5,000 prisoners begin mass hunger strike in Israeli jails
Ma’an – 08/05/2014
RAMALLAH – Over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners started an open hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with detainees held in administrative detention by Israeli authorities, a Palestinian official said.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Detainees Issa Qaraqe said that the prisoners are demanding that Israel end the practice of holding Palestinians in custody without charge or trial.
More than 100 Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a mass, open-ended hunger strike on April 24 in protest against their detention without trial.
Qaraqe said he holds Israeli authorities responsible for this “explosion” in protest action. He declared May 9 a ‘Day of Rage’ in solidarity with administrative detainees, which will see a range of solidarity activities after noon prayers.
A number of the strike leaders have been placed into isolation in Beersheba prison, including Muayad Sharab, Sufian Jamjoum and Abd al-Kareem Qawasmi.
An Israeli prison services spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
A 2012 agreement which ended a hunger strike of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners was meant to end the detention without trial of Palestinians, but as of March 1, 183 Palestinians were still being held under administrative detention.
Palestinians held in administrative detention are often held without charge or trial for months and without access to the evidence leading to their detention, even though international law stipulates this tactic only be used in exceptional circumstances.
Lieberman denounces Palestinian “traitors” over Nakba rally
Al-Akhbar | May 7, 2014
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday denounced as a “fifth column” thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel who joined a demonstration calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Around 10,000 protesters, many waving Palestinian flags, joined a rally inside the 1949 Green Line on Tuesday to remember 530 villages from which some 760,000 people fled or were expelled in the 1948 Nakba.
The rally took place as Israel marked the 66th anniversary of what it describes as its “independence day,” with Lieberman accusing the demonstrators of being traitors.
“Those who marched with flags of the Palestinian Authority demanding that it not give up on the right of return, are a fifth column whose aim is the destruction of Israel,” he told army radio.
He also addressed the demonstration on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
“To those Arabs that took part today in the ‘Nakba Day’ procession and waved Palestinian flags, I suggest that next time they march directly to Ramallah and they stay there,” he wrote.
But he acknowledged that those who joined the Nakba demonstration were only “a minority” among Israel’s Arab minority, who make up just over a fifth of the overall population of 8.2 million.
At the rally, which took place in a small village in the North, the protesters marched under the slogan: “Your ‘independence’ day is our Nakba” — Arabic for catastrophe.
More than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes by armed Zionist forces when Israel declared itself a state in May 1948. Today, with their descendants, they number an estimated 4.8 million.
Around 160,000 Palestinians stayed in their homes and took Israeli citizenship. Official figures published last week show they now number 1,694,000 people, or 20.7 percent of the population.
Lieberman, a hardliner within the ruling rightwing coalition, is an open proponent transferring densely-populated Palestinian areas inside the Green Line to the control of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in any future peace deal.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
Daily Harassment in the Qeitun area
Photo by ISM
International Solidarity Movement | May 6, 2014
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Residents of Qeitun area of Al-Khalil, near Shuhada St. are presented with a very different kind of daily routine than other areas of the occupied West Bank. Israel occupation forces not only raid houses and harass people on a daily basis, but also use the local population as part of their military training.
On Tuesday, the 29th of April, the Israeli army was training for the erecting and working of a flying checkpoint, pulling over cars on the main road of the area which leads to the military base, also called Qeitun. During this training the commander was instructing the soldiers how to stop and search drivers and their cars.
Two days later, on Thursday 1st of May at 11:30pm, ISM activists were called out to witness the Israeli army performing a massive operation of night raids, with approximately 100 soldiers. When the activist got to the area, the army had detained an 18-year old. The youth was released 30 minutes after the arrival of the activists. Many of the local people, still in their nightdresses, were out in the streets while the soldiers were inside their houses.
At around 1:00am the soldiers left the area and had what seemed like a quick evaluation of the whole operation, making it difficult to know whether it was an actual military operation or just some sort of training, similar to the flying checkpoint training that took place two days earlier. For the people of Qeitun there’s no actual difference between “training” and a live military operation of the occupation forces.
In an ISM visit with a family of the Qeitun area, they report that the soldiers have been starting the raids as early as 9pm and had raided a total of 50 houses. They also reported that during one of the raids the soldiers had broken into a house with such violence that an elderly woman with a heart condition, had gone into coma and had to be rushed to the hospital.
The family reported that the area experiences night raids at least two or three times a week. Israeli soldiers enter and harass the locals on a daily basis and the army has arrested two minors during the last month.
During the second intifada almost all families living in the houses located near Shuhada St. were forced out by the Israeli army, allegedly for security reasons, making this part of the area a ghost town.
312 Palestinians Kidnapped By Israeli Army In April
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | May 2, 2014
The Ahrar Center for Detainees Studies and Human Rights issued its monthly report, revealing that the Israeli army kidnapped 312 Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank, occupied Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip.
Ahrar said the army carried out dozens of invasions into the occupied territories, kidnapping 312 Palestinians, mainly after breaking into their homes and properties, and violently searching them, causing excessive property damage.
Most of the arrests have been carried out in the Hebron District, as the soldiers kidnapped 94 Palestinians, followed by Jerusalem, 92, Nablus, 36, Bethlehem, 21, Jenin, 18, Ramallah, 16, Gaza Strip, 15 including 11 kidnapped near the border fence, Qalqilia, 10, Salfit, 7, Tulkarem, 2, and one in Tubas.
Ahrar added that the army kidnapped four Palestinian women in April, and released two of them later on.
Mariam Barghouthi, from Ramallah, and Samira al-‘Akel, from Hebron, are still imprisoned, while Tahani Abu Mayyala and Hanin Abu Aisha, from Hebron, were released.
“There are 21 Palestinian women who are still imprisoned by Israel,” Ahrar stated.
Head of the Ahrar Center, Fuad al-Khoffash, stated that April witnessed the beginning of one of the strongest hunger strikes by Administrative Detainees held with charge or trial, and that the detainees are determined to continue their strike.
Al-Khoffash added that the striking detainees are subject to constant attacks and harassment, in the attempt by authorities to force them to end their strike, while many have been moved into solitary confinement and are denied the right to family visits.
Israeli forces ‘attack Palestinian woman, daughter’ in Silwan
Umm Qalawoon al-Tawil lying unconscious outside her home after Israeli officers attacked her
Ma’an – 01/05/2014
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian woman and her teenage daughter in the Wadi Hilweh quarter south of the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday, Palestinians in Silwan neighborhood said.
Director of the Silwan-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center Jawad Siyam told Ma’an that Israeli officers broke into the home of Umm Kalawoon al-Tawil and “brutally” beat her and her 15-year-old daughter Layla.
Siyam highlighted that Israeli officers continued to beat al-Tawil while they dragged her out of her apartment to a playground in the neighborhood until she passed out.
Fistfights broke out between local residents and Israeli officers while an ambulance evacuated al-Tawil to al-Maqasid hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.
An Israeli police spokesman said he was unaware of any detentions in the area.
State Department’s annual Country Report on Israeli Terrorism
By Gilad Atzmon | May 1, 2014
Ynet reports today that A new American report on terrorism strongly criticizes Israel for its lack of response to attacks by extremist settlers against the Palestinian population and their property.
“Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, property, and places of worship in the West Bank continued and were largely unprosecuted according to UN and NGO sources,” says the State Department’s annual Country Report on Terrorism.
The report states that attacks of this nature number in the hundreds.
“The UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs reported 399 attacks by extremist Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian injuries or property damage. Violent extremists, including Israeli settlers, vandalized five mosques and three churches in Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to data compiled by the UN.”
The paper also notes that the phenomenon has spilled over into Israel, where Muslim and Christian sites have been targeted.
“‘Price tag’ attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed to be anti-settlement) expanded into Israel from the West Bank in 2013,”
The report, also noted a massive drop in rocket attacks from Gaza and Sinai into Israel. “Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Hamas-controlled Gaza continued rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory. The number of rocket and mortar launchings on Israel from Gaza and the Sinai was the lowest in 2013 in more than a decade, with 74 launchings compared to 2,557 in 2012.”
