facility:allenby bridge

  • Je ne connaissais pas cette campagne:

    Campaign For The Right to Enter the Occupied Palestinian Territory
    http://www.righttoenter.ps

    Israel has recently intensified its practices regarding restriction of entry or re-entry to the oPt with respect to residents of and visitors to the OPT (Gaza Strip and West Bank) who do not hold a Palestinian ID issued by the Israeli Ministry of Interior. A Palestinian ID is a personal identification document issued by Israel for Palestinian residents and their children.

    Israel is now systematically denying entry or return to the oPt via the international Israeli borders at Ben Gurion Airport, Allenby Bridge, Sheikh Hussein Bridge, and Eilat. Most of those affected are Palestinian natives, spouses, children, parents and other close relatives of Palestinian ID holders. The policy affects entire families or individual members of families, like the father or the mother of minor children. As a result, families are torn apart, jobs or businesses lost and personal property becomes inaccessible.

    The practice applies to people with and without Palestinian or Arab origins, and to those with and without local family relations. In addition to families, effected groups include professionals and academics who are in the oPt for teaching, research, the arts, business, visiting or volunteering their services. Most of these individuals have never overstayed their visitor’s visas or breached any visiting regulations. It must be noted that Israel has reserved for itself the exclusive power of civil registration and issuing IDs for Palestinians, visitors’ visas and work permits for non-ID holders to the oPt. By these means it is conducting a swift and effective ‘silent transfer’ of the Palestinian population while the latter is living at the mercy of the Israeli occupation authorities. In addition to the people already locked out, there are many more still in the oPt and at risk of deportation or re-entry denial once they exit the country’s international borders to comply with Israeli visa regulations.

    #Palestine #Frontières #Occupation #Droit_international

  • Israël cherche à expulser l’auteure Susan Abulhawa
    Nicolas Gary - 02.11.2018
    https://www.actualitte.com/article/monde-edition/israel-cherche-a-expulser-l-auteure-susan-abulhawa/91690

    Susan Abulhawa a 48 ans : elle devrait intervenir au festival de littérature palestinienne qui se tient du 3 au 7 novembre, invitée par le British Council, sponsor de la manifestation. Mais outre son activité d’auteure, elle est également partisane de la campagne BDS, Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions.
    (...)

    Les autorités israéliennes avaient surtout en mémoire qu’elle avait été expulsée d’Israël et qu’elle aurait, pour y revenir, dû demander l’octroi d’un visa. Un point légal que l’écrivaine ignorait totalement, assure son amie. C’est pourtant en mars 2017 que le Parlement a adopté une législation très controversée interdisant littéralement aux membres de BDS de séjourner sur le sol israélien.
    Elle devait comparaître devant le juge ce 2 novembre – avec une certaine clémence, toutefois, ayant appris que le festival dépendait en grande partie de sa présence.

    Expulsion actée, en attente de l’appel

    Pour autant, le juge a décidé de son expulsion, sans autre forme de procès. Susans Abulhawa a fait appel de la décision, mais personne ne sait quand ce dernier sera entendu. Un avocat du British Council ainsi que l’ambassade des États-Unis se sont rapprochés des organisateurs de la manifestation, mais n’ont pas pu prendre attache avec elle.

    Le problème vient également de ce que l’auteure est un best-seller parmi les plus importantes chez les écrivains arabes. Son livre Mornings in Jenin est devenu un succès mondial, traduit en 28 langues.

    #frontières #expulsion #Susan_Abulhawa

    • Susan Abulhawa’s statement to Kalimat Palestinian Literature Festival after the Israeli authorities have denied her entry into her country and she was therefore unable to attend the festival.
      https://www.facebook.com/susan.abulhawa/posts/10156481100262254

      I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Kalimat Palestinian Literature Festival, Mahmoud Muna in particular, and to the Kenyon Institute of the British Council for inviting me and undertaking the expense for me to participate in this year’s literature festival in Palestine.

      As you all know by now, Israeli authorities have denied me entry into my country and I am therefore unable to attend the festival. It pains me greatly not to be with my friends and fellow writers to explore and celebrate our literary traditions with readers and with each other in our homeland. It pains me that we can meet anywhere in the world except in Palestine, the place to which we belong, from whence our stories emerge and where all our turns eventually lead. We cannot meet on soil that has been fertilized for millennia by the bodies of our ancestors and watered by the tears and blood of Palestine’s sons and daughters who daily fight for her.

      Since my deportation, I read that Israeli authorities indicated that I was required to “coordinate” my travel with them in advance. This is a lie. In fact, I was told upon arrival at the airport that I had been required to apply for a visa to my US passport, and that this application would not be accepted until 2020, at least five years after the first time they denied me entry. They said it was my responsibility to know this even though I was never given any indication of being banned. Then they said my first deportation in 2015 was because I refused to give them the reason for my visit. This, too, is a lie. Here are the facts:

      In 2015, I traveled to Palestine to build playgrounds in several villages and to hold opening ceremonies at playgrounds we had already built in the months previous. Another member of our organization was traveling with me. She happened to be Jewish and they allowed her in. Several Israeli interrogators asked me the same questions in different ways over the course of approximately 7.5 hours. I answered them all, as Palestinians must if we are to stand a chance of going home, even as visitors. But I was not sufficiently deferential, nor was I capable of that in the moment. But I was certainly composed and – the requirement for all violated people – “civil.” Finally, I was accused of not cooperating because I did not know how many cousins I have and what are all their names and the names of their spouses. It was only after being told that I was denied entry that I raised my voice and refused to leave quietly. I did yell, and I stand by everything I yelled. According to Haaretz, Israel said I “behaved angrily, crudely and vulgarly” in 2015 at the Allenby Bridge.

      What I said in 2015 to my interrogators, and which was also reported in Haaretz at the time, is that they should be the ones to leave, not me; that I am a daughter of this land and nothing will change that; that my own direct history is steeped in the land and there’s no way they can extricate it; that as much as they invoke Zionist mythological fairy tales, they can never claim such personal familial lineage, much as they wish they could.

      I suppose that must sound vulgar to Zionist ears. To be confronted with authenticity of Palestinian indigeneity despite exile, and face their apocryphal, ever-shifting colonial narratives.

      My lack of deference in 2015 and choice not to quietly accept the arbitrary decision of an illegitimate gatekeeper to my country apparently got appended to my name and, upon my arrival this time on November 1st, signaled for my immediate deportation.

      The true vulgarity is that several million Europeans and other foreigners live in Palestine now while the indigenous population lives either in exile or under the cruel boots of Israeli occupation; the true vulgarity is in the rows of snipers surrounding Gaza, taking careful aim and shooting human beings with no real way to defend themselves, who dare to protest their collective imprisonment and imposed misery; the true vulgarity is in seeing our youth bleed on the ground, waste in Israeli jails, starve for an education, travel, learning, or some opportunity to fully be in the world; The true vulgarity is the way they have taken and continue to take everything from us, how they have carved out our hearts, stolen our everything, occupied our history, and tamp our voices and our art.

      In total, Israel detained me for approximately 36 hours. We were not allowed any electronics, pens or pencils in the jail cells, but I found a way to take both – because we Palestinians are resourceful, smart, and we find our way to freedom and dignity by any means we can. I have photos and video from inside that terrible detention center, which I took with a second phone hidden on my body, and I left for them a few messages on the walls by the dirty bed I had to lay on. I suppose they will find it vulgar to read: “Free Palestine,” “Israel is an Apartheid State,” or “susan abulhawa was here and smuggled this pencil into her prison cell”.

      But the most memorable part of this ordeal were the books. I had two books in my carry-on when I arrived at the jail and I was allowed to keep them. I alternated reading from each, sleeping, thinking.

      The first book was a highly researched text by historian Nur Masalha, “Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History.” I was scheduled to interview Nur on stage about his epic audit of Palestinian millennia-old history, told not from the politically motivated narratives, but from archeological and other forensic narratives. It is a people’s history, spanning the untidy and multilayered identities of Palestine’s indigenous populations from the Bronze Age until today. In an Israeli detention cell, with five other women – all of them Eastern European, and each of them in her own private pain, the chapters of Nur Masalha’s book took me through Palestine’s pluralistic, multicultural and multi-religious past, distorted and essentialized by modern inventions of an ancient past.

      The bitter irony of our condition was not lost on me. I, a daughter of the land, of a family rooted at least 900 years in the land, and who spent much of her childhood in Jerusalem, was being deported from her homeland by the sons and daughters of recent arrivals, who came to Palestine a mere decades ago with European-born ethos of racial Darwinism, invoking biblical fairy tales and divinely ordained entitlement..

      It occurred to me, too, that all Palestinians – regardless of our conditions, ideologies, or the places of our imprisonment or exile – are forever bound together in a common history that begins with us and travels to the ancient past to one place on earth, like the many leaves and branches of a tree that lead to one trunk. And we are also bound together by the collective pain of watching people from all over the world colonize not only the physical space of our existence, but the spiritual, familial, and cultural arenas of our existence. I think we also find power in this unending, unhealed wound. We write our stories from it. Sing our songs and dabke there, too. We make art from these aches. We pick up rifles and pens, cameras and paint brushes in this space, throw stones, fly kites and flash victory and power fists there.

