‘US will maintain military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014’
Press TV – December 30, 2012
An analyst says America and its allies have planned to leave a residual force of more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan passed 2014, contrary to the agreement.
In the background of this, American pilots are currently under special training ready to be deployed to Afghanistan in coming months in what appears to be a renewed build up by certain US forces. 66,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan. America is expected to honor a 2014 agreed deadline to withdraw from the country.
Press TV has interviewed Mr. Mohammad Daoud Abadi, Chairman of the Afghanistan National Peace Council, Los Angeles about this issue. The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: We see American pilots training in conditions similar to that of Afghanistan. Are we preparing for a longer stay of US troops in Afghanistan do you think?
Abadi: Thank you for inviting me again I appreciate it. Before I answer that question I’d like to thank Press TV for it’s worldwide media presence and being honest on the matters, we do appreciate that very, very much.
In response to your question I must say that what we hear from the US government is that they’re planning to leave a 6,000 to 9,000 fighting force in Afghanistan after 2014. That plus another 5,000 from NATO allies.
What I’m hearing – I hope it’s not correct, but what I’m hearing from the media and from different sources is that the US has planned to leave these 6,000 soldiers in Baghram airport, Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the East.
They are planning to have the Spaniards in Hira and Shindand airport, which is close to the Iranian border, to the Italians and on the North the Mazar e Sharif, the Germans still be staying.
To be honest and to look at it from a technical point of view this residual force will not be a force to really do the terrorist war or against terrorist activities because let’s say that if they are in Baghram airport and they fly from Baghram airport to Kandahar to do an operation, it is a 2 hour flight of 350 kilometers distance – it takes two hours for a helicopter to get there.
So in general this residual force is there for some other purpose other than what is claimed. Therefore this policy as I have said, this time the Pentagon will fail on this again and I don’t think this is something that they can count on.
Press TV: Just how much has President Hamid Karzai been a president to the Afghan people and tried to help efforts to oust the US occupiers from Afghanistan?
Abadi: Based on yesterday’s report Mr. Karzai is coming to Washington in early January and they will hopefully be talking about future issues in Afghanistan as well as the matter of residual forces.
President Karzai is going to make the biggest mistake of his life if he agrees to residual forces because that will mean the continuation of war in Afghanistan.
As I have said before the Mujaheddin of Afghanistan have put this condition even at the 19th of December meeting in Paris – this was the first condition that both sides the Taliban and Jamiat e Islami of Afghanistan put on the table.
Therefore what Mr. Karzai is going to sign with them based on their immunity issues, that is not going to work. As for US forces they are defeated now they were defeated then.
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Israeli Army Fails To Evict Illegal Outpost Near Ramallah
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | December 29, 2012
Israeli soldiers tried to evict an illegal settlement outpost, erected by extremist Israeli settlers near the Bet EI illegal settlement, north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah; the settlers attacked the soldiers who left the scene without evicting the structures.
Israeli sources reported that five Israeli policemen were injured during the clashes with the settlers, and were treated by field medics.
Political sources in Tel Aviv claimed that the army decided to stop the eviction and leave the area due to pressures practiced by a number of government officials.
It is worth mentioning that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has several coalition members who are settlers, including Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, head of the extreme right-wing “Israel Our Home” party.
Israeli Yedioth Aharonoth reported that hundreds of settlers clashed with the army and the police, and hurled stones at them after the army ordered them to disperse.
The army later apprehended several settlers but left the scene without evicting the illegal outpost.
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St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee Statement on Pending City Contract with Veolia Water
STL-PSC Blog | December 17th, 2012
We are a diverse group of Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Jews, Christians, students, professors, artists, writers, environmental activists, union organizers, bakers, grandparents, and others in St. Louis united by a commitment to a lasting peace in Israel/Palestine based on freedom, justice, and equality, as part of a larger commitment to global justice.
We were shocked to learn about private city negotiations with Veolia Water on a contract to guide cost-cutting for the St. Louis Water Division. Veolia Water – North America is a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement (VE), a Paris-based multinational corporation and the largest water privatization business in the world. It is infamous for poor environmental standards, anti-labor practices, privatizing public resources, mismanagement, corruption, bribery, embezzlement, fraud, and illegal activities in Israel/Palestine. Worldwide, consumers report that Veolia consistently charges high rates, provides poor service, causes staff turnover, discourages water conservation, and fails to implement promised improvements. Its history reveals consistent prioritization of private profit at the expense of the environment and public welfare.
In Israel/Palestine, VE is involved in a myriad of ways with Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestinian land and its systematic ethnic discrimination against the Palestinian people.
VE’s Israeli subsidiary, Veolia Water – Israel, operates a wastewater treatment plant located in an illegal Jewish-only settlement called Modiin Ilit, built on internationally-recognized Palestinian land in the West Bank. The Palestinian owners of the land on which this settlement was built have been violently driven out. Two unarmed Palestinians from Bil’in, a Palestinian village on which Modiin Ilit was built, have been killed by the Israeli army as they protested nonviolently against the ongoing confiscation of their land and resources. Leaders and people of conscience from around the world, including the South African anti-Apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have visited Bil’in to stand in solidarity with the dispossessed villagers, yet Veolia continues to service the settlement and others like it.
An Israeli subsidiary of Veolia Transdev, named Connex – Israel, operates settler buses on segregated roads through the occupied West Bank, including two bus lines that use road 443, which is built partially on confiscated land with portions closed entirely to Palestinians. A separate but unequal Palestinian road system is made up of low grade roads cut by checkpoints and physical barriers restricting Palestinian freedom of movement. Last year, a group of Palestinian Freedom Riders attempted to board buses operating on their own land and were violently removed and arrested. Veolia is not only profiting from segregation in Israel/Palestine; they are enforcing it.
Another VE Israeli subsidiary, Veolia Environmental Services – Israel, supervises, consults for, and operates the Tovlan Landfill in the occupied Jordan Valley, collecting refuse from illegal settlements. Israel renders it almost impossible for Palestinians in the Jordan Valley to gain permits to build homes, toilets, wells, animal pens, or other vital infrastructure for local communities, which has forced almost all Palestinian families out, with those remaining living in dire conditions. Some are left with no alternative but to work on settlements that have taken their families’ land, for pay far below the minimum wage, unable to take bathroom breaks, and denied any rights to unionize. Veolia takes captured Palestinian land and natural resources to service the settlements exploiting or driving out Palestinians.
Finally, VE has also been involved in the construction and operation of a tramway linking illegal settlements in East Jerusalem with Israel. The tramway not only institutionalizes the occupation, but it is a settlement in itself, given that it is settler infrastructure built on occupied land.
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk recently recommended that Veolia “should be boycotted, until they bring their operations into line with international human rights and humanitarian law and standards.” VE’s immoral practices and extensive profiting from Israel’s illegal discriminatory practices have provoked global outcry and made the company a target for boycott and divestment campaigns around the world — costing it $16 billion to date in lost contracts. Recently, the Friends Fiduciary Corporation, which handles investments for hundreds of U.S. Quaker institutions, divested from VE following advocacy from Palestine solidarity groups. Now, VE is bringing its risky and immoral business to our backyard.
Veolia Water is the U.S. arm of VE. As St. Louisans, we do not feel that our tax dollars and water payments should go toward supporting a company profiting from environmental destruction, unfair labor practices, and the bloodshed of and systematic ethnic discrimination against the Palestinian people.
The St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee stands in solidarity with public workers, water and environmental justice activists, and the Palestinian people threatened by this contract. We call on the Board of Estimate & Appointment not to approve this public contract with Veolia.
Click here for more information and documentation on Veolia’s activities in Palestine.
Related articles
- South Africa’s ruling ANC officially endorses Palestine’s boycott movement (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- St. Louis City Board Votes to Investigate Veolia Following Public Outcry! (bdsmovement.net)
- Veolia to end sponsorship of major UK photography exhibition (bdsmovement.net)
- Pro-Palestine campaigners celebrate Veolia’s loss of £40million contract in Canterbury (bdsmovement.net)
South Africa’s ruling ANC officially endorses Palestine’s boycott movement
Al Akhbar | December 21, 2012
South Africa’s ruling party has officially endorsed Palestine’s Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel, making it the first major non-Muslim political faction to throw its weight behind the nonviolent resistance movement.
