Palestine

[Audio] Kriegseintritt der USA: Interview Özlem Demirel, Die Linke, MdEP (Deutschlandfunk, 2025-06-23, 08:12 CEST)

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/kriegseintritt-der-usa-interview-oezlem-demirel-die-linke-mdep-100.html
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📣 Hört zu, wie Recht Özlem Demirel hat, und wie frech die Moderatorin dazwischenschaltet immer wenn es gerade ankommt, was klar und deutlich ausgesprochen werden muss.

… Die unzählige Völkerrechtsbrüche von Israel, zum Beispiel.

Die Tatsache allein, solche Stimme bei #Deutschlandfunk in der Hauptsendezeit ausgestrahlt wird, macht doch Mut. ✊

#Germany #MainstreamMedia #NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine @palestine@a.gup.pe

By Jonah E. Bromwich June 22, 2025 Updated 8:10 p.m. ET

The administration argued that he had contributed to the spread of antisemitism through his role in the protests at the university.

But Mr. Khalil, a Palestinian born in a Syrian refugee camp, rejected the idea that protesting against Israel is inherently antisemitic.

“I was not doing anything antisemitic,” he said. “I was literally advocating for the right of my people. I was literally advocating for an end of a genocide. I was advocating that the tuition fees that I and other students pay don’t go toward investing in weapons manufacturers. What’s antisemitic about this?”

https://archive.ph/yMJLn

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bktdgzvvee

Mr. Khalil, a Columbia graduate, had been held in Louisiana for over three months as the Trump administration sought to deport him. A judge found reason to believe it was retaliation for his pro-Palestinian speech.

By Jonah E. Bromwich
June 20, 2025

"On Friday, Judge Farbiarz rebuked the government mildly, noting that it had offered no evidence to suggest that Mr. Khalil was a danger to his community. The administration’s claims about his links to, or even sympathies for, Hamas have not been substantiated in court.

“He is not a danger to the community, period, full stop,” the judge said."

https://archive.ph/qi0XZ

By MEE staff Published date: 18 June 2025 16:58 BST

"The poll also found that nearly two thirds of Britons (65 percent) want the UK to implement the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit the UK."

According to the NGOs, the findings show “growing public pressure for legal accountability and a decisive government response”.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar declared on social media that “only the scum of the earth fires missiles at hospitalized children and elderly people in their sick beds”. The chair of Israel’s medical association, Zion Hagay, decried the strike as a war crime and urged the international medical community to condemn it.

This swift and unified condemnation by Israeli political and medical leadership underscores a striking contradiction: these same actors not only ignored but openly justified the destruction of Gaza’s hospitals over the past two years.

Israeli officials frame these hospitals as military targets and Hamas “shields”. Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, was placed under siege and then invaded, with the attack hailed by Israeli media as a victory.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Medical Association remained silent. In one of its rare statements after a year and a half of Israel’s repeated and targeted attacks on hospitals and civilian infrastructure, the association echoed the state’s narrative, stating that health facilities and personnel must not be targeted “unless these are being used as a base for terrorist activities”.

This moment puts the international system to the test. While some medical and humanitarian groups have expressed concern, most international stakeholders have remained silent in the face of the destruction of Gaza’s entire health system.

Will medical journals, international associations and UN bodies respond to the attack on an Israeli hospital with the kind of swift condemnation and concrete actions they failed to take when hospitals in Gaza were bombed? The world should have acted when the first operating room was hit in Gaza. It should not take an Israeli facility being targeted for them to remember that hospitals are meant to be protected spaces.

If an attack on a hospital is a red line, this must be true for all hospitals, not just those serving Israelis. If international law is to mean anything, it must protect everyone, with the same standards applied to every violation. Anything less is not only hypocrisy; it is complicity.

A YouGov poll reveals 55 percent of Britons oppose Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, with 82 percent of these opponents saying the actions amount to genocide. Overall, 45 percent of UK adults view Israel’s actions as genocidal.

When Iranian missiles began raining down on Israel, many residents scrambled for cover. Sirens wailed across the country as people rushed into bomb shelters.

But for some Palestinian citizens of Israel – two million people, or roughly 21 percent of the population – doors were slammed shut, not by the force of the blasts and not by enemies, but by neighbours and fellow citizens.

Mostly living in cities, towns, and villages within Israel’s internationally recognised borders, many Palestinian citizens of Israel found themselves excluded from life-saving infrastructure during the worst nights of the Iran-Israel conflict to date.

Palestinian citizens of Israel have long faced systemic discrimination – in housing, education, employment, and state services. Despite holding Israeli citizenship, they are often treated as second-class citizens, and their loyalty is routinely questioned in public discourse.

Massive fire reported in Tel Aviv after Iron Dome missiles misfired and landed on nearby buildings setting them on fire.

People say the system was hacked, others say these are old units failing because they were expired and not ready for use.

#IronDome #TelAviv #Missfire #Meme #Netanyahu #Israel #IranStrikesBack #WarOnIran #FAFO #iran #military
@israel @iran @palestine@a.gup.pe

Palestinian sources have reported that the Israeli army has occupied a large number of homes in Hebron, Jenin, Ramallah and Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, and converted them into military barracks after evicting their owners.

