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Israeli forces detain Hebron journalist

Ma’an – 03/06/2012

Sharif Rajoub works as a reporter for al-Aqsa radio station.

HEBRON – Israeli forces detained a local journalist in Hebron early Sunday, relatives said.

Soldiers raided the home of Sharif Rajoub in the village of Dura and took him to an unknown destination, his brother Mahmoud told Ma’an.

Rajoub works as a reporter for Al-Aqsa radio station. He was preparing for his wedding, which was set to take place next week, his brother added.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that a man had been arrested in Dura overnight Saturday, but could not provide further details about his identity.

Another man was arrested in Ramallah overnight, she added.

Israeli forces have raided several Palestinian news outlets in recent months.

In late February, Israeli forces raided the university institute’s Al-Quds Educational TV in Ramallah-district Al-Bireh and confiscated its broadcasting equipment, claiming it was interrupting legal broadcasting.

The same day, Israeli forces also raided Watan TV’s newsroom in Ramallah and seized transmitters.

In May, Israeli forces arrested the director of a Jenin-based satellite channel after raiding his home. Soldiers confiscated Al-Asir TV station’s broadcasting equipment, the director told Ma’an.

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June 3, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel ‘arrests TV director, confiscates equipment’

Ma’an – May 17, 2012

JENIN – Israeli forces arrested the director of a Jenin-based satellite channel on Thursday after raiding his home, the executive director of the channel said.

Saher Qassem, chief of the Al-Asir channel, told Ma’an that a group of soldiers arrested Baha Khayri Ata Musa, 32, after raiding his home in Mirka village.

Soldiers confiscated the TV station’s broadcasting equipment from Musa’s home, preventing the channel from being able to continue its coverage, Qassem said.

Al-Asir, or ‘the prisoner’, channel also has offices operating in Bahrain, Qassem said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said one person was detained in Jenin overnight, but could not provide the identify of the person.

In late February, Israeli forces raided Watan TV and Al-Quds Educational TV’s offices in Ramallah, confiscating broadcasting equipment.

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May 17, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hunger strike deal ‘does not end administrative detention’

Ma’an – 16/05/2012

BETHLEHEM – A deal struck early Tuesday to end the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike will not halt administrative detention, prisoners groups said Wednesday.

The document signed by prisoners representatives states that prisoners will halt hunger strikes and “security activity” inside Israeli jails in exchange for Israeli “facilitation” on policies toward solitary confinement, family visits and living conditions.

Prisoners society official Qaddura Fares told Ma’an the document outlines the core issues, while further details will be agreed in talks between prisoners representatives and the Israeli authorities.

The agreement is a “successful victory,” he said, while warning that it is “not clear enough” on the issue of detention without charge.

Prisoners representatives have secured clear commitments that five administrative detainees on long-term hunger strike will be released at the end of their term, while Mahmoud Sirsik is still negotiating the date of his release, Fares said.

Meanwhile, Israel committed not to renew the administrative detention of all 322 Palestinians held without charge if there is no new information that requires their imprisonment, he noted.

However, Fares warned: “Who can check this new information … no one can be sure.”

Under Israel’s administrative detention policy, prisoners can be held without formal charges for renewable periods of six months. Defendants and their lawyers are not given access to the evidence used to imprison them.

Prisoners rights group Addameer said after the hunger strike deal it is “concerned that these provisions of the agreement will not explicitly solve Israel’s lenient and problematic application of administrative detention, which as it stands is in stark violation of international law.”

Full text of document

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May 16, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

10 years on from Nativity Church siege, deportees ‘forgotten’

By Jenny Baboun | Ma’an | May 10, 2012

BETHLEHEM – Ten years after Israel exiled 39 Palestinians taking refuge in Bethlehem’s Nativity Church, deportees say they have been forgotten by Palestinian leaders.

On May 10, 2002, Israeli forces ended a 39-day siege on the church after striking a deal with Palestinian leaders to send 39 people given sanctuary in the church to Gaza and Europe.

When Israeli tanks surrounded Bethlehem on April 2, 2002, around 220 locals — including around 40 priests and nuns — took shelter in the church. Over the next 39 days, eight Palestinians were killed inside the church and 27 others injured.

The siege on the site believed to be Jesus’ birthplace sparked outrage in the Vatican as monks sheltering inside pleaded for international assistance.

Former Bethlehem Governor Salah Tamari headed the negotiations team to end the siege, and told Ma’an TV the deportation deal was reached without his knowledge.

He recalled his shock when Israeli officials told him Palestinians would be exiled, and said he called the office of President Yasser Arafat to resign as chief negotiator.

Israeli officials had demanded a list of names of everyone in the church, Tamari said.

“Since the first moment, we refused to give any names. We told [the Israelis] if you have anyone who’s wanted, give us their names and we’ll see if their charges affect the Palestinian law, we’ll hold them accountable.”

Rafat Obayyat was one of 27 Palestinians injured by Israeli attacks on the church. He is in a wheelchair due to his injuries.

He told Ma’an the grotto was the safest place in the church during the siege. Food was scarce and small amounts of pasta would be rationed between everyone, he added.

After a decade in exile, deportees say they have been abandoned by the Palestinian Authority and all political factions. They have not been allowed to return to their families in the West Bank.

Deportees had planned to demonstrate on Thursday but canceled the protest to stand beside prisoners on hunger strike, spokesman for the group Fahmi Kanan said at a press conference on Monday.

Instead, deportees will go on a 3-day hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with detainees in Israeli jails, Kanan said.

‘A dangerous precedent’

Former detainee and researcher Abdul Nasser Farwaneh said the deportation deal was a clear violation of international law and human rights.

The Palestinian leadership’s acceptance of the deal to send Palestinians into exile set a dangerous precedent and over the last decade Israel has deported hundreds more Palestinians, Farwaneh said in a statement.

He urged the international community to send a commission of inquiry into Israel’s siege on one of the world’s holiest sites.

He also called for greater efforts to bring the deportees home and said the ongoing failure to bring them back from exile reflected Palestinian indifference to the issue.

May 9, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers attack village, block Nablus road

Ma’an – 26/04/2012
Settler attacks are common and rarely prosecuted

NABLUS – Settlers in the northern West Bank set up a roadblock and attacked a Nablus village on Thursday, a PA official said.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, said that settlers blocked a main road that links the West Bank town of Huwwara to Tulkarem and Qalqiliya.

Settlers prevented Palestinian vehicles from passing through, causing a large traffic jam. Around 12 settlers also attacked the village of Urif in Nablus, clashing with local villagers.

Witnesses said the Israeli army was present during the incident but fired tear gas at the villagers.

In 2011, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that settler attacks had increased by 50 percent on the previous year.

The Nablus district experienced the majority of settler violence in 2011.


Source: When Settlers Attack, The Palestine Center, 2012
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April 26, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian teen shot during Israeli military training

Ma’an – 20/04/2012

TUBAS – Israeli soldiers shot an 18-year-old shepherd in the chest on Thursday evening during military training exercises in the northern West Bank, medics said.

Yasir Suleiman Nijad Kaabnah was shot while herding sheep and camels near Wadi al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley, medics told Ma’an.

Salem Kaabneh, the victim’s uncle who was with him when he was shot, told Ma’an that Israeli troops who were training in the area fired at Suleiman injuring him in the chest.

Medical officials said soldiers refused to help the wounded teenager and he was taken in a private car to hospital in Tubas. He was transferred to Rafadea Hospital in Nablus, where he is in a critical condition in intensive care.

An Israeli military spokeswoman was not immediately familiar with the incident.

Palestinian Authority police have opened an investigation into the shooting.

The local village council said Israeli military training in the area had caused several casualties because shepherds were not warned when or where the exercises would take place.

The council urged human rights groups to pressure the Israeli army not to train near civilian populations.

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April 20, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces shut down media launch in Jerusalem

Ma’an – 02/04/2012

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces raided the Jerusalem office of a university media institute on Monday, shutting down the launch of an online media network and detaining employees.

