Category: In the Media

Maan: Bil’in – dozens injured after inhaling tear gas, town waits for court verdict

To view original article, published by Maan on the 1st August, click here

Dozens of residents and a Palestinian journalist suffered breathing problems after inhaling tear gas fired on them by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful protest in the village of Bil’in on Friday afternoon.

Photos courtesy of Activestills

The protest is a weekly event against the construction of the separation wall which cuts the village off from its ancestral land.

After Friday noon prayers, Bil’in residents took to the streets alongside international and Israeli peace activists, carrying Palestinian flags and banners denouncing Israeli policies such as construction of the wall, land confiscation, settlement building, road closures, the siege of Palestinian cities, and the killing of civilians, especially children. Other slogans condemned shooting detainees while they were hand-cuffed and blind-folded, as Israeli forces were recently filmed doing in the nearby village of Nil’in.

Demonstrators chanted slogans calling for national unity as they made their way to the wall in an attempt to cross into the village lands. The group carried with them a picture of Ahmad Husam Musa, a boy who was killed by the Israeli army in the village of Ni’lin on Tuesday while participating in a demonstration.

Israeli soldiers attacked the demonstration, firing tear gas bombs and rubber-coated metal bullets on the crowd. Dozens were treated for tear gas inhalation, including Imad Burnat, a Palestinian journalist.

On Wednesday, a group of Italians visited the wall in the village and listened to a detailed presentation on the wall and its deleterious affects on the village by the Popular Committee Against the Wall. The Italian group tried to access the village lands behind the wall, but Israeli soldiers prevented them from doing so. The delegation headed to Ni’lin, a village northeast of Bil’in, where they hoped to extend condolences to the family of the child killed Tuesday. Israeli soldiers, however, prevented them from entering the village.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in denounced the violent Israeli attacks on the demonstrators.

On 4 September 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the Israeli authorities to redraw the path of the wall because the current route was deemed “highly prejudicial” to the villagers of Bil’in. In July a new route for the wall was submitted to Israeli authorities. The new plan will return some of the agricultural area that has been destroyed by the construction process, but the new route will cut into a second agricultural sector. According to the group’s lawyer, the new route will actually take more land away from the town than the original.

The town has objected to the plan and is awaiting a court hearing scheduled for 4 August.

Montreal Mirror: Land grabs and lawsuits

A Palestinian village sues two Montreal-based companies over the construction of a West Bank settlement

By Jesse Rosenfeld

To view the original article published by The Montreal Mirror click here

Accused of war crimes for their involvement with Israeli settlement expansion, two Quebec-registered companies are being sued in Canada by the occupied West Bank Palestinian village of Bi’lin.

Toronto lawyer Mark Arnold filed a claim in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of the village against Green Park and Green Mount International three weeks ago. The case is part of a combined Palestinian, Canadian and Israeli effort to halt expansion of the Modi’in Illit settlement.

The sister construction companies are being charged with violating both Canadian and international law, while also acting as agents of the Israeli state due to their construction of residences in Mattityahu East, a hilltop adjacent Modi’in Illit’s main settlement block. Calling the case unprecedented, Arnold cites the Fourth Geneva Convention and Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

“They are Canadian companies and subject to Canadian and international law,” he says, contending Green Park International and Green Mount International are aiding the transfer of settlers to an occupied territory, resulting in a war crime and violating both these acts and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Although officially based in Montreal, there is little information about the two companies, which also have offices in Panama City. Their Montreal office is a commercial photo studio and Arnold believes their official director is only a name on paper.

Tracing ownership

Quebec government records say Green Park and Green Mount are controlled by Lexinter Management, whose majority shareholder, F.T.S. Worldwide Corp, is a Panama-based company historically involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s diamond trade.

However, according to a spokesperson from Green Park and Green Mount’s business partners Danya Cebus construction company, the two companies are owned by wealthy American businessman Shaya Boymelgreen. Danya Cebus received a subcontract for the Mattityahu East project in 2004 and the spokesperson says the two companies are part of Boymelgreen’s business conglomerate.

“Green Park and Green Mount—as part of the Boymelgreen group—subcontracted to Danya Cebus, with the [Israeli] government’s approval in awarding contracts,” says a Danya Cebus spokesperson. “Boymelgreen was the group that won the contract and Danya Cebus is acting as the subcontractor.”

A subsidiary of Africa Israel Investments LTD, Danya Cebus is owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. Leviev’s relationship with UNICEF was severed in June over the involvement of Danya Cebus in West Bank settlement construction.

The village is seeking a permanent injunction against Green Park and Green Mount construction at Modi’in Illit and $2-million in punitive damages. Bi’lin is also demanding that the company restore the land to its pre-construction state while also footing the bill for it.

“We want to show that people who come and profit from Palestinian suffering will lose,” says village council secretary Mohammed Khatib. He adds that Bi’lin is fighting to retrieve its land, not win monetary settlement for it.

