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.
Israeli soldiers given minor reprimands over shooting of Palestinian civilians
By Catrina Stewart | The Independent | 28 April 2010
Israeli officers held responsible for the deaths of four Palestinians in the West Bank received only minor reprimands after an internal investigation concluded that the deaths could have been avoided.
Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel’s military chief, admitted that the incidents last month “could have ended differently” and could have “avoided causing harm to civilians”.
The two fatal shooting incidents, just 24 hours apart, marked the most serious escalation of tensions in the occupied West Bank in months, and threatened to destroy the fragile calm that has persisted there in recent years.
In one case, Israeli soldiers fired on Palestinian protesters, killing two. In a second incident, a soldier killed two Palestinians who he claimed had tried to attack him. Mr Ashkenazi reprimanded two senior officers – a colonel and a lieutenant colonel – and removed a squad commander from his post, a military statement said. The soldiers who fired the lethal rounds appeared to escape censure.
Israeli human rights organisations denounced the military investigation, claiming that it failed to hold the soldiers accountable for their actions and upheld the army’s culture of impunity.
“It is extremely rare for the Israeli security forces to be held accountable in cases where they have killed or injured Palestinian civilians,” said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO.
She said that the army should open criminal investigations into both cases rather than conduct “internal operational debriefs” that skirt the legal issues regarding the soldiers’ actions. “There are credible allegations, these must be investigated,” she said.
On 20 March, Israeli forces faced Palestinian protesters in the village of Iraq Burin as they tried to prevent clashes with extremist Jewish settlers from nearby Bracha. In the ensuing skirmish, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian teenagers, Mohammed Qadus and Osaid Qadus.
The military statement said Israeli forces had been authorised to use rubber bullets against the Palestinians, but, as reported by The Independent, medics who examined the body insisted that live ammunition had been used, and produced X-rays that appeared to show a conventional bullet lodged in the skull of Osaid Qadus.
The Israeli army said a Military Police investigation into the claims that live rounds were used was still ongoing. The army “could not verify the autopsy and could therefore not confirm that the rioters were in fact hit by live rounds,” the statement said.
In Awarta a day later, an Israeli soldier fired on two Palestinians who approached a checkpoint and started “acting suspiciously,” according to the statement. The first apparently tried to attack the soldier with a bottle, prompting the soldier to shoot him. The second then allegedly wielded a “sharp object” and was also shot dead.
The soldier fired seven bullets into Mohammed Qawariq and at least three into Saleh Qawariq, according to Palestinian doctors. “While the soldier, believing his life was at risk, acted subjectively, the Chief of the General Staff holds the officers responsible for training their soldiers to act in difficult operational situations,” the military said.
Relatives of the deceased denied that they tried to attack the soldier and said they were only metal workers looking for scrap.
Rights Groups Issue Open Letter on Upcoming NYC Trial of Syed Fahad Hashmi and Severe Special Administrative Measures
April 23, 2010
New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the Council on American Islamic Relations-NY released an open letter today expressing their serious concerns about the trial of Syed Fahad Hashmi, set to begin on April 28. The human rights organizations discuss Mr. Hashmi’s severe conditions of confinement over the last three years in which he has awaited trial, their impact on his mental health, and his ability to effectively participate in his own defense.
The material support charges against Mr. Hashmi are based on the allegation that he allowed an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, to use his cell phone and to stay with him at his apartment in London where he was pursuing a Master’s degree. According to Mr. Hashmi’s indictment, Babar had waterproof socks and rain ponchos in his luggage that he later delivered to al-Qaeda in South Waziristan. Mr. Hashmi denies all charges against him.
In their letter, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the Council on American Islamic Relations-NY urge the Attorney General to review and revise the Department of Justice regulations governing the imposition of severe Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to ensure that all prisoners are held in humane conditions, are not subjected to discriminatory treatment, are given adequate information about why SAMs are being imposed, and are given a full opportunity to argue and present evidence against their imposition.
Two days ago, CCR publicly condemned the government’s attempt to frighten the jury in Mr. Hashmi’s case, calling the U.S. Attorney’s motion for the jurors to be anonymous and kept under extra security because of the attention and political activism these issues have drawn to the case “a clear attempt to influence the jury by creating a sense of fear for their safety and to paint Mr. Hashmi as already guilty.”
Open Letter from Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Council on American Islamic Relations-NY on the upcoming trial of Syed Fahad Hashmi and the severe Special Administrative Measures to which he is subjected :
On April 28, Syed Fahad Hashmi is scheduled to be tried in the Southern District of New York on charges of material support for terrorism. Mr. Hashmi has been held in pretrial detention at the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, pursuant to Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, for almost three years now. These measures have severely limited his ability to communicate with the outside world and effectively placed him in solitary confinement, although he has not been convicted of any crime.
Mr. Hashmi is 30 years old, was raised in Queens and attended Brooklyn College before moving to London to obtain a Master’s degree in political science. Since his extradition to the United States in May 2007, he has been imprisoned alone in a cell and not permitted to speak, worship or otherwise communicate with any other prisoners. He is not permitted any visitors or outside communications, except for his attorneys and limited visits from immediate family. He is not allowed any physical human contact, even from his closest family members. Mr. Hashmi is allowed one hour per day of physical exercise, which must be taken alone, in a small cage inside the prison. He is not permitted access to any natural air or sunlight. Moreover, Mr. Hashmi is subjected to a strip-search before his one hour per day of exercise. Due to the resulting humiliation he experiences, he has chosen to forego this hour outside of his cell altogether.
In addition, Mr. Hashmi is subjected to constant surveillance, not only when he is alone in his cell but also when he showers, uses the toilet, or meets with an attorney or family member. He may not communicate with any members of the media, and he is forbidden from listening to a television or radio news program or reading a timely newspaper.
Mr. Hashmi’s family, friends and attorneys are extremely concerned that his mental health is rapidly deteriorating under these extreme conditions. It is well-documented that solitary confinement can have severely detrimental effects on a prisoner’s mental health. It may also affect his ability to effectively participate in his trial and to present his defense.
Muslim community groups are increasingly expressing concern about these prison conditions, as they seem to be imposed disproportionately on Muslims suspected of connections with terrorism.
SAMs may be imposed on a particular inmate, according to the Department of Justice’s regulations, when such measures are “reasonably necessary to prevent disclosure of classified information,” or when “reasonably necessary to protect persons against the risk of death or serious bodily injury.” To be extended beyond the initial 120-day period, the Attorney General or federal law enforcement must demonstrate that such measures are reasonably necessary “because there is a substantial risk that an inmate’s communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons, or substantial damage to property that would entail the risk of death or serious bodily injury to persons.”
The material support charges against Mr. Hashmi are based on the allegation that he allowed an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, to use his cell phone and to stay with him at his apartment in London where he was pursuing a Master’s degree. According to Mr. Hashmi’s indictment, Babar had waterproof socks and rain ponchos in his luggage that he later delivered to al-Qaeda in South Waziristan. Mr. Hashmi denies all charges against him. These charges will be the subject of his trial.
We are concerned that Mr. Hashmi has not been informed of the reasons for the imposition of SAMs. We are also concerned that Mr. Hashmi is being held under conditions that are not consistent with international standards for humane treatment. Due to their likely impact on his mental health, we are further concerned that these conditions will prejudice his ability to assist in his own defense.
The Department of Justice stated last year that 46 inmates around the country were being confined pursuant to SAMs. Although we recognize that the department has a legitimate interest in protecting classified information that may harm national security and in protecting the public against acts of terrorism, we are very concerned that inmates held pursuant to such measures are not being given an adequate opportunity to defend against the imposition of SAMs in their cases.
We urge the Attorney General to review and revise the agency’s regulations governing the imposition of SAMs to ensure that all prisoners regardless of their security status are held in humane conditions, are not subjected to discriminatory treatment, are given adequate information about why SAMs are being imposed, and are given a full opportunity to argue and present evidence against their imposition.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Israel Kidnaps Lawyer Representing Jordanian Detainees
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 26, 2010
Israeli soldiers kidnapped on Sunday Shereen Al Esawy, a lawyer representing Jordanian Detainees imprisoned in Israel. Al Esawy was kidnapped at a roadblock, near Jabal Al Mokabbir, in East Jerusalem.
The National Committee for Jordanian Prisoners and Missing Prisoners, stated that Shereen was moved to the Al Maskobiyya interrogation center, and added that the army also broke into her home and confiscated her laptop.
The Committee slammed the arrest and demanded international human rights groups to intervene and oblige Israel to release her as she is only performing her duty as a lawyer.
Several weeks ago, Israel barred Al Esawy from visiting the detainees she represents. Al Esawy was also prevented, several months ago, from entering Jordan for a conference about the detainees. The conference was held in Amman after Jordanian detainees in Israeli prisons held a hunger strike, but the Jordanian Authorities prevented her from crossing into the country.
The committee states on its website that there are currently 27 Jordanian detainees, including one woman, imprisoned by Israel. The woman, Ahlam Tamimi, was sentenced to 16 consecutive life-terms. Also detainee Abdullah Barghouthi was sentenced to 67 consecutive life-terms. The rest of the detainees were sentenced to different periods (between one year and several life-terms), the committee said.
Watching the invasion unfold
By Eva Bartlett | In Gaza | April 22, 2010
It was an early morning, farmers relieved to have harvested the 6 dunam (1 dunam is roughly 1000 square metres) field of lentils planted 5 months ago in Al Faraheen borderlands. The village, east of Khan Younis, includes land cut off to farmers by the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone”. That technically 300 metre no-go zone stretching south to north along Gaza’s border with Israel actually extends far beyond the few hundred metres, up to 2 km in some areas where Palestinian civilians have been shot, injured or killed, by Israeli soldiers while on their land.
Abu Qater Tabbash has 100 dunams of land he can no longer access, he says, because it lies in the buffer zone. The land he worked today, along with 5 women from his family, is rented land. Their crop will not pay off, but it will provide lentils for the family and hay for their animals.
“I knew they were going to do something today,” says Jaber Abu Rjila. “I saw the bulldozers line up at the border yesterday and knew today there’d be a party,” making light of his dangerous reality.
Rjila is an old hand at Israeli invasions, even prior to the one which destroyed his farm and livelihood. Being shot at and having his and neighbouring land churned to waste by Israeli bulldozers is so normal that he continues sorting garlic and harvesting lettuce, to give to his guests, as the tanks line up at the gate before entering and nearing within 200 metres of his home.
But when the bulldozers and tanks begin to thunder in through the Israeli-controlled gate nearest Rjila’s land, he, Leila and a few neighbours are the only ones who stay.
“All of Faraheen will be in Khan Younis after a while,” says Jaber, referring to the proximity of the town and the fact that Israeli invasions have repeatedly harassed the citizens of his town, destroyed their houses, shot up their walls and terrified their children.
One of Rjila’s young daughters has never gotten over the experience of being in a house surrounded by and being shot at by Israeli tanks and soldiers as military bulldozers destroyed their land. The girl, just 7 or 8 years old, is slight and shows signs of malnourishment, despite her parents best efforts and the comparative health of her siblings.
“She was traumatized,’ Leila says, explaining that of her siblings, the girl was the most terrified during the 2008 Israeli invasion, which including shelling and gunfire on her home.
The tanks enter the gate some 500 metres from the house we are at and seem to be bee-lining for the Rjila home. When they are roughly 100 metres away, we leave our vantage point, not wanting to bring further wrath on the home by the provocation of documenting Israel’s invasion.
Continuing to film from a different spot still near the home and the convoy of tanks, we hear their rumble as they tear up the earth.
*the area, tranquil, before the invasion
*this land will have all been torn up in the invasion
Beit Ummar vineyard flooded with settlement sewage
Ma’an – 22/04/2010
Hebron – Israeli settlers opened a sewage pipe running toward the Hebron-area town of Beit Ummar on Wednesday night, flooding a Palestinian vineyard with wastewater, local officials said.
By opening the sewage pipe, residents of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc destroyed some 70,000 square meters of the vineyard belonging to the Sabarneh family, experts visiting the site said.
The land, in the Wad Shakhat area of northern Beit Ummar, was ruined by the flood of sewage, along with the crop after it was contaminated by the untreated wastewater, land experts who arrived at the scene along with the village mayor said.
An Israeli Civil Administration representative confirmed the incident, saying a pump from the Kfar Etzion settlement stopped working due to a power malfunction and sewage overflowed from the network. The official said the matter was a mistake, and as soon as the Beit Ummar governor notified officials of the issue the problem was rectified.
Military officials said compensation for the mistake would likely have to be sought in court.
Residents of Beit Ummar said the mayor informed Israel’s Civil Administration office of the incident, and that he asked Israeli police to investigate what was behind the disaster.
“As far as I know, the mayor of Kfar Etzion called and apologized,” the Civil Administration representative said.
El Al sued for racial profiling
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 20 April 2010
Two Palestinian citizens of Israel have won $8,000 in damages from Israel’s national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company’s security staff at a New York airport had been “abusive and unnecessary.”
Brothers Abdel Wahab and Abdel Aziz Shalabi were assigned a female security guard who watched over them at the airport’s departure gate for nearly two hours, in full view of hundreds of fellow passengers, after they had passed the security and baggage checks.
Later, El Al’s head of security threatened to bar Abdel Wahab, 43, from the flight if he did not apologize to the guard for going to the toilet without first getting her approval. Abdel Aziz said he had been humiliated and “cried like I’ve never cried before in public.”
Although surveys of Palestinian Arab citizens, who comprise one-fifth of Israel’s population, show that most have suffered degrading treatment when flying with Israeli carriers, few bring cases to the Israeli courts.
The brothers are now planning to sue El Al and its New York staff in the United States over Israel’s racial profiling of passengers in a country where the practice is illegal.
“I’d rather go to New York by donkey than fly with El Al again,” said Abdel Aziz, 44. “We will keep fighting this case until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens.”
The brothers, who live in northern Israel, were the only Arabs in a party of 17 Israeli insurance agents on a two-week business trip to Canada and New York in 2007.
They arrived four hours early at John F. Kennedy airport in New York for their return flight with Israir, an Israeli charter company, to allow time for the additional checks they expected from El Al’s security staff.
El Al has special agreements with most countries’ airports to carry out its own security checks for passengers flying with Israeli airlines.
The brothers said they were questioned, searched and had to wait two hours while their bags and carry-on luggage were subjected to lengthy inspections.
“The Jews with us went through in minutes,” said Abdel Aziz, in his home in the village of Iksal, near Nazareth. “The difference in treatment was very clear.”
After they had passed the checks, an El Al security guard, Keren Weinberg, was assigned to them until they boarded the plane. They were told to make sure she could see them at all times.
When Abdel Wahab visited a toilet without her permission, a noisy argument broke out between the two, with Weinberg accusing him of “roaming freely.” He said he told her to “either arrest me or go away.”
Ilan Or, the head of El Al security, was then called and issued him an ultimatum that he apologize or be prevented from catching the flight. Abdel Wahab told a magistrate’s court in Haifa this month that he broke down in tears and finally said he was sorry.
“I was in shock. One minute I was made to feel like a terrorist and then the next like a naughty child,” he said.
Judge Amir Toubi said the security staff had admitted that neither brother was deemed a security threat and that Israeli law did not allow checks to continue after passengers had passed the security area.
“With all due understanding of security needs, there is no justification for ignoring the dignity, freedom and basic rights of a citizen under the mantle of the sacred cow of security,” the judge ruled.
El Al told the court that it had been “asked by the state to conduct security checks abroad on behalf of [charter companies] Arkia and Israir airlines, and is acting under the security guidelines set by official bodies of the state.”
Abdel Wahab praised the court’s decision but said the damages were minor and would not act as a deterrent against El Al repeating such behavior in the future. He said the brothers would appeal to a higher court in Israel and were planning to initiate a legal action in New York, too.
