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Professor & physicist Stephen Hawking has joined the academic boycott of Israel “based upon his knowledge of Palestine & on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.”
In another stride forward in the campaign for boycott, divestment & sanctions against Israel, Hawking pulled out of a conference hosted by President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.
“The situation is like that of South Africa before 1990 and cannot continue,” Hawking said after Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza in 2009.
A female Palestinian runs bare foot as she takes part in the Palestinian Marathon and passes part of the Israeli ‘separation barrier,’ or wall in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, 21 April 2013.
Palestine’s Right to Movement marathon began with a tribute to Boston. How beautiful.
(Source: mediterraneenne)
In response to President Obama’s visit to Israel today, Palestinians built a new protest tent village of Afhad Younis in the E1 area. More than 15 tents were erected while anti-US & anti-Obama signs were scattered throughout the village near the site of the Bab al-Shams protest village that Israeli forces tore down in January.
Mohammad Khatib, a spokesman for the activists, said soldiers handed protesters a document declaring the area a closed military zone.
“We are staying. We are Palestinians, and we will stay here. They will have to evacuate us. They will have to use their power to do it, but we will not do it by ourselves,” Khatib told Ma’an.
“We are staying here because this is Palestinian land. This is our land, and no one has a right to evacuate us.”
Watch a video of the new protest site here.
(Source: maannews.net)
Fatima Altiti covered in her brother’s blood, Mahmoud Altiti after receiving his body earlier today. Mahmoud, 22, was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces with Dum-Dum bullets which are prohibited by international law. At such a young age, Mahmoud had spent 3 years in Israeli occupation prisons.
![How Israel gets away with torturing Palestinians to deathFebruary 26, 2013
Six days after Arafat Jaradat was arrested by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet, he was dead. Between the date of his arrest - February 18 - and the day of his death - February 23 - his lawyer Kamil Sabbagh met with Arafat only once: in front of a military judge at the Shin Bet’s Kishon interrogation facility.
Sabbagh reported that when he saw Jaradat, the man was terrified. Arafat told his lawyer that he was in acute pain from being beaten and forced to sit in stress positions with his hands bound behind his back.
When it announced his death, Israeli Prison Service claimed Arafat - who leaves a pregnant widow and two children - died from cardiac arrest. However, the subsequent autopsy found no blood clot in his heart. In fact, the autopsy concluded that Arafat, who turned 30 this year, was in fine cardiovascular health.
What the final autopsy did find, however, was that Jaradat had been pummelled by repeated blows to his chest and body and had sustained a total of six broken bones in his spine, arms and legs; his lips lacerated; his face badly bruised.
The ordeal that Arafat suffered before he died at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet is common to many Palestinians that pass through Israel’s prisons. According to the prisoners’ rights organisation Addameer, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians have been killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical neglect. Less than a month before Jaradat was killed, Ashraf Abu Dhra died while in Israeli custody in a case that Addameer argues was a direct result of medical neglect.
The legal impunity of the Shin Bet, commonly referred to as the GSS, and its torture techniques has been well established. Between 2001 and 2011, 700 Palestinians lodged complaints with the State Attorney’s Office but not a single one has been criminally investigated.
Writing in Adalah’s 2012 publication, On Torture [PDF], Bana Shoughry-Badarne, an attorney and the Legal Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote, “The GSS’s impunity is absolute.”
Israel’s High Court has been extravagantly helpful in securing the Shin Bet with its imperviousness to accountability to international law, and thus enabling widespread and lethal torture.
In August of 2012, Israel’s High Court rejected petitions submitted by Israeli human rights organisations Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and PCATI to demand that Israeli attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, carry out criminal investigations into each allegation of torture by the Shin Bet.
And in the first week of February, two weeks before Arafat was killed, the High Court of Justice threw out Adalah’s petition that demanded the GSS videotape and audio record all of its interrogations in order to comply with requirements of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) to which Israel is a signatory.
In May 2009, UNCAT condemned [PDF] Israel for exempting the Shin Bet’s interrogations from audio and video recording, noting that such oversight is an essential preventative measure to curtail torture. Yet despite this admonition, in 2012 the Knesset extended the exemption for another three years.
Rationalising its failure to comply with this most basic requirement of recording interrogations, the State maintains that it is in the interests of “national security” that its interrogation techniques not be made public.
