I look forward to joining the Estelle on its voyage from Naples to Gaza and I am aware of my responsibility as the only Canadian on this international crew of volunteers.
We want to bring a message of solidarity for the Palestinians of Gaza and to remind them that they are not alone in the struggle.
While we will be carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid, the basic goal of our trip is to continue pressuring the Israeli government to lift the blockade of Gaza. International aid is not a solution but a symptom of the problem whereby Israel keeps Gaza from developing its own economy.
We are firmly committed to non-violent resistance but the movement behind the Freedom flotilla will not quit until the Israelis lift the blockade.
Growing public opinion around the world recognizes that the Israeli blockade is not only illegal under International Law, it is also morally wrong. The blockade deliberately denies 1.6 million people of the essentials of life: adequate food, water, and shelter. It denies people the right to make a living through international trade and even trade with their fellow Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. It denies them the freedom to live with dignity.
If we believe in human rights we must be prepared to take a stand when these rights are so flagrantly violated. It is time for Canadian politicians and the Canadian people to speak up against this illegal and inhuman blockade.
As part of Canada’s contribution, the Estelle will be carrying an anchor for Gaza’s Ark, which, like the Estelle, is a project of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Gaza Ark project is rebuilding a boat within Gaza to carry Palestinian goods to the outside world. In this way it will challenge the blockade from the inside just as the Estelle and other boats challenge it from outside.
While I want to thank you for your interest and support, I know that even more the Palestinians of Gaza thank you for your support and solidarity.
Jim Manly is a retired United Church minister who served as a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament from 1980-88, representing Cowichan-Malahat-the Islands, a BC Coastal riding. As MP, he was NDP critic for Indian Affairs and later critic for Fisheries and also International Development. As a United Church minister, Jim served mostly British Columbia congregations and has been active in the Church’s social justice work in Canada and the Americas. Ordained in 1957, he retired in 1997. He lives near Nanaimo, B.C. with his wife, Eva, and together they continue to be active in a number of areas including United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel (UNJPPI), and Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. This past spring he and Eva took part in a Pilgrimage of Solidarity to the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank.
The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog
The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog will keep you up to date on fundraising and organizing efforts in support of the ‘Tahrir’, a Canadian boat which is currently part of the ‘Freedom Waves to Gaza’. Bloggers will report from on board the Tahrir and on support activities in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Vancouver, Victoria and many points in between.
Canadian civil society has a responsibility to fight the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and to expose the Canadian government’s unjustified support for Israel. The time has come to send a Canadian boat to challenge the blockade of Gaza, in coordination with similar international efforts. Check out the Boat to Gaza’s website at http://tahrir.ca or follow us at twitter.com/CanadaBoatGaza.
GAZA CITY – The Qatari government on Tuesday invited tenders for four construction projects, in the first stage of a $254 million project to rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Qatar’s ambassador to Gaza Muhammad al-Imadi is heading a committee overseeing the work.
Consultants have been invited to submit designs for a city to be named after Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa al-Thani. The $30-million development will include 1,000 residential units in five-story apartment blocks, schools, stores, clinics, parks and entertainment facilities, the ambassador said in a statement.
Companies were also invited to bid for the repair of three major roads in the enclave. The 35-kilometer coastal highway al-Rashid Street will cost around $50 million to repair, and $18 million has been allocated to reconstruct the 10-kilometer al-Karama Street.
The 28-kilometer Salah Addin Street will be repaired first, at a cost of $60 million, as the plans and designs are ready, al-Imadi said.
In the coming days, consultants will be invited to bid for several agricultural projects, budgeted at $12.5 million.
Housing projects worth $32 million will also be announced this week to house needy families and to re-home those who were evicted for building on public land.
Official Palestinian sources have confirmed that Egypt has formally rejected proposals for the establishment of a free trade zone on its border with the Gaza Strip as a means of solving Gaza’s economic problems. The sources state that during Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s visit to Cairo last week, he was informed by the Egyptian authorities that their decision was based on the fact that such a move would isolate the Gaza Strip from the rest of the Palestinian territories as an independent entity.
The sources also pointed to Egyptian fears that a Gaza Strip made economically independent through the establishment of a free trade zone with Egypt would be exploited by Israel. It would be forcibly annexed to Egypt as a means of solving the demographic problem in the sector, at Egypt’s expense. Gaza would then be used to accommodate Palestinians returning from abroad, such as Palestinians fleeing the Syrian conflict and those returning from Lebanon.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has been providing vital help to vulnerable Palestinian communities ever since the Sabra and Shatila massacre 30 years ago.
Eyebrows therefore shot up when MAP announced that former foreign secretary David Miliband will be speaking at its Annual Gala Fundraising Dinner tomorrow (Thursday) held in the posh Sheraton Park Lane Hotel.
It seems he’ll be talking about his visit to the West Bank and Gaza.
Miliband will be forever remembered as the British foreign secretary who shamelessly groveled to Israel’s gangsters for forgiveness for their running the risk of arrest if they set foot in London.
And he’ll be remembered for not having the guts to go visit Gaza, or even Iran while in office.
Back in 2009 Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and retired general Doron Almog, cancelled engagements in London for fear of being arrested. Israel complained bitterly
Miliband actually apologized to Livni and Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman for the arrest warrant issued against Livni. He promised Lieberman to begin working immediately to change the UK laws relating to ‘universal jurisdiction’. He asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Justice Minister Jack Straw to find an urgent solution.
But the general election overtook him. Miliband’s groveling promise was echoed by his replacement, William Hague, who announced: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on Universal Jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs. Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK…”
He said it was “completely unacceptable… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation… later this year and I phoned Mrs. Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals”.
Never mind that British law was operating perfectly properly. The warrants were issued to answer well-founded charges. 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. Applications could be made to a court for private arrest warrants, and this had been happening because the government itself was in the habit of shirking its duty under the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention and dragging its feet until the bird has flown.
The beauty of the private warrant is that it can be issued speedily.
Bringing a private prosecution for a criminal offence is an ancient right in common law and, in the words of Lord Wilberforce, “a valuable constitutional safeguard against inertia or partiality on the part of the authority.”
Lord Diplock, another respected Lord of Appeal, called it “a useful safeguard against capricious, corrupt or biased failure or refusal of those authorities to prosecute offenders against the criminal law”.
Who can forget that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought unspeakable death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians during the blitzkrieg known as Operation Cast Lead?
Showing no remorse and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands, and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead. And speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”
In a sane world no British government minister would undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for the likes of her.
Yet Miliband’s successor Hague said: “We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country. The situation is unsatisfactory [and] indefensible. It is absolutely my intention to act speedily.”
He even tried to make Livni’s monstrous crimes look good by claiming, as reported on the Conservative Friends of Israel website, that “the immediate trigger for this crisis [the war on Gaza] was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.” It is well known that the ceasefire didn’t expire. It was deliberately breached by an Israeli raid into Gaza that killed several Palestinians with the intention of provoking a response that would re-ignite the violence and provide an excuse to launch Operation Cast Lead, which the Israelis had been preparing for months.
As for Avigdor Lieberman, he lives in an illegal squat on stolen Palestinian land and is a wanted criminal on that score alone.
Livni bleated: “It’s about the entire State of Israel and our ability to go on working together against common threats.”
Common threats? The threats Israel faces are caused by its racist expansion, land theft, general lawlessness and hateful attitude towards its neighbors, not to mention the nuclear menace Israel itself poses to others in the region and the Islamic world generally. To suggest we have anything in common with the Tel Aviv regime is absurd.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office butted in with 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.”
Miliband never went to Gaza when he should have done. But he managed to visit Gaza with Save the Children. “I had not been able to visit while in government for security reasons,” he said in an article in The Guardian.
Bollox. Hamas were honor-bound to take good care of him. The only danger would have been an Israeli air-strike or a Mossad assassin. But those risks go with the job. You can’t be an effective foreign secretary wrapped in cotton wool.
With David Miliband heading up foreign policy it was frankly embarrassing to be British. What sort of transformation has the groveler undergone that makes him now worthy of an invitation to MAP? Has he become a new White Knight championing the Palestinian underdog against the evil occupier?
I hope so. But I’ll believe it when I actually see evidence that this particular leopard’s spots have well and truly changed.
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that three Palestinians were killed, on Thursday morning, when the Israeli army bombarded Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Three Palestinians were killed, late on Wednesday at night, when the Israeli Air Force fired missiles into an area east of the Al-Boreij refugee camp, in central Gaza.
The sources stated that the army fired missiles at residents near the Agricultural College, east of Beit Hanoun, killing three residents and wounded at four others.
The army also opened fire at Palestinian medics and ambulances in an attempt to keep them away from the area as they attempted to evacuate the slain residents and the wounded to Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the area.
The three slain residents were identified as Ehab and Akram Az-Za’aneen, and Tareq Al-Kafarna.
The army also carried out a limited invasion into Beit Hanoun, and bulldozed farmlands while firing at random.
