Latest Mideast News

Shalabi supporter hospitalized after solidarity strike

2012-03-02T22:05:00.000+01:00

(MaanImages/File)

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- A prisoner on hunger strike in solidarity with Hana Shalabi has been transferred to hospital after he was released from jail, a detainees center said Friday.

Suheil Akram Al-Masri, 26, has refused food for 13 days to support the female detainee. Shalabi started a hunger strike 16 days ago to protest her administrative detention, after she was re-arrested having been freed by Israel in an earlier prisoner swap deal.

Al-Masri was transferred to hospital after fainting on his arrival home to Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday night. His parents said they had expected his release from Israeli prison on April 20, after his four year term completed.

From hospital, Al-Masri vowed to continue his hunger strike until Shalabi is released.

After being held under the same detention without charge regulations, Khader Adnan went on hunger strike for 66 days, until Israeli officials pledged last week they would release him shortly before the order's term.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority's prisoners ministry said administrative detainees in Israeli jails would boycott the prison administration's courts beginning March 1 in protest of the policy.

Maan News Agency

Video Bil'in and Nabi Salih Demo 02.03.2012 Byhaithmkatib@gmail.com

2012-03-02T21:45:00.000+01:00

Hunger-striker Hana Shalabi's health 'at risk'

2012-03-02T21:24:00.000+01:00

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hana Shalabi has refused food since Feb. 16 in protest against her detention without charge or trial, and Amnesty International says her health is increasingly at risk.

Hana Shalabi’s family have not been allowed to visit her since she was arrested, and they are currently waiting for permission to do so from the Israeli authorities, the rights group said Friday.

It urged those concerned to write to Israeli authorities to give Shalabi immediate access to adequate medical care, and to ensure she is treated humanely at all times, and not punished for her hunger strike.

More urgently, the group is also calling on Israeli authorities to release the detainee and other Palestinians held in administrative detention, unless they are charged with internationally recognized offenses.

She should also have access to her lawyers, doctors, and family, Amnesty said.

Maan News Agency

Israeli Troops use Gas to Suppress Anti-Wall Protests

2012-03-02T21:22:00.000+01:00

by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

On Friday many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as soldiers suppressed anti wall protests organized in a number of West Bank villages. The protests were in solidarity with political detainee in Israeli Jails Hana Ash-Shalabi, who is on hunger strike for 16 days in protest of her captivity.

Bil’in Protest – IMEMC’s Photo 2010

In central West Bank, troops attacked the weekly anti wall protests organized at the villages of Bil’in, Nil’in and al Nabi Saleh. Israeli and international supporters joined villagers after the midday prayers at all three locations.

Soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters in al Nabi Saleh before they left the village, moreover troops invaded the village and fired tear gas at residents homes, many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.

Meanwhile at the nearby Bil’in and Nil’in, Israeli soldiers attacked protesters as soon as they reached the wall with tear gas. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation at both locations.

In southern West Bank also on Friday villagers of Al Ma’ssara, along woth their international and Israeli supporters protest the Israeli wall. Troops stopped protesters at the village entrance before they reached lands owned by local farmers that Israel took over to build the wall on. Later troops forced people back into the village using rifle buts. No injuries were reported.

International Middle East Media Center

Report: “Israel Kidnapped 380 Palestinians In February”

2012-03-02T16:59:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Palestinian researcher, specialized in Detainees’ Affairs, Riyadh Al-Ashqar, stated that Israel heightened the rate of its illegal arrests of the Palestinians in the occupied territories in February, and kidnapped more than 380 Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, in occupied East Jerusalem, and the 1948 territories.

File - Palinfo.com

In a press release, Al-Ashqar said that among the kidnapped Palestinians in February were 54 children and six women, including one female detainee who was released under the Prisoner Swap deal.

He said that 14 residents were kidnapped while working in their lands, close to the Israeli “security fence” along the border between Gaza and Israel. Troops also kidnapped a cancer patient identified as Hikmat At-Taramsy, 48, at the Erez (Beit Hanoun) Terminal while on his way to an Israeli hospital after receiving all needed permits. He was released later on.

The Israeli Navy also kidnapped five Palestinian fishermen in Palestinian territorial waters, and attacked their boats.

Al-Ashqar stated that Israeli troops kidnapped six Palestinians who were released under the Shalit Prisoner-Swap deal, including hunger-striking detainee, Hana’ Shalabi, who has been on hunger strike since more than 15 days, demanding her release and rejecting a six-month administrative detention order served against her without charges.

One of the kidnapped women is a lawyer, and former political prisoner, identified as Shereen Al-Esawy; she was taken prisoner after the army broke into her home and searched it, in occupied East Jerusalem.

The rest were identified as Mofeeqa Al-Qawasmi (the wife of detainee Mohammad Shafeeq Al-Qawasmi), Mona Abu Sneina (the wife of political prisoner Hamdan Abu Sneina), and Aesha Mousa Ghannam.

The four male political prisoners who were released under the Shalit Prisoner Swap Deal, and were rearrested in February, were identified as Ayman Abu Da’oud, Yousef Abdul-Rahman Shteiwy, Mahmoud Adnan Salim, and Rami Abu Haniyya.

Troops also kidnapped 54 children, including Adi Qfeisha, 13, who was kidnapped in front of his school building in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

As for attacks against the detainees, Al-Ashqar stated the soldiers broke into Section 7 of the Negev Detention Camp, and searched the detainees’ tents before transferring 120 detainees to different Israeli prisons. Soldiers also broke into Asqalan Prison four times last month.

Detainees in Ramon and Nafha prisons were denied their visitation rights, for the third month, due to their hunger-strike that was carried out to protest the harsh living conditions, and repeated violations against them. Electrical equipment was confiscated from the detainees in Ramon; they were also denied access to the prisoner canteen to buy food.

Several detainees were ordered into solitary confinement for several months, one of them, identified as Ahmad Al-Maghribi, was handed a six-month order, for expressing solidarity with detainee Adnan Khader, who held a 66-day hunger strike until Israel decided to release him this coming April.

The attacks did were not only carried out against the detainees, but also targeted their families. In one incident, soldier based at a roadblock, near Hebron, humiliated the wives and mothers of political prisoners while on their way to visit them at the Ramon and Nafa prisons.

As for administrative detention orders, Israeli military courts ordered more than 50 detainees into solitary confinement, including Palestinian reporter Amin Abu Warda, and journalist Amer Abu Arafa. Abu Arafa received a six-month extension for the second time.

30 more detainees, including three elected legislators, received renewals of their administrative detention orders, without charges. Legislator Nasser Abdul-Jawad, from Salfit, received 4 more months extension to his term, Bethlehem legislator Anwar Zboun, 6 more months, and Hebron legislator, Mohammad Al-Natsha, 6 more months.

As for the health conditions of the detainees, Al-Ashqar stated that several detainees suffered sharp deterioration to their health conditions, including Dr. Mohammad Sleiby, who was moved to hospital due to a collapse in his health condition resulting from, among other things, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Detainee Thabit Al-Mardawy was moved to a hospital after conducting a 10-day hunger strike in solidarity with Adnan Khader.

Confined to his bed at the Ramla Prison Hospital, detainee Zuheir Rasheed Lubbada is facing bad health conditions due to Kidney failure, and due to an infection he got during dialysis; he also suffered from cirrhosis as his scheduled dialysis was performed seven days after its scheduled time.

Detainee Dirar Abu- Seessi, from Gaza, is suffering from several health issues, including his heart, kidneys, gallbladder, blood pressure, and anemia (his hemoglobin blood count is 10 and he lost 30 kilograms).

Detainee Woroud Qassem, imprisoned at Ha-Sharon prison became unable to stand, and is suffering from deficiency in vitamin D.

Detainee Akram Issa, from Nablus, is suffering from a psychological disorder and paranoia; he currently cannot tell what is going around him.

Al-Ashqar voiced an appeal to different human rights groups to intervene, and provide the needed attention and support to the Palestinian detainees, and called on the Palestinian people to step-up their activities in support of the detainees, and to show ongoing solidarity.

International Middle East Media Center

Occupation force demolish a protest tent in Khirbet Sousya

2012-03-02T16:56:00.000+01:00

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- IOF troops on Thursday afternoon dispersed a protest held by the residents of Khirbet Sousya and Khirbet Um Nir, to the east of Yatta in the southern West Bank district of al-Khalil, to protest the demolition notices handed to residents of the two hamlets by the IOF.

The IOF troops also demolished a protest tent and threatened the protestors with arrest on the pretext of hampering the work of the army, scuffles broke out between the residents and the occupation troops.

Jewish settlers on Tuesday warned the residents Khirbet Sousya that they should leave their lands so that it can be annexed to the nearby Jewish settlement. The settlers have already applied to court to annex an area of 1000 Dunums (1 Dunum=1000 square meters) which is owned by the residents of Khirbet Sousya.

Resident of a number of hamlets to the east of Yatta live on agriculture and livestock. There are around 500 residents served by two schools. Residents of the hamlets possess title deeds proving they own the land, but cannot afford to hire lawyers to fight their cases at occupation courts.
Occupation force demolish a protest tent in Khirbet Sousya

PCHR Weekly Report: One civilian killed, 6 wounded by Israeli troops this week

2012-03-02T16:44:00.001+01:00

For the full text of the report, click on the link below:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8217:weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory-23-29-feb-2012&catid=131:new
International Middle East Media Center
by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 23 – 29 Feb. 2012, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights found that a Palestinian civilian was killed in a peaceful demonstration in al-Ram village, north of Jerusalem, protesting Israeli forces attempts to raid the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israeli police attack Al-Aqsa mosque (image by PCHR)

In addition, 5 protesters, including an Israeli Knesset Member and a member of the Palestinian National Council, were wounded in 2 peaceful demonstrations in the center of Hebron.

Israeli forces have continued bombardments and shootings in the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian resistance fighter was wounded in the east of Gaza City.

A tunnel and a container were destroyed in Rafah and damages were caused to 3 houses and offices of the International Federation of Football in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces also fired at Palestinian fishermen and their fishing boats.

Israeli attacks in the West Bank:

In the West Bank, on 24 February 2012, Israeli forces used excessive force to kill a Palestinian who was participating in a peaceful demonstration in al-Ram village, north of Jerusalem, in protest against Israeli forces and Israeli settlers attempts to raid the al-Aqsa Mosque. During the reporting period, many peaceful demonstrations were organized in protest to Israeli forces raiding the al-Aqsa Mosqu in Occupied Jerusalem and to their use of force against Palestinians who were in the Mosque trying to confront Israeli settlers who were trying to get into the Mosque to perform religious rituals. As a result, a Palestinian civilian was killed and a member of the Palestinian civil defense service was wounded. Additionally, dozens of demonstrators and passers-by suffered from tear gas inhalation.

At approximately 13:30 on Friday, 24 February 2012, a number of Palestinian boys gathered near Qalandia checkpoint, north of Occupied Jerusalem, to organize a peaceful demonstration in protest to Israeli forces attempts to raid the al-Aqsa Mosque. They chanted slogans calling for an end to the Israeli occupation and the closure of all the Israeli prisons, and other slogans condemning Israeli forces repressive policy against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque. Then they walked to Qalandia checkpoint. Before they arrived at the checkpoint, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated metal bullets, live bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters. The demonstrators responded by throwing stones at Israeli forces. As a result, a number of the demonstrators and passers-by suffered from tear gas inhalation including Maya Musa Rebhi, 14 months, and Nebal Ishaq, 18 months who were transferred to Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah for treatment.

On Friday, 24 February 2012, Israeli forces used excessive force against participants in a peaceful demonstration in al-Ram village, north of Occupied Jerusalem, organized in protest to Israeli forces attempts to raid the al-Aqsa Mosque. As a result, a Palestinian civilian was killed.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 15:00 on Friday, 24 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians gathered near the northeastern entrance of al-Ram village, north of Jerusalem, to organize a peaceful demonstration in protest of attempts by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers to storm the al-Aqsa Mosque. Some of the protesters walked towards the gate of an Israeli forces camp, 200 meters from the entrance of al-Ram village. A number of them managed to set fire to tires inside the camp. In the meantime, a large personnel carrier arrived from the camp, and approximately 20 Israeli soldiers stepped down from the carrier. The Palestinian men who had entered the camp immediately fled to the entrance of al-Ram village. The soldiers who were deployed near the gate of the Israeli forces camp fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the demonstrators. They then walked towards the entrance of al-Ram village, and the Palestinian demonstrators threw stones at them. At the same time, one of the demonstrators, Tala't Abdul Rahman Diab Ramiya, 24, threw fireworks at the soldiers who were near the entrance of al-Ram village. The soldiers responded by firing bullets. Around 20 minutes later, Ramiya threw fireworks again, at around 15 soldiers who were at the entrance of the village, approximately 50 meters from him. It was around 16:18 when a military officer, who was positioned behind the soldiers, opened fire at Ramiya, who was wounded by a bullet that penetrated his right armpit and exited from his back. Ramiya fell onto the ground and was transferred, by a Palestinian car, to al-Salam Medical Center in al-Ram village. The Center was closed, and Ramiya was carried to a car belonging to the Jerusalem Governorate. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance from a Palestinian medical team arrived and transferred Ramiya to the Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah. At approximately 20:00 on the same day, Ramiya was pronounced dead. Eyewitnesses stated to a PCHR fieldworker that an Israeli soldier, who was wearing a black bulletproof vest, fired at Ramiya with the intention to kill him. The Israeli officer was 50 meters away from Ramiya. Eyewitnesses reported that Ramiya did not pose any threats to the soldiers and that the soldiers could have used less lethal force or they could have abducted him.

Israeli forces conducted 58 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they abducted 40 Palestinians, including 2 children.

Israeli forces raided the offices of Watan and al-Quds local TV channels and confiscated broadcasting devices and other possessions.

Israeli forces abducted 9 Palestinians, including 3 children, at checkpoints in the West Bank.

Israeli forces maltreated a school student in Hebron.

Israel has continued efforts to create a Jewish majority in East Jerusalem. Israeli Newspaper Ma'ariv wrote that the Israeli Municipality's District Committee for Planning and Building in Jerusalem recently registered the land of the Qalandia Airport in the name of the Israeli Municipality in Jerusalem and the name of the State of Israel. Ma'ariv revealed that the said land was not previously registered in the name of any Israeli authority. The Civil Airports Department seized the land and submitted a request to the Municipality to register the lands in the name of the Municipality and the State of Israel, in "Israel Lands Department". It should be noted that the Israeli authorities closed the Qalandia Airport after the breakout of the First Intifada in 1987.

The closure of Silwan Charity and Silwan Islamic club was extended for a year.

Israeli settlement activities:

Israeli forces have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

On 23 February 2012, Israeli forces moved into Soreef village, northwest of Hebron, and demolished a water well and fields. They also uprooted hundreds of trees under the pretext that those lands were "public lands." According to information collected by PCHR, the water well was destroyed, 690 trees were uprooted, 22 dunums were demolished, and 800 meters of the fence surrounding the fields were removed.

On the same day, Israeli forces moved into al-Njasat area, northwest of Hebron. There they demolished an agricultural facility built on an area of 29 meters, and a water tank used for agricultural purposes. They also distributed notices to demolish a mosque, a school and 19 shelters of Bedouins in Kherbet Janba, south of Hebron

On 26 February 2012, Israeli forces sent a military notice confiscating approximately 21 dunums in Sartah, Hares and Qarawet Bani Hassan villages, north of Salfit. In his testimony to PCHR, Abdul Aziz 'Assi, head of the Municipality of Qarawet Bani Hassan, said that this land surrounds "Burkan" settlement, west of Salfit. The land was confiscated a year ago, when Israeli forces surrounded it with barbed wires to prevent the Palestinians from entry, paving the way to arrest them under a security pretext. Israeli forces have been preventing people from entering the land so far."

In the same context, on 27 February 2012, an Israeli settler fired at a number of Palestinians shepherds while they were in their lands, south of Hebron. According to information collected by PCHR, an Israeli armed settler tried to take some sheep. The shepherds fought with him; as a result, the settler fired at the sheep and shepherd. However, no injuries were reported.

On 28 February 2012, a group of settlers living in Hebron settlements entered al-Nabi Yunis area, north of Hebron. They entered through the eastern entrance of the area by 7 Israeli vehicles before military and police vehicles followed them to make them leave the area. However, no incidents were reported.

Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:

On Friday Feb. 24th, at approximately 03:25, an Israeli forces warplane fired a missile at a training site used by the Izz Addin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in the east of the Bedouin village in the north of the Gaza Strip. Windows of two houses in the southwest of the site crushed as a result of the explosion. In addition, the windows of the International Federation of Football, to the south of the site, crushed. Further, the locals, especially women and children, were in panic because of the strong explosion. No casualties were reported. The missile caused a big hole in the training site.

Israeli forces have continued to attack Palestinian fishermen at sea. Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian fishermen off the shore of Deir al-Balah and confiscated fishing nets.

Israel has continued to impose a total closure and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.

Israeli Annexation Wall:

During the reporting period, Israeli forces used force against peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders in protest to the construction of the Wall and settlement activities in the West Bank, and in protest to the establishment of a buffer zone in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces attacks on peaceful demonstrations resulted in wounding 5 Palestinian civilians, including Israeli Knesset Member Mohammed Barakeh and Palestinian National Council Member Mohammed Amin al-Jaabari. Additionally, dozens of Palestinian civilians and human rights defenders participating in peaceful demonstrations suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Following the Friday Prayer on 24 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, protesting the construction of the annexation wall. They raised the Palestinian flag. They called for ending the political division and for releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. As they arrived at Abu Leimoun reserve, Israeli soldiers stationed in the area fired rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the demonstrators. As a result, a number of Palestinians, including Haroun 'Amayra, cameraman of Palestine TV, suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Also following the Friday Prayer, on 24 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians and international and human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Ni'lin village, west of Ramallah, in protest against the construction of the annexation wall. They chanted slogans calling for Palestinian reconciliation, adherence to the Palestinian inalienable rights and resistance of the occupation. They clashed with Israeli troops positioned near the annexation wall. Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at demonstrators. As a result, a number of demonstrators suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Also following the Friday prayer on 24 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians and Israeli and international human rights defenders gathered in the center of al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah, to start the weekly peaceful protest against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities and to protest against the Israeli violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. They raised the Palestinian flag and chanted slogans condemning Israeli forces arbitrary actions. The protesters walked towards the gate erected by Israeli forces near the entrance of the village and leading to Palestinian lands that Israeli settlers from the nearby "Halmish" settlement are trying to seize. Israeli soldiers, who had been extensively deployed in the area and near all the entrances of the village since the morning, began to confront the protesters who wanted to walk towards the affected lands. Israeli soldiers fired live and rubber-coated bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the protesters. As a result dozens of protesters suffered from tear gas inhalation. Additionally, Israeli forces occupied the roofs of a number of houses in al-Nabi Saleh village and transferred them into military barracks. Israeli forces withdraw at approximately 16:00 from the village and no arrests were reported.

Also following the Friday Prayer on 24 February, Israeli forces used excessive force to disperse two peaceful demonstrations that were organized in the center of Hebron, commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, protesting the closure of al-Shuhada Street in the center of Hebron, and calling for opening al-Shuhada Street and lifting the restrictions imposed on Palestinians' right to the freedom of movement. Israeli forces closed all the roads leading to al-Shuhada Street and all the roads leading to the old city of Hebron. They violently confronted the demonstrators over several hours. They fired rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the demonstrators. Additionally, they sprayed toxic chemicals at the demonstrators. They were also intentional to attack medical crew while evacuating and rescuing the wounded. Around 40 demonstrators sustained wounds, suffered tear gas inhalation or sustained bruises as they were beaten by Israeli forces. Additionally, Israeli forces abducted 2 Palestinians and an international solidarity activist. The demonstrations were organized by the Committee for the Defense of Hebron, the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements and Youth against Settlements in Hebron. Different solidarity delegations, public opinion leaders, PLC members, Chairman of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and Knesset Member (Hadash) Mohammed Barakeh, professor Ghadi al-Ghazi, Hadash member, Mahmoud al-'Aloul, member of the Fatah Central Committee, Former Member of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini, and Leader of Abnaa Elbalad Movement Raja Eghbareyeh participated in the demonstrations.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, following the Friday Prayer on 24 February 2012, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of international solidarity activists participated in a peaceful demonstration organized by the Committee for the Defense of Hebron and the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements. The demonstrators walked from farms in the southeast of Tal Rmeida neighborhood in the center of Hebron to al-Karantina Street that leads to one of the main entrances of al-Shuhada Street. When the demonstrators were around 120 meters from the entrance of al-Shuhada Street, Israeli forces soldiers who excessively deployed in the area extensively fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters from 5-15 meters distance directly at the demonstrators who were unable to reach al-Shuhada Street as a result. The soldiers were intentional to throw a sound bombs between the legs of Mohammed Barakeh and Palestinian National Council Member Mohammed Amin al-Jaabari. Barakeh and other demonstrators were wounded as a result. The soldiers pushed Barakeh and al-Jaabari and threatened them. Then Israeli forces brought an armored vehicle equipped with a sprayer and used the sprayer to spray toxic chemicals at the demonstrators. The sprayed toxic chemicals cause suffocation, inability to breathe and losing consciousness. This resulted in confrontation between Israeli forces and the demonstrators in al-Karantina Street and the surroundings of the Islamic cemetery.

