CrossFireArabia, Author at CrossFireArarbia

French Nurse Who Spent Time In Gaza Arrested

CrossFireArabia
September 6, 2024

A French nurse who spent two weeks in Gaza in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza was arrested by police, Thursday, and later released for saying she supported the Palestinians of Gaza.

Lawyer Rafik Chekkat, founder of the Islamophobia platform, said Imane Maarifi was arrested in the morning after raiding her home and taken into custody in front of her husband and children.

He criticized the arrest and said it took place at a time when French soldiers who fought in Gaza “enjoy total impunity,” according to the Al Quds News Network.

Thomas Portes, a lawmaker from the La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed (LFI) party, wrote that Maarifi was released from custody on Thursday afternoon.

“Imane Maarifi has just been released. Her police custody is over, and no charges will be filed. The search of her home in front of her family leaves no doubt about the intent to intimidate those who speak out in support of the Palestinian people and call for an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote on X.

Liberté immédiate pour Imane Maarifi, cette infirmière qui a passé 2 semaines à Gaza pour soigner les rescapés du génocide et qui nous livre régulièrement des témoignages poignants sur ce qu'elle a vue.
Halte à la criminilisation de la solidarité avec le peuple palestinien. https://t.co/bUynTP6stA
— Taoufiq TAHANI (@TaoufiqTahani) September 5, 2024

Maarifi, known as one of the first French nationals to enter Gaza after 7 October 2023 as part of a mission organized by the Palestinian Doctors Association in Europe (PalMed Europe), spent 15 days at the European Hospital in Khan Younis during the Israeli war.

According to the French daily newspaper l’Humanité, Maarifi was allegedly accused of making “insults in connection with a campaign against the Israeli investment and real estate fair taking place in Paris on September 8.”

Her supporters and friends believe this is “merely an attempt to intimidate her.”

Maarifi attended pro-Palestinian rallies in France to share her testimony about the devastating situation in Gaza.

She has expressed her demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of companies supporting Israel. Maarifi also testified at the French National Assembly about the situation in Gaza.

Louis Boyard, Deputy of the French National Assembly, said in a post on X, “Almost a year has passed since France has been covered in shame due to its inaction in the face of the genocide in Palestine. Today, a new milestone has been reached; the police have just arrested nurse Imane Maarfi at her home in France.”

“Her crime? Reporting to the National Assembly about her humanitarian mission at Khan Younes Hospital in Gaza. We must not lower our eyes in the face of these intimidations. Imane Maarfi must be released.”

In videos she filmed on her phone while in the Gaza hospital, she shows overcrowded corridors, minimal equipment for delicate operations, and the cries of children treated on the floor and without anesthesia due to lack of space.

Voici bientôt un an que la France se couvre de honte par son inaction devant le génocide en Palestine.

Aujourd’hui, un nouveau cap est franchi ; la police vient d’arrêter l’infirmière Imane Maarfi à son domicile en France.

Son crime ? Avoir rendu compte devant l’Assemblée… pic.twitter.com/0hYLKfiCbo
— Louis Boyard (@LouisBoyard) September 5, 2024

“It’s inhumane, we wouldn’t even treat animals like that,” Maarifi told FRANCE 24 after returning from Gaza in February.

“I knew what was going on in Gaza before going, but to experience it in person with all my senses. All my senses are still in Gaza. All my senses,” Maarifi added, noting staff at the hospital struggled to treat a constant stream of people wounded in daily bombardments.

In April, a security guard confiscated a Palestinian flag from her during a football match attended by Emmanuel Macron. She wanted to give him a collective testimony written by several doctors on the horrors of Gaza and to communicate to him the urgency of a ceasefire, according to DayFR Euro.

News

Israeli Forces Kill US-Turkish Activist in Beita

CrossFireArabia
September 6, 2024

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, Friday, demanded those responsible for the murder of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi be held accountable.

Eygi, a Turkish-American activist, was shot and killed by Israeli forces, Friday, during a protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, near Nablus city in the northern occupied West Bank.

In a statement, the Ministry strongly condemned Eygi’s killing, describing it as a “heinous crime that requires holding those responsible accountable.”

American 🇺🇸 human rights activist shot to death by Israeli 🇮🇱 soldiers near Nablus, occupied West Bank, Palestine 🇵🇸

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a Turkish 🇹🇷 woman with American citizenship, was killed by Israeli army fire during a protest in the West Bank town of Beita, near Nablus… pic.twitter.com/6EK1BTgLn0
— Saad Abedine (@SaadAbedine) September 6, 2024

It added the killing of Eygi is a continuation of Israel’s crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Fouad Nafaa, director of the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, told Anadolu that Eygi arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. She succumbed to her injuries despite medical teams’ efforts to revive her, according to Nafaa.

Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers opened live fire on a group of Palestinians participating in a demonstration condemning the illegal settlements on Mount Sbeih in Beita, which lies south of the city of Nablus.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi est une américaine d'origine turque. Elle vient d'être assassinée d'une balle dans la tête par un soldat israélien alors qu'elle participait à la manifestation hebdomadaire de Beita contre la colonisation israélienne.
Tuée d'une balle américaine? Probablement. pic.twitter.com/c6mzjTS30Z
— Taoufiq TAHANI (@TaoufiqTahani) September 6, 2024

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa confirmed that the victim was a volunteer with the Fazaa campaign, an initiative aimed at supporting and protecting Palestinian farmers from ongoing violations by illegal Israeli settlers and the military.