The Israeli army claimed that the shells were fired at a group of Palestinian fighters who tried to plant explosives near the electronic fence, in northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said that its fighters fired shells and into a nearby military base in retaliation to the latest Israeli military escalation.
On Wednesday at night, three Palestinians were killed, and a fourth was seriously wounded, when the army bombarded a car transporting resistance fighters in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, in central Gaza.
Medical sources reported that the bodies of the slain fighters were severely mutated, while the wounded resident is in a serious condition. The slain fighters were identified as Khalil Al-Jarba, 27, Zakariyya Al-Jammal, 23, and Khaled Al-Qarm, 23.
The Maan News Agency reported that Al-Jarba got married only six months ago, and his wife is currently pregnant. He is also the brother of Marwan Al-Jarba, who was killed in an Israeli bombardment that took place in central Gaza on April, 13, 2010.
Eyewitnesses reported that six military bulldozers and three armored vehicles invaded Al-Fakhari area in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and bulldozed farmlands while firing at random.
On Tuesday, Judge Oded Gershon of the Haifa District Court dismissed the civil lawsuit I brought on behalf of Rachel Corrie’s family against the State of Israel for the unlawful killing of their daughter, an American peace activist and human rights defender who legally entered Gaza to live with Palestinian families in Rafah whose homes were threatened by demolition.
While not surprising, the verdict is yet another example of impunity prevailing over accountability and fairness and it flies in the face of the fundamental principle of international humanitarian law – that in a time of war, military forces are obligated to take all measures to avoid harm to both civilians and their property.
It is not the first time courts have denied victims of Israeli military actions the right to effective remedy. Just ask the many Palestinians who have faced a myriad of legal hurdles and fought for decades simply to have their day in court. Thousands of legitimate claims continue to be denied based on the controversial legal theory – which Judge Gershon adopted – that soldiers should be absolved of civil liability because they were engaged in military operational activities in a war zone.
Rachel’s case is unique because she was the first foreign national to be killed while protesting Israeli occupation, though she was hardly the last. Tom Hurndall, a British peace activist, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli sniper less than three weeks after Rachel was killed. And less than a month after that, James Miller, a British cameraman was also shot and killed by the IDF in Rafah.
In reaching his decision in Rachel’s case, Judge Gershon accepted virtually all of the government’s legal arguments and either ignored or distorted critical facts in order to reach his decision. For example, he concluded that Rafah was a closed military zone, as declared by the Israeli military’s southern command (never mind that no such order was presented in court, and the ground unit commander testified he was unaware of the area’s designation as a closed zone). And that conclusion had implications.
When the former Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade Commander Colonel Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz, who was in charge in 2003, testified, he confirmed that the rules of engagement at the time Rachel was killed were to “shoot to kill any adult person on the [Philadelphi] route.” As another Israeli colonel who testified put it: “There are no civilians in a war zone.” By accepting the testimony of Zuaretz and others, Judge Gershon essentially accepted that the “shoot to kill” order was acceptable, which violates the fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law, mandating that soldiers distinguish between combatants and civilians.
We knew from the beginning that it would be an uphill battle to find truth and justice, but we are convinced that this verdict not only distorts the strong evidence presented in court, but also contradicts fundamental principles of international law with regard to protection of human rights defenders. In denying justice in Rachel Corrie’s killing, this verdict is part of a systemic failure to hold the Israeli military accountable for continuing violations of basic human rights. As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it: “The court’s decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory.”
The Corrie family has always stressed that the purpose of this lawsuit was larger than compensation for their loss. For them, it was about understanding exactly what happened to Rachel and exposing the injustices their daughter and her friends in the International Solidarity Movement stood against. They filed suit on advice of Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who, on behalf of the State Department, told the family in 2004 that the United States did not consider the investigation into Rachel’s death to be “thorough, credible and transparent.”
The U.S. government has repeatedly reiterated its position regarding the failed investigation, and after nearly seven years of mounting evidence since the case was initially filed, it has become even clearer that the military conducted its investigation not to uncover the truth of what happened, but rather, to exonerate itself of any blame.
In his decision, Judge Gershon concluded that because Rachel put herself in harm’s way, she is to be blamed for her own death. That conclusion puts at serious risk the lives of human rights defenders and it creates yet another dangerous precedent regarding the protection of civilians in war. Not surprisingly, the court avoided any analysis of international law obligations.
The verdict ensures that the Israeli culture of impunity will continue unchecked. Rachel Corrie lost her life standing non-violently with those who have been subject to Israel’s systematic policy of destruction and demonization. Like the Freedom Riders in the United States who, during the civil rights movement, joined oppressed black communities in their struggle for equality, Rachel and her friends in the ISM presented a new challenge and model of non-violent activism, solidarity and resistance to the longest military occupation in modern history.
In a country in which the judicial system has enabled the occupation for almost 50 years, I suppose it’s not surprising that the judicial system blamed the victim for her own death.
Hussein Abu Hussein is a human rights lawyer and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights.He represented the Corrie family in their case against the Israeli government and the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
GAZA — The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) documented thirteen violations against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip perpetrated by the Israeli navy forces, during the past two months.
PCHR documented the Israeli violations against Palestinian fishermen during the reporting period 26 July to 01 August 2012 including 10 incidents in which the IOF fired at fishermen.
The center also confirmed the arrest of two fishermen by the Israeli forces while fishing at a distance of 300 meters from Gaza port.
The center considered the Israeli attacks against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip as a flagrant violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, especially the right to life and security of the person, in accordance with Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the State of Israel is a party.
The IOF perpetrated violations against Palestinian fishermen in the sea, when these fishermen did not pose any threat to Israeli naval troops. The fishermen were practicing their right to work and seek their livelihood within the territorial waters of the Gaza Strip when the IOF indiscriminately fired at them.
During the reporting period, PCHR documented 11 cases in which the IOF fired at Palestinian fishermen in the sea off the Gaza shore, and the arrest of 2 Palestinian fishermen, including a 16-year-old boy
These attacks took place within the 3 nautical miles allowed for fishermen to sail and fish in. PCHR also noticed that these firing incidents against fishermen and their boats took place in the context of seeking their livelihood, and the imposition of more restrictions to terrify and prevent the fishermen from practicing their work freely.
The report pointed out that Israeli gunboats fired on August 28 Palestinian fishing boats in front of the coast of northern Gaza Strip, causing damage to Palestinian boat, an issue that pushed the fishermen to go back to the shore.
Despite the fact that the fishermen were trying to steer their boats back to the shore, the Navy boats continued to target them.
The water crisis in Palestine is 100% human-made, not a climate change catastrophe, not an issue of deforestation or drought. Don’t let the location fool you; as Ziyad Lunat from the Thirsting For Justice campaign pointed out, “Palestine and Israel get the same amount of rainfall as England.”
We say Palestine, mind you, not the West Bank and/or Gaza and/or the Occupied Territories. When we say Palestine, we mean all of it. The Palestine that is Gaza, the West Bank, the 64+ year flood of refugees in Jordan and Syria and Turkey and Chicago, the largest flood of refugees in modern history that span across the globe.
This water catastrophe — this other type of nakba — is definitively the result of Israel’s apartheid policies that are being conducted continuously, evident in the waterborne disease spreading throughout Palestinian refugee camps that are perhaps not an accident, an inconvenient oversight. Perhaps they are part of the continuing collateral damage of a so-called unsolvable crisis that in person, feels much more like the combination of a big lie and a large land grab. And as in other places, behind every land grab is a water grab.
Israeli policies and practices limit Palestinians’ access to the water they are entitled to under international law. Israel controls all sources of freshwater in the West Bank. In Gaza, 90 to 95 percent of the coastal aquifer, on which Gaza inhabitants are dependent for water, is contaminated due to over extraction and sewage contamination, making it unfit for human consumption. For most Palestinians, this ongoing and catastrophic water crisis is what they face daily, when they wash clothing, need a glass of water or try to water their crops.
In Palestine, MECA was working to further our partnership with UNRWA to sustain and support MECA’s ongoing Maia project, which provides clean drinking water for children throughout kindergartens and UN schools in Gaza. As a natural extension of MECA’s humanitarian efforts, they are a member of the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a coalition of 30 leading humanitarian organizations that launched this Thirsting for Justice Campaign. These groups have realized that demand for clean water will only increase unless there is some component where they do not just respond to the overwhelming need for clean water, but they advocate for a change in Israel’s water policy, which in my view amounts to liquid apartheid.
Taking the Challenge
I am not going to lie to you for a moment. This challenge is an impossible and completely symbolic task. How does one in the places in which we live respond to such a challenge? I, for one, procrastinated and delayed, as such is my privilege, since this is a symbolic nothingness, a gesture, a shoulder shrug. Solidarity? Perhaps. But solidarity means nothing when the 6.3 gallons I consumed during my allotted and chosen 24 hours were highly purified, compared to the water in Gaza, where I know from experience that if you take a hot shower the salt in the water burns your skin, that friends invite you to brush your teeth with their own bottled water so that your teeth won’t begin to erode for use of tap water. Water in Palestine is often so heavily salinated or in short supply that blue baby syndrome, liver afflictions, and kidney problems are all too commonly spoken on the lips of mothers when talking about their children.
