Palestinian Youth Assaulted Near Nablus For Not Understanding Hebrew
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – December 27, 2010
Israeli soldiers stationed at the Za’tara Roadblock, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, stopped three Palestinian youths and violently assaulted one of them for not understanding them when they spoke to him in Hebrew.
The youth, Bilal Hasan, 20, and two of his friends from Qaqra village, south of Nablus, were standing at the Za’tara Israeli military roadblock, waiting for a cab to take them to Salfit city where he is taking driving lessons.
Bir Zeit University Journalism student, Ahmad Judy, was standing at the roadblock and witnessed the attack.
He said that a military Jeep drove to the roadblock, and the soldiers started talking to the three youths in Hebrew.
When the three could not understand what the soldiers were saying, as they cannot speak Hebrew, one of the soldiers wrapped the wire of his two-way communication radio around the neck Bilal Hasan and tried to strangle him with it, which made him push the soldier away.
The soldiers then started beating and kicking Hasan before they cuffed him and took him to an unknown destination.
The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justice
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 27 December 2010
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27 December 2008: Israel began its deadly three-week assault on Gaza. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages) |
The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end.
The UN-commissioned Goldstone Report documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an attack aimed at the very “foundations of civilian life in Gaza” — schools, industrial infrastructure, water, sanitation, flour mills, mosques, universities, police stations, government ministries, agriculture and thousands of homes. Yet like so many other inquiries documenting Israeli crimes, the Goldstone Report sits gathering dust as the United States, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority and certain Arab governments colluded to ensure it would not translate into action.
Israel launched the attack, after breaking the ceasefire it had negotiated with Hamas the previous June, under the bogus pretext of stopping rocket firing from Gaza.
During those horrifying weeks from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, Israel’s merciless bombardment killed 1,417 people according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza.
They were infants like Farah Ammar al-Helu, one-year-old, killed in al-Zaytoun. They were schoolgirls or schoolboys, like Islam Khalil Abu Amsha, 12, of Shajaiyeh and Mahmoud Khaled al-Mashharawi, 13, of al-Daraj. They were elders like Kamla Ali al-Attar, 82 of Beit Lahiya and Madallah Ahmed Abu Rukba, 81, of Jabaliya; They were fathers and husbands like Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer. They were police officers like Younis Muhammad al-Ghandour, aged 24. They were ambulance drivers and civil defense workers. They were homemakers, school teachers, farmers, sanitation workers and builders. And yes, some of them were fighters, battling as any other people would to defend their communities with light and primitive weapons against Israel’s onslaught using the most advanced weaponry the United States and European Union could provide.
The names of the dead fill 100 pages, but nothing can fill the void they left in their families and communities (“The Dead in the course of the Israeli recent military offensive on the Gaza strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009,” [PDF] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 18 March 2009).
These were not the first to die in Israeli massacres and they have not been the last. Dozens of people have been killed since the end of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead,” the latest Salameh Abu Hashish last week, a 20-year old shepherd shot by Israeli occupation forces as he tended his animals in northern Gaza.
But the tragedy does not end with those who were killed. Along with thousands permanently injured, there is the incalculable psychological cost of children growing up without parents, of parents burying their children, and the mental trauma that Israel’s offensive and the ongoing siege has done to almost everyone in Gaza. There are the as yet unknown consequences of subjecting Gaza’s 700,000 children to a toxic water supply for years on end.
The siege robs 1.5 million people not just of basic goods, reconstruction supplies (virtually nothing has been rebuilt in Gaza), and access to medical care but of their basic rights and freedoms to travel, to study, to be part of the world. It robs promising young people of their ambitions and futures. It deprives the planet of all that they would have been able to create and offer. By cutting Gaza off from the outside world, Israel hopes to make us forget that the those inside are human.
Two years after the crime, Gaza remains a giant prison for a population whose unforgivable sin in the eyes of Israel and its allies is to be refugees from lands that Israel took by ethnic cleansing.
Israel’s violence against Gaza, like its violence against Palestinians everywhere, is the logical outcome of the racism that forms the inseparable core of Zionist ideology and practice: Palestinians are merely a nuisance, like brush or rocks to be cleared away in Zionism’s relentless conquest of the land. This is what all Palestinians are struggling against, as an open letter today from dozens of civil society organizations in Gaza reminds us:
“We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or family from Tulkarem, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel’s white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression.”
Those of us who live outside Gaza can look to the people there for inspiration and strength; even after all this deliberate cruelty, they have not surrendered. But we cannot expect them to bear this burden alone or ignore the appalling cost Israel’s unrelenting persecution has on the minds and bodies of people in Gaza or on society itself. We must also heed their calls to action.
One year ago, I joined more than a thousand people from dozens of countries on the Gaza Freedom March in an attempt to reach Gaza to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre. We found our way blocked by the Egyptian government which remains complicit, with US backing, in the Israeli siege. And although we did not reach Gaza, other convoys before, and after, such as Viva Palestina did, only after severe obstruction and limitations by Egypt.
Yesterday, the Mavi Marmara returned to Istanbul where it was met dockside by thousands of people. In May the ship was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which set out to break the siege by sea, only to be attacked and hijacked in international waters by Israeli commandos who killed nine people and injured dozens. Even that massacre has not deterred more people from seeking to break the siege; the Asian Convoy to Gaza is on its way, and several other efforts are being planned.
We may look at all these initiatives and say that despite their enormous cost — including in human lives — the siege remains unbroken, as world governments — the so-called “international community” — continue to ensure Israeli impunity. Two years later, Gaza remains in rubble, and Israel keeps the population always on the edge of a deliberately-induced humanitarian catastrophe while allowing just enough supplies to appease international opinion. It would be easy to be discouraged.
However, we must remember that the Palestinian people in Gaza are not objects of an isolated humanitarian cause, but partners in the struggle for justice and freedom throughout Palestine. Breaking the siege of Gaza would be a milestone on that march.
Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament and a passenger on the Mavi Marmara explained last October in an interview with The Electronic Intifada that Israeli society and government do not view their conflict with the Palestinians as one that must be resolved by providing justice and equality to victims, but merely as a “security” problem. Zoabi observed that the vast majority of Israelis believe Israel has largely “solved” the security problem: in the West Bank with the apartheid wall and “security coordination” between Israeli occupation forces and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and in Gaza with the siege.
Israeli society, Zoabi concluded, “doesn’t feel the need for peace. They don’t perceive occupation as a problem. They don’t perceive the siege as a problem. They don’t perceive oppressing the Palestinians as a problem, and they don’t pay the price of occupation or the price of [the] siege [of Gaza].”
Thus the convoys and flotillas are an essential part of a larger effort to make Israel understand that it does have a problem and it can never be treated as a normal state until it ends its oppression and occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and fully respects the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees. And even if governments continue to stand by and do nothing, global civil society is showing the way with these efforts to break the siege, and with the broader Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
Amid all the suffering, Palestinians have not celebrated many victories in the two years since the Gaza massacre. But there are signs that things are moving in the right direction. Israel begs for US-endorsed “peace negotiations” precisely because it knows that while the “peace process” provides cover for its ongoing crimes, it will never be required to give up anything or grant any rights to Palestinians in such a “process.”
Yet Israel is mobilizing all its resources to fight the global movement for justice, especially BDS, that has gained so much momentum since the Gaza massacre. There can be no greater confirmation that this movement brings justice within our grasp. Our memorial to all the victims must not be just an annual commemoration, but the work we do every day to make the ranks of this movement grow.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
Israeli Army Arrests 9 French Nationals In The West Bank
By George Rishmawi – IMEMC News – December 26, 2010
Israeli troops operating at the military checkpoint of Qalandia, north of Jerusalem arrested nine French protestors and assaulted others at the checkpoint, Sunday at noon.
The nine arrestees were taking part in a protest at the checkpoint expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rejection to the closure of Jerusalem by the Israeli authorities.
The protest started around 9:30 Sunday morning during which over 100 Palestinian and International protestors attempted to enter Jerusalem without permission from the Israeli soldiers.
Eyewitnesses told IMEMC over the phone that Israeli troops assaulted the protestors and beat them up with their batons and rifle buts wounding a number of them, including those who were arrested.
A major part of the protestors are part of a french delegation who came especially for a week of nonviolent activities over the Christmas week in coordination with a number of local organisations directly involved in popular resistance activities, in Beit Sahour and Bethlehem.
On Saturday three members of the group were arrested when they joined Palestinians to protest the closure of Al-Shuhada street in the city.
They also joined Palestinians in Al-Walaja village near Bethlehem on Friday to protest the ongoing settlement activities in the village.
Israeli Military Kills Shepherd in Beit Lahya
24 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Yesterday morning Salama Abu Hashish, 20 years, was herding his sheep and goats in Beit Lahya, in northern Gaza, when the Israeli Occupation Forces shot him without any warning. The bullet hit his back and went straight through one of his kidneys. He had surgery and was in the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he died at 5.30 pm. The IOF has not only taken a life away from the Abu Hashish family; it widowed a young woman and orphaned a baby that was only born the previous evening. Salama Abu Hashish had just become a father, but has not even been able to name his first born. Three more workers were injured in northern Gaza by Israeli bullets yesterday.
Yesterday’s attacks come amidst an escalating Israeli assault on workers in the border area: in the past five weeks alone, 40 people have been injured in the buffer zone, an Israeli military-declared no-go zone that runs along the Gazan side of the border in a swathe 300 to 500 meters wide. However, according to the United Nations, the “high risk” zone stretches up to 1000-1500 meters. The total area amounts to 35% of Gaza’s arable land. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, 84 workers have been injured and nine have been killed by the Israeli military since January 2010. Salama Abu Hashish is the tenth victim of Israel’s war on the border area in this year alone.
Riad Abu Hashish, the victim’s uncle, says that Salama regularly took his sheep and goats to the northern border area to graze. Yesterday, he was approximately 150 to 200 meters from the border when he was hit by an IOF sniper. As ambulances cannot reach the buffer zone without Israeli coordination, nearby scrap collectors carried Salama away on their donkey cart.
“This is all because of the occupation and the poverty it has brought to Gaza! He only risked going to the dangerous buffer zone, because there are no other possibilities for feeding his animals”, said Riad Abu Hashish in shock.
ISM Gaza calls for an immediate end of the shooting of innocent civilians, driven to such work by the illegal blockade and urges the international community to pressure Israel to end these attacks.
Ameer Makhoul’s perpetual trial
Audrey Farber writing from Haifa, Live from Palestine, 20 December 2010
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Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof) |
We arrive at the Haifa court building around 11am, half an hour after proceedings began in the ongoing trial of Ameer Makhoul, a leading Palestinian activist who holds Israeli citizenship and was arrested in his home in the middle of the night last May.
After being held without charge, tortured and denied access to an attorney for three weeks, the State of Israel accused Ameer of trumped-up charges of espionage. As it frequently does in “security cases,” the Israeli government based its accusation on “secret evidence” that Ameer and his legal defense had no access to. It became clear that Ameer’s arrest and the charges against him was an attempt to scare Palestinian citizens of Israel into submission. Ameer has stood for court dates almost monthly since being arrested, and little progress has been made. There has been talk of a plea bargain, but no judge has read a sentence and his trial has become a monthly meeting of his nearest and dearest, testifying to his commendable character and good standing in the community.
Today’s hearing was supposed to begin at 9am but was pushed back. The room — even though there is a horde of people outside waiting to get in — has only two benches for spectators. There are empty courtrooms with five or six benches, enough to easily accommodate all interested parties.
But instead we’re outside the door, while two, sometimes three, behemoth security guards control the door and glare at us intimidatingly. Milling around is a veritable who’s who of Haifa politics and activism. A Jewish member of the Communist party who is on city council comes out after giving testimony and hobnobs with influential activists, former Members of Knesset, employees of various nongovernmental organizations in Haifa, international activists, journalists, powerful lawyers and friends and family of Ameer. It’s a bit unnerving to realize that if they wanted, Israeli intelligence agents could show up outside this courtroom, arrest everyone standing there, and essentially silence all dissent in Haifa. All the major players in one place, for one cause.
As two people come out, two are let in. One comes out, one goes in. Then two come out, and the ogres at the door decide no one else is allowed in. Some among us start arguing with them, calling them out on their arbitrary change of policy, but they’re enjoying their show of strength too much. They tell us to move over; we have to wait from the side, for no apparent reason. They bring in those extendable line-makers, like those found in movie theaters and airports, and create a space where they can stand with their arms crossed, surveying their prey, a space we’re not allowed to enter. There is an easy parallel between this charade and the political situation here; we are told where we can stand, what we can do, and whether or not we are allowed in.
And just like that, it’s over. People come flooding out; greeting and kissing each other on the cheek, saying hello to friends and family and colleagues. Ameer’s wife and daughters come out into the crowd, so do his sisters and his brother, observers from European embassies, community members, then the lawyers. Some of the best lawyers in Israel were there, and still, this trial continues. It’s court date after court date of unanimously supportive character witness testimony. The prosecution has no evidence to present, at least not in a public hearing; such is the nature of these “security cases.” There was supposed to be a decision on his sentence today, but there wasn’t, and there will be yet another court date in January with more and more character witnesses, more and more people testifying in support of Ameer Makhoul. But there is irony in this; the longer they can postpone sentencing him, the longer he stays in jail, unable to kiss his wife, or hug his daughters. We can spend years and years giving positive testimony in support of Ameer but if he is not sentenced, he stays in jail, perpetually on trial.
When his younger daughter came out of the courtroom, I read her eyes. She is brave, so brave. I cannot imagine going through what she is enduring. Month after month she comes to these trials, sees the community supporting her father, perhaps once in a blue moon she can hold his hand. His sister was allowed to hug and kiss him for the first time today, but when Ameer’s wife visits him in prison they are permitted only to communicate through a telephone and a glass barrier. He is perpetually sealed off from his family. His daughter floats through the crowd, puts on a smile, hugs her aunts and uncles and shakes hands with her father’s colleagues. When they look away, her face falls, and her eyes are sad, almost empty, resigned in a way to his fate. She has gone through too much for an adolescent girl. Still she, and Ameer’s entire family, and the entire community, tirelessly fight for his rights. But with each farcical trial date, perpetuating this charade of “justice,” it seems less and less likely that these rights will ever be realized, a decision will be made, and he will be released, able to join his family at their home once again.
Audrey Farber is a writer, activist, photographer and brain-for-hire who most recently interned at Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research, in Haifa.
Israeli warplanes attack Gaza refuge
Rami Almeghari, The Electronic Intifada, 22 December 2010
Palestinian men clean up the remnants of a destroyed dairy in Khan Younis after it was bombed by an Israeli air strike. (Ismael Mohamad/UPI/Newscom)
A heap of ruins and dust is all that remains of a dairy that Israeli warplanes destroyed yesterday in the central Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. The ruins of the dairy are adjacent to an amusement park in the Asdaa grounds which serves as a refuge to residents of the besieged Gaza Strip.
Adjacent to the amusement park in the Asdaa grounds in the central Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis stands a heap of ruins and dust. It is all that remains of a dairy that Israeli warplanes destroyed yesterday.
Before the bombing, the dairy had three production lines on 400 square meters. It produced milk, cheese and butter, providing income for forty Palestinian families in Gaza and distributing goods to various parts of the Gaza Strip.
At dawn, the dairy was hit by at least two jet-fired missiles, scattering machines and equipment several meters away and rendering the factory into a pile of rubble. The attack on the dairy comes amidst increased Israeli military activity across the Strip. Israeli warplanes also hit other targets on Tuesday, injuring four Palestinians, including a guardsman in Asdaa.
While inspecting the damage, Shadi al-Batsh, the dairy’s chief engineer, told The Electronic Intifada “This dairy was a dream and then became a reality but it finally turned to be a nightmare — not only for me but also for the forty workers who all have worked hard to make something under a crippling Israeli blockade.”
Standing amidst the rubble, al-Batsh described how the Asdaa dairy used to distribute its products across Gaza and the impact of the attack on the local economy, already straining under Israel’s 42-month-long siege.
“Our financial losses from this attack are estimated at about $300,000. Besides these direct financial losses, there is an indirect loss represented by the people who used to provide us with raw materials, plastic packs and those who used to carry the products in vans and distribute them to grocers in many parts of Gaza. We really wonder as to why such a place was targeted by the Israeli warplanes. It is a dairy and does not manufacture weapons or homemade rockets,” explained al-Batsh.
Al-Batsh added “This is the first time that the Asdaa facility was targeted. Today we had about fifteen buses of school children, on a field trip in which school children enjoy some time at the amusement park and this public garden. We are afraid that such trips would start to decrease after such a shelling.”
The Asd’a facility was built on the grounds of a former Israeli settlement. In addition to the dairy, it includes an amusement park, a fishery, a turkey pen and a public garden. The public garden features some wild animals, including monkeys, and a small train for children runs through the grounds; the train now passes by the ruins of the dairy. Since the facility was established, it has become an attraction for Gaza’s residents, who relish the opportunity to spend time outdoors in spite of Israel’s crippling siege.
Rusaila Hammad is a teacher from a nearby school who brought 120 children to the Asdaa gardens after the attack. “We learned earlier that the Asdaa facility was targeted. However, we in the school administration insisted that we should take the children on the scheduled school trip,” Hammad explained.
She added “Where should we go? To the sea or to Gaza’s closed borders? Do the Israelis think that by targeting such places they are doing the right thing? Such actions will only fuel hatred and these children have the right to enjoy their childhood as normally as children worldwide.”
Hammad explained that Asdaa is “one of the rare places for our children to release the stress they have to endure under the Israeli blockade and attacks on us.”
One of Hammad’s pupils, 14-year-old Marwa Zain, expressed her anger. “What do they want us to do? Every place in Gaza has become vulnerable to Israeli attacks. What do we children have to do with such violence? What do they want? We are determined to continue to come here; we have little choice because Gaza is a very small place and Israel is besieging it from all sides, including the coast.”
At another corner of Asdaa’s public garden, Fatma al-Hadidy asked a similar question. “If we stop visiting such a place out of fear of Israeli attacks, then where can we go? It is really a shame on them to attack such a place.”
Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli air strikes kill five Palestinians in Gaza
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 22 December 2010
Archive: The destruction caused by an Israeli air strike on Rafah in March 2010. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
In an ongoing assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli fighter jets struck the southern city of Rafah early this morning, injuring four. The IMEMC reported that four Palestinians were wounded in the attack, which destroyed an alleged “training base” for the armed wing of the Hamas party (“Army bombards Rafah,” 22 December 2010).
Today’s air strikes come after Israeli fighter jets attacked the Gaza Strip early morning yesterday in a coordinated assault on Khan Younis in the south and Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya refugee camp and Zeitoun in the north, according to a report from Al-Jazeera English (“Israeli fighter jets attack Gaza,” 21 December 2010).
Ma’an News Agency reported that two Palestinian fighters and one security guard were injured in the missile strike on Khan Younis after Israeli warplanes destroyed a dairy and an entertainment center (“Israeli jets hit Gaza for 2nd time in day,” 21 December 2010). Israeli jets also struck tunnels at the southern border with Egypt. The tunnels are used by Palestinians to bring in essential items, including food, medicine, cement and thousands of other goods from Egypt and the outside world. Israel has imposed a years-long blockade on Gaza, rarely opening the border crossings and maintaining severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods.
Hours later, another Israeli warplane struck Khan Younis again, injuring two more in a missile strike.
These attacks follow similar Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, 18 December, in which five Palestinian men, all around twenty years old, were targeted by an Israeli missile in Deir al-Balah, according to Ma’an (“Medics recover bodies of 5 killed in Gaza strike,” 19 December 2010).
Israel claimed that the five young men were affiliated with an armed resistance group called the Jaljalat, and they were planning to launch a rocket over the boundary with Israel.
On Sunday, armed Palestinian resistance groups responded to Saturday’s attacks by firing a series of homemade rocket shells into Israel. The shells landed in the Negev desert, causing no injuries or damage, according to the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) (“Eight separate Israeli airstrikes reported throughout Gaza; 2 injured,” 21 December 2010). Additional rocket fire was reported on Monday as well, causing no injuries.
On Tuesday, following Israel’s overnight airstrikes, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet) reported that a Gaza-fired rocket landed near a kindergarten in a kibbutz near Ashkelon, just north of the boundary with Gaza. A 14-year-old Israeli girl was lightly injured, Ynet reported (“Qassam explodes near kindergarten,” 21 December 2010).
Speaking to Ma’an News, an Israeli military spokesperson said Israel’s attacks on Gaza were “in response” to 13 homemade projectiles launched across the boundary with Israel this week (“Palestinian sources: Israel warplanes raid Gaza,” 21 December 2010). The spokesperson said that the military attacked four “Hamas tunnels,” a “smuggling tunnel” near Rafah, a “weapons manufacturing facility” and a “terror activity center.”
However, The Electronic Intifada’s correspondent in Gaza, Rami Almeghari, reported that the buildings targeted by the Israeli Air Force were not centers for “terror activity.”
“They targeted a dairy and an entertainment center in Gaza … Israel did not target some sort of proclaimed facilities for homemade rockets,” he stated.
Almeghari added that Israel’s latest attacks are a “systematic targeting” of the Palestinians inside Gaza in order to weaken the popular support for the elected Hamas government.
He added that the failure of the US-brokered peace talks allows Israel to continue attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. By not addressing Israel’s ongoing violations of international law, including the ongoing confiscation of Palestinian land for settlement construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the international community is culpable for the situation across Palestine, Almeghari said.
“Israel only attacks for the sake of attacking, and by squeezing Palestinians in Gaza at the political level to accept Israel’s terms for peace,” Almeghari said.
Workers under fire
Meanwhile, Israel’s attacks on fishermen, industrial workers and shepherds have continued. As The Electronic Intifada has reported, industrial workers are frequently shot while collecting raw materials near Israel’s so-called “buffer zone” — a 300-meter-long militarized area along the northern, eastern and maritime boundaries.
On 10 December, Suhaib M., a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, was shot and injured while he collected wood inside the no-go zone alongside the northern boundary with Israel. Defense for Children International-Palestine Section reported that the boy and his brothers have been collecting raw materials in order to supplement their family’s income for the last five months. Suhaib and his brother Belal were loading pieces of wood from uprooted olive trees into a small cart when he was shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper (“Report: Voices from the Occupation ,” 18 December 2010 [PDF]).
Additionally, a man in his thirties was shot in his foot on 20 December by Israeli snipers as he collected stones in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Ma’an. Israeli forces opened fire on the man near the town of Beit Hanoun (“Worker injured in north Gaza,” 20 December 2010).
A 19-year-old shepherd, Ijmeian Abu Ihweishel, was shot by Israeli snipers on 19 December as he herded his flock of sheep in the same area, reported Ma’an (“Palestinian teen reported injured in north Gaza,” 19 December 2010).
Gaza’s health ministry reported that there have been 103 Palestinians shot by Israeli forces near the no-go zone since March 2010, Ma’an added.
Two days earlier, on 17 December, a Palestinian teenager died after being shot on a fishing boat off the southern Gaza coast by Israeli warships permanently stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. Agence-France Presse and Ma’an reported that Israeli forces fired on the small fishing boat, capsizing it and injuring 15-year-old Ziad Samir al-Bardawil, who died after being treated at a local hospital (“Gaza teen dead after Israel fires on fishing boat,” 17 December 2010).
In an article following al-Bardawil’s death, the right-wing Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli military sources who refuted the Ma’an report. The Israeli military said that it “does not recognize the event” and claimed it had nothing to do with the death of the Palestinian boy.
Rights organizations decry humanitarian situation
Although Israeli government officials have placed emphasis on the so-called “easing” of the blockade, Israel has done little to change the humanitarian situation for Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip, according to a new report signed by 22 major international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International UK, Oxfam International and the International Federation for Human Rights (“Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade ,” 30 November 2010 (PDF file)).
The report states that the inflow of construction materials, for example, is only at 11 percent of pre-blockade levels, food imports are only at 35 percent and the import of raw materials is still restricted.
Additionally, there is a strict ban on exported goods, a policy that has debilitated Gaza’s struggling economy. IMEMC reported that Israel has allowed only the exports of strawberries and carnations from Gaza this week, under the auspices of a Dutch governmental program to assist Gaza’s local farmers (“Israel opens only Kerem Shalom border,” 21 December 2010).
Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, said in a press release related to the “Dashed Hopes” report that “only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza” (“Six months on: Little sign of improvement in Gaza since Israeli easing of blockade, shows report from aid and human rights groups,” 30 November 2010).
He added that “Israel’s failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future.”
Religious Jews make midnight pilgrimage into occupied village
Ma’an – 17/12/2010
KIFL HARIS, Salfit — Shortly before midnight on Friday morning residents of the Salfit-district village of Kifl Haris reported dozens of Israeli military vehicles and bus-loads of what were described by locals as “settlers” entering the area.
Locals estimated some 3,000 “settlers” – religious Jews, many from settlements in the occupied West Bank – entered the area as protecting troops set up checkpoints and barricades around a small tomb in the village.
Locals say the tomb belongs to a sheikh from the village, while religious Jews visiting the site say it is the final resting place of Joshua ben Nun, leader of early Jewish tribes.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said there were 800 visitors accompanied by Israeli soldiers. The group stayed in the area from midnight to 5 a.m.
According to Israeli news site Ynet, the visitors found the tomb “desecrated” by Arabic graffiti with slogans like “we are the defenders of the national project” and “conciliation, speak to you enemy through bullets.”
GA Prison Inmate Strike Enters New Phase, Prisoners Demand Human Rights, Education, Wages For Work
By Bruce A. Dixon | Black Agenda Report | December 15, 2010
The historic strike of Georgia prisoners, demanding wages for their labor, educational opportunities, adequate health care and nutrition, and better conditions is entering a new phase. Strikers remain firm in their demands for full human rights, though after several days many have emerged from their cells, if only to take hot showers and hot food. Many of these, however, are still refusing their involuntary and unpaid work assignments.
A group that includes relatives, friends and a broad range of supporters of the prisoners on the outside has emerged. They are seeking to sit down with Georgia correctional officials this week to discuss how some of the just demands of inmates can begin to be implemented. Initially, Georgia-based representatives of this coalition supporting the prisoner demands included the Georgia NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the National Association for Radical Prison Reform, the Green Party of Georgia, and the Ordinary Peoples Society among others. Civil rights attorneys, ministers, community organizations and other prisoner advocates are also joining the group which calls itself the Concerned Coalition to Protect Prisoner Rights.
Prisoners have stood up for themselves, and the communities they came from are lining up to support them. Today, at a groundbreaking for a private prison 300 miles southeast of Atlanta in Millen GA, residents of that local community opposed to the private prison are greeting the governor and corrections brass with a protest. They will be joined by dozens more coming in from Atlanta who will respectfully urge state authorities to talk to the prisoners. We understand that one person there has been arrested. Black Agenda Report will have photos and footage of that event on Thursday.
The broad-based Concerned Coalition to Protect Prisoners Rights fully supports the heroic stand of Georgia’s prisoners. “This isn’t Attica,” one representative of the coalition explained. “No violent acts have been committed by any of the inmates involved. We hope state corrections officials will be as peaceful and respectful as the prisoners have been, and start a good faith dialog about quickly addressing their concerns.”
Right now, the ball is in the hands of state corrections officials, and reports are that in some of the affected prisons, authorities are fumbling that ball, engaging
“They transferred some of the high Muslims here to max already,” one prisoner told Black Agenda Report this morning. “They want to break up the unity we have here. We have the Crips and the Bloods, we have the Muslims, we have the head Mexicans, and we have the Aryans all with a peaceful understanding, all on common ground. We all want to be paid for our work, and we all want education in here. There’s people in here who can’t even read…
“They’re trying to provoke people to violence in here, but we’re not letting that happen. We just want our human rights.”
The transfers are intended to deprive groups of leadership and demoralize them. In some cases they may be having the opposite effect, stiffening prisoner morale and making room for still more leaders to emerge.
“The prisoners insist that punitive transfers are an act of bad faith, the opposite of what we should be doing,” said Minister Charles Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam in Atlanta. “The coalition supports them and demands no punitive transfers, either within or between institutions, and absolutely no transfers to institutions outside Georgia.”
Members of the public should continue to call the prisons listed below, and the GA Department of Corrections and the office of Georgia’s governor, Sonny Perdue. Ask them firmly but respectfully to resolve the situation non-violently and without punitive measures. Tell them you believe prisoners deserve wages for work and education. Ask them to talk to prisoners and the communities they come from.
It’s simple. With one in twelve Georgia adults in jail or prison, parole or probation or other court and correctional supervision, prisoners are us. They are our families. They are our fathers and our mothers, our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and cousins. Most prisoners will be back out in society sooner, not later. It’s time for us all to grow up and realize that warehousing, malnourishing, mistreating and abusing prisoners does not make us safer. Denying prisoners meaningful training and educational opportunities, and forcing them to work for no wages is not the way to do.
It’s time to fundamentally reconsider prison as we know it, and America’s public policy of mass incarceration.
See also:
Elaine Brown on GA Prison Strike, December 14 Democracy Now Video Interview
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New positive ivermectin evidence
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From the Archives
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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