The administrative detention of two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was renewed on Sunday, 11 July; they are among nearly 750 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders. Both former prisoners who have spent years in Israeli prison, their detentions without charge or trial were extended by military order.
Shadi Jarrar, 37, was ordered to four additional months in administrative detention; a former prisoner released in 2014 who has spent 13 years in Israeli prisons, he was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at a military roadblock near Nablus on 19 March and ordered to four months administrative detention without charge or trial.
Mohammed Al-Tabeesh of Dura, near al-Khalil, was also ordered to four additional months of administrative detention, the third renewal of the detention order against him. He has been jailed since 11 November 2015, also arrested by Israeli occupation forces at a military roadblock in Nablus.
Atabah is a student of Information Technology at An-Najah University in Nablus; he has spent seven years in Israeli prisons over various arrests. He is the brother of Ayman al-Tabeesh, former administrative detainee and long-term hunger striker who has spent 11 years in Israeli prisons, and participated in a previous hunger strike alongside his brother.
Administrative detention orders are issued for one to six months at a time without charge or trial, based on secret evidence. They are indefinitely renewable. Currently, Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed is on hunger strike to demand his freedom from administrative detention. Kayed finished his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prisons on 13 June; instead of being released, he was ordered to administrative detention. Kayed, striking since 15 June, is being supported by hundreds of fellow prisoners, who fear that his case represents a new precedent of indefinite detention of Palestinians who complete their sentences in Israeli prison.
Indian officials have updated the death toll from the ongoing unrest in the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, saying that 16 people are now confirmed dead following the clashes between protesters and riot police over the killing of a popular rebel leader.
One protester was shot dead on Sunday after riot police fired on infuriated and stone-hurling demonstrators, who defied a curfew aimed at suppressing the public uproar in the southern area of Pulwama, and six others succumbed to their wounds overnight, AP quoted an unnamed security official as saying.
A police officer also lost his life in the southern area of Anantnag, where angry demonstrators pushed his armored vehicle into a river.
Indian authorities have for the second day extended the curfew to the whole Kashmir valley, including the major city of Srinagar.
The clashes came after residents of Kashmir held a funeral for separatist Burhan Wani, the young leader of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), who was killed on July 8 along with two other people during a brief gun battle with government forces.
During the past five years, Wani had become the iconic face of militancy in Kashmir, using social media to reach out to young people in the region.
Wani’s body was handed over to his family earlier on Saturday and the locals, who see the slain 22-year old as a hero, turned the mass funeral into a full-scale protest.
According to Indian police, anti-riot troops used live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas to disperse the crowds and calm down the outrage. Authorities have also suspended mobile networks and the internet to prevent massive demonstrations.
Reports say that at least 200 people, including 90 government forces, were injured during the clashes.
The death of Wani sparked street protests across Kashmir throughout the night Friday. In a rare incident, mosques’ loudspeakers blared with “Azadi” (freedom from Indian rule) in most areas, including Srinagar, where people were ordered to remain indoors.
Major groups known for their resistance against Indian rule have declared three days of mourning.
Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, lies at the heart of more than 69 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it. India controls two thirds of Kashmir while the remaining one third is under the Pakistani rule.
The neighbors agreed on a ceasefire in 2003, and launched a peace process the following year. Since then, there have been sporadic clashes, with both sides accusing the other of violating the ceasefire.
Thousands of people have been killed in the violence in Kashmir over the past two decades.
BETHLEHEM – Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett advocated on Thursday for Israel to kidnap Palestinians to be used as leverage to obtain the release of two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two soldiers held in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.
In an interview with Radio Darom, Bennett — who leads the far-right Jewish Home party — discussed the issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal to obtain the return of Israeli citizens Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, as well as the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, two soldiers killed during Israel’s 2014 offensive on Gaza.
“My policies are consistent over the years: complete opposition to disproportionate deals to free terrorists, and certainly in exchange for bodies,” The Times of Israel quoted Bennett as saying.
According to Israeli news outlet The Jerusalem Post, Bennett then advocated for the kidnapping of Palestinians to pressure for the release of the slain soldiers and missing Israelis.
“We should do what the State of Israel once did,” he said. “What we once did in such situations was we would go and kidnap from the other side, and create new leverage against the other side, rather than releasing more and more terrorists.”
