TV News LIES

Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist who participated in protests at Columbia University and was detained by Ice earlier this year, has filed a lawsuit demanding the Trump administration release its communications with anti-Palestinian groups he says contributed to his March arrest and efforts to detain him.

The groups, a number of which have boasted about their involvement in sharing dossiers on Palestine activists with the administration, have claimed credit for Khalil’s arrest, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the legal team representing Khalil, and they say there is evidence that indicates the Trump administration “acted on information and misinformation – provided by these groups in cracking down” on Khalil and other pro-Palestine activists.

“For months, shady organizations and individuals carried out a smear and harassment campaign designed to intimidate and silence me,” said Khalil in a statement to the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“The public deserves full accountability for every bad actor who helped make that possible, including those at Columbia who fabricated and amplified these smears and opened the door for state retaliation against Palestinian speech.”

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OHCHR condemned this week’s attacks as abhorrent and said they reflected a wider pattern of increased violence against Palestinians.

Several people were reportedly injured in the attacks, which included a raid on a dairy factory, while delivery trucks and homes were set ablaze. 

The surge in violence comes as Israeli authorities have also ramped up home demolitions in addition to property seizures and the forcible displacement and transfer of thousands of Palestinians by Israeli settlers and the military, OHCHR continued, in a briefing for journalists at the UN in Geneva.

Officials reiterated that Israel’s assertion of sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and its annexation of parts of it, are in breach of international law which has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Meanwhile in Gaza, hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were flooded due to heavy rain on Friday.

“We fear that thousands of displaced families will be left fully exposed to these harsh weather conditions” amid wider health and protection concerns, said the UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric at a later briefing in New York. 

UN partners are working to provide shelter support via rapid response teams.

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Two Israeli soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian detainee were met with cheers as they arrived at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on Monday.

Supporters in the courtroom shouted “We are all Unit 100,” referring to the military unit to which the suspects belong, according to Israel’s Channel 14.

Footage shared on social media showed the two men, their faces concealed by hats, sunglasses and masks, embracing each other as some in the room applauded.

The hearing concerned a dispute over who would lead the investigation into the leak of a video showing their assault on a Palestinian detainee last year.

The case follows last month’s revelations implicating the army’s former chief legal adviser, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, in the leak of the footage to Channel 12 - a scandal that caused uproar in Israel.

Right-wing politicians, journalists and activists accused Tomer-Yerushalmi of persecuting Israeli soldiers and damaging Israel’s image internationally. She resigned shortly after the revelations and was subsequently arrested by Israeli police.

A rift has since emerged between Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara over who should head the probe into the leak. Levin has sought to appoint his own legal adviser, while Baharav-Miara insists the case should remain under the state prosecution’s authority.

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Israel's president on Wednesday condemned what he called a “shocking and serious” attack by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, calling for an end to a growing wave of settler violence in the occupied territory.

President Isaac Herzog's comments added a powerful voice to what has been muted criticism by top Israeli officials of the settler violence. Herzog's position, while largely ceremonial, is meant to serve as a moral compass and unifying force for the country.

Herzog said the violence committed by a “handful” of perpetrators “crosses a red line," adding in a social media post that “all state authorities must act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon and to strengthen the IDF fighters and security forces who protect us day and night."

His remarks came after dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf in the West Bank on Tuesday, setting fire to vehicles and other property before clashing with Israeli soldiers.

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Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked a pair of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, setting fire to vehicles and other property before clashing with Israeli soldiers sent to halt the rampage, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

It was the latest in a series of attacks by young settlers in the West Bank.

Israelipolice said four Israelis were arrested in what it described as “extremist violence,” while the Israeli military said four Palestinians were wounded. Police and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said they were investigating.

Videos on social media showed two charred trucks engulfed in flames, with a nearby building on fire. Settler violence has surged since the war in Gaza erupted two years ago. The attacks have intensified in recent weeks as Palestinians harvest their olive trees in an annual ritual.

Earlier on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis attended the funeral of an Israeli soldier whose remains had been held in Gaza for 11 years, overflowing and blocking surrounding streets as somber crowds stood with Israeli flags....

...The U.N. humanitarian office last week reported more Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in October than in any other month since it began keeping track in 2006. There were over 260 attacks, the office said.

Palestinians and human rights workers accuse the Israeli army and police of failing to halt attacks by settlers. Israel’s government is dominated by West Bank settlers, and the police force is overseen by Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hardline settler leader.

In Tuesday’s incident, the army said soldiers initially responded to settler attacks in the villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf. It said the settlers fled to a nearby industrial zone and attacked soldiers sent to the scene and damaged a military vehicle.

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A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent briefly held at gunpoint a woman whom he claimed was following him, prompting a southern California police officer to intervene, authorities said.

The police department in Fullerton, a city in Orange county almost 30 miles (48km) from Los Angeles, said that on Sunday one of its officers had just finished taking an incarcerated person to a county jail when he saw two vehicles stopped in an intersection in Santa Ana.

The officer stopped when he saw a man exit one of the vehicles and point a firearm at the other driver, the agency said in a statement. He did not initially know the identity of the armed man, who was dressed in plain clothes and soon provided credentials showing he was an ICE agent.

Video of the incident surfaced online appearing to show the police officer “assisting” the ICE agent, and the department sought to clarify its role in a press release. In footage of the incident, a man in sunglasses and a green shirt can be seen standing in the middle of an intersection, pointing a gun at a driver when an officer pulls up.

“What are you doing?” the woman being held at gunpoint asked in the video. “Are you for real right now? And now these cops are helping them … I’m just driving.”

The agent said the woman had been following and filming him, the department said, and the officer informed him he could not assist if no crime had been committed. The woman soon left, followed by the officer, according to the statement.

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