War’s impact on Israel’s economy ‘catastrophic’
Shir Hever, an economic researcher and manager of the Alliance for Justice between Israelis and Palestinians, has highlighted Israel’s economic woes from the war.
“Israel has crossed every possible red line,” Hever told Al Jazeera. Not only is Israel “committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”, he said, but in order to do so, it has “sacrificed” its own future.
“The economic crisis is something which I seriously doubt they will ever be able to recover from,” Hever said.
He added that military spending in Israel is only a “drop in the bucket” compared to the broader economic crisis and brain drain. “Israel has become a highly capitalist economy, a very individualistic,” he said, adding that many skilled workers are simply leaving.
Palestinians mark 42nd anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacre
Forty-two years ago today, the Israeli military facilitated the killing of as many as 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the Sabra neighbourhood and Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.
Israeli troops had laid siege to the camp and allowed allied right-wing Christian fighters to enter it and commit atrocities against defenceless people there. The slaughter went on for three days.
Most of the victims were Palestinian.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement said the Sabra and Shatila anniversary is a “stark reminder of Israel’s ongoing violent massacres, displacement of Indigenous Palestinians, and its denial of our refugees’ right of return”.
“Today, as we approach a year since the start of the livestreamed US-Israeli genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, our people, fragmented by colonialism, stands united in resisting the genocide and Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid,” the BDS National Committee said in a statement.
Fatah commemorates 42nd anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacre
Fatah says the Palestinian people will continue their “legitimate, national struggle” against the Israeli occupation until their objective of “liberation” – creating a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital – is met.
The faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority issued a statement marking the 42nd anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when the Israeli army facilitated the killing of thousands of Palestinians in Beirut.
It said Palestinians are still battling “the most brutal and horrific bloody massacres” by Israel, decades later.
The memory of the Sabra and Shatila massacre is “instilled in the collective memory of our people”, Fatah said, adding that “Its perpetrators are still committing the same massacres against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
Fatah called on the international community to hold Israel as well as its allies and supporters accountable for their “ongoing crimes”.
