Tag: Digests

1. Ezra’s Car

2. Medical Workers Targeted by Israeli Army in Raid in Nablus

3. Israeli Occupation Forces Violently Suppress Peacefull Protest Over Right to Worship

4. Bil’in Protest: Journalists Targeted, Many Injured

5. The “Only Democracy in the Middle East”

6. Villagers fight West Bank Barrier

7. Israel should face sanctions

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1. Ezra’s Car
May 11th, 2006

We are from the National Committee Against the Wall in the Beit Omar area of Hebron, Palestine. We work against the racial discrimination wall, Palestinians and Israelis together with the common aim of stopping the wall in the Hebron area, in villages and towns such as Beit Omar, Jabaa, Yatta and Twani. We have been working together for the past five years, and all this time we have been using the car that belonged to Mr. Ezra Nawi, an Israeli. Even though it was his own private car, we Palestinians used it more than him – he even paid for all the fuel.

He himself has been struggling literately day and night in an effort to strengthen the Palestinian villagers in the South Hebron area as the Israeli government and settlers try to expel them from their land. Rain and shine he was there, building water wells, planting olive trees, ploughing fields, organizing summer camps for the children, taking patients to the hospitals, and filing scores of complaints against settler violence.

With his car, we managed to reach areas that the Israeli army prohibits Palestinians cars from entering. We used it to travel all around the different areas in the Hebron region, and we were very grateful to him. Unfortunately, the car was stolen during a protest against the wall on Monday April 17th. We searched everywhere but had no luck finding it. It was a 4X4 Mitsubishi Magnum pickup truck, which Ezra used regularly for his political activities. Unfortunately, Ezra did not have theft insurance.

We’re sending this message to you, hoping to find some comfort. In this difficult situation, we can not afford to buy back Ezra’s car – and of course he did not ask us – as the amount is too much: nearly $23,000 (US). If you could contribute any amount of money to help us buy back the car for him, we would be very grateful.
Sincerely yours,
Mussa Abu Marya
National Committee Against the Wall, Beit Omar

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2. Medical Workers Targeted by Israeli Army in Raid in Nablus
May 17th, 2006

Two separate Palestinian medical teams reported Wednesday May 16th, that the Israeli army injured, arrested, and harassed medical workers last night as they were trying to help injured people and take away dead bodies. In one incident a medical center was occupied by the Israeli army and two medical workers were taken hostage. In the second, the army prevented medical workers from reaching injured people in a building they were shooting at and then beat them with their rifles.

At 10:50 pm Israeli Special Forces arrived in a private car at the Nablus Ambulance Medical Service Center, a private medical service in Nablus. The army later arrived in Jeeps, occupied the medical center and prevented the medical workers from answering the phones. The volunteers protested, saying that they need to answer the phones to be able to help people, but the soldiers refused and then confiscated the cell phones of all the health workers.

They then arrested two medical workers, Loay and Moayyad Qassas, and took them to a building that the army had occupied. On the way, they met with more soldiers who had taken nine students and escorted the whole group to the building. All eleven of them were taken to the 5th floor of the building where the army had set up snipers. Their lives were put in danger by the military as the building was under fire. They were released at the end of the operation. Loay went back to the medical center in the morning, but was not allowed in because the army was still occupying it.

In a different part of the city, at 3:15am one ambulance driver, Sameh Ahmed, 37, of Nablus Ambulance and a volunteer Merwan Shanti, 24, of Palestinian Medical Relief tried to reach injured people inside a building the army was surrounding. The Jeeps blocked the ambulance from nearing the building, so the two medical workers approached on foot. The soldiers told them to go into the house that they were shooting at, but they refused to be human shields. At 3:30am, the soldier beat them using their rifles. They were not badly injured and decided to wait until after the army stopped shooting at 6am when they were allowed into the building.

Other Palestinian Medical Relief teams tried to enter the area that was invaded in the morning but were blocked by Jeeps from entering some streets. They were attempting to respond to people suffering from high blood pressure, asthma and stress due to the operation the night before and eventually succeeded in transporting took two women to the hospital.

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3. Israeli Occupation Forces Violently Suppress Peacefull Protest Over Right to Worship
May 19th, 2006

For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/19/israeli-occupation-force-violently-suppress-peacfull-protest-over-right-to-worship/
Israeli miltary forces violently prevented worshipers from Shufat refugee camp walking to Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray the Friday prayer.

Over thirty armed soldiers and mounted officers attacked a non-violent demonstration of Shufat refugee camp residents and Israeli and International supporters inside the camp close to the checkpoint at the camp entrance.

Residents of the camp have been complaining for many months about the violent and extreme behaviour of the Border Police in the camp. The situation deteriorates in particular on Fridays when many worshipers who try to go to the Al-Aqsa Mosque are beaten, arrested and subjected to verbal abuse by Israeli forces

When Palestinian men, women and children attempted to march peacefully alongside Israeli and international activists they were immediately surrounded by dozens of Israeli soldiers. After a short period of discussion, and unprovoked by any aggression from the residents, Israeli soldiers physically pushed the demonstrators back. Several people fell to the ground including women and children, and many other Palestinians were scared and intimidated.

When the remaining residents attempted to form a human chain with Internationals and Israelis they were attacked by soldiers with punches and kicks. The violence increased as Israeli forces then conducted aggressive snatch operations against protesters, journalists, innocent bystanders, internationals and Israelis. As the protesters were held and dragged by several soldiers other soldiers freely punched, choked and kicked them.

Ibrahim, one of the Palestinian non-violent protesters that was arrested during todays demo, commented on the brutal attack by Israeli soldiers: “they crossed a red line today, and their goal was clearly to lower the moral of protestors and give us a strong warning for the future”… “but I can promise them we’re not giving up. We will continue the non violent demonstrations no matter what they do to us”.

Two Palestinians, one Israeli and an English journalist were violently beaten, before being forced into a police van and taken to a station in East Jerusalem where they were detained. In their statment the Israeli soldiers accused them of “throwing stones” and being part of “an illegal demonstration” All four were released without charge at 2pm.

The English journalist said afterwards: “the demonstration was completely peaceful until the soldiers attacked us without provocation. A couple of children who were not part of the demonstration threw stones back at them. The Israeli soldiers then rushed forward after a few moments to grab the kids. The kids had made good their escape by then, so instead the soldiers grabbed a Palestinian who had gone over from the demonstration to get the kids to stop throwing stones. As they handcuffed him they were brutally beating him on the head. I went over to film this and to tell them to stop. They did not like someone witnessing their brutality so they beat me up too and shoved me in the van with the other three.”.

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4. Bil’in Protest: Journalists Targeted, Many Injured
May 19th, 2006

For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/19/bil%e2%80%99in-protest-journalists-targeted-many-injured/
Today Friday May 19, 2006, the army escalated its violent tactics against non-violent protestors in Bil’in, leaving 26 people injured, including Hitham al-Khateeb, who was filming the demonstration, suffered a fracture in his skull from a tear gas canister to the head and is in the intensive care unit of Ramallah Governmental Hospital. Israeli soldiers often aim teargas canisters directly at demonstrators, a practice against the Israeli militaries regulations. The soldiers also regularly target people filming the demonstration.

Seven Palestinians were arrested; two Israelis and two internationals, all have been released.
The people of Bil’in, with international and Israeli peace activists, marched to the Apartheid Wall to protest the confiscation of their land by the Wall. Non-violent demonstrators carried a banner and held signs illustrating the connection between the villages that were destroyed in 1948 Nakba, and the villages that are being torn apart by the building of the Wall today.
Using a large carpet thrown over the fence, thirty protestors crossed the barbed wire that separates Bil’in villagers from their land and entered onto the patrol road. They attempted to exercise their right to enter their own land and sit on the road, but the Army and the Border Police immediately responded with sound grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets and beating. The protestors were forced to spread out, but continued to stand their ground for one hour despite many arrests and serious injuries.

They continued to fire tear gas and sound bombs at the crowd as they evacuated the patrol road and as they were leaving the area. And at 6pm the army continued to fire at people in the area, wounding Amer Hisham, 21, and Abnafez Abdel Karim, 15, with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the legs and back, who were also taken to the hospital in Ramallah.

The names of the 7 Palestinians that were taken to the hospital are: Hitham Al-Khateeb, Akram Khateeb, Ahmad Mohammad Hassan, Ratib Abu Rahme, Samer Burnat, Mohammad Monsour, Adeeb Abu Rahme. Others that were injured are: Mazen Ahmed Yasin, Mujahed Abdul Rahman Said, Jowad Amran Khateeb, Fuad Mohammad Samara, Jabber Muhammad Abu Rahme, and Nimer Abu Rahme.

Four children were injured, all 14 years old: Karasam Barakat Khateeb, Ali Omar Khateeb, Mohammad Fathi Abu Rahme, Salem Abdul Kareem Mansour.
The journalists that were injured are Eyad Hammad from AP, Musheer Karakrah from Ma’an News Network, and Abbas Almomani from AFP. The two internationals injured were Victor from Sweden and Allan from Scotland.

The Palestinians that were arrested were all released, and names are: Muhammad Khateeb, Abdul Fattah Burnat, Mujahed A’ashal, Muhammad Khaleel Abu Rahme, Basem Ahmad Aisa, Ahmad Zohad A’ashal, Naseer Samara. 5 Israelis and 2 internationals.

At the time of sending this message Kobi Snitz from Anarchists against the Wall is still being held in Israeli detention.

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5. The “Only Democracy in the Middle East”
May 20th, 2006
by Raad

In the last week we had two decisions by the supreme court of the Zionists state which remind us how racist this regime is. The first one is the citizenship law which will affect thousands of Palestinian families on both sides of the Green Line and the initial decision of the Bil’in court case.

Citizenship Law

No one (including me) would have believed that Israel would take such a crazy step as this untill the last few months. There no country in the western world that has taken such a step, even the countries that had terror attacks on their civilians on their territories. This means terror attacks shouldn’t be used as an excuse for legislating an apartheid law There is no one in the world who can say that if there is someone from a racial or religious minority who took a violent action against the country’s citizens that that community should be collectively punished. However, this was the reason that secret services in Israel brought to the judges to convince them but it was just a game that they used to play it (security). It’s known, though, that the real issue they are concerned with is the demographic issue, even though the president of supreme court said that since 1993 there was just 16000 applications submitted from Palestinians to unite families which means that there is no real danger but no one mention the reality behind this law which is Israel state is Jewish state. Which means there is no place for anyone who is not Jewish!

This is the only democracy in the middle east who builds their constitution on racist principles .

However it wasn’t going to approve a law such as this, despite the disgraceful silence and the support from the international mainstream community which made Israel feel supported even in such a racist step as this. The silence that the international community continues in especially after 58 years of occupation to the historical Palestine, Israel is still refusing to take responsibility for the refugees and the massacres that happened at that time and still doesn’t recognize the UN security council resolutions such as 194, 242 and 338. Later Israel declaraed the “unification” of Jerusalem as a capital for Israel, formally annexing it. East Jerusalm is an occupied territory according to international law. To consolidate their occupation, Israel continues building settlements in the West Bank with full Western support and finally, the Wall or what is so called the “security fence”. All of these facts on the ground makes me not really surprised to see the supreme court in Israel approving one more racist law which is just one piece in a series of acts that aims to “evacuate” or “transfer” the local and the legal owners of the land from their lands by making their life and existence impossible.

