BBC – November 28, 2023
5th day of Gaza truce
The Israeli military says 12 more hostages released by Hamas have left Gaza and are now in Israeli territory
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the group comprise ten Israeli citizens and two Thais
It is the fifth day of the truce between Israel and Hamas, after a 48-hour extension was agreed yesterday
Three Palestinians will be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for each Israeli hostage returned from Gaza
Meanwhile, the United Nations has used the pause in fighting to get desperately-needed aid into Gaza, but says much more is needed
Hamas crossed the border and killed 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October, with about 240 taken hostage
Since then, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 14,500 people have been killed in Israel's retaliatory campaign
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67539313
Al Jazeera – November 28, 2023
Israel arrests almost as many Palestinians as it has released during truce
By Zena Al Tahhan
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Israel has persisted with arresting dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as it conducts a prisoner release with Hamas, the Gaza-based armed group.
In the first four days of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, which began on Friday, Israel released 150 Palestinian prisoners – 117 children and 33 women.
Hamas released 69 captives – 51 Israelis and 18 people from other nations.
Over the same four days, Israel arrested at least 133 Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Palestinian prisoner associations.
“As long as there is occupation, the arrests will not stop. People must understand this because this is a central policy of occupation against Palestinians and to restrict any kind of resistance,” Amany Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told Al Jazeera.
“This is a daily practice – its not just after October 7,” she added. “We actually expected more people to be arrested during these four days.”
The Qatar-mediated truce came after 51 days of relentless Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, the day Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory, killing about 1,200 people.
Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since then, the majority of them women and children.
On Monday, the original four-day truce was extended for another two days, during which an additional 60 Palestinians and 20 captives are expected to be released.
Under Israel’s 56-year military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli forces carry out nightly raids into Palestinian homes, arresting 15 to 20 people on “calm” days.
In the first two weeks after October 7, Israel doubled the number of Palestinians in its custody from 5,200 people to more than 10,000. That number included 4,000 labourers from Gaza who worked in Israel and were detained before later being released back into Gaza.
Palestinian prisoner lawyers and monitoring groups have recorded 3,290 arrests in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7. In mid-November, 35-year-old Eyad Banat was arrested while he was streaming live on TikTok. He was subsequently released.
‘No guarantees with the occupation’
Since the truce began, the streets of Ramallah have been flooded with people welcoming the freed prisoners.
But the worry for Palestinian prisoners does not end after their release. The majority of those freed are usually rearrested by Israeli forces in the days, weeks, months and years after their release.
Dozens of those who were arrested in a 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange were rearrested and had their sentences reinstated.
Sarahneh said it is not yet clear whether Israel has provided any guarantees that it will not rearrest those who have been released.
“There are no guarantees with the occupation. These people are liable to be rearrested at any point. The occupation always rearrests people who have been released,” she said.
“The biggest evidence that these people may be rearrested is that the majority of people being detained now are freed prisoners,” she added.
Since October 7, the conditions of Palestinians under arrest or in detention have severely declined. Many have complained of severe beatings while six Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody.
Many of the women and children released during the truce have testified to the abuse they experienced in Israeli prisons.
Several videos have also emerged in recent weeks of Israeli soldiers beating, stepping on, abusing and humiliating detained Palestinians who have been blindfolded, cuffed and stripped either partially or entirely. Many social media users said the scenes brought back memories of the torture tactics used by United States forces in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
In addition to severe beatings, Israeli prison authorities halted medical attention for Palestinian prisoners for at least the first week after October 7, including for those who had been beaten, according to rights groups. Family visits as well as routine lawyer visits were stopped, the groups said.
Prisoners were previously entitled to three to four hours outside their cells in the yard, but that has now been cut to less than an hour, according to rights groups.
Overcrowded cells now often house double the number of detainees they were built for with many sleeping on the floor without mattresses, they said.
