Members of French Parliament Attending Tomorrows Demonstration in Bil’in

For Immediate Release

Tomorrow 36 members of the French Parliament and regional mayors will join the people of Bil’in for their weekly protest against the apartheid wall and settlements. Palestinian, Israeli and international protestors will meet at 12pm by the mosque in Bil’in village to march to a site near the Modi’in Illit settlement.

The popular committee of Bil’in have been organizing weekly protests for almost three years now, culminating in an Israeli supreme court decision to reroute the apartheid wall further west to give Bilin 250 acres of its land back.

However, the protest continues as the supreme court also rejected a petition to stop the construction of another Israeli settlement, Mattiyahu East, on Bil’ins land even further to the west. Israel, with US support, appears determined to retain major West Bank settlement blocs, including one west of Bil’in, that carve the West Bank into bantustans.

The weekly protest started In December, 2004 when the Israeli army started bulldozing village land and uprooting olive trees to build the wall. Palestinians, Israelis and internationals suffered patiently together as the soldiers met the nonviolent actions with teargas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and clubs. Over 800 have activists have been injured in 200 demonstrations. An Israeli attorney and a Bil’in resident both suffered permanent brain damage from rubber-coated steel bullets shot from close range. Another Palestinian lost sight in one eye. 49 Bil’in residents, including some protest leaders have arrested, even had their houses raided by the army. Some people have spent months in prison.

Creative activities are a regular feature of the protests. One Friday, activists locked themselves inside a cage, representing the wall’s impacts. Another time, a Palestinian “outpost” was built on village land located behind the wall and next to an Israeli settlement, mimicking the Israeli strategy of establishing outposts to expand settlements.

Another Friday protestors handed the Israeli soldiers a letter saying, “Had you come here as guests, we would show you the trees that our grandfathers planted here, and the vegetables that we grow… There will never be security for any of us until Israelis respect our rights to this land.”

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Israels Abuse of Bedouin Rights

By Thom

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes on their website that the Bedouin enjoy a higher standard of living than elsewhere in the Middle East. But countless Bedouin homes and villages have been destroyed by Israel. The government’s ‘township’ policy, displacing Bedouin into townships so they can be easily managed, luring them with electricity and water and cheap housing so they can be put in one place, kept under control, is what the government refers to as integration. The Bedouin are forced to choose between constant demolition of their houses and harassment by settlers and army, or being moved from the land they live upon to townships to cease practicing their culture and to conform to Israeli society.

The excuses for demolishing the Bedouin villages include making way for the building of the illegal security fence, expanding illegal settlements, making way for factories; for modernity at any cost, in an undemocratic state guilty of numerous human rights abuses in both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel destroys Bedouin villagers, leaving them homeless, to drive them out of areas they wish to claim as Jewish.

The village of Ka’abna in the Jiflik area of the Jordan Valley is one of many examples of the government destroying a Bedouin village for no reason except for not wanting them there. The excuses for this senseless destruction of course vary, but the most common is building without a permit in a military closed zone. Permits are impossible to get. Why the land of sand and rocks at the foot of a mountain range next to a highway is of importance to the military is anyones guess. But continually destroyin

Wire Fencing Erected to Obstruct Passage at Huwara

The Huwara checkpoint controlling exit from Nablus is notorious for long lines and hours-long delays, particularly on holidays. This roofed and turnstiled checkpoint, in place since the start of the current Intifada, governs traffic flowing to Ramallah, as well as to the many nearby villages outside Nablus. University students, workers, and people seeking medical treatment or coming for shopping must cross Huwara, many on a daily basis.

On Saturday, November 10, a Human Rights Worker (HRW) leaving Nablus arrived at Huwara, around 2:40 pm, to lines which crammed and extended metres beyond the tin-roofed checkpoint area. On a good day, the lines would run a third to half the length of the area. The side passage, between the roofed area and the wire fence, is normally reserved for women and children to pass through for ID checking.

Thirty minutes after the HRW arrived, the lines of waiting Palestinians had not moved; instead, they had grown, extending yet numerous meters further. Palestinians reported they had been waiting since 12:00 to pass through the checkpoint. At approximately 3:10, the HRW called Machsom Watch to report the checkpoint problems. About 10 minutes later, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers began removing some additional wire fencing which had been strung across the outer passageway normally reserved for women and children. The fencing crossed from the outer wire fence to the iron rails of the checkpoint building itself.

After removing this fencing, this ‘flying checkpoint’ within a checkpoint, IOF soldiers finally began checking IDs of the waiting Palestinians. During the period between 12:00 and around 3:20, upwards of 300-350 civilian Palestinians were made to wait, some for 3 hours or more, their day disrupted by the arbitrarily-imposed blockage. The timing of the closure coincided with the return of many university students to their homes outside of Nablus, as well as the return home of those who had gone to Nablus for shopping and other needs.

