Feature Archives

On December 27th, 28th and 29th, Israeli air strikes targeted Gaza killing over 364 people and seriously injuring thousands more. As Israeli tanks mass on the Gaza border, thousands of Israelis are protesting. The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, an umbrella group of Arab organizations, declared a national strike and a mourning day in the Arab sector beginning Sunday morning. There have also been large protests across the Middle East and in Europe.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is calling for international demonstrations on December 25th to demand the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Sa’adat, the secretary general of the PFLP, was illegally jailed by the Israeli army two and a half years ago and is supposed to be sentenced on December 25th.

On October the 29th, the Biometric Databases Bill passed its first call in the Israeli parliament. The bill requires all Israeli citizens to submit finger prints and facial photos to the Israeli government or face up to one year in jail. The database can be used freely by the Israeli secret police and military without the approval of a court.

On Tuesday, December 9th, anti-apartheid and human-right activists gathered to protest an AIPAC benefit at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco.

On November 27th, Darlene Wallach, a San Jose, California resident, was deported from Israel, departing Tel Aviv for New York on an El Al flight. She had been arrested, along with two other human rights observers and 15 Palestinians, by Israeli authorities while on a fishing boat in Gaza waters on November 18th.

On November 13th, three Arab students, two female and one male, were attacked by members of the Zionist Freedom Alliance. The incident happened at the University of California Berkeley campus at a concert organized by ZFA. The three activists were targeted after they displayed Palestinian flags as a silent protest in response to derogatory remarks against Arabs by some of the performers at the event.

On November 18th, US citizen and activist Darlene Wallach, along with a British citizen and an Italian, was detained with 15 Palestinian fisherman by the Israeli Navy. The group was fishing seven miles off the coast of Deir Al Balah. The US and European citizens, who are human rights observers, were kidnapped with the Palestinians by the Israeli Navy, despite the fact that they were clearly in Gaza fishing waters and well within the fishing limit detailed in the Oslo Accords of 1994.