Israeli authorities demolished 183 Palestinian buildings in February
MEMO | March 4, 2016
The Israeli authorities demolished around 97 homes and 86 facilities in the West Bank in February under the pretext of “illegal construction”, according to a statistical report released Thursday by the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ).
The Palestinian institute also said that demolition orders and orders to stop construction were issued to a further 139 houses and facilities.
An estimated 653 dunums of Palestinian land in various parts of the West Bank is also facing confiscation orders.
Ghassan Doughlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, has said there has been an escalation in the policy of demolishing homes and institutions in 2016.
In an interview with Quds Press, Doughlas stressed that the demolitions aim to displace Palestinians in order to “bring the settlers on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homes”.
“The occupation has used the demolition policy as a way to put pressure on the Palestinians so to empty the region classified as Area C in the West Bank,” adding that the demolitions are part of a policy of “collective punishment”.
Bogus arrest of 12 year old boy in Hebron
International Solidarity Movement | March 3, 2016
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – On the 28th of February around 4:00pm, 12 year old Palestinian boy, Sayed Seder was arrested by 10 heavily armed Israeli soldiers whilst playing football with his friends on the street in front of his family home. The Israeli army claim that he was arrested under allegations he was throwing stones at the guard tower which watches over Al-Shallalah Street and the illegal Israeli settlement that has been built directly behind the street and family home.
Sayed’s father, Abed, went down to confront the soldiers after Sayed’s friends came running up to the family home, explaining to the father what was happening.
When Abed approached the soldiers to ask them what exactly they were arresting his son for, the soldiers responded by informing him that it was because he was seen throwing rocks at the guard tower above. However, the street is lined with a protective type of fencing above the shops roofs that prohibits objects being thrown up or in the most common cases, being thrown down by illegal Israeli settlers who live above. Abed put the argument forward that it would have been pointless for his son to have been throwing stones with this protective barrier in place. Perhaps the logic of this made too much sense and the arresting soldier quickly changed his story and then began to tell Abed his son was being arrested for stealing a settler child’s football whilst pointing to the ball that Sayed and his friends were playing with. Abed informed the soldier that the ball Sayed and his friends were playing with was in fact a ball that he had purchased for Sayed from a shop in Halhoul just recently. The soldier who was evidently lying and knowingly falsely accusing Sayed of the above allegations ignored any more of Abed’s protests and continued to arrest Sayed.
Al-Shallalah street where Sayed was arrested
From this point Sayed was marched to the Shuhada street entrance gate and taken through while his parents and friends were forced to stand back and watch. Sayed was then taken to the local military base on Shuhada street. Upon entering the military base he was reportedly handcuffed and blindfolded. The blindfold remained on for around 30 minutes before being taken off, assuming that it was put on so he could not get a full view of what was happening inside the military compound for security purposes. Sayed alleges that teenage settlers who were allowed into the compound then beat him while the Israeli army simply stood back and did nothing.
Protective fencing installed above Al-Shallalah street and the guard tower
Sayed was later released from custody at around 9pm to Palestinian authorities where he complained of pain in his kidneys. His father arrived shortly after and took Sayed to hospital where doctors examined him. While the doctors could not find physical wounds that would require further attention they did note that Sayed was severely traumatised from the event and was in a state of shock.
Just 3 months ago the Israeli army arrested one of Abed’s other sons who is 10 years old. The reason for the arrest was that he too was suspected of throwing stones at the military. As Abed didn’t believe this and objected he too was arrested with his 10 year old son. They were detained for 6 hours and released without charge.
One significant fact is that Abed’s house backs onto the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit Hadasa. Abed used to sell artisans out of the family home but has had to stop because of ongoing harassment both physical and verbal to himself and to his customers from the settlers that occupy the land next to his home. The front of Abed’s house has been covered in barbed wire by the Israeli military and is adorned with bags of dirty hummus, eggs and other foul items thrown down by the illegal settlers. The army has also boarded up the windows of his family home (without his permission) that overlook Beit Hadasa.
Abed’s home and the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit Hadasa
The barbed wire at the entrance to Abed’s house with rubbish thrown down by settlers
While harassment from the settlers in Hebron is often considered an unfortunate normality to most Palestinians living under occupation, the army’s continued bogus charges and harassment of Abed and his family give one the impression that the Zionist regime is using a tactical ploy to get Abed and his family out of their home for further settlement expansion.
