Israeli occupation troops round up 1,400 Palestinians in 3 months
Palestine Information Center – 04/04/2010
GAZA — The higher national committee in support of prisoners on Sunday said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) had detained more than 1,400 Palestinians in the first quarter of 2010 including 90 from the Gaza Strip.
Riyadh Al-Ashkar, the head of the committee’s information office, said in a press release that the number of detainees from Jerusalem and the West Bank was on the rise, noting that 400 citizens were rounded up in Jerusalem alone.
Ashkar said that 18 fishermen were among the 90 detainees from Gaza Strip along with many other workers who were detained while collecting scrap near the northern crossing.
He said that there are seven women among the detainees, three of whom were released while four others are still detained including Muntaha Al-Tawil the wife of El-Bireh mayor who was held in administrative detention for three months.
He added that 225 of the detainees were children less than 18 years old, noting that the IOF soldiers were increasingly detaining children less than 12 years old and mentioned a number of cases where 9 year olds were detained.
Ashkar said that many prisoners were suffering as a result of deliberate medical neglect on the part of the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) and as a result of the escalating attacks on their wards and the humiliating strip searches that even expanded to include relatives visiting them.
He said that the IPA was threatening 15 prisoners with deportation and has turned 9 captives into open-ended detention after considering them “unlawful combatants”.
The committee appealed to the international organizations to pressure Israel into halting the rabid campaign against prisoners and to apply the fourth Geneva Convention in this issue.
Tibi: Barak responsible for Palestinian death at checkpoint
Ma’an/Agencies – 04/04/2010
Bethlehem – Palestinian Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi said Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak bears responsibility for the death of a diabetic at a West Bank checkpoint, Israeli media reported.
“Ehud Barak is personally responsible for his cruel death. The orders at roadblocks require the humiliation and oppression of a civil population, and the person who issued the order is responsible for the death of a Palestinian-French civilian,” said Tibi according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth.
Mohammad Damen Abed Al-Karim E’lieyat, 62, from the village of Dir Abu Da’eef in Jenin, was en route to the Jordan Valley but was barred from transit for several hours at the Al-Hamra checkpoint in Tubas. E’lieyat, diabetic with high blood pressure, died of a severe heart attack shortly after being allowed to cross.
E’lieyat made several attempts to cross but was turned back by Israeli authorities who said that he was unable to pass because he held French citizenship.
An Israeli military spokesman told Ma’an that a complaint was filed with the Jericho DCO following the death.
Activists support rehabilitation of historic natural springs destroyed by settlers
International Solidarity Movement | 02 April 2010
Repairing the historic natural springs in Wadi Qana
A group of internationals, including two ISM activists, joined supporters from Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank in assisting the villagers of Qarawat Bani Hassan repair and rehabilitate the historic natural springs which lie in the nearby Wadi Qana. The springs which issue at the base of the wadi feed into a series of reservoirs cut into the stone, said to date from Roman times. From time immemorial they have been the source of water for those villagers without their own wells. Today the springs and their surroundings, a location of outstanding natural beauty, are the most important cultural heritage for the village.
Situated between Ramallah and Nablus, Qarawat Bani Hassan has the misfortune to be surrounded by a number of settler colonies, including Nofim, Yaqir, Revava and Kiryat Netafim. Settlers routinely trespass onto village lands and two weeks previously, in an act of deplorable vandalism, emptied sacks of cement and steel mesh into one of the Roman-era tanks. This followed upon the previous dynamiting of a nearby cave which, too, contained a natural spring and pool.
On this Friday the villagers and their supporters labored under a hot sun to clean out the reservoirs, build dry stone walls nearby and bring the site back to its original condition. They were interrupted twice by groups of settlers attempting to access the area. A confrontation was avoided only when the villagers returned to their work and ignored the presence of the intruders who, after a short time, returned to their colony on the overlooking hilltop. The presence of international and other observers armed with cameras undoubtedly deterred the settlers, on this occasion, from any further acts of vandalism.
Qarawat Bani Hassan is a village of approximately 4,000 Palestinians, located in the Salfit District. The village owns 9,684 dunams of land (approximately 2,421 acres) which includes the Ein Enwetef natural springs that serve the locality as a primary source of water for agricultural and herding purposes. Eighty-nine percent of this land is in Area C, under total Israeli control.
Free Gaza movement announces upcoming caravan to Gaza
Palestinian legislator voices support
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – April 03, 2010
After announcing the purchase of a new cargo ship in Ireland, which will participate in a planned caravan to break the blockade in Gaza, the Free Gaza movement received a message of support from Palestinian Legislative Council memebr Jamal El-Khoudary.
El-Khoudary cheered the upcoming aid caravan to Gaza, which he said will consist of a flotilla of between ten and twenty ships filled with humanitarian aid meant to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. He also applauded the recent announcement of a partnership between the Free Gaza movement and the Foundation for Human Rights & Freedoms & Humanitarian Relief IHH, saying “The agreement will give a great momentum for the uprising of ships. I hope they will break the blockade of Gaza and open a waterway between the Gaza Strip and the world to allow freedom of movement”.
The Free Gaza movement plans to launch the latest in their series of aid caravans in early May, and hope to reach the Gaza Strip with much-needed building supplies, as well as medicine and medical equipment.
On March 30, the Free Gaza Movement bought a 1200 tonne cargo ship at an auction in Dundalk, Ireland. The vessel had been impounded a year ago following an inspection by the International Transport Federation (ITF) which found that its’ owners had exploited it’s Lithuanian crew members- not paying their wages and subjecting them to humiliating treatment.
ITF Inspector and SIPTU organiser Ken Fleming said, ‘We are pleased to announce that this vessel which was used to subject workers to modern day slavery, will now be used to promote human rights for the people of Palestine’.
According to the Free Gaza movement, the vessel, the MV Linda, will be re-named the MV Rachel Corrie, in memory of the 23 year old solidarity activist crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza. The Free Gaza Movement says the renaming of the ship is meant to pay tribute to Rachel and the thousands of Palestinian men, women and children killed, wounded or imprisoned under Israeli Occupation.
The Free Gaza movement has broken the Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip twice before, bringing much-needed medicine and other supplies to the people of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live under an 18-month long siege by the Israeli military which prevents most goods from entering, and prevents them from leaving the tiny coastal Strip.
Settlers attack elderly woman in Sheikh Jarrah
Ma’an – 03/04/2010
Jerusalem – Israeli settlers assaulted an elderly Palestinian woman and her daughter in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Friday, amid protests against settler “provocations” in the area.
The elderly woman, 89-year-old Rifqa Al-Kurd, was taken to Al-Maqasid Hospital in Jerusalem where she received medical treatment before she was discharged. Her daughter was identified as 50-year-old Nadiya.
Ma’an’s correspondent reported that some 200 demonstrators, including international sympathizers, rallied in the district home to a number of settlers, protesting recent attacks on Palestinian residents of the neighborhood.
He pointed out that the elderly woman was attacked in front of Israeli police officers who opted not to stop them. Instead, they told the Al-Kurd family to file a legal case against the settler who was filmed attacking the woman and her daughter, he said.
Also Friday, local residents accused some Israeli police officers of attacking Palestinians who tried to defend themselves against the settlers.
Israeli settlers and soldiers attacked Palestinians in Silwan on Thursday night, onlookers said. A 15-year-old boy, Yezen Ammar Siam, was taken to an undisclosed location, witnesses in the flashpoint area said.
UK okays Chagos Islands sea reserve, angers exiles
AFP | April 2, 2010
LONDON: Britain created the world’s biggest marine reserve in its Indian Ocean territory on Thursday, pleasing environmentalists but angering exiled Chagos Islanders who say it creates an obstacle to them returning home.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband ordered the creation of a marine reserve, where commercial fishing is banned, in the British Indian Ocean Territory, made up of 55 tiny islands, including Diego Garcia, which houses a U.S. air base.
Some 2,000 Chagos Islanders were forcibly removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and ’70s to make way for the American base and have waged a long legal battle for the right to return.
Representatives of the Chagos Islanders, who have now taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights, argue that the creation of the reserve will stop them returning home because it bars fishing, their main livelihood.
The new “marine protected area” will cover a quarter of a million square miles — an area larger than California — and doubles the area of the world’s oceans under protection.
“Its creation is a major step forward for protecting the oceans,” Miliband said in a statement. The decision by the British government comes weeks before an election that opposition Conservatives are favourites to win.