Yet still I delayed. A 6.3 gallon challenge? Are you kidding me? I flush the toilet twice in the same day and I fail. If I do a load of laundry, or turn on the dishwasher, I fail. One shower, failure. I am American, therefore entitled to unlimited resources, am I not? Isn’t the American way of life not up for negotiation?
I finally acquiesced and undertook the Thirsting For Justice Challenge. Yesterday, instead of showering, I swam in the ocean. I pissed outdoors — I never flushed. I did not use dishes, except for one glass. I attempted the challenge and in the process spent countless gallons of oil and even more kilowatts of electricity, especially if you are reading this, all to communicate to you the importance of the Thirsting for Justice campaign, all to attempt to wash off the guilt and the default complicity we share in this occupation, all to complete a promise.
Taking part in the Thirsting for Justice Summer Challenge did make me think more about what it means to consume. Consume. Consume. The American mantra. We consume and destroy, and we do not question policies like the ongoing occupation and division of Palestine that we fund every day with US tax dollars. All of this, of course, is completely absent from debates, from dialogue, from the ongoing election cycle that makes one nauseous enough it makes it difficult to swallow. Even this symbolic feeling of being deprived of water, if just for one day, gives one pause to think about things such as this.
This symbolic challenge is a challenge nonetheless, one I invite you to consider, to embrace, to make you pause, despite all the noise, and join in the walk with the peoples of Palestine. Those who join the walk will be haunted as am I by Martin Luther King’s words: “ In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
What now?
When I left Palestine weeks ago and returned home, (as is my privilege, I have freedom to travel, I am not Palestinian)sometimes things seemed more silent than ever. Sometimes I thought about how much harder it is to speak when you are thirsty. Sometimes I wished there was an easy way to be be heard by you, Israel. Because you are choking Palestine. There literally is no Jordan River anymore. You dam(n) the waters from the underground aquifers that provide water to Palestinians, you poison their wells, you have built walls to encompass the high ground, you redirect the streams to fill swimming pools of settlers born of other lands with other privileges, many of whom are surprisingly well armed. With US weapons no less.
6.3 gallons. Per person. Per diem. I grab at the easy words in easy reach, carpe diem, to louden the call to jointhisThirstingforJusticecampaigntoday, but I cringe now at this phrase. Being in Palestine makes you realize seizure means something different when you are on the receiving end of being seized.
Lessons learned?
What is 6.3 gallons? It is Israeli water torture. It is part of the occupation. It is part of maintaining the stalemate, the status quo, the divide and conquer, the non-solution is a solution. In the meantime, in the never ending interim, if you are Palestinian, just keep your water consumption under 6.3 gallons a day or there will be hell to pay.
I now know more deeply that expecting one to live on 6.3 gallons of water in a day is an insult. It’s collective punishment. It’s fucking horrible. An allotment of 6.3 gallons of water a day makes you want to flee.
This is not about me or you joining the Thirsting for Justice Summer campaign. This is about Israel using allotment of water resources as one of the many weapons in their arsenal to maintain their ongoing occupation. This is about making Palestine unlivable. This is about creating a different kind of Exodus. This is about a new Trail of Tears. But this is a controlled amount of tears, and it is controlled at the water spigots, controlled at the borders, controlled in the halls in Washington and the Knesset and in the lack of news you hear about the unwillingness of many Palestinians to be truly part of their two paltry puppets, the PA and Hamas.
This other Trail of Tears is drier and longer and older than you think. Listen. Do you hear the footsteps? More feet down the trail every day, with our silence. More tears. All happening in real time, all with the blind allegiance and support of the USA.
By no means, do I know what it is to walk any Trail of Tears. All I can think is to try to strive to accompany in some small way those who have been forced on this path by no choice of their own. That many of those walking are children. That there are choices before all of us, that we can, in fact, ourselves thirst for justice in our own way and shrink the gap between those on the receiving end, those whose lives know only war and occupation and those of us who, by default, by waking up in America, are the ones who are partly responsible.
Danny Muller has worked with the Middle East Children’s Alliance since they were jointly breaking the economic sanctions against Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness in the 1990’s. He is raising money to build a water treatment unit at the UNRWA Rehabilitation Centre for Visually Impaired (RCVI) where almost 500 students come for training and treatment but have no access to clean water, and asks that you consider making a donation and support Palestine.