“I will not rest until we get an apology from El Al and they acknowledge that what they did is wrong,” he said. He called on all Arab citizens to boycott El Al until it committed to stop its discriminatory policy.
A 2007 report on racial profiling by Israeli carriers, published by the Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, concluded: “This phenomenon is so widespread that it is hard to find any Arab citizen who travels abroad by air and who has not experienced a discriminatory security check at least once.”
The two groups found that Arab and Muslim passengers typically faced long interrogations and extensive luggage searches, and were also regularly subjected to body and strip searches, had items including computers confiscated, were kept in holding areas and were escorted directly on to the plane.
The report noted that foreign countries that allowed Israel to carry out its own security checks at their airports failed to supervise them and preferred to “ignore their discriminatory nature and the human rights violations committed on their own soil.”
New York’s JFK airport was one of the airports that refused to answer questions from the groups about incidents of discriminatory treatment of Arabs and Muslims.
Israel has also come under harsh criticism for the standard racial profiling policies it uses against its own Arab citizens and foreign Arab nationals at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.
The practice of putting different color-coded stickers on Jewish and Arab passengers’ luggage ended three years ago. However, airport guards still write a number on uniform white stickers indicating the level of security threat. Critics say higher numbers are reserved for non-Jews.
Faced with a lawsuit from Israeli human rights groups, Menachem Mazuz, the attorney general at the time, instructed the airports authority in early 2008 to implement “visible equality” by ending discriminatory screening policies.
However, observers have noticed no change in practice. “This was a very cynical exercise. ‘Visible equality’ simply means making it look like there’s equality when the inequality persists,” said Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth.
In December an airport official told the right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper: “Profiling makes the biggest difference. A man with the name of Umar flying out of Tel Aviv, whether he is American or British, is going to get checked seven times.”
Two years ago Israel’s racial profiling policy made headlines when a member of an American dance troupe with a Muslim-sounding name was forced to dance at the airport to prove he was who he claimed.
The incident with the Shalabi brothers follows on the heels of a diplomatic crisis between Israel and South Africa over revelations that spies posing as El Al staff have been operating at Johannesburg airport, gathering information on non-Jewish passengers visiting Israel.
El Al has threatened to close the route after South African officials stopped providing the airport guards with diplomatic immunity.
South African TV reported last month that two of the Mossad assassins suspected of killing a Hamas commander in Dubai in January may have used Johannesburg airport to fly back to Israel.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.
PA: Sick prisoner in solitary dies in Israeli custody
Ma’an – April 17, 2010
Holding a photo of her imprisoned son, a Gaza City woman protests for the right to family visits outside of the Red Cross building on 12 April 2010. Prisoners in 13 Israeli facilities began a boycott of family visits, protesting what they called unequal treatment for prisoners, as the visits were used to punish inmates and harass family members, detainees said. [MaanImages/Wissam Nasser]
Bethlehem – Palestinian Minster of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe identified a Palestinian prisoner in Israel, announced dead Friday afternoon, as 26 year old Raed Muhammad Ahmad Hammad.
The death comes on the Day of the Palestinian Prisoner, marked by dozens of rallies across the West Bank and Gaza, commemorating the lives of more than 10,000 Palestinians currently held in Israel, and the hundreds of thousands of others who have spent years of their lives incarcerated by Israeli military courts.
Former prisoner Abed An-Naser Farawneh said Hamad’s death came as a result of “intentional medical negligence,” and noted that Hammad was the 198th Palestinian to die in Israeli custody since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
According to a report from the Palestinian Authority, Hammad was moved into solitary confinement in Israel’s Eshel Prison, despite medical reports indicating the young man was not well.
An announcement by Israel’s prison authority said only that a 31 year old Palestinian died in a southern Israeli facility, and noted investigations into the reasons behind his death had been initiated.
Hammad was a member of the Hamas party, and was serving a prison term following his conviction in an Israeli military court on charges of attempting an attack on Israeli civilians.
