Category: Press Releases

Right of Entry: Adnan and Manal

Adnan Muhammad Hasan Khalil, American citizen of Palestinian descent, emigrated from the West Bank as a youth in 1976 and returned ten years ago to get married. At that time, he applied to the Israeli authorities for Family Unification (FU) in order to secure permanent residency in the West Bank. His wife Manal holds a West Bank ID and is not a citizen of the United States. In 1998, Manal was diagnosed with atrophy of the cerebellum and Adnan soon found himself in an unfortunate position, where he was not able to be there for her, as he could not maintain consistent residency in the West Bank. In 2004, as Manal’s condition worsened, she suffered from multiple brain attacks, Adnan overstayed his Israeli tourist visa and has since encountered various problems when trying to re-enter the West Bank. In 2006, he was allowed to enter for only two months, and earlier this June he was denied entry altogether. The Israeli authorities cited Adnan’s prior overstay as the reason for this recent denial. As a result, Manal, accompanied by her two sisters to help her move about, traveled to Jordan to see her husband, but after two months, the prohibitive cost, health conditions and distance from extended family forced her to return to the West Bank.

Manal’s condition is rapidly deteriorating. She is now fully disabled and requires the assistance of two people to move about. Though she has some extended family that can help in a limited capacity, she is essentially living alone with their three children, eldest is 9 years old and youngest is 4 years old, while her husband, Adnan, was unable to join her because of the Israelis abusive policies of entry denial.

Adnan had contacted us for help. Every time we talk to Adnan, he would cry and beg for help to reunite with his disabled wife and young daughters. The Campaign has sent a letter on Adnan’s behalf to the US State Department and US Consulate in Jerusalem. On October 21, 2007, we called Adnan to inform him of steps taken by the Campaign, he expressed happiness because he was contacted by the US State Department. Adnan informed the Campaign that he would contact the State Department with the information they requested on Monday. He was so excited but also scared because the US State Department said that they don’t promise that he would be allowed entry to the West Bank even with their help. We asked him to be optimistic and patient. During the last phone call with Adnan, he could not stop crying, praying for God’s help and explaining how he no longer can live away from his family.

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On October 24, 2007, Adnan was shot to death during a robbery of Pampano Beach store at which he worked as a clerk. Manal is begging for your help to get her husband’s body to be repatriated to the West Bank.

This story is one of many! This story is a result of the Israeli Occupation Authorities’ abusive, arbitrary and unbearable policies.

Are we going to sit there and watch?

The Campaign for the Right of Entry to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)

(Updated) …Blocking the road to Apartheid: Palestinian nonviolent protestors are blocking highway 443

By: Apartheid Masked

For another video of the action click here:

October 25th, 2007

An anti-apartheid protest today blocked busy Highway 443, one of many highways that run on occupied Palestinian land but are reserved for Israelis only. Israeli Security forces used force to move the demonstrators. Three of the protesters, Blake Murphy, from Boston and Yonatan Polak, and Dmitri from Tel Aviv were arrested and released with conditions limiting their movement.

The protesters blocked the highway for over fifteen minutes by organising a mass sit down in the road backed by six protestors chained into a four metre pipe. Rush hour traffic was backed up for miles before the protestors were removed by force. They distributing a message to the drivers on the highway: “We know what it feels like to be blocked. We experience it daily.”

The masses of Israelis who regularly travel to Jerusalem via the settlement of Modi’in were surprised this morning to find the highway blocked by non-violent protesters. Despite obvious road blocks at the junctions with roads from the Palestinian villages along the highway, few are aware that for seven years now, Highway 443 has been accessible to Israelis only. Palestinians are forbidden to travel on the highway, even on the 9.5 kilometer-long segment which passes through occupied West Bank territory and is built on land that has been confiscated from Palestinians whose olive trees have been cut down “for the benefit of the local population.” [See comment from Israel’s newspaper Haaretz, “The Law as Roadkill”

The Israeli military claims that the prohibition of Palestinian traffic on the main road is temporary and subject to security considerations. But their actions on the ground suggest otherwise. In order to “compensate” the communities, the military has confiscated more land for the creation of what they term “fabric of life” roads at an estimated cost of 177.9 million shekels (approximately US$44.5 million). These roads will funnel Palestinian traffic under the Israeli road network via tunnels and underpasses connecting communities in nearby enclaves, thus putting the Palestinians out of sight and out of mind for Israelis.

The Israeli Human rights group B’tselem states that the prohibition on Palestinian use of Highway 443 appears to be based on Israel’s desire to annex the area along which the road runs. B’tselem explains that if Israel was only interested in protecting the lives of Israelis, rather than annexing the area, it could limit or even prohibit the travel of Israelis on the road cutting through the West Bank and build roads inside Israeli territory, thus providing safe channels of transportation to connect Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The policy of prohibiting movement on this road is not an isolated case but is part of a general widespread policy [see map]. On 312 kilometers of main roads in the West Bank, vehicles bearing Palestinian license plates are forbidden or restricted access. The creation of a regime of “forbidden roads” has converted the right to freedom of movement in the West Bank into a privilege that is dependent upon the national origin of an individual. [see International Convention on Apartheid] These roads, in addition to the segregation wall, carve up Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves. This fragmentation is at the root of the West Bank’s declining economy.

In an appeal, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI ) states that the term “Crime of Apartheid,” applies to acts that are used as a means for establishing and maintaining domination of one racial group of persons over any other racial group and systematically oppressing them. ACRI states that an accepted systematic policy of discrimination against the Palestinian population constitutes a practice of apartheid as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Separation exists between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank in many other aspects of life, as with the two separate legal systems that exist for the two populations.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Movement said: “Israel wants to legitimize apartheid and call it peace. This is the first in a series of popular non-violent protests against the Israeli system of apartheid. ”anti-apartheid activists block highway 443 Thursday morning, protesting the Israeli-only road which traverses occupied Palestinian land. A major highway, it is inaccessible to Palestinians.

For more information see:
www.apartheidmasked.org

…and now for some pictures from activestills.org

What is not being said about the Ketziot prison raid

For Immediate Release

On October 22nd, at two in the morning, Israeli prison guards from Ketziot prison in the Negev desert began searching the tents and belongings of Palestinian inmates. Searching prisoners’ tents in the middle of the night is a classic form of harassment; keeping people from sleeping. Some prisoners resisted the search due to the early hour and the army responded by throwing sounds grenades and shooting tear gas canisters into the tents of prisoners and at prisoners themselves.

It has been reported in the news that between 30 and 250 inmates have been injured, and that the Israeli forces used ‘non-lethal’ methods to subdue the prisoners. It has also been reported in Israeli and international news that in the ‘riot’ that the prisoners created, the Palestinian prisoners burned their own tents. When tear gas is shot the canisters are extremely hot, they frequently start fires when landing near grass or trees. More likely than Palestinians burning the tents in which they sleep, with their possessions, is that the tear gas canisters or the explosions from sound grenades started the fire.

The information that the Israeli military unit Nahashon have used only ‘non-lethal’ methods has also proved to be misleading, or to use another word, false. What has gone unreported in Israeli and international news is that one inmate, Mohammed Al-Ashkar, was shot in the head and died at Soroka Medical Center, in Israel. Al-Ashkar was twenty-five and had only one month left on his term. Sources are mixed, some people say it was a rubber-coated steel bullet, some people say it was live ammunition. Regardless of the type of bullet, a man died, so it was clearly a lethal weapon which killed him.

If live ammunition was used, one must wonder why prison guards would find the need to open fire on their unarmed inmates. If it was rubber-coated steel bullets that killed Mohammed Al-Ashkar, then the farce of calling such bullets ‘non-lethal’ must end.

For more information call:
02 2971824
0542389549
0599943157

PACBI: Facts about the Cancellation of the Jericho-Tel Aviv Normalization Event

October 17, 2007

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and all its partners, individuals and organizations active in art, culture and human rights, regard the cancellation of the Jericho-Tel Aviv event, planned by “One Voice” to take place on October 18th, as a substantial accomplishment for the Palestinian boycott movement. A solid partnership between diverse civil society organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has succeeded in thwarting the event’s organizers’ attempt to mislead public opinion and to use deceptive slogans to market a political program that concedes some fundamental Palestinian rights. Without the broad grassroots support among Palestinian and Arab institutions and leading figures for the statement* calling for boycotting the event, the organizers would not have been compelled to cancel this huge production handsomely funded by dubious foreign sources.
PACBI and its partners wish to express their gratitude to all the artists and arts groups that withdrew from the festival after learning the truth about the organizing group’s political program. In particular, we thank Jamil as-Sayeh, Ilham Madfa’i, DAM and Asayel. We also thank everyone who helped spread the word and raise awareness about the event and its sponsors.

The discrepancy in the political language used by the organizers in their Arabic webpage and the main English page was only an indicator of a deeper deception. They falsely claimed, for instance, that the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, was the event’s main patron, a claim that was categorically dismissed in an official statement issued by the President’s office on 11 October; they also included names of well-known national figures as members of various committees of their organization without those individuals’ consent or even knowledge, as was later disclosed.

