Why is Israel funding Jerusalemites’ addiction?
By Maher Abu Tair | Addustour | January 5, 2015
The Jerusalemite’s human shield around the city of Jerusalem is quite a marvellous human shield indeed. If it were not for the rather substantial presence of the Palestinian Hebronites in the city, it would have been exposed to extreme danger. It is enough that we see hundreds of thousands of worshippers line up daily in prayer in all Al-Aqsa willing to sacrifice their life and their blood to protect the city.
Israel is concentrating all of its efforts on dividing the people of Jerusalem into individual factions and they have a plan to target each of these factions in an individual way. Israel’s plan of attack is being implemented slowly so that it can permanently phase out the Palestinian presence in the city, little by little and gradually in a frantic war over the city.
Among the groups of Jerusalemites created by Israel is the group that fears for the very essence of its existence as they worry that they will lose their Israeli residency permits, which allow them to live in Jerusalem. There are also groups of people who are being targeted with high taxes, a group forced into labour in the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements, a group of people avoiding everyday murder attempts and finally, a group of people that is simply preoccupied with the complexities of everyday life.
In addition to all this, a number of strange reports have been leaked on the reality of the problems that are currently facing Palestinian Jerusalemites and this includes unfortunate stories of the city’s youth who have allowed themselves to become the new recruits of Israeli gangs that specialise in automobile thefts among other crimes. One cannot forget to mention the unusual emergence of drug rings in Jerusalem, which have taken over the city in quite an unusual way.
The facts that have been presented on the ground indicate that the presence of drugs in the Jerusalem area is quite a catastrophic development which will have many dangerous consequences on the city’s inhabitants. Perhaps the most significant consequence of all is the decreasing presence of the city’ inhabitants around the holy sites and the fact that their addiction and dependence on drugs ensures that they remain financially drained and without any definite sense of security.
The spread of drugs within Jerusalem’s Arab circles indicates that the occupation has infiltrated the city on many levels and that the end goal behind these destructive policies is ultimately to destroy the city’s popular infrastructure via many different means such as, drugs, high taxes, increasing debt and the increasing threat of imprisonment etc.
Moreover, there are no Arab institutions present that could counter or balance these racist policies against Jerusalemites. Thus, the challenge of standing up to Israel’s policies remains the sole responsibility of the city’s Palestinians; that it is an individual struggle that each Jerusalemite has to ultimately face on his or her own.
Despite all of these unfortunate circumstances, one cannot generalise or label Palestinian Jerusalemites as one particular type of people. We must remember that they are human beings that are being forced to act and respond to unfortunate circumstances on a superhuman level. One cannot deny that there are thousands of Jerusalemites who are willing to sacrifice their lives and their safety to protect Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock Mosques in the face of its many confrontations.
One must recognise that the occupation aims to turn Jerusalemites into two different types of people, ones that are forced into cheap labour that aids the occupation’s expansion and others who become the victims of drugs, debt and suffocating taxes. The goal of all this is to break the human shield that the Palestinians have created to protect Jerusalem.
Israel has used all of its power to take over Jerusalem and we have aided this process by allowing Israel to do whatever it wants. The biggest proof of how we are all culpable is that none of us have asked Jerusalemites what they truly need. We merely throw them into the jaws of the crocodiles and ask them from afar: why do you not rise up in anger?
Translated by MEMO
Israeli police shoot 5-year-old in the face while exiting school bus
Ma’an – 24/12/2014
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Wednesday afternoon shot a 5-year-old Palestinian child in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet in East Jerusalem as he was getting out of a school bus on his way home, relatives said.
“An Israeli soldier fired a black rubber-coated bullet at the child from a close distance, injuring him under the eye,” the uncle of 5-year-old Muhammad Jamal Ubeid told Ma’an.
The incident reportedly took place in the East Jerusalem village of al-Issawiya, where Muhammad’s family lives.
The child’s uncle said that Muhammad and his 14-year-old sister stepped out of a school bus and had started to walk home when the Israeli forces shot him.
The uncle said there were no confrontations at all in the area between Israeli forces and Palestinians at the time of the shooting.
An Israeli police spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Muhammad was evacuated to the nearby Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus where medical authorities said he had a fracture in the bone below his eye.
The boy was later transferred to the Hadassah Medical Center in the Ein Karem neighborhood in West Jerusalem for treatment.
East Jerusalem neighborhoods like al-Issawiya have seen months of heavy police presence and widespread protests amid increasing anger over the Israeli occupation and perceived discrimination.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem have residency rights but not citizenship since Israel occupied the city in 1967, despite the fact that the vast majority are born and raised in the city and trace their heritage back generations.
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized abroad. The international community sees East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory.
Barghouti criticizes UN draft resolution on Palestinian statehood
Al-Akhbar | December 23, 2014
Jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti criticized on Monday the UN resolution submitted to the Security Council by the PLO, urging the Palestinian Authority (PA) to reword the proposal.
In a letter sent to Ma’an news agency from jail, Barghouti said the UN resolution is an “unjustified fallback which will have a very negative impact on the Palestinian position.”
The senior Fatah leader said he always urged the leadership to take the question of Palestine to the UN to obtain a security council resolution, but any proposal must be in line with inalienable national principles.
Barghouti urged the leadership to comprehensively revise the wording of the draft resolution to focus on the major issues of settlement expansion, Jerusalem, prisoners, and the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
He added that any talk of land swap will weaken the sovereignty of any future Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967, and its right for self-determination, noting that such a measure would be used to legalize settlement building.
Barghouti urged the PA to insist on the illegality of the Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, slamming settlement building as a “war crime.”
According to the Fatah leader, the PA should continue to assert on the centrality of East Jerusalem as a capital of the state of Palestine and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in Occupied Palestine as stated in UN General Assembly resolution 194.
Moreover, Barghouti criticized the UN resolution’s lack of emphasis on the issue of Palestinian prisoners.
“The PA should make it clear that freeing all prisoners is an absolute right and a precondition for peace.”
He also said the draft resolution must include an article demanding the immediate lifting of Israel’s “crippling siege” on Gaza.
“Unless all these demands are ensured, we should put an end to these useless negotiations,” Barghouti stated.
A senior figure within the Fatah, Barghouti was arrested in 2002 and sentenced two years later. He is serving five life sentences for alleged involvement in attacks on Israeli targets.
Barghouti’s letter comes after Jordan presented a resolution draft to the UN Security Council last Wednesday.
The PA has sought Arab backing for a draft UN resolution that would set a two-year deadline for reaching a final settlement with Israel and pave the way for a two-state solution.
The draft resolution calls for a “just, lasting and comprehensive peace solution that brings an end to the Israeli occupation” of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and “fulfills the vision” of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the “shared capital.”
The measure also provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 according to a timeframe that doesn’t “exceed the end of 2017.”
If the resolution is to be put to vote, the US State Department will most probably use its right to veto.
Many international players have long insisted that a promised Palestinian state must come through negotiations with Israel. Palestinians have retorted that repeated rounds of talks have gone nowhere, with Israel unwilling to compromise on the issues of illegal settlements and prisoners.
European politicians have become more active in pushing for a sovereign Palestine since the collapse of US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in April, and the ensuing conflict in Gaza, where more than 2,000 Palestinians, at least 70 percent of them civilians, and 72 Israelis were killed this summer.
Sweden’s decision in October to recognize Palestine preceded non-binding votes by parliaments in Britain, France, Ireland, and Spain in favor of recognition demonstrated growing European impatience with the stalled peace process.
The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-infamous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.
In 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Yasser Arafat declared the existence of a state of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”
Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
It is worth noting that numerous Palestinian factions and pro-Palestine advocates support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable and that it would mean recognizing a state of Israel on territories seized forcefully by Zionists before 1967.
They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.
(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
Israel charges 8 Palestinians over Facebook posts
Ma’an – 23/12/2014
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Eight Palestinians from annexed East Jerusalem were indicted on Monday for inciting anti-Jewish violence and supporting “terror” in postings on Facebook, an Israeli justice ministry spokeswoman said.
The eight men, aged 18-45, were charged at Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court with “incitement to violence or terror and supporting a terrorist group” on Facebook, a ministry statement read.
The incriminating posts were put online in recent months as a wave of violence rocked the city during which several Palestinians staged lone wolf attacks killing nine people.
The defendants “directly called for violence and terror against (Jewish) citizens and security forces and praised, encouraged and supported these deeds and their perpetrators” on the Internet, the statement read.
