ISM activist shot in the head with rubber-coated steel bullet
International Solidarity Movement | November 2, 2014
Ramallah, Occupied Palestine – Today during a protest at Qalandia checkpoint, an Italian ISM volunteer was shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
The injury is just two centimetres above her left eye.
Photo by IWPS
Giulia, the ISMer, stated, “I was just standing on the side of a street, and the military was firing tear gas at the protesters. I was photographing the army when I felt the bullets strike me, one in the head, and another in my leg, and then all I could see was blood.”
At least one other Palestinian teen was hospitalized after being shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Giulia was immediately transferred to Ramallah Hospital for medical treatment, requiring stitches for her injury.
Approximately 100 people attended the demonstration, where Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters, and rubber-coated steel bullets.
The protest was called today to commemorate the 97th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
28 injured as clashes rage across Jerusalem overnight
Ma’an – 01/11/2014
JERUSALEM – At least 28 Palestinians were injured as clashes with Israeli forces continued into the late hours of the night on Friday across Jerusalem, as anger over a series of killings by Israeli police boiled over into the streets of the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods.
Clashes broke out in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan, al-Issawiya, al-Tur, and Wadi al-Joz, as hundreds marched and fought pitched battles with security forces in anger over the killing of Mutaz Hijazi, 32, early Thursday, as well as the killing of Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi, 21, the week before.
Both men were suspected by authorities of involvement in violent incidents targeting Israelis. But Palestinians have been outraged by their killings, highlighting that instead of being arrested both were shot dead by police on sight.
An autopsy on Friday revealed that Mutaz Hijazi, 32, was shot 20 times by different officers and left to die on his rooftop, as Israeli police refused to allow locals to reach him — and later forced an ambulance to surrender his body, before returning it to the family late Thursday.
On Friday evening, Israeli forces raided the area around Hijazi’s home al-Thawri neighborhood in Silwan, and locals told Ma’an that soldiers attacked a tent set up by the mourning family where friends and relatives were dropping in to offer condolences.
Israeli forces reportedly fired stun grenades, tear-gas canisters, and rubber-coated steel bullets at mourners gathered at the tent, and several men and women suffered severe tear gas inhalation while many others were injured by rubber-coated bullets.
Activist Jihad Oweida told Ma’an that one mourner, Attiya Shabbaneh, was injured by shrapnel from stun grenades in his face and was taken to al-Maqasid Hospital for treatment.
In the Bir Ayyub neighborhood, Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear-gas canisters at more than 200 Palestinian youths who had gathered to visit the mourning tent set up in Hijazi’s home.
Many suffered from excessive tear-gas inhalation and one was injured and received a fracture in his foot. A Palestinian youth identified as Rami Salah was detained by Israeli forces.
An official responsible for ambulance and emergency services at the Palestinian Red Crescent, Amin Abu Ghazaleh, told Ma’an that 28 Palestinians suffered from light injuries, including from rubber-coated steel bullets injuries and tear-gas inhalation, while three were taken to hospitals after they were hit at close range with rubber-coated steel bullets in the head, legs, and stomach.
In the al-Issawiya neighborhood, meanwhile, dozens suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation after Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters heavily during clashes that erupted as Israeli forces detained an unidentified Palestinian.
Clashes also erupted in the Sur Baher village, Wadi al-Jouz neighborhood, and other neighborhoods in the Old City of Jerusalem.
An Israeli police spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Old City security tight
Also on Friday, Israeli police released the director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Jawad Siyam, along with Yazan Siyam, Muntaser Faraj and Mahmoud Gaith who were all detained Friday on charges of “assaulting” Israeli settlers in September.
It was unclear why the arrests had taken place more than a month after the alleged assault, but some have speculated that the arrests were related to the political nature of the work of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, which focuses on resisting settler encroachment in the neighborhood of Silwan.
The four were released on the condition to pay a 500 shekels bill each, and were sentenced to house arrest until next Monday.
The clashes and arrests across Jerusalem came after days of intense security across the city, where Israeli police have deployed heavily amid four months of tensions between local Palestinians and occupation authorities.
Police, some in riot gear, guarded a series of checkpoints leading from the Old City’s outer gates all the way to the Al-Aqsa compound, an AFP correspondent said.
They checked identity papers of people passing between the barricades, both those on their way to pray and those who worked nearby.
Zuheir Dana, 67, said he was unable to get from his shop to his home.
“I wanted just to get home, which is about 50 meters (yards) away from the Al-Aqsa compound, but police didn’t let me through,” he said.
“It’s been bad every day here since Ramadan,” he added, referring to the Muslim holy month that fell in July.
Markets in the Old City, normally bustling on a Friday morning, were nearly deserted due to the security measures.
The security measures followed the unprecedented complete closure of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound — the third-holiest site in Islam — for the first time since 1967, which ignited protest across the Arab world and even from the United States.
Palestinian community officials say the wave of unrest gripping the city is fueled by a sense of hopelessness resulting from Israel’s policies in occupied East Jerusalem, which have left many young people with a sense that they have nothing to lose.
The arrests of hundreds over summer for participation in protests against Israel’s massive assault on Gaza — which left nearly 2,200 dead in the tiny coastal enclave — has only added fuel to the fire.
Although Palestinians in East Jerusalem live within territory Israel has unilaterally annexed, they lack citizenship rights and are instead classified only as “residents” whose permits can be revoked if they move away from the city for more than a few years.
They face discrimination in all aspects of life including housing, employment, and services, and are unable to access services in the West Bank due to the construction of Israel’s separation wall.
East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as Palestinian territory, but Israel occupied it in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never considered legitimate abroad.
SodaStream closes illegal settlement factory but remains actively complicit in the displacement of Palestinians
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel | October 30, 2014
Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists today welcomed the news that SodaStream has announced it is to close its factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim following a high profile boycott campaign against the company.
“SodaStream’s announcement today shows that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is increasingly capable of holding corporate criminals to account for their participation in Israeli apartheid and colonialism,” said Rafeef Ziadah, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement.
“BDS campaign pressure has forced retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream, and the company’s share price has tumbled in recent months as our movement has caused increasing reputational damage to the SodaStream brand,” she added.
The news of this major success against a company famed for its role in illegal Israeli settlements broke amidst intensifying demonstrations against Israel’s policies of colonisation in Jerusalem.
Grassroots boycott activism saw SodaStream dropped by major retailers across North America and Europe including Macy’s in the US and John Lewis in the UK.
SodaStream was forced to close its flagship store in Brighton in the UK as a result of regular pickets of the store.
Soros Fund Management, the family office of the billionaire investor George Soros, sold its stake in SodaStream following BDS pressure.
SodaStream’s share price fell dramatically in recent months as sales dried up, particularly in North America.
After reaching a high of $64 per share in October 2013, the stock fell to around $20 per share this month. SodaStream has estimated its third quarter revenue will be $125 million, down almost 14 percent from the same period last year.
But Ziadah warned that SodaStream will still remain actively complicit in the displacement of Palestinians and will remain a focus of boycott campaigning.
“Even if this announced closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights,” she said.
SodaStream’s participation in Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians gained international notoriety when A-list celebrity Scarlett Johansson signed up to be a brand ambassador for the company. Following an international campaign urging Oxfam end its relationship with Johansson for endorsing SodaStream, the actor decided to quit Oxfam.
SodaStream has also come under fire for its treatment of Palestinian workers in its West Bank factory, as Ziadah explains:
“Any suggestion that SodaStream is employing Palestinians in an illegal Israeli settlement on stolen Palestinian land out of the kindness of its heart is ludicrous.”
“Palestinian workers are paid far less than their Israeli counterparts and SodaStream recently fired 60 Palestinians following a dispute over food for the breaking of the Ramadan fast. Workers have previously said they are treated ‘like slaves’”.
“Palestinians are forced to work inside settlements in sub-standard conditions because of Israel’s deliberate destruction of the Palestinian economy. There’s an urgent need for the creation of decent and dignified jobs within the Palestinian economy.”
