Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
bhouston
wk_end
The situation in the West Bank (and similar forces are at play in Gaza, too) remind me of what's wrong with American policing, at a far more extreme scale.
The people charged with enforcing the peace deploy lethal force with near impunity at the slightest "provocation" (a child throwing a stone, a car driving too fast); I wouldn't be surprised if IDF forces deployed to the West Bank are trained much like American police officers are, to operate in constant fear and perceive absolutely everything and everyone as a deadly threat to be neutralized. The soldiers themselves are raised in a culture with deeply racist undertones, making them all too ready to view any random Palestinian as a terrorist. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy that should be overseeing them works only to protect them. It's no surprise that things like this happen as often as they do.
Reform in the US is imaginable, I can and do believe, but it's much harder for me to imagine it in Israel - even much of the so-called left in Israel is too radicalized against Palestinians after 100 years of conflict, the Second Intifada, and October 7.
ryandrake
That's a huge problem (immediate, unjustified escalation to violence becoming the norm) and:
> The main justification floated is that the car was "going fast" and thus made the undercover Israeli soldiers feel unsafe.
"I feel unsafe" has become the catch-all excuse for everything in the recent decade. It's used to justify everything from Karen complaining about someone's behavior in public to people calling the cops on someone for looking at them wrong, to making a scene on a public bus, to police officers jumping the gun and escalating to violence, all the way to war crimes. When did "I feel unsafe" become this ultimate i-can-do-anything-and-avoid-responsibility card? Like a magic spell that you can cast before doing something crazy. It's like that old "He's coming right for us" South Park joke, but instead of being a joke it has real life and death consequences.
xnyan
Most people will never interact with a cop on duty outside of a speeding ticket or some other mundane encounter. A major chuck of what many people think about police comes from TV and movies.
It's impossible to overstate the influence of Dragnet (the OG police procedural from the early 50s) alone on the widely held idea that police are mostly heroic and good. Police procedurals are still extremely popular, they overwhelmingly portray law enforcement in an extremely idealized way.
There are exceptions (The Wire, The Shield), but they are noteworty in that police are not heroes.
banannaise
> When did "I feel unsafe" become this ultimate i-can-do-anything-and-avoid-responsibility card?
It only works if you deploy it against someone lower-status than you. The tactic is largely irrelevant and can be seamlessly replaced with any of a number of other tactics as needed. It's just enforcement of power hierarchies.
C6JEsQeQa5fCjE
> I wouldn't be surprised if IDF forces deployed to the West Bank are trained much like American police officers are
IDF trains them.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-polic...
apical_dendrite
David Simon and others have written extensively for decades about the problems with the Baltimore Police Department, and other departments around the country. They trace these problems back to the war on drugs and other purely American factors.
The Amnesty article that you're citing is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The Baltimore Police Department did not need to learn about constitutional violations from the Israelis.
wk_end
That checks out. Although the history of "Warrior Policing" in the US predates this (going back to the 60s) and extends far beyond IDF training programs:
mupuff1234
Pretty sure police brutality was invented way before Israel existed.
dustractor
> I wouldn't be surprised if IDF forces deployed to the West Bank are trained much like American police officers are'
American police officers ARE trained much like IDF forces. By the IDF! https://jinsa.org/jinsa_program/homeland-security-program/
DiogenesKynikos
The IDF is a foreign occupation army, not the police.
At least in the US, the police come from much the same communities as they patrol, and there's some sort of democratic accountability. Don't like the police? You can vote for local government candidates who will implement reforms.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are subject to arbitrary violence at the hands of foreign soldiers. The IDF is not there to protect Palestinians. It's there to protect the Israeli settlers who are taking Palestinian land. If Palestinians don't like how the IDF behaves, tough luck. Palestinians can't vote in Israeli elections, so they have zero say in the government that exercises ultimate authority over their lives.
This is a fundamentally different situation from policing in the US.
undefined
cineticdaffodil
[dead]
rakovsky89
[dead]
dmitrygr
[flagged]
wk_end
Yes, American police use these kinds of justifications when innocent people are killed too. It's absurd (watch Surviving Edged Weapons [0] some time) either way.
