PHRC: Update On Palestine

In Occupied Palestine Zionism in practice

Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property, 24 hours to 8am July 18, 2005 Occupation Costs Another Life with Ten Wounded, Houses & Children under Fire, Israel’s Wall Takes 2 More Homes, Israel Makes Checkpoints Dangerous for People Waiting to Cross, [Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]

Air raids: 1

Northern Gaza –5:20pm a pilotless Israeli warplane fired missiles at two vehicles in the Al Alami area of the town of Beit Lahiya. The vehicles were destroyed and three people wounded, including a Palestinian police officer.

Annexation Wall Building: 23 sites

Attacks: 33 – in Occupied Palestine the following were some of the people and areas that came under Israeli fire:

Nablus –2am, the old city of Nablus.

Northern Gaza – 4:35pm, the Israeli Army fired two mortar shells from the area surrounding the settlement of Nisanit at the Balsam Hospital and the Palestinian Civil Defence Centre in the town of Beit Lahiya.

Gaza –

12:50pm, a Palestinian shot and wounded near the Hajj Fadhl factory south of Gaza city.

2:30pm, fire from the area surrounding the settlement of Nitsareem onto Palestinian territory south of Gaza city.

12:20am, the Israeli Army opened fire from the military post in the area of the Al Hajj Fadhl factory on a Palestinian National Security location south of Gaza city.

Central Gaza – 3pm, fire from the settlement of Nitsareem on a Palestinian National Security post near the settlement.

Khan Yunis –

10am, houses in the Al Amal neighbourhood in the city of Khan Yunis. One person, Sa’id Issa Siyam, was killed in the attack.

11:35am, houses in the neighbourhood of An Namsawi and in the West Khan Yunis refugee camp.

11:35am and again at 7:15pm, people waiting to cross at the Abu Holi checkpoint.

2:10pm, houses in the neighbourhood of An Namsawi and in the West Khan Yunis refugee camp. A child and an elderly person were wounded in this attack.

3:50pm, intensive fire and a shell fired from a tank at people waiting to cross at At Tuffah checkpoint. A child and three women were wounded in this attack.

Rafah –

10:50am fire from the area surrounding the settlement of Morag on Palestinian territory north of the city.

10:55am, children in the area surrounding the Salah ad Din gate and neighbourhood of Yabna in refugee camp.

12:30pm, the area surrounding the Salah ad Din gate.

4:55pm and again at 2:05am, the area surrounding the Tall Zu’rub military post.

8:20pm, houses in the area of Ureibeh and the neighbourhood of Tall as Sultan.

2am, the Al Barazil neighbourhood of the refugee camp.

5:55am, the area of Ureibeh.

Curfews: 1

See Home Invasions below.

Destruction of property: 2

See Air raids above.

Detentions: 10

Home invasions and occupation: Numerous invasions – 5 occupations

Tulkarem – the curfew imposed on the city and the refugee camp remains, with the Palestinian Resistance opposing the Israeli repression.

8:30am, the Israeli Army raided the town of Attil and occupied two houses.

9:10pm, Israeli troops occupied a house on the road between Dahiyat Shuweika and Dahiyat Iktaba.

Bethlehem – a house was invaded at 4:35pm in the village of Khalayil al Louz.

Hebron –

9:30am, the Israeli Army raided the city and set up two checkpoints, one in the area of Ein Sarah and the other in As Salaam Street. At 11pm, the Israelis raided the city again and invaded houses in Dahiyat az Zaytoun.

6:30pm, the towns of Dura and As Samoa raided and homes invaded.

House demolitions: 2

Hebron – Occupation forces issued notices to Mohammed Salem al Masharqah and Ali Mohammed al Masharqah, stating that their homes in the village of Al Burj are too close to Israel’s annexation Wall and are to be demolished accordingly.

Injuries: 10

Killings & Deaths: 1

See Attacks above.

Medical obstruction: 1

See Attacks above.

Prisoners taken: 8

Jerusalem – a 16-year-old boy in Bethlehem, Kamal Feisal Masalmeh.

Raids: 25

Ramallah & El Bireh –

8pm, the town of Beit Rima, Israeli soldiers firing stun-grenades in the streets.

11:30pm

, the town of Deir Ghassana.

12:20am

, the villages of Mazari’an Nubani and Arura.

Tulkarem –

9am, the village of Seida, two villagers taken prisoner.

2pm, the town of Bal’a and a Palestinian National Security location in the town.

5pm, the town of Anabta. Local people expressed their resentment at the Israeli incursion into their town and the Resistance opposed the Occupation forces.

1:10am, the town of Illar, with the Israelis meeting an armed response from the Resistance.

Qalqilya – 10:30pm, the village of Izbat Salman.

Bethlehem –

6pm, the Ayda camp, where the Israelis detained a child for several hours because of refugee opposition to the incursion.

7pm, the town of Al Khadr.

Hebron –

7am, the towns of Ash Shuyukh (two Palestinians made prisoners) and Surif (one prisoner taken).

Midnight

, As Samoa and Yatta.

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

Restrictions of movement: – 32

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.

URGENT

ALL EYES ON GAZA DISENGAGEMENT

15 July 2005

What may come after the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip:

A Warning from Israel

by URI DAVIS, ILAN PAPPE, and TAMAR YARON

We feel that it is urgent and necessary to raise the alarm regarding what may come during and after evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967, in the event that the evacuation is implemented.

