Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten - Außenpolitik

Israel wird tatsälich ein NATO Mitglieder geworden

520 Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention

The Palestinian Authority Committee for Prisoners' Affairs said Monday that Israel is now holding some 520 Palestinian prisoners under administrative detention without trial or charge.

The head of the committee, Issa Qaraqe, told Ma'an that among the administrative detainees were five children and two members of Palestine's parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council.

He identified the children as Baseer al-Atrash, Muhammad Sharif Abu Turkey, Muhammad Ghaith, Khazem Subaih, and Fadi Abbasi.

The MPs in Israeli custody are Muhammad Jamal al-Natshah and Hassan Yousef. Yousef has been imprisoned by Israel on multiple occasions in the past, and was most recently released from Israeli custody in June after spending a year without trial or charge.

The latest number is up from around 370 administrative detainees before a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory at the beginning of October.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769216

Free Activist Rajeh Abu Ajamieh

Israeli forces issued a new administrative detention order for Hebron Defense Committee (HDC) human rights worker Rajeh Abu Ajamieh.

The order sentences him to prison until March 23rd 2016.

Ajamieh was recently released from prison on November 24th 2015, after completing a yearlong prison sentence under another administrative detention order.

His quick rearrest constitutes Ajamieh’s third time held in administrative detention.

Ajamieh’s multiple arrests are indicative of Israeli authorities’ flagrant use of administrative detention to bypass the judicial system and put Palestinians in prison indefinitely, without charges or trial.

In using this extreme measure so sweepingly, Israel acts with blatant disregard for international law.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1179-act-free-activist-rajeh-abu-ajamieh

Israeli forces detain 22 Palestinians across West Bank

Israeli forces detained at least 22 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in predawn raids on Monday, including 10 alleged members of Hamas, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

At least six Palestinians were detained from their homes in the Hebron district, locals said, included three children from the town of Halhul to Hebron's north.

They were identified as brothers Laith and Ahmad Bajes al-Baw, 16 and 13-years-old, and Rashid Ali Abu Asabah, 13, who is mute and deaf.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769214

Israel delivers 12 demolition, stop-work notices in Qalqiliya

Israeli forces on Monday delivered demolition notices and stop-work orders to 12 families in the al-Naqqar area of Qalqilya city in the northern occupied West Bank, local officials told Ma'an.

Rafe Rawajba, the governor of Qalqiliya, said that all the buildings that were given demolition or stop-work orders had been built with the necessary licenses, and the families had all gone through the necessary legal procedures to build.

Rawajba said he believed the orders were a form of "collective punishment" against the people of Qalqiliya, adding that they were delivered following days of clashes between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces in al-Naqqar.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769221

Israeli forces prepare to demolish 3 Palestinian homes

Israeli military forces on Monday and late Sunday raided the West Bank homes of several Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis in preparation to demolish the properties, locals said.

Israeli forces raided the home of Anas Hammad, 20, in the village of Silwad northeast of Ramallah on Monday and told family members that their home would be demolished.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769212

Thousands join funeral of slain Palestinian in Ramallah-area village

Thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of 26-year-old Abed al-Rahman Barghouthi on Friday, a day after he was shot dead by Israeli forces outside the village of Abud northwest of Ramallah.

An official military procession, led by officers of the Palestinian National Forces, carried Barghouthi's body from the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah to Abud, where he was laid to rest in the village ceremony following funeral prayers in the local mosque.

Barghouthi's body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and carried on mourners' shoulders, a Ma'an reporter said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769186

5 Palestinians shot, injured in clashes in West Bank, Gaza

Israeli forces shot and wounded at least five Palestinians with live rounds in the latest clashes to erupt across the occupied West Bank and Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian sources said.

Medics told Ma'an that a Palestinian child was left in critical condition after he was shot in his abdomen during clashes at the entrance to Silwad village east of Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769208

Israeli forces shoot, injure teen during Kafr Qaddum clashes

Israeli forces on Saturday afternoon shot and wounded a 16-year-old Palestinian boy with live fire during clashes in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum near Qalqiliya, a local official said.

Murad Shtewei, a spokesperson for a popular committee in the village, told Ma'an that Israeli soldiers shot Aqel Ramzi in the thigh in clashes that broke out following a demonstration.

He said that Israeli forces had "ambushed" the march, firing live rounds and tear gas canisters at them.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769189

Israeli forces shoot, injure teen during clashes in Nablus

Israeli forces on Sunday shot and injured a Palestinian youth with live fire during clashes in Beit Furik village in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, a member of a local committe told Ma'an.

Munadil Hanini, on the village's central committee for the popular struggle, said that Israeli forces shot 18-year-old Muhammad Hamadna al-Imor in the back during clashes in the village, and detained four Palestinians from the area.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769200

Israeli forces tear gas Hebron schools, raid medical center

Dozens of Palestinian schoolchildren on Sunday suffered from severe tear gas inhalation in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, as Israeli forces fired the gas at multiple schools, the director of the PA Ministry of Education in Hebron said.

Bassam Tahboub said Israeli forces “deliberately" fired tear gas at multiple schools in Hebron, adding that he and the ministry denounced Israel's "provocative" actions against schoolchildren.

The director of a health work committee in Hebron, Ramzi Abu Yousif, told Ma'an that the children who were injured were taken to a nearby medical center. Yousif said Israeli forces raided the medical center while the children were receiving treatment for tear gas inhalation.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769197

Israeli forces detain schoolgirl in Jerusalem, alleging she had knife

Israeli forces on Sunday detained a Palestinian schoolgirl for alleged possession of a knife in the Wadi Hilweh area of Silwan neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, the head of a local watchdog said.

Jawad Seyam, who heads the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, said that Israeli forces detained 15-year-old Manar Majdi Shweki on the grounds that the girl was carrying a knife.

Israeli forces found the alleged knife during a search of her belongings, although it was not clear what prompted the search.

Palestinian youths reportedly filmed the search and arrest of the girl on their phones, which were later confiscated by Israeli forces.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769201

U.S. Citizen, Israel Keller, Member of Jewish Terror Ring

The Dawabsheh murder case gets curiouser and curiouser: Walla has just revealed that one of four Israeli settler youth accused of committing the arson fire which murdered three members of the Dawabsheh family and left a boy orphaned, is a U.S. citizen. The family, whose name isn’t mentioned, has turned for assistance to the U.S. embassy and senators. Israeli media acknowledge that the suspects have been tortured in order to extract information about the crime. I imagine that these appeals are meant to protect their child from such treatment.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/04/walla-u-s-citizen-member-of-jewish-terror-ring/

Torture Lawyer Named as New Israeli Judge

In order for the Shabak to torture prisoners, it must get the approval of a lawyer, the agency’s “legal advisor.” This person not only approves individual cases of torture, he provides legal justification for it in broader cases that might reach the Supreme Court. He’s the John Yoo of the Israeli security apparatus. Put in Jewish halachic terms, the Israeli agency’s legal advisor is like the rabbi who supervises the slaughter of animals in order to ensure the meat is kosher: the mashgiach. Slaughtering animals, like torture is a dirty business. But if done halachically, the mashgiach permits good Jews to eat confident in notion that they are eating food that satisfies Jewish legal requirements. This lawyer is the mashgiach of torture.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/04/torture-lawyer-named-as-new-israeli-judge/

Reclaiming Palestine: How Israeli Media Misread the Intifada

Israeli commentators, Yaron Friedman, of “Ynet News” and Haviv Rettig Gur, of the “Times of Israel” are clueless about the driving force behind the Palestinian mobilization and collective struggle. In two recent articles, and with unmistakable conceit, they attempted to highlight what they perceive as the failure of the current Palestinian uprising, or ‘Intifada’.

Gur argues that 'the terrorism' of the Palestinians is not a surge of opposition to Israel but a “howl against the pervasive sense that resistance has failed”. He reduces the Intifada to the mere act of alleged stabbing of Israelis, and points out to the painful truth that the Palestinian Authority 'elites' are paying lip service to the 'martyrs', while “simultaneously acting with determination on the ground to disrupt and stop attacks”.

In his long-winded article, “Losing Palestine”, Gur essentially claims that the current struggle against Occupation stems mostly from internet fervor and is more a deceleration of defeat than a strategy for victory, and that no Palestinian leader dares to be the first to accept this.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/22545-israeli-commentators-yaron-friedman-of-ynet-news-and-haviv-rettig-gur-of-the-times-of-israel-are-clueless-about-the-driving-force-behind-the-palestinian-mobilization-and-collective-struggle-in-two-recent-articles-and-with-unmistakable-conceit-th

Nobody is coming to end the occupation

In meetings between top-ranking Israeli and American officials over the past few weeks, the United States reportedly demanded that Benjamin Netanyahu outline steps he is willing to take to ensure the window for a two-state solution doesn’t slam shut. Netanyahu’s answer has more or less been: nothing.

Asked to make goodwill or humanitarian gestures to the Palestinians to keep a two-state vision alive, Netanyahu reportedly conditioned any step on the United States endorsing Israel’s “right” to build settlements in the occupied West Bank. “Umm, no,” Washington replied for a plethora of obvious reasons.
http://972mag.com/nobody-is-coming-to-end-the-occupation/114274/

Nightmares in Jalazone: Families deal with trauma following Israeli torture

To understand psychiatric home visits in Palestine necessitates forgoing Western assumptions about patient confidentiality, privacy, and timeliness. Though individual patients often refer themselves to treatment centers after a release from prison, the difficulty of traveling to and from major cities requires therapists to make home visits. Families then participate in the session as a group, thereby coming to better understand their family member’s situation and relieving some of their own symptoms as well. Throughout Palestine, families are regularly made to feel that their own house is unsafe and outside of their control. Violence may overtake a peaceful setting without warning, and to resist an arrest would be to invite danger on the rest of the relatives. A study conducted by the Ramallah Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) examining arrests as trauma-inducing events explains that, “92% of arrests [surveyed] happened at home, and most of [them] happened…in the time periods of deep sleep after midnight. This had caused severe emotional and psychological damages to the families, and doubled the impact of emotional suffering and immediate trauma” (“The Impact of Detention on Palestinian Detainees’ Families in Israeli Prisons,” 2011).
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/12/nightmares-families-following

Medics: Bethlehem youth shot dead with illegal ammunition

Malik Akram Shahin, 19, who was shot dead by Israeli forces in Bethlehem overnight Monday, was killed by an explosive bullet fired at his head, medical sources at the Beit Jala Governmental Hospital told Ma'an.

Medics said the explosive bullet smashed Shahin's skull, and exploded inside his head, with the bullet and skull fragments shattering into "hundreds of pieces."

The sources said the positioning of the shot, as well as the type of bullet used, clearly indicates that Israeli forces shot at Shahin with every intention to kill.

The use of explosive bullets, also called expanding bullets or "dum dum" bullets, is illegal under international law, and considered a crime of war under the 1899 Hague Declaration and the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute, among others.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769247

Three Palestinians were injured by live fire early Wednesday morning as Israeli forces ransacked homes across the occupied West Bank detaining at least 31, locals said.

Locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces heavily opened fire in the Nablus-area town of Tubas after surrounding the home of a leader of the political group Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769256

Israeli forces detained eight Palestinians early Thursday from across the occupied West Bank, locals and Israel’s army said.

Locals told Ma’an that Saleh Dawood al-Rajabi was detained from his home in the southern area of Hebron city.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769272

A former member of a Jewish terror group and his wife were shot and injured on Wednesday evening in a drive-by shooting near Tulkarem in the northern occupied West Bank, Israel's army and media reported.

Shaul Nir, a former member of the Jewish Underground, a group which carried out a string of terror attacks in the 1980s, was seriously to moderately wounded in the shooting near Tulkarem, and his wife, Rachel Nir was lightly wounded.

Shaul, along with three other members of the group, was sentenced to life after being convicted of a 1983 shooting attack on the Islamic College of Hebron, which killed three students and wounded 33. His sentence was later reduced, and Shaul was released.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769263

Clashes broke out between Palestinian youths and Israeli military forces Wednesday night as the military launched a search operation in Tulkarem for a suspected gunman who opened fire on two Israelis, locals said.

Shaul Nir, former member of the Jewish Underground -- a group which carried out a string of terror attacks in the 1980s -- was seriously to moderately wounded in a drive-by shooting shooting near Tulkarem Wednesday night. His wife Rachel Nir was lightly wounded.

The Israeli military raided Palestinian towns and villages throughout the Tulkarem governorate following the shooting in search of the suspect.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769268

Tulkarem completely sealed as Israeli forces search for gunman

Israeli forces maintained a complete closure Thursday of the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem in the search for a gunman who injured a former member of a Jewish terror group and his wife, locals said.

Locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces on Wednesday night raided Tulkarem and surrounding areas directly after the shooting, closing entrances leading into the city with cement blocks.

Israeli forces retreated from Tulkarem early Thursday morning and remained deployed near city entrances, locals said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769264

Village in South Hebron Hills Attacked

On Sunday, December 6th 2015, Israeli soldiers invaded the Khirbet al-Taban, a village in the south Hebron hills, damaging residents’ homes.

Soldiers damaged and confiscated windows and doors belonging to the homes of Abu Obaid and the Hamamrea family.

The families now worry that they will be dangerously exposed to the elements during the winter.

The Hebron Popular Committee stated that international organizations supplied some new doors and windows to the affected homes.

Residents of al-Taban are subject to Israeli authorities’ efforts to forcibly displace Palestinians from the area.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1183-village-in-south-hebron-hills-attacked

Israeli military forces level Palestinian land near Gaza border
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769253

Weltkindertag: 400 Kinder in israelischen Gefängnissen

Ramallah (Westbank) Der Palästinensische Gefangenenklub (PPC) machte am Weltkindertag (20. November) öffentlich, dass die israelischen Besatzungsbehörden ca. 400 palästinensische Kinder im Alter zwischen 11 und 17 Jahren in ihren Gefängnissen halten .
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16626

Number of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons doubles

Marah Bakir, 16, was leaving school in occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on 12 October when she was shot and injured by Israeli police. They allege she intended to stab an officer.

However, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that Marah had been walking with a friend when they were harassed by an Israeli who accused her of being a “terrorist.” Witnesses said police quickly surrounded her and opened fire four or five times.

Marah is now one of three Palestinian teenage girls held in Ramle prison with Israeli women convicted of criminal offenses.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/number-palestinian-children-israeli-prisons-doubles

Israel sentences Palestinian lawmaker to 15 months in prison

An Israeli military court has sentenced Khalida Jarrar, the prominent leftist activist and legislator, to 15 months in prison.

Jarrar was seized during a late-night raid on her home in al-Bireh, a town near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, in April. She was held without charge or trial under a six-month administrative detention order.
An Israeli military court has sentenced Khalida Jarrar, the prominent leftist activist and legislator, to 15 months in prison.

Jarrar was seized during a late-night raid on her home in al-Bireh, a town near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, in April. She was held without charge or trial under a six-month administrative detention order.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israel-sentences-palestinian-lawmaker-15-months-prison

Hares Boys sentenced to 15 years

On November 26th 2015, the Israeli court charged teenagers Ali Shamlawi, Mohammed Kleib, Mohammed Suleiman, Ammar Souf and Tamer Souf with manslaughter.

The court sentenced the boys to 15 years in prison, provided they each pay NIS 30,000 (approximately $7,750) by January 28th 2016.

Failure to pay this amount will likely result in another 10 years of prison time added to each boys' sentence.

The boys have been in an adult Israeli prison for 2 years and 8 months already, accused of throwing stones at a settlers’ car.

The boys’ arrest stemmed from an accident in March 2013, when a settler driving with her three daughters crashed into a parked truck on Route 5.

The settler’s children were severely injured. One child died this year from the injuries she sustained in the accident, compounded by pneumonia.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1186-hares-boys-sentenced-to-15-years

On Human Rights Day: Israeli Occupation Continues to Carry Out Mass Arrests of Palestinians and Subject them to Abuset .

Occupied Ramallah - 10 December 2015 –This year, Palestinians mark International Human Rights Day mourning over 118 Palestinians including 25 children who were killed by IOF in the past two months. Palestinians mark this day following two months of nonstop violence and widespread human rights violations by Israeli Occupation Forces against the Palestinian civilian population in response to a popular uprising in the occupied territory. Today, over 6,500 Palestinians remain imprisoned by Israeli occupation including at least 450 children, 587 Palestinians held under arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial and five members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

http://addameer.org/news/human-rights-day-israeli-occupation-continues-carry-out-mass-arrests-palestinians-and-subject

Committee condemns conditions of solitary confinement in Israeli jail

A committee for Palestinian prisoners on Saturday condemned the conditions of a prisoner being held in solitary confinement in Israeli jail.

Palestinian prisoner Noor ad-Din Emar, 37, is being held by Israel’s prison service in solitary confinement in the Ayalon jail, according to a committee for Palestinian prisoners and former prisoners.

The committee said in a report that Emar’s solitary confinement cell is infested with insects and that the detainee has been denied family visits.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769320

Palestinian prisoners on 4th day of hunger strike

Palestinian prisoners held in Israel’s detention center in Huwarra near Nablus on Sunday entered the fourth day of a hunger strike, a prisoner's’ society said.

The Palestinian Prisoner's’ Society said that prisoners in the detention center launched the strike in protest of violations carried out by Israel’s prison service

Violations included strip searches and poor living conditions.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769323


Israeli forces shoot 20 Palestinians in West Bank clashes

Israeli forces shot and injured 20 Palestinians during demonstrations held in the occupied Palestinian territory on Saturday, locals and medics said.

In the northern al-Bireh area of Ramallah, three Palestinians were hit by live fire and 16 by rubber-coated steel bullets when clashes erupted between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces.

Locals told Ma’an that university students had organized a peaceful march which came under heavy Israeli fire when demonstrators approached the northern entrance of al-Bireh.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769313

Israeli authorities expand closed military zone in Hebron's Old City
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769317

Hebron bears brunt of Israel’s crackdown

“The main goal is to make Tel Rumeida as Shuhada street: empty from Palestinians,” Issa Amro of the activist group Youth Against Settlements told The Electronic Intifada.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/hebron-bears-brunt-israels-crackdown


Israeli forces raid Nablus-area village, chase school students

Israeli forces raided the al-Sawiya village in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus on Monday and chased school students claiming they were throwing rocks at soldiers, locals said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769343

Israel attacks West Bank college twice in one week

The Israeli army attacked the Palestine Technical University in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem twice this week.

Nine Palestinians were shot Thursday as Israeli soldiers tried to suppress a protest on the campus. On Monday (7-12), five students had to be hospitalized for gunshot wounds.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israel-attacks-west-bank-college-twice-one-week

Israeli forces shoot, injure Gazan farmer near Rafah
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769328

Israeli forces on Monday detained at least 16 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank during pre-dawn raids, local sources told Ma'an.

Sources said Israeli forces raided Qaryut village in the northern occupied West Bank's Nablus district, where they ransacked homes and detained at least eight Palestinians.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769331

Israeli forces detained at least 12 Palestinians in the Ramallah and Hebron districts during overnight raids on Tuesday, Israel's army and local sources said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769347

Video: Israeli settlers blast “Muhammad is dead” song at Palestinians
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israeli-settlers-blast-muhammad-dead-song-palestinians

Israeli forces killing “in cold blood,” Palestinian families say

Israeli forces shot a Palestinian man and, after he was dead, fired at his head at point-blank range, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Mazen Oraibi, a Palestinian Authority intelligence officer from the Jerusalem-area village of Abu Dis, had stepped out of his car at an Israeli checkpoint last Thursday when soldiers opened fire and killed him on the spot.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-forces-killing-cold-blood-palestinian-families-say


Israel setzt niederländische und deutsche Hunde ein, die Palästinenser zu terrorisieren

Es ist einer der zahlreichen Vorfälle, in denen israelische Streitkräfte Hunde auf unbewaffnete, palästinensische Zivilisten, inklusive Kinder, loslassen. Es handelt sich hierbei um eine gewalttätige Taktik, die an die Praktiken der US-Polizei gegen die schwarzen Bürger erinnert.
Die palästinensische Menschenrechtsgruppe al-Haq und niederländische Abgeordnete fordern die Niederlande auf, den jährlichen Export Dutzender Polizei- und Militärhunde nach Israel umgehend einzustellen.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16718

Rights group urges end to Dutch sale of 'attack dogs' to Israel

A Palestinian animal rights group has called on the international community to pressure the Dutch government to halt the sale of “attack dogs” to Israel.

Said Ahmad Safi, Executive Director of the Palestinian Animal League, said in a statement that dogs exported by European countries -- especially the Netherlands -- have long been used by the Israeli military as “living, breathing weapons -- leading to devastating injuries on many civilians.”
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769324


PFLP marks 48th anniversary in Gaza

Thousands of supporters on Saturday joined a rally in the Gaza Strip commemorating the 48th anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Led by top PFLP figures, supporters marched from the Saraya junction in the center of Gaza City to the headquarters of the United Nations waving Palestinian national flags, PFLP flags, as well as photos of Palestinian martyrs .
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769310

Is Israel's High Court the enemy of human rights?

When he woke up from his nightmare one morning, Mr. Israeli discovered that the Israeli High Court had turned into a giant insect. Tasked with balancing the sickening populism of the legislative branch and fighting to protect Israeli democracy, the High Court has become the legal rubber stamp for the racist caprices of its overlords.

This week, as we marked International Human Rights Day, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, published a report on 10 recent decisions by the High Court that violate basic human rights.
http://972mag.com/is-israels-high-court-the-enemy-of-human-rights/114670/

Yaalon declares war on rights group Breaking the Silence

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Tuesday that he had banned Israeli veteran group Breaking the Silence from participating in any official activities with Israeli forces, Israeli media reported.

Yaalon's statement was made on social media, where he called the left-wing veteran group hypocrites spreading "false propaganda" against Israeli forces and the state of Israel in attempt to "delegitimize" them.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769349

Westbank: Sogar Sauglämmer werden von ihren Müttern durch die Mauer getrennt

„Es ist hart für die Mutterschafe. Sie blöken die ganze Zeit. Es dauert 10 Tage bis sie vergessen“.

Die hier in Frage kommenden Mütter sind Schafe, die gerade Junge geboren haben und diese blöken, weil die hohen Tiere der IDF ( Israelische Verteidigungsstreitkräfte) entschieden haben, die Schafmütter von ihren Jungen zu trennen, die diese nicht vergessen. Es spricht der Besitzer der Herde, Jamal Hanina aus Kalkilia.

Seine Schafhürde liegt zwischen Gewächshäusern und Baumschulen auf der nördlichen Seite der Trennungsmauer (innerhalb der Westbank, aber in einem Streifen, der de facto zugunsten der Siedlung Alfe Menasche annektiert wurde) Aber das Weideland liegt südlich, auf der „palästinensischen “ Seite des Zaunes.

Seitdem der Zaun vor etwa 13 Jahren gebaut wurde, ließen die IDF Hanina und seine Herde durch das landwirtschaftliche Tor. Es wird dreimal am Tag für eine Stunde geöffnet. Vor drei Monaten verbaten die IDF den Schafen den Durchgang. Das war vor der Geburt der Lämmer. Nach kurzer Zeit wurde dies widerrufen und die Mutterschafe verbrachten die Nächte in der Schafhürde.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16823

BBC forced to admit it misled over Palestine

For the second time in just over six months, the BBC has been forced to admit that its flagship news and current affairs program — Today — has misled its audiences over the situation in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In a broadcast in October, veteran presenter John Humphrys and Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly implied in a two-way conversation that all of those killed in that month’s violence were Israeli.

In fact, at the date of broadcast, on 19 October, more than 40 of those killed were Palestinian and fewer than 10 Israeli.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/bbc-forced-admit-it-misled-over-palestine

Israel’s revenge demolitions only stiffen Palestinian resolve

When residents of Shuafat woke on 2 December to free-flowing traffic at the checkpoint where Israeli forces control movement to and from this overcrowded refugee camp, many were unnerved.

“We immediately knew that this was not a charitable gesture and that there was an ulterior motive,” Abdullah Alqam, a veteran local activist, told The Electronic Intifada.

And sure enough: that day hundreds of Israeli troops entered the Jerusalem-area camp. Hours later, the home of Ibrahim al-Akkari had been destroyed in accordance with a demolition order handed down by an Israeli court more than a year earlier.

The demolition — overseen by undercover forces disguised as civilians, as well as rooftop snipers — did not just destroy al-Akkari’s penthouse apartment and render his widow, Amira, and their five children homeless.

The explosion that ripped through the area severely damaged three other homes, leaving a further 14 people, including seven children, without roofs over their heads, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

It also evinced a little-commented-upon phenomenon in this current “intifada of the knives,” usually characterized as a series of “lone-wolf” attacks: a growing sense of communal cohesion among Palestinians.

It may be too soon to draw comparisons with the first Palestinian intifada. But communities are beginning to come together in ways reminiscent of the solidarity that defined the 1987-1993 uprising.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-revenge-demolitions-only-stiffen-palestinian-resolve/15063

Israeli forces detain child, 8, in occupied East Jerusalem

Israeli forces on Tuesday detained an 8-year-old Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem, witnesses told Ma'an.

Witnesses said Israeli forces detained the child, who was about to enter a market near the Flowers Gate of the Old City, and took him to a nearby Israeli police station.

An Israeli police spokesperson could not be contacted, and the reason for the detention is unknown.

Since the start of October, Israeli forces have detained at least 2,044 Palestinians, 345 of which have been children, according to documentation by human rights group Addameer.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769353

Israeli forces shoot to kill, deny first aid

The rights group B’Tselem decried Israel’s “excessive and unwarranted use of lethal gunfire” as its forces killed seven more Palestinians in the last week, and a woman died of her injuries after being shot at a checkpoint in November.

Abdallah Nasasra, 15, was killed near the Huwwara military checkpoint outside the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, 17 December.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-forces-shoot-kill-deny-first-aid


14 Palestinians shot, 18 detained in overnight raids

Israeli forces early Wednesday shot and injured 14 Palestinians and detained 18 others in overnight search and arrest raids, locals and Israel’s army said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769356


Israeli forces shoot, injure 15 students at Tulkarem university

Israeli forces on Wednesday shot and injured 15 students with rubber-coated steel bullets and live fire during protests at Palestine Technical University in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tulkarem, medical sources at the Red Crescent told Ma'an.

Sources said five youths were shot and injured with live fire, while 10 more were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets and at least four suffered from severe tear gas inhalation.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769368

Yesterday, Israeli forces shot Palestinians with rubber-coated steel bullets and live fire during a protest against the occupation at Palestine Technical University -- Kadoorie (PTU) in the West Bank district of Tulkarem.

Five people were shot and injured by live fire, 10 by rubber-coated steel bullets, and four suffered from severe tear gas inhalation.

Twenty-five others suffered from moderate tear gas inhalation and were treated at the scene.

Such violence has unfortunately become commonplace at PTU.

Since October, students have been organizing protests against the Israeli occupation at the university.

The fact that Israeli forces maintain a military training ground in close proximity to the university – indeed, on confiscated university land – has meant that these protests have far-reaching affects on students’ daily life at PTU.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1195-tulkarem-s-university-under-attack

Israeli forces shoot, injure 4 with live fire during clashes

Israeli forces on Thursday shot and injured four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip during clashes, locals said.

In the al-Breij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, witnesses told Ma'an that Israeli forces deployed along the eastern border of the area before opening fire at a group of Palestinians, injuring one.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769387

Israeli forces shoot, detain Bethlehem teen, block medics

Israeli forces shot and detained a 19-year-old Palestinian overnight on Wednesday during clashes in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem's al-Obayat village, a spokesperson for the Red Crescent told Ma'an.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769373

Israeli forces detain 3 in Hebron's Beit Ummar
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769374

Israeli forces raid Ramallah-area villages, refugee camps, detain 5
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769375

Israeli forces detain 23 Palestinians across West Bank, East Jerusalem
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769380

Israeli forces detain 8 in West Bank

Israeli military forces on Friday detained eight Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in predawn detention raids, security sources and Israel's army said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769397

18-year-old dies weeks after being hit by Israeli crossfire in Nablus

A 18-year-old Palestinian died on Wednesday after succumbing to wounds sustained from Israeli forces at a military checkpoint in Nablus in October, her family told Ma’an.

Samah Abd al-Mumen was shot at the Huwwara checkpoint on Oct. 23 when Israeli forces opened fire on and killed Alaa Khalil Sabah Hashah, 16, after he attempted to stab a soldier.

Her father told Ma’an that she died in Benlson Medical Center in Israel after being transferred from Rafidiya hospital in Nablus due to her critical injuries.

Palestinian security sources told Ma’an at the time of her injury that Samah was shot in the head while sitting inside her car near where the incident occurred at Huwwara.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769365

Israeli forces level Palestinian land near Gaza border, injure 3

Israeli forces shot and injured three Palestinians after entering a border area in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday in order to level Palestinian land, local residents said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769378

Israeli forces shot and injured a Palestinian farmer south east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health said.

The 20-year-old farmer sustained moderate injuries in the leg and the hand after being shot near the Sofa crossing, located between the al-Fakhari and Rafah areas, the spokesperson for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qirda, told Ma’an.

An Israeli army spokesperson had no immediate information on the incident.

Palestinian fishermen and farmers whose work brings them near the border areas of the besieged coastal enclave frequently come under fire from Israeli forces.

Israeli soldiers on Dec. 13 shot and injured a Palestinian farmer east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769363

Israeli bulldozers enter southern Gaza
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769393

Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians in Qalandiya refugee camp

Israeli forces on Wednesday shot dead two Palestinians during a predawn military raid in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah, locals and medics said.

Locals in the occupied West Bank refugee camp told Ma’an that hundreds of Israeli soldiers and dozens of military vehicles stormed the area around 1 a.m., entering the the densely-populated camp from all sides before ransacking homes and shops.

During the raid, Israeli forces opened fire on 20-year-old Ahmad Jahajha from close range after he rammed his vehicle into a group of Israeli soldiers, witnesses told Ma’an.

Israeli forces reportedly left Jahajha to “bleed to death” before taking his body and detaining another resident who had been shot and injured, witnesses said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769358

Hundreds lay slain Nablus teen to rest
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769383

Israeli forces detain radio journalist in Bethlehem

Israeli forces on Wednesday detained a Palestinian radio journalist in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the journalist told Ma'an after being released.

Bara Abdullah Hamdan,19, said Israeli forces handcuffed him and took him to a nearby Israeli military base, adding that they seized his mobile phone and deleted all photos on the device before releasing him four hours later.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769366

Palestinian woman barred from areas of Jerusalem

Israeli authorities on Thursday barred a Palestinian woman from entering the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem as well as from West Jerusalem.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769392

Israel to confiscate 25 acres of Bethlehem land

Israeli forces plan to go ahead with the confiscation of 102 dunams (25 acres) of land in the Bethlehem district, the Mayor of Bethlehem told Ma'an.

Vera Baboun said Israeli forces plan to confiscate lands in Bethlehem city as well as neighoring Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, with the intention of using the land for nearby illegal Israeli settlements.

Baboun said the three major Bethlehem district cities for more than 10 years have been receiving letters from Israeli authorities ordering the confiscation of the land for the construction of the separation wall. The district has fought the orders in the past, however now the orders cite security threats as the reason for confiscation.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769372

Israeli forces issue 3 stop-work orders in Ramallah-area village

Israeli forces on Wednesday issued three stop-work orders for two homes and a steel structure used as sheep barn in the occupied West Bank village of Idhna, the mayor of the village told Ma'an.

Abdul-Fattah Islimiya said Israeli forces issued the orders under the charges that the structures were being built without Israeli authority construction permits on Area C land, which falls under full Israeli control.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769377

Israeli authorities displace 6 Palestinians in Jerusalem demolition

Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished a house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, displacing six Palestinians, locals said.

Local sources told Ma’an that the residence belonged to Palestinian Ibrahim Diab and his daughter Dina.

The home was 85 square meters and home to six family members, Dina told Ma’an. She said that Israeli forces demolished the home on the grounds that it was constructed without permission from the municipality.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769361

Hundreds in Hebron demand return of 21 bodies held by Israel

Hundreds of Palestinians from the Hebron district on Thursday marched in demand that the Israeli government immediately return the bodies of 21 Palestinians who were recently killed by Israeli forces.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769388

Why won’t Israel return the body of a 14-year-old girl?

It is hard to believe that Hadil Awwad’s room has been abandoned for more than two weeks. It is clean, tidy and smells beautiful.

Teddy bears of many colors are scattered on the two sides of her bed. Hadil received them as a gift from one of her brothers when he returned from China. Even as she turned 14 she continued to keep those teddy bears in her room.

Her new jacket that she had bought recently and only wore once is hanging in the wardrobe.

She will never have a chance to wear it again.

Hadil Awwad was shot dead by Israeli forces on 23 November. She was executed after allegedly trying to stab an Israeli man with scissors on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem.

Her 16-year-old cousin Nurhan was also injured and has subsequently been charged with attempted murder.

Hadil’s mother, Maliha, does not accept Israel’s version of events. Maliha said that the scissors found on her daughter were the ones Hadeel had used in art class.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-wont-israel-return-body-14-year-old-girl/15068

Israel’s decades-long policy of holding Palestinian bodies

Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian dead, and its impact on the living, is being questioned once again as the government continues to withhold the bodies of 22 Palestinians killed following attacks on Israelis during the month of October.

The refusal to turn over the dead to their families -- a policy that Israeli authorities supposedly halted near the end of the Second Intifada -- has provoked controversy among Israeli officials and led tomass protests in the occupied West Bank.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768641

Majority of Palestinians support knife attacks

The majority of Palestinians support the recent string stabbing attacks against Israelis, a poll released Monday found.

The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research (PCPR), found that 67 percent of Palestinians support the use of knife attacks in the current confrontations with Israel, while 31 percent oppose the use of knife attacks.

During the past two-and-a-half months, 119 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli military and civilians, many of which were killed after alleged, attempted or actual attacks against Israelis, and 19 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian attackers.

According to PCPR's poll, 37 percent of Palestinians believe that the current upheaval will turn into a full-on armed Initifada, with only 10 percent believing that the confrontations will gradually dissipated.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769346

Israel and Turkey reach preliminary deal to restore ties - Israeli official

Israel and Turkey have reached a preliminary agreement to normalise relations, including the return of ambassadors to both countries, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

The deal was reached during a recent meeting in Switzerland between the incoming head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Yossi Cohen, Israeli envoy Joseph Ciechanover and Turkish foreign ministry under-secretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-turkey-idUKKBN0U02N120151217

2010 flotilla organisers slam 'unacceptable' Israel-Turkey detente

The IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, the charity responsible for the ill-fated 2010 flotilla to Gaza, has slammed the announcement of negotiations for renewed diplomatic ties between Israel and Turkey.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, the Islamic charity protested against the agreement, saying it would not be changing its own position on Israel and the deaths of Turkish activists following the Israeli army raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010.

"The agreement with Israel is not acceptable," said IHH executive board member Huseyin Oruc. "They have killed 10 humanitarian people on the high seas and they didn’t do anything up to now."
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/organisers-2010-mavi-marmara-flotilla-hit-out-israel-turkey-detente-1580193287

European tourists staying away from Israel in droves

Israel’s tourism industry went into free fall as a result of its summer 2014 assault on Gaza, during which its army killed 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, and left much of the territory devastated.

The number of tourists was lower compared to the prior year’s figure in every month from July 2014. That was until July this year when the number of visitors finally clawed its way back almost to 2013 levels.

But the escalating violence in October and November, originally provoked by Israel’s unchecked assaults and incursions in occupied Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, has set Israel back again.

Statistics released by the tourism ministry this month show that the number of visitors to Israel in November was down 5 percent compared with same month last year, and was 18 percent lower than in November 2013.

But the drop was much sharper in tourism from Europe: overall there were 10 percent fewer visitors from Europe in November than in the same month last year, and 30 percent fewer than in November 2013.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/european-tourists-staying-away-israel-droves

Hungry Warrior: The Untold Story of Hana Shalabi

Throughout her hunger strike, that of exactly 47 days, Hana Shalabi never slept consistently for a number of hours. In the first few days of her strike, she would doze off only to wake up with the sudden fear that someone was trying to hurt her.

But after the first week of the hunger strike, having nothing but a few sips of water a day, her body simply ceased to function in any normal way. So, instead of sleeping, she would fall into a state of delirium, overtaken by frenzied hallucination where memories and persisting future fears coalesced into a sonata of night terror.

I interviewed Hana recently, through a series of discussions that extended for hours, trying to understand what compelled her to risk her life to obtain conditional freedom in Gaza, and to present her story as a showcase for the phenomena of hunger strikes as a form of political struggle inside Israeli prisons. Currently over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, over 500 of them without trial.
http://www.ramzybaroud.net/hungry-warrior-the-untold-story-of-hana-shalabi/

Shabak Torture Interrogations Fail to Yield Murder Confessions

NOTE: Last week, I published a new piece http://www.mintpressnews.com/211874-2/211874/ for Mint Press News, which critiqued Israeli and western opinion polls which profess to find major support within the Muslim community for ISIS and other Islamist groups. I hope you’ll read and promote it on social media.

The Dawabsheh arson murders and the investigation in their aftermath offer a lesson in the abject failure of the Israeli security system in dealing with Jewish terror. It is a system built, not on the normal standards of policing in the western world in which evidence is gathered, witnesses interviewed, scenes reconstructed; rather, the emphasis is on extracting confessions, often by brute force. In the case of Palestinians this will often work because the system is entirely stacked against them. Even if they refuse to confess to a crime for which they aren’t guilty, they know they will go before a judge who will never reject the “evidence” offered by the Shabak and prosecution. So essentially, they have a choice: either they confess and accept a “deal” (on the State’s terms); or they maintain silence and are convicted on much heavier terms.
But it’s different with Jewish suspects. Ironically, Justice is supposed to be blind. But in Israel it is judges who turn a blind eye to the ravages inflicted on Palestinian prisoners. But when it comes to Jews, they can see 20-20. They might disregard claims of torture by the defense if there is a confession. But without one, they will likely refuse to accept the trumped-up dossiers normally offered in the cases of Palestinian suspects and routinely accepted by judges as confirming guilt.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/18/shabak-torture-interrogations-fail-to-yield-murder-confessions/

Israel plunders Palestine’s gas and oil

The Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem (OPT), is rich in oil, gas a shale oil resources, al-Haq claims in its 2015 report, Annexing Energy.

