Featured
Who is Shireen Abu Akleh?
Published
11 months agoon

She was born on January 3, 1971, in Jerusalem, she is a Christian Palestinian, She was a Palestinian-American journalist who worked as a correspondent for the channel Al Jazeera for 25 years and was a familiar name across the Middle East for decades of working in the Palestinian-occupied territories.
She was one of the Arab journalists She was described as a veteran journalist after her death as having been among Arab media’s most prominent figures. Her career included reporting on major Palestinian incidents especially the Second Intifada and her live reporting on television.
Early life and Education.
Abu Aqleh finished her high school studies at the Rosary Sisters School in Beit Hanina, and she received his initially a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the University of Science and Technology in Jordan then she received a bachelor’s degree in written journalism major from Yarmouk University in Jordan.
Career.
After graduating, she returned to Palestine, she lived and worked in East Jerusalem, reporting on major events related to Palestine including the Second Intifada, and worked on several sites such as UNRWA, Voice of Palestine Radio, Amman Satellite Channel, then the Miftah Foundation, and Monte Carlo Radio. She moved to work in 1997 with the Al Jazeera Network till she was shot by the Israeli forces on 11 May 2022.
Since the establishment of Al-Jazeera in 1997, she has started working as a correspondent for the “Al-Jazeera channel” in the occupied Palestinian territories, becoming well known as a reporter, in addition to working as a correspondent for “Monte Carlo” Radio in France.
Abu Akleh continued working on Al Jazeera until she was killed in 2022, she had been studying Hebrew to understand Israeli media narratives and had recently gained a diploma in digital media.
Abu Akleh’s career inspired many Palestinians and Arabs to be journalists; her reporting was particularly well-known. After her death, The New York Times and NPR both described her as “a familiar name” among Palestinians. The Times of Israel described her as “a veteran journalist among Palestinian and Arab media’s most prominent figures”.
Her Death.
On May 11, 2022, the Palestinian Ministry of Health declared the death of the Correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh. According to Al-Jazeera, she had been shot dead by the Israeli occupation forces with bullets in her head due to her covering the Israeli occupation storming Jenin refugee camp. Al Jazeera accused Israel of deliberately targeting her, Abu Akleh was present at the storming in Jenin, and Al Jazeera announced that Abu Akleh was shot in her head by Israeli snipers and she was transferred to Ibn Sina Hospital, where she was announced dead. She was 51 years. Another correspondent, the Ministry of Health added that journalist Ali Al-Samoudi was also hit by a live bullet in his back, and he is in a stable condition, and two other Palestinians were transferred to a hospital in moderate condition.
Also Read: Israeli forces Fires gas canisters on Palestinians in Jenin
According to the Israeli forces, Palestinians had fired on Israeli soldiers, after which the soldiers returned fire. The IDF published a video showing Palestinian gunmen firing on Israeli forces, in the place where Abu Akleh was killed, eyewitnesses two journalists standing near Abu Akleh, said that the place had been quiet immediately before her death, Contrary to Israeli statements about her death in an exchange of fire. According to Al Jazeera, there was no shooting by Palestinian gunmen.
Mustafa Barghouti General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative said that there was “no exchange of fire” at the place. Al-Omari the bureau chief of Al Jazeera in Jerusalem and Ramallah also stated that Abu Akleh had been wearing a helmet and was shot under her ear, which refer she was “deliberately targeted”. Video of the shooting showed Abu Akleh wearing a vest that was marked “PRESS”, An Agency France-Presse photojournalist said that Israeli forces shot and killed Abu Akleh.
Also Read: Journalism: not a safe profession
An autopsy at An-Najah National University wasn’t able to determine who killed Abu Akleh; the pathologist didn’t find any evidence that she was shot at close range. The autopsy affirmed that Abu Akleh was killed by a bullet that struck her head, causing skull fractures and damage to her brain. The bullet was recovered and sent for extra examination. Israeli minister of Defense Benny Gantz said the Israeli forces sent a request to the Palestinians to let the Israelis examine the bullet.
Responses.
