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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, a settlement tracking group said Wednesday, a move that is likely to worsen already soaring tensions linked to the war in Gaza.
Israel’s aggressive expansion in the West Bank reflects the settler community’s strong influence in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most religious and nationalist in the country’s history. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, has turbocharged the policy of expansion, seizing new authorities over settlement development and saying he aims to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press. Data from Peace Now, the tracking group, indicate it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords at the start of the peace process.
Settlement monitors said the land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key corridor bordering Jordan, a move they said undermines the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called it “a step in the wrong direction,” adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution.”
The newly seized land is in an area of the West Bank where, even before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, settler violence was displacing communities of Palestinians. That violence has only surged since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza. Settlers have carried out more than 1,000 attacks on Palestinians since October in the West Bank, causing deaths and damaging property, according to the U.N.
The land seizure, which was approved late last month but only publicized on Wednesday, comes after the seizure of 8 square kilometers (roughly 3 square miles) of land in the West Bank in March and 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in February.
That makes 2024 by far the peak year for Israeli land seizure in the West Bank, Peace Now said.
By declaring them state lands, the government opens them up to being leased to Israelis and prohibits private Palestinian ownership.
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It is kind of awesome how the Supreme court is like just filled corrupt hyper fascist wizards gleefully doing the most in destroying the country for their nazi billionare patron and overtly trying to install a dictatorship and when that’s pointed out to Joe Biden he’s like “Well the institution is good actually? Why would I expand the court or do something when you need to vote for me? it’s not like i’m president.”
Isr@el targets and eliminates any individual that benefits Palestinian progress- teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers. This is the regime that gets our government’s infinite support…no questions asked.
if one more person comments on my "we need to keep payphones/public phones" post with "what we need are free phone charging stations and wifi hotspots, like in new york!" i am going to lose my mind. what do you people not understand about "not everyone has a smartphone" and "phones can break". how are these new concepts.
See also, "We're in a drought; conserve water!" Meanwhile, bottled water companies and golf courses for rich folk empty the aquifers.
It’s solar and wind and tidal and geothermal and hydropower.
It’s plant-based diets and regenerative livestock farming and insect protein and lab-grown meat.
It’s electric cars and reliable public transit and decreasing how far and how often we travel.
It’s growing your own vegetables and community gardens and vertical farms and supporting local producers.
It’s rewilding the countryside and greening cities.
It’s getting people active and improving disabled access.
It’s making your own clothes and buying or swapping sustainable stuff with your neighbours.
It’s the right to repair and reducing consumption in the first place.
It’s greater land rights for the commons and indigenous peoples and creating protected areas.
It’s radical, drastic change and community consensus.
It’s labour rights and less work.
It’s science and arts.
It’s theoretical academic thought and concrete practical action.
It’s signing petitions and campaigning and protesting and civil disobedience.
It’s sailboats and zeppelins.
It’s the speculative and the possible.
It’s raising living standards and curbing consumerism.
It’s global and local.
It’s me and you.
Climate solutions look different for everyone, and we all have something to offer.
if you support israel right now, you're supporting the extermination of the palestinian people.
it really is that simple.
this isn't a 'complicated conflict,' it isn't a situation that 'requires nuance,' it's not a 'geopolitical event' that requires us to condemn the 'bad actors' on 'both sides.'
it's a genocide.
there is no 'nuance' to be had here. it's a genocide, committed by the israeli state against the palestinian people, and it's happening right now as we speak. you don't have to infer anything: israel has openly, with next to no pushback from so-called liberal democracies, cut off gaza's access to water, food and electricity. that's more than two million palestinians denied even the basic necessities for life. a million of them, children.
what is that, if not a genocide?
and that's only the latest escalation. we could go all day, listing the atrocities the palestinian people have been subjected to. the killings, the beatings, the children sexually abused in detention center, all the hospitals and ambulances being blown up, videos of palestinians being heckled by settlers as they're driven from their homes, israelis gathering on hilltops to cheer as their military drops bombs on gaza...
but all westerns want to talk about, is hamas.
because the murder of palestinians by the IDF is status quo; it doesn't affect them. what's one more dead palestinian but a statistic? but if hamas has killed a handful of israelis — if they've go as far as to even kill babies — then that justifies the extermination of two million palestinians, children and infants included.
westerns will even say that the palestinians brought it on themselves; that they should have know that a drop of israeli blood requires a river in return.
and just so we're clear, you don't have to like hamas. but when you equate hamas with the IDF, when you derail every conversation by demanding a condemnation of 'both sides,' or when you, god forbid, agree that israel is justified in dismantling hamas — which, as israel themselves have outlined, will involve the complete destruction of gaza and the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians — then either wake up, or own up to the fact that you're a participant in the extermination of the palestinian people.
do you think i'm being harsh? then imagine how it's like living under constant aerial bombardment. with no food, no water, no electricity. constant air-raid sirens. a bomb, dropping every minute. never knowing a moment a peace, always wondering if today is going to be your last day, if you and your family are still going to be here tomorrow.
could you stomach living in gaza, for even a day? i doubt it.
and still, now, on the eve of what might be the ground invasion of gaza — with one million palestinians being told to flee, with nowhere to go — i'm getting messages from people who demand my sympathy... for israel.
well, you're not getting it.
i'm not even humoring your hand-wringing.
if you live in israel, and you're one of the ones who've turned a blind-eye to the suffering of the palestinian people, if you've fought for the IDF or tacitly supported them, if you've callously called upon the memory of the holocaust thinking the death and suffering of your ancestors would wash the blood of your own hands....
then yeah, i think you deserve every single hamas rocket lobbed at you and so much more.
