organization:israeli supreme court

  • Holocaust survivor and Palestinians’ rights lawyer Felicia Langer dies in exile at 87
    Felicia Langer fought, first in Israel and then from Germany, for the enforcement of international law from which Israel excepted itself
    Haaretz.com - Gideon Levy - Jun 24, 2018 2:42 AM
    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-death-of-an-exiled-conscience-1.6200232

    I never met her, only called her two or three times in her place of exile, but I well remember what she was for me and most of my generation in our brainwashed youth: a symbol of hatred for Israel, a public enemy, a reviled, outcast traitor. That’s how we were taught to regard her and a few other early dissidents, and we neither questioned nor cared why.

    Now, at 87, she has died in exile; her image glows brightly in my eyes through the distance of time and space. Felicia Langer, who died in Germany Thursday, was a hero, a pioneer and a woman of conscience. She and a few of her allies never got the recognition here that they deserved; it’s not clear they ever will.

    In a place where “alumni” of a murderous Jewish terror organization are welcomed — one a newspaper editor, another an expert on religious law — and where self-declared racists are accepted as legitimate participants in the arena of public debate as they are nowhere else, there is no room for courageous justice warriors who paid a high personal price for trying to lead a camp that never followed.

    Langer was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After the occupation, was the first to open a law office dedicated to defending its Palestinian victims. In this, she followed an illustrious tradition of Jews who fought injustice in South Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

    Here, her sense of justice brought her into conflict with her state. Occasionally she even succeeded: In 1979, in the wake of her petition, the High Court of Justice blocked an expulsion order against Nablus Mayor Bassam Shakaa. A year later, the Jewish underground attached a bomb to his car that destroyed his legs, and Israeli justice came to light.

    Langer was a pioneer among Israeli lawyers of conscience who came out for the defense of the rights of the occupied population, but she was also the first to throw in the towel, closing her law office in 1990 and going into exile. In a 2012 interview with documentary filmmaker Eran Torbiner, she explained: “I left Israel because I could no longer help the Palestinian victims with the existing legal system and the disregard for international law that was supposed to protect the people whom I was defending. I couldn’t act. I was facing a hopeless situation.” She told The Washington Post she “couldn’t be a fig leaf for this system anymore.”

    She said she didn’t switch battlefronts, only her place on the front, but the front is currently at its lowest point. The occupation is entrenched as never before and nearly all of its crimes have been legitimized.

    Langer came to the conclusion that things were hopeless. Apparently she was right. The fight in the military courts was doomed to failure. It has no prospect of success because the military courts are only subject to the laws of the occupation and not to the laws of justice. The proceedings involve nothing more than hollow and false legal ritual.

    Even the civil legal system, headed by the vaunted High Court of Justice, has never come down on the side of the victims and against the crimes of the occupation. Here and there restraining orders have been issued, here and there actions have been delayed. But in the annals of the occupation, Israel’s Supreme Court will be remembered as the primary legitimizer of the occupation and as an abject collaborator with the military. In such a state of affairs, perhaps there really was nothing for Langer to do here. That is a singularly depressing conclusion.

    What did this brave and courageous woman fight against? Against torture by the Shin Bet security service at a time when we didn’t believe that such torture existed, yet it was at the peak of its cruelty. She fought against the expulsion of political activists, against false arrests, against home demolitions. Above all, she fought for the enforcement of international law from which Israel decided to except itself on unbelievable grounds. That’s what she fought and that is why she was considered a public enemy.

    In her old age, her grandson told her that ultimately the Palestinians will win and will get a state of their own. “You won’t see it, but I will,” he promised his grandmother. In the end, the grandson will be disappointed, just as his distinguished grandmother was.

    • Felicia Langer
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Langer

      (...) Elle adhère au Parti communiste d’Israël, elle sera membre de son Comité Central, et, quand elle obtient une licence de droit en 1965, elle se rend compte qu’elle est sur une liste noire et que personne ne l’embauche après enquête.

      Elle devient l’avocate des Arabes palestiniens, dénonçant dans plusieurs ouvrages l’usage de la torture par l’État d’Israël. Elle déclare en 1978 : « Je peux dire que j’ai ici dans mon bureau toute une encyclopédie sur les violations des droits de l’Homme : j’ai dans mes dossiers de quoi écrire de nombreux livres » (...)

    • Langer came to the conclusion that things were hopeless.

      […]

      Here, her sense of justice brought her into conflict with her state. Occasionally she even succeeded: In 1979, in the wake of her petition, the High Court of Justice blocked an expulsion order against Nablus Mayor Bassam Shakaa. A year later, the Jewish underground attached a bomb to his car that destroyed his legs, and Israeli justice came to light.

      Bassam Shakaa - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassam_Shakaa

      On June 2, 1980 he became the victim of a bomb placed in his car by members of the Jewish Underground. They also planted bombs in the cars of Ibrahim Tawil, the mayor of El-Bireh, and Karim Khalaf, the mayor of Ramallah. Khalaf lost one leg, while Shakaa had to have both legs amputated. Moshe Zer, one of the first Israeli settlers in the northern West Bank, was the person who led the Jewish underground “hit team” that tried to assassinate Shakaa. Zer was convicted for causing serious injury and belonging to a terror group, but was sentenced to only four months in prison, the time he was in jail waiting for his trial, because of the state of his health and the fact that he was badly injured in an attempt of a Palestinian to murder him.

      (pas de version française, apparemment)

    • Un extrait de son site www.felicia-langer.de

      Felicia Langer
      http://www.felicia-langer.de/person.html

      Richtigstellung zu dem Wikipedia-Eintrag „Felicia Langer“

      Auf Wikipedia wird die Behauptung aufgestellt, dass ich die Rede des iranischen Präsidenten zur Antirassismuskonferenz der UNO am 21. April 2009 als „Wahrheit“ bezeichnet haben soll. Diesen Vorwurf lehne ich entschieden ab: Ich habe niemals und nirgendwo den iranischen Präsidenten gerechtfertigt oder seine Reden als gut befunden. Dies ist eine Erfindung, um mich zu diskreditieren und zu diffamieren. Der Quellenverweis für diese Anschuldigung erscheint mir jedenfalls sehr zweifelhaft. Eine weitere Richtigstellung: Ich nahm im Jahr 2008 und nicht 2009 die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit an.

      Laut Wikipedia hat das israelische Verteidigungsministerium mir 1977 die Lizenz zum Verteidigen vor Militärgerichten in Israel entzogen, so dass ich die Palästinenser nur noch in deren Gebieten vertreten konnte. Dies ist nicht richtig. Mir wurde die Lizenz im Falle von Kriegsdienstverweigerern oder in besonderen Fällen ( „aus Sicherheitsgründen“) entzogen. Aber nicht in Militärgerichten, wo man die Palästinenser (auch in Israel) gerichtet hat. Ich konnte und hatte weiterhin sehr viele Palästinenser in allen Gerichten vertreten. In meinem Buch „Zorn und Hoffnung“, das auch in Israel verlegt wurde, schildere ich Gerichtsverfahren, wo Fälle von Palästinensern behandelt werden (s. Seite 371, Jahr 1981, Mohammad al Arda, oder siehe S. 390, Auad Hamdan.) Außerdem bin ich zu Anträgen beim höchsten Gerichtshof in Israel (High Court of Justice) in Jerusalem aufgetreten und war für diese Auftritte in Israel bekannt.

      Zudem habe ich die israelische Palästinenserpolitik nie mit dem Holocaust verglichen, sonder als Apartheitspolitik bezeichnet.

      Felicia Langer
      05.04.2011 (Ergänzt am 04.06.2012)

    • In memory of Felicia Langer, the first lawyer to bring the occupation to court
      https://972mag.com/in-memory-of-felicia-langer-the-first-lawyer-to-bring-the-occupation-to-court/136393

      Felicia Langer was a Holocaust survivor, a communist, and one of the first Israeli lawyers to defend Palestinian residents of the occupied territories in the Israeli Supreme Court. She died in Germany last week.

      By Michael Sfard

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““
      traduction en français
      À la mémoire de Felicia Langer, premier avocat à amener l’occupation devant les tribunaux
      30 06 2018
      http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2018/06/30/a-la-memoire-de-felicia-langer-premier-avocat-a-amener-loccupat

    • C’était la première avocate juive à défendre les Palestiniens, mais pas la seule, puisque elle a aussi travaillé avec #Lea_Tsemel qui a continué après le départ de Felicia Langer, qui continue encore et qui est plus indépendante puisqu’elle n’est pas liée au Parti Communiste.

