A day before Palestinians planned to kick off the much anticipated “Jerusalem, Capital of Arab Culture for 2009” Festival on March 21, Israeli police in the city announced they would thwart any attempts at holding the festivities.
The festival, which has been in the making for months, will culminate in a number of activities throughout the occupied city in addition to other Palestinian cities such as Ramallah and Bethlehem since most Palestinians are banned from entering Jerusalem. Israel, however, has claimed the festival is under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority and is therefore prohibited.
Israeli police announced on March 20 that the event was an “attempt to demonstrate Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem in an illegal manner.”
Still, organizers of the festival say they will not be deterred and will defy the ban come Saturday. The festivities include a number of activities in Jerusalem and around the Old City, including a children’s event at Damascus Gate on the afternoon of March 21. “These are children playing games,” Najwa Silwadi, one organizer said. “What are the police going to do?”
For one, Israeli police raided the Christmas Hotel on the night of March 18 where the organizers of the cultural festival were staying. The police and soldiers confiscated a laptop, documents and the ID cards of some members.
Israeli authorities have also said they would beef up police and military presence in the city on March 21.
Jerusalem has been under almost constant threat lately, with Israeli authorities there issuing tens of home demolition orders over the past few months. On March 18, 80 new demolition orders were distributed in east Jerusalem neighborhoods. Then on March 17, 17 additional demolition orders were handed to families in Al Thuri neighborhood of Jerusalem. According to media sources, 300 demolition orders have been handed out since Nir Barkat took office as Jerusalem mayor.
In Cairo, Palestinian conciliation talks seemed to have stalled, at least for the present time. On March 19, Egypt announced the talks would be suspended for a few days due to a deadlock in discussions. Still, in spite of an obvious failure to reach an agreement this week, both Hamas and Fateh have said all is not lost. It seems the current impasse revolves around the government formation. While delegates have apparently agreed to hold concomitant presidential and legislative elections at the end of January, 2010, the dispute over the method of forming the government and actual positions has yet to be resolved.
Almost coinciding with this bump in the road is the botched prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. While many were led to believe that a prisoner swap that would include the release of captured prisoner Gilad Shalit and several hundred Palestinian prisoners was just around the corner, on March 19, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put these rumors to rest. “Israel will not give into Hamas’ demands for Shalit’s release,” he told his people. “Israel will not surrender to Hamas dictates as long as I am prime minister.” While Olmert continued to ramble on about not “crossing red lines”, Hamas said it was Israel that changed its mind.
According to Israeli sources, Israel claimed it had offered the release of 325 prisoners, but with 144 of them to be exiled to the Gaza Strip or abroad instead of home. Hamas has insisted on 450 prisoners.
According to Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ spokesperson in Lebanon, Israel backtracked on agreements with Egypt over the exchange. Hamas is charging Israel with trying to pressure it into accepting an agreement before a new Israeli government is sworn in. It added that it opposed the exile of any of the prisoners and will also not accept linking Shalit’s release with the issue of opening Gaza’s borders.
A day earlier, Israeli authorities rounded up 10 Hamas members from various parts of the West Bank. Five of the 10 were PLC members and one, Nasser Eddin Shaer holds the post of Hamas deputy prime minister. Israel has been holding over 45 Hamas-affiliated PLC members since 2006.
Meanwhile, Gaza continues to receive international visitors coming to survey the devastation resulted from Israel’s invasion. On March 15, head of the Islamic Conference Organization, Akmal Al Din Ihsan Oglo visited the Strip and called what Israel created, “beyond all international and human standards.” Oglo said his visit was in solidarity with the Gazans, vowing to “build all that Israel destroyed.” Said war surpassed all international standards and charters.
He is not alone in his opinion obviously. On March 19, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories Richard Falk said Israel’s invasion of Gaza was a war crime of the "greatest magnitude." Falk, who is banned entry into Israel, expressed his opinions in his annual report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, citing some of Israel’s violations as “targeting schools, mosques and ambulances."
Falk’s statements fall right in line with some of Israel’s own soldiers who invaded Gaza. On March 19, the Israeli daily Haaretz published testimonies of some of these soldiers who said that during “Operation Cast Lead”, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property. One chilling testimony tells of an Israeli sniper who shot and killed a Palestinian mother and her two children.
“I don't think he felt too bad about it,” said one officer about the sniper. “Because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. From what I understood from most of my men who I talked to…The lives of Palestinians, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers.”
In this context, two members of Fateh’s Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were killed on March 19 east of Deir Al Balah by Israeli forces. The two were identified as Ramzy Abu Nasser and Naeem Al Uruqi.
On March 15, two Israeli policemen were also shot and killed near the settlement of Masua north of the Jordan valley. A group calling themselves the Imad Mughniya group claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Four people were also shot and injured in the Ramallah-area village of Beit Rima by Israeli troops. Their injuries were described as being moderate to serious.
UN Resolution 1325
Date posted: February 03, 2021
By MIFTAH
Kerry talks peace while Israel bars UNESCO mission [May 19 - May 25]
Date posted: May 25, 2013
By MIFTAH
President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both met with US Secretary of State John Kerry this week in the latter’s fourth visit to the region since he assumed office.
After meeting with the two to ostensibly find ways to restart stalled negotiations between the two sides, Kerry urged on May 24 both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take "hard decisions" to revive the peace process.
"We're getting toward a time now when hard decisions need to be made," he said at the end of his visit.
Kerry admitted a day before after meeting with the two leaders that there was skepticism and cynicism about his efforts to revive talks.
"I know this region well enough to know there is skepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism, and there are reasons for it. There have been bitter years of disappointment," he said. Still, he maintained: "It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient, but detailed and tenacious, that we can lay on a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people and certainly exhaust the possibilities for peace."
British foreign secretary William Hague was also in the region visiting with leaders on both sides and even visited the Bedouin community of Khan Al Ahmar between Jerusalem and Jericho, whose residents are under the threat of displacement.
On May 23, Hague was poignantly clear on where his country stands on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "Israel has lost some of its support in Britain and in other European countries over time - this is something I've often pointed out to Israeli leaders -because of settlement activity, which we condemn,” he said.
"We strongly disagree with settlements on occupied land. Israel is a country we work with in many ways but we do disapprove of settlements,” he maintained, adding that: "We want to see both Israelis and Palestinians really commit themselves to the peace process while there is still a chance of a two-state solution."
In Khan al Ahmar, Hague listened to the residents’ grievances from Israeli efforts to push them out to make way for more settlement expansion. "We (in Britain) strongly condemn the building of settlements and recognise they are a severe threat to a two-state solution,” he told the people there.
On March 21, Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir in East Jerusalem. Earlier, they demolished two Palestinian homes in al-Tur, all under the pretext of unlicensed construction. Dozens of people have been left homeless from the demolitions.
A UNESCO fact-finding mission was supposed to arrive this week to look into Israeli measures in the Old City of Jerusalem and their impact on the archeological, cultural and heritage significance of the place, but was denied entry by Israel on May 20. Israel justified its decision by saying Palestinians were trying to politicize the visit.
"The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings,” an Israeli foreign ministry official said. “The visit was supposed to be professional, (but) they were taking measures that showed they were politicizing the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it," the official said.
UNESCO maintained that the mission was not cancelled, but postponed, the agency’s spokeswoman Sue Williams said.
The Palestinians said they expected Israel to pull something like this. “We weren't surprised by this decision because we believed that Israel's agreement to (allow the mission) was not convincing," minister of foreign affairs Riyad Al Malki said.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was reopened on May 22 after a five day closure. Egyptian soldiers and policemen closed the crossing following the kidnapping of seven Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, only reopening it after the soldiers were freed. Over 2,400 Palestinians had been stranded on both sides of the crossing during the days of the closure.
Extremist Israelis extended their attacks this week all the way to the Negev desert. On May 19, residents of the Retamim Kibbutz attacked the nearby Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj and set fire to a tent, according to head of the local village council, Salman Ibin Hamid
"The setters of Retamim are acting like they are in the West Bank," Ibn Hamid said. "These people have the mentality of the occupying settler to attack every Arab."
Finally, on May 23, the US appointed Gen. John Allen as special envoy on security issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to a US official, Allen will deal with the U.S. position on Israeli security needs and the security arrangements that would accompany the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Al Nakba commemorated amid increasing settler attacks [May 12 - May 18]
Date posted: May 18, 2013
By MIFTAH
This week Palestinians commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 on May 15, with a variety of activities, demonstrations and events throughout the Palestinian territories and outside of its borders. Festivals were held in Ramallah and Nablus in addition to several protests and confrontations with Israeli occupation forces. In Jerusalem, clashes broke out between protesters and Israeli police and border guards when Palestinians commemorating Al Nakba, raising Palestinian flags and facing off with Jewish settlers and soldiers. Thirty people were wounded or arrested during the clashes in addition to six Israelis.
The Jerusalem clashes come at a time when settler break-ins to Al Aqsa have been on the rise amid increasing calls by extremist Jewish groups to make a presence at the compound. The break-ins have become a near daily event. Muslim worshippers and Palestinian youths have kept constant vigil at the mosque to stave off the break-ins which included settler groups who used children as a cover to enter the compound on the occasion of Shavuot.
Settlers in the West Bank have wreaked havoc this week as well. On May 17, three Palestinians were injured in clashes in Urif south of Nablus when dozens of settlers set fire to lands in three area-villages: Urif, Einabus, and Asira al-Qibliya. The settlers also attacked citizens and threw burning tires at people’s homes.
Jewish extremists attacked inside the Green Line as well. On May 14, extremists set fire to three cars and sprayed racist graffiti on a mosque south of Haifa, according to Israeli media reports.
"Price-tag" and "Eviatar," which is thought to refer to the name of a settler stabbed to death last week, were found on the mosque’s walls in addition to the Star of David. In Safed, even farther north, racist graffiti with the words "Arabs out" was found on walls in the city.
On May 13, Israeli settlers exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, head of the PA settlement activity file, said settlers from the Alia settlement were responsible for the damage.
On the same day settlers from Tel Hatimar begin building a religious school for children on Al Khader lands in the Bethlehem area.
The Israeli army meanwhile, uprooted over 1,200 olive tree saplings on May 16 and razed land Palestinian farmer in the northern West Bank, according to Daghlas. He said the army dug up over 40 dunums of farm land and demolished a water tank and stone walls in Ras Karker, near Nablus.
On May 17, three Palestinian laborers were wounded in Beit Ula northwest of Hebron after Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and unleashed police dogs at them according to Issa al-Amla, coordinator for the popular struggle committee. He said Omar Al-Amla, 31, and Abdulkadir Al-Amla, 28, suffered multiple dog bites to the neck and hands. A third laborer, Jihad Saleem, was shot in the leg.
In Jerusalem on May 17, Israeli forces raided the home of Iyad al-Awar and insisted on taking his two children 6-year-old Qassam and 5-year-old Nasrallah for “interrogation”. While their father prevented the forces from arresting his boys, Israeli soldiers handed him a warrant ordering him to bring his children to the Russian Compound for questioning.
"We arrived to the Russian Compound and the troops wanted to take my kids for investigation; I refused and they beat me in the ear and the leg. My kids started crying and were so scared from the troops. They took my kids by force," al-Awar said.
Israeli Intelligence officers apparently questioned the children about their detained cousin Shadad, and asked if they had seen him throwing stones or Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, Al Awar said.
On the same day however, Palestinians scored a tiny victory in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis when they were able to tear a hole through part of the separation wall. Protesters marking the Nakba anniversary ripped a 4-meter hole in it, eyewitnesses said. Clashes ensued between the protesters and Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Several injuries were reported.
Peace Now reported on May 16 that the Israeli government planned to grant retroactive approval to four West Bank settlement outposts it had previously pledged to at least partially demolish.
The Israeli state attorney's office said that settlers had purchased the private Palestinian land on which they built, thus paving the way for the government to give its blessing.
"In the response, the government declares its intention to legalize four outposts, in isolated areas," Peace Now said in a statement, adding that the strategy was an affront to US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new peace process," Peace Now said.
On May 14, Hamas and Fatah agreed in Cairo to form a national unity government within three months during which they would finalize and approve the Palestine National Council elections law. The two sides, represented by Fatah leader Azzam Al Ahmad and Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouq, came to the agreement under Egyptian sponsorship and said President Abbas would immediately begin talks on the new government formation. Once the government is formed, general elections can be held.
