Rae Abileah is dragged to the floor after disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress.
During the Joint Session of Congress while Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking, Rae Abileah stood up from the gallery and shouted “Stop Israeli War Crimes.”
From the peace group CODEPINK, Rae is a 28 yr. old Jewish American of Israeli descent. She has traveled to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and witnessed firsthand the reality of occupation and oppression. “Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the 1967 borders are indefensible. But what is really indefensible is the occupation of land, the starvation of Gaza, the jailing of dissenters and the lack of equal rights in the alleged Israeli democracy. As a Jew and an American taxpayer, I can’t be silent when these crimes are being committed in my name and with my tax money.”
Ms. Abileah grew up on Half Moon Bay and presently lives in San Francisco. She was arrested and charged with disrupting Congress. Upon release, she can be reached at 415-994-1723.
This protest is part of the week-long series of actions, organized by CODEPINK as part of a coalition of groups gathered in Washington D.C. for a campaign named Move Over AIPAC. During Netanyahu’s speech to AIPAC yesterday, 5 individuals interrupted Netanyahu and were removed from the building (see: http://bit.ly/aipac2011).
Rae Abileah is dragged to the floor after disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress.
Rae Abileah in the hospital after being injured as police removed her from Congress.
The right to return is a core goal of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Since 1947-1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes – and more than 700,000 were ethnically cleansed from their country altogether – they and their descendants have organized to demand the rectification of this historic injustice. The refugees of the Six-Day War in 1967 (after which Israeli forces drove 300,000 Palestinians out of the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank ), the 1967-1994 Israeli administration of the occupied territories (during which Israel stripped 140,000 Palestinians of their residency rights), and the ongoing colonization of Palestine and displacement of its indigenous inhabitants, have added their voices to the growing global movement for return.
In recent years, the right to return has also emerged as a key demand of international solidarity activists supporting Palestinian aspirations for freedom. On July 9, 2005, for example, the Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) – the founding document of a Palestinian-led global movement for justice in Palestine – stated that “non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by … respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.”
Today the seven million Palestinian refugees are the world’s largest group of refugees, comprising one-third of the total refugee population. Their right to return to their homes, and to receive compensation for the damages inflicted on them, are enshrined in international law. Resolution 194, which the United Nations General Assembly adopted on 11 December 1948 and Israel agreed to implement as a condition of its subsequent admission to the United Nations,
resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
Additionally, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” And Resolution 3236, which the General Assembly adopted on November 22, 1974, “reaffirms … the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to the homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.”
Despite its clear obligations under international law, Israel continues to resist demands by Palestinian refugees that they are allowed to return to their homes. Most recently, on Sunday, May 15, the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of the 1947-1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli troops responded to demonstrations by unarmed refugees marching towards their homes with lethal force.
Israeli forces killed at least 15 demonstrators on three borders (with occupied Gaza, Lebanon, and between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights), wounded hundreds more with live gunfire, artillery shells, and tear gas, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression in the occupied West Bank. This massive violence could only have been planned as a show of brute force, intended, along with Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated assertions that “it’s not going to happen,” to dissuade Palestinian refugees from asserting their historic rights and the global consensus for the right of return.
Yet the most enduring story from May 15 may be that of Hassan Hijazi. A 28-year old Palestinian refugee living in Syria, he braved the gunfire that killed four others along the border with the occupied Golan Heights, then hitchhiked, and finally took a bus, to his family’s home in Jaffa. Before turning himself in to Tel Aviv police, he told Israeli reporters, “I wasn’t afraid and I’m not afraid. On the bus to Jaffa, I sat next to Israeli soldiers. I realized that they were more afraid than I was.”
Millions more are resolved to follow Hijazi’s path. On Sunday, June 5, the 44th commemoration of the Naksa, or setback, Israel’s 1967 expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians following the Six-Day War, Palestinian refugees will return en masse to the borders. Announcing the mobilization on May 18, the Third Intifada Youth Coalition said, “The last few days proved that the liberation of Palestine is possible and very achievable even with an unarmed massive march if the nation decides it is ready to pay all at once for the liberation of Palestine.”
The Preparatory Commission for the Right to Return, a nonpartisan coordinating body, has requested that supporters of the Palestinian liberation struggle also take action on June 5, by staging rallies, marches, and protests throughout the world demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return. Appropriate venues could include Israeli embassies, consulates, and missions, BDS campaign targets, and foreign governments and international organizations that enable Israeli crimes.
”The May 15 marches were not an isolated incident, but were rather a declaration of the foundation of a new stage of struggle in the history of the Palestinian cause, entitled: ‘The refugees’ right to return to their homes,’” a statement by the Commission says.
For the first time ever, the Palestinians have switched from commemorating their displacement with statements, festivals, and speeches, to actual attempts to return to their homes.
The scene of refugees marching from all directions towards their homeland of Palestine sent a powerful message to the entire world that the refugees are determined to return to their homes however long it may take; and that 63 years were not enough to kill their dream of return; and that the new generations born in forced exile who have never seen their homeland are no less attached than their grandparents and fathers who witnessed the Nakba.
What happened on May 15 was only a microcosm of the larger march soon to come, a march that will be made by Palestinian refugees and those who support them. They will pass the barbed wire and return to their occupied villages and cities.
The crowds will head out from everywhere there are Palestinian refugees toward the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and occupied Palestine’s borders with Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, in peaceful marches raising the Palestinian flag and the names of their villages and towns, the keys to their homes, and certification papers.
The Arab Spring’s “winds of change” are blowing through the refugee camps, no less than the Arab capitals, toward Palestine. And they show no signs of stopping.