      En revanche Lea n’a pas de page wikipedia en français, juste en anglais :
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Tsemel

      Voir aussi :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/171835
      https://seenthis.net/messages/344801
      https://seenthis.net/messages/676993
      https://seenthis.net/messages/678658

  • Israeli parliament bans Arab member from U.S. lecture tour sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace
    Adalah - 22/04/2018
    https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9483

    MK Jabareen & Adalah in Israeli Supreme Court petition: It is illegal for Knesset to ban members from participating in lecture tour funded by Jewish Voice for Peace due to its support for boycott.

    Knesset Member Dr. Yousef Jabareen (Joint List) and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court today, 22 April 2018, against a 13 March decision by the Knesset Ethics Committee to prevent MK Dr. Jabareen from participating in a series of lectures in the United States sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). MK Dr. Jabareen is the head of the Joint Lists’ international relations committee.(...)

  • Un Palestinien d’Israël tué lors d’une opération de démolitions |
    Par Maureen Clare Murphy, 18 janvier 2017| Cet article a été mise à jour jeudi 19 Janvier afin d’inclure les nouvelles conclusions de Forensic Architecture. | Traduction : Laurianne G. pour l’Agence Média Palestine | Source : Electronic Intifada
    http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2017/01/20/un-palestinien-disrael-tue-lors-dune-operation-de-demolitions

    Un citoyen palestinien d’Israël a été tué mercredi, quand la police tira sur son véhicule dans le village Umm al-Hiran, dans le Negev, au Sud du pays. Un sergent fut également tué et un autre agent blessé à l’aube lors d’une opération de démolitions de plusieurs maisons dans le village bédouin.

    La police israélienne a déclaré que Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, 50ans, a délibérément écrasé et tué le policier de 37 ans, Erez Levi.

    Le porte-parole de la police, Micky Rosenfeld a déclaré qu’un “véhicule conduit par un terroriste du Mouvement Islamique a tenté de heurter plusieurs agents et de perpétré une attaque.”

    Le Mouvement Islamique est une organisation politique palestinienne, dont la branche Nord est interdite par Israël. Le leader de branche Nord, Sheikh Raed Salah, a été relaché par Israël mardi, après neuf mois d’incarcération. Il était présent à Umm al-Hiran mercredi.

    La police a déclaré à la presse qu’ils recherchaient des liens entre Abu al-Qiyan et l’Etat Islamique.

    “Ils disent qu’en fouillant sa maison, ils ont trouvé des journaux israéliens parlant du groupe, alors que sa famille nie toute relation avec ce mouvement, disant qu’il est juste un prof de math dans le lycée local, dans la ville bédouine de Hura,” a rapporté le journal de Tel Aviv Haaretz.

    Rosenfeld a fait d’autres déclarations sur les liens avec l’Etat Islamique sur Twitter :

    The terrorist who murdered a policeman in the south was a teacher in a school where six teachers have been arrested for their ISIS ideology.

    — Micky Rosenfeld (@MickyRosenfeld) January 18, 2017

    (Traduction du tweet : « Le terroriste qui a tué un policier dans le Sud était un professeur dans un établissement où six enseignants ont été arrêtés pour leur idéologie proche de Daech. »)

    Des témoins interrogés par de nombreux organes de presse contestent la version des faits d’Israël, disant qu’Abu al-Qiyan était en train de quitter la scène et que c’est la police israélienne qui lui a fait perdre le contrôle de son véhicule, l’amenant à percuter les policiers.(...)

    #israël #démolitions #bédouins #colonisation_intérieure
    https://seenthis.net/messages/561578

    • Video emerges on killing in Umm al-Hiran, as family awaits return of slain Bedouin’s body
      Jan. 21, 2017 12:03 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 21, 2017 12:07 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775017

      (...) Abu al-Qian’s autopsy report was also released on Friday, detailing that the teacher had been killed by two bullets that were fired at his vehicle, the first of which struck him on his right knee, and the second in a main artery in the chest area, before he was left to bleed to death.

      Israeli Channel 10 reported that Abu al-Qian’s knee injury led to the acceleration of his vehicle after his leg pressed against the gas pedal, and added that he had lost large amounts of blood which would have made it impossible to save him.

      Nevertheless, they reported that he had been left to bleed for a half and hour as ambulances were prevented from providing him first aid.

      Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli police pulled an injured Abu al-Qian from his vehicle at the time and shot him another time to confirm his death. However, this testimony contradicts the autopsy report that stated he had bled to death.

      Meanwhile, the family of Abu al-Qian have continued to refuse conditions set by Israeli police in order to receive the slain body of Abu al-Qian.(...)

    • PHOTOS: Thousands of Palestinians and Israelis protest home demolitions

      Over 5,000 Arabs and Jews gather in Wadi Ara, northern Israel, to protest against recent home demolitions in Palestinian communities.

      Photos by Keren Manor, text by Yael Marom
      https://972mag.com/photos-thousands-of-palestinians-and-israelis-protest-home-demolitions/124640

      A police truck sprays ’skunk’ water at protesters in Ar’ara, January 21, 2017. (Keren Manor/Activestills)

      Around two hours after the protest had begun, hundreds of protesters blocked the junction at the entrance to Ar’ara. Police threw shock grenades and fired “skunk” water at the demonstrators, injuring several. Some of the protesters responded by throwing stones.

    • Funeral begins for slain Bedouin teacher in Umm al-Hiran
      Jan. 24, 2017 1:15 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 24, 2017 9:47 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775080

      BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The funeral of Yaqoub Abu al-Qian , a Palestinian citizen of Israel and local math teacher from the unrecognized Bedouin community of Umm al-Hiran, began early on Tuesday afternoon, after the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that Israeli police return his body to his family a day earlier.

      Abu al-Qian was shot and killed by Israeli police last week under widely contested circumstances during the violent demolition raid in Umm al-Hiran that left more than a dozen Palestinian structures razed to the ground.

      While numerous eyewitnesses have insisted Abu al-Qian was posing no threat to anyone when Israeli police opened fire at his vehicle, causing him to lose control of the car and ram into officers, Israeli authorities have claimed the local math teacher was carrying out a deliberate terrorist attack in the incident that left one policeman killed.

  • Palestinian shot dead ’in cold blood’ by Israeli police during Negev demolition raid
    Jan. 18, 2017 9:44 A.M. (Updated: Jan. 18, 2017 11:53 A.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=774987

    MK Ayman Odeh, shot and injured in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet fired by Israeli police

    NEGEV (Ma’an) — Two people were killed and several others were hospitalized Wednesday after a predawn demolition raid into the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev region erupted into clashes, as Israeli forces used rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades to violently suppress locals and supporters who had gathered to resist the demolitions.

    A Palestinian citizen of Israel was shot dead by Israeli forces after he allegedly carried out a car ramming attack on Israeli officers, leaving several injured, according to Israeli police. However, a numerous eyewitness accounts said that the driver lost control of his vehicle after he was shot, causing him to crash into Israeli police, one of whom was killed.

    Israeli Knesset member Taleb Abu Arar said that the police killed Abu Qian “in cold blood," Israeli news site Ynet quoted him as saying. “The police shot him for no reason. The claims that he tried to run over police are not true.”

    Locals identified the slain Palestinian citizen of Israel as 47-year-old Yaqoub Moussa Abu al-Qian , a math teacher at al-Salam High School in the nearby town of Hura.

    Israeli police later confirmed that a policeman succumbed to injuries he sustained by being hit by the car. The slain officer was identified as 34-year-old Erez Levi.

    Knesset member Ayman Odeh and head of the Joint List, which represents parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, was injured in the head and back with rubber-coated steel bullets, locals said, and taken to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.

    Odeh wrote in a statement on his Facebook page saying that “a crime was committed in Umm al-Hiran as hundreds of police members violently raided the village firing tear-gas bombs, stun grenades, and rubber-coated steel bullets. Villagers, women, men, and children stood with their bare hands against the brutality and violence of the police.”

    Hundreds of Israeli police arrived to Umm al-Hiran at around 5 a.m. to secure the area for Israeli authorities to carry out a demolition campaign in the village.

    Israeli news blog 972 Magazine quoted witness and activist Kobi Snitz as saying that police began pulling drivers out of vehicles, and attacking and threatening others.

    A short while later, Snitz said he heard gunfire and saw a white pickup truck about 30 meters from police, telling 972: “They started shooting at the car in bursts from all directions.”

    According to the report, it was only after the driver appeared to have been wounded and lost control of his vehicle that it crashed into the police officers, contradiction Israeli police reports.

    #Palestine_assassinée

    • Une opération de démolition tourne mal en Israël : un policier et un villageois tués
      AFP / 18 janvier 2017 09h18
      http://www.romandie.com/news/Une-operation-de-demolition-tourne-mal-en-Israel-un-policier-et-un-villageois-tues/768760.rom

      Umm al-Hiran (Israël) - Une opération de démolition dans un village bédouin a très mal tourné mercredi dans une communauté emblématique du sud d’Israël, où un policier israélien et un villageois arabe ont été tués dans des circonstances différentes selon les versions de la police et des villageois.

