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Palestine news
YOU ARE INVITED TO
PARTICIPATE IN THE
SECOND
ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN BIL'IN, PALESTINE
18
20 APRIL 2007
February
2007 marks the second anniversary of the weekly
non-violent protests in opposition to the
"work-site of shame" for the Apartheid
Wall that has annexed almost 60% of the land of Bil'in village in
the West Bank.
Bil'in has become a symbol both of the theft of
land across Palestine and of the
power of non-violent grassroots movements in
building local and international resistance to
Occupation.
The
International Conference will follow upon a
Palestinian conference to be held in March to
extend the Popular Non-Violent Struggle across Palestine and offers
Israelis and Internationals opportunity to join
their Palestinian partners in spreading
non-violent resistance to the injustice suffered
by Palestinians: land confiscation, home
demolitions, checkpoints, and imprisonment behind
the Wall.
The year between June 2007 and May 2008 provides
an effective framework for highlighting the
ongoing Palestinian catastrophe: 90 years
since the Balfour Declaration, 60 years since the
Nakba, 40 years of Occupation, 25 years
since Sabra/Shatila, 20 years since the First
Intifada, 5 years of building the Apartheid Wall.
Join us in strategizing effective, concerted
non-violent action in Palestine
and across the globe!
WHEN:
18 20 APRIL, 2007 with a major non-violent
action on the final day
WHERE:
BIL'IN VILLAGE near Ramallah, Palestine
SPEAKERS:
- Dr. Azmi Bishara,
Palestinian Israeli Knesset member
- Mairead Corrigan
Maguire, Irish Nobel Peace Prize
recipient
- Dr. Ilan Pappe, author
of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- Luisa
Morgantini, Italian EU Parliament
member and Peace Activist
- Stéphane Hessel,
former French Ambassador
- Jean-Claude
Lefort, French parliament member
- Amira Haas, author
and journalist, Ha'aretz
- Sam Bahour, Palestinian
activist and entrepreneur
- Representatives
of the Bil'in Popular Committee
WORKSHOPS:
NON-VIOLENT STRATEGIES TO OPPOSE OPPRESSION
- Boycott, divestment,
and sanctions
- Building economic
independence
- Media & Advocacy
- Direct Action
COST:
Accommodations per night, 20 Euros plus
Conference Registration, 20 Euros per day (April
18 -19)
TO
REGISTER and for information on options for
pre-and-post conference activities see: www.bilin-village.
org
For
Pre and post Confrence tours: http://www.sirajcenter.org/bilin.htm -----------
George N. Rishmawi
The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between
People (PCR)
Director
Phone: +972(0)2-277-2018 Fax: +972(0)2-277-4602
+970-599-833-888
(cell)
+972-(0)544-351-339 (cell)
www.pcr.ps ,
www.imemc.org
|
march 15th
update
The policeman was quite busy when I called him to ask
what was going on; rumors were circulating that the Rafah
border had suddenly been opened, and that many people had
been injured, one dead. "Hold on a minute,
Mohammed, the officer said, there are people
shooting at each other and clashes going on." Later
on, as he was stamping passports for people leaving Gaza,
the police officer explained that this time the border
had closed immediately and the EU observers had evacuated
the area.
This opening was an unexpected one, a rare event,
announced to have been open for four days. But due to the
enormous number of travelers who rushed to the border,
only a proportionately small amount of people were able
to make it out of Gaza. Seven were injured, and an
elderly man, over 60 years old, on his way to Cairo for
medical tests, died of heart attack while waiting for the
border to open.
Thousands of people stampeded the Rafah border, among
them children, women, and men, many of whom had been
waiting for extended periods for the border to open, in
order to get outside for things like medication and
medical appointments, with resources non-existent or
scarce in Gaza. Among those waiting masses, Falsteen, 22,
along with her father, had had to sleep at the border for
three days in hopes of being among the limited number of
those crossing, so that she could go for her medical
appointment. If she missed it, then it would mean no less
than 6 months wait for a new appointment: "I'm on my
way for eye surgery. It's exhausting to wait for three
days, sleeping here on the road with no basic services or
water, waiting in vain to cross" she said. Her
father continued: "I have lost patience. It's not
fair; why should we suffer like this? Why close the
border? Where are our human rights, and where is the
international community?" He had a lot of questions,
for which I had no answers.
The Rafah border closed anew, yet as militants closed
in, Palestinians also crowded one another at the
terminal, desperate to get their relatives travel
outside. The police have been trying to keep order, but
many believe that the police are the source of problems,
allowing certain people to pass on a basis of favoritism.
"If you have money to pay off such guys at the
border, you will travel; but I have no money, I have only
God in my side" one woman related, in tears. There
are such claims of dishonesty, with no proof that there
is corruption on the border. In any case, it is
impossible to get out of Gaza these days, as the border
is long closed by now. People will have to wait for the
next time Israel deigns to give approval for European
Union observers to go to the Rafah border. The final
decision is, of course, Israel's.
On November 25, 2005, an agreement on the Rafah border
was brokered by the Under Secretary of State, according
control of the Rafah-Egypt border to Palestinians and
Egypt, along with European observers. Yet, as soon as
Hamas won the democratic election, Israel closed all
borders, thereafter only opening the Rafah-Egypt border
on sudden and very rare occasions, for short periods.
Sometimes, an opening is announced about a day or two
ahead of the event. But the reality is different from
what is being reported in the media. Cross-border
movement is video-taped on a regular basis, so that all
activities inside and outside of the border can be
watched live via cameras in Israel.
Those thousands of people waiting at the border: when
they will cross? When will the student go cross to attend
his university outside the Gaza Strip? When will the
patient waiting to cross to Egypt for medication be
permitted this necessary luxury? Or the brother who has
not seen his sister for ages, when will he be able to
cross? Or even the man married to a foreign woman who,
along with their children, can now no longer enter the
Occupied Territories... As with many hundreds of
families, he instead, has to go to Cairo or another
country to meet them. Just as all these questions remain,
unanswered, for Israel to answer, so too the border
remains closed, for Israel to decide to open.
The situation in the Gaza Strip has been very grave.
Numerous people were injured in different places
throughout the Strip, and numerous Israeli tanks and
bulldozers are amassed at the border between Egypt and
the Gaza Strip--many believe that this is the start of a
bigger attack on parts of Gaza.
................................
The poorest families are now
living a meagre existence totally reliant on assistance
The UN study, carried out by the World Food Programme
(WFP), talks of a "marked decline" in living
standards. It says that by the end of last year more than
80% of Gazans and 60% of West Bankers were reducing their
daily expenditures.The report warns that rising levels of
unemployment and poverty are posing acute challenges to
"food security" - a family's ability to provide
itself with enough to eat. The study talks of
"economic suffocation" and says that Israeli
security restrictions in the occupied West Bank and
around Gaza are fragmenting the Palestinian economy.
Sectors like fishing and farming are being ruined.
Although the report does not refer to them, the past
12 months have also seen international economic sanctions
on the Hamas-led Palestinian government. BBC World News
..........The sanctions were imposed by Israel and
the West because they refused to acknowledge the
Palestinians democratic vote. JB Editor
Negev desert nomads on the move again to make way for
Israel's barrier
Security
fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life
for thousands
Rory
McCarthy in Azariya
Wednesday February 28, 2007
The Guardian
The bulldozers came for Hamid Salim
Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition
began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they
could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs,
a canister of cooking gas and a metal bed frame.
Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and
broken plastic pipes, Mr Hassan and his family are living
in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions
are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies,
including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef,
wheat flour and tomato paste, provided by the
International Committee of the Red Cross.
His tent is small but it affords Mr Hassan a
compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him
are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his
family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948,
used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is
Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements
which is illegal under international law. Snaking up the
hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also
ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International
Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed
wire barrier, which here will be 50m wide and include a
ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim,
attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.
For the 3,000 Bedouin living here, most from the
Jahalin tribe, this presents an imminent crisis.
"They came and destroyed my house to protect their
wall," said Mr Hassan, 62. "They really don't
have enough land already that they had to come and
destroy my house? We've lost everything."
Earlier this month the Israeli military destroyed
seven huts and tents belonging to Bedouin living near a
settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Another
group of Bedouin living further east in the Jordan Valley
have been given two months to leave their homes near an
Israeli military base and a Jewish settlement.
In each case the Israeli authorities argue the homes
have been built without permits, but Palestinians say
they are notoriously hard to obtain.
Bedouin culture has been eroded as a result. Refugees
from the Negev desert in Israel who crossed after 1948,
their grazing land has been squeezed by the growth of
Palestinian towns, the rapid emergence of large Jewish
settlements and lately the vast concrete and steel
barrier. Most Bedouin live on land that under the Oslo
accords was supposed to be unpopulated farmland where
Israel has civilian and military control. Today most live
in primitive shacks, many no longer keep animal herds and
they have little in the way of formal land ownership
documents. They have become one of the most vulnerable
Palestinian communities.
