Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Biden gives Israel the green light on Iran in speech to rabbinical convention
• Israeli military raids office of human rights organization ‘Stop the Wall’; steals computers and hard drives
• Shaul Mofaz, Netanyahu’s new partner, ordered ‘revenge’ op that killed Palestinian police in 2002
• ‘Battle of the Empty Stomachs’: Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab surpass 70 days on hunger strike
• In ‘Nation’ BDS debate, Barghouti demands rights, Avishai pleads to protect ‘progressive and creative’ Israeli elites
• Ehud Barak looks to revive collective punishment policy in the West Bank
• ‘Death of a Salesman’ came out of an intermarriage
• Why no condolences from Obama to David Cameron?
• ‘Liberal and enlightened’– and all white
• Israel destroys al-Araqib for the 38th time

Biden gives Israel the green light on Iran in speech to rabbinical convention

May 08, 2012

Nima Shirazi

Joe Biden addressing the the 2012 Rabbinical Assembly National Convention
(Photo: Creative Loafing)

“The window has not closed in terms of the Israelis if they choose to act on their own militarily,” the Vice President told the congregation.  “I would not contract out my security to anybody, even a loyal, loyal, loyal friend like the United States.”

This is not the first time Biden has made such a comment.  During an appearance on the ABC’s “This Week,” Biden told George Stephanopoulos, “Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination — if they make a determination — that they’re existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.”  Biden comments were immediately walked back by the Obama campaign.

The claim that Iran somehow poses an “existential threat” to Israel is of course a long-running propaganda line often employed to fear-monger about Iran’s nuclear energy program.  This view, however, is not shared by numerous Israeli officials including former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy, and current Mossad head Tamir Pardo.  Even Israel’s hawkish Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is leading the push toward an Israeli attack on Iran, said in 2009, “I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel.  Israel is strong, I don’t see anyone who could pose an existential threat.”

Still, Biden declared, “We will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuke by whatever means necessary, period.”  A strong claim, to be sure, but one that rings a bit silly considering that accordingto the United States, the IAEA, and Israel – Iran isn’t building nuclear weapons.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency reports that, during his speech today, the “vice president also called efforts to delegitimize Israel ‘the most significant assault’ on Israel since its independence.”  In an effort to burnish the Obama administration’s Zionist credentials, Biden insisted, “At every point in our Administration, at every juncture, we have stood up for the legitimacy of the state of Israel.”

For Biden, it seems, Israel’s war crime light is still green…even if its armistice line isn’t.

In the strangest comment of the day, though, Biden spoke of internal Iranian politics:

“The dissension between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader is palpable. They will not both be around two years from now, and my bet is that Ahmadinejad is gone.”

Clearly, Biden is nothing if not a deft gambler.  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will absolutely not be in office two years from, but it’s not because of Biden’s prescient prophesy.  Iran has constitutionally mandated presidential term limits, just like we do here in the U.S.  Ahmadinejad is almost three years into his second terms as president, which means that, by 2014, he will undoubtedly be “gone” from the Iranian executive regardless of what tea leaves Biden is reading…or smoking.

But Biden has long had problems understanding and retaining facts when it comes to foreign policy.  For instance, in his 2008 debate against Sarah Palin, he bizarrely claimed, among other things, that prior to 2006, the United States, together with France, “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon” and insisted that the United States has the right and obligation “to keep the UN in line.”  It is unsurprising that, at a campaign stop in Seattle in October 2008, Biden admitted, “I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know.”

Regarding the Obama administration’s pro-Israel efforts, Biden told the crowd of rabbis, “I’m proud of our record.  No president since Harry Truman has done more for Israel’s physical security than Barack Obama.”

Evoking Truman is a bold move.  Yes, is it true that the only person in history to authorize a nuclear attack on a civilian population (twice) that resulted in calculated, deliberate mass murder, dismissed the advice of his own State Department officials when he recognized the nascent State of Israel on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after it declared itself a nation.

In November 1945, Truman reportedly told a gathering of U.S. diplomats who were urging a more balanced American approach to the looming Palestine issue, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”  Of course, there were hundreds of thousands of citizens of Arab descent living in the U.S. at the time, but since they were not as well organized or funded as their Zionist counterparts, from a political standpoint they might as well not have existed at all.

Of course, the same goes for Biden, his boss, and the U.S. Congress now.

Yet, in a diary entry written on July 21, 1947, Truman reacted harshly to demands made of him that day by his Treasury Secretary and staunch Zionist Henry Morganthau, Jr. regarding the Jewish refugees from Europe settling in Palestine.  Truman wrote, “He’d no business, whatever to call me. The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement on world affairs.”  He continued,

The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I’ve found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.

Biden didn’t relay this particular tidbit to the assembly of rabbis.

Israeli military raids office of human rights organization ‘Stop the Wall’; steals computers and hard drives

May 08, 2012

Stop the Wall

Broken door to the Stop the Wall office in Ramallah. (Photo: Stop the Wall)

Today, Stop the Wall issued the following press release:

At 1.30am this morning ten armored jeeps of the Israeli Occupation Forces surrounded and raided the offices of Stop the Wall in Ramallah. Israeli military stole 2 laptops, 3 hard drives and 10 memory cards containing files and photos as well as archive material relating to the work that the organisation does in opposition to Israel’s apartheid wall and the attack on Palestinian human rights that the wall and the settlements represent. This is yet another attack upon Palestinian civil society and their struggle against the physical and psychological oppression, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing policies of Israel.

Computer hardrives confiscated during this morning’s raid. (Photo: Stop the Wall)

Stop the Wall is one of the most vibrant organizations of human rights defenders in Palestine, and has been promoting, for almost ten years, civil resistance and advocacy campaigns against the Wall and in defense of Palestinian rights to self determination. Human Rights Defenders are internationally recognized as an essential element in political processes and their repression further underlines Israeli unwillingness to achieve a just peace.

Broken door to the Stop the Wall office. (Photo: Stop the Wall)

Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, comments:

‘It is not surprising that the Israeli authorities have chosen this moment to escalate their repression against the Stop the Wall grassroots network of civil resistance against the Wall and the settlements, choosing to act on the same day that the Israeli High Court rejected the appeals of Palestinian hunger strikers Bilal Diab and Tha’ir Halahleh, imprisoned without charge and without trial, effectively condemning them to death.

The courageous steadfastness of the more than 2000 hunger strikers in Israeli jails is underlining once more the power of civil resistance as part of the Palestinian struggle. Almost daily people are out in the streets to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, and the discontent with the fruitless and completely stalled diplomatic processes is growing stronger. At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced in 2011 to UN agencies that throughout 2012 year they will systematically displace the Palestinian population in area C. While the displacement drive is underway in the Jordan Valley, home demolitions are rising and the settlement construction is accelerated, the people across the West Bank are always more constraint behind the cantons of the wall.

This raid on the Stop the Wall offices is a clear message that the Israeli authorities are fearing widespread nonviolent action will challenge their policies effectively. Israel is preparing for confrontation and more repression, clearly showing that it is not ready to relinquish any of the international sanctioned rights the Palestinian people are struggling for.’

This is not the first time Stop the Wall has been the target of Israeli repression. In September 2009 Stop the Wall youth coordinator was arrested and the Stop the Wall coordinator, Jamal Juma’, was arrested a few months later, in December 2009. The Israeli authorities were not able to formulate any accusations against either of them and after a sustained international campaign, that saw the active involvement of the diplomatic missions in Palestine and European foreign ministries as well as countless human rights organizations around the world, both had to be freed in January 2010. This attack was followed only a few months later by an extensive office raid by the Israeli military on February 8 2010 and mass arrests of grassroots human rights defenders in the villages most actively protesting against the Wall.

Shaul Mofaz, Netanyahu’s new partner, ordered ‘revenge’ op that killed Palestinian police in 2002

May 08, 2012

Alex Kane

Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz (Photo: Getty Images Europe)

For analysis of what the new coalition deal struck by Benjamin Netanyahu means, read Paul Mutter’s take. But I wanted to look at the other man at the center of the deal: Shaul Mofaz.

Mofaz is a military man; he was the Israeli military’s Chief of Staff during the Second Intifada. And as part of the conditions for Kadima entering Netanyahu’s coalition, Mofaz gets inside Netanayhu’s cabinet and will be appointed deputy prime minister.

The speculation is that Mofaz will now play a role in formulating the Netanyahu government’s policy towards the Palestinians. JJ Goldberg of the Forward describes the new government as the “smartest move by any Israeli peace advocate in a long time.” Goldberg points to Mofaz’s “peace place,” which “calls for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state with provisional borders, controlling 60% of the West Bank for now, followed promptly by state-to-state negotiations toward a final-status agreement.”

But if you look at the fine print of the Mofaz plan, it’s nothing special. Mofaz calls for keeping the major settlement blocs, including Ariel, making any talk of a Palestinian state moot. Jerusalem would remain under Israeli control. There would be no settlement freeze. You call that a peace plan?

And then there’s Mofaz’s record in the Israeli military. Here’s Haaretz’s Gideon Levy on Mofaz:

Mofaz was also one of our crueler defense ministers – no less than 1,705 Palestinians were killed on his watch, including 372 children and teens and 191 targeted killings: that is no great honor, either. True, those were the days of the second intifada, but Mofaz was also one of the fathers of the doctrine of targeted killings, which has been completely forgotten. He was also the one heard whispering into a microphone that Yasser Arafat should be expelled from Ramallah, another genius idea at the time.

“I thought we should strike very hard,” he told the Winograd Commission investigating the Second Lebanon War, and in so doing said everything there was to say about his doctrine of warfare and his military-political creed. Perhaps he has changed his mind since then, but it is up to him to prove it, and he has not yet done so.

In September 2005, the Independent’s Donald Macintyre reported on Breaking the Silence, the courageous Israeli organization of ex-soldiers who speak out about the violent abuse heaped on Palestinians living under occupation. Macintyre mentions a book authored by Israeli journalists to back up Breaking the Silence’s claim that  Israeli army officials order soldiers to violate international law:

Breaking the Silence contends that the inspiration for many orders, which it says directly violate the international legal obligations of an occupying power, came from the highest ranks. Certainly, Booomerang, a new book by two prominent Israeli journalists, Ofer Shelah and Raviv Druker, reports that at a conference of officers as early as May 2001, Shaul Mofaz, now the Defence Minister but then Chief of Staff, asked for the tape to be switched off before telling them that he wanted a “price” exacted from the Palestinians of 10 killed a day on each of the Army’s seven fronts.

And after six Israeli soldiers were killed in Ein Arik in February 2002, the book says, Mr Mofaz personally ordered a revenge operation in which for the first time Palestinian police officers would be shot, whether they posed a threat or not. One soldier who took part in a raid which killed four or five Palestinian policemen at a checkpoint 24 hours after Ein Arik told the IoS: “It felt bad even at that time. They said Palestinian police are connected to terror and that the [killers] passed through the checkpoint. Maybe the police are connected to terror but for sure they didn’t pass through all the checkpoints [attacked that day].”

Now of course, whether Mofaz in the government or not will make very little difference for Palestinians looking for an end to Israel’s occupation. The occupation and settlement project is much larger than one man or coalition government. But, you can forget about Mofaz saving peace negotiations. Perhaps even more importantly, Mofaz’s record is no comfort to those worried about the next Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip.

‘Battle of the Empty Stachs’: Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab surpass 70 days on hunger strike

Today in Palestine

Palestinian Prisoners’ “Battle of the Empty Stomachs” Continues: Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab Surpass 70 Days on Hunger Strike
Ramallah, 8 May 2012 – Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab’s petitions to the Israeli High Court regarding their administrative detention orders were rejected yesterday, four days following their High Court hearing on 3 May. Thaer and Bilal are on their 71st day of hunger strike and at immediate risk of death. In complete disregard to their critical medical condition, the High Court judges stated in their decision that the hunger strikes do not provide reason for releasing Thaer and Bilal from administrative detention or reducing the period of detention.
link to www.addameer.org

Hundreds protest in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers
Hundreds of people have protested in the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. People gathered in Al Manara Square in Ramallah on Tuesday, as almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners entered the fourth week of a hunger strike. Two others have refused food for more than 70 days. Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday denied their appeals against administrative detention.

