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Popular Committee Offices Raided by Israeli Military Forces, Ramallah

PNN | May 8, 2012

At 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, 8th May, ten armored jeeps of the Israeli Occupation Forces surrounded and raided the offices of Stop the Wall in Ramallah. Israeli military stole 2 laptops, 3 hard drives and 10 memory cards containing files and photos as well as archive material relating to the work that the organisation does in opposition to Israel’s apartheid wall and the attack on Palestinian human rights that the wall and the settlements represent. This is yet another attack upon Palestinian civil society and their struggle against the physical and psychological oppression, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing policies of Israel.

Stop the Wall is one of the most vibrant organizations of human rights defenders in Palestine, and has been promoting, for almost ten years, civil resistance and advocacy campaigns against the Wall and in defense of Palestinian rights to self determination. Human Rights Defenders are internationally recognized as an essential element in political processes and their repression further underlines Israeli unwillingness to achieve a just peace.

Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, comments:

“It is not surprising that the Israeli authorities have chosen this moment to escalate their repression against the Stop the Wall grassroots network of civil resistance against the Wall and the settlements, choosing to act on the same day that the Israeli High Court rejected the appeals of Palestinian hunger strikers Bilal Diab and Tha”ir Halahleh, imprisoned without charge and without trial, effectively condemning them to death.

The courageous steadfastness of the more than 2000 hunger strikers in Israeli jails is underlining once more the power of civil resistance as part of the Palestinian struggle. Almost daily people are out in the streets to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, and the discontent with the fruitless and completely stalled diplomatic processes is growing stronger. At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced in 2011 to UN agencies that throughout 2012 year they will systematically displace the Palestinian population in area C. While the displacement drive is underway in the Jordan Valley, home demolitions are rising and the settlement construction is accelerated, the people across the West Bank are always more constraint behind the cantons of the wall.

This raid on the Stop the Wall offices is a clear message that the Israeli authorities are fearing widespread nonviolent action will challenge their policies effectively. Israel is preparing for confrontation and more repression, clearly showing that it is not ready to relinquish any of the international sanctioned rights the Palestinian people are struggling for.”

This is not the first time Stop the Wall has been the target of Israeli repression. In September 2009 Stop the Wall youth coordinator was arrested and the Stop the Wall coordinator, Jamal Juma’, was arrested a few months later, in December 2009. The Israeli authorities were not able to formulate any accusations against either of them and after a sustained international campaign, that saw the active involvement of the diplomatic missions in Palestine and European foreign ministries as well as countless human rights organizations around the world, both had to be freed in January 2010. This attack was followed only a few months later by an extensive office raid by the Israeli military on February 8 2010 and mass arrests of grassroots human rights defenders in the villages most actively protesting against the Wall.

For photos see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopthewall/sets/72157629631856082/

Background:

Stop the Wall is one of the most vibrant organizations of human rights defenders in Palestine, and has been promoting, for almost ten years, civil resistance and advocacy campaigns against the Wall and in defense of Palestinian rights to self determination. Human Rights Defenders are internationally recognized as an essential element in political processes and their repression further underlines Israeli unwillingness to achieve a just peace.

This raid on the Stop the Wall offices is a clear message that the Israeli authorities are fearing widespread nonviolent action will challenge their policies effectively.

The courageous steadfastness of the more than 2000 hunger strikers in Israeli jails is underlining once more the power of civil resistance as part of the Palestinian struggle. Almost daily people are out in the streets to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, and the discontent with the fruitless and completely stalled diplomatic processes is growing stronger. At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced in 2011 to UN agencies that throughout 2012 year they will systematically displace the Palestinian population in area C. While the displacement drive is underway in the Jordan Valley, home demolitions are rising and the settlement construction is accelerated, the people across the West Bank are always more constraint behind the cantons of the wall. Israel is preparing for confrontation and more repression, clearly showing that it is not ready to relinquish any of the international sanctioned rights the Palestinian people are struggling for.

This is not the first time Stop the Wall has been the target of Israeli repression. In September 2009 Stop the Wall youth coordinator was arrested and the Stop the Wall coordinator, Jamal Juma’, was arrested a few months later, in December 2009. The Israeli authorities were not able to formulate any accusations against either of them and after a sustained international campaign, that saw the active involvement of the diplomatic missions in Palestine and European foreign ministries as well as countless human rights organizations around the world, both had to be freed in January 2010. This attack was followed only a few months later by an extensive office raid by the Israeli military on February 8 2010 and mass arrests of grassroots human rights defenders in the villages most actively protesting against the Wall.

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May 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities

By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | May 2, 2012

The Israeli ‘defense’ industry is embedded in Israeli universities and in universities around the world including Australia. It plunders overseas intellectual property for Israel’s military research-and-development (R&D) programs while strategic bi-lateral research and exchange missions deliberately whitewash or ‘normalize’ the Zionist military occupation of Palestine and her people.

In Israel, Zionism and the military are undifferentiated. The IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces), the world’s fourth most powerful (nuclear) army, since the inception of the state of Israel, is duty bound to secure the fanatical Zionist goal of Eretz Yisrael or Greater Israel, which incorporates the whole of historic Palestine and beyond (from the Nile to the Euphrates).

The 1948 Nakba, the Catastrophe, which accounted for the destruction of 500 Palestinian villages and the forceful expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians by Israeli terrorist militia (Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah) that metamorphosed into the Israeli army, has never ended with Israel’s relentless policies of ethnic cleansing through the expansion of its illegal colonies and the illegal Annexation Wall on stolen Palestinian land perforated moreover by hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks manned by belligerent IOF.

Under international law, Israel’s military occupation of Palestine is illegal and yet it has impunity to defy UN Resolutions and to daily commit war crimes because of US, EU, Canadian and Australian support as well as the $3.1 billion in Israeli military assistance granted annually from the US State Department budget.

“Israeli defense sales in 2010 totaled 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, making the small nation the world’s fourth largest exporter…Most of the sales are from four leading companies: Elbit Systems, Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael, and Israel Military Industries ..Strong points of Israel’s arms industry include unmanned aerial vehicles, armoured vehicles, smart munitions, military and civilian aircraft avionics, weapons platforms and structural upgrades for foreign governments and private clients.”

It is Palestinian men, women, teenagers and children who are the guinea pigs of Israel’s ‘battle-tested’ weaponry.

Israeli defense companies as well as their joint venture US/UK defense partners have subsidiaries in Australia- Elbit Australia, Oracle Australia, Thales Australia, Raytheon Australia and have footholds in and associations with Australian universities.

In November 2011, Elbit Systems joined the Australian Defense Department’s Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program. The University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University also joined. “Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries contribute directly to two of the most insidious facets of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory: the indiscriminate assaults on civilian populations, through the provision of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s or ‘drones’) and other military equipment to Occupation forces; and the ever-tightening ghettoization of the West Bank, through the provision of surveillance and electronics systems along the Apartheid Wall and settlements. During Israel’s 23-day assault in Gaza in 2008-09, missiles fired from drones were directly attributed to the killing of 78 Palestinians, including 29 children. Like all Israeli firms operating the military technology sector, endless war and occupation create valuable marketing opportunities. Elbit UAVs, for example, can be sold on the global market as ‘battle tested’ devices, significantly increasing their appeal and leading to their adoption by a number of militaries.”

The ZEN Entrepreneurs’ Challenge is a student business planning competition run by the Entrepreneurship, Commercialization and Innovation Centre at the University of Adelaide. ‘Participants work with dedicated mentors to cultivate their entrepreneurial plans including marketing thanks to Dr. Ben-Ari who joined Elbit Systems in 1978 and is, since 2001, Managing Director of Elbit Systems Singapore.

The Edith Cowan University’s Security Management program is offering academic credit to delegates on completion of the 2013 “Security Fundamentals Tour of Israel designed to provide a select group of security specialists and professionals with an insight into Israel’s critical infrastructure security and what continues to drive Israel to be one of the leading security technology providers.” The tour includes the euphemistically named ‘Separation’ Wall which is in fact an Apartheid/Annexation Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004 and also includes the security, passenger screening and deterrence applications of Ben Gurion Airport which last month detained and deported volunteers invited to Palestine to help build a school for blind children. Last year, Australians Vivienne Porzsolt and Sylvia Hale were also arrested and detained at Ben Gurion for having the temerity of wanting to visit Marrickville’s sister city, Bethlehem.

In February, a guest speaker at Deakin University’s 7th Annual International Electromaterials Science Symposium was A/Prof. Yair Ein – Eli, He had been Director of Research and Battery Technology at Electric Fuel Ltd before joining the Department of Materials Engineering at the Technion. Electric Fuel Ltd is a subsidiary of the Arotech Corporation which has facilities in Israel and “operates through three major business divisions: High-level armoring for military and nonmilitary air and ground vehicles; interactive simulation for military, law enforcement and commercial markets, and batteries and charging systems for the military’.

Each Israeli university has societies worldwide that encourage and facilitate academic and scientific exchanges and collaboration. ‘Recent exchanges organized by The Technion Society of Australia have included Technion staff at Sydney University, University of NSW, University of Newcastle, Victoria University, University of Adelaide and Australian National University.’ On staff at the University of Western Sydney is a professor with Technion associations and experience in military and civilian R&D. Both Elbit and Rafael Advanced Systems (run by the Israeli Ministry for Defence)have long-standing partnerships with the hawkish Technion.

