New Action Alert: “Stop Israel’s Attacks on Gaza”


3rd July: Israeli tanks, armored bulldozers, and APCs roll into the northern Gaza Strip in the early morning. (AFP/David Furst)

US Campaign to End the Occupation, June 30th, 2006

BACKGROUND: Israel is using weapons supplied by the United States to target Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act and the Geneva Conventions.

* On June 9th, Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32. At the site of the killing, Human Rights Watch found evidence of a 155mm artillery shell consistent with those fired from an Israeli M-109 Self-Propelled Artillery. Between 2000-2005, the United States licensed to Israel $69,163 worth of M-109 spare parts and 155mm artillery shells.*

* On June 13th, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in an extrajudicial assassination of two Palestinians in Gaza City. A second barrage of missiles fired shortly afterward killed nine Palestinian bystanders.

* On June 20th, Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed its intended target and killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

* On June 27th, Israel launched a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft fired missiles targeting civilian infrastructure. In illegal acts of collective punishment, Israel demolished three key bridges, the Gaza Strip’s only electricity generation plant, and part of a university, thereby endangering Palestinian human rights to food, water, health, electricity, education, and freedom of movement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted that the purpose of these measures is to “apply pressure” to the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli air force fighter squadrons are composed of Lockheed Martin F-16I Fighting Falcons and Boeing F-15Is, which fire US-manufactured AMRAAM, Sidewinder, and Sparrow missiles. Between 2005-2005, the United States licensed to Israel at least $1.062 billion of spare parts, engines, and missiles for its F-15 and F-16 fighter planes.*

Israel’s month of killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is a clear reminder that Israel remains the occupying power of the Gaza Strip despite last year’s “unilateral disengagement”. Living under military occupation, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are “protected persons” under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Israel’s targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and constitutes war crimes.

In addition, by using US-supplied weapons to commit these atrocities, Israel is violating the terms of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act. The Arms Export Control Act restricts the use of US weapons to legitimate self-defense and internal policing; US weapons cannot be used to attack civilians in offensive operations. The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits US aid of any kind to a country with a pattern of gross human rights violations.

TAKE ACTION: Hold Israel to account for its killing of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

1. This extended holiday weekend, organize a protest or vigil in your community. Distribute flyers at your community’s July 4th celebration to educate people that Palestinians are not free to enjoy independence and self-determination because of US support for Israel’s denial of human rights to Palestinians. Post your event on our on-line calendar at: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/calendar_input.php

2. Contact the White House, State Department, and your Members of Congress to demand that Israel is held accountable for its violations of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act and urge that military aid to Israel be cut off as required by law. Click here to send an email: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/uscampaign/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4460

3. Write a letter to the editor or op-ed for your local newspaper and call your local talk radio stations to protest Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip and highlight US support for these actions. For contact information for your local media, click here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

4. Make a donation to support humanitarian efforts to reprovision the Gaza Strip with much-needed medical supplies for Palestinian children. The Middle East Children’s Alliance, a member organization of the US Campaign, is accepting tax-deductible donations to send medical supplies. Click here to donate: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/GazaMeds.html

* Statistics for US weapons licensed to Israel are compiled from the State Department’s annual report to Congress pursuant to Sec. 655 of the Foreign Assistance Act. For more information, click here: http://pmddtc.state.gov/

UPDATE: Since this Action Alert was written, Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers have entered northern Gaza. Keep an eye on these Palestinian blogs from Gaza for updates: Raising Yousuf, From Gaza, with Love

Farmer’s Land Threatened by Israeli Bulldozers in Beit Ummar

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Early this morning Israeli bulldozers came back to destroy village agricultural lands after they were blocked by the people of Beit Ummar yesterday. A group of Palestinians and internationals who went early to the lands succeeded to stop the work and push the bulldozers back.

Right now, there is no work going on even after a decision from a judge of the Israeli military high court yesterday to continue the work. Local people and the army are waiting for the lawyer to come to observe the work on the ground.

