Bloody Friday: 10 killed in Gaza massacre, as shelling, sonic booms continue

By Leila Al Haddad

Just as I’ve made my way back to Maryland USA, getting ready to write a post about how my stint on Democracy Now went this morning, I learned that 10 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza as they were picnicking on the beach. 3 of them were children-two under the age of two. And their mother. And forty others wounded. We called my Aunt, who works with the al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza. She was hysterical, and this is a woman who seldom loses her grip.

She just spoke of blood and body parts, and how one of the cameramen at the hospital couldn’t hold it together and dropped his camera as he was filming after he heard a bloodied, battered girl crying out for her father.

I feel so useless being here in the United States, so impotent and angered, and I just want to cry and scream at once. After a week of energizing talks, in which I really felt I could contribute a little bit by informing people this happens.

My aunt also said the dreaded Sonic Boom Attacks had resumed and that Israeli air crafts were beginning to shell areas of Khan Yunis, in al-Qarara. And just last night, I was talking about how the sonic booms, under pressure from human rights organizations, had seemed to cease-albeit without official declaration. I spoke too soon.

The horror continues, and the main headline on Yahoo’s sidebar? “Hamas to resume attacks in Israel.”

I guess that answer’s Amy Goodman’s question to me this morning: “How do you think this all is being conveyed in the media?”

Democracy Now: “A Mother Under Occupation”

Palestinian Journalist Laila El-Haddad on Life in the Occupied Territories

From Democracy Now, 9th June 2006. Watch 128k stream or Watch 256k stream

We speak with Palestinian journalist and mother, Laila El-Haddad about life in the Occupied Territories. El-Haddad writes for Aljazeera.net and maintains her own blog titled “Raising Youssef: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation.” She lives in Gaza and the U.S. [includes rush transcript] A senior member of the Hamas government was assassinated in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza town of Rafah on Thursday. Three of his bodyguards were also killed in the attack. The government official, Interior Ministry general director Jamal Abu Samhadana, was also a founding member of the Popular Resistance Committees who had been accused of plotting attacks inside Israel. Samhadana had narrowly escaped four previous assassination attempts.

Earlier that day three Palestinians were shot dead near a border crossing in the Gaza Strip. Israel said its troops had opened fire on “three suspect silhouettes” moving towards the border. Palestinians said the dead were policemen on patrol.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials are having talks over a peace plan by the Palestinian Authority president that implicitly recognizes Israel. President Mahmoud Abbas has given Hamas until Saturday to accept the 18-point plan or he will put it to a referendum.

This comes as the Bush administration has cancelled international talks that were expected to lead to emergency payments of salaries for Palestinian workers. Thousands of Palestinian government employees have gone without pay following an international aid-freeze on the Hamas-led government. A European diplomat told the Independent of London the cancellation is stoking fears the US government is committed to “regime change” in the Occupied Territories.

* Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian journalist and mother who lives in Gaza. She writes for Aljazeera.net and other publications. She maintains her own blog titled “Raising Youssef: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation”

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We welcome you to Democracy Now! Your response to the latest killings.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: I mean, it’s just unreal to me that, given the current situation and given the tension and given everything that’s going on in the continued closures and asphyxiation of the economy that Israel again would go to these lengths to assassinate, you know — Samhadana, in addition to being the head of the Popular Resistance Committees, was the new P.A. security chief, and it was sort of seen as an effort to rein in all the different armed groups, because he was a very influential figure, and it was seen that he could, you know, kind of bring them all under his umbrella. So, you know, this is just going to further escalate tensions within Gaza, and the security situation is going to further deteriorate. And, of course, that being directly linked with the humanitarian situation.

AMY GOODMAN: And Israel saying that he was responsible for attacks inside Israel.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Right, as the head of the Popular Resistance Committee, he is considered to be someone who spearheaded a lot of resistance attacks.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s happening in Gaza right now?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: The situation is very, very difficult, you know, and it pre-dates the current government. It’s important to remind that since the disengagement from Gaza in the summer of 2006 when Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza, the situation has been continuously deteriorating, because everything continues to be under Israeli control. We’ve heard it time and again, but Gaza literally has become more of a prison than it was before, very much an open-air prison with the skies, and the air, and the borders, and the permit registry system, very significantly, still controlled by Israel. That means that no one can leave or come into Gaza unless they have an Israeli-issued Palestinian ID card. So many families, including my own, not able to unite within Gaza because one or the other lacks the ID card and doesn’t have the family reunification. And more significantly, we can’t go to the West Bank. Before, it was very difficult to obtain a permit. Now it’s pretty much next to impossible for Palestinians to commute between Gaza and the West Bank. So really, just Gaza completely now cut off from the world and from the West Bank and from Israel, and with the continued economic closures, as you mentioned, of the Karni and then [unintelligible] crossing, which has been close to 50% of the year, completely fixating the economy, hundreds of thousands of tons of vegetables and fruits, that were supposed to be exported and help the economy stay afloat, rotted.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you get around? Are you together with your family?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: My husband is a refugee from — a Palestinian refugee who lives in Lebanon. He’s also a physician. He works in this country. He still has a refuge permit. He can’t come join me in Gaza, so I commute with our 2-year-old son, Yousuf, after which my blog is named, back and forth between Gaza and the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: And how hard or easy is it for you to get in and out?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: I’m just like any other Palestinian, I have a Palestinian Authority passport. And that’s significant – we always say it’s not a Palestinian passport, because we’re still not recognized, you know, as a people, as a state, as a nationality, and it’s significant because of all the talk about referendum and recognizing Israel, and I go on that Palestinian authority passport and on my Israeli-issued ID card. I’ve added my son to that ID card so that he can have that right to go back and forth with me. We travel through the Rafah crossing, which is the only exit and entry point into or out of the Gaza strip and continues to be effectively controlled by Israel. While they no longer physically man it, they still control who goes in and out and monitor it by video surveillance.

AMY GOODMAN: You were in Rafah during the first and second Israeli incursions there?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Yes, yes, in the fall of 2003 and then again in the spring of 2004. Both times I was just arriving. Once I was pregnant, and the second time my son was just 2 months old, and, you know, Israel had just raided the camp for several days, put it under complete lockdown. Very few journalists, I should add, were actually there or even bothered to go and just do the aftermath color shot. It’s difficult to give any kind of snap shot of the devastation that was there. And, you know, it was all the more senseless because a lot of the house demolition that occurred there — you know, 2/3 of the houses that were demolished in Palestine were done so in Rafah. 16,000 people lost their homes, just to give you a sense of the enormity of the destruction. Much of it happened just prior to the disengagement, which made it all the more senseless.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you think this all is being conveyed in the media, and especially since you’ve got your feet in both worlds, there and here, how it’s covered here?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Very poorly, to put it bluntly. I mean, it’s — I’m constantly surprised. People tell me ‘You shouldn’t be,’ but I am, at how little people know about — I know it’s difficult to get a grasp of all these details, but they’re so significant, because I call them part of the Israeli “matrix of control” that fall under this rubric of occupation that really just invades the very private lives of Palestinians and destroys everything. And it’s not conveyed. I mean, the focus is — you know, I can sum it up, I call it copy and paste journalism done by parachute journalists. It’s Hamas, the militant group that’s dedicated to the destruction of Israel. And that’s all we hear, or gunmen have been fighting, or rockets has been fired. You don’t hear anything about Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians that are just under lockdown now. The fact that the closures — the crossings have been closed 50% of the year. The fact that as you mentioned, 150,000 government employees, they’re not getting their salaries. They support 1/3 of the Palestinian population.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: And you as a woman?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: It’s much more difficult being a journalist as a woman, and also being a mother, and also being a Palestinian. That’s all in one package, and someone once asked me, how can you be objective, you know, being Palestinian, and that it affects you so personally? I’d like to draw on the wonderful Amira Hass – someone one once asked her that, and she said, “there’s a difference between being objective and being fair.”

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Laila El-Haddad. She keeps a blog called Raising Yousuf: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation and works for AlJazeera.net. Your response to Abbas’ proposal for a referendum.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: I mean, the timing isn’t the greatest, to kind of force this referendum, in such a difficult time and situation. And when there is no acknowledgment of Palestinian rights, of Palestinian rights that exist, and there never has been, and no such, you know, absolutely unheard of conditions imposed on Israel for denying Palestinian rights and continuing the occupation. I think it’s a mistake for him to do it at this time, especially do it so publicly, especially since the current government has indicated, you know, that it’s not its decision to make this decision to recognize Israel’s right to exist. It’s a decision for all the people, implying that referendum would be answered, but it’s a matter of timing. You know, recently I did a photo story speaking with nine Palestinians about this issue of recognition, and time and again, what I heard from them was just this — that, you know, look what 10 years of negotiation has brought us. Yes after yes after yes, and this will just be another yes that’s going to result in nothing but more devastation. And, you know, they said in the context of a extensive and just solution with reciprocated rights, it makes sense, but now it just doesn’t.

AMY GOODMAN: And the Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s proposal for redrawing the borders, a unilateral proposal.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: We were joking about how — what’s the new phrase he’s come up with? Convergence? But I mean I call it “the annexation plan”, because that’s what it is, it’s destroying the West Bank, it’s chopping it into three parts and annexing large portions of it. And within those three parts, nine separate cantons just divided and riddled with check points and all sorts of other things that just really destroy Palestinian life in every way, and it’s also going to destroy any hope of any kind of just solution or negotiated settlement and render a Palestinian state completely impossible.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll have to leave it there. Laila El-Haddad, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian journalist and mother living in Gaza and here. She writes for Al-Jazeera.net and maintains her own blog, Raising Yousuf: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation.

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Support CUPE’s Call to Boycott Israeli Apartheid

Action Alert from the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA)

In late May, the 200,000 member strong Ontario chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) approved Resolution 50 supporting a growing global campaign initiated on July 9, 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations, including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

Predictably CUPE has come under intense pressure to back-down from this decision.

WE CALL UPON SUPPORTERS TO TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS:

THANK CUPE:

Please contact the leadership of CUPE Ontario and support this decision. Individuals, organizations, unions, congregations, etc. are all encourage to send letters of support to:

Sid Ryan, President CUPE Ontario: sryan@cupe.on.ca
CUPE Ontario Executive Members akirby@cupe.on.ca
Katherine Nastovski, Chair, CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee
knastov@yahoo.com

Or fax CUPE at: (416) 299-3480

SIGN THE PETITION:

Print and circulate the attached petition to your contacts. Send completed petitions to:

CAIA
427 Bloor Street West
Box 13, Toronto
Ontario, M5S 1X7
Canada

ORGANIZE A WORKSHOP:

Email us directly at endapartheid@riseup.net to arrange for a workshop on Israeli apartheid in you CUPE local, union hall, community center, school, congregation, etc.

DONATE TO SUPPORT THIS WORK:

Donate to CAIA to ensure that this grassroots movement against Israeli apartheid continues to grow. Checks can be made payable to the “Peace and Justice Committee” and sent to:

CAIA
427 Bloor Street West
Box 13, Toronto
Ontario, M5S 1X7

MONITOR AND RESPOND TO THE MEDIA:

Please continue monitoring any press on this issue, write letters to the editor in support of CUPE’s resolution and alert us to any particularly offensive, slanderous or racist materials published in response to this resolution (endapartheid@riseup.net)

PASS IT ON:

Please forward this note to your distribution lists and inform other members of your organization, community, school, congregation, union, workplace, etc.

FIND OUT MORE:

We are heartened by the numerous calls and e-mails of support that we have received from CUPE Ontario and other union members, as well as calls of support from unions around the world. We urge you to contct us directly if you’d like to get involved in this growing campaign.

To learn more about the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid or inquire about organizing educationals please contact endapartheid@riseup.net.

To learn more about the growing movement to boycott, divest and sanction Apartheid Israel visit the following websites:

End Israeli Apartheid website (Canada)
http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net

BIG, the Boycott Israeli goods campaign – supported by the Palestine
Solidarity Campaign (UK)
http://www.bigcampaign.org

Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Palestine)

Home – EN

Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa)
http://www.psc.za.org

For recent press-coverage on Israeli Apartheid and the growing BDS movement against it see:

Protesting against Israeli apartheid (Toronto Sun)
http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Ryan_Sid/2006/06/02/1610863.html

Canadian Union Takes Important Step Against Israeli Apartheid
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet022.html

Chris McGreal’s incesive and detailed two-part report on Israeli Apartheid for the UK daily The Guardian:

Worlds apart (6 February 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1703244,00.html

Brothers in arms – Israel’s secret pact with Pretoria (7 February 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1704037,00.html

**************************************************

Full Text of the Resolution Below:

CUPE ONTARIO WILL:

1. With Palestine solidarity and human rights organizations, develop an education campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices.

