IPNOT PICTURE OF THE DAY from July 3: Israeli occupation's blockade of Hebron

Israel's occupation forces started a blockade of the city of Hebron and nearby villages on July 1st as an illegal collective punishment after one adult illegal Israeli settler and one child residing in illegal Israeli colony had been killed. Four Palestinians were killed on those same days.

Israel's regime puts illegally its 'civilians' in illegal colonies on brutally occupied territory, humiliates Palestinians on a daily basis and has killed almost 10 000 Palestinians this century alone; yet Israel's regime and a great majority of its population believe that Israel should have a "safe" occupation, with the illegal Israeli settlers living without fear in occupied territory while they daily attack Palestinians and property.

This distorted thinking is based purely on racism, the belief that the lives of Israeli Jews are important, that they have a right to take over Palestinian land based on their ethnic-religious identity and that the lives of Palestinians have no worth. It's the driving force behind the illegal colony enterprise. It's Apartheid.

Apartheid in which even the oppressed are expected to protect their oppressor and share their racist view of things. Israel demands that occupied Palestinians should be "happy slaves" when they are hunted by illegal Israeli settlers like Helots of old.

The purely one-sided "security co-operation" is an example of this - it's only used to curb resistance against the occupation, not to stop attacks on Palestinians by the illegal Israeli settlers.

As Palestinian Authority's security forces act against Palestinians to keep illegal Israeli settlers safe, they continue their daily attacks and on July 3rd also kept a demonstration in illegal Gush Etzion colony bloc near Hebron, which had only one message to Israel's political and military leadership: "Kill Arabs."