The PLO’s Committee for Prisoners and Freed Prisoners revealed on Monday that the Israeli authorities pay stipends to Jewish settlers indicted of crimes against Palestinians, Quds Press has reported. Israel has complained frequently about payments to the families of Palestinian prisoners by the Palestinian Authority, claiming that they “encourage terrorism”.
As an example of the Israeli payments, the rights group mentioned the case of Israeli settler Yoram Skolnik, who shot dead Musa Abu Sabha while he was lying with his face on the ground and his hands tied behind his back in March 1993. The killing took place near the illegal settlement of Susia in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, and the killer has been receiving a monthly salary in addition to his national insurance payments.
Furthermore, Skolnik also received financial assistance from the government to start a business after he was released from prison, the Committee pointed out. It noted that the Israeli authorities reduced his sentence from life to just eight years.
Israel’s official and popular support for criminals and appeals for their release from prison are part of the “rising racism, fascism and encouragement of extremism against the Palestinians,” the Committee claimed. Ninety-nine per cent of Israeli Jews who were imprisoned after killing Palestinians were released and received legal and social support, as well as full protection by successive Israeli governments, it added.
According to the Head of the Committee, Issa Qaraqe, the international community must take steps against Israeli laws which clearly target human rights and the rights of the Palestinians.
February 20, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Gaza is the largest open air prison in the world, with 2 million people, mostly children. Now it is lacking potable water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity per day. There is severe widespread physical and psychological trauma and illnesses from numerous Israeli bomb attacks and ground invasions. These have killed thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless, with widespread infrastructure destroyed. Gaza is suffocating. The UN has predicted that Gaza will become uninhabitable within the next 2 years.
Background
In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip. The people of Gaza have suffered under a maritime siege ever since. This blockade is inhumane and illegal. It amounts to collective persecution.
Unlike any other seafaring people in the world, Gaza’s Palestinians have been unable to use their ports to conduct any international commerce for over 50 years — since the 1967 Six Day War. Ships from the Gaza Strip are prevented from leaving Gaza territorial waters, and international cargo is prevented from sailing directly into Gaza. Israel illegally blocks food, medicine, fuel, repair equipment, and other materials to and from Gaza. All goods intended for Gaza must go through Israeli ports, and Israel completely controls what is allowed in and out of Gaza. For the last 11 years, this siege has become extremely severe.
Despite international standards of 20 nautical miles, Gaza fishing vessels are limited to 3-6 nautical miles, depending on the whims of the occupier. Fishers often suffer violent attacks by Israeli warships. They have been injured and killed, and many Gazan fishing vessels have been confiscated, damaged and destroyed.
An international civil society group, the Free Gaza Movement, breached this maritime siege by successfully sailing into Gaza five times in 2008. Ever since, attempts to sail additional boats into Gaza by the Free Gaza Movement, and subsequently the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have been stopped by violent Israeli piracy in international waters. Activists have been injured and killed, thrown into Israeli prisons, and deported. Boats and ships have been hijacked and confiscated by Israel. In 2014, “Gaza’s Ark,” an international initiative to build a cargo ship in Gaza to sail Gaza merchandise to international markets was crushed when Israeli warplanes completely destroyed the reconstructed ship in Gaza Harbor just before the boat’s renovation was complete. To date, the international community has been unwilling to take any substantial action that could give Gaza the right to maritime commerce like all other countries in the world.
For decades, the U.S. has consistently blocked resolutions at the UN that are critical of Israel. Since the UN Security Council is hopelessly deadlocked with inevitable U.S. vetoes, and since acts of Israeli piracy toward international vessels attempting to reach Gaza occur without consequence, it is time to take the next logical step: A UN General Assembly Intervention Plan (GAIP) toward ending the maritime siege of Gaza.
A Solution
Several groups are now proposing General Assembly action under the “Uniting For Peace Doctrine” to permanently and nonviolently end the Israeli maritime blockade against Gaza. U.S. vetoes have prevented the Security Council from solving the decades-long Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. The international community cannot continue to simply stand by and allow the suffering of the Palestinians to continue, especially in Gaza, where the abuse is so clear and so preventable. The General Assembly can implement this General Assembly Intervention Plan, a flotilla of state-sponsored cargo ships to carry humanitarian supplies to Gaza free of any Israeli interference. The G.A. can also require that the Israeli blockade end under threat of serious sanctions.
The blockade is a clear “breach of the peace.” The Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza is seen by most international experts as illegal. Ironically and to the point, Israel itself identified the creation of a maritime blockade by Egypt in 1967 as being illegal and a casus belli (an act of war). The United States backed that Israeli position in 1967 asserting that uninvolved nations could break an illegal blockade between A and B, and the U.S. President, Lyndon Johnson, proposed such a flotilla of military ships to break what he understood to be an illegal Egyptian maritime blockade of an important Israeli port.
The Uniting for Peace Doctrine states:
“Conscious that (the) failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities where there appears to be a … breach of the peace … does not relieve Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibility under the Charter to maintain international peace and security, … (The General Assembly states that) in any cases where the Security Council … fails to act as required to maintain international peace …, the General Assembly …. shall … (step in and make) appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures (of any kind) … to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
This General Assembly action would not be vulnerable to any Security Council veto, because it will not need American approval. This blockade is an issue that can be completely solved by the General Assembly without force or violence. Furthermore, such action would stipulate that the Israeli maritime blockade ends under threat of serious sanctions. It is time to take concrete substantial support for the Palestinians, in particular, for the people of Gaza.
Moving Forward
A group of activists from the U.S. and Sweden went to the United Nations for a week this past November, coinciding with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Our intention was to bring attention to this General Assembly Intervention Plan for Gaza, gain support, and generate discussion among a number of missions.
While at the UN, along with our allied organizations, we had meetings with officials from the Palestine Mission to the UN and 12 other nations.
Riyad Mansour, the Ambassador for the Palestine Mission to the UN, met with us and gave his blessings. Although he was not able to fully endorse this initiative based on a first meeting, he assured us that he would not oppose it. We also paid visits to several other UN Missions and distributed the 11-page General Assembly Intervention Plan for Breaking the Maritime Blockade of Gaza.
We also were able to make contact with Ambassador Fode Seck of Senegal, who chairs the CEIRPP, Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. On Wednesday, November 29, 2017, we attended the UN sessions of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. At the evening reception, we had informal discussions with other mission representatives and members of civil society supporting Palestinian rights.
In summary, the General Assembly Intervention plan is the next logical step, following the giant footsteps of the Free Gaza Movement and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Its goal is to permanently end the 50 year old maritime siege of Gaza. The GAIP is gaining a growing list of endorsers, which include, but are not limited to:
Richard Falk, Rima Khalaf, Hans von Sponeck, Denis Halliday, Miko Peled, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ramzy Baroud, Rashid Khalidi, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, BDS South Africa and the Rachel Corrie Foundation.
– If you would like to see the full General Assembly Intervention Plan and/or endorse our initiative and/or help move this process forward, please contact us at BreakMaritimeBlockade@gmail.com
February 16, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United Nations, Zionism |
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For the last six decades, Pakistan’s Pashtuns have been oppressed by the establishment. Marking opponents with the black stamp of treason has been the establishment’s most effective tool for silencing the ethnic group’s leaders when they dare to criticize state policy-makers.
The promotion of Pashtun cultural stereotypes – the portrayal of the Pashtuns as a violent and extremist ethnic group – has led to them being internally exiled as the war against militancy is waged in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous tribal region in the country’s northwest). Young Pashtuns are targeted by the security forces and many have been killed extrajuducially, which has had a radicalizing effect.
Since 2001, the indigenous Pashtuns living in the FATA, a safe haven for Afghan mujahedeen, have been enduring the dreadful consequences of the so-called war against terror. Grievances have been fuelled by ethnic predjudice and unjust treatment at the hands of law enforcement agencies.
On January 12, the extrajudicial killing of 27-year-old shopkeeper Naqeeb Mehsood by Karachi counterterrorism police sparked outrage in the Pashtun community. The Sindh provincial government and police allegedly tried to cover up the incident, but Pashtun youths took to social media to raise awareness of the more than 443 young Pashtuns that they say have been killed extrajudicially in Karachi.
The ongoing policy of using extrajudicial killings to counter militancy highlights the violent nature of Karachi’s police. To end the extrajudicial killings and bring about change in the FATA, thousands of Pashtuns led by Manzoor Pashteen marched 400km from Dera Ismail Khan District in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to Islamabad, the capital, earlier this month to tell the government that enough is enough.
They staged a sit-in until January 10 in front of the National Press Club in a peaceful manner, challenging the notion that they are unruly and violent. However, Pakistan’s media ignored the protest, providing no coverage. Only the international media covered the sit-in and publicized the protesters’ five key demands. Their list of demands is as follows:
The return of missing Pashtuns
Since the war against militants in the FATA and other Pashtun areas, tens of hundreds of Pashtuns have been arrested by law enforcement agencies. The protesters demand that they be released or be given an open trial.
The mysterious disappearance of young Pashtuns is an unacceptable violation of international law. Pakistan is a country that has a constitution, courts, and set penalties for those who commit crimes. The arrest and torture of young people on mere suspicion is wrong and undermines and discredits the justice system.
An end to discrimination against Pashtuns
Whether one accepts it or not, ethnic discrimination is on the rise in Pakistan, where being Pashtun means being viewed with suspicion. Pashtun cultural stereotyping; the arbitrary imposition of curfews, the disrespectful behavior of army personnel when interacting with youths, women and tribal elders; unnecessary check posts; security checks targeting indigenous Pashtuns in their home area; and surprise raids on homes are among the grievances forming the basis for the second demand. The government of Pakistan has never taken this issue of cultural discrimination into account and this must change if ethnic harmony is ever going to become a reality.
Clearing landmines
There are deadly landmines all over the FATA. In 2017 alone, more than 73 children became landmine victims, and the number of disabled people in the region is increasing at an alarming rate. Providing a safe environment for citizens is the most important duty of the state, and it must do much more to address the problem, say the protesters.
A judicial commission on extrajudicial killings
Since the 1951 assassination of the statesman Liaqat Ali Khan and the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, judicial commissions have been demanded to investigate the killings of key figures in Pakistan, but nothing has been done yet.
The passiveness of judicial commissions has resulted in culprits escaping justice. A judicial commission under the supervision of the chief justice to investigate extrajudicial killings of Pashtuns is another demand of the protestors. Extrajudicial killing is an open and direct challenge to rule of law. The failure of rule of law amounts to the failure of the state.
Police officer must be brought to justice
The final and most popular demand of the Pashtun long march participants is the immediate arrest and execution of Rao Anwar, a former ssenior superintendent in the Karachi police’s counterterrorism department. The fugitive rogue policeman has the backing of former president Asif Ali Zardri (co-chairman Pakistan People’s Party). Despite having a salary of just 70,000 rupees (US$635) per month, Rao is believed to have assets, including property and luxury vehicles, worth 4.5 billion rupees.
Since 2011, Rao has allegedly extraudicially killed more than 443 innocent young Pashtuns and Urdu speakers in Karachi alone. The fact that he remains at large is unacceptable. Everyone should be equal before the law. Flouting the rule of law and backing killers will lead to anarchy and ultimately a failed state.
February 12, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Pakistan |
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The Israeli occupation authorities arrested a 14 year-old epileptic Palestinian girl for begging. As punishment they dumped her in the Gaza Strip where she knew no-one and was cut off from her parents.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports how the girl was arrested as an “illegal alien” in East Jerusalem (Palestinian territory as everyone knows), her cellular telephone confiscated and a lawyer from the Public Defender’s Office appointed to represent her. She was released on bail and taken to the Gaza Strip because it was listed in Israeli records as her father’s place of residence. She told officials at Erez checkpoint on the Gaza border that she didn’t live in Gaza but in the West Bank.
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered her release on bail after her uncle paid 1,500 shekels. The authorities checked with records and found she was registered as a Gaza resident although her mother is registered as a West Bank resident. Her father, on the other hand, is registered as a Gaza resident and is classified as an illegal alien in the West Bank because he didn’t receive an exit permit from the Strip, which he left in 2000. This administrative muddle, which is deliberate and widespread, hardly makes for happy family life in the illegally occupied territories.
Representatives of HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, who assisted the girl’s family, said she had never been to Gaza. Nonetheless Civil Administration officers instructed the Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to pack the girl off to Gaza despite her protests. Only after being deposited in Gaza did she get her phone back.
A HaMoked lawyer said: “With obtuseness that cannot be justified, nobody bothered to tell the minor where she was or made sure the family knew of her release, as is required in view of her age.”
The Guardian reports that, according to HaMoked, twenty-seven Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were forcibly sent to Gaza last year…. condemned to be shredded, incinerated or at least deeply traumatised the next time Israel ‘war-tests’ its weaponry on this tight packed open-air prison where the inhabitants have nowhere to run. It was the first time they had heard of someone as young as 14 being sent there.
Despicable
There’s nothing new about the Israelis’ urge to hurt the most vulnerable. If there’s one thing they are good at its making war on women and children. The self-styled “most moral army in the world” especially loves targeting Palestinian university students. Back in 2009 I wrote about Merna, an honours student in her final year majoring in English. Israeli soldiers frequently rampaged through her Bethlehem refugee camp in the middle of the night, ransacking homes and arbitrarily arresting residents. They took away her family one by one. First her 14-year-old cousin and best friend was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while she sat outside her family home during a curfew.
Next the Israelis arrested her eldest brother, a 22-year-old artist, and imprisoned him for 4 years. Then they came back for Merna’s 18-year-old brother. Not content with that the military came again, this time to take her youngest brother – the ‘baby’ of the family – just 16. These were the circumstances under which Merna had to study.
Israeli military law treats Palestinians as adults as soon as they reach 16, a flagrant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Israeli youngsters by comparison are regarded as children until 18. Palestinians are dealt with by Israeli military courts, even when it’s a civil matter. These courts ignore international laws and conventions, so there’s no legal protection for individuals under Israeli military occupation.
As detention is based on secret information, which neither the detainees nor their lawyers are allowed to see, it is impossible to mount a proper defence. Besides, the Security Service always finds a phony excuse to keep detainees locked up “in the greater interest of the security of Israel”. Although detainees have the right to review and appeal, they are unable to challenge the evidence and check facts as all information presented to the court is classified.
Despite the horrendous mental stress of it all, Merna determined to carry on with her studies. The most moral army in the world may have robbed her brothers of an education, but she would still fight for hers.
Cruel beyond belief
Dumping students in Gaza to disrupt their studies is nothing new either. Five years earlier the Israelis forcibly removed four Birzeit University students from their studies in the West Bank and illegally sent them back to the Gaza Strip. All four were due to graduate by the end of that academic year. There was an outcry from around the world and the Israeli Army Legal Advisor was bombarded with faxes and letters demanding the students be allowed to return to their studies.
The world’s most moral army agreed that the students might be allowed to return to Birzeit if they signed a guarantee to permanently return to the Gaza Strip after completing their studies. This effectively exposed Israel’s plan to impose a final separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, even though the two are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory, but Israel doesn’t give a damn about international law. The racist regime makes it virtually impossible for Gaza students to reach the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank. In 1999 some 350 Gaza students were studying at Birzeit. By 2009 there were almost none.
To get to Bethlehem University, or any other, many students have to run the gauntlet of Israeli checkpoints. “Sometimes they take our ID cards and they spend ages writing down all the details, just to make us late,” said one. Students are often made to remove shoes, belt and bags. “It’s like an airport. Many times we are kept waiting outside for up to an hour, rain or shine, they don’t care.” The soldiers attempt to forcibly remove students’ clothes or they swear and shout sexual slurs at female students.
Some tell how they are sexually harassed on their way to university and spend the rest of the day worrying what the Israelis will do to them on their way home. This constant humiliation of course undermines student motivation and concentration.
It was no surprise, then, to hear from Bethlehem University at around that time (2009) that Berlanty Azzam, a 4th year Business Administration student was being held by the Israeli military authorities with the intention of deporting her to Gaza “for trying to complete her studies at Bethlehem University.”
Berlanty, a Christian girl, was originally from Gaza but had lived in the West Bank since 2005 after receiving a travel permit from the military to cross from Gaza to the West Bank. She was detained at the Container checkpoint between Bethlehem and Ramallah after attending a job interview in Ramallah. She too was robbed of her degree at the last minute.
The 21 year-old was due to graduate before Christmas. The most moral army in the world blindfolded and handcuffed her, loaded her into a jeep and drove her from Bethlehem to Gaza, despite assurances by the Israeli Military Legal Advisor’s office that she would not be deported before an attorney from Gisha (an Israeli NGO working to protect Palestinians’ freedom of movement) had the opportunity to petition the Israeli court for her return to classes in Bethlehem.
When they’d crossed the border the world’s most moral army dumped Berlanty late at night and simply told her: “You are in Gaza.”
Berlanty had informed Gisha on her mobile phone before the soldiers confiscated it: “Since 2005, I refrained from visiting my family in Gaza for fear that I would not be permitted to return to my studies in the West Bank,” Now, just two months before graduation, she was arrested and taken to Gaza, with no way to finish her degree.
Bethlehem University was trying to mobilize people from around the world to protest. I contacted the Palestinian ambassador in London, who happens to be a former vice-president of that excellent seat of learning. “Have you contacted the Israeli ambassador for an explanation of this outrage?” I emailed him.
Next day, having heard nothing, I emailed again: “Update… She has been removed to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed! What is the Embassy doing about this please?” Another 24 hours went by and no response. It wasn’t unusual for the Palestinian embassy to be fast asleep or out to lunch for days on end and no-one covering.
I had simultaneously emailed the Israeli ambassador asking him, please, to make enquiries. “On the face of it, this seems a senseless outrage. The student concerned has, I believe, just started her final year. I wonder what Mr Prosor or Mr Netanyahu would say if the education of their sons and daughters or grandchildren was disrupted in this manner.” Next day, having heard nothing, I sent the same update about Berlanty’s removal to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed. Another 24 hours… still nothing, not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Israel’s press office, which usually responds like lightning to anything with news value.
If this had been a Jewish girl deprived of her university degree and life chances the Israeli embassy would be having hysterics and hurling accusations of religious hatred and anti-semitism. But this was the Jewish state screwing up the young life of a Christian, so that was alright then.
Administrative ‘laws’ designed to foul up every aspect of Palestinian life
Eventually, the Israeli embassy explained that Ms Azzam held a permit to stay in the West Bank back in 2005 and since the permit had expired she’d been living there illegally. “Every Gaza resident who stays in the West Bank requires a permit, failing to do so is a breach of the law. As Ms Azzam has failed to provide a valid permit she was deported back to Gaza.”
The embassy added that if Ms Azzam wished to complete her studies at Bethlehem she should apply for a permit to the relevant authorities (COGAT) in Gaza. But Bethlehem University’s senior management weren’t impressed. According to them 12 students from Gaza had applied to COGAT to attend the University in the previous year and NOT ONE received permission. Did they all pose a security threat to the democratic state of Israel? The Israeli reply simply raised more questions.
To give them their due, the Israelis eventually provided a detailed explanation attempting to unravel the complexities of the ever-changing permit rules and admitting procedural mistakes, but insisted these were not sufficient to justify a different decision.
It was a classic example of how Israel’s administrative ‘laws’ are framed to interfere to the nth degree in Palestinian lives and ride rough-shod over citizens’ rights enshrined in international law, and to disregard its own obligations entirely.
For example, there was no recognition in the Israeli court’s decision that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are one integral territory and under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within it. Nor was there the slightest acknowledgement by Israel’s judiciary of the state’s responsibility under the Oslo Agreements to “respect and preserve without obstacles, normal and smooth movement of people, vehicles and goods within the West Bank, and between the West Bank and Gaza Strip”.
While Israel announced its ruling on Berlanty’s fate, its ambassador here was whining about the arrest warrant issued in London against ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes. Livni had overseen Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in December/January 2008-9, which killed 1400, including a large number of women and children, maimed thousands more and left countless families homeless. Israeli top brass, including Ehud Barak, Livni and retired general Doron Almog, had to cancel engagements in London for fear of being arrested.
Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s office issued this arrogant statement: “We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and [opposition leader and former foreign minister] Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the bench. We utterly reject the absurdity that is happening in Britain.”
What’s absurd? If Berlanty, who had committed no crime at all, wasn’t allowed to come and go as she pleased in her own country, Palestine, what made Netanyahu and Israel’s ambassador think that the blood-soaked Livni, and others like her, could come and go as they please in the UK?
The following year the incoming Conservative government, said to comprise 80% pimps for Israel, changed UK laws relating to ‘universal jurisdiction’ to prevent such arrest warrants being issued in future. Under universal jurisdiction all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are under a binding obligation to seek out those suspected of having committed grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them, regardless of nationality, to justice. There should be no hiding place for those suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
But the British government, to its everlasting shame, has turned the UK into a safe haven for Israeli psychopaths. As a result, we have to endure obscene spectacles like the red carpet love-in between Theresa May and Netanyahu at the Balfour centenary celebrations in London before Christmas.
February 11, 2018
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Palestine |
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IMEMC | February 3, 2018
Ahmad Samir Abu ‘Obeid, 19, was killed by Israeli soldiers with a live round in the head, during a massive military invasion into Burqin town, west of Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers shot Ahmad with a live round in his head, causing a very serious injury, before medics rushed him to Jenin Governmental Hospital, where he died from his wounds.
The Ministry added that the soldiers also shot two other young Palestinian men with live rounds in their legs, and six with rubber-coated steel bullets, in addition to causing dozens to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation, after the army attacked locals, who protested the invasion.
The army also arrested four young Palestinian men, and demolished a room and a barn, in addition to causing damage to several structures and cars, before withdrawing from the town.
The invasion was carried out by twenty-two armored military vehicles, and two bulldozers, before the soldiers broke into and searched many homes, and used K9 units in searching the properties, causing anxiety attacks among many Palestinians, especially children.
After the army withdrew from the town, hundreds of Palestinians marched in Ahmad’s funeral procession, while chanting against the ongoing Israeli military occupation.
The Israeli invasion into several areas in the Jenin Governorate started when the soldiers invaded Kafeer village, south of the Jenin city, after surrounding it and declaring it a closed military zone.
The soldiers conducted extensive military searches of homes and detained two siblings, identified as Thieb Walid Ershaid, 43, and his brother Qa’qaa, 42, after surrounding their homes.
The shooting death of Abu Obeid came during the invasion of Wadi Burqin by the Israeli military early Saturday morning to besiege the home where the army believed that the wanted man Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, was hiding.
Ahmad Nasr Jarrar was wanted by the Israeli military for allegedly killing an Israeli settler on January 8th.
Following that killing, the Israeli military invaded many nearby villages and conducted house-to-house searches.
On January 18th, the Israeli army besieged a home where they mistook Ahmad Ismail Jarrar for his cousin, and killed him. Ahmad was from Burin, west of Jenin.
February 4, 2018
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Israeli soldiers invaded al-Kafeer town, southeast of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, on Saturday at dawn and surrounded a home where a Palestinian who is believed behind death of an Israeli colonialist settler last month was alleged to be hiding.
Media sources in Jenin said a large military force, including 22 military vehicles and 2 armored bulldozers, invaded the town and surround the home of Walid Ershaid, and started using loud speakers demanding that Ahmad Jarrar surrender. The Israeli military said they thought Jarrar was hiding out in the house.
It should be noted that on January 18th, Israeli soldiers executed the cousin of Ahmad Jarrar after mistaking him for Ahmad.
The sources added that the soldiers imposed a strict siege on the entire area, and completely blockaded the main Tubas-Jenin road.
Sounds of explosions could be heard in and around the surrounded home, and its vicinity.
Media sources in Jenin said the troops eventually withdrew without finding Jarrar.
Furthermore, the soldiers invaded Burqin and ‘Aqaba town, near Jenin, after isolating them, and abducted Ibrahim Obeidi, Nader Masad, Mubarak Jarrar and Mostafa Antar Jarrar.
The soldiers invaded and ransacked dozens of homes in Burqin at around 4:00 in the morning, and used K9 units during the search, while interrogating scores of residents.
February 3, 2018
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank |
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Israel’s construction of its politics on contrasting levels which echo its colonial agenda knows no limits. Now that the international community is largely reluctant to do more than refer to previous statements of colonial expansion as illegal, Israel is more explicit in promoting its state and settler narratives in its appropriation of land ownership.
A news report published on Monday in Haaretz quotes Jewish Home Party MK Moti Yogev: “Our goal is to protect state lands, consistent with decisions by the state not letting their status be determined by construction terror guided by the Palestinian Authority with the intervention of international elements such as the European Union.” He also suggested legal recourse against Palestinians opposing demolition orders.
This is not the first time that such rhetoric has been used. In April 2016 a press release titled “Re-evaluate state’s handling of EU-funded construction in Area C” described Palestinian dwellings in similar terms, accusing the EU of financing “construction and infrastructure terror”.
There is much to be gleaned from Yogev’s comment. First, Israel has achieved a level of comfort in appropriating land and narratives – so much so that it confidently projects its own “construction terror” label upon the indigenous, colonised population. The statement also alleges a comprehensive approach by the Palestinian Authority which is endorsed by the EU, despite the fact that both entities do not exhibit humanitarian concern other than perfunctory requirement. By attempting to discuss the EU-funded dwellings from a legal perspective, Israel is also asserting its violation of Palestinian rights above international law.
