International media rights group Reporters Without Borders on June 8 said it was "outraged" by an Israeli police raid on the offices of a Palestinian media agency last week. On June 6, Israeli police raided the East Jerusalem studio of Palestine TV and detained Nader Beibars, the producer of Good Morning Jerusalem, and Palmedia cameraman Ashraf al-Showeiki. Both were detained, interrogated, and later released. Israeli forces raided the studio as the show was being broadcast live. "This raid, and the broadcast shut-down, join the long list of violations of Palestinian news media rights by the Israeli security forces, with never-ending threats, arrests and military operations," Reporters Without Borders said. "The Israeli authorities keep on persecuting the Palestinian media and journalists. After seizing Al-Wattan TV's transmission equipment in 2012, the military are now threatening it with another raid on the grounds that it obtained its new frequency illegally." Israeli police said Palestine TV did not have the required broadcasting permits and suspected the station of inciting violence.

Doctors in Israel are refusing to back proposed legislation that would allow Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to be force-fed. The bill, proposed by the Home Front Defense Ministry, comes as at least 65 of the 290 striking detainees have been hospitalized since they stopped eating on April 24. The legislation would empower judges to sanction force-feeding if a detainee's life is perceived to be in danger. But the Israel Medical Association is urging physicians not to cooperate in the practice. "It goes against the DNA of the doctors to force treatment on a patient," said the IMA's Ziva Miral. "Force-feeding is torture, and we can't have doctors participating in torture."

Sixty hunger striking Palestinians in Israel's Eshel prison are being held in solitary confinement, a prisoner rights group said June 3. The Palestinian Prisoners' Society said in a statement that the number of prisoners hunger striking in the Beersheba prison of Eshel had reached 60 and that each of the strikers was being held in solitary confinement. A spokesman for the Israeli Prison Service did not immediately return calls seeking comment. The prisoners are among hundreds refusing meals in solidarity with administrative detainees who have been on hunger strike for 41 days. 

Jailed Palestinian leaders Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat have announced that they will go on hunger strike May 21, a senior official said. Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Qaraqe said that over 120 Palestinian prisoners, including the two jailed leaders, will go on hunger strike for one day in support of administrative detainees who have been refusing meals for nearly four weeks. The day-long solidarity hunger strike will be a warning to the Israeli Prison Service, urging it to comply with the demands of hunger striking prisoners held without trial, Qaraqe said in a statement. Marwan Barghouti is a key figure in the Palestinian Fatah movement and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Ahmad Saadat is the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Some 120 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike in protest of their detention without charge or trial in Israeli jails. Most of them started their hunger strike 26 days ago. They are demanding Israel change its policy of administrative detention.

Ukraine's resurgent far right is sure providing plenty of fodder for the Russian propaganda machine that seeks to protray all Ukrainian nationalism as "fascism." Russia Today gleefully informs us that hundreds marched in the western city of Lviv last week to mark the anniversary of the formation of a Ukrainian SS division, which fought for the Nazis against the Soviet Union during World War II. Some 500 took to the streets to celebrate the creation of the SS Galician Division on April 28, 1943. Photos show marchers holding aloft banners with the division's insignia, a gold lion on a blue field (the national colors of Ukraine). The march culminated with a rally at the city's monument to Stepan Bandera, the wartime Ukrainian nationalist leader who briefly collaborated with the Nazis (although he had nothing to do with the Galician Division). But almost as ominous as the content of the RT report is its own terminology—refering to the city by its Soviet-era name of Lvov. Only the photo captions, lifted from AFP, use the contemporary name of Lviv. Some explanation is in order...

Ukraine's anarcho-syndicalist Autonomous Workers' Union has issued a "Statement on the Odessa Tragedy," calling the horrific May 2 violence there a "clash of right-wing combatants," with "football hooligans and Euromaidan self-defence on the one side; Stalinists, pro-Russian paramilitaries and local police force on the other." The clash climaxed when the pro-Russian ("Antimaidan") protesters fled into the city's Trade Union house, and barricaded the doors. The pro-Ukrainian forces besieged it; Molotov cocktails were thrown "both to and fro the roof of the building," which eventually went up in flames. Some 40 of those inside were killed, either burned or sufficating in the smoke. 

Dozens of Christian pilgrims suffered from excessive tear-gas inhalation on Good Friday, April 18, after Israeli troops fired gas canisters as they performed religious rites at the Tomb of Lazarus in al-Eizariya in East Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers reportedly refused to stop firing tear gas canisters despite the presence of pilgrims after clashes had broken out between local youths and Israeli forces in the area. Witnesses told Ma'an News Agency that a tour guide who was escorting the pilgrims asked an Israeli officer to stop firing tear gas canisters until pilgrims left, but the officer continued to fire. The pilgrims had to take shelter in a souvenir shop before they could complete their prayers. The owner of the souvenir shop also tried to convince the Israeli officer to stop firing tear gas so that the pilgrims could leave, but instead the officer "asked a soldier to fire tear gas canisters at the church and at the pilgrims," witnesses added. An Israeli military spokeswoman did not have any information regarding the incident. The village of al-Eizariya houses the Tomb of Lazarus who, according to the Bible, was miraculously brought back to life by Jesus days after he was buried.

Clashes broke out March 20 between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli forces in the al-Aqsa compound following a visit by a right-wing Israeli MK, locals said. Witnesses told Ma'an news Agency that Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and a number of other right-wing politicians entered the mosque compound via the Moroccan Gate and toured the courtyards. Worshipers shouted "Allah Akbar" at the group before Israeli forces raided the compound and began assaulting them with clubs. In response, young Palestinians began throwing stones at the Knesset members, forcing them to leave the compound. Several worshipers and Shariah law students sustained bruises and one of them was treated at a clinic in the Aqsa compound. An Israeli police spokesperson said two Palestinians were detained for throwing stones at Feiglin.