The reality is, if you have soldiers mowing down children throwing rocks, mowing down families driving around, mowing down kids playing football, mowing down toddlers in their bedrooms, mowing down hundreds of people each year [1], you've over-indexed on vigilance and under-indexed on the value of human life. You're not trigger-ready, you're trigger-happy.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6jhru-EqDA
[1] https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ohchr-press-release-17oc...
jmward01
A professional looks at and understands the situation as it exists now. A professional is trained to not get into situations where fear controls them. Your argument is a compelling one that either these are not professionals or that they are professionals and are doing this on purpose. The stats today clearly show the massive difference between danger to Israeli personnel and Palestinians. Israel at this point has either failed to train professional forces that seek to deescalate and avoid dangerous situations or is training forces to find situations they can claim fear as a justification for murder. So, pick. They are either amateurs at which point it is a deplorable to put amateurs with this much force near a vulnerable population or they are professionals trained to do exactly this, find ways to kill a vulnerable population and claim self defense.
jll29
A certain amount of politics should/must be tolerated on HN, because you cannot compartmentalize technology, politics and morality.
No-one, not even people who say they like technology but do not care about politics, should be able to live their life wihtout knowing that we live in a world where six-year old blind children are murdered with automatic assault rifles.
(For the same reason that no-one should be able to live not knowing that jewish once were murdered in the millions in gas chambers.)
oulipo2
Technology IS politics.
Technology is a form of control. And in the capitalist system, this control is mostly exerted by private companies, on which the rules of democracy do not apply.
There must be guardrails
goku12
Technology is not a form of control at all. Technology is the practical application of things you know, to achieve things that don't happen naturally. Here's what the wiki says:
> Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way.
By this definition, the earliest wooden and stone tools, use of fire, wheel, agriculture, housing and clothing were all legitimate technology. It's no more 'a form of control' than medical science, any form of economics and commerce or any arts are.
It's true that technology is being used as a tool of oppression. But there are several reasons for it. Controlling its access is one of the easiest ways to control a society - either by gatekeeping access to its building blocks or through draconian legislations. This is possible and done with medical science and arts too.
We can live quite comfortably without the 'modern technology' that only the rich can control. But we are subjected to peer pressure by statements like "you can't compete in this era without smartphones", " you will be jobless without AI", etc. And we fall for all of it without any questions. It enrages me when I suggest that people should choose freedom over convenience, and people reject it flippantly citing market forces and supporting the abusive companies that make them.
Mischaracterizing and vilifying technology in response to its hijack like this will not serve us in any manner. People already have a negative response when they hear technology. But it's a discipline that we must own, instead of being the just the consumer of. Technology is one of the components we need to fight back against control.
fc417fc802
[flagged]
vybandz
[flagged]
pasquinelli
i've been on hn a long time, and if there's a prohibition against anything vaguely political if it can't be connected to technology, i've never known it.
throw4748t858
[flagged]
TacticalCoder
[flagged]
temp8830
Those stories aren't very visible because they are BS. Few people are dumb enough to think than a puppet government set up by an occupying force will improve their lives. Those dancers are either paid actors or not very bright.
The double standard I would like to see addressed is this: will any country have enough cojones to boycott the World Cup this year. My guess is no.
mcphage
> Or much more most recently than WWII: not knowing that 1200 civilians were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, whom palestinians did vote in power.
And if you want to go even more recently, check out what the IDF is doing in Gaza.
vortegne
The crazy double standard is you telling absolutely verifiable lies and feeling completely fine and righteous about it.
ngcazz
Like the other commenter has said, the reason there are no such stories is that they would be hypocritical BS, and I'll add, designed to manufacture consent for unlawful military action against a sovereign nation.
The perennially genocidal occupying force controlling all aspects of Palestinian life including forcing them into a subsistence diet, "mowing the lawn" in Gaza every so often, shooting down peaceful unarmed protesters - some of them disabled - and all that before 7/Oct - has no right to complain about terrorism, for it's what it has inflicted on Palestinians for decades.
mojtabak
[flagged]
igonvalue
I'm wondering about the broader context here: Are stories like this rare or common? Are they increasing or decreasing in frequency?
bhouston
Yeah it is getting worse. This was written 3 days ago before this event by Human Rights Watch:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/13/in-the-shadow-of-war-set...
