At a time when the Corona virus crisis has crowded out other news, the Alliance is producing news briefs every two weeks to keep our members informed about the situation in occupied Palestine.
Covid-19 upsurge
As of July 27, Israel registered 62,626 cases, nearly 34,000 of them active, and 473 deaths. Israel now ranks 6th in the world for per capita cases. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there are now at least 13,129 cases, with 77 reported deaths. 1n the Gaza Strip cases have risen to 75, with 1 death. The Palestinian epicenter is the Hebron district with at least 6,789 cases. On July 21, a day after destroying a Covid-19 testing site near Jenin, the Israeli army demolished a building being constructed in Hebron as a central testing site.
Annexation takes back seat to Netanyahu’s fight for survival
Around Israel there have been nearly daily protests, with thousands gathering outside Netanyahu’s official and private residences to demand his ouster for mishandling the economy and the Covid-19 crisis. According to the July 22 Times of Israel, Netanyahu is refusing to pass the budget in order to trigger a new election in November, a maneuver that could enable him to fend off a potential High Court ruling that he has to step down when his corruption trial begins in January.
Palestinians pay steep price for cutting security cooperation with Israel
The PA’s decision to put a halt to civil and security cooperation has resulted in 100,000 virus test kits intended for the PA being stuck in Ben Gurion airport, and severe cuts to the PA budget and civil servants’ salaries. Particularly hard hit are cancer patients in Gaza, who cannot get travel permits from Israel to access the only Palestinian radiation therapy unit, which is in East Jerusalem (Haaretz, July 25).
Repression, cultural erasure and creeping annexation
There have been more than 80 IDF raids on the West Bank and a military incursion into Gaza on July 23 to raze farmland. On July 20 soldiers seized a large ancient stone baptismal font from an archaeological site near Bethlehem and shot at youth who tried to stop them. On July 22 the army raided East Jerusalem’s Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and the Yabous Cultural Center, confiscated files and computers, detained their directors and ransacked the home of the director of the Jerusalem Art Network. Near Ramallah on July 27 a mosque was daubed with Hebrew graffiti saying ‘the land of Israel is for the people of Israel’ and then set on fire, presumably by settler extremists. Israel’s de facto annexation was underscored by more home demolitions, the uprooting of olive trees, and construction of a new outpost on land near Nablus that the Trump plan would transfer to Israel.
See: Palestine Centre for Human Rights and The Palestine Chronicle
Our new banner. By Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.