In May 2008 was the launch of the AICC s inaugural WA Innovation and Business Development Mission to Israel, supported by the WA State Governments Department of Industry and Resources and coordinated by the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (WA) Inc. (AICC). Among delegates were representatives from the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. Mr R McCulloch representing Murdoch University’s interest in water research and renewable energy institutes praised Israel’s “immediate interest and openness to finding partners” though, of course this excludes Palestinians whose critical water resources are stolen, controlled and/or demolished by Israel.

The University of Johannesburg which had a joint water project with Ben Gurion University severed links in 2011 because it found “detailed, factual evidence and information regarding Ben Gurion’s direct and indirect role in further entrenching the violations of human rights and international law by the Israeli state”.

Innocuous academic interchange can promote normalization whereby Israeli oppression, racism and apartheid is accepted as the ‘normal’ status quo.

The Yachad Accelerated Learning Project designed to improve outcomes and address inequalities in Indigenous and Remote education was set up with the support of Melbourne and Monash Universities and The Hebrew University (Michael Federmann, the Chairman of Elbit Systems is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University). In 2007 an Australian Yachad delegation enthusiastically visited the Bedouin village of Kseyfeh aware or unaware that the per capita spending per Bedouin student is less than half Israel’s average and that 40% of indigenous Bedouins are threatened by forced transfer policies and live in Unrecognized Villages systematically deprived of water, electricity, health care, education yet not deprived of incessant home demolitions.

The information presented here about the relationship between Australian universities and the Israeli occupation of Palestine is merely the tip of a very grubby iceberg. Australian universities by their degrading prostration to funding donors associated with Zionist Israel have lost their moral equilibrium and the purpose and ideals of academia. Dissenting academics are rare. Few emulate Professor Jake Lynch’s protest of the 2011 Israel Research Forum at the University of Sydney with guest experts from the The Weizmann Institute of Science, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv University, all of which collaborate with the Israeli military industry.

Academics and students, concerned for the human rights of the people of Palestine, must investigate their university finances and demand divestment from and boycott of companies and Israeli universities that are implicated in the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Palestinians suffer daily.

– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005.

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Illegal Settlements Bonanza: Israel Plots an Endgame

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | May 2, 2012

Israel’s colonization policies are entering an alarming new phase, comparable in historic magnitude to the original plans to colonize Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the war of 1967.

On April 24, an Israeli ministerial committee approved three settlement outposts – Bruchin and Rechelim in the northern part of the West Bank, and Sansana in the south. Although all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal by international law, Israeli law differentiates between sanctioned settlements and ‘illegal’ ones. This distinction has actually proved to be no more than a disingenuous attempt at conflating international law, which is applicable to occupied lands, and Israeli law, which is in no way relevant.

Since 1967, Israel placed occupied Palestinian land, privately owned or otherwise, into various categories. One of these categories is ‘state-owned’, as in obtained by virtue of military occupation. For many years, the ‘state-owned’ occupied land was allotted to various purposes. Since 1990, however, the Israeli government refrained from establishing settlements, at least formally. Now, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, “instead of going to peace the government is announcing the establishment of three new settlements… this announcement is against the Israeli interest of achieving peace and a two states solution”

Although the group argues that the four-man committee did not have the authority to make such a decision, it actually matters little. Every physical space in the occupied territories – whether privately owned or ‘state owned’, ‘legally’ obtained or ‘illegally’ obtained – is free game. The extremist Jewish settlers, whose tentacles are reaching far and wide, chasing out Palestinians at every corner, haven’t received such empowering news since the heyday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The move regarding settlements is not an isolated one. The Israeli government is now challenging the very decisions made by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has been used as a legitimization platform for many illegal settlements that drove Palestinians from their land.

On April 27, the Israeli government reportedly asked the high court to delay the demolition of an ‘unauthorized’ West Bank outpost in the Beit El settlement which was scheduled to take place on May 1st. The land, even by Israeli legal standards, is considered private Palestinian land, and the Israeli government had committed to the court to take down the illegal outposts – again, per Israeli definition – on the specified date.

Now the rightwing Netanyahu government is having another change of heart. In its request to the court, the government argued: “The evacuation of the buildings could carry social, political and operational ramifications for construction in Beit El and other settlements.” Such an argument, if applied in the larger context of the occupied territories, could easily justify why no outposts should be taken down. It could eradicate, once and for all, such politically inconvenient terms such as ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’.

“Previous Israeli governments have pledged to demolish the unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank, but only a handful have been removed,” according to CNN online. In fact, that ‘handful’ are likely to be rebuilt, amongst many more new outposts, now that the new legal precedence is underway.

Michael Sfard, an attorney with Yesh Din, which reportedly advocates Palestinian rights, described the request as “an announcement of war by the Israeli government against the rule of law.” More specifically, “they said clearly that they have reached a decision not to evacuate illegal construction on private Palestinian property.”

Some analysts suggested that Netanyahu was bowing down to the more rightwing elements in his cabinet – as if the man had, till now, been a peacemaker. The bottom line is that Israel has decided embark on a new and dangerous phase, one that violates not only international law, but Israel’s own self-tailored laws that were designed to colonize the occupied territories. It appears that even those precarious ‘laws’ are no longer capable of meeting the colonial appetite of Israeli settlers and the ruling class.

Israeli settlements have been contextualized through Israeli legal and political references, as opposed to references commonly accepted in international law. The emphasis on differences between Israeli governments, political parties and religious/ultra-nationalist settlement movements is distracting and misleading; colonizing the rest of historic Palestine has been and remains a national Israeli project.

An article in the rightwing Israeli Jerusalem Post agrees. “Support for settlement is not simply a program of right-of-center Likud. Its history has firm roots in Labor party activity during the periods of its governments, and activities by predecessors of the Labor party going back before the creation of the Israeli state” (April 27).

The only variable that might be worth examining is the purpose of the settlement, not the settlement itself. Following the war of 1967, the Allon plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes. It stipulated the establishment of a “security corridor” along the Jordan River, as well outside the “Green Line”, a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders with the West Bank. Then, there was no Likud party to demonize, for that was the Labor party’s vision for the newly occupied territories.

While the Israeli settlement drive since then has swallowed much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, populating them with over half a million Israelis, the international community’s response was as moot in 1967 as it is now in 2012. Responding to the latest sanctioning of illegal outposts, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon declared that he was “deeply troubled” by the news. Meanwhile, Russia was ‘deeply concerned’ and so was the EU’s Catherine Ashton. As for the US, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted that the Israeli measure is not “helpful to the process.” What process?

While Israel has now showed all of its cards, and the international community declared its complacency or impotence, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah continues to plan some kind of UN censure of the settlements. Even if a watered-down version of some UN draft managed to survive the US veto, what are the chances of Israel heeding the call of international community?

There is no doubt that Israel is plotting its version of the endgame in Palestine, which sees Palestinians continuing to subsist in physical fragmentation and permanent occupation. Unless a popular Palestinian uprising takes hold, no one is likely to challenge what is actually an Israeli declaration of war against the Palestinian people.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel To Demolish Buildings In East Jerusalem To Build “King David” Park

By Regina Qumsieh | IMEMC & Agencies | May 02, 2012

The Jerusalem City Council has decided to demolish seven buildings in the Silwan neighborhood, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Old City in Occupied East Jerusalem, as part of its plan to build the “King David Park” in this Palestinian area.

The Israeli army has posted eviction and demolition notices on several homes and buildings in Silwan, granting the residents 30 days to file appeals and grievances according to Fakhri Abu Diab, member of the Popular Committee for Defending Silwan, in East Jerusalem,

The “King David Park” Plan was announced by Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat, two years ago after the City Council decided to demolish 22 Arab homes under the pretext that they were built without construction permits.

The Israeli plan led to Palestinian, Arab and international condemnation, but Israel disregarded the outrage and said that the project will serve the city.

The “King David” Park plan is part of ongoing Israeli violations targeting the Palestinians, their property and their lands in Occupied East Jerusalem. These violations include the demolition of dozens of Arab homes, forcing the Palestinians out of their homes to replace them with settlers, and the ongoing construction and expansion of Israeli settlement in and around the city.

In other news, Israeli soldiers destroyed agricultural dwellings, barns and wells southeast of the West Bank city of Hebron at dawn on Wednesday. The Israeli Army claimed that the structures were built without construction permits. A member of the Al-Rajabi family stated that the Army has twice invaded his land and demolished his property in the past three years.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation authorities demolish well near Hebron

Ma’an – 02/05/2012

HEBRON – Israeli authorities demolished a water well in a village east of Hebron on Wednesday, locals said.

Officials accompanied by soldiers tore down the well belonging to Saeed Jaber in Baqaa village, residents said.

Palestinian Water Authority chief Shaddad Attili warned earlier this year that Israel was systemically destroying well and rainwater harvesting cisterns to forcibly displace Palestinian communities who depend on them for their basic water needs.

At least 25 Palestinian wells and 32 Palestinian cisterns were demolished in 2011, he said.

Last week local director of the UN’s humanitarian agency Ramesh Rajasingham said that more than 1,500 Palestinians have lost their homes as a result of demolitions and evictions since the beginning of 2011.

Palestinians can only build on one percent of the Israeli-controlled zone Area C in the West Bank, most of which is already built up, while settlements continue to expand in the same zone, the UN says.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Report: “Five Killed, 285 Kidnapped In April”

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | May 01, 2012
File Photo

The International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights (Tadamon) reported that Israeli soldiers shot and killed five Palestinians, including a 4 year old child, and kidnapped more than 285 Palestinians in April.

The child, Aseel Ara’ra, 4, from Anata, near the central west Bank city of Ramallah, was shot in the neck on October 25, 2011, and was left in a quadriplegic state before dying of her injuries last month.

Also in April, the army shot and killed Hashem Misbah Sa’ad, 17, after claiming that he approached the border fence. Sa’ad is from ash-Shujaeyya neighbourhood, east of Gaza city.

Soldiers also shot and killed Bilal Yousef As-Sa’ayda, 20, also after claiming the he approached the border fence.

Two more Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. One of the deceased, identified as Rashad Shoukha, 28, was seriously wounded after the under-cover forces of the Israeli army broke into his home in Rammoun town, near Ramallah, and died of his wounds a week after he was injured.

Resident Fadi Zeitoun, from Beta village, near Nablus, was killed after a group of extremist settlers of the Yitzhar illegal settlement, south of Nablus, chased him with their guns while he was driving his tractor.

Israeli soldiers conducted dozens of invasions into the occupied territories in April, and kidnapped more than 285 residents, including dozens of women and children, and a number of former political prisoners who previously spent years in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

In the West Bank, soldiers kidnapped 45 children, and three female university students from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Tadamon attorney, researcher Ahmad Tubassy, slammed the ongoing and escalating Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, especially the ongoing violations against the political prisoners currently holding an open-ended hunger-strike demanding their legitimate rights guaranteed under international Law.

He stated that targeting civilians, especially women and children, violates all international regulations, and the Fourth Geneva Conventions to which Israel is a signatory.

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May 1, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

18 year old shepherd shot by Israeli soldiers in Jordan Valley

29 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Last Thursday 18 year old shepherd Yasir Sulaiman Sal man Najadah was shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers taking part in military training exercises near the Tyraseer training zone.

If one walks towards the Bedouin community of Wadi al-Maleh in the Jordan Valley, they will see one of the 67 blocks of concrete placed by Israeli military in the area, the words “Danger – Firing Zone – Entrance Forbidden” audaciously inscribed.

The village is only a few hundred meters away from an Israeli military base, and the villagers of Wadi al-Maleh are frequently endangered as Israeli soldiers carry out military training. In the past year, the village has lost two young men, both killed whilst shepherding as they inadvertently triggered unexploded ordnance.

“I was standing in the field with 19 camels,” said Yasir. According to Yasir, army jeeps typically comb the area to alert herders before shooting exercises begin however on April 19th, no warnings were issued before the firing of live ammunition began. Yasir was shot at a distance of approximately 1 to 1.5 kilometers, and he believes that the soldiers saw him before shooting.

He did not see the soldiers and only became aware of their presence after the shooting began; he believes they were behind a nearby hill. After the bullet entered his chest, Yasir walked to his home where he was then driven to the training base by his father for medical attention.

Israeli soldiers refused to treat him and denied fault in the shooting. It was nearly two hours before Yasir received medical treatment in Rafadia Hospital in Nablus. Yasir spent 1 day in Rafadia Hospital and was then transferred to a hospital in Ramallah.

According to his doctor, Yasir is in stable condition but remains in the Palestinian Authority hospital ICU after the shooting.

Yasir is the eldest of eight children and left school after the 10th grade to tend to the family’s heard of camels and sheep which is the main source of income for his family. He says his father is too old to take care of the animals and is concerned that no one is tending to them while he is in the hospital. Despite being shot, Yasir says he must return to the area surrounding the Tyraseer training zone for grazing because it is the only spring-time grazing near his village.

Aref Dyragma chief of council in Wadi al-Maleh, was one of the first persons to be informed about the attack. As Dyragma shows us around al-Maleh, he described how the Bedouins are exposed to systematic violence.

“Life is like hell here”, he said. “We have no running water, no electricity and we are prohibited from building anything. Israel has taken control of all the natural water resources, which forces us to walk 15 kilometers to the city of Tamoun, where we can buy expensive water.”

The violence used against Palestinians in the Jordan Valley is part of process of ethnic cleansing. 130 families from the area have received demolition and evacuation orders – but Dyragma ensures that they will stay.

“We have no other choice – this our land and we cannot leave.”

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April 30, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Until Freedom or Martyrdom: Thaer Halahleh on 60 Days of Hunger Strike

By Dylan Collins | Palestine Monitor | April 28, 2012

Kharas, occupied West Bank—Two year old Lamar Halahleh has never met her father outside of a prison cell. In fact, she wasn’t able to lay eyes upon him until she was nearly half a year old.

Thaer Halahleh, Lamar’s father, has not only spent the last two years in the Israeli prison system, the 33 year-old has actually been detained for the majority of the past nine years due to Israel’s exploitive practice of administrative detention.

“The only way she [Lamar] knows her father is through pictures,” says Lamar’s mother and Thaer’s wife, Shireen. “She has hundreds of pictures of Thaer. When she goes to sleep at night, she tucks his picture into bed with her.”

Always held without charge or trial, Thaer’s only officially stated wrongdoing has been his affiliation to Islamic Jihad, a political party officially outlawed by Israel.

Thaer’s most recent arrest came on 26 June 2010 during a midnight raid on his home in the small village of Kharras, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Nearly 50 Israeli soldiers stormed the Halahleh’s home. Without knocking, the armed forces kicked down the door, made the women and children go outside in their bedclothes, and proceeded to search the house with two dogs for nearly an hour.

After a thorough search of the house, the troops then told the family they had an order to arrest Thaer. When asked why, the officer in charge responded that Thaer was a “threat to the public.”

Thaer had only just recently ended a year long stretch in administrative detention. He was home for all of about 14 days before being re-arrested and presented, yet again, with a three- month administrative detention order.

Like all other administrative detainees, Thaer is being held on ‘secret evidence’ and has never been officially charged nor convicted of anything.

Cyclical and ambiguous arrests have plagued the lives of Thaer and his family. Every one of his four brothers, and even his father, has been held in administrative detention at some point. Thaer himself has been arrested 8 times and spent a collective six and half years total in administrative detention.

Thaer’s most recent administrative detention order has been renewed every three-months. The uncertainty of his detention’s length has been nerve racking to say the least. Thaer’s wife, Shireen, argues neither she nor Thaer, nor Thaer’s lawyer know whether the order will be renewed until the day it concludes. Shireen reveals that several times, Thaer has been directed to collect his belongings and prepare to go home only to be turned back at the gates of the prison with a renewed three-month detention order.

How to Fight Ambiguous Detentions

Thaer’s detention was most recently extended in January for a period of six-months. Left with few other options and encouraged by Sheikh Khader Adnan’s recent 66-day feat in protest of administrative detention, the exact same directive that has controlled Thaer’s life for the past nine years, he too entered into his own open-ended hunger strike on 28 February while in Al-Naqab prison.

Saturday 27 April 2012, Thaer entered into his 60th day with out food.

“He is determined,” said Thaer’s older brother Mohammed. “He will either be set free or become a martyr.”

When asked if they thought Thaer would be willing to accept an exile deal similar to the one Israel reached with hunger striker Hana Shalabi, through which she had been exiled to Gaza for the following three years, his family responded with a resounding no. “It was good for Hana,” says Thaer’s Uncle Wahib, “but Thaer would never agree to anything of the sort.”

On 28 March, Thaer was transferred to Israel’s Ramleh medical prison along with another hunger striking prisoner, Bilal Diab. According to Addameer, both men have been held in isolated cells in the general prison section. Despite numerous requests, Addameer lawyers have been denied access to Thaer and Bilal since their transfer.

Despite his rapidly deteriorating condition, Thaer Halaleh’s appeal against his administrative detention was rejected by an Israeli military judge at the Ofer military court on Monday 23 April.

Thaer’s wife Shireen has little faith in receiving justice from the Israeli military court system. “How can we have any faith in the court hearings. How can we believe that a just verdict will be reached when we are barred from even attending the trial, when the entire trial is conducted in Hebrew, and when the only people present are the Israeli judge, the Israeli translator, the Israeli prosecutor, and the mukhabarat [Israeli secret service]?”

Power in Numbers

Approximately 1,200 Palestinian prisoners from all political factions began a unified open-ended hunger strike on 17 April 2012 in commemoration of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and in protest of Israel’s exploitative use of administrative detention as well as its poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Since its beginning, the movement has only been getting stronger.

In an April 25th update published by Addameer the estimated total number of prisoners on hunger strike had risen to nearly 2,000, a number which has most certainly risen since and has plans to increase in the coming days.

In Hasharon prison, six female prisoners have announced they will enter into the open-ended hunger strike on 1 May 2012. An additional 120 prisoners in Ofer prison are expected to join the hunger strike on 29 April.

The movement—“The War of Empty Stomachs”—has been effectively launched. It is, perhaps, a last resort by Palestinian prisoners to finally obtain just and fair treatment.

Thaer Halahleh, having reached his 60th day without food along with his compatriot Bilal Diab, is at the movement’s forefront.

Their demands, as well as those of the other active “Empty Stomach Warriors,” are neither absurd nor inappropriate. They are simply demanding a fair judicial process and improved living conditions but are risking their lives in the process.

Photo by Dylan Collins

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April 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yitzhar settlers attack school children in Urif

29 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Urif is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate of the northern occupied West Bank, located thirteen kilometres South of Nablus. The town has a population of just under 3000 inhabitants and is overlooked by the illegal Israeli colony of Yitzhar. Last week on Sunday, April 22, Urif’s boys school was attacked by mask-wearing settlers supported by four Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) soldiers who used tear-gas, sound bombs, and live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian children.


The training of armed, illegal settlers (Photo courtesy of IMEMC)

The settlers were led by the head of security for the Yitzhar colony, a man suspected in the murder of a resident of Urif in 2004, a murder that nobody has yet been charged with. He continues to lead brutal assaults against the civilian population of six Palestinian towns in the lands surrounding Yitzhar: Burin, Huwara, Madma, Assria Al-Kalibya, Ein Nabous, and Urif.

The attack began when the Yitzhar head of security and a number of masked settlers approached the school from an overlooking hill. “The children were sitting their mock exams,” said Arif, a member of the local popular committee, “the settlers used foul language and began throwing stones at the windows of the school.”

The settlers were soon joined by four uniformed IOF soldiers who did nothing to stop the abuse and stones hurled towards the school.

“When the army came they were supposed to stop the settlers coming to the school, in fact the opposite happened, there was chaos,” said Arif. A number of Palestinian youth approached the armed Israeli settlers and soldiers on the hill, using stones to resist the attack. The IOF soldiers then threw tear gas canisters down towards them and the school. One canister landed on the roof where a member of the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, Adil Safadi, was filming the attack.

Following the attack teachers from the school collected sixty tear gas canisters, a number of sound grenades, and at least thirty rounds of live ammunition fired directly over their heads.

In the video of the incident wherein International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers are shown, the screams of the children and the loud report of an assault rifle being fired in fully automatic mode can clearly be heard. At one point an IOF soldier took aim with his M16 directly at a Palestinian youth out of camera shot. The sustained assault lasted for around an hour before the settlers decided to leave with their IOF minders in tow.

Whilst some children hid in their classrooms during the attack under the watchful eye of their teachers, many rushed to their homes and were exposed to large amounts of tear-gas and required medical attention. The children of Urif’s boys school, aged between 13 and 18, have been subjected to this kind of brutality on a regular basis since the founding of the school which sits on the outskirts of the village and is thus vulnerable to these kind of attacks. Many of the older kids that attend the school were in the process of studying for their year final examinations which take place in early May.

“You can’t imagine the loss we have suffered as a result of this settlement,” says Arif,  “we would like to live in peace and prosperity, but that is something we cannot gain. The settlers are very aggressive, there is no word in the dictionary to describe them.”

This is not the first time the settlers, supported by the military, have attacked the school. Roughly one year ago they attempted and failed to burn it down. ISM was shown pictures depicting the charred remains of one classroom that was severely damaged during the attack.

Incursions from Yitzhar into Urif and Surrounding Villages

Arif and members of Urif municipality informed ISM of the following.

The illegal colony of Yitzhar was founded in 1984. It was not until the beginning of 2000 that it began to aggressively expand into the surrounding Palestinian lands. Yitzhar illegally annexed vast swaths of land and barred access to the Palestinian farmers, shepherds, and villagers that have lived and worked the land for countless generations.

The village of Urif is a mere 1500 meters away from the Israeli colony, and since 2000, over 2200 dunams have been stolen by the nearby settlement. In addition, four thousand olive trees cultivated by the village have been uprooted or burnt by settlers in the past four years.

The villagers of Urif have no access to running water, instead they rely on a small number of ancient wells. Two years ago, members of the village were dismayed to find tear gas canisters had been dropped into one of the wells by unknown settlers, poisoning the water supply.

Any attempt to expand infrastructure in the village is also met with settler attacks. ISM volunteers were shown the remains of a house that had been under construction before it was attacked and completely dismantled.

“Late at night they launch attacks on the residents in this area,” said Arif, pointing to the rubble strewn skeleton of the destroyed house. A tractor and a number of cars belonging to residents of the village had also been destroyed in a series of recent arson attacks.

Settlers have shot through the windows of a number of the homes. Graffiti reading ‘revenge’ in Hebrew was scrawled across one residents house. The widespread attacks of agricultural land has lead to a vast “wasteland” between the outskirts of Urif and Yitzhar. Hundreds of goats, sheep, and a few horses have been stolen.

This is not to mention the violence towards the villagers themselves. Arif reports that hundreds of villagers have been injured since 2000, with as many as 40 serious injuries (many of which were gunshot wounds) and one murder.

The combined effects of this systematic assault on Urif residents’ way of life, economy, and civil society is akin to a form of ethnic cleansing. One of the most stark indicators of the impact of the measures taken against the village of Urif by Yitzhar settlement is that unemployment is as high as 40%. Many people simply cannot survive under these conditions and are thus forced to abandon the village of their birth, leaving behind their friends, family, and identity.

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April 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Injured After Being Attacked By Boars Released By Settlers

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC | April 29, 2012

Palestinian medical sources reported that a Palestinian man was seriously injured after being attacked by a pack of boars that belong to extremist Israeli settlers near Kufur Thuluth Palestinian village, near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia.

File - Palinfo
File – Palinfo

The resident was moved to a local hospital suffering serious injuries to various parts of his body; he was in his land, located south of the village.

This is not the first attack of its type as extremist settlers repeatedly released boars to ruin Palestinian farmlands in different parts of the West Bank, and in many cases the settlers also flooded Palestinian lands with sewage.

In September of last year, settlers of the Beitar Illit illegal settlement, south west of Bethlehem, flooded with sewage water Palestinian olive orchards that belong to residents of Nahhalin village, near Bethlehem.

Osama Shakarna, head of the Nahhalin Village Council, stated that the settlers flooded more than 40 Dunams (9.88 Acres) planted with more than 2500 Olive. The sewage water reached Ein Fares natural spring used by the shepherd as the source of water for their herds.

In May of last year, settlers of the Ariel settlement, the largest Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, flooded with sewage and waste-water Palestinians farmlands that belong to residents of Bruqin village near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The sewage was directed from Ariel settlement directly toward the land of Bruqin village, and has contaminated farmland and groundwater in an area of several kilometers around the village.

In April of last year, the Palestinian town of Beit Ummar, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, was flooded with sewage from a nearby settlement.
A local farmer said that he was farming his field near Kfar Etzion settlement, and there was no contamination when he left his field to go home for the night.

But sometime during the night, a sewage pipe from Kfar Etzion settlement was opened, flooding the land of a number of Beit Ummar farmers and destroying their crops.

Another resident, whose land was also flooded, told the Maan News Agency, “This is not a coincidence; this is not the first time this has happened”.

The flooding of the village land with sewage comes one year after a similar sewage flood in the same area, when sewage from Gush Etzion settlement flooded all over Sabarneh’s land.

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April 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike

MEMO | 26 April 2012

1.1 – The issue of Palestinian prisoners is one of the worst consequences of the Israeli occupation.  Since 1967, over 700,000 Palestinians, 20% of the population of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have been detained. This number represents approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian population in the occupied territories.

1.2 – Today, there are about 6,000 prisoners in 17 Israeli jails and detention centres. They include six women and more than 200 minors.

1.3 – 330 Palestinians are being held in administrative detention with no formal charges having been brought against them in a court of law. 28 elected members of the parliament, and three former ministers fall within this category.

1.4 – Israel is currently holding all these Palestinian prisoners far away from their homes, and outside of the occupied territory. This constitutes a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Article 76 of the Convention states:

“Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.”

Article 49 also states:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

1.5 – Article 32 specifically prohibits “murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and … any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents”. Since 1967, 202 Palestinians prisoners have died while being tortured in Israeli jails.

1.6 – Israel routinely tries Palestinians before military courts, none of which meet the most basic standards of international law; particularly the laws relating to the treatment of prisoners of war and people under occupation.

1.7 – In light of the above, there are now calls for the prosecution of Israeli officials at an international tribunal.

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April 27, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Settlers Raise Israel’s Flag On Top Of Ibrahimi Mosque

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | April 26, 2012

A group of Israeli settlers raised Israeli flags on top of the fourth holiest site in Islam, the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. This is the first time ever since Hebron fell under Israeli occupation in 1967.

Image - Milad News Agency
Image – Milad News Agency

The Milad News Agency reported that head of the Waqf and Endowment Department in Hebron, Zeid al-Ja’bary, slammed the provocative move and stated that “this is an attack against the religious and historic stature of this site to millions of Muslims around the world”.

He added that this is a “seriously dangerous provocative act” targeting the holy site.

The Israeli Prime Minister and his coalition partners have declared the Ibrahimi Mosque, also referred to as the “Cave of Patriarchs”, to be part of the Jewish Heritage sites; a move designed to preclude the Palestinian attempt to have UNESCO officially include the Old City of Hebron on its list of historic and archeological cities.

Hebron Governor, Kamel Hameed, held the Israeli government responsible for provocative acts and attacks carried out by settlers in Hebron.

Hameed told the Milad News Agency that “writing street names in Hebrew, renaming the mosque, and placing iron and electronic gates on its entrances are provocative acts that are meant to prevent the Muslims from entering it”.

He added that the Ibrahimi Mosque “is in the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims around the world”, and added that Israeli settlers are pushing the region into instability.

Hebron Mayor, Khaled al-Aseely, stated that this act is part of Israel’s violations against Islamic Holy sites and the historic heritage of the region, and falls under Israel’s ongoing violations, including the Israeli decision to consider the mosque as part of the “Jewish heritage sites”, a decision that was rejected by numerous human rights and cultural institutions around the world.

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April 27, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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