Noumenon72
[dead]
igonvalue
[dead]
kakacik
[flagged]
cogman10
> this is war 101
The west bank isn't at war with Israel. There wasn't some conflict or event that has justified these actions.
I wish people understood this better. Even if you could manage to justify what's happening in gaza as "this is war", Gaza and the west bank are separate entities with separate governments. The west bank, in particular, is more like an Indian reservation in the US, with the Israeli government effectively exercising supremacy over all aspects of the government.
Theoretically, the IDF is supposed to be the police force for the west bank. That's why they occupy it.
xdennis
[flagged]
xg15
> this is war 101, every day.
Except this situation has been going on like this for 60 years - with Israel, or the other western states having absolutely no plans to change anything about it (except making it even worse).
intexpress
I don’t think anyone is going to forget about this
Qiu_Zhanxuan
completely deranged way of thinking that calls for a hard self-reflection.
kreyenborgi
> this is war 101
genocide 101
olelele
I have followed this conflict since Operation Cast Lead and the beginnings of the siege on Gaza.
Israel has been using enormous amounts of force against the Palestinian people since then, with death tolls of _at least_ 100 dead Palestinians for every dead Israeli.
For a very good account of life in Israel around the time of Cast Lead I recommend Guy Delisle, brilliant diary in comic form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem:_Chronicles_from_the...
His partner was working for Doctors Without Borders, the Israeli Army refused to let them enter Gaza to help the people suffering under their bombardments.
nailer
[flagged]
olelele
There are horrific acts on both sides going back very very far. I grew up in a country with a relatively balanced media reporting on the issue and have tried my best to stay informed. Suicide bombings, bus hijackings, mass murders.
The inequality in force applied has still been a constant.
Also, the fact is that any peace deal has been made impossible by the hunting down and killing of anyone that could actually hold that conversation. All secular and left wing movements in Palestine have been eradicated in favor of Hamas, Islamic Jihad et al.
Likewise the Israeli extreme right wing now in power killed their own prime minister for trying to negotiate.
Also see the birth of Hezbollah as a response to Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which also gave rise to suicide bombings. These then spread across the region. The reason Israel invaded was to fight the Palestinians there who were displaced by the founding of the Israeli state and the following conflicts.
Edit: the Palestinian groups there were doing raids in northern Israel and fleeing back across the border to Lebanon
It's a gordian knot at this point and i am very doubtful there will ever be a peaceful solution.
hjkl0
> i am very doubtful there will ever be a peaceful solution.
I wonder if there’s room for any actual discussion here. This topic is damned from the first upvote.
Curious what people’s thoughts are about a non-peaceful solution.
For example, do you think that other countries should send their militaries over to help one of the sides win?
nailer
[flagged]
karim79
Imagine, this is just one of thousands upon thousands of incredibly tragic and similar stories of the last few years (going back much further than October 7th).
Most such stories never see the light of day. Hind Rajab is one such story which got some reasonable exposure [0]. I suppose this one will as well get due exposure at some point.
But the vast majority of similar atrocities will just vanish in the sands of time.
gljiva
The scale of these atrocities and our governments' support are the reason why this story should be on HN. We elect people who support this, therefore it's only right it follows us and comes up often, even when it's not convenient. That "inconvenience" (skipping a story in HN feed every now and then) is nothing compared to the oppression our democracies support
jiaosdjf
Also there's barely a tech industry to talk about as our economy collapses through $100 oil and private equity backed destruction of our way of life - what else are we supposed to discuss now - it might as well be Israel.
tim333
The US economy will probably be ok. It's an oil exporter and the Apples and Nvidias are thriving.
amelius
This wouldn't have happened if they didn't dehumanize their enemies. This should be considered a crime in itself.
