Category: In the Media

Clashes erupt at Aqsa compound

Al Jazeera

25 October 2009

Dozens of people have been wounded in clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in and around the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a flashpoint site holy to Muslims and Jews.

The Red Crescent emergency service said at least 18 Palestinians were wounded in the violence on Sunday.

At least three officers were also hurt in the fighting, Israeli police said.

The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), comprising al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

An Israeli police spokesman said at least 16 people were arrested, but that calm had largely returned to the area several hours after the clashes broke out.

Israeli police action

Jivara al-Budairi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said the violence in the Old City erupted after the Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian students and youths in the area.

The youths retaliated by throwing stones at the police.

Israeli police had deployed extra troops to the site early on Sunday after Palestinians called for demonstrations in response to rumours that rightwing Jewish activists were planning to gather at the compound.

The rumours circulated after a fringe Israeli group, the Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights on the Temple Mount, called on Jews to gather at the mosque compound as well as the adjacent Western Wall.

A spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, condemned “the storming of Haram al-Sharif by Israeli forces” and called on Israel to “halt all provocative acts”.

“Jerusalem is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told the AFP news agency, calling on the international community to intervene to “put pressure on the Israeli government”.

Palestinian officials said the Israeli police had closed off the compound to visitors, leaving hundreds of worshipers inside.

Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the Jerusalem police spokesman, said security forces used stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators.

He accused the protesters of pouring oil on the ground to make the police forces slip, and of hurling a firebomb.

Ben-Ruby said police did not enter the mosque itself.

‘Angry Palestinians’

But Kamal Khatib, a spokesman for the Israeli Arab Islamic Movement, which has been at the forefront of recent al-Aqsa demonstrations, blamed Israeli police for the clashes.

“The police always excuse their attacks by saying that the worshippers threw stones,” he told AFP.
“It is clear they just want to justify their crimes.”

Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in East Jerusalem, said: “Palestinians living in the occupied part of the city put up with a lot of indignity and harassment on a daily basis – demolitions, evictions, checkpoints.

“But when it comes to anything that threatens the integrity of al-Aqsa mosque, that is where people’s patience snaps and that is why we have seen such an angry response all over East Jerusalem [from people] who see this as a very heavy display of police might.”

Tensions had exploded into violence earlier on September 27, when Palestinians hurled rocks at a group of visitors who they suspected of being rightwing Jewish extremists.

Israel captured the compound from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and it has since served as a symbol of the two sides’ competing claims to Jerusalem.

Day-to-day administration of the site remains in Muslim hands.

In September 2000, the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, erupted after Ariel Sharon, a rightwing politician who went on to become Israel’s prime minister, visited the site.

California residents disrupt Olmert

Indy Bay

22 October 2009

Twenty-two activists were arrested at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s speech to the World Affairs Council tonight between 6:30 and 7:30pm at the Westin St. Francis Hotel (Union Square). Inside the auditorium, activists began disrupting the event by placing Olmert under citizens arrest. Every couple of minutes, more activists disrupted his speech, barely allowing him to speak, by reading the names of the children killed in Gaza last winter, reading from the recently published Goldstone Report, and displaying banners that read “Lift the Siege on Gaza” and “War Crimes are Not Free Expression!” Activists were removed from the auditorium chanting “War Criminal!” and taken to the Tenderloin Police Station where they are being held for citation. Ten additional people participated in the action but were not arrested.

Olmert ordered Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza beginning in late December 2008, codenamed Operation Cast Lead. Last week, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, an independent investigation into the Gaza operation, which found that Israel violated international law and possibly committed crimes against humanity.

“Israel is an apartheid state guilty of war crimes and its leaders should not be welcome in San Francisco,” said Lisa Nessan, a Jewish resident of Oakland, who has traveled several times to Israel and Palestine, most recently in May. “For the past sixty years, under leadership like Olmert’s, Israel has denied Palestinians their basic human rights, built settlements on their lands, and killed civilians – all to force them from their homeland.”