      Le policier Erez Levi, 34 ans, est mort dans une attaque à la voiture bélier dont l’auteur a ensuite été abattu, a indiqué la police qui a décrit le conducteur comme un « terroriste ».

      Plusieurs villageois et l’assistant d’un député arabe présent sur place ont contesté cette version des faits.

      Les policiers avaient été dépêchés dans le village bédouin d’Umm al-Hiran pour sécuriser la démolition de plusieurs maisons de bédouins, dépourvues selon les autorités israéliennes des permis nécessaires.

      « A l’arrivée des unités de police sur la zone, un véhicule conduit par un terroriste du Mouvement islamique a tenté d’attaquer un groupe de policiers en les percutant. Les policiers ont riposté et le terroriste a été neutralisé », a dit un porte-parole de la police, Micky Rosenfeld. Une autre porte-parole de la police a confirmé la mort du conducteur.

      Plusieurs policiers ont été blessés, a dit M. Rosenfeld.

      Raed Abou al-Qiyan, responsable d’un comité prodiguant des services aux villageois, a contesté cette version.

      « La version israélienne est un mensonge. Il (le conducteur) était un enseignant respecté. Ils (les policiers) sont arrivés et ont commencé à tirer sans discrimination des balles en caoutchouc, visant les gens, allant jusqu’à blesser le député (arabe israélien) Ayman Odeh qui essayait de leur parler », a déclaré à l’AFP Raed Abou al-Qiyan, qui dit avoir été témoin direct des faits.

    • Renewed clashes erupt in Negev village as Israeli bulldozers begin demolitions
      Jan. 18, 2017 12:38 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 18, 2017 12:38 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=774991

      (...) At around noon, renewed clashes erupted as Israeli bulldozers began razing the homes to the ground.

      Residents crowded and hurled stones at Israeli police officers who showered the demonstrators with tear gas to disperse them.

      Palestinian MK Osama Saadi was lightly injured in the leg and was taken to Soroka hospital in Beersheva for treatment, according to Israeli news website Walla.

      In addition, Israeli police officers denied a number of Palestinian Knesset members entry into the village. Among them were MK Ahmad Tibi and Hanin Zoubi. Israeli police prevented hundreds of vehicles from entering the village as residents were seen evacuating belongings from their homes ahead of the demolitions.

      Palestinian MK Jamal Zahalqa urged the Israeli government to pull out police and avoid using force. A solution could be reached, he told reporters, by dialogue in a way that shows respect to the residents of Umm al-Hiran.

    • Umm al-Hiran man killed after police open fire during violent demolition operation in Bedouin village
      18/01/2017
      https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9001

      Adalah: Israeli courts, gov’t responsible for death of 50 year old; residents refute police claims of attack; eyewitnesses confirm Ya’akub Musa Abu Al-Qi’an lost control of car after police fired at him.

      Israeli police killed a 50-year-old local teacher this morning (Wed. 18 January 2017) and wounded local residents and a Knesset member during a violent incursion into Atir-Umm al-Hiran aimed at demolishing a central section of the Naqab (Negev) Bedouin village. One police officer was also killed during the incident.

      Adalah, which represented the Bedouin residents of Atir–Umm al-Hiran in legal proceedings over the past 13 years to stop the village’s demolition responded to the events of this morning that: "The Israeli judiciary and the government are responsible for the killing in the village today. The Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to allow the state to proceed with its plan to demolish the village, which has existed for 60 years, in order to establish a Jewish town called ’Hiran’ over its ruins, is one of the most racist judgments that the Court has ever issued. (...)

    • Israeli police accused of cover-up over killing during Negev demolition raid
      Jan. 18, 2017 2:16 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 18, 2017 2:16 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=774990

      NEGEV (Ma’an) — The Joint List, which represents parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, accused Israeli police of spreading misinformation to Israeli media regarding an alleged vehicle attack Wednesday morning in the Negev, in order to distract from Israel’s campaign to establish Jewish-only towns “on the ruins of Bedouin villages.”

      The statement warned the Israeli government of the dangerous consequences of the “bloody” escalation, after Israeli police raided the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran to evacuate residents in order to demolish their homes.

      The raid turned deadly, when a 47-year-old Palestinian with Israeli citizenship was shot and killed by police “in cold blood,” according to witnesses. However, Israeli police claimed the man deliberately rammed his car into officers.

      Hours later, as Israeli bulldozers began razing the homes to the ground, renewed clashes erupted in the village.

      Umm al-Hiran is one of 35 Bedouin villages considered “unrecognized” by the Israeli state, and more than half of the approximately 160,000 Negev Bedouins reside in unrecognized villages.

      The unrecognized Bedouin villages were established in the Negev soon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war following the creation of the state of Israel.

      Now more than 60 years later, the villages have yet to be recognized by Israel and live under constant threats of demolition and forcible removal.

    • Palestinian, Israeli leadership react to deadly police raid of Bedouin village
      Jan. 18, 2017 6:12 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 18, 2017 6:12 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=774995

      RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat condemned Israeli authorities for the “crime” committed Wednesday during a demolition campaign in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran, during which a Palestinian citizen of Israel was shot dead by Israeli police and an Israeli policeman was killed, and numerous Palestinians were injured.

      Erekat accused the Israeli government of reacting to attempts by the international community to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis by escalating a policy of “racism, ethnic cleansing, and the evacuation of indigenous Palestinians from their lands, in a desperate attempt to Judaize the country.”

      He called attention to the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who “are living amid the racist system of Israel,” adding that the demolition Palestinian homes in the Israeli city of Qalansawe had “continued in Qalandiya refugee camp yesterday and in Umm al-Hiran today.”

      Erekat stressed that the international community’s silence towards Israeli actions only bought time and immunity for Israel to commit more crimes, adding that the situation “requires an immediate and urgent international intervention to stop this chaos before it’s too late.”

      Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that not holding Israel accountable regarding its role as an occupying power “lessens the credibility of countries who demand reviving and realizing the two-state solution.”

      The ministry argued that Israel’s belligerence in the face of international conventions “calls for an international ethical wakening to punish Israel for its violations, and to end its occupation of Palestine.” (...)

    • Umm al-Hiran : Odeh accuse Netanyahu d’avoir refusé un accord et déclenché les affrontements
      Le député arabe affirme que les habitants du village bédouin avaient accepté un compromis quelques heures avant l’explosion des violences mortelles
      Stuart Winer 18 janvier 2017, 17:33
      http://fr.timesofisrael.com/odeh-accuse-netanyahu-davoir-refuse-un-accord-et-declenche-les-aff

      Le dirigeant de la Liste arabe unie a accusé mercredi le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu d’avoir causé un violent affrontement dans un village bédouin, au cours duquel un policier et un habitant ont été tués. Il a affirmé que Netanyahu avait manqué à sa parole à propos d’un accord concernant les démolitions de maisons du village.

      S’adressant aux journalistes devant le centre médical Soroka de Beer Sheva, le député Ayman Odeh, qui portait un bandage sur la tête après avoir été blessé pendant les manifestations, a réclamé une enquête gouvernementale sur les événements.

      Des démolitions de maisons du village bédouin non autorisé d’Umm al-Hiran, dans le Néguev, ont été perturbées mercredi matin quand une voiture, conduite par l’instituteur du village, Yaqoub Mousa Abu Al-Qian, est entrée dans la ligne formée par les policiers. Un policier, Erez Levi, 34 ans, a été tué, et un autre a été blessé.

      « Nous étions en négociations jusque tard dans la nuit », a déclaré Odeh, sans préciser les responsables présents pour représenter l’Etat.

      « Je participais aux négociations. Nous avions presque terminé. Nous avions atteint un compromis, que les habitants d’Umm al-Hiran ont accepté. Mais le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu, qui a déjà identifié la population arabe comme l’ennemi public numéro un, a cruellement décidé de détruire un village entier, de tirer et de frapper des hommes, des femmes, et des enfants. »(...)

    • Israeli police video reveals cops opened fire on Bedouin man before his car accelerated, contradicting police claims
      19/01/2017
      https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9002

      Ya’akub Musa Abu Al-Qi’an (Photo courtesy of Mossawa Center)

      Adalah demands criminal investigation; police in Umm al-Hiran violated open-fire regulations, and prevented ambulance crew from treating Abu Al-Qi’an for three hours after shooting.

      Hours after Israeli police gunfire led to the death of a Bedouin man during a violent home demolition operation, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel is demanding that Israeli authorities investigate the suspicious circumstances of his death.

      Mr. Ya’akub Musa Abu Al-Qi’an, a 50-year-old math teacher from Atir-Umm al-Hiran in the Naqab (Negev), Israel’s southern desert region, was killed after Israeli police opened fire on his vehicle as he was driving through the Bedouin village during state preparations for a large-scale home demolition.

      The parents of Abu Al-Qi’an have asked Adalah to represent the family and to demand that the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Division (Mahash) investigate the circumstances of their son’s death.

      In the letter to Mahash, sent late last night (18 January 2017), Adalah Attorneys Nadeem Shehadeh and Mohammad Bassam argue that police video footage of the incident and eyewitness testimony reveal that police opened fire on Abu Al-Qi’an’s vehicle before he accelerated in the direction of officers. This totally contradicts police claims that Abu Al Qi’an sought to “ram” them with his vehicle.(...)

    • Israeli police close probe into January killing of Palestinian teacher
      Dec. 30, 2017 3:40 P.M. (Updated: Dec. 30, 2017 3:40 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779708

      BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Israeli Police Investigations Division (PID) has decided to close its probe into the January police killing of Palestinian math teacher Yaqoub Abu al-Qian, and to not hold any officers responsible for his death, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said in a statement on Thursday.

      Abu al-Qian, a 50-year-old math teacher from the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in southern Israel’s Negev desert, was shot dead by Israeli police in January while he was driving at night, causing him to spin out of control and crash into Israeli officers, killing one policeman.

      Abu al-Qian was driving through the village as dozens of Israeli forces were preparing for a large-scale home demolition in Umm al-Hiran. Israeli forces at the time claimed he was attempted to carry out a vehicular attack, though witness testimonies and video footage of the incident proved contradictory to police accusations.

      Israeli police footage appeared to show police officers shooting at al-Qian as he was driving at a very slow pace, and only several seconds after the gunfire does his car appear to speed up, eventfully plowing through police officers.

      The killing of Abu al-Qian sparked widespread outrage amongst Palestinian civilians and politicians, who claimed he was “extrajudicially executed.

      After demands from his family and the community for police to conduct a probe into his killing, Adalah filed a request demanding the PID open an investigation into the death of Abu al-Qian.

      “The closure of this investigation means the PID continues to grant legitimacy to deadly police violence against Arab citizens of Israel,” Adalah said in it’s statement.

    • Une terrible injustice, reconnue sur le tard, et pour les mauvaises raisons
      Un civil et un policier ont perdu la vie en 2017 dans ce village, et les autorités ont tiré une mauvaise conclusion – la vérité est désormais connue, et les dégâts considérables
      Par David Horovitz 10 septembre 2020,
      https://fr.timesofisrael.com/une-terrible-injustice-reconnue-sur-le-tard-et-pour-les-mauvaises-

      (...) Cependant, près de quatre ans après l’incident, le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu a reconnu ce que ces vidéos de drones avaient indiqué dès le départ – que le récit officiel était faux – et il a présenté des excuses à la famille d’Abou Al-Qia’an : « Ils [la police] ont dit que c’était un terroriste. Hier, il s’est avéré qu’il n’était pas un terroriste », a déclaré le Premier ministre mardi soir. La police, pour sa part, a exprimé ses regrets, bien qu’elle n’ait pas présenté d’excuses ni rétracté l’accusation de terrorisme.
      L’ancien procureur général Shai Nitzan. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

      La vérité n’a été officiellement reconnue qu’à la suite d’un reportage télévisé cette semaine mettant en évidence la dissimulation officielle – un reportage télévisé qui s’imbrique, comme tant d’autres affaires courantes israéliennes de nos jours, dans les embrouilles juridiques de Netanyahu. C’est l’ancien procureur général Shai Nitzan qui a supervisé l’enquête de 2018 et qui aurait supprimé des preuves – le même Shai Nitzan fréquemment fustigé par Netanyahu en tant que figure clé dans la prétendue tentative de coup d’Etat politique dans laquelle le Premier ministre est jugé dans trois affaires de corruption. (...)

  • Palestinian shot dead by Israeli forces during East Jerusalem clashes
    Dec. 22, 2016 10:43 A.M. (Updated : Dec. 22, 2016 11:02 A.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=774546

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian overnight Wednesday, after he allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli soldiers during clashes that erupted in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab when Israeli troops raided the area to carry out a punitive home demolition.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the slain Palestinian as 19-year-old Ahmad Kharoubi .

    There were no injuries among Israeli forces, according to the Israeli army.

    Kharoubi was critically injured after being shot with live ammunition in the neck, and died shortly after his arrival to the hospital.

    An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that after suspects threw improvised explosive devices at Israeli soldiers, Israeli forces opened fire on one of the suspects, which “resulted in his death.”

    The clashes erupted in the wake of an Israeli army raid to partially demolish the house of Misbah Abu Sbeih who was shot dead by Israeli forces in October after carrying out a shooting attack in occupied East Jerusalem, killing one Israeli civilian and one Israeli police officer.

    The Israeli Supreme Court ordered on Monday that the interior walls of the home be destroyed and its exterior entrances and windows be sealed, despite the fact that Abu Sbeih’s widow and five children — the youngest of them 10 and the oldest 18 — were still residing in the house.

    #Palestine_assassinée
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    Un Palestinien tué dans des heurts avec des soldats israéliens à Jérusalem-Est
    AFP / 22 décembre 2016 07h51
    http://www.romandie.com/news/Un-Palestinien-tue-dans-des-heurts-avec-des-soldats-israeliens-a-JerusalemEst/763875.rom

    Jérusalem - Un Palestinien a été tué dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi dans un quartier de Jérusalem-Est annexée lors de heurts avec des soldats israéliens venus détruire le domicile de l’auteur d’une attaque meurtrière contre des Israéliens, a indiqué l’armée.

    Une porte-parole de l’armée a indiqué que des suspects avaient lancé des engins explosifs contre les soldats, qui avaient répondu par des tirs, provoquant la mort de l’un d’eux. Le ministère palestinien de la Santé l’a identifié comme Ahmad al-Kharoubi, 19 ans.

    La porte-parole militaire a précisé que les soldats étaient venus détruire le domicile de Misbah Abou Sabaih, à Koufar Akab, un quartier de Jérusalem-Est, partie majoritairement palestinienne de Jérusalem annexée et occupée par Israël.

    Musabah Abou Sabaih avait ouvert le feu le 9 octobre sur des Israéliens à Jérusalem-Est, tuant une retraitée de 60 ans et un policier de 29 ans. Il avait été abattu.

    • B’Tselem: Palestinian ’did not pose any danger’ when killed by sniper during clashes
      Feb. 6, 2017 2:40 P.M. (Updated: Feb. 6, 2017 4:16 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775311

      BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian youth killed by Israeli forces in December did not represent a threat when he was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a report published on Sunday.

      Ahmad al-Kharroubi, 19, was shot by Israeli with live ammunition during clashes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab on Dec. 22, as Israeli forces were carrying out a raid to partially demolish the house of Palestinian Misbah Abu Sbeih, who was shot dead by Israeli forces in October after carrying out a deadly shooting attack.

      Al-Kharroubi was shot by a sniper in the neck, succumbing to his injuries shortly before arriving to the hospital.

  • Autopsy confirms bullet fired at point-blank range killed al-Sharif
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770969
    April 3, 2016 4:55 P.M. (Updated : April 3, 2016 5:10 P.M.)

    BETHLEHEM- (Ma’an) – The autopsy conducted on the body Abd al-Fatah al-Sharif on Sunday confirmed that the 21-year-old Palestinian was still alive before a bullet fired at his head at point-blank range by an Israeli soldier killed him, according to a statement from the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

    Palestinian doctor Rayan al-Ali, who attended al-Sharif’s autopsy, said: “The results of the autopsy were expected. What the whole world saw on the video that documented the shooting was more than enough, but the autopsy results assured it.”

    He added in his statement that he would hold a press conference on Monday to give further details about the results of the autopsy, which took place at the Israeli Institute for Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir near Tel Aviv.

    A court order by the Israeli Supreme Court Thursday denied an appeal to allow a Palestinian doctor to partake in the autopsy itself.

    The court later granted permission for al-Ali to merely attend and take notes for the autopsy report of al-Sharif, whose killing by an Israeli soldier on March 24 has been branded by the UN as an “extrajudicial execution.”

    #Abdul_Fatah_al-Sharef

    • Palestinien tué à Hébron : une autopsie confirme les accusations de meurtre
      RFI - Publié le 03-04-2016 -

      L’autopsie réalisée ce dimanche 3 avril par un médecin palestinien confirme ce que montraient les images : le Palestinien abattu par un soldat franco-israélien à Hébron il y a dix jours était encore en vie avant le tir. L’affaire continue d’agiter l’opinion en Israël et dans les Territoires palestiniens.

      Les images semblaient le montrer, l’autopsie le confirme. Abd al-Sharif, le Palestinien blessé et au sol après avoir tenté d’attaquer des soldats israéliens au couteau, était encore en vie lorsqu’il a été touché par une balle dans la tête. C’est ce que confirme le médecin légiste palestinien qui a pu examiner son corps dix jours après sa mort. La justice israélienne avait dans un premier temps refusé le droit à l’autopsie réclamée par la famille, avant de changer d’avis.(...)

  • The Society of St. Yves | News
    http://www.saintyves.org/?MenuId=3&Lang=1&TemplateId=news&catId=1&full=1&id=88

    The Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision on Monday, the 6th of July 2015, giving the Israeli Ministry of Defense the green light to begin building the separation wall in the Cremisan Valley in Beit Jala. This ruling limits the effect of the Court’s previous decision to stop building the separation wall in Cremisan, whereby the decision to stop building the wall will only be limited to the surroundings of the Salesian Sister’s Convents, represented by the Society of St. Yves, and the Salesian Monk’s Monastery, represented by Adv. Nihad Irsheid as well as the church’s private land. The decision ruled that the Israeli authorities will initiate building the wall on the privately owned lands of the people of Beit Jala; thereby leaving-out only a small section, hundreds of meters in length and adjacent to the Salesian monasteries and their land.

    #Israel #vol #terres #Palestine

  • Israel: Court Permits Discriminatory Evictions | Human Rights Watch

    http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/19/israel-court-permits-discriminatory-evictions?can_id=c04bd6c1866a7591ea05420e1d

    (Jerusalem) – Separate Israeli Supreme Court decisions issued on May 5, 2015, open the way for state authorities to forcibly evict residents of two Arab villages from their homes. The inhabitants of both villages, one in Israel and the other in the occupied West Bank, have previously been displaced following actions by Israeli authorities.

    #israël #palestine #occupation

  • Israeli Court Overrules Ban on 1948 Palestinian MP Re-Election Bid
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-court-overrules-ban-1948-palestinian-mp-re-election-bid

    Firebrand Arab-Israeli member of parliament #Haneen_Zuabi, center, leaves the supreme court in Jerusalem on February 17, 2015 after a hearing related to the central election committee’s decision to ban her from standing in next month’s general election. AFP/Menahem Kahana

    The Israeli Supreme Court overruled on Wednesday a ruling banning a 1948 Palestinian member of #Knesset MP and an extreme right-wing Jewish activist from running in next month’s parliamentary election, an official said. Last week, the Central Elections Committee (CEC) barred MP Haneen Zuabi, a regular critic of #Israel's right-wing government, deeming her to be “hostile to the Jewish state.” read (...)

    #1948_Palestinians #Palestine

  • CIA cited Israeli Supreme Court rulings to justify torture, Senate report says -
    ’Israeli example’ cited as possible justification for use of torture when interrogating terror suspects ’where there is no other available means to prevent the harm’ they might inflict.
    By Anshel Pfeffer | Dec. 9, 2014 | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.630823

    The scathing report published Tuesday by the United States Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA’s interrogation of terror suspects reveals that the CIA’s lawyers used the rulings of Israel’s Supreme Court to construct a legal case justifying torture.

    According to the 528-page document, a redacted version of the 6,000-page report that remains classified, in November 2001 some CIA officers were concerned they may need legal justification for the interrogation methods they had begun using when questioning Al-Qaida suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

    In a draft memorandum prepared by the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, the “Israeli example” was cited as a possible justification that “torture was necessary to prevent imminent, significant, physical harm to persons, where there is no other available means to prevent the harm.”

    The “Israeli example” refers to the conclusions of the Landau Commission in 1987 and subsequent Supreme Court rulings that forbid Israel’s security services from using torture in interrogation of terror suspects, but allows the use of “moderate physical pressure” in cases which are classified as a “ticking bomb,” when there is an urgent need to obtain information which could prevent an imminent terror attack.

    Over the years, Israeli human rights organizations led by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel have petitioned the Supreme Court a number of times, and succeeded in outlawing various interrogation methods which the Shin Bet continued to use.

    In 2005, as members of the U.S. Congress began asking more questions regarding the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the intelligence agency began planning a public-relations campaign to drum up support for its methods.

    According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA attorney preparing the campaign “described the ’striking’ similarities between the public debate surrounding the McCain amendment (a congressional act passed in December 2005 regulating interrogation methods) and the situation in Israel in 1999, in which the Israeli Supreme Court had ’ruled that several... techniques were possibly permissible, but require some form of legislative sanction,’ and that the Israeli government ultimately got limited legislative authority for a few specific techniques.”

    The CIA attorney also referred to the Israeli Supreme Court’s “ticking time bomb” scenario and said that “enhanced techniques could not be preapproved for such situations, but that if worse came to worse, an officer who engaged in such activities could assert a common-law necessity defense, if he were ever prosecuted.”

    An Al-Qaida plot? 

    Israel is mentioned in one other connection in the redacted version of the report. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al-Qaida operative who planned the 9/11 attacks, was captured by the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence service and was tortured in his interrogations. According to the report, Mohammed told his interrogators about plans by Al-Qaida to carry out attacks on various targets including “an Israeli embassy in the Middle East,” among other information. 

    While Israel has Middle East embassies only in Egypt and Jordan, in another place, the report says that Mohammed spoke of “a terrorist plot in Saudi Arabia against Israel.” Israel has no diplomatic relations with the Saudis, though there is a great deal of coordination between the two countries beneath the radar. It is unclear what Israeli target the CIA claim that Al-Qaida were planning to attack, but the report also says that “much of this (Mohammed’s) information was inaccurate.”

  • Israeli Supreme Court to Hear Rachel Corrie Appeal on May 21 | The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

    http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/blog/2014/05/12/israeli-supreme-court-to-hear-rachel-corrie-appeal

    Nine years after filing a civil suit against the State of Israel for the wrongful death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, her family will have their appeal heard before the Israeli Supreme Court on May 21 at 11:30 a.m. in Jerusalem. The appeal, which will be argued by attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, challenges the Haifa District Court’s August 2012 ruling which concluded that the Israeli military was not responsible for Rachel’s death and that it conducted a credible investigation.

  • Torture in Palestine: a glimpse into Israel’s history of unrivalled cruelty | Occupied Palestine | فلسطين
    http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/torture-in-palestine-a-glimpse-into-israels-history-of-

    Torture in Palestine: a glimpse into Israel’s history of unrivalled cruelty

    October 16, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments
    Palestine’s Prisoners | Pictures | Topic | Category – Torture | History | Category

    EmpireStrikesBlack | Oct 4, 2011 | Martin Iqbal

    Recognition of ‘Israel’ is tantamount to approval of the crimes against humanity that forged its existence. Such recognition is absolutely inexcusable on any level, moral, legal, or otherwise.

    Amnesty International has concluded that there is no nation on the face of the planet in which torture is as well-established and documented as in the case of the state of Israel(1). This, coming from an organisation not exactly renowned for its tenacity with respect to the Zionist entity’s crimes, is particularly telling. In addition to this the Zionist entity has a long history of refusing to investigate or even acknowledge the brutal torture that it visits upon its occupied, dispossessed, and terrorised victims.

    The Shin Bet (known officially in English as the ‘Israel Security Agency’) is Israel’s domestic ‘security’ force, which boasts the motto “Defender that shall not be seen”. Reporting directly to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Shin Bet is responsible for carrying out the most unimaginably depraved torture on innocent Palestinian detainees, a handful of which will be documented herein.

    Ever since its birth, forged in the fires of Jewish terrorism, ethnic cleansing, massacres and rape, the Zionist entity has encountered resistance (peaceful and armed) from dispossessed and occupied Palestinians. Having absolutely zero moral or legal claim to the land it now occupies, Israel responds to righteous peaceful or armed resistance in the only way it can: with violence and force characterised by unmitigated brutality.

    Through a mere handful of examples, the reader will see how with unspeakable cruelty, the Zionist entity destroys individuals and families alike, physically and psychologically. Lives are torn apart, human beings are subjected to nightmarish treatment, inflicting unthinkable pain and distress. Their only crime? Exercising their right to self-determination in the face of a violent foreign occupier.

    Torture by the Israeli regime is systemic in Occupied Palestine. It is the Zionists’ bulwark, indeed their only bulwark, against the rightful resistance mounted by the dispossessed and occupied Palestinians. What is euphemistically called ‘interrogation’, ranges from beatings, to isolation and sensory deprivation. From assault and mutilation of the genitals, to sodomy and rape. Electric shocks at the mouth, temples, and testicles are widely used, as are attack dogs. Invariably detainees are held in stress positions within tightly confined cells, and deprived of sleep, food and water. Detainees often have committed no crime other than having been politically active, voicing opposition to the occupation.

    The cases that follow are taken from Ralph Schoenman’s 1988 book, ‘The Hidden History of Zionism’. The source materials he cites include the Al-Fajr Jerusalem Palestinian Weekly, case studies carried out by himself and Mya Shone, as well as a five-month 1977 study by the London Sunday Times.

