Palestinians are set to mark the 71st anniversary of Nakba Day with demonstrations and marches across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, putting Israel on edge amid Eurovision song contest festivities. 

“Nakba,” or catastrophe, commemorates the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled in the war that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

On Tuesday, the eve of Nakba Day, dozens of left-wing activists protested against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Tel Aviv, where the first Eurovision semi-finals were being held.

“We are here to protest against the endless bloodshed in Gaza,” said one of the organisers, Noa Levy.

Protesters carried banners reading “boycott Eurovision” and “songs and glitter cannot hide homeland being occupied”.

Ever since Israeli singer Netta Barzilai carried off last year’s prize with her spunky pop anthem “Toy,” earning Israel the right to host Eurovision, increasing numbers of cultural figures have pressured performers to pull out of the contest.

Dozens of European artists, led by former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, signed a letter calling for the contest to be moved to another country.

Demonstrations have erupted outside television studios at a number of national finals.

Boycott activists stormed the stage during France’s semi-final round, fuelling fears of disruption at the main event.

Iceland’s performers have vowed to leverage their platform to show the “face of the occupation”.

Although the BDS movement, a Palestinian-led campaign advocating boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, failed to compel any of the 41 national broadcasters to quit the competition, the campaign has drawn international attention to topics that Israel had hoped to avoid.

Scores of demonstrations to mark the day of mourning and Eurovision protest are planned throughout the country on Wednesday.

‘Deactivate Airbnb’

In another protest coinciding with the Nakba commemoration, campaigners called on supporters of the Palestinian cause to at least temporarily deactivate their Airbnb accounts on Wednesday to protest against its listings in settlements in the occupied West Bank.

After Israeli pressure, the company last month reversed course and scrapped plans to ban homes in settlements from listing on the site.

The decision has led to fresh anger from groups opposed to the settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

A range of organisations including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy have backed a call for an at least temporary deactivation, with organisers saying thousands had pledged to do so.

“Ultimately we would like Airbnb to reverse its decision but we know that won’t be easy,” Salem Barahmeh, executive director of PIPD, told AFP news agency.

“But I think what we ultimately want to do is end this culture of impunity where international companies are allowed to be complicit in supporting war crimes and Israeli settlements that have been responsible for displacing Palestinians.”

Airbnb declined to comment, pointing instead to its statement from the April reversal.

That statement says that while the company will not ban the illegal settlement homes it will give all profits from those listings to charities.

Campaigners say this does not stop the settlers from making profits.

Around 400,000 Israelis live in settlements that dot the West Bank and range in size from tiny hamlets to large towns, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem.

Settlements are built on land in Palestinian territories that Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Drone attacks on a Saudi oil pipeline west of Riyadh on Tuesday have revealed an apparent significant leap in the capabilities of the Ansar Allah fighting group, otherwise known as the Houthis.

The Aramco East-West pipeline, stretching across the country to the port and oil terminal at Yenbu, was damaged in two places as pumping stations were hit.

The attacks caused minor damage but alarmed an international community already rattled by the sharp downturn in relations between Iran and the United States.

Information on the attacks is scarce, posing more questions than providing answers.

Signs of sophistication

Drones have been increasingly used by the Houthis in operations against the Saudi-UAE-led coalition. In July 2018 a drone exploded at Abu Dhabi airport causing only minor damage but sending a message to the UAE that its economic interests were not invulnerable.

In January 2019, a senior intelligence chief, along with several officers, were killed at the al-Anad air force base just outside Aden by a weaponised drone that exploded above the delegation.

In March the Houthis released video footage of a drone flying past Saudi’s al-Shuqaiq water treatment and power plant, 130km from the Yemeni border.

It was not attacked but the warning was clear, with water being a vulnerable resource and many Middle Eastern countries relying heavily on desalination plants.

How have Houthis achieved this?

Analysts are divided about the extent of the help given to the Houthis by Iran.

A UN report submitted to the UN Security Council in January 2018 found compelling evidence that locally produced drones had an almost identical build and capability as the Iranian Qasef-1 UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle.

This drone is GPS-guided to its target, often diving into the target to cause damage.

While the Houthis have leant heavily on Iranian help in the past, Houthi drones have increasingly used parts that are commercially available in the international market, with the conflict itself acting as a catalyst for design innovations.

Sami Hamdi, editor-in-chief of the International Interest periodical, is not surprised that drones are being used in increasing numbers.

“[The Houthis] claim they are creating their own drones, that they’ve learnt how to make them. Outside of the war of Yemen, for example in Iraq, we’ve also seen this among Kurdish forces. They too have been able to create their own drones and use them …

“So, it is not particularly strange that we find drones among the Houthis. Let us also not forget that they are backed logistically by the Iranians who continue to provide them with expertise on how to develop some of these weapons,” Hamdi added.

What is different about these drones?

This latest attack signifies a big jump in abilities as the drone flew more than 800km into Saudi Arabia to successfully attack its target.

The drone was guided using satellite technology, as beyond a certain range, drones need a satellite data link for information to be sent back to the pilot.

Satellites technically allow drones to be flown from halfway around the world, as many military drones are, but they also need a second pilot station with line-of-sight access to take off and land.

The is due to the delay in satellite communications – albeit minor – which causes delays that can be fatal for a drone coming in to land.

The Iranians and Houthis have no known communications satellites and would need to rely on commercially available satellite space.

All this means that imagery analysts, communications experts, uplink engineers, two-pilot crews, armourers and mechanics all need to work in unison for an attack to succeed.

This implies increasingly sophisticated levels of training.

Why did Saudi Arabia fail to detect them?

A slow, unstealthy aircraft was able to fly for several hours deep into Saudi Arabia, and was not detected and intercepted in a time of war.

This will ring alarm bells, as retired Jordanian air force general Mamour al-Nowar told Al Jazeera.

“Their air defence system completely failed to handle such attacks” and the Houthis now have the ability “to reach Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,” potentially paralysing the country “if they hit desalination water pumping stations or the [almost built] nuclear plant in Abu Dhabi”.

Why this target?

Analysts are divided on whether the pipeline attack and the earlier alleged sabotage attacks against the tankers off the coast of the Emirati port of Fujairah are linked in some way.

Oil and gas economist Cornelia Meyer is emphatic that a link is tangible: “Absolutely, and what that tells me is that it’s not just an isolated rebel group doing this, it’s a very well-orchestrated campaign.”

Hamdi is more cautious: “The circumstances of the sabotage attacks off Fujairah aren’t quite clear yet. The Houthis have announced that they are the ones responsible for the Riyadh attack but as far as I’m aware no one has claimed responsibility for the act on the tankers in Fujairah.”

The pipeline is an interesting target for several reasons; it is on the same latitude as Riyadh, which means the Saudi capital is within range.

It is also a graduated escalation, avoiding mass casualties and aiming at economic interests. While the damage was minimal, a warning was sent nevertheless.

The pipeline itself was built during the Iran-Iraq war as an alternative to Saudi Arabia should the Strait of Hormuz be closed for any reason, as was the oil terminal at the Emirati port of Fujairah.

The message sent, according to military analyst Elias Farhat, is that “it is not safe” for either the UAE or Saudi Arabia “to bypass the Strait of Hormuz”.

Despite the minor damage in the attack, there is now increasing concern that, given the current tension, small acts of military violence could spark a regional conflict.

Alabama’s Republican-dominated state Senate has passed a bill to ban nearly all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest, as part of a multi-state effort to have the United States Supreme Court reconsider a woman’s constitutional right to the procedure.

Senators on Tuesday voted 25-6 for the bill that would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison for the abortion provider. The only exception would be when the woman’s health is at serious risk.

The Senate also rejected an attempt to add an exception for rape and incest. The amendment was voted down 21-11, with four Republicans joining Democrats seeking the amendment.

“You don’t care anything about babies having babies in this state, being raped and incest,” Democratic Senator Bobby Singleton said after the amendment’s defeat. “You just aborted the state of Alabama with your rhetoric with this bill.”

The country’s strictest abortion bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign but is generally a strong opponent of abortion.

The law would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups which have vowed to sue.

“Opponents to the law have been very vociferous in their outcry, saying that this would punish rape victims and it would push women to seek abortions underground in unsafe procedures,” Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC, said. 

Roe v Wade

Supporters said the bill is designed to conflict with the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalising abortion nationally because they hope to prompt a court case that might prompt the justices to revisit abortion rights.

“It’s to address the issue that Roe v Wade was decided on. Is that baby in the womb a person?” Republican Representative Terri Collins, the bill’s sponsor, said after the approval of the measures.

Supporters had argued that exemptions would weaken their hope of creating a vehicle to challenge Roe.

Collins said the Alabama law was not meant to be a long-term measure and legislators could add a rape exemption if states regained control of abortion access.

“Roe v Wade has ended the lives of millions of children. While we cannot undo the damage that decades of legal precedence under Roe have caused, this bill has the opportunity to save the lives of millions of unborn children,” Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss said in a statement after the bill’s passage.

Emboldened by conservative justices who have joined the Supreme Court, abortion opponents in several states are seeking to challenge abortion access. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy.

The Alabama bill goes further by seeking to outlaw abortion outright. There would be no punishment for the woman receiving the abortion, only for the abortion provider. The text of the bill likens abortion to history’s greatest atrocities, including the Holocaust.

‘Dark day’

Democrats, who hold eight seats in the 35-member Senate, criticised the ban as a mixture of political grandstanding, an attempt to control women and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“You don’t have to provide for that child. You don’t have to do anything for that child, yet you want to make that decision for that woman,” Democratic Senator Vivian Davis Figures said. “It should be that woman’s choice.”

During the debate, Senator Singleton pointed out and named rape victims watching from the Senate viewing gallery. He said that under the ban, doctors who perform abortions could serve more prison time than the women’s rapists.

In a statement, Staci Fox, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said: “Today is a dark day for women in Alabama and across this country.”

The statement added: “Alabama politicians will forever live in infamy for this vote and we will make sure that every woman knows who to hold accountable.”

Outside the Statehouse, a crowd of about 50 people held a rally, chanting, “Whose choice? Our choice.”

Several women dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale, which depicts a dystopian future where fertile women are forced to breed.