Tel Aviv rejects ‘shameful & absurd anti-Israel’ UN resolution
RT | December 23, 2016
Israel will not abide by the UN Security Council’s demands for Tel Aviv to halt its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian lands, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms,” the statement from the PM’s office said, according to Reuters.
The Obama administration “failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN,” and what is even worse, “colluded with it behind the scenes,” the statement added.
In order to “negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution,” Israel is looking forward to working with President-elect Trump and with “all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike.”
Israel’s ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal – countries who along with Malaysia and Venezuela tabled the draft resolution – were immediately ordered to return to Tel Aviv for consultations.
Earlier, the Israeli ambassador to the council, Danny Danon slammed the vote as a “victory for terror, a victory for hatred and violence.”
“Who gave you the right to issue such a decree, denying our eternal rights in Jerusalem?” he added.
The UN Security Council resolution, demanding an end to the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, was adopted with 14 of 15 UNSC members voting in favor. The US was the only nation to abstain from voting.
The US defended its abstention from Israeli criticism by stating that one “cannot champion settlements and the two state solution” at the same time. The US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said the US did not veto the resolution as it “reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with US policy.”
The main US pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the Obama administration’s reluctance to use its veto in what it described as a “destructive, one-sided, anti-Israel resolution.”
UNSC passes resolution demanding end to Israeli settlement building on occupied Palestinian land
RT | December 23, 2016
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding an end to the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories after the US abstained from voting.
The resolution was introduced to the UNSC by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal on Friday, a day after Egypt withdrew reportedly under pressure from Israel and US President-elect Donald Trump.
Earlier, Trump and Israeli authorities also called on the US to veto the resolution. The document was eventually adopted with 14 of 15 UNSC members voting in favor. The US was the only nation to abstain from voting.
It is the first resolution passed by the UNSC on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in almost eight years.
The Israeli envoy to the UN Danny Danon criticized the US’ decision to abstain. However, he expressed his confidence that the new US president would “no doubt” usher in a new era in UN-Israeli ties, as well as the new UN Secretary General.
The US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power responded to the Israeli envoy’s criticism by stressing that one “cannot champion settlements and the two state solution” at the same time. She went on to say that the US did not veto the resolution as it “reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with US policy.”
Power also stressed that continued settlement building “undermines” Israel’s own security.
Meanwhile, US House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced US abstention by calling it “absolutely shameful” and describing it as a “blow to peace.” The US Republican senator, John McCain, went further and said that the abstention in the UNSC vote made the US “complicit in this outrageous attack” against Israel, reported Reuters.
Danon earlier said that the resolution served as “the condemnation of the sole democracy in the Middle East [Israel].”
The UNSC was initially scheduled to vote on the resolution on Thursday but Egypt pulled its text at the last minute, postponing the vote until after the wrapup of the Arab League ministerial meeting in Cairo. According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exerted heavy pressure on Egyptian President Abdel Sissi urging him to delay the vote.
Netanyahu also urged the US to veto the vote on the “anti-Israel resolution” on Wednesday night in a short tweet.
The current Obama administration previously expressed its disapproval of Israeli settlement policies, which Tel Aviv has pursued since 1967. However, in 2011, Washington vetoed a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
Israel occupied Palestinian territories in 1967. Now, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements built on occupied territories. Meanwhile, Palestinians have been seeking full independence for the occupied territories for decades and demand full recognition as a sovereign state from both the UN and the international community.
Israeli High Court Allows Ghaith-Sub Laban Family to Stay in Their Home of Six Decades for 10 Years more, but without Their Children
American Herald Tribune | December 22, 2016
The Israeli High Court released late on Tuesday 20 December 2016 its decision regarding the Ghaith-Sub Laban eviction, in which the Court partially accepted the family’s appeal and stopping their eviction.
The decision keeps the family’s protected tenant status for 10 more years after which the family would be evicted and the house would be handed to the Israeli settler organization that requested their eviction.
The decision however limits the right to live in the house to Mrs. Nora Ghaith and her husband Mustafa Sub Laban without their children. The Court also excluded from its decision a small storage room for the family under the house which Israeli settlers can proceed in taking over.
The decision comes one day after the hearing held in front of the Israeli High Court yesterday in which the Court heard the family’s appeal against the eviction and the settler’s claims that the family abandoned their house years ago. During the hearing, the Court proposed a compromise to both parties under which the protected tenancy status would be limited to Nora and her husband and the family would be allowed to stay in the house as long as Nora and her husband live.
