Saudi Air Force struck Yemeni marketplace with US bombs – Report
RT | April 7, 2016
Two bombs dropped by the Saudi Arabian Air Force on a crowded marketplace in Yemen on March 15 were American-made, claims Human Rights Watch (HRW). The UN estimates the death toll to be at least 97 dead, among them 25 children.
HRW examined the bomb blast fragmentations found at the site and determined they came from a US-made “GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a US-supplied MK-84 2,000lb bomb mated with a JDAM satellite guidance kit, also US-supplied,” HRW’s report says.
Since the beginning of the airstrikes of the Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition in March 2015, there have been 12 airstrikes inflicted on marketplaces throughout Yemen.
HRW calls on to the US to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia until Riyadh ends unlawful airstrikes.
“One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s year-long war involved US-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, emergency researcher at HRW.
Mastaba, a village in Yemen’s northern Hajja governorate, some 45km from the Saudi border, was attacked at noon. Two bombs were dropped successively with a short period. The first blasted right in front of a complex of shops and a restaurant, the second exploded a short while later near the entrance to the market, within the crowd fleeing the airstrike, HRW reports.
The airstrike in Mastaba reportedly also killed 10 Houthi rebel fighters, making the attack absolutely unprecedented in military-to-civilian death ratio, causing “disproportionate loss of civilian life, in violation of the laws of war.”
The UN children’s agency UNICEF put the death toll of Mastaba airstrikes even higher, proclaiming 119 people among dead, 22 children included.
Out of two local hospitals, a clinic supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) received 45 wounded civilians from the market.
Since March 2015, the conflict in Yemen has claimed lives of about 6,300 people, over a half of them civilians, according to the UN estimates. Most of the people killed in Yemen died in Saudi-led coalition air strikes.
The next day after the deadly airstrike, the Saudi military spokesman for the coalition, General Ahmad al-Assiri, said the coalition attacked “a militia gathering,” saying though, that the airstrike site had been known as a place to buy qat, a mild stimulant plant widely chewed in Yemen, which means the coalition knew the airstrike hit a commercial area.
On March 18, al-Assiri told Reuters that targeting Mastaba site the coalition used reconnaissance information from Yemeni forces loyal to ousted President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and that the Houthis “deceived people by saying it was a market.”
Literati want Israeli backing for New York festival dropped
Press TV – April 7, 2016
More than 100 prominent writers and literary figures have written a damning open letter to PEN American Center, urging it “to reject support from the Embassy of Israel” for the week-long World Voices Festival (PWVF) in New York at the end of this month.
“It is deeply regrettable that the festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from Israel, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists,” read the letter sent to PEN American Center and other festival participants in March, which was published online on Wednesday.
PEN American Center, based in New York, is the largest of the 144 centers that belong to PEN International, the worldwide association of prominent writers and editors that defends those who are harassed, imprisoned and killed for expressing their views.
The letter added that both Palestinian and international journalists and writers face heightened levels of repression by the Tel Aviv regime.
“In 2015, Israel denied Palestinian American novelist Susan Abulhawah entry into Palestine, and African American writer Kristian Davis Bailey was racially profiled, arrested and harassed by Israeli authorities, when he attempted to visit Palestine. All these incidents are part of a broader pattern of Israel’s systematic repression of Palestinian artists and cultural workers as well as the suppression of voices supportive of Palestinian rights,” it pointed out.
Among the writers who have signed onto the letter are Pulitzer Prize winners Alice Walker, Richard Ford and Junot Diaz, plus award-winning author Louise Erdrich.
Former president and vice president of English PEN, Gillian Slovo and Kamila Shamsie, poet Eileen Myles, authors Louise Erdrich and Ahdaf Soueif, and the Palestinian writer Ahmad Qatamesh, whose administrative detention by Israeli authorities was slammed by PEN International, also put their names on the letter.
The letter was sent to PEN American Center by Adalah, a non-profit group that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
“As a PEN member, I want this organization that is supposed to be a champion of writers’ rights to stand up for Palestinian writers, academics and students who are suffering under a repressive Israeli regime that denies their right to freedom of expression,” said American writer Alice Walker, author of the critically-acclaimed novel the Color Purple.
Marilyn Hacker, recipient of PEN Voelcker award for poetry and PEN award for poetry in translation, also stated that “PEN should have policies and ethical standards in place forbidding partnerships with significant human rights abusers. On that basis alone, PEN should rule out a partnership with Israel.”
Israel’s 2015 military exports topped $5.7 billion
Press TV – April 7, 2016
Israel’s military export contracts exceeded $5.7 billion last year with Europe receiving the second largest portion of the sales worth $1.6 billion, Tel Aviv says.
The Israeli ministry of military affairs made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the figure was up from $5.66 billion in 2014.
The statement also said that most of the exports, nearly 50 percent of the total or $2.3 billion, had gone to Asia and the Pacific.
Among these exports was Israel’s sale of 10 armed Heron drones to India, which was worth $400 million alone.
Most of the exports included aircraft upgrades and maintenance, as well as aerospace systems, which amounted to 14 percent of all new contracts. Radar and electronic systems came in second with 12 percent.
Drones, satellites, and naval systems were also among military exports from Israel, which is one of the world’s top 10 exporters of military equipment.
The announcement came just one day after the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released new figures showing that the world military expenditure totaled almost $1.7 trillion in 2015, a rise of one percent from the previous year.
Jewish settlers expropriate Palestinian garden as police stand by
International Solidarity Movement | April 4, 2016
Tel Rumeida, al Khalil, occupied Palestine – On Saturday 3rd of April 2016 settlers entered land belonging to Muhammad Abu Haikal in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron on the occupied West Bank in Palestine. The settler children built a tent and then brought other settlers who prayed and ate there. It took more than four hours from when the police arrived until the settlers actually left, still claiming that it was their land and running around so that the police would not be able to evict them.
The first young settler kids arrived at the land at around 9 o’clock in the morning and started building a tent out of wood and sheets that they had found and playing on the land. They were actually playing in Muhammad Abu Haikal’s garden, but the end of the garden has been declared a closed military area by the Israeli Occupation Forces, who have made a military outpost in the garden and cut off the end of it of with barbed wire. The settler children entered the garden using the staircase that has been built for the soldiers to reach the outpost: they stamped down the barbed wire and covered it with a piece of wood to prevent themselves from getting injured.
Later on, while the family was trying to pick almonds from trees in the part of the garden that is not a closed military Area, the settler children returned with a number of adult settlers and more children. Muhammed Abu Haikal and the internationals present asked the settlers to leave the land, but they refused. He then contacted the police.
After the police arrived, the settlers once again claimed to be the owners of the land, with the right to remain there. The Palestinian family was asked to step back and had to stop harvesting their garden. Not until after the settlers had prayed on the land multiple times, brought food and played ball there, did the police finally try to get them to leave. The police asked all Palestinians and internationals to leave as well, as they said, “it is impossible to make Israelis leave, if there are Palestinians on the land”. It then took the police over two hours to evict the settlers. They then removed the materials that the children had left on the part of the land that is not a closed military area, but refused to pull down the tent, because, they said, it was not allowed on Shabbat.
Finally the soldiers closed off the closed military area with more barbed wire and allowed the family back into their garden. If Palestinians had been trespassing on settlers land, which is illegally occupied, they would probably have been arrested immediately, but when it is the other way around, which it usually is, the police do not use any kind of force.
Call to Action: Palestinian Prisoners’ Day 2016
samidoun – Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network
On 17 April each year, Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian people, and the world mark the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners.
Commemorated since 1974, when the first Palestinian prisoner, Mahmoud Hijazi, was freed in a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian Resistance, 17 April is a day of protests, rallies, marches, forums and more to commemorate the struggle of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli occupation jails and demand their freedom.
We join with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in calling on organizations and people of conscience around the world to take action on 17 April to express your solidarity and call for freedom for Palestinian political prisoners.
Over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in Israeli jails. More than 700 of them are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. The others face military courts which convict over 99% of the Palestinians that appear before them. Over 400 Palestinian children as young as 12 years old are held in Israeli prisons.
Every night, Israeli occupation forces conduct violent armed invasions of Palestinian villages, cities, refugee camps and homes, ransacking them and arresting dozens of Palestinians. This comes amid near-daily killings and extrajudicial execution of Palestinians by occupation forces, the demolition of the homes of the families of Palestinian prisoners, new racist laws targeting Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, and further escalating repression.
International action has seen some response: G4S, the British-Danish security corporation targeted for a global boycott because of its role in providing security systems, control rooms and equipment to Israeli prisons, has announced it is selling off its Israeli subsidiary and leaving the market entirely. However, it’s critical to keep the pressure on G4S until their equipment and security systems are no longer being used to imprison Palestinians, block their movement at checkpoints, or besiege Gaza.
G4S doesn’t only profit on the imprisonment of Palestinians, of course. Black student movements at Columbia University, the University of California and Cornell University have led in building campus boycotts and divestment against G4S because of its role in private imprisonment in the United States, especially of youth, and have won significant victories. Organizing with movements confronting imprisonment and racist oppression, including the Black movement and the prison divestment movement, is particularly crucial in confronting common oppressors; the Black4Palestine statement identified G4S as a strong common target for struggle. Confronting racism and oppression of all forms comes hand in hand with confronting Zionist settler-colonial racism in Palestine.
Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year also comes amid international repression of Palestinian organizing – for example, the attacks on BDS in France and the arrest and prosecution of BDS activists – and the imprisonment and persecution of Palestinians and fellow strugglers in international prisons, as in the cases of Georges Ibrahim Abdullah, the Holy Land Five, and Rasmea Odeh.
On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day 2016, key issues facing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons include:
- Solitary confinement: nearly 20 Palestinians are being held in long-term solitary confinement, a form of torture. They are demanding return to general population.
- Administrative detention: over 700 Palestinians are imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention, often targeting community leaders and activists like Eteraf Rimawi, circus teacher Mohammed Abu Sakha, or journalist Musab Kufaisheh.
- Attacks on students: In the past weeks, Al-Quds University, the Arab American University and other Palestinian universities have been raided by Israeli occupation forces. Student leaders and activists at Bir Zeit University, Al-Quds University, An-Najah University and other institutions have been arrested and imprisoned, in an attempt to stifle student organizing and activism.
- Torture and mistreatment: Nearly every Palestinian prisoner is subject to “legitimate” torture and abuse under interrogation, including lengthy periods of being held in painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual threats and threats to family members, and direct beating and physical assaults. The vast majority of children arrested report experiencing physical and psychological torture and abuse at the hands of Israeli occupation soldiers and intelligence agents;
Take action for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day!
- Organize a protest at an Israeli consulate or embassy, a G4S office, or public square on Sunday, April 17 for Palestinian prisoners. Bring flyers and leaflets or signs, and call for freedom for Palestinian political prisoners. Or join with movements for prison divestment or other issues around racism and mass incarceration for joint protests against racist imprisonment of all kinds.
- Organize a forum or discussion about Palestinian prisoners. Help build awareness and action in support of Palestinian prisoners. Participants can also write letters to Palestinian prisoners.
- Screen a film – whether as a large event in a cinema, or a small get together in a home – on Palestinian prisoners. Titles include “Tell your tale, little bird,” “Women in Struggle,” “Hunger Strike,” “Palestine: la case prison,” “Degrees of Incarceration,” “A Path to Gaza Prison Camp,” “Lina,” “Detaining Dreams,” “Crayons of Askalan,” “Stone Cold Justice,” “Beyond the Walls,” “At the Heart of a Siege,” and “Stolen Youth.” The new feature film by Mai Masri, “3000 Nights,” focuses on the Palestinian experience of imprisonment.
Send your events to samidoun@samidoun.net or link them to Samidoun on Facebook, or tweet us at @SamidounPP.
Some events already happening for Prisoners’ Day include:
New York City
Friday, 15 April
Protest: Celebrate Resistance Before Palestinian Prisoners Day
4:00 pm
G4S Office, 19 W. 44th St, New York City
Milan
Friday, 15 April
Concert: Militant Rap for Palestinian Political Prisoners
7:00 pm
Centro Occupato Autogestito T28, Via dei Transiti 28, Milan, Italy
Brussels
Saturday, 16 April
Outdoor Event: Juggling for Mohammed Abu Sakha and Palestinian Prisoners
2:00 pm
Place de l’Albertine, Brussels
London
Saturday, 16 April
March: Palestinian Prisoners’ Parade
12:30 pm
Gower Street (Corner of Torrington Place), London, UK
Brussels
Sunday, 17 April
Manifestation: International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners
2:00 pm
Place de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium
Milan
Sunday, 17 April
Concert: Militant Rap for Palestinian Political Prisoners
7:00 pm
Cox18, Via Conchetta 18, Milan, Italy
Toulouse
Sunday, 17 April
Gathering: Palestine Afternoon
1:00 pm
La Chapelle, 36 rue Danielle Casanova, Toulouse, France
New York
Sunday, 17 April
Speakout: Speak Out for Prson Divestment on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day
1:30 PM
Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn, New York 11201
Paris
Sunday, 17 April
Forum: Freedom for All Palestinian Prisoners
4:00 pm
Academy of Arts and Culture of Kurdistan, 16 rue d’Enghien, Paris
Vienna
Sunday, 17 April
Protest: Palestinian Prisoners Day
3:00 PM
Stephansplatz, Vienna, Austria
Limerick
Monday, 18 April
Forum: Palestinian Lawyer Aouda Zbidat on Palestinian Political Prisoners
7:30 pm
Pery’s Hotel, Glentworth St, Limerick
Cork
Tuesday, 19 April
Forum: Palestinian Lawyer Aouda Zbidat on Palestinian Political Prisoners
Time/Venue TBA
Lille
Wednesday, 20 April
Forum: International Day to Free Political Prisoners
6:00 pm
Grand Place de Lille, 10 rue Royale, Lille, France
Dublin
Wednesday, 19 April
Forum: Palestinian Lawyer Aouda Zbidat on Palestinian Political Prisoners
7:00 pm
The Academy Plaza Hotel, 10-14 Findlater Place, Dublin, Ireland
A Few Black Caucus Members Have Some Questions About Israel
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | April 6, 2016
Black Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson has written a letter that puts him in the cross-hairs of the Israel lobby – and he’s managed to bring eight other members of the House with him, including three colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus. Johnson teamed up with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, a longtime – and usually very lonely – critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The senator is the author of the Leahy Law, which requires the United States to cut off military aid “to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information” that the unit has “committed a gross violation of human rights.” Congressman Johnson believes this language applies to Israel and to military and police units in Egypt. Together, the two countries account for more than 75 percent of total U.S. military assistance to foreign states: $3.1 billion a year to Israel, and $1.5 billion to Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that the U.S. increase its annual gift to the Zionist State’s military to $4.5 billion.
Congressman Johnson’s letter urges Secretary of State John Kerry to do as the Leahy Law requires, and make a determination if Israel and Egypt have engaged in gross violations of human rights. The letter calls Kerry’s attention to specific cases of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians and the use of torture by Israeli security forces, and it cites the Egyptian military regime’s 2013 massacre of as many as a thousand unarmed civilians at Rab’aa Square, which Human Rights Watch describes as “the world’s largest killing of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.”
In addition to Senator Leahy, Hank Johnson convinced eight other House Democrats to sign his letter, including Black Caucus members Andrè Carson, of Indiana, Eddie Bernice Johnson, of Texas, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the congressional Delegate from Washington, DC.
The crimes of Egypt’s military regime have shocked the world, but Washington has no problem with mass murder, which is why the Egyptian military has been a U.S. client for the past 40 years.
And, there is, of course, not a chance in hell that Secretary of State Kerry will certify that Israel is a gross human rights violator – despite the fact that the entire history of the apartheid Zionist state is an affront to the very notion of civilization. Just two weeks ago, an Israeli soldier was caught on video cold-bloodedly shooting a wounded and helpless Palestinian in the head. A poll showed 66 percent of Israeli Jews have good feelings about the soldier’s behavior, and 57 percent don’t even want the government to investigate the murder. This is the kind of barbaric society that is bred by apartheid – a society that should be recognized as inherently evil by every member of the Congressional Black Caucus. But, only three Black congresspersons joined Hank Johnson in questioning why the U.S. spends billions to arm the last apartheid state on Earth. In 2014, every single Black congressperson, including Hank Johnson, voted in support of Israel even as it was slaughtering more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Four signatures on a letter will never erase the shame they have brought upon Black America through their support for the most racist regime in the world.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Romania arrests Israeli firm workers for spying on top prosecutor
Press TV – April 6, 2016
Romania has arrested two employees of an Israeli intelligence company on charges of spying on and trying to intimidate the country’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, officials say.
“An investigation has been launched and two people have been arrested,” Mihaela Porime, a spokeswoman for the anti-crime and terrorist prosecutors’ office, said on Wednesday, adding that the suspects work for the Israeli private intelligence agency, Black Cube.
The firm reportedly has several former operatives of Israel’s Mossad spy agency on its payroll.
The pair were identified as Belgian David Geclowitz and Israeli-born Ron Weiner, who holds a French passport.
They are suspected of hacking the emails of people close to Laura Codruta Kovesi, the chief prosecutor of Romania’s National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA), and of threatening and harassing her family members.
The arrest warrant said the two had in March set up a “criminal group … aimed at sullying Kovesi’s image.”
According to Romanian judicial sources, the two are believed to have been employed by a client being investigated by the DNA.
Meanwhile, Kovesi confirmed that the detentions were “linked to a failed intimidation bid.”
Kovesi, who was appointed last month for a second term as Romania’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, is known for her tough approach to high-level graft.
Her agency prosecuted some 1,250 cases only in 2015, with targets including a former premier and five ex-ministers.
Evangelical Investment in Israel
By Serge Halimi | CounterPunch | April 6, 2016
US-Israeli relations are a recurring issue in the Republican primaries, even in southern states where there are very few Jewish voters. For many years, the following ritual only affected Democratic primaries, especially in New York (notably in 1980, 1984, 1988). One candidate, or even several, would call for the US embassy in Israel to be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tantamount to recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the whole of the city. Then, when the New York primary was over, both Democratic and Republican presidents would leave the embassy where it was, until the next candidate repeated the performance four years later.
Now it’s the Republicans’ turn. A few days before the Iowa vote, Ted Cruz announced that, as president, he would relocate the embassy “on day one”. Why, when Iowa is 0.2% Jewish? The evangelical church is powerful — as it is in all the southern states.
Visiting the First Baptist Church in Opelika, Alabama, the importance of Israel, Jerusalem and Palestine is impossible to miss. Not that anyone there follows developments in the region closely. Neither recent history nor politics dictates judgments and votes, but faith. Sara-Jane Tatum, for one, takes part in a Bible discussion group, which has 40 members, two of whom are black. She belongs to the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), an organisation whose mission is to “stand with Israel in the belief that Jerusalem is the eternal capital.” Tatum is just back from a “teaching tour” in Israel, recommended by her pastor. Her itinerary included a visit to the Knesset, a meeting with two members of Likud (prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s party), and a dinner for several hundred pro-Israel Christians at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria hotel. “The American ambassador spoke, as did an Arab Christian standing with Israel.” Tatum also visited the Holocaust museum. But Jericho and Bethlehem, despite their importance to Christianity, were not on the tour, nor anywhere else under Palestinian Authority control.
Tatum’s organisation raises funds “for Jewish people to leave France, Ukraine, and go to Israel. […] I have heard that French Jews were persecuted.” Her study of the Bible has “taught [her] the importance of Israel to [her] faith and what will happen in the future.” Basing her views on scripture, especially the Old Testament, she believes that all of Palestine should be returned to Israel; therefore, she supports (and would expand on) Netanyahu’s settlement policy. “One day, we don’t know when, God will protect Israel. God has decided that Jerusalem will be the centre of the world […]. God made a covenant with the Jewish people. This covenant cannot be replaced, cannot be altered, cannot be changed. Because of their disobedience to the Lord, he exiled [the Jews] but the land is theirs.”
While waiting for Armageddon and the Messiah’s return, what fate does she envisage for the Palestinians, a minority of whom are Christian, if they don’t want to live in a Jewish state? “Other Arab countries should accept Palestinians into their countries. In 1967 God protected Israel. Israel won.” Issue settled. “Israel does everything to provide jobs to Palestinians, to make them live in peace. They are treated well. They want more. If they are not happy, they can go elsewhere.”
Deborah Jones, who leads the Bible study group, has been to Israel twice, last time eight years ago. She also thinks “the Israelis are trying so hard to help the Palestinians, but their hatred of the Jews is so strong that they resist their help.” She views Palestinian Christians’ demands for sovereignty as almost heretical: “They harbour this hate for Israel so much that they don’t really accept Christ as their lord. God made a covenant with the Jewish people. God will never allow Israel to be divided again.”
Both agree peace is desirable, but, says Jones, “the Palestinians don’t want peace, they want the land.” Tatum adds: “And they want the Jews dead.”
Serge Halimi is president of Le Monde diplomatique
Calls mount for immediate release of Nigerian cleric
Press TV – April 6, 2016
A Nigerian human rights lawyer has called for the immediate and unconditional release of senior Shia cleric and leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky.
In a Tuesday letter to the director general of the Department of State Services (DSS), Femi Falana said that Zakzaky and his wife Zeenat should be freed from “illegal detention” within 24 hours.
