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→ 12 June 2018
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Israeli police: Woman critically wounded in stabbing attack | NZ Herald

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say a Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli woman, critically wounding her.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the woman was stabbed several times Monday in the northern city of Afula. She was being treated in hospital in critical condition. Rosenfeld says police forces tracked down a Palestinian suspect in his 30s from the West Bank and shot him in the leg after he refused to stop. A knife was found on him.

Police were investigating a motive.

Since 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Israeli forces killed over 260 Palestinians in that period, most of them attackers.

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→ 8 June 2018
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As aid dries up, Gaza families pushed deeper into poverty | NZ Herald

In this Thursday, May 31, 2018 photo, Walid al-Hattab, right, distributes free porridge during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Gaza City. Large numbers of Gaza families have been pushed deeper into poverty in recent months by Palestinian political infighting and the freezing of U.S. aid. The sharp drop in aid comes at a time when life is tougher than ever for most of the 2 million Palestinians locked into tiny, blockaded Gaza where electricity is off most hours of the day, unemployment approaches 50 percent and the Islamic militant group Hamas rules with a tight grip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Samia Hassan used to have enough money to feed her two dozen children and grandchildren. Now she spends much of her time worrying about food, scouring Gaza’s vegetable markets for end-of-day discounts or walking miles for a pot of free gruel from a soup kitchen.

Large numbers of Gaza families have been pushed deeper into poverty in recent months by Palestinian political infighting and the freezing of U.S. aid. Life is tougher than ever for most of the 2 million Palestinians locked into tiny, blockaded Gaza, where electricity is off most hours of the day, unemployment approaches 50 percent and the Islamic militant group Hamas rules with a tight grip.

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Hilary DuBose of the Catholic Relief Services, which has had to forego emergency food distributions because the Trump administration is withholding funds. “At the same time that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening, humanitarian aid is disappearing.”

Growing despair in Gaza has helped drive recent Hamas-led protests against the border blockade by Israel and Egypt. The closure was imposed after Hamas, branded a terrorist group by Israel and the West, seized Gaza in 2007, driving out forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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→ 6 June 2018
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Will the World Finally Turn Off the UNRWA Spigot? | Algemeiner

UNRWA employees protest against a US withdrawal of funding

It’s been a rough few months for UNRWA — the UN agency dedicated to providing care for more than five million Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank. And the worst may be yet to come when UNRWA’s principal donors meet in Amman in June.

According to sources close to events, the discussions may touch on the agency’s future.

Portents of bad news arrived in December, with the results of Lebanon’s first-ever census of Palestinian residents. The count showed the number of Palestinians living in Lebanon was only one third of the number on UNRWA’s official rolls — 174,422 people instead of 449,987.

The discrepancy of 272,565 people who either never existed or relocated was waved away by UNWRA spokeswoman Huda Samra, who stated that UNRWA doesn’t count anyway. “UNRWA does not have a headcount of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon,” she said. “What we have are official registration records for the number of registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon. If someone registered with UNRWA in Lebanon decided to live outside Lebanon, they don’t notify us.”

Yet a drop of 66% in numbers has significant implications for UNRWA’s funding stream.

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→ 5 June 2018
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Israel plans to deduct funds from taxes for arson attacks | NZ Herald

A kite with an incendiary device is readied for its launch

Reading further in this article…

Israel says it plans to deduct from tax funds it collects for the Palestinians the amount needed to compensate Israelis living near the Gaza Strip who have come under a wave of arson attacks.

Israel has been battling fires caused by kites rigged with incendiary devices launched by Palestinians in Gaza that have damaged forests and torched agricultural fields. The fires have disrupted daily life in communities near the Gaza Strip.

The kites have been flown by Gazans who have staged weekly protests since late March during which more than 115 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire.

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Sunday didn’t disclose how much would be deducted. Israeli Army Radio put the cost of damages at 5 million shekels ($1.4 million).

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→ 2 June 2018
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UN ‘Hopelessly Biased Against Israel’ Says Haley, as US Vetoes Security Council Resolution on Gaza Violence | Algemeiner

Nikki Haley

The majority of the 15 states on the UN Security Council were “willing to blame Israel, but unwilling to blame Hamas, for violence in Gaza,” the American Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Friday after the US vetoed a Kuwait-sponsored resolution that urged the deployment of an international force to the West Bank and Gaza.

“It is now completely clear that the UN is hopelessly biased against Israel,” Haley said after the vote.

“The United States will not allow such bias, which is why we did not hesitate to cast our veto.”

Earlier this week – at an emergency session of the Security Council called by the US to condemn rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza against Israel – Haley remarked that the Palestinians did not require protection from an external predator, but from a Hamas leadership that cynically manipulates the civilian population into violence.

