Bi-Weekly Brief for December 28, 2020
Israel inoculates over a quarter of a million; no sign of vaccines for Palestine
The virus is surging in Palestine (some 134,000 cases – nearly 25,000 of them active -- and 1,332 deaths) and Israel (401,000 cases – 35,000 active – with 3,226 deaths). By Dec. 27, when Israel became the first country to enter a third nationwide lockdown, it had vaccinated more than 280,000 Israelis. While the Israeli Physicians for Human Rightsinsists that Israel as the occupying power has a legal duty to distribute vaccines to Palestinians, there seems little likelihood of that happening. The COVAX vaccines that the WHO wants to make available to poor countries won’t arrive until sometime next year and the 4 million doses that the PA plans to purchase from Russia must first be cleared by the Israeli Health Ministry. On Dec. 22, as Gaza struggled to deal with nearly 11,000 active virus cases, 24 members of the European Parliament urged Israel to lift its blockade to allow in medical supplies.
With election pending, Israel seems likely to shift further to the far right
On Dec. 23, after Netanyahu refused to endorse the 2020 budget, the Knesset dissolved, leaving Israel to face its 4thelection in 2 years on March 23. Netanyahu, who now heads a caretaker government, hopes to win a Likud majority large enough to help him evade prosecution on corruption charges. His main challengers are 2 candidates from the far right: Naftali Bennett, who wants to annex the entire West Bank, and Likud defector Gideon Sa’ar, who is strongly pro-settler and opposed to a Palestinian state. To burnish his own appeal to the far right, Netanyahu selected to head Israel’s Holocaust Museum former general Effi Eitam, who has called for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and labels them a ‘cancer’.
As US bribes transform region, Netanyahu claims normalization fulfills Biblical prophecy
On Dec. 22, Jared Kushner flew to Rabat to preside over an agreement with Morocco to open ‘liaison offices’ with Israel. He said the US plans to open a consulate in occupied Western Sahara, Africa’s ‘last colony’ which Trump recently handed to Morocco in exchange for making its covert relations with Israel public. The US is also wooing Indonesia, promising it up to $2 billion more in aid if it embraces Israel. In a Christmas message Netanyahu claimed normalization showed active progress in achieving a Biblical ‘peace on earth.’
Homes, land, schools and hospitals: no place is safe from Israeli soldier-settler attacks
Around the West Bank armed settlers have broken into Palestinian homes, killed sheep, destroyed olive trees and stoned Palestinian cars while the Israeli army has repeatedly fired live ammunition and rubber bullets at Palestinians protesting land confiscation. On Dec. 17, dozens suffered the effects of teargas fired into a secondary school in Aneen village near Jenin. Israeli forces attacked fishing boats and shot at shepherds in the Gaza Strip, and on Dec. 21 moved into al-Mughayyir in the northern Strip and made arrests. On the same day, they leveled 48 acres planted with vegetables near Rafah in the south of the Strip. On Dec. 26, Israeli airstrikes and artillery damaged the Al-Durrah Pediatric Hospital in Gaza, causing injuries and panic among patients. On the following day, the army raided the Palestine Medical Complexin Ramallah, firing teargas and rubber-coated bullets at patients and medical staff, wounding 2 people. In the ongoing effort to clear Bedouin citizens of Israel from parts of the Negev, the army on Dec. 18 destroyed the village of Al-Araqib for the 181st time.
Water Fact
On Dec. 18, the water pipelines sustaining Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya near Nablus were destroyed by settlers from the Ma’ale Levona settlement, that had been established on village land. The village, which dates back to the Ottoman era, had once been famous for its water spring.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice
Banner design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.