NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
[at this point (11:30 PM) we had a sudden power outage that lasted till 4:30 AM. Haven’t time to write now, so will dash this off without comments, even though I had quite a few. Lucky you.
Dorothy]
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1 Tens of thousands of Palestinians suffer from water supply disruptions in East Jerusalem’
Those affected are all Jerusalem residents with blue, Israeli-issued identity cards who live on either side of the separation fence.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/tens-of-thousands-of-palestinians-suffer-from-water-supply-disruptions-in-east-jerusalem.premium-1.450292
By Nir Hasson
Jul.11, 2012
For the past month the water supply to tens of thousands of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem has been sporadic, at times no more than two days a week. The problem affects communities connected to the city water system as well as ones that receive their water from the Palestinian Authority.
Those affected are all Jerusalem residents with blue, Israeli-issued identity cards who live on either side of the separation fence.
The problem is predominantly on the Palestinian side of the fence in the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ras Khamis, Ras Shahada and Hashalom as well as the Shoafat refugee camp. Residents of these communities say that for the past few weeks they have had a regular water supply only two to three days a week. Sometimes there is water only at night, and usually the water pressure is quite low. Water to these neighborhoods is supplied by Gihon, the Jerusalem municipality’s water corporation.
Residents say the problem has led to disputes over water use and connections to the water supply. Two people sustained gunshot wounds during one dispute between two families that escalated about two weeks ago. Residents pelted the Border Police officers who tried to separate the combatants with rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Practically every family in the affected area has spent thousands of shekels on a rooftop cistern and pump so they can store water when the faucets are running for later use.
“We’ve started buying bottled water, and people have stopped showering. We used to bathe the kids every day, now it’s once a week,” said Jamil Sanduqa, the head of the Ras Khamis residents’ committee.
Gihon claims the problem is the result of people illegally tapping into the water system.
“Why is it my problem that people are stealing water?” Sanduqa said, adding, “They have to solve the problem and not disrupt the lives of 70,000 residents.”
It would appear that the 45 years that have passed since the city’s unification were not enough time for the authorities to connect all of East Jerusalem’s residents to the municipal water system. Thousands of them, mainly in the northern neighborhoods of Kafr Aqab, on the Palestinian side of the fence, but also in Beit Hanina, on the Israeli side, receive their water supply from El Bireh, near Ramallah. They too are experiencing disruptions to their water supply. They attribute the problem to the overall water shortage in the Palestinian Authority, which relies on the water allocations supplied to it by Israel.
On Monday, attorney Nisreen Alyan of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel sent a letter to the head of Gihon demanding a resolution of the water supply problem in the areas under the municipal corporation’s jurisdiction.
“The right to water is a basic right,” says Alyan. “It is incumbent on the authorities that govern the area to supply this basic right, especially during the summer. The disregard of the fact that entire neighborhoods are not linked to the water network is unacceptable.”
In a response, Gihon said: “There is a widespread phenomenon of water theft in this area, which we have been warning the Water Authority about for a very long time. At the same time, in the wake of the request by ACRI regarding the problem in the Shoafat refugee camp, it was agreed to hold a meeting with representatives of the association, in order to find creative ways to try to solve the problems. Gihon is continuously and individually dealing with consumers who report all sorts of problems with service, irrespective of their geographic location.”
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2 Forwarded by Sam B
Army To Arrest, Deport, Internationals Living In The West Bank
Wednesday July 11, 2012 03:30 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
Israeli Ynet News reported that the Israeli Central Command Chief, Nitzan Alon, signed an order granting the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority “the right” to search for, and arrest, internationals illegally living in the occupied West Bank, in order to deport them”.
http://www.imemc.org/article/63888
Image PNN
Alon described the foreigners residing in the West Bank without a permit from Israel as “infiltrators’, and said that they all must be sent back to their countries.
Under this order, the army will be allowed to arrest foreigners in the Palestinian territories, move them into prisons in Israel until all deportation measures and documentations are concluded.
Alon said that this decision was made due to what he called the “large number of infiltrators currently residing in the West Bank”, the Ynet said.
Israel is in control of all border terminals in the West Bank, internationals living in the Palestinian territories face numerous hardships and obstacles as Israel refuses to renew their entry visas.
Israel also prevented dozens of international peace activists from entering the occupied territories, by placing an “Entry Denied” stamp on their passports, preventing most of them from entering the country for 10 years.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank does not control border terminals, and cannot issue entry visas.
Internationals living in the occupied West Bank cannot renew their visas due to the fact that the P.A cannot issue such visas, and Israel refuses to grant them visas due to the fact that they live in Palestinian areas.
Israeli restrictions against internationals living in the West Bank are also forcing the separation of hundreds of families where Palestinians are married to Arab or international spouses as Israel is refusing to grant them family reunification documents.
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3 Major drop recorded in number of secular IDF draft dodgers
Haredim make up largest group of Israeli Jews granted draft exemptions, according to official IDF statistics.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/major-drop-recorded-in-number-of-secular-idf-draft-dodgers.premium-1.450280
By Amos Harel
Jul.11, 2012
The rate at which potential secular and religious Zionist conscripts have been exempted from military service has declined substantially, and the number of actual draft evaders among them has been reduced to negligible levels.
On the other hand, official Israel Defense Forces statistics reveal that more than half of Jewish Israeli men who were exempted from the draft last year were ultra-Orthodox men engaged in religious studies.
The data from the IDF personnel division were contained in a document released last week by the Knesset Research and Information Center. They were also provided to the panel headed by Kadima MK Yohanan Plesner that attempted to develop an alternative to the Tal Law, which provided draft deferments for Haredi yeshiva students. The Supreme Court ruled the Tal Law unconstitutional.
The data show that about 75 percent of 18-year-old Jewish Israeli males were drafted last year. Among the 25 percent who were not drafted, 13 percent were Haredim who received deferments to pursue religious studies.
As recently as 2004, that figured was only 8.4 percent. But it rose to 13 percent in 2009 and has been stable since. The IDF personnel division predicts that the percentage will increase in the coming years if conscription policy does not change.
There has been a major decline in recent years in the numbers of non-ultra-Orthodox draft-age men who have been given draft exemptions. In 2005, the rate was 14.8 percent. It actually rose to a high of 16.3 percent in 2007, but then declined last year to 12.1 percent, following a 2007 IDF campaign against draft evasion.
Brig. Gen. Amir Rogovsky, former head of planning in the IDF personnel division, said the decrease was the result of a decision by the IDF to actively halt the trend of exemptions, after a substantial increase in exemptions for non-religious reasons (primarily for psychological or other medical reasons ).
Of the 12 percent of non-Haredi Jewish males who were exempted from the draft, 3 percent were living abroad; approximately another 3 percent had such low army evaluations that the IDF would not have an interest in drafting them; roughly another 6 percent were exempt for medical reasons, with about an even split between those exempt for psychological reasons and for other medical conditions.
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4 Today in Palestine
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi/message/3518