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→ 1 June 2018
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The language used about Palestinians is putting their lives at risk | Stuff

An elderly Palestinian man falls on the ground after being shot by Israeli troops during a deadly protest at the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on May 14.

OPINION: The language used by most mainstream media to report and analyse the events in Gaza is not just shameful, it risks Palestinian lives.

It appears the media’s collective mind has been so saturated by Israeli propaganda that they are prepared to go as far as defying what they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears.

This is how BBC ended up describing the massacre we have witnessed in Gaza as “clashes”, even though clearly one side is doing all the killing, and the other side all the dying.

This misapplication of language is not merely irksome, it is downright dangerous, because the language used in the media feeds into, and strengthens, the narrative that allows Israel to commit crimes against Palestinians with impunity.

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→ 31 May 2018
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‘Don’t be afraid to shoot’: A former Israeli soldier’s account of Gaza | Stuff

Avner Gvaryahu

The killing of more than 100 Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Force during recent protests in the Gaza Strip is the latest example of routine violence and abuse by the military and part of an aggressive strategy to control the occupied territories.

That is the view of a former Israeli sergeant and paratrooper who now serves as the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a not-for-profit organisation founded by former soldiers known for documenting “the reality of everyday life in the occupied territories”.

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→ 31 May 2018
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UN envoy: Gaza escalation a warning that ‘brink of war’ near | NZ Herald

Nikolay Mladenov

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Mideast envoy told an emergency Security Council meeting Wednesday that the latest escalation in Gaza between its Hamas rulers and Israel is a warning of “how close to the brink of war we are every day.”

Nikolay Mladenov said the international community should “unequivocally condemn” Hamas’ massive attack against Israel using 216 rockets and mortars. Israel responded with 65 airstrikes on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza.

Mladenov called it the most serious escalation since the 2014 Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Hamas said earlier Wednesday it had agreed to a cease-fire, and Mladenov said that since 5 a.m. local time there have been no attacks by either side.

“It is imperative that this period of calm be preserved at all costs,” he said. “No one in Gaza can afford another war. No one has the right to play with the lives of two million people who have lived through hell in the last decade.”

Hamas forcibly wrested control of Gaza from the rival Fatah party in 2007 after winning legislative elections, triggering an Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has severely restricted the movement of most of Gaza’s inhabitants.

Mladenov said “the dangerous escalation” in Gaza can’t be divorced from two months of mass protests at the border fence with Israel in which some 110 Palestinians were killed and large numbers injured by Israeli military fire.

“As demonstrations and protests in Gaza continue into the month of June, I am concerned that we may experience further violence and further risks of escalation,” he said.

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→ 29 May 2018
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Rights group: Israeli banks help with settlement building | NZ Herald

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli banks are helping build West Bank settlements in violation of international law by providing financial services to home buyers and local councils, Human Rights Watch said in a new report published Tuesday.

The report said that bank activities in or with settlements have helped encourage settlement growth and “contribute to rights abuses” against Palestinians. It added that Israeli banks, and international banks doing business with them, may be engaging in pillage, by acquiring ownership interests in housing projects on seized land.

Because of an Israeli law limiting the amount of money developers can collect from buyers in advance, banks often become direct partners in settlement projects, Human Rights Watch says.

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→ 26 May 2018
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U.S. Statement at the HRC Special Session on Gaza | US Govt

Theodore Allegra

HRC 28th Special Session
As prepared for delivery by Theodore Allegra, Chargé d’Affaires,
U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva

Geneva, May 18, 2018

Mr. President,

The United States remains concerned over the recent outbreak of violence along the Gaza fence.  But today’s session is blatantly taking sides and ignoring the real culprit for the recent outbreak of violence, the terrorist organization Hamas.  Hamas has even admitted its involvement in the violence when a Hamas official proudly announced that 50 of the 62 killed were members of Hamas.

The United States affirms Israel’s right to defend itself.  We also condemn in the strongest terms actions by Hamas and other militant groups.

The recent outbreak of violence is part of a broader pattern of incitement to violence perpetrated by Hamas and its partners.  In recent days, multiple news organizations have documented the Hamas incitement in Gaza.  They have reported that Hamas maps and social media show the fastest routes to reach Israeli communities in case demonstrators make it through the security fence.  They have reported on Hamas messages over loudspeakers that urge demonstrators to burst through the fence, falsely claiming Israeli soldiers were fleeing, when in fact, they were not.  The same loudspeakers are used by Hamas to urge the crowds to “Get closer! Get closer!” to the security fence.

Hamas allegedly encouraged demonstrators to attack the Kerem Shalom crossing, the biggest entry point in Gaza for fuel, food, and medical supplies.  They have sent burning kites adorned with swastikas across the fence, and taken other actions that place civilians’ lives in jeopardy.  This is the real story of what is happening in Gaza, and it is clear that Hamas is to blame for the outbreak of violence.

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