Zakzaky and his wife have been in detention since December last year.
The clergyman is said to have been charged with “criminal conspiracy and inciting public disturbances.”
Falana said “even though our clients have not been told that they breached any law, they have been denied access to their lawyers, personal physicians, and family members for over three months.”
“Our clients were only permitted to meet with us last Friday after several requests made by us had been turned down without any legal basis,” he added.
Falana further noted that Zakzaky had lost his left eye due to the brutal attacks during his arrest, and that the doctors “are currently battling to save the right” eye.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission also called for the immediate and unconditional release of Zakzaky.
The London-based NGO slammed the persecution of Sheikh Zakzaky and his Islamic Movement in Nigeria as an affront to all civilized and democratic values.
It also urged the Nigerian government to bring to justice all those responsible for the unprovoked attacks on Zakzaky and his supporters.
On December 12, 2015, Nigerian soldiers attacked Shia Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in the city of Zaria, accusing them of blocking the convoy of the army’s chief of staff and attempting to assassinate him.
Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat stops services to Lebanese Al-Manar
Press TV – April 6, 2016
Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat has stopped airing Lebanese news channel Al-Manar following similar moves targeting Lebanon by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Taking the measure on Tuesday, Nilesat alleged that Al-Manar had “violated the contract by broadcasting shows that provoke sectarian strife and sedition.”
The company is also to stop its operations in Lebanon as of Wednesday when its contract expires.
Saudi-based satellite provider Arabsat had stopped broadcasting Al-Manar in December 2015, a month after it took Al Mayadeen TV, another Lebanon-based channel, off air.
Late last week, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV shut its offices in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and dismissed the local staff over “security reasons.”
Saudi Arabia has been adopting a raft of measures against Lebanon in reaction to the latter country’s refusal to side with Riyadh against Iran.
It has been targeting Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, which has been fighting Saudi-backed extremism inside both Lebanon and Syria.
Earlier in the year, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil refused to back a motion crafted by Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic, prompting Riyadh to retract a $4-billion aid pledge to Lebanon and demand an apology, which Lebanon refused to give.
The motion had sought to condemn Tehran over January attacks on vacant Saudi diplomatic premises. The attacks occurred during otherwise peaceful protests against Saudi Arabia’s execution earlier of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Saudi Arabia has also ordered its citizens not to travel to Lebanon and imposed sanctions on four Lebanese firms and three individuals it accuses of having links to Hezbollah.
There are also reports that Saudi Arabia may expel the Lebanese nationals working on its territory.
Some local media reports in Lebanon have, meanwhile, said the Saudis may be applying pressure to secure the release of a member of the royal family held in Lebanon since last October on drug charges.
Abdul-Mohsen al-Waleed Al Saud was detained in Beirut after authorities seized two tons of amphetamine Captagon pills before they were loaded onto his private plane.
UNRWA Condemns Today’s Large Scale Home Demolitions in the West Bank
IMEMC News & Agencies – April 6, 2016
Statement by UNRWA West Bank Director, Lance Bartholomuesz
Jerusalem 6 April 2016
UNRWA condemns today’s large scale home demolitions by the Israeli Authorities in the Bedouin refugee community of Um al Khayr in the South Hebron Hills. As a result, 31 Palestine refugees, including 16 children, were made homeless.
This community has endured several rounds of demolitions and often faced harassment from the nearby illegal settlement of Karmel.
“I am appalled. Looking in the eyes of a young Bedouin boy in a red shirt standing amongst the crumpled ruins of his demolished home, how can anyone justify this? ” stated Lance Bartholomeusz, Director of UNRWA Operations in the West Bank.
Already this year, over 700 Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli demolitions in the West Bank.
This figure is approaching the total number of displaced for all of 2015.
UNRWA is gravely concerned about demolitions in violation of international law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention destruction of private property is prohibited. As Occupying Power, Israel is obliged to administer the occupied territory for the welfare of the protected Palestinian population.
As the UN has said repeatedly, these demolitions must stop.
University rooms destroyed in early morning raid by Israeli forces
International Solidarity Movement | March 5, 2016
East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine – In the early hours of Tuesday, 5th April, around 3am, an armed group of Israeli soldiers stormed the campus of Al Quds university in the area of Abu Dis, part of East Jerusalem. The soldiers terrorised security guards on duty and forcefully entered four rooms belonging to student political parties and confiscated equipment while completely destroying the rest of the rooms.
