#palestinian-history

#palestinian-history

After 35 years of defending Palestinian children's rights, we are not able to overcome operational challenges resulting from Israel's targeted criminalization of Palestinian human rights organizations.

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.

"Those attending should be aware that showing support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and we will not hesitate to act where the law is broken," said commander Claire Smart.

"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."

"In 'break bad (freddy flexing)' (2021), a slim man's attempt to exert physical strength instead displays his fragility. A gentleness in his eyes suggests truer strength beneath the performance."

"I lost my parents on Oct. 7, but I won a brother. And for me, it's not a partnership, it's not a friendship, it's a brotherhood."

Textiles are a window into the communities that created them, with every motif and line signalling a different memory, tradition or identity. Often seen as folk art, these pieces of embroidery and weaving bring together dozens of narrative threads, from Japan to South America. But nowhere is it more fraught with meaning than in Palestine.

There is a scene in "Morgenkreis | Morning Circle" (2025), a 16-mm film by Berlin-based Palestinian artist Basma al-Sharif, that unfolds at the threshold of a daycare center. A young boy clings to his father, his fists locked into the fabric of his coat, his arms wrapped tightly around him. The father gently tries to pry himself free while a daycare worker crouches nearby, attempting to distract the child and coax him inside. It is an ordinary moment, one that anyone who has ever been a child - or cared for one - recognizes instantly, as well as the gut-wrenching feeling it provokes.

On March 30, 1976, six unarmed Palestinians were killed during protests against Israel's confiscation of land, marking a significant event in Palestinian history.

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.

But urgency should never become an excuse for illusion, spectacle, or political shortcuts. The contrast between rhetoric and reality could not be sharper. While United States President Donald Trump and a group of world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, to sign the charter of the so-called Board of Peace and unveil glossy reconstruction plans, the killing in Gaza continued. Since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, no fewer than 480 Palestinians have been killed.

The Byzantine-era church lies half hidden in the shade. Roman columns rise from among the olive trees, even older ruins linked to Israelite kings are overgrown. To the west, the Mediterranean is just visible on the horizon. To the north and south are the hills of the occupied West Bank. In the small town of Sebastia, a hundred metres or less east of the ruins, everyone is very worried.

A Chadian chemist and a British activist, both born in Jerusalem, vow to fight for Palestine by any means necessary even if it costs them death. Two men devoted their lives to the Palestinian resistance but paid the ultimate price. Bashir Jibril, born in Jerusalem to a Chadian family, joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He trained military cadres and took part in the 1970 airliner hijackings, before being killed in a car bomb explosion in Athens in 1978.

The reopening of Rafah, the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, has rekindled the hope (or at least raised a previously unthinkable question) of returning to the Strip for the approximately 100,000 Palestinians who managed to escape almost two years ago from the constant air strikes, forced displacement, and hardships of the Israeli offensive. Almost all of them did so within the first seven months of the war, until Israeli troops seized Rafah in May 2024 and Gazans lost their only exit route.

Any governance structure that does not take into account the Palestinian national aspirations is doomed to failure. Last week, just as Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip intensified, United States presidential envoy Steven Witkoff announced on social media that the ceasefire is entering its second stage. In the following days, the administration of US President Donald Trump unveiled the makeup of a foreign executive committee and a peace board that will oversee the provisional administration of Gaza composed of Palestinian technocrats.

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.