FREE PALESTINE

Israel stops money for Gaza’s disabled

2009-09-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

Tel Aviv prevents injured Palestinians who use to work and pay social security in Israel from their rights.

By Jonathan Cook - NAZARETH, Israel

Yunis al Masri was luckier than his two brothers from Gaza. Although the truck that ploughed into their car as they travelled to work in Israel 24 years ago killed Jaber and Kamal instantly, Mr al Masri survived with shattered bones, internal bleeding and brain damage.

Today, aged 49 and after many operations, he has difficulty walking and problems remembering to do things. Any hope of working again was crushed in 1985 amid the car wreckage.

Like tens of thousands of other Palestinian manual labourers who worked inside Israel before Gaza was progressively sealed off to the outside world from the early 1990s, Mr Al Masri had paid regularly into Israel’s social security fund from his salary.

Certified as disabled by an Israeli medical committee, he is entitled to a monthly allowance of US$800 (Dh2,900) from Israel’s National Insurance Institute, out of which he has supported his wife and 10 children in their home in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

In early January, however, the transfers of disability benefits stopped arriving in his bank account in Gaza. About 700 other injured workers are in the same situation.

The reason, they have learnt, is that while the Israeli army was rampaging through the Gaza Strip during its winter assault, the Bank of Israel severed ties with Gaza’s banks.

The ending of financial relations between Israel and Gaza, in a deepening of the three-year blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave, means Mr al Masri and other disabled workers have been without a source of income for the past nine months.

Mr al Masri said he had been forced heavily into debt to keep putting food on the table, adding that the whole family was now dependent on his daughter, Nura, 26. During Ramadan she started part-time secretarial work that brings in $100 a month, though the job is far from secure. “How far will that money go to feed and support a family of 12?” he said.

Nura added: “When the benefits first stopped arriving, we called the National Insurance Institute and were told it’s a political decision and that when Gilad Shalit was returned we would get our money.” Sgt Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was captured by Hamas in June 2006. It is believed he is being held in Gaza.

Mr al Masri’s sister-in-law, Hasna, who lost her husband, Jaber, in the crash, said none of her four children were earning and the family was without any source of income. She had recently told her eldest son, who is studying in Romania, that there was no money left for his course fees.
“We are happy go to the checkpoint at Erez to pick up the cheque in person if that is what it takes,” Mr al Masri said.

The workers’ cases have been taken up by the Al Mezan centre for human rights, based in Gaza, and by an Israeli legal group, Adalah, which launched a petition against the government’s decision in the Supreme Court last week.

Mahmoud abu Rahma, a spokesman for Al Mezan, said the 700 injured workers had been part of a large workforce of as many as 80,000 Gazans who regularly worked in Israel during the 1970s and 1980s. The numbers only began to dwindle in the early 1990s as Israel introduced a closure policy and built an electronic fence around Gaza. The Oslo accords of the 1990s, which held out the hope of Palestinian self-rule, further reduced the opportunities for work as Israel entrenched its policy of separation.

Much of the manual labour, once done by Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, is today performed by 300,000 guest workers, mainly from the Philippines, Thailand, China and eastern Europe.

Mr Abu Rahma said the disabled workers, having lost the chance to work, were now suffering the indignity of not being able to provide for their families.

“Israel has absolute control not only over the physical borders of Gaza, but also over our monetary system, too,” he said. “We depend on the Israeli currency of the shekel and Israel’s banks can turn on and off the money supply at will.”

Israel’s blockade of Gaza has been progressively tightened since Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections in early 2006. Following the Islamic movement’s rout of an attempted coup by the rival Fatah group in summer 2007, Israel declared Gaza an “enemy entity” and started cutting off fuel and power supplies. Now only the most essential items get through.

The only two Israeli banks dealing with Gaza, Hapoalim and Discount, received approval from the Bank of Israel to cut their links during the assault on Gaza. The central bank had previously opposed such a move, fearing that it would bring about the collapse of Gaza’s economy.

This week, a report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development noted that 90 per cent of Gaza’s population was living below the poverty line, with employment restricted almost entirely to government and public administration and small service industries.

Mr Abu Rahma said the disabled workers included the poorest and most vulnerable among Gaza’s population of 1.5 million, and many were in danger of starvation if payments were not resumed soon. “They have no other sources of income and are really struggling without their benefits.”

In 1998, Fadil Qomsan fell seven storeys from a building site in Ashdod, 25km north of Gaza, breaking his back.

During the two weeks he spent in a hospital in Tel Aviv, he said, the site’s manager came to his bedside to tell him that the construction company was denying responsibility. “He told me that I had fallen because I was using drugs. The police organised many blood tests during my stay, but they all came back negative. Eventually I won my right to disability allowance.”

Mr Qomsan, 46, from Jabaliya camp, who needs a back brace to walk, has been assessed as 81 per cent disabled. He was receiving $450 to support his wife and three children, the youngest of whom is seven. “Our financial situation was desperate even when we were getting the cheques, but now it’s beyond miserable.”

He said the family had been forced to survive on the charity of family and friends.

Taysir al Basoos has been blind since 16 when a nail fired from a nail gun on a building site in Ashkelon, 10km north of Gaza, penetrated his chest, severed the blood flow to his brain and left him blind.

Mr Al Basoos, 47, said his wife and six children, including the youngest who is five, were entirely dependent on his monthly disability benefits.

“Workers like me helped to build the state of Israel; we did not put Hamas in charge of Gaza,” he said. “I am not politically active at all, so why am I being punished? Our case is a humanitarian one.”

Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, said six representative cases of disabled workers from Gaza who were denied benefits have been presented to the Israeli Supreme Court. They included construction workers who fell; a gardener for a local council who was crushed by a falling crane, and a car wash operator who lost two fingers.

Ms Zaher said Adalah had first approached the National Insurance Institute, the Bank of Israel and various government ministries in April, when the change in policy became clear, but they had all shirked responsibility.

“We were told by the NII that it was trying to negotiate a solution with the Palestinian Authority, possibly by transferring the money through the [Fatah-run] West Bank, but it led nowhere.”

Adalah argues that the decision to block the payments to Gaza violates Israeli law. “The money is the property of the disabled workers and this decision unjustly deprives them of their property,” Ms Zaher said.

Adalah is also claiming that the decision, because it affects the welfare entitlements of Palestinian workers only and not of Israelis, constitutes racism.

Mr Abu Rahma said there was an additional concern that some of the workers could not afford essential medicines needed in their treatment.

Sharif Qarmout, 58, of Jabaliya camp, has been paralysed from the waist since 1979 when he fell six storeys from a building site in Rishon Letzion, near Tel Aviv. The loss of his monthly allowance of $1,150 has plunged the family into great hardship as they struggle not only to buy food but also to pay the $350 bill each month for the 15 different drugs he needs to control his incontinence, improve blood circulation in his legs and prevent depression.

“A year and a half ago Israel stopped giving my wife permission to go to the hospital in Ashkelon to collect the medicines,” said Mr Qarmout, who uses a wheelchair. “I was forced to buy them privately in Gaza, but now I don’t have the money. I’ve been using different pharmacies, paying on credit, but it can’t go on much longer. I’ve started reducing the doses to make the drugs last longer.”

Mr Qarmout said his three grown children were living in the house to care for him, as his wife was mostly confined to bed with severe back problems from 30 years of lifting him.

“No one is taking responsibility for people like me – not Hamas, not Israel.”

Marie Badarne, of the Labourers’ Voice, a workers’ rights group based in Nazareth, said the Israeli government’s abuse of the disabled workers echoed a much wider problem faced by Gazans who had been employed in Israel until recently.

She said thousands of workers from Gaza had their contracts in Israel terminated without notice by employers in spring 2004, shortly after the government of Ariel Sharon announced it would be “disengaging” from the enclave in summer 2005.

Most had been working in construction, garages, textile factories, carpentry workshops or as agricultural labourers inside Israel or in a handful of Jewish settlements inside Gaza that were dismantled in August 2005.

“Overnight more than 20,000 workers had their work permits withdrawn and lost their livelihoods,” she said. “They had been paying into the social security system, some of them for decades, but have been denied their legal entitlements, such as severance pay, overtime and holiday allowance.”
The Labourers’ Voice said its investigations had also shown that most Israeli employers had been paying Gaza’s workers below the minimum wage.

According to its calculations, the laid-off workers from Gaza are each typically owed between $12,000 and $50,000, meaning that Israeli employers have “defrauded the workforce of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars”, Ms Badarne said.

In July, the Nazareth group submitted claims on behalf of more than 40 workers to the labour court in Beersheva, which has agreed to hear the cases. All the workers were employed by a furniture company, mostly as carpenters, at the Erez industrial estate close to the Gaza Strip.
Ms Badarne said the company did not deny that the workers were owed money but had defended its actions on the grounds that Gaza had been declared an “enemy entity”.

“Their lawyers have said that, because Gaza is an enemy entity, the residents should be treated as a hostile population,” she said. “They told the judge that Israel must not open its doors to terrorists and that ending the economic siege would work against the interests of the Israeli state.

“In an attempt to bolster their argument that the case in support of the workers should be dismissed, the lawyers even sent the court a copy of the Hamas charter and an analysis of what it means.”

She added that, despite the fact that Israeli employers made social security deductions from Gazans’ salaries, the workers could no longer make use of the benefits they should be entitled to.
“If they get sick, for example, these workers should have the right to use Israeli hospitals because they paid health insurance, but of course that obligation is no longer being honoured. In some cases, given the deteriorating provision of health care in Gaza under the blockade, that right could mean the difference between life and death.”

Ronit Gedultir, a spokeswoman for Israel’s National Insurance Institute, said officials were seeking a solution for the disabled workers’ families affected by the bank’s decision.

“This is a very delicate issue and we are not neglecting it,” she said. “The money is waiting here for the families, but so far we have found no way to deliver it to them.”

Israel has also been seeking to end the right of Palestinian civilians to seek compensation for injuries they have suffered at the hands of the Israeli army.

A bill that exempted the state from legal claims by Palestinians for personal injury or damage to property inflicted by the army during the second intifada was passed in summer 2005 but overturned a year later by the Supreme Court.

Hassan Jabareen, the director of Adalah, said the law had recently been amended in an attempt to bypass the court and was expected to be resubmitted to the parliament this month.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=34248

B'Tselem: Israel killed 252 children in Gaza war

2009-09-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

Israel killed 1,387 Palestinians, including 320 minors, 111 women, 248 policemen, 330 fighters.

JERUSALEM - Israel's military offensive on Gaza killed 1,387 Palestinians, with most of them, including 320 minors, not having taken part in the fighting, an Israeli human rights group said on Wednesday.

B'Tselem said 773 of the Palestinians killed in the December-January offensive "did not take part in the hostilities."

B'Tselem said 252 children under the age of 16 and 111 women were among those killed.

Sixty-eight Palestinians aged 16 to 18 who did not take part in the fighting were among the fatalities, who also included 19 minors in the same age group "who took direct part in the hostilities," the rights group said.

"The extremely heavy civilian casualties and the massive damage to civilian property require serious introspection on the part of Israeli society," a B'Tselem statement said, calling on Israel to conduct an "independent and credible" investigation.

It said that 330 of those killed took part in the fighting.

Israel killed 248 policemen, most of them killed when police stations were bombed on December 28, the first day of the three-week offensive.

The policemen also did not take part in the fighting.

The group said that for 36 fatalities, it could not determine whether or not they had participated in hostilities.

B'Tselem said its figures were obtained by researchers who "visited homes and gathered death certificates, photos and testimonies" for all the children killed.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment but had previously stressed that its objective during Operation Cast Lead was to target Hamas and "not the citizens of the Gaza Strip."

Gaza emergency medical services say 1,382 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, 447 of them under the age of 18.

The B'Tselem report said Palestinians killed nine Israelis, including three civilians, while another four soldiers were killed by friendly fire.

Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.

UN blames Israel for blocking food aid to Gaza

2009-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

As Israel claims its imposed siege on Gaza is for security reasons, basic foodstuffs are being blocked from reaching the impoverished strip.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said Monday that the Israeli government has created a dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip by blocking humanitarian aid to help the residents of Gaza who are in desperate need of essential goods.

UNRWA spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Adnan Abu Hasna, said he does not understand the connection between the shipment of aid (in the form of food) to Gaza and Israel's security concerns.

The Israeli authorities have banned tea, sweets, date bars, jam, biscuits and tomato paste from entering the coastal territory.

According to UNRWA, the crippling Israeli blockade in place since June 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza, has also increased the level of unemployment in the area which makes most Palestinian families unable to provide for their basic needs.

Over 40 percent of Gaza's population of 1.5 million is jobless.

The UN body has repeatedly called for the immediate opening of Gaza's crossings.

Many analysts say the people of Gaza are experiencing a "black Ramadan," the holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting for Muslims, since they cannot satisfy their basic needs.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=105541&sectionid=351020202

Israelis kill Palestinian child in West Bank

2009-09-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

A Palestinian child has died of gunshot wounds after Israeli troops opened fire on him in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli medics say.

The 13-year-old boy, Ghazi Maher Al Zaaanen, was shot in the head by Israeli troops stationed east of the town of Beit Hanoun.

He was taken to al-Shifa hospital, where he received an emergency operation.

The boy remained in critical condition for several hours before his death, International Middle East Media Center reported.

On Monday, Israeli soldiers also shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank.

The 17-year old youth, Mohammad Nayef, was seriously wounded and was moved to Hadassah hospital in al-Quds.

He died of his wounds several hours later.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Israeli troops wounded five Palestinian protesters in the West Bank villages of Bil'in and Nil'in during the weekly nonviolent protest against the Apartheid Wall.

Dozens of Palestinians and internationals also suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=105357&sectionid=351020202

Bleak Ramadan for besieged Gaza residents

2009-09-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Basic foodstuffs either unavailable or out of purchasing reach due to Israeli blockade on Gaza.

GAZA CITY - Ramadan, a festive time in many parts of the Muslim world, is bleak in Gaza because basic and traditional foodstuffs are unavailable due to the Israeli blockade, or out of reach due to soaring prices and poverty, according to officials.

"Items such as tea, cheese and powdered milk are not generally allowed to be imported into Gaza by the private sector, according to the Israeli authorities," said Hamada Al-Bayari from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza.

In the early hours before 'Iftar', a family meal before the daily fast begins at dawn, Gaza City's central marketplace, Palestine Square, is bustling with shoppers, but many Gazans say they struggle to find and afford traditional Ramadan foods like pickles, dates and jam due to a more than two-year Israeli blockade of the territory.

"People do not have enough money to buy [special food] for Ramadan," said Mohammed Al-Halu, 40, a father of four from Gaza City. "The borders are closed; there are products from the tunnels [along the Egyptian border], but the prices are very high."

"Market prices in Gaza have increased dramatically over the past two years, and the price of fruit, vegetables and processed foods remains high," said Al-Bayari.

"The level of poverty and unemployment is so high, people cannot afford to pay the prices," said UN World Food Programme (WFP) officer Jeannoel Gentile in Gaza. There is a shortage of coffee, tomato paste, canned meats, and Ramadan sweets like `halwa', while the availability of fresh meat is precarious, said Gentile.

According to a July report from the Humanitarian Policy Group on protection and livelihoods in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, prior to the 23-day Israeli offensive which ended on 18 January 2009, 56 percent of the population were food insecure, a figure thought to have risen to over 76 percent as a result of the conflict.

A June 2009 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said a household survey in May 2008 showed that, even then, over 70 percent of Gazans were living in poverty, with monthly incomes of less than US$250 for a family of 7-9 members.

Commodities entering Gaza

The logistics cluster, and interagency aid group led by WFP, is in continuous contact with Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) as to what commodities are allowed to enter Gaza; it is unclear exactly which items are prohibited.

"Only humanitarian supplies can enter [Gaza], including medical supplies and food supplies that qualify as basic needs of the population stipulated by international organizations," Israeli Defence Ministry spokesperson Shlomo Dror told IRIN.

"About 100 trucks enter [Gaza] per day with all the supplies via Kerem Shalom crossing, in addition to wheat via Karni [crossing], and fuel and gas supplies via Nahel Oz [fuel depot]," said Dror.

In July 2009, the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza via Israeli-controlled crossings was 83, while in January 2007 the daily average was 631, just before the Hamas electoral victory in the legislative council elections, said Al-Bayari.

"Just 15 percent of the food commodities necessary for the Gaza population are allowed to enter via Israeli-controlled crossings, while another 15-20 percent of the necessary food commodities enter via underground tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, meaning about 30 percent of food supply needs are being met," said Rafiq Al-Madhoun, food security officer with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Gaza.

Food via the tunnels

People try to meet their basic food needs from products entering Gaza via tunnel. However, tunnel food has often been poorly stored and prices are high, said Al-Madhoun.

Many Gaza residents blame Egypt for their suffering, since the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border remains closed to imports.

"The country lacks an economy; there are no jobs," said 70-year-old Um Fahed, scouring the market for affordable food to put on her Ramadan table. "Egypt must open Rafah crossing so I can feed my grandchildren."

US$3 million worth of private sector goods, including commodities like milk and cheese, were confiscated by the Egyptian authorities, according to a Hamas member who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity and claimed to own and operate four tunnels.

"The tunnels are often attacked," said the alleged tunnel owner, explaining that many tunnels are earmarked for different types of imports. "Some are strictly for Hamas and others for electronics," he said.

The Egyptian representative to the Palestinian territories in Ramallah (West Bank) declined to comment. The Egyptian consulate in Gaza has been closed since Hamas took control in June 2007.

UNRWA Ramadan appeal

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) launched a Gaza Ramadan Appeal for US$181 million on 17 August, in a bid to restore "a minimum standard of dignity" to Palestinian refugees living in the Strip.

So far the only firm pledge is from the UAE Red Crescent Society - US$100,000 in cash and hot meals during Ramadan to refugees in Gaza, said Sami Mshasha, UNRWA spokesperson in Jerusalem.

'Israel pressures Gazan fishermen to spy'

2009-09-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

A Human rights group says Israeli authorities force Gazan fishermen into spying on the Hamas movement and other Palestinian resistance groups.

The Al-Mezan human rights group says it has documented hundreds of fishermen who face pressure to work as Israeli informants.

Local fishermen give similar accounts.

They say Israeli authorities blackmail and threaten them to give information on Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Ramadan al-Sultan, who has been fishing the Mediterranean waters off Gaza for 20 years, says he was seized last year and taken to Israel, where an officer tried to recruit him as a spy.

"First he offered me money and told me I'm an OK guy, that I have no problems with Israel and no ties with Hamas."

"Then he threatened me and said I would be banned from fishing if I didn't collaborate, but I refused," he says, sitting on the shore in northern Gaza with other fishermen.

The Israeli navy prevents Palestinian fishing boats from going further than 2 nautical miles (about 3.7 kilometers) although the Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine allows boats from Gaza to sail up to 20 nautical miles.

The Israeli navy ships have in several occasions opened fire at the Palestinian ships, forcing them to sail back.

On Monday, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian boats, injuring a fisherman on board the boat off the Gaza shore.

Israel keeps all the crossings into the Gaza Strip closed despite a humanitarian crisis in the region.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104969&sectionid=351020202

Israelis kill Palestinian teenager in West Bank

2009-09-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldiers shoot dead a Palestinian teenager and wounded two others including an ambulance driver who was providing first aid to another victim in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian medical sources reported Monday night that one Palestinian teenager was killed and two others were wounded by Israeli military fire near the road that separates between Al Jalazoun refugee camp and Beit El settlement, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

The 17-year old youth, Mohammad Nayef, was seriously wounded and was moved to Hadassah hospital in al-Quds.

He died of his wounds several hours later, the sources said.

Mohammad is the son of Riyadh Nayef, a Palestinian security official who was assassinated by the Israeli army several years ago.

The Israeli army claims the boy was hurling fire-bombs outside the settlement.

The two other wounded Palestinians are Ali Al Qaisi, shot in his arm, and ambulance driver, Osama Al Najjar, who was wounded in his leg while providing first aid to Mohammad Nayef.

In addition to this incident, according to Palestinian sources Israeli troops kidnapped several Palestinian youth and took them to an unknown destination.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104964&sectionid=351020202

Palestinian girl complains to ICC over Gaza war

2009-09-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

A 15-year-old Palestinian girl has demanded the International Criminal Court to probe into the Israeli three-week war on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Amira Alqerem whose family was killed in an Israeli assault on the Tal Al Hawa neighborhood in the Gaza Strip told journalists in The Hague" I am here to lodge a complaint against the occupying army".

