#biblical-territorial-claims

#biblical-territorial-claims

Haitham al-Zayed, displaced from Shallal al-Auja, recalls his childhood memories of swimming in al-Auja's lush pools, now occupied by settlers celebrating their presence during Passover.

Taybeh, a small hilltop town in the heart of the West Bank, is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, now feeling under siege and fighting for its existence.

"I have never chosen to adopt the title of 'refugee,' yet it keeps haunting me. It is scribbled on my Palestinian national identification card and follows my name in human rights conferences."

For a mayor who has become so closely associated with a foreign policy conflict thousands of miles away, Zohran Mamdani does relatively little to directly address it. Follow his public pronouncements, press conferences, and social media posts, and you'll find a relentless focus on the local: an executive order cutting fees for small businesses, a mayoral appointment to combat racial discrimination, a ride in a taxi to announce a new TLC commissioner.

FIFA touts a commitment to staying 'neutral in matters of politics' and claims that 'discrimination of any kind...is strictly prohibited and punishable,' but under the rule of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, neutrality means the powerful win.

Through a new land registration drive, Israel is trying to secure through paperwork what warfare alone has failed to deliver. Israel always had a plan to annex more land in the occupied West Bank, and its actions prove it. This week, the Israeli cabinet approved a plan to claim Palestinian lands in the West Bank as state land. The proposal, pushed by far-right Israeli leaders, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz, emphasises Israeli supremacy over Palestinians.

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has reopened partially for a few Palestinians after an 18-month closure in tandem with an added restriction to control the movement of returnees. The Israeli army has set up a checkpoint called Regavim in an area under its control outside the crossing for those entering Gaza from Egypt. As the first trickle of humanity passed through the gates on Monday, official Israeli military documents gave it a name that indicates the facility is no longer being treated as a border crossing but as an operation for population control.

Israel plans to start work next month on a bypass road that will close off the heart of the occupied West Bank to Palestinians and cement the de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state. The road is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank.

The new measures, which aim to expand Israel's power across the occupied West Bank, will make it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally. We are anchoring settlement as an inseparable part of Israel's government policy, said Katz. Experts say it will fundamentally alter the civil and legal reality of the territory, removing what the Israeli ministers termed legal obstacles that have existed for decades against the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

The Israeli government has approved a plan to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, meaning it will be able to seize land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership. For the first time since Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it will register such land as property of the state also known as settlement of land title in Area C of the occupied West Bank.