Clinging to the walls of a fertile valley beneath the city of Bethlehem, a half dozen kilometers south of Jerusalem, hemmed in by concrete walls, watchtowers, checkpoints, and a string of mega-colonial settlements, a biologist named Mazin Qumsiyeh, his partner Jessie and their friends are planting native Palestinian seeds, raising chickens, rabbits, fish, and hyenas, and offering up habitat for birds, insects and other wildlife.

Rescuing their beloved landscape from the depredation of Euro-North American settler-colonial land thieves and eco-vandals.

The Palestine Institute for Biodiversity & Sustainability, their oasis is called.

Occasionally, Mazin, Jessie and their friends venture out, traveling up, down and across occupied Palestine, studying its flora and fauna. No ecosystem richer than the Jordan Valley, rich in wetlands where wildlife and unusual plants flourish.

But, those wetlands are under increasing threat from relentless Israeli water exploitation, and apartheid water theft.

And, since October 7, 2023, these travels have become increasingly difficult, if not impossible. More and more Israeli checkpoints block their way, and settler-colonial violence makes the Institute’s natural history work hazardous.

The GPM spoke about native Palestinian biodiversity, and the work of the Palestine Institute, with the Palestine Institute’s co-founder and director, Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our complete conversation here:

It was a dreadful way for a little girl to die – huddled in the back seat of a crushed, bullet-ridden car, stranded at a Gaza City intersection, an Israeli Merkava tank looming meters away; her aunt and uncle dead in the front seat; four cousins dead beside her, seeping blood onto her skirt; sobbing to a Palestinian emergency dispatcher on the other end of a cell phone line, pleading to be rescued, crying that she was scared.

Then, in a torrent of machine gun fire, ripped to bits.

Hind Rajab was brutally murdered by an Israeli tank crew a year and a few days ago today. So were a pair of medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, who’d come to her rescue – with Israeli military permission.

Little Hind was six years-old.

The murder of Hind Rajab, and the Palestinian emergency workers who came to her rescue, is documented here.

Now, a foundation established in Hind Rajab’s name is seeking justice.

In an October 8 submission to the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, the Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation has provided the names of a thousand Israeli soldiers it thinks the world’s top criminal court should prosecute. Among 8000 pieces of accompanying evidence, the soldiers’ own social media posts, boasting about blowing up buildings, destroying neighborhoods, looting wrecked Palestinian homes, and gunning down unarmed civilians.

The Foundation is also seeking the arrest of Israeli soldiers and officers in the countries they routinely travel to. Many of them are US, Canadian, UK, and EU citizens, subject to arrest in countries that exercise universal criminal jurisdiction.

Listen to a conversation with the Foundation’s lead counsel, Haroon Raza. Click on the play button above, or go here.

And listen to this. Under immense pressure from slavishly loyal Israel supporters in the US Congress (future US Ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik, in the lead), Columbia University crushed student protesters who had the temerity to name a campus building after the little girl an Israeli tank gunner ripped to bits — with US-supplied tank rounds.

This interview and story were originally published in Mondoweiss.

Watch our complete conversation here: