International crisis group:

Israel’s threatened termination of a banking waiver would paralyse financial activity in the West Bank, causing an economic meltdown and risking the Palestinian Authority’s collapse – with dire consequences for West Bank Palestinians.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, issued a three-month waiver for transactions in March, but indicated that he did not plan to extend it further. In addition, he has refused to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA), pursuant to deals the two sides struck in the 1990s.

Background: The Palestinian economy is dependent on Israel: the shekel is Palestine’s de facto currency (though the Jordanian dinar and U.S. dollar are also in use), and Israel is by far its largest import and export market. The shekel began replacing the dinar as the working currency in 1967, when the Israeli army occupied the West Bank.

During the Oslo negotiations in the 1990s, Palestinian leaders agreed to measures that consolidated the shekel’s position. The Paris Protocol signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1994, and later incorporated into the second Oslo accord, requires the PA to use the shekel in its banking transactions with Israel. It also states that the PA may accept certain other currencies as means of payment.


[RT]

Your daily dose of humour.

[RT]

❗️A massive number of families were cruelly forced from their homes in the Al-Shakoush area, west of the city, and the regional park.

This heartless displacement occurred amid a brutal assault by occupation vehicles, which relentlessly fired artillery shells and directed live ammunition at the tents of the displaced.

Photography by Firas Abu Sharkh.

[G&T]

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: The fourth stage of escalation against ships from Yemen was the most deadly, as a result of expanding the list of targets to include all ships of any company whose ships dock in Israeli ports.

The Houthis feel empowered, not weak, and after enduring months of US-British strikes, they are still setting targets through which companies can send ships to and through the region.

Expectations that attacks from Yemen will continue, and many commercial ships will continue to avoid the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea until 2025 or later, and a ceasefire in Gaza may reduce the severity of attacks.

[G&T]

In utter despair and overwhelming shock, Palestinians bid a sorrowful farewell to the brave members of the civil defense who were cruelly targeted and murdered when their headquarters in the Nusairat refugee camp was bombed by "Israel".

This devastating act not only robbed the community of its protectors but also violated international law by targeting civil defense workers, who are supposed to be safeguarded under the Geneva Conventions.

[G&T]

Palestinian children in Gaza are facing imminent death as Kamal Adwan Hospital is just hours away from a complete shutdown due to fuel depletion, leaving them without essential care.

Meanwhile thousands of trucks of Aid are waiting to get into Gaza to help but are deliberately being blocked by the genocidal Israelis.

[G&T]