Violent arrest of Palestinian man in al-Khalil (Hebron)
International Solidarity Movement | August 29, 2015
Occupied Palestine – A 52-year old Palestinian man was arrested at Shuhada checkpoint in al-Khalil (Hebron) yesterday, for ‘not obeying soldiers’ orders. Israeli forces painfully handcuffed and blindfolded him.
Around 1:30 pm, Hisham Azzeh walked through Shuhada Checkpoint in order to reach his house that is located up the hill next to the illegal settlement in Tel Rumeida. At this first checkpoint on his way home, Hisham passed through the metal detector without it beeping to indicate he had to go back and pass again. Therefore, he continued on his way, but Israeli soldiers yelled at him to go back and pass through the checkpoint again for no reason.
When he did not immediately comply with the soldiers orders, they arrested him. Israeli soldiers painfully handcuffed him with his hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs, without any regard for a recent operation on his hand. The soldiers also blindfolded him, so he was unable to see what happened to him and where he was brought. On the way up the hill towards the military base, the pain, caused by the plastic handcuffs, was so intense, that Israeli soldiers had to allow Azzeh to sit down on the ground, as he was unable to continue walking.
Palestinian man sitting on the ground in pain
Palestinians observing the arrest were continously telling soldiers about Azzeh’s recent operation on his hand and the plate that had to be inserted during this operation. Even though they were explaining the immense pain the plastic handcuffs were causing to Azzeh due to this operation, the Israeli soldiers shouted at them to leave the area and be quiet. Various requests to call an ambulance were denied. Only after Azzeh’s brother, who is a medical professional, arrived and reasoned with the soldiers, they attempted to cut the handcuffs. As the soldiers put the handcuffs too tight, they were struggling to cut the handcuffs without cutting Azzeh’s hands, making the procedure even longer and more painful, with Azzeh suffering immensely and crying out in pain.
Hisham’s hand showing scars from the operation. Photo credit: Youth against settlement
In the meantime, a civil police car was driving past on a regular patrol and got stopped by the Palestinians in an attempt to alleviate the situation for Hisham. After the handcuffs were finally cut off, by-standers cooled his hand first with a bottle of cold water until an ice-pack was brought for him. The police took Hisham Azzeh to the police station after a long discussion. After about an hour, Azzeh was released. He is now doing okay, but is still suffering from pain in his hands.
Police, bystanders and the soldiers standing around Hisham
Harassment like this in al-Khalil (Hebron) is not unusual. Palestinians have to pass through various checkpoints on their way home or to work and often get detained for long periods of time.
Israeli forces evacuate Palestinian families for military drill
Ma’an – August 30, 2015
TUBAS – Israeli troops on Sunday morning evacuated 14 Palestinian families from their houses in the al-Ras al-Ahmar area of Khirbet Atuf village east of Tubas in the northern Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, local sources said.
Local sources reported that the “Israeli occupation” told the 14 families that Israeli forces will be carrying out military drills in the area for five days.
During the five days of military exercises, Palestinian residents in the area will be evacuated for six hours every day, local sources told Ma’an.
The evacuation was done under the argument that evacuating protects residents.
Earlier this year military drills in Tubas resulted in a fire that swept across some 3,000 to 4,000 dunams (750 to 1,000 acres) of Jordan Valley farmland.
The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank.The district of Tubas is one of the occupied West Bank’s most important agricultural centers.
According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, more than 15,000 dunams (3,700 acres) of land in the Tubas district have been confiscated by Israel for military bases with a further 8,000 dunams (2,000 acres) seized for illegal Israeli settlements.
Two people violently arrested at peaceful demonstration in Nabi Saleh
International Solidarity Movement | August 28, 2015
Occupied Palestine – On Friday the 28th of August 2015, two peaceful demonstrators were violently arrested and a child viciously attacked by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian village Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine. Every Friday the people of Nabi Saleh protest against the illegal settlement build on the villages’ land.
