Palestinian Students Demonstrate to Go Home

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tomorrow, Friday at 10 a.m. Palestinian students of Al-Najah university of Nablus will demonstrate against the major checkpoint of Beit Furik (near Beit Furik village) which is affecting the inhabitants of several villages in the area. The action will address the occupation’s devastating effects on Palestinian education.

Hundreds of students, employers, teachers, patients, workers, and traders use the checkpoint each day to move between surrounding villages and the city of Nablus. They are often subjected to unnecessary humiliation tactics in addition to long waiting periods and frequent denial of access. In addition to this daily dehumanization, the checkpoint of Beit Furik closes around 6pm in the afternoon and forbids the students of Beit Furik village to go home after finishing their classes at Al-Najah.

For More Information:

Hakim: 0599-64 3023
ISM Nablus: 0599-076568

International Peace Mission receives a frosty reception from Israel

After a full month of gruelling cycling, the Peace Cycle finally arrived in the West Bank tonight, September 6th. The cyclists left Damascus 3 days ago and toured the Palestinian refugee camps in the south of Syria before entering Jordan. In both Middle East countries, as in Europe, the group enjoyed courteous treatment and a warm welcome.

The climate changed dramatically, however, once they reached the border between Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian West Bank.

The cyclists arrived at the Jordanian side of the “Allenby Bridge” crossing point at 11.30 this morning local time. On the Palestinian side of the border, their coach and tour guide waited for them…and waited. The cyclists, 21 of them British, two Austrian and one Palestinian, were held at the border by the Israeli authorities and were given no information or explanation, although they were eventually given a sandwich.

Some of the Peace Cycle team as they set off from London

The Palestinian man among the group was taken away and questioned for almost 3 hours before he was allowed to enter the West Bank, where he lives with his family in a village near Ramallah. He had taken part in the Peace Cycle so that he could “tell the world about life under occupation” in his country.

At 6pm the border crossing officially closed for the night, with the remaining group of cyclists still being held in no man’s land between Jordan and Palestine, by a frustrated Israeli border staff who admitted they “just wanted to go home”. Eventually, eight hours later, and after frantic ‘phone calls between the Peace Cycle’s London office and the British Consulate in Jerusalem, the cyclists were allowed through to the Palestinian side of the border. Tired and hungry, they were relieved to finally board their coach and look forward to a meal in El Fa’raa in the north of the West Bank, where the villagers had planned a welcome dinner for them.

However, their relief was to be short lived when they encountered first hand experience of military occupation, just outside the village of El Fa’raa. As their hosts awaited them, the cyclists’ coach was stopped at an illegal Israeli checkpoint just minutes away and the group was told it could not proceed. Spurious explanations were given by the soldiers on duty, and despite ‘phone calls to the Israeli authorities from the British Consulate and an Israeli Knesset (Parliament) member, the peace group was held for 3 hours and then told they would not be permitted to cross the checkpoint, indefinitely.

The group had no choice but to divert to Jerusalem where they will spend the night before attempting to restart their tour of the West Bank tomorrow morning.

Whatever the reason behind today’s appalling treatment of the men and women of the Peace Cycle mission, they are more determined than ever to work for an end to the occupation of Palestine as being the only way to a lasting peace for all people of the Middle East.

For more information, contact Laura Abraham, founder of the Peace Cycle, on +44-(0)-794-1056616.

If you would like to arrange phone interviews with the cyclists at any point please contact TPC Press Officer Claire Ranyard (07801 263322) or Laura Abraham the founder of the Peace Cycle (07941056616) .

For more information visit their website or the following Indymedia UK stories:
http://www.thepeacecycle.org
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347165.html
http://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350167.html

Bil’in: Solidarity With Unpaid Workers Demo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

At the weekly Friday demonstration in Bil’in tomorrow the villagers will be marching to the Apartheid Wall that has stolen half of their agricultural land. The march will start from the mosque at 1pm after prayers . As well as protesting against the theft of their land the villagers will be expressing solidarity with all the public sector workers who haven’t been paid in the last 6 months after the international community and Occupation authorities withdrawing financial support and taxes from the Palestinian Authority. In addition the international community, led by the US, has banned foreign banks from transferring money to the PA and other Palestinian institutions.

The Israeli imposed economic strangulation has made Palestine dependent on foreign aid for the provision of basic services such as health and education. Israel collects taxes from Palestinians to be re-paid to the PA, but has refused to do so for the past 6 months. The march in Bil’in tomorrow will express solidarity and unity with all those public servants who have been reduced to living in poverty because of the economic blockade imposed by Israel and the international community. This is the first time in history that an occupied nation has been targetted by such sanctions.

For more inforamtion call:
Mohammed Katib: 054 557 3285
Abdullah Abu Rahme: 054 725 8210

“What did the shops ever do to them?”

by ISM Nablus

This morning between 2 and 4 o’clock Israeli military forces entered Balata Refugee Camp, south-east of Nablus city center. Soldiers traveling in two armoured bulldozers and four military jeeps proceeded to partially destroy of ten shops in the marketplace on the main street of the camp. The bulldozers pulled down whole shop awnings, crushed tiles and cement curbs lining the street, ripped a street sign from the ground, down a wall, cut an electric cable running overhead and destroyed an large arrangement of grape-vines outside a family home.

A local butcher expressed his frustration at the wanton destruction, “They do this because they know that we are all too poor to afford to rebuild our shops. The occupation is strangling our economy”. Pointing at the wrenched-up tiles of the shop porch and the ripped bits of metal sticking out above our heads in place of the bright red and white shop-front that usually greets customers, he continued: “It will take $1,000 just to repair the awning and another $500 for the porch. And I know that many other shop owners have worse damage. But there is no point in repairing any of it because we know that as soon as we fix it, they will come. They will come the next day!”

Despite this, the marketplace was this morning full of men clambering up ladders to tear down the old wrecked shop-fronts and take measurements for new ones. A team of electricians were busy replacing the cut cable and the rubble from the wreckage was neatly piled up at the sides of the street. “What did the shops ever do to them?” one of the workers exclaimed. “They are terrorists? No, this is the terror of the Israeli army.”

This sort of incursion is a regular occurrence in the refugee camps around Nablus, especially Balata. Occupation soldiers invade the camps nightly, though the use of armoured bulldozers is less common. On a ‘normal’ night, soldiers enter the camp around 2am and shoot at residents, occasionally arresting young men or invading and occupying homes. Last night’s incursion and destruction is yet another attack by the Israeli military on the impoverished residents of Palestine’s refugee camps.

Home Demolitions in Jabal Shamali a “Mistake”

by ISM Nablus

On Saturday the 26th of August, Israeli military invaded the Jabal Shamali area of Nablus and destroyed 22 homes [for a report, pictures and video, see the previous report on the ISM website]. The next day, Israel’s largest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the home demolition was “a mistake,” and that the Israeli military failed to arrest two to three Fatah activists that were the target of the operation.

At the end of the incursion, five individual houses and one three-storey block of flats were destroyed. One of the six buildings demolished was a community meeting hall, the others homes belonging to the Saedi, G’name, Sa’eah and Lubaddeh families. Eight cars were also totally wrecked, five of which were dumped onto a neighboring house, causing structural damage in the form of broken base-beams in the roof and the bending of walls.

Additional houses were also damaged during the demolition. The home adjacent to the structure damaged by the demolished cars was severely burn-damaged, and three homes west of the apartment block were 80% destroyed and are now unlivable. In total, 22 homes and apartments were completely demolished, and an additional five homes were made unlivable.

About 100 people were made homeless by the Israeli military’s actions and are now evacuated to friends’ homes in surrounding neighborhoods, or forced to rent apartments around Nablus. With the help of friends and neighbors, they have removed the remains of their homes that were not completely bullet-ridden or shredded by bulldozers and are now planning on rebuilding the homes as they were.

The families have been given $15,000 collectively from the Palestinian government as aid for rebuilding their homes, and friends and neighbors collected an additional $17,000 for the same purpose. This is, however, far from enough money. The cost of rebuilding the Lubaddeh block of flats alone, as estimated by engineers, will amount to about $550,000.

The issue of home demolitions has been discussed at length by the Israeli High Court of Justice in many cases, including Janimat V. IDF Military Commander 1997. In the discussion of this case, published by the Israeli Supreme Court in “Judgments of the Israeli Supreme Court: Fighting Terrorism within in Law”, the Justices argue, “home demolitions are allowed only in light of especially serious terrorist activities, such as involvement in suicide bombings aimed at civilians… The demolitions are subject to legal principals, such as the principle of proportionality. For example, the measure may only be used if it is possible to limit it to the terrorist’s home, without demolishing adjacent dwellings. (60)” In addition, the President of the Court, A. Barak states, “[Demolitions are] implemented in stages and with care in order to prevent damage to the rest of the building. If damage is caused, it will be repaired. (62)” In the case of this incursion, the homes were demolished while searching for suspects, not “in light of especially serious terrorist activities.” In addition, 22 homes were demolished in their attempt to arrest, clearly violating the “principal of proportionality.” According to President Barak, the homes’ of the residents will be repaired, though follow through on this is unlikely.

Nizar Lubbadeh, who gave himself up to be arrested in a desperate bid to stop the demolition of his and his family’s home, was released shortly after questioning. One other man, Mohammad Ayad, was however arrested after the demolition and is still in jail.

According to the Nablus Municipality, 220 buildings have been destroyed in Nablus since the beginning of the current Intifada in September 2000. This number excludes the large number of homes destroyed in Israel’s “Operation Defensive Shield” in 2002. Following this most recent incursion into Jabal Shamali, the number is now up to 242. This attack marks one of the largest houses to be destroyed. Other big demolitions include a 9-storey building in Rafidya Al-Makhfiyya 3 years ago, belonging to Jafar Maasri who was killed by lethal gas in the Old City, and the Al-Sudder family home in New Askar refugee camp about one and a half years ago.

Amer and Allam Lubbadeh, two brothers made homeless by the demolition, urge anyone who wishes to donate money to the rebuilding of their family home to contact the Palestinian Red Crescent in Nablus, by telephone at 09-2384151, or by fax at 09-2380215.