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Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Garbage Trucks, Detain Drivers

IMEMC News – July 10, 2019

A group of Israeli soldiers on Wednesday detained Palestinian municipal employees in the village of Beit Fourik, in the northern West Bank, and seized several vehicles used for trash collection.

According to local sources, the vehicles that were seized include a garbage truck, a tractor used for hauling garbage and a third vehicle used in trash collection.

The vehicles were loaded with garbage and were headed to a landfill site east of the village, located near Nablus in the northern West Bank, when they were detained by Israeli soldiers in military vehicles.

The soldiers approached with weapons drawn and ordered the municipal employees out of their vehicles, then held them for several hours in the hot sun, and took the vehicles away to an unknown location.

The Palestinian Wafa News Agency spoke with Ata Samara, a health inspector with the Beit Fourik village council, who told them that this trash collection by the municipality is a daily collection, and this is the first time they have been harassed by Israeli occupation forces.

Samara added that the trash dump is located in Area B of the West Bank, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority but falls under Israeli military rule, adding that the village council was not informed by the army that it would no longer be allowed to dump there. He said the seizure of the truck and car is part of an effort by the Israeli army to make life difficult for the Palestinians in that village.

Without a trash truck or a place to put garbage, the Palestinians of the village will be forced to fend for themselves, which will likely result in a buildup of trash at homes in the village, and unsanitary conditions will result.

Israeli authorities have created multiple landfill sites for Israeli garbage on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, and frequently haul and dump Israeli garbage onto Palestinian village land. However, in recent years the Israeli authorities have made it harder and harder for Palestinians in the West Bank to dump their garbage, instead closing off the Palestinian landfills and dumps or putting roadblocks to prevent the Palestinians from reaching them.

Israeli forces have targeted the village of Beit Fourik for collective punishment, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since March, when an Israeli settler was killed in a settlement nearby.

July 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Settler tour exemplifies the difficult reality of occupation in the Old City of Hebron – a photo essay

International Solidarity Movement – July 7, 2019

Hebron, occupied Palestine – Every Saturday, illegal Jewish settlers from around the West Bank take a “tour” of the busy souq (market) in Old City of Hebron, the busiest market street in the area since the closure of Shuhada Street. Local Palestinians believe that the Israeli authorities facilitate the tour as a deliberate method of intimidation, making life intolerable and unsustainable for them in order to prompt displacement.

On the tour, current and prospective settlers are given a skewed history of Hebron which disregards and contradicts the documented history of peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in the city before 1948. Instead, it identifies the land’s heritage as solely Jewish. As shown, the settlers are escorted by numerous Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers, who randomly detain Palestinians for ID checks and prevent free movement in the souq during the duration of the tour.

Military and police can also be seen on the rooftops of Palestinian homes, many of which are now empty as a result of forced evictions for surveillance purposes. Palestinians living in the Old City are under constant threat of home invasions by the Israeli military and Jewish settlers, further contributing to displacement and the theft of Palestinian property.

July 9, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

For Israel, Annexation of the West Bank is a Long-established Goal

With Benjamin Netanyahu under pressure and the US signalling its support, the time to realise this catastrophic ambition may be fast approaching

By Jonathan Cook • The National • June 17, 2019

When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.

Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.

Mr Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.

Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of rabbit out of the hat.

In the past two elections, Mr Netanyahu rode to success after issuing dramatic last-minute statements. In 2015, he agitated against the fifth of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian asserting their democratic rights, warning that they were “coming out in droves to vote”.

Back in April, he declared his intention to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank, in violation of international law, during the next parliament.

Amos Harel, a veteran military analyst with Haaretz newspaper, observed last week that Mr Netanyahu may decide words are no longer enough to win. Action is needed, possibly in the form of an announcement on the eve of September’s ballot that as much as two-thirds of the West Bank is to be annexed.

Washington does not look like it will stand in his way.

Shortly before April’s election, the Trump administration offered Mr Netanyahu a campaign fillip by recognising Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967.

This month David Friedman, US ambassador to Israel and one of the chief architects of Donald Trump’s long-delayed “deal of the century” peace plan, appeared to offer a similar, early election boost.

In interviews, he claimed Israel was “on the side of God” – unlike, or so it was implied, the Palestinians. He further argued that Israel had the “right to retain” much of the West Bank.

Both statements suggest that the Trump administration will not object to any Israeli moves towards annexation, especially if it ensures their favoured candidate returns to power.

Whatever Mr Friedman suggests, it is not God who has intervened on Israel’s behalf. The hands that have carefully cleared a path over many decades to the West Bank’s annexation are all too human.

Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967.

That point is underscored by an innovative interactive map of the occupied territories. This valuable new resource is a joint project of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and Forensic Architecture, a London-based team that uses new technology to visualise and map political violence and environmental destruction.

Titled Conquer and Divide, it reveals in detail how Israel has “torn apart Palestinian space, divided the Palestinian population into dozens of disconnected enclaves and unravelled its social, cultural and economic fabric”.

The map proves beyond doubt that Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank was never accidental, defensive or reluctant. It was coldly calculated and intricately planned, with one goal in mind – and the moment to realise that goal is fast approaching.

Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel’s founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation’s very beginnings in 1967, when the so-called centre-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Mr Netanyahu – ran the government.

The map shows how Israeli military planners created a complex web of pretexts to seize Palestinian land: closed military zones today cover a third of the West Bank; firing ranges impact 38 Palestinian communities; nature reserves are located on 6 per cent of the territory; nearly a quarter has been declared Israeli “state” land; some 250 settlements have been established; dozens of permanent checkpoints severely limit movement; and hundreds of kilometres of walls and fences have been completed.

These interlocking land seizures seamlessly carved up the territory, establishing the walls of dozens of tightly contained prisons for Palestinians in their own homeland.

Two Nasa satellite images of the region separated by 30 years – from 1987 and 2017 – reveal how Israel’s settlements and transport infrastructure have gradually scarred the West Bank’s landscape, clearing away natural vegetation and replacing it with concrete.

The land grabs were not simply about acquisition of territory. They were a weapon, along with increasingly draconian movement restrictions, to force the native Palestinian population to submit, to recognise its defeat, to give up hope.

In the immediate wake of the West Bank’s occupation, defence minister Moshe Dayan, Israel’s hero of the hour and one of the architects of the settlement project, observed that Palestinians should be made “to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave – and we shall see where this process leads”.

Although Israel has concentrated Palestinians in 165 disconnected areas across the West Bank, its actions effectively won the international community’s seal of approval in 1995. The Oslo accords cemented Israel’s absolute control over 62 per cent of the West Bank, containing the Palestinians’ key agricultural land and water sources, which was classified as Area C.

Occupations are intended to be temporary – and the Oslo accords promised the same. Gradually, the Palestinians would be allowed to take back more of their territory to build a state. But Israel made sure both the occupation and the land thefts sanctioned by Oslo continued.

The new map reveals more than just the methods Israel used to commandeer the West Bank. Decades of land seizures highlight a trajectory, plotting a course that indicates the project is still not complete.

If Mr. Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel’s tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as “creeping annexation”, carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Mr Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his “deal of the century”.

June 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Saed Bannoura: A Moment that Changed my Life

By Saed Bannoura | International Middle East Media Center | April 29, 2005

On April 22, 1991, I was only 18 years old; I was out with some of my comrades planning to conduct a march and rally in the streets of our town, Beit Sahour, against the Israeli occupation of our land. This march was one of many peaceful protests held as part of what had become known as the ‘first Intifada’ (popular uprising), which had begun in 1987.

That particular day seemed somehow strange to me, and different from previous marches – usually the Israeli army filled the streets of our town during protests, occupying every corner, but on this day the army remained in their camp, and did not show any presence.

Something felt wrong. Deep inside of me I felt that there was something that did not feel right. Where was the army? What I did not realize was that the army was in fact already present, but in a different shape and form.

On that particular day, it was “the death squads” (as they were known to us), known in Israel as the Dovadim, the Israeli special forces, who were policing and patrolling our demonstration. These are forces which are specially trained for assassinations and are well known for their brutality and their ‘shoot to kill’ orders.

Apparently, after the Israeli prisons were filled with Palestinians, and after the Israeli policies of ‘bone breaking’ and long imprisonment failed to stop the uprising, the army decided on a new policy, a policy of ‘assassinating’ the youth, or at least severely injuring and disabling them.

During the first Intifada, an Israeli high official was quoted as saying that the army should not kill the Palestinian youth, because a youth killed by the army would then be honored as a martyr and thousands would follow their lead. He said that it is better to paralyze and disable the youth, knowing the way society looks down on disabled people.

This official decided that the army, especially the well trained ‘death squads’ should ‘give their utmost effort’ to paralyze the youth of the Intifada.

As for me, on that fateful April morning in 1991, I discovered at one point during the demonstration that I was surrounded by a group of masked men who pretended they were also Palestinian protesters. They tried to talk to me in Arabic and ask me about “the location of the soldiers” in an attempt to fool me, but the man who spoke to me didn’t pronounce the Arabic words correctly. It was at that moment I realized that I was actually surrounded by a death squad.

When the man noticed that I had realized their true identify he pulled a small automatic gun from under his shirt, and I ran away knowing that even if I surrendered to him then, I would have been immediately assassinated, as had happened to so many Palestinian martyrs before me.

The man ran after me, along with the other undercover death squad members, until I came to an area were he was standing above me on a hill, just five meters away from me. When he shouted at me again, I began to turn, and I could see his eyes, or at least, what was visible of them from under his mask. It was at that moment that he started to shoot.

After five or six rounds penetrated my chest and back, I fell to the ground, motionless, soaked with my own blood. I could not feel anything, I could not see clearly, and I could not hear anything.

I fell down face first, injuring my face and breaking my teeth on the ground. Then the man approached me and kicked me in my chest, breaking four ribs, in order to flip me over onto my back.

The last thing I heard before I passed out was that man who shot me saying, “After all that, and you’re still alive!?”

Those are words I can never forget, for they revealed to me at that moment the true identity of the Israeli army, the army of criminals and murderers.

In spite of the fact that the Israeli military ambulance was already present in my town when I was shot, apparently they believed that if the death squad was in town, that meant that death was there too, and they didn’t show up until 30 minutes after I was shot.

When the Israeli ambulance crew finally arrived (no Palestinian ambulance was allowed in to take me), the medics told the soldiers that they should impose curfew because “I was dead”. They thought there was no way I could survive such serious wounds – they were sure I would be dead within hours. During the first Intifada the army would impose a curfew every time they killed someone, thus punishing all the Palestinians in the area for the army’s own misdeed.

Military medics tried to give me first aid there on the ground, I was bleeding so much it was flooding the area were I fell.

After the ‘first aid’ they gave me, they drove the ambulance to a military base in Bethlehem – as my body was fighting to stay alive, they went through their procedures, handing over my identity card to the military, filling out forms and filing their report before they even brought me to the hospital. I was driven out of Bethlehem (where there are two hospitals), and all the way to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem, where it would be difficult or even impossible for my family to come see me due to the Israeli-imposed closure and checkpoints.

Meanwhile, a military commander in Bethlehem phoned my father at home, and told him that I was mildly injured in my face, leaving out the five bullets which were lodged in my lung and spine – apparently these bullets did not count as injuries.

When they finally transferred me to the Israeli hospital I was operated on for the entire night. The surgeon who operated on me decided that it was easier to cut off one third of my lung and throw it away with the bullets than to take the care needed to extract the bullets from the lung (a move which led a Palestinian reporter to editorialize that my ‘surgeon had been a butcher in his past profession’ in an article he wrote about my injury).

One of the bullets penetrated my spine – it went through my chest and lodged in my spine, causing paralysis. That fateful bullet has led to me being paralyzed from the waist down, for life.

In the morning, one of the doctors told my mother, “You have a new born baby for a son” – that was me, paralyzed, unconscious and half dead.

I woke up for a few minutes three days after my injury. I did not know anything, did not remember anything, I saw my mother next to me, I tried to speak but that was useless, she was tortured to see me there, I could feel it, and could easily notice her health had deteriorated fearing that I would die at any moment.

I tried to ask her what I was doing there, and she said, “Relax my son, you are alright”, so I did, and “relaxed” for an additional seven days in another coma.

After those seven days, I was transferred out of the intensive care unit to another branch of the hospital, even though I still felt lost and unconscious even when I was awake.

Then, the hospital administration, after failing to make the army pay for my expenses, decided that I should leave, and told my father he must pay for the expenses. When they realized he could not pay, that he was without money, they told my father, “send him to an Arabic hospital, we saved his life, and he must go”.

But I was in no condition to be moved at all. Out of intensive care, my condition deteriorated rapidly, and I had to go back to intensive care for another ten days. When they decided I was “ok” I had to leave, even though I was nowhere near the condition that would normally be acceptable for releasing a patient with such severe injuries – but after all, I was “just a Palestinian”, and didn’t seem to count for much in the Israeli hospital. In fact, the hospital even insisted that a Palestinian ambulance come to fetch me, for they could not bear the expense of using one of their own ambulances to transport me to a Palestinian hospital. So I was transferred (by a Palestinian ambulance) to Al-Makessed hospital in Jerusalem.

I was hospitalized for three months, during which time I kept losing a lot of blood, internally and externally, due to my injuries (and the part of my lung that had been completely cut out). I still couldn’t think straight, couldn’t figure out why I was there – I had only visions spinning in my head, and vague memories.

After that time, I was transferred to Abu Raya Rehabilitation center in Ramallah. By then I started to realize that my life had changed forever.

I received rehabilitation for several months. I can still remember the first time I could dress alone, it felt good to be able to dress or bathe alone after a lot of work and effort – something that, previously, I would never have thought difficult had become such a challenge in my new body.

Ten months after my injury I enrolled as a student at Bethlehem University, and I studied four years, receiving my B.A degree in English and translation.

Now, many years later, am still paralyzed of course, but my life is a clear proof of the failure of the Israeli vision that paralyzing, injuring and killing us will make us give up. I have learned that the bullet which does not kill us makes us stronger.

So I am in a wheelchair, facing difficulties in life, facing repeated infections and bad health, but I am still the man who stood up to the Israeli occupation day after day and said NO to the occupiers.

One day I saw a program on Israeli TV about the special forces, the so-called ‘death squads’ which shot me. They showed scrambled pictures of soldiers talking about the attacks they carried out in Palestinian areas. Most of them are receiving psychological help now, and therapy. At that moment I felt victorious, after all they failed to kill my will and my internal strength, while these men who shoot unarmed youth with impunity are suffering internal torment and anguish for the crimes they have committed. I sit with my full mind, in honor, knowing I have done no wrong, and even after all they have done to me, I am still here willing to liberate my country, even while sitting on my wheelchair.

Its true, I will live my life on this wheelchair, paralyzed, and that is difficult sometimes to accept. They may have been able to take my mobility away, they may have been able to take my life as a completely healthy young man, but what they could not take, and will never be able to take away is my internal strength, my will and my love of my country.

The spirit of revolution, the path of freedom requires sacrifices we need to be ready and willing to make, until we reach our legitimate goal of freedom and liberation.

After the thousands of sacrifices of the Palestinian people, the thousands of martyrs, and tens of thousands of injured and disabled, we know that there can be no solution without liberation. The revolution will resume, even if it pauses for a while.

Palestine is our dream, our heart and life, the spirit of revolution and the longing for freedom can never die. Their tanks, apaches, shells, and bullets of hatred can never win.

June 3, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Settler filmed starting fire in West Bank field is Israeli soldier

MEMO | May 27, 2019

One of the two Jewish settlers recently caught on video starting a fire in the occupied West Bank is an Israeli soldier, it has been revealed.

According to reports in the Israeli media, “the army knows the identity of the settler”, and “two security sources confirmed the details, saying that the soldier was on leave when the arson took place”.

The military said that “the Israel Police are expected to handle the incident”, while “the police said that they have yet to arrest the soldier”.

The incident took place on Friday, 17 May, when settlers attacked Palestinians and their properties in three West Bank villages.

While the Israeli military initially blamed Palestinians for starting the fires, the army was forced to change its story after a video clip published by human rights NGO B’Tselem clearly showed settlers lighting fires in fields.

In a separate video taken by local Palestinians that day, settlers are seen throwing rocks at villagers’ homes, while Israeli soldiers “can be seen standing among the settlers and doing nothing to stop them”.

To date, no one has been arrested for any of these attacks.

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank routinely assault Palestinians and vandalise their property, attacks which are almost never investigated or prosecuted by Israeli occupation authorities.

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.

May 27, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Armed grown soldiers arrest children, aggressively frisk them

International Solidarity Movement | May 8, 2019

A personal account of detention, racism and broken rules

An international activist who was documenting this incident was also detained by the soldiers, she describes her detention as follows:

I’ve been at Salaymeh checkpoint every other day for a month and a half just trying to document the soldier’s harassment of the children, keeping in contact with the UN, so they can hopefully help if children are arrested. I am always mindful not to antagonize the soldiers and try to interact with them as little as possible. My hope is that an international presence will result in less violence because the soldiers will know they are being watched and may be held accountable.

On the day that I was detained I was filming a soldier as normal, who threatened to arrest another activist who I was with. Because I’d witnessed a lot of broken rules and violence by the army during my time at Salaymeh checkpoint, I knew it was important to keep filming. The commander asked me to move away, and when I kept filming, she told me that she would have another soldier move me with force. When I didn’t stop filming, she told me to come with her and that she had the authority to make arrests. I was very unsure of what to do in this situation – I had been told before that soldiers could not make arrests, but I was confused, and I was afraid of what might happen so I complied and went with her. I later found out that what the commander had said was in fact a lie and that she had absolutely no legal authority to detain me.

I was kept at Salaymeh checkpoint for an hour and a half, being told that the police would come but they never did. I was then put into a military van without being told where I was being taken. They then drove me around the city back and forth for half an hour which was very confusing. I still don’t know why they did this but I believe now that they were trying to shake off the UN who were trying to find out where I was being held in order to assist me. Eventually I was taken to a military base where they were also holding the Palestinian child who had been arrested. We were both held there for over 5 hours. During this time I was marshalled around, sporadically questioned, never given any food or water and never having anything explained to me. I was told that I would never be able to return to the country and that I would be deported that day. The whole time I was denied access to my lawyer and I was never given any reason for why I was being held.

What struck me the most about being detained with the Palestinian child was that as an international I was treated far better. I, an adult, was not handcuffed, and I was allowed to keep my things. He however, a child, was handcuffed, restrained, frisked, and they took his phone and his things. It was shocking and angering to me that this child was treated so much worse than me – it made it very obvious to me that the treatment of Palestinians undoubtedly has its roots in racism. – Full article

Children in Al-Ram living in close proximity to the separation barrier

Defence for Children Palestine – May 9, 2019

The Israeli separation barrier cuts Al-Ram off from East Jerusalem, restricting movement for these two Palestinian siblings who live near the barrier. Sadeen Q., 12, says the Israeli army fires tear gas from behind the barrier into their home. Shawqi Q., 10, dreams of a day when the barrier will be gone. In 2004, the International Court of Justice advised Israel to dismantle portions of the barrier. Israel has yet to comply.