The Jerusalem Post quoted Bennett’s spokesperson as specifying that the far-right political leader was suggesting kidnapping “terrorists,” not Palestinian civilians.
It remained unclear from Bennett’s statement whether he advocated the kidnapping of Palestinians to use as a bargaining chip to exchange with Israelis, in contradiction of his earlier statement, or as an intimidation tactic to coerce those holding the Israelis in Gaza into releasing them.
It was also unclear whether Bennett was pushing for Israel should detain more Palestinians in addition to the 7,000 currently held in Israeli prisons, or hold them completely extrajudicially.
Spokespeople for the Education Ministry and Bennett’s office were unavailable for comment on Friday, the weekend in Israel, to clarify the minister’s statements.
Bennett is well known for his incendiary rhetoric vis-a-vis Palestinians.
In the wake of several attacks last week which killed two Israelis, including a 13-year-old girl, and three Palestinians, Bennett advocated for a number of measures which have been denounced by rights groups as constituting collective punishment.
These proposed measures, many of which have been implemented, included increased settlement construction; stepping up Israel’s policy of demolition of Palestinian property built without permits; full Israeli military control over the entirety of the occupied West Bank; military closures of suspected attackers’ hometowns; the detention of suspected attackers’ family members; and cutting off internet and cellular access to the southern West Bank district of Hebron.
Qalandia Refugee Camp, Occupied Palestine – The holy month of Ramadan has come to an end. But in Palestine, as in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and too many other places, Muslim families are not able to enjoy this special time of the year in peace and comfort. On Sunday night at 11pm, more than 1000 Israeli soldiers, according to locals’ estimations, entered Qalandia Refugee Camp in the Occupied West Bank. The huge military incursion sparked clashes in which 15 Palestinians were shot. Occupation Forces used live ammunition and rubber coated steel bullets on civilians while firing tear gas and stun grenades at approaching ambulances, preventing Palestinian Red Crescent medics from reaching the wounded.
Red Crescent ambulance damaged by Israeli forces
Among the injured was a 19 year old girl and a 15 year old boy, each shot with live ammunition and brought to the hospital in serious condition. The army entered the camp to demolish the homes of the families of two young men, Anan Habsah and Issa Asaaf, both 21, who carried out knife attacks and killed one soldier in East Jerusalem on December 23rd last year. Both were killed by soldiers while carrying out the attacks, so the demolition of the homes comes only as a form of collective punishment to terrorize the families and the people in Qalandia, who repeatedly suffer from night raids and house demolitions as well as beatings and arrests by the Israeli occupation forces.
Anan’s family first evacuated their home in January when the Israeli high court announced their decision to demolish the houses. The displaced family members lived spread across the area, staying at friends’ and family’s homes in Ramallah and elsewhere in Qalandia for two months until the lawyer suggested they could move back in in March. The father, Abu Saleh, refused to leave his home during the two month period however, staying in a tent outside the building. Three weeks ago the two families were yet again told to evacuate their homes and were informed that the demolition would take place within five days. However, the exact date of the demolition was not disclosed. Sunday night it finally happened without advance notice, and only two days before the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid celebrations.
In the ruins of his family home
Issa and his family have experienced severe trauma at the hands of occupation forces before, when he and his two younger sisters were brutally assaulted by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near East Jerusalem. The incident left one of Issa’s sisters unable to speak for three months, and caused the Assaf family significant distress and anguish.
Both Issa and Anan were imprisoned for significant periods of time; Anan at age fifteen for a period of eight months, and Issa for seven months in the year before his death.The families’ suffering did not end there, however. In the week following Issa’s release from prison, he was again assaulted at his home in Qalandia when soldiers dragged him from his home in the middle of the night and beat him in the street without justification.
The Habsah family also bears the long lasting scars of pain and trauma. Anan’s imprisonment as a child devastated the family, and they say their boy was never the same afterwards. “I know he did not want to die … but when a boy is put in jail, deprived of sleep, and deprived of his childhood, something in him changes,” said Anan’s uncle.
Inside the Asaaf family home
When we arrived on Monday morning, neighbors and relatives had already begun to gather in support of the families. Anan’s aunt explained to us that this is the third time her family had been forcibly displaced; first in 1948, when the family was expelled from their home in West Jerusalem, and later again in 1975 when their modest home in the refugee camp was destroyed for the first time.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness condemned the demolitions on Monday, stating that punitive home demolitions “inflict distress and suffering on those who have not committed the action which led to the demolition, and they often endanger people and property in the vicinity.” A 2005 study by the Israeli army itself concluded that home demolitions are not effective as a deterrent or punitive measure, but the practice still continues. According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, about fifty thousand residential structures have been destroyed by Israel since 1967.
