by Brendan Work
As Israeli settlers prepare armed marches on West Bank cities in advance of Friday’s Palestinian statehood bid presentation at the UN, Palestinians say they are wary of increased attacks but unafraid. On Sunday the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot revealed that radical settlers had planned at least three “sovereignty marches” for Tuesday afternoon near Ramallah, Hebron, and Nablus with the expressed intent of “[making] it clear to the Arabs who the home owners are.”
“The Israelis are trying to disrupt the festivities,” said Maher Ghoneim, the PA Minister of Wall and Settlement Affairs. “They are trying to escalate matters and shuffle the cards. We won’t fall into the trap.”
Ghoneim called for “vigilance and caution” and peaceful demonstrations throughout the week, which will culminate with President Mahmoud Abbas’ presentation of the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN Security Council on Friday. A vote is expected in a matter of weeks, but the United States has confirmed it will veto the bid.
Meanwhile, settlers quoted by Yedioth Ahronot said they “won’t hesitate to use live ammunition” against Palestinians who approach illegal settlements in the West Bank, but in an effort to “make it clear to everyone who this country belongs to,” they will take the initiative and march on Tuesday from the settlements of Beit El, Kiryat Arba, and Itamar to the nearest Israeli army District Coordination Offices (DCO). Each of DCOs, however, is near a major Palestinian city: Ramallah, Hebron, and Nablus, respectively.
"We're going to go out and make it clear to the Arabs who the home owners are,” settler Itamar Ben-Gvir told Yedioth Ahronot. “We're going to take the initiative and march towards Palestinian towns."
On Sunday, Palestinian official news wire Wafa reported that a group of settlers retook the evacuated outpost of Homish, in the south of the Jenin governorate in the northern West Bank. The Israeli army dismantled the settlement over the summer, but unnamed local sources told Wafa that they saw Israeli soldiers guarded the settlers as they moved back into Homish.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) concluded in a July 2011 report that “settler-related incidents resulting in Palestinian injuries and damage to property” had risen 57% already and would likely double the 2010 incidence rate. Palestinians expect settler violence to rise sharply with the statehood bid and the upcoming olive season in October.
“I’m sure it will be worse this year when the olive season comes,” said Samih Yusef, a Palestinian in the village of Tuqu’ to the south of Bethlehem. “We haven’t been able to go our olive trees for seven or eight years. Every time someone goes, they shoot at them.”
The settlement two kilometers to the south of Yusef’s village is Tekoa and to the east lies Noqdim, where rightist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman lives. Neither settlement has promised to aid in Tuesday’s “sovereignty marches,” but Yusef said he did not believe his neighbors were any better.
“They’re all the same, they have the same mindset,” he said.
Wafa also reported on Sunday an increased presence of police and at least one “Jewish extremist group” at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. In September 2000, former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon’s visit to the site, known in Jewish tradition as the Temple Mount, touched off the Second Intifada.
PNN - Palestine News Network
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