This surprise move coincided with the launch of Israel’s attacks on Iran last Friday. Analysts and residents have said that the army is stationing soldiers inside Palestinian homes and neighbourhoods to shield them from being targeted by Iranian missiles aimed at military camps.

[Letter sent on the 06th of June and made public today]

Dear Minister,

My mandate is to foster the effective observance of human rights in all member states of the Council of Europe. An important part of my work is to engage in dialogue with the governments and parliaments of member states, and to assist them in addressing possible shortcomings in their laws and practices.

I write in relation to measures taken by the German authorities that restrict freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly of persons protesting in the context of the conflict in Gaza.

Freedom of peaceful assembly

It is my understanding that since February 2025, the Berlin authorities have imposed restrictions on the use of the Arabic language and cultural symbols in the context of the protests. In some cases, such as an assembly in Berlin on 15 May 2025, marches have been restricted to stationary gatherings. Furthermore, protestors were allegedly subject to intrusive surveillance, online or in person, and arbitrary police checks.

I am also concerned by reports of excessive use of force by police against protesters, including minors, sometimes leading to injuries. The use of force by law enforcement officials including during protests must comply with the principles of non-discrimination, legality, necessity and proportionality, and precaution. Incidents of excessive use of force need to be effectively investigated, those responsible should be sanctioned in an appropriate manner and victims should be informed about possible remedies. To facilitate accountability, law enforcement officials should always display a visible and easily recognisable form of identification during assemblies, which reportedly has not always been the case during some of the latest demonstrations.

I further have to observe that over a number of years protests on Nakba commemoration day, particularly in Berlin, have been suppressed. For instance, in 2024, protests were reportedly met with excessive use of force by the police, resulting in arrests and injuries among participants. Peaceful protesters were reportedly arrested, and criminal law provisions were applied to expressions of support for Palestine.

I draw your attention to the Guidelines on Peaceful Assembly prepared by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). They outline that content-based restrictions on assembly must be subject to the most serious scrutiny: freedom of peaceful assembly also protects demonstrations that may annoy or cause offence to persons opposed to the ideas or claims that it is seeking to promote. Any measures interfering with freedom of peaceful assembly and expression other than in cases of incitement to violence or rejection of democratic principles do a disservice to democracy and may even endanger it.

Freedom of expression

Restrictions on freedom of expression have also reportedly been identified in such contexts as universities, arts and culture institutions, and schools. Furthermore, allegedly there have been attempts to deport foreign nationals in relation to their participation in protests and other forms of expression regarding the conflict in Gaza.

I understand that restrictions have been justified on the basis that events, symbols, or other forms of expression “disrupt public order” or “disturb public peace”. The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights’ (the Court) establishes that freedom of expression “applies not only to ‘information’ and ‘ideas’ that are favourably received, regarded as inoffensive, or which leave one indifferent […] - it implies pluralism, tolerance and openness, without which there is no ‘democratic society’”. In assessing the necessity of the interference, member states have little scope to impose restrictions on political speech or on debate on matters of public interest, unless the views expressed comprise incitements to violence, and must always carry out such an assessment case by case.

I observe that other justifications invoked for the restrictions on rights include the prevention of antisemitism. I note with concern reports indicating that the working definition of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has been interpreted by some German authorities in ways which lead to the blanket classification of criticism of Israel as antisemitic. In that regard, I urge you to be vigilant that the IHRA working definition is not distorted, instrumentalised or misapplied to stifle freedom of expression and legitimate criticism, including of the state of Israel.

More generally, the Court’s case law and the Council of Europe standards and guidance on freedom of expression, hate speech and hate crime (among others, Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)16 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on combating hate speech and, ECRI General Policy Recommendation N°15 on Combatting Hate Speech), provide the necessary framework for calibrating restrictions which must respect the principles of legality, necessity, roportionality and non-discrimination.

In conclusion, I recall that member states have both an obligation to refrain from undue interference with human rights and also positive obligations to safeguard these rights by securing their effective enjoyment for everyone, at all levels of government. I therefore respectfully ask you to ensure the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly for all and to refrain from measures that discriminate against persons based on their political or other opinion, religion or belief, ethnic origin, nationality or migration status.

I stand ready to continue our constructive dialogue on this and other human rights issues in Germany.___

Sumoud Convoy to Return to Tunisia after Permission Denied to Enter Egypt - Palestine Chronicle (2025-06-16)

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/sumoud-convoy-to-return-to-tunisia-after-permission-denied-to-enter-egypt/
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>> Organizers of a land convoy seeking to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip have reportedly announced their decision to cancel the convoy’s journey after authorities in eastern Libya refused to allow them to cross into Egypt.

>> In a statement on its Facebook page, the group said: “We have been informed by the Libyan authorities that the Egyptian authorities have rejected the licenses requests that we sent to the Egyptian Embassy in Tunisia through all possible legal and diplomatic channels.”

>> “We decided to return to Tunisia and look for other ways to lift the siege” in Gaza, the statement added.

>> ... the convoy “is peaceful and will remain peaceful and we will remain on the spot peacefully waiting” for the release of the detained participants.

#Soumoud #BreakTheSiege #Maghrib @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel