In Occupied Palestine: July 13, 2005

In Occupied Palestine

Zionism in practice

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

24 hours to 8am

July 13, 2005

1 Palestinian Policeman Killed & Another Critically Wounded

2 Homes Destroyed & Others Vandalised

Entire Village Destroyed by Israel on July 5

[Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]

Annexation Wall Building: 23 sites

Attacks: 14 – in Occupied Palestine the following were some of the people and areas that came under Israeli fire:

Gaza – at 8:05pm, a Palestinian National Security location on the coast road north of the Sheikh Ajlin junction. The fire came from the settlement of Nitsareem and prevented vehicles from using the road south of Gaza City.

Khan Yunis – at 10:45pm, a Palestinian National Security location east of the village of Abasan.

Rafah –

• At 11:25am and again at 8:50pm, fire from the area surrounding the settlement of Morag towards Palestinian territory to the north of Rafah.

• At 11:35am, the area surrounding the Salah ad Din gate and the neighbourhood of Yabna in the refugee camp.

• At 10:20pm, intensive fire onto Palestinian territory along the Egyptian border.

Curfews: 1

Tulkarem – at 2:45am, the Israeli Army, supported by helicopters, shot their way into the Palestinian Authority-controlled area in Tulkarem as well as the refugee camp and imposed a curfew. A Palestinian National Security officer was killed and another wounded by the Israelis as they prevented Palestinian security forces from withdrawing their patrols to their permanent locations. The Israeli Army also confiscated two taxis and used them to travel into the city, where they occupied several apartment buildings, using them as military posts while detaining the residents. Members of the Palestinian Resistance confronted the Israelis in the refugee camp.

Also see Killings and deaths below.

Destruction of property: 3

Detentions: 20

Home invasions and occupation: Numerous

Hebron –

• At noon, the Israelis invaded the homes of people in the town of Adh Dhahiriya, during a raid that lasted for two hours.

• At 4:10pm, the Israeli Army raided the town of Yatta and occupied one of the houses for use as a military post.

• At 11:40pm, Occupation forces invaded Hebron, set up a checkpoint and detained a number of residents.

• At 1am, the Israeli Army raided and roamed the town of Dura.

Also see Curfews above and House demolitions below.

House demolitions: 2

Jerusalem –

• Occupation forces demolished the house of Samer al Mandoub in the neighbourhood of Silwan.

• The Israeli Army raided the area of Wadi Qassem near the village of Al Isawiya and destroyed a house and its contents. In two other home invasions the Israeli vandalism was limited to damaging furniture.

Injuries: 2

Killings & Deaths: 1

Tulkarem – a policeman was shot dead and another critically wounded during an Israeli invasion of this West Bank city. Israel has sealed off the area as a "closed military zone" until further notice. The policeman, Mohammed Musbah Ghanam, lost his life when Occupation forces opened fire on a national security post, critically wounding another policeman, Mohammed Fawzi Shehada. In a statement, the PNA official spokesperson said that the shootings were deliberate and without warning. The Palestinian police post had been set up in procedure coordinated by the Israeli and Palestinian liaison office in the Tulkarem area.

Also see Curfews above.

Plunder: 2

Prisoners taken: 7

Raids: 16

Tulkarem – at 5am, the Israeli Army raided the town of Attil. They invaded the family home, and took prisoner, the father of the suicide bomber involved in the attack in the Israeli city of Netanya.

Bethlehem –

• At 2:20pm, an Israeli Army unit raided the village of Dar Salah and set up a checkpoint.

• At 4:50pm, and again at 1:20am, Israeli troops raided and roamed the town of Al Khadr.

• At 1:30am, Occupation forces raided the village of Husan and took three people prisoner.

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

Restrictions of movement: – 40

The Israeli Occupation’s military restrictions on Palestinian freedom covered by this category include:

• Checkpoints at the entrances to towns and villages to prevent people entering or leaving.

• Interference with people attempting to move around towns and villages.

• Cement blocks and barbed wire on roads.

• Rubble on roads.

• Farmers prohibited from going onto their land to work it.

• Road closures to isolate areas in which the Israeli Army considers the presence of Palestinians to be ‘illegal’.

• Yasser Arafat International Airport is permanently closed and Palestinians needing to enter or leave Palestine can do so only with Israeli permission.

• Interference with access to mosques and freedom of worship.

• Flying checkpoints that create instant obstacles to movement and which appear day or night, anywhere.

• Wall Gates. The gates in Israel’s annexation Wall, which restrict Palestinian access to their land on both sides.

• Israel enforces many of the above restrictions with the threat, or actual use, of military action as well as personal physical assault. Thus, Palestinians are faced with an all-pervasive and constant state of Israeli violence towards them.

Settler violence: 2

Qalqilya – on July 11, an armed Israeli settler seized control from the driver of a rented vehicle.

