Angry protests have taken place in Tel Aviv against the planned deportation of four hundred children of immigrant workers. Born in Israel and speaking Hebrew, the youngsters were never given citizenship because their parents are not Israeli or Jewish. Many people are questioning the government's drive to preserve what it calls 'the Jewish character of the state'.

Does the rule of law apply in Israel? Of course it does - the law that says an Arab life is worthless. An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday. The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago. more

One of the regular Bil'in protests - violently attacked by the IDF in typical fashion. Earlier today [Thursday 26 Auugust], Abdallah Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee, was convicted of incitement and organizing illegal marches by an Israeli military court. The conviction concluded an eight months long political show trial, during which he was kept behind bars. Persecuted for his key role in organizing the successful grassroots campaign against the wall and Jewish-only settlement on Bil'in's land, Abdallah was convicted based only on the forced testimonies of minors who were arrested from their beds at the middle of the night. not a single material evidence was presented during the entire trial. We are now waiting for Abdallah's sentence, but he is facing years in jail. Now is the last moment act up on his case, and it is still not too late. Last year, on the night of International Human Right Day, Thursday December 10th, at 2am, Abdallah Ab...

Unfortunately, as we suspected the departure of the Lebanese aid ship Mariam has still not taken place. The Jerusalem Post says Greece and Cyprus have been 'forthcoming' in applying pressure to delay the sailing. Protests are needed in both countries to stop this obstruction of the Lebanese ships' blockade-busting voyage. One of two Lebanese ships due to sail to Gaza in order to break Israel’s naval blockade postponed its departure again on Sunday, amid assessments in Jerusalem that there was now only a “low probability” that it would indeed depart. more

The Gaza Strip's sole power plant resumed generating on Wednesday after the territory's Hamas rulers reached agreement on fuel payments to the rival Palestinian Authority, both sides said. "Fuel was introduced into the electricity plant today, allowing a second turbine to go into operation" and permitting electricity generation to resume, said Suheil Skeik, head of the Gaza power distribution company. more

Hopefully this is not a false start , but organisers in Lebanon have announced that the aid ship Mariam, named after the Virgin Mary (formerly Julia ?), will be leaving for Gaza on Sunday. The ship has to sail via a third country due to the state of war that still exists between Lebanon and Israel, but the Greek Cypriot government, keen to protect its trade with Israel, is refusing permission for the vessel to dock at a Cypriot port. Protests need to be organised quickly in Cyprus to stop the government's collaboration with the Israeli attempts to stop maritime efforts to break the siege. At the press conference in Lebanon the authorities prevented the organisers from speaking to the media from the ship docked at Tripoli harbour. The ship is carrying 75 women activists, cancer medication, books and toys. ...on Thursday, the Cypriot ambassador to Lebanon told The Associated Press that the boat, the Mariam, will be turned back when it reaches Cyprus. "We decided that such a ship...

Algerian aid ship left port today destined for Gaza. Aboard are political and religious leaders. The vessel is carrying educational and medical supplies in addition to food. The ship will unload at the Egyptian port of El-Arish where the supplies will travel by road through the Rafah crossing. Egypt is reported to have agreed to the transshipment.

Many of the personal possessions, such as laptops, supposedly 'confiscated' by Israel after the Mavi Marmara flotilla massacre are now turning out to have been stolen and sold on by IDF commandos. Now there's a surprise. And the first suspect is not just any old soldier but an officer holding the rank of first lieutenant. He sold the laptops on to other IDF officers. Between four and six laptops are believed to have been stolen. An Italian journalist has complained that his credit was used after being confiscated by the IDF onboard the Mavi Marmara. Military Police arrested an Israel Defense Forces officer suspected of stealing laptop computers from activists aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship raided by Israeli commandos in May and selling them to other officers. more

On top of revolting t-shirts celebrating their war crimes, IDF soldiers routinely took photographs of their captives bound and blindfolded as in the pictres posted by one 'soldier' on facebook. A former Israel Defense Forces soldier has raised a storm on the internet after posting photographs of herself posing next to blindfold Palestinian prisoners on Facebook. Photographs uploaded by Eden Abergil from Ashdod and labeled "IDF – the best time of my life" show her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered. "That looks really sexy for you," says a comment posted by one of Abergil's friends on the social networking site, alongside a picture or the soldier smiling in front of two blindfold men. From Haaretz

