No to the Israeli policy of medical negligence: Save the life of the prisoner Nasser Abu Humaid!

 European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Detainees, 27/1/2022

 The prisoner Nasser Abu Humaid’s health condition worsened, and his life became in immediate danger after he contracted lung cancer.

The prisoner Nasser became a skeleton and lost consciousness after doctors had to put him in an artificial coma. The sick prisoner was attached to breathing machines and injected medications and was lying down until Tuesday evening at Barzilai Hospital.

The prisoner Nasser Abu Humaid is the brother of four detainees, namely Nasr, Sharif, Muhammad and Islam, all of them condemned to life imprisonment, and a brother of the martyr Abdel Moneim Abu Humaid. Their house in the Al-Amari refugee camp near al-Bireh in the West Bank was demolished five times.

The prisoner Nasser was sentenced to seven life terms after he was arrested again on 22/4/2002.

Colonisation of occupied territory is a war crime

 Peter Leuenberger, infosperber.ch, 14/6/2021

Peter Leuenberger is a historian and member of the Switzerland-Palestine Society

States are shirking their obligations by allowing goods from occupied territories

A European Citizens' Initiative calls for a ban on trade in goods from illegal settlements, but the EU Commission declared not being competent. The European Court of Justice sees things differently and played the ball back to the Commission. Historian Peter Leuenberger puts things in order and takes a look at the situation in Switzerland. (Editor’s Note)

The citizens' initiative wants to stop the trade in illegally built settlements in occupied territories. This measure would particularly affect trade with settlements in the Israeli occupied Palestinian West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, but also illegal settlements in the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara as well as other territories that are militarily occupied and economically exploited by the occupying power. But the EU Commission refused to register the initiative in September 2019. The reason given was that it was not competent, because such a step would be tantamount to sanctions. It could only be decided jointly by all member states in the European Council. The executive in Brussels does not have the power to do so.

Seven EU citizens appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union against the Commission's decision. The court now ruled that the Commission had failed to provide adequate reasons or a sufficient legal basis for refusing to register the initiative. The Commission can now appeal the court's ruling or it must revise its decision and register the citizens' initiative.

Ireland's parliament already tried to pass its own law banning trade in the settlements. However, the European Commission confirmed on this occasion that it alone was responsible for the EU's common trade policy.

Settlements violate international humanitarian law

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention (Art. 49), Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and on the Syrian Golan Heights are illegal under international law. Only recently, the EU reiterated its long-standing position that all settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law.

“Even the cemetery was bombed”Abed Shokry: letter from Gaza

Dr. Abed Shokry (*1975) teaches Business Engineering at the Islamic University in Gaza. He settled in Gaza 2007 after 17 years in Germany. He writes frequently to friends and acquaintances in Germany about the situation in Palestine. Here is his latest letter, translated from German.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

Gaza today 14 May 2021 - (1948, 73 years of occupation).

- There is no electricity as the only electricity plant is almost shut down because there is no fuel. The fuels come from Israel and the PA or Qatar pay for it.

- There is no tap water. And if there is, it is only suitable for flushing the toilet, otherwise not. The water is very salty.

- There are hardly any medicines in the hospitals. Patients have to buy them themselves. In case they should be available in the pharmacies.

- There are no mineral resources. And the gas reserves offshore the Gaza Strip are NOT for us.

- There is hardly any work. About 300,000 people have at least bachelor's degrees and are looking for jobs. They are very very well educated.

- There is hardly any life in Gaza. And the little bit of life that there is, it passes by many and also us.

- BUT THERE are brave men and women in GAZA who are willing to do anything to protect their homeland. They don't care if they live or die. Because a life must either be lived properly or not lived at all.

Since the beginning of this latest military round, we (my wife, our children and I ) have hardly slept. It is also very bad for us at night. These nights have been the worst since we started living in Gaza again. Worse than the nights from 2014....

Pepe Escobar: Bombing Gaza- The mask of “Liberal Democracy” falls with a bang

 Pepe Escobar, 17/5/2021

Nakba, May 15, 2021. Future historians will mark the day when Western “liberal democracy” issued a graphic proclamation: We bomb media offices and destroy “freedom of the press” in an open air concentration camp while we forbid peaceful demonstrations under a state of siege in the heart of Europe.

And if you revolt, we cancel you.

The Zionist entity, by Emad Hajjaj

 Gaza meets Paris. The bombing of the al-Jalaa tower – an eminently residential building which also housed the bureaus of al-Jazeera and AP, among others – by “the only democracy in the Middle East” is directly connected to the verboten order carried out by Macron’s Ministry of Interior.

For all practical purposes Paris endorsed the occupying power’s provocations in East Jerusalem; the invasion of al-Aqsa mosque – complete with tear gas and stun grenades; racist Zionist gangs harassing and crying “death to Arabs”; armed settlers aggressing Palestinian families threatened with expulsion from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan; a campaign of carpet bombing whose lethal victims – on average – are 30% children.

Paris crowds were not intimidated. From Barbes to Republique, they marched in the streets – their rallying cry being Israel assassin, Macron complice. They instinctively understodood that Le Petit Roi – a puny Rothschild employee – had just firebombed the historical legacy of the nation that coined the Déclaration Universelle des Droits de L’Homme.

The mask of “liberal democracy” kept falling again and again in a loop – with imperial Big Tech dutifully canceling the voices of Palestinians and defenders of Palestine en masse, in tandem with a diplomatic kabuki that could fool only the already brain-dead.

On May 16, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired a United States Security Council (UNSC) debate via video link that had been stalled by Washington, non-stop, throughout the week. China presides over the UNSC throughout May.

The UNSC could not even agree on a mere joint statement. Once again because the UNSC was blocked by the – cowardly – Empire of Chaos.

It was up to Hua Liming, former Chinese ambassador to Iran, to break it all down in a single sentence:

“The US doesn’t want to give the credit of mediating the Palestine-Israel conflict to China, especially when China is the president of the UNSC.”

The usual imperial procedure is to “talk”, “offer you can’t refuse” Mafia-style, to both sides under the table – as the combo behind Crash Test Dummy, an avowed Zionist, had already admitted on an appalling White House tweet “reaffirming” its “strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself”.