:icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

[Shades]

Palestinians have protested against the stop work orders given by the Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO) on nine structures around the village of At-Tuwani.

The orders were delivered to seven new houses, one cave, and one cistern in the area on Monday.

The Israeli military sometimes delivers a stop work order to a structure prior to a demolition order, and after the order is delivered, the Israeli military demolishes the structure.

When the DCO orders were delivered, Palestinian children and adults gathered in the area and protested the stop work orders. The children surrounded each house and shouted loudly in an attempt to make it difficult for the DCO to deliver the orders as well as making it difficult for the DCO and soldiers to use their radio and phones.

While delivering the stop work orders, a member of the DCO struck a small child and an Israeli soldier shoved a Palestinian civilian to the ground. They also arrested a protesting Palestinian man who was supposedly charged with “threatening soldiers” and remains in the Kiryat Arba police station.

One Palestinian called on the DCO and soldiers to deliver demolition orders to the illegal buildings in the Israeli outpost of Havat Ma'on, which continues to expand on occupied territory.

One such house, which was delivered the stop work orders, had already been destroyed during the night of July 16. The Palestinian family suspects the house had been demolished by Israeli settlers from the Israeli settlement of Ma'on or the illegal outpost of Havat Ma'on, and the family began rebuilding the home the next day.

Despite harassment by Zionist settlers aimed at discouraging the growth of the village of At-Tuwani, Palestinians remain committed to asserting their right to develop and build their own homes on their private plots of land.

[Shades]

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:16:33 GMT
Font size :

Armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank.


Israeli settlers are continuing their latest spate of attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank.

Starting Monday, the settlers have attacked Palestinians' cars in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron (al-Khalil).

In Hebron, settlers stoned Palestinian cars late on Monday night, and near Nablus they set fire and damaged crops of Palestinian farmers. At least three Palestinians were injured in the attacks.

In another incident on Tuesday afternoon, Israeli settlers attacked a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Walid Assaf, by throwing stones from behind at his car as he was driving in the direction of Qalqiliya on the Nablus bypass road. The car's windshield was shattered completely.


The lawmaker tried to chase the attackers, but they escaped into the Israeli settlement of Gilad, close to the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli media sources reported on Tuesday that the military is planning to evacuate 23 illegal settlers' outposts in the coming days. The reports said that the military and police have conducted exercises to do all evictions in one day.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued a statement saying that the exercises were regular and it has neither plans nor orders to evacuate those settlements.

Since capturing the West Bank from Jordan in an aggressive war in 1967, Israel has followed a policy of constructing settlements for Zionists from far and wide, often through land-grabs from the native Palestinians. Such settlements are illegal under international law and have been condemned worldwide.

They are also an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. But their expansion goes on.

FTP/ZAP/HGL

[Shades]

France summons the Israeli ambassador in Paris to demand a halt to 'illegal' expansion of Jewish settlements in east al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The move on Tuesday came as Russia lent its voice to the mounting international outcry against the planned construction of 20 apartments in Sheikh Jarrah, a week after the United States summoned Israel's top envoy to Washington.

"The Israeli ambassador in Washington was summoned and the ambassador in Paris [Daniel Shek] has now been summoned to the foreign ministry," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters at a weekly news conference.

"We are going to discuss the continuing construction of settlements…These activities must be stopped. Otherwise there will be no chance to found an independent Palestinian state that administers itself and also guarantees Israel's security," he stressed, adding that the settlements went against both international and Israeli law.
Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:50:24 GMT
President Nicolas Sarkozy also highlighted "the need for a complete freeze" of settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, during a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Paris.

President Barack Obama's administration reportedly summoned Israel's ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, last week to convey their objections to the plans.

Kouchner said this betrayed a "clear division" between the US and Israel over “colonization in a precise district of east Jerusalem."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls to halt what the international community has slammed as 'illegal' settlements on occupied Palestrina territory.

He claims Israel's sovereignty over al-Quds is “non-negotiable” as “unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel,”

ZHD/DT

[Shades]

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:44:07 GMT
Font size :

The Israeli army has launched a cross border attack on the Gaza Strip, destroying a three-story house and some farm buildings, witnesses say.

The army backed up by Israeli tanks carried out the attack near Khan Yunes on Tuesday.

According to witnesses, army forces penetrated 500 metres (550 yards) inside the Palestinian territory and used a bulldozer to knock down the house, AFP reported.

There were no reports of Palestinian injuries.

The Israeli military has made no comments about the incursion.

[Shades]

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:39:14 GMT
Font size :

Israel plans declaring ownership of the West Bank's Dead Sea shore as “state property,” to confiscate more Palestinian land, an anti-settlement group says.

"Israeli authorities have announced that they intend to declare as state land some 138,600 dunums (34,650 acres) that has emerged along the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank due to the drop in the water level," said Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now group Tuesday, quoted by AFP.

The land, which has emerged as a result of Dead Sea shrinkage, is located along the shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

According to the anti-settlement group, the amount of land involved may go beyond the shoreline that has surfaced as a consequence of an estimated one meter (yard) drop in the water level per year.

"It would appear that the primary purpose of registering this area as 'state land' is to prevent Palestinian use of the land or any Palestinian assertion of ownership over it," Ofran added.

In the West Bank, "the designation of 'state land' -- land to be held in trust by the occupying power and to be used for the benefit of the indigenous population -- has been abused as a form of de facto expropriation," said the group.

Israel occupied the West Bank during the Six-Day War of 1967, and it has so far "declared or registered huge areas of the West Bank as 'state land' and virtually all of this land has been given over for the exclusive use and exclusive benefit of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military," the group said.

SB/MB/DT

[Shades]

Israeli army soldiers have taken as many as seven Palestinians into custody following pre-dawn raids in a number of occupied West Bank towns.

According to the Ma'an news agency, those detained in the late Sunday operations were from the cities of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem), Ariha (Jericho) and the nearby villages.

The Israeli army regularly arrests Palestinians during overnight operations in West Bank towns. The detentions are in flagrant violation of a security agreement with the Palestinian National Authority.

Tel Aviv claims that those arrested in the raids are 'wanted activists' and taken for interrogation.

More than 11,500 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities, suffering harsh and life-threatening conditions.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority security forces have detained at least 5 members of the Islamic Hamas Movement in the West Bank.

Hamas, in a statement, announced that the men were taken from their homes in Qalqiliya, Tulkarem and Jenin.

The recent detentions come as part of a crackdown that the Palestinian Authority has launched on Hamas affiliates in the West Bank.

MP/SME/MMN

[Shades]

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:14:10 GMT
Font size :

Jewish settlers set fire to Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank.
Jewish settlers have set fire to at least 1,500 olive trees owned by Palestinians in the West Bank after officials evacuated a number of illegal buildings.

The assailants on horseback attacked the Palestinian farms on Monday and others stoned cars, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

A security official said two Palestinians had been wounded in the incident with five vehicles damaged near the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, outside Nablus.

He estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 olive trees were burnt in the attack.

Jewish settlers had previously declared that they would respond to any move to dismantle illegal settlements in the occupied territory through violent attacks on Palestinians and their properties.

Police on Monday evacuated two buildings in three illegal outposts and demolished two homes in the Adei Ad outpost. Israeli officials, however, only evacuated recently-built illegal buildings and not the entire outpost.

A Palestinian official said the police and army are too lenient toward the settlers who attack Palestinians and their properties on a regular basis.

"The settlers are being encouraged by the Netanyahu government," said Rasan Darles.

Under a previous agreement, Tel Aviv must dismantle illegal settlements built in the West Bank, which was occupied by the forces loyal to the Zionist movement during the 1967 war.

SB/HGH/AA

[Shades]

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:04:46 GMT
Font size :

Despite international calls for a freeze on settlement buildings in the occupied territory, Israel refuses to halt its construction projects.
With a dispute over Israeli occupation of acres of Palestinian land still unsettled, Tel Aviv takes a step to purchase dozens of properties in Jordan to further expand its territory.

The Israel Land Fund, which promotes Jewish construction and has bought land and dozens of houses in occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank, is planning to bring Jews from European countries to purchase dozens of properties once owned by Jews in neighboring Jordan.

"There are thousands of Jewish properties in Jordan which were purchased during the Ottoman era and under the British mandate. We have records of the ownership", chairman of the extreme-right Jewish organization Arieh King told AFP.

"We are trying to bring Jews from European countries to purchase property which we locate in Jordan," King said,

Up until 1995, selling land in Jordan to Israelis or anyone acting on their behalf was illegal and punishable by death. The new ruling which replaced the previous statute still bars Israelis from buying, or leasing, Jordanian land.

"[I]t is impermissible for foreign persons or corporate entities that do not hold an Arab nationality to purchase, lease, or own directly or indirectly any immovable property in the kingdom" according to the Law on Economic Boycott and Banning Dealing with the Enemy (Article 6) without an exception approved by high level political authorization.

King, however, said the organization would coordinate attempts to buy historically "Jewish-owned" land.

The move is expected to cause tensions between Tel Aviv and Amman, which is one of the only two Arab states having diplomatic ties with Israel. Egypt is the other Arab country recognizing Israel.

Earlier in 1967, the Israel Land Fund purchased the occupied territory in the West Bank which had been earlier seized from Jordan.

The disputed territory has been the cause of a long-running conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

While Palestinians have long been fighting to win back their territory for "a future state", far-right Jews are determined to keep the land in hopes of achieving what they describe as a "Greater Israel."

Historically, the concept of a "Greater Israel" also included occupation of Jordanian land.

HE/CS

[Shades]

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:12:00 GMT
Font size :

In contrast to Washington's public call for a freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, there are reports suggesting that private money coming from the US is funding the expansion.

Each year millions of dollars made in Jewish-run US activities pour into Israel to help fund settlements on Palestinian land, where Israeli forces have forced the native Arabs out of their properties in their thousands.

According to The guardian, Hawaiian Gardens' charity bingo hall --in California-- is one of the main supporters of the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which has donated tens of millions of dollars over the past 20 years to the Israeli government.

The British daily says the games' profits make their way into Israel through a Foundation owned by American Jewish doctor and millionaire Irving Moskowitz.

The Israeli-run charity assures those who spent their money on bingo --mostly Latino residents of Hawaiian Gardens-- that their dollars are destined for a good cause while the real winners and losers live many thousands of miles away.

While the bingo operation has received severe criticism from opponents of Jewish settlement activity, Moskowitz is planning to build a much bigger bingo hall in the area, which will increase the flow of cash.

Rabbis serving the Hawaiian Gardens area accuse Moskowitz of "taking millions from the poorest town in California and sending it for Israeli settlement development", Jewish religious leaders in California have repeatedly called for a block on the flow of funds to the settlers.

The American Jewish doctor --best known for anti-Palestinian sentiments-- has also dedicated millions of dollars to influential American groups and think tanks backing Israel's hawkish government. Moskowitz opposes Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, describing it as a "slide toward concessions, surrender, and Israeli suicide".

Palestinians have repeatedly said that they would resume the long stalled peace talks only after Tel Aviv stops settlement activity in the West Bank, which was captured by Israel during 1967 war.

While the US, along with the international community, wants Israel to stop all settlement activity in the occupied territory, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to heed the call.

Israel says it wants to continue its settlement activities on Palestinian land due to what it calls satisfying "natural growth” of the Israeli population.

HE/SC/DT

[Shades]

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:03:59 GMT
Font size :

The Palestinian Authority lifts a ban on Al Jazeera operation in the West Bank four days after banning the Arab satellite television in the territory.

"I have decided to revoke the suspension of the work of the bureau of Al Jazeera," acting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in a statement on Sunday.

The PA had banned the Arabic news channel last week after it hosted an exiled official in Abbas' Fatah movement who alleged the Palestinian leader played a role in the death of his legendary predecessor, Yasser Arafat, in 2004.

Fayyad however said the Palestinian Authority would pursue legal action against the broadcaster "for its continuous incitement against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority."

SB/MD