“We are living in the 21st century and we can’t do the same things that we did in the past to continue the transfer. There are more inelegant ways for that by making life impossible for people so they leave without terrifying them in the way the Hagana and other Jewish millita groups did during the so called ‘war of independence’ ” – an Israeli Friend.

Bil’in court case

After I talked about the citizenship law and its consequences it’s obvious that Israel will continue the big story of security .

Last Sunday May 14th , the supreme court in Jerusalem was discussing one more important issue – the wall case in Bil’in, a small village west of Ramallah in the West Bank. Fortunately there is no final decision yet, even after a discussion which continued untill 9:00 pm local time. From the discussion there was an important thing that was mentioned . This again amounted to more racism and discrimination under the name of security. The thing the judge said was that the reason for building the wall was to protect the Jewish citizen from terrorist attacks with no regards if the wall on the green line or not and with no regard to the legal rights of the owners of the land. However, the wall in Bil’in like in many places is built to protect settlers, who according to international law have no right to be there since they “settle” in a land that stolen by force from its legal owners.

Building the wall to protect Jewish citizens conceals a dangerous fact: Israel has started with its own unilateral plan. Its an introduction to building the wall around the main settlement blocks such as Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Azion, Alfe Menashe and Ariel. The plan calls for the settlement blocks to be annexed to Israel under the name of “security” and “protection”, again with no regards to their legal status. This will set a precedent allowing for the building of the wall in any place in the west bank for the same reasons. It’ss obvious to all that this is one more way to force the people to leave their homes.

I don’t know or how far they can go using these justifications, but I would like to point out that from the Palestinian side, I don’t think the Palestinians want any more hassles in their life. We know the meaning of being a refugee – living in another country as a foreigner. The people have decided that they aren’t going to leave Palestine again. On the other hand, the international community should wake up and take their responsibilities to guarantee human rights and the application of international law, and put pressure on Israel for making more racist laws to transfer the Palestinians from their homes.

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6. Villagers fight West Bank Barrier
May 20th, 2006

By Martin Patience
BBC News website
For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/20/villagers-fight-west-bank-barrier/
After prayers at Bilin’s mosque, male worshippers spill from the modest building and begin the short walk to the West Bank barrier running close to the village.

Every Friday for the last 15 months, members of the community have marched along the village’s winding tarmac road past the olive orchards and up a steep hill to where the barrier is protected by helmeted Israeli soldiers in full riot gear.
For the 1,700 villagers, the protest has become an article of faith.
According to Abdullah Abu Rahma, 35, the organiser of the weekly protest, the barrier annexes about 60% of the village’s land, cutting farmers off from their fields, making it almost impossible to make a living.
‘’The wall is a catastrophe for the village,’’ says the 35-year-old Arabic teacher. ‘’We must destroy the wall and we will protest until it falls.’’

Tear Gas
Swelled by a number of Israeli and foreign peace activists, the weekly protest is the longest running demonstration against the barrier in the West Bank. Each week, the protesters are met by the Israeli troops and a face-off ensues.
Chanting slogans, the protestors clank stones on a waist-high yellow metal gate a few feet away from soldiers protected by three armoured military jeeps. The demonstrators say they want to access the village’s land on the other side of the barrier.
While billed as a peaceful demonstration, the protest normally ends in violence – with both sides accusing each other of provocation.

On the Friday I attended the march, it was not clear which side started the violence. But within minutes, the protestors were running for cover from the rubber bullets and stinging tear gas.
Some teenagers, with slings, crouched behind rocks, before briefly standing up and hurling stones at the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the barrier.
The Israeli army only responds to protect the barrier or when stones are thrown at soldiers, says army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal.
“The protestors are only interested in provoking the Israeli army,” he adds.

Farm Land
Two settlers from a nearby settlement standing on the Israeli side of the barrier, provoked a furious response from some of the protestors. ‘’It’s our land, it’s our land,’’ one man cried, as he ran up the hill to get closer to the settlers.
But for many Palestinians, the 685 km barrier, which annexes 8% of the West Bank and puts East Jerusalem on the Israeli side, amounts to a land grab of territory earmarked for a future Palestinian state.
The International Court of Justice issued an advisory ruling in 2004 that the barrier breached international law where it is built on occupied territory and should be dismantled.
‘’All over the world people think that the Palestinians are terrorists,’’ says Rateb Abu Rahma, 40, a university lecturer. ‘’All we want is our rights.’’

Walks of Life
In the last year, Bilin’s villagers have seen some successes. Represented by Tel Aviv lawyer, Michael Sfard, the residents have challenged the route of the barrier round their village. Their case will be heard by the Israeli High Court later in May.
They have also secured a temporary ban on a nearby settlement continuing its construction work on 750 new housing units. The villagers say the construction is taking place on their land.
By aligning the villagers with Israeli and foreign peace activists, many of the protestors believe that the success of the demonstration has been in its broad appeal.
“People turning up from all walks of life is the heart of this demonstration,” says Israeli Yuval Halperin, 26, a book editor from Tel Aviv.
For some of the protestors, the Bilin demonstration represents a new way of tackling the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Mansour Mansour, 29, believes that the protests at Bilin can be repeated successfully across the West Bank.
‘’Palestinians believe that ending the occupation is their right,’’ he says. ‘’But it is only when we start asserting our right that the occupation will end.’’

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7. Israel should face sanctions
May 20th, 2006

The Palestine crisis is now more dramatic even than apartheid, but it is the victims who are punished.

Ronnie Kasrils and Victoria Brittain
Friday May 19, 2006
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1778549,00.html

Western leaders are frustrating democratic elections in Palestine by withholding aid, and using collective punishment, an economic siege and starvation as political weapons in their efforts to get the Hamas government to accept their terms of business with Israel.

Never in the long struggle for freedom in apartheid South Africa was there a situation as dramatic as in Palestine today: even though children were killed for resisting a second-class education; the liberation movement’s leaders were locked up for decades on Robben Island; new leaders were assassinated; church leaders were poisoned; house demolitions and forced removals were frequent; and western governments told South Africans who their leaders should be, andwhat their policies should be.

The African National Congress confronted the military, economic and social power of white rule with a small guerrilla army, the mass support of the people and a moral authority that won it a following among millions around the world. Many now forget that the abhorrent apartheid system was treated as normal in the powerhouses of the world: entrenched interests meant the western media produced a sanitised version of its suffering and injustice.

Today western moral authority in the Middle East is gone, as much because of years of double standards in Palestine as because of the current disastrous war on Iraq. There is no excuse for not knowing the truth about what is now happening to the Palestinians. And the most recent diplomatic moves by the Quartet – the US, the EU, the UN and Russia – to alleviate suffering, while keeping up the ban on dealing with the Palestinians’ elected leaders, are totally inadequate.

Some plain speaking on the current crisis, and on what will happen without serious political intervention, shows why. The root problem is the intensifying Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Despite the international court of justice ruling it illegal, Israel’s 390-mile wall snakes on through the West Bank, taking another 10% of the land and providing for the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements. Nearly 50,000 Palestinians are to be left in limbo on the Israeli side of the wall; 65,000 will face a daily commute through 11 transit points. Towns such as Qalqilya and Jayyous, formerly prosperous, with fertile hinterlands and good water supplies, are virtually encircled, with their farms and greenhouses on the Israeli side.

Meanwhile, Israel is withholding $50m a month in customs duties and tax owed to the Palestinians, and energy supplies have been cut off. Palestinian civil servants, teachers, doctors and security forces have not been paid for over two months. The potential for civil war between factions of armed, increasingly desperate men is so obvious that Palestinians are not alone in thinking that the US actually wants such self-destruction.

The Palestinians are having sanctions imposed on them for their political choice. But it is Israel, creating new facts on the ground to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state, that should be facing UN sanctions. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, should use his last months in office to call for sanctions to bring about the implementation of the ICJ ruling on the Israeli wall, the closure of West Bank settlements and the release of Palestinian political prisoners. And those who care for freedom, peace and justice must build a global Palestine solidarity movement to match the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s.

• Ronnie Kasrils was head of intelligence in the African National Congress’s armed wing and is now South Africa’s intelligence minister; he is writing in a personal capacity.
• Victoria Brittain is co-author with Moazzam Begg of Enemy Combatant
victoriacbrittain@hotmail.co.uk

1. Free Adnan Nimar
2. Declared Innocent
3. International Peace Activists Released from Hospital
4. A New Petition by the People of Bil’in: Cancel the Declaration of Their Lands as State Property
5. Hearing of the Petition Against the wall in Bil’in
6. This is Apartheid
7. Israel/Occupied Territories: High Court decision institutionalizes racial discrimination
8. Israeli Self-Defense

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1.Free Adnan Nimar!
May 17, 2006
for pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/17/free-adnan/

Please give to the ISM legal fund and help us release Adnan Ahmad Nimer, a 19 year-old activist from Beit Sira. Let the people of Beit-Sira know that they are not alone.

During a demonstration on the 24th of March, Israeli Border Police beat Adnan to the ground with clubs, held both his arms and began strangling him. Adnan’s only way to get the solider to stop was to use his mouth. He bit the fingers of one of the soldiers that was beating him as hard as he could, breaking two of the soldier’s fingers. Other soldiers then continued to attack Adnan with clubs, breaking his front teeth.

Adnan was abducted from his home on the 8th of April at 2am by the Israeli military. Thirty soldiers surrounded the house, his father opened the door and the troops gathered the family into one room. They singled Adnan out, took him outside, handcuffed and blindfolded him then took him away. He is awaiting trail in the Ofer military detention centre.

Adnan had been active in the demonstrations that occur weekly in Beit Sira to protest against the apartheid wall and the continuing annexation of Palestinian land.

An Israeli military court ruled that Adnan be held until the end of the proceedings against him. Attorney Gabi Laski appealed to the court pointing out that Adnan acted in self-defence, that he did not try to deny this in his integration instead saying: ” I bit him. Hard!”. Nor did he try to escape arrest. The military court then agreed to release Adnan on a 20,000 Shekel bail(US $4500). This sum is the equivalent of two years income for Adnan’s impoverished family. Both attorney Gabi Laski and the Military prosecutors appealed. Laski asked to reduce the sum the prosecutor asked to keep Adnan behind bars. The military judge rejected the prosecutor’s appeal and agreed to reduce the bail to 12,000 shekel (US $2700).

Like many other Palestinian towns and villages, Beit Sira has its share of the grotesque Israeli annexation barrier and is surrounded by isolating settlements – in this case the Makabim settlement. An ongoing expansion of land theft has resulted in thousands of olive trees being uprooted and huge areas of agricultural land being cut off from the village.

To make a donation see: www.palsolidarity.org/main/donations/
Please send a note with your donation specifying the ISM Legal fund.

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2. Declared Innocent
May 16th, 2006

The trial of Jonathan Pollak and Kobi Snitz has come to an end a year after the two were arrested at a demonstration against the wall in the West Bank village of Budrus.

Today, Tuesday, May 16th, Judge Alexander Ron of the Jerusalem Peace court declared the two Israeli activists from “Anarchists Against the Wall” innocent of their rioting charge.

Judge Alexander agreed with defense attorney Gabi Laski that “if the court would attribute rioting to any person present at a demonstration where others break the law this would cause severe damage to the freedom to demonstrate.” He added that “the freedom to demonstrate is, no doubt, a basic legal right of the first degree,” even in the Occupied Territories. “The claim that the presence of the defendants at the demonstration, as a basis for their conviction, was rejected and despite the court’s expressed disapproval of participating in demonstrations where stones are thrown by others, “it is not possible to attribute to the defendants any concrete criminal offense.”

Interesting details regarding the Border Police tactics were made public during the trial. When police officer Yasmin Levi was asked during the trial if the border police use weapons on Palestinians that they would not use on Israelis, she said, “of course.” Border Police officer Hassan Mada said that when there are Israelis in a Palestinian demonstration “we will remove the Israelis to get them out of the line of fire… so that we can take action against the Palestinians.”

Kobi Snitz stated, “in their testimonies the police reinforced what we already knew: when Palestinians demonstrate without Israeli activists support they are met with lethal repression.”

Judge Alexander criticized Border Police officer Yasmin Levi for changing her testimony. According to the Judge, Yasmin wrote an initial arrest report, but “after speaking to her friends ‘remembered’ to accuse the defendants of stone throwing and cursing;” accusations she later dropped.

He adds, “if her changing versions would not be enough to nullify her testimony… the fact that she apparently lied when questioned by the court would.”

Judge Alexander said, “it should be noted that Yasmin’s statements indicate previous knowledge of the defendants, and it seems [there are] personal grudges that she has against them from previous demonstrations… This also does not add to her credibility… Her testimony casts a shadow on the testimonies of all the other Border Police officers.”

Koby and Jonathan plan to file complaints against Yasmin Levi.

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3. International Peace Activists Released From Hospital

for pictures see https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/international-peace-activist-released-from-hospital/
May 14, 2006

The two international peace activists shot by the Israeli military at Friday’s anti-wall demonstration in Bil’in have been discharged from hospital. Phillip Reiss from Australia was released today, and BJ Lund from Denmark, was released yesterday from the Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. They are still recovering from their injuries and will meet with a lawyer later today to talk about the possibilities for suing the Israeli Military, after Israeli Border Police shot them in the head with rubber bullets at close range. Israeli Military regulations stipulate that rubber bullets should be shot at a distance of 40 meters, only at the legs or arms. Several Palestinians were also shot, beaten and tear-gassed on Friday.

BJ has a fracture in his jaw and is suffering from the painful swelling caused by the injury. He still has headaches and can’t chew. There is a lot of fluid and swelling in the jaw muscles which prevents him from opening his mouth. When he was shot he lost hearing in his ear for 10 seconds and now feels pressure in one ear.

“I don’t remember getting hit; when I heard the shooting I just remember turning my head and falling,” BJ said. “There was an explosion next to me and I put my hand on my ear and it was wet. I looked and there was blood all over it. I was stunned until someone grabbed me and just started running. I feel really lucky: if I hadn’t turned my head I could have lost all my teeth.”

Phil described himself as generally okay, despite a large lump on his head, headaches and exhaustion, the nausea and shooting pain has subsided. He was diagnosed with a sub-ural hematoma, swelling cuased by bleeding in the brain, and given 8 stitches for the gash near his temple. He has been prescribed anti-convulsive medication and after 6 weeks will have to return to the hospital for a CT scan. “I feel pretty lucky, I’ll tell you what.” said Phil. “If I was Palestinian it would have been a lot worse ”. The Israeli military often use rubber bullets when Israeli and international demonstrators are present and rubber coated steel bullets on Palestinians when they demonstrate on their own.Both Phil and BJ will have to return to hospital in a week for checkups.

“I feel kind of strange because there is a lot of media attention and we were told that there would be an investigation by the Israeli police, but we are still waiting for them to contact us, and I am wondering if they are going to give us any attention,” BJ reported. He added that in the hospital, “so many doctors wanted to talk politics with us, telling me I should go back to Denmark and work on social things instead of getting involved here.”

When asked how he felt about the soldiers that shot them, Phil responded, “I think they are a bunch of thugs and how they acted was very inappropriate, but I can’t say that I feel angry at them for shooting me.” BJ also was not angry but thought that, “their response was unnecessary because it was a peaceful demonstration. I didn’t see the person who shot us, and I wonder how he can deal with this when he knows they hit someone in the head who wasn’t violent. I hope he didn’t feel good when he went to sleep that night. It is frightening – it just tells me how much more insane the situation is”.

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4. A New Petition by the People of Bil’in: Cancel the Declaration of Their Lands as State Property

May 14th, 2006 |

Today (May 14th, 2006), a new petition (HCJ 3998/06), the third in number, was filed at the High Court of Justice, on behalf of the village Bil’in.

In this petition, the Court is asked to order the person in charge of government property in the West Bank to annul two declarations, one in 1990 and the other in 1991, in which he declared 900 dunams of the lands of Bil’in (now West of the barrier) as “government property” – i.e., State Lands.

The petition also asks the Court to issue an order nisi, ordering the Military Commander, the person in charge of government property, the Fund and the companies which built in Matityahu East to explain why, in their opinion, the declaration should not be annulled. Finally the Court is asked to issue a temporary injunction that will freeze all the new planning procedures of the Matityahu East neighborhood, until a final verdict in the petition.

Today (May 14) Supreme Court Judge Salim Jubran ordered the State and the other respondents to respond to the request for a temporary injunction in seven days, and to the petition itself within 30 days.

The petition was filed, on behalf of the village Council, Peace Now and 21 of the people of Bil’in who own lands in the declaration zone, by lawyers Michael Sfard and Husein Abu-Husein.

The new petition is a direct result of the former two petitions filed by the village Council: The anti-wall petition (HCJ 8414/05), which was heard today; and the petition against the Matityahu East neighborhood (HCJ 143/05), as a result of which building in the compound has been completely frozen.

Now the people of Bil’in are challenging the Israeli Court and asking him not just to remove the barrier from their lands or to stop the construction of Matityahu East, but to annul the procedures through which the State took their lands unlawfully, 15 years ago.

Main Points of the petition
The petition is based on material discovered during the procedures in the other two petitions. This material indicates that the cause for the declarations concerning government property was not the claim that these lands are uncultivated and hence lack owners (as done in dozens of other villages throughout the West Bank), but the claim of the Fund for the Redemption of Land – a private company from the settlement Kdumim, which purchases lands from Palestinians and gives them to settlers – for having bought the lands of Bil’in.

The State cooperated fully with this private company, and declared some 900 dunams of the lands of Bil’in as State lands, while hiding the fact that the Fund claims to have bought these lands. By doing this, the State bypassed orders in several West Bank laws, which specify the procedures in which purchased land can be registered on the name of the buyer. Through these procedures, careful examinations are being done with respect to the selling deals, the identity of the seller, the question did he has any lands in the area and if yes, how many, and more. These procedures are being done publicly, so that each person from Bil’in who claims to have ownership on the lands of part of them, has the right to object. The Fund said they wanted to hide the deal in order to protect the lives of the sellers, who feared they would be murdered after selling lands to settlers. But in the petition, the main reasons for this are exposed: through the illegal cooperation with the State, the Fund managed to avoid the lengthy and expensive procedures associated with registering the land as its own property, procedures which often lead to the conclusion that the purchase deal was false, and to the result that the Fund is left without the lands which allegedly it has bought.

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5. Hearing of the Petition Against the wall in Bil’in
May 16th, 2006

The judges, Barak, Prokachia, and Rivlin, presiding over the court case protesting the route of the wall in Bil’in village have not yet reached a decision.

In the last hearing, which took place May 14, 2006, the applicant, Bil’in village council, was represented by Michael Sfard, who argued that the wall is not designed to protect people, but rather to protect the investment of real estate sharks and to accommodate the expansion of settlements.

The eight lawyers representing the respondents- the state, Modi’in Illit council, and the real estate companies involved in the Matityahu Mizrakh Project- tried to convince the court that the route should remain as it is. Their main argument was that there is a government approved plan from 1999 for 1,500 housing units that occupies the same area that the current unapproved, illegal plan of 3,000 housing units of Matityahu Mizrakh East occupies.

Attorney Michael Sfard, representing the Bil’in village council, mentioned prior decisions from other cases as examples that the route of the wall should not be designed to include unapproved plans for settlements or illegal outposts. Nevertheless, the court seems very concerned with the fact that, illegal or not, Matityahu Mizrakh has already been built and 80 families have already moved in.

Bil’in village council has also filed another petition to the court, case 143/06, challenging the legality of the existence of the settlement because of a suspicious transfer of ownership of the land from the village to the realtors, by the state declaring the land state land only to later transfer it to the developers. A criminal investigation into the illegal building in Matityahu Mizrakh was instigated after the scope of the illegalities was exposed in court. Recently the villagers filed a third petition, number 3998/06, asking to cancel the designation of their lands as state property.

At some point during the latest hearing, Judge Prokachia, seemed to be convinced by the defendant arguments and asked Attorney Sfard to consider withdrawing the petition because she said it is without sufficient grounding in facts. Sfard refused. After continuous discussion, Sfard proposed to the court not to make a decision on this petition until a verdict is reached on the cases involving the legality of the settlement, case 143/06. The judge, Barak, seemed like he was accepting of this option, but did not make a decision immediately.

The state expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that currently, according to the courts request, there is an open gate in the fence that the villagers use to access their land. The state asked the court to allow them to set up an agricultural gate, which only farmers with individual permits will be allowed to cross. Sfard asked that the court to uphold the court injunction that was originally given when the court refused to freeze the construction of the wall in it’s current route, saying that all the villagers can have access to their agricultural land.

The State’s lawyers said that Palestinians who enter the gate then have access to the settlement and Israel. One of the solutions that Sfard brought up is to close the gate on the settlement instead of closing the gate on Bil’in.

The judge, Barak, proposed that the two sides agree on further limitations to be imposed without preventing completely the movement of Palestinians over this land. No decision was reached about this either at this point in time and the issue has been left open.

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6. This Is Apartheid
May 16th, 2006

By Rann http://rannb.blogspot.com/2006/05/this-is-apartheid.html

The Israeli Supreme Court approved a law yesterday denying West Bank and Gaza Palestinians married to Israeli Palestinians residence or citizenship in Israel as the haaretz editorial http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/715825.html states, this is a disgrace. Moreover, this is yet another grounding of apartheid by the Israeli ‘justice’ system.
“… not one single Western country discriminates against some of its citizens by passing laws that apply only to them, and that impose limits only on their choice of a partner with whom they can live in their homeland.”

Yes, five out of the eleven judges voted against the law. Yes, those included both the current president of the court and his replacement. Yes, this law has been contested over and over again and the legal system allowed it to be.

But no, that does not make a bit of difference. As of now, Israeli Palestinians who just happen to fall in love with someone from the West Bank or Gaza cannot do a thing about it.

I guess it’s just one more element to add to the list:
* Separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank (and Gaza pre-disengagement) https://palsolidarity.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/plugins/auto_links/klogs/?kw=disengagement&rl=https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/category/disengagement/ – see Road Networks in the legend here http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/maps/Closure/may05/ochaClosureRpt260405Mp2.pdf .

* Different ID cards, giving different privileges (see here) http://www.btselem.org/English/Freedom_of_Movement/Closure.asp .
* Massive discrimination on access to water (see here) http://fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node.php?id=611 .
* Israeli Palestinian districts inside Israel get far less funding for schools, health and other services than Jewish areas (see here) http://www.sikkuy.org.il/english/2005/nada_matta05.pdf .
* Israelis can move around…see here http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/OCHAoPt_ClosureAnalysis0106_En.pdf .

And so on and so forth…

The country I was born in is a racial pseudo-democracy. That makes me sad and extremely angry. So many of the comments on the Ha’aretz article linked above are sickeningly racist:

“Arabs commit horrible acts of terror and behave like animals, and they expect equal rights?!?”

You see? They are animals, they are terrorists. All of them. Just like the Jews all control the media, Hollywood and practically everything else in the world. Sound familiar?

Therein lies the essence of racism: generalization. This law is fundamentally racist in that in it punishes enormous numbers of innocents for the actions of the very very few.

¡YA BASTA!

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7. Israel/Occupied Territories: High Court decision institutionalizes racial discrimination

May 17th, 2006
Public Statement
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGMDE150422006
16 May 2006

The decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice on 14 May to uphold a law which explicitly denies family rights on the basis of ethnicity or national origins is a step further in the institutionalization of racial discrimination in Israel.

The “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law” bars family reunification for Israelis married to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. It specifically targets Israeli Arabs (Palestinian citizens of Israel), who make up a fifth of Israel’s population, and Palestinian Jerusalemites,(1) for it is they who marry Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Thousands of couples are affected by this discriminatory law, which forces Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians to leave their country or to be separated from their spouses and children. Israeli military law forbids Israelis from entering the main population centres in the Occupied Territories and Israeli citizens cannot join their Palestinian spouses there, and at the same time Palestinian spouses staying in Israel without a permit are constantly at risk of being deported and separated from their families. Thus, Israeli-Palestinian couples would ultimately be forced to move to another country in order to live together – an option which is neither feasible nor desirable for those concerned. In addition, Palestinian Jerusalemites would lose their residency and their right to ever live in Jerusalem again if they move out of the city.

Five of the 11 High Court of Justice’s judges who ruled on this law on 14 May, including the Court’s President, voted against upholding the law, recognizing that it infringes human rights. The Court’s President, Aharon Barak, stated that the law violates the right of Israeli Arabs to equality.

Indeed, the law violates the absolute prohibition on discrimination contained in international human rights law, notably several treaties which Israel has ratified and is obliged to uphold, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The provision in the law which allows for the discretionary granting of temporary residence permits for Palestinian male spouses over 35 and female spouses over 25 is arbitrary in nature and does not alter the discriminatory character of the law. It will also not benefit the majority of Israeli-Palestinian couples, who marry at a younger age. Moreover, the permit applications of spouses who meet the age criteria can be rejected on the grounds that a member of his/her extended family is considered a “security risk” by Israeli security services. Thousands of Palestinians seeking family reunification prior to the passing of this law were rejected on unspecified “security” grounds in circumstances where the failure to provide detailed reasons for each rejection made it impossible for those rejected to mount an effective legal challenge to the decision.

The Israeli authorities have sought to justify the law on security grounds but have brought no convincing evidence to substantiate such claims. Even claims that some 25 people, some of whom were born to Israeli parents and were not in Israel as a result of family reunification, have been involved in attacks in security-related offences, cannot justify denying family reunification to every Palestinian. Doing so is discriminatory and disproportionate and would constitute a form of collective punishment, prohibited under international law. Moreover, statements by Israeli officials and legislators who support the new law indicate that it is primarily motivated by demographic, rather than security, considerations – that is, a determination to reduce the percentage of Israeli Arabs among the country’s population.

The ban on family unification for Israeli-Palestinian couples, initially introduced by an administrative decision of the Interior Minister in 2002 and subsequently passed into law by the Israeli Knesset in July 2003, is due to be reviewed by the Israeli Knesset next July. Amnesty International reiterates its call on the Israeli government and on Members of the Knesset to repeal this law and to ensure that any steps taken to address security concerns, including any amendments to the citizenship law, comply with international human rights law – notably the principle of non-discrimination.

(1) Palestinians who remained in Israel after the establishment of the state in 1948 became Israeli citizens, whereas the Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem received a special status as permanent residents after Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and its subsequent annexation. Today, there are about 230,000 Palestinian permanent residents of Jerusalem.

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8. Israeli Self-Defense
May 17th, 2006

Before picture
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/17/israeli-self-defense/

Mohammed Khatib from the Popular committee against the wall being beaten on the back as he falls to the ground on the Demonstration against Israel’s Illeagel wall on friday May12th.

After picture
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/17/israeli-self-defense/

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1- Non-Violent Demonstration Against the Wall in Ar-Aram Attacked by Israeli Military
2- The double standards of the Israeli Army.
3- Shabbat+ new soldiers + new settlers .
4- Report on Razor Wire closing entrance to the track leading to the Al Azzeh homes.
5- UK Training for Freedom Summer.
6- Warmongers EDO Corp. Surrender in British High Court.
7- Settlers Torch Cars, Beat Residents.
8- Harassing students in Jenin.
9- Settlers Assault Humans Rights Workers in Hebron – Soldiers Refuse to Intervene.

Non-violent Demonstration Against the Wall in Ar-Aram Attacked by Israeli Military
May 14, 2006
by ISM Media Office volunteers
Saturday 13th May: Around 800 Palestinian and 200 Israeli and international demonstrators, representing a broad coalition of people, united in a march to call for the dismantling of the Apartheid Wall in the Palestinian town of Ar-Ram, just north of Jerusalem. With the participation of schoolchildren, teachers, neighbourhood residents and representatives of all the different Palestinian political parties, it was carefully prepared as a non-violent protest. It was well disciplined, with a line of organizers at the front of the march preventing any impatient youth from provoking a confrontation with the soldiers.
The large, peaceful march was headed by a children’s marching band. Despite this, it was violently attacked when Israeli Border Police shot round after round of tear gas at the demonstrators as it approached a checkpoint, forcing demonstrators to flee for cover in nearby homes. Chief Muslim Cleric, Sheikh Taiseer Tamimmi, Palestine Chief Justice, was among the injured, IMEMC reported. A few children in the crowd then responded with rocks to the tear gas attack. As is their standard practice, the Border Police afterwards lied to the press, saying that they were attacked by the demonstrators, and it seems that all the press (including al-Jazeera) took their lies at face value. We have photos and video footage proving that the demonstration was peaceful and was attacked by the Israeli soldiers.
The Border Police continued to shoot tear gas preventing protesters from regrouping. They also denied the entry to many Israeli activists through Ar-Ram checkpoint from Jerusalem, forcing some to crawl through the fence and others to hold a solidarity protest on the other side of the fence.
In conjunction with the regular Israeli police, the Border Police arrested 11 people – 7 Palestinians and 4 Israelis, including one man who it seemed was arrested for carrying the Palestinian flag. They also confiscated the protestor’s signs saying they wanted them “for evidence”. The three Israelis were all released that afternoon, but all the Palestinians were accused of stone throwing (supposedly “endangering people’s lives”) and participating in an “illegal protest”. They were taken to the Russian Compound jail in West Jerusalem and held overnight. All seven were released today (the 14th) on condition that they will have to return to court if the state decides that they will be proceed with prosecution.
The Wall divides the main street of Ar-Ram in two. Contrary to the myth popular in the Israeli and international press, the main effect of the Wall is to divide Palestinians from each other, because it is built within Palestinian territory, and not on the internationally recognized 1949 armistice border, or “Green Line”. It has critically damaged the life of the residents of Ar-Ram. It has divided families, stopped workers from reaching their workplace and cut off teachers and students from their schools; in fact, three schools have already been forced to close.
The mayor, Sarhan Al-Salaimeh, stated after the demonstration that Palestinians will continue their joint activities with Israelis and internationals against the occupation and the wall and for a peace that is just for both peoples.
This was a continuation of demonstrations organized by a broad coalition of forces in the Jerusalem area including: the Ar-Ram Council, the Popular Committee to Resist the Wall in the Jerusalem district (which represents districts and villages surrounding Jerusalem on both sides of the wall), the Concord for Jerusalem, the Islamic and National Parties in the Jerusalem area, the Palestinian National Initiative (former Presidential candidate and Palestinian MP Mustafa Bhargouti’s party), The Stop the Wall campaign, the International Solidarity Movement, Anarchists Against the Wall, Gush Shalom, Ta’ayush, and other Israeli peace organizations.
For pictures: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/non-violent-demonstration-against-the-wall-in-ar-ram-attacked-by-israeli-military/
Gush Shalom site: http://www.gush-shalom.org

The Double Standards of the Israeli Army
May 14th, 2006
“I Am Not a Good Jew”: Israeli Soldier Brutality and Incompetence
An editorial by a human rights worker in Hebron
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/the-double-standards-of-the-israeli-army/
Israeli settler children throw rocks while soldier does nothing
Yesterday I went to the demonstration in Bil’in which started out fun and happy, with people singing songs and generally having a good time as we usually do at these demonstrations.
Upon confronting the soldiers there was some pushing and shoving, some sound bombs were tossed into the crowd by soldiers, and soon the soldiers started firing rubber coated metal bullets without provocation. Two ISM activists were hit in the head with rubber bullets, one seriously. He suffered a brain haemorrhage but doctors say he is going to be okay. The other ISM activist required stitches.
So, this is what happens at demonstrations. This is how the soldiers react. Are you ready to learn about what happens when soldiers are put in a situation where they are supposed to control violent Israeli settlers? Ok here we go!
Today in Tel Rumeida, a fellow ISM volunteer and I were walking a Palestinian child home. In order to reach his home, he has to pass by the Tel Rumeida settlement where settler children and teenagers were standing around, waiting for him to pass so they could throw rocks at him. This happens on a daily basis, so we are prepared.
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/the-double-standards-of-the-israeli-army/
We accompanied him so that, hopefully, the rocks would hit us and not the child. I had a video camera ready to record the rock throwing. We walked up the hill and, predictably the kids started throwing rocks. There were three soldiers standing around who — instead of controlling the children — came after me.
They asked me to stop filming, I said no. They demanded that I give them the camera, I refused. Then, as the settler children were throwing rocks and me, my fellow ISMer and the Palestinian child, the three soldiers tried to take the camera from me. They were unsuccessful because they were fat and they have not studied Kung Fu.
While my fellow ISMer was trying to get the soldiers to control the kids, a teenaged settler girl said “Jews do not throw rocks, Arabs throw rocks,” and she was standing in front a bunch of settler children who were throwing rocks at us!
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/the-double-standards-of-the-israeli-army/
At this point more soldiers arrived. I asked them to control the settler children so the Palestinian child could go home. They told me they couldn’t control the children. I told them, “All it would take to control these kids is some tear gas or a sound bomb, or, you know, how about some rubber bullets or live ammunition like you shoot at Palestinian kids who throw rocks?”
They kept covering the lens of my camera with their hand and I kept avoiding them. At one point three soldiers and a bunch of kids cornered me. The soldiers tried to take my camera, and the kids hit and kicked me. When I used my arms to block their attacks, the settler girls who were attacking screamed at me “don’t touch me, you fucking pedophile, you’re just filming so you can go home and masturbate to your porno.” and “The Arabs will kill you if you don’t watch out, just like they kill the Jews.” I said “I am a Jew and they don’t kill me.” A teenaged settler girl yelled back “You are not a good Jew!”
Eventually, I decided it would be better off if I went up to the apartment to film. That way I would not get attacked. A soldier saw me retreating, and tried to take my camera again. He was unsuccessful. I began filming from the second floor balcony of the apartment building. I caught the soldiers and settlers attacking members of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron). As soon as the settlers saw me filming, they started throwing rocks at me again and yelling they hope the Arabs kill us.
In my opinion, if these people want to get good at throwing rocks, they ought to take lessons from the Palestinians, because they couldn’t hit a fucking elephant if it was standing in front of them. Eventually I went into the apartment to film from the window so I would not have to dodge rocks. The police finally arrived and the situation died down.
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/14/the-double-standards-of-the-israeli-army/
So, this is the irony of the situation. Palestinians and internationals peacefully demonstrate and get shot with rubber bullets. Israeli settler children throw rocks and hit and kick people and the soldiers refuse to stop them and instead attack the internationals.
Later in the day I was down on Shuhada street with another ISMer and settler children began throwing rocks at us again. The soldiers made a halfhearted attempt to control them but gave up. I called the police. The children kept throwing rocks and tried to prevent a Palestinian family from passing. I went over to where the family was and attempted to escort them past. The kids kept throwing rocks and the soldiers kept doing nothing. After I made a second call to the police, they finally showed up and got the children under control. I asked the police officer to remain there to control the children. He told me I should leave if I didn’t want to be attacked. Fortunately though, he stayed and got the children under control. After about 20 minutes, he left and the children began throwing rocks again.
So, this is Tel Rumeida during Shabbat, the Jewish holy day, and the Jews here act like fucking animals. I wonder, what would Moses do if a Palestinian child was walking past him. Would he throw rocks? Are Jews obligated under Jewish law to throw rocks at Palestinians? I feel like I am obligated under human law to protect anyone from attacks from these fucking religious extremists.
Oh, and by the way, while I’m still pissed off, I should write about the fact that Palestinians here are suffering severely from the funding cuts. People are so poor. A friend of mine who works for the Palestinian Authority hasn’t been to work in 20 days because they can’t pay him and he has $30 to his name.
The international community is punishing Palestinians because they voted for Hamas and it’s turning into a tragedy. One man told me today that economically, the past 3 months has been the worst it has ever been. So please, people in the United States, if you have not written to your congressperson to vote against the so-called Palestinian “anti-terrorism act,” HR 4681 You can do this by email here.

Shabbat+new soldiers+settlers=ouch!
May 13th, 2006
By Mary, a 75 year-old ISM volunteer in Tel Rumeida
Shabbat, new soldiers and violent settlers make a very unpleasant day.
At 11am, I was at the Tel Rumeida crossing waiting for children to come from the Qurduba school. The Palestinian Abu Aeshah girls, who live in the Israeli Tel Rumeida settlement came. I accompanied them towards the settlement. The soldier outside the settlement told me to stop and go back. I said that I would go back if he would watch the girls to their house. There were Israeli settler children outside. They often attack the Palestinian children. The soldier seemed more interested in watching me than the children and did not help.
At 11.15am the Al Azzeh children arrived. They walk along a track next to the settlement. There were settler children at the entrance to the settlement, so an EAPPI human rights worker walked up to the track with them. The settler children started to throw stones at the Palestinian children so other EAPPI human rights workers and I went up too to stand between the Palestinians and the stones. The soldiers tried to push the children back to the crossing for safety instead of controlling about 8 settler children, who were throwing stones. I came between the soldier and 14 year old Janette. It is not right that an eighteen year old soldier should be standing with his body so close to a young girl, who is already under attack. More soldiers came but the stone throwing continued further along the track and the Palestinian children were not able to pass. Three TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) workers arrived to observe the incident. Finally the police were called and came quickly. They were able to control the situation and the children were able to reach their homes.
I told the police and soldiers that there would be other children needing to pass from 12.30 to 1.30pm. The police said that the soldiers would look after this and that they would be patrolling. TIPH agreed to stay until all the children were home.
At 12.35pm, one of the Abu Aeshah boys arrived. I walked with him up towards the settlement. There were now two soldiers on duty outside the Tel Rumeida settlement.
They would not let me pass and were watching me instead of the Palestinian boy. I finally convinced one of them to look the other way. The boy got home safely but Israeli settler children were beginning to come to the entrance of the settlement and waiting.
At 1.00pm, Samir Abu Aeshah arrived. I walked with him towards the settlement followed by another international with a camera. Israeli settler children came out of the settlement. Girls came right up to us abusing and yelling at us. Twenty young settler boys threw stones at us. I was hit several times. There were eight soldiers pushed us back towards the crossing. They did not stop the stone throwing and tried to stop any filming. Samir Abu Aeshah ran to hide in his uncle’s house. Another six soldiers arrived and attacked our person who was filming. They also attacked a woman from TIPH, who was taking photos. Israel recognizes TIPH and they are allowed film anywhere. I was being hit by stones. As a soldier was telling me to go back, settler boys were coming round behind me and throwing large rocks at my back. I was then it on the head with a rock. Settler children were now nearly to the crossing and still attacking and I was outside my house.
I called the DCO, saying that I had been hit with 12 stones and rocks and had been hit on the head. She agreed with me that this should not happen. Another army jeep arrived. There were now twenty soldiers, about twenty violent young settler boys, ten abusive settler girls and many settler adults including Sara Marzel (wife of Baruch). Some of the soldiers started grabbing the boys who resisted and kept throwing stones. The girls kept coming right up to me and abusing me. The settler adults watched and did nothing to help or control their children. I called the police. When they came they were able to control the situation but there was still no way to get Samir Abu Aeshah home.
Some of the Israeli settler children and adults walked to the Jewish cemetery followed by and army jeep. I went in the Israeli police jeep to make a complaint. Sometime later, Samir came out of hiding and walked home by himself, with no support from the soldiers.

Report on Razor Wire closing entrance to the track leading to the Al Azzeh homes
May 13th, 2006
By Mary Baxter May 11th 2006
When razor wire was placed across the entrance to the track leading to the Al Azzeh homes in December 2005, it was done at the instigation of Israeli settlers from Tel Rumeida settlement.
The children of the Al Azzeh family need to pass it in order to get to school every day.
The razor wire has been placed in a way that an adult and some teenagers could open it. An elderly person can not open it nor could the younger children. The wire was coiled, with coils of larger than 1 metre diameter and opened like a very wobbly gate. Younger children were dependent upon an Israeli soldier being helpful.
When the family appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, the court issued an order that they should be allowed to access their home freely. But the soldiers were not briefed as to the court order that the family could pass and the Tel Rumeida settlement women would come out and tell the soldiers that the children were not allowed to pass. This often causes problems when children came home from school.
In February, someone (settler or soldier) placed a heavy sandbag on the wire near the opening. This made the wire too heavy for Janette or even a soldier to open up. So, a soldier helped tread down the wire and the children were helped across it. This was very difficult for the younger children.
On one occasion, a seven year old girl was by herself and had trouble crossing the wire. The soldier on duty would not help so a seventy-five year old ISM volunteer tried to help. The volunteers clothing got caught on the wire and she fell over, luckily not on to the wire. The soldier present did nothing. On some occasions, a helpful soldier held down the wire with his foot while the children passed.
In March, someone (soldier or settler) adjusted the razor wire so that the coils were of full height. This meant that the children had to go round the top of the wire on a narrow steep path which was difficult for the older girls with schoolbags on their backs. The younger children always needed help. Then, towards the end of Passover, a soldier pushed the wire so that the narrow path becam
e extremely narrow. The older girls needed help and the younger children could only pass if an adult met them on the other side of the wire.
Last week, a helpful soldier managed to help fix the wire so that it could be opened at another place. The older girls were able to open it like a gate again. But then someone (settler or soldier) put a sandbag at that place, making the wire too heavy to lift open.
Another soldier tore the sandbag so that the sand fell out and no longer weighed the wire of the opening down.
Today, the older girls were able to open the wire. This was necessary because the soldier outside the settlement told ISM volenteers that he would not help the children. One of the soldiers on duty near the ISM apartment referred to Palestiniansas animals, when he detained them for no reason for 45 minutes.
At times, the soldier on duty refuses to believe that the court order exists. He will point to the wire and say that it would not be there if the children were meant to pass. It is not surprising that he would think this. It is hard to believe that children are expected to pass razor wire.
On one occasion recently, the children were held up by a soldier for an hour until the police came and said that they could pass. The same soldier aged 19 years was standing over a 14 year old girl, very close, trying to force her away.

UK Training for Freedom Summer
May 9th, 2006
London, May 27th/28th
Freedom Summer Campaign: July-August 2006
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/02/19/freedom-summer-2006-building-bridges/
Join us for our pre-travel training in London which compliments the compulsory two day training you will receive in Palestine, and will give important information about your travel to Palestine. See www.ism-london.org for more details. Contact info@ism-london.org to book.
International Solidarity Movement, London
http://www.ism-london.org/
Witness – Learn – Support – Report
Now more than ever – join us in Palestine!

Warmongers EDO Corp. Surrender in British High Court
May 9th, 2006
Final Victory For Peace Protesters Against Arms Company’s High Court Harassment Claim
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7th May 2006
The attempt by arms manufacturers EDO MBM to restrict protest outside their Brighton, UK factory has ended in expensive failure. http://www.smashedo.org.uk/
EDO have consistently denied that they supply Israel with weapons systems, but in December 2005 in a related criminal case, ‘the rooftop 3 case’, former managing director David Jones admitted under oath that the company do supply the Israeli Air Force with parts for the VER-2 system – the main bomb rack used on the Israeli F16, which has been used in documented war crimes in the Palestinian Territories. Their dropping of the injunction case can be in no small part attributed to the fact that they had been caught out lying about this in the high court to avoid legal responsibility under the British International Criminal Court act – complicity in war crimes. Many of the protesters who were named in EDO MBM’s injunction have volunteered with ISM in Palestine and their witness of Israeli war crimes in Palestine would have been material to their defence that they had acted reasonably in circumstances of what they knew about events in Palestine.
EDO MBM’s attempt to secure a no-protest exclusion zone with an injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act has ended in unconditional surrender after a year-long High Court battle. The case is estimated to have cost the company upwards of £1 million and this week US parent company EDO Corp announced 2.7 million dollars losses this year and citing losses from legal actions as a contributing factor. EDO MBM will pay the protesters costs, expected to be tens of thousands of pounds.
Big questions remain over the handling of the case. What has come to light is a behind-the-scenes deal between EDO MBM, their lawyer Timothy Lawson Cruttenden (the solicitor responsible for the injunction restricting protests outside the Oxford Primate Lab), Sussex Police and possibly the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordinating Unit.
Andrew Beckett press spokesman for SMASH EDO said, “We were accused of harassment by EDO, and Sussex Police, who secured an interim injunction on trumped-up evidence, but it must be clear to the world after the collapse of the injunction and the dropping of so many criminal cases that we are ones who have been harassed, and it is they in who have been harassing us”.
EDO brought the injunction claim against 14 protesters and two protest groups in April 2005, and by bringing spurious evidence into the case were able to get an interim injunction against all protesters (i.e any member of the public campaigning outside the factory, regardless of their conduct).
The defendants argued consistently that the use of the Protection from Harassment Act to restrict protest infringed their rights under articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. This was dramatically illustrated by the imprisonment on remand of two protesters for alleged breaches of the injunction last summer. Both cases were subsequently dropped before reaching court. Protesters were placed under threat of five years imprisonment for any breach of the injunction terms that prohibited simple acts such as standing in the road.
In the year-long High Court case it was that Chief Inspector Kerry Cox of Sussex Police had changed her witness statement to exaggerate her view of the anticipated threat by protesters to company employees after direct pressure from EDO s lawyer Tim Lawson-Cruttenden. The altered statement was instrumental in gaining EDO an interim injunction against protesters that restricted their human rights.
The collapse of the EDO injunction case and also the 23 criminal charges against anti-EDO protesters cast a shadow over all similar injunction cases against animal rights protesters, as it highlights a shady practice by police and court officers in a political operation to suppress freedom of expression, acting in a manner that is clearly an abuse of the powers of the state over political activity, but has been supported by the highest levels of the government.
Notes for Journalists
Brighton & Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City
They and Sussex police also wanted to limit than ten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refused to impose these conditions at the initial hearing of an interim injunction, which was put in place in the period before the full trial to be heard at the High court in London from November 21st. In his summing up he said, “The right to freedom of expression is jealously guarded in English law” and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations. He also said that he doubted that protesters were ’stalking’ employees of EDO MBM.
EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongst others. They supply crucial components for Raytheon’s Paveway guided bomb system, widely used in the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq https://palsolidarity.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/plugins/auto_links/klogs/?kw=Iraq&rl=http://electroniciraq.net . EDO also withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as “warmongers”.
Campaign against EDO MBM People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students. The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp. It’s avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.
SMASH EDO PRESS RELEASE
Press Contact: Andrew Beckett or Sarah Johnson
+44 (0) 7875 708873
www.smashedo.org.uk
Settlers Torch Cars, Beat Residents
May 9th, 2006
From http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3248189,00.html
By Ali Waked
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/09/settlers-torch-cars-beat-residents/
Car torched in Tel Rumeida. ‘This is not a life,’ residents say (Photo: ISM)
Residents of Hebron neighborhood claim settlers set fire to three Palestinian vehicles, beat several residents; ‘this was not a one-time incident,’ says Rajab Abeido, whose car was burned
Palestinian residents from the Hebron neighborhood of Tel Rumeida claimed that settlers, who flocked to the city Saturday night ahead of the evacuation of a Hebron house by the IDF, set fire to three of their cars. Earlier, the Palestinians said, the settlers also beat several of the neighborhood’s residents.
According to the residents, the incident was not a one-time harassment, but rather a phenomenon they have been suffering from for a long time now.
Rajab Abeido, the owner of one of the torched cars, told Ynet that he returned to his home at around 9 p.m. Saturday evening after spending the evening with his son. The son, Abeido said, broke his hand while being chased by settlers.
“The settlers rioted in the neighborhood all day. In one of the incidents, a group chased my 8-year-old son Hassan and wanted to hit him. While escaping, he stumbled upon a stone and broke his hand. We spent the entire evening at the hospital and prepared the report which I planned to submit to the police today,” he said.
Soldiers ’settle in’
But according to Abeido, the day’s troubles had only begun. A short while after entering his home and sitting down for dinner, one of his neighbors knocked on the door and told him that “settlers are setting fire to three vehicles in the neighborhood, including my car.”
“We immediately went outside and tried to put out the fire using everything we could get our hands on, but the damage was already done – my car was completely burned, and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t insured.”
Abeido’s neighbor told Ynet, “a group of settlers, standing not far from soldiers securing the site, poured flammable material on cars and set them on fire.”
According to Abeido, the incident was not the first in which settlers harassed him.
“Every few days they come into our home and beat me and my family up. But the bigger problem for me is the soldiers – they come in every few weeks, send the entire family to a room and ‘settle’ in the home. When I ask them ‘what do you want?’ they say ‘we have work to do; (military) duties’,” he charged.
“Each time I try to explain to them that ‘this isn’t (Ariel) Sharon’s home, nor is it (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert’s. Carry out your military duties wherever you want, but not in my home, not near my wife and children; this is not a life’,” he concluded.

Harrasing students in Jenin
May 8th, 2006
by Ash
Early in the morning, I left home with my friends going toward my university (the Arab American University). It’s about 40 minutes from my village. On the way, each one of us told our own story about the other day at Israeli checkpoints.
Last week (other students and I) were heading back home from classes when we were stopped at a checkpoint on a conjunction outside Jenin. While we were waiting in a long line of cars, we ran out of gas, and the driver had no choice but to ask some students to go back to Jenin and bring some gasoline.
The cars were moving very slowly, so we spent almost an hour waiting, then the cars completely stopped moving. Three Israeli soldiers on the other street of the conjunction stopped checking IDs, and instead, the soldiers waved for cars to go back. In our direction, one hummer jeep sat by the side the street with four soldiers in it, also preventing cars from moving.
A few drivers got out and walked towards the soldiers to negotiate and ask why we weren’t allowed to move anymore. One hour later, our driver managed to start the bus again and drove back to Jenin to try anther road.
For the past month, at least in Jenin area, the number of checkpoints had amazingly increased. These checkpoints are not just between two villages to prevent farmers to go to their land or workers to go to their jobs, but are also in front of universities to stop students from getting their education.
Yesterday around 2pm, two military jeeps set up a checkpoint near the gate of my university, preventing all vehicles from moving in both directions. We didn’t have any choice but to walk on foot for 35 minutes to the village of Zababdeh. When I reached the checkpoint, the soldiers were not in fact checking IDs or our bags, which is the usual tactic. So we wondered, “What is this checkpoint for?”
In the last week, many students missed their exams and classes, because they were held for hours at checkpoints or prevented from passing. Last Saturday, I had two exams to do, so I decided to stay with friends in the village of Zababdeh for the weekend (Thursday and Friday) in order to avoid the Israeli checkpoints and not miss any exams.
The Israeli army not only harasses students at checkpoints, but also inside their dormitories. Around 1am, Wednesday night, the Israeli army occupied two student dormitories for more than 8 hours. One of the dorm’s gate was broken using a hammer jeep; apparently no students were there for the weekend.
The Israeli soldiers checked the rooms, while all students from the other dorm were taken outside for questioning. A friend of mine was beaten on the face by one of the Israeli soldiers just because of the area he comes from.
While students were held outside and after checking, a volley of shots heard inside the building destroyed some furniture and left holes in the walls. Before the army let the students back to their dorm, the Israeli soldiers fired randomly at the building, then took off.

Settlers Assult Humans Rights Workers in Hebron – Soldiers Refuse to Intervene
May 7th, 2006
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/07/settler-attack/
Graffiti of the Kach party slogan sprayed on a Palestinian home in Hebron. Kach is a Jewish terrorist organisation banned in Israel and the US. Photo from Jan. 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kach_and_Kahane_Chai
May 6, 2006: At 2:30 PM, six settlers in their 30s, with white kippas (One settler had the Kach symbol, a fist inside of a Star of David, on his kippa.) approached Mary, a 75 year old international HRW (Human Rights Worker) sitting at the top of the Tel Rumeida hill 70 meters from the Tel Rumeida settlement. An Israeli male HRW, age 21, went over immediately and sat next to Mary. They surrounded the HRWs and asked questions aggressively, such as “Where are you from?” “What are you doing here?” “What, you like Arabs?” They were also cursing them.
The oldest settler, approximately 40 years old, got close to their faces and whispered “I like to kill Arabs. I like to kill Arabs.” Then another settler punched the male HRW, who was still sitting down, in the face. At that point, the soldier located 6 meters away approached but did and said nothing.
The oldest settler grabbed Mary’s purse off of her that was strapped to her body, threw it on the ground and kicked it 10 meters away. The Israeli HRW got up and picked up the purse. He began to return, then a settler came and kicked his right leg very hard from the side.
At this point the soldier told the settlers to leave the HRWs alone. The settlers spat on both HRWs repeatedly. The settlers cursed the HRWs in Hebrew. The soldier hugged the settler and said “I understand.”
10 minutes later the HRW called the police and told them of the attack. The police said “come to the police station and file a complaint.” He told them that he had no way to get to the police station as it is inside the settlement. Then they said that a patrol car was on its way and he could speak to them when it arrives. HRWs waited there for 1 and 1/2 hours but no police car came to the area at all. Then he called the police station again to ask why they had not come. The police answered that a patrol car came and saw that everything was ok and left.

For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/12/israeli-soldiers-shoots-two-foreigners-in-the-head-at-bilin/

“I saw blood gushing out of his head, and helped bandage it. As we were getting him into the ambulance an Israeli soldier grabbed his long hair and they all tried to stop him from leaving in the ambulance even though they knew he was injured”, said American eyewitness Zadie Susser who saw Phil sitting in shock immediately after he was hit.

At today’s Bil’in demonstration, Israeli soldiers shot seven Palestinians with rubber coated metal bullets. One Australian and one Danish demonstrator were hospitalised after being shot in the head with rubber-coated steel bullets at close range.

AFP Cameraman Jamal Al Aruri was shot in the hand with a rubber coated bullet while he was filming two of his fingers were broken. Adeba Yasin (65) was hit by a rubber coated bullet under her eye while she was sitting on the balcony of her home.

Phil Reess from Australia was shot as he was running away – he had been filming the demonstration. BJ Lund from Denmark was also shot as he was standing near army jeeps.
Both Phil and BJ are currently in Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel-Aviv. The bullet caused a hemorrhage to Phil’s brain, though he is now conscious. BJ has a light head wound.

Abed Al Karim Khatib(60) was hit by a rubber coated bullet in his private parts, Abed Albased Abu Rahme (15) was hit on his thigh by a rubber coated bullet and Waleed Mahmoud Abu Rahme (20) was hit in his abdomen by a rubber coated bullet. Mohammad Ahmad Issa was hit in the leg with a rubber bullet. Wajdi shokut (18) was hit by a rubber coated bullet in the hand

Ashraf Muhammed Jamal was hit by a tear gas canister aimed at his head(24)

Abdullah Abu-Rahme (35 and the Co-ordinatior of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall), Muhammad Al Katib (32, also from the Popular Committee) and Akram Al Katib (34) were beaten.

