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A member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) said Monday that Israel has turned into a “police state”, according to Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday.
Israel “has become a police state in which any person whose opinion opposes the government will be held and questioned,” Mossi Raz of the left-wing Meretz party said.
On Sunday, Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet questioned two Jewish activists for alleged support for the Palestinians and their opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli police on Sunday detained five Palestinians near East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, according to a local resident.“The five were detained as they attempted to stop two Israeli settlers from vandalizing Bab al-Rahma cemetery, a major Islamic graveyard in the area,” Khaled Abu Tayha told Anadolu Agency.There was no Israeli or Palestinian comment on the report.Notably, the Bab Al-Rahma is an ancient Muslim cemetery that has been an endowment property for more than 1,400 years.The Israeli Antiquities Authority has been preventing locals of Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem from burying their dead in recent years in an effort to convert parts of the cemetery into biblical gardens.Talks underway for Hamas-Israel truceWho are the evangelicals?Palestine’s Al-Tamimi family: A history of defiance
Israeli police detain 5 Palestinians in Jerusalem
Simone Zammerman, an American Jewish activist, was held by at the border between Israel and Egypt for at least three hours on Sunday evening.
Shin Bet agents asked Zimmerman which places she had visited in the West Bank and what she thought of Netanyahu, Haaretz reported.
Israeli naval forces seized a ship bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip overnight, the Israeli military said on Saturday.In a statement, the army said the vessel was sailing from Europe to Gaza with the intention of breaking a naval siege imposed on the Palestinian territory.The ship, which was carrying humanitarian aid, was taken to the Ashdod harbor, the statement said.Last week, Israeli forces intercepted an aid ship approaching Gaza shores as part of a two-ship flotilla organized by Freedom Flotilla Coalition to break an 11-year Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.By the end of 2016, nearly two million Gazans were depending on international aid in order to survive while nearly half of the families in Gaza lacked access to secure food supplies, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.Every year for eight years now, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has been launching a new campaign to challenge the Israeli siege, which has gutted the Gaza economy and deprived its population of many basic commodities.On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists in the Mavi Marmara boat convoy in international waters. The convoy, which was part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, was headed for Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Another activist later succumbed to his injuries.
Israel seizes aid ship bound for blockaded Gaza
Zimmerman is a founding member of IfNotNow, a movement that seeks to end the American Jewish community's support for the Israeli occupation.
Jewish activist Abby Kirschbaum was also held and questioned about which protests against Israeli policy she had attended in the Palestinian territories and with which organizations.
Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators on Friday returned to the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, where for the last four months they have been staging regular anti-occupation rallies.In a statement, Gaza’s National Authority for Breaking the Siege renewed its call to the people of Gaza to take part in the ongoing demonstrations.Palestine’s Al-Tamimi family: A history of defianceSince the rallies first kicked off on Mar. 30, 155 Palestinian demonstrators have been martyred -- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the buffer zone.Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.They also demand an end to Israel’s decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
Palestinians converge along Gaza-Israel buffer zone
In 2017, Zimmerman, who resides in Israel and has a work visa, published a video criticizing an Israeli law barring entry to foreigners who support boycotting Israel or its West Bank settlements.