German-Israeli activist Iris Hefets was arrested for the first time in Berlin just a few weeks after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last October – for holding a sign which read, “As a Jew and Israeli, stop the genocide in Gaza”.

That time, the police told Hefets, a 56-year-old psychoanalyst who is a member of the anti-Zionist activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, it was down to a blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

She was released shortly afterwards but says: “I didn’t think I would get detained for that – I was naive it turns out,” she says.

She was arrested a second time on November 10 for “inciting racial hatred” when she held the same sign – her charge was recently dropped. Her third arrest was for a sign warning that “Zionism kills”. Again, she was released soon after but, this time, her sign was confiscated.

She believes that, for the latter two arrests at least, the decision to detain her was made on the advice of a new special police task force that is targeting activists in pro-Palestine groups.

Free speech under attack in Germany

Palestinian protesters seem to be bearing the brunt of police crackdowns on protests in Germany – “We Jews are just getting arrested, the Palestinians are being beaten,” Hefets says. One example was the brutal arrest of a hijab-wearing protester at a sit-in in Berlin central station this past weekend, which was captured on video and posted to social media channels.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5G8_BzMw9C

But Hefets believes her group of Jewish activists is also being specifically targeted at demonstrations because of its Jewish identity.

Last week, Jewish Voice’s bank account was frozen ahead of mid-April’s Palastina Kongres (Palestine Congress) – for “regulatory reasons”, according to the state-owned Berliner Sparkasse bank. The group’s account has been frozen before, in 2019, because of its support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“They [Jewish protesters] get in the way of the narrative of Jews being protected by Germans against Muslims – but when you see Jews marching, then you see it’s not needed.”

Hefets’s case was one of the reasons that Germany’s ranking was dropped to “narrowed” in the Civicus Monitor, an annual ranking that measures civic freedoms to protest.

“Germany’s downgrade should be a wake-up call for the country and continent to change course,” said Tara Petrovic, Europe and Central Asia researcher at Civicus Monitor. But there have been many other incidents of heavy-handed policing – or, as critics charge, repression.

Earlier this month, Berlin police raided a 41-year-old woman’s apartment for writing “from the river to the sea” four times on social media. This was reported by police as “usage of anti-constitutional symbols”, the same law that bans displaying the swastika, the symbol of the Nazis.

A ‘very dangerous restriction on expression’

Germany’s capital city, Berlin, which is home to the largest Palestinian community (estimated at 300,000) in Europe, has been a particular flashpoint for clashes between demonstrators and police.

Prosecutors have registered 2,140 possible criminal cases and launched more than 380 investigations between October 7, 2023 and mid-February 2024.

Recent arrests amount to an “almost unprecedented” crackdown on freedom of speech since October 7, according to Berlin-based migration and criminal lawyer Alexander Gorski. He warned that laws which were originally designed to combat hate speech in Germany are now fast approaching a “very dangerous restriction of expression which could set a precedent which severely limits the freedom of expression in this country”.

_{An example of one of the protest signs which has caused protesters to be arrested in Germany. The activist said police told her that the sign’s combination of a Jewish flag in Palestinian colours could be understood as “a call to destroy Israel”.}

(continued in the linked article)


Make Germany great again...

The Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack hit “the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy … in Damascus, killing six people”.

A correspondent from the AFP news agency, who was at the site, said the attack had levelled the building next to the embassy in an upscale neighbourhood of Damascus.

A Lebanese security source tells the Reuters news agency that a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed in an Israeli strike on Damascus.

As we reported earlier, the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital was targeted and reduced to rubble, according to Reuters journalists who were at the scene. The Syrian state news agency, SANA, also confirmed that the building has been destroyed.

When asked to comment on the reported attack, an Israeli military spokesperson told Reuters: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”

Abbas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, says the apparent Israeli attack in Damascus is a “serious escalation” that is different from the indirect tit-for-tat that has taken place between Israel and Iran for years.

Speaking from Tehran, Aslani said the personalities targeted were important, “including a commander considered as a lynchpin for Iran’s presidency in Syria and Lebanon”. He also said the location is crucial because an Iranian consulate is considered to be sovereign Iranian territory.

“The Israelis want to expand the scope of the war in order to bring the US into the story to attract more attention from the Americans. They have not been able to achieve their objectives in the field, and that’s why they want to divert attention,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We will need some more time to calculate Iran’s response. It could come from groups aligned with Iran indirectly, or it can come from Iran directly against Israeli and American interests in the region, or it could be a combination.”

