Three confirmed dead in Gaza tunnel from Egyptian wastewater attack
Ma’an | September 27, 2011
GAZA CITY — Three Palestinians were pronounced dead on Tuesday morning after Egyptian authorities pumped sewage inside a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza border on Sunday.
The ambulance and emergency services committee in Gaza said the three victims were found alive inside the tunnel. They were evacuated to the Abu Yousef an-Najjar Hospital in Rafah but were pronounced dead 30 minutes after arrival.
Gaza medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya identified the victims as Fadi Mustafa Ash-Shaer, 20, Firas Ahmad, 18, and Anwar Abu Aradeh, 25.
They were all residents of al-Salam neighborhood in Rafah in southern Gaza, Abu Salmiya said.
Medics had said Sunday that one man was injured and two others were missing after Egyptian authorities pumped sewage inside a Rafah smuggling tunnel running underneath the border with the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian security officials said in early September that they were cracking down on the network of tunnels used by smugglers from the coastal enclave.
Including Tuesday’s victims, eight Palestinians have been killed while working in tunnels in September. Five Palestinians were killed in three separate tunnel collapses earlier this month.
Medics say over 160 Palestinians have died in the network of underground tunnels since Israel imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip in 2006.
Under Israel’s crippling blockade, the tunnels have provided a lifeline for residents of the coastal enclave.
Egypt opened the Rafah crossing in May, the only border terminal not controlled by Israel.
The opening allowed some residents to leave the coastal enclave for the first time in years, but the terminal is not equipped for the transfer of goods and it has had little impact on Israel’s siege.
Palestinian MP kidnapped from the Red Cross in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 26/09/2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli Border Guard unit, dressed as Arabs, kidnapped Palestinian MP Muhammad Attoun at the entrance of the Jerusalem Red Cross at noon Monday in a move expected to spark rage among local Palestinians.
The operation was also coordinated with the Israeli occupation police unit’s minorities division, according to media reports.
MP Attoun, along with another Palestinian MP Ahmed Totah and the Palestinian Authority’s former minister of Jerusalem Khalid Abu Arafeh, were staying at a protest tent at the Red Cross compound in the Sheikh Jarrah district after the Israeli occupation authorities revoked their right of residence in their native city of Jerusalem and sought to banish them.
Attoun’s wife said she was visiting him alongside her daughter when undercover officers suddenly pounced on him as he neared the entrance of the Red Cross premises where he has been holding a sit-in for over a year to protest the banishment decision. She added that she does not know where her husband was taken to.
Director of the Jerusalem information center Muhammad Sadiq told our correspondent that when Attoun’s wife and daughter came to visit, three masked men abducted Attoun and detained him in a vehicle before Israeli security forces arrived at the scene.
Sadiq said the entry into the Red Cross sanctuary was in violation of international laws, adding that the arrest of the Palestinian people’s government representative could trigger friction across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Attoun, Totah, and Abu Arafeh, politicians from Hamas’s Change and reform bloc, were arrested in 2006 after Hamas gained dominance in the Palestinian ballot boxes. The Israeli occupation authorities also revoked their residence in Jerusalem after the men were released following three year prison terms.
Egyptian Forces Flood Tunnel With Wastewater, One Injured, Two Missing
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | September 25, 2011
Egyptian security forces used wastewater to flood a siege-busting tunnel along the border with Gaza on Sunday. Two Palestinians went missing and one was injured.
Medical sources reported that the wounded person was moved to a local hospital. Rescue teams are trying to locate the two missing persons.
On Saturday, two Palestinian youths were killed due to a gas leak explosion at a tunnel in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources reported that medics and rescue teams managed to locate seven persons who went missing in the tunnel; three of them were wounded while two of the three died of their wounds later on.
The real cost of Al Rumeida roadblock
25 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
For the last three days Ahmed Sau and Khalil have been loading bushell loads of white building material on carts pulled by a horse and a donkey as they trek up the steep hill going to Jabel Al Rahmeh. At the other end is a truck filled almost to the top. Several men await Ahmed and unload the wooden cart and the trek begins anew.
As the horses struggle up the last part of the hill, Ahmed and some children help to push the heavy load to its destination. It is in these ways that the Israeli occupation affects the common people. Slowly, it attempts to strangle the economy. A simple truck ride down the hill is turned into a laborious undertaking by several men, children and beasts of burden.
“It has been this way for at least 10 years,” commented an observer.
When asked why they were doing it this way, Ahmed who spoke no English, motioned to the yellow steel metal preventing the truck to go through. Hurrying as evening was fast approaching, he got back on the cart and rode down the hill again.