Palestinian Women and Children Behind Zionist Bars
By Reham Alhelsi | A Voice From Palestine | April 17, 2010
On a beautiful March day, I was on the way to school in Jerusalem when the bus I was in was stopped at Ras Il-Amoud. The soldiers got into the bus, told everyone to get out and told the bus driver to turn and go back from where it came. Some passengers started arguing with the soldiers, explaining they had jobs or classes to go to, but the soldiers didn’t want to know about that and started shouting and beating those present with their clubs, including me. We were school children and were not a threat to armed soldiers, nevertheless a number of us were arrested for daring to tell the soldiers to stop beating us. We were handcuffed and loaded into military jeeps. On the way, we were forced to bend our heads down the whole trip and the only thing I could see were the boots of the soldiers.
When the jeep finally stopped, we were ordered by the soldiers to step down and as I looked around me I realized we were in a military camp. The soldiers told us then to stand in a certain place, turn our backs to them and kneel on the ground. We were still handcuffed. Opposite me I could see the mountains of Jerusalem and I realized we were in the Abu-Dees military camp which occupied one of the hills. We weren’t allowed to sit but half kneel which was very painful. And as we half-knelt there, near each other but not able to talk to each other, the soldiers started throwing small stones at us. They were laughing and talking in Hebrew while throwing the stones. I didn’t understand what they were talking about, but I figured they were betting who would hit which one of us and where. I don’t remember how long this “game” lasted, but I remember how painful the kneeling was, how painful the stones were when they hit my head and how I wondered what would happen to us, what they would do to us here alone in this military camp with no Palestinian around. Every now and then I would take a quick peek at the hills in front of us and I would think about my parents and what they were doing. We tried comforting each other silently by touching our feet. We didn’t talk for we weren’t allowed to do that, but whenever someone near me touched my foot with theirs, it was like telling me: don’t worry, we’ll get through this, and I would return the gesture.
After seemingly long hours, maybe in the afternoon, we were loaded back into the jeeps, ordered to lower our heads again and a new journey started. When this second journey ended, we were in one of the detention centres. The soldiers separated us from each other and I was taken to a small room where one female soldier searched me thoroughly several times. Then another male soldier came and took me to another room and told me to keep standing the whole time and if I sit I will be punished and that they will be watching me. While waiting I could hear shouting and a boy crying a room nearby. They were interrogating him and I knew my turn would be next. That day, I was a school pupil on my way to school, I got beaten by armed Israeli soldiers, was used as a “target” in their games and ended up in a detention centre. I was a child, a little girl, and was surrounded and beaten by no less that 5 or 6 fully armed soldiers to be then detained for “attacking the soldiers”. It didn’t matter that I was a child, it didn’t matter that I was a girl, to the Israeli soldiers I am a Palestinian, thus beating me and detaining me for no reason is allowed.
Photo – Multaqa.org
This is not an isolated case. Palestinian women and children are detained on almost a daily basis, and are physically and physiologically abused. They are beaten, humiliated and tortured during arrest, interrogation and detention. Their families are also harassed and sometimes other family members are arrested as well to extract a confession from the detainee. Palestinian children are interrogated by Israeli soldiers without the presence of a lawyer or a family member and later stand trial like adults. Families are often not allowed to see their children before or after trial.
Since 1967, Israel detained over 700,000 Palestinians including tens of thousands of children. Since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada in 09.2000, more than 8000 Palestinian children have been detained, of whom 337 are still in Israeli detention. According to “Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS)”, around 700 Palestinian children are detained yearly in Israeli jails. Of the over 8500 Palestinians currently detained in Israeli jails, at least 400 were children at the time of their arrest. Palestinian children are arrested from their homes, from schools, while playing in the streets or at checkpoints. They are blindfolded, shackled and taken into detention centers where they are separated from others. They are beaten, threatened and abused by the soldiers and interrogators, are not allowed to see a lawyer or a family member and are forced into singing papers in Hebrew which they don’t know. These children are prosecuted as adults in two military courts and by military officers who act both the prosecutor and the judge. Many of the children detained are subjected to administrative detention which means detention without charges or any trial. […]
One recent incident is that of Mohammad Al-Qunbar, a 14 year old from Jerusalem. On 15.03.2010 Mohammad was first hit by a police car, then beaten by the occupation police and detained despite his injury. The Israeli occupation police first claimed that Mohammad was hit by an “Arab” car, but pictures taken during the incident proved otherwise. Later, the boy testified he was threatened by investigators in the Maskubiyyeh with prison in case he revealed that he was hit by a police car. Mohammad said that an Israeli car came towards him and his friend, hit him the first time, turned and hit him a second time. Then those inside the car came out, arrested him and started beating him in the car while he was crying.
