Dozens of diplomats and senior figures from across the Palestinian political spectrum joined hundreds of activists in the opening of the 6th International Bil’in Conference on Popular Resistance. Palestinian PM, Salam Fayyad, called for the international community to promote Palestinian self determination.

The 6th International Bil’in Conference on Popular Resistance opened today in a festive opening session participated by Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, the recently released protest organizer, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, Abbas Zackie of behalf of the PLO, and former Vice President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini.

During the opening session, Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad called on the international community to promote Palestinian self determination, saying that “The international community must be committed to promoting a Palestinian state withing the 1967 borders and supporting the planned deceleration of independence coming September”. He also called on the international community to protect and safeguard the Palestinian nonviolent resistance and specifically referred to the recent arrests of Bassem and Naji Tamimi of the Nabi Saleh popular committee.

More than 20 diplomats from around the world attended the opening, including Christian Berger, representative of the European commission and the Consul Generals of Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Poland and Austria. The US, France, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Ireland have also sent lower level diplomatic representation.

In a live video feed from the Gaza Port, Jaber Wishah of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, announced the launching of a naval peace team that will accompany Gazan fishermen and report on human rights violations as part of the Civil Peace Service Mission – Gaza. The project is supported by more than 50 international and local organizations, including the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.

The opening was followed by a panel on the needs and strategies of the Palestinian popular struggle, including the role of women and the influences of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.

Member - and former Vice President - of European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, detained by soldiers in Bil'in

23 July 2010

Israeli soldiers detained the former Vice President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, in Bil’in this afternoon, injured one Israeli activist., and arrested another.

Sixty nine-year-old Morgantini, an Italian Member of the Euopean Parliament (MEP) has long been an outspoken supporter of Palestinians. She has participated several times in demonstrations in Bil’in and in June 2008 was injured when Israeli soldiers attacked a group of non-violent activists.

Morgantini, who served as Vice President of the European Parliament between 2007 and 2009, today joined the people of the West Bank village in their weekly Friday protest, which began after midday prayers. She was among a group of about 100 internationals supporting the peaceful demonstrators. People were dancing, singing and shouting slogans, among others the flag of the European Union was held aloft by Morgantini’s 50-strong delegation.

Israeli soldiers starting firing tear gas about ten minutes after the demonstration reached the fence that has been built illegally and cuts off villagers from their land. They then chased the protestors and forcefully detained the politician who was held for approximately 30 minutes before being released when her identity became clear to soldiers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One Israeli activist, Kobi Snitz, was arrested while trying to speak to the army in order to secure Morgantini’s release. British activist Jody McIntyre was also detained temporarily. Another Israeli activist was hit with a tear gas canister suffered a head injury.

International media were present at this week's Bil'in protest

Nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Morgantini was awarded the 2008 Peacemaker Award by the Rebuilding Alliance, an US non-profit organization committed to promoting respect for human rights and international law. She is a leading member of the Italian peace movement and a champion of the Palestinian cause.

Many people suffered from tear gas inhalation and stun grenades thrown into the field caused a fire among the olive trees.

Today’s protest in Bil’in proves once again that the army is continuing its policy of harshly suppressing demonstrations and arresting non-violent protesters. The demonstration called for the release of prisoners, Adeeb Abu Rahma, Abdullah Abu Rahme, Ibrahim al-Bornat, and Ahmed al-Bornat – all Bil’in residents jailed by Israel for resisting the occupation.

19 July 2009

Israel wants to stop the non-violent struggle and the unity created amongst Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals, who since more than four years demonstrate in order to end the construction of the wall: in the last weeks the escalation of systematic arrests and kidnappings of activists in Bil’in by the Israeli soldiers.

Raids in the middle of the nights, with military vehicles crossing in the dark that illegal barrier represented by the Apartheid wall. Tens of armed soldiers laying close to the ground in order to not to be seen.

They proceed slowly, without lights, wearing dark military camouflage uniforms and black masks on their faces.

They arrive in the hearth of Bil’in crossing streets and fields. They surround houses destroying all that they meet on their path, kidnapping people, including 15 or 16 years old adolescents, confiscating documents, mobile phones and personal things of the detained persons. Also last Friday a 15-years-old boy has been abducted from his home at 3 a.m., and during the demonstration activists have been attacked with a strange sort of smelling water, probably containing chemical substances provoking blistering effects and with a suffocating smell.

This is the same scenario taking place also in other villages in the West Bank, but Bil’in has become a symbol: the village –where the shame wall confiscates 49% of lands- in the last weeks has become a theatre of a further intensification of this kind of operations, that are real war operations, perpetrated against the activists of the Popular Committee of non-violent resistance, men and women, civilians, who are resisting in a non-violent, peaceful and creative way against the wall and the occupation.

Often, the activists stand on the rooftops of the village, in order to forewarning the others of incoming of the raids that usually comprise of approximately 100 soldiers divided into groups of 20-30 men, each encircling the home of an accused stone-thrower at varying hours of the night. In the last three weeks, 17 young activists have been arrested -15 Palestinians, 1 Israeli, then released, and one American, according to what reported in a document by Miftah, the Palestinian Initiative for the promotion of Global dialogue and democracy, denouncing the escalation of violence in Bil’in.

I saw with my own eyes many and many wounded people during the demonstrations that every Friday take place near the construction site of the wall and during which the Israeli soldiers use sound bombs, tear gas canisters, and a foul-smelling chemical spray: I was many times intoxicated by those gas, while rubber-coated bullets were shot at men’s height.

On 19th April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahmah, 30 years old, a pacifist Palestinian demonstrator, was shot in the chest by an Israeli soldier with a tear gas bomb during one of Bil’in’s nonviolent Friday protests: an use clearly excessive and inhuman of the force against unarmed demonstrators.

The week after the murder of Bassem, I have been many times in Bil’in with the Popular Committee. Together we have protested and built a symbolic grave in the place where he was killed.

We did under the fire of tear gas canisters and when we finished it, putting the memorial tablet with the name of Bassem, we were so happy. What a paradox to be happy for the construction of a grave!

In their attempts to dismantle the movement, the Israeli military specifically targets the youth: from 23rd to 25th 2009, four adolescents, 16-17 years old, have been arrested and forced to release the names of peace activists and information related to Bil’in Committee. The aim is not only to arrest, kidnap and physically neutralize the activists, but also to spread terror amongst the inhabitants of the village of Bil’in, 1,800 residents, in order to stop all kind of activity of non violent resistance, that become an example also for other realities of the occupied West Bank such as Nil’in and Ma’asara, whose land continue to be confiscated by the wall.

However neither all this, nor 1,300 wounded people and 60 arrests suffered by the activists have been enough to stop their determination.

“If they want to arrest us all, they can. But our wives and children will continue the struggle” declared Abdullah Abu Rahmah, one of the coordinators of the Popular Committee of non-violent resistance of Bil’in. His daughter Luma, 7 years old, suffers of insomnia, as well as other children in Bil’in, a clear sign of the emotional and psychological despair: constantly in panic, Luma awakes in the middle of the night, sometimes in screams and tears, calling out for her father fearing that he has been abducted.

The injustices suffered by Bil’in residents and witnessed by many organizations for human rights and International and Israeli activists, are the most clear consequence of the oppression experienced by Palestinians because of the Israeli military occupation.

However their answer has become an example for all those who struggle for justice showing the way to follow and to support for the solution of the conflict.

Since 2005 residents of Bil’in responded in fact with a peaceful and non-violent resistance to the separation wall, that far from the Green line, snakes deeply inside the West Bank annexing 1,968 of 4,040 dunums of Bil’in lands, (196,68 hectares on 403,88).

Activists in Bil’in are only exerting their legitimate rights to defend their land against the arbitrariness of Israel, disregarding the International Court of Justice that five years ago condemned as illegal the construction of the wall inside the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), including in and around East Jerusalem, in violation of international obligations, intimating to Israel to stop the construction and to bring down the parts already built, terminating also the entire system of rigid restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank since they represent a violation of human rights.

And also the Israeli High Court of Justice declared many times illegal the route of the wall in Bil’in, inviting the Israeli Government to actuate an alternative route: this invitation has of course been ignored while the Israeli settlements of Mod’in Ilit and Mattityahu continue to grow.

For all this, their Friday demonstrations have gained the solidarity of Israeli and International activists, united in the common need of justice and against the strangulation, the occupation and the apartheid. Together they oppose to the uprooting of olive trees replaced by the foundations of the wall, blocking the bulldozers or preventing the installation of outposts of the Israeli settlements, still in expansion.

The International Community must give more force to all those Palestinians, supported by Israeli activists (who represent the honour of Israel) and Internationals in the defence of their rights, pretending from Israel the end of the raids and the immediate release of all activists arrested – included Abeed Abu Rahme- as requested by the Campaign launched by the Popular Committee of Bil’in (on the website http://www.bilin-village.org/english/activities-and-support/Campaign-to-release-Palestinian-activist-arrested-in-Bil-in the sample of letters of protest). It’s time also that the International Community demands with force and urgency to Israel to respect the International Court of Justice and to destroy the wall inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories, making reparation for all damage suffered by people affected by the wall, and to end military occupation, including all restriction of movement in the West Bank as well as the Siege that in Gaza, is collectively punishing over 1 million and a half of civilians.

Women were a strong presence in the demonstration, as were elderly, and children. A number of ill and disabled Palestinians highlighted the importance of the crossings being opened. Nearly 340 Palestinians have died as a result of denied medical care, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Amidst the crowd of demonstrators, 5 year old Mohammed Nasser el Ghneim, a child with multiple ailments needing medical care outside. “He doesn’t see well, cannot hear, cannot speak, doesn’t walk yet, and has heart problems,” said his mother, imploring for outside help for her son.

On the other side of Erez crossing, for the past few days, members of the Coalition of Women for Peace and of Code Pink have held near-daily rallies, along with Israeli activists, calling for the opening of Erez and the passage of humanitarian aid, as well as materials to build playgrounds for the children of bombed-out Gaza.

On Monday these activists were joined by an American activist-doctor, nicknamed ‘Patch Adams’, who has long been active in medical care for Palestinians. The activists brought with them many of the everyday items Israel has banned from entering Gaza: tea, coffee, chocolate, clothes and shoes, books, hair conditioner, wood, plates and glasses, furniture, light bulbs, toys, iron, cement, paper, candles and matches, sheets, blankets, musical instruments, semolina, tahina, jam, and nuts were on the list.

Demonstrations at Erez are occurring more often, in tandem with demonstrations at the southern Rafah crossing, controlled by Egypt. At the same time, increasing numbers of delegations, aid workers, doctors, investigative teams, and journalists are, with much difficulty (and for many without success) entering via Rafah to see the post-war on Gaza devastation and the consequences of the on-going siege.

The last major delegation to enter was a 66 member Codepink delegation, whose activists met with different war survivors, civil society organizations, political figures, and who erected 3 playgrounds in Gaza. The Hope convoy days before Codepink brought truckloads of medications, as well as 25 ambulances and hospital equipment.

A UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission, led by the Justice Richard Goldstone, also passed via Rafah after having been denied permits from Israeli authorities. The 4 member team visited sites of destruction and of possible war crimes committed during Israel’s 3 week bombardment of Gaza.

Organized by the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Wednesday’s demonstration was joined by various Palestinian civil society groups, including a women’s rights NGO, the General Union of Disabled Palestinians, the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC), 3 different agricultural groups: the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU), Arab Center for Agricultural Development (ACAD).

As the demonstration wrapped up, news came that the delegation of 41 European parliamentarians and mayors of European cities, representing 15 countries, headed by Luisa Morgantini, vice-president of the European Parliament, had crossed into Gaza.

As the gates of Rafah closed behind them, numerous Palestinians waiting to enter Gaza were left behind, the siege still in place for non-dignitaries.

15 May 2009

They worked for years for Israeli companies. For years, they paid their taxes and social insurance contributions in Israel in compliance with Israeli labour and fiscal law. But they also had accidents at work suffering serious and invalidating injuries in Israel’s factories, building sites or fields.

Until the period following the Oslo agreements, more than 80,000 Palestinian workers left Gaza every morning, arriving at the Eretz border crossing at 4 a.m. in order to be on time for work in Israel; they returned to Gaza after 6 p.m. dead tired but ready to start again the next morning. Progressively during these years, Israel closed its border crossings for people and goods, including Gaza workers, who were in part replaced by new poor Jewish immigrants but above all by Asian and Romanian workers.

Today, because of the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, more than 5,000 of those Palestinian disabled workers no longer receive their disability allowances: the transfer of insurance payments for invalidating injuries as well as retirement entitlements were stopped in January 2009 because Israeli Banks suspended all their transactions with banks in the Gaza Strip.

This is another aspect of the siege of Gaza that, for over two years, has continued to stifle the civil population, oppressing them through a collective punishment in which children, women, elderly people and men are deprived of food, fuel, medicines – which are allowed to enter the Strip, through the closed border crossings, only in few days per week and for few hours per day – and in which many hundreds of Palestinian patients have died and continue to die because of the lack of medical cares as well as a lack of those permits issued by the Israeli Authorities allowing them to go to hospitals abroad for treatments.

After the recent ‘Cast Lead’ aggression, that caused the death of more than 1,400 people – mostly civilians and children, and with more than 5,000 Palestinians from the Strip injured by white phosphorus bombs and unconventional arms- this decision represents an umpteenth insult that worsens the ongoing desperate situation of human rights and legality in Gaza. But as the saying goes: there are no limits to the worst.

And so, the worst has arrived with the news released by the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (http://www.mezan.org/en/), reporting that a private Israeli law firm is seeking power-of-attorney for Gaza residents entitled to Israeli national insurance allowances but who cannot receive them because of the siege: these Israeli lawyers would personally manage the transfer of the money but they would demand an undetermined percentage of the insurance allowances.

A practice of clear profiteering, and a fraud.

A further violation of legality, denounced the Al-Mezan Center that, in cooperation with Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – delivered letters to the Director of the Bank of Israel, the Director of the National Insurance Institute of Israel and the Israeli Minister of Finance, demanding the payment of the indemnities owed to disabled Palestinians, and launched a legal campaign through a petition – still to be defined – to be submitted to the Israeli High Court in order to demand the unconditional transfer of the accrued allowances entitled to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

This practice also represents an explicit form of racial discrimination, as affirmed by Al Mezan lawyers, since Israeli counterparts continue to receive their insurance allowances and Palestinians in Gaza have the same right.

These people are entitled to receive their allowances without any cuts: those workers, in fact, were obliged to pay insurance and taxes from when they took up their work right up to the date of their injury, in the same way as all Israeli workers.

After they were injured, they submitted requests to the insurance institute to receive their disability allowances in accordance with the Israeli National Insurance Law. Each request was assessed by a medical committee, which approved the nature and the size of the disability allowance and confirmed that it was as a result of a work injury. In some cases, the disability amounted to 100%. Some of these disabled people have been receiving their insurance allowances since 1978. Then, the Bank of Israel decided to suspend all transactions with all banks in the Gaza Strip, including the Bank of Palestine.