Israeli Government Issues Demolition Order for Another Jordan Valley Village

Ka’abna village, in the Jiflik area of the Jordan Valley, recently received an order for its 6th demolition in the last 5 years. Home to 80 villagers, the land on which these men, women and children live is in fact the area to which the Israeli government suggested they move when the military demolished their previous homes. Regardless, the army now claims they’ve built on a military closed zone and it has demanded that they leave. Almost 30 homes and animal enclosures will be destroyed if the demolition takes place, and the lives and education of 50 children will be severely disrupted yet again.

The villagers of Ka’abna were displaced from their land 18 years ago by one of the many settlements that illegally occupy the Jordan Valley. The homes in the village, which have been rebuilt five times in as many years, consist of concrete walls waist-high topped with fencing wire, plastic sheets and old cotton bags used for the upper walls and roofing. The village has never had access to water or electricity, and villagers pay a sum of 100 shekels every 4-5 days to transport water to their homes by tractor.

The military add to the hardships endured in Ka’abna village by placing residents under curfew on a regular basis. The villagers assume they are subject to curfews because of problems that sometimes arise at the nearby checkpoint. However, the curfew is often enforced for reasons not apparent to the villagers.

‘People cant live like this. We have no water or electricity. We just want to eat and raise our children’ said a village spokesman. But the Israeli government claims the village, which is less than a square kilometer in size, is built without permits upon military land and must be demolished. The permits to which the government refers are nearly impossible to obtain. When asked whether they will rebuild the village again, the people of Ka’abna said they will. ‘Many villagers have been detroyed in the area and they (the villagers) have rebuilt. We will rebuild. This is our land’ said the village spokesman.

The High Court last week ordered the demolition be postponed for a period of 60 days. Following this period, the High Court will review the matter and decide whether the village will be demolished. The villagers are concerned however that the military will ignore the court order and begin demolishing the village for a 6th time prior to the High Court hearing.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE DOCUMENTARY ‘EVICTING THE BEDOUIN’

More Beatings and Arrests in Azzoun (Updated)

On Friday 9th November, Oday Abdel Odeh was arrested whilst attending his uncle’s wedding in the village of Azzoun, near Qalqilya. Oday, sixteen years old and from the nearby village of Kafr Thulth, was standing with a group of friends at the celebration when Israeli soldiers approached, beat the youth and arrested him, witnesses report. He is currently being held in custody in Hawara camp, although it is unclear as to whether any charges have been laid against him as his family are unable to contact him, and he has not been granted access to a lawyer.

Approximately one hour after the arrest, 30 Israeli soldiers entered the small village of Kafr Thulth, declared a curfew around the family’s residence, and proceeded to break down the doors of their house in order to search the premises. One uncle was present when this occurred, with the rest of the family still in Azzoun. The uncle reports being kicked and punched by soldiers when they entered the premises, after which they ransacked the house, destroying furniture, and emptying the contents of all drawers and wardrobes. The family has no knowledge of the reason for the raid, no clue as to what the soldiers were searching for.

It is currently unknown why the youth was arrested, or for how long he will be held. The Prisoner’s Support and Human Rights Association, ADDAMEER, has advised his family that it is likely Oday will be held for a minimum of twelve days before he is allowed access to a lawyer. From their own experiences of having been randomly arrested by Israeli soldiers, family members suppose Oday is being held in isolation, and being subject to regular beatings. As yet their only information as to his whereabouts have come from Israeli Human Rights groups, such as Machsom Watch and Hamoked. The family has made a formal complaint about the arrest to the UN through the Palestinian Democracy and Workers’ Rights Centre.

The four youths who were arrested in Azzoun yesterday, two of whom were aged sixteen, the others aged nineteen and twenty years old, were released last night. The youths who were arrested by Israeli soldiers at the Azzoun internet cafe were taken to Jein Safout, approximately 12kms from Azzoun, where they were beaten by soldiers and then released after four hours.

Update 14th November

It has been revealed that the four youths who were arrested from an internet cafe in Azzoun on 10th November were subject to prolonged beatings as they were interrogated by Israeli soldiers.

One of the youths, who is sixteen years old, disclosed that the arrestees were taken from the internet cafe where they were playing computer games, and beaten, before being lain face down on the floor of a jeep with Israeli soldiers kicking and stamping on them. They were then driven to the settlement of Karne Shomron, where they were held for four hours as soldiers interrogated them as to whom in the village had been throwing rocks; who had guns. Throughout this time, all four of the youths were blindfolded with arms bound behind their backs. They were forced to sit on the floor, bent over, while they were punched, kicked and slapped repeatedly in order to elicit information from them.

The youths were then driven off, and released by the side of a road at 8pm, approximately 12km from Azzoun. They were told by the Israeli soldiers that they would be killed if they were caught throwing rocks.

This seems to be not just an idle threat made by low-ranking soldiers. In a meeting with the headmaster of the Azzoun High School yesterday, the new Commander of the Israeli forces based at Azzoun advised the principal that no longer would youths throwing stones be met with the collective punishment of curfews, as have been forced upon the people of Azzoun for the past two weeks. From now, he advised, should any youths be caught throwing stones, Israeli soldiers will kill them.