OPT: Protection of civilians weekly
report 25 Dec 2007 - 01 Jan 2008
PCHR Weekly Report: 22 Palestinians killed,
117 injured by Israeli forces
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights
(PCHR)'s Weekly Report, during the week of January
3rd - 9th, 2008, 22 Palestinians were killed and
117 injured by the Israeli military.
Report: Wall construction, settlement
expansion and nonviolent resistance in 2007
According to a new report released by the Popular
Campaign Against the Wall, during the past year,
the Israeli government has continued its construction
of the illegal annexation Wall in the occupied West
Bank, and confiscated thousands of Dunams in
addition to uprooting hundreds of trees and
demolishing dozens of houses, especially in
the Jerusalem area.
Food insecurity continues to rise in Gaza
Geneva_(dpa) _ The number of people requiring food
aid has risen sharply in the Gaza Strip since the
closure of the main Karni border crossing point in
June, according to figures published Friday by the
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Geneva.
Israeli forces detain two West Bank Hamas leaders
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters)
- Israeli troops seized two Hamas leaders in the
occupied West Bank on Tuesday, three days
after they were briefly held and questioned by
security forces loyal to Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas.
Two injured in weekly demonstration
The villagers of Bil'in located near the
Central West Bank city of Ramallah, along with
their international and Israeli supporters conducted
their weekly demonstration against the illegal
Israeli wall on Friday.
One International Protestor
Injured Near Bethlehem
One international non-violent protestor was
injured during a peaceful protest that took
place in a village in the Southern West Bank
city of Bethlehem on Friday morning.
Reporter offers Bush a Gaza,
West Bank misery tour
Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes
series, CNN correspondents share their
experiences in covering news and analyze
the stories behind the events. Air Force One
touched down in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
President Bush has come to the Holy Land
for the first time as president of the United States.
But he's trapped inside his security bubble,
his every step mapped out in great and precise
detail by teams of security experts and handlers.
In the end he'll see a side of this unhappy land
that bears as much resemblance to reality as
Hollywood does to real life.
Bush calls for end to '67 Israeli occupation
President Bush, summing up meetings with both
sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, said Thursday that a peace accord will require "painful political concessions" by each. Resolving the status of Jerusalem will be hard, he said, and he called for the end of the "occupation" of Arab land by the Israeli military.
Bahar: Bush's visit might herald
large-scale IOF invasion of Gaza
"GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the acting speaker
of the PLC, on Thursday expressed fears that the
current visit of American president George Bush to
the region would be followed by a large-scale IOF
invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Bush prays in Bethlehem
amid sea of barricades
Security forces flooded Bethlehem on Thursday
as US President George W. Bush prayed at the
traditional birthplace of Jesus at the start of a pilgrimage
to some of Christianity's holiest sites. The president
-- a fervent Christian -- landed by helicopter and then was
whisked to the Church of the Nativity in a motorcade through
streets largely deserted as part of a massive security
operation aimed at protecting him.
Bush visits Jesus birthplace in charged W.Bank
Passing through a tiny "Door of Humility",
U.S. President George W. Bush made a pilgrimage
to the traditional birthplace of Jesus on Thursday in
the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians in Ramallah protest Bush's visit (pictures)
Many Palestinians ho-hum over Bush visit
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Men smoking waterpipes
and playing cards in a Ramallah cafe paid little
attention to the TV screen showing President
Bush's live news conference Thursday.
Palestinians in the West Bank greeted his visit
with a mix of skepticism and apathy.
Demonstrators tell Bush their Freedom
is not for Sale despite police repression
Despite attempts by the Palestinian authority to
silence any appearance of dissent, around a
thousand people peacefully took to the streets
all over Ramallah to protest the ongoing siege of
Gaza, and to protest what they said was an attempt
to strengthen Apartheid with U.S. President Bush's visit.
Dozens of people were arrested and assaulted by PA
police. The demonstration began at the Manara,
later moving towards the Orthodox Club.