Israeli soldier threatening Palestinian women and children at non violent demonstration in Nabi Saleh. Photo credit: Karam
Today at around 3 pm one Palestinian male, Mahmoud Tamimi, and one international activist were arrested in the Palestinian village Nabi Saleh close to Ramallah. They were arrested during a Friday demonstration against the illegal settlements on the land belonging to the people of Nabi Saleh.
Only a few minutes after the protesters peacefully started their march towards the gate, which is regularly blocked by the military preventing any movement in- or outside of the village, the Israeli army began attacking the non-violent protesters with dozens of rounds of tear gas.
The soldiers then ambushed the demonstrators escaping the clouds of tear gas by surrounding them. They attacked and then arrested Mahmoud Tamimi, shoving him down the hill towards the illegal settlement, where he was forced to lie on the ground.
Israeli soldier strangling a Palestinian boy at non violent demonstration in Nabi Saleh. Photo credit: Karam
Around the same time, a Palestinian boy was violently attacked by a soldier throwing him to the ground, choking and almost suffocating him in the process. “While the boy was screaming in pain his family came to rescue him from the soldiers’ vicious assault”, Josephine, a Danish activist explains.
Israeli soldier attacking Palestinian boy at non violent demonstration in Nabi Saleh. Photo credit: Karam
A group of peaceful international demonstrators trying to document the attack on the boy, was ambushed by another group of soldiers, who violently pushed a 31-year old Italian man to the ground and proceeded to arrested him.
Both the Palestinian and the international were being held captive in a military jeep by the Israeli army for almost nine hours, before being brought to a police station.
Israel renews ’85 percent’ of administrative detention orders
Ma’an – August 28, 2015
JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities have renewed the administrative detention of 85 percent of Palestinians detainees held under the policy, a prisoner rights group said Friday.
The Prisoners’ Center for Studies said that at least 75 of the 480 Palestinians held under the detention without trial policy have had their sentences — which range from two to six months — renewed four times in a row.
The detention of 135 detainees has been renewed three times in a row while 190 Palestinians have had their sentences renewed twice, the center added.
Israeli military courts have issued 726 administrative detention orders in 2015 alone, including first time sentences and renewals, the group said, over 340 of which were issued to Palestinians from the Hebron district in the occupied West Bank.
Riyad al-Ashqar, a spokesperson of the Prisoners’ Center for Studies, said Israel is keeping Palestinians as political hostages through the policy of administrative detention.
Most detainees held under the policy, which dates back to the British Mandate, are held on secret evidence and are not aware of the reason for their detention, which can be renewed indefinitely in six-month periods.
In 2012, over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike to protest administrative detention, one of the only means available to Palestinians to challenge the policy.
Last week, Palestinian detainee Muhammad Allan ended a two-month hunger strike which he began to protest his detention without trial. An Israeli court ruled to lift his administrative detention due to his deteriorating health.
While administrative detention is legal under international law in exceptional circumstances, the international community and rights organizations have condemned excessive use of the practice by Israel.
Israeli troops ‘steal money, jewelry’ during detention raid
Ma’an – August 26, 2015
NABLUS – A Palestinian father said Wednesday that Israeli soldiers stole money and jewelry from his family home when they detained his son in a predawn raid in the the northern West Bank village of Salem east of Nablus.
Nasim Hilmi Karaki, a lieutenant colonel in the Palestinian Authority national security forces, told Ma’an that Israeli special forces stormed his house around 1:00 a.m. after blowing up the main door.
Large numbers of troops ransacked the house as they inspected rooms using metal detectors and police dogs, Karaki said, adding that they blew up the doors of three rooms inside the house.
He said that the operation lasted until around 5:00 a.m., during which Karaki was cuffed and forced to stay with the rest of the family in one of the rooms.
The soldiers then detained Karaki’s 18-year-old son, Hilmi.
Karaki said that the troops were searching for firearms but were unable to find any.
However, after they left, he said he discovered that they had stolen 21,000 shekels and his wife’s jewelry, worth around 2,000 Jordanian Dinars (about $2,820).
An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the incident.
Karaki’s son was one of 31 Palestinians detained by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank overnight Tuesday.
Israeli forces routinely detain Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, often on the pretext of perceived security threats.
Palestinians often report theft by Israeli forces during such raids. During a detention campaign Operation Brother’s Keeper in the summer of 2014, Israeli forces confiscated an estimated $2.9 million worth of cash and property from Palestinian homes, charities, and businesses according to a report by Geneva-based human rights organization Euro-Mid Observer.
Spokespeople for the Israeli government justified confiscations during this time by claiming their planned use to fund or support terrorism.
The Euro-Mid Observer reported, however, that Israeli authorities neither provided evidence nor judicial permission for the confiscations.
Are Zionist terrorist settlers backed by the Israeli regime?
Press TV
After the burning alive of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh by a fanatical Zionist settler, the world has reacted with outrage.
The attack was so horrendous that even Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself from it, calling it an act of terrorism.
But on today’s show we will be asking to what extent Israel is responsible for the activities of its extremists. Are these fanatical terrorists really just a few bad apples, as Netanyahu would have us believe?
Or are they the product of decades of deliberate Zionist policy to colonize stolen land?
Alert: 21st Aug 2015 – Demand Freedom For Amer Jubran & Muhammed Allan
inminds – August 20, 2015
Date: Friday 21st August 2015 3pm-5:30pm
Location: Jordanian Embassy, Upper Phillimore Gardens, London W8 7HA (few minutes walk from High Street Kensington tube station), move to Israeli Embassy around 4:30pm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/947233385320459
Assalaamu Alaikum
Please join us as we hold two vigils this friday for Palestinian prisoners. At 3pm we will be outside the Jordanian Embassy demanding freedom for Palestinian father and human rights activist Amer Jubran who is facing a 10 years prison sentence in Jordan at the behest of Israel for refusing to betray the Lebanese resistance against Israel. Then at around 4:30pm we will move to the Israeli Embassy a few streets away to demand the unconditional and immediate release of Palestinian lawyer and hunger striker Muhammed Allan.
Muhammed Allan is again in a comma, breathing through a respirator, after having suffered brain damage whilst in Israeli custody. Muhammed launched his hunger strike on 15 June 2015 to protest Israel’s illegal practice of Administrative detention – of caging Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. He has been caged by Israel without charge since 6th Nov 2014 on never ending rolling detention orders. Allan ended his hunger strike after 65 days on 19th Aug after the Israeli Supreme Court on health grounds ordered the suspension of the administrative detention order against him. But Israel is still threatening to reimpose his administrative detention and imprisonment should he recover, its imperative at this time that we maintain the pressure and demand his immediate and unconditional release.
LATEST UPDATES ON MUHAMMED ALLAN
(courtesy Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network)
20th Aug: Reports state Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan again in a coma, on respirator
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/reports-state-palestinian-hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-again-in-a-coma-on-respirator/
19th Aug: Breaking News: Reports state Muhammad Allan has ended his strike after decision of the Israeli Supreme Court
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/breaking-news-reports-state-muhammad-allan-has-ended-his-strike-after-decision-of-the-israeli-supreme-court/
18th Aug: Muhammad Allan regains consciousness, pledges to continue hunger strike
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/muhammad-allan-regains-consciousness-pledges-to-continue-hunger-strike/
17th Aug: Muhammad Allan rejects attempt to forcibly deport him from Palestine as Supreme Court considers case
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/take-action-muhammad-allan-rejects-attempt-to-forcibly-deport-him-from-palestine-as-supreme-court-considers-case/
17th Aug: Israeli Supreme Court to hear petition for release of hunger striker Mohammed Allan
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/israeli-supreme-court-to-hear-petition-for-release-of-hunger-striker-mohammed-allan/
16th Aug: Palestinian doctor denied access to Muhammad Allan as he faces life-threatening infection
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/palestinian-doctor-denied-access-to-muhammad-allan-as-he-faces-life-threatening-infection/
14th Aug: Muhammed Allan on ventilator in coma; Palestinian prisoners under Israeli lockdown
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/action-alert-muhammed-allan-on-ventilator-in-medical-crisis-palestinian-prisoners-under-israeli-lockdown/
AMER JUBRAN – BACKGROUND
Palestinian activist Amer Jubran has a long history of being targeted for his activism on behalf of Palestine, first in the US and then in Jordan.