Israeli settlers escorted by army raid village in Salfit district
Ma’an – February 27, 2016
SALFIT – A group of Israeli settlers escorted by Israeli military forces raided the village of Yasuf in the northern West Bank district of Salfit on Saturday.
The head of the Yasuf village council, Hafith Ebayya, said that a group of Israeli settlers raided the village and attempted to enter the al-Basatin area in central Yasuf.
Ebayya said that the settlers were escorted by military vehicles and soldiers, and that a military checkpoint was set up at the entrance of the village.
Clashes erupted between dozens of Palestinian youths and Israeli forces.
Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at youths and several farmers who were in their fields nearby.
Several youths and farmers suffered from tear gas inhalation.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they were looking into the report.
Three quarters of Yasuf’s lands are located in Area C — under full Israeli military and administrative control. According to a report by the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), over the years, some 602 dunams (148.7 acres) of Yasuf land have been seized to establish settlement housing.
Several Israeli settlements are located near Yasuf, including Ariel, the fourth largest settlement in the West Bank. These settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
UK Israeli boycott ban contradicts official govt business guidelines
RT | February 18, 2016
Britain’s ban on the public boycott of goods from Israel’s occupied territories contradicts its own official business guidelines, documents have revealed.
The controversial new law, which would ban local councils, student unions and other public bodies from boycotting goods for political reasons, was announced by the government on Monday and has been implemented without parliamentary debate or vote.
However, documents first seen by the Independent show the Foreign Office’s Overseas Business Risk assessment for Israel states that the government does “not encourage or offer support” to business with the occupied territories, apparently contradicting the new regulation.
“Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible,” the document reads.
“There are therefore clear risks related to economic and financial activities in the settlements, and we do not encourage or offer support to such activity.”
The new rules do not apply exclusively to Israel, but would ban institutions that receive the majority of their funding from the government from participating in procurement political campaigns, choosing not to buy products from companies on political grounds. The only exception would be nationwide boycotts mandated by the government.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has attacked the new law, saying it undermines the democratic rights and freedoms of public bodies.
PLO Executive Committee Members Dr Hanan Ashrawi and Dr Saeb Erekat released a joint statement after meeting with Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood on Wednesday.
“This represents a serious regression in British policy and it would empower the Israeli occupation by sending a message of impunity,” said Ashrawi and Erekat.
“In order to accommodate the Israeli occupation, the British government is undermining British democracy and their own people’s rights.”
The Labour Party has panned the new measures as an “attack on democracy.”
“This government’s ban would have outlawed council action against apartheid South Africa. Ministers talk about devolution, but in practice they’re imposing Conservative Party policies on elected local councils across the board,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said.
The government, however, has defended the anti-boycott measures, saying they are necessary for “community cohesion” and national security.
“There are wider national and international consequences from imposing such local level boycotts. They can damage integration and community cohesion within the United Kingdom, hinder Britain’s export trade, and harm foreign relations to the detriment of Britain’s economic and international security,” ministers said in a procurement policy note sent out to public authorities.
Coinciding with the law’s announcement, Cabinet Minister Matthew Hancock, who has recently come under fire for accepting a £4,000 donation from a right wing think tank, weeks before announcing a crackdown on lobbying by charities, is currently in Israel promoting business and trade links with the UK.
Read more:
Like Thatcher with apartheid: UK to ban public bodies from boycotting Israeli West Bank goods
Israel levels lands, demolishes structures in East Jerusalem
Ma’an – February 17, 2016
JERUSALEM – The Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished agricultural structures and leveled land in the outskirts of al-Issawiya village in occupied East Jerusalem, locals said.
Muhammad Abu al-Hummas, a spokesperson for a local popular committee, told Ma’an that bulldozers had started leveling around five acres of land, adding that they “deliberately” ruined the dirt roads used by farmers to access their fields as well as their fences.
He said they were accompanied by Israeli police forces as well as officials from Jerusalem’s municipality and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
The land is located in an area Israeli authorities have earmarked for a national park, in a controversial plan known as “11092”, which aims to turn around 740 dunams (175 acres) of Palestinian land in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of al-Issawiya and al-Tur into Israeli parkland.
The Israeli planning council suspended the plan in September 2014 until the needs of the neighborhoods could be assessed.