2. Support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self- determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

3. Call on CUPE National to commit to research into Canadian involvement in the occupation and call on the CLC to join us in lobbying against the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state and call for the immediate dismantling of the wall.

BECAUSE:

– The Israeli Apartheid Wall has been condemned and determined illegal under international law.

– Over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and other organizations including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions issued a call in July 2005 for a global campaign of boycotts and divestment against Israel similar to those imposed against South African Apartheid;

– CUPE BC has firmly and vocally condemned the occupation of Palestine and have initiated an education campaign about the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state.

**************************************************

Sample letters

Dear CUPE-Executive:

Thank you for passing the resolution to support the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. It has become plainly obvious to anyone who has studied the actions of the Israeli government that their goal is not security but rather confiscation of as much of the West Bank as possible.

Like South Africa, Israel will have to be subjected to intense international pressure before it recognizes Palestinians as a people with the right to their own state and/or equal rights in a joint Palestinian/Jewish state.

No doubt you will come under intense pressure from pro-Israeli organizations to reverse this courageous decision, but rest assured that the overwhelming majority of people in the world are not fooled by right-wing, racist rhetoric and the mainstream media bias surrounding this issue.

Thank you again!

**************

To whom it may concern

I wish to express my profound gratitude to CUPE Ontario for passing Resolution 50 in support of the global campaign against Israeli Apartheid.

Only the grossly uninformed or misinformed can fail to comprehend the inexcusable suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people for nearly six decades. For the sake of all of humanity, it must end.

Again, I commend your courage and principle. Rest assured, the vast majority of thinking people who want to see a peaceful world stand with you.

Most certainly you will come under great pressure from the pro-Israel lobby to reverse your decision. Please stand firm for justice and International Law.

The Nation: “A Thirst for West Bank Water”

Fareed Taamallah, Op-ed for The Nation, June 9, 2006 (web only).

During Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recent visit to Washington, President Bush declared Olmert’s “convergence” plan “bold.” For Palestinians, however, it is disastrous, because it will annex much of the West Bank’s water and fertile land to Israel.

Under Olmert’s plan, Israel aims to keep the two main Palestinian West Bank aquifers: the lower Jordan River basin in the east, and the eastern mountain aquifer, trapped behind Israel’s wall in the west. This will force Palestinians to depend on Israel for water, preserving the status quo, a dramatically unjust division of water resources.

One example of this vastly unequal division of water resources is my West Bank village of Qira. Every summer the Israeli company that supplies water to our village and that provides about 53 percent of the total Palestinian domestic water supply deliberately cuts off our water, thus generating a crisis. Last year Qira, a village of 1,000 residents, had no water for more than three continuous weeks, despite the summer heat.

Water reductions and total cuts force villagers to find alternative water sources. We collect rainwater in cisterns during the winter, but by the start of the summer, the cisterns, unfortunately, run dry. Palestinian communities are thus obliged to purchase additional water from expensive and unsanitary tankers. A high proportion of children in Qira suffer from kidney problems thought to be related to drinking stagnant water. My 4-year-old daughter was forced to have a kidney transplant.

Across the main road from Qira, deep inside the West Bank, is the Israeli settlement of Ariel, where water is supplied to irrigate gardens, wash cars and fill swimming pools. The water in Ariel and other Israeli settlements is never cut off. Ironically, we feel lucky because we look out onto beautiful settlement houses with green yards, while Israeli settlers view the gloomy scene of our poor, parched community.

The Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), nongovernmental organization, reports that there are .75 billion cubic meters of total groundwater potential in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are allocated only .25 billion cubic meters of that groundwater.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100 liters of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption, but many Palestinian West Bank villages have considerably less. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, per capita water consumption for Palestinians in the West Bank is just seventy liters per person per day. In the nearby village of Kafr Ad-Dik, for instance, the allotment is but twenty-one liters per person per day. In contrast, Israel’s per capita use reaches 350 liters per day.

