Category: Press Releases

Free Gaza Movement to set sail again

To view the Free Gaza Movement website click here

On October 28, 2008, the Free Gaza Movement will set sail again for Gaza. On board will be a Nobel Peace Prize winner, five physicians, a member of the Israeli Knesset, and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The boat will again carry 26 passengers and crew to the port of Gaza.

“We’ve spent the past month making sure that our boat is better and stronger, because the weather is getting more severe. Since we promised the people of Gaza we would return, we wanted to make sure we would return safely”, said Derek Graham, first mate on board the boat.

Mairead Maguire, the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work for peace in Northern Ireland and one of the passengers on board stated, “We sail to Gaza to show the people we love and care for them. What less can we do whilst our governments remain silent and inactive in face of such preventable suffering of the women and children of Gaza and Palestine.”

Also on board is Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Jamal Zahalka, , a member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament). Both Palestinians are determined to forge alliances with their countrymen in Gaza, something they have not been able to do, because Israel has closed all land borders to this besieged people.

On this occasion the siege-breakers will deliver 6 cubic meters of medicine, as a gift from the European Campaign to End the on Siege on Gaza. Dr Arafat Shoukri, head of the Campaign stated, “This is just the first consignment of medical supplies we hope to deliver. Our choice of medicines has been in response to a specific request from the health authorities in Gaza. Many basic items such as cough syrup for children are non-existent in the territory and we are happy to make them available. Our Campaign will also dispatch a number of medical specialists to the Gaza to assist in the worsening humanitarian crisis brought on by the siege.”

Greta Berlin, one of the organizers reiterated the goals of the Free Gaza Movement, “We intend to break Israel’s blockade as often as we can. This second trip is just one of many we intend to organize over the next year. We have lawyers, members of Parliament and other professionals already on our passenger lists for upcoming voyages.”

Israeli navy currently attacking Al-Mina, Rafah shore

20:00, 20th October, 2008 – Rafah, Southern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian fishermen are currently under attack by Israeli naval forces in Al-Mina, Rafah.

The Israeli navy is firing at the beach and at fishermen in the water, damaging their nets and forcing them to retreat onto the land. Live ammunition is as well being fired at fishermen on the beach.

Since October 2006 the Israeli navy have enforced a 6 mile fishing limit, despite the Oslo agreements designating a 20 mile limit. However, the Israeli navy regularly attack fishing boats as little as three miles out.

Tonight, however, the Israeli attacks on Gaza’s fishermen are taking place on the shore of Rafah, constituting a major breach of the current ceasefire.

Settlers smash Palestinian family’s car while soldiers refuse to intervene during olive harvest in Azmut

At approximately 10:40 on Thursday morning a Palestinian family from Azmut, in the northeast of Nablus, was harvesting their land near the illegal Elon Moreh settlement when a group of five settlers terrorized the family.

The settlers, wielding bats and knives, proceeded to attack the family car, smashing all windows and slashing all tyres, before retreating up the hill to the settlement.

Handala Assus, the owner of the land was picking olives nearby with his family and five small children when the attack occurred. After shouting at the settlers, demanding that they stop, he quickly ran to the nearby Israeli army base to alert soldiers of the attack. He reports telling the soldiers: ‘Here they are! Come, come to help us’, while the settlers were still in the area. ‘They said to me, go away, go away’. Assus then recalls that it took the Israeli soldiers more than twenty minutes to arrive at the scene of the attack, despite being just fifty metres away. The Israeli soldiers who did eventually attend the scene were not from the nearby base, and when questioned as to why the soldiers from the base had failed to respond one of the officers simply responded ‘I don’t know’.

The Assus family, who were unable to finish their harvesting for the day were very distraught about the damage done to their car. When questioned as to the cost of the damage Assus could only shake his head sadly saying: ‘really I don’t know, really I don’t know’. Others present on the scene estimated the damage to be in an excess of 5000 shekels.

The family, however, seemed most distraught about the lack of response from the Israeli army whose responsibility it is to protect the Palestinians from this kind of attack. Despite Israeli police eventually arriving at the scene, one army officer stated that it would be the security guard hired by illegal Elon Moreh settlement would carry out the investigation.

This is the most recent in a spate of attacks on Palestinians during the annual olive harvest. On Wednesday two cars were similarly damaged by settlers in Turmus’ayya; while on Thursday olive groves were burnt by settlers in Kufr Qaddum; and settlers from Yitzhar stoned farmers harvesting their olives in Burin.

Three injured in Bilin weekly protest

Report by Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bilin

To view website click here

Friday 3/10/2008

The residents of Bil’in, joined by international and Israeli activists, gathered to demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall and settlement building on the 3rd October. The protesters raised the Palestinian flag and banners to commemorate the Eid, calling for a national unity and also other banners condemning the massacres against the Palestinian people.

The demo left after the Friday prayer and called for an end to the racist Israeli policy and settlement building, closures, kidnappings, and the siege on cities and villages. The protesters marched towards the wall with tools to pick olives in their land behind the wall. When protesters tried to access their land, the army fired sound grenades and teargas cannisters which caused dozens to suffer teargas inhalation. Three people were shot with rubber coated bullets.

Earlier, the Israeli lawyer Michael Safardi met with the residents of Bili’n and the Popular Committee Against the Wall to give an update on the Israeli military proposal to the court. This new plan was rejected and the committee asked the laweyer to go back to the court again.

Former Iraq hostage, assaulted, unlawfully deported by Israel for human rights work, files official complaint

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – Harmeet Singh Sooden, who was held hostage in Iraq for four months in 2005-2006, has filed an official complaint to the governments of Canada and New Zealand and the United Nations for human rights violations committed against him by the Government of Israel in the course of denying him entry to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Mr Sooden travelled to Israel on 14 June 2008 to work as a human rights defender with International Solidarity Movement (ISM). ISM is an international human rights organisation composed of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who monitor the human rights situation and protect human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

After declaring the purpose of his visit, Mr Sooden was assaulted and injured, threatened, held in solitary confinement, denied the right to legal counsel and consular representation as well as the right to appeal his deportation order in a court of law, and unlawfully deported on 18 June 2008—all in contravention of Israeli and international law.

Israeli authorities told Mr Sooden that he was being deported because he constitutes “a threat to the security of the State of Israel”.

“The Government of Israel appears to be pursuing a policy of refusing entry to international human rights defenders, particularly ISM volunteers,” says Mr Sooden. “Israel as a sovereign nation has the right to determine who enters its territory. However, unless a State has credible reasons for deporting human rights defenders, one can only conclude that the actual reason is concern that they will defend human rights and publicise human rights violations.” He also adds, “ISM is an integral part of a regional Israeli-Palestinian non-violent movement and is actively contributing to the security of Israel through its efforts to protect human rights in Palestine.”

According to Ms Hina Jilani, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, “Israel’s defiance of international norms has caused serious harm, including killings, to human rights defenders.” She notes in 2006 that ISM “has been specifically targeted, with over 93 volunteers deported in the last four years”. In 2003, the Israel Defence Forces killed American Rachel Corrie, 23, and fatally shot Briton Tom Hurndall, 22—both ISM volunteers.

The Supreme Court of Israel has determined that sustainable security can only be achieved through compliance with the law, including international law. Israeli courts have repeatedly ruled that association with ISM is not a valid reason for denying an individual entry into Israel. Israeli law also guarantees an individual facing a deportation order with the right of appeal.

Mr Sooden, a citizen of Canada and New Zealand, is formally asking the Canadian and New Zealand governments to protest his mistreatment and the denial of consular access, to seek a full explanation for the reasons for his deportation and the cancellation of his deportation order, and to secure an agreement from the Government of Israel that human rights defenders will no longer be mistreated and denied access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He is also asking the United Nations to undertake an investigation into this incident in accordance with its mandate on human rights defenders.

Mr Sooden and three others were kidnapped in Baghdad on 26 November 2005 while participating in an international Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. One member of the group, American citizen Tom Fox, was murdered on 9 March 2006. Mr Sooden and the other remaining hostages, Canadian James Loney and Briton Norman Kember, were freed two weeks later in a military operation.

Mr Sooden first volunteered for ISM in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2004.