The demonstration of about 300 people had marched, singing, chanting and waving flags to the gate in the apartheid barrier. This week, the gate had been locked open, so the Israeli soldiers relied on their jeeps and barbed wire to stop the people of Bil’in from walking into their land. After a while, some of the demonstrators started to open the barbed wire. The Israeli soldiers started hitting people with clubs. A few rocks were thrown from a small group of youth who were away from the main demonstration in front of the jeeps. The soldiers then started firing on the peaceful demonstrators at near point-blank range as they were running away – they were a maximum distance of 10 meters away when shot.

According to Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem, Israeli Military Regulations stipulate that “the minimum range for firing rubber-coated steel bullets is forty meters. The Regulations emphasize that the bullets must be fired only at the individual’s legs, and are not to be fired at children” Israeli soldiers fire rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian children during the Bil’in demonstration every week. Israeli demonstrator Matan Cohen was recently shot in the eye during a demonstration in Beit Sira. He now has only partial sight in that eye.

The Israeli military usually uses rubber bullets during demonstrations when Israeli and international activists are present. When Palestinians demonstrate on their own the military uses live ammunition or rubber coated steal bullets.

On Sunday, May 14, the Israeli Supreme Court will hear Bil’in’s legal challenge over the theft of their land by the illegal wall.

Bili’in villagers have been protesting the wall nonviolently for the last 15 months and have become a symbol of Palestinian-Israeli-International cooperation.

The route of the wall in Bil’in is designed to annex the settlement of Modi’n Elite and it’s outpost, Matityahu Mizrah, to Israel along with the land belonging to Bil’in so that these illegal settlements can continue to grow.

In a separate court case obrought by the village and Peace Now against the new settlement of Matityahu Mizrah, the High Court was told of a land-laundering scheme that allowed the real-estate dealers and settler organizations to convert private land – “purchased” sometimes through dubious means – into “state land..” Then, before the construction of the separation barrier, the land was “returned” to the buyers so that they could establish facts on the ground and press the Defense Ministry into moving the route of the fence to the east of the new illegal neighborhood.

After being prodded by the Supreme Court, the Israel Police’s National Fraud Squad opened a criminal investigation into the illegal construction of hundreds of housing units in the Matityahu East “neighborhood” of the Modi’in Ilit settlement.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, hundreds of millions of dollars are believed to have changed hands in the affair.

1.Mohammed Saqer Escapes Death
2. Shofat Camp Non violent action for Right to Worship Successful
3. Bil’in: Un-cage Palestine!
4.Border Police Lash Out
5. Police probe building of West Bank settlement neighborhood
6. Tel Rumeida Journal
7. At last, a peaceful Shabbat in Tel Rumeida
8. “That terrible feeling inside “
9. Tul Karem to Rammalah3 road blocks, 5 check-points, 7 cars

1.Mohammed Saqer Escapes Death- From Israeli Bullet to the Brain
May 2nd, 2006

An update from ISM activists in Nablus on Mohammed Saqer (17), the boy shot in the head a week ago with a rubber-coated metal bullet by the Israeli army:
After being kept in a medically induced coma for 72 hours following emergency brain surgery Mohammed successfully regained consciousness and, amazingly, is able to talk. This is an extremely positive development given the original opinion of his doctor that he was likely to be seriously brain damaged, if able to regain consciousness at all.
His improvement has been so rapid he has been transfered to the “intermediate intensive care” unit.

His entire family are ecstatic, including his mother and aunt who kept a bedside vigil during his coma and was distraught at the seriousness of his condition. The family said that when he fully came out of coma he opened his eyes and immediately said “Marhaba” – arabic for hello!

This is the second time in two years Mohammed has been shot in the head by Israeli forces, and as his aunt said at the time “The first time was much better. Now, I think its worse. It’s bad”.

Certainly, even though he is alive, awake and able to talk he needs constant medical attention and his long term condition is not known. He cannot move the left side of his body and it is uncertain what mobility he will regain. But his delighted mother said his situation is improving everyday.

Extraordinarily he asked us how we were doing, even greeting us in English and asking our names. He talked of how he hopes he will be better soon and how we can visit him in his home in Askar Refugee camp saying “You are always welcome at my home”
As ISM activist Lauren says “It is really amazing that he is even alive. It was surreal to even talk to him. What a miracle that he will laugh and smile again.”

2. Shofat Camp Non violent action for Right to Worship Successful

May 5th, 2006

For photos please see :https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/05/shofat-families-first-demonstration-for-right-to-worship-successful-tear-gassed-by-iof/

Residents of Shofat refugee camp in Jerusalem, along with international and Israeli supporters, today demonstrated non-violently against the Israeli Border Polices’ often violent suppression of the camps residents’ right to cross the checkpoint at the camp entrance to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque on Fridays.

Palestinian men women and children marched peacefully alongside Israeli and international activists to the checkpoint carrying banners declaring their right to worship at Al Aqsa Mosque and protesting against construction of the Apartheid Wall next to the Camp.

Upon reaching the checkpoint Border Police and soldiers, including two mounted officers, attempted to physically block the marchers’ progress. The residents’ leaders asked the Border Police commander why they could not pass and complained about the denial of a basic human right. Unprovoked by any aggression on the part of the demonstrators, the Israeli forces resorted to using sound bombs and tear gas.

Scared but undaunted, the Camp residents continued to press their right to worship and accompanied by Israelis and Internationals over 60 people were able to make their way past the checkpoint, despite continued harassment by the Border Police.

Local resident Ibrahim said: “I am grateful for the people who joined with us today. It’s a first step and we will continue to demonstrate as long as they treat us this way. Today, they held back because of the presence of press and internationals, normally they are asking 10 yr old boys for documents or will not let them pass [documentation is not issued by Israeli authorities to Palestinian children until age 13] and they always treat worshippers brutally. They refuse to let buses through so the people have to go by foot whether it is hot or raining. It’s real suffering every day”

Residents of the camp have been complaining for many months about the behavior of the Border Police in the camp, which included cursing, pushing, beating and throwing concussion grenades. These are common procedures at the checkpoint at the entrance to the camp. The situation deteriorates in particular on Fridays when many worshipers try to go to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Border Police attack those waiting in line with particularly harsh violence. The violence of the Border Police in the camp is not limited only to the checkpoint. In the previous months Border Policemen have injured dozens of residents, mostly children. Among them is Abdel Malek Zalbani, an 8 year old child, who was critically wounded by a concussion grenade thrown during a demonstration against the wall.

The violent behavior of the Border Police in the Jerusalem area is not a new phenomenon. In East Jerusalem the last year alone, Samir Dhari from Essawiya and Mahmood Swara from Noaaman have been murdered by Border Policemen. This violence would not be possible without the agreement of silence by all the parties involved, primarily Marhash (the department for investigating Police), which is not attempting even to pretend to have an investigation in response to the many complaints that have been filed in the last year.

3. Bil’in: Un-cage Palestine!
May 5th, 2006

For photos see :
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/05/bilin-un-cage-palestine/
May 5th- The non-violent demonstration against the Apartheid Wall on the land of Bil’in village this week was themed around the economic siege of Palestine by western powers. Israeli and international activists with pictures of western leaders taped to their chests carried a barbed-wire cage in which a Palestinian dressed in Palestinian flags was symbolically trapped. This was to signify the fact that Palestine is being made a prison created by the Israeli state and it’s western financiers.
The demonstration reached the fence gate which was closed to prevent the villagers accessing their own land. As has been the case for the last few weeks, the Israeli military enforced the closure of the gate by lining up jeeps and Border Police behind it. The demonstrators with the cage tried to open the gate and pass, but were prevented by the Border Police who beat those who got close to them with clubs. After a short while of trying this, the demonstrators gave up and instead dumped the cage on a jeep.
As was the case last week, the chanting group of demonstrators was broken up when the Border Police threw sound bombs at us. In response, several shebab from the village started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then opened fire on them with rubber-coated metal bullets. Most of the demonstrators moved out of the way of this unequal crossfire, shouting at the soldiers to stop firing at children, or talking to them in Hebrew to the same effect. Some from the village Popular Committee convinced the shebab to stop throwing stones. The demonstration regrouped and some tried to start a noise demo (banging in rhythm on a metal barrier which is part of the barrier), but the soldiers tried to arrest one of them – an international activist. Israeli international and Palestinian demonstrators prevented the arrest, simply by piling on the international. The soldiers gave up after a short while.
After a while, the demonstration was declared over by the Popular Committee. The demonstration left peacefully, making sure that the military jeeps were prevented from following us. Shebab from the village exchanged stones with tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets with the soldiers.
No one was arrested this week. One Israeli demonstrator was mildly bruised (we think by a ricocheting rubber-bullet).

4.Border Police Lash Out
April 28th, 2006

For photos please see the link below:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/04/28/1063/
For Audio Report: https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/media/2006/04/339190.mp3
April 28th – The weekly non-violent demonstration against the Wall in Bil’in was attacked by the Israeli soldiers, as usual. The demonstrators reached the gate in the annexation wall that is stealing some 60% of the village’s land. The gate was blocked by several jeeps with Israeli border police standing on top and menacingly waving their clubs and pointing their M16 rifles at the demonstrators.

The crowd of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals chanted and sang against the wall and called on the soldiers to leave the village. Mohammed Khatib of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements stood on the gate and was beaten by three soldiers at once, seriously bruising him on the arms. Several other Palestinians were also beaten, although there ended up being no arrests this week.

Eventually, the military dispersed the demonstration using sound grenades, which, in conjunction with the beatings, provoked a few stones from some of the shabab. The soldiers then shot rubber bullets and teargas at the crowd. A 14 year old boy was wounded and Many tear gas suffered from tear gas inhalation.

This exchange repeated itself few times. Each time most of the demonstrators moved out of the line of fire. Israelis and internationals tried to stay close to the soldiers at the sides, talking to them and shouting at them – trying to convince them to stop shooting at children. The presence of internationals and Israelis, along with large amounts of journalists and photographers means that they rarely use live ammunition, unlike in places such as Nablus. There, very few internationals and press are present, and they regularly use live rounds against unarmed protesters – often children.

The Popular Committee is expecting the Wall in Bil’in to be completed in July, so they now fear an escalation in the oppression of the army against the village – in terms of both arrests and general levels of violence used against the villagers. Abdullah Abu-Rahme, co-ordinator of the Popular Committee called for as many Israelis and internationals as possible to join them now – both on the weekly demonstrations and to stay overnight in the village and the outpost to act as an presence in case of army entering the village.

5. Police probe building of West Bank settlement neighborhood
April 27th, 2006

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent 27/04/2006

For the original article See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/709887.html
The Israel Police’s National Fraud Squad has opened a criminal investigation into the illegal construction of hundreds of housing units in the Matityahu East neighborhood of the Modi’in Ilit ultra-Orthodox settlement. A statement to this effect was submitted on Tuesday to the High Court of Justice in response to an injunction issued at the request of the Peace Now movement.

The police investigation is focusing on Modi’in Ilit council head Yaakov Gutterman, other senior council officials, entrepreneurs and large construction companies, Jewish real estate dealers who acquired privately owned Palestinian land, lawyers and settler organizations involved in “land redemption.”

Hundreds of millions of dollars are believed to have changed hands in the affair.
According to police suspicions, a lawyer at one of the settler organizations purchased the land in question based on an affidavit submitted by the mukhtar of Bil’in, who claimed that because of the security situation, he was unable to get to the village and collect the signatures of the landowners.

During the course of Tuesday’s legal debate, the High Court was told of a land-laundering system that allowed the real-estate dealers and settler organizations to convert private land – purchased sometimes through dubious means – into “state land.”
Ahead of the construction of the separation fence in the area, the land was “returned” to the buyers so that they could establish facts on the ground and press the Defense Ministry into moving the route of the fence to the east of the new neighborhood.

Peace Now attorney Michael Sfarad, who is also representing residents of Bil’in on whose land Matityahu East is being built, has provided the state with documents allegedly indicating that Gutterman and other council officials had a hand in illegal construction on an unprecedented scale. The documents include a letter in which the council’s legal advisor warns the council engineer that entrepreneurs are constructing “entire buildings without permits, with your full knowledge and in total disregard for planning process and the law.”

Furthermore, a report sent to the Interior Ministry by the council’s comptroller notes that construction in the new project is going ahead contrary to the state’s approved urban master plan.

Following a Haaretz report on the affair early in the year, and in keeping with a directive from the State Attorney’s Office, the Civil Administration in the West Bank took over law enforcement duties at the new building sites in the settlement, issuing injunctions to cease all the construction work and sending out inspectors to ensure that these were upheld. At the same time, the head of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch unit, Dror Etkes, submitted complaints to the police against all those involved in the affair.

At Tuesday’s High Court debate, the state said it had no objection to extending the construction ban, but said it was opposed to razing the illegal structures that had already been completed or were near completion. The state also said it saw no cause to evict individuals who had already moved into their apartments.

6. Tel Rumeida Journal
May 4th, 2006
For photos see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/04/28/settlers-vandalise-school-property-in-tel-rumeida/

Monday, April the 24th

Today was a quiet day. Volunteers doing a lot of work preparing for the press conference on Wednesday. A Press release and open letter to the police and army about rising settler violence are being drafted.

Jerusalem Post visit Tel Rumeida and visit two families who recount stories of settler and IDF violence. I hope their words get through to the journalists because it is obviously painful for the people to tell their stories. While we are with the journalists and international and a Palestinian are spat at and threatened by settler children on Schuhada Street.

Tuesday, April the 25th

The morning school run goes well. Three settler visitors wearing the orange threads signifying opposition to disengagement come to talk to the soldiers.

As we are leaving a soldier comes to check our passports, he grabs our passports out of our hands and tells us we are being detained. We try to reason with him but he is obviously intent on causing us as much trouble as he can. In the end five internationals from CPT and ISM are detained for three hours at the Bab-a-Zawiyye Machsom. After three hours the shift changes and we are released immediately – it is patently obvious that this particular soldier does not like the internationals and wants to cause as much trouble as he can, his peers do not seem to share his animosity.

The Jerusalem Post are here again and watch what we on the school run with interest. Surely they must wonder why so many internationals are needed to watch this group of schoolchildren walking home.

The soldiers stationed near the Tel Rumeida settlement stop three schoolgirls from walking home. The family that these girls belong to has won a court battle for access to the land below the Tel Rumeida settlement. However, today the soldiers are not aware that the family have permission to use the path to their home and they have to wait by the guards post dangerously close to the settlement buildings. A settler child emerges and throws a stone before he is shooed away by the soldier. This exact same situation occurred last week and could be avoided if IDF soldiers were properly briefed.

Wednesday April the 26th

Settlers from Beit Hadassa settlement in Tel Rumeida on the outskirts of the old city of Hebron vandalised a school path at Qurtuba school which is used by local Palestinian children. The path was being built with money from TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron). The builders had just laid bricks along the path above Beit Hadassa settlement.

At 2pm on April 26th builders had stones thrown at them by children from Beit Hadassa. Shortly afterwards international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) saw an adult settler looking at the building work and making several calls on his mobile phone. Between 6 and 7pm yesterday a group of 20 adults and children from Beit Hadassa climbed the steps to the school and began tearing up the bricks and throwing them down the steps. Soldiers are stationed at a guardpost 50 feet away. Local Palestinians said soldiers did try to intervene but did not stop the vandalism. Police attended but no arrests were made.

7. At last, a peaceful Shabbat in Tel Rumeida
May 4th, 2006

This Saturday, the 30th of April everybody was apprehensive about further settler attacks. Over the last three shabbats settlers have mounted more and more organised attacks against internationals and Palestians in Tel Rumeida. There was a large intrernational presence in response.

Internationals and Palestinans have been active this last week in trying to draw attention to the increasing level of violence in Tel Rumeida. On Wednesday a conference was held highlighting the escalating violence and an open letter was sent asking the police and army to protect Palestinans in Tel Rumeida.

Throughout the week international volunteers have been speaking to the army units in Tel Rumeida and impressing on them the danger posed by settler attacks and asking that they intervene if attacks occur.

Settler violence has been covered in the mainstream media including the Jerusalem Post and some TV stations.

On Wednesday an organised group of settlers attacked workers at Qurtuba school in Tel Rumeida and later destroyed school property. Palestinians and internationals made calls to the DCO and the police asking for more policing near the school.

On Saturday an unprecedented number of border police were present at Qurtuba school stationed close to the place where the attack occurred on Wednesday. We can only assume that at least some of our efforts were worthwhile.

The day passed without any trouble whatsoever. It seems that the large numbers of police coupled with the numbers of internationals and the fact that the settlers know that the media is watching has had a preventative effect… My only hope is that we an maintain a focus on Tel Rumeida in weeks to come.

8. “That terrible feeling inside “
April 30th, 2006

By Leila ALHaddad from Gaza
For the photo please see the link below:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/04/30/that-terrible-feeling-inside/
or a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

Ok I admit I’ve been a little lazy this week. Part of that is has to do with the fact that, wrapped up in my pre-travel anxiety as it were, and my mad rush to tie up as many loose ends as possible and write as much as possible, I think I burnt myself out.

That and being here can be overwhelming at times; this week has been one of those times. Sometimes I’m too caught up to notice, but then on a “down” week, it catches up to me. I feel powerless, even crushed, in the face of an ugly, foreboding, larger than life force that seems to grow and mutate with every passing day. It is everywhere and nowhere at once. And try as you might, you cannot hide from it.

It squeezes you tighter and tighter, instilling within you a feeling of helplessness and dejection and isolation, until you begin to feel you are alone, even among 1.5 million others. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Sometimes I don’t want to do anything about it. I just want to run away, somewhere I hope it can’t reach me. Sit on the beach, listen to the troubled stories that the Gaza’s lonely Mediterranean is desperately trying to tell. “Take me to the beach at sunset, so I may listen what the beach says…when it returns to itself, calmly, calmly.”

Yousuf frolicked about in the sand, building and destroying his imaginary creations, pleased with his new-found prowess. He glanced over at me, sensed something of sadness in my eyes, and patted me on the shoulder-“ma3lsh, mama, ma3lish” he said… “It’s ok”…and suddenly, just like that, everything was.

9. Tulkarm to Ramallah: 3 road blocks, 5 check-points, 7 cars
April 29th, 2006

by Abdel-Karim Dalbah

How long does it take to travel from the north-east of the West Bank, to the centre? In such a small area of land, you might think not long. A Palestinian ISM co-ordinator gives an account of a the realities of trying to get out of the prison that the Israeli military is turning the north into.

An average journey
Drive distance: 90 km
Drive time: 90 min max – directly in one car.
Cost: 15 shekels by bus or 20 to 25 shekels by car (service)
On the 23rd of April 2006 and for more than five months
Drive distance: more than 300 km
Drive time + walking + waiting at checkpoints: 5 hrs, 30 min
Cost: 65 Shekels
WHY
Because of the Israeli policies of closure and checkpoints and the fact that I am a Palestinian from Tulkarm (in the north of the West Bank).
HOW
I left my home at 8:30 am and walked to the bus station. There were no buses, and no direct cars so I had to take the sevice to Innap checkpoint (15 km east). Before we reached it, we were stopped by a flying checkpoint after 5 km. We waited about 15 min in a long line of cars before our driver decided to go back and take another road, going around the checkpoint. This added another 15 min as we had to go 200m east around the check point and continue to Innap (the main checkpoint). We reached Innap and waited there about 15 min when the soldier came and told our driver that it was forbidden for anyone to pass today. So the he had to use another road to drive around . We reached a road-block just 1 km east of the checkpoint. The cost had increased from 5 to 10 shekels by then.

The end of the first part.

When we reached the road-block we had to walk about 200 m to cross it. We started waiting for a car to take us to Ramallah. When one arrived the driver was asking for 50 shekels each which is too much – it’s normally 20 or 30 maximum. After 10 minutes, I took a taxi with four others to a village called Funkuk, halfway to Ramallah. This cost 10 shekels each. From there, a taxi driver offered to take us to Borgeen road block for another 10 shekels. We agreed to this but after driving for about 20 minutes we were stopped by another flying checkpoint near Haris. The soldiers prevented us from passing, so the driver took us back to Funduk. He offered another choice – to try another long road through different villages. Along the way we had to get out of the car several times because the parallel road we were taking to avoid the road-blocks was so rough. After driving more than an hour we reached the Borgeen road block – it cost 20 shekels to get there.

The end of the second step.

After we passed the road blocks, we felt like we were about to reach Ramallah, taking one last service. However, the drivers said not it would not be that simple. The soldiers at Attara checkpoint near Bir Zeit were apparently not allowing people from the north of the West Bank to get into Ramallah.

However, at the road-block before Attara, we would be able to pass and then get another car to Ramallah. What should we do? We agreed to this plan and drove (10 shekels each) to Attara checkpoint which we reached after 45 minutes, passing through some villages that I’ve never been though before. Instead of a car waiting on the other side of the road block there was a Border Police jeep which stopped anyone from being near by. We stayed there about 30 minutes, trying to pass though the main checkpoint, at first with a taxi and then by trying to speak to the commander. We tried to point out to him that we were all over forty years of age. After a long time he said “sorry. You can go and try to get in through Qalandya”. When we asked about going that way we discovered that it would cost 20 shekels more.

The end of the third part.

Eventually, we decided not to go that way but also not to go back since by this point we were less than 4 km from Ber Zeit [which is just north of Ramallah]. Instead, we decided to get past by walking. This meant we had to go over the mountain – but we would have to pass away from the checkpoint so that the soldiers at the military tower couldn’t see us. So after we had walked about 3 km, we finally reached Ber Zeit town, from which we caught a car for only 4 shekels each.
We finally reached Ramallah at 2:30 pm, tired and hungry, but happy.

The end of the fourth step.

The ministry of education was closed, where I needed to go to sign a paper for my sister. I missed it for today. I also missed the training of new ISMers, so I decided to go to my nephew’s house to have a rest for a while, but because I was so tired I slept for about 2 hours.
The day is over.

I spent the next day doing some work till 6.00pm before I went back to the car station to leave for Tulkarm. After 15 minutes the car filled up and we drove directly to Tulkarm. On the way we passed through the roads that were forbidden for us to pass on the way to Ramallah. Not one check-point stopped us! One of the men in the car said “it is very easy to get into the prison”.

This situation has lasted for over five moths for Tulkarm and Jenin residents – it is a collective punishment. The Israeli government claims this is for security reasons.