Khatib says Modi’in Illit sits on lands belonging to Bi’lin, and Mattityahu East—sitting atop land confiscated by Israel’s Separation Wall—is the closest part of the settlement to the village residences. The villagers have been waging both a popular and legal struggle against the wall and expanding settlement for three years, winning an Israeli High Court decision in November 2007 ordering the Wall’s rerouting.

Nonetheless, it has yet to be moved and an Israeli military alternate route proposed on July 10 has been roundly rejected by the village. The newly proposed route will maintain most of the confiscated farmland, including Mattityahu East.

The politics of confiscation

Khatib contends that legally targeting the companies in Canada is essential because the issues are being ignored by the Israeli courts. “The legal system in Israel is not giving us the minimum of our right,” he says. “The settlement and the wall will turn Bi’lin into an enclave surrounded on three sides by the wall and settlement.”

The Israeli lawyer representing Bi’lin, Michael Sfard, sees the Canadian case as an important warning sign to the building sector about the consequences for involvement in Israeli settlement construction. “The impact is huge,” he says. “Foreign and Israeli corporations abroad should beware and think twice about embarking on settlement projects.”

Sfard argues that this claim was not originally taken to the Israeli courts because the Israeli courts have a precedent for referring to land confiscations for settlement expansion as a political issue and refusing to deal with them. If the case is successful for Bi’lin, Sfard intends to bring the ruling to the Israeli courts, asking the Israeli judiciary to enforce the Canadian court’s ruling against Green Park and Green Mount.

Neither Green Park, Green Mount nor Boymelgreen responded to requests for comment.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah.

Ynet: ‘How can a boy threaten soldiers?’

Uncle of 11-year-old Palestinian said to be killed by Border Guard police officer slams security forces; posters of Ahmed Musa posted across Palestinian village; dead child turns into symbol of resistance to West Bank fence

By Ali Waked

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 30th July, click here

A general strike has been called at the Palestinian village of Naalin Wednesday to protest the killing of 11-year-old boy Ahmed Mussa. IDF troops blocked the main entrance to the village, while businesses in Naalin closed their doors ahead of the funeral, scheduled for Wednesday. Meanwhile, weeping local residents gathered around the Mussa home and slammed the IDF and Israel’s security forces.

The women standing near the home kept repeating “they have no God,” while wiping away their tears. Mussa’s uncle, Hosni Yusuf Mussa, told Ynet that he fails to understand why a Border Guard police officer would shoot at a child.

“He was a young boy playing with his friends. How could he threaten the soldiers?” he said. “They’re just kids who saw a march against the fence and joined in. To come back dead and without a head shows the cruelty of the soldiers.”

‘A grand lie’

Mussa said he believed the killing was a message to protestors in a bid to end the ongoing demonstrations against the West Bank security fence. He added that he does not believe in filing a lawsuit against Israel.

“A lawsuit won’t make a difference and a trial won’t make a difference,” he said. “At most, the soldiers will put on a show…the judges release (the soldiers) immediately…what they’re doing is one grand lie, a show for the media.”

Meanwhile, posters of the dead child have been posted across the village, and slogans pertaining to his death have been scribbled on walls – an honor normally reserved for wanted Palestinians killed by the IDF. Despite his young age, the slogans say Mussa is a symbol of resistance to the security fence and vow to “continue his path.”

Mussa’s 10-year-old friends said they were trying to remove barbed wire placed by the army when a jeep arrived and forces started to fire.

“Suddenly, we saw the martyr falling and one bullet in his head,” said Mussa’s friend Ahmed Saadat. He admitted that the children then started hurling stones at the forces, with one of them hitting a police officer in the head.

Ynet: Naalin commander ordered to go on 10-day leave

Northern command chief suspends senior officer following shooting of bound Palestinian in during anti-fence rally, citing ‘moral and authoritative failure’

By Hanan Greenberg

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 29th July, click here

Northern Command Chief Major-General Gadi Eisenkot ordered Battalion 71 Commander Lieutenant-Colonel Omri to go on a 10-day leave of absence Tuesday following the incident in the West Bank Palestinian village of Naalin, in which a soldier under his command fired a rubber bullet at a bound Palestinian detainee during an anti-fence rally.

Staff Sgt. filmed shooting rubber bullet towards bound Palestinian detainee found to have testified truthfully about in second lie detector test. But his commander, whom he accuses of ordering him to shoot, found to have lied

Major-General Eisenkot noted that the incident indicated a severe lapse in judgment and a “moral and authoritative failure” on the commander’s part.

The Lt. Col. continues to maintain that the soldier acted independently, however Ynet has learned that he recently failed the polygraph test he was subjected to.

The soldier told military investigators that Lieutenant-Colonel Omri gave him a direct order to shoot one of the Palestinians, whose arms and legs were bound.

A video of the incident was circulated by B’Tselem and was aired first on Ynet.

