Obama’s Israel Trip
Ignore the hype. It’s four more years of settlement growth
By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | February 25th, 2013
NAZARETH — Israeli and Palestinian officials have been in Washington laying the ground for President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and the West Bank, scheduled for next month and the first since he took office four years ago.
Topping the agenda, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, will be efforts to restart the long-stalled peace process. Last week Palestinian officials said they had urged the White House to arrive with a diplomatic plan.
The US president began his first term on a different footing, ignoring Israel and heading instead to Cairo where he made a speech committing the US to a new era in relations with the Arab world. Little came of the promise.
Now he apparently intends to start his second term — as Netanyahu resumes office too, following last month’s elections — with an effort to engage with Israel and the Palestinians that is almost as certain to prove an exercise in futility.
The prospect of reviving the peace track between Israel and the Palestinians is not one that is appetising for either Obama or Netanyahu. Both are bruised from locking horns over a settlement freeze — the key plank of the US president’s efforts — during his first term.
But equally, it seems, the price of continuing inaction is high too. The Palestinians have repeatedly embarrassed Obama at the United Nations, not least by isolating the US in November as it opposed an upgrade in the Palestinians’ observer status. Inertia also looks risky given the growing unrest in the West Bank over hunger-striking prisoners.
Ahead lie potentially even bigger headaches, including the doomsday scenario — from Israel and Washington’s perspective — that the Palestinians approach the International Criminal Court to demand Israel be investigated for war crimes.
The perennial optimists have been searching for signs that Obama is readier this time to get tough. Neither of the president’s recent major appointments — John Kerry as secretary of state and Chuck Hagel, nominated as defence secretary — has been welcomed in Israel.
US determination has been buoyed, it is argued, by what is seen as a tide change in Israeli public opinion, highlighted by the surprise electoral success of centrist Yair Lapid and relatively poor showing by Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Netanyahu’s officials sense similar motives, complaining that Obama’s visit so soon after the election is direct “interference” in coalition-building. The centrists, they fear, will be able to extract concessions from Netanyahu, who will not wish to greet the US president as head of an extremist government.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, look eager to mend fences: they have hopefully codenamed the visit “Unbreakable Alliance” and announced an intention to award Obama Israel’s highest honour, the presidential medal.
The more hopeful scenarios, however, overlook the obstacles to a diplomatic solution posed both by Israel’s domestic politics and by the Palestinians’ inability to withstand Israeli bullying.
Not least, they ignore the fact that Netanyahu’s Knesset faction is the most right-wing in Likud’s history. He cannot advance a peace formula — assuming he wanted to — without tearing apart his party.
Equally, there is nothing in Lapid’s record to indicate he is willing to push for meaningful compromises on Palestinian statehood. On this issue, he occupies the traditional ground of Likud, before it moved further right. A recent poll found half his supporters called themselves right-wing.
Last week Netanyahu signed a coalition pact with another supposed centrist, Tzipi Livni, a former Likud leader who now heads a small faction called Hatnuah. The goal, as one Likud official cynically put it, was to use Livni to “whitewash the Netanyahu government in the world’s eyes”.
In other words, Netanyahu hopes a Livni or a Lapid will buy him breathing space as he entrenches the settlements and pushes Palestinians out of large areas of the West Bank under cover of what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz termed a “booby-trapped diplomatic process”.
What of the Palestinians? Will they not be able to mount an effective challenge to Israeli intransigence, given an apparent renewed US interest in diplomacy?
Here is the rub. Netanyahu already has a stranglehold on the politics of his potential peace partners. He can easily manipulate the fortunes of the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on the two biggest tests he faces: the “peace process” overseen by the international community, and reconciliation talks with the rival Palestinian faction Hamas.
The latest talks between Hamas and Fatah broke down in Cairo this month, even though unity, in the view of most Palestinians, is a precondition of their seeking viable statehood. The talks’ failure followed the “arrest” by Israel of 25 Hamas leaders in the West Bank, seizures that Palestinian human rights groups and Hamas warned were intended to disrupt reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Israel has repeatedly undermined Abbas’s rule, and kept his PA close to collapse, by turning on and off one of its major sources of income — tax monies Israel regularly collects on behalf of the Palestinians and is supposed to pass on.
As a result, Abbas is trapped between various pressures impossible to reconcile: the need to keep Israel happy, to maintain legitimacy with his own people and to foster a shared political agenda with other Palestinian factions.
The sticks that Israel wields force Abbas to keep the door open to negotiations even as most Palestinians recognise their utter pointlessness. Likewise, his constant need to appease Israel and the US serves only to widen differences with Hamas.
The Palestinians are stuck in a political and diplomatic cul-de-sac, unable to move forward either with the development of their national struggle or with talks on viable statehood. Whatever Obama’s intentions, the reality is that this will be another four years of diplomatic failure.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.
Israeli court extends remand of Issawi’s brother
Shireen, Samer and Shadi Issawi
Palestine Information Center – 25/02/2013
RAMALLAH — The Israeli Magistrate Court in occupied Jerusalem extended on Sunday the remand of Shadi Issawi, the brother of hunger striker Samer Issawi, and did not allow him to see his lawyer.
Shireen Issawi, the sister of Shadi and a lawyer, said that the arrest of Shadi and extending his remand fell in line with pressures on Samer to end his seven months hunger strike.
She charged the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) with targeting all members of Samer’s family, recalling that the IOA razed the home of her third brother Rafat at the start of the year and cut water supplies to her family home in addition to detaining her and her fourth brother Firas for a period of time.
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Minister: Autopsy shows torture killed Jaradat
Ma’an – 25/02/2013
BETHLEHEM – An autopsy has revealed that Arafat Jaradat died of extreme torture in Israeli custody and did not have a cardiac arrest, the PA Minister of Detainee Affairs said Sunday.
At a news conference in Ramallah, Issa Qaraqe said an autopsy conducted in Israel in the presence of Palestinian officials revealed that 30-year-old Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs.
“The information we have received so far is shocking and painful. The evidence corroborates our suspicion that Mr. Jaradat died as a result of torture, especially since the autopsy clearly proved that the victim’s heart was healthy, which disproves the initial alleged account presented by occupation authorities that he died of a heart attack,” Qaraqe said.
A spokeswoman for Israel’s Prison Authority said Saturday that Jaradat had apparently died of cardiac arrest in Megiddo prison. An emergency service team had tried to resuscitate him but failed, she said.
Qaraqe described the claim as a fabrication and called for a committee to investigate those responsible for Jaradat’s death.
The minister said Jaradat had sustained injuries and severe bruising in the upper right back area and severe bruises of sharp circular shape in the right chest area.
The autopsy revealed evidence of severe torture and on the muscle of the upper left shoulder, parallel to the spine in the lower neck area, and evidence of severe torture under the skin and inside the muscle of the right side of the chest. His second and third ribs in the right side of the chest were broken, Qaraqe said, and he also had injuries in the middle of the muscle in the right hand.
Jaradat’s heart was in good condition and there were no signs of bruising or stroke, the minister added.
Israel’s Health Ministry said the injuries found in the autopsy could have been caused by the medical emergency team’s efforts to resuscitate Jaradat.
“These initial findings are not enough to determine the cause of death,” the Israeli ministry said, adding that further test results were not yet in. An Israeli police spokesman said the investigation into Jaradat’s death was still ongoing.
Qaraqe’s deputy, Ziyad Au Ain, urged any doctors, including Israeli doctors, who doubted that Jaradat was tortured to death to view his body in Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron.
“Jaradat died due to torture and not a stroke or heart attack,” he said, adding that those responsible must be sued either through Interpol or the International Criminal Court.
Palestinian Prisoners Society president Qaddura Fares added that the autopsy revealed seven injuries to the inside of Jaradat’s lower lip, bruises on his face and blood on his nose.
After the autopsy, Jaradat’s body was transferred to the Palestinian Red Crescent at the Tarqumiya crossing west of Hebron, and taken to the Al-Ahli Hospital. He will be buried on Monday in his hometown Sair.
Jaradat’s lawyer Kameel Sabbagh said he was tortured by Israeli interrogators.
Sabbagh, who works for the prisoners ministry, was present at Jaradat’s last hearing on Thursday, which an Israeli judge postponed for 12 days.
“When I entered the courtroom I saw Jaradat sitting on a wooden chair in front of the judge. His back was hunched and he looked sick and fragile,” Sabbagh said in a statement Sunday.
“When I sat next to him he told me that he had serious pains in his back and other parts of his body because he was being beaten up and hanged for many long hours while he was being investigated
“When Jaradat heard that the judge postponed his hearing he seemed extremely afraid and asked me if he was going to spend the time left in the cell. I replied to him that he was still in the investigation period and this is possible and that as a lawyer I couldn’t do anything about his whereabouts at this time.”
Sabbagh said Jaradat’s psychological state was very serious and that he informed the judge his client had been tortured. The judge ordered that Jaradat should be examined by the prison doctor but “this didn’t happen,” the lawyer added.
On Sunday, thousands of Palestinians protested the death across the West Bank and Gaza, and at least two protesters were injured by live fire in clashes with Israeli forces, including the 13-year-old son of a Preventive Security officer.
Dozens more were injured by rubber-coated bullets.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers used riot dispersal means against Palestinians hurling rocks at security forces.
Two residents from Burin arrested overnight: confrontations follow
ISM Media Group | Aletho News | February 25, 2013
Mahmoud Nasser Asaus (17) and Magdi Loai Najjar (24) were arrested last night by Israeli forces in the village of Burin and are now being held in Kishon Interrogation Centre in Haifa. Residents of Burin suspect this is the start of a wave of arrests following the Al-Manatir protest that took place In Burin at the beginning of February.
Several jeeps entered Burin at around 2.30am to raid Mahmoud and Magdi’s houses, taking them, handcuffed and blindfolded, to Huwwara military base. At 7am this morning they were transferred to Kishon Interrogation Centre where they are still being held.
These arrests come after the neighbourhood of Al-Manatir was established on a village’s hilltop threatened with confiscation by Israeli settlers. The protest camp was aimed at denouncing Israel’s grab of Burin’s land and to recover the hilltop which has been inaccessible for residents of Burin since 2007.
However, the neighbourhood of Al-Manatir, made up of metal huts and tents, was violently evicted by Israeli soldiers and border police on the same day it was established. Israeli forces protected and accompanied settlers from the nearby settlements of Bracha and Yitzhar; while they were stealing metal huts and throwing stones at Palestinian activists. Simultaneously, around twenty settlers attacked several Palestinian homes on the outskirts of Burin and chopped down one hundred olive trees. When Palestinians ran to the area to defend their homes, stone throwing between settlers and Palestinians ensued. Zakaria Najjar (17), was shot in the right leg with live ammunition by a settler.
During the eviction, eight people were arrested and three of them remained in Israeli prison for twelve days, finally being released without charges. Further reprisals took place in Burin the days following Al-Manatir. Ghassan (23) and Mohammed (19) Najjar were arrested for several hours and interrogated about the protest camp. In addition, the village was sealed off by military checkpoints. The hilltop continues to be inaccessible for residents of Burin.
Following last night’s arrests there have been further incursions into the centre of Burin today. The Israeli army again tried to raid the village resulting in confrontations that began at around midday. Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets were fired directly into the gathering crowd; as yet no serious injuries have been reported. A further arrest was made by the Israeli authorities, Bahar Adnan Imran who is just 14 years old.
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Lawyer: “Prior To His Death, Detainee Complained Of Pain Due To Ongoing Interrogation”
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | February 24, 2013
Attorney Kamil Sabbagh, who represented detainee Arafat Jaradat, who died Saturday at an Israeli interrogation facility, stated that Jaradat complained to him of sharp pain due to ongoing and extensive interrogation.
The lawyer said that he represented Jaradat during a court session that was held Thursday February 21.
The court session was the first time the detainee was able to see a lawyer since the army kidnapped him more than 12 days ago. The hearing was held at the Al-Jalama detention and interrogation center.
Sabbagh said that Jaradat complained of sharp pain in the back, and several other parts of his body. Jaradat told his lawyer that he was interrogated for several hours, every day, and repeatedly complained of sharp pain but was never seen by a physician.
The lawyer said that, during the court hearing, he told the military judge about the complaints made by Jaradat, and that the judge instructed the prison administration to grant him the needed medical attention, but the request was apparently ignored.
During the court hearing, the judge ordered Jaradat under interrogation for an additional 12 days.
Following the death of Jaradat on Saturday, several Israeli media agencies claimed that the detainee suffered a heart attack that led to his death.
Palestinian Minister of Detainees, Issa Qaraqe’, held Israel responsible for the death of Jaradat, and said that the detainee died only six days after the army kidnapped him on February 18.
Qaraqe’ demanded forming an international committee to investigate the death of Jaradat, and held Israel responsible for the lives of Palestinian detainees on hunger strike demanding an end to their illegal detention.
Hundreds of Palestinians held a protest in front of the home of Jaradat and chanted slogans against the Israeli occupation, Israel’s ongoing violations and attacks, and chanted for more solidarity with all Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel.
Protests have also been reported in different parts of the occupied territories.
Palestinians clash with Israeli troops across the West Bank
Ma’an – 23/02/2013
RAMALLAH – Clashes erupted across the West Bank after the Friday prayers between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters who rallied to show solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners.
Dozens were hurt as Israeli soldiers fired tear gas heavily to disperse the protesters.
Similarly, worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem demonstrated in the compound after the Friday prayer before Israeli troops broke into the squares and clashed with the protesters.
According to Israeli radio station Reshet Bet, Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades to disperse the worshipers. The report highlighted that demonstrations started near the Moroccan Gate through which the soldiers stormed the compound and started to chase protesters.
In Ramallah in the central West Bank, 12 young men were hurt by tear gas and rubber-coated bullets during clashes with Israeli troops after the Friday prayers. Locals told Ma’an that the soldiers detained one Palestinian. The sources highlighted that the Friday prayer was performed near the main gate of Ofer detention center west of Ramallah.
They said about 100 Palestinians preformed Friday prayers near Ofer before Israeli soldiers showered them with tear gas as soon as they finished prayer.
As a result young men started to hurl stones at the soldiers and police officers. A Ma’an reporter said the soldiers directed their tear gas to journalists who gathered in the area to report about the event. He added that the soldiers fired live ammunition at a car for journalists, but nobody was hurt.
Further clashes took place in al-Arrub and al-Fawwar refugee camps in Hebron district.
Witnesses said young Palestinian men in al-Arrub camp north of Hebron pelted Israeli soldiers with stones. Clashes erupted first at the main entrance to the camp on the main road between Hebron and Bethlehem. Then the clashes extended to camp’s alleys resulting in more victims of tear gas as some canisters fell inside houses.
One owner of these houses was identified as Nayif Nimir al-Badawi. Four people were hurt by tear gas. Three others were hurt in house of Khamis Awad al-Badawi.
Israeli forces shut down the main entrance to al-Fawwar camp north of Hebron after young men hurled stones at Israeli soldiers. The soldiers responded with tear gas before they closed the main entrance to traffic.
In Tulkarem in the northern West Bank young Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in the western part of the city. Soldiers fired tear gas as the young protesters pelted them with stones. The clashes erupted after hundreds of young men rallied after the Friday prayer chanting slogans against Israel’s treatment to Palestinian prisoners.
The northern West Bank city of Jenin also witnessed confrontations between young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers after the Friday prayer. Nine Palestinians were detained during the clashes and dozens were hurt by tear gas and rubber-coated bullets.
Jenin’s clashes started after young men marched from mosques toward al-Jalama checkpoint expressing solidarity with hunger striking Palestinian prisoners. A Ma’an reporter said Israeli forces fired hundreds of tear gas canisters at the protesters in addition to rubber-coated bullets and foul smelling liquids.
Local and security sources told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers detained nine young men. The sources identified one detainee as 14-year-old Amir Majid Irqawi. They said the soldiers assaulted him beating him brutally before he was detained.
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Bedouin communities near Qalqiliya isolated by Israel and facing school demolition
International Solidarity Movement | February 22, 2013
Nablus, Occupied Palestine – The small Bedouin communities of ‘Arab Ramadin al-Janubi and ‘Arab Ab Farda lie south of Qalqilya between the apartheid wall and the green line,close to the illegal settlement Alfe Menashe. They are separated from the rest of West Bank from all sides by the Israeli apartheid wall. The communities, founded by people deported from areas in Negev and Netanya during and after the Nakba are today home to around 500 people. They suffer from multiple restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities,including no permissions for new buildings or expansion of existing buildings, and limits to the amount of food and gas allowed for sale in the communities.
Bedouin girls at school
Access to the communities is limited by Israel with a permission system. The system of access permissions has effectively resulted in the social isolation of the communities, as people from the city of Qalqilya and neighboring villages face difficulties in obtaining permits for visiting the area.
The community of Abu Farda has no access to running water or electricity, and thus water has to be bought in tanks from the village of ‘Azzun. There is a well on the grounds of the village, but the illegal settlement Alfe Menashe has confiscated the well and closed access to it for the inhabitants of Abu Farda. People from the family Fayez living in Abu Farda told us:
“The lack of electricity is a big problem, as we are not able to refrigerate food bought from merchants or the yogurt and milk we produce ourselves for sale, and our children are not able to do their homework after dark due to lack of lighting.”
Furthermore, the Israeli authorities do not allow veterinaries access to the villages, while the village is largely dependent on the raising of livestock.
In October 2012 the community of Ramadin al-Janubi founded a school for 6 to 8 year old children. The new school gives it’s 25 students the opportunity to go to school without having to pass daily through the Israeli checkpoints between the community and a school in the nearby village of Habla. Children older than 8 years still have to go to school outside the community, and in order to reach their schools and go back home they need to cross the Israeli checkpoints twice every single day.
The school in Ramadin, consisting of 4 tents, received a demolition order from the Israeli authorities after two weeks of operation. The faculty of the school live in Qalqilya and have to spend from 30 minutes to over an hour every day passing through the checkpoint and having their papers and belongings examined by the IOF forces at the checkpoint in order to access the school. For now, the village has taken the demolition order to court, and is waiting to for the court hearings to take place.
Bedouin school tents with demolition order
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Samer Issawi sentenced to 8 months in prison
Ma’an – 21/02/2013
BETHLEHEM – An Israeli court on Thursday sentenced hunger-striker Samer Issawi to eight months in prison, but he has yet to face a military committee which could imprison him for 20 years.
Issawi has been on hunger strike for 204 days.
The magistrates court in Jerusalem sentenced Issawi for leaving Jerusalem, in violation of the terms of his amnesty granted in an Oct. 2011 prisoner exchange deal.
The sentence includes time served since Issawi’s re-arrest in July 2012, and will conclude on March 6, but Issawi also faces a possible sentence under an Israeli military order which allows a special military committee to cancel prisoners’ amnesty.
The committee could use secret evidence to sentence Issawi to serve 20 years, the remainder of his previous sentence.
Issawi was freed in an Oct. 2011 prisoner swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Israel has subsequently re-arrested at least 14 prisoners since the deal.
Ahead of Thursday’s verdict, Israeli forces clashed with hundreds of Palestinians protesting near Ramallah on Thursday in solidarity with long-term hunger strikers like Issawi.
A Ma’an reporter said 29 protesters were injured by rubber-coated bullets and dozens more suffered tear gas inhalation.
Prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe and Fatah central committee member Mahmoud al-Aloul joined the rally, near Israel’s Ofer prison in the central West Bank.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers used “riot dispersal means” against Palestinians who hurled rocks at forces.
Protests have been held across the West Bank and in Gaza in support of Issawi, who has been on hunger strike for 204 days, and Tareq Qaadan and Jaafar Azzidine who have refused food for 86 days.
Also Thursday, the Ahmed Abu Rish Brigades on Thursday threatened to fire rockets at Israel if any jailed hunger striker is harmed.
“We will continue to work with rockets and we will not stand by idly. Military operations will be implemented to achieve the rights of prisoners and to free them,” brigades member Abu Ali al-Qawkabi said in a statement.
Al-Qawkabi called on Palestinian leaders in Ramallah to reject any negotiations with Israel and urged the Gaza government to refuse a truce until the detainees’ demands are met.
Islamic Jihad meanwhile has said a truce with Israel could unravel if any hunger striker dies.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority called on the international community to step up efforts to protect and release prisoner like Issawi in Israeli detention facilities.
The cabinet also called on the World Health Organization to move forward on plans made last year to form a fact-finding committee to investigate the conditions in Israeli jails, specifically negligence.
Stranded in Shuhada: Hebron’s Qurtuba school
By Salam Muharam – Ma’an – 15/02/2013
HEBRON — Children and teachers at Qurtuba school in Hebron say getting to class past Israeli soldiers and settlers is like navigating a minefield every day.
The school, for children aged 7 to 16, is adjacent to the illegal Jewish settlement of Beit Hadassah in the center of the West Bank city.
Israeli forces fenced off the school’s stairs with barbed wire in 2002. Now the only route to the school is a muddy path up a steep hill.
Some pupils live beside the school, but have to walk two kilometers around a circuit to reach the entrance, Najah Abu Munshar, a teacher in the school told Ma’an.
Across the street from the school, “Gas the Arabs” has been scrawled on a door. Next to the school gates, a mural of a girl holding a book, painted by a French activist, has been covered by racist graffiti. A gallery in a school corridor shows photos of Israeli soldiers and settlers assaulting students.
International volunteers escort children to and from school as a protective measure, but pupils and teachers are still frequently harassed and assaulted on their way to the school, which has been vandalized and set on fire.
“School students start their day by crossing the checkpoint of Shuhada street. I can only describe daily life at Qurtuba school as suffering and struggle,” school principal Noura Nasser told Ma’an.
Teachers must also pass an Israeli checkpoint and metal detectors to get to work, and Israeli soldiers decide whether to let them pass each day.
Pupil Yasmeen Ghareb, 12, says settlers have assaulted her and her siblings. “Sometimes they say bad words to me, and sometimes they throw fluids at me on my way to school.”
Yasmeen Ghareb stands in front of a checkpoint on her way to school
(MaanImages/Salam Muharam)
Other students told Ma’an that settlers have attacked them with stones, water and rotten vegetables.
Najah Abu Munshar has taught at Qurtaba school for 15 years. “The settlers used to let their dogs attack the students, and when settlers attack a student, I try my best to calm him or her down, and if he or she has any wounds, I provide first aid,” she told Ma’an.
The Ministry of Education hired a psychological counselor for the school, to work with children suffering psychological trauma which often manifests as bed wetting, Nasser, the school principal, told Ma’an. “The school focuses on the extracurricular activities and days of joy.”
Nasser said settler attacks were usually heightened during periods of political instability.
A grid of walls, fences and checkpoints divides Jewish settlers and Palestinians who live in close proximity to each other in Hebron, which was divided into two sections in the 1997 Hebron Agreement.
The Palestinian Authority controls the larger area, while Israeli forces control the city center, including the old market, the Ibrahimi Mosque and the historic Old City.
Qurtaba school lies on Shuhada street, a once-bustling thoroughfare and now a shuttered ghost town, with a military checkpoint restricting Palestinians’ access to this part of the city.
Israel started restricting access to Shuhada street after an Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein broke into the Ibrahimi Mosque and shot dead 29 Palestinians.
During the second intifada, Israel closed the street to traffic and many traders were not even able to collect their goods before their shops were welded shut.
Palestinian families who remained on Shuhada street must climb through side doors and across rooftops to get to their homes.
Waed Zeidan al-Sharabati, a 9-year-old pupil at Qurtuba school who lives on Shuhada street, recounted to Ma’an how settlers assaulted her and her cousin in 2011 when they were harvesting almonds nearby.
“They threw stones on us… The settler kidnapped my cousin, and I called the neighbor to come check the situation. My neighbor talked to the settlers, and after a long argument, my cousin was returned. One settler threw a stone on my leg. They tried to take me another time, but I escaped to my neighbor’s wife, and she hid my inside her home, and closed the door.”
“I got used to it, and at the beginning I used to be scared, but now I am not scared of them,” she told Ma’an.
Ward al-Sharabati, 9, lives on Shuhada street, a hub of settler violence in the West Bank
(MaanImages/Salam Muharam)
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Israel detains Palestinian cartoonist, family says
Ma’an – 16/02/2013
JENIN – Israeli authorities on Saturday detained a Palestinian cartoonist on his way back to the West Bank from Jordan, according to his family.
Muhammad Abdul-Ghani Sabanah, 30, was detained at the Allenby Bridge crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, his brother Tamir told Ma’an, adding that Sabanah was in Jordan for a meeting.
He said that on his way back, Israeli troops detained Sabanah, who is from the Jenin town of Qabatia, without giving any explanation.
Sabanah’s cartoons are widespread in the Arab world. He is well-known for his criticism through his cartoons, which focus mainly on the Palestinian people’s problems and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
He works as a public information officer at the Arab American University in Jenin.
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