Plainclothes police shut down the launch of the Hona al-Quds news site in the al-Khalidiya neighborhood of Jerusalem’s Old City, and confiscated equipment and files, network director Harun Abu Arrah told Ma’an.

Two employees — Adel Ruished and Mohannad Izheman — were detained, and guests attending the launch were blocked from entering.

Employees were presented with an order signed by the Israeli minister of internal security forbidding the event as a banned initiative of the Palestinian Authority, director of Al-Quds University Institute for Modern Media Lucy Nusseibeh told Ma’an.

The university, which launched Hona al-Quds, has been registered as an independent non-governmental organization with Israeli authorities for decades, Nusseibeh added.

The launch was intended to take place simultaneously with the institute’s Ramallah office by Skype.

Izheman, a university security guard, has since been released with a summons to return to police offices on Tuesday, and Ruished, the university’s Administrative Director of Jerusalem Affairs, is still being held, a university statement said.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the facility was “closed until further notice,” on suspicions of use for Palestinian official activity in Jerusalem.

“This is the second attack on our media institution in five weeks — this is education and not a political project,” Nusseibeh said.

In late February, Israeli forces raided the institute’s Al-Quds Educational TV in Ramallah-district Al-Bireh and confiscated its broadcasting equipment, claiming it was interrupting legal broadcasting.

The same day, Israeli forces also raided Watan TV’s newsroom in Ramallah and seized transmitters.

Reporters Without Borders said at the time it was “deeply shocked” by the raids.

“These arbitrary and illegal operations served yet again to intimidate Palestinian media and journalists, the victims of repeated attacks by the (Israeli army),” the group said in a statement.

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April 2, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Settlers ‘block entrance’ to Nablus village

Ma’an – March 28, 2012

NABLUS – Dozens of Israeli settlers blocked the entrance to a village near Nablus on Wednesday, officials said.

Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Doughlas told Ma’an that residents of Itamar and Elon Moreh settlements arrived at Beit Dajan in around 15 cars and closed the main gate to the village.

The settlers were protesting the reopening of the main road from Beit Dajan to Nablus a day earlier, Doughlas said.

The road had been closed by the Israeli military for 12 years, forcing villagers to take long detours to reach Nablus, the nearest city.

Doughlas said Israeli forces arrived and dispersed the settlers.

An Israeli military spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

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March 28, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli police escort Harvard tour from Bethlehem village

Ma’an – 13/03/2012

BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces stopped a group of 55 Harvard University students touring Bethlehem village al-Walaja on Tuesday, witnesses told Ma’an.

Security guards manning bulldozers that are building Israel’s separation wall surrounding the village stopped the bus of students as they drove along the planned route of the wall, al-Walaja popular committee member Shireen Al-Araj said.

“The students came to learn about the wall and the settlements around al-Walaja … to see the facts of the ground,” she said.

Police arrived to escort the bus to the Israeli military checkpoint outside the village, while briefly detaining Al-Araj in Atarot police station, she told Ma’an. Forces warned her she will be fine 5,000 shekels if she fails to follow orders again, she added.

March 14, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

5 killed, 46 injured in fourth day of Gaza airstrikes

Ma’an – 12/03/2012

GAZA CITY – Israeli airstrikes killed two Islamic Jihad militants and three civilians on Monday, bringing the death toll since Friday to 23 people, medics and Ma’an’s correspondent said.

An airstrike on Monday afternoon in Beit Lahiya killed Muhammad al-Hasoumi, 65, and his daughter, 30, medical spokesperson in Gaza Abu Salmiya said.

Earlier, hospital officials said a 15-year-old schoolboy was killed in a separate air strike during the day on Monday. Nayif Shaaban Qarmout was killed in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza, Ma’an’s correspondent said.

Witnesses said that the 15-year-old was playing with friends in a play ground near his school when an Israeli missile hit the area.

Five others were injured and taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Early Monday, two Islamic Jihad militants, Raafat Abu Eid, 24, and Hamadah Salman Abu Mutlaq, 24, were killed in Khan Younis, Ma’an’s correspondent said. Abu Eid was killed when an airstrike targeted a vehicle he was traveling in.

Two other militants sustained injuries and a female passerby was also injured in the attack.

Abu Mutlaq, 24, was killed near a mosque in a village east of Khan Younis after warplanes fired at him. Three others were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.

Earlier, Israeli airstrikes had hit two homes in the northern Gaza Strip, injuring 33 civilians, most of whom were women and children, Abu Salmiya said.

Most sustained moderate injuries, with one critically injured, and were transferred to hospital.

A 17-year-old girl and another man were also injured as Israeli missiles struck a home in Gaza City, Abu Salmiya said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said aircraft had carried out six strikes on Monday. At least 20 rockets have been fired at Israel on Monday, she said.

The army targeted “a weapons storage facility and four rocket launching sites in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as a rocket launching site in the southern Gaza Strip,” a statement said.

Israel’s army denied, however, that there had been any military activity in the northern Gaza Strip at the time of 15-year-old Nayif Shaaban Qarmout’s death.

Gaza’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said late Sunday that neighboring Egypt was working to stop the violence and was consulting with militant factions but added that Israel would have to first stop its air strikes.

The latest round of violence flared on Friday when an Israeli airstrike killed two militant leaders in Gaza.

Israel accused them of planning a cross-border attack via Egypt, although an Egyptian official said Sunday that the Sinai is “fully under control.”

“This is an attempt by Israel to give justification for the offensive against Gaza,” he said.

On Sunday, PLO official Hanan Ashrawi strongly condemned Israel’s latest military escalation.

“The Israeli government has acted with impunity for its unilateral violations for far too long. The illegal, cruel siege of the Gaza Strip, along with all other violations of international law must come to an end.”

The PLO official called on the international community to take serious measures to halt Israel’s policy of extrajudicial executions and the continued killing of innocent civilians.

Reuters contributed to this report

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March 12, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlement waste ‘poisoning Palestinians’

Ma’an – 06/03/2012

NABLUS – Sewage from Israeli settlements near Salfit in the northern West Bank is flowing into nearby Palestinian communities and causing serious disease, a health ministry official said Tuesday.

Speaking at an environmental conference in Salfit, the head of Salfit’s ministry of health office said the situation had become “intolerable” for communities affected by disease from the sewage, including cases of cholera.

Waste from factories in an industrial zone inside an Israeli settlement is threatening Salfit’s agriculture, the Salfit governor said.

Barqan settlement, near Salfit’s Qana Valley, has the largest industrial complex of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Gov. Isam Abu Bakr said.

He warned that the dumping of waste in 11 sites surrounding Salfit had become a major cause of cancer in the area.

All Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.

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March 6, 2012 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces attack press with ‘total impunity’

Ma’an – February 15, 2012

BETHLEHEM – Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday condemned violence used by Israel against photojournalists covering demonstrations against Israel’s West Bank barrier.

Reporters Without Borders “deplores the total impunity enjoyed by the soldiers responsible for these abuses,” the Paris-based press freedom watchdog said in a statement.

The statement referred to incidents in January and February in which soldiers injured photojournalists in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, and in Kufr Qaddoum, near Qalqiliya, and others sites in the occupied West Bank.

“Reporters Without Borders has on many occasions asked the Israeli army to undertake independent and impartial investigations into such incidents in order to identify and punish those responsible,” RSF said.

“Even when the army does carry out an investigation, it seldom reaches any real conclusions.”

Lt.-Col. Avital Leibovich, an army spokeswoman, responded to the complaints by saying that one of the incidents occurred while forces were acting against a “violent and illegal demonstration.”

She stressed that at least one of the complaints was not appropriate because of the dangers present in the West Bank, adding, “Sometimes the media are caught in the eye of the storm.”

The group called the response “a stonewalling exercise.”

“Reporters Without Borders is outraged at this insulting and totally inadequate response from the Israeli Defense Forces, which continually protect the army at the expense of freedom of information.”

February 15, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

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