Among the remarks posted online were “It is good to kidnap soldiers”, “Zionists flee because you’ll soon be killed by a car” and words expressing hope that a right-wing Jewish activist, who survived an assassination attempt in October, would die a painful death, the indictment said.
All eight Palestinians were arrested earlier this month in what police said was their biggest operation yet aimed at halting incitement to violence on social networks.
Israelis on social media routinely and openly incite violence against Palestinians, especially during heightened periods of tensions such as this summer’s military offensive on Gaza.
Ma’an staff contributed to this report
Rabbis plan to build temple on Al-Aqsa ruins
![[undated photo from Haaretz]](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/images/article_images/middle-east/israelis-jews-discussing-temple-plans-al-aqsa-dome-background.jpg "[undated photo from Haaretz]")
Undated photo from Haaretz
MEMO | December 22, 2014
In the clearest indication of the growing dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque, in an opinion piece published on Saturday, Haaretz discussed a group of rabbis who met to discuss the scheme for the establishment of the Third Temple on the ruins of the mosque. The newspaper published a photograph of a number of rabbis and engineers studying a map of Al-Aqsa Mosque.In a piece written by Professor Ronnie Ellenblum entitled “Bells are ringing for the ultra-Orthodox and Secular” [hebrew], the paper discussed the future of Al-Aqsa Mosque which Jews refer to as the Temple Mount.
Although the paper did not identify the rabbis who appeared in the picture, one of them has been identified as Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, president of the Temple Institute, a religious authority that is considered the most enthusiastic about destroying Al-Aqsa Mosque and establishing a temple on its ruins.
The research also involved Rabbi Yehuda Etzion, who was responsible for implementing the Hebron University massacre which left 15 students dead or wounded, and was also responsible for implementing three assassination attempts against elected mayors in the West Bank, one of which injured the then Mayor of Nablus Bassam Shakaa, leaving him permanently disabled.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged to the king of Jordan not to take any steps that would change the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Miri Regev, MK for the Likud party led by Netanyahu, announced that she will not allow the continuation of the status quo Al-Aqsa, stressing that the next Knesset will issue a number of laws that will promote Jewish sovereignty over it.
Israeli Channel 10 quoted Regev saying on Thursday that the consecration of Jewish sovereignty in Al-Aqsa Mosque is the most important embodiment of the political, religious and cultural sovereignty of “the Jewish people on their land”.
The channel noted that this view is supported by the ministers of economy and housing, Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Ze’ev Elkin, the head of the coalition bloc in parliament, Danny Levin.
Elie Wiesel: Conscience of Mankind and Saintly Humanitarian or Liar, Hypocrite, and Terrorist?
By John Taylor • Unz Review • December 18, 2014
Elie Wiesel presents himself as a humanitarian whose personal narrative gives him special license to sermonize about tolerance and non-violence. Wiesel: “Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe.” More Wiesel: “Never again becomes more than a slogan: It’s a prayer, a promise, a vow. Never again jail and torture. Never again the suffering of innocent people, or the shooting of starving, frightened, terrified children.”
Yet Wiesel, the putative guardian of the weak and the innocent, is in conflict with Wiesel, the Zionist and shameless apologist for Israel’s on going ethnic cleansing campaign and serial butchery in Lebanon and Gaza. “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.” In the Middle East Wiesel has made his choice and it is to champion the powerful against their victims and to defend the occupier against the dispossessed.
In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Wiesel claimed to be sensitive to the plight of the Palestinians “but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence. Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers.” Wiesel denounced Palestinian terrorism but conveniently ignored his own membership in a Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, which he joined in Paris in 1947 as a translator, journalist and propagandist.
Obviously Wiesel knew the Irgun was a terrorist group when he became a member. Its European HQ fled Rome for Paris after an Irgun cell blew up the British embassy there. Furthermore by the time Wiesel joined the organization, it had established a reputation for bombing and shooting scores of innocent Arabs in Palestine. In the 1930s the Irgun planted deadly bombs in Arab marketplaces, most notably in Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They also blew up buses and trains. By the mid-1940s the Irgun put the British colonial government in its sights. In 1946 the terrorist group killed 91 people in a Christmas bombing of the King David Hotel. They also kidnapped, tortured and hanged two British Army sergeants. And in an outrage which occurred after Wiesel joined the Irgun, the group killed some 254 unarmed Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin in order to terrorize Palestine’s Christian and Muslim population and encourage their flight.
