Category: Press Releases

MEPs stand up for immediate release of 45 Palestinian MPs in Israeli Jail

from Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of European Parliament
6 June 2007

Brussels– 45 Members of the European Parliament, from different political groups, have decided to express their solidarity towards the 45 Palestinian colleagues imprisoned by Israel, and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

All the 45 MEPs stood up symbolically in the plenary, right before the beginning of the debate with Mr. Solana on the situation on the Middle East, representing the 45 Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council detained in the Israeli jails in a clear violation of the international legality .

“Each of us, MEPs, is deeply concerned about the imprisonment of the President and of 1/3 of the Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, democratically and legitimately elected by the Palestinian people”, MEPs said in their declaration.

Through this initiative, MEPs want to strongly condemn these arrests by the Israeli Army, but also remind the anniversary of the beginning of the Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian territories, which is during 40 years exactly today.

“We are deeply worried not only for the plight of the 45 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council but also for the near 11000 Palestinian political prisoners currently imprisoned by the Israeli Army, without a true process and often brutally abducted by the Israeli soldiers.

They have to be released and, at the same time, also the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit must be freed by the Palestinian group that kidnapped him in Gaza Strip, as a change of prisoners- affirms Luisa Morgantini, one of the 45 MEPs participating to this initiative.

“40 years of military occupation are enough: now it’s urgent to implement a political solution of the conflict, based on “two People and two States” and it’s necessary that the Palestinian Legislative Council could continue its activity, instead of preventing its work because of the check points, the arrests, the summary killings kept on by the current Israeli policy of military occupation”, concluded Luisa Morgantini.

MEPs participating to the initiative:


Adamou Adamos, Andria Alfonso, Aubert Marie-Hélčne, Auken Margarete, Beer Angelika, Brepoels Frieda, Bourzai Bernadette, Bowis John, Carnero Gonzŕlez Carlos, Cohn-Bendit Daniel, Davies Chris, De Brún Bairbre, De Keyser Véronique, Demetriou Panayiotis, De Rossa Proinsias, Evans Jill, Flautre Hélčne, Gottardi Donata, Guerreiro Pedro, Hammerstein Mintz David, Isler-Béguin Marie-Anne, Kasoulides Ioannis , Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou Rodi, Locatelli Pia Elda, Lucas Caroline, Madeira Jamila, Matsakis Marios, McMillan-Scott Edward, Menendez Del Valle Emilio, Meyer Pleite Willy, Morgantini Luisa, Napoletano Pasqualina, Patrie Béatrice, Portas Miguel, Purvis John, Resetarits Karin, Romeva i Rueda Raül, Roure Martine, Saďfi Tokia, Savi Toomas, Sudre Margie, Svensson Eva-Britt, Toussas Georgios, Triantaphyllides Kyriacos, Wurtz Francis.

Israeli Military Executes Elderly Palestinian Man in Hebron and Shoots at His Family Members


Video from AlJazeera English

Palestinian Ministry of Information

Ramallah, 06-06-07: Israeli soldiers executed a 68-year-old Palestinian civilian in his home in Hebron city in the early hours of this morning, a willful killing which Minister of Information Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi said represented a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and which he therefore condemned as a war crime.

Israeli soldiers stormed the house of Yahiya Itzhak Al Jabari in the Haram Ar Rama area of Hebron this morning as part of an ‘arrest operation’, and demanded to see his sons. When Jabari called his two sons, 30-year-old Kamel and 19-year-old Rajah into the living room, the soldiers began beating the two men.

When Jabari tried to intervene to protect his sons, an Israeli soldier shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

Rafah Jabari was also shot in the head. The bullet did not penetrate his skull and he was taken to the hospital where he remains in a serious, but stable condition.

His brother Kamel was shot in the legs and feet, while his two sisters aged 15 and 25-years-old were also beaten.

The dead man’s wife, Fatmeh Jabari was critically wounded after being shot by an Israeli soldier in the chest while trying to assist her husband. She is now in a coma.

No one was arrested following the attack.

While acknowledging the Israel military’s open policy of extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, Dr. Barghouthi said that Jabari’s murder was now indicative of the targeting of civilians through this policy.

He demanded an international investigation into the murder, saying that past investigations carried out by Israel into its military’s conduct had been whitewashes.

A total killed of 470 Palestinians have been killed in executions and targeted killings by the Israeli military since September 2000, of whom at least 166 were civilians, including at 52 children.

Stop the Bleeding of Bethlehem

Let’s work together to put an end of 40 years of occupation!
from George Rishmawi

Political parties together with local NGOs, social and political activists, and the people of the Bethlehem area are inviting you to join them in their activities against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza strip, and Golan Heights.

There will be a series of activities organized by different groups during the next week.

Wednesday & Thursday June 6-7

A group of local activists in cooperation with the Bethlehem Municipality is organizing a photo gallery at Manger Square. The photos will focus on the impact of the annexation wall on the Bethlehem area. Informational materials on the Israeli occupation will be available for dissemination.

Friday June 8

The people of Artas village, the popular committee, and political parties are inviting you to join them in their weekly demonstration against the wall and land confiscation. The gathering will be in front of the village mosque at 1:15 following the Friday prayers.

Saturday June 9

The Network of the National Christian Organizations in Bethlehem is organizating a Gathering and Candle March in coordination with Alrowad center in Aida Camp at 5:00 Pm.

Approximately 73,226 Dunams, (18,000 Acres) of land is being expropriated and some 20,000 Palestinian residents will be consequently trapped between the Wall and the Green Line (the internationally recognized armistice line of 1967) in the Bethlehem area

The people of the Bethlehem area need your support. Join us in our ongoing acts of resistance to all forms of the Israeli Occupation, including the wall, military checkpoints, settlement construction and expansion, and land confiscation.

For more information contact:

Eyad, – Arabic Language – 0522045633
Samer,- English Language – 059-8169276

Global Solidarity Activities Mark 40 Years of Israel’s Occupation of Palestine

by Bahia, 3 June 2007

Ramallah, 03-06-07: Solidarity activities will take place throughout the world this week marking 40 years of Israel’s occupation of West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. In a press conference held today in Ramallah, Minister of Information, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, presented the details of solidarity events taking place in Palestine, Israel, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, and announced that the Ministry of Information was initiating a series of year-long activities to sustain exposure of Israel’s ongoing military occupation, which he said, had become the longest-running occupation in modern history.

By keeping the Palestinians’ 40-year-old struggle for freedom and self-determination in the media spotlight in this way in addition to global solidarity initiatives, he said that he hoped the campaign would promote greater regional and international efforts to end the occupation.

Dr. Barghouthi also presented a review of 40 years of occupation which began between June 5-10 1967, and in which the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as well as Arab territories were occupied by Israel.

Forty years later, and in contravention of United Nations resolutions, peace agreements and international law, this occupation not only continues, but has mutated into a fully-fledged system of Apartheid worse than that which prevailed in South Africa. Reiterating the words of former US president Jimmy Carter, Dr. Barghouthi underlined that Apartheid can be identified when two peoples living in the same area are segregated by force, as is the case with the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and where one side is oppressing and prosecuting the other .

He pointed to several characteristics of this Apartheid system, focusing on the creation and continued construction of Israeli settlements built illegally on occupied land and inhabited by 460,000 Israeli-Jewish settlers, and which are sustained by an infrastructure of 543 permanent checkpoints and 600 ‘flying’ checkpoints, and settler-only roads forbidden for use by Palestinians, the first time in history roads have been segregated. He added that this system was being consolidated by Israel’s Wall, which was designed to annex these settlements, and swathes of Palestinian land in the process, to Israel.

At the same time, settlements and the Wall are part of Israel’s long term policy to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian population by physically isolating the city from the West Bank and encircling it with a ring of settlements, thereby ‘Judaising’ East Jerusalem.