Settlers uproot 400 olive trees near Nablus
Ma’an – 25/09/2011
NABLUS — Dozens of Israeli settlers on Sunday uprooted over 400 Palestinian-owned olive trees near Nablus in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian Authority official said.
Settlement Affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said settlers attacked fields between Qusra and Duma villages south of Nablus.
On Friday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man, Issam Kamal Odeh, 33, during clashes sparked by settlers who entered Qusra.
The incident comes amid a surge in settler violence in the northern district, including village raids, attacks on Palestinians and their property and the vandalism of two mosques in recent weeks.
In Qusra on Sept. 5, settlers torched a mosque and spray-painted anti-Arab slogans and the Star of David.
Daughter of Mayor: I was interrogated 13 times while handcuffed
Palestine In formation Center – 25/09/2011
RAMALLAH — The daughter of Al-Bireh mayor Jamal al-Tawil said she was bound, photographed, isolated and questioned by some 13 investigators after Israeli forces arrested her on 6 July without charges in an apparent bid to pressure her father.
Bushra al-Tawil was transferred between three detention centers in Beit El and Ashkelon and kept in isolation for sixteen days before ending up in HaSharon prison, where she is currently being held, said Botheina Daqmaq, head of the Palestinian Mandela rights organization, who at length managed to visit Tawil and collect statements.
Daqmaq learned that Tawil was denied freedom by an Israeli court although no formal charges have been placed against her.
“Thirteen investigators took turns to interrogate me while I was handcuffed to the back. They insulted me using profane language and screamed at me loudly asking that I repent,” Tawil said, adding that the investigators threatened to harm her family members and bring her parents in for the interrogation. They also photographed her while she was bound in cuffs, she said.
“In a terrible atmosphere of isolation and deprivation of all my rights, they led me one day to a private room and placed me on a lie detector for three hours, and did not allow me to pray and I was barely allowed to use the bathroom,” she said.
Tawil informed the rights activist and lawyer that she was placed in isolation for 15 days upon her arrival to the Israeli HaSharon prison, noting that the most difficult part of all was what she called the “journey of misery”, when she was repeatedly removed for court hearings.
“The prison administration sent me to court three times consecutively without a court hearing taking place,” she said, noting that each time she was transported by a large armored vehicle without air or light, where the prisoner sits shackled by the hands and feet on an iron bench.
In her first visit by a rights organization after she was denied a visit by the Red Cross, Bushra made desperate calls for looking into her case, saying that the courts ruled for release, but Israeli intelligence foiled the decision.
Essam Aoudhi: Martyred in defense of Qusra
23 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Today Essam Kamal Abed Aoudhi, a 35 year old father of 8 children from the village of Qusra, was murdered by the Israeli army as they fired live ammunition indiscriminately into a crowd of villagers gathered in their village.
From the nearby outpost of Esh Kodesh (“Holy Head”) built entirely on stolen Qusra land, a large group of settlers left the settlement and entered the village just after 1pm and began attacking villagers and burning olive groves. As the villagers gathered to protect themselves and their land, the soldiers arrived and stood between the settlers and villagers, protecting the settlers who retreated.
Soldiers instantly began to fire tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and live ammunition directly at villagers, making no attempt to disperse but intending solely to injure.
Mohammad Abdul Odeh, age 16, was shot in the stomach with a high velocity tear gas canister as he stood on his land.
Remi Yusef Faiz Hassan, age 35, was shot with 4 rubber bullets and one dum dum from 2 meters as he peacefully walked to soldiers to ask why they allow the settlers to enter his village and burn his trees.
Sameeh Hassan, age 24, was shot in the groin with rubber bullets as he attempted to reach his olive trees and extinguish the fire destroying them.
Essam Aoudhi was shot with live ammunition as he joined his fellow villagers protesting the army’s incursion into his village. According to Dr. Sameh Abu Zaroh, a doctor at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, the wound on Essam’s body shows that the bullet was shot from just a few meters away and from below in such a way to insure maximum injury. The bullet entered the right side of Essam’s chest and exited through the top of his back, fracturing his vertebrae in multiple places.
After Essam was carried to an ambulance, the soldiers left immediately, clearly understanding what had just happened. The people of Qusra returned to the centre of the village where children had gathered, shouting slogans expressing their anger over Essam’s martyrdom.
As the sun set in Qusra, the punishment continued, as two teenagers stumbled into the village before collapsing to the ground in pain. Both Amar Masameer, age 19, and Fathi Hassan, age 16, were arrested earlier in the day as they made their way towards Qusra’s burning olive trees.
They did not resist arrest yet returned to the village dripping with blood and faces so swollen they were barely recognisable. Once arrested, Fathi Hassan explained, settlers from the outpost had asked the soldiers detaining them for permission to beat the two boys. The soldiers did not interfere and so the settlers began stoning the boys whilst their hands where cuffed behind their backs. Amar Masameer was hit directly in the eye with a stone thrown from just a few meters and is now in Rafidia hospital awaiting treatment.
