Category: In the Media

Ynet: “Israeli army’s complicity with settlers must end”

Army must make law enforcement against settlers a policy backed by action

by Mooky Dagan , Thursday 21st September

For years human rights organizations have pointed out the complicity between the Israel Defense Forces command headquarters in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israeli settlers, nurtured by policies intended to facilitate the Judaization of the West Bank.

The army’s bond with the settlers leads to a policy of non-action as far as maintaining the law and the security of Palestinians, who are subject to constant violent harassment by their illegal neighbors.

While the IDF and the Civil Administration (which deals with civilian conflicts between settlers and Palestinians), dismiss these charges as nonsense, Colonel Yuval Bazak, who finished his tenure in the West Bank, admits to a conflict of interest and complicity in many violations of the law.

Among them: The failure to dismantle illegal outposts, the failure to prevent settler violence against Palestinian civilians or to prosecute the settlers; and non-cooperation with the Israel Police. Yet Colonel Bazak faces no sanctions for these lapses.

Problematic connection

As documented in a comprehensive report by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, the close bond between the settlers and the army has serious implications:

The army does not give sufficient support to police investigations, and thereby sometimes undermines them. Often the army refuses to provide the escort necessary to conduct investigations at the scene or inside the settlements.

The army does not deploy forces permanently in known friction areas, where a permanent presence could improve the situation immediately. The security constraints within which the IDF operates must not be used as an excuse not to protect the civilian population.

The soldiers on the ground are not aware of their law enforcement powers and obligations. Settlers have provoked and attacked Palestinian olive harvesters while soldiers on order to guard them did nothing to stop or detain the settlers until the police arrived.

The Civil Administration conducts a biased policy in favor of the settlers in cases of land disputes. The common practice is to demand that a Palestinian complainant present expensive measurement papers to prove his ownership. Under an unbiased policy, the settler suspected of trespassing on land that isn’t his should be the one required to present the necessary documents.

Ideological offenses, by definition, involve violence justified in the offender’s mind as a means to achieve larger, collective goals. It is difficult to fight such ideology-backed violence without taking harsh measures — which would be possible only by severing the ties between the IDF and the settlers.

The IDF must make law enforcement against settlers a policy backed by action. The defense minister must instruct the Central Command that law enforcement is a military objective and that commanders will be evaluated as much for their success in maintaining the law as for preventing terrorism.

Mooky Dagan is a member of the human rights organization Yesh Din’s steering committee.

The Independent : “Gaza: The children killed in a war the world doesn’t want to know about”

by Donald Macintyre in Rafah, Tuesday 19th September

Nayef Abu Snaima says his 14-year-old cousin Jihad had been sitting on the edge of an olive grove talking animatedly to him about what he would do when he grew up when he was killed instantly by an Israeli shell.

He says he clearly saw a bright flash next to the control tower of the disused Gaza international airport, occupied by Israeli forces after Cpl Gilad Shalit was seized by militants on 25 June. “I went two or three steps and the missile landed,” said Nayef, 24. “I thought I was dying. I shouted ‘La Ilaha Ila Allah’ [There is no God but Allah].”

When Jihad’s older brother Kassem, 20, arrived at the scene: “My brother was already dead. There was shrapnel in his head. Nayef was shouting ‘Allah, Allah’. The missile landed about four metres from where Jihad had been standing. There was shrapnel in his body as well, his legs, everything. He had been bleeding a lot everywhere.”

Jihad Abu Snaima was just the most recent of more than 37 children and teenagers under 18 killed [out of a total death toll, including militants, of 228] in the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to figures from the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights (PCHR).

Of these, the PCHR classifies 151 as “civilian”, although beside non-combatants and bystanders, that total also includes militants or faction members not involved in operations against Israel at the time ­ for example those deliberately targeted in Israeli air strikes because of their involvement in previous attacks. The Israel Defence Forces have always maintained that being under 18 does not automatically exclude a person from taking part in action against them.

The conflict in Gaza has attracted relatively little international attention, not least because for five weeks it was overshadowed by that in Lebanon. But the death toll has continued to rise.

Nayef, who was speaking from his hospital bed, has multiple shrapnel-inflicted cuts on his plaster-covered arms and legs. But he was lucky compared with Jihad. A school caretaker with a five-year-old daughter, Nayef insists the evening of Jihad’s death was just a family get-together. It is normal, he said, in this Bedouin community in the Al Shouka hamlet outside the southernmost Gaza town of Rafah to socialise at each other’s homes on a summer evening, and that he and Jihad were especially close.

“I was always with him. He was an innocent person, kind. He was talking to me about how he was going to inherit part of his father’s land and farm it and how he was going to get married and stay here.” Nayef added tearfully: “He was a boy who had hopes. He wanted to live his life.” He added: “What is my daughter going to think? She is going to grow up hating the Israelis.”

The family say there was no shelling in the area at the time either before or after the incident; and that they therefore presume Jihad and Nayef were targeted by a tank crew. They insist there was no activity by militants against Israeli positions on the day of the attack. “This is an open area,” said Nayef. “The resistance would not go there because they would be seen.”

By contrast, the Israel Defence Forces said, without specifying Al Shouka, that on 10 September it had identified and hit “two men” moving near its forces in southern Gaza crouching on the ground, and ” apparently planting explosives”. Nayef is adamant that on the night in question he and Jihad were merely pausing on an evening stroll to his own house.

The PCHR, which seeks to monitor every violent Palestinian death, does not only focus on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It has, for example, repeatedly condemned the killing and injuring of growing numbers of civilians, also including children, during mounting inter-Palestinian disputes in Gaza; shootings by Palestinian security forces themselves; attacks on Christian churches by Muslims protesting against the Pope; the injury of civilians, including children, by Palestinian-fired Qassam rockets which fall short of targets in Israel; and the kidnapping last month of two Fox TV employees which has deterred journalists from visiting Gaza.

But Hamdi Shaqqura of PCHR’s Gaza office ­ which accuses Israel of using repeated closures and destruction of the power supply to operate a policy of “collective punishment” in breach of international law in Gaza, argues that the excuse of “collateral damage” cannot justify the ” very high” death toll in the operations since 15 June. He adds: ” Israel’s forces have been acting excessively and disproportionately, and this explains the high figures for the number of innocent civilians killed by them.”

At the other, northern end of Gaza, close to the al-Nada apartment blocks between Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Aref Abu Qaida, 16, was killed by an artillery shell on 1 August. Sharif Harafin, 15, said: “We had been playing football and we had just finished. I was carrying the ball. I was going to my home, and [Aref] was going to his home. I heard a loud boom and then I saw him cut to pieces.”

As his family displayed Aref’s shredded red baseball cap, Sharif said he saw his friend’s severed head on the ground, adding: “His chest was torn out by the rocket. People were collecting parts of his body. I was crying a lot.”

The IDF says that on 1 August it had fired and hit “a number of Palestinians” in “the area of Beit Lahiya” who had ” approached a number of rocket launchers placed in the area”. Both PCHR and local residents, including Mohammed Abu Qaida, 39, the dead boy’s uncle, say that, while three other civilians were wounded, the only other death in this incident was that of Mervat Sharekh, 24, a woman who was visiting relatives from Rafah and who died in hospital an hour later.

Although the area had been shelled before, and some residents had fled in response to Israeli warnings the previous week, Mr Abu Qaida said the area had been quiet on the day ­ except that Qassam rockets had been fired about four hours earlier from northern settlements more than a kilometre away from the flats.

The IDF said last night that, of those killed in Gaza, it had the ” positive identities of over 220 gunmen killed in fighting, and can confirm their affiliation with terror organisations”. The 220 figure ­ said to be “unbelievable” by Mr Shaqqura ­ coupled with another 20 dead which the military acknowledges as genuine civilians, is all the more strikingly at variance with PCHR figures since it produces a total exceeding the centre’s own records.

Mr Shaqqura said that, at the absolute minimum, the IDF figures do not take into account the casualties under 18 ­ which PCHR estimates at 44 and from which he said every effort is made to exclude the “rare” teenagers with militant connections ­ or eight women killed since 25 June. ” We do not believe their figures. We do not believe their investigations.”

The IDF said: “Since the abduction of Cpl Gilad Shalit by the Hamas and PRC terror organisations, the IDF has been operating in the Gaza Strip against terrorist infrastructure and in order to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. In the course of the operations, the IDF engaged in intense fighting with Palestinian gunmen, who chose heavily populated areas as their battlegrounds. The IDF takes every measure to prevent harm to civilians, often at a risk to its soldiers.”

The forgotten war in the Middle East

* 25 June: Palestinian gunmen from the Hamas-linked Izzedine al-Qassam brigades cross from Gaza into Israel and launch a raid on an Israeli military patrol. Two Israeli soldiers are killed, four wounded and one, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, is captured and taken back into Gaza.

* 28 June: Israel masses troops before launching a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip under the codename Operation Summer Rains. Civilian casualties mount as Israeli forces search the Khan Younis refugee camp for Cpl Shalit.

* 12 July: Mimicking the tactics of Palestinian militants, Hizbollah launches mortars and rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon to divert attention from a cross-border raid that ambushes an Israeli military patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. The raid threatens to draw the whole Middle East into conflict.

* 13 July: International attention is diverted from Gaza as Israel launches a full military invasion of southern Lebanon in response to Hizbollah’s attack. The mounting civilian death toll across Gaza pales in comparison to Lebanon as Israeli jets pummel infrastructure.

* 24 July: As world powers frantically search for a UN-backed ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel increases its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in an attempt to force Palestinian militants to release Cpl Shalit. Under the codename Operation Samson’s Pillars, Israeli jets pound Gaza’s roads and buildings, including the power station.

* 14 August: UN approves a ceasefire for Lebanon after four weeks of fighting which has left approximately 1,500 Lebanese and 150 Israelis dead. International community continues to ignore the conflict in Gaza over fears that Lebanon could slip back into warfare unless a UN peacekeeping force arrives in the region.

* Mid-August-present: Israel continues to carry out air strikes and raids in Gaza. At least 33 civilians have been killed since the beginning of August, 10 of whom were under the age of 18.

Names of children under the age of 18 killed during the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights

Bara Nasser Habib, 3 (hit by shrapnel to the head and body, Gaza City, 26 July)
Shahed Saleh Al-Sheikh Eid, 3 days old (bled to death after airstrike, Al-Shouka, 4 August)
Rajaa Salam Abu Shaban, 3 (died of fractured skull in air raid, Gaza City, 9 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by a shell, Al-Shoukha, 10 september)
Khaled Nidal Wahba, 15 months (died of wounds from an airstrike, 10 July)
Rawan Farid Hajjaj, 6 (killed with his mother and sister in an airstrike, Gaza City, 8 July)
Anwar Ismail Abdul Ghani Atallah, 12 (shot in the head, Erez, 5 July)
Shadi Yousef Omar 16 (shot in the chest by IDF, Beit Lahya, 7 July)
Mahfouth Farid Nuseir, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Ghalib Abu Amsha, 16, (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Fathi Shabat, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Walid Mahmoud El-Zeinati, 12 (died of shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 11 July)
Basma Salmeya, 16 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Somaya Salmeya, 17 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Aya Salmeya, 9 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Yehya Salmeya, 10 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Nasr Salmeya, 7 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Huda Salmeya, 13 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Eman Salmeya, 12 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Raji Omar Jaber Daifallah, 16 (died of shrapnel wounds from missile, Gaza City, 13 July)
Ali Kamel Al-Najjar, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Ali Al-Na’ami, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Rawhi Abu Abdu, 14 (killed by drone missile, Al Nusairat refugee camp, 19 July)
Mohammed ‘awad Muhra, 14 (killed by Israeli bullet to the chest, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 20 July)
Fadwa Faisal Al-‘arrouqi, 13 (died from shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 20 July)
Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Khitam Mohammed Rebhi Tayeh, 11 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Ashraf ‘abdullah ‘awad Abu Zaher, 14 (shot in the back, Khan Younis, 25 July)
Nahid Mohammed Fawzi Al-Shanbari, 16 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 31 July)
‘aaref Ahmed Abu Qaida, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 1 August)
Anis Salem Abu Awad, 12 (killed by airstike, Al-Shouka, 2 August)
Ammar Rajaa Al-Natour, 17 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Kifah Rajaa Al-Natour, 15 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ibrahim Suleiman Al-Rumailat, 13 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ahmed Yousef ‘abed ‘aashour, 13 (killed by missile fire, Beit Hanoun, 14 August)
Mohammed ‘abdullah Al-Ziq, 14 (killed by drone missile, Gaza City, 29 August)
Nidal ‘abdul ‘aziz Al-Dahdouh, 14 (killed by rifle fire, Gaza City, 30 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Rafah, 10 September)