Further evidence of this system of Apartheid lies in differing levels of access to natural resource, which see Israeli West Bank settlers allocated 2400 m 3 water per year compared to just 50 m3 for Palestinians.

In addition, while GDP per capita in Israel was 6 times higher than that in Palestine in 1993, it has rocketed to a massive 30 times more than the GDP in Palestine in 2007. Despite this, Palestinians are still obliged to buy products at the same Israeli market price due to the forced dependency of the Palestinian economy on Israel. All this in the context of Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian tax revenues amounting to some US$ 850 million, said Dr. Barghouthi.

Judge to Court: No to settlement building in Bil’in

The Supreme Court orders the State: explain why the new plan for the Matityahu East neighborhood shouldn’t be annulled


Eyad Burnat, head of the Bil’in popular committee against the wall, looking at the houses the real estate companies built without permits in Matityahu East from within the “Palestinian Enclave”

There are two petitions concerning the Matityahu East neighborhood in the settlement Modi’in Illit currently in front of the Supreme Court: HCJ 143/06, filed in January 2006, in an attempt to stop the illegal construction there; and HCJ 1526/07, filed in February 2007, after the Higher Planning Board at the Civil Administration decided to approve a new plan (210/8/1) which will legalize most of the illegal construction done. The context for both petitions is the route of the separation barrier, designed to allow the construction of the neighborhood on approximately 80 hectares of the lands of Bil’in on the “Israeli” side of the wall.

At the end of a four-hour (!) hearing held yesterday (June 3), the Court issued an order nisi (in HCJ 1526/07), ordering the State and the other respondents (the real-estate companies Heftsiba and Green Park, the local council Modi’in Illit and representatives of the flats buyers in the Matityahu East project) to argue why, in their opinion, the Higher Planning Board in Beit-El and the sub-committee for Objections “shouldn’t annul their decision to approve the 210/8/1 plan for the Matityahu East neighborhood in the settlement Modi’in Illit”. The order was issued by agreement among all sides (following the recommendation of the Court), so formally it was written that the petition will be considered “as if an order nisi was issued”, but legally and for every other purpose this means an order nisi was actually issued. The respondents are required to respond in writing by July 5th.

At the same time, the Court rejected the request of the respondents to cancel the temporary injunction in HCJ 143/06, issued on January 12th 2006, which forbids any further building in Matityahu East and any new residents moving in to flats therein. Judge Prokachya told the respondents that the Court will not cancel the temporary injunction before a final verdict is given in both petitions. This means that at least for the time being, no building can take place in Matityahu East and no new residents are allowed to move in.

The hearing focused mainly on procedural and planning issues pertaining to the work of the Higher Planning Board at the Civil Administration. However, these issues have important implications for the planning system in settlements in general, and in Modi’in Illit in particular. The outcome of the hearing is due largely to the excellent performance of attorney Michael Sfard, who represents the people of Bil’in and the Peace Now movement in both petitions. During the hearing, Judge Prokachya asked about the linkage between the new plan for the neighborhood and the route of the barrier – to the disappointment of the State representatives.

Background:

The land in question was handed over to two private real estate companies, “Heftziba” and “Green Park,” after it was confiscated by the Israeli authorities. This follows a typical pattern of settlement expansion, whereby Palestinian land is first declared Israeli state property and then eventually distributed to Israelis for private use. In 2000, the Metityahu Mizrach settlement was built without permits not only on the land that was confiscated, but also on the land that the Israeli Supreme Court recognized as privately owned Palestinian land. The route of the wall in Bil’in is designed not only to protect the settlers of Matityahu Mizrah but was designed according to the master plan of the settlement to allow for its future expansion. See B’tselem Report

In January 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a temporary order in one appeal case (143/06), freezing the building and population of the Matityahu East settlement after the illegal building of 42 residential buildings – 20 of them without any building permits and 22 additional ones according to illegal building permits produced by the local committee of Modiin Elite.

For more background information, click HERE