 Palestinian citizens and East Jerusalem residents are facing charges for exercising their rights of freedom of expression, according to Adalah, a Palestinian-run legal center based in Haifa..."   READ MORE  https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2025/0110/israel-netanyahu-ben-gvir-police-democracy

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~~~

"Adalah" is an Arabic word that means JUSTICE    https://www.adalah.org/en 

Adalah’s mission is to promote human rights in Israel in general and the rights of the Palestinian minority, citizens of Israel, in particular (around 1.5 million people, or 20% of the population). This work also includes promoting and defending the human rights of all individuals subject to the jurisdiction of the State of Israel (e.g. Palestinian residents of the OPT). Adalah is the first Palestinian Arab-run legal center in Israel, and the sole Palestinian organization that works before Israeli courts to protect the human rights of Palestinians in Israel and in the OPT.  https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7189

Germany's Berlin police raided and shut down a pro-Palestine event organised by a Jewish group in April 2024

 

Berlin police raided and shut down a pro-Palestine event organised by a Jewish group in April [GETTY]

A second pro-Palestine activist in Germany is facing trial for the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", in a case that rights groups say is part of an alarming state-led suppression of public support for Gaza.

Germany has implemented a crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations and cultural events since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza, last October, seeing the arrest of activists and the banning of protests.

An activist identified as 'Daria' by their lawyer will face a hearing at a district court in Berlin on Thursday on charges of the 'circulation of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations'...     READ MORE   https://www.newarab.com/news/germany-palestine-activist-faces-trial-river-sea

Second pro-Palestine activist faces trial in Germany for 'from river to sea' chant

German authorities have sought to suppress pro-Palestine activism in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza and its own contentious history towards Jewish people.

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