The Oslo II agreement, signed in September 1995, stipulated “the equitable utilization of joint water resources for implementation in and beyond the interim period.” But in reality, this never happened. Instead, according to B’Tselem, a Joint Water Committee (JWC) was established to approve every “new water and sewage project in the West Bank. The JWC is made up of an equal number of representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All its decisions are made by consensus, and no mechanism is established to settle disputes where a consensus cannot be attained. This method of decision-making means that Israel is able to veto any request by the Palestinian representatives to drill a new well to obtain the additions stipulated in the agreement.”

Additionally, if a well approved by the JWC is situated in Palestinian Area C, which is under Israel’s complete control according to Oslo, the Israeli Civil Administration must also approve the project and issue a permit to drill a well. This entails a lengthy, complicated bureaucratic process, and the vast majority of applications submitted are denied.

The Israeli assumption is that Palestinians have only minimal water needs–less than the WHO’s minimum quantities, and a fraction of Israeli needs. However, Palestinians, like Israelis, need sufficient water to drink and bathe, to develop industry and agriculture, and to build a modern country. Until that happens, my fellow villagers will remain with their eyes fixed on the water-tower gauge.
‘
Israel’s planned annexation of West Bank aquifers will perpetuate high Israeli water-consumption levels while denying basic Palestinian needs, and will dim any hope for a viable Palestinian state and for peace.

Fareed Taamallah, a peace activist, works as the coordinator for the Palestinian Central Election Commission for the district of Salfit in the West Bank.

The People of Bil’in Honour Journalists


Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters

by Raad

At 13:00 today the people of Bil’in started their weekly march to protest the apartheid wall which is being built on their land. The march started with around 100 Palestinians and 40 internationals and Israeli activists who attended in solidarity with the locals to support their resistance. The people started the march as usual singing and chanting different Palestinian songs and slogans.

The theme of the protest was centred around a memorial box bearing the names of all the journalists who were killed by the Israeli occupation forces during the second intifada. This was erected at the gate in Bil’in as a memorial to remember those journalists .

Once the march arrived to the usual confrontation point, border police and army were already waiting for the march to prevent people from getting to their lands. And also as usual, the border police declared the area a closed military zone through the jeeps’ loud speakers in both Arabic & Hebrew, but the people didn’t accept that and kept singing and chanting in front of the soliders.

After 20 minutes Abdullah Abu Rahme from the Bil’in popular committee called the people together and he declared a ceremony to honour the journalists who have been participating in and covering the activities in Bil’in for the last 16 months and who have suffered like the villagers from being shot and jailed. The ceremony started with a speech for a representative from the local council who thanked the journalists for the important role that they have played and continue to play by documenting the army and the border police’s acts in the occupied territories in general and in Bil’in in particular.

Later on Abdullah called some representatives from different establishments like the local council and the youth club and the national committee against the wall and the popular committee against the wall to honour the journalists.

Different journalists and photographers from different like AP, AFP Reuters, and Ma’an News Network in addition to the Bil’in people, honoured the ISM for the great media work that the ISM did and still is doing. Finally, Abdullah declared the end of the action.

Once the people turned back there was some stones thrown toward the border police and soldiers who had not stopped harassing the people during the celebration. The border police then attacked the people with sound grenades and tear gas, as well as rubber bullets which caused some injuries among the people and also to an American photographer who got hit by a sound bomb.

Here is the full list of the injured people:

1- Phil, US photographer sound bomb in the arm
2 – Mahdi Abu Rahme (17 yrs) shot with a rubber bullet which entered his hand. He has been transferred to Shaikh Zayed hospital in Ramallah so they can operate on his hand.
3 – Solaiman Yaseen (14 yrs) rubber bullet in the back.
4 – Ali Abu Rahme (14 yrs) rubber bullet in the back .
5 – Mohammad Yaseen (11 yrs) rubber bullet in the back.
6 – Khamees Abu Rahme (23 yrs) rubber bullet in the back.
7 – Ayed Abu Rahme (32 yrs) rubber bullet in the back.
8 – Fuad Samara (20 yrs) rubber bullet in the back.