Free Palestine sticker spotted in Chicago
im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out
Goodbye, Lynn. Thank you for your constant support and encouragement since the day I started these comics. It has meant the world to me, and I wish I could have told you. We will remember you forever.
this pride, i learnt about the Palestinian trans woman Oscar Al-Halabiye, dancer and resistance fighter against the israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon. she named herself Oscar after Lady Oscar from the "The Rose of Versailles", a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Riyoko Ikeda.
her story is documented in Cinema Fouad(1993). zionists use pink washing to reinforce their genocidal terrorist narrative when queer Palestinians have been fighting against the occupation since the very beginning. you can watch it here with english subtitles. long live the intifada!
I was thinking earlier about this post in which Zionists were flabbergasted that I pointed out Israel’s "shoot to maim" policy, which has resulted in a generation on crutches in Gaza between 2018 and 2019.
Of course, Zionists were trying to paint this as a stand-alone policy that Israel possibly came up with out of desperation of trying to contain Palestinians demanding for the siege to be lifted, a policy for which Palestinians should be thankful Israel isn’t killing but disabling Palestinians instead by sniping their kneecaps.
But here’s the thing: Israel’s policy of "shoot to maim" can only be understood as an extension of Israel’s policies from throughout the years of breaking the bones of Palestinians, and I mean that in the literal sense.
How many of you are aware of Israel’s policy from the first Intifada of 1988, which was literally dubbed the "break their bones policy"?
This policy was initiated by then Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Rabin, who ordered and instructed Israeli soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian protestors with stones.
This was in 1988, over 35 years ago. Footage of Israeli soldiers capturing visibly unarmed, civilian protestors, hammering their elbows with bricks was broadcasted on TV screens everywhere. To this day I cannot unsee the gruesome footage, still etched in my mind as a stark example of Israel’s cruelty.
During the first Intifada, nearly 30,000 Palestinian children sustained injuries due to beatings alone. And here we are, in 2024, where in Gaza alone, 10 children lose a limb every single day.
At this stage, you cannot view Israel’s terrorism as anything but connected; a continuance. All of these policies are connected by the same genocidal mindset of trying to break a people, both literally and figuratively, for decades on end.
Don’t think most gay people are chill with being used to justify a genocide.
Also, when did conservatives start caring so much about gay rights, anyway?
The Weill Cornell Medicine commencement was held earlier this month where a medical graduate from Gaza used his time on stage to condemn the university and its leadership for their complicity in the genocide on Gaza and implored his fellow graduates to stay true to their oath and stand with the hundreds of healthcare workers who have been killed by the IOF. In response the university have done everything they can to minimise this young graduate from speaking truth to power from his own graduation records by cutting away from him during the ceremony’s livestream and erasing his time on stage in the released footage.
There is a trend I’ve noticed that smut fics tend to be much more popular than anything else and honestly I just want to have something to look at to remind myself and that writing doesn’t have to have sex to be worth putting out into the community.
When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”
I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.
Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”
All eyes on Rafah
As part of his promise, Hussam sent 20% of your HelpGazaChildren donations ($4000) to Mahmoud AbuSalama for the 5th time now, including the earlier North Gaza Campaign (as location on our notion site) to buy food and necessary products for families still surviving the dire situation in North Gaza. The food package contains, as you see in the picture below: flour, lentils, canned food, formula, diapers, and women pads!
Please continue donating and spreading the word — every penny means so much! Feel free to share our campaign link to other platforms as well!
Donate to our GoFundMe which goes directly to Hussam, who manages camps in Rafah, with NO middleman in between!
HelpGazaChildren Notion Site || #helpgazachildren tag
[Quick ID: The video is of Mahmoud speaking in front of bags of flour and a tumblr sign. There are captions to the video in english. The image below is of groups of packages of items in front of a tumblr sign.]
Just a reminder for people who may not know, in light of protestors at UCLA being shot in the face with rubber bullets— rubber bullets are not bullets made of rubber. They are metal bullets encased in rubber.
Despite being called “non-lethal” or sometimes “less lethal”, they are well known to cause death and permanent disability.
Here’s a photo showing their size— these are actual rubber bullets used during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Do not let them downplay the severity of what they are subjecting this students to for standing against genocide. Stay safe and stay educated.
EDIT: Twitter banned @/nosferatusexgod, the student shot, whose tweet I linked to (as a primary source) at the top of the post. Screenshots of the tweet I originally linked to can be found here.
None of the civilian deaths have been accidental.
EYES on RAFAH!!!!!
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says troops will enter Rafah “with or without a truce".
34,568 Palestinians killed, 77,765 wounded - Israeli invasion of Rafah would be “tragedy beyond words” — UN
Aid deliveries to Gaza not enough to reverse threat of famine — UN
A huge crowd has formed outside of Columbia University demanding NYPD 'let the students go'
If you're in New York right now, please go to Columbia and join them
This IS BEYOND unacceptable -FU to Doug Ford and ANY politician/public figure in the Ontario Legislature who agrees with this. A keffiyeh is a traditional scarf worn by many Arab people, and people in West Asian communities. It does represent/symbolize Palestinian resistance and solidarity (among many aspects, of course), but that's not a crime -and trying to censure someone's right to wear traditional garments because you'd rather pander to zionists (as this article notes, many wear religious wear every day in office), is the real issue here -this is discrimination. This is legislated discrimination and is hateful.