Children are also arrested during midnight raids. In recent years, mass arrests of Palestinian children have been reported. On 10.02.2010, and during a nightly military raid on Al-Jalazoun refugee camp in Ramallah, 19 children were detained from their homes. These were beaten and harassed and the families report that the IOF used excessive force during the arrests. The children were then taken to a detention centre and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or any family member. According to the “Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS)” five of them were aged 14, seven were aged 15, four were aged 16 and three were aged 17. At least seven of them (aged 15 or less) were transferred to jails inside Israel which is, in addition to the illegality of detaining children, another violation of international law. During another similar midnight raid, this time in Silwan in Jerusalem, several Palestinian children aged 12 to 15 were detained. These were taken from their beds, handcuffed and transported to interrogation cells in the Maskubiyyeh and their parents were not allowed to accompany them. The children later testified that they were threatened and beaten during the interrogation. Similar midnight raids with mass arrests of children occurred in Tura Al-Gharbiyyeh on 19.01.2009, Azzun on 14.07.2009 and in Haris on 26.03.2009 where over 90 children were detained, beaten and threatened.
According to the Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS): [1]
90 Day: the period of time a Palestinian detainee, including a child, can be denied access to a lawyer and held in incommunicado detention (Military Order 378)
20 Years: the maximum sentence that can be imposed on a Palestinian, including a child, for throwing stones (Military Order 378)
188 Day: the length of time a Palestinian detainee, including a child, can be held in detention without charge (Military Order 378)
2 Years: the period of time a Palestinian detainee, including a child, can be held between indictment and trial.
Since 1967 more than 12,000 Palestinian women were detained by the Zionist entity. During the First Intifada 3000 women were detained and during Al-Aqsa Intifada more than 900 women were locked up behind Israeli bars. Currently, there are 35 Palestinian women detainees in the Israeli prisons Damon and HaSharon: among them 3 administrative detainees, 8 await trial, 23 sentenced of whom 5 are serving life sentences. Palestinian female detainees, like their brothers in detention, suffer from the brutality of the Israeli Prison Authority. They are punished for the slightest thing with isolation, are beaten, harassed, tied up for hours under hot sun or under rain, deprived of sleep, their rooms raided at night, continuously denied family visits and calls back home and letters are sent and brought only once every 3 months. Water is very dirty and food is inedible, thus the detainees are forced to buy their food and water from the prison canteen for very high prices. Some political prisoners are also locked up with Israeli criminals who abuse them. Their cells are over-crowded, damp, lack hygiene and are infested with insects.
The detainees are also denied appropriate and much needed medical treatment and most medications are expired; 13 detainees are in need of medical treatment. Amal Faiz Jum’a from Askar refugee camp suffers from womb cancer while Raja’ Al-Ghoul from Jenin refugee camp suffers from heart and blood pressure diseases and both don’t get the need treatment. Female detainees are only allowed to see a general doctor and no specialists, and some were forced to give birth while hand and leg cuffed such as Mirvat Taha and Manal Ghanim. Currently, there are at least 6 Palestinian mothers in detention. Others have their husbands or their brothers in Israeli detention as well, but are not allowed to visit them. Abir Odeh for example has 3 brothers in Israeli detention and Fatin Al-Shafi’ Al-Sa’di has a brother in jail.
Sources:
http://www.palestinebehindbars.org
http://www.waed.ps
http://www.dci-pal.org/
Footnotes
[1] http://www.dci-pal.org/english/camp/freedomnow/display.cfm?DocId=803&CategoryId=16
© http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com
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From the Archives
How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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