A lively protest also gathered across from the hotel in Union Square, where about 250 people carried signs bearing the names and pictures of children killed during Operation Cast Lead. Olmert is making several appearances in the US this month, and has been met with strong protests at locations including the University of Chicago and Tulane University in New Orleans. “We join with people around the world who believe that Israel and its leaders must be held accountable for their actions. Israel killed 1400 people during its attacks on Gaza last winter alone, and many more have died or suffered from the effects of siege, occupation, and apartheid on their daily lives,” said Monadel Herzallah, a Palestinian activist who lives in Fairfield and whose 21 year old cousin was killed in Gaza in January.

Organizers also expressed outrage that President Obama has ignored the findings of the Goldstone Report. The US has pledged more than $3 billion each year in unrestricted aid to Israel. “Israel’s use of US aid and military equipment violates our own laws,” said Rae Abileah, an organizer with CODEPINK whose father is Israeli. “Why are we giving aid to a country that is destroying people’s homes and attacking civilians, while our own nation is struggling with unemployment and underfunded social services?”

Eduardo Cohen of San Francisco sums up the sentiment: “The war crimes in the Goldstone Report are not an exception, but a reminder that Israel’s apartheid law is itself criminal. We must not only hold Olmert accountable, but all of Israel’s leaders, our own elected officials, and other companies and individuals that profit from these crimes. Only then can true justice be reached.”

The protest was sponsored by: Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid (BACEIA), CODEPINK Women for Peace, Friends of Deiribzi’a, Northern California International Solidarity Movement, Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), South Bay Mobilization, Stop AIPAC, CAL Students for Justice in Palestine, US Palestine Communities Network (USPCN), Bay Area Women in Black.

Palestinians behind bars with no recourse to justice

Christoph Schult | Der Spiegel

23 October 2009

Hundreds of Palestinians are kept behind bars in Israel without charges having been filed and with no access to a fair trial. Not even their lawyers are allowed to look at the evidence. Some governments in the West have expressed their concern, but the Israelis haven’t budged.

The cell is only a few square meters in size and there are no windows. A mattress lies on the floor; a hole in the floor for prisoners’ needs, cynically called a “Turkish toilet” is next to it.

Mohammed Othman has been held in Kishon Detention Center in northern Israel for almost a month. But neither he nor his lawyer knows exactly what he is being accused of. Othman is locked up as an administrative detainee — called Maazar Minhali in Hebrew — and is one of around 335 Palestinians currently in the same position.

According to a report from the human rights organization B’Tselem, more than a third of such administrative detainees remain behind bars for longer than six months, a further third longer than a year. Eight percent stay locked up for at least two years. The Israeli army has confirmed the numbers, but emphasizes that they have been dropping in recent years.

Allegedly Incriminating Evidence

Nevertheless, the practice is problematic for a democracy such as Israel’s. Military judges decide if the detention will be prolonged — and for the most part they merely rubberstamp the motions filed by the military attorneys, who, for their part, received information from Shabak, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. The allegedly incriminating evidence is not shared with the detainees or with their legal representation.

The material is secret and cannot be shared with the accused due to “security concerns,” an Israeli army spokesperson said. He acknowledged, however, that such military hearings “are without a doubt subject to error.” In other words, one cannot speak of a fair trial.

The Salem military court in the northern part of the West Bank has already extended Mohammed Othman’s detention three times. According to Israeli law, it is possible to imprison a Palestinian for 90 days without charge. And a judge in a military court of appeal can extend that period of detention for another 90 days.

The latest hearing in the Othman case was on Monday of this week. While Judge Eliahu Nimni did not give the intelligence agents the 23 days they had asked for to interrogate their prisoner, he did rule that the detention be extended by 10 days. After hearing Othman’s lawyer’s testimony, Judge Nimni said that these 10 days were necessary to clarify the “suspicions” against the Palestinian. Letting Othman go would be a security risk, he said.

Terrible Conditions

The organization Addameer arranged for Othman to have a lawyer represent him. The 33-year-old complained to his attorney about the terrible conditions in prison, and said he was interrogated for hours at a time. On one occasion, Oct. 15, he was grilled from 1:45 p.m. until 1:20 a.m. When Othman fell asleep on his chair out of exhaustion, his interrogators poured water over his head, he says.

