- 3 aug 2010
Israel demolishes more villages and houses
Jerusalem, August 3, (Pal Telegraph) A large force of Israeli army supported by bulldozers and special units raided today several unrecognized villages in the Negev region south of the occupied territories of 1948, and proceeded to demolish dozens of homes and the displacement of a large number of the families who own these homes.
Israeli bulldozers began demolition of unrecognized villages of ‘Dimona’’, ‘Ser’, ‘Abu Salb’ and ‘Hawasheleh’.
The Israeli bulldozers are scheduled to keep on invading many of the unrecognized villages in the Negev throughout the day and everyday according to sources in the Israeli Ministry of interior affairs, for the demolition of more houses and removal of the tents.
http://fwd4.me/0i2F 23 nov 2010, 21:10 , Respect -
Maria 4 aug 2010
Israeli police raze rebuilt Bedouin village
AL-ARAQIB, Israel (Ma'an) -- Hundreds of Israeli police stormed an unrecognized Bedouin village Wednesday, less than one week after it was razed to make way for Jewish National Fund forest, witnesses said.
Residents, who remained in the Negev-area village to rebuild, said clashes erupted with police, sent to clear the Bedouin who had not left the area.
The dwellings were rebuilt following a decision by the Higher Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, the online news site Arab48 reported. The decision was made following the demolition of the buildings on 27 July.
Witnesses said bulldozers tore down the new structures, prompting the clashes, in which five people sustained injuries, including Palestinian member of Israel's Knesset Taleb As-Sana, as Israeli police tried to remove him from one of the sit-in tents.
Salem Abu Madeghem and Awad Abu Fareeh, field researchers for the civil rights group in Israel Adalah, as well as two others, sustained injuries, residents said, adding that all were transferred to hospital for treatment.
Spokesman for Israel's police Mickey Rosenfeld said a number of shacks were taken down in the village, and noted several were taken in for questioning. Others, he added, were arrested "for causing disturbances at the scene and police are in and around the village at the moment to prevent further disturbances."
The Islamic Movement in Israel's chief Sheikh Mussa Abu Ayyad said his organization would stand by the Bedouin residents, who are all citizens of Israel, and would provide services for them.
Locals said they intended to return to their village to once again rebuild the homes.
On 27 July, all 40 homes in the Al-Araqib village were destroyed and 300 residents were evicted during the raid which began at 4:30 a.m. after the Israeli government deemed the village illegally built on state land. The Bedouin residents say they have proof of land ownership, and have been in court for several years.
Approximately 1,500 police officers participated including special riot forces, mounted officers, helicopters, and bulldozers.
At least 200 children were left homeless as a result, as police removed residents property into prepared containers, and bulldozers razed buildings and sheepfolds, local activists said in a statement. Fruit orchards and olive grove trees were destroyed in the process.
Israeli activists who were present at the demolition described the move as an “act of war, such as is undertaken against an enemy.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=305184 23 nov 2010, 21:11 , Respect -
Maria 5 aug 2010
Hanna urges churches worldwide to prevent Israeli decimation of historic Christian sites
Theodosios Atallah Hanna, Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, has called upon churches internationally to immediately intervene to prevent Israel from continuing to obliterate features of Christianity in the Palestinian town of Ein Karem situated west of Occupied Jerusalem.
Accompanied by his lawyer Keis Youssef Naser, Hanna visited Ein Karem on Wednesday (04.08.2010) to examine the Christian sites threatened by the Occupation.
Following the visit, Hanna made an urgent appeal to all churches and church leaders to follow up on this issue and to take legal measures to prevent the Israeli authorities from building on these sites which represent the Christian history of Palestine.
He called upon the Christian world to take necessary measures to protect these sites, and warned that heritage sites linked to the First Church and Christian presence in the first four centuries AD were being targeted.
It is worth mentioning that the Palestinian town of Ein Karem, west of Jerusalem, is considered one among hundreds of Arab-Palestinian towns that were obliterated by the Israeli Occupation. The Israeli hospital of Hadassah Ein Karem and other official Israeli buildings now exist on the rubble of the town.
http://fwd4.me/0hG2 23 nov 2010, 21:11 , Respect -
Maria 6 aug 2010
Terrorist israeli Army Vandalize Homes And Smear Faeces
(5:54) Terrorist israeli Army Vandalize Homes And Smear Faeces
The Evil israeli Army does this sort of thing everyday yet is often described as the "most ethical" in the world by propagandists. The very brutal and inhumane nature of their conduct is insulated from our TV screens, and therefore, hidden from our conscience. This is a short glimpse of the systematic vandalism exacted upon the Palestinian nation by the Israeli Occupation Forces.
The pre-meditated project of internalizing humiliation within the Palestinian pysche has long roots to the very origin of the Zionist movement. From one prime minister to the next, Israeli leaders have time and again described the Palestinian nation degradingly as beasts in human form, or as humans embellished by animalistic qualities.
In order to come to terms with this narcisstic pyschology on the part of the israelis, it is revealing to quote he words of Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002:
"The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people."
Its now time the world wakes up and looks at the true face of israel.
Israel criminal settlers need to get off Palestinian stolen land they murdered for and go back home, Zionist Terrorists of the Synagogue of Satan's Chosen Ones.
Israel Plans Mass Forced Removals of Bedouin
Israeli security forces destroyed a Bedouin village this week for the second time in a matter of days, leaving 300 inhabitants homeless again after they and dozens of Jewish and Arab volunteers had begun rebuilding the 45 homes.
Human rights groups warned that these appeared to be the opening shots in a long-threatened campaign by the Israeli government to begin mass forced removals of tens of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in the southern Negev.
The High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab minority, vowed this week to help rebuild the village for a second time and said it would call on the UN to investigate Israel’s treatment of the Bedouin.
Al Araqib village, which is a few kilometres north of the Negev’s main city Beersheva, has become a symbol of the struggle by about 90,000 Bedouin to win recognition for dozens of communities the government claims are built on state land.
In a test case before the Israeli courts, an inhabitant of al Araqib has been presenting documents and expert testimony to show his ancestors owned and lived on the village’s lands many decades before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The judge is expected to rule within months.
“Tearing down an entire village and leaving its inhabitants homeless without exhausting all other options for settling longstanding land claims is outrageous,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.
A force of 1,500 police, including a special riot squad wearing black balaclavas, entered the village early on Wednesday to pull down a dozen wooden shacks and a half-built concrete home. The local Aturi tribe had been in the process of rebuilding the village after it was razed by bulldozers a week earlier.
The Israeli forces also uprooted 850 olive trees, said Ortal Tzabar, a spokeswoman for the government’s Land Administration.
Yesterday Adalah, a legal group for Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens, demanded a criminal investigation into what it called “police brutality” during both demolition operations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer, said assaults on villagers, confiscation of their property and the security forces’ decision to cover their faces and not wear identity tags were all designed to “instil fear” in the residents.
Taleb a-Sanaa, a Bedouin member of the Israeli parliament who was left unconscious on Wednesday after police dragged him from a tent in which he was staging a protest, warned that the government was risking “an uprising in the Negev”.
Six village leaders were arrested shortly afterwards when they refused to sign a paper committing not to return to al Araqib.
Awad Abu Freih, a village spokesman, said they remained defiant. “The authorities want to break our connection to this land so it can be turned over to Jews. They can keep destroying, but we will continue rebuilding. We will not leave.”
The first demolition of the village, late last month, came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his cabinet that the growth of the country’s Arab minority, already a fifth of the population, posed a “palpable threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
“The effect could be that different elements will demand national rights within Israel – for example, in the Negev – if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority.”
Last month the government announced a $50 million assistance programme to encourage army personnel to relocate to Jewish communities in the Negev.
The Bedouin’s increasing assertiveness about their indigenous status, which is backed by international groups, has led to a backlash from officials, who regularly refer to the Bedouin as “squatters” and “invaders” of state land.
Nili Baruch of Bimkom, an Israeli planning rights group, said a master plan currently being approved for the metropolitan area of Beersheva required “more house demolitions and more forced removals of the Bedouin population”, such as occurred at al-Araqib.
In addition, she said, the authorities had approved a special operation known as “Hot Wind” to carry out the demolitions.
The government’s conflict with the Bedouin dates back to Israel’s founding, when most of the Negev’s population were driven out of the new state.
With the highest birth rate in Israel, the surviving tribes have grown rapidly and now number 180,000, more than a quarter of the Negev’s population despite waves of state-sponsored Jewish migration.
Israel has refused to recognise most of the Bedouin’s traditional communities and insists they move into seven deprived townships built by the government several decades ago. Only about half have done so, with the rest insisting on their right to continue with their pastoral way of life.
Al-Araqib has become a particular point of friction because most of the Aturi moved into a nearby township, Rahat, in the 1970s, after their lands had been declared a closed military zone.
But faced with severe overcrowding in Rahat and no new land for expansion, many young families began moving back to al-Araqib a decade ago.
Like 45 other unrecognised villages, al Araqib is denied all services, including water and electricity, and its buildings are illegal.
A recent government commission found that tens of thousands of Bedouin buildings are subject to demolition orders, though until now individual buildings have been targeted, not whole communities.
Last month the Beersheva planning committee approved a scheme to recognise 13 Bedouin villages and force the other inhabitants into the townships.
In that plan, al Araqib’s lands are designated for a “peace forest” – funded by an international Zionist organisation, the Jewish National Fund – a move Mr Abu Freih said was designed to prevent the villagers’ return.
Ms Baruch said the authorities were demanding the inhabitants move to Rahat, even though no homes were provided for them.
Mr Abu Freih said other parts of the tribe’s lands nearby had been secretly settled by Jews in 2004. In a night-time operation JNF and government officials set up caravans that subsequently became an exclusively Jewish known as Givat Bar.
From 2002, Israel began a policy of annually spraying herbicide on al-Araqib’s crops, in an attempt to move them off the land, until the supreme court deemed the practice illegal in 2007.
- Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. (A version of this article originally appeared in The National -www.thenational.ae - published in Abu Dhabi.)
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16185
Israel says ancient Muslim gravestones 'built illegally'
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israel's Jerusalem Municipality said Thursday that tombstones razed by authorities a day earlier in a 12th-century Muslim cemetery were "built illegally with the aim to take over the plot."
At least 15 tombstones and structures were torn apart Wednesday in the Mamilla (Ma'man Allah) cemetery, the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage said. The latest demolitions follow the disinterment of over 1,500 graves in 2009 to make way for a controversial Museum of Tolerance. The foundation quickly denounced the move, describing it as a "heinous crime."
Mandated with renovating burial grounds, the foundation said its crew led by Fawaz Hassan and Mustafa Abu Zuhra tried to block the bulldozers with their bodies but were removed by police. Israeli authorities razed the tombstones in the northeastern part of the cemetery, despite the crew's objection, and left an hour after.
A spokesman for Israel's national police did not return multiple calls seeking comment, but the Jerusalem municipality said in a statement that it had "located illegal activity at the site," filed a complaint with police, and "turned to the Israel Land Administration, who owns the land, to restore [it] to its prior condition. The ILA cleared the vacant tombstones, which were built illegally with the aim to take over the plot."
Dating back 1,000 years, the Mamilla cemetery was an active burial ground until 1948, when West Jerusalem became part of the newly declared State of Israel. According to Muslim tradition, it is the burial site of the Prophet Mohammad's companions, Salah Ad-Din's warriors, Sufi saints, as well as judges, scholars, and Palestinian dignitaries.
Plans for the museum, funded by the Simon Wisenthal Center, a Jewish charity in the US, were unveiled in 2004 and sparked immediate controversy. Palestinian descendants with relatives buried at the site have launched a lengthy legal and public relations battle in a bid to stay the museum's construction. In 2008, however, they lost a case before Israel's High Court, which ruled in favor of the museum.
One descendant is US academic Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He told Ma'an that "If it is true that further graves in the Mamilla cemetery have in fact been bulldozed, then clearly the ongoing process of desecration of this sacred space has not been halted by the efforts of the families of those interred there to bring this issue before a variety of international forums."
"As far as the Israeli authorities are concerned, some graves merit respect, and some do not. Those of our ancestors in this cemetery, going back in some cases for many hundreds of years, obviously do not."
In February, Mamilla descendants filed a petition with the UN, later submitting evidence compiled by the Israeli daily Haaretz, which revealed in a three-part expose the extent of disinterment, publishing photographs of remains being stuffed haphazardly into cardboard boxes. The families of those buried at the site say the Israeli government has yet to inform them of the location of their relatives' remains.
Gideon Sulimani, an archeologist with Israel's Antiquities Authority who carried out the initial digs in 2009, told the newspaper at the time: "They call this an archaeological excavation but it%u2019s really a clearing-out, an erasure of the Muslim past. It is actually Jews against Arabs."
In June, Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook revealed that a second dig was in the works, with Israel planning a courthouse on the historic site. At least three tombstones were removed that same month.
Most of the graves are unrecognisable and in disrepair, owing to decades of neglect. Descendants of those buried there say personal attempts to replace or maintain tombstones have been repeatedly quashed and swiftly removed by Israeli authorities. The Al-Aqsa Foundation's renovation crew says the municipality regularly thwarts their attempts to maintain the site.
The municipality says it "will not allow extremist elements to act illegally to change the status quo."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=305219 23 nov 2010, 21:12 , Respect -
Maria 9 aug 2010
Jordan Valley demolitions continue
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Israel's Civil Administration began razing housing units Monday in the Ein Hilwa area of the northern Jordan Valley, campaign officials said.
Save the Jordan Valley campaign coordinator Fathi Ikhdeirat said Israeli authorities, accompanied by border guards, began tearing down structures and handing down stop-work orders to residents.
He described the move as an attempt "to clear the area of its indigenous people and include it into Israel and called on international human rights groups to intervene to bring the demolitions to a halt.
A spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The Jordan Valley has been a target for demolitions by Israel's Civil Administration, with several structures in villages across the area being torn down.
On Sunday, dozens of Palestinians as well as foreign activists rebuilt areas in the nearby Al-Farisiya village that were recently bulldozed by Israel's Civil Administration.
Over the past 10 days, several shacks, homes and agricultural structures were torn down in the village by the administration, which has complete planning and building control over Area C. Last Thursday, the Civil Administration returned to the valley to demolish 23 structures rebuilt by residents and farmers.
Meanwhile, in the nearby Bardala village, locals said the Civil Administration distributed several stop-work orders to residents in late July.
The orders, known locally as "demolition orders," demand that homeowners appear before a magistrates court to defend allegations. Because legal action at the court rarely succeeds, the stop-work orders essentially constitute a demolition order.
According to a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz in July, the Civil Administration has received government orders to increase enforcement against Palestinian construction in Area C, according to a deposition by an administration official to the High Court.
The deposition, by the head of the administration's infrastructure authority, Colonel Zvika Cohen, came in response to a petition by Regavim - a group seeking the destruction of illegal Palestinian construction at six West Bank sites, citing a security threat, the daily reported.
A recent UN report said 86 structures in the Jordan Valley were demolished two weeks ago, and 17 others were demolished in other areas of the West Bank the week after.
"The spate of demolitions raises concerns over whether Israeli authorities could further escalate demolitions throughout Area C," a UN report said, noting more than 3,000 demolition orders handed down by Israeli officials to locals were still outstanding.
"Currently, it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to maintain, repair or construct homes, animal shelters or necessary infrastructure in Area C," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report on Area C.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=306607 23 nov 2010, 21:12 , Respect -
Maria 10 aug 2010
Official: 3 more homes destroyed in Negev
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities demolished three houses in the western Negev on Monday, local officials said.
The houses in Abda village belonged to the At-Tantawi family, the Abda regional council said.
Ibrahim Al-Waqeely, head of the council, condemned the timing of the demolitions during a heatwave and a few days before the holy month of Ramadan, as families prepare to fast.
Villagers will remain on their land, Al-Waqeely said, despite "continuous provocations" by Israeli forces.
An Israeli police spokesman said he was not familiar with such an incident.
A Bedouin village which Israel considered unrecognized was destroyed in late July.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=306685
Group: Israeli forces close stores in Hebron
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers injured four Palestinians and five foreign nationals Tuesday during a demonstration against the closure of three shops in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, onlookers said.
Witnesses said Israeli forces informed businessman Azzam Abu Khalaf that he had half an hour to empty his shop in the Old City before it was shut down. Two others were given the same instructions, a local activist group said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=307139
Israeli Magistrate Court granted permission to demolish Moslem graves
Israeli Magistrate Court ruled on Monday to grant permission to demolish hundreds of Moslem graves in Ma'man Allah Cemetery in the western of occupied Jerusalem to pave the way for establishing the so-called Museum of Tolerance.
In the past two days, Israeli occupation authorities raze around 300 graves. In addition to the so-called museum of Tolerance, Israeli authorities are also planning a complex of courts on the other part of the cemetery over graves of Moslems.
http://fwd4.me/0iNH
Foundation says hundreds more tombstones disinterred
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli bulldozers entered the Mamilla (Ma'man Allah) cemetery in West Jerusalem on Monday night, and began taking down headstones from Muslim graves, a statement from the Jerusalem-based Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage said.
The destruction of graves was the third in just over a week, with Israeli officials telling Ma'an that the graves were destroyed because they were "built illegally with the aim to take over the plot."
Officials with the foundation, who have been observing the area closely following incidents of destruction at the site, said they witnessed a heavy police presence in the area, and called several Arab and international news outlets to cover the event.
Demolitions continued until Tuesday morning, a statement issued by the foundation said, adding that journalists who arrived to document the incident were assaulted by police.
Hundreds of tombstones were taken down, the report said, the largest destruction since 2009.
The first reports of demolitions came on Wednesday, when at least 15 tombstones and structures were torn apart or dismantled. The incident was the first reported since 2009, when over 1,500 tombstones were disinterred to make way for a controversial Museum of Tolerance. The foundation quickly denounced the move, describing it as a "heinous crime."
Most of the graves are unrecognizable and in disrepair, owing to decades of neglect. Descendants of those buried there say personal attempts to replace or maintain tombstones have been repeatedly quashed and swiftly removed by Israeli authorities. The Al-Aqsa Foundation's renovation crew says the municipality regularly thwarts their attempts to maintain the site.
The municipality says it "will not allow extremist elements to act illegally to change the status quo."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=306844
Bedouin village demolished for 3rd time
(5:40) Israel's Destruction of the Bedouin Village Al-Arakib
Israel Land Administration officials arrive at unrecognized village of al-Arakib with police escort, flatten it. 'If needed, we will also demolish during Ramadan,' say officials, but residents promise to continue rebuilding
Just before the start of Ramadan, an unrecognized Bedouin village has been demolished for the third time. The Israel Land Administration demolished some 21 building frames in the village of al-Arakib on Tuesday. The Land Administration officials arrived with a police detail that included the Border Guard and cavalrymen.
The village has already been flattened twice in the past two weeks.
As they did following the previous demolitions, village residents, with the help of left-wing activists, started building immediately after the demolition teams left the site.
"We must think about who will reap all this hatred afterwards," said Knesset Member Talab El-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al), who arrived on the site. "They found a solution for the people in Gush Katif here no. Jews do worse things to Bedouins that what was done to them by other peoples throughout history."
'How will I continue my studies?'
Maryam Abu-Midyam, a 20-year-old student of history at the Open University, protested, "I don't know how I will continue studying. They demolished, and we will build every week anew."
Maryam's father, Salim, said that he will fight until a solution is found for the residents. "I will not leave this place," he said.
"It has become routine," said Ilan Jan, from the Israel Land Administration. "It is a test of their spirits. We are doing our job, and we will soon file claims against residents of the site for the costs of evacuation."
Another Land Administration official in charge of oversight said, "This is State land, set aside for Bedouin grazing pastures. If we need to demolish on Ramada, we will demolish on Ramadan, but we are trying to show sensitivity. The Al-Turi clan continues to insist on remaining on the site, but we will not capitulate to them."
During the demolition operation, two left-wing activists were detained for disrupting police officers on duty. Three other activists were arrested on Monday during an anti-demolition protest at Lehavim junction on suspicions that they attacked policemen.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3933120,00.html
More Bedouin homes razed in Negev
Israel is carrying out more demolitions in Bedouin villages across the Negev desert, deploying scores of troops in the area to stem protests by the Palestinians.
Israeli authorities were in the village of al-Arakib in the northern Negev on Tuesday morning to demolish Palestinian structures which Tel Aviv deems as illegal.
Escorted by Israeli soldiers, the land administration workers arrived in the village for the third time in recent weeks, Israeli Ynet news website reported.
On Monday, three people were arrested in a protest by the village's residents and activists against the demolitions.
Israeli authorities demolished three houses in Abda village in the western Negev in the same day.
Ibrahim al-Waqeely, head of Abda's regional council, condemned the demolitions which came a heat wave and just ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Palestinian villagers would remain on their land despite "continuous provocations" by Israeli forces, Ma'an quoted Waqeely as saying.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=138097§ionid=351020202 23 nov 2010, 21:12 , Respect -
Maria 11 aug 2010
17 Palestinian homes, park declared illegal
TULKAREM (Ma'an) -- Stop-work orders targeting 17 homes, a workshop, factory and municipal park were delivered to Tulkarem-area residents on Wednesday, village officials said, insisting that the construction was in "Area C" and therefore illegal.
"The orders said the buildings did not have licenses from Israel," head of the Far’un municipal council Abed Al-Karim Omer told Ma'an, calling the pretext that the homes, factories, and park were in areas under Israeli control "unjustified."
The buildings, Omer said, "are on the eastern side of the town. They are nowhere near the wall, which is always used as an excuse by the occupation forces to prevent building on the west side of the village."
A spokesman for the Civil Administration did not respond to requests for information on the orders.
Ordering a halt to work and requiring builders to appear in court in order to appeal the decision and request a retroactive permit "is unjustified. It is a procedure to tighten restrictions on the residents who are living far away from the wall," Omer said.
The village council, Omer said, appointed two lawyers to review the documents, vowing that the issue would be handled carefully.
If families served with stop-work orders fail to bring the issue to court and secure a permit, demolition orders will soon follow.
In Area C, the UN has recorded the demolition of 104 homes, agricultural buildings, and greenhouses over the past 30 days. All of the demolitions were carried out under the justification that the owners had no building permit.
According to Omer, "most of the buildings targeted today were homes that were nearly completed, with families ready to move in during Ramadan."
Municipal park targeted
The Far'un municipality was also handed a stop-work order, Omer said, for a 10-dunum park built in 1970, that was being rehabilitated. "The Ministry of Finance allocated $180,000 to the project, making the park a space for kids from the town to play," he said.
Omer said the orders, delivered to the following individuals, were issued by a subsidiary committee of the Israeli High Council for Building Regulations.
1-Mamoud Khaled Shu’la – Home under construction
2-Munir Hasan Adwan – Foundation and first floor of a home almost complete
3-Khaled Hassan Salamah – Blacksmith workshop
4-Mu’tasem Murshed Muhana- Completed home, walls being painted ahead of move-in
5-Nehad Saleh U’beid – Two-story home under construction
6-Ammar Fawzi Kahder and his brothers – A three-story home nearly complete
7-Bassam Salim Suleiman and Munir Abdallah Omer – Spice factory preparing thyme and Za'atar
8-Hammad Ahmad Drubi – Three-story home under construction
9-Ahmad Mahmoud Hattab – Foundation of home, under construction
10-Abed Ar-Rahman Rashid Hattab – Two-story home under construction
11-Mohammad Ahmad Mesleh – Two-story home under construction
12-Ali Ibrahim Abu Jamus – Two-story home under construction
13-Nu’man Theeb Jazmawi – Foundation of home under construction
14-Samer Mas’ud Khalil – Inhabited, recently completed home
15-Tawfiq Zaki Arafat – Foundation, first floor of home under construction
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=307374 23 nov 2010, 21:13 , Respect -
Maria 12 aug 2010
Palestinian homes declared 'illegal'
An Israeli municipal council has issued stop-work orders for several Palestinian homes in Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, labeling them "illegal”.
According to village officials on Wednesday, stop-work orders targeted 17 homes, a workshop, a factory, and a municipal park.
Abed al-Karim Omer, the head of the Far'un municipal council, argues that as the area under construction (known as Area C) falls under Israeli control and the buildings do not have licenses issued by Israeli authorities, they are considered "illegal."
“The buildings are on the eastern side of the town. They are nowhere near the separation wall, which is always used as an excuse by the occupation forces to prevent building on the west side of the village," Ma'an news agency quoted Omer as saying.
It is unjustified to order a halt to work and demand builders to appear in court to appeal against the decision and request a retroactive permit. It is a procedure to tighten restrictions on the residents who are living far away from the wall, he added.
According to Omer, the village council has appointed two lawyers to review the documents after vowing that the issue would be handled carefully.
Most of the construction work of the targeted buildings had been completed, with families ready to move in during Ramadan, he said.
The park was built in 1970 and was being rehabilitated. The Ministry of Finance had allocated $180,000 for the project. A playground was being constructed for the kids.
The United Nations has so far recorded demolition of 104 homes, agricultural buildings, and greenhouses over the past 30 days in Area C alone. All of the demolitions were carried out under the justification that the owners had no building permit.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=138384§ionid=351020202
A declaration of war against living and dead Palestinians
Israel "has declared war on the living and the dead to erase Palestinian identity"
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has called the authorities' destruction of hundreds of graves in the Muslim Ma'aman Allah Cemetery in Jerusalem "a declaration of war against living and dead Palestinians".
Massoud Ghanayem said that this "declaration of war" is Israel's way of "imposing its agenda and trying to erase Palestinian identity and distort the identity of the land". Such action, he added, "proves that Israel is still acting with brutality against icons of Palestinian identity in the drive to confiscate Arabs' and Muslims' rights in the city of Jerusalem".
The United Arab List MK drew attention to the fact that Ma'aman Allah Cemetery is "a cultural legacy and an important part of Jerusalem's history, the loss of which should be of concern to the Israeli government even as it aims to Judaize the Holy City".
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/1412-israel-qhas-declared-war-on-the-living-and-the-dead-to-erase-palestinian-identityq
IDF bans Israelis from Palestinian villages along West Bank highway
A new IDF decree bans Israelis from entering Palestinian villages along Route 443, despite these villages being located in Area C, which is under complete Israeli control.
The ban was announced yesterday by GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi. It joins other measures taken by the Central Command as the West Bank road is prepared to be opened to Palestinian traffic, in accordance with a Supreme Court verdict rendered earlier this year.
The Israel Defense Forces has decided to implement the narrowest conceivable interpretation of the verdict. For example, it is setting up much more meticulous checks along entries to the highway than those imposed on vehicles leaving Ramallah to travel on Route 60, the cross-West Bank highway used by Palestinians, settlers and Israelis.
The new decree bans Israelis from the villages and from side roads next to the highway - a contrast to the relatively open access to other Area C villages. A Haaretz check found that the ban is already being implemented, with soldiers at the checkpoints not allowing Israelis to pass through.
The IDF Spokesman's Office released the following statement: "Following the Supreme Court ruling, the defense establishment has worked to prepare opening Route 443 to Palestinian traffic. As part of these preparations, aimed at implementing the court ruling and answering the security risked entailed in opening the road, a number of entry and exit points were set up for the Palestinian residents. Given the security risk, it was decided to ban Israeli citizens from using them."
Army takes narrowest possible interpretation of Supreme Court ruling to open road to all.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-bans-israelis-from-palestinian-villages-along-west-bank-highway-1.307434 23 nov 2010, 21:13 , Respect -
Maria 13 aug 2010
Israeli forces demolish 5 shops in Qalqiliya
QALQILYA (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished five shops east of Qalqiliya at dawn on Friday, locals said.
The shops, located on the main street between West Bank cities of Qalqilya and Nablus, were owned by Tahseen Mansour, who said he was not given any notice to remove the shops' contents.
An Israeli Civil Administration spokesman was not immediately available to comment.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=307816 23 nov 2010, 21:14 , Respect -
Maria 14 aug 2010
Ramadan Kareem from Obama and Netanyahu
By Jeff Halper
At 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, workers sent by the Israeli authorities, protected by dozens of police, destroyed the tombstones in the last portion of the Mamilla cemetery, a historic Muslim burial ground with graves going back to the seventh Century, hitherto left untouched.
The government of Israel has always been fully cognizant of the sanctity and historic significance of the site. Already in 1948, when control of the cemetery reverted to Israel, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla "to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin’s] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site."
For all that, and despite (proper) Israeli outrage when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated anywhere in the world, the dismantlement of the Mamilla cemetery has been systematic.
In the 1960s "Independence Park" was built over a portion of it; subsequently an urban road was built through it, major electrical cables were laid over graves and a parking lot constructed over yet another piece.
Now some 1,500 Muslim graves have been cleared in several nighttime operations to make way for…..a $100 million Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity, a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. (Ironically, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center’s Director, appeared on Fox News to express his opposition to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, because the site of the 9/11 attack "is a cemetery.")
The month-long period between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 6th visit to Washington and the start of Ramadan has provided Israel with a window to "clear the table" after a frustrating hiatus on home demolitions imposed by the "old," mildly critical Obama administration of US President Barack Obama. There is no guarantee, however, that Israel will not demolish during Ramadan, especially if it wants to exploit the period until the November elections, knowing that until then Obama will not overtly oppose anything it does in the Occupied Territories.
In fact, the process of demolishing Palestinian homes never ceased. On 6 June, for example, a year after the demolition of more than 65 structures and the forced displacement of more than 120 people, including 66 children, a new round of "evacuation orders" were issued to nine families, totaling 70 people, in Khirbet Ar Ras Ahmar in the Jordan Valley.
A week later the Israeli High Court ordered the Civil Administration to "step up enforcement against illegal Palestinian structures" in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control.
And so, on 13 July, upon Netanyahu’s return (Palestinian homes are not demolished without an OK from the Prime Minister’s office), three homes were demolished in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Al-Isawiya, followed by three more homes in Beit Hanina. The Jerusalem Municipality also announced the planned demolition of 19 more homes in Al-Isawiya this month.
In the West Bank, the Israeli "Civil" Administration demolished 55 structures belonging to 22 Palestinian families in the Hmayer area of Al-Farisiya in the northern Jordan Valley, including 22 residential tents and 30 other structures used to shelter animals and store agricultural equipment.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "This week [July 14-20, the week of Netanyahu’s return from Washington] there was a significant increase in the number of demolitions in Area C, with at least 86 structures demolished in the Jordan Valley and the southern West Bank, including Bethlehem and Hebron districts. In 2010, at least 230 Palestinian structures have been demolished in Area C, forcibly displacing 1100 people, including 400 children. Approximately 600 others have been otherwise affected."
Two-thirds of the demolitions for 2010 have occurred since Netanyahu's meeting with Obama. More than 3,000 demolition orders are outstanding in the West Bank, and up to 15,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The demolition of homes is, of course, only a small, if painful, part of the destruction Israel wreaks daily on the Palestinian population. Over the past few weeks a violent campaign has been waged against Palestinian farmers in one of the most fertile agricultural areas of the West Bank, the Baqa Valley, steadily being encroached upon by large suburbs of the settlement of Kiryat Arba, in Hebron.
Israel already takes 85 percent of the West Bank’s water for its own use, either for settlements (settlers use five times more water per capita than Palestinians, and Ma'ale Adummim is currently building a water park in addition to its four municipal swimming pools and the huge fountains constantly flowing in the city center) or to be pumped into Israel proper – all in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from using the resources of an occupied territory.
Accusing the farmers of "stealing water" – their own water – the Israel water company Mekorot, supported by the Civil Administration and the IDF, has in recent weeks destroyed dozens of wells, some of them ancient, and reservoirs used to collect rain water, which is also "illegal."
Hundreds of hectares of agricultural land have dried up as irrigation pipes have been pulled out and confiscated by the Civil Administration.
Fields of tomatoes, beans, eggplants and cucumbers are dying just before they can be harvested, and the grape industry in this rich valley is threatened with destruction.
"I’m watching my life dry up before my eyes," Ata Jaber said. A Palestinian farmer who has had his home demolished twice, most of Jaber's land lies buried under the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba and whose plastic drip irrigation pipes are destroyed annually by the Civil Administration just before he can harvest.
"I had hoped to sell my crop for at least $2000 before Ramadan, but all is gone," Jaber added.
(You can see a BBC report on the destruction of Palestinian reservoirs on YouTube and a heart-rending scene filmed just a week ago when Ata's cousin was arrested in front of his small child for resisting the destruction of his water system.)
Settlements continue to be built, of course. The much-trumpeted "settlement freeze" amounted to no less than a temporary lull in construction. (Indeed, Netanyahu never used the word "freeze"; in Hebrew he refers only to a "pause.")
According to the August report of Israeli group Peace Now's Settlement Watch, at least 600 housing units have started to be built during the freeze, in over 60 different settlements – meaning that the rate of construction is about half of that during the same period in an average year when there is no freeze.
Given that the approval process has never been halted – the Israeli government announced the planned building of 1600 housing units in the settlements when US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting, if you recall – making up for lost time when the "freeze" ends in late September will be an easy task. According to Ha'aretz, some 2,700 housing units are waiting to be constructed.
The fact that the so-called settlement freeze did not really end settlement construction is obvious. The American government seems ready to accept lip-service only from Israel, as against overt and brutal threats towards the Palestinians if they do not acquiesce to the charade.
Palestinian negotiators revealed last week that the Obama Administration threatened to cut all ties with the Palestinian Authority, political and financial, if they continued to insist on a genuine freeze on settlements or even clear parameters on what the sides will negotiate. (Netanyahu refuses to accept even the elementary principle of the 1967 borders being the basis of talks.)
Just as destructive of any real peace process, however, is the fact that the focus on settlement freeze deflects attention from attempts by Israel to create "irreversible facts on the ground" which will defeat the very process of negotiation.
Even if Israel did respect a settlement freeze, there is no demand, no expectation, absolutely nothing to prevent it from continuing to build the Wall (the enclosing of the Shu'fat refugee camp inside Jerusalem and the town of Anata is being completed in these very days, and the village of Al-Walaja, some of which spills into Jerusalem, is losing its lands, ancient olive trees and homes even as we speak).
Nothing is preventing Israel from continuing to impoverish and imprison the Palestinian population through its 20-year economic "closure," including the siege on Gaza, having reduced the Palestinian economy to ashes.
Nothing stands in the way of completing a system of parallel (though not equal in size and quality) apartheid highways: big ones, going through Palestinian lands, for Israelis; narrow ones for Palestinians.
Nothing keeps Israel from expelling Palestinian from their homes so that Jewish settlers can move in – on 29 July nine families living in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, returning home at night from a wedding, found themselves locked out of their homes by settlers and prevented from entering by the police. (Palestinians, of course, have no legal recourse to reclaiming their properties, whole villages, towns and urban neighborhoods, farms, factories and commercial buildings, confiscated from them in 1948 and after.)
Nothing prevents Israel from terrorizing the Palestinian population, whether by its own army or the surrogate militia founded by the US and run by the Palestinian Authority to pacify its own population; whether by settlers who shoot and beat Palestinians and burn their crops with no fear of arrest, or by undercover agents, aided by thousands of Palestinian forced to become collaborators, many simply so that their children could receive medical care or so they could have a roof over their heads; whether by expulsion or the myriad administrative constraints of an invisible yet Kafkaesque system of total control and intimidation.
Nothing opposes Israel’s boycott of the Palestinian people, isolated from the world by Israeli-controlled borders, or policies that effectively boycott Palestinian schools and universities by preventing their proper functioning.
And nothing, absolutely nothing, stops Israel from demolishing Palestinian homes – 24,000 in the Occupied Territories since 1967, and counting.
Perhaps this way of welcoming Ramadan comes as no surprise in terms of the occupied Territories.
It took on an entirely different cast when, on 26 July, more than 1,300 Israeli Border Police, the shock-troops of the police’s Yassam "special operations" unit and regular police, accompanied by helicopters, descended upon the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib, just north of Beer-Sheva, a community within Israel inhabited by Israeli citizens.
Forty-five homes were demolished, 300 people forcibly displaced. One of the most grotesque and dismaying parts of this operation was the use of Israeli Jewish high school students, volunteers with the civil guard, to remove the belongings of their fellow citizens from their homes before the demolition.
Besides reports of vandalism and contempt for their victims the students were photographed lounging in the residents’ furniture in plain sight of its owners.
Finally, when the bulldozers began demolishing the homes, the volunteers cheered and celebrated. Over the next week, as Israeli activists helped the residents pick up the pieces and rebuild their homes, the Jewish National Fund, the Israeli Land Authority, the Ministry of the Interior and the "Green Patrol" of the Ministry of Agriculture (established by Ariel Sharon to prevent Bedouin "take-over" of the Negev) sent in police and bulldozers and had the village demolished twice more.
Although Al-Arakib is one of 44 "unrecognized" Bedouin villages in the Negev – of which only 11 have even rudimentary education and medical services, no electricity, extremely limited access to water and none have paved roads it is nevertheless populated by Israeli citizens, some of whom serve in the Israeli army.
While demolitions of Arab homes within Israel is not a new phenomenon – last year the Israeli government demolished three times more houses of Israeli (Arab) citizens inside Israel as it did in the Occupied Territories (the destruction of up to 8,000 homes in the Gaza invasion aside) – it signifies that the term “occupation” cannot be restricted to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) alone.
The situation of Arab citizens of Israel is almost as insecure as that of the Palestinians of the occupied Territories, and their exclusion from Israeli society almost as complete.
While around 1,000 cities, towns and agricultural villages have been established in Israel since 1948 exclusively for Jews, not a single new Arab settlement has been established, with the exception of seven housing projects for Bedouins in the Negev where none of the residents are allowed to farm or own animals.
Indeed, regulations and zoning prohibit Palestinian citizens of Israel from living on 96% of the country’s land, which is reserved for Jews only.
The message of the bulldozers is clear: Israel has created one bi-national entity between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River in which one population (the Jews) has separated itself from the other (the Arabs) and instituted a regime of permanent domination.
That is precisely the definition of apartheid.
And the message is delivered clearly in the weeks and days leading up to Ramadan. It is papered over with fine words.
Netanyahu issued a statement saying: "We mark this important month amid attempts to achieve direct peace talks with the Palestinians and to advance peace treaties with our Arab neighbors. I know you are partners in this goal and I ask for your support both in prayers and in any other joint effort to really create a peaceful and harmonious coexistence."
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also sent their greetings to the Muslim world, Obama observing that Ramadan "reminds us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings."
Both the White House and the State Department will hold Iftar meals. But the bulldozers and other expressions of apartheid and warehousing tell a much different story.
Jeff Halper is the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308007
Montagnini on the silent expulsion in Jordan Valley
By Barbara Malini
An interview with Luisa Morgantini, former Vice President of the European Parliament, upon her return from a tour of the Jordan Valley and the West Bank in which she led an Italian peace delegation.
You visited to the Jordan Valley twice in one week, just days after the Israeli army once again demolished homes of Bedouin communities in the north. What did you see?
Montagnini: If Area C, 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, is a synonym for expulsion and annexation for Israeli colonization, in the Jordan Valley all this is greatly intensified. A silent displacement is being carried out by Israel, through demolitions, evictions, land confiscation, and denied access to water resources: these policies have promoted the establishment of over 30 illegal settlements.
Even before the [1993] Oslo Agreements, Israel had already been aiming to create a seam-zone between the West Bank and Jordan in line with the Allon Plan, through the annexation of this 2,400 square kilometers of fertile land extending from the Green Line to the Dead Sea. An area cleansed of its inhabitants today is more easily annexed tomorrow.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always stated that Israel will never give up the Jordan Valley; and a similar refrain characterized Olmert’s election campaign in 2006. This exact intent to maintain control of the area, beyond being theorized in the Allon plan, was also practiced by Israel during the First Intifada, when Palestinian residents in Nablus under curfew were blocked from reaching their properties and harvesting their fields located in the Jordan Valley. Now this area is a closed zone.
Since 1967, successive Israeli governments have continued to expand of settlements, which today occupy half of Area C, while another 44 percent has been designated as military “firing zones” and natural reserves. Only six percent has been left to the Palestinians. [Israeli] Civil Administration takes care of the rest, operating as a counterpart of the government, issuing demolition orders, taking control of all major water resources, even water tanks, as happened in Bardala, or destroying water pipelines and pumps, and putting in motion legal procedures to take away from the Bedouin communities the little they have left.
One-third of the West Bank's water resources are located in the Jordan Valley: it's appalling to think that the people living on this land feel the water—a public resource, a basic human right—flowing under their feet but they can’t drink it, they can’t water their cows and sheep, their sole means for the survival of communities that want to continue grazing their animals. Israel’s national water corporation Mekorot has dug many wells to serve settlers’ communities and irrigate illegally confiscated lands. Not to serve the Palestinians or their remaining lands.
In the district of Tubas, average daily consumption of water for Palestinian residents is 30 liters per person, while in the nearby settlement of Beka’ot people consume 400 liters a day. Israeli settlers consume six times as much water as Palestinians.
In some cases, such as in the villages of Humsa and Al-Haddadiya, after attempting to establish water reserves and networks, local communities faced harsh repression on the part of the Israeli army, who confiscated all their equipment and cut off their water. In this way Israel maintains its monopoly on water resources and Palestinians are obliged to purchase their water by the tank at 33 shekels [almost $9] per cubic meter, while 9,400 settlers receive subsidies or discounts (sometimes paying up to 75 percent less) for water for domestic use and their swimming pools.
The same is true for electricity: Palestinian communities see utility poles passing over their heads but they can't use them, if ever they are able to hook themselves up, settlers and soldiers arrive to arrest them and take away their electricity.
You also visited Al-Farisya village, which the Israeli army demolished on 19 July, destroying over 76 structures and leaving entire families homeless, half of whom were children.
Montagnini: We saw the sun burned faces of children and shepherds who narrated their painful odyssey without tears. We witnessed the destruction: mattresses, furniture, personal belongings, destroyed taboun bread ovens, demolished tents. This is what remained of the daily life of a whole community that is today homeless, obliged to move once again.
Over 30 percent of Bedouin families have been displaced at least once since the year 2000, while several families have re-pitched their ruined camps at least four times. Where are they supposed to go?
Even though I have been travelling to Palestine for over 25 years, the trip from Tubas to Al-Farisiya was a total shock to me: a desolate and bare landscape, sheep and goats crowding under the skimpy shade of a well-worn tent; skinny cows who use the cement blocks of the Firing Zones to shield themselves from the intense sun.
These Firing Zone blocks are everywhere: in front of the Bedouin tents, along the streets. During military training, Palestinians get wounded, as happened to the mayor of Al-Aqaba when he was 17 years old: he is now paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
Access and movement are restricted through checkpoints, such as the dreaded one in Taysir, where you must have a permit or coordination number to pass, and diplomats, ministers and the local residents of course, have to wait for hours in the suffocating heat (the Swiss diplomat in our delegation did not use very 'diplomatic' words to describe the soldiers’ behavior here.)
A silent expulsion, but a strong resistance too.
Montagnini: The non-violent popular resistance committee, led by Fathi Khdirat, represents another extraordinary experience of Palestinian steadfastness: a movement focused on non-violent actions to defend the community’s presence and strengthen its skills and abilities.
In mobilizing local communities through volunteering their time and energy, the committee represents a response to the Israeli occupation.
But it is also a concrete step towards reconstruction, through traditional building methods, such as the school they are building in the village of Jiftlik, which will serve children from the Bedouin camps. The Israeli Army and the Civil Administration have already ordered its demolition: and as they demolish, the communities rebuild. It is a non-violent act of resistance against the occupation, which should be recognized and supported by movements of international solidarity.
Expulsions in the Jordan Valley are distanced from media attention, but also from aid agency funding and for years now they have been far from Palestinian political summits. What can be done?
Montagnini: It is true: apart from few exceptions, politically and geographically isolated, the Jordan Valley is far from attracting big groups of international and Israeli activists such as those who have mobilized their energies against Gaza’s blockade, evictions in East Jerusalem, or alongside non-violent local committees against the Wall and the occupation in villages throughout the West Bank.
In addition to the geographical distance which separates indigenous communities, the Jordan Valley is less inhabited (as it is Area C) than other areas of the West Bank. Furthermore, there is a gap between Bedouin pastoral nomadic and stationary communities.
As representatives of solidarity movements and groups, it is essential to be self-critical, since throughout the years we have abandoned Area C and the Jordan Valley. It is important to achieve an end to the Israeli occupation and support campaigns against settlement expansion, as well as to provide Bedouin communities with water and electricity: all is part of this objective.
Eventually, with [Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad’s government, the Palestinian Authority realized that Area C is part of occupied Palestine and it is necessary to advocate for projects and initiatives in the region. The PA’s choice to ask the international community to intervene and to get international agencies to operate in the Jordan Valley has resulted in positive responses, but Israel has intensified its repressive and destructive policy.
I think that the PA should challenge the Israeli occupation and colonization in day to day life, in any possible and impossible place. The Jordan Valley is occupied Palestine, there are no A, B, and C areas. So much time has been wasted!
The Jordan Valley Campaign continues to face several challenges, along with the other popular committees in the West Bank villages: they continue popular non-violent resistance based on determination.
As Fathi says, with his bright eyes and sun burnt face, while he mixes home-made hay-and-clay bricks, “To exist is to resist.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=307999 23 nov 2010, 21:14 , Respect -
Maria 16 aug 2010
Another Palestinian village faces total demolition order
Mr. Daraghema urged international human rights organizations to intervene to prevent "the village of Farseya being wiped off the face of the earth"
For the third time in less than a month, Israeli occupation forces have handed house demolition orders to all the inhabitants of the village of Farseya in occupied Palestine. The head of the municipal council of Al Maleh and Madareb Bedouin area, Aref Daraghma, said that the notices were given to all of the village's inhabitants. Just under a month ago, the Israeli authorities demolished 120 buildings before returning two weeks ago to demolish another six Palestinian homes, as well as those that were rebuilt after the first round of demolitions.
Mr. Daraghema urged international human rights organizations to intervene to prevent "the village of Farseya being wiped off the face of the earth" by the Israeli authorities, which aim to move the Palestinian population from the area prior to seizing their land. This is not the first time that the Israeli occupation authorities have demolished a whole village. Five days ago, they demolished Al-Arakib village in the Negev Desert, even destroying the tents set up by the villagers on the rubble of their houses.
http://fwd4.me/0i2G
Leftist faction condemns closure of Gaza office
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A member of a leftist Palestinian faction's leadership criticized on Sunday the raid on a popular committee office by Hamas-affiliated security forces a day earlier in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Ziad Jarkhoun described the closure of the Rafah refugee camp popular committee office building as "a violation of public freedoms, which Palestinian Basic Law prohibits."
He added that certificates of award for top students and computers were confiscated during the raid, and deemed it an assault against all committee organizations, which include representatives from every faction.
He called on Hamas and its security forces to halt all raids and reverse its decision to shut down the office.
Shortly after the raid, the committee condemned the closure, saying officers entered the camp building and told workers to go home, closed the office, and confiscated computers and files. The group says it "serves the community of the refugee camp and helps alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. Closure and confiscation of the office's materials without reason is a violation of the rights of all refugees."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308252
New al-Aqsa excavations reported
Palestinians are warning against Israel's new scheme to judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem) as Tel Aviv prepares for an excavation near the highly revered al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli authorities are planning a huge excavation near the Wailing Wall and the field to the west of al-Aqsa Mosque, the Palestinian institute for Cultural Heritage and Endowment warned on Wednesday.
"The occupation authorities are planning to judaize the Wailing (al-Buraq) Wall and the area around al-Aqsa Mosque above and below the ground," the institute said in a statement carried by the Palestinian Sama news agency.
Israel's Planning Local Construction Commission is expected to ratify a project to build in an area of 600 square meters on the grounds and basement of the Wailing Square, according to the statement.
The implementation of such a plot, along with other Israeli schemes, would be a direct threat to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Wailing Wall as an integral part of the mosque, especially since the excavation is expected to dig under the mosque's grounds and its adjacent buildings, it further warned.
"Israeli occupation forces and the daily facts on the ground are associated with the destruction of Islamic landmarks and the Arab al-Quds and a race against time to judaize the area under and around al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Wailing Wall, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, is located on the western side of the Temple Mount (the Noble Sanctuary) in the Old City of the Israeli-annexed East al-Quds.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/142711.html
Israeli minister warns of "eruption" of Palestinian citizens
Mr. Aharonovitch warned that the situation is "more volatile than ever, and the relative quiet is misleading".
The Israeli Internal Security Minister has expressed his concern about the possibility of an escalation of resentment among Israel's Palestinian citizens that may erupt at any moment.
Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that the situation is especially volatile in the wake of the Israel government's demolition of Al-Arakib village in the Negev and the imprisonment of the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah.
In an assessment presented during a meeting held with the representatives of security circles and the judiciary, Mr. Aharonovitch warned that the situation is "more volatile than ever, and the relative quiet is misleading". The sentiment of Arab Israelis towards the establishment, he added, "is at an all-time low", with a lot of very evident anger towards the state.
http://fwd4.me/0kzZ