 |
| GAZA, (PIC)-- The Israeli naval forces detained on Thursday two Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip and seized their boat. Nizar Ayyash, head of the Gaza fishermen’s syndicate, said in a press statement that an Israeli naval ship intercepted on Thursday at noon, a Palestinian fishing boat carrying two brothers, Salim and Hassan al-Nu'man, then arrested them and took their boat to the port of Ashdod, north of the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, Israeli occupation naval forces opened fire on a Palestinian fishing boat in the Gaza Sea, then detained the six fishermen on board. The detention of the fishermen is a new Israeli violation of the recent truce agreement to be added to the series occupation violations; including killing a Palestinian citizen, injuring more than thirty others in the southern Gaza Strip, and firing at a fishing boat in Gaza waters. |
Friday, November 30, 2012
Occupation arrests two fishermen off Gaza shore
Occupation arrests two fishermen off Gaza shore
Time for Palestine to move forward
Redress Information & Analysis
The day before the United Nations vote on Palestine, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was explaining his devious policy to Parliament:
Hague surely knows that nothing worthwhile is likely to be achieved by a strong side bullying a weak side – by an Israel bristling with weapons of mass destruction facing a defenceless and impoverished Palestine across a negotiating table. It’s both obscene and immoral. I haven’t yet heard a convincing argument for returning to such a lopsided and discredited scenario, especially while Israel’s land grab and colonization continue.
The way forward is already set out by international law and numerous UN resolutions, which are still waiting to be implemented. Therein lies justice. Direct negotiations require Palestinians to make “compromises” and give away what little is left of their lands and resources to a greedy, merciless “peace partner” that has abused and humiliated them for 64 years. What justice can possibly come out of that?
A word search on the internet shows that Hague made no mention of the fact of the occupation nor did he call on Israel to end it. He expects Palestinians to return to talks with Israel’s jackboot still on their neck and while the Zionist regime maintains its illegal blockade.
In case you’re wondering what nationality Hague is, he was recruited into the Conservative Friends of Israel at the impressionable age of 15.
After his statement he faced dozens of questions. One MP wanted to know which Israelis he [Hague] spoke to before putting together
Another MP asked:
Palestinians could argue that Israel and its allies are trying to bypass the law. Why shouldn’t the Palestinian question now go back to the international community for determination within the parameters of key UN resolutions and international law? That step must come before so-called negotiations, surely. The US and Israel would cut up rough but – who knows – the other states might discover a collective backbone.
On his big day Abbas trumped all of Hague’s mean-spirited delaying tactics with simple good sense, saying: “It is time to move forward – that is why we are here today.” The UN, he said, had a moral duty that couldn’t stand further delay. He invited member states to issue a birth certificate for the emerging Palestinian state. Delegates stood and clapped.
The glum Israelis did not applaud. They knew the score.
Yes 138
No 9
Abstain 41
A sour United States representative called the vote “counterproductive” and warned that Palestinians would wake up in the morning to find “the prospect of a durable peace had receded”.
If so, no-one will be in doubt that it’s largely America’s fault.
Great Britain explained that it abstained because it received none of the assurances demanded of Abbas. In other words the blackmail failed.
It was very noticeable how so many delegates were reading from the same script word for word. The mantra: “only through direct negotiations without preconditions” was tediously repeated throughout the proceedings. That insistent phrase “without preconditions” presumably means without reference to international law and the pile of unimplemented UN resolutions.
But the world outside, I suspect, is tired of diplomatic claptrap and will see the vote as a long-overdue turning point.
Palestine wins its ‘birth certificate’ by 138 – 9 with 41 abstaining
By Stuart LittlewoodThe day before the United Nations vote on Palestine, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was explaining his devious policy to Parliament:
We support a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state; based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, and a just, fair and agreed settlement for refugees.It’s always a “safe and secure” Israel and only a “viable” Palestine, never the other way round. A Palestinian state, it seems, cannot expect to be safe and secure – it must be vulnerable at all times.
This is the only way to secure a sustainable end to the conflict…
Singing in harmony with Israel
He was desperate to extract a promise from the chairman of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, not to bring charges against Israeli war criminals, not to go for full UN membership and to submit once again to direct negotiations. He said:We judge that if the Palestinians were to build on this resolution by pursuing ICC [International Criminal Court] jurisdiction over the occupied territories at this stage it could make a return to negotiations impossible.Hague was singing in close harmony with Israel’s UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, who said: “Trying to circumvent direct negotiations will raise frustrations, raise expectations, will change nothing on the ground.”
In the absence of these assurances, the United Kingdom would abstain on the vote… The only way to give the Palestinian people the state that they need and deserve, and the Israeli people the security and peace they are entitled to, is through a negotiated two-state solution.
Direct negotiations require Palestinians to make “compromises” and give away what little is left of their lands and resources to a greedy, merciless “peace partner” that has abused and humiliated them for 64 years.
What’s on the ground, of course, is vitally important. In the past, off-on slow-grinding talks have bought Israel time to establish irreversible fact on the ground that have already rendered a viable Palestinian state impossible and are designed to make the occupation permanent. It has worked like a charm for Israel for the last 20 years – and Hague knows it.Hague surely knows that nothing worthwhile is likely to be achieved by a strong side bullying a weak side – by an Israel bristling with weapons of mass destruction facing a defenceless and impoverished Palestine across a negotiating table. It’s both obscene and immoral. I haven’t yet heard a convincing argument for returning to such a lopsided and discredited scenario, especially while Israel’s land grab and colonization continue.
The way forward is already set out by international law and numerous UN resolutions, which are still waiting to be implemented. Therein lies justice. Direct negotiations require Palestinians to make “compromises” and give away what little is left of their lands and resources to a greedy, merciless “peace partner” that has abused and humiliated them for 64 years. What justice can possibly come out of that?
A word search on the internet shows that Hague made no mention of the fact of the occupation nor did he call on Israel to end it. He expects Palestinians to return to talks with Israel’s jackboot still on their neck and while the Zionist regime maintains its illegal blockade.
In case you’re wondering what nationality Hague is, he was recruited into the Conservative Friends of Israel at the impressionable age of 15.
After his statement he faced dozens of questions. One MP wanted to know which Israelis he [Hague] spoke to before putting together
this miserable little offer that continues to treat the Palestinians as second-class citizens, if citizens at all. What, apart from the fact that Israel wants it, should lead the Palestinians to fetter their access to the Security Council and the International Criminal Court, and what in particular should make them enter negotiations for their own land when the colonization of that land continues?Hague replied: “Their plight will be alleviated only if there is a successful negotiation between both parties… “
Another MP asked:
Given the blockades, the illegal settlements, the wall, the destruction of Palestinian farms, the arrests, the imprisonment, the decades of ignoring UN resolutions, the refugee camps, the abject poverty and the rest, how much worse does he think that it can get for the Palestinians?A third MP said:
What I am interested in is what he said to the Israeli government about their threat to withhold the taxes that they owe the Palestinians. What is he doing to prevent that threat being carried out?Hague told Parliament he wanted to see Palestine in the United Nations but it would come about only as a result of a successful negotiation with Israel. He said:
That is our guiding principle; it is an overriding principle… Any such negotiation requires both parties to conclude it successfully, and they must be prepared to make the necessary compromises…
International law and UN resolutions are never mentioned
Israel and the US and other opponents of the bid such as Hague keep saying, ad nauseam, that a Palestinian state should emerge only out of bilateral negotiations. They complain that the Palestinians are bypassing the negotiation process set out in the 1993 Oslo peace accords and going direct to the UN for statehood.Why shouldn’t the Palestinian question now go back to the international community for determination within the parameters of key UN resolutions and international law?
But those accords were of no benefit to the Palestinians. If the West had wanted to sow confidence in the negotiating process they would have ensured a measure of success – they had the leverage to do so. Confidence evaporated long ago not only in the process itself but also the gang of dishonest brokers promoting it.Palestinians could argue that Israel and its allies are trying to bypass the law. Why shouldn’t the Palestinian question now go back to the international community for determination within the parameters of key UN resolutions and international law? That step must come before so-called negotiations, surely. The US and Israel would cut up rough but – who knows – the other states might discover a collective backbone.
On his big day Abbas trumped all of Hague’s mean-spirited delaying tactics with simple good sense, saying: “It is time to move forward – that is why we are here today.” The UN, he said, had a moral duty that couldn’t stand further delay. He invited member states to issue a birth certificate for the emerging Palestinian state. Delegates stood and clapped.
The glum Israelis did not applaud. They knew the score.
Yes 138
No 9
Abstain 41
A sour United States representative called the vote “counterproductive” and warned that Palestinians would wake up in the morning to find “the prospect of a durable peace had receded”.
If so, no-one will be in doubt that it’s largely America’s fault.
Great Britain explained that it abstained because it received none of the assurances demanded of Abbas. In other words the blackmail failed.
It was very noticeable how so many delegates were reading from the same script word for word. The mantra: “only through direct negotiations without preconditions” was tediously repeated throughout the proceedings. That insistent phrase “without preconditions” presumably means without reference to international law and the pile of unimplemented UN resolutions.
But the world outside, I suspect, is tired of diplomatic claptrap and will see the vote as a long-overdue turning point.
Full text of Pres. Mahmoud Abbas' statement to the UN General Assembly
Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace.
Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it.
Palestine comes today to this prestigious international forum, representative and protector of international legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.
Palestine comes to you today at a defining moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government's adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.
This is why we are here today.
I say with great pain and sorrow.., there was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated. And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be aware of the absence of peace.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Palestinian people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of A1-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and continue to wait.
This is why we are here today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the course of our long national struggle, our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest, deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival, steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them and continue befall them today as a consequence of A1-Nakba and its horrors.
Despite the enormity and weight of this task, the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO), the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this harmony and conformity. When the Palestine National Council decided in 1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29 November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking, under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic, difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and occupation.
This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body that is meeting today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have heard and you too have heard specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer State in the United Nations. And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza Strip.
We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.
What permits the Israeli Government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief is bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of its violations and crimes and by position that equate the victim and the executioner.
The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.
This is why we are here now.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel's policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace.
Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a just peace.
However, above all and after all, I affirm that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights, as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic steadfastness and will continue to build on their land.
And, they will end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative.
Yet, we must repeat here once again our warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs - more than 168 martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family, the Dalou family, in Gaza - are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.
It is time for action and the moment to move forward.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,
The world is being asked today to undertake a significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since A1-Nakba of 1948.
Every voice supporting our endeavor today is a most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support today to Palestine's request for non-member observer State status is affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of peoples and international law and peace.
Your support for our endeavor today will send a promising message - to millions of Palestinians on the land of Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora, and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel's prisons - that justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the occupation.
This is why we are here today.
Your support for our endeavor today will give a reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation. Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing proposition.
In our endeavor today to acquire non-member State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women.
As we promised our friends and our brothers and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of your esteemed body our request to upgrade Palestine's status. We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for the sake of a just peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.
Sixty-five years later and on the same day, which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and cannot be postponed.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.
This is why in specific we are here today.
Thank you.
Full text of Pres. Mahmoud Abbas' statement to the UN General Assembly
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace.
Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it.
Palestine comes today to this prestigious international forum, representative and protector of international legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.
Palestine comes to you today at a defining moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government's adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.
This is why we are here today.
I say with great pain and sorrow.., there was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated. And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be aware of the absence of peace.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Palestinian people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of A1-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and continue to wait.
This is why we are here today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the course of our long national struggle, our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest, deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival, steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them and continue befall them today as a consequence of A1-Nakba and its horrors.
Despite the enormity and weight of this task, the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO), the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this harmony and conformity. When the Palestine National Council decided in 1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29 November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking, under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic, difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and occupation.
This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body that is meeting today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have heard and you too have heard specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer State in the United Nations. And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza Strip.
We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.
What permits the Israeli Government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief is bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of its violations and crimes and by position that equate the victim and the executioner.
The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.
This is why we are here now.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel's policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace.
Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a just peace.
However, above all and after all, I affirm that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights, as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic steadfastness and will continue to build on their land.
And, they will end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative.
Yet, we must repeat here once again our warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs - more than 168 martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family, the Dalou family, in Gaza - are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.
It is time for action and the moment to move forward.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,
The world is being asked today to undertake a significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since A1-Nakba of 1948.
Every voice supporting our endeavor today is a most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support today to Palestine's request for non-member observer State status is affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of peoples and international law and peace.
Your support for our endeavor today will send a promising message - to millions of Palestinians on the land of Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora, and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel's prisons - that justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the occupation.
This is why we are here today.
Your support for our endeavor today will give a reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation. Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing proposition.
In our endeavor today to acquire non-member State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women.
As we promised our friends and our brothers and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of your esteemed body our request to upgrade Palestine's status. We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for the sake of a just peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.
Sixty-five years later and on the same day, which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and cannot be postponed.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.
This is why in specific we are here today.
Thank you.
Full text of Pres. Mahmoud Abbas' statement to the UN General Assembly
24 hours after the UN voted for Palestine...Israel approves 3000 new homes in West Bank -
Al Jazeera English
Cabinet authorises 3,000 units in illegal settlements in occupied territory, a day after UN upgraded Palestine's status.
The Israeli government has approved the construction of 3,000 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, less than 24 hours after the UN voted for Palestine to be upgraded to a non-member observer state, according to Israeli media reports.
The homes will be built both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but the government did not stipulate in which settlements.
According to a report in Haaretz, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu also plans to "promote planning and construction" in the so-called E-1 area between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim, a major settlement with nearly 40,000 inhabitants.
Hagit Ofran, who runs the Settlement Watch project at Peace Now, said the announcement would not mean immediate construction in the E-1 area. "There is no plan ready for implementation," she said. "In order to build, they must approve plans."
The Obama administration has tried to discourage construction in E-1, which would cut off East Jerusalem from surrounding Arab towns and further carve up the West Bank, already riven by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints.
The decision was made by Israel's "security cabinet," a forum of nine senior ministers led by Netanyahu.
Israel's government had threatened to approve further construction in the settlements as a possible response to Palestine's bid for recognition. The prime minister's office would not comment on whether the announcement was punishment for the UN vote.
Palestinian officials have anyway described it as a meaningless threat: Even before the bid, Netanyahu's government has been approved thousands of new settler homes each year.
Cabinet authorises 3,000 units in illegal settlements in occupied territory, a day after UN upgraded Palestine's status.
The Israeli government has approved the construction of 3,000 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, less than 24 hours after the UN voted for Palestine to be upgraded to a non-member observer state, according to Israeli media reports.
The homes will be built both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but the government did not stipulate in which settlements.
According to a report in Haaretz, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu also plans to "promote planning and construction" in the so-called E-1 area between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim, a major settlement with nearly 40,000 inhabitants.
Hagit Ofran, who runs the Settlement Watch project at Peace Now, said the announcement would not mean immediate construction in the E-1 area. "There is no plan ready for implementation," she said. "In order to build, they must approve plans."
The Obama administration has tried to discourage construction in E-1, which would cut off East Jerusalem from surrounding Arab towns and further carve up the West Bank, already riven by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints.
The decision was made by Israel's "security cabinet," a forum of nine senior ministers led by Netanyahu.
Israel's government had threatened to approve further construction in the settlements as a possible response to Palestine's bid for recognition. The prime minister's office would not comment on whether the announcement was punishment for the UN vote.
Palestinian officials have anyway described it as a meaningless threat: Even before the bid, Netanyahu's government has been approved thousands of new settler homes each year.
Hamas fighter killed as war remnants explode in Gaza
Maan News Agency: Published today (updated) 30/11/2012 09:56
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas' military wing said one of its fighters was killed early Friday when remnants of Israeli weaponry from the latest Gaza assault exploded in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mustafa Ahmad Hijazi, 25, was killed in the explosion at a military site in Jabalia camp, the Al-Qassam Brigades said.
Eight other were wounded in the blast, including two in a serious condition, the group said.
On Thursday, an Al-Qassam fighter died of his wounds from the eight-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip. More than 170 Palestinians were killed in the assault which ended last Wednesday.
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas' military wing said one of its fighters was killed early Friday when remnants of Israeli weaponry from the latest Gaza assault exploded in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mustafa Ahmad Hijazi, 25, was killed in the explosion at a military site in Jabalia camp, the Al-Qassam Brigades said.
Eight other were wounded in the blast, including two in a serious condition, the group said.
On Thursday, an Al-Qassam fighter died of his wounds from the eight-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip. More than 170 Palestinians were killed in the assault which ended last Wednesday.
- Palestine status upgraded at UN
PressTV - Palestine status upgraded at UN
On Thursday, the 193-member assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions at the UN headquarters in New York for a resolution approving the upgrade. Nine countries, including Canada, Israel, and the United States, voted against it.
Speaking before the vote, the acting Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it was "being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine…"
The vote is seen as a long-sought victory for the Palestinians, but an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States.
Having earned the observer non-member status, Palestinians enjoy access to UN agencies and the International Criminal Court where they could file complaints against Israel. The upgrade also allows the Palestinians to participate in debates at the UN and improve their chances of joining UN agencies.
The United States and Israel have spared no means for the past two years to stymie the Palestinians’ efforts towards upgrading Palestine’s status at the UN, arguing that it is only through negotiations with Israel that Palestinian statehood ambitions can yield.
The US blocked Palestine’s full membership bid at the UN Security Council last year, using its veto power.
Following the Thursday vote, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice told the assembly, "Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path to peace. That is why the United States voted against it."
In 2010, Israel broke down the talks after refusing to extend a moratorium on its settlement activities on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Hundreds of Palestinians have poured onto the streets of the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank to celebrate the upgrade.
"I'm happy they declared the state even though it's only a moral victory. There are a lot of sharks out there, but it feels good," said 39-year-old Rashid al-Kor.
"I feel so good, I cannot describe my feelings, it's as if we reached the end of a dark tunnel. With a Palestinian state, we are now united as a people and a leadership," Palestinian-American Laila Jaman noted.
"This resolution does not establish that Palestine is a state," Rice added.
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from “observer entity” to “observer non-member state” despite strong opposition by Israel and the US.
On Thursday, the 193-member assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions at the UN headquarters in New York for a resolution approving the upgrade. Nine countries, including Canada, Israel, and the United States, voted against it.
Speaking before the vote, the acting Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it was "being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine…"
The vote is seen as a long-sought victory for the Palestinians, but an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States.
Having earned the observer non-member status, Palestinians enjoy access to UN agencies and the International Criminal Court where they could file complaints against Israel. The upgrade also allows the Palestinians to participate in debates at the UN and improve their chances of joining UN agencies.
The United States and Israel have spared no means for the past two years to stymie the Palestinians’ efforts towards upgrading Palestine’s status at the UN, arguing that it is only through negotiations with Israel that Palestinian statehood ambitions can yield.
The US blocked Palestine’s full membership bid at the UN Security Council last year, using its veto power.
Following the Thursday vote, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice told the assembly, "Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path to peace. That is why the United States voted against it."
In 2010, Israel broke down the talks after refusing to extend a moratorium on its settlement activities on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Hundreds of Palestinians have poured onto the streets of the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank to celebrate the upgrade.
"I'm happy they declared the state even though it's only a moral victory. There are a lot of sharks out there, but it feels good," said 39-year-old Rashid al-Kor.
"I feel so good, I cannot describe my feelings, it's as if we reached the end of a dark tunnel. With a Palestinian state, we are now united as a people and a leadership," Palestinian-American Laila Jaman noted.
"This resolution does not establish that Palestine is a state," Rice added.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Palestinian Dies of Wounds in Gaza
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA -
GAZA, November 28, 2012 (WAFA) – A Palestinian, who was critically injured in an Israeli attack on the Gaza strip, died of his wounds Wednesday at dawn at al-Shifa hospital, according to medical sources.
They said that Mahmoud Sha’ath died of his critical injuries he sustained during the eight-day War on Gaza that started on November 14th.
This brings the total of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza to 175.
GAZA, November 28, 2012 (WAFA) – A Palestinian, who was critically injured in an Israeli attack on the Gaza strip, died of his wounds Wednesday at dawn at al-Shifa hospital, according to medical sources.
They said that Mahmoud Sha’ath died of his critical injuries he sustained during the eight-day War on Gaza that started on November 14th.
This brings the total of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza to 175.
IMEMC News #Palestine
IMEMC News - International Middle East Media Center
Wednesday November 28, 2012 - 08:23
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, arrived in New York accompanied by several senior Palestinian officials, in order to officially submit the Palestinian application for a nonmember state status at the United Nations General Assembly. Full Story
Wednesday November 28, 2012 - 07:44
Israeli sources reported on Tuesday evening that France confirmed that it will support the Palestinian bid at the United Nations General Assembly during the Thursday vote for observer state status. Full Story
Wednesday November 28, 2012 - 00:00
Jerusalem. On Tuesday night the Israeli occupation forces detained three Jerusalemites among them youths, during clashed that sparked in the neighborhood of Silwan, East of Jerusalem. Full Story
Tuesday November 27, 2012 - 18:52
Palestinian medical sources reported, Tuesday evening, that a young Palestinian man was shot by a live round in the chest after Israeli soldiers, stationed across the border, opened fire at him east of Rafah city, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Full Story
Tuesday November 27, 2012 - 18:22
Despite enormous pressures practiced by the United States and Israel, and all threats impose heavy financial sanctions besides the sanctions that are already in place, the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in the West Bank said that it will not void or alter the text of its UN application that will be voted on at the General Assembly this Thursday. Full Story
Monday November 26, 2012 - 23:13
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, decided to shift the Israeli policy and stance regarding the UN Thursday vote on the Palestinian nonmember status, and is currently tying to tone down and trim the Palestinian application instead of toppling it by a U.S. veto. Full Story
Monday November 26, 2012 - 22:39
Israeli sources reported that the army shot and killed, on Monday, a Palestinian man who managed to cross the border fence with Gaza, and managed to reach the home of a family in Sadeh Avram settlement, located hundreds of meters away from the border with Gaza, and also close to the border with Egypt. Full Story
Monday November 26, 2012 - 21:37
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that a Palestinian woman died, on Monday morning, of wounds suffered during the latest Israeli war on Gaza. Full Story
Monday November 26, 2012 - 21:24
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that four Palestinians have been injured, on Monday evening, after Israeli soldiers opened fire at them near the eastern border of the Gaza Strip. Full Story
Monday, November 26, 2012
Administrative detainee joins hunger strike as health of current strikers continues to deteriorate.
Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - ADDAMEER - UPDATE:
UPDATE: Administrative detainee joins hunger strike as health of current strikers continues to deteriorate.
Ramallah, 26 November 2012 - Addameer is deeply troubled by the continued hunger strikes of Palestinian prisoners Ayman Sharawna, Samer al-Issawi and Oday Keilani, as their health rapidly deteriorates. Addameer’s lawyer Fares Ziad visited the three hunger striking detainees on 25 November 2012.· Ayman Sharawna has been on hunger strike for 149 days and only ingests water, sugar and vitamins. Despite his deteriorating health and weakened state, he is treated roughly by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). Ayman refuses to be treated in a hospital until the IPS discontinues their policy of shackling his hands and legs during transportation and treatment. Against his will, he was forcibly transferred to a hospital where he again denied treatment, and upon his return to Ramle Prison, was strip searched before returning to his cell. Ayman is still suffering from the previously reported health conditions including pain in his legs, kidneys, skin, memory loss, eye problems and inability to stand. In addition, he is continuously being coerced by the IPS’ interrogator to end his hunger strike without signing a negotiation or deal. Ayman has been on hunger strike since 1 July 2012. He spent ten years in detention and was released in the prisoner exchange deal on 11 October 2012, but was re-arrested on 31 January 2012 based on “secret evidence.”
· The health of Samer Al Issawi, is in danger as he is now refusing water, vitamins and sugar as of the 21st of November. He suffers from fainting several times a day and has pain in his legs and back as a result of a late night fall. His health is deteriorating rapidly; he has low blood pressure and now weighs 46 kilograms. Samer was detained on 7 July, less than one year after his initial release in the prisoner exchange deal of October 2012. He launched a hunger strike on 1 August 2012 and has been intermittently striking for 118 days.
· Oday Keilani began a hunger strike on the 21 of October 2012, 36 days ago, to protest the renewal of his administrative detention for four months. Oday was arrested in 2011, and has been held without charge or trial, nor access to his file as it contains “secret information.” He was recently transferred to Ramle Hospital because he is suffering from health consequences of his hunger strike, including severe headaches, and pain in his joints, stomach and kidneys. Like Ayman Sharawna, he has also been pressured by the IPS to end his hunger strike without a written agreement.
Addameer urges the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government and demand accountability for their human rights violations. It is imperative that Ayman Sharawna, Samer Al-Issawi, and Oday Keilani are treated humanely, with dignity, and receive immediate independent medical attention.
ACT NOW!
*Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that the hunger striking prisoners be released immediately.
- Brigadier General Danny Efroni
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. Nitzan Alon
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 the hunger strikers.
Jewish Settlers Raze Land in Jordan Valley
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA
Jewish settlers Monday razed land east of the illegal settlement of Rotam, in the Jordan Valley, according to an official.
Aref Daraghmeh, the head of al-Malih local council, stressed that settlers razed Palestinian land that they had previously seized part of.
He said this razing aims to expand the settlement of Ratom.
Jewish settlers Monday razed land east of the illegal settlement of Rotam, in the Jordan Valley, according to an official.
Aref Daraghmeh, the head of al-Malih local council, stressed that settlers razed Palestinian land that they had previously seized part of.
He said this razing aims to expand the settlement of Ratom.
IOA bars family visits to Gaza prisoners for third consecutive time
IOA bars family visits to Gaza prisoners for third consecutive time
 |
| GAZA, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) barred visits of families to their detained relatives in Israeli jails for the third consecutive week. Ayman Al-Shihabi, speaking for the Red Cross, said in a statement on Monday that the IOA informed the organization of the cancellation of the visits for this week. He said that the Red Cross would maintain contacts with Israel to reactivate the visits. |
Palestinian youth succumbs to serious injuries
Palestinian youth succumbs to serious injuries:
GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian young man died on Monday of serious wounds sustained in the Israeli eight days of strikes on the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
They said that Ahmed Mashharawi was one of those critically injured in the Israeli aggression.
Mashharawi’s death brings to 167 the number of those killed in the Israeli war on Gaza.
GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian young man died on Monday of serious wounds sustained in the Israeli eight days of strikes on the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
They said that Ahmed Mashharawi was one of those critically injured in the Israeli aggression.
Mashharawi’s death brings to 167 the number of those killed in the Israeli war on Gaza.
Gaza: The "International Community" Also Lies Buried
English pravda.ru
by Felicity Arbutnot.
"Light the fire so I can see my tears On the night of the massacre ..." (Samih al-Qasim, b: 1939.)
It was that "pinpoint accuracy," "surgical strike" stuff again, there were "unavoidable tragic errors," and "mistakes," with "scrupulous efforts made to avoid" etc., blah. And as Britain's Colonel Richard Kemp declared that of the fourteen hundred dead in the Christmas and New year onslaught on Gaza in 2008-2009: "Mistakes are not war crimes." (i)
Colonel Kemp, with impeccable ties to British Intelligence Services, spoke to the BBC from Jerusalem in a similar sanguine vein on the 21st of November(ii) of the then latest twenty-four hour bombardment of the tiny, walled in Gaza Strip, where over half of the population are children. But Colonel Kemp has seen a fair amount of carnage in his time, from Belfast to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Seemingly after a while the dead and dismembered are just part of the day job.
This eight day blitz killed one hundred and sixty-three Palestinians in what were merciless attacks on families with nowhere to hide. Nine hundred and ninety-nine were injured. Eight hundred and sixty-five houses are damaged or destroyed.
Six health centres are damaged, thirty schools, two universities, fifteen NGO offices, twenty-seven mosques, fourteen media offices, eleven industrial plants, eighty-one commercial stores and a UNRWA food distribution Centre.
In addition, seven Ministry offices, fourteen police or security stations, five banks, and two youth clubswere destroyed. The sports complex where the Palestinian athletes and paralympians trained for the 2012 London Olympics is reduced to rubble, as is the beautiful and most necessary Gaza Interior Ministry.
On Universal Children's Day, the 20th of November, an air strike destroyed the Oxfam-supported Al Bajan kindergarten school and damaged the Al Housna kindergarten. (iii) Oxfam's Sara Almer commented that more than one hundred and fifty children attended these kindergartens. "The children are safe, but the places where they learned and played are now in ruins." This in an area "where they already suffer a high level of trauma ..."
The Oxfam project was as a result of the devastation caused by "Operation Cast Lead" between the 27th of December 2008- the 17th of January 2009, when they also repaired the now re-fractured water and sanitation facilities.
There is a shortage of two hundred and thirty schools in Gaza, the Agency points out - and a ban on importing construction materials, which means the further thirty-two damaged, the two universities and all else may well stay that way.
Ironically, on the day of the nurseries' destruction, the UN Secretary General announced, that to mark Universal Children's Day, a major UN initiative would be launched: "Education First." The day commemorates the adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1959 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. The 1989 Convention entered into force on September the 2nd 1990, under a month after the UN embargo on Iraq, with even baby milk formula importation denied.
"The child ... needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before, as well as after birth" is included in the preamble to a fine document. (iv)
Four year old twins, Suhaib and Muhammed Hijazi will never learn of the "protection" they are entitled to by the United Nations. They were killed when their home was bombed as the dawn of Universal Children's Day approached. Their parents, Fouad and Amna died in hospital.
Saraya, eighteen months, won't grow to read the fine words either. She died of a heart attack, literally frightened to death by the bombardment.
As the lights went off in Gaza's hospitals, and their generator fuel hovered on empty, Gilad Sharon - youngest son of eighty-four year old former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who has benefited from Israel's fine health services and been on life support systems since 2006 - stated: "We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima - the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki too."
Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, stated that the goal of the attacks were to " ... send Gaza back to the Middle Ages."
Palestine has no army, navy, air force, no heavy weaponry. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power, regarded as having the fourth strongest military on earth.
Gaza was, of course being bombed by American supplied F-16s and a variety of American weaponry. But as Gaza grieved, America had parades across the land, ate turkey, prayed over their festive dinners on Thanksgiving Day, the 22nd of November.
Reality would have had them burning, city to city, The UN Declaration and Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Principles and making a pyre of all the fine, meaningless words which do not end or mask international lawlessness and inhumanity. A bonfire which might light the lie of the whole murderous hypocrisy of self proclaimed "democratic" nation states.
by Felicity Arbutnot.
"Light the fire so I can see my tears On the night of the massacre ..." (Samih al-Qasim, b: 1939.)
It was that "pinpoint accuracy," "surgical strike" stuff again, there were "unavoidable tragic errors," and "mistakes," with "scrupulous efforts made to avoid" etc., blah. And as Britain's Colonel Richard Kemp declared that of the fourteen hundred dead in the Christmas and New year onslaught on Gaza in 2008-2009: "Mistakes are not war crimes." (i)
Colonel Kemp, with impeccable ties to British Intelligence Services, spoke to the BBC from Jerusalem in a similar sanguine vein on the 21st of November(ii) of the then latest twenty-four hour bombardment of the tiny, walled in Gaza Strip, where over half of the population are children. But Colonel Kemp has seen a fair amount of carnage in his time, from Belfast to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Seemingly after a while the dead and dismembered are just part of the day job.
This eight day blitz killed one hundred and sixty-three Palestinians in what were merciless attacks on families with nowhere to hide. Nine hundred and ninety-nine were injured. Eight hundred and sixty-five houses are damaged or destroyed.