“This is psychological warfare. In the whole camp of more than ten thousand people, no one slept [last night], and they did not go to work today,” Adnan Habsah, the uncle of Anan said. Qalandia Refugee Camp has long been subjected to various forms of collective punishment by Israeli forces, and is severely affected by all aspects of the Illegal Occupation. The camp is located within area “C” and greater (East) Jerusalem, near the main checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem and beside the apartheid wall. According to the UNRWA, the construction and expansion of the Wall in the early 2000s has drastically affected the economic situation in the camp by isolating it from the Israeli job market and Jerusalem. According to the most recent data, Qalandia’s unemployment rate is as high as 40 percent, compared to Occupied Palestine’s overall rate of 26.6 percent.
The Camp was originally established to house some 5,000 Palestinians who were displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Today, according to Afaq Environmental Magazine, the population of Qalandia Refugee Camp has reached about 14,000. Under the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the whole territory of Qalandia Refugee Camp is classified as area “C,” where Israel retains full control over security and administration related to the territory; however, Qalandia camp, like other Palestinian refugee camps, is under the administrative control of UNRWA.
As the uncle of Anan said when we spoke to him on Monday, “This is a UN refugee camp. The whole world owns this place. You cannot destroy it.”
Halfway through 2016, police in the United States have killed over 550 people in the country.
According to the Guardian’s “The Counted” database of police killings, reporting 550 deaths as of July 5, 95 people were killed by police in the month of June. The Killed by Police (KBP) database has an even higher number, with 596 deaths documented, 100 of which were in June.
June was not the deadliest month according to counts, however. March and February topped that number, with the Guardian reporting 99 in each month and KBP reporting 102 in March and 104 in February.
The KBP totals vary from the Guardian’s, as they also count incidences of death in police custody, if those deaths are a result of injuries or circumstances caused by law enforcement. KBP is the first database of it’s kind, launched in 2013, by activists who have chosen to remain anonymous.
From the beginning of this year through June 30, the Guardian has logged 261 white people killed by police, a significantly higher number than other racial groups, as noted by Think Progress. However, black people and Native Americans are killed at a much higher rate, when population density is considered.
Meanwhile, a pro-police website called the Officer Down Memorial Page, is reporting that police deaths in the line of duty are down 17% from this time last year, with 52 officers killed while in uniform. That number includes non-criminal-activity deaths, including car and gun accidents.
Despite an ongoing wave of popular sentiment calling attention to police brutality and several new organizations, including Black Lives Matter, working to counter police abuse — as well as promises from the Department of Justice — not much has changed to stop the violence.
A senior United Nations official has accused Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service of frustrating U.N. investigations into its alleged role in torture and other war crimes, even as the SBU has been allowed to guide the international investigation into the shooting down of Malaysia Airline Flight 17 for nearly two years.
On June 29, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic criticized various “armed groups” in Ukraine for engaging in torture and arbitrary detention, adding that “The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) is also not always providing access to all places where detainees may be kept. … OHCHR (the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) also continues to receive accounts about torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary and incommunicado detention by the SBU, especially in the conflict zone.
“Torture and threats to members of the families, including sexual threats, are never justifiable, and perpetrators will be held to account sooner or later. … War crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of human rights cannot be the subject of an amnesty.”
In late May, U.N. inspectors called off their Ukraine torture investigation because the SBU denied the team access to detention facilities where human rights groups had found evidence of torture.
“This denial of access is in breach of Ukraine’s obligations as a State party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture,” according to the U.N. statement at the time. Sir Malcolm Evans, head of the four-member U.N. delegation, said: “It has meant that we have not been able to visit some places where we have heard numerous and serious allegations that people have been detained and where torture or ill-treatment may have occurred.”
Yet, the SBU, which is also responsible for protecting state secrets, has strongly influenced the direction of the supposedly Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team trying to determine who was responsible for shooting down MH-17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people.
Conflict of Interest
Although Ukrainian military units are among the logical suspects in the case, Ukraine was made one of five countries responsible for the inquiry and granted what amounts to veto power over what information the JIT can release. A recent internal report on how the JIT operates also revealed how dependent the investigators have become on information provided by the SBU.