    I cannot stress enough the importance of reading these accounts in full; the pure brutality visited upon the victims stretches even the most cruel imagination.

    Fazi Abdel Wahed Nijim was arrested in July 1970. He was tortured at Sarafand and set upon by dogs. Arrested again in July 1973, he was beaten in Gaza prison. Zudhir al-Dibi was arrested in February 1970 and interrogated in Nablus where he was whipped and beaten on the soles of his feet. His testicles were squeezed and he was hosed with ice water. Shehadeh Shalaldeh was arrested in August 1969 and interrogated at Moscobiya. A ballpoint refill was pushed into his penis. Abed al-Shalloudi was held without trial for sixteen months. Blindfolded and handcuffed while at Moscobiya, he was beaten by Naim Shabo, an Iraqi Jew, Director of the Minorities Department.

    Jamil Abu Ghabiyr was arrested in February 1976 and held in Moscobiya. He was beaten on the head, body and genitals and made to lie in ice water. Issam Atif al Hamoury was arrested in October 1976. In Hebron prison the authorities arranged his rape by a prisoner trustee.

    In February 1969, Rasmiya Odeh was arrested and brought to Moscobiya. Her father, Joseph, and two sisters were detained for interrogation. Joseph Odeh was kept in one room while Rasmiya was beaten nearby. When they brought him to her she was lying on the floor in blood-stained clothes. Her face was blue, her eye black. In his presence, they held her down and shoved a stick into her vagina. One of the interrogators ordered Joseph Odeh “to fuck” his daughter. When he refused they began beating both him and Rasmiya. They again spread her legs and shoved the stick into her. She was bleeding from the mouth, face and vagina when Joseph Odeh fell unconscious.


    The Case of Ghassan Harb

    Ghassan Harb, a 37-year-old Palestinian intellectual and journalist for Al Fajr, a prominent Arabic daily, was arrested in 1973. He was taken by Israeli soldiers and two plain-clothes agents from his home to Ramallah prison where he was held fifty days. During this time he was neither interrogated nor accused. He was denied any contact with his family or a lawyer. On the fiftieth day, Ghassan Harb was taken with a sack over his head to an undisclosed place. Here he was subjected to sustained beating: “Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes beating with his hand across my face.”

    Stripped naked and a bag placed over his head, he was forced into a confined space. He began to suffocate. He managed by moving his head against the “wall” to remove the bag and found himself in a cupboard-like compartment some 2 feet square and 5 feet high [60 cm. and 150 cm. Respectively].

    He could neither sit down nor stand up. The floor was concrete with a set of stone spikes set at irregular intervals. They were “sharp with acute edges,” 1.5 centimeters high. Ghassan Harb could not stand on them without pain. He had to stand on one leg and then replace it continuously with the other. He was kept in the box for four hours during the first session.

    He was then made to crawl on his knees on sharp stones while being beaten for an hour by four soldiers. After being interrogated, Ghassan Harb was returned to his cell and the routine was repeated: beatings, stripping, forced to crawl into a dog kennel two feet square and then the “cupboard.” While in the cupboard at night he heard prisoners pleading, “Oh my stomach. You are killing me.”

    Ghassan Harb was released two-and-a-half years later, never having been charged with a crime or brought to trial. His lawyer, Felicia Langer, succeeded in taking the matter of his maltreatment to the Israeli Supreme Court. No full statements were taken or admitted into the court hearing; no witnesses were called. The court dismissed out of hand all charges of torture.
    The Case of Nader Afouri

    Nader Afouri was a strong, vital man, the weight-lifting champion of Jordan. When he was released in 1980 after his fifth imprisonment, he could neither see, hear, speak, walk nor control his bodily

    functions. Between 1967 and 1980, Nader Afouri was held ten and a half years as an administrative detainee. Despite the brutal treatment and torture inflicted upon Nader during five imprisonments, the Israeli authorities could neither extract a confession nor produce any evidence with which to bring Nader Afouri to trial.

    The First Imprisonment-1967-1971:
    “I was arrested initially in 1967, the first year of the occupation. They took me from my home in Nablus, blindfolded me and hanged me from a helicopter. All the people of Beit Furik and Salem villages near Nablus witnessed this.

    “They brought me to Sarafand, the most harsh prison, a military prison. I was the first man from the West Bank or Gaza to be brought there. When they set the helicopter down, they pushed me out and ordered me to run. I heard gunfire and ran as they were shooting at me.

    “They took me to a large room full of red, yellow and green lights. I could hear screams and the sounds of beatings. I heard a man yell: ‘You’ll have to confess.’ Then I heard a man confessing. Soon, I discovered this was a recording meant to intimidate me.

    “Then they took me to the interrogator. They tied me with chains to green doors. Each door had a pulley. They opened the doom, spreading my hands and legs, then wound the pulleys till I fell unconscious.

    “They made me get up on a chair, tied my hands to chains hanging from a window and slowly removed the chair. My muscles tore as the weight of my body pulled on my hands. The pain was terrible.

    “There were five or six men. They all beat me. They hit me with blows on the head. They chained me to a chair. One would beat me and some of the other men in the room would say ‘Stop.’ Then they would change from one to the other, each hitting me in turn. I was kept chained in that chair and never allowed to stand up.

    “They kept torturing me. An interrogator sucked on a cigarette. When it was red, he placed it on my face, chest and genitals – all over.”

    “One shoved a pen refill up my penis while the others watched. As they did this they asked me to confess. I started to bleed from my penis and was taken to Ramle Prison Hospital but was soon brought back again to Sarafand for further interrogation.”

    “I was in Sarafand twelve-and-a-half months and was interrogated continuously. No one can endure twelve-and-a-half months. On four occasions my friends in the other prisons were informed officially that I had died.”

    “The first month in Sarafand, I was always blindfolded and had chains on my hands and legs. After one month they removed the hand chains and blindfold. But I wore leg chains for twelve-and-a- half months. Day and night I had chains on my legs. The marks are still on my ankles.”

    “This was the routine: They would beat me, interrogate me, then throw me in the cell. I would rest awhile; then they would take me again.”

    “The cell was 3 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet high [1 meter by 1.3 meters by 1.3 meters]. My height is 5 feet 6 inches [1.7 meters]. I slept crouched with my legs up against my stomach. There were no windows in the cell and no furnishings, only a pot for shitting. I had two blankets.”

    “The stones on the floor were very sharp. They punctured my feet when I walked. They began to bring other prisoners. They gave us army clothes with numbers on the back. I was number one. They would only call me by my number, never by my name. They were always insulting me, yelling ‘Maniuk (Faggot), I will fuck you.’ When we were chained outside they brought savage dogs. The dogs jumped at us, grabbed our clothing and bit us.”

    “Over thirty people were arrested after my own detention and all underwent the same torture. All, however, broke down under torture and wrote confessions and are in prison for life. I didn’t confess. The torture destroyed my penis and I could only urinate drop by drop. I could not walk for three-and-a-half months when I finished the interrogation. But I did not confess. I never spoke a word in twelve- and-a-half months.”

    Nader Afouri was sent to Nablus Prison where he began a hunger strike demanding his freedom. He took only water and a little salt. After ten days he was promised his release. Ten days later when Nader Afouri had not been released, he renewed the hunger strike for yet another week. Again the Administrative Vice-President of Nablus Prison promised to release him. When there was still no action after twenty-five days, Nader Afouri announced another hunger strike.

    “I was sent to the cells of Ramle prison after twenty-two days of this hunger strike. Dr. Silvan, the director there, brought several soldiers with him. They beat me on the head. I passed between life and death. They chained my hands and forced a tube in my nose. It was like an electrical shock. I began to shake. I became hysterical when the food reached my throat and began to scream constantly. They gave me an injection in the hip and I relaxed. When this torture failed to make me talk I was placed in the Prison Hospital at Ramle and then sent back to Nablus Prison.”

    Each time a confession was extracted from another prisoner incriminating him, Nader Afouri would be called for interrogation. Often he did not even know the people who spoke against him. But still he did not confess, nor was he brought to trial.

    Nader Afouri was well respected in Nablus and became a leader of the prisoners. When Abu Ard, an informer, accused him of leading the other prisoners, Nader Afouri was sent to Tulkarm prison.

    “Fifteen soldiers came in and beat me on the head with a chair. I fell unconscious. They put my shirt in my mouth and beat me more. I became hysterical as I was gagging. They gave me an injection and I fell unconscious. I awoke alone in the corridor. I couldn’t see. All Tulkarm Prison went on strike and the prisoners met with the Director to speak about me. He promised he would release me the next day if they stopped their strike.”

    “The Director came the next day and shook hands with me and said: “I swear by my life that you are a man.” They brought me socks and a jacket and promised me a private visit with my family.”

    Nader Afouri was not freed. Instead he was sent to Bet Il prison from which he was eventually released in 1971. His four years of imprisonment were without trial and labelled administrative detention.

    Only a few months lapsed before Nader Afouri was detained again. His second imprisonment lasted from 1971 until 1972 and a third from November 1972 until 1973.

    The Fourth Imprisonment: Nov. 1973 – Nov. 1976:
    “Hebron, Moscobiya, Ramallah and Nablus: I stayed three months in a cell in each of these four prisons and the interrogation and torture continued.”

    “It was snowing during the interrogation in Hebron. They stripped me and put me outside in the cold. They tied me with chains to a pole and poured ice water over me. They let me down and brought me to a fire to warm up only to bring me outside again for the ice water treatment.”

    “Iron balls were put into my scrotum and squeezed against the testicles. Pain just enveloped me. “One of the investigators, Abu Haroun, said he would turn my face into a bulldog’s. He was scientific. He hit me with rapid punches for two hours. Then he brought a minor and said: ‘Look at your face.’ I did indeed look like a bulldog.”

    “In Nablus they burned me with cigarettes and again pressed the metal balls against my testicles-squeezing the egg against the iron. They used pliers to pull out four of my teeth.”

    “I was detained three years administratively. During that time as an act of revenge, they also dynamited my house.”

    The Fifth Imprisonment: November 1978 – 1980:
    “They arrested me again in November 1978 and sent me directly to Hebron. They greeted me, sneeringly, declaring: ‘We will make you confess from your asshole.’ I told them I speak from my mouth, not my asshole.”

    “At first they spoke nicely to me because they knew torture wouldn’t work. Then they brought the men in charge of interrogation: Uri, Abu Haroun, Joni, the Psychiatrist, Abu Nimer who has a finger missing, Abu Ali Mikha and Dr. Jims.”

    “They chained me to a pole and concentrated their beatings on my chest. They lay me down on the floor and jumped high in the air landing on my chest. Uri did this seven or eight times. It was savage, unending torture for seven days. They smashed their boot heels on my fingernails, breaking my fingers.”

    “It was snowing so they poured ice water on me. They handed me a paper and gave me two hours to confess. I said I knew nothing. They chained me to a chair. All of them began to beat me with their hands and feet. I fell down. My head was on the floor. I saw Uri fly through the air and I felt his karate chop on my head. This was the last memory I had for two years. “I have been told that I was dragged back to the cell. The other prisoners had to feed me, clean me and turn me over. I was incontinent and shat on myself. I could not move my hands or walk. I could not hear. I could not recognize anyone. Only my lips could move and I would swallow whatever was put in my mouth. People had to move my head. They had to move my limbs from under my body. My weight fell to 103 pounds [47 kilos].”

    “Two years later, I woke up in a mental hospital. I had five fractures in my hips and I couldn’t walk.” His friends were able to arouse public concern throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories. Israeli officials and journalists wrote that Nader Afouni was “feigning” and that he was an excellent “actor.”

    But the prisoners who had taken care of him and the journalists and sympathizers who visited him when he was finally transferred from prison to a hospital, as well as the hospital staff that eventually treated him, bore witness to his condition. Nader Afouni became a cause celebre for the Palestinian people, a symbol of the torment inflicted upon them and of the heroic dimension of their resistance.
    The Case of Dr. Azmi Shuaiby

    Azmi Shuaiby, a dentist, was an active member of the El Bireh City Council in the West Bank and an elected representative to the National Guidance Committee. Since 1973, Dr. Shuaiby has been arrested, brutally tortured and imprisoned seven times. Between 1980 and 1986 he was forbidden to leave the limits of El Bireh and was confined to his house after 6 p.m. In 1986, he was again imprisoned and then deported from the West Bank.

    He has never been accused of armed actions or of promoting violence. But Dr. Shuaiby refuses Israeli demands that he collaborate. He has written articles against the occupation and settlements and in favor of an independent Palestinian state.

    In 1973, when first arrested at the age of twenty, Azmi was told: “We have been watching you. You were first in your class at the University. We can make you a very rich and powerful man in the West Bank. You must cooperate with us and join the Village Leagues.” Upon his refusal, the series of arrests and savage torture began. Dr. Shuaiby described the methods of torture, both physical and psychological to which he was subjected.

    “They used heavy batons. They put my legs between chair legs so I couldn’t move. Then they beat the soles of my feet.

    My feet swelled. After one minute I could no longer feel my legs. The pain was excruciating. I was unable to stand. They would stand behind me. I couldn’t tell if anyone were there. Suddenly, the interrogator clapped his hands over my ears with great force. It caused sudden, terrible pressure in my nose, mouth, and ears – a loud ringing which went on for five minutes. I lost my balance and hearing.

    They used a giant guard to punch me constantly. He said: “You are a dentist? Which hand do you use? If we break your hand you will no longer be a dentist.” Then he beat my hand until I felt it break.

    They tied my hands behind my back and suspended me on a hook. They spread my legs and beat me on the testicles with sticks. Then they squeezed my testicles. I cannot describe the agony produced by squeezing the testicles. You feel stabbing pain in your stomach, in all your nerves.

    You want to faint.

    They put me outside in the winter, naked and fully exposed, with my cuffed hands suspended from hooks. I was hung this way from 11 p.m. at night until just before sunrise. Then I was returned to my cell. They had put water on the cell floor so that I couldn’t sleep. They told me I must collaborate with them and that when I did I must tell neither the Red Cross nor anyone else that I was working for them. I replied: “OK, I will tell them that you said I must not tell anyone you want me to work for you.” I refused to collaborate. They beat me endlessly.”

    In 1980, the Israelis introduced new techniques. Dr. Shuaiby designates these methods “psychological torture”; he found them harder to endure than the physical torment. “Your brain is affected.”

    Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was subjected to the following ordeal: Isolation: “No one was allowed to speak to me, not even the soldiers. The cell was 4.5 feet by 5.5 feet and 9 feet high [1.5m by 1.8m by 3m]. In one corner was a stinking hole used as a toilet. There was only a tiny window near the floor. I could never see the sky. The bare light was on day and night. I had nothing to read. I heard no voices. Food was put in the corner and the door opened very slightly. I had to strain to reach for it piece by piece.

    “The bedding consisted of a plastic cover less than one half inch [1 cm.] thick. It was always wet. Once a week I was allowed to go out for a few minutes to air the bedding. No soldier was permitted to speak to me.

    To maintain my sanity I collected small pieces of orange peel and made shapes with them. I would ask myself questions and then answer them. I also pulled threads from the blanket and knit them together.”

    The Cupboard: “I was entombed for four days and nights, squeezed into a bent but standing position in a cupboard 20 inches by 20 inches [50cm. by 50cm.]. It was very dark. A filthy sack had been tied over my head. My hands were handcuffed behind my back with special cuffs. If I moved my hands in any way the cuffs automatically tightened. I was unable to move in the cupboard. I had to sleep while standing. I slept a minute at a time, awakening abruptly, convinced that I was suffocating.”

    The Interrogators: “The interrogation and torture were carried out by a team. All were officers and captains, their names Gadi, Edi, Saini, Yacob and Dany. The interrogation room is their kingdom; no one can enter.

    During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the interrogation team was sent to Lebanon and a new staff brought to the West Bank prisons. The ‘new staff’ consisted of former torturers. One man had been an interrogator ten years before; now he was a businessman. ‘Captain Dany’ returned from Lebanon during my imprisonment. Captain Dany is a very tall, handsome man of thirty-five years. He is very crude, constantly yelling ‘Fuck your sister, fuck your mother.’ He would force my mouth open and spit in it. In 1973, he tried to force a bottle into my anus. When he saw me on his return from Lebanon, he said: ‘Oh, Azmi is here,’ and proceeded to tell me about the young children in Ansar. ‘I interrogate children 10, 11 and 12,’ he began, giving me accounts of their beatings.”

    Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was imprisoned three times in 1982. Between December 7, 1981, and January 16, 1982, he was kept in isolation during the General Strike in the West Bank and the closure of Bir Zeit University. From April 1 to May 3, when the Israelis disbanded the West Bank City Councils, Azmi was placed in the “cupboard” and then again in isolation. He was kept in isolation throughout the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

    “Recently they told me: “We will destroy your clinic by jailing you every alternate month. Our computer will determine when you are scheduled to be imprisoned again.” In 1986, Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was deported.
    The Case of Mohammed Manasrah

    Mohammed Manasrah was a trade union activist, secretary of the Bethlehem University Student Senate and is currently a writer and journalist. He was imprisoned three times for a total of four-and-a- half years and then placed on additional probation for two years. His torture during interrogation was unrelenting, resulting in sexual dysfunction and hearing loss. He also endured numerous additional briefer detentions as well as house arrest and town restrictions.