Ar-Curunir
Who exactly are you blaming here, the IDF or the boys family?
amelius
Who pulled the trigger here?
jiaosdjf
This kid will grow up and fight, and I don't blame him. Gaza is a concentration camp, West Bank is an apartheid. These people have the audacity to bribe and threaten our governments to do their nationalist ethno-state bidding in one hand while pushing the narrative that the west must not have any identity or borders in the other. They fund PACs that threaten 80% of congress with "we'll front an opposition candidate and BTW 97% of them win". They fund NGOs who offload the people they don't want onto Europe and muddy the political waters allowing both far left and far right extremists to thrive. When TikTok woke the kids, they bought it. When Epstein died they fought tooth and nail to cover it up. Oil is $100, they do not understand the pure rage and anger they have dredged up.
js212
Wtf is this Jew hate and why is it on HN?
jiaosdjf
I am jewish and I wrote this. If you think that's bad check out the entire state of political discourse across America and Europe - just don't look at the Middle East because you will be in for a shock
dpc050505
Jews aren't all zionists and it's perpetuating jewish hatred to pretend so.
ndbdkskk
May be they all should embrace "show the other cheek" and the suffering will stop
urig
As an Israeli, this is an inexcusable crime by IDF soldiers. Appallingly, I expect them to receive no punishment. My country's government is criminally racist.
undefined
ignoramous
> IDF soldiers
Hopefully, such trigger-happy soldiers are in the minority.
forgotTheLast
It's hard to claim ""bad apples"" when the top brass acquits soldiers who get caught on camera sexually abusing a prisoner and instead prosecutes the whistleblower for leaking evidence of the crime.
oulipo2
They are not. And they are incited by their hierarchy to commit more crimes, because they are not held accountable
ignoramous
I mean, almost entire society participates in (what they believe is the "most moral") military service. It is scary to think folks with murderous tendencies might not be minority.
fennecbutt
Eh, tbh I've given up. Can't point out the terrible things that the IDF are up to without being labelled an apologist, or terrorist supporter, or just getting a massively negative reaction.
Now I'm not one to fall prey to the conspiracy theories around Judaism...but like...is it not possible to say that both hamas and the IDF do terrible things? And that innocent civilians are caught in between, with the usual bad faith reasons of "they were hiding hamas members" aka the exact same rhetoric that Russia used when accused of something terrible that they obviously did, deflection and formal outrage.
The very fact I feel I have to tread so carefully with my comment is an indication that something is seriously, seriously wrong. I don't live in China, I don't live in Russia. But when speaking about Israel or the IDF, I feel like I do.
bhouston
> is it not possible to say that both hamas and the IDF do terrible things?
I agree. Hamas and IDF do terrible things - the ICC issued warrants for the leaders of both. This is why an external party has to impose a solution and it should involve in my opinion separation (two-states.) Both parties are radicalized at least for now and need to be separated and allowed to manage their own affairs while allowing the other to exist.
nailer
[flagged]
bhouston
100% not true. Abbas wants a Palestinian state beside Israel. This is what he has supported for a long time. And why many states in the last two years have recognized a Palestinian state: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mahmoud-abbas-palestinian-pres...
While there was rejectionists in the past, Netanyahu has been the rejectionist for the last two decades. He says so himself:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-boasts-of-thwarting-...
He and his cronies boosted Hamas in part to split the Palestinians so as to avoid having to negotiate a two-state solution:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
throw310822
The two-state solution doesn't need to be offered, it needs to be imposed. And it needs to be imposed on both parties, which means that Israel needs to be forced to withdraw within its legitimate borders.
Israel (with the West's participation and complicity) has been perfectly able to impose on Palestinians the settlements, the walls and the apartheid. Therefore Israel and the West will have no trouble imposing on Palestinians wider borders, withdrawal from settlements and the end of the occupation.
tpm
The State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, or just over 80% of all UN members.
The only obstacle to the two-state solution is Israel and the US blocking it with powerful violence.
Please don't lie.