SodaStream have said all workers will be offered jobs at its new plant, although Israel’s apartheid wall and severe restrictions on movement will make the commute to the new plant difficult for its Palestinian workers.
All of the main Palestinian trade unions have called for boycott and are members of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement and helped to initiate the campaign against SodaStream.
The BNC quotes included in this release can be found in the following coverage of this story:
New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/world/middleeast/sodastream-to-close-factory-in-west-bank.html?_r=0
International Business Times : http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israel-bds-movement-scores-victory-sodastream-close-controversial-factory-west-bank-settlement-1472320
Sweden recognizes Palestinian state as UN fails to condemn Israeli settlements
Al-Akhbar | October 30, 2014
Sweden on Thursday officially recognized the state of Palestine, Stockholm’s foreign minister said, less than a month after the government announced its intention to make the move and one day after UN Security Council failed to condemn Israeli settlement plans.
“Our decision comes at a critical time because over the last year we have seen how the peace talks have stalled, how decisions over new settlements on occupied Palestinian land have complicated a two-state solution and how violence has returned to Gaza,” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told reporters.
“By making our decision we want to bring a new dynamic to the stalled peace process.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hailed the decision, his spokesman told AFP.
“President Abbas welcomes Sweden’s decision,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP, saying the Palestinian leader described the move as “brave and historic.”
Sweden is the first EU member state in western Europe to recognize Palestine.
European countries are stepping up the pressure on Israel to seek a peace deal, with the British and Irish parliament recently holding a non-binding vote on recognizing statehood.
Abu Rudeina claimed that Sweden’s recognition was linked to months of soaring tensions in occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians have clashed almost daily with Israeli Occupation Forces and where Israel has recently pushed ahead with plans to build another 3,600 settler homes.
“This decision comes as a response to Israeli measures in Jerusalem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday denounced the Swedish government’s recognition of a Palestinian state as “deplorable”, saying it would undermine efforts to resolve the conflict.
“The decision of the Swedish government to recognize a Palestinian state is a deplorable decision which only strengthens extremist elements,” he claimed in a statement.
“It is a shame that the Swedish government chose to take this declarative step which causes a lot of harm and offers no advantage,” he said.
“The Swedish government must understand that relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA and that they have to act with responsibility and sensitivity.”
Wallstrom rejected accusations that Sweden was taking sides and she hoped other EU countries would follow Sweden’s lead.
No Security Council statement condemning Israel
The Palestinians urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to demand that Israel immediately reverse plans to build more Zionist settlements, at an emergency meeting called to address tensions in occupied East Jerusalem.
The 15-nation council met for urgent talks at Jordan’s and Palestine’s request after Israel announced plans on Monday to build 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem.
However, no resolution was adopted and there was no Security Council statement condemning Israel.
“Israel, the occupying power, must be demanded to cease immediately and completely its illegal settlement activities throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council.
Mansour said he was disappointed that the council had failed to issue a statement but praised members for speaking forcefully against Israeli settlements.
Speaking to the council, top UN official Jeffrey Feltman said the Israeli practice of moving settlers to Palestinian territories was “in violation of international law” and runs counter to a two-state solution of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is “alarmed” by the latest plans for new Israeli settlements which “once again raise grave doubts about Israel’s commitment to achieving durable peace,” Feltman told the council.
Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor shot back, rejecting suggestions that settlement building jeopardized peace and accusing the UN of “playing second fiddle” to a Palestinian “campaign to vilify” his country.
“There are many threats in the Middle East, but the presence of Jewish homes is not one of them,” Prosor told the council.
Speaking to reporters outside council chambers, Prosor insisted the settlements were “not illegal” and that “building housing units in Jerusalem for children in places where there are Jewish neighborhoods is something that we will continue to do.”
Besides the 1,000 new settler homes, Israel has recently approved the construction of more than 2,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War. It later annexed the city of Jerusalem in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.
US, European countries “condemn” Israeli settlements
Even though there was no Security Council statement condemning the Israeli violations, Israel came under strong criticism from several countries, which called for an end to unilateral actions including settlement expansions.