Othman still doesn’t know what he is being accused of. He told his lawyer that he has not been confronted with any concrete dates, names or events. What do they have on him? SPIEGEL ONLINE tried to find out from the domestic intelligence agency. “We cannot fulfil your request,” came the written reply. A telephone enquiry to ask how this lack of transparency could be compatible with the rule of law met with the reply by a spokeswoman: “It is all going according to law and order. Trust us!”

A number of Western embassies have had similar experiences. Sweden, which currently holds the six-month rotating president of the European Union, wasn’t even able to obtain a reason for the arrest. Sweden and other countries filed a protest.

The Israeli army stated that administrative arrests target terror suspects. But in the Othman case, that is highly doubtful. He was arrested on Sept. 22 as he attempted to travel over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank. He was returning from a visit to Norway where, among others, he met with Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen.

‘Doesn’t Respect Peaceful Protests’

Several Western diplomats have vouched for his innocence. Othman is known for his strict policies of non-violence. In his hometown of Jayyous, he has organized protests against the construction of the security fence with which Israel is attempting to protect itself from terrorists. Othman and other activists have focused their protests against the route of the security fence, for which the Israelis have expropriated land that belongs to the Palestinians in Jayyous.

The fact that the Israelis have nabbed a supporter of non-violent protests has enraged some Western diplomats. “Many Palestinians are interpreting this as a sign that Israel doesn’t even respect peaceful protests,” a foreign observer said.

The government in Jerusalem has shrugged off the allegations. It isn’t even clear who has political responsibility for the policy of “administrative arrests.” After SPIEGEL ONLINE submitted questions to the Defense Ministry, it was referred to the prime minister’s office, which in turn told the reporter to ask the Justice Ministry, which then sent the reporter back to the Defense Ministry. In the end, the Defense Ministry provided no response.

Israel confirms settlers ramping up West Bank construction

Amos Harel | Haaretz

23 October 2009

The defense establishment confirmed that in recent weeks West Bank settlers have been making a noticeable effort to expedite construction, in an attempt to maximize the “facts on the ground” before the United States and Israel reach an agreement on a settlement freeze.

A senior security source said this week that the defense establishment’s view on the situation was reflected in reports published in Haaretz last Friday, which stated that extensive construction is currently being carried out in at least 11 settlements.

“The settlers are very much in tune with the ticking political clock,” the senior defense source said. “You can sense it on the ground, with the infrastructure work that is being done, but also in more minor things. They are acting without any legal authorization and are ignoring the state.

“The approach at this time is that whoever can, goes ahead and builds,” the source continued. “It begins with the official leadership of the Yesha Council [of settlements] and ends with the hilltop youth.”

He pointed out that the phenomenon of unbridled construction is evident in both the more established settlements and in the illegal outposts.

“Whoever can, lays the floor in preparation for constructing a building; and in factories they add extensions to roofs. In some settlements, they’ve built factories for rapid construction of caravans on site, so that they can bypass the ban – on transporting caravans – which was issued by the Civil Administration. Everything was done with the intent of creating a critical mass in many different locations at once, which will make evacuation in the future [more] difficult,” he said.

“They are well aware of the historical precedent: after all, all sides – the Americans, the Israelis, the Palestinians – are now talking of a permanent settlement that will include the settlement blocs in Israeli territory. This is happening because of previous construction in those locations,” the source added.

The senior defense source acknowledged that the measures that have been adopted by the defense establishment to counter the new construction are limited in their scope. “Wherever it involves limited housing, they are evacuated. In other places, where they manage to [get there before] us, the IDF secures warrants – but this does not necessarily result in evacuation,” he said.

A generation traumatized

Rami Almeghari | The Electronic Intifada

21 October 2009

Ten-year-old Hiba Hammad at the center.

Like many other children in the region, 10-year-old Hiba Hammad from the northern Gaza Strip witnessed atrocities by the Israeli army against the population of Gaza during its assault on the coastal strip last winter.

