Without their faces catalogued in a military database.
Without their every move surveilled.
Without their routine actions falsely criminalized.
Without their homes made so unsafe that they have no choice but to leave.
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As the article details, the Israeli military uses facial recognition throughout the West Bank — not just at checkpoints, but also to surveil public areas and private homes.
“We no longer feel comfortable socializing because cameras are always filming us,” said a Hebron resident.
And the Blue Wolf app — which tells Israeli soldiers if a Palestinian is to be detained, arrested, or "left alone" — entailed soldiers competing to collect the most photographs of Palestinians against their will.
Reminder: the US sends this military $3.8 billion per year.
The Israeli military's 24/7 monitoring of Palestinians' daily lives has predictably (and likely intentionally) led to false criminalization of mundane actions.
To whom does a fallen teaspoon resemble a thrown stone, other than soldiers trained to dehumanize and vilify?
Israeli surveillance has also led many Palestinians to leave their homes.
This is all too convenient for the Israeli government and settlers, whose project of displacing Palestinians and Judaizing the West Bank is often met with the kind of resistance we see in Sheikh Jarrah.
The alignment of goals between the Israeli military and settlers is also one of tactics: White Wolf, another facial recognition app, allows settlers to scan Palestinians' IDs.
This elevates settlers to a quasi-official status and represents unabashed settler-state collusion.
This pervasive surveillance is a clear violation of privacy. It is recognized as such in Israel's '48 borders (as well as in 12 US cities and, hopefully soon, European Parliament.)
But Israel is an apartheid state with different rules for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
While we fight the use of facial recognition technology in the US, we also must fight it in Palestine.
These struggles are not just similar, but connected: the Israeli military exports its technologies of occupation around the world after field-testing them on Palestinians.
Our movement has had prior success campaigning against surveillance in Palestine. @lizzadwoskin's article states Microsoft divested from Israeli facial recognition company AnyVision this May; actually, it did so in early 2020 after pressure from @MPower_Change, @SumOfUs, and JVP.
Thank you to the brave and honorable testifiers at @BtSIsrael who shared their knowledge and experiences for this disturbing and revelatory article. Read more: washingtonpost.com/world/middle_e…
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In addition to its expanding violence throughout the entire region, the Israeli military is still slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza — and it's counting on all of us to be too distracted to pay attention. We refuse to look away.
Over the past month, the Israeli army has killed more than 526 Palestinians at US-operated and mercenary-run “aid distribution” centers in Gaza. Each incident follows a familiar pattern: Palestinians wait for hours in the baking heat, often are herded into caged enclosures, and then are suddenly shot at with no warning.
Following the deadly attacks, the US mercenaries distributing the aid either outright deny the killings, or claim that Israeli troops targeted “suspicious” individuals.
We are joining the Interfaith Action for Palestine June 29-July 1 in Washington, DC, to take on Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Israel and pro-genocide organization in the country. In the face of these far-right Christian extremists, we are supporting the largest interreligious protest for Palestine. Join us!
CUFI is the largest pro-Israel organization in the US, boasting over 8 million members (more than all American Jews combined).
Pastor John Hagee, CUFI’s CEO, is a notorious antisemite, racist, and homophobe, who said that Hitler was a “hunter” put on earth by God. He’s also a vocal supporter of the state of Israel.
Today is the beginning of Eid al-Adha, one of the most important holidays for Muslims. The holiday is usually observed by gathering with community in prayer, sharing a large meal, and donating to those in need.
But for the second year in a row, Israel is starving Palestinians on Eid al-Adha while continuing to commit genocide against them.
Everyone deserves to celebrate their holidays in safety and freedom. Palestinians shouldn't have to live like this on Eid or any other day.
In the past week since the Israeli government launched a widely condemned aid scheme, circumventing the UN to take control over the distribution of aid across Gaza, Israeli forces have opened fire multiple times on starving Palestinians queuing for aid, massacring over 100 people.
The Israeli government is using starvation as a tool of genocide, and deliberately manufacturing conditions meant to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian people.
In its cruelty and scale of annihilation, the Israeli government's war crimes increasingly resemble Nazi tactics.
@MonaChalabi’s latest graphic, based on @ForensicArchi's report, exposes the Israeli military’s “humanitarian bubbles” as not zones of relief, but tools of military control and forced displacement.🧵
The routes to aid distribution centers mirror Israeli military raid paths, revealing a militarized infrastructure designed not to deliver aid, but to enforce displacement and control over the Palestinian population.
Meanwhile, The Israeli government has agreed to allow only a trickle of aid into Gaza with a majority still remaining stalled at the border. This isn’t humanitarian relief; it’s the next phase of ethnic cleansing.
The new aid system in Gaza—launched through the US-funded, Israeli military–guarded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—is facing widespread condemnation for bypassing UN-backed humanitarian channels and serving as a tool of control and forced displacement, and violence rather than genuine relief. Over the past 80 days of the Israeli military’s blockade, at least 58 Palestinians have died from hunger-related causes.
The mercenaries in the US-Israeli government’s so-called “aid” operation in Gaza—run by military contractors and resembling prison camps—are firing on the very Palestinians it’s supposed to help. This is not humanitarian aid. 🧵
Starving Palestinians, forced to wait for hours in the sun outside an aid facility near al-Mawasi in Rafah after walking an average of 9.3 miles , finally surged inside after relentless delays and invasive surveillance and security checks—not just in search of food, but in an attempt to survive., Apparently, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-funded, Swiss-registered operation led by a former US Marine set up to bypass established NGOs and UN agencies—lost control of the facility and fled.
An elderly Palestinian man’s family reported that he was kidnapped by the Israeli military after approaching the Muraj Crossing aid site for a box of food.