France ‘will recognize’ Palestinian state

08 December 2010 | PressTV

France has declared that it will recognize a free and independent Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 war, becoming the first European nation to do so.

After Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, France has now declared that it will recognize a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
Bernard Valero, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Paris agrees with the formation of a Palestinian state based on the exchange of land between Israel and the Palestinians.

Valero also expressed hope that peace talks between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel will resume.

During the past week, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have all sent letters to acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas, declaring that they recognize a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Human rights activists and international bodies are meanwhile vying for the United Nations membership for the Palestinian state.

The activists believe that Palestine already meets the required criteria for joining the world body.

Israel has protested the recent recognitions, claiming that the move is against the spirit of the Mideast talks.

Tel Aviv accuses the Latin American nations of ignoring the 2003 Middle East roadmap for peace, which said that a Palestinian state could be established through dialogue, but not through unilateral measures.

This is while the international community widely backs Palestinian demands for a state in most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), all territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The recent developments come only weeks after Tel Aviv announced that it would not halt its plan for constructing over 1,300 new settler units in East al-Quds and a further 800 units in the northern occupied West Bank.

Israel’s decision has been condemned by the PA, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

In clear defiance to international criticism, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also stated that it considers al-Quds its capital.

The resumption of the illegal construction work has put a halt to direct talks between Israel and the PA, which began in early September after a 20-month break.

The Palestinians say that the settlement activities are being carried out to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its future capital.

IDF resumes use of prohibited tear gas canisters

8 December 2010 | Ha’aretz, Chaim Levinson

 

The canisters, which are used to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank, have been responsible for serious injuries and at least one death

Israel Defense Forces soldiers recently resumed the use of prohibited tear gas canisters to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank.

These tear gas grenades, which are in effect 40 mm rounds with a range of 250 meters, were responsible for numerous serious injuries and at least one death. In March 2009, the U.S. peace activist Tristan Anderson was hit in the head by one of these canisters while demonstrating against the West Bank separation barrier in Na’alin. Anderson was critically injured and was hospitalized in a minimally responsive state for several months after the incident. He has recovered some physical and mental functions. In April 2009, Bassam Abu Rahma, of Bil’in, died immediately after being hit in the chest by a tear gas grenade. The incident is still under IDF investigation.

After several human rights organizations protested to the military advocate general, use of the extended-range tear gas canister was banned by the IDF and stocks were removed from weapons depots. Haaretz reported six months ago that in a training day on crowd dispersal held at the General Staff command several officers expressed objection to the ban. They said that that using the shorter-range canisters put soldiers in greater danger and put them in closer range of rocks thrown by demonstrators.

Last month, IDF forces resumed their use of the extended-range tear gas grenades, despite their prohibition. They were used to disperse the demonstrations held every Friday in the village of Nebi Salah, between Salafiya and Ramallah, which end with participants hurling rocks at the soldiers and at vehicles plying the road to the settlement of Neve Tzuf. Two weeks ago, one of these canisters smashed the leg of one of the demonstrators. A video from November 12 shows tear gas coming out of the canister as it lay on the ground.

On Thursday, soldiers from the Carmeli reserve brigade fired extended-range tear gas canisters at teens who threw rocks at them. Several shells bearing the words “extended range” were visible on the ground after the incident.

Shootings in Gaza ‘buffer zone’ continue

4 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On Saturday, the 4th of December 2010, three people were shot and injured at the northern border near to Bait Lahya. All of them sustained multiple fractures that required surgery, and two of them were hit with ‘dum-dum’ bullets, which explode on impact.

The three of them were civilians who have no other way to survive than by collecting scrap at the border.

Belal Elhsomi is 17 years old, but looks much younger. The sniper who shot him may have thought he was shooting a 14 year old boy. When we visited him, he had great difficulty speaking because he had just come out of surgery and had 6 irons sticks protruding from his leg for fixing the broken bone.

Usually Belal collects scrap, but today he was collecting wood 500 – 600 meters from the border in an area near to Beit Lahya. A dum-dum projectile, which exploded on impact, entered his right lower leg, smashing the bones inside.

“Israeli special forces entered in the area and hid there, I saw it”, witness Ata Elshomi explains to us. After Belal was shot, his friends took him by horse cart to a place where the ambulance could come, and from there he was brought to the hospital. According to Ata, after the shooting, all the 300 people who had been working in the area went away.

Belal’s father explained to us: “I am worried for my son, but there is so much unemployment, my son has to work.” Belal’s 26-year-old brother was injured 5 months ago in the same area, at the same distance from the border, so Belal was forced to take his place. The father has problems with his back and cannot work, so the work of this son is the only source of income for their 15 member family.

According to the doctor, Belal will need five months to recover before he will be able to walk again.

Mohammed Ata Elhosomi is married, has two sons, and shares his home with seven members of his family. Only two weeks ago he began collecting scrap. But on Saturday, at 9:30 in the morning, he was shot at in his leg with no warning shot by an M16, while working on his own in an area with about 300 people doing the same work.

He used to be a farm hand, but can no longer find such work in the sector because farming has decreased in Gaza. Since Mohammed was forced to give up his farming job, the only thing he can do is go to the border and collect scrap.

According to the OCHA report, about 35% of the cultivable land in Gaza lies in the ‘buffer zone’, the patch of land stretching up to 500 meters into Gaza which is a high risk area: anyone entering from 1000 – 1500 meters from the border is under a high risk of being shot at by Israeli soldiers. There are frequent incursions in the area, during which the Israeli army destroys fields so that farmers can no longer work on them.

“I don’t care if I will get injured; I just care about my family. I have to bring them food and for this I do whatever I can,” Mohammed stated.

The doctor showed us the x-ray on which we saw the fibula broken into many little pieces and explained to us that he is going into surgery because he “needs an internal fixing”.

When we entered the room where Marwan Mahmoud Murouf was lying, he was moving moving his head without opening his eyes, moaning, and clearly suffering. He had just come out of surgery and was not able to communicate. He had been hit in the higher part of his right leg. According to the doctor, it will take four months before Marwan will be able to attempt walking again, and he must undergo surgery because he needs internal fixes.

The father of his wife told us that Marwan is 26 years old, and has four children. He is the only one working in the family, and it was his first day of work as a scrap collector. Before this job, he worked in the tunnels.

Marwan’s father-in-law explained: “I used to work in Israel. The sons have to go to school and there is no work here. We go into the buffer zone as scrap collectors because there is no alternative. What else can we do?”

According to Ma’an news, another man was injured today while standing in front of his house, in an area in the east of Deir ElBalah, when Israeli forces opened fire on him. Another two workers were shot yesterday, and the day before. There has obviously been a sharp increase in causalities within and close to the buffer zone this month. The total number of civilians shot since March is 90, with 17 in the last week alone, and four today.

The siege is not only blocking the admission of building materials: in the last period the amount of incoming wheat has decreased alarmingly, and the average number of tons of animal fodder permitted from Israel into the coastal enclave per week has dropped from 16,000 tons to 2,000 in the last two periods, according with Ma’an.

It is brutal that Israel won’t leave any alternative to the people of Gaza than to work at the border, but will then shoot at them knowing they are civilians, and usually, visibly young.

Four more workers shot in Gaza buffer zone: an ordinary day in Gaza

5 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On Tuesday, the 30th of November 2010, four different individuals were wounded by Israeli gunshots while trying to make their living in the only way they could given the desperation in Gaza’s current economy.

Ismael Sa’aed Qapeen, 31 years old
Ismael Sa’aed Qapeen, 31 years old, was doing his daily work collecting stones when he was shot in the foot, causing him to lose three toes. He was in the “buffer zone,” the area spreading up to 500 meters into Gaza where people are at higher risk of being shot at by the Israeli military. He collects stones there, which later are crushed to cement. This is the only way he has to live, with jobs so scarce in the disastrous economic situation of Gaza.

“I was about 200m from the fence when I was shot at, without any being given any warning shot. In the beginning I didn’t feel anything, but after a few seconds I started to feel something in my foot. Then I knew that I had been shot. I fell unconscious,” he tells. His friends carried him on a horse cart to Bait Lahya, where an ambulance picked him up and brought him to Kamal Odwan hospital. This was not his first time getting shot, but the third time. The first time was during an Israeli incursion in 2004, when he was shot near his right knee. The second time was two years ago in his hand. This time has been the hardest as the doctors have had to remove three of his toes.

He isn’t the only one in his family who has been shot while working for his livelihood. Two of his brothers have been injured before, too. The first one, Soltan, was 25 when he was shot at his head: by luck, it wasn’t serious. His other brother Mahmoud was shot during an Israeli incursion in 2004 when he was 18 years old, and injured in both of his legs.

Bayan Farouk Ahmad Tambor, 26 years old
Ismael also wasn’t the only person shot on Tuesday. Bayan Farouk Ahmad Tambor, 26 years old, works in trading potatoes. He was was on his way to the field from where he buys potatoes, unaware of an Israeli incursion in the area. At 8am, when Bayan was 600 meters from the fence, without giving any warning shot Israeli soldiers fired two bullets at him: one missed his leg, but the other smashed his shinbone. People from the area rescued him and took him to the hospital, where he received surgery.

Other members of his family have also been shot by Israeli soldiers. Two of his brothers have been injured by bullets. Adham was 21, working as a farmer harvesting potatoes, when he was shot in the knee 700 meters from the fence. His other brother, Kaled, was shot in his chest two years ago, in the same area. The wound was so serious it is miraculous he was able to survive.

The third person shot on Tuesday was Ameen Akram Abo Saweash, 22 years old. He and two of his brothers are the only men who have work to support their 14 member family. Ameen and his brothers, Emad, 14 years old, and Moamen, 13 years old work together as scrap collectors. They were 500 m away from the fence when they were shot at on Tuesday. During our interview with them, Ameen himself was not yet able to speak because of the operation he had to undergo. A friend said, “I was with him, we always work together in that area. I was only a few meters away from him when he was shot at without any warning shot. They shot him in his thigh with a dum-dum bullet. The doctors said that it’s going to take him four to six months to recover from this injury until he will be able to start walking again.”

Ameen Akram Abo Saweash, 22 years old
“Isn’t that a crime?” his father interrupts. “With a dum-dum bullet!” It is a crime according to the Hague Convention of 1999, Declaration III, which prohibits the use of expanding bullets, called “dum-dum” bullets, in international warfare.

The fourth person injured on Tuesday was Gasan Abo Ryala, 21 years old. He was transmitted to Kamal Odwan hospital where he was treated for a gunshot wound in the leg, but fortunately he was able to leave the hospital soon after.

Tuesday wasn’t an exceptional day. This is an ordinary excerpt from the life of Gaza’s workers in the buffer zone: routine violations of human rights, and brutal crimes committed against Gazan civilians. Ismael, Bayan, Ameen and Gassan will be commemorated only as statistics in the bloody record of the Israeli occupation. But one of them will go on living without three toes, one with a smashed shinbone, and one will go without work for half a year until he can walk again.

“What we will do tomorrow?” one of the friends and fellow scrap collectors at Ameen’s bed laughs bitterly. “We will go back to work, of course. There is no work in this country, as you can see. There is no other option. It’s the only job that is available. If the situation changed, and I found another job, I would do that, of course. I know well how risky this job is, but right now, there is just no other option. So I will go back to work as usual tomorrow”.

Israelis and Palestinians march together against demolitons

3 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Friday, hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians marched together in the Issawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem against recent brutality toward the village by the Israeli government: house demolitions by Israeli authorities, a siege on entrances to the neighborhood, and police misconduct with local residents. This is the first joint protest to be held in Issawiya, a neighborhood that has experienced much turmoil in recent years.

Like most Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, Issawiya is neglected by the municipality. Portions of its land have been annexed at different times to build up Jewish neighborhoods, roads, and parks, and the villagers suffer from continuous harassment by the police. Within the last month Israeli authorities have significantly increased the number of house demolitions, set up barricades and roadblocks, and repeatedly entered the area to patrol and issue fines for minor vehicular defects.

There is only one main entrance now open to traffic going in and out of the village; the rest having been sealed off by the authorities with concrete barricades. Israelis joined the residents in solidarity and walked through the neighborhood, ending the procession at its other end where a narrow opening in the concrete barricades is wide enough to allow only one or two people to pass at a time.

Despite that the protest was non violent, after it had ended and Israeli and International activists had left, Israeli border police entered the neighborhood and fired tear gas grenades. Once again, Occupation forces brutally punished any form of resistance by the residents.