Most recently, after they were forced to cancel the festival due to the withdrawal of the main artists, the overwhelming support of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of the event, and the President’s distancing himself from the whole festival, the organizers asserted, in Arabic, that the event was cancelled due to “technical reasons,” while the press statement, in English, issued by the main sponsor — who announced the festival cancellation — cited “security reasons” and “threats” by “extremists” against the participating artists as the reason for the cancellation. Despite the obvious falsehood and slander of such assertions, PACBI wishes to stress that, since its inception in 2004, it has embraced civil struggle, non-violent by its nature, in its discourse and action, inside occupied Palestine and outside. Moreover, all of PACBI’s partners who participated in exposing the truth about this event adopted only rational persuasion and awareness-raising in countering the deception and innuendo propagated by the event organizers, a fact that played a key role in widening the circle of public support for the proposed boycott.

This achievement is further proof that a clear majority in Palestinian society continues to insist on the full realization of the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine, paramount among which is the right to self-determination and the right of return for the refugees, as guaranteed by international law. A just peace can only be attained by completely ending the occupation with all its manifestations as well as the various forms of Israeli oppression against the Palestinian people, in compliance with international law and the universal principles of justice and human rights.

Contact: info@BoycottIsrael.ps

The PACBI statement can be read at: http://www.pacbi.org/press_releases_more.php?id=612_0_4_0_C

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel Urgent Appeal for Intervention

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Help Demand Access of Seven Gaza Patients to Lifesaving Care Unavailable in Gaza.

On the 10th of October Physicians for Human Rights-Israel sent an urgent request to the Israeli army and Minister of Defense, demanding that seven patients from Gaza whose access to medical care outside Gaza had been denied for “security reasons” be immediately allowed to exit Gaza via the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing.

The seven patients are:

1. C, in need of urgent bypass heart surgery, referred to a Palestinian hospital in Nablus in the West Bank.

2. T, 53, in need of urgent bypass heart surgery, referred to a Palestinian hospital in Nablus.

3. I, 16, congenital heart disease, referred to urgent catheterization or open heart surgery in a Palestinian hospital in Nablus.

4. I, 27, deaf, suffers from a brain tumor and is referred for surgery to Palestinian St. Joseph’s surgical hospital in East Jerusalem.

5. H, 43, a Hepatitis B patient, with a sarcoma in the jejunum and metastasis in the lung, referred to Palestinian Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem for chemotherapy.

6. I, 20, a cancer patient who was already treated in the past in Israel, is suffering from a relapse and urgently referred to care in Ichilov hospital, Tel Aviv.

7. L, 22, suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma with tumors in the chest, referred to Shiba medical center in Tel Hashomer, Israel.

Despite appeals to the Israeli General Security Service director and the Israel Medical Association, mobilization of Israeli members of Knesset, and extensive local media exposure, no results have been achieved to date.

Since June 2007 the Government of Israel has progressively worsened the conditions for granting permits to patients needing to exit Gaza for medical care unavailable in Gaza. As Rafah Crossing, the only international border with Gaza, has been sealed since 9/6/07, patients now depend totally on Israeli policy for permission to exit, whether to Israel, to the West Bank, to Jordan or to any other country.

We are asking that you urgently intervene on behalf of these individuals, by telephone, email and fax, asking that their access to urgent lifesaving care be immediately granted, and protesting the general Israeli policy of denying Palestinian patients access to medical care unavailable in Gaza:

· IDF Spokesperson, Avi Bnayahu, Telephone + 972 3 569 0797, Fax + 972 3 569 8221

· Israeli Coordinator of Government Operations in the Territories, General Yossef Mashlab. Telephone + 972 3 697 5351, + 972 3 697 7957, Fax + 972 3 6976306, mobile phone of aide Mr. Assaf Baharal: + 972 506 234 082, mobile phone of spokesperson Mr. Shlomo Dror: + 972 506 234 053

· Israeli Minister of Defense, Mr. Ehud Barak, Telephone + 972 3 697 2090, Fax + 972 3 697 6218

· Chair of the Israeli Medical Association and of the World Medical Association, Dr. Yoram Blashar: Telephone + 972 3 6100422, Fax + 972 3 5750704, email blachar@ima.org.il

For further details please contact Miri Weingarten, miri@phr.org.il < mailto:miri@phr.org.il>, +972 546995199, +972 3 6873718 ext. 115

For a previous position paper released by PHR-Israel on Israeli policies at Erez Crossing, and a related article, see: http://www.phr.org.il/phr/article.asp?articleid=480&catid=42&pcat=42&lang=ENG