VIDEO- IOF demolishes Palestinian homes in South Hebron
Video taken by Tayyush
On Wednesday 14th February Israeli Occupation Forces demolished a large number of houses and agricultural structures in four different villages in the South Hebron Hills – Qwawis, M’nezel, Um-Elhe’r and the Abu-Kbeita family near Yatir settlement. The villagers in this area struggle to stay on their land despite ongoing home demolitions, violent attacks and constant settler and military harassment.
Peretz issued the order following an evaluation by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, according to which the house was illegally occupied.
The Hebron Jewish Settlement Committee said Mazuz’ ruling was unsurprising, citing the attorney general’s “known animosity against settlements.”
“Although military and police forces expressed their opinion against evacuating the house in Hebron, we are not surprised by Mazuz’s decision,” the committee added.
The evacuation order is expected to be issued within 24 hours. The settlers have the right to appeal the order, but if their appeal is rejected, security forces will be authorized to remove the settlers from the house.
The defense minister already made up his mind to evacuate the settlers last week, regardless of whether they possessed the licenses and documents proving their ownership of the house.
The decision is based on a clause according to which the settlers must have the defense minister’s authorization to stay in the disputed house, which they do not have.
Hebron house on the night of the takeover (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
Peretz was harshly criticized over his decision to evacuate the house, but after receiving legal approval in a meeting with the attorney general on Tuesday evening, he decided to issue the order by Wednesday.
Defense establishment sources believe that an appeal will delay the evacuation. They added that even if the settlers lose the appeal, specific plans regarding an evacuation operation need to be drawn up, such that the implementation of the order will take time.
It is expected that the police, similarly to the recent evacuation of Homesh, will be undertaken by police, as the IDF is still in the midst of widespread military exercises.
The dispute over the house
Three weeks ago, some 300 yeshiva students and youths entered a Palestinian home near Hebron.
The settlers said that they had legal ownership papers for the house, which is located near the road linking Kiryat Arba and the Cave of the Patriarchs (Abraham’s burial site) in Hebron.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Fais Rajabi claimed he was the legal owner of the house. Rajabi said he had purchased the house some 15 years ago and planned to begin inhabiting it next week with his three wives and 22 children.
Rajabi said he bought the house from four brothers who had inherited it and that he has been renovating it since he made the purchase. The house is his life’s work, he said.
Subterranean soapbox Anti-`occupation’ ads coming to Metro stations by Richard Greenberg 10 April 2007
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about to go underground– into the Washington subway system, to be exact.
Beginning May 13, some 20 downtown Metro stations will be emblazoned with posters advertising a June 10 rally and march in Washington protesting “Israel’s illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.”
The event, which will be held on the west lawn of the Capitol, is being organized by the District-based U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which claims 250 member organizations around the country.
“If past events organized by this organization are any indication, it will make no attempt to present a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this ad is a pure reflection of that,” said Oren Segal, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League.
The U.S. Campaign’s effort to publicize the rally ran into an early roadblock that escalated into a minor freedom of speech face-off that eventually involved the American Civil Liberties Union.
The saga began unfolding when the U.S. Campaign approached CBS Outdoor, the New York-based company that handles in-station advertising for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. A CBS Outdoor account executive refused to place the organization’s ad, claiming in a March 9 e-mail that it was “too offensive to be displayed in a public place,” according to Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area.
Jodi Senese, CBS Outdoor’s executive vice president in charge of marketing, rejected the ad, saying it appeared to violate company policy. “The ad,” she explained in an interview, “included a picture that I felt was inflammatory and was exploitative of children.”
Senese said the ad was not turned down because of its political stance. “I’m Jewish,” she added, “and I didn’t want to be seen as making a political statement.”
The ad is dominated by a photograph of a child who is facing a giant tank that looms menacingly in the near distance. The accompanying text reads in part: “Imagine if this were your child’s daily path to school. Palestinians don’t have to imagine.” In larger, bold letters, it also reads: “The World Says No to Israeli Occupation!”
Within days of being turned down, a U.S. Campaign official contacted Spitzer, who then set out to touch base with a lawyer he knows in the WMATA legal office, who, as Spitzer put it, “understands the First Amendment and can help solve this with a call.”
The issue was indeed solved with a single nonthreatening call, and a confirming e-mail. CBS Outdoor has been instructed by WMATA to place the ad as per its contract with the U.S. Campaign, and the company has not objected, according to Spitzer. WMATA spokesperson Joanne Ferreira said only: “We didn’t have any problem with the ad. It was a First Amendment issue.”
The 46-by-60-inch ads (one per designated station) will appear for one month, according to a U.S. Campaign spokesperson who declined to comment when asked how much the advertising campaign costs.
Spitzer said this case is not precedent-setting. Over the years, several highly politicized ads have run in the Metro system, espousing positions spanning the political spectrum. In some cases, the ACLU has gone to court to fend off those who sought to remove them.
Spitzer, who is Jewish, was asked if he had any compunctions about defending the rights of an organization that is publicly and harshly criticizing Israel. “This is not a case about Judaism or Israel,” he said, “but about establishing someone’s right to freedom of speech, which I agree with regardless of whether I agree with their particular political position.”
In commemoration of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day on April 17th, prisoner solidarity events will emerge in the West Bank region of Tubas. For 8 years, the Prisoner’s Society of Tubas has been organizing such events, emphasizing the plight of Palestinian prisoners within Israel’s unjust legal system. Israel is holding approximately 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners behind bars.
On April 12th, a “Stop Movement” action will bring the whole of Tubas to a halt for 10 minutes. Ziad, from the Prisoner’s Society, says that “everything in Tubas will halt. The traffic, the pedestrians, the shops, even time itself. This action will grab thousands of Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals and bind them to the struggle of the Palestinian prisoners.”
On April 15th, a solidarity football match between the Tubas and Askar Camp teams will be held in honor of the prisoners. Representatives are planning to dedicate the match to the political prisoners with speeches and literature. The solidarity match kicks off at 16:30.
On April 17th, Palestinians have organized a solidarity strike to be held in front of the Red Cross building. Representatives, family, and friends of prisoners will rally and give speeches. Ziad said that “families will be demanding better conditions for the prisoners and stronger visitation rights.” After the rally at the Red Cross, the Prisoner’s Committee are planning to give a three hour tour “where internationals can visit the families of the prisoners and hear firsthand about the lives and inhumane conditions of the Palestinian political prisoners,” said Ziad.
Of the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners being held captive by Israel, according to Stop the Wall, 450 are children and teenagers, 125 are women. Held in “administrative detention” are 1,050 Palestinians, which means they have not been charged with any crime and can be jailed for up to 6 months with the detention renewable indefinitely. According to the Prisoner’s Society, 186 Palestinians have died in the 27 Israeli-run prisons. Groups like the Prisoner’s Committee of Tubas strive to release these facts to the international community.
The Brighton-Tubas Solidarity Delegation has been active in the Tubas region. International and Israeli solidarity groups are expected to join in the events.
For more information, contact:
Fathy (Stop the Wall), 0599-352-266
Mahmoud Sawaftah (Society) 0599765720
Polly Wingfield (Brighton), 0525029691
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157
For 2 hours, Palestinian teachers detained at checkpoint in Tel Rumeida by ISM Hebron8 April 2007
TEL RUMEIDA, HEBRON– At 12:40, just as Palestinian school teachers from the Qurtuba Girls’ School were approaching the Israeli checkpoint to go home, two Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint went inside the monitoring post, locked themselves in. The school teachers refuse to pass through the metal detectors in the main body of the checkpoint and so need the soldiers to open the side gate at the checkpoint to let them pass. The teachers have a long-standing agreement with the District Coordinating Office (DCO) that they can pass through the side gate every day, although the teachers often are forced to wait long whiles before the soldiers adhere to this agreement.
The teachers knocked on the door of the monitoring post but the soldiers refused to respond. Human rights workers (HRWs) and members of the Ecumenical Accompagniment Programme for Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) attempted to negotiate with the soldiers through the glass inside the checkpoint. The soldiers pretended to not hear. Numerous phone calls were made by the HRWs to the DCO but the Israeli officers who answered the phones said they did not speak English. The HRWs contacted a member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) who then also contacted the DCO. According to ACRI, the DCO claimed they had given the soldiers the order to open the gate for the Palestinian teachers.
The soldiers remained locked inside their monitoring post for approximately 50 minutes, exiting the checkpoint only briefly to collect food from another soldier. The soldiers still operated the main checkpoint doors during this period while the Palestinian teachers continued to wait for the soldiers to open the side gate.
Once the soldiers finally emerged from the monitoring post, they still refused to let the teachers through. The soldiers did, however, unlock the gate for a local Palestinian man and his donkey, and also for a Palestinian man in a wheelchair. The soldiers then started checking the bags of the schoolchildren as they passed through the checkpoint.
At 14:20, almost 2 hours after the Palestinian teachers arrived at the checkpoint, soldiers unlocked the gate and allowed the teachers to pass.
