Life in an IDF Firing Zone: For These Palestinians, It’s a Daily Nightmare

Fewer than six months after a court order expelling the inhabitants of Masafer Yatta from their homes, life in the area has changed beyond recognition. Day-to-day existence had always been difficult in the eight small villages scattered through the area in the absence of basic facilities, even before Israel declared the area a military firing zone, but in recent months it has grown even worse amid the constant presence of the Israeli army and live-fire training. Roadblocks between the villages make it harder for the inhabitants to get in and out, and roads are closed to non-residents. As a result, many villagers have stopped using their cars. As in the old days, they ride donkeys or they walk.

Life in an IDF Firing Zone: For These Palestinians, It’s a Daily Nightmare

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Classified document reveals IDF ‘firing zones’ built to give land to settlers

US Says Sending Envoy To Ethiopia, Condemns Eritrea Return To War + More

US Says Sending Envoy To Ethiopia, Condemns Eritrea Return To War

Abiy [Ahmed] won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation with Eritrea but has fallen out of favor with the United States, a longtime Ethiopian ally which voiced revulsion over the violence in Tigray, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken of “ethnic cleansing.”

President Joe Biden’s administration as of January 1 booted Ethiopia out of a key trade agreement that allowed duty-free access, outraging segments of the growing Ethiopian-American community which said the United States was ceding influence to rival powers such as China.

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US-backed TPLF resumes war in northern Ethiopia

Then, on August 2, the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa Mike Hammer, US Chargé d’Affaires in Ethiopia Tracey Jacobson and the European Union (EU) envoy Annette Weber, along with other Western diplomats, paid a visit to Mekelle and met TPLF leaders. Soon after this visit, which was criticized by the Ethiopian government, the TPLF began mobilization for war.

Secret Foreign Flights Arming TPLF