Traster
I feel something very similar. I have strong views that what Israel is doing is wrong. But I look around at our politics (in the UK), and there is such a well oiled Israeli PR operation that is very happy making career ending accusations that talking publicly about this is actually quite dangerous (Not helped by the loonies who are, and have always been disgusting anti-semites). And you look at our politician's stance on it - and the career of people like Lord Walney, and it's clear we're in a very dangerous place. I think there is a very wide gap between what the average British person actually believes about Israel and what is happening to the Palestinians, and the acceptable positions you can express in Westminster. I also fear that once the dam breaks, and it's no longer the case, that the swing back against Israel is going to be quick harsh, and that's difficult because I have friends and family in Israel - I would like to see Israel be a free and open liberal democracy that shares what used to be western values, but maybe we're too late for that.
ndbdkskk
Also to note UK is on massive rise in anti muslim sentiment in recent years. That also a major contribution
catlifeonmars
If you feel the need to temper your speech to avoid offending people you are using the wrong moral compass.
There are plenty of good reasons to speak carefully, thoughtfully and compassionately, but avoiding criticism is not a good reason.
fennecbutt
I'm not avoiding criticism, I'm avoiding very real legal repercussions by treading so lightly. Lest I get caught in the crossfire.
catlifeonmars
That’s really unfortunate. What country are you in that there are legal repercussions? Understand if you don’t want to divulge that information.
ahf8Aithaex7Nai
I am German. My government does not acknowledge the tragedy that has been unfolding in Gaza since the Hamas attack in October 2023. It’s absurd. Since then, Jewish people in Berlin who were demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the war in Gaza have been beaten down by the German police. In 2021, Esther Bejarano, the last survivor of the Auschwitz Girls’ Orchestra, passed away in Hamburg. Whenever she commented on the culture of remembrance, the media was eager to report on it. Whenever she commented on the situation of the Palestinians, it was not reported in the media. People sometimes ask how it was possible that the vast majority of so-called ordinary people in this country back then could simply tolerate these crimes against Jews and look the other way. Now that should be clear to everyone. The Max Planck Institute in Rostock estimates that well over 100,000 people have been killed in Gaza. But nobody here gives a damn (at least not publicly). We’re even supplying weapons there. Everyone acts as if they’ve forgotten what was written in German newspapers about the current Israeli government when it took office, and as if there were no connection to what’s happening in Gaza right now. I am deeply and profoundly disappointed in the elected officials and public servants of my country. They have learned nothing from the atrocities committed by their grandfathers.
olelele
I live in DE too, it's terrifying. I didn't realize the extent of the armaments shipped to Israel from Germany until recently.
The Israeli navy ships were built in German shipyards and subsidized 30%...
thot_experiment
It's terrifying everywhere, really shines a light on the insane levels of propaganda we live under. I don't really know what can be done about it, it's really just hard to wrap my head around living in a country that so explicitly and directly supports an ethnostate and their active genocide.
olelele
Germany has a lot of very strange political formations. The anti-german antifa is very curious and close to this topic.
shdudns
I find this bewildering. Im not German. Im not Israeli.
Yet I have known that Israel sails German subs (the best in the world) since.... the Greek financial crisis (the subs were part of the scandal) ? Certainly since the mid 2010s.
Why is this?
tim333
I guess they feel guilty about previous generations gassing the jews.
stefantalpalaru
[dead]
black_13
[dead]
mfru
Same thing in Austria, everyone in mainstream politics basically ignores the topic and when pressured parrot something like "Israel has the right to defend itself" or "It is very complicated"
Repression against students and demonstrators is happening regularly
noworriesnate
> Auschwitz Girls’ Orchestra
Is this something from the post-war or did that really exist?
layer8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Orchestra_of_Auschwi...
“The Germans wanted a propaganda tool for [SS] visitors and camp newsreels and a tool to boost camp morale.”
There were also several men’s orchestras.
noworriesnate
Interesting, I imagine the propaganda was also used for the German public, because they had no idea they were death camps.
Israel would doubtless keep its genocide a secret if it could, but there's just so much evidence created by smartphones. This is actually an example of how technology is making the world a massively better place--it's so much harder to genocide without creating tons of evidence.
deaux
> They have learned nothing from the atrocities committed by their grandfathers.