Open and free
Mr Hassan, 62, was born in Be'er Sheva, in what is now
Israel. His family crossed during the 1948-9 war and
moved to land near Azariya, the biblical town of Bethany,
near Jerusalem. For years they continued their
semi-nomadic existence, grazing their large flock of
sheep on the hillside. In 1975 a group of 23 Jewish
families founded the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which
has grown into a town of 35,000 people. Mr Hassan and
other Bedouin were forced off the land. Most set up
shacks on another hilltop. Ten years ago Mr Hassan found
the money to buy a plot of land and built a house, giving
up his Bedouin existence. "Life changes," he
said. "We had no other choice." His seven
children, including his daughters, went to school and
college, integrating into a new urban life.
Other Bedouin have also changed and work as
construction labourers, many even employed in Ma'ale
Adumim, building the settlement that has taken the land
they once lived on.
"In the past people envied our lifestyle. The
land was open and free. There were sheep and we were
rich," said his brother Saeed Hassan Salim, 50.
"The occupation put us out of business. The Bedouin
life is slipping away." He now lives in a small
shack that stands directly in the path of the barrier and
is almost certain to be demolished soon.
"It seems the whole presence in this area is
about to disappear," said Jeremy Milgrom, 53, a
rabbi and human rights activist who has worked with the
Bedouin here for 15 years and is mapping their remaining
communities. "We are asking why it is this has to
happen. Why did the government assume the prerogative
that they can absolutely redesign the entire landscape
and eliminate the Bedouin?"
The Israeli military's civil administration, which
runs the West Bank, says the Bedouin were being offered
alternatives. "They came and illegally put up their
houses and tents. So we are working against this illegal
construction," said its spokesman Captain Tsidki
Maman. "We are helping them to find a place where it
will be OK for them to settle."
The areas under consideration are all on the other
side of the barrier from the Jewish settlements.
Capt Maman rejected the Bedouin argument that they
have lived on the land for years. "The Bedouin are
travelling all the time. They can't say they've been here
for decades. It's not like this," he said.
In the late 1990s there was a similar move against the
Bedouin around Ma'ale Adumim and several of their homes
were demolished. But supported by Shlomo Lecker, an
Israeli lawyer, the Bedouin were given a deal under which
they would move to a new area, with plots of land,
building permits and up to 40,000 shekels (then £7,000)
per family. Around 50 families took up the offer, and now
live in an area known as the Jebel. However, the deal was
not without its problems: the houses are within a few
hundred metres of Jerusalem's main rubbish dump and on
land that other Palestinians claim as their own.
Power and water
The prospect of another move is being hotly debated
within the Bedouin community. For some it is an
opportunity to upgrade to houses with electricity and
running water. Others say they would rather move into
Palestinian towns like Azariya but lack the money, while
others still want to stay on their land and cling to what
is left of their traditional lifestyle.
Mr Lecker, the lawyer, said in reality they will have
little choice but to move. "They are being forced.
They don't have another option," he said. "All
these shacks are built without permits and there is a lot
of pressure on them."
Israel defends the barrier on the grounds of security,
saying it has drastically reduced the number of suicide
bombings. But Mr Lecker said: "There is absolutely
no reason to build the wall there. This is to do with
taking a huge chunk of land and making it part of a wider
Jerusalem. It is the idea of taking the land without the
people. Why not give them rights in Israel - identity
cards, electricity and water? The land comes with the
people and if you take the land and push out the people
then what do you call it?"
Backstory
Bedouin shepherds have lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic
life in the Negev desert for centuries. After the 1948-9
war, when Israel was created, many were forced out or
fled. Around 140,000 now live in the Negev, in Israel.
Some serve in the Israeli military but around half live
in villages not recognised by the state where they lack
basic services and building permits.
Those that fled Israel crossed to Jordan, Egypt or the
Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. In the
West Bank, around 3,000 members of the Jahalin tribe live
next to land taken by the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale
Adumim. In the 1990s several Bedouin families were moved
to make way for the settlement. Now other homes are being
demolished, to make way for the West Bank barrier.
QUINTUPLETS BORN IN GAZA
by Mohammed Omer
http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm
A 25 year old mother lies down, recovering after
giving birth to quintuplets, a highlight of Gazan news
amidst the internal family disputes occurring in the Khan
Younis refugee Camp in the southern part of the Gaza
Strip.
In Al Shifas Cesarean department, Laila Abu
Nofal delivered four baby boys and a fifth unexpected
gift: a baby girl.
Mohammed Nofal, the 28 year old father of the newborn
babies, mentions in an interview that while his wife had
taken hormone treatments to get pregnant, they never
expected to have five babies at once.
The five babies cause a commotion in Al Shifas
maternity ward, where the newborns lie side by side, five
new heads in a line. This brings to mind a similarly
phenomenal event last year, when a woman had six babies
in the same Gaza Strip hospital.
Mohammed Nofal mentioned that he already has one five
year old girl and another six year old boy. When asked if
they had named the newborns yet, he replied that everyone
in the family had chosen names for the five infants,
deciding upon: Mohammed, Ahmed, Hussam, Abdullrahman, and
Iman, for the baby girl.
The crucial question remains whether Mohammed Nofal
will be able to raise their five new babies, especially
as they will require special care. Mohammed works as a
policeman in Gaza, and like the rest of Palestinians
working for the Palestinian Authority, he has not
received his salary for many months, since sanctions were
imposed by the US, Israel and the EU. Even if he is
receiving his salary, $460 is not enough money for milk
and other expenses for all his children. He wonders how
he is going to raise his quintuplets, when, additionally,
his parents also need help.
Only if the sanctions imposed on Palestinians by the
international community are lifted will the challenge of
providing for his extensive family become more feasible.
The extreme poverty of most Palestinians in Gaza is so
severe that in addition to the lifting of the sanctions,
humanitarian funding is necessary, so that the new born
babies can count on a bottle of milk, and malnourished
children throughout the Strip can avoid irreparable
damage.
On one side of Gaza, in Gaza City,
new babies are born; but in Khan Younis, another five
people were killed in a family dispute. And, according to
Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, another 45 Palestinians
were injured.
Everyday, people are killed in the Gaza Strip, but
people are still getting married, despite the grave
situation; people are still having children, as all
believe this appalling situation cant last forever.
Perhaps those newborn babies will enjoy a safe and
unoccupied Palestine. But only if civilized
countries want them to; only if the international
community
truly wakes up and takes decisions to end the embargo on
Palestinians, restore our right to earning a livelihood,
and compensate the great losses we have suffered as a
result both of the sanctions and Israels ban on
fishing and exporting.
demolition of houses and
agricultural structures in west bank
On Wednesday 14th February Israeli Occupation Forces
demolished a
large number of houses and agricultural structures in
four different
villages in the South Hebron Hills - Qwawis, M'nezel,
Um-Elhe'r and
the Abu-Kbeita family near Yatir settlement. The
villagers in this
area struggle to stay on their land despite ongoing home
demolitions,
violent attacks and constant settler and military
harassment. Please
donate what you can to help them remain on the land they
have farmed
for generations.
Illegal Israeli settlements and outposts (illegal even
according to
Israeli law,) whose residents have stolen most of the
area's
agricultural land, have tried for years to drive the
local Palestinian
villagers off their land. Unlike the homes of
Palestinians, the
illegal outposts are not demolished. Instead, they
receive electricity
and water supplies, paved roads and subsidies for their
agricultural
enterprises. The Palestinians rely on water from wells, a
few hours of
electricity a day from a generator, and an ever
decreasing patch of
land on which to grow crops and graze their livestock.
Despite these
hardships the indigenous people refuse to surrender to
the state-
sponsored land grab, aware that they otherwise face
eviction into
walled ghettos.
With your help, ISM, and Israeli peace groups, Ta'ayush
and Rabbis for
Human Rights, are working to rebuild the houses and
structures as soon
as possible. Rebuilding will start over two days in
March. Villagers
have requested that internationals maintain a permanent
presence in
the area after the rebuilding to offer protection from
settler
violence.
It is estimated that around $36,000 will be needed to
rebuild all
these houses and structures. The costs below are for the
materials and
transportation of them to the different locations. The
costs include:
cement, blocks, stone, sand, concrete and roofs.
Um al Kheir 1 concrete house - NIS 37,000
5 other houses
- NIS 62,000
Qawawis 7 houses and 1 agricultural structure - NIS
14,800
Imneizil 1 house and 1 agricultural
structure - NIS 9,800
Abu Kbeita Family 2 houses and a tent -
NIS 6,700
Lawyer's fees NIS 21,000
Total NIS 151,300 ($36024)
For more details on the recent demolitions see: www.palsolidarity.org
For more on the Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing in the
South Hebron
Hills:
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/Summaries/200507_South_Hebron.asp
Checks of any amount may be made out to
"ISM-USA" and sent to:
ISM-USA
PO Box 5073
Berkeley, CA 94705
If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation, please
make your checks
of $50 or more payable to ISM-USA's fiscal sponsor: A.J.
Muste
Memorial Institute, (with "ISM-USA" on the memo
line of the check),
and send to the same address above.
You may also use your credit or debit card and use our
PayPal account.
Donations sent through PayPal are not tax-deductible. To
pay by PayPal
please visit:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/donations/
After making a donation please send us an e-mail
detailing the amount
and the date of payment to:
info@palsolidarity.org
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