Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

Violence escalates as Israeli soldier puts gun to head of Danish national and threatens to pull the trigger. 

At approximately 9:00AM, 18 internationals accompanied Palestinian farmers to their olive groves to harvest their olives near the village of Al-Hatab, East of Nablus. Five minutes after they arrived, the Israeli army descended upon the group. 

The farmers, residents of Al-Hatab, had obtained the necessary permits to pick olives. However, the Israeli army said they could not pick olives today and that the internationals had "ten seconds" to leave the area. Eye-witness reports claim that the soldiers were extremely aggressive and attempted to arrest one Palestinian after taking his identity card. 

When six internationals tried to intervene, the soldiers began beating them with their guns, punching them in the face and kicking them. One international from the United Kingdom was badly cut and bruised. Another activist, from Denmark had been thrown to the ground. An Israeli soldier then put his gun to the Danish mans head and pulled on the trigger as if he were going to shoot.

It is increasingly difficult for Palestinian farmers to access their land and harvest their crops due to the construction of the Israeli Annexation Wall, Israeli army control of gates through the wall and  the violence of settlers who attack Palestinians attempting to pick olives on Palestinian land that may border the illegal settlements. 

At the time of this release, the internationals are remaining in the area in the event that the Palestinian farmers are unable to harvest their olives.

The Freedom March Against the Wall, that began July 30 in Jenin, has traveled for 16 days and visited approximately 60 villages and towns. On several days the March has been joined by over 1000 Palestinians, Internationals and Israelis and numerous organizations and political parties. They have met with families and farmers along the path of the Wall, under the constant watch of the Israeli Army. On several occasions the marchers have been met by military force as the Israeli Army has attempted to block their path and arrest them.

Palestinians, internationals and Israelis are marching along the path of the Apartheid Wall, through cities, towns and villages arriving in Jerusalem, August 19. The purpose of the Freedom March is to highlight the devastation and suffering Palestinians and their communities are enduring as a result of the construction of the Wall.

The March will arrive in Biddu Sunday, where there has been strong resistance to the Wall. The March will be joined by hundreds more as they approach Ramallah and Jerusalem.

On August 18 and 19 the Freedom March will travel from Beitunia, through Qalandia, Al-Ram and will attempt to culminate in Jerusalem.

Wednesday August 18, the Freedom March will walk to Ramallah where they will visit with the prisoners’ solidarity tent to show their support for the political prisoners who will be on hunger strike as of Sunday August 15 to demand basic rights and an end to abuse in the prisons.

The Freedom March will then visit President Arafat, in order to share the stories they have heard from the communities about the hardships resulting from the Wall and the impact on the lives of Palestinians throughout the West Bank.

The march will continue on to Qalandia where Israelis will be joining them from the other side to march together to Al-Ram. From there they will attempt to reach Jerusalem. Gush Shalom will be joining the March August 18 at Qalandia checkpoint.

To all Friends and Supporters of Human Rights around the World:

The Committee for the Families of Political Prisoners and Detainees in the West Bank, representing 7,500 political prisoners currently in Israeli prisons, is seeking the support of the international community in its campaign against the gross violations of their rights that the prisoners are enduring and against the appalling conditions under which they are being detained.

Political prisoners in Israeli prisons will be commencing a hunger strike on Sunday, August 15, 2004 to protest their conditions. They complain that the conditions they experience are reminiscent of the former Abu Ghoraib facility in Iraq which gained worldwide notoriety recently for its treatment of detainees.

The families of the Palestinian political prisoners plead with you, the members of the international community, to join in solidarity with our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who are being held in Israeli prisons by organizing demonstrations, marches, holding silent vigils or activities to publicize the plight of the political prisoners and to bring pressure on the government of Israel to cease these violations of law and to treat Palestinian prisoners as human beings entitled to basic human rights.

Israeli Public Security Minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem on August 13th that the prisoners "can strike for a day, a month, even starve to death, we will not respond to their demands".

Some of the conditions that the prisoners are protesting include:

- Arbitrary and indiscriminate beating of prisoners in their cells, in prison courtyards and during transportation to and from prisons.
- Arbitrary and indiscriminate firing of tear gas into prisoner's cells and prison courtyards and intimidation of prisoners by guards entering their cells with guns.
- Humiliating strip searches of prisoners in full view of other prisoners and guards each time they enter or exit their cells
- Subjecting prisoners to solitary confinement for excessive periods of time, for months and even years.
- Arbitrary imposition of financial penalties on prisoners for minor infractions, arbitrary revocation of visitation rights and extended confinement to cells as punishment for minor infractions such as singing or speaking too loudly
- Confining children with adult prisoners and political prisoners with criminals
- Withholding or delaying medical treatment and the provision of medication to sick detainees
- Severely restricting the category of family members entitled to visit prisoners thus denying visitation rights to other close family members
- Arbitrary denial of travel permits to family members of prisoners living in the West Bank or Gaza so that they cannot travel to prisons to see their relatives
- Imposing conditions on travel for family members and obstacles that result in travel of a few hours being prolonged to 16 or 17 hours for a 45-minute visit
- Conducting humiliating strip searches of visiting family members even though they are usually separated from the prisoners by a full glass barrier as well as a wire mesh barrier.
- Providing such poor visitation facilities that prisoners find it difficult to see or hear their loved ones
- Maintaining prisoners on near starvation diets that are insufficient to sustain health.
- Applying rules concerning items that prisoners may receive from their families arbitrarily and inconsistently, on the whim of the guards, with each visit.
- Withdrawing studying privileges that in the past allowed prisoners to continue their high school or university studies through correspondence courses

The treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel violates both international and Israeli laws, as well as rules governing the administration of Israeli prisons. The Committee for the Families is planning a series of activities in the West Bank to coincide with the start of the hunger strike on August 15th.

Scheduled Activities:

1. A press conference at noon in Ramallah will kick off the campaign Sunday, August 15.
2. Hunger strike solidarity tents will be set up in the centre of all the cities in the West Bank and in all the Red Cross Centres and will be occupied by the public around the clock for as long as the prisoners'strike lasts.
3. August 18; The Palestinian Prime Ministers' office has declared this day National Day for Prisoners, a day that all Palestinians will show solidarity with the prisoners. All government ministers, members of the Palestinian National Council and heads of all political parties will join the public in the Solidarity Tents and fast in support of the prisoners.
4. August 20; after Jumپfa prayers at mosques processions will march towards the Solidarity Tents.
5. August 21st; Palestinians in various Israeli cities will march, together with other supporters, to the prisons where Palestinian political prisoners are being held
6. August 22; after church services, processions will march to the Solidarity Tents. These processions will be held every weekend during the campaign.
7. August 23; children of the prisoners will lead a procession.
8. August 25; all professionals involved in the Justice system in Palestine will congregate at the Solidarity Tents in their official legal gowns and will lead a procession to the centre of their cities.
9. August 26; the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Arun Gandhi, will lead a mass procession in Ramallah.
10. August 28; candlelight processions will be held at 8:00 p.m.
11. August 29; all members of the public are invited to join the open hunger strike.

September 4, 2004: International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners

We ask you also to register your protests by letter, fax, email, or telephone to the officials listed below. Ask them to stop the harsh treatment of Palestinian political prisoners and to accede the demands of the striking prisoners so that the conditions under which they are imprisoned are consistent with international norms of human rights and basic decency.

In addition, please register your protest with your own political representatives and governments ministers.

Please send a copy of your protest message to alhureih@yahoo.com

Messages of support from organizations would also be appreciated by the prisoners and their families. Please send them to the same address with some details of the organization.

For more information visit our temporary website at www.palsolidarity.org/prisoners or telephone (972) 2 277 4602 or (972) 547-358-579 or email: info@palsolidarity.org

With much appreciation for your valued support,

Mahmoud Ziadi, General Secretariat, Families of Palestinian Political Prisoners PO Box 2151, Ramallah, Palestine.

