On February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself Aaron Bushnell, announcing an act of protest against the genocide of Palestinians.

Joe Biden preaches gender equity, while enabling a massive assault on women's health.

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

• Refaat Alareer

Wadi al-Haramiya (Arabic: وادي الحرامية, lit. 'Valley of Thieves') is a valley between Ramallah and Nablus on the West Bank.[1]

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was maintaining a checkpoint at Uyoun al-Haramiya (the Wells of Haramiya), near the Israeli settlement Ofra, manned by a reserve company.

Before dawn on the morning of March 3, 2002, the sniper positioned himself under some olive trees on a hilltop overlooking the checkpoint. At 6:40 he opened fire at the three soldiers manning the checkpoint and the driver of a civilian car, which had stopped at the checkpoint. All four were killed within minutes. Nine Israeli soldiers were inside a barracks building. Platoon commander Lieutenant David Damelin and the unit's medic Yochai Porat emerged from the building to locate the shooter and assist the casualties. Both were shot dead. The remaining soldiers decided to stay inside the building and called for reinforcements.[2]

A patrol jeep that arrived with reinforcements immediately came under fire. The reserve company's sergeant, Avraham Ezra, was killed and several of his men were injured. The rest of the casualties occurred when randomly arriving civilian cars stopped at the checkpoint. Three Israeli civilians and an IDF officer were killed.[2] Tha'ir Hammad claimed in an interview (obtained by unknown means from prison) that the Israelis were armed and that one of them took aim at him but that he shot first. He also claimed that he refrained from harming an Israeli woman and her children, shouting at her in Hebrew and Arabic to leave the area.[3]

Two of the Israeli civilians killed, Sergei Birmov, 33, and Vadim Balagula, 32, were killed when they stopped their car at the checkpoint, as they made their way to work at a candy factory in Jerusalem.[4]

The Israelis never succeeded in locating the sniper's hiding place even after dispatching a helicopter. He had intended to continue shooting but when he fired his 25th bullet the old rifle exploded, rendering it useless. He was thus forced to give up and return to his village. Seven soldiers, two of them officers, and three civilians were killed in the 25-minute attack. Another six Israelis were wounded, four of them seriously.[5]

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti praised the attack. "Blessed be the fighting hands of the heroes, who dealt these blows to the army of occupation," he said.[5]

The Israeli authorities assumed that the shooter was a highly trained marksman from an elite unit, such as Force 17.[2][6] The average Palestinian militant could not be expected to hit 16 targets with 25 bullets. Mossad also contacted European and American security agencies to help identify the killer. Mossad suspected that a member of the Irish Republican Army could be responsible for the act.[7] The sniper became a hero among local residents.

Haaretz veteran military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff called the incident "[o]ne of most stinging and bizarre fiascoes" of the IDF in the Second Intifada: "the entire incident can only be described as a massive blunder and a disgrace for the IDF. No excuse can be accepted. This sort of incident cannot be blamed on the lower ranks."[8] A series of investigations were carried out with the apparent purpose of exonerating the senior officers and putting the full blame on the soldiers at the checkpoint. The scandal led to a major overhaul of rules for IDF probes.[9]

The reasons for rejection are often “very vague, and they are conveyed informally. Sometimes they were very unreasonable,” said Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon.

The two senators said they saw a warehouse in Rafah filled with material that had been rejected in inspection. It included oxygen cylinders, gas-powered generators, tents and medical kits used in delivering babies.

Aid workers told the senators the tents were refused because they included metal poles, and the medical kits because they included scalpels. Most solar-powered equipment appears to be barred — though it is vital in Gaza, where central electricity has collapsed and fuel for generators is in short supply.

The proposal, which reportedly has support from senior officials in both parties, calls on the US to condition foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Turkey on those countries accepting a certain number of refugees.

By Ariel Kahana Published on 11-29-2023 18:10 Last modified: 12-02-2023 10:18
WATCH: Dramatic footage showing IDF forces, Gazans cooperate to take special care of stranded Gaza woman
Israeli soldiers bring a wood wagon to help an elderly Gazan woman, November 2023 | Photo: No credit

A new initiative submitted to the US Congress calls for conditioning American aid to Arab countries on their willingness to receive refugees from Gaza, Israel Hayom has learned.

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The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate from both parties. Some who were privy to the details of the text have so far kept a low profile, saying that publicly coming out in favor of the program could derail it.

"Israel is trying to keep civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as low as possible, but Hamas is not allowing the refugees to leave and Egypt is unwilling to open its borders," the plan's authors write in the opening paragraph. They later go on to explain that "the only moral solution is to ensure that Egypt opens its borders and allows for the refugees to flee from the tyrant control of Hamas. The US Government provides Egypt with approximately $1.3 billion in foreign aid, and these funds can be allocated to the refugees from Gaza who will be allowed into Egypt."

The proposed refugee figures that would accepted by Arab countries under the plan
They continue: "The neighboring borders have been closed for too long, but it is now clear that in order to free the Gazan population from the tyrannical oppression of Hamas and to allow them to live free of war and bloodshed, Israel must encourage the international community to find the correct, moral and humane avenues for the relocation of the Gazan population."

Video: Israeli hostages being handed over by Hamas on November 28, 2023 / Credit: Social media

The plan notes that Egypt should not shoulder the entire burden, but other regional countries should chip in. "Iraq and Yemen receive an approximate $1 billion in US foreign aid, and Turkey receives more than $150 million. Each of these countries receive enough foreign aid and have a large enough population to be able to accept refugees adding up to less than 1% of their population," the stress.

The plan also calls on the US to condition foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Turkey on those countries accepting a certain number of refugees.

The plan even goes so far as to envision how many Gazan residents each of these countries will receive: one million in Egypt (constituting 0.9% of the population there), half a million for Turkey (0.6% of the population in Turkey), 250,000 for Iraq (0.6% of the Iraqi population), and another 250,000 for Yemen (0.75% of the overall population there currently). Each of these countries receives generous financial aid from the US and under the plan, it should continue to be handed out only under the condition that they accept Gazans. It should be noted that the Biden administration opposes the forced removal of Gaza residents from the Strip but has not ruled out voluntary migration for those who choose to do so.

"This would not be the first time other countries accepted refugees," the text says. "According to the UNHCR database, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, over 6 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Poland has accepted nearly 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, Germany received almost 1 million and the Czech Republic close to half a million." It continues: "Likewise, since 2011 and the ongoing Syrian civil war, 6.7 million Syrians have fled Syria to be dispersed throughout the surrounding countries. 3.2 million Syrian refugees relocated to Turkey, 789,000 found refuge in Lebanon, 653,000 in Jordan, and 150,000 in Egypt while other Middle Eastern and European countries have accepted hundreds of thousands."

The document's authors note that UNRWA is a problematic factor perpetuating the conflict, unlike the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which resettles refugees worldwide." UNRWA is renewed by a UN mandate every 3 years and receives funding predominantly from the United States, Canada, Britain, and the European Union, all of whom are strong supporters of Israel." They blame the agency for "propagating the refugee narrative" and "inhibiting the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees for over seventy years and has in fact deepened the refugee crisis." Therefore, they claim, "it must be shut down."