Bi-Weekly Brief for April 19, 2021
Gaza infection and death rate reaches new high while Israel’s cases are down by 97%
With 53% fully vaccinated, Israel as of April 18th no longer requires masks to be worn outdoors and schools are open. It was reported that 700,000 doses of vaccines meant for Israel have been held up because Pfizer “is fed up with sending Israel vaccines without being paid for them, especially when the entire world is waiting for its vaccine.” Among those still waiting are Palestinians. Mondoweiss reports that by April 16, there were 306,961 total Covid cases in Palestine and 3,223 deaths, with cases doubling in the Gaza Strip – now under lockdown - in the first week of April. On April 18, the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip, which has only 120 ICU beds, peaked at 23 in 24 hours, as cases there exceeded 90,000. Palestinian Health Ministry statistics show that as of April 14, some 3% of the population, or 153,911 Palestinians (under 35,000 in Gaza), had received the vaccine, and of that number 19,940 had been given the 2nd dose. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 272,440 doses had arrived in the West Bank and Gaza by the end of March and another 168,000 doses from COVAX were in the pipeline with an uncertain delivery date.
Netanyahu given chance to form new government while Knesset members hurl insults
Because Netanyahu had the most endorsements, President Reuven Rivlin on April 6th gave him 28 days to try to patch together a coalition government. The president admitted it was “not an easy decision” because Netanyahu faces an ongoing criminal trial. As anti-Netanyahu protests resumed on the street, Netanyahu is seeking to overcome the refusal of the far-right Religious Zionist party to join a coalition that includes Mansour Abbas’ Islamist Ra’am party (United Arab List). Meanwhile the Knesset with its newly-elected members got off to an ugly start. On April 7, Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the Religious Zionist Party, threatened to expel Arab Members and “make sure” they didn’t remain in Israel if they didn’t recognize the land belongs to the Jews. Joint List head Ahmed Tibi responded by calling him “a racist” in German. The next day, Tibi walked out of a Holocaust Remembrance Day event to protest the participation of the new MK Kahanist Ben Gvir. Gvir then called Tibi a “terror supporter.”
White House tries to keep indirect talks with Iran on course while Netanyahu strives to blow them up
In the wake of repeated Israeli attacks on Iranian oil tankers and warnings to the US against re-entering the deal with Iran, US Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin III arrived in Israel on April 11, just in time for news of an explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran. The sabotage was widely attributed to Israel. The defense secretary had no comment on the matter but White House press secretary Jen Psaki immediately said the indirect talks in Vienna to salvage the Iran nuclear deal would continue as planned. If the Biden administration was irked by Israel’s attempt to thwart US policy, you wouldn’t know it from Secretary of State Blinken’s Israeli Independence day message: “In your 73rd year of freedom, we salute Israel’s determination, bravery and ingenuity, which have made possible your country’s prosperity and hard-won security. The US commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad.” He vowed that Israel’s circle of friends would grow “even wider in the years ahead.”
Biden restores more aid to Palestinians and Abbas addresses J Street
On April 8, the State Department announced it was giving $150 million to UNRWA (less than half of the funding cut by Trump in 2018), $75 million to the PA for economic assistance and $10 million for ‘peacebuilding.’ This is in addition to $15 million given on March 27 for fighting the pandemic. Republicans are attempting to delay the transfer of the funds. On April 18, Mahmoud Abbas in a pre-recorded statement told J Street that the alternative to 2 states under international law was a “de facto apartheid one state solution.”
East Jerusalem appears key to whether Palestinian legislative elections take place
As well as continuing to arrest Hamas candidates in the West Bank, including Hasan Wardyan who has spent over 20 years in prison, Israel has been disrupting Fatah election events in East Jerusalem and detaining participants. PLO factions have issued a joint statement saying that elections will not go ahead unless East Jerusalem Palestinians can vote, while Hamas says they should not be postponed. As the rift within Fatah deepens, the Hebron homes of 2 candidates were reportedly sprayed with gunfire.
Tensions rise in East Jerusalem as ethnic cleansing ramps up and Ramadan is disrupted
Jerusalem’s building and planning committee has approved the construction of 2,000 housing units for the Givat HaMatos settlement and 540 for Har Homa, which would block the division of Jerusalem in any future negotiations. Settlers took over 16 apartments in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood and in an April 9th demonstration to stop the takeover of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Knesset member Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish member of the mainly Arab Joint list, was beaten by police who then reportedly kneeled on his face while he was protesting impending evictions. The start of Ramadan ratcheted up tensions when Israel announced only 10,000 vaccinated West Bankers could access the Al Aqsa mosque compound, and put up barriers around the Damascus Gate plaza. On 2 nights Israeli forces seized Iftar meals and cut the electric wires to the Al Aqsa minarets to silence the call to prayer during Israel’s Memorial Day commemoration, and on 6 nights there were clashes at Damascus Gate.
Gaza Strip hit by missiles while settlers wreak havoc on West Bank lives
During this Ramadan, Gazans are not just coping with a surging pandemic. On April 15 and again on April 16 Israeli F16s hit several sites in the Gaza Strip, which Israel called a response to the firing of 2 rockets that landed in an empty field. The Associated Press said this broke weeks of “relative cross-border calm,” ignoring the live ammunition fired by soldiers at Gazan farmers on April 7 and April 13, and Israel’s incursion into Gaza’s central district with 5 armored bulldozers on April 11 to destroy crops. Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that the IDF has prepared a plan to attack hundreds of targets in Gaza simultaneously. In the West Bank settlers burned down at least 50 olive trees in Beit Fajjar, ran over and killed a 73-year old Palestinian woman in Hebron, and attacked the Palestinian mayor of Sebastia while he was trying to prevent them from beating and abducting a child. They also beat Rabbis for Human Rights activist Arik Ascherman as he attempted to stop outpost livestock from grazing on land belonging to the village Deir Jarir. On April 13, Jonathan Pollard, who had served 30 years in prison for selling US military secrets to Israel, joined busloads of settlers who barged their way into Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, accompanied by the army.
Water Fact
Having deployed water as a weapon against Palestinians, Israel has recently been using it against the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, one of the driest countries in the world. A complicated water sharing arrangement concerning supplies taken by Israel from the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers as well as groundwater had been part of the October 1994 peace agreement between the two countries. In addition to some 55 million cubic meters of water annually that Israel undertakes to provide to Jordan free of charge each year, the agreement enables Jordan to purchase additional water in times of excess drought. But once relations between the countries deteriorated after the Kingdom opposed Netanyahu’s Jordan Valley annexation plans, Israel held back on sending additional water supplies that Jordan requested. It reportedly took Secretary of State Blinken’s early April phone call with the Israeli Foreign Minister to get Israel to eventually release 8 million cubic meters at $.40 per cubic meter which Jordan had asked for weeks previously.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
If you missed our World Water Day webinar, you can watch it here.
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