Salon.com: “Up Against the Wall”

Israel continues building a mammoth barrier in the name of border security. Opponents charge that it’s carving more land for Jewish settlements — and assaulting Palestinians’ human rights.

by Rachel Shabi, Salon.com

Sept. 18, 2006, WEST BANK: “We haven’t seen our land since January last year,” says Abdul Ra’uf Khalid, sitting in his home in the Palestinian village of Jayyus. The Khalid family’s 5.5 acres lie on the Israeli side of the separation barrier, which in Jayyus consists of a tall electric fence winding its way across the hilly, rural terrain. The Khalids have greenhouses, and olive, citrus and fruit trees, on the land but aren’t allowed to cross the divide to tend them. “The apricots and peaches are falling from the trees and rotting,” says Abdul’s wife, Itaf. Stuck here, restless and unable to work, the Khalids appear to be deteriorating in similar fashion.

Along much of the West Bank’s border with Israel a similar story is unfolding. It is a story of land, livelihood and a way of life lost to Israel’s rising barrier, known as the “security” or “separation fence” by its supporters and the “apartheid wall” by its opponents. In June 2002, the Israeli government approved the building of the first stage of a physical barrier separating the Jewish state from the West Bank. In July 2004, the International Courts of Justice deemed the wall illegal and called for its removal. Now, the wall — built from various combinations of concrete, razor wire and electric fencing — is 51 percent complete, and construction of the rest continues apace.

Read the rest of the article at Salon.com

IMEMC: Another settler attack in Susiya

by IMEMC and Agencies, Tuesday 19th September

Khalil Nawaja, in his 70s, was attacked with sticks and pipes Monday evening by a group of seven Israeli settlers with their faces covered. An Israeli soldier was escorting the settlers and did nothing to stop the attack, said local eyewitnesses. Villagers called the Israeli police, but could not get a response.

They then called Ezra Nawi of Ta’ayush (Israeli peace group), who was able to get through to the police on their behalf and ask for an investigation. According to a press release from the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) working in the area, the Israeli police only arrived on the scene two hours after the attack, despite the fact that the police station is only 300 meters away from where the attack took place.

The village of Susiya lies between the Israeli settlement of Susya (a Hebrew-ization of the Arabic village name, a common practice among Israeli settlements built atop Palestinian villages), an Israeli settlement outpost (on the site of an ancient synagogue) and an Israeli military base. The Palestinian village has some remaining fifty residents scattered over several hills living in tents, and have been attacked frequently by the Israeli settlers.

According to the Christian Peacemaker Team, the Israeli soldiers and police who eventually arrived to take testimony were angered by the fact that one of the Christian Peacemakers was videotaping, and tried to stop him. The soldiers and police also refused to open an Israeli-controlled gate to allow an ambulance through to the injured man.

When Nawaja was finally able to receive medical treatment, medics noted injuries all over his body – he had been hit on his leg, arm, hand, and upper body. The elderly farmer was taken by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to Yatta hospital for examination and treatment.

Haaretz: High Court – “Unbearable Situation” For Palestinians During Olive Harvest

by Akiva Eldar, Tuesday 19th September

Labor Party minister Yuli Tamir recommended putting forth the demand that the prime minister renew negotiations with Syria and Lebanon in the Sareinu forum of ministers . Minister Ophir Pines-Paz told Labor activists in Tel Aviv over the weekend that Ehud Olmert’s references to the road map (among others) were nonsense. He suggested immediately opening the blocked Israeli-Palestinian channel. But, in the occupied territories, the domain of the party chairman, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, it’s business as usual. A non-law abiding group in the settlements continues to cut down olive trees and confront Palestinian farmers. A report prepared by the organization Yesh Din relating to a period in which Peretz was responsible for the welfare of residents of the territories, lists three serious incidents of felled olive trees in Salam (45 trees) and Sinjil (140 trees.) As in all previous instances, no arrests were made. Another report by the organization’s volunteers tells of an illegal outpost whose residents mock the law and those in charge of enforcing it.

