Yemen police injure over 400 protesters
Press TV – April 4, 2011
Thousands of demonstrators had planned a 2 a.m. march to protest Sunday’s crackdown on protesters in Taiz, south of capital Sana’a, that killed two people and injured over a hundred others.
Police fired live rounds and tear gas against the crowd that wounded at least 409 people.
The protesters are demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Salah who has often signaled that he has no intention of resigning soon.
“A successful revolution in Yemen could mean the whole Persian Gulf region erupting into revolution,” Chris Bambery, a Middle East expert, told Press TV on Sunday.
“Yemen has been an important staging post for the Americans … It is one of the major centers of the CIA in the region,” he said.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is an important ally for the US and the Saudis and they are trying to keep him in power to maintain their control over the Persian Gulf region, the analyst underlined.
Therefore, “There is no attempt [by the West] to reveal the realities of the Saleh regime: the torture, the repression, or the record of the Saudis constantly intervening in Yemen, carrying out bombing missions, etc.” he argued.
Inspired by the protests of Tunisia and Egypt, Yemen has witnessed daily anti-government protest rallies since mid-February, which demand crucial economic and political reforms, including an immediate end to President Saleh’s 33-year rule
Several opposition members argue that his long-promised political and economic reforms have not materialized.
On Peace and Critics
Ilan Pappé: I am willing to respond to any concrete question.
By Emanuel Stoakes | Palestine Chronicle | April 3, 2011
(Emanuel Stoakes talks to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about the prospect of a peace settlement in the Middle East, the plight of the Palestinian refugees, and his response to his numerous critics.)
After attending the Inaugural Lecture for the European Centre for Palestine Studies at Exeter University (the first institution of its kind in our country), I met the controversial Professor Ilan Pappé, who – with some gentle persuasion on my part – agreed to do an online interview on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
In brief, Pappé’s association with “controversy” stems from, amongst other things, his much-debated claim that Palestine was “ethnically cleansed” (in part at least) in the war of 1948; his claim, unpopular in Israel, that “Zionism is far more dangerous to the Middle East than Islam”; and because he has been accused of being, simply, a politically-motivated distorter of the historical “truth” by rival scholars.
Benny Morris, one of the prominent “New Historians” of Israeli history (a category that includes Pappé as well as the venerable Avi Shlaim) described a book by Pappé on Palestine as “appalling… [containing] errors of a quantity and a quality that are not found in serious historiography”; be that as it may, it is worth reviewing Morris’ own justification for Palestinian dispossession.*
King’s College’s Efraim Karsh and the inimitable Melanie Phillips in the Spectator are also voluble detractors; by contrast, John Pilger famously called him Israel’s “bravest” and “most principled” historian, whilst supporters in the academic world, including Noam Chomsky and Nur Masalha, continue to collaborate and concur with him.
Whatever one may think of his opinions, Pappé has borne a heavy cost for his heterodoxy: members of his family have shunned him due to his views, and he faced calls to resign from his former lecturing post at the University of Haifa, prompted by his political activities, and issued by none other than the university’s President.
I began by asking Professor Pappé if he believed that peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could be achieved through their (apparently moribund) peace talks, and if not, why?
Pappé: I have very little faith in the current phase of the negotiations. As in the past, it seems that the Israeli government is exploiting the ‘peace process’ to receive immunity for its continued dispossession of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the barbaric siege on the Gaza Strip. The current phase has already been exploited by Israel to expand its settlement in the Greater Jerusalem Area – which has been accompanied by demolition of houses and eviction of people – and to tighten its grip over the Palestinian villages and towns which are in the vicinity of the ever-growing Jewish colonies of the West Bank. Similarly, it felt free to tighten the siege over Gaza, despite its promise to the international community to ease it.
At the recent inaugural lecture of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at Exeter University, you introduced Filipo Grandi from United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who talked about the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Could you briefly outline the current human rights situation of the refugees and comment on their prospects for achieving some sort of improvement in their lives?
These are refugees who have lived in camps for more than sixty years – an unprecedented existence in modern times. Their situation varies between being denied access to meaningful jobs and benefits in Lebanon to a very limited access to the local economy and state benefits in Jordan. And we should not forget the refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where people suffer from the double oppression of being both occupied and refugees.
There are also internal refugees in Israel itself and refugee communities in the world at large. Those in Israel live in better conditions than those in the occupied territories or the Arab world; but psychologically they had to undergo unbearable experiences for the past sixty years, such as watching their houses, businesses, factories, shops, fields and villages being pillaged and taken over by Jews.
There are two elements to this predicament. One is the dismal conditions in which people live, caged in camps that even when they become neighborhoods are on the margins of local society and in a limbo existence. Secondly, there have been more and more refugees as result of Israeli policy since 1948. There is no end to the dispossession, while at the same time the international community had already declared on 11 December 1948 through the UNGA resolution 194 that all these refugees have the unconditional right to return. As long as this continues, there is very little hope for peace and reconciliation in Israel and Palestine.
In the publication “Gaza in Crisis” you mention that you are working on a book with a ‘particular focus on the Israeli decisions taken in the early years’, that you claim ‘have not been deviated from’ up to the present. What were those decisions and how has the political class in Israel consented to their continued application?
The gist of these decisions was that there could be no overall strategy for Gaza after the Israeli ‘disengagement’ from it in 2005. Therefore, there were two options for the Israeli policy makers. Either they would succeed in subjecting the Strip to Israel’s will – and putting it under a joint Israeli and PA control – encircled by barbered and electric wire. In such a case life would have depended on Israel’s goodwill, and the people would have to resign to a life in Ghetto-like conditions. Should the people of Gaza resist the first option they would be subjected to collective punishment until they surrender – this is the second option. There is no real bottom line to collective punishment, but given the circumstances on the ground, by inertia it turns into a slow genocide. The Israeli public did not only endorse this policy, in the main it demands more punitive and more drastic actions against the people of Gaza.
Changing topic slightly, how do you view the Israeli claims that Hamas hides amongst civilian infrastructure and uses human shields, as a justification for civilian deaths as “collateral damage” to IDF offences? What evidence is there for this, and is it a fair point?
This always strikes me as a curious allegation. Gaza is the most densely inhabited urban space upon earth, where can Hamas operate from within a territory that is no bigger than the largest metropolises in the world? When you cage a million and half people in a tiny squeezed space like this, and they resist, and you retaliate, you know in advance what kind of collateral damage you are going to inflict.
Do you see the Palestinian Authority as being possibly “corrupt and complicit” in the oppression of those in the West bank, as has been suggested by some commentators?
I do not think the PA is more corrupt than any government in the world, or let alone in the Middle East. It is complicit but so is anyone who in a way does not actively resist the occupation. And yet, resisting today is almost like signing your own death certificate so that one should be very careful to make moral judgments from the outside.
One can make political judgments and the one I offer is that the PA helps the occupation and the illusion of a peace process and it seems that its dismantlement could be more beneficial for the attempt to expose the rouge nature of the Israeli regime and the criminal character of its policies.
One of your most controversial claims is that Palestine (as it was) was “ethnically cleansed” – at least in part – as a part of a systematic attempt to create a Jewish state at the cost of its Arab inhabitants. In the book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” you write that the Hagana’s Plan Dalet documents such intentions. Could you clarify and explain your position on this subject? Furthermore, how do you respond to the fierce criticism of your views? For example, David Pryce-Jones, described you in the Literary Review as “an Israeli academic who has made his name by hating Israel and everything it stands for.” Others have simply called you a falsifier. What is your response?
I am not going to respond to name calling – “Nazi”, “Falsifier”, “Communist”, “self-hating Jew” or whatever. I am willing to respond to any concrete question. Plan Dalet is a cluster of orders sent by the Hagana High Command from the beginning of March 1948. Each command instructed a specific unit to occupy villages or urban neighbourhoods, destroy them and expel the people living in them. The famous document Plan D, published on March 10, 1948 referred only to the areas the new state would occupy from the UN Arab states, but it included the same graphic description of how to deal with the native population of Palestine. The plan as published and the systematic cluster of orders, together with other evidence I cite in my book, show a clear intention to ethnically cleanse Palestine from its indigenous population, as indeed happened. Moreover, as shown by Nur Masalha, there is already supporting evidence that this intention existed from early on in Zionist thought and strategy.
