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“The West Bank Will Ignite”: Israeli Military Operations Ignite Fury In The Area

(CTN NEWS) – Aqbat Jaber refugee camp in the occupied West Bank serves as the backdrop to a poignant story.
In the vicinity of their demolished home, two young boys from the camp were still asleep late into the morning.
Their own bedroom had been targeted and destroyed during an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) operation in the camp.
The operation was conducted due to the boys’ father, Maher Shalon, being arrested on suspicion of killing an Israeli settler.
The raid resulted in the tragic death of a 17-year-old Palestinian, injuries to six people, and the arrest of two others.
In the aftermath of their family’s home being reduced to rubble, the boys’ mother had taken their older brother to Bethlehem for medical treatment.
The care of the younger children now falls to their uncle, Mansour, and their paternal grandmother, Hamda.
According to them, the boys have not ventured outside since these traumatic events unfolded.
Mansour, at 56 years old, described the relentless Israeli presence in the area, noting that it has persisted since October 7, the date when the Palestinian militant group Hamas broke out of the besieged Gaza Strip, resulting in conflict that claimed the lives of many.
Aqbat Jaber is among the 19 refugee camps still existing in the West Bank, established following the creation of Israel in 1948 to shelter those who fled during what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
These camps continue to be overcrowded, impoverished areas with limited services, grappling with crime and poverty, and they also serve as centers of resistance against the Israeli occupation.
The recent raid in Aqbat Jaber on Friday was just one of several major Israeli military operations in West Bank refugee camps and cities over the past two weeks.
This suggests that Israel considers the West Bank as fair game in its ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza, raising concerns about the potential for increased military activity to further destabilize the already fragile West Bank.
According to Palestinian data, more than 90 people have lost their lives, primarily in clashes with the IDF, and Israeli forces have arrested around 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank since the conflict began.
Additionally, at least eight Palestinian communities have been forced to abandon their land due to escalating violence from Israeli settlers residing in the West Bank.
One such incident occurred in Wadi as-Seeq, near Ramallah, where soldiers and settlers detained three Palestinians, subjected them to degrading treatment, and assaulted them.
The IDF has initiated an investigation into this incident.
The entire region, home to approximately 3 million Palestinians and around 500,000 Israelis, seems to teeter on the brink of an eruption.
In Aqbat Jaber on Tuesday, tensions were palpable as long lines of cars and trucks waited at checkpoints near Jericho.
Alongside one of the makeshift concrete booths, a young Palestinian man, hands bound and blindfolded, sat on the ground in the scorching desert sun as his vehicle underwent inspection by soldiers.
The Shalon family’s two-story home now lies in ruins, surrounded by date trees covered in dust and rubble.
During the demolition, soldiers also entered Mansour’s neighboring home, removing windows under the pretext of ensuring the family’s safety.
Two rooms of Mansour’s house were also damaged.
In another family’s home, that of 22-year-old Mahmoud Hamdan, who was killed by an Israeli sniper during a surprise raid while on his way to work, his parents Tahani and Mohammed, like others in the region, were glued to the news.
They watched a Jordanian channel that aired unfiltered and unedited material from Gaza, exposing them to the unrelenting images of lifeless children being carried from ambulances and placed in body bags.
“I share the anguish of all mothers since Mahmoud’s death.
I know the Israelis could return at any moment and harm my other children,” Tahani, 44, said, her voice quivering as she fought back tears.
Prior to the resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Gaza front earlier this month, the primary concern in the region was the potential for a renewed large-scale conflict in the West Bank.
In 2022, the occupied territory experienced its highest levels of violence since the end of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 2005.
The grim statistics for 2023 had already surpassed those of the previous year before the latest war erupted.
Hamas maintains active cells throughout the West Bank, and their incitement has contributed to the violence in the area.
However, a new generation of fighters, predominantly concentrated in Nablus and Jenin, holds only loose affiliations with established factions like Hamas and their secular rivals, Fatah.
The escalating violence is placing considerable pressure on Fatah, which holds a dominant position in the West Bank’s semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA).
Fatah is widely perceived as undemocratic and corrupt after 16 years without elections.
The PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, is 88 years old and has refused to appoint a successor.
The territory faces a significant power vacuum upon his departure or if he passes away while in office.
The PA is deeply unpopular because of its cooperation with Israel on security matters, and it has already lost control of several camps in the West Bank to militias in recent years.
PA security forces have quelled protests against the war in Gaza with tear gas and rubber bullets, further reinforcing the perception that it no longer represents the Palestinian people.
“The PA acts as if it sides with the Israelis,” said a 19-year-old at a barbershop in Aqabat Jaber.
He declined to provide his name due to security concerns.
“It’s quite evident why my generation despairs in the face of an enduring occupation and believes that the militias hold the answer.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA) finds itself largely marginalized in international mediation and de-escalation efforts.
Jalal Zakout, a member of Ramallah’s Palestine National Council, voiced deep concerns about the situation in the West Bank, emphasizing the potential for escalation.
He stated, “Sooner or later, the situation in the West Bank will ignite.”
Zakout described it as a highly perilous situation, highlighting Israel’s attempts to create divisions between the West Bank and Gaza.
Nevertheless, he emphasized the shared Palestinian identity, noting that events in one area will inevitably impact others, including Jerusalem.
Anticipation of increased violence extends beyond the West Bank.
Israeli communities in the north of the country and Lebanese communities just over the Blue Line boundary are also preparing for heightened tensions.
“This time is different,” remarked Mohammed Abdul Salah, the barber.
He emphasized the worsening trend of each new generation facing more intense conflict, concluding, “Nothing will be the same after this.”
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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