Why an Outbreak of Ebola’s Lethal Cousin Could Help Us Test a New Vaccine

THE HOT ZONE

Stopping a Marburg virus outbreak is hard enough. Preventing the next one is even tougher.

Maddie Bender
Innovation Reporter
Published Apr. 10, 2023

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/CDC

The past few weeks have brought with them unsettling news from both East Africa and Central Africa, as Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania have independently announced outbreaks of deadly Marburg virus. The first outbreak, which began in mid-February in Equatorial Guinea, has thus far consisted of at least 29 confirmed and probable cases, 27 of which have proved fatal. Tanzania’s Marburg outbreak was announced on March 21—so far, eight people have been symptomatic for the disease, and five have died. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking American doctors to be on the lookout for cases stateside, though the risk of the virus in the U.S. is low.

Marburg virus may not be as terrifying as it was portrayed in 1994’s The Hot Zone, but any outbreak is concerning to infectious disease experts. First described in 1967 in Marburg, Germany, it is a deadly hemorrhagic fever in the same family as Ebola. The virus infects Egyptian fruit bats and can spill over to humans who come into close contact with the animals or their excretions. A person can also contract the virus from someone who’s infected if they come into contact with body fluids, contaminated clothes or bedding, or someone who has died from the virus. A Marburg virus infection is fatal in between 20 and 90 percent of all cases.

Based on these characteristics, you might think that humans would have figured out a vaccine for Marburg yesterday. You’d be partially right: Although a handful of research organizations are working independently on vaccine candidates, no vaccine has been approved to prevent viral infection, and no antiviral has been approved to treat it. Two of these vaccine candidates—made by Janssen Pharmaceuticals and the Sabin Vaccine Institute, respectively—have been tested in humans, but neither has been put through the typical wringer of safety and efficacy trials. And, as both outbreaks come under control, researchers may have missed their chance to deploy and test promising vaccine candidates.

Equatorial Guinea Confirms Outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease
ALARMING


There are several reasons why we haven’t yet come up with an approved vaccine for Marburg, Robert Cross, a virologist at Galveston National Laboratory, told The Daily Beast in an email.

One of the most salient is that “there really have not been that many outbreaks,” said Cross. “However, as we all know, when these outbreaks occur, they come with extremely dire outcomes, often with many dead.” It’s a blessing and a curse for public health researchers that Marburg outbreaks have historically been few and far in between, as a vaccine can’t be tested if people are never infected.

Few cases means there are financial incentives for drug companies to want to make a vaccine. Nonprofit and government-funded research institutes are also working on vaccine candidates, but don’t have surplus doses on hand to ship out to the countries affected by ongoing outbreaks. And there’s a time limit on the whole process, too: It takes a person between two and 21 days to develop symptoms of Marburg infection, and their condition can rapidly deteriorate within an additional week. When a case is identified, it takes time and resources to identify everyone who could have been exposed to them—in Equatorial Guinea’s outbreak, these close contacts have numbered in the hundreds for some cases.

Doctors Without Borders Slams ‘Rationing’ of Ebola Vaccine
TAKING A SHOT


Keeping in mind all these challenges, the best strategy to test potential vaccines would follow a technique used during the eradication of smallpox, called ring vaccination. The process involves identifying a “ring” of close contacts to a positive case, then vaccinating them as well as their close contacts, just to be safe.

In a December 2022 paper published in the journal Clinical Trials, an international group of Marburg virus researchers described two ways such a vaccination strategy might work: First, between outbreaks, researchers could identify populations who are at high risk for coming into contact with infected bats or living in areas where Marburg virus has been known to spread, and randomize people to receive a candidate vaccine. These people would need to be followed over a long period of time in order for researchers to collect data on how well a vaccine might protect them against a viral outbreak.

For the second option, public health officials could ring vaccinate households or close contacts during an ongoing outbreak using different vaccine candidates, and compare the effectiveness of different vaccines against each other by studying which households were better protected from infection.

