Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Tal Schneider, Israel’s leading political blogger, broke a major story yesterday about the Hebron homes stolen and occupied over the past few days. In a new expansionist move from the 800-strong settler enclave amidst 30,000 Palestinian residents of Hebron, an Israeli group claimed to have purchased four Palestinian homes. The indigenous residents had been evicted and the thieves took over the properties.
Israeli media falsely claimed that settlers were the new owners. This is the standard manner in which such dispossession occurs. Except that in this case, the true story involved a radical escalation in strategy and tactics. The new owners were not settlers. They were actually members of the Likud Central Committee from communities within the Green Line.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/23/likud-central-committee-members-steal-palestinian-homes-expel-legitimate-owners/

Israeli settlement guards kill young Palestinians

Two young Palestinians were shot dead by a security guard in an Israeli settlement after allegedly stabbing two women on Monday. One of the women, 24-year-old Shlomit Krigman, died from her injuries the following day.

The incident took place at a supermarket in Beit Horon settlement near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-settlement-guards-kill-young-palestinians

Scores attend funeral of slain Palestinian girl

Dozens of Palestinians from Yatta attended the funeral of 13-year-old Ruqqaya Abu Eid in the cemetery of the village of al-Karmel east of Yatta.

Ruqayya Eid Abu Eid, originally from the city of Yatta south of Hebron, was shot dead on Saturday by an Israeli security guard after allegedly trying to stab him near the illegal settlement of Anatot.

The funeral procession set off from the Yatta mosque to the cemetery in Karmel, where a general strike began after Ruqayya’s death.

The participants chanted slogans condemning Israeli crimes against Palestinians, specifically urging the international community to act against Israeli violations targeting Palestinian children.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769950

Hundreds mourn teen killed in pipe bomb accident

Hundreds of mourners joined on Sunday the funeral procession of Muhammad Nabil Halabiya, 17, who was killed Saturday night by a pipe bomb that exploded prematurely.

Hani Halabiya, a relative of the teen and a spokesman of the popular resistance committee in the occupied East Jerusalem town of Abu Dis, told Ma’an that Muhammad, originally from Abu Dis, had been holding a pipe bomb near an Israeli military site on Saturday night when it prematurely exploded in his hands, killing him.

“Israeli forces did not allow ambulances to access him," Hani said, adding that the forces handed over Muhammad’s body after holding it for four hours.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769949

Sa'ir, the city of martyrs

This murdered woman is:

the daughter of a murdered woman,

the granddaughter of a murdered man,

the sister of a murdered boy,

the aunt of a murdered girl,

the daughter-in-law of a grandmother whose son was murdered,

(who in turn is the granddaughter of another murdered woman),

and the next-door neighbour of the uncle of a victim….

(A State of Siege, Mahmoud Darwish)
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/aicoment/1249-sa-ir-the-city-of-martyrs

Israeli forces detain 10 across West Bank, find small weapons cache (27-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769958

Israeli forces detain 4 Palestinians in West Bank(25-1)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769973

Israeli forces detain Palestinian lawmaker, former minister in Hebron
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769945

21 Palestinians shot during Friday demos in West Bank, Gaza (22-1)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769924

Palestinian family forced to demolish own home in Jerusalem

A Palestinian family in the occupied East Jerusalem village of Sur Bahir on Friday demolished their own home following an order from an Israeli court.

Khalil Dabash, owner of the home, told Ma’an that a Jerusalem municipal court ordered the demolition on the grounds that it was built without proper permits.

The court said the Dabash family would be charged for the demolition of their home if it was not demolished before Sunday.

Dabash is among many Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem who are forced to demolish their own homes in order to avoid paying the municipality high fees to carry out the demolitions.

Dabash said that his mother Jamila had built the house around 20 years ago and that the family had paid fines to the Jerusalem municipality several times before. The self-demolition left Dabash’s sister homeless.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769935

Israeli forces demolish two homes in East Jerusalem

Israeli forces on Wednesday tore down two buildings in occupied East Jerusalem, claiming one had been built without permits, while the other stood in the way of a new route connecting Israeli settlements.

Locals said that Israeli forces stormed and closed off an area in the Jabal al-Mukabbri neighborhood early Wednesday before bulldozers moved in and demolished a building under construction along with its surrounding wall.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769985

Palestinians of South Hebron Hills resist Israeli expulsion

This month Israeli police arrested three human rights defenders working in the South Hebron Hills area of the occupied West Bank.

The arrests put a spotlight on the struggle of Palestinians in the isolated region to resist Israel’s efforts to force them out.

Two Israelis, Ezra Nawi and Guy Butavia, and Palestinian Nasser Nawaja, were arrested after Israeli television aired a video filmed by the settler-funded right-wing organization Ad Kan which had infiltrated their group Ta’ayush.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/palestinians-south-hebron-hills-resist-israeli-expulsion

Israeli dies of wounds after stab attack, Palestinian village sealed

An Israeli injured during a stab attack in the illegal West Bank settlement of Beit Horon died from her wounds Tuesday, Israeli police said.

Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said in a statement that the 24-year-old woman succumbed to stab wounds in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769970

Palestinian teen discussed death on social media prior to fatal attack

A Palestinian teen responsible for carrying out a fatal attack inside an illegal Israeli settlement on Monday left several messages on social media indicating his potential plans for the attack.

Hussein Muhammad Abu Ghush, 17, was shot dead alongside Ibrahim Osama Yousif Allan, 23, after stabbing two Israeli women in the Beit Horon settlement, one of whom died Tuesday morning.

Several improvised explosive devices were also found in the settlement near the scene of attack.

The Facebook page of 17-year-old Abu Ghush, a resident of the Qalandiya refugee camp, reveals a series of messages in the lead-up to the day of the attack.

On Jan. 24, the day before the attack, Abu Ghush wrote: "History will write that we faced Israel with a stone, a knife, explosive devices, weapons, and our hearts, and we offered blood of Mujahideen as sacrifice for the place from which the Prophet ascended to heaven.

“May God accept us as martyrs in paradise,” the teen added.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769972

Lawyer: Hunger-striking journalist on brink of death

Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq, who has been on hunger strike in Israeli jail for 61 days, is on brink of death, the journalist's lawyer told Ma'an on Monday.

After visiting al-Qiq earlier in the day, Ashraf Abu Sneina, a lawyer with the Palestinian Authority's Committee for Prisoners' Affairs, said al-Qiq was unconscious and unable to speak, adding that he had exhibited "sudden symptoms that could lead to his death."

The head of the committee, Issa Qaraqe, accused Israel of "reckless and indifferent treatment of al-Qiq," which he said stemmed from "a decision by the extremist Israeli government and its intelligence to let him die."

The 33-year-old journalist from the southern West Bank town of Dura has been on hunger strike to protest his administrative detention, internment without trial or charge, since Nov. 24.

Qaraqe called on all appropriate organizations and human rights groups to exert every means available to pressure Israel to free al-Qiq, "because if he dies as a martyr, the situation will deteriorate both among Palestinians inside and out of Israeli prisons."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769962

Israeli court rejects appeal for Palestinian prisoner Thaer Halahla

An Israeli court has rejected the appeal of a Palestinian prisoner being held by Israeli authorities under administrative detention without charge or trial, the man's father said on Sunday.

Thaer Halahla’s father said that an Israeli court extended the detention of Halahla for the fifth time since 2013, claiming that he has “activities” in prison, without providing further details about the circumstances of his detention.

He added that he was told he is not allowed to visit his son in detention for “security reasons."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769952

PFLP prisoners to protest in solidarity with prisoner held in solitary

Palestinian supporters of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in a statement on Sunday, threatened to launch an in-prison protest in support of a PFLP-affiliated prisoner of Israel who has been kept in solitary confinement for more than five months.

PFLP-affiliated prisoners in Israeli jails said Israeli forces have been keeping prisoner Bilal Kayid in a segregated, “bottleneck, putrid cell without ventilation, light or proper winter blankets.”
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769948

Israeli forces to close Palestinian road near Israeli settlement

Israeli forces on Friday issued a notice for the closure of a main road connecting two Hebron-area villages in the southern occupied West Bank, located near the Israeli settlement of Otneil, locals told Ma’an.

A local popular committee spokesman, Ratib al-Jubour told Ma’an that Israeli forces delivered the notice to the village council in the Palestinian village of Beit Amra.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769933

Israeli naval forces open fire on Gaza fishermen

Israeli naval forces opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip Friday, fishermen said.

Fishermen told Ma'an that the forces opened fire on their vessels, forcing them to return to the shore. No injuries were reported.

An Israeli army spokesperson had no immediate information on the incident.

Palestinian fishermen are frequently targeted by Israeli forces, facing near daily harassment and interference with their work. Israel's army routinely says such measures are necessary to counter security threats.

As part of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the summer of 2014, Israel agreed to expand the fishing zone off of Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and to continue to expand the area gradually.

Despite this agreement, the head of Hemaya Center for Human Rights, Omar Qarut, told Ma'an that the Israeli navy had opened fire on Palestinian fishermen at sea at least 159 occasions in 2015.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769918

Start of school semester postponed in Gaza due to weather
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769943

Ban on political group in Israel leaves Gaza orphans destitute

The last thing Sabah Breas needed was a greater financial burden.

The 47-year-old widow and mother of six children, three born deaf, has relied for four years on a monthly stipend to assure the family’s survival in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.

But that assistance has dried up.

Israel’s decision in November to ban the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and freeze all its bank accounts and assets has also hit the various charitable associations that relied on the political movement.

This has left tens of thousands of clients in present-day Israel, as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, facing destitution.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ban-political-group-israel-leaves-gaza-orphans-destitute/15151

The Gaza Strip among the ruins and rain

Gaza Strip - Nothing has changed. Middle East Eye first spoke to Fareed al-Najjar late in 2014 after the 51-day war when the torrential rains began. Now they have come again and his situation is dire.

“We were told we'd only be living in these shipping containers for a few months, until we received replacement homes,” Najjar said. His neighbour interrupted: “They lied to us, and will leave us here forever.”

Elsewhere across the Gaza Strip, the roofs of several homes were recently blown off by the winter storms. Schools have been shut for two days and forecasters predict a new three-day storm will sweep the region with up to 80-kilometre winds starting Sunday night.

Fire department official Raed al-Dahsahn told MEE that 17 people had to be evacuated from their homes. Gaza municipalities have announced a state of emergency and staff members are expected to work around the clock.

Najjar’s house was one of about 100,000 homes destroyed or heavily damaged in the war that resulted in more than 2,200 people killed and tens of thousands injured and homeless. He has survived in a rusty, leaking shipping container that was damaged by the storms in 2014 and has now become unlivable.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-strip-among-ruins-and-rain-1990768197

Gaza’s children grow up with trauma

It has taken Mansour’s mother a long time to learn to cope with her 12-year-old son’s changing personality.

Once a top student, Mansour has become aggressive and disobedient. His grades are down, his mother says, and he suffers night terrors.

Mansour’s mother can date his transformation to Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014.

“He was a top student before then. He used to be a cheerful boy,” she recalled.

During the assault, the family had to evacuate their home and move to a UN shelter, a school that was then also bombed. Since then, Mansour’s mother told The Electronic Intifada, he now prefers to be alone at school or at home. He has also started wetting the bed.

“He is easily terrified by loud sounds like thunder,” according to his mother, who, like others interviewed for this story, declined to be named in order to protect her privacy.

These are classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, though as health care professionals at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) never tire of pointing out, in Gaza there is never any “post.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-children-grow-trauma/15221

UK doctors call for removal of Israel from World Medical Association

A group of British doctors is pushing for the World Medical Association (WMA) to expel the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), the IMA’s chairman said on Wednesday during a meeting of the Knesset Science and Technology committee.

In a discussion dealing with the academic boycott of Israel, Zeev Feldman said that 71 British doctors recently called on the WMA to remove the Israeli medical group from its ranks due to allegations of torture by Israeli doctors on Palestinians.

Israeli doctors in prison facilities have long been accused of standing by or abetting the torture of Palestinian detainees.

“The sword of the boycott is being raised on the Israeli scientific-medical community’” Feldman said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769939

Israeli State Implicated in Criminal Acts Against Human Rights Lawyer

Back in 2010, Im Tirzu (Fascists) published the private legal work product of Israeli human rights attorney, Michael Sfard, regarding the human rights work of his NGO clients. At the time, Sfard believed that Im Tirzu itself had broken into his offices to pilfer the confidential documents. As one would expect, given the Israeli police record of defending the rights of left-wing NGOs, the police closed the case for “lack of evidence.”

These legal materials were published in Sheldon Adelson’s Yisrael HaYom, the newspaper founded by the billionaire to get Netanyahu into the prime minister’s office and keep him there. The article claimed that Yesh Din, one of Sfard’s clients sought to classify IDF military assaults against Gaza as war crimes. Im Tirzu believed that such exposure would shame the NGO in the eyes of the Israeli public and forever mark it as a traitor to the Israeli State.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/27/israeli-state-implicated-in-criminal-acts-against-human-rights-lawyer/

In the Jewish state, equality for Arabs is impossible by definition

This week the Israeli army radio, Galei Tzahal, conducted a survey which, among other things, polled the attitude of Israeli Jews regarding full equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. The results of the survey, conducted among 503 Jews, revealed that the Jewish public in this country is almost equally divided on this issue. 45 percent oppose full equal rights for the state’s Arab citizens, 43 percent are in favor, 6 percent replied “it depends” (it’s unclear on what) and six percent do not know their position on this.
Two interesting points arise from the way this survey was conducted. First, in a militaristic society like Israel, it is not surprising that an army radio station intervenes in the civil realm without question, reflecting the clear overlap between (Jewish) civil society and the military in Israel. Secondly, those conducting the survey only asked Jews, and are thus acting on the idea that Jews in this country have the sole authority to determine whether and how equal the Arab can be. By doing so they continue to shape public opinion such that it is completely natural that Jews have the final word.
http://972mag.com/in-the-jewish-state-equality-for-arabs-is-impossible-by-definition/116225/

Support right for BDS in France

The criminal division of the Court of Cassation, France's highest appeals court, issued a decision last October, affirming that the call to boycott Israeli goods is a misdemeanor in France and punishable as such. A small group of activists of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, who in 2010 had chanted slogans, handed out leaflets, and worn T-shirts at a supermarket near Mulhouse, calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, had been brought to trial for "provoking discrimination" against the producers and suppliers of goods (considered as a "group of people") by reason of their belonging to the Israeli nation. The activists were cleared at the first trial, but in November 2013, they were found guilty upon appeal by the Colmar Appeals Court, and were sentenced to pay 12000 euros in damages to the plaintiffs, as well as stiff legal fees. In rejecting their appeal of this sentence, the Court of Cassation affirmed that in calling upon consumers not to buy Israeli goods, the activists were indeed guilty of a misdemeanor — a call to national discrimination — and that the Colmar Appeals Court sentence was thus legally justified.

By the decision of October 20, 2015, France becomes the only country in the world — alongside Israel — to penalise civic appeals not to buy Israeli goods. In all the major democratic countries, the Israeli government's repeated demands to penalise boycott calls have been rejected, in the name of freedom of expression, of the need for a democratic debate (which may include controversial aspects) on international questions, and of respect for political associations. Whether one is for or against BDS as a way of bringing about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on international law, no one outside France denies the peaceful character of the movement and its right to act and to develop, notably by boycott calls, including the call to boycott Israeli goods.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/29-upcomming-resistance/1248-act-support-right-for-bds-in-france