In the 13 years since Muhammad al-Dura was killed in an Israeli-Palestinian shootout in Gaza while cowering behind his father, masses of right-wing Jews have eagerly embraced a conspiracy theory of the 12-year-oid boy's killing – that it was staged, a hoax perpetrated by Palestinians to blacken Israel's name. This theory, promoted most avidly by Boston University Prof. Richard Landes and French media analyst Philippe Karsenty, depends on a view of Palestinians being superhumanly clever and fiendish, and a view of reality that comes from the movies. This week, the State of Israel officially joined the movement. 

Israeli authorities have implemented another way to impede free access to the occupied Palestinian territories for American travelers. Haaretz's Amira Hass reported over the weekend that Israel is now forbidding "tourists from the United States and other countries to enter the territories under Palestinian Authority control without a military entry permit - but it has not explained the application process to them."
 

Israeli forces detained five students from a school belonging to an Islamic orphanage after they were accused of attacking a settler in Jerusalem, officials said Wednesday. Headmaster Mazen Jamjoum told Ma'an that Israeli troops raided the school and detained five students between the ages of 13 to 15. Jamjoum says Israeli police told him they were checking surveillance cameras to verify the settler's claims that the students attacked him.
 

Beautiful video out of Princeton. A bunch of students from diverse backgrounds "come out for Palestine," so as to remove the stigma that the issue has in the U.S. These students speak of human rights, the end of the occupation and the blockade, and the right of return. Very moving. 

Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday, having earlier destroyed two Palestinian homes in al-Tur. Witnesses said that a large Israeli police force surrounded the buildings in Jabal al-Mukabbir and closed off the area before demolishing the buildings. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished some 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem.
 

For former Palestinian detainee Abdelfattah Abu Jahil, prison art is a victory. "The greatest achievements of the prisoners’ movement were in 1985," Abu Jahil said. "We went on hunger strike to force the Israelis to allow us to make art, among other things. I myself went on hunger strike for 79 days." Today, Abu Jahil, who was finally released from his fourth detention in 2002, continues to make art about detainees and the prisoners’ movement in Gaza.

 

Israeli forces on Tuesday shot and injured a Palestinian teenager in Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah, witnesses and the Israeli army said. Witnesses told Ma'an that Atta Sabah, 13, was walking with school friends when Israeli forces opened fire at the group and hit him in the back. Sabah is undergoing surgery at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah. 

The Center for Constitutional Rights called on US President Barack Obama last week to break his three-year silence over Israels 2009 killing of 18-year-old US citizen Furkan Doan during its siege on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship in international waters. Earlier this year, the Center for Constitutional Rights published 5,000 pages of US government documents related to the killing of the nine humanitarian activists on the Mavi Marmara. The documents show the extent to which the US disregarded the rights and safety of its citizens participating in the humanitarian mission to the besieged Gaza Strip.