AI-controlled machine gun at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank
The Israeli occupation forces have installed a new AI-controlled machine gun at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron to track and shoot at Palestinians. Manufactured by Israeli company Smart Shooter, the gun fires stun grenades and sponge-tipped bullets, and is also capable of firing tear gas. It is being tested as part of a pilot scheme at Al-Shuhada Street checkpoint.
A spokesperson for the Israeli occupation army told Haaretz that it is “examining the possibility of using remotely controlled systems for the employment of approved measures of crowd dispersal [which] does not include remote control of live gunfire.”
Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron are harassed daily by illegal settlers and occupation soldiers who aim to force them out of their homes in order to establish illegal Jew-only settlements in the area.
Hebron-based Palestinian peace activist Issa Amro expressed serious concern regarding the risk of failure of the AI technology.
Yes, go visit occupied Hebron where an automatic gun machine is installed at a checkpoint shoots at will.
“The system was placed in the centre of a heavily populated area, with hundreds of people passing by. Any failure of this technology could have an impact on many people,” he explained to Haaretz. “I see that as part of the transition from human to technological control. We Palestinians have become an object for training the high tech-industry of the Israeli army, which is not held to account for what it does.”
This news comes after Google was found to be providing advanced AI and machine-learning capabilities to the Israeli government through its controversial “Project Nimbus” contract.
According to experts with digital civil rights organisation Access Now, Israel’s use of surveillance and facial recognition technology appears to be among the most elaborate by a country seeking to control a subject population.
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Thirty Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons are on an open-ended hunger strike for the third day in a row in protest against Israel’s policy of administrative detention without a charge or trial.
On the 25th of September, 30 Palestinian administrative detainees announced the launch of a mass hunger strike, rejecting their unjust administrative detention without a charge or trial by Israeli occupation authorities and demanding “fresh air, a sky without prison bars, a space of freedom, and a family dinner.”
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said on Sunday that this move comes as a continuation of longstanding Palestinian efforts to put an end to Israel’s policy of administrative detention and amid an increase in the administrative detention orders issued by ‘Israel’ against Palestinians as the policy has expanded in recent years to include women, children, and elderly people.
“No for oppression, no for the Israeli occupation, we will continue our fight against Israel’s unfair policy of administrative detention,” the thirty Palestinian administrative detainees said.
The thirty Palestinian detainees are listed below, with additional detainees scheduled to join the battle as it continues:
1. Nidal Abu Aker. 2. Ehab Masoud. 3. Asim Al Kaabi. 4. Ahmed Hajjaj. 5. Thaer Taha. 6. Ramy Fadayel. 7. Lotfi Salah. 8. Salah Hammouri 9. Ghassan Zawahreh. 10. Kanaan Kanaan. 11. Ashraf Abu Aram. 12. Ghassan Karajah. 13. Saleh Abu Alia. 14. Awad Kanaan. 15. Leith Kassaberah. 16. Saleh Al-Jaidi. 17. Basil Mezher. 18. Majdi Al-Khawaja. 19. Jihad Shreiteh. 20. Haitham Siyaj. 21. Mustafa Al-Hasanat. 22. Azmi Shreiteh. 23. Muhammad Abu Ghazi. 24. Ahmed Al-Kharouf. 25. Nasrallah Barghouti. 26. Muhammad Fuqaha. 27. Tamer Al-Hajouj. 28. Raghad Shamroukh. 29. Zaid Qaddoumi. 30. Senar Hamad.
This is the second mass strike against administrative detention after the strike of 2014 (62 days), which ended with an agreement with the occupation, including suspending extending administrative detention for open periods and limiting them to a maximum of a year, which has been violated. This mass strike follows various individual strikes of administrative detainees demanding an end to their detention. Since 2011, individual strikes amounted to over 400 which the Occupation authorities tried to halt and deliberately stalled in responding to the strikers.
Under the banner, “Our decision is freedom … no to administrative detention,” more than 600 administrative detainees also boycotted Israeli Military Courts for over 170 days, starting from January 1, 2022, in protest against Israel’s administrative detention without charges or trials.
The boycott includes initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at the Supreme Court.
According to Palestinian prisoner’s advocacy groups, since March 2002, the number of Palestinians in administrative detention has never fallen below 100. In 2015 alone, ‘Israel’ issued 1248 administrative detention orders.
In 2020, ‘Israel’ issued 1,114 administrative detention orders while it issued 1,595 administrative detention orders against the Palestinians in 2021.
Since the start of 2022, the Israeli occupation has issued 1500 administrative detention orders against the Palestinians.
There are currently 4650 Palestinian detainees held in about 23 Israeli prisons, including 180 minors, 32 women, and 743 detainees held in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Colonial Israeli settlers break into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque while being backed by well-armed Israeli soldiers on September 27, 2022
Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- Dozens of colonial Israeli settlers broke into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday to mark the so-called Jewish New Year which began over the weekend.
Local sources reported that dozens of colonial Israeli settlers, backed by well-armed Israeli soldiers, broke into the holy site, with dozens others expected to break into the compound in the coming hours to mark the second day of the Jewish New Year.
Breaking| Scores of police-guarded Israeli settler fanatics storm the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/JN63iZx8Se
The forces again attacked, arrested and forced the Palestinian worshipers out of the Al-Aqsa compound.
Media coverage| Israeli occupation forces detain a second Palestinian young man inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, as the police guard settler fanatics breaking into the holy site.#AlAqsaUnderAttackpic.twitter.com/LQFWrMjkv9
Media coverage| Israeli occupation soldiers detain a Palestinian young man inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, as the police guard settler fanatics breaking into the holy site.#AlAqsaUnderAttackpic.twitter.com/KV5ZyDb3t4
Media coverage| Worshippers defiantly shout 'Allahu Akbar' (Allah is the Greatest) as Israeli settler fanatics break into the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the second day. pic.twitter.com/0urWIT98rc
On Monday morning, hundreds of settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa compound from the al-Mughrabi Gate under strict restrictions imposed by the occupation forces to facilitate the settlers’ incursions.
The Israeli forces barred Palestinians under the age of 40 from entering the Al-Aqsa, checking their ID cards and erecting barriers in different areas of the Old City. They had also barricaded several gates leading to Al-Aqsa mosque, including the Damascus Gate, the Via Dolorosa route and other entry points to Al-Aqsa.
Media coverage| Israeli occupation's police in #Jerusalem has been preventing Palestinians from reaching their holy places in the Old City since early morning. pic.twitter.com/aU3G46d2Qd
The forces had deployed a surveillance plane in the sky of the occupied city to monitor the movement of people in the city who had climbed on top of Al-Qibli mosque inside the Al-Aqsa compound.
According to Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, around 504 Israeli settlers on Monday broke into the site in groups of 50 people and left through the al-Silsila gate, while Israeli forces barred Palestinian entry to the site.
During and before the break-ins, Waqf said that Israeli forces had assaulted Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa, arrested six Palestinians and drove some of them out, fired tear gas canisters inside the site and blockaded the worshipers inside prayer halls in an attempt to empty the holy site of its worshipers to secure the entry of the Israeli colonial settlers.
Breaking| Israeli occupation forces assault and chase Palestinians out of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/3PPWt8uMxG
Media coverage| Israeli occupation forces brutally assault a Palestinian man at the Lions Gate on the east side of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/nLKGS6bPuO
Media coverage| Medics treat an old Palestinian man who was brutally assaulted by Israeli occupation forces inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem, today. pic.twitter.com/iWuK4TTzpd
Video footage of an older Palestinian man lost consciousness when Israeli forces pushed him and he fell on his head on concrete stairs has gone viral on social media with Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists condemning the savage attack.
Some settlers were filmed blowing the shofar, an ancient musical horn, outside the gates of Al-Aqsa and in Bab Al-Rahmah cemetery.
Israeli forces also attacked and brutally assaulted journalists and press members who were documenting their violations, including the head of the Turkish Anadolu Agency office in Jerusalem, Anas Janli who was pushed to the ground.
The forces also denied the access of medical teams to the site to treat people.
Israeli settlers are expected to break into Al-Aqsa in the upcoming weeks in great numbers as they mark the Jewish New Year this week (from September 25 to 27), Yom Kippur on October 5 and Sukkot between 10 and 17 October.
On Tuesday dawn, Israeli soldiers abducted a former political prisoner from his home in a town near Jenin, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, and invaded several nearby villages.
Media sources said several army jeeps invaded Kafr Ra’ey town, south of Jenin, and abducted a former political prisoner, Montaser Milhim, after storming his family’s home and ransacking it.
The sources added that the soldiers also invaded the nearby village of Rommana, Zabbouba, Aneen, and Taybeh before installing roadblocks.
The soldiers drove through the various neighborhoods of the invaded villages, after surrounding them, and tried to ambush Palestinians.
On Monday evening, Israeli soldiers abducted two young Palestinian men, detained four, and assaulted one, in the Old City, the Al-Isawiya, Silwan, and At-Tour towns, in occupied Jerusalem, in the West Bank.
Media sources said the soldiers invaded At-Tour and attacked a nonviolent procession, demanding the release of the corpse of slain Palestinians back to their families, including Mohammad Abu Kafia, 36, who was killed when the soldiers shot him on September 24, after his car accidentally collided with an empty police vehicle near Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
The soldiers attacked the protesters and detained four young men, who were interrogated before being released.
Furthermore, the soldiers abducted a young man, Ayman Ghosha, after stopping him near Bab Al-Mathara at the western side of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Old City.
In the Al-Isawiya town in Jerusalem, many soldiers stopped a young man before repeatedly assaulting him, the Al-Qastal News said.
In Silwan town, the soldiers invaded the Abu Naab neighborhood and abducted a young man before moving them to an unknown destination.
On Monday evening, Israeli soldiers invaded Beit Ijza village, northwest of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, leading to protests, before firing many rubber-coated steel bullets and gas bombs.
Local sources said the Palestinians were holding a nonviolent procession demanding the army to transfer the corpses of slain Palestinians back to their families, including Mohammad Abu Kafia, 36, who was killed when the soldiers shot him on September 24, after his car accidentally collided with an empty police vehicle near Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
They added that the army attacked the protesters with gas bombs and concussion grenades and chased many of them while trying to abduct them.
Several youngsters responded by hurling stones at the invading soldiers, and the army fired more gas bombs and concussion grenades.
In related news, the army invaded Rommana village, west of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and installed a roadblock before the soldiers stopped, searched many cars, and interrogated the Palestinians while inspecting their ID cards.
Many army jeeps were also deployed near Zabbouba, Tayba, Ta’nak, and Aneen villages, west of Jenin.
On Sunday, Israeli soldiers caused a fire in a Palestinian house after invading Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem and firing gas bombs and concussion grenades.
Media sources said several army jeeps invaded the town just south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, leading to protests in the Ein al-Louza and Abu Tayeh neighborhoods.
They added that the soldiers fired many gas bombs and concussion grenades at random, some directly striking homes, and caused a fire in a home owned by Nour Abu Tayeh.
Many Palestinians also suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation and cuts and bruises.
Muslim and Christian demonstrators gather to protest held at the Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, Gaza on May 15, 2022, upon the call of the Palestinian Journalists’ Union and the Council of Representatives of the Arab Orthodox Church for reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who died as a result of fire opened by Israeli soldiers during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp
Human rights organisations have today demanded protection for journalists from “Israeli violations” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The call came as part of events to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian Journalist.
Rawhi Fattouh, head of the Palestinian National Council, said in a press statement, that “journalists in the homeland and in the diaspora have sacrificed dozens of martyrs, wounded and prisoners in their path of giving for the sake of honest words and siding with the just cause of their people.”
