Category: In the Media

Palestinians protest razing of homes

Sharon Roffe-Ofir | YNet News

15 August 2009

A few hundred people gathered Saturday outside of Umm al-Fahm in order to protest the destruction of homes in Arab areas. Protestors blocked Highway 65 for a few minutes and then held a rally near a commercial center torn down a few weeks ago.

High Arab Monitoring Committee Chairman Mohammad Zeidan said during the rally that “you can’t throw a person into the sea and then tell him not to get wet; this is deliberate government policy”.

He added, “We cannot accept the fact that another 40,000 homes are still in danger of being destroyed.”

After the Arab town’s commercial center was destroyed the High Arab Monitoring Committee decided to hold a rally on the main road. However Northern District Police objected and the case was brought before the High Court of Justice, which ruled that the protestors would be permitted to cross the road.

Though police deployed 500 officers to the protest in anticipation of a riot, the events remained non-violent.

Umm al-Fahm councilman Raja Agbariyeh organized the rally. “We are protesting the destruction of homes,” he said. “For the 61 years Israel has existed it has refused to approve construction and development plans on one hand, and on the other continues to destroy homes. We will not agree to such a situation.”

After the rally, Zeidan told Ynet he intended to send a memo to Interior Minister Eli Yishai in which he would request the freezing of destruction orders and the legitimization of construction plans.

Rights group: Israel killed unarmed Palestinians

Jen Thomas | Associated Press

13 August 2009

A new report by Human Rights Watch charged Thursday that Israeli soldiers killed eleven unarmed Palestinian civilians who were carrying white flags in shooting incidents during Israel’s offensive in Gaza earlier this year.

The report says the civilians included five women and four children. The group urged Israel to conduct investigations into the deaths, which it said occurred when the civilians were “in plain view and posed no apparent security threat.”

The group says at least three witnesses confirmed the details in each of the seven separate shootings.

The report is the latest in a slew of charges from human rights groups alleging that Israel violated the rules of war in its Gaza offensive. The reports on the Gaza war have focused on Israeli violations, but Human Rights Watch has also said Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups violated the rules of war by firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians.

Israel says groups like Human Rights Watch are unfairly singling it out and has criticized the methodology of reports based largely on Palestinian testimony. Israel says it did not deliberately target civilians and that noncombatants were killed because Hamas militants took cover, fired rockets and stored ammunition in crowded residential areas.

In a response to the report, the Israeli military said its soldiers were obligated to avoid harming anyone waving a white flag but that in some cases Hamas militants had used civilians with white flags for cover.

“Any person who displays a white flag in this way acts illegally, does not enjoy protection from retaliatory action, and endangers nearby civilian populations,” the military said.

Last month, the Israeli government released its own report defending its use of force in Gaza. The report says Israel is investigating five alleged cases in which soldiers killed civilians carrying white flags, incidents that it said resulted in 10 deaths.

Two of the five incidents were among those mentioned by Human Rights Watch.

Both Israel and the Palestinians acknowledge that more than 1,100 Gazans were killed in the Israeli offensive. Palestinians say most were civilians. Israel says most were armed militants, but has not released evidence to back up that claim.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed during the Gaza war.

Shortly after the new report was released, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev questioned the organization’s objectivity.

Regev did not directly comment on the Gaza allegations, instead referring to a recent flap over Human Rights Watch’s fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia. The group came under fire for reportedly highlighting its criticism of Israel at a meeting attended by several Saudi officials.

This, Regev said, “raises important questions about the organization’s impartiality, professionalism and credibility.”

Court refuses to issue restraining order against evicted Sheikh Jarrah Arabs

Jonah Newman & Abe Selig | The Jerusalem Post

14 August 2009

A Jerusalem District Court rejected on Thursday a request by Jewish families who have taken possession of homes in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood by court order to issue a restraining order against the Arab families who were evicted from those homes.

However, Judge Eilata Diskind issued a warning to the Arab families to refrain from violent behavior.

The petition for the restraining order, which was made by the Nahalat Shimon International organization, asked that nine people – three members of the Hanoun family and six members of the Gawhi family – be prohibited from congregating outside the homes.

It was rejected by Diskind, who said there was insufficient evidence to prove the plaintiffs’ claims that members of the families had thrown rocks at the homes and harassed the new occupants.

The judge did issue a warning to the defendants to refrain from such behavior in the future.

Both the Hanoun and Gawhi families have set up makeshift protests across the street from their former homes to protest what they have called the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian residents from the neighborhood.

In their testimony, the Jewish plaintiffs said the defendants yell, “Your grave will be here” and other curses every time they pass in front of the building.

“They have nothing to do there but bother us,” said Yitzhak Mamo, one of the plaintiffs. “What are they doing there, playing backgammon?”

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Ilan Shemer, cross-examined each of the respondents after the judge finished asking questions, and asked one of them, Khaled al-Gawhi, why he and his family continued to live on the sidewalk, if their intention was not to bother the new residents.

“I want to show the whole world what kind of law they have in this country,” Gahwi responded.

Gawhi also claimed that the Jewish families had thrown rocks at him, including one which came from the upper floors of the building and landed meters from a five-month-old baby.

Two of the other respondents, Majed and Salim Hanoun, refused to answer questions without their lawyers present.

The respondents complained that the court summons had been far too hasty, arriving an hour before the proceedings were to begin, and hardly giving them enough time to contact their lawyers.

“I called someone to come translate [the court summons] for me, and then it took us 30 minutes to get here,” Maher Hanoun told The Jerusalem Post.

Hanoun and Gawhi’s lawyers, who said they didn’t know about the hearing until almost an hour after it was set to begin, arrived just as the judge was reading her decision.

Nonetheless, both families seemed somewhat relieved after the decision was read, and were seen moments later preparing to return to their ongoing protest vigils in Sheikh Jarrah.

While the Jewish plaintiffs declined to comment on the verdict, Khaled al-Gahwi told the Post simply, “They didn’t get their request, that’s it, it’s over.”

Israel toughens entry for foreigners with West Bank ties

Amira Hass | Ha’aretz

13 August 2009

Israel has recently been putting up more obstacles for foreign nationals who enter the country if they have family, work, business or academic ties in the West Bank. It now restricts their movements to “the Palestinian Authority only.” The people concerned are citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel, mainly Western countries.

In imposing such restrictions, Israel is in breach of the Oslo Accords.

For about the last three months, border control officials at the Allenby Bridge have been stamping visitors’ passports with a visa and the additional words “Palestinian Authority only.” Officials from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who are also present at the Allenby crossing, have in some cases told visitors that they must apply to the Civil Administration for a permit to leave the West Bank and enter Israel.

According to Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad, the same procedure also exists at Ben-Gurion International Airport, though Haaretz has not encountered any such cases. However, Interior Ministry officials at the airport have been known to require foreign nationals to sign a pledge that they will not enter the PA without permission from COGAT.

Officials have also warned tourists who want to visit the West Bank that the next time, they should enter via the Allenby Bridge. Haddad confirmed that anyone “entering Palestinian Authority territory should go via the Allenby Bridge.”

But the practice of restricting visitors to the PA only has not yet been applied to all visitors entering the country via the Allenby Bridge. Haddad declined to answer Haaretz’s question as to why this rule was being applied selectively and who decides on its application.

The people on whom travel restrictions have been imposed, and with whom Haaretz has spoken, include businesspeople and foreign investors, people with relatives in the West Bank, university faculty, and international development and welfare workers. All are citizens of Western countries.

“PA territory” comprises the 40 percent of the West Bank (Areas A and B) over which the PA has civilian authority. These areas are enclaves interspersed throughout Area C, which is under full Israeli control. Theoretically, therefore, these tourists may not leave one enclave for another, enter the Jordan Valley, or cross to the other side of the separation fence.

When asked whether the limitation to the “PA only” indeed referred to Areas A and B, Haddad said: “Because this issue involves an army permit, the question must be referred to the army.” The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman said the question must be referred to the Defense Ministry. A Defense Ministry spokesman initially said this question and others must be referred to COGAT, while COGAT’s spokesman said that “most of the questions” should be referred to the Interior Ministry. On Monday night, Haaretz was told that COGAT’s response would be included in the Defense Ministry’s response. However, no such response had been received by press time.

Another question that thus remains unanswered is whether legal experts in the interior and defense ministries are aware of the fact that the travel restrictions Israel is imposing are a violation of the 1995 Interim Agreement, also known as Oslo-2. The agreement states that citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel may enter the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on their Israeli visa and a valid passport.

According to Interior Ministry spokeswoman Haddad, the new procedure is based on “a 2006 decision by the interior minister and the defense minister [Roni Bar-On and Amir Peretz, respectively] that any foreign national who wants to enter the Palestinian Authority must have a permit from the army, and entry is permitted only into PA territory.” But Haddad refused Haaretz’s request for a copy of the text of the decision, and a similar request to Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror received no response at all.

In early 2006, Israel annuled a rule that had been in place for decades whereby foreign nationals – whether of Palestinian origin or not – were permitted to visit, live and work in the territories based on tourist visas that they renewed every three months. Thereafter, Israel began preventing the entry of thousands of people, including businesspeople, investors, students, university faculty and spouses of Palestinians.

