Islamic Jihad slams PA-Israel security coordination as unity gov’t expires
Al-Akhbar | November 30, 2014
The national consensus government declared by Hamas and Fatah this summer has finished its interim term, Hamas spokesman said Sunday, as the Islamic Jihad movement urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop security coordination with Israel.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press conference in Gaza City that the unity government’s six-month term had expired, and that dialogue should be resumed on a national level to discuss the future of the government.
“Any decision on whether the government should be disbanded or continued or be reshuffled must be made only through national dialogue and consensus,” Abu Zuhri said, adding that Hamas “isn’t interested in incitement, but rather seeks to maintain national unity.”
The Palestinian national unity government was formed following a reconciliation deal signed by Palestinian political rivals Hamas and Fatah in April.
The deal sought to end years of bitter and sometimes bloody rivalry between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which dominates the West Bank-based PA.
Palestinian parties agreed in September that the unity government would assume immediate authority over Gaza, however the government has so far failed to make any real changes on the ground in Gaza.
Abu Zuhri went on to criticize the PA for making what he called “politically motivated arrests.”
So far in November, 80 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank for their political affiliation, he said, adding that 70 of them were still in PA custody.
“Hamas denounces the escalating violations and criminal acts by the PA security services against supporters of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance,” he added, calling on PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to stop the detention campaign.
Similarly, the Islamic Jihad movement urged Abbas on Sunday to release all political detainees and refrain from detaining any Palestinian over their political affiliation.
Besides the recent wave of detentions, the movement said the security coordination between the PA and Israel has become a “real danger” to the Palestinian national unity.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Yousef al-Hasayna said in a statement that the appreciation expressed by the Israeli authorities regarding the PA’s readiness to continue coordinating with the occupation forces on the security level “is a strike to the nationalistic values of the Palestinian security services” and “is in contrast with the values and beliefs of the Palestinian people.”
“Israel is using this coordination to oppress the Palestinians and make sure no uprising will erupt in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” al-Hasayna said.
“The only one benefiting from this coordination is the Israeli occupation.”
Gaza reconstruction
Ongoing differences between Hamas and the PA have kept tensions high in Gaza.
Earlier this month, a senior United Nations official warned that another conflict will engulf Gaza unless stability in the territory is achieved rapidly.
“I do not see the national consensus government effectively governing Gaza,” Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said.
“If we do not have political stability, a national Palestinian government, and at least an easing of the blockade, yes there will be another war,” Turner told reporters.
For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea.
More than 2,160 Gazans, mostly civilians, were killed and 11,000 injured during seven weeks of unrelenting Israeli attacks in July and August.
The assault ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement that calls for reopening Gaza’s border crossings with Israel, which, if implemented, would effectively end the latter’s years-long blockade of the embattled territory.
However, the Zionist entity had repeatedly blocked the entry of building material, prompting the UN in September to broker another deal. The reconstruction of Gaza has yet to begin.
The Palestinian Authority has estimated that the rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to the Gaza Strip in October that the devastation he had seen was “beyond description” and “far worse” than that caused in the previous Israel-Gaza conflict of winter 2008-2009.
According to the UN, as many as 80,000 Palestinians homes were damaged or destroyed during the days of hostilities, a higher figure than was previously thought, and over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families.
Israel routinely bars the entry of building materials into the embattled coastal enclave on grounds that Palestinian resistance faction Hamas could use them to build underground tunnels or fortifications.
For years, the Gaza Strip has depended on construction materials smuggled into the territory through a network of tunnels linking it to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
However, a crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army after it overthrew then-President Mohammed Mursi has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector.
Economists in Gaza have estimated that as many as 400 trucks of equipment – from concrete to building materials and machinery – are needed every day for the next six months to meet the demand, but so far only around 75 trucks have made deliveries.
“I know there is frustration at the pace of reconstruction,” Turner said, adding that efforts were underway to fully implement a mechanism negotiated by the UN’s special coordinator in the Middle East, Robert Serry, to speed up the flow of goods.
Alaa Radwan, head of the Popular Committee for Monitoring the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, made a simple calculation: “Given the pace at which construction materials are currently entering Gaza, it will be at least 20 years” before the damage caused by this summer’s war is repaired.