Israeli prison authorities have also cut electricity and hot water, conducted cell searches, removed all electrical devices including TVs, radios, cooking slabs and kettles, and shut down the canteen, which prisoners use to buy food and basic supplies such as toothpaste.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/28/arrests
1.73 million are now displaced in Gaza
Out of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, 1.73 million are now displaced… 20,030 civilians killed 8,176 children have been killed 4,112 women have been killed 7,000 people remain unaccounted for, including more than 4,700 children 36,350 civilians have been injured Source: Human Rights Watch/ UN Human Rights
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1728719342655983793
Daily Sabah – November 27, 2023
Three Palestinian students shot in suspected U.S. hate crime
Three young Palestinian students were shot and injured, one critically, in a suspected hate crime near the University of Vermont, U.S., police said Sunday.
Police were searching for the suspect after the attack around 6:25 p.m. Saturday near the UVM campus, Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a statement.
Two of the men were in stable condition and the other suffered "much more serious injuries," Murad said. The three, all age 20, were walking during a visit to the home of one of the victim's relatives when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun, police said.
"Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled," Murad said. "All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities."
The victims are of Palestinian descent and two are U.S. citizens and one is a legal resident. Two of the men were wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, Murad added.
Murad, who expressed sympathies for the victims and their families, said there is no additional information to suggest a motive.
"In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime. And I have already been in touch with federal investigatory and prosecutorial partners to prepare for that if it's proven," he said.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee released a statement Sunday saying that the victims were Palestinian American college students and that there is "reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab."
A man shouted and harassed the victims, who were conversing in Arabic, then proceeded to shoot them, the committee's statement said.
The FBI in Albany, New York, posted a statement on X, formerly Twitter, late Sunday saying the bureau is actively investigating the shooting with the Burlington Police Department, ATF and other federal, state and local agencies.
The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and would continue to receive law enforcement updates.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced in a statement that it has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction of the person or people responsible for the shootings.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding provided a statement on X it said was from the victims' families.
"We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our children," the statement said. "We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime. We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice."
In response to the shooting, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries encouraged people to "unequivocally denounce the startling rise of anti-Arab hate and Islamophobia in America."
"No one should ever be targeted for their ethnicity or religious affiliation in our country," the New York Democrat said in the statement posted on X. "We will not let hatred win."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, also denounced the shooting.
"It is shocking and deeply upsetting that three young Palestinians were shot here in Burlington, VT. Hate has no place here, or anywhere. I look forward to a full investigation," Sanders said in a statement.
The Vermont-New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice For Peace, which has urged an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict, released a statement saying it was "appalled by the shooting."
"We are in solidarity with the students, their families and all those affected by this clear act of hate," the organization said Sunday. "We are in solidarity with all Palestinian people in occupied Palestine, around the world, and here in Vermont – and we are committed to creating a Vermont that is safe and welcoming for all."
The American Jewish Committee, an advocacy organization for Jewish people worldwide, also said via X it was "horrified" by the attack and urged "law enforcement to investigate this act as a possible hate crime."
Last month, an Illinois landlord was charged with a hate crime after being accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounding his mother in Chicago. Police and relatives said he singled out the victims because of their faith.
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/americas/3-palestinian-students-shot-in-suspected-vermont-hate-crime
Anadolu Agency – November 27, 2023
At least 51 journalists have been killed in Gaza since Oct.7
By Omer Tugrul Cam
BRUSSELS (AA) - Journalists who were killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza were remembered on Monday by their colleagues in Brussels.
The commemoration event, organized by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Journalists Union, operating in the UK and Ireland, was attended by European journalists and Palestinian journalists living in Brussels.
Speaking to Anadolu, IFJ spokesperson Pamela Moriniere said that at least 58 journalists, including 51 in Gaza, have been killed since the beginning of the conflict on Oct.7.
"We are worried that our colleagues in the field transmit the real situation freely. It is now extremely hard to be a journalist in the West Bank and Gaza," she said.
"There are many incidents in which Palestinian journalists were targeted by Israeli forces. We took these to the International Criminal Court. We want the EU to also take this issue into serious consideration,” she added.
Sara Lewis, head of the National Journalists Union’s Brussels branch, said: "Journalists are deliberately targeted and killed in Palestine. This is a war crime."
In a statement Monday, the Gaza-based Government Media Office said the death toll since Oct. 7 is over 15,000, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women, in addition to untold numbers of corpses scattered in the streets.
Israel launched a massive military campaign in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.
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