Hunger Strikers

Halahle refrains from drinking water after 70 days of hunger strike
The family of Palestinian detainee Thaer Halahle said that their son had refrained from drinking water and taking medicine after 70 days of his hunger strike.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

The Red Cross is worried about the striking prisoners’ health conditions
The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed, on Monday, its concern for the health conditions of the hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

EU: Israel must allow medical, family visits to hunger-strikers
Ma`an – Physicians for Human Rights — Israel on Monday said Israeli authorities rejected its appeal for Diab`s family to visit him. “Allowing family visits to people at such deteriorated medical condition, some that can die any day, is a requirement emphasized in medical ethics and in Israel`s Patient Right Law. In addition to mental support, consultation with the family can save lives.”
link to www.maannews.net

Two Palestinians on hunger strike nearing death, lawyer says
(CNN) — The lawyer representing two Palestinian prisoners entering the 70th day of a hunger strike said his clients were nearing death and accused an Israeli high court of procrastination in delivering a ruling that could save their lives. “Their medical condition has gone from very bad to extremely worse,” Jamil al-Khatib said of clients Bilal Diab, 27, and Tha’er Halahlah, 33, “I believe what the court is doing here is trying to break the will of both prisoners so they will back down in their hunger strike.”
link to edition.cnn.com

Jihad Movement: the Occupation Decides to Execute Diab and Halahleh
The Islamic Jihad Movement has considered the Israeli court refusal of the appeal submitted by the lawyer of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, against their administrative detention as a death sentence.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Statement No. 4 of the Hunger Strikers’ Leadership
link to samidoun.ca

Detainee Hassan Safadi continues his hunger strike for the 63 days
Mahmoud Hassan, the lawyer of Addameer Foundation for Prisoners and Human Rights, met, on Sunday in Ramla prison hospital, the detainee Hassan Safadi who has been on hunger strike for 63 days.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

IPS isolates hunger striking detainee
The Israeli prison service (IPS) has isolated a hunger striker detainee in the Negev jail in line with its penal measures against those prisoners.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Rights group submits court appeal to visit hunger striker
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A human rights group has submitted an appeal to Israel’s courts to allow doctors to visit hunger-striking prisoner Bilal Diab. Physicians for Human Rights submitted an appeal based on the recommendation of Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset. “After 68 days on hunger strike, Bilal Diab’s medical condition has become serious and he must be checked by a doctor from outside the prison service,” a statement from the group said. A report from Tibi was attached to the appeal.
link to www.maannews.net

Duqmaq: The incarceration conditions of isolated prisoners are very harsh
Lawyer of Mandela foundation Buthaina Duqmaq said the Palestinian prisoners in solitary cells have been on hunger strike because they are deprived of the most basic human rights in Israeli jails.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Prisoners are continuing the strike despite attempts to break it
The Central Strike Committee confirmed, in an urgent statement to the Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs in Gaza , that it rejects any attempt to undermine the strike that entered its twentieth day.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Prisoner Sabha: The hunger strikers enjoy high morale
Senior Hamas official and prisoner Mohamed Sabha said on Monday that the hunger strike is going better than what has been planned for and the hunger strikers are in high spirits.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

‘Victory will be greater if hunger strikers die’
Khader Adnan, who refused food for two months until Israel agreed to release him, says Palestinian prisoners’ strike will be hailed as victory regardless of its outcome.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Haneyya delivers message from prisoners to Erdogan
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation jails have addressed a message to Turkish premier Recep Erdogan asking for his personal intervention to support their cause.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Mother of hunger striker taken to hospital unconscious
The mother of hunger striker Thaer Halahle, who has been on hunger strike for 65 days, was taken to Al-Khalil government hospital on Saturday after she fainted.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Mothers worry about sons who fast in Israel jails
Ramallah Motasser Abd Al Haleem was barely out of his teens when the Israeli army took him away. Now the fresh-faced Palestinian stares out from a framed portrait clutched to his mother’s chest. “When they arrested him, he was only 20 years old,” she says in the centre of Ramallah, the capital of the West Bank, just miles from the barbed wire barrier that divides Israel from Palestine.
link to gulfnews.com

Solitary confinement and administrative detention
Administrative detention provides a vehicle for the arrest of Palestinians where there is no genuine reason for them to be taken into custody, even under Israel’s draconian military occupation. Nobody sees the “evidence” provided by intelligence officers apart from the Israeli judge. The lawyers acting for the detainee can’t see what the evidence against their client is; in any case, it is probably fabricated by a spy. The intelligence service is not bothered by this as long as it has something to put before a judge and claim that the detainee “threatens the security of Israel”.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

Palestinian Hunger Games, Juan Cole
Some 2000 of the estimated 4600 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are now hunger striking. Three hundred of them have been deprived of the right of habeas corpus and are being held in without charge or trial. Others are routinely tossed into solitary confinement, which, depending on how it is deployed, could be a severe violation of their human rights. Some 10 of the hunger strikers are severely affected and some near death.
link to www.juancole.com

Solidarity with our Hunger Strikers

IOF soldiers violently quell solidarity demonstrations
Dozens of Palestinians were treated for breathing difficulty when Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas canisters at them near Ofer in Ramallah and near Arub refugee camp in Al-Khalil on Monday.

5 hunger strikers in solidarity with prisoners transferred to hospital in Gaza
Local sources stated that four people in Gaza City were taken to the hospital on Saturday 5th May after fainting due to their hunger strike in solidarity with the hunger striking prisoners.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Hundreds Of Gaza Women March To Join Hunger Strikers Rally
Hundreds of women today marched to “Al Jundy,” the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City to join those already gathered in solidarity for the Palestinian hunger-strikers in Israeli jails. Some 40 released prisoners have set up beds in the solidarity tents, in an open-ended public hunger strike in support of the current prisoners, whose situation they know only too well. (link to video Helal Jaradat video) Thousands of locals pass through every day, staying a few hours or all day, to support them all in their demands for the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with international law.
link to www.scoop.co.nz

Students, public employees to join solidarity sit-ins
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — School students and civil servants will suspend work on Tuesday to take part in a public sit-in to support Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, their union said. The Union of Workers said public employees and students would stop work at 11 a.m. to allow participation in rallies centered on protest tents in cities across the West Bank. On April 17, Palestinian prisoners day, over 1,000 prisoners joined a group of hunger-strikers protesting detention without charge. Around 2,000 are now taking part in the strike, prisoners rights groups estimate. Administrative detainees Bilal Diab, 27, from Jenin, and Thaer Halahla, 33, from Hebron — are in a precarious condition after 69 days without food, a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel warned last week.
link to www.maannews.net

PFLP members protest in Ramallah
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine protested in Ramallah on Saturday in support of prisoners’ rights. Protesters burned Israeli, US, Arab League, EU and UN flags in response for their perceived silence in the face of Israeli violations. PFLP members called for armed resistance against Israel, saying that it is the only way to liberate occupied land and free prisoners. The group of demonstrators also called for a mass popular uprising to support prisoners, adding that Israel has violated all boundaries and norms.
link to www.maannews.net

Bahrain and Palestine
Political prisoners in Bahrain declare solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.
link to angryarab.blogspot.com

Children in Amman protest in support of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners
In solidarity with the prisoners illegally incarcerated by the Israeli occupation throughout Palestine and conducting an open-ended hunger strike in Israeli jails, a sit-in protest took place on Wednesday May 2nd in Amman, Jordan, in front of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The protest, organized by independent activists, included many children, and the theme of this protest was banging on pots and pans and blowing whistles, to grab the attention of the ICRC in particular and the society/international community at large, to alleviate the suffering of said prisoners and demand their rights.
link to samidoun.ca

AOHR Egypt announces solidarity hunger strike
AOHR in Egypt announced a series of solidarity activities in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ on hunger strike, starting by a solidarity hunger strike, on Sunday for 12 hours.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Seattle: Educational vigil for Palestinian prisoners May 5
As reported by SIRATYST, Seattle’s Voices of Palestine held an educational vigil on Palestinian prisoners on May 5, 2012. Voices of Palestine holds educational vigils every 1st & 3rd Saturday, near Westlake Park, 4th & Pine, Seattle.  Join them next Sunday, May 13, 2012, from noon-5 p.m. at Westlake Park for Nakba Commemoration, Palestine Stolen Homeland.
link to samidoun.ca

Land Theft & Destruction / Ethnic Cleansing / Refugees

Knesset panel passes benefits for West Bank settlements
Opponents say Likud bill tailored for West Bank settlements; proponents insist it can help Arab settlement, too.
link to www.haaretz.com

Stunned by High Court decision, Ulpana settlers unwilling to negotiate evacuation
Residents of West Bank outpost argue that state must solve their problem; Yesha Settlement Council to convene Tuesday.
link to www.haaretz.com

Court orders Palestinians out of Jerusalem home
Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered two Palestinians to leave their properties in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, ruling that the properties were owned by Jews, their lawyer told AFP.
link to news.yahoo.com

Israel issues eviction orders to Sheikh Jarrah home
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli officials on Monday issued an eviction order to a home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Wafa news agency reported. The eviction notice was issued to Fatima Salamieh, who has lived in the home since the 1950’s. The Salamieh family say that the authorities want to hand the property over to settlers, who claim it is owned by Jews. On April 18, Israeli police forcibly evicted 14 members of the Natsheh family after an Israeli court ruled in favor of settlers, who moved into the property.
link to www.maannews.net

Kufur Qaddoum: More homes to be demolished in the West Bank
The Israeli occupation forces have recently handed notices to citizens in Kufur Qaddoum village in Qalqilia district, stating its intention to demolish houses in the village and ordering the cessation of the construction of other houses that are currently being built. The village lies in Area B* of the West Bank, in the south west. Villagers said the occupation forces attacked the village on April 30 in the morning and handed out notices to Shaker Radwa, Basem Barham, Mousa Barham, Ahmad Barham, and Subhi Barham.
link to www.stopthewall.org

Israel serves notification for more demolitions in occupied territories
The Israeli occupation authorities handed over, on Sunday, May 6, notifications for the demolition of Palestinian farmers’ houses and sheds used for livestock in Khirbet At-Taweel, near Akraba town, in the West Bank. Hamza Deria, a member of the committee for defending Akraba lands, reported that soldiers and representatives of Israel’s Department of Planning and Building handed over the notices; giving the farmers 72 hours to evacuate their property before they proceed with demolition. Israel claims the area is a closed military zone and the establishment of all facilities in it is strictly prohibited.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

New settlement on a former Jordanian military base near Al Khalil
The Israeli army has recently handed an abandoned military base built on Palestinian land near Dura village, to the south of the southern West Bank city of Al-Khalil, to be used by Zionist settlers.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

IOF digs tunnel along Gaza border
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) are digging a big tunnel along the Gaza eastern and northern borders with Palestine occupied in 1948, the Quds Press reported.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Israeli authorities ‘uproot trees in Hebron village’
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities uprooted around 350 trees while leveling fields in a southern West Bank village on Tuesday morning, the Land Research Center said. Bulldozers, escorted by Israeli forces, demolished stone terraces and uprooted around 100 olive trees on 13,000 square meters of land belonging to Hasan Muhammad Abdul-Ghani Al-Amlah in the Attous area of Beit Ula village, the center said. Authorities razed approximately 250 fruit trees in and uprooted irrigation networks in nearby groves belonging Fayiz Muhammad Abdul-Ghani Al-Amlah, they added. The Jerusalem-based research group said Israeli authorities designate Al-Amlah’s land as Israeli state property and ordered him to vacate. A court hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, but forces razed the land before it could take place, the center said.
link to www.maannews.net

Easing the burden: maternal health care in Palestinian camps
Sitting in a dark, cramped living room in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, Sawsan, 24, tenderly rocks her three-month-old son Bayan on her knee, whispering sweet-nothings to calm the agitated baby. As his crying subsides, Sawsan gingerly hands Bayan over to Zeina, one of five midwives and nurses employed in Ain al-Hilweh by the non-governmental organization Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), as part of its maternal and child health care program. Zeina takes the child and smiles affectionately at him while gently wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his delicate arm.
ttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-mct-easing-the-burden-maternal-health-care-in-20120505,0,840357.story

In Their Name, We Remember the Nakba
To the memory of all who have lost their land, homes, lives during the Nakba and to this day, may Palestinians around the world never lose hope. In Their Name, We Remember The NAKBA.  Come congregate with us- 531 of us, 1 for every village lost,-for a memorial in front of the White House on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 from 6:30pm till sunset. We will be joined by local students on a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.
link to blog.endtheoccupation.org

Siege on Gaza

Gaza health authorities sound alarm on depleting medicines
Gaza City, May 6 (Petra) — The Gaza government’s health ministry on Sunday warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” resulting from an impending collapse of the health system as stocks of medicine in the Israeli-blockaded territory continued to decline sharply. “Gaza hospitals are suffering from a huge crisis as 186 items of medications had run out totally from the ministry’s warehouses and that large types of medicines will also be depleted in the next three months, said Director of the General Administration for Pharmaceuticals, Munir Al-Barsh. He said that some hospital wards had run the risk of closure due to the severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, but stressed that service at the wards would continue even at a minimum. The ministry called for intervention by rights groups and international health bodies to ease the hardship at Gaza health facilities and ensure a steady supply of medicine. Marking International Thalassaemia Day, the Gaza health ministry warned that running out supplies of medicine had put at risk the lives of 75 Palestinian children suffering from excess iron in blood and body tissue.
link to www.petra.gov.jo

Gaza health catastrophe likely due to lack of essential drugs
A catastrophic situation is likely in Gaza due to a lack of more than 200 essential drugs, a senior official in Gaza’s Ministry of Health has warned. Ashraf Al-Qudra, the Director of Public Relations and Information at the ministry said that the level of supplies in Gaza’s hospitals and the government’s central warehouse is “dangerously low”.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

Israel ‘must lift blockade, not just for tomatoes’
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israel must lift its blockade on Gaza and stop limiting exports to the needs of the Israeli market, the deputy agricultural minister said Monday. The Vegetable Growers’ Association in Israel is considering buying tomatoes from the Gaza Strip in response to a sudden price hike in Israeli tomatoes, Voice of Israel radio reported Sunday.
link to www.maannews.net

Israeli Violence / Raids

Action alert: STW office raided by Israeli military
At 1.30am this morning ten armoured jeeps of the Israeli occupation forces and intelligence surrounded and raided the offices of Stop the Wall in Ramallah. Israeli military stole 2 laptops, 3 hard drives and 10 memory cards containing files and photos as well as archive material relating to the work that the organisation does in opposition to Israel’s apartheid wall and the attack on Palestinian human rights that the wall and the settlement represent. This is a renewed attack upon Palestinian civil society and their struggle against the physical and psychological oppression, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing policies of the Israel.
link to www.stopthewall.org

Jewish settlers sneak into Aqsa mosque
Jewish settlers sneaked into the Aqsa mosque on Sunday morning and offered rituals on the eve of calls for breaking into the holy site.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Slamming the door to justice on Palestinians, Ali Abunimah
Israel’s ability to commit crimes against Palestinians with impunity relies on international complicity. There is a determined international effort to ensure that Palestinians are shut out of every legal forum where they could pursue justice for Israel’s crimes against them. Nothing illustrates this better than the horrifying case of the Samouni massacre.
link to www.aljazeera.com