The International Court of Justice orders Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent further bloodshed in Gaza in line with Genocide Convention obligations. The Court also calls for the immediate release of all hostages. The order was read by the Judge Joan E Donoghue, President of the Court. Credit: UN

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 2024 (IPS)

The International Court of Justice today told Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent a genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Judge Joan E. Donoghue, the court’s president, read the order directing the State of Israel to abide by temporary measures to stop the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian population in Gaza from worsening.

Donoghue said that the facts and circumstances were sufficient to conclude that some of the “rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection (for the Palestinian people in Gaza) were plausible.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main court of the United Nations, issued its ruling in the case South Africa submitted regarding the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip. You can read the full order here. 

“The court is not called upon for purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument,” she explained.

Quoting from UN General Assembly Resolution 96 of December 11, 1946, she said genocide shocks “the conscience of mankind.”

Before going through the list of provisional measures, she quoted high-profile members of the United Nations, including its Secretary General, António Guterres, who warned the Security Council on December 6, 2023, that health care in Gaza was collapsing.

“Nowhere is safe in Gaza, amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces and without shelter or the essentials to survive. I expect public order to break to completely break down soon, due to the desperate conditions rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible.”

He then went on to warn that the situation could get worse, “including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries. We are facing a severe risk of the collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole.”

Donoghue told the court that it considers the rights in question in the proceeding plausible.

“The court considers that the plausible rights in question in this proceeding, namely, the right of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article 3 of the Genocide Convention and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligation under the convention, are of such a nature that prejudiced them and was “capable of causing irreparable harm.”

She pointed out that the provisional measures didn’t have to match those South Africa requested.

In terms of the order:

• Israel must, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article 2 of the Convention, which deals with the destruction of a group in whole or in part. This includes killing groups of members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. It was also prevented from imposing measures that were intended to prevent births within the group. Article 2
• The court further considered that Israel must ensure, with immediate effect, that its military forces do not commit any of the acts designed to destroy a group, and the State of Israel must take measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to the members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.
• The court ordered Israel to take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
• Israel must also take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Articles 2 and 3 of the Genocide Convention against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.
• Israel must submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order within one month of the order. “The report so provided shall then be communicated to South Africa.

“The court reaffirms the decision given in the present proceedings and in no way prejudges the question of the jurisdiction of the court to deal with the merits of the case or any questions related to the admissibility of the application or to the merits themselves.”

She added that the court was gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

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The International Court of Justice in the Hague heard the South Africa versus Israel case earlier this month. Credit: ICJ

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 2024 (IPS)

The International Court of Justice will deliver it’s order for provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case of South Africa versus Israel today.

South Africa argued that the scale of destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines, and electricity demonstrated that the government of Israel and its military were intent on destroying Palestinians as a group, which was in violation of the UN Genocide Convention.

The case was argued on January 10 and 11, 2024, and today’s decision is only likely to deal with jurisdiction and the provisional measures that South Africa asked the court to impose.

The provisional measures include:

• that military operations are immediately ceased;
• that the State of Israel take reasonable measures within its power to prevent genocide, including desisting from actions that could bring about physical destruction;
• rescind orders of restrictions and prohibitions to prevent forced displacement and ensure access to humanitarian assistance, including access to adequate fuel, shelter, clothes, hygiene, sanitation and medical supplies;
• avoid public incitement;
• ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts and
• submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order.

South Africa argued that the scale of destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines, and electricity demonstrated that the government of Israel and its military were intent on destroying Palestinians as a group.

Israel disputed this, saying that the country had a right to defend itself in the face of the October 7 massacre in Israel. It was argued that South Africa brought a fundamentally flawed case. 

IPS will update the outcome later today.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave. A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation in 2014, not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes in Gaza has been rebuilt. Photo credit: UNRWA Archives/Shareef Sarhan

By Charlie Hoyle
BETHLEHEM, Palestine, Aug 15 2015 (IPS)

The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave.

Eight months ago, the infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip was the same, except floodwater and freezing winter temperatures swept over the heaped remnants of people’s homes and businesses.

A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation – in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including more than 500 children – not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt.

The task of large-scale reconstruction work was entrusted to the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), a United Nations-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which would oversee the distribution of building materials entering Gaza.“Most of the 100,000 Palestinians displaced by the [2014] war continue to live in makeshift shelters, often in the rubble of their former homes, and the landscape is littered with miles upon miles of apocalyptic decay where homes, shops, and restaurants once stood”

To date, only 5.5 percent of the building materials needed to repair and rebuild homes and other damaged infrastructure has entered the coastal enclave, according to Israeli rights group Gisha, founded in 2005 to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especial Gaza residents.

Failed promises by donor countries which pledged 5.4 billion dollars last October, political tensions between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and Israel’s continued restrictions on materials entering the territory have all impeded reconstruction efforts.

However, many hold the GRM directly responsible for the glacial pace of reconstruction, arguing that the terms of the agreement have entrenched Gaza’s underdevelopment by granting Israel control over nearly every aspect of the rebuilding process.

“Israel actually has deep power over every single house built in Gaza,” says Ghada Snunu, a reporting officer at Ma’an Development Centre in Gaza.

“We cannot build a house if Israel says no. Israel decides whether homes are built or not.”

As part of the GRM, Israel has case-by-case approval over individual applications for building materials, veto power over construction companies put forward by the Palestinian Authority to provide those materials, and access to the Authority’s Ministry of Civil Affairs database, which registers the ID numbers and GPS coordinates of Palestinians whose homes were destroyed.

According to Gisha, private owners, building plans, locations and the quantities all require Israeli approval, with companies and merchants who store the construction materials – mostly aggregate, cement and steel bars – forced to place security guards and install cameras to supervise the goods 24 hours a day.

This lengthy and expensive bureaucratic process, designed specifically to meet Israel’s stated security concerns, has meant the process is at a virtual standstill.

“The GRM has failed because it gives Israel veto power over everything. There are no changes on the ground so far,” complains Snunu.

In January, the Brookings Doha Centre said in a policy briefing that the GRM has effectively seemed to offer “legitimacy to the Israeli blockade” and placed “exclusive reliance on Israel’s willingness to allow the flow of reconstruction materials” for success of the mechanism.

In recent months, Oxfam says that more building materials are entering Gaza, but the levels are still only 25 percent of those before Israel’s blockade was imposed some eight years ago.

“At this pace it could take 19 years to finish just the rebuilding of homes destroyed in 2014 and at least 76 years to build all the new homes that Gaza needs,” said Oxfam’s Arwa Mhunna.

Most of the 100,000 Palestinians displaced by the war continue to live in makeshift shelters, often in the rubble of their former homes, and the landscape is littered with miles upon miles of apocalyptic decay where homes, shops, and restaurants once stood.

The vast infrastructural damage last summer, caused by an unprecedented amount of explosive weaponry used by Israel’s military, compounds the effects of an eight-year blockade and two other Israeli military offensives since 2008, with damage from those conflicts barely addressed.

Gazan institutions and stakeholders have been largely excluded from the rebuilding process following the three wars, placing the civilian population at the mercy of political infighting, unfulfilled international promises and Israel’s blockade.

“Gaza had already been destroyed completely before the war. This agreement did not change anything, Palestinians were told their homes would be rebuilt, but these promises have been broken by the international community and the PA,” says Snunu.

In May, the World Bank reported that Gaza had the highest unemployment rate in the world at 43.9 percent, with 67 percent of under 24-year-olds unemployed. Real per capita income is now 31 percent lower than it was 20 years ago, at 970 dollars a year, the report added.

At least 80 percent of Gazans are dependent on humanitarian aid.

“The situation in Gaza is getting more serious and dire,” says Mhunna. “The humanitarian crisis is continuing and now affects all aspects of life. Displacement has lasted for over a year since the war and there is a devastating economic situation.”

Hamas officials, rights groups, and both local and international NGOs had repeatedly stressed last year during ceasefire negotiations that Gaza must not return to a status quo of blockade.

Since Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005 – withdrawing some 9,000 settlers and military forces – it has repeatedly claimed that it is no longer occupying the territory and has held Hamas responsible for the civilian population.

Yet 10 years later, Israel controls the movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza, the food they can have access to, whether they can receive medical treatment or not, and now under the terms of the GRM, whether their homes can be rebuilt.

“The GRM harms Palestinians more than it benefits them. What is clear in our demands is that the GRM heightens the blockade and Gaza will not be rebuilt unless the blockade is lifted,” says Snunu.

“Palestinians need solutions for the crisis, not mechanisms that manage the crisis.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, who says that unless someone steps in to alleviate the financial crisis facing the U.N. agency, “ it is innocent refugees who will again suffer”. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
JERUSALEM, Jul 3 2015 (IPS)

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) faces a severe financial crisis which could see core services to desperate Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank halted unless donors step in before the end of September.

“Currently we have a deficit of 101 million dollars and, as things stand now, UNRWA will struggle to function after September because we don’t have enough money to fund even our core activities for the last few months of the year,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told IPS in an exclusive interview.

“However, following a number of stringent austerity measures already in place, we should be able to continue with life-saving, emergency services to the end of the year,” he added.“As things stand now, UNRWA will struggle to function after September because we don’t have enough money to fund even our core activities for the last few months of the year” – UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness

Due to the financial crisis, the contracts for 35 percent of the 137 internationals employed by UNRWA will end by Sep. 30 without further extension or renewal. The U.N. organisation has taken these steps to reduce costs while trying not to reduce basic services to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

“UNRWA is facing financial crises on all fronts. Broadly speaking we have two sources of funding,” Gunness told IPS. “We have our general fund which funds our core services such as education, health relief and social services. Then we have our emergency funds which are for Gaza and the West Bank because there is a blockade and an occupation respectively.

“We’re also dealing with more than 400,000 displaced people in Syria, the 45,000 refugees who’ve fled to Lebanon and the 15,000 who’ve escaped over the border into Jordan.”

Following Israel’s devastating military campaign against Gaza in July and August last year, UNRWA launched a reconstruction initiative, worth 720 million dollars, at the international reconstruction conference in Cairo in October last year.

Part of the money was for rental subsidies for those Gazans whose homes were so damaged that they were uninhabitable and needed a roof over their heads, and part of it was for reconstruction.

“In February this year, we had to suspend that programme because there was a 585 million dollar shortfall. Due to the deficit not one single home in Gaza has been rebuilt, so there is a real crisis in regard to reconstruction,” said Gunness.

Last year in Syria, UNRWA launched an appeal for 417 million dollars but only 52 percent of this money was received. The shortfall forced the organisation to reduce its six cash distribution programmes from six to three.

Cash distributions have become one of UNRWA’s major emergency response programmes in Syria due to so many U.N. installations being bombed and destroyed as a result of the civil war raging there, thereby crippling its normal means of helping refugees.

With the money received for Syria, UNRWA was only able to distribute an average of 50 cents per refugee per day.

“Imagine trying to survive on 50 cents daily. It is almost impossible and although our donors have been very generous, they have not been generous enough,” said Gunness.

In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees from Syria rely on UNRWA for various things, including rental subsidies so that they can have a roof over their heads.

“We had been giving out a 100 dollar monthly rental allowance. This gets you very little in Lebanon, which is an expensive country,” Gunness told IPS.

“When I was last in Lebanon I visited a Palestinian refugee family in the poverty-stricken Shatila camp in Beirut. They were paying 200 dollars a month to live in a room 20 feet by 20 feet [6 metres by 6 metres] with a tiny bathroom and kitchen.

“Their rental subsidy was cut at the end of June and I suspect that family is now living on the street. This is the reality of the crash crisis for just one family of refugees from Syria who have been made homeless.

“And this is only one story that relates to the emergency funding UNRWA receives,” Gunness added.

“In relation to the general side of our funding, what we’ve seen over the years is a gradual increase in the structural deficit of our general fund which has led to the current deficit of 101 million dollars.”

UNRWA’s monthly running costs are 35 million dollars. This includes the salaries of 30, 000 staff members, 22,000 of whom are teachers, as well as the distribution of basic necessities for refugees such as food.

“So, unless someone steps in to alleviate the crisis, even tougher decisions may need to be made in the next few weeks and it is innocent refugees who will again suffer,” said Gunness.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Gazans celebrate "victory" over Israel following last year’s war. Now, desperate to maintain the calm in Gaza, Israel has been conducting intermittent, off-the-record indirect talks with Hamas, which it describes as a “terror organisation”. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 16 2015 (IPS)

Israel’s deadly game of divide and conquer against its enemies could be coming home to roost with a vengeance, especially as the Islamic State (ISIS) grows in strength in neighbouring countries and moves closer to Israel’s borders.

Desperate to maintain the calm in Gaza, Israel has been conducting intermittent, off-the-record indirect talks with Hamas through U.N., European and Qatar intermediaries despite vowing to never negotiate with Hamas which it describes as a “terror organisation”.

Israel helped promote the establishment of Hamas in the late 1980s in a bid to thwart the popularity of the Palestinian Authority-affiliated Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which was then also regarded as a “terrorist organisation” and the most powerful and popular Palestinian political movement.

But Israel’s indirect support of ISIS-affiliated Syrian opposition groups could be an even bigger gamble.“Despite ISIS ultimately being a threat to Israel, it currently fits in with Israel’s strategy of weakening the military capabilities of Iran and Syria, both enemies of ISIS, the same way a previously powerful Iraqi military had threatened Israel”

As the Omar Brigades calculated, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) responded by attacking Hamas military targets in the coastal territory because they hold the Gaza leadership responsible for any attacks on Israel.

“Israelis, we learn, are essentially being used as pawns in a deadly game of chicken between Hamas and these Salafist rivals,” said Alison Kaplan Sommer, a columnist with the Israeli daily Haaretz.

“The Salafists refuse to abide by the informal truce that has kept the tense quiet between Hamas and Israel since the Gaza war – and Hamas is not religious and fundamentalist enough for their taste.

“Firing rockets into Israel serves a dual purpose for them. It makes a statement that they are true jihadists, unlike the Hamas sell-outs who abide by truces – and it also happens to be an excellent way for them to indirectly strike back at their Hamas oppressors. Why, after all, go to the trouble of attacking Hamas when you can so easily get Israel to do it for you?”

Israel’s dual policy of covertly supporting ISIS-affiliated Jihadists in Syria in a bid to weaken Israel’s arch-enemy Syria has taken several forms.

U.N. observers in the Golan Heights have released reports detailing cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures including regular contacts between IDF soldiers and Syrian rebels.

Israel is also regularly admitting wounded Syrian opposition fighters to Israeli hospitals and it is not based on humanitarian considerations.

Israel finally responded by saying the wounded were civilians reaching the border by their own accords but later conceded it was coordinating with armed opposition groups.

“Israel initially had maintained that it was treating only civilians. However, reports claimed that members of Israel’s Druze minority protested the hospitalisation of wounded Syrian fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Israel,” reported the Global Research Centre for Research on Globalisation.

The last report distributed to U.N. Security Council members in December described two U.N. representatives witnessing Israeli soldiers opening a border gate and letting two unwounded people exit Israel into the Golan Heights.

The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations also complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only for treatment of the wounded but also other aid.

U.N. observers remarked in a report distributed last year that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.

Despite ISIS ultimately being a threat to Israel, it currently fits in with Israel’s strategy of weakening the military capabilities of Iran and Syria, both enemies of ISIS, the same way a previously powerful Iraqi military had threatened Israel.

When the United States began operations against ISIS, a senior Israeli high command seemed reluctant to give any support and called the move a mistake.