A Palestinian cameraman from the Gaza Strip managed to capture on tape, an attack carried out by Israeli Navi boats, on Wednesday, against small Palestinian fishing boats. The video shows the Israeli Navy boats encircling the boats flooding them with water, and even blocking their way as they tried to sail back to the shore.
The video was captured by Mohammad Al-Mash-harawy, of the Media Town News Agency in Gaza, during a field report documenting the ongoing Israeli assaults against Palestinian fishermen in the coastal region.
The Navy boats were sailing at fast speeds, and encircling the Palestinian fishing boats, and flooding them with water, an issue that pushed the fishermen to go back to the shore.
Despite the fact that the fishermen were trying to steer their boats back to the shore, the Navy boats continue to encircle them.
In related news, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that, on Tuesday morning, 28 August 2012, two Palestinian fishermen were kidnapped and a Palestinian fishing boat was heavily damaged in two separate attacks carried out by the Israeli Navy in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Since 2000, fishermen have been denied their right to sail and fish and have been subject to frequent attacks that led to excessive damage and dozens of casualties.
Israel reduced the area of fishing from 20 nautical miles, which was established upon in the agreements signed between Palestinian and Israel, to 6 nautical miles in 2008.
“However, Israeli forces have continued to prevent fishermen from going beyond 3 nautical miles since 2009. As a result, fishermen are prevented from reaching areas beyond that distance where fish are abundant. Sometimes, Israeli forces also chased fishermen within the 3 nautical mile area. Consequently, Palestinian fishermen have lost 85% of their income, because of limiting the fishing area”, the PCHR reported.
Two Land Cruisers filled with about fifteen well-built gunmen in ski masks and all-black outfits appear seemingly out of nowhere. Behind them is vast, open desert. They approach a group of soldiers huddled around a simple meal as they prepare to break their Ramadan fast. The gunmen open fire, leaving the soldiers with no chance of retrieving their weapons.
This is not an opening scene out of a Hollywood action movie. The massacre actually took place at an Egyptian military post in northern Sinai on August 5th. The description above was conveyed by an eyewitness, Eissa Mohamed Salama, in a statement made to the Associated Press (August 8). The gunmen were well-trained. Their overt confidence can only be explained by the fact that “one militant got out a camera and filmed the bodies of the soldiers.”
One is immediately baffled by this. Why would the masked militants wish to document the killings if they were about to embark on what can be considered a suicide mission in Israel? “The gunmen then approached the Israeli border,” with two vehicles, one reportedly a stolen Egyptian armored personnel carrier. The BBC, citing Israeli officials, reported that one of the vehicles “exploded on the frontier,” while the other broke through the Israeli border, “travelled about 2km into Israel before being disabled by the Israeli air force” (BBC News Online, August 7). According to the BBC report, citing Israeli sources, there were about 35 gunmen in total, all clad in traditional Bedouin attire.
Their mission into Israel was suicidal, since, unlike Sinai, they had nowhere to escape. But who would embark on such a logistically complex mission, document it on camera, and then fail to take responsibility for it? The brazen attack seemed to have little military wisdom, but it did possess a sinister political logic.
Only 48 hours before the attack, the media was awash with reports about the return of electricity in the Gaza Strip. The impoverished Strip’s generators have not run on full capacity for about six years – since Hamas was elected in the occupied territories. The Israeli siege and subsequent wars killed and wounded thousands, but they failed to bend Gaza’s political will. For Gazans, the keyword to their survival in the face of Israel’s blockade was ‘Egypt’.
The Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011 carried a multitude of meanings for all sectors of Egyptian society, and the Middle East at large. For Palestinians in Gaza, it heralded the possibility of a lifeline. The nearly 1,000 tunnels dug to assist in Gaza’s survival would amount to nothing if compared to a decisive Egyptian decision to end the siege by opening the Rafah border.
In fact, a decision was taking place in stages. Hamas, which governs Gaza, was a branch of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is now the lead political force in the country, and, despite the military’s obduracy, it has managed to claim the country’s presidency as well.
In late July, a high level Hamas delegation met in Cairo. All the stress and trepidation of the last 16 months seemed to have come to an end, as Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, his deputy Musa Abu Marzouq and other members of the group’s politburo met with President Mohammed Morsi. The country’s official news agency reported Morsi’s declarations of full support “for the Palestinian nation’s struggle to achieve its legitimate rights”. According to Reuters, Morsi’s top priority was achieving unity “between Hamas and Fatah, supplying Gaza with fuel and electricity and easing the restrictions on the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.”