Protests in RamallahAs protests commemorating Nakba ended on Sunday night sources confirmed that Israeli military attacks on those protests left 16 killed and 400 injured. Israeli troops attacked Nakba protests in several parts of the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, in addition to the Lebanese and Syrian borders.
Maroun al-Ras:
10 Palestinian refugees were killed and some 80 others injured when Israeli soldiers opened fire at protesters at the border fence near Maroun al-Ras at the Lebanese borders. The Lebanese army intervened after Israeli soldiers approached the borders with tanks, witnesses said that Lebanese soldiers convinced people to go back for fear from of more casualties. Lebanon filed a complaint to the UN because Israeli soldiers and tanks entered the Lebanese side of the borders violating the truce after the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
Majdal Shams :
Five civilians were killed and At least 30 more were injured when Israeli troops stationed at the Syrian borders opened fire at protesters form the Syrian border village of Majdal Shams. Israeli sources said that protesters tried to destroy the border fence and soldiers opened fire at them. The army announced the area a closed military zone.
Sources talked about four killed during the clashes between protesters and troops. Israeli sources said that the protesters managed to go through the border fence into the occupied Golan heights.
Ramallah:
In Ramallah city central West Bank, 160 people were injured among them two in critical conditions when soldiers fired live rounds and tear gas at protesters who gathered at the Qalandiya checkpoint separating Ramallah from East Jerusalem. Witnesses told PNN that soldiers were targeting the peaceful protesters by shooting directly at them.
Later troops and undercover soldiers managed to arrest five Palestinians during the clashes between local youth and soldiers who attacked today protest.
The Gaza Strip:
One civilian were reported killed by Israeli fire in addition 86 were injured among them children and one journalist in critical conditions, when Israeli tanks and troops shelled a protest organized to commemorate the Nakaba in Beit Hannon in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Bethlehem:
Six civilians were arrested, one them injured, when troops attacked Nakba protest in the village of al-Walajeh, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The protest started near the UNRWA school in the village where people set fire to a tent symbolizing that this is the last year they stay as refugees.
Later the protesters marched towards the old village of al-Walajeh which was destroyed in 1948 to make way for the creation of Israel. Troops attacked protesters as they reached the green line beat up one man and arrested him in addition to three others. Those arrested were identified as Ahmad Abu Khyara, Ahamd al-A’raj, Baseil al=A’raj, and Mazin Qumsyia. Later troops invaded the village and searched homes then arrested one American and one German journalist.
Hebron/Jerusalem
Clashes were reported between local youth and Israeli soldiers who attacked Nakba protests in Hebron, southern West Bank and East Jerusalem. PNN sources reported clashes in the old city of Jerusalem, Sho’fat refugee camp and Sliwan near the old city. Meanwhile Israeli police and troops did not allow Palestinians from 1948 areas to enter Jerusalem fearing Nakba protests.
14 May 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Milad Ayyash
Milad Ayyash, the 17 year-old who was critically injured yesterday in East Jerusalem passed away at the Muqassed Hospital, after all attempts to save his life failed. The killing comes as tensions soar over the upcoming Nakba anniversary.
The violent response of Israeli authorities to the protest marking 63 years since the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) took a heavy toll, as 17 year-old Milad Sa’eed Ayyash was mortally injured yesterday afternoon during clashes in the Batten al-Hawwa neighborhood of Silwan.
Ayyash, a resident of the Ras el-Amud neighborhood in East Jerusalem was shot in the abdomen with live ammunition as Border Police officers and settlers clashed with local youth. He was evacuated to the Muqassed hospital with no pulse and in critical condition, where he underwent surgery in a failed attempt to save his life. Ayyash was pronounced dead early this morning.
For more details:
Assaf Sharon (Sheikh Jarah Solidairty Movement): 054-494-6274
Jonathan Pollak: 054-632-7736
The bullet extracted from Ayyash’s abdomen has been found to belong to a handgun. This type of bullet is rarely used by the Israeli police in crowd control situations. The bullet therefore indicates the likelihood that the youth was shot by one of the settlers’ security guards. Last September, Samer Sarhan, was killed by settler security in Silwan.
Friday witnessed harsh Israeli responses to protests across the West Bank and Jerusalem. Soldiers and police carried out dozens of arrests including many in East Jerusalem. Dozens of injuries were recorded throughout the day.
The violent reaction of Israeli security forces to Nakba demonstrations yesterday is proof of Israel’s inability to handle Palestinian civil resistance in means other than military. As September looms, it seems as if Israel chooses to tread the same path of neighboring regimes, such as Egypt and Syria, by shooting unarmed protesters in its attempts to quash dissent.
10 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
The Israeli army fired on 50 Palestinian and international activists protesting the Israeli-enforced closure of the “buffer zone” at Erez Crossing in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip today.
The demonstration, organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, was joined by activists from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip.
Led by farmers and other Beit Hanoun community members, it was forced to withdraw by machine-gun fire after nearing the Israeli wall and its gun towers at 11:45 am.
As protesters retreated, bullets struck the ground around them.
“We are fighting for our rights. This is peaceful, popular resistance,” said Saber Al Zaaneen, Beit Hanoun Local Initiative coordinator. “They opened fire directly at the demonstrators. Thank God no one was injured. This shows the aggressive way Israelis deal with these demonstrations.”
The illegal “buffer zone” was originally established 50 meters into the Gaza Strip, according to the Oslo Accords, and has been unilaterally increased by Israel since then.
Now reaching 300 meters according to Israel, and often stretching up to 2 kilometers in practice, it prevents Gaza Strip residents from accessing large portions of their coastal territory, including 30-40% of its farmland, without grave danger.