Despite working for a terrorist organization that was instrumental in driving the Palestinians from their homes during Israel’s so called War of Independence, Wiesel quite dishonestly asserted in a New York Times op-ed that “Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home.” Not only did Wiesel know the truth about the Palestinian Nakba from his work for the Irgun, but when his piece appeared in the Times in 2001 Israeli historians like Benny Morris had already entirely debunked the myth of voluntary Palestinian flight. Further, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s autobiography revealed David Ben-Gurion’s order to drive out the Palestinians:
“While the fighting was still in progress, we had to grapple with a troublesome problem…the fate of the civilian population of Lod and Ramle, numbering some 50,000… We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question: ‘What is to be done with the population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said, ‘Drive them out!’… The population of Lod did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force…”
Lying about Israeli ethnic cleansing was not enough. Wiesel, ever the propagandist, even tried to discredit the Palestinian struggle against Zionism by conflating indigenous Arab resistance with Nazism. Wiesel wrote in his autobiography, All Rivers Flow to the Sea, “gangs loyal to the grand mufti, the pro-Hitler Haj Amin el-Husseini, former ally and protégé of Himmler, attacked Jewish villages and convoys.” Of course Wiesel said nothing about Avraham Stern, leader of an Irgun splinter group, the Lehi, who actually sought an alliance with the Nazis against Great Britain during World War II.
Wiesel has said “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil” and “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant”. Nevertheless in the face of the Palestinian struggle to end years of Israeli occupation, land theft and brutality, Wiesel, when he isn’t blaming Zionism’s victims, is either silent or indifferent: “…whenever Israeli police or soldiers react excessively to violence from Palestinian soldiers or civilians. I rarely answer.” And concerning the IDF facilitated massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon: “I don’t think we should even comment…” What ever happened to Wiesel’s signature commonplace “I swore never to be silent…”?
During this past summer’s Israeli assault on Gaza, Wiesel accused the Palestinians of using children as human shields, saying in a full page ad in the New York Times, “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” Truth is, of course, the Israelis have not given up child sacrifice if it is Arab children doing the dying. And Israel’s exculpatory explanation that ‘the Arabs forced us to murder their kids’ has been used for a long time, for example to shield Israel from international criticism during bombing campaigns against Egypt in the early1970s and repeatedly in Lebanon.
As for Wiesel’s human shields accusation itself, western media reporting from inside Gaza during operation Protective Edge in August have pretty much discredited him. Were the four cousins playing soccer on the beach killed by Israeli naval gunfire human shields? What about the young children hit with a smart bomb while feeding the family ducks? Human shields too? And the 500 or so other dead children? Considering Israeli willingness to hit any target in Gaza from UN schools to water treatment plants to hospitals, why would Hamas bother to use kids as shields? The presence of civilians hasn’t deterred Israeli attacks in Gaza or elsewhere; good examples being the shelling of the UN compound at Qana in Lebanon and the bombing of Bahr el-Baqar primary school in Egypt
If Wiesel had a scintilla of humanity he would be honest enough to admit that Israel is killing children in Gaza because the Palestinians have chosen to resist Israeli ethnocide of which the long term siege of Gaza is an integral and essential part.
Wiesel has written repeatedly to defend Israeli government policy in Jerusalem. In 2001 Wiesel stated, “As for Jerusalem, would it not be better to resolve all other pending questions first and defer until a later time decisions about the fate of the holiest of cities?” More recently, in a 2010 letter to President Obama, Wiesel asking him not to “pressure” the Israelis to make concessions to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. Wiesel’s intent is clear: To buy time for the Israelis to finish their campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. Wiesel, clearly a man not afraid to lie, even went so far as to claim,”… contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city” to which Jerusalem resident and former MK Yossi Sarid replied, “Not only may an Arab not build “anywhere,” but he may thank his god if he is not evicted from his home and thrown out onto the street with his family and property…”
Wiesel states that Jerusalem “belongs to the Jewish people.” He asserts an exclusive Jewish claim to the city saying Jerusalem “is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran,” as if this should somehow minimize Muslim veneration and attachment to the city. And he says nothing about the importance of Jerusalem to Christianity or that the place name appears 140 times in the New Testament. Wiesel may be right when he declared “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.” But one may doubt he delivered the aphorism with self-criticism in mind.
