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Norway to review sovereign wealth fund’s Israel holdings
Norway’s government has ordered the central bank to review its sovereign wealth fund’s investments in Israel to ensure they do not include any companies that contribute to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank or war on Gaza.
The review comes after a report by Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper revealed that the sovereign wealth fund has a stake in an Israeli jet engine group, Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd (BSEL), which provides services to Israel’s armed forces.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store reacted by saying, “We must get clarification on this because reading about it makes me uneasy.”
Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg then said the central bank will carry out a review of all the fund’s Israel holdings.
In June, Norway’s parliament rejected a proposal for the sovereign wealth fund to divest from all companies with activities in occupied Palestinian territory. The same month, however, the country’s largest pension fund divested from firms selling equipment to the Israeli army.
Jewish Britons decry ban on Palestine Action as ‘illegitimate, unethical’
Leading Jewish figures in the UK have signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper denouncing the government’s decision to proscribe the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation.
The delivery of the letter coincides with a protest organised under the slogan Proscribe Genocide, Not Protest. The rally outside Downing Street is expected to draw hundreds of participants, including figures from Britain’s Jewish community.
The letter, signed by about 300 Jewish British citizens, condemns the ban as “illegitimate and unethical” and calls for urgent government action against Israel over its conduct of the war in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip and over escalating violence engulfing the occupied West Bank.
A demonstrator holds a placard outside London’s High Court as judges decide whether the cofounder of Palestine Action may challenge the UK government’s ban on the group
Humanitarian crisis deepens in Gaza amid widespread destruction
The destruction across Gaza is massive.
Israel continues to target residential houses, public facilities, schools, shelters and even tents where Palestinians are currently seeking refuge.
Wherever you go, wherever you walk across the Gaza Strip, all you see is destruction. But it’s not only the continuous air strikes, it’s also Palestinians being killed and shot as they’re trying to seek aid and as they’re trying to collect food from the GHF.
We’re also seeing a lot of malnourishment cases. There are dozens of Palestinians at risk of losing their lives due to the forced starvation and malnutrition. There have been claims that there are humanitarian pause and routes to secure aid. But what we’re seeing on the ground is zero effort or zero impact, where none of the Palestinians are getting this aid.
Palestinians gather to collect water amid shortages, at a distribution point in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, August 5