Hamas: Bush promises 'unacceptable'
for next generations of Palestinians
The leader of the Hamas government in Gaza said
Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to
the region proved his bias toward Israel and hurt
Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.
Bush Peace Hallucinations Continue
U.S. President George Bush landed in Israel yesterday
on his first Presidential trip to the country. He
participated in a press conference in Jerusalem
with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in what
both men termed a "historic" and "monumental"
occasion. After listening to both so-called leaders
make their opening comments and fielding
questions from journalists, the only groundbreaking
revelation I could register was that the naiveté of
President Bush, either real or a charade, only served
the agenda of one party in the region - Hamas.
The radical Islamists at Hamas could not have
recruited a better cheerleader for their movement if they tried.
The Charade Goes On
Political commentators in this region and beyond
are nearly unanimous in their estimates that
President Bush's highlighted visit to Palestine-Israel
is going to fail to achieve substantive results in terms
of peace-making. Many observers point out that Bush's
understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very
superficial. For example, he said Israel should remain
a "Jewish state," but wouldn't say what that meant
in real terms and what he thought the fate of nearly
1.5 million Israeli Muslim and Christian citizens,
who constitute nearly a quarter of Israel's population,
would be, especially in the long run.
Bush implores government ministers to
keep Olmert in power
U.S. President George W. Bush implored
government ministers Thursday to stay behind
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, urging them to keep
him in power. At a dinner held in his honor at the
Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, Bush
referred to the prime minister as a strong leader,
adding that he holds him in high regard. Bush arrived
in Israel for a three-day on Wednesday.
Gideon Levy : Bush: A hostile president
There are also few other countries where the lame
duck from Washington would not be greeted with
mass demonstrations; instead, Israel is making
great efforts to welcome him graciously.
An American President and the outposts of Zion
Interwoven with the idea of a Jewish "return"
and a denial of relevant international law is a deep
anti-Arab racism.
Bush's Mideast Pipe Dream
George W. Bush's visit to the Holy Land has
only deepened the divide between the Israelis and Palestinians.
are solution to refugee issue
"These negotiations must ensure that Israel has
secure, recognized, and defensible borders," he
said. "And they must ensure that the state of
Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent."
Bush: Hamas delivers nothing but misery in Gaza
Bush made the remarks at a joint press conference
with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In exclusion, Hamas counts
As US President George W. Bush began talks
Thursday with Palestinian Authority leader
Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas supporters in Gaza were
determined to make their absence count. Leaders
from the Palestinian party Hamas that won the
elections in Gaza two years back have inevitably
not been invited to meet Bush. The US considers
Hamas a terrorist organization.
Many Palestinians Offer a Bleak Opinion of Bush
JERICHO, West Bank — President Bush did not come to
this oasis city of beige hills, lush green plantations and
ancient ruins on his visit to the Palestinian Authority on
Thursday. Given the apparent antipathy of the local
population, it is probably just as well.
Gaza isolation helping extremists: UN
CAIRO: The growing isolation of the Gaza Strip since
the Islamist Hamas wrested control in June is helping
extremists, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian
refugees said Thursday.
In eight years Palestinians have seen the bald eagle of
enlightened US power degenerate into a phoney, biased,
cynical lame duck.".....Bush's engagement in the
world's most intractable dispute is late, piecemeal
and phoney. Above all, it is one-sided. As Ghassan
Khatib, a former Palestinian minister, remarked this
week: "Palestinians agree that in the history of the
United States, Bush is more biased toward Israel
than any other American president." In any conflict,
responsibility for making the largest concessions
always rests on the stronger party, especially when
most of the wrong is on its side. But, despite his
rhetoric yesterday, Bush has not used Washington's
enormous leverage over Israel to end the occupation
of the West Bank and East Jerusalem......"
A lasting settlement?
While George Bush talks up the prospects for peace,
in reality he backs Israel's assault on Palestinians'
legitimate national aspirations.
Palestinians little moved by Bush visit
JERUSALEM; and Ramallah, West Bank
- While President Bush stood in Ramallah
Thursday speaking of plans for a way out of the
conflict that defines daily life for millions of Palestinians,
many of the people he hoped to convince that a peace
deal with Israel is on the horizon simply dismissed his
promises as kalam fadi – empty words.
Bush likely to return to Mideast
during final year
U.S. President George W. Bush is prepared to return
to the Middle East at least one more time before he leaves
office in January 2009, his national security adviser said.
US beats a Middle East policy retreat
"CAIRO - Recent months have witnessed several
notable political reorientations in the Middle East,
involving Iran, the Gulf states, Egypt and Lebanon.
Several experts say the changes reflect a shift in
Washington's regional strategy following recent
policy setbacks. "US policies in the region are
either in retreat or undergoing re-examination,"
Ayman Abelaziz Salaama, international law
professor at Cairo University, told Inter Press Service.
"Washington's project for a new Middle East - launched
in 2001with the aim of redrawing the region to suit US
interests - has failed."....."
Bush meeting with Abbas recalls antipathy toward Arafat
RAMALLAH, West Bank —
Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader,
literally loomed large Thursday in Ramallah as
President Bush became the first American president
to visit the Muqata, the battered compound that serves as
the Palestinian Authority president's home.
Presidential visit transforms Abbas'
Ramallah headquarters
RAMALLAH - Even Palestinian Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad was surprised when he walked into the
press briefing room in the Muqata, government headquarters,
Thursday. "Wow, that's new," he said loudly,
pointing at a large panel placed behind Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. President
George W. Bush and covered by plastic sheeting
painted to resemble a stone wall.
A 'helping' hand
Israel's way of supporting its negotiating partner leaves
something to be desired, observes Khaled Amayreh.
Just ahead of George Bush's visit to the region, Israel
was helping Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas in its own peculiar way. Last week, thousands
of Israeli occupation soldiers, backed by an armada of
military vehicles and armoured personnel carriers,
stormed Nablus, which the PA regime had just
declared a "safe and secure city".
Former chief rabbi warns Bush against '
activity that would harm Israel'
Former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu
warned U.S. President George W. Bush in a circular
against "activity that would harm Israel."
Rabbi's incitement against Olmert
threatens to split Chabad
In a major blow to a decade-long campaign to
play down divisions within the Chabad-Lubavitch
ultra-Orthodox movement, the group's Israeli
leadership appears ready to publicly distance
itself from a significant messianic strand within
the movement.
Ali Abunimah and Jonathan Cook discuss
Israel's "generous offers" on Flashpoints
EI co-founder Ali Abunimah and EI contributor and
author Jonathan Cook were interviewed on Flashpoints
radio out of Berkeley, California on Monday, 7 December
2007. The two were invited on just days before US
President George W. Bush's first ever presedential
visit to the Middle East and discussed past Israeli
"generous offers" including Camp David in 2000, and
Ehud Olmert's continued policy of ethnic cleansing.
CIA: We said back in 1974 that Israel had
nuclear weapons
The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by
bodies including the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research and the Defense
Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974
that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small
number" of which it "produced and stockpiled."
MIDDLE EAST DIARY: Sudan to take
in stranded Palestinians
In December, my colleague Miret el Naggar
wrote about a group of Palestinians who had
fled the war in Iraq only to find themselves
stranded in the ungenerous desert along the
Syrian-Iraqi border.
Brazil may receive more Palestinian refugees
BrasÃlia - Brazil may receive a new group
of Palestinian refugees in 2008.
The statement was made by the president
at the National Committee for
Refugees (Conare), Luiz Paulo Barreto, who
asserted that one of the lines of
work of the committee will consist of evaluating
the integration of the 108
Palestinians that arrived in Brazil last year.
Gaza suffering severe fuel shortages
The Gaza Strip continues to witness a dramatic decline
in the fuel and power supplies since 16 October 2007.
The Israeli high court upheld the decision of Israeli
authorities to reduce the amount of fuel, including
industrial fuel that is used for electricity generation,
into the Strip on 13 November 2007. Under this
decision, the Israeli Occupation Forces reduced
the amount of fuel necessary for operating the power
station to 250,000 liters per day.
