Image: Damascus Gate in Jerusalem Sunday (April 18). (Ohad Zwigenberg)

For sixth night in a row, Palestinians confront Israeli police in Jerusalem's Old City
Haaretz

“Israeli police clashed on Sunday (April 18) with hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City for the sixth night in a row, amid a row over an Israeli decision to put up barriers preventing people from sitting in the Damascus Gate plaza. Police used water cannons, stun grenades and other riot control gear against the crowd, even though at least most protesters remained nonviolent. Three were detained for assaulting officers, police said. The plaza is the most popular public area during the month of Ramadan, which started last week, with tens of thousands of people passing through or sitting there every evening."

Image: A police officer and protesters in Jerusalem, this week. (Ohad Zwigenberg)

Uncertainty about Palestinian election adds fuel to fire flaring in Jerusalem
Haaretz

“At a time when Israel’s strategic attention is focused on Iran and its politicians are devoting most of their waking hours to desperate survival tactics, a new and explosive Palestinian front is developing in Jerusalem. It’s a problem that has been impacted by several local incidents, Ramadan tensions, the influence of social media and right-wing Jewish activists. And in the background, a diplomatic crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is brewing over whether voting in the PA’s upcoming election can take place in Jerusalem."

Image: Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate at the Gaillard Center on Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, S.C., co-hosted by CBS News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Sens. Sanders, Warren call for ‘restricting’ US aid to Israel at J Street confab
Times of Israel

“Prominent progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both used their Monday (April 19) addresses at the J Street lobby’s national conference to call for regulating US aid to Israel, asserting that such assistance should not be allowed to bankroll Israeli policies in the West Bank that damage prospects for a two-state solution. The stances appeared to mark a shift by more left-wing Democrats away from talk of ‘conditioning’ aid to Israel to ‘restricting’ it."

Image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a memorial ceremony for Joseph Trumpeldor in Tel-Hai, northern Israel, February 23, 2021. (David Cohen/Flash 90)

Netanyahu gives up on forming a government
J-Post

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer seeking a government that relies on the outside support of the Ra’am Party (United Arab List), he said Tuesday at a press conference in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Netanyahu no longer sees any chance of forming a government, although he still intends to maintain his mandate to form a government, which ends on May 4, his associates said.”