We held back on getting this statement published and circulated, seeking additional feedback from our peers. The publication in Ha'aretz (22 June 2005) quoting statements by General (Reserves) Eival Giladi, the head of the Coordination and Strategy team of the Prime Minister's Office, motivated us not to delay publication and circulation any further. Confirming our worst fears, General (! Res.) Eival Giladi went on record in print and on television to the effect that "Israel will act in a very resolute manner in order to prevent terror attacks and [militant] fire while the disengagement is being implemented" and that "If pinpoint response proves insufficient, we may have to use weaponry that causes major collateral damage, including helicopters and planes, with mounting danger to surrounding people."

We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm's way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees. The scenario could be similar to what has already happened in the past – a tactic that Ariel Sharon has used many times in his military career - i.e., utilising provocation in order to launch massive attacks.

Following this pattern, we believe that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz are considering to utilize provocation for vicious attacks in the near future on the approximately one and a half million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip: a possible combination of intensified state terror and mass killing. The Israeli army is not likely to risk the kind of casualties to its soldiers that would be involved in employing ground troops on a large scale in the Gaza Strip. With General Dan Halutz as Chief of Staff they don't need to. It was General Dan Halutz, in his capacity as Commander of the Israeli Air Force, who authorised the bombing of a civilian Gaza City quarter with a bomb weighing one ton, and then went on record as saying that he sleeps well and that the only thing he feels when dropping a bomb is a slight bump of the aircraft.

The initiators of this alarm have been active for many decades in the defence of human rights inside the State of Israel and beyond. We do not have the academic evidence to support our feeling, but given past behaviour, ideological leanings and current media spin initiated by the Israeli government and military, we believe that the designs of the State of Israel are clear, and we submit that our educated intuition with matters pertaining to the defence of human rights has been more often correct than otherwise.

We urge all those who share the concern above to add their names to ours and urgently give this alarm as wide a circulation as possible.

Circulating and publishing this text may constitute a significant factor in deterring the Israeli government, thus protecting the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip from this very possible catastrophe and contributing to prevent yet more war crimes from occurring.

Please sign, circulate, and publish this alarm without delay!

Please send notification of your signature to Tamar Yaron

_tiyaron@hazorea.org.il_ (mailto:tiyaron@hazorea.org.il)

WE WOULD ALSO APPRECIATE RECEIVING NOTIFICATION IF THE ALARM WAS PUBLISHED IN ANY MEDIA AND/OR IF IT WAS SENT TO A GROUP DISTRIBUTION LIST.

Uri Davis, Sakhnin uridavis@actcom.co.il_ (mailto:uridavis@actcom.co.il) ,

Ilan Pappe, Tiv'on pappe@poli.haifa.ac.il_ (mailto:pappe@poli.haifa.ac.il)

Tamar Yaron, Kibbutz Hazorea tiyaron@hazorea.org.il _(mailto:tiyaron@hazorea.org.il)

For all his talk about sharp conflict with Evans Gordon, there is no sign that Weizmann ever tried to mobilise the public against him. What did Weizmann say to him in their 'friendly' discussion? Neither chose to tell us, but we can legitimately surmise: as with the master Herzl, so with his disciple Weizmann. We can reasonably conjecture that the avowed devotee of pragmatic accommodation asked the antiSemite for his support of Zionism. Never once, then or in the future, did Weizmann ever try to rally the Jewish masses against antiSemitism. 'Taking the Jews away from the Revolutionary Parties' Herzl had originally hoped to convince the Sultan of Turkey to grant him Palestine as an autonomous statelet in return for the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) taking up the Turkish Empire's foreign debts. It soon became quite apparent that his hopes were unreal. Abdul Hamid knew well enough that autonomy always led to independence, and he was determined to hold on to the rest of his empire.

The WZO had no army, it could never seize the country on its own. Its only chance lay in getting a European power to pressure the Sultan on Zionism's behalf. A Zionist colony would then be under the power's protection and the Zionists would be its agents within the decomposing Ottoman realm. For the rest of his life Herzl worked towards this goal, and he turned, first, to Germany. Of course, the Kaiser was far from a Nazi; he never dreamt of killing Jews, and he permitted them complete economic freedom, but nevertheless he froze them totally out of the officer corps and foreign office and there was severe discrimination throughout the civil service. By the end of the 1890s Kaiser Wilhelm became seriously concerned about the ever-growing socialist movement, and Zionism attracted him as he was convinced the Jews were behind his enemies. He naively believed that 'the Social Democratic elements will stream into Palestine'. (1) He gave Herzl an audience in Constantinople on 19 October 1898. At this meeting the Zionist leader asked for his personal intervention with the Sultan and the formation of a chartered company under German protection. A sphere of influence in Palestine had attractions enough, but Herzl had grasped that he had another bait that he could dangle before potential rightwing patrons: 'I explained that we were taking the Jews away from the revolutionary parties.' (2)

(1) David Yisraeli, 'Germany and Zionism'' Germany and the Middle East, 18351939

(Tel Aviv University, 1975), p. 142.

(2) Patai, Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, vol. III, p. 729.

Lenni Brenner

Zionism in the Age of the Dictators

PCHR Condemns the IOF Continuation of Total Closure G. Strip

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in a press release, on Sunday, condemned the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip which is splitting it into three isolated areas, the prevention of residents aged 16-35 to pass through the Rafah border crossing point and the closure of the Erez crossing. PCHR said that the measures had increased the daily suffering of Gaza residents and was in violation of their civil, political and economic rights. PCHR urges the international community to pressure Israel to respect international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights and for an immediate end to its policy of total closure.

RALLY For Tolerance

In the aftermath of night attacks on six Auckland mosques, the Council of Christians & Muslims has called a rally in defence of tolerance. Details:

2.30pm on Sunday 24th July

Aotea Square, Auckland City

© Scoop Media