Israeli Government Targets Educational Institutions, Escalate Settlements Activities
Israeli settler violence – with IDF complicity – is becoming more and more commonplace, even targeting elementary schools. The government has also approved extensive Israeli settlement expansions and Jewish-only roads to be built on Palestinian land, which will result in isolation of Palestinian communities and loss of olive trees.
In addition, Jerusalem has seen an increase in extremist Jewish visits to the Al-Aqsa mosque.
By Madeeha Araj, The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements
Translation by If Americans Knew | November 14, 2018
School attacks and demolitions
In a clear violation of all laws and human rights principles, including the right to education and access to educational institutions, many Palestinian schools in the countryside and Bedouin communities were attacked by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
The Oref and Luban Sharqeia schools south of Nablus were attacked. 7 students were injured during the attack.
There were also shooting attacks by settlers and the Israeli occupation forces in the yard of Al-Tahadi 5 Elementary School in the village of Beit Ta’mir, east of Bethlehem, and the Tahadi 10 School in the Ibzik area in the occupied Northern Valleys. A number of caravans used as classrooms were destroyed.
The Israeli occupation forces handed down notices to demolish the Dabba Elementary school in Mafasser Yatta, south of Hebron, and to expel its teachers and students. They also hindered access to a school on Ramallah’s main Nablus Street.
Within the context, the racist “Rajavim Institution” filed a case in an Israeli court to demolish the Tahadi school in the area of Beit Ta’mir, east of Bethlehem, which has been subjected to demolition since it was demolished on the first day of the scholastic year of 2016-2017. This racist institution is responsible for monitoring Palestinian homes in Area C, and it is always directing the Israeli Civil Administration to demolish houses and stop construction there.
Settlement expansions
At the same time, the Israeli occupation government escalated the open war against the Palestinian people. The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee approved the construction of 640 new settlement units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement on Palestinian land in Shufat. It is located between Ramat Shlomo and Beit Hanina in Jerusalem.
Some of these lands were expropriated from the Palestinians under the pretext of using them as public areas.
The construction of those new settlement units will lead to the encirclement of the Palestinian neighborhoods adjacent to the settlement and their isolation from any natural demographic expansion or growth.
The administrative committee of the settlement of Ramat Shlomo said that the decision to establish 1,500 settlement units includes two entrances to the south and east of the settlement, in addition to expanding the northern road with St. 443, and the tendering of 640 settlement units,
The so-called Appeals Committee of the Israeli Planning Council in Jerusalem rejected projects submitted by Palestinian Human Rights organizations aimed at stopping excavations and digging tunnels in Silwan, while approving settlement projects that penetrate Palestinian neighborhoods.
During a closed discussion and without prior announcement, the committee responded to the Silwan “alternative project” As an alternative structural plan for the municipality of the occupation after an objection by the Alad settlement association. Alad oversees the so-called King’s Garden, and rejected the request to reveal the level of excavations under the town of Silwan – Wadi Hilweh and Al-Ain area, and considered that as out of its jurisdiction.
The committee also approved the linking of the settlement of Ramat Shlomo with bypass road 443 Modi’in – Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, on Route 21, which runs through the village of Shu’fat and isolates it from the thousands of dunums between St. 21 and 443 on the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv road.
Land seizure
In the Ramallah Governorate, the Israeli occupation forces seized 155 dunums of land in the western village of Laban to expand the settlement of Beit Aryeh, and open settlement roads to connect the settlements northwest of Ramallah into the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank Occupied West Bank.
There was also a decision to seize 2 dunum from Khallet al-Shamiya, 141 dunums from the village of Al Asfoura and 12 dunums from Masodiya area, with the aim of constructing the aforementioned bypass road to the settlement of Beit Aryeh.