Al Jazeera described the murder of Abu Akleh as a “terrifying crime that breaches international human rights and was carried out” in cold blood”. Al Jazeera managing director Giles Trendle said that the network was shocked by her death and he had called for a transparent investigation.
President Abbas declared that he considered Israeli forces responsible” for the death of Abu Akleh. Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs of the Palestinian Authority, tweeted on Twitter that Abu Akleh had been “killed by the bullets of the Israeli occupation”, adding that the “crime of silencing the journalists” had been committed again, and the truth is murdered by Israeli occupation bullets, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom Husam Zomlot described Abu Akleh as a “beloved journalist” and his close friend.
The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” condemned the assassination of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh by the Israeli occupation forces after targeting her with live bullets in his head, this morning, while she was covering the Israeli forces’ raids of Jenin camp, and the injury of journalist Ali Al-Samoudi in his back.
In a statement, Hamas considered this assassination and with malice aforethought against Sherine Abu Aqleh, and all Palestinian journalists and media professionals who report the Israeli crimes against Palestinian people under occupation.”
Hamas stressed that this crime will not succeed in neglecting the role of the media and journalists in conveying the truth of Israeli crimes, the reality of the Israeli occupation, its brutality, terrorism, and crimes against Palestinian, land, and holy sites.
Also Read: Israel has killed 55 Palestinian journalists since 2000
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, prime minister of Qatar, denounced what he saw as horrific crimes by the Israeli occupation against unarmed Palestinian people, deputy foreign minister Lolwah Al-Khater claimed the killing was “state-sponsored Israeli terrorism”. The foreign ministry of Kuwait had issued a statement denouncing the killing of Abu Akleh by Israeli forces; similar statements were issued by the foreign ministries of Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Djibouti, China, and Iran.
You may like
-
The Western Hypocrisy of Russia v Israel Reveals An Outrageous Moral and Legal Duplicity
-
The dark face of the occupation, what lies behind it in Gaza ?
-
Israel threats Palestinian water sources
-
Support Palestine: How to help
-
A history of lies: Lying deliberately is Israel’s modus operandi in the West Bank
-
Israeli forces killed Palestinian Youth in Al-Bireh.
Featured
Huwara rampage: a prova for a possible Israeli Holocaust.

Published
7 days agoon
March 22, 2023
On 26 February, hundreds of heavily armed Jewish settlers protected by the Israeli army, rampaged through the Palestinian village of Huwara, just south of the northern West Bank town of Nablus, ransacking and torching homes and property and killing at least one local resident. According to the Palestinian health ministry, hundreds of people were injured, with many sustaining serious and crippling wounds that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. The rampage in Huwara has been described as the most violent since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.
According to various sources, the settlers had received definitive instructions from government officials telling them “to teach the Palestinians a lesson they wouldn’t forget.”
The settlers, affiliated with the religious Zionist movement, are indoctrinated in a Nazi-like Talmudic ideology which considers the targeting of innocent noncombatants such as children, women and the elderly as perfectly legitimate during the time of conflict.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has accused the Israeli government, the most racist and fascist ever, of backing a rampage in Huwara. Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as saying that Huwara needs to be “wiped out and razed to the ground” and that the state of Israel should do it.
Israeli Prime Minister told foreign journalists that Smotrich couldn’t use PR-friendly language to communicate his message, prompting one Israeli journalist to remark that “Netanyahu seemed to be acting as PR officer for Smotrich.”
Jewish-Nazism
When this and other writers employed Nazi epithets to describe current Israeli policies and behaviours in the Occupied Palestinian territories, some people, especially Western intellectuals, thought we were exaggerating the level of Israel’s genocidal Jewish barbarianism.
However an honest look at the perpetrators of the Huwara rampage reveals that these people are far from being a small or marginal extremist group, not representing the mainstream Israeli Jewish society.
Read Also: Will the West embrace Kosher Nazism following the instalment of the new Israeli government?
In fact, these are the very people who rule Israel today. They are the people of the government. They represent the crème de le crème of the Zionist religious movement in Israel.
Hence, we are not talking here about some wild weed growing uncontrollably in the midst of an otherwise sane society or anything of this sort.