"I hope this complaint will succeed because it is the truth," the soft-spoken teenager said, seated next to her lawyer on his way to the ICC to file the complaint with the office of the prosecutor.

According to AFP, in her court filing, Alqerem says her 67-year-old father Fathi, 16-year-old-sister Ismat, and 14-year-old brother Ala, were killed by Israeli army fire in the early hours of January 14.

"This was a crime against humanity, that is why we brought it to the ICC," said her lawyer Gilles Devers, who said the attacks were aimed at civilians.

"Israeli politicians and military leaders must be held responsible."

Tel Aviv launched its large-scale military operations against Gaza's 1.5 million besieged Palestinian residents on December 27.

The ensuing three weeks of air and artillery bombardments and a ground incursion left nearly 1,350 Palestinians dead, and about 5,450 injured.

At least 1,100 of those killed were civilians.

The international community has accused Israel of committing war crimes, including the use of deadly white phosphorus shells in densely populated civilian areas and the use of civilians as human shields.

The incendiary shells cause horrific burns and poisoning and their use against human targets is against international laws.

Israel initially denied using phosphorus shells.

However, Tel Aviv later admitted using such shells after indisputable evidence, shown globally on video feed, proved that such weapons were used widely against Gazans.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104960&sectionid=351020202

Israeli gunboat sets fire to Palestinian fishing boat

2009-08-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

An Israeli gunboat has opened fire on a Palestinian boat, injuring a fisherman on board the boat off the Gaza shore, Palestinian sources and witnesses say.

The boat, which was badly burnt, has been pulled to a fishing port in Gaza city, Xinhua reported.

According to Hamas ministry of agriculture, the fisherman was moderately burned as his partners succeeded in taking him to a hospital.

In another incident last Thursday, a Palestinian fisherman was killed when the Israeli navy ships hit his boat in southern Gaza Strip.

Patrols and attacks by the Israeli navy targeting Palestinians, regularly occur in as little a distance as three miles from the shore.

Israel does not allow the Palestinian boats to sail farther than two nautical miles (3.7 km) away from the shore though deals between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority have set the fishing zone of up to 20 nautical miles.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104900&sectionid=351020202

Israeli navy kills Palestinian fisherman

2009-08-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

The Israeli navy opens fire on Palestinian fishing boats just off the northern Gaza's shore, killing a fisherman and injuring another.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that Mohamed al-Attar, 25, was killed on Thursday after an Israeli shell "separated his head from his body."

The Israeli army denied the claim by the Palestinian ministry saying, "having checked, it became clear the allegation is false.

Our forces fired no shells." Navy vessels, enforcing Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory, regularly open fire on Palestinian fishing boats to prevent them from venturing more than a few kilometers from the shore.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104645

Netanyahu greeted by angry protestors in London

2009-08-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

British police have heightened security outside the premiers' office as hundreds of demonstrators protested the Israeli prime minister's visit to the country.

Hundreds of people attended the demonstration on Tuesday to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown held a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu in London.

The rally began about 30 minutes prior to Netanyahu's arrival at Brown's office on Tuesday, Ynet reported.

The demonstrators were protesting 'the occupation,' waving Palestinian flags, and signs reading 'Stop the siege on Gaza,' 'Free Palestine,' and 'Stop Israel detonators' and hollered slogans like "Netanyahu's a war criminal."

Based on the report, at some point, several demonstrators tried breaching the secured perimeter outside Brown's office, but were stopped by British police.

Netanyahu arrived in London on Monday for two days of meetings with Brown and US Mideast mediator George Mitchell.

After the meeting the two premiers attended a press conference during which Brown said the demand to halt settlement construction remains in place.

Netanyahu however said Jerusalem "is not a settlement.

It is the sovereign capital of the State of Israel.

We have been building in Jerusalem for 3,000 years."

The status of Jerusalem has been among the thorny issues in the stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, with the Israelis claiming the city as their "eternal, undivided capital"-- a position not recognized by the international community.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104469

Not Without My Organs

2009-08-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

By: Kian Mokhtari

Even the moderate Jews have had enough of Israel. The Idea of a Jewish homeland following WWII must have seemed very attractive given that its Palestinian population had next to no means to defend their land; easy pickings for anyone out with a good eye for real estate on the cheap.

And look where all the aspirations of the Jewish population, countless Arab-Israeli wars and mind numbing Israeli atrocities against Palestinian natives have ended up: Israeli soldiers stealing body organs from killed or dying Palestinians!

Freelance journalist Donald Bostrom has told Press TV that an international war crimes investigation awaits Israel over its soldiers' harvesting of organs from dead or dying Palestinians.

The organs were sold on to a New York rabbi behind the human organs trafficking operation.

Bostrom's article, “They plunder the organs of our sons” was published in Sweden's largest circulation daily Aftonbladet.

The article says Israeli soldiers abduct young Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and return their bodies to their families after removing their organs.

Bostrom says he has based his report on testimonies from Palestinians in the West Bank.

In the article, Bostrom mentions an incident in which a 19-year old Palestinian was shot and fatally wounded by the Israeli army in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The Palestinian, who was shot in his chest, stomach and both legs, was moved to an unknown location while in critical condition.

Five days later, his body was returned to his family with a visible scar from his neck to stomach.

Autopsy revealed that some of his vital organs had been removed.

And there is gruesome pictorial evidence that puts the Swedish journalists' claims beyond any doubt.

Bostrom says he wrote the article in reaction to a recently discovered crime syndicate in New Jersey, which was involved in organ smuggling.

The Syndicate included five rabbis. Bostrom said the purpose of his opinion article was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on.

It is disgusting is it not? Imagine a badly wounded Palestinian stretched out on a dirty bed in an Israeli prison and instead of receiving treatment the scalpels are being sharpened to remove his internal organs: the fresher the organ, the better the chances of survival for the recipient.

The question is did Israeli henchmen even wait for their Palestinian victims to die of their wounds?

What subhuman mentality could possibly inflict this on other people's children?

We are being told that the report has sparked outrage among Israeli officials who have been calling on Stockholm to condemn the article. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that Stockholm's refusal to take a stand reminded him of Swedish behavior during World War II.

Can you believe the nerve of the man?

Bostrom has been receiving death threats from Jewish extremists who have become accustomed to playing the anti-Semitic card whenever they are caught doing things they often attribute to the Nazis in Hollywood movies and various other media.

Israelis now claim that the bodies had to be autopsied -how kind.

But how does that explain the fact that there were vital organs missing from the deceased young Palestinians' bodies.

Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin goes even further; he says that Bostrom's article poses a crucial question: why have the bodies been autopsied when the cause of death was obvious?

He says “There I think Israeli authorities owe us an answer.”

Israel has left nothing for Palestinian natives; they should consider themselves very lucky to be allowed to leave the occupied Palestine with their vital organs still attached to their tortured bodies.

There is just such bad Karma about Israel, Israelis and their supporters in the West.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104439

Israel's 2nd attack on Gaza kills 4

2009-08-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Israeli warplanes have attacked near the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killing at least four and injuring six other people in a second round of attacks since Monday.

Palestinian security officials say Israeli fighters struck near the southern city of Rafah.

The victims were inside tunnels - which Palestinians say are used to import food, medicine and other vital supplies into the blockaded Gaza-- when the Israeli air force bombed the area.

The impoverished Palestinian sliver has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007.

An Israeli military official says the air-raid was in response to the firing of a mortar round from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Palestinian mortar attack took place after Israeli soldiers on Monday killed one Palestinian and injured another in the town of Beit Lahya in northern Gaza, medical sources told a Press TV correspondent.

Israeli troops say that Palestinians were trying to approach them.

Israeli forces opened fire on the three young men in the al-Atatra neighborhood on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip.

According to none of the Palestinians were known to be members of any Palestinian faction.

The Israeli army says shortly after that incident three mortar rounds were fired from Gaza into Israel, wounding one soldier.

The soldier was only slightly injured after hitting his head while seeking shelter.

The killing and injuring Palestinians is the latest violation of a truce signed after Israel's massive military aggression known as the 22-day war on Gaza.

Operation Cast Lead launched December 27, 2008. During the massacre, the city of Gaza suffered extensive structural damage.

Ensuing air strikes and ground incursions left over 1,350 Palestinians, at least 1100 of whom were civilians, dead.

An estimated 5,450 people were reported injured; most were women and children.

In addition to the human cost, the onslaught cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion, destroying some 4,000 residential buildings and damaging 16,000 houses.

UN reports confirm that Tel Aviv began the bloodshed by breaking the truce it had with the authority in the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104420

In blockaded Gaza, Israeli troops kill again

2009-08-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Israeli troops have killed one Palestinian and injured two others in the north sector of Gaza in yet another violation of a truce signed after Israel's 22-day war on the strip.

Israeli forces opened fire on the three young men in the al-Atatra neighborhood, in the town of Beit Lahia on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip on Monday.

One of the wounded Palestinians later died in an Israeli clinic from excessive blood loss, medical sources told Press TV, adding that none of the three youths was known to be a member of any Palestinian faction.

An Israeli army spokeswoman has confirmed the incident, saying that three rockets were fired into southern Israel following the shooting.

Since the end of the 22-day war, the Israeli army has launched several cross border attacks on Gaza, rolling its tanks and bulldozers into the impoverished enclave, opening fire on villagers' homes and flattening cultivated fields.

The deadly Israeli offensive into Gaza last December resulted in 1,500 Palestinian deaths and approximately 5,450 injuries.

Most of the victims were civilians The offensive also inflicted more than USD 1.6 billion of damage on Gaza's already-stricken economy.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104416

400 Gaza patients face imminent death

2009-08-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip has announced that 400 ICU patients are facing imminent death due to the ongoing Israeli blockade.

The Ministry said that the 400 patients in Intensive Care Units are in critical condition as hospitals and medical centers lack basic supplies and equipment.

It moreover demanded that human rights groups and international heath organizations intervene in order to end the Israeli siege and allow entry of medical supplies and equipment, the International Middle East Media Center reported.

The Ministry also stated that hundreds of patients are in urgent need of relocation to hospitals outside the Gaza Strip.

The blockade, which Israel first imposed on the impoverished territory in June 2007, has caused a humanitarian crisis among the Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants.

According to Health Ministry reports, nearly 400 patients, most of them children and the elderly, have died as a result of the ongoing siege, while hundreds still await transfer to hospitals abroad.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104425

Empty chairs as Gazans mark first postwar Ramadan

2009-08-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ramadan no longer time for family celebrations in Gaza as Israeli offensive killed many family members.

GAZA CITY - When Dalal Abu Aisha breaks the Ramadan fast this year the chairs once occupied by her parents and three siblings will sit empty, a nightly reminder of last winter's war in the Gaza Strip.

The 14-year-old was the sole survivor when an Israeli tank shell struck her home during the 22-day offensive over the new year that killed hundreds of Palestinians (mainly civilians) and flattened vast swathes of the besieged territory.

As Muslims across the world gather in the coming weeks to break the fast with lavish feasts and holiday sweets, Palestinians like Dalal will be reminded of loved ones lost during the Israeli bombardment.

The shy teenager will not speak about what happened to her family, but Umm Adel, an aunt who is helping to raise her, says the scars run deep.

"Now that Ramadan is here it reminds Dalal of the early-morning meals, the breaking of the fast with her family and the presents she used to receive from her father," she says.

"She always seems distracted. She spends a lot of time on the Internet or watching television. She is a very smart child but her studies have suffered."

Her uncle Rashad says this is the worst Ramadan the family has ever seen, with widespread shortages and skyrocketing prices at the local market.

"The war has added so much to our grief; it's more than we can bear," he says. "Dalal's life is hard, just like all the children of the martyrs."

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week Israeli offensive.

In a rubble-strewn wasteland on the outskirts of Gaza City, Almaza Samuni and her father fast in a tent pitched on the ruins of their house.

This is the first year the 13-year-old won't spend afternoons cooking with her mother and her six siblings, all of whom were killed by Israeli shelling.

"Ramadan is hard without them," she says. "I'm sad because my mother is not around to make the meals for breaking the fast, and my father was wounded so he can't work."

In the aftermath of the war the Samunis earned the grim distinction of having lost the most family members -- 29 in all, many of them children -- and eight months afterwards their homes and farms remain completely destroyed.

International donors have pledged billions of dollars for reconstruction, but the Israeli blockade of Gaza has prevented the money from reaching those who lost their homes.

Even those whose homes and loved ones were spared by the fighting have faced rolling shortages and the highest prices in memory, as they have had to rely on goods smuggled in through tunnels along the border with Egypt.

As a result, the festive Ramadan lamps that line the streets of cities across the Muslim world are in Gaza largely confined to store-fronts.

Sami, a 40-year-old father of seven, says the little money he is able to scrape together will have to go for supplies for the coming school year.

"People in Gaza never know when the next disaster is going to come and how they are going to deal with it," he says. "Most people are without work and without a source of income."

Shopowners, meanwhile, say that while they are able to fill their shelves with goods smuggled from Egypt they have few customers.

Ibrahim Samuni, Almaza's father, says he is determined to rebuild his house one day. But this year he is resigned to fasting in his tent under the sweltering August sun.

"The month of Ramadan opens the wound and reminds us of what we've suffered," he says. "My wife, my children, my siblings and my uncles were all killed and their houses were destroyed ... There are no more happy days."

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33846

Israel plans new settlement in East Jerusalem

2009-08-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

Israel to build 104 illegal Jewish housing units in Palestinian East Jerusalem in defiance of international law.

JERUSALEM - A plan for a new illegal Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem has been submitted for approval to city hall, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The plan calls for construction of about 104 housing units in the Ras Al-Mud neighbourhood, currently home to some 14,000 Palestinians, the Haaretz newspaper reported, quoting sources at the occupied Jerusalem municipality.

"This plan for massive construction in a high-density Palestinian area is extremely dangerous for the urban equilibrium," said Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of settlement watchdog Peace Now.

Approval of the plan is certain to cause a storm amid US efforts to get Israel to freeze all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land in order to revive the stalled peace process.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the call for a total freeze, but in a gesture to Washington he agreed last week not to issue any new construction tenders in the occupied West Bank until early 2010.

The US administration welcomed the announcement as a move in the right direction, but critics said it fell far short of demands for a total freeze in settlements, one of the main stumbling blocks in the peace talks.

Washington has called for a settlement freeze in both West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinian territories which Israel occupied in its war against its neighbours in 1967.

In a report published on Sunday, Peace Now said almost 600 units have been constructed in the West Bank since the start of the year, including 96 structures in wildcat outposts, which have not been approved by the Israeli government.

"The construction continues with government support in the large settlement blocs and in a roundabout manner in isolated colonies," the report said.

About half a million illegal Jewish settlers currently live in settlements in both West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel's capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel's capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.

In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.

Declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33828

Israel closes case against offending settlers

2009-08-23T02:58:00.000-07:00

Israeli police drop a case against the masked settlers who were captured on a widely broadcast videotape beating Palestinian shepherds in the occupied West Bank.

Israel announced the decision on Friday, citing lack of evidence as the reason.

"The file was closed because it turned out to be impossible to identify the attackers," AFP quoted a police spokesman as saying.

The case was lodged against the club-wielding masked men who brutally attacked a 70-year-old Palestinian shepherd and his wife in June 2008 in the south of the occupied West Bank near the Susia settlement.

Thamam al-Nawaja, 58, said her arm was broken and her left cheek was fractured in the attack.

Human rights groups blame Israeli law enforcement agencies for their lack of interest in prosecuting such offenders.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104147

Israeli-besieged Gaza cancer patients have only painkillers

2009-08-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Palestinians dying as Israel prevents 500 tons of donations of medical equipment to enter Gaza.

GAZA CITY - Arafat Hamdona, 20, has been confined to the cancer unit of As-Shifa, Gaza’s primary hospital, since he was diagnosed with maxillary skin tumours in June 2008.

Red lesions protrude from his face, his features are distorted and his eyes swollen shut.

In April, Arafat was permitted to travel to Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem where he received three series of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. He was scheduled to return for further treatment, but has not been granted permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza.

“He is only given pain killers,” said Arafat’s father, Faraj Hamdona, explaining that that is all As-Shifa has to offer.

According to a July 2009 report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Jerusalem, Gaza doctors and nurses do not have the medical equipment to respond to the health needs of the 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip.

Medical equipment is often broken, lacking spare parts, or outdated.

WHO attributes the dismal state of Gaza’s healthcare system to the Israeli blockade of the territory, tightened in June 2007 after Hamas seized control. The poor organization of maintenance services in Gaza compounds the problem, reports WHO.

Medical equipment sits idle

Some 500 tons of donations of medical equipment which flooded the Strip after Israel’s military offensive ended on 18 January sits idle in warehouses. Few donors consulted the health ministry or aid agencies working in Gaza to find out what provisions were needed. According to the health ministry, 20 percent of the donated medications had expired. WHO said much of the equipment sent was old and unusable due to a lack of spare parts.

WHO also said suppliers were unable to access medical equipment for repairs and maintenance and “since 2000, maintenance staff and clinical workers have not been able to leave the Strip for training in the use of medical devices”.

The Israeli Defence Ministry says it is not obliged to allow into Gaza anything other than basic humanitarian supplies necessary for survival, and is concerned certain medical technology could be used for other more sinister means. Gaza’s only other connection to the outside world is its border crossing with Egypt, which is closed most of the time.

The lack of proper medical care in Gaza can have dire consequences.

“The largest number of deaths due to the siege is among cancer patients,” Gaza deputy health minister Hassan Halifa said. “Radiotherapy for cancer patients is not available due to the lack of equipment, and chemotherapy is generally not available due to the lack of drugs.”

Lack of drugs, medical supplies

In July, 77 out of 480 essential drugs and 140 out of 700 essential medical supplies in Gaza’s health ministry were out of stock, according to WHO.

Ismail Ahmed, a 66-year-old from Shujayah, also lies in the cancer unit of As-Shifa, with a catheter for urination flowing into a wastebasket.

“We lack necessary equipment for the patients,” Abdullah Farajullah, a nurse at the unit, said.
Suffering from bladder cancer, Ismail requires blood transfusions.

“There are not enough IV [intravenous] bags. The nurses put blood into plastic water bottles to transfer into my IV bag,” Ismail said.

Due to a lack of equipment, he has been on a waiting list for over a month to have a CT (computed tomography) scan, and requires an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) - although Gaza lacks a single working MRI scanner, according to WHO.

As-Shifa lacks equipment for basic blood tests. Patients rely on family members to take their blood to certain clinics for testing.

Limited electricity

Another problem for medics in Gaza is the irregular electricity supply, which affects sensitive medical equipment such as incubators and kidney dialysis machines.

Hospitals in Gaza use uninterruptable power supply (UPS) systems as backups, but they require batteries which are often not available due to border closures with Israel and Egypt, according to WHO.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is funding and supplying 30 percent of medications and medical supplies in Gaza, said communications officer Mustafa Abu-Hassanain in Gaza.

“Most of the other 70 percent comes from the health ministry in Ramallah, paid for by the Palestinian Authority budget,” said Tony Laurance, head of WHO’s West Bank and Gaza Office in Jerusalem.

There is a dialogue between the health ministry in Gaza and the ministry in Ramallah (under Fatah’s control). Deliveries must be approved by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defence, before being allowed into Gaza, explained Laurance.

Israeli siege harming Gaza mothers & newborns

2009-08-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

WHO attributes dismal state of Gaza’s healthcare system to Israeli blockade since June 2007.

GAZA CITY - Inadequate infrastructure, lack of equipment and a shortage of hospital staff are contributing to the deterioration of hospital care for mothers and newborns in Gaza, according to a July 2009 assessment by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Jerusalem.

WHO attributes the dismal state of Gaza’s healthcare system to the Israeli blockade since June 2007, when Hamas took over control of the territory.

“The Israeli blockade affects the supply of medical equipment and conditions in the maternity wards, and perpetuates the isolation of healthcare professionals, making it difficult to maintain international standards of practice,” said Tony Laurence, head of the WHO West Bank and Gaza Office in Jerusalem.

The maintenance and updating of equipment is not adequate, and the supply of drugs and laboratory materials is not constant, according to WHO.

“Ten types of essential medications for maternal care, like Prostin gel that induces labour, are out of stock,” said Munir Al-Bursh, head of Gaza’s Department of Pharmaceuticals, adding that they were unable to import spare parts for ultra-sound equipment and Computed Tomography (CT) scanners.