In the meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian civilians were carrying a dead body to bury it in the Islamic cemetery. The demonstrators opened the way for those participating in the funeral. However, Israeli forces continued firing sound bombs and tear gas canisters. They even were intentional to spray toxic chemicals at those participating in the funeral and at the dead body.

In the same time, another peaceful demonstration started from the Prophet's Commandments Mosque in the south of Hebron. The demonstrators walked in Tareq Bin Zeyad Street in the south of Hebron. As they were around 150 meters from the permanent military checkpoint which is established near Abu al-Rish Mosque and which leads to the Ibrahimi Mosque and al-Shuhada Street, Israeli forces who had already extensively deployed in the area fired sound bombs, tear gas canisters and bullets from different distances at the demonstrators, preventing them from going forward. They chased the demonstrators in the street and they were intentional to spray an ambulance from the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees with toxic chemicals while the paramedics where evacuating and rescuing the wounded in the area. They also were intentional to spray toxic chemicals at surrounding Palestinian houses, leading to confrontations near Tareq Bin Zeyad school and in nearby streets.

Israeli forces use of force against these demonstrations resulted in wounding 40 Palestinian and international solidarity activists. Thirteen persons of the wounded were transferred to Hebron Public Hospital and Mohammed Ali al-Muhtaseb Hospital. The rest of the wounded were treated in the field. Among the wounded, 5 persons sustained shrapnel wounds, including Israeli Knesset Member Mohammed Barakeh, who was wounded by a sound bomb in the left leg and Palestinian National Council Member Mohammed Amin al-Jaabari, 66, who sustained shrapnel wounds by a sound bomb and who suffered from tear gas inhalation.

In addition, Israeli forces abducted two Palestinians; Badi' Adib al-Dweik, 39, Fadi Hazem Quraan, 25, and an international solidarity activist. Israeli forces released al-Dweik and the solidarity activist later on the same day while they transferred Quraan to "'Ofer" detention center, southwest of Ramallah.

On Saturday afternoon, 25 February 2012, Israeli forces used force against dozens of Palestinian civilians and international solidarity activists who were organizing a peaceful demonstration in Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, in protest to the expansion of "Karmi Tsur" settlement, south of Beit Ummar village and preventing Palestinian farmers from having access to their farms in the proximity of the settlement.

Yousef Abu Mareya, activist from the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, reported that Israeli forces surrounded the demonstrators in Khellet al-Kutla area, 150 meters from the fence surrounding "Karmi Tsur" settlement. They attacked some of the demonstrators and chased them in farms. They also fired sound bombs at the demonstrators. As a result, Abu Mareya's borther, Musa, 36, sustained bruises in the legs.

At approximately 18:00 on Sunday, 26 February 2012, Israeli forces fired rubber coated metal bullts, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at Palestinians in al-Ram village, north of Occupied Jerusalem. As a result, Nader Ahmed Abdul Rahman Abu Ezreiq, a member of the Palestinian civil defense service, from Rafat village, west of Salfit, sustained wounds by a bullet to the right hand, while on duty.

Abu Ezreiq stated the following to the PCHR fieldworker: "At approximately 18:15 on Sunday, 26 February 2012, we got a phone call and the caller told us that there were a number of civilians who were stuck in a house in al-Ram village due to confrontations with the Israeli occupation forces and that they needed our help. We immediately drove to the scene. We parked our vehicle away from the confrontations between the civilians and the forces. We started to rescue the civilians who were stuck in the house. As we were leaving the house after rescuing the civilians, we met a number of civilians who were running to us as the Israeli forces were extensively firing tear gas canisters and sound bombs at them. I saw a number of civilians who were suffering from tear gas inhalation. As I walked to them to rescue them, the Israeli immediately fired rubber-coated metal bullets at us. As a result, a bullet wounded me in my right hand. Another bullet hit the civil defense vehicle. I then left the site because of my wound".

Recommendations to the international community:

Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made several recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that the European Union activate Article 2 of the Euro-Israel Association Agreement, which provides that Israel must respect human rights as a precondition for economic cooperation between the EU states and Israel. PCHR further calls upon the EU states to prohibit import of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The PCHR calls on the international community to recognize the Gaza disengagement plan, which was implemented in September 2005, for what it is not an end to occupation but a compounding of the occupation and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Arab League calls for an immediate end to the siege on Gaza

2012-03-02T16:42:00.000+01:00

CAIRO, (PIC)-- The Arab League general secretariat on Thursday called for an immediate end of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip for the past six years and called for the reopening of the border crossing.

This was in a report by the AL Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi which was presented by the Deputy Secretary General for Palestinian and Arab occupied territories affairs, Muhammad Sabih, to the Arab affairs committee at the Egyptian parliament.

“The siege on the Gaza Strip is not legal and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and Geneva conventions [..] Israel implemented a one-sided withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and besieged it making life for Gaza people very difficult for which the occupation authorities are fully responsible.” the report read
Arab League calls for an immediate end to the siege on Gaza

Shalabi Determined To Continue Her Hunger-Strike

2012-03-02T16:41:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Detainee Hana' Ash-Shalabi, who has been hunger-striking since more than two weeks now, stated that she is determined to continue her strike in order to highlight the plight of all detainees held under administrative detention, and the ongoing all Israeli violations against them.

Yahia Ash-Shalabi - The Father of Hana' - Image palinfo.com

Fawwaz Ash-Shalloudy, a lawyer with the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), visited Ash-Shalabi on Thursday.

She told him that she clearly felt the level of humiliation when she was transported to the Ofer Military Court; she was placed in a very cold room with opened windows, from all directions, and was mistreated during the transport.

Shalloudy managed to meet Ash-Shalabi at the Ha-Sharon prison; he said that the Prison Administration is conducting harsh measures against her in an attempt to force her break her strike.

Yet, the lawyer added that Ash-Shalabi is fully determined to continue her hunger-strike, and that she informed him that she will remain patient and steadfast until her message is delivered, and heard.

It is worth mentioning that her parents in Borqeen town, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, are also hunger-striking in solidarity with their daughter, and voiced an appeal to local and international human rights groups to intervene and secure the release of their daughter.

Speaking to the IMEMC on Thursday, Yahia Ash-Shalabi, the father of Hana’, stated that his daughter lost a lot of weight, and that she can barely stand due to a decline of her health condition.

“Hana' is losing a lot of weight; she can barely stand. I hold the Egyptian mediators of the prisoner-swap deal responsible for the well-being of my daughter,”

Ash-Shalabi, Hana’s father told the IMEMC from the protest tent outside his home in the village of Borqeen.

Ash-Shalabi was released last October after spending two years under Israeli administrative detention. Her release came as part of the Egyptian mediated prisoner-swap deal between the Palestinian resistance and Israel.

Israel uses Administrative Detention to hold Palestinians without charges; such rulings are frequently renewed mounting to months, and in many cases, to years behind bars.

Shalabi Determined To Continue Her Hunger-Strike - International Middle East Media Center

Video: Second Palestinian female prisoner to go on hunger strike

2012-03-01T18:34:00.000+01:00

IOF soldiers arrest 12 Palestinians

2012-03-01T17:06:00.000+01:00

JENIN, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained 12 Palestinians in Jenin, Al-Khalil, and Salfit over the past 24 hours, local sources said on Thursday.

Raghib Abu Diyak, the head of the prisoner’s association in Jenin, said that IOF troops stormed a number of villages in the province amidst random firing and rounded up five citizens.

He said that the soldiers searched all homes of the detainees before taking them away.

The Hebrew radio claimed that one of them is an Islamic Jihad leader and was suspected of involvement in attacks against Israeli targets. He was released from Israeli jails after seven years imprisonment.

Meanwhile, local sources in Beit Ummar in Al-Khalil said that the soldiers arrested five citizens including two brothers after breaking into their homes.

The IOF soldiers arrested two other young men in Deir Estiya in Salfit province on Wednesday night, local sources said.

IOF soldiers arrest 12 Palestinians

Lieberman: No withdrawal from Jordan Valley

2012-03-01T17:05:00.000+01:00

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- The Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has affirmed that his government would never relinquish control on the Jordan Valley.

Lieberman said, during a tour of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea in the company of ministers of his party Yisrael Beiteinu, that the Israeli presence there was “vital” to ensure Israel’s security especially in light of recent changes in the Arab world.

He also rejected the deployment of international forces in the area in light of the regional developments.

The minister described the Jordan Valley as the key to Tel Aviv’s security and one of the most important defense lines in face of any threat.

Lieberman: No withdrawal from Jordan Valley

Israeli Forces Arrest Seven Palestinians across West Bank

2012-03-01T17:03:00.001+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

RAMALLAH, March 1, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Thursday arrested seven Palestinians across the West Bank, according to security sources.

They said Israeli soldiers raided the town of Arrabeh, near Jenin, and arrested five Palestinians after raiding their homes and tampering with their content.

Israeli soldiers also raided Deir Estia, north of Salfit, and arrested two Palestinians.

Nazmi Salman, mayor of Deir Estia, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers raided the village, broke into several houses then arrested the two Palestinians.

Israeli Police Terrorize Prisoners in Asqalan

2012-03-01T17:03:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA
RAMALLAH, March 1, 2012 (WAFA) – Over 300 heavily armed Israeli police officers raided late Wednesday cells of Palestinian prisoners in Asqalan prison, south of Israel, terrorizing the prisoners who were protesting mistreatment of the prison administration, according to statement issued by the Palestinian Prisoner's Club (PPC).

It said Israeli police searched the cells until early Thursday morning, held two prisoners in solitary confinement and took six others to an unknown location.

PPC director Qaddoura Fares said the prison administration has threatened prisoners in an attempt to break their protest campaign against mistreatment.

Israeli Forces Arrest Seven Palestinians across West Bank

2012-03-01T17:02:00.000+01:00

Qaraqie Announces International Campaign Against Administrative Detention

2012-03-01T17:01:00.000+01:00

by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

The Palestinian Minister of Detainees, Issa Qaraqie, announced today that his ministry is organizing an international campaign against the Israeli administrative detention and ill-treatment of Palestinian political detainees in Israeli jails.

Hana' Mother Carrying Her Picture - qudsnet.com

“ This campaign an open invitation to all human-right groups and supporters of the Palestinian cause, governmental or non-governmental associations, to sign a petition that calls for pressuring the Israeli occupation to end its policy of administrative detention since its illegal under international law and inhuman practice.” Qaraqie told IMEMC on Thursday.

Meanwhile Palestinian Political prisoners in Israeli jails said on Thursday that they are going to boycott Israeli military courts in protest of administrative detention and ill-treatment by their captives.

The recent developments come as political detainee Hana Ash-Shalabi entered her 15th day of hunger Strike. Ash-Shalabi was arrested from her home on February 16th by Israeli troops. She is protesting the army order of butting her under Administrative Detention for six month.

“Hana is losing a lot of weight, she parley can stand, I hold the Egyptian mediators of the prisoners swap deal the responsibility for the wellbeing of my daughter” Yihiya Ash-Shalabi, Hana’s father told IMEMC on Thursday from the protest tent outside his home in the village of Borqeen near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Ash-Shalabi was released last October after spending two years under Israeli administrative detention, her release came as part of the Egyptian mediated prisoners swap deal between Palestinian groups and Israel.

Israel uses Administrative Detention to hold Palestinians without charges, a detention that could amount for years in some cases. Ayman Karajja Is a researcher for Al Dameer association for human rights. He explained to IMEMC what is the Administrative Detention.

“Basically administrative detention orders deprive the defendant and the lawyers the right to refute the charges because there are no charges presented by the military prosecutor” Karajja added that “The file is usually inaccessible by the lawyers under the pretext of being classified. The court justifies the secrecy of the files as a high security need of the occupying state.”

There are 4500 Palestinians that are currently being held by Israeli as political detainees, 300 of them are under administrative detention.

Ash-Shalabi is following the footsteps of detainee, Adnan Khader, who reached a near death condition and organ failure after 66 days of hunger strike. Khader ended his strike last month after Israel pledged to release him in April.

International Middle East Media Center

Army Kidnaps 12 Palestinians In Jenin, Hebron

2012-03-01T17:00:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli soldiers kidnapped on Thursday at dawn thirteen Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and the southern West Bank city of Hebron. On Tuesday evening, soldiers kidnapped two residents in the central West Bank city of Salfit.

File - Image palinfo.com

The Palestinian Prisoners Society in Jenin reported that a large military force invaded several towns and villages in Jenin district, especially Borqeen, Arraba and Qabatia, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped five residents.

Two of the kidnapped were identified as Mohammad Azmi Mardawy, 30, and Salem Amin Abu Zeid, 48.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Radio reported that Mardawy is a leader of the Islamic Jihad in the Jenin area, and that he is a “suspect in a number of attacks against the army, and other Israeli targets”. He was released from prison four months ago after serving a 7-year term.

Soldiers also invaded Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, and kidnapped five Palestinians including two brothers.

The five were identified as Naseem Abdul-Mohsin Al-Allami, 37, Yousef Ibrahim Al-Allami, Malek Mahmoud Al-Allami, in addition to Mohammad and Hasan Sa’dy Al-Allami.

On Wednesday evening, soldiers invaded Dir Estia town, north of Salfit, and kidnapped two residents after breaking into, and searching, their homes.

Head of the Dir Estia Village Council, Nathmi Salman, told the Quds Press news agency that several Israeli armored vehicles invaded the town, and that soldiers broke into several homes and searched them.

Salman added that soldiers kidnapped Ahmad Yousef Zeidan and Kifah Abdul-Fattah Zeidan, and took them to an unknown destination.

Israeli soldiers conduct ongoing invasions in the occupied Palestinian territories, and kidnap Palestinians on a daily basis.

International Middle East Media Center

Israel To Release Dozens Of Detainees

2012-03-01T16:59:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The International Solidarity for Human Rights reported that the Israeli Prison Administration decided to release dozens of Palestinian political prisoners under certain set conditions; detainees sentenced to more than four years will not be released.

File - Released Detainees - Image moheet.com

Ahmad Al-Beitawy, a researcher at the International Solidarity for Human Rights, stated that Israel will be subtracting the time served from their original sentence, and will be releasing, Friday, all detainees sentenced to four years or less, the Maan News Agency reported.

Maan added that the Prison Administration decided to act on the new “subtraction law” in August of last year, an issue that led to delaying the release of hundreds of detainees who were supposed to be release after the time served is subtracted from their sentence. If fully implemented, it would likely lead to the release of hundreds of detainees.

There are thousands of detainees who are still imprisoned by Israel, hundred are serving high, including life, terms.

International Middle East Media Center

Islamic Jihad members start hunger strike

2012-03-01T16:57:00.000+01:00

MaanImages

JENIN (Ma’an) -- Two imprisoned members of Islamic Jihad started a hunger strike on Thursday in support of female detainee Hana Shalabi.

Bilal Dyab from Jenin, and Thaer Halahla, from Hebron, said in a letter received by Islamic Jihad that they will not stop their hunger strike until Israel ends its policy of administrative detention.

The Ofer military court decided on Wednesday to postpone the hearing of Hana Shalabi, a prisoner on hunger strike, until the judge examines secret evidence with the intelligence services on March 3.

Shalabi started a hunger strike on Feb. 16 after she was re-arrested by Israeli forces, despite being freed in a prisoner swap deal in October.
Maan News Agency

Jordan FM: No complete Arab awakening without Palestine solution

2012-02-29T20:14:00.000+01:00

BRUSSELS, Feb 29 (KUNA) -- Visiting Jordanian Foreign Ministers Nasser Judeh said Wednesday that in this wake of the Arab awaking, with people seeking justices and equality and a dignified life, the Palestinian issue "remains the elephant in the room". "There is no complete Arab Spring or Arab awakening without peace in the Middle East. And there will not be peace in the Middle East without a solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict," he told the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament here this evening.
"And our position in this regard is very clear and well-known. It is the two-state solution, whereby the independent variable, contiguous, Palestinian state is established, along the basis of the 67-lines, and whereby Israel lives in security and the two of them, Israel and Palestine live in a secure, stable, prosperous Middle East," he noted.
Commenting on the situation in Syria, Judeh said that as a neighbour country Jordan is extremely concerned about the killing and the atrocity, and the blood spilling everyday. "We are working with the Arab League, with the international community to try and do something. The end result must be a political solution. We don't want to have any interference, that will further destabilise the region," he added.
KUNA : Jordan FM: No complete Arab awakening without Palestine solution

France high court ordered judges to examine Palestinian boy killing case

2012-02-29T19:20:00.000+01:00

France high court ordered judges to examine Palestinian boy killing case

Palestine: WAFA Updates

2012-02-29T19:11:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

	Fayyad Condemns Israeli Raid on TV Stations

	Increase in building Licenses, Says Statistic Bureau

	Abbas Condemns Israeli Raid on TV Stations

	Prison Authority Imposes Heavy Fines on Prisoners, says Ministry

	Silwan School in Danger of Collapse, says Activist

	Newspapers Review: Calls for a Security Council Fact Finding Focus of Dailies

	Israeli Forces Arrest 20 Palestinians in West Bank

	Israeli Soldiers Demolish Palestinian Shack in Jenin

	Israeli Forces Storm Local Palestinian TV Station

Israeli Soldiers Detain Palestinian Eight-Grader near Hebron

2012-02-27T17:43:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

HEBRON, February 27, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli soldiers Monday detained a Palestinian school student in an area near the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s old city, according to local sources.

Witnesses said Israeli soldiers assaulted eighth-grader Muhannad al-Bakri on his way to school, and ripped his bag before arresting and detaining him in a police station in Kiryat Arba settlement, near Hebron.

Al-Bakri was later released after the International Red Cross intervened.

Settler Opens Fire on Farmers near Hebron

2012-02-27T17:42:00.000+01:00

HEBRON, February 27, 2012 (WAFA) – A Jewish settler Monday opened fire at Palestinian farmers and their livestock in Khirbet Janba, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, after failed attempts to steal their sheep, according to a local resident.

Khader al-Amour, a school principal in Janba, told WAFA the settler tried to steal some of the sheep using several dogs to scare off the farmers and when failed, he opened fire at the farmers that led to a fistfight between them.

Members of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) arrived at the scene and seized several sheep and told their owners they must pay for them if they wanted them back, he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities also imposed almost $2000 on a Palestinian farmer from Khirbet Janba under the pretext that he was herding the sheep in an Israeli army-control area.

Palestinian residents in Khirbet Janba depend on their livestock to make a living.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Report: Israel Denies 14,000 Arabs in Jerusalem Residency

2012-02-27T17:41:00.000+01:00

RAMALLAH, February 27, 2012 (WAFA) – Israel has denied over 14,000 Arab residents of occupied East Jerusalem the right to live in their city of birth, a report by the PLO Negotiations Affair Department (NAD) said Monday.

It also demolished 3,300 Palestinian-owned homes in the city, it added.

NAD report monitored Israeli unilateral measures in East Jerusalem since its occupation in 1967.

The report said Israel withdrew right to live in the city from 14,000 Palestinians, around 50% of them from 2006 and 2008. The Israeli action affected more than 20% of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem.

In addition, Israel demolished 3,300 Palestinian homes and historical and religious sites in East Jerusalem since 1967, around 500 of them in the past six years only.

The Israeli Apartheid Wall isolated around 70,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who found themselves living behind the wall and have to go through military checkpoints to reach their work and schools in the Israeli-annexed section, said NAD report.

It said the Israeli closure policy imposed on East Jerusalem prevented three million Muslim and Christian Palestinians from reaching their holy places in the city.

NAD also said the Israeli government continues to enact the Absentee Property Law of 1950 that allows it to seize Palestinian property in the city on allegation of absence of their owners even though the owners are still living in the city or near it.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Heavy Israeli Military Clampdown in Jerusalem

2012-02-26T14:58:00.000+01:00

by Mary Abu-Sahliya - IMEMC & Agencies

Many Jerusalem Streets and its surrounding towns witnessed Heavy Israeli Military Procedures early Sunday Morning. Israeli Soldiers and their Machines were spread all over the streets, towns and neighborhoods.

The Israeli army spread out its special units and police in the Old City of Jerusalem, especially around Al-Aqsa Mosque while the police units, based on the main gates of the Mosque, reserved the ID’s of the young men before they entered to pray.

Other Israeli Police Forces were scattered in almost all of the City’s streets and entrances of the neighboring towns. Including the entrances of the towns of Silwan, Tur, Thawri, Anata, Ram, Shuafat and other neighborhoods. The army police placed many checkpoints, stopped cars and gave out tickets.

One of the police spokesmen mentioned that these measures were ‘in anticipation of the renewed fightings with the citizens in different parts of Jerusalem.’

International Middle East Media Center

PA to 'reconsider cooperation with Israel'

2012-02-26T13:48:00.000+01:00

President Mahmoud Abbas attends the opening of the International Conference
on Jerusalem in Doha, Feb. 26, 2012. (Reuters/Mohammed Dabbous)

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority is planning to reconsider its security, political and economic agreements with Israel in the coming days, a PLO official said on Sunday.

After exploratory talks with Israel ended without agreement, the PLO Executive Committee has agreed to take a number of measures to jolt the current stalemate.

PLO officials protest that they cannot enter negotiations while Israel builds settlements on lands needed for a viable Palestinian state. The PA complained that Israel's approval of 500 new settler homes and retroactive approval of 200 more in the northern West Bank last week is "stark indication of Israel’s policy to continue occupying the West Bank."

In an interview with Egyptian channel CBC on Friday, President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA was planning a "major decision" in no more than 10 days, in response to the talks' failure.

PLO Executive Committee Hanna Amira told Ma'an the PA will reconsider its cooperation with Israel, and reactivate popular resistance against Israel's occupation. It will also consider taking its case to the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

"All alternatives are open in future, but that does not necessarily mean disbanding the PA," he added, referring to past threats to dissolve the Palestinian government.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Qays Abdul-Karim told Ma'an Abbas's measures would not break past agreements, but reevaluate their terms.

"The Israeli government has turned its back on all agreements and continues to impose facts on the ground through settlement expansion and the Judaization of Jerusalem … this cannot continue," he said.

Without any further talks on the horizon, the PA cannot continue to carry out its duties, Abdul-Karim added.

The PA government was given temporary jurisdiction within limited areas of self-rule in the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The measures intend to press the international community to meet its obligations to the peace process and push Israel to adhere to international agreements, Abdul-Karim said.

"Otherwise, we will not be responsible for the tension and instability if Israel continues to deny us our rights," he added.

No Israeli response to these moves could make the situation any worse than it is at present, the DFLP official said.

Israel froze the transfer of tax revenues to the PA -- collected by Israel on the Palestinian government's behalf under international agreements -- twice in 2011 when faction leaders agreed to end their four-year division.

The Arab League has largely accepted the Palestinian plans, and will protect the PA financially if Israel withholds tax again, Abdul-Karim said.

But Amira said Palestinian officials expect little support from the Arab League and Arab countries because of their current focus on the situation in Syria.

Maan News Agency

Hunger strike galvanises Palestine

2012-02-26T11:34:00.000+01:00

The hunger strike of Palestinian activist Khadr Adnan has turned the spotlight on the double standards of the Israeli justice system, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

In many ways, the struggle between Khadr Adnan and his Israeli captors epitomises the enduring strife between an arrogant and manifestly callous Israel on the one hand and a helpless but defiant people longing for liberty and clinging to life on the other.

Khadr Adnan, a 44-year-old Islamic Jihad activist, was arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities on 17 December. He started an open-ended hunger strike the following day to protest his detention without charge or trial. Sixty-six days later, he has lost some 40 per cent of his body weight.

Adnan's wife Randa and his lawyer say he is now hanging between life and death. Last week, his lawyer filled a petition with the Israeli High Court, often a mere rubber stamp in the hands of the Israeli security establishment, for Adnan's release.

"Khadr's life is in danger, but he has a strong will and very high spirits. However, he is not conscious and is not able to speak," Randa told reporters. "He is fading away, and his eyes are sunken."

The petition to the Israeli court included a medical report by a doctor from the Physicians for Human Rights Foundation, which has been monitoring Adnan's condition.

"When I met the patient, he was on the 52nd day of his hunger strike. He had been shackled to his bed by both legs and one arm, and he was refusing to undergo tests or receive medical treatment," the report stated.

One unidentified doctor quoted by Ynet News said that "a fast in excess of 70 days doesn't allow survival. The infusion of liquids, salts, glucose and vitamins cannot prevent death due to such a protracted hunger strike."

During his imprisonment, Adnan was humiliated and beaten by prison wardens. Israeli law allows the employment of "moderate physical pressure" against Palestinian detainees, in many cases a euphemism for torture.

While Adnan does not want to become another Bobby Sands, the Irish activist who died on 5 May, 1981, following a similar 66-day hunger strike. However, the Israeli occupation regime does not allow honour, dignity or freedom for Palestinians, meaning that he may have little choice.

To silence the Palestinians, Israel uses "administrative detention" procedures, another name for open-ended incarceration without charge or trial. "Administrative detention," Palestinians say, hangs over Palestinian activists, even if Israeli law can find no reason to indict them.

Palestinians who may have committed no violation of Israeli laws are kept behind bars for prolonged periods, sometimes in excess of ten years, without ever knowing the reasons behind their imprisonment.

One administrative detainee, Mustafa Shawar, a Hebron University lecturer, told the Weekly that "I appealed to the Israeli military judge to let me know why I was detained, but to no avail."

"I told him, 'please let me know what I did, so that I won't do it again.' But the judge said he wouldn't give me that privilege because the evidence against me was secret."

Shawar has so far spent ten years in Israeli prisons without charge or trial, and he has no idea if he will ever be freed.

Thousands of Palestinians, including lawmakers, students, professionals and peaceful political activists, have been subjected to prolonged periods of administrative detention.

A few weeks ago, the Israeli military authorities detained Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, sentencing him to six months in prison. The six-month sentence may only be the beginning for Dweik, as the Israeli authorities routinely extend such sentences many times.

The massive shows of solidarity Khadr Adnan has been receiving are unprecedented, with all the Palestinian political factions organising demonstrations demanding his immediate release.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has appealed to Russia, China and Britain to press Israel to release Adnan, and Saeb Ereikat, the PA negotiator, has said that Israel will be held responsible for "what happens to Khadr Adnan."

Similar messages have been dispatched to the Obama administration and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, warning against the ramifications Adnan's death could have in the region.

Earlier this week, Catherine Ashton, the European foreign policy chief, urged Israel to do everything possible to preserve Adnan's health. She also reiterated EU concerns about Israel's "extensive use of administrative detention without formal charge."

According to the Israeli human-rights organisation B'tselem, there has been a sharp increase in the number of administrative detainees held by Israel over the past year, from 219 in January 2011 to 309 in January 2012.

Eighty people, or 26 per cent of the detainees, have been held for six months to one year, with another 88 people, or 28.5 per cent, being held for between one and two years. Sixteen detainees have been in administrative detention for between two and four-and-a-half years.

B'tselem stressed the illegality of the administrative detention procedure because it violates the right to liberty and due process, detainees being incarcerated for prolonged periods on the basis of secret evidence without charge or trial.

Administrative detention is also reserved for non-Jews, particularly Palestinians, and is designed to punish and break the will of those who won't submit to the occupation.

While some non-Jews have been held in administrative detention by Israel, their number has been very small and the jail-time symbolic, underscoring the discrimination against non-Jews in Israel-Palestine.

Israel does not seem to be indifferent to Adnan's fate, apparently out of concern about the reactions his death may provoke among Palestinians.

The Israeli High Court decided on 21 February to free Adnan two months from now, leaving open the question of whether he will survive until then or whether he will be immediately rearrested.

Al-Ahram Weekly

Israeli Strikes Destroy Tunnel, Injure 2 Palestinians in Gaza

2012-02-26T11:33:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Israeli Strikes Destroy Tunnel, Injure 2 Palestinians in Gaza: RAFAH, February 26, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli warplanes Sunday launched a strike targeting a smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah near the borderline between Gaza and Egypt, acorrding to witnesses.

They said the raid completely destroyed the tunnel and caused damage to the surrounding area. No injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, two Palestinians were injured late Saturday nights when Israeli F-16 warplanes shelled an area west of Rafah, causing severe damage to the targeted location.

OCHA: Over 300 Administrative Detentions in Israeli Jails

2012-02-26T11:31:00.001+01:00

JERUSALEM, February 26, 2012 (WAFA) - There are over 300 Palestinians being currently held under Israeli administrative detention, around 45% of them from February 2011, Sunday said the weekly report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA).

Violent clashes erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinians during protests resulting in around 40 injuries, said OCHA’s Protection of Civilians weekly report covering15-21 February 2012.

It said Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip injured 15 civilians, including three children, as well as caused damage to at least 15 houses, a hospital and a school.

In addition, the report featured long electricity blackouts of between eight to 16 hours per day due to the power outages throughout the Gaza Strip because of the insufficient fuel supplies to run the Gaza Power Plant, disrupting the daily life in Gaza.

The weekly report said the level of reported settler violence remained low, with five settler attacks against Palestinians and their property, including an incident where Israeli settlers physically assaulted and injured an elderly Palestinian while he was grazing his livestock near Ramallah.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - OCHA

(last night) Throwing Molotov cocktails and confrontations in Silwan

2012-02-26T11:31:00.000+01:00

Jerusalem Center for Media – Exclusive – Mohammed Al-Zaghal -

Confrontations broke out tonight in the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque after throwing three firebombs at Beit Yonatan settlement in the neighborhood of Maragheh.

Our correspondent added that an infantry unit that tried to storm the village had been exposed to throw another Molotov cocktails and the clashes intensified after that in the village.

The confrontation stationed in Ein Al-Louza and Ein Silwan and the region witnessed an intensive presence of the occupation soldiers.

In a call to the center, a young man from neighborhood of Ras al-Amud confirmed the outbreak of clashes in the neighborhood near a mosque in the neighborhood and panorama roundabout.

Throwing Molotov cocktails and confrontations in Silwan

Clashes in Ram after murder a young man

2012-02-26T11:30:00.000+01:00

Jerusalem Center for Media:-

Clashes broke out in Ram town to the north of occupied Jerusalem on Saturday after one of its young men was shot to death by the Israeli occupation police.

Our correspondent said that the strike as observed in mourning over the death of Tala’at Ramiya, 25, who was hit with bullets in his chest and abdomen during protests on Friday and left to bleed for a while before the policemen allowed an ambulance car to evacuate him.

He add that police forces fired live and rubber bullets in addition to teargas and sonic bombs at young men at the northern entrance to the town while the youths threw stones, empty bottles, and crude firebombs at the policemen in addition to placing burning tires and large stones on the roads to impede entry of police vehicles.

Clashes in Ram after murder a young man:

Israeli airstrikes hit south Gaza, no injuries

2012-02-26T11:23:00.000+01:00

(MaanImages/File)

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes fired on two sites in in the southern Gaza Strip early Sunday, causing severe damage.

Gaza emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said there were no injuries in the raids.

Security officials in Gaza told Ma'an that Israeli jets hit a concrete production site west of Rafah, and an underground tunnel in al-Salam neighborhood east of the city. Both sites sustained severe damage, they said.

An Israeli army statement said the airstrikes hit a "weapon manufacturing site and a smuggling tunnel ... in response to the rockets fired at Israel over the weekend."

An army spokesman said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in southern Israel on Sunday morning after the airstrike, the seventh rocket to hit Israel since Friday. No injuries or damage were reported, he said.

The military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees released statements on Friday and Saturday claiming the launch of projectiles into Israel, saying they were in response to Israel's violations of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians.

Early Friday, Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza City lightly injuring two Palestinian fighters.

Maan News Agency

Nabi Saleh 24 2 12

2012-02-26T01:51:00.000+01:00

Protest calling to open the Shuhada street, Hebron, West Bank, 24.2.2012

2012-02-26T01:03:00.000+01:00

Soldiers Attack Anti-Wall Protest in Beit Ummar

2012-02-25T20:35:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

HEBRON, February 25, 2012 (WAFA) - Israeli soldiers Saturday attacked the weekly non-violent demonstration against settlements and the Apartheid Wall in Beit Ummar, a town north of Hebron, said local activist.

Yousef Abu Maria, spokesman for the Popular Committee against the Wall in Beit Ummar, said Israeli soldiers fired smoke and sound grenades to disperse the protesters, as well as assaulted some participants with gun butts and sticks causing bruises and gas inhalation suffocation. All injuries were treated on the scene.

Participants in the protest condemned the Israeli authorities’ seizure of Palestinian-owned land for settlement expansion and the Israeli policy to prevent Palestinian farmers from accessing their agricultural land.

Jerusalem clashes video: Police use flashbangs against Palestinians at A...

2012-02-25T20:33:00.000+01:00

Detainee Shalabi Enters Her Eighth Day Of Hunger Strike

2012-02-25T20:27:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Female detainee, Hana Ash-Shalabi, entered her eighth day of open-ended hunger strike at her cell at the Ha-Sharon Israeli prison, protesting her illegal detention and the administrative detention order served against her without charges.

Detainee Hana

Ash-Shalabi, 28, from Jenin in the northern West Bank, is the first female detainee who was release under the Shalit prisoner-swap deal to be re-arrested by the army. She was taken prisoner on February 16, 2012, and was ordered under Administrative Detention for six months.

She said that she will continue her strike until an order for her release is issued, similar to the case of detainee Adnan Khader who carried out a 66-day hunger strike until Israel pledged to release him in April. He had been near death, facing possible organ failure at an Israeli prison hospital.

Atalla Abu As-Sabah, Minister of Detainees at the Hamas-led government in Gaza, stated that Shalabi’s health condition is deteriorating, and that she is currently in solitary confinement, while the Israeli Prison Administration is threatening to transfer her to an Israeli prison for female prisoners held on criminal charges.

He voiced an appeal to the Egyptian security chief, Morad As-Sufi, to intervene in order to stop the illegal Israeli policy of re-arresting the detainees who were release under the Shalit deal. Officials at Egypt’s Intelligence Services played an essential role in negotiating, finalizing, and implementing the swap-deal.

It is worth mentioning that Shalabi’s parents, both 67 years old, also declared hunger-strike until they receive news about their daughter, the Palestinian Information Center reported. Shalabi spent 2.5 years in detention before she was release under the swap-deal.

International Middle East Media Center

Al-Azhar protesters chant for liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque

2012-02-25T20:26:00.000+01:00

Al-Azhar protesters chant for liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque | Egypt Independent: Prev Next Pause Play

Around 3,000 worshipers at Al-Azhar Mosque broke out into chants supporting the liberation of Jerusalem from Israeli control, as Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip took to the podium to speak after Friday prayers.

The protesters could be heard chanting, “We sacrifice our blood and souls for Al-Aqsa [Mosque in Jerusalem].”

Ismail Haniyeh, the disputed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority who is currently on a visit to Cairo, told worshipers that despite the suffering of the Palestinian people ― including torture, destruction and death ― they are “determined not to recognize the Zionist entity [Israel] whatever the cost,” according to the Al-Wafd newspaper's website.

The worshipers held up banners in support of the Palestinian fight against Israel, such as, “The people want to liberate Palestine.”

Haniyeh assured those in attendance that Hamas will continue to resist Israeli occupation.

Those chanting also called for something to be done to end the Syrian military's crackdown on its own civilians. The Hamas leader saluted the “great people of Syria” for their struggle for freedom and rights that had been taken from them.

He also congratulated all the nations of the Arab Spring, and called for continued support for citizens of these countries until they achieve their freedom, according to the state-run Al-Akhbar newspaper's website.

The Jerusalem committees of both the Arab Doctors Union and the World Federation of Muslim Scientists, as well as other political forces, called last week for a demonstration at Al-Azhar Mosque to support saving Al-Aqsa Mosque and support the Syrian people.

News reports on Friday said that Palestinians and Israeli security forces were fighting around the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, an important religious site for Muslims. Palestinian youths throwing rocks and Israeli soldiers firing tear gas have clashed around the site in recent days amid reports that Israeli authorities had allowed Jewish extremists in to incite Palestinians, according to the US news website CNN.

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Violent clashes in the Aqsa plazas between worshipers and the IOF

2012-02-24T14:38:00.000+01:00

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Violent clashes took place Friday after the noon prayers between Palestinian worshippers and IOF troops who stormed the Aqsa Mosque plazas after the prayers.

Eyewitnesses said that the IOF troops raided the Mosque after the end of the Friday prayers resulting in the clashes with the worshippers. The IOF troops fired teargas canisters and stun grenades and Palestinian worshippers responded with stones.

The IOF restricted entry to the Aqsa Mosque barring young Palestinians from attending the prayers there.

Israeli media outlets said that the IOF was taking strict measures around the mosque since Friday morning.

Over the past few days, extremist Jewish settlers have escalated their attacks against Muslim and Christian holy places in the city.
Violent clashes in the Aqsa plazas between worshipers and the IOF

(Last night!) Two Palestinians wounded in Israeli occupation airstrike

2012-02-24T14:33:00.000+01:00

GAZA, (PIC)-- Two Palestinians were wounded late Thursday evening in an Israeli occupation airstrike against Gaza City.

Palestinian sources said that an Israeli occupation drone, late Thursday evening, fired at least one missile at a group of Palestinians near the car market in Zaitoun suburb south east of Gaza City, wounding two Palestinians.

Adham Abu Selmeyya, spokesman for the emergency services in Gaza, stated that two wounded people were taken from car market area in Zaitoun suburb after being moderately wounded in an Israeli occupation airstrike.
Two Palestinians wounded in Israeli occupation airstrike

IOF arrested 40 Palestinians following Aqsa confrontations

2012-02-24T14:31:00.000+01:00

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation police revealed that they arrested dozens of Palestinian youth over the past few days on the pretext of their participation in defending the Aqsa Mosque against extremist Jewish settlers who stormed the Aqsa plazas during the week.

The Hebrew radio quoted police sources that the Israeli occupation police arrested more than 40 Palestinians who hail from Jerusalem and 1948-occupied Palestinian areas accusing them of throwing stones at IOF troops at Maghareba gate, one of the main gates of the Aqsa Mosque, during confrontations that took place between Palestinian worshippers and extremist Jewish settlers who attempted to storm the mosque.

There were many calls made for Palestinians in Jerusalem and 1948-occupied areas to keep regular presence at the Aqsa Mosque to protect against escalating Israeli aggressions against it and against other Muslim and Christian holy places in the holy city.

Al-Quds International Institution has earlier warned that the coming few weeks are expected to witness an escalation in settler attacks against the holy shrine.
IOF arrested 40 Palestinians following Aqsa confrontations

PCHR Weekly Report: 25 Palestinians wounded, 21 abducted in 74 Israeli incursions

2012-02-24T14:29:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - 1 of International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

For the full text of the report, click on the link below:

http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_...d=183

In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 16 – 22 Feb. 2012, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights found that 25 civilians were wounded this week, and 21 abducted in 74 incursions by the Israeli military into Palestinian territory.

Protesters in Nabi Saleh (PCHR photo)

Israeli forces have continued bombardments and shootings in the Gaza Strip, including 5 airstrikes and 9 missiles that wounded 14 civilians, including 2 women and 3 children. A metal workshop was destroyed and several houses and civilian establishments were damaged.

Israeli forces have continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank. 7 protesters, including an Israeli peace activist, were wounded. 5 of the wounded were participating in Kafr Qaddoum protest and 2 of them were participating in al-Nabi Saleh protest.

4 protesters were wounded in front of 'Ofer prison, southwest of Ramallah, in a protest in support of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan.

Israeli attacks in the West Bank:

Israeli forces conducted 74 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they abducted 21 Palestinians in the West Bank.

The abducted Palestinians include 4 Palestinians who were released from Israeli jails in the recent prisoner swap, and including the wife and daughter of a Palestinian who was released from Israeli jail in the recent prisoner swap and who was abducted again during the reporting period.

Also this week in the West Bank, Israeli forces wounded 11 protesters, including an Israeli peace activist. Seven of the Palestinians wounded in the West Bank were wounded in peaceful protests of the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities while 4 Palestinians were wounded in peaceful demonstrations organized in support of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan. Two were wounded in the weekly protest in al-Nabi Saleh on 17 February 2012, and 5 wounded in the weekly protest in Kafr Qaddoum also on 17 February. Additionally, dozens of protesters suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Israeli forces raided houses of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the office of PLC members of Hamas Change and Reform Bloc.

Israeli forces abducted 3 Palestinians at checkpoints in the West Bank.