The siege and the closure of Gaza continue and the International Community once again demonstrates its powerlessness and complicity with the illegal policies of the Israeli Government. The International Community is not able to operate for the respect of minimal humanitarian rules, while the United Nations continue to denounce the lack of freedom of movement for humanitarian goods: John Ging, UNRWA Director, affirmed that it is not right to define Gaza as an open-air prison since even in prisons there is food. For now, Palestinian disabled people have not received their retirement and insurance allowances and the military occupation and expansion of settlements continues in the West Bank.

Luisa Morgantini is the Vice-President of the European Parliament

11 April 2009

Of utmost concern for CPT and Operation Dove is the safe travel of Palestinian school children who walk from the nearby villages of Tuba and Magaher-al-Abeed to At-Tuwani’s elementary school. These school children face a treacherous daily walk past the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on. For years, armed adult settlers have attacked, threatened and harassed the children along the path from Tuba to Tuwani. In 2004 the Knesset recommended that the Israeli military provide the children with an armed escort. However, since settlers constructed a gate across the road one year ago, the escort soldiers have refused to walk with the children far enough to ensure their safety.

In the past two weeks internationals working with Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have twice witnessed settlers grazing sheep directly in the path of the children at the time they walk home from school. Because the children have been physically attacked in the past, and threatened with death by settlers earlier this school year, they are terrified by the presence of these settlers. Since an incident on March 24 in which settlers were present at the end of the children’s walk home, internationals and the children have repeatedly asked the soldiers to walk with the children until they are out of danger. On April 1 settlers again came onto the land between the outpost of Havat Ma’on and the village of Tuba while the children were walking. Members of CPT and Operation Dove were present and the children ran towards them crying and very frightened.

Internationals now request that concerned people make calls to the Communications office of the Southern District Commander of the Israeli Military. It is an Israeli phone number, (country code 972) 2 996 7200. Please ask Commander BenMoha to instruct the soldiers who perform the escort of the Tuba and Magaher-al-Abeed school children to accompany the children all the way past the Ma’on chicken barns and past any settlers present. Please stress that this is particularly necessary because of the repeated presence of settlers in this area at the time of the children’s walk home, and remind the commander that settlers used violence against the school children on fourteen occasions in the 07-08 school year and on two occasions during the current school year.

For a complete report on the school escort, including maps, photographs and interviews with the children, please see “A Dangerous Journey.”

In addition to phone calls, Operation Dove and CPT ask that people send the IDF Public Appeals office a simple message.

Sample message: (no more than 75 words)

Subject: Request to Commander BenMoha
Palestinian school children from Tuba and Magaher-al-abeed must walk past militant settlers from Ma’on and Havat Ma’on to attend school in At-Tuwani. The Knesset recommended in 2004 that the IDF escort these children. Currently soldiers refuse to escort the children far enough to ensure their safety. In order to do so they must accompany the children all the way past the Ma’on chicken barns and past any settlers present.
IDF Public Appeals Fax: 011-972-3-569-9400.
IDF Public Appeals Phone: 011-972-3-569-1000.

European MEPs enter Gaza

The delegation – composed by 8 MEPs belonging to different political groups and by one Member of the Italian Senate – will stay in Gaza from Saturday 10 to Tuesday 13 January, when the MEPs will come back to Strasbourg to report back about the situation to the Plenary session of the EU Parliament and they will hold a press conference.

In Gaza the delegation will be staying with UNRWA and visit refugee camps, hospitals and towns.

The MEPs are grateful to the Egyptian Authority and UNRWA for their cooperation and support.

MEPs Participants:
Luisa Morgantini (Italy)
David Hammerstein Mintz (Spain)
Hélène Flautre (France)
Véronique de Keyser (Belgium)
Miguel Portas (Porturgal)
Feleknas Uca (Germany)
Chris Davies (UK)
Kyriacos Triantaphyllides (Cypre)
Alberto Maritati (Italy) Member of the Italian Senate