Yogev has omitted the strategy which allowed for such a travesty to take place – namely the international consensus, departing from Israel’s narrative, that Palestinians should only be granted a sliver of prominence if it serves colonial interests. The EU-funded dwellings are a case in point. Israel’s persistent demolition of such dwellings has incurred financial losses for the EU, yet it is also the means through which it can sustain its peace-building façade without substantive damage given that its cooperation with Israel remains lucrative.
One of the EU-funded buildings in Area C which is threatened with demolition and ostensibly an example of Yogev’s “construction terror” is a primary school attended by 33 students from the Bedouin community of Al-Muntar. If the demolition order is carried out, these students’ education will be permanently disrupted due to the lack of educational facilities in the vicinity.
Under the pretext of terror – a blatant lie on behalf of Israel – Yogev is preparing the foundations for another phase in the colonial expansion agenda. It is easy to see that the only perpetrators of “construction terror” are Israel and its settler population. The recent funding deficit to UNRWA has created a favourable context for Israel to normalise deprivation and forced displacement of Palestinians.
While Israel benefits from studying sequences and exploiting opportunity, the international community has made a mockery of humanitarian concerns by wilfully neglecting the real needs of the Palestinian population. This has been achieved to the extent that Israel can coin a term such as “construction terror” and rest assured that its absurdity will not be disputed. Neither will there be any permanent embarrassment regarding the fact that the international community could have applied such a label to Israel since 1948. The outcome, however, is predictable. Israel will distinguish between settlement expansion and the purported construction terror and lobby the international community for support in this endeavour. Not to gain explicit recognition of its duplicity, but to gain an extension of silence over the aim of creating more internally displaced Palestinians at a rate which increases the discrepancy between needs and the finance allocated to alleviate symptoms generated by deprivation.
January 30, 2018
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Haitham Siyaj
Israeli repression targeting Palestinian youth activists has continued to rise. On Friday, 26 January, occupation forces seize Haitham Siyaj, only a month after he was released from nearly two years’ imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention. Siyaj is one of the comrades of Basil al-Araj who was seized by occupation forces shortly after being released from months in Palestinian Authority prison.
There, his administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial – was renewed repeatedly. Siyaj was once again seized at a flying checkpoint erected by occupation forces in the Jaba area.

Tareq Mattar
At the same time, Palestinian youth activist Tareq Mattar’s administrative detention was also extended for another six months. Mattar, 28, is a Palestinian youth leader who is active in a variety of projects, initiatives and forums to organize Palestinian youth and promote study and discussion of the Palestinian cause. He was previously jailed for his Palestinian political activities. He has been jailed without charge or trial since August 2017.

Samer Abu Aisha
Meanwhile, Palestinian journalist Samer Abu Aisha, 30, from Jerusalem, was summoned for interrogation by occupation police on 24 January; he was released from Israeli prison six months ago after 20 months in prison. He was seized by occupation forces in January 2016 after they stormed the headquarters of the ICRC in Sheikh Jarrah where he and a fellow Jerusalemite activist, Hijazi Abu Sbeih, were staying in defiance of an order to expel them from their city for six months. He was jailed for 20 months on charges of illegal protest, incitement and “disturbing public security.”
January 28, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Zionism |
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Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s health sector and denying those in need of humanitarian care from obtaining it constitute a crime against humanity

Some describe Gaza as either the world’s largest “concentration camp” or “open air prison”, while others liken it to the modern-day equivalent of the Warsaw ghetto.
Whatever appropriate analogy you apply to the enclave, that traps two million Palestinians on a slender piece of coastal land along the Egyptian-Israeli border, it’s impossible to overstate the level of human misery and suffering that is taking place there today.
A catastrophic situation
When I spoke with Dr Basem Naim, the former Palestinian minister for health and resident of Gaza, I referred him to a UN report that forewarned that Israel’s medieval-like blockade promises to make the territory “uninhabitable” by 2020.
“What do they [UN] mean? It’s uninhabitable here now,” Naim told me. “The situation today is catastrophic.”
Dr Naim explained how Israel’s intentional cutting of Gaza’s power supply, meant to exert pressure on Hamas but, instead, punishing ordinary Palestinians, is having dire affects on the health sector in Gaza.
“The typical Palestinian gets only three to five hours of electricity each day,” he said. “You can’t pump water to apartments that are above ground level. You can’t pump sewage, which is why more than 95 percent of Gaza’s drinking water is undrinkable.”
He explained that hospitals, which depend on 24-hour electricity, are unable to perform life-saving surgeries, and that some, including Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, have ceased doing operations altogether.
This is happening while newborn babies and the elderly freeze to death in the winter, and die from heat exhaustion in the summer. This is happening because Israel is allowing only 120 watts of power to be provided to Gaza, knowing that 400 watts are needed to meet the basic minimum survival needs of two million Palestinian people.
“The scarcity of energy and the severe shortage of fuel in Gaza have damaged all aspects of life in the Strip,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross in a statement issued last year.