The US representative David Pressman told the council “settlement activity will only further escalate tensions at a time that is already tense enough.”
British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant warned that ongoing construction of Zionist settlements in Palestinian territories “makes it much more difficult for Israel’s friends to defend it against accusations that it is not serious about peace.”
French Ambassador Francois Delattre said “the risk of an explosion of uncontrolled violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be ignored” and called on Israel to drop the planned settlement.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the plan should be “frozen” and urged the council to play a more pro-active role to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
On Wednesday, the Spanish government expressed its regret at the settlements plan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the decision “does not reflect the formally accepted target of negotiating with the Palestinians to seek a peaceful, global and lasting solution based on two states.”
The ministry also reiterated its position, shared by the international community, that all forms of Israeli settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.
Israel’s latest push for settlements followed weeks of clashes between Palestinian youths and police in East Jerusalem over fears that Israel wanted to restrict access to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
Feltman called for a de-escalation, saying that both sides “can ill-afford” to inflame tensions so soon after the devastating Gaza war, which left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead.
In a draft resolution circulated, the Palestinian Authority set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.
It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists argue in favor of a one-state solution, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They add that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.
(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
Language that disappears the Palestinians
By Jonathon Cook | The Blog from Nazareth | October 28, 2014
The Guardian has about the best coverage to be found in the mainstream media of the Israel-Palestine conflict – which tells you quite how bad everyone else is.
Today the paper’s readers’ editor, Chris Elliott, ponders complaints about its coverage. Not surprisingly, many of them are from the Israeli embassy, which says it is concerned about the Guardian’s disproportionate interest in Israel-Palestine, implying that this is evidence of anti-semitism.
Actually it is quite the opposite. It is evidence of the Guardian’s historic and current support for the state of Israel, though not the occupation. Elliott alludes to this obliquely as he points out that the paper’s most famous editor, C P Scott, was instrumental in getting the British government to issue the Balfour Declaration. The Guardian’s pride in having helped to create a Jewish state is still palpable at the paper (as I know from my years there), especially among senior Jewish editors who influence much of the conflict’s coverage – yes, that is a reference to Jonathan Freedland, among others.
The Israeli embassy, of course, is trying to browbeat the Guardian to bring it into line with the dire coverage of the rest of the media.
The lesson the readers’ editor draws is:
When looking at these three complaints I think the important message is that if the Guardian is to continue its strong focus on Israel and Palestine, which it is entirely at liberty to do, we have to put a similar effort into the use and awareness of language that we use to discuss the issues on both sides.
And yet, as usual, the article only considers the problematic use of language regarding the Israeli side of the conflict. The reality is that the Guardian, like most western media, is really only interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict because of the Jews, not the Palestinians. There are many reasons for this:
- historic European guilt about the Holocaust;
- the central place of the Jews in Biblical stories most westerners were raised on in the still-Christian west;
- the sense that the Jews are more like us than the “Arabs” – that they are, as Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, put it, “a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism”;
- the fact (mostly unmentionable) that Jews are strongly represented on the staff of western media often in senior positions, but rarely are there any Muslims or Arabs, and that many Jewish staff naturally identify with the plight of relatives in Israel;
- the continuing appointment to Jerusalem bureaux of partisan Jewish reporters who speak Hebrew but not Arabic; live in west Jerusalem, not East Jerusalem; whose younger children go to Jewish schools, not Arab schools; and whose older children serve in the army.
All of this is so normalised among the western media that the New York Times barely seems concerned that at least three of its senior writers on the conflict have had children serving in the Israeli army: Ethan Bronner, David Brooks and now, we discover, Isabel Kershner. We will know that we have an even-handed media only when we can conceive of a paper recruiting not only a Palestinian reporter (in itself almost impossible, it seems) but a Palestinian reporter with a child who openly supports Hamas (let’s not even try to imagine the possibility of their being allowed to have a child who fights in the resistance!).
As the Guardian’s Elliott inadvertently indicates, sensitivity about language is central to the concerns of papers like the Guardian when it comes to the Jewish side, but not so much when it comes to the Palestinians.
