- 1 febr 2012
Israel Tells Palestinian Farmers it Plans to Seize their Land
BETHLEHEM, (WAFA) – The Israeli military authorities informed Palestinian farmers from Nahalin, a village west of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, that it plans to expropriate more than 430 dunums of their land and gave them 45 days to file an objection, Osama Shakarneh, head of the Nahalin village council, said Wednesday.
He said the farmers found notices on their land put there by the Israeli authorities informing them that they should leave their land and remove everything on it because the land will soon be expropriated.
The notices, he said, gave the farmers 45 days to file a complaint at Ofer military camp, near Ramallah, or else the army would evict them and force them to pay costs of their eviction.
The farmers decided to start immediate steps to cancel the orders.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18875
Silwan Residents Get More Demolition Orders
JERUSALEM, (WAFA) – Israeli authorities Wednesday handed several Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan notices to demolish their houses under the pretext of building without permit, according to a local activist.
Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan, said that Israeli police accompanied by staff from the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem handed several Palestinian homeowners in Bir Ayyoub and al-Bustan areas of Silwan demolition orders to their houses.
He said the Israelis used insults and provoked the residents when handing them the demolition orders..
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18869
OCHA: 1, 100 Palestinians, mostly children, displaced by Israel in 2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said about 1,100 Palestinians, over half of them children, were forcibly displaced after Israel demolished their homes in 2011.
According to a report issued by OCHA on Tuesday, these figures reflected an increase of 80 percent compared to 2010.
The Israeli occupation forces destroyed 622 structures owned by Palestinians, a 42 percent increase compared to 2010. This included 222 homes, 170 animal shelters, two classrooms and two mosques (one of them demolished twice).
The number of rainwater cisterns and pools destroyed in 2011 (46), was more than double last year (21), with tens of other related structures vulnerable to future demolition.
Most of these demolitions, 90 percent, and displacement, 92 percent, occurred in already vulnerable farming and herding communities in Area C; thousands of others remain at risk of displacement due to outstanding demolition orders.
In east Jerusalem, there was a significant decrease compared to previous years, with 42 structures demolished; however, at least 93,100 residents, who live in structures built without a permit, remain at risk of displacement.
Over 60 percent of the Palestinian-owned structures demolished in 2011 were located in areas allocated to settlements. 70 percent of Area C is off-limits for Palestinian construction, allocated instead for Israeli settlements or the Israeli military; an additional 29 percent is heavily restricted.
Only 13 percent of east Jerusalem is zoned for Palestinian construction, much of which is already built up, compared with 35 percent, which has been expropriated and zoned for the use of Israeli settlements.
Ten out of 13 communities visited by OCHA in Area C reported that families are being displaced because Israeli policies make it difficult for them to meet basic needs. The inability to build was one of the main triggers for this displacement.
"The forced displacement of Palestinian families and the destruction of civilian homes and other property by Israeli forces in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have a serious humanitarian impact. Demolitions deprive people of their homes, often their main source of physical and economic security.
They also disrupt their livelihoods, reducing their standard of living and undermining their access to basic services, such as water and sanitation, education and health care," OCHA stressed in its report.
It also added that "according to Israeli authorities, demolitions are carried out because structures lack the required building permits. In reality, it is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain permits. The zoning and planning regime enforced by Israel in Area C and East Jerusalem restricts Palestinian growth and development, while providing preferential treatment for unlawful Israeli settlements."
OCHA demanded Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, to fulfill its international obligations towards Palestinian civilians, administer their occupied areas for their benefit, end demolition of their homes and structures, and ensure they have access to fair and effective zoning and planning for their communities.
It reminded Israel to the fact that international law prohibits the forced displacement and transfer of civilians as well as the destruction of private property.
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IOA serves demolition notices in Al-Khalil village
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) served demolition notices to owners of 14 houses in Daheria village to the south of Al-Khalil on Tuesday.
Bajes Al-Tal, in charge of popular committees in the village, said that the targeted houses were in the eastern area of the village.
He said that the IOA claimed that the building of those houses was made without permit, noting that the village was in area C in which Israel enjoys full control.
Tal said that most of those houses were inhabited by many Palestinians while some of them were still under construction.
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IOA destroys Spanish-financed power station in Al-Khalil village
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) decided on Tuesday to knock out the sole electricity generation station in a village in Al-Khalil.
Local sources said that the IOA informed the inhabitants of Minaizel village to the east of Yatta town south of Al-Khalil that the solar energy station would be demolished.
Ratib Al-Jabour, the coordinator of the popular committees in Yatta, told Quds Press that a team of the Israeli civil administration handed the decision.
He pointed out that the solar power project was financed by the Spanish government a few years ago.
Jabour said that 40 Palestinian families in the small village would be deprived of power in the event the IOA carried out its threat, adding that the demolition would take the village back to the “stone age”.
The activist further noted that the IOA served a demolition notice to a citizen in the same village that his home would be razed at the pretext that it was built without permit.
http://fwd4.me/0lEm 6 feb 2012, 12:23 , Respect -
Maria 2 febr 2012
Jerusalem Municipality Forces Arab Resident to Demolish Own Shop
JERUSALEM, (WAFA) – The Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem forced a Palestinian shop owner in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan to demolish his own shop or face major financial and punitive consequences, Wadi Hilweh Information Center said Thursday.
It said Akram Abbasi demolished his shop on Wednesday after he received a threat from the municipality that if he does not demolish it himself and remove the rubble, the municipality will do it for him and force him to pay costs.
The municipality said Abbasi did not have a permit to build the shop.
Palestinians say they build without permits because the municipality does not give permits to Arab residents.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18879
IOA confiscates 431 dunums of cultivated land in Nahalin village
BETHLEHEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has confiscated 431 dunums of cultivated land in Nahalin village to the west of Bethlehem.
Osama Shakarne, the head of the municipal council in the village, said that the civil administration, affiliated with the Israeli army, informed the inhabitants that their land would be expropriated.
He said that the land, to the west of Nahalin, is cultivated with olives, grapes, and almonds and is near to a settlement.
Shakarne said that the land is owned by most of the families in Nahalin, adding that the land seizure would deprive the inhabitants of farming since many other dunums were earlier seized for building the racist, separation wall.
The municipality chief said that Jewish settlers in the nearby settlement, after the confiscation order, opened their waste water pumps on that land on Wednesday evening in an early attempt to control land and destroy its agricultural yield.
http://fwd4.me/0lJV 6 feb 2012, 12:23 , Respect -
Maria 3 febr 2012
Zionist plans to build a shopping centre on Armenian Church land
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Jerusalem occupation municipality announced a plan to build a new shopping centre with a car park on a piece of land that is owned by the Armenian Church in the old city.
The municipality further banned residents of the Armenian quarter in the old city from parking their cars on the land which is owned by the church.
Residents of the Armenian quarters demonstrated on Thursday to protest the steps taken by the municipality, but the demonstration was dispersed by the Israeli occupation police.
The land which is about 4000 square meters and which is owned by the Armenian Church was used by local residents as a free car park, but the locals were surprised when the so called Jewish quarters committee started collecting parking fees, and now barred them altogether from parking their cars there.
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Settlers invade al-Khalil villages and set up a settlement outpost
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli settlers on Friday established a new settlement outpost in the southern part of al-Khalil district. They invaded the village of Karmel to the east of Yatta while others invaded the Za'ta neighbourhood of Beit Ummar in the north of the district.
Coordinator of the national committee to resist the wall and settlements in Yatta, Rateb Jobour, said that around 25 settlers accompanied by "border guards" and occupation police raided the village of Karmel and set up six mobile homes in the Um al-Sakhan neighbourhood close to the Maun settlement which is built on land belonging to the village.
Spokesman of the national committee against settlement in Beit Ummar, Yusuf Abu Marya, said that about 150 settlers toured the fields in Za'ta neighbourhood to the east of the town and they closed the road between al-Quds and al-Khalil and stopped Palestinian cars from going through and hampered traffic under IOF protection.
Settlement expert, Abdel-Hadi Hantash, said that these moves are part of the a plan to expand settlements and confiscate more Palestinian lands.
http://fwd4.me/0lf9 6 feb 2012, 12:23 , Respect -
Maria 4 febr 2012
Resheq: Confiscation of Nahalin land racist
BEIRUT, (PIC)-- Political bureau member of Hamas Ezzet Al-Resheq has strongly denounced the Israeli occupation authority’s confiscation of 431 dunums of land in Nahalin village west of Bethlehem.
He described in a statement on his Facebook page on Friday the land confiscation and dumping waste water on it as a “racist crime”.
The Hamas leader lashed out at the IOA for renewing the administrative detention of Hamas MP Mohammed Jamal Al-Natshe for six months, describing the step as a fresh crime against Palestinian legitimacy.
Resheq also criticized UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for refusing to meet relatives of Palestinian prisoners and victims of the Israeli war on Gaza during his visit to the coastal enclave.
He said that Ban Ki-moon’s refusal ran contrary to his responsibilities and reflected the international organization’s double-standard policy.
http://fwd4.me/0lfO 6 feb 2012, 12:24 , Respect -
Maria 5 febr 2012
Witnesses: Israeli forces uproot olive trees in Qalqiliya village
QALQILIYA (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces uprooted olive trees in the village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqiliya, on Sunday.
Witnesses told Ma'an that tanks and soldiers arrived in the village and began digging up land to order to expand the nearby Israeli settlement of Qedumim.
Dozens of villagers tried to stop military forces from destroying their land, but were held back by soldiers.
Israeli forces clamped down on a weekly non-violent demonstration on Friday in the Qalqiliya village.
On Jan. 30, Israeli forces detained five men from the village, locals told Ma'an.
Kafr Qaddum holds a weekly protest against the decade-long closure of the area's main entrance.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458030 6 feb 2012, 16:18 , Respect -
Maria 6 febr 2012
Illegal, underground: Palestine's electricity 'threat'
South Hebron Hills village Dkaika has 74 demolition orders pending. The newly-installed solar panels are the first electricity to the village, which is using gas lamps and car batteries for their daily needs.
By Charlotte Alfred
MASAFER YATTA (Ma'an) -- There is an underground bunker in the South Hebron Hills, camouflaged by bracken and heavy sacks, where a tiny Palestinian village is sheltering a secret.
Building quietly at night and securing backing from foreign governments, experts are working to share this secret with communities across the area.
The illicit activity? Renewable energy.
Hundreds of Palestinians living in these rolling hills, known locally as Masafer Yatta, cannot connect to a electricity grid. Now, a green power revolution is under threat by a spate of demolition warnings.
Masafer Yatta lies almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israel civil and security jurisdiction since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces delivered stop work orders -- the first step towards demolition -- to wind and solar power systems in four villages in Masafer Yatta.
These threats follow several months of demolitions and official warnings targeting villagers’ efforts to power their communities.
Since mid-June 2011, the army has demolished electricity pylons in two villages, threatened to knock down solar power systems in six others, and cut the electricity wires in another, citing a lack of legal permits.
Only one village in Masafer Yatta has ever been able to connect to the Palestinian electricity grid, after a decade of wrangling with the military.
Masafer Yatta has an electricity network, connecting the four Israeli government-sanctioned settlements and six unauthorized outposts built there since 1981 to Israeli supplied electricity.
Palestinian villages have been refused access to these power lines that criss-cross their land, and the army has torn down at least three attempts to connect to the Palestinian Authority supply.
COGAT, the Israeli military of defense department in charge of civilian life in the West Bank, insists that Israeli authorities do approve electricity construction "based on population’s needs in order to enable a decent fabric of life," according to spokesman Guy Inbar.
But "safety and hygiene" issues are paramount, he says, adding "no infrastructure should be bounded to illegal constructions and the ones built against the laws of planning and constructing."
A web of legal regulations enforced by the Israeli military, including Jordanian planning laws dating back to before Israel's occupation of the West Bank, require that Palestinians in Area C apply to Israeli authorities to build on their land.
Solar panels in South Hebron Hills village Susiya.
PA officials, development organizations and village residents agree building permits are almost impossible to obtain. The UN humanitarian affairs office says that permits are only possible on the one percent of Area C that has an Israeli-approved zoning plan, most of which is already built-up.
Just as with water and road networks, Israeli military regulations thus render the Palestinian Authority power grid almost off-limits to the 150,000 Palestinian residents of Area C.
A quiet campaign to power the rural communities in Masafer Yatta using wind and solar power had hoped to avoid the permit problem besetting these infrastructure projects, keeping systems low-key and nestled inside villages.
"The sun comes from God, not from the Israeli authorities," reasons Jad Isaac, director of the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, one of the groups that has installed renewable energy in Area C villages.
"Our life here makes a pressure to invent something new," says one village activist.
But villagers fear the recent upsurge in Israeli orders to demolish renewable energy systems are the start of a clamp-down on their self-sufficiency.
"Electricity is a big problem; it causes a headache for the Israelis," Hebron Governor Kamel Hemaid tells Ma'an. "I don’t know why, maybe they like the dark."
Army demolitions doubled across the West Bank in 2011, the UN says. Gov. Hemaid says Israel is sending a message to the PA that it will hold on to these areas, after negotiators conditioned a return to talks on Israel freezing settlement building.
The demolitions are part of a campaign to "put pressure on the Palestinian Authority," he says.
"Last year every type of demolition was doubled … showing this is a new policy, which has a political reason. It is not about being illegal or not getting legal permissions," Hemaid says.
A recently leaked EU report says the escalation of demolitions in Area C results in the "forced transfer of the native population," and is closing off the possibility of a two-state solution to the conflict.
Several village elders told Ma'an that the curbs on their development are part of a decades-old campaign to move local residents from this southern border zone, populated by an estimated 2,000 Israeli settlers.
"If we put down one stone, it is forbidden, because they want us to leave," says Muhammad Ahmed Nawaja, council head of Susiya village in Masafer Yatta.
Legality, politics and negligence
Dkaika school principal Moussa Najada.
Nearby hamlet Amniyr was completely leveled three times in 2011, with residents moving into caves or forced to stay with relatives in Yatta.
Every villager Ma'an spoke to had no doubt the demolitions and restrictions on development were a continuation of a story beginning in 1948, and unfolding further in the early 1980s and late 1990s.
The villages are a mixture of pre-1948 communities squeezed by their proximity to the ceasefire line with the new Israeli state, agricultural lands farmed by Yatta residents who moved out to live on their fields, and Bedouin encampments set up by those displaced from the Negev desert in the war to establish Israel.
When Israel began building settlements in the area in the early 1980s, villagers say the army started putting pressure on them to move from Masafer Yatta.
In 1999, the entire population south of Tuwani was evacuated by the Israeli army. After a battle in Israel’s High Court, residents were granted ‘temporary’ permission to return.
"The court agreed this is our land, but they will not give us permission to build on it," says Susiya council chief Muhammad Ahmed Nawaja.
Dkaika school children return home after classes finish.
International law experts say that under the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel must provide for the needs of the occupied Palestinian population, and are prohibited from demolishing any structure that has a civilian purpose.
Hebron Gov. Kamel Hemaid believes the demolitions are a political tool to allow Israeli authorities to prevent people from living near the border with Israel and Israeli settlements, but also to sow social discord to harm the PA.
When Bedouin and other rural communities in Area C talk to the press and international organizations, they create the impression that the PA discriminates between people, he says.
"When they come to Hebron (city), they can clearly see the difference between areas A, B and C," Hemaid reflects.
"We are talking about the peace process, building a state, borders and independence, and at the same time we cannot help any Palestinian who has lost his house, his car, his tree or his farm. You see the difference."
"The Israelis want Abu Mazen (President Mahmoud Abbas) to be weak, to be under the occupation, not to refuse, to obey orders and all the policies of Israel … and they also want to strengthen the other segments who are against the PA, like Hamas and the others."
But for Bir al-Idd village elder Moussa Jibreen Rabai, struggles between Fatah, Hamas, and Israel do not change the fact that Masafer Yatta has been let down.
"The government can’t and won’t do anything. The media comes and no one does anything. No one does anything at all for us here."
This Ma'an special report will be continued in several parts over the week. This map shows some of the stories collected by Ma'an.
Electricity access in Masafer Yatta
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458280
Israel Hands Demolition Notices to Palestinians in Salfit
SALFT, (WAFA) – Israeli authorities Monday handed demolition notices to a number of Palestinians in the village of Hares, northwest of Salfit in the northern West Bank, according to Omar Samara, head of the village council.
He told WAFA that the houses threatened to be demolished are in an area that supposed to accommodate the natural growth of the village and adjacent to residents’ houses.
He condemned these Israeli measures that target Salfit and its area towns and villages, depriving them from expanding their borders to meet the natural growth which has not been expanded since the sixties.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18904
IOA bulldozers level land in Qalqilia
QALQILIA, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) bulldozers leveled land in Kafr Kaddoum village to the east of Qalqilia city on Sunday evening, local sources said.
Coordinator of the anti-settlement activity in the village Murad Eshtaiwi told Quds Press that the IOA bulldozers escorted by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) damaged land north of the village to annex them to the nearby Kadumim settlement.
He said that citizens rushed to the scene and obstructed work of the bulldozers, adding that officers present at the scene told them that the bulldozers would resume work on Monday morning.
He said that citizens vowed to be present on Monday morning to prevent confiscating their land which the IOA claim is Israeli property.
http://fwd4.me/0ptw...Read more 7 feb 2012, 12:37 , Respect -
Maria 7 febr 2012
Islamic-Christian commission: Israel persists seriously in Judaizing O. J'lem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Islamic-Christian commission for the support of Jerusalem and holy sites warned the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) of its persistence in destroying Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem and assaulting the natives to force them to leave their homes and real estate.
In a press release on Monday, the Islamic-Christian commission said the Israeli municipal council in Jerusalem declared a new plan to build a shopping mall and a parking lot on a four-dunum Palestinian land belonging to the Armenian monastery in the old city.
The commission noted that the settlers living in the so-called Jewish neighborhood of the old city are relentlessly embarking on seizing Armenian real estate to expand their community that was established on the ruins of Palestinian homes in 1967.
According to local sources, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) prevented the Palestinian natives of the Armenian neighborhood from using the existing parking lot which is owned by the monastery.
The residents of the monastery said they held a rally on Thursday to protest the Israeli closure of their parking lot and the use of police force to bar them from parking their cars.
The Israeli municipal council also issued orders to demolish the sit-in tent in Al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan district, which was erected three years ago in protest at Israel's demolition of Al-Bustan homes and its forced displacement of residents.
In another context, American researcher and professor Ibtisam Ibrahim released a new research paper, published by Encounters journal in Washington, on the role of the Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage in defending the Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian lands including the 1948 territory.
Ibtisam Ibrahim, originally from the Palestinian village of Kabul in the 1948 occupied territory, is an assistant professor of Arab studies and the acting director of the Arab studies program at the American university in Washington.
Her research elaborated at length the role played by the Aqsa foundation to preserve the Islamic holy sites, including the Aqsa Mosque, and the Arab identity of the holy city, as well as its efforts to support its economy.
She clarified how the Aqsa foundation represents a political phenomenon struggling against the Zionist attempts to control over the Islamic and Christian holy sites in the 1948 occupied lands and the holy city of Jerusalem.
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AFEH: IOA still excavating under Old City of Jerusalem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is still excavating under the Old City of Jerusalem to expand tunnels, the Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage (AFEH) said.
It said that the diggings were progressing under the Palestinian homes in the Old City.
The foundation said that the Israeli antiquities authority was trying to link various tunnels under the Old City.
AFEH visited the site on Monday and noted that the diggings were expanding in length, width, and depth.
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Foundation: Israeli archeologists dig cave under Palestinian homes
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli archeologists are continuing to excavate an ancient cave that runs under Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage said Tuesday.
Foundation representatives visited the al-Kittan cave, also known as Zedkiah’s Cave or Solomon’s Quarries, and say archeologists are digging under Jerusalem's Old City in two directions to connect the cave to an ancient underground tunnel network.
The cave, near Damascus Gate, is being extended towards the Haram al-Sharif compound housing the Dome of the Rock and towards Herod's Gate to the east, the foundation said.
It highlighted that the route runs under Palestinian homes.
Israeli annexed East Jerusalem after a 1967 war, in a move never recognized by the international community.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458517
Israel issues evacuation orders to Hebron farmers
HEBRON (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities issued evacuation orders to several Palestinian farmers in the village of Beit Ula, west Hebron on Tuesday.
The land owners told Ma'an that they found notifications in their fields demanding that they evacuate 10,000 square meters of land.
The orders were dated Feb. 6 and claimed that the land was "illegally possessed," and must be evacuated within 45 days.
The owners could raise any objections to the order at Ofer military court within the given period of time, it added.
One of the landowners Muhammad Mahmoud al-Amlah told Ma'an that the "Israeli occupation plans to tighten the grip around Palestinian farmers, steal their land and prevent reclamation."
Israeli forces also confiscated a tractor belonging to villager Sadiq Muhammad al-Amlah.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458473
Rights group welcomes court victory for 1948 village
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem welcomed an Israeli court decision on Monday which ruled in favor of the last remaining Palestinian village from 1948, a statement said.
On Monday, an Israeli court upheld a petition to stop the sale of Lifta village land and property to private companies.
The petition was submitted over a year ago by lawyer Samir Irshad in the name of the people of Lifta who were expelled in 1948.
Israel's land administration had planned to sell the land to private companies in order to build housing units. The petition urged that the public bid be canceled.
"Today was a victory for the refugees of Lifta village who successfully prevented the sale of their lands and homes," Irshad said in a statement on Monday.
"Lifta is a model of the nation's history that should be preserved," he added.
The northwestern Jerusalem village was split by the 1949 armistice line, leaving one part in West Jerusalem and one part in East Jerusalem.
The residents of Lifta had fled their homes in fear following the 1948 massacre in the village of Deir Yassin by Jewish militia forces, and have not been allowed back since.
The Israeli government declared the village buildings absentee property once the act was passed in 1950.
Many of the landowners live as close as 500 meters from the village, but cannot exert any legal title over the land.
Following the 1948 war, over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed by militias or resettled by Jewish immigrants. Their names were often changed to Hebrew and the villages rebuilt.
Lifta is the only Palestinian village whose property remains largely intact and which has not been repopulated since 1948.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458460
Israeli Forces Uproot Olive Trees North of Hebron
HEBRON, (WAFA) – Israeli forces Tuesday uprooted more than 25 Olive trees planted a week ago during a solidarity campaign with Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, according to local activist.
Media spokesman of the popular committee against the Wall and Settlements, Yoused Abu Maria told WAFA that Israeli soldiers uprooted Olive trees that were planted last week in Khallet al-Kutli, an area north of Karmei Tzur.
Israeli soldiers and settlers set up new caravans in confiscated land belonging to Palestinians inside Karmei Tzur, north of Beit Ummar.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18917
Israeli Authority Notify Palestinian Family it Plans to Seize their Land
HEBRON, (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities Tuesday informed a Palestinian family from Beit Ula, a town northwest of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, that it plans to expropriate about 10 dunums of their land and gave them 45 days to file an objection, according to one of the land owners.
Mohammad al-omla, said they found notices on their land put there by the Israeli authorities informing them that they should leave their land and remove everything on it because it will soon be expropriated.
The notices, he said, gave the farmers 45 days to file a complaint at Ofer military camp, near Ramallah, or else the army would evict them and force them to pay costs of their eviction.
He added that the Israeli authorities aim to force Palestinian farmers to leave their land in order to seize it for the benefit of expanding the Apartheid Wall and prevent urban expansion.
Israeli forces also confiscated a tractor used for agricultural purposes belonging to one of the town’s residents.
Coordinator of the popular committee against the wall, Isa al-Omla called upon the international community as well as human rights organizations to promptly move to stop the Israeli ongoing attacks against Palestinian farmers and their property and to condemn these Israeli measures that aim to evacuate the village’s land from its owners as a prelude to seize it.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18913 8 feb 2012, 16:15 , Respect -
Maria 8 febr 2012
Aqsa foundation warns of Israeli plan to expand Jewish neighborhood in J'lem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage revealed an Israeli plan to expand the illegal Jewish neighborhood in the old city of Jerusalem at the expense of Palestinian lands belonging to the Armenian monastery.
In a report on Wednesday, the Aqsa foundation stated that this plan is part of a comprehensive Judaization scheme to change the Islamic and Christian monuments and landmarks in Al-Sharaf neighborhood, which was seized by the Israeli occupation in 1967 and later named as the Jewish neighborhood.
This neighborhood is adjacent to Al-Maghariba Gate and Al-Buraq wall areas, the foundation noted.
According to information obtained by the Aqsa foundation, the Israeli plan, which is carried out by a company for the development of the Jewish quarter in the old city of Jerusalem, comprises residential compounds, hotels, shopping malls, public facilities and underground parking lot.
The plan also includes the construction of a tunnel underground extending from the parking lot to Al-Maghariba Gate, and the entrance to this tunnel will be established in Prophet David Gate area where the southwestern wall of the old city of Jerusalem.
This tunnel will be part of the network of tunnels that exist under the city of Jerusalem and surround the Aqsa Mosque, according to the report.
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Israeli forces raid village near Hebron, block construction
HEBRON (Ma’an) – Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the southern West Bank village of al-Karmil south of Hebron, stationed soldiers in a private house and prevented construction of a dirt road between the village and Khirbet Umm Nir which Israeli forces evacuated months ago.
Ratib al-Jbour, coordinator of a committee against the wall and settlements in southern Hebron, said soldiers occupied the home of Ayman Muhammad Ali Abu Iram in al-Karmil and turned it into a military base.
“The soldiers deployed on the roof after they locked the family inside the house,” he said, highlighting that Israeli forces erected checkpoints at the entrance to the village for inspections.
The local coordinator added that Israeli settlers from the nearby Suseya outpost occupied 3,000 square meters if land belonging to the al-Jbour family.
On Tuesday, Israeli settlers set up two new homes on land owned by Palestinians in the Hebron district, a popular committee spokesman said.
Under the protection of Israeli soldiers, they set up two caravans on land belonging to late Beit Ummar resident Muhammad al-Zaqiq, the local spokesman Yousef Abu Maria said.
The settlement Karmi Zur is established on 600 dunams of Beit Ummar land, he added.
Also Tuesday settlers uprooted more than 25 olive trees planted last week by solidarity campaigners in Beit Ummar, he told the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa.
On Monday, settlers razed newly-planted trees in Qaryut village north of Ramallah, aided by security guards, villagers said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458742 9 feb 2012, 14:18 , Respect -
Maria 9 febr 2012
Landowner notified by Israel of confiscation orders
Khaled Mashala says documentation lists his family as owner
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces have distributed confiscation orders for 68 dunums of Jabaa village lands southwest of Bethlehem in order to expand Beitar Illit and Gva'ot settlements, a landowner said Thursday.
Khaled Mashala told Ma’an he was surprised when he arrived to his land to find the notifications, which were signed by the head of Israel's civil administration.
The notifications give Mashala 45 days to object to the judicial authorities in Israel.
He added that he has all the necessary documents that prove that the land belongs to him, as he had inherited it from his grandfathers. However, the notifications say the lands belong to the government.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459163
IOA razes two buildings in occupied Jerusalem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli bulldozers worked again against Palestinian property in occupied Jerusalem and razed a building for a family in Jib village to the north west of occupied Jerusalem on Thursday.
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) was not content with razing the building but also destroyed all trees and plantations in the land surrounding it.
The same bulldozer earlier Thursday knocked down a house for Ezzeddin Abu Nijma in Beit Hanina to the north of occupied Jerusalem.
The Islamic-Christian commission in defense of Jerusalem and holy shrines lashed out at the IOA for destroying Abu Nijma’s home at the pretext of lack of construction permit.
It urged the world community and human rights groups to provide protection for the unarmed Palestinian people in the face of the demolition streak of their homes at the hands of the IOA.
The commission asked in particular the international quartet committee and the American administration to pressure Israel into desisting from further violation of Palestinian rights and land.
http://fwd4.me/0swA
Amnesty: Forced relocation of Bedouin could be war crime
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Israel to cancel plans to forcibly displace around 2,300 Bedouin residents from a Jerusalem district.
“Thousands of Bedouin living in some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank are facing the destruction of their homes and livelihoods under this Israeli military plan," Ann Harrison, interim Deputy Director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, said.
"Many are registered refugees and some have been displaced multiple times since 1948,” she added.
In July 2011, Israel's civil administration officials first told UN agencies of a plan to evict some 2,300 residents of 20 Bedouin communities in a Jerusalem district to a site approximately 300 meters from the Jerusalem municipal garbage dump, an Amnesty statement said.
The communities are all currently located near illegal settlements in the Maale Adumim settlement bloc, many of them in areas targeted for settlement expansion.
Community representatives told Amnesty International that they reject the plan because it would be impossible for them to maintain their traditional way of life if they were moved to a restricted area near the garbage dump.
Israeli officials have emphasized that the displacement plan envisions connecting relocated Bedouin communities to the electricity and water networks. They have not explained why Israel can provide such services to illegal settlements and unrecognized settler outposts in the West Bank, but not to longstanding Bedouin communities.
“Israeli military officials are putting a gloss on their plans by portraying them as a way of providing Bedouin with basic amenities such as water and electricity, but in fact such forcible relocation of Bedouin would merely perpetuate years of dispossession and discrimination and could constitute a war crime,” said Ann Harrison.
Building in illegal Israeli settlements increased by 20 per cent in 2011, according to the Israeli monitoring group Peace Now, and the Israeli authorities moved to recognize 11 new settlements, home to some 2,300 settlers, by legalizing outposts built without governmental authorization.
Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank forcibly evicted almost 1,100 people in 2011, an 80 per cent increase over 2010 and more than any year since the UN began keeping comprehensive records in 2005.
Ninety per cent of the demolitions occurred in vulnerable farming and herding communities in Area C, including demolitions in several of the Jahalin Bedouin communities.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=458823
Where is the ‘inevitable’ Bedouin Intifada Israel guaranteed?
Bedouin village Al Arakib after demolition in September 2010
In 2004, Israeli officials were up in arms about an impending Bedouin Intifada. But the Bedouin didn’t rebel and now, despite plans to expel tens of thousands of them from their homes in the West Bank and the Negev, things remain relatively quiet. Why?
As Israel steps up its expansionist policies both inside and outside the Green Line, the Bedouin community has come under particularly intense pressure.
Inside Israel, the state seeks to Judaize the Negev (Naqab) desert. This “development” includes last year’s Prawer plan, which recommends that Israel relocate between 30,000 and 40,000 Bedouin citizens, ripping them from their villages and sticking them in impoverished townships, to clear the area for Jewish-only settlements.
After the Israeli cabinet passed the Prawer plan in September 2011, Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel likened it to “a declaration of war.”
Al Arakib could be considered an opening battle. The state first demolished the unrecognized village in July 2010—destroying homes and tearing olive trees from the ground to make way for a forest to be planted by the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF). After the Bedouin residents of Al Arakib rebuilt their village, Israeli forces returned and destroyed it again. Since then, Al Arakib has been demolished and rebuilt over 30 times.
Israel’s policies are just as inhumane on the other side of the Green Line, where the so-called “Civil Administration” seeks to remove 27,000 Bedouin from Area C in order to expand illegal Israeli settlements. The Civil Administration’s plans will be carried out over the next three to six years.
The United Nations tells +972 that Israeli forces demolished 44 Palestinian-owned buildings in East Jerusalem and the West Bank last month, including 14 houses. A total of 66 people were displaced, 40 of whom were Bedouin.
Recent years have seen Israel escalate its campaign to push Palestinians and Bedouin out of their homes. According to the UN, nearly 1,100 Palestinians and Bedouins were displaced by Israeli house demolitions in 2011—approximately 80 percent more than 2010.
So where is the Bedouin Intifada?
In 2004, the Israeli daily Haaretz called a Bedouin uprising “practically inevitable.” Lurching from one alarmist quote to the next, the article labeled the Bedouin a “ticking bomb,” a “keg of dynamite,” depicting them not as native inhabitants but as criminals who have taken over the Negev.
Amidst the hysteria came a fetishizing remark from Reuven Gal, then-Deputy National Security Advisor for Domestic Policy, who commented that, to the Bedouin, “honor is more precious than money.”
The writer concluded, ominously, “Every plan to develop the Negev is likely to face violent opposition because of the Bedouin who live in the area.”
The article drips with racism and colonialism—Israeli plans to displace the Bedouin constitute “development.” Not only are the Bedouin sure to oppose such “progress,” they are likely to be “violent.” And then there are the Orientalist depictions of the Bedouin as reactionary, volatile beings unable to control their impulses, especially when “honor” is at stake.
But it would be wrong to blame the writer and his interviewees alone.
In his book Good Arabs, Hillel Cohen describes an incident that took place in 1950, when the Israeli army’s chief of staff visited a Bedouin tribe, reporter in tow. The journalist recounted a “royal meal,” eaten against the backdrop of “the echoes of gunshots” and “riders’ galloping.” The evening climaxed with a ceremonial “presentation of the sword of the desert.”
Cohen explains that the reporter’s depiction “fit well with that period’s common portrayal of the Bedouin as hospitable noble savages…”
An Orientalist view of the Bedouin is deeply rooted and, as the 2004 Haaretz article suggests, persists. So feverish proclamations about a Bedouin Intifada should be taken with a camel-sized grain of salt.
We should also consider the motives behind such “warnings.” As Jaber Abu Kaf, a representative of the Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, told Haaretz in 2004, claims of an imminent Bedouin Intifada “are baseless and are intended to promote a political agenda.”
But, for argument’s sake, let’s say that the Bedouin would like to revolt, violently, against Israel’s discrimination.
Let’s set aside the quiet acts of resistance, the small, silent intifada, already taking place: rebuilding demolished homes; the day-long general strike held in December of 2011; the massive protest outside the Prime Minister’s office on the same December day.
And let’s set aside individual agency and pretend the Bedouin can only react, collectively, to Israeli policies. So why hasn’t that “ticking bomb” exploded?
The answer lies, in part, in the state’s founding. Before Israel was established in 1948, some 91,000 Bedouin lived in the Negev. After the war, only twelve percent of the original population remained. Many of the Bedouin facing forced transfer from the West Bank today are refugees whose families fled or were driven from the Negev during the Nakba.
Shattered and scattered, the Bedouin were subject to additional Israeli efforts to divide and rule. A number of those who had managed to hang on to their land in the Negev were pushed off of it. In some cases, the state appointed local mukhtars, pitting families against one another, and putting weak leaders, or those who would serve Israeli interests, at the head of villages.
Israeli authorities also sowed seeds of disunity by actively encouraging–and rewarding–collaboration. That some took the bait undermines the Orientalist assertion that the Bedouin value honor more than money.
Israel has also fomented poverty in the Bedouin community. In the 1970s, the state built seven townships for the Negev Bedouin that are home today to approximately 80,000 Bedouin. These ghettos have the country’s highest unemployment and school dropout rates as well as the social problems that accompany poverty and hopelessness, including rampant drug abuse.
Those who remained in the desert have not had it much easier. Despite the fact that many Bedouin live in villages that predate the state itself, Israel does not recognize most of these communities. Some 80,000 Bedouin live in the unrecognized villages that lack infrastructure and high schools. Rawia Aburabia, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), calls the status of Bedouin education, “catastrophic,” pointing out to a drop-out rate that tops 40 percent.
There is also the contentious issue of military service. Some Bedouin tribes serve in the Israeli army; many do not. This creates tension within the community and serves as yet another obstacle to the unity needed for a successful uprising.
With Palestine’s Bedouin divided between Israel and the surrounding countries; split between those who serve in the Israeli army and those who don’t; struggling to survive; lacking leadership and a cohesive national strategy – an organized and sustainable uprising is unlikely. The international community, then, has a responsibility to stop the home demolitions and forced transfers that Palestinians and Bedouin face in the West Bank and inside Israel.
http://fwd4.me/0sf2
Settlers plant trees on village land
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- Israeli settlers arrived at the village of Qaryut, north of Ramallah, on Thursday accompanied by Israeli soldiers, witnesses told Ma'an.
Settlers marched to the center of the village and planted trees on village land while soldiers looked on, villagers told Ma'an.
They said that soldiers prevented them from accessing their land, which settlers then seized and began planting on.
The Popular Committee for Resistance against the Wall and Settlements in Qaryut village said that it will not be silent in the face of daily attacks and aggression by settlers.
Settler attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians increased by more than 50 percent in 2011, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians in the same territory. All settlements are illegal under international law.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459027
Israel: Cancel plan to forcibly displace Jahalin Bedouin communities
Thousands of Jahlain Bedouins face displacement to live next to garbage dump
Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak should cancel military plans to forcibly displace around 2,300 Bedouin residents of the West Bank to an area beside the Jerusalem municipal garbage dump, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing paper.
In Stop the Transfer: Israel about to expel Bedouin from homes to expand settlements, the organization calls on the Israeli military to order an immediate halt to all demolitions in the 20 communities affected by the plan.
Amnesty International said that verbal promises made by Israeli military officials last week not to implement pending demolition orders in Khan al-Ahmar, one of the Bedouin communities targeted for displacement in the Jerusalem district of the occupied West Bank, are insufficient.
“Thousands of Bedouin living in some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank are facing the destruction of their homes and livelihoods under this Israeli military plan. Many are registered refugees and some have been displaced multiple times since 1948,” said Ann Harrison, Deputy Director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“The Israeli authorities must guarantee the right to adequate housing for residents in all 20 communities, along with Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank. This means protecting them from forced evictions and conducting genuine consultations with all of the communities.”
In July 2011, Israel Civil Administration officials first told UN agencies of a plan to evict some 2,300 residents of 20 Bedouin communities in the Jerusalem district to a site approximately 300 metres from the Jerusalem municipal garbage dump.
The communities are all currently located near illegal settlements in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc, many of them in areas targeted for settlement expansion.
The Israeli military considers most structures in these communities – located in Area C of the occupied West Bank, where Israel retains authority over planning and zoning – to be built illegally without the required permits. However, construction permits are almost impossible to obtain for Palestinian communities in Area C. Most of the structures in these communities have demolition orders against them, including homes, kitchens, external toilets, animal shelters, and two primary schools.
The Israeli military authorities have not consulted representatives of the Bedouin communities about the displacement plan. Community representatives have told Amnesty International that they reject the plan because it would be impossible for them to maintain their traditional way of life if they were moved to a restricted area near the garbage dump.
Israel forcibly moved Bedouin families to the same area in the late 1990s, placing homes as close as 150 metres to the garbage dump. Bedouin who live there have told Amnesty International that the site was unsuitable to their way of life, that they had had to sell off their livestock due to a lack of grazing areas, and that they suffered high rates of unemployment. Some have returned to the areas from which they had been displaced.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, the dump receives up to 1100 tons of garbage per day, most of it from Jerusalem. The ministry has stated that the dump site creates air pollution, ground pollution, and possible water contamination, is improperly fenced-off, and poses a “danger of an explosion and fires” due to untreated methane gas produced by the decomposition of garbage.
Although disposal of waste at the site is due to cease later this year, no rehabilitation plan has been agreed, which means that the environmental hazards will likely remain for years.
Israeli officials have emphasized that the displacement plan envisions connecting relocated Bedouin communities to the electricity and water networks. They have not explained why Israel can provide such services to illegal settlements and unrecognized settler outposts in the West Bank, but not to longstanding Bedouin communities.
The 20 Bedouin communities have created a “protection committee” to coordinate their response to the displacement plan. The committee’s stated preference would be to return to their lands in Israel’s Negev desert from which they were displaced by the Israeli authorities in the 1950s, in accordance with their internationally recognized right to return.
The Bedouin communities say that their second option would be for Israeli authorities to recognize their rights to remain in their current homes, connect them to water, electricity and road networks, and lift arbitrary restrictions on their movement. Due to these restrictions, many Bedouin must buy animal fodder for sheep and goats that they were formerly able to graze, forcing them to sell their livestock.
As the final option, the Bedouin would be willing to negotiate the possibility of relocating again, if the Civil Administration treated them as equal negotiating partners.
Major-General Eitan Dangot, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, visited the Khan al-Ahmar community last week, and reportedly promised residents that that their homes and community school would not be demolished, and that they would not be transferred to the site next to the garbage dump. He said that the community would be moved to a different site in the occupied West Bank.
But Amnesty International said that was not enough.
“Israeli military officials are putting a gloss on their plans by portraying them as a way of providing Bedouin with basic amenities such as water and electricity, but in fact such forcible relocation of Bedouin would merely perpetuate years of dispossession and discrimination and could constitute a war crime,” said Ann Harrison.
“Informal promises are not enough for these communities. The Israeli Minister of Defence must issue a formal cancellation of this policy.”
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Israeli Municipality Demolishes House in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM, (WAFA) – Members of Jerusalem’s Israeli Municipality Thursday demolished a house that belongs to a Palestinian in Beit Hanina neighborhood, north of Jerusalem, according to witnesses.
They told WAFA that bulldozers accompanied by Israeli police and border guards demolished the house under the pretext of building with no permit.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18938
10 feb 2012, 16:52 , Respect -
Maria 10 febr 2012
Israeli Forces Deliver Eviction Summons in Tubas
On Thursday, Israeli forces summoned the citizens of Khirbet Wad Bazeq in Tubas governorate with eviction notices, as the IDF prepares to raze large tracts of local land.
Reliable sources stated that "Israeli authorities have summoned the citizens with notices to vacate their residences so Israel could construct roads, under the pretext of security reasons."
http://fwd4.me/0tAy
Settlers 'bulldoze 100 dunums' of Yatta lands
HEBRON (Ma’an) -- Ma'on settlers bulldozed 100 dunums of lands that belong to Kharoubeh village on Friday, the coordinator of the popular committee against the wall and settlement said.
Rateb al-Jabour said the settlers began to bulldoze the lands early Friday in an attempt to expand the settlement.
He added that Israeli authorities are implementing a settlement scheme south of Hebron that aims to surround residents who are living between the wall and settlement.
These acts aim to "tighten the noose" on citizens and make them leave their land, he said.
Al-Jabour called on human rights organizations to intervene and stop these attacks in order to provide a decent life for the Palestinian families living there.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459355
Likud leaders to go to Al-Aqsa, call for "cleansing" Jerusalem and building Jewish temple on mosque’s "ruins"
Leaders and members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party are leading an incursion and rally into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound – which Israel calls the “Temple Mount” – in eastern occupied Jerusalem this Sunday to call for its destruction and building a Jewish Temple on its “ruins.”
A flyer circulated online states:
The Likud
Members of the Likud Center
Along with the thousands of party members
Led by Reb’ Moshe Feiglin
Chairman of the Likud Leadership
Are invited to make aliyah to [go up] the Temple Mount. To thank and praise the Creator of this World. To declare that healthy leadership. [sic] Its beginning is in the complete control of Temple Mount.
Cleansing the place of the enemies of Israel, the land thieves, and building the Temple on the ruins of the mosques.
Without Any Fear Whatsoever
We shall meet on Sunday, 19 Shvat, near the top of the Maimonides Gate at 8:00 a.m.
Yearning for destruction of Muslim holy sites
An image distributed by the Israeli army chief rabbinate in December depicts the Al-Aqsa compound with the Dome of the Rock removed.
Once the preserve of Zionist fringe groups, destruction of the Muslim holy sites in occupied Jerusalem has become an increasingly “mainstream” call in Israel, now coming from leaders of the ruling party.
A few weeks ago it was revealed that the Israeli army rabbinate had distributed pamphlets depicting the Temple Mount without the famous Dome of the Rock, one of the two mosques, along with Al-Aqsa, that have existed there for centuries.
While Feiglin recently ran against Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud Party, there is little reason to think that Netanyahu himself does not sympathize with or at least tacitly support the increasingly loud calls for the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque, calls which he has never condemned.
In 1996, during his first premiership, Netanyahu colluded with a group called Ateret Cohanim, which is dedicated to the destruction of Al-Aqsa, to open a tunnel that was seen by Palestinians as furthering the goal of a settler take over of the Al-Aqsa compound and aimed at undermining the mosques. Fifty-eight Palestinians and 15 Israelis died in violence sparked by Israel’s provocation.
Transgression
A blog post from a website called “Bayt HaMikdash” (Temple) adds more information about the rally. It is notable that this rally is not merely a transgression of occupied territory calculated to offend Palestinians and Muslims by calling for the destruction of their shrines and heritage, but also a violation of traditional Jewish edicts.
It has long been forbidden by Israel’s Chief Rabbis for Jews to “make aliyah” to the Mount on the grounds that they could inadvertantly violate the “Holy of Holies.” Nationalist religious Zionism is increasingly pushing these prohibitions aside and creating unprecedentedly dangerous provocations.
Here’s the text of the post at “Bayt HaMikdash”:
Members of the Likud Center will make Aliyah to Temple Mount on Sunday, 19 Shvat
Participating: the chairman of the Likud leadership, Mr. Moshe Feiglin: tens of members of the Likud Center along with the thousands of members will make Aliyah to the Temple Mount, in holiness and purity, in order to give thanks and praise for their having entered the Likud | Didan Netzach!
By Gershon Kassif - Mikdash [Temple] Website
Tens of members of the Likud Center, activists for the Temple and the Temple Mount, including the Chair of the Foundation for the Legacy of the Temple Mount and the Temple, Yehuda Glick, along with the thousands of Likud party members who are loyal to the Temple Mount and to the Temple, will make Aliyah on Sunday, 19 Shvat, along with the Chairman of Jewish Leadership in the Likud, Reb’ Moshe Feiglin, and Michael Pua.
To thank and praise the Creator of the world for having had the privilege of bringing tens of new Likud Center members to make Aliyah to the Temple Mount, to make requests for the future and to pray the peace be upon Israel, to cancel the terrible decree of the evacuation of Migron and the rest of the settlements in Eretz Yisrael.
We shall meet on Sunday, 19 Shvat, near the top of the Maimonides Gate at 8:00 a.m.
Due to the holiness of the place
it is REQUIRED that one purify oneself in the Mikveh ritual bath, as per [Jewish] law
it is REQUIRED that one bring Yom-Kippur footwear - not made out of leather
it is REQUIRED to enter only to the places permitted to us, as we have been instructed by the Great [Teachers/Rabbis] of Israel
due to the terrible decrees of the police, it is required to bring identification
Temple Mount opening times for Jews: Morning: 7:30 through 10:00. Noon: 12:20 through 13:30
With thanks to Dena Shunra for translation.
http://fwd4.me/0t1i
Hanna condemns Zionist falsification of the history of Christian holy places
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Atallah Hanna, the Archbishop of Sebastia, condemned the campaign of falsification and deception lead by Zionist organisations that claim to be Christian with the help of the Israeli ministry of tourism.
He called on church leaders in the Holy Land and all over the world to take this matter seriously, reveal the facts and condemn the falsification and the exploitation of religion to serve the occupation's racist policies.
“There are Zionist organisations, supported by Zionists which seek to falsify historic facts pertaining to the holy places, especially in Bethlehem and Jerusalem," he said pointing out that those organisations are disseminating copies of a film that contains false information which contradicts history and Christian heritage and tries to promote places to visit by the tourists at the expense of authentic historic places associated with the Christian faith. This, he said, strips the Palestinian people of their holy places, both Muslim and Christian.
He stressed that the matter is serious and should not be accepted as the occupation ministry of tourism gives out this film to tourists and pilgrims in a bid to deceive and influence their views.
Hanna further explained that these American Zionist organisations which claim to be Christian, have nothing to do with Christianity, but are only trying to exploit the Christian religion for political ends in the service of the occupation.
http://fwd4.me/0t2T
Report: UN confirms Israeli fence near Lebanese village
BEIRUT (Ma'an) -- A UN peacekeeping official said Israeli forces have erected a barbed wire fence along its frontier with Lebanon, Lebanese media reported on Thursday.
The barrier lies in a disputed area near Lebanese village Adaisseh, Lebanon's The Daily Star reported.
"On the night of Feb. 7-8 in the general area of Adaysseh Israeli troops laid concertina wire to mark the mine field after prior notification to UNIFIL," spokesperson Neeraj Singh said in a statement.
Israeli media reported in early January that the Israeli army plans to build a new 5-meter high and 1-kilometer long wall on the country's northern ceasefire line with Lebanon.
The border between Israel and Lebanon is disputed by the two sides and the UN-drawn "Blue Line" covers just part of the stretch, established in 2000 to determine whether Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon after its 1982 invasion.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459188 12 feb 2012, 14:48 , Respect -
Maria 11 febr 2012
Calls to Thwart Israeli Provocative Tour of al-Aqsa Mosque
RAMALLAH, (WAFA) - Sheikh Yousef Idis, head of the Supreme Council of the Sharia Courts, Saturday called on Palestinians, particularly Jerusalem residents and Arabs in Israel, to gather in al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday to thwart a planned provocative Israeli tour of the compound, according to a press release.
Israeli right-wing lawmakers from the ruling Likud party are planning to tour the compound in what Palestinians and Muslims fear is preparation to demolish al-Aqsa Mosque to build the Third Temple in its place.
Idis held the Israeli government fully responsible for what he described as “the disastrous consequences for its aggression against the holy city and its holy places.”
The top Muslim judiciary official in the Palestinian Authority also warned against a plan to build a large complex near the Western Wall. He said Jerusalem is an occupied city and therefore any changes on the ground in the city are considered illegal and void by international law.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18952
IOA mobilizes forces near Aqsa mosque
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Israeli occupation soldiers and policemen were deployed since the early morning hours of Saturday in the vicinity of the holy Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
Najeh Bukairat, the head of the manuscripts and heritage in the Aqsa mosque, said that the soldiers were deployed near the Maghareba gate apparently to block entrance of worshippers to the mosque on Sunday when Israeli officials are planning to storm its plazas.
He told Quds Press that hundreds of border policemen and police forces were pouring into the vicinity of the mosque since the early morning hours, calling on Palestinians to flock to the holy site starting with dawn prayers on Sunday.
Bukairat said that Likud party leaders have vowed to storm the Aqsa mosque on Sunday to perform Talmudic rituals.
He addressed calls to Muslims worldwide, saying that the Aqsa is in real danger and the Israeli occupation authority is adamant on storming the site to build the alleged temple.
http://fwd4.me/0tEQ
Foundation: New structure near Al-Aqsa
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A committee within the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem has submitted plans for a new structure adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said Saturday.
According to the foundation, the 3,700-square-meter structure will be built near the Mughrabi Gate at the site known as the Al-Buraq Square to Muslims and the Western Wall to Jews.
It will consist of five floors, two of which will be underground. “The building will serve settlers and foreign tourists who visit the square,” the foundation said in a statement.
The building, according to the report, will be located in the northern part of the square. It is designed to include a Jewish museum, lecture halls, exhibition halls, a library and archives center, and a center for information.
The Al-Aqsa Foundation said the structure would be built on Islamic and Arab ruins.
“The Israeli archeology department has been digging and excavating for about five years demolishing structures that date back to different Arab and Islamic eras,” the statement said.
The report comes as Israeli archeologists are continuing to excavate an ancient cave that runs under Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Foundation said Tuesday.
Foundation representatives visited the al-Kittan cave, also known as Zedkiah’s Cave or Solomon’s Quarries, and say archeologists are digging under the Old City in two directions to connect the cave to an ancient tunnel network.
The cave, near Damascus Gate, is being extended towards the Haram al-Sharif compound housing the Dome of the Rock and towards Herod's Gate to the east, the foundation said.
It highlighted that the route runs under Palestinian homes.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after a 1967 war in a move never recognized abroad.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459433 12 feb 2012, 14:55 , Respect -
Maria 12 febr 2012
UN rapporteur slams Israeli policy of 'Judaization'
Professor Raquel Rolnik
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A United Nations Special Rapporteur said Sunday that Israel is systematically implementing a discriminatory policy of housing and planning in Israel, East Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank.
"From the Galilee and the Negev to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli authorities promote a territorial development model that excludes, discriminates against and displaces minorities, particularly affecting Palestinian communities," Professor Raquel Rolnik, UN rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said on Sunday.
During a two week visit to Israel and the Occupied West Bank, Rolnik has met with both Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials, together with international agencies and local NGOs, a statement said.
Speaking at the conclusion of her trip, Rolnik said she had witnessed the effect of Israeli policies in East Jerusalem which "severely restrict Palestinians from building legally."
"Israel has not provided Palestinians with the necessary planning framework to ensure that their basic housing and infrastructure needs are met," she added.
The UN rapporteur also slammed Israeli policies in the West Bank where a "Palestinian presence was progressively limited in parallel to a disproportional support to the expansion of Jewish communities."
Bedouin communities in the Negev and Jewish settlements in Area C and in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are the "new frontiers of dispossession of the traditional inhabitants, and the implementation of a strategy of Judaization and control of the territory," Rolnik said.
A report detailing all findings of her mission will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in 2013.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459870
Thousands of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley risk forced displacement, says UN body
(3:12) English video Fasayil 0001
Sixty thousand Palestinians live under harsh conditions in the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea area - one of the most isolated and restricted areas in occupied Palestine. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has summarized their humanitarian situation in its February 2012 fact sheet.
The Jordan Valley and Dead Sea area covers about one third of the West Bank. Eighty-seven percent of the land is designated as Area C, where Israeli exercises full control over security, planning and construction. The area is earmarked for the use of the Israeli military or falls under the jurisdiction of the illegal Israeli settlements. An additional 7% is designated as a nature reserve. In total, Palestinians are prohibited from using 94% of their own land.
Meanwhile, 9,500 Israeli settlers have established 37 settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley in contravention of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits Israel from transferring parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory. Supported by Israel, the settlers have developed highly profitable agricultural, tourist, mineral and other businesses, including Ahava cosmetics.
Severe restrictions on Palestinians
One quarter of the Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea area - around 15,000 – live in Area C, including some 7,900 Bedouins and herders. The Israeli authorities obstruct construction activity by the Palestinian communities by withholding building permits for homes, schools, clinics, roads and water networks.
Palestinians in the area have restricted access to water resources. Water consumption in most herding communities is about 20 liters per person per day. This stands in sharp contrast to the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 100 liters per person a day. The settlers in the area consume a shocking 300 liters per person per day.
In addition, Palestinian access to and from the Jordan Valley is highly constrained. Four of the six access routes to the Jordan Valley are controlled by Israeli checkpoints. Non-residents are only allowed to cross these checkpoints as pedestrians or by traveling via registered public transportation. Palestinians who own commercial vehicles have to coordinate the crossing in advance, according to OCHA. Numerous checkpoints, roadblocks and trenches in the area are an obstacle impeding Palestinian access to grazing and agricultural land, services, and markets for agricultural produce. Moreover, the restricted freedom of movement undermines family and social ties. The map printed in OCHA’s fact sheet provides a clear overview of the situation.
Israel’s full military control of Area C has resulted in food scarcity and water scarcity. A joint survey by UNRWA, Unicef and the World Food Program revealed that 79% of the Bedouin and Palestinian herders in Area C in the West Bank – the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea area included - are food insecure. The food insecurity in the herding communities in Area C is much higher than among the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where respectively 25% and 61% of the households are food insecure.
Forced displacement and evictions
In 2011, the Israeli authorities demolished over 200 Palestinian-owned structures in the area, displacing around 430 people and affecting the livelihoods of another 1,200 Palestinians. According to OCHA, thousands of Palestinians in the area are at risk of forced displacement due to home demolitions, forced evictions from closed military zones and a range of restrictions imposed by Israel.
However, the Palestinians are determined to continue living on their land. For example, Abed Yasin Rashaida, who has lived for 15 years in Fasayil in the occupied Jordan Valley, says on video: ”We are Bedouin. Once we were nomads – we used to move from one place to another. Eventually we settled here to let our children study at school.” On 20 December 2012, the Israeli army demolished some houses and animal shelters in Fasayil. “They started demolishing at eight in the morning. The bulldozers destroyed everything and covered the mattresses with soil. Flour, sugar, lentils, oil – they destroyed everything,” according to Rashaida.
Last June, Israeli forces used bulldozers to demolish seven homes, eighteen animal shelters and four outdoor kitchens in al-Hadidya.
(2:06) Demolitions in Al Hadidya June 21, 2011.wmv
Six months later, Amnesty International issued a call for urgent action against new demolition orders in al-Hadidya:
Many of the structures at risk have been rebuilt following demolitions in June. Fifty people, including at least 25 children, are at risk of permanent displacement. Sixteen of the structures threatened with demolition were donated by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and aid organizations following the demolition of 29 structures on 21 June.
OCHA warns that thousands of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and the Daed Sea area risk forced displacement under the illegal Israeli occupation. However, the Palestinians are determined to resist and stay on their land. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement should keep Israel under pressure as long as it violates the rights of the Palestinian people.
http://fwd4.me/0tOU
Anan: Harming Aqsa infringes on Egyptian national security
CAIRO, (PIC)-- Egyptian chief of staff and deputy chairman of the ruling military council Gen. Sami Anan has said that any harm done on the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem would infringe on Egyptian national security.
Well informed Egyptian sources said that Anan raised alert in the Egyptian armed forces on Saturday night and sent a warning message to Israel saying that any provocation to the Aqsa mosque would be dealt with as a threat to his country’s national security.
They told the PIC that Anan held an emergency meeting with his aides to discuss the Israeli mobilization in the vicinity of the holy site in preparation for storming it on Sunday.
http://fwd4.me/0tOk
Arrested development: Strangling Palestine's green power
On Sept. 10, Israeli authorities issued demolition orders for a Spanish- funded community solar panel in Imneizil village in the South Hebron Hills. Israeli authorities later told the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem they were granting an ’amnesty’ to the solar panels.
By Charlotte Alfred
MASAFER YATTA (Ma'an) -- Development organizations and green energy pioneers face a political quagmire when working in Palestinian communities under full Israeli control.
In recent months, the army issued demolition warnings against six solar and wind power systems in the South Hebron Hills, which were funded by European governments and development groups.
"What can you do if there are impediments to development, such as an undefined de-development policy?" says Tsafrir Cohen, Middle East coordinator of Medico International, which supported two of the systems.
Known locally as Masafer Yatta, the communities lie almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israel civil and security control since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Around 150,000 Palestinians living on this land must apply to Israel to build on their land, including connecting to water, road and electricity networks. The UN humanitarian affairs office says that permits are only possible on the one percent of Area C that has an Israeli-approved zoning plan, most of which is already built-up.
Development groups thus face a dilemma.
Cohen says if Medico International abandons development work in Area C, moving to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas where permits are not a problem, they would do little more than "painting the walls of Bantustans."
"We cannot just facilitate a nice jail cell, and a system where people don’t have rights."
Gifts of nature
Imneizil village elders at the village's threatened solar power complex.
Green energy advocates saw a chance to circumvent the spiraling demolitions of Palestinian buildings in the West Bank, which doubled in 2011 according to the UN.
Although Masafer Yatta is isolated and restricted by geography and politics, "they benefit from the gifts of nature -- the wind and sun," a founder of local renewables group Comet-ME, Noam Dotan, says.
The wind and solar energy systems springing up around the region also have advantages in the long term. All Palestinian energy is purchased from Israeli suppliers, restricting Palestine’s independence and viability as an independent state, he says.
"Palestine does not have its own energy -- renewables could be a future source," Dotan notes.
But the champions of renewable energy in Palestine are working under different limitations than other green power movements, Ala Qawasmi, an engineer with Comet-ME, says.
"The land area is limited, and it would be easier to connect to the grid than, for example, in African communities, but the problem here is political."
"Grid electricity would be much better for us than solar," says Aziz Muhammad Hadhalin, 26, an engineer and community activist in Masafer Yatta village Um al-Kher. "But solar is our only choice because building is forbidden by the Israelis."
Hadhalin says the solar installation cannot by itself provide the village with enough continuous energy. But Qawasmi points out it is vastly better than the previous solution of diesel power generators.
Solar and renewable energy is cleaner and more competitively priced than the gas-guzzling generators, he says.
Villagers used to switch on the generators for only a couple of hours at night to save money, so the solar panels and turbines whose batteries’ store power gave villagers their first access to refrigerators and washing machines depending on continuous energy.
Renewable energy under threat
Students in Imneizil’s village school.
But villagers now fear even European-supported renewable power will be frustrated by the Israeli military’s planning regime, after the army ordered six solar and wind energy systems taken down.
It began on Sept. 10, when Israeli authorities issued demolition orders for a Spanish-government funded community solar panel in Masafer Yatta.
Supplying 450 Palestinians living in Imneizil village with electricity, SEBA, the Spanish NGO supporting the project, says it never received a reply to its application for a permit.
COGAT, the Israeli military of defense department in charge of civilian life in the West Bank, says the solar panels are illegal without a permit, and the whole area "is missing any legal status," according to spokesman Guy Inbar.
"Their decision makes me very sad," Imeizil resident Nihad Mur, 25, told Ma’an in November.
"With solar light, we can see each other at night … We have access to the news, we don’t have to go out to fetch water … our clinic can use ultrasound machines."
She hopes her 3-year-old son Muhammad will grow up to be a doctor, but the village school needs the panels to power computers, and some of its classrooms are also under demolition order.
Threats to demolish vital village resources are intended to "silently move us from the land," village council head Ali Muhammad Ali Heirezat says. "We have been here since 1948, and we don’t have another place to go."
Forces handed out 10 more demolition orders to Imneizil on Dec. 29.
After international media attention and contacts by the Spanish government, Israeli authorities told the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem in November that they were freezing the demolition of the solar panels.
COGAT's Inbar says they are reviewing a plan of the village which could give it legal status, and will postpone demolition unless the plan is rejected.
"We can expect the Israelis not to demolish any EU-funded project in the West Bank without losing credibility in the international media," a SEBA representative told Ma’an on hearing of the freeze.
But on Jan. 4, a solar electricity system funded by the German Foreign Office in Saadet Thaalah received a stop work order from Israeli forces, effectively a demolition notice as the structure was already completed.
After contacts by the German government, Israeli authorities postponed a hearing to implement the demolition, which powers around 80 villagers.
"It shows you need a big guy behind you," says Tsafrir Cohen from Medico International.
But COGAT, which says the system is on "unregulated" land, insists the order will be enforced "based on predetermined priorities as were set ahead by the authorized ranks in the (Israeli) Civil Administration," according to Inbar.
Then last Tuesday, Israeli forces issued stop work orders to four solar and wind power systems in Haribat, al-Nabi, Shaab al-Butum, Qawawis and Wadi al-Shesh villages.
Masafer Yatta activists now fear for every village that is using the wind and sun for power. Development organizations involved in the project are questioning its future.
"This is a big fight, because how else can you have security that you are not spending money on nothing?" says Cohen.
Development under occupation
South Hebron Hills village Dkaika has 74 demolition orders pending. The newly-installed solar panels are the first electricity to the village, which is using gas lamps and car batteries for their daily needs.
Hebron governor Kemal Hemaid says last year’s surge in demolitions is designed to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority and international organizations, to prevent them from working in Area C.
"They are stopping internationals from doing anything here," Hemaid says.
Meanwhile, a recently-leaked EU report calls for greater European support for development and building projects in Area C to safeguard a viable Palestinian state.
"The window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing with the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and access restrictions for Palestinians in Area C, (which) compromises crucial natural resources and land for the future demographic and economic growth of a viable Palestinian state," the report says.
But Medico International representative Tsafrir Cohen lays out the paradox facing Europe.
"There will be no Palestinian state without these people, and without their rights … one of these rights is electricity," he says. "And the German Foreign Office supports the two state solution."
"But at the end of the day an occupying power can do whatever they want."
Electricity access in Masafer Yatta
This Ma'an special report is the last in a series published over the week, which can be accessed here and here. This map shows some of the stories collected by Ma'an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=459165 13 feb 2012, 09:51 , Respect -
Maria 13 febr 2012
Israeli demolition 'displaces 120' in Hebron village
HEBRON (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces demolished 22 buildings in a Palestinian village south of Hebron on Monday, displacing 120 villagers, residents told Ma'an.
Twenty Israeli military vehicles accompanied bulldozers to raze the 16 domestic tents and six animal shelters in Khirbet Ar-Rahwa, they said.
Villager Salim Salem al-Tal told Ma'an forces also demolished a well that was the village's only water source. Soldiers did not give the villagers any time to remove their possessions from their homes, he said.
Rateb al-Jabareen, whose home was demolished, said that the soldiers told them they would have to leave the village. Israel hopes to expand the neighboring Jewish-only settlement Tene Omerem by pushing them from their village, he added.
He vowed the villagers would remain despite repeated demolitions.
Hebron governor Kamel Hemaid said Israeli authorities were systematically destroying Palestinian homes in order to expand Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank.
He appealed for international intervention to halt the demolitions.
The number of Palestinians displaced by demolitions doubled in 2011 compared to 2010, according to UN figures.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=460129
Israeli Authority Demolishes Bedouin Village for 35th Time
AL ARAQIB, NAQAB, (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities Monday demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Naqab desert, southern Israel, for the 35th time, said a local activist.
Aziz al-Tori, member of the committee for the defense of al-Araqib, said Israeli bulldozers accompanied by a large Israeli police force demolished the makeshift homes the village residents keep rebuilding after each time the government demolishes them.
He urged political and social organizations to donate building material to the residents and help rebuild the village, stressing that the Arab residents will remain on their land regardless of Israeli government efforts to uproot them.
Al-Araqib is one of the several Arab villages inside Israel facing obliteration because the Israeli government refuses to recognize them.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18977
Israeli Forces Demolish House near Jerusalem
JERUSALEM, (WAFA) – Israeli forces Monday demolished a house in al-Suwaneh neighborhood in the Mount of Olives, near the old city of Jerusalem, according to WAFA correspondent.
He told WAFA that members of Jerusalem’s Israeli Municipality and Police accompanied with bulldozers surrounded the area while the house’s owners evacuated their property.
Israeli forces claimed that the house was demolished under the pretext of building without a permit, he said.
Many Palestinians choose to build without permits due to their inability to meet the extremely difficult and expensive conditions required by the Israeli Municipality.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18972
Israeli Bulldozers Destroy Playground in Silwan
Israeli bulldozers of the Jerusalem Municipality destroyed, on Monday morning, a playground in Wadi Hilweh area , in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, and removed the protest tent in Silwan.
Representatives of the so-called “Natural Gardens” Authority, accompanied by officials of the municipality, invaded the area and ordered the bulldozers to destroy the playground, local sources reported.
Furthermore, the municipality also removed the protest tent that was installed by the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of Silwan in 2007 to protest the illegal takeover of Palestinian homes by extremist groups that fund the illegal Israeli settlement activities.
Dozens of policemen surrounded the area and instated a closed military zone before removing the tent, the WAFA news agency reported.
Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are subject to frequent violations, including home demolitions, and home takeover by extremist settlers.
While the illegal settlement construction and expansion is taking over most of the Arab areas in and around occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian residents are unable to build homes, or expand exiting one, due to Israeli restrictions.
Last Tuesday, February 7th, soldiers invaded the Esawiyya in East Jerusalem and broke into the home of Ahmad Saleh Dary, 46, before kidnapping his 13-year-old son, the Wadi Hilweh information Center reported.
Soldiers violently broke into the building and pushed Dary while he was carrying his 2-year-old son; the father fell on his son and both were moderately injured.
Soldiers also used pepper-spray against the family, and attacked the father with taser-guns until he collapsed, and then proceeded to violently attack and beat his wife who was seriously injured, and was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
http://www.imemc.org/article/62989