The African National Congress issued a resolution in support of the boycott campaign making it a part of its official policy, and specifically called for “all South Africans to support the programmes and campaigns of the Palestinian civil society which seek to put pressure on Israel to engage with the Palestinian people to reach a just solution.”
A press release issued by activist group BDS South Africa called the move “the most authoritative endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign.”
Previous moves to support Palestine’s nonviolent resistance movement from state actors have restricted their backing to the boycott of Israeli settlements, shying away from targeting the Jewish state. In September, the Irish parliament voted to ban Israeli settlement imports. Earlier this month, an Israeli newspaper reported that the EU was looking into boycotting settlement goods, after Israel defied calls to stem construction of the illegal houses.
Another clause of the resolution lashed out at Israel’s mistreatment of Africans, which culminated in the mass deportation of South Sudanese this year: “The ANC abhors the recent Israeli state-sponsored xenophobic attacks and deportation of Africans and request that this matter should be escalated to the African Union.”
The move is the latest in a series of actions by the ANC to pressure Israel into ending the Jewish state’s racist policies, particularly against indigenous Palestinians.
This August, South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim advised South Africans not to travel to Israel “because of the treatment and policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people.”
Palestine activists have long worked to draw attention to parallels between South Africa’s apartheid period and Palestinian repression under Israel’s ethno-religious-exclusive government system. Palestine’s BDS movement is said to be largely inspired by South Africa’s own boycott movement, which is credited with playing a major role in dismantling apartheid in that country in 1994.
South African Apartheid was declared official policy in 1948, the same year the state of Israel was created and thousands of Palestinians were expelled or put under martial rule.
In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. The launch followed a historic ruling at the International Court of Justice that Israel’s apartheid wall, which greatly restricts movement in the West Bank and expropriates large swathes of Palestinian land, be demolished.
The BDS movement has garnered support from activists and labor unions worldwide, as well as from a growing list of artists, including Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, Santana, Cat Power and the late Gil Scott Heron.
Full BDS South Africa Press release
MEDIA RELEASE: S. Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, reaffirms boycott of Israel resolution
South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), at its 53rd National Conference, reaffirmed a resolution supporting the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign.
In October 2012, the ANC’s International Solidarity Conference (ISC) declared its full support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign (ISC Declaration, page 2, point 10).
Today, Lindiwe Zulu (member of the ANC’s International Relations Sub-Committee and special advisor to President Jacob Zuma) announced at the ANC’s 53rd National Conference plenary session, the ANC’s official endorsement, as captured in Resolution 39 (b), of the ANC’s October International Solidarity Conference (ISC) and all its resolutions, which includes a resolution on BDS. Giving muscle to resolution 39 (b), the ANC has committed to set up a steering committee to implement these ISC resolutions.
In addition, the ANC adopted resolution 35 (g) that specifically called for “all South Africans to support the programmes and campaigns of the Palestinian civil society which seek to put pressure on Israel to engage with the Palestinian people to reach a just solution.” In 2005 Palestinian civil society issued a call to the international community for a program and campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to be applied against Israel as a way to pressure Israel to end its violations of international law, respect Palestinian human rights and engage in fair negotiations for a just peace.
Mbuyiseni Ndlozi of BDS South Africa welcomed today’s decision: “This reaffirmation by the ANC’s National Conference, its highest decision making body, is by far the most authoritative endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign. The ANC has now taken its international conference resolutions, and officially made it the policy of the ANC. We look forward to working with the ANC and specifically the ISC steering committee to expedite its implementation.”
Another hard-hitting decision on Israel that was adopted by the ANC was resolution 35 (j): “The ANC abhors the recent Israeli state-sponsored xenophobic attacks and deportation of Africans and request that this matter should be escalated to the African Union”. In June this year Israeli anti-African protests turned into full-fledged race riots. Israeli racism and xenophobia against Africans is shared and even encouraged by Israeli politicians including the Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said: “If we don’t stop their [African immigrants’] entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence…and threatens the social fabric of society.” Israel’s Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, has said that African immigrants “think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man.” And the Israeli parliamentarian, Miri Regev, has publicly compared Sudanese people to “a cancer”.
Finally, in a blow to the Israeli lobby, the ANC also adopted resolution 35 (c) stating: “The ANC is unequivocal in its support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.” In the build up to the ANC’s National Conference the Israeli lobby, including the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, demanded a “balanced” and “nonpartisan” rather than a decisive and solidarity role by the ANC in the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
ISSUED BY MBUYISENI NDLOZI FOR BDS SOUTH AFRICA
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Despite US criticism, Israel continues with plan to construct 6,000 new settlement units
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | December 20, 2012
The US State Department issued a statement this week that included a rare criticism of Israeli policy, calling the ongoing construction of settlements on Palestinian land a “pattern of provocative action” that prevented the renewal of peace talks. Despite this critique, the Israeli government announced plans to move ahead with 6,000 new settlement units, mainly in the Jerusalem area.
After the Palestinian Authority pursued, and succeeded in obtaining, a vote for non-member statehood status at the United Nations last month, the Israeli government undertook a number of punitive measures against the Palestinians. These including illegally confiscating Palestinian Authority funds that would pay the salaries of teachers, doctors, pensioners and the disabled, as well as announcing a plan to increase settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces have militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, and have illegally seized large swaths of Palestinian land in order to transfer Israeli civilians onto this land, in direct violation of its obligations as an Occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Since a peace agreement known as the ‘Oslo Accords’ was signed in 1993, hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have poured into the West Bank and established colonies. In 2005, around 5,000 settlers were paid by the Israeli government to move out of settlements in the Gaza Strip, although many of them ended up moving to other settlements in the West Bank.
In this week’s statement to the press, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters, “Israel’s leaders continually say that they support a path towards a two-state solution yet these actions put that goal further at risk.”
Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon responded defiantly, “ We will continue to build in accordance with Israel’s strategic interests.”
1,500 units were approved on Monday by Israel’s Interior Ministry, and discussion is continuing throughout this week on the plans for 4,500 additional units, which are expected to receive final approval by the Israeli Interior Ministry early next week.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered to be violations of international law.
Why they call him ‘Agent’ Cameron
The correct path to statehood is through implementation of international law and UN resolutions and the approval of the international community.
By Stuart Littlewood | Salem-News | December 14, 2012
(LONDON) – Britain’s prime minister David Cameron has again shown why he should stand down from British politics.
In a speech to Conservative Friends of Israel at a lunch the other day he said – and not for the first time – things that are deeply disturbing to people who expect him to put British interests first. He again compromised himself and this country with ridiculous pledges of support for a foreign military power whose behaviour is beyond the Pale and an affront to human decency. Here are some of his remarks…
“I am a passionate friend of Israel – and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
In that case you shouldn’t be in British politics, Mr Cameron. You have fallen foul of the Seven Principles of Public Life, especially the principle of ‘Integrity’ which says quite simply: “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.”
“We promised to stand up for Israel and in Government that’s exactly what we’ve done. We said it was ridiculous that Israeli officials felt unable to visit Britain because of the malicious and unfounded use of arrest warrants so we changed the law to end it.”
Unfounded? Tzipi Livni, for example, was responsible for launching the pre-meditated blitzkrieg four years ago which caused the deaths of 1,400 defenceless Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women), horribly maimed thousands more and caused immense devastation to essential infrastructure and services. She showed no remorse. Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead, and speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”
“We said we’d resist calls for boycotts on Israel and yes – we are going to keep on working with Israel, doing business with Israel, trading with Israel.”
Even though Israel is in continual breach of EU-Israel Agreement rules and forcibly prevents its neighbours, the Palestinians, from doing business and trade with the outside world…
“To me it is clear what needs to happen… We need the Palestinians to understand there is only one path to statehood, and that is through negotiations with Israel. We made that clear with that UN vote a couple of weeks ago.”
Wrong. The correct path to statehood is through implementation of international law and UN resolutions and the approval of the international community. Only when the illegal occupation is ended and the right of self-determination is restored can meaningful talks begin.
