Unfortunately, the treatment of Palestinians
by Israeli forces continues to be brutal and violent.
And that was certainly clear this week as Palestinians were
celebrating a Muslim holiday in East Jerusalem.
Now one recent incident involved Israeli defense forces assaulting
a Palestinian and a Palestinian at this Muslim festival in East Jerusalem.
The video that we're about to show you was taken by a local journalist named
Baron Abu Ramus.
I wanted to give him credit before we toss to that.
It's a difficult video to watch, but it shows what we're talking about here in
regard to the woman who was being assaulted by Israeli forces.
Look, it's unclear what transpired right before that video was taken.
None of the reports were clear about that.
There were some reports of Palestinians throwing rocks.
But we're talking about people with rocks versus individuals with pretty
significant weaponry.
And there were a lot of people there celebrating this holiday,
as many as 90,000 Palestinians traveled to East Jerusalem from all across Israel and
the West Bank to observe his event that falls one month before the start of
Ramadhan.
So that's what they were celebrating.
Also look, I'm not making excuses for anyone who's throwing rocks or
being violent in any way.
But instead of lashing out at like crowds that involve children and
innocent people trying to celebrate this religious event.
Why don't you pull aside the individuals that are causing problems and
deal with them.
But that is not how they handled the situation as you're about to find.
One of the individuals who was injured during all of this was this 11 year old
girl who was hit with a sound grenade.
In fact, it hit her face.
Manoir Berken, an 11 year old death girl from East Jerusalem was heading
to pray with her family at the Al Aqsa mosque on Monday afternoon when a sound
grenade fired by a police officer smashed into her face, sending her to a hospital.
So that's the imagery of her both before the attack.
And then there she is in a hospital bed recovering.
The Justice Ministry's Police Internal investigations Department which
handles allegations of police misconduct,
announced that it would launch a preliminary probe into the matter.
And again, this festival was attended by nearly 90,000 Palestinians.
And so 31 of them unfortunately were injured as a result of
some of the scuffles that happened with the Israeli forces.
And it's just incredibly depressing to keep seeing this happen over and
over again.
And of course it's East Jerusalem which is an occupied area of of Israel.
The territory is supposed to belong to the Palestinians, but and and by the way,
that's not based on what I think that's based on what the international
community says.
There were also some attacks toward Palestinian school children.
They were around 150 to 200 students going to school and they were
passing through a checkpoint known as checkpoint 160 as they do every day.
As always, the Israeli soldiers were harassing the students and
the people passing through the checkpoint to go to work verbally harassing them,
pushing them around and arbitrarily stopping them at the checkpoint.
After passing through the checkpoint, Moroca said,
that's one of the people who spoke to the press said some students threw stones
at the armed soldiers in response to the provocations.
And as we know, if you're gonna respond to the provocations at all,
it's not gonna end well for you in Israel.
Israeli forces stationed in the area then started firing sound grenades and
tear gas directly into the grounds of three schools in the area
located just a few dozen meters from the checkpoint.
So when we talk about aggression, Russian aggression towards Ukrainians,
I think correctly, people are outraged by it.
People want individuals to live free, they want sovereign countries and
sovereign territories to be respected.
But this is the one story where you don't really get a consensus, especially
in the United States, especially among US officials and US politicians.
And not far from where the students were being harassed Israeli
soldiers also violently dispersed protests.
They were expressing support for
Palestinians who have been thrown in Israeli prisons, but you can't have that.
How dare you speak out against the treatment of these Palestinians.
Palestinian prisoners announced a mass hunger strike across all Israeli
prisons in protest of what they are calling Israeli policies of collective
punishment in recent months.
Palestinians and cities across the occupied West Bank stage protests in
solidarity, calling on the international community to pressure Israel
to end its mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners.
But look, there is a little bit of good news.
So the Israeli Supreme Court has weighed in on the evictions that
were taking place among Palestinians by Israelis.
This is in East Jerusalem, of course,
we've talked a little bit about Sheikh Jarrah.
Well, News Week is reporting that Israeli Supreme Court ruled that four families
in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah cannot be evicted until a separate legal
process determining their eviction status is complete.
The ruling is similar to the one in 2021 that both Israeli developers and
the affected families rejected.
However, the Supreme Court this time is making the order mandatory.
Now experts of course are skeptical about this ruling.
They believe that it's just kicking the can down the road.
In fact, one professor over at Notre Dame said this, the ruling merely calls for
a delay of eviction for the benefit of further investigation of the case.
The authorities have recognized the volatility of the specific struggle
of Sheikh Jarrah or the potentiality of another intensification of
violence reminiscent of May 2021.
I interpret the ruling as a cosmetic mechanism for delaying the outcome.
And that might very well be true, but it is good to know that these four families,
at least for now, will not be evicted from their homes.
Again, this is possibly a temporary victory, but for
now it is the only victory that we see for the Palestinian people in East Jerusalem.
As the legal processes regarding the homes continue, the affected families
will continue to be recognized as the sole tenants of their properties.
Their order will continue to be in effect, until the ownership of the properties is
settled, and then we'll figure out what will really happen,
what the fate of these Palestinians will really be.
But there's no question, there's definitely a double standard in the way
the US government has responded to the treatment of Palestinians versus the way
the US government has responded to the treatment of Ukrainians.
And it shouldn't be that way, obviously,