Today Moshe Machover, a London University philosophy professor, sent a letter to the readers’ editor that I reproduce below concerning a recent Guardian article. The Guardian’s report contains the usual insensitivities of language towards the Palestinians, so common-place that they are never noted or questioned. But this is about more than insensitivity. It is about the constant misuse of language in ways that work to Israel’s benefit by shaping how western publics understand the conflict. In fact, it is precisely such language that has enabled Israel to incrementally disappear the Palestinians.
Dear Readers’ Editor,
In yesterday’s Guardian there was a report by your Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont about what is in fact Israel’s continued illegal colonization of east Jerusalem.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/27/israel-construct-settler-homes-east-jerusalem-netanyahu
It began:
“The Israeli government is to advance construction plans for 1,000 housing units to be built in parts of Jerusalem that Palestinians demand for their future state.”
The wording “the Palestinians demand” suggest that these parts of Jerusalem do not belong to the Palestinians but to someone else. This false impression is reinforced by what follows:
“The move, revealed by the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is the first in what is expected to be a series of announcements this week on new settlement construction work in East Jerusalem and on the occupied West Bank.”
Surely, “work in East Jerusalem and on the occupied West Bank” is wrong as it falsely suggests that East Jerusalem is not occupied but belongs to Israel; it should have been “work in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank.” I am sure you will wish to correct this misleading wording in your next column.
Sincerely,
Moshé Machover
Denied land access, Palestinians miss olive harvest
Ma’an – 29/10/2014
AL-JANIYA (AFP) — Abbas Yousef points wistfully towards his olive trees, which are bearing their annual fruit. Yet again, the 70-year-old Palestinian farmer will be unable to make the autumn harvest.
Yousef’s olive groves lie on land either side of an Israeli settlement in the northern occupied West Bank. For years, he has been denied access by the army, and the settlers have plowed it, uprooting many of his trees.
For the 1,400 residents of al-Janiya — Yousef’s village — attacks by settlers who have uprooted trees and burnt Palestinian farmland have become a daily occurrence, he says.
“Each time I try to get to my olive groves, an Israeli soldier tells me I can’t go, because it’s been designated a ‘closed military zone,'” Yousef says.
“My father planted those trees, seed by seed, and I toiled over the land,” he sighs, pointing to one section of his land, now farmed by settlers.
This year, for the first time since 2000, Yousef was allowed access to his land, but only for two days — not nearly enough time to gather all the olives during the harvest that begins in early October.
When he got there, he found 400 of his trees had been uprooted.
UN figures show that since the start of the year, around 7,500 trees have been damaged or uprooted across the West Bank.
‘Now it’s my land’
Arik Ascherman, president of Israeli rights group Rabbis for Human Rights, says Yousef’s experience is common and in danger of becoming the norm in the West Bank.
“They start by preventing Palestinians from accessing their land, then they cultivate it themselves, and then they say ‘Now it’s my land,'” he explains.
Since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967, 135 Jewish settlements have been built there as well as around 100 unauthorized outposts, which are considered illegal even under Israeli law, UN figures show.
All settlements built on occupied territory are illegal under international law.
Figures compiled by the Yesha Settlers Council show there are some 380,000 Israelis living in the West Bank — a number which has more than tripled in the two decades since the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993.
The attacks against olive groves, which make up half of all cultivated Palestinian farmland, threaten a crucial source of livelihood.
Olive farming and olive oil production bring in around a quarter of Palestinian agricultural revenue, according to the UN’s top humanitarian official for the occupied territories, James Rawley.
The harvest is increasingly threatened by both settlement building and by Israel’s vast separation barrier — in some parts an eight-meter-high (25 foot) concrete wall — whose construction began in 2002.
Some 85 percent of the barrier’s route runs inside the West Bank, rather than along the internationally recognized Green Line, cutting off Palestinians from 30 percent of their land, according to a UN spokeswoman.
For Ahmed Diwan, a farmer who lives in Biddu village east of Ramallah, the problem is not limited to olives.
He says he has also missed the grape harvest, the almonds, the apples, and vine leaves — “a symbol of Palestinian cuisine” — due to a lack of access to his land.