The Annual Al-Quds Day Demonstration and Rally is confirmed to take place in London on Saturday 4th September 2010. This is a major national event with thousands of people coming from up and down the country in support of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Stand with us, united for the Palestinian cause! End the Siege. End the Oppression. End the Israeli Apartheid. Date: Saturday, 04 September 2010 Time: 2.00pm Place: Assembling at Marble Arch (nearest tube station Marble Arch) and marching to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a rally). Supporting organisations include: AhlulBayt Islamic Mission, Friends of Lebanon, Innovative Minds, Islamic Centre of England, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Islamic Student Association UK, Lebanese Community UK, Muslim Association of Britain, and Palestine Return Centre. Join us to protest for the rights of the oppressed in Palestine! IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Pl...

IDF is making its second incursion into Gaza, following a similar move yesterday. Today Israeli tanks fired shells near Khan Younis destroying a house - apparently the same house targeted yesterday. No casualties have been reported as yet. Mortar fire by Palestinians yesterday in response to the incursion led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers .

Viva Palestina has announced that its land convoy will be leaving on 18 September. If you wish to join the convoy register here . The terrible massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara on 31 May has brought a sea change in international opinion against the inhumane siege on the people of Gaza. Far from deterring people from seeking to bring that siege to an end, the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla is spurring on even more people to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and to end the blockade. Viva Palestina has organised three massive land convoys to Gaza in the last 18 months - all of which have delivered their aid - and participated in the latest flotilla. Over the last few weeks we have been discussing with partner organisations how to coordinate relief efforts by land and sea so as to have the maximum impact. As a result Viva Palestina is launching "Viva Palestina 5 - a global lifeline to Gaza", a gigantic land convoy leaving London on Saturda...

At the most recent protest against Ahava in Covent Garden, London, the zionist counter demonstrators were joined by the fascist, anti-Muslim, street fighting hooligans of the so-called English Defence League. Incredible but true. Thanks to Alex Seymour at palestinevideo for the video. In a victory for the BDS movement four protesters who were charged with trespass for entering an Ahava store have been found not guilty. See the story at the International Solidarity Movement

A committee has been set up to help buy an Irish ship to sail in a second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, it emerged last night. The Irish Ship to Gaza Committee, which comprises a number of Irish anti-war and pro-Palestinian organisations, intends to send a convoy to the region in October... ...The Irish Ship to Gaza Committee includes the Free Gaza Movement (one of the main organisers of the original flotilla), the Irish Anti-War Movement, the Palestinian Rights Institute, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Derry Friends of Palestine, Ireland to Gaza, the Belfast Friends of Palestine and the Trade Union Friends of Palestine. Read more at the Belfast Telegraph

Canon Robin Morrison is a member of the Church in Wales International Strategic Affairs Group. Writing in today's Western Mail, a UK regional newspaper, he attacks Israel's moral hypocrisy, calling for the immediate lifting of the siege. People from Swansea (see video above) took part in the last Viva Palestina aid convoy. A mobile dental clinic donated by funds raised from local people was destroyed in Israel's recent war against the people of Gaza. Israel, with its democratic claims, faces charge of moral hypocrisy Aug 4 2010 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail After David Cameron sparked a diplomatic row by describing Gaza as a “prison camp”, Church in Wales Canon Robin Morrison urges Israel to take heed of the criticism THE Prime Minister, speaking during his recent foreign tour, boldly stated what many people have felt for some time. He accused Israel of turning Gaza into a prison camp and demanded that more provisions be allowed in. The realities of life in Gaza were ...