Safa Ahmed, aged 21, gave birth to her baby girl Rataj this week at As-Shifa, Gaza’s primary hospital, but was discharged just two hours after the delivery.

Mothers stay an average of two hours in Gaza hospitals after delivery due to a lack of beds, said the WHO report, which advocated that they stay in hospital for at least six hours after delivery for post-partum examinations.

As-Shifa’s overcrowded maternity unit deals with an average of 1,200 births a month.

“There were 7-8 women per room,” said Safa. “My husband had to look in pharmacies outside the hospital for Prostin gel and blood thinners while I was delivering.”

Patients say those drugs are not readily available. If the drugs are provided by the hospital they are covered by the patient’s insurance, but if bought at a pharmacy outside, the patient pays out of her own pocket.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provides some medications and medical supplies, but they are not always able to bring things in, said ICRC’s communications officer in Gaza Mustafa Abu-Hassanain.

Few trained midwives

There is a lack of professional staff in maternity and neonatal wards, particularly trained midwives, said Lubna Al-Sharif, a WHO officer in Gaza. “Knowledge is outdated regarding international standards of proper mother and child healthcare, due to the isolation created by prolonged border closures,” said Al-Sharif.

“There is a lack of working foetal monitors and incubator parts, like ultra-violet lamps,” said Al-Sharif, “and there are problems with infection control resulting from a lack of sinks, soaps and hand towels.”

The blockade prohibits imports of construction materials like cement - without which it is difficult to rehabilitate and maintain hospitals, according to WHO.

Shlomo Dror, a spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Defence, said: “Medical supplies have priority [as imports into Gaza], and secondly is food from international organizations. There is a government decision not to allow a humanitarian crisis to occur in Gaza."

American family vows to sue Israel

2009-08-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

The family members of a US peace activist, who was hit by an Israeli high-velocity tear gas canister on his head in the West Bank, have vowed to file a lawsuit.

After the incident, the Israeli government said that they could not be held responsible for such an act committed by their soldier as the victim was injured at a demonstration against the separation wall (also known as the Apartheid Wall) in the West Bank village of Ni'lin.

Although Tristan Anderson's shooting occurred during a civilian demonstration, Tel Aviv has labeled the protest in question as 'an act of war'.

There were no armed hostilities involved in the March 13, 2009 demonstration, in which Anderson was shot. Just one month after Anderson's case, Bassem Abu Rahme, an organizer with the Anti-Wall campaign in Bil'in village, was fatally shot in the chest with a tear gas canister.

The Andersons' lawyer, Michael Sfard, believes that branding a civil demonstration as an 'act of war' could only mean that Israel is at war with civilians.

"International law identifies the incident as a clear case of human rights abuse.

We will pursue this matter and take the government of Israel to court," Sfard said.

Anderson remains hospitalized and in a severe condition five months after being shot with little hope of recovery in sight.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104094&sectionid=351020202

Israeli troops brutally attack cameraman filming raid

2009-08-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldiers brutally attack a number of peace activists, who were documenting an overnight raid on a Palestinian house in the West Bank town of Bil'in.

The incident happened in the early hours of Thursday as 25 Israeli soldiers, with their faces painted black, were raiding the house of Mohammad Abu Rahma -- a member of the village's Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements.

A number of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists were present at the scene with one of them filming the raid, which saw the Israeli soldiers breaking into the house, beating Rahma and dragging him out all the way to the separation wall where they dumped him into one of the vehicles that were waiting for them.

During the course of the raid, the Israeli soldiers attacked the ISM members, brutally beat two of the peace activists and broke their camera.

One of those battered was cameraman Haitham Khatib who lives in the village, International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) reported.

Israeli soldiers conduct overnight raids on Palestinian houses in the West Bank on a routine basis.

Five days ago they had taken Rahma's 14-year-old son Nashmi Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Rahma.

For the past five years, Bil'in residents have been continuously protesting against the de facto annexation of more than 50% of their farmlands under the excuse of constructing the separation wall, also known as the Apartheid Wall.

In another incident, the Israeli military kidnapped four Palestinian civilians in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) on Thursday morning.

Local sources reported that troops stormed a number of homes in the city and took the four men by force.

The military announced that the men were taken to military detention camps for questioning and that all four were on the army's Wanted List.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104074&sectionid=351020202

Shell-shocked Gaza children think of self-defense

2009-08-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

Growing numbers of Gaza children flock to martial arts after trauma caused by Israeli bombardment.

GAZA CITY - Salih al-Masri, a skinny nine-year-old in a red martial arts uniform, grits his teeth as he stands barefoot on shards of broken glass and recalls his family's plight during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

"This sport makes me strong so I can defend myself, my family and my country from the (Israeli) Jews," he says, without betraying the slightest wince of pain.

"We ran away from our home during the war because we were afraid of the shelling," he adds.

"But after we returned I started coming here every day to train. Now I'm strong, and I'm not afraid of anyone."

Haunted by what they saw during the massive Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year, growing numbers of children are flocking to martial arts classes across the devastated Palestinian coastal territory.

Private clubs offering kung fu and karate lessons have attracted scores of new students in the wake of the fighting, a phenomenon child psychologists attribute to widespread mental trauma.

On a recent summer day several of the younger students at a club in the northern town of Beit Lahiya gathered to watch in awe as Salih al-Sawalja, 15, lay on a bed of nails with two other boys standing on his chest.

"No one will be able to mess with us after we become kung fu masters," a wide-eyed Nashaat Abu Harbid, a nine-year-old, says. "Everyone will be afraid of us."

As Sawalja moves on to the next exhibition, where he will walk barefoot over the upturned blades of several large knives, he explains that kung fu increases his self-confidence and allows him to "protect myself from anything".

Helmi Matar, a coach at the Beit Lahiya club, says interest in the martial arts has grown in the wake of the war, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians - mainly civilians and about a third of them children - and left vast swathes of the impoverished enclave in ruins.

"Interest in the sport grew exponentially after the war because people wanted a distraction and for their kids to release pent-up energy," he says.

A spokesman for Gaza's kung fu and karate union confirmed that attendance at the classes has doubled since the war, which Israel said was aimed at halting Palestinian resistance rocket fire from the besieged, Hamas-run strip.

Child psychologists fear that the increased interest stems from the trauma children suffered during the three weeks of near-continual air strikes and shelling.

"Children internalise a huge amount of violence in war and they are not able to express it, especially when they feel that no one in their family can protect them," says Iyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

"Violence begets violence. The children try to release this built-up energy during sports. They choose violence because it fits with their situation and to boost their sense of power and security."

Osama Darabih, a lean teenager with a strip of black cloth wrapped around his forehead, has been studying kung fu for three years but says he started coming every day after the war.

"These sports are dangerous and there have been injuries and accidents during training," he says as he waits his turn to spar. "But we train well because we love it. It relaxes us and releases our tensions."

More than half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents are under the age of 18, and psychologists fear the coming generation will be snared by the cycle of violence that has afflicted the territory since the 2000 Palestinian uprising.

Samir Zaqut, a psychologist who works with Sarraj, says the children are drawn to violent activities by what they have experienced.

"When these children put their necks or their heads on broken glass or lie on nails they are in danger. But people who face repeated traumas like to take risks and are drawn to danger."

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33788

UN official gravely concerned over settlement activities

2009-08-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

A senior UN official has voiced 'grave concern' over Israel's continued settlement activities in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the West Bank.

In a briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday, UN Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernadez-Taranco urged Israel to heed the Middle East Quartet's call to freeze all settlement activities, including settlement expansions under the pretext of 'natural growth', and remove outposts erected since March 2001.

The official also reiterated the United Nations' call on Israel to cease and reverse provocative actions, such as demolitions and evictions in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Earlier this month, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, stressed that a recent 'upsurge in orders for house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem is contrary to the Road Map'.

Israel destroys Palestinian homes under the excuse that the houses have been built without permission and instead builds houses for Israelis.

Palestinians criticize the move, saying it is part of a strategy to drive all Palestinians out of al-Quds, which is considered by the international community as the future Palestinian capital.

Israel occupied al-Quds in the 1967 Six-Day war and has rarely given Palestinian residents any building permissions since then.

Tel Aviv has in recent months announced the construction of hundreds of new Israeli homes in the territory in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=104027&sectionid=351020202

Israeli troops 'kidnap' Palestinians for organs

2009-08-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

A leading Swedish newspaper claims Israeli soldiers kidnap Palestinians to steal their organs and sell them in the black market.

In an article titled They plunder the organs of our sons, the daily Aftonbladet said Israeli soldiers abduct young Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and return their bodies to their families after removing their organs.

"Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors," relatives of Khalid a Palestinian man from Nablus told Donald Bostrom who authored the report.

He also reported the accounts of other Palestinians whose relatives are fallen the victim of the organ smuggling operation.

According to the report, all of the victims were killed and their bodies were autopsied.

The report also cited another similar incident in 1992, in which a young Palestinian activist was captured by Israeli soldiers in the Nablus area.

The man was shot in the chest, both legs and the stomach and then transferred to "an unknown distention."

The man's body was found five nights later.

"When Bilal was put into his grave, his chest was revealed and suddenly it became clear to the present what abuse he had been put through.

Bilal was far from the only one who was buried cut-up from his stomach to his chin and the speculations about the reason why had already started," read the article.

The article also links the issue to a recently discovered crime syndicate in New Jersey, which was involved in organ smuggling.

Several American rabbis were arrested in connection to the case.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103891&sectionid=351020202

RELATED: IDF: Israel's Organ Grinder

Israel declares 'moratorium' on settlements

2009-08-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

In a bid to gain US support for its large-scale takeover of Palestinian land in the West Bank, the Israeli government agrees to freeze settlement activities temporarily.

As a goodwill gesture to the US, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Housing Minister Ariel Atias agreed upon a de facto moratorium on new building in the settlements, Israel's Ynet reported.

The "moratorium" will be in effect until the beginning of 2010, when the Israeli Prime Minister says he hopes to gain international support for Israel's sovereignty in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and for large settlement blocs in the West Bank.

High-level officials in the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu confirmed that the Israeli government will engage in a "waiting" game as a tactic in order to convince the US that Israel is committed to peace.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office said that the government will wait until the beginning of 2010 to "give the peace process a chance". Netanyahu left for Europe on Monday, and he is expected to meet with the US Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, while he is there.

Mitchell has called for a one-year freeze on settlement construction, but Israeli officials say they are hoping the six-month "moratorium" will be sufficient, International Middle East Media Center reported.

Benjamin Netanyahu made the decision under pressure from the United States to freeze all settlement activities in the Palestinian territories to pave the way for setting up an independent Palestinian state.

Israel had previously defied international and US calls for freezing the construction of settlements in the Palestinian land and it has stalled the peace process with the Palestinians.

In contrast, Tel Aviv has recently announced plans for the construction of hundreds of new Jewish homes in the territory, including in East al-Quds, where the Palestinians consider that region their future capital city.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103843&sectionid=351020202

Will West Bank be besieged like Gaza?

2009-08-17T06:08:00.000-07:00

Israel begins barring movement from-to Palestinian West Bank for anyone holding foreign passport.

By Jonathan Cook - JERUSALEM

New Israeli rules curb travel from West Bank

In an echo of restrictions already firmly in place in Gaza, Israel has begun barring movement between Israel and the West Bank for anyone holding a foreign passport, including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents.

The new policy is designed to force foreign citizens to choose between visiting Israel, including East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed illegally, and the West Bank. In most cases, travel between the two areas will no longer be possible.

The new regulation is in breach of Israel’s commitments under the Oslo accords to western governments that their citizens would be given continued access to the occupied territories.

Israel, which controls the population register for both Israelis and Palestinians, has not suggested there are any security justifications for the new restriction.

Human rights groups complain that the rule change will further separate East Jerusalem, the planned capital of a Palestinian state, from the West Bank.

It is also expected to add to the pressures on families where one member holds a foreign passport to leave the region and disrupt the assistance aid organisations are able to give Palestinians.

According to observers, the regulation was introduced quietly three months ago at the Allenby Bridge terminal on the border with Jordan, the only international crossing point for Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israeli officials, who control the border, now issue foreign visitors with a visa for “Palestinian Authority territories only”, preventing them from entering Israel and East Jerusalem.

Interior ministry officials say a similar policy is being adopted at Ben Gurion, Israel’s international airport near Tel Aviv, to bar holders of foreign passports who arrive via this route from reaching the West Bank.

Gaza has long been off-limits to any Palestinian who is not resident there and has been effectively closed to Israelis and most foreigners since early 2006, when Israel began its blockade.

“This is a deepening and refinement of the policy of separation that began with Israel establishing checkpoints in the West Bank and building the wall,” said Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American living in Ramallah who heads a Right to Enter campaign highlighting Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement.

“Foreign governments like the US ought to be up in arms because this rule violates their own citizens’ rights under diplomatic agreements. So far they have remained silent.”

Mr Bahour, 44, said the immediate victims of the new policy would be thousands of Palestinians from abroad who, like himself, returned to the West Bank during the more optimistic Oslo period.

Well-educated and often with established careers, they have been vital both to the regeneration of the local Palestinian economy by investing in and setting up businesses and to the nurturing of a fledgling civil society by running welfare organisations and teaching at universities.

Although many have married local spouses and raised their children in the West Bank, Israel has usually denied them residency permits, forcing them to renew tourist visas every three months by temporarily leaving the region, often for years on end.

Mr Bahour said the latest rule change should be understood as one measure in a web of Israeli restrictions strangling normal Palestinian life.

In addition to the wall and checkpoints, he said, Israel regularly deported “foreigners”, both Palestinians and humanitarian workers, arriving in the region; it denied family unification to prevent Palestinian couples living together; it often revoked the residency of Palestinians who study abroad for extended periods; and it confiscated Jerusalem IDs from Palestinians to push them into the West Bank.

In early 2006 Mr Bahour, who is married with two daughters, was affected by another rule change when Israel refused to renew tourist visas to Palestinians with foreign passports, forcing them to separate from their families in the West Bank.

After an international outcry, Israel revoked the policy but insisted that Palestinians such as Mr Bahour apply for permits from the Israeli military authorities to remain in the West Bank.

“This latest rule, like the earlier one, fits into Israel’s general goal of ethnic cleansing,” he said.

“Israel makes life ever more difficult to encourage any Palestinians who can, such as those with foreign passports, to leave.”

Mr Bahour said the new restrictions would further sever the West Bank from Jerusalem, the centre of Palestinian commercial and cultural life.

Overnight, he said, his Ramallah business consultancy had lost a quarter of its clients – all from nearby East Jerusalem – because he was now barred from leaving the West Bank.

He lost his limited privileges last month when he finally received a Palestinian ID. He said he had been forced to take the ID, which supersedes his American passport in the eyes of the Israeli authorities, to avoid the danger of being deported.

“The ID was bittersweet for me. It means I can’t be separated from my family here, but it also means my American passport is not recognised and I am now subject to the closures and arrests faced by ordinary Palestinians.”

Sari Bashi, a lawyer with Gisha, an Israeli organisation that challenges restrictions on Palestinian movement, said the new policy was placing a severe obstacle in the way of humanitarian organisations, as well as foreigners working in Palestinian welfare organisations and academic institutions.
“Many of the aid organisations working in the West Bank have offices and staff in East Jerusalem and even in Israel, and it’s difficult to see how they are going to cope with this new restriction.”

She said staff of major international organisations such as the United Nations refugee agency, UNRWA, and its humanitarian division, OCHA, had been denied entry at Ben Gurion airport after declaring that they were working in the West Bank.

“When Israel prevents access to an area, it raises the question of what is happening there,” she said. “What are we being prevented from seeing?”

Human rights groups are also concerned by the wording of new restriction, confining foreign citizens to “Palestinian Authority territories”.

The PA rules over only about 40 per cent of the West Bank. The groups fear that in the future Israel may seek to prevent foreigners from moving between the PA-controlled enclaves of the West Bank and the 60 per cent under Israel control.

Guy Imbar, a spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, said the phrase referred to the entire West Bank.

But Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions warned: “Given Israel’s track record, it is right to be suspicious that the restriction may be reinterpreted at a later date.”

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33739

Israeli blockade claims 344 Gaza patients

2009-08-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

Palestinian sources say 344 patients have so far died post 22-day war against Gaza, because of a lack of medical supplies in the Gaza strip due to an Israeli siege.

The last "martyr of the Israeli siege", according to Palestinian Ministry of Health, is 42 year-old Omar Ata Allah Al-Sha'er from Rafah city in the south of the Gaza Strip.

With the death of Al-Sha'er, the number of Palestinians to have died because of the Israeli siege imposed on the impoverished region since June 2007 now stands at 344.

The document provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health shows that Al-Sha'er suffered from chronic kidney failure and his health deteriorated while Israeli authorities disallowed him from traveling to receive treatment abroad, although he had the necessary papers for travel.

The Palestinian Ministry appealed to exercise pressure on Israel; in order to lift its siege and end the suffering of hundreds of patients who desperately need treatment in hospitals abroad.

Meanwhile, a 34-page report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, released Saturday, urged Tel Aviv to lift the blockade of Gaza and restrictions on the strip.

Pillay harshly criticized Israel for the violations "compounded by the blockade that the population of Gaza endured in the months prior to Operation Cast Lead and which continues."

Some 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the Israeli war on Gaza, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103769&sectionid=351020202

UN finds evidence of Israeli crimes in Gaza

2009-08-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

The United Nations human rights chief says significant evidence indicates that Israeli forces committed serious crimes against Palestinians during the 22-day war against Gaza.

A report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said rights violations committed during the Israeli war on Gaza included arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial execution, forced eviction and home demolition, settlement expansion and related violence and restrictions on freedom of movement and expression, Haaretz reported Saturday.

"Significant prima facie evidence indicates that serious violations of international humanitarian law as well as gross human rights violations occurred during the military operations of 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009," said Pillay.

The 34-page report is one of the two reports -- together with a forthcoming one by South African jurist Richard Goldstone who has been conducting hearings in Gaza -- that will be presented to the council next month.

Based on the report, Pillay called on Israel to tackle impunity for violations and curb its use of the military justice system, which does not meet international standards.

She also urged Tel Aviv to lift the blockade of Gaza and restrictions on the strip.

Pillay harshly criticized Israel for the violations "compounded by the blockade that the population of Gaza endured in the months prior to Operation Cast Lead and which continues."

Some 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the Israeli war on Gaza, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103582&sectionid=351020202

Israel sells off Palestinian refugees’ hopes

2009-08-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

New Israeli law 'perpetuates the crime of land and property theft' from Palestinian refugees of 1948.

By Jonathan Cook - TZIPORI, Israel

Amin Muhammad Ali, a 74-year-old refugee from a destroyed Palestinian village in northern Israel, says he only feels truly at peace when he stands among his ancestors’ graves.

The cemetery, surrounded on all sides by Jewish homes and farms, is a small time capsule, transporting Mr Muhammad Ali – known to everyone as Abu Arab – back to the days when this place was known by an Arabic name, Saffuriya, rather than its current Hebrew name, Tzipori.

Unlike most of the Palestinian refugees forced outside Israel’s borders by the 1948 war that led to the creation of the Jewish state, Abu Arab and his family fled nearby, to a neighbourhood of Nazareth.

Refused the right to return to his childhood home, which was razed along with the rest of Saffuriya, he watched as the fields once owned by his parents were slowly taken over by Jewish immigrants, mostly from eastern Europe. Today only Saffuriya’s cemetery remains untouched.

Despite the loss of their village, the 4,500 refugees from Saffuriya and their descendants have clung to one hope: that the Jewish newcomers could not buy their land, only lease it temporarily from the state.

According to international law, Israel holds the property of more than four million Palestinian refugees in custodianship, until a final peace deal determines whether some or all of them will be allowed back to their 400-plus destroyed Palestinian villages or are compensated for their loss.

But last week, in a violation of international law and the refugees’ property rights that went unnoticed both inside Israel and abroad, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, forced through a revolutionary land reform.

The new law begins a process of creeping privatisation of much of Israel’s developed land, including refugee property, said Oren Yiftachel, a geographer at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva.

Mr Netanyahu and the bill's supporters argue that the law will cut out a whole level of state bureaucracy, make land transactions simpler and more efficient and cut house prices.

In practice, it will mean that the 200 Jewish families of Tzipori will be able to buy their homes, including a new cluster of bungalows that is being completed on land next to the cemetery that belonged to Abu Arab’s parents.

The privatisation of Tzipori’s refugee land will remove it from the control of an official known as the Custodian of Absentee Property, who is supposed to safeguard it for the refugees.

“Now the refugees will no longer have a single address – Israel – for our claims,” said Abu Arab. “We will have to make our case individually against many hundreds of thousands of private homeowners.”

He added: “Israel is like a thief who wants to hide his loot. Instead of putting the stolen goods in one box, he moves it to 700 different boxes so it cannot be found.”

Mr Netanyahu was given a rough ride by Israeli legislators over the reform, though concern about the refugees’ rights was not among the reasons for their protests.

Last month, he had to pull the bill at the last minute as its defeat threatened to bring down the government. He forced it through on a second attempt last week but only after he had warned his coalition partners that they would be dismissed if they voted against it.

A broad coalition of opposition had formed to what was seen as a reversal of a central tenet of Zionism: that the territory Israel acquired in 1948 exists for the benefit not of Israelis but of Jews around the world.

In that spirit, Israel’s founders nationalised not only the refugees’ property but also vast swathes of land they confiscated from the remaining Palestinian minority who gained citizenship and now comprise a fifth of the population. By the 1970s, 93 per cent of Israel’s territory was in the hands of the state.

The disquiet provoked by Mr Netanyahu’s privatisation came from a variety of sources: the religious right believes the law contravenes a Biblical injunction not to sell land promised by God; environmentalists are concerned that developers will tear apart the Israeli countryside; and Zionists publicly fear that oil-rich sheikhs from the Gulf will buy up the country.

Arguments from the Palestinian minority’s leaders against the reform, meanwhile, were ignored – until Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, added his voice at the weekend. In a statement, he warned that the law “validates and perpetuates the crime of land and property theft from the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Nakba”.

Suhad Bishara, a lawyer from the Adalah legal centre for Israel’s Palestinian minority, said the law had been carefully drafted to ensure that foreigners, including wealthy sheikhs, cannot buy land inside Israel.

“Only Israeli citizens and anyone who can come to Israel under the Law of Return – that is, any Jew – can buy the lands on offer, so no ‘foreigner’ will be eligible.”

Another provision in the law means that even internal refugees like Abu Arab, who has Israeli citizenship, will be prevented from buying back land that rightfully belongs to them, Ms Bishara said.

“As is the case now in terms of leasing land,” she explained, “admissibility to buy land in rural communities like Tzipori will be determined by a selection committee whose job it will be to frustrate applications from Arab citizens.”

Supporters of the law have still had to allay the Jewish opposition’s concerns. Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that only a tiny proportion of Israeli territory – about four per cent – is up for privatisation.

But, according to Mr Yiftachel, who lobbied against the reform, that means about half of Israel’s developed land will be available for purchase over the next few years. And he suspects privatisation will not stop there.

“Once this red line has been crossed, there is nothing to stop the government passing another law next year approving the privatisation of the rest of the developed areas,” he said.

Ms Bishara said among the first refugee properties that would be put on the market were those in Israel’s cities, such as Jaffa, Acre, Tiberias, Haifa and Lod, followed by homes in many of the destroyed villages like Saffuriya.

She said Adalah was already preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court on behalf of the refugees, and if unsuccessful would then take the matter to international courts.

Adalah has received inquiries from hundreds of Palestinian refugees from around the world asking what they can do to stop Israel selling their properties.

“Many of them expressed an interest in suing Israel,” she said.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33724

Rights group slams Israeli attempt to silence critics

2009-08-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch accuses Israeli government of waging propaganda war after Gaza report.

TEL AVIV - Human Rights Watch on Friday accused the Israeli government of waging a propaganda war after authorities questioned the credibility of its latest report on civilian deaths in the Gaza war.

"Instead of responding to the findings of the report, Israeli officials are trying to discredit the report and Human Rights Watch by making false allegations," said HRW, which documented what it says are the cases of 11 Palestinian civilians shot dead even though they were waving white flags.

"Instead of seriously addressing the findings of human rights groups in Gaza, the Israeli government is waging a propaganda war against them," said HRW programme director Iain Levine.

"If the Israeli government wants to silence critics, it should fully investigate allegations of wrongdoing and take action to end the abuses," he said.

The Israeli military has dismissed the report published on Thursday saying it was based "upon the testimony of a number of Palestinians whose credibility has not been substantiated."

The New York-based watchdog insisted its research did not rely only on witness accounts, but also on medical reports, forensic evidence, interviews with the Israeli military, medical and other officials and, where possible, the perpetrators.

The office of Israel's hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said HRW's recent fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia "in tandem with the kingdom's authoritarian government" raised questions as to the organisation's credibility.

HRW acknowledged it visited Saudi Arabia in May 2009 and attended two private receptions, whose 50 guests included three people "with governmental affiliations."

It said the visit was part of an effort to broaden its funding base, but stressed it did not solicit and would never accept funds from the government.

"These events have no bearing on our extensive track record of investigations into Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record, most recently on August 10, documenting abuses against Saudi detainees.

"Predictably, we have been charged with bias against Saudi Arabia, just as we have been charged with bias against Israel," HRW said.

Like Israel, Saudi Arabia is a staunch US alley and the regime in Riyadh, to a lesser extent than the regime in Tel Aviv, is strongly backed by successive American governments.

But Israel has a much more significant presence in Washington due to the influence of powerful pro-Israeli lobbies in the US.

The HRW report pointed out that the 11, four of them children, were only a small fraction of the total death toll in the December-January 2009 Israeli offensive. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, mainly civilians, including more than 400 children aged under 16.

"However, these (11) deaths stand out because the civilians were in groups waving a white cloth, T-shirt or scarf, and no Palestinian fighters were in the area at the time," HRW said.

"Under the laws of war, individuals who carry out or order deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes."

In one of the cases mentioned in the HRW report, two women and three children were standing in front of their home after a soldier ordered them outside.

At least three of them were holding pieces of white cloth when a soldier opened fire, killing two girls aged two and seven and wounding the third girl and their grandmother.

"We spent seven to nine minutes waving the flags, and our faces were looking at them," the grandmother, who was shot twice, was quoted as saying. "And suddenly they opened fire and the girls fell to the ground."

In five of the seven incidents detailed in the report, Israeli soldiers shot at civilians who were walking down the street with white flags, trying to leave areas of fighting.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33719

HRW: Israel 'discrediting' Gaza report

2009-08-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch has taken a shot at Israel after officials in Tel Aviv dismissed a recent report published by the group on the Gaza war.

The New York-based group on Friday accused Israel of discrediting its Thursday report.

It said Tel Aviv was trying to wage 'a propaganda war' rather than fully investigate 'allegations of wrongdoing' during the Gaza war.

"Instead of responding to the findings of the report, Israeli officials are trying to discredit the report and Human Rights Watch by making false allegations," said HRW program director Iain Levine.

"Instead of seriously addressing the findings of human rights groups in Gaza, the Israeli government is waging a propaganda war against them,” he added.

In a 63-page report released on Thursday, HRW demanded that Israel probe into the 'unlawful' killing of 11 Palestinian civilians who were murdered while waving white flags during the Gaza war.

“The Israeli military should conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity,” the report said, adding "Under the laws of war, individuals who carry out or order deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes."

Following the release of the report, the Israeli military called into question its credibility, claiming that the report was compiled based 'upon the testimony of a number of Palestinians whose credibility has not been substantiated.'

The group was quick to dismiss the claims, saying the research relied upon many factors such as witness accounts, medical reports, forensic evidence, and interviews with military, medical and other officials and, where possible, the perpetrators, AFP reported.

Israel is under fire from the international community for committing 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity' as well as using unconventional weapons in its massive three-week-long military strike on the Gaza Step.

The attack launched in December killed over 1,300 Palestinians and injured thousands. At least 1,100 of those killed were civilians.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103477&sectionid=351020202

HRW Full 63 Page Report on White Flag Deaths in Gaza

2009-08-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

White Flag Deaths
Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead

Report released: August 13, 2009

CLICK HERE to download the full 63 page report

Table of Contents
White Flag Deaths
Recent Human Rights Watch Reports on Israel and Gaza
I. Summary
II. Recommendations
III. Killings of Gazans Conveying Civilian Status
Photographs
IV. Failure to Investigate
V. International Legal Standards
Acknowledgements
Appendix

HRW: Israelis shot Gaza civilians waving white flags

2009-08-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

One scene: Israeli soldiers opened fire on Gaza females holding white flags, killing two girls aged two, seven.

JERUSALEM - Israeli soldiers shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians who were waving white flags, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday in a report on the Gaza war.

It pointed out that the 11, four of them children, were only a small fraction of the total death toll in the December-January 2009 Israeli offensive. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, mainly civilians, including more than 400 children aged under 16.

"However, these (11) deaths stand out because the civilians were in groups waving a white cloth, T-shirt or scarf, and no Palestinian fighters were in the area at the time," HRW said.

"Under the laws of war, individuals who carry out or order deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes."

In one of the cases mentioned in the HRW report, two women and three children were standing in front of their home after a soldier ordered them outside.

At least three of them were holding pieces of white cloth when a soldier opened fire, killing two girls aged two and seven and wounding the third girl and their grandmother.

In five of the seven incidents detailed in the report, Israeli soldiers shot at civilians who were walking down the street with white flags, trying to leave areas of fighting.

The Israeli military said last month it was investigating incidents in which soldiers allegedly killed civilians holding white flags, but HRW charged: "Israel’s poor record on investigations makes objective probes unlikely.

"Field investigations typically consist of asking soldiers to question other soldiers, without seeking or considering testimony from external witnesses, and taking exculpatory claims of soldiers at face value," the group said of Israeli military investigations.

"The Israeli military should conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity," the New York-based organisation said in a 63-page report.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33704

Israel told to probe murder of white flag Gazans

2009-08-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch has demanded that Israel probe into the "unlawful" killing of 11 civilians, including 4 children, who were murdered while waving white flags during the Gaza war.

The New York-based organization said in a 63-page report on Thursday that the 11 civilians were only a small fraction of the civilians killed during the December-January Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.

"The Israeli military should conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity", HRW said.

"However, these deaths stand out because the civilians were in groups waving a white cloth, T-shirt or scarf, and no Palestinian fighters were in the area at the time," it added.

"Under the laws of war, individuals who carry out or order deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes."

In one of the cases mentioned, two women and three children were killed after they came out of their home upon the order of an Israeli soldier, AFP reported.

At least three of them were holding pieces of white cloth when the soldier opened fire, killing two girls aged two and seven and wounding the third girl and their grandmother.

"We spent seven to nine minutes waving the flags, and our faces were looking at them," the grandmother, who was shot twice, was quoted as saying.

"And suddenly they opened fire and the girls fell to the ground."

The Israeli military is conducting 15 criminal probes into troop conduct during the three-week offensive, including allegations that children were used as human shields.

However, HRW said, "Israel's poor record on investigations makes objective probes unlikely.”

Tel Aviv launched its large-scale military operations against Gaza's 1.5 million besieged Palestinian residents on December 27.

The ensuing three weeks of air and artillery bombardments and a ground incursion left nearly 1,350 Palestinians dead, and about 5,450 injured. At least 1,100 of those killed were civilians.

The incendiary shells cause horrific burns and poisoning and their use against human targets is against international laws. Israel initially denied using phosphorus shells.

However, Tel Aviv later admitted using such shells after indisputable evidence, shown globally on video feed, proved that such weapons were used widely against Gazans.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103390&sectionid=351020202

Israelis abduct more Palestinians in West Bank

2009-08-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

Israeli troops have kidnapped four more Palestinian civilians in various areas of the occupied West Bank as part of Tel Aviv's campaign to silence activists.

The civilians were arrested Wednesday during pre-dawn operations in the villages of Barta'a Al shrkyia, Arraba and Zabobaa near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

The Israeli military claims that the detainees were wanted activists and were taken into custody to be interrogated.

Despite a security agreement with the Palestinian National Authority, the Israeli army continues to invade Palestinian homes and carry out such operations.

Hundreds of Palestinian residents of West Bank cities, including teenagers, have been kidnapped over the past months.

Currently thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, are held in Israeli jails and are reportedly kept under harsh conditions.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103328&sectionid=351020202

Swimming in Gaza sewage

2009-08-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Israeli blockade affects Gaza sewage pumping stations, Gazans run away from scorching heat to pollution.

GAZA CITY - Less than 50m from a black, barrel-sized pipe pouring raw sewage directly into the sea, children are playing in the waves.

The pipe runs from one of three main sewage pumping stations in Gaza, with multiple outlets into the sea. The water authority in the Gaza Strip has been unable to import the parts necessary for the maintenance and repairs at water and sewage pumping stations since Israel imposed its two-year long blockade of the territory, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza.

“We know there is sewage in the water, but the borders are closed and we can’t travel,” said Mariam Al-Halu, who brought her two sons to swim. With scorching temperatures and intermittent electricity, many Gazans seek refuge from the heat in the polluted waters, residents say.

According to a July 2009 report (not available online) on the quality of Gaza’s seawater by the World Health Organization (WHO), seawater samples collected monthly from April to June by the public health laboratory in Gaza were polluted with faecal bacteria, specifically coliforms and streptococcus.

Seventy-one seawater samples collected from 25 points on Gaza beach showed that seven points were polluted, according to the WHO report.

WHO warns that a safe distance to swim from the sewage discharge is a least 2,000m. By swimming just 50m away from a sewage discharge point, the al-Halu brothers were exposing themselves to serious risks.

These range from minor intestinal and infectious diseases to more severe and potentially life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and meningitis, although the risk of a cholera outbreak is minimal, WHO said.

WHO and the Gaza health authorities launched a public awareness campaign in May at the start of the summer season, warning swimmers and fishermen of the raw sewage discharges and the potential dangers.

However, many beachgoers and fishermen have not taken heed of the potential hazards, despite the signs placed in seven areas along the Gaza Strip’s 42km-long coastline.

About 80,000 cubic metres of raw and partially treated sewage is being discharged directly into the sea each day.

The rundown sewage network badly needs repairs but the materials are lacking, according to an April 2009 report by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) cluster, a group of UN agencies and international organizations responding to Gaza’s water and sanitation crisis.

Clinics and hospitals in Gaza report cases of eye and skin infections and stomach viruses among beachgoers, yet health bodies in Gaza say there are no clear indicators to connect the health issues to faecal contamination.

“The sewage has increased the amount of algae in the seawater and on the beaches, particularly near the sewage outlets,” said engineer Bahha Alagha from the Environmental Quality Authority (EQA) in Gaza.

“The fish eat the algae and are then sold on the local market,” Alagha said.

According to a special report on the marine environment in the Gaza Strip by Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, consuming seafood fished in areas with considerable quantities of raw sewage water poses a serious threat to human health, because marine environment contaminants can be transferred through the marine food chain.

A committee to protect the beaches, including the EQA, health and interior ministries, and the water authority in Gaza, has been established to address these issues. (IRIN)

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33657

Arab family sues over ‘racist incitement’ in Israel

2009-08-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

Six Jewish parents demand removal of one-year-old Arab girl from Israeli day-care centre.

By Jonathan Cook - NAZARETH, Israel

Israeli School Apartheid
An Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli day-care centre on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages, accusing her of racist incitement against their child.

Maysa and Shua’a Zuabi, from the village of Sulam in northern Israel, launched the court action last week saying they had been “shocked and humiliated” when the centre’s owner told them that six Jewish parents had demanded their daughter’s removal because she is an Arab.

In the first legal action of its kind in Israel, the Zuabis are claiming $80,000 from Neta Kadshai, whom they accuse of being the ringleader.

The girl, Dana, is reported to be the first Arab child ever to attend the day-care centre in the rural Jewish community of Merhavia, less than 1km from Sulam.

However, human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has operated an education system almost entirely segregated between Jews and Arabs.

However, chronic underfunding of Arab schools means that in recent years a small but growing number of Arab parents have sought to move their children into the Jewish system.

Dana was admitted to the day-care centre last December, according to the case, after its owner, Ivon Grinwald, told the couple she had a vacant place. However, on Dana’s first day six parents threatened to withdraw their own children if she was not removed.

Ms Kadshai, in particular, is said to have waged a campaign of “slurs and efforts aimed at having [Dana] removed from the day-care centre, making it clear that [her] children would not be in the same centre as an Arab girl”. Mrs Zuabi was summoned to a meeting the same evening at which Ms Grinwald said she could not afford to lose the six children. She returned the contract Mrs Zuabi had signed and repaid her advance fees.

Mrs Zuabi said that while she was in the office Ms Grinwald received a call from Ms Kadshai again slandering Dana and demanding her removal.

Ms Grinwald refused to speak to the media last week. However, last December, when the Zuabis first complained, she told Army Radio: “The [Jewish] parents called her a girl from ‘the [Arab] sector’, they said this is a day-care centre for Jewish children and that it should stay that way … I can’t change the world, I have to look out for my livelihood.”

Although Israel lacks a constitution, the Zuabis’ lawyer, Dori Kaspi, is suing Ms Kadshai under the terms of the 1992 Basic Law on Human Freedom and Dignity, the nearest legislation Israel has to a bill of rights.

In previous cases when Arab children have been excluded from schools, the parents have launched a legal action for discrimination against the education authorities or the school itself.

Lawyers are doubtful that the couple can win given the law’s lack of reference to the principles of equality or equal opportunities.

One lawyer, who wished not to be named, said: “Instances like this are not covered by laws against discrimination.

Anti-discrimination legislation in Israel is very specific, covering mainly examples of discrimination in employment and access to public places like pubs and clubs.”

Even then, the lawyer added, enforcement was extremely lax.

Instances of Arab children being denied places at Jewish kindergartens and junior schools have become more common in recent years, especially in the country’s handful of mixed cities.

Yousef Jabareen, head of Dirasat, a Nazareth-based organisation monitoring education issues, said when parents tried to switch their children to Jewish schools it was because of the poor conditions in Arab education institutions.

“Although it’s an understandable reaction, it’s a cause for concern,” he said.

“In Jewish schools Arab children are not taught their language, culture or history. Their Arab identity has to be sacrificed for them to receive a decent education.”

A report published in March revealed that the government invested $1,100 in each Jewish pupil’s education compared to $190 for each Arab pupil.

The gap is even wider when compared to the popular state-run religious schools, where Jewish pupils receive nine times more funding than Arab pupils.

There is also an official shortfall of more than 1,000 classrooms for Arab children, said Mr Jabareen, though Arab organisations believe the problem is in reality much worse.

In addition, a significant proportion of existing Arab school buildings have been judged unsafe or dangerous to children’s health.

In some parts of the country where private religious schools are available, particularly in Nazareth and Haifa, Arab parents are turning their back on the state-run system, said Mr Jabareen.

Two-thirds of the 7,500 Arab pupils in the northern mixed city of Haifa, for example, are reported to be attending private schools, despite high levels of poverty among the population.

Last September, the Adalah legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority forced the municipality of the mixed city of Ramle, near Tel Aviv, to register an Arab boy in a Jewish kindergarten close to his home.

The mayor, Yoel Lavi, had earlier told the boy’s parents that he could not be admitted because he was an Arab and that the kindergarten served only Jewish children.

Mr Jabareen said he favoured binational and bilingual schools in which Jewish and Arab children could meet and study as equals. However, the state did not offer such schools to parents.

Four bilingual elementary schools admitting both Arab and Jewish children have been established privately. Israel has no mixed secondary schools.

Mike Prashker, director of Merchavim, an organisation advocating shared citizenship in Israel, recently told the Haaretz newspaper: "The Israeli reality of segregated education systems creates ignorance and fear of the ‘other’.”

A poll published by Haifa University in January found that three-quarters of Jewish pupils regarded Arabs as “uneducated, uncivilised and dirty”.

A recent survey by Merchavim found that the segregation among pupils was mirrored by segregation among teachers. Despite some 8,000 Arab teachers being recorded as unemployed by the education ministry, only a few dozen work in Jewish schools, mainly teaching Arabic, even though the Jewish system is suffering from staff shortages.

The previous dovish education minister Yuli Tamir established a public committee last year to develop for the first time a “shared life” policy for Jewish and Arab schools.

The committee issued its report earlier this year recommending more meetings between Jewish and Arab children, that Arabic should be taught to Jewish pupils, and that schools should employ both Arab and Jewish teachers.

The new rightwing government of Benjamin Netanyahu announced it was freezing the report in April.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33655

Excavations ruin road in East Jerusalem

2009-08-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

Israeli underground excavations have caused a road to collapse in Silwan in East Jerusalem (al-Quds) for the second time in two months.

Israel's Jerusalem (al-Quds) Municipality is digging a tunnel towards Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, and the tunnel runs under Silwan.

Around two months ago, a similar collapse occurred in Silwan's Ad-Daraj neighborhood - an incident which was also blamed on the excavation.

Israeli archaeologists believe that the location is the site of the city of David, the fortress of the biblical King David.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Municipality has ordered the native residents to vacate the neighborhood in order to build a park there.

The municipality has also threatened the locals to evacuate the area by force and bulldoze their houses if they fail to abide by the order. Residents, however, maintain that the municipality's true intention is to rid the whole area of its Palestinian inhabitants.

The fate of the city has been a key issue in decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Palestinians insist East al-Quds must be the capital of the future Palestinian state.

The new Israeli government regards the whole city as the capital of a future 'Jewish state'.

Israel occupied and annexed East al-Quds in the 1967 Six-Day War in a move which was never recognized by the international community and international law.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103100

Israeli warplanes strike Gaza Strip

2009-08-11T04:55:00.000-07:00

Israeli warplanes have bombed a tunnel near Rafah City along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, Palestinian security officials say.

The air strike, the first since June 14, happened in the early hours of Monday morning.

This is while on Sunday, apparent Palestinian mortar attacks targeted the Karni and Erez border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel without causing any casualties or damage.

Israel claims that more than 200 rockets and shells have been fired from Gaza since Israel's 23-day invasion of the Gaza Strip in December and January.

Operation 'Cast Lead', which led to more than 1,400 Palestinian deaths, most of them civilians, and which devastated swathes of the coastal strip, was allegedly aimed at ending the firing of rockets from Gaza.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=103002

Israel rules out evacuation of settlers

2009-08-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out the evacuation of Jewish settlers from occupied Palestinian lands.

Speaking at the opening of Sunday's weekly government meeting, Netanyahu harshly criticized Israel's 2005 evacuation from the Gaza Strip, saying, "We will not repeat this mistake".

"The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip brought us neither peace nor security", said the prime minister.

"We will not evict any more people from their homes."

In September 2005, Israel evacuated all Jewish settlements from Gaza after the then prime minister Ariel Sharon announced that Tel Aviv would withdraw back to demographically defendable lines.

"We will insist on the recognition of the State of Israel and the demilitarization of the future Palestinian state," Netanyahu said.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=102965

Israeli troops 'ill-treat kids'

2009-08-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

A former Israeli military commander has told the BBC that Palestinian youngsters are routinely ill-treated by Israeli soldiers while in custody, reports the BBC' s Katya Adler from Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he's really shaking... Sometimes you cuff his legs too. Sometimes it cuts off the circulation.

"He doesn't understand a word of what's going on around him. He doesn't know what you're going to do with him. He just knows we are soldiers with guns. That we kill people. Maybe they think we're going to kill him.

"A lot of the time they're peeing their pants, just sit there peeing their pants, crying. But usually they're very quiet.''

Eran Efrati is a former commander in Israel's army. He served in the occupied West Bank.

In a discreet park in Jerusalem we meet to discuss allegations that soldiers like him often mistreat Palestinian minors, suspected of throwing stones.

Mr Efrati - who left the army five months ago - says the allegations are true:

''I never arrested anyone younger than nine or 10, but 14, 13, 11 for me, they're still kids. But they're arrested like adults.

"Every soldier who was in the Occupied Territories can tell you the same story. The first months after I left the army I dreamed about kids all the time. Jewish kids. Arab kids. Screaming.

''Maybe [the kid is] blindfolded for him not to see the base and how we're working... But I believe maybe we put the blindfold because we don't want to see his eyes.

You don't want him to look at us - you know, beg us to stop, or cry in front of us. It's a lot easier if we don't see his eyes.

''When the kid is sitting there in the base, I didn't do it, but nobody is thinking of him as a kid, you know - if there is someone blindfolded and handcuffed, he's probably done something really bad. It's OK to slap him, it's OK to spit on him, it's OK to kick him sometimes. It doesn't really matter.''

Young Palestinians are mostly arrested for throwing stones at Jewish settlers or Israeli soldiers.

This, they say, is their only means of venting their frustration at Israel's military occupation of their home, the West Bank.

Every week in the West Bank village of Bilin, Palestinians organise a demonstration against Israel's West Bank barrier.

Israel says it needs the barrier to stop attacks on its citizens. Palestinians call it a land grab. They say it makes their daily life even tougher.

Israeli soldiers monitor the protest from the other side of the barrier.

Night-time arrests

At a recent protest, I watched a gang of Palestinian boys darting amongst the olive trees, picking up stones and rocks to throw at the soldiers.

Some used sling-shots. Many had a scarf or shawl wrapped round their face to hide their identity.

The soldiers responded with tear gas and sound grenades. Sometimes they have used rubber-coated bullets too.

Often after an incident like this, Israeli soldiers raid a West Bank village.

Usually in the middle of the night. The arrests can be brutal.

''Their faces were painted when they came for him. It was frightening. All those soldiers for one boy. They put iron weights on his back in the jeep and beat him all the way to jail. He couldn't get up for a week.''

Mohammad Ballasi's 15-year-old son, also called Mohammad, was arrested by Israeli soldiers for stone-throwing.

We met him and his wife just outside an Israeli military base in the West Bank. Palestinian youngsters are tried in military tribunals.

The tribunals regard minors as Palestinians aged 16 or under. In Israel's civil courts minors are young people under the age of 18.

The first time Mohammad's parents saw him since he was arrested two weeks before was at his trial. He pleaded guilty.

''When you're beaten like that, you would confess against your own mother," said Suad Ballasi, choking back tears.

''He's a child. His friends are playing in the street and he is in handcuffs. I couldn't stop crying in court. My heart feels like it's going to explode.''

The human rights organisation Defence for Children International (DCI) has written a report accusing Israel's military of what it describes as the systematic and institutionalised ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by the Israeli authorities.

Gerard Horton is an international lawyer for DCI. He said Mohammad's Ballasi's story is a familiar one.

''We see these stories again and again. Israel is a signatory to the UN convention against torture. It's also a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of the child - and under customary international law, it's not permissible to mistreat and torture, particularly children, who are obviously more vulnerable than adults."

He told me that Israel arrested 9,000 Palestinians last year. Seven hundred of those were children.

Mr Horton says the military tribunals need to process cases quickly.

DCI believes the system is designed so that it is in an adult or a child's interest to plead guilty.

Gerard Horton says Palestinians tend to end up in jail longer if they try to fight their case.
Mohammad Khawaja had just turned 13 when he was arrested.

''They dragged me from my home by the scruff of the neck. The more I cried the more they choked me," he said.

"My mum was screaming. They pulled me along on my stomach. My knees were bleeding. They beat me with their guns and kicked me all the way to the jeep.

"They cuffed my hands and legs, blind-folded me and left me there for 24 hours. I thought I was going to die.

"Later interrogators wanted me to tell on other people. I wouldn't. They beat me with plastic chairs. They told me to sign a paper written in Hebrew. I don't read or speak it. Because I signed it they put me in jail.''

Israel's military denies any suggestion that the abuse of young Palestinians is routine, but the army says it has to guard against Palestinian children involved in what it describes as "acts of terror".

Nightmares

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibowitz is a spokeswoman for Israel's military.
''Even though it's just a stone or just a Molotov cocktail, they're deadly weapons. Doesn't matter who did it - they're deadly weapons," she said.

"Almost every other week we find a 14 or 15-year-old carrying an explosive belt or grenade on his body, in one of the crossings.

"This is the situation we live in, and since we are defending ourselves and we want to punish those terrorists, we have no choice but to find them, to punish them - and hope that we won't return to this."

Mohammad Khawaja hasn't slept properly since the soldiers came. He says the nightmares will not go away.

Human rights groups are calling on the international community to investigate what they say are Israel's violations of children's rights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8186905.stm

First-hand account details Israeli cruelty to children

2009-08-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Amid shocking revelations that Israeli soldiers employed Palestinian children as human shields during the war on Gaza, a former Israeli military commander explains how Palestinian minors are treated on an ongoing basis.

Palestinian youth are arrested on a regular basis, usually for hurling stones at Israeli soldiers -- something many of them consider the only means of venting their frustration over the military occupation of their homeland.

In a new interview with the BBC, Eran Efrati explained how the routine ill-treatment of Palestinian children in custody takes place.

"You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he's really shaking... Sometimes you cuff his legs too.

Sometimes it cuts off the circulation.

He doesn't understand a word of what's going on around him," he said.

"He doesn't know what you're going to do with him. He just knows we are soldiers with guns.

That we kill people. Maybe they think we're going to kill him."

Efrati, who previously served in the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, quit the army five months ago.

He confirmed that he himself was among the soldiers "The first months after I left the army I dreamed about kids all the time. Jewish kids. Arab kids. Screaming," he said, confirming that he himself was among the soldiers who practiced the ill-treatment.

"I never arrested anyone younger than nine or 10, but 14, 13, 11 for me, they're still kids. But they're arrested like adults," he continued.

"A lot of the time they're peeing their pants, just sit there peeing their pants, crying. But usually they're very quiet."

The account provided by Efrati comes after revelations that the Israeli army used Palestinian children as human shields during Operation Cast Lead in the blockaded Gaza Strip, forcing kids to enter homes ahead of the soldiers to shield them from being killed or injured in case of incoming gunfire.

According to Efrati, the practice of blindfolding children is directed at freeing soldiers from the burden of being faced with children who "beg us to stop, or cry in front of us".

"When the kid is sitting there in the base nobody is thinking of him as a kid, you know - if there is someone blindfolded and handcuffed, he's probably done something really bad. It's OK to slap him; it's OK to spit on him. It's OK to kick him sometimes."

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=102700&sectionid=351020202

Israel detains 2 Gazan fishermen

2009-08-06T03:07:00.000-07:00

Israeli naval forces have arrested two Palestinian fishermen off the southern coast of blockaded Gaza Strip, security sources and witnesses say.

"Israeli gunboats stopped a fishing boat and detained two fishermen", Xinhua quoted The witnesses as saying on Thursday.

The Israeli navy ships have in several occasions opened fire at the Palestinian ships, forcing them to sail back.

Israel keeps all the crossings into the Gaza Strip closed despite a humanitarian crisis in the region.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=102691&sectionid=351020202

Israel to destroy more West Bank houses

2009-08-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

Israeli forces have wounded eight Palestinians after delivering house demolition orders in the al-Bustan neighborhood in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The eight residents of the area were injured when they were clashing with the Israeli police who were handing new demolition orders to them.

The police also seized the ID card of a member of the al-Bustan Committee, a popular organization that opposes house demolitions in the area, International Middle East Media Center reported.

The al-Bustan neighborhood is part of the Silwan area, close to the Old City of al-Quds.

The Israeli authorities want to demolish the neighborhood to make way for a park.

Israel is conducting archeological excavations in the area to prove that the ancient city of David once stood there.

Israeli forces destroy Palestinian houses in al-Quds to build Jewish settlements under the pretext that the houses have been built without permission.

Palestinians criticize the move as politically-motivated, saying it is part of the covert strategy to drive all Palestinians out of al-Quds, which is considered by the international community as the future Palestinian capital.

Last week, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, stressed that the recent 'upsurge in orders for house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem is contrary to the Road Map'.

Israel occupied al-Quds in the 1967 Six-Day war and has rarely given the Palestinian residents any building permissions since then.

Tel Aviv has in recent months announced the construction of hundreds of new Jewish homes in the territory in breach of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=102683&sectionid=351020202

World condemnation of Israeli Jerusalem evictions

2009-08-04T02:38:00.000-07:00

US, EU hit out at Israel's 'provocative' actions saying Tel Aviv breaking international law.

WASHINGTON - The United States and the European Union hit out Monday at Israel for evicting Palestinian families from east Jerusalem, warning that such moves endangered the Middle East peace process.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the international condemnation, labeling the evictions "deeply regrettable" and "provocative" and accusing Israel of failing to live up to its international obligations under existing peace initiatives.

"I have said before that the eviction of families and demolition of homes in east Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations," Clinton told reporters at a Washington press conference alongside Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.

"And I urge the government of Israel and municipal officials to refrain from such provocative actions."

Club-wielding Israeli riot police evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday, after which clashes erupted in the upmarket Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah.

The action followed a decision by Israel's Supreme Court to order the eviction of the 53 Palestinians, including 19 minors.

The Swedish presidency of the European Union expressed "its serious concern about the continued and unacceptable evictions in east Jerusalem," which it said were "illegal under international law."

The strongly-worded EU statement issued in Brussels said the evictions "contravene repeated calls by the international community... to refrain from any provocative actions in east Jerusalem."

They "confirm a worrying trend that runs counter to the creation of an atmosphere conducive to achieving a viable and credible solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians," it said.

Clinton stressed the same point, saying both parties "have responsibilities to refrain from provocative actions that can block the path toward a comprehensive peace agreement.

"Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot be used to prejudge the outcome of negotiations. And they will not be recognized as changing the status quo."

There was further condemnation from individual European countries.

French foreign office spokesman Romain Nadal branded the evictions "illegal with regard to international law" and said they were highly detrimental to the peace process.

And Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said they jeopardized the stalled Middle East peace process.

The international community has repeatedly urged Israel to "refrain from such provocative acts towards Palestinians" as "this is undermining the prospects for resolving the issue of Jerusalem within the frame of a two-state solution," he said in a statement.

The Supreme Court ordered the evictions following an appeal by the Nahalat Shimon International settler group, which claimed Jewish settlers have title deeds for the properties, despite UN and Palestinian denials.

Sheikh Jarrah is one of the most sensitive neighborhoods closest to the so-called Green Line separating east and west Jerusalem, with the fate of the city one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel occupied the territory in its 1967 against its neighbours and subsequently annexed it in a move the international community has condemned.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33533

Israel evicts two Palestinian families - 2 Aug 09

2009-08-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

Watch video report from Al-Jazeera

Palestinians evicted in Jerusalem

2009-08-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Israeli police have evicted nine Palestinian families living in two houses in occupied East Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. The US has urged Israel to abandon plans for a building project in the area.

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, a move not recognised by the international community.

The evictions have been condemned by the United Nations, the Palestinians and also the UK government.

The US said the evictions were not in keeping with Israel's obligations under the so-called "road map" to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

'Deplorable'

The operation to evict the 53 Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah district of the city was carried out before dawn on Sunday by police clad in black riot gear.

It followed a ruling by Israel's Supreme Court that the land originally belonged to Jewish families. Israel wants to build a block of 20 apartments in the area.

The evictions were quickly condemned by the United Nations.

"I deplore today's totally unacceptable actions by Israel," the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert H Serry said. "These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory.

"These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace," Mr Perry said.

Palestinian negotiator Saed Erakat said: "Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep."

Sovereignty 'unquestionable'

Israel considers a united Jerusalem to be the capital of the state of Israel.

"Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month.

"We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy [homes] anywhere in Jerusalem."

The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says the houses are in what is probably the most contested city on earth and the diplomatic ripples from the evictions will spread.

The UK joined in the condemnation of the evictions. "These actions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace," the British Consulate in East Jerusalem said. "We urge Israel not to allow the extremists to set the agenda."

There are an estimated 250,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and 200,000 Jews.

Palestinian families evicted from Jerusalem homes

2009-08-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

Israeli police evict two Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah to pave way for housing project in occupied east Jerusalem.

By Jean-Luc Renaudie - JERUSALEM

Israeli police kicked out two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday to pave the way for an Israeli housing project that has triggered international protests.

Large numbers of police moved in at dawn into the homes in Sheikh Jarrah, an upmarket Arab district of the city, after an Israeli court rejected an appeal against the eviction of the Palestinians.

The evictions come after Jerusalem authorities gave permission for about 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah, triggering an outcry from the international community which has called on Israel to halt all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land.

Sheikh Jarrah is one of the most sensitive neighbourhoods closest to the so-called Green Line which separates east and west Jerusalem, with the fate of the city one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The British consulate, which is located in Sheikh Jarrah along with a number of other foreign missions, said it was "appalled" by the Israeli action.

"The Israelis' claim that the imposition of extremist Jewish settlers into this ancient Arab neighbourhood is a matter for the courts or the municipality is unacceptable," it said in a statement.

"These actions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow the extremists to set the agenda."

Israel's refusal to heed Washington's demands to stop all settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank has seen tensions between the two staunch allies rise to a level not seen in years.

The Sheikh Jarrah housing project is on a site known to Palestinians as Karm al-Mufti, which had once belonged to the grand mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, and in 1985 was bought by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz.

Moskowitz has previously financed settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

Israel's ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department last month to be told the project should be halted.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.

It sees all of Jerusalem as its "eternal, undivided" capital and does not consider construction in east Jerusalem to be settlement activity.

The Palestinians want to make the east of the city -- home to some 200,000 Jewish Israelis and 268,000 Palestinians -- the capital of their future state.

The issue of settlements is a key stumbling block between Israel and the Palestinians, who have refused to revive stalled peace talks unless settlement building is halted.

Israel said meanwhile said it was seeking clarifications from Britain about statements from one of its diplomats who reportedly said London was financing Palestinian property projects in east Jerusalem.

"We have asked the British embassy in Tel Aviv to provide explanations concerning the statements made on July 22 to Al-Arabiya television by the diplomat Martin Day who is based in Abu Dhabi," spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

According to a transcript of the interview provided by Israel, Day said Britain was funding construction projects in east Jerusalem in a bid to halt Israel's settlement activity.

"We are financing projects aimed at stopping settlement activity," Day reportedly said. "One of these projects aims at building a new Palestinian neighbourhood in east Jerusalem and at protecting Palestinian homes from being demolished."

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33491

Killing of Gazans was 'obligation', says Tel Aviv

2009-07-31T02:04:00.000-07:00

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has released a detailed report in defense of Tel Aviv's three-week-long all-out offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The report, published on Thursday, claims that Israel had "both a right and an obligation to take military action" against the blockaded people of Gaza in response to Hamas rockets fired into Israel, Haaretz reported.

In the 163-page document, entitled 'The Operation in Gaza - Factual and Legal Aspects,' Tel-Aviv admits for the first time that the Israeli army used munitions containing white phosphorous in Gaza.

Despite the existence of proof in form of pictures, soldiers' testimonies, and the victims' medical records, Tel Aviv had been denying the use of controversial chemical white phosphorous shells and depleted uranium munitions, claiming that it had fought a 'noble war' in the sliver.

Intentional killing of civilians, bombing of residential areas, shelling of a UN school-turned-refugee-camp, are among other human rights violations that Tel Aviv is accused of committing during the war on Gaza.

According to the report, Israel is conducting investigations into 100 complaints, including 13 criminal investigations after inquiries from UN and human rights groups.

The document comes ahead of two 'harsh reports' that are expected to be published by the United Nations soon, Haaretz reported.

Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip left more than 1,400 Palestinians killed and injured at least 5,450 others.

Several human rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza.

http://presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102081&sectionid=351020202

Jewish fundamentalists storm al-Aqsa Mosque

2009-07-31T01:57:00.000-07:00

More than 200 Jewish extremists have reportedly entered al-Aqsa Mosque, positioning themselves inside the holy site, allegedly to perform religious rituals.

According to a statement released by the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage, the incursion was "significant".

The foundation has called on Muslims, Arabs and all Palestinians to take action in support of the mosque.

The attack comes amidst Tisha B'Av, also known as "The Ninth of Av" -- a Jewish fasting day in commemoration of the destruction of the two Temples.

The occasion falls on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, which usually coincides with late July or mid-August.

The First Temple was built by King Solomon and was considered the most sacred site in ancient Judaism.

It was destroyed when the Babylonians pillaged Jerusalem (al-Quds) in 586 BCE.

According to Jewish accounts, the construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE on the site of the First Temple but was destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

The destruction of the two Temples allegedly took place on the same day -- the ninth of Av -- but about 656 years apart.

The storming of al-Aqsa Mosque -- a holy site in the eyes of many Muslims -- has drawn anti-Israeli condemnation.

Former Palestinian minister for al-Quds affairs, Hatem Abdel Qader, has warned that the Israeli government is "playing with fire" by allowing far-right Jewish groups to put the mosque in harm's way.

Abdel Qader resigned from his post last month after he censured the acting Palestinian Authority for neglecting al-Quds.

He says the Salam Fayyad government refuses to uphold its commitments to the city, which is undergoing a difficult period.

According to Abdel Qader, the Palestinian Finance Ministry "contributes nothing to the effort to keep the residents on their land."

http://presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102030&sectionid=351020202

Israel orders 14 probes into troops over Gaza war

2009-07-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

Israeli military says reviewing close to 100 complaints from number of sources including its soldiers.