Closed borders
But the biggest problem facing the imprisoned citizens of Gaza is the “closed borders”, according to Dr Naim. He explained:
“For example, the last time Rafah border crossing was opened, which was one week ago, came after more than 100 days of closure, and out of the 35,000 people waiting to leave Gaza through Rafah, only 2,000 were able to leave, and the others must wait again for another 100 days. When I talk about 35,000 people, I’m talking about urgent humanitarian cases; patients, and people who need to meet their families for urgent situations. It’s nearly impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to get urgent medical care in Israel, Egypt, or Jordan.
“If a Palestinian wants to leave Gaza for urgent medical care or treatment, he or she must wait 70 days to get [an] Israeli reply saying he or she is allowed or not. And after 70 days, and even if the request is approved, he or she must come to Erez crossing for an interrogation, and he or she might be arrested. I know many cases where the families of patients were blackmailed by Israeli security forces, like Shin Bet, under these very circumstances.”
It’s worth noting that it’s not only from Gaza that Palestinians are denied freedom of movement. Earlier this month, Omar Barghouti, who lives in Israel and is one of the founders of the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli occupation, was denied the right to visit his cancer-stricken mother in Jordan.
Israel’s refusal to allow a prominent Palestinian figure, who has a demonstrable lifetime track record of non-violent activism, undercuts Israeli claims that travel bans have little to do with security and everything to do with meting out collective and inhumane punishment to the Palestinian people, writ large.
A new report published by the human rights group Gisha – Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement shows that 2017 was the worst year for the movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza since Israel’s attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014, reducing the number of exit permits by 51 percent from 2016 to 2017.
The report shows that Israel allowed fewer than 6,000 monthly exits in 2017 compared with the more than 14,000 allowed the previous year.
The authors of the report also identified a list of policies that were carried out by Israeli authorities to prevent or restrict freedom of Palestinian movement through the Erez crossing.
These new restrictive measures were “introduced with little or no justification provided as to their purpose and, it appears, no consideration of the impact they would have on the lives of Gaza’s residents”.
Targeting the health sector
These measures include “significant extension of the processing times of permit applications, leaving thousands of permit applications pending with no response; a new directive prohibiting Palestinians from exiting Gaza with electronic devices, toiletries and food; freezing travel to the American Consulate; mandatory shuttle services to Allenby Bridge Crossing; “security blocks” blocking travel for medical patients, traders, and humanitarian workers; increase in the frequency and severity of “security interviews” at Erez; trader permits cancelled as new approvals declined; travel for Friday prayers in Jerusalem remaining blocked, and; recipients of permits for travel abroad increasingly made to sign a commitment not to return for a year.”
It’s not only inexcusable for Israel to impose any kind of restriction of movement, but to deliberately target Gaza’s health sector by cutting power to the Strip, and then to deny those in need of humanitarian care from obtaining it – constitutes a crime against humanity by any definition.
“The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives, and survival, and the overall conditions warrant the characterisation of a crime against humanity,” says Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from acute anaemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Children need thousands of hearing aids.
“Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people … Over 50 percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live,” wrote Falk in 2008.
When I referred to Falk’s findings from a decade ago, Dr Naim said things have become “much worse”, pointing to the fact that much of Gaza’s critical infrastructure was destroyed during Israel’s 2014 assault, noting that 20,000 tons of explosive ordinance was dropped on the Strip by Israeli jets and artillery, and that unemployment and poverty have skyrocketed since.
Breaking the Palestinians’ will
Israel’s restriction on Palestinian movement is also preventing Gaza from building a functioning civil society as human rights workers, social workers, health workers, educators, engineers, etc are denied opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills in other countries.
It also runs afoul of Israel’s “obligations to respect the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including their right to freedom of movement, which includes, with some limitations, a right to enter and leave one’s country and to choose one’s place of residence within it,” according to Human Rights Watch.
In fact, Palestinians in Gaza may visit their families in the occupied West Bank only if he or she can prove their relative is “dead, dying, or getting married“, which constitutes another violation of not only international law but also the Oslo Accords that stipulate the Palestinian territories – East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank – constitute one unified territorial entity. Israel has made movement between the territories all but impossible for Palestinians.
Given that nearly a third of Palestinians in Gaza have relatives in either the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Israel, one can see how needlessly cruel Israel’s brutal policies of occupation truly are.
Of course, Israel tries to justify its near total freeze of Palestinian movement in and out of Gaza with concerns for its security, but this has always been a rhetorical fig leaf for Israel’s sustained effort to break the will of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s intent has always been to strangle Palestinian political, social, and civil life in the hope that those it occupies will come to the realisation that resistance is futile.
– CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America (2013), Koran Curious (2011), and he is the host of Foreign Object. Follow him on twitter: @cjwerleman
READ MORE:
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January 27, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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The Council of Europe has called upon the Palestinian Authority to halt the payments it distributes to the families of Palestinian prisoners and those who have been killed by Israeli forces, the Jerusalem Post has reported. The Israeli narrative swayed the council during its parliamentary session, prompting it to make the demand for the first time as part of a broader call for a resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“After a persistent effort we succeeded for the first time to include in the final report [resolution] a clear call to stop support for terrorists [sic] and their families,” said Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie, who addressed the council in Strasbourg.
