One week before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to present the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations Security Council, Palestinians around the West Bank marched against the Israeli wall. The Israeli army brought in reinforcements to deal with increases in protests, but a source in the army said it would not call up its reserves yet.
Protest marches without incident were reported in the West Bank villages of Bil’in, Ni’lin, al-Nabi Saleh, al-Walajeh, and al-Ma’sara. In a rare event in the village of Qusra near Nablus in the northern West Bank, Palestinians arrested a group of nine Israeli settlers who they claim were trying to infiltrate the village.
Palestinian official news wire Wafa reported on Friday afternoon that settlers first opened fire on the Qusra villagers, wounding one, before they were captured. The wounded man, Fathullah Abu Rayda, was taken to a Nablus-area hospital.
As of press time, the status of the nine captured settlers was unknown. Israeli forces, including 15 vehicles, had blocked the road from the village of Qusra to Jaloud, a village to the southwest. Immediately to the northeast of Qusra is the settlement of Migdalim.
The Qusra mosque was torched and spray painted in an apparent “price tag” attack two weeks ago, after the Israeli army destroyed part of the illegal settlement of Migron. Settlers often vandalize and destroy Palestinian buildings to protest Israeli demolitions, calling the attacks “price tags” of a settlement policy they deem too moderate. EU High Representative Catherine Ashton condemned the attack, in which “Muhammad was a pig” was sprayed on the side of the mosque.
Both Palestinian and Israeli governments say they are trying to avoid an escalation of events leading up to September 23, when the Palestinian statehood bid will come before the UN. After its announcement of reinforcements, the Israeli army said it believed Palestinian security forces could contain escalations, but it was taking precautions.
PNN - Palestine News NetworkRAMALLAH, September 16, 2011 (WAFA) – Bilin residents marched in the Ramallah-area village in the weekly anti-fence, anti-settlements protest on Friday carrying and chanting slogans in support of Palestine’s bid to seek membership in the United Nations.
Local residents said the protesters, along with their Israeli and international supporters, marched to the fence Israel is erecting on their land to divide it from nearby settlements.
Israeli soldiers stationed on the other side of the fence fired tear gas canisters at the protesters causing several people to suffer from gas inhalation, said the residents.
Similar protests took part in several other West Bank villages where residents hold weekly demonstrations against the barrier Israel is building on their land.
The protests took place in Nilin and Nabi Saleh, in the Ramallah area, and in Masara, in the Bethlehem area.
A number of protesters were hurt in the various incidents.
They said settlers attempted to enter the village to damage property when local watch groups noticed them.
The village watch group apprehended the settlers for some time before letting them go, but one of them opened fire at the village residents shooting one resident in the arm.
An Israeli army force raided the village shortly after this incident and clashed with residents, said the sources.
The soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the village residents and journalists covering the event.
At least 11 Palestinians were hurt by the army crackdown, four of them photojournalists, one of them hit by a tear gas in his hand.
The tear gas canisters caused fire to the fields, said the local residents.
Palestinians have started to form watch groups in the Nablus area villages to protect the villages and their residents following a sharp rise in settler attacks on the villages.
Maan News Agency | Sept 16, 2011
BEIJING (AFP) — A Chinese state-run newspaper on Friday warned of a spike in tensions in the Middle East if the United States vetoed the Palestinian bid for membership of the United Nations next week.
As peace talks with Israel stall, President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to formally submit a request for UN membership next Friday, despite strong objections from Washington that the move would be “counter-productive.”
“If the US chooses to fly in the face of world opinion and block the Palestine UN bid next week, not only will Israel become more isolated but tensions in the region will be heightened even more,” said the China Daily.
“The majority of the international community deems an independent state as the inalienable right of the Palestinians,” the English-language daily said in an editorial, echoing Beijing’s official position on the issue.
The planned request by the Palestinians for UN membership comes almost a year after direct peace talks with Israel ran aground due to a dispute over Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
But the US has threatened to veto the move if it is made within the UN Security Council, saying it would harm prospects for peace talks and that a Palestinian state can only result from negotiations with Israel.
Israel is also opposed to the move, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he too will address the UN next Friday to set out his country’s objections.
Envoys from the United States and the European Union are currently holding talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in an effort to get them back into direct peace talks.
Israel announced on Thursday the initiation of a municipal plan that would retroactively legitimize structures in one of the largest West Bank settlements, and which were built on private Palestinian land.
There are three kinds of land in Ofra, the West Bank's largest settlement: The settlement's original tract of land; land expropriated by the Jordanians; and land expropriated by Israel, which designated exclusively for the construction of public structures.
Over 58% of Ofra's structures are built on private Palestinian land, a fact which has delayed potential construction plans.
However, in an attempt to allow further construction in Ofra, the state told the High Court of Justice on Thursday that it was drafting a jurisdiction plan for Ofra, the legal significance of which would be the retroactive approval of past construction plans, even on private Palestinian land.
The plan has another objective, which is the following of a 2005 state report, according to which constructions plans would be approved in settlements only if they possess a defined jurisdiction.
Israel's announcement came during a High Court hearing of an appeal made by the residents of nearby Palestinian villages against any new construction in the lands originally appropriated by Jordan.
In response, the state said that the building would indeed be approved, but that any construction would cease for the time being.
Dror Etkes, who has been aiding the Palestinian families in their legal battle against further construction on private lands, said that the move "at once cleared the smoke screen that the settlers and the state have been trying to keep for years in regards to the land on which Ofra was founded."
"It's clear that out of the thousands of dunams the settlers took control of, only a few dozen were actually purchased. The rest was just looted from their owners," Etkes added.
The Palmer Report, recently released by the United Nations, was a moral travesty. It asserted that the naval blockade of Gaza was somehow separate from the land siege of Gaza. The Palmer Report was an attempt to break up the oppression of Gaza into bite size morsels so that it could be consumed without causing one to choke on the injustice of the occupation, of the siege.
Last week, we planted a Palestinian flag in the buffer zone, it stands alone, everything else has been destroyed by Israel. We did not leave it alone; we painted another flag on a large piece of rubble. We moved the flag even farther into the buffer zone, about 30 meters from the wall encircles Gaza.
On Tuesday, September 13, the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun, fisherman from Beit Lahia, and activists from the International Solidarity Movement gave their response to the Palmer Report. They gathered on the beach near Beit Lahia and marched north, into the buffer zone, land that has been stolen from the people of Gaza and depleted of any fecundity. Across from the buffer zone is the land of the refugees in Gaza from which they were ethnically cleansed 63 years ago.
The buffer zone doesn’t stop on the land, as the Palmer Report may suggest, yet it extends onto the sea. Israel’s disregard for Oslos allotment of 20 miles of sea access to Palestinians has been defamed to a restricted area of three miles off the shore for fisherman to access.
The buffer zone has extended beyond the last grain of Gaza’s beach sand and continues into the waters under the misnomer of “buffer zone.” Scrap collectors shot to death, farmers murdered, families left without land to support themselves, it is a death zone. After the balloons popped, the flags survived, just as the Palestinian people have survived all of the Israeli violence directed at them.
We gathered at Waha, a hotel complex destroyed by Israeli bombs, at 8 AM and marched north along the beach, towards the wall that marks the northern boundary of the open air prison that is referred to as Gaza. We looked out over the sea that marks the western wall of the prison that is Gaza–the sea where earlier this week the Israeli Navy kidnapped eight fishermen, and then destroyed their boats with gunfire.
At 10:30 we gathered in Beit Hanoun to march north into the same buffer zone. For three years the people of Beit Hanoun have demonstrated weekly against the occupation and against the buffer zone. Participants marched north chanting and playing music over the megaphone into the buffer zone. They carried Palestinian flags attached to balloons. As the balloons floated over the buffer zone trailing their flags, they occasionally fell to earth and popped on the thorn bushes which are the only thing to survive the regular Israeli bulldozing of the buffer zone.