However, the council, which previously approved the annexation of the 740 dunams, said approval of the plan could potentially be justified and was not fundamentally illegal.
Abu al-Hummus said the Israeli authorities were “leveling and ruining private Palestinian lands despite an Israeli court decision to freeze the settlement plans.”
One of the owners of the land leveled on Wednesday, Adnan Darwish, told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers had ruined eight dunams (two acres) of his property, uprooting a number of olive and cypress trees.
He said they had also demolished a structure used as a sheep barn belonging to Salih Abu Turk. Other landowners affected were identified as Ali Abu al-Hummus, Atif Ubeid, and Shaaban Ubeid.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has previously described Israel’s plan in al-Issawiya as “part of the Israeli government’s plans to create a Jewish demographic majority in the occupied city.”
East Jerusalem was seized by Israel along with the West Bank in 1967 during the Six-Day War, and since then, the Israeli government has undertaken a policy of “Judaization” across the city.
PA seizes Israeli truck loaded with chemical waste
MEMO – February 16, 2016
The Environmental Quality Authority yesterday seized an Israeli truck full of chemical remains heading to illegally unload in occupied Palestinian territories, Quds Press reported.
The truck, which left the Israeli settlement of Karnei Shomron, was seized between the Palestinian villages of Kafr Thulth and Azzun near the West Bank city of Qalqilya.
The truck was to be offloaded near a residential compound in Qalqilya, a statement by the Environmental Quality Authority revealed.
The load included remains of several chemical industries, including paint.
The authority said it handed the truck and driver over to the District Coordination Offices.
A senior official in the authority said a complaint regarding this Israeli violation would be filed to the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, which is in charge of the transport of dangerous goods.
He also said that the Palestinian contractors, who were involved in this issue, would be prosecuted.
Environment expert George Karzam told Quds Press: “The Israeli occupation recently closed a number of its dumps and facilities related to treating solid and chemical waste in the lands occupied in 1948 [Israel] moving them to new sites in the West Bank, mainly in the Jordan Valley.”
This was because of the poisonous substances which were being discarded as well as the odors coming from the dumps, Karzam explained.
Israel has also been putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to open new waste sites for illegal settlements in the West Bank, he added.
Israeli forces uproot 100 olive trees in Wadi Qana
Ma’an – February 16, 2016
SALFIT – Israeli forces uprooted 100 olive trees in the Wadi Qana area west of the village of Deir Istiya in Salfit district on Tuesday amid ongoing efforts to push Palestinians out of the area, locals said.
Farmers from Deir Istiya told Ma’an the forces arrived in Wadi Qana and uprooted the trees without prior notice.
Soldiers then forced locals from the area in order to allow Israeli settlers to arrive there, the farmers said.
Ibrahim al-Hamad, director of the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture’s Salfit branch, told Ma’an that soldiers removed the seven-year-old trees on the grounds that the area is a nature reserve, with planting prohibited in the area.
Al-Hamad added that Israeli soldiers also removed a water tank belonging to Palestinian locals.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) was not immediately available for comment.
Wadi Qana, a valley that has historically served agricultural and recreational purposes for local Palestinians who own land in the area, was declared a nature reserve by Israel’s Civil Administration in 1983.
Israel has used this designation for years to justify uprooting Palestinian crops and forcing Palestinians from the area, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Several Jewish-only Israeli settlements and outposts have been illegally established along the ridges of the valley since the 1970s.
Waste water dumped from the settlements has gradually polluted the river, forcing out Palestinians who have lived in and visited the valley for generations.
Palestinian owners of land in Wadi Qana and the village of Dir Istiya have meanwhile been prevented from building or planting in the area, the majority of which is in Area C, under the full civil and military control of Israel.
The NY Times Maps Jerusalem: Distilling the Worst of Israeli Propaganda
By Barbara Erickson – TimesWarp – February 15, 2016
In a new multimedia production The New York Times is now offering us “The Roots of the Recent Violence Between Israelis and Palestinians,” a series of 13 images accompanied by brief notes. The title promises much, and the teaser adds that this new offering presents us with “the geography of the issues surrounding the ongoing violence.”
Here, it seems, the newspaper has an opportunity to provide the context so often missing from Times stories about Palestine and Israel. With such an introduction readers might hope to learn about the historical beginnings of the conflict and to perceive the effects of occupation on the face of the land.