Finally, could you comment on the under-discussed issue of resources and their allocation in both the West Bank and Gaza, particularly water. Do you think that there is any hope for parity between Palestinians and Israelis in the future in this area, without a separate Palestinian state?
No hope whatsoever. The Israelis are intent of robbing the Palestinians of land, water and any other natural resources – this is what dispossession is all about.
(*Note: In an infamous interview with Haaretz, Morris controversially justified the “tragedy” of the uprooting of Palestinians thus: “there was no other choice… Even the great [sic] American democracy [sic] could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good [sic] justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history…”)
Abusisi’s First Public Words at Hearing: ‘I am a Simple, Innocent Man’
Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | April 1, 2011
Dirar Abusisi has made his first public statement since his kidnapping in Ukraine and extraordinary rendition to Israel. Before beginning a hearing that is underway as I write this, he made his first comments to the media during the court proceedings, saying:
They interrogated me about Gilad Shalit but I have no connection or information about him. It’s all lies. I am merely a simple man and electrical engineer. I send my love to my family. I am innocent.
He also said that he had been kidnapped from Ukraine and encouraged his family to be strong and patient.
Defense minister Ehud Barak has now gotten into the act and reinforced Netanyahu’s claim that Abusisi knows about Shalit. This appears to be the line that the Israeli security services have fixed on as most likely to bring a prison sentence against him after two trial balloons linking him to building missles under Iranian training and the Victoria arms shipment were apparently dropped.
Yossi Melman is also reporting based on security sources that Abusisi will be charged with membership in a terror organization and aiding Hamas in manufacturing weapons. The latter is a charge whispered by another TV news military correspondent weeks ago. So here you can see how the gag works. The defense and anyone sympathetic to the defendant may not report on matters that might work in his favor. However, the prosecution and Shabak may leak at will to their chosen favorite reporters, who dutifully put it in the media pipeline. Once again revealing a system stacked against all security detainees and in favor of the State.
The “leniency” with which the authorities have treated him derives no doubt from Bibi Netanyahu opening his big mouth during the Channel 2/YouTube interview and crowing about Abusisi’s membership in Hamas. By the way, can you imagine the leader of a democratic nation proclaiming before not just a national, but international audience that a prisoner who hasn’t even yet been charged with a crime is guilty of being a member of a banned organization? This surely is a conviction even before the trial has begun. Would any of my pro-Israel readers want to reconcile that with the concept of innocent till proven guilty? Or does that hold true only for Israeli Jews? Palestinians apparently are guilty, not until proven innocent because in the Israeli system that doesn’t happen. Just guilty.
So the court and/or prosecutor figured that because Bibi had already convicted him before the international media that they should at least allow him to be photographed and make a short statement.
Abusisi’s remand has been extended for another five days, which will bring him to 45 days imprisonment without being charged with a crime, an unprecedented length of time for Israeli prisoners. At that time, charges are supposed to be filed (but at the last hearing that’s what the court insisted would happen).
I repeat what I said after the Attorney General stated that he was unsatisfied with the evidence Shabak had compiled against Abusisi–whatever they’ve gotten so far hasn’t been enough. They need to continue working on him till they can build a case for something. This delay also lends credibility to Smadar Ben Natan’s statement yesterday that her client has done nothing wrong, but rather deserves an airline ticket back to Ukraine with an apology (fat chance). If Abusisi is guilty of something why has it taken 45 days to file charges? How long do you need to have 24 hour/7 days a week access to a prisoner in order to find him guilty of terrorism? A month, a year?
Non-violent marches attacked in at least 4 Palestinian towns
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – April 02, 2011
Weekly non-violent anti-Wall protests in a number of towns across the West Bank on Friday, including Bil’in, Nil’in, al Ma’sara and Nabi Saleh, were attacked by Israeli forces wielding tear gas and other ‘less-than-lethal’ weapons. Three protesters were injured when they were hit by high velocity tear gas canisters fired at close range by Israeli soldiers.
The protests on Friday commemorated Palestinian Land Day, the day in 1976 when Palestinians organized protests against Israeli confiscation of their land, and six protesters were gunned down by Israeli troops. Palestinians, along with supporters around the world, organize events each year on Land Day to protest the ongoing Israeli confiscation and annexation of Palestinian land.
