Update On Occupied Palestine

In Occupied Palestine

April 17, 2005

Israeli Troops Storm Marda - Hebron Land to be Seized

Israeli Soldiers Beat 13-Year-Old, Steal School Bag

Israeli Troops Storm Marda - Hebron Land to be Seized

The West Bank town of Marda was stormed on Saturday by Israeli Occupation forces as Israel presses on with its plan to annex Palestinian land in Hebron. The Israelis fired teargas canisters and stun grenades at people in the afternoon raid, which meant that the victims were mainly children on their way home from school.

The Israelis issued expropriation warrants to three Palestinian families from the village Edaisa for nine hectares of agricultural land. According to Edaisa village council member, Yousef Jradat, the land is cultivated with almonds and vineyards and the warrants order the owners to keep off it. Palestinian maps and settlements expert, Abdelhadi Hantash, said that such warrants are preludes to the expropriation of land for settlement purposes.

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Israel Resumes High Radiation Screening of Palestinians

On Saturday Israeli occupation forces resumed the screening of all Palestinians travelling through the Rafah border terminal with its "SafeView Millimeter Wave Radar". The US made device is described by the manufacturer as an "advanced portal using millimeter wave holographic technology to screen passengers for weapons and explosives."

The Director of the Border Points and Crossings Department, Salim Abu Safiyyeh, said that he was surprised by the Israeli decision to resume the screening of all passengers without exception, after having limited the screening to what Israel described as ¡¥potential threats¡¦. Israel¡¦s decision to limit the use of the machine had been due to intense lobbying by Palestinian human rights organisations and negative publicity. Abu Safiyyeh advised people to refuse to enter the machine, saying its effects were harmful.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza warned of the potential dangers in a press statement. The PCHR said that the machine violated the Palestinian people's right to privacy, as it "photographs Palestinian civilians completely naked", besides endangering their health. The PCHR added that the use of the machine by Israel was considered a form of collective punishment, which is specifically prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention - because everyone was forced to pass through the machine. The human rights organisation warned that a similar machine might also be used against Palestinian workers going through Erez checkpoint. These workers are already subjected to humiliating measures.

The director of public relations at the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Dr. Jom'a Al Saqqa, warned of the potential radiation risks posed by the Israeli machine. He pointed out that those who are screened by it often suffer nausea and headaches, prompting complaints to the Minister of Civil Affairs, Mohammed Dahlan, who has taken a personal interest in the issue.

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Zionism in practice

Israel¡¦s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property

[Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]

Annexations: See: Israeli Troops Storm Marda - Hebron Land to be Seized above.

Annexation Wall Building: 23 sites

Attacks: 12 Across the West Bank the following refugee camps, towns, villages and other areas came under fire by Israel:

Jenin

¡V houses in the eastern suburbs.

Khan Yunis

¡V the Al Amal neighbourhood (the Israeli army was alarmed by the approach of Palestinian children)

The West Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Rafah

¡V the neighbourhood of Tall as Sultan, the area surrounding the Salah ad Din gate. At 12:30am the Rafah refugee camp. At 12:50am, the Israeli army detonated explosives on land near the neighbourhood of Yabna in the Rafah refugee camp.

Closures: 17

Destruction of property: 1

Detentions: 4

Home invasions and occupation: Numerous

Jerusalem ¡V from just after midnight, Israeli forces raided the Qalandiya refugee camp after closing the roads leading to the camp. The Israelis stayed in the camp, invading people¡¦s homes, until 1:30am.

Tulkarem ¡V at midnight the Israeli army raided Dahiyat Shuweika and the town of Attil. The Israelis invaded a house and continued the raid until 5am. The Israeli army also raided the town of Qaffin at 1:30am and molested the residents.

Injuries: 2

Salfit ¡V Israeli Occupation forces shot a Palestinian, Mohammed Shuqeir, in the leg as he worked on his land in the village of Az Zawiya. Shuqeir was admitted to the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus with bullet wounds to his left thigh.

Rafah ¡V Israeli troops at the Rafah Crossing beat a Palestinian, Abed Kassab, so savagely he had to be admitted to hospital.

Medical obstruction: 1

Jenin ¡V Israeli Occupation forces invaded the town of Silat adh Dhahr, raided a medical centre and forced a doctor to cease treating a patient there before closing the centre altogether.

Physical assaults: 2

See Injuries above and Plunder below.

Plunder: 2

Salfit ¡V Israeli soldiers beat up a thirteen-year-old child, Yousef Fattah, and stole his school bag in a raid on the village of Marda.

Jericho ¡V an Israeli settler known as Omri stole a horse belonging to Mahmoud Ka¡¦abneh, in the area between the villages of Al ¡¥Auja and Ad Duyok.

Prisoners taken: 6 including a 12-year-old in Hebron.

Raids: 21

Hebron ¡V at 11:30pm the Israeli army raided the city of Hebron and patrolled several neighbourhoods.

School disruptions: 1

Qalqilya ¡V the Israelis army searches of people with a metal detector at the Azzun ¡¥Atma Wall gate, again delayed students and teachers from getting to school on time.

Times indicated in red contribute to the sleep deprivation suffered by Palestinian children.

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Israel Using Doctors to Extort Confessions from Sick Prisoners

Palestinians are demanding that the international community investigate the entire Israeli gaol system including detention centres in order to expose the brutality and blatant violations of human rights suffered by Palestinian Prisoners.

The Palestinian prisoner's society (PPS), which is conducting a hunger strike by prisoners, said it hoped the strike would raise awareness of the dire and deteriorating conditions Palestinians endure in Israeli prisons. On Saturday, the Vienna-based Friends of Humanity Human Rights Organisation accused Israel of using its doctors in a gross breach of medical ethics. In a report, the group asserted that Israeli doctors co-operated with Israeli security and military teams in torturing prisoners in attempts to extort confessions.

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Israel clears officer of killing journalist

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

15 April 2005

The British government formally protested to Israel after the army officer who opened fire when the filmmaker James Miller was shot dead in Gaza two years ago was acquitted of disciplinary charges. The decision by the head of Israel's Southern Command to clear the officer overturned a recommendation by the military advocate general that he should be severely disciplined. Mr Miller was killed in Rafah in 2003 while walking back to his lodgings displaying a white flag and clearly identifying himself to troops as a journalist.

The officer acquitted yesterday has admitted opening fire and a 79-page report by Brigadier-General Avihai Mandelblit, the Advocate General, held that the first lieutenant in the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion had fired in clear breach of army rules of engagement. Mr Miller's widow Sophy said the decision "makes a mockery of Israeli claims that they follow due process where IDF soldiers have acted criminally and outside their own rules of engagement". Mr Miller's family had been bitterly disappointed when they were told at a meeting with General Mandelblit in Tel Aviv last month that the officer would not be prosecuted because of a lack of ballistic evidence proving the bullet which killed Mr Miller came from the officer's weapon. But they - and British officials - were assured that the Advocate General was recommending a stiff disciplinary sentence.

Baroness Symons, the Foreign Office Minister, has summoned Zvi Heifetz, the Israeli Ambassador in London, on Monday to protest at the decision and urge that it be reversed, a message also strongly conveyed in a letter last night by Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, in a letter to Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Defence Minister. Yesterday, Baroness Symons said she was "shocked and saddened" by the decision by the Brigadier-General Guy Tzur, the Southern Command chief of staff. The Israeli army said General Tzur decided that under the conditions then - including "frequent terrorist attacks; thick darkness and earlier that same day the soldiers were fired at by anti-tank missiles" - the shooting was "reasonable". The family's lawyers are seeking reversal of the decision.

Mr Miller, an award-winning documentary maker who had been working on a film about Palestinian children caught up in the conflict, was shot while walking openly with two colleagues to their apartment. They were carrying a white flag with a torch shone on it, their helmets were clearly marked "TV" and they called out that they were British journalists as they approached an armoured personnel carrier to ask permission to leave. Israeli claims of heavy fire between Palestinians and Israeli troops at the time were disproved because an Associated Press cameraman filmed the incident.

Mrs Miller said the family believed there had been no "genuine will" to uncover the truth because the site of the shooting had not been secured for forensic investigation. It was bulldozed three days later and Israeli authorities took eleven weeks to impound the guns involved in Mr Miller's death for ballistic examination

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Zionism in principle

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, 'What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"

Yitzhak Rabin,

leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979

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Council of Christians and Muslims (NZ) Inc.

Established 1997 Incorporated 2003

PO Box 56-150, Dominion Road, Auckland New Zealand

www.ccm.org.nz

The Council of Christians & Muslims

will meet at the

PONSONBY MOSQUE

Vermont Street, Ponsonby

on

* Monday, 25 April 2005 *

7.30 pm

******

Annual General Meeting

followed by

Abdul Rahim Rasheed CCM Patron

also

Ahmed Zaoui

speaking on his involvement in Muslim ¡V Christian Dialogue

Council of Christians & Muslims (NZ) Inc.

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