Itamar Ben-Gvir’s second visit to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as Israel’s national security minister on May 21 represents a dangerous mix of religion and politics.

Ben-Gvir was seen standing and reading off his phone, apparently in prayer. Such an act would be forbidden under the current “status quo” governing Al-Aqsa, referred to as the Temple Mount or Har Habayit by Jews, even though a small group of Orthodox Jews is increasingly finding ways to pray on the holy site.

Israeli soldiers broke into a Palestinian elementary school in Beitunia, near Ramallah, and prevented students and teachers from leaving it, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Local sources told WAFA that Israeli occupation forces stormed the Al-Kurom elementary school and held Palestinian students and teachers at gunpoint, threatening to shoot whoever tried to leave the school.

Israeli settlers on Monday relocated a Jewish religious school originally established on private Palestinian land in the illegal outpost of Homesh to nearby state-owned land.

Settlers have long campaigned for a yeshiva to be established in the area, and the latest move is part of an incremental effort by the government to legalise the Homesh settlement, built deep inside the occupied West Bank.

Erik Prince, the man behind Blackwater, recently teamed up with an Israeli spy, creating a front company with her to help Israeli defense technology providers exploit loopholes and sell their products to the American military.

Israel launched airstrikes in Syria on Sunday night, hitting targets near the capital Damascus that caused material damage, Syria’s SANA news agency reported.

A military source told SANA that the airstrikes were launched from the direction of the Golan Heights and that Syria’s air defenses intercepted some of the missiles. No casualties were reported in the strikes.

For a few months, a colour revolution had been brewing in Israel. Tens of thousands of citizens demonstrated, every Saturday night, predominantly in Tel Aviv, but elsewhere too. The demos caused traffic jams and interfered badly with daily life in the country. At its height, over 250 000 persons participated in one demonstration in Tel Aviv. Then PM Bibi Netanyahu postponed his legal reforms until after the holidays. It helped a bit: the demos slimmed in size and intensity. Frictions with Palestinians have also helped the PM.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will travel to Central Europe on Sunday in a bid to bolster relations with the allies of the Jewish State in the European Union and seek their support of Israeli policy on Iran.

"The diplomatic visit to Central European countries is strengthening strategic coordination with our friends, allowing Israel to promote our political and economic interests on the continent," Cohen said in a statement.

The battle for justice for Palestine is a battle of language. It is a battle not just of information, but of the context in which alleged facts are presented — that is, of narrative. Thus septuagenarian Israel employs a “national” narrative that begins in the Old Testament and enjoys our own media and governments as co-conspirators. Were instead the Western media to report the Israel-Palestinian reality, the entire Zionist project would become untenable overnight.

An investigative report released on Thursday has documented survivor testimonies and specified locations of the mass graves where victims of the massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura are buried.