Our erstwhile critics who didn’t like the use of strong epithets to describe Israel, mainly for psychological reasons, would probably pay more attention to the purported half-full glass rather than the half-empty one.
But in all honesty, there is simply no half-full glass in Israel today. Some naïve observers here and there might still think that the international community wouldn’t allow Israel to cross the Rubicon.
Unfortunately, It has now been proven that neither Israel could be given the benefit of the doubt nor could the so-called international community be entrusted to prevent or even restrain the increasingly brazenly Nazi entity from doing the unthinkable, namely launching a partial or full genocide against the unprotected Palestinians.
Indeed, the feeble American and European reactions to the Jewish rampage at the village of Huwara proved that the US can not be relied upon to rein in or restrain Jewish Nazism in Palestine.
The US, after all, is the very country that enabled Israel to be what it is and reach this evil level of barbarianism and arrogance of power by funding, defending and constantly optimizing Israeli Nazism.
Hence, relying on Washington to rein in genocidal Israel is merely a futile exercise in naivety, day-dreaming and wishful thinking.
Besides, All that America can offer to force Israel to behave doesn’t really go beyond futile gentle preaching stressing the need to exercise self-restraint and not indulge in incitement and extremism.
But Israel is not restrained by gentle preaching and polite rebuking or even harsh verbal chastisement. Such a toothless discourse will have no effect whatsoever on a shameless violator of international law, but could actually further embolden the Zionist entity even further.
What Israel needs is a thorough de-Nazification which would convince the racist supremacists in occupied Palestine that the recurrent rampages and genocidal savagery against the Palestinian people would have serious consequences on the Israel state.
Huwara rampage : Prova for a real Holucaust?
As someone who is quite familiar with the religious Zionist mindset, I can safely argue that the rampage at Huwara, which represents the cumulative outcome of years of toxic incitement by the Talmudic schools, such as the Merkaz Ha-Rav in West Jerusalem (the CNS of religious Zionism in Israel) is just a mere prova for something to come that is much more ominous, much more and much more genocidal.
Indeed, if these genocidal thugs and killer beasts could do this shamelessly in front of TV cameras from all over the world, just imagine how they would behave and what they would do to their helpless victims if the area were to be declared a close military Zone and all journalists and cameramen were ordered to leave.
I am saying this because I am completely convinced that the concept of genocide is absolutely and completely compatible with the religious teaching and ideological indoctrination of these people who apparently were spoon-fed this poison since their kindergarten days.
As a journalist who has been covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the settler phenomenon, ever since I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1981, I can honestly argue with all honesty and rectitude, that these people represent the Nazis of our time.
I am not eager to put any people down, and I’m absolutely and totally against all forms of anti-Semitism.
But we must call the spade a spade, irrespective of whether we see the proverbial implement in the hands of Da’esh killers, Jewish settlers in Huwara or Vagner mercenaries in Ukraine. If we don’t wake up, if the world doesn’t wake up now, especially after what we saw in Huwara, when will we wake up?
The Huwara rampage is more than just writing on the wall. It is more than a dark cloud hanging over the West Bank. The rampage in Huwarra is actually the penultimate step, the sound alarm coming before a real genocide that could be carried out at any moment by these reptile murderers, protected and assisted by the Israeli army.
Enter the Palestinian Authority
As to Palestinians, they must not allow themselves to be beguiled or sedated by worthless statements coming from the American state department.
The neo-Nazi trio of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will not give a hoot to worthless statements coming from worthless people in Washington.
In September 1982, the Reagan administration gave solemn assurances to the PLO that no Palestinian refugees in the Beirut region would be harmed if PLO forces left Beirut.
However, when the PLO left, as part of an agreement mediated by the American envoy Phillip Habib, Israel’s Christian allies, the Phallangists, ganged up on the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, south of Beirut, ransacking the two camps and slaughtering more than 3500 innocent men, women and children. Not a single perpetrator was prosecuted or punished for the genocidal massacre.
The Palestinians must not commit the same criminal blunder again, by trusting the US to protect our unarmed civilians from the Nazis of our time.
We need something much more concrete, much more reliable and much more certain. After all, it is our children’s lives at stake! Today, they set homes on fire while children and babies inside.
