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A street in the city of Paterson, New Jersey, with a vibrant communities of Arabs and Muslims, has renamed part of a street Palestine Way, paying tribute to a place that holds a special place in the hearts of residents, around 2,000 of whom came out to celebrate the new street name on Sunday. “Palestine Way is long overdue,” councilman Alaa “Al” Abdelaziz was quoted in the Patterson Times as saying. He added, “We are the hub and the capital in America for Palestinians.” Abdelaziz, who is of Palestinian heritage, sponsored the street naming initiative, which passed unanimously in April. The cit… Continue reading “New Jersey street gets renamed Palestine”

Over 100 celebrities from the US, UK, France and beyond have said they are “deeply disturbed” over Israel’s killing of celebrated Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last week. The 51-year-old veteran Al Jazeera reporter was shot dead by Israeli troops as she covered a security raid in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp on 11 May. Artists including actor Mark Ruffalo, ex-football star and now actor Eric Cantona, author Naomi Klein, actress Miriam Margolyes and author and activist Angela Davis signed an open letter condemning her killing, published on Thursday by Artists for Pales… Continue reading “Celebs ‘disturbed’ at Israel’s killing of Shireen Abu Akleh”

In one week, at least 16 Egyptian troops were killed in attacks attributed to and claimed by the Islamic State. Wilayah Sina, or the ‘Sinai Province’, as is the name that IS gives itself in the Sinai Peninsula, claimed responsibility for an attack on Saturday at a checkpoint just west of Rafah on the border with Palestine. The Saturday before that, the group carried out one of its deadliest attacks in years on Egyptian military personnel when it killed 11 troops in El Qantara, which straddles the border between the governates of Ismailia and North Sinai. The bitter irony in all this is that si… Continue reading “Sisi and the farce of counter-terrorism in Egypt”

A pro-Hamas student bloc celebrated their victory in student elections for one of Palestine’s most prominent universities. The Hamas-linked Wafa group won 28 out of 51 seats on Birzeit University’s student council. The Fatah-linked Yasser Arafat student party have 18 seats. The landslide victory came despite Israeli efforts to intimidate students into boycotting Hamas by sending threatening text messages to families of pupils and arresting Hamas candidates on the eve of the elections. “Soon the day will come in which our people as a whole will have their say,” said Hamas West Bank commander Sa… Continue reading “Hamas-affiliated bloc wins Palestinian student elections”

ِPalestinian detainees held in Israeli jails without charge could launch a collective hunger strike to demand an end to administrative detention orders, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club told The New Arab on Thursday. Indefinite detention without charge, known as administrative detention, is used by Israel to jail hundreds of Palestinians without trial and no date set for their release. Renewal orders can keep them detained indefinitely. Some 600 Palestinian administrative detaineeshave boycotted Israeli court hearings since January, demanding an end to the practice, and could soon launch a coll… Continue reading “Palestinian detainees could launch mass hunger strike”

The Palestinian foreign ministry on Wednesday blasted Israeli authorities’ decision to approve a flag march through occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities on Wednesday said they have given the go-ahead for flag-waving Jewish nationalists to march through the heart of the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City later this month, in a decision that threatens to re-ignite violence in the holy city. Last year, as tensions over Israeli settler and state violence Sheikh Jarrah peaked, the Israeli authorities diverted the parade flag march route away from Damascus Gate and Palesti… Continue reading “Israel’s flag march ‘wiping out Palestine’s identity’”

Shireen Abu Akleh, a famed Palestinian-American journalist, will no longer stand live to report the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An Israeli bullet hit her head and robbed her of life on Wednesday, May 11, in the West Bank city of Jenin. The deadly attack ended her three-decade journalism career. Shireen Abu Akleh’s painful departure has left millions of TV viewers, news followers and sympathisers in anger, sorrow and sadness across the Arab region and the world. In Yemen, a country known for its love for Palestine, the horrible killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, has triggered a wave of furious… Continue reading “How Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing infuriated & saddened Yemen”

“My family displacement has been a poem I’m trying to write, but because of occupation and exile, outside and inside, this poem is escaping and falling off the borders of my page,” Mosab Abu Toha tells The New Arab. Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet from Gaza and his recently published poetry collection, Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear (City Lights Publishers, 2022), leads the reader on a turbulent journey of emotion that intensifies each time it is realised that without living certain experiences, understanding remains limited. “When I think of family displacement, it often rises in t… Continue reading “Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear: Poems on Palestine”

Jordan, Turkey and the UAE could all soon be cooperating with Israel on tackling the climate crisis after Israeli president Isaac Herzog broached the topic in recent meetings with leaders of the three countries. Jordan’s King Abdullah, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and new UAE leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed all agreed in the past few months to move ahead with Herzog’s proposal of regional cooperation on climate change, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported, citing sources from the president’s residence. Jordan, the UAE and Israel agreed last year to cooperate on tackling climate chang… Continue reading “Jordan, Turkey, UAE near Israel climate crisis cooperation”