He denounced “the occupation forces’ targeting of media institutions, the assassination or injury of dozens of journalists with intent to kill, and their arrest, the last of whom is the truthful martyr [Al-Jazeera correspondent who was killed last May], Shireen Abu Akleh.”
“We believe in the power of word, image and freedom of expression, and we also believe in the power of mass struggle and popular resistance in the face of the racist occupier.”
For its part, Hamas called for “strengthening solidarity with Palestinian journalists and media institutions and providing them with protection and support.”
Izzat Al-Rishq, head of the movement’s media office, said: “Israel disregards international laws that protect journalists, and commits crimes against humanity, which will not succeed in concealing the truth and gagging.”
He added, “The persecution, harassment and terrorism practiced against Palestinian media institutions, their closure, destruction and the repeated attempts to combat Palestinian content on social media, are a biased policy adopted by the occupation that serves its racist agenda and contributes to misleading the global public opinion.”
Al-Rishq called “to unify media efforts among all Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and international press and media institutions to serve the Palestinian cause.”
The Information Office in the Gaza Strip said that Israel is committing various forms of violations against Palestinian journalists.
“These violations range from the direct targeting or arrest to prevention of coverage, and ban on travel and movement, in addition to restrictive measures and storming the homes of journalists, especially in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.”
It noted that more than ten media offices were damaged in August when the Israeli occupation army “targeted a tower in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, with four missiles.”
The office recorded more than 173 cases of violations by social networking sites and the Israeli occupation in the context of combating Palestinian content.
It called on “human rights organisations and those that defend media freedoms to expose the systematic violations Israel commits against Palestinian journalists, and to provide them with full protection.”
In turn, the Beirut-based Arab Journalists Support Committee called on the International Criminal Court to hold the occupation accountable for its crimes against Palestinian journalists.
In its statement, the committee said that the Israeli occupation has committed 513 violations against Palestinian journalists since the start of the year, including the killing of Abu Akleh and journalist Ghufran Warasna in the West Bank.
It added that “160 journalists have been injured by live, rubber and sponge bullets, poisonous gas bombs, pepper spray and sound bombs, since the beginning of this year.”
According to the statement, the committee observed about “61 cases of arrest, detention, summons, bans from Al-Aqsa Mosque, and house arrest against journalists, as well as 30 cases of extension and postponement of arrest and issuing new sentences for detained journalists.”
The committee called for “launching a local, Arab and international campaign to expose the occupation’s practices against journalists, and to intensify monitoring and documentation of crimes in order to prepare a complete case to file complaints before international courts in order to punish those responsible.”
Israeli diggers demolish Palestinian family’s home in East Jerusalem on August 03, 2022
Israeli occupation authorities forced a Jerusalemite to demolish his own home, leaving his family of eight homeless.
Local sources reported that Fareed Jaber started to demolish his home near the Old City’s Bab Al-Asbat, to avoid the heavy fines imposed by the occupation authorities. He was ordered to level the property as it did not have the impossible to obtain building permits required.
The occupation municipality imposes strict conditions and high fees on Palestinian Jerusalemites seeking to obtain permits, the approval of which can take years. Many are compelled to build without as their families grow.
Fanatic Jewish settlers stormed Al-Aqsa mosque compound accompanying with Israeli riot police within the Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year in Jerusalem on September 26, 2022
Fatah yesterday called on the Palestinians to mobilise and confront extremist right-wing Jewish groups who will storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish holidays.
Describing the incursions of extremist Jewish groups and settlers as “part of attempts to Judaise the Holy City,” Fatah stressed: “Tthe Al-Aqsa Mosque and its courtyards are the exclusive right of the Palestinians.”
The so-called Temple Mount groups, who seek to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple, are preparing for large-scale incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque to coincide with the Jewish holiday season, which began yesterday and will continue until October.
Israeli extremist settlers storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque almost daily in an attempt to temporally and spatially divide it.
