Violence / Raids / Clashes / Detentions Violent arrest of Palestinian man in Al-Khalil (Hebron)
HEBRON,
occupied Palestine 29 Aug by ISM, al-Khalil Team -- 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.
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.
http://palsolidarity.org/2015/08/violent-arrest-of-palestinian-man-in-al-khalil-hebron/
Palestinians clash with Israeli forces after Sunday mass
[photos] BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 30 Aug -- Palestinian Christians clashed
with Israeli forces following mass on Sunday when demonstrators,
including priests, marched to protest renewed work on Israel's
controversial separation wall in the Christian majority town of
Beit Jala
in the occupied West Bank. The march, the latest in a string of
protests, moved through neighborhoods in the Bethlehem-district town
where Israeli forces are extending the separation wall, which is
considered illegal under international law. Israeli forces shot tear-gas
at protesters and physical altercations broke out when Israeli forces
attempted to suppress the protest. Two protesters were arrested for
allegedly throwing stones at soldiers guarding the construction zone,
police said. Several clergymen participated in the march, including
Archbishop and former Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah.
Sabbah denounced the work that began earlier this month. "This land
belongs to us," he said."Whatever they do, whatever their courts say,
this land belongs to us and it will return to us one day. You are
stronger with your guns, but you are not the strongest when it comes to
humanity."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767339 Israeli army: Settler lightly injured in shooting near Nablus
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 30 Aug -- An Israeli settler was lightly injured in a
shooting Sunday while driving west of Nablus in the occupied West Bank,
the Israeli army said. An Israeli army spokesperson said that the
Israeli man was shot at from a passing car near the illegal Israeli
settlement of
Qedumim. She said that he was injured in both his
hand and leg, but was unable to confirm whether his injuries were caused
by shattering glass or a bullet. The settler then drove to the entrance
of Qedumim, where emergency teams treated him and took him to hospital,
she said. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the man was around 46
and that he had been taken to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba in Israel.
Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv separately reported that the
shooter's car had Israeli license plates. The army spokeswoman said that
the car had "fled the scene," and Israeli forces were searching the
area.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767338 Army displaces 14 families to conduct training near Tubas IMEMC/Agencies 30 Aug -- Dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded, on Sunday morning, the
ar-Ras al-Ahmar area, east of the central West Bank city of
Tubas,
and displaced 14 families, so that the army can conduct a five-day
training drill. Head of the Wadi al-Maleh and Bedouin Tribes Local
Council 'Aref Daraghma said the soldiers surrounded the entire area,
declared it a closed military zone and displaced the fourteen families.
Daraghma added that the army said its training would last five days,
from six in the morning until twelve at noon. The army frequently
displaces Palestinian families, especially Bedouin families that depend
on their livestock as their only sources of income, in order to conduct
live-fire military training in the Jordan Valley, the countryside of the
southern West Bank district of Hebron, and various other areas.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72841 Including a child, three Palestinians kidnapped in Ramallah and Jerusalem IMEMC 30 Aug -- Israeli soldiers invaded, on Sunday at dawn, the town of
Silwad,
east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, kidnapped a child, and
held his 10-year-old brother in the bathroom while interrogating and
threatening him. The army also kidnapped two young men in occupied East
Jerusalem. The child, Hamza Shokri Hammad, 15 years of age, was
kidnapped after a large number of soldiers smashed the family’s main
door, and detained him in one of the rooms after forcing him brother
Bilal, 10 years of age, into the bathroom, where he was threatened and
interrogated. Hammad was taken prisoner before the soldiers left the
property; the family said the army confiscated mobile phones, Game CD’s,
in addition to destroying a computer. The family added that the
soldiers also took some of Bilal’s toys, and scattered them outside the
property. The kidnapped child is the son of Moayyad Hammad, who was
taken prisoner many years ago, and was sentenced to seven life terms.
Last week, the Israeli Prison Authority denied Hamza the right to visit
his imprisoned father under the pretext that he is underage and needs a
permit, although under Israeli law, children do not need a permit.
Also on Sunday at dawn, soldiers invaded the
al-‘Eesawiyya
town, in occupied Jerusalem, kidnapped two young Palestinian men, and
took them to an interrogation center in the city. The two have been
identified as Mahmoud Abdul-Raouf Mahmoud, and ‘Amid ‘Obeid.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72840 PA escalates detention campaigns against Hamas members in West Bank
Occupied West Bank (Alresalah.ps) 31 Aug -- PA security apparatuses
have escalated detention campaigns against political leaders and
supporters of Hamas in the occupied West Bank. The PA forces detained 8
Hamas-affiliated members and handed two others orders for investigation
in the province of Tubas. Nader Sawafta, one of the eight detainees, has
been engaged in a hunger strike, ever since he was imprisoned by the PA
forces, his family confirmed.
http://english.alresalah.ps/en/post.php?id=4805 Settlers set up checkpoint, inspect Palestinian vehicle near Salfit SALFIT (Ma‘an) 30 Aug – Dozens of Israeli settlers on Saturday night blocked a main road in the Salfit-district village of
Yasuf in
the northern central West Bank and set up a checkpoint where they
inspected Palestinian vehicles for several hours, local Palestinian
officials said. Head of the Yasuf village council, Hafith Ubayya, told
Ma‘an that settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of
Kfar Tappuah
closed the main road leading to Yasuf village and inspected the
vehicles. Ubayya said that the incident took place close to Tappuah
checkpoint, a major Israeli military checkpoint between the Palestinian
villages of Yasuf and
Zaatara. Ubayya added that a large group of
settlers tried to raid Yasuf and "vandalize properties and attack
unarmed Palestinian citizens," but that villagers confronted them and
prevented the attack. He added that locals contacted Palestinian
Authority officials asking for protection from the settlers who he said
attempted to attack the village "before the very eyes of Israeli
occupation soldiers who intervene only to protect the settlers." An
Israeli army spokeswoman said that she was "not aware of any attempt" to
set up a checkpoint. She said that "a group of civilians" living in
Kfar Tappuah settlement "were looking for a missing horse, so there was a
huge crowd" out on the road and surrounding fields.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767331 A picture of a headlock that's worth a thousand words Haaretz 30 Aug by Anshel Pfeffer --
Why
hasn't the IDF, one of the most sophisticated and advanced militaries
in the world learned a damned thing since the first intifada? - -Let’s
set aside for a few paragraphs the question of whether Israeli forces
should be in the West Bank, the competing claims between the Nabi Saleh
villagers and the neighboring settlement over the local spring, around
which the weekly protests take place, and even stop asking for a moment
which side’s leaders are more at fault for the lack of a viable
solution. Let’s just ask why that picture is so unsurprising.
-Shouting for help- Look
at it again. Only one part of the soldier’s body radiates confidence.
His right hand is holding on to the assault rifle, correctly pointing it
towards the ground, and even though you can’t see it, you absolutely
know all his fingers are around the handle, outside the trigger-guard.
He’s a pro rifleman. All the rest of his body is shouting for help. He’s
overpowered a child half of his size, who may or may not have been
correctly identified as throwing stones, but the soldier doesn’t know
what to do next. He’s been intensively trained by a crack infantry
battalion
to go after Hezbollah fighters in the Lebanese
underbrush, but nothing in the few days he spent mastering the use tear
gas and stun grenades before this deployment could have possibly
prepared him for what he’s doing now. And that’s before the mother and
sisters of the boy start jumping on him and biting his hand.
Unlike
him, they’ve been in this situation dozens of times in recent years.
They know he’s going to keep on using his strong arm to cling to the
useless rifle, the other one to cling inexpertly to the wriggling child,
while trying to keep balance on the rocky slope. Deployment after
deployment, year after year, decade after decade, some of the IDF’s most
accomplished combat units are sent to places like Nabi Saleh, Na'alin
and Bil'in, where these dramas have played out with depressing
regularity every Friday at noon, and insisted that they’re soldiers
doing a soldier’s job, not glorified riot police. It’s no longer a
tactical mistake, it’s a national headlock in which an entire army, and
behind it a nation, remains in a state of denial that there are military
solutions to the conflict.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.673673 The Palestinian family who fought off an Israeli soldier arresting their young son NABI SALEH, West Bank
(MEE) 30 Aug by Sheren Khalel
-- The
Tamimi family say the presence of journalists was key to them fighting
off an Israeli soldier from arresting their 11-year-old Mohammed --
Nariman Tamimi says she and her son were watching the protest from afar
when she noticed something was not right. The soldiers, who she says
would usually block the protest before it could reach the steep hillside
of her village, seemed to be encouraging protesters to descend down the
slope. By the time she had figured out why, it was too late. She says
dozens of soldiers were hiding behind trees and boulders on the
hillside, jumping out to capture unsuspecting protesters. “We saw that
the soldiers had my nephew and a foreign activist they were going to
arrest, and everyone ran to help them,” Nariman says. When the other
demonstrators ran to the aid of the two protesters who were being
arrested, Nariman’s son, Mohammed Tamimi, 11, stayed behind and
continued to watch from a distance. That’s when he was captured alone.
What happened next was caught on camera in a series of photos depicting a
young boy being pinned to the ground by an Israeli soldier, as the
boy’s mother, aunt and sister struggle to pry the grown man off the
child . . .
-‘No safe place’- All of Nariman’s children, even her
youngest son, 9, partake in Nabi Saleh’s demonstrations. She says she
doesn’t keep her children home during the protests because even in their
home they aren’t safe. In the photos, the young boy being pinned down
is wearing a cast on his arm, an injury his mother says was caused when
Israeli forces attacked their home only two day before Friday’s
incident. “You can see in the photos he is wearing a cast,” Nariman
says. “The soldiers shot tear gas into the house and broke our windows,
one of the metal canisters that flew inside hit his arm and broke his
wrist. Mohammed wasn’t protesting on Friday because his wrist had just
been broken.” “So, there is no safe place in Nabi Saleh inside or
outside, but the children are less traumatized being out there facing
their fears than in here hiding, it makes them feel better,
psychologically,” Nariman insists.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/palestinian-family-who-fought-israeli-soldier-arresting-their-young-son-1729856250 Israel has failed to reform Jewish radicals, critics charge
SHIR
HADASH OUTPOST, West Bank (AP) 30 Aug by Daniel Estrin -- The Israeli
government initiative has a soothing biblical name, the Hebrew Shepherd,
and a serious aim: to keep ultranationalist Jewish settler youths from
turning to violence and attacking Palestinians and their property. But
the program -- which included plans for a summer camp and carpentry
courses to keep the kids out of trouble -- has foundered. Many settler
youths have refused to cooperate after rumors spread that Israel's
domestic security agency, Shin Bet, which snoops on Jewish extremists,
was involved.It is but one example of Israel's failure to rein in youths
suspected of carrying out ultranationalist attacks. The deadliest such
assault, a firebombing last month on a West Bank home, killed an
18-month-old toddler, Ali Dawabsheh, and his father, Saed, and
critically wounded his mother and 4-year-old brother . . . But there has
been complicit tolerance of the phenomenon for years, say Palestinian
leaders, former Israeli security officials and even some settlers. They
blame holes in Israel's juvenile welfare system, lax law enforcement, a
lenient justice system and rabbis and Israeli leaders unwilling or
unable to tackle the elusive young fundamentalists . . . After last
month's firebombing, Israel carried out arrest raids of hilltop outposts
and jailed three Israeli settler activists in their early 20s for six
months without charge, a measure used regularly against Palestinian
detainees but rarely on Israelis. Israel has not yet found the culprits
of the deadly attack. The Israeli rights group B'Tselem said despite the
recent crackdown, Israel is unwilling to prosecute settlers suspected
of crimes against Palestinians. In the past three years, the group said,
Israeli civilians set fire to nine Palestinian homes in the West Bank
and hurled a firebomb at a Palestinian taxi, but no one was charged.
"The government has created a climate of impunity with settlers," said
Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem . . . Recent arrests of young settler
activists offer a peek into what the Shin Bet says is a fringe group
suspected of arson attacks on Palestinian property in order to bring
about religious "redemption." One suspect, Moshe Orbach, is accused of
writing a detailed instruction manual on how to set fire to mosques,
churches and Palestinian homes. Entitled "Kingdom of Evil," it instructs
activists to form underground cells committed to "sanctifying God's
name" -- and with members who know how "to keep silent in
interrogations."
http://news.yahoo.com/israel-failed-reform-jewish-radicals-critics-charge-121408026.html West Bank watchmen on guard for Israeli intruders DUMA, occupied West Bank
(Al Jazeera) 29 Aug --
During
the darkest hours of the night in the village of Duma, east of Nablus,
Palestinian men stood guard at the edge of their village. They were
waiting and watching for potential intruders. After an attack on a
family home in Duma on July 31 that killed two members of the Dawabsheh
family, including an 18-month-old infant, men and boys from the village
formed a neighbourhood watch group. They were wary of the presence of
Israeli settlers whose land surrounds them, accusing them of "terrorist"
attacks. "The groups are following the village council, so anything
that happens, they have to call, and I will handle everything," village
leader Abdul Salam Dawabsha told Al Jazeera, noting that he communicates
directly to Palestinian authorities on behalf of Duma. There is no
police station in Duma, and the closest one is nearly six kilometres
away. But if intruders make it into the village, Dawabsha said, he can
call government officials for assistance. Al Jazeera patrolled with the
watchmen on a recent night and agreed not to use the men's family names
in order to shield their identity, as they expressed fears that they
could be targeted by Israeli authorities. At the entrance to Duma,
nearly two dozen young men gathered on the road with heavy tree
branches, which they were prepared to wield as weapons, and flashlights.
Their work begins at 10pm and ends at 4am, before the first calls to
prayer. The night is split into two shifts to help those who have work
the next morning. But most participants come out all night, every night.
"We are all brothers; we can face the [Israelis]," said Mohammed, 27,
the leader of the patrol group. "If we are forced to fight, we will do
it. We will not stay and sleep in our houses." He admitted his
frustration with the Palestinian Authority, saying he wished they would
send a police force to assist them. The men on watch are all volunteers,
and most have jobs or university studies during the day.
https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/west-bank-watchmen-guard-israeli-intruders-074800675.html Gaza News photo: 'What was I burned for?'
[with photo] 28 Aug -- "What was I burned for? Where is my family” were
the very first words mumbled by four-year-old victim of an Israeli
arson attack,
Ahmad Sa‘ad Dawabsheh, after his health status has
seen a slight improvement. Ahmad’s brother, an 18-month toddler, was
burned to death after Israeli vandals set fire to their family home in
Duma. His father succumbed to his wounds few days later in the Soroka
hospital in Beersheba. “What was I burned for? Why am I held in this
bed?” Ahmad asked his grandfather. “Ahmad keeps asking me to contact his
father to take him back home from the hospital,” Ahmad’s grandfather
said . . . Both Ahmad and his mother underwent skin grafting surgery.
Medics said their health status is still critical despite the slight
improvements in Ahmad’s health.
https://www.facebook.com/GazaNewsPalestine/photos/a.1576843229196893.1073741828.1576497349231481/1643066069241275/?type=1 Al-Aqsa [Allegedly] Israel restricts access to Aqsa to establish 'daily Jewish prayer'
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 30 Aug -- The Palestinian Authority Ministry of
Endowment said Sunday that Israel is imposing severe restrictions on
Palestinian entry to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in a bid to initiate a
daily schedule for Jewish prayer at the holy site. The allegation, which
echoes concerns expressed by Palestinian worshipers and the PA Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, came as restrictions for Palestinian worshipers to
the compound ran into the second consecutive week. Israeli officers
inspected all Palestinian men entering the compound and denied entry to a
number of men below the age of 40, worshipers said. They added that
many others were asked to leave their identity cards at Israeli
checkpoints outside entry gates. Meanwhile, around 30 right-wing Jews
were allowed into the compound through the Moroccan gate under heavily
Israeli police escort, worshipers told Ma‘an. The Moroccan gate is
typically used by non-Muslims to enter the Aqsa compound who are allowed
inside during designated times of the day. While non-Muslims are
allowed inside, non-Muslim prayer is banned and worshipers say that
recently the gate has been designated for use almost entirely by
extremist Jewish groups heading to pray in the compound. The director of
the Ministry of Endowment's Jerusalem office, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani,
condemned the "daily occurrence in the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque," saying that
all Palestinian women were being denied entry to the compound before 11
a.m . . . Ihad Sabri, the headmistress of Al-Aqsa's religious school,
said that Israeli police officers were continuing to impede the entry of
schoolgirls and faculty members to the holy site. "Israeli police
temperamentally decide when and how to allow schoolgirls and teachers to
their school inside al-Aqsa compound," she said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767337 Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah discuss flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque
AMMAN (Ma‘an) 30 Aug -- President Mahmoud Abbas met on Sunday with King
Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman to discuss recent tensions at the
flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque as well as regional issues.Abbas briefed
Abdullah on his latest meetings with international and regional leaders
that allegedly aimed to revive the peace process.The Palestinian
president told Abdullah about the current situation in Jerusalem, and
the Jordanian role in protecting the city and its holy sites was
discussed between the two . . . . Jordan has custodianship over the
Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem -- which is holy to both Jews and
Muslims -- and other Muslim holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem, which
the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. The
custodianship is enshrined in the peace treaty that the Hashemite
Kingdom signed with Israel in 1994. Amman is also seen as a key player
in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and King Abdullah II has repeatedly
called on Israel to end "its unilateral action and repeated attacks"
against Jerusalem's holy sites.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767344 Prisoners Israel issues actual imprisonment sentences against five Palestinians, imposes fines
RAMALLAH (WAFA) 30 Aug – The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC) Sunday
reported that different Israeli military courts have issued actual
imprisonment sentences against five Palestinian detainees and imposed
fines on them. In a press statement, PPC said the courts sentenced Qadri
Bsharat, from Tubas, to 30 months in jail, while Mohammed Sleem, from
Qalqilia, received a 28-month sentence. Both prisoners were fined about
$1000. Meanwhile, prisoner Abd al-Ellah Sabha, from Tubas, received an
11-month sentence and a $1250 fine, whereas Hamza Radaydeh, from
Bethlehem, was sentenced to two months and to pay a fine of around $500.
In the meantime, Israeli military courts renewed the detention orders
of around 43 prisoners under the pretext of finishing investigations and
judicial proceedings.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=29207 'What's the number of your room, child?' +972 Blog 29 Aug by Sawsan Khalife‘ --
Attacking
and imprisoning Palestinian children has shaped Palestinian generations
for decades. The more rights-deprived the childhood, the more hungry
for freedom adulthood will be -- . . . While watching the child
[Muhammad Basim Tamimi] running from the soldier and crying for help, I
couldn’t help but wonder whether he knew what would happen to him if he
were arrested. I wondered whether there is a room for children in the
West Bank similar to “Room Number 4,” which Palestinian children in East
Jerusalem know all too well. It would be surprising to find a child, or
even an adult, in East Jerusalem who is not familiar with “Room Number
4.” This is the name of the interrogation room in Jerusalem’s police
station in the Russian compound neighborhood, where Palestinian
residents, including children, are interrogated. While hundreds of
children are arrested annually, it is the conditions they undergo during
their arrest and interrogation that represents possibly the most severe
violation, under both Israeli and international law. The name of the
room comes from the Israeli interrogators who ask the children about to
be interrogated, “Do you know why we call this room ‘Room Number 4′?
Because when we are done with you Arabs you will crawl out of this room
on all fours, like babies.” Nearly two years ago local activists
launched a campaign called
“Room number 4”,
aiming to raise awareness of child abuse at the hands of Israeli police
forces in East Jerusalem. The website they established serves as a
platform for many testimonies of Palestinian children, and provides
reports from the Madaa Center in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of
Silwan. Using interviews with children between the ages of seven and 17
and their testimonies, as well as statistics, the Madaa Center
initiative shows the impact of the arrests and detentions. According to
the report, 63 percent of detained children are denied food, water and
access to the restroom during interrogation. “I was thirsty and hungry.
When I asked to go to the toilet they told me to pee in my jeans,” said
one eight-year-old child.
http://972mag.com/whats-the-number-of-your-room-child/111140/ 5 Palestinian detainees continue hunger strike
IMEMC/Agencies 29 Aug -- Five Palestinian detainees in the Israeli
Nafha prison have been on an open-ended hunger strike for seven days in
protest of their administrative detention without charge or trial,
according to a Detainees and Ex-detainees Committee attorney. The
detainees are Nedal Abu ‘Akr, 45, Shadi Ma‘ali, 39, Ghassan Zawahra, 32,
Bader al-Ruzza, and Munir Abu Sharar, according to WAFA correspondence.
Fadi ‘Ubeidat, an attorney representing the Detainees and Ex-detainees
Committee, said that the detainees gave the Israeli Prison Service (IPS)
until September 1 to respond to their demand to end their
administrative detention. It said that if the prison administration
failed to meet their demand, they would stop taking liquids as well.
Nedal Abu ‘Aker, who has been held in administrative detention since 28
June 2014, said that he together with the four other detainees would
boycott Israeli courts, for holding false unjust trials. Having no
access to evidence that led to their detention, Abu ‘Aker said that
these pieces of evidence are merely malicious files.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72835 Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlements Israeli company surveys land in Hebron for settlements' road expansion
HEBRON (WAFA) 30 Aug – An Israeli land surveying company Sunday
surveyed tracts of land adjacent to Hebron-Jerusalem highway 60, and
belonging to several local Palestinian families, said a farmer from
Hebron who witnessed the Israeli company begin surveying works. Atta
Jaber, a local Palestinian farmer, told WAFA the company was surveying
Palestinian private-owned lands at a 12-meter-depth from both sides of
the road, just to the outside of
Beit Enoun
junction. According to WAFA’s correspondent, the company which is yet
to be identified is most likely surveying land to expand the
Hebron-Jerusalem highway 60 starting from the Beit Enoun junction all
the way to al-Baq‘a area, in which the Jaber family has few dunums of
land. Jaber said the lands being surveyed, including al-Baq‘a, are the
most fertile in the area and are planted with thousands of grape trees.
The witnesses said if the land in question was confiscated, they would
be seized for the benefit of illegal Israeli settlers who use the road
to move between the southern illegal settlements. [See
2011 ISM story on this family and their land]
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=29204 Israeli drilling endangers Bethlehem area village IMEMC/Agencies 30 Aug -- Ongoing Israeli drilling works, including detonation of rocks, near the village of
Wadi Fukin,
to the west of Bethlehem, may put the lives of nearby Palestinians at
risk, according to village mayor Ahmad Sukkar. Sukkar said recently that
renewed drilling work by the Israeli authorities in the area also
involve the use of heavy explosives to detonate rocks. This, according
to him, has put the lives of many Palestinians as well as their
properties and homes at risk, as a great amount of stone shrapnel
splattered and fell near homes during detonation of rocks. According to
WAFA, the mayor also said that detonations work have badly affected
water resources in and outside the village, and the outcomes are much
worse given the nature of the village and the fact it relies heavily on
agriculture. The village is just close to
Beitar Illit illegal
settlement, one of the largest and most rapidly growing Israeli
settlements in the West Bank. The settlement was established in 1984 on
the lands of the Palestinian village of
Husan.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72846 Twilight Zone: Israel leaves 80 children at mercy of August sun / Gideon Levy & Alex Levac Haaretz 29 Aug --
In one of its more widespread acts of demolition, the Civil
Administration last week left 127 men, women and children without
shelter in 42-degree-Celsius heat -- Hudeifa crawls across the
barren, rocky ground. She’s receding into the distance. Every so often,
her father goes after her and brings her back to the only bit of shade
in view, under the only tree in the area. Sometimes he even ties her leg
to the tree trunk, to keep her from crawling away again. The 1-year-old
baby is covered in dust from head to foot. She no longer has a home, a
roof, not even a tent. Nor does her father, Ali Hussein Abdullah. Or any
of the 24 members of her family, some of whom are also sheltering in
the shade of the tree, along with chickens that survived the raid. They
have nowhere else to go. Since personnel from the Civil Administration –
Israel’s governing body in the West Bank – left their property in ruins
last week, they no longer have a home, not even a tent, not even a
water container. They sleep on this hard, rocky ground, under the tree
. It
was hot this week in the Jordan Rift; 42 degrees Celsius. But last
week, when administration forces arrived to demolish and destroy, the
valley was broiling hot. That was of no interest to the troops: They
were just doing their job . . And here’s the result: Hudeifa crawling
across the sand under the blazing August sun of the Jordan Rift. A sweet
baby who likes to suck her thumb, she has actually been homeless for
more than a week. She’s one of 127 people suffering the same plight, 80
of them children and infants, in the two sites of last week’s
devastation – in the Jordan Rift and next to the West Bank settlement of
Ma’aleh Adumim, close to Jerusalem. Not by chance, of course: These are
two of the three sites of Israel’s ethnic-cleansing efforts (the third
is in the South Hebron Hills). These sites are meant to be annexed to
Israel one day, to come under its sovereignty; until then, they need to
be made ready, cleaned out. The Bedouin population in these areas is the
weakest link, so naturally, they were chosen by the administration to
bear the brunt of its malicious abuse. (Cont.)
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.673301 Israel's destruction of Mamilla cemetery part of effort to remove Palestine from Jerusalem
Mondoweiss 27 Aug by Pablo Castellani & Chiara Cruciati -- Mamilla
cemetery does not exist anymore. What exists now is a hotel, a school, a
parking lot, a public garden, a nightclub and the US consulate. Also a
museum to celebrate tolerance. But the meaning of tolerance in West
Jerusalem, a few steps away from the Old City, is surreal -- to build
the story of a new Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities are erasing its
past. Mamilla cemetery is a prominent cornerstone of the Arab, Islamic
and Palestinian identity of the city. But today it’s a forgotten place.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the Israeli government has
worked to remove the graveyard from the heart of West Jerusalem. “In
1948, the year of
Nakba, the catastrophe of the Palestinian
people, the upper part was immediately transformed into a public park,
renamed ‘Independence Park’, aimed at celebrating the victory in the ’48
war. They created the garden, uprooting and removing dozens of ancient
tombs.” explains Nader Dajani as he walks between what remains of the
cemetery of his ancestors. The Dajani family is one of the most ancient
and wealthy families in Palestine, several of its members are buried in
Mamilla . . . Today, the graveyard has almost disappeared. A few ancient
tombstones are relegated into the lower part, covered by grass and
trash. It’s not easy to estimate how many gravestones were located there
but, according to an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, at
least 1,500 tombs were removed by bulldozers and the human remains just
thrown away. “The Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have to ask the
Israeli State for the permission to clean and take care of the
cemetery,” Dajani says.
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/destruction-palestine-jerusalem Why a pro-settler group wants to talk about Isis Haokets 28 Aug by Yonathan Mizrachi --
An
Israeli group working in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan is
presenting ISIS destruction of antiquities as a cautionary tale for its
own struggle with Palestinians -- . . . After construction
undertaken by the Islamic Waqf led to the destruction of antiquities on
the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif in the 1990s, it was Elad which
invested funds and acted to sift the debris dumped into the Kidron
Valley. To this day, it is one of the key projects that Elad finances
and operates in East Jerusalem. But this activity, presented as an
attempt to rescue the antiquities of the Temple Mount, has
no archeological value
and its importance is primarily educational and political, both in
terms of having archaeologists engaged in sifting through the dirt, and
with its links to settlers in East Jerusalem. The message is clear:
Muslims aims to destroy antiquities and Israel intervenes to prevent
such atrocities . . . While archaeological research has long disregarded
many of the methods used in past centuries, in Jerusalem, the
Elad-funded Israel Antiquities Authority still considers them as
legitimate tools in Silwan and in the Old City. For example, in the
Givati Parking Lot excavations, the IAA removed Muslim layers, and
excavated using tunnels and in underground spaces -- methods that
destroy antiquities and have been discontinued a century ago. . . . ISIS
and right-wing organizations in Israel and the West are using
archaeology for the same purpose -- to distinguish themselves from
others and to portray a division between ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ In
conservative circles in the West that see Islam as a threat, the shock
from the destruction of antiquities is related to the perception of the
gap between the two cultures. It is easy to forget that the Palestinians
are not ISIS, that Elad is not a protector of antiquities as it
presents itself to be, and that Jerusalem is a city whose heritage is
shared. No matter how many ancient sites are being destroyed in the war
in Syria or Iraq, it is here in Jerusalem where joint preservation of
the relics of the past will ensure the future of those places and our
ability to respect and accept one other.
http://972mag.com/why-a-pro-settler-group-discusses-isis-destructions-of-antiquities/111089/ Hebron Palestinians protest settlers' seizure of hospital
MEMO 30 Aug -- Dozens of Palestinians staged demonstrations on Saturday
outside the Al-Baraka hospital complex in the southern West Bank city
of Hebron (Al-Khalil) to protest the occupation of the premises by
Jewish settlers. The demonstrations, which included a number of
Palestinian Christians, were organized by local popular resistance
committees. “Palestinians will never accept Israel's policy of illegal
Jewish settlement,” Fr. Attallah Hanaa, a Palestinian Christian
clergyman who participated in the protest, told
Anadolu Agency.
“We will always reject Israel's seizure of Islamic and Christian
institutions,” he said. “We are of this land; it is our home, our
history, our identity,” the priest added. “And we will never surrender
it to the Israeli occupiers.” According to Israeli daily
Haaretz,
the settlers claim to have purchased the hospital complex from a
U.S.-based Christian NGO through a Swedish firm that served as
middleman. Located near the Al-Aarub refugee camp, the hospital complex
sits on 40 dunums of land and comprises eight buildings (a dunum is
roughly equivalent to one acre). Since its establishment in the 1940s
until its closure some four decades later, the hospital had provided
free services to Palestinians who suffered from tuberculosis. According
to Palestinian residents of the area, Israel plans to build a new
Jewish-only settlement on the site, which sits adjacent to thousands of
dunums of agricultural land.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/20717-hebron-palestinians-protest-settlers-seizure-of-hospital Israel to remove Jordan Valley settlers farming private Palestinian land Haaretz 30 Aug by Chaim Levinson --
Haaretz exposé prompted High Court petition over allocation of land to settlers -- The
Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration is planning to evacuate
settlers from more than 5,000 dunams (1,250 acres) of private
Palestinian farmlands in the Jordan Valley, Haaretz has learned. In
recent weeks a Civil Administration team has begun negotiating with the
settlers on the compensation they would be paid for their evacuation.
The settlers have been farming the lands in question, located between
the border fence and the actual border with Jordan, since the 1990s. The
lands’ owners fled in 1967 and the entire area was closed to
Palestinians in 1969, when Israel declared it a military zone. Until
1994, the area was completely abandoned, including the ancient churches
in the area, because of a large number of minefields in the region. At
the beginning of the 1980s, the government decided to encourage farmers
to work the fields in the area to create a buffer zone along the border
and prevent infiltration from Jordan. However, the government also
banned farming the privately owned Palestinian lands. In January 2013
Haaretz reported that the World Zionist Organization’s settlement
division, which had received the lands from the state, had leased the
land to Jewish farmers in the Jordan Valley, after an assistant to the
defense minister revoked the state’s decision not to farm them. The
original owners, some of whom returned to the West Bank after the 1993
Oslo Accords signing and the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan, are still
not allowed to access the land because of a military order preventing
them from entering the border area. Following Haaretz’s exposé in
January 2013 of the allocation of the lands to the settlers, some of the
owners petitioned the High Court of Justice and asked for their land
back.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.673527 Gaza Al-Qassam announces death of a fighter in tunnel accident
IMEMC 30 Aug -- The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has reported that one of its
fighters was killed, Saturday, in a tunnel accident, in Khan Younis, in
the southern part of the Gaza Strip. On its webpage, the al-Qassam said
Anwar Faraj Abu al-Ghalban,
23 years of age, died while working in a tunnel, and that the slain
fighter is from Khan Younis city. The Brigades said it will continue its
operations and activities, including digging siege-busting tunnels, and
military training, until ending the Israeli occupation, and the
liberation of Palestine. Dozens of fighters, and tunnel workers, have
been killed in similar accidents, while many were killed after the
Israeli army bombarded tunnel areas as they were working in them. Many
Palestinians in Gaza, not affiliated with the armed resistance, work in
tunnels to provide food to their families due to the deadly Israeli
siege on the coastal region.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72839 IOF open fire at Gaza's fishermen
GAZA CITY (Alresalah.ps) 31 Aug -- Israeli naval gunboats opened heavy
fire Sunday at the Palestinian fishing boats off the coasts of the
northern Gaza Strip. Israeli gunboats targeted the Palestinian fishermen
off the coasts of Beit Lahia City, situated in the north of the Gaza
Strip, sources said. No injuries were reported. Israeli navy also
targeted Palestinian fishing boats off the coasts of Central Gaza Strip,
sources added.
http://english.alresalah.ps/en/post.php?id=4806 IOF open fire at Palestinian farmers in Khan Younis City
GAZA CITY (Alresalah.ps) 31 Aug -- Israeli tanks, on Monday, opened
fire at Palestinians on the eastern borders of Khan Younis City, south
of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli forces opened fire at the farmers and
houses situated in the east of Khuza‘a village, locals said. No injuries
were reported.
http://english.alresalah.ps/en/post.php?id=4809 More children to work as Gaza siege forces families out of jobs GAZA (Channel NewsAsia) 30 Aug by Halla Alsafadi --
In Gaza, more than 65,000 children between the ages of 7-14 work to support their family -- For
many impoverished families living in the Gaza Strip, the sole
breadwinner of the family is usually not yet ten years old. Years of
Israeli occupation and an increasingly deteriorating economic situation
have resulted in thousands of children quitting school to help support
their families. For many children, the few cents they bring home from
selling chewing gum, cigarette lighters and tissues is sometimes the
only income their families will receive. Mohammed is one of these
children. He works up to ten hours a day, for less than six dollars. He
misses school and wants to go back as soon as his father finds a job. He
and his brother Saleh sell shoes in the local market. “I have been
working for a year so that I can buy food for my family,” said Mohammed
Alzaharna. “We need money to bring food for the house. There is no
market, no work, no borders. They need money at home because we have
kids and adults who need to spend money for their university.” Thousands
of Gaza children have dropped out of school to help their family.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/more-children-to-work-as/2086186.html A year ago, a cease-fire was announced in Gaza. But this boy's life had already changed forever.
HuffPost 28 Aug by Mohammer Omer --
Thaeer
Juda's mother, sisters and brothers passed away a year ago. That day a
cease-fire was announced in Gaza. After 50 days of fighting some 1,800 children had become orphans, according to Euro-Mid Observers for Human Rights. Below is an excerpt from my book, "Shell-Shocked: On the Ground Under Israel's Gaza Assault" based on my experience reporting from Gaza on this day. JABALYA
Refugee Camp, Northern Gaza -- As shouts of celebration about the
cease-fire ring out across Gaza, 10-year-old Thaeer Juda lies in Gaza's
Shifa hospital ICU unit. He's badly injured and has had his right leg
and some of his right fingers amputated. His left side is only
marginally better off. His hands have been shattered, while his face and
chest have been pocked by shrapnel that ripped through his little body
after an Israeli strike. Thaeer will survive, but will have to do so
without many of the loved ones he expected to know for the rest of his
life. He doesn't know what happened to his mother, Rawia, or his two
sisters, Tasnim and Taghreed, nor his brothers Osama and Mohammed. But
they are all gone -- killed in one foul swoop by the same Israeli strike
that landed Thaeer in hospital and will keep him there, long after the
"victory" cries outside have died down.Disaster struck this family just
before sunset, on a very hot August night.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohammed-omer/gaza-cease-fire-anniversary-juda_b_8055978.html Hamas releases new details of Israel's 'Black Friday' massacre
MEE 29 Aug -- Al-Jazeera has aired a new documentary called “Black Box”
that sheds new light on the events that took place on Black Friday in
Rafah, south of the Gaza strip this past summer. Described by an Amnesty
International report as a day of “
carnage”,
Black Friday, or 1 August, was supposed to be the first day of a
72-hour ceasefire between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed
factions. Israeli media reported that three soldiers were killed during a
tunnel kidnapping attempt by Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam
Brigades. The response was a massacre of over 100 Palestinians, over
half of them children. The documentary airs never-before-seen interviews
with Hamas commanders, who claim that the Israeli army arrived at the
scene of the ambush and recovered three bodies. Two were Israeli
soldiers. The documentary revealed the new information that Hamas
confirmed one year later: one of the bodies was a member of the Qassam
Brigades, Walid Tawfiq Massoud, dressed in the Israeli army uniform. The
Israeli media reported that Hamas had breached the ceasefire by
attempting to capture an Israeli soldier, 2
nd Lt. Hadar
Goldin, in Rafah after the ceasefire took hold. However, Hamas
commanders told Al Jazeera that Goldin was grabbed at 7:30am - half an
hour before the ceasefire was due to begin at 8am. The Israeli army
claimed the incident took place at 9:30am, and corroborated the media's
original claims on breaching the ceasefire. Yet if what the Hamas
commanders claim is true, that would mean that Israel began the
“Hannibal Directive” - a controversial and secretive procedure used to
force the release of any captured solider through any means necessary -
even if that entails injuring the captured soldier. The army bombarded
the tunnel and the rest of Rafah two hours after the soldier was seized,
meaning that Hamas could have very well taken him alive. (Cont.)
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/new-documentary-reveals-details-black-friday-events-gaza-last-year-2140326158 Gaza footballers play in West Bank after 15-year ban
HEBRON, West Bank (Gulf News) 29 Aug by Mel Frykberg -- “It was a dream
come true to see Jerusalem and our holy and beautiful Al Aqsa Mosque,”
said Mustafa Al Dawer from Shujaiyeh in Gaza City. “This was my first
trip to the West Bank. When we crossed from Gaza, through the Erez
border post, into pre-1948 Palestine, the team was so excited. I was
crying and smiling at the same time,” Al Dawer, an anaesthetic
technician from Gaza’s European Hospital, told Gulf News. What would
have been an ordinary event in any other country took on enormous
significance for Palestine football. The ability to travel freely around
their country. Under enormous international pressure the Israeli regime
finally allowed Gaza’s Ittihad Al Shujaiyeh team to travel to the West
Bank to take part in the Palestine Cup football final on August 15
against Ahli Al Khalil in Hebron . . . Al Dawar found walking around
occupied Jerusalem’s old city invigorating. “The sights, smells and
sounds, and seeing people from all around the world were something I
will never forget,” said Al Dawar. The boys also made comparisons
between the West Bank, ruled by the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian
Authority (PA), and Gaza under the rule of the Islamist organisation
Hamas. “I found the West Bank more beautiful than Gaza,” said Madi. Al
Dawar said he noticed the strong differences between the accents of
Gazans and West Bankers. “The weather in the West Bank is better and the
houses are also bigger and better than most of the homes in Gaza,” Al
Boab told Gulf News. “The food in Gaza is better and we have more
freedom because we don’t have Israeli colonists living there and
harassing and attacking us all the time like they do in the West Bank.”
http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/palestine/gaza-footballers-play-in-west-bank-after-15-year-ban-1.1571898 Gazan brothers reflect dreams with rap music
Daily Sabah 31 Aug -- Two Gazan brothers, Muhammad es-Susi and Usame
es-Susi, have formed a rap group, "Revolutionists," to reflect their
hopes and ideals for the future through music. Muhammad, 22, and Usame,
20, have spent their transition period from childhood to adolescence
under the Israeli blockade. Starting to compose their songs a few years
ago, the two brothers have created 15 songs so far. "I decided to form a
music band with my brother after five years of the Israeli blockade.
Our songs depict the world's greatest open-air prison, Gaza, the youth's
dreams and hopes as well as the social and political problems of
Palestinians," Muhammad said, adding that the songs explain their daily
troubles. "Gaza is a very productive place for writing songs if you
consider problems and concerns that add to our lives every single day,"
he further said. Muhammad stressed that Gazans do not criticize their
music even though they perform rap, a music style that is not well-known
in Gaza. "Rap music is recognized in the country. The problem is for
which purpose you perform music.
http://www.dailysabah.com/life/2015/08/31/gazan-brothers-reflect-dreams-with-rap-music New Hamas video boasts of reconstructed tunnels
Ynet 27 Aug by Roi Kais -- Hamas showcased its recovered tunnels unit
in a video released on Thursday, a year after the end of Operation
Protective Edge, during which the IDF destroyed a large part of the
tunnel infrastructure in the Gaza Strip . . . Hamas is attempting to
show that it has managed to rebuild the tunnels that were destroyed in
last summer's operation. A recent IDF assessment said Hamas' commando
unit is now better trained and equipped with the most advanced
equipment.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4695231,00.html Other news Palestine remembers prominent political cartoonist Naji Al-Ali RAMALLAH (WAFA) 28 Aug – Today, August 29, 2015, marks the 28
th
anniversary of the assassination of renowned Palestinian cartoonist
Naji Al-Ali, who was known for his honesty and dedication to truth he
showed in his work. Born and raised in Ash-Shajara village near Nazareth
in 1937, Naji Al-Ali was a victim of the Nakba (catastrophe) which took
place in April 1948. He, along with his family, were among the 750,000
Palestinians who were forcefully displaced by Israeli troops from their
homes to Ein Al-Hilweh Refugee Camp in south Lebanon, where he started
his artistic career during the late 1950s. He was frequently detained
and censored for his political activism and used to draw on the walls of
his cells . . . During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Al-Ali
was forced to leave his home again, but this time on ships filled with
hundreds of Palestinian fighters. After several years of displacement,
he finally settled back in Kuwait, where he found work with the
prominent Arab daily, Al-Qabbas. In 1983 he worked in Al Qabas’ branch
in London. It was his last move before his death in 1987. On Wednesday
22 July 1987, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali was shot by an unknown
gunman outside his office at the Al-Qabas Kuwaiti newspaper in southwest
London. After five weeks in a coma on a life support machine at a
London hospital, Naji al-Ali passed away on Saturday, August 30, 1987 at
the age of 49. Naji Al-Ali produced over 40,000 illustrative, sarcastic
and poignant cartoons, most of which illustrate symbols of the
occupation and resistance. His most famous illustrated character is
Handala,
a barefoot little boy who turned his back to the world and became an
icon of Palestinian resistance. He published three books on his cartoons
in 1976, 1983 and 1985 and was working on another book at the time of
his death.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=29197 Video: A West Bank town's fragile rebirth 28 Aug --
FRANCE 24’s correspondents returned to Jenin,
in the northern West Bank, thirteen years after Ariel Sharon launched
"Operation Defensive Shield", which devastated the city. On March
29, 2002, Ariel Sharon’s government launched "Operation Defensive
Shield" in several West Bank towns, two days after a suicide bombing
killed 29 Israelis. 2002 was the deadliest year of the second Intifada.