According to a report from the Palestine News Network, in the village of Bil’in, where anti wall protests have been organized for the past six years, three men were injured when Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters. After the midday prayers in the local mosque finished, villagers were joined by international and Israeli peace activists and marched up the gate of the wall separating villagers from their lands.
Troops stationed there opened fire at protesters injuring three. The men sustained injuries when soldiers fired tear gas canisters directly at them. Many others were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
The nearby village of Ni’lin held a similar protest on Friday. After conducting the Friday prayers on lands near the wall, villagers and their supporters marched up to the gate of the wall separating local farmers from their land. Israeli troops used tear gas and sound bombs to force people back. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
In the southern West Bank village of al-Ma’sara, near Bethlehem, Israeli troops used tear gas to suppress the weekly protest against the wall. Local politicians along with Israeli and international supporters joined the villagers after the midday prays and marched to the lands where Israel is building the wall.
Troops fired tear gas to force people back into the village; many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Israeli forces erect more army checkpoints in Nablus
Ma’an – 02/04/2011
NABLUS — Israeli forces on Saturday erected several military checkpoints on the road to Wadi Qana south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, denying local farmers access to their fields in the area.
Meanwhile, 13 busloads of Israeli settlers from the nearby Alfe Menashe and Qarne Shomron settlements were escorted to the Wadi Qana valley by heavy police and military forces.
The mayor of Deir Istiya, Nathmi Salman, said he was denied access to Wadi Qana at gun point and was told the area was a “closed military zone.”
He said that Palestinian farmers had gathered in a building near Wadi Qana and an Israeli military jeep was stationed there preventing them from leaving.
An Israeli military spokesman said he was not aware of any unusual activity in the area.
Wadi Qana provides the main source of income for many Palestinian farmers, but they have been denied access to their fields by Israeli forces several times before. Meanwhile, extremist settlers frequently attack shepherds and uproot fields in the area.
In 2010, Israeli forces demolished an agricultural project funded by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Finance in Wadi Qana.
50 Bahraini activists arrested overnight, female medics harrassed
Press TV – April 1, 2011
Bahraini opposition groups say the Manama regime has arrested 50 activists overnight, just before the massive Friday anti-government protests in the country.
The arrest took place on Thursday, a night before what Bahraini protesters have referred to as the “Day of Rage.” The protests are scheduled to take place after Friday Prayers.
The Bahraini protesters continue to demand the ouster of the 200-year-old-plus monarchy as well as constitutional reforms.
At least 25 people have been killed and about 1,000 others injured during the government-sanctioned crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators.
Joined recently by police units and troops from Saudi and the United Arab Emirates, the Bahraini government forces have launched a deadly crackdown on the popular revolution that began to sweep the Persian Gulf island on February 14.
The Saudi-backed forces have recently been sighted while destroying religious and historical monuments of the Muslim Persian Gulf state.
On Wednesday, the Human Rights Watch accused Bahraini forces of using violence against people that had already received injuries during earlier attacks.
The rights body said it had documented several cases in which the forces had “severely harassed or beaten” patients under medical care in the country’s Salmaniya hospital in Manama.
Also reported on Friday:
The President of Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the Manama regime has harassed many of the female medics of Salmaniya hospital.
“A lot of female doctors have been harassed sexually or on sectarian basis by masked forces,” Rajab told Press TV on Friday.
He described the humanitarian situation in Bahrain as critical, saying those who have been injured during the protests have to be treated at homes, because the hospitals are under tight security control.
Even the patients who have normal diseases cannot be easily taken to hospitals, Rajab added.
Troops Kidnap Four Palestinians, Including a Hamas Legislator In The West Bank
By Ahmad N. – IMEMC & agencies – March 31, 2011
Israeli troops kidnapped four civilians including a legislator of the Hamas Change and Reform parliamentary Bloc, and took them to an unknown destinations on Thursday morning.
Soldiers stormed the city of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, and kidnapped legislator Mohammed Maher Bader after breaking into his home in downtown Hebron.
Soldiers also kidnapped three civilians form Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, after breaking into their houses and searching them.
