Israeli

A recent New York Times article highlighted the sexual violence suffered by Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces. But the allegations have been documented for years by human rights groups and Palestinian organisations. So why does the world only seem to pay attention when a Western news organisation does?

This week on UpFront, Redi Tlhabi speaks with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese about sexual violence, Israeli impunity – and the double standards of Western attention.

An armed Israeli settler blindfolded and detained a Palestinian man near the village of Beit Iksa in the occupied West Bank, dragging him onto a road as Israeli forces stood nearby. The Palestinian farmer was reportedly trying to reach his land before he was captured.

A group of Israeli settlers attacked Israeli rights activists as they were conducting a tour near illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli security forces arrested the activists.

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reports from southern Lebanon, where displaced residents say they will not leave again despite a sharp rise in deaths and intensifying Israeli strikes.

Strikes come after forced displacement warnings by Israel for nine towns in southern and eastern Lebanon.

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon have killed at least four people and wounded eight others, according to Lebanese media.

The state National News Agency (NNA) reported injuries to two medics as they rushed to offer aid to victims of the latest attacks by the Israeli military in violation of the official ceasefire.

The medics were wounded when an air strike hit a civil defence team affiliated with the Islamic Health Society in Toul in Nabatieh, as they responded to an earlier attack, NNA said.

Two men were killed and five others injured in an air raid on the town of Ebba in Nabatieh.

NNA added that a drone strike on a car in the town of Haris in Bint Jbeil district killed one man and injured his brother.

Israeli warplanes targeted the home of a former municipal chief in Sajd, while other strikes were reported in Kfar Rumman and Safad al-Battikh. No casualty information was immediately available.

Forced displacement threat

Ahead of the attacks, the Israeli army issued a forced displacement threat for nine towns in southern and eastern Lebanon.

They are: Rihan, Jarjou, Kfar Rumman, Nmairiyeh, Arabsalim and Harouf in Nabatieh, and Jmayjmeh, Mashghara and Qlayaa in eastern Lebanon.

Posting on X, army spokesman Avichay Adraee urged residents there to evacuate due to what he called Hezbollah infrastructure in the towns.

The Israeli military said a soldier was killed by a drone launched by Hezbollah near the border. Also in southern Lebanon, three Israeli soldiers were injured by a booby-trap drone explosion.

Israeli forces continue to exchange fire with Hezbollah and carry out attacks, despite the ceasefire which began on April 17 and later extended to mid-May.

Since March 2, Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,840 people in Lebanon, injured almost 8,700 and displaced more than a million, according to Lebanese figures.

The United States is preparing to host more peace talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington on Thursday and Friday. Hezbollah has criticised the Lebanese government for taking part.

The same tiny tungsten cubes that spray out of Israeli bombs, causing devastating internal injuries to people in Gaza are being found in wounded civilians in Lebanon, war surgeon Dr Tahir Mohammed says. He draws parallels between what Israel is doing in both places and describes the weapons as “indiscriminate”.

May 9 (UPI) — Two activists being held in Israel after the country intercepted its Gaza-bound aid flotilla are scheduled to be released Saturday, an aid organization said.

Human rights organization Adalah said that Brazilian Thiago Ávila and Spanish-Swedish citizen Saif Abukeshek were set to be released on Saturday.

The organization said on Instagram it had been told “that the two Global Sumud Flotilla leaders will be transferred to immigration authorities later today, pending deportation back to their home countries.

“Adalah is closely monitoring to ensure their release. Adalah and FIDH stress that Ávila and Abukeshek were abducted by the Israeli navy from international waters near Greece, held in total isolation under punitive conditions, and subjected to ill-treatment and torture, despite their mission being entirely civilian.

“Both have been on hunger strike since their detention began. Abukeshek escalated to refusing water on the evening of May 5. Their detention was unlawful from the start,” Adalah said.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, signed by 18 other representatives, demanding that they be released.

“We are outraged that instead of speaking out and taking action to ensure the safety and immediate release of the at least 14 U.S. citizens illegally abducted by the Israeli military, the Department of State went out of its way to issue a formal condemnation of their humanitarian efforts,” it said.

The activists arrived via the Global Sumud Flotilla, which originated in Spain on April 12 bound for Gaza. It was intercepted by the Israelis in the Mediterranean Sea.

The flotilla alleged Israeli forces held people at gunpoint, smashed engines and destroyed navigation equipment on its ships.

“Intentionally leaving hundreds of civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm. Furthermore, communications with multiple vessels have been jammed, severing their ability to coordinate or signal for help,” the group said.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition announced that Ávila’s mother, Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, died while he was detained by Israel.

“[Avila’s and Abukeshek’s] continued imprisonment is not only arbitrary and illegal, but also an act of profound cruelty that has denied Thiago the most basic human right: to say farewell to his mother,” the Coalition said in a statement.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Al-Shati Refugee Camp, where families search through the rubble after overnight Israeli airstrikes despite a ceasefire. Residents described the attacks as a breach of the truce, saying they lost shelter, belongings and the only places they had left to stay.

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed various areas of the West Bank, set cars on fire and attacked Palestinians.

Israeli settlers have launched another wave of raids in the occupied West Bank, with houses and cars set on fire and a Palestinian child attacked.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that a man and his child were attacked with “sharp instruments” in the village of Khirbet Shuweika, south of Hebron, on Friday.

The father and child were taken to hospital due to head injuries.

Israeli settlers torched a home in the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya, south of Nablus, after which members of the Palestinian Civil Defence arrived to extinguish the blaze.

In Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, Wafa cited security sources that the settlers “stormed the outskirts of the village, burned a citizen’s vehicle, and wrote racist slogans on the walls of houses”.

In the village of al-Asa’asa in Jenin, Israeli forces forced residents to exhume a newly buried body and take it elsewhere. They claimed the first site was too close to an illegal Israeli settlement.

Israeli settlers also attacked a Palestinian man in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, and stole his mobile phone.

A group of Palestinians were picnicking in the Burak Sulayman (Solomon’s Pools) area, south of Bethlehem, but were forced to leave after Israeli forces fired stun grenades at them.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society treated two people for tear gas inhalation and evacuated five others from the scene after the attack.

‘Tear gas and sound bombs’

In the town of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, the mayor, Taysir Abu Mufreh, told Wafa that Israeli forces fired “tear gas and sound bombs” at a group of worshippers who were leaving a local mosque and locked a number of them inside.

On Friday, Israeli forces arrested four Palestinian men in the town of Battir, west of Bethlehem, while they were hiking near a railway line. The following day, three more Palestinians were arrested during a raid on the city of Nablus.

Settlers attacked the town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, leading to clashes when residents confronted them.

Human rights groups say Israeli authorities have allowed the settlers to operate with total impunity in their attacks against Palestinians.

In February, Israel approved a plan to claim large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property”.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has increased its attacks across southern Lebanon. Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reports from Tyre as Israel strikes surrounding towns.