What's New

Resources updated between Monday, June 11, 2018 and Sunday, June 17, 2018

June 17, 2018

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (File photo)

U.N. to issue written report against Jewish settlements Article

June 15, 2018

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon, June 13, 2018

Disappointment at the U.N. Article

Palestinians in Gaza prepare a kite bomb, June 8, 2018

Palestinians prep 5,000 kite bombs in Gaza to mark end of Ramadan Document

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley (middle) and Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. candidate for the U.N. Human Rights Committee

Unprecedented: Haley-Backed Candidate for Key U.N. Human Rights Committee Fails to Win Seat Article

June 14, 2018

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley at the U.N. Human Rights Council (File photo)

U.S. expected to leave U.N. "Human Rights" Council Article

June 13, 2018

Results of the vote (2 abstentions voted in favor after image was taken)

Majority vote against U.S. appeal to allow simple majority for adoption of amendment condemning Hamas Development

Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh

One of Iran's most prominent human rights lawyers has been arrested after criticising the country's judiciary, according to her family. 

Nasrin Sotoudeh, 55, has been a well-known defender of Iranian dissidents, including some of the young women arrested recently for refusing to wear the hijab. 

Her husband, Reza Khandan, said in Facebook post on Wednesday that police arrested her at home and took her to Tehran's Evin prison. "Of all the functions that governments of the world are expected to do, the Iranian one is only good in arresting and imprisoning innocent people," he wrote.

No official charges were announced but the arrest came shortly after Ms Sotoudeh spoke out against efforts by Iran's judiciary to force its own candidates onto the board of Iranian Bar Association. 

Ms Sotoudeh said the move would make it even more difficult for Iranian lawyers to defend dissidents.

"This action will erode the half-baked defence rights of those who have been accused of political and security offences and means a final farewell to the profession of independent attorney in Iran," she said in an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

  Ms Sotoudeh was previously arrested in 2010 and accused of spreading propaganda and endangering national security. Western governments protested her detention and she went on several hunger strikes in prison. 

She was eventually released in 2013, shortly before Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, was due to speak at the UN. 

Ms Sotoudeh came to prominence representing defendants sentenced to die for crimes committed when they were children, opposition politicians, and the Nobel Prize winning-Iranian dissident Shirin Ebadi. 

She recently represented Vida Mohaved, a 31-year-old mother of one who was arrested in Tehran as she stood on top of a telecoms box hoisting a white hijab on a stick in protest at Iran's compulsory veiling laws. 

Ms Mohaved's protest helped inspire dozens of other women and some men to mount similar protests.

Iran arrests human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh after she criticised judiciary Document

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.N. General Assembly Hall (File photo)

U.N. to vote on resolution bashing Israel, with U.S. pushing for Hamas condemnation Article

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons headquarters in The Hague

Theater of the Absurd: Palestinian Authority joins the Chemical Weapons Convention Article

June 11, 2018

Medics respond to a stabbing in the northern city of Afula

An 18-year-old woman was stabbed and seriously wounded in the northern city of Afula on Monday in a suspected terror attack, authorities said.

Police arrested her suspected attacker, who had fled the scene, after a brief manhunt. The suspect was identified by police as a Palestinian man in his 20s from the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

"Police shot the suspect in the leg after calling upon him to stop," a police spokesperson said. "The suspect was arrested with a knife in his possession."

Police said they were still investigating the motive for the stabbing, but were working under the assumption that it was a terror attack.

"The main line of investigation is that this was a terror attack, however the investigation is continuing in order to rule out other motives," the police spokesperson said.

The Palestinian suspect was in Israel without a permit, police said.

Videos of the suspected terrorist's arrest were quickly posted to social media by bystanders.

The young woman was stabbed shortly before noon on the street and collapsed outside a local coffee shop, police said.

"When we arrived at the scene, it was very chaotic. There was an 18-year-old girl sitting on a chair at the entrance to a store. She was conscious and suffering from multiple stab wounds to the upper body," one of the medics who treated her said.

She was taken to the nearby HaEmek Medical Center in serious condition, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

Hospital officials said that her condition had stabilized but remained serious.

Woman, 18, severely wounded in suspected terror stabbing attack in northern Israel Document

Fire near a kibbutz on the Gaza border

10 fires break out in Israel from Gaza terror kites Document