Despite Promises, Israel Continues to Deny Foreign Nationals Entry to the Occupied Palestinian Territories

by the Campaign for the Right of Entry, February 6th

Despite a written announcement by the Israeli military Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (CoGAT) on December 28, 2006 that Israel has changed its policy of denying entry to foreign nationals traveling to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), the Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-entry continues to receive information from foreign nationals being denied entry on a regular basis. For every case that contacts the Campaign, numerous others remain undocumented. The following indicative cases are the tip of the iceberg:

• Mahmmoud M. Alie, 70, US national from Chicago, has been trying to enter the West Bank for nine months to be with his 70-year-old wife. He was last denied entry at the Jordanian border on 20 January. He was told that the reason was that “he was on a list on the computer.” (Tel. Chicago: 001-4147593558)
• Nader Rahwan Hadallah, 43, US national from Florida, went to Amman with his Palestinian wife and was denied entry when they tried to return on 18 January. (Tel. Dubai: 00971-508250067)
• Dr. Dirgham Abu Ramadan, a German national, has been working as one of the few open-heart surgeons in the occupied West Bank since 2001. He was denied a visa extension on 15 January and 25 January and threatened with deportation. After legal intervention he received a three-month visa, instead of the long-term permission to stay he requested. (Tel.: 0599-412274)
• Suzy Salamy, US national from New York who came to do a documentary on Jewish American peace activists, was denied entry and deported from Ben Gurion airport on 5 January. (Tel. New York: 001-6462494435 // Email: rohee43209@yahoo.com)
• Abdel Jamal Wadoud Ali, 67, and his wife Kuthar Khuri Ali, 52, both US nationals from Florida, came to visit their daughters and to care for Kuthar’s 80-year-old mother. They were held for seven days at Ben Gurion airport and then deported to Jordan on 16 January. (Tel. Amman: 00962-53990934)
• Mrs. A. and her two-year-old daughter, US nationals, have tried to reunite with her husband six times over the past year with no success. They were last denied entry on 8 January with no reason given.
• Riad Sharma, US national from Georgia who has two daughters living in al-Bireh, in the West Bank, was last denied entry on 3 January 2007. He spent in total about NIS 40,000 hiring a Israeli lawyer and paying court fees including a NIS 25,000 deposit that will only be paid back if/when Mr. Sharma leaves the country, just to be allowed in for two weeks. After another costly legal procedure he obtained a last-minute visa extension for two and a half months.(Tel. West Bank: 972-2-2403551;email: lena_shrm@yahoo.com )

In their response to a recent CoGAT presentation presented to the international community which restated Israel’s supposed change in policy of access for foreign citizens, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem noted:

All aspects of Israel’s policies with regard to the Palestinian civilian population have been characterized by arbitrariness and a complete lack of transparency. The COGAT presentation does not mention any mechanisms that will be established to ensure that even the limited improvements presented will be implemented. Such mechanisms are crucial to ensure that the Palestinian population benefits from the measures described…. Today tens of thousands of families remain forcibly separated, and cannot even get short-term visitors permits.
Israel continues its grave violations of International and Humanitarian Law by prohibiting families remaining together and thus forcing them to relocate. The policy of obstructing foreign nationals from reaching the oPt is causing extreme damage to all sectors of Palestinian society, namely education, business and civil society.

*The CoGAT letter and presentation, Btselem’s response and details of cases denied entry are available on request

For more information: (c) +970-(0)59-817-3953,or (c) + 970-(0)59-378-278 (email) info@righttoenter.ps

Again/Still

by Amy, February 1st

It’s my third time visiting Palestine, and not much is different. I was just commenting to my co-volunteers on how I’ve already written about such and such issue, I can’t do it again… but my housemate here pointed out the truth: repetition is life here. If reading the same stories over and over feels exasperating, imagine living it.

A few days ago, we were called by Maher, a town leader in a village in the north of the West Bank, very close to the actual 1967 green-line border of Israel. In fact, it’s right next to an Israeli town where 70% of this Palestinian village population worked before the intifada (or “uprising”) began and Palestinians were no longer allowed entry inside Israel. When we arrived, Maher led us to a home and explained how, as the family was religious, we would be visiting with the women and a family member would translate for us. We entered a room where 50 women sat on floor mattresses against the wall. It was the final day of the three day mourning period in which family members and neighbors sit with the father, brothers, sisters, spouse, and mother of the deceased from morning till night. We sat next to the mother and wife of Omar, a 28-year-old Palestinian man who was assasinated while walking with his wife and 30-day old baby from his brother’s house next door after an evening visit. Plain clothes officers jumped out from the entrance way in his apartment building and shot him 3 times, put the baby in his arms and told his wife that if she screamed, the baby would die as well. They ran towards the road where military jeeps stood waiting.

Did the family contact a lawyer? They said no. See, Omar’s brother is in prison. After a long period of hiding from the military police, he was finally imprisoned last year. Omar’s family knows he has been tortured and fears even more retaliation if they initiate a legal battle with the Israeli military.

Almost EVERY single Palestinian family has had a few people imprisoned in Israeli jails and few people die from Israeli bullets. Where would your anger lie?

Ma’an: “Israeli military disrupt non-violent action in Al Khadr and attack Palestinian children”

February 3rd,

On Saturday morning around forty international peace activists, including Israelis from the group ‘Peace Now’ and local Palestinians, went to Al Khadir village, Bethlehem, in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, to plant olive trees.

Israeli forces have uprooted and demolished thousands of olive trees throughout the Palestinian territories. Peace and environmental activists replant olive trees to prevent the wastage of Palestinian land, as a form of non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation and to assert the presence of international activists in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The activists planted trees on the borders of an illegal Israeli settlement, a small outpost on Palestinian land, in which the settlers live in caravans. It was also within an area that is soon to stolen from the Palestinians and absorbed into Israel by the construction of the apartheid wall. Al Khadir once had 22,000 dunams (22,000,000m²) of land, after the completion of the wall only 2,000 dunams (2,000,000 m²) will remain.

During the planting of the trees, angry settlers emerged from their caravans and shouted at the activists, accusing the peaceful demonstrators of, “playing games, on holy day [Shabbat].” The settlers also claimed that, through the planting of the trees, a nascent vineyard had been destroyed. But the land on which the activists planted the olive trees was unused.

Israeli soldiers were called and ordered the activists off the Palestinian land, but the activists continued to plant trees, refusing to leave. The soldiers marched the activists to a field further away from the settlement, where they resumed planting trees. The Israeli soldiers then violently manhandled the demonstrators, forcing them down the hill, provoking a fight between the unarmed activists and children, and the Israeli soldiers, who had rifles slung over their shoulders. At one point an irate soldier pointed his gun at a Palestinian child, who ran away.

The Israeli soldiers arrested one activist who was an Israeli member of ‘Peace Now.’

The non-violent demonstrators succeeded in planting in excess of a hundred trees on the soon to be annexed Palestinian land.


Israeli colony on Al Khadr village land

PNN: “Nonviolent demonstration to save Al Aqsa Mosque area from Israeli destruction”

by Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, February 4th

The cold weather and proliferation of military checkpoints in the city of Jerusalem did not prevent hundreds of citizens from reaching Al Aqsa Mosque to stand in the face of Israeli demolition plans. Sunday’s scheme included destruction at the Moroccan Gate to make a Jewish-only road. Israeli forces are adding settlements in East Jerusalem and a synagogue near the entrance to the Mosque.

This morning Israeli police, border guards and special forces were at the doors of Al Aqsa with barricades throughout the Old City stopping Palestinians and checking identification. Only men over 45 years of age and women were allowed to get near the Muslim holy site.

At the Moroccan Gate the Israeli procedures were more prohibitive with all nonviolent demonstrators carrying flags and placards being forced to change course and stand in the rain about three kilometers away at Damascus Gate. Israeli police arrested a 16 year old for attempting to enter the Mosque.

Among demonstrators were Chief Palestinian Justice Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the head of the Islamic Waqf Sheikh Abdel A Salhab and dozens more clerics, young men and women. During the sit-in several Islamic scholars spoke directly to the threats against the Mosque and the plans to overtake the area.

Sheikh Tamimi said that the destruction at Moroccan Gate made clear the political and religious dimensions of the Israeli plans. “The Israeli government issued an order to demolish ancient buildings in the Arab and Islamic Gate of the Moroccans, exploiting this time of internal strife.”

He demanded that as many people who can make it through the barriers come daily to pray in the Mosque in order to have the maximum presence possible. He also issued an official condemnation against the Israelis today for preventing worshipers from praying.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein, described current events as, “ugly crimes against Al Aqsa Mosque and Muslims.” He said that since the 1980s Israeli forces have been trying to implement the scheme at the Moroccan Gate, but that they were always prevented from doing so by world-wide religious and historical outcry. Sheikh Hussein appealed to Arab and Muslim leaders on an international scale to intervene to save the Gate and the Mosque before it is too late.

Chair of the Supreme Islamic Council, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, said that the scheme to install a bridge and expand the Western Wall is a direct affront to the city’s heritage in its entirety. He has been warning of the bid to overtake the Al Aqsa area throughout the past two years of preparation and less noticeable work.

The head of the Department of Information of the Islamic Movement, Khalid Muhanna, who at the age of 45 was prevented from entering the Mosque, said, “This is to be expected, that we will be kept out of our mosque as we have uncovered the biggest conspiracy yet in the takeover of Jerusalem.”

Muhanna warned against attempts to destroy Al Aqsa, stressing that the Islamic Movement would keep a presence in the city around the clock to stop the takeover.

He called on President Abbas and Prime Minister Haniya to close ranks and serve the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Nkwenkwezi Bil’in: The Star of Bil’in

by Abdullah Abu Rahme, Coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in. Translated By Nasir Samara, February 3rd

Throughout the history of the occupation, Palestinians have sought every means to resist, to make their voices heard to the world, and to raise international support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence. One of these means includes promoting solidarity with Palestine through international volunteers, whom we consider as ambassadors for our struggle in their own countries.

Yet the lives of these volunteers also bring inspiration to us. Take the story of Anna Wicks, 30, as an example. Anna fought against discrimination in her native South Africa, and came to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement on five occasions to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle against the occupation and the Apartheid Wall, one of the most visible forms of open discrimination in the world, one which separates citizens from their lands and which prevents them from moving freely in their own homeland.

Anna stood with farmers and citizens of the villages of Nas’ha, Budrus, Jayyous and Bil’in. She participated in demonstrations and direct actions against the Wall, and accompanied students in Hebron in order to help them reach their schools. She stayed awake with the Bedouins living in caves in Khirbat Qawawis in South Hebron in order to protect them from settler attacks. She also acted as a human shield to protect civilians from Israeli military attacks. When the Israeli army tried to arrest one Palestinian youth, she and her friends exerted all their physical energy to secure his release. Her life was endangered many times in this way, and she herself was injured and arrested in Bil’in, and eventually deported from the village by the Israeli military and prevented from returning.

The last time she came here was one year ago. Israeli immigration authorities tried to deny her entry at Ben Gurion airport until she presented them with documentation proving that her visit was not political, but humanitarian in nature: Anna had come to donate one of her kidneys to a three-year-old Palestinian girl, Lina Fareed T’aem Allah, from the village of Qiri.

She was allowed to enter only under the condition that she did not return to Bil’in. The transplant was carried out successfully and Anna’s act of generosity has saved Lina’s life.

A few days ago, Anna gave birth to a little girl whom she named Nkwenkwezi Bil’in, “the star of Bil’in.” So while she cannot physically be with us in Palestine, Palestine will always be with Anna in the form of little Nkwenkwezi Bil’in.