At the end of June, the High Court of Justice panel, led by then vice president, Justice Dorit Beinisch, ruled there could be no acceptance of “the unbearable situation,” in which Palestinian farmers were afraid to harvest their olives. The High Court ordered the security authorities to act more diligently against offenders to uproot the phenomenon at its source. Subsequently, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz approached Peretz and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter. He told them to “immediately order the implementation of a general plan” to fulfill the court’s directives,” and to address “specifically” how to beef up enforcement units in the territories as recommended. He told the two officials to keep him updated.

A document Haaretz received from a legal source, entitled “Recommended Directions of Activity,” reveals that the problem is not “staff work” nor even a manpower shortage, but the authorities’ level of effort in meeting the obligation to protect helpless farmers. The term “effort” (in other words “motivation”) appears five times in the document, which was prepared last January by the office of the coordinator of activity in the territories, Major General Yosef Mishlav.

Below are its main points: “Very serious incidents, involving damage to some 2,300 trees require urgent measures, and that the guilty parties be brought to justice, to serve justice, serve as a deterrent and prevent acts of revenge.”

The document notes it is necessary to act on three planes simultaneously:

  • Investigative efforts, under the auspices of the Israel Police and the Shin Bet security service – intensive work by the designated investigation team with the aim of linking suspects to events or their surroundings in order to produce evidence for an indictment
  • Operational-command level effort – the OC Central Command allocated a specific force for this objective, the “patience” objective, until all the guilty parties are caught red-handed. This will require a coordinated effort by the intelligence-investigative team and the operational team.
  • Legal efforts: convening a committee chaired by the Defense Ministry’s legal adviser to consider within the strict letter of the law the granting of compensation to tree owners, as was done at Inbus [hooligans destroyed an entire orchard in Samaria, and compensation was granted after MK Efraim Sneh intervened – A.E.] A legal opinion is needed for issuing removal orders and restraining orders against suspects from the Scali Farm and the Arussi Farm immediately after the evacuation of the Hebron wholesale market and the caravans at the Amona outpost. The legal advisers must help the OC Central Command.”

This document was sent to then-defense minister Shaul Mofaz for the lessons from the shortcomings in the preceding olive harvest. Peretz says that in the coming season, which starts at the end of the month, things will be better to the extent they depend on him. Defense Ministry officials say that it does not depend solely on the IDF. Check how much “effort” the police and Shin Bet’s Jewish division are investing, they suggest, in protecting residents of the territories.

Among the possible steps recommended by the coordinator of activities in the territories are “evacuation actions” at the two “farms” – the term that illegal outposts hide behind. Such items are popping up under the nose of the defense minister, who once protested against previous defense ministers over the establishment of new settlements. Apparently the changeover in justice ministers and heads of the ministerial committee for the implementation of the report on outposts, are providing the government with a new excuse for stalling. The new justice minister, Meir Sheetrit, assures the few interested in the fate of the promise Ariel Sharon made to the U.S. in 2004 to dismantle the illegal outposts built during his term that he is “studying the matter.”

Mazuz still has not formulated his position on the document prepared by his deputy, Mike Blass, which among other things proposes “whitewashing” the illegal outposts and even providing them with public funding. Mazuz wants to review the responses of all relevant parties to the new proposal, says the Justice Ministry spokesman. That’s what Shaul Mofaz said when he was appointed defense minister a few months after leaving the post of chief of staff. Someone should open a school of outposts. Attorney Talia Sasson, who wrote the report on illegal outposts at the request of then prime minister Ariel Sharon, could be the principal. She explains that with every day that goes by without any action being taken by the authorities in the face of the massive invasion of private lands is another day of collaboration with criminal elements, at least by default.

The case of the El-Matan outpost in Samaria demonstrates brazen violation of the law by settlers. Ten days ago, Ibrahim Alem of Tulat found that an electric cable had been laid on private lands owned by village residents. The cable led from the community of Ma’ale Shomron to the El-Matan outpost. Yesh Din volunteers found a group of residents from the outpost with a tractor out in the field working on laying a pipe and summoned representatives of the Civil Administration. A young settler named Eitam Luz said into the volunteers’ microphone that he was aware he was standing on Palestinian land, but the state was refusing to supply the outpost with electricity, and bypassing the land to run cable would be more expensive.

The Judea and Samaria Police district said in response that this was indeed private land and an investigation has been opened of possible trespassing. The work in the field was halted but the Civil Administration released a statement saying that it did not have the authority to issue a stop-work order, because this was not infrastructure building or a case of unapproved work.