On Monday, 20 February, at approximately 12:50, an Israeli forces undercover unit kidnapped Umar Khaled Abu Rweis, 23, from al-Am'ari refugee camp, west of al-Bireh. The members of the undercover unit severely beat Abu Rweis while transferring him to Qalandia checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, and then to an unknown destination. According to investigations made by PCHR, at approximately 12:50, an Israeli forces undercover unit consisting of five armed members traveling in two vehicles, a white Mercedes bus and a white lorry, with Palestinian registration plates, stopped near the main entrance of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in al-Bireh on the main road between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Then the white Mercedes bus parked in front of PRCS main gate. Abu Rweis who works as a guard at PRCS walked to the driver to tell him that he was not allowed to park in front of the gate. At that moment, all the five armed members of the undercover unit stepped down and kidnapped Abu Rweis at gunpoint. They took him to the bus and drove to Qalandia checkpoint. They severely beat Abu Rweis with their hands, legs and gun butts throughout the body.

The Israeli Municipality's District Committee for Planning and Building in Jerusalem approved a plan to construct a large building in the yard of the al-Buraq Wall (the Western Wall) opposite to the western wall of the al-Aqsa Mosque and near the Mughrabi Gate Bridge. The building will be called "Beit Halibah". According to the plan, the building area is estimated at approximately 3,700 meters squared, consists of three floors and two underground floors. The building was prepared for use by Jewish settlers and foreign tourists, as well as an information center and exhibition grounds.

During the reporting period, many peaceful demonstrations were organized in support of and in solidarity with Khader Adnan , the Palestinian prisoner who has been holding an open-ended hunger strike in an Israeli jail since 17 December 2011. Israeli forces used excessive force against participants in these demonstrations which were called for by the student movement in Birzeit University, in front of "Ofer" prison, southwest of Ramallah. As a result, 4 Palestinian civilians were wounded.

At approximately 13:00 on Tuesday, 21 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians and families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails gathered to organize a peaceful demonstration in support of the Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails Khader Adnan . The demonstration was called for by the student movement in Birzeit University. The demonstrators headed to "Ofer" prison in the southwest of Ramallah, and then they walked towards the gate of the prison. Israeli forces closed the gate. Before the demonstrators arrived at the gate, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated metal bullets, metal bullets, tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the demonstrators who threw stones at Israeli forces. As a result, 4 students from Birzeit University were wounded. The wounded students were transferred to Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah for treatment. Additionally, many participants suffered from tear gas inhalation including Nawal Jamil Abdul Hamid, 52. Israeli forces also abducted Nidal Ahmed Abu 'Ein, 20, and Mahmoud Ghasan Dar al-Sheikh, 22, and took them to "Ofer" prison.

Israeli forces have established checkpoints in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting Palestinian access to the city. Civilians are frequently prevented from praying in the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

There are approximately 585 permanent roadblocks, and manned and unmanned checkpoints across the West Bank.

At least 65% of the main roads that lead to 18 Palestinian communities in the West Bank are closed or fully controlled by Israeli forces.

There are approximately 500 kilometers of restricted roads across the West Bank. In addition, approximately one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without permits issued by Israeli forces. Such permits are extremely difficult to obtain.

Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes launched 5 airstrikes at civilian targets and training sites used by groups of the Palestinian resistance. In these airstrikes, Israeli forces fired 9 missiles. Additionally, Israeli forces fired 2 artillery shells at a site of the Palestinian National Security Service. As a result, 14 Palestinians, including 2 women and 3 children, sustained bruises and wounds by shrapnel wounds. Additionally, the destructions and damages were caused to the targeted places and their surroundings.

On Thursday, 16 February, at approximately 22:10, Israeli forces an Israeli forces warplane fired two missiles at Zuhdi Ashor & Sons Metal Workshop, east of al-Zaytoon headquarters in the east of Gaza City, which is owned by Eyad Zuhdi Rashad Ashour, 38. As a result, the workshop, which measures 600 meters square, was totally destroyed. The windows of the house of Eyad Zuhdi Rashad Ashour which is built on top of the workshop were crushed as well. Additionally, Mohammed Salim Ramadan Ashour, 27, sustained light wounds.

Israeli forces abducted 2 Palestinians in the south of the Gaza Strip while they were getting ready to hunt birds.

Israeli forces detained a Palestinian patient at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing for several hours as he was on his way to al-Maqased hospital for treatment.

Israeli Annexation Wall:

When completed, the illegal annexation wall will stretch for 724 kilometers around the West Bank, further isolating the entire population. 350 kilometers of the wall have already been constructed. Approximately 99% of the wall has been constructed inside the West Bank itself, confiscating more Palestinian land.

During the reporting period, Israeli forces used excessive force against peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians, international and Israeli human rights defenders in protest to the construction of the Wall and settlement activities in the West Bank, and in protest to the establishment of a buffer zone in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces attacks on peaceful demonstrations resulted in wounding 7 civilians, including an Israeli peace activist. Additionally, dozens of Palestinian civilians and human rights defenders participating in peaceful demonstrations suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Following the Friday Prayer on 17 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians, international and Israeli human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, protesting the construction of the annexation wall, marking the seventh anniversary of the popular resistance in Bil'in and in support of Khader Adnan, the Palestinian prisoner who has been holding an open-ended hunger strike in an Israeli jail. They raised the Palestinian flag and the photos of the PLC member in Israeli jails Marwan al-Barghouthi and Khader Adnan. They called for ending the political division and for releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. They then moved towards areas of Palestinian land, which the Israeli High Court ordered to be returned to their Palestinian owners. Israeli soldiers stationed in the area fired rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the demonstrators. As a result, a number of Palestinians sustained bruises and suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Also following the Friday Prayer, on 17 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians, international and human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Ni'lin village, west of Ramallah, in protest against the construction of the annexation wall and in support of the Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan. They chanted slogans calling for Palestinian reconciliation, adherence to the Palestinian inalienable rights and resistance of the occupation. They clashed with Israeli troops positioned near the annexation wall. Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at demonstrators. As a result, a number of demonstrators suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Also following the Friday prayer on 17 February 2012, dozens of Palestinian civilians and Israeli and international human rights defenders gathered in the center of al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah, to start the weekly peaceful protest against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities and in support of the Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan. They raised the Palestinian flag and the photos of Palestinian Prisoner Khader Adnan and other prisoners. The protesters walked towards the gate erected by Israeli forces near the entrance of the village and leading to Palestinian lands that Israeli settlers from the nearby "Halmish" settlement are trying to seize. Israeli soldiers, who had been extensively deployed in the area and near all the entrances of the village since the morning, began to confront the protesters who wanted to walk towards the affected lands. Israeli soldiers fired live and rubber-coated bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the protesters. As a result, 2 Palestinians (PCHR maintains their names) sustained wounds. In addition, dozens of Palestinian civilians and human rights defenders suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Also following the Friday Prayer, at approximately 12:45 on the same day, dozens of Palestinian civilians, international and Israeli human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Kafr Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilya, in protest against closing the eastern entrance of the village. The demonstrators headed towards that entrance. Israeli soldiers fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, 5 demonstrators including an Israeli peace activist, were wounded. (PCHR) maintains of the names of the wounded.

At approximately 12:30 on Tuesday, 21 February 2012, Israeli forces positioned in watchtowers at the border fence near Beit Hanou (Erez) crossing, north of the Gaza Strip, fired at a group of demonstrators and Palestinian and international activists in the vicinity of the crossing. The demonstration was comprised of approximately 80 protestors, including 63 international activists, 10 journalists and representatives of Palestinian resistance groups. When they approached to a distance of 150 meters from the border, Israeli forces opened fire, but no injuries were reported.

Saber al-Za'neen, Coordinator of the Local Initiative in Beit Hanoun and the supervisor of the demonstration, said that at approximately 11:30 on the said day, a demonstration headed to the northern area. When they reached the cement wall, at approximately 12:30, an activist planted the Palestinians flag. In response to this act the Israeli soldiers positioned in the watchtower opened fire. The demonstrators were terrorized and fled out of the area. No injuries were reported.

Recommendations to the international community:

Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made several recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that the international community pressure Israel to lift the severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli government and its occupation forces on access for international organizations to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The PCHR reiterates that any political settlement not based on international human rights law and humanitarian law cannot lead to a peaceful and just solution of the Palestinian question. Rather, such an arrangement can only lead to further suffering and instability in the region. Any peace process or agreement must be based on respect for international law, including international human rights and humanitarian law.

International Middle East Media Center:

Clashes Took Place At The Al-Aqsa Mosque

2012-02-24T14:27:00.000+01:00

International Middle East Media Center

by Saed Bannoura

Palestinian sources reported Friday that clashes took place between dozens of youths at the Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, and Israeli soldiers who fired gas bombs at them leading to several injuries. The clashes took place following the Friday noon prayers at the mosque.

Eyewitnesses reported that the youth hurled stones at the soldiers who were extensively deployed in the area preventing hundreds from entering the mosque. The soldiers fired gas bombs and concussion grenades; several residents suffocated after inhaling gas fired by the army.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage reported that dozens of soldiers broke into the area of the main mosque, Al Masjid Al-Qibli, and attacked dozens of protestors causing several injuries and leading to clashes.

The Foundation added that undercover forces of the Israeli army were also deployed on the rooftop of the Al-Qibli mosque and chased dozens of protestors.

It is worth mentioning that thousands of Palestinians headed to the Al-Aqsa mosque for Friday prayers amidst threats by Israeli extremists to break into the mosque “to prove ownership” according to the extremists.

Israel also intensified its military and security arrangement in occupied East Jerusalem and around the Al-Aqsa mosque, and prevented hundreds from reaching it.

Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area attacked 100 times during 2011

2012-02-24T14:26:00.000+01:00

Jerusalem Center for Media – Middle East Monitor -

A study conducted by Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage in Israel has revealed that Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area has been subjected to around 100 attacks and violations in 2011 alone. The study noted that the attacks varied between physical attacks and plots which pose threats to the sanctity and security of the mosque. The study also documented provocative statements constituting incitement by Israelis to damage the third holiest site in the Muslim world.

The report claims that around 5,000 Israelis, including Jewish settlers and members of other extremist groups, stormed into Al-Aqsa in 2011. The intruders performed Talmudic rituals, sometimes in public, other times in secret, including carrying parts of the Torah inside the mosque.

There has also been an escalation in the frequency of incursions by Israeli intelligence officers and political and official figures into Al-Aqsa Mosque.

More than 200,000 tourists were granted admittance to the mosque, sometimes violating its sanctity by wearing scanty clothing.

Al-Aqsa has witnessed a campaign of unprecedented military presence; strict measures preventing Muslims from going to the mosque; and acts aimed at decreasing the continuous Muslim presence in the Noble Sanctuary, through banning orders and limiting entry to certain age groups. The Israeli Occupation Authorities also prevented 3.7 million Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from reaching Occupied Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque to conduct acts of worship therein.

While the Israelis have blocked essential maintenance and reconstruction within the mosque compound, Jewish organisations’ calls for the mosque to be destroyed and a temple to be built in its place have increased in number. The year 2011 saw a campaign of excavations and the construction of long, interlinked tunnels underneath Al Aqsa and the surrounding area in all directions. The tunnels are to have “Jewish synagogues and Judaisation centres”. What has been notable about the excavations last year is that they have been more overt, unlike previous years.

Israeli efforts to Judaise the area have included work at the Muslim-owned Buraq (“Wailing”) Wall and the proposed demolition of the historic Magharba Gate Bridge. The report notes that the latter was saved, temporarily at least, by the effects of the Arab Spring and concerns raised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel has plans to transform the area around Al-Aqsa into so-called “Talmudic gardens”, which will incorporate tourist centres and commercial shopping malls. All of this is in addition to the increasing number of illegal Jewish settlers and settlements in districts such as Ras Al-Amoud.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage has issued a warning that the Israeli Occupation Authorities could seek to capitalise on the developments of the Arab Spring so as to damage Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sanctuary in 2012. Intelligence reports, it says, predict serious attacks against Al-Aqsa by extremist Jews. Such predictions follow statements by former Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Member Avraham Burg that Al-Aqsa will be demolished or torched while Netanyahu is in office; and this, he claimed, will be followed by the establishment of the so-called Third Temple. In the light of these serious threats to the Holy Mosque, the Foundation called on Muslims and Arabs to put Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa at the top of their priorities for action.

Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area attacked 100 times during 2011

Army Orders Construction on Houses to Stop

2012-02-23T19:22:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

HEBRON, February 23, 2012 (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities Thursday issued notices to stop construction work on eight Palestinian houses in the Hebron area village of Surif as a prelude to demolish them under the pretext they were built without permit, according to the Land Research Center (LCR).

A field researcher at the center said that Israeli forces along with officers from the Civil Administration, the Israeli military government’s arm in the West Bank, threw the notices near the house before leaving the village.

The notices said there will be a court hearing February 29 to look into what it called “demolition of a construction and turning it back to its previous state.”

Owners said the houses were inhabited and were built 10 years ago.

Israeli Forces Demolish House, Water Wells

2012-02-23T19:21:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

HEBRON, February 23, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Thursday demolished a Palestinian house and two water wells in Beit Ula, a town northwest of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to a local activist.

Coordinator of the popular committee against the wall, Isa al-Omla, told WAFA that a large Israeli force stormed the town and demolished a 50-square-meter house, razing the land around it in addition to two water wells.

Al-Omla called upon the international community to promptly move to stop the Israeli measures against Palestinians.

He also called upon the international human rights organizations to condemn the Israeli attacks against the town’s residents which aim to empty the land as prelude to seize it.

Israeli Army keeps Iron Dome defense system in southern Israel

2012-02-22T23:12:00.000+01:00

KUNA
GAZA, Feb 22- The Israeli Army decided to keep the 'Iron Dome' mobile air defense system of short-range missiles interception in southern Israel. This is in anticipation of deterioration of the security situation in Gaza Strip, Radio Israel quoted a spokesman of the Army as saying on Wednesday morning.
This defense system was to be transferred to Tel Aviv, specifically 'Gush Dan' in central Israel, as a part of army training to test the performance of the Dome in this densely populated region, he stated.
Southern Israel was attacked last week by various missiles launched from Gaza Strip, and the security services in Israel are taking all needed measures to face those continuous attacks, the spokesman affirmed.
A large number of antimissile batteries will be deployed across the country and especially in the most frequently attacked areas, to enhance readiness for emergencies, Israeli Army announced.
Last April, Israel announced success of the Iron Dome in facing attacks by Grad rockets launched from the Strip towards Beer Sheva or Be'er Al-Sabe', Ashkelon, and Ashdod.
This army system has three platforms, distributed in Ashkelon, Beer Sheva, and Haifa in northern Israel. Israel announced a desire to set up 10 to 15 additional firing units as part of the Iron Dome.
Each missile interception comes to a cost of USD 40,000, compared to just hundreds of dollars for each Palestinian missile launched.
The Iron Dome is a mobile air defense system in development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells. The system was created as a defensive countermeasure to the rocket threat against Israel's civilian population on its northern and southern borders. It is designed to intercept very short-range threats up to 70 kilometers in all-weather situations.(

UN Deplores Israeli Decision to Expand Settlement

2012-02-22T23:11:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA
JERUSALEM, February 22, 2012 (WAFA) – The United Nations said Wednesday that it deplores an Israeli decision to build 500 new housing units in Shilo settlement, north of Ramallah.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry said in a statement that Israel’s decision “to approve a large number of new units deep inside the occupied Palestinian territory in the settlement of Shilo and retroactively legitimize hundreds in a nearby outpost is deplorable and moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution.”

He said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during his recent visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory that “settlement activity is illegal, contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Road Map and will not be recognized by the international community.”

Israeli Prison's Authority Move 120 Prisoners To Unknown Location

2012-02-22T23:09:00.000+01:00

by George Rishmawi - IMEMC & Agencies

One day after the deal between the Palestinian Prisoner Khader Adnan who ended his hunger-strike after 66 days, the Israeli prisons' administration transferred approximately 120 prisoners from Negev Desert Prison to an unknown location.

A press statement issued by the prisoners published by the Palestinian Prisoners' Society, said that 120 prisoners were transferred without allowing them to take their belongings after two special military forces broke into the prison with weapons and dogs.

The prisoners' statement reads "there was no justification for the prisons' administration.”

They also said that the prisons' administration informed the prisoners that it would cancel all previous agreements with them, and that it would escalate the procedures against them.

It is still unclear whether this Israeli measure is related to Adnan's deal in which Israel agreed to release him on April 17, without renewing his administrative detention.

International Middle East Media Center:

11 soldiers and 15 extremist Zionist storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

2012-02-22T23:08:00.000+01:00

Jerusalem Center for Media – Rasim Abdel Wahed – Asmaa Thaher

11 Zionist soldiers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque today morning with the military uniforms (without weapons) and a group of extremists Jewish, from the Mughrabi Gate, accompanied by heavy security from the elements of the units of occupation army.

According to our correspondent that the soldiers have organized in a tour with a tour guide in the courtyards of the holy mosque, while another group of extremists Jewish attended a separate tour amid a wide spread of the elements of occupation police in the courtyards of the mosque.

On the other hand, the occupation police force stationed at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque prevented the entry of young Jerusalemites to the mosque and held a large number of ID cards until they got out of the mosque.

At the same time, Jerusalemites in the old town went to the holy mosque in the atmosphere of tense and is likely to escalate in light of the insistence of the occupation to target the al-Aqsa mosque.

11 soldiers and 15 extremist Zionist storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israel Notifies Farmers it Plans to Seize their Land

2012-02-22T13:30:00.000+01:00

HEBRON, February 22, 2012 (WAFA) - The Israeli authorities Wednesday informed Palestinian farmers from Beit Ula, a town northwest of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, of its intention to take over about 20 dunums of their land, according to a local activist.

Coordinator of the popular committee against the wall, Isa al-Omla, told WAFA that farmers found notices on their land put there by the Israeli authorities informing them that they should leave their land and remove everything on it because it will soon be expropriated under the pretext that the land is state land.

The notices, he said, gave the farmers 45 days to file a complaint at Ofer military camp, near Ramallah, or else the army would evict them by force and force them to pay costs of their eviction.

One of the land owners, Nader al-Omla said that the Israeli authorities aim to force Palestinian farmers to leave their land in order to seize it for the benefit of expanding the Apartheid Wall and prevent urban expansion.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Call for solidarity: Submit your photos for the liberation of Shuhada street

2012-02-22T11:23:00.000+01:00

Call for solidarity: Submit your photos for the liberation of Shuhada street

20 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Beginning this week local organizers in Al Khalil (Hebron) and Youth Against Settlements have organized a series of events to commemorate the Baruch Goldstein Massacre and demand the re-opening of Shuhada Street, once the commercial heart of Al Khalil, now off limits to locals, Palestinians in general, and even international supporters following the massacre that claimed 29 Palestinian lives.

While one street may seem insignificant or small, the segregation, economic strangulation, violence, and oppression that Shuhada Street suffers is a microcosm of Zionist policy. As extremist settlers continue to harass and violently attack Palestinians and internationals, and the Golani Brigade continues to show no accountability or concern for international law, it is all the more essential that this street be the symbolic avenue of freedom for Palestinians.

An illegal Zionist settlement pollutes the very heart of a historic piece of Al Khalil now overtaken with settler violence, racial epithets, and sadly, pure hatred for Palestinians and their supporters.

The residents of Al Khalil, Palestinian activists, and International Solidarity Movement call on the international community to display their support in a project that will showcase international solidarity for the opening of Shuhada Street.

As such we ask that the international community submits a photo of solidarity to International Solidarity Movement. This photo will be of a major street or landmark of your hometown with a display or sign of solidarity for Shuhada Street. Diversity in support for human rights can humanize the victims of Zionist oppression in Al Khalil and elsewhere.

Get creative with your slogans and locations! Please note that multiple photos from the same location will not all be published, so local organizing in deciding a location in your community is suggested, or the ISM media team will select 1 photo from each location.

In order to participate, please submit a photo to palreportskhalil@gmail.com and keep in mind the following guidelines:

In the subject line of your email please be sure to write “Open Shuhada Street Campaign”
Photos should not be a maximum of 1 MB
A poster, sign, clothing or any other visual statement supporting the opening of Shuhada Street should be visible in the photo along with the landmark or major street
It is not necessary for individuals to be a part of the picture, as your privacy is honored, however if individuals can please indicate their names (if they wish to be identified)
Please include a location of the photo (example: Hollywood sign, Hollywood, California) in the email
Include the date when the photograph was taken in the email
If the visual is written in a language other than English, please write the statement in the body of the email in order to be translated.
Photos are original and not edited or borrowed from another entity
Please submit photos no later than February 28th

ISM Palestine looks forward to receiving your photographs. Stay tuned for a publication on April 1st on palsolidarity.org

Updated on February 22, 2012
Posted under: Press Releases

#Solidarity : In court 2Day (another administrative detainee) WALID HANATSHEH (ABU RASS)

2012-02-22T10:35:00.000+01:00

Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - ADDAMEER - WALID HANATSHEH (ABU RASS)

WALID HANATSHEH (ABU RASS)

“Administrative detention has a beginning but doesn’t have an end.” -Bayan, Walid’s wife

Date of Birth: 1 January 1969

Place of residence: Ramallah

Marital status: Married with two daughters

Occupation:Finance and Administration Manager for the Health Work Committees (HWC)

Date of arrest: 22 November 2011

Place of detention: Ofer

Number of administrative detention orders: 1

Expected end of current detention order: 22 May 2012

Click here to view this profile as a PDF.

Walid Hanatsheh is a human rights defender who is currently in administrative detention. In his work as Finance and Administration Manager for the Health Work Committees (HWC), one of the largest community health service providers in the occupied Palestinian territory, Walid helps to provide necessary healthcare to over 500,000 beneficiaries.

ARREST

Walid was arrested on 22 November 2011, when Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) raided his home at 1:30 in the morning. A large group of soldiers, accompanied by an intelligence officer and another man wearing a mask, arrived at Walid’s building and surrounded it completely. They used black duct tape to cover the peepholes of all the apartments in the building, before knocking loudly on his door and entering his house. Twenty soldiers searched the house while the intelligence officer began to interrogate Walid. He was then detained without being given any reason for his arrest. This arrest is his fourth arrest by the IOF.

ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION

Walid was issued an administrative detention order for 6 months on 30 November 2011. As with all other administrative detainees, Walid’s detention is based on secret information collected by Israeli authorities and available to the military judge but not to the detainee or his lawyer. This practice violates international humanitarian law, which permits some limited use of administrative detention in emergency situations, but requires that the authorities follow basic rules for detention, including a fair hearing at which the detainee can challenge the reasons for his or her detention. These minimum rules of due process have been clearly violated in Walid’s case, leaving him without any legitimate means to defend himself.

The confirmation hearing for Walid’s administrative detention took place in two phases. In the first session, the military judge allowed Walid and his lawyer to be present in court with the prosecution. The second session was a closed session, during which Walid and his lawyer were not allowed to be present while the judge read the classified material on which his administrative detention is supposedly based. The judge claimed that this material contains trusted information that Walid is an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and that administrative detention is the “only way to prevent the danger posed by the detainee.” The judge referenced Walid’s previous administrative detentions, which were also under the claim that he was active in the PFLP.

When the judge confirmed his administrative detention order on 1 December, Walid’s lawyer filed an appeal, emphasizing that Walid is an employee in a humanitarian institution providing necessary medical services to many individuals and that his detention negatively affects his work and beneficiaries. He noted that Walid’s previous arrests were also all based on classified material and vague reasoning and that there was never any proof or official charges made regarding his alleged PFLP activity. The appeal was rejected by the judge on 15 January 2012.

Addameer believes that Walid’s detention is also connected to his work with the HWC and their support of the prisoners’ hunger strike launched on 27 September. The HWC actively coordinated solidarity events and other support of the prisoners during their 22-day hunger strike. Furthermore, as the hunger strike was initially launched by PFLP members in prison, this affiliation may cast light on why Walid has been accused by the military judge of being active in the PFLP. Walid’s case reflects the policy of arbitrary detention employed by Israeli authorities, and particularly the use of administrative detention as punishment for individuals when there is not sufficient evidence for an indictment.

PREVIOUS ARRESTS

Walid has been consistently targeted for arrest and administrative detention by Israeli authorities. He was first detained in 1994, when he was interrogated for 30 days before being released.

His next arrest occurred on 18 May 2002 and he was subsequently held for three and a half years in administrative detention. On 27 June 2005, the military judge decided to cancel his administrative detention order, which was for 5 months at that time, but gave the prosecution 72 hours to object to the cancellation. The prosecution then submitted an appeal to the military appeals court, which was approved and the order was not cancelled. Walid’s lawyer, Sahar Francis, submitted a petition to the Israeli High Court against this decision. In the General Prosecutor’s reply to the petition, he stated that Israeli authorities were already planning on extending his administrative detention. He suggested that Walid be deported for two years as an alternative to his detention. Walid, his family and Addameer strongly opposed this proposal. The petition was dismissed by the High Court and Walid received a renewed administrative detention order for three months. Walid’s lawyer filed an appeal, which was refused, and followed up with another petition to the Israeli High Court to release him. The High Court announced that there would not be another renewal of his administrative detention order after December, so the petition was pulled. Walid was finally released on 21 December 2005. Walid’s case again highlights the liberal use of administrative detention against Palestinians, wherein Israeli authorities claimed he was enough of a “security risk” to keep him in administrative detention in September, but then released him three months later.

Walid was arrested for the third time in 2009. From 12 January 2009 to 10 January 2010, Walid was again held in administrative detention.

WALID’S FAMILY

Walid’s continuous detention has been extremely difficult for his wife, Bayan, and their two daughters. His wife has stated that she believes administrative detention slowly kills detainees and their families by separating and thus destroying them. She adds that his family cannot make any future plans because of his frequent detention. His daughters, Mais, 13, and Malak, 4, constantly ask why their father is never home and why he does not pick them up from school like the other kids. His frequent arrests have prevented the family from being together during the most significant events in their lives. When Walid was in prison in 2002, his wife became seriously ill. Walid’s lawyer used the medical reports in court so that he might be released to be with his wife during her illness, but the Israeli judge rejected the motion, stating, “The lives of the Israeli public are more important than Waleed’s life or his wife’s life.”

Walid’s wife and daughters have been able to visit him once since his detention in Ofer. His wife recalled of the visit, “Before we went I prepared my daughters for what it was going to be like. I told them that they were going to see him behind a glass barrier. During the visit Malak kept kissing her father through the glass barrier. The Prison Administration refused to let her in to see her father without a barrier, claiming that they had a different day specified for children under the age of six to get in.” As with all other family visits, Walid’s family can only visit for 45 minutes and must speak with him by phone. Often the volume is too low, making it difficult to hear, especially with all the other visits taking place at the same time. Walid is originally from Dura near Hebron and his mother and other family members are denied family visits based on “security reasons”. Even during his previous arrests, his mother has never been permitted to visit him in prison.

In addition to the suffering his detentions have caused his family while he is in prison, the IOF has also denied his family from living peacefully even while he is released. Walid’s wife holds a Jerusalem ID card and therefore has to live in Jerusalem in order to maintain her residency. She has applied many times for Walid to also acquire a Jerusalem ID, but each time he is denied for “security reasons”. This denial of residency as had a negative effect on the stability of the family, as Walid has also been refused permits to enter Jerusalem. He has also been prevented by Israeli authorities from travelling out of the country even to conferences and workshops related to his work at the Health Work Committees.

****

Human rights defenders are formally defined as persons who work peacefully for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Walid clearly falls within the category, in that his activities are peaceful in nature and aimed at the promotion of human rights in the health sector. Addameer views Walid’s imprisonment as a deliberate violation of his fundamental freedoms and special protections provided under international law for human rights defenders, particularly freedoms of movement, expression, association and peaceful assembly.

Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold detainees indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army is authorized to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinian civilians on the basis of Military Order 1651. This order empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six month renewable periods if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely.

For more information on administrative detention, read Addameer’s report on administrative detention: Administrative Detention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: A Legal Analysis Report.

****

ACT NOW!

Here is how you can help Walid Hanatsheh:

Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Walid Hanatsheh be released immediately and that his administrative detention not be renewed.

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
Military Judge Advocate General
6 David Elazar Street
Harkiya, Tel Aviv
Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il; avimn@idf.gov.il
Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi
OC Central Command Nehemia Base, Central Command
Neveh Yaacov, Jerusalam
Fax: +972 2 530 5741
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defense
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax: +972 3 691 6940 / 696 2757
Col. Eli Bar On
Legal Advisor of Judea and Samaria PO Box 5
Beth El 90631
Fax: +972 2 9977326

Write to your own elected representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release Walid Hanatsheh and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary and cruel system of incarceration without trial.

#Palestine Bitunia 21 2 2012

2012-02-22T10:05:00.000+01:00

Army Invades Al-Khader, Clashes reported

2012-02-22T08:50:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli troops invaded, on Tuesday afternoon, Al-Khader town, west of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, and fired rubber-coated metal bullets and gas bombs at dozens of youth who hurled stones and empty bottles at them.

File - Image By Palestine News Network

The soldiers also attacked dozens of bystanders, and violently struck and beat a 15-year-old, youth identified as Issa Yousef Sbeih, before kidnapping him and taking him to an unknown destination.

In related news, soldiers kidnapped, on Tuesday at dawn, three Palestinians who approached the border fence area, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses identified the three as Ashraf As-Sufi, Mohammad Abu Ghadra, and Saddam Abu Ghadra; all from Rafah.

Israel enforces a no-man zone in areas that are close to the border, an issue that prevents hundreds of residents from entering their own farmlands.

Several casualties were reported when Israeli troops opened fire, and even fired shells, at residents who approached the “no-man” zone.

International Middle East Media Center

عوفر - الاحتلال يعتقل شاب بوحشية بعد اصابته

2012-02-21T21:36:00.000+01:00

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Israeli decision to release Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan in April ‘insufficient’

2012-02-21T21:32:00.000+01:00

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FEBR 21 2012

Demonstriations calling for Khader Adnan’s release have been held in the West Bank on Tuesday
© Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

The Israeli authorities’ decision to release a Palestinian detainee by mid-April is insufficient, Amnesty International said amid reports that he has agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike.
The organization has urged Israel to release Khader Adnan immediately to allow him to receive urgent medical treatment. The 33-year-old baker – allegedly affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement – is at immediate risk of death after more than 10 weeks on hunger strike.
“A deal which will see Khader Adnan released on 17 April unless significant new evidence emerges is insufficient when he needs urgent medical treatment to save his life now,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Interim Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Even if reports that Khader Adnan has agreed to end his hunger strike are true, this does not mean he is out of danger nor does it lessen the need for highly specialized medical care.
“He cannot constitute a ‘security threat’ in his current condition and should be released from custody immediately. The Israeli authorities have revealed no evidence justifying his continued detention.”
Khader Adnan was given a four-month administrative detention order on 10 January. Israeli military orders allow the Israeli authorities to detain Palestinians from the occupied West Bank without trial indefinitely if they are deemed to be a “security threat”.
The Israeli Supreme Court had been due to address Khader Adnan’s appeal on Tuesday, but the hearing was cancelled following a reported agreement between his lawyer and the Israeli authorities.
Both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli governmental spokespeople have reported that Khader Adnan has agreed to end his hunger strike, something Amnesty International has not been able to verify independently.
“Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Israeli authorities to release Khader Adnan and other Palestinians held in administrative detention, unless they are promptly charged with internationally recognizable criminal offences and tried in accordance with international fair trial standards,”, said Philip Luther.
Khader Adnan was arrested on 17 December last year at his home in the village of Arrabe near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, after Israeli security forces burst into his house in the early hours of the morning.
His prolonged hunger strike was begun in protest against his ill-treatment, the conditions of his detention, and the policy of administrative detention.
Amnesty International has called on Israel to end the practice of administrative detention because it violates the internationally recognized right to a fair trial which must be upheld for all detainees, even during states of emergency.
The baker has been hospitalized since 30 December as his health deteriorated. He is currently being held in the Ziv hospital in northern Israel under armed guard.
As of 19 February, doctors from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel reported that he was still shackled to his hospital bed, despite commitments by the Israel Prison Service that the shackles would be removed.
Some 309 Palestinians, including more than 20 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are currently being held in administrative detention. One man has been held for over five years.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

European groups meet in London to arrange for global march to Jerusalem

2012-02-21T19:45:00.000+01:00

Jerusalem Center for Media – Sources -

Pro-Palestinian organizations from different European countries intend to hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the arrangements to be made for the global march towards occupied Jerusalem, which will take place on the 36th anniversary of the Palestinian land day.

Representatives of these organizations will come to London from Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands to prepare for this communal march which will be organized inside the occupied Palestinian territories and its neighboring countries.

The participants in this march will try to reach the Aqsa Mosque or the nearest possible point in the Palestinian-Arab border areas.

Sarah Colborne, the executive director of Palestine solidarity campaign, said the global march to Jerusalem would take place to protest the Judaization, apartheid and ethnic cleansing crimes committed by Israel against Jerusalem and its people in particular and against Palestinians in the occupied territories in general.

Calborne added the British organizers of the march decided to hold a massive rally outside the Israeli embassy in London on the same day of the global march.

For its part, Hafez Karmi, the head of the Palestinian forum in Britain, said in a recent press release that it is no longer possible to tolerate Israel’s practices against the Palestinians and the time has come for serious popular moves to curb Israel.

Karmi noted that a large number of British dignitaries and head of Arab and Muslim communities support the global march to Jerusalem and would participate in the protest outside the Israeli embassy in London.

National committee for the global march to Jerusalem were formed in occupied Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, the Arab Maghreb states, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, America, Iran, India, and other countries.

European groups meet in London to arrange for global march to Jerusalem

Clashes Erupt at Al-Aqsa Mosque

2012-02-21T17:13:00.000+01:00

JERUSALEM, February 21, 2012 (WAFA) – Confrontations erupted Tuesday afternoon between Israeli police and Palestinian worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City after police allowed 22 extremist Jews to enter the Mosque compound, according to witnesses.

They said worshippers protested the entry of the extremists, who came in through Magarbeh Gate under police protection, provoking worshipers to clash with the police.

The worshippers chanted religious slogans at the extremists while police closed all gates of Mosques and deployed its troops inside it.

Calls were earlier made by Jewish extremists to visit the compound of al-Aqsa Mosque to perform religious rituals provoking calls by Muslims to confront them.

Police has been on high alert in the occupied city and banned Palestinians under the age of 40 from entering the Old City and al-Aqsa Mosque.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Israeli Army Opens Fire at Protest near Gaza Border

2012-02-21T17:12:00.000+01:00

JERUSALEM, February 21, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli army units Tuesday opened fire at a non-violent demonstration against the buffer zone between Israel and the Gaza Strip near Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza, according to participants.

No injuries were reported.

Beit Hanoun residents often protest against the buffer zone, which is a military no-go area that extends along the entire northern and eastern perimeter of the Gaza Strip's border with Israel and goes deep into the Palestinian Territory at a range of between 500 meters to two kilometers.

The buffer zone encompasses 30% of Gaza's agricultural land and around 27,000 dunums, according to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Palestinians, mainly farmers and landowners, are denied access to the land; whereas Israeli forces use live fire against anyone within the buffer zone.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Soldiers Use Force to Disperse Protest

2012-02-21T17:11:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Soldiers Use Force to Disperse Protest: RAMALLAH, February 21, 2012 (WAFA) – Several Palestinians were injured Tuesday when Israeli soldiers used force to disperse a protest outside Ofer military camp near Ramallah held in solidarity with Khader Adnan, the prisoner who has been on hunger strike for 66 straight days, said witnesses.

Confrontations broke out when Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and rubber-coated metal bullets at the demonstrators, injuring 10 people who were hit by rubber bullets. Many others suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Israel to free Palestinian hunger striker

2012-02-21T17:09:00.000+01:00

By DIAA HADID
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Palestinian prisoner agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike to protest his imprisonment without charge after reaching a deal with Israel that will free him in April, the Israeli Justice Ministry said Tuesday.

The agreement ended a tense standoff that left 33-year-old Khader Adnan clinging to life and drew international attention to a controversial Israeli policy of holding suspected Palestinian militants without charge. The hunger strike also turned Adnan, a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, into a hero for Palestinians.

Under the deal struck with military prosecutors, Adnan agreed to resume eating immediately, the Justice Ministry said.

Outside the Jerusalem high court, some two dozen demonstrators waved the Palestinian flag. "Khader is coming home!" they chanted.

Adnan was a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, a group that has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. It is not known whether he participated in violent acts.

The statement said that if "no new additional substantial evidence" emerges against Adnan, he will be released on April 17.

That means his four-month detention order will be counted from the day of his arrest, not the day it was issued several weeks later. The deal also suggests that military prosecutors will not seek extensions, which can often be used to prolongue administrative detentions.

The Justice Ministry said Adnan, who remains hospitalized, accepted the deal through his attorney.

The deal was swiftly denounced by Israel's hardline foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

"It was a wrong decision to release the Jihad activist. But it is our duty to respect and honor every Supreme Court decision even when we don't agree with it," he said.

Adnan's lawyers said the deal would set a precedent for other Palestinian prisoners - that they too, could force Israel to listen to their demands.

"Sheikh Khader is an example for Palestinians," said one of his lawyers, Mahmoud Hassan. "He showed that their demands can be met."

Tuesday's compromise was announced shortly before the Israeli Supreme Court was to hold an emergency hearing on Adnan's appeal. The court moved the hearing up by two days, over concerns about Adnan's health. He has been held in an Israeli hospital for several weeks because of his condition.

Adnan's supporters and physicians said in recent days that he couldn't survive much longer on his hunger strike. Doctors who treated him said he lost some 60 pounds (30 kilograms), his hair was falling out, his skin had turned yellow and that he was in danger of a heart attack.

Adnan's wife, Randa, was ecstatic over the news.

"The Israelis had no proof and that's why they've agreed to these four months," she said in a telephone interview. "He's shown by his steadfastness that we can be victorious."

She laughed, and supporters could be heard ululating with joy in the background.

Adnan was arrested from his West Bank home on Dec. 17 and launched his hunger strike the following day.

He said he was protesting Israel's policy of "administrative detentions," in which it holds suspected Palestinian militants for months and even years at a time without charge. Adnan also claimed to have been beaten and humiliated in prison.

Israel has said Adnan was suspected of acts that "threaten regional security" without elaborating. It has not responded to the abuse allegations.

Israel has defended the policy of administrative detentions as a necessary tool to stop militant activity. It says the measure is needed to protect its network of Palestinian informants.

Adnan has been on three hunger strikes in the past. His sister Maali Musa said her brother undertook a 14-day hunger strike in 1999 after he was imprisoned by Palestinian authorities for hurling rotten eggs at officials during a demonstration.

He went without food for 28 days to protest his solitary confinement in 2005 when he was imprisoned by Israel. His sister said his strike forced Israeli authorities to return him to live with other prisoners.

He also undertook a 12-day hunger strike in 2010, again when he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the West Bank. Musa said her brother wasn't charged with anything, and was quickly released.

Adnan's latest protest was the longest hunger strike ever by a Palestinian prisoner, and had caused some unease in Israel. The European Union and United Nations had expressed concern over the case and urged Israel to promptly give Adnan a trial.

There are some 300 Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention. They are a fraction of the some 4,200 Palestinians held in Israel, many who are doing time for charges ranging from throwing stones at Israeli soldiers to killing Israeli civilians.

Palestinians venerate the prisoners, viewing them as freedom fighters.

The second longest hunger strike in Palestinian history was by a woman, Itaf Alayan who refused food for 43 days before she was released in 1997. She was also an administrative detainee.

News from The Associated Press

Adnan Ends Hunger Strike in Return for his Release on April 17

2012-02-21T16:54:00.000+01:00

ARRABE, JENIN, February 21, 2012 (WAFA) – Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan agreed Tuesday to end his 66-day long hunger strike in return for his release on April 17, according to Adnan’s lawyer Jawad Boulus.

He told a press conference in Arrabe, Adnan’s home town near Jenin, that a deal was reached with the Israeli state prosecutor in which Adnan will end his strike and will be released on April 17, exactly four months after his arrest.

Boulus said Adnan will end his hunger strike at 7:00 Tuesday evening.

He said he will follow on Adnan’s health to make sure he receives proper treatment in prison as he completes his remaining two months in detention after his health had deteriorated following more than two months of hunger strike.

Adnan demanded that the announcement of the deal be made in his home town, which stood by him during his ordeal in prison.

Adnan, 33, was arrested on December 17 without charge or trial and then placed in administrative detention for four months.

Boulus said Adnan went on hunger strike in protest against the treatment he got in prison.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Despite the Announcement of a Deal Limiting Khader Adnan’s Detention, Addameer Reiterates its Urgent Concern for His Health

2012-02-21T16:52:00.001+01:00

Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - ADDAMEER

Ramallah, 21 February 2012 – Khader Adnan’s hearing at the Israeli High Court was cancelled today, 21 February 2012, only minutes before the hearing was to take place. On Khader’s 66^th day of hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention and inhuman and degrading treatment by the Israeli authorities, one of Khader’s lawyers negotiated a deal with the Israeli military prosecutor that Khader will be released on 17 April instead of 8 May and that his administrative detention order will not be renewed. Addameer lawyer Samer Sam’an is actively working to gain permission to visit Khader to confirm whether or not he will continue with his hunger strike.

Khader previously stated to Addameer lawyers that though he was calling for his immediate and unconditional release, the minimum requirements he would consider for ending his hunger strike would be the guarantee that he would not receive a new administrative detention order and that his duration of detention would be considered from the date of his arrest on 17 December 2011 and not from the date that he received his administrative detention order on 8 January 2012. The provisions of the deal reached today as announced by the lawyer involved do meet these minimum requirements. However, if new “secret material,” upon which administrative detention is based, presents itself during the next two months, there would still be grounds for the renewal of his administrative detention order. This caveat is consistent with similar deals made in the past, in which Israeli officials leave the door open for re-arrests.

Addameer maintains that the fact that Israeli officials negotiated the duration of his detention, in addition to agreeing to an early release, reveals that there were no grounds for his administrative detention in the first place. His administrative detention order, as is the case with all other administrative detainees, is based on the alleged threat he poses to the “security of the State of Israel.” However, if Israeli officials agree that he will not be a threat on 17 April, as clear from today’s deal, he surely does not pose any threat today and his case provides further proof of Israel’s policy of arbitrary detention. Addameer reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release and the release of the 308 other administrative detainees.

Addameer’s main concern remains Khader’s health, in critical condition after over two months of hunger strike. Whether or not Khader continues his hunger strike, he must receive proper arrangements for observing his health condition, which will likely now have irreversible consequences. If he does decide to end his hunger strike, the potential complications from such a protracted hunger strike will require urgent and trusted care, which can only be provided if he is released.

Addameer continues to salute Khader Adnan for his incredible steadfastness in challenging Israel’s policy of holding Palestinians in detention without charge or trial, which is in violation of international law. Addameer further thanks all individuals and institutions who have chosen not to ignore the basic human rights violations being committed against Palestinian prisoners on a daily basis and who have expressed their explicit support for Khader and his fellow prisoners. The date set for Khader’s release, 17 April, ironically falls on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, which will serve as a reminder of the thousands of other Palestinian political prisoners who remain in Israeli detention.

Follow Addameer’s campaigns to release all Prisoners at Risk and immediately Stop Administrative Detention.

Jewish settlers storm Aqsa under police protection

2012-02-20T23:28:00.000+01:00

Jewish settlers storm Aqsa under police protection

Jerusalem Center for Media :-

Two groups of Jewish settlers stormed the holy Aqsa mosque on Monday morning under Israeli police protection, eyewitnesses said.

Quds Press quoted those witnesses, inside the Aqsa mosque, as saying that the settlers strolled in the mosque’s yards with heavy police escort.

They said that Israeli forces were blocking entry of young Palestinians into the Aqsa compound.

Meanwhile, Palestinian national and religious leaders called on Palestinian women to go to the Aqsa mosque to confront Jewish women who plan to storm the holy site on Tuesday morning.

The Jewish women announced on Hebrew websites their intention to storm the Aqsa and to perform Talmudic rituals inside it.

They said that similar “visits” would be organized twice monthly and said that they obtained permission from the Israeli police.

Palestine: a story that needs retelling

2012-02-20T23:20:00.000+01:00

Palestine

By Paul J. Balles

20 February 2012

Paul J. Balles retells the story of Palestine, reminding us in brief and simple terms of the the basic, undeniable facts of the world’s worst, most obdurate and premeditated injustice.

I have a story to tell. This story has been told before. It can be found in several places on and off the internet, but not enough people have read it. If they have, it hasn't sunk in.

It's a narrative currently left out of the news of recent events – financial crises in Europe, Arab Spring with uprisings and occupy movements and elections in America.

The chaos has kept the spotlights away from Palestine, but the problem remains, and the story needs to be retold until enough people pay attention and share the simple truth.

Zion’s myth makers

Anyone who has read some of the history of Palestine knows that indigenous Jews and Palestinians had no trouble getting along. They lived, worked and played on the same land in Palestine. However, that's not the way it's told in the gullible West by the myth-makers of Zion.

The problems started when Jews in Europe invented Zionism for those Jews who wanted a Jewish state in order to escape from anti-Semitism in Europe.

At times, you can hear one of these Zionist attempts to distract people from the truth by calling anyone critical of Zionism anti-Semitic.

A huge gap exists between those accusations and reality. European Jews are not Semitic except in their use of Hebrew as one of the Semitic languages. Palestinians are Semitic for the same linguistic reason – they use a Semitic language.

To call anti-Zionists anti-Semitic is nothing more than a propaganda ploy designed to shut critics of Zionism up.

The Zionists lied about much to get their way in Palestine. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, "They said that Palestine was empty when the Jewish settlers came there."

The Zionists also spread the lie that "Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land," says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute of Policy Studies. Palestine was not empty. There were farms and villages and towns with roads and commerce, a culture and an advanced society. Ninety-six per cent of the population was Muslim or Christian in the 19th century.

British duplicity in colonization

Following World War I, 65,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine when Britain implemented the Balfour Declaration, which the British had no right to make, carving a state out of Palestinian land.

The British had promised self-rule for the Palestinians. By the 1920s they supported the Zionist movement, denying the right of self-determination to the people in Palestine.

Clashes began when Jewish settlers tried to strip away land belonging to Palestinians. In the early 1930s the Jewish population remained under 17 per cent.

After Hitler rose to power, 174,000 Jews fled to Palestine, doubling the Jewish population. More arrived, adding 119,000 in five years.

This has been the pattern ever since. Bring settlers to Palestine under Israeli colonization and refuse to stop building settlements on Palestinian land.

A conference in March 2011 organized by the Palestine Society of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), “Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine", attempted to address the issue of colonization. It aimed:

...to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society.

...for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources – and to displace the original inhabitants.

When Zionists claim differently or label doubters anti-Semitic, they add a rationale for hatred of Zionists. They plant the seeds of self-destruction.

Report: Israeli authorities seek to permit unplanned settler roads

2012-02-20T22:48:00.000+01:00

TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Israeli military authorities in the occupied West Bank are pushing to change laws to allow Israeli settlers to build dirt roads "to protect state lands," Israeli media reported on Monday.

The change in legislation will allow settlers to construct non-tarmacked roads without a permit, allowing settlers to extend their control outside settlement boundaries on the large swathes of occupied territory designated Israeli-state land, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Israel's Civil Administration will request the legal amendment from Israel's Deputy Attorney General, the report said. Currently settlers have to apply for permits to build, however the Israeli army is already permitted to seize land for roads to "protect settlements," it added.

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem break international law banning the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory. Israeli authorities want to make a distinction between authorized settlements and outposts that have not received official approval, as well as "state land" that rights groups say has been seized from Palestinian owners.

According to a 2006 report by Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, over 50 percent of the lands settlements have been built on have retroactively been declared state lands. The areas in the occupied West Bank are often declared state land if it is not formally registered as private property, or if it is not cultivated for three years, under Ottoman law it can be declared state lands.

Under the British Mandate a process of registration of lands began, continued under Jordanian rule, but was halted by an injunction by Israel when its military occupied the West Bank in 1967.

Maan News Agency

UN calls on Israel to abide by commitments made toward Palestinian prisoners

2012-02-20T19:32:00.000+01:00

KUNA 20/02/2012
AMMAN, Feb 20 - The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, urged on Monday the Israeli government to respect its legal commitments towards thousands of Palestinian detainees.
In a press conference, Falk expressed sorrow for the latest developments in the occupied territories, noting that there are currently 4,400 Palestinians in Israeli jails and that 300 others are arrested without any charges.
The UN envoy expressed regret over human rights violations committed by the Israeli government against Palestinian people and called on the International community to urged the Israeli government to meet its obligations in line with the international law.
Falk also outlined violations committed by the Israeli government against Palestinians, adding that he would submit a report on this issue to the Human Rights Council next June.
Falk said that the Israeli authorities had prevented him from visiting the occupied Palestinian lands, adding this reflects Israel's continued violations against the Palestinians.
Falk is conducting a field mission visiting Egypt, the occupied Palestinian territory and Jordan to gather information on the broad range of human rights concerns connected to Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Regarding the Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails Khudr Adnan, who is on a hunger strike for more than 60 days now, Falk called on the Israeli government to quickly and actively take measures to protect his life and preserve his human rights.

#KhaderAdnan hunger strike: Israel Supreme Court to hear appeal for Palestinian detained for terror suspicions

2012-02-20T18:55:00.000+01:00

The father of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan holds a poster of his son and an ID as he and other family members cross the Israeli maned Jalama checkpoint on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Jenin, on February 19, 2012, after the Israeli army gave them permission to visit Adnan at the Ziv hospital in Israel. Adnan, a 34-year-old baker and member of the Islamic jihad, is on hunger strike and is currently being held by Israel without charge under so-called administrative detention since his arrest on December 17.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Israel’s Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear an appeal for the release of a Palestinian detained without charge who has been on hunger strike for more than nine weeks, his lawyer said.
The court had been due to address the appeal on Thursday but the case was brought forward by two days following an appeal by lawyer Jawad Bulus on behalf of his client, Khader Adnan.
Last week, Bulus lodged an urgent appeal with the court to lift the administrative detention order on Adnan, who on Monday marked his 65th day of a hunger strike over his detention without charge.
The court at first said it would hear the case on February 23. But Bulus made a fresh appeal on Monday to advance the hearing, prompting the court to reschedule the hearing, a court spokeswoman said.
Earlier, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged world leaders to pressure Israel to free Adnan.
“I sent messages to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton today, and spoke with the EU and Chinese envoys,” Erakat told AFP.
“I asked them all to intervene in Adnan’s case. They must apply pressure on Israel to release him,” he said.
Israel arrested Adnan, a 34-year-old baker, on December 17 near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, where he once served as a spokesman for the militant group Islamic Jihad.
He began refusing food a day after his arrest, and after nine weeks of hunger strike is now said to be close to death.
World leaders have expressed growing concern over the fate of the prisoner, who is being held without charge under a procedure known as “administrative detention.”
Palestinian officials have warned that his death in custody could spark a violent backlash, and a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service said on Sunday that they were “constantly monitoring” the situation.
“We understand the implications of this case,” Sivan Weizman said.
But on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office went on the offensive, with a spokesman describing Adnan as “a dangerous terrorist” despite the fact he has yet to be charged with any security offences.
“This man was involved in planning terrorist activities against Israel,” Ofir Gendelman told AFP.
In a series of postings on Twitter, Gendelman said a military judge and a military court of appeal had “found him a dangerous Islamic Jihad terrorist.”
Until now, Adnan has not been charged and the military court that approved Adnan’s detention has refused to release any details on the reason for his arrest or ongoing imprisonment.
“Those who call on Israel to release Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad terrorist, so he could kill our kids, wouldn’t want him near their kids,” he wrote.

National Post

Child dies from injuries after school bus crash

2012-02-20T18:52:00.000+01:00

(Reuters/File)

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- A five-year-old boy injured in a deadly school bus crash near Ramallah last week has died from his injuries, medics told Ma'an on Monday.

Salah Dweik was severely wounded when the vehicle collided with a truck near the Jaba checkpoint north of Jerusalem on Thursday. Five of his elementary school classmates and a teacher were killed when the bus overturned and set ablaze.

He was treated in Hadasa Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem, but died from his injuries on Monday, doctors said. The boy's funeral will be held on Tuesday afternoon in Al-Aqsa mosque.

The children had been traveling from Shufat refugee camp to a playground near Ramallah for a school trip. The deadly accident caused widespread shock, and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced a cross-ministerial commission of inquiry on Saturday.
Maan News Agency

Funding Stops to Silence Canada’s Palestine House, says Staff

2012-02-20T18:50:00.000+01:00

MISSISSAUGA , ONTARIO, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Staff of Palestine House Cultural and Educational Centre in Mississauga, Ontario accused the conservative Canadian government of stopping funding it as part of a campaign to silence groups who speak in support of the Palestinian people, according to a recent press release.

Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney decided recently not to renew a contribution agreement between Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Palestine House forcing the center to shut down, said the press release.

Palestine House, which has been providing CIC-funded settlement and language instruction services to Canadian immigrants of all walks of life for nearly two decades, will no longer provide these services to newcomer Canadians, it said.

While Kenny did not provide any convincing explanation for his decision, said the release, Palestine House, nevertheless, accused the minister and the conservative Canadian government “of targeting Canadian organizations that act or speak in support of the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.”

It said that “in this silencing campaign any group that speaks favorably of Palestinians or their rights is automatically tagged as a supporter of extremism.”

“It was made clear in correspondence to Minister Kenney that Palestine House categorically denounces all forms of terrorism or extremism. Our positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in line with universal values of human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, they are very close to the positions of the Government as stated on its website,” said Samir Jabbour, a spokesperson on behalf of Palestine House.

“Once again, Minister Kenny and the Harper Government prove to Canadians that they are solely led by their ideological biases. Rule of ideology, not the rule of law, is the actual policy that this Government follows,” he said.

Palestine House is the largest organization representing Palestinian Canadians in Canada. It has repeatedly expressed support for the Palestinian people and all oppressed peoples of the world, including Canada’s First Nations, said the press release.

“This decision, which has left about 20 people jobless, is motivated by discrimination. Despite the damage done to newcomer Canadians by this misguided decision, we are unwavering in our position in support of the Palestinian people and their human rights. Mr. Kenney and his decision will never silence us or stop us from serving our community,” added the spokesperson.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Adnan takes aim at Israel and gives Palestinians hope

2012-02-20T18:22:00.000+01:00

By Joseph Dana

Since 1967, Israel has maintained a framework of laws and statutes to govern all aspects of life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel's occupation law is enforced by soldiers and administered in court rooms by military judges in uniform. Many, if not most, of the laws governing movement of Palestinians, freedom of speech and association are draconian in nature; none is more alarming than the administrative detention order. The order enables Israel to hold prisoners indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.

By now, many in the international community are aware of a Palestinian baker from the northern West Bank who has refused food for two months in protest of his detention without trial. Khader Adnan is on his 64th day of a hunger strike that he began the day after Israeli forces raided his home in the middle of the night.

A 33-year-old father of two daughters who serves as the spokesperson for the militant group Islamic Jihad, Mr Adnan is conducting what is now the longest hunger strike in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Adnan's story is emblematic of the administrative detention experience of many Palestinians. He claims to have been beaten and humiliated by Israeli soldiers while in custody, and began his hunger strike in protest. On January 8, Mr Adnan was given a four-month administrative detention order, which can be renewed indefinitely, after a military judge reviewed classified information against him. Evidence and allegations have not been made available to Adnan or to his lawyer.

According to the Israeli military, information in administrative detention cases is kept classified in order to protect sources of intelligence. To this day, the only claim that Israel has made about Mr Adnan's detention is that he is a high risk to Israeli security.

The Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem says there was an increase in the number of Palestinian administrative detainees in 2011. Currently, Israel has over 300 detainees who have not been charged with any crime or faced trial. At the height of the Second Intifada, when Israel and the Palestinians were engaged in some of the bloodiest fighting, the numbers of Palestinian administrative detainees reached the thousands and included children.

The use of administrative detention orders slowed as violence subsided and after heavy criticism accompanied American use of similar procedures in Guantanamo Bay. The American model of capturing suspected terrorists, and using forceful interrogation methods and detention without trial or charge, is remarkably similar to the administrative detention orders that Israel began using in the 1960s.

However, the debate concerning the use of such practices that has engulfed American society has not yet materialised in Israel. To date, Mr Adnan's hunger strike has stirred little debate in the Israeli press about the legitimacy of administrative detention.

He is a spokesman for a radical Islamist movement and has been arrested several times. But it is unclear why Israel has not yet released any evidence against Mr Adnan. Why has Israel remained quiet in the face of increasingly harsh international criticism of its legal policy towards Palestinians in the West Bank?

It appears unlikely that Israel will release evidence to explain its detention of Mr Adnan. Last week, an Israeli judge struck down an appeal, though on Monday, a spokeswoman for the Israeli courts said the Supreme Court will hear the case this week.

Mr Adnan may die before the hearing. His hunger strike has damaged his internal organs and brain; death appears imminent. Sadly, pundits and politicians the world over who argue that Palestinians need to embrace non-violence as a tactic have largely ignored Mr Adnan's non-violent act against unjust treatment.

On the eve of Palestinian elections after newly signed reconciliation agreements between Hamas and Fatah, any sort of Palestinian popular rebellion connected to Mr Adnan might spiral into a violent confrontation with Israeli forces. Exactly for this reason, Hamas and Fatah leaders have been slow to publicly embrace the hunger strike as a demonstration of Palestinian non-violent resistance.

But this is changing. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, visited Mr Adnan's family this week and expressed support for the hunger strike. A rally of 5,000 people was held in Gaza on Friday in support of Mr Adnan. And demonstrations continue at the Ofer military complex near Ramallah, the home of Israel's military courts in the Occupied Territories. After a failed statehood attempt in the United Nations last fall, the last thing that the Palestinian Authority wants is open rebellion against Israel, as any public demonstrations might challenge its own legitimacy.

Despite the slow embrace by Palestinian political leaders, activists have championed Mr Adnan as the Palestinian Bobby Sands, the Irish republican prisoner who died in a 1981 hunger strike. Details of Mr Adnan's strike were first disseminated on Twitter, and the topic has been trending globally in recent weeks as activists have expressed their frustration that the story has largely been ignored in the mainstream press.

The hunger strike might be Palestinian social media's Tahrir Square. If Israel and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza are not careful, Mr Adnan could end up as Palestine's Mohammad Bouazizi.

The National

Israeli Forces Abduct Palestinian in Ramallah

2012-02-20T18:11:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

RAMALLAH, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Monday abducted a Palestinian from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) headquarters in Ramallah, according to a PRCS spokesman.
He told WAFA that Omar Abu Rowis, 23, from Amari refugee camp who works as a security guard at PRCS, was abducted in broad daylight from Ramallah, which is considered Area A under full Palestinian control.
An undercover unit of the Israeli army grabbed Abu Rowis, who is also goalkeeper of the Amari football team, threw him into its car and sped away, said sources.

Israeli soldiers normally enter into Area A and arrest people during the night even though the Oslo agreements do not allow that.

Palestinians Rally Outside UN Office in Solidarity with Striking Prisoner

2012-02-20T18:10:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Palestinians Rally Outside UN Office in Solidarity with Striking Prisoner: RAMALLAH, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Dozens of Palestinians Sunday participated in a demonstration in front of the United Nations office in Ramallah in solidarity with Khader Adnan, the prisoner in Israeli jails who has been on hunger strike for 66 days, according to participants in the protest.

Protesters blew horns and banged on drums to draw attention of the UN officials to the situation of Adnan, whose health has deteriorated to a critical level, and to denounce UN overlooking Israeli occupation practices and violation of international law.

Adnan, 35, a leader in the Islamic Jihad from the Jenin area, in the north of the West Bank, went on hunger strike in December protesting his arrest without charge or trial.

Egypt to Supply Gaza with Power

2012-02-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

RAMALLAH, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Egypt agreed Monday to supply the Gaza Strip with 5 megawatt of power starting next week in the first stage of providing power to the coastal enclave to solve its electricity crisis, according to an official.

Chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority Omar Kittaneh told WAFA that Egyptian Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younis informed him in a telephone call that Egypt has agreed to immediately supply Gaza with 5 megawatt of power.

He said the Egyptian and Palestinian sides “have reached a solution to the power problem in Gaza through three stages -- short-term, mid-term and long-term.”

He said the Egyptian initiative is based on increasing power supply to Gaza by 40 megawatt through increasing the operational capacity of Sinai’s power station.

Kittaneh said running the second stage will cost around $1 million, funded by the Islamic Development Bank.

He said the reason behind the severe power crisis in Gaza is due to the lack of fuel needed to operate Gaza’s power station.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Israeli Forces Arrest Three Palestinians in West Bank

2012-02-20T18:08:00.000+01:00

WEST BANK, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Monday arrested three Palestinians from across the West Bank, according to local and security sources.

Israeli forces arrested a 23-year-old Palestinian from the town of Qabatiya, south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, after raiding his house.

Forces also raided several villages and towns in the Jenin area, such as Jaba, Maythaloun, Yabod and Sanur, and searched homes but there were no reports of arrests.

Soldiers arrested a 25-year-old Palestinian from Beit Ummar, a town north of Hebron, after raiding the town and searching homes, according to Mohammad Awad, a local activist.

In Nablus, forces arrested a Palestinian from Rafidia area after entering the eastern and western neighborhoods, raiding and searching several Palestinian houses.
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Prisoner on Hunger Strike Tied to his Hospital Bed, says Group

2012-02-20T18:06:00.000+01:00

TEL AVIV, February 20, 2012 (WAFA) – Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for 66 days in a row, is still shackled to his hospital bed in spite of claims to the contrary, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel said Monday.

It said in a statement that it has also submitted an urgent appeal to the Petah Tikva District Court near Tel Aviv to reconsider a February 16 decision to uphold the four-month administrative detention of Adnan, who went on hunger strike to protest his detention.

“The urgent request was submitted after PHR-Israel discovered that information provided by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to the court was incorrect,” said the statement.

It accused the IPS of misleading the District Court judge by claiming that Adnan would not be shackled while hospitalized.

“It was on this incorrect information that (Petah Tikva District Court Judge Clara) Reggiano based her decision to reject a petition concerning Mr. Adnan's shackling,” it said.

PHR – Israel said it discovered during a medical visit of a volunteer physician to Adnan on Sunday that the Palestinian prisoner was handcuffed to both sides of his bed.

“The shackling of a patient to his hospital bed constitutes a violation of medical ethics and IPS regulations, and is inconsistent with the recommendations and guidelines of the Ministry of Health, the Israeli Medical Association, and international medical institutions,” said the statement.

It expressed concern that Adnan “is in imminent danger of death due to the length of his strike.”
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

Emergency fuel arrives from Egypt via Gaza tunnels

2012-02-20T18:04:00.000+01:00

Palestinians wait to fill containers with fuel at a petrol station in Khan Yunis
in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 19, 2012. The Gaza Strip is experiencing
shortage of fuel brought from neighboring Egypt via underground tunnels.
(REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A limited delivery of fuel arrived in the Gaza Strip on Monday, brought in through underground tunnels from Egypt, as the energy authority director said he expects a long term solution to the widespread blackouts to be agreed with Egypt this week.

The fuel has allowed the power authority to reactivate one of the four generators at Gaza's sole power plant, the authority said in a statement.

The arrival of 300,000 liters of fuel is expected to provide Gaza's 1.7 million residents with an additional two hours of electricity per day. Since the plant shut down last Tuesday, as deliveries were severely reduced from Egypt, Gaza has had only six hours of power each day.

Egypt had earlier pledged a much larger shipment. An Egyptian MP said Saturday that Egypt would begin pumping 500,000 liters of fuel into Gaza per day for the power plant and 100,000 for gas stations starting Sunday.

But Egypt wants to stop the use of underground tunnels for delivery of Egyptian fuel purchased by Palestinian authorities, a Ma'an correspondent said.

Palestinian Energy Authority Director Omar Kattana said Monday that crisis will be resolved this week, after a delegation of energy officials returned from talks in Egypt.

Egypt has agreed to increase electricity to Gaza that comes directly through power lines on the Rafah border, and a joint Egyptian-Palestinian committee has been formed to examine how fuel can be delivered through "official channels", he said.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Egypt on Monday as the first stop in his third regional tour in recent weeks. He will raise Gaza's fuel shortage and blackouts with Egyptian officials, Haniyeh advisor Yousef Rizqa said.

Despite the emergency shipment via Gaza's network of underground tunnels on Monday, Egypt is searching for alternative routes, and the Gaza government is pressing for the Rafah terminal between the countries to be equipped for fuel transfer.

Rafah currently is only fitted for passengers, and its development is restricted by an agreement between Egypt, Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

The Gaza government is reluctant to accept fuel to be delivered via an Israeli-crossing, fearing Israel will use control of supplies to squeeze the coastal strip. Israel severely restricts the movement of people and goods from the Gaza Strip since it tightened a blockade on the territory in 2007.

Katana said Monday that other power routes will be studied by the joint committee, including expanding the capacity of direct power lines into the Gaza Strip, and rehabilitation of the power plant, which suffered damage in Israeli bombings in 2006 and 2008.

Meanwhile, hospitals are running out of fuel to power wards and medical equipment, and running water has been cut off in many households in the Gaza Strip, a Ma'an correspondent said.

Maan News Agency

Hashtagging Khader Adnan: A Global Protest on Twitter

2012-02-20T18:02:00.000+01:00

By: Jalal Abukhater

Published Monday, February 20, 2012

Organizing a trending hashtag for Khader Adnan is just like organizing a large protest on the corner of the busiest and most crowded street in a city.
As you read this, Khader Adnan is very close to death. It is high time the Israeli state respond to calls by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Carter Center, and many other human rights organizations to release Adnan immediately.
As Adnan enters the 65th day of his hunger strike, activists and human rights defenders have joined this campaign. In addition, Amnesty International is calling for Israel to abolish the system of administrative detention.
Adnan is the victim of arbitrary detention. He is one of 309 Palestinians who are currently being held under Israeli administrative detention. Adnan, an administrative detainee, has not been charged, he has not been tried, and he does not know when the period of detention will end. Indefinite detention without a trial or charge is not permitted under International Law. It is considered a form of arbitrary detention which no country should be practicing.

While the mainstream media has failed to cover Adnan’s story, Twitter is at the forefront of the campaign to pressure the Israeli government to act. Twitter users have taken on the responsibility of filling the void created by the mainstream media.
At this moment, according to Topsy Twitter statistics, the hashtag #KhaderAdnan has been mentioned about 40,000 times on Twitter. It should be noted that this statistic excludes other related hashtags which would count in the thousands.
A hashtag is a special tool used in Twitter to mark certain tweets as part of one conversation. In order to enter a hashtag, one must add (#) before any keyword. When a hashtag is selected the user is directed to a page where they are able to read all Twitter updates using this specific hashtag. Whenever there is a big news story, a popular event, or even a revolution, people use a certain hashtag to contribute to that conversation. That is what Palestinian and other activists are doing now for Adnan.
For the past week, Twitter users have organized different hashtags in support of Adnan in their attempt to garner wider attention for his case. Users have successfully been able to have all the hashtags to trend globally for minutes or even an hour. Twitter users have posted using hashtags like #KhaderExists, #Dying2Live, #hungry4justice, #KhaderIsAlive, #Khader61days, #Respect4Khader, #Khader62 and #HungerStrike63days. The use of those hashtags was organized by a few activists who tell other people via private messages to start using the hashtag at a certain time. So, according to Twitter algorithms, the hashtag would be considered a breaking story and would trend globally immediately. Hundreds, if not thousands have joined to tweet under each hashtag causing it to become listed as a globally trending topic on Twitter, which would eventually get people who have never heard of Adnan to hear about him for the first time.
Organizing a trending hashtag for Adnan is just like organizing a large protest on the corner of the busiest and most crowded street in the city. Getting thousands of people to tweet about Adnan isn’t something easy, but Adnan’s non-violent struggle for his dignity has motivated thousands around the globe to do whatever they can to save this man’s life. Twitter users are currently Adnan’s strongest voice to the world.
In a new update to Twitter.com, there is now a section named “Discover” where Twitter users can read about the top 10 most popular stories from around the globe. Each time Adnan’s name trends, a story about him would remain in the “Discover” section’s top 10 stories for over 6 hours after it trends. This guarantees that more and more people will learn about Adnan via the social media tool Twitter, at a time the main stream media fails to report.
“Khader is the spark that we all needed in order to remember our common goal,” said Twitter user @sshusma who was one of organizers for some of the trending hashtags. She continued saying: “Khader is slowly dying before our eyes, we are watching as it happens and it feels grotesque that I sit in my home with the comfort of my computer while all i can do is tweet about it. On one hand i feel like i have to do what i can to help bring attention to him, on the other hand i feel guilty that this is what i do.”

Twitter is at the forefront of the campaign to pressure the Israeli government to act.As another part of the campaign to call on the media outlets to shed light on Adnan’s case, Twitter users started using #CoverKhader and #WaitingForKristof hashtags a few days ago to call on more media outlets to cover Adnan’s hunger strike. The second hashtag was targeted specifically at The New York Times’ correspondent Nicholas Kristof who published a piece in 2010 titled “Waiting for Gandhi”. Nicholas Kristof is known for his personalized stories where he narrates the struggle of individuals who fight for justice and dignity. But, in his article, “Waiting for Gandhi,” Kristof did not mention that many Palestinians were committed to non-violent struggle, such as those who were part of the first intifada. Kristof has not addressed Adnan and his hunger strike yet.

The famous Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands MP died on 5 May 1981, after 66 days on hunger strike in a British prison. Bobby Sands and 9 other hunger strikers’ deaths in British prisons led to the British government being humiliated. This is generally considered the turning point in the Anglo-Irish conflict towards stability and independence. So far, two previous Irish hunger striker veterans, a brother of a dead Irish hunger striker, and Bobby Sands’ spokesman and close friend, have voiced their complete support for Adnan’s case. Their video messages have gone viral on social media sites such as Twitter. Those videos have also been listed for a few times in Twitter’s “Discover” section.
Twitter had a very big role in calling on the world’s conscience to act for Adnan. Adnan’s wife is pregnant and he has two young daughters waiting for him at home. He doesn’t want to die, but Adnan is willing to risk his life in order to fight for dignity, justice, and freedom.
Twitter, hashtag, Palestine, hunger strike, Khader Adnan, administrative detention

Hashtagging Khader Adnan: A Global Protest on Twitter

#KhaderAdnan Video Adnan is shouting: "The Strike will go on, The Strike will go on, The Strike will go on, Until Freedom, Righteousness, and Dignity,

2012-02-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

Freedom for Khader Adnan ....
Long Live Palestine, Long Live Khader Adnan.
The footage from the hospital surfaced on Sunday Feb 20, 2012 on his 64th day of the hunger strike .... but it seems to be older than the day it surfaced on.

Khader Adnan is shouting:
"The Strike will go on, The Strike will go on, The Strike will go on, Until Freedom, Righteousness, and Dignity, Until Freedom, Righteousness, and Dignity"

اقتحام ساحات المسجد الاقصى19-2-2012

2012-02-20T00:41:00.000+01:00

VIDEO: Israeli occupation forces attempt to storm al Aqsa with settlers!

PCHR Calls upon the International Community to Save the Life of the Detainee Khader Adnan

2012-02-19T22:49:00.000+01:00

by Palestinian Center For Human Rights - Press Release

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned for the life of Khader Adnan, a detainee in Israeli jails, who has been on hunger strike for more than two months. PCHR calls upon the international community to pressurize Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to release Adnan, who has been placed under administrative detention without trial.

Khader Adnan has been on a hunger strike since 18 December 2011, one day after his arrest by IOF, in protest to the inhuman detention conditions under which he is held. Adnan had been placed under administrative detention more than once in the past. Since he started the hunger strike, the Israeli Prison Service refused his demands and rejected his release.

He appeared before Israeli courts more than once, and the order of administrative detention issued against him was upheld. On 13 February 2012, the Israeli military court rejected an appeal filed by the Palestinian Prisoner Club Society, upholding the order of administrative detention.

Adnan is currently receiving medical treatment at Rebecca Seiff Hospital in Safed in the north of Israel. According to a physician from the Israeli Physicians for Human Rights, as of 15 February 2012, Adnan’s life is endangered because of his continued hunger strike, which has caused erosion of his muscles, including the muscles of heart and stomach.

The internal medicine physician, who checked him five times last week, stressed that Adnan’s body started to release poisons, which in light of the severe weakness of his immunity system makes more likely that he may be subjected to a sudden heart attack. The same physician noted that abstention from having food for more than 70 days inevitably leads to death.

Khader Adnan Mohammed Mousa, 33, from ‘Arraba village near Jenin, who is married and a father of two children, was arrested by IOF on 17 December 2011. The following day, he declared an open hunger strike. On 31 December 2011, he was transferred from al-Jalama interrogation center to al-Ramla Prison. An order was issued placing him under administrative detention for 4 months on 08 January 2012.

A month later, on 06 February 2012, an Israeli judge approved the administrative detention order issued by the military commander, claiming that confidential information indicated that Khader Adnan is extremely dangerous. Ultimately, on 13 February 2012, the appeal judge of Oufar Military Court refused to order Adnan’s release and upheld the administrative detention order.

During this period, Adnan and his attorney have not been informed of the charges directed against him. The Israeli prosecution provided the court with the charges against Adnan under the item of confidential information, which constitutes evidence of the arbitrariness of the administrative detention policy practiced by IOF against Palestinian detainees.

Adnan’s case highlights the conditions of more than 300 Palestinians who are currently placed under administrative detention in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, including the Speaker and 19 Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

These actions are in violation of the right of a detainee to fair trial, including the right to receive appropriate defense and to be informed of charges against him. Administrative detention is applied by an administrative order only without referring to a court, thus violating the standards of impartial judicial procedures, including fair trial.

PCHR is concerned for the life of Khader Adnan, who has been detained in Israeli jails, and:

1. Calls upon the international community to pressurize IOF to release him to avoid risking his life;
2. Reiterates its call for the international community to stop systematic serious abuses against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities;
3. Emphasizes that administrative detention is illegal and falls under the category of political arrests, constituting a violation of the detainee’s right to a fair trial, including his right to receive an adequate defense and to be informed of the charges against him.

International Middle East Media Centerr

Khader Adnan's wife: I know he will live

2012-02-19T22:21:00.000+01:00

By NIDA TUMA

Randa Adnan tells the 'Post' her imprisoned husband, on the 64th day of a hunger strike, is in high spirits but his life is in danger.

By REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

RAMALLAH – Along with her job preparing food for the family bakery, Randa Adnan, the wife of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, now has a new role, that of media spokeswoman.
It was 6:15 p.m. on Sunday when Randa and her husband's family returned to Arrabe village, southwest of Jenin, after the long trip to visit the Islamic Jihad leader at Galilee Medical Center in Safed. She charged her non-stop-ringing mobile phone, finished her prayers, and started answering journalists' calls.

Randa, who is five-months pregnant, takes care of her two daughters and her in-laws, with whom she shares her home. She also prepares white cheese and makes zaatar for the family bakery.
She finds her new responsibility difficult. "The worst part of it is lack of objective news reporting. Sometimes, some [reporters] use half of what I say, and change the meaning of what I say," she said.
She had read in the media that she had asked Al-Azhar University in Cairo for a fatwa on whether her husband's strike is acceptable. She denies the report.
The family hasn't asked their son, who is going into his 64th day of hunger strike, to stop, and Randa harshly criticized the Al-Azhar fatwa that said Adnan's strike is a suicidal act, and thus forbidden.
On social media websites, some Palestinians asked Adnan to end his strike because they were concerned over his health. Some of them wrote, "If he dies, they [Israelis] will win." Both Adnan's lawyer, Jawad Boulus, and Randa rejected the request. "He didn't remain steadfast for this long to give up now." However, Randa said that her mother-in-law tried on Sunday to convince Adnan to end his strike. Adnan calmed his mother with Islamic verses.
"We all know the purpose of [allowing] this visit, even my husband: Bringing his wheel-chaired mother to visit is an attempt [by the Israeli authorities] to make him give up," Randa told The Jerusalem Post. The thirty-one-year-old thinks that allowing the continual visits of family members is designed to weaken the prisoner and get him to end his strike.
After the long trip to Safed (they had to wait for two hours at the Jalama checkpoint near Jenin), the parents, wife, daughters, brother and sister met with Adnan. He usually lies with his hands and legs chained in the hospital room.
When they entered the hospital room, they found that the guards had unshackled Adnan so he could pray. They left him unfettered during the visit.
At her second visit in less than a week, Randa opted to give the 73-year-old parents time to speak with Adnan. He told them he was doing fine and would continue his strike.
Adnan and his wife knew they couldn't fulfill his wish to see her face. "We weren't alone in the room, there were guards and I wear a head veil." She told him that they will have another opportunity soon.
Adnan cuddled with his daughters. Four-year-old Ma'ali has become accustomed to her father's new look. Her first question was if he still loved her. "My daughter is a bit selfish, she wanted him to love her more than her younger sister, Bisan," Randa said.
The family hopes that their soon-to-be-born child will be a boy.
"His [Khader's] life is in danger, but praise be to God he has a strong will and very high spirits. No one believes that he is still conscious and able to speak," Randa said.
"He is fading away and his eyes are sunken," she said with a smile of her husband's eyes. "They are beautiful, bluish-green in color and should be seen." After 64 days, Adnan is now on the longest known hunger strike in Palestinian history.
A group hunger strike was carried on for a total of 56 days by a number of detainees in 1976, according to the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoners Affairs. The strikers fasted for 45 days, stopped for a couple of weeks, and then continued again for 20 days.
Adnan has served eight stints in Israeli jails, for a total of five years.
He started his current imprisonment in December. The first seven times Randa was not allowed to visit him.
"The Israeli occupation wants to improve its black image. They know that there is a media attention and want to show that they care about him," she said.
There were a lot of Arab visitors in the hospital. "They [Israeli authorities] kept the people away from Adnan's room to isolate him from the outside world," she said.
The calls to support Adnan in his strike have only been heard recently. A few Palestinian activists and Bir Zeit University students protested daily near Ofer Prison, which is near Beitunya and west of Ramallah.
"Wake up before I die," was one of the slogans they used, amid calls to start a third intifada.
Adnan was an on and off student at Bir Zeit University where he gave free Hebrew lessons to other students.
As Boulus left the hospital on Sunday, he said he was surprised to see the sheikh [Adnan] in such high spirits. "You can't believe his will, I am amazed." Boulus told the Post there is no justification for this detention. "If I knew what his charges were, I would not be representing him in the first place," Boulus said.
Last Wednesday, he filed an urgent petition to the High Court of Justice.
The court accepted his petition on Sunday and the hearing is scheduled to take place at noon on Thursday.
Randa said that a lot of Israelis helped her husband's case by reporting objectively. "We deal with them in the best way possible. It's important that the world knows that we are not against peace and we don't hate Jews, we only hate the occupation," she told the Post.
Randa says she gets worried every time someone calls late at night, and every night she dreams that her husband has died. Recently, there were several rumors that Adnan had died. "I have a strong faith that he will make it, and come back to his family where we can raise a good family," Randa said.
She said her husband is keeping silent on what would make him end his strike, "and I read it in his eyes, it will be an honorable deal, but I will not share the details with the media," she said smiling.

JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

Khader Adnan, Bobby Sands

2012-02-19T21:24:00.000+01:00

Khader Adnan's current hunger strike, presumably to the death, is more than a little reminiscent of the IRA hunger strikes of 1981. As, no doubt, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is more than a little reminiscent of the British occupation of Ireland, most particularly during the Troubles.

Israel claims Palestinian Authority refuses offer to supply Gaza with fuel

2012-02-19T19:41:00.000+01:00

KUNA

GAZA, Feb 19 (KUNA) -- The Palestinian Authority rejected an Israeli offer to supply Gaza with fuel to operate the Strip's sole power station, Israel claimed on Sunday.
"The Palestinian Authority will be responsible for any humanitarian crises resulted from its refusal of the Israeli offer," the Israeli radio quoted sources at the premiership as saying.
The sources expressed "concern that fuel used to operate power generators will run out soon namely in hospitals." Energy authorities in Gaza were forced to use solar smuggled through tunnels with Egypt during the past months.
The power station in Gaza stopped operation last Tuesday because of lack of fuel.

Cancer patient detained while seeking treatment in Israel

2012-02-19T19:29:00.000+01:00

Maan News Agency

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces on Sunday detained a man from Gaza who was seeking medical treatment in Israel.

Witnesses told Ma'an that Kamal Hikmat al-Taramsi, 23, was detained at Beit Hanoun checkpoint while reportedly on route to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

Al-Taramsi, from Jabalia refugee camp, suffers from thyroid cancer.

Airstrikes 'injure toddler, damage school' in Gaza

2012-02-19T19:28:00.000+01:00

Maan News Agency

A woman surveys her bedroom which was damaged in an Israeli air strike in
Gaza City, Feb. 19, 2012. (Reuters/ Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early Sunday injured a one-year-old boy when his bedroom was hit by a missile, among five others wounded, and an elementary school sustained severe damage, locals told Ma'an.

A statement from the Israeli military said the missiles targeted a "weapon manufacturing site, and a terror activity site. Direct hits were confirmed." The strikes hit the Gaza City's Zaitoun neighborhood late Saturday, and Tuffah neighborhood Sunday morning.

Um Ilian al-Zaharna told Ma'an that moments before the missile struck her house, she heard bombing nearby and opened her childrens' bedroom window so it wouldn't shatter over them.

"As soon as I returned to bed an Israeli rocket hit the room next door and I was certain my baby was killed."

One-year-old Muhammad had been thrown from the room, and her husband was buried in rubble where he was sleeping, she said.

The Zaharna family inspect damage to their home. (MaanImages)

"We are not associated with any factions. Is Mohammad a threat to Israeli security to be punished while he’s sleeping next to his father?" Um Ilian said.

Six Palestinians, including Muhammad, were injured in the airstrikes overnight. Shuhada elementary school in the city was also damaged by the bombing of al-Tuffah neighborhood.

Pupils return to Shuhada school despite the bombing overnight

Gaza's Ministry of Education called for protection of education facilities and students, after classrooms and library were damaged.