No no, they have learned from them. That's why they are the biggest backers of these new atrocities on the whole continent - they learned exactly how it's done.
busterarm
The last time I was in Berlin (2018), I was actually somewhat shocked by the amount of antisemitic graffiti that I saw just about everywhere (especially on lamp posts). Especially given the strictness of the laws against such speech.
nxor2
[flagged]
DiogenesKynikos
What does that have to do with the subject of this thread at all? Christians are also terrible to gay people, and European societies have only very recently (in the last two to three decades) become somewhat more tolerant.
In the context of Israel-Palestine, this issue is only raised in order to somehow justify Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, a la "They deserve it because they're not as enlightened as we are."
otikik
Wait until you hear Muslims in Europe can be openly gay.
mmooss
The parent comment is just anti-Muslim hate. It has nothing to do with the topic.
iwontberude
It's even more insidious, I know activists in your country and they not only abhor the current support for Israel's genocide but they are terrified of their activism being criminalized under anti-nazi laws. How ironic.
riedel
While I agree with you on the case of Esther Bejerano (a recent example from public broadcasting shows that her own communist beliefs and support for BDS are seemingly 'censored' [0]), I find the general situation complicated. Although it should be easy for any half intellectual being to contextualize the recent Israeli aggression by mentioning October 7, like you did, this is often not done. At the same time I think that the coverage of likely Israeli war crimes also happens in German media and I think nobody is looking away. Still Germany is the reason why the whole mess exists in the first place. I feel, that Germany, has quite some problems like many other countries to find it's role in a world where particularly the UN is failing and international law/human rights seem not enforcable.
[0] https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/koepfe/Esther-Bejarano-Das-Erb...
gorgolo
> Germany is the reason why the whole mess exists in the first place.
I think this is the most unfair thing about it; Germany might be the reason, but it’s not Germans paying the consequences. It’s not 70k dead Germans, but 70k dead Palestinians (a Semitic people).
I can understand thefeeling of wanting to make amends for their crimes, but they are making amends by now allowing a whole new genocide to occur, against a completely unrelated people.
lucyjojo
i am honestly puzzled as to why germans, with all the educations they have received during decades, are letting this rock as is. or maybe disillusioned would be a better term...
oa335
An eyewitness account from the article:
(The eyewitness) told us the family car had just turned left into his street, facing uphill, and had come to a complete halt before any shots were fired, contradicting the Israeli army account. I asked if he had heard any warnings given by the Israeli forces, or any warning shots fired. "No, nothing," he said. "The firing directly targeted the car. I just heard the woman in the car screaming. The little kids were crying before they were killed."
RuslanL
This is a side effect of using a guerilla terrorist tactics - normal people are start to be seen as "threat".
pickleglitch
A side effect of brutal oppression is that it drives people to use guerilla terrorist tactics.
RuslanL
Yes, it is a downward spiral. How do you propose to stop it, assuming both parties want another one to disappear from reality, and see any compromise as weakness?
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
For those wondering, it is verifiable story, it is covered as fact in Israeli newspapers:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-forces-kill-west-bank-...
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/p7mq5k5bs
The main justification floated is that the car was "going fast" and thus made the undercover Israeli soldiers feel unsafe.
The New York Times describes it as such:
"Ali Bani Odeh’s wife and four young boys hadn’t seen him in a month and a half when he came home to Tammun, in the West Bank, from his construction job in Israel late on Friday to spend the last few days of Ramadan with his family.
On Saturday night, the boys persuaded him to take them out for a drive. Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, was coming, so there were new clothes to buy. The day’s fast had been broken, so there were sweets to be had, too.
They picked up fried doughnut holes in Tubas, saving them for later, but the clothing shop they went to in Nablus was closed. It was already past midnight, so they headed back to Tammun: Khaled, 11, the oldest, in the back with Mustafa, 8, and Muhammad, 5. Othman, 6, blind and incapable of walking or feeding himself, was in his mother’s lap in front.
As they rounded a corner slowly, a few minutes from home, young Khaled and Mustafa recounted on Sunday, their mother, Waad, 35, asked her husband to pull over and take Othman from her so she could get something from her bag on the floor. Suddenly, the boys said, they saw laser pointers shining on their family from every direction, heard their mother scream, heard their father say “God is great” — and then heard a deafening fusillade of gunfire."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/world/middleeast/palestin...