Since May 9, 2021, thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel, numbering some 1.9 million people and often referred to as “Arab Israelis,” have taken to the streets to express support for their fellow Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem. Protests are taking place in both mixed Arab-Jewish cities like Haifa, Jaffa and Lod, known as Lydda to Palestinians, as well as in predominantly Palestinian cities and towns like Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm.
Israel's maintaining of entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally over half-century-long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force against protesters, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds. The Elephant in conversation with Ahmed Benchemsi, the Advocacy and Communications Director for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.