Top news stories from Israel/Palestine: May 7, 2019

What We’re Reading

U.S. may review ties with countries deemed anti-Israel: envoy,

The United States may review its ties with countries it deems as being anti-Israel after what a U.S. envoy said on Sunday was a shift in policy toward equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

The Deadly Political Paralysis behind the Gaza Flare-up,

In this Q&A, Israel/Palestine Analyst Tareq Baconi links the violence to a continuing failure to ease restrictions on Gaza as agreed in a November ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Gaza’s dominant Palestinian group.

Stories of devastatingly normal suffering in Gaza,

“I got an email from a man asking if we could help him and his family escape Gaza if war broke out. It seems so reasonable, until you realize there is no precedent for evacuating Palestinian civilians in time of war,” writes Tania Hary.

The Israeli Occupation Is a System Meant to Tighten the Screws on Palestinians,

In this column I am asking my readers as well as my editors to remember that the actions of the Israel Defense Forces and its civilian arms – the Civil Administration and the settler militias – which are reported on separately and are ostensibly unconnected, are part of a systematic continuum.

Lift the Siege on Gaza,

In 2005, 14 years ago, Israel carried out the disengagement and evacuated itself, civilians and military, from the Gaza Strip. Israel did disengage, but it left behind 2 million people closed off in the largest prison camp in human history.

Qatar to send $480m to West Bank, Gaza after truce with Israel,

Funds to be sent to Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza for health, education and humanitarian relief, Qatar announces.