Author: ISM Media Group

(Video) Tree Planting at Huwara

by the ISM Media Crew

At 10:30am Palestinians were joined by international human rights activists outside the Nablus Municipal building to demonstrate in commemoration of Israel’s 40 years of Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights, and to protest against the Huwara Checkpoint. Approximately 100 activists traveled by bus to a point just outside the Huwara Checkpoint and proceeded to march towards it, chanting and protesting against the illegal army post which forces Palestinians to wait for hours to pass. The checkpoint is one of the most notorious both for it’s treatment of Palestinians and because it isolates much of the Northern section of Palestine, including Nablus, from the rest of the Occupied Territories. In a form of humiliation, Palestinians are often made to wait for hours to pass through the checkpoint which only has three points of passage, and often not all of them are open. Palestinians are often detained by Occupation Forces and Border police and face violence and intimidation from them.

The Demonstration passed without aggression by either the Border Police or Army and consequently the demonstration was able to achieve its aim of non-violent protest against the occupation and against the checkpoint. During the protest demonstrators were able to chant and approach the checkpoint and drew media attention to the hundreds of people waiting in line to pass.

Following the demonstration, protestors gathered by the road leading to the Checkpoint to plant olive trees in symbolic defiance of the 51,000 trees that have been uprooted and destroyed over the past five years in the Nablus region alone.

The Tragedy of Hebron

by Feras SSA

It is a nice thing to make a tour anywhere around the world since you will see and learn new things. But a tour in the old city of Hebron will be a tragedy for any one who belongs to humanity.

Once you reach the roadblocks which divide the city of Hebron into two parts, you will see that life changes 180 degrees. The streets in the area not completely occupied by the Israeli military (called H1 according to Hebron agreement in 1997) are crowded with hundreds of Palestinians and opened shops. Sometimes there is no place to put your legs with all the merchants, shoppers, Palestinian municipality workers and police working daily to organize these markets because the place is so small and limited.

Just few meters after the roadblocks things change. You will see empty streets and closed shops. While walking in the old al Shallalah Street you will see fences, settlements and soldiers just directly up to your head. You do not know you are in a closed military zone or inside a settlement there.

Directly you will face an Israeli checkpoint on the ground another one on the roof. Oh no another four soldiers making petrol there ! You do not know what is happening there? You think that hundreds of Palestinians terrorists (according to Israeli claims) are ready to attack these settlements, or may be you think that these settlements which surrounded with Palestinians houses are in permanent danger because of Arabs attacks. On the contrary, this is not the truth.

Surely this is not the truth. Unfortunately these settlements are planted in the heart of the city to control and occupy Hebron city for a long time. A few hundreds settlers supported with two thousands soldiers make the life of hundreds of thousands Palestinians like a hell. All kinds of apartheid system are used against Palestinians here.

It is really a tragedy. The hard situation here forced people to leave the old city to places away from those settlers who are the most extreme in the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinian families transferred and most shops owners were also forced to leave their shops. Eventually, this part of the city became a ghost town.

My family was on of those families which forced to leave after hundreds of daily attacks from settlers and soldiers. Living in that place is so hard especially when you feel that you are foreigner in your own home.

No one knows when this strange situation will end? Where is the occupation taking us? When will Palestinians be able to go back again to their houses, shops, streets and mosques? These questions and many others need answers. But for sure times change, and who is strong today may be weak tomorrow.

As I started with the importance of tours, I finish with the importance of making tours for all people who are interested in the Palestinian issue. The city of Hebron is a good example of Palestinian daily suffering from Israeli occupation.

When you come to Hebron just send me e-mail. I will be ready to join you this tragedy tour.

firas_ssa@hotmail.com

“I want to see Arab blood!”

Tel Rumeida Report
by ISM Hebron , 4 June 2007

At approximately 7:10 am, Sunday 3rd June, a female human rights worker (HRW) was positioned at the top of Tel Rumeida street opposite the IDF guard post close to the Tel Rumeida Settlement. There were two soldiers present alongside two policemen who were inside a police vehicle approximately five meters away, facing the HRW. A white van drove up the hill and turned around and stopped in front of the HRW, and also facing the police vehicle. The Settler inside the white van, wound down his window and started to shout abuses at the HRW. He said the following, “You want to see our blood?”, “you want to kill us?”, “I want to see Arab blood!” and “Fuck off”. He continued to shout various aggressive insults at the HRW who stated that she did not want to see any blood and that she was non violent.

During this time, neither the police nor the soldiers made any effort to acknowledge or prevent the situation from escalating. After the settler drove off, the HRW questioned the police into why they did nothing and they claimed that they hadn’t witnessed the incident despite directly facing the Settler and the HRW. They claimed they were speaking with a soldier at the time of the incident and therefore did not hear or see the attack.

At approximately 7:20, the same Settler stopped his van in front of the main Machsom (checkpoint) at the junction between Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida Street. The Settler began shouting verbal abuse at the human rights worker who was present, however, the settler proceeded to get out of the vehicle to attack the HRW physically. It was only due to the intervention of a soldier who was present at the checkpoint that the Settler was prevented from being physically violent. The settler did continue to shout abuse until he eventually drove away.

Both HRWs who had been affected by the Settler decided to make formal complaints to the police about the settler who had been aggressive towards them. The police were open that they knew who the settler was and said that they would investigate the situation.

On Monday, 4th June, at approximately 7:20am, two HRWs were standing by the Israeli colony of Beit Haddasah. An Israeli police vehicle was present with two policemen and a further soldier was positioned at the guard post. Despite the complaint to the police the previous day, the same settler drove past, stopped his vehicle and proceeded to get out of the vehicle and start shouting at the HRWs. The police seemed reluctant to get involved although they did get out of their vehicle and approach the situation. A third HRW approached the scene. At this point, the settler turned his attention onto her and began to shout in both Hebrew and English. The settler then approached her aggressively and it was only when the Settler was completely upon the HRW that the police physically intervened by standing between the settler and the HRW. A second settler approached the scene and started shouting abuse at the three HRWs.

Speaking with the police afterwards, they acknowledged they knew who the settler was and that the settler’s aggression wasn’t justified. The police, however, stated that the HRWs should move further away from the settlement to prevent the aggression and that the presence of the HRWs was a provocation. He further stated that there would be an investigation into the settler’s actions, following the formal complaint from the previous day. Complaints are made often by Palestinians and human rights workers in Tel Rumeida, but further action by Israeli police is usually never taken.

Global Solidarity Activities Mark 40 Years of Israel’s Occupation of Palestine

by Bahia, 3 June 2007

Ramallah, 03-06-07: Solidarity activities will take place throughout the world this week marking 40 years of Israel’s occupation of West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. In a press conference held today in Ramallah, Minister of Information, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, presented the details of solidarity events taking place in Palestine, Israel, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, and announced that the Ministry of Information was initiating a series of year-long activities to sustain exposure of Israel’s ongoing military occupation, which he said, had become the longest-running occupation in modern history.

By keeping the Palestinians’ 40-year-old struggle for freedom and self-determination in the media spotlight in this way in addition to global solidarity initiatives, he said that he hoped the campaign would promote greater regional and international efforts to end the occupation.

Dr. Barghouthi also presented a review of 40 years of occupation which began between June 5-10 1967, and in which the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as well as Arab territories were occupied by Israel.

Forty years later, and in contravention of United Nations resolutions, peace agreements and international law, this occupation not only continues, but has mutated into a fully-fledged system of Apartheid worse than that which prevailed in South Africa. Reiterating the words of former US president Jimmy Carter, Dr. Barghouthi underlined that Apartheid can be identified when two peoples living in the same area are segregated by force, as is the case with the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and where one side is oppressing and prosecuting the other .

He pointed to several characteristics of this Apartheid system, focusing on the creation and continued construction of Israeli settlements built illegally on occupied land and inhabited by 460,000 Israeli-Jewish settlers, and which are sustained by an infrastructure of 543 permanent checkpoints and 600 ‘flying’ checkpoints, and settler-only roads forbidden for use by Palestinians, the first time in history roads have been segregated. He added that this system was being consolidated by Israel’s Wall, which was designed to annex these settlements, and swathes of Palestinian land in the process, to Israel.

