MMR October 18 2023 - My Life > < Your Life

In al-Tuwani, a remote village nestled in the Masafer Yatta area in the southernmost part of the West Bank, a settler shot Zakaria al-Adra, a 29-year-old Palestinian, on Friday at close range after a group of settlers attacked the village's mosque.



Somehow he’s still alive, but remains in hospital under vigilant medical care.



Fouad Lamour, an anti-occupation activist in al-Tuwani, told MEE that settlers had not dared to show this level of brutal aggression towards the villagers before.



“They fired shots at point-blank range, all while being shielded by an army that merely stood by and watched without intervening,” he said.



This close-knit community of some 350 Palestinians is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements on all sides.



“Given the recent unrestrained actions of the settlers, the possibility of further violent aggressions remains ever present,” Lamour said.


In the town of al-Jib, which lies between the cities of Nablus and Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, a group of settlers disguised as soldiers kidnapped 55-year-old resident Ibrahim al-Sada outside his home.



Sada’s house is in al-Jib’s southeastern corner, uncomfortably close to the expanding boundaries of the Gelad settlement, which has encroached upon the village lands.



He told MEE that four settlers wearing Israeli army uniforms first attacked a group of farmers harvesting olives.



When they approached him, Sada assumed they were regular soldiers, but their intention soon became clear: they attacked, subdued and abducted him.

Sada’s 15-year-old son Osama witnessed his father’s abduction and alerted relatives and other residents.

But attempts to save him were met by threats from the settlers that they would shoot anyone who came near.

After contacting the Palestinian Authority for help, the Israeli military intervened and secured Sada’s release.

Sada spent two hours in the settlers’ hands, dreading he would meet his end. "The spectre of death loomed relentlessly before me," he recalled.

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discussed the attacks from Hamas in Israel on October 7th, and how israeli intelligence failed so poorly in anticipating that attack. Weinstein speculates that perhaps someone on the inside of Israeli government allowed the attacks to happen, similar to what occurred with Israel's COVID vaccine policy.

Bret Samuel Weinstein (/ˈwaɪnstaɪn/; born February 21, 1969) is an American podcaster, author, and former professor of evolutionary biology. He served on the faculty of Evergreen State College from 2002 until 2017, when he resigned in the aftermath of a series of campus protests about racial equity at Evergreen, which brought Weinstein to national attention. Along with his brother Eric Weinstein, he is considered part of the intellectual dark web.[3][4] Weinstein has been criticized for making false statements about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.[5][6]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Weinstein made several public appearances advocating the use of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to prevent or treat the disease and downplaying the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. David Gorski, in Science-Based Medicine, described Weinstein as a prominent "COVID-19 contrarian and spreader of disinformation", and "one of the foremost purveyors of COVID-19 disinformation", citing his appearances on Joe Rogan and Bill Maher.[5][36] Sam Harris criticized Weinstein's advocacy, stating that he "consider it dangerous".[36] Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine, described Weinstein's position on mRNA vaccines as "totally irresponsible. It's reckless. It's sick. It's predatory. It's really sad."[36]

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday are proposing legislation to block children from using social media in school, preventing access to the platforms on poorer schools' networks that receive federal broadband subsidies, the latest in a growing crop of bills to bar younger users from sites such as TikTok and Instagram.

The measure illustrates how policymakers are turning to a broadening and increasingly aggressive arsenal of tools to try to restrict children's online activity amid concerns about their safety.