Bil’in to Commemorate International Court of Justice Ruling Against the Wall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On July 7th, at 1pm, the people of Bil’in joined by international and Israeli supporters will demonstrate against the apartheid wall in commemoration of the Second Anniversary of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that the Wall is illegal. The Bil’in Popular Committee against the wall and settlements has planned a celebration with international, Israeli and Palestinian musicians to participating.

Two years ago, the ICJ in the Hague, despite intense pressure from Israel, the US and EU governments, confirmed what Palestinians and the world have known since the beginning of its planning and construction: that the wall is illegal. The text states that, “Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

For more information please call:
Abdullah Abu Rahme: 054 725 8210
Mohammad Khatib: 054 5573285
Iyad Burnat: 054 7847 942
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824 or 0599 943 157

Ynet: “Look who’s been kidnapped”

Hundreds of Palestinian ‘suspects’ have been kidnapped from their homes and will never stand trial

Israeli reservist Arik Diamant | Ynet

It’s the wee hours of the morning, still dark outside. A guerrilla force comes out of nowhere to kidnap a soldier. After hours of careful movement, the force reaches its target, and the ambush is on! In seconds, the soldier finds himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.

A smash in the face with the butt of the gun and the soldier falls to the ground, bleeding. The kidnappers pick him up, quickly tie his hands and blindfold him, and disappear into the night.

This might be the end of the kidnapping, but the nightmare has just begun. The soldier’s mother collapses, his father prays. His commanding officers promise to do everything they can to get him back, his comrades swear revenge. An entire nation is up-in-arms, writing in pain and worry.

Nobody knows how the soldier is: Is he hurt? Do his captors give him even a minimum of human decency, or are they torturing him to death by trampling his honor? The worst sort of suffering is not knowing. Will he come home? And if so, when? And in what condition? Can anyone remain apathetic in the light of such drama?

Israeli terror

This description, you’ll be surprised to know, has nothing to do with the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It is the story of an arrest I carried out as an IDF soldier, in the Nablus casbah, about 10 years ago. The “soldier” was a 17-year-old boy, and we kidnapped him because he knew “someone” who had done “something.”

We brought him tied up, with a burlap sac over his head, to a Shin Bet interrogation center known as “Scream Hill” (at the time we thought it was funny). There, the prisoner was beaten, violently shaken and sleep deprived for weeks or months. Who knows.

No one wrote about it in the paper. European diplomats were not called to help him. After all, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the kidnapping of this Palestinian kid. Over the 40 years of occupation we have kidnapped thousands of people, exactly like Gilad Shalit was captured: Threatened by a gun, beaten mercilessly, with no judge or jury, or witnesses, and without providing the family with any information about the captive.

When the Palestinians do this, we call it “terror.” When we do it, we work overtime to whitewash the atrocity.

Suspects?

Some people will say: The IDF doesn’t “just” kidnap. These people are “suspects.” There is no more perverse lie than this. In all the years I served, I reached one simple conclusion: What makes a “suspect”? Who, exactly suspects him, and of what?

Who has the right to sentence a 17-year-old to kidnapping, torture and possible death? A 26-year-old Shin Bet interrogator? A 46-year-old one? Do these people have any higher education, apart from the ability to interrogate? What are his considerations? I all these “suspects” are so guilty, why not bring them to trial?

Anyone who believes that despite the lack of transparency, the IDF and Shin Bet to their best to minimize violations of human rights is naïve, if not brainwashed. One need only read the testimonies of soldiers who have carried out administrative detentions to be convinced of the depth of the immorality of our actions in the territories.

To this very day, there are hundreds of prisoners rotting in Shin Bet prisons and dungeons, people who have never been –and never will be – tried. And Israelis are silently resolved to this phenomenon.

Israeli responsibility

The day Gilad Shalit was kidnapped I rode in a taxi. The driver told me we must go into Gaza, start shooting people one-by-one, until someone breaks and returns the hostage. It isn’t clear that such an operation would bring Gilad back alive.

Instead of getting dragged into terrorist responses… we should release some of the soldiers and civilians we have kidnapped. This is appropriate, right, and could bring about an air of reconciliation in the territories.

Hell, if this is what will bring Gilad home safe-and-sound, we have a responsibility to him to do it.

Arik Diamant is an IDF reservist and the head of Courage to Refuse.

Ha’aretz: “UN aid chief warns Gaza is on the verge of humanitarian crisis”

by the Associated Press, 30th June

Gaza is three days away from a deadly humanitarian crisis unless Israel promptly restores fuel and electricity to the densely populated area after its offensive to free an abducted soldier, the United Nations aid chief warned on Thursday.

“They are heading for the abyss unless they get electricity and fuel restored,” said Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, who also urged the Palestinians to free the soldier and clamp down on militants firing rockets into Israel.

Without clean water in the hot summer weather, “we would in days see a major humanitarian crisis,” he said. Military action targeting innocent civilians violates international humanitarian law, he added.

“I am confident that neither of the two want to see a massive increase in mortality in the Gaza,” where children make up about half of the area’s 1.4 million people, Egeland told a small group of reporters.

At the heart of the crisis, he said, was Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s sole power plant, which supplies about 40 percent of the area’s electricity. The remaining power comes from Israel.

An estimated 130 Gaza wells require electricity to pump water, and while some have backup pumps that run on diesel fuel, Israel has allowed no fuel to flow into Gaza for four days, leaving it dependent on emergency supplies expected to last another three days.

Egeland, who as Norway’s deputy foreign minister helped orchestrate secret 1992 talks between Israel and the Palestinians that led to the Oslo accords, lamented that both sides in the conflict appeared intent on perpetuating an endless ‘cycle of violence’.

“They are locked in a situation where they do their utmost to cut the bridges between them and create hatred that bodes ill for the future,” he said. “Why do they do things that are so counter to their own interests?”

Red Cross looks to send medical supplies to Gaza

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), concerned about escalating Middle East violence, called on Friday for Israel to allow urgent medical supplies into Gaza.

Dorothea Krimitsas, ICRC spokeswoman, said that Israel is obliged under international law – including the Geneva Conventions – to ensure that humanitarian supplies reach Palestinian civilians.

Israel Air Force fighter jets pounded Gaza on Friday, setting ablaze the Interior Ministry office of the Hamas-led Palestinian government in a widening military … [campaign].

“We are negotiating with Israel to allow in humanitarian aid. These are essential medicines and medical supplies for the Palestinian Red Crescent,” Krimitsas told Reuters.

“We are concerned at the humanitarian consequences of the escalation of violence and closure of crossing points to Gaza, especially the Karni crossing,” she added.

The ICRC is also anxious to deliver food packages and household items for Palestinian families, some of whom have had their homes destroyed, according to Krimitsas.

“Under international law, Israel has the obligation to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza. It also has the duty to ensure that the vital supplies for the population, including food and medicine, are adequate,” she said.

Israeli strikes have knocked out bridges, water systems and a major power transformer in the densely populated Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians.

Hospitals, hard-hit by the loss of electricity, have to use generators for power, consuming precious fuel, Krimitsas said.

“We are worried about the fuel stocks. Palestinian authorities have estimated that they have enough for about 7 to 10 days,” she added

Independent: “Gaza: ‘The children wake up screaming. I am worried it will damage them'”


Palestinian boy looks at the destruction of a school in Gaza after an early morning Israeli strike July 5th. (AP Photo/Laura Leon)

by Donald Macintyre, 3rd of July

Mahmoud Mughari speaks bluntly. “I normally wash and shower twice a day. Now I can only do it every four or five days. The children smell. We all smell. We are worried that this will cause diseases.”

Outside the home in central Gaza he and his own family share with his elderly parents, five married brothers and their children – 48 in all – Mr Mughari was describing the impact made by Israel’s air strikes in Gaza last week, one of which severed the water pipe serving this refugee camp of 57,000 people.

The first problem, Mr Mughari, says, is that power – which would normally be running, among much else, refrigeration and fans in the current 91F (33C) temperatures – has been cut from 24 hours a day to eight hours a day.

This is itself a function of Palestinian engineers reallocating some of the electricity half of Gaza takes from Israel to the other half previously dependent on the Gaza power station whose transformers were destroyed in Wednesday’s missile attack. The second is that water previously available two days out of three is now available for only four to five hours every third day. And the third is that the impossibility so far of ensuring electricity and water coincide makes it impossible to pump the water up to the roof tanks and provide a steady supply through the taps.

They have been storing their rationed supplies in two blue 250- litre barrels, saving most of it for drinking and – when it is possible – for cooking. And to escape the heat, he says, members of the family have started sleeping on mattresses on the pavement outside the house. The latest crisis has compounded the problems of the Mughari family ever since the international economic blockade of the Palestinian Authority started.