Wiesel may also claim that “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics,” but he knows better. The Israeli politicians who vastly expanded Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries after the 1967 war did so with politics and demographics in mind. And Wiesel himself is chairman of the advisory board of the settler run outfit Elad, whose current project is to drive Palestinians out of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan by fair means or foul.
Wiesel has been called a “contemptible poseur and windbag” and the “resident clown of the Holocaust circus.” Perhaps it would be more accurate to label him the personification of Nazi genocide in service of Zionism. And Zionism is the longest systematic violation of human rights in recent history. The ever so quotable Wiesel may proclaim “One person of integrity can make a difference,” but that person is not Elie Wiesel.
Palestinian woman who stabbed Israeli settler was defending herself: official
Al-Akhbar | December 17, 2014
A Palestinian woman suspected of stabbing an Israeli settler on December 1 was defending herself after being harassed by the man, a Palestinian official claimed Tuesday.
Amal Jamal Taqatqa, 22, was shot and critically wounded by soldiers near Gush Etzion on December 1 after allegedly stabbing an Israeli settler.
The director of Bethlehem’s military liaison department told Ma’an news agency that officials requested an investigation into the shooting, but that it has been delayed due to the political atmosphere.
“Is it reasonable that 46 surveillance cameras in Gush Etzion settlement bloc have failed to document what really happened between Amal Taqatqa, 22, from Beit Fajjar and an Israeli settler who claimed that she attempted to stab him?” Khaled Qaddura said.
Taqatqa reportedly engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the settler after he verbally abused her, causing a minor scratch to the settler’s neck, Qaddura said.
“At that point, the settlers asked an Israeli soldier who was in the area to shoot the girl, and the soldier immediately shot her in the chest. The girl fell to the ground then tried to get up and run away, but the soldier shot her again in the feet causing her to fall down again then he approached her and shot a last round,” the official added.
Taqatqa is still receiving medical treatment at Hadassah hospital and is in a stable condition.
Qaddura slammed Israel’s labeling of Taqarqa as a “terrorist”, noting that the term “terrorism” is used automatically when Israelis – whether civilians or soldiers – are injured.
He urged Palestinians who witness such incidents to film them or record the registration number of the military vehicles involved.
Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past five months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and burned a young Palestinian to death because of his ethnicity, and worsened by the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August.
(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
Israeli crimes continue in al-Quds
Israel continues its widespread crackdown on the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem al-Quds. The rights groups have dubbed Israel’s crackdown an act of “collective punishment” against the Palestinian population.
More than 1,300 local residents have been arrested since summer, 40 percent of them children, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an advocacy group.
Over the past weeks, the al-Aqsa Mosque has been the scene of clashes between Palestinian worshippers and Israeli settlers and troops.
Israel has tried over the past decades to change the demographic makeup of al-Quds by constructing illegal settlements, destroying historical sites and expelling the local Palestinian population.
Israel resumes building museum on Muslim cemetery
Ma’an – 10/12/2014
JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities have resumed excavations in Mamilla graveyard in West Jerusalem as part of the “Museum of Tolerance” project, a local committee said Tuesday.
The head of the Islamic cemeteries preservation committee, Mustafa Abu Zahra, said large machinery was placed in the cemetery. It poured reinforced concrete in preparation for the building of the structure of the museum.
Abu Zahra added that the structure is scheduled to be built over the “remains of icons, martyrs, grandparents and parents,” and he said that the project is being implemented by a California-based center in cooperation with the Jerusalem municipality and other Israeli departments.
The project was started by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 2001, and 12 dunams of the cemetery ground were seized including 70 percent which was transformed into “Independence Park,” he explained.
Abu Zahra said that the construction was a grave assault on Muslim heritage and history.
Israeli group storms al-Aqsa as settlers attack 3 Palestinians in Jerusalem
Al-Akhbar | December 8, 2014
A group of right-wing Israelis toured the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem on Monday under police escort, a mosque official said.
The storming of the mosque compound came as Israeli settlers attacked three Palestinians in Jerusalem, and Israeli forces detained 19 in the West Bank.
Al-Aqsa director Omar al-Kiswani told Ma’an that groups of Israeli right-wingers “stormed the compound and toured its squares under the so-called foreign tourism program.”
A group of Israeli intelligence officers also toured the compounds, he added.
The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs complained to Israeli police, expressing their objection to the visits, Kiswani said.