While Hamas and people in Gaza have lamented the slow flow of goods, Turner was optimistic that the volume could be greatly increased if political stability could be brought to bear and if Egypt and Israel fully lifted their combined blockade.
“I do not believe the crossings are a problem,” Turnor said. “All the technical problems can be addressed. The question for me is that the political choke points be addressed.”
“If the political will exists… expanding the crossing to 800 trucks a day is just a matter of paying for the expansion.”
The crisis between Hamas and Fatah has been delaying the flow of reconstruction material into war-battered Gaza because the opening of border crossings, both under Israeli and Egyptian control, is conditional on PA personnel being stationed there.
According to the UN-brokered deal, all materials going into Gaza should be extremely monitored, including GPS tracking and video surveillance of their storage, to ensure nothing goes missing and ends up being used for “military purposes.”
On top of the slow pace of reconstruction and the bureaucracy, Fatah’s failure to pay employees of Gaza’s former Hamas government has further escalated tensions between the two rivals.
Moreover, the situation in Gaza was thrown into doubt early November after bombs targeted the houses of some 10 senior Fatah officials in Gaza.
Even though Hamas leaders rushed to denounce the attacks and called upon security services in Gaza to investigate into the attacks and bring those responsible for it to justice, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority security services accused Hamas of having knowledge of the blasts before they happened.
Hamas top member, Khalil al-Hayya, however, slammed the accusations as “groundless” and “baseless,” saying whoever was behind the blasts was trying to thwart reconciliation and ensure the Palestinian Authority did not re-extend its control over Gaza.
Hayya also warned against using the incident as an excuse to avoid reconciliation, calling on all sides to uphold their responsibilities towards the national good.
(Al-Akhbar, AFP, Ma’an)
UN General Assembly: Israel’s actions in Jerusalem are null and void
MEMO | November 27, 2014
The United Nations General Assembly adopted six resolutions regarding Israeli occupied territories through a recorded vote last night, addressing the areas of Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan.
In terms of Jerusalem, the Assembly voted on a resolution confirming that all legislative and administrative measures taken by Israel to change the legal status of the Holy City of Jerusalem are null and void.
The decision was supported by a recorded vote of 144 countries in favour, six countries opposed, namely Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and United States, while ten countries abstained from the vote (Australia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Madagascar, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Togo and Tonga and Vanuatu).
The Assembly also adopted a resolution that stressed the need for Israel, the occupying power, to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, and demanded the complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activity and Israel’s compliance with its obligations under international law.
The Assembly’s decision also outlined the need for delivering humanitarian and medical aid to the Palestinians.
Another decision was implemented regarding the Syrian Golan Heights as a result of the Assembly’s concern for Israel’s lack of compliance with Resolution 497 (issued in 1981) calling on Israel to withdraw its forces from the Golan Heights which have been illegally occupied since 1967. The decision was supported by 99 countries, rejected by six, while 57 (mostly European) countries abstained from the vote.
Israeli soldiers shoot Italian in the chest at Kafr Qaddum rally
Al-Akhbar | November 29, 2014
A pro-Palestinian Italian activist was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli gunfire during a Friday protest in the northern West Bank, medics and the activist’s organization said.
Palestinian security sources said Patrick Corsi, a 30-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was shot during the weekly demonstration at Kafr Qaddum, west of Nablus.
Eyewitnesses said Corsi, who had participated in last week’s protest as well, had been documenting the event with a camera.
ISM, an activist group whose members frequently attend Palestinian protests to monitor the actions of Israeli soldiers, confirmed the shooting in a statement.
“The Italian activist, known as Patrick, was wearing a yellow high visibility jacket when he was shot with .22 live ammunition,” the statement said.
The statement added that 10 Palestinian protesters were wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets at the protest, in addition to 18-year-old Sami Jumma who was struck by live fire.
“We were standing with a group of Palestinian demonstrators when Patrick was shot. The military had fired three rounds of tear gas, and then a shot rang out and Patrick stumbled back. There was between five and ten minutes from the last tear gas canister fired and the bullet that shot Patrick.”
“He was just standing there, peacefully protesting, wearing a hi-viz jacket, he wasn’t doing anything and they just decided to shoot him,” the statement quoted an ISM volunteer at the scene as saying.
“The bullet entered Patrick’s chest near a main blood vessel, but thankfully did not puncture it. If God forbid it had, the lengthened journey to the hospital because of the closed road could have cost Patrick his life,” ISM media coordinator Ally Cohen was quoted in the statement as saying.
Due to an Israeli closure of Kafr Qaddum’s main road to Nablus, the travel time to the nearest hospital is around 30 minutes instead of 10.
Khaldoun Ishtewi, media coordinator for public campaigns in Kafr Qaddum, told Ma’an news agency that the Italian national was taken to the Rafidia Public Hospital in Nablus for treatment.
Ishtewi added that several Palestinians suffered from excessive tear-gas inhalation as a result of canisters fired by Israeli soldiers during the clashes.
An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Palestinian Minister of Health Jawad Awwad told Ma’an that “shooting live fire at the upper part of the bodies of protesters is directly targeting them and is a deliberate attempt at murder.”
“Israel does not differentiate between foreign solidarity activists, Palestinians, or even journalists,” he added.
An Israeli army spokesman described the event as a “riot” during which 100 Palestinians allegedly hurled rocks at troops and burnt tires.
After failing to disperse people and “due to increased violence,” soldiers “fired small caliber rounds toward main masked instigators,” the spokesman said.
In the West Bank at the Qalandiya crossing between Jerusalem and Ramallah, Israeli border policemen “fired small caliber rounds toward two main instigators’ lower extremities” during a violent clash with some 150 Palestinians, the spokesman said.
There was no immediate report on their condition.
Protests are held every Friday in Kafr Qaddum against Israel’s closure of a main road linking the village to its nearest city, Nablus, as well as against the Israeli occupation more generally.
The West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.
(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
Photo credit – ISM
US helping Israel boycott Geneva summit on occupied territories – diplomatic sources
RT | November 27, 2014
Switzerland is under diplomatic pressure from Israel, the US, Canada and Australia, which are trying to prevent an international conference in Geneva from taking place in mid-December on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, Haaretz reports.
Delegations from nearly 200 countries are expected to head to Geneva to discuss the situation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Yet, according to Haaretz, Israeli and Western diplomats are ready to go for broke to prevent the gathering from taking place.
Switzerland, as the main sponsor of the summit, is bearing the brunt of diplomatic pressure from all sides.
Israeli authorities told the media outlet that Palestinians and Arab states are also pressing Swiss officials to send out letters of invitation to the conference within a matter of days, the Israeli daily reported on Wednesday.
It was in early April when Israel announced plans of constructing 700 new houses in occupied East Jerusalem, a move that pushed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to ask 15 international conventions to join them in the name of the Palestinian state.
One of those was the Fourth Geneva Convention (signed 1949, came into force 1950), which specifically addresses protection of civilians in war zones and territories under military occupation.
Washington finally accepted that its efforts to extend peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been torpedoed. Several weeks later, Palestinians and the Arab League sent an official request to Switzerland to hold an international conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention signatory states on the issues of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, together with the damage caused by Israel’s armed forces to civilians in Gaza.
The last time the signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention gathered in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in 2001, after the outbreak of the second intifada. That conference was boycotted by Israel and the United States.
After that summit there have been four fruitless attempts to gather the Fourth Geneva Convention on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Even the bloody Israeli military Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009 failed to raise broad international support for holding such a conference, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry at the time.
The necessity to call the new conference has been not evident this time, too, so Swiss diplomats asked every Fourth Geneva Convention signatory separately whether the time had come to hold a summit.
What the Swiss diplomats have proposed is a three-hour conference at an ambassadorial level, no discussions and no media coverage except for a final press statement. The conference is set to be focused on implementation of the international humanitarian law in troubled Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“We made it clear we didn’t want a political event or debate club, or a conference that would blame or criticize one of the sides,” a Swiss diplomat said.
However small the scale of the proposed event is, Israel strongly objected to it. Israeli diplomats reportedly conducted negotiations in Bern and Geneva, trying to persuade Swiss counterparts to call off the initiative and threatening to boycott it anyway.
“They told us that holding the conference would help a one-sided Palestinian move intended to make Israel look bad and attack it in an international forum,” the Swiss diplomat said.
The US and Canada told Switzerland they are going to boycott the conference, too.
“We strongly oppose the convening of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions and have made our opposition unmistakably clear,” a spokesman for the US State Department, Edgar Vasquez, told Haaretz.
It is true that the conference will have no authority to make any binding decisions, yet its work could engender further international criticism of Israel’s settlement policy on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Besides that, once Israeli diplomats received an updated draft of the conference’s proposed contents, they found out that the updated draft text had been phrased in a politicized way, directly naming Israel and going into detail on the issue of West Bank settlements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has reportedly been ringing colleagues around the globe, attempting to talk them into declaring a boycott to the conference. Part of this work has been delegated to Israeli ambassadors worldwide.
With all due support on the part of the US, Canada and Australia, these efforts are likely to be in vain, and the Swiss diplomacy is decisive to go on with the plan and announce the conference officially soon.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits harming those uninvolved in a conflict, be they civilians, wounded soldiers or POWs, as well as obliging the occupying side to maintain human rights and decent living conditions of an occupied civilian population.
Israel joined the convention, but has never ratified it legislatively. The Israeli government regards the West Bank and East Jerusalem as ‘disputed’, not occupied, areas, therefore considering Israeli settlements as not violating the treaty.
Humanitarian aid is still a target for the Israeli occupation
By Ibrahim Hewitt | MEMO | November 26, 2014
I have been the chair of trustees for 17 of Interpal’s 20 years as a British charity helping Palestinians in desperate need; it is a privilege to be in such a position. Being a trustee has enabled me to meet and work with some wonderful people, including our incredible beneficiaries in occupied Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. They inspire us as we try to bring a degree of normality to their extraordinarily abnormal situation.It hasn’t been an easy ride. Interpal was declared by the US government in 2003 to be a “Specially designated global terrorist entity”; there was no due process, no investigation and no immediately obvious right to appeal against the decision. We discovered our new status via the BBC website. I called it “gesture politics” at the time, because claims that the US was freezing Interpal’s assets in America were nonsense; we didn’t have any assets there. In fact, the only money we have in the States now is around $100,000 which was confiscated by Citibank as the transfer of funds for our orphans’ programme in Jordan crossed a computer screen in New York. Orphans went without so that American and Israeli egos could be massaged.
A number of investigations and inquiries by Britain’s charity regulator have found no evidence of illegal activity by Interpal, and the US government has offered no evidence to justify its designation. The absence of any police involvement, said one senior Metropolitan Police officer, “is hugely significant”.
The “terrorist” tag originated in Israel, of course, which has a strong interest in blocking any kind of aid to the Palestinians living under its brutal military occupation; if life is made harsh enough, the theory goes, then perhaps the Palestinians will pack up and cross the Jordan into permanent exile. This is known in Zionist jargon as “silent transfer”. After almost 70 years of occupation, the Israelis obviously do not know the Palestinians, or the people who support them.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), whose senior spokesperson, Chris Gunness, has flown over to speak at Interpal’s 20th anniversary symposium in London, is at the forefront of working to keep the Palestinians afloat. Interpal is proud to be a valued partner of UNRWA and has a number of projects in the pipeline to continue such work in the months and years ahead.
Despite having such a high profile link to a UN agency, accusations of supporting “terrorism” have been thrown at Interpal almost since day one, with a claim in a major broadsheet that we “funded the training of suicide bombers” in 1996. A small charity has been seen as an easy target; we are the pebble in the Israeli shoe and just won’t go away. “Interpal,” said one Israeli politician, “is a tough nut to crack.”
The attack on our charity has been relentless which is odd, given our relatively small size. Italian journalist and author Loretta Napoleoni is an expert on “terrorist financing”. She told me that the US and Israeli governments are going after charities like Interpal precisely because they think that we are easy targets and can be shut down, at which point they can claim to be “cutting off terrorist funding”. The reality, she said, is that most of the $3 trillion drugs and terrorist economy is channelled through legitimate businesses, not charities. In 2012, HSBC confirmed that it was going to pay the US authorities $1.9bn (£1.2bn) in a settlement over money laundering. “A US Senate investigation said the UK-based bank had been a conduit for ‘drug kingpins and rogue nations’,” reported the BBC. The bank “admitted having poor money laundering controls and apologised.” There has been no special designation for a bank involved in very serious crime, but a small charity against whom there are only allegations from vexatious complainants face being driven out of existence; our only “crime” is helping Palestinians.
The message from our New York lawyer is that the US Treasury can only do so much about the designation: “It was a political decision and needs a political decision to rescind it.” In other words, the State Department must be involved, which is why Interpal has asked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office a number of times to speak on its behalf. Even though HM Government intervened on behalf of British banks facing legal action in the US, this British charity has been told “you need to raise it yourselves with the Americans”. Individual parliamentarians in both Houses have been very supportive over the years, but of government action there has been none.
Interpal distributes on average around £4 million a year and every penny is accounted for. In the great scheme of things, this is a relatively miniscule amount (Israel gets $8m a day from the US). The bureaucratic system that we have in place makes it ridiculous to suggest that we divert donations for illegal purposes.
The fact that many of the projects Interpal has funded are also funded by USAID doesn’t carry any weight in Washington, and America insists that we should discriminate along political lines in the distribution of our funds; discrimination of any kind is illegal for British charities, and rightly so. We will continue to support Palestinians with humanitarian aid without fear or favour, the only criteria being need.
Many of Interpal’s beneficiaries are women and children. The children of Palestine, Muslims and Christians alike, have had their childhood stolen from them; we should all hang our heads in shame at this. More than 80 per cent of the children in the Gaza Strip suffer from post-traumatic stress. Every time an Israeli jet flies overhead, or a helicopter, or a drone, these children wait for the bombs to follow; that is what they have come to expect. It is a shameful situation.
The recent news that the dedicated surgeon and activist Dr Mads Gilbert has been given a lifetime ban by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip illustrates perfectly the Israeli attitude towards anyone offering humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. It has nothing to do with “terrorism” and everything to do with enforcing an immoral and illegal blockade on the territory. What is being done in the name of “the only democracy in the Middle East” is not only undemocratic but also breaks international law. Israel’s leadership knows this but carries on regardless and with apparent impunity. NGOs and others will do likewise until justice is seen to be done and a free and independent Palestine emerges from the rubble.
This is an edited version of the speech given by Ibrahim Hewitt at Interpal’s 20th anniversary symposium in London on 25th November.
Israel transforms Jerusalem’s suburbs into a “big prison”
Concrete blocks are placed by Occupation security forces at the entrances to the Palestinian village of al-Ram, northeast of Jerusalem on November 19, 2014. Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency
By Mohammed Abdel Fattah | Al-Akhbar | November 26, 2014
Perhaps Israeli prisons can not accommodate more Palestinians, and so Israeli authorities have now chosen to imprison Palestinians inside their villages, especially in the suburbs of Jerusalem. That is part of the collective punishment inflicted on villages, whose residents dared to rise up against the occupation and the discriminatory policies it imposes on Palestinians – such as preventing them from praying at al-Aqsa Mosque, repeatedly storming the mosque, and turning a blind eye on violence and murder of Palestinians at the hands of fanatical Israeli settlers.
Occupied Jerusalem – The Israeli response to a village that revolts is to surround it with concrete barriers and military checkpoints, in addition to using weapons of all types and sizes against young demonstrators. Recently, the occupation forces began to seal off the villages of Hay al-Thawri, Sur Baher and al-Ram in the Jerusalem district after a series of protests against the killing of Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal, both of whom carried out the recent Knesset operation. Before sealing off these villages, the Israelis encircled and sealed off the village of al-Issawiya, but the concrete barriers were later removed from its entrances following a protest by hundreds of its residents.
Sur Baher, located south of occupied Jerusalem, continues to be closed, hemming in its 27,000 residents. The Israelis tightened the noose around the village by closing its entrances with concrete barriers, leaving only one route for its residents. The people of Sur Baher enter and leave the village through that road, where an Israeli military checkpoint manned by abusive Israeli soldiers regularly mistreat anyone who passes by on foot or in a vehicle. Going in and out of the village presently takes an hour, while Israeli soldiers search every single person from head to toe and search cars from the hood to the trunk.
Students are forced to step out of cars and buses to cross the checkpoint on foot in order to get to school even if that means arriving half an hour late.
The director of the company Sur Baher Buses for Public Transportation, Raafat Nimr, complained that now they have to leave an hour before it is time to pick up students from outside the village to be able to drop them off at school somewhat on time.
He said his and other bus companies have suffered from closing the village and restricting access in and out to one checkpoint as it cut the number of trips buses take from the village in half. This will force the company to close down soon because the cost of “loading passengers increased and there is no longer a large number of trips to make up for it,” he said.
People who do not have a business to take care of outside the village have decided not to leave the village so that they won’t get upset and agitated. For example, Hamza Umaira has not left Sur Baher for a week. Besides, Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint regularly prevent him from going to Jerusalem to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque.
In Hay al-Thawri, where the family of Moataz Hijazi lives, the martyr who carried out the assassination attempt on the life of the extremist rabbi, Yehudah Glick, the situation is as bad as the rest. Like Sur Baher, the Israeli occupation sealed the village twice. The first time after killing Hijazi and the second time after the operation carried out by Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal. The difference with this neighborhood to others is that it has been encircled with concrete barriers without military checkpoints. This prompts people to take bypass roads, delaying workers and students.
The town facing the worst mistreatment is al-Ram, whose closure affects the residents of the nearby Qalandia refugee camp as they go to and from Ramallah and Jerusalem. In addition to closing the northern entrance to the town with concrete blocks, the closure affects the revenue of businesses located along the road to the northern entrance. The Israeli authorities also closed the Jabaa road adjacent to the town, thereby creating a suffocating traffic jam that takes people two hours to get out of.
Just like the average citizen suffers, medical services suffer too. Turning the Palestinian villages surrounding Jerusalem into “large prisons” obstructs ambulances and prevents them from reaching areas where sick and wounded people need to be taken to hospitals.
Palestinian Red Crescent official, Amin Abu Ghazaleh, said that Israeli occupation forces deal with Red Crescent ambulances as though they are part of the young people’s uprising against them, especially after Israeli ambulances refused to enter Arab areas.
He pointed out that Israeli soldiers did not make it easy for ambulances to enter confrontation areas, treat the injured there or transfer them to hospitals. Instead, they refused to remove any barriers, which increases the rate of field medical treatment.
Residents of the villages facing closure believe that this policy will add to the tension in the city because most of their villages lack basic facilities, such as hospitals and markets.
For his part, political analyst, Fadel Tahboub argues that “Israelis do not want to calm the situation down in Jerusalem, so they continue to close villages and settlers continue to storm al-Aqsa Mosque.”
“The goal of the Israeli occupation is to isolate the Palestinian villages from Jerusalem in order to reduce the Arab population in the city, and to pave the way for annexing them to the West Bank at a later time, completely disconnecting them from occupied Jerusalem,” he concluded.
Israeli Authorities Prevent 100 Tons of Vegetables from Exporting out of Gaza
IMEMC News & Agencies | November 24, 2014
At Kerm Abu Salem crossing Israeli occupation authorities have barred ten truckloads of agricultural products from leaving the war-torn and economically besieged Gaza Strip, due to an alleged dispute between the Israeli army and the Ministry of Agriculture.
The dispute is preventing the trucks and their cargo from passing, and being exported to Saudi Arabia and West Bank, according to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency.
Israeli website Walla reported, on Monday, that allowing the export of the agricultural products comes in the framework of “facilities” granted for Gaza residents in the wake of the last summer’s assault on the region, by Israel. Israeli authorities had agreed on the passage of ten truckloads per day.
Walla added that this shipment of vegetables weighs 100 tons, and has been held back since Sunday morning.
According to the Israeli system, after the truckloads pass to the military checkpoint on the Palestinian side of the crossing, they should be inspected and, then, loaded again onto Israeli trucks to pass to their planned route.
The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the occupied territories claims that the trucks are still stuck in the crossing because the Israeli Ministry of Health did not yet inspect them in accordance with regularities, with the Ministry itself citing a lack of staff to do that.
At this time, it is not clear when the shipment will pass.
‘The Jewish state law paves the way for displacing more Palestinians’
Palestine Information Center – November 25, 2014
GAZA – Senior Islamic Jihad official Yousuf al-Hasaina said that the Israeli cabinet’s approval of new racist legislation defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a prelude to expelling the Palestinian people from their 1948 occupied lands.
In remarks broadcast by the media department of the Movement on Monday, Hasaina stated that the new law would open the way for the option of exchanging lands and residents between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Describing the law as racist created by an extremist and fascist cabinet and community, the Islamic Jihad official asserted that it would give the Jews alone unlimited rights.
“The law would tighten the noose around the indigenous Palestinian Arab population until forcing them willingly or unwillingly to leave their country, and this is what the occupation state is seeking to impose in the coming days on the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people,” Hasaina warned.
He noted that the most dangerous aspect of this law is its description of the Talmudic religious texts as the source of legislation in the Jewish state while many of these texts legalize the killing and displacement of non-Jews.
However, Hasaina expressed his belief that Israel is an illegal entity and neither its Talmudic laws nor the western support would save it from its destined demise.
Pro-Israel activists ask MPs to halt non-violent BDS protests
MEMO | November 24, 2014
Zionist activists have urged British MPs to implement new legislation that police could use to stop non-violent, pro-BDS protests.
Manchester-based group North-West Friends of Israel have urged politicians to give police more power to stop boycotts of businesses by pro-Palestine solidarity activists.
As cited in a report by The Jewish Chronicle, the group’s co-chair Anthony Dennison wants the Public Order Act amended “to allow police to halt non-violent protests, if they disrupted ‘the lawful right of customers and shops to trade’.”
Dennison commented: “Peaceful protest can be intimidating, if demonstrators are stood outside a shop, holding placards with horrible images, are customers really going into that shop?”
UK approved $11mn Israeli arms sales before Gaza war: Report
Press TV – November 24, 2014
A new report has revealed Britain’s approval of arms sales to Israel worth nearly USD 11 million (£7 million) in the six months before the regime’s latest aggression against the Gaza Strip.
The Sunday report by The Independent newspaper raised fresh concerns about the use of British-made weapons and equipment by the Israeli army during the 50-day war on Gaza that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and wounded 10,000 others in July-August.
Citing government figures, it added that the sales included components for drones, combat aircraft and helicopters along with spare parts for sniper rifles.
The figures also show that the British government has issued 68 export licenses for exports of military-use items to Israel between January and June.
“The Independent can reveal that ministers in the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) have also ordered a fresh review of military export licenses to Israel granted prior to the outbreak of the conflict after officials found 12 instances where arms containing British components may have been used in Gaza” by the Israeli army, it added.
“The refusal of the government to suspend these licenses caused a split in the coalition and led to the resignation of Foreign Office minister Baroness Warsi, who described Britain’s stance during the Israeli land and air assault as ‘morally indefensible’,” the British daily said.
Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) confirmed to the newspaper that “right up until the eve of the bombing, the UK was supporting licenses for the same kinds of weapons that (Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills) Vince Cable’s own review found are likely to have been used against the people of Gaza.”
“Unfortunately it would not have been the first time UK weapons were used by Israel. The public was rightly shocked by this summer’s bombardment. That is why the UK must announce an embargo on all arms sales to Israel and an end to military collaboration.”
Katy Clark, a Labour party lawmaker, also said, “It is now abundantly clear that not only did the UK refuse to condemn Israeli military action,” but also it actively allowed UK companies to arm the Israeli military throughout the latest war on the beleaguered enclave.
Last month, the British government ordered the new review of licenses after campaigners began proceedings in the High Court to challenge its decision not to suspend the 12 licenses after Downing Street insisted Israel had a “legitimate right to self-defense.”
In August, The Independent revealed that arms export licenses worth $70 million had been granted to 130 British defense manufacturers since 2010 to sell military equipment to the Tel Aviv regime.
These range from bulletproof garments to naval gun parts and armored vehicles.
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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
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The beginning of the end: Israel at the heart of America’s political civil war
- US-Israeli war on Iran cost Persian Gulf states nearly $1T in damage, lost growth: Report
- Congress probe could put ‘Israel’ in dock over Iran war: Israeli media
- Spanish public prosecutor backs US demand to extradite pro-Palestine philanthropist Fergie Chambers
- Zelensky spent over 740 days outside Ukraine while West serves as his real home
- Indian captain of Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker faces 10-year jail term in UK
- Europe, US face higher heating bills amid Iran war fallout
- The Leak That Arrived Right on Cue
- No, New York Times, California’s Climate Has Always Been a Land of Flood, Drought, and Fire
- Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- German Authorities Start Initiative To Evaluate Public Register For Climate “Disinformation” Spreaders!
- Zonal Asymmetry of Temperature Change in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