Arafat was killed under torture. Torture is routine. But the following is not routine: upon the announcement of his death, thousands of Palestinians, already unified in solidarity with the arduous struggle waged by Palestinian hunger striking prisoners, responded in force. At least 3,000 prisoners refused their meals; thousands poured into the streets of Gaza and impassioned demonstrations erupted across the West Bank. While the State of Israel continues to deploy its deadly arsenal of weapons to repress Palestinians, the banality of the evil of this regime is, as it will always be, eclipsed by the mighty Palestinian will for self-determination.
Source](http://25.media.tumblr.com/887f5fb2b2a5705931690ca97847515d/tumblr_miu8ic1g9Y1r6m2leo1_500.jpg)
How Israel gets away with torturing Palestinians to death
February 26, 2013
Six days after Arafat Jaradat was arrested by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet, he was dead. Between the date of his arrest - February 18 - and the day of his death - February 23 - his lawyer Kamil Sabbagh met with Arafat only once: in front of a military judge at the Shin Bet’s Kishon interrogation facility.
Sabbagh reported that when he saw Jaradat, the man was terrified. Arafat told his lawyer that he was in acute pain from being beaten and forced to sit in stress positions with his hands bound behind his back.
When it announced his death, Israeli Prison Service claimed Arafat - who leaves a pregnant widow and two children - died from cardiac arrest. However, the subsequent autopsy found no blood clot in his heart. In fact, the autopsy concluded that Arafat, who turned 30 this year, was in fine cardiovascular health.
What the final autopsy did find, however, was that Jaradat had been pummelled by repeated blows to his chest and body and had sustained a total of six broken bones in his spine, arms and legs; his lips lacerated; his face badly bruised.
The ordeal that Arafat suffered before he died at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet is common to many Palestinians that pass through Israel’s prisons. According to the prisoners’ rights organisation Addameer, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians have been killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical neglect. Less than a month before Jaradat was killed, Ashraf Abu Dhra died while in Israeli custody in a case that Addameer argues was a direct result of medical neglect.
The legal impunity of the Shin Bet, commonly referred to as the GSS, and its torture techniques has been well established. Between 2001 and 2011, 700 Palestinians lodged complaints with the State Attorney’s Office but not a single one has been criminally investigated.
Writing in Adalah’s 2012 publication, On Torture [PDF], Bana Shoughry-Badarne, an attorney and the Legal Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote, “The GSS’s impunity is absolute.”
Israel’s High Court has been extravagantly helpful in securing the Shin Bet with its imperviousness to accountability to international law, and thus enabling widespread and lethal torture.
In August of 2012, Israel’s High Court rejected petitions submitted by Israeli human rights organisations Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and PCATI to demand that Israeli attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, carry out criminal investigations into each allegation of torture by the Shin Bet.
And in the first week of February, two weeks before Arafat was killed, the High Court of Justice threw out Adalah’s petition that demanded the GSS videotape and audio record all of its interrogations in order to comply with requirements of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) to which Israel is a signatory.
In May 2009, UNCAT condemned [PDF] Israel for exempting the Shin Bet’s interrogations from audio and video recording, noting that such oversight is an essential preventative measure to curtail torture. Yet despite this admonition, in 2012 the Knesset extended the exemption for another three years.
Rationalising its failure to comply with this most basic requirement of recording interrogations, the State maintains that it is in the interests of “national security” that its interrogation techniques not be made public.
Arafat was killed under torture. Torture is routine. But the following is not routine: upon the announcement of his death, thousands of Palestinians, already unified in solidarity with the arduous struggle waged by Palestinian hunger striking prisoners, responded in force. At least 3,000 prisoners refused their meals; thousands poured into the streets of Gaza and impassioned demonstrations erupted across the West Bank. While the State of Israel continues to deploy its deadly arsenal of weapons to repress Palestinians, the banality of the evil of this regime is, as it will always be, eclipsed by the mighty Palestinian will for self-determination.
Even more disturbing Instagram images from the Israeli army
These are from Instagram user “ybaruch,” who describes himself as “Retired Operations Sergeant at the Israeli army, now just a student” and gives his age as 21. He says that all the 144 images images posted to his account are his. Many of the images in his account indicate that “ybaruch” took part in frequent night raids and armed attacks on Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
Photo 1: The caption says “Oops … one less Arab. Let’s see if he’ll try to escape from us again.” Posted on May 17, 2012.
Photo 2: An Israeli soldier plays a “card game” with confiscated Palestinian identity cards in the occupied West Bank, posted October 18, 2012.