Six health centres are damaged, thirty schools, two universities, fifteen NGO offices, twenty-seven mosques, fourteen media offices, eleven industrial plants, eighty-one commercial stores and a UNRWA food distribution Centre.
In addition, seven Ministry offices, fourteen police or security stations, five banks, and two youth clubswere destroyed. The sports complex where the Palestinian athletes and paralympians trained for the 2012 London Olympics is reduced to rubble, as is the beautiful and most necessary Gaza Interior Ministry.
On Universal Children's Day, the 20th of November, an air strike destroyed the Oxfam-supported Al Bajan kindergarten school and damaged the Al Housna kindergarten. (iii) Oxfam's Sara Almer commented that more than one hundred and fifty children attended these kindergartens. "The children are safe, but the places where they learned and played are now in ruins." This in an area "where they already suffer a high level of trauma ..."
The Oxfam project was as a result of the devastation caused by "Operation Cast Lead" between the 27th of December 2008- the 17th of January 2009, when they also repaired the now re-fractured water and sanitation facilities.
There is a shortage of two hundred and thirty schools in Gaza, the Agency points out - and a ban on importing construction materials, which means the further thirty-two damaged, the two universities and all else may well stay that way.
Ironically, on the day of the nurseries' destruction, the UN Secretary General announced, that to mark Universal Children's Day, a major UN initiative would be launched: "Education First." The day commemorates the adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1959 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. The 1989 Convention entered into force on September the 2nd 1990, under a month after the UN embargo on Iraq, with even baby milk formula importation denied.
"The child ... needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before, as well as after birth" is included in the preamble to a fine document. (iv)
Four year old twins, Suhaib and Muhammed Hijazi will never learn of the "protection" they are entitled to by the United Nations. They were killed when their home was bombed as the dawn of Universal Children's Day approached. Their parents, Fouad and Amna died in hospital.
Saraya, eighteen months, won't grow to read the fine words either. She died of a heart attack, literally frightened to death by the bombardment.
As the lights went off in Gaza's hospitals, and their generator fuel hovered on empty, Gilad Sharon - youngest son of eighty-four year old former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who has benefited from Israel's fine health services and been on life support systems since 2006 - stated: "We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima - the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki too."
Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, stated that the goal of the attacks were to " ... send Gaza back to the Middle Ages."
Palestine has no army, navy, air force, no heavy weaponry. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power, regarded as having the fourth strongest military on earth.
Gaza was, of course being bombed by American supplied F-16s and a variety of American weaponry. But as Gaza grieved, America had parades across the land, ate turkey, prayed over their festive dinners on Thanksgiving Day, the 22nd of November.
Reality would have had them burning, city to city, The UN Declaration and Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Principles and making a pyre of all the fine, meaningless words which do not end or mask international lawlessness and inhumanity. A bonfire which might light the lie of the whole murderous hypocrisy of self proclaimed "democratic" nation states.
B'Tselem: Soldiers shot dead two unarmed West Bankers in pro-Gaza protests
B'Tselem: Soldiers shot dead two unarmed West Bankers in pro-Gaza protests
 |
| RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The human rights group B'Tselem said Israeli soldiers killed in cold blood two Palestinian civilians during protests in support for Gaza a few days ago in the West Bank. B'Tselem added that the two victims posed no threat to the Israeli soldiers, affirming that it sent a strongly-worded letter to the commandership of the Israeli army calling for giving clear orders to its soldiers not to open deadly fire at protestors throwing stones at them. An investigation into these incidents conducted by B’Tselem raised the suspicion that the Israeli army and security echelons had permitted soldiers to use live fire, including in confrontations with stone throwers who are not armed and in situations that are not life threatening to the soldiers. On November 17, 2012, Rushdi Attamimi, 31 and the father of one daughter, was injured by live firing by soldiers shooting at young men who threw stones at them in Nabi Saleh village. He died of his wounds two days later. On November 19, 2012, security forces killed Hamdi Al-Fallah, 22, during clashes in the area of the Halhul, Al-Khalil city. He was hit with four live bullets to the chest, arm and leg. An investigation by B’Tselem found that Fallah had pointed a laser pen at the soldiers, and that none of the stone throwers were armed. At least 39 other Palestinians have been wounded by military and security forces since November 15, 2012 during incidents in which Palestinians threw stones at the forces. Among them were 16 injured by live fire, including six who sustained serious injuries. 13 Palestinians have been wounded by rubber-coated metal bullets, nine of them in the head and 10 suffered wounds by direct hits by teargas canisters, seven of them in the head as well, the human rights group said. |
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Mona Mansour: the MPs arrest in West Bank expresses the Israeli failure in Gaza
Mona Mansour: the MPs arrest in West Bank expresses the Israeli failure in Gaza
 |
| GAZA, (PIC)-- MP Mona Mansour considered the Israeli arrest campaign against MPs and leaders affiliated to the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" in the occupied West Bank, as an Israeli attempt to abort the Palestinian efforts to achieve national unity and to end the internal division. Mansour said "the main reason behind the arrest of Hamas MPs is their active role and efforts in order to end the internal division, as the occupation cannot accept to see the Palestinian people united." She said, in statements to Quds press, that the occupation has launched a cold war against the Palestinian MPs and leaders through the arrest campaign after its military failure in face of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. "The head of the Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to improve his image after the aggression on the Gaza Strip through the arrest of the Palestinian MPs, after failing to achieve that through aggression and war," she added. It is noted that the occupation army began an arrest campaign against Hamas supporters and leaders and MPs in the occupied West Bank since last Thursday, where more than a hundred Palestinians, including six MPs, were arrested. For his part, minister of detainees and ex-detainees, Dr. Atallah Abu Sebah, stated that the Israeli arrest campaign in the occupied West Bank came to undermine the joy that swept West Bank cities celebrating victory of the resistance, and an Israeli retaliation after failing to achieve its goals during the recent aggression. The Israeli occupation forces carried out arrest and raid campaigns in various cities of the West Bank, where they arrested more than 200 citizens and 6 MPs, in addition to transferring more than 30 people to administrative detention, he said in written press statement. The minister stressed that the re-arrest of Palestinian MPs is a violation to all international laws and norms, and a flagrant violation of parliamentary immunity enjoyed by the Legislative Council members, where 14 members of the Legislative Council are still detained in the Israeli prisons, topped by MP Ahmad Saadat and MP Marwan Barghouti. Abu Sebah warned of Israeli escalation of violations against the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and imposing more sanctions on them in light of the Israeli reprisal policy. He stressed on the need to unite all national efforts to focus on the issue of the prisoners in the next stage, and to take practical steps for their release especially the hunger strikers who are neglected by the whole world and the occupation refuses to respond to their legitimate demands. Meanwhile, well-informed Palestinian sources revealed that the Ramallah Authority was informed in advance of the Israeli arrest campaign against a number of Palestinian MPs. The sources told Quds press that one of Fatah leaders warned the head of the Legislative Council and Hamas' MPs that an Israeli mass arrest campaign will be launched against them after signing the truce and cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. For its part, the family of a detained MP confirmed that a prominent Palestinian figure warned the concerned MP that he will be arrested and asked him to leave his house but he refused where he was arrested the same night by the occupation forces after raiding his house. One of Change and Reform bloc' MPs has reported that the Arab diplomatic sources advised a number of MPs not to move through Israeli checkpoints to avoid being arrested by the occupation forces, especially after the Israeli defeat in its aggression on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli occupation forces started since last Thursday a campaign of arrests against dozens of Hamas leaders and supporters, including six MPs in the Palestinian Legislative Council, including the Secretary of the Council in Ramallah, Mahmoud al-Ramahi. |
IOF arrests 12 citizens, including five children
IOF arrests 12 citizens, including five children
 |
| WEST BANK, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued its daily arrest campaigns in different parts of the West Bank, where they detained since Saturday 12 citizens in al-Khalil, Jenin and Nablus, including five children. IOF arrested four citizens in al-Kahlil provinces, Ahmed Ismail Amr, 33, and Mohammed Nassar from Dura southwest of al-Khalil, and Issa Khalil Zain from Yatta town in addition to Zia Ghalib Smamrh, Issa Ahmed Ali Smamrh, and Abdullah Issa al-Battat from Dahriya town, also they raided the house of Ayed Aladrh, a teacher at al-Ansar schools and handed him a summons to Shin Bet office in Etzion. Regarding settler attacks, a group of Israeli settlers from Adora settlement west of al-Khalil, threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, passing through Highway 35 that links between the western villages and towns with the city of al-Khalil, without causing any injuries. Israeli forces also stormed at dawn today the town of Silat al-Harithiya west of Jenin and arrested a citizen and took him to an unknown destination after interrogating him for a period of time. Local sources said that Israeli forces raided the town at down and arrested the young man Anad Mohammed Abu al-Khir Tahaana, 24, after storming the town and raiding his family's house and damaging its contents. In Nablus, the Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Jma'ain south-west of the city, yesterday evening, and arrested five children in the town and took them to unknown destination. The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) warned of targeting the children by IOF, and said that the occupation forces have arrested since the last aggression on Gaza about 60 children. |
Jewish settlers attack, destroy Palestinian farmland
Jewish settlers attack, destroy Palestinian farmland
 |
| NABLUS, (PIC)-- Jewish settlers attacked the village of Qasra, south of Nablus city, and destroyed vast areas of its farmland, local sources said. Ghassan Daghlas, in-charge of monitoring settlement activity north of the West Bank, said on Sunday that the settlers from various settlements established on the village’s land attacked the village on Saturday. He said that the settlers demolished walls built by the farmers to protect their land in the village, adding that the farmers were working on building those walls for the past five months. Dahglas said that Israeli occupation forces arrested an old man in the village for trying to resist the settlers. |
Settlers Vandalize Palestinian Vehicles in East Jerusalem
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA
JERUSALEM, November 25, 2012 (WAFA) – A group of Jewish settlers late Saturday vandalized and slashed the tires of eight vehicles belonging to Palestinians in the East Jerusalem area of Sho’fat, according to local witnesses.
They told WAFA that settlers slashed the tires of eight parked Palestinians’ cars, as well as sprayed “Price Tag, Gaza” on one of the cars.
Activist: Israelis to Expand Settlement near Bethlehem
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA
BETHLEHEM, November 24, 2012 (WAFA) - Israeli forces Saturday razed agricultural land near Bethlehem apparently to expand an illegal settlement, according to an activist.
Coordinator of the Popular Committee against Settlements and the Apartheid Wall in al-Khader, Ahmad Salah, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers accompanied by bulldozers razed Palestinian land with an aim to expand the settlement of Danial, built on land belonging to the town of al-Khader, west of Bethlehem.
He said Israeli soldiers have also closed with mounds of dirt and big rocks a number of roads in the area preventing residents from accessing them.
UK calls for U.S. focus on Israel-Palestinian issue
Reuters
(Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday urged the United States to take a more active role in seeking a lasting settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a "final chance" for a two-state solution.
Eight days of fighting between Israel and Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled enclave of Gaza diverted U.S. President Barack Obama's attention to the Middle East as he toured Asia on his first trip abroad after this month's election.
Hague told the BBC it was "time for a huge effort on the Middle East peace process".
"This is what I have been calling for, particularly calling for the United States now after their election to show the necessary leadership on this over the coming months, because they have crucial leverage with Israel and no other country has," Hague said.
"We're coming to the final chance maybe for a two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he added.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke off from Obama's tour of Asia to help negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to end this month's bout violence.
Recent U.S. efforts to coax the Palestinians and Israelis back into negotiations to agree a long term peace have failed, and talks are set become even more fraught if the Palestinians succeed in securing recognition as an "observer state".
A vote on the diplomatic upgrade could take place later this month at the U.N. General Assembly, and if successful would implicitly recognize Palestinian statehood. Israel and the United States oppose the move and call for a return to talks.
The last direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank broke down in 2010 over the issue of Jewish settlement building across the territory.
Britain has also been pushing the United States, a close ally, to take a bigger role in helping to end the conflict in Syria, with Prime Minister David Cameron calling for greater engagement within hours of Obama's re-election.
(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Alison Williams)
(Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday urged the United States to take a more active role in seeking a lasting settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a "final chance" for a two-state solution.
Eight days of fighting between Israel and Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled enclave of Gaza diverted U.S. President Barack Obama's attention to the Middle East as he toured Asia on his first trip abroad after this month's election.
Hague told the BBC it was "time for a huge effort on the Middle East peace process".
"This is what I have been calling for, particularly calling for the United States now after their election to show the necessary leadership on this over the coming months, because they have crucial leverage with Israel and no other country has," Hague said.
"We're coming to the final chance maybe for a two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he added.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke off from Obama's tour of Asia to help negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to end this month's bout violence.
Recent U.S. efforts to coax the Palestinians and Israelis back into negotiations to agree a long term peace have failed, and talks are set become even more fraught if the Palestinians succeed in securing recognition as an "observer state".
A vote on the diplomatic upgrade could take place later this month at the U.N. General Assembly, and if successful would implicitly recognize Palestinian statehood. Israel and the United States oppose the move and call for a return to talks.
The last direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank broke down in 2010 over the issue of Jewish settlement building across the territory.
Britain has also been pushing the United States, a close ally, to take a bigger role in helping to end the conflict in Syria, with Prime Minister David Cameron calling for greater engagement within hours of Obama's re-election.
(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Alison Williams)
Israel may strike at ship allegedly carrying Iranian rockets to Gaza
RT
Israel has reportedly vowed to destroy rockets and other weapons being sent to Gaza by Iran. Tel Aviv issued this threat despite a recent ceasefire following eight days of bitter conflict between Gaza and Israel.
Israeli spy satellites spotted a cargo vessel in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas that was allegedly Gaza-bound and carrying arms, the Sunday Times reported.
“Regardless of the ceasefire agreement, we will attack and destroy any shipment of arms to Gaza once we have spotted it,” an Israeli defense official told the newspaper.
The vessel reportedly began its voyage last week just as Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire ending eight days of violence in Gaza, in which over 150 Palestinians died. The cargo is believed to include Fajr-5 rockets, similar to those used by Hamas in the conflict, and Shahab-3 ballistic missiles.
The ship is set to travel through the Red Sea, Sudan and Egypt, according to the Sunday Times report. Later, the weapons will be transported across the desert, disassembled and then smuggled through Sinai tunnels into Gaza. There, the arms will be reassembled by Hamas forces.
The Sunday Times’ report comes a day after the Hamas leadership announced they aren’t ready to stop arming themselves, despite the recently-agreed truce and ceasefire.
"We have no choice but to continue to bring in weapons by all possible means," senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters, adding that he expected Tehran would "increase its military and financial support to Hamas."
Earlier on Wednesday, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal thanked Shia-majority Iran for what he described as arms and funding.
On Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed support for Gaza in the bloody conflict, praising what he called Palestinian "resistance and perseverance" against Israel, which he said must now "bow" to Palestinian rights, IRNA news agency reported.
The eight-day Israeli assault on Gaza killed 168 Palestinians, mostly civilians. It also led to $300 million in economic damage, a Palestinian Chamber of Commerce report said.
Israel has reportedly vowed to destroy rockets and other weapons being sent to Gaza by Iran. Tel Aviv issued this threat despite a recent ceasefire following eight days of bitter conflict between Gaza and Israel.
Israeli spy satellites spotted a cargo vessel in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas that was allegedly Gaza-bound and carrying arms, the Sunday Times reported.
“Regardless of the ceasefire agreement, we will attack and destroy any shipment of arms to Gaza once we have spotted it,” an Israeli defense official told the newspaper.
The vessel reportedly began its voyage last week just as Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire ending eight days of violence in Gaza, in which over 150 Palestinians died. The cargo is believed to include Fajr-5 rockets, similar to those used by Hamas in the conflict, and Shahab-3 ballistic missiles.
The ship is set to travel through the Red Sea, Sudan and Egypt, according to the Sunday Times report. Later, the weapons will be transported across the desert, disassembled and then smuggled through Sinai tunnels into Gaza. There, the arms will be reassembled by Hamas forces.
The Sunday Times’ report comes a day after the Hamas leadership announced they aren’t ready to stop arming themselves, despite the recently-agreed truce and ceasefire.
"We have no choice but to continue to bring in weapons by all possible means," senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters, adding that he expected Tehran would "increase its military and financial support to Hamas."
Earlier on Wednesday, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal thanked Shia-majority Iran for what he described as arms and funding.
On Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed support for Gaza in the bloody conflict, praising what he called Palestinian "resistance and perseverance" against Israel, which he said must now "bow" to Palestinian rights, IRNA news agency reported.
The eight-day Israeli assault on Gaza killed 168 Palestinians, mostly civilians. It also led to $300 million in economic damage, a Palestinian Chamber of Commerce report said.
Hezbollah threatens rocket barrage if Israel attacks Lebanon |
Maan News Agency
Published today (updated) 25/11/2012 13:05
BEIRUT (Reuters) -- Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel on Sunday that thousands of rockets would rain down on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities if Israel attacked Lebanon.
In a speech marking the Shiite Muslim festival of Ashura, Nasrallah said Hezbollah's response to any attack would dwarf the attacks from Gaza during the eight-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
"Israel, which was shaken by a handful of Fajr-5 rockets during eight days - how would it cope with thousands of rockets which would fall on Tel Aviv and other (cities)... if it attacked Lebanon?" he said in speech, relayed by video-link to tens of thousands of Shiite faithful in central Beirut.
Hezbollah, which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006, flew a drone over Israel last month, further escalating tensions in the region after Israel threatened to bomb the nuclear sites of Hezbollah's patron Iran.
Nasrallah said the rockets fired into Israel during the Gaza conflict had a range of between 40 to 70 km, while Hezbollah could strike anywhere from Israel's northern border to its southern Red Sea port of Eilat.
The mourning festival of Ashura commemorates the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein and most of his family, leading to the division of Islam into Sunni and Shiite sects, a split that continues to plague the Islamic world.
In a speech marking the Shiite Muslim festival of Ashura, Nasrallah said Hezbollah's response to any attack would dwarf the attacks from Gaza during the eight-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
"Israel, which was shaken by a handful of Fajr-5 rockets during eight days - how would it cope with thousands of rockets which would fall on Tel Aviv and other (cities)... if it attacked Lebanon?" he said in speech, relayed by video-link to tens of thousands of Shiite faithful in central Beirut.
Hezbollah, which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006, flew a drone over Israel last month, further escalating tensions in the region after Israel threatened to bomb the nuclear sites of Hezbollah's patron Iran.
Nasrallah said the rockets fired into Israel during the Gaza conflict had a range of between 40 to 70 km, while Hezbollah could strike anywhere from Israel's northern border to its southern Red Sea port of Eilat.
The mourning festival of Ashura commemorates the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein and most of his family, leading to the division of Islam into Sunni and Shiite sects, a split that continues to plague the Islamic world.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Gaza children return to rubble-strewn schools
Maan News Agency
Published today 19:02
Palestinian school girls inspect their school, damaged in an Israeli
airstrike, in Gaza City Nov. 24, 2012. (Reuters/Ahmed Zakot)
airstrike, in Gaza City Nov. 24, 2012. (Reuters/Ahmed Zakot)
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Pupils returning to schools in the Gaza Strip on Saturday found many had been reduced to rubble after Israel's eight-day bombardment of the coastal enclave.
Gaza's ministry of education said 52 schools had sustained moderate to severe damage during the Israeli bombing campaign.
Ministry director Mahmoud Matar said after visiting schools on Saturday that the scale of the wreckage was close to that of Israel's 2008-9 war on the Gaza Strip.
He said reconstruction of Gaza's schools would cost approximately $4 million. Some were hit directly by Israeli airstrikes, while others were damaged by hits on nearby buildings, Matar said.
Aid group Oxfam said earlier this week that an Israeli airstrike had destroyed one kindergarten it has funded in Gaza City, and left another damaged.
The UN Mine Action Service is surveying damaged schools and found one unexploded F16 missile next to a severely damaged school in Tal El-Rabee on Thursday, the UN humanitarian affairs office said.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Thursday expressed "deep concern at the devastating and lasting impact the crisis in Gaza and Israel is having on children." At least 33 Palestinian children were killed in Israel's aerial bombardment.
"Destruction of homes and damage to schools, streets and other public facilities gravely affect children and deprive them of their basic rights," the committee added.
Gaza ministry official Matar said the first day back to school on Saturday was dedicated to psychological support and voluntary work to clean the schools and remove rubble.
Meanwhile, pupils in schools that have been destroyed will take afternoon classes in other school buildings until their facilities are repaired or rebuilt, Matar said.
Headmistress of UN-sponsored al-Bureij girls preparatory school, Hanan Abu Yousif, was stunned when she found her school in pieces on Saturday morning.
"The school that used to win competitions has been turned into rubble," she said.
Gaza's ministry of education said 52 schools had sustained moderate to severe damage during the Israeli bombing campaign.
Ministry director Mahmoud Matar said after visiting schools on Saturday that the scale of the wreckage was close to that of Israel's 2008-9 war on the Gaza Strip.
He said reconstruction of Gaza's schools would cost approximately $4 million. Some were hit directly by Israeli airstrikes, while others were damaged by hits on nearby buildings, Matar said.
Aid group Oxfam said earlier this week that an Israeli airstrike had destroyed one kindergarten it has funded in Gaza City, and left another damaged.
The UN Mine Action Service is surveying damaged schools and found one unexploded F16 missile next to a severely damaged school in Tal El-Rabee on Thursday, the UN humanitarian affairs office said.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Thursday expressed "deep concern at the devastating and lasting impact the crisis in Gaza and Israel is having on children." At least 33 Palestinian children were killed in Israel's aerial bombardment.
"Destruction of homes and damage to schools, streets and other public facilities gravely affect children and deprive them of their basic rights," the committee added.
Gaza ministry official Matar said the first day back to school on Saturday was dedicated to psychological support and voluntary work to clean the schools and remove rubble.
Meanwhile, pupils in schools that have been destroyed will take afternoon classes in other school buildings until their facilities are repaired or rebuilt, Matar said.
Headmistress of UN-sponsored al-Bureij girls preparatory school, Hanan Abu Yousif, was stunned when she found her school in pieces on Saturday morning.
"The school that used to win competitions has been turned into rubble," she said.
Palestine complains to UN after Israel violates Gaza ceasefire
Maan News Agency
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Palestine's UN observer has submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council after Israeli forces violated the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters he filed a complaint after Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man and injured 19 others Friday morning east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip near the borders between Israel and the coastal enclave.
Medical officials on Friday confirmed that 20-year-old Anwar Abdul Hadi Qudaih, was shot dead east of Khan Younis, and 19 others sustained wounds.
Witnesses said a group of Palestinian farmers were preparing to perform prayers in their fields near the border in the southern Gaza Strip before Israeli soldiers opened fire at them.
The Palestinian Authority’s minister of foreign affairs Riyad al-Maliki described the shooting Friday during a meeting with his Italian counterpart as violation of the ceasefire.
On Thursday medics said four Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire near the fence. An army spokesman said 200 Palestinians approached the fence and "began rioting" before causing damage to the fence.
Wednesday's ceasefire deal ended eight days of fierce fighting that left over 170 Palestinians and six Israelis dead.
According to the terms of the accord, both Israelis and Palestinians agreed to stop their hostilities. However, the brief document left details on access to the tense border zone to be worked out in the days ahead.
Published today (updated) 24/11/2012 12:15
Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters he filed a complaint after Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man and injured 19 others Friday morning east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip near the borders between Israel and the coastal enclave.
Medical officials on Friday confirmed that 20-year-old Anwar Abdul Hadi Qudaih, was shot dead east of Khan Younis, and 19 others sustained wounds.
Witnesses said a group of Palestinian farmers were preparing to perform prayers in their fields near the border in the southern Gaza Strip before Israeli soldiers opened fire at them.
The Palestinian Authority’s minister of foreign affairs Riyad al-Maliki described the shooting Friday during a meeting with his Italian counterpart as violation of the ceasefire.
On Thursday medics said four Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire near the fence. An army spokesman said 200 Palestinians approached the fence and "began rioting" before causing damage to the fence.
Wednesday's ceasefire deal ended eight days of fierce fighting that left over 170 Palestinians and six Israelis dead.
According to the terms of the accord, both Israelis and Palestinians agreed to stop their hostilities. However, the brief document left details on access to the tense border zone to be worked out in the days ahead.
Hamas says fishing limit to extend under ceasefire deal
Maan News Agency
Published today 13:51
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) – Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian officials representing the Hamas-run government in Gaza will meet next Monday in Cairo to discuss the aftermath of the ceasefire agreement.
The Office of the Gaza Prime Minister says Ismail Haniyeh was informed by the director of Egyptian intelligence that Israel agreed to allow Gaza fishermen to go six nautical miles off the coast of Gaza instead of three, which has been the limit under Israel's siege.
Haniyeh's office said in a statement that the border zone would also be addressed in the meeting among other things.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed on a 20-nautical-mile fishing zone off Gaza's coast under the Oslo Accords, but Israel unilaterally imposes a 3-mile limit.
Israeli warships frequently open fire at boats that allegedly stray from the permitted area.
Fishermen say the limits have destroyed their livelihood and that it is impossible to trawl a large catch within the designated area.
Israel has controlled Gaza waters since its occupation of the area in 1967, and has kept several warships stationed off the coast since 2008.
The Office of the Gaza Prime Minister says Ismail Haniyeh was informed by the director of Egyptian intelligence that Israel agreed to allow Gaza fishermen to go six nautical miles off the coast of Gaza instead of three, which has been the limit under Israel's siege.
Haniyeh's office said in a statement that the border zone would also be addressed in the meeting among other things.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed on a 20-nautical-mile fishing zone off Gaza's coast under the Oslo Accords, but Israel unilaterally imposes a 3-mile limit.
Israeli warships frequently open fire at boats that allegedly stray from the permitted area.
Fishermen say the limits have destroyed their livelihood and that it is impossible to trawl a large catch within the designated area.
Israel has controlled Gaza waters since its occupation of the area in 1967, and has kept several warships stationed off the coast since 2008.
Israel Expands West Bank Arrests After Gaza Accord Ends Fighting
- Bloomberg
By Saud Abu Ramadan and Sharon Wrobel
Israeli security forces extended a wave of arrests in the West Bank three days after a cease-fire ended the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army has detained 83 Palestinians since the accord went into effect late on Nov. 21, including some suspected of involvement in a bomb attack on a Tel Aviv bus earlier that day, a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with military rules. Hamas, which controls Gaza, said in an e-mail today that 230 people have been arrested, including six Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament.
The accord brokered by Egypt and the U.S. ended eight days of air strikes and missile firing that left more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis dead. The cease-fire has largely held since it was announced late on Nov. 21, though both sides said there were breaches yesterday.
Hamas said one Palestinian was killed and at least 19 injured after Israeli border guards opened fire. The group, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, said it has complained to Egypt about the incident and won’t take further action. Israel said groups of Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip had hurled rocks and tried to damage the security fence.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which operates 245 schools in Gaza, said on its website that they will all reopen today and offer “increased services to traumatized children.”
The UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child said on Nov. 22 that the Gaza conflict will have a “devastating and lasting impact” on children on both sides. It said at least 26 children in Gaza were killed and more than 400 injured, while 14 children in southern Israel were wounded by Palestinian missiles.
reporters on this story: Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City at sramadan@bloomberg.net; Sharon Wrobel in Tel Aviv at swrobel4@bloomberg.net.
By Saud Abu Ramadan and Sharon Wrobel
Israeli security forces extended a wave of arrests in the West Bank three days after a cease-fire ended the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army has detained 83 Palestinians since the accord went into effect late on Nov. 21, including some suspected of involvement in a bomb attack on a Tel Aviv bus earlier that day, a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with military rules. Hamas, which controls Gaza, said in an e-mail today that 230 people have been arrested, including six Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament.
The accord brokered by Egypt and the U.S. ended eight days of air strikes and missile firing that left more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis dead. The cease-fire has largely held since it was announced late on Nov. 21, though both sides said there were breaches yesterday.
Hamas said one Palestinian was killed and at least 19 injured after Israeli border guards opened fire. The group, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, said it has complained to Egypt about the incident and won’t take further action. Israel said groups of Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip had hurled rocks and tried to damage the security fence.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which operates 245 schools in Gaza, said on its website that they will all reopen today and offer “increased services to traumatized children.”
The UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child said on Nov. 22 that the Gaza conflict will have a “devastating and lasting impact” on children on both sides. It said at least 26 children in Gaza were killed and more than 400 injured, while 14 children in southern Israel were wounded by Palestinian missiles.
reporters on this story: Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City at sramadan@bloomberg.net; Sharon Wrobel in Tel Aviv at swrobel4@bloomberg.net.
IOF soldiers arrest MP Mansour
IOF soldiers arrest MP Mansour
 |
| NABLUS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested MP Yasser Mansour after storming his home at dawn Saturday in Nablus city. Local sources said that IOF soldiers broke into the home of the Hamas MP then took him away. The detention of Mansour comes only one day after an intensified IOF arrest campaign in the West Bank that included five Hamas MPs and dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists and supporters. |
Gaza children return to school after Israeli offensive, share war experiences in classrooms - OrlandoSentinel.com
Gaza children return to school after Israeli offensive, share war experiences in classrooms - OrlandoSentinel.com: By Associated Press
4:54 a.m. EST, November 24, 2012
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of children are returning to school in the Gaza Strip after eight days of cross-border fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave.
Israel carried out about 1,500 airstrikes against Hamas-linked targets in Gaza, while militants fired about as many rockets into Israel.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that 156 Palestinians were killed, including 33 children and minors under 18. Rockets from Gaza killed six Israelis. The group says most of more than 1,000 wounded Gazans were civilians. Dozens of Israelis were also hurt.
Gaza's schools reopened Saturday. Adnan Abu Hassna, spokesman for a U.N. aid agency, says tens of thousands of students at 245 U.N.-run schools spent the first day talking about their experiences during the fighting.
4:54 a.m. EST, November 24, 2012
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of children are returning to school in the Gaza Strip after eight days of cross-border fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave.
Israel carried out about 1,500 airstrikes against Hamas-linked targets in Gaza, while militants fired about as many rockets into Israel.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that 156 Palestinians were killed, including 33 children and minors under 18. Rockets from Gaza killed six Israelis. The group says most of more than 1,000 wounded Gazans were civilians. Dozens of Israelis were also hurt.
Gaza's schools reopened Saturday. Adnan Abu Hassna, spokesman for a U.N. aid agency, says tens of thousands of students at 245 U.N.-run schools spent the first day talking about their experiences during the fighting.
Israel limits Palestinian access to holy site
- Al Jazeera English
Israel has restricted Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and arrested six Hamas members, a day after one Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire along the Gaza-Israel border.
The shooting tested a tenious ceasefire agreement signed by Hamas-led Gaza and Israel on Wednesday night.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party are preparing for a primary on Sunday amid signs its popularity is slipping among Israelis who would have preferred a ground invasion of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Tensions on the streets of occupied Arab east Jerusalem were high on Friday, the day after angry demonstrators stormed an Israeli police station in a bid to secure the release of a Palestinian woman who tried to stab a border guard.
The Israeli army has arrested about 100 Palestinians since the ceasefire was signed.
Twenty-eight suspects were arrested from the West Bank, including six Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council on Friday night in the wake of a security sweep on Thursday in which 55 "terror operatives" were arrested.
Israeli authorities said the men had been arrested in connection with a bus bomb attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
"Members of this cell in Beit Lakya linked to Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad admitted during their interrogation having planned attacks against Israelis, prepared a bomb and chosen Tel Aviv as a target," a statement by Israel's security agency, Shin Bet said on Thursday.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said at the time that more arrests were also expected.
Seperately, Israel has also barred Palestinians under the age of 40 from accessing the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site, which is also revered by Jews.
The mosque compound has been the focus of past clashes, and the Israeli army says it sought to prevent any repetition that could jeopardise the truce ending eight days of fighting in which more than a 160 Palestinians and five Israelis died.
Ceasefire upheld
The Egypt-negotiated ceasefire was however holding, despite one Palestinian having been killed by Israeli fire at the border line between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and rockets allegedly having been fired at Israel from Gaza in the first post-truce hours.
The first post-conflict casualty, Anwar Qdeih, was killed when Israeli soldiers reportedly opened fire on a group of farmers near the Gaza border on Friday. Nineteen other Palestinians were injured in the village of Khuzaa.
"This is the first Israeli violation of the truce," Sami Abu Zuhri of the Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza told AFP news agency.
No reprisal rockets were fired by Hamas but Abu Zuhri said he would raise the "violation" with Egyptian mediators.
Another young Palestinian was announced dead on Friday after having "inhaled a poisonous gas" during repairs of a tunnel damaged in an Israeli air strike on the southern sector of Rafah, bordering Egypt, the Hamas health ministry said.
Israel has restricted Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and arrested six Hamas members, a day after one Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire along the Gaza-Israel border.
The shooting tested a tenious ceasefire agreement signed by Hamas-led Gaza and Israel on Wednesday night.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party are preparing for a primary on Sunday amid signs its popularity is slipping among Israelis who would have preferred a ground invasion of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Tensions on the streets of occupied Arab east Jerusalem were high on Friday, the day after angry demonstrators stormed an Israeli police station in a bid to secure the release of a Palestinian woman who tried to stab a border guard.
The Israeli army has arrested about 100 Palestinians since the ceasefire was signed.
Twenty-eight suspects were arrested from the West Bank, including six Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council on Friday night in the wake of a security sweep on Thursday in which 55 "terror operatives" were arrested.
Israeli authorities said the men had been arrested in connection with a bus bomb attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
"Members of this cell in Beit Lakya linked to Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad admitted during their interrogation having planned attacks against Israelis, prepared a bomb and chosen Tel Aviv as a target," a statement by Israel's security agency, Shin Bet said on Thursday.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said at the time that more arrests were also expected.
Seperately, Israel has also barred Palestinians under the age of 40 from accessing the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site, which is also revered by Jews.
The mosque compound has been the focus of past clashes, and the Israeli army says it sought to prevent any repetition that could jeopardise the truce ending eight days of fighting in which more than a 160 Palestinians and five Israelis died.
Ceasefire upheld
The Egypt-negotiated ceasefire was however holding, despite one Palestinian having been killed by Israeli fire at the border line between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and rockets allegedly having been fired at Israel from Gaza in the first post-truce hours.
The first post-conflict casualty, Anwar Qdeih, was killed when Israeli soldiers reportedly opened fire on a group of farmers near the Gaza border on Friday. Nineteen other Palestinians were injured in the village of Khuzaa.
"This is the first Israeli violation of the truce," Sami Abu Zuhri of the Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza told AFP news agency.
No reprisal rockets were fired by Hamas but Abu Zuhri said he would raise the "violation" with Egyptian mediators.
Another young Palestinian was announced dead on Friday after having "inhaled a poisonous gas" during repairs of a tunnel damaged in an Israeli air strike on the southern sector of Rafah, bordering Egypt, the Hamas health ministry said.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Israel Breaks Cease-Fire Over Border Fence Protests
« The Agonist
One Palestinian man is dead and nineteen others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on them during non-violent protests at the border fence that is the physical form of Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza. The Palestinian protesters were resumably still on Gazan territory but:
If this new ceasefire is to hold for any time, it seems to me, then the international community – and especially the US – must rein in the casual way in which Israel’s military turns to violence against what it obviously sees as lesser beings getting uppity, apartheid-style. No-one should be expected to endure that level of persecution and yet keep the peace themselves.
One Palestinian man is dead and nineteen others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on them during non-violent protests at the border fence that is the physical form of Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza. The Palestinian protesters were resumably still on Gazan territory but:
Soldiers fired warning shots in the air to distance the Palestinians from the fence, but after they refused to move back, troops fired at their legs, the military said.Gazan militant groups, rather than shooting back, informed Egypt formally of this violation of the new truce.
If this new ceasefire is to hold for any time, it seems to me, then the international community – and especially the US – must rein in the casual way in which Israel’s military turns to violence against what it obviously sees as lesser beings getting uppity, apartheid-style. No-one should be expected to endure that level of persecution and yet keep the peace themselves.
Death toll of the Dalou family massacre rises to 13
Death toll of the Dalou family massacre rises to 13:
GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip reported that rescue teams located two bodies buried under the rubble of al-Dalou's home that was bombarded by the military four days ago. This Brings the number of Dalou family members killed in the Israeli shelling to 13.
The sources added that rescue teams found the bodies of Mohammed and Ranin al-Dalou under the rubble of the bombed home.
Since the Israeli military offensive against Gaza Started eight days ago, the army killed more than 164 Palestinians, and wounded more than 1100.
GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip reported that rescue teams located two bodies buried under the rubble of al-Dalou's home that was bombarded by the military four days ago. This Brings the number of Dalou family members killed in the Israeli shelling to 13.
The sources added that rescue teams found the bodies of Mohammed and Ranin al-Dalou under the rubble of the bombed home.
Since the Israeli military offensive against Gaza Started eight days ago, the army killed more than 164 Palestinians, and wounded more than 1100.
43 children killed and 432 wounded during aggression on Gaza
43 children killed and 432 wounded during aggression on Gaza
 |
| GAZA, (PIC)-- 43 children were killed while 432 others were injured during the 8-day Israeli occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip according to Palestinian medical sources. The sources in Gaza said that "the number of children killed during the Israeli occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip, which started on the evening of Wednesday, 14 November, and lasted till Wednesday 21 Novembe, was 43 children, which represents 27% of the total number of martyrs." The sources added that “more than 432 children were injured and that this number represents 35% of the total number of the wounded. " Five children were killed in airstrikes at different parts in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, before the truce came into effect at 9:00 pm. |
PCHR Weekly Report: 158 Palestinians killed, including 33 children; 1,000 wounded in last week
For the full text of the report, click on the link below:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_...focus
via International Middle East Media Center
by PCHR-Gaza In its Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 14 -21 Nov. 2012, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that during the 8-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, 156 Palestinians, including 103 civilians were killed by Israeli forces. 33 children, 13 women and 3 journalists were among those civilians who were killed. 1,000 Palestinians, including 971 civilians, were wounded.
247 children, 162 women and 12 journalists were among those civilians who were wounded. Israeli forces carried out 1,350 airstrikes, in which 1,400 missiles were launched. 55 houses were completely destroyed, while hundreds of other houses sustained damages ranging between big damage and partial damage.
2 mosques were completely destroyed, while another 34 mosques sustained partial or complete damage. 8 governmental establishments, 13 security offices and police stations, and 2 bridges connecting the central Gaza Strip with the northern Gaza Strip were destroyed. 6 media offices, 6 health institutions, 28 educational institutions and 22 civil and charity associations were targeted.
Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip:
During the reporting period, Israeli forces launched a new offensive on the Gaza Strip that started at 14:45 on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, and ended at approximately 21:00 on Wednesday, 21 November 2012. The offensive ended as a result of an agreement that was reached between the Israeli government and Palestinian resistance groups under the auspices of Egypt.
Similar to the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip (‘Operation Cast Lead’) in 2008-2009, the main victims of this recent offensive were civilians. Hundreds of civilians, the majority of whom were children and women, were killed and wounded. Furthermore, entire families passed away under the rubble of their houses, which were cruelly and intentionally shelled by Israeli forces. This offensive increased the suffering of the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli imposed illegal closure for 6 years, due to which the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following ‘Operation Cast Lead’ was hindered.
During the 8-day Israeli offensive Israeli forces, especially warplanes, attacked the entire Gaza Strip, leaving no place to be safe. Israeli forces targeted houses, destroyed them completely, in addition to targeting other civilian objects, governmental establishments, police stations, mosques, schools, hospitals, health clinics, streets, bridges, and service centers. These targeted areas were densely populated areas, due to which the number of civilian casualties increased. Moreover, Israeli forces intentionally and directly targeted journalists and media offices, killing 3 journalists and injuring 12 others. Numbers and statistics mentioned in this report reflect the scale of the attacks carried out during this military operation.
The Israeli offensive resulted in the killing of 156 Palestinians, including 103 civilians. 33 children, 13 women and 3 journalists were among those civilians who were killed. In addition, entire families were killed, such as 8-members of the al-Dalo family. However, until now a girl still remains under the rubble of the family house. Furthermore, the offensive resulted in the wounding of 1,000 Palestinians, including 978 civilians. 276 children, 163 women and 12 journalists were among the civilians who were wounded.
The first attack was conducted on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, when Israeli forces extra-judicially executed the leader of Ezz Eddin al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas movement), Ahmed al-Ja'bari, and his bodyguard. A comprehensive offensive was then launched on civil and military targets throughout the Gaza Strip.
During the offensive, Israeli forces carried out 1,350 air strikes, in which 1,400 missiles were launched, in addition to artillery shells fired by land and naval forces. The Israeli attacks resulted in the following:
55 houses were completely destroyed, while hundreds of other houses sustained damages ranging between extensive damage and partial damage.
2 mosques were completely destroyed, while other 34 mosques sustained partial or extensive damage;
8 governmental establishments were destroyed, the most prominent of which were the Prime Minister's head office and the Governmental Compound (Abu Khadra) in Gaza City;
13 security offices and police stations were destroyed, the most prominent of which was the Police Headquarter in Gaza City;
2 bridges connecting the centre of the Gaza Strip with the northern Gaza Strip were destroyed;
6 media offices and 6 health institutions were targeted;
28 educational institutions sustained major damage.
In one example of this week’s many airstrikes, on Sunday November 18th, at approximately 16:30, Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a vehicle which is used to distribute clean water, in which Suhail Aashour Mohammed Hamada, 42, and his child, 10-year-old Aashour, were traveling in Beir al-Naja area in Beit Lahia. The father and his child were instantly killed.
The same evening, at approximately 21:55, an Israeli drone fi red a missile at Jalal Mohammed Saleh Nasser, 42, and his child, 8-year-old Hussein, while they were trying to fix the water tank on the roof of their house at Abu Sharekh intersection in Jabalya town. The father and his child were instantly killed.
On Monday, November 19th, at approximately 19:25, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a house belonging to Fuad Khalil Hijazi, 46, in the north of Jabalya. The house was destroyed and Hijazi and his 3 children, 4-year old Mohammed and 2-year-old Suhaib, were killed, and 20 civilians, including 7 residents of the house, were wounded.
Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations:
Israeli forces used excessive force to disperse peaceful protests organized by Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. 2 Palestinian demonstrators were killed; one in Ramallah and the other one in Hebron.
In the wake of Israeli forces's assassination of Ahmed al-Ja'bari, Commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, on Wednesday evening, 14 November 2012, the West Bank witnessed a wide scale popular movement throughout its cities. Israeli forces used excessive force against these peaceful demonstrations. As a result, two Palestinian civilians were killed, 102 sustained injuries, including 21 children, a woman and a paramedic.
During incursions conducted by Israeli forces during the reporting period, 4 Palestinians, including 2 children, sustained wounds. On Friday, 15 November 2012, a child sustained wounds in al-Tabka village, west of Doura, southwest of Hebron, when Israeli forces moved into the village. Another civilian was wounded in al-Nouba village, west of the city. On Saturday, 17 November 2012, a child sustained wounds when Israeli forces moved into al-'Aroub Refugee Camp, north of Hebron. On 20 November 2012, Israeli forces abducted the child from his home. On Sunday, 18 November 2012, a Palestinian civilian was injured in Beit Umar village, north of Hebron, when Israeli forces moved to the village. They also abducted his brother, a physically disabled ex-prisoner. According to eyewitnesses, the injured civilian went out to see where Israeli forces were leading his brother when they fired at him, injuring him in the back and shoulder. They also beat him severely before transporting him with an Israeli forces ambulance.
In the same sense, Israeli forces continued to systematically use excessive force against peaceful demonstrations, organized by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights activists, protesting the continued construction of the annexation wall and settlement activity in the West Bank. As a result, 3 Palestinian civilians sustained wounds. In Bil’ein village, west of Ramallah, Adeib Abu Rahmah, 41, member of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlement Activity, was hit by a tear gas canister to the right foot, while his son, Ahmed Adeib Abu Rahmah, 12, was injured with a metal bullet to the back. Also in Kufor Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilya, a civilian sustained an injury in the head by a gas canister, and dozens of demonstrators sustained bruises and suffered from tear gas inhalation.
Israeli attacks in the West Bank:
The Israeli forces conducted 77 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank
The Israeli forces abducted 76 Palestinians, including 6 children, ex-prisoner Tha'er Halahla, and two women.
4 Palestinians, including 2 children, were wounded during incursions conducted by Israeli forces. In addition, 2 of the wounded persons were abducted.
The Israeli forces established dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israeli settlement activities:
Israeli settlers in the West Bank have continued to commit crimes against Palestinian civilians. These attacks are conducted under the incitement of the Israeli government, encourages settlers to conduct more attacks in presence of Israeli soldiers, who offer protection to them. In addition, the Israeli government neglects to carry out investigations after complaints are filed by the Palestinian civilians against the settlers. These attacks are carried out in with the entire world as a witness and an Arab world and larger international community that remains silent, due to which Israel continues to commit more crimes, promoting the perception of Israel as a state above the law.
Recommendations to the international community:
Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made a number of recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that that international civil society organizations, including human rights organizations, bar associations and NGOs, participate in the process of exposing those accused of grave breaches of international law and urge their governments to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The PCHR calls upon the European Union to 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 Occupied Palestinian Territories.
For the full text of the report, click on the link below:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_...focus
2 mosques were completely destroyed, while another 34 mosques sustained partial or complete damage. 8 governmental establishments, 13 security offices and police stations, and 2 bridges connecting the central Gaza Strip with the northern Gaza Strip were destroyed. 6 media offices, 6 health institutions, 28 educational institutions and 22 civil and charity associations were targeted.
Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip:
During the reporting period, Israeli forces launched a new offensive on the Gaza Strip that started at 14:45 on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, and ended at approximately 21:00 on Wednesday, 21 November 2012. The offensive ended as a result of an agreement that was reached between the Israeli government and Palestinian resistance groups under the auspices of Egypt.
Similar to the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip (‘Operation Cast Lead’) in 2008-2009, the main victims of this recent offensive were civilians. Hundreds of civilians, the majority of whom were children and women, were killed and wounded. Furthermore, entire families passed away under the rubble of their houses, which were cruelly and intentionally shelled by Israeli forces. This offensive increased the suffering of the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli imposed illegal closure for 6 years, due to which the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following ‘Operation Cast Lead’ was hindered.
During the 8-day Israeli offensive Israeli forces, especially warplanes, attacked the entire Gaza Strip, leaving no place to be safe. Israeli forces targeted houses, destroyed them completely, in addition to targeting other civilian objects, governmental establishments, police stations, mosques, schools, hospitals, health clinics, streets, bridges, and service centers. These targeted areas were densely populated areas, due to which the number of civilian casualties increased. Moreover, Israeli forces intentionally and directly targeted journalists and media offices, killing 3 journalists and injuring 12 others. Numbers and statistics mentioned in this report reflect the scale of the attacks carried out during this military operation.
The Israeli offensive resulted in the killing of 156 Palestinians, including 103 civilians. 33 children, 13 women and 3 journalists were among those civilians who were killed. In addition, entire families were killed, such as 8-members of the al-Dalo family. However, until now a girl still remains under the rubble of the family house. Furthermore, the offensive resulted in the wounding of 1,000 Palestinians, including 978 civilians. 276 children, 163 women and 12 journalists were among the civilians who were wounded.
The first attack was conducted on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, when Israeli forces extra-judicially executed the leader of Ezz Eddin al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas movement), Ahmed al-Ja'bari, and his bodyguard. A comprehensive offensive was then launched on civil and military targets throughout the Gaza Strip.
During the offensive, Israeli forces carried out 1,350 air strikes, in which 1,400 missiles were launched, in addition to artillery shells fired by land and naval forces. The Israeli attacks resulted in the following:
55 houses were completely destroyed, while hundreds of other houses sustained damages ranging between extensive damage and partial damage.
2 mosques were completely destroyed, while other 34 mosques sustained partial or extensive damage;
8 governmental establishments were destroyed, the most prominent of which were the Prime Minister's head office and the Governmental Compound (Abu Khadra) in Gaza City;
13 security offices and police stations were destroyed, the most prominent of which was the Police Headquarter in Gaza City;
2 bridges connecting the centre of the Gaza Strip with the northern Gaza Strip were destroyed;
6 media offices and 6 health institutions were targeted;
28 educational institutions sustained major damage.
In one example of this week’s many airstrikes, on Sunday November 18th, at approximately 16:30, Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a vehicle which is used to distribute clean water, in which Suhail Aashour Mohammed Hamada, 42, and his child, 10-year-old Aashour, were traveling in Beir al-Naja area in Beit Lahia. The father and his child were instantly killed.
The same evening, at approximately 21:55, an Israeli drone fi red a missile at Jalal Mohammed Saleh Nasser, 42, and his child, 8-year-old Hussein, while they were trying to fix the water tank on the roof of their house at Abu Sharekh intersection in Jabalya town. The father and his child were instantly killed.
On Monday, November 19th, at approximately 19:25, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a house belonging to Fuad Khalil Hijazi, 46, in the north of Jabalya. The house was destroyed and Hijazi and his 3 children, 4-year old Mohammed and 2-year-old Suhaib, were killed, and 20 civilians, including 7 residents of the house, were wounded.
Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations:
Israeli forces used excessive force to disperse peaceful protests organized by Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. 2 Palestinian demonstrators were killed; one in Ramallah and the other one in Hebron.
In the wake of Israeli forces's assassination of Ahmed al-Ja'bari, Commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, on Wednesday evening, 14 November 2012, the West Bank witnessed a wide scale popular movement throughout its cities. Israeli forces used excessive force against these peaceful demonstrations. As a result, two Palestinian civilians were killed, 102 sustained injuries, including 21 children, a woman and a paramedic.
During incursions conducted by Israeli forces during the reporting period, 4 Palestinians, including 2 children, sustained wounds. On Friday, 15 November 2012, a child sustained wounds in al-Tabka village, west of Doura, southwest of Hebron, when Israeli forces moved into the village. Another civilian was wounded in al-Nouba village, west of the city. On Saturday, 17 November 2012, a child sustained wounds when Israeli forces moved into al-'Aroub Refugee Camp, north of Hebron. On 20 November 2012, Israeli forces abducted the child from his home. On Sunday, 18 November 2012, a Palestinian civilian was injured in Beit Umar village, north of Hebron, when Israeli forces moved to the village. They also abducted his brother, a physically disabled ex-prisoner. According to eyewitnesses, the injured civilian went out to see where Israeli forces were leading his brother when they fired at him, injuring him in the back and shoulder. They also beat him severely before transporting him with an Israeli forces ambulance.
In the same sense, Israeli forces continued to systematically use excessive force against peaceful demonstrations, organized by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights activists, protesting the continued construction of the annexation wall and settlement activity in the West Bank. As a result, 3 Palestinian civilians sustained wounds. In Bil’ein village, west of Ramallah, Adeib Abu Rahmah, 41, member of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlement Activity, was hit by a tear gas canister to the right foot, while his son, Ahmed Adeib Abu Rahmah, 12, was injured with a metal bullet to the back. Also in Kufor Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilya, a civilian sustained an injury in the head by a gas canister, and dozens of demonstrators sustained bruises and suffered from tear gas inhalation.
Israeli attacks in the West Bank:
The Israeli forces conducted 77 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank
The Israeli forces abducted 76 Palestinians, including 6 children, ex-prisoner Tha'er Halahla, and two women.
4 Palestinians, including 2 children, were wounded during incursions conducted by Israeli forces. In addition, 2 of the wounded persons were abducted.
The Israeli forces established dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israeli settlement activities:
Israeli settlers in the West Bank have continued to commit crimes against Palestinian civilians. These attacks are conducted under the incitement of the Israeli government, encourages settlers to conduct more attacks in presence of Israeli soldiers, who offer protection to them. In addition, the Israeli government neglects to carry out investigations after complaints are filed by the Palestinian civilians against the settlers. These attacks are carried out in with the entire world as a witness and an Arab world and larger international community that remains silent, due to which Israel continues to commit more crimes, promoting the perception of Israel as a state above the law.
Recommendations to the international community:
Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made a number of recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that that international civil society organizations, including human rights organizations, bar associations and NGOs, participate in the process of exposing those accused of grave breaches of international law and urge their governments to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The PCHR calls upon the European Union to 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 Occupied Palestinian Territories.
For the full text of the report, click on the link below:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)