Meanwhile, Israeli police detained a woman identified as Umm Radwan Omar at one of the gates leading to al-Aqsa. Omar usually gives religious lectures inside the compound.
Israeli police collected the identity cards of all Palestinian men and women who entered the compound on Monday.
The al-Aqsa mosque is sensitive for Palestinians due to its status as the third holiest site in Islam and its location in the heart of the Old City of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
The al-Aqsa mosque compound, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the holiest site in Judaism.
Tensions have been running high in occupied East Jerusalem after months of Israeli pressure on the region, including through a massive arrest campaign and a major military offensive on Gaza that left more than 2,100 dead and provoked outrage across Palestine.
They have also been stoked by Israeli authorities’ decision to hold a vote on splitting the al-Aqsa compound despite the existence of a Jewish prayer area at the Western Wall immediately next door.
Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, an agreement with Jordan has maintained that Jewish prayer be allowed at the Western Wall plaza – built on the site of a Palestinian neighborhood of 800 that was destroyed immediately following the conquest – but not inside the al-Aqsa mosque compound itself.
Israeli forces have long restricted Palestinians’ access to the al-Aqsa compound based on age and gender, but have further prevented Muslim worshipers from entering the mosque for more than a month while facilitating the entrance for Zionist extremists.
Settlers attack Palestinians in Jerusalem
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers attacked three Palestinians in two separate incidents in Jerusalem, leaving the latter with bruises and injuries, an Israeli news channel reported Sunday night.
On Sunday evening, Israeli police arrested an Israeli who – along with several other settlers – attacked a Palestinian bus driver, leaving him with injuries, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.
The settlers chanted “death to Arabs” while attacking the bus driver and threatened to kill him, the channel added.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses told Anadolu news agency that a group of Israeli settlers assaulted two Palestinians from Jerusalem while working in a petrol station in the neighborhood of Ein Karem on Sunday night.
One of the Palestinians sustained injuries that required his transfer to a hospital, the witnesses added.
Israeli forces arrest 19 across West Bank
The Israeli army detained 19 Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, a Palestinian NGO has said.
Israeli forces searched scores of homes in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and arrested nine Palestinians, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement.
Three more Palestinians were detained in Nablus, two in Jenin, two in Ramallah and one in Bateen village, the NGO added.
Israeli police detained another two Palestinians in East Jerusalem, according to a statement issued by the NGO.
Israeli forces routinely conduct arrest campaigns against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on claims they are “wanted” by Israeli authorities.
Over 7,000 Palestinians are currently languishing in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs.
On Saturday, Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Authority Department of Prisoner Affairs, said that 2014 has been “the most difficult year” for prisoners.
Qaraqe said in a statement that prisoners in 2014 have been victims of “Israeli revenge policies,” adding that Israel’s move to re-arrest prisoners who were released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal in 2011 was a dangerous political action.
Qaraqe also decried Israel’s policy of detaining minors, saying some 1,500 minors were detained in 2014, mostly in Jerusalem.
According to Qaraqe, there were 550 new Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention without charge or trial this year, and Israel renewed administrative detention orders for 63 percent of administrative prisoners. Excessive use of administrative detention is considered illegal under international law.
(Ma’an, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)
Several More Abducted in West Bank, Settler Assaults Taxi Driver with Pepper Spray
IMEMC News & Agencies | December 2, 2014
An Israeli settler, Monday, reportedly attacked a Palestinian taxi driver in Jerusalem with pepper spray before fleeing the scene, according to Israeli media sources. Additionally, several more Palestinians were abducted by Israeli forces between Sunday evening and Monday morning.
The Jerusalemite was driving on King George Street when he was attacked by the settler with pepper spray, according to WAFA Palestinian News Agency. He was transferred to hospital for exposure to pepper spray fumes.
Police said a search is underway to locate the whereabouts of the assailant.
In related news, Ynet reports that a 50-year-old Israeli settler was knocked down by a car and critically injured on Monday, to south of Nablus, near the northern West Bank checkpoint known as “Zaatara”.
The vehicle fled the scene of the incident, leaving the man critically injured.
An Israeli army spokesman could not confirm the nature of the incident.
A Ma’an reporter said that Israeli forces closed the Huwwara and Zaatara military checkpoints, following the incident, as Israeli forces search for the driver.