“When these outbreaks occur, they come with extremely dire outcomes, often with many dead.”
— Robert Cross, Galveston National Laboratory

If it isn’t clear, both of these strategies require an immense amount of health-care staff, time, and money. As Cross put it, “These kinds of trials would really only be possible where adequate funding to support stockpiling of clinical-grade material is possible—a point that has been a continual challenge” for emerging pathogens like Marburg.

Moreover, we still don’t know very much about which regions support the highest concentrations of Marburg-infected bats, how Marburg virus spills over to humans, and what populations are most at-risk during outbreaks. Drilling down into these questions would help researchers use a finite number of vaccines wisely.

Some of this work is already being undertaken. In 2020, for instance, researchers in the U.S. and Sierra Leone identified Egyptian fruit bats carrying the virus in four different districts in Sierra Leone. While there has not yet been an outbreak of Marburg virus in the country, its neighbor to the north—Guinea—declared an outbreak the next year. To Cross, this represented a success of public health surveillance. Scientists were able to detect the virus in a region before an outbreak began, raising the possibility that future spillover events could be predicted.

Want to Stop the Next Pandemic? Protect Wildlife Habitats
MOTHER NATURE
Tony Ho Tran


Given the low incidence of Marburg outbreaks in the past, the fact that two have sprung up independently from one another in nearly the same month should set off alarm bells on more than count, Cross said. New spillover events speak to a lack of public health investment or follow-up on known risks, like proximity to the bats infected with Marburg.

“These two outbreaks are unfortunately the product of insufficient public health investment in surveillance,” he said. “We know what the reservoir for this virus is, yet we are not investing in better understanding of how the ecology of the reservoir bat is being impacted by such issues as deforestation or even global warming.”


“These two outbreaks are unfortunately the product of insufficient public health investment in surveillance.”
— Robert Cross, Galveston National Laboratory

Indeed, multiple studies over the past several years have supported the “One Health” hypothesis—that environmental, animal, and human health are interconnected. The destruction of natural ecosystems and the spread of human development to more and more places means humans and wildlife are in closer contact than ever before—increasing the risk of more diseases to jump from species to species until human communities are hit. Though the origins of COVID-19 are still a contested topic, most scientists seem to agree the virus jumped from an animal population (like raccoon dogs) into humans.

It’s worth noting that the World Health Organization has not published new statements about the Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania outbreaks since late March, suggesting that both may be winding down. But we’re not out of the woods for good—if anything, the opposite is true. Human expansion, environmental destruction, and infectious disease spillover are all taking place in a dire cycle. We can be sure that these outbreaks will occur more and more often, so it is imperative that we disrupt the cycle or prevent its deadly effects by pushing forward vaccines and new therapeutics.

How Mother Jones Uses Reader Support to Fund Investigative Journalism

By Anton Protsiuk| April 6, 2023


The Fix spoke with Mother Jones’ CEO Monika Bauerlein about the organization’s model and the lessons it can offer for other nonprofit publishers globally. The original article — which can be read here — is republished by GIJN with permission. Learn about the latest from the world of European media by signing up for The Fix’s newsletter.

Monika Bauerlein believes the nonprofit model is a win-win for news organizations — “we have all the same revenue opportunities that a for-profit has. The only difference is that we can put all the revenue into the mission and the sustainability of the organization, and are not forced to take another slice off the top for someone else.”

While this doesn’t work out for every news organization, in recent years there’s been more interest in exploring the nonprofit business model for publishers as they are struggling to monetize journalism. Founded in 1976 as an American nonprofit magazine focused on investigative reporting, Mother Jones has been a trailblazer in navigating this model.Mother Jones brands itself as “the only reader-supported, investigative, national news outlet in America.”

A left-leaning publication, Mother Jones has been noted for breaking nationwide stories like the scandal over presidential candidate Mitt Romney dismissing half the country in his private remarks or, more recently, stories about Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that he lost. Unlike many of its peer magazines, Mother Jones successfully navigated the shift to digital, even though it still publishes a bi-monthly print magazine with a circulation of about 200,000 alongside its digital audience of eight to nine million people monthly.

The bulk of the publisher’s revenue comes from readers; Mother Jones brands itself as “the only reader-supported, investigative, national news outlet in America.” According to the most recent financial data, reader support accounted for almost 60% of the organization’s $16.8 million revenue.

