Israeli court to keep spyware firm information from public — Middle East Monitor (1/17)

Tel Aviv District Court is allowing a closed-door hearing of the case challenging an Israeli spyware firm, NSO Group, following the ministry’s legal team appeal that it should be held in secret, on national security grounds. Amnesty International has filed a case against the notorious tech company, which calls for Israel to impose restrictions by revoking the spyware firm’s export license, preventing it from selling its contentious product abroad. NSO Group creates surveillance software that is believed to have been used to target political journalists and dissidents around the world.

Israeli police attack Palestinian worshippers in Al-Aqsa after dawn prayer — Middle East Eye (1/17)

Feeling the Pressure, UNRWA Accuses US, Israel of Lobbying to End Its Services — Palestine Chronicle (1/16)

The interim head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Christian Saunders, directly accused the US and Israeli governments of working against the relief agency, which is responsible for the welfare of millions of Palestinians. In an interview with Reuters from his Gaza office on Thursday, Saunders said that the US is lobbying foreign parliaments to stop donations to the organization, following a decision by Washington to completely cut its funding to UNRWA in August 2018. The US is “advocating against funding UNRWA in the European parliaments and elsewhere,” Sanders said. UNRWA’s acting head has also said that Israel is trying to replace UNRWA’s services for Palestinian refugees in occupied East Jerusalem with those of its own. We are feeling “the pressure in East Jerusalem in particular”, where Israel is constructing alternative institutions “to compete” with the UN-funded agency so that it would eventually block its services in the occupied Palestinian city.

Canada must not suppress free speech on Israel — Electronic Intifada (1/16)

Science against all the odds: ‘Scientists for Palestine’ holds its third international conference — Mondoweiss (1/16)

Palestinian Freedom 2020: Student activists confront Democratic candidates over aid to Israel — Mondoweiss (1/15)

Hasan is a first-generation Palestinian activist who attends Tuft University and got involved in the movement after seeing the impact Israeli policy has had on his family. (“I do this because Israel has to change for the sake of my people – and for humanity,” he explains.) He told Mondoweiss that he was encouraged by the responses from Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, but indicated that there was a lot more work to be done. He also pointed out that the group received a mostly receptive response from Democratic voters who were attending the candidate events. “Everybody who talked to us was on board,” he said, “Most of them said, ‘Of course we support freedom, of course we think Palestinians should have freedom.’ That tells us that voters support these policies and now we need to bring this to the candidates and push them on these issues.”