Diwan holds out little hope for this year’s olive harvest as he packs his farming equipment into his car.
“We’re only allowed access to our olive groves two days this year. We can’t maintain the trees or harvest in that time!”
End of an era?
Israel has granted access to farmers for a total of 37 days so far this year, the UN says.
Even those who do have limited access to their farmland are subjected to violent attacks by settlers, who are often armed.
So far this year, 88 attacks have been recorded and 142 farmers injured, according to the UN.
The elderly Yousef was one of the victims.
“About 50 settlers turned up. We were four farmers, people of around my age. We were no match for them,” he recalls.
“In the end it was the Israeli soldiers who got us out to protect us from the settlers.”
The violence is making “entire villages” which had been self-sufficient for decades dependent on international aid, the UN says.
A disillusioned younger generation is turning away from the age-old family tradition.
“Farming is finished. The young people don’t want to work on the land. They’re scared of being killed by settlers,” Yousef says.
Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is a regular occurrence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but settlers are rarely held accountable by Israeli law enforcement.
Ma’an staff contributed to this report.
Natural resource exploitation in the Dead Sea area – The case of Ahava
Alhaqhr | October 28, 2014
This is the first in a series of new Virtual Field Visits focusing on the topic of business and human rights. This video will highlight corporate complicity in the exploitation of natural resources in the Dead Sea area of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Israeli mayor storms into al-Aqsa without permission
Al-Akhbar | October 28, 2014
Israeli-occupied Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat forced his way on Tuesday into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem under heavy police protection, a Palestinian official said, as Israel continues to restrict the entry of Palestinian worshipers into al-Aqsa for the fifth week in a row.
“We protest this intrusion. Barakat entered the compound under the Israeli police’s protections without permission or a prior request,” Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, head of the Jordan-run Organization for Muslim Endowments and Al-Aqsa Affairs, told Anadolu Agency.
This is the first time Barkat storms the holy site since assuming office in 2008.
“Barkat took a tour at the compound’s courtyards before leaving,” al-Khatib added.
The intrusion came one day after Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited the complex.
Hamdallah’s visit came after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned against Israeli plans to “divide” the holy site.
In an urgent message to the US administration on Sunday, Abbas warned that Israel’s continued provocations at the mosque complex would lead to a “wide-reaching explosion.”
Israel continues to restrict the entry of Palestinian worshipers into al-Aqsa for the fifth week in a row.
Israeli authorities have imposed restrictions on Palestinians seeking to enter the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, denying Muslim men under 40 access to the holy site while facilitating the entry of Zionist settlers of all ages.
In recent months, groups of extremist Zionist settlers – often accompanied by Israeli security forces – have repeatedly forced their way into East Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
The frequent violations anger Palestinians and occasionally lead to violent confrontations.
For Muslims, al-Aqsa represents the world’s third holiest site.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.
In September 2000, a visit to the site by controversial Israeli leader Ariel Sharon sparked what later became known as the “Second Intifada” – a popular uprising against the Israeli occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were killed.
(Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)
Coca Cola’s involvement in the Occupation of Palestine
Who Profits | October 26, 2014
The Central Bottling Company (CBC) or Coca Cola Israel is a manufacturer and distributor of soft drinks, dairy products and alcoholic beverages. CBC began its operation in 1967 upon receiving the Israeli franchise of Coca Cola products from Coca Cola International.
Through its fully owned subsidiary – The Central Company for Sales and Distribution, CBC holds a regional distribution center in the Atarot settlement industrial zone. The Atarot distribution center is responsible for marketing the company’s beverages to the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem. Simultaneously, the Palestinian franchisee – The National Beverages Company (NBC) is denied access to East Jerusalem, which therefore constitutes a captive market for the Israeli distributor.
In 2006 CBC purchased Tabor Winery – an Israeli winery that owns vineyards near mount Shifon in the occupied Golan Heights. Grapes from the Shifon vineyards are used in Tabor’s white wines.
