- Rights Group Urges US To Blacklist Israeli Battalion
- Turkey To Intervene In ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel
- Palestinians Face Unemployment Crisis
- Report: Israeli Settlers Attacked Aid Convoys, Dumped Supplies
Lawyers have said that Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian – a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who is a professor of law and an expert on trauma, state crimes and criminology, surveillance and genocide studies – has been summoned for a third interrogation by Israeli police tomorrow, May 2, 2024, reports Al Jazeera.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian was arrested on suspicion of incitement for criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza on April 18.
She was detained overnight and released under certain conditions. Following her release, she was summoned for three police interrogations: on April 25, April 28, and now, May 2.
Hadeel Abu-Salih, a lawyer for Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s legal team advised her not to answer questions on political topics or any questions that exceed the scope approved by the state attorney’s office for this interrogation.
The lawyers further noted that if she is summoned for another interrogation, they would consider legal action to stop Israel’s police from politically persecuting her.
“During the previous interrogations, the police asked Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian illegal questions, which amount to political persecution and violate academic freedom. These police actions amount to an abuse of the criminal process for the purpose of intimidation,” Adalah said in a statement.
During the two, four-hour interrogations, the police asked Shalhoub-Kevorkian about the sources she used when referring to the number of children killed in Gaza since the start of the war, as well as if she still believes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Democracy for the Arab World now (DAWN), a US-based rights group, has said that the State Department should suspend US foreign military assistance to the battalion and investigate all Israeli military units receiving US military funding in light of extensive evidence of widespread and systematic human rights violations.
In a statement, the group accused Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, of undermining and avoiding enforcement of the Leahy Law to sanction abusive Israeli units “by creating new bureaucratic procedures to allow Israel additional time to remediate abuses, despite failing to do so for at least two years.”
“According to the State Department’s own procedures and the recommendations of its most senior staff, Secretary Blinken should have blacklisted the Netzah Yehuda Battalion at least a year ago,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director.
“Secretary Blinken is undermining the black letter rules of our own laws by inventing new, procedural, delaying tactics to avoid sanctioning even a single Israeli unit.”
Relatedly, Turkey says it will intervene in ICJ genocide case against Israel, according to Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan.
In a statement quoted by Reuters, Fidan says the country has “decided to get involved in support of South Africa’s appeal against Israel” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ, a UN court that rules on disputes between nations, ordered Israel, in January 2024, to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention, in an interim ruling to a case filed by South Africa.
Despite the ruling, Israel has reportedly killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in daily military assaults on the besieged territory.
Since the start of the war, Turkey has been one of Israel’s fiercest critics on the international stage, with its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, repeatedly calling Israel a “terror state.”
In the interim, Palestinians face unemployment crisis amid Israeli work permit restrictions.
Since the war on Gaza began, Israel has barred most Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, who used to cross into Israel for work from doing so, causing an unemployment crisis.
Some youth, driven to support their families, resort to crossing the Israeli separation walls discreetly in search of work opportunities.
“‘If we’re not supposed to work in Israel, what are we supposed to do? Should we resort to theft? If we had any other option, we wouldn’t go to Israel,’ explained Sa’ed Boulad, an unemployed Palestinian who broke his arm after falling from a separation wall he was attempting to scale, in an interview with Al Jazeera
“I was going to work to help my family. Adults can tolerate hunger and anything else. But what about the kids? Who will bring diapers and milk for these children?” said Boulad.
“How can they understand that there’s a war and slaughter going on?”
And in the midst of hunger and starvation in the Gaza, Israeli settlers have attacked Jordanian aid convoys, dumped supplies, a report says.
Two Jordanian aid convoys carrying food, flour, and other humanitarian aid were attacked by Israeli settlers this morning, May 1, 2024, on their way into Gaza, reports Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency, citing the Foreign Ministry.
The convoys, one taking the Beit Hanoon crossing and another taking the Karem Abu Salem crossing from Israel into Gaza, were targeted by the settlers who dumped some of their cargo and damaged the trucks, said the ministry, noting that the trucks continued the aid delivery mission.
In a statement carried by Petra, ministry spokesman, Sufyan Qudah, said, “The extremists’ attack on the two convoys, and the failure of the Israeli authorities to provide protection for them, undermine all the Israeli government’s claims and commitments to allowing aid to enter Gaza.”
