This week: remembering Darfur, asylum seekers in Belgium, refusing military service, tear gas in Nil’in, Bedouins face demolitions in the Negev, Palestinian prisoners go on hunger strike, housing struggles in Israel, and Ethiopian Jews protest discrimination.
Asylum seekers from Darfur take part in the 11th memorial day for the genocide in Darfur. Levinsky Park, south Tel Aviv, April 30, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Hundreds of supporters participate to the Steenrock festival in front of the repatriation center for migrants called 127bis, Steenokkerzeel, near the airport of Brussels, Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, April 26, 2014. The festival included a protest march, music performances and artwork displayed on the fences surrounding the center. The persons detained in 127bis are mostly asylum seekers whose requests have been dismissed and others who are still waiting for an answer from the Belgian Foreign Office. Built like a prison, the center is surrounded by a triple row of wire fencing and has isolation cells. The detention conditions have been repeatedly denounced by human rights organizations. There are six such centers for migrants in Belgium. (Activestills.org)
Uriel Ferera, 19-year-old orthodox Jew from Beer Sheva, enters Tel Ha’Shomer Military Base, where he will announce his refusal to obey the Israeli military draft, April 27, 2014. Ferera says he refuses to take part in the occupation and that his request for civil service instead of military duty was rejected by the army. (Activestills.org)
Palestinian youth run as the Israeli army shoots tear gas during a protest against the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Nil’in, April 25, 2014. (Activestills.org)
A child rides a bicycle next to a mosque in the Bedouin village of Bir-Hadaj, Negev Desert, April 27, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Ayad Adsan sits with two of his eight children in their family home a few hours after civil administration officers and policemen hung a demolition warning on his house in the Bedouin village of Bir-Hadaj, Negev Desert, April 27, 2014. Bir-Hadaj is a recognized Bedouin village in Israel since 1999 and its urban plan was approved in 2003. The village still lacks basic infrastructure and its inhabitants frequently face demolition orders and harsh treatment by the police. (Activestills.org)
Palestinian women hold pictures of administrative prisoners in solidarity with them during the first day of a protest tent that was erected in the city center of Nablus, West Bank, April 28, 2014. More than 100 Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons launched a mass, open-ended hunger strike on Thursday, April 24, 2014. The hunger strike is taking place in the Ofer, Megiddo, and Negev prisons and comes after Israeli authorities reneged on a promise made following an earlier mass hunger strike to limit the use of administrative detention to exceptional cases. (Activestills.org)
A Palestinian child climbs over the rubble of a demolished mosque in Khirbet Twaiel, West Bank, April 30, 2014. (Photo: Activestills.org)
A resident of Givat Amal neighborhood shouts toward the Cozihanoff family office building in the city of Ramat Gan during a protest the eviction of families in the neighborhood. The Cozihanoff family bought a part of the neighborhood land in north Tel Aviv and plans to evict families who have been living there for 65 years, without any compensation. Israel, May 1, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Ethiopian Jews gather to protest a plan to evict residents and sell a housing project for new Jewish immigrants in the city of Mevaseret Zion, near Jerusalem, May 1, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Students from Tel Aviv University protest a government plan to promote enlistment of Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel for military service, Tel Aviv, April 30, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Ethiopian Jews protest in front of government offices in Tel Aviv against the discrimination of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, April 30, 2014. (Activestills.org)
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives.
Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is the leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists and activists can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.