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Israel Tries to Save Arab Lives During Iran War, and Palestinian Authority Calls it a ‘Crime’
Palestinians walk at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City May 21, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
According to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel is acting criminally when it closes Muslim holy sites to protect against needless loss of life from Iranian missile attacks during the Iran war.
The PA says this even though Israel is applying the safety regulation uniformly across the country, prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people at holy sites of all religions — something that PA officials and media refuse to disclose to their people.
As Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported last week, this is an especially hypocritical accusation, since the PA police have also issued guidelines restricting large gatherings. The tens of thousands of worshippers that typically visit Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan would certainly qualify as a prohibited “large gathering” even according to the PA regulations.
But for the PA, it doesn’t matter — because any Israeli decision that affects land it claims is Muslim-owned property is an “illegal” order. This has now been stated quite clearly by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash:
Official PA TV host:“What is the reason for the closure of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and what is the occupation (i.e., Israel) aiming for with this act?”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash:“Whatever the reasons, excuses, and pretexts being marketed by the occupation state to justify the crimes and violations it commits against the holy sites, foremost among them the Al-Aqsa Mosque, all these reasons are false, unacceptable, and illegal. Israel has no legal right to interfere in the affairs of the Al-Aqsa Mosque… The occupation government is illegal, and therefore all the laws and decisions that come from it – whatever their excuses, reasons, or pretexts – are illegal.”
Video title:“Dr. Mahmoud Al-Habbash talks with [Official] PA TV about the real goals behind Israel’s closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the activity of the Presidential Assistance Committee in the Gaza Strip”
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, March 6, 2026]
This libel is expressed repeatedly by PA officials, and since the start of the Iran war, has become a daily talking point on official PA media:
Official PA TV reporter in Hebron: “The occupation (i.e., Israel) continues to close the noble Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., Cave of the Patriarchs) for five consecutive days on a baseless claim and is preventing the Muslim worshippers from praying inside the mosque, particularly in this blessed [Muslim fasting] month [of Ramadan].” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV News, March 4, 2026]
The PA’s denial of Israel’s rights at Judaism’s holy sites follows its historical revisionism, and repeated denial that the Western Wall and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs are Jewish holy sites of historic and religious significance:
PA Jerusalem District Spokesman Ma’arouf Al-Rifai: “We say that the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall of the Temple Mount) and the Al-Buraq [Wall] Plaza are part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is an Islamic waqf (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law). [It does not belong] to either the Orthodox or non-Orthodox [Jews]. It is occupied territory. We do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over it and there is no such thing.”
[Radio Hawa Nablus, Facebook page, Feb. 23, 2026]
According to the PA, Judaism’s holiest site — the Temple Mount — is also disenfranchised from its central place in Jewish history and religious texts. Before the Iran war broke out, the PA’s official newspaper attacked Jews who visited the site as “colonialist invaders.” The Jews’ prayers were maligned as “provocative” “Talmudic ceremonies” and a “dangerous escalation.” The event was called a “blatant provocation to the sensibilities of… the entire world”:
Headline: “[PA] Jerusalem District: Extending the time of the invasions of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by an additional hour is a dangerous escalation”
“The [PA] Jerusalem District announced that dozens of colonialists invaded the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and held Talmudic [i.e., Jewish] and provocative ceremonies in its plazas…
The Jerusalem District stated that the fact that the Israeli occupation authorities extended the time of the colonialists’ invasions of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque by an additional hour every day during the blessed [Muslim fasting] month of Ramadan constitutes a dangerous escalation.
In a statement yesterday [Feb. 18, 2026], the district… said that this decision constitutes a dangerous escalation that harms the historical and legal status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and is a blatant provocation to the sensibilities of the Muslims in Jerusalem, Palestine, and the entire world.
…
The Jerusalem District emphasized that the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is solely an Islamic place of worship, and that all measures of the occupation [i.e., Israel] against it are invalid and illegal, and constitute a blatant violation of international law and the resolutions of the relevant international institutions.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 19, 2026]
That Jews, no less than Muslims, are barred from visiting the Temple Mount, Western Wall, and Cave of the Patriarchs during the Iran war, is clearly information that the PA would prefer to hide from Palestinians and the world.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
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UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
A campus event featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov drew the condemnation of UCLA’s student government on Tuesday. In an open letter, the UCLA Students Associated Council said that bringing Tov to speak to students “served to legitimize and normalize” atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.
Shem Tov, 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025. UCLA hosted him on April 14 for a Yom HaShoah event.
“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” the student government letter wrote in the letter, which was addressed to the UCLA administration and UCLA Hillel among others. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.
“In this context, elevating a single narrative, absent of critical political and humanitarian framing, serves to legitimize and normalize these ongoing atrocities.”
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, UCLA Hillel’s director emeritus, called the statement “completely ridiculous.”
“You can’t present the narrative of your experience without it being called ‘one sided,’” Seidler-Feller said. “There has to be a counter-story to persecution. Is there a counter-story to killing people?”
UCLA Hillel executive director Daniel Gold dismissed the criticism in Tuesday’s letter as antisemitic.
“Hillel at UCLA and Students Supporting Israel UCLA would like to apologize…for absolutely nothing,” he wrote in a statement. “Members of UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student and antisemitic.”
The USAC did not respond to a request for comment.
As college campuses across the country became a hotspot for pro-Palestinian activism following the Oct. 7 attack, UCLA, with an activist history and a large Jewish population, stood out as a major flashpoint. Its student encampment was the site of a riot in April 2024 and eventually cleared by police in riot gear.
The USAC has sided with pro-Palestinian protesters throughout. In a Feb. 2025 letter titled “We Are All SJP,” the USAC, which is democratically elected by the roughly 30,000-member UCLA student body, condemned Chancellor Julio Frenk’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine. The letter referred to Israel only as “the Zionist state” or put the country’s name inside quotation marks.
The University of California has since been sued by the Department of Justice, which said that UCLA created a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
The post UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
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Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
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