分类： world

This week, Israelis are set to observe Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that marks the capture of East Jerusalem by Israeli military forces in the 1967 Six-Day War. The annual commemoration will kick off at sunset on Thursday, May 14, and conclude at nightfall the following day, May 15 – one day before Palestinians mark the Nakba, the catastrophic displacement and violence that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

The origins of the holiday stretch back to 1968, just one year after the 1967 war, when Israeli lawmakers voted to establish a formal observance of Israel’s seizure of Palestinian-inhabited East Jerusalem. It was formally enshrined as a national holiday in 1998, when then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the legislation into law during his first term in office. Immediately following the 1967 conflict, Israel annexed the occupied areas of Jerusalem, granting permanent residency status to local Palestinian residents. That status allows Palestinians to vote in municipal elections, but bars them from voting for Israel’s national parliament, the Knesset. Today, roughly 350,000 Palestinians call East Jerusalem home, the majority of whom hold no Israeli citizenship and have no national representation in the government that governs their daily lives.

For Israelis, the holiday centers on commemorating soldiers killed in the 1967 battle for Jerusalem, and is framed as a celebration of the reunification of the city under full Israeli control. This year, the Jerusalem Municipality has called on participants to “march with courage and valour, with Israeli flags raised high, and connect themselves with the celebration of Jerusalem’s eternity, and bind Jerusalem forever.”

The centerpiece of the annual observance is the Flag March, which draws tens of thousands of participants, the majority of whom identify with Israel’s ultra-nationalist and far-right factions. Per the Knesset’s official description of the event, the large procession starts in central Jerusalem, moves into the Old City, and concludes at the Western Wall with a collective prayer of thanksgiving. But human rights groups and independent media have repeatedly documented the event as a flashpoint for anti-Palestinian violence, harassment, and provocation.

Far-right Israeli leaders routinely use the march as a platform to broadcast their expansionist and supremacist agenda. Last year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a crowd gathered near the Western Wall that “we are conquering the Land of Israel. We are liberating Gaza. We are settling Gaza. We are defeating the enemy.” Smotrich’s comments, delivered months ahead of a 2025 ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, drew loud applause from attendees. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has overseen a sharp rise in settler incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound since taking office in 2022, used the 2024 march to deliver an overtly provocative message: “Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours. … it is ours.”

Under Ben Gvir’s leadership, Israeli police deployed more than 3,000 officers to secure the 2024 march, clearing a path for participants through the Old City’s Damascus Gate and Muslim Quarter. Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has documented that during the procession, far-right participants regularly hurl racist chants, assault Palestinian residents, and vandalize Palestinian property in the Muslim Quarter, while local businesses are forced to close and residents are confined to their homes to avoid violence. Independent Israeli left-wing outlet Local Call has described the march as “a display of racism and violence under police protection,” noting that once confined to fringe far-right groups, open racist chants have become widespread across participants in recent years, amid Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

B’Tselem has recorded dozens of violent incidents targeting both Palestinian residents and journalists covering the event. In 2023, before the start of the current Gaza war, one reporter told the group that “groups of Jews threw stones, plastic water bottles, and broken flag poles at us,” with at least two correspondents hit by rioters. Another journalist described being struck in the head by a projectile, saying he was too afraid to leave the area before the march concluded out of fear of further attack. Uri Erlich, spokesperson for Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh, which defends cultural heritage rights in the region, noted that a broader shift has occurred in recent years: “It is not the march that has become more extreme, but [Israeli] society.”

This year’s observance comes amid new controversial policy moves from the Israeli government. Multiple reports confirm the government plans to redraw Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries for the first time since the 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem, expanding the city’s borders further into the occupied West Bank’s Palestinian-inhabited territory. Additionally, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported last month that the government has allocated more than 1 million shekels ($344,000) to fund new satellite flag marches led by Israeli settlers in cities across the country outside Jerusalem.

The stated goal of the program is to reinforce “a sense of connection and identification with Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, even among those who do not live in it.” Marches are scheduled in Lod, Ramla, Haifa, Yavne, Ashdod, Beersheba, Herzliya, Petah Tikva, and Raanana, many of which have large Palestinian citizen populations. This is not the first time parallel flag marches have been held outside Jerusalem: in recent years, processions in cities including Lod and Jaffa have already sparked severe intercommunal tension with local Palestinian communities.

This year’s Jerusalem Day, held on the eve of the Nakba commemoration – which marks the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine that left an estimated 13,000 Palestinians dead and 750,000 displaced from their ancestral homes – is expected to reignite longstanding international and regional tensions over the status of Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinian residents in the city.

Nestled on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island in North Maluku, the chronically active Mount Dukono turned deadly on a Friday morning in May, when a sudden volcanic eruption claimed three lives in a group of hikers who had accessed the restricted mountain despite official climbing bans. For Reza Selang, the local Indonesian guide who led the 20-person expedition, the harrowing moments of the blast remain seared into his memory, leaving him grappling with overwhelming grief, guilt, and ongoing legal scrutiny.

Reza, who operates a small tour company in North Maluku, was contracted in 2025 by Singaporean adventure expedition organizer Timothy Heng to guide the mixed group of Singaporean and Indonesian hikers on a multi-mountain trek that included Dukono. The group began their ascent on Thursday afternoon, and Reza told the BBC that there were no visible signs of impending volcanic activity at that point, nor when the party reached the summit early Friday morning. Even a pre-ascent drone sweep of the crater captured no smoke or unusual activity. Reza allowed 14 hikers, including Heng, to approach the crater with a promise of a quick descent, while he and the remaining six hikers waited at a lower elevation.

At 7:40 a.m. local time, just one minute after Reza launched his drone to monitor the group near the crater, the mountain erupted. The first blast only released plumes of smoke, but a far more violent second eruption followed 15 to 20 seconds later, hurling massive volcanic rock fragments and ash across the summit. Panicked, the group scattered and fled down the slope, but Reza spotted Singaporean hiker Shahin Muhrez bin Abdul Hamid injured and stranded near the crater via his drone feed. Reza rushed upward to rescue Shahin, and Heng, who had already escaped, turned back to help.

As the two men dragged the injured hiker down the mountain, with flying rocks falling on all sides, a 2-meter-wide boulder dislodged from the crater and bounced toward them. In a split second, Reza recalled, Heng pushed Shahin behind him and absorbed the full impact of the rock. The boulder crushed both men instantly, killing them on the spot. Shocked frozen for nearly a minute, Reza fled down the mountain to alert emergency authorities.

Indonesian officials launched an immediate search and rescue operation for the two dead Singaporeans and a third missing hiker, Indonesian national Angel Krishela Pradita. Angel’s body was recovered near the summit on Saturday, while the remains of Heng and Shahin were extracted from beneath ash and rock on Sunday. All surviving hikers were evacuated to a nearby local hospital for treatment of minor injuries, and the remaining Singaporean citizens have since returned to their home country.

The tragedy has shone a light on longstanding lax enforcement of volcanic hazard restrictions in Indonesia, a nation positioned along the Pacific Ring of Fire that sees frequent seismic and volcanic activity. Authorities confirmed that Mount Dukono has erupted more than 200 times since late March 2026, and that a full suspension of climbing permits and a ban on entry within 4 kilometers of the crater had been in place since April 17. Officials added that warnings had been posted to social media and displayed on physical banners at all trail entrances to the mountain. The area is now permanently closed to all visitors, and officials have pledged to sanction anyone who violates the entry ban.

Reza maintains that he had no knowledge of the full prohibition, noting that local villagers he regularly hires to assist with guiding expeditions also did not alert him to the new restrictions. He acknowledged that he was aware Dukono was rated at Level 2 on Indonesia’s four-tier volcanic alert system, a classification that marks increased observable activity and restricts access to high-risk zones, but added that other popular Level 2 volcanoes in Indonesia, such as Mount Rinjani, still allow hiking outside restricted crater zones. He told reporters he leads climbs up Dukono almost monthly without incident, a common practice among local tour operators despite the mountain’s active status.

Indonesian police have launched a formal investigation into the incident, focusing on allegations of negligence by tour operators and individual organizers. Reza has already been questioned by investigators, and has turned over his drone footage of the eruption as evidence. Police confirmed two people associated with Reza’s tour company have been questioned as witnesses, but are still examining the role each party played in organizing the unauthorized climb. Officials have stated they will not show leniency to any parties found responsible for negligence that led to the deaths. Reza says he accepts whatever legal consequences result from the investigation, and only hopes the process concludes quickly.

In the days following the eruption, Reza has been open about his crippling guilt and regret over the tragedy. He told the BBC he is haunted by endless ‘what-ifs’ – what if the group had never climbed, what if he had never accepted the expedition contract. ‘I feel very guilty toward the victims and their families,’ he said. ‘I feel like I want to go [to Singapore] and kneel at the victims’ parents’ feet. I want to apologise.’

A 2024 shooting incident that left four members of a Palestinian family dead, including two young children, in the occupied West Bank is on the verge of being closed without accountability, an Israeli news outlet has confirmed. The deadly encounter unfolded in March in Tammun, a northern West Bank town, when undercover Israeli special forces opened fire on the vehicle carrying 37-year-old Ali Bani Odeh, his 35-year-old wife Waad, and their four children. Ali, Waad, and their two youngest sons — 5-year-old Mohammad and 7-year-old Othman — were killed instantly. Two older children, 8-year-old Mustafa and 12-year-old Khaled, survived the attack but suffered severe shrapnel injuries to their faces and heads.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Israeli forces blocked Palestinian medical responders from accessing the scene. After detaining the two wounded surviving children for more than 30 minutes, soldiers finally allowed medics to reach them only on the condition that the ambulance leave the area immediately after extracting the injured boys.

An anonymous security source cited by i24News shared the military’s initial account of the incident: forces claimed they opened fire after spotting the vehicle speeding toward their position, saying officers “sensed imminent danger” and acted in self-defense.