Zaid’s school experience in Nablus is framed by soldiers

Defence for Children Palestine – May 9, 2019

“Soldiers and settlers stormed the school and suddenly broke into the classroom and started to assault the students before arresting me,” said Zaid M., 15., about an Israeli raid during an exam. He says that interrogators threatened to assault him unless he told them which of his peers were involved in stone-throwing. The school’s principal says that weekly army raids and other disruptions negatively impact the school and its students. DCIP has found that children living or studying near Israeli settlements are at higher risk of arrest.

Waiting for reconstruction, Oday lives in a damaged house

Defence for Children Palestine – August 16, 2017

Israel’s 50-day assault on the Gaza Strip in 2014 left thousands homeless. The assault completely destroyed or severely damaged 17,800 Palestinian homes and partially destroyed another 153,200 homes. In the wake of the destruction, the blockade has slowed reconstruction progress. Oday M., 16, from Khuza’a in the southern part of Gaza, has moved back into his partially destroyed house while waiting for construction to finish on a new home.

May 9, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces murder Palestinian after refusing political detention

Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, shot and killed by Israeli forces on 6May, 2019 [Twitter]

Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, shot and killed by Israeli forces on 6May, 2019 [Twitter]
MEMO | May 6, 2019

Israeli occupation forces shot and killed freed Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, from the neighbourhood of Atteel in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, reports Palestine Post 24

Sources said that a group of Israeli occupation policemen attempted to arrest him at an illegal Israeli military checkpoint.

He refused to surrender to the Israeli occupation forces and resumed his way towards occupied Palestine.

The Israeli police chased him and when they could not catch him, they opened fire at his car and killed him.

It is worth noting that the Israeli occupation forces raided tonight several areas across the occupied West Bank and arrested 14 Palestinians from their beds.

Rights groups have recorded several cases when Israeli occupation forces or police executed Palestinians after refusing to be taken to prison.

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Youth under Occupation

Al-Haq – May 6, 2019

Youth under Occupation, a documentary produced by Al-Haq Organization and The Young Women Christian Association (YWCA), which sheds the light on the Israeli violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and their impact on the Palestinian youth, within 18 minutes of testimonies given by four young men and women.

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel killed 102 Palestinian journalists since 1972

Palestine Information Center – May 1, 2019

RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Journalists Union in the West Bank on Tuesday said that Israeli occupation forces have killed 102 Palestinian journalists since 1972.

Naser Abu Baker, head of the union, said during his speech for a conference on press freedom in Ramallah that 19 journalists have been killed since 2014.

During the past four months, the Palestinian Journalists Union documented 136 Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists, and 838 in 2018, including the killing of Yaser Murataj and Ahmad Abu Hussein in Gaza.

In 2018, 52 Palestinian journalists were arrested, and 47 were injured by live ammunition, 189 by tear gas canisters, and 17 by rubber-coated metal bullets.

Baker said that 2018 witnessed an unprecedented increase in the violations and crimes committed against Palestinian journalists, including attacks carried out by settlers.

May 1, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel government to fund hotels in illegal West Bank settlements

MEMO | April 30, 2019

The Israeli government will subsidise hotels in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as part of a plan to attract more tourists to the area.

According to an article in Arutz Sheva, citing a report by Israel Hayom, Israel’s Tourism Ministry “will aid entrepreneurs who want to invest in building or expanding hotels in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]”.

The entrepreneurs can now apply for a grant of up to 20 per cent of their intended investment.

Israel Hayom reported that a meeting held earlier this year between senior settler officials and the managers of Israeli travel agencies in the occupied West Bank “showed that the number of guest units is insufficient, causing tourists to avoid staying in the area for more than a day”.

According to the report, the government grants “are intended to encourage investors to open additional guest units in [illegal settlements in] Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley [the occupied West Bank]”.

Settler leader (Yesha Council chair) Hananel Dorani stated: “We thank [Tourism] Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) for his important work on the issue of tourism in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.”

“Building hotels and guest houses in the area is an important step which shows the deepening of our roots in the ground and paves the way for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” he added.

“Giving grants for the creation of hotels is another supplemental step which will help solve the problem of where to sleep and will strengthen settlements and our hold on Judea and Samaria.”

April 30, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel confiscates 51,000 dunams from Jordan Valley

Ma’an – April 16, 2019

TUBAS – The Israeli authorities confiscated 51,000 dunams and isolated five villages in the Jordan Valley area in the northern occupied West Bank, an official in charge of Jordan Valley’s Israeli settlements file at the Palestinian Authority (PA) reported.

Mutaz Bisharat told the Voice of Palestine radio station that the Israeli authorities confiscated 51,000 dunams, isolated 5 villages and seized control over water springs, agricultural machinery and solar cells.

Bisharat added that the Israeli policy is very clear in isolating villages of the Tubas district, pointing out that these areas were marked as closed military areas banning their owners from entering without an Israeli-issued permit.

He stressed that Israel aims to expel Palestinians from the area under its plan to seize the Jordan Valley area.

The Jordan Valley forms a third of the occupied West Bank, with 88 percent of its land classified as Area C — under full Israeli military control.

International rights organizations consider the continuation of the Israeli campaign which targets Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, whether though confiscations, demolitions or evictions under the pretext of holding military exercises, as a violation of international humanitarian law.

Since the beginning of the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Israel has confiscated hundreds of thousands of dunums by declaring it state land.

Israeli authorities in 1968 banned Palestinians from registering their lands and subsequently took advantage of previously low rates of land registration to confiscate areas currently or previously in use by locals but not registered as such.

The confiscated lands are then used to construct Jewish-only settlements on the land, while further confiscation often uses the pretext of the settlements’ security.

April 16, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Baseline of a Desecrated Land VI: Awash in Sewage

By Dick Callahan | September 30, 2018

Sewage Quiz and nowhere to go

“… with clear waters and action packed beaches, each one of Tel Aviv’s 16 beaches has its own style and attracts certain personalities.” Israeli Ministry of Tourism website

“But you cannot have clean water if people are still defecating in the river.” The visionary Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization.

Okay, fellow Americans. It’s time for a pop quiz.

1) How many metric tons of raw or hardly treated sewage go straight into the Mediterranean Sea from Gaza every day?
a) 1 Mt
b) 11 Mt
c) 11,000 Mt
d) This is a trick question. Hamas wants to drive Israel into the sea.

2) Which direction does the current in front of Gaza flow?
a) north
b) south
c) in circles
d) Towards Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

3) How far from Gaza is Israel’s nearest Israeli desalination plant in Ashkelon?
a) 5 miles
b) 50 miles
c) 500 miles
d) Doesn’t matter. God gave it all to Israel.