Israel was subjected to frequent bombings and so the Israeli army decided to invade
the Palestinian Territories.
Over eight days, it shelled whole areas of the Jenin refugee camp in
the northern West Bank. For Israel, Jenin is the "capital of terrorism";
for Palestinians, it is "a symbol of Palestinian resistance." The
Israeli air force and infantry faced 100 armed men. As was often in this
conflict, civilians were caught in the crossfire. And still to this
day, no one can agree on the death toll from the eight-day operation.
The Palestinians call it a massacre, pointing to the hundreds of dead
and wounded. The Israeli army, however, minimised these figures and
claimed it only targeted Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigade. TV cameras from across the world showed the devastation: houses
flattened by bulldozers and missiles. The UN promised an investigation,
but to date the conclusions have still not been published. Jenin will
never forget the events of 2002. Moreover, the Israeli army is never far
away and its soldiers regularly make incursions. Even though
businesses, shops, malls, and upscale restaurants have sprung up across
the city, the memory of the "martyrs" lives. [Read this about the
bulldozer driver if this event was before your time:
Israeli
Army bulldozer driver Moshe Nissim, also known as “Kurdi Bear,” did
enjoy his work in Jenin camp, fortified by an arsenal of alcohol.] http://www.france24.com/en/20150828-video-jenin-revisited-israel-palestinian-territories-operation-defensive-shield 'The Wanted 18': Palestinian animation film nominated for Oscar award MEE 30 Aug --
A
documentary about 18 cows wanted by the Israeli army during the first
intifada has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Award --
The Oscar-nominated film, directed by Palestinian Amer Shomali and
Canadian Pal Cowan, tells the story of 18 cows that were hunted down by
the Israeli army during the first intifada. The documentary
distinguishes itself by using a combination of animation, interviews,
and reenactments to tell the story of the cows, who were used for
“independent milk production” on a Palestinian collective farm at the
height of the boycott of Israeli products. In the film Israel considered
the cows to be a “threat to the national security of the state of
Israel.” Shomali, a cartoonist, spoke of how “terrifying” it was to tell
a story from the grim intifada days in a humorous way. “Humour is part
of the way I see things,” he once said in an
interview. “I believe that a nation that can’t make fun of its own wounds will never be able to heal them.”
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/wanted-18-palestinian-animation-film-nominated-oscar-award-833234286 Palestinian brothers look to tap into West Bank beer market
Al-Monitor 27 Aug by Miriam Berger -- Alaa Sayej knows it's a tough
time to invest in “Made in Palestine” products. Formal talks to end the
Israeli occupation are dormant, while the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,
the longstanding contours of a promised Palestinian state, are as
divided as ever. International movements to boycott Israeli companies
are growing, but for Palestinians on the ground, creating their own
local alternatives remains an uphill battle. Still, business-minded
Sayej said he has just what Palestine needs: a new brewery. The new
Birzeit Brewery started selling its signature line, called
Shepherds Beer,
in July. The brewery was conceived, funded, owned and run by the Sayej
family. They are wealthy Christians from Birzeit, a town north of
Ramallah, the West Bank's political and economic center. Sayej, the
eldest of three brothers, said the idea seemed simple: Produce
distinctively Palestinian beer that people can enjoy locally. “A beer a
day keeps the problems away, Palestine,” goes one of the brewery’s
slogans. Already, Sayej said, the brewery is gaining a legion of loyal
drinkers. It’s also a gamble against long odds, Sayej admitted. The
Israeli occupation makes the movement of people and products a very
costly and at times dangerous process.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/08/palestine-new-beer-brewery-birzeit.html Bedouin town rewrites the rules by developing infrastructure and business Haaretz 28 Aug by Meirav Arlosoroff -- Led by a dynamic PhD chemist, the Negev town of
Hura
scores high on the socioeconomic scale. 'Instead of whining, we need to
see how we change the facts,' he says -- Driving around southern
Israel, you can’t help but notice differences between the Jewish and
Bedouin towns. The Bedouin towns, recognized and otherwise, have dirt
roads, illegal construction, donkeys and horses wandering about. The
Jewish towns have paved roads, legal homes, no donkeys and no horses.
They do have swimming pools, though. From 2011 to 2014, according to the
group Beterem Safe Kids, 47 children drowned in Israel, half of them
Arab -- which is way beyond the Arabs’ 20% share of the population. When
children who almost drowned are added to the list, the number shoots up
to 66%, clear evidence that too many of them don’t know how to swim.
And that, in turn, is because few Arab towns have a swimming pool --
probably less than 10 in all Israel. All are in the north, and none are
in the Bedouin areas in the south, where 200,000 people live. This
zero-swimming-pools statistic symbolizes the discrimination against the
Negev Bedouin. And they have little access to swimming pools in Jewish
towns, whether because of cost or modesty — women and men swim together.
So the state, which seeks to eradicate this inequality, tried to build
the first Bedouin pool as part of a modern country club. For purpose it
turned to Muhammad Al-Nabari, chairman of the Hura municipal council.
Hura is a town east of Be’er Sheva with 18,000 residents.
http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.673344 Campaign for Palestinian refugee selling pens in Beirut goes viral
MEMO 29 Aug -- An internet campaign to raise funds for a Palestinian
refugee filmed selling pens in Beirut with his daughter asleep on his
shoulder has raised more than $100,000 within hours. The campaign went
viral on its first day. Abdul Halim Attar, who fled from the Syrian
regime’s bombardment of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the
outskirts of Damascus, started selling pens in order to feed himself and
his two children, Abdelillah, aged 9, and his daughter Reem, aged 4. An
Icelandic man who helps to run Conflict News and a Lebanese broadcaster
Tweeted Attar’s image hoping to raise just $5,000 to help him start a
new life. At the time of writing the crowdfunding campaign has raised a
staggering $114,000 and is still climbing.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/20709-campaign-for-palestinian-refugee-selling-pens-in-beirut-goes-viral Why are Jerusalem's residents leaving? Israel Hayom 28 Aug by Nadav Shragai --
A
new study reveals that it is not just secular residents of the capital
who are leaving in droves, but also the religious and the
ultra-Orthodox, all of them for one major reason -- and it is not
terrorism or the Shabbat wars -- . . . The departing
Jerusalemites -- some 18,000 people annually (and some 320,000 in total
over the last two decades) -- are not troubled by whether or not the
local movie theater is open for business on Shabbat. The disconcerting
terrorist attacks around the capital are also not the culprit. The real
reason for the mass exodus is far more prosaic, and it is not at all
exclusive to Jerusalem: a severe shortage in available housing. In
Jerusalem, this shortage is particularly serious. Over the last decade,
only 2,000 new housing units have been built every year (according to
the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies), while annual demand is
around 4,000 to 4,500. The Shabbat wars and terrorism may generate
headlines, but the key factor driving Jerusalemites out of the city is
the lack of housing, which has driven housing prices in the city
sky-high . . .
The second most cited reason for leaving
was trouble finding work -- cited by 20% of the secular population, 11%
of the religious population and 4% of the ultra-Orthodox population.
(cont.)