Israeli Government Contacts:

Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon Office of the Prime Minister 3 Kaplan Str., P.O. Box 187 Jerusalem, 91919 Israel Fax: 972-2-670-5475 e-mail: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz 37 Kaplan Str. Tel Aviv, 61909, Israel Fax: 972-3-696-2757 or 691-7915 e-mail: san@mod.gov.il or pnoit@mod.gov.il

Minister of Justice, Yosef Lapid 29 Salah al-Din Str. Jerusalem, 91010, Israel Fax: 972-2-628-5492 e-mail: san@justice.gov.il

Minister of Interior, Tzahi Haneghi Kiryat Hamenshala, P.O. Box 18182 Jerusalem, 91181 Israel Tel. 972-2-530-9999 Fax: 972-2-584-7872 e-mail: sar@mops.gov.il

Addresses of Israeli embassies worldwide can be found at www.embassyworld.com/embassy/isreal1.htm or go to the Government of Israel website at www.info.gov.il/FirstGov/

We just shot an Arab boy-now you will hear his screams," Israeli soldier told family.

Israeli soldiers drove into Balata camp this morning and proceeded to shoot a 15 year old boy, Nasser, in his stomach. Two hours later they blew the arm off another boy, Abdul Salem. International volunteers are trying to prevent the soldiers from shooting more children but the soldiers are continuing to rampage and shoot live rounds.

Almost every day for the last three weeks soldiers have come into the camp, parked their jeeps to provoke the children, and then used excessive force against them. Two days ago in Nablus, a soldier leaned out of an occupied house and shot Salim Alkusa (16) in the stomach, he died two hours later. The soldiers first pointed his gun at a medical crew. Internationals yelled out,"don't shoot," he changed direction aimed his M16 at a group of teenagers on the other side of the road and shot Salim.

Later in Balata, whilst internationals were standing with a group of children, a soldier opened the side door of his jeep and shot Sami Abu Mustafa in the back of his head. Internationals and medical volunteers ran to pick him up- there was a hole in his skull, he was bleeding profusely and his eyes were rolling back.

In the last three weeks in Balata alone, soldiers have shot and killed three teenagers, one while he was drinking tea with his friends in the cemetery next to the grave of his relative. There is no reason for the soldiers to be in the camp: often they do not appear to be doing any kind of military operation; they do not arrest anyone; they just seem intent on terrorizing the residents.

The last boy killed was shot from a house which soldiers had occupied up on a hill. The family whose home it is told us that just after the soldier shot the boy, he turned to them and said: "We just shot an Arab boy, now you will hear his screams".

Latest update: Israeli soldiers occupied the home of the Walweel family last night. The family had already lost their son six months ago when he was shot by an Israeli soldier. The mother was six months pregnant and the terror she experienced when the soldiers entered the home resulted in the death of her unborn child. ISM activists accompanied the male members of the household to the cemetery to bury the baby.

Names of those shot since 17th July.

Husam Abu Zaitoun 17 years old - shot dead whilst he was drinking tea with his friends in the cemetery next to the grave of his relatives.
Salim Alkusa 16 years old shot in the stomach - died 2 hours later
Sami Abu Mustafa 15 shot in the back of head now in intensive care
Bashar Zwiek 16 shot in the eye with a rubber coated metal bullet - now blind.
Mohammed Hurani 15 shot and killed in the street yesterday by snipers.
Yasir Tantawy (20) Soldiers shot him in the leg, then whilst he lay injured on the ground and while a medical crew tried to reach him, a soldier got out of his jeep and riddled his body with bullets.
August 4, Israeli soldiers shot a market stall holder dead.
Latest child death: unborn baby dies in mothers womb

All of these people were unarmed and soldiers could see clearly who they were shooting.

For more information contact:

Kole: 972-59-737-118 or 972-658-64-284 Media Office: 972-2-277-4602 or 972-547-358-579