4) How many times in 2016 did the Ashkelon desalination plant shut down because of massive sewage plumes coming from Gaza?
a) twice
b) at least four
c) never
d) Gay kaken ofn yam. (Yiddish insult, “Go shit in the ocean.”)

5) Gaza’s water and sewer infrastructure collapsed because:
a) The Israeli military destroys the sewage plant, power plant, and underground pipes every few years.
b) Israel’s blockade against Gaza is over ten years old and counting.
c) Gaza can’t make repairs because Israel won’t let supplies through the blockade.
d) Arabs hate Israel more than they love toilets
e) Israel routinely cuts fuel and power to Gaza so the plants don’t run even when they’re otherwise viable.
f) Israel is intercepting ground water that would refill the Coastal Aquifer.
g) Israel doesn’t allow West Bank Palestinians to share West Bank water with Gaza
h) all of the above except d.

6) According to the United Nations, Gaza is in a humanitarian crisis and will be uninhabitable by 2020 because what percent of the drinking water is unfit for human consumption?
a) 14 %
b) 32 %
c) over 97 %
d) The UN lies. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

7) In 2015 Israeli authorities closed Tel-Aviv beaches when they deliberately dumped how many cubic meters of sewage while making beach upgrades?
a) 3
b) 9
c) 180,000
d) None. Israel doesn’t deliberately dump sewage.

8) How many streams flowing through the West Bank/Israel are polluted with sewage?
a) all
b) five
c) two
d) none

9) The German government funded a sewage treatment plant on Palestinian land in the West Bank village of Salfit. It didn’t work out for the Palestinians because:
a) Israel denied permits for the project for years.
b) Israel wanted to connect an illegal Jewish colony to the project.
c) The Israeli army stole the equipment.
d) Arab sewage treatment is an existential threat to the Jewish and democratic state of Israel.
e) Israel permitted the project at another site then announced a segregation wall will be built between the project and Salfit, cutting off the Palestinians but leaving the project accessible for Jewish colonies.
g) a, b, c, and e.

10) Israel has been criticized for allowing Christian baptisms in the Jordan river when coliform bacteria counts are how many times above the maximum where the Health Ministry is supposed to close Israeli beaches?
a) 6 times higher
b) 3 times higher
c) 2 times higher
d) half as high

11) Israel’s Health Ministry is supposed to close beaches when fecal coliform bacteria counts are above 400 per 100 ml of water. Tel Aviv once closed beaches to swimming, sailing and fishing after a sewage spill produced fecal coliform bacteria counts of:
a) 500/100 ml
b) 8,000/100 ml
c) unknown because fecal coliform tests exceeded the lab’s testable maximum of 20,000/100ml.
d) under 400/100 ml but beaches closed just to be on the safe side.

12) Who is responsible for dumping sewage on Palestinian land?
a) America for enabling Israel.
b) Jewish colonists.
c) Israeli cities who export their sewage sludge to the OPT.
d) Palestinians.
e) Israeli military camps.
f) all of the above more or less in that order.

Okay, pencils down. How’d you do? Answers are: 1)c,  2)a,  3)a,  4)b,  5)h,  6)c, 7)c,  8)a,  9)g, 10)a,  11)c , 12)f . If you answered ‘d’ to every question the Israel Lobby may fast-track you for a seat in Congress.

Gaza sewage to Israel: turd terrorism

Day by day a non-political northbound current calmly, quietly, carries 11,000 metric tons of what Gaza Palestinians had for dinner last night right onto Israeli beaches and into the intakes of Israeli desalination plants. Here’s a free slogan for the Tourism Ministry: Come to Israel, where Hamas is in the water.

For most of history Gaza was what UNESCO has called, “One of the most important coastal wetlands in the Eastern Mediterranean.” Wadi Gaza, was one of just a few high quality migratory bird stop-over stations along the flyway between Europe/Asia and Africa. Soaring birds like cranes, flamingos, storks, and raptors that migrate using thermal updrafts along the coasts all congregated at this bird oasis. The place had a clean water supply and a naturally productive ocean fishery whereby hundreds of families made a good living.

Today Gaza’s ecosystem has devolved into a vast man-made breeding lagoon that produces two million diadromous turds a day. These foul fish migrate down the wadis, take a right when they reach the Mediterranean, and start swimming for Israel. Birds still land on wadis and wetlands, because they have to, but the shore is so contaminated that over half the water samples off Gaza contain sewage parasites and contaminants. Beaches smell bad. People regularly end up in the hospital after beach outings. A little boy died last summer from infection caused by a family trip to the beach.

During the summer of 2017, away from the coast in northeast Gaza, raw sewage was piling up and Palestinians, with no way to treat it, watched it run into Hamun stream that flows out of Gaza past an Israeli colony and west towards Ashkelon. In what can only be described as a ‘Code Brown’ the Israelis brought fleets of vacuum trucks to try sucking mess out of the stream on their side. The attempt would’ve made a great joke video on the internet. Undaunted, elite units of the most powerful military in the Middle East stormed into Gaza and attacked the little stream, trying to block it on the Palestinian side by plowing in dirt. When that also failed, the head of the nearby Israeli Jewish Council said, “What we’re seeing here is an ecological terror attack.” I kid you not. An ecological terror attack. The Councilman called on the Israeli government to resolve the crisis.

As turd terror heads north in ever increasing concentrations the Israeli technological solution is… wait for it… they want America to fix it! No really—they do.  Israel blows up Gaza’s sewage treatment plant and won’t allow repair materials or fuel to run the plant through the blockade. For years they laughed at suffering Gaza. But now, as shoals of turds wash onto beaches like spawning grunion a group of Israeli mayors wrote a letter to US Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt asking the US to clean up Gaza’s sewage catastrophe—that Israel caused—because, “Without providing a fundamental and long-term solution to the crisis, it will be coming to our doorstep.” Reading between the lines, of course, what they want is for America to pay for a cleanup.

Should we do it? Sure we should, but with two provisos: 1) We take the money right off the top of the billions we give Israel every year and 2) if Israel blows up Gaza’s water and sewer infrastructure again we stop funding Israel altogether. This would benefit everybody. Gaza gets cleaned up. Israel no longer has Gaza sewage in their beaches and Bibi’s coffee; and America does a good deed in the region for a change.

West Bank sewage to Israel

Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority Environmental unit says all nine major West Bank streams are badly polluted. How bad is it? There are an estimated 178 kilometers of sewage stream flows overall. A 2007 analysis revealed sewage, salts and heavy metals leaching into the mountain aquifer below the West Bank. Contaminated streams are the Kishon, Shechem, Kana, Shilo, Soreq, Mod’in, Michmash, Kidron and Hebron. To take one example, 43 km of Hebron stream is untreated sewage water.

The West Bank produces about 56 million cubic meters of sewage per year, of which an estimated 17.5 mcm/year is excreted by Israeli colonists. In addition, tens of thousands of occupation troopers do their ‘daily duty’ while on duty in the OPT.

Jewish colonists, have taken over and built their settlements on the West Bank’s high grounds. It’s common practice—well documented—for the Jewish colonies to divert their sewage onto Palestinian fields and groves below the colonies. During the last olive harvest, for instance, Jewish colonists from the illegal colony of Elon Moreh stole the Palestinian’s olives (Palestinian farmers in that place are not allowed in their orchards except to harvest but Jews are allowed to go into those Palestinian orchards anytime), then the Jews dumped their sewage down the hill onto the olive trees. This treatment doesn’t just make the Palestinian’s lives harder. It renders the land unusable, and eventually the stuff is carried to streams by surface runoff or seeps down into everyone’s water table.

Israeli sewage impacts in Israel, the OPT, Jordan, Syria

Do you suppose a place that irrigates crops with treated wastewater; a place where sewage has tested positive for Wild-type poliovirus-1 (WPV 1), hepatitis, and other ills, would be anything less than hyper-vigilant? Or, do you imagine they’d deliberately dump massive amounts of sewage into waterways? Well, actually it’s… number two.

Israelis deliberately dumping their own sewage into their own waters is a strange but recurrent phenomenon. In 2015 Ashdod’s pumping station needed to fix a pipe so they simply diverted the main sewage line sending tens of thousands of cubic meters of sewage into Lachish stream. Nahal Kidron, which was called the most polluted stream in Israel and the West Bank in 2015, flows with a foul composition largely of untreated sewage from illegal Israeli Jewish colonies, Palestinian villages in East Jerusalem, and from villages the occupied West Bank. The gunk runs into a reservoir where part of it is treated and piped to illegal Israeli settlements to water Jewish date groves in the occupied Jordan valley. North of Jordan valley, in 2017, thousands of cubic meters of sewage killed fish and turtles in Galilee’s Betzet stream.

Nahal Sorek is a wadi that Israel made flow year round by the technological advancement of running Jerusalem’s sewage through it. The Israeli Water Authority bought into a scheme to build holding reservoirs for treated sewage which would later be pumped to irrigate Israeli crops. Things went down the drain in 2016 when Israel had to shut down the country’s largest desalination plant after sewage from the reservoirs was deliberately channeled into Soreq stream. It seems the Water Authority had decided to stop paying for holding reservoirs, filth was piling up, so someone made the decision to press the lever and flush the mess out to sea.

A dangerous modern component of sewage is prescription drugs that people either pass through their digestive systems or flush down the toilet without using. Sewage samples turn up estrogen from birth control pills, heart medications, ketamine, hydrocodone, barium enemas and, especially in Israel, the central nervous system stimulant Ritalin. 904,453 Israelis, over 10 ½ percent of everyone in the country, are on Ritalin (methylphenidate hydrochloride) or Ritalin-type drugs. Side effects of this drug may include psychosis, aggressive behavior, anxiety, nervousness, confusion, agitation, and… Hey! This might explain some things… Drugs end up concentrating in and around the waterways, where they can mix and synthesize with other prescriptions and a variety of petro chemicals, industrial solvents and fertilizers. Most sewage treatment plants don’t filter out even half of the drugs that go through them.

Israel’s poor performance with sewage is made worse by politics as the country has notoriously used money it owes the Palestinians to build sewage treatment plants on the Israeli side of the Green line. It works this way: decades ago, as part of the Oslo accords, Palestinians agreed to a five-year interim plan, part which included a scheme where Israel would collect tax money on behalf of the Occupied Territories then turn what was collected over to the Palestinian Authority. Israel is still collecting that money all these years later and, instead of turning the money over so the PA can treat Palestinian and Jewish colonist sewage at the source, Israel lets it contaminate the OPT and tries to clean it up when it reaches the Jewish state.

Israeli Beach Sewage

In the winter of 2016-7 various Israeli beaches were closed for a total of 310 days. On a beach where people were swimming and surfing, the Israeli environmental group Zalul, found fecal coliform to be 69,000 per 100 ml of sea water. That’s over 170 times the level where authorities are supposed to close the beach. Also in 2017 an Israeli main sewage pipe collapsed closing seven beaches near Tel Aviv.

In 2015 six Tel Aviv and Herzliya area beaches were closed until further notice after the authorities decided to deliberately pump 180,000 cubic meters of sewage runoff into the sea while the Israelis were making beach ‘upgrades.’ The following year sewage samples taken around Tel Aviv between December, 2016 and June, 2017, showed 7 of 15 were positive for hepatitis A virus. Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach has closed multiple times because of fecal contamination. The technological solution in 2011 was to run a sewage pipe to a marina where nobody swims and discharge the stuff there.

In 2010 Israel’s Health Ministry shut down fifteen public beaches in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Herzliya, and Ashdod because of sewage contamination. Apparently the technological solution to Israel’s aging sewage system is to pump the stuff out to sea when the system becomes overwhelmed. Environmentalists also accuse industrial plants of regularly pumping chemical waste into the sea.

In 2017, years of clean-up work were undone in a few days by a massive deliberate raw sewage discharge into the Yarkon from a treatment plant that, its operators claim, was being inundated by four times more sewage than the plant was designed to treat.

Countries promoting themselves as a tourist destination, find protracted beach closures are terrible for the image. After hearing that surfers at an Israeli beach had burning throats and other symptoms from contaminated seas, Maya Jacobs, Executive Director of the Israeli environmental NGO Zalul developed a Smart phone app, with help from the public, the road-navigation app developer Waze, and the Health Ministry, that sends users a pop-up alert on pollution conditions when they get within 12 miles of a waterway.

“Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe.
That all was lost.” John Milton 1608-1674, Paradise Lost

Recognition 6: Sewage: Selected Sources

07.17.2013 Sanitation recognized as a basic human right United Nations Israel signed on with 122 other countries to recognize Sanitation for All, as a basic human right.
07.30.2017 Watch: thousands of fish found floating in Yarkon river Jerusalem online by Becca Noy. Fish killed by sewage iand pollution n the river.
5.19.2017 Israel launches criminal investigation into water treatment execs over sewage spill Haaretz by Zafrir Rinat “ongoing illegal pumping of raw sewage into the Yarkon River Basin.”
06.09.2017 Swimming in sewage. World ignores Gaza’s waste water crisis Middle East Eye. Because of the Israeli siege there’s no fuel, because of no fuel the power plants can’t operate, because the power plants can’t operate the sewage treatment plants can’t operate, because the sewage treatment plants can’t operate 11 million liters of sewage runs out of Gaza every day, because 11 million liters of sewage goes into the Mediterranean from Gaza the tide carries it north to foul Israeli beaches and into the intakes of Israel’s desalination plants. Gaza has the 13th highest growth rate in the world (4.2%/yr). with a fertility rate of 4.4 children per woman. In 1997 there were 300,000 in Gaza. Today there are 2 million. 75% of the population is under 25 years old.02.28.2011 Sewage without borders Haaretz by Zafrir Rinat.
11.13.2017 Sewage pours into northern Betzet stream, kills fish and turtles. Jerusalem Post by Max Schindler. Thousands of cubic meters of sewage into Betzet stream.
06.09.2017 Swimming in sewage. World ignores Gaza’s waste water crisis Middle East Eye. Because of the Israeli siege there’s no fuel, because of no fuel the power plants can’t operate, because the power plants can’t operate the sewage treatment plants can’t operate, because the sewage treatment plants can’t operate 11 million liters of sewage runs out of Gaza every day, because 11 million liters of sewage goes into the Mediterranean from Gaza the tide carries it north to foul Israeli beaches and into the intakes of Israel’s desalination plants. Gaza has the 13th highest growth rate in the world (4.2%/yr). with a fertility rate of 4.4 children per woman. In 1997 there were 300,000 in Gaza. Today there are 2 million. 75% of the population is under 25 years old.
10.24.2018 Israeli colonists flood dozens of Palestinian olive trees with sewage International Middle East Media Center. Jews from illegal colony of Elon Moreh flooded Palestinian olive trees with Jewish sewage. The Palestinians are only allowed onto their own land twice a year to harvest olives and prune trees. That’s when they discovered the sewage and that Jewish colonists had stolen the crop from many of the trees because the Jews can go on the land at any time.
10.11.2017 Pollution kills thousands of fish in Lachish River. Ynet news. by Ilana Curiel. A local diver reports that this, “happens almost every year.” Authorities diverted river to Mel Ami beach supposedly to make an escape route to the sea for fish that were still alive. Unsure exactly what is killing the fish, authorities warned people to stay away from that beach.
03.17.2016 Gaza Sewage Crisis is a ticking time bomb for Israel The Jerusalem Post by Michelle Maealha Grossman. [nothing could be more Israeli than this headline.]
07.06.2017 Gaza sewage forces shutdown of Israeli beach The Jerusalem Post by Sharon Udasin and Tovah Lazaroff
08.31.2017 Israeli mayors call on U.S. to solve Gaza electricity crisis CNN by Oren Liebermann and Baeer Salman. ‘Electricity crisis’ is the sanitized-for-US-viewers euphemism to describe Gaza’s sewage treatment collapse.
08.20.2017 Al Mezan: Suspected cause of death of child is sea pollution and delayed medical referral International Middle East Media Center A little five-year-old boy, Mohammed Salim Al-Sais, died in Gaza City. Because of extreme heat, and no air conditioning due to the Israeli siege cutting off fuel, the boy’s parents took their kids to the beach, which is rank with sewage, also courtesy of the Israeli siege. The kids got sick. Next morning when the boy wouldn’t rouse his parents took him to hospital. Diagnosis was Ekiri Syndrome—a lethal toxic encephalopathy (brain swelling) from swimming in the water. Doctors didn’t have what they needed to treat the boy—also because of the siege. Parent’s couldn’t get permission cross the Israeli check points to get him to Palestinian hospital in Ramallah. After a week, in intensive care he slipped away, and died.
08.07.2017 Reign of sewage in biblical valley may be coming to an end Reuters. Ari Rabinovich. 12 million cubic meters of sewage per year, [33,000 cubic meters per day], flow down from Jerusalem and West Bank. Some is collected in a large pool that is used to water sewage resistant date trees. [yuk]
0.7.20.2017 Ongoing hepatitis A among men who have sex with men (MSM) linked to outbreaks in Europe and Tel Aviv area, Israel, December 2016-June, 2017 Europsurveillance, Yael Gozlan, et al. of 19cases of hepatitis A virus (HAV), 17 were identified in Tel Aviv area. 7 of 15 sewage samples were HAV positive.
07.03.2017 Israel shuts down beaches along central coastal city over sewage spill Haaretz by Ido Efrati sewage pipe collapse closes eight beaches.
06.25.2017 How safe are Israel’s beaches? The Jerusalem Post by Sigal Ben David.
04.21.2017 Israel pumps sewage water onto lands in Bethlehem. Eye on Palestine. Jewish military camps have been pumping sewage onto Palestinian lands. Landowners have been filing complaints to Jewish authorities since 2002, to no avail. Farmers don’t plant there so as not to contaminate their crops. The sewage harms local plants and animals but encourages rats and flies which spread disease.
05.06.2017 UN envoy warns of dire crisis as Gaza faces power cuts, gallons of raw sewage pouring into the sea. “An environmental disaster for Israel, Egypt, and Gaza is in the making.” Nicolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
05.11.2017 Gordon beach closed after sewage discharge Ynet news Gordon Beach closed again from sewage because of pumping station failure. Article notes the same thing happened last year.
08.25.2016 Gaza is sick of sewage and time is running out to contain it the Middle East Eye by Kiernan Cooke. Ashkelon desalination plant shut down at least four times because of Gaza Sewage this summer.
11.29.2015 Deliberate sewage dump closes 6 Tel Aviv beaches Times of Israel Staff report. Beaches closed because authorities decided to release some 180,000 metric ton’s of sewage while they are making beachfront ‘upgrades.’
09.30.2015 Sewage leak kills thousands of fish near Ashod Haaretz by Ben Zikri. Raw sewage deliberately diverted to stream for 10 hours while workers repaired a pipe. Thousands of cubic meters of sewage killed thousands of fish, stream organisms and animals that drink from the stream.06.18.2015 Baptism by mire? In lower Jordan river sewage mucks up Christian rite.Times of Israel by Melanie Lidman. Christians are being baptized in effluent soup of ‘treated and partially treated sewage, agricultural runoff, fish and pond waste, and saline waters from springs to reduce salinity of the Sea of Galilee.’
