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Palestinians in camps have resorted to be the frontline as community-based health workers and demonstrate the ingenuity and steadfastness that has kept Palestinian dreams for a better future alive.

By Bram Wispelwey & Amaya Al-Orzza | London Review of Books |  Apr 18, 2020

The Israeli government and Palestinian security services announced that they would co-operate for the pandemic, but the actions on the ground tell a different story.

At nearly 18 per cent officially, and probably higher, the prevalence of diabetes among Palestinian refugees in the West Bank is one of the highest in the world. The official rate in Gaza is 16 per cent. Among adult citizens of Israel, it’s 7.2 per cent. The disease suppresses the immune system, among other complications, and can spiral dangerously out of control when combined with an infection, such as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Diabetic patients with Covid-19 in China had a 1 in 14 chance of dying, more than triple that of the general population.

Continue reading “Underlying conditions”

 

Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’, a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.

By Ramzy Baroud | Al-Bushra | Apr 13, 2020

Call it a ‘quarantine,’ a ‘shelter-in-place,’ a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew,’ we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’ or another, I would like to share a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.

Call it a ‘quarantine,’ a ‘shelter-in-place,’ a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew,’ we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown. ’My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.

Continue reading “A Palestinian guide to surviving a quarantine”

A call for Palestinian leadership to change course on political strategy or face a very real existential threat.

By Professor Kamel Hawwash | Middle East Monitor | Apr 22, 2020

The agreement also includes the application of Israeli Law to wide swathes of the illegally-occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank while US President Donald Trump is still in office.

When it comes to Israel, the international community has once again been exposed for the double standards and hypocrisy it reserves to support the rogue state. Many so-called western democracies have fallen over each other to offer congratulations to an Apartheid state for forming a government that will entrench occupation, oppression, racism and land theft.

Settler-colonialism on steroids has thus been praised for spawning two politicians — both of whom are suspected war criminals — who have supposedly pushed personal animosity and ambition aside to form a government that will, from 1 July, begin to annex large swathes of illegally-occupied Palestinian lands in defiance of international law and conventions, aided and abetted by the US. This in itself is outrageous.

Continue reading “Israel’s new government is being lauded despite apartheid and annexation”

Aid donation to fight coronavirus given after Trump administration has cut millions of dollars of aid to Palestinians

By Reuters /Israel Hayom Staff | Apr 17, 2020

The $5 million will be international disaster assistance from the US Agency for International Development, according to the State Department’s website.

The United States is giving $5 million to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, a US envoy said on Thursday.

The donation announced by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman follows years of aid cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“I’m very pleased the USA is providing $5M for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19,” Friedman wrote on Twitter.

Continue reading “US gives $5M to Palestinians amid pandemic”

View the Zoom gathering on Palestinian Prisoners Day when people gathered virtually to show solidarity with the prisoners whose incarceration puts them at extreme risk for coronavirus infection.

By Jewish Voice for Peace | JVP Facebook | Apr 17, 2020

I am heartened by the work of so many who are making the connections between the need to free prisoners here and in Palestine.
—Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace

Zoom Rally to Free Prisoners from Rikers Island to Palestine. JVP’s Executive Director, Stefanie Fox hosted an incredible lineup of speakers at a Zoom Rally of more than 500:

Continue reading “Palestinian prisoners day Zoom Video”

An Easter message that violence, resilience, steadfastness and compassionate agape will have the last word over hate, racism, discrimination, violence, war and occupation.

By Zoughbi Zoughbi |  HolyLandJustice | Apr 11, 2020

‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out’ [Luke 19:40] It is a warning. This statement still speaks loudly and is directed toward leaders and institutions. Whether leaders of an institution, or government, or state, or the world, there will be a driving force challenging all establishments and perpetuators of injustice and oppression.

Greetings from Bethlehem
Greetings from the Holy Land
Zoughbi Zoughbi , Founder and Director
Wi’am, The Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center
Bethlehem

Yesterday [Apr 10] we celebrated Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, died and was buried. Let us contemplate, while on this road to resurrection… Jesus was born in a cave warmed by animals….Herod was in Jerusalem conspiring to kill him… The Angels helped the Holy Family flee to Egypt, escaping Herod and the Roman Occupation.

Continue reading “Greetings from Bethlehem”

As Palestinians commemorate Prisoners’ Day on April 17, the biggest demand appears to be how to safeguard prisoners from the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

By Daoud Kuttab | Al-Monitor  | Apr 17, 2020

‘The White House and State Department have called for the release of US citizens around the world due to the coronavirus, but the consular officials in Jerusalem have not followed up on these guidelines from Washington,’
— Hind Shraydeh, American Palestinian researcher

Hind Shraydeh is very worried about her husband. Ubai Aboudi, an American-Palestinian researcher and director of the Ramallah-based nongovernmental organization Bisan Center for Research and Development, was arrested by Israeli forces at his house in Jerusalem’s Kufr Aqab neighborhood on Nov. 13, 2019. Aboudi was initially held in administrative detention at the Ofer detention center, and Amnesty International and Nobel Prize scientists around the world circulated a petition calling for his release.

Shraydeh told Al-Monitor her husband had breathing problems before his imprisonment and expressed worry about the potential spread of the coronavirus in the overcrowded Israeli detention centers. “Ubai is held in unit 22 at the Ofer detention center near Beitunia, where eight people are kept in a small room within an unhealthy prison environment and where at least one coronavirus case has been [confirmed].”

Continue reading “Saving Palestinian prisoners’ lives requires releasing the elderly and sick”

Friday, April 17, 2020 marks Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. This year, Palestinian prisoners and detainees face the additional threat of a COVID-19 outbreak in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

By Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association | Apr 16, 2020

According to Addameer’s statistics, the number of Palestinian prisoners at Israeli occupation prisoners reached around 5000 prisoners as of April 2020.

As we mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year, Palestinian prisoners and detainees face the additional threat of a coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Israeli prisons and detention centers. The Israeli occupying authorities have taken no steps to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees or to adequately mitigate and prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in prisons. Instead, mass arbitrary detentions and arrests, a staple of Israel’s prolonged military occupation and widespread and systematic human rights violations against the Palestinian people, have continued during the pandemic. According to Addameer’s statistics, the number of Palestinian prisoners at Israeli occupation prisoners reached around 5000 prisoners as of April 2020. This number also included 432 administrative detainees, 41 female detainees, 7 PLC members and 183 child detainees among them 20 under the age of 16.

Continue reading “Palestinian Prisoners’ Day … Prisoners fight imprisonment and COVID-19”

 

Efforts to contain the coronavirus are complicated by deliberate attempts to infect Palestinians.

By Ramzy Baroud | Middle East Monitor | Apr 14, 2020

…the deliberate attempt at infecting occupied Palestinians with the coronavirus is beneath contempt, even for a settler-colonial regime.

Spitting at someone is a universal insult. In Israel, however, spitting at Palestinians is an entirely different story.

Now that we know that the deadly coronavirus can be transmitted through saliva droplets, Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish settlers are working extra hard to spit at as many Palestinians, their cars, doorknobs, and so on, as possible.

If this sounds to you too surreal and repugnant, then you might not be as familiar with the particular breed of Israeli colonialism as you may think you are.

Continue reading “Spreading the virus of occupation: Spitting as a weapon in the hand of colonial Israel”

Levelling the playing field requires critically urgent measures, such as lifting the siege on Gaza and ending sanctions on Iran

By Nada Elia | Middle East Eye | Apr 15, 2020

Levelling the playing field requires that we demand critically urgent measures, such as lifting the siege on Gaza and ending the sanctions on Iran.

When Chris Cuomo, the popular news anchor on CNN, tested positive for Covid-19, his brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, stressed that the virus is a “great equalizer” that knows no age, gender or race.

“Everyone is subject to this virus. It is the great equalizer,” the governor told reporters. “I don’t care how smart, how rich, how powerful you think you are; I don’t care how young, how old. This virus is the great equalizer.”

I do not intend to minimize Cuomo’s concern for his brother, and wish the latter a speedy and full recovery. But I do disagree strongly with his description of the virus as an equalizer, simply because no one is immune to it.

Continue reading “Gaza and Iran show that coronavirus is not the ‘great equalizer’”