The people and the internationals there are expecting the bulldozers to come back at any moment to continue bulldozing the lands. Therefore they are ready to non-violently block the bulldozers with their bodies to prevent more bulldozing for the lands. For now, the bulldozers are not working in the lands anymore. They moved to another area and the people there are waiting for the lawyer.

The army commander has been saying that Israeli settlers bought the lands. However, the local DCO (District Coordinating Office – essentially the Israeli civil/military administration) when called have said that this is not true and that the army have an order to take the lands for “security” to build a wall for the Krmi Tsor settlement.

In total, 5000 dunmans of agricultural land will be confiscated if they succeed.

The judge of the Israeli military high court said that the work should continue after the commander called him last night.

Right now 10 people from Beit Ummar and Halhul are the near the Karmi Tsor settlement which is it closed to road 60.

For more information:
Musa Abu Marya: 054 583 8925
Zadie: 054 590 2319
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824

Beit Ummar Farmers Continue Struggle against Israeli Settlers’ Land Grab

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, July 3rd, at 6:30 am, farmers from Beit Ummar and Halhul, along with international and Israeli supporters, will gather on their land to stop its illegal destruction by the Israeli state. The army is building two barriers with a patrol road in between them in order to expand the Israeli settlement named Karmi Tsore.

The Palestinians are intent on blocking the bulldozers.

This action is to continue the resistance to the illegal confiscation of the Palestinians’ land that began late this afternoon (July 2nd). Thirty Palestinians, four internationals, and two Israelis arrived at the aforementioned site when two bulldozers plowed through the farmers’ stone wall and destroyed over 20 grape vines. A Palestinian activist, Musa Abu Marya, and two internationals sat and lay in front of the bulldozer and succeeded in stopping it. The army arrived, beat Marya, and detained him until the protesters dispersed. Two other Palestinians were beaten by one soldier.

The Israeli soldiers claimed that the land was purchased by Karmi Tsore, yet the Palestinian landowners were present and denied any such claim. An Israeli commander spoke with the landowners, saying that he would call an Israeli military judge to discuss the settlers’ land claim this evening. Tomorrow the landowners will bring their lawyers to the site and they are prepared to stop the bulldozers if the judge commands the building of the wall to continue.

For more information:
Musa Abu Marya: 054 583 8925
Zadie: 054 590 2319
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824

Ha’aretz: “A black flag”

From Haaretz
By Gideon Levy

A black flag hangs over the “rolling” operation in Gaza. The more the operation “rolls,” the darker the flag becomes. The “summer rains” we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to penetrate Syria’s airspace. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament.

A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization. The harsher the steps, the more monstrous and stupid they become, the more the moral underpinnings for them are removed and the stronger the impression that the Israeli government has lost its nerve. Now one must hope that the weekend lull, whether initiated by Egypt or the prime minister, and in any case to the dismay of Channel 2’s Roni Daniel and the IDF, will lead to a radical change.

Everything must be done to win Gilad Shalit’s release. What we are doing now in Gaza has nothing to do with freeing him. It is a widescale act of vengeance, the kind that the IDF and Shin Bet have wanted to conduct for some time, mostly motivated by the deep frustration that the army commanders feel about their impotence against the Qassams and the daring Palestinian guerilla raid. There’s a huge gap between the army unleashing its frustration and a clever and legitimate operation to free the kidnapped soldier.

To prevent the army from running as amok as it would like, a strong and judicious political echelon is required. But facing off against the frustrated army is Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz’s tyro regime, weak and happless. Until the weekend lull, it appeared that each step proposed by the army and Shin Bet had been immediately approved for backing. That does not bode well, not only for the chances of freeing Shalit, but also for the future management of the government, which is being revealed to be as weak as the Hamas government.

The only wise and restrained voice heard so far was that of the soldier’s father, Noam Shalit, of all people. That noble man called at what is clearly his most difficult hour, not for stridency and not for further damage done to the lives of soldiers and innocent Palestinians. Against the background of the IDF’s unrestrained actions and the arrogant bragging of the latest macho spokesmen, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant of the Southern Command and Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, Shalit’s father’s voice stood out like a voice crying in the wilderness.