Nablus – at 3:40am, Israeli settlers raided the village of Asira al Qibliya and set fire to a vehicle belonging to Mohammed Mahmoud Saleh.

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In his autobiography, Trial and Error, written in 1949, Chaim Weizmann – then the first President of the new Israeli State – looked back at the controversy over the Aliens Bill. An immigrant to Britain himself, the brilliant young chemist was already, in 1902, one of the leading intellectuals of the new Zionist movement. He had met Sir William Evans Gordon, author of the anti?Jewish legislation; even with hindsight, with the Holocaust fresh in his mind, the then President of Israel still insisted that:
Our people were rather hard on him [Evans Gordon]. The Aliens Bill in England, and the movement which grew up around it, were natural phenomena ... Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them ... The fact that the actual number of Jews in England, and even their proportion to the total population, was smaller than in other countries was irrelevant; the determining factor in this matter is not the solubility of the Jews, but the solvent power of the country ... this cannot be looked upon as anti?Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off ... though my views on immigration naturally were in sharp conflict with his, we discussed these problems in a quite objective and even friendly way.

Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, pp. 90?91.

Lenni Brenner

Zionism in the Age of the Dictators

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Israel Demolished the Entire Village Of Tana

Wednesday, 13 July 2005, 9:11am

Press Release: International Solidarity Movement

Khirbet Tana, near Beit Furik, Nablus

Demonstration assembling in Beit Furik at Beit Furik Municpality at 10am, Thursday 14th July.

On 5th July Israeli forces demolished the entire village of Tana, near Beit Furik, Nablus. The residents had received one day's notice that their homes were to be demolished by a piece of paper left outside one of their dwellings. The villagers knew no one to call and the razing of their homes went ahead unhindered. The UN estimates 170 persons have been "displaced", the villagers say Tana was home to about 100 families. The villagers intend to protest at this destruction and reclaim their land this Thursday 14th July.

Tana is a small farming village in the Jordan valley in one of the longest continually inhabited areas of the world. Residents say the area is mentioned in the holy books and was known 3500 years ago. The village mosque, the only structure not to be demolished, has stood for several hundred years. The paper announcing the demolition says that the villagers had built their homes without Israeli permission. Their caves and stone constructions are hundreds of years old. In recent years they have added steel and concrete structures to the front of their caves. A school house was built six years ago and, contrary to the UN report, this too was destroyed last week. When the army destroyed the village they demolished not only the steel structures but also the caves themselves and even the villagers' cars.

In 1989 the villagers had a court case in Israel, after which they were told they would be allowed to farm the western portion of their land. In recent years the villagers have also been threatened by settlers from Itamar, who came and swam in their water supply.

The villagers are not defeated and refuse to be intimidated. They intend to go back to their land, rebuild their homes and continue farming. International and Israeli activists support this action.

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From:

Mazin Qumsiyeh

qumsi001@hotmail.com

While some in the media will now focus on the killings in Jerusalem and Netanya, few would have noticed their own silence and complicity while the daily killings and land confiscations and societal destruction going on in the occupied Palestinian areas. It should become clearer and clearer that selective emphasis on a small fraction of the symptoms (violence of the occupied and dispossessed) would do nothing to address let alone treat the root causes. As in medicine (my field), a little research would help. Here are some pointers.

Chutzpah and free speech (How Allan Dershowitz committed fraud in publishing a book to defend racist ideologies)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oewiener11jul11,1,6360784.storyamp;cset=true&ctrack=1&cset=true

More on this topic at Norman Finkelstein's website at http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

39,000 Killed in Iraq http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15901883-38201,00.html

Barrier Meant to Ensure Jewish Majority, Associated Press 11 July 2005 "Israel's separation barrier in Jerusalem is meant to ensure a Jewish majority in the city and not just serve as a buffer against bombers, an Israeli Cabinet minister acknowledged Monday."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071100257.html

Gate to nowhere, By Amira Hass. Haaretz (how Israel is committing land theft while claiming humanitarian concerns):

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/597434.html

United Nations reports on humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian areas

http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/

US taxpayers to foot the bill for Israel's unilateral moves Israel requesting additional $2.2 billion in US largesse. BBC News Online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4671169.stm

"Is the world blind? Two more Palestinian homes demolished." (Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions) http://www.icahd.org/eng/

One year on: Governments have obligations to hold Israel to account. By Jeff Handmaker, Peter Malcontent and Gentian Zyberi.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3974.shtml

Did you act recently?

http://www.qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/

Mazin Qumsiyeh

http://qumsiyeh.org
http://academicsforjustice.org
http://al-awda.org
http://boycottisraeligoods.org
http://palestineremembered.com
http://www.one-democratic-state.org

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Palestine Human Rights Campaign

www.palestine.org.nz

ENDS

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