Ma`an - Khader Adnan, Islamic Jihad leader who was detained by Israeli soldiers at his Jenin home on Dec. 17, is now hospitalized after 44 days of hunger strike. His hearing at the Ofer Israeli Military court was therefore postponed.
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC - Police claims that the Silwan Soccer Club finances activities for the Hamas movement in Silwan. Therefore, it will remain closed for one month, and will be under investigation.
Sami Kishawi - It’s a heartbreaking photograph which exposes the dynamic of the occupation: A Palestinian is punished for building a home within Palestine. He is not crossing any borders nor is he wielding any weapons. There should be no reason for occupying military units to forcefully evict Palestinian laborers from their workspaces, especially those concentrated outside of any legal Israeli jurisdiction.
John Glaser - AntiWar - "Israeli forces destroyed 622 Palestinian homes in the West Bank in 2011, `forcibly displacing` almost 1,100 people, over half of them children, according to a UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report"
Elena Viola - AIC - "The hot and dry summer season is a difficult time for Palestinians in regards to water. The whole Bethlehem district is struck by a prolonged shortage of water and, although people react differently according to their financial status and the area they live in, everyone pays a price"
Jonathan Lis--Israeli bill to okay West Bank outposts may reach Knesset, despite Netanyahu`s objection
Legislation would allow the military to remove settlers from their property only if there has been an order to do so - based on evidence of Palestinian ownership.
dn
Philip Weiss--Today is the Sabbath, and I pray with all my heart that all American Zionists see the pictures below and tell me how an ideology of Jewish separatism that has deprived several million Palestinians of any rights can be justified in today`s world. dn
Bekah Wolf - The Electronic Intifada - Precisely a year ago, on 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, of Beit Ommar village went with his father Fakhri to prepare the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, settlers were taking a “hike” in these privately-owned Palestinian agricultural lands. There was no indication that the settlers were planning on shooting, but they did. A year later, Yousef’s killers remain unapprehended and unknown.
Yossi Gurvitz -
+972
"Soccer players yes, poets nein.
The people of Gisha NGO translated their table showing who can and who can’t travel from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Here it is." ca
Munther Fahmi
Bookshop
"Dear Friends,
The Government of Israel has accepted the Israeli Supreme Court recommendation that my residency be reinstated. I have been granted 2 years` residence on the basis of a Jerusalem Identity Card, and pending good behavior, shall receive permanent residence thereafter.
I am deeply indebted to all of you and extremely grateful for your kind support during this year of particular uncertainty. There is still much work to be done for resolution in line with international law for the 130,000+ Palestinians whose residency has been revoked by the Government of Israel.
With Best Wishes,
Munther Fahmi" ca
WAFA -
"Israeli forces Wednesday demolished a residence that housed orphans and a shack in Khirbet Umm al-Khair, a locale in the Hebron south of West Bank, according to a Palestinian activist.Ratib al-Jabour, coordinator of the popular committee against the wall and settlements in Hebron, told WAFA that Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by soldiers, police, and officers from the civil administration stormed Khirbet Umm al-Khair, closed the area off and demolished the residence and the shack." ca
RA’ANAN ALEXANDROWICZ - The New York Times - Since the early years of the occupation, the Supreme Court has unwittingly found itself pushed into a corner time and again. Rather than functioning as the bastion of human rights that it was established to be, it has instead become the entity responsible for balancing the needs of a state engaged in a prolonged occupation with basic principles of democracy.
Amira Hass - Haaretz - According to eyewitness reports, Israeli police officers have begun searching Palestinian vehicles at a Bethlehem checkpoint through use of nausea-inducing chemicals. rh
Joharah Baker - MIFTAH - it was shocking and yes, disappointing when a delegation of “negotiators” agreed to sit with an Israeli delegation in Amman. The justification was that the request came from Jordan and President Abbas could not easily turn our “brothers” down. Anyway, our leadership said, these were not negotiations, they were “exploratory talks” in a bid to find some way to return to the negotiating table.
UFree Network - Former Jerusalem Affairs Minister Khaled Abu Arafah and fellow lawmaker Mohammed Totah were forcibly removed Monday, Jan. 23, from the East Jerusalem headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, where they had sought refuge for more than 18 months to avoid Israeli revocation of their residency status in the city.