How Mother Jones Operates and Makes Money

Mother Jones was founded almost 50 years ago as a print magazine, named after activist and labor organizer Mary Harris Jones. While the print product still comes out, the audience today is predominantly digital, reached through the website and social platforms.

Bauerlein says that some 10% of Mother Jones’ readers come from outside the United States. Close to 85 people work for the publisher full-time; of those, over half are in the newsroom. Monika Bauerlein leads the organization as the chief executive officer, reporting to the NGO’s board. Her direct reports include editor-in-chief and senior leaders responsible for operations, financials, HR, development, fundraising, and media sales.


Recent print magazines feature investigations on right-wing influencers targeting young people, American political culture, and the influence of oil wealth and oligarchs on the game of soccer. Image: Screenshot

Bauerlein believes the nonprofit model has served the publisher well — they enjoy all the upside of not having to answer to shareholders motivated by financial profit, while not facing any restrictions. The only limitation, specific to the US context, is that NGOs are not allowed to endorse political candidates (as US media often do, though some have started giving up the practice amidst concerns over trust in news media).

According to the last published financial report, in the fiscal year 2020-21 Mother Jones made $16.8 million, with almost 60% of revenue coming from reader support. Other sources of revenue include foundation support and advertising. According to the report, at the time the outlet had “49,000 individual donors and a paid magazine circulation to more than 185,000 subscribers.”“In the past, in legacy media organizations, the marketing department would be very separate from the newsroom and from the journalism… We tried to speak with one voice.” — Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein

Fundraising is a major part of Mother Jones’ operations. Bauerlein says that the fundraising strategy puts an emphasis on the importance of free and independent journalism as a public service, crucial to a vibrant democracy. “We make the case to our readers that journalism is part of the civic infrastructure that they need for the kind of country that they want to live in,” Bauerlein says. She notes that investigative journalism is in particular a public good that cannot be sustained by commercial means – something Mother Jones conveys to its readers as part of its fundraising strategy.

A 2019 case study by Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School credits Mother Jones’ fundraising strategy and early emphasis on membership revenue under Bauerlein’s leadership as some of the key reasons why the publisher managed to “grow its audience, revenue, and reporting staff in a period when most news magazines downsized, and many closed altogether.”

Lessons for Other Nonprofit Outlets

The nonprofit news industry has been growing over the past years. As more publishers are experimenting with the model, Bauerlein distills a few lessons from Mother Jones’ experience that could be useful for other news organizations.

The obvious, necessary start is creating great journalism that will bring value to readers. Then it’s about thinking about how this journalism can have an impact — and bringing it to audiences where they are.

Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein.

 Image: Courtesy of Mother Jones.

To illustrate the latter point, Bauerlein gives an example of Mother Jones’ presence on various platforms, from the print magazine to TikTok. Unlike analog magazines, TikTok videos bring virtually no monetization — and provide little conversion to other platforms. However, as a nonprofit, Mother Jones thinks about how it can reach potential readers and viewers where they are, particularly audiences who aren’t voracious news consumers. (Sometimes, though, difficult decisions have to be made — Bauerlein says Mother Jones paused its news podcast because “it was very difficult to grow the audience for it in a crowded space.”)

Perhaps the most important lesson is what Bauerlein calls “making the case about why the journalism [you create] is possible because of support from readers and then being consistent about following up” — in other words, building a sound fundraising strategy that prioritizes effective communication with supporters.

“The fluid exchange between the business and editorial sides, often described as church and state in journalism-speak, is a clear strength for Mother Jones,” the case study by INN and Shorenstein Center notes. “By sharing the work of fundraising, the entire organization is oriented around the goal of raising money to serve readers.”

Mother Jones’ fundraising appeals often come from journalists and are held to the same standard as journalism produced by the newsroom. Baurlein says the team tries to think about different messages for different audiences — from short and catchy texts to longform explanations — and test them continuously. She is personally involved in crafting fundraising messages.

“In the past, in legacy media organizations, the marketing department would be very separate from the newsroom and from the journalism. And as a result, you had very different voices speaking to the audience. We tried to speak with one voice,” she says.