The rest of the session addressed the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and reiterated that a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital was the only solution to the conflict.
Israel and the US have long berated the PA for providing crucial subsidies to the families of those impacted by the occupation, framing the money as a reward for “terrorists”. In September, the Trump administration announced its backing for a bill that would suspend US aid to the PA until the latter ended payments to prisoners and their families.
“The Trump administration strongly supports the Taylor Force Act, which is a consequence of Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organisation’s policy of paying terrorists and their families,” the State Department said at the time.
Palestinian officials have said that the payments are support for relatives “who lost their breadwinners to the atrocities of the occupation, the vast majority of whom are unduly arrested or killed by Israel.”
In the aftermath of a resistance attack, the families of the alleged perpetrators often find their homes being demolished, their relatives arrested and their land taken. Amnesty International is one of many human rights groups that have repeatedly condemned such reprisals as a form of “collective punishment”. Consequently, many Palestinians find themselves reliant on the benefits from the PA in order to survive.
January 26, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Council of Europe, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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More than 10 years ago Israel tightened its grip on Gaza, enforcing a blockade on goods coming in and out of the tiny coastal enclave that left much of the two million-strong population there unemployed, impoverished and hopeless.
Since then, Israel has launched three separate major military assaults that have destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, killed many thousands and left tens of thousands more homeless and traumatised.
Gaza is effectively an open-air prison, an extremely overcrowded one, with only a few hours of electricity a day and its ground water polluted by seawater and sewage.
Last week Israeli military officials for the first time echoed what human rights groups and the United Nations have been saying for some time: that Gaza’s economy and infrastructure stand on the brink of collapse.
After a decade of this horrifying experiment in human endurance, the Israeli army finally appears to be concerned about whether Gaza can continue coping much longer.
In recent days it has begun handing out forms, with more than a dozen questions, to the small number of Palestinians allowed briefly out of Gaza – mainly business people trading with Israel, those needing emergency medical treatment and family members accompanying them.
One question asks bluntly whether they are happy, another whom they blame for their economic troubles. A statistician might wonder whether the answers can be trusted, given that the sample group is so heavily dependent on Israel’s good will for their physical and financial survival.
But the survey does at least suggest that Israel’s top brass may be open to new thinking, after decades of treating Palestinians only as target practice, lab rats or sheep to be herded into cities, freeing up land for Jewish settlers. Has the army finally understood that Palestinians are human beings too, with limits to the suffering they can soak up?
According to the local media, the army is in part responding to practical concerns. It is reportedly worried that, if epidemics break out, the diseases will quickly spread into Israel.
And if Gaza’s economy collapses too, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians could be banging on Israel’s door – or rather storming its hi-tech incarceration fence – to be allowed in. The army has no realistic contingency plans for either scenario.
Nonetheless, neither Israeli politicians nor Washington appear to be taking evasive action. In fact, things look set to get worse.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week there could be no improvements, no reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas agrees to give up its weapons – the only thing, in Hamas’s view, that serves as a deterrent against future Israeli attacks.
Figures show Israel’s policy towards Gaza has been actually growing harsher. In 2017, exit permits issued by Israel dwindled to a third of the number two years earlier – and a hundredfold fewer than in early 2000. A few hundred Palestinian business people receive visas, stifling any chance of economic revival.
The number of trucks bringing goods into Gaza has been cut in half – not because Israel is putting the inmates on a “diet”, as it once did, but because the enclave’s Palestinians lack “purchasing power”. That is, they are too poor to buy Israeli goods.
Mr Netanyahu has resolutely ignored a plan by his transport minister to build an artificial island off Gaza to accommodate a sea port under Israeli or international supervision. And no one is considering allowing the Palestinians to exploit Gaza’s natural gas fields, just off the coast.
In fact, the only thing holding Gaza together is the international aid it receives. And that is now in jeopardy too.
The Trump administration announced last week it is to slash by half the aid it sends to Palestinian refugees via the UN agency UNRWA. Mr Trump has proposed further cuts to punish Mahmoud Abbas, the increasingly exasperated Palestinian leader, for refusing to pretend any longer that the US is an honest broker capable of overseeing peace talks.
The White House’s difficulties will only be underscored on Sunday evening, when Mike Pence, the US vice-president, arrives in Israel as part of Mr Trump’s supposed push for peace.
Palestinians in Gaza will feel the loss of aid severely. A majority live in miserable refugee camps set up after their families were expelled in 1948 from homes in what is now Israel. They depend on the UN for food handouts, health and education.
Backed by the PLO’s legislative body, the central council, Mr Abbas has begun retaliating – at least rhetorically. He desperately needs to shore up the credibility of his diplomatic strategy in pursuit of a two-state solution after Mr Trump recently hived off Palestine’s future capital, Jerusalem, to Israel.
Mr Abbas threatened, if not very credibly, to end a security coordination with Israel he once termed “sacred” and declared as finished the Oslo accords that created the Palestinian Authority he now heads.
The lack of visible concern in Israel and Washington suggests neither believes he will make good on those threats.
But it is not Mr Abbas’s posturing that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump need worry about. They should be listening to Israel’s generals, who understand that there is no defence against the fallout from the catastrophe looming in Gaza.
January 22, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, UNRWA |
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