Hit-and-run injures young boy in Hebron
Ma’an – 23/09/2011
HEBRON — An eight-year-old boy sustained serious injuries after being struck by a vehicle in east Hebron on Friday morning, eyewitnesses said.
Taleb Jaber was left bleeding as the Israeli-plated car fled the scene by al-Baqaa village near the army-controlled H2 area in the West Bank city’s east, locals said.
Israeli forces summoned an ambulance and evacuated the child to a hospital inside the settlement Kiryat Arba, they said. An army spokeswoman said this report fit with her understanding of events.
But Jaber’s grandfather told Ma’an the incident was deliberate and not a car accident. He said the Israeli army had prevented the Palestinian Red Crescent from attending to the child.
Locals said that youths clashed with troops after the incident. The army spokeswoman said she did not have reports of clashes, but two Palestinians were detained for pushing a police officer following the incident.
Israeli occupation forces kill Palestinian in West Bank
Clashes erupted when settlers raided village
Ma’an – 23/09/2011
NABLUS — Israeli forces on Friday killed a Palestinian man and injured five others during clashes in Qusra village in the northern West Bank, medics said.
Issam Kamal Odeh, 33, died after he was shot by two bullets in the neck and shoulders during confrontations after morning prayers, medical officials said.
Mayor Hany Abu Murad named the dead person as Essam Kamal Badran, 35.
Witnesses said Israeli soldiers raided Qusra, near Nablus, after settlers entered the village.
Palestinian Authority settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas told Ma’an that clashes erupted when residents of Esh Kodesh settlement raided the village carrying Israeli flags.
Soldiers entered and opened fire, he said, adding that Sadeq Tayseer, 22, was shot in his neck and Jawad al-Shaer in his hand.
A military spokeswoman had no immediate comment, but said earlier that forces used “riot dispersal means” during clashes between Israeli civilians and Palestinians in Qusra.
Meanwhile, settlers attacked Jalud village south of Nablus leading to clashes with locals, residents said. No injuries were reported.
Witnesses said dozens of settlers were pelting rocks at Palestinian cars at Zatara checkpoint near Nablus. They said the checkpoint was briefly closed.
Settlers Plan “Sovereignty Marches” In Palestinian Towns
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | September 19, 2011
Israeli Ynet News reported that Israeli settlers living in the occupied territories are planning what they dubbed as “Sovereignty Marches” in the Palestinian territories, starting on Tuesday afternoon.
Fanatic settlers’ leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir stated that “the settlers will be taking off to the streets to show the Palestinians who really owns this land”, and that the settlers “will not wait while the Palestinians get close to the borders of the settlements”.
He added that the settlers will be marching towards Palestinian towns and villages.
A security officer at a settlement in the West Bank stated that the settlers are prepared to use live rounds against Palestinian protesters, adding that the settlers believe that the Israeli Army is too naive to believe that the Palestinian Security forces will be able to prevent massive Palestinians marches towards the settlements.
Settlement Councils in the occupied territories decided that the settler marches will be held starting from Itamar settlement to the northern West Bank city of Nablus, from Beit El near Ramallah to the closest Liaison Office, and from Kiryat Arba’ settlement in Hebron.
The settlers are also planning to distribute tens of thousands of Israeli flags to be raised in different settlements and on thousands of settlers’ cars.
Meanwhile, thousands of Israeli army soldiers and policemen started training in order to prepare to counter Palestinian protests in the West Bank. The drills are meant to prepare for massive Palestinian protests, and what was described as “Palestinian attempts to break into Israeli settlements.
The Ynet said that the Israeli Police are preparing to counter possible attacks in Israel, attacks against West Bank settlements, and homemade shells fired from the Gaza Strip.
But, Israeli army leaders believe that some local incidents will likely take place, yet, the massive popular protests conducted by the Palestinians will be largely nonviolent.
Israeli sources stated that Israel Army Central Command Chief Major-General, Avi Mizrahi, instructed the soldiers to “show restraint”, and also instructed the army to be prepared to stop Palestinians demonstrations should the Palestinian Security Forces fail to prevent marches towards the settlements.
Last Thursday, Palestinian Authority spokesperson, Dr. Ghassan Al Khatib, warned that attacks and threats by the settlers are increasing.
Palestinian legislator, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, said that the armed population of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories would commit massacres against the Palestinian people, and that the setters carried out several serious attacks against Palestinian villages earlier this month.
He added that the Israeli Army is participating with the settlers in the “organized crime” against the Palestinian people.
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