The three were identified Nidal Hosni Hussein Zakeeq, 19, Mohammad Hosni Zakeeq, 16, and Shihdeh Yusef Adel, 18.
Mohammad Awad, media spokesman of the National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, reported that the soldiers have been sealing the entrances of Beit Ummar since more than nine days depriving the residents their right to freedom of movement.
Also on Thursday:
Army Kidnaps A Hamas Leader In Ramallah
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 01, 2011
Israeli soldiers kidnapped Mohammad Ahmad Rayyan, a political leader of the Hamas movement in the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday evening.
Rayyan’s arrest comes a few days after he was release from a detention facility run by the Palestinian Security Forces loyal to President, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank.
Before his release, Rayyan was ordered to pay a 2,000 Jordanian Dinars bail, and was ordered not to leave the country.
His release came after he spent two months in Palestinian detention facilities and was sent to court several times without any convictions.
Israel lays Gaza-like siege on West Bank village
Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, 31 March 2011
An Israeli army watchtower and locked metal gate block the main entrance to Beit Ommar, 29 March 2011. (Nora Barrows-Friedman)
Since 24 March, Israeli forces have sealed the southern occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar for an indefinite amount of time as soldiers continue to arrest young Palestinian residents and hold them in Israeli detention centers.
In a move akin to the four-year-long economic blockade against the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers have closed the six entrances to the village of 17,000 inhabitants and have imposed a widespread prohibition policy against all major imports and exports from the village — including gasoline, produce, raw industrial materials and basic supplies. Ambulances have also been prevented from entering or exiting the village.
The closures and arrests followed a brazen attack by an Israeli settler on a funeral procession on 21 March.
The settler stopped his car on Route 60 (the highway linking Jerusalem with Hebron-area settlements) as the crowd of mourners moved towards the village cemetery, and started firing indiscriminately with live ammunition, injuring two Palestinian men, the Beit Ommar-based Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) reported.
“The settler who shot the two men was not arrested,” PSP stated (“Two Palestinians Injured as Settler Opens Fire on Funeral Procession in Beit Ommar,” 21 March 2011).
“Israeli forces arrived on the scene and used sound bombs and tear gas to disperse the gathered crowd as medical teams evacuated the wounded,” the report added.
The attack came amidst a widespread spate of settler violence against Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.
Settler attacks have continued this week. The Palestine News Network reported that Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in Ramallah, Jenin and Hebron on 30 and 31 March (“Daily Roundup: Settler Attacks in Ramallah, Jenin; Three-year-old Hit by Settler Car; Four Arrested,” 31 March 2011).
Following the settler attack against the funeral procession, Israeli forces closed the main entrance to Beit Ommar, as special forces invaded the village and shot tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets before arresting three Palestinian residents, PSP reported on 25 March (“Three Beit Ommar Residents Arrested As Israeli Forces Close Village Streets“).
The next day, all six entrances to the village were shut, and continue to remain closed. Beit Ommar residents and international solidarity activists engaged in protests against the closures and collective punishment on 26 March.
On the evening of 27 March, fifteen young Palestinians were arrested and remain in detention at the military base in nearby Gush Etzion settlement. Of those fifteen, seven are under 18 years old. [[The military gave no reason for their arrests and detentions, PSP stated.]]
Hours later, PSP reported, Israeli soldiers “fired tear gas and rubber bullets at villagers attempting to pass the road blocks on foot to board the taxis and buses waiting below. The soldiers refused to let anyone exit Beit Ommar until after their departure roughly an hour and a half later” (“15 Beit Ommar Residents Arrested as Closures, Army Harassment, Continue,” 28 March 2011).
Yousef Abu Maria, coordinator of the Center for Freedom and Justice in Beit Ommar (CFJ), told The Electronic Intifada that the indefinite closures imposed on the village have already created an economic crisis for Beit Ommar’s 17,000 residents during the last week.
“The industrial factories in Beit Ommar are effectively closed,” Abu Maria said. “There haven’t been any imported raw materials from the outside. And the gas station will close soon, because there isn’t enough gas. Essential products are hard to obtain right now in the village.”
