Tag: Gaza - Page 159 - International Solidarity Movement

British court issued Gaza arrest warrant for former Israeli minister Tzipi Livni

Ian Black & Ian Cobain | The Guardian

14 December 2009

A British court issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s former foreign minister over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza this year – only to withdraw it when it was discovered that she was not in the UK, it emerged today.

Tzipi Livni, a member of the war cabinet during Operation Cast Lead, had been due to address a meeting in London on Sunday but cancelled her attendance in advance. The Guardian has established that Westminster magistrates’ court issued the warrant at the request of lawyers acting for some of the Palestinian victims of the fighting but it was later dropped.

The warrant marks the first time an Israeli minister or former minister has faced arrest in the UK and is evidence of a growing effort to pursue war crimes allegations under “universal jurisidiction”. Israel rejects these efforts as politically motivated, saying it acted in self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.

Livni, head of the opposition Kadima party, played a key role in decisions made before and during the three-week offensive. Palestinians claim 1,400 were killed, mostly civilians; Israel counted 1,166 dead, the majority of them combatants.

No one involved in the Westminster episode was prepared to confirm, on the record, what had transpired in a chaotic series of highly sensitive legal moves. But a pro-Palestinian group welcomed news of the abortive move as “long overdue”.

The Foreign Office, clearly deeply embarrassed by the episode, said in a statement: “The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel. To do this, Israel’s leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case.”

Livni’s office said she had decided in advance not to come to the UK but lawyers seemed unaware of that when they approached the court last week. The judge refused to issue the warrant until it was clear Livni was in fact in the country, as he was erroneously informed on Sunday.

The former minister had been scheduled to speak at a Jewish National Fund conference. “Scheduled meetings with government figures in London could not take place close to the conference and would have necessitated a longer-than-planned absence from Israel,” her office told the Ynet website.

It is the second time in less than three months that lawyers have gone to Westminster magistrates court asking for a warrant for the arrest of an Israeli politician. In September the court was asked to issue one for the arrest of Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which gives courts in England and Wales universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases.

Barak, who was attending a meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton, escaped arrest after the Foreign Office told the court that he was a serving minister who would be meeting his British counterparts. The court ruled he enjoyed immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978.

According to Israeli sources, ministers who wish to visit the UK in a personal capacity have begun asking the Israeli embassy in London to arrange meetings with British officials. These offer legal protection against arrest.

Livni, crucially, cannot enjoy any such immunity as she is an ex-minister. Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, is in the same position.

Because of the potential damage to UK-Israeli relations – and because of legal pitfalls facing those who disclosed information about the application – few people with any detailed knowledge of it were prepared to comment today.

The Ministry of Justice, Scotland Yard and clerks at the magistrates court refused to discuss the matter. A statement issued by HM Court Service implied that there had been no application for an arrest warrant, stating “there is no record of any such hearing”. A spokeswoman maintained that this was not a misleading statement.

Samuel Hayek, chairman of the Jewish National Fund UK, the charity whose conference Livni had been due to attend, said: “I am not at liberty to confirm her precise reasons for not attending.” He added: “In any event, it is regrettable that the British government is unable to conduct free dialogue with Israel’s most senior statesmen and politicians.”

Tayab Ali, the solicitor who tried to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Barak on behalf of 16 Palestinians, said his firm was “ready, willing and able to act for clients to seek the arrest of anyone suspected of war crimes” who travelled to the UK.

Livni’s office described her as “proud of all her decisions regarding Operation Cast Lead”. It added: “The operation achieved its objectives to protect the citizens of Israel and restore Israel’s deterrence capability.”

High Court: Gaza student cannot complete studies in West Bank

Amira Hass | Haaretz

9 December 2009

The High Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday to deny a Palestinian student from Gaza who has been studying in Bethlehem permission to complete her university degree in the West Bank.

Berlanty Azzam, 22, has been in the West Bank since 2005 and has only two months of studies left in order to complete her Bachelor’s degree in business administration. In late October, however, the Israeli authorities expelled her back to Gaza claiming that that she was illegally staying in the West Bank.

Azzam petitioned against her expulsion with the assistance of Gisha, a legal center for freedom of movement, but the High Court accepted the Israeli authorities’ decision to deny Azzam a chance to remain in the West Bank to continue her education.

The authorities did not claim security charges against Azzam.

Regarding the assertion that she is an illegal alien in the West Bank, Gisha said that she had moved to the region legally with an entrance permit into Israel issued to her by the IDF commander on the scene after a meticulous security check.

The High Court accepted Israel’s claim that Azzam entered the West Bank illegally, due to the fact that the permit entitled her entrance into Jerusalem, not the West Bank.

During the four years she lived and studied in the West Bank, Azzam placed several requests to change her address from Gaza to Bethlehem.

According to the Oslo accord, the Palestinian Authority has the power to change its’ citizen’s addresses in their identity cards, and is only required to notify the Israel authorities.

But ever since the accord was implemented, Israel has refused to accept the PA’s authority to register change of address from Gaza to the West Bank, and has retained a monopoly over the acceptance or denial of an address change request.

Since the year 2000, Israel has also refused to allow Gaza residents to study in the West Bank. It is believed that there are currently over 25,000 Palestinians who were born in Gaza and are currently living in the West Bank, all of whom have been disallowed to change their address on their identification certificates.

Most of them have been living in the West Bank for many years. They have raised their families there, and have been working in the region, but are under the constant threat of expulsion.

Let’s Talk About Resistance

Natalie abu Shakra

27 November 2009

The choice of civil resistance in challenging the Israeli occupation is considered by some as a form of “surrender.” In an interview [in Arabic] on Al Aqsa, Palestinian activists Mazen Qumsiyeh and comrade Haidar Eid answer these questions.

Eid was asked about the meaning of civil resistance of which he spoke about the numerous terms coined to non-violent resistance, civil resistance, non-violent struggle and therefore multiple definitions to each term. There is, he says, the Gandhian non-violent struggle, Satyagraha, which is to depend totally on people power and the strength of economic boycott of the occupier’s products. “What happened in South Africa was that this concept was further developed to include multiple and different forms of struggle, of which complete one another. And there was an emphasis in the later part of Apartheid, during the eighties, on Boycott [in all its forms].” Eid emphasized that the four pillars of struggle in South Africa should be taken as a model to learn from in the Palestinian struggle.

In the Palestinian context, the word “peace” has come to have a negative connotation, and Eid explains that this is due to the “industry of peace” processes that the Palestinians had to face constantly, and particularly from 1993 till now, where peace as a process was not linked to the attainment of justice for the Palestinian people, and the right of return of the refugees with reparation of the decades of suffering, estrangement, refugeehood and exile. “When we speak of peace, we will speak only of peace that leads to the implementation of Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.” What the settler colonial policies and direct military occupation of the WB and GS since 1967 require, says Eid, is an amalgam of the different forms of struggle. And, as such, the Palestinian call for Boycott, which brings together and is a common ground to all Palestinian national and Islamic factions, was initiated and appeals to the official and unofficial international community to boycott Israel. As a result of this initiative, the BNC [BDS National Committee] was formed in 2005 of which held the participation of all Palestinian national and Islamic factions.

“I believe that we in Gaza, unlike the WB, have not invested much in other forms of resistance. I don’t believe that armed struggle, of which I do not oppose and believe to go hand-in-hand with other forms of resistance, is enough taking into consideration the absurd imbalance of power between the Israeli state and the Palestinian national and Islamic resistance-there is a need to turn to people power as well.” Eid mentioned that if a minority involve themselves in armed resistance, then the majority of the people “from farmers, academics and intellectuals” need engage more in civil resistance against occupation.

