Tag: United Nations

Israeli forces arrest Palestinian on his return from testifying to the UN in Geneva

Update: According to his legal representation, Mohammad Srour will be released on bail.

For Immediate Release:

22 July 2009: Israeli forces arrest Palestinian on his return from testifying to the United Nations in Geneva.

Mohammad Srour was arrested on 20 July 2009 while crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan.

Srour and Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli solidarity activist, testified to the United Nations in Geneva on 6 July 2009 about the murder of 2 young men by Israeli forces during a demonstration in Ni’lin.

(Video available: http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/archive.asp?go=090706, download the video: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/conferences/unhrc/gaza/gaza090706pm1-eng.rm?start=00:35:37&end=01:41:24)

Srour, a member of the Ni’lin Popular Committee Against the Wall, participates in demonstrations that take place against the theft of Ni’lin’s land. He and Pollack were witness to the shooting of 2 Ni’lin residents (Arafat Rateb Khawaje and Mohammed Khawaje) on 28 December 2009, during a demonstration in solidarity with Gaza.

“I know full well that I will pay the price for this testimony when I return at Israeli crossing points in my journey of return after this hearing.” –Mohammad Srour stated at minute 4 of his testimony to the United Nations

Srour was arrested at the border crossing of the Allenby Bridge and taken to Ofer prison. On Wednesday, he was interrogated by Israeli forces and his lawyer has requested an urgent hearing for Thursday. He will likely be taken to court on Thursday, 23 July 2009 to hear the charges against him.

Background

The West Bank village of Ni’lin has been demonstrating since the Israeli government began for a second time to construct the Wall on village lands in May 2008. To date, Israeli forces have killed 5 residents of Ni’lin and critically injured 1 American solidarity activist. According to local medics who volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent, over 450 people have been injured during demonstrations as of April 2009.

Visibly, the violence from Israeli forces dramatically increased during and after the 22-day assault on Gaza that began on 27 December 2008. Israeli forces have killed 3 demonstrators since the beginning of the Gaza assault in Ni’lin. Additionally, the Israeli army has introduced new weapons against demonstrators; using the high-velocity tear gas projectile and a 0.22 calibre live ammunition shot by sniper fire as a means of crowd dispersal.

Additionally, Israeli arrest and intimidation campaigns on the villages that demonstrate against the Wall, have led to the arrests of over 76 Palestinians in Ni’lin alone.

  • 5 June 2009: Yousef Akil Srour (36) was shot in the chest with 0.22 caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 13 March 2009: Tristan Anderson (37), an American citizen, was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas projectile. He is currently at Tel Hashomer hospital with uncertain prospects for his recovery.
  • 28 December 2008: Mohammed Khawaje (20) was shot in the head with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition. He died in a Ramallah hospital 3 days later on 31 December 2008.
  • 28 December 2008: Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) was shot in the back with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 30 July 2008: Yousef Amira (17) was shot in the head with two rubber coated steel bullets. He died in a Ramallah hospital 5 days later on 4 August 2008.
  • 29 July 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.

In total, 19 people have been killed during demonstrations against the Wall.

In total, 38 people have been shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition in Ni’lin: 9 were shot with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and 29 were shot with 0.22 caliber live ammunition.

Since May 2008, residents of Ni’lin have been organizing and participating in unarmed demonstrations against construction of the Apartheid Wall. Despite being deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, the Occupation continues to build the Wall, further annexing Palestinian land.

Ni’lin will lose approximately 2,500 dunums of agricultural land when construction of the Wall is completed. Israel annexed 40,000 of Ni’lin’s 58,000 dunums in 1948. After the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the illegal settlements and infrastructure of Kiryat Sefer, Mattityahu and Maccabim were built on village lands and Ni’lin lost another 8,000 dunums. Of the remaining 10,000 dunums, the Occupation will confiscate 2,500 for the Wall and 200 for a tunnel to be built under the segregated settler-only road 446. Ni’lin will be left with 7,300 dunums.

Ni’lin demonstrators testify at the United Nations

6 July 2009

The West Bank village of Ni’lin has been demonstrating since the Israeli government began for a second time to construct the Apartheid Wall on village lands in May 2008. To date, Israeli forces have killed 5 residents of Ni’lin and critically injured 1 American solidarity activist. According to local medics who volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent, over 450 people have been injured during demonstrations as of April 2009.

Visibly, the violence from Israeli forces dramatically increased during and after the 22 day assault on Gaza that began on 27 December 2008. Israeli forces have killed 3 demonstrators since the beginning of the Gaza assault in Ni’lin. Additionally, the Israeli army has introduced new weapons against demonstrators; using the high-velocity tear gas projectile and a 0.22 calibre live ammunition shot by sniper fire as a means of crowd dispersal.

Two witnesses to the willful killings of Arafat Rateb Khawaje and Mohammed Khawaje with live ammunition on 28 December 2009, a Palestinian resident of Ni’lin and an Israeli solidarity activist, testified to the United Nations in Geneva on 6 July 2009.

Their testimonies are available on the United Nations video archives. The testimonies from Ni’lin are the 2nd to last on the webpage, labelled Mr. Sour and Mr. Jonathan Pollack.

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Background on Ni’lin’s struggle

Israeli forces commonly use tear-gas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition against demonstrators.

To date, Israeli occupation forces have murdered five Palestinian residents and critically injured 1 international solidarity activist during unarmed demonstrations in Ni’lin.

  • 29 July 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 30 July 2008: Yousef Amira (17) was shot in the head with two rubber coated steel bullets. He died in a Ramallah hospital 5 days later on 4 August 2008.
  • 28 December 2008: Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) was shot in the back with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 28 December 2008: Mohammed Khawaje (20) was shot in the head with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition. He died in a Ramallah hospital 3 days later on 31 December 2008.
  • 13 March 2009: Tristan Anderson (37), an American citizen, was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas projectile. He is currently at Tel Hashomer hospital with an unknown
  • 5 June 2009: Yousef Akil Srour (36) was shot in the chest with 0.22 caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.

In total, 35 people have been shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition in Ni’lin: 7 were shot with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and 28 were shot with 0.22 caliber live ammunition.

Since May 2008, residents of Ni’lin have been organizing and participating in unarmed demonstrations against construction of the Apartheid Wall. Despite being deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, the Occupation continues to build the Wall, further annexing Palestinian land.

Ni’lin will lose approximately 2,500 dunums of agricultural land when construction of the Wall is completed. Israel annexed 40,000 of Ni’lin’s 58,000 dunums in 1948. After the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the illegal settlements and infrastructure of Kiryat Sefer, Mattityahu and Maccabim were built on village lands and Ni’lin lost another 8,000 dunums. Of the remaining 10,000 dunums, the Occupation will confiscate 2,500 for the Wall and 200 for a tunnel to be built under the segregated settler-only road 446. Ni’lin will be left with 7,300 dunums.

The current entrance to the village will be closed and replaced by a tunnel to be built under Road 446. This tunnel will allow for the closure of the road to Palestinian vehicles, turning road 446 into a segregated settler-only road . Ni’lin will be effectively split into 2 parts (upper Ni’lin and lower Ni’lin), as road 446 runs between the village. The tunnel is designed to give Israeli occupation forces control of movement over Ni’lin residents, as it can be blocked with a single military vehicle.

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UN Gaza inquiry wraps up hearings | BBC News

8 July 2009

Richard Goldstone said his four member team had been shaken by the extent of the destruction in Gaza.

Witnesses from Gaza, Israel and the West Bank gave testimony in public hearings in Gaza and Geneva.

Israel has refused to co-operate, accusing the UN Human Rights Council of bias against it.

The investigation is looking into whether Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during Israel’s three-week operation in Gaza in December and January.

The Human Rights Council has been accused of singling out Israel unfairly, although Mr Goldstone, who is Jewish, is a respected South African war crimes prosecutor.

Israel did not provide visas for the investigators to visit the south of Israel, which has suffered years of Palestinian rocket fire, or the West Bank, and the team entered Gaza from Egypt.

In two days of hearings last weeks, Gaza residents described harrowing stories of bereavement and injury during the Israeli operation.

And on Monday and Tuesday, residents of southern Israel, weapons experts, Palestinian lawyers and the father of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit gave testimony.

“The testimonies we have heard from victims and witnesses… have been very difficult to hear, but I believe it is important that we listen to these stories,” Mr Goldstone told a news conference.

“Obviously on this mission, visiting Gaza was very important, not only to listen to people but to see the physical damage. That shook all of us, the extent of it,” Goldstone said.

Previous investigations

It is the first time a UN fact-finding mission has held such public hearings.

Mr Goldstone said written questions would now be submitted to Israel and Hamas and the team was aiming to present its report in September.

Several investigations into alleged violations of international law during Israel’s 22-day operation in Gaza, which ended on 18 January, have now reported back.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has requested more than $11m (£7m) compensation from Israel for damage to UN property in Gaza, after a limited UN inquiry accused Israel of targeting known civilian shelters and providing untrue statements to justify actions in which civilians were killed.

The report found Israel to blame in six out of nine incidents when death or injury were caused to people sheltering at UN property and UN buildings were damaged.

The Israeli military has concluded in an internal investigation that its troops fought lawfully, although errors did take place, such as the deaths of 21 people in a wrongly targeted house.

International human rights group Amnesty International accused both sides of committing war crimes in a detailed report on the conflict last week.

Palestinian rights groups say more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the January conflict. Israel puts the figure at 1,166.

Israeli and Palestinian estimates also differ on the numbers of civilian casualties.

According to the United Nations, the Israeli military campaign left more than 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties and 200 schools damaged or destroyed, as well as 39 mosques and two churches.

UN: Israel must tear down West Bank barrier

Associated Press

8 July 2009

Israel must tear down its West Bank separation barrier, a senior U.N. official said Wednesday, marking five years since the International Court of Justice declared the barrier illegal and a violation of Palestinian rights.

The barrier separates Israel from the West Bank and in places cuts into Palestinian territory. Israel started building it in 2002 to stop a wave of suicide bombing attacks by Palestinians, who infiltrated across the cease-fire line.

Palestinians charge the complex of walls, trenches, barbed wire and electronic sensors is a land grab that cuts people off from their property and basic services.

Israel did not recognize the 2004 ruling against the barrier by the International Court of Justice, an advisory opinion with no enforcement mechanism.

The barrier is about two-thirds completed. The southern section, near sparsely populated areas on both sides of the line, has not been constructed. Israel’s Supreme Court has forced rerouting of several segments closer to the Israel-West Bank line.

At a news conference in Jerusalem to mark the anniversary, the U.N. released a statement concluding that the completed barrier would close in 35,000 Palestinians and wall off another 125,000 on three sides. About 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the barrier is only part of the problem.

“The wall is but one element of the wider system of severe restrictions on the freedom of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian residents of the West Bank,” Pillay said. Israeli must “dismantle the wall” and “make reparations for all damage suffered by all persons affected by the wall’s construction,” she said.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not comment on the statement Wednesday. Israel’s government has said in the past that the completed sections of the barrier have significantly reduced Palestinian attacks in Israel.

The U.N. said it will release a full report on the humanitarian impact of the barrier later this month.

Israeli to UN: Palestinian detainees kept in ditches

Daniel Edelson | YNet News

7 July 2009

A member of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) testified in Geneva on Tuesday before a United Nations investigation team looking into the Israeli offensive in Gaza about half a year ago.

Attorney Majd Bader, an Arab Israeli, told the committee that Palestinians detained by Israel during Operation Cast Lead were held in detention under ‘disgraceful” conditions and were subjected to violent Shin Bet interrogations and constant threats.

Speaking to Ynet, Bader said that during his testimony he spoke of the “acute problems of Gazans who are being held in Israeli prisons.”

“Some of them said the IDF held detainees in ditches that had been prepared in advance; 50 to 70 people were squeezed into ditches two to three meters (6.5-10 feet) deep and some 50 meters (164 feet) wide,” he said.

The PCATI representative said the detainees testified to being held handcuffed and blindfolded with no access to restrooms, food or water.

‘Clear findings needed’

As for the interrogations by the Shin Bet security service, Bader said these included the use of physical and verbal abuse and threats on the detainees and their families.

“Some detainees said they were allowed very little sleep for days on end and claimed they were handcuffed in a painful way,” he said.

Bader further complained that the detainees are prevented from meeting their lawyers and that their families could not visit them due to the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

The attorney expressed his hope that the committee would publish clear findings “that will prevent the recurrence of human rights infringements on the part of both sides.”

Bader said he believed Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the committee was a mistake. “The government should not have boycotted the committee if it was confident in the moral and legal justification of its ways,” he said.

“Israel should have established an independent investigative committee to examine the allegations.”

UN’s Richard Falk: IDF seizure of Gaza-bound ship is ‘criminal’

Ha’aretz

3 July 2009

A United Nations human rights investigator on Thursday called Israel’s seizure of a ship carrying relief aid for the Gaza Strip “unlawful” and said its blockade of the territory constituted a “continuing crime against humanity”.

Israeli authorities on Tuesday intercepted the vessel, which was also carrying 21 pro-Palestinian activists, and said it would not be permitted to enter Gaza coastal waters because of security risks in the area and its existing naval blockade.

Richard Falk, an American Jew and the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the move was part of Israel’s “cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza” in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting any form of collective punishment against “an occupied people”.

Falk, who is an expert on international law, said Israel’s two-year blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza restricted vital supplies such as food, medicine and fuel to “bare subsistence levels”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report this week that Israel was also halting entry to Gaza of building materials and spare parts needed to repair damage from its 22-day invasion late last December.

“Such a pattern of continuing blockade under these conditions amounts to such a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions as to constitute a continuing crime against humanity,” Falk said in a statement released in Geneva.

Prior to leaving Cyprus, the ship was inspected by Cypriot authorities in response to Israeli demands to determine whether it carried any weapons, according to the UN investigator. “None were found and Israeli authorities were so informed.”

“Nonetheless, the 21 peace activists on the boat were arrested, held in captivity and have been charged with ‘illegal entry’ to Israel even though they had no intention of going to Israel,” Falk added.

Israel envoy calls remarks ‘biased’

Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, rejected the remarks by Falk whom he said was “known for his bias against Israel and anti-Israel statements”.

Israel is allowing relief aid to reach Gaza in coordination with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, Leshno-Yaar said.

“Clearly the purpose of that ship was to create a buzz and serve as a propaganda vehicle against Israel,” he told Reuters.

Activists from the U.S.-based Free Gaza movement said that Irish Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney were among those aboard.

Falk has had his own difficulties with Israeli authorities in trying to fulfill his independent mandate for the UN Human Rights Council.

Last December, he was detained and turned back from Israel, forcing him to abort a planned mission to Gaza — a deportation denounced by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In a report last March, Falk said Israel’s year-end military assault on the densely population coastal strip of 1.5 million appeared to constitute a grave war crime.