Ahmed Oudeh of the PSP and the CFJ told The Electronic Intifada that farmers in the village who depend on exporting their produce to nearby cities and towns are facing a dire financial situation if the closure remains in place. Additionally, pregnant women and people needing medical attention are not able to reach the hospital, as the policy affects ambulance access to and from the village.
The Electronic Intifada witnessed a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance being turned away at the front gate of Beit Ommar, forced by Israeli soldiers to find a rural route out of the village. Oudeh said that it could take up to an hour and a half to get back to the hospital in Hebron.
It is against international law — as outlined in the Fourth Geneva Convention — for the Israeli military to prevent ambulances from accessing or transporting persons needing medical attention.
Abu Maria further explained that schoolteachers working in the village are having difficulties getting to and from Beit Ommar, since the roads are sealed and public buses and taxis are being turned away by the soldiers at the gates.
“Laborers who work in Hebron or nearby in Saffa village are also being directly affected,” Abu Maria added. “They can’t drive their cars out of the village or back inside, and many don’t have enough money to pay for taxi services to and from work. [These policies are] a collective punishment for the people in Beit Ommar.”
Meanwhile, a new section of the Efrat settlement colony on the other side of Route 60 is being built, according to a new map issued by the Israeli military and obtained by the CFJ. Beit Ommar is surrounded by several illegal settlements, parts of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the southern West Bank.
Abu Maria said that the Israeli military is planning to erect a fence around the village, and will move the main entrance gate deeper inside Beit Ommar to protect settlers on the road. But the main purpose of the current closures and the fence is to “take more land and expand the settlements,” he said.
Beit Ommar resident Naama Hassan Sleibi, 65, told The Electronic Intifada that she and her husband have been farmers their whole lives but continue to lose their land as the nearby Karmei Tsur settlement expands. “We have empty land with no produce,” she said. “[The expansion of the settlements] is a huge loss for farmers.”
For years, Beit Ommar’s residents have been engaged in unwavering actions of civil disobedience against the encroaching settlements and land confiscation policies. Abu Maria explained that part of Israel’s intention to impose the closures and control movement of the villagers is to break the steadfast resistance inside Beit Ommar.
“In [the nearby village of] Saffa, next to the Bat Ayn settlement, we are planting olive trees,” he said. “The Israeli military said we can’t plant there, but we’re going to keep doing it anyway. They won’t succeed in stopping us.”
As the closures continue to paralyze people’s lives across a broad spectrum, Sleibi said that she’s most worried most about the youth of Beit Ommar. “[The Israeli soldiers] come and arrest young people all the time,” she said.
Sleibi needed to go to the hospital in Hebron several days ago for routine medical needs but was turned back by Israeli soldiers. “We can’t do anything,” she said. “The settler attacked the funeral, but the people of Beit Ommar pay the price.”
‘Bahrain enlisting Pakistani forces’
Press TV – March 31, 2011
People attend the funeral of a victim of government-ordered crackdown in the village of Sa’ar to the west of the capital, Manama.
Bahrain is reportedly recruiting former Pakistani troopers and anti-riot experts to aid in its crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Leading Pakistani daily The News wrote on Tuesday that the Bahrain National Guard (BNG) had recently visited Pakistan with the end in sight.
The visit had followed advertisements, titled “Urgent Requirement: Manpower for Bahrain National Guard,” in two daily Urdu newspapers.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has voiced ‘deep concern over the recruitment of foreign mercenaries,’ saying it would lead to growing hostility toward foreign nationals, especially Pakistanis.
Those who decide to enlist in Bahrain’s Army get their visas from the country’s embassy and consulates in Pakistan to fly to the sheikhdom. The mercenaries are interviewed by the BNG delegation and extremist Wahhabis — adherents to an already-extreme interpretation of Islam.
Some 30 paid agents have reportedly been recruited so far.
Manama has been leading violent armed attacks against peaceful protesters since the popular revolution began to sweep the Persian Gulf island on February 14.
At least 25 people have been killed and about 1,000 others injured during the government-sanctioned crackdown.
The country has already enlisted the services of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to back up the suppression.
Israel hampers aid agencies at Gaza crossings
IRIN | 29 March 2011
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank – Trucker Nazar Zarro hoists himself up into the cab of his articulated lorry loaded with emergency flour supplies bound for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) food distribution centers in the Gaza Strip.