Destroyed items from the Tuesday morning raid gathered outside the rooms
During the early hours of the morning the only people present at the university campus were the campus security, they were rounded up and locked together in a room, they were given no reason from the soldiers as to why they were being locked in a room nor as to why the soldiers were entering the campus grounds. The soldiers proceeded to forcefully enter four rooms belonging to various political parties run by students of the university, cutting the locks and smashing their way in, completely destroying the doors. This is the fourth time in 2016 alone that soldiers have entered the campus, destroying and confiscating material while giving no reason for their actions.
One of the computers amongst other items destroyed in the raid
The rooms entered belong to varying student bodies who’s students work within the university and the local community. Among the varied groups they advocate student rights, create activities within the campus and surrounding neighbourhoods, hold discussions on the state of the middle east, volunteer within the community, offer services for students, hold workshops and meetings about young prisoners and host an array of solidarity activities for the Palestinian community.
Students cleaning up debris from Tuesday’s raid
During the raid the army took personal computers, laptops and cameras belonging to the Islamic party. Around one hundred and seventy flags were confiscated from the union party room and all of their stationary equipment for creative activities. Whatever was not taken was destroyed during the raid by the occupying forces.
The activities room for the ladies Islamic movement which works mainly with disadvantaged youths and students had the majority of their belongings destroyed, posters ripped from walls and electronic equipment confiscated.
The area of Abu Dis were the university is located was around thirty thousand hectares prior to 2002 and is now around four thousand hectares with 75% of the area now falling under area C and 25% under area B. This malicious land grab by the Israeli government has left students facing huge difficulties with their education. Many students within the faculty of medicine can’t reach Jerusalem where the main hospital for training is located and have been forced to go elsewhere for their practical while the media faculty faces new difficulties also. Since the beginning of what most would call the third intifada, checkpoints leading into the city of Ramallah, where the media students must go to complete their practical work have become extremely tightened and students are often denied access to the area or face long waits to enter.
The annexation wall surrounding the university
On the 2nd November, 2015, Israeli forces entered the campus around 4pm and began firing on students using tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and even using live ammunition. Over two hundred students were injured and required medical care while two students were seriously injured, with access to Jerusalem hospital unavailable the students were forced to travel over an hour to the city of Ramallah for treatment.
One of the destroyed rooms
With the student elections to take place on April 19th, this attack falls into Israel’s wider policy of targeting political activity within student campuses and bodies as a means of repressing resistance to the occupation.
Four students of the university have been killed by Israeli forces since November, 2015.
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Casuistry
By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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Aletho News- Report: Kurdish Fighters Have Been Entering Iran From Iraq and Clashing With the IRGC
- Trump’s Options in Iran Limited By Military Buildup in Latin America
- Villains of Judea: Paul Singer’s Empire of Debt & Demographic Replacement
- The Gaza ceasefire’s Phase 2 only exists in the media and at UN meetings
- We must act before Palestinian hostages are executed in the world’s worst prisons
- Why Washington will take Greenland
- Former Head of Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate: There’s a ‘very significant influence operation by the US’ in Iran
- Israel–Syria security pact stumbles as Tel Aviv rejects withdrawal: Report
- The Ukraine Snare Still Beckons
- Italy and the drone that isn’t there
- If Americans Knew
- Militant Pro-Israel Group Agrees to Halt Operations in New York
- During “ceasefire,” at least 100 Gaza children killed – clearly NOT a ceasefire Day 96
- Israel Has Demolished 2,500 Buildings in Gaza Since Signing Ceasefire Deal
- Iran, Gaza and the politics of counting the dead
- How Israel’s move in Somaliland fits in its broader strategy for regional dominance
- As genocide continues in Gaza, the West Bank is pushed into a new Nakba
- Israeli settlers beat elderly, deaf Palestinian man in West Bank attack, video shows
- U.S. May Bankroll New Israeli Armored Vehicles With Billions of Dollars, Internal Files Reveal
- How Israel and the US are exploiting Iranian protests
- The New Neoconservatives
- No Tricks Zone
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
- Expect Soon Another PIK Paper Claiming Warming Leads To Cold Snaps Over Europe
- New Study: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 1.57% Of Global Temperature Change Since 1750
- Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship!
- New Study Finds A Higher Rate Of Global Warming From 1899-1940 Than From 1983-2024
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