Writing on the Wall: Resistance Art in Palestine

yalejournal.org

By Sheridan Gunderson

It has many names. In Hebrew: “separation wall.” In Arabic: “wall of Apartheid.” In the media: “West Bank barrier,” “security fence,” “Apartheid wall,” or simply, “The Wall.” Whatever you call it, upon completion, it will encircle the West Bank stretching 708 kilometers (440 miles).[1]

Grey concrete slabs eight meters high and three meters thick snake around the landscape, annexing Palestinians from their farmland, communities, and places of work. About 80 percent of Palestinians separated from their land by the wall have not received permits from Israeli authorities to cultivate their fields.[2]

Mario
Check Point Donkey

In 2007, the section of the wall in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem attracted the attention of the England-based street artist and political activist known as “Banksy.” He and other graffiti artists transplanted an annual, London-based pop-up art display known as “Santa’s Ghetto” to Bethlehem where Banksy painted four stencils on the wall. Some of the art born out of this project can still be seen today. While other pieces have been painted over, the site remains what could be the world’s largest fluid art installation. Over the course of just a few months in 2021, new art constantly appeared.

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Microsoft terminates services for Israeli military after investigation into mass surveillance of Palestinians

CNN

Displaced Palestinians move with their belongings southwards on a road in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the central Gaza Strip.

Displaced Palestinians move with their belongings southwards on a road in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the central Gaza Strip. Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

Microsoft has terminated a set of services for the Israeli military after an investigation suggested Israel was using the company’s cloud computing technology for mass surveillance of Palestinians.

In a statement posted the company’s blog, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel Ministry of Defense.” The move comes after an investigation by The Guardian and Israel’s +972 Magazine in early-August reported that Israel’s military intelligence unit, known as 8200, relied on Microsoft Azure to store millions of phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Microsoft announced on August 15 that it had begun a review of the allegations. Smith said Microsoft does not provide technology “to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” a principle it has applied “in every country around the world.” The review, Smith said, focused on business records, financial statements, internal documents and other records without accessing the content of the stored material.

During the investigation, the company says it found evidence that supports elements of the investigation from the news outlets, including Israel’s “consumption of Azure storage capacity in the Netherlands and the use of AI services.” Microsoft informed Israel of the decision “to cease and disable specific [Israel Defense Ministry] subscriptions and their services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies.”

An Israeli security official said, “There is no damage to the operational capabilities of the IDF.”

Microsoft said the review was still ongoing.

Is it too late for Gaza’s Children

Thomson Reuter Foundation
By Sadiya Ansari | Contributor
This newsletter contains images that may be disturbing.
Harrowing images of malnourished children in Gaza have intensified international pressure on Israel to increase humanitarian aid to the enclave.This week, Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza said that 93 children were among the 180 people who have already died from hunger-related causes. These deaths come on top of more than 60,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, the health authorities in Gaza say have been killed since Israel launched its military offensive in the strip in October 2023.

Almost 470,000 people in Gaza are enduring famine-like conditions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition treatments. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation as “mass starvation” that was “man-made”, laying the blame squarely at the Israeli blockade.While Israel has denied a policy of starvation, it controls most aspects of how food reaches and is distributed in Gaza. This includes access into Gaza, transport logistics and who is permitted to distribute aid. Today we’ll unpack the policy on aid entering the territory. A Palestinian mother sits next to her malnourished son, at a school where they shelter amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 24, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud IssaA Palestinian mother sits next to her malnourished son, at a school where they shelter amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 24, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
The policy
Israel controls access into Gaza, including for humanitarian organisations, as a result of a blockade by land, air and sea<a

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The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza

theguardian.com

Israel controls the flow of food into Gaza. It has calculated how many calories Palestinians need to stay alive. Its data shows only a fraction has been allowed in

Emma Graham-Harrison Chief Middle East correspondentThu 31 Jul 2025 15.49 BSTShare

The mathematics of famine are simple in Gaza. Palestinians cannot leave, war has ended farming and Israel has banned fishing, so practically every calorie its population eats must be brought in from outside.

Israel knows how much food is needed. It has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades, initially calculating shipments to exert pressure while avoiding starvation.

Palestinians crowd at a lentil soup distribution point in Gaza City, among them children and women holding pot and pans

“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” a senior adviser to the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in 2006. An Israeli court ordered the release of documents showing the details of those macabre sums two years later.