Zarro makes the 100 kilometer trip from Israel’s Ashdod port to Kerem Shalom crossing — where the boundaries of Gaza, Israel and Egypt meet — five days a week.
The emergency flour rations will be loaded and unloaded eight times — part of a complex system of Israeli security procedures — until they reach food-insecure families in Gaza.
UNRWA’s food distribution to around 750,000 Palestinian refugees across Gaza is a massive operation, requiring more than 270 tons of flour daily to meet the needs.
More than half of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents are food insecure, according to World Food Program estimates.
Kerem Shalom is the only crossing point where commercial goods and humanitarian supplies are allowed to enter Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), under a nearly four-year Israeli blockade of the territory.
“Kerem Shalom is a small crossing — entering 200 trucks per day pushes its capacity,” says Zarro, as he parks in the seemingly endless line of trucks at the crossing. “Karni [crossing] is nearly five times the size of Kerem Shalom and we used to work until midnight to enter 700 trucks daily,” he says. The last time Zorro drove to Karni was in 2006.
The trip from Ashdod to Kerem Shalom is twice as far, and Kerem Shalom closes just after midday.
Karni, controlled by Israel, is the only commercial crossing with the facilities to allow large numbers of trucks to enter Gaza. Closed to trucks since June 2007, the conveyor belt had been operating to transfer wheat grain — until the Israeli authorities announced its complete closure on 2 March.
Transferring wheat grain via Kerem Shalom will add an additional 20 percent to logistics and transportation costs, says UNRWA.
Convoluted process
Containers of humanitarian supplies from foreign countries are shipped from Ashdod port to nearby rented UNRWA warehouses, where workers transfer the goods onto pallets by forklift. A second tier of laborers then furiously wraps the goods — mostly food and medical supplies — in plastic by hand to secure them for the long, hot journey under the sun until they reach UNRWA’s 12 distribution centers in Gaza.
UNRWA describes the lengthy process of bringing basic humanitarian supplies into Gaza as unduly complicated and costly.
Despite Israel’s “adjustment” to the blockade in June 2010, which established a “prohibited items” list and technically permitted the entry of any item not on that list, the agency still struggles to import adequate amounts of flour and construction materials as a result of lack of capacity and insufficient operating hours at the crossings, UNRWA says.
UNRWA has received approval for 43 reconstruction projects requiring restricted construction materials, worth about 11 percent of the cost of its entire work plan for Gaza.
According to UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness in Jerusalem, containers of supplies bound for the occupied West Bank are loaded onto UNRWA trucks at Ashdod and unloaded at their final destination. Hence, West Bank supplies are unloaded twice. Gaza-bound supplies are loaded and unloaded eight times before they reach their final destination.
Costly procedures
Transporting goods via pallets costs UNRWA twice as much as bringing goods in via 38 cubic meter containers, and the risk of damage to the goods is higher. Additionally, high import fees, aside from taxation, are taken from private companies operating Kerem Shalom.
UNRWA estimates their additional costs for transporting palletized food and non-food items to Gaza, compared to transporting containerized food and non-food items, to be about $2.1 million in 2010, and $730,000 for January and February 2011.
“At a time when UNRWA faces a budget deficit of over $50 million, these costs are significant,” said spokesperson Gunness, adding that the funds could be invested in development and job creation projects in Gaza.
UNRWA has paid about $80,000 to store goods at Ashdod Port since 2007 (such as X-ray equipment and tools for UNRWA’s vehicle repair training centers) marked as potential “dual-use” items by Israeli authorities and still awaiting approval to enter Gaza.
Karni less safe?
Maj Guy Inbar, Israeli coordinator of government activities in the (Palestinian) territories (COGAT), told IRIN Kerem Shalom is the safer crossing to operate due to security threats near Karni crossing.
“Most of the rocket attacks launched in the last month were from the Shajaiyeh area [east of Gaza City] near Karni,” said Inbar.
Israeli truckers (which UNRWA contracts) unload at Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side. COGAT coordinates the entrance of the goods, and Israeli border authorities, under the Defense Ministry, inspect the goods prior to entering Gaza, explained Inbar.