“I think Iran will have no option but to retaliate because no retaliation will welcome further Israeli attacks,” Aslani said.

Iranian FM: Netanyahu has ‘lost his mental balance’ after Damascus attack

Al Jazeera targeted by Israel once again

Israeli parliament passes law paving way for Al Jazeera ban

Netanyahu promises to ‘act immediately’ on Al Jazeera ban

Mansour Abbas, the head of the United Arab List (UAL), argues in the Knesset that it is in Israel’s interests for Al Jazeera to continue broadcasting. Another UAL member, Iman Khatib-Yassin, said the new law further narrows the space for democracy in Israel.

The lawmakers are in a minority in parliament, which is dominated by right-wing and centre-right parties.

Images by Maxar, which provides high-resolution satellite imagery, compare what al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, looked like in June 2022 with what it looks like now in April 2024.

The Palestinian Authority wants the United Nations Security Council to vote this month to make it a full member of the world body, the Palestinian UN envoy has told Reuters.

Riyad Mansour, who has permanent observer status in the UN, said the aim was for the UN Security Council to make a decision at an April 18 ministerial meeting on the Middle East. He said that though a vote had yet to be scheduled, a 2011 Palestinian application for full membership was still pending because the 15-member council never made a formal decision.

An application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council – where the United States can cast a veto – and then at least two-thirds of the 193-member UN General Assembly.

Biden administration set to greenlight $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/01/politics/biden-administration-f15-fighter-jets-israel/index.html

The Biden administration is close to approving the sale of as many as 50 American-made F-15 fighter jets to Israel, in a deal expected to be worth more than $18 billion, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The transaction, which would amount to the largest US foreign military sale to Israel since the country went to war with Hamas on October 7, comes as the administration is also expected to notify Congress soon of a large new sale of precision-guided munitions kits to Israel, the people said.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary confirmed the killing of the aid workers, including Polish, Australian, and UK passport holders. A Palestinian was also killed in the attack, which hit the car the aid workers were travelling in.

The humanitarians, working for World Central Kitchen, were brought to Gaza’s al-Aqsa Hospital.

It is believed they are the first foreign aid workers to be killed in Gaza since the war began.

People ‘amazed and astonished’ that Israeli forces targeted foreigners: AJ correspondent

The Al Jazeera Media Network has released a statement after the Knesset passed a law likely to pave the way for the banning of the news organisation in Israel. Following the passing of the law by parliament, Netanyahu said that he would “act immediately to stop” Al Jazeera’s broadcasts in the country.

Here’s the full statement:

In an escalating move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a frantic campaign against Al Jazeera, accusing it of harming Israel’s security, actively participating in the October 7 attack, and inciting against Israeli soldiers. Al Jazeera Media Network condemns these statements and sees [them] as nothing but dangerous ludicrous lies.

Netanyahu could not find any justifications to offer the world for his ongoing attacks on Al Jazeera and Press Freedom except to present new lies and inflammatory slanders against the Network and the rights of its employees.

Al Jazeera holds the Israeli prime minister responsible for the safety of its staff and Network premises around the world, following his incitement and this false accusation in a disgraceful manner.

The network stresses that this latest measure comes as part of a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera, including the assassination of its correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, the killing of its journalists Samer AbuDaqqa and Hamza AlDahdouh, the bombing of its office in Gaza, the deliberate targeting of a number of Al Jazeera journalists and their family members, and the arrest and intimidation of its correspondents in the field.

Al Jazeera reiterates that such slanderous accusations will not deter us from continuing our bold and professional coverage, and reserves the right to pursue every legal step.

CPJ: Deeply concerned at new Israeli legislation to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel

Video shared by the World Health Organisation shows the devastation at al-Shifa Hospital, the largest health facility in Gaza, after Israel’s two-week siege there.

“All the buildings of al-Shifa medical complex were completely destroyed and burned,” says the hospital’s director, Dr Marwan Abu Saadah. “Al-Shifa medical complex is gone forever.”

Destruction of Al-Shifa Hospital - #Gaza's largest health facility - has ripped the heart out of the health system.

Only 10/36 hospitals remain partially functional.

Left without vital health care, ultimately it's civilians who will pay the price.

We repeat: health must not… pic.twitter.com/UOsjPObeCn

— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) April 2, 2024

Al-Shifa Hospital totally destroyed: WHO

It's the whole neighborhood that is gone


_{Destroyed buildings surround Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital after the Israeli military withdrew from the complex on Monday}


This is unbelievable, IDF acting with impunity

Al-Shifa Hospital siege – Reports of atrocities committed by Israeli forces