Sabur Zaaneen, from the Local Initiative spoke on the need for a Palestinian state, he urged Palestinian leaders to continue the struggle this September, he urged them not to forget their duty to their people, not to forget the right of the refugees to return, the right of their people to justice. The farmers of Beit Hanoun stand with the fisherman of Beit Lahia, with the people of Bil’in, with the people of Nil’in, we all carry the flag of popular resistance to the occupation. None of us will give up. We will be back next week, together, united in one cause, ending the occupation and justice for the Palestinian people.
Protests in Northern Gaza | International Solidarity Movement
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested a 15-year-old boy in Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem on Thursday less than three months after his release from Israeli custody, local sources reported.
They said that special units, intelligence agents accompanied the IOF unit that captured the boy Ali Abu Diyab under the command of the area's commanding officer.
They recalled that Abu Diyab was released on bail by the Jerusalem Magistrate court on 27/6/2011 after ordering him to house arrest for 14 days along with a fine.
The sources noted that the IOF soldiers arrested three other minors in the same age category with no reasons known so far.
Confrontations took place in Ras Al-Amud suburb in occupied Jerusalem on Wednesday night after young men threw stones at a vehicle for Israeli police.
Locals reported violent clashes in which Israeli security forces used stun grenades and fired many teargas canisters into the densely populated area.
Meanwhile, IOF soldiers arrested three Palestinians, including a university student, in Nablus after wreaking havoc on their homes.
In Al-Khalil, the soldiers detained a Palestinian citizen south of the city and broke into many homes in a further escalation of the recent targeting of the city and its environs.
The IOF troops at dawn Thursday launched a large-scale operation in Jenin and its villages, storming homes, and searching them, and combing nearby valleys.
Local sources said that in one such operation the soldiers broke into the home of Fawzi Sharqawi in Zababde village, east of Jenin, and ordered four of his sons to report to the intelligence headquarters in Salem.
In an unusually broad series of raids ending on Thursday morning, the Israeli army carried out at least seven arrests and demolished several buildings in the West Bank.
Israeli troops arrested 21-year-old Islam Za’el Khalf, from the village of al-Shawawra near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, after raiding his home on Thursday morning.
Official Palestinian news wire Wafa reported an Israeli military raid in Hebron, resulting in the arrest of Ahmed Abdulkarim al-Awiwi, 28, and Abduljabar al-Karki, 47. In the nearby village of al-Samu’, soldiers also arrested 22-year-old Ahmed Mohammed al-Daghameen. All three were taken to an unknown location.
Hebron locals also told Wafa that a settler had hit 7-year-old Ahmed Shukri Jaber in the al-Baq’a neighborhood, in the east of the city near Kiryat Arba settlement.
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces arrested three Palestinians: Imad al-Tanbour, 24, Munir Najeh al-Masri, age unknown, and Abdullah Dweikat, a 22-year-old student at the Engineering College at al-Najah University.
In a clash at the entrance to the refugee camp of al-Arroub, between Bethlehem and Hebron, eyewitnesses told Wafa that settlers opened fire on Palestinians, wounding 15-year-old Ahmed Yusef Abu Ghazi in his right foot.
Clashes were also reported in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where Israeli forces raided a number of homes. Both tear gas canisters and sound bombs were used, according to local sources reporting to PNN correspondent Maysa Abu Ghazala.
The Wadi Helwa Information Center reported that Israeli troops set up checkpoints around Silwan and the neighboring area of Ras al-Amoud that evening.
Confrontations between settlers, soldiers, and Palestinians were also reported in Sheikh Jarrah, resulting in one wounded Palestinian.
Israeli bulldozers destroyed houses in the village of al-Aqba in the northern Jordan Valley and dug up some of the village’s streets, including the western entrance and a street near the demolished house named Peace Street.
Witnesses say that bulldozers destroyed the houses of Khalid Subeih after troops surrounded the area to prevent people and journalists from getting closer.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad condemned the demolitions in al-Aqba.
"Our people are determined to live on their land," said Fayyad. "We are resilient and we will survive."
Israeli soldiers also raided houses in Shu’fat refugee camp, al-Dahyeh and Ras al-Khamis in the center of East Jerusalem. The raids came after a shooting incident near the Israeli army checkpoint at the camp entrance.
