The head of a United Nations agency that promotes development in Arab countries resigned Friday after refusing to withdraw a controversial report concluding that Israel has established an "apartheid regime" that discriminates against Palestinians.
on March 17, 2017A draft United Nations resolution calling for a team of UN experts to assess the environmental impact of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip in November 2012 and July-August 2014 was effectively “buried” by the United States, Canada and Israel on Saturday.
on June 1, 2016Last month, in a landmark decision, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to establish a database of all companies implicated in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including the city of East Jerusalem.
on April 30, 2016A novel about Palestinian life in occupation and exile by Rabai al-Madhoun has won the ninth $50,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba, published by Maktabat Kul Shee (Haifa, Palestine), was named the winner by this year’s chair of Judges, Emirati poet and academic Amina Thiban, at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
on April 27, 2016Israeli military authorities closed down about 35 Palestinian quarries in the West Bank in late March 2016 and confiscated millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. The crackdown, which has paralyzed the quarries, puts the livelihoods of up to 3,500 workers at risk and highlights the discriminatory nature of Israeli rules for Palestinian quarries, which have been unable to obtain new licenses for more than 20 years.
on April 21, 2016Multiple demolitions in the occupied West Bank left 124 Palestinians homeless in a single day, 60 of them children, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said in a statement Friday. A total of 54 structures -- including 18 donor-funded structures -- were demolished on Thursday in nine different communities located in Area C, the over 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control.
on April 8, 2016Human rights groups have in recent weeks put a spotlight on the case of a 23-year-old Palestinian circus performer and trainer who has been held in an Israeli prison since last December without trial or charge. Calling for the release of Muhammad Faisal Abu Sakha, Amnesty International said: "He hasn't been charged with a crime and the authorities refuse to give a reason for his detention."
on April 8, 2016The Israeli military has tripled its demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories over the past three months, a United Nations' report says. Figures collated by the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) - which operates in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - show from an average of 50 demolitions a month in 2012-2015, the number rose to 165 since January, with 235 demolitions in February alone.
on April 7, 2016When the University of California Regents recently passed a statement condemning “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism,” it avoided a broader proposal to equate anti-Zionism with bigotry. But this and similar efforts around the country to condemn anti-Zionism are part of a well documented, politically motivated national campaign to shut down speech critical of Israeli policies...
on April 4, 2016