Mr Mughari, one of only two brothers working – the other three are unemployed tailors – has not received the £134-per-month salary for three months from the job creation scheme on which he works. While the family are eligible for UN food aid, he says their meat consumption has fallen from three or four times a week to once a fortnight.

The family is also coming to terms with the resumption of the deliberate sonic booms, or “bombs”, generated by Israeli F-16s overflying Gaza, starting in the predawn hours. “The children wake up screaming and run into my room,” he says. “Some of them understand that this is just a very loud noise, but Mai, my four-year-old daughter thinks it is a real bombardment. I am worried that it will affect them psychologically in the future.”

If the purpose of Israel’s military campaign so far is to secure a major shift in Palestinian public opinion, it does not appear to have worked. Flanked by his parents and many of his own and his brothers’ children, Mr Mughari says that even if there is an Israeli ground incursion: “We’ll take it even if it gets worse.”

There are few overt signs of preparations by militants, but Mr Mughari adds: “If [the Israelis] come here they will not get roses. There will be resistance.” He adds of Cpl Shalit’s abduction: “My personal opinion is that there should be a prison exchange.”

Bulldozers Stopped, Palestinian Activist Still Arrested

by Em and Zadie in Beit Ummar

UPDATE, 6th July: As far as we have been able to acsertain, Musa Abu-Marya still remains a captive of the Shabak.

Download video here

Yesterday in Beit Ummar, a village of 15,000 in the Israeli occupied West Bank, non-violent direct action continued in opposition to the illegal Israeli annexation and destruction of Palestinain farm land. Surrounded by cautious Palestinian youth who observed from a safe distance, a group of 2 Palestinians and 9 internationals approached a backhoe and bulldozer uprooting trees in Palestinian orchards. The demolition, begun on Sunday, is to make way for a new Israeli wall encircling the settlement of Kurmei Tsur and will conveniently -and illegaly- steal yet more land from the bordering villages of Beit Ummar and Halul for the Israeli settlement – itself illegal under international law. The prospective wall will be built 300 meters from an existing one, grabbing land without the permission or compensation of Palestinian land-owners.

Upon arriving within thirty meters of the construction equipment the activists were chased and assaulted by approximately 15 members of the Israeli Offensive Force. Activists were strangled, punched, kicked, and struck with the barrels of guns by these soldiers, causing bleeding, numerous bruises, and difficulty swallowing. One activist had hair ripped from his head. Another had a soldier’s finger stuck in his eye in an effort to incapacitate him. Another was kicked in the groin. At one point, a Palestinain activist and journalist asked a soldier “why do you attack civilians? is this what you are trained for?” In response, a seething soldier declared “You are my enemy”, which the Palestinian caught on camera.

Four activists were restrained and put in plasti-cuffs. But three, all internationals, were allowed to leave, while the other detainee, Musa Abu-Mariya, a Palestinian from Beit Ummar, was arrested and taken for indefinite interrogation, highlighting the apartheid nature of the Israeli legal systems. After prior arrests by the Israelis, Musa has reported physical abuse by his captors.

Later in the morning another Palestinian, a 15 year old named Asim, was arrested in a nearby orchard. According to reports from villagers in Beit Ummar he sustained injuries from the IOF.

Advocate Nasser, a lawyer representing the municipality of Beit Ummar and Halhul succeeded in getting a temporary stop work order from an Israeli court. The mayor of Beit Ummar presented the soldiers with the order, forcing a temporary halt in the destruction and theft of about 5000 dunams of farmers’ land. The order says that they must stop all work on building the wall around Karme Tzur settlement until there is a decision in the Isreali Supreme Court on the lawsuit filed by the village of Beit Ummar against the construction.

One of the Palestinians arrested yesterday was released last night, fifteen year-old Asam Abu Mariya. Non-violent activist, Musa Abu Mariya, 28, is still being held at an unknown location and has had no contact with any lawyer.

For the past three days Palestinians and internationals have had some success at stopping the destruction of the land by sitting down in front of the bulldozers and demonstrating on the land. However, hundreds of trees and grape vines have been already been uprooted. The Israeli army has used force to stop the protestors and enforce the confiscation of land while bypassing all legal channels. There are various lawyers working on enforcing the rights of the landowners and protecting the land from confiscation.