Tomorrow they will build a huge crematorium to burn our kids in broad daylight while a US State Department would regurgitate the same stale statements about Israel having the right to defend itself!

It seems that peace in Palestine will remain confined to the realm of wishful thinking. For the vast majority of people around the world, the racist apartheid entity known as Israel is probably the most gargantuan crime against humanity ever committed in the history of mankind.
Israel was conceived in sin, misbegotten in evil when it was established nearly 75 years ago, remains completely evil today, and will always be irremediably evil, no matter how many people sing its praises.
The creation of Israel in Palestine may not be the most heinous genocidal act in history. But it is most certainly the biggest and most obscene theft ever. How else can any honest person describe the arrogation of an entire country by the British empire and surrendering it, as a (National home), on a silver platter to another people ( Zionist Jews) on the ground that these people were stateless and persecuted, especially following the tragic events of the World War II.
Indelible calamity for Palestinians
Indeed, the very creation of Israel and its malignant growth into a powerful evil entity has inflicted a huge indelible calamity to every Palestinian family.
Yes, thanks to Zionism’s triumph, thanks to overwhelming, unlimited and sustained backing by racist, anti-Islam Western powers such as UK and US, every Palestinian family had its share of the still ongoing agony, immense suffering and misery resulting from the establishment of the evil entity, which is nothing less than a protracted, unrelenting and unceasing crime against humanity.
It is probably impossible to find a single Palestinian who has escaped the impact of the Zionist Jewish crimes, still, continues unabated.
Israel: When will the Jews say Mea Culpa?
This writer’s family, for example, was forced to dwell in a cave for 20 years, following the near extermination of my father’s family in 1953. In that fateful year, Jewish terrorists massacred his three paternal uncles, Hussein, Mahmoud and Yousef not far from the village of, al-Burj, about 30 km southwest of the town of Hebron.
The three, along with other relatives, were totally innocent shepherds, grazing their folks of sheep near the armistice line. In addition to murdering my family, the Zionist murderers stole hundreds of sheep upon which our family depended on for living.
Read Also: Expect a Srebrenica-like massacre anytime by Jewish Settlers in the West Bank
Interestingly, up to this day, Israel, the so-called only democracy in the Middle East, has not said “Mea Culpa“! let alone paid compensations for their crimes When will the Zionist Jews say a simple sorry for their unwept victims? Perhaps when kosher pigs fly!
Yes, every single Palestinian has a story to tell about what happened to his or her immediate family, relatives, neighbours and fellow villagers.
The Zionists, notoriously selfish and narcissistic, calculated that old Palestinians who experienced the holocaust-like Nakba first-hand ( the brutal, violent extirpation of an entire people from its ancestral homeland does constitute a form of genocide), would die and the young would forget.
However, the Zionist calculations proved utterly faulty as the cause has been kept alive and living, strongly and firmly, in the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world, including in Palestine itself where close to eight million Palestinians continue to live as a thorn in the Zionists’ side despite all their nefarious designs, plots and exploits to consign our just cause to oblivion.
There are several reasons for this exemplary resilience and steadfastness on the part of the Palestinian people, including the following:
1-The colossal Nakba, was by no means a one-time event lasting for a few weeks or a few months, followed by peace or an end of hostility. The Palestinians actually never encountered circumstances or conditions conducive to making them or their descendants forget or overcome their pains. Indeed, ever since 1948, the collective Palestinian experience has been a sequence of atrocities, pogroms, repressive measures, mass internment and imprisonment, home -demolitions, land-grabbing, sporadic massacres, and similar acts of persecution and oppression. This would draw a conclusion that peace in Palestine belongs to the realm of fantasy.
The main purpose of these evil measures has always been to force the Palestinians, or significant numbers of them, to leave their homeland for good. Indeed, in many instances, the Zionist authorities offered attractive sums of money to “encourage” Palestinians to emigrate to countries such as Australia and Canada. However, very few Palestinians would swallow the Zionist bait.
The unrelenting suffering and the protracted oppression and savagery kept alight the torch of resistance even to this day as most Palestinians came to realize that they were facing two main alternatives: continued resistance even at a high price, or going into oblivion and repeating the experiment of the “American Indians” of the Middle East.