In the Jordan Valley, the Israeli occupation forces seized 356 dunums of land near the village of Makhoul in the northern Jordan Valley, where one of the shepherds found the notification when he had his livestock in the area. Hr poinyrf out that the occupation placed the notification days ago at an electric columns feeding the army camps. The lands are located in four numbered basins 223, 224, 221 and 226.
The Israeli occupation forces have also put a number of notices at the olive farms that stated the uprooting trees within 45 days.
The lands belong to citizens Izat Ahmed Rashaida – 40 trees, Amer Hamil – 45 trees, Hassan Mahmoud Humil – 25 trees, Omar and Mah’d Saleh Sawafta – 150 trees. The trees are between 2-20 years old.
Settlers and Knesset members in Al-Aqsa mosque
Part of the occupation policy is aimed at providing personal security to the religious settler groups, who have been recently roaming the Old City, especially the roads leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Moreover, the Israeli authorities have begun to expand the monitoring network around Al-Aqsa Mosque and the surrounding areas.
The agreement includes the planting of more than 500 smart monitoring cameras in a project called the “Kikra 2000.” Meanwhile the Israeli police allowed a number of Knesset members to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police in Jerusalem, Major General Yoram Halevy, have quoted as saying: “If the situation continues the same in Al-Aqsa, restrictions on visits by members of the Knesset will be removed”.
In an attempt to legitimize the daily incursions of settlers by the Israeli government’s into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, PM Netanyahu allows Israeli right-wing members to break into the Aqsa once a month instead of one per 3 months. Thus Netanyahu allowed MK Shuli Maallem Raafaili of the far-right Jewish party to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which the Israeli-Yemeni parties call it the Temple Mount.
This decision reflects the adoption of the recommendation of the Jerusalem District Commander, Yoram Halevy, to allow Knesset members to visit the area without any restrictions. For his part, Shuli Maalem, a member of the Israeli Knesset led a provocative incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and toured it. It is said that a similar storm led by the extremist rabbi, MK, Yehuda Glick of the blessed mosque and carried out tours throughout the mosque.
The National Bureau said that “the continued violation of the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque requires the intervention of the international community to pressure the occupation authorities to stop such acts and to abide by the provisions of international humanitarian law.”
Clashes erupt in Silwan after Israeli settler attacks 8-year-old boy
Ma’an – September 12, 2015
JERUSALEM – An Israeli settler attacked an 8-year-old Palestinian boy late on Friday in the Batn al-Hawa area of Silwan — a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem — leading to clashes in the area, a local monitoring group told Ma’an.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center, located in Silwan, said 8-year-old Zaid Abu Qweidir was attacked by a group of Israeli settlers in the neighborhood.
An Israeli police spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
According to the center, a young Palestinian man witnessed the attack and moved to intervene, which quickly escalated into clashes between the two sides.
More than 20 Israeli settlers arrived on the scene, many of whom used pepper spray against Palestinians as young as five-years-old, the information center reported.
Witnesses said the Israeli attackers came out from a building which settlers had recently occupied.
After the attack, security guards of the settlement outpost, as well as Israeli forces, arrived to protect the settlers, witnesses said.
The forces fired tear gas canisters and stun grenades at Palestinians in the area.
The Wadi Hilweh center said at least 15 Palestinians were moderately to severely injured by pepper spray, including 60-year-old Abdullah Abu Nab and 14-year-old Mahdi al-Rajabi. Both were taken to al-Maqasid hospital in East Jerusalem for treatment.
Zaid Abu Qweidir, 8, Adam al-Rajabi, 9, Rahaf Abu Qweidir, 5, Udayy al-Rajabi, 12, Hamza al-Rajabi, 12, Yazan al-Rajabi, 14, Walid al-Shaer, 16, were lightly injured and received treatment at the scene. A pregnant woman, Asmaa al-Rajabi, 29, and 75-year-old Abu Adnan Gheith were also lightly injured.
Furthermore, a tear gas canister was shot into a home housing five children aged 7-months to 13-years-old, the information center said.
Silwan is one of many Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem that is seeing an influx of Israeli settlers.
According to a statement released by the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department in August, illegal Israeli settlers have taken over 39 homes in Silwan, creating settlement enclaves in which approximately 400 Israeli settlers live.
Israeli Government Approves ‘Archaeology Center’ in Palestinian Neighborhood
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | April 05, 2014
The Israeli Ministry of the Interior approved on Friday a plan to demolish a large section of the historic Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, in East Jerusalem, to construct an archaeological center proposed by a nationalist right-wing ethno-religous organization which aims to expand Jewish settlement on Palestinian land in east Jerusalem.
The people of Silwan have faced colonization efforts for the last dozen years – from approved Israeli government projects that involve demolitions of residents’ homes, to forced evictions from their ancestral homes by armed Israeli settlers who force their way in to the houses and push the Palestinian families into the street.
Numerous forced evictions have been documented by the Silwan Information Center but the Israeli police have refused to take any action against the settlers. Instead, they have, on multiple occasions, forcibly removed the tents of residents who camped out on the street in front of their homes after their homes had been taken over by Jewish settlers.
In the project approved on Friday, the right-wing Israeli settlement organization Elad will run the center, which is set to be constructed across from the ‘Dung Gate’ entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. Elad also runs the controversial ‘City of David’ Israeli national park nearby, which was also constructed over an alarming number of demolished Palestinian homes in Silwan. This is the only instance in which a private organization has been granted control of a national park in Israel.
Elad’s mission statement is to “strengthen the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and this in the means of tours, guidance, populating, and publishing material.”
According to the Silwan Information Center, “In practice, Elad feverishly worked to gain ownership of houses and lands in the village and particularly in Wadi Hilweh [in Silwan].”
In its approval of the new project, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior said that, “As a tourist attraction, this will contribute to the development of the city of Jerusalem.” When completed, the multi-level building will take up 16,000 square metres (172,160 square feet).
In response to previous archaeological projects by Elad, the Palestinian Authority’s archaeological and cultural heritage expert stated, “The sort of archaeology being carried out in Jerusalem, specifically in East Jerusalem and the Silwan area, is motivated by hidden agendas and has nothing to do with scientific objectives. It is done secretly, without taking into consideration international standards, and casts great doubts on the objectives of these excavations.”
Journalist Emily Hauser, of the Jewish Daily Forward, wrote last month, after the Israeli government handed over control of the southern part of the Western Wall to Elad, “Elad’s mission sits hand in glove with the larger government goal of tightening control over the entirety of 21st century Jerusalem, making the possibility of sharing the city with a future Palestinian state infeasible.
Jerusalem-based archaeological NGO Emek Shaveh has found that Elad’s decisions about where and how to excavate in the area are rooted in political considerations about establishing an Israeli presence and staying one step ahead of the diplomatic process, with the understanding that “’local and international public opinion will not create pressure against them.’”
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Palestinian media forum condemns NBC plan to produce drama series in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 19/12/2013
GAZA — Palestinian media forum (PMF) has strongly condemned the plan of American TV company (NBC) to film a drama series, in partnership with the occupation municipality, in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.
PMF said in a statement on Thursday that NBC is preparing to produce and broadcast a drama series in the “City of David”, with the aim of strengthening the Israeli narrative about the city of Jerusalem, which would give legitimacy to Israel’s policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonization in occupied Jerusalem.
According to Israeli and American media, the NBC network is cooperating with Israeli authorities, film makers and the Keshet Media Group to produce an action series entitled DIG mainly in occupied East Jerusalem, near the Old City.
Most of the filming will take place in the so-called “City of David national park”, which is established on Palestinian property in the neighborhood of Silwan and which is operated by the Israeli settler organization El’ad and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
The PMF asserted that the production of this drama series comes within the framework of the falsification of history and the Judaization of Jerusalem.
Jewish settlers attack buses filled with children in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 29/06/2013
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinian sources in Jerusalem said Jewish settlers on Friday night attacked buses carrying 100 Palestinian children participating in a summer camp organized by Health Work Committees in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.
Health Work Committees pointed in a press release on Saturday that the camp includes a group of children between 7 and 12 years old, a number of them had been previously arrested in the occupations jails.
The settlers threw stones at the buses, breaking their windows and terrorizing the children.
The committees condemned the attack and called for “providing protection for the Palestinian people and children from settlers’ violence in occupied Palestine, committed under the protection of the occupation army.”
In al-Khalil, another group of Israeli settlers attacked on Thursday evening a Palestinian civilian near Yatta, and fled the scene in the absence of the occupation forces, locals reported.
They added that the citizen sustained wounds as the settlers threw stones at him and was taken to hospital for treatment.
Jewish settlers set on Thursday fire to agricultural lands in the archaeological area of Sebastia near the city of Nablus in the north of the West Bank.
Na’el Shaer, Sebastia’s mayor, said that groups of settlers from the settlement of Shavei Shomron built on the town’s land set fire to agricultural land, damaging large stretches of land, including land planted with olives and almond trees.
He added that the settlers have been continuously targeting the town as it represents an archaeological and historical area, noting that they had previously destroyed crops after pumping wastewater into the cultivated lands.
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Securing the ethnic cleansing of Silwan: Settlements in Wadi Hilweh using Pelco security equipment

Pelco camera system being used by illegal settlement in Silwan
Corporate Watch | February 10, 2013
The Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan is experiencing harassment and home demolitions at the hands of the Israeli state and settler organisations. This ethnic cleansing is enforced by security companies and surveillance technology and facilitated by revenue from international donors and from tourism. Corporate Watch will be writing a series of articles over the coming months exposing the companies and charities carrying out this ethnic cleansing and those organisations who are funding it and profiting from it.
The communities of Wadi Hilweh and Al Bustan in Silwan in East Jerusalem are watched over by hundreds of Closed Circuit Surveillance (CCTV) cameras installed by settlers and the settler/colonial organisation El Ad.
These cameras watch over the creeping colonisation of the area which has been going on since the 1990s. Much of this has centred around the seizing of Palestinian property by the El Ad organisation and the undermining of the Palestinian community through archaeological excavations carried out by the same organisation with the complicity of the Israeli National Parks Authority and the Israeli antiquities Authority (read more about El Ad and the excavations here).
During the 1990s the Israeli state and the Jewish National Fund gave one third of the land of Wadi Hilweh to El Ad. Since then settlers have moved in and El Ad has used a series of dirty tricks to acquire more and more properties in Wadi Hilweh. At the same time Palestinian homes are subject to demolitions under planning regulations, such as the demolitions that took place on 2nd February 2013.
On Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th January 2012 Corporate Watch researchers photographed dozens of Pelco security cameras being used by the settlements in Silwan including those at the El Ad compound close to the ‘City of David’ Visitors Centre in Wadi Hilweh.
The cameras included those in use at the Tirah House settlement, a Palestinian home occupied by Israeli settlers.
Pelco is a manufacturer and supplier of security cameras based in Clovis, California. The company has 2,200 employees worldwide and resellers in 130 coutries.
Since 2007 Pelco has been part of Schneider-Electric, a French multinational company headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison. Schneider-Electric has 130,000 employees and 2011 sales totaling 22.4 billion Euros. It operates in 190 countries.
Schneider-Electric is one of the only companies to have shown interest in the joint French-Palestinian Authority (PA) industrial zone in Bethlehem, the Bethlehem Multidisciplinary Industrial Park. It seems the PA have chosen poor partners for its flagship industrial zone.
Schneider-Electrics global operations are listed here
To contact Pelco click here
For more information on Silwan click here.
Photos taken by Corporate Watch researchers
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Israeli Occupation seizes land from Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 30/09/2012
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian committee in occupied Jerusalem warned against the decision by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem to confiscate 1,800 meters of the southern land of the Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Jerusalem, and considered it a new aggression on Waqf and holy sites.
The Committee of Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem stated in a press statement that the Israeli occupation is violating the sanctity of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem through attacking mosques, churches and other places of worship, as well as through attacking the dead in their graves.
It said the confiscation of the cemetery’s land is an attempt to Judiaze it and establish tourist pathways and “Talmudic landmarks”, aiming to establish their alleged temple, preventing the Palestinian residents from burying their dead in this historic cemetery.
The committee warned against the danger on the holy city and towns and Al Aqsa Mosque especially after the escalating Israeli Judaization plans that aim to erase its Islamic and Christian Arab character.
The Committee criticized the passive attitude of Arabs and Muslims toward the Israeli Judaization’s systematic plans that could encourage Israeli greed in the area.
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Israel to close Shuafat checkpoint and extend Wall
SILWANIC | August 28, 2012
Rad Khamis checkpoint
Silwan, Jerusalem – The Israeli Ministry of Defence has announced its plans to seal off one of two checkpoints through which the 65,000 Palestinian residents of Shuafat refugee camp can pass to enter Jerusalem. The extension of the Separation Wall and closing of the Ras Khamis checkpoint will occur in contravention to a 2008 High Court of Justice ruling that stated Shuafat Camp requires a total of eight pedestrian and four vehicle crossings before the checkpoint could be closed. The decision will affect not only Shuafat itself but three other villages crowded into the camp: Ras Shehada, Dahiyat al-Salaam and Ras Khamis.
Twenty surveillance cameras were removed from the Ras Khamis border on Sunday, 26 August in preparation for its closing, which is expected to take place next Tuesday. The Separation Wall will then be extended to encircle the new border of Shuafat. The construction of the Wall is expected to further carve up the area, forcing locals to drive and walk through narrow streets, causing traffic congestion and impacting on trade.
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Israeli settlers move into Silwan home
Ma’an – 02/09/2012
JERUSALEM – Israeli settlers, accompanied by police guards, moved into a section of a Palestinian home in East Jerusalem on Sunday, locals said.
Israeli authorities had informed the Hamdullah family they would have to evacuate part of their home in the Silwan neighborhood of Ras al-Amud after a court ruling said it belonged to settlers, local group the Wadi al-Hilweh information center said.
The family says they have been living on the premises since 1952 after purchasing the land from the al-Ghoul family.
Israeli daily Haaretz said that settler patron Irwin Moskowitz bought the land in 1990 from Orthodox Jewish groups, who claimed they had bought the land before 1948.
In 2005 a Jerusalem court ruled that the family must evacuate all buildings constructed after 1989.
Moskowitz wants to expand Maaleh Hazeitim, the largest settlement in East Jerusalem, on the land.
The Hamdullah home lies in a critical neighborhood near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the site of a number of settlements and controversial Israeli archeological digs, which residents fear are intended to cement Israeli control over the area.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem — regarded as the capital of a future Palestinian state — after a 1967 war, a move never recognized by the international community.
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Municipality creates garbage dump inside Bab Alsbat cemetery next to Lion Gate in the Old City
22 February 2012 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
Large quantities of waste are being piled by the Jerusalem Municipality inside the Islamic cemetery (Bab Alsbat) next to Lions Gate in the old city, in a move that has upset and offended the City’s thousands of Muslim inhabitants. The Lions Gate, which lies close to the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque, is now awash with the overpowering stench of accumulated garbage.
One resident stated that the Jerusalem Municipality “is unashamedly discriminatory in its practices. They not only use a sacred place as a rubbish dump, they even burn the rubbish here, inside a holy place the Bab Alasbat cemetery. Why has UNESCO not tried to stop the Municipality?”
A resident Christian priest of the Old City told Silwanic that he considered the Municipality’s actions unlawful, and encouraging of racism in Jerusalem.
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