According to the report, the SBU has helped shape the MH-17 investigation by supplying a selection of phone intercepts and other material that would presumably not include sensitive secrets that would implicate the SBU’s political overseers in Ukraine. But the JIT report seems oblivious to this conflict of interest, saying:
“Since the first week of September 2014, investigating officers from The Netherlands and Australia have worked here [in Kiev]. They work in close cooperation here with the Security and Investigation Service of the Ukraine (SBU). Immediately after the crash, the SBU provided access to large numbers of tapped telephone conversations and other data. …
“At first rather formal, cooperation with the SBU became more and more flexible. ‘In particular because of the data analysis, we were able to prove our added value’, says [Dutch police official Gert] Van Doorn. ‘Since then, we notice in all kinds of ways that they deal with us in an open way. They share their questions with us and think along as much as they can.’”
The JIT report continued: “With the tapped telephone conversations from SBU, there are millions of printed lines with metadata, for example, about the cell tower used, the duration of the call and the corresponding telephone numbers. The investigating officers sort out this data and connect it to validate the reliability of the material.
“When, for example, person A calls person B, it must be possible to also find this conversation on the line from person B to person A. When somebody mentions a location, that should also correlate with the cell tower location that picked up the signal. If these cross-checks do not tally, then further research is necessary.
“By now, the investigators are certain about the reliability of the material. ‘After intensive investigation, the material seems to be very sound’, says Van Doorn, ‘that also contributed to the mutual trust.’”
Long Assignments
Another concern about how the SBU could manipulate JIT’s investigation is that the long assignments of investigators in Kiev over a period of almost two years could create compromising situations. Kiev has a reputation as a European hotbed for prostitution and sex tourism, and there’s the possibility of other human relationships developing over long periods away from home.
According to the JIT report, four investigating officers from Australia are stationed in Kiev on three-month rotations while Dutch police rotate in two teams of about five people each for a period of a “fortnight,” or two weeks.
The relative isolation of the Australian investigators further adds to their dependence on their Ukrainian hosts. According to the report, “The Australian investigators find themselves a 26 hour flight away from their home country and have to deal with a large time difference. ‘For us Australians, it is more difficult to get into contact with our home base, which is why our operation is quite isolated in Kiev’, says [Andrew] Donoghoe,” a senior investigating officer from the Australian Federal Police.
The JIT’s collegial dependence on the SBU’s information has not led to a quick resolution of the mystery of MH-17. Almost two years after the tragedy, the JIT has struggled to even pin down where the suspected anti-aircraft missile was fired, bringing down the passenger jet en route between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur. The location of the alleged missile firing was something that U.S. officials claimed to know within days of the crash but have kept secret.
The snail’s pace of the investigation and the curious failure of the U.S. government to share usable data from its own intelligence services have caused concerns among some family members of MH-17 victims that the inquiry has been compromised by big-power geopolitics.
Immediately after the shoot-down, the U.S. government sought to pin the blame on ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and their Russian government backers, a charge that was crucial to getting the European Union to adopt economic sanctions against Russia. But – as more evidence emerged – the possible role of a Ukrainian military unit became more plausible.
According to the Dutch intelligence service in a report released last October, the only anti-aircraft missiles in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, capable of hitting a plane flying at 33,000 feet belonged to the Ukrainian military.
Twists in the Investigation
After CIA analysts had time to evaluate U.S. satellite, electronic and other intelligence data, the U.S. government went curiously silent about what it had discovered, including the possible identity of the people who were responsible. The U.S. reticence, after the initial rush to judgment blaming Russia, suggested that the more detailed findings may have undercut those original claims.
A side-by-side comparison of the jetliners.
A source who was briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that the CIA’s conclusion pointed toward a rogue Ukrainian operation involving a hard-line oligarch with the possible motive of shooting down Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official plane returning from South America that day, with similar markings as MH-17. But I have been unable to determine if that assessment represented a dissident or consensus view inside the U.S. intelligence community.
Although the JIT also includes Belgium and Malaysia, the key roles have been played by the Netherlands, Australia and Ukraine, with Ukraine’s SBU arguably the most influential party as it feeds the other investigators leads to pursue.