2-The second reason which enabled the Palestinians to keep their struggle alive is their strong Islamic faith. Islam encourages its followers to resist oppression and not succumb or give in to oppressors. True, Palestinian nationalism played and continues to play an important role in sustaining the resistance. However, it is amply clear that Islam is more able to provide an inexhaustible source of motivations for the increasingly religious showdown with Israel. More to the point, Palestinians feel they have a paramount religious duty to protect, defend, and liberate al-Aqsa Mosque from the claws of Zionism. Indeed, most Palestinians realize there can be no Palestine without Jerusalem and no Jerusalem without the Aqsa Mosque. Hence, their resolve to sacrifice body and soul for the liberation of Islam’s third holiest sanctuary.
No Peace without Justice, but Justice is more than impossible
Since there can be no lasting peace in Palestine without true justice that leaves the slate thoroughly clean, it would be safe to argue that reaching a genuine peace between Muslims and Zionist Jews would be as unlikely as Satan the devil entering the Garden of Eden in the company of prophets, saints, martyrs and righteous people on the Day of Judgment.
But since Satan will go to hell rather than paradise, peace in Palestine will remain confined to the realm of wishful thinking.
And even if Zionist Jews were to reach the conclusion that enough was enough, they still would have to agree to a system of redress for the egregious injustices inflicted on their victims from the very inception of the gargantuan crime against humanity.
For justice, even a semblance of justice to materialize, the Jews of the world would have to pay the Palestinians adequate and prompt reparations for the purpose of promoting justice and redressing the horrible and still ongoing crimes against the victims and their descendants up to the 10th generation. I cannot determine the exact amount of reparations and indemnification which Jews would have to pay for the victims. But an initial amount of 30-50 trillion dollars would probably suffice for a final rapprochement. Am I undergoing day-dreaming. Definitely. That is why even invoking the possibility of a real durable peace between Palestine and Israel belongs to the realm of fantasy and wishful thinking. (end)
Featured
26 Million People Affected By Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
Published
3 weeks agoon
March 6, 2023
Powerful earthquakes and aftershocks struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on the 6th and 20th of February, 2023.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 26 million people need humanitarian assistance. The death toll is climbing above 50,000 and is expected to rise as many victims remain missing.
Furthermore, the WHO calls the Turkey-Syria earthquakes the “worst natural disaster” in the region in 100 years.
Turkey-Syria Earthquake: What Happened?
On February 6th 2023, the first earthquake hit southeastern Turkey and the northern Syrian border, measuring a magnitude of 7.7. Within minutes entire cities turned into rubble. Following this, a second earthquake measuring a magnitude of 7.6 hit the same region a little later.
Two weeks later, on February 20th, another earthquake of 6.4 magnitudes struck the same border area previously hit. Moreover, there have been more than 9,000 aftershocks recorded since.

The Aftermath of the Turkey-Syria Earthquakes
These earthquakes caused immeasurable devastation for an estimated 26 million people damaging and destroying homes and infrastructure, including approximately 214,000 buildings across both countries.
An estimated 240,000 rescue workers continued working in quake-hit provinces in Turkey. They persevered for weeks to find survivors trapped under rubble despite no survivors found for long periods of time. An estimated 1.9 million people are in temporary shelters, hotels, and public facilities.
As of February 25th 2023, in Turkey alone, 44,218 people died due to the earthquakes, while the announced death toll in Syria was 5,914 people.

Selective Humanitarianism During Turkey-Syria Earthquakes
The international response to the Turkey-Syria earthquake has disproportionately overlooked the Syrian people’s suffering. Syria has faced 12 years of civil war, and with international borders blocked, many Syrians received no help in the first few days after the earthquakes.
Read more: The Humanitarian Crisis in Syria 2023: A Forgotten War.
It took over a week after the earthquakes for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to issue a three-month authorization for United Nations (UN) aid deliveries to pass through two more border crossings. These significant aid delays resulted from the regime’s influence over affected regions.