A Palestinian fighter has been killed and two wounded after the IDF shelled southern Gaza, east of Khan Younis. It's now been confirmed that an IDF officer was shot dead by a Lebanese army sniper . Someone should remind the IDF high command that the days of attacking Lebanon with impunity are over. A Palestinian was killed and two others wounded shortly after midnight in an Israeli artillery shelling on an area east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, medics and witnesses said Wednesday morning. The witnesses said that the Israeli artillery targeted, with three shells, a group of militants east of the village of Abassan, killing one of them and wounding two. more

Israel today killed three Lebanese soldiers and journalist Assaf Abou Rahhal from the Al-Akhbar newspaper, in the first major military clashes since the second Lebanon war four years ago. An Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a Lebanese army armoured personnel carrier in addition to shelling. Lebanon's President Suleiman has said Lebanon will 'stand up to Israel' , while Syria has offered its full backing to the country in the face of the latest Israeli aggression. Hezbollah has warned that the resistance is ready and has its own 'target bank' . [update 15:51 GMT+1] IDF is reporting two commanders seriously injured in ambush by Lebanese army. NYTimes reporting an IDF battalion commander has been killed . Al-Jazzera is running a live blog here

Canadian Boat to GAZA It's time to send a Canadian Boat to Gaza Canadian civil society has a responsibility to fight the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and to expose the Canadian government's unjustified support for Israel. The time has come to send a Canadian boat to challenge the blockade of Gaza, in coordination with similar international efforts. We need to raise $300,000 (cost of boat and crew, not including aid to carry to Gaza) over the course of the coming couple of months. We need to approach Canadian public figures to be on the boat. The blockade of Gaza goes two ways, it restricts bringing materials into Gaza and it does not allow anything to leave Gaza either. This, in addition to starving the population, denies the Palestinians of Gaza the ability to trade with the world, further suffocating them. The Canadian boat, working with the Palestinians in Gaza, will aim to carry exports out of Gaza. Thus asserting their right to export, trade and provide for themselves ...

Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times about the forgotten American, Furkan Dogan, killed on the flotilla - contrasting his lack of visibility in death to what might have been, if he wasn't a Turkish-American but had a surname of say Bradley or indeed Cohen. Glad someone in the mainstream US press has at last had the decency to highlight this blatant anti-Muslim/Turkish bias. TROY, New York — The Dogans were a quiet family little noticed by their neighbors here in upstate New York. Ahmet Dogan had come to the area from Turkey to study accounting at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was a serious student; the Dogans did little entertaining. But when their younger son, Furkan, was born in 1991, the family threw a party and a neighbor recalled a toast “to the first U.S. citizen in the family.” Furkan Dogan would live just two years in Troy, returning to Turkey with his family in 1993. But he was proud of his American passport and dreamt of coming back after completing medical...

Another Hamas commander, this time Alaa al-Danaf, has been targeted by the IDF. An explosion early this morning destroyed his house and injured 40 people, mostly women and children. Rockets were fired towards the Israeli resort at Eliat on the Sinai peninsula. One hit the resort, three landed in the sea and one hit the Jordanian town of Aqaba where unfortunately one person was killed. Three Palestinians have been killed over the past few days in IDF attacks. No one has been injured or killed on the Israeli side.

The Israeli establishment is really losing it. Last week in an interview with the Tablet , Shimon Peres accused the English of being Israel's 'next big problem', accusing the 'English' of being 'deeply pro-Arab and anti-Israel'. Peres obviously missed the Balfour declaration where the British ruling class set in train the road to the foundation of the settler state, or alternatively the Battle of Cable Street in the 30s when Jews and non-Jews united to drive Mosley's anti-semitic Fascist blackshirts out of the east end of London. Or maybe Peres is hung up on the fact that it was the British colonialists that designed the flags, and carved out most of the national boundaries, of today's Arab states, leaving a supposedly 'Arabist' legacy in the foreign office. As usual the Zionists like to conflate hatred directed at Israel with anti-semitism directed at all Jewish people, as one and the same thing, which of course they are not. Peres's com...

Israel killed Hamas commander Saed Al Bitran yesterday in their bombing runs across the Gaza strip. It's claimed the serious injury of a dozen people and the killing of one, was in retaliation for a rocket that landed harmlessly in Ashkelon about 10 miles from Gaza. So the IDF says their air strike was justified retaliation. Israel carried out a further strike , on the tunnels in the south this Sunday morning and one injury has been reported so far. But countless Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the end of the recent war and not a single Israeli. In other words the Palestinians have plenty of reasons for retaliation while the Israelis have none. This was Israel's first air strike on the centre of Gaza City in 18 months and marks an escalation, as the death of the Hamas commander will certainly be avenged. Perhaps Israel wants a little war to forestall the arrival of the flotilla and aid convoys in September? A salafist group has now claimed responsibility for the...