NOVANEWS
Dear All,
My day began with a phone call from Issa Souf (the same man as below, written Isa Suf). I was at the hospital accompanying my spouse for a doctor’s appointment. Issa lives in Hares. He called to notify me that a house was being demolished.
At first I thought that it was his, and chills ran up my spine. Issa was shot by an IOF soldier 8 years ago, when he went outside, unarmed, to get the women and children in, after he’d been informed by phone of an IOF incursion. He survived, but has been in a wheel chair ever since, paralyzed from the waist down, thanks to a dum dum bullet exploding in his spine.
His oldest son was 2 months at the time. Issa had been a physical ed instructor. That, the doctors said, was apparently what saved his life. His body was strong and in good shape. The army settled with him about 2 years ago. But that would not stop the IOF from demolishing his home. His house in fact has a demolition order on it, as do many other homes in Hares.
The paper informing a resident about a pending demolition can come many years before the actual destruction takes place. Palestinians do not receive permits to build or to add on to their homes, and so build without permits to meet the growth of their expanding families. Why, in any event, should they need permits from the Israeli army???
After speaking with Issa, I phoned several contacts to try to get people to Hares to witness the event and to relate it. But Neta had already talked to most of them. So another family in Hares tonight has no home. And also a family in El Khadar, whose home was demolished with all its contents—the family was not given even a smidgeon of time to remove its furnishings, clothing, pots and pans, family albums, etc etc etc.
Can you imagine losing your home within a few minutes? Can you imagine what it is like to see your domain, your comfort turn within minutes into rubble?
The reports following the one on the demolition give a smattering of what it is like to be a Palestinian in the West Bank and in Gaza.
The 4th and 5th items close this message with more news about the military order allowing mass deportations from the West Bank. The army claims that it won’t deport. We shall see. I for one do not trust the army to keep its word. The final message (the 5th) is Amira Hass’s analysis of what could happen.
Hope to bring you happier reading some day.
Dorothy
1. Ynet Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Home Demolitions
Palestinians: Israel resumes demolition of West Bank homes
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3875955,00.html
Bulldozers raze illegal structures in Hares village; resident says act ‘politically-motivated response to recent events’
Ali Waked Published: 04.14.10
Bulldozers belonging to the Civil Administration razed structures in a Palestinian village located in the northern West Bank on Wednesday.
Local Palestinians said that the razing, which was supervised by IDF forces, was the first in months.
They claimed the bulldozers wrecked a home in the village of Hares, and then began razing a number of tin shacks that contain a carwash, a marble factory and other businesses.
IDF officials said the razed home was not occupied, adding that the structures in question were built without the necessary permits.
Hares resident Isa Suf told Ynet, “The residents were surprised by the arrival of the demolition crew, and the home-owner was not warned ahead of time. He was at work.
“This is apparently a politically-motivated response to the recent events. We have no idea where this destruction will end,” he said.
Palestinian sources said the Civil Administration razed another home in the village of el-Hader, near Bethlehem. They said the family of seven residing there was not given ample time to gather its belongings from the house, adding that the family’s home had been destroyed by Israel in the past.
Earlier Wednesday, Ynet reported that the IDF has been relaying messages to the Palestinian Authority asking that it work towards curbing riots and demonstrations in the West Bank, particularly those surrounding the security barrier.
The army fears the protests may lead to further escalation, and IDF Central Command chief Major-General Avi Mizrahi has ordered a series of measures aimed at defusing tensions.
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2. Wednesday, April 14, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEYouth Shot in the Leg by Israeli Soldiers near the Nahal Oz Border Crossing
Mahmoud Shawa a 19 year old resident of Shaja’iyya district of Gaza
City, received a wound from a live round in his leg while
participating in a peaceful demonstration near Nahal Oz border
crossing. Mahmoud was urgently transported by an ambulance to the
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City bleeding heavily and suffering from
shock.The bullet entered at the back of the knee area and exited at
the other side and the x-ray shows that it nearly missed the bone.
The demonstration was a part of regular weekly protests against the
300 metre buffer zone imposed by Israel as a no-go area for
Palestinians, where live fire is frequently used against the
‘trespassers’. A group of over one hundred local residents and
activists from different civil society organizations and political
parties started marching towards the border at 11.30. They came under
the extensive live fire almost from the start which came from about 20
Israeli soldiers and at least 5 army vehicles which were visible at
the other side of the border wire.
The majority of demonstrators marched to about 400 metres away from
the border line and a group of about 30 including Mahmoud, went
further waving Palestinian flags. Mahmoud was wounded on the spot
about 150 meters from the border wire. The opposition to the buffer
zone has been on the increase in the recent months mobilizing with
burgeoning numbers of participants. The protests now take place
almost daily in different locations alongside the border.
Unfortunately firing at peaceful demonstrators have also become more
frequent with 4 demonstrators receiving bullet wounds in the recent
Land Day demonstrations in Abbassin and Magazi areas.
For more information including media inquiries call Mohammed Al Zak,
Popular Campaign Against the Buffer Zone on 0599461908
Ryan Olander – Media Coordinator
International Solidarity Movement
054-883-8369
www.palsolidarity.org
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3. Haaretz , April 14, 2010
Mosque vandalized as settlers attack Palestinian village
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163045.html
By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz Correspondent
More than 300 olive trees were uprooted and two cars set alight in the West Bank village of Hawara in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Stars of David and the word ‘Mohammed,’ as well as racist slogans, were also sprayed in Hebrew across the town, including on the walls of a mosque.
A military official told Army Radio that the army suspected settler violence against Palestinians, part of some settlers’ policy of imposing a ‘price tag’ on a government order to freeze Israeli construction in the West Bank.
As part of the strategy, settlers from nearby Yitzhar have launched numerous attacks on Palestinians, including an arson attack on a mosque in December 2009.
Responding to news of the incident, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a spokesman for the right-wing Jewish National Front party, said:
“We are talking about a hostile village that has been the source of a large number of violent attacks against the residents of Yitzhar.”
He added: “The time has come for the Arabs to understand that Jews are not suckers and that Jewish blood will not be shed without consequence.”
The Israel Defense Forces condemned the attacks, promising to investigate and bring the attackers to justice. Shin Bet, the security service, will also open an inquiry into the incident, Haaretz has learned.
“The IDF conveyed a message to the Palestinians through the Civil Administration [which governs Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank]to reassure them that the IDF takes the matter of harming or vandalizing of holy sites very seriously,” the army said in a statement.
“It should be noted that the Civil Administration erased the graffiti this morning.”
Tensions between Hawara residents the nearby settlements of Yitzhar have flared in recent weeks after two settlers were wounded when stones were thrown at them, one suffering permanent neurological damage.
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4. Haaretz Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Israel assures PA: We won’t deport Palestinians to Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163064.html
By Avi Issacharof
Israel sent a calming message to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, assuring him that Israel does not intend to harm residents of the Gaza Strip currently living in the West Bank, in light of a recent Haaretz report that a new Israel Defense Forces order will enable mass deportation from the West Bank.
According to the report, a new military order aimed at preventing infiltration was to come into force, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years. Under the order, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.
“There is no truth in the publications that Israel intends to deport Gazans residing in the West Bank,” Brigadier-General Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian territories, told top Fatah official Hussein a-Sheikh during a phone conversation.
A-Sheikh told Haaretz that Dangot requested he pass the message on to Abbas, saying that “he [Dangot] explained that the order has been in place since 1969 and promised that not a single person will be deported to Gaza.”
“Regarding the security decisions, we agreed that we would cooperate as we have in the past,” said a-Sheikh about his conversation with Dangot, adding that “there is no intention to treat residents of the west Bank who are originally from Gaza as ‘illegal’.
A-Sheik added that “Dangot said that Israel would not enable tourists who enter Israel with a visa to enter the Palestinian territories.”
However a-Sheikh also criticized the very existence of the military order which has existed since 1969, saying that it violated agreements signed between Israeli and the PA in 1994, and proves that Israel is still trying to enforce its sovereignty on the territories.
“Israel is still trying to enforce the occupation laws in the West Bank and does not recognize the West Bank and the Gaza strip as a separate geographical unit,” a-Sheikh said, adding that “these are signs that Israel wants to maintain the occupation laws as they are in the West Bank.”
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5. Haaretz , April 14, 2010
The right to deport
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162980.html
By Amira Hass
When Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, who was commander of the IDF’s units in Judea and Samaria, signed a military order six months ago in which 10 different variations of the Hebrew root for the word “deport” appeared, it seemed neither he or the faceless army jurists who formulated the edict verified which week the order would come into effect. As it turned out, the amended “order to prevent infiltration (into the West Bank)” coincided with the saddest of April’s days.
Once the order’s implications were published and once human rights organizations and the Palestinian grassroot groups and officials began fighting it, Israeli security sources sought to calm fears. Advertisement
There is nothing new in this order, they say. The (military) law has always permitted the expulsion of illegal sojourners. Contrary to what has been written, the new edict is designed to ameliorate the lot of the individual being expelled by allowing for judicial oversight.
On March 25, the Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual dispatched a letter to current GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi warning the officer of the danger inherent in enforcing the order. If the edict contains no new provisions, then why didn’t the military authorities offer clarifications to Hamoked’s legal experts before it reached the press?
The Israel Defense Forces’ reassurances address a second order, which joined the above-mentioned order against infiltration. This second order concerns the establishment of a military judiciary committee to examine the deportation process.
The army’s attempt to pacify public opinion ignores the main order and ignores the accumulated changes – for the worse – that the Israeli government introduced limiting Palestinian freedom of movement and residency.
By what right? By Israel’s right as a military regime that is above all. The vague language used in the order combined with the gradual changes are enough to sound the warning siren. This ambiguousness is not just any ordinary slip of the tongue.
Army order number 1650 expands the legal definition of infiltrator, the criminal, so that it can immediately be applied to the following population groups: Palestinians (and their offspring) who lost their residency status due to Israel’s actions since 1967; Palestinians whose ID lists them as Gazans; and foreign nationals.
That is killing many birds with one stone – birds who are already in the West Bank and those who plan to commit the crime of “infiltrating” it.
The goals are to limit the population growth of Palestinians in the West Bank; to complete the process of severing the Palestinian population in Gaza from West Bank society (in violation of the Oslo Accords); and to deter foreign nationals joining the popular struggle against the occupation (see: IDF raids in Ramallah in search of foreigners).
But the order also has the potential to add more categories of “infiltrators.”
The new key word in the amended edict is “permit,” without which an individual will be considered an infiltrator. Over the last 20 years Israel has instituted a complicated system of travel and residency permits for the Palestinians in the West bank and Gaza.
“Permit” is a euphemism for prohibition. The more Israeli politicians spoke of a two-state solution, the more complicated this regime of travel restrictions between Gaza and the West Bank became. The tentacles of this regime, which made travel between Gaza and the West Bank more difficult, and limited entry to individuals in certain areas of the West Bank, branched out further and further.
There are bans that were instituted for emergency periods and were later suspended. But the ban on living or entering without a permit to the area that lies between the Green Line and the separation fence – be it your home or land – remains in place. One mustn’t forget that permits are given sparingly.
When one takes into account Israel’s policy of disconnecting East Jerusalem from the West Bank, it is quite possible that the military ban on Palestinian East Jerusalemites entering areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority without a permit will be renewed.
The military commander of the area reserves his right – a right taken by force of arms and military coercion – to concoct new permits. The order implies that new permits/prohibitions might be invented, and more individuals defined as infiltrators.
Is this impossible? Is this the product of delusions? The delusional did in fact happen to the residents of the Gaza Strip. Since January 1991, Israel has instituted restrictions on their travel to education or residence in the West Bank. Now, as of 2000, they are even officially classified as illegal sojourners there.
Since 2007, those few Gazans who are permitted to exit the Strip are also required to apply for a permit to stay in the West Bank.
The regime, which constantly invents new types of permits, has become the trademark of Israel’s military rule. It grants junior and senior commanders the right usually reserved for authoritarian rulers or military dictators to determine whether people are able to study and where they can work, live or travel. It even allows them to decide whom they can marry. The new edict expands the right of the ruler to expel.
