This Week in Palestine: Israel Shoots 13-Year-Old as She ‘Memorized the Quran’ and Settlers Besiege Palestinian Families
Zeteo’s weekly round-up of the stories you may have missed out of occupied Gaza and the West Bank, as Israel continues its genocidal war and apartheid policies.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee called settlers besieging a Palestinian American home in the occupied West Bank “Israeli terrorists.” It’s a welcome, rare rebuke from a U.S. official, but what kind of weight does it really have when the same official has been a long-time supporter of Israeli settlements? It wasn’t that long ago that Huckabee made similar comments about settler violence gripping the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh, where attacks continue, or the settlers who beat Palestinian American Sayfollah Musallet to death (no one has been held accountable).
What kind of weight do Huckabee’s comments really have when, hours after using the phrase “Israeli terrorists,” he called the settlers “illegal trespassers” instead? Or when he defended the vast majority of settlers, saying they aren’t the problem, the “unsettlers” are, even though the settlements themselves are illegal under international law? It’s nice for officials to call attention to what Palestinians and their supporters have been decrying for years, but it rings hollow when nothing of substance is actually done to hold Israel accountable.
Just this week, Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, Israel killed a 13-year-old girl by reportedly shooting her as she memorized the Quran, and an Israeli official said the bodies of Palestinians should be held as bargaining chips.
Here’s more on all those stories and other things that happened during another troubling week in Palestine: