Palestine

from #AssociatedPress #APNews
By JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Updated 5:46 PM EDT, May 19, 2025

"NEW YORK (#AP) — Less than three weeks after his release from an immigration jail, the #Palestinian activist #MohsenMahdawi strode across the graduation stage at #ColumbiaUniversity on Monday morning, savoring a moment the #Trump administration had fought to make impossible.

Draped in a keffiyeh, Mahdawi, 34, paused to listen to the swell of cheers from his fellow graduates. Then he joined a vigil just outside #Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody."-

Johana Bhuiyan Mon 19 May 2025 14.27 EDT

““As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel,” read the email… “If leadership continues to ignore this demand, I promise that it won’t go unnoticed. The world has already woken up to our complicity and is turning against us. The boycotts will increase and our image will continue to spiral into disrepair.””

from #TheSeattleTimes May 19, 2025 at 12:42 pm Updated May 19, 2025 at 4:32 pm

"Seattle police arrested one demonstrator after a crowd of dozens tried to push into the Seattle Convention Center, where hundreds had gathered for Microsoft Build. Several demonstrators were doused with pepper spray.

Demonstrators ultimately left the convention center at 1:30 p.m., returning to downtown Seattle’s Westlake Park where they had rallied earlier in the day."

from #TheGuardian #Guardian
Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem
Mon 19 May 2025 15.08 EDT

"Earlier that day, Israel’s military declared an entire city a combat zone, airstrikes killed more than 60 people, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said Israel’s army would “wipe out” what remains of Palestinian Gaza.

“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the three allied governments said in a statement on Monday."

May 16, 2025

"In this prison, [...], ICE rents a section of the prison. And the section where I was, it was a mixture of three-quarters of people who have committed crimes before, and one-quarter of migrants who come in and out. And I was — my cell was C-38, the first cell in that C section where the migrants are. So, I saw waves of the migrants. Those are not just migrants. Those are the people who feed us, who plant our food, who harvest our organic, delicious Vermont produce."

Despite Eurovision's denials, an analysis reveals that the broadcast silenced crowd discontent during Israeli singer Eden Golan’s performance.

Published On 18 May 202518 May 2025

"Tens of thousands [actually, hundreds of thousands - PL] of people have rallied across the world in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and to mark the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Jewish militias, remembered as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

The Nakba resulted in the permanent mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948. Activists say that history is repeating itself today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank."

Israel decided on Sunday to resume the entry of “basic quantity” of food into Gaza, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, Reuters reports.

Separately, Axios reporter Barak Ravid cited two senior Israeli officials on Sunday saying that the resumption of aid flow will come through existing channels until a new mechanism is implemented.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video detailing the plan to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, responding to criticism from the right.

Netanyahu said his order to allow the aid came after "we are nearing the red line," and that Israel's international support is being damaged by reports of hunger in the Strip.

Israeli newspaper Maariv is reporting that an Israeli air strike hit Gaza on average every four minutes today.

The outlet noted that the rate of air strikes is higher than that recorded on the eve of Israel’s ground operation in October 2023, when the war broke out.