It was not to be. In fact, this slick presentation distills the worst of the Times reporting on the issue. The text never once mentions the occupation; it provides no historical context of any kind, and it blindly follows the preferred narrative of Israeli propagandists.
The visuals never leave Jerusalem, and the text sticks to events there. The presentation opens with an image of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, accompanied by the comment that the violence “was set off in part over a dispute over Al Aqsa Mosque compound.” Nothing more is said about this complex issue.
The images then move on to highlight Jewish “neighborhoods” in Palestinian East Jerusalem and Jewish homes dotting the Palestinian neighborhoods, and we learn that the “neighborhoods” are “considered illegal settlements by most of the world.” This is the Times’ usual formulation, which distorts the fact that the entire international community—outside of Israel—deems the settlements illegal.
There is no mention of the impact these settlements have on Palestinians’ lives. We get nothing but maps and terse comments about who lives where, but the Times does finally provide a motive for the recent attacks: It comes from “frustration” over the lack of basic city services.
We are set up for this trivial claim in the fourth visual, which shows us Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem surrounded by a yellow line. “Israel built a barrier in response to Palestinian attacks from the West Bank in the early 2000s,” the text notes. “While effective at stopping suicide bombers, it cut off several East Jerusalem neighborhoods from the rest of the city, leaving them without basic services.”
In the following image the narrative continues, “Palestinians say these frustrations are at the root of the recent attacks. Israelis officials accuse Palestinian leaders of inciting violence.”
There we have it. Not a word about loss of land, the confiscation of resources, military incursions and all the many miseries associated with military occupation. So much for the “roots” of the conflict.
Although the Times attempts a show of balance, by referring to both sides, the text is heavily weighted toward the Israeli point of view. It twice mentions Israeli actions as “responses” to violence and never suggests that Palestinians are responding to oppression.
It repeats the Israeli claim that Palestinians who died in the recent uprising were all involved in attacks or “clashes” with troops, omitting the reports of human rights groups and others who charge Israel with “street executions” of Palestinians who pose no possible threat to security forces or civilians.
In addition, the Times gives a distorted account of the Separation Barrier. It fails to say that the 2004 International Court of Justice decision held that the wall is illegal and that its route (85 percent of it inside the West Bank) threatens “de facto annexation.” The newspaper also repeats the Israeli claim that the wall “effectively stopped suicide bombers.”
As an Israeli journalist recently observed in 972 Magazine, the recent assaults have demolished this facile claim. The latest attackers could have come with bombs instead of knives; the wall did not keep them out. The bombings ended when militants abandoned the tactic.
If the Times truly intended to illustrate the “geography of the issues surrounding the ongoing violence,” it could have shown some dramatic effects of the occupation on the landscape, such as:
- The route of the Separation Barrier, snaking well inside the boundary between the West Bank and Israel
- The rows of dead parsley and spinach fields in Gaza, where Israel has deliberately sprayed herbicides on hundreds of acres
- The contrast between lush West Bank settlements, with their lawns and swimming pools, and parched Palestinian villages nearby
- The shrinking cantons of the West Bank, where Israel is illegally confiscating more and more Palestinian territory
- The dead strip of land inside Gaza, where Israel has imposed a firing zone and has frequently entered to bulldoze crops and soil
Images such as these might provide a real sense of the “roots” of the recent violence. Instead, the Times has chosen to encapsulate Israeli propaganda in this latest presentation, perpetuating its ingrained bias in a package of misleading notes and slick visual effects.
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UK to outlaw boycotts of Israeli settlement goods
MEMO | February 15, 2016
Public bodies in Britain are to be prevented from boycotting “unethical” goods, such as those from illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, under a plan expected to be announced later Monday, local media reported.
Publicly funded institutions such as local municipalities and universities will face “stiff penalties” if they bar products from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco or West Bank settlements, The Independent newspaper reported, citing ministers.
The proposals – due to be announced by Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock – are being put forward on the grounds that bans on products are harming community relations and fuelling anti-Semitism.
“The new guidance on procurement combined with changes we are making to how pension pots can be invested will help prevent damaging and counter-productive local foreign policies undermining our national security,” Hancock told The Independent.
Some public bodies around the U.K. have refused to buy goods from Israeli settlements in recent years and they would have to reverse those decisions under the plans.
