Author: ISM Media Group

ISM Rafah: Israeli violence continues despite ceasefire

Tonight (17th September), members of the ISM in the Gaza strip will be staying with a family in the Al Faraheen neighborhood of Abassan Al Kabeera, between Khan Younis and Deir El Balah in Southern Gaza.

The family’s home is situated a few hundred meters from the Green Line and the area has suffered a number of Israeli military incursions, the most recent of which was on 1st May this year, resulting in widespread agricultural damage.

During this attack, Israeli tanks and bulldozers surrounded the family’s home and snipers took up positions in two houses opposite. Israeli soldiers with dogs entered their house and searched it, causing damage and terrorizing the children.

The family have stayed with neighbors ever since, but their future is uncertain. Despite the ceasefire which began in June, there is regular shooting into the neighborhood from Israeli watchtowers and tanks on the Green Line. The most recent incident was three days a go. The family’s home has been shot into multiple times and many of their personal belongings have been damaged or destroyed. The ISM activists will monitor the situation and support the family in the event of any Israeli aggression .

Ynet: Neturei Karta join anti-fence rally

Some 300 Israeli, Palestinian and foreign demonstrators protest construction of separation fence in West Bank village of Naalin. Religious sect members carry signs denouncing Zionism. Soldiers fire tear gas at protestors; seven protestors injured, five arrested

By Ali Waked

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 17th September, click here


Photo by Ynet

Some 300 Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners took part Wednesday afternoon in an anti-fence demonstration in the West Bank village of Naalin, near the city of Modiin.

Soldiers and Border Guard officers fired teargas at the protestors in an attempt to prevent them from approaching the separation fence construction site. Five Israeli protestors were arrested, two of them photographers documenting the protest.

According to the demonstrators, seven people were injured in the event, two of them from the teargas. Four were reportedly hurt by rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the soldiers and another demonstrator was beaten.

Anti-fence demonstrations have been a routine in recent months, but this time the demonstrators marked the 26th anniversary of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the 1982 Lebanon War, which left some 800 Palestinian refugees dead.

Wednesday’s demonstration was also attended by 15 members of the Neturei Karta religious sect, who arrived to express their solidarity with the Palestinian residents. The group members, who traditionally oppose Zionism, often take part in different protests against the State of Israel.

The Neturei Karta disciples, wearing black hats and coats, refused to talk to the media. One of the members of the village’s popular committee, which organized the demonstration, told Ynet that the men had arrived “in order to express their protest over the injustice of the occupation and the fence.”

Some of the men carried signs denouncing Zionism and walked along the village paths.

The demonstrators, which included 50 Israelis, carried signs and chanted slogans against the occupation and the separation fence.

The protestors managed to reach the bulldozers used to erect the fence, but were stopped by the construction site’s security guards, who removed the bulldozers from the place and stopped the construction.

EU MPs to join Gaza blockade runners

By Yaacov Katz

To view original article, published in the Jerusalem Post on the 17th September, click here

The Free Gaza group, which last month claimed to break the Israeli siege over Gaza after it sailed two ships into Gaza’s harbor, plans to dispatch another ship from Cyprus later this month filled with doctors and European politicians to the Palestinian territory, organizers said Tuesday.

The ship is scheduled to set sail from Cyprus on September 22, Huwaita Arraf, one of the group’s organizers said. It will carry physicians traveling to Gaza to offer free medical service as well as some EU parliamentarians. Arraf would not reveal the lawmakers’ identities.

In addition to the ship from Cyprus, a Yemen-based group is also planning on sailing to the Gaza Strip.

Last month, two boats carrying a group of international pro-Palestinian activists set sail for Gaza from Cyprus. Initial fears that the Israeli Navy would block access to Gaza proved wrong. Israel decided to allow the ships to sail into and dock at the Gaza harbor.

Israeli defense officials said Tuesday that they were aware of the group’s plans to sail additional ships into Gaza and that a decision on whether to allow them into Gaza would be made closer to the date of arrival.

“We will have to see who is on the boat and what it is carrying,” one official said. “Our decision will be on a per-case basis.”

Arraf said that the group planned to set up a permanent sea line between Cyprus and Gaza to be used to import goods into the Strip. “From the beginning, we said it would not be a one-time thing,” she said.

ISM Rafah: Italian activist injured by Israeli navy off Gaza coast

Two Gazan fishing boats with international human rights workers on board were repeatedly attacked by 2 Israeli gunboats while they were trying to exercise Palestinian people’s right to fish in the Palestinian waters.

One of the Israeli gunboats was using a water cannon to throw water with high pressure while the other one was randomly firing shots of live ammunition close to the fishing boats. The attack with the water cannon was extremely dangerous. The Israeli navy was trying to throw the Palestinian fishermen and the international human rights workers in the sea. The high pressure water was damaging the old boats and people on board had to avoid not only the water but also wooden pieces, shattered glass and others objects that were flying off the deck. The Israeli navy was deliberately targeting the wheelhouses of the fishing boats, smashing the windows, making holes and nearly demolishing the walls and destroying equipment. In the same time it was preventing the captains from steering the vessels and the fishing to take place.

An Italian activist was injured. Vittorio Arrigoni was hit by flying glass when the water canon smashed the glass surrounding the wheelhouse of the boat, with shards lacerating Vittorio’s back. He was been taken to hospital immediately upon reaching shore, requiring ten stitches.

During the water cannon attacks, Palestinian fishermen were trapped behind the machines or even inside the engine room without being able to move for a long time.

During the most severe water cannon attack, a Palestinian fishing boat was trapped between the 2 Israeli gunboats without any possibility to change course. Fact that indicates that the intention of the Israeli navy wasn’t just to push the fishing boats back to the coast but to damage them and harm the people on board.

The Israeli navy persecuted the Gazan fishing boats even inside the 6 miles zone that Israel illegally and seemingly arbitrarily has imposed as the area where Palestinian fishermen are supposed to be free to fish. This zone is far to small to supply the Gaza-strip and give work to the 40.000 Gazan people once involved in the fishing industry.

The two fishing boats suffered damages, part of their equipment was thrown in the sea along with part of their fishing catch.

Maan: PACBI – Paul McCartney “condones or ignores apartheid” with Israel concert

To view original article, published by Maan News Agency on the 16th September, click here

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Former Beatle Paul McCartney’s insistence on going ahead with a planned concert in Israel was denounced on Tuesday by Palestinian activists who say the gig will whitewash Israel’s human rights record.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a statement on Tuesday saying the concert “will convey a message that McCartney either condones or apathetically ignores Israel’s reality as a colonial power and an apartheid state that oppresses the indigenous Palestinians and occupies Arab land.

PACBI added, “Just as in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Palestinians are asking international artists to exercise their moral responsibility by staying away from Israel until freedom, justice, equality and human rights are respected for all.”

“I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel,” McCartney told Israeli reporters.

McCartney received death threats from extremist activists for the planned Israel concert. PACBI, a coalition of civil society organizations, said it “strongly and unequivocally condemns” these threats.

The 25 September concert in Tel Aviv will be McCartney’s first in the country. The Israeli government cancelled a planned Beatles concert in 1965. According to an official document quoted in the Guardian newspaper, the concert was cancelled “because several politicians in the Knesset believed at the time that [their] performance might corrupt the minds of the Israeli youth.” Israel recently apologized to McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving members of the band.