“Can we imagine the Palesitnian people without Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish?” Eid asks. “What makes those Palestinians stand-out is their emphasis on the fact that the struggle against the Israeli occupation is an ideological struggle: we must defeat the Zionist mentality that this land is for the Jews, and that, we as Palestinians, should prove to the world that we posses the higher moral ground, that the Palestinian people in their resistance, whether armed or civil, will re-humanize the Israeli, unlike the latter whom strips the Palestinian off her humanity.”

Qumsiyeh, answering to “what is civil resistance,” mentioned that the Palestinian struggle has, since the British mandate till this date, involved resistance in all its forms: from civil to armed.

“Sumuud [endurance] by itself is resistance,” says Qumsiyeh. Simple acts as “getting married, going to school, reading a book” become acts of resistance. “When a student comes to my class at eight in the morning after passing numerous checkpoints- that is resistance,” Qumsiyeh notes.

Civil resistance is inclusive[at a time when exclusivity seems dominant]: from a woman, to a child to an elderly – all can resist. And that was what both academics and activists implied.

“We all need to look at Bil’in, ” says Qumsiyeh, “the demonstrations against the wall occurring all those years, unhesitatingly and consistently.” Not only in Bil’in does this civil resistance emerge but, more recently, in Gaza, says Eid, when the Palestinians in the Strip attempted to break the wall separating them from Egypt, twice, in forming a human chain from the beginning till the end of the Strip. Beit Sahour, the town of which Qumsiyeh is from, was exemplary in its civil resistance and civil disobedience, during the First Intifada, according to Eid. “When the Palestinians from Beit Sahour gave up their IDs to the military officer there,” this, Eid says was an example of civil resistance.

What about the use of bodies and human shield? Eid says that this is one of the most sublime forms of civil resistance, using the body in fighting off the bullets the bombs, in protection and defense of home and land.

A question arises of whether or not this kind of resistance creates a battle within the psyche of the occupier. This, Eid says, was something Mandela wrote about in his diaries and something which Said questioned a while before his death: “who possesses the higher moral ground: the colonized or the colonizer; the occupied or the occupier?” According to Eid, that as a civilian struggling for your moral and legal rights possesses the higher moral ground and, therefore, psychologically attacks the occupier. “This was what happened with the Nazi German, this was what happened with the White South African colonizer,” Eid says.

Eid mentions that “Israel is one of the societies of which domestic violence is most encountered” and “that there is a direct relation between domestic violence and suicide cases in the Israeli society and between the occupation in the WB, GS and 1948 lands.” He continues, “I think this is very important. For instance, there are many US soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan who commit suicide shortly after their return.” Thus the occupied possesses a moral and psychological power that should be invested against the occupation itself.

Eid re-emphasises that the obvious, huge imbalance of power in the Israeli-Palestinian case requires the moving away from negotiations that are but a waste of time:

“Israel has more than 450 nuclear heads, it has Apaches, it has F16s- it has the most strategic alliance with the USA. I mean, how can we as 10 millions Palestinian, more than half living in the Diaspora and in refugee camps living under horrendous conditions, fight that? People power.”

This inclusivity which brings together and encourages Israeli Jews against Israeli Apartheid and policies of colonization, with 1948 Palestinians, along with the farmer, the student, the fisherman, and all supporters of these universalistic rights share together this moral grounding, and can channel their suppression through civil resistance, through boycott – which is but the simplest of forms of resistance, and one of the most powerful simultaneously.

According to Eid, “if you hit the occupation in the core of its existence, through its strategic relations with the USA, through US boycott of Israel in all its faces […] if all the Islamic Palestinian factions, for instance, from Islamic Jihad, to Hamas, which all have a supportive stance from Islamic movements worldwide, promote BDS in their discourse, when every leader of an Islamic movement speaks and it was demanded to boycott US & Israeli products till the implementation of every basic Palestinian right-” then we can talk about the road to liberation.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Plight

Bianca Zammit and Fadi Skaik

29 November 2009

There are currently approximately 11,000 Palestinian prisoners being held captive in Israeli jails across Israel. Whilst their imprisonment is of itself in direct contravention of international law, the whole arrest, judiciary and imprisonment process compromises their basic human rights. In Gaza, the families of prisoners in Israeli jails meet every Monday at the premises of the International Committee of the Red Cross to hold a weekly vigil asking for the release of Palestinian prisoners. The demonstration also takes place at the ICRC building in order to send out a message to the international community, asking it to uphold international law and put pressure on Israel for the release of all prisoners.

Palestinians taken captive are held in one of the 24 prisons across Israel. The Fourth Geneva Convention through Article 76 prohibits an occupying power, in this case Israel, from imprisoning prisoners outside the territory it occupies and Article 47 of the same Convention clearly outlines that convicted prisoners should serve their sentence within the occupied territory.

Since September 2000 Palestinian citizens living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip require special permits to travel within the 1967 borders of Israel, yet these permits are very hard to come by. For these last three years all permits have stopped being issued and Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza are prohibited from entering 1948 land1.

The use of telephone is controlled and only in rare exceptions are Palestinian prisoners allowed to call their families. Without family visits and telephone calls the only ways of communicating is through letters and greetings families send through radio stations. Letters are received sparingly by both sides, months after they were written and sent2.

Hazem Shubair was imprisoned in an Israeli jail in 1993. His brother Tayseer has been denied the permit to visit his brother for the past 15 years. Hazem’ parents were allowed to visit him until 2002 and for the last 7 years they were forbidden access. All forms of communication between Hazem and his family have been severed. Hazem was sentenced to life imprisonment and the prospects of him being released in the near future are bleak. “I just want to see him, to have the opportunity of talking with him once more and to know how he is doing. These 17 years have been horrible” Tayseer states. Hazem has another 6 siblings anxiously awaiting his news and to be able of seeing him.

In terms of the judiciary system, Palestinians are tried within Israeli military courts located within Israeli military centers. These military tribunals are conducted by a panel of three judges appointed by the military, two of whom often do not have any legal training or background. This juxtaposes the impartiality and reliability of the legal apparatus since the judges are also soldiers who work on orders they receive from their supervisors and are dependent on the latter for promotion.3 These tribunals rarely fall within the required international standards of a fair trial.

Many Palestinian prisoners are either wounded or ill. Many prisoners were taken captive after having been shot at with live ammunition. According to Addameer Centre for Human Rights based in Gaza, “prison clinics tend to offer aspirin as a remedy for all health treatments and physicians within the clinics are all soldiers. Health examinations are conducted through a fence, and any necessary surgery or transfer to hospital for additional medical treatment is usually postponed for long periods of time”.

In 1999 the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that it does not forbid the use of torture but rather allows interrogation methods deemed as torture to be used in situations of national defense. The victim of torture can only submit a complaint in that case that torture can be clearly proven. Israel interrogators are able to use methods of torture without impunity. Legalized torture includes sleep deprivation, denial of food and water, denial of access to toilets and shackling4. A Palestinian detainee can be interrogated for up to 180 days, during which access to a lawyer may be denied for 60 days.

Many prisoners receive administrative detention where charges are based on secret evidence. In this case both the lawyer and the detainee are not aware of the reason for arrest and cannot practice their right of defense. The detainee and lawyer are also not informed about the date of release. In administrative detention the army hands over the detainee to the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) who interrogates the prisoner. After interrogation, ISA can either file for indictment or release detainee. If none of these two paths are chosen the military commander can choose administrative detention. Administrative detention can be extended indefinitely. This usage of administrative detention as a tool to imprison civilians violates International Law and Human Rights Charters but is legal according to Israeli legislation5.

Nayef Abu Azra, a 23 year old from Beit Hannoun, was arrested in 2007. Since then he has never been brought before a court. To Nayef’ mother there is no consolation. Asia Abu Azra stated “A group of Israeli infantry soldiers invaded our home and took Nayef. We do not know why he was arrested or when he shall be released. Nobody is giving us any information. Nayef was hard working and well respected in the community. My only hope is to see him again”.

Nowhere can the discriminatory laws within Israeli judiciary be clearer than in terms of Palestinian imprisonment which is reminiscent of apartheid South Africa. A Palestinian can be held in custody for 18 days before being brought before a judge. An Israeli citizen, however, can be held in custody for only a maximum of 48 hours before being brought before a judge. A Palestinian can be held without charge, by order of a judge for a period from one to 6 months. An Israeli citizen can be held without indictment for 15 days and can only be extended to 15 days. Lawyer visits can be prohibited for up to 3 months for a Palestinian detainee. The meeting between an Israeli detainee and his attorney can be delayed for 15 days6. In addition, when Palestinian detainees are arrested, the army is not obliged to inform the detainee’s family of their arrest or the location of their detention.

38 year old Ashraf Al-Balouji from Al-Sahaba area in Gaza was detained in Ramallah on December 14, 1990. He was ordained in the Israel military court and sentenced to 320 years imprisonment. His father Hassan Al-Balouji states “there is a different policy for Palestinians and Israelis in Israel. If my son were Israeli then his sentence would be very different. We all know that. Three years ago my wife passed away and Ashraf was not allowed to visit her or attend her funeral. His 7 children are also prohibited from visiting him.”

These discriminatory laws also affect children. There are now 337 Palestinian children in Israeli jails.7 Like the majority of other Palestinian prisoners, Palestinian child prisoners routinely face violations of their human rights during arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. They are exposed to physical and psychological abuse, amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and sometimes torture. They are denied prompt access to a lawyer and often denied contact with their families and the outside world. This is a clear breach of international law, which makes special provisions for the prisoners, specifically forbidding the use of physical and psychological torture8.

Nedal Mohammed Al-Soufi was just 17 years old when he was arrested. In 2007 during an army incursion, Israeli soldiers entered their home in Rafah and took him. Jana Al-Soufi, Nedal’ mother does not know the reason for his arrest. Nedal was sentenced to 9 years. The lack of communication sources between Nedal and his family concerns his mother. “I worry for his health and mental state. I have not received his news for many months”.

The imprisonment of Palestinians has been used routinely by Israeli authorities as one of the main tools to enforce the apartheid regime and ensure the ongoing success of the occupation. Israel has violated and is still violating a number of basic human rights in the way it kidnaps Palestinians, holds them captive without access to a lawyer and eventually tries them in a mock court which itself falls short of internationally agreed upon minimum standards. The injustices being perpetuated upon the 11,000 Palestinians prisoners must not be overlooked.

Bianca Zammit is a human rights activist and a member of the International Solidarity Movement “ISM” in Gaza.

Fadi N. Skaik is a BDS activist and an independent author based in Gaza

[1] Amnesty International (2009) Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

[2] Addameer – http://www.addameer.org/index_eng.html

[3] UN Human Rights Committee (2007) Article 14: Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial, UN Doc: CCPR/C/GC/32, 23 August 2007, page 6, paragraph 22.

[4] Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (2008) No Defense: Soldier Violence against Palestinian Detainees, page 3 – http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/node/1136

[5] Hamoked and B’Tselem (2009) Without Trial -Administrative detention of Palestinians by Israel and the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law, page 9.

[6] Addameer – http://www.addameer.org/index_eng.html

[7] Save the Children (2009) Fact Sheet – Palestinian Child Detainees at http://mena.savethechildren.se/Documents/Resources/Fact%20Sheet_oPt_detainees.pdf

[8]Defense for Children International (2009) Palestinian Child Prisoners- The systematic and institutionalized ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities, DCI Palestine: Jerusalem.

Eid al-Adha highlights a Gaza family’s struggle to survive

Rami Almeghari | The Electronic Intifada

25 November 2009

Eleven-year-old Rawan at her family's home in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza.

Muslims around the world are about to celebrate Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), one of the most important dates in the calendar, marking the end of the annual pilgrimage season to Mecca. Traditionally, Muslims slaughter a lamb (or offer money for one to be slaughtered for a poorer family), as an act of faith, as the Prophet Abraham did. In many Muslim countries, it is also a festive time of year, marked by family visits, purchasing new clothing, presenting gifts and offering sweets and candy to guests.

Daoud Suleiman Ahmad, 48, an unemployed construction worker, has been unable to find work for almost three years due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Life for Ahmad and his family in the al-Maghazi refugee camp has been desperately difficult, something that is particularly on his mind during the Eid.

“Over the past three years, I have felt a great deal of bitterness inside me as I have been unable to follow the rituals of the Eid al-Adha, as well as [meet] other daily basic expenses of my family,” Ahmad said at his home, surrounded by two of his children, daughter Rawan (11) and son Ahmad (9).

The house built by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, a few years ago, consists of three rooms: one for Ahmad and his wife, and the other two shared by all the children.

Before the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, Ahmad was among thousands of laborers who used to cross into Israel. But Israel shut out workers from Gaza, and then imposed a siege that has made it all but impossible for Ahmad to earn a living. Hours before being interviewed, Ahmad said he had quarreled with one of his sons who studies nursing. “I couldn’t afford to give him 10 shekels [three dollars] for his transportation, can you imagine?”

These daily hardships make it difficult to fulfill the social obligations of Eid. “I have two sisters who live 20 kilometers away in southern Gaza,” Ahmad explained. “Even if I wanted to visit them for Eid, I couldn’t because I cannot afford to bring with me some lamb meat or other gifts.” Because he would not want to visit family members empty-handed, Ahmad did not visit his sisters on Eid in recent years and probably will not do so this year.

Ahmad’s small home has become a sort of a prison; he prefers to stay inside rather than go outside and be confronted with the financial obligations of Eid. “If I go outside,” he said, “I need to look for things for my family and my children, things that I cannot afford for the time being.” Ahmad says his family depends mainly on food assistance provided by UNRWA.

In a corner of the home, Nadia al-Ustaz, Ahmad’s wife, prepared rice for the family’s lunch using a small kerosene stove due to the lack of cooking gas in Gaza over the past three weeks due to Israeli closure.

“What shall we do, as you can see, we can only afford food for the children,” al-Ustaz said, “and I thank God that we can provide them with it.” Reflecting on the Eid, she said, “It is a special time of the year for us. I wish my husband could give me a gift, like many other women, but I would never burden him with that, for our life is hard enough and we cannot afford such things.”

For the children, too, holiday time is one of anticipating new toys to play with. Rawan said she wished for a Barbie doll, but knew that her father couldn’t afford it. Little Ahmad had been sorely disappointed at the last Eid that he wasn’t able to have a football to play with his friends.

Ahmad estimates that new clothes for each of his children would cost over 200 shekels ($55), so buying new ones for Eid is out of the question. So his next destination was to take old clothes to a local tailor for repair and adjustment instead of buying new ones.

Ahmad handed a pair of his daughter Rawan’s trousers over to Muhammad al-Rifai, who runs a small tailor shop in al-Maghazi refugee camp. “More than a hundred households have brought clothes for repair to my shop, just before Eid,” al-Rifai said, “and of course mine is not the only shop in town.” According to al-Rifai, who used to own a larger clothing factory before the Israeli siege, this number is sharply up from previous years.

All over the Gaza Strip, families like that of Daoud Suleiman Ahmad will be unable to mark Eid in the traditional way. According to local and international estimates, the poverty rate in the Gaza Strip has hit a high of more than 70 percent of the territory’s 1.5 million residents, and the vast majority of households — like Ahmad’s — receive UNRWA food aid.

“I saw in my dreams flowers, peace and safety.” Those are the lyrics of a song that Rawan sang. Those wishes — as well as dignity — for hundreds of thousands of refugees in Gaza, are likely to remain dreams for some time to come.

All images by Rami Almeghari.

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.