— —
Updated from: 12/1/14 Soldiers Kidnap Six Palestinians In The West Bank
Israeli forces abducted, early Monday and Sunday night, at least 12 Palestinians, including a minor, from occupied West Bank districts, including Jerusalem.
WAFA further reports that Israeli police raided Ras al-Amud neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where they arrested three Palestinians from the Najdi family; Sa’ed, Yazan and Rami, after breaking into and ransacking their families’ houses.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces took into custody three Palestinians while they were attending a trial for their arrested relative, Omar al-Abbasi, in Jerusalem District Central Court.
Forces assaulted ‘Ali Ibrahim al-‘Abassi, 25, for attempting to take a photo of his brother Omar during his court session, triggering a scuffle with al-‘Abbasi’s relatives. As a result, ‘Ali al-‘Abbasi, the uncle, 38, and ‘Imad Mhanna, 27, were arrested along with ‘Ali Ibrahim.
Israeli police also raided al-‘Issawiya, to the north of the city, where troops deployed in streets, assaulting and kidnapping 13-year-old Haitham ‘Ibaid.
According to Ahrar Center for Detainees’ Studies and Human Rights, out of 650 people taken from the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem in November, 42 were documented as minors, with 30 having been taken from the city of Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, in the Hebron district, forces raided Beit Kahel village to the northwest of the city, where they kidnapped ‘Imad-addin ‘Asafra, after breaking into his house. They also set up a road block at Halhul Bridge, where they stopped vehicles holding Palestinian-registered plates and examined passengers’ ID cards.
In the Nablus district, Israeli Special Forces raided al-Jabal al-Shamali neighborhood in the city, where they nabbed Tamer Sharaf, age 24.
Soldiers stationed near Zaatara checkpoint, to the south of the city, took one Palestinian under the pretext of carrying a knife. The man has not been identified, as of yet.
In Jenin district, forces set up a flying checkpoint near ‘Arraba, where they abducted Nimr al-Damaj, age 23, a resident of Jenin refugee camp.
Furthermore, in the Ramallah district, forces raided Silwad village to the east of the city, where they broke into and ransacked the house of Bassam Hamed, 40, a former prisoner, and detained the family members in one room before re-arresting Bassam. Forces also handed ‘Anwar Hamed a notice to appear before Israeli intelligence for interrogation.
Forces also raided the Ramallah areas of Deir ‘Ammar and Beitillu, where they broke into several houses, occupied their rooftops, and set up a road block at the villages entrances.
No further kidnappings were reported.
Israeli Forces Kill 9 Palestinians, Kidnap 650, in November
IMEMC News & Agencies | December 01, 2014
In a report issued on Monday, by Ahrar Center for Detainees’ Studies and Human Rights, Israeli occupation forces were said to have killed 9 Palestinians and detained 650 others, over the month of November.
According to Al Ray, the report noted that 42 out of 650 people taken from the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, were minors, in addition to 17 women. 30 of the minors were taken from Jerusalem.
The report also mentioned that six journalists and two cameramen were taken from Jerusalem, as well, while lawyer Ibrahim Nawaf Al Amer was abducted from the city of Nablus, after a raid on his family’s home.
Fuad Khafsh, director of Ahrar, said that Israeli forces storm the cities of the occupied West Bank when and wherever they please, every day and night.
He noted that the reported numbers are documented by the center, and that it was possible for there to be other cases which could not be documented by the center.
See PCHR reports on Israeli violations in the oPt for further documentation.
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From the Archives
Woolsey Fire started at Santa Susana Field Lab — where “radioactive materials released were never accurately measured”
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 30, 2018
In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California’s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory—south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 miles outside Los Angeles—site of at least four partial or total nuclear reactor meltdowns.
The field laboratory operated 10 experimental reactors and conducted rocket engine tests. In his 2014 book Atomic Accidents, researcher James Mahaffey writes, “The cores in four experimental reactors on site … melted.” Reactor core melts always result in the release of large amounts of radioactive gases and particles. Clean up of the deeply contaminated site has not been conducted in spite of a 2010 agreement.
Los Angeles’s KABC-7 TV reported Nov. 13 that the Santa Susana lab site “appears to be the origin of the Woolsey Fire” which has torched over 96,000 acres. Southern Calif. Public Radio said, “According to Cal Fire, the Woolsey Fire started on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 8 … on the Santa Susana site.” … continue
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