A group of Italian professors and researchers are planning to boycott Israeli academic institutions, saying the schools are complicit in "violations of international law and human rights".

The starting point to understand today’s reality in Palestine is as crystal clear now as it always has been. Over 4 million Palestinians are approaching their 50th year of living under Israeli military occupation; it should be noted that these Palestinians comprise less than half of all Palestinians worldwide.

Visualizing Palestine launched its new infographic (right) this week, highlighting the Palestinian Authority's complicity in sustaining Israel's military occupation.

Al-Shabaka has previously addressed this critical topic from various angles, and invites readers to delve further with these in-depth analyses that complement the latest work of our friends at Visualizing Palestine:

For over a week more than 10,000 Palestinians have been barred from working in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, after an Israeli army ban some have labelled as "collective punishment".

Israel still portrays itself as a Jewish and democratic state. Yet in practice, as its Palestinian citizens can attest, it functions as a Jewish ethnocracy, leaving small margins of freedom for its Palestinian citizens that have been steadily shrinking in the past few years.

Companies doing business in Israeli settlements contribute to and profit from land confiscations and the violation of Palestinian workers' rights - and support the settlements which are illegal under international law, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Israeli and international businesses to withdraw from Jewish-only settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, saying they "contribute to and benefit from" Israeli violations.

Palestinians have been banned from working in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank following recent attacks, Israel’s army said.

According to the Palestinian Water Authority, 85 percent of water in the occupied territories is allocated to Israeli settlers. The NGO Al Shabaka reported in December that 599,901 Israeli settlers use six times more water than nearly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank.