TV News LIES

Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist who participated in protests at Columbia University and was detained by Ice earlier this year, has filed a lawsuit demanding the Trump administration release its communications with anti-Palestinian groups he says contributed to his March arrest and efforts to detain him.

The groups, a number of which have boasted about their involvement in sharing dossiers on Palestine activists with the administration, have claimed credit for Khalil’s arrest, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the legal team representing Khalil, and they say there is evidence that indicates the Trump administration “acted on information and misinformation – provided by these groups in cracking down” on Khalil and other pro-Palestine activists.

“For months, shady organizations and individuals carried out a smear and harassment campaign designed to intimidate and silence me,” said Khalil in a statement to the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“The public deserves full accountability for every bad actor who helped make that possible, including those at Columbia who fabricated and amplified these smears and opened the door for state retaliation against Palestinian speech.”

More...

OHCHR condemned this week’s attacks as abhorrent and said they reflected a wider pattern of increased violence against Palestinians.

Several people were reportedly injured in the attacks, which included a raid on a dairy factory, while delivery trucks and homes were set ablaze. 

The surge in violence comes as Israeli authorities have also ramped up home demolitions in addition to property seizures and the forcible displacement and transfer of thousands of Palestinians by Israeli settlers and the military, OHCHR continued, in a briefing for journalists at the UN in Geneva.

Officials reiterated that Israel’s assertion of sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and its annexation of parts of it, are in breach of international law which has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Meanwhile in Gaza, hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were flooded due to heavy rain on Friday.

“We fear that thousands of displaced families will be left fully exposed to these harsh weather conditions” amid wider health and protection concerns, said the UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric at a later briefing in New York. 

UN partners are working to provide shelter support via rapid response teams.

More...

The UN humanitarian relief chief, Tom Fletcher, has sounded the alarm over rising violence in the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and their property continue to escalate.

“Many of these attacks are linked to Palestinians’ attempts to harvest their olive crops,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Palestinians have been killed and injured. Their homes and property damaged. Their livestock attacked.”

Mr. Fletcher said that more trees have been damaged, and more communities affected this year than in the previous six years combined.

“The failure to prevent or punish such attacks is inconsistent with international law,” he warned. “Palestinians must be protected. Impunity cannot prevail. Perpetrators must be held accountable.”

His remarks follow warnings from the UN Spokesperson’s Office last week that violence by Israeli settlers has surged across the West Bank, often under the watch of Israeli security forces.

More...

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that the Higher Planning Council will approve the construction of 1,973 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank during its next session.

He did not specify when the council will meet, Israeli Channel 12 reported.

The announcement came a day after Israel approved the building of 1,300 settler homes in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of occupied East Jerusalem.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that the Higher Planning Council will approve the construction of 1,973 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank during its next session.

Smotrich said Israeli authorities have approved nearly 30,000 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank this year, describing it as an "unprecedented achievement" for his government.

The Palestinian group Hamas denounced the Israeli move as a "dangerous escalation in the policy of Judaisation and settlement expansion targeting Palestinian land deep inside the West Bank."

"These settlement plans constitute a blatant violation of international law and United Nations resolutions that criminalise settlement construction," it said in a statement.

More...

Brooklyn-based writer and reporter Jasper Nathaniel was going through the Turmus Ayya olive fields in the West Bank when he captured the spine-chilling footage showing masked Israeli settlers beating Palestinian settlers senseless, armed with crude melee weapons.

In the video, Nathaniel is heard screaming at the Israeli settlers to stop attacking the Palestinian farmers, but his calls fall on deaf ears as a masked Israeli settler clubs an elderly woman and other farmers.

A  brutal attack by Israeli settlers on Palestinian olive farmers was captured on video by an American journalist, with the video going viral on social media.

In the video, Nathaniel is heard screaming at the Israeli settlers to stop attacking the Palestinian farmers, but his calls fall on deaf ears as a masked Israeli settler clubs an elderly woman and other farmers.

The American is also seen offering injured Palestinian farmers a ride on the vehicle he was using, before the video cuts off.

Prior to uploading the now-viral clip, Nathaniel posted, "Brutal settler attack in Turmus’ayya olive fields. Many injuries, including a woman knocked unconscious with a club and beaten repeatedly."

More...