Settlers Torch Olive Orchard In Silwan
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 13, 2010
A group of fundamentalist Israeli settlers torched, Wednesday night, an 11-Dunam olive orchard in al-Rababa valley, in Silwan, south of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Maan news Agency reported that three olive trees, over 300 years old, were burnt down while dozens of trees were partially burnt. The attack took place while thousands of Jewish settlers held a provocative procession in Silwan under extensive Israeli police presence. Yet, the police did not prevent the settlers from torching the orchard.
On Tuesday at dawn, May 4, a group of fundamentalist settlers torched the main mosque of the al-Lubban al-Sharqiyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The settlers attacked the mosque approximately at 3 a.m., rounded up several copies of the Holy Koran in one place and set them ablaze.
The fire caused excessive damage to the property of the mosque, including its ceiling, its ceiling fans and walls. Its 450 square meters of carpet and eight air conditioners were burnt also.
This is the third mosque to be torched by the settlers this year as the settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village near Salfit, and another mosque in Huwwara town, near Nablus.
In April, settlers torched three Palestinian vehicles in Huwwara town, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus and sprayed “price tag” graffiti on a local mosque.
Two days after the attack in Huwwara, the settlers torched two Palestinian cars in Jinsafut village, near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia. The settlers also sprayed the star of David on a building in the same village.
In December of last year, a group of settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village, near the central West Bank city of Salfit, and also sprayed “price tag” on its walls.
Shin Bet blackmails Jerusalem medical students
Press TV – May 12, 2010
The Shin Bet is reportedly trying to entice Palestinian medical students to join the Israeli intelligence service by promising entry permits to al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The spying agency allegedly tried to blackmail two fifth-year medical students at al-Quds University who are pursuing internships in Palestinian university hospitals in the city, Israel’s English-language Haaretz newspaper said on its website on Wednesday.
A “Captain Biran” who introduced himself as the Shin Bet agent responsible for monitoring the university told the two to report on other students and their activities as a condition for renewing their entry permits, Haaretz reported.
The medical faculty of the university — located in the village of Abu Dis near East al-Quds — is affiliated with some of the oldest and largest hospitals in al-Quds and have up to 200 students of medicine, nursing and physiotherapy who need entry permits to enter the occupied city.
Hospital officials file requests to authorities of the al-Quds Civil Administration in the settlement of Beit El who at the discretion of the Shin Bet issue permits valid for between three and six months.
One of the two Palestinians in question encountered the recruitment request in mid 2009 after his entry permit into al-Quds was not renewed following his pilgrimage to Mecca. He was then told by the Civil Administration to meet with a Shin Bet coordinator.
In his meeting with Biran, the agent allegedly threatened the student that the Shin Bet could “interfere with your ability to finish your studies,” but that if he acceded to “help” him monitor other students, the agency would even grant him entry to the prestigious Hadassah medical center.
The other student met Biran in March, days after his entry permit to al-Quds was confiscated at Zeitim checkpoint outside East al-Quds. He was told that his entry permit had been seized because “some illegal things were found in your bag” and was similarly instructed to report to the Shin Bet about students traveling abroad.
The Palestinian students said they were effectively prevented from choosing a residency specialty and continuing their medical training when they both refused to spy on their peers.
The Shin Bet said in response that the entry permits for the two students had not been renewed for security reasons, but did not comment on the blackmail claims.
Jewish settlers attack Palestinian villagers in Ramallah
Palestine Information Center – 12/05/2010
RAMALLAH — Hundreds of armed Israeli settlers, without prior warning, raided the villages of East Farm and Sinjil, east of Ramallah city, which caused fierce clashes at noon Tuesday.
Eyewitnesses said that hand-to-hand fighting erupted between the Palestinian villagers and the Israeli assailants who used their guns in the attack.
The settler-related incidents are rarely reported in these two villages and such sudden barbaric attack means that the settlers expanded their area of violence against the Palestinians.
The Israeli Aasor military post, which is the largest base in the West Bank and located near the East Farm village, was the staging point from which the settlers waged their attack.
In another incident in Nablus, other violent Israeli settlers appropriated Palestinians’ agricultural lands in the village of Jalud and forcibly prevented the owners from entering them before bulldozing them.
Local sources in the village said that the settlers bulldozed 30 dunums of plowed fields as a prelude to seizing them.
In another context, Al-Ahrar center for prisoners’ studies and human rights said that the Israeli occupation forces stormed and ransacked the home of prisoner Ayed Dodeen in the village of Dura in Al-Khalil causing panic and terror among the children.
Director of the center Fouad Al-Khafsh explained that in conjunction with the election of Dodeen as the head of Hamas detainees in the Negev prison, a large military force barbarically broke into his house terrorizing his wife and children and destroying everything in its way without giving any reason for the raid.
Khafsh said that Dodeen, 43, is a father of six children and has spent 13 years in administrative detention except for few months he spent with his family.
His wife appealed through a telephone call with Al-Ahrar center to international human rights organizations to swiftly intervene to get her husband released from Israeli jails.
Rights orgs condemn arrest of Palestinian civil society leader
Press release, Various undersigned, 6 May 2010
This morning at 3:10am, Israeli Security Agency (ISA) agents accompanied by Israeli police raided Ameer Makhoul’s family home in Haifa and arrested him. Makhoul is a human rights defender and serves as the general director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations and as the Chairman of the Public Committee for the Defense of Political Freedom in the framework of the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel.
The 16 ISA agents and police officers immediately separated Makhoul from his family, including wife Janan and daughters Hind, 17 and Huda, 12, and conducted an extensive search of the home. According to Janan, the police confiscated items including documents, maps, the family’s four mobile phones, Ameer and Janan’s laptops, the hard drives from the girls’ two desktop computers, a camera and a small tape recorder containing un-transcribed oral histories Janan collects as part of her work. At one point during the police search, Janan says, one officer violently restrained her, twisting her arm and pushing her when she attempted to leave the home’s living room to observe the confiscations. The security forces also refused to identify themselves and showed her a warrant authorizing Makhoul’s arrest only after she repeatedly insisted. The order was signed on 23 April 2010 and cited unsubstantiated “security” reasons as the grounds for Makhoul’s arrest.
Meanwhile, approximately 40 minutes after their arrival, a group of the security forces left with Makhoul in custody. At around the same time, the Israeli authorities raided the Ittijah office and confiscated documents and the hard drives from all of the organization’s computers.
A hearing in Makhoul’s case was held at the Petah Tikva interrogation center later that morning, and his detention was extended for six days. Reports also indicate that Makhoul has been banned from meeting with an attorney for at least two days.
This arrest comes shortly after Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai signed an administrative order prohibiting Makhoul from exiting the country for a two month period. In the order, which was signed on 21 April and is based on Article 6 of the 1948 emergency regulations, Yishai states, “I have reached the conviction that the exit of Ameer Makhoul from the country poses a serious threat to the security of the state, and therefore I issue this order to prevent him from leaving the country until the 21st of June, 2010.”
However, Makhoul’s case is only one example amidst a recent escalated campaign by Israeli authorities against Palestinian human rights defense and civil resistance. In addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have met Palestinian human rights activism in recent months with a variety of measures, including raids, deportations, travel bans, visa denials and media attacks against nongovernmental organizations. Moreover, Palestinian communities involved in grassroots human rights defense efforts are frequently levied with collective punishment measures in the form of curfews, sieges and destruction of property, threats to individuals and the community as a whole, beatings, the use of lethal and “non-lethal” ammunition, including 40mm high velocity tear gas canisters, denial of permits, tear-gassing, army incursions and intentional injury and killings.
The undersigned organizations view these measures as deliberate violations of fundamental freedoms, particularly freedoms of movement, expression, association and nonviolent assembly, and of the special protections owed under international law to human rights defenders. Furthermore, as Makhoul’s arrest warrant and travel ban order are based on emergency regulations and “secret” information that is never disclosed to the defense, the undersigned consider them to be arbitrary political actions in violation of fundamental due process principles and human rights standards.
The undersigned organizations therefore strongly condemn Makhoul’s arrest and travel ban and call for his immediate release and the ban’s immediate suspension.
