New Israeli Laws Cement Racial Discrimination

The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
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New Israeli Laws Cement Racial Discrimination

The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)
The Israeli separation wall is seen in the West Bank on Sunday. (AFP)

New Israeli draft laws allow a doctor to abandon their professional oath to treat any patient and gives them the right to refuse to treat on religious grounds.  

Opposition lawmakers said the new laws were an abandonment of values for Israel. 

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid described them as the most extensive moral deterioration that could lead Israel to become a dark state.  

Lapid blamed new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the rise of such sentiments, saying he was "leading us to a benighted state [ruled by] Jewish law."  

Hundreds of citizens marched in Haifa, protesting the new draft laws, which also say doctors should have the right not to treat homosexuals if it is against their religious belief and if another doctor is on hand to see them.  

Most of the protesters were primarily concerned with the issue of homosexuals. Still, many, including former generals in the army and intelligence, supported Arab demonstrators who opposed the law. 

Another clause in the law allows the separation of males and females in wedding halls and grants hall owners the authority to bar homosexuals from entering.  

The law also allows Jews to buy land plots at low prices in the Negev and Galilee with the aim of Judaizing them. Authorities would allow Israeli forces to clamp down on Arabs.  

New regulations also support education in Jewish towns by including them in the nationally preferred areas, according to which they will be granted tax concessions, excluding Arab cities in Galilee and the Negev.  

Netanyahu's Itamar Ben-Gvir defended the provisions, saying it was good to have a law that allows freedom, adding that the left talks about democracy but acts like a dictatorship.  

Labor MP Gilad Kariv said Israel must decide whether to be a society that respects all people or one that discriminates between them under pretenses, asserting that the law would be used to discriminate against minorities, such as Arabs and Haredi.  

A poll published by the Israeli Kan showed that 48 percent of Israeli citizens believe the situation in the country would be worse by the end of Netanyahu’s term in office in four years. 

Only 29 percent of the respondents said Israel's status would improve, while 38 percent rejected expanding Ben-Gvir's powers and 36 percent supported it.  

Nearly half of the respondents were dissatisfied with the composition of the new government coalition, compared to 37 percent who did. 



20 Migrants Die in Shipwreck Off Tunisia

Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
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20 Migrants Die in Shipwreck Off Tunisia

Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo

Tunisian authorities recovered the bodies of 20 people who appeared to have drowned after a shipwreck off the country's Mediterranean coastline, near a popular point of departure for migrants attempting to reach Europe by boat.
The country's National Guard said in a statement on Wednesday that coast guard members dispatched to the sinking ship rescued five people and retrieved the bodies of 20 others 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the coast north of Sfax. The coastline is roughly 81 miles (130 kilometers) from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to The Associated Press, the National Guard said that it continued to search for missing people and did not indicate how many may have been on board when the ship set off.
With assistance from Europe, authorities in Tunisia have strengthened the policing of their borders in an effort to prevent deaths at sea and combat smugglers and migrants crossing illegally to southern Europe. Yet drownings and corpses washing ashore are regularly reported, including last week when authorities found the bodies of nine people who appeared to have drowned at sea along the same stretch of coastline.
The iron boats that migrants and smugglers use to attempt to cross the Mediterranean are often unseaworthy. Though there is no official count, international groups and Tunisian NGOs believe hundreds have perished at sea this year. The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates more than 1,100 have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean off the coasts of Tunisia and Libya. The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights believes between 600 and 700 people have died or gone missing off the coast of Tunisia.
More than 19,000 migrants have embarked from Tunisia and arrived in Italy this year, including many who subsequently applied for asylum, according to UNHCR. That's far fewer than the more than 96,000 who made the journey by the same point in 2023. The majority who have arrived in Italy in 2024 have been from Bangladesh, Tunisia and Syria.
There is no official numbers regarding migrants in Tunisia. However, thousands are living in makeshift camps among olive trees near Sfax's coastline.