Photo 3: The caption says “This is how we break into a house” & was taken in Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on June 15, 2012.
Photo 4: A Palestinian man blindfolded and bound can be seen during a night raid on July 10, 2012.
In the name of God the Merciful
Greetings to all the Palestinian people and the freedom loving people of the world, those who take part in the battle for the freedom of the prisoners, all the prisoners, and first of all the heroic sick prisoners in the Ramlah Prison hospital. These heroes who have sacrificed their bodies and long years to Palestine and the Palestinian people deserve from us that we struggle for their liberation.
Today the Palestinian people proved to the occupation, despite the difficult conditions they go through, that the national cause and the prisoners’ issue are of high priority for every Palestinian. The economic situation and unemployment do not distract the Palestinian people from their prisoners, because they are people of bravery who took upon themselves to defend the Arab and Islamic nation and its holy sites. It saddens me so much that I am not with you to share with you this great battle for supporting the prisoners. But I decided to escalate my strike by avoiding drinking water in order to join this movement and the great battle that you wage on the ground.
I send a warm greeting for all of you who stay in the protest tents everywhere, especially those who are on hunger strike. I send greetings to the participants at the Nazareth tent, first of them Father Atallah Hanna, and to all the people involved in the sit-ins and marches in support of the prisoners.
I send greetings to the heroes who gathered yesterday in front of the court and broke all standards, restrictions and concepts of the occupation (the division between Western Jerusalem and Eastern Jerusalem). They proved to the occupation that AlQuds is one, it is our city, and their pure feet wandered the alleys that were walked by our forefathers before this occupation came, kill them and expels the rest of them.
I greet you, I’m proud of you and I draw the power to resist and my morale from you and your struggle. Yesterday, when I saw you in front of the courthouse, I became free and my jailer became the prisoner. I noticed the humiliation on the guards’ faces when they saw you clinging to your land despite the Judaization.
By God, I kiss those feet that liberated yesterday part of the lands of our holy city and raised the Palestinian flag high. Kissing these pure feet is an honor for me. You are Blessed, Jerusalem, with your heroic sons, the protectors of the Holy Land, the Church of the Resurrection and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will meet soon, God willing, O heroes of Palestine and the free people of the world.
I send my greetings to the free people of the world everywhere, especially in our sister Egypt, to the fans of Zamalek group and Al-Jazeera Sports commentator. I send my greetings and salute to every person. And to Shahed and Maleka.
Concerning my health, I was transferred on Thursday to some hospital, I do not remember its name, after suffering a sharp drop in blood pressure and heart beat where the pressure was 74/40 and pulse 35 beats per minute. I lost consciousness.
I continue my strike. Either Freedom or Martyrdom.
- Samer Issawi, the Palestinian hunger striker who has refused food for more than 200 days. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, but because of time served, he will be released on March 6.
But his struggle still isn’t over. Free Samer & all political prisoners!
Watch the full 5 Broken Cameras documentary on the Israeli occupation
Emad Burnat, the director of this Oscar-nominated documentary was detained by immigration officials at LAX this morning, not even accepting his invitation as a reason to let him through.
“It’s nothing I’m not already used to,” he said. “When you live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence.”
Burnat, his wife & 8-year-old son were detained for nearly two hours before officials let them go.
“All the Palestinians get the same treatment in our country, in our home and in different countries,” Burnat said. “So it’s not normal for a human to be treated like this for all our lives, or for our kids. So I am seeking for peace and for freedom for my kids. And I want them to be treated like humans, not because we are Palestinians that we should get bad treatment or different treatment.”
(Source: The Huffington Post)
Over 1000 protest at Ofer prison in support of Palestinian hunger strikers
February 16, 2013
Over 1000 protest in front of Ofer prison in support of hunger striking prisoners on Friday.
Two protesters were injured from live ammunition in addition to dozens from rubber coated bullets during the clashes erupted after the Friday Prayer in front of Ofer prison.
Over a thousand Palestinians took part today in the Friday prayer and protest which was organized by the Popular Committees, titled “Friday of breaking the silence” in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, Samer Isawi, Ayman Sharawneh, Tareq Qa’adan and Jafar Iz Eldin. Protesters called for their release and the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Upon the end of the Friday prayer, Israeli army started firing immediately sound grenades and tear gas canisters at protesters which lead to clashes with the protesters. The army fired live ammunition; rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters. As a result, over hundred protesters received medical treatment for injuries from rubber coated steel bullets or tear-gas induced asphyxiation. Thirteen protesters were transferred to hospital, two injured from live ammunition in their shoulders and the rest from rubber coated bullets. They are all in stable condition.
In addition to the protest in front of Ofer, the weekly demonstrations in the popular struggle villages were dedicated to support prisoners and clashes erupted in different locations in the West Bank including Jalameh checkpoint, Isawiyeh village, Nabi Saleh, Kufr Qaddoum and others. One young female was hit in head from sound grenade fired directly at her in the village of Nabi Saleh and was transferred to Ramallah hospital.
Palestinian in “critical condition” on day 203 of hunger strike
February 12, 2013
Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi is in “critical condition” after 203 days spent on a hunger strike, activists said, sparking fears on Monday that he might not survive his protest against Israel’s abusive prison system.
Issawi is one of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who have gone on hunger strikes in the past year to denounce Israel’s policy of administrative detention and poor life conditions in prisons.
The 33-year old has been refusing food since July 2012, making it one of the longest hunger strikes in the world.
Issawi stopped drinking water and taking vitamins earlier this month, and is refusing medical care. His weight dropped to less than 47 kilograms and he is confined to a wheelchair, suffering from loss of vision, fainting and vomiting blood.
“His heart could stop at any moment,” said Daleen Elshaer, a coordinator for the Free Samer Issawi Campaign.
Elshaer told Al-Akhbar that Issawi’s lawyer and human rights activists were denied accessed to Issawi until Saturday during his most recent hospitalization outside of the infamous Ramlah prison.
Issawi was first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to thirty years in prison over weapons possession and forming a military group. He was released in an October 2011 prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas in which the Jewish state freed 1,027 mostly-Palestinians in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured in 2006.
He was rearrested on 7 July 2012 and accused of violating the terms of his release by leaving Jerusalem. Israeli prosecutors are seeking to cancel his amnesty and detain him for 20 years, the remainder of his previous sentence, despite there being no other charges against him.
Another Palestinian hunger striker, Jaafar Ezzedine, recently threatened to follow in Issawi’s footsteps and refuse water unless Israel meets his demands, according to the Palestine News Network.
According to prisoners rights group Addameer, 4,743 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons as of January, including 178 in administrative detention.
While the campaign to free Issawi has tried to attract broader international attention, Elshaer said they are too often faced with a wall of silence.
“Samer is non-violently resisting a violent occupation, but nobody is willing to talk about him because he is Palestinian,” she said. “Would it take his death for people to cover his story?”
Elshaer added that Issawi’s family has been repeatedly harassed by Israeli forces. Water access was cut to his sister’s house, and his brother’s home was reportedly demolished by the Israeli army in early January.
But while Issawi’s health is a big cause for concern for his supporters, they keep faith in him and his cause.
“God is protecting him because he is innocent,” Elshaer asserted.
I decided to make this to try and shed light on the Israeli-enforced segregation of roads within the West Bank.
In the images of the map, the town on the right is my hometown of Deir Dibwan. On the left is Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine. The two are a little less than two miles apart. Two miles, not that far, right? Hell, there’s even a direct road joining the two!
Using the road joining the two cities, outlines in blue in the first picture, it’s a little over 5 minutes driving to get from one to the other.
Israel has, however, restricted access to the road for Palestinians in order to “protect” the illegal and racist Israeli settlement of Psagot, established on Palestinian-owned land, yet completely restricted to all Palestinians. The road is now exclusively reserved for Israeli settlers only, and any Palestinian vehicles found driving on the road are subject to arrest, or target practice by the settlers.
Because of this closure, Palestinians are forced to use a very complicated series of unmarked roads to reach Ramallah, which have been highlighted in green in the second picture.
In order for a Palestinian from Deir Dibwan [or any of the surrounding regions, including every town and city to the East and South of Deir Dibwan] to reach Ramallah now, they must drive through the Palestinian towns of Baytein, Ein Yabrud, Dura al-Qare, Jifna, Beir Zeit, Abu Qash, Surda, and Al-Bireh.
The road connecting Deir Dibwan to Ramallah is approximately 2 miles in length. The length of road Palestinians must now drive instead totals approximately 22 miles. What was originally a 5 minutes trip is now almost an hour long.
Ramallah houses most of the regions schools, as well as serving as a hub of jobs for those living within the Ramallah Governate. My brothers and I would drive an hour each way to get to school everyday, with frequent checkpoints often doubling that time. My brothers, as well as every other Palestinian in the region who goes to school in Ramallah, to this day continue to follow this same route to school daily.
Palestinians have, however, established a sort of “shortcut”, which I have highlighted in red in the second picture that cuts from Dura, through Jalazon, and into Al-Bireh.
This road has managed to cut down on the time it takes to get to Ramallah, making it around a 35 minute trip. The issue with this road, however, is that Israel deems it as an “illegal road”, and subjects it to frequent closures, despite the fact that it avoids any Israeli Settlement and is completely on Palestinian land, meaning that by taking this road, it may cut down on the amount of time it takes to get to Ramallah, or it may greatly increase it if the IDF happen to be in the area and turn cars around.
This is just one of countless segregated roads in the West Bank, with every road showin in yellow on the maps being off-limits to Palestinians. Israeli settlements have completely cut off Palestinian towns from one another. The cut-off is so severe that towns with historical ties have now grown so far apart to the point that they have developed their own dialects and accents.
“How does Israel know if a Palestinian is driving on an Israeli-only road?”
Israeli cars have yellow license plates
While Palestinian cars have green ones
So a green-plated car seen driving on an Israeli road is subject to being stopped and arrested, or simply shot at by Israeli settlers, while Israeli vehicles are allowed to drive on any roads they choose. They are allowed to enter Palestinian villages, while Palestinians are absolutely forbidden from even approaching Israeli settlements without the threat of being shot.
Israel: The only
country left practicing such a barbaric system of apartheiddemocracy in the Middle East!
The US provides Israel with $8.4 million in military aid every day.
Israel has the been the largest total recipient since World War II, amounting to more than $115 billion since 1949.
In July 2012, President Obama approved an extra $70 million to expand Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense program.
Obama’s 2013FY budget requests $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel to be used for weapons & military training.
Palestinian activists have set up another protest camp in the West Bank to demonstrate against what they say is an Israeli land grab.
January 18, 2013
They say they set up a mosque and several tents Friday in the village of Beit Iksa near Jerusalem.
The move comes a week after Palestinian activists set up a similar camp in a strategic West Bank corridor known as E-1 where Israel said it would build a large settlement. The activists were evacuated a day later.
In a statement, activists said they were securing land from Israel.
The Israeli military said soldiers were monitoring the area to prevent disturbances.
The Palestinian activists seem to be adopting a tactic used by Israeli settlers, who establish communities hoping the territory will remain theirs once structures are built.
Saw this on the FREE PALESTINE Facebook page and shared it on The People’s Record Facebook Page, which you should both “LIKE” and “become a fan” of (in order to see all of our daily content) as we continue to become more and more active on there as well! <3
Israeli forces evict West Bank outpost despite court ruling
January 13, 2013
Hundreds of Israeli security forces have raided and evicted an outpost set up by Palestinian activists in the occupied West Bank, despite an earlier injunction by Israel’s High Court preventing the government from such action.
Several activists have allegedly been detained. There were also reports of some protesters being injured.
On Friday over 200 Palestinians and foreign peace activists pitched tents in the disputed E1 area to protest Israeli settlement plans there. Around 20 large, steel-framed tents were set up in the “Bab Al Shams” camp, in a bid to preserve the area for an independent Palestinian state.
Israeli forces entered the encampment early Sunday morning after surrounding the site late on Saturday and preventing activists from entering.
The eviction was ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and came after an earlier injunction ordered by Israel’s High Court preventing the state from taking such action, Haaretz reports. The government told the court that the evacuation was a matter of “urgent security.”
The eviction also comes despite the tents being pitched on private Palestinian land, according to Haaretz.
Late on Saturday the Israeli government managed to convince the High Court that “there is an urgent security need to evacuate the area of the people and tents,” overturning an injunction on the action. Netanyahu’s office has said that it planned to declare the area a closed military zone.
The building of Israeli settlements has been condemned by many international powers, which say the move will be detrimental to securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine broke down in 2010.
Israel has frozen building in E1 for many years, after coming under pressure from then US President George W. Bush.
However, Netanyahu announced settlement plans after the Palestinians won de-facto state recognition at the UN General Assembly last year. Those plans involve building around 4,000 housing units in the area.
The Pentagon has approved a deal to supply 6,900 precision bomb kits to replenish Israel’s weapons stockpiles, diminished by the recent war against Hamas in Gaza. The contract is valued at $647 million.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