Anton Protsiuk is a senior editor at The Fix, a media analyst, and nonprofit manager. He coordinates programs at Wikimedia Ukraine, and has been a volunteer Wikipedia editor and an administrator of its Ukrainian-language edition for a decade. He has written about media, technology, and politics for various outlets, including Ukrayinska Pravda, MediaLab, Detector Media, and Bird in Flight.

Russia’s continuing stranglehold on emerging Europe’s nuclear sector

April 10, 2023
Martin Penov


European states will have to detach themselves from Russian nuclear supplies in the long-term if they wish to free their energy supply from all Russian influence.

The European Union has imposed a wide range of sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and has managed to almost entirely decouple itself from Russia’s gas and oil imports.

There is one part of the energy sector which has remained virtually untouched, however – nuclear. 

‘All thunder and no lightning’: New campaign aims to speed up Europe’s fossil fuel exit

Ukraine joins Europe’s list of SMR hopefuls

How Russia’s war on Ukraine made energy security fashionable

Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company, is one of the few Russian companies still operating in the EU. This is despite the fact that in January 2023, news broke that Ukrainian intelligence had uncovered documents proving Rosatom had planned to export sanctioned goods to the Russian military.

Using its legal operations in the EU, the company can provide Russia’s arms industry with much needed technology and fuel.

Despite EU efforts to decouple from Russian energy and Ukrainian calls for sanctions on Rosatom, numerous EU members have opposed banning the company, citing supply concerns.

Nuclear energy accounts for about a quarter of the EU’s total energy consumption but is much higher in countries such as Bulgaria and Hungary which rely on Soviet-era reactors. It came as no surprise then that in March 2023 both countries, along with France, opposed sanctions on Rosatom.
Russia’s nuclear grip

Russia’s nuclear industry is immense. The country produces eight per cent of the world’s raw uranium supply and 38 per cent of converted uranium. Additionally, Russia is also home to around 46 per cent of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity.

The EU, in turn, sources 20 per cent of its natural uranium from Russia along with 26 per cent of its enrichment services, according to data from the World Nuclear Association.

The are 18 nuclear power plants in the EU which use Russian designs and rely on Russian imports. All of them would be affected by EU sanctions on Rosatom, which continues to supply fuel rods.

This is especially challenging in countries with a high consumption of nuclear power, such as Slovakia (54 per cent), Hungary (46 per cent), Bulgaria (37 per cent) and Czechia (36 per cent).

Some EU members have admittedly tried more than others. Bulgaria and Czechia have both signed contracts with the American company Westinghouse to replace fuel imports over the next three years.

According to data compiled by Politico, the value of Russian nuclear imports to Bulgaria and Czechia fell by 47 and 26 per cent respectively in 2022.

Bulgaria set out a new energy strategy in January 2023, including plans for two new reactors at its Kozloduy plant and two more for a new plant near the island of Belene. The controversial Belene project has been a bone of contention in Bulgarian politics since initially being proposed 40 years ago. In 2012 the project was formally shelved.

Despite subsequent attempts to revive it by then prime minister Boyko Borissov, the government of Kiril Petkov, briefly in office from 2021-22, froze the project once again due to fears of Russian dependence.

Now, Interim Energy Minister of Energy Rosen Hristov has decided to revive the project once more, this time looking towards American and French companies.

Hungary and Slovakia have not been as forthright in their attempts to move away from reliance on Russia. In August 2022, Hungary even issued Rosatom a permit to construct two new reactors at its Paks Nuclear Power Plant.

In Slovakia meanwhile, a new Russian-designed reactor came online in February. The reactor will be supplied with Russian fuel until 2026. The value of Hungary and Slovakia’s Russian nuclear imports in 2022 grew by 65 and 72 per cent respectively.

The EU’s sanctions hurdle

Ukrainian officials have been urging the EU to put Rosatom on its sanctions list for almost a year now, especially after the company was incriminated in Russia’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhia power plant.

Following a visit to Kyiv in April, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck urged the EU to impose sanctions on Russian nuclear fuel “even if that means a change for the countries that still equip nuclear power plants with Russian uranium”.