On Tuesday morning materials pertaining to the case compiled were handed over to the Military Prosecution, which is expected to decide on the next legal steps against the commander and soldier.

Sources familiar with the investigation said indictments may be filed in the affair, but added that a final decision has yet to be reached.

Meanwhile, the IDF received another complaint from a Palestinian who claimed that Lieutenant-Colonel Omri and another officer physically assaulted him. The complaint was filed through B’Tselem.

Chicago Tribune: Israel targets West Bank charity sites

Islamist outlets shut by crackdown deny backing Hamas or spreading agenda

By Joel Greenberg

To view original article, published by the Chicago Tribune, click here

HEBRON, West Bank—For more than 40 years, the Islamic Charitable Society in Hebron has provided social services to residents of this volatile West Bank city, helping orphans and needy families. Its new school for girls was to open next month, a mall it operated housed shops and offices, and it ran two bakeries and a sewing shop.

But in a series of raids in recent months, the Israeli army ordered the mall vacated and emptied the charity’s main warehouse. The school gates were welded shut, school buses were seized and the sewing shop was closed in a nighttime sweep in which Israeli soldiers, their faces darkened by camouflage paint, stripped the place bare.

The raid was part of a crackdown against business enterprises, schools and welfare groups in the West Bank that Israeli military officials say raise money and mobilize public support for the militant Islamic movement Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction.

Fighting ‘civilian Hamas’

The army campaign began this year in conservative Hebron, where Hamas has a strong following, and was extended this month to Nablus, where soldiers ordered the closing of a five-story mall and raided city hall, whose elected municipal council is controlled by Hamas.

The campaign against Islamist institutions in the West Bank comes as Israel’s military and Hamas’ armed wing are observing a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas routed the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last year.

The West Bank government of Abbas shut down dozens of West Bank charities said to have links with Hamas late last year; the Israeli crackdown has had the practical effect of complementing the Palestinian Authority’s campaign.

“The army has realized that the battle is not only against terrorism that is visible for all to see but against those who generate the funds needed to build bombs and buy guns and ammunition,” said Oron Mincha, a spokesman for the army’s Central Command.

“The campaign now is against the civilian Hamas, which provides the ideology for Palestinian youth to believe in holy war and the destruction of Israel,” he said.

Groups deny claims

But the Islamic charities and welfare groups involved vehemently deny promoting any militant agenda, insisting they are grass-roots social organizations formed to fill gaps left by inadequate government services. Some Palestinians see the Israeli crackdown as part of a grander scheme.

“This is part of an Israeli strategy to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian society and make it needy, unable to help itself and subject to foreign agendas,” said Samira al-Khalaika, a Hebron lawmaker affiliated with Hamas.

Established in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, Hamas has always maintained both an armed wing responsible for fighting Israel and a social welfare network that runs health clinics, orphanages, soup kitchens, kindergartens and schools. Those institutions have boosted the group’s popularity and solidified its reputation for honesty and public service — in contrast with Fatah, which has been plagued with corruption.

Yet not all Islamic welfare groups are linked to Hamas, and critics of the Israeli campaign say it is misdirected, targeting vital supports of Palestinian society.

The mall ordered closed in Nablus is owned by a finance company accused by the Israelis of raising money for Hamas. Computers, furniture and documents have been seized from the company’s offices, and on Monday, 14 members of its board were detained.

The Islamic Charitable Society in Hebron, the largest in the West Bank, was founded in 1962 under Jordanian rule, and before most of Hebron was transferred to the control of the Palestinian Authority it was licensed by the Israeli military government .

Now the Israelis designate the society — which runs orphanages and schools in the Hebron area — a banned organization because of its alleged links to Hamas.

Teaching ‘hatred’

At the Al-Huda mall in downtown Hebron, which was ordered vacated by April 1, most of the premises are empty. A dress shop, cosmetics store and computer outlet are shuttered. The office of a physical therapist and a lawyer are vacant, with signs directing clients to other locations. The society’s hangarlike warehouse, which contained clothing, shoes and school supplies for needy students and their families, is also bare. Rasheed Rasheed, a teacher who works for the group, said soldiers worked a full day to load several trucks with goods, also hauling off industrial refrigerators used to store meat for the orphanages and the poor.

At the Al-Rahma bakery, where soldiers seized equipment, walls were broken and a large oven was heavily damaged. Rasheed said the soldiers set fire to the oven when they couldn’t carry it off.

Mincha, the army spokesman, denied that any property had been vandalized, suggesting that the damage had been staged, but he confirmed the confiscation of goods and closure of the school and building complexes owned by the society.

Rasheed emphatically denied that the Hebron charitable society had any links to Hamas, noting that it was established well before the militant group even existed. He said the schools follow the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority.

“The only curriculum of incitement and hatred is the Israeli checkpoints, the beating and killing of Palestinians,” Rasheed said. “That is what teaches Palestinian children hatred. We don’t have to.”

jogreenberg@tribune.com