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Rights group: Israeli strikes on Gaza apparently broke law, AP
Israeli airstrikes that demolished four high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip during the war in May apparently violated international laws of war, a leading international human rights group said Monday, calling on the Israeli military to produce evidence justifying the attacks. Human Rights Watch noted that although no one was harmed in the airstrikes, the attacks damaged neighboring buildings, left dozens of people homeless and destroyed scores of businesses.
Israeli aircraft strike Hamas sites in Gaza as hostilities escalate, The Guardian
Israeli aircraft struck Hamas sites in Gaza late on Saturday, the military said, in an escalation of hostilities after earlier cross-border gunfire seriously injured an Israeli soldier and wounded 41 Palestinians, including two critically. The injuries came during a Gaza protest organised by the enclave’s Islamist rulers, Hamas, and other factions in support of Jerusalem, where Palestinian clashes with Israeli police helped spark an 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict in May.
Israel to Pressure Biden to Scrap Nuclear Talks: Iran Snapshot, Bloomberg
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will try to persuade U.S. President Joe Biden against reviving a nuclear deal with Iran when the two leaders meet in Washington on Thursday. American officials are mulling their options after months of talks with Iran failed to produce an agreement. Bennett will present an “orderly plan that we have formulated in the past two months,” he said on Twitter. It will curb Iran’s atomic activities and its “regional aggression,” he said.
The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable, CNN
The region has witnessed persistent drought and temperatures so high that they are barely fit for human life. Add climate change to water mismanagement and overuse, and projections for the future of water here are grim. […] The consequences of water becoming even scarcer are dire: Areas could become uninhabitable; tensions over how to share and manage water resources like rivers and lakes could worsen; more political violence could erupt.
The World’s Last Samaritans, Straddling the Israeli-Palestinian Divide, New York Times
They hold Israeli citizenship, often work in Israel, pay for Israeli health insurance and visit relatives in a suburb of Tel Aviv. In Israeli elections, several say they vote for the right-wing, pro-settler Likud party. Yet the Samaritans are still represented on the dormant council of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Israel will now let gay men donate blood, JTA
The region has witnessed persistent drought and temperatures so high that they are barely fit for human life. Add climate change to water mismanagement and overuse, and projections for the future of water here are grim. […] The consequences of water becoming even scarcer are dire: Areas could become uninhabitable; tensions over how to share and manage water resources like rivers and lakes could worsen; more political violence could erupt.
Even Liberals Are Happy With Choice of a Former Settler Leader to Head Yad Vashem, Haaretz
It is perhaps a sign of the times that the appointment of a former West Bank settler leader to the top job at Yad Vashem has gone down remarkably well in the Jewish world – even within progressive circles. […] For the sake of those who may have forgotten, the alternative was Effi Eitam, a former far-right politician and military commander who famously called for the expulsion of West Bank Palestinians and the ouster of Israeli Arabs from the Knesset. Indeed, next to him, Dayan might even be described as a bleeding-heart liberal.
Israeli probe into deadly holy site stampede opens hearings, AP
An Israeli government commission investigating a deadly accident at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April held its first day of hearings Sunday, almost four months after the stampede at Mount Meron left 45 people dead.
An Israeli cabinet member was criticized for traveling abroad during a COVID surge. Then she introduced her new baby., JTA
It sounded like a story heard time and again: A government official criticizes her rivals for breaking COVID restrictions — and then is caught breaking them herself. That is what seemed to happen Friday night, when an Israeli reporter tweeted that Israel’s Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli had traveled to the United States, contrary to government recommendations. […] But on Saturday night, Michaeli revealed that she did come back with something — or rather someone — from her trip: a newborn baby.
The Palestinian Authority Is Quashing Legal Protests – Again, Haaretz
Amira Hass writes, “The arrests of nearly 30 people protesting the killing of anti-PA activist show that the PA is hewing to its tactics of suppression and refusing to take steps to address crimes committed by its security apparatus.”
Latest flare-up of Gaza border violence leaves Israel with few good options, Times of Israel
Avi Issacharoff writes, “While the knee-jerk reaction to the violence on the Gaza border Saturday, including a Palestinian opening fire at point-blank range and critically injuring a border guard, would be for a forceful response against Hamas, it is doubtful such action would lead to calm or have any other desirable effect for Israel.”
The Israeli Military Has Declared Itself a Gang, Haaretz
Zehava Galon writes, “Last week a soldier in a Golani Brigade battalion decided to stop a tour in Hebron for lawmakers from the Joint List, although the tour had been arranged in advance, and was taking place at the site in which police had coordinated it. The soldier, who goes by the name Tomer, confronted lawmaker Ahmad Tibi, shouted at him, “Who do you think you are” and pushed him. The Israel Defense Forces spokesman announced that the army is backing Tomer. Since then, Tomer has become a micro-celebrity in the ranks of the extreme right.”