CBC also owns Tara (Milco Industries), whose subsidiary, Meshek Zuriel Dairy (81%), holds a dairy farm and a head office in the settlement of Shadmot Mehola in the Jordan Valley.
Israeli forces detain Palestinian man who removed settler tent
Ma’an | October 25, 2014
HEBRON – Israeli forces detained a Palestinian from the village of Susiya south of Hebron after residents took down a tent set up by Israeli settlers on land belonging to a Palestinian family in the area, a local official said.
Jihad al-Nawajaa, the head of a local village council, told Ma’an that Israeli forces detained Ahmad Muhammad Mahmoud al-Hadar, 35, after he took down a tent set up by settlers on the al-Hadar family’s property.
He said that soldiers “assaulted” Palestinian villagers at the same time.
The tent was set up as an outpost to expand the illegal Israeli settlement of Susiya, al-Nawajaa said.
Al-Hadar took down the tent in order to “save our lands from Judaization and settlement.”
Some settlers act without approval to expand settlements or create new ones in the West Bank, building outposts that are illegal even by Israeli government standards.
In some cases, these settlement outposts are “legalized” by Israel, and in rare cases they are dismantled.
Meanwhile, Palestinians are rarely granted permission to build in the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control, or in East Jerusalem.
Human Rights Defender Abdallah Abu Rahma receives guilty verdict from military court
International Solidarity Movement | October 21, 2014
Bil’in, Occupied Palestine – On October 21st, Human Rights Defender Abdallah Abu Rahma was found guilty by an Israeli military court of “disturbing a soldier”.
“Demonstrating against the occupation cannot be a criminal offence. Finding Abdallah guilty only shows that the [Israeli] military force is a tool to perpetuate the occupation.” Stated Gabi Lasky, lawyer of Abdallah Abu Rahma, to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Abdallah spoke to the ISM about his recent conviction. “Yesterday the military court ruled that I was guilty, showing once again that they stand on the side of the occupation, and not that of truth and justice.
I was arrested on the 13th of May 2012 in front of Ofer Military prison at a demonstration commemorating the Nakba and in solidarity with the prisoners, many of whom were on hunger strike. I was imprisoned in Ofer for 16 months a year earlier, for my role in the non-violent demonstrations in my village, Bil’in, against the Apartheid wall and settlements built on our land.
This time when I was arrested I was held for a few hours and released on bail, I was not summoned to court until the beginning of 2013, following the success of the popular committees in the construction of the Palestinians villages Bab Al Shams and Bab Al Manatir.”
Abdallah Abu Rahmah is the coordinator of the Bil’in popular committee, which began popular demonstrations against the Apartheid wall and settlements in January 2005. The route of the Apartheid wall originally planned to separate the village form 50% of its agricultural land. As a result of the village’s continued popular struggle, the route was changed and 25% of the village land was effectively annexed by the wall to the illegal settlement of Modiin Elite.
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested and injured by Israeli forces in Bil’in since the popular struggle in the village began. In 2009 during a demonstration, Bassam Abu Rahmah was shot directly in the chest with a high velocity tear-gas projectile, dying of his wounds minutes later. On Januray 1st 2011, Jawaher Abu Rahmah died of poisoning after inhaling excessive amounts of tear gas during the weekly demonstration the previous day.
Israel creates mock Jewish graves south of Aqsa Mosque
Palestine Information Center – 18/10/2014
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The land research center said that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) established fake graves in Silwan district, south of the Aqsa Mosque, as part of feverish steps to Judaize the Arab history and identity of the holy city.
In a report released on Friday, the center stated that Zionist settler groups in cooperation with the nature and parks authority planted tombs built of stone on a tract of Palestinian land located between Silwan district and the Umayyad Palaces area, south of the Aqsa Mosque.
It noted that the tombs, engraved with the Star of David, were made look like age-old ones and presented to tourists as Jewish graves built before 1948.
“Such step confirms once again that the occupation state is seeking on purpose to fake the history of Jerusalem in violation of the international norms and laws that demand it not to make changes to any land under its occupation,” the center underlined.
The center also warned that creating fake graves enables Israel to seize more areas in east Jerusalem.
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The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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