Juxtapose that scene – where a historical milestone has finally been reached – with an AFP photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak, standing triumphantly next to a burnt Egyptian vehicle that was reportedly stolen by the Sinai gunmen. The message here is that only Israel is serious about fighting terror. Israeli newspaper Haaretz’s accompanying article started with this revelation: “Israel shared some of the intelligence it received with the Egyptian army prior to the incident, but there is no evidence Egypt acted on the information.” This was meant to further humiliate Egypt’s military.
Naturally, Israel blamed Gaza, even though there is no material evidence to back such accusations. Some in Egypt’s media pounced on the opportunity to blame Gaza for Egypt’s security problems in Sinai as well. The loudest amongst them were completely silent when, on August 18, 2011, Israel killed six Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Then, Israel carried out a series of strikes against Gaza, killing and wounding many, while claiming that Gaza was a source of attack against Israeli civilians. Later the Israeli media dismissed the connection as flawed. No apologies for the Gaza deaths, of course, and AP, Reuters and others are still blaming Palestinians for the attack near Eilat last year. Then, Palestinian factions opted not to escalate to spare Egypt an unwanted conflict with Israel during a most sensitive transition.
None of that seems relevant now. Egypt is busy destroying the tunnels, continuing efforts that were funded by the US a few years ago. It also closed the Gaza-Egypt crossing, and is being ‘permitted’ by Israel to use attack helicopters in Sinai to hunt for elusive terrorists. Within days, Gaza’s misfortunes were multiplied and once more Palestinians are pleading their case. “Haniyeh calls on Morsi to open border crossing closed since Sunday’s Sinai attack, say(ing) ‘Gaza could never be anything but a source of stability for Egypt,” reported Reuters.
Israeli officials and analysts are, of course, beside themselves with anticipation. The opportunity is simply too great not to be utilized fully. Commenting in Egypt-based OnIslam, Abdelrahman Rashdan wrote that according to the Israeli intelligence scenario, “Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, and al-Qaeda operatives all moved from Lebanon to attack Egypt, Israel and defend Syria.”
In Western mainstream media, few asked the question of who benefits from all of this – from once more isolating Gaza, shutting down the tunnels, severing Egyptian-Palestinian ties, embroiling the Egyptian military in a security nightmare in Sinai, and much more?
The Muslim Brotherhood website had an answer. It suggested that the incident ‘can be attributed to the Mossad.’ True, some Western media outlets reported the statement, but not with any degree of seriousness or due analysis. The BBC even offered its own context: “Conspiracy theories are popular across the Arab world,” ending the discussion with an Israeli dismissal of the accusation as ‘nonsense.’ Case closed. But it shouldn’t be.
Before embarking on a wild goose chase in Sinai, urgent questions must be asked and answered. Haphazard action will only make things worse for Egypt, Palestine and for Sinai’s long-neglected Bedouin population.
An Israeli soldier accused of killing a Palestinian mother and daughter carrying a white flag during Operation Cast Lead will serve just 45 days in prison. He agreed to a plea bargain and had his charge downgraded to “illegal use of weapon”.
The plea bargain on the reduced charge – down from manslaughter – was approved on Sunday by a military court in Jaffa.
The investigation into the killing of a 64-year-old mother and her 35 year-old daughter, shot while walking with a group of Palestinians holding white flags after their home was bombed, was opened following a complaint filed by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
The incident happened on January 4, 2009, during the Israeli Operation Cast Lead.
It happened when a group of Gaza civilians carrying makeshift white flags approached an IDF position manned by Givati soldiers, including the unnamed infantry sergeant, identified by Israeli media as “Staff Sergeant S”.
“S” opened fire on the group, without an order from his commanding officer.
The younger woman was killed on the spot, while her mother was severely wounded by the gunfire and later died of the wounds.
“S” later admitted he had fired shots and reported hitting one of the people in the group. He explained his actions by describing the incident as a “threatening situation endangering the lives of the soldiers” and claimed he fired at the legs of the advancing crowd.
The military said there were discrepancies between the troops’ accounts of the incident and the details reported widely by human rights groups. The troops reported shooting one man at the site, not two women, and on a different date.
The lawyers of “S” then argued there was no connection between the shooting he admitted to and the killing of the Palestinian women, as no conclusive proof was presented. In particular they demanded the bodies be presented to the court.
The military prosecution accepted the claim and dropped the manslaughter charges, changing them to the “illegal use of weapon.”
“Following a mediation process and upon examination of the evidence with the recommendation of the military court, both sides have reached a plea bargain in which the indictment will be adjusted, and he will be convicted of using a weapon illegally,” AFP quotes a military statement.