Given the SBU’s legal responsibility to shield Ukrainian government secrets, you might think the question would have arisen whether the SBU would supply any data that might implicate some powerful political figure connected to the regime in Kiev. But there was nothing in the JIT’s update to suggest any such suspicion.
Regarding the SBU’s refusal to grant access to the U.N.’s torture investigators in May, Ukraine’s deputy justice minister Natalya Sevostyanova said the U.N. team was denied access to SBU centers in Mariupol and Kramatorsk, frontline towns in the simmering civil war between the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-supported eastern Ukrainian rebels.
SBU director Vasyl Hrytsak said the reason for barring the U.N. team was to protect Ukrainian government secrets, adding: “If you arrive, for example, in the United States and ask to come to the C.I.A. or the F.B.I., to visit a basement or an office, do you think they will ever let you do it?”
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Occupied Hebron – In the last three days Israeli military forces have implemented several blockades isolating the cities of Yatta and Bani Na’im south of Hebron. It is reported that cement roadblocks, earth mounds, gates and checkpoints have been installed across the region, with no timeline for when they may be removed.
The blockades are only implemented to restrict the movement of Palestinians as illegal Israeli settlers can still pass the checkpoints. This discrimination is a clear apartheid strategy and limits Palestinians to not only being unable to attend work but also reaching basic human services such as hospitals. This strategy clearly violates Palestinian’s right to freedom of movement (Art.13 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
By enforcing these illegal blockades Israel is also restricting Palestinian movement during the final days of the holy month of Ramadan where thousands of Muslims wish to travel to the most significant religious sites for prayer and visit their families.
The innocent people who are living under siege in Yatta and Bani Na’im are significantly impacted by the Israeli forces implementing such blockades, which have been condemned internationally by human rights organisations and NGOs.
“I am persuaded no constitution was never before as well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, April 27, 1809.
“We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time.” –Herman Melville, 1850.
“I chant the new empire.” –Walt Whitman, 1860.
“Our frontiers today are on every continent.” –John F. Kennedy, 1960.
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” –Frederick Douglas.
If you haven’t been hiding under a partisan rock for the past several years, you’re aware that President Barack Obama has given himself the sort-of legalish right to murder anyone anywhere with missiles from drones.
He’s not the only one who wants that power.
Yes, President Obama has claimed to have put restrictions on whom he’ll murder, but in no known case has he followed any of his self-imposed non-legal restrictions. Nowhere has someone been arrested instead of killed, while in many known cases people have been killed who could have easily been arrested. In no known case has someone been killed who was an “imminent and continuing threat to the United States,” or for that matter just plain imminent or just plain continuing. It’s not even clear how someone could be both an imminent and a continuing threat until you study up on how the Obama administration has redefined imminent to mean theoretically imaginable someday. And, of course, in numerous cases civilians have been killed in large numbers and people have been targeted without identifying who they are. Lying dead from U.S. drone strikes are men, women, children, non-Americans, and Americans, not a single one of them charged with a crime or their extradition sought.
Who else would like to be able to do this?
One answer is most nations on earth. We now read news stories from Syria of people dying from a drone strike, with the reporter unable to determine if the missile came from a U.S., U.K., Russian, or Iranian drone. Just wait. The skies will be filled if the trend is not reversed.
Another answer is Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, but not Jill Stein. Yes, those first three candidates have said they want this power.
Another answer, however, should be just as disturbing as those already mentioned. Military commanders around the world want the authority to murder people with drones without bothering to get approval from civilian officials back home. Here’s a fun quiz:
How many zones has the United States divided the globe into for purposes of complete military domination, and what are their names?
Answer: Six. They are Northcom, Southcom, Eucom, Pacom, Centcom, and Africom. (Jack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack were already taken.) In normal English they are: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Western Asia, and Africa.
Now here comes the hard question. Which of those zones has a new would-be commander who was just encouraged by a prominent Senator in an open Congressional hearing to acquire the authority to murder people in his zone without getting approval from the U.S. president?
Clue #1. It’s a zone with the empire’s headquarters not even located in the zone, so that this new commander speaks of killing people there as playing “an away game.”
Clue #2. It’s a poor zone that does not manufacture weapons but is saturated with weapons made in the United States plus France, Germany, the U.K., Russia, and China.
Clue #3. Many of the people in this zone have skin resembling people who are disproportionately targets of U.S. police department killings.