Beita residents hold protests after weekly Muslim Friday prayers in congregation to oppose the illegal Israeli settlement of Avitar, which sits atop Mount Sbeih. The community demands that the settlement be removed because it violates their land rights.

Eygi was born in the Turkish city of Antalya in 1998.

News

Captive Polin Appeals to Biden Before Bombing

CrossFireArabia
September 6, 2024

The Hamas Qassam Brigades broadcast a recording, Thursday, 5 September, 2024, of an Israeli prisoner with American citizenship, who was killed by the occupation army and whose body and five other prisoners were recovered last Saturday inside a tunnel in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

In the recording, slain prisoner Hersh Goldberg-Polin asked US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and all American citizens to do everything they can to “stop the war and this madness and bring him home.”

Incredible video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin: “Worst of all is my own country Israel has been trying to bomb me nonstop so they don’t have to take responsibility…Mama, Dada…hopefully I will be home soon.” His family issued a statement: “This must serve as an immediate wake-up call” pic.twitter.com/aAFm2RumBg
— Linda Mamoun (@mamoun_linda) September 6, 2024

He pointed out he became 23 years old just four days before his arrest at a concert in the Re’im area in the so-called “Gaza enveloped” on 7 October, 2023.

He highlighted the extent of the suffering he is experiencing in Gaza and said he does not remember the last time he saw the sun or breathed fresh air, but he stressed what is worse is the Israeli [government] attempt to bomb him without stopping “so it wouldn’t not bear responsibility and reach an agreement.”

Born in California

Goldberg-Polin, who was born in California and lives in occupied Jerusalem, said that since his arrival in Gaza, he has been trying to stay alive without any medical assistance, with little food and water.

He sent an emotional message to his family, stressing he knows they are doing everything they can to bring him home, and asked his family to stay strong for him.

Last April, the Qassam Brigades published a video recording of the prisoner Goldberg-Polin, in which he attacked the Netanyahu government and accused it of negligence and failure to work to release him and the rest of the detainees.

On 13 May, the Qassam Brigades announced it had lost contact with a group of resistance fighters guarding four Israeli prisoners in Gaza, including Goldberg-Polin, due to the Israeli bombing of the Strip.

Since last Monday, the Qassam Brigades began broadcasting the last messages of the six Israeli prisoners, starting with the prisoner Idan Yerushalmi, then Ori Danino, before broadcasting – Wednesday – a recording of the prisoners Alexander Lubnov and Carmel Gat.

All the recordings hold the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the security and military services responsible for what happened on 7 October, 2023, and all the captives demanded the speeding up of an exchange deal and for the popular demonstrations demanding their return continue so that they could return home alive.

Last Sunday, Al-Qassam broadcast a message to Israeli society stating that “Netanyahu chose the Philadelphi Corridor at the expense of liberating your prisoners,” noting that these captives were alive but have become a thing of the past, whilst stressing Netanyahu is creating dozens of Ron Arads.

On 23 April, the Brigades’ spokesman Abu Obeida said that the “the Ron Arad scenario may be the most likely to be repeated with the enemy’s prisoners in Gaza,” stressing that “the so-called military pressure will only push us to stand firm in our positions and preserve the rights of our people and not relinquish them,” according to JO24.

Culture

Palestine Coins Are Older Than Israel

CrossFireArabia
September 5, 2024

The above Palestine coin is older than the state of Israel; and there are many other coins like this and there is a whole library of these coins for those who are interested about Palestine, its culture, identity, politics, people and economy, certainly much older than Israel that was created as a colonial outpost in 1948.

Coins in British mandate Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/y7ay3fhG65
— V PALESTINE 🇵🇸 (@V_Palestine20) August 17, 2023

News

Hezbollah Fires 1,307 Rockets Into Israel in August

CrossFireArabia
September 5, 2024

The Israeli military stated, Thursday, it detected 1,307 rockets and drones launched against from Lebanon in August alone.

This is the largest salvo of missiles fired against Israel from the Hezbollah group since the start of this year.

Israeli Army Radio reported that over 1,300 projectiles were launched from #Lebanon in August. According to the report, the number of rockets and drones fired from Lebanon into the occupied territories surged in August.

"Israel" recorded 1,307 incoming projectiles in August, the… pic.twitter.com/waICLdKvz2
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 5, 2024

In a statement, the Shin Bet domestic security service said around 42 rockets and drones were fired daily against Israel from Lebanon last month according to an Anadolu report.

According to the statement, 1,091 rockets were launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon in July, 855 in June, 1,000 in May, 744 in April, 746 in March, 534 in February, and 334 in January.

As for the Gaza Strip, the Shin Bet said 116 rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave in August, down from 216 in July, 205 in June, and 452 in May according to the Turkish news agency.

Tensions spiked along Lebanon’s border with Israel amid cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israeli forces as Tel Aviv pressed ahead with its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 40,800 people since last 7 October 2023 following an attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas into Israel in which around 1200 people were killed.