TEL AVIV - The Israeli military has ordered 14 criminal probes into the conduct of its soldiers during the war on the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year, the Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.

It said the military is currently reviewing close to 100 complaints from a number of sources, including from soldiers who took part in the devastating 22-day operation on Gaza, as well as Palestinians and human rights groups.

The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

In a report earlier this month, Amnesty International accused both Israeli forces of war crimes.

It also said Israel's use of white phosphorus shells was also a clear breach of international law.

Also this month, an Israeli human rights group said Israeli soldiers were told to shoot first and worry about the consequences later, and used Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Instructions received before battle led to trigger-happy soldiers, civilian deaths and massive destruction in the densely populated Palestinian enclave, the Breaking the Silence group said in a report based on testimony from 30 soldiers.

In April, the military said its investigations showed the army "operated in accordance with international law," maintaining "a high professional and moral level" while facing an enemy who deliberately fought from within civilian areas.

Many Israeli soldiers said that they were encouraged by Rabbis to kill and have little regard for innocent civilians.

Israel's war on Gaza killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and wounded 5,450 others.

The war also left tens of thousands of houses destroyed, while their residents remained homeless.

Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.

Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”

A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its crippling blockade of the Strip.

Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.

Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Arab east Jerusalem, both of which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.

Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33443

Israel orders probe into Gaza war crimes

2009-07-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

The Israeli military has ordered criminal investigations into 14 of the cases of the soldiers' conduct during the three-week war on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday that the army is currently reviewing about 100 complaints from a number of sources, including soldiers who took part in the devastating military operations on Gaza, as well as Palestinians and human rights groups.

The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Tel Aviv launched its military onslaught against Gaza's 1.5 million besieged Palestinian residents on December 27.

The ensuing three weeks of air and artillery bombardments and a ground incursion left nearly 1,350 Palestinians dead, and about 5,450 injured. At least 1,100 of those killed were civilians.

The incendiary shells cause horrific burns and poisoning and their use against human targets is against international laws.

Israel initially denied using phosphorus shells.

However, Tel Aviv later admitted using such shells after indisputable evidence (shown globally on video feed) proved that such weapons were used widely against Gazans.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=102004&sectionid=351020202

Netanyahu 'orders halt in settlement project'‎

2009-07-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

The Israeli prime minister has ordered a halt in a project for the construction of some 900 apartments in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), Israeli media report.

On Tuesday, US Mideast envoy George Mitchell and Netanyahu met in al-Quds and discussed the issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israel had previously defied international and US calls for freezing the construction of settlements in the Palestinian land.

Tel Aviv has recently announced plans for the construction of hundreds of new Jewish homes in the territory, including in East al-Quds, where the Palestinians consider as their future capital.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101998&sectionid=351020202

Gaza to get cement for first time since war

2009-07-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

Israel will allow cement into one-time transfer of cement into Gaza for rebuilding some infrastructure, British cemetery.

By Ron Bousso - JERUSALEM

Israel will allow a one-time transfer of cement into Gaza for the first time since its war in the Hamas-ruled enclave and amid a new US peace push in the region, officials said on Wednesday.

Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak okayed the transfer of more than 310 tonnes of cement for rebuilding a flour mill, a sewage treatment facility and the British cemetery, one defence official said.

The one-off consignment will also include some steel and is expected to be transferred "in the coming weeks," he said.

Many buildings in Gaza remain in ruins since Israel's December-January offensive because of an acute shortage of construction materials that can only officially enter Gaza through Israel-controlled crossings.

Israel recently authorised the monthly transfer of 104 million shekels (26 million dollars) into Gaza to pay the wages of Palestinian Authority and United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) employees.

Israel imposed a punishing blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

After coming under massive international pressure to ease the blockade following its 22-day offensive in Gaza, it agreed to allow more food and basic goods in, but refused to authorise certain materials it said could be used for military purposes.

Another official said that the army was "examining ways to ensure that the material does not reach Hamas and other militant organisations."

Israel considers Hamas to be a terror group and refuses to have any direct contact with the Islamist movement which refuses to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist and renounce violence.

The rare Israeli gesture comes amid a flurry of visits by top US officials to Israel, the Palestinian territories and other countries in the region in a bid to revive the stagnant Middle East peace process that has been blocked since late 2008.

UN officials have met with Israeli counterparts in recent months in an effort to coordinate the transfer of badly needed materials for a number of construction projects in Gaza.

And several UN agencies on Tuesday urged Israel to allow materials into Gaza so that schools damaged in the war can be rebuilt in time for the new academic year.

The Gaza war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, and left swathes of the aid-dependent territory in ruins.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33442

Israeli tanks, bulldozers roll into Gaza

2009-07-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Israeli army has launched another cross border attack on the Gaza Strip, opening fire on villagers' homes south of the impoverished sliver.

Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled hundreds of meters deep into the strip on Wednesday and flattened cultivated fields in Al Qararra town in southern Gaza.

According to witnesses several Palestinian homes were damaged in the attack but there were no reports of casualties.

Four tanks and two bulldozers conducted the attack.

Palestinian sources say the invading Israeli troops were forced to retreat after they faced resistance from Palestinian fighters.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101940&sectionid=351020202

After Israeli war, Iran moves to rebuild Gaza

2009-07-29T03:16:00.000-07:00

As the Israeli siege keeps Gaza buried in ruins, an Iranian foundation works alongside a local Palestinian charity group to help families rebuild their homes.

The three-week-long Israeli military offensive in Gaza has left the Gaza Strip in a state of destruction. What remains of the properties of tens of thousands of Palestinians are just heaps of rubble.

Although several donor countries have pledged about USD 5 billion in aid to rebuild the region, reconstruction has been put on hold because Israel has banned building material -- such as steel and cement -- from entering Gaza.

However, in spite of Israeli restrictions, Iran has stepped in to offer direct assistance to the Palestinians who were left homeless by Operation Cast Lead. By-passing government bureaucracy, the Martyrs' Foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran has worked in partnership with the local Ansar Charity Institute to provide the necessary assistance.

“We work on projects to help the families of Palestinian detainees in Israel and the families of those killed by Israel.

This particular project provides 8,000 dollars to the families of those who were killed in the Gaza war and those who lost their homes,” Sami Abu Ayada of the Ansar Institute told Press TV.

So far, up to 102 families across the Gaza Strip have benefited from the project. Although the aid falls short of the amount needed by each family to rebuild their home, it is, nonetheless, more than many of them have received from other donors.

“I will use this money to build a small shack out of bricks and corrugated iron.

It will shelter my family in the rainy season. It is better than the tent we live in now.

Other people who can afford to rent homes will save this money to rebuild their homes once the border is opened,” a Gazan woman who received aid said when interviewed.

While the money is essential, many feel that the aid provided by the Martyrs' Foundation has more significant implications than that of mere financial assistance.

“Iran stands by the Palestinians more than any other Arab or Islamic nation.

Countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia stood learn lessons from Iran and stop criticizing it,” another Gaza resident told Press TV.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101900&sectionid=351020101

Conditions intolerable at Israeli desert prison

2009-07-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of Palestinian detainees have criticized the deteriorating conditions in Israel's desert prison of al-Naqab, saying they are denied their basic rights.

They complain that the Israeli administration refuses to treat sick prisoners despite ill health.

They say that when transferred to Israeli hospitals, doctors in many instances have falsely claimed that they are fine and sent them back to their cells.

Several prisoners met with a Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) lawyer this week and complained of their deteriorating conditions. The PPS attorney reports that one of the prisoners, Mansour, recently collapsed during morning exercises and was transferred to the prison clinic.

The doctor there claimed that Mansour was fine. Prison officials were asked to bring in a medical specialist to treat Mansour's skin allergies and high blood pressure.

The man, who has been in Israeli prisons for 30 years, is also reportedly suffering from insomnia and hearing loss in his left ear.

The PPS attorney said that there are 27 such detainees at the prison, all of whom have been denied their basic rights.

He called on the Israeli prison authorities to begin legal proceedings in accordance with administrative regulations, rather than arbitrarily denying rights to political prisoners.

The attorney said that the Red Cross ignored him when he told them about the plight of these detainees.

He says he has run into many such obstacles with the prison administration, especially when officials manipulate intelligence in order to extend detentions for prisoners nearing the ends of their sentences.

The lawyer also discussed the problem of transporting prisoners.

Trips that should take no more than a few hours take days and are marred by physical and emotional abuse, which is the lot of thousands of Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101876&sectionid=351020202

Gaza schools still suffering under Israeli siege

2009-07-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

UN agencies call on Israel to allow construction materials into besieged Gaza Strip.

GAZA CITY - UN agencies called on Israel on Tuesday to allow construction materials into the Gaza Strip so that schools damaged in this year's war can be rebuilt in time for the new academic year.

"We call on the government of Israel to urgently facilitate entry of construction materials and supplies for schools in the coming weeks, and to ensure that students, teachers and trainers can freely exit and enter Gaza to continue learning," they said in a statement.

During the 22-day war that Israel launched on December 27, 280 schools were damaged, including 18 that were completely destroyed.

"Today, one month before the start of the new school year, more than six months after the ceasefires, none of these schools have been properly rebuilt or rehabilitated due to lack of construction materials," the agencies said.

"The blockade has caused untold suffering to children in Gaza, who face another academic year in terrible conditions," said Philippe Lazzarini, the acting UN humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories.

The new school year begins on August 23 in Gaza. More than half of Gaza's 1.5 million population is under 18 years of age.

The Gaza war in December-January killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, mainly soldiers, and left swathes of the aid-dependent territory in ruins.

Among the Palestinians killed were 313 children.

Among the agencies who signed Tuesday's statement were UNICEF, UNRWA, OCHA and Save the Children Alliance.

http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33418

More than 300,000 Israeli settlers in West Bank

2009-07-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

Israeli government figures show increase of 2.3% in number of illegal Jewish settlers since start of year.

JERUSALEM - The number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank now stands at more than 300,000 people, according to government figures published by the Haaretz newspaper on Monday.

All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law because they are built on Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

Most of the Jewish settlers have extremist views and many of them are violent.

As of June 30, there were 304,569 settlers living in the Palestinian territory, an increase of 2.3 percent since the start of the year, it said.

The issue of settlements is one of the main stumbling blocks in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The administration of US President Barack Obama, who took office in January, has repeatedly pressed Israel to halt all settlement activity as part of its efforts to revive the stalled peace process.

Hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to heed the calls, sending tensions between the two allies rising to levels unseen in years.

The new figures were published amid a US diplomatic push that will see three senior officials -- Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Middle East envoy George Mitchell and National Security Advisor James Jones -- hold talks in Israel this week.

Israel was urged by the international community to stop all its settlement activity, but Tel Aviv refuses to listen.

The spiritual head of Israel's extremist ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which forms part of the ruling coalition, has hit out at US demands that Israel halt Jewish settlement activity.

There are also some 200,000 illegal Jewish settlers in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Israel giving key Jerusalem site to settlers

Israel has handed control over much of a key Palestinian area in annexed East Jerusalem to hardline settler groups in a creeping takeover kept away from public scrutiny, a report by an activist group said on Thursday.

Government bodies have transferred both private Palestinian property and national parks in the Silwan neighbourhood outside the walls of the Old City to the settler organisation Elad, said Ir Amim, a non-profit group specialising in Jerusalem issues.

"It was done in the dark, in flagrant violation of the rules of good government and in some cases in violation of the law, without open and official decisions by the government or Knesset and without public discussion, inquiry or scrutiny," said the report entitled "Shady Dealings in Silwan."

Elad is dedicated to expanding Jewish ownership in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in a move slammed by the international community.

In Silwan, Elad has acted as an arm of the government for the past 20 years to gain control over a quarter of the land along its main thoroughfare, Wadi Hilweh or City of David.

"Silwan is a keystone to a sweeping and systematic process whose aim is to gain control of the Palestinian territories that surround the Old City, to cut the Old City off from the urban fabric of east Jerusalem and to connect it to Jewish settlement blocs" in the northeast, it said.

Elad's impact in Silwan is hard to miss -- dominating the city's poorest neighbourhood is a gleaming new visitors' centre and the Walls of Jerusalem national park, an archaeological exhibition.

In theory the park is owned by the government, but the operator is Elad.

"The site is technically run by the Nature and Parks Authority but all the tour guides are actually Elad people," says Ir Amim activist Orly Noy.

"People arrive here thinking they are at a regular government-run tourist site. What they are actually hearing is the settlers' agenda."

The Parks Authority entrusted the running of the site to Elad in 1997 in what the report said was an opaque transaction instead of an open tender as required by law.

When the National Antiquities Authority discovered that important archaeological remains had been transferred to settlers, it objected and in 1999 the move was overturned in the High Court.

But despite this verdict, the Parks Authority in 2002 handed control of the area back to Elad.

Elad wants to turn the Palestinian neighbourhood, where it says the palace of the biblical King David once stood, a claim disputed by most archaeologists, into a new Jewish heartland.

Such a move could spark violence, as Silwan's location makes it a potential tinderbox in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It lies outside the walls of Al-Haram Al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest and Islam's third-holiest site and where a change in the status quo could provoke conflict.

"It's like giving matches to pyromaniacs," says Noy.

Elad's hold on Silwan extends far beyond the walls of the park, with white and blue Israeli flags fluttering over several homes once owned by Palestinians.

Some properties were simply sold to Jewish groups. But the report said others were often acquired by dubious means, including using forged documents.

Elad was founded and run by David Be'eri, a former deputy commander of an elite special forces unit in the Israeli army.

With Elad, he runs a ring of agents, including local Palestinians and at least one police officer, to scout opportunities to buy Arab houses, probing for weak points such as disputes between neighbours or debts.

Since the late 1980s Be'eri has worked with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) -- a quasi-governmental body that buys and develops land for Jewish settlement -- to evict Palestinians in Silwan, the report said.

Under an unwritten pact, Elad would agree to cover compensation for Silwan families which the JNF would then evict and then allow Elad to lease the homes to settlers at token cost, it said.

Elad has not moved settlers into all the houses it has bought for fear of sparking violence, the report said.

"If they moved in you would see blue and white all across Silwan," Noy said.

Elad representatives declined to comment on the report.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33373

Israel arrests Palestinian activist in Nablus

2009-07-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

Israeli troops have arrested one Palestinian activist affiliated with the Fatah movement in the northern West Bank town of Nablus.

Nasser Abu Kishek, 33, was arrested in his home in an overnight raid, a Palestinian security official said on Friday.

The Israeli army confirmed the arrest, accusing Abu Kishek of attacking Israeli settlers and troops in the occupied West Bank, arms trafficking, and the assassination of a suspected spy.

Later in the day, 19-year-old Palestine People's Party (PPP) activist Diya Muhammad Younis was arrested at a checkpoint at the entrance of Azzun village, also in the West Bank, and transferred to an unknown location.

The issue of some 11 thousand Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails -- many of them for years and without being charged -- has further hampered peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101520&sectionid=351020202

Israel deploys cyber team to spread positive spin online

2009-07-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

Tel Aviv uses special undercover team of paid workers to spread positive news about Israel online.

By Jonathan Cook - NAZARETH, Israel

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.

“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 (Dh551,000) has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term “hasbara”, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda.

That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said.

“They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a “thought-police state”.

She added that “good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved.”

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry’s team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January.

“During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers,” Mr Shturman said.

“We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet.”

The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.

Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy.

High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.

Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack.

“People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet.”

He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.

The new team is expected to increase the ministry’s close coordination with a private advocacy group, giyus.org (Give Israel Your United Support).

About 50,000 activists are reported to have downloaded a programme called Megaphone that sends an alert to their computers when an article critical of Israel is published.

They are then supposed to bombard the site with comments supporting Israel.

Nasser Rego of Ilam, a group based in Nazareth that monitors the Israeli media, said Arab organisations in Israel were among those regularly targeted by hasbara groups for “character assassination”.

He was concerned the new team would try to make such work appear more professional and convincing.

“If these people are misrepresenting who they are, we can guess they won’t worry too much about misrepresenting the groups and individuals they write about.

Their aim, it’s clear, will be to discredit those who stand for human rights and justice for the Palestinians.”

When The National called the foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman, denied the existence of the internet team, though he admitted officials were stepping up exploitation of new media.

He declined to say which comments by Mr Shturman or Mr Gilad had been misrepresented by the Hebrew-language media, and said the ministry would not be taking any action over the reports.

Israel has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach to new media since it launched a “Brand Israel” campaign in 2005.

Market research persuaded officials that Israel should play up good news about business success, and scientific and medical breakthroughs involving Israelis.

Mr Shturman said his staff would seek to use websites to improve “Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity”.

David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel’s consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.

“Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million,” he wrote in Ynet.

Israel has become particularly concerned that support is ebbing among the younger generations in Europe and the United States.

In 2007 it emerged that the foreign ministry was behind a photo-shoot published in Maxim, a popular US men’s magazine, in which female Israeli soldiers posed in swimsuits.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33284

Israel rejects French demand on peace

2009-07-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

The Israeli government has rejected France's demand to halt Jewish settlement activity and to reopen border crossings into the impoverished Gaza Strip.

"A solution to the settlements can only be reached through a comprehensive and final peace agreement," Israel's foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP on Thursday.

Palmor instead called on France to persuade the Palestinian Authority to resume the stalled peace talks with Israel. "In order to promote peace, France would do well to persuade the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations," he added.

Palestinian say they will not resume the talks until Tel Aviv puts an end to its expansionist policies.

Israel has been refusing to heed international calls even form its closest allies including the US to stop its illegal settlement activity.

Israel wants to continue its settlement activity in the occupied West Bank to keep up with what it calls the "natural growth” of the Israeli population.

The issue has been widely considered as the main obstacle in the way of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The settlements are built on the land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says the occupying power is not allowed to transfer citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory.

Regarding the Gaza Strip, Palmor said that Israel's blockade of Gaza was the result of "the state of war imposed by Hamas" as well as the "detention for more than three years of soldier Gilad Shalit."

On Thursday, France summoned the Israeli ambassador to France, Daniel Shek, to demand an immediate freeze on settlement activities and for the crossings into Gaza to be reopened to allow Gaza rebuild itself after Israel's deadly war in January.

Paris wants "an immediate freeze on settlement activities, including in east Jerusalem," the French ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.

Israel must also re-open border crossings into Gaza, blocked since the Hamas resistance movement took power in 2007, "on a regular basis to allow Gaza to rebuild itself and life to return to normal," Chevallier added.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101499&sectionid=351020202

Israeli PM not to dismantle 'apartheid wall'

2009-07-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

Israel on 'collision course' with US while UN chief calls on Tel Aviv to freeze Jerusalem settlements.

TEL AVIV - Hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel's controversial separation barrier - dubbed by critics as 'apartheid wall' - in the occupied West Bank would not be pulled down.

"I hear today people who say that because the situation is calm in the West Bank we can dismantle the security barrier, but it is in fact because of this barrier that there is calm," he told a session of parliament.

"It is because of this barrier and because of a certain improvement on the part of the Palestinian security services that the situation is calm," Netanyahu said. "The barrier will stay."

Israel began erecting the barrier in the wake of the second intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation, calling it a "security barrier".

Palestinians call the barrier an "apartheid wall" and say its purpose is to grab land and make their future state unviable by thrusting deep into the West Bank and isolating Palestinian East Jerusalem from the occupied territory.

The controversial barrier consists of more than 400 kilometres (250 miles) of walls, fences and barbed wire, with about 300 kilometres (190 miles) more either being built or planned, according to UN figures which show 87 percent of it to be inside the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

On July 9, 2004 the International Court of Justice issued a nding ruling declaring parts of the barrier illegal because they were built inside Palestinian territories, but Israel pressed on with its construction.

Israel on 'collision course' with US

Israel must come up with a clear strategy for negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria in order to avoid a collision course with main ally Washington, a report said on Wednesday.

Recent conditional acceptance by Netanyahu to the creation of a Palestinian state "will not suffice to steer the two countries off a collision course," said a report by the Institute for the National Security Studies (INSS).

This will not happen "unless Israel substantiates its desire to settle its conflicts with the Arab world with practical measures," it said.

"Israel must first and foremost formulate a strategy for negotiations with the Palestinians and with Syria and build a means of constructive exchange with the United States on the Iranian issue."

"Israel should develop its own inititatives and forestall a situation whereby it merely responds to initiatives of others" insofar as the stalled Middle East peace process goes, it said.

One of the report's authors, Shlomo Brom, said that "the possibility of a collision with Washington is very worrying. State department officials have already raised the possibility of economic sanctions."

A State Department spokesman on Tuesday said it was "premature" to talk about the possibility of US financial sanctions on Israel to force it to freeze settlement activity.

While the tensions with Washington were unlikely to affect the US commitment to "assure Israel's security," Brom said that "the strategic dialogue between the two countries is at a dead end."

Ban urges Israel to freeze Jerusalem settlements

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged Israel to freeze its settlement activity in occupied East Jerusalem, adding his voice to mounting international pressure on Israel.

"I urge the government of Israel to commit fully to its obligations, including to freeze settlement activity and natural growth," said Ban in a message to a United Nations meeting in Geneva on the Middle East.

"If Israel continues settlement activity, it will not only be acting contrary to international law but also to a strong international consensus", he said.

By contrast, if Israel freezes settlement activity, it would "facilitate a new environment of cooperation and common purpose from the countries in the region" he added.

Israel has come under intense diplomatic heat this week over its settlement activity, with the European Union and Russia warning it not to violate a Middle East peace plan.

The warnings come after it emerged that planning authorities gave the green light to a project to build 20 new apartments on the site of a former hotel in the Palestinian half of the Holy City.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move slammed by the international community.

It wants all of Jerusalem (including the Palestinian part) as its "eternal, undivided" capital.

Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel's capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel's capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.

In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.

Declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33317

Israel to ban 'Nakba' references in school books

2009-07-22T03:55:00.000-07:00

Tel Aviv seeks to wipe out reference to 'catastrophe' Palestinians faced after creation of Israel.

JERUSALEM - An Arabic term used to describe the creation of Israel on Palestinian land as a "catastrophe" will be banned from school books for Arab Israelis, Education Minister Gideon Saar said Tuesday.

The term "Nakba" is used in relation to the creation of Israel in 1948 after a campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' against the Palestinians.

"The decision to integrate this idea into teaching for Arab Israelis several years ago constitutes an error that will be corrected in the next school books currently being prepared," the minister said in a statement.

"There is no reason to present the creation of the Israeli state as a catastrophe in an official teaching programme. The education system's objective is not to deny the legitimacy of our state, nor promote extremism among Arab Israelis."

A law has also been proposed that would deny all state aid linked to the commemoration of Nakba.

An initial version proposed by extremist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would have banned all Nakba commemorations and carried sentences of up to three years in prison.

Israel has often come under international criticism for ‘racism’ and mistreatment of its Arab minority, who are the original inhabitants of the land and today make up one fifth of its total population.

The Arab population is comprised of the descendants of the Palestinians who remained in their land despite being subjected to an Israeli campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' during the creation of Israel.

The majority of those who fled and their descendants, an estimated six million Palestinians, wish to return to their rightful homes but are prevented from doing so by Israel, in violation of international human rights.

Many Palestinians still have the original keys to their homes till this day.

http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33300

Israel 'to grab' Dead Sea shore as property

2009-07-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

Israel plans declaring ownership of the West Bank's Dead Sea shore as “state property,” to confiscate more Palestinian land, an anti-settlement group says.

"Israeli authorities have announced that they intend to declare as state land some 138,600 dunums (34,650 acres) that has emerged along the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank due to the drop in the water level," said Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now group Tuesday, quoted by AFP.

The land, which has emerged as a result of Dead Sea shrinkage, is located along the shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

According to the anti-settlement group, the amount of land involved may go beyond the shoreline that has surfaced as a consequence of an estimated one meter (yard) drop in the water level per year.

"It would appear that the primary purpose of registering this area as 'state land' is to prevent Palestinian use of the land or any Palestinian assertion of ownership over it," Ofran added.

In the West Bank, "the designation of 'state land' -- land to be held in trust by the occupying power and to be used for the benefit of the indigenous population -- has been abused as a form of de facto expropriation," said the group.

Israel occupied the West Bank during the Six-Day War of 1967, and it has so far "declared or registered huge areas of the West Bank as 'state land' and virtually all of this land has been given over for the exclusive use and exclusive benefit of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military," the group said.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101255&sectionid=351020202

Israel insists on Jerusalem housing project

2009-07-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

Israel has rejected calls from the United States, the European Union and Russia to halt a controversial building project in the occupied east Jerusalem (al-Quds).

"Israel acts and will act in line with its national interests and in particular for anything affecting Jerusalem.

Our rights in Jerusalem, including its development, cannot be challenged," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement.

The remarks came after Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko warned Israel not to violate Middle East peace plans by expanding settlements in east Jerusalem.

"The settlement should be stopped immediately in line with the roadmap," said Nesterenko on Tuesday.

The project to build 20 apartments on a site in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, is being developed by an American millionaire in the annexed city.

Eli Yishai, interior minister and deputy prime minister also refused to accept internatiol calls, saying "Israel is not a subsidiary of any other country in the world.

The government and the state of Israel have the right to build anywhere in Israel when such projects have obtained all legal approvals."

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community.

The regime has since constructed thousands of settlements in the occupied city housing more than 285,000 Israelis.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101276&sectionid=351020202

In overnight raids, Israel takes 7 Palestinians

2009-07-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

Israeli army soldiers have taken as many as seven Palestinians into custody following pre-dawn raids in a number of occupied West Bank towns.

According to the Ma'an news agency, those detained in the late Sunday operations were from the cities of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem), Ariha (Jericho) and the nearby villages.

The Israeli army regularly arrests Palestinians during overnight operations in West Bank towns.

The detentions are in flagrant violation of a security agreement with the Palestinian National Authority.

Tel Aviv claims that those arrested in the raids are 'wanted activists' and taken for interrogation.

More than 11,500 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities, suffering harsh and life-threatening conditions.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority security forces have detained at least 5 members of the Islamic Hamas Movement in the West Bank.

Hamas, in a statement, announced that the men were taken from their homes in Qalqiliya, Tulkarem and Jenin.

The recent detentions come as part of a crackdown that the Palestinian Authority has launched on Hamas affiliates in the West Bank.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101222&sectionid=351020202

Settlers set Palestinian olive branches on fire

2009-07-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

Jewish settlers have set fire to at least 1,500 olive trees owned by Palestinians in the West Bank after officials evacuated a number of illegal buildings.

The assailants on horseback attacked the Palestinian farms on Monday and others stoned cars, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

A security official said two Palestinians had been wounded in the incident with five vehicles damaged near the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, outside Nablus.

He estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 olive trees were burnt in the attack.

Jewish settlers had previously declared that they would respond to any move to dismantle illegal settlements in the occupied territory through violent attacks on Palestinians and their properties.

Police on Monday evacuated two buildings in three illegal outposts and demolished two homes in the Adei Ad outpost. Israeli officials, however, only evacuated recently-built illegal buildings and not the entire outpost.

A Palestinian official said the police and army are too lenient toward the settlers who attack Palestinians and their properties on a regular basis.

"The settlers are being encouraged by the Netanyahu government," said Rasan Darles. Under a previous agreement, Tel Aviv must dismantle illegal settlements built in the West Bank, which was occupied by the forces loyal to the Zionist movement during the 1967 war.

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101194&sectionid=351020202

Israel rejects settlements halt

2009-07-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the US' demand to stop the planned housing project in the annexed East Jerusalem (al-Quds).

The US State Department last weekend summoned the Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren regarding the settlement issue, an Israeli official told AFP on Sunday on condition of anonymity.

Oren was told to inform the authorities in Tel Aviv that Washington wanted an immediate halt to the project of building homes on the site of the former Shepherd Hotel.

In the latest dispute between the two allies, Netanyahu flatly rejected the US State Department's demand and said that his government will not place restrictions on Jewish homes in a city Israel considers to be its undivided future capital.

Netanyahu was referring to the ongoing project in East Jerusalem's (al-Quds) Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood located near Israeli government buildings and the British and US consulates in East Jerusalem, which received a construction permit from city hall three months ago.

"We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live or to build anywhere in East Jerusalem. We cannot accept such restrictions," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

This is while senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that "there is no middle solution on the issue of settlements.

Israel must stop them immediately, both in the West Bank and Jerusalem."

Israel's Channel Two television reported that a new project has been launched to build 69 extra homes in the East Jerusalem (al-Quds) neighborhood of Ras al-Hamud which is to be named Maale Zeitim, adding to some one hundred homes that already exist there.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101130&sectionid=351020202

Israel rejects US demand to halt east Jerusalem project

2009-07-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hardline Israeli PM says government is not going to place restrictions on Jewish residents in occupied east Jerusalem.

By Marius Schattner - JERUSALEM

Israel on Sunday rejected out of hand a United States demand to stop a building project in annexed east Jerusalem, in the allies' latest dispute over settlements.

Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government was not going to place restrictions on Jewish residents in a city that the state considers its capital.

"We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live or to build anywhere in east Jerusalem. We cannot accept such restrictions," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

"Unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable," he said, adding that the city's Palestinian residents could buy houses throughout the city.

Israel's ambassador in Washington Michael Oren was summoned to the State Department at the end of last week and was told the project, which aims to build housing units in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, should be halted, an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate US comment on the reports.

The project is on the site of the former Shepherd Hotel, which was bought in 1985 by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, who has previously financed settlement projects in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, according to local Israeli media.

The project received a building permit from the Jerusalem municipality three months ago, said the Maariv daily.

The site is located near Israeli government buildings and the British and US consulates in east Jerusalem.

The international community considers Jewish neighbourhoods in mostly Arab east Jerusalem to be Israeli settlements and the issue is one of the main obstacles in the hobbled Middle East peace process.

Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed that part of the city in a move not recognised by the international community. It sees all of Jerusalem as its "eternal, undivided" capital and does not consider construction in east Jerusalem to be settlements.

The Palestinians want to make east Jerusalem the capital of their promised state and vigorously oppose all settlement construction in east Jerusalem, home to some 200,000 Jewish Israelis and 268,000 Palestinians.

Under new US President Barack Obama, Washington has repeatedly pressed Israel to stop all settlement activity, something that hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to do.

The Palestinians have refused to re-start peace negotiations with the Israelis unless the Jewish state stops all settlement activity.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33242

Israel barrier no obstacle to Palestinians seeking work

2009-07-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Scores of Palestinian workers are being smuggled into Israel amid despair in occupied West Bank.

By Joseph Krauss - JERUSALEM

Every day they sneak into Israel by the dozens under the eyes of the soldiers at checkpoints -- a stream of Palestinian labourers from the occupied West Bank desperate for work.

"We are always looking for new methods -- if the Israelis crack down on refrigerated lorries we use ambulances, if they start stopping ambulances we use hearses," says Abu Ali, a smuggler who granted a rare interview on the condition his real name and the name of his village be kept quiet.

Sometimes it's a simple question of timing -- Abu Ali claims he once sneaked 97 workers across in the luggage compartment of a bus because it passed through a checkpoint at dusk, when the sun was in the soldiers' eyes.

The covert commute testifies to the economic despair in the occupied West Bank and calls into question Israel's claim that its controversial separation barrier keeps Palestinians from entering clandestinely.

The vehicles are driven by Israelis, either Jews or Arabs, who are part of smuggling rings that straddle the boundaries of the conflict and often include Jewish settlers, soldiers and bribed checkpoint officials, Abu Ali says.

He charges around 50 dollars per person, but says he pockets less than 10 of it, with the rest paying the other people involved in the ring.

The sheer number of workers using his services has allowed him to build a new three-storey house and made him one of the wealthier residents in his village.

Israeli police have arrested more than 16,000 undocumented Palestinian workers since the start of the year, releasing the vast majority after a few hours, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

"Our units respond immediately, number one because of the possibility of terror infiltration. But in a majority of cases the suspects claim they are coming in for work purposes," he says.

Abu Ali insists he would never help an aspiring suicide bomber to enter for fear of being caught by Israeli security forces. "The Israelis catch them before they ever leave the West Bank 95 percent of the time," he says.

The labourers who sneak in can make up to 50 dollars a day at construction sites and factories in Israel, up to four or five times what they would make in the West Bank, where work is scarce.

"The economic situation is so desperate in the Palestinian territories that people are willing to endure all kinds of hardships to enter," says Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Long dependent on employment inside Israel and its settlements, the Palestinian economy was sent into a tailspin with the restrictions on movement of goods and people Israel imposed on the West Bank after the second Intifada, which erupted in September 2000.

Before that, some 146,000 Palestinians were working inside Israel or the settlements, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Today, only 45,000 Palestinians have permits to work either inside Israel or in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the army says.

In 2008, unemployment in the Palestinian territory stood at 20 percent and gross domestic product (GDP) grew by around four percent, according to the IMF.

Need for work greater than fear of getting caught

"The need for work is always going to be greater than the fear of getting caught and what will be done to you," says Michaeli.

Her rights group says border police frequently abuse workers caught trying to sneak in, which Michaeli says is in part meant as deterrence as the legal system cannot handle the large numbers of violators.

"Theoretically you could detain them, but the system would collapse," she says. "The police and the border police develop their own methods to deal with it, and these include violence, humiliation and other unlawful means."

Last month B'Tselem documented an incident in which Israeli border police halted a poorly-ventilated refrigerator lorry packed with more than 60 workers and refused to let anyone out for more than two hours.

"It was horrible," said one man who was involved. "I felt as if I was suffocating and couldn’t breathe. The policemen didn't let anybody go out, and they didn't bring us water, even though we asked repeatedly."

The workers eventually used their cell phones to alert rights groups.

Rosenfeld said authorities investigate all accusations of abuse, but that in the vast majority of cases the smuggled people are quickly sent back to the West Bank.

Workers smuggled into Israel usually stay for a week or two at a time, facing more hardship as they hide from authorities and hope they are not turned in by their employers. Many sleep in abandoned houses, factories, or outside in construction sites.

"They might work for a day or even a week and not get any money. And they make much less than minimum wage" of 3,850 shekels per month (992 dollars, 704 euros), says Roy Wagner of Kav LaOved, an Israeli organisation that runs a hotline for undocumented labourers.

Wagner estimates the number of illegal labourers currently working matches or exceeds the 45,000 who have permits, which are generally given only to older men with children and no record of security-related offences.

And the permits can be revoked at any time.

"There are no transparent criteria and that allows the security services to extort the workers into cooperation," Wagner says. "People lose their permits for things like traffic violations or for reasons they never find out about."

Abid, a tile-worker and former "client" of Abu Ali, recently managed to acquire an entrance permit.

The 44-year-old, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of losing his permit, was arrested more than a dozen times when he was sneaking in but says he had to keep entering in order to support his five children.

Now as a legal worker he makes his way to the checkpoint every morning at 4:00 am to stand in line so he can be at work near Tel Aviv by 8:00.

"I would prefer to enter with the smugglers," he says with a smile. "Now every time I go through I have to get a full-body X-ray. That can't be healthy."

http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33236

US receives Israel snub on housing project

2009-07-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused a US call to suspend a building project in the occupied Jerusalem (al Quds).

"Our sovereignty over [Jerusalem] cannot be challenged. This means that residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city," Netanyahu said in a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.

He added that there would be no restrictions on Jewish construction anywhere in "unified Jerusalem."

Over the weekend, the US State Department summoned the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, and demanded a halt on the project in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, AFP reported.

Referring to the project which is being developed by an American millionaire in the annexed city, Netanyahu said Israel will not “accept such restrictions.”

"Unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel.

Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable," he added.

The hawkish prime minister, however, said Palestinian residents could also buy houses throughout the city.

The Sheikh Jarrah project, located near Israeli government buildings and the British and US consulates in east Jerusalem, was given a green-light three months ago, according to the Maariv daily.

The status of Jerusalem has been among the thorny issues in the stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, with the Israelis claiming the city as their "eternal, undivided capital" -- a position not recognized by the international community.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War.

It has since constructed thousands of settlements in the occupied city housing more than 285,000 Israelis.

US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to fulfill its commitments under the Roadmap peace plan and evacuate the settlements built in the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem (al-Quds). Israel, however, has so far refused to accept settlement freeze on the occupied territories.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101107&sectionid=351020202

Ultra-Orthodox Jews visit Hamas

2009-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Four members of a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed to the existence of Israel have visited Hamas in Gaza.

The men, clad in the traditional ultra-Orthodox garb of black hats and coats and with long side-curls in their hair, met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya.

The Neturei Karta believe that a Jewish state can only be established by the Messiah and thus denounce Israel as heretic and embrace its enemies.

Mr Haniya welcomed them, saying Hamas rejects Zionist ideology, not Jews.

"We feel your suffering, we cry your cry," the Associated Press quoted Rabbi Yisroel Weiss as saying.

"It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity."

The representatives entered Gaza, which is under a strict Israeli embargo, with a convoy of activists who travelled through Egypt.

'Heroes'

Neturei Karta, Aramaic for "Guardians of the City" was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem.
Estimates of the group's size range from a few hundred to a few thousand - some in Israel, others in the UK and US.

Members have praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Israel should be erased from the pages of history - sometimes translated as "wiped off the map".

They have also attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran and held a prayer vigil for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as he lay on his death bed.

Mr Haniya described the men as "heroes", according to Palestinian media reports.

"Our problem is with the occupation, that stems from the Zionist ideology and its desire to disperse all the Palestinians," he said.

"Those religious figures that express their objection to the siege, the aggression and the crimes - we can't help but respect them and for their beliefs and their culture."

Israel and most Western countries regard Hamas as a terrorist group and refuse to deal directly with it.

The movement is sworn to the destruction of Israel in its charter and backs attacks on Israeli civilians, although has offered a long-term ceasefire in exchange for a Palestinian state on the full territory of the West Bank and Gaza.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8155350.stm

VIVA PALESTINA US CONVOY ENTERS GAZA

2009-07-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

VIVA PALESTINA US CONVOY ENTERS GAZA

Click on link to view video

Israeli warships attack Gaza coastline

2009-07-17T05:37:00.001-07:00

The coastline along the Gaza Strip has come under the fire of patrolling Israeli warships which invariably monitor the shores.

The barrages, which had taken aim at vast swathes of the littoral area on Friday, caused no casualties, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency quoted locals as saying.

Doctor Muawiyah Hassanein, the director of the Gazan Health Ministry's Emergency and Ambulance Services confirmed there had been no casualties.

The naval bombardments frighten off the local fishermen further restricting the sources of livelihood for the blockaded sliver.

The patrols have been staged on a regular basis since the recent three-week-long Israeli attacks on the strip which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left thousands of others injured.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=100930&sectionid=351020202

Viva Palestina aid convoy enters Gaza

2009-07-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy enters the Gaza Strip, breaking the deadly Israeli blockade imposed on 1.5 million Palestinians for a second time.

The American aid convoy carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies for the people of Gaza crossed the Rafah border on Wednesday upon receiving permission from Cairo after a 10-day delay.

The 200 activists are allowed to stay in the costal territory only for 24 hours, a Press TV correspondent reported. Viva Palestina activists, all Americans, including Charles Barron, a New York City Councilman, say they have been stranded on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing for about 10 days despite earlier arrangements.

The humanitarian aid convoy consisted of 50 vehicles is the second organized by British Parliament Member and Press TV presenter George Galloway.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=100784&sectionid=351020202

Israel mistreats pregnant prisoners

2009-07-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

A human rights group has strongly criticized the Israeli government for mistreating Palestinian women kept in Israeli prisons.

According to a report by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), imprisoned pregnant women are often shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth.

The report also added that the Palestinian female prisoners are held in "Israeli prisons and detention centers, which were designed for men and do not meet female needs."

Pregnant detainees "do not receive necessary if preferential treatment in terms of diet, living space or transfer to hospitals," the report went on to say.

"Pregnant prisoners are also chained to their beds until they enter delivery rooms and shackled once again after giving birth.” "The unbalanced diet, insufficient amounts of protein-rich foods, lack of natural sunlight and movement, poor ventilation and moisture all contribute to the exacerbation and the development of physical health problems such as skin diseases, anemia, asthma, prolonged stomach aches, joint and back pains," the report explained.

Meanwhile, the report revealed that the majority of the prisoners were "subjected to some form of mental pressure and torture through the process of their arrest," including beatings, insults, threats, sexual harassment and humiliation techniques.

The indirect impact this has on the unborn child is deeply concerning.

The UN-sponsored report was based on interviews with 125 Palestinian women who were arrested, detained or imprisoned in Israeli prisons between November 2007 and November 2008.

Half of those remain incarcerated today and form part of over 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=100754&sectionid=351020202

Viva Palestina granted permit to break Gaza siege

2009-07-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy has finally received permission to cross the Rafah border and enter the impoverished Gaza Strip after a 10-day delay caused by Cairo.

The American aid convoy carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies for the people of Gaza is expected to break the deadly Israeli blockade imposed on the costal territory on Wednesday.

The convoy -- planned to be in Gaza by July 13 -- was stopped by Egyptian border officials, who claimed they had not received a list of the names of the members of the convoy.

Viva Palestina activists, all Americans, including Charles Barron, a New York City Councilman, say they have been stranded on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing for about 10 days despite earlier arrangements.

The humanitarian aid convoy consisted of 50 vehicles is the second organized by British Parliament Member George Galloway.

The Rafah crossing is Gaza's only border that bypasses Israel. Egypt and Israel have sealed their borders with the seaside territory since 2007 when Hamas took control of the coastal territory, leaving thousands of Gazans in desperate need of life's essentials.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=100753&sectionid=351020202

Israeli soldiers say humanity absent in Gaza war

2009-07-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldiers have recounted how "permissive" rules of engagement led to the death of civilians in Gaza where the Israeli army alleges that no crimes have been committed.

In print and video testimony published on Wednesday by the activist group Breaking the Silence, some 30 soldiers testified that the Israeli Army sought to minimize its own casualties to ensure public support for "Operation Cast Lead".

The soldiers said they entered Gaza with blazing guns upon a guideline by commanders to shoot first and worry later about distinguishing civilians from combatants.

"Better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy," one unidentified soldier remembered his seniors as repeating at pre-invasion briefings.

"If you're not sure, kill. Fire power was insane.

We went in and the booms were just mad," another soldiers told Breaking the Silence. "The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places."

The deadly offensive on the beleaguered Gaza Strip began on December 27 and came to an end after Israel killed more than 1,450 Palestinians, including at least 900 civilians, but failed to topple the resistance Hamas movement.

The 112-page report by Breaking the Silence describes a "Neighbor Procedure" in which civilians were forced to enter suspected buildings as human shields ahead of Israeli troops.

There were also cases of civilians advancing in front of a soldier resting his rifle on their shoulders. The report repeats charges of using forbidden white phosphorus indiscriminately into Gaza streets where Israel's aerial bombardment and artillery with the help of armored bulldozers razed massive areas, including acres of gardens and farms. "We didn't see a single house that was intact ... that was not hit.

The entire infrastructure, tracks, fields, roads, was in total ruin. The D-9 (bulldozer) had gone over everything," the report quoted a soldier as saying. "There was a clear feeling...that no humanitarian consideration played any role in the army at present."

Amnesty International earlier condemned Israel's war crimes during the onslaught, and described the military action again Gaza's residential areas as "wanton" destruction -- which left an estimated 600,000 tons of rubble to be cleared in the next six months.

Israel, however, denied the charges, asserting that it "did all it could to avoid civilian casualties." Following the Gaza war, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi lavished praise upon the army and described the Israeli offensive as the most moral military operation in the world.

http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=100727&sectionid=351020202

Israel used Gaza civilians as human shields

2009-07-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldiers ordered to apply 'shoot first ask questions later' policy during war on besieged Gaza.

TEL AVIV - Israeli soldiers in the Gaza war were told to shoot first and worry about the consequences later, and used Palestinian civilians as human shields, an activist group's report said on Wednesday.

The testimony of some 30 soldiers -- all unnamed -- shows that the massive destruction wreaked on the Palestinian territory was "a direct result of IDF (Israel Defence Forces) policy," the Breaking the Silence group, made up of veteran troops, said in a report.

The Israeli troops regularly used civilians as human shields when approaching suspect houses during the December and January Israeli war on Gaza, one soldier said.

"To every house we close in on, we send the neighbour in, the 'Johnnie'," he said of an incident in which a man was sent into a house several times during breaks in the fighting to check on three militants holed up there.

Another soldier said his commander told him of instances when "the force would enter while placing rifle barrels on a civilian's shoulder, advancing into a house and using him as a human shield."

Many troops said that they were told to shoot first and ask questions later, leading to civilian deaths and massive destruction in the densely populated and impoverished Palestinian enclave.

"The goal was to carry out an operation with the least possible casualties for the army, without it even asking itself what the price would be for the other side. This was the thrust of things that we heard from more than one officer."

"We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved, but we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot," said one soldier.

"No special mention was made of innocents" in briefings on the rules of engagement before the troops went in, another testified.

Another soldier told of an incident in which the troops were having their morning coffee when suddenly the tank of the battalion commander next to them fired a shell into a building.

"It looked groundless to me, more of a 'wakeup call' for the company."

Others spoke of the massive destruction.

"Houses were demolished everywhere... We didn't see a single house that was not hit... It looked awful, like in those World War II films where nothing remained. A totally destroyed city."

Another soldier related an incident in which his commander told troops not to fire warning shots at a man they saw approaching a house until he was some dozen metres (yards) away.

"Suddenly a burst of fire is heard from upstairs, making us all jump. The old man gave such a scream as I'll never forget as long as I live... The commander comes downstairs, glowing, 'here's an opener for tonight'."

When they checked on the man the next morning, they saw "the guy was clean, nothing on him. Except for a torch in his hand, a white shirt and a long beard. A 50-60-year-old man lying on the road."

When they asked their commander why he told them not to fire warning shots, he said: "It's night time and this is a terrorist."

The Israeli army claimed in a statement that "a considerable amount of the testimony in this report is... based on hearsay and word of mouth," and said it was committed to investigating any claim of wrongdoing presented to it.

"From testimony which has been published, including in this report, and from the investigations conducted by the IDF into the operation, it is clear that IDF soldiers operated in accord with international law," the Israeli military claimed.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=33174

Breaking silence on Gaza abuses

2009-07-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

A human rights group founded by Israeli veterans has collected what it says are damning testimonies from soldiers who took part in the offensive in January against Hamas fighters in Gaza. BBC correspondent Paul Wood looks at the anonymous claims presented by Breaking the Silence.

Standing by the ruins of his home in Gaza, Majdi Abed Rabbo explained how Israeli troops had used him as a human shield.

"The Israeli soldiers handcuffed me and pointed the gun at my neck," he said. "They controlled every step."

In this manner, Mr Abed Rabbo said, he was forced to go in ahead of Israeli soldiers as they cleared houses containing Palestinian gunmen.

This same incident was described by one of the Israeli soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence.

"A Palestinian neighbour is brought in," he says. "It was procedure. The soldier places his gun barrel on the civilian's shoulder."

If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war - which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants - and of Israeli law.

The Israeli Supreme Court outlawed the so-called "neighbour policy", of using Palestinians to shield advancing troops, in 2005.

Until now, the Israeli army always had a ready answer to allegations that war crimes were committed during its offensive in Gaza.

Such claims were, they said, Palestinian propaganda.

Now, though, the accusations of abuse are being made by Israeli soldiers.

Testimonies collected

The common thread in the almost 30 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence is that orders were given to prevent Israeli casualties, whatever the cost in Palestinian lives.

Writing the report's introduction, the Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard says: "All the witnesses agreed that they received a particular order repeatedly, in a way that did not leave much room for doubt, to do everything, everything, so that they - the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers - would not be harmed.

"The soldiers tell in their testimonies how this unwritten message, which came from brigade, battalion, and company commanders in morale-building conversations before entering Gaza, translated into zero patience for the life of enemy civilians."

The lawyer adds: "Violations of the laws of war are liable to be war crimes."

Here are just a few quotes which give a flavour of the soldiers' testimony. The accumulation of detail is convincing and, in the eyes of Israel's critics, damning.

"Things are happening in his battalion of which he (the commander) has no idea. There are people who deserve to go to jail...

"When your company commander and battalion commander tell you, 'Go on, fire!' the soldiers will not hold back. They are waiting for this day, the fun of shooting and feeling all that power in your hands...

"Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad. The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places. You see a house, a window, shoot at the window. You don't see a terrorist there? Fire at the window. In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents."

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Leibovich dismissed the testimonies as anonymous hearsay, designed to embarrass the army rather than lead to serious investigations.

She questioned why Breaking the Silence had not handed over its findings earlier, before the media were informed.

"We are investigating many of the requests from NGOs and other groups," she said. "But when you have a report that is based on hearsay, with no facts whatsoever, we can't do anything with it."

In the past, says the Israeli military, some allegations of wrong-doing in Gaza have turned out to be second or third-hand accounts, the result of soldiers recycling rumours in the battalion rather than describing what they themselves witnessed.

Credible record

But Breaking the Silence has a long - and to many, credible - record of getting soldiers to talk about experiences which might not reflect well on the Army.

The group is funded by the British, Dutch and Spanish governments, as well as the EU.
It says the testimony is anonymous because of orders to Israeli soldiers not to speak out publicly.

Some of the collected testimony is highly specific.

In the case of Majdi Abed Rabbo, the Israeli military police have now opened an investigation, lending at least some credibility to the soldier who said the "neighbour policy" was in widespread use.

The military maintains it went to extraordinary lengths to ensure civilians were not harmed in Gaza.

The soldiers' testimony does describe in detail how leaflets were distributed in areas they were about to enter - warning people to leave.

But it is what happened after that, says Breaking the Silence, which calls into question the morality of the Israeli army's actions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8151336.stm

Israel soldiers speak out on Gaza

2009-07-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement.

The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said civilians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers.

Israel denies breaking the laws of war and dismissed the report as hearsay.

"We were told soldiers were to be secured by fire-power. The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were the most important, and that there was no way our soldiers would get killed for the sake of leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt," said one soldier in the report.

"People were not instructed to shoot at everyone they see, but they were told that from a certain distance when they approach a house, no matter who it is - even an old woman - take them down," said another.

Many of the testimonies are in line with claims made by human-rights organisations that Israeli military action in Gaza was indiscriminate and disproportionate.

Amnesty International has accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the 22-day conflict.

Israeli officials insist troops went to great lengths to protect civilians, that Hamas endangered non-combatants by firing from civilian areas and that homes and buildings were destroyed only when there was a specific military need to do so.

'Ill discipline'

According to testimonies from the 14 conscripts and 12 reserve soldiers:

• Rules of engagement were either unclear or encouraged soldiers to do their utmost to protect their own lives whether or not Palestinian civilians were harmed.

• Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers

• Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished. Accounts say that this was often done because the houses might be booby-trapped, or cover tunnels. Testimony mentioned a policy referred to as "the day after", whereby areas near the border were razed to make future military operations easier

• Some of the troops had a generally aggressive, ill-disciplined attitude

• There was incidents of vandalism of property of Palestinians

• Soldiers fired at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans

• White phosphorus was used in civilian areas in a way some soldiers saw as gratuitous and reckless

• Many of the soldiers said there had been very little direct engagement with Palestinian militants

The report says Israeli troops and the people who justify their actions are "slid[ing] together down the moral slippery slope".

"This is an urgent call to Israeli society and its leaders to sober up and investigate anew the results of our actions," Breaking the Silence says.

Israel said the purpose of the 22-day operation that ended on 18 January 2009 had been to end rocket fire from Gaza aimed at its southern towns.

Palestinian rights groups say about 1,400 Palestinians died during the operation. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict, including 10 soldiers serving in Gaza.

According to the UN, the campaign damaged or destroyed more than 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties, 200 schools, 39 mosques and two churches.

Investigations

Reacting to the report, Israeli military spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Leibovich said:

"The IDF [Israel Defence Forces] regrets the fact that another human rights organisation has come out with a report based on anonymous and general testimony - without investigating their credibility."

She dismissed the document as "hearsay and word of mouth".

"The IDF expects every soldier to turn to the appropriate authorities with any allegation," Lt Col Leibovich added. "This is even more important where the harm is to non-combatants. The IDF has uncompromising ethical values which continue to guide us in every mission."

There have been several investigations into the conduct of Israel's operation in Gaza, and both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs the territory, have faced accusations of war crimes.

An internal investigations by the Israeli military said troops fought lawfully, although errors did take place, such as the deaths of 21 people in a house that had been wrongly targeted.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has requested more than $11m (£7m) in compensation from Israel for damage to UN property in Gaza. A limited UN inquiry blamed Israel in six out of nine attacks on UN facilities, resulting in casualties among civilians sheltering there.

Meanwhile, a fact-finding team commissioned by the Arab League concluded there was enough evidence to prosecute the Israeli military for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that "the Israeli political leadership was also responsible for such crimes".

It also said Palestinian militants were guilty of war crimes in their use of indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians.

Different Death Tolls

Palestinians killed during Israeli military offensive in Gaza, 27 Dec to 18 Jan - Palestinian claims followed by Israelis claims:

Total dead: 1,434 / 1,166
Fighters: 235 / 710-870
Non-combatants: 906 / 295-460
Women: 121 / 49
Children under 16: 288 / 89

From Paul Wood, BBC Middle East correspondent:

Until now, Israel always had a ready answer to allegations of war crimes in Gaza. Claims were, they said, Palestinian propaganda. Now the accusations of abuse are being made by Israeli soldiers.

The common thread in the testimonies is that orders were given to prevent Israeli casualties whatever the cost in Palestinian lives.

The Israeli military says past allegations of wrong-doing in Gaza were the result of soldiers recycling rumours.

But Breaking the Silence has a long - and to many, credible - record in getting soldiers to talk about experiences which might not reflect well on the army.

Breaking silence on abuses

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8149464.stm

Israel abusing Palestinian female prisoners

2009-07-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

Pregnant prisoners chained to beds as others subjected to torture, sexual harassment in Israeli jails.

TEL AVIV - A Palestinian human rights group slammed Israeli treatment of Palestinian female prisoners in a UN-sponsored report released on Wednesday, saying pregnant women are often shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth.

The women prisoners are held in "Israeli prisons and detention centres which were designed for men and do not respond to female needs," said a report by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which was sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Pregnant detainees "do not enjoy preferential treatment in terms of diet, living space or transfer to hospitals," it said. "Pregnant prisoners are also chained to their beds until they enter delivery rooms and shackled once again after giving birth.

"The unbalanced diet, insufficient amounts of protein-rich foods, lack of natural sunlight and movement, poor ventilation and moisture all contribute to the exacerbation and the development of health problems such as skin diseases, anaemia, asthma, prolonged stomach aches, joint and back pains."

In addition, the majority of the prisoners were "subjected to some form of mental pressure and torture through the process of their arrest," including beatings, insults, threats, sexual harassment and humiliation techniques.
The vast majority of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons are young -- some 13 percent of those arrested in 2007-2008 were under the age of 18 and 56 percent were between 20 and 30 years of age.

The detainees are often denied means to study, which violates their rights to a higher education and suffer from restrictions on visits.

In September 2008, some 60 percent had at least one family member who was not allowed to visit them. Open visits were restricted to mothers once their children reached the age of six.

Female prisoners with a husband or other relatives also in jail were "accorded the right to family visits... after months of delays."

In addition, the Israeli prison authorities do not provide gender-sensitive rehabilitation programmes, it said.

The report was based on interviews with 125 Palestinian women who were arrested, detained or imprisoned in Israeli jails between November 2007 and November 2008. Of those, some 65 remain in prison -- part of some 9,000 Palestinians currently incarcerated in Israel.

A spokesman for the Israeli prison authorities said he was not aware of the report and could not comment.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33169

Experts: Israel used depleted uranium ammunition against Gazans

2009-07-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

VIEW VIDEO REPORT FROM PRESS TV

Viva Palestina US expected in Gaza tomorrow

2009-07-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

An American humanitarian aid convoy carrying 50 vehicles is expected to break the Israeli imposed blockade on the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing.

The Viva Palestina US aid convoy, led by 170 activists, is to cross the Rafah border crossing along the Egyptian border on Tuesday.

The convoy carries hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies for Palestinians, suffering from the two-year long collective punishment on their territory. The Rafah crossing, which remains closed most of the time, is Gaza's only border that bypasses Israel. Israel and Egypt have maintained a close watch over the closure of their borders with the Gaza Strip since Hamas took power in the strip in June 2007.

Earlier on Saturday, Egyptian authorities stopped another US aid convoy at the Suez Canal, on its way to the coastal sliver. The authorities have stopped four bus loads of American citizens and are preventing them from entering the strip with the Viva Palestina convoy, headed by British parliamentarian George Galloway.

They stopped the buses on the Mubarek Peace Bridge at the Suez Canal and have confiscated the keys from each bus driver.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=100568&sectionid=351020202

Gaza's children struggle with memories of war

2009-07-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Experts say vast majority of Gaza children will bear psychological scars of Israeli war for years to come.

By Patrick Moser - GAZA CITY

Fourteen-year-old Ghasan Matar won't talk about the explosion that cost him his legs and killed his brother. In fact, six months after the end of the Israeli war on Gaza, he still barely talks at all.
He spends most of his time staring at the walls and a huge poster depicting his older brother against a bloody background of war featuring a Kalashnikov assault rifle and dead Israeli soldiers.

He says he never thinks about the day when the house was hit during heavy shelling of Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood. He insists he has no nightmares. "I'm doing fine," he says, and then clams up.

"He's very traumatised. He doesn't speak, tries to act like nothing happened," says social worker Nisrin Ramadan during a visit to the boy's crumbling brick home.

"There are many cases like this of deep shock and loss of hope," says Ramadan, who works with the Society for the Physically Handicapped.

More than 300 children were among the 1,400 Palestinians killed and many more were wounded during the 22-day Israeli offensive that ended on January 18, according to Palestinian figures.

And experts say a vast majority of the children who make up more than half of Gaza's 1.5 million population, will bear the psychological scars for years to come.

"Children here have lost joy in life. They can laugh but there is no joy. They are unable to maintain hope," says psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj, who heads the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

'I love Azza and want her back'

Seven-year-old Ahmed Salah al-Samuni smiles timidly as he is tossed a green plastic ball but quickly loses interest, instead digging his nails into a couch in a brightly coloured room used for psycho-social counselling sessions.

"I remember that Israelis came and ordered us out. Shells were fired," he says when asked what he remembers of the war.

"Grandmother and grandfather are dead," he says, going on to list about 10 others who died when his house was bombed. In all, 29 were killed in the attack, 18 of them from his direct family.

"I love Azza and want her back," he says of his two-and-a-half year-old sister who was among the dead.

After the attack, he lay in a pool of blood. It's only when he cried out for his mother that she realised he was still alive.

A large scar runs across his face, another along his hip. His nose is still deformed from the shrapnel wounds.

Just a few months ago he had regular fits of rage, when he'd beat his brothers and break whatever was in his path.

"He'd scream out at night: 'The Jews are coming to kill me'," his father says.

His psychological scars are also starting to heal. "But it's a long process. He has seen so many dead bodies," says counsellor Sabri Abu Nadi.

A huge number of children went through "horrible situations" during the war, says Saji Elmughanni, the Gaza spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF. "Nowhere was safe" in the overcrowded sliver of land wedged between Israel, the Mediterranean and Egypt.

"All children here went through some degree of exposure to violence."

Many bury their feelings deep inside.

Njood Basal, 14, who suffered serious shrapnel wounds to the head, spends much of her time sitting on her bed in a room where light filters through holes in the tin roof.

She chats on the Internet with friends "in other countries, mainly the West Bank."

"I don't tell them what happened ... they ask, but I always change the subject. I feel upset when I talk about the situation."

Outside her house, a poster depicts her cousin Talat Basal. Her family says he was a "martyr," a member the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza.

Psychiatrist Sarraj says the exposure to extraordinary levels of violence is certain to turn many of today's children into tomorrow's extremists.

"I'm sure there will be a new breed of militants, they'll want a more militant group than Hamas to feel protected," he says.

Reminders of the war that Israel launched to halt rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups are everywhere: buildings reduced to rubble, shell-scarred facades, charred car wrecks.

At night, firing can be heard from the Israeli naval ships that ensure fishermen don't venture more than a few kilometers (miles) from shore.

Mental health experts say many children in the tiny coastal enclave still live in fear of renewed military attack.

"Whether consciously or unconsciously, the fear of another war is always there," says Sarraj.
Awad Sultan, 12, lives in one of dozens of tents set up north of Gaza City to house families who lost their homes in the war.

He says he still has nightmares. "Israeli soldiers try to catch my dad and destroy houses."
What was once his family home is now just rubble.

The bicycle he loved riding is a charred piece of wreckage. Now he plays with other kids from the camp in a large tent set up by social workers.

"We have fun, but what's the use. We come back and think about the war."