“This is not acceptable in any way, it should be clear to everyone that such actions are not a game of hide and seek or a minor violation,” he added, stressing that sanctions are being circumvented via third countries.

Kacper Szulecki, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs’ Climate and Energy Research Group, tells Emerging Europe that the dependence of the region on Russian nuclear infrastructure and fuel is multifaceted.

“Firstly, there is an infrastructure legacy which may be a source of security threats in itself. Secondly, there are fuel imports which are not easy to handle, it takes time. Lastly, there is the area of personal contacts and potential influences that often goes quite far back and can be exploited in a political context,” he says.

“Fuel dependency is most pressing and energy companies and states will be addressing them. However, we currently see a regional alliance with France aimed at securing a future for nuclear energy in the EU decarbonisation’s plans rather than dealing with Russian security threats,” he adds, noting that current efforts risk diverting attention from the threat of Russian dependence.

The debate has nevertheless become a point of contention among EU partners. Unlike gas or oil, nuclear energy imports are hard to replace. Regardless, European states will have to detach themselves from Russian nuclear supplies in the long-term if they wish to free their markets from all Russian influence.

Paris Court rejects Morocco defamation appeals over Pegasus software use

April 12, 2023

The Paris Court of Appeal upheld, Wednesday, the "inadmissible" ruling issued in defamation lawsuits filed by Morocco against non-governmental organisations and French media outlets that exposed or denounced Rabat's use of the Pegasus spyware to spy on journalists and opponents.

In the first instance, the Paris Criminal Court issued ten rulings declaring inadmissibility of all cases filed by Rabat against Le Monde, Radio France, France Médias Monde, Mediapart, L'Humanité, Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International.

On Wednesday, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld these ten rulings.

The rulings are based on the 1881 French law on freedom of the press, which "does not allow a state to initiate a defamation trial", as it is not a "private body".

In 2021, Amnesty International and non-profit French press freedom group, Forbidden Stories, listed Morocco among dozens of countries that used the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to spy on opponents, journalists and diplomats.

The investigation revealed that about 50,000 people around the world including women, politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others were spied on by some governments, including the Moroccan government.

Morocco has filed several lawsuits in France, Spain and Germany, citing "false and baseless allegations".

Once installed in a mobile phone, the Pegasus spyware allows access to all messages or data on the device, as well as control it remotely to record sounds or capture images.

Israel curbs on Orthodox Church crowds in Jerusalem for Easter draw ire

April 12, 2023

Orthodox Christians attend the 'Holy Fire' mass on Holy Saturday ahead the Easter at Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem April 23, 2022 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

April 12, 2023 

Israeli police will curb the number of worshippers in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for safety reasons during Orthodox Easter ceremonies on Saturday, drawing anger from church leaders who said they would not cooperate, Reuters reports.

With huge crowds expected in the cramped alleyways of the Old City, the restrictions – which will slash the number of worshippers to one-fifth its size in recent years – are aimed at ensuring safety for thousands of Christian worshippers, as well as Muslims and Jews holding their own celebrations, police said.

However, the decision to limit access on Saturday to the Holy Fire, the most important Easter celebration for the Eastern Orthodox Church, angered church leaders who saw it as part of what they consider long-standing efforts by Israel to restrict the rights and freedoms of the local Christian community.

Complaining of "heavy-handed" measures, they said they would not cooperate with police.

"We shall continue to uphold the status quo customs, and the ceremony will be held as customary for two millennia and all who wish to worship with us are invited to attend," the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custody of the Holy Land and the Armenian Patriarchate said in a joint statement.

READ: Palestine: Patriarchate calls for international protection for sacred places

In contrast to previous years, when as many as 10,000 worshippers packed into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, only 1,800 will be allowed inside this year, with another 1,200 outside. Additional checkpoints around the Old City will also restrict access to the area around the Church.