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=27901 Former Israeli president Peres to meet with Iranian peace activist I24News 30 Aug --
Daughter of prominent Iranian Ayatollah brings message of peace and economic cooperation to Israel --
Former Israeli President Shimon Peres will meet an Iranian peace
activist who arrived in Israel on a special visit to promote peace in
the Middle East on Monday, a statement from Peres' office said. Maryam
Faghih Imani, the daughter of Sayed Kamal Faghih Imani, a senior Iranian
Ayatollah, "came to Israel to convey a message of reconciliation and
dialogue among peoples," the statement reads. Imani and Peres will meet
at the Peres Center for Peace to discuss projects to promote peace
between nations in the Middle East, and the development of cross-border
initiatives. The meeting will also be attended by Iranian-born Israeli
singer Rita, whose 2012 album "All My Joys," which was also sung in
Persian, was popular in both Israel and Iran. Imani grew up playing
with the children of other prominent ayatollahs, including those of the
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and attended a
religious institution, where Israel was erased from all maps and there
was no mention of the Holocaust in any history books.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/83967-150830-former-israeli-president-peres-to-meet-with-iranian-peace-activist US industrial union votes to endorse BDS
Haaretz 30 Aug -- One of the more prominent industrial unions in the
U.S. voted to endorse the goals of the worldwide boycott, divestment and
sanction (BDS) movement against Israel, citing "its long history of
violating the human rights of the Palestinians," thus purportedly
becoming the first nationwide union to do so. The United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers' national convention met in Baltimore last
week and voted on a string of foreign and as well as domestic policy
issues, including the call to boycott Israel and support the nuclear
deal with Iran.
According to a statement on the UE's website, the
union voted in favor of the "Justice and Peace for the Peoples of
Palestine and Israel", and cited Israel’s sordid human rights record:
"starting with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48
that turned most of Palestine into the State of Israel." The move's
goal, the union said, was "to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over
the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end South African
apartheid in the 1980s." The union further called for the U.S. aid to
Israel to be cut off and expressed support for "the right to return."
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.673550 'Largest ever' Med gas field found off Egypt
CAIRO (AFP) 30 Aug -- Italian energy giant Eni on Sunday announced the
discovery of the "largest ever" offshore natural gas field in the
Mediterranean, in Egypt's territorial waters. The discovery, confirmed
by Egypt's oil ministry, could hold a potential 30 trillion cubic feet
(850 billion cubic metres) of gas in an area of about 100 square
kilometres (40 square miles), Eni said in a statement. "It's the largest
gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea and could
become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds," the firm said.
The so-called Zohr project discovery is expected to meet Egypt's own
natural gas demands for decades . . . "A find of this size should be
enough to cover a lot of Egypt's energy gap," Robin Mills, a Dubai-based
analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting, told Bloomberg News. "They'll
likely have to meet domestic needs first, before any export plans are
discussed. This will also put a damper on Israeli plans to export gas to
Egypt," he added.
http://news.yahoo.com/largest-ever-med-gas-field-found-off-egypt-143205171.html What did you do at work today, Dad? / Gideon Levy Haaretz 30 Aug --
Quite a few Israelis, whose number is rising alarmingly, may find it extremely difficult to answer the above question -- . . . What
will the Arad municipal inspector tell his children, after standing
last week at the entrance to the southern Israeli town and forcibly
preventing asylum seekers who had just been freed from prison – after
more than a year of detention without trial – from entering the town and
finding shelter? How would the inspector describe that work to his
children? Would he say, “I stood on the road and checked every car to
make sure no black person was hiding in it”? “I pulled every black man
out and sent him back to the desert”? I did it in the name of the law”?
A
law forbidding entrance to a city because of the color of one’s skin
has yet to be enacted in Israel. Security? That excuse, which always
justifies everything, doesn’t hold water this time. “Did you carry out
the mayor’s instructions?” “Yes.” “But Dad,” the child will ask, “will
you carry out every illegal order you get from the mayor? Is that what
you’re like? And what do you think of those who once treated the Jews
like that?”
. . . What will the Civil Administration inspector
tell his children, after destroying – in blistering temperatures – the
tents and tin shacks of 127 people, 80 of them children, who were left
without a roof over their head in the Jordan Rift and near Ma’aleh
Adumim last week? How will he explain his malicious behavior to his
children? His wickedness? His inhumanity? Clearly, without these
qualities, there is no way to carry out this filthy, heinous work –
destroying shabby homes and abandoning their inhabitants in this
terrible heat
. . . What did the Israel Prison Service guards who
stood watch in the room of hunger striker Khader Adnan tell their
children? Did they tell them they shackled him with his hand and leg to
the bed, even when his consciousness clouded over? How did they not feel
compassion for him, if only for a moment? Did they tell their kids
about the pizzas and shawarmas they ate in his room, and the sunflower
seeds they cracked in the face of a prisoner on his deathbed, the smell
of the food driving him crazy?
And what did the doctors of Assaf Harofeh Hospital, who kept mum and enabled all that to go on, tell their children?
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.673517 In an endless war on terror, we are all doomed to become Palestinians
MEE 29 Aug by Jonathan Cook -- For 18 years Jeff Halper has been on the
front lines of the Israel-Palestine conflict, helping to rebuild
Palestinian homes in the occupied territories demolished by Israel. As
he prepares to step down as head of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD), he is publishing a new book on Israel. Halper’s
main conclusion is disturbing. Israel, he says, is globalising
Palestine. The former anthropology professor’s wide-ranging research has
forced him into an expertise he is not entirely comfortable with: the
global arms industry. Halper argues that Israel is cashing in – both
financially and diplomatically – on systems of control it has developed
in the occupied territories. It is exporting its know-how to global
elites keen to protect their privileges from both external and internal
challengers. In a world supposedly mired in an endless war on terror, we
may all be facing a future as Palestinians. Halper’s book, entitled
War Against the People,
due out next month, suggests that Israel provides a unique window on
some of the most important recent developments in what he terms
"securocratic warfare."The book’s central thesis emerged as he tried to
understand why tiny Israel hits way beyond its weight economically,
politically and militarily. How does Israel have so much clout – not
only in the US and Europe but, more surprisingly in countries as diverse
as India, Brazil and China? None of the usual explanations – Holocaust
guilt, the power of lobbies, even the growth in Christian fundamentalism
– seemed to provide a complete answer . . . Today, Israel’s growing
influence, Halper claims, reflects its positioning of itself at the
heart of the rapidly burgeoning “global pacification” industry, advising
and assisting militaries, police forces and homeland security agencies
around the world. In the post-9/11 world, Israel is security king – or
“securityland”, as a leading Israeli analyst recently
described
it. And significantly, Israel is starting to parlay this usefulness
into wider political and diplomatic support, says Halper, even as the
international community grows exasperated by nearly 50 years of
occupation. Such backing, including from much of the Arab world, often
remains hidden from view . . . He describes the emergence of what he
calls the MISSILE complex: full-spectrum dominance by the US and its
allies through the joint activity of the military, internal security,
surveillance, intelligence and law enforcement. After decades of
controlling Palestinians under occupation, he notes, Israel is
unrivalled in all these spheres. It uses the occupied territories as a
giant laboratory for developing and testing new ideas, technology,
tactics and weaponry.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/endless-war-terror-we-are-all-doomed-become-palestinians-1441741137 --
www.Mondoweiss.net