Did you get it right? That’s correct: Africom is being encouraged by Senator Lindsay Graham, who a short time back wanted to be president, to blow people up with missiles from flying robots without presidential approval.
Now here’s where the morality of war can wreak havoc with humanitarian imperialism. If a drone killing is not part of a war, then it looks like murder. And handing out licenses to murder to additional people looks like a worsening of the state of affairs in which just one person claims to hold such a license. But if drone killing is part of a war, and Captain Africom claims to be at war with Somalia, or with a group in Somalia, for example, well then, he wouldn’t need special permission to blow up a bunch of people with manned aircraft; so why should he need it when using robotic unmanned bombers?
The trouble is that saying the word “war” doesn’t have the moral or legal powers often imagined. No current U.S. war is legal under either the U.N. Charter or the Kellogg-Briand Pact. And the intuition that murdering people with a drone is wrong can’t be a useful one if murdering people with a piloted plane is right, and vice versa. We actually have to choose. We actually have to set aside the scale of the killing, the type of technology, the role of robots, and all other extraneous factors, and choose whether it’s acceptable, moral, legal, smart, or strategic to murder people or not.
If that seems too much of a mental strain, here’s an easier guide. Just imagine what your response would be if the ruler of Europe Command asked for the authority to murder at will people of his choosing along with anybody too close to them at the time.
In an opinion released on June 29, 2016 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention slammed Israel for its treatment of a Palestinian child arbitrarily detained, tortured, and forced to sign a document without first reading it. The Group also noted the discriminatory nature of the arrest based on the nationality of the victim, who was referred to as XXXXX, but acknowledged to be one of the children in the notorious Hares Boys case.
In the advance unedited version of the opinion, the Working Group “recommends the Government Israel to provide full reparations to XXXXX, starting with his immediate release,” and decided to refer the allegations of torture to the Special Rapporteur on torture for appropriate action.
Israeli authorities did not refute that on 16 March 2013 XXXXX was strip searched and locked in a small room for a long time, during which he was obliged to stay nakedly in stressful positions. In an interrogation room he was shackled, by hands and feet to a chair and was questioned for several hours. He was also subjected to verbal abuses and threats and was forced to sign a document that he was prevented from reading beforehand. For 21 days, XXXXX was held in solitary confinement with no access to the outside world and he was deprived of visits from his family and lawyer.
On 5 April 2013, he was transferred to Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where he was again held in solitary confinement for 19 days.
The Working Group noted that XXXXX was deprived of liberty when he was 17 years old, and had the right to be tried by a juvenile justice system in a speedy manner.
“Military Tribunals cannot be competent for civilians in accordance with relevant international human rights law. He was arrested without a warrant, was not informed of the reasons of the arrest and was not allowed to receive visits from his lawyer for several days following the date of his arrest. During interrogation,he was tortured and forced to sign a document without reading it first,” the Group found.
The Working Group concluded that the detention of XXXXX between 15 March 2013 and 9 April 2013 was arbitrary, being without any legal basis, nor any charge or trial.
It was also of the opinion that those acts from Israeli authorities are in violation of articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as well as articles 9, 10 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and that detention of XXXXX was based in his Palestinian origin therefore was discriminatory in nature.
The Working Group has a mandate to investigate allegations of individuals being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary way or inconsistently with international human rights standards, and to recommend remedies such as release from detention and compensation, when appropriate.
Palestinian student Baraa Amer, 19, a student at an-Najah University and a resident of Kafr Qalil in southern Nablus, was sentenced on Monday, 27 June to 10 months imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 shekels ($675 USD).
Ahmed Khader
Arrested two months ago, Amer is involved with the student Islamic Bloc at the University, and was previously arrested along with 18 fellow students by Palestinian Authority forces in 2015.
Amer was arrested by Israeli occupation forces amid ongoing student elections at the university; active members of Palestinian student blocs are frequently targeted for arrest and persecution, especially at the height of election campaigning.
His father, Nawwaf, is a journalist and former political prisoner himself.
The arrests of Palestinian students continue. On Saturday, 25 June, Israeli occupation forces arrested Ahmed Hussam Khader, 19, as he traveled south of Nablus; Khader is the son of Fateh Palestinian Legislative Council member Hussam Khader and a student of political science at Bir Zeit University.