The undersigned also call upon the international community to take a strong stand in opposition to the Israeli campaign against human rights defenders, and to intervene with Israel for:
- Ameer Makhoul’s immediate release and the lifting of the travel ban against him;
- An end to the Israeli practice of arbitrary detention and deportation of human rights defenders; and,
- Full adherence to and respect for relevant international standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Declaration and EU guidelines on Human Rights Defenders, as applied to the Palestinian population in the OPT and Israel.
Undersigned organizations:
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights
Ensan Center for Democracy & Human Rights
Al-Haq
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-Palestine)
Women`s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
Institute for Policy Studies
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Palestine Solidarity Committee – South Africa
Turkish Relief Foundation Demands That Israel Release Its West Bank Representative
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 06, 2010
The Turkish Relief Foundation demanded Israel to unconditionally release its representative in the West Bank, Mohammad Shahin, who was kidnapped on Wednesday April 27.
Head of the Foundation, Bülent Yıldırım, stated during a press conference in Istanbul attending by several civil society institution and the wife of Shahin, called for the unconditional release of Shahin who will appear in court Thursday.
Shahin arrived recently in the West Bank, opened the representative office of the foundation and registered for Hebrew courses at the Hebrew University. He was kidnapped at a roadblock near Bethlehem and was moved to Petah Tikva detention and interrogation facility. The army also broke into his home and searched it before confiscating his personal laptop and several files. His wife said she is concerned for the life of her husband who has been under interrogation since one week, and demanded his release.
Bülent Yıldırım stated that it is likely that Shahin was arrested for the Foundations’ activities in organizing and aiding the popular campaign to break the siege on Gaza, and added that such arrests and violations will not stop the foundation especially its upcoming humanitarian trip to the Gaza Strip in the middle of this month. He added that should Israel keep Shahin behind bars, it would expose all of Israel’s illegal activities in Turkey.
Bülent Yıldırım said that the Foundation attempted to send three lawyers to represent Shahin but the Israeli embassy did not respond.
Israel claims that Shahin endangers its security and that he has connections with “terrorist organizations”.
Two Little Girls: Murder in the Jordan Valley
International Solidarity Movement | 5 May 2010
Emad Fakha, father
We stopped by the roadside at the spot where the two little girls had been killed. Their blood still stained the cushion on which they had been sitting, fragments of the military jeep which had rammed their father’s tractor still littered the ground. Janaa Fakha (8), her sister Maasa (5) and their brother Hussein (9) never saw what hit them as they waited for their father to take them from the family fields to their home in the small village of Al Ain al Baida in the northern Jordan Valley. Al Ain al Baida (the White Spring) is one of the few remaining Palestinian villages here. Its inhabitants scratch a living from what remains to them of their lands in this fertile and beautiful area.
That April day Emad Fakha had taken three of his four children to help in the fields after school, something they enjoyed, a treat. The children had climbed into the “basket” on the ground at the rear of the tractor, ready to be lifted up. Emad was preparing to start the motor when an Israeli military jeep swerved off the road, at speed, and rammed into the tractor from behind. While Hussein was thrown clear and suffered only a broken leg, the little girls didn’t stand a chance. With the body of one sister draped obscenely over its front bumper, the jeep reversed for five or six metres and then rammed once again into the tractor. What might have been a tragic accident is thus revealed for what it was – a cold-blooded murder.
Their jeep undriveable and so unable to escape, the soldiers threatened Emad with their rifles. More soldiers arrived but it was 25 minutes before the Israeli police reached the scene. The soldiers claimed that it was “an accident”, but Israeli citizen Eliazer Salam, from the settlement at Yama, who had witnessed the entire incident from his car, testified that the jeep driver had not applied his brakes at any stage and had, indeed, swerved off the road and accelerated into the tractor.
The jeep’s driver was arrested but there has been no news that he is to face any charges in a court of law. When I asked the family whether there would be an inquest (explaining that this was the usual procedure in Western, democratic countries) they didn’t understand the term. They have no recourse to the protection of the law, as we know it. Far from protecting the civilian population of the territories which they occupy, as required under international law, the Israeli military brutalises and preys upon a helpless people.
Recent similar incidents in the Nablus region – at Awarta and in Jenin – where Israeli military vehicles have been used to run down pedestrians and ram a civilian car, with fatal consequences, seem to point to an emerging pattern. The psychopathic tendencies of certain members of the Israel Defence (sic) Force have found an outlet.
Meanwhile, a single, small grave has been dug in the graveyard at Al Ain al Baida. It houses the remains of two small sisters, their severed limbs and bodies buried as one, together forever under the sun, clouds and rain of their beloved Palestine.
Update, the pattern continues:
Uniformed woman behind Netanya hit-and-run
Ma’an – 10/05/2010
Hebron – A Hebron man working in Israel was killed in a hit-and-run incident in Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, on Monday with police saying the woman driving the vehicle was in army uniform… Full article
Military jeep, car collide near Halhoul, 2 injured
Ma’an – 10/05/2010
Hebron – Two Palestinians were injured in a car accident involving an Israeli military jeep on Sunday afternoon, when the vehicles collided near the Halhul bridge north of Hebron, reports said… Full article
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The sadistic logic behind Israel’s siege of Gaza
By Paul Woodward on May 3, 2010
The Israeli human rights group, Gisha, has taken the Israeli government to court in an effort to force Israel to reveal information on the import controls through which Gaza is being held under siege.
Rules that allow the importation of cinnamon but not coriander might seem arbitrary and it’s unlikely that further documentation from the Israelis will show otherwise. But there does appear to be a sadistic logic at work here. Nothing more effectively reinforces a sense of powerlessness in a population than for the minutiae of everyday life to be under the constant, arbitrary and callous control of an invisible and inaccessible power. This is the logic and practice of subjugation. It is an exercise in the crushing of human will.
Gisha’s director, Sari Bashi, says she is no security expert, “but preventing children from receiving toys, preventing manufacturers from getting raw materials – I don’t see how that’s responsive to Israeli security needs.”
And she says that some of the prohibitions appear to be absurdly arbitrary: “I certainly don’t understand why cinnamon is permitted, but coriander is forbidden. Is there something more dangerous about coriander? Is coriander more critical to Gaza’s economy than cinnamon? This is a policy that appears to make no sense.”
She argues that if there is a logic behind such decisions, the military should reveal what it is.Now, after several months’ waiting, the state has given its response to the court, in a written submission, seen by the BBC.
It throws a small pool of light on the process behind the blockade.
The overall rationale is set out, in bold type: “The limitation on the transfer of goods is a central pillar in the means at the disposal of the State of Israel in the armed conflict between it and Hamas.”
The Israeli authorities also confirm the existence of four documents related to how the blockade works: how they process requests for imports into Gaza, how they monitor the shortages within Gaza, their approved list of what is allowed in, and a document entitled “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines” which sets out the minimum calorie intake needed by Gaza’s million and a half inhabitants, according to their age and sex.
This paper was however, the state insists, just a draft power-point presentation, used for “internal planning work”, which “never served as a basis for the policy of the authority”.
But while the first three documents promise a great deal of detail, that detail is not delivered.
In each case, the state argues that disclosure of what is allowed in and why would, in their words, “damage national security and harm foreign relations”.
Soldiers Level Mosque Near Rafah, Settlers Torch Mosque Near Nablus
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 04, 2010
Israeli soldiers invaded an area in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, leveled the Al Dahniyya mosque and uprooted farmlands on Tuesday at dawn. Local sources reported that the mosque was leveled to the ground after several armored military vehicles and bulldozers invaded Rafah.
Also in Rafah, soldiers uprooted farmlands near the Yasser Arafat Airport east of Rafah. Several military bulldozers and armored vehicles bulldozed farmlands and opened fire at random in Al Dahniyya area. The vehicles, originally stationed at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) military post, advanced 800 meters into the area and placed sand hills.
Also on Tuesday at dawn, a group of fundamentalist settlers torched the main mosque of the Al Lubban Al Shariyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The settlers attacked the mosque approximately at 3 A.M., rounded up several copies of the Holy Koran in one place and set them ablaze. The fire caused excessive damage to the property of the mosque, including its ceiling, its fans and walls. Its 450 square meters of carpet and eight air conditioners were burnt also.
This is the third mosque to be torched by the settlers this year as the settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village near Salfit and another mosque in Huwwara town, near Nablus.
Photo credit Maan Images/Wissam Nassar
###
Al-Manar TV
… According to the town’s mayor, Jamal Daragma, this is not the first time the village was targeted by settlers: “In the past they also smashed windows, uprooted olive trees, damaged houses and property. At least once a week settlers come in, riot and harm the village.”
The town is located next to three Israeli settlements: Shilo, Ma’ale Levona, and Eli. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli occupation army could not immediately confirm or deny the report.
On April 14, a mosque in Huwara near Nablus was desecrated by settlers who scrawled Hebrew graffiti and a Star of David over the walls. Two cars were also torched during the incident.
In December, settlers vandalized another mosque in the northern West Bank village of Yasuf, torching Muslim holy books and spraying hate messages in Hebrew. The incident triggered clashes between villagers and Israeli occupation troops. Israeli police arrested youths from the settlement of Yitzhar, but no one was charged.
Undercover Forces Kidnap Six Children in Raid on Village
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 03, 2010
The Palestine Solidarity Project reported that undercover forces of the Israeli army kidnapped six children in Beit Ummar town, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and handed them to the army on Sunday evening.
The undercover forces, dressed as Palestinians, drove into the town in a White Ford Transit carrying a Palestinian license plate, and kidnapped six children, aged between 13 and 16. The forces then hurled several stun grenades and fired tear gas bombs into the narrow streets of the town and drove away.
One undercover soldier was hit in the head by a stone hurled by one of the protesters during clashes with the invading forces. Mohammad Awad, spokesperson for the Palestine Solidarity Project, stated that clashes took place near the Karmie Tzur illegal settlement, installed on Palestinian lands. Awad stated that it is believed that the kidnapped six youth were taken to the Karmie Tzur settlement.
Four of the six kidnapped children were identified as Hussein Shihda Sleiby, 16, Rashid Mohammad Awad, 15, Ali Said Sabarna, 16, and Odai Saady Ikhlayyil, 13.
On Sunday evening, a number of fundamentalist settlers of the Karmie Tzur settlement held a demonstration at Highway 60 and attacked several Palestinian villagers of Beit Ummar. The police arrived at the scene and used loud speakers to order the villagers back to their homes and fired tear gas and stun grenades at them instead of removing the settlers.
The army used excessive force against the villagers who were protesting the illegal settler-takeover of their land and the destruction of dozens of trees.
The Palestine Solidarity Project reported that Israeli soldiers were filmed in recent weeks while attacking and beating journalists. Also, a 10-year-old child was shot with a rubber coated bullet by soldiers from Karmie Tzur.
“Egypt Responsible For The Death Of Four, Gassed In Tunnel”
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 29, 2010
Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, media spokesperson of the Hamas movement, held the Egyptian Authorities responsible for the death of four Palestinians who died in a tunnel after Egypt’s Border Police gassed it.
Abu Zuhri demanded Egypt to conduct an immediate probe into the issue, and to prosecute those in charge.
Speaking at a press conference in Gaza, Abu Zuhri said that Hamas is following the developments, and strongly denounced Egypt for using gas against the residents. Besides the four who were gassed to death, two residents are currently in serious conditions. He added that this is not the first time Egypt uses gas in the tunnels as 45 residents previously died after being gassed in different tunnels, and a total of 145 residents were killed in different accidents and incidents.
The Hamas spokesperson said that the Palestinians need the tunnels, and resorted to them due to the urgent necessity due to the ongoing siege on the Gaza Strip. He further stated that the solution is not killing the residents, and added that the solution is opening all border terminals.
Abu Zuhri demanded the Arab League to act immediately and end the siege.
Photo credit – Ma’an Images
Settler Sewage Ruins Palestinian Crops, Drinking Water
By Mel Frykberg | IPS | April 28, 2010
BEIT UMMAR, West Bank – Residents of this Palestinian village refuse to buy the idea that the flood of raw sewage from the adjacent Israeli settlement of Kfar Etzion, that destroyed vineyards and contaminated their drinking water, was an accident.
The Israeli Civil Administration, which administers the occupied West Bank, claims the spillage was the result of an accidental power malfunction which caused excess settlement sewage to overflow onto Palestinian land.
“This was no mistake,” says a British activist who has been documenting life in the village for several months. “The pipe was deliberately unscrewed by hand so that the sewage would spill over into Beit Ummar. That has nothing to do with an electricity cut,” he told IPS.
Villagers standing near a completely destroyed 70,000 sq m vineyard belonging to the Sabarneh family said they believe it was a deliberate act of sabotage and part of a concerted campaign by the settlers to harass their Palestinian neighbours and vandalise their property.
Beit Ummar has been the target of a number of Israeli military raids at night last month. Activists who have been organising non-violent protests against the expropriation of their land for the settlements have been arrested and the village blockaded.
In a similar incident last week the Palestinian village of Bruqin, in the northern West Bank, was flooded with sewage from the nearby Ariel settlement, causing contamination of underground water and springs and damaging crops.
These incidents are part of a larger problem of scarce water resources where a Palestinian population of 2.5 million survives on 17 percent of the West Bank’s main underground aquifer.
The remaining water is channelled towards the West Bank’s (including East Jerusalem) 500,000 Israeli settlers, and into Israel proper.
The water shortage is compounded by the lack of wastewater treatment plants and inefficient treatment of waste and sewage in the Palestinian territory which fouls its water sources.
Israeli rights group B’tselem released a study last year called ‘Foul Play: Neglect of wastewater treatment in the West Bank’.
According to the organisation, more than 90 percent of Palestinian wastewater is not treated while only 20 percent of Palestinian homes, primarily in towns and cities, are connected to sewerage systems.
Furthermore, only 81 of 121 illegal Israeli settlements are connected to wastewater treatment facilities. Over half of the settlements’ treatment plants are too small to treat waste effectively and are ill-equipped to handle the burgeoning settler population.
The result is continual technical breakdowns and sewage overflow. Most of the settlements are situated on ridges and hilltops so sewage flows down towards the Palestinian villages and towns in the valleys below, contaminating their drinking water supplies and destroying their crops.
The Israeli settlers are not affected by this as they are connected to Israel’s water supply.
The planning and building authorities in the settlements and Israeli industrial areas also ignore Jordanian building and planning laws which govern how wastewater is to be treated in the West Bank.
The B’tselem report further outlines the neglect of the territory’s water treatment plants by the Israeli Civil Administration during the decades of occupation and the current difficulties faced by Palestinian Authority (PA) water officials in trying to build new wastewater treatment plants or repair the old ones.
There is currently only one wastewater treatment plant operating in the West Bank in Ramallah. Three others have ceased to function and the PA has been unable to repair them or build new ones.
The West Bank is divided into Area A, which is under Palestinian control, Area B under joint Palestinian and Israeli control, and Area C which is under full Israeli control.
Area C comprises 60 percent of the West Bank. Areas A and B are mostly built up with little free land available.
However, in order to move around or build new wastewater treatment plants in Area C Palestinian officials from the PA Environment Authority require building permits from the Israeli Civil Administration.
B’tselem and PA officials complain of the delays these officials face in getting building approval if they get them at all.
“There is an enormous amount of red tape and bureaucracy that Palestinian officials have to overcome before they get the permits,” says Eyal Hareuveni, the author of the B’tselem report.
“The Israeli Civil Administration says that the Palestinians don’t provide the necessary detailed building plans as they have been instructed but I think the administration is being deliberately difficult,” Hareuveni told IPS.
Issa Moussa from the PA’s Environmental Authority denied that the PA provided insufficient details.
“We have the case of wanting to build a new wastewater treatment plant in Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. We provided absolutely everything requested but we were still waiting for a permit,” Moussa told IPS.xxxxx
Other difficulties facing the more efficient handling of wastewater are the restrictions placed on Palestinian movement in the West Bank by the Israeli military. This has led to increased costs for donors who support wastewater projects and who in turn have cut down on their expenditure.
A Joint Water Committee between Israel and the PA was established following the Oslo Peace Accord of 1993, to address water issues.
One of the disputes between the sides is the Israeli insistence that settlement sewage be connected to future Palestinian wastewater treatment plants.
The Palestinians reject this as this implies that the settlements are permanent and say their refusal to approve this condition is one of the reasons for approval being withheld on the construction of wastewater plants.
With no higher authority to settle the disagreement the situation will only worsen in the future.
“Neither side seems to be making the urgent issue of water and waste treatment a priority,” Hareuveni told IPS.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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