Cogat, the Israeli agency that still controls aid shipments to Gaza, calculated then that Palestinians needed an average minimum 2,279 calories per person per day, which could be provided through 1.836kg of food.

Today, humanitarian organisations are asking for an even smaller minimum ration: 62,000 metric tonnes of dry and canned food to meet basic needs for 2.1 million people each month, or around 1kg of food per person per day.

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Israel has abducted and jailed 1,000,000 Palestinians since 1967 — US group’s report.

TRT.global

Israel has abducted and jailed 1,000,000 Palestinians since 1967 — US group’s reportTel Aviv has jailed Palestinians at an average of 47 per day, says a new study, adding US “bankrolled this oppression” against Palestinians for nearly 700 months.

On February 24, Israeli occupation troops abducted Fidaa Assaf from the village of Kafr Laqif in Palestine’s Qalqilya governorate. She was returning from Ramallah Medical Complex after undergoing medical examinations.

Palestinian officials later revealed that the female prisoner, who is married and a mother, was subjected to multiple strip searches and verbal abuse.

They also noted that she was detained in a cell described as unhygienic and infested with insects, and was deprived of water and food for several days.

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From Gaza to Vietnam, what is the value of a photo?

Two maimed children, two iconic images – and no end to barbarity in sight.

Mahmoud Ajjour, nine (left), who was injured during an Israeli attack on Gaza City in March 2024, finds refuge and medical help in Doha, Qatar, on June 28, 2024 [Samar Abu Elouf, for The New York Times] Kim Phuc, nine (right) is seen running down Route 1 near Trang Bang after a South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on its own troops and civilians, on June 8, 1972. The terrified girl ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing [Nick Ut/AP]

This month, Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year award for her image titled Mahmoud Ajjour, Aged Nine, taken last year for The New York Times.

Ajjour had both of his arms blown off by an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing genocide has now killed at least 52,365 Palestinians since October 2023. In the award-winning photograph, the boy’s head and armless torso are cast in partial shadow, his gaze nevertheless intense in its emptiness.

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Gaza’s stolen childhood – Who were the thousands of children Israel killed?

Aljazeera.com

INTERACTIVE - Gaza children killed Israel outside 16by9-1742978742
(Al Jazeera)

By Mohamed A. Hussein and Mohammed Haddad Published On 26 Mar 202526 Mar 2025

Israel kills a child in Gaza every 45 minutes.

That is an average of 30 children killed every day over the past 535 days. ​

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children, including 15,600 who have been identified. Many more remain buried under the rubble, most presumed dead.

Many of the surviving children have endured the trauma of multiple wars, and all of them have spent their lives under the oppressive shadow of an Israeli blockade, affecting every aspect of their existence from birth.

What is left of Gaza’s children?

About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are children.

Over the past 17 months, Israeli attacks have left their homes in ruins, destroyed their schools, and overwhelmed their healthcare facilities.

To put this in perspective, if you had a room of 100 children:

  • 2 have been killed
  • 2 are missing, presumed dead
  • 3 have been wounded, many critically
  • 5 have been orphaned or separated from their parents
  • 5 require treatment for acute malnutrition

The rest of the children bear the invisible scars of war, trauma that affects their mental health, safety and future.

INTERACTIVE - Gaza children killed Israel what is left-1742978814
(Al Jazeera)

Who were these children Israel killed?

They were the sons and daughters of Gaza, each with a life that should have been filled with innocence and the joy of childhood.

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Gaza Doctor Corrects CNN Anchor: ‘This Is Not a Humanitarian Crisis… This Is Genocide’

commondreams.org

“History books will be written on this and countries will have to reckon—media agencies will have to reckon—with their major role in the genocide,” said Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan.

Brett Wilkins

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan appears on CNN

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan (left) pushes back on CNN anchor Kate Bolduan’s (center) description of the Gaza genocide as a “humanitarian crisis” during an October 7, 2024 interview. 

(Photo: CNN screen grab)

Oct 11, 2024

Human rights advocates on Friday highlighted a rare instance in which a U.S. corporate media outlet allowed a pro-Palestinian voice to set the record straight about Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Earlier this week, CNN “News Central” aired a panel segment on the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory war. Anchor Kate Bolduan noted that around 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attack—although she did not say that at least some of them were slain by Israeli forces in “friendly fire” incidents and under the Hannibal Directive—and that 250 others were kidnapped.

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