But human rights advocates have immediately pushed back on this narrative, rejecting the military’s claim of a threat. Heba Morayef, regional director for Amnesty International covering the Middle East and North Africa, noted that Israeli military officials have failed to produce any evidence that the Bani Odeh family posed any danger to the soldiers at the time of the shooting. She described the mass killing as a horrific event that fits a wider, deeply troubling pattern of escalating lethal force used by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians, where children and entire families too often bear the deadly cost. Morayef added that witness testimonies raise serious suspicions that the attack amounts to an extrajudicial execution, an unlawful killing outside any legal process.

This pattern of justification is well-documented: the Israeli military almost always releases nearly identical claims of self-defense after its troops kill Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. Independent and human rights observers have long criticized the Israeli military for rarely opening meaningful investigations into deaths of Palestinians at the hands of its troops, and for enabling a widely condemned “shoot-to-kill” policy that allows troops to use lethal force even when unarmed Palestinians pose no immediate threat to soldiers.

According to reporting from the Israeli outlet, while Israeli police launched a formal investigation into the Bani Odeh family killing, the special forces officers who carried out the shooting were never questioned as part of the probe. The investigation concluded in recent days, and the case is now expected to be formally closed by Israel’s Attorney General’s office without any disciplinary or legal action against the involved personnel.

The shooting and impending closure of the case comes amid a sharp spike in Palestinian deaths in the West Bank following the October 7, 2023, attacks. Data from independent monitors shows that Israeli military forces and illegal Israeli settlers have killed at least 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank since that date.

For the town of Tammun, which is home to roughly 15,000 Palestinian residents, deadly Israeli military incursions are a regular occurrence. Forces almost always carry out these raids under the pretext of searching for “wanted individuals,” but the vast majority of people killed in these operations are unarmed civilians and children.

Escalating regional security pressures and crippling backlogs in U.S. weapons deliveries have sparked a sharp shift in arms procurement across the Middle East, with Gulf and other Arab states increasingly turning to Turkish defence manufacturers for drones and air defence systems.

Fresh Israeli military operations across the Gaza Strip have left three Palestinians dead, including two local police officers, marking the latest breach of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement reached in October 2024. In an official announcement released Sunday, Gaza’s General Directorate of Police confirmed that an Israeli air strike targeted the vehicle of senior police official Wissam Abdel Hadi, director of the Khan Younis Police Investigations Department, and Sergeant Fadi Heikal in the al-Amal neighborhood of southern Gaza. The attack also left an unspecified number of additional Palestinians wounded. Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, issued a sharp condemnation of the strike, framing the deliberate targeting of Gaza’s police force as an ongoing campaign of criminal violence and state-sponsored terrorism against the Palestinian people. The movement argued that these attacks are intentionally designed to entrench lawlessness, spread widespread chaos, and block all efforts to rebuild civilian infrastructure and restore normal daily life to the blockaded enclave. Hamas has called on the international community to exert meaningful pressure on Israel to end its ongoing military assaults on Palestinian civilians and security personnel. Sunday’s targeted killing of two police officers is not an isolated incident, but the most recent in a consistent pattern of Israeli attacks on Gaza’s official security forces. The strikes come at a sensitive moment, as regional stakeholders hold ongoing discussions about the potential formation of a new unified police force to maintain order in the blockaded territory. In addition to the police officers, a third Palestinian was killed and multiple other people – including two minor children – were injured in separate attacks across Gaza over the 24-hour reporting period. Anadolu Agency, citing an anonymous medical source, reported that an Israeli drone strike targeted a group of civilian residents gathered in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. A key detail that underscores the ceasefire violation is that both the southern and central Gaza strikes took place outside the existing deployment lines of Israeli ground troops, in an area located beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” – a unilateral military boundary Israeli forces established inside Gaza after the October ceasefire took effect. The Yellow Line is designated as a no-go zone for Palestinians, barring local residents from accessing large swathes of agricultural and residential land across the northern, southern, and eastern edges of the enclave. While the terms of the October truce required Israeli forces to withdraw from territory behind this boundary, Israeli authorities have instead steadily expanded the zone, bringing previously accessible civilian areas under Israeli fire control and resulting in growing numbers of dead and wounded civilians in territory Israel did not control immediately after the ceasefire. In additional incidents reported Monday, Israeli ground forces opened fire on displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering in northern Gaza and Gaza City. Off the coast of Gaza City, Israeli naval forces shelled a group of Palestinian fishermen working in their traditional fishing grounds, wounding an unspecified number of the workers. Local reports confirm that naval personnel also arrested at least six of the fishermen, and their current whereabouts and physical condition remain unknown to family members as of press time. Recent official data from Gaza’s Ministry of Health shows that since the October ceasefire went into effect, at least 854 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military actions across the enclave, with more than 2,540 others suffering injuries. Since the start of Israel’s large-scale military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, the total death toll has surpassed 72,740 Palestinians killed, according to the latest official counts. Thousands more Palestinians remain missing and are presumed dead, trapped under the rubble of destroyed residential and civilian buildings across the strip. This report was compiled by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs.