Palestinian children to play Katyusha at Huwwara checkpoint

UPDATE Tuesday 7pm This action has been postponed due to the current situation in Nablus.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In the second action of the ‘Thirty Days against Checkpoints Campaign’ a youth band will perform the popular Russian folk song ‘Katyusha’ at Huwwara checkpoint on Wednesday 24th January at 12 noon.

‘Katyusha’, a popular Soviet Second World War love song, was composed and written by two Russian Jewish musicians. The song was popular among Russian Jews who settled in Israel after the Holocaust in the late 1940s and 50s as it reminded them of their homeland.

With their performance of ‘Katyusha’ the band draws parallels between the persecution and ghettoization suffered by Jews in Eastern Europe under the Nazi regime and the current suffering of Palestinians.

Mohammed Dweikat, HASM Coordinator states: “We are doing this as Nablus is the most imprisoned city in the West Bank. Since 2002 it has only been possible to enter through six checkpoints on foot. It is even more difficult to exit. Men between 16 and 45 (it varies from day to day) can only exit their city with a special permit that can be obtained only outside Nablus. Almost nightly its citizens are the victims of violent military raids and their lives have not been peaceful, or normal for years.”

In the first action at Huwwara checkpoint on January 14th Palestinian youth dressed up as Native Americans and displayed banners linking the fate of the indigenous peoples of America and Palestine.

Contact info:
Mohammed Dweikat (HASM) – 0599355286
ISM media office – 02 2971824, 0599943157

Aljazeera: “Israel’s Hebron settlers criticised”

Aljazeera, January 20th

The head of Israel’s central Holocaust memorial has criticised Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Yosef Lapid, the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s largest Holocaust memorial said on Saturday that the abuse recalled the anti-Semitism present in Europe prior to the second world war.

Lapid’s unusually fierce and public attack was prompted by Israeli television footage showing a Hebron settler woman hissing “whore” at her Palestinian neighbour and settler children lobbing rocks at Arab homes.

The spectacle stirred outrage in the Jewish state, where many view the settlers as a movement opposed to co-existence between Jews and Arabs, and hostile to the creation of a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who lost his father to the Nazi genocide, said in a weekly commentary on Israel Radio that the acts of some Hebron settlers reminded him of persecution endured by Jews in his native Yugoslavia on the eve of the second world war.

Bitter persecution

“It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora bitter before they began to kill us, but persecution, harassment, stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and scorn,” he said.

“I was afraid to go to school, because of the little anti-Semites who used to lay in ambush on the way and beat us up. How is that different from a Palestinian child in Hebron?”

Hebron has been a frequent flashpoint in more than six years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting since the second intifada began in 2000. Some 400 settlers live there, under heavy Israeli military guard, amid 150,000 Palestinians.

Settlers reject remarks

Hebron’s settlers responded to Lapid’s comments angrily. “The man is obviously a very, very sick person, to compare the Jews in Hebron to barbarians and compare us to the Nazis,” David Wilder, a spokesman for the settlers in Hebron, said.

Another community spokesman, Noam Arnon, played down the televised harassments as “fringe incidents,” and told Israel Radio: “In six years, 37 Jews have been murdered in Hebron, and now they’re preoccupied with curses?”

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, ordered a cabinet-level probe last week into Palestinian allegations that abuse by Hebron settlers is commonplace and routinely ignored by Israel.

Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defence minister, said he hoped for an Israeli crackdown against the settler “provocateurs”, but Palestinian officials called for comprehensive action.

Call for action

Arif Jabari, Hebron’s governor, said: “If they are serious about co-existence, the Israelis must take practical steps on the hundreds of daily violations against Palestinians in the old city.”

Lapid said: “We Jewish citizens of Israel wave a reprimanding finger at most [and] worse still, I tolerated this silently as justice minister too.”

The World Court has branded the settlements illegal but many Jews claim a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in a 1967 Middle East war.

Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, a move billed as breaking the diplomatic deadlock with the Palestinians. The subsequent rise of Hamas, a Palestinian group whose charter calls for the Jewish state’s destruction, has hardened settler resolve not to leave the West Bank.

Lapid said while there was no comparing the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews died, with Palestinian suffering from Israel’s policies, this did not mean Israelis could not be culpable.

“It is inconceivable for the memory of Auschwitz to warrant ignoring the fact that there are Jews among us who behave today towards Palestinians just like German, Hungarian, Polish and other anti-Semites behaved towards Jews.”

Residents demand freedom of movement at Tel Rumeida checkpoint

by ISM Hebron, January 20th

Today, at 13:00, internationals and local residents gathered at the main checkpoint into Tel Rumeida, known as the 56 checkpoint, to protest against settler violence and the continued closure of Shuhada Street to Palestinians. Children held signs in front of the checkpoint saying, “No to settlements. Yes to peace.”, “Freedom, Justice, Equality, Peace.” and “American tax dollars at work.”

The protest was entirely peaceful, though the IOF decided it was necessary to close the checkpoint, as well as Tel Rumeida St, hampering even further the Palestinian residents’ ability to move around their own home town. The IOF also posted soldiers on the roofs of surrounding buildings and brought an additional ten to fifteen soldiers and police officers along with their accompanying jeeps to ‘protect’ the Jewish-only colonies from placards demanding social justice.

Shuhada street, which cuts through the centre of Hebron and leads to the Ibrahimi mosque, has been closed to Palestinians since 1994 when settler-colonist Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians in the mosque.

Abir Memorial Ceremony in Anata

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tomorrow, Sunday January 20th, students of all 3 schools in Anata will hold a memorial ceremony for 10-year old Abir Aramin. According to eyewitness accounts, Abir was shot by a border police officer on Tuesday morning outside her school. Abir was declared brain dead and put on a life support machine until Thursday evening when it was switched off. Abir was buried in East Jerusalem on Friday afternoon.

The ceremony will start at the Anata Girls School at 10:30. Anata residents and students have invited Israeli and international peace activists to participate in the ceremony.

The students and residents will also demand the authorities withdraw the Border Police and IDF forces from the school area of Anata. According to the residents, since the completion of the wall construction a few months ago the presence of the soldiers near the schools is only a violent provocation. The killing of Abir demonstrates the tragic results of this pointless presence.

16-year old Hassan Hilweh, who was standing next to Abir when she was wounded stated: “the students of the girls school and the boys school had both just come out of an examination. A border police jeep approached the group of girls. The girls were afraid and started running away. The border police jeep followed them in the direction in which they were retreating. Abir was afraid and stood against one of the shops at the side of the road, I was standing near her. The border policeman shot through a special hole in the window of the jeep that was standing very close to us. Abir fell to the ground. I picked her up and took her to the girls school. I saw that she was bleeding from the head.”

British foreign minister Dr. Kim Howells, has expressed his concern over Abir’s killing. The British minister said, “I felt deep worry today when I heard the news of the killing of a Palestinian child, 10 years old, as a result of an Israeli operation in Anata, east of Jerusalem. We have been told that Israel has started an investigation for the accident”.

He appealed to the Israeli authorities that the investigation be as thorough as possible.

Haaretz: “Impossible Travel”

by Amira Hass, January 20th

All the promises to relax restrictions in the West Bank have obscured the true picture. A few roadblocks have been removed, but the following prohibitions have remained in place. (This information was gathered by Haaretz, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Machsom Watch)

Standing prohibitions

* Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.

* West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter villages, lands, towns and neighborhoods along the “seam line” between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).

* Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the settlements’ area (even if their lands are inside the settlements’ built area).

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter Nablus in a vehicle.

* Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter area A (Palestinian towns in the West Bank).

* Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport.

* Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nabus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.

* Palestinians with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.

* Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.

* West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan valley, seam line communities or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.

* Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.

Periodic prohibitions

* Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.

* People of a certain age group – mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35 or 40 – are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).

* Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was canceled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.

Travel permits required

* A magnetic card (intended for entrance to Israel, but eases the passage through checkpoints within the West Bank).

* A work permit for Israel (the employer must come to the civil administration offices and apply for one).

* A permit for medical treatment in Israel and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem (The applicant must produce an invitation from the hospital, his complete medical background and proof that the treatment he is seeking cannot be provided in the occupied territories).

* A travel permit to pass through Jordan valley checkpoints.

* A merchant’s permit to transfer goods.

* A permit to farm along the seam line requires a form from the land registry office, a title deed, and proof of first-degree relations to the registered property owner.

* Entry permit for the seam line (for relatives, medical teams, construction workers, etc. Those with permits must enter and leave via the same crossing even if it is far away or closing early).

* Permits to pass from Gaza, through Israel to the West Bank.

* A birth certificate for children under 16.

* A long-standing resident identity card for those who live in seam-line enclaves.

Checkpoints and barriers

* There were 75 manned checkpoints in the West Bank as of January 9, 2007.

* There are on average 150 mobile checkpoints a week (as of September 2006).

* There are 446 obstacles placed between roads and villages, including concrete cubes, earth ramparts, 88 iron gates and 74 kilometers of fences along main roads.

* There are 83 iron gates along the separation fence, dividing lands from their owners. Only 25 of the gates open occasionally.

Many roads closed to Palestinians, officially or in practice

* Road 90 (the Jordan Valley thoroughfare)

* Road 60, in the North (from the Shavei Shomron military base, west of Nablus and northward).

* Road 585 along the settlements Hermesh and Dotan.

* Road 557 west from the Taibeh-Tul Karm junction (the Green Line) to Anabta (excluding the residents of Shufa), and east from south of Nablus (the Hawara checkpoint) to the settlement Elon Moreh.

* Road 505, from Zatara (Nablus junction) to Ma’ale Efraim.

* Road 5, from the Barkan junction to the Green Line.

* Road 446, from Dir Balut junction to Road 5 (by the settlements Alei Zahav and Peduel).

* Roads 445 and 463 around the settlement Talmon, Dolev and Nahliel.

* Road 443, from Maccabim-Reut to Givat Ze’ev.

* Streets in the Old City of Hebron.

* Road 60, from the settlement of Otniel southward.

* Road 317, around the south Hebron Hills settlements.

Travel time before 2000 versus today

Tul Karm-Nablus
Then: half an hour, at the most.
Now: At least an hour.

Tul Karm-Ramallah
Then: less than one hour.
Now: Two hours.

Beit Ur al-Fawqa-Ramallah
Then: 10 minutes.
Now: 45 minutes.

Katana/Beit Anan-Ramallah
Then: 15 minutes.
Now: One hour to 90 minutes.

Bir Naballah-Jerusalem
Then: seven minutes.
Now: One hour.

Katana-Jerusalem
Then: five minutes.
Now: “Nobody goes to Jerusalem anymore.”