If these resources were to be developed, Palestine would be economically self-sufficient and relieved from dependence on international aid.

However, as expected, Israel has a history of systematically preventing Palestine’s development of oil and gas in the OPT.

Since 1967, the OPT’s natural resources have been governed by Israel’s government, allowing Israel to manage its natural resources to the benefit of Israeli citizens and corporations – not the local population.

Al-Haq explains that Israel prevents Palestine’s development of oil and gas in the OPT by “curtailing Palestinian freedom of movement, appropriating Palestinian resource rich land and sea resources, forcibly stagnating the Palestinian economy and manipulating Palestinian energy dependence for private commercial profit.”

This system goes against international law, which dictates that military commanders have only limited authority regarding natural resources in the OPT. This limited authority is subject to military necessity and the humanitarian concerns of the occupied population.

Al-Haq argues that Israel’s appropriation, exploitation and prevention of development of oil and gas resources “constitute plunder and further breach Palestine’s right to self-determination.”

Moreover, the current system continues to promote the seizure of Palestine’s maritime space and prevent Palestine’s rightful ability to develop its gas distribution network.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1192-israel-plunders-palestine-s-gas-and-oil

Read al-Haq's full report : http://www.alhaq.org/publications/publications-index/item/annexing-energy

2400 Palestinians arrested since October

The Israeli government has embarked upon a sweeping campaign of mass arrests, without differentiating between children and adults, men or women.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainee’ Affairs found that 2400 Palestinians have been arrested since October.

800 of the 2400 arrested Palestinians were Jerusalemites.

While Israeli forces typically arrest 700-900 children annually, since October Israeli forces arrested 1200 Palestinian children – constituting half of total arrests.

400 of the 1200 arrested Palestinian children were Jerusalemites.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1197-2400-palestinians-arrested-since-october

8 detained in predawn arrest raids
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769424

Israeli forces detain 19 Palestinians from across West Bank
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769444

Five Palestinian youths from occupied East Jerusalem were indicted Monday for a range of "terrorist attacks," Israeli police said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769447

96 Palestinians shot by Israeli military in Friday demos

Israeli forces on Friday shot and injured at least 78 Palestinians, two critically, when clashes broke out across the occupied Palestinian territory for the second day in a row.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769404

Palestinian shot dead in Gaza demo near Khan Younis
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769408

Israeli forces level land in Gaza border area

Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers on Monday crossed the border fence into the Gaza Strip east of the village of Khuzaa in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769443

Israeli naval forces detain 14 Palestinian fishermen, seize boats

Israeli naval forces early Tuesday detained 14 Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip near Beit Lahiya and seized their boats, local officials said.

Palestinian security sources told Ma’an that Amjad Zayed, Sami al-Sultan and two other fishermen who were not identified were detained by naval forces after their fishing vessel was confiscated.

Meanwhile, speaker of the syndicate of Gaza fishermen, Nizar Ayyash, told Ma'an that Israeli naval boats had escorted fishermen in their boats to the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769457

Thwarted hopes on Gaza’s border with Egypt

It was extremely difficult for Maher Shawa to accept that the two-day window during which the Rafah crossing opened for humanitarian cases earlier this month had closed before he could get through.

The 67-year-old is in urgent need of heart surgery. He was due to receive treatment, he said, in a Jordanian hospital, where he’d had a first operation in 2004.

“I have my papers completed, and I should have been able to cross the border this time,” Shawa, who spent six years in Israeli prison, said. “I am dying here.”

Shawa is among the thousands of priority cases who have applied for permission to leave Gaza for medical treatment or study abroad, or because they hold foreign passports.

But Egypt has kept Rafah crossing — the sole point of exit and entry for the vast majority of the 1.8 million Palestinians in tiny Gaza — almost entirely closed since October 2014.
http://www.maannews.com/ViewPage.aspx?p=NEW

Palestinian dies after being shot in chest during Friday clashes
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769413

Palestinian killed in Egypt's Sinai

A Palestinian man was shot dead Friday in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula district, Egyptian security sources said.

The security sources told Ma’an that Eyhab Hamdan Marzouq al-Shaer, 25, was shot in al-Shallafa neighborhood of Rafah city. Locals reportedly found his body and took it to a public hospital before Egyptian security arrived.

The sources believed that al-Shaer was likely shot by militants from the Sinai Province group, but did not give further details and the circumstances of his death remain unclear.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769411

Israel to hand over bodies of Jerusalem Palestinians

Israeli authorities are expected to hand over the bodies of Palestinians from Jerusalem that were killed during attacks on Israeli military and civilians in recent months, a lawyer for a prisoners’ rights group said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769412

Palestinian prisoner in Ramla jail 'may die at any moment'

Palestinian prisoner Bassam Ameen al-Sayeh, 43, from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus is in serious health condition and "may die at any moment," the Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs said Saturday.

Issa Qaraqe told Ma'an that al-Sayah is being held in a medical clinic inside of the Ramla prison and suffers from both cancer and heart disease. The prisoner has recently had difficulty breathing, Qaraqe added.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769416

Palestinian woman in Israeli custody ends hunger strike

A Palestinian woman jailed in Israel ended on Sunday an over two-week long hunger strike after Israel’s prison service pledged to meet her demands, a prisoners’ rights group said.

The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said that that 30-year-old Ihsan Hasan Dababsa, from the Hebron-area village of Nuba, began the strike after the prison service moved her from Hasharon to al-Damon prison.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769436

A Palestinian teenager was shot and injured Saturday in clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum.

A spokesperson for the Fatah movement in the Qalqiliya district, Murad Shtewei, told Ma'an that a 17-year-old was "ambushed by Israeli forces" before he was shot with a live bullet in the thigh and a rubber-coated steel bullet in the knee.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769423

Four Palestinians were shot and injured after Israeli forces raided the occupied West Bank village of Tammun, hometown of the suspect of a stab attack that left three Israelis injured the day before, locals said.

Local sources told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers entered the village around 3:00 a.m and ransacked the home of Mahmoud Faisal Bsharat, 20, who was detained Saturday after carrying out the attack in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769432

Israeli forces shoot 9 university students on Tulkarem campus

At least 9 Palestinian students were shot and injured on Sunday when clashes broke out with Israeli forces outside a university in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem.

Clashes erupted after a group of Israeli soldiers deployed at an Israeli military base illegally set up on the campus of Palestine Technical University- Kadoorie, locals told Ma’an.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769437

14-year-old Palestinian shot, wounded by Israeli fire
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769453

Palestinian youths late Saturday threw Molotov cocktails at an Israeli control tower near the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh north of Ramallah, setting it ablaze, locals said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769428

West Bank village punished for exposing Israel’s brutality

The small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh is paying a steep price for a video of Israeli brutality.

Widely circulated in recent months, the video shows the mother and sister of 12-year-old Muhammad Tamimi wresting him away from a masked and armed Israeli soldier. The boy was throttled and jammed into boulders on 28 August, despite having a cast on his arm.

Israeli politicians not only defended the Israeli soldier’s actions; some argued that he should have behaved in an even more cruel manner.

Miri Regev, Israel’s culture minister, said that the soldier should have shot the boy’s unarmed rescuers.

Since the incident, the Israeli army has detained scores of young men from the village and subjected them to lengthy periods of interrogation, during which abusive treatment occurred.

Seventeen are currently imprisoned, including Waed Tamimi, Muhammad’s 19-year-old brother.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/west-bank-village-punished-exposing-israels-brutality/15083

Israel compiled “long file” on journalist it deported

Israel’s Government Press Office appears to be building up files on international journalists who criticize the oppression faced by Palestinians.

The conduct of this surveillance has been revealed by German journalist Martin Lejeune who has been deported from Tel Aviv.

Lejeune was held for 14 hours in Ben Gurion airport last week, during which time he was told that Israel considers him “a threat to the national security.” Lejeune had covered Israel’s 51-day attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014.

Although Israeli police and officials refused to discuss the reasons for his detention and subsequent deportation with his lawyer, Lejeune was told that he was being denied entry to Israel because he had been on a ship destined for Gaza earlier this year.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/israel-compiled-long-file-journalist-it-deported


BDS and Its Discontents

I was actually trying to figure out a title that would incorporate the phrase “moral malcontents,” because that’s the way I see the arguments of the academic and chattering class against BDS. They understand that BDS is a moral critique that needs to be rebutted in order to protect Israel’s claim to legitimacy. But their arguments manage to come across as petulant and rhetorical, rather than deeply rooted in any moral position. I call them moral malcontents because the moral critique deeply unnerves them and they fight desperately to undermine it.

Then after thinking better of it, I figured a seminal Sigmund Freud title (Civilization and Its Discontents) would convey my ideas just as well.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/19/bds-and-its-discontents/

Israel ist schon ein bi-nationaler Staat, und zwar schon seit langer Zeit

Die Debatte muss sich nun verschieben. Die Verkündigungen über die „zwei Staaten“ und den „jüdischen Staat“ müssen ihr Ende nehmen. Denn nun geht es darum, die Sache gerecht zu gestalten.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16879

Die Regeln werden immer noch eingehalten

Während Europa sich mit der syrischen Flüchtlingskrise auseinandersetzt und gleichzeitig eine wachsende, islamfeindliche Tendenz erfährt, hat der Staat Israel mit einer Angelegenheit zu kämpfen, die seine Existenz betrifft.

Vor der Gründung des Staates Israels im Jahre 1948 war das Land, das nun Israel umfasst, die Heimat einer großen arabischen Mehrheit. Fast eine Million einheimischer, arabischer Bewohner wurden vertrieben. Aber 250.000 blieben. Und heute sind sie mehr als 1 Million.

Sie sind keine Flüchtlinge, wie diejenigen, die aus dem vom Krieg gebeutelten Libyen, Syrien und Irak nach Europa fliehen. Sie sind Staatbürger, die innerhalb der Grenzen des Staates geboren wurden und somit mindestens aus theoretischer Sicht das Recht haben, alle Rechte und Privilegien zu genießen, die auch der jüdischen Mehrheit zugesprochen werden.

Dieser Gegensatz findet sich im Herzen des Staates Israel. Er ist auf eine unglaubliche Angst, Schuld, Ignoranz und Feindseligkeit der Juden gegen ihre palästinensischen Mitbürger zurückzuführen. Und wo es Angst gibt, da gibt es auch Islamfeindlichkeit oder im Falle Israels „Arabophobie.“ Diese Einstellung ist sogar in den Ansichten der liberalsten und „aufgeklärtesten“ israelischen Akademiker präsent.

http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16898

Musab al-Ghazali 'killed in cold blood'

The family of 26-year-old Musab Mahmoud al-Ghazali on Tuesday accused Israeli forces of "executing him in cold blood."

Musab, who suffered a mental disorder, was shot dead on Dec. 26 after Israeli police say he pulled a knife on an officer in Allenby Square in Jerusalem.

However, a witness said at the time that he had not seen a knife in the young man’s hand, and his family denied that he would have carried out an attack.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769562

Forces raid Silwan home, detain family of Palestinian killed by police

Israeli forces on Saturday raided the family home of of Musab al-Ghazali in the occupied East Jerusalem area of Silwan, hours after he was killed by Israeli police.

The 26-year-old was shot dead after Israeli police said he attempted to stab a police officer who had stopped the man and asked for identification. No Israeli injuries were reported.

Musab’s uncle, Abu Wajdi al-Ghazali, told Ma’an that the family home was stormed in Wad Qaddum, a part of the Silwan neighborhood that abutts the southern side of the occupied area’s Old City.

Israeli forces who raided the home summoned Musab’s parents and brothers for investigation, Abu Wajdi said.

According to the uncle, Musab had mental disabilities, and he denied statements made by police that his nephew attempted to attack an Israeli officer earlier in the day.

He said Musab had left the home that morning to collect empty bottles that the young man deposits for money, as he has not been able to find employment.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769520

Israeli forces kill Palestinian in Gaza demo for 3rd Friday in a row
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769513

Gazans mourn death of Palestinian shot in head, killed in clashes

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Saturday mourned the death of a 22-year-old killed by Israeli military forces during clashes that broke out the day before, locals said.

Hani Rafiq Wahdan, 22, was shot in the head near the al-Shujayyia neighborhood east of Gaza City, during clashes that erupted after demonstrations held in the area.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769518

Gazan succumbs to wounds sustained during Friday demonstration

A Palestinian man on Monday died after being shot by Israeli forces during demonstrations in the central Gaza Strip days prior, medics said.

Medical sources in Gaza told Ma’an that 48-year-old Yousif Abu Sbeikha al-Buheiri from the al-Maghazi refugee camp succumbed to gunshot wounds he sustained Friday when Israeli military forces opened fire on protestors.

Sbeikha’s death came after another demonstrator, Hani Rafiq Wahdan, 22, was shot in the head near the al-Shujayyia neighborhood during protests in the Gaza Strip on the same day.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769541


Friday clashes erupt across occupied West Bank
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769515

10 Palestinians detained in predawn raids

Israeli forces on Sunday detained ten Palestinians from across the occupied West Bank, locals and the Israeli army said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769527

Israeli authorities continue internment of 4 Palestinian brothers

Israeli forces have continued the internment of four brothers in Israeli prison, despite pressure from the Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS), the society said on Monday.

The society said three of the four brothers, identified as Muhammad Zamaareh, 16, Bahaa Zamaareh, 17, and Abed Zamaareh, 23, were detained at the start of October during a detention raid in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron's Hahul village.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769550

Israeli forces detain 13 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank 28-12
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769549


15 Palestinians detained in West Bank 29-12
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769559

Israel issues 53 prisoners administrative detention orders

The Israeli authorities on Tuesday issued a further 53 administrative detention orders against Palestinian prisoners ranging from periods of two to six months, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society said.

A lawyer for the society, Mahmoud al-Halabi, told Ma'an that 36 orders were issued against recently detained prisoners while another 17 were renewed orders against prisoners that have been in Israeli custody for months and years.

There are now more than 500 Palestinian prisoners being held under administrative detention, a controversial Israeli practice that allows internment without trial for six-month intervals that can be renewed indefinitely.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769569

Israeli forces raid charity, shut down prisoners' rights group

- Israeli forces on Tuesday ransacked the Bethlehem headquarters of the district’s Palestinian Authority-run committee for charitable work as well as a prisoners’ rights group office in Nablus, destroying and confiscating property.

The treasurer of the Bethlehem charity, Mahmoud Khalifa, told Ma’an that "occupation forces broke into the headquarters at 2:40 a.m. and ravaged the place, breaking down the doors of administrative and accounting offices."

Soldiers cut open two safes in the headquarters and confiscated all materials, as well as a number of files and hard discs from office shelves, Khalifa.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769557

Israeli forces shoot 2 in Qalandiya refugee camp, detain 3

Two Palestinians were shot and injured after Israeli forces on Monday raided the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, detaining three residents.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769542



Israel disperses Jerusalem protest for return of withheld bodies

Israeli forces on Saturday dispersed a protest staged in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem calling for the return of the bodies of Palestinian attackers held by Israel.

Locals told Ma’an that demonstrators formed a human chain surrounding the walls of the Old City from the al-Sahra Gate to the Damascus Gate.

Protesters held photos of Palestinians whose bodies have been held in line with a decision made by Israel’s security cabinet in October to withhold the bodies of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis.

The move was proposed by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who reportedly said during the cabinet meeting that Palestinian families incite "terrorist attacks" at funerals, raising tensions.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769524

Israel transfers bodies of slain Palestinians

This week Israel transferred the bodies of several Palestinians killed by its forces during alleged attacks in recent weeks and which have been withheld from their families.

The Palestinian health ministry stated on Thursday that 135 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of October. Almost two dozen Israelis were slain during the same period.

More than half of the Palestinians killed were shot dead during alleged attacks – a result of what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem condemned as an unwritten “shoot to kill” policy.

The bodies of dozens of Palestinians have been held – including several children – after Israel approved a number of repressive measures in mid-October following two weeks of heightened violence that shows no sign of ebbing.

These measures, including the demolition of homes belonging to family members of alleged assailants, have been criticized by human rights groups as collective punishment that is illegal under international law.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-transfers-bodies-slain-palestinians

Israeli PM: 'Arab terror and Jewish terror' are different

In lieu of a growing Israeli focus on Jewish extremism, Israel’s Prime Minister on Sunday said that comparing “Arab terror and Jewish terror” was impossible, Israeli media reported.

During the weekly cabinet meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Here we condemn and they [the Palestinians] praise," according to Israeli daily Haaretz.

The PM said that "Jewish terror" was rare, while “Arab terror” frequently took place on a large scale.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769530

Video: Israeli youths dance, stab picture of murdered Palestinian baby
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/video-israeli-youths-dance-stab-picture-murdered-palestinian-baby

Israel's Ministry of Housing continuing cancelled E1 plans

Israel’s Ministry of Housing has been working on plans for thousands of housing units in the controversial E1 corridor despite the cancellation of tenders for the units in 2013, a settlement watchdog reported.

International condemnation of settlement construction in the controversial area led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the tenders at the time.

Israeli watchdog Peace Now reported Sunday that the Ministry of Housing began “quietly” planning for 8372 housing units in the E1 area in November 2014, hiring architects to work on many of the plans that had been cancelled.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769546

Israel to confiscate 500 dunums of land in southern Nablus

The Israeli authorities are planning to confiscate 500 dunams of land (123 acres) currently held by the Palestinian Authority near Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, a local monitor said Tuesday.

Ghassan Daghlas, a local PA official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an the land would be confiscated from from the Palestinian villages of Jurish and Qusra.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769563

Palestinian building under construction demolished in Jerusalem

Israeli forces on Tuesday tore down a building under construction in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Bahir, its owner told Ma'an.

Raed Rabayaa said that Israeli forces stormed and closed the area, before bulldozers moved in and demolished the building, "without prior notice."

Rabayaa's two-story building consisted of three apartments and was destroyed after being constructed without the necessary building permits from the Jerusalem municipality.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769558

Palestinians unite to rebuild houses

When Israeli forces detonated the home of Ibrahim Akkari in Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem in December, activists, led by Ahmed Abu Hamdan, started a campaign to rebuild his family’s home.

Abu Hamdan told al-Monitor that within six hours, locals donated over $25,000 dollars. A few days later, over $70,000 dollars, as well as furniture and household items, were secured for the family.

Now, the Akkari family lives in a newly built apartment a block away from the ruins of their last home.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1213-palestinians-unite-to-rebuild-houses

Fatal shooting of Palestinian man caught on video

A video has surfaced of Egyptian border guards shooting dead on Thursday an unarmed 28-year-old Palestinian shortly after he swam in from the Gaza Strip.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/fatal-shooting-palestinian-man-caught-video-151226132048015.html


PA detains 16 in fear of terrorist attacks during Christmas season

.....A poll conducted earlier this month reported that an overwhelming majority of 88 percent of Palestinians believe that IS is a radical group that does not represent true Islam.

Seven percent, meanwhile, said the group did represent Islam.

PLO Central Council member Muhammad Shtayyeh said earlier this month that while extremist groups have yet to take hold in the popular Palestinian public, such a reality could not be guaranteed if both the Israeli occupation and Palestinian political woes were not addressed.

“If today there is not one single Palestinian with Daesh or Al-Qaeda, can we really maintain this situation? I put this as a question mark and as a warning, this situation is very fragile,” Eshtayyeh said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group

Frustration has grown among Palestinians against their leadership, particularly members of the PA, who have maintained a relative quiet through recent turmoil in the occupied Palestinian territory.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769510

Jerusalem expulsions target activists and community leaders

Whenever Palestinians stand up for their rights in Jerusalem, it is a safe bet that Samer Abu Eisheh will be there. It is hard to imagine a protest near the Damascus Gate — an entrance to the Old City — without his bellowing voice.

It is the 28-year-old’s relentless activism that could sunder him from his home, however. After nearly three months under house arrest, the TV producer and community leader was handed a five-month expulsion order from Jerusalem this week. It was issued by an Israeli district commander.

Abu Eisheh and another Palestinian are currently sitting in at the Red Cross offices in Jerusalem to protest and defy the orders.

The order follows the recent sharpening of an Israeli policy to revoke Palestinian residency rights in Jerusalem. In September, Silvan Shalom, the Israeli interior minister, vowed to revoke residency rights of those judged to “breach allegiance to the State of Israel.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/jerusalem-expulsions-target-activists-and-community-leaders/15097

Gaza remembers PFLP activist slain by Israel during protest

Shawki Madi still cannot believe the embrace from his father that Friday would be their last.

The 16-year-old boy was playing football with friends on 11 December when a relative came to tell him that his father had been killed and that he should go home.

“I did not believe it, but I ran home and found everyone in tears,” Shawki told The Electronic Intifada.

Shawki’s father, Sami Madi, 41, had led a demonstration that day to mark the 48th anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-remembers-pflp-activist-slain-israel-during-protest/15096

Turkish-Israeli deal pits mutual dislike against common interest

The announcement that Turkey and Israel have agreed on pre-conditions for resuming full diplomatic relations comes as a diplomatic bombshell in both countries. After secret talks in Switzerland between the head of the Turkish foreign ministry and the head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, it was announced on Thursday that agreement has been reached – though not yet signed – on an exchange of ambassadors.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/mutual-dislike-vs-common-interest-new-turkish-israeli-deal-338468936

Die einzige Halb-Demokratie im Mittleren Osten

Es muss ausgesprochen werden – und zwar laut. Der Aufstieg des rechten Flügels ist nicht vorübergehend, die Besatzung ist permanent und Israel ist ein Staat mit zwei Regimen: Das eine Regime ist gut und tut den Juden gut; das andere ist schlecht und gemein und diskriminiert Palästinenser. Nun wird es Zeit, dies zu bekämpfen.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16929

Rafeef Ziadah on why “it’s difficult to separate politics from poetry”

“I think there’s something extremely powerful about the role of art in sustaining us as human beings,” says London-based poet and activist Rafeef Ziadah in a recent interview with The Electronic Intifada.

“And if you look at social movements generally, what we remember of them is the poetry, the music, the art, the theater — those moments generate a specific art form.”

Ziadah’s new album, We Teach Life, combines poetry and music and makes a deliberate connection between activism and art.

“It’s difficult to me to separate out the politics [from poetry] because it’s ingrained in my entire history — being born into a war and invasion in Lebanon, growing up undocumented as a Palestinian refugee, seeing the first intifada, the second intifada, the current popular uprising that’s going on on the ground — it speaks to me,” Ziadah explains to interviewer Hazem Jamjoum.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/listen-rafeef-ziadah-why-its-difficult-separate-politics-poetry

British MP: Israel Fabricated Knife Attack Stories

Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman has allegedly accused Israel of fabricating some recent stories about knife attacks against Jews in Israel, and claimed the Conservative party is influenced by "Jewish money," in a speech at a pro-Palestine event at Parliament.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour-mp-gerald-kaufman-accuses-israel-of-fabricating-some-knife-attack-stories-says-tories-influenced-by-jewish-money-34153800.html

Kaufman, who is a member of the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Poale Zion,[16][17] a socialist group with the Labour party in Britain, is critical of Israel. Kaufman has called for economic sanctions and an arms ban against Israel, citing the success of such measures against apartheid South Africa.[18] In 2002, he referred to Israel as a "pariah state",[19] and called Israel's senior politicians "war criminals".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Kaufman

Vorgestern...

Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians from the town of Sair on Thursday night after they allegedly carried out two separate stabbing attempts in the southern West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.


In the night's first deadly encounter, three Palestinian cousins were killed after they allegedly attempted to stab Israeli soldiers at the Gush Etzion junction in the southern occupied West Bank.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769699

Heute ...

2 Palestinians killed at checkpoint after alleged stab attempt

Israeli forces on Saturday shot and killed two Palestinian men at the al-Hamra military checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley, witnesses said.

Witnesses told Ma’an that the two men were stopped at the checkpoint -- also known as Beqaot -- and asked by military forces to exit their vehicle, at which point the forces shot them dead.

The witnesses said they did not see the men wielding knives, and told Ma’an the two were “killed in cold blood.” The men sold wholesale goods and were reportedly on their way to distribute merchandise to grocery shops, witnesses added.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769720


04-01-2016

Palestinian shot after alleged stabbing attempt in Jerusalem

A Palestinian man was shot and moderately wounded after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli police officer in central Jerusalem on Monday afternoon, Israeli police and medics said.

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld initially reported that two Israelis were wounded in the alleged attack near Jerusalem's light rail, with the Palestinian "terrorist" shot and wounded.

However, a spokesperson for Hadassah hospital later confirmed that neither Israeli had sustained stab wounds. "No one got stabbed," she said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769655

Israeli forces on Wednesday morning stormed the International Committee of the Red Cross' headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem and detained six Palestinian activists staging a sit-in on site.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769679

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1226-activists-protesting-expulsion-orders-detained


06-2016
Israeli forces detain 15 Palestinians in West Bank predawn raids
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769682

07-2016
Israeli forces detain 14 Palestinians across West Bank
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769692

Letzte Woche von dem letzte Jahr

130 Palestinians arrested this week
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1217-over-130-palestinians-arrested-this-week

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy remained in critical condition on Friday evening, nearly two days after he sustained a severe head injury during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, medical sources said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769714

21 Palestinians shot with live, rubber bullets in West Bank, Gaza

Israeli forces shot at least 21 Palestinians with live and rubber-coated steel bullets in the latest clashes to shake the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, medical sources said.

Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for Gaza's Ministry of Health, told Ma'an that 14 Palestinians were shot with live fire in separate clashes that erupted along the Gazan border.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769717

Young Palestinian patriot cut down by Israeli bullet

Mahmoud Alayan was a Fatah party supporter and an active member of its campus chapter at his school.

He was also an implacable opponent of the status quo in occupied territory to which a Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority clings.

The Israeli occupation, he insisted, had to be confronted. And so he did, in defiance of his own leadership and an authority that has invested heavily in preventing confrontations with the army.

That defiance ultimately cost him his life. He was fatally wounded by a rubber-coated steel bullet fired by Israeli soldiers at a demonstration in November near the Beit El settlement outside al-Bireh, a West Bank town contiguous with neighboring Ramallah, seat of the PA.

Over the past week, the PA has been dispersing — violently at times — demonstrators trying to march on the checkpoint near the Beit El settlement, home to the Civil Administration, the bureaucratic arm of Israel’s military occupation.

The PA had recently allowed demonstrations in the area, a departure from previous policy, not wishing to itself become the target of growing Palestinian frustrations.

The generation to which Mahmoud Alayan belongs — born after the Oslo agreement signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, leading to the creation of the PA — is disillusioned with decades of peace talks that have not slowed Israeli colonization and violence.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/young-palestinian-patriot-cut-down-israeli-bullet/15104


Killings of Palestinians in West Bank hit 10-year high

Since the start of January, at least five Palestinians and three Israeli citizens have been slain.

The latest deaths came after the number of Palestinians killed in violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank hit a 10-year high in 2015.

By the end of the year, at least 136 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 14,000 injured in the West Bank, according to the UN monitoring group OCHA, the highest figures since 2005.

Twenty-four Palestinians were killed in Gaza, the vast majority by Israeli forces firing at demonstrators across the boundary fence, and around 1,500 were injured.

Israeli casualties from violence by Palestinians in 2015 were the highest recorded since 2008, with 24 deaths and 350 injuries, according to OCHA.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/killings-palestinians-west-bank-hit-10-year-high



Dozens attend funeral of Palestinian teen shot dead day earlier

Large numbers of Palestinians joined the funeral procession of 17-year-old Ahmad Younis al-Kawazba in the West Bank village of Sair on Wednesday, a day after he was shot dead while attacking an Israeli soldier.

Hebron's District Attorney Alaa Tamimi told Ma'an that an autopsy showed that Kawazba was killed by a single gunshot that hit his neck and lungs. He said the autopsy suggested the 17-year-old had been left to bleed to death and had received no medical treatment.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769685



Israeli forces demolish 5 Bedouin dwellings in E1 corridor

Israeli forces on Wednesday morning demolished five dwellings housing Palestinian Bedouin families in the Abu Nuwwar community east of Jerusalem -- part of the wider E1 corridor -- leaving 25 people homeless.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769683

Israeli forces stormed the eastern outskirts of Beit Ummar in northern Hebron on Tuesday evening and confiscated an agricultural tractor, a local official told Ma'an.

Muhammad Ayyad Awad, a spokesperson for the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, said the tractor was taken from the town's Shib al-Ghafar area and belongs to local farmer Anwar Muhammad Ahmad Abu Mariya.

He said locals were told the tractor was confiscated because it was parked near a construction site whose owner, Adham Sabir Zamil, was issued a stop-work order.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769680

Israeli forces confiscate road construction material in Hebron

Israeli forces on Tuesday confiscated construction material belonging to the al-Dhahiriya city council in southern Hebron that was being used to build an agricultural road, local officials told Ma'an.

Members of the council told Ma'an that the road was being built in cooperation with the international aid group Action Against Hunger.

Action Against Hunger describes its projects in the occupied Palestinian territory as working to provide "revitalized livelihoods, income opportunities, improved access to water and sanitation, and nutritional support."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769672

Two Palestinian families whose homes were demolished and sealed decried on Tuesday Israel’s policy of punitive home demolition for homes belonging to Palestinians who carry out attacks on Israelis.

The homes, located in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, belonged to relatives of Alaa Abu Jamal and Baha Elayyan who were both shot dead on Oct. 13 after carrying out separate attacks that left four Israelis dead.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769661

Israeli authorities demolish 3 structures in Jerusalem

Israeli bulldozers under army escort on Thursday demolished three Palestinian structures built without construction permits in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan and Beit Safafa, the owners told Ma'an.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769697


Uno-Berichterstatter für Palästinensergebiete hat zurücktreten

Der Sonderberichterstatter des Uno-Menschenrechtsrates für die Lage in den von Israel besetzten palästinensischen Gebieten hat seinen Dienst quittiert. Der Indonesier Makarim Wibisono begründete seinen Rücktritt damit, dass Israel die Ausübung seines Amts stets behindert habe. So sei ihm trotz mehrfacher Bemühungen nie der Zugang zu den besetzten Palästinensergebieten – dem Gazastreifen sowie Teile des Westjordanlandes – gewährt worden. Der Diplomat hatte 2014 den Posten übernommen.
http://www.nzz.ch/international/naher-osten-und-nordafrika/uno-berichterstatter-fuer-palaestinae-wibisono-wird-von-israel-behindert-und-quittiert-den-dienst-1.18671763

Brief aus Nazareth: die vergessenen Palästinenser

Die Christen und Muslime der Stadt kämpfen weiter gegen Israels Teile-und-herrsche-Politik
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16964

Palästina nach Abbas: Die Zukunft eines Volkes steht auf dem Spiel

Obwohl Mahmoud Abbas in seiner Fernsehansprache zum 51. Jahrestag der Gründung der Gruppe seine Fatah-Parteianhänger inspirieren wollte, betonte er aber nur noch die beispiellose Krise, die das palästinensische Volk ins Chaos stürzt. Abbas klang nicht nur defensiv und ohne ernsthafte oder neue Initiativen, aber seine letzte Absicht erschien so, als handelte es sich um nichts anderes als um sein politisches Überleben.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16997


Bild: December 2015
https://electronicintifada.net/content/month-pictures-december-2015/15136

Why Palestinian housewives are taking lead in boycott campaigns

Sahar Tbaileh began her push to boycott Israeli goods with the help of three of her neighbors who live between the Ain Munjid and al-Masyoun neighborhoods in central Ramallah.
The women met at Tbaileh’s house and joined forces to form a women’s committee to spread the boycott and cleanse their neighborhood of Israeli goods by talking to women, merchants and store owners. The committee has also contacted neighborhood schools and discuss the importance of the boycott with students, in an unprecedented move that first took place Nov. 5.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/palestinian-women-launch-boycott-campaigns.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=4b51717c85-January_11_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-4b51717c85-93087681#

Majority of Jerusalem Palestinians detained in 2015 were minors

Israeli forces detained more than 1,900 Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem in 2015, the majority of whom were minors, a prisoners’ rights group said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies, Riyad al-Ashqar, said in a statement that around two-thirds of those detained from the occupied city were minors, 65 of whom were put under house arrest.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769737

Palestinian accused of setting off car bomb in 'critical' condition

The Palestinian Prisoner's Society said Thursday that a Palestinian woman who Israel accuses of attempting to set off a car bomb last year remained in "critical" condition in Israeli custody.

A lawyer for the society told Ma'an that 31-year-old Israa Jaabis was severely injured by the blaze that engulfed her car in front of a checkpoint into occupied East Jerusalem on Oct. 10.

Israeli police said at the time that Jaabis was attempting to detonate a car bomb, although witnesses said they believed the fire was caused by a technical fault.

After visiting Jaabis in Israel's HaSharon prison, her lawyer said she was bound to a wheelchair, had lost fingers on one of her hands, and suffered severe burns across her body.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769808

Palestinian hunger strikers persist

On Wednesday, political prisoner Kifah Hattab suspended his 50 day hunger strike in light of a developing deal with Israeli authorities that would recognize Hattab as a war prisoner.

Hattab is in Israeli jail under two life imprisonment sentences. He has launched multiple hunger strikes over the last three years to demand that Israel recognizes him as a prisoner of war.

Prior to the deal, Hattab was transferred to the Afula medical center due to seriously deteriorating health.

Political prisoners Mohammad al-Qiq and Abdullah Abu Jaber, who began their hunger strikes together approximately two months ago, continue to endure dangerously deteriorating heath to object their unjust sentences and the inhumane conditions in Israeli prison.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1234-palestinian-hunger-strikers-persist

Hunger-striking journalist refuses vitamins as protest enters 51st day

- Palestinian prisoner Muhammad al-Qiq stopped taking vitamins on Thursday as he entered the 51st day of a hunger strike he began to protest his detention without trial, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society said.

Qadura Fares, head of the prisoner's society, told Ma'an that al-Qiq, a 33-year-old journalist from the southern West Bank town of Dura, had decided to stop taking to vitamins in order "to put pressure on the Israelis."

Fares said the decision also marked al-Qiq's determination to go on with his hunger strike, despite the continued deterioration of his health.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769807

Palestinian shot dead after alleged attack attempt near Hebron

Israeli forces Thursday shot and killed a Palestinian near the Beit Einun junction northeast of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron after an alleged stab attempt, witnesses and Israel’s army said.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that a Palestinian attempted to stab Israeli soldiers stationed near the junction, who responded by opening fire on the alleged assailant.

Sources from the Palestinian Red Crescent said that Israeli military forces prevented medics from accessing the shot Palestinian for medical treatment, leaving him to bleed on the pavement.

The man was identified as Muayyad Awni Jabbarin, 20, by his father, who arrived to the scene following his death.

Clashes erupted following the incident between locals and Israeli forces, who deployed in the area and closed the main road.

Jabbarin’s body was transferred from Israeli to Palestinian authorities later in the day, and taken to Hebron’s al-Ahli hospital for autopsy.

The 20-year-old’s family told Ma’an that the funeral of their son would be held on Friday, when they would bury him in the Sair village’s cemetery.

Jabbarin's family said they found a letter written by him, in which he asks his parents to forgive him for the pain he caused them.

"God, please forgive me mom and dad, I will kill two Israeli soldiers and take revenge for all the Palestinians they killed! Mom! Do not be sad! Your son died a hero,” the letter read.

“Please forgive me, and am really sorry for the pain I caused you, but may God be with you,” the letter added. “No matter how darkness stays, the sun will rise again, chains will break and we will all be free one day.”
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769795

Israeli forces detain Palestinian driver at Beit Einun junction

Israeli forces stationed at the Beit Einun junction on Wednesday evening opened fire on a Palestinian driver they described as "suspicious" before detaining him.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769794

Palestinian killed in day's 2nd alleged attack on Israeli forces
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769805

2 Palestinians shot dead at Beit Einun junction near Hebron (12-2016)

Israeli forces on Tuesday afternoon shot dead two Palestinians at the Beit Einun junction northeast of Hebron, alleging that one intended to carry out a stabbing attack while the other had driven him there.

An Israeli army spokesperson said that Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian "armed with a knife" after he attempted to stab soldiers stationed at the junction.

Locals later identified the Palestinian as 23-year-old Muhammad Ahmad Khalil Kawazba from the nearby village of Sair. They said that they tried to reach his body, but Israeli forces prevented anyone from reaching the scene.

A second Palestinian, identified as 17-year-old Adnan Hamid al-Mashni from the village of Shayoukh, was shot and fatally wounded at the same time while driving near the junction.

An Israeli army spokesperson alleged that Mashni had driven Kawazba to the junction to carry out the attack. She confirmed that Israeli forces shot him, and said he afterward fled the scene.

Mashni was evacuated to al-Mizan Hospital in Hebron with a fatal gunshot wound to his chest. "We tried to save his life, but the wound was very critical," said Sharif al-Tarada, a doctor at the hospital. "We pronounced him dead."

A number of Palestinians have now been killed at the Beit Einun junction which lies between Hebron and the village of Sair.

A 16-year-old Palestinian was shot dead at the site on Thursday last week after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769772

Family of Palestinian woman denies she was planning attack in Israel

A Palestinian family from the Ramallah-district village of Beit Sira on Monday denied Israeli media reports that a young woman from their family had intended to carry out a suicide attack in southern Israel.

Israeli news sites, including the Jerusalem Post and Ynet, reported Monday morning that Israeli police were searching for a woman that had entered Israel from the occupied West Bank with the intention of carrying out a suicide bombing.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769751


In Israel and the occupied territories, shoot to kill is the new normal

The greatest enemy of the struggle against the Israeli occupation is routine. That danger in routine is apparent only in retrospect, looking back at the occupation over time. What was unacceptable yesterday, even unimaginable, becomes today’s routine on the way to tomorrow’s norm. Thus the occupation rolls along from one phase to the next, yet one thing never changes: occupation remains occupation, its manifold aspects hidden in plain sight.

Resistance to the occupation, also ever-present and altering only in its appearance and the means employed to express it, has for some three months now shown a new face as the “Intifada of the Knives” or the “Lone Wolf Rebellion,” or whatever else one wishes to call it. Without anyone organising it, without infrastructure or guiding hand, militant organisations or military headquarters, and nearly without arms or explosives, a new form of violent resistance has emerged. Individual Palestinians, mostly but not exclusively young people, mostly but not exclusively men, get up one morning and decide to act. Their instrument is typically a knife or a pair of scissors, or a privately owned car.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/israel-and-occupied-territories-greatest-danger-routine-1394570304

18 Palestinians detained in occupied West Bank in predawn raids.(14-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769800

Israeli forces detain 13 Palestinians from across the West Bank(13-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769783


Israeli forces detain 11 Palestinians across West Bank(12-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769759

Israeli troops detain 15 Palestinians across West Bank(11-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769750

Israeli troops raid East Jerusalem neighborhood
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769776


Thousands attend funerals of 4 Palestinians across West Bank
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769786

Palestinian killed, 3 injured by Israeli artillery fire in Gaza Strip
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769780

7 shot by Israeli forces in clashes south of Bethlehem

Seven Palestinians were shot on Sunday by live and rubber-coated steel steel bullets when clashes broke out with Israeli forces in the village of Tuqu south of Bethlehem, locals said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769744

Birzeit University condemns Israeli 'military attack' on campus
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769754

Israeli forces tear down plant nursery near Nablus

Israeli forces tore down a plant nursery in the northern West Bank district of Nalbus on Wednesday, a local official said.

Abd al-Rahim Suleiman, the mayor of the village of al-Sawiya south of Nablus, told Ma’an that a bulldozer escorted by military vehicles arrived in the morning and demolished a plant nursery owned by Fahd Audah Salih on the village's main road.

He said the nursery was 1,500 square meters and included an ancient two-room building which had been built before Israeli forces occupied the West Bank in 1967.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769781

Israel to build 6 new watchtowers in Nablus, confiscate land

Israeli forces on Tuesday officially informed the Palestinian Authority of plans to build six military watchtowers in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, a local monitor told Ma'an.

Ghassan Doughlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern occupied West Bank, said Israeli forces told the PA the six towers will be built near the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzar, a well-known hotbed for settler extremism.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769765

end Hebron ‘closed military zones’

The undersigned organisations are calling on the international community to take immediate action regarding the continuous closure of the Tel Rumeida neighborhood and the part of Shuhada Street that has remained accessible to Palestinian residents since the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in 1994, in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). For more than two months, Palestinians and internationals have been denied access to this part of the city since the Israeli occupation forces have declared the area a ‘closed military zone’.

The ‘closed military zone’, first declared on November 1st2015, was designed to include Palestinian neighborhoods while excluding adjacent illegal Israeli settlements. This discriminatory closure is being upheld by continuously renewed ‘military orders’ that lack official signatures or stamps. Palestinian residents were forced to register with the army or else risk being barred from their homes, while Israeli settlers are free to roam the streets without being stopped.


http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1233-act-end-closed-military-zones-in-hebron

Israeli soldier praised for shooting protesters in video footage
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769782

Israeli girl, after a year of volunteering at the Gaza Strip border, refuses to serve in IDF

This is why I am refusing: I will not take an active part in the occupation of the Palestinian Territories and in the injustice to the Palestinian people that is perpetrated again and again under this occupation. I will not take part in the cycle of hatred in Gaza and Sderot. –Tair Kaminer
http://al-bushra.org/?p=4588

Gaza faces harsh winter after Israel cuts gas supply

Palestinians say Israel has severely curtailed gas supplies to the occupied Gaza Strip this winter, fueling a major disruption to ordinary life for most families and exacerbating the harsh impact of the cold weather.

Tholfikar Sweirjo, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's committee in Gaza, told Al Jazeera the amount of gas entering Gaza has been decreased by at least 50 percent since early December.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/gaza-faces-harsh-winter-israel-cuts-gas-supply-160113151958861.html

How an Israeli group plans to infiltrate human rights monitors

An Israeli propaganda, or hasbara, organization is seeking to infiltrate Israeli human rights groups.

The Center for Public Diplomacy and Israeli Hasbara announced that it aims to plant secret operatives at HaMoked, an organization that campaigns against Israel’s abuses of Palestinians living under occupation, by sending people to apply for job openings.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/how-israeli-group-plans-infiltrate-human-rights-monitors


Man kann nicht wahrheitsgemäß über Israel berichterstatten, ohne seinen Zorn zu ernten , Über Makarim Wibisonos Rücktritt

Makarim Wibisono hat die Niederlegung seines Amtes als UN-Sonderberichterstatter für die Menschenrechte in den besetzten palästinensischen Gebieten angekündigt, das Amt, das ich vor ihm 6 Jahre lang bis Juni 2014 innehatte.
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=17011




Bild : Murad Palestina, a worker with Youth Against Settlements, whose main office has been closed since the Tel Rumeida neighborhood was declared a closed military zone, wears the number that the Israeli military has assigned to him as a resident within the zone. "To the occupiers we're numbers, not human beings," he said.

Yes, Israel Is Executing Palestinians Without Trial

We should call it like it is: Israel executes people without trial nearly every day. Any other description is a lie. If there was once discussion here about the death penalty for terrorists, now they are executed even without trial (and without discussion). If once there was debate over the rules of engagement, today it’s clear: we shoot to kill – any suspicious Palestinian.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan outlined the situation clearly when he said, “Every terrorist should know he will not survive the attack he is about to commit” – and almost every politician joined him in nauseating unison, from Yair Lapid on up. Never have so many licenses to kill been handed out here, nor has the finger been so itchy on the trigger.
https://t.co/0viEl5HDnE

The Brave Israeli Soldiers and the Palestinian Pothole Attack

The IDF has won again. Last Saturday it prevented a serious attack by volunteers from the Arab-Jewish group Ta’ayush who were fixing up a portion of the road that leads to Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank. The medals go to soldiers from the Keren battalion in the Artillery Corps, to the battalion commander who refused to identify himself, to another commander with two oak leaves named Aviv, to a restless soldier with antennas sticking out of his backpack and a stun grenade poking from his pocket, and to soldier Y.B.
https://t.co/dN5CpV6HC5


Israeli forces detain 19 Palestinians, injure two in West Bank raids (21-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769906

Israeli forces detain 25 Palestinians across West Bank(20-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769888

15 Palestinians detained, 1 suspected of attack on Israeli settler(19-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769867

Israeli forces detain 27 Palestinians across the West Bank(18-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769852


Palestinian shot, injured near Gaza borderline
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769901


Israeli forces deliver punitive demolition notice to prisoner's family

Israeli forces raided the home of a Palestinian prisoner on Wednesday and delivered a demolition notice to the family in the central occupied West Bank district of Salfit, locals said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769891

Israeli forces to demolish Beit Hanina house built without permit

Israeli forces bulldozed a house in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday morning, a relative of the homeowner said.

Israeli bulldozers, escorted by municipality crews and special forces, raided Beit Hanina and demolished a house belonging to Hiba Abu Asab, claiming the house did not have a proper construction permit.

Abu Asab’s mother, Hanaa, said that her daughter had built the two-bedroom house months ago and was planning to move in with her four children next week.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769893

Israeli authorities demolish Palestinian home in Silwan

Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished a home under construction belonging to a Palestinian in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

The building's owner, Samir Nassar, told Ma'an that Jerusalem municipality bulldozers stormed Silwan's Wadi Qaddum area at 4 a.m. under the escort of Israeli police and tore down the home "without prior notice."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769887

Israeli forces demolish structures in Ramallah-area villages

Israeli forces on Sunday demolished several structures in two occupied West Bank villages in Ramallah district saying they had been built without the necessary permits, locals told Ma'an.

In the village of Kharbatha, locals said Israeli forces demolished a garage belonging to a resident identified as Jamal Ahmad Darraj, as well as an extra room attached to a house belonging to Hamdi Abu Khalil.

In the nearby village of Kharbatha al-Misbah, Israeli forces also damaged a quarry belonging to Ahmad al-Habiba.

Under Israeli law, Palestinians are required to obtain building permits before they can build in land classified as Area C, which under the Oslo Accords falls under full Israeli control.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769858

Home demolitions in Jerusalem
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1242-home-demolitions-in-jerusalem


Settlers take over Hebron homes

Twenty settler families broke into into two adjacent buildings in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday afternoon. The buildings, owned by theAbu Aysha and Za'atri families, are located on Al Sahla street, near the Ibrahimi mosque in downtown Hebron.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1244-settlers-take-over-hebron-homes

Video: Israeli soldiers praise each other for shooting Palestinians
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israeli-soldiers-praise-each-other-shooting-palestinians



Israel forcibly treated hunger-striking journalist

After 56 days on hunger strike, Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq is now losing consciousness intermittently and constantly vomiting acid from his empty stomach. He cannot walk without assistance and his hearing and sight have weakened.

Al-Qiq, a 33-year-old journalist, is undertaking a hunger strike to protest being held without charge or trial under an administrative detention order issued by an Israeli military court late last year. Administrative detention is a relic of the British Mandate used by Israel to indefinitely imprison Palestinians on the basis secret evidence.

On Saturday, 16 January, an Israeli military court rejected al-Qiq’s appeal to end his detention. The judge made his decision without considering his critical condition, or that he is a journalist, according to the prisoners’ rights group Addameer.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israel-forcibly-treated-hunger-striking-journalist

Likud Central Committee Members Steal Palestinian Homes, Expel Owners

Tal Schneider, Israel’s leading political blogger, broke a major story yesterday about the Hebron homes stolen and occupied over the past few days. In a new expansionist move from the 800-strong settler enclave amidst 30,000 Palestinian residents of Hebron, an Israeli group claimed to have purchased four Palestinian homes. The indigenous residents had been evicted and the thieves took over the properties.
Israeli media falsely claimed that settlers were the new owners. This is the standard manner in which such dispossession occurs. Except that in this case, the true story involved a radical escalation in strategy and tactics. The new owners were not settlers. They were actually members of the Likud Central Committee from communities within the Green Line.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/23/likud-central-committee-members-steal-palestinian-homes-expel-legitimate-owners/

Israeli settlement guards kill young Palestinians

Two young Palestinians were shot dead by a security guard in an Israeli settlement after allegedly stabbing two women on Monday. One of the women, 24-year-old Shlomit Krigman, died from her injuries the following day.

The incident took place at a supermarket in Beit Horon settlement near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-settlement-guards-kill-young-palestinians

Scores attend funeral of slain Palestinian girl

Dozens of Palestinians from Yatta attended the funeral of 13-year-old Ruqqaya Abu Eid in the cemetery of the village of al-Karmel east of Yatta.

Ruqayya Eid Abu Eid, originally from the city of Yatta south of Hebron, was shot dead on Saturday by an Israeli security guard after allegedly trying to stab him near the illegal settlement of Anatot.

The funeral procession set off from the Yatta mosque to the cemetery in Karmel, where a general strike began after Ruqayya’s death.

The participants chanted slogans condemning Israeli crimes against Palestinians, specifically urging the international community to act against Israeli violations targeting Palestinian children.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769950

Hundreds mourn teen killed in pipe bomb accident

Hundreds of mourners joined on Sunday the funeral procession of Muhammad Nabil Halabiya, 17, who was killed Saturday night by a pipe bomb that exploded prematurely.

Hani Halabiya, a relative of the teen and a spokesman of the popular resistance committee in the occupied East Jerusalem town of Abu Dis, told Ma’an that Muhammad, originally from Abu Dis, had been holding a pipe bomb near an Israeli military site on Saturday night when it prematurely exploded in his hands, killing him.

“Israeli forces did not allow ambulances to access him," Hani said, adding that the forces handed over Muhammad’s body after holding it for four hours.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769949

Sa'ir, the city of martyrs

This murdered woman is:

the daughter of a murdered woman,

the granddaughter of a murdered man,

the sister of a murdered boy,

the aunt of a murdered girl,

the daughter-in-law of a grandmother whose son was murdered,

(who in turn is the granddaughter of another murdered woman),

and the next-door neighbour of the uncle of a victim….