11.19.2012 Check this app before you swim in Israel Israel 21c by Karin Kloosterman.
06.05.2012 Sewer runs through river at heart of Israel’s most important Nature reserve. Haaretz by Zafrir Rinat.
07.12.2011 Sewage shuts Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach again Haaretz by IIan Lior Beach closed for third time since May because of high coliform bacteria counts. The city diverted the suspect pipe flow to a marina where nobody swims and reopened the beach.
08.12.2010 Sewage row on Tel Aviv’s beaches The JC by Anshel Pfeffer. Israeli Health ministry closed 15 beaches so far this summer because of excessive sewage. Cities were beaches closed were Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Herzliya.
09.22.2008 ‘Polluted West Bank streams pose threat to a third of Israel’s drinking water’ Jerusalem Post by Ehud Zion Waldoks.
05.11.2017 Gordon beach closed after sewage discharge.YNet News
07.30.2017 The “apolitical” approach to Palestine’s water crisis al-Shabaka by Muna Dajani.
Gist of the article is that well-meaning donors are helping Israel pull the focus off Palestinian water rights.
09.18.2016 Drowning in the waste of Israeli settlers Al Jazeera by Jaclynn Ashly. Jewish colony of Ariel has fouled al-Matua spring and stream with sewage. Ariel, Ariel West and Barkum colonies’ treatment works break down, or over flow often and when they do the Jews aim their sewage down hill at Palestinian villages and streams.The smell keeps people awake at night, mosquitoes are rampant, children get sick from the sewage, sheep die from drinking the water. Local rabbits, deer, foxes and other species that used to live there and come to the spring are gone.
Abu Dis, at Wadi Abu Hurdi, the Jews built a toxic waste dump on Palestinian land. It’s the largest dump on the WB. Chemical smells make people sick. Liquid waste pools kill sheep.Israel closed the dump in 2015 as part of a plan to forcibly evict local residents.The local Bedouins were forcibly relocated to live near the dump in the 1990’s. Now Israel wants to remove them altogether or, alternatively to flatten out the dump, put dirt on it, and make the Bedouins live on top of the dump itself. Finally, Jewish colonists from Qedar dump their swimming pool water into the valley where Palestinian sheep get sick from the chlorine.
Altogether about 19 mcm/yr of the West Bank’s 83 mcm/yr of waste water/sewage is from the illegal colonies (Knesset Research Institute). About 12% of Jewish colony sewage is dumped untreated into Palestinian streams. In 1967 Israel declared that uncultivated land, hilltops where it’s hard to grow things for example, was state of Israel land. Taking over the hilltops also made it easier for Jews to oversee and control the area. As the Jews built settlements they forced the Arabs further down the hills.
06.09.2017 Swimming in sewage. World ignores Gaza’s waste water crisis Middle East Eye. Because of the Israeli siege there’s no fuel, because of no fuel the power plants can’t operate, because the power plants can’t operate the sewage treatment plants can’t operate, because the sewage treatment plants can’t operate 11 million liters of sewage runs out of Gaza every day, because 11 million liters of sewage goes into the Mediterranean from Gaza the tide carries it north to foul Israeli beaches and into the intakes of Israel’s desalination plants. Gaza has the 13th highest growth rate in the world (4.2%/yr). with a fertility rate of 4.4 children per woman. In 1997 there were 300,000 in Gaza. Today there are 2 million. 75% of the population is under 25 years old.09.02.2015 Most polluted river in Israel and West Bank to stay filthy because of government vacillation Haaretz by Zafrir Rinat. ‘Nahal Kidron the most polluted water way in either Israel of the West Bank…’ The river is an open sewer for untreated sewage from illegal Israeli Jewish settlements and Palestinian villages in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The sewage flows into a reservoir where part of it is treated and piped to illegal Israeli settlements to water date groves in the occupied Jordan valley.
07.21.2015 Gaza-Cholera Outbreak AP Video Riyad al-Zaanoun, Chief Palestinian health official, confirmed that 20 cholera cases are in hospital. This is the first cholera outbreak in Gaza for 20 years. Officials are worried that the disease could spread rapidly in Gaza’s overcrowded slums and refugee camps.
06.18.2015 Baptism by mire? In lower Jordan river sewage mucks up Christian rite.Times of Israel by Melanie Lidman. Christians are being baptized in effluent soup of ‘treated and partially treated sewage, agricultural runoff, fish and pond waste, and saline waters from springs to reduce salinity of the Sea of Galilee.’
04.18.2015 Parting the brown sea: Sewage crisis threatens Gaza’s access to water Al Jazeera by Jen Marlowe. [Very well done article] Because of the Israeli siege, Israel destroying infrastructure, and choking electrical and fuel supplies, every single day 24 million gallons of raw or partially treated sewage goes into the Mediterranean off Gaza through seven pipes. It has created massive sewage lagoons, destroyed wetlands, plankton, fish and fisheries. Over pumping Gaza’s only aquifer is resulting in sewage laced seawater intrusion of the aquifer. This is a crisis that the UN says could make Gaza 100% of water undrinkable by 2016 (96% is unfit for human consumption now) and Gaza uninhabitable by 2020. [Article doesn’t mention that prevailing currents flow from south to north up the coast. Meaning that what is coming out a Palestinian’s ass goes right upstream to Israeli desalination plants and into an Israeli’s mouth every time he or she drinks water.]
06.05.2012 Sewer runs through river at heart of Israel’s most important Nature reserve. Haaretz by Zafrir Rinat. Nahal Sorek is a Wadi that Israel made flow year round with the technological advancement of running Jerusalem’s sewage through it. The Israeli Water Authority came up with a scheme to build reservoirs that would hold treated sewage which would be later be pumped to irrigate Israeli crops.
09.22.2008 ‘Polluted West Bank streams pose threat to a third of Israel’s drinking water’ Jerusalem Post by Ehud Zion Waldoks. Most West Bank sewage from Israeli settlements and Palestinian villages is untreated. Ariel Cohen of Nature and Parks Authority Environmental unit says all nine major West Bank streams are badly polluted. 2007 analysis revealed sewage, salts and heavy metals leaching into the mountain aquifer below the West Bank. Streams are Kishon, Shechem, Kana, Shilo, Soreq, Mod’in, Michmash, Kidron and Hebron. Palestinians produce estimated 56 million cubic meters of sewage per year, Israeli occupiers produce and estimated 17.5 mcm/year of which 31.5% isn’t treated. 43 km. of Hebron stream is untreated sewage water. There are 178 kilometers of sewage stream flows overall.

April 11, 2019 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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