UNRWA trucker Zarro said three secured rooms are located at the crossing to transfer goods — two rooms can hold about 32 truckloads of goods, and the third about 12 truckloads.
“Pallets are unloaded into the rooms, which are closed from the Gaza side, and after inspection the doors open on the Gaza side for Palestinian truckers to receive the shipments,” said Zorro.
“The three rooms allow for the goods to be safely transferred in one place and provide a sterile area,” said Inbar.
Gaza’s commercial traders liken the process to feeding a prisoner.
Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. Through prolonged border closures Israel has restricted the import of fuel and commercial goods, as well as most construction and raw materials, and has largely restricted the movement of people, according to OCHA.
UNRWA inspection officers come to Kerem Shalom daily to facilitate the entrance of UNRWA trucks to Gaza.
Truck drivers crowd window
Scores of Israeli truckers crowd the trailer window, seeking approval to transfer their load from the Israeli border authorities. Trucker Zarro secured a stamp of approval for the flour shipment, although several truckers will be turned away after waiting outside for hours.
According to UNRWA, there is no cold storage at Kerem Shalom, damaging medical supplies and decreasing the shelf-life of food items exposed to the desert climate.
“If proper security equipment was present at Kerem Shalom, containers of goods could easily be transferred,” said UNRWA spokesperson Gunness. “This equipment is available and from a logistical point of view it would be safer, easier and more cost effective to scan entire truckloads.”
The Israeli Defense Ministry did not respond to IRIN’s request for comment as to why palletizing goods at Kerem Shalom is a necessary procedure.
A recent survey conducted by the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), representing more than 80 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, found that the cost for international NGOs of dealing with movement restrictions on staff and goods is at least $4.5 million a year. … Full article
Tractors confiscated in Al Jiftlik, Jordan Valley
By Lydia, International Solidarity Movement | 29 March 2011
At approximately 7 am this morning the Israeli army entered the village of Al Jiftlik. Soldiers went door to door ordering all tractor owners to bring their farming vehicles to the closed military zone between Miswa settlement and a nearby Israeli army base, where they had set up a temporary base.
The Palestinian farmers and their tractors were forcibly escorted to the temporary military base in the closed military zone. There they were kept under the surveillance of Israeli soldiers, police, and a private military company. Approximately forty tractor owners were questioned, and their ID’s and vehicle ownership were checked. They were made to stand next to their tractors, after which soldiers photographed and filmed the men with their vehicles. All people were informed that their tractors would be confiscated if they proved unable to provide proof of ownership.
The forty farmers had to wait in the sun for up to 7 hours to find out the army’s decision on what would happen to their farming vehicles. At 3 pm four owners were ordered to drive their tractors into the military camp (next to Al Jiftlik), escorted by military police and police vehicles. When one of the farmers refused to do so he was arrested, but released several minutes later on the condition that he would drive his tractor to the camp anyway, which he did. The four tractors were confiscated and kept inside the military camp after the farmers brought them there.
Faris, one of the farmers who had to bring his tractor into the military camp, said his tractor cost him 40.000NIS; “all the money I collected from farming, I put into the tractor.” He also indicated that he will be unable to continue farming his land without having a tractor.
60 Detained in Awarta. DNA Samples Taken
By Circarre Parrhesia – IMEMC & Agencies – March 29, 2011
Upwards of 60 individuals were detained, in the village of Awarta on Tuesday, and were forced to give samples of their DNA. The incident follows the murder of 5 members of a family of settlers, in Itamar, near to the village.
The deputy mayor of the town, and two of his brothers were amongst those detained, during which the DNA samples were taken, and the interrogations were conducted. Some residents of the village have been released, but some remain in detention.
These events follow two periods of curfew imposed during the weeks after the murders, the first of which lasted 5 days. 40 residents have already been detained in the course of the Israeli military’s investigation prior to Tuesday.
Currently the State of Israel is imposing a gag order on the Israeli press, not allowing any information to be published other than that which is covered in the international press. Israel has yet to provide any evidence of Palestinian involvement, despite members of the Knesset denouncing the murders as an act of Palestinian terror.
News reports broke two weeks ago, that the murdered family had owed immigrant workers from Thailand the sum of NIS 10,000, and that, allegedly, the workers had threatened to kill the family if they did pay the debt.
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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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