Author: ISM Media Group

The Daily Star: UN rights chief implores Israel to lift illegal siege of Gaza Strip

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

To view original article, published by The Daily Star on the 19th November, click here

UN rights chief implores Israel to lift illegal siege of Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY: The top United Nations human rights official on Tuesday called on Israel to immediately lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, as invading tanks from the Jewish state sparked retaliatory rocket fire from the coastal territory. “By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.

“This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now,” she said.

Israel first imposed a large-scale blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Hamas movement won legislative elections in 2006. The Jewish state further tightened its siege of the impoverished territory after the Islamists ousted their Fatah rivals following reports in the Arab press of an impending US-backed offensive by the secular party to topple Hamas in the strip.

Amid mounting pressure from the international community, Israel last week allowed limited industrial fuel to be delivered to Gaza’s sole power plant and on Monday it let in 33 truckloads of humanitarian and other basic supplies.

Israel condemned Pillay’s call as “utterly shortsighted” and sidestepped the call to end the siege by saying she had not addressed the issue of rocket fire targeting Israel.

“It is disappointing to see the high commissioner fall victim to Hamas’ cynical manipulation of the media, and reprint blatant misinformation in her press release,” said a statement by the Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva.

The statement did not address how such “misinformation” would have trumped reports from other UN agencies – as well as scores of human rights groups – backing up Pillay’s description of the situation in Gaza.

Pillay said that “only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today.”

“Decisive steps must be taken to preserve the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population, more than half of which are children.”

Other UN and EU officials have deemed the Israeli blockade as collective punishment of a civilian population, an act illegal under international law which the Geneva Conventions defines as a war crime.

Limited food distribution to half the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million population resumed on Tuesday, although the United Nations warned aid supplies would soon run out unless Israel eases its blockade.

“Distribution will go on of the very small amount we brought in on Monday,” said UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness.

“The supplies will last days, not weeks,” he told AFP.

Crowds rushed to the UNRWA distribution centers to try to get hold of the limited supplies of flour, sugar, rice, powdered milk and luncheon meat.

“I can’t wait to receive the aid. Our lives are in ruins,” said Umm Said, 60, who with her husband looks after 15 children and grandchildren.

On Monday, the first shipment of supplies in two weeks made it possible to resume limited food distribution after a four-day interruption, but Israel again sealed off the Palestinian territory on Tuesday.

UNRWA, which feeds 750,000 people in the impoverished sliver of land, said thousands of dollars worth of powdered milk were lost after Israeli officials slashed the packages for inspection.

“Babies should not be punished by being deprived of milk. I am not aware of babies firing rockets or baby milk being used to power rockets,” said Gunness, adding that food would run out in days unless new supplies are allowed in.

Another UNRWA official has cast doubt on the Israeli pretense of rocket fire for sealing off the territory, noting that no such closure was in effect in the beginning of 2006 when Israel was hit with many more rockets than are currently coming out of Gaza.

An Egyptian-mediated truce signed in June had virtually halted rocket attacks on Israel. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel was to greatly ease its siege, a commitment the Jewish state never complied with.

Israel shattered the truce on November 4 with an invasion of the coastal territory that killed seven Hamas members. The stark violation prompted Gazan fighters to resume rocket fire.

On Tuesday, Israeli armored vehicles came under mortar attack as they invaded southern Gaza in what an Israeli military spokesman described as a search for explosive devices along the border fence.

Hamas claimed it fired a rocket at the vehicles.

Later, Gaza militants fired three rockets that exploded in open areas in southern Israel, causing no casualties or damage, the Israeli Army said.

Israeli officials indicated the crossings were to remain closed on Tuesday.

“This decision has been taken by Defense Minister Ehud Barak because of the continued Palestinian rocket fire at southern Israel,” said Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

The Israeli Parliament is to return from its winter recess to hold a special session on the Gaza violence next Monday, a spokesman said. The session was called at the request of the right-wing opposition.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli Navy arrested Palestinian fishermen and foreign activists off the coast of Gaza on Tuesday, the Israeli military and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said.

“This morning a number of Palestinian boats carrying ISM members deviated from the fishing zone off the Gaza coast,” an Israeli military spokeswoman said.

ISM said the boats were 7 nautical miles (13 kilometers) from shore when confronted by the navy, pointing out this was well within the fishing limits set in the 1994 Oslo Accords.

Under the Israeli-Palestinian agreements, Gaza fishermen were allowed to go as far as 20 nautical miles offshore, but Israel has in recent years reneged on that agreement and reduced this to just 6.

The Israeli Navy regularly forces Gaza fishermen to turn back, often by firing machine guns at the civilian vessels.

The Israeli spokeswoman said those aboard the boats were held for questioning after they refused to turn back.

ISM said the 14 fishermen and three human rights observers, who were aboard three boats, were transferred to Israeli warships.

It said Briton Andrew Muncie, Vittorio Arrigoni from Italy and American national Darlene Wallach were volunteers accompanying Palestinian fishermen, “who are regularly attacked by Israeli Navy vessels from as little as 3 kilometers offshore.”

The three had sailed from Cyprus with other pro-Palestinian activists on August 23 in defiance of the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The Israeli armed forces said: “ISM is known for its provocative action and for being in contact with terror organizations.”

ISM is a Palestinian-led movement of volunteers committed to nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

It mobilizes international volunteers for often symbolic actions, such as blockade-defying boat trips to Gaza. – AFP, with The Daily Star

Protest tent in Sheikh Jarrah demolished by Israeli forces – one Palestinian and four internationals taken into police custody

11:45am, Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem: One Palestinian and four internationals were today taken into Israeli police custody from a protest tent of a Palestinian family evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. The protest tent, that was established following the eviction of the Al-Kurd family on the 9th November 2008 has been demolished by Israeli forces despite being situated on Palestinian private property.

As of 1:45pm, the family has decided to re-establish the protest tent and are in the process of re-construction.

At 2pm the internationals were released without charge. However the Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah is still being held.

The Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah and the international solidarity activists, two from Denmark, one from Britain and one from Sweden, were taken to the Russian compound.

At mid-day dozens of Israeli police and soldiers arrived at the tent before ordering its evacuation. When the international activists refused to vacate the tent due to it being situated on private Palestinian property, they were forcibly removed from the tent and taken into police custody. One Palestinian, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah, was also taken into custody after he attempted to reach the tent as it was being demolished.

The decision to remove the al-Kurd family paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-storey houses in the neighbourhood, threatening to make 500 Palestinians homeless and signifying the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Occupied East Jerusalem by the Israeli State. In July the US State Department brought forward an official complaint to the Israeli government over the eviction of the al-Kurd family, openly questioning the legality of terms on which the Israeli Jewish settler group claimed to have purchased the land. (see www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/1005342.html).

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The al-Kurd family began living in the neighbourhood after having been made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. However, with the the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, following the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.

Stating that they had purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar. While the al-Kurds family continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.

In 2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land. Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land.

In 2001 settlers began occupying an extension of the al-Kurd home. Despite the fact that their claim to the land was revoked, settlers were given the keys of the al-Kurds family home extension by the local Israeli municipality. This was possible after the municipality had confiscated the keys of the extension that the al-Kurd family built on their property to house the natural expansion of the family. When this extension was declared illegal by Israeli authorities, the Israeli municipality handed the keys over to Israeli settlers. The al-Kurd Family went to court and an eviction order was issued against the settlers. When the al-Kurd family were evicted on the 9th November 2008, the settlers were allowed to remain in the property, despite their own eviction order.

In July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the al-Kurd family, for their refusal to pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and the settlers. It should be noted that the al-Kurd family -and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a whole- rejected this agreement and fired their legal representative at the time.

Fifteen Palestinian fishermen released

19th November Update: The fifteen Palestinian fishermen who were abducted from Palestinian waters by the Israeli navy on the 18th November have been released. Their boats, however, have yet to be returned.

The three internationals who were also taken by the Israeli navy are still being held in Ben Gurion detention facility. All three face
deportation despite entering Gaza from international waters and not leaving Palestinian waters with the fishermen. At no point, before they were transported by the Israeli navy into Israel, did the internationals enter internationally recognised Israeli waters.

The lawyer representing the international human rights observers has been told that she can have access to them on Wednesday morning.

To view reports from the arrests on the 18th November click here and here

Ynet: UN rights chief calls for end to Gaza blockade

‘Palestinians forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months,’ UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says

By Hanan Greenberg and AP

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 18th November, click here

The UN’s top human rights official has called on Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying it breaches humanitarian law.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in Geneva Tuesday that 1.5 million Palestinians “have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months” by the blockade.

She said that Israel should allow aid goods such as food, medicines and fuel into the Hamas-controlled territory and restore electricity and water supplies.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli mission in Geneva had no immediate comment.

Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after the Islamic group Hamas violently seized control of the territory in June 2006. Israel tightened the sanctions because of rocket fire at Israeli towns.

On Saturday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to lift the blockade, saying “food and other life saving assistance is being denied to hundreds of thousands of people, and (emphasized) that measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and should cease immediately.”

A statement released by Ban’s office read: “The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at the deterioration of the humanitarian and security situation in Gaza and southern Israel, and at the potential for further suffering and violence. He calls on all parties to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Israeli security officials said the IDF will continue allowing 30 trucks carrying supplies to enter Gaza each day, a third of the amount permitted prior to the blockade. They said the matter will be reviewed should the security situation improve.

According to the officials, some 2.2 million liters (581 million gallons) of diesel fuel are being transferred to Gaza through the Nahal Oz terminal each week

This fuel is used solely for the purpose of electricity production at Gaza’s main power plant.

Ynet: NY – Rights groups protest Hebron settlement fundraiser

Adalah-NY, Brooklyn for Peace rally outside Marriott Marquis hotel against fundraiser held there by settlement group, chant ‘Hebron’s settlers, Klu Klux Klan, racist groups go hand in hand’

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 18th November, click here

Thirty-five rights advocates from Adalah-NY and Brooklyn for Peace rallied Monday evening outside the Marriott Marquis hotel in New York’s Times Square to protest a fundraiser held there by the Brooklyn-based Israeli settlement group the Hebron Fund, the right groups said in a statement.

The fundraiser was held while tensions escalated in Hebron, as the Israeli High Court ordered Hebron’s settlers to temporarily evacuate a disputed home in the West Bank city.

Standing on 45th Street near New York’s Broadway theaters, the protesters’ chants included: “Mamma Mia Marriott, you support a racist lot” and “Hebron’s settlers, Klu Klux Klan, racist groups go hand in hand.”

Aaron Levitt, an activist with Jews Against the Occupation-NYC who has spent time in Hebron as a human rights monitor, noted that, “We made a lot of noise, but I don’t know if the settlers heard us at the dinner. Some of them cast agitated looks in our direction as they entered, and I engaged a few in conversation.

“The subtext of what I heard from most when I described the settler attacks on Palestinians that I had witnessed in Hebron was that they see no equivalence in the moral worth of non-Jew and a Jew,” he said.

“This is racist in a deep and meaningful way. And it is a worldview that allows settlers in Hebron to throw stones at Palestinian girls every day as they go to school, and to drive Palestinian families from their homes.”