This year, the sensitivity around religious festivals in the Old City has been particularly high, with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jewish Passover holiday, and Easter coinciding at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Jewish visitors would not be allowed into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the last 10 days of Ramadan after a police raid last week set off a furious reaction from the Arab world and exchanges of cross-border fire with Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

The hilltop site, holy to both Muslims and Jews, who know it as Temple Mount, has been among the most sensitive points during the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

'In full readiness'

After the bout of rocket attacks and air strikes last week, the situation has been calmer over the past few days but Israeli officials said the potential for trouble remained.

"When I look ahead, Ramadan is still a sensitive period," said Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, adding that the coming Friday, which could be the last Friday during the Ramadan fasting month depending on the lunar calendar, was being watched particularly closely. "We are in full readiness," he said.

The issue of access to the Old City for Christian worshippers was not directly connected to the tensions between Muslims and Jews at Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Jews are allowed to visit but not pray.

But it reflected complaints from Christians that they are being gradually but systematically shut out of the Old City by Israeli authorities, who they say are upsetting longstanding status quo arrangements between the three communities.

The churches say the Holy Fire ceremony on the Saturday before Orthodox Easter, when a light is held to emerge from the tomb of Jesus, has been held safely for centuries with five times as many worshippers as the authorities are allowing.

Police say a deadly stampede at an Orthodox Jewish festival in northern Israel two years ago, when 45 people were killed, underlined the risks of large crowds of worshippers gathering in restricted spaces.

READ: Jordan King Abdullah, muslims have duty to protect Islamic, Christian holy sites from Israel persecution

Israel revokes Easter travel permits for Gaza's Christians

1,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, which Israel has besieged since 2007.
The majority of them are Orthodox Christians. Churches in Jerusalem have been vandalised and Christian tourists have found themselves being assaulted by Israeli extremists

April 12, 2023

NOT VERY HUMANITARIAN

Lebanon Head of Maronite Church calls for deportation of Syrian refugees; urges international assistance

LEBANON'S MARIONITE PARTY ARE PHALANGISTS

FASCISTS BY ANY OTHER NAME

Lebanon's Cardinal Bechara Boutros Al-Rai delivers a speech to his supporters at the Maronite Patriarchate in the mountain village of Bkerki, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon on February 27, 2021 [Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu Agency]

April 12, 2023 

The Head of Lebanon's Maronite Church has called for the deportation of Syrian refugees, urging the international community's help in carrying it out.

In his recent Easter service message, Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai – the head of the Maronite Church in Lebanon – stated that Syrian refugees were "draining the state's resources, disturbing social security and competing with the Lebanese for their livelihood".

Claiming that many Syrian refugees continue to frequently travel to and from Syria via both legal and illegal crossings, Al-Rai accused the international community of "protecting them" and "deciding to ignore the repercussions they have on Lebanon".

Since the 2011 Syrian revolution and the brutal crackdown on protests by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad which led to the ongoing civil war, over half of the country's population became displaced and millions fled to neighbouring countries such as Turkiye, Jordan and Lebanon.

They have been accused, over the years, of being a burden to those host countries' populations and governments, especially in terms of their ailing economies, often being subject to calls for deportation. "It is necessary for Lebanese representatives and officials to work with the international community to return them [refugees] to their homeland and help them there," Al-Rai said.

It is not the first time the Patriarch has called on authorities to deport Syrians from the country, with the last such call being as recently as six months ago. He even called for the removal of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon, sparking condemnation from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, last year.

READ: Syrian refugees in Lebanon are in 'a dangerous situation', the UN says

West Bank: more Palestinian home demolitions likely as settler budget doubles


At the southern West Bank, 40 houses are under the threat of demolition for being 'unlicensed' 

[Hisham K. K. Abu Shaqra/Anadolu Agency]

April 12, 2023 


Israeli officials are seeking to double the budget allocated for illegal settlers to monitor Palestinian construction in the occupied West Bank. The budget will go up to $11 million, and is likely to mean that the number of demolitions of Palestinian homes will also increase.

Israeli settlers have been reporting any Palestinian construction work in the occupied West Bank to the Israeli authorities, in an effort to dispossess the Palestinian population. In 2022 an internal official document obtained by Haaretz newspaper showed close cooperation between settlers and Israel's Civil Administration with regard to reporting any work carried out by Palestinians.