It was easier to deal with terrorism in its early stages [ISIS] than to face an Iranian threat and the Hezbollah, he said. “I believe the West intervened too early and not necessarily in the right direction,” he told Haaretz anonymously.

“Israel is pursuing a policy that in the long term will ultimately be self-defeating. In a bid to divide Syria, Israel is supporting ISIS but this will backfire in that ISIS is growing in strength and destroying societies in its path and it will eventually turn its sights on Israel,” Professor Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, told IPS.

It is possible that ISIS could topple future regimes that Israel is hoping for support from, including Syrian rebels who hinted at a peace with Israel once Syrian President Bashar Assad is toppled.

Jacky Hugi, the Arab affairs analyst for Israeli army radio Galie-Zahal who confirmed on the Al Monitor website that Israel was taking the Syrian rebels side in the fighting, had a warning.

“We should stop with the illusions – the day ‘after Assad’ won’t bring about a secular liberal ruling alternative. The extremist organisations are the most dominant factions in Syria nowadays,” said Hugi. “Any void left in Syria will be seized by them, not the moderate rebels.”

According to political analyst Benedetta Berti of Israel’s Institute of National Security Studies, Israel is closely monitoring its northern front, specifically the Golan Heights.

“Israel believes that there is no current threat from the rebels as they are too busy with the Syrian war,” Berti told IPS. “However, if we extend the time frame, then the situation could change when Syrian rebels may want to attack Israel from the northern borders.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Gazan fishermen Ibrahim Al Quka and his brother Sami Al Quka, who had his hand shot off by the Israeli navy even though he was within Israel's restricted fishing zone. Credit: Mel Frykberg

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 8 2015 (IPS)

Three Palestinian fishermen were injured last week after Israeli naval forces opened fire on fishing boats off the coast of al-Sudaniyya in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing to 15 the number of farmers and fishermen shot and injured by Israeli security forces recently as they attempted to earn a living.

The Israeli navy limits Gaza’s fishermen to a three nautical-mile zone off Gaza’s coast. However even fishermen within that zone have come under fire and been shot, injured and killed or had their boats destroyed or confiscated.“Gaza fishermen have come under fire and been shot, injured and killed or had their boats destroyed or confiscated … Gazan farmers trying to access their agricultural fields … are also regularly shot and injured, and sometimes killed”

As most of the shoals are further out to sea, Gaza’s fishing industry has been decimated and thousands of Gazans deprived of a living and unable to support their families.

Gazan farmers trying to access their agricultural fields within Israel’s 500 metre to 1 km buffer zone next to Israel’s border are also regularly shot and injured, and sometimes killed.

Gaza’s decimated economy has been further damaged by Israeli limits on Gazan exports to two of its biggest markets, the occupied West Bank and Israel.

Agricultural produce and manufactured goods used to underpin the coastal territory’s economy before Israel and Egypt enforced the Gaza blockade.

After last year’s war between Hamas and Israel, one of the conditions for a ceasefire was the easing of the blockade.

While Israel has allowed some goods to be exported from Gaza, this is insufficient to rejuvenate its economy.

Analysts and political commentators have repeatedly warned that Israel’s continued siege and restrictions on Gaza could destabilise the region further, leading to more violence and possibly a new war.

Destruction in Gaza following last year’s war between Hamas and Israel. Credit: Mel Frykberg

A report on the situation by the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee of the Office of the Quartet Representative was released after a meeting in Brussels on May 27.

“Over a year on from the breakdown in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, there is still no tangible political horizon in sight,” stated the report.

“The last year has repeatedly presented us with reminders not just of where the flashpoints and difficulties persist, but also that in the absence of a political horizon, the vacuum quickly fills with animosity and violence.”

The report outlined how the removal or reduction of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, trade and access remained essential to securing economic growth.

“Movement and access restrictions, both physical and regulatory, hinder economic development in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and affect nearly all aspects of Palestinian life.”

Employment in Gaza and its economy would be boosted by Israel easing the blockade while the private sector would be strengthened. These in turn would reduce tensions and contribute to Israel’s security needs.

The failure of Hamas and Israel to reach any agreement is further aggravated by the stalemate within the Palestinian unity government due to the inability of Hamas and Fatah to reach consensus on jointly governing Gaza and the West Bank.

The rivalry between the two groups has delayed international aid, without which no reconstruction, redevelopment and economic growth in Gaza can take place.

The Office of the Quartet Representative pointed out five development areas that need to be focused on to improve the situation in the ground – an effective Palestinian government, movement and trade, reliable infrastructure, investment and sustainable land usage.

Meanwhile, Israel is continuing with new plans to relocate thousands of Bedouins in the West Bank and Israel after the move received the green light from Israel’s Supreme Court.

Some 7,000 Bedouins from the central West Bank, most of them situated east of Jerusalem, and 450 in southern Hebron will be “relocated” by force.

The forced removals have been accompanied by coercive measures such as the demolition of buildings and infrastructure on the grounds that they were built without permits, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

However, in area C of the West Bank, which comprises 60 percent of the territory, very few permits are issued by Israel’s Civil Administration, which controls the West Bank, because most of the land has been appropriated for Israeli settlement expansion.

“The Bedouins and herders are at risk of forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as multiple human rights violations,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Bedouins in Israel’s Negev settlement within the ‘Green Line’ can also be forcibly relocated after the Israeli court rejected their appeal to be allowed to stay.

“This court is not the address for creating chaos,” stated Justice Elyakim Rubinstein recently in rejecting the appeal of Bedouin residents of the unrecognised Negev settlement of Umm al-Hiran, reported the Israeli daily Haaretz.

In the ruling, Rubinstein noted that the residents – who are slated to be evicted, and whose houses are to be demolished to make way for the construction of the Jewish town of Hiran – have been living in this place for 60 years, after moving to the Nahal Yatir area in 1956 at the orders of the military governor, and that the eviction and demolition of the 50 or so structures they built will affect the lives of hundreds of people.

Despite this, the judge said he believed that the eviction was reasonable and proportional due to the fact that the land in question was owned by the state and that buildings were erected without permits.

However, the Umm al-Hiran residents argued that they were the victims of discrimination and that their property rights were being infringed.

Jews were able to obtain property rights to land on which they had settled but the Bedouins’ right to land on which they had settled was never formalised.

Edited by Phil Harris

Azzum Atme checkpoint border crossing from the West Bank into Israel, where hundreds of Palestinian labourers cross into Israel each day using Israeli buses. These labourers already face long delays at the checkpoint and if they are banned from Israeli buses their trips will take even longer. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 24 2015 (IPS)

A  decision by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to segregate buses in the occupied West Bank has backfired after causing an uproar in Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, and political damage on the international stage.

This came as Israel faces mounting international criticism over its land expropriation and settlement building in the West Bank, and other forms of discrimination levelled against Palestinians.

Israel’s new extreme right-wing government is also being attacked on the domestic front with liberal Israelis, and Israeli NGOs involved in human rights, accusing the government of damaging Israel’s image and values.“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action” – Prof Samir Awad, political scientist at Birzeit University

Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been waging a campaign to prohibit Palestinians, particularly labourers who work in Israel, from using their buses in the occupied West Bank for over a year, saying that they represented a security threat, refused to give up their seats for Israelis and expressed sexual interest in Israeli women.

Last week, approval was given for buses to be segregated but after the backlash the plan was quickly scrapped.

However, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon quickly denied that segregation or racism had anything to do with the issue and that the decision to ban Palestinians from Israeli buses had only been based on “security” needs.

Neither has Ya’alon given up on the plan. He intends to instruct the IDF to come up with a new plan to cover all 13 crossing points from the West Bank into Israel.

This development came simultaneously as European Union foreign policy head Federica Mogherini paid a 24-hour visit May 20-21 to Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward, stating that Europe wanted to play a more prominent role in the process.

But behind Mogherini’s visit was growing approval within the European Union for more pressure to be exerted on Israel to stop expropriating land from the Palestinians to build more illegal Israeli settlements and enlarge current ones.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was on the defensive following its perception of bias from the European Union.

“The Israeli government will not be pressured by the European Union into making any concessions with the Palestinians in regards to the peace process,” said a spokesman from Israel’s Foreign Ministry – who insisted on remaining anonymous due to “ongoing problems at the ministry”.

“If the EU exerts one-sided pressure on Israel, without putting any pressure on the Palestinians, the situation will backfire because it will allow the Palestinians to avoid direct negotiations with us at the negotiating table,” the spokesman told IPS.

“Any future peace negotiations will have to involve face to face talks between the Palestinians and us. We will accept nothing less.”

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, quoting a mediaeval biblical scholar, instructed all Israeli diplomats not to apologise for Israel’s occupation, stating that “all of the land (meaning East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories) belonged to Israel.

As Israel finds itself painted into a corner politically, Palestinian and Israeli analysts have been debating whether there would be any European pressure on Israel and whether that pressure would have any effect.

Political scientist Prof Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, believes that the European Union will be able to successfully pressure the Israeli government, despite its extremism.

“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action,” Awad told IPS.

“EU pressure on Israel will also be buoyed by the fact that a number of EU countries have officially recognised a Palestinian state while others have recognised a state in principle and are critical of Israel’s continued occupation and land expropriation in the West Bank,” added Awad.

However, political analyst Benedetta Berti, a research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, is not convinced that the European Union will succeed in pushing Israel to any negotiating table.

“If we look at their record so far there has been a lot of rhetoric but not much actual action. So far, 16 out of the 28 EU ministers have told Mogherini to go ahead with labelling settlement goods exported to Europe,” Berti told IPS.

“It hasn’t happened yet as they have to get 20 of the 28 EU ministers on board for that and due to the divisions in the EU over Israel I’m not sure that it will happen in the near future,” explained Berti.

Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group has accused the Israeli authorities of being indifferent to attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers and security forces.

“Most cases of violent crimes against Palestinians not only go unpunished – but often are completely ignored by the authorities. Even when criminal investigations against soldiers accused of such offences are opened, they almost always fail,” said Yesh Din, a volunteer organisation working to defend the human rights of Palestinian civilians under Israeli occupation.

The groups said that approximately 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by the IDF against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians, and their property, are closed without any indictments. In the rare cases that indictments are served, conviction leads to very light sentencing.

“Moreover, Palestinians who attempt to file complaints about crimes committed against them face staggering obstacles in their way. The complete absence of military police stations open to the Palestinian public in the West Bank, for example, makes it literally impossible for Palestinians to file complaints directly with the military police,” stated Yesh Din.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Israeli commander who blocked the writer’s entrance to the village of Kafr Qaddoum – as clashes were taking place – for over two hours. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
KAFR QADDOUM, West Bank, Apr 7 2015 (IPS)

It is becoming increasingly risky to cover clashes and protests between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank as the number of journalists injured, in what appears to be deliberate targeting by Israeli security forces, continues to rise.

During the last 12 months, Israel’s Foreign Press Association (FPA) has issued numerous protests at the manhandling, harassment and shooting of both members of the foreign media and Palestinian journalists.

“The Foreign Press calls on the Israeli border police (a paramilitary unit) to put an immediate end to a wave of attacks on journalists. In just over a week, border police officers have carried out at least four attacks on journalists working for international media organisations, injuring reporters and damaging expensive equipment. These attacks all appear to have been unprovoked,” was one of many statements released by the FPA last year.The rising trend of Israeli security forces using live ammunition against Palestinian protesters has expanded to include journalists as well.

“A change in policy appears to be the reason for unprecedented aggressive behaviour by the authorities against journalists covering demonstrations in Jerusalem,” read another FPA statement.

The assaults have included shooting rubber-coated metal bullets directly at journalists on a regular basis.

Tear gas canisters, which under Israeli law are meant to be shot from a safe distance in an upward arch so as not to endanger life, have also been shot directly at journalists from close range even when the journalists were out of the line of fire.

The rising trend of Israeli security forces using live ammunition against Palestinian protesters has expanded to include journalists as well.

Palestinian journalists and cameramen working for foreign agencies and local media appear to be bearing the brunt of these attacks, because assaulting and abusing Palestinians, males in particular, is an integral part of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

A colleague of IPS, a cameraman from Palestine TV, was shot in the leg several months ago with a 0.22 inch calibre bullet fired from a Ruger rifle by an Israeli sniper as he filmed a clash in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddoum.

Palestinian journalists in the line of fire. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

On a previous occasion, as he left the village, Israeli soldiers pulled his vehicle over, dragged him out and assaulted him.

Another IPS colleague, a cameraman from Reuters, was shot twice in both legs with a metal bullet with a 0.5 mm rubber coating at one Friday protest. The previous week he had been targeted directly with a tear gas canister.

“We are very concerned about the marked increase in the number of Palestinian journalists being deliberately targeted by the Israeli security forces,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement  on the increase in violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian journalists released last year.

“We reiterate our call to the Israeli authorities, especially the military, to respect the physical integrity of journalists covering demonstrations and we remind them that the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on 28 March recognising the importance of media coverage of protests and condemning any attacks or violence against the journalists covering them.”

The situation was even worse during the Gaza war from July to August last year, when 17 Palestinian journalists were killed by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) even when they were not in the proximity of the fighting.

IPS has witnessed numerous attacks on journalists over the years and has also been harassed by Israeli soldiers when trying to cover clashes.

Last Friday, I was held up for over two hours in the sun by Israeli soldiers as I tried to enter Kafr Qaddoum where major clashes were taking place.

During this time other members of the media, ambulances and other protesters were refused entrance.

With Israeli government press accreditation, an accreditation denied to most Palestinian journalists, I was able to contact the IDF spokesman who coordinated my entrance, but only after several hours of standing in the sun.

I was neither assaulted nor was any of my equipment confiscated from me, another privilege of being white and Western.

Another Palestinian colleague and cameraman came in for very different treatment a month ago when he had had his camera confiscated by an Israeli soldier outside the Jelazon refugee camp, near Ramallah.

When he tried to retrieve his expensive piece of equipment he was warned to back off and knew better than to pursue the issue.

However, when I took the matter up with the commanding officer the camera was returned to its owner after the officer had taken me aside on a charm offensive while ordering the Palestinian journalists to stand back.

On another occasion, I was accompanying a Palestinian ambulance which was trying to reach Jelazon camp to help Palestinian youths injured during clashes with the IDF.

Several military jeeps blocked the roads leading to the camp and refused to move when asked by the ambulance driver.

After I got out and spoke to the soldiers, showing them my credentials yet again, the jeep moved to the side and allowed the ambulance to continue.

The Israelis still appear to be sensitive to a certain degree to how they are portrayed in the Western media.

This has become apparent to me when covering violent clashes. As soon as it has been established that I am Australian, white and a woman, the aggression of the Israeli soldiers has abated and they have tried to get me on side by asking me if I am alright and warning me to take care,

However, I know that I too could easily fall prey to Israeli ammunition if I am not exceedingly careful so, on this basis, I choose to stay well away from the frontlines of clashes.

Edited by Phil Harris  

The Qassem family from Beit Hanoun in Gaza, civilians whose home was targeted by Israeli air strikes during the 2007/2008 Israel-Gaza war, leaving them homeless. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
GAZA, Mar 30 2015 (IPS)

The U.N. investigation into Israel’s devastating military campaign against Gaza, from July to August 2014, has been delayed until June and in the interim Israel and the Palestinians are waging a media war to win the moral narrative as to why so many Palestinian civilians were killed during the bloody conflict.

The postponement of the investigation was announced at the Mar. 23 U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting in Geneva.

Israel says it went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties but its critics, including Israeli human rights organisations, have questioned this claim.

“The ferocity of destruction and high proportion of civilian lives lost in Gaza cast serious doubts over Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law principles of proportionality, distinction and precautions in attack,” Makarim Wibisono, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967, told the UNHCR meeting.“The ferocity of destruction and high proportion of civilian lives lost in Gaza cast serious doubts over Israel's adherence to international humanitarian law principles of proportionality, distinction and precautions in attack" – Makarim Wibisono, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967

During the war over 2,300 Palestinians were killed, the majority of them civilians including more than 500 children, and over 10,000 injured. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed.

Many of the Palestinian civilians killed died after Israel targeted residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of Palestinians inside as the buildings collapsed on them.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem released a report in January titled Black Flag: The Legal and Moral Implications of the Policy of Attacking Residential Buildings in the Gaza Strip, Summer 2014.

The report focuses on the policy that the Israeli military implemented of strikes on homes, attempting to explain if and how “policymakers’ claims about Israel’s commitment to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provisions comport with the policy of attacking residential buildings.”

Damage to residential buildings was enormous, with 18,000 homes either destroyed or badly damaged. More than 100,000 Palestinians were left homeless and with little to no reconstruction taking place, most of these Gazans remain displaced.

B’Tselem investigated 70 incidents involving attacks on civilian homes which killed 606 Palestinians, half of whom were women, 93 babies and children under the age of 5, 129 children aged 5 to 14, 42 teenagers and 37 elderly Palestinians.

B’Tselem said that a number of the cases it examined indicated that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) actions contravened IHL.

“A military objective, the only legitimate target for attack by parties to hostilities, is defined as one that makes an effective contribution to military action whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage to the attacking side,” said the rights group.

“Over the course of the fighting that took place in the summer, both government officials and top military commanders refrained from spelling out the specific objective of most of the attacks.

“Instead, the IDF spokesperson provided only general figures on the number of strikes carried out each day against what the spokesperson defined as ‘terror sites’.”

The rights group added that the IDF also appeared to change its definition as the war progressed, with many of the residential homes targeted allegedly belonging to Hamas operatives.

Kamal Qassem, 43, his wife Iman, and their five children aged 6 to 12, from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza were forced to flee to an emergency U.N. shelter after their house was destroyed by Israeli bombs, which targeted their homes over two nights during the war.

“My wife Iman was injured during the bombing and spent two nights in hospital. She also requires regular hospital treatment for kidney problems,” Qassem told IPS

“My daughter Shadha, 9, was severely traumatised during the aerial assault and now suffers from epilepsy and soils her sheets at night. None of us were fighters.”

However, Israel’s newly appointed military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s contribution to the Dahiya Doctrine, established during the second Israel-Lebanon war in 2006, could provide some answers to the immense destruction wrought on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

The Dahiya Doctrine is a military strategy that envisages the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of hostile regimes, and endorses the employment of disproportionate force to secure that end.

The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment buildings which were flattened by the IDF during the 2006 war.

“What happened in the Dahiva quarter of Beurut in 2006 would happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel,” stated Eizenkot.

“We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction.”

Former Rapporteur to the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, wrote that under the doctrine, “the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism.”

Members of the U.N. fact-finding mission into the 2007/2008 Israel-Gaza war suggested that the Dahiya Doctrine had been employed while other analysts added it was also behind Israel’s 2014 military campaign.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli civilian towns, preceding last year’s war and one of the main reasons for Israel launching its assault on Gaza, could resume again should the siege on Gaza continue with no political breakthrough on the horizon – an ominous sign for Gaza’s civilians.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Fathi Said and Mustafa Jarboua, Gazan fishermen who have seen their livelihoods destroyed by Israel’s blockade. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Feb 27 2015 (IPS)

The beautiful Mediterranean Sea laps gently onto the white sandy beach near Gaza City’s port. Fishing boats dot the beach as fishermen tend to their boats and fix their nets.

However, this scenic and peaceful setting belies a depressing reality. Gaza’s once thriving fishing industry has been decimated by Israel’s blockade of the coastal territory since 2007.

Approximately 3,600 Gazan fishermen, and their dependents, estimated at over 30,000 people, used to rely on fishing for a living.

Fish also provided a basic source of food for Gaza’s poverty-stricken population of over 1.5 million people.“Access restrictions imposed by Israel at land and sea continue to undermine the security of Palestinians and the agricultural sector in Gaza, which is the primary source of income for thousands of farmers and fishermen and their families” – U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Following the blockade of the Gaza Strip, more than 90 percent of Gaza’s fishermen have had to depend on aid to survive.

Mustafa Jarboua, 55, the father of 10 children from Shati refugee camp, sits on the beach near his boat mending his nets. He has been a fisherman for 17 years and has witnessed the fishing industry’s decline since Israel first started placing restrictions on the fishermen in the early 2000s, culminating in the 2007 blockade.

“Before the blockade I used to earn about NIS 2000-3000 per month (500-750 dollars),” he told IPS.

“Now I’m lucky if I can earn NIS 500-600 (126 -152 dollars) a month because we can only fish a few days each week depending on when there are sufficient fish.

“The shoals closer to shore have been depleted with most of the better quality fish at least nine miles out to sea. I have to rely on money from the Ministry of Social Affairs to survive.

“I can’t afford meat and have to buy second-hand clothes for my children. Buying treats on holidays is no longer possible,” said Jarboua.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “in the late 1990s, annual catches from the Gaza Strip’s four fishing wharves located in Rafah, Khan Younis, Deir Al Balah and Gaza City averaged more than 3,500 tonnes and generated an annual income of over 10 million dollars.”

The already dire situation was exacerbated during last year’s July-August war with Israel, reducing the area in which the fishermen can fish to six nautical miles. After the Oslo agreement in 1993, the distance had been 20 nautical miles.

However, fishermen are still being shot at and killed and injured even within that 6-mile nautical zone.

Jarboua pointed to his boat and showed IPS the bullet holes where the Israeli navy had fired on him while out to sea.

Others fishermen have had their boats destroyed and been arrested, Jarboua’s friend Fathi Said, also from Shati camp, told IPS that his brother had been arrested by the Israelis several weeks ago while only five nautical miles out to sea.

Sami Al Quka, 35, from Shati had his hand blown off when the Israeli navy shot at him while he was within the approved fishing zone.

Brother Ibrahim Al Quka, 55, said he used to earn about 50-100 dollars a day before Israel’s blockade.

“Now on a good day I only earn about 30 dollars and then I can buy food for my family for a few days. After that I have to rely on the United Nations to survive,” Al Quka told IPS.

Oxfam GB confirms the fishermen’s claims: “Even when fishing within the six mile restriction, fishermen face being shot or arrested by the Israeli navy. In the first half of 2014, there were at least 177 incidents of naval fire against fishermen – nearly as many as in all of 2013.”

OCHA reported in its weekly Humanitarian Report in mid-February that “incidents involving Israeli forces opening fire into the Access Restricted Areas (ARAs) on land and at sea continued on a daily basis, with at least 17 such incidents reported during the week.”

“In at least two incidents,” said the report, “Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats reportedly sailing within the Israeli-declared six nautical mile fishing limit, forcing them ashore.

“Access restrictions imposed by Israel at land and sea continue to undermine the security of Palestinians and the agricultural sector in Gaza, which is the primary source of income for thousands of farmers and fishermen and their families.”

Gaza’s farmers are also unable to access their land near the borders with Israel which is imposing “security zones” of up to 1.5 km in some of Gaza’s most fertile land. Dozens of farmers have been shot and killed or injured after trying to reach their farms.

The Gaza Strip’s dense population is crammed into an area 6-12 km wide by 41 km in length.

Gaza’s struggling economy has been further battered by Israel’s almost complete ban on exports, including manufactured goods and agricultural products which formed a major part of its economy, and imports.

“Severe trade restrictions on both imports and exports have stifled the private sector, forcing several thousands of businesses to close in the past few years,” according to the ‘GAZA Detailed Needs Assessment (DNA) and Recovery Framework: Social Protection Sub-Sector‘ report produced by the Palestinian Government, European Union, World Bank and the United Nations.

“Since the economic blockade (which Egypt has now joined) was put in place in 2007, exports from Gaza have dropped by 97 per cent,” added the report. “Even companies that are still operating can only produce at high risk and with limited profit, due to elevated production costs, widespread power cuts and the almost complete ban on exports.”

“The basic needs of Gazans are not being met,” Arwa Mhanna from Oxfam told IPS. “Poverty is deepening, vital services have been affected and livelihoods crippled. The situation is moving towards more violence and further humanitarian tragedy.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Makeshift Bedouin home in a camp east of Jerusalem on the way to Jericho. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Naifa Youssef and 50 other members of her Bedouin community live a precarious life, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence alongside the main road which links Jerusalem with the Dead Sea and the ancient city of Jericho.

Home for this community, east of Jerusalem, comprises a collection of shanty structures and hovels as well as tents erected on the rugged and rocky hills which line the road.

These makeshift homes are not connected to the electricity grid or to water and waste infrastructure. In winter the bitter cold rain and howling winds creep into the structures while mud and sewerage build up in pools around the tents.“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent” – Naifa Youssef, a Palestinian Bedouin

Water has to be purchased and brought in by hand from the nearest village of Anata, a 15-minute and 5-km taxi journey away costing about two dollars per person.

Youssef’s community lives below the poverty line as the men folk struggle to make ends meet from casual day labour and herding their goats and sheep, with the area they can graze on limited by Israeli settlements.

The community has lived there for 50 years following their expulsion from the Negev Desert in 1948 when the Israeli state was established. The majority of the West Bank’s Bedouin communities were expelled from the Negev Desert during the same year.

Over the next few years, Israel plans to forcibly expel and relocate approximately 27,000 Palestinian Bedouins from Area C of the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements.

This followed an announcement by the Israeli government in August that it planned to confiscate over 1,000 acres of West Bank land – the biggest land grab by the Jewish state in three decades.

The West Bank is divided into Area A, under nominal Palestinian control, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C (which comprises approximately 60 percent of the territory) under full Israeli control, although overall control of the entire West Bank ultimately falls under Israeli control.

The Israelis argue that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Area C does not belong to the Palestinians and that most of the structures built there were constructed without permits.

However, obtaining the requisite Israeli building permits for Palestinians is notoriously difficult in East Jerusalem and most parts of the West Bank, and almost impossible in Area C. Critics argue that this is a deliberate policy by the Israeli authorities to keep the occupied territory part of Israel.

The Israeli authorities have warned the Youssefs and their neighbours that they have less than two months to evacuate and that if they refuse to leave they will be forcibly expelled by Israeli security forces.

“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent,” Youssef said.

Youssef’s problems have been experienced by thousands of other Bedouins and will be experienced by thousands more once again as Israel moves to keep most of the West Bank free of Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers and settlements.

In preparation for what some have labelled an accelerated wave of ethnic cleansing, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration, which administers the West Bank, have been demolishing Palestinian infrastructure in Area C including shacks, tents, animal shelters and homes and other structures deemed to have been built “illegally”.

As part of the forced relocation, more than 12,000 Bedouins will be relocated to a new settlement near the West Bank city of Jericho where they will be surrounded by a firing zone, settlements and an Israeli checkpoint which will limit their ability to graze their herds, the main source of income for these nomadic pastoralists.

Several Bedouin communities were forcibly relocated in the 1990s by the Civil Administration from near East Jerusalem to an area of land near a garbage dump in Abu Dis which falls in Area B.

The expulsion of the Bedouins in the 1990s was primarily to make way for enlarging the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, one of the largest in the West Bank.

Further to enlarging Maale Adumim, part of Israel’s plan has been to keep an area known as the E1 corridor, which links the settlement with East Jerusalem, contiguous and under Israeli control by building more settlements, effectively dividing the West Bank in two.

The move also further isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. East Jerusalem is of great importance to Palestinians due to cultural, educational, family, business, and religious ties. Palestinians also hope to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The Civil Administration’s plan blatantly contravenes international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forced transfer of protected persons, such as these Bedouin communities, unless the move is temporary or is necessary for their safety or to meet a military need,” says Israeli rights group B’tselem.

“The Civil Administration’s expulsion plan meets none of these conditions. Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated to act for the benefit and welfare of residents of the occupied territory. Expansion of the settlements does not comport with this requirement.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The refugee camp of Yarmouk represents one of the most severe examples of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, with foreign aid agencies unable to enter the opposition-controlled area that been effectively besieged since December 2012.

UNRWA food distribution Jan. 31, 2014 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, Damascus. Credit: UNRWA

Responsibility for the plight of the primarily Palestinian Yarmouk population has been almost exclusively directed toward the Syrian government, whose forces control the periphery of the camp.

Approximately 18,000 residents are besieged within Yarmouk as fighting continues around and sporadically within in the area.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has been operating in Syria since 1950, is presently the only significant organisation directly providing the civilians of Yarmouk with aid.

The biggest issue has been a lack of cooperation from the parties of the conflict to permit safe access to the camp.

While stressing that UNRWA appreciates that the Syrian government this week permitted some aid to enter the camp, Christopher Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson, told IPS that, “The large crowds of desperate people waiting to receive food parcels attest to the massive needs that have yet to be met.”

Between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21, UNRWA was only able to bring a few hundred aid parcels into the camp. On Thursday, Jan. 30, however, Gunness said that UNRWA had managed to enter Yarmouk and successfully distribute 1,026 food parcels. Aid distribution continued on Friday, and the Syrian government has expressed its intent to facilitate an accelerated distribution process."What is needed at this stage is not simply negotiating for weeks to get a few parcels in, what is needed is a paradigm shift." -- Nadim Houry

Nevertheless, there are still tens of thousands of people whom this aid did not reach. It is virtually a “drop in the ocean compared with need,” explained Gunness.

“As each food parcel contains food for an average family for only 10 days, it is imperative that continuous access to Yarmouk is authorised and supported, so that UNRWA can alleviate the deep and prolonged suffering caused by lack of food,” he said.

The people of Yarmouk face what Gunness describes as “unimaginable human suffering”. Children are experiencing various symptoms of malnutrition, such as rickets and anaemia, women have died in childbirth because of a lack of medial care, there is no clean water nor electricity, and aid deliveries have slowed to a trickle. At present, reports indicate that at least 49 people have died of malnutrition and government snipers have targeted people foraging for food in nearby areas.

Getting aid in is on a “convoy to convoy, day to day basis” says Gunness. Presently, Yarmouk can only be accessed via two main routes, both of which are strictly controlled through a series of tight checkpoints. In addition, fighting in close proximity to aid convoys has thwarted successive efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance. In one case, gunfire hit a bulldozer that was clearing debris for the convoy.

On Jan. 17, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Navi Pillay issued a report describing the humanitarian situation in Yarmouk. In this report, which OHCHR reaffirmed to IPS as still applicable on Jan. 28, Pillay described the situation as “desperate” and indicated that government forces and affiliated militias appear to be imposing “collective punishment on the civilians in Yarmouk”, adding that such actions which impede “humanitarian assistance to civilians in desperate need may amount to a war crime”, and is certainly against international law.

“Aid access is a priority, but what is needed at this stage is not simply negotiating for weeks to get a few parcels in, what is needed is a paradigm shift … that this is not something you negotiate on, this is a right under international law, Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) deputy director for its Middle East and North Africa division, told IPS. “What is needed right now is to establish modalities for repeated and efficient humanitarian aid.”

Looking forward, talks between the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition have the potential to open Yarmouk to more comprehensive incoming aid and the exit of civilians. Though a deal has not been reached at the Geneva II talks, both sides have discussed relief for besieged areas, notably the Old City of Homs.

The head international mediator for the U.N., Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, has optimistically called these discussions a positive step forward, necessary for further agreement.

“We want the Geneva II talks to make the issue a priority and to demand that the regime end government sieges imposed on opposition held towns. Humanitarian organisations must have unfettered access to these areas,” Geoffrey Mock, Syria country specialist for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), told IPS.

“Humanitarian access has really been quite limited,” Houry said. “[HRW workers] have been able to get in [the country], but not the unrestricted access we had asked for.”

This kind of restriction has also been experienced by AIUSA, which has only been able to support the Syrian civilians through their presence in neighbouring countries.

The Syrian mission to the United Nations did not respond to an IPS request for comment on the humanitarian and human rights situation in Yarmouk, as well as the inability for humanitarian groups to enter the country.

Children at an Israeli-Arab school set their sights high on harmony. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS.

By Pierre Klochendler
KFAR QARA’, Northern Israel, Jan 27 2014 (IPS)

Welcome to Bridge Over the Wadi primary school, one of five bi-national schools under the “Hand-in-Hand” initiative of the Centre of Jewish-Arab Education in Israel. The centre strives to bring children from both communities to learn together in Hebrew and Arabic in the hope that they’ll bridge the divide between the two peoples.

All in all, there are only seven bi-national school establishments in Israel, amidst 3,000 or so separate Jewish and Arab schools.

But among the few, this one is unique. It’s the only such school established in a town populated by Israelis of Arab descent. Here, Jewish children are hosted by their Arab peers.Here, Jewish children are hosted by their Arab peers.

“It’s not an Arab school. Actually, we’re strangers in our own environment,” cautions principal Hassan Agbaria. “We have an offer: acceptance of the other, equality in rights, partnership. Peace is achievable by knowing each other and living together, at least at school.”

A Jewish-Arab school – let alone in an Arab town – is no trivial matter in a country where the Jewish majority is in conflict with the Palestinian people to whom the Arab minority belongs. One in five Israelis is an Arab of Palestinian descent.

Israel’s declaration of independence pledges to “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex.”

In effect, the enduring conflict, persistent mistrust and charges of disloyalty to a state which defines itself essentially as Jewish, recurrent suspicions of unequal treatment, and discrimination based on religious-political identities have all left a deep mark on Israel’s Arabs.

“Children here see neither Arabs nor Jews but people,” stresses Uri Levror from the Jewish village Katzir.

The writing is on the school’s walls. “We must be the change that we wish to see in the world,” say Hebrew and Arabic translations of the adage attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Parents who send their kids to school here answer the call for change from the existing order of things.

“We mustn’t wait for someone to create change,” says Ofri Sadeh from Katzir.

In this area of Galilee, Arab-origin citizens of Israel are the overwhelming majority. About 150,000 Arabs and 20,000 Jews live side by side, and apart.

Arabs make up 60 percent of the school’s 238 pupils. The staff is equally balanced as each classroom is co-taught by Arab and Jewish teachers.

Nothing is simple or utopian on the school benches. The dichotomy lies in the parents’ expectations and motivation. Through their children, Jews aspire to realise the elusive dream of peace and harmony.

“It’s an opportunity for our children to be imbued with values that are important for me and my husband. I want them to become better persons than us,” says Noga Shitrit, a mother of three from Katzir, and an educator at the mixed kindergarten attached to the school.

Arabs, for their children, desire the fulfilment of a no less elusive social promotion. “The best school!” proclaims Kfar Qara’ resident Rania Yahiya.

Second graders pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, pondering on quoted words of wisdom: “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”

“People discriminate against others because of skin colour, language, gender, identity, Jewish or Arab,” stresses the teacher in Hebrew.

“And then comes Mandela,” another teacher chimes in, in Arabic. “He said, ‘We’re different, but equal.’ He had a dream. Which dream?” she asks, mixing up Mandela and African-American civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King.

“May peace prevail,” comes a reply. “Stop the wars,” says another. The class dream their parents’ dream.

The teacher says, “Jews and Arabs are…” “Different!” the class answers in unison. “Different, but equal,” corrects the teacher.

“We instil these educational values so that threads of peace are woven into the fabric of their lives,” says vice-principal Masha Krasnitsky. “They’re fully conscious of bringing fresh ideas to the world. They’re caught in demanding and challenging situations, but they stand up to the test of courage.”

Under their teachers’ guidance, Arab and Jewish kids rejoice in each other’s holidays playfully.

But when national remembrance days are marked – Holocaust Day or the Day of the Fallen Soldiers – old passions are woken anew.

The school’s educators are in pursuit of a magical identity formula which will draw schoolchildren together around a collective experience untroubled by one seminal event’s memory – the creation of the State of Israel (1948) seen on the other side as the Great Palestinian Catastrophe, or Nakba.

“We’re a laboratory for the Israeli society,” says principal Agbaria. “We try to provide answers to questions which Israelis grapple with for over 60 years. Step by step, we come closer to the vision of living here with a declared identity, without fear.”

Playtime, announces the oriental music on the PA.

Hebrew almost naturally dominates kids talk. And though Arabic is, along with Hebrew, officially recognised and, at school, textbooks are in Hebrew and Arabic and kids learn in both languages, beyond the school’s perimeter Arabic is often perceived as the enemy’s language.

As rain falls, children huddle in a tiny corner, looking a lot alike. It’s been 10 years since this schools was set up. That’s also cause for celebration.

A Palestinian family from Yarmouk camp in Syria now living on the fringes of Ein el Helwe camp in the south of Lebanon. Credit: Mutawalli Abou Nasser/IPS.

By Mutawalli Abou Nasser
BEIRUT, Jan 6 2014 (IPS)

Over the past year more than 50,000 Palestinian refugees have fled violence, chaos and destitution in Syria to seek sanctuary in Lebanon. The vast majority have found themselves living in dire poverty, and trapped in chronically insecure existence.

Denied assurances of legal residence many are unsure if and how they can continue to live in the country into the New Year.

“Who, I mean really who from the Palestinian families can pay 200 dollars for the papers for every family member? If the average family is five people, then that is 1,000 dollars. This is impossible as we know most Palestinian refugees aren’t even sure how they are going to feed their children one day to the next,” Mahmoud Assir Saawi, president of the Council for Palestinian Refugees Fleeing from Syria told IPS.

Such sentiments are reiterated time and time again within the squalid camps and overcrowded ghettoes throughout Lebanon. Palestinians arriving from Syria find themselves in an administrative and bureaucratic morass hobbled by decades of troubled history and war that offers them scant security.

Many of the Palestinian refugees from Syria will have originally been uprooted from their homeland in 1948 upon the creation of the state of Israel, or during the six-day war in 1967 when the Israelis comprehensively defeated the neighbouring Arab armies. New war has exacted its toll and around half of their communities in Syria have fled once again.

Lebanon has received most of this exodus, and of Syria’s neighbours it is perhaps least able to accommodate the influx.

The presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon has always been a highly divisive issue, with many Lebanese blaming Palestinians for the role they played in the nation’s rancorous civil war from 1975 to 1990. The arrival of large communities of their compatriots this past year has further exacerbated existing fears and prejudices.

It is perhaps for this reason that the arriving Palestinians have been classified as ‘guests’, ‘migrants’ or ‘displaced people’. To afford them the more apt title of ‘refugee’ would bring with it legal obligations, most notably under the Geneva convention, which Lebanon would struggle to realise.

Fears of Palestinian, and even Syrian refugees settling in Lebanon permanently, and thus shifting the precarious sectarian balance within the country, are common and are regularly aired in the media and by politicians. As such the refugees’ status remains vulnerable and their sanctuary insecure.

Securing residency papers remains one of the biggest problems for Palestinian refugees from Syria. Upon arrival Palestinians fleeing war and hunger are only granted a one-week visa in Lebanon, which then must then extend.

In the overcrowded and destitute Chatilla Palestinian camp in Beirut, refugees from Syria have staged sit-ins at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) offices. The international organisation was already struggling to provide basic services to the approximately 420,000 Palestinian refugees already living in the country before the outbreak of the Syrian crisis. UNRWA has been tasked by the Lebanese government with extending these services to the new arrivals.

Palestinian journalist Maher Ayoub from Yarmouk Camp in Damascus knows first hand about the vulnerability of life in Lebanon. On a recent trip to renew his papers he was ordered to leave the country within the week, despite assurances from the Lebanese government that it would not throw out any refugees.

Faced with incarceration in Lebanon or a perilous return to Syria, he has taken refuge in one of the Palestinian camps Lebanese security services are not allowed to enter under an agreement reached at the end of the civil war.

“Where can I go? What can I do? I have no options now,” Ayoub told IPS.

Many other Palestinian refugees distrustful of the security services or fearful of being unable to pay their annual visa renewal fees are seeking cover within the camps. The reality is a life of incarceration in chronically overcrowded hovels of destitution where unemployment is rife.

“We know they are our brethren and we must help them but this is becoming untenable,” said Abu Ahmad, a Lebanese-Palestinian resident from Chatilla camp. “I used to get at least a week’s work every month but now there is nothing. Every day we are seeing problems in the camp because of the desperation and the lack of work. People are even starting to pull weapons on each other. We need more support.”

A UNRWA report showed a shortfall in the organisation’s budget by 68 million dollars. The different Palestinian factions have proven unable to absorb the strain.

For the Palestinians fleeing Syria’s war the struggle looks set to continue in 2014 as they try to build a semblance of stability in their lives.

The end of the world’s most enduring conflict was always regarded as the essential linchpin of Mideast security. As direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians resume following a three-year hiatus, it seems too late for peace between them – if the declared goal of a peace deal within nine months is achieved – to end the violence unleashed by the ‘Arab springs’.

Since the resumption of the peace negotiations last month, from Lebanon to the north, Syria to the east, and Gaza and Egypt to the south, rockets sporadically target Israel.

As they closely monitor leakages from the civil war in Syria and the perils of civil wars in Egypt and Lebanon, Israelis like to say, somewhat self-righteously, that their country “is a villa in the jungle” and that the two-and-a-half-year Arab turmoil has already taken more lives than the 100-year conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Throughout the Israeli-Arab conflict, Palestine conjured up a raison d’être for the Arab and Islamic world, the banner under which their peoples mobilise. This continued from the war that created Israel (1948) to the Suez Crisis (1956), the Six-Day-War (1967), the 1973 War, and the two Lebanon wars in 1982 and 2006. This, besides the two Palestinian Intifadah uprisings in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005 and countless campaigns against Palestinian groups.

And throughout the quest for peace, from the inception of the peace process at the Madrid Conference (1991), many processes were inaugurated with great pomp – at the White House, in Camp David, Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh, Annapolis, now again in Washington.

Peace treaties were signed between Israel and Egypt (1979) and between Israel and Jordan (1994).

But the numerous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians – the Oslo Accords (1993), the Cairo agreement (1994), the Wye River Memorandum (1998), the Roadmap for Peace (2003) – were never fully implemented.

Until recently, the region still lived to the beat of periods of tension and quiet, of conflict and conflict resolution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Hence, during Israel’s operation Pillars of Defence against the Islamic resistance movement Hamas in Gaza last November, the U.S., the U.N., Egypt and Qatar (to name a few) were involved in negotiating a ceasefire.

Common wisdom had it that the resolution of ‘the mother of all conflicts’ would contribute greatly to regional stability and appeasement.

Nowadays it’s the other way around. The international community fears that the winds and fires of the ‘Arab springs’ will trigger instability in Israel and the occupied territories.

For their part, Israelis and Palestinians seem to worry more about what surrounds them than what divides them, as if they were protected under the eye of the cyclone blowing on their turbulent region.

Both Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas share the same concern. Both stress that the Arab upheavals are a key motivation for engaging in peace talks now.

Though the conflict isn’t the source of the ‘Arab springs’, it’s still a unifying dimension of the Arab condition. A sovereign independent Palestine remains an elemental Arab demand, side by side with the demand for democracy, respect for human rights, and social justice.

For years, the status of the U.S. in the region was largely dependent on its administration’s ability to act as an “honest broker” between Israelis and Palestinians.

These days, the U.S. role is judged as to its administration’s capacity to stop the carnage in Syria and to influence the Egyptian military to proceed with its promised roadmap for a return to democracy.

The multiple crises which plague the Middle East – notwithstanding the great issue of a nuclear Iran – certainly factored in the U.S. decision to prod Israel and the Palestinians to finally agree to renew the peace process.

The U.S. hopes that resumption of talks will demonstrate the effectiveness of its Mideast diplomacy, given that President Barack Obama until now has given priority to mediation, containment and crisis management over military intervention. The killing of three Palestinians in a West Bank confrontation on Monday cannot have helped continuation of the talks.

Whether this expectation is confirmed or not, it definitely shows that the U.S. still believes that a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could impact positively on the region as a whole.

But the current peace endeavour is both a historical mission and mission impossible.

The Palestinians (supported by the U.S.) have long insisted that a two-state solution be based on the ‘Green Line’ which marks the ceasefire line with the territories occupied by Israel in the wake of the Six-Day War.

Yet until now, the demand is, at least outwardly, rejected by Netanyahu.

In the past, Israel agreed to negotiate the five core issues at the heart of the conflict – Jerusalem, settlements, borders and security, refugees and water – on the basis of the Green Line.

This time, Abbas had to reconcile with Netanyahu’s stance that nothing is agreed upon as long as nothing is agreed upon by Netanyahu himself, and thus the talks are held without preconditions, from a maximalist Israeli standpoint.

The situation on the ground is no less challenging.

About 400,000-500,000 Israelis live in settlements on territories which the Palestinians envision as part of their future state. And as the talks were under way, Israel pledged to build over 2,000 settlement homes.

Besides, a two-state solution would have to take into account not only a re-partition of historical Palestine but the fact that Israel actually negotiates with only part of the Palestinians, those who live in the West Bank under Palestinian Authority rule. Hamas, Abbas’s nemesis in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, opposes a two-state solution.

So the chances of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians or, alternatively, of an interim agreement on a Palestinian state with provisional borders recognised by Israel and the U.S., are slim.

And though it appears that the old conflict pales in comparison to the bloodletting in Syria and Egypt, whether its resolution has an appeasing influence on the region and on the Iranian nuclear crisis will be determined by the substance of the agreement itself, either final or interim, especially with regard to how the Green Line factors.

Zein Abu-Mariya (17) with his parents after nine months in Israeli custody. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS.

By Pierre Klochendler
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank, Apr 22 2013 (IPS)

“Three interrogators questioned me for three hours. I was handcuffed. They beat me, slapped me, kicked me, boxed me, accused me of throwing stones; played a video of a demonstration. I denied I was there. So again, they beat me up,” recounts Zein Abu-Mariya, 17, seated on a sofa next to dad.

“They pressured my son to confess,” Hisham chimes in. “‘If you don’t sign, you’ll be treated like an animal,’ they threatened.” Zein acquiesces.

In March 2012, in the dead of night, he was arrested by Israeli soldiers. Thirty-six hours later, he was brought before a judge. He stood at 35 court hearings, spent nine months in the HaSharon jail minors section; yet was never convicted.

In January, his father finally managed to bail him out. Back home, waiting for an impending court hearing, Zein strikes a defiant pose: “I don’t want to go back to jail, but I’m not afraid; I got used to it.”

He’s gone back to school, but he was held back one year. “My friends ask me what jail is like – just in case.”

Zein’s testimony – like that of many other minors – reveals one of the most painfully enduring experiences of life under occupation.

“Put yourself in their shoes,” U.S. President Barack Obama recently told young Israelis. The issue of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention provides a dramatic example of just how far the U.S. president’s plea is from being fulfilled.

In February, 236 Palestinian minors were incarcerated – 39 aged 12 to 15 – reports rights group Defence of Children International.

Each year for the past ten years, 700 children aged 12 to 17, most of them boys, are arrested by Israel – an average of two per day– estimates the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in a report also published in February.

UNICEF concludes that ill-treatment of imprisoned children “appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised” throughout the process, from arrest to interrogation, prosecution, eventual conviction and condemnation.

Its report points to practices that “amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture” ratified by Israel.

Parents aren’t always notified of their child’s arrest. Most arrests occur at night. During questioning, minors are denied access to a lawyer, or the presence of a relative. Most are accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and vehicles.

“These stones can cause death,” maintains Israeli Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Ilana Stein. “But putting children in jail isn’t something we like.”

The report’s 38 recommendations for bettering the rightful protection of Palestinian children are assigned dutiful consideration. “We actually worked on the report with UNICEF because we want to improve the treatment of detained Palestinian children,” Stein says.

“Such Israeli reaction is good,” welcomes ‘Adli Da’ana, education officer with UNICEF in Hebron. “But on March 20, they grabbed 27 kids in the Old City of Hebron, just like that, in one fell swoop. So is this what they call re-considering their policy?”

Military laws are particularly harsh on children.

The alternative Israeli website 972.com recently brought up the imaginary case study of two 12-year-olds – one Israeli settler, one Palestinian – getting into a fight, and compared the judicial consequences.

An Israeli minor sees a judge within 12 hours; for a Palestinian child, it could take up to four days. Before seeing a lawyer, an Israeli child can be held for two days, a Palestinian child for 90 days. An Israeli child can be held 40 days without charge; a Palestinian child, 60 days.

A 12-year-old Israeli can’t be held during trial; a 12-year-old Palestinian can be held up to 18 months before trial.

Chances of bail before trial stand at 80 percent for Israeli children, at 13 percent for Palestinian children. And while there is no custodial sentencing in Israeli civilian law for a minor under 14, a 12 year-old Palestinian can be incarcerated under Israeli military law.

“The most urgent change is to ensure children spend the least possible time in jail,” urges Na’ama Baumgarten-Sharon, researcher at B’tselem, the Israeli human right organisation. “Children must be brought before a judge in much less time.”

Implemented starting Apr. 2, a military order supposed to reduce the length of pre-trial detention stipulates that Palestinian children under 14 should be brought before a judge within 24 hours of arrest and children aged 14 to 18 within 48 hours.

“Even when there’s realisation that things need to change, it’s a slow process,” notes Baumgarten-Sharon. “The only form of punishment is jail. There’s no other alternative.”

Smain Najjar lives in the Jewish-controlled part of Hebron. Only 17, he’s already been arrested four times on suspicion of stone throwing.

“The first time, it was while playing soccer with friends. I was nine. They locked me in a cold-storage box for six hours; then let me go.

“The second time – I was 11 – they held me for three hours at a nearby checkpoint because I got into an argument with a settler my age.

“The third time, they took me to the nearby settlement’s police station; I was 14.

“The fourth time – last November, during Israel’s military operation on Gaza – I spent four days at the Ofer detention centre. I’d been arrested on my way home from an evening shift at a coffee shop.”

Anxious, his mother Suad kept calling his cellphone. After a while, a voice answered, and ordered, “Stop calling this number, we’ve arrested your child.”

Smain has dropped out of school. “Maybe I’ll become a sports coach,” he says.

“We help these kids find their future, rebuild their personality. Unfortunately, sometimes we fail. Once arrested, it’s a cycle of arrests,” says psycho-social counsellor Ala’ Abu-Ayyash.

Smain likes to take refuge in his dovecote. He says the doves provide an escape from the darkness of life. The doves circle in disarray till one is caught.

Readings in Hebrew at a centre in Tel Aviv tell Israelis about the Nakba. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
TEL AVIV, Apr 18 2013 (IPS)

Fireworks went off over the Tel Aviv skyline this week as thousands of flag-waving Israelis marked the 65th anniversary of their country’s founding. At the same time, a smaller group of Israeli activists explored the other, most often ignored, side to their country’s creation: the forced displaced of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Israeli group Zochrot (‘Remembering’ in Hebrew) unveiled the first Hebrew-language map on this year’s Israeli Independence Day, detailing hundreds of Palestinian villages that were destroyed in historic Palestine from the beginning of the Zionist movement until the war of 1967.

The map also includes Jewish and Syrian villages that were destroyed, dating as far back as the late 1800s.

Each former village and town is marked with a dot – red, blue, yellow, pink, purple or green – to indicate its type, and when and how its residents were displaced. The names of the Israeli communities that were built over the Palestinian ones are also marked.

“It’s about time, no?” said Zochrot founder Eitan Bronstein, laughingly, about why the organisation decided to create a Nakba map in Hebrew.

“For us, it’s very important not only to show the destruction, but to show it as the background of what’s happening today. It’s crucial to acknowledge that where we live today is close to that (former Palestinian) town, or village, or so on,” Bronstein told IPS.

The Palestinian Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic) refers to the 750,000 Palestinians who were forcibly expelled or who fled from their homes and villages before and during the foundation of the state of Israel in 1947-48.

Israeli forces depopulated and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages during this time, and in the years that followed. Palestinian refugees have been barred from returning to their homes ever since; today, Palestinians constitute the largest refugee population in the world, and many still live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Fifty-two-year-old Hanna Farah is originally from the Palestinian village Kufr Bir’im, not far from the Lebanese border in the Galilee region of northern Israel. His family was forcibly displaced in 1948, and he grew up as an internally displaced refugee in his mother’s village Jesh, also in the Galilee.

“Always I am from Kufr Birim – always and forever,” Farah, who now lives in Jaffa, told IPS at the Nakba map launch event. He said he hoped having a Nakba map in Hebrew would finally open Israelis’ eyes to their history, and help them acknowledge the Nakba.

“When they go to the park and have a BBQ, they are sitting on the stones of Palestinian houses. Maybe this (map) will be a little bit of an electric shock,” Farah said. “Most of them cover their eyes. They don’t want to look because it’s uncomfortable for them. Maybe now they would be open to see the real problem and discuss it on a real level.”

Israeli activist Rivka Vitenberg stressed the importance of discussing the Nakba, especially in a society where only the Israeli narrative is taught in schools, and the Palestinian experience is all but ignored.

“When I grew up here, all the time the teachers said that we have only one state and the Arabs have 22 states. When I started to know about the Palestinian point of view, I saw it wasn’t exactly like this. There were people living here,” Vitenberg told IPS.

“I want people to remember the Nakba. It’s a very important part of history. We have to know it.”

In February, a study by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land found that both Israeli and Palestinian school textbooks present “unilateral national narratives”, and historical events – such as the Palestinian Nakba, or, as it is known to most Israelis, the state’s war of independence – are “selectively presented to reinforce each community’s national narrative.”

Still, according to Eitan Bronstein at Zochrot, there has been a gradual shift in Israeli society towards discussing the Nakba more openly, thanks in part to the increased visibility of Palestinian refugees’ demand to return home, and Israeli government efforts to suppress the Nakba.

In 2011, Israel passed a controversial law – known as the Nakba Law – that barred institutions receiving state funding from hosting events to commemorate the Nakba. An original, eventually scrapped, version of the law would have made marking the Nakba a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison.

“If it would be ten years ago, people would tell us, what’s this? They didn’t know what’s the word (Nakba). Today, for sure, more people are open to know it,” Bronstein said.

“We are going to distribute (the map) to university teachers, high school teachers, headmasters, libraries, journalists… I really hope that it will open more places for discussion.” (END)

Bab Al-Shams, the first tent encampment erected by Palestinian activists. Credit: Andreas Hackl/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
JERUSALEM, Apr 13 2013 (IPS)

Tent cities are being set up by Palestinians all over the West Bank to protest against Israeli settlements, building on a protest during the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama last month.

Holding signs reading ‘Obama: you are on the wrong side of history’ and ‘Obama: you promised hope and change – you gave us colonies and apartheid’, dozens of Palestinian activists set up tents on a hillside just outside of Jerusalem during Obama’s first official visit to Israel last month.

The tent village aimed to draw international attention to continued Israeli settlement building, and to unwavering U.S. support for Israeli policies. It was established in an area of the West Bank known as E-1, where Israel plans to expand the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

Activists said in a statement that the village was a step “to claim our right as Palestinians to return to our lands and villages” and “to claim our sovereignty over our lands without permission from anyone.”

Hundreds of Palestinian activists built the first tent encampment called Bab Al-Shams, literally ‘Gate of the Sun’, on privately owned Palestinian land in the E-1 corridor in January. Despite being violently dispersed by Israeli police and soldiers a few days after it was established, Bab Al-Shams inspired the building of even more tent villages throughout the West Bank.

In February, tents were erected in the West Bank village Burin, the site of frequent Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian residents, and then near the southern West Bank town Yatta.

“Our hope is to encourage more and more of this and to build a national movement that brings Palestinians from different parts of Palestine, not only the West Bank, but also the Galilee and other places, to help each other stay on their land,” said Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian activist who participated in setting up many of the tent villages.

The author of ‘Popular Resistance in Palestine’, Qumsiyeh told IPS that the idea behind the tent villages builds on decades of Palestinian steadfastness in resisting Israeli efforts to displace them from their lands. “It’s not a new phenomenon,” Qumsiyeh said.

“There are six million Palestinians still living (here) after 90 years of ethnic cleansing, 90 years the Zionist movement tried to basically remove Palestinians from their land. The fact that they stayed is a form of resistance.”

According to a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research of 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 71 percent of respondents believed that “creating facts on the ground, such as the placement of tent encampments in area C, would be an effective means of confronting settlement expansion and protecting land threatened by settlers.”

According to Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a leader in the West Bank village Bil’in, which has held weekly demonstrations against the Israeli wall and settlements for eight years, the tent encampments represent a new strategy in Palestinian non-violent resistance.

“We try to use creative ideas and new ideas. We try to build our tents, using this type of non-violent resistance, to stop the plans of the Israelis of building settlements,” Abu Rahmah, who helped build several of the tent villages, told IPS.

“We know about the danger of the plan in E1, in the area of Bab Al-Shams; if the Israelis continue this plan, it will destroy the dream of Palestinians for independence and their country.”"The fact that they stayed is a form of resistance."

Dena Qaddumi is an architect, and co-founder of arenaofspeculation.org, a website dedicated to exploring spatial resistance in Israel-Palestine. She told IPS that the tent encampments signal a less reactionary form of Palestinian resistance, especially since they sparked critical discussions both locally and internationally.

“Every day, Palestinians are spatially resisting in their particular localities but thus far it has been difficult to bring this together en masse so that they not only make international headlines, but expand the imagination – and this is critical – of Palestinians in Palestine and outside. On this latter point we can say (the tent villages were) a success.”

She said that uniting Palestinians across physical space – Israel bars Palestinians from the West Bank from going to the Gaza Strip, and vice-versa, for example – is something Palestinians must address.

“We need to find ways to overcome these spatial constraints. Finding a way to bridge these spatial realities together and narrate the injustice of this situation is paramount.”

U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East visit has eased a good deal of friction between Israel and the U.S. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS.

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Mar 23 2013 (IPS)

On his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, U.S. President Barack Obama laid out his vision for a revival of the long-stalled peace talks. Yet, it was clear from his statements that a settlement freeze is no longer an immediate requirement. And, he carefully avoided mentioning the pre-1967 lines as the basis for a two-state solution, to the Israeli Prime Minister’s delight.

Back in May 2011, on the eve of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Obama made a speech on the broader Middle East.

He then declared: “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states.” His call was a first for a sitting U.S. president, and a low-point in Israel-U.S. relations.

This week not a single time – neither in Jerusalem nor in Ramallah – did the U.S. President mention the June 4, 1967 ceasefire lines.

At his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he conceded that “the Palestinian people deserve an end to the occupation.” But he outlined his vision of a Palestinian state as “the homeland of the Palestinian people alongside the Jewish State of Israel,” ignoring the Palestinian President’s opposition to such definition of Israel. Some 20 percent of Israeli citizens identify themselves as Palestinians.

And whereas addressing the Muslim world in Cairo during his first trip abroad of his first term he had insisted that “it’s time for these settlements to stop,” on his first trip abroad of his second term he rejected the Palestinian demand that Israel resumes its settlement freeze as precondition to a resumption of peace talks.

“How do we get sovereignty for the Palestinian people, and how do we assure security for the Israeli people? That’s the essence of this negotiation,” said Obama.

“That’s not to say settlements aren’t important. It’s to say that if we solve those two problems, the settlement problem will be solved,” he reasoned, next to a stone-faced Abbas. “So I don’t want to put the cart before the horse.”

“It’s not only our perception that settlements are illegal. Everybody considers settlements… more than a hurdle towards the two-state solution,” Abbas protested.

If that’s so, why such a turnabout in U.S. policy; why such realignment with the Israeli position?

After a ten-month settlement freeze in 2010; after barely three weeks of bilateral negotiations in September of that year; and three-and-a-half years of futile diplomacy nudging the parties to return to the negotiating table, Obama realised he “screwed up somehow” as he candidly said next to Netanyahu.

He now invokes political constraints and recalcitrant constituencies on both sides as impediments to a resumption of peace talks.

On the Palestinian side, the schism between the West Bank and Gaza, between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas that is adamantly opposed to negotiations with Israel – let alone to its recognition – doesn’t bode well for statehood.

“Waiting and longing is the theme of our political agenda – longing for Palestinian unity; waiting for the new Israeli government’s directions,” says Mahdi Abdul Mahdi, founder of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA).

“We’re only left with our narrative. That is why the PA is losing its credibility.”

“It’s the Israeli government’s duty to halt settlement activity,” Abbas told Obama. Yet, he didn’t explicitly demand a settlement freeze as prerequisite to talks.

The small opening in the Palestinian position could provide an opportunity for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, back on Saturday to Jerusalem and Ramallah, to discuss ways to translate the Obama vision into concrete steps for a resumption of negotiations.

For Abdul Hadi, renewed U.S. efforts at brokering talks reflect a tighter convergence of interests with Israel, a result of the two allies’ shared concerns with regard to the Arab Awakening.

“Obama’s visit here was to clarify the U.S. presence in the region and open a fresh chapter of support and enhancement in the strategic alliance with Israel under the new government,” says Abdul Mahdi.

Conscious that the sustainability of the new Netanyahu government depends largely on the Jewish Home party, Obama spoke over Netanyahu’s head. This party, if not opposed to talking with the Palestinians per se, rejects a two-state solution and advocates the annexation to Israel of 60 percent of the West Bank.

He reached out to Israeli university students; inspired them to reach out to their Palestinian neighbours; touched them on the immorality of the occupation – and received a standing ovation which Netanyahu would envy.

“Political leaders will never take risks if the people don’t push to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see,” Obama urged.

Obama’s call was a first for a U.S. president, but that didn’t seem to trouble the Israeli leader.

Whether or not Obama is trying to ‘do a Cairo to him’, Netanyahu is counting on the fact that an awakening against the injustice of the occupation by the same young generation of Israelis who demanded social justice in the summer of 2011 is far from guaranteed.

“The speech is no problem for Netanyahu unless Israelis buy into its core premise – that if Israel only pushes harder for reconciliation, regional hostility to Israel will gradually melt. On that, as the elections proved in January, Israelis are thoroughly divided,” cautions David Horovitz, the Times of Israel website’s editor-in-chief.

Though Obama tactfully avoided demanding any tactical concession from Netanyahu, there’s little doubt as to what the fulfilment of the U.S. strategic goal entails – eventually, the settlements must stop; a Palestinian state must be created on the basis of the pre-1967 borders through negotiations.

But that’s not for the immediate future.

Meanwhile, so long as the borders of a future Palestinian state aren’t specified, and settlement expansion is not on the agenda, the Israeli Prime Minister has no reason to worry about the future of his new-born coalition, and can even afford to pledge Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution as he did during the presidential visit.

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Israel on Wednesday, his first destination abroad of his second term, to pay a visit to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose own second consecutive term will have started only 48 hours beforehand. No wonder that the true purpose of the U.S. President’s visit is defined as reaching out to the Israeli people.

“White smoke in Jerusalem,” announced political pundits. There’s finally a government in Israel. One day prior to the deadline allocated to him by law to form a coalition, Netanyahu informed President Shimon Peres on Saturday evening that he has a government.

“We face a decisive year in the fields of security and economy, and efforts to promote peace,” he told Peres.

But before facing a decisive year, Netanyahu must face a decisive week – the Obama week.

Netanyahu’s majority coalition of 68 legislators in the 120-member Knesset parliament depends largely on the two rising stars of Israeli politics – Yair Lapid and his centrist party There’s a Future (19 seats) that appealed to the middle class with its “equal sharing of the social burden”; and Naftali Bennett and the Jewish Home party (12 seats) linked to the settlers’ lobby.

Netanyahu’s confidantes, former defence minister Ehud Barak, and traditional Likud party buddies were ousted from politics; his ultra-orthodox allies, from the coalition.

“Netanyahu is in a weak position vis-à-vis Obama not just because he’s increasingly alone at the helm, but he’s yet to forge a new policy. Obama knows that. So he’ll hear what the President has to say, but won’t have much to say himself,” says Channel 10 correspondent Yonatan Regev.

“We’ve got a clear policy – on Iran, the Arab world, the Palestinian issue,” retorts Yossi Kuperwasser, director-general at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

Regev suggests that “Obama and Netanyahu aren’t the best of friends after all.”  Precisely because they’re not ‘best friends’, Obama sent out some ‘feel good’ messages in an exclusive interview to Israel’s Channel 2 last week.

He went out of his way to refer to Netanyahu by his nickname (“Bibi”) at least ten times, declaring, “We’ve got a terrific businesslike relationship. He’s very blunt with me about his views on issues; I’m very blunt with him about my views on issues.”

“We may differ here and there about what exactly constitutes the right move that would promote our joint interest towards peace,” cautions Kuperwasser. “Matters are discussed, but we’re very close. That’s the atmosphere that’ll characterise the visit.”

On Obama’s agenda is the spring-to-summer red line on Iran obtaining capability to develop nuclear weapons drawn by his host, which if crossed would trigger an Israeli strike on its nuclear sites. And, spring’s in the offing.

Meanwhile, Tehran is reportedly diverting some enriched uranium for research, thus slowing down its march towards an atomic bomb, so that no one knows for sure when Netanyahu’s red line will be drawn.

His opposition to a unilateral attack on Iran notwithstanding, Obama has sought to assuage Israeli misgivings. “Iran possessing a nuclear weapon is a red line,” he said on Channel 2, adopting the Netanyahu language. ”When I say all options are on the table, all options are on the table.”

“It’s not, ‘All options are on the table’,” says Kuperwasser. “There’s need for a credible military option to convince the Iranians to stop their programme.”

Also on the agenda is renewal of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of President Mahmoud Abbas, who Obama will meet on Thursday.

“Israelis are concerned with socio-economic issues – the price of apartments; the draft of ultra-Orthodox students who’re exempted from military service; the budget,” says Regev.

Immersed in domestic politics for the past three months and in the foreseeable future, Netanyahu has had no time to devote to policy-making. So it’s hard to believe he’ll be hard-pressed by Obama to move forward on the only foreign policy issue on which he can call the shots – peace-making with the Palestinians.

Abbas’s successful bid for UN recognition of ‘Palestine’ as a non-member observer state in November has sparked Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation.

“Obama’s visit to Abbas is a sideshow to contain the Palestinian problem and give life support to the PA so that it doesn’t collapse but carry on its mission in this transitional phase until the Israelis wake up to realise that they must work for a two-state solution before it’s too late,” says Mahdi Abdul Hadi, founder of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA).

In September 2010, Netanyahu refused Obama’s request to extend a ten-month moratorium on settlement construction; as a result, Abbas refused to have peace talks extended.

Kuperwasser dismisses a renewed settlement freeze: “We’ve been there already. The fact is the Palestinians prefer to opt for a unilateral policy and receive UN declarations with no meaning on the ground instead of negotiating with us without pre-condition possibilities to change the situation in both our favour.”

In a sign that a resumption of peace talks isn’t expected during the presidential visit, U.S. officials have said that Obama will resort to listening to his Israeli and Palestinian interlocutors, and reach out to the Israeli people directly.

Hence, the preview of the President’s trip recently posted on YouTube by the White House highlights a speech on Thursday in front of Israeli students.

“This really is the true purpose of the visit – the ability for the President to speak directly to the Israeli people about the future that we want to build together,” says U.S. Deputy National Advisor Ben Rhodes in the video clip.

During his first trip abroad of his first term, Obama addressed the Muslim world from Cairo University, unaware he had become a source of inspiration for the Arab awakening.

Yet if Obama hopes that he’ll touch Israelis the way he touched the Arab world; that Israelis will emulate the motto ‘Yes We Can’ and reach out to the Palestinians, may be in for a big disappointment.

In an extraordinary move, a civilian has been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for posting a picture on Facebook of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dressed in a Real Madrid soccer outfit and kicking a ball. The sentencing is among several instances of a targeting of media in Palestinian areas.

Anas Saad Awad, 26, from the northern West Bank village of Awarta near Nablus, was sentenced in the Nablus magistrate’s court, that convicted him of “criticising the government.”  Awad was unable to address the court as the conviction was carried out while he was elsewhere in the court building.

Awad’s lawyer Rima Al Sayed said her client has been accused of photo-shopping a picture of Abbas wearing a Real Madrid shirt with the caption: ‘A new striker’. According to Sayed, the Palestinian judiciary had applied Article 195 of Jordan’s penal code, which criminalises criticism of the Jordanian king.

The use of Jordanian law by Palestine’s judiciary is not unusual. In addition to the Basic Law established in 2002, Palestinian law is an amalgam of Egyptian and Jordanian law and the codes left over from the era of the British Mandate. But the application of Jordanian law can frequently be used against Palestinians in labour disputes and “honour” crimes and speech.

“My son only commented on Facebook,” said Awad’s distressed father. “You know how young people comment. He didn’t mean to insult the president. I ask the president to intervene personally to cancel the court’s decision.”

IPS was unable to speak to the family directly considering the likelihood of Palestinian intelligence agencies monitoring the family’s phones, and creating more trouble for them.

Awad had been in trouble with Palestinian intelligence previously for criticising the Palestinian Authority (PA), and he was arrested but then fined and released.

“This is unprecedented. This is the first time this kind of sentence has been imposed on an ordinary citizen merely for commenting on Abbas. The Facebook comment was not even rude or critical,” said Riham Abu Aita from the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA).

“Last year 10 Palestinian journalists from Gaza and the West Bank were arrested and interrogated for criticising both Hamas and the PA. Media freedom in the Palestinian territories has got off to a bad start in 2013 already,” Abu Aita told IPS.

“Hamas has arrested dozens of journalists in Gaza, and the Israeli security forces are increasingly targeting both Palestinian and foreign media as they have tried to cover the growing protests in the West Bank.

“However, the PA has become overly sensitive in the last few months. This is related to its hyper sensitivity to international criticism following its upgrade at the UN to non-member observer status and the pressure being exerted on it by Palestinian and international human rights organisations,” said Abu Aita.

One of the PA’s strategies towards implementing its goal of an independent Palestinian state is joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a way of bringing pressure to bear on Israel, which is in violation of a number of human rights issues under international law over its treatment of Palestinians.

The PA’s status at the UN is only that of a non-observer state, but it could ratify core human rights treaties including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – Article 19 of which guarantees freedom of expression.

The PA has pledged to uphold human rights and ratify various conventions, but has failed to do so in a number of areas. Human Rights Watch noted that “it’s commendable that the Palestinian leadership is studying the treaties; its delay in ratifying them inspires little faith in their commitment to upholding fundamental rights and freedoms.”

“Another issue is the fear of the PA of a popular uprising in the West Bank following the Arab Spring which has swept through the region, threatening dictatorships in its wake,” Abu Aita told IPS. “Abbas’s government would also like to appear to be taking the higher moral ground in regard to Hamas which has recently been slammed in the press for its crackdown on the media in Gaza.”

While Abbas’s security apparatus has been able to control journalists and media publications in the West Bank to a certain extent, social networks have proven far harder to control despite intensive monitoring.

Last year Palestinian security forces jailed at least three people accused in separate incidents of criticising the government on social networking websites. A Palestinian university lecturer was one of those detained for insulting Abbas on Facebook .

Ironically while the PA has encouraged Palestinians to report on corruption, in April last year blogger Jamal Abu Rihan was arrested for launching a Facebook campaign demanding an end to corruption.

Ma’an News agency has uncovered evidence of the blocking of eight websites critical of Abbas, while columnist Jihad Harb was imprisoned for two months on charges of libel and slander for raising questions about cronyism within Abbas’s office.

“However, the PA’s efforts to crush journalistic dissent is backfiring,” Abu Aita said. “What we are finding is that Palestinian journalists are becoming stronger supporters of media freedom and more determined to support it the more they are targeted and harassed.”

A Palestinian boy holds a placard during an ‘Open Shuhada Street’ campaign. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS.

By Mel Frykberg
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank, Mar 1 2013 (IPS)

Molotov cocktails, clouds of teargas, live gunfire, ambulance sirens wailing as they ferried the wounded, and round after round of rubber-coated metal bullets exploding in the street…these were familiar scenes in Palestinian protest.

The protestors, supported by Israeli and international activists, were in a campaign that began Friday last week to open Shuhada  Street in Hebron in the southern West Bank to Palestinian pedestrians, motorists and businesses.

Following the shooting of 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron’s old city in 1994 by Israeli-American settler Baruch Goldstein from the Kiryat Arba settlement, Israeli authorities banned Palestinian motorists from accessing Shuhada Street, Hebron’s main commercial hub. The city’s Palestinian population was placed under months of continued curfew, while heavily armed Israeli settlers roamed the streets freely.

At the beginning of the second Intifadah in 2000, the Israeli military also banned Palestinian pedestrians from accessing the street, allegedly for the protection of approximately 800 Israeli settlers, illegally ensconced in the city, and surrounded by approximately 200,000 Palestinians.

The Israeli authorities also forcibly closed over 500 Palestinian businesses, economically decimating the Palestinian population and their dependents. Several years of almost permanent curfew, exacerbated by checkpoints, settler violence and clashes forced another 15,000 Palestinian residents to leave the city and hundreds more shop owners to close their businesses.

Today the formerly lively old city centre largely resembles a ghost town, with deserted streets and shuttered doors, imprisoned by a matrix of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers. The accompanying friction with the local population regularly leads to arrests, shooting injuries and deaths.

Muhamad Mohtaseb, 22, runs a souvenir shop on Shuhada Street. His shop stands isolated in the deserted street as Israeli settlers walk past and soldiers monitor movement.

Mohtaseb is one of the few Palestinian shop owners who resisted the political and economic pressures to close his shop, but his business has been strangled, forcing him to explore other commercial ventures as his family battles to survive.

“Before the second Intifadah we had lots of tourists coming here, and they were a major source of income. But tourists are now afraid to come here as they think it is dangerous. Palestinians, who comprised our other main source of revenue, are not allowed to walk on this street,” Mohtaseb told IPS.

“My family used to make 300 euros daily and now we are down to 20-30 euros a day if we are lucky. I’m married with a son and I also support my brothers, sisters and parents. I was forced to stop my education and couldn’t go to university because of our financial situation.

“I’m now trying to open a tourist travel business so that we can survive as there are some internationals who are interested in alternative tourism and seeing for themselves what is happening here,” said Mohtaseb.

“But it’s not only the economic situation that is the problem. As one of the few Palestinian shop owners who refused to close down and move away under pressure, I’m often a target for abuse from Israeli settlers who swear, spit at, threaten and sometimes physically abuse me,” Mohtaseb told IPS.

Just around the corner is a tiny grocery store belonging to Izhak Kahsha, 45, father of three children, who ekes out a hand-to-mouth living from local Palestinians. In order to get there one has to cross through several Israeli checkpoints with turnstile barriers.

Like Mohtaseb, Kahsha’s business has been decimated by the closure and restrictions. “Many of my customers used to come here and buy in bulk because they could drive home with the groceries. Now because vehicles are forbidden from coming near and people avoid the area because of the tensions I have to rely on a few customers who buy only enough to carry by hand,” Kahsha told IPS.

Zlikhah Mohtaseb, in her late forties, and her 75-year-old mother were forced to move to one of the houses overlooking Shuhada Street in 2006 for financial reasons. Zlikhah showed IPS the cage that surrounds her home.

“Due to settlers continually stoning the windows I asked the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee to assist me in installing iron grating on the side of the house overlooking the street for some protection. It has not stopped the attacks, however,” said Zlikha.

Israeli rights group B’tselem says, “Like other residents still living on the street, Zlikhah and her mother are forced to enter and leave their home by climbing a steep flight of stairs that serves as a side entrance. As they are forbidden to walk on the main street, they must take circuitous routes and go through two checkpoints in order to reach the mosque.”

In April 2007, following reports in the Israeli media and public pressure on the issue, Israel’s Civil Administration began to issue temporary permits to some Palestinians living on the street. In 2005, the Hebron Municipality and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned Israel ‘s High Court of Justice to open the street to Palestinian movement.

The state in response said the street has been closed by mistake and that Palestinians would be allowed to walk on the street, although restrictions on businesses and vehicular traffic would remain. However, Shuhada Street remains closed to Palestinians. (END).

Local food for local people. That’s the idea behind Sharaka (‘partnership’, in Arabic), an entirely volunteer-run, Palestinian organisation that aims to bring locally grown products directly to Palestinian dinner tables.

“Our vision is a food sovereign Palestine where we’re economically independent, we use our local resources and we support each other. That leads to human development. It’s local economy. Through a local economy and a local food system, that’s how you build community,” said volunteer and Sharaka co-founder Aisha Mansour.

Mansour said that while it has often been a struggle to convince both Palestinian farmers and consumers to participate, Sharaka has organised several successful farmers’ markets in Ramallah, and continues to raise awareness about the benefits of eating locally.

The group has also refused to take any international aid to support its work.

“It’s a broken system. Everybody knows that,” Mansour told IPS, about the international aid and development model currently in place. “Local people who know their community, who want to develop and support, they do things. That’s how they develop. That’s how development happens; it’s not an externally imposed thing.”

Palestinians are among the largest per capita recipients of international aid in the world. From 1994 – when the first international aid packages streamed into the occupied Palestinian territories – until the present day, billions of dollars have been spent.

The first donor conference to provide financial support to Palestinians was convened in October 1993 in Washington, shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

“The Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel would not succeed, not work even, not last, without donor support,” said Dr. Samir Abdullah, director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah.

Dr. Abdullah told IPS that restrictions placed on Palestinians under the Oslo agreement, including receiving only 80 percent of Palestinian tax revenues, and having access to only 40 percent of West Bank land, limited growth and development.

As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the Palestinian government created as a result of the Oslo Accords – was quickly forced to rely on international donors to fill gaps in its budget.

“Now, the PA has 3 billion dollars of debt,” Dr. Abdullah said. “If this continues, the Authority will collapse. If (donors) are not paying the burden, the debt will be unaffordable for the Authority.”

In its National Development Plan for 2011-2013, the PA stated: “Tax and clearance revenues, driven upwards by private sector-led economic growth and improved revenue administration, will progressively reduce our reliance on external aid.”

But efforts to wean the PA off its dependence on foreign aid have proven unsuccessful.

International donors pledged 1 billion dollars to the PA in both 2011 and 2012 to keep the organisation afloat. After this sum was never fully transferred, the PA faced the largest funding crisis in its history.

It is now regularly unable to pay the salaries of its public sector employees, and President Mahmoud Abbas often launches emergency appeals to Arab states to support his Ramallah-based government.

International aid to Palestinians is also very much dependent on the local political situation, and mainly, on so-called peace process negotiations with Israel.

After the PA secured the upgraded status of Palestine at the United Nations last November, Israel said it would withhold 100 million dollars in Palestinian tax revenues each month, and the United States froze 500 million dollars in aid as punishment.

Nora Lester Murad is a volunteer and co-founder of Dalia, a Palestinian organisation that advocates better use of local resources, and development that meets Palestinian goals. She said that while international aid has brought some positives to Palestinian society – including jobs and basic institution-building – it has largely been destructive.

“It has not helped in the claiming of rights. It has not helped in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I’d go further and say that it has undermined rights and has delayed or prevented and made more difficult, the resolution of the conflict,” Lester Murad told IPS.

“But things are changing. There is a lot of discontent, and that’s the first step. There is also discussion, and that’s the second step.”

In 2012, the overall unemployment rate in the occupied Palestinian territories hovered just below 23 percent. In the West Bank, youth unemployment reached 30 percent in mid-2012, and 52 percent in the Gaza Strip.

Itiraf Remawi, acting director general of the Ramallah-based Bisan Centre for Research and Development, told IPS that Palestinians must return to the more sustainable system of development, similar to the one that characterised the First Intifada in the late 1980s.

“The development has to take an approach that facilitates and reinforces the Palestinian existence (and) the Palestinian resistance against the occupation,” Remawi said.

“The model (in the First Intifada) was much, much better. There was voluntary work, collective work. There was a very close relationship between the people. They struggled against the occupation without differentiating between this one or that one, between political factions or others. There was a common agenda.”

According to Aisha Mansour, that is exactly the type of community that Sharaka aims to build.

“How can you move into an independent country when people are at the level where they’re just struggling to put bread on the table?” she said. “That tipping point has to come for people to really say, ‘Ok. There’s no more money. We have to really think about a way to keep our community going, whether we’re under occupation or not, and develop.’” (END)

Palestinians demonstrating outside the UN office in Gaza calling for freedom for political prisoners. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Feb 23 2013 (IPS)

A few stoic lines from Palestinian political prisoner Samer Issawi, 33, transmitted to his sister Shireen have given new strength to Palestinian resolve to fight Israeli occupation and its prison policies. As has the hunger strike of four others in Israeli prisons along with Issawi.

“The battle waged by me and by my heroic colleagues, Tariq, Ayman and Ja’affar, is everyone’s battle, the battle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and its prisons,” he told his sister last week. He added that his health has deteriorated dramatically and “I’m hung between life and death.”

The day he sent that message, Feb. 16, was the 208th day of Issawi’s hunger strike. Held under administrative detention in an Israeli prison, Issawi is one of five long-term Palestinian hunger strikers protesting indefinite detention by Israel without charge or fair trial.

On Feb. 19, three days after proclaiming his dedication to hunger striking until justice or death, an Israeli court rejected an appeal for the near-death Issawi’s bail, instead postponing a decision until mid-March. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that in addition to his hunger strike, Issawi, now 46 kg, recently began refusing water and vitamins.

A Jerusalemite, Issawi was re-arrested months after being released in the October 2011 prisoner swap exchanging Israeli tank gunner Gilad Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel re-arrested Issawi, Ayman Sharawna, 37, and 12 others using article 186 of Israeli military order 1651, which the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, notes “allows for a special Israeli military committee to sentence released prisoners to serve the remainder of their previous sentence based on secret evidence provided by the military prosecution without disclosing the evidence to the prisoner or his lawyer.”

Re-arrested on Jan. 31, 2012, Sharawna has been on and off hunger strike for over 200 days collectively since Jul. 1, 2012, stopping briefly when he believed there was hope for his release. Already in November 2012, Addameer reported that Sharawna’s health had “drastically deteriorated” and that he was “unable to stand, speak easily or urinate.” A recent independent report suggests Sharawna is now in solitary confinement despite his critical condition, and his health is rapidly failing.

According to Addameer, there are currently over 4,743 Palestinians detained by Israel, including 193 children and 178 held under administrative detention.

“Administrative detention is an illegal Israeli policy where the Israelis imprison Palestinians without any trial or charges, claiming that they have secret information that certain Palestinians are dangerous to Israeli security,” says Gaza-based Osama al-Wahidi, head of the information department at the Hussam association for Palestinian prisoners and ex-prisioners.

“Two of the hunger strikers were arrested immediately after the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza,” notes Wahidi.

One of the two, Jafar Ezzedine, 41, is likewise nearing death on his quest to freedom.

“After nearly three months of hunger striking, he is very thin, very weak and ill. He looks like he shouldn’t still be alive,” says Tarek Ezzedine, Jafar’s brother. Also imprisoned by Israel, Tarek Ezzedine, director of Voice of Prisoners Radio, was likewise released in the prisoner swap, and immediately exiled by Israel to Gaza.

“This isn’t his first hunger strike,” says Tarek Ezzedine. “He went on a 54-day hunger strike in March 2012, part of a mass prisoners’ hunger strike.” In May, 2012, through Egyptian mediation, more than 1,000 prisoners agreed to end their strikes when Israel agreed to improve conditions for Palestinian prisoners.

“We have no direct contact with Jafar. His lawyer says that Jafar’s health is extremely poor now.”

Ezzedine and two others arrested in the early hours of Nov. 22, 2012, went on hunger strike on Nov. 28.

Tarek Qa’adan, 40, and Yousef Shaaban Yassin, 29, participated in demonstrations against the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza. They were among 55 Palestinians arrested on Nov. 22, in what Tarek Ezzedine says is punishment for peacefully protesting the Israeli attacks.

“On the same day that they stopped bombing Gaza, the Israeli army took Jafar from his house,” says Tarek Ezzedine. “He participated in a demonstration in Jenin, where over 1,000 people were demonstrating, why arrest him? He didn’t organise the demo, he was like anyone participating.”

As with Samer Issawi, Addameer reporrs that already as of Jan. 24, 2012, Qa’adan was at risk of a fatal heart attack due to his weakened state.

“The road of prisoners, and the road of Palestinians in general, is not paved with flowers, it’s paved with thorns,” says Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian footballer from Rafah, and one of the prisoners’ movement victors.

Waging a 92-day hunger strike in protest over being held for three years by Israel in a similar form of administrative detention specific to the Gaza Strip, Sarsak was released in July 2012.

Like Sarsak, Hana Shalabi and Akram Rikhawi were likewise released back to the Gaza Strip after their extended hunger strikes.

“If any of the hunger strikers die, it will not be in vain,” says Sarsak. “Their martyrdom will be a message to re-awaken the struggle for freedom. There will surely be a third Intifada (uprising) against the Israeli prison system and the occupation.”

Although hashtags like #ReleaseIssawi, #PalHunger, and #FreeSamer have been trending on Twitter, and news of the hunger strikers is all over Facebook, little has been said or written in international media about the plight of the five Palestinian strikers nearing death.

“When Shalit was being held in Gaza, the whole world, especially America and Obama, was focused on Shalit, talking about democracy, calling on the Red Cross to be able to visit him,” says Tarek Ezzedine.

“So why is the world silent on our prisoners?”

On Feb. 13, 2013, Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur, called for the release of Palestinian prisoners held without charge, saying “Israel must end the appalling and unlawful treatment of Palestinian detainees. The international community must react with a sense of urgency and use whatever leverage it possesses to end Israel’s abusive reliance on administrative detention.”

The release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in late 2011 set off scenes of jubilation throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, as families joyously welcomed their loved ones homes after months and years apart. But for many of these same families, an Israeli military order – that allows Israel to re-arrest released Palestinian prisoners based on secret evidence – has now shattered those happy reunions.

“It was like a historic (moment),” said Shireen Issawi, about the day her brother, Samer Issawi, was released from an Israeli prison in 2011. “We started to laugh and to cry. When we really saw him in the street, walking towards us, we just started to cry and scream, ‘Samer! Samer!’ We couldn’t believe it.”

But in July of last year, Samer, a 33-year-old resident of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, was re-arrested after Israel said he broke the conditions of his release. On Feb. 21, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced Issawi to eight months in prison, which will be applied retroactively starting from the date of his arrest on Jul. 7, 2012.

Issawi is now waiting for a ruling from an Israeli military committee on his case, however, and still might be forced to serve the remainder of his original sentence, 20 more years, in prison.

Issawi has been on hunger strike for over 200 days now in protest of his imprisonment, subsisting intermittently on only water, salt, and vitamins. During a court hearing on Feb. 19, his mother, Layla, collapsed from the stress of the situation.

“We took her to the hospital in ambulance and she was in a very bad condition,” Shireen told IPS, adding that the pressure on her family began from the very moment her brother was re-arrested. “We couldn’t believe that he was arrested again with no charges. It was very, very difficult for us. We started to cry and pray to God that he will be released.”

Passed in 2009, Article 186 of Israeli military order 1651 allows a special Israeli military committee to put released Palestinian prisoners back behind bars for the remainder of their original sentences, based on undisclosed evidence that isn’t shared with the prisoners or their lawyers.

To date, over a dozen Palestinians have been re-arrested under this law. Many of these prisoners were released in the November 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas that saw 1,027 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Mourad Jadallah, a legal researcher with Ramallah-based prisoners rights group Addameer, explained that Israel quietly passed the military order as negotiations towards a prisoners exchange were being held, and long before the agreement was finalised.

“Israel, before taking any action, prepared the ground to bypass the agreement,” Jadallah said. “They had to protect themselves, at least legally, and give themselves the authority to re-arrest the Palestinian prisoners, and this is what they did.”

On Feb. 20, a group of Palestinian lawyers petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the military order. The law’s application, Addameer stated in a press release, is “completely unjustified and undermines the protection of prisoners and ex-prisoners, and puts the lives of the hunger strikers in grave danger.”

“The Court said it understands the need for this petition, but it’s still early because until now, the military committee never used this Article,” Jadallah told IPS, about the hearing. “At the same time, the case of Samer Issawi, it was based on (Article) 186.”

Right now, four Palestinian prisoners – Samer Issawi, Ayman Sharawna, Jafar Ezzedine and Tarek Qa’adan – are conducting open-ended hunger strikes in protest of their detention in Israeli prisons.

A movement in solidarity with the hunger strikers has grown in recent weeks. Demonstrations are regularly held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and inside Israel. Supporters have even begun hunger strikes of their own in solidarity with the prisoners.

On Feb. 11, former Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan – who was released from Israeli jail in 2012 after conducting a 66-day hunger strike – began a sit-in and hunger strike at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offices in Al Bireh, near Ramallah.

The ICRC closed its office shortly after Adnan’s hunger strike began. A spokesperson for the organisation told Israeli daily Ha’aretz that “as a humanitarian organisation we cannot agree that our offices be used for political purposes.”

According to Israeli human rights group Btselem, 4,517 Palestinian prisoners were held in Israeli jails at the end of 2012, including 178 Palestinians held without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention orders.

Israel has detained an estimated 800,000 Palestinians – 20 percent of the overall Palestinian population, and 40 percent of the male population – since its military occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967. (END)

Um Abed plants an olive tree in support of Palestinian farmers. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
ZEITOUN, Gaza, Feb 10 2013 (IPS)

Tawfiq Mandil, 45, stands amongst hundreds of Palestinian farmers, activists, and international supporters in the Gaza Strip’s eastern Zeitoun district, about half a kilometre from the border with Israel. They are renewing a call for the boycott of Israeli goods.

“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres) on the last day of the attacks in 2009, as well as 20 other homes,” he says.

With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.

Mandil believes that the boycott is his only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel. “We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

With an Israeli surveillance blimp hovering above and within sight of a remotely-controlled machine gun tower, the significance of the rally’s location near the ‘buffer zone’ was not lost. Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from accessing the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel border. In reality, the Israeli army regularly attacks Palestinians up to two kilometres from the border in some areas, rendering more than 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland off-limits.

“By engaging in the trade of settlement produce, states are failing to comply with their obligation to actively cooperate in order to put the Israeli settlement enterprise to an end. Therefore, a ban on settlement produce must be considered amongst those actions that third party states should undertake in order to comply with their international law obligations.”

The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq released a position paper last month condemning the Israeli settlement produce trade. The paper, ‘Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States Under International Law’ highlights the means by which Israeli settlements benefit from the oppression of Palestinian farmers.

“While the EU has been quite outspoken in condemning settlements and their expansion, they continue to import produce from these same settlements and in doing so, help to sustain their very existence,” Al-Haq director general Shawan Jabarin notes in the Al-Haq press release.

“More than 80 Palestinians have been injured and at least four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in the border regions since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance,” says Adie Mormech, 35, a British activist living in Gaza. This is in addition to the many Palestinians killed and hundreds injured in previous years of Israeli army attacks on the border regions.

“There is simultaneous action happening in the occupied West Bank,” says Mormech. “They’re planting near Yitzhar colony, which is notorious for its violence against Palestinians. Around the world, an estimated 30 countries are holding actions in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers.”

Um Abed, 65, from Zeitoun is defiant. “Today we’re planting olive trees. God willing next year we’ll plant lemon, date and palm trees. We grow, they bulldoze, we re-plant.”

The boycott action follows a growing number of initiatives emerging in recent years from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian students in Gazan universities stepped up the Boycott call in 2012, releasing Youtube videos calling for political action, not aid, from international supporters.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has attracted international support, including the backing of numerous UK and North American universities and scholars.

Increasing numbers of cultural and religious associations, such as the Quakers’ Friends Fiduciary Corporation, are divesting from corporations that profit from or support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The United Church of Canada endorsed the boycott of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in August 2012.

Dr Haidar Eid, professor at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University and PACBI member, outlines what BDS entails.

“We are calling for implementation of UN Security Council resolution 242, which calls for withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem. The second demand is the implementation of the United Nations resolution 194, the return of all Palestinian refugees to the towns and villages from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948. The third demand is the end to Israel’s apartheid policies in Palestine 1948. We want equality.”

While civil society and students have been in the forefront of BDS actions in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government has also taken steps calling for boycott. Joe Catron, an American activist based in the Gaza Strip, explains one recent government-led campaign.

“The Adidas campaign began in March 2012, when Adidas was sponsoring a marathon through parts of Jerusalem, including parts that are internationally recognised as occupied. The Ministry of Youth and Sports here called upon the Arab League to boycott Adidas in response to this, which a number of countries did.”

In September 2012, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture decided to ban most Israeli fruits entering Gaza.

“Palestinian farmers can grow the fruits we consume,” said marketing director in the ministry Tahsen Al-Saqa. “We need to support and protect our own farmers. They’ve been economically devastated by the Israeli ban on exporting since 2006.”

“Boycott is the key, and it is growing,” says Adie Mormech. “The momentum is so much now that it is not going to stop. It’s going to be like South Africa.”

A Likud-Beitenu supporter. Credit Pierre Klochendler/IPS.

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Jan 23 2013 (IPS)

As expected, Benjamin Netanyahu has been ensured another term in office. Against all expectations, he could have been defeated. Now, he faces uncertainty over the kind of governing coalition he will lead and thus the kind of policies he will carry out. And he faces a lingering question: can any prospective coalition last?

The initial result was astounding – floating around a tie between Netanyahu’s right-wing camp with 61 seats and his centre-left opposition with 59 seats in the Knesset parliament’s 120 seats.

So, addressing the Israel voter, the self-designate new prime minister decidedly put on a brave face of his own.

“I’m proud to be your prime minister. Once again, you’ve proven that Israel is an exemplary vibrant and dynamic democracy,” Netanyahu harangued his supporters at the Likud-Beitenu headquarters located on the metropolitan’s Exhibition Ground.

Results show that support for the joint Likud-Beitenu list of candidates Netanyahu headed has dropped dramatically, from its previous 42 seats to as few as 31.

Former TV star Yair Lapid, a newcomer in politics, stole the show. His centrist party Yesh ‘Atid (There’s a Future) has become the second largest, with 19 seats.

Empowered with a strong social programme focusing on cheaper housing for young couples, compulsory draft of religious students exempted from serving in the military and, in general, with an uncompromising fight against social iniquities, Lapid has suddenly emerged as the king-maker of any future sustainable coalition.

“Our responsibility is to form the largest possible coalition,” Lapid pledged during his party’s celebration.

Lapid’s vow was echoed by the prime minister-designate. “We must forge the largest possible coalition and, I am in the process of fulfilling this mission,” promised Netanyahu barely two hours after the exit polls.

“It won’t be easy,” predicts Uri Levy, news editor at Israel’s public television. “He’ll have to compromise, change his way of thinking.” Netanyahu is known to be adverse to change.

Election Day seemed auspicious. Flanked by his two sons and his wife, the incumbent Netanyahu was one of the first Israelis to cast a ballot for his Likud-Beitenu list of candidates.

Since he had called for early elections, Israelis were made to believe by opinion polls what Netanyahu himself was made to believe – his re-election for another term at the helm was a certainty.

“He’s obviously not very happy with what happened,” is Levy’s understatement. “He expected a lot more mandates.”

The politically savvy Netanyahu made a beginner’s mistake.

First, by merging his right-wing Likud list with the more right-wing Israel-Beitenu party, he alienated supporters who dislike either one of the two parties.

Then, he harassed the further to-the-right Naphtali Bennett because polls, which he’s known to check compulsively, predicted that Bennett’s Jewish Home party which caters to settlers’ interests would enjoy unprecedented support – though it didn’t. There too the opinion polls were misleading.

Albeit a bright and sunny Election Day, it’s neither a bright future nor a sunny political horizon which got Netanyahu re-elected, but fear – fear of a third Palestinian Intifadah uprising; fear of fallouts from the bloody civil war raging in neighbouring Syria; fear of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Netanyahu is adept at playing those fears. Hence, his opening remarks at the start of the last cabinet meeting two days before Election Day. “The problem in the Middle East is Iran’s attempt to build nuclear weapons, and the chemical weapons in Syria,” he warned.

He added: “History won’t forgive those who allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. This was and remains the main mission facing not only myself and Israel, but the entire world.”

His campaign was as dull and dormant as the political status quo he has prudently maintained during his first term.

Except for a ten-month freeze on settlement construction and one brief encounter with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2010, he has made no peace moves towards the Palestinians.

He launched a brief military operation on Hamas in the Gaza Strip in November and suffered a stinging defeat at the UN ten days later when the General Assembly voted by overwhelming majority to upgrade Palestine to “non-member observer state”.

He sounded the alarm against Iran’s nuclear programme; threatened unilateral military action; yet refrained from committing himself to both his own red line and deadline.

Making national security and national strength the twin themes of his campaign, Netanyahu underestimated the lack of social security felt by a middle class weakened and pressured by his ultra-liberal economic policy.

Netanyahu ignored the fear shared by a majority of Israelis of a socio-economic downfall, an anxiety so apparent one-and-a-half years ago when half a million demonstrators descended to the street and demanded social justice.

“The election results provide an opportunity for change for the benefits of all our citizens,” now reluctantly retorts the champion of unbridled liberalism.

Netanyahu won and lost the elections at the same time. He won because Israelis fear change; he almost lost because they strongly feel for change. (END)

Palestinian women want to turn their backs on laws that deny them justice. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, Jan 22 2013 (IPS)

“Before she was murdered, she wasn’t alive. We’ll tell her story backwards from her murder to her birth”…so begins a powerful new song by critically acclaimed Palestinian hip-hop band DAM to draw attention to the continuing murder of Palestinian women by male relatives declaring that “family honour” has been damaged by alleged sexual indiscretions.

The accompanying video to the song shows a young woman’s expressionless face on a bed; her body floats back to standing position, a bullet enters her forehead. Her brother has pulled the trigger.

Across the world, the United Nations estimates that 5,000 women and girls are murdered and abused every year by male relatives as punishment for behaviour judged to have damaged family reputation.

Between 2007 and 2010, 29 women in the West Bank were officially reported murdered in the name of honour. A relatively small number, but one that is cause for concern because the actual number is believed to be far higher. The Palestinian Interior Ministry refuses to divulge exact statistics on honour killings.

The West Bank has a population of about 4 million, and Gaza about 1.5 million.

“Thirteen Palestinian women were (known) murdered in the Palestinian Territories in 2012 in so-called ‘honour killings’,” says Soraida Hussein from the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), an advisory group to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) formed shortly before the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.

“The majority of these murders had nothing to do with protecting the honour of families. They were carried out for various criminal reasons. Often women are killed during family or financial disputes, and then the men claim the honour killing defence to get reduced sentences,” Hussein told IPS.

Palestinian law in the West Bank is based on Articles 97 to 100 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which reduces sentences for any act of battery or murder committed in a “state of rage”.
The law in Gaza is based on the Egyptian Penal Code, which also reduces sentences for men found guilty of killing female relatives in crimes of passion, particularly relating to declared sexual indiscretion and family honour.

According to the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) in Ramallah, only a minority of men who carry out these murders are ever convicted, and when they are the sentences are generally a few months.

In 2006 the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls the West Bank, became a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Hassan al-Ouri, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently stated that the PA supported the ending of discrimination against women so long as this didn’t clash with Sharia law.

Hussein says this is nonsense. “Nowhere in the Quran is the murder of anybody justified on the basis of sexual indiscretion or rage. Our organisation is supported by religious leaders from various backgrounds who condemn these murders and in fact call for stronger penalties against the perpetrators.”

Contrary to popular belief the crimes of passion laws were in fact inherited from the region’s colonial occupiers including the Turks, the French and the British, said Hussein.

PA spokesman Hassan’s comments followed his confirmation earlier that the PA had no intention of outlawing honour killings despite pledges from Abbas last year that he would change the laws. Abbas had promised to suspend Law 340 which offers pardon for murder if the perpetrator committed the crime on finding his wife in bed with another man.

His comments were broadcast on television via video link following public outcry over the brutal murder of a young woman in the southern West Bank. In May 2011 Aya Baradiya from Hebron was strangled and beaten by family members who falsely believed she’d been socialising with men. Her body was found dumped in a well.

The PA President’s promises were seen by many as a politically expedient to whitewash the issue. Article 340 has never been used in Palestinian courts since it was legislated in 1960. The Jordanian and Egyptian Penal Codes which permit reduced sentences for crimes of passion committed by men remain intact.

“The issue of women’s rights is used as a political football. Promises for change are made when those in power seek political points as a result of public pressure, but the issue is ignored when conservative forces raise their heads. Furthermore, the PA only signed CEDAW because it carried no legal weight at the time as Palestine was not officially a state,” Hussein told IPS.

“Our leadership is out of touch with the majority of Palestinians who are against these murders.”

Hussein believes that Israel’s occupation has further damaged the fabric of Palestinian society.

“People are struggling to feed their families in a crippled economy. Palestinians are being indiscriminately killed by Israel on an almost daily basis. Sometimes women’s rights become secondary in people’s minds. Despite this there is no excuse for not at the very least introducing new legislation.

“The laws need to be changed as do the school curriculums and the attitude of the media which all reinforce the idea that women are inferior to men. I don’t see that happening under the current leadership especially as Fatah (the ruling party in the West Bank) and the even more conservative Hamas (in Gaza) are in the process of uniting,” said Hussein.

“But the younger generation will eventually take over and they are far more progressive and that is when change will eventually come.” (END)

A rally in Ramallah in support of the Palestinian bid at the UN. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Nov 30 2012 (IPS)

Thousands of Palestinians gathered throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip Thursday, including representatives of all the major political factions, to celebrate and to show their support for the Palestinian Authority’s bid for upgraded status at the United Nations.

“I’m here in support. We want a state like all the other Arab states,” 28-year-old Ramallah resident Amar Qendah told IPS from Clock Square in downtown Ramallah, which was covered in banners and Palestinian flags in support of the UN bid.

“All of us are together; all the Palestinian political parties are together as one. God willing this will improve our situation,” Qendah said.

In a session that began at 10:30 pm local time Thursday, Palestine succeeded in its bid to become a “non-member observer” at the UN General Assembly. In all 138 states voted in favour of the Palestinian motion, nine states voted against it, and 41 abstained.

“Your support for our endeavour 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,” said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a speech that garnered a standing ovation in the General Assembly shortly before the vote took place.

“The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine,” Abbas said.

Palestinians have held “permanent observer” status at the UN since 1974. The upgrade will now allow them to participate in General Assembly discussions, and will give them a better chance to be admitted to UN agencies and file claims in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Palestinian admission to the ICC has seemingly been the most conscientious issue for Israel, which fears that it may face charges for crimes committed against Palestinians living under its ongoing occupation. Israel and the United States – which voted against the Palestinian motion Thursday – have both condemned Palestinian appeals to the UN.

Watching the festivities at Clock Square in Ramallah Thursday, Koaibah Shtayeh from the northern West Bank city of Nablus told IPS that holding Israel accountable in an international court was the biggest reason she supported the PA’s decision to seek upgraded status at the UN.

“We can go after these Israeli leaders who have murdered thousands of Palestinians. So many things will change,” she said optimistically. “This will affect the future (for younger Palestinians). It will give them a different future than the one I had myself.”

The push for upgraded status at the UN was the latest in a string of steps taken by the PA to reach its goal of an independent Palestinian state, made up of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as the capital.

In September 2011, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas presented an application for statehood to the UN Security Council. This was eventually blocked after Security Council member states were unable to make a unanimous recommendation.

Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that thousands of people marched in the southern West Bank city of Hebron Thursday in support of the appealing to the UN for upgraded status. Fatah – the Palestinian political party that forms the majority of the PA – also held its first rally in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when a major rift formed between it and rival party Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Despite these moves towards Palestinian reconciliation, Israeli leaders have made clear that upgraded status at the UN will not alter the present situation. “The decision at the United Nations won’t change anything on the ground. It won’t promote the creation of a Palestinian state, it will distance it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Many Palestinians also voiced skepticism that their lives would improve as a result of upgraded UN status.

“We are under the foot of occupation. The international community is still supporting Israel. Israel is a state established through the UN and it’s a state that is not respecting and violating the UN resolutions,” said Fathy Khdeirat, coordinator of the Jordan Valley Solidarity campaign.

The Jordan Valley makes up over 30 percent of the West Bank. It is often referred to as the “Palestinian breadbasket” for its high agricultural potential. But Israel controls over 86 percent of the land and almost all of its abundant resources, and places stringent restrictions on Palestinian communities in the area.

Khdeirat told IPS that living under these difficult conditions most Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were disinterested in the UN bid. “It’s not like the day after going to the United Nations there will be changes. I don’t think that it will change. But if we compare it with keeping silent or accepting the situation, it’s better to tell the world what’s going on here.” (END)

Seven-year-old Nisma Kalajar from Shijaiya in Gaza City has stopped talking after suffering head fractures in a fall from the third floor during an Israeli attack. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS.

By Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Nov 27 2012 (IPS)

As Israel and Hamas separately celebrate the ceasefire and their “victory” over the other following Israel’s blistering eight-day military assault on the Gaza strip, civilians continue to pay the price.

According to the Palestine Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) more than 160 Palestinians lost their lives by Nov. 21, the last day of the bloody confrontation between the world’s third most powerful military and Palestinian fighters. The dead included at least 103 civilians, 33 of them children. More than a thousand Palestinians were wounded, including 971 civilians – 274 of them children.

Three of the Palestinian civilians killed were journalists who died after repeated Israeli attacks on media buildings where Palestinian and foreign journalists were working. Six Israelis were killed as indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza targeted Israeli cities.

But the war and its consequences have been the hardest for Gaza’s children, unable to comprehend the volatility and the political intricacies in the place they call home.

“Mamma, mamma,” cries Muhammad Abu Zour, 7, in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza city. His head is bandaged and one of his eyes is purple and badly swollen. His eyes flicker upwards and backwards.

“There is a possibility that he has severe brain damage as there is internal bleeding within his skull,” nurse Sana Thabat, 23, from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital tells IPS.

Muhammad was wounded last week after Israeli F-16 fighter jets targeted his family home as the occupants slept. The shelling killed two women from the Abu Zour family; Sahar Fadi Abu Zour, 20, Nisma Helmi Abu Zour, 21; and Muhammad’s little brother Eyad Abu Zour, 5.

The Israeli jets had been targeting the home of an alleged militant next door. The Zeitoun neighbourhood is densely populated by civilians and far from any Hamas military compounds.

In another case of Israeli “collateral damage” 11 members of the Dalu family, including four women and four children, were killed when an Israeli missile hit a four-storey house belonging to Jamal Mahmoud Yassin al-Dalu 52, in the north of Gaza city last Sunday.

Alia Kalajar, 23, from Shijaiya in Gaza weeps silently as she holds the hand of her seven-year-old daughter Nisma. “Nisma has stopped talking and we don’t know if she will ever talk again. She has a head fracture and is bleeding internally too,” Kalajar tell IPS.

The little girl fell from her home on the third floor of a building that was struck by an Israeli drone. Nineteen Palestinian civilians were injured in that strike.

Abdel Azis Ashour, 6, from Zeitoun has shrapnel injuries in both his legs. He was playing with his seven brothers and sisters last Tuesday when an Israeli drone targeted his neighbourhood.

His cousin was killed and five other civilians were injured. But the little boy remains cheerful despite the grim circumstances and the pain he is in. “I’m not afraid of the Israelis,” he tells IPS as he flashes the V for victory sign.

Shifa Hospital staff has been forced to work long hours with limited medical equipment and dwindling supplies of medicines.

“I’ve seen so many dead and injured children. In the end one becomes a little numb to the situation,” nurse Adnan Bughadi, 22 from Shijaiya tells IPS. “Most of us have been working double shifts to cope with all the wounded, and it is very tiring. At one stage the floors were covered in blood and there was a shortage of beds for the wounded.”

“The hospital is running low on some essential medicines and has run out of others,” nurse Thabet tells IPS. “I find it very distressing seeing the number of children and other civilians killed but what can we do? We have to keep going.”

The PCHR has called for an international fact-finding mission “to investigate war crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and to take necessary measures to prosecute the perpetrators.” (END)