As Iran announces plans to build a nuclear submarine, Israel receives its fourth nuclear-capable submarine from Germany. Der Spiegel reports that the subs have already been armed with nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles.
Amnesty International urged Israel to release all “administrative detainees” or immediately try them under international fair trial standards. The report protests that Israel continues to use “emergency measures” dating to the British Mandate period.
Amid a wave of anti-immigrant protests and harsh new laws, Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishaii complains that most of the “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.”
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli facilities agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal ending the strikes in exchange for improved conditions and a pledge to release the detainees at the end of their “administrative detention” terms.
Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for a new intifada to support the more than 4,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, hundreds of whom started a mass open-ended hunger-strike two weeks ago.
In a move blasted by rights organizations, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that buildings of the Ulpana settlement outpost on the West Bank, ordered destroyed because of a claim by Palestinian land-owners, would receive a 60-day reprieve.
UN aid agencies in the occupied West Bank protested that Israel destroyed 21 homes of Palestinian Bedouin refugees at Khalayleh north of East Jerusalem—leaving 54 people homeless, including 35 children.
Israeli prison authorities stormed the cells of Palestinian prisoners, leaving 61 injured. The raid in Israel’s Nafha facility came after prisoners refused to submit to forcible DNA tests. The Palestinian Authority says the tests are illegal.
The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in MBZ v. Clinton that the ability of a US national born in Jerusalem to list Israel as place of birth on a passport is not a political question, but remanded the case for a ruling specifically on the issue.
Released document reveal that the Civil Administration in the West Bank has for years covertly mapped available land, naming the parcels after existing Jewish settlements, with an eye toward expanding these communities.
Under criticism from UNESCO, Israel reportedly removed Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs from its “National Heritage Sites” list—but provocation by far-right settlers seeking to secure the sites as exclusively Jewish sparked violence.
With Khader Adnan still recovering after his 66-day hunger strike against his “administrative detention” by Israel, a Palestinian woman, Hana Yahya al-Shalabi, began her own hunger strike against her detention without charge or trial.