According to UN figures cited by Al Jazeera, Israeli forces have already forcibly displaced 218 Palestinians from their homes after demolitions across Area C in the first three months of 2023, which is more than a third of the 594 Palestinians displaced there in all of 2022.




More demolitions – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

Area C is largely rural and is the only land remaining for Palestinian expansion and development. It is also the only remaining contiguous part of the West Bank. More than 70 per cent of Area C, about 44 per cent of the whole West Bank, is used for illegal Israeli settlements and military firing zones, among other restricted areas.

Israel's harassment of Palestinians in the area has increased significantly in recent years. Illegal settlers have also been recruited to monitor Palestinian construction. Occupation forces have been operating a hotline it calls "War Room C" for settlers to call and report Palestinian construction in Area C.

Haaretz reported that recent years have seen the formation of "land departments" in West Bank settlements, which track Palestinian construction and cultivation and report such activity to the Civil Administration and the Israeli military. These departments have no enforcement authority, but its inspectors serve as an additional source of information for the occupation government.

Far-right Israeli politician Orit Strock is the National Missions Minister with responsibility for the monitoring budget that is set to double in size. Strock belongs to the Religious Zionist Party whose leader, Bezalel Smotrich, called recently for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be "wiped out". Other far-right politicians pushing the settler cause include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is a disciple of Baruch Goldstein, the settler who massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers and wounded more than 100 others at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in 1994.

READ: Israel demolishes Palestine village of Al-Araqeeb for 215th time

PUBLICATION
What the Levin Plan means for Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line

SERIES
Policy Papers
AUTHOR
Sawsan Zaher
PUBLISHERS
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Regional Office Palestine, Ramallah

PUBLISHED
April 2023
Only available online
Related FilesThe Impact of Israel’s Judicial Reforms on Palestinians

Israeli soldiers stand alert following an attack in Nablus, occupied West Bank, 26 March 2023.

Photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire

Israel has been rocked by mass protests against the current right-wing government’s planned judicial reforms for months. If confirmed, the so-called “Levin Plan”, named after Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, will lead to fundamental changes in the Israeli legal system: it aims mainly to restrict the authority of the Israeli Supreme Court, while granting the Knesset and government unlimited power to pass undemocratic and harmful legislation on human rights.

Sawsan Zaher is a Palestinian human rights lawyer specializing in constitutional human rights litigation on behalf of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. She litigated several landmark constitutional cases before the Israeli courts, and until August 2021 she served as the deputy general director and senior lawyer of the Adalah Legal Center, where she worked for 16 years.

The Levin Plan is comprised of several components: prohibiting the Supreme Court from intervening and examining Basic Laws, changing the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee and granting politicians an exclusive majority, restricting the court’s authority to strike down regular laws and enacting an “override clause” that will allow the Knesset to re-enact laws disqualified by the court, politicizing the appointment of legal advisors to ministries, cancelling reasonableness tests that allow the courts to cancel governmental and public authorities’ decisions, and restricting the right to legal hearings before courts.

Protesters across Israel argue that the Levin Plan aims to weaken the independence of the Supreme Court, breach the principle of separation of powers, and grant politicians full control of judicial nominations, thus leading to the weakening or even diminishing of basic legal principles in what Israelis view a “democratic and Jewish State”. Facing enormous pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared he would “suspend” and postpone the confirmation process of the proposed to the Knesset’s summer session on 27 March.

Nevertheless, despite all of these attacks on the rule of law, Palestinians intentionally did not take part in the massive demonstrations against them. After all, the State of Israel has never extended democratic norms to its Palestinian population, most importantly the principle of absolute equality. Indeed, throughout the public controversy surrounding the Levin Plan, one thing remained markedly absent from the debate: namely, how the proposed legal and constitutional amendments to the Israeli legal system would affect Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line.

Several human rights organizations in Israel have published position papers detailing the impact of the coalition agreement on Palestinians. This policy paper from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Ramallah Office, however, focuses specifically on the components of the Levin Plan and analyses the impact of the fundamental changes in the Israeli legal system on Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Download the PDF

PA holds UNRWA commissioner responsible for cessation of services in refugee camps

A man walks in front of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 

[Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

April 12, 2023 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) yesterday said it held UNRWA's commissioner-general responsible for the repercussions of halting services in Palestinian refugee camps as a result of a strike by the agency's workers.

