Author: ISM Media Group

Nablus: 75 Olive Trees Planted Successfully in Iraq Burim

By the ISM Media Team

July 5th, 2007. Iraq Burin, a village in the Nablus region, has been suffering from increasing harassment by the neighboring illegal colony of Brakha. Villagers, many of whom are farmers, have owned the land for generations and are being frequently threatened by armed colonists. Beatings and shootings of farmers who attempt to tend to their fields have terrorized the village, preventing them from utilizing their land and making a living. Colonists have often burned fields and cut down the farmers’ trees.

The Land part 1

During harvest time, as the villagers labor to collect the olives for harvest, colonists descend upon the fields and steal the harvested crops under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). These illegal colonies are in violation of international laws prohibiting the occupation of land and the obstruction of the economy of an occupied people. Furthermore, the criminal behavior of the colonists are provocations of these peaceful people. The IOF consistently protects the colonists by the use of armed force against these unarmed villagers.

The Land part 2

In response to these illegal acts, yesterday, the International Solidarity Movement planted 75 trees on land in Iraq Burin which had been subject to attacks by colonists and the IOF. Having obtained trees with the assistance of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees and the Tanweer Organization in Nablus, international activists worked in conjunction with local farmers to plant the trees. The planting finished without any disturbance by the colonists or IOF who were within view of the operation.

Israeli Soldiers Shoot Dead Palestinian Child in Hebron; Body Mauled by Military Dog

Palestinian National Initiative

Ramallah, 04-07-07: Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian child carrying a toy gun in Hebron yesterday. 15-year-old Ahmad Abed Al-Muhsin Skafi was shot 4 times in the upper body by Israeli soldiers who then allowed a military dog to maul the body, tearing the boy’s intestines from his stomach and mutilating his right hand.

Palestinian National Initiative head Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP said that the killing was yet one more gruesome aspect of Israel’s ongoing occupation, in which children have been the all-too-frequent victims of Israeli military violence.

He underlined that for every 6 Palestinians killed as a direct result of the occupation 1 was a child, adding that 798 children aged under 18 years old have been killed in Israeli military attacks since the Second Intifada began in September 2000, of whom 198 were under the age of 12. The majority were killed by shots to the head and/or chest using live ammunition, generally indicative of a deliberate ‘shoot to kill’ policy.

Israel is bound by international law to protect the Palestinian people whom it occupies, particularly children, who are afforded special protection under the Convention on the Rights of the Child , an obligation that Israel has repeatedly violated with impunity.

Yet recurring violations against Palestinian children are well reflected in the fact that Ahmad’s killing is not an isolated incident, but 1 more in a series of similar killings. At least 5 other Palestinian children killed in such circumstances:

17 December 2001

Muhammad Juman Mahmoud Hunaydek, 15, of Khan Younis, Gaza, killed by Israeli military helicopter fire to his chest while playing with a toy gun. [1]

20 January 2005

Salah Ikhab , 13, of Tubas, killed by Israeli military gunfire to the chest whilst carrying a toy gun. [2]

5 November 2005

Ahmad Ismael Muhammad al-Khatib, 12, of Jenin refugee camp, died in an Israeli hospital of head and abdominal wounds sustained November 3 from Israeli military gunfire while carrying a toy gun. Ahmed’s organs, donated by his father, saved the lives of three Israeli children and a 54-year-old Israeli woman.

15 February 2006

Mujahid al-Samadi, 15, of Qabatya, near Jenin, mentally disabled, killed by Israeli military gunfire to his chest while carrying a toy gun during an incursion.

20 November 2006

Rakan Abed Kayed Nuseirat, 16, of al-Auja, near Jericho, killed by the Israeli military at the al-Dyouk checkpoint while holding a toy gun on his way home.

Dr. Barghouthi expressed little optimism towards Israeli military claims that an inquiry will be launched into Ahmad’s killing, saying that past investigations by Israel into its military’s conduct had been whitewashes.

References

[1] All details taken from the Remember These Children website (except [2]): http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/

[2] BBC. 20 January 2005. Boy with toy gun shot by Israelis. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4191513.stm

Back to Jail for Anti-Nuclear Activist

From: Haaretz

Last update – 16:18 02/07/2007
Vanunu to return to prison for violating the terms of his parole
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court has sentenced nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to six months in jail for violating the terms of his parole.

Vanunu, a former technician at Israel’s nuclear plant near the southern town of Dimona, spent 18 years in prison for giving details of the country’s atomic program to British newspaper “Sunday Times” in 1986.

Upon his release in 2004, Vanunu was banned from leaving the country and talking to foreigners without approval, because Israeli authorities claimed he could still divulge classified information.

Some two months ago, Vanunu was convicted of 14 parole violations including contacts with journalists and attempts to leave Israel proper to go to Bethlehem, which is in the West Bank.

The court’s sentence was unexpected, and even the prosecution expected the court to hand down a suspended sentence, meant solely as a deterrent.

Vanunu’s attorneys, Michael Sfard and Avigdor Feldman, said before the conviction was handed down that the terms of their client’s parole order were unreasonable.

According to the verdict, “The order stemmed from the fact that the accused had hoarded in his memory classified information that has not been released, and the release of which could harm the security interests of Israel.”

After the verdict was announced, Vanunu said that his conviction proves that Israel is still ruled, in effect, by the British mandate, because the law under which he was convicted is from that era.

“Maybe I need to turn to the queen or to Tony Blair in order to grant me justice,” he said.

Tel Rumeida: Detention at the Ibrahimi Mosque

By the ISM Media Team

July 2nd, 2007. At the checkpoint by the Ibrahimi mosque, two human rights workers (HRWs) were monitoring the border police who were detaining every adult male Palestinian going to the afternoon prayer.

At approximately 3 pm, right after the HRWs entered the area one female border police asked for their passports and detained them for 10 minutes. A policeman wrote down their passport info and asked about the purpose of their presence and to which organization they belonged.

During the next two hours attempts to negotiate with border police and police were made, without any success. When the HRWs tried to communicate with several detained Palestinians, the border policemen ordered the Palestinians, as well as the HRWs to stop.

At 5:25 pm a Palestinian boy, aged around 18 was detained. After another 5 minutes a border policeman asked him to follow him behind the checkpoint and started to body search him. One HRW asked the border police about the reason for their proceedings, while the other HRW kept filming the situation. The border policeman told the HRW that the arrested Palestinian was wanted by Israeli Police, but that he isn’t willing to give anymore detailed information to the HRW. When another Israeli police car arrived, one HRW made a new attempt to talk to the policeman, but the policeman ignored him.

At the same time another border policemen repeatedly ordered the HRW who was filming, to turn off his camera and threatened to break his camera if he did not do so. At 5:33 pm the Palestinian boy was handcuffed, taken into the police car and brought to the police station of Kiryat Arba, which according to international law is an illegal settlement.

Then the border police started to draw more attention to the presence of the HRWs. They ordered them leave the area immediately and when they refused they were threatened with arrest. Since the HRWs didn’t consider their presence as illegal, they refused to leave. A group of about five police man gathered around the HRWs and at the same time a border police jeep arrived.

The border police asked the HRWs to hand over their passports, forced them to turn their faces to the wall and body searched them. Once more a border policeman gave the HRWs the ultimatum of leaving the area immediately or being arrested. After further discussion the HRWs left the place and went to a checkpoint down the road and continued doing their job there.

At 6 pm as the HRWs wanted to leave the area, the border police denied them the right to pass the mosque and made them walk through, Shuhada Stret, which is closed by the Israeli military and is a commonly used street by violent Israeli settlers.