Pupils came to school at Shuhada in Sunday morning despite the bombing. It is the fifth time this school has been damaged in Israeli attacks in the past three years, officials said.

Settlers Call to Storm Rachel Tombs

2012-02-19T19:26:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Settlers Call to Storm Rachel Tombs: BETHLEHEM, February 19, 2012 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers Sunday sent out mass text messages calling to storm Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, also known as Rachel’s Tomb, north of Bethlehem on Thursday, said a local activist.

Ahmad Salah, the coordinator of the Anti-Wall and Settlements Committee in al-Khader, a town south of Bethlehem, said he received a text message via an Israeli mobile carrier urging Israeli settlers to gather near Rachel’s Tomb area and perform religious rituals.

The texts aim to provoke Palestinians, said Salah, adding that settlers have recently escalated their unauthorized entering to Palestinian areas under false pretences, such as performing religious rituals.

#KhaderAdnan STRIKE! 21.2.2012 اضراب شامل يوم الثلاثاء

2012-02-19T16:12:00.007+01:00

(Scroll down for a short translation and video)

by SawahrehNews on Feb 19, 2012

إضراب ،، إضراب ،، إضراب
يا جماهير شعبنا الفلسطيني البَطل ،،، انتفضوا لخضر عدنان ،،، اقرعوا جدران الخزان
في الوقت الذي يسطر فيه الأسير البطل خضر عدنان، ملحمة أسطورية باسم جماهير شعبنا في الوطن والشتات، ويدخل يومه الخامس والستين مضربا عن الطعام، ندعوكم لنبلغ هامشا من تضحيته، ليكن يوم الثلاثاء القادم 21.2.2012 يوم إضراب عامٍ وشامل في الأرض الفلسطينية المحتلة.
وبعدما ضرب الاحتلال بعرض الحائط، بكل ال.........تحركات الشعبية والرسمية لأجل الأسير البطل خضر عدنان، وثبت حكمه الإداري وسط سجانيه في مستشفى زيف، في مشهد افتقر لأدنى معاني الإنسانية، وخالف القوانين الدولية، بات لزاماً علينا أن يكون تحركنا أكثر فاعلية وصوتنا أعلى.
يا جماهير الأرض المحتلة ،،
وإننا وإذ نثمن دعوة الأطر الشبابية للفصائل الفلسطينية للإضرابْ الشامل يوم الثلاثاء القادم، ونطالبها بالمزيد من الفعاليات لأجل الأسير عدنان، فإننا ندعو النقابات الفلسطينية المختلفة لتسجيل موقف مماثل كما عهدناها دائماً وتسجل انضمامها للاضراب.
وإننا أيضاً ندعو نقابة الموظفين في الوظيفة العمومية، إلى ضرورة الانضمام للإضرابْ، والإعلان عن تعليق الدوام من الساعة العاشرة صباحاً يوم الثلاثاء، فقضية خضر عدنان ليست قضيته وحده، فهي قضيتنا جميعاً وعلينا جميعاً أن نكسر جدار الصمت.
ولأن كرامتنا أغلى من الطعام، فإننا ندعو تجارنا في فلسطين المحتلة، لإغلاق أبواب محالهم التجارية، تزامناً مع دعوة الإضراب الشامل، من الساعة العاشرة صباحاً وحتى نهاية اليوم، ليكن صوتنا واحد مع الأسير البطل خضر عدنان.
وإننا وإذ نثمن أيضاً، وقفة الحركة الطلابية في الجامعات الفلسطينية إلى جانب قضية الشيخ الأسير، فإنا ندعوها لتعليق الدوام في كافة الجامعات والمعاهد العليا في الوطن، والمشاركة أيضا بايصال صوت التضامن مع الأسطورة عدنان، وندعو وزارة التربية لأخذ موقف مشابه في المدارس الفلسطينية.
وفي الختام، ندعو جماهير شعبنا الفلسطيني البطل، بكافة فئاته وشرائحه، مؤسساته وتجمعاته، إلى الانضمام للاضراب الشامل والعام، في كافة محافل ومرافق مدننا الفلسطينية، والمشاركة في فعاليات التضامن والتظاهرات الجماهيرية التضامنية مع الشيخ الأسير.

http://www.www.facebook.com/events/234458249979241/

Strike, strike, strike

Oh masses of our Palestinian people, the hero...Khader Adnan... rose up!!!
Stand in solidarity for the captive hero Khader Adnan, Tuesday, 21.2.2012 on a general strike!................
.....................
....and we call for more events for the prisoner Adnan, we call upon the various Palestinian trade unions to register a similar position as we have! Come and join the strike.

We also call upon the employees' union in the civil service to join the strike.

Announcement of suspension ten o'clock am on Tuesday, For Khader Adnan !

The issue is not his case alone, the issue effects all of us and
We all have to break the silence.
...
Finally, we call on the masses of our Palestinian people, to stand and support the hero,Khader Adnan, in every walk of life, class, institution and union- Rally and Join the Strike!

http://www.www.facebook.com/events/234458249979241/

#KhaderAdnan Vigil. Sinn Fein activists join with members of Belfast Friends of Palestine

2012-02-19T15:30:00.000+01:00

by sinnfeinireland on Feb 18, 2012

Sinn Fein activists join with members of Belfast Friends of Palestine outside Belfast City Hall to support Palestinian Hunger Striker Khader Adnan as he enters his 63rd day on Hunger Strike.

Haneyya in Cairo this week to address Gaza power crisis

2012-02-19T14:08:00.000+01:00

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya intends to visit Cairo during this week to discuss with Egyptian officials the crisis of energy and fuel in the Gaza Strip, his political advisor Yousuf Rizqa said on Saturday.

Rizqa told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that the power crisis would be on the agenda of premier Haneyya during his meeting with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

"We hope that this visit will be successful and yield positive results regarding the power and fuel supplies," the political advisor stated.

He noted that Haneyya may visit Islamic countries, including Malaysia soon.

Haneyya in Cairo this week to address Gaza power crisis

Jewish settlers and policemen defile Aqsa Mosque, clash with Muslim worshipers

2012-02-19T14:07:00.000+01:00

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- A group of Palestinian worshipers holding a vigil inside the Aqsa Mosque have fended off dozens of fanatic Jewish settlers who tried on Sunday morning to desecrate the Islamic holy site, and clashed with their police escorts.

The Israeli occupation policemen spread extensively throughout the Mosque and attempted to secure the settlers' provocative entry. Three Israeli armed policemen were injured during the clashes with Palestinian worshipers.

According to news reports, violent confrontations are still ongoing between the Palestinians who attempt to protect the Mosque and the Israeli assailants.

The reports also said that dozens of Jewish settlers and policemen gathered near Al-Maghariba Gate, one of the Mosque's doors, in an attempt to storm it.

Other Israeli soldiers were seen preventing the Palestinian young men and women under age 45 from entering the Aqsa Mosque to help their brothers under attack.

Several extremist Jewish groups spearheaded by a movement called the temple trustees incited recently their followers to storm the Aqsa Mosque to strengthen what they claimed to be the status of the temple.

In this regard, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum strongly denounced the repeated Jewish attacks on the Aqsa Mosque and the malicious intents to demolish it to establish an alleged temple on its ruins.

He added in a press release that Israel is waging a religious war on the Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian land and this war is supported by the US which is the cause of all pains and sufferings inflicted on the occupied Palestinian people.

Barhoum urged the Muslim nation all over the world to rise and revolt for occupied Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque and move to confront the Jewish extremists' attempts to harm the holy Mosque.

Jewish settlers and policemen defile Aqsa Mosque, clash with Muslim worshipers

Parents and their kids in hospital after Israeli air raid on their house

2012-02-19T14:06:00.000+01:00

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian parents and their two kids were wounded at dawn Sunday in Gaza city when their house were bombed in an Israeli aerial attack.

Local sources told the PIC reporter that an Israeli warplane fired missiles directly at a civilian house in Al-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza city.

The attack on the house, according to a medical source, led to the injury of Ahmed Al-Zaharna, a father of two little children, and his wife. The victimized family was taken to Al-Shifa hospital for treatment.

A similar attack also targeted last night a foundry in the city injuring two civilians.

Parents and their kids in hospital after Israeli air raid on their house

Randa Adnan: 'I still have hope' #KhaderAdnan

2012-02-19T14:05:00.000+01:00

The wife of Khader Adnan speaks out over the detention that forced him to lapse into an increasingly dire hunger strike.

Omar Rahman Last Modified: 19 Feb 2012 11:43 | Al Jazeera

Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for more than two months in protest at his detention in Israel [EPA]

Arrabeh, occupied Palestinian territories - Randa Adnan panics every time the phone rings, and these days it never seems to stop. For now, it is mostly journalists, family, friends and supporters asking about her husband, Khader, who lies shackled by his hands and feet to a hospital bed in Israel, while his body wastes away.
Through sixty-four days of a hunger strike, the longest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Randa Adnan has only been allowed to visit her husband twice, for a total of an hour, and each time surrounded by armed guards.
She speaks in a rush, a slight desperation in her otherwise resolute voice, as if time is running out and she must finish what she has to say before it is too late. Her two young daughters hang off her, demanding much of a woman who is dealing with a problem they do not fully comprehend.
“How can I tell my girls that they cannot bring sandwiches and juice to their father in the hospital,” she says, holding four-year-old Maali in her arms, who has the blue eyes of her father. The first time Maali visited the hospital with her mother she did not speak, hardly recognising the emaciated man that lay on the bed calling her name. Now she wakes up at night often, her mother says, crying out for her dad.

Hundreds of Palestinians join hunger strike

Hunger as protest
Khader Adnan was arrested by Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night on December 17, while at his home in the Palestinian village of Arrabeh on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Jenin. After eighteen days of interrogation - during which time 33-year-old Adnan says that he was tortured and humiliated by agents of Israel’s domestic security forces - he was imprisoned without charge or trial in what is called “administrative detention”. There are currently more than 300 Palestinians being held in administrative detention by Israel, without charge or trial, for renewable periods of six months, without any way of defending themselves.
“What makes the situation even worse,” says Abeer Baker, a member of the Law Faculty at Haifa University and head of the Legal Clinic on Prisoner’s Rights, “is the idea that these people have either no evidence, or no clear evidence, against them. They are not incriminated, because usually the army fails to bring any evidence. The proceedings are all secret. It is enough that the army comes and says they have evidence, or classified evidence.”
In order to protest his treatment, Adnan went on hunger strike the day after his arrest, a tactic he has used with success in the past and one common among Palestinian prisoners. During a previous incarceration, after an extended period of being in solitary confinement, Adnan went on hunger strike for twenty-eight days until the Israeli prison authorities put him back with other inmates.
In a letter released by his lawyers, Adnan addressed these words to the Palestinian people: “I starve myself for you to remain. I die for you to live. Stay with the revolution.”
“The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners. I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey.”
A life of hardship
Randa heard about her husband’s decision from a lawyer on the second day of the hunger strike. At first she was not fully worried, but knew deep down that once he made a decision he would never backtrack. By the thirtieth day, she had become frightened and the possibility that this act of resistance might go all the way finally began to set in.
Khader Adnan had been arrested five times before he was married to Randa and three times since, largely for his political affiliation with the militant faction, Islamic Jihad. Over the years he rose to become their spokesperson in the West Bank, but was never active in their military wing, his family says, nor was he ever charged for such by Israel. At the time of his most recent arrest he was no longer an active spokesman but the Israelis, and even the Palestinian Authority, had continued to harass him with periodic detention.

“When I married him I knew I should expect anything. I am proud of him whether he is under the ground or above it.“
- Randa Adnan

Before they married in 2005, Khader Adnan sat Randa down and explained to her the perilous future that would lie ahead if she married him.
“He told me that his life was not normal, that he might be around for 15 days and then be gone again for a long time. But I always dreamt of marrying someone strong, someone who struggles in defence of his country,” she said. “When I married him I knew I should expect anything. I am proud of him whether he is under the ground or above it.”
Since his hunger strike began Randa has become the reluctant spokesperson of his cause, fielding telephone calls and interviews all day long.
“It is twenty-four hours,” she says. “I have a duty to respond to the media because this is how we can support him. In the past he was in the media and I was always standing behind him. Now I am the spokesperson, which is very difficult for me. I don’t have these kinds of skills.”
Sources of support
Randa is also five months pregnant, and has guests coming in and out of the house constantly. During our interview we were interrupted by an older woman who has three sons currently in Israeli prisons. As a woman of experience, she has come to be with Randa in her time of need. A little later, Al-Azhar, the preeminent school of Islamic thought in Egypt, calls to let her know that a fatwa, or religious decree, had been issued against the hunger strike, because it is now considered, by them, a form of suicide.
The news was clearly debilitating. For a family that ties so much of their spirit to religious belief, the lack of support from such a renowned institution has a heavy impact on their precious morale, particularly if Khader’s situation gets worse.
Her mother and father-in-law, from whom she says Khader got his strength, live in the same house and are a source of support. Adnan’s father, Adnan Muhammad Musa, who dons traditional Palestinian attire, is friendly and welcoming. When he speaks about his son he becomes choked up with emotion.

“I told him that he was successful delievering his message to the world and that he should come home.“
- Adnan Muhammad Musa

“I told him [in the hospital] that he was successful delivering his message to the world and that he should come home,” he says, but Khader Adnan admonished his father for trying to get his son to betray his principles.
“President Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Meshaal [the political leader of Hamas] should have mentioned Khader Adnan in the [reconciliation agreement recently signed] in Qatar,” adds his father, bringing up the high-profile deal agreed between the competing Palestinian factions.
A dire situation
The response to Khader Adnan’s protest within Palestinian society has come very late and without the type of force some might have expected. In a society where the people are used to the funeral of the martyr, the slow death of Khader Adnan is something of an anomaly.
A little over a week ago small protests began in front of Israel’s Ofer Prison, located near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The protests spread to other locales in the occupied territories and abroad, but for the most part have been marginal. Everyone is talking about it, but very few seem willing to show their support by taking to the streets.
The exception has been a group of social media activists in Ramallah that have made Khader Adnan their cause célèbre, elevating his profile via networking sites such as Twitter. Over the past four days they have caused variations of his name to trend worldwide on several occasions, no small achievement on a forum that usually gives such honours to celebrity gossip.
The lack of action in response to Khader Adnan’s case is indicative of many changes in Palestinian society since the end of the second intifada. The increase in partisanship and political division has eroded general solidarity, even over the once unanimous issue of prisoners. Those who support Fatah may be less likely to rally for a member of Islamic Jihad, such as Khader Adnan.
The second is the Palestinian Authority’s desire to deal with Israel behind closed doors. Fatah, the ruling party of the PA in the West Bank, has become reluctant to take anything into the street for fear of it getting beyond their control.
Indeed, even Islamic Jihad, the party of Khader Adnan, has failed to bring its people out in support of the hunger striker. Randa says that they are still helping, talking to the Egyptian Intelligence service to help negotiate a deal with Israel, but the silence is noticeable.
“I know the difficult time is yet to come,” says Randa. “His medical situation will deteriorate. It is hard to recover after this point. The doctors have told me that he could have a heart attack at any moment.”
“I still have hope that he will be released and come back home healthy,” she says wearily, although later she admits that the reality of the situation is dire.

“When asked what she will tell the child about his father, she answered: ‘I will tell him that his father was a hero’.“
- Randa Adnan

She recollects the first question he asked when she was able to visit him on the 56th day of his hunger strike.
“He asked me how the baby was doing, and at that exact moment the baby kicked inside of me,” she says. They both believe it will be a boy. ”I felt like it was a sign.”
When asked what she will tell the child about his father, she answered: “I will tell him that his father was a hero.”
Follow Omar Rahman on Twitter: @OmarRahman. Abir Kopty also contributed to this article.

Randa Adnan: 'I still have hope' - Features - Al Jazeera English

Israeli high Court will wait until #KhaderAdnan has suffered 68days! for appeal -if he can hold on!

2012-02-19T12:50:00.001+01:00

Palestinian protesters dressed as jailed Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan
gesture as they take part in a weekly demonstration against Israel's separation
wall, in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Feb. 17, 2012.
(REUTERS/Ammar Awad)

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- The Israeli Supreme Court will hear a petition on Thursday against the continued administrative detention of hunger-striking prisoner Khader Adnan, the prisoners society said Sunday.

The military secretariat informed lawyer Jawad Bulus that his appeal against Adnan's administrative detention order will go before the court in four days, the group said.

Bulus said he had requested an emergency hearing due to Adnan's critical health condition, after he refused food for 64 days to protest his treatment by Israeli authorities and the practice of detention without charge.

The lawyer said the court had failed to take this into account by scheduling the hearing for his 68th day on hunger strike. A doctor from Physicians from Human Rights who examined Adnan said he would not survive beyond 70 days without food.

On Feb. 13, Israel's Ofer military court ruled against the appeal of Adnan's four-month administrative detention order.

Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe told Ma'an at the time that the ruling showed "utter disregard for Adnan's life, effectively condemning him to die."

Adnan has refused food since his Dec. 17 detention in northern West Bank city of Jenin. It is the longest hunger strike any Palestinian prisoner has undertaken.

Officials say they are pressing international diplomats to save Adnan's life. His condition has sparked widespread solidarity protests and hunger strikes in Israeli jails, Gaza and the West Bank.

There are an estimated 307 Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention -- held without charge -- in Israeli jails.

Maan News Agency

Father, Mother, Their Two Children Injured In Israeli Strike On Gaza

2012-02-19T12:18:00.000+01:00

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported, on Sunday at dawn, that a father, mother and their two children, were wounded when the Israeli army bombarded their home in Gaza City. Two Palestinians were wounded in an earlier strike on Gaza.

Gaza Bombardment - File - Arabs48

The sources stated that the Israeli Air Force fired at least one missile at the house of Ahmad Az-Zaharna, in Gaza’s At-Tuffah neighborhood, wounding the father, Ahmad, in addition to his wife and their two children. They were all moved to the Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city.

Furthermore, the army bombarded an area east of Gaza city leading to excessive damage but no injuries.

The area is claimed to be a training center for the Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement.

On Saturday at night, Israeli war-jets fired a number of missiles at a blacksmith workshop in Gaza leading to two injuries among the civilian population.

Eyewitnesses said that the Air Force fired two missiles into the workshop that belong to Ashour family; the workshop is part of the home of the family an issue that led to the injury of two family members, their injuries were described as mild-to-moderate.

International Middle East Media Center

Islamic Cooperation Condemns Israeli Forces’ Storming of Al-Aqsa Compound

2012-02-19T12:07:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

CAIRO, February 19, 2012- Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu Sunday condemned the Israeli police storming of al-Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old City of Jerusalem and assaulting several worshippers, said a press release.

Ihsanoglu considered the Israeli “serious escalation” as an assault against the entire Islamic Nation and a blatant violation of international law and resolutions.

He held the Israeli occupation completely responsible for the aftermath of the Israeli provocative assaults, as well as called on the United Nations Security Council and the international community to take immediate action to end the ongoing Israeli violations against the Palestinians and their holy sites and prevent the reoccurrence of such crimes that fuel violence and tension in the area.

Worshippers Injured, Arrested in Clashes in Al-Aqsa Compound

2012-02-19T12:02:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

JERUSALEM, February 19, 2012 – Several worshippers Sunday were injured and three were arrested during clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli police and Border Guards in al-Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old City of Jerusalem after Israeli settlers attempted to storm it, said WAFA correspondent.

He said Palestinians gathered in the compound since dawn following calls by extremist settlers to storm al-Aqsa Mosque and perform Jewish rituals in it.

Several worshippers and three Israeli soldiers were reported injured in scuffles; whereas three Palestinians were arrested under the pretext of throwing stones at right wing extremist Israelis and preventing them from entering the mosque.

Meanwhile, Israeli police shut down al-Haram al-Sharif gates, locking worshippers inside, and prevented anyone from entering the compound after Palestinians protested the police’s earlier decision to allow only worshippers over 45 years to enter.

Ahmed Qurei, the head of the Jerusalem affairs department in the PLO, condemned the Israeli extremist settlers’ attempt to storm al-Aqsa compound protected by the Israeli police.

He considered the attempt as a part of the “Israeli de facto policy” to normalize settlers’ presence in al-Haram al-Sharif up to building their alleged Temple.

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Israeli Airstrikes Injure Four Palestinians in Gaza

2012-02-19T12:01:00.000+01:00

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA

GAZA, February 19, 2012 (WAFA) - Israeli air forces Sunday raided al-Tuffah, a neighborhood northeast of the Gaza Strip, injuring four Palestinians, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said one of the Israeli airstrikes targeted al-Zaharneh family residence in the neighborhood, injuring three family members, along with a neighbor, and damaging the house. The injured were hospitalized.