Israeli medical delegation condemns
Israel's siege of Gaza
A delegation of four Israeli members of Physicians
for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), including
three doctors and PHR-Israel's Clinic Manager,
entered Gaza Wednesday as part of an emergency
medical caravan.
The evil decree
The scene shown Tuesday night on television was one of
the most harsh and shameful seen here in recent times:
a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, Ahmed Samut from Khan
Yunis, and a nine-and-a-half-year-old girl, Sausan Jaafari,
of Rafah, as they entered the Erez crossing alone, after
being torn from the arms of their weeping parents. The
two children have heart conditions and need urgent surgery
to save their lives. Wolfson Medical Center in Holon agreed
to care for them, as part of their Save a Child's Heart
program that saves the lives of children around the world.
Gaza Relief Convoy Campaign Is Gaining
Momentum
In the U.S., Canada, U.K., Holland and Germany
tax-exempted donations can be made for the
Gaza Relief Convoy through charities which
will pass it on to Gush Shalom - write to
correspondence_AT_gush-shalom
International Women's Peace Service
seeking volunteers
The International Women's Peace Service
(IWPS) is a team of international women based
in Haris, a village in the Salfit governorate of the
West Bank, which provides accompaniment to
Palestinian civilians, documents and nonviolently
intervenes in human rights abuses, supports acts
of nonviolent resistance to end the military occupation
of the Palestinian territories -- particularly Palestinian
women's resistance -- and opposes the wall. IWPS is
seeking new volunteers.
Report: Pollution crossing borders
between Palestine and Israel
A working paper by the Arava Institute,
and other Israeli and Palestinian organizations,
shows a widespread pollution problem that crosses
the borders that people are not allowed to cross.
Plumbing business going down the drain
Ramallah - Isam Shurtyi has been in the
business for more than 15 years and used to get
all his stock from export agents in Israel. Using
loans he received from UNRWA, Isam was able
to buy his goods in bulk, reducing the cost he
paid per unit and thereby ensuring a higher profit margin.
Israelis root for Clinton,
Palestinians for Obama
JERUSALEM - It might not be worth any
delegates at the Democratic Party nominating
convention, but it appears that Hillary Clinton has
a big lead in the informal Tel Aviv primary, while
Barrack Obama is poised to sweep Ramallah.
Twilight Zone / A window on interrogation
Imad Khotri says he is a clerk in the Qalqilyah
municipality and serves as a volunteer imam in
the city's Saladdin Mosque. He is 23 years old, and
was arrested in his home late at night on October 17,
2007 by Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The next day
he was transferred to a Shin Bet security service
interrogation facility in the Kishon detention camp.
That was the start of a prolonged series of interrogations
involving torture. His hands have remained partially
paralyzed as a result of the torture, and the tight
and prolonged binding of his hands to a chair with iron handcuffs.
Sharon, savior of the settler,
killer of Palestine
Genius in statecraft is often slow to reveal
itself. Genius in strategy often masquerades
as folly. Consider the case of Ariel Sharon.
An opinion poll conducted ahead of the
second anniversary of his devastating
January 4, 2006 cerebral hemorrhage,
showed that 26.8 percent of Israelis
believe that Sharon's stroke was
punishment for his expulsion of thousands
of settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip
less than half a year before.
US army clears Abu Ghraib officer
Lt-Col Steven Jordan was in charge of the Abu
Ghraib prison's interrogation unit when pictures
of US soldiers abusing prisoners were taken in
2003. He was cleared of mistreatment charges in
August, but convicted of disobeying orders not to
discuss the inquiry. That conviction has now been
thrown out, angering human rights campaigners.
Washington Post Reviews DAM CD
Kudos to the establishment newspaper for running
an non-ideological review of DAM's album,
"Dedication." DAM, for those who don't know,
is the premier Palestinian hip-hop group.
Bringing Beethoven to the West Bank
Berlin's well-known opera director, Daniel
Barenboim, will show his support for Palestine with a
charity paino concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
His concert follows a visit by United State President George Bush.
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