The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the Norwegian wealth fund divesting from an Israeli company that provides telecommunications services to illegal settlements in the West Bank. CAIR also condemned a series of Israeli war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has sold all its shares in Israel’s Bezeq (BEZQ.TA) because it provides telecoms services to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
SEE: Norway wealth fund divests from Israel’s Bezeq over services to West Bank settlements | Reuters
Illegal Israeli settlers launched attacks on Palestinians near the West Bank city of Nablus, setting fire to buildings and vehicles. The settlers torched two homes, three vehicles and a grocery store in the towns of Huwwara and Beit Furik.
SEE: Middle East latest: Jewish settlers attack Palestinian towns and clash with Israeli troops | AP News
Israeli settlers torch Palestinian grocery, cars and buildings near Nablus | Middle East Eye
Also in Nablus, Israeli forces beat to death an elderly man on his own land.
SEE: Elderly Palestinian man killed in an attack by Israeli forces near Nablus
An Israeli drone targeted and killed a soup kitchen chef in northern Gaza. Over the past year, the Israeli military had reportedly detained him twice and released him both times.
Israeli air strikes on al-Mawasi camp in Gaza have killed at least 20 Palestinians and wounded dozens. At least five people, including four children, were also killed in an Israeli drone attack on a food distribution point and a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
SEE: Updates LIVE: Israel kills 20 in attack on al-Mawasi camp in Gaza
Palestinians in Gaza say Israel has been using small quadcopter drones, equipped with loudspeakers, to lure them out of their homes and then shoot them. “Quadcopters were emitting baby sounds, playing sounds of screaming women,” one witness said.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“As the atrocities of the Israeli government continue, more nations are waking up and divesting from genocide. Indicted war criminal Netanyahu’s crimes against the Palestinian people are being exposed for the world to see. It is time for the Biden administration to stop enabling these horrors, end all military aid to the far-right Israeli government and force an immediate ceasefire.”
He noted that the Israeli military has reportedly advised its soldiers who invaded the Gaza Strip to avoid travelling abroad for fear of arrest in the aftermath of court orders issued by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, [email protected]; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, [email protected]