Philip Weiss - Mondoweiss - A tragic night in the West Bank. Israeli soldiers accompanied a bullodozer as it destroyed all the buildings in a Bedouin community near Anata, northeast of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
Gisha - Gisha welcomes the security establishment’s decision to allow Gaza furniture makers to develop new markets for their products in Jordan. The shipment of the furniture to Jordan proves that the marketing of these and other kinds of products can also take place in both the West Bank and Israel itself – Gaza’s traditional markets.
Rami Almeghari -
The Electronic Intifada -
"“Only recently, we have managed to get brine and filters for the dialysis machines here,” Shatta said. “The gallons of brine we received only meet the need for a few weeks while we actually need a reserve for about three months, at least.”" - id
Harriet Sherwood -
Guardian -
"Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian politician, said Israel was "flagrantly violating international conventions and practices" with regard to the immunity of elected officials." - id
Hagai El-Ad -
+972 -
""...any insistence on the human rights of the Arab minority, is immediately entangled with an existential threat to Israel.”" - id
Ma`an - The PLC speaker`s office denounced the order as an "abusive decision without any charge or legal justification," accusing Israel of trying to stop a parliamentary session scheduled for next month. "It is an Israeli attempt to thwart Palestinian reconciliation," the statement said.
Palestinian Center For Human Rights - IMEMC - According to investigations conducted by PCHR, IOF arrested Bassam Sha`ban Fu`ad Raihan, 24, from Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on 19 January 2012, as he was traveling to al-Mezan Hospital in Hebron through Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing to undergo surgery.
Richard Silverstein - Tikun Olam - It should be noted that the victim was not considered to be a security risk. He was suspected of being a petty criminal. The investigation was eventually closed “for lack of evidence.” [Haaretz didn`t publish the names of the police torturers, after PCATI brought the case to the Supreme Court; Silverstein does.]
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - "Palestinian medical sources reported on Sunday that Hanin Kamal Abu Jalala, 16, died of wounds suffered during the Israeli offensive on Gaza three years ago. The child was severely wounded by phosphorous shells fired by the Israeli army into civilian areas in Gaza"
Harriet Sherwood, Mat Heywood and Mustafa Khalili - The Guardian - Cell 36 in Al Jalame prison, northern Israel, is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. Mohammad Shabrawi from Tulkarm, in the West Bank, was arrested last January, aged 16, and Ezz ad-Deen Ali Qadi from Ramallah, who was 17 when arrested, talk about their experiences
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - "With the abduction of Dweik, the number of detained elected Palestinians legislators arrives to 26. Both Dr. Dweik and legislator Khaled Tafesh, from Hebron, were kidnaped on Friday"
Ma`an News Agency -
"Israeli forces on Thursday detained the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Dweik at a checkpoint near Jerusalem, witnesses said.Some 23 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are currently imprisoned in Israel, according to the prisoner rights group Addameer.Twenty of the elected officials are being held in administrative detention without charge or trial." ca
Khaled Amayreh -
Al-Ahram Weekly
"...last week I received a summons to report to Room 1 at the Preventive Security Services (PSS) headquarters in downtown Hebron. When I arrived there at about nine o`clock in the morning, I was told to wait in a cold room. I waited and waited and waited, without being called for "questioning or interrogation".Around one o`clock, an interrogator showed up and asked me to go with him. We sat down in another cold room...The interrogator lashed out at Islamist parties in the Arab world, hinting that their arrival to power in a number of Arab countries was made possible thanks to American intertervention. "America," he argued, "stands behind the Arab Spring from A to Z." ca
Kathleen Kern - AL-KHALIL/HEBRON - we got a call from Hani Abu Haikel, a friend we have known since 1995. He and his family have had eight cars destroyed by Israeli settlers in the last three years.The Israeli military no longer permits them to park cars in their driveway. Hana Abu Haikel, his sister, parks her car in H-1, under nominal Palestinian control, a steep walk down the hill from their Tel Rumeida neighborhood.Yet even there, the settlers found it and, according to an eyewitness, accompanied by an army jeep, they burned this car as they have burned all the others.
Ehud Krinis and Assaf Oron - Mondoweiss - At first we had thought these arrests were a random local initiative by the IDF officers at the site. Whether or not this is true, the fact is that now the military prosecution has stepped up and decided to throw the book, or rather, invent a book from thin air in order to intimidate these young women. This might be related to the intesification of the Occupation’s general campaign to intimidate West Bank “Area C” residents in the hope of driving many of them out and eventually annexing their land to Israel.
Rami Almeghari -
The Electronic Intifada -
"...but now, of his brothers, only Zakariya, the eldest son, is struggling to keep the tradition and the business alive." - id
Palestinian Center For Human Rights -
PCHR -
"For Nujoud’s husband, Muhammed, who is deaf and dumb, the loss of Bilal, who used to help him communicate with others outside the house, was also devastating." - id
Mya Guarnieri -
+972 -
"CPT reports that the Abu Haikel family has filed 500 complaints against settlers and have received no response from Israeli authorities." - id
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC - Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Azzoun and arrested twelve residents, after violently beating and attacking them; four of the taken were released later on. (This kind of raid is part of the "normal" routine of the occupation, hardly ever reported in any but the Palestinian media.AK)
Robert Anderson - CBS-60 minutes - "Settlements prevent the creation of a Palestinian state" according to settler leader Daniela Weiss. --Mustapha Barghouti: "While my heart still wants to believe that a two-state solution is possible, my brain tells me..." etc.
Euro-Mediterranean Observatory for Human Rights (Euro-Mid) - Testimonies recorded by local and international Human Rights organizations demonstrated that the Israeli authorities deliberately prevented thousands of Palestinians from travelling every year through the Israeli-controlled Al Karama Border Crossing, the only land-passage for the population of the West Bank.
Ahmad Barqawi - CounterPunch - "Three years after the ‘unilateral cessation of military operations’ on January 18th, 2009; and the Israeli apparatus of mass murder and annihilation is still roaring at the borders; ready to be initiated at a moment’s notice, the IOF is literally licking its lips, salivating at the chance of yet another vicious round of wholesale slaughter"
Ma`an - The closure of the Karni crossing into Gaza "will have the impact of de-developing Gaza rather than re-developing Gaza," [and] the growing settlement population in the West Bank is adversely affecting development and access to basic services for Palestinians.
Amira Hass -
Haaretz
"Mixed" Palestinian couples live under a constant cloud of uncertainty and fear of the future. What if Israel goes back to barring Israelis from Palestinian Authority territory? What if the trend of anti-Arab legislation continues and Israel one day decides to strip their children, or them, of their Israeli citizenship?" ca
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - “When I left my children I was walking and my children had not seen my wounds. The most difficult moment was when I came back with only 1 leg and many injuries. I was a different Wafa. When I came back I was supposed to happy and the people were supposed to be happy for seeing me but everyone was crying.”
Ben White - Electronic Intifada - The Supreme Court approved a law the likes of which do not exist in any democratic state in the world, depriving citizens from maintaining a family life in Israel only on the basis of the ethnicity or national belonging of their spouse. The ruling proves how much the situation regarding the civil rights of the Arab minority in Israel is declining into a highly dangerous and unprecedented situation.
Joharah Baker - MIFTAH - No doubt, not all Israelis would agree with their army’s actions, especially when this army arrests little first graders. But it is their responsibility to speak up just as it is any people’s responsibility to keep their official establishments in check.
Elior Levy - Ynet News - Official document by EU delegates criticizes Israel`s policies in West Bank, suggests bloc must pursue ventures in Israeli-controlled area even without Israel`s cooperation
Amira Hass - Haaretz - On my way home from Tel Aviv last Wednesday, at midnight, I turned right on Route 443, just where a yellow sign warns: "Israeli, beware, if you`ve arrived here you made a mistake."
I hadn`t made a mistake. That`s where I was headed, to the road that squeezes its way through villages and unpopulated mountain peaks and leads to Ramallah, and is classified as a "fabric of life" road - one of several thin threads linking the Palestinian enclaves, whose access roads to the main highways of the West Bank have been blocked. rh
Jonathan Pollak - Press Release - Major Sharon Rivlin, a judge at the Ofer Military Court, accepted as admissible the testimony of a 14 year-old Palestinian boy who was unlawfully arrested in the dead of night, questioned without being allowed sleep, denied his right to legal counsel and not told of his right to remain silent.
Jack Khoury - Haaretz - Thousands of families of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have been waiting for years for a Supreme Court decision rejecting Israel’s Citizenship Law. Wednesday’s ruling to uphold the law puts an end to their hope of obtaining citizenship for their spouses and receiving permanent status in Israel. rh
Yair Altman -
Ynet -
"...three parked cars were on fire near the mosque and one of the fences that surround the mosque had the `price tag` graffiti." - id
Ma`an - Economists and businessmen call for a reduction of the PA`s dependency on foreign aid. At present, a cutting of external aid -such as happened in 2006 - could lead the entire West Bank economy to collapse, provoking a humanitarian crisis. Among the most vulnerable are the owners of small businesses and all those who depend on foreign aid channeled through the PA.
Ma`an News Agency
"Palestinian tax revenues collected by Israel amounting to 150 million shekels ($39 million) will be transferred to Gaza upon their release in the next 24 hours, the head of the Palestinian Monetary Authority said on Thursday." ca
Sarah Ali -
Countercurrents
"Then there was Anwar.And then, there was Haneen.I am living in a world whose concepts are no longer clear to me. A world where the criminal walks free and the victim is called a terrorist. A world where killing a five-year-old kid is permissible. A world that has left me baffled about what is right and what is wrong. I have always thought that we could figure out who the terrorist was simply by looking at who died on whose side. I was wrong. Israel has the ability to kill Palestinians at night and call them terrorists the next morning." ca
Roxanne Horesh -
Al Jazeera
"Oz Zion, or "Zion`s might", a newly built outpost erected on private Palestinian land, is east of Ramallah and neighbours the larger settlement of Givat Assaf in the occupied West Bank. The hilltop resembles a campsite with five makeshift wooden sheds, where a few dozen residents live.The dynamics between the residents of Oz Zion and the Israeli authorities are a clear illustration of the confrontation between the concepts of the `Land of Israel` (religious and nationalist convictions) and the State of Israel (the civic, legal and political entity)." ca
Saleh Al-Naami -
Al-Ahram Weekly
"Other Palestinians believe that Hamas should realise that after the prisoner exchange deal there is a need to integrate Palestinians in the new Arab order that has been shaped by the revolutions for democratic change in the Arab world. Sources told the Weekly that some figures inside Hamas are working on ending the bilateral nature of the confrontation with Israel. The group is trying to create an extensive Arab front to confront Israel that would require Hamas and other resistance factions to integrate into the Arab order, because such integration would curtail Israel`s dominance." ca
Khaled Amayreh -
Al-Ahram Weekly
"Like in previous years, 2011 was more or less another "normal" year for the Palestinians as Israel, which is ruled by a racist coalition of right wing and religious parties, continued to narrow Palestinian horizons, effectively putting an end to any realistic hopes for establishing a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank." ca
by Adam Horowitz -
Mondoweiss
According to a Palestinian Authority report on the economic costs of the Israeli occupation published in September, the potential value of production from mining and quarrying in the West Bank under Israeli control is an estimated $900m (£580m) a year." ca
"
PCRH - “I was told initially that Arafa had been injured in an Israeli strike. Of course I was concerned, but many people get injured in his line of work and what was important is that he was still alive. I learnt only fifteen minutes before Arafa’s body arrived back at the family home that he had died. The shock was unbearable”
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Eleven years ago, French reporter, Sharl Anderlan, was present at the shooting, and, along with his Palestinian Cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma, videotaped the incident. Anderlan was later accused of fabricating the video, despite the fact that the shooting took place in broad daylight in front of several persons, and reporters, who were also witnesses to the incident.
Sarah Ali -
The Electronic Intifada -
"I cannot imagine the denial that soldier lived in that made him think what he did was “self-defense.” I cannot imagine how this very same soldier can now eat, drink, sleep and simply go on with his life." - id
Amira Hass - Haaretz - If the demolition process is indeed accelerated, around 1,000 Palestinian children in particularly deprived communities stand to lose their schools