In Leicester, a city in the East Midlands, elected officials agreed in 2014 that the municipality would not buy settlement produce. That year the devolved government in Scotland issued a notice discouraging trade and investment with settlements by Scottish councils.
The government’s plan was criticized as an attack on local democracy.
Amnesty International’s Economic Relations Program Director Peter Frankental said the proposal could encourage human rights abuses.
“All public bodies should assess the social and environment impacts of any company with whom they choose to enter into business relationships,” he told The Independent. “Where’s the incentive for companies to ensure there are no human rights violations such as slavery in their supply chains, when public bodies cannot hold them to account by refusing to award them contracts?”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights — lands occupied by Israel in 1967 — are considered illegal by the international community and a major impediment to peace with Palestinians.
Obama to sign trade agreement that equates settlements with Israel
Ma’an – February 12, 2016
BETHLEHEM – US President Barack Obama intends to sign a sweeping trade agreement including provisions that fail to differentiate between Israel and illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as discourage the boycott of Israeli goods.
The agreement — H.R. 644: Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 — was passed 75-20 on Thursday, and includes a provision that no US court can enforce judgement from a foreign court on a US citizen who “conducts business operations in Israel, or any territory controlled by Israel.”
The provision in effect allows US citizens immunity from conducting trade with illegal Israeli settlements, while its terminology fails to distinguish Israeli settlements from the state of Israel, violating the US’ official line against the construction of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The White House in a statement released Thursday regarding the agreement said: “As with any bipartisan compromise legislation, there are provisions in this bill that we do not support.”
Of those provisions that the Obama administration did not support was a provision that “contravenes longstanding US policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity,” the statement said.
Despite the contravention, Obama plans to sign the agreement into law “to help strengthen enforcement of the rules and level the playing field for American workers and businesses.”
The agreement also includes a provision that in creating commercial partnerships with foreign countries, the US should “discourage politically motivated boycotts of, divestment from, and sanctions against Israel.”
The US government opposes the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and while US law requires that products made in illegal Israeli settlements may not be labeled “Made in Israel,” the law is rarely enforced.
Israel has been struggling to tackle a growing Palestinian-led boycott campaign which has had a number of high-profile successes abroad.
The BDS movement aims to exert political and economic pressure over Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in a bid to repeat the success of the campaign which ended apartheid in South Africa.
However, BDS initiatives have also faced pushback abroad, notably in France, where a court ruled in October that a group of activists advocating for BDS were guilty under French hate speech legislation.
Intimidating military patrol of Palestinian market
International Solidarity Movement | February 9, 2016
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – On Tuesday, February 9, Israeli forces patrolled the Palestinian market in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), harassing and intimidating residents.
Israeli forces on their patrol through the Palestinian market
A group of soldiers marched through the souq, the main Palestinian market since the closure of Shuhada Street for Palestinians after the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in 1994. Any male adult or youth was stopped on their way to work and forced by the Israeli soldiers to lift up their shirts and trouser-pants, as well as throw their IDs on the ground. After throwing their IDs on the ground Israeli soldiers ordered the men to move back, so they could pick up the IDs from a ‘safe distance’. Most Palestinians were dismissed after this humiliating procedure, whereas some of them were detained for minutes or violently body-searched.
Violent body-search of Palestinian young man
International human rights defenders documenting the Israeli forces violations of basic human rights of Palestinians, were intimidated and harassed by the Israeli soldiers in an attempt to prevent them from documenting. Soldiers took photos of the internationals with their private phones held right in the volunteers faces and as an intmidation tactic ID-checked them.
Israeli forces taking photos of human rights defenders with their private phones
During the more than one hour patrol Israeli forces repeatedly pointed their assault rifles at the internationals as well as Palestinians.
Israeli soldier ‘ordering’ Palestinians to stop by pointing his gun
Not only adults were surprised and shocked by the sudden presence of heavily-armed soldiers right outside their houses, but also children on their way to school and work. Some children, scared by the soldiers, turned around right away after spotting the soldiers and ran back home instead of continuing their way to school or kindergarten. International human rights defenders walked several scared children past the soldiers so they could safely reach their schools and kindergarten.
Two school girls passing the heavily-armed patrol
A mother waiting with children for the school-bus right opposite a group of soldiers