These unacceptable delays entirely defy the principles of humanitarian law. As a result, Syrians have limited access to search-and-rescue reinforcements and lifesaving aid, unnecessarily costing many precious lives. The UN has failed the people of northwest Syria, highlighting inadequacies within the current system.
The slow humanitarian response to the earthquakes severely affecting northwest Syria illustrates the inadequacy of the UN Security Council-mandated cross-border aid mechanism in Syria. Thus, this crisis highlights the urgent need for alternatives to be put in place.
Read more: The Repatriation of ISIS Children Detained in Camps in Northeast Syria 2022.
The UN Pledges a $1 Billion Appeal For Turkey-Syria Earthquakes
The UN launched a $1 billion fundraising appeal to support the humanitarian needs of those affected. This appeal fund will support Turkey’s “once in a generation disaster” for three months and a $397 million appeal to help 4.9 million people in Syria.
So far, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund has donated $11.7 million. The UN held that so far, Denmark is the only country recorded to donate aid worth $1.5 million.
Human Rights Concerns Following Turkey-Syria Earthquakes
Health infrastructure was destroyed in many places, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera, diarrhoea and typhoid. In Gaziantep, a major city in south-central Turkey, hundreds of people are sleeping in tents in different parts of town, and trash has begun to pile up in public parks where some of these tents are located.
Therefore, hygiene problems, as well as inadequate housing, are some of the biggest problems in the region. In addition, the inadequacy of public toilets and the lack of infrastructure to use these toilets increases the risk of epidemics in the region.

Children’s Rights in the Aftermath of the Earthquakes
According to UNICEF, the recent earthquakes have affected an estimated 5 million children. Natural disasters such as earthquakes have severe consequences for vulnerable groups in society, such as children.
As the recovery efforts in Syria and Turkey continue, children’s rights must be a priority. All children must have access to fundamental rights such as food, clean water, and housing. Furthermore, children’s access to education and protection from exploitation and abuse is imperative. Many children in the region are unidentifiable as they are too young to know their full names, while hundreds of children’s parents remain missing.
Implementing the general principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is of fundamental importance, especially in times of crisis.
Syrian refugees in Turkey Face Forced Return to Earthquake-Strikken Regions
An estimated 1.7 million Syrian refugees lived in the ten southern Turkish provinces devastated by the earthquakes. Unfortunately, these refugees rely on temporary or international protection status. Without prior authorization, these refugees cannot travel to other provinces.
However, following the earthquakes, Turkish authorities issued a directive allowing refugees in these ten provinces to travel to other regions, except Istanbul, for up to 90 days if they could secure their accommodation.
However, in the first few days following the disaster, many fled to Istanbul, resulting in the Directorate General of Migration Management revising its decision to a case-by-case basis due to Turkey’s economic difficulties. There has been a growing anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey which has become the host of the world’s largest refugee population.
Following this, a second directive provided refugees with a 60-day exemption to travel to other provinces without prior authorization. The question remains as to where these Syrian refugees will return to following the expiration of the directive.
A Committed and Sustained Global Humanitarian Response is Needed
The aftermath of these devastating earthquakes requires a committed and sustained international humanitarian response. Thousands are missing, and 1.5 million are homeless without shelter, food, clean water, and access to healthcare.
The true impact of this disaster will not be fully understood for decades. The international community must step up and provide aid and relief to the earthquake victims. Most importantly, human rights protections must be at the heart of the response.
Trending
-
Featured4 months ago
Israel is Hiding Crucial Demographic Facts About Palestinians
-
Featured3 years ago
Practical Ways to Fight Depression in Islam
-
Featured3 years ago
The Unfortunate Correlation between Race and Covid 19
-
Featured2 years ago
“Do Not Waste Water Even If You Were at a Running Stream” Prophet Muhammad
-
Featured3 months ago
Argentina wins the World Cup; are there any other winners?
-
Featured8 months ago
World Leaders Remain Silent Over Human Rights Violations in the UAE
-
Featured3 years ago
The Connection Between Muslim Prayers (Namaz/Salah) and Yoga Poses
-
Featured3 months ago
Will the West embrace Kosher Nazism following the instalment of the new Israeli government?