Sending tens of thousands of miserable inhabitants running from their homes, dozens of kilometers from where his son is supposedly hidden, and cutting off the electricity to hundreds of thousands of others, is certainly not what he meant in his understated emotional pleas. It’s a shame nobody is listening to him, of all people.

The legitimate basis for the IDF’s operation was stripped away the moment it began. It’s no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was “illegitimate and illegal,” unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes. How can a senior official in the defense ministry claim that “the head of the snake” is in Damascus, when the IDF uses the exact same methods?

True, when the IDF and Shin Bet grab civilians from their homes – and they do so often – it is not to murder them later. But sometimes they are killed on the doorsteps of their homes, although it is not necessary, and sometimes they are grabbed to serve as “bargaining chips,” like in Lebanon and now, with the Palestinian legislators. What an uproar there would be if the Palestinians had grabbed half the members of the Israeli government. How would we label them?

Collective punishment is illegitimate and it does not have a smidgeon of intelligence. Where will the inhabitants of Beit Hanun run? With typical hardheartedness the military reporters say they were not “expelled” but that it was “recommended” they leave, for the benefit, of course, of those running for their lives. And what will this inhumane step lead to? Support for the Israeli government? Their enlistment as informants and collaborators for the Shin Bet? Can the miserable farmers of Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia do anything about the Qassam rocket-launching cells? Will bombing an already destroyed airport do anything to free the soldier or was it just to decorate the headlines?

Did anyone think about what would have happened if Syrian planes had managed to down one of the Israeli planes that brazenly buzzed their president’s palace? Would we have declared war on Syria? Another “legitimate war”? Will the blackout of Gaza bring down the Hamas government or cause the population to rally around it? And even if the Hamas government falls, as Washington wants, what will happen on the day after? These are questions for which nobody has any real answers. As usual here: Quiet, we’re shooting. But this time we are not only shooting. We are bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?

Bil’in Protests Israeli Re-occupation

by an ISM activist in Bil’in

Friday 30th June: We walked down the Bil’in road to where the soldiers stood waiting behind two jeeps blocking the gate. The road that runs behind it leads to a settlement built down the other side of the hill. The village has lost many acres of land to these settlements, and to prevent the further theft of land, have built an outpost where international and Israeli supporters of the village take turns staying and keeping watch.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall of Bil’in decides on a weekly theme for the demonstration, to highlight different issues of the Occupation. This week has seen heightened violence toward Palestinians from the Israeli military in the West Bank as well as Gaza, and so the theme for this demonstration was to draw attention to the killings of Palestinians by several activists donning the orange hoods which are worn by those being executed.

There were chants and proclamations of our right to be there and our coming in a spirit of non-violence. Shortly afterward we were asked by the people of Bil’in to move our group up the hill. Soon after, a few boys threw rocks at one of the jeeps. The soldiers responded with a heavy round of sound bombs and rubber bullets. There were two injuries from the shrapnel: Adib Abu Rahme, 54, of Bil’in was hit in his right eye. Brendan, a young man from France, suffered cuts on his lower left arm. Three jeeps entered the village, chasing the people down the road. The remaining group passed through the gate, just on the other side of the fence. At this point, two Israelis were arrested; the soldiers were rough on them. The first was a man: Shai, and then a woman, Oshra.

The gate was pushed open by a couple of boys, and our group standing together blocked the army from coming through. The soldiers pushed through the line of people with jeeps, and used rubber bullets further into the village. As we walked back toward town, tear gas was shot into the air. Two men were injured here – Ahmed, 55, and Amer Hisham, 22, of Bil’in suffered from rubber bullet shots to their backs.

After the demonstration ended, the soldiers continued to occupy the village, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at locals who stayed behind. The smell of gas lingered in the air almost until the time we left.