At the same time, settlements and the Wall are part of Israel’s long term policy to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian population by physically isolating the city from the West Bank and encircling it with a ring of settlements, thereby ‘Judaising’ East Jerusalem.

Further evidence of this system of Apartheid lies in differing levels of access to natural resource, which see Israeli West Bank settlers allocated 2400 m 3 water per year compared to just 50 m3 for Palestinians.

In addition, while GDP per capita in Israel was 6 times higher than that in Palestine in 1993, it has rocketed to a massive 30 times more than the GDP in Palestine in 2007. Despite this, Palestinians are still obliged to buy products at the same Israeli market price due to the forced dependency of the Palestinian economy on Israel. All this in the context of Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian tax revenues amounting to some US$ 850 million, said Dr. Barghouthi.

Judge to Court: No to settlement building in Bil’in

The Supreme Court orders the State: explain why the new plan for the Matityahu East neighborhood shouldn’t be annulled


Eyad Burnat, head of the Bil’in popular committee against the wall, looking at the houses the real estate companies built without permits in Matityahu East from within the “Palestinian Enclave”

There are two petitions concerning the Matityahu East neighborhood in the settlement Modi’in Illit currently in front of the Supreme Court: HCJ 143/06, filed in January 2006, in an attempt to stop the illegal construction there; and HCJ 1526/07, filed in February 2007, after the Higher Planning Board at the Civil Administration decided to approve a new plan (210/8/1) which will legalize most of the illegal construction done. The context for both petitions is the route of the separation barrier, designed to allow the construction of the neighborhood on approximately 80 hectares of the lands of Bil’in on the “Israeli” side of the wall.

At the end of a four-hour (!) hearing held yesterday (June 3), the Court issued an order nisi (in HCJ 1526/07), ordering the State and the other respondents (the real-estate companies Heftsiba and Green Park, the local council Modi’in Illit and representatives of the flats buyers in the Matityahu East project) to argue why, in their opinion, the Higher Planning Board in Beit-El and the sub-committee for Objections “shouldn’t annul their decision to approve the 210/8/1 plan for the Matityahu East neighborhood in the settlement Modi’in Illit”. The order was issued by agreement among all sides (following the recommendation of the Court), so formally it was written that the petition will be considered “as if an order nisi was issued”, but legally and for every other purpose this means an order nisi was actually issued. The respondents are required to respond in writing by July 5th.

At the same time, the Court rejected the request of the respondents to cancel the temporary injunction in HCJ 143/06, issued on January 12th 2006, which forbids any further building in Matityahu East and any new residents moving in to flats therein. Judge Prokachya told the respondents that the Court will not cancel the temporary injunction before a final verdict is given in both petitions. This means that at least for the time being, no building can take place in Matityahu East and no new residents are allowed to move in.

The hearing focused mainly on procedural and planning issues pertaining to the work of the Higher Planning Board at the Civil Administration. However, these issues have important implications for the planning system in settlements in general, and in Modi’in Illit in particular. The outcome of the hearing is due largely to the excellent performance of attorney Michael Sfard, who represents the people of Bil’in and the Peace Now movement in both petitions. During the hearing, Judge Prokachya asked about the linkage between the new plan for the neighborhood and the route of the barrier – to the disappointment of the State representatives.

Background:

The land in question was handed over to two private real estate companies, “Heftziba” and “Green Park,” after it was confiscated by the Israeli authorities. This follows a typical pattern of settlement expansion, whereby Palestinian land is first declared Israeli state property and then eventually distributed to Israelis for private use. In 2000, the Metityahu Mizrach settlement was built without permits not only on the land that was confiscated, but also on the land that the Israeli Supreme Court recognized as privately owned Palestinian land. The route of the wall in Bil’in is designed not only to protect the settlers of Matityahu Mizrah but was designed according to the master plan of the settlement to allow for its future expansion. See B’tselem Report

In January 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a temporary order in one appeal case (143/06), freezing the building and population of the Matityahu East settlement after the illegal building of 42 residential buildings – 20 of them without any building permits and 22 additional ones according to illegal building permits produced by the local committee of Modiin Elite.

For more background information, click HERE