“S” will now serve 45 days in prison, while a conviction of manslaughter would have carried a sentence of up to 20 years.
By now “S” is the only Israeli soldier to face manslaughter charges for suspected unlawful killings during Israel’s war against Gaza in 2008-2009.
B ‘Tselem argued the indictment was based solely on the soldiers’ accounts and not on conflicting testimony from Palestinian witnesses. In a statement posted on its website the group demanded that the Military Police Investigation Unit (MPIU) reopen the file into the killing.
The human rights group has called for independent investigations into some 20 cases involving the killings of 92 Palestinians. Instead, they say, the military launched its own investigation into 11 deaths, including the “S” case.
Anonymous accounts of deliberate civilian murder
The death toll from the three-week Gaza War was 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Four of the latter are believed to have died from friendly fire.
Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that of those Palestinians killed, 926 were civilians, including 429 women and children. 236 were combatants and 255 were members of the Palestinian security forces.
Back in 2009 The Times published an anonymous account of deliberate killings of Gaza civilians.
The soldiers’ testimonies included accounts of an unarmed old woman being shot from a rooftop while crossing a main street during the fighting.
“I don’t know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don’t know her story,” one non-commissioned officer was quoted as saying to Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy. “I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder.”
He then revealed how soldiers were clearing houses by shooting anyone they encountered on sight.
“When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up story by story… I call that murder. Each story, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself – how is this reasonable?”
Another NCO recounted a military blunder that led to a mother and her two children being shot dead by an Israeli sniper.
“We had taken over the house… and the family was released and told to go right. A mother and two children got confused and went left… The sniper on the roof wasn’t told that this was OK and that he shouldn’t shoot… you can say he just did what he was told… he was told not to let anyone approach the left flank and he shot at them.”
“That’s the beauty of Gaza. You see a man walking, he doesn’t have to have a weapon, and you can shoot him,” said one soldier after being asked why a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be shot.
According to The Times, IDF troops also used Palestinian children as human shields to check for traps and explosives. The soldiers, who ordered a nine-year-old boy to open bags suspected of containing explosives, were charged in 2010 with “inappropriate behavior and overstepping authority.”
The UN launched its Fact Finding Mission into the conflict. In 2009 a former judge and commercial lawyer Richard Goldstone, who led a fact-finding mission, released a report which stated both Israel and the Islamist group Hamas were guilty of war crimes during this conflict.
The report sparked outrage on the part of Israel and it refused to cooperate further with the inquiry.
Even after occupying more than 80% of historical Palestine – six million Israeli Jews are running out of space. Most Israeli Jews live in high-rise apartment buildings, and even they’re beginning to bury the dead in multilevel structures.
On June 18, 2012, Israeli daily YNet reported that Netanyahu government is planning to build artificial islands off Gaza coast to house a power plant, military base, airport, seaport and hotels to boost tourism – and a desalination plant. The three square mile Island would be linked to Gaza via a three-mile long bridge.
Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz who is given the task of carrying-out the feasibility studies, said:
“The construction of artificial islands can solve the country’s lack of space for large industrial facilities.”
The proposed island is estimated to cost US$10 billion and will take up to 10 years to finish. One can expect that US taxpayers would be glad to subsidize the project, as Israel is in debt worse than the US.
The plan was originally proposed by Israel’s transport minister Yisrael Katz in 2011.
Gidon Bromberg, director of ‘Friends of the Earth Middle East’, described the project as “complete madness”.
The Gaza Strip’s own airport was destroyed by the Jewish army back in 2002 and the enclave has been under a tight naval blockade since Hamas formed government in 2007. Gaza has a small fishing port but it doesn’t have anything to deal with commercial shipping. The Zionist regime has only allowed limited goods to enter and leave Gaza since 2007 although Gazans have taken to smuggling goods from Egypt through tunnels.
The Zionist regime has claimed that the project will help Palestinians by creating more jobs and tourism. In response, PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib said:
“This is pure fantasy and it is not the concern of Israel. If they want to help Palestinians, they must end the siege on Gaza, and allow the reintegration of the West Bank and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Then they are welcome to make proposals.“
A recently declassified CIA document prepared in 1983, and released on 20 January 2017, shows that the United States had at the time encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Syria, which would have led to a vicious conflict between the two countries, thus draining their resources.
The report, which was then prepared by CIA officer Graham Fuller, indicates that the US tried adamantly to convince Saddam to attack Syria under any pretense available, in order to get the two most powerful countries in the Arab East to destroy each other, turning their attention away from the Arab-Israeli conflict. … continue
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