(A State of Siege, Mahmoud Darwish)
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/aicoment/1249-sa-ir-the-city-of-martyrs


Israeli forces detain 10 across West Bank, find small weapons cache (27-2016)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769958

Israeli forces detain 4 Palestinians in West Bank(25-1)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769973

Israeli forces detain Palestinian lawmaker, former minister in Hebron
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769945


21 Palestinians shot during Friday demos in West Bank, Gaza (22-1)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769924


Palestinian family forced to demolish own home in Jerusalem

A Palestinian family in the occupied East Jerusalem village of Sur Bahir on Friday demolished their own home following an order from an Israeli court.

Khalil Dabash, owner of the home, told Ma’an that a Jerusalem municipal court ordered the demolition on the grounds that it was built without proper permits.

The court said the Dabash family would be charged for the demolition of their home if it was not demolished before Sunday.

Dabash is among many Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem who are forced to demolish their own homes in order to avoid paying the municipality high fees to carry out the demolitions.

Dabash said that his mother Jamila had built the house around 20 years ago and that the family had paid fines to the Jerusalem municipality several times before. The self-demolition left Dabash’s sister homeless.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769935

Israeli forces demolish two homes in East Jerusalem

Israeli forces on Wednesday tore down two buildings in occupied East Jerusalem, claiming one had been built without permits, while the other stood in the way of a new route connecting Israeli settlements.

Locals said that Israeli forces stormed and closed off an area in the Jabal al-Mukabbri neighborhood early Wednesday before bulldozers moved in and demolished a building under construction along with its surrounding wall.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769985

Palestinians of South Hebron Hills resist Israeli expulsion

This month Israeli police arrested three human rights defenders working in the South Hebron Hills area of the occupied West Bank.

The arrests put a spotlight on the struggle of Palestinians in the isolated region to resist Israel’s efforts to force them out.

Two Israelis, Ezra Nawi and Guy Butavia, and Palestinian Nasser Nawaja, were arrested after Israeli television aired a video filmed by the settler-funded right-wing organization Ad Kan which had infiltrated their group Ta’ayush.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/palestinians-south-hebron-hills-resist-israeli-expulsion

Israeli dies of wounds after stab attack, Palestinian village sealed

An Israeli injured during a stab attack in the illegal West Bank settlement of Beit Horon died from her wounds Tuesday, Israeli police said.

Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said in a statement that the 24-year-old woman succumbed to stab wounds in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769970

Palestinian teen discussed death on social media prior to fatal attack

A Palestinian teen responsible for carrying out a fatal attack inside an illegal Israeli settlement on Monday left several messages on social media indicating his potential plans for the attack.

Hussein Muhammad Abu Ghush, 17, was shot dead alongside Ibrahim Osama Yousif Allan, 23, after stabbing two Israeli women in the Beit Horon settlement, one of whom died Tuesday morning.

Several improvised explosive devices were also found in the settlement near the scene of attack.

The Facebook page of 17-year-old Abu Ghush, a resident of the Qalandiya refugee camp, reveals a series of messages in the lead-up to the day of the attack.

On Jan. 24, the day before the attack, Abu Ghush wrote: "History will write that we faced Israel with a stone, a knife, explosive devices, weapons, and our hearts, and we offered blood of Mujahideen as sacrifice for the place from which the Prophet ascended to heaven.

“May God accept us as martyrs in paradise,” the teen added.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769972

Lawyer: Hunger-striking journalist on brink of death

Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq, who has been on hunger strike in Israeli jail for 61 days, is on brink of death, the journalist's lawyer told Ma'an on Monday.

After visiting al-Qiq earlier in the day, Ashraf Abu Sneina, a lawyer with the Palestinian Authority's Committee for Prisoners' Affairs, said al-Qiq was unconscious and unable to speak, adding that he had exhibited "sudden symptoms that could lead to his death."

The head of the committee, Issa Qaraqe, accused Israel of "reckless and indifferent treatment of al-Qiq," which he said stemmed from "a decision by the extremist Israeli government and its intelligence to let him die."

The 33-year-old journalist from the southern West Bank town of Dura has been on hunger strike to protest his administrative detention, internment without trial or charge, since Nov. 24.

Qaraqe called on all appropriate organizations and human rights groups to exert every means available to pressure Israel to free al-Qiq, "because if he dies as a martyr, the situation will deteriorate both among Palestinians inside and out of Israeli prisons."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769962

Israeli court rejects appeal for Palestinian prisoner Thaer Halahla

An Israeli court has rejected the appeal of a Palestinian prisoner being held by Israeli authorities under administrative detention without charge or trial, the man's father said on Sunday.

Thaer Halahla’s father said that an Israeli court extended the detention of Halahla for the fifth time since 2013, claiming that he has “activities” in prison, without providing further details about the circumstances of his detention.

He added that he was told he is not allowed to visit his son in detention for “security reasons."
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769952

PFLP prisoners to protest in solidarity with prisoner held in solitary

Palestinian supporters of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in a statement on Sunday, threatened to launch an in-prison protest in support of a PFLP-affiliated prisoner of Israel who has been kept in solitary confinement for more than five months.

PFLP-affiliated prisoners in Israeli jails said Israeli forces have been keeping prisoner Bilal Kayid in a segregated, “bottleneck, putrid cell without ventilation, light or proper winter blankets.”
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769948


Israeli forces to close Palestinian road near Israeli settlement

Israeli forces on Friday issued a notice for the closure of a main road connecting two Hebron-area villages in the southern occupied West Bank, located near the Israeli settlement of Otneil, locals told Ma’an.

A local popular committee spokesman, Ratib al-Jubour told Ma’an that Israeli forces delivered the notice to the village council in the Palestinian village of Beit Amra.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769933

Israeli naval forces open fire on Gaza fishermen

Israeli naval forces opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip Friday, fishermen said.

Fishermen told Ma'an that the forces opened fire on their vessels, forcing them to return to the shore. No injuries were reported.

An Israeli army spokesperson had no immediate information on the incident.

Palestinian fishermen are frequently targeted by Israeli forces, facing near daily harassment and interference with their work. Israel's army routinely says such measures are necessary to counter security threats.

As part of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the summer of 2014, Israel agreed to expand the fishing zone off of Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and to continue to expand the area gradually.

Despite this agreement, the head of Hemaya Center for Human Rights, Omar Qarut, told Ma'an that the Israeli navy had opened fire on Palestinian fishermen at sea at least 159 occasions in 2015.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769918


Start of school semester postponed in Gaza due to weather
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769943

Ban on political group in Israel leaves Gaza orphans destitute

The last thing Sabah Breas needed was a greater financial burden.

The 47-year-old widow and mother of six children, three born deaf, has relied for four years on a monthly stipend to assure the family’s survival in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.

But that assistance has dried up.

Israel’s decision in November to ban the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and freeze all its bank accounts and assets has also hit the various charitable associations that relied on the political movement.

This has left tens of thousands of clients in present-day Israel, as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, facing destitution.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ban-political-group-israel-leaves-gaza-orphans-destitute/15151

The Gaza Strip among the ruins and rain

Gaza Strip - Nothing has changed. Middle East Eye first spoke to Fareed al-Najjar late in 2014 after the 51-day war when the torrential rains began. Now they have come again and his situation is dire.

“We were told we'd only be living in these shipping containers for a few months, until we received replacement homes,” Najjar said. His neighbour interrupted: “They lied to us, and will leave us here forever.”

Elsewhere across the Gaza Strip, the roofs of several homes were recently blown off by the winter storms. Schools have been shut for two days and forecasters predict a new three-day storm will sweep the region with up to 80-kilometre winds starting Sunday night.

Fire department official Raed al-Dahsahn told MEE that 17 people had to be evacuated from their homes. Gaza municipalities have announced a state of emergency and staff members are expected to work around the clock.

Najjar’s house was one of about 100,000 homes destroyed or heavily damaged in the war that resulted in more than 2,200 people killed and tens of thousands injured and homeless. He has survived in a rusty, leaking shipping container that was damaged by the storms in 2014 and has now become unlivable.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-strip-among-ruins-and-rain-1990768197

Gaza’s children grow up with trauma

It has taken Mansour’s mother a long time to learn to cope with her 12-year-old son’s changing personality.

Once a top student, Mansour has become aggressive and disobedient. His grades are down, his mother says, and he suffers night terrors.

Mansour’s mother can date his transformation to Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014.

“He was a top student before then. He used to be a cheerful boy,” she recalled.

During the assault, the family had to evacuate their home and move to a UN shelter, a school that was then also bombed. Since then, Mansour’s mother told The Electronic Intifada, he now prefers to be alone at school or at home. He has also started wetting the bed.

“He is easily terrified by loud sounds like thunder,” according to his mother, who, like others interviewed for this story, declined to be named in order to protect her privacy.

These are classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, though as health care professionals at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) never tire of pointing out, in Gaza there is never any “post.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-children-grow-trauma/15221




UK doctors call for removal of Israel from World Medical Association

A group of British doctors is pushing for the World Medical Association (WMA) to expel the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), the IMA’s chairman said on Wednesday during a meeting of the Knesset Science and Technology committee.

In a discussion dealing with the academic boycott of Israel, Zeev Feldman said that 71 British doctors recently called on the WMA to remove the Israeli medical group from its ranks due to allegations of torture by Israeli doctors on Palestinians.

Israeli doctors in prison facilities have long been accused of standing by or abetting the torture of Palestinian detainees.

“The sword of the boycott is being raised on the Israeli scientific-medical community’” Feldman said.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769939

Israeli State Implicated in Criminal Acts Against Human Rights Lawyer

Back in 2010, Im Tirzu (Fascists) published the private legal work product of Israeli human rights attorney, Michael Sfard, regarding the human rights work of his NGO clients. At the time, Sfard believed that Im Tirzu itself had broken into his offices to pilfer the confidential documents. As one would expect, given the Israeli police record of defending the rights of left-wing NGOs, the police closed the case for “lack of evidence.”

These legal materials were published in Sheldon Adelson’s Yisrael HaYom, the newspaper founded by the billionaire to get Netanyahu into the prime minister’s office and keep him there. The article claimed that Yesh Din, one of Sfard’s clients sought to classify IDF military assaults against Gaza as war crimes. Im Tirzu believed that such exposure would shame the NGO in the eyes of the Israeli public and forever mark it as a traitor to the Israeli State.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/27/israeli-state-implicated-in-criminal-acts-against-human-rights-lawyer/

In the Jewish state, equality for Arabs is impossible by definition

This week the Israeli army radio, Galei Tzahal, conducted a survey which, among other things, polled the attitude of Israeli Jews regarding full equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. The results of the survey, conducted among 503 Jews, revealed that the Jewish public in this country is almost equally divided on this issue. 45 percent oppose full equal rights for the state’s Arab citizens, 43 percent are in favor, 6 percent replied “it depends” (it’s unclear on what) and six percent do not know their position on this.
Two interesting points arise from the way this survey was conducted. First, in a militaristic society like Israel, it is not surprising that an army radio station intervenes in the civil realm without question, reflecting the clear overlap between (Jewish) civil society and the military in Israel. Secondly, those conducting the survey only asked Jews, and are thus acting on the idea that Jews in this country have the sole authority to determine whether and how equal the Arab can be. By doing so they continue to shape public opinion such that it is completely natural that Jews have the final word.
http://972mag.com/in-the-jewish-state-equality-for-arabs-is-impossible-by-definition/116225/

Support right for BDS in France

The criminal division of the Court of Cassation, France's highest appeals court, issued a decision last October, affirming that the call to boycott Israeli goods is a misdemeanor in France and punishable as such. A small group of activists of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, who in 2010 had chanted slogans, handed out leaflets, and worn T-shirts at a supermarket near Mulhouse, calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, had been brought to trial for "provoking discrimination" against the producers and suppliers of goods (considered as a "group of people") by reason of their belonging to the Israeli nation. The activists were cleared at the first trial, but in November 2013, they were found guilty upon appeal by the Colmar Appeals Court, and were sentenced to pay 12000 euros in damages to the plaintiffs, as well as stiff legal fees. In rejecting their appeal of this sentence, the Court of Cassation affirmed that in calling upon consumers not to buy Israeli goods, the activists were indeed guilty of a misdemeanor — a call to national discrimination — and that the Colmar Appeals Court sentence was thus legally justified.

By the decision of October 20, 2015, France becomes the only country in the world — alongside Israel — to penalise civic appeals not to buy Israeli goods. In all the major democratic countries, the Israeli government's repeated demands to penalise boycott calls have been rejected, in the name of freedom of expression, of the need for a democratic debate (which may include controversial aspects) on international questions, and of respect for political associations. Whether one is for or against BDS as a way of bringing about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on international law, no one outside France denies the peaceful character of the movement and its right to act and to develop, notably by boycott calls, including the call to boycott Israeli goods.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/29-upcomming-resistance/1248-act-support-right-for-bds-in-france