Hiba’s smiled returned only after four months of intensive psychological therapy at the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution.

“Thank God that Hiba returned back to normal after we almost lost hope of her recovering. Right after the war, Hiba kept silent, isolated, fearful of everything around her, especially strangers. But now she is getting much better as she scored 91 percent in the final exams of her school year. Moreover, she now smiles, socializes and even jokes, thank God,” said Hiba’s sister Ettaf, who lost her husband during the attacks.

Wearing a red dress, Hiba sat opposite to her therapist, Haniya Balousha, at the center. It was her first visit there since her treatment was completed four months ago. On that day, Hiba received gifts to celebrate the end of her treatment and her recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Hiba described her trauma confidently and with a smile. “I saw on TV children being dragged from under rubble. From the roof of the house, I saw a tank dragging another [child], I also saw my three cousins’ martyred and mutilated bodies.”

Hiba merrily responded to her sister’s request that she tell us a joke. Hiba proceeded, “Once someone asked his friend, ‘Why is the ambulance parked next to the bakery?’ The friend answered: ‘In order to give first aid to the burnt bread.'”

Even her jokes reflect an ongoing problem in Gaza where Israel continues to periodically attack the Palestinian population. Parents cannot guarantee the safety of their children in the Strip.

Therapist Haniya Balousha in her office.

Following last winter’s attacks on Gaza, Balousha explained that Hiba’s performance at school suffered while previously, “she used to get high marks in her exams.” Balousha added, “Throughout our observation and treatment of Hiba, I noticed that she feared strangers, kept isolated and withdrawn. Hiba suffered [post-traumatic] stress disorder.”

Balousha added that Hiba began to gradually respond to the treatment after three sessions, after which her self-confidence began to be restored. She described the means she used to treat Hiba: “In the beginning I used to encourage her to express herself by drawing what she had seen during the war. Then I asked her to inflate balloons and then pop them. At the beginning she appeared frightened of the balloons because they reminded her of the sound of Israeli bombardment and shelling during the war. But eventually she began to be responsive until she was totally recovered as you see [her now].”

According to Balousha, Hiba’s case is quite similar to the situation of many children in Gaza during and after Israel’s attacks. She explained that since the war came to an end in January, the center treated more than 350 children suffering from PTSD.

Fourteen-year-old Yasser, who declined to give his last name, was also in a therapy session at the center. Therapist Saed al-Sersawi explained that Yasser had witnessed the killing of his father in eastern Gaza City.

“Mr. Saed teaches me how to express myself, he helps me to draw and write poetry sometimes. With his help I am feeling better now to the extent that my relations with [my environment] have improved, thank God,” said Yasser.

According to the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP), more than 60 percent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer PTSD symptoms.

The GCMPHP’s survey also shows that hundreds of children were exposed to white phosphorous fired by the Israeli army during the 22 days of attacks on Gaza.

Abdelaziz Thabet, who works with the GCMHP, said that exposure to white phosphorous has made the majority of children and parents in Gaza feel unsafe.

“The most common traumatic events still include hearing sonic booms from the jet fighters, hearing shelling of the area, witnessing mutilation on TV, deprivation from water or electricity during detention at home, [and] shooting by bullets or rockets or bombs,” Abdelaziz explained.

Asked what kind of treatment the GCMHP offers, Abdleaziz responded, “We are doing programs like school-based intervention such as role-playing or story telling. We have also reached the most-hit regions in Gaza, such as al-Attatra, Ezbet Abed Rabo and Zaitoun. According to our own assessments there are more than 45,000 children in Gaza who need mental health treatment.”

Figures from Palestinian and international human rights organizations estimate that more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces during last winter’s invasion, including more than 300 children. The three-week-long war also left approximately 6,000 others wounded, 4,000 houses completely or partially destroyed as well as hundreds of institutions and mosques.

According to Abdelaziz, the mental suffering children face will not disappear since “the majority of children fear the return of Israeli attacks to the region.”

All images by Rami Almeghari.