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About 500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank held a mass protest after Friday prayers against the Israeli occupation & the two attacks from settlers this week in the West Bank settlement of Ofra.
Protesters hurled stones at IDF officers, who then responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
“This was a peaceful area. We’re gathered today to say we refuse to be attacked and driven off our own land,” said Sami Issa, a resident. “We want their army to pull the settlers out.”
(Source: rss.rt.com)
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.
Well, I am an Oscar nominee. But more to the point, my film, 5 Broken Cameras — which chronicles my village Bil’in’s nonviolent struggle to resist Israeli occupation — is about precisely the kind of humiliation my family and I experienced at Los Angeles International Airport. The only difference is that the victims where I come from number in the millions, and our stories have become so routine that what happened to my family and me yesterday pales by comparison.
That’s because, on any given day, there are more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks, and other obstacles to movement throughout the West Bank — an area less than 2 percent the size of California on which some 2.5 million Palestinians live under a ubiquitous system of repression.
Emad Burnat, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary 5 Broken Cameras on his detainment at LAX last Tuesday. The doc didn’t win, but you can watch it on Netflix - it’s incredible.
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.
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.
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.
Chomsky: My visit to Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison
November 9, 2012
Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force.
And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where some 1.5 million people on a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land are subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade.
Such cruelty is to ensure that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed, and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement granting basic human rights will be nullified. The Israeli political leadership has dramatically illustrated this commitment in the past few days, warning that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given even limited recognition by the U.N.
This threat to “go crazy” (“nishtagea”) – that is, launch a tough response – is deeply rooted, stretching back to the Labor governments of the 1950s, along with the related “Samson Complex”: If crossed, we will bring down the Temple walls around us.
Thirty years ago, Israeli political leaders, including some noted hawks, submitted to Prime Minister Menachem Begin a shocking report on how settlers on the West Bank regularly committed “terrorist acts” against Arabs there, with total impunity.
Disgusted, the prominent military-political analyst Yoram Peri wrote that the Israeli army’s task, it seemed, was not to defend the state, but “to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim (a harsh racial epithet) living in territories that God promised to us.”
Gazans have been singled out for particularly cruel punishment. Thirty years ago, in his memoir “The Third Way,” Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer, described the hopeless task of trying to protect fundamental human rights within a legal system designed to ensure failure, and his personal experience as a Samid, “a steadfast one,” who watched his home turned into a prison by brutal occupiers and could do nothing but somehow “endure.”
Since then, the situation has become much worse. The Oslo Accords, celebrated with much pomp in 1993, determined that Gaza and the West Bank are a single territorial entity. By that time, the U.S. and Israel had already initiated their program to separate Gaza and the West Bank, so as to block a diplomatic settlement and punish the Araboushim in both territories.
Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January 2006, when they committed a major crime: They voted the “wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas.
Displaying their “yearning for democracy,” the U.S. and Israel, backed by the timid European Union, immediately imposed a brutal siege, along with military attacks. The U.S. turned at once to its standard operating procedure when a disobedient population elects the wrong government: Prepare a military coup to restore order.
Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by blocking the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and attacks. These culminated in winter 2008-09, with Operation Cast Lead, one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military force in recent memory: A defenseless civilian population, trapped, was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s most advanced military systems, reliant on U.S. arms and protected by U.S. diplomacy.
Of course, there were pretexts – there always are. The usual one, trotted out when needed, is “security”: in this case, against homemade rockets from Gaza.
In 2008, a truce was established between Israel and Hamas. Not a single Hamas rocket was fired until Israel broke the truce under cover of the U.S. election on Nov. 4, invading Gaza for no good reason and killing half a dozen Hamas members.
The Israeli government was advised by its highest intelligence officials that the truce could be renewed by easing the criminal blockade and ending military attacks. But the government of Ehud Olmert – himself reputedly a dove – rejected these options, resorting to its huge advantage in violence: Operation Cast Lead.
The internationally respected Gazan human-rights advocate Raji Sourani analyzed the pattern of attack under Cast Lead. The bombing was concentrated in the north, targeting defenseless civilians in the most densely populated areas, with no possible military basis. The goal, Sourani suggests, may have been to drive the intimidated population to the south, near the Egyptian border. But the Samidin stayed put.
A further goal might have been to drive them beyond the border. From the earliest days of the Zionist colonization it was argued that Arabs have no real reason to be in Palestine: They can be just as happy somewhere else, and should leave – politely “transferred,” the doves suggested.
Israel advances plans for 1,213 new illegal settlement homes in West Bank
November 7, 2012
Israel has announced plans to press ahead with construction of 1,213 homes on annexed West Bank land, defying international opposition to its settlement policies.
The Israel Land Administration on Monday published notices inviting bids from contractors to build on plots in Ramot and Pisgat Zeev, urban settlements that Israel has declared part of Jerusalem.
The plans call for the building of 607 new homes in Pisgat Zeev and 606 in Ramot. Tens of thousands of Israelis already live in the two areas.
The Israeli NGO Peace Now said on Tuesday that an additional tender for the construction of 72 homes in the West Bank settlement of Ariel was reissued on Monday after a previous notice failed to attract winning bidders.
“This is the true answer of Netanyahu to Abbas. Chairman Abbas declared again his strong commitment to the two states solution, and Netanyahu replied with thousands of new units in settlements,” the group said in a statement.
“It seems that Netanyahu is afraid of the new administration that is being elected today in the US, and he has chosen the day of election to publish the tenders so that there will be the least public attention to his action.”
On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister had warned President Abbas against making any unilateral moves which could “push peace back,” referring to an upcoming UN bid.
Israeli settlements are one of the major obstacles to a viable two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and are widely condemned by the international community.
Around 500,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
22 groups call for EU ban on Israeli settler products
October 30, 2012
Twenty-two religious groups and charities have called on the European Union to ban products made by Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, saying a boycott would undercut their economic reason for staying there.
The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner but imports 15 times more from West Bank-based Israeli settlers than from Palestinians, a group of 22 non-governmental organizations said Tuesday.
“European consumers are unwittingly supporting the settlements and the attendant violations of human rights,” the groups said in a report that called for a ban or, at the very least, strict labeling rules.
The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and say settlements deny them a joined-up viable territory. About 311,000 Israeli settlers and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
The EU says settlements Israel has built on land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war are illegal under international law.
But the NGOs say EU consumption of Israeli cosmetics, dates, herbs and other products made in settler areas undermines the integrity of the EU position.
The 22 NGOs included Christian Aid, Ireland’s Trocaire, the Methodist Church in Britain, the Church of Sweden, France’s Terre Solidaire and Germany’s medico international.
Other religious NGOs in Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland also took part.
The report urged clearer labeling rules to help consumers identify the origin of produce. Such rules already exist in Denmark and Britain.
But the NGOs said a more effective solution would be to impose a ban on all settler products, a move that only one EU member state, Ireland, has so far asked for.
An official from Israel’s foreign ministry said the report’s figures were “cherry picked” to serve a political agenda.
“There are no official statistics on exports from the settlements,” said Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman. “They are only approximations.”
The Israeli trade ministry said West Bank-produced exports accounted for only 1 percent of total EU-bound exports, which are around $70 million per year.
Boycott! Divest! Sanction! Free Palestine!
![12-year-old child arrested 10 times by Israel in three yearsOctober 20, 2012
In an unwavering voice, Muslim Odeh recounted how Israeli riot police took him from his bed earlier this week, blindfolded him, subjected him to hours of intense interrogation and held him overnight in a Jerusalem prison compound.
Odeh vomited after Israeli police punched him four times in the stomach on his way to his prison cell. Odeh’s calm demeanor, only days after his ordeal, was evidence of how this was his tenth arrest in three years.
More shocking, however, is the fact that this resident of Silwan in East Jerusalem is only 12-years-old. “I miss my house,” Odeh told The Electronic Intifada, as he stared longingly from the balcony of his uncle’s home — where he is under house arrest until next Wednesday, 24 October — onto his family’s house below.
“I don’t feel comfortable. I miss my friends, my grandmother, my mother,” he said. “I don’t know if they will arrest me again.”
House arrest
Muslim Odeh was first arrested at the age of nine. During each arrest, Israeli police have accused him of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. Today, he is being held under house arrest at his uncle’s home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber. If he violates the conditions of his release, he will be re-arrested and forced to pay a fine of 5,000 shekels ($1,300).
A group of Israeli riot police entered his home with two dogs, the 12-year-old explained, during the most recent arrest. “I heard dogs near me. I was scared,” he said, adding that, moments later, the police brought him blindfolded to an Israeli police station in East Jerusalem.
There, Israeli interrogators accused him of throwing Molotov cocktails and stones, and asked him about the activities of other children in Silwan. While he wasn’t physically harmed during the interrogation, the main Israeli investigator yelled and forcibly slammed his hand on the table to scare him, Odeh said.
“I said I didn’t do anything,” said Odeh, who was interrogated from 5am until 3pm before being transferred to the notorious Russian Compound (Moskobiye, in Arabic) prison compound in West Jerusalem. There, he was held with six other prisoners who, he said, were Palestinian teenagers from the Shuafat refugee camp.
“I was the youngest in the room, [and] in the whole Moskobiye,” Odeh added.
Child arrests widespread
According to a report released by Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program in March, the Israeli authorities have arrested and detained over 8,000 Palestinian children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2000 (“The impact of child detention: Occupied Palestinian Territory,” March 2012).
The report found that most of the children were handcuffed and blindfolded during their arrest — which was most often carried out on suspicion that the children threw stones — and that they were almost always interrogated and held without access to a lawyer or their parents.
Nearly all children (98 percent) were subjected to physical or psychological violence during their arrest and detention, the report found, and 90 percent of children suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Children were subjected to isolation and ill-treatment; many developed a fear of dogs used for searching. They suffered from nightmares, sleeping and eating disorders, bedwetting, and feared re- arrest or acquired unhealthy habits such as smoking,” the report stated.
Addameer, the Ramallah-based Palestinian prisoners’ support and human rights association, has reported that as of 1 September this year, some 194 Palestinian children were held in Israeli detention centers, including 30 below the age of 16 (“Key Issues: Children,” Addameer website).
“Forms of ill-treatment used by the Israeli soldiers during a child’s arrest and interrogation usually include slapping, beating, kicking and violent pushing. Palestinian children are also routinely verbally abused. Despite recommendations by the UN Committee Against Torture in May 2009 that the interrogations should be video recorded, no provisions to this effect have yet been enacted,” Addameer found.
“Cosmetic” changes
In July 2009, Israel created a juvenile military court system for Palestinian minors from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. After decades of trying Palestinians over 16-years-old as adults — in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines children as anyone 18 and under — Israel also recently began treating all Palestinians under 18 as children.
But according to Khaled Quzmar, legal advisor at Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI), these changes are nothing more than “cosmetic” and haven’t really changed the overall system of oppression.
“Israel marketed [these changes to] the world as applying international human rights law and [that] they are going to stop prosecuting children in the Israeli military courts. In fact, on the ground, the same court and the same judges [are in place],” Quzmar told The Electronic Intifada. “In fact, nothing changed. The same campaigns of arrests continued.”
DCI has found that despite putting juvenile courts in place, Israel still treats Palestinian children as adults when it comes to sentencing, bail applications and how long detainees can be denied access to a lawyer, which is set at 90 days for both adults and children (“Children prosecuted in Israeli military courts,” 2 October).
Quzmar added that the arrests of Palestinian children aim to deter resistance to Israeli occupation policies, and in some cases, force families to leave their homes and villages altogether.
“They put pressure on the families by arresting their children or targeting their children, so maybe this policy will force the families to leave the area. This policy is very clear in Jerusalem. The courts used to sentence the children deport the children from their houses so it is a kind of transfer,” he said.
For 12-year-old Muslim Odeh, the psychological impact of his many arrests has been difficult. “I have nightmares,” Odeh said. “Sometimes I dream that the police are coming to take me, but then I wake up to see that I’m not in prison but in my house.”
Source](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc7gd8twe81r6m2leo1_500.jpg)
12-year-old child arrested 10 times by Israel in three years
October 20, 2012
In an unwavering voice, Muslim Odeh recounted how Israeli riot police took him from his bed earlier this week, blindfolded him, subjected him to hours of intense interrogation and held him overnight in a Jerusalem prison compound.
Odeh vomited after Israeli police punched him four times in the stomach on his way to his prison cell. Odeh’s calm demeanor, only days after his ordeal, was evidence of how this was his tenth arrest in three years.
More shocking, however, is the fact that this resident of Silwan in East Jerusalem is only 12-years-old. “I miss my house,” Odeh told The Electronic Intifada, as he stared longingly from the balcony of his uncle’s home — where he is under house arrest until next Wednesday, 24 October — onto his family’s house below.
“I don’t feel comfortable. I miss my friends, my grandmother, my mother,” he said. “I don’t know if they will arrest me again.”
House arrest
Muslim Odeh was first arrested at the age of nine. During each arrest, Israeli police have accused him of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. Today, he is being held under house arrest at his uncle’s home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber. If he violates the conditions of his release, he will be re-arrested and forced to pay a fine of 5,000 shekels ($1,300).
A group of Israeli riot police entered his home with two dogs, the 12-year-old explained, during the most recent arrest. “I heard dogs near me. I was scared,” he said, adding that, moments later, the police brought him blindfolded to an Israeli police station in East Jerusalem.
There, Israeli interrogators accused him of throwing Molotov cocktails and stones, and asked him about the activities of other children in Silwan. While he wasn’t physically harmed during the interrogation, the main Israeli investigator yelled and forcibly slammed his hand on the table to scare him, Odeh said.
“I said I didn’t do anything,” said Odeh, who was interrogated from 5am until 3pm before being transferred to the notorious Russian Compound (Moskobiye, in Arabic) prison compound in West Jerusalem. There, he was held with six other prisoners who, he said, were Palestinian teenagers from the Shuafat refugee camp.
“I was the youngest in the room, [and] in the whole Moskobiye,” Odeh added.
Child arrests widespread
According to a report released by Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program in March, the Israeli authorities have arrested and detained over 8,000 Palestinian children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2000 (“The impact of child detention: Occupied Palestinian Territory,” March 2012).
The report found that most of the children were handcuffed and blindfolded during their arrest — which was most often carried out on suspicion that the children threw stones — and that they were almost always interrogated and held without access to a lawyer or their parents.
Nearly all children (98 percent) were subjected to physical or psychological violence during their arrest and detention, the report found, and 90 percent of children suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Children were subjected to isolation and ill-treatment; many developed a fear of dogs used for searching. They suffered from nightmares, sleeping and eating disorders, bedwetting, and feared re- arrest or acquired unhealthy habits such as smoking,” the report stated.
Addameer, the Ramallah-based Palestinian prisoners’ support and human rights association, has reported that as of 1 September this year, some 194 Palestinian children were held in Israeli detention centers, including 30 below the age of 16 (“Key Issues: Children,” Addameer website).
“Forms of ill-treatment used by the Israeli soldiers during a child’s arrest and interrogation usually include slapping, beating, kicking and violent pushing. Palestinian children are also routinely verbally abused. Despite recommendations by the UN Committee Against Torture in May 2009 that the interrogations should be video recorded, no provisions to this effect have yet been enacted,” Addameer found.
“Cosmetic” changes
In July 2009, Israel created a juvenile military court system for Palestinian minors from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. After decades of trying Palestinians over 16-years-old as adults — in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines children as anyone 18 and under — Israel also recently began treating all Palestinians under 18 as children.
But according to Khaled Quzmar, legal advisor at Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI), these changes are nothing more than “cosmetic” and haven’t really changed the overall system of oppression.
“Israel marketed [these changes to] the world as applying international human rights law and [that] they are going to stop prosecuting children in the Israeli military courts. In fact, on the ground, the same court and the same judges [are in place],” Quzmar told The Electronic Intifada. “In fact, nothing changed. The same campaigns of arrests continued.”
DCI has found that despite putting juvenile courts in place, Israel still treats Palestinian children as adults when it comes to sentencing, bail applications and how long detainees can be denied access to a lawyer, which is set at 90 days for both adults and children (“Children prosecuted in Israeli military courts,” 2 October).
Quzmar added that the arrests of Palestinian children aim to deter resistance to Israeli occupation policies, and in some cases, force families to leave their homes and villages altogether.
“They put pressure on the families by arresting their children or targeting their children, so maybe this policy will force the families to leave the area. This policy is very clear in Jerusalem. The courts used to sentence the children deport the children from their houses so it is a kind of transfer,” he said.
For 12-year-old Muslim Odeh, the psychological impact of his many arrests has been difficult. “I have nightmares,” Odeh said. “Sometimes I dream that the police are coming to take me, but then I wake up to see that I’m not in prison but in my house.”
Illegal Israeli settlers torch Palestinian olive trees
October 13, 2012
Israeli settlers have torched dozens of Palestinian olive trees in the occupied West Bank, in another attempt to target a key product of the Palestinian economy.
According to local villagers, settlers torched the trees at several spots simultaneously on Saturday.
Security officials say evidence pointed to an arson attack by residents of the neighboring settlement of Ee-Lai.
The attack follows the cutting-down of almost 70 olive trees in the same village this past Wednesday, which was the start of the harvest season.
Israeli settlers, mostly armed, regularly attack Palestinian villages and farms and set fire to their mosques, olive groves and other properties in the occupied West Bank under the so-called “price tag” policy. However, the Tel Aviv regime rarely detains the assailants.
The extremists say the “price tag” attacks are carried out against any Israeli policy “to reduce the presence of settlers and settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).”
The Israeli settlements are considered illegal by the UN and most countries because those territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967, and are hence seen as being subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.
Not only has the presence and continued expansion of these settlements been a major source of international criticism against Israel, but they are also considered one of the main obstacles to Middle East peace.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
This isn’t so much news as much as it is a look into one of the many oppressive realities Palestinians live through every day in occupied territories.