Palestinian Unity
Hope and Gloom in the Beach Refugee Camp
By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | April 30, 2014
For years, Palestinian factions have striven for unity, and for years unity has evaded them. But is it possible that following several failed attempts, Fatah and Hamas have finally found that elusive middle ground? And if they have done so, why, to what end, and at what cost?
On April 23, top Fatah and Hamas officials hammered out the final details of the Beach Refugee Camp agreement without any Arab mediation. All major grievances have purportedly been smoothed over, differences have been abridged, and other sensitive issues have been referred to specialized committees. One of these committees will be entrusted to incorporate Hamas and the Islamic Jihad into the fold of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
A rift lasting seven years has been healed, rejoiced some headlines in Arabic media. Israelis and their media were divided. Some, close to right-wing parties, decried the betrayal of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas of the ‘peace process’. Others, mostly on the left, pointed the finger at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for pushing Abbas over the edge –“into Hamas’s arms” per the assessment of Zehava Galon, leader of the left-wing party Meretz.
It is untrue that the rift between Fatah and Hamas goes back to the January 2006 elections, when Hamas won the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), and formed a government. The feud is as old as Hamas itself. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was founded in Gaza with two main objectives, one direct and the other inferred: to resist the Israeli military occupation at the start of the First Palestinian Intifada in 1987, and to counterbalance the influence of the PLO.
Since then, a staple argument has clouded the judgment of many analysts, most of them sympathetic to Palestinians. They claim that Hamas was the brainchild of the Israeli intelligence Shin Bet, to weaken Palestinian resistance. That too is a misjudgment.
Hamas founders were not the only Palestinians to have a problem with the PLO. The latter group, which represented and spoke on behalf of all Palestinians everywhere, was designated by an Arab League summit in 1974 as the sole and only representative of the Palestinian people. The target of such specific language was not Hamas, for at the time, it didn’t exist. The reference was aimed at other Arab governments who posed as Palestine’s representatives regionally and internationally.
The ‘sole representation’ bit, however, endured even after surpassing its usefulness. Following the Israeli war on Lebanon in 1982 that mainly targeted PLO factions, the leading Palestinian institution, now operating from Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and other Arab entities, began to flounder. Its message grew more exclusivist and was dominated by a small clique within Fatah, one that was closest to former leader Yasser Arafat.
When the 1987 uprising broke out, it was a different breed of Palestinians who seemed to reflect the new mood on the ground, far away from Tunis and all Arab capitals. New movements included the United National Leadership of the Intifada, although it was quickly coaxed by PLO leadership in exile. Other movements, like Hamas, survived on its own.
That was the original rift, which grew wider with time. When Arafat signed the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993, the once unifying character of the ‘sole representative’ of Palestinians began to quickly change. The PLO shrunk into the Palestinian Authority, which governed parts of the West Bank and Gaza under the watchful eye of Israel; and the parliament in exile became the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), a much more restricted parliament at home that was still under occupation. The blurred lines grew between the PLO, the PA and Fatah. It was clear that the liberation project, mounted by the PLO and Fatah in the early 1960’s, became anything but that.
In fact, the whole paradigm was fluctuating at all fronts. ‘Donor countries’ became the true friends of Palestine, and geography suddenly became a maze of confusing classifications of areas A, B and C. The status of Jerusalem was a deferred topic for later discussions; the refugees’ Right of Return was a mere problem that needed to be cleverly and creatively resolved with possible symbolic gestures.
The befuddling peace process has remained in motion, and is likely to continue even after the unity deal. On April 18, former Israel lobbyist and current US peace envoy Martin Indyk returned to the region in a last desperate effort to push both parties to an agreement, any agreement, even one that would simply postpone the US-imposed deadline for a ‘framework agreement’. But little could be done. Netanyahu had no reasons to move forward with the talks, especially being under little or no pressure to do so. Abbas’s only hope that Israel would release a few Palestinian prisoners, from the thousands of prisoners it currently holds, was dashed. He had nothing to show his people by way of an ‘achievement’.
Twenty some years after Abbas helped facilitate the Oslo agreement, he had nothing to show except for more settlements and a seemingly unbridgeable divide between factions within his own Fatah party, but also with others. With the imminent collapse of the peace process, this time engineered by Secretary of State John Kerry, Abbas needed an exit, thus the Beach Refugee Camp agreement with Hamas.
The timing for Hamas was devastatingly right. The group, which once represented Palestinian resistance, not just for Islamists, but for others as well, was running out of options. “Hamas is cornered, unpopular at home and boxed in as tightly as ever by both Egypt and Israel,” wrote the Economist on April 26. “Its former foreign patrons, such as Qatar, have been keeping their distance, withholding funds for projects that used to bolster Hamas.”
Indeed, the regional scene was getting too complicated, even for resourceful Hamas, a group that was born into a crisis and is used to navigating its way out of tough political terrains. Despite putting up stiff resistance to Israeli wars and incursions, the group has in recent years been obliged to facilitate hudnas (ceasefires) with Israel, doing its utmost in keeping Gaza’s border with Israel rocket-free. The destruction of the tunnels since the Egyptian army coup against the government of Mohammed Morsi in July had cost the Hamas government nearly 230 million dollars. To manage an economy in a poor region like Gaza is one thing; to sustain it under the harshest of sieges is proving nearly impossible.
As is the case for Abbas’s PA, for Hamas the agreement was necessitated by circumstances other than finding true ground for national unity to combat the Israeli occupation. In fact, the Beach Camp deal would allow Abbas to continue with his part of the peace process, as he will also remain at the helm of the prospected unity government, to be formed within a few weeks from the signing of the agreement. Although Arab governments were not directly involved in bringing both parties together – as was the case in previous agreements in Sana, Mecca, Cairo and Doha – some still hold a sway.
Egypt, in particular, holds an important key, the Rafah border with Gaza. Hamas is looking for any space to escape the siege and its own isolation. Egypt knows that well, and has played a clever game to manipulate, and at times, punish Hamas for its closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Americans and the Israelis have the largest keys to quashing the unity deal. Netanyahu immediately suspended the peace process, as the Hamas-Fatah agreement was a last minute escape route for his government to disown the futile talks, whose collapse is now being blamed on the Palestinians. The Americans are in agreement with Israel, as has always been the case.
Scenes in Gaza tell of much hope and rejoicing, but it is a repeated scene of past agreements that have failed. Sometimes despair and hope go hand in hand. The impoverished place has served as a battlefield for several wars and a continued siege. It is aching for a glimmer of hope.
May Day ~ Palestine
By Reham Alhelsi | May 1, 2009
Every morning, thousands of Palestinians say goodbye to their families and go to work. Teachers, doctors, farmers, labourers, fishermen, etc… They go to school to teach children, defying the Israeli tank standing outside the school. They go to their fields to work them, defying fanatic Jewish settlers armed with weapons and hate. They repair their nets and go fishing, defying Israeli pirate ships shelling and hijacking the area. They drive their ambulances and rush to save lives, defying Israeli snipers aiming to kill. They take their pens and recording equipment to register Israeli crimes, defying Israeli tanks with their cameras. They go to their jobs every morning defying daily Israeli crimes committed under the eyes, ears and noses of the whole world that prefers to remain silent. They go to their jobs because they want their children to have food on the table, a roof over their heads, an education as a weapon in their hands, and a future that is free of Zionists and military occupation. The 1st of May is a day to remember every Palestinian who wakes up to a new day, full of new hopes and new strength to face and defy the siege, the closure, the military occupation, the fanatic settlers, the terror aiming to starve us as a nation and make us fall to our knees.
On the 1st of May we remember Zionist massacres committed against Palestinian labourers. We remember the massacre of Oyoun Qara (Rishon Lezion), when on 20.5.1990 an Israeli soldier lined up some 100 Palestinian labourers who were on their way to work, and in cold blood killed 7 of them with a sub-machine gun. As with all massacres committed by individual Israelis, the Israeli government rushed to declare the soldier deranged. Ami Popper, the IOF soldier, had come upon the group of Palestinians, asked them to in kneel down in 3 lines, and after checking their IDs and making sure they were Arabs he started shooting randomly at them. Their only fault was that they were Palestinians. They had lost their homes and everything else they owned in 1948, and were made refugees by the Zionist state. And as the tragedy of the Nakba continued, the suffering of these people knew no end. For, in order to feed their children, they were forced to work like slaves for those who made refugees out of them. The photos of the massacre show the extent of hate and brutality of the IOF soldier: young and elderly, drowning in pools of blood, their lunch packages scattered around them. And when the Israeli police finally arrived to the scene of the massacre, they started beating those Palestinian workers who had survived the death machine that day. On the 1st of May we remember:
Abdil Rahim Baraka – 23 years old from Khan Younis.
Ziyad Swed, 22 years old from Rafah.
Zayid Alamour, 23 years old from Khan Younis.
Suleiman abu Anza, 22 years old from Khan Younis.
Omar Dahles, 27 years old from Khan Younis.
Zakariya Qdeh, 35 years old from Khan Younis.
Younis Abu Daqa from Khan Younis.
On the 1st of May we remember the 3 Palestinian labourers who were burned to death in a shed in Or Yehuda near Tel Aviv on 9.8.1988. As the 3 men cried out for help, spectators stood watching while the fire ate the men alive. When interviewed by the press on the incident, the residents of Or Yehuda showed unanimous support of the hideous murder. One Israeli witness to the burning said: “It was all organized beautifully.” Adding, “look, I could put 10 in a line and shoot them. That’s okay. But burning, I can’t do. When it happened I sat on the veranda and, if I didn’t have family reason not to, I would dance. I wouldn’t help them. Let them be burned, the Arabs.” His 17 year old brother added: “I will go to the border guards to kill Arabs by beating them with clubs”. Another resident serving in the IOF said: “They did well to burn them. Why should they be ashamed” … “It’s a Mitzvah, what they did …”. Only one person, an IOF soldier, tried to help and that only because the 3 men were screaming out for help in Hebrew and he thought them Jews. One of the 3 men ran out of the shed while burning, but the residents of Or Yehuda stood watching as he was burned alive. Another Israeli told a reporter that they should do to the Arabs what Hitler did to the Jews, and that he didn’t care if they put Arabs in concentration camps. One 16 year old said, “what does it matter if an Arab burns? What does an Arab matter at all? It’s not a human being. I wouldn’t care if more than 2000 burned.” His friend added: “I would burn 5,000 more.” This is the same Or Yehuda whose residents publicly burned hundreds of copies of the New Testament on 15.5.2008. On the 1st of May we remember:
Abdallah Khalil, 30 years old from Khan Younis.
Said Ismael from Rafah.
Naseem Ayid from Magazi Refugee Camp.
On the 1st of May we remember many more massacres committed by the Zionist state and its IOF against innocent civilians working for their daily living. We remember the Eretz Checkpoint massacre, when on 17.7.1994 Israeli soldiers killed 11 Palestinian labourers and injured 200 who were waiting at the checkpoint to go to their work. We remember the Tarqumia massacre, when on 10.3.1998 IOF soldiers stopped a van full with unarmed Palestinian labourers on their way home after a long day. The soldiers opened fire without warning, killing 3 men. Others survived death because the bodies of their murdered comrades fell over them and protected them from the bullets. We remember those who were shot dead at checkpoints on their way to work or on their way back home. We remember those forced to sleep in sheds like animals. We remember those forced to wear badges like the yellow Star of David the Nazis forced the Jews to wear. We remember those beaten almost to death by Israelis for being Arabs and for wanting to clean the cities of them.
On the 1st of May we remember Palestinian teachers who despite restrictions and arrests continue to teach Palestinians, generation after generation, about Palestine, about freedom and about our non-negotiable rights. We remember the teachers who went on strike after Israel occupied East Jerusalem and forced its Zionist curriculum in Arab schools. We remember those who refused to teach this curriculum despite Israeli threats or the promised rewards in case they concede to teaching the curriculum. We remember those who were punished and sent to teach in isolated schools far away from their homes, that they had to wake up at 4 every morning to be able to reach their schools and continue teach Palestinian children. We remember school and university teachers who after Israel closed all educational institutions during the first Intifada, organized secret learning groups, risked their lives to meet with their pupils and give them lessons and worked day and night preparing work material for their students so the educational process could go on. We remember our teachers, who stood with such dignity despite being humiliated and beaten by teenage IOF soldiers who had no respect for anything. We remember those teachers who try to protect us from the shelling of our schools, from the armed soldiers at checkpoints, from the fanatic settlers waiting at every corner to attack us. We remember those teachers who risked their freedom to teach us about Palestinian history, folklore and culture. We remember all those teachers who spend years in Israeli prisons, those who were tortured and those who were killed by the IOF or illegal Jewish settlers. We remember Hani Na’eem, a 38 year old school teacher who was killed by an Israeli missile attack on a school in Beit Hanoun on 7.2.2008. Three 16 year old pupils were wounded in the attack. We remember Wafa’ Al Daghma, a 34 year old teacher killed in her home and in front of her three children during an Israeli raid on 11.5.2008. Wafa’s head was blown away as the IOF blasted open the front door of her house with explosives. They then locked the children aged 2 to 13 in a room for five hours, and continued their military incursion while the body of Wafa lay on the ground.
On the 1st of May we remember doctors, nurses and all medical personnel who were killed while performing their duty. We remember the medical personnel who were beaten, tortured or killed by illegal settlers. We remember those brave men who continue their work despite Israeli attacks, shelling, curfews and incursions. We remember those doctors who were killed while performing first aid to wounded Palestinians and those who were blown to pieces together with their ambulances by Israeli bombs. Ample evidence shows that such attacks are not isolated incidents or mistakes, but represent an adopted policy of deliberate targeting to kill even those whose duty is to save lives. We remember the 23 Palestinians killed and the 850 injured in the Al Aqsa mosque massacre on 8.10.1990. According to media reports, nurse Fatima Abu Khadir who witnessed the massacre said: “we went into the mosque precincts in an ambulance. I saw a large number of injured who had fallen on the ground. Then I saw lots of soldiers, hundreds of soldiers. They were about 30 meters from the ambulance and kneeling on one knee the way snipers do, and their weapons were aimed inside the ambulance.” Physician Muhammad Abu ‘Alya said: “I got out of the ambulance carrying a first-aid kit. I was wearing a white uniform. The soldiers saw me and knew I was a doctor. But when I got to the wounded person nearest me and bent down to treat him, I got three bullets in my back in the region of the kidney. At that very moment, the wounded man near me died. But he could have been saved if I hadn’t been hit.” We remember the 16 medical personnel killed while on duty by the IOF during the latest war on Gaza:
Rami Al Salut, 27 years old, medical lab. specialist, Sheikh Radwan.
Azmi Abu Dalal, 26 years old, medic, Nuseirat.
Ahmed Abdallah, 26 years old, nurse, Rafah.
Ihab Al-Shaer, 32 years old, physician, Rafah.
Zeyad Abu Teir, 32 years old, nurse, Khan Younis.
Mohammad Abu Hassira, 21 years old, medic, al daraj.
Ihab Al-Madhoun, 35 years old, physician, al daraj.
Yaser Shbeir, 25 years old, medic, Shati Refugee Camp.
Anas Na’im, 23 years old, medic, Al Zaytoon.
Ra’fat Ibrahim, 20 years old, medic, Al Sabra.
Arafah Abdul Dayem, 35 years old, medic, Beit Hanoun.
Salem Al-Bensh, 57 years old, nurse, Rafah.
Albina Al-Jaru, 25 years old, physician, Gaza.
Issa Saleh, 32 years old, physician, Jabalia.
Abdullah Al-Imawi, 22 years old, nurse, Gaza.
Zayed Jneid, 30 years old, medic, Gaza.
On the 1st of May we remember journalists, camera persons and other media personnel who died while reporting on Israeli crimes and exposing Israeli terror to the world. We remember those wounded and those imprisoned for fighting Israel with their pens. We remember Nazeh Darwazeh and Fadel Shanna, two cameramen whose last minutes were caught on camera. We remember Imad Abu Zahra, Ihab Al-Wahidi, Hamza Shaheen, Omar Silawi, Muhammad Al-Bishawi, Raffaele Ciriello, James Miller, Mohamad Abu Halima, Basil Faraj, and many other journalists killed and injured by the IOF. We remember Issam Tillawi, whose story is similar to that of thousands of Palestinian families: a story of losing a home, wandering and suffering in the Diaspora, waiting for the day to come back home. In 1948 Issam’s family was forced out of their hometown of Tell and found temporary refuge in Iraq, after which the family moved to Kuwait. During the 2nd Gulf War, the Tillawi family was deported from Iraq and moved yet again to Jordan. Issam decided to go back to his home country; to Palestine. He worked at the voice of Palestine as a journalist and hosted 2 weekly programs: “International Affairs” and “Nahar Jadid”. While covering a demonstration in protest of the Israeli military occupation in the Manara Square in Ramallah on the night of 22.9.2002, Issam was shot in the back of the head by an IOF sniper. He was wearing a jacket stating clearly that he’s a journalist and had his recording equipment with him, so any sniper would have seen clearly what he was shooting at. Issam lay 10 minutes bleeding on the street before the ambulance was allowed to reach him, but the medics couldn’t save his life. As usual, the IOF claimed it was not responsible for his death, adding that he was among a group of demonstrators. Issam was 32 when he was murdered, and today he finds his final resting place in Tell, that small village from which his parents were uprooted in 1948. He is back in Palestine for good.
On the 1st of May we remember Palestinian farmers working their lands, protecting them and standing steadfast on these lands in the face of the Israeli war being waged against them to kick them out. We remember those attacked by the illegal Jewish settlers during harvest time. Palestinian farmers have been working their fields under threatening conditions. They have been shot at, attacked and harassed by the IOF and by illegal settlers. Many have been killed and hundreds wounded. Fields have been burned, harvest stolen and Olive trees uprooted and replanted in illegal Jewish settlements as decoration. Greenhouses and water wells have been destroyed, complete olive and fruit fields have been bulldozed and cattle have been butchered or stolen. Farmers living close to the Apartheid Wall are often blocked from reaching their lands, and need permits from the IOF to enter the field of their ancestors. Their land is being confiscated, their hard work stolen. Not satisfied with stealing the land and the harvest, settlers often set fire to whole fields, diminishing the hard work of years into ashes. The water Palestinian farmers need for their fields is being stolen by Israel and used to fill swimming pools in illegal Jewish settlements. One Palestinian farmer was reported saying: “it seems that we are going to pay with blood for each olive oil drop. The Palestinian olive oil this year is going to be mixed with the blood of its owner.” For another farmer “being with the tree is like being in heaven. I am not crazy but I open my heart to the trees. I think of the trees as I do of my family. I speak to them when I have troubles.” We remember Yahia Atta Bani Monia. The 18 year old shepherd from the Nablus area was executed in cold blood by a group of Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Etamar on 27.9.2008. After they were done with him, Yahia was left with some 20 bullets riddling his body. One bullet was not enough for these killers. We remember the group of shepherds attacked by masked settlers from the illegal settlement of Susia near Hebron. The shepherds, including an elderly couple of 58 and 60 were attending their sheep on their lands, when ordered by the settlers to leave the land. Upon refusal, they were attacked. We remember Yasser Tmeizi from Ithna near Hebron who was arrested by the IOF while working in his land with his son. The soldiers beat him with batons until he lost consciousness, and later died. The IOF claimed Yasser tried to snatch the weapon of one of the soldiers at a checkpoint, although many witnesses saw him being arrested and beaten on his land away from any checkpoint.
On the 1st of May we remember every Palestinian whose story rarely made the news and whose name we don’t know. We remember the teacher who died of a heart attack after being beaten by the IOF. We remember the doctor who was tortured and hanged on a tree by fanatic Jewish settlers. We remember labourers, students, taxi drivers facing death squads at Israeli checkpoints. We remember farmers who risk their lives to reach their fields and work them for the next generations. We remember the fishermen of Gaza, practicing their right of fishing in their national waters and defying Israeli warships. We remember all those who fight every single day to provide some normality to their families under a most brutal situation. We remember those who despite Israeli terror, continue to live and protect their land and homes and families. We remember those who wake up every morning, think of the loved one that was killed yesterday, or the house that was demolished, or the field that was uprooted, and then go and hug their children and tell them about Palestine, build a new house on the ruins of the demolished one, plant more olive trees. And because we are Palestinians, because we cherish and love life and freedom and because the land is ours, we will continue hoping, and waking up every morning despite the daily terror, work to defend our land and protect it to hand it over to the next generations of Palestinians. We will continue to fight for our legitimate rights, for independence, for freedom. And one day we will tear down the Apartheid Wall and all the illegal settlements, break the siege, rebuild the destroyed towns and villages, free the prisoners, replant the fields desertified by Israel, because they will never kill our soul nor our will and we will keep waking up every morning for a new day in Palestine.
According to the PCHR: from the beginning of the 2nd Intifada on 29.9.2000 till 20.12.2008 3,741 Palestinian civilians have been killed by the IOF and 1,130 have been killed in armed clashes with the IOF. 26,063 have been injured.
During the 2nd Intifada at least 37 Palestinian teachers were killed by Israel, 55 were wounded and 190 detained. No less than 12 Palestinian journalists and camerapersons were killed.
During the latest Israeli war on Gaza 1417 Palestinians have been killed by the IOF, 926 of them were civilians. 5303 were injured.
16 Palestinian medical personnel were killed, 25 wounded.
12 teachers were killed, 5 wounded.
No less than 21 farmers killed, 2 fishermen and 92 labourers were killed.
Sources:
www.wrmea.com/backissues/1088/8810020a.htm
http://www.imemc.org/
http://www.pchrgaza.org/
http://www.poica.org/
http://www.palissue.com/
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
www.american.edu/TED/ice/olive-tree.htm
http://www.cpj.org/
http://www.phrmg.org/monitor1999/jun99-specific.htm (on the Tarqumia massacre of Palestinian labourers and the massacre at Rishon Lezion)
Featured Video
Israel furious at Trump over Turkey, Syria to invade Lebanon
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.
A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.
The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Israel furious at Trump over Turkey, Syria to invade Lebanon – w/ Col. Macgregor
- IRGC says it struck US military positions, warns of broader response
- Russia stops record number of Ukrainian drones overnight – MOD
- Denmark admits ‘no evidence’ for Russian drone hysteria
- Washington agreement ‘will not pass’: MP Fadlallah
- Iran mocks US for ‘solving’ domestic hunger problem, lecturing others on issue
- Germany, Israel hold joint naval drill off Haifa amid Gaza genocide
- Trump’s war on Iran becomes ‘most unpopular conflict’ in US history
- The Middle East is wringing its hands of Washington. Finally
- The Starmer legacy the establishment media won’t tell you: Celebrity sex crimes, imprisoning Assange and torture terror
- If Americans Knew
- Four Reasons the Netanyahu-Backed Plan to ‘End’ U.S. Military Aid to Israel Is a Scam
- Archbishop of Canterbury vows to help Palestinians achieve ‘freedom you deserve,’ calls for end to Israeli occupation
- The scars left behind by Israel’s white phosphorus in Lebanon
- Drones and decomposing babies: What’s in UN report on Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children
- Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’
- Gaza ceasefire talks back to square one as Israel changes the rules – Daily Update
- The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional
- Victories by Pro-Palestinian Democrats Show the Party’s Shift on Israel
- Massie moves to strike $3.3B in Israel military aid from the budget
- How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
Aletho News 