The biggest news story over the past few weeks has been the continued exposing of the Israeli military’s use of dirty tech to surveil Palestinians, and the extent to which Israeli-made spyware is used globally by oppressive governments. As JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox points out in her latest newsletter Every Single Phone Call: What Israeli Spyware Reveals about the US-Israel Alliance: “Right after the Israeli Defense Ministry criminalized six of the leading Palestinian human rights and civil groups by designating them “terrorist organizations,” news broke that the phones of multiple Palestinian human rights defenders were infected with Pegasus, the military-grade spyware created by the Israeli company NSO Group.

On the very same day, another investigation revealed the Blue Wolf and White Wolf Initiatives, an extensive network of technology used by both Israeli soldiers and settlers to collect and record photos of Palestinians that are fed into a massive facial recognition database.

And then, just one week later, another article revealed that all phones imported into besieged Gaza are implanted with an Israeli military software bug, and that Israel’s entire security apparatus can listen to every single phone call Palestinians are making in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. These stories expose the way that Israeli private industry, military forces, police, and settler organizations are working together in an entirely entwined system.”

Israeli settlers have dramatically increased their attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with violent incidents increased by about 150 percent in the last two years.  The Israeli rights group B’Tselem issued a report documenting how the Israeli government uses settler violence as a “major informal tool” to drive Palestinians from farming and pasture lands. 

The Jerusalem District Court rejected an appeal by 58 Palestinian families against the demolition of their homes in the Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, after a 15 year-long legal battle. Over 100 Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem face demolition of their homes.

SAY THEIR NAMES: Palestinians who have died at the hands of the Israeli military this past month (as much as is known): 

Mohammed Da’adas 15 years old 

Saddam Hussein Bani Odeh 26 years old 

Omar Ibrahim Abu Asab 16 years old

Sami al-Amour 39 years old

Isra Khzamiah 30 years old

Mohammed Abu Ammar 40 years old

Man near Burqin, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, 22 years old       

Fadi Abu Shkhaidem 42 years old

Isra Khzamiah 30 years old

Muhammad Ali Khabisa 28 years old

This is by no means a comprehensive report on the tragic human rights violations and violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, but it was greatly edited to remain as brief and possible and yet hit the recent highlights. I thank you for reading this to end.