The US-based Pew Environment Group, one of a number of conservation groups that campaigned for the creation of the marine reserve, called Miliband’s decision “a historic victory for global ocean conservation”. It said the Chagos Islands rivalled the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef in ecological diversity and the area was important for research on climate change, ocean acidification, the resilience of coral reefs and sea level rise.
SAFE HAVEN FOR WILDLIFE
It said the islands provided a safe haven for dwindling populations of sea turtles and more than 175,000 pairs of breeding sea birds. The sparklingly clean waters around the islands are home to 220 species of corals and more than 1,000 species of reef fish, it said. But islanders and their supporters said the move could be used to prevent them returning home.
“They will say that if you go there, you are not allowed to fish. How are you going to feed yourself? How are you going to get your livelihood?,” Roch Evenor, an islander who chairs the UK Chagos Support Association, told Channel 4 News.
Marcus Booth, vice-chair of the association, which supports islanders’ right to return home, accused the government of disregarding the islanders’ rights in a rushed move to secure an environmental legacy before the election.
Diego Garcia became an important base for the United States during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, acting as a refuelling site for long-range bombers.
In 2008, Britain acknowledged that two U.S. planes carrying terrorism suspects had refuelled there six years earlier.
Several British courts ruled that evicted islanders and their descendants had a right to return home but Britain’s highest court overturned those rulings in 2008.
The islanders and their descendants are now believed to number about 5,000. Around a fifth are looking to resettle on the islands, which have belonged to Britain since 1814.
Japan: Kagoshima governor rejects US Marines base
Press TV – April 3, 2010
The governor of Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture has expressed his strong opposition against the proposed relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa to Tokunoshima Island.
Yuichiro Ito told reporters on Friday that he will oppose the relocation along with the residents of the island and the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly.
He added that the government has not contacted the prefecture about the relocation. He also stressed that Tokunoshima residents do not want to accept a US military base.
The reaction comes as thousands of residents on Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture held a protest rally on Sunday after the island was reported to be a candidate site for hosting the contentious Futenma base in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.
“The government has never consulted with any of the three mayors about the issue, even though it advocates the decentralization of authority,” said Tokunoshima Mayor Hideki Takaoka, as he criticized Tokyo’s disrespect for municipal governments.
The protest was organized by the municipalities and an organizing committee consisting of over 60 groups from Kagoshima’s Amami Islands.
“We cannot expose our children to noise and crime. We don’t need a base here on this island of children, longevity and mutual cooperation,” said a 39-year-old housewife.
Farmer Tokuhiro Motoda, 80, saw the matter as a threat to his way of life. “Tokunoshima is an island with rich nature and farming. Our living would be destroyed by the base,” he said.
A new survey conducted by the Sankei newspaper showed that more than 73 percent of respondents were unhappy with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s management of the issue.
Nearly half of the voters believe Hatoyama should resign if he fails to resolve the problem by the end of May as he himself announced the May deadline.
No Drawdown for US Special Forces in Iraq
By Jason Ditz | April 02, 2010
Despite much being made of the so-called August timetable that would spell an end to “combat” missions in Iraq and cut the US forces to about 50,000, SOCOM head Admiral Eric Olson today announced that this would not affect his troops, which are involved in some of the heaviest combat.
“The special operations forces are not experiencing a drawdown in Iraq,” Olson insisted, adding that the 50,000 troops scheduled to stay behind would have a “continuing mission” to support their operations.
The admiral gave no indication that there was a separate drawdown timetable at all for the 4,500 SOCOM forces in Iraq, saying that his conversations with Gens. Petraeus and Odierno suggested that they were planning to sustain that level going forward.
There have been discussions for months that the August drawdown would be slowed or even stopped altogether amid rising violence in the nation, but the comments by Admiral Olson today suggest that the speculative drawdown strategy had never included his forces, and that the administration never had any intention of stopping combat operations in August.
Israeli Police Break Into Media Office In East Jerusalem, Attack Locals and Visitors
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 02, 2010
The Israeli Police attacked on Thursday Wadi Hilwa Media Center, in Silwan’s Wadi Hilwa neighborhood, in occupied East Jerusalem, and violently attacked employees and visitors, leading to several injuries, the Palestine News Network (PNN) reported.
Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Committee for Defending the Lands and Properties of Silwan, said that Jawad Siyam, head of the center was wounded in his shoulder and back, while employee Ramadan Al Banna, and resident Ahmad Al Natsha suffered eye injuries, while two women, visiting the center, were violently pushed around by the police.
The police also kidnapped Yazan Siyam, 14, while he was at the center and violently attacked his younger brother, Ali, as he followed the soldiers crying, while they dragged his brother.
Abu Diab slammed the Israeli attack, especially since the soldiers were accompanied by extremist Jewish settlers.
Speaking from his hospital bed at the Al Makassid Hospital in East Jerusalem, Jawad Siyam, said that the attack is “barbaric” , and that when he asked the police about a warrant, the police and the settlers said “we are the law here, nothing is above us”, and started attacking and insulting every person who was there.
On Thursday at dawn, the Israelis invaded Al Bustan neighborhood and kidnapped five residents identified as Khalaf Odah, 62, Mohammad Odah, 38, Hammouda Siyam, Sa’id Zaytoun, and Daoud Siyam.
Khalad, Mohammad and Hammouda were released on bail, while the remand of the Sa’id and Daoud was extended until Sunday for further interrogation.
Abu Diab stated that Silwan is subject to frequent Israeli military and settler attacks, and that the provocative acts of the police and fundamentalist settlers are meant to terrify the residents to force them out of their homes and lands.
Israel army ‘routinely’ fires on Palestinian journalists
Ma’an – 01/04/2010
Bethlehem – Reporters Without Borders has deplored the frequency of alleged press freedom violations by the Israeli military, whose forces the Paris-based press freedom group says routinely fire on Palestinian journalists.
At least eight journalists were injured by shots fired by Israeli soldiers during March in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“The incidents continue with complete impunity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The IDF soldiers involved are rarely punished and, less still, disowned by the superiors, who endorse the use of violence against media personnel. It is time this stopped.”
In the most recent incident, Falestin TV journalist Harun Amayra was injured in the foot by a shot fired by an Israeli soldier while he was covering a peaceful demonstration marking Earth Day in Badras, a village to the west of Ramallah, on 30 March. Around 10 demonstrators were also injured by Israeli gunfire. Amayra was hospitalized in Ramallah.
A crew working for satellite TV station Al-Quds were blocked for several hours by Israeli troops at the Qalandiya checkpoint on 25 March while on their way to present a live broadcast from Jerusalem. After interrogating presenter Raed Fathi, the soldiers banned him from entering the city for a week.
Falestin TV reporter Harun Amayra and cameraman Najib Sharoneh were doing a report in the village of Badras on 19 March when Israeli soldiers accosted them, hit them and then detained them for nearly four hours.
The same day, Israeli soldiers banned journalists from entering the village of Ni’lin, near Ramallah, where the reporters had wanted to cover the weekly protest against Israel’s West Bank barrier.
An Israeli soldier fired a tear-gas grenade at photographer Nasser Al-Shouyoukhi of The Associated Press during clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian youths on 17 March in Hebron. Rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters were also fired at photographer Issam Al-Rimawi while he was covering events at the Qalandiya checkpoint.
Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets at three Palestinian photographers – Mahmoud Alyan and Mahfouz Abou Turk (who both work for the daily Al-Quds) and Ahmed Al-Gharabli of Agence France-Presse – while they were covering clashes between soldiers and Palestinian youths outside the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on 5 March.
Israeli gunmen invade Palestinian buildings
Press TV – April 1, 2010
Armed Israeli settlers.
Armed Israel settlers have invaded Palestinian-owned buildings and lands designated by the Palestinian Authority for the construction of the first centrally-planned Palestinian town called Rawabi.
Around 60 settlers associated with the group “Youth for the Land of Israel” attempted to take over the area hanging Israeli flags on the buildings. They also conducted prayers there.
The incident occurred on Wednesday, near the central West Bank town of Bir Zeit.
Meir Bertler, one of the settlers involved in the invasion, told the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahranoth, “We want to create a Jewish territorial sequence from Ofra to Ateret, and we know that the Palestinians plan to create a similar building sequence.”
Although the Oslo Accord — signed on September 13, 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington— forbade expansion of illegal settlements, Israel has built hundreds of such settlements and is still building them on occupied Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem al-Quds.
Over 500,000 Israelis are currently living in settlements labeled illegal by the United Nations and the Fourth Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949.
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Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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