In a statement, the PA's Ministry of Labour said the commissioner-general must back down from his intransigence and show understanding for the social and humanitarian situation in the Palestinian camps.

It also called on him to immediately start a dialogue with the workers to find solutions to the conflict, urging him to announce the acceptance of the proposed initiative to end the strike.

The PA made reference to the deterioration in the humanitarian situation inside the Palestinian camps, in all areas of health, education, environment and services and its negative impact on all aspects of life, which left students, patients, children, women and the elderly in dismal situations and without services.

READ: Gaza UNRWA staff strike, pledge additional measures

UNRWA employees strike in Gaza to protest recruitment policy

UN refugee agency employees say no progress made on their demands

10/04/2023 Monday


Staffers of the UN refugee agency UNRWA staged a general strike in the Gaza Strip on Sunday to protest the agency’s lack of response to demands for recruitment of new employees.

“All UNRWA facilities went on a general strike,” Azmi Radwan, head of the labor sector in the UNRWA’s Arab Employees Union, said in a statement.

He said the response to the strike was “large” among employees.

For his part, UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna refused to specify the UN agency’s position on the strike.

A meeting was held on Thursday between UNRWA and its local employees in Gaza to discuss their demands.

"There has been no positive progress regarding our demands, except for some minor responses,” the Arab Employees Union said in a statement.

The statement said only 200 teachers were appointed out of 1,500 needed for UNRWA-run schools.

On Friday, the committees representing Palestinian refugees in Gaza called on the UNRWA to halt its downsizing plans.

"We call on the UNRWA administration to abide by previous agreements, improve the conditions of employees, and open the doors for recruitment of hundreds of graduates," the committees said in a statement.

For years, the UNRWA has been suffering from major financial crises, reflecting a decline in its ability to provide services to Palestinian refugees.

 

Cyber attack shutters Galilee farm water controllers

“You have been hacked, Down with Israel,” read a message on the controllers.

Cyber illustration. Credit: Kai Stachowiak/Pixabay via Wikimedia Commons.

Spread the word.
Help JNS grow! Share now:

(April 10, 2023 / JNS) A cyber attack shut down some 10 water controllers in agricultural areas in Israel, temporarily stopping irrigation systems on affected farms on Sunday.

“You have been hacked, Down with Israel,” read a message on the controllers, along with an image of a Star of David sinking into water.

“Currently, reports have been received indicating disruptions in irrigation control on the farms of about 10 farmers in the northern region,” the Israel National Cyber Directorate and the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement.

The message that appeared on the water controllers, April 9, 2023. Photo by Ofer Geller/Ichud Ein Harod.

“The government offices instructed the farmers to carry out basic and immediate actions to secure the systems and to carry out the irrigation manually. At this stage, the irrigation continues as normal. As the need arises, technological experts on behalf of the system manufacturer will work in coordination with the farmers,” the statement read.

Ofer Barnea, CEO of the Upper Galilee Agriculture Company, told Israel Hayom: “Two days ago we received a message that there would be a cyberattack. The farmers were instructed to disconnect the controllers for remote communication. This morning whoever apparently did not disconnect them reported that the controllers had been disabled. Seven in total. We reported to the National Cyber Directorate and the farmers reported that the controllers were disabled.”

Similarly, the Israel Postal Company said on Sunday that due to a cyber attack on the evening of April 5, the first night of Passover, some services wouldn’t be available.

“Dear customers, following the cyber attack on the mail network, which was detected on the eve of the holiday, we have taken a number of necessary proactive actions in the company’s systems in order to handle the incident and prevent risks. The event is managed by teams of experts and fully accompanied by the National Cyber Directorate.

“As a result, at this stage, some postal services are not available, including the ability to send mail of any kind abroad. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working around the clock to restore all services to full availability. Under these circumstances, we ask for your understanding and patience, wishing you a happy holiday, the Israel Post.”