Several of these people launched an international public campaign against the restrictions. Foreign embassies protested, and America’s then-secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, also voiced criticism.

As a result of the pressure, the interior and defense ministers canceled the restrictions in December 2006, and GOGAT was told to revise the procedures. However, both the text of the procedures that was sent to the PA on December 28, 2006 and a letter the Foreign Ministry sent to foreign embassies and consulates on March 5, 2007 revealed that Israel had created a new restriction: Entry to the West Bank was henceforth conditioned on “the military commander’s consent … the foreign national will be required to keep the consent form with his/her passport.”

In contrast to Haddad’s response, however, the text states that the area in question is “the West Bank,” not “PA territory.” And neither of these documents states that entry to Israel is prohibited or requires additional bureaucratic steps.

The new procedure effectively places many tourists and visitors under closure and discriminates against them compared to their compatriots who do not have relations with the Palestinian community and whose main destination is not the West Bank. (Israel has kept the number of foreign nationals it allows into Gaza to a minimum since the August 2005 disengagement.) Closure has been the permanent state of affairs in the occupied territories since January 1991, when Israel forbade Palestinians to enter its territory without a permit from the Civil Administration.

An account of life on the West Bank

Lamia Khatib | The Huffington Post

13 August 2009

Lamia Khatib is a 27 year old Palestinian mother of of four. Lamia’s husband Mohammad is secretary of the village council and a member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. They live in the West Bank village of Bil’in, which has been under Israeli military occupation for the last 42 years.

On August 3, my husband Mohammed Khatib, and my little brother Abdullah, were taken from their beds in our West Bank village of Bil’in at 3 AM by the Israeli military. My husband is a member of the Bil’in Popular Committee, which has been leading our village’s nonviolent campaign against Israel’s construction of a Wall and a settlement on our land. For nearly five years, every Friday we have been joined by supporters from Israel and around the world as we attempt to march to our land on the other side of the Wall. According to the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the settlement amounts to a war crime, and in 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled the Wall illegal.

In addition to years of peaceful protests, for the last four years our village has held an annual international conference on nonviolent resistance. Bil’in’s struggle has become an emblematic example for Palestinians and worldwide. Last December, the Bil’in Popular Committee was awarded the 2008 Human Rights Medal by the International League of Human Rights in Germany.

Despite this, the construction of the Wall and settlements continued, and we are treated as criminals in our quest for justice. On top of tens of arrests, hundreds of protesters from Bil’in have been injured and one has been killed by the Israeli military.

Just a few days before he was arrested, Mohammed wrote this account of our life in Bil’in:

—

I woke up this morning to find my three year-old son, Khaled, beating me and screaming wildly. Of course I was shocked by this, so I started to comfort him and ask what was the matter… through the sobs and tears, I managed to make out a few words:

“Why are you not a good Dad… you left me to the soldiers… at the Wall… and they shot me in the leg!”

“What happened to your leg, Khaled?”

“It’s better now…”

He was describing a nightmare.

My wife, Lamia, once asked me: “Why can’t we live like other people?” It was a very difficult question for me to answer. All the Palestinians of my generation were born under military occupation, so this is the only life we know.

As I write these words, it’s almost midnight and we are sitting on the roof of my house, on the look-out for the Israeli army. It’s been two months since the most recent wave of night raids began, with the army now employing a new strategy of arresting every villager who attends the demonstrations, in an attempt to crush our campaign of nonviolent resistance. Up until now eleven people have been arrested, but the list of those wanted is much, much longer. So in Bi’lin, no one goes to sleep before four or five in the morning. We stay awake all night, observing the movements of the Israeli military, fearing that we may be the next person to be kidnapped and thrown in jail. Our nights have become our days, and our days have become our nights. For some it is more difficult than others because of work commitments, but we have no choice.

But it’s not only the adults who stay awake. Our children can’t sleep either, afraid that the army will burst into his or her room in the middle of the night. They don’t knock on the door during the night raids. So imagine the horror for a child to wake up to find a stranger with a painted face pointing his gun in their face. We don’t stay up so much to avoid arrest, but to avoid facing this terrible moment.

Even with all this, I know that I have a good quality of life compared to other Palestinians. I’m lucky enough to have avoided, up till now, both jail and the loss of a family member. Two out of three Palestinians you meet will have suffered one or the other, if not both.

—

Yesterday, I saw Mohammed and Abdullah in the Israeli military court. My brother had bruises all over from the beatings he received from the soldiers. My husband is being accused of “incitement to damage the security of the area.” It is obvious that the Israeli authorities will do all that they can to prevent Palestinians and Israelis from working together towards a just peace. Mohammed may no longer be one of the “lucky” ones, but I know that he, Abdullah and I, and everyone in Bil’in, will continue our struggle for justice.