Bi-Weekly Brief for February 8, 2021
The PA begins to vaccinate health workers as Israel struggles with Haredi intransigence
After the Israeli ambassador to the UN accused Palestinians of spearheading a “false and grotesque” campaign akin to “blood libel” for accusing it of medical apartheid, Israel on Feb. 1 sent 2,000 vaccine doses to the PA, and promised 3,000 more. On Feb. 4, the Palestinian health ministry received 10,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik 5 vaccine, and said it will be receiving 50,000 more later in Feb., mostly through COVAX. If any are destined for Gaza where the blockade has intensified the Covid crisis, Israel would have to approve their transfer. Palestine currently has nearly 183,000 cases (52,599 in Gaza) and 2,055 deaths. As Israeli deaths passed the 5,100 mark, a 20,000 strong Haredi funeral and other maskless gatherings propelled cases to above 692,000. Although Israel has now vaccinated a third of its population, there are fears that its Covid battle “is spiraling out of control” with the Haredi infection rate 4 times that of other Israelis, variants spreading and the rate of vaccination falling by 50% given vaccine skepticism among younger people. The closure of the airport has been extended to Feb. 21.
International Criminal Court rules it can investigate Israel and Hamas for war crimes
On Feb. 5, ICC judges accepted the findings submitted by chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in Dec. 2019 and ruled that for its purposes, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem constituted the state of Palestine and that the court had jurisdiction to investigate Israel for its settlement activity and repression of the Great March of Return, and both Israel and Hamas for attacks on civilians during Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge invasion. After she recommended the investigation, Bensouda - whose term expires in June – was placed under sanctions by the US and had her bank accounts frozen and credit cards cancelled. Both Israel and the US denounced the recent ICC ruling.
Biden administration aspires to ‘two states’ and embraces ‘normalization’
On Jan. 27, Richard Mills, acting ambassador to the UN, said the US supported a ‘2-state solution’ and ‘normalization ‘ agreements, and urged Israel and the PA “to avoid unilateral steps…such as annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, and providing compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN nominee, called the BDS movement “unacceptable” because “it verges on antisemitism.” Kara McDonald, the State Dept.’s deputy assistant secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, stated that the administration “embraces and champions” the controversial IHRA definition equating criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. Meanwhile, only 3 senators – Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE) – opposed an amendment to the Feb. 5 Covid-19 budget resolution asserting that the US embassy would remain in Jerusalem. It passed 97-3.
‘Firing zones’ destroy environment and enable Israel to ‘hold open space’
Claiming they were in a military zone, the Israeli army on Jan. 26 destroyed 10,000 forest trees and 300 olive trees planted 8 years ago as the ‘Greening Palestine Project’ in a 98-acre reserve east of Tubas. On Feb. 2 and 3, hundreds of soldiers in 60 tanks and other military vehicles conducted maneuvers in military firing zone 918, on the lands of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, damaging crops, roads, cisterns and walls in the village of Jinba. Three days before, 5 families in Masafer Yatta had been handed demolition orders. Welcoming the huge training exercise, the settler Mount Hebron Regional Council called it “one of the ways to increase governance, hold open space and impose law and order.” Fire zones cover 30% of Area C, which makes up 62% of the West Bank.
Israel appears deaf to US call to end demolitions and settlement activity
On Feb. 1 and again on Feb 3, 46 homes and other structures were demolished in the Humsa al-Foqa area of the northern Jordan Valley, leaving 60 people homeless, including 35 children. Humsa had been rebuilt following its total destruction last November. On Feb. 4, soldiers demolished an electricity grid and house sheltering 5 children in Beit Awwa town near Hebron and on Feb. 8 they destroyed a water well and caravans in al-Mughayyer east of Ramallah. The army took the lives of 17-year-old Atallah Rayyan and Mohammed Hussain Amr to prevent, it claimed, stabbing attacks, and Khaled Nofal was shot to death by a settler, allegedly for trying to break into a structure in a settler outpost. Around the West Bank there have been nearly daily raids on Palestinian homes, including in areas supposedly under the full control of the PA (Area A), and a school in an East Jerusalem neighborhood was invaded by the army on Jan. 31. The army has violently suppressed anti-settlement protests causing many injuries, and soldiers and settlers have attacked herders, farmers and activists planting trees to try to preserve land from settlement expansion. Farmers in the Gaza Strip were fired on by soldiers on Jan. 28, 31 and Feb. 2, and fishing boats attacked on Feb. 2 and 3.
Water Fact
According to Al Jazeera, Michael Mirilashvili, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and CEO of a firm called Watergen, was so shocked by pictures of children in Gaza filling plastic containers with water purchased from street vendors that he made a donation of 3 Watergen machines and managed to get them through the Israeli blockade into Gaza. The machines capture humidity from the air and, depending on their size, can transform it into between 800 and 6,000 liters of clean drinking water a day, but less in Gaza because of its erratic power supply. There are 1,000 liters in a cubic meter. With 97% of its sole aquifer contaminated, the Gaza Strip needs to obtain 200 million cubic meters of water annually from other sources. Gaza’s 3 desalination plants produce only 13 million cubic meters per year and are frequently shut down due to chronic electricity shortages.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice
Banner design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.