The settlers rejected the Court’s suggestion and instead proposed evicting the family and moving them to the small storage under the house which is no more than 20 squared meters in size.
The Court disregarded the settlers’ suggestion and ended the hearing only to come with this unjust decision the following day.
Nora Ghaith’s family rented the house located in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem in 1953 from the Jordanian Custodian of Public Property. She continued to live in the house after 1967 and currently lives in the house with her husband, her two sons Ahmad and Rafat, her daughter Lama as well as her daughter in law Ruba and two grandchildren Mustafa and Kenan aged 9 and 4.
Nora Ghaith-Sub Laban commented by saying that the Court simply acknowledged the settler’s claims that the house is abandoned and ruled to separate her family. As per the High Court’s decision, Nora will have to be separated from her grandchildren as well as her unmarried son and daughter.
In case the family refuses to comply with the Court’s decision, the settlers can file a new request to evict the family before the 10 years have passed.
Ahmad Sub Laban, journalist and human rights activist, further added that the Israeli High Court’s decision in fact evicts part of the family and keep another temporarily.
Israeli judiciary once again sustains the discrimination that Palestinians face, where Israeli settlers are allowed to reclaim property they allegedly owned pre 1948 whereas Palestinians are prohibited from the same.
Today we also witness how the Court ruled to separate a family by deciding who can live in the house and who cannot.
The Israeli High Court, as with all similar eviction or house demolition cases, have proved itself to be a partner to Israel’s settlement expansion policy and to settler’s ambition to take over as many houses in occupied East Jerusalem. This is simply legitimizing the Israeli occupation’s policies that violate international law and an endorsement of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after 1967.
Israel renews travel ban against Jerusalemite Palestinian woman
Ma’an – December 19, 2016
JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities renewed a travel ban against a Palestinian woman from occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, after she has already been banned from the Old City’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as well as from the occupied West Bank.
Khadija Khweis told a Ma’an that Israeli intelligence summoned her to Jerusalem’s Russian Compound police station, where she was handed a renewable one-month travel prohibition order signed by the Israeli Minister of Interior.
A previous one-month travel ban against Khweis had expired on Wednesday.
According to Khweis, the new order read that she was prevented from traveling for “security reasons.”
“They say I have connections with the Murabitat group and think I could travel on missions to promote them,” she said.
In addition to being banned from international travel, Khweis has been prohibited from traveling to the West Bank for six months, an order that she said was still effective.
Furthermore, Khweis is on Israel’s so-called “blacklist” created by Israeli police in August 2015 to deny dozens of Palestinians access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Israeli authorities have also revoked Khweis and her family’s national insurance allowance.
In December last year, Khweis was banned from the entirety of the Old City as well as West Jerusalem.
She was also among a number of Palestinian women who were assaulted by Israeli forces when they were denied entry to Al-Aqsa for their affiliation with the Murabitat, a group of women who gather at the compound to demonstrate against what they see as increasing Israeli control over the holy site and provocative visits by Israeli rightists under armed guard.
In September last year, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon outlawed the Murabitat and their male counterpart, the Murabitun.
The third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is also venerated as Judaism’s most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.
The fate of Jerusalem has been a focal point of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, with numerous tensions arising over Israeli threats regarding the status of non-Jewish religious sites in the city, and the “Judaization” of East Jerusalem through detention campaigns targeting Palestinians, Israeli settlement construction, and mass demolitions of Palestinian homes.
Israeli Soldiers Abduct Palestinian Child In Silwad
IMEMC News – December 17, 2016
Israeli soldiers abducted a Palestinian child in Silwad town, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, on Friday evening.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said the child has been identified as Ward Abdul-Qader Hamed, 15, and that he was abducted after the soldiers stopped him at the western entrance of the town.
It is worth mentioning that the abducted child is the son of Qaddoura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Omar Nazzal and Adib Al-Atrash: Palestinian journalists ordered to further imprisonment without charge or trial
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – December 15, 2016
Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal was ordered to three more months in administrative detention on Monday, 12 December. This marked the third renewal of his administrative detention order since he was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 23 April 2016 as he sought to cross the bridge to Jordan in order to travel to the European Federation of Journalists’ conference in Sarajevo. Nazzal is a member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and president of the Democratic Journalists’ Assembly.
At a previous hearing on 22 November, Nazzal’s administrative detention was limited to a one and a half month extension; he was told he would be released on 24 December. Instead, however, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association reported that the extension of his detention was for a full three months.
On Wednesday, 15 December, fellow journalist Adib al-Atrash was also ordered to another three months in administrative detention without charge or trial. Arrested in June, this marks the third consecutive time al-Atrash has received an order for three months of imprisonment without charge or trial.
Tens of Palestinian journalists are imprisoned in Israeli jails, several in administrative detention without charge or trial, including Addameer media officer Hasan Safadi whose own detention was just extended for six months. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable by Israeli military order and Palestinians can spend years at a time imprisoned without charge or trial.
Israeli forces ‘wreak havoc’ in Birzeit University raid
Ma’an – December 14, 2016
RAMALLAH – More than 20 Israeli military vehicles raided the campus of Birzeit University in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah before dawn on Wednesday, with Israeli forces “leaving a great deal of havoc” in their wake, an official university statement said.
After storming the campus through its western gate, Israeli soldiers forced campus security guards to stand against the walls, and proceeded to raid several buildings, including the university’s administration building, the student council’s headquarters, Kamal Nasir Hall, and the Faculty of Science.
Sources said soldiers smashed the main door of the student council building before searching the area and seizing several objects that were inside storage units belonging to student blocs.
Students’ flags and banners were also confiscated, while property in the administrative building and around campus were “sabotaged,” according to the university.
Birzeit University harshly condemned Israeli forces for the “continuation of their barbaric aggression on our people and national institutions,” adding that “These blatant attacks and subsequent measures of harassment constitute outrageous interferences to our right to education.”
However, the statement vowed that the “attacks” would “not deter its commitment to higher education, and the pivotal role it has played since its establishment.”
“The academic freedom of Palestinian academics and students is severely hindered, due to the (Israeli) occupation, its policies, and continuous defiance of the fundamental rights of our people and the sanctity of our universities, and that must be defended,” the statement said.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they would look into reports of the raid.
Birzeit University, which has been ranked the top university in Palestine and among the highest ranking universities in the Arab world, has been the focus of an Israeli military crackdown a number of times in recent months, which increased after the Hamas-affiliated Islamic bloc won student elections at Birzeit for the past two consecutive years.
In July, at least 11 Palestinian youths were injured after Israeli undercover forces and soldiers opened live fire in the campus amid clashes sparked by an Israeli raid to detain a former member of the Islamic bloc.
At the start of 2016, Israeli military forces raided Birzeit, destroying and confiscating university equipment, having detained more than 80 students since Oct. 2015 up until that point.
Rights groups have widely condemned the concerted detention of Islamic bloc members at the university since their initial victory in 2015, who have also been targeted by Palestinian security forces. The Hamas movement is deemed illegal by the Israeli government — along with the majority of Palestinian political factions and movements — making students involved with the Islamic bloc highly vulnerable to raids and arbitrary detentions.
Birzeit University noted in their statement Wednesday that Israeli forces have also violently raided other Palestinian universities, including Palestine Technical University – Kadoori, the Arab American University of Jenin, as well as Al-Quds University in Abu Dis.
“The university calls on the international community and human rights organizations to immediately put a stop to these raids and violations, and actively engage in supporting our struggle for liberation,” Birzeit stated.
Israeli forces shoot Palestinian activist with rubber-coated steel bullet for taking photos
Ma’an – December 13, 2016
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Monday evening shot a Palestinian activist in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet during a raid in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Issawiya while he was attempting to take photos and video footage in the neighborhood, according to a local committee.
Members of a local follow-up committee in al-Issawiya told Ma’an that committee member Muhammad Abu al-Hummus was “documenting Israeli violations and provocations” when an Israeli soldier “threatened to shoot him in the head if he didn’t leave.”
Shortly after the threat was made against him, another soldier then shot a rubber-coated steel bullet at Abu al-Hummus from an approximate distance of 25 meters, hitting him in the leg.
Prior to the shooting, Israeli forces and police officers had stormed the town and deployed in its alleys “in a provocative manner,” started stopping drivers, and arbitrarily issued a number of traffic fines to locals, according to the committee.
After being informed of the forces’ arrival into the town, Abu al-Hummus began taking photos and writing notes about their activities.
An Israeli police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Israeli police and soldiers have come under heavy criticism over the past year for what rights groups have referred to as excessive use of force against Palestinians, including journalists and activists, who did not pose an immediate threat at the time they were injured.
Demand action to free British citizen Fayez Sharary from Israeli prison
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – December 11, 2016
Fayez Sharary, a British citizen of Palestinian descent, has now been held in Israeli prisons for nearly three months. He traveled with his wife Laila and their daughter, Aya, 3, to Palestine, to visit Laila’s widowed mother and to mark Eid al-Adha in Jerusalem, reports Inminds, the British organization currently leading a campaign to free Sharary. As the family attempted to leave Palestine on 15 September at the bridge to Jordan, they were stopped by Israeli forces; they had a flight scheduled for 17 September to return to the UK.
Sharary was separated from his wife and daughter, while he was interrogated for five hours while his daugher was refused access to a toilet. Laila’s mobile phone was confiscated and Sharary was detained; when she attempted to refuse to leave and stay with her husband, Israeli soldiers screamed at her.
Sharary was held for three weeks in Petah Tikva interrogation center and subject to ill-treatment, abuse and torture throughout that time. He was denied access to a lawyer until he signed a forced confession on 6 October and was moved to Ofer prison. Sharary’s torture by Israeli forces was further substantiated by Judge Azriel Levi, who ordered his release in a hearing in Ofer military court on 26 October, citing his confession as a result of “the method of interrogation, which included pained and prolonged shackling, threats, and a blatant exploitation of the defendant’s demonstrated weakness.” The military judge further said that the confession had a value of “less than zero” and that some of the allegations against Sharary were not prosecutable in the military courts.
However, as is frequently the case when on the rare occasion a military judge orders the release of a detainee, the Israeli military prosecution appealed and Sharary has remained imprisoned ever since.
Daniel Zeichner, the British Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Transport, raised a parliamentary question regarding the involvement of the British consulate in providing support for Sharary’s case; Tobias Ellwood, under-secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, replied that “Our Embassy in Tel Aviv has raised, and continues to raise, the detention of Mr Sharary with the Israeli authorities, most recently on 15 November. Consular officials continue to provide consular support to Mr Sharary and his family.”
Laila Sharary has participated in several protests in London demanding that the UK government act to free her imprisoned husband, 49, who has lived in the UK for 23 years. Sharary is allegedly accused of “contact with an enemy organization,” “services to an illegal organization,” and “bringing money into the region from an enemy.” Part of these allegations allegedly relate to Sharary’s time in Lebanon in 1993 or earlier; Sharary is not a resident of Palestine. The initial judge in the case who ordered Sharary released also dismissed the allegations of financial involvement due to irrelevant claims by the military prosecutor.
Despite these flimsy charges and his experience of torture – all too common, but publicly confirmed in this case by an Israeli military judge – Sharary remains imprisoned and will face a military court in Ofer on Wednesday, 14 December.
TAKE ACTION:
Please take action to urge the UK government to intervene and pressure Israel to release torture victim Fayez Sharary. This includes asking for UK representatives to attend the hearing in Sharary’s case at Ofer Military Court.
Email the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at fcocorrespondence@fco.gov.uk and the British Consulate in Jerusalem at britain.jerusalem@fco.gov.uk to express your concern about the case of Fayez Sharary.
You can use the sample letter below or write your own letter:
SAMPLE LETTER
To whom it may concern,
I am writing in regard to the urgent case of Fayez Sharary, a British citizen currently imprisoned by Israel in its military court system for the occupied Palestinian territories. Sharary, 49, was previously ordered released due to the torture he experienced under interrogation.
Nonetheless, he remains imprisoned and will once again face a military court at Ofer prison on Wednesday, 14 December from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm.
It is critical that the British government support its citizen Fayez Sharary by pressuring Israel for his immediate release. It is particularly critical that there is a British official presence at the military court hearing on 14 December.
Israeli military trials do not meet international standards for fair trials and can rely on evidence obtained through torture. Please act to release Fayez Sharary and reunite him with his wife and family in Britain.
Sincerely,
Hundreds of torture complaints against Shin Bet, no investigations
MEMO | December 9, 2016
Hundreds of complaints of torture against Shin Bet agents have produced not a single criminal investigation, according to a report in Haaretz.
Of the 598 complaints filed between 2001 and 2008, every single case was closed by the Israeli authorities without a criminal investigation.
A department within the Ministry of Justice, Mivtan, is responsible for handling such complaints, yet employs just one investigator.
According to Haaretz, “the unit does not interfere with the Shin Bet’s work, even though complainants have reported harsh and prohibited forms of torture – including severe beatings and extensive sleep deprivation.”
The paper adds that while “Mivtan does not reveal how many complaints it receives, only how many inquiries it conducts; however, attorney Efrat Bergman-Sapir of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said her organisation had submitted more than 1,000 complaints since 2001.”
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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