Today following the ongoing diplomatic negotiations Israel and Turkey have officially announced normalized relations, which have been strained following the attack on Mavi Marmara on 31st May 2010. Netanyahu’s announcement on behalf of Israel came around the same time Turkey issued a statement about it. In the press conference, Netanyahu has declared in a victorious attitude that “It is a tremendous economic success for Israel. The blockade on Gaza by no means is lifted nor shall it ever be lifted. Turkey has agreed to our terms.” He has highlighted that Israel agreed not to pay compensation but to make a donation of 20 million dollars provided that the cases are withdrawn; that this move will prevent the case from establishing a precedent for other crimes of Israeli soldiers; that the agreement is a significant gain. Unfortunately the rapprochement agreement which is announced by Turkey means that blockade on Gaza is recognized by Turkey. Indeed Gaza is free according to the agreement signed in 2005 and is entitled to the right to travel and do business as it pleases without relying on anybody. The embargo means that Israel is recognized as a superior authority which has the final say on what and how much supplies can enter Gaza and this is the subject matter of the agreement announced.
The rapprochement agreement may be regarded as the easing of the blockade although many provisions are quite ambiguous. However it only constitutes a partial permission granted to Turkey. What kind of supplies and how much supplies will Israel allow Turkey to bring in to Gaza stands as a big question mark. Indeed supply entry and exit from Gaza should be free like in every other country. The issue is not entry of humanitarian relief supplies into Gaza but making sure that Gaza has its freedom of movement and transactions so that it does not have to rely on external aid. Palestine is deprived of this freedom and doomed to rely on external aid only while international law grants it to every land and government. It is simply unacceptable. Therefore, as IHH we would like to announce that we will keep up our efforts in all fronts including legal and physical arenas for the removal of the illegal and unjustifiable blockade on Gaza.
Meanwhile it is reported that the agreement has a provision stipulating that a donation will be made to the families of the victims provided that the court cases are withdrawn. These lawsuits are not filed only by victims’ families and Turkish citizens but international victims of the Mavi Marmara attack from 37 different countries. There is no withdrawal of the cases. The victims’ families remain adamant about refusing to give up their cause or withdraw their case until and unless the blockade is removed.
Israel’s arrogant attitude as if to say “I kill people and pay in cash whatever is the cost” is unacceptable. Who is going to protect Turkish citizens from Israel in international waters? Turkish government has acted this way and came to an agreement with the Israeli party. Just like what we have said since the beginning, as an international NGO we do not condone an agreement with Israel. We were never involved in the agreement nor did we partake as a party. To this day we have voiced our warnings and suggestions. From then onwards we will keep standing with Palestinian people through our court cases, our actions to break the blockade, our protests and various aids. The Mavi Marmara court cases are to continue. We hope that the parliament does not endorse this agreement which means that Israeli murderers are exonerated by Turkey. Mavi Marmara stood as a hope in the Islamic world and for the oppressed people of the world. It is our duty to keep this hope which stands for the common consciousness of humanity alive. We would like to rest our case with a Palestinian saying “Whoever covers up with Israel will remain naked.”
As many as 71 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli jails as a result of torture since 1967, Abdel Nasser Farwana, head of the documentation and studies unit at the detainees and ex-detainees committee, said.
In a statement released on Sunday to mark the International Day Against Torture, Farwana said dozens of others died shortly after being released as an effect of the torture they had endured, adding that many more suffer from long-term physical and psychological disabilities.
“Israel practices a unique and atypical form of physical and psychological torture and it is the only country in the world that legalises torture in its jails and detention camps and protects its perpetrators,” he explained.
“Israel uses torture on institutional level against Palestinian and Arab detainees. According to our data, 100 per cent of the Palestinian prisoners were subjected to one form or another of torture,” he added.
Farwana called on international institutions and human rights organisations to take serious and effective steps to stop all forms of torture against Palestinian prisoners and to prosecute those who practice torture against them.
By Khalid Amayreh, in occupied East Jerusalem | The People’s Voice | October 18, 2010
A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that “the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews.”
Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers. … continue
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The administrative detention of two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was renewed on Sunday, 11 July; they are among nearly 750 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders. Both former prisoners who have spent years in Israeli prison, their detentions without charge or trial were extended by military order.
Mohammed Al-Tabeesh of Dura, near al-Khalil, was also ordered to four additional months of administrative detention, the third renewal of the detention order against him. He has been jailed since 
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