What's happening in Palestine and Israel?
What's happened so far?
A brief timeline of recent events: May 6th: Palestinians peacefully protest the decision of the Israeli Supreme court to evict four families from the Sheikh Jarrah Neighbourhood (where the families have been staying for decades). This was followed by violent confrontations between Israeli and Palestinian protestors. May 7th: Israeli forces attack Palestinian worshippers in the Al Aqsa Mosque during their holiest few days of the year, coming towards the end of Ramadan. Over 300 Palestinians injured. May 10th: Hamas militants in Gaza launched rockets striking West Jerusalem, met with the Israeli Defence Forces' Iron Dome system which prevented any significant damage but caused the death of six Israelis. May 11th: In Gaza, a 13 story residential building collapsed after being hit during an Israeli air strike. May 12th: A senior Hamas commander in Gaza is killed by Israel's military. May 15th: a building that housed international media offices (including Al Jazeera) in the Gaza Strip, was demolished after being hit by an Israeli air raid. Was this an attempt to silence journalists? The CEO of the Associated Press whose office got leveled thinks so.
According to the latest government figures: Airstrikes by Israeli forces have killed 137 Palestinians in Gaza, including 36 children, and more than 900 have been wounded in the enclave since the latest round of violence began, while 9 Israelis have been killed. In the recent wave of public protests: hundreds of Palestinian protesters across Jerusalem have been injured by Israeli forces. More than 10,000 people have been forced out of their homes during a pandemic (in case we forgot about that). Videos have also emerged of security attacking and arresting Palestinian protestors, prompting more Palestinians to join protests.
What’s fuelled all this?
The Prime Minister of Israel is calling it a “real-estate dispute”, though this heavily diminishes the extent of the injustice occurring. The situation in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood has been a catalyst for these protests. Palestinian families have been living there for decades – they bought the land and built their homes there after being forced to move from other parts of the country back in 1948 (on Nakba when 700,000 Palestinians were displaced due to the Israeli-Palestinian war). Now, however, Nahalat Shimon, a US-based settler organisation, is trying to have the Palestinians living there evicted. Under Israeli law, after they’ve left it would mean that their property would be turned over to Jewish settlers.
To top it all off, the families being evicted would receive nothing to aid their displacement.
Many protestors have been advocating for Palestinian rights for YEARS now. But these recent events have involved a large number of young Palestinians who have grown up under the threat of displacement, and protests are now occurring within cities and towns in Israel which haven’t seen protests in decades. All this is symbolic of the ethnic inequality that is so prominent (below is an image taken from Human Rights Watch which highlights this). The reality is that Israeli and Palestinian citizens don’t get equal protection under the law, after all, an Israeli citizen wouldn’t be told to leave their home just because it was built on Palestinian land.
Enter Chia. Bitcoin's eco-friendly cousin 🟢
What is Chia? Enough with the meme coins. Enter Chia ($XCH). The newest crypto rockstar in town operating in the proof of space arena and claims to be an energy-efficient blockchain. Its goal is to decentralize the existing mining process even further and to truly make ‘farming’ accessible to everyone. To put it simply, if you have some extra hard disk space, you should theoretically be able to use it to farm Chia.
Soaring US inflation 💸
The US have seen prices rise at their fastest pace since 2008; the rate of consumer price inflation was 4.2% in the 12 months to April (up from 2.6% in March), and there are now concerns of the US economy overheating.
FactZ Check
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin donated more than $1 billion worth of crypto to help India fight COVID-19.
Mark Zuckerberg is being urged to ditch his plans for an Instagram for children (under 13 years old). 📱
As if we haven't seen enough short form videos this year, YouTube have set up a $100m fund to pay creators for using YouTube shorts (their TikTok competitor).
Ellen DeGeneres has announced that she's ending her talk show after 19 seasons in 2022. 👋
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