Category: Features

Join Palestinians on November 30th to protest against the Prawer plan

10th November 2013 | Prawer Won’t Pass Campaign | Occupied Palestine

Day of Rage against the Prawer Plan.
Day of Rage against the Prawer Plan.

On 24th of June, the Israeli Knesset approved the Prawer-Begin plan, which if implemented will result in the destruction of more than 35 unrecognized villages in Al-Naqab and the forced expulsion and confinement of more than 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins. The Prawer plan is the largest Israeli land-grab since 1948. It epitomizes the nature of Israel’s policy; Israeli-Jewish demographic expansion and Palestinian-Arab demographic containment.

The International community has repeatedly called on Israel to halt the implementation of the Prawer Plan due to its discriminatory nature and the severe infringement it causes on the rights of Palestinian Bedouins in Al-Naqab. The UN committee on the elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Israel to withdraw the proposed legislation of the Prawer Plan. Also, in 2012, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Israel to stop the Prawer plan and its policies of forced displacement and dispossession.

Injustice, humiliation and forced displacement are a recurring theme in Palestine’s history. This is lesson that we as a group of youth take to the heart. We will oppose, resist and work against the continuous assault that our communities, across Palestine face. Therefore, we launched the “Prawer will not pass” campaign with an eye to preventing this plan to be yet another chapter in Palestine’s long and tragic history.

Opposing the Prawer Plan is to oppose ethnic cleansing, displacement and confinement in the 21st century.

Join us by organizing marches, protests, sending letters to those with positions of influence in your country or community, by doing whatever you can, in order to force Israel to stop the Prawer plan.

Join us on the 30th of November in saying “Prawer shall not Pass”.

For more information, please contact:
Email: PrawerWontPass@gmail.com

Photos: Released detainees celebrate new freedom with supporters in Gaza Strip

2nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Five former Palestinian detainees freed overnight Wednesday in the Gaza Strip have received a resounding welcome.

Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni greets a supporter. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni greets a supporter. (Photo by Gal·la López)

Their families have erected celebration tents outside each of their homes to receive supporters and delegations.

A celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)

On Thursday afternoon, an overflowing bus carried several dozen well-wishers between them, from farmlands outside Khan Younis to the Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp on the coast of Gaza City.

Supporters of the freed detainees ride a bus between celebration tents. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Supporters of the freed detainees ride a bus between celebration tents. (Photo by Gal·la López)

Detainees’ families and other participants in a weekly protest, held on Mondays at Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross office to support Palestinian prisoners, joined the trip.

Omar Issa Rajab Massoud greets Um Ibrahim Baroud, a co-founder of Gaza's Monday protest for detainees, and other supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Omar Issa Rajab Massoud greets Um Ibrahim Baroud, a co-founder of Gaza’s Monday protest for detainees, and other supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)

Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi, one of the freed detainees, told supporters he hoped the release would “stress the need for the prisoners’ issue to be given greater priority at all levels, locally, regionally and internationally.”

A young man walks past posters celebrating the release of Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A young man walks past posters celebrating the release of Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi. (Photo by Gal·la López)

In a statement, the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based society of current and former detainees which organized the tour, said “that the joy of the Palestinian people will be complete only with the freedom of all prisoners, led by patients, children, women and administrative detainees.”

Photos: Gaza march on eve of Balfour anniversary met with Israeli tear gas

2nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

Israeli forces fired tear gas to disperse a march in the “buffer zone” east of Gaza City, by the Nahal Oz checkpoint, on Friday afternoon.

The demonstration, which began at Shujaya square in the city after Friday prayers, was organized by the Intifada Youth Coalition to protest today’s anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

In the 2 November 1917 letter, Arthur James Balfour, foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, then occupying Palestine, told Walter Rothschild, a leader in the British Zionist movement, that the British government “view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

(Photo by Joe Catron)
(Photo by Joe Catron)

“We went to the buffer zone to tell the occupation that this date is unforgettable after 96 years,” said Majed Abusalama, a Coalition spokesman.

“Every generation that comes will remember it  again, and remember every Israeli crime against unarmed Palestinians. Yes, it is our land, the buffer zone is for Palestinians, and we should farm it.”

Demonstrators overcome by the effects of tear gas were treated by Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances waiting outside the “buffer zone.”

(Photo by Joe Catron)
(Photo by Joe Catron)

“The Israeli response to our unarmed protest appeared from the start, when we were about 800 meters away from the fence,” Abusalama said. “They shot tear gas directly at us.”

Protesters kept trying to reach the checkpoint, which Israel closed at the beginning of 2010, retreating only after several hours of tear-gas fire.

The event followed a 27 September march organized by the Coalition to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of the second Intifada and protest Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied east Jerusalem.

Photos: Hundreds greet freed detainees at midnight rally in northern Gaza Strip

30th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

As part of the resumption of negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, 26 Palestinian prisoners were released overnight Wednesday from Ofer prison in Israel. Five were transferred to the Gaza Strip via the Erez checkpoint in Beit Hanoun. This was the second of four planned releases of a total of 104 Palestinian prisoners, nearly all imprisoned before the beginning of the Oslo system in 1994. The 26 released in this round have been detained from 19 to 28 years, and are between 38 and 58 years old. But they could have regained their freedom long ago. As part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum in 1999, all Palestinians captured and sentenced before Oslo should have been freed.

(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

The five men returning to the Gaza Strip were hailed as heroes for their resistance against the occupation by the 400-500 Palestinians gathered at Erez to greet them. The scene in Israel, however, was entirely different. On Monday, thousands gathered outside Ofer prison to protest against plans to release the 26 prisoners, all but two sentenced to life.

Even within Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, there have been strong disagreements about the release. The Jewish Home party, an ultra-right coalition member, unsuccessfully proposed legislation to bar future releases. Its leader, Naftali Bennett, criticized Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni, one of the negotiators, in strong terms, saying that stopping the release of Palestinian prisoners was far more important than than Livni’s continued presence in the cabinet. Less extremist elements within the coalition said that Netanyahu could have prevented the release by accepting a freeze on the construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, or negotiations based on its boundaries as the borders of a future Palestinian state. This is a view shared by opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich, who claimed that Netanyahu’s Likud prefers to release prisoners than freeze settlement construction.

(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

A freeze on the construction of new settlements and the expansion of existing ones, all illegal under international law, has always been a demand of Palestinians to continue negotiations. It was Israel’s refusal to meet this requirement that crashed the talks 2010, and only after the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s mediation were the parties were able to return to the negotiating table. But Netanyahu has already stated that permission will be given for more settlements. It is speculated that this will include between 1,200 and 1,700 units of settler housing. How this will affect the negotiations remains to be seen.

(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

A spokesman for the Hamas-led government in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, accused the Israeli government of using the release of prisoners as a smokescreen for house demolitions, the construction of the wall, changing the status of Jerusalem, obstructing the right of return, and seizing even more Palestinian land. Hamas is not part of the negotiations. Barhoum’s claim expresses what many believe, that Israel hopes to change the focus of the negotiations. A resolution giving Israel the opportunity to expand settlements on occupied territory is an agreement between a pacified Palestinian authority and an occupying power. With the announcement escalated settlement expansion, the Netanyahu government has proven what it wants out of the talks.

Photos: Detainee families, supporters keep Gaza vigil on eve of prisoner release

29th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Families and supporters of Palestinian detainees held by Israel celebrated tonight’s promised release of 26 prisoners during a weekly sit-in Monday morning.

The regular event, which began in 1995, brings comrades, friends and relatives of Palestinian prisoners together in the courtyard of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Gaza City office.

“I and my family can’t believe Hazem is going to be released,” Taiseer Qassem Shubeir said after the event.

Shubeir is the brother of of Hazem Qassem Taher Shubeir, one five prisoners from the Gaza Strip scheduled for release.

“We had lost hope,” Shubeir said. “Now all the Israelis’ excuses have been broken. We are unbelievably happy, and the whole family is waiting nervously.”

The expected release of 26 detainees follows an earlier release that also included 26 prisoners, with 14 from the Gaza Strip, on 14 August.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Rallies have been planned to the five Gaza Strip detainees, both on their arrival at the Erez checkpoint in Beit Hanoun, expected around midnight, and later in their cities and neighborhoods.

“Families and supporters of the detainees will go to Erez,” said Osama al-Wuhaidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based society of current and former Palestinian detainees. “After seven o’clock, people will start gathering by the checkpoint.”

“Everybody in Khan Younis is already celebrating,” said Shubeir. “I feel like Hazem is the son not only of our family, but of the whole Palestinian people.”

The Israeli government has said that the releases, part of its current negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), will free 104 detainees over nine months of talks.

These will include all Palestinians detained before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 and charged by Israeli with offenses before the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, according to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Israel first agreed to release these prisoners in its 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum with the PLO.