      The other book I read was Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed, spellbinding novel, “The Underground Railroad.” It is the story of Cora, a girl born into slavery to Mabel, the first escaped slave from the Randal Plantation. In this fictional account, Cora escapes the plantation with her friend Ceasar their determined slave catcher, Ridgeway on their trail in the Underground Railroad – a real-life metaphor made into an actual railroad in the novel. The generational trauma of inconceivable bondage is all the more devastating in this novel because it is told matter-of-factly from the vantage of the enslaved. Another people’s collective unhealed wound laid bare, an excruciatingly powerful common past, a place of their power too, a source of their stories and their songs.

      I am back in my house now, with my daughter and our beloved dogs and cats, but my heart doesn’t ever leave Palestine. So, I am there, and we will continue to meet each other in the landscapes of our literature, art, cuisine and all the riches of our shared culture.

      After writing this statement, I learned that the press conference is being held at Dar el Tifl. I lived the best years of my childhood there, despite my separation from family and the sometimes difficult conditions we faced living under Israeli occupation. Dar el Tifl is the legacy of one of the most admirable women I have ever known – Sitt Hind el Husseini. She saved me in more ways than I suppose she knew, or that I understood at the time. She saved a lot of us girls. She gave gathered us from all the broken bits of Palestine. She gave us food and shelter, educated and believed in us, and in turn made us believe we were worthy. There is no more appropriate place than Dar el Tift to read this statement.

      I want to leave you with one more thought I had in that jail cell, and it is this: Israel is spiritually, emotionally, and culturally small despite the large guns they point at us – or perhaps precisely because of them. It is to their own detriment that they cannot accept our presence in our homeland, because our humanity remains intact and our art is beautiful and life-affirming, and we aren’t going anywhere but home.

  • » Israel Denies Entry To Swedish Peace Activist Who Walked To Palestine
    IMEMC - July 6, 2018 11:55 AM
    http://imemc.org/article/israel-denies-entry-to-swedish-peace-activist-who-walked-to-palestine

    The Israeli Border Authority denied entry to a Swedish peace activist, who started walking to Palestine eleven months ago to raise awareness about the Israeli occupation, and the suffering of the Palestinian people.

    The peace activist Benjamin Ladra started his walk on August 8th, 2017, with the aim of informing the world about the situation in Palestine and spread awareness about the Israeli military occupation.

    His walk also marked the centennial of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain pledged a Jewish homeland in Palestine during the British mandate and occupation of the country.

    After being denied entry, he said the officers at the Israeli-controlled crossing with the West Bank interrogated him for six hours, and told him that they believe “he was lying during interrogation,” and that “he would be participating in the protests in Nabi Saleh village,” near Ramallah.

    #Expulsion #Aéroport #BDS #Douane #Frontière #expulsions_frontières (d’israel) #Suède

    • Update: Palestinian Nationality Granted to Swedish Activist
      July 7, 2018 10:13 PM IMEMC News & Agencies
      http://imemc.org/article/palestinian-nationality-granted-to-swedish-activist

      Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has granted Palestinian nationality to Swedish activist Benjamin Ladraa, aged 25, and bestowed the Medal of Merit on him, in appreciation of his efforts and support of the Palestinian people.

      Ladraa had walked 4,800 kilometers, through 15 countries and for a period of 11 months, carrying a Palestinian flag on his back to raise awareness about the plight of the Palestinian people under the Israeli military occupation.

      Israeli authorities banned Ladraa entry to Palestine when he arrived predawn, Friday, at the Allenby Bridge (the Jordanian-Palestinian borders), in the last leg of his walk.

      Ladraa was also held for 6 hours of interrogations by Israeli authorities, at the border.

    • Benjamin Ladraa: ’You don’t have to be Palestinian to care about the injustice in Palestine’
      Aug. 16, 2018 3:52 P.M. (Updated: Aug. 16, 2018 4:19 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=780726
      By: Jennifer Janineh

      BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Benjamin Ladraa is a Swedish human rights activist, who walked 4,800 km through 13 countries over a span of 11 months to raise awareness about the Palestinian cause.

      Ma’an News Agency interviewed Ladraa after Israeli authorities banned him from entering Palestine upon his arrival at the Allenby Bridge, the Jordanian-Palestinian borders, in July.

      During the interview, Ladraa said that “they (Israeli authorities) treated me not too bad, I mean, it’s not comparable to what Palestinians are going through when they are arrested in the middle of the night from their homes and tortured.”

      Watch the full interview below:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=377MQk-IK_I

  • Salah Hamouri arrêté sans « aucun motif » par l’armée israélienne | Laurence Mauriaucourt | Mercredi, 23 Août, 2017
    https://www.humanite.fr/salah-hamouri-arrete-sans-aucun-motif-par-larmee-israelienne-640857

    Le jeune franco-palestinien a été arrêté dans la nuit par l’armée israélienne. Sa compagne et le député Alain Bruneel enjoignent au Président de la République d’intervenir très rapidement.

    L’information a été diffusée ce mercredi 23 août sur Facebook par sa compagne, Elsa : « Salah Hamouri a été arrêté cette nuit à notre domicile de Jérusalem-Est par l’armée d’occupation venue en grand nombre le cueillir dans son sommeil. Comme souvent, les autorités militaires ne donnent aucun motif à cette arrestation et nous n’avons que peu d’informations au sujet de sa détention, il n’a pu contacter personne. Nous demandons à la France d’agir avec conviction pour protéger et obtenir la libération de notre concitoyen qui subit une fois de plus l’arbitraire israélien ». Les internautes, souvent soutiens de longue date du militant, s’emploient à partager cette information inquiétante.

    “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

    Palestine.Salah Hamouri de nouveau arrêté par l’armée israélienne
    http://www.lecourrierdelatlas.com/palestine-salah-hamouri-de-nouveau-arrete-par-l-armee-israelienn
    #Salah_Hamouri

    • Salah Hamouri maintenu en détention jusqu’à dimanche
      Mercredi, 23 Août, 2017 | Humanite.fr
      http://www.humanite.fr/salah-hamouri-maintenu-en-detention-jusqua-dimanche-640911

      Il a été présenté mercredi après-midi devant un juge qui a décidé de le maintenir en détention pendant cinq jours, c’est à dire jusqu’à dimanche, officiellement le temps de l’enquête. Une enquête qui concernerait son appartenance à une « organisation ennemie », selon certains médias arabes qui citent également l’un des avocats de Salah. Celui-ci évoque une volonté des autorités israéliennes de voir Salah Hamouri quitter définitivement la Palestine.

    • Addameer’s field researcher Salah Hammouri seized by Israeli occupation forces
      23 August 2017
      http://addameer.org/news/addameers-field-researcher-salah-hammouri-seized-israeli-occupation-forces

      Addameer’s field researcher Salah Hammouri was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in a pre-dawn raid on 23 August 2017. Hammouri was arrested from his home in the neighborhood of Kufr Aqab. Later, Hammouri was taken to Al-Moskobyeh (Russian Compound) interrogation center, where his detention has been extended until Sunday, 27 August 2017, for further interrogation.

      ““““““““““““““““““““““““
      Demand the immediate release of human rights defender Salah Hamouri
      Ad Dameer Palestinian Territories
      https://www.change.org/p/emmanuel-macron-demand-the-immediate-release-of-human-rights-defender-salah-

    • Les Français peuvent manifester auprès des autorités qu’Hamouri est notre compatriote :

      Dès l’annonce de son arrestation, des milliers de personnes ont réagi sur les réseaux sociaux. L’Association France-Palestine solidarité (AFPS), a publié le communiqué suivant : « L’arrestation de notre concitoyen - dont le seul crime est de résister à l’occupation et à la colonisation - est inadmissible et insupportable. Notre mobilisation doit être immédiate et massive. Les autorités françaises ne doivent pas laisser passer une telle infamie ». L’AFPS appelle à laisser des messages sur le site du consulat général de France à Jérusalem en suivant ce lien : https://jerusalem.consulfrance.org/Contactez-nous-par-mail et au Ministère français des Affaires étrangères à l’adresse suivante

      http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/mentions-legales-infos-pratiques/nous-ecrire, en remplissant le formulaire avec comme objet « Français de l’étranger », ainsi qu’à la présidence de la République : http://www.elysee.fr/ecrire-au-president-de-la-republique

      Pierre Barbancey

      https://www.humanite.fr/arrestation-arbitraire-de-salah-hamouri-jerusalem-est-640858

    • Israeli forces detain Addameer field researcher during overnight raid
      Aug. 24, 2017 11:31 A.M. (Updated: Aug. 24, 2017 5:36 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778830

      (...) An Israeli police spokesperson told Ma’an that he was “not familiar” with the case.

      According to Addameer, Hammouri was a former prisoner of Israel for seven years, and was released as part of the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoners exchange deal in 2011.

      Addameer added that the East Jerusalem resident was banned from entering the occupied West Bank until Sept. 2016, and that his wife is currently banned by Israeli authorities from entering Palestine or Israel.

      The group said it considers the detention “an attack against Palestinian civil society organizations and human rights defenders.”

      "It also constitutes one arrest in the context of continuous arrest campaigns against Palestinians,” Addameer said, before demanding Hammouri’s release and the release of all Palestinian political prisoners.

      Hassan Safadi, a Palestinian activist and media coordinator for Addameer, has also been held in administrative detention — Israel’s controversial policy of imprisonment without charge or trial — for more than a year.

      Safadi has been held by Israel since May 1, 2016 after being detained at the Allenby Bridge between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, when he was interrogated by the Israeli army for 40 days.

      Israeli authorities later sentenced the 25-year-old Palestinian to six months of administrative detention in June 2016, and has since renewed the administrative detention order twice — once in Dec. and a second time in June this year.

      Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows internment without charge or trial in maximum six-month long renewable intervals based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

      According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, 6,128 Palestinians were detained by Israel as of July, 450 of whom were held in administrative detention. The group has estimated that some 40 percent of Palestinian men will be detained by Israel at some point in their lives.

  • Palestinian succumbs to gunshot wounds inflicted 3 months ago by Israeli forces
    Feb. 10, 2017 5:33 P.M. (Updated : Feb. 10, 2017 5:34 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=775403

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – A Palestinian held in Israeli custody succumbed to his wounds on Friday after being shot by Israeli forces in Nov. for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.

    Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, told Ma’an that 24-year-old Muhammad al-Jallad (also reported as Muhammad Amr) died in Israeli custody while at the Beilinson Hospital in the city of Petah Tikva in central Israel.

    Al-Jallad was shot by Israeli forces on Nov. 9, 2016 at the Huwwara military checkpoint in the southern part of the occupied West Bank district of Nablus, Qaraqe said.

    Israeli authorities claimed that al-Jallad had attempted to stab an Israeli soldier with a screwdriver before Israeli forces opened live fire on him.

    According to Qaraqe, Israeli forces took al-Jallad into custody at the time and transported him to Beilinson hospital for treatment.

    Qaraqe added that al-Jallad had also suffered from lymphoma.

    Nov. 9, 2016 9:40 A.M. (Updated : Nov. 10, 2016 10:25 A.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=773882

    (...) Abdullah Abu Salim, 43, a merchant from Huwwara, told Ma’an at the scene that he and two of his friends, “saw [Amr] attempting to cross the road in Huwwara before being shot at by an Israeli soldier who then took out a knife and threw it next to the youth.”(...)

    #Palestine_assassinée

    • Palestinian Dies After Being Shot by Israeli Troops on His Way to His Last Chemo Session

      No one bothered to keep the young Palestinian’s family informed.
      Gideon Levy and Alex Levac Feb 17, 2017 9:52 AM
      read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.772183

      Mohammed-Aamar Jalad’s father, Thabath. - photo Alec Levac

      On his way to what was supposed to his final chemotherapy session, last November, he boarded the wrong shared taxi. Discovering his mistake, he got off and ran across the highway to catch a taxi going in the opposite direction. Israel Defense Forces soldiers who may have thought he was going to attack them, shot him, seriously wounding him. For the next three months, he was bedridden in Beilinson Hospital, in Petah Tikva, most of the time in the intensive care unit. Throughout that entire period, no one in the IDF thought of updating his parents and family about the condition of their loved one. His mother was the only one allowed who was supposed to be allowed to visit him, but even though she came a few times, on all but one occasion, she was not permitted to enter his room.

      Just as his condition seemed to be improving, he died, apparently last week. No one thought to inform the family about his death, or the circumstances surrounding it. Israel has not yet returned the body.

      In his native town of Tul Karm, in the northwestern part of the West Bank, no one believes that Mohammed-Aamar Jalad tried to attack soldiers on the way to his last chemo session. His father is the city’s legendary driving instructor – 45 years behind the wheel – and his grandfather was the first local resident to serve in the Israel Police. A photo of the grandfather in uniform hangs on a wall of Mohammed’s family’s house.

      This, then, was the life and death of the 25-year-old student, who dreamed of living in the United States, and who in 2010 won a U.S. green card through the lottery – but had fulfillment of his dream delayed by cancer, and terminated by Israeli soldiers.

      When we visited last weekend, women paying their condolences were going up and down the stairs leading to the elegant home in Tul Karm, which is shrouded in mourning. Mohammed’s sister, Samar, the dean of the nursing school at Ramallah’s Community College, and her father, Thabath, the driving teacher, greet us.

      It’s a very restrained, dignified home. The family is apolitical, we’re told by Abdulkarim Sadi, a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization.

      Mohammed was the youngest son; his two brothers live in the Persian Gulf region. A year ago, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. At that time, he’d completed two years of accountancy studies at Al-Quds Open University and had signed up for additional studies at the Ramallah college. His illness forced him to put his academic aspirations on hold. He was treated at An-Najah National University Hospital in Nablus, in biweekly intravenous chemotherapy sessions. The disease was in recession and he felt good.

      Wednesday, November 9, 2016, was set as the date for the final treatment. Samar called him that morning to ask if he was going to the hospital, and he replied that he was. At 7:30 A.M., his father took him to the Tul Karm central bus station, leaving him at the stand of shared-taxis heading to Nablus. The taxis for Ramallah were parked across the way, and Mohammed accidentally boarded one of them. He only realized his mistake next to the turnoff to the settlement of Yitzhar. The driver suggested that he get off at Hawara Junction, next to the checkpoint of that name, where he would be able to pick up the taxi to Nablus.

      Mohammed took his advice; after getting out of the vehicle, he had to cross the highway. He did so on the run. On the other side was an IDF jeep and a few soldiers, who were guarding the busy junction. The soldiers apparently thought that he was out to attack them.

      Mohammed was shot as he reached the middle of the road – one bullet to the stomach. He collapsed, bleeding. Just then, a Palestinian ambulance happened by, taking a patient from Jenin to the Allenby Bridge. The driver, Osama Nazal, wanted to assist him, but the soldiers and police who had arrived in the meantime kept him from evacuating the injured man. More forces arrived, along with an Israeli ambulance, which took Mohammed to Beilinson Hospital. Nazal later told Mohammed’s parents that their son was still fully conscious at that time.

      Some time later, the father got a call from Palestinian Preventive Security, asking him to come to the organization’s offices. Thabath waited until he’d finished the driving lesson he was giving before going. He says he thought he’d been summoned because his son had been involved in a quarrel with another passenger. He never imagined the news that awaited him. As he was sitting there, hearing only that his son had been hurt – he got a call asking him to come to the office of the Shin Bet security service at the Sha’ar Ephraim checkpoint, near Tul Karm.

      Thabath was met there by Agent “Karim,” whom he describes as being very polite when questioning him about his son. However, Karim, too, declined to tell him anything about Mohammed’s condition, or even whether he was alive or dead. In the meantime, one of Thabath’s friends told him that his son had been taken to Beilinson. Thabath drove home to get his wife, and the two set out for Sha’ar Ephraim in the hope that they would be allowed to pass through the checkpoint – as they should have been, because they are both over 55 – and get quickly to Beilinson. But they were stopped and peremptorily sent back without an explanation.

      From that moment, the family was plunged into three months of torment and mental abuse, during which the darkness of uncertainty about their son’s condition hung over their lives, and they swung back and forth between despair and hope. Never were they successful in receiving authoritative information. They knew Mohammed was in ICU in serious condition, in an induced coma and hooked up to a ventilator; at some point, the family, which they received informaton from their lawyer and from sympathetic medical staff, heard that his condition had improved. They sent information about his bout with lymphoma to the hospital and hoped for the best.

      Over those three months, Mohammed’s father was continually denied entry to Israel to visit his son. His wife, Maisir, was issued a permit on four occasions, but on three of them, after making the trip, she was blocked from entering Mohammed’s room by the soldier-warders guarding it. Once, they let her see him from the door for an instant; once they let her in for about two minutes, to caress him. His condition improved from one visit to the next. The doctors and nurses told Maisir he had regained consciousness and had been taken off the ventilator.

      A few days before his death, he was moved from ICU to the surgical ward. Throughout the period, he continued to be remanded in custody by an Israeli military court.

      For her part, Maisir went to visit for the last time on January 23. Again she was denied entry to his room, and only allowed to talk to the medical personnel. Dr. Kamal Natour, from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a voluntary organization made up of former Israeli detainees, visited Mohammed at the time and reported to the family. They understood that he was getting better and had begun to eat. Then a few days went by without any news. Maisir had a sense of foreboding. She says now that throughout the three months, she barely slept for worry about her son, but last week she became even more worried.

      Last Friday, Maisir decided to call one of the physicians from the ICU, Dr. Jihad Bishara, whom she had met. Her daughter helped her find his number online, after she recognized a photo of him. He told her Mohammed had been transferred out of his unit; he’d been off that day, but he promised to look into the situation and get back to her. Maisir insisted on calling him again. She was very unsettled about her son’s condition, despite the recent optimistic reports.

      “Do you believe in God?” Dr. Bishara asked her when she called him again. “Your son is dead.”

      The doctor then called the family back shortly afterward, this time to inform them officially in the name of the hospital that Mohammed had died. But to this day, they don’t know when their son died and above all, the cause of death.

      This week, we asked the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit five questions:

      1. Why was Mohammed Jalad shot by the soldiers?

      2. Why was his family not allowed to visit him in the hospital?

      3. Why did his parents not receive an authoritative report about his condition?

      4. Why didn’t the IDF bother to inform them of his death and the reasons for his death?

      5. Why hasn’t his body been returned?

      The IDF Spokespersons Unit responded with the following statement: “On November 9, 2016, Mohammed-Amar Jalad carried out a knifing attack on soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint, using a knife sharpener. The force responded with fire, wounding the terrorist, who was evacuated to Beilinson Hospital for treatment.”

      Together with the mourning and grief, the family living in this sedate home in Tul Karm is reeling under a cloud of helplessness and lack of information. What did their loved one die of? Why was he arrested? What must they do to get possession of the body? Time and again they asked, and time and again their questions hung suspended in the air, unanswered.

    • Israel to return body of Palestinian who succumbed to injuries a week earlier
      Feb. 16, 2017 4:30 P.M. (Updated: Feb. 16, 2017 9:36 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775506

      TULKAREM (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities will return the body of slain Palestinian Muhammad al-Jallad at 3 p.m. on Friday at the Enav checkpoint in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs.

      Al-Jallad — also known as Muhammad Amr — died on Feb. 10 in Israel’s Beilinson Hospital from injuries he sustained after Israeli forces shot him in the chest on Nov. 9, 2016 at the Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus following an alleged stabbing attempt.

  • Amid crackdown on Palestinian activism, Israel renews detention of Palestinian journalist
    Dec. 9, 2016 10:51 A.M. (Updated: Dec. 9, 2016 11:17 A.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=774339

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities Thursday renewed the administrative detention order — internment without charge or trial — of Palestinian journalist, human rights activist, and Addameer media coordinator Hasan Safadi for an additional six months.

    According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer Israeli forces initially detained Safadi as he crossed the Allenby bridge between the occupied West Bank and Jordan at the start of May, keeping him under Israeli military interrogation for forty days before sentencing him to six months of administrative detention.

    #Israël #détention_administrative

  • Suddenly it’s okay to be pro-Israel and anti-Semitic
    When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists.
    By Gideon Levy | Nov. 20, 2016 | 4:25 AM
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.754073

    All of a sudden it’s not so terrible to be anti-Semitic. Suddenly it’s excusable as long as you hate Muslims and Arabs and “love Israel.” The Jewish and Israeli right has issued a sweeping amnesty to anti-Semitic lovers of Israel – yes, there is such a thing, and they’re en route to taking power in the United States.

    So now we know: Not just pornography but also anti-Semitism is a matter of geography and price. Right-wing American anti-Semites are no longer considered anti-Semites.

    The definition has been updated: From now on, anti-Semites are only found on the left. Roger Waters, a courageous man of conscience without stain, is an anti-Semite. Steve Bannon, a declared racist and closet anti-Semite who has been appointed chief strategist in the Trump White House, is a friend of Israel.

    Jewish and Israeli activists who left no stone unturned in their effort to discover signs of anti-Semitism, who viewed every parking ticket for an American Jew as an act of hate, who moved heaven and earth every time a Jew was robbed or a Jewish gravestone was cracked, are now whitewashing an anti-Semite. Suddenly they’re not convinced we’re talking about that particular disease.

    Alan Dershowitz, one of the biggest propagandists in this field, has already come out in defense of the racist Bannon. In a Haaretz piece late last week, Dershowitz wrote that the man whose wife said he didn’t want their children to go to school with Jews isn’t anti-Semitic. “The claim was simply made by his former wife in a judicial proceeding, thus giving it no special weight,” Dershowitz wrote, with specious logic.

    After all, Dershowitz’s former research assistant, an Orthodox Jew who later worked with Bannon, assured him that he had seen no signs of anti-Semitism in Bannon. And suddenly that’s enough for Dershowitz. Suddenly it’s possible to separate racism from anti-Semitism.

    Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, naturally hastened to join the party. Over the weekend, he said he expects to work with Bannon. And boy, does he expect to work with that racist. After all, they’ll agree about everything: that there’s no Palestinian people, that there’s no occupation, that the settlement of Yitzhar should remain forever, that leftists are traitors.

    For Dermer – ambassador of the illegal outpost of Amona, friend of the Tea Party and boycotter of J Street; a man who if the bilateral relationship had been normal would have been declared persona non grata by the United States – the new appointments are like the dawn of a new day.

    He’ll feel so at home with Frank Gaffney, another hater of Muslims who’s likely to receive a senior appointment in the new administration; he’ll be so happy working with Bannon. And Mike Huckabee is exactly his cup of tea. Dermer, after all, was given the Freedom Flame Award by the Center for Security Policy, a hate group that proudly flies the flag of Islamophobia.

    These racists and their ilk are Israel’s best friends in the United States. They’re joined by the racists of the European right. If you discount the guilt feelings over the Holocaust, they’re the only friends Israel has left. When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists. That ought to have aroused great shame here: Tell us who your friends are and we’ll tell you who you are.

    These racists love Israel because it’s carrying out their dreams: to oppress Arabs, to abuse Muslims, to dispossess them, expel them, kill them, demolish their houses, trample their honor. This bunch of trash would so dearly love to behave as we do.

    But for now this is only possible in Israel, so it’s the light unto the nations in this field. What happened to the days when Jews in South Africa went to prison with Nelson Mandela? Nowadays Jewish activists in America support the new rulers – the racists and anti-Semites.

    The Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa wrote on Facebook over the weekend: Palestinians are calling white nationalist Bannon an anti-Semite, while AIPAC and Dershowitz think he’s not such a bad guy. What more proof do you need that Zionism is a face of white supremacy, and ultimately antithetical to Judaism?

    Last summer, Abulhawa was deported via the Allenby Bridge. And she’s right. The United States and Israel now share the same values – and woe to that sense of shame.

  • Shin Bet: Hamas training Palestinian students in Malaysia - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.653863

    Hamas is training West Bank Palestinian students in Malaysia to conduct operations as part of the organization’s military wing, the Shin Bet security service says. The students are meant to operate undercover upon their return to the West Bank.

    While Israel last year claimed that Hamas was training its operatives in paragliding techniques in Malaysia, a claim that Malaysia denied, this is the first time the Shin Bet has presented detailed allegations about Hamas activities in that country.

    The claims appear in an indictment filed March 18 in the Judea Military Court against a Hebron resident, Waseem Qawasmeh, 24, charged with belonging to and being active in a banned organization, making contact with the enemy and receiving money from an enemy. Qawasmeh was arrested February 13 at the Allenby Bridge upon returning from Malaysia via Jordan.

    According to the Shin Bet, Hamas men in Malaysia actively recruit for military training Palestinians who are studying there. Recruiters also put the students through ideological preparation that includes joining the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian charities that operate there.

    After their training, the operatives are sent to set up military networks in the West Bank, act as messengers between the territories and foreign countries, and carry out secret transfers of funds to meet Hamas’ needs.

    Last summer, during Operation Protective Edge, Israel published details from the interrogation of a member of Hamas’ tunnel forces in the Gaza Strip. In the announcement it claimed the man had trained in Malaysia to paraglide into Israeli territory in order to carry out murders and kidnappings.

    Malaysian ministry issues denial

    The Malaysian foreign minister issued a denial at the time, but Israel insisted the training had occurred. Malaysia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and has often expressed support for Hamas; Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak visited Gaza in January 2013.

    According to the Shin Bet, Qawasmeh began his relationship with Hamas through its student association at Islamic University in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. For two years he worked for a Hamas charity association and in December 2013 he was recruited by Mustafa Najam, a senior Hamas activist in that country, to join the Muslim Brotherhood. Qawasmeh took part in a swearing-in ceremony attend by Ma’an Hatib and Radwan al-Atrash, senior Hamas officials residing in Malaysia.

    The Shin Bet describes Hatib as “responsible in Malaysia for the Hamas foreign desk.” Atrash is “a senior figure in the Shura council,” in which Hamas clergymen in Malaysia are active.

    The indictment against Qawasmeh states that he underwent a security check and was then trained for clandestine operations by Hamas men in Malaysia. He was also sent for a week to Turkey to train with Hamas there.

    Among the things he was taught was how to respond to the questioning he would undergo at the Allenby Bridge and how to act when jailed and during the Shin Bet interrogation. Given his arrest and confessions, it doesn’t seem as if the instruction was particularly effective.

  • Israeli forces shoot Palestinian dead at #west_bank checkpoint
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-forces-shoot-palestinian-dead-west-bank-checkpoint

    Israeli occupation forces on Monday shot dead a Palestinian who allegedly confronted a soldier at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, a military spokeswoman said. Israeli officials initially said the Palestinian was wounded but he died shortly afterwards. “I can confirm he’s dead,” the spokeswoman said. Palestinian news agency Ma’an identified the victim at 38-year-old Raed Zayter from the West Bank city of Nablus. (AFP, Al-Akhbar)

    #Israel #occupation_forces_checkpoint #Palestine #Top_News

  • #Israel bars #Gaza student from travel to U.S. for coexistence program
    http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.570281?v=F9DE57B716D81D4E98325B8A7CC10365

    In order to get from the Gaza Strip to New York a Palestinian student must got through Erez Crossing into Israel, board a taxi and travel via Israeli territory to the Allenby Bridge, from which he can get to the airport in Amman, Jordan and board a flight.