“We said that Britain could not support a resolution that set back the prospects for peace and that did not commit the Palestinians to return to negotiations without preconditions. Well: they did not provide the assurances that we asked for. So… we did not vote for it.”
Pure blackmail. Bullying Palestinians into resuming failed and discredited talks to bargain with the thief for the return of their lands and property when it is still being stolen with impunity, is utterly immoral. There can be no peace under occupation. And nobody ‘negotiates’ with a gun to their head, nor should they be expected to.
“And I have made something else clear that needs to be made clear to the Palestinians. Britain will never tolerate the obscenity of a football tournament named after a suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant. We will not tolerate incitement to terrorism.”
This is about Wafa Idris. It has become a favourite rant and Cameron was banging on about it a couple of months earlier at another top Jewish gathering. According to The Jerusalem Post (September 2011) a Fatah-affiliated youth centre in the Ama’ari refugee camp near Ramallah named a sports event after female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, a 28 year-old paramedic who had been shot several times by Israeli rubber bullets during her work for the Red Crescent. Relatives said she was angry at seeing children shot and killed by the IDF in Ramallah. Idris was the first Palestinian woman to carry out a suicide bombing. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a subsidiary of Abbas’s Fatah (who are Cameron’s friends in Occupied Palestine), claimed responsibility for the bomb attack although her family said she was not known to be an activist with any Palestinian militant group.
Cameron, before opening his mouth, might have asked what led her to do it. Wafa Idris was born in the Ama’ari refugee camp. Set up by the Red Cross in 1949 it provided tents to refugees from Jaffa, Ramla and Lydda, towns allocated for an Arab state in the UN Partition but subjected to a bloody programme of ethnic cleansing in 1948.
In Lydda the Israelis massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque (See the lurid details here). Out of the 19,000 people who called Lydda home, only 1,052 were allowed to stay. The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way.
The slaughter in Lydda was led by a certain Moshe Dayan. The event was witnessed by two American newspapermen who reported that “practically everything in their way died. Riddled corpses lay by the roadside.” They saw “the corpses of Arab men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the ruthlessly brilliant charge” (emphasis Aletho News ). This appalling war crime didn’t prevent Dayan becoming a great hero in Israel, and later defence minister and foreign minister.
Today Tel Aviv University has a Moshe Dayan Centre named after the war criminal, but I haven’t heard Cameron complain about that. Likewise the Menachem Begin Centre in West Jerusalem is named after the terrorist leader responsible for the bomb attack in 1946 on the British mandate government based in the King David Hotel, killing 91. Has Agent Cameron anything to say about that?
Back to the Ama’ari refugee camp, now run by the UNRWA, where Wafa Idris was obliged to live in squalor as a result of Israel’s criminal land-grab and forcible eviction of her parents from Ramla. At Ama’ari 10,500 people are squeezed into less than 1 square kilometre in dreadful conditions.
However the camp’s football team has won the Palestine football championship several times and qualified to represent Palestine in regional and international competitions.
The Arab media were lavish in their praise for Idris, the “courageous Palestinian girl”, and as a result she became a heroic symbol of Palestinian womanhood in their struggle to throw off the occupation. If it’s OK for Israel to name major institutions after its famous terrorists what right has Cameron to get upset when Palestinian football team similarly commemorates one of theirs?
“So, in Gaza too, Hamas need to know that they must renounce violence and they will not be allowed to dictate the way forward in the peace process.”
Does Cameron have the balls to tell Israel it too must renounce violence? Hamas, in case he has forgotten, is the legitimate democratic authority. He may not like it but he should respect it and work with them, like the good democratic he claims to be.
“Last month, when rockets rained down on Israel, we were unequivocal about the right of Israelis to live free from attack by terrorist groups on their border.”
When Gaza suffers air strikes on a daily basis, how unequivocal is Cameron about the right of Palestinians to live free from attack by the terrorist state occupying their lands?
“I’ve never had to run for cover as the air-raids sound overhead. I’ve never had to give gas masks to my children. I do understand that for the Israeli people, uncertainty isn’t such a great thing. It means instability. Anxiety. Fear.”
If he goes to Gaza he can experience fear and anxiety in abundance under Israeli air raids. I vividly remember as a kid being bombed by the Nazis every night in London – and not with garden-shed whizz-bangs. I remember German bombers flying at rooftop height down our street to avoid the anti-aircraft guns. At least they didn’t use white phosphorus like the Israelis.
Cameron’s hyper-partisan, head-over-heels friendship – no, obsession – with Israel is allowed to steer nearly every aspect of Britain’s foreign policy. What drives this? You need look no further than The Jewish Chronicle which in 2006 reported on the backers bankrolling David Cameron’s bid for power and provided a fascinating insight into how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and destroys the principles of integrity and accountability so vital to public life.
When Cameron became Conservative leader he proclaimed:
“The belief I have in Israel is indestructible – and you need to know that if I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel.”
Agent Cameron is very careful not to let the words ‘justice’ and ‘law’ pass his lips in connection with Israel’s illegal occupation of the Holy Land. And he and his foreign secretary, Hague, will put on a wonderful show of hand-wringing, deploring and urging whenever Israel commits atrocities, but they never condemn the racist regime or use any obvious levers like suspension of trade or other sanctions.
On the contrary, they shamelessly find ways of rewarding the Israeli regime’s crimes against humanity, making us complicit with its racist ambitions.
© Stuart Littlewood 2012
Visit: www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk
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Second group of journalists beaten in Hebron
Ma’an – December 15, 2012
BETHLEHEM – After Reuters cameramen were assaulted by Israeli forces in Hebron this week, a second group of journalists were beaten by troops in the West Bank city, a press freedom group said Saturday.
On Wednesday, Israeli soldiers punched two Reuters journalists and forced them to strip in the street, before letting off a tear gas canister in front of them, leaving one of them needing hospital treatment.
A freelance reporter and Al-Quds TV correspondent were also beaten during the incident in Hebron, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, MADA, said.
The journalists were covering the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Muhammad Salaymeh by an Israeli border guard in the city.
A day later, four journalists went to cover the ensuing clashes, and were blocked and threatened by an Israeli force near Hebron’s Tareq ben Zaid school, MADA said.
Associated Press photographer Hazem Bader was detained for 45 minutes by Israeli soldiers, the journalists told MADA.
“They tied my hands behind my back, beat me on my feet and my back, and cursing me all the time,” Bader said.
“One of the soldiers tried to fabricate a charge against me that I tried to assault him, but my colleagues of photographers documented the arrest.”
He was freed when a press office intervened, he said.
MADA condemned the “escalation of violations” against journalists in Hebron this week.
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Reuters deplores Israeli mistreatment of journalists
Press TV – December 14, 2012
Israeli forces have assaulted two cameramen working for Reuters news agency in the occupied West bank, forcing them to strip on the street.
Yousri Al Jamal and Ma’amoun Wazwaz said on Thursday that an Israeli military patrol stopped them as they were on their way to a checkpoint in the West Bank city of al-Khalil, where a Palestinian youth had been earlier killed by Israeli forces.
The cameramen added that the Israeli troops punched and hit them with the butts of their guns after they made the cameramen get off their vehicle, which was marked as belonging to “TV.”
The two were also wearing blue flak jackets with the word “Press” printed on them.
The soldiers who attacked the Reuters employees accused them of working for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization which documents human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.
However, the cameramen said the forces did not give them the chance to show their identification cards and made them strip and kneel down on the road.
Wazwaz was overcome by the fumes and taken to a hospital after the Israeli forces dropped a tear gas canister and ran away from the scene.
According to the cameramen, two other Palestinian journalists working for local news agencies were also arrested by Israeli soldiers at the same location.
Stephen J. Adler, chief editor of Reuters News said, “We deplore the mistreatment of our journalists and have registered our extreme dismay with the Israeli military authorities.”
The Israeli military has offered no explanation for the attack on the journalists and says it will investigate the issue.
On Thursday, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on his birthday after he allegedly threatened them with a toy gun in the occupied West Bank.
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From the Archives
Anti-science
The infinite list
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | October 12, 2022
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
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