Palestinian protests in Israel showcase ‘unprecedented’ unity

During the past week, Israeli incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and raids on the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah continued, while a brutal Israeli military offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip has left many Palestinians dead. “Like in previous rounds of protests, such as in October 2000, Palestinian protesters in 1948 areas showed in practice the necessity and practicality of an anti-colonial struggle.” ‘Colonial objective’ Sultany said Israel’s policy of maintaining a Jewish majority within the Green Line is no different from its demographic engineering in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where it works to dispossess Palestinians from their lands and impose a Jewish presence instead. Fadi Abu Kishek, Hassouna’s neighbour in Lydd, told Al Jazeera that settlers are coming from outside the city and “burning Palestinian cars, attacking the mosque, vandalising our cemetery, and marching in areas where Palestinians live”. Adalah, a legal centre for Palestinian citizens of Israel, reported that far-right Jewish Israelis have used social media to organise their attacks in recent days, and they have sent messages to each other saying they are “dying to kill Palestinians”. “I am particularly concerned at reports that Israeli police failed to intervene where Palestinian citizens of Israel were being violently attacked, and that social media is being used by ultra-right-wing groups to rally people to bring ‘weapons, knives, clubs, knuckledusters’ to use against Palestinian citizens of Israel,” Bachelet said.