In the US he formed the “New England Committee to Defend Palestine” and in November 2002, two days after leading a demonstration in Boston calling for justice in Palestine, the FBI stormed Amer Jubran’s home and arrested him under the Patriot Act initially holding him without charge. When public outcry made it difficult to continue holding him they initiated deportation proceedings against him and he was deported to Jordan in January 2004 where he continued his activism for Palestine.
In Jordan he was under constant surveillance of the notorious Jordanian secret police. On 5th May 2014, 20 armed me in black uniforms stormed his home where he lived with his wife and four young children, smashing the doors and windows. The secret police abducted Amer, and for months he was interrogated at an undisclosed location without charge and without access to a lawyer.
Finally in August 2014 Amer Jubran was charged under a new law that didn’t exist when he was arrested, that makes “harming the relationship with a foreign government” a crime of “terrorism”. Last month on 29th July 2015 we was sentenced by a military court to 10 years hard labour, reduced from a 15 year sentence. Following his visit to Lebanon to speak an an Anti-Apartheid week function he was accused of working with the Lebanese resistance Hizbullah against Israel, hence ‘harming’ Jordan’s relationship with a friendly country. During his interrogation he was told by the secret police that any decision made about him involves “our American and Israeli friends”. Amer says it “all started when I refused to be a sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance. I was told then that I will be sent behind the sun for such a refusal. And frankly it is very easy for me to disappear behind the sun rather than to be well, outside but a sell-out and traitor. “. Essentially he is being persecuted and imprisoned because he refused to work for Israeli /Jordanian intelligence as an infiltrator and informant against the resistance.
BACKGROUND – ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
Muhammad Allan was on hunger strike to protest against Israel’s practice of Administrative detention. Administrative detention is a practice used by Israel to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. Prisoners are given rolling detention orders which can be anything from 1-6 months, renewable indefinitely. Such practice is against international law.
For example administrative detainee Mazen Natsheh has been locked up cumulatively for nearly 10 years without charge or trial. Muhammad Allan has in total been caged for 3 years under different administrative detention orders without charge or trial.
Detention orders are based on so called “secret information” which never needs to be produced, either to the detainee nor their lawyer. Administrative detention is often used to arbitrarily jail Palestinians where there is no evidence for a trial. It is also used for punishment as in the case of 8 Palestinian MPs who are currently caged in Israeli dungeons to punish them for their political stance.
Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer have documented “many cases where the detainees themselves will say that administrative detention is actually far worse than a fixed sentence, be that five years, ten years, 20 years, or whatever and why. With a fixed sentence, you know when you’re going home, a prisoner knows when he goes home. It could be ten years or 15 years down the line, but they know when they’re going home. Not with an administrative detention..” They have documented “many cases where prisoners or detainees have been literally leaving the prison, walking out of the prison with their bags in their hand after their administrative detention order has expired [with their family waiting on the other side] and the Israelis have handed that detainee another administrative detention order and they have to go back into the cell to recommence another administrative detention order. Now, this is a form of psychological torture for not only the detainee [but also] their families.”
Israel has on average issued over 2000 detention orders every year (between 2007 and 2011). Today there are around 450 administrative detainees. Most of them, like Muhammad Allan, having been transferred from the West Bank into Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, with their families being prevented from visiting them.
On 18th August 2015, 250 Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention in the “Negev” prison in the Naqab desert in the south of Palestine announced they will launch an open-ended hunger strike to defeat administrative detention. Their statement reads “the growing use of administrative detention.. represents a clear and explicit violation of all international conventions and human rights principles, where we are arrested for extended periods, for years continuously, at the mercy of a so-called “secret file,” where we have no right to defend ourselves. Administrative detention is a sword hanging over our necks, that eats away our flesh and blood and years of our lives without trial and without mercy.”
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
https://www.facebook.com/inmindscom
https://twitter.com/InmindsCom
If you support this activity please share this alert widely, thank you.
JazakAllah,
Abbas Ali
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
http://www.inminds.com/caged
http://fb.com/inmindscom
http://twitter.com/InmindsCom
http://youtube.com/user/inminds
PA security: No proof Palestinians attempted stabbing attacks
Ma’an – August 18, 2015
RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Authority security forces on Tuesday said that there was no evidence that Palestinians shot by Israeli forces in recent days, in two cases fatally, had stabbed Israeli soldiers.
In the last week, Israeli forces have shot three Palestinians, killing two, who they claimed attempted to stab Israeli soldiers or Border Police officers.
However, the spokesperson for the PA security forces, Major-General Adnan Dmeiri, said in a statement that Israel had provided no evidence to support its allegations.
He questioned the fact that in each case the Israeli army or police force investigated its own soldiers or officers, “without the interference of any other party.”
He said that the investigations had portrayed the Israeli soldiers and officers as “heroes.”
Dmeiri criticized the fact that the army and police force were both the investigators and the “executors” of Palestinians.
Most recently, Israeli forces shot dead a young Palestinian man on Monday afternoon after they claimed he attempted to stab an Israeli Border Police officer.
An Israeli army spokeswoman alleged that the Palestinian man approached Israeli Border Police officers at Tappuah junction, known to Palestinians as Zaatara military checkpoint, asking for “medical assistance.”
The spokeswoman said that he then pulled out a knife and attempted to stab an Israeli officer before he was shot dead.
She said that the Israeli police officer was lightly injured.
Two days earlier, Border Police shot dead another Palestinian after the army said he stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer near Beita in southern Nablus.
Rafeeq Kamil Rafeeq al-Taj, 21, was shot five times, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.
On the same day, Israeli forces shot and lightly injured a Palestinian man after he allegedly stabbed a soldier west of Ramallah. He was taken into custody following the incident.
Israeli media recently reported that the Israeli army had implemented new rules of engagement, requiring soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territory to hold their fire unless there is a genuine threat to their lives.
Previous rules allowed Israeli soldiers to use fire “warning shots” when their lives were not at imminent risk, and subsequently aim for lower extremities when engaging with Palestinians on the ground.
Since the beginning of 2015 Israeli forces have injured an average of 37 Palestinians a week, and killed a total of at least 25 Palestinians, according to UN figures.
Israeli forces destroy 100 trees to build separation wall in Beit Jala
Ma’an – August 17, 2015
BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces on Monday destroyed more than 100 trees as they leveled Palestinian-owned land in the Beit Jala area to make way for construction of the separation wall, locals said.
Israeli bulldozers reportedly destroyed the trees in an area known as Bir Onah, near the illegal settlement of Gilo.
The trees belonged to the Al-Shatla, Abu Eid, Abu Ghattas, Abu Saada, Khaliliya, and Abu Mohor families, locals said.
Witnesses told official Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli bulldozers razed an area of 30 dunams near Beit Jala for the expansion of the wall following a recent court ruling to change the route of the controversial infrastructure.
Residents in Beit Jala have been engaged in a nine-year legal battle against a 2006 Israeli military order to build the separation wall around Beit Jala and Har Gilo.
In 2013, 58 local landowners as well as nuns from the Salesian convent who joined their legal action, lost an appeal against the route of the separation wall.
Residents hoped that an Israeli Supreme Court decision in 2014 — which ordered the Israeli state to justify the route of the separation wall in Beit Jala’s Cremisan valley — was an indication that the proposed land seizure could be canceled, with a ruling in April this year in favor of a petition by locals creating further hope construction of the wall could be suspended.
However, in July the Israeli High Court approved construction of the wall using an alternative route, which would still separate the Salesian monastery and convent from the community it serves in Beit Jala.
The Cremisan Valley lies between the sprawling settlement of Gilo in annexed East Jerusalem, and the smaller West Bank settlement of Har Gilo, a few kilometers to the southwest.
Palestinians have long argued the the separation wall in Cremisan had no security benefit for Israel and was being constructed to annex land and connect illegal settlements in the area.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion calling on Israel to stop building the wall and dismantle or re-route sections that had been constructed.
The separation wall will be approximately 708 kilometers long when complete, nearly twice the length of the 1949 Armistice Line due to its meandering route, and 85 percent of the wall will be located in the occupied West Bank, according to UNOCHA.
Israeli forces punish Kafr Qaddum by damaging the water supply system
International Solidarity Movement | August 16, 2015
Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – On Saturday the 15th of August 2015, the villagers from Kafr Qaddum once again demonstrated against the blockage of the road leading to Nablus as well as the nearby Kedumin settlement. In solidarity with the local people there were a few international activists and journalists covering the demonstration.
The non-violent protest was immediately suppressed by the Israeli occupation forces shooting dozens of teargas canisters and live ammunition. Instead of the frequently used bad-smelling skunk water, the army drove a bulldozer into the village. This bulldozer destroyed the only water pipe in the village, leaving the people Kafr Qaddum without any connection to water until the pipe is repaired. Especially during the hot summer months, water is a scarce and essential good.
Murad Shtaiwi, one of the leaders of Kafr Qaddum Popular Committee, understands the damage to the water pipe as a way to collectively punish the village for its ongoing resistance. The costs of a new pipe have to be paid for by the municipality. As Murad explains, damaging the water pipe is a deliberate attempt by the Israeli army to suppress the support among the villagers to continue to protests and thus block future demonstrations.
Settlements and the settler state of ‘Judea and Samaria’
Al-Araby Al-Jadid | August 13, 2015
There is a clear contradiction between Israel’s demolition of two houses built by Jewish settlers in Beit El settlement following a judgement by the Supreme Court that they were built on private property belonging to a Palestinian, and the approval of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for the construction of 300 new homes in the same settlement, one of a number of building projects across the occupied West Bank.
Such a contradictory stance was reflected in the Israeli prime minister’s condemnation of the arson attack on the home of the Dawabsheh family by Jewish settlers, which killed a Palestinian baby and his father, given that the building programmes approved by the Netanyahu government and a climate of state-sanctioned impunity not only entices settlers to move in but also encourages them to carry out such attacks. We should not, therefore, be deceived by the apparent awakening of Netanyahu’s conscience towards the suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of settlers and settlements.
It is through the judgements passed by the Israeli courts that the legal system plays a role in expanding settlements and gives them the legitimacy that Israelis crave. If the courts call for what we know will only ever be a temporary removal of some violations (the two Beit El houses, for example) they are only trying to remind settlers that they need to follow official guidance on the best way to confiscate Palestinian land and uproot the Palestinian residents therefrom.
Netanyahu’s justice minister said that it is useful to destroy two houses to make it possible to establish dozens of others in the same place, albeit it is “regrettable” to have to demolish them in order to re-build them. The minister of education explained that the court can decide whatever it wants, for the judicial system has to issue judgements while the government gets to decide about ongoing construction. It is as if they are saying, “We will learn from our mistakes, and we will build settlements in accordance with the legal instructions booklet with which the government overrides some of its formal procedures, so that the courts’ task becomes to re-direct the government towards better methods and pretexts for the confiscation of land and expansion of settlements.”
The legal process for this is represented by the permissibility of confiscating land from its owners for security reasons, or to establish army bases; later, civilians — Jewish settlers only, of course — are allowed to live there, on the pretext that they are part of the security provision; then these bases are turned into settlements, which are gradually expanded, and they swallow the surrounding areas on the pretext that the settlers themselves need security. The Israeli courts can also provide Palestinian land for the settlers because their presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is a security necessity for the state.
A number of laws are available to the government which allow it to control Palestinian land as it wishes. The Closed Areas Law, for example, allows the military to close any area without giving any reason; the Law of Absentee Property, allows the confiscation of land that belongs to people who are not in residence, for whatever reason (they may just be travelling); and the Law of Fallow Land, which allows for the confiscation of land that has not been cultivated. The latter is one of the most unjust and ridiculous of laws, because the Israeli authorities declare certain areas to be closed and prevent the owners from reaching their land to cultivate it, and then the government confiscates the land on the basis that it is uncultivated.
The Oslo Accords did not address the issue of settlements and allocated more than 60 per cent of the West Bank to what is known as Area C, which is entirely under Israeli military administration. Settlements are the essence of Israel’s founding Zionist ideology, and they have expanded many times under peace negotiations; the Palestine Liberation Organisation has failed to extract any Israeli pledge to halt settlement activity or freeze it. The West Bank is filled with settlements housing more than 600,000 settlers — all illegal under international law — with 200,000 in Jerusalem alone. The settlement programme has dismembered the West Bank, making a two-state solution almost impossible to envisage and making it unlikely that Israel will ever withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory under its control.
In the process, Jewish settler groups and political parties have grown in number and influence; it is impossible to form a government in Israel without their support. Militant extremists amongst the settlers are responsible for attacks against Palestinians and their homes and farms. An estimated 1,000 such attacks take place every year, and include murder, beatings, the burning of crops and trees, arson attacks on buildings and restricting free movement. The latest of these attacks was the arson attack targeting the Dawabsheh family. The incident cannot be separated from the context of all other settler violence. Needless to say, all settlers are heavily armed and are provided with back-up and protection by the Israeli army, and encouragement from the state.
It is no longer a secret that ardent Zionists are talking about the creation of a settler state in what they call “Judea and Samaria” in an effort to thwart any attempt by the government to withdraw from any occupied territory or close settlements as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. This has even been mentioned by Yuval Diskin, the former head of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet. Such a move would subject the West Bank to the control of the settlers, under the pretext that there is a dispute between residents of the West Bank; any “solution” in the occupied territories must therefore take into account the diversity of the population, even if the settlers have imposed their presence on the Palestinians in their own land.
It is enough for us to get alarmed to know that the proportion of Jewish settlers relative to the Palestinians in the West Bank exceeds the proportion of Jews to Arabs in 1948 when Israel was created. The Jewish settlers have the ability and influence to enable them to declare their own state, leaving the Israeli government free to claim that it is not responsible for what is happening there. That would, of course, be a disingenuous argument, given that it has created the settlements and settler-only access roads, and provided security and infrastructure for the settlers in the first place.
The West Bank is thus undergoing a serious Judaisation process as I write, and a major disaster is about to hit the Palestinians amid the near-complete absence and deadly inaction of the so-called Palestinian Authority. Regional Arab states and the international community are silent about what is happening before their eyes, which leaves the Israeli occupation government free to do what it wishes, and settlers free to declare their own state in the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria. Is anyone going to respond, to stop the disaster before it takes place?
Translated by Moein Taher
Israeli settlers torch Bedouin tent near Ramallah
(MaanImages/Zakariyya al-Sidda)
Ma’an – August 13, 2015
RAMALLAH – Israeli settlers torched a Bedouin tent in the area of Ein Samiya near Kafr Malik village in northern Ramallah Thursday morning, local sources told Ma’an.
A group of Israeli settlers raided the village of Ein Samiya and threw flammable material on a Bedouin tent before the residents noticed and attacked the settlers, forcing them to flee the area.
An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the attack but could give no further details.
The fire caused substantial damages to the tent but locals were able to put the fire out without any injuries, locals said.
Israeli settlers also sprayed “price tag” near the scene and signed slogans calling for the killing of Palestinians and expelling them out of their lands.
Graffiti sprayed in red paint also read “administrative revenge” alongside a crudely drawn Star of David.
The graffiti seemed to refer to the internment without charge — known as administrative detention — of three alleged Jewish extremists in the wake of a July 31 arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma that killed 18-month-old Palestinian Ali Saad Dawabsha and his father Saad.
Locals said Israeli forces and police arrived to the area, investigated the incident, and dusted for fingerprints at the scene.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces had closed the Ein Samiya area road and prevented Palestinians from using it.
Recent weeks have seen a rise in Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
An 18-month-old Palestinian, Ali Dawabsha, was burned alive when alleged Israeli extremists firebombed their home at the end of last month in the village of Duma near Nablus.
The toddler’s father, Saad Dawabsha, succumbed to his wounds a week later, after suffering third degree burns on 80 percent of his body.
On Saturday morning, Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home with firebombs and rocks in an area east of Tayba in the Ramallah district. The bombs landed outside of the house, causing no damage, locals told Ma’an.
Israeli settlers have carried out at least 120 attacks on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the start of this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Featured Video
ARE PATIENTS BEING PROPERLY INFORMED ABOUT OZEMPIC?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
New Book
Breast Cancer: Before You Consent
A new Unbekoming paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | September 18, 2026
Peter Gøtzsche reviewed every randomised mammography screening trial ever conducted for the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane’s headline is that, assuming a 15% mortality reduction, one woman in 2000 avoids dying of breast cancer over ten years. Ten are overdiagnosed and treated. Two hundred experience false alarms.
But that headline assumes the reduction. When Gøtzsche looked only at the trials with adequate randomisation — the higher-quality ones — the reduction disappeared. No effect on breast cancer mortality. No effect on all-cause mortality.
This is the Cochrane finding, published in the establishment’s own database of systematic reviews.
No woman being asked to consent to a mammogram this week knows it.
That is why the new Unbekoming paperback exists. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Truth About the Trump Shootings with Ken Silva
- ARE PATIENTS BEING PROPERLY INFORMED ABOUT OZEMPIC?
- US lawmaker blocks $2.8 billion weapons sale to Israel: Report
- Yemeni army claims responsibility for strikes on sensitive sites in Saudi capital, Aramco facilities in Yanbu
- Iran Judiciary issues indictments against 159 US, Israeli officials for assassination of Leader, commanders
- Turkiye revokes Iranian bank license under US sanctions campaign
- US-Denmark Agreement on Greenland Is ‘PR Stunt’ Ahead of Midterms
- Araghchi: Military intervention cannot create security; coercion cannot bring peace
- Fraud Squared
- Breast Cancer: Before You Consent
- If Americans Knew
- Inside Gaza’s death trap of collapsing, bombed-out buildings
- The everyday items Israel bans from Gaza every day
- Inside the siege, the ruined buildings of Gaza – Daily Update
- Debunking The Claim That Macklemore Has A “History Of Antisemitism”
- CPJ demands release of arrested Palestinian-US journalist near Bethlehem
- Robert Kraft: The Billionaire Friend of Netanyahu Pulling The Strings Behind the Macklemore/Ed Sheeran Blow Up
- Columbia Administered Fund Gives Big Money to Pro-Israel Groups
- Deportation Case of Palestinian Activist Salah Sarsour Tests First Amendment
- ‘We Will Not Forget’: Palestinians Mark 44 Years since Sabra and Shatila
- Why do we let Zionists decide what we can and can’t say?
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
Aletho News 