    The First Imprisonment:
    “I was nineteen years old in 1969 when I was arrested for the first time. I was taken with a group of people and held in the Moscobyia [the Russian Compound in Jerusalem] for six months, where I was interrogated about demonstrations, publications and organizations. “Moscobiya was barbaric. They took our clothes and covered our eyes. They cuffed our hands and chained ten of us in a row. We were stripped naked. They threw water on us. Then they beat us in turn, using sticks on our heads and on our sexual organs. They would alternate throwing water on us and beating us on our sexual organs. We would hear them filling the buckets and brace ourselves, but no matter how we tried, we could never prepare ourselves for the beatings.

    “My friend, Bashir al Kharya, a lawyer, has been in prison since 1969. They beat his head with heavy sticks for three days. His head became green from mold and was infected with bacteria for five years. He is still held in Tulkarm Prison.”

    The Second Imprisonment:
    “In 1971, the authorities accused me of membership in both the P.F.L.P. (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and Fatah [Yasir Arafat’s group in the P.L.O.] even though one couldn’t be a member of both organizations.

    “The security services lacked any evidence but they gave me the choice of being charged with membership in an illegal organization and being sentenced to prison or voluntarily moving to Amman [Jordan]. I told them I would rather be imprisoned for a lifetime than be exiled. I confessed to membership in the United Student Council, the council of all student organizations which had been declared illegal. I was then imprisoned for one year in Ramallah and Nablus prisons.”

    The Third Imprisonment:
    “In 1975, they raided my house in Dheisheh camp and confiscated all my books. They brought me to Bassa Police Station where they beat me for two days. They asked no questions. One interrogator stood in front of me and another behind me. Suddenly the one behind would clap his hands with great force on both my ears. Blood flowed from my ears and mouth. I suffered brain damage. One prisoner, whom they were trying to terrify, fainted when they brought him to where I was being tortured. “They imprisoned me for three years. I was held in Hebron, Ramallah, again in Hebron, Farguna, Beersheba, again in Hebron and then again in Beersheba. They would transfer me for ‘security reasons’ as punishment after hunger strikes.” Torture in Hebron Prison: Mohammed Manasrah was taken to Hebron and tortured in many different ways: They tied me upside down and beat me endlessly on the feet with a piece of wood. You can’t imagine how much they hit me. My feet swelled to a huge size and turned blue. \ bled under the skin. They stripped me of my clothes and hung me by chains with my hands above my head and my feet barely touching the ground. They beat me constantly on the feet, always concentrating on my feet. Sometimes they would let me down and put my feet into a basin of filthy, stinking cold water. This would relieve the pain. Then they would hang me up again. I had to sleep chained up, with my hands above my head. This went on for fourteen days. Maisara Abul Hamdia was with me. For every blow I received, he got two.

    Maisara would be hanging when I entered the torture room. Then Maisara would find me hanging when he was brought to the torture room. [Maisara was later deported to Jordan.]

    After fourteen days, I would lose consciousness constantly. I was put in Cell #5. It was 5 feet 3 inches by 2 feet and 5 feet 6 inches high [160cm. by 60cm. by 168cm.]. It was as high as I am tall and its length was such that I had to put my legs on the wall when I lay down. The only sound I ever heard was that of the keys. I became terrified whenever I heard that sound. I don’t know exactly how long I was there. It was somewhere between five days and one week.

    I was beaten all night when they transferred me from Cell #5 to Cell #4. They used wide sticks and beat me on the head and sexual organs. They pulled my hair and hit my head on the wall. I have a permanent problem with my sexual organs and have had many X-Rays taken of my head and sexual organs.

    I was brought to the military courtroom early in the morning and made to wait all day. But there was no session. Instead, Abu Ghazal, the famous interrogator, came. He grabbed my hair and swung me around the room, smashing me against the wall. My hair was pulled out. He threatened to send me to Sarafand or “Akka” [a secret prison used in 1974 and 1975] if I didn’t confess within two days.

    I was put in a cell and slept the entire time. I didn’t know if it were day or night, two days or ten. I still feel cold when I recall this period. I get chills in my legs. After two days, ten soldiers rushed into my cell and started to beat me. They dragged me along the floor to the torture room. They told me that my friends and comrades had confessed. I said: “Bring them to me.” I knew these were lies. They brought two types of people to me in order to make me confess: kind, weak people who couldn’t bear to see how I was being tortured and “asafir” [spies]. Now they initiated other methods – alternating between beatings and soft talk in the hope that I would crack and “confess.” They accused me of being a member of the P.F.L.P., Fatah and the Communist Party. They would change their accusation, but one thing remained constant: after each accusation-they would beat me savagely.

    They brought two Majors to see me who lectured me for six hours – about the Soviet Union’s crimes against the Jews and China’s oppression of its national minorities. They accused me of being a communist because they found books on Marxism in my house. I told them there couldn’t be peace here without self-determination for the Palestinian people. They asked me to write this down and sign it and I did.

    After forty-six days of interrogation and detention they sent me to a military court in Ramallah. I was accused of having carried out actions against the authorities. My lawyer, Ghozi Kfir, asked for specifics. The court responded: “This is a revolutionary and a deceiver.” Before the hearing my lawyer and the prosecutor had worked out a deal. I was to be released without charge if I did not speak in court about how I was tortured. But the judge ignored the agreement and sentenced me to five years. I served three years and was placed on probation for two.”

    ~ The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman; Chapter 10: The Prevalence of Torture.

    The Zionist entity doesn’t limit its thirst for cruelty to adults; Palestinian youths are targeted with brutality in equal measure. In 1983 Himsam Safieh and Ziad Sbeh Ziad, from the Galilee, committed the crime of raising the Palestinian flag on the first anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. As a result they were detained for six months, during which time they were stripped naked and left in a cold room. They were sprayed with cold water and beaten from head to toe, including their genitals. On top of this they were electrocuted – all in an attempt to extract false confessions. At the end of their detention, they were released without charge. During the first intifada in 1987, over 17,000 Palestinian youths were detained by Israel, many of whom were subjected to this kind of treatment.

    In an attempt to crush the uprising (which consisted of mass strikes and demonstrations), Israeli soldiers roamed Palestinian villages and towns, terrorising the population. Youths as young as 13 years of age were taken from their homes, beaten senseless, and then buried alive. Some were subsequently dug up and rescued by villagers who had seen where they had been buried, others were not so lucky.

    Israeli soldiers poured boiling water over a two-year-old infant, rendering her catatonic.

    Israeli helicopters flew over towns, dropping an unknown green gas on the defenceless population. They fired canisters of the mysterious gas into homes and prevented the residents from leaving. Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, cases of miscarriages, vaginal bleeding, and asphyxiation occurred as a result. Needless to say, the gas was a gift from the U.S.A, bearing the markings: “560 cs. Federal Lab. Saltsburg, Pa. USA MK2 1988”.

    What is most significant about these horrifying cases of torture and brutality is that they are not uncommon, nor are they the results of ‘rogue’ cops or soldiers. They are a direct result of Zionist policy. As discussed by Schoenman, the patterns of torture reported are “similar to those found in hundreds of testimonies published by Israeli lawyers, Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel, by Palestinian lawyers Walid Fahoum and Raja Shehadeh, by Amnesty International and the National Lawyers Guild and the series of accounts this author documented from former prisoners.” Furthermore, it is worth reiterating the fact that Amnesty International has found the Zionist entity to be the world’s most prolific torturer.

    Israel’s Shin Bet, the very group responsible for perpetrating the horrific torture outlined in the examples above, continues its savage practices to this day. From 2001 to 2009 inclusive, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office received over seven hundred complaints of torture carried out by the Shin Bet; the Zionist entity refused to investigate a single one of these cases(2).

    In a recent example a Palestinian youth was held for six years by Israeli jailers, during which time he was held mainly in solitary confinement, and had boiling oil poured over him(3). As a result, Raf’at Bani Odeh now suffers from serious physical and psychological scars.

    As brutal, vicious, and barbaric as these practices may be, it is difficult for one to be surprised. The usurping Zionist entity is literally built on lies, blood, and hate. Al Nakba, euphemistically referred to by historical revisionists of the negationist persuasion, as ‘The War of Independence’, was an orgy of violence levied at an innocent, defenceless indigenous population. Massacres of men, women, and children were committed in an attempt to terrorise the Palestinian population at large into flight. Hundreds of villages were razed to the ground so that their rightful residents could never return. ‘Israeli’ towns and villages took their places, with Hebrew names to supplant the Arabic. As ‘Israeli’ war criminal Moshe Dayan would say: “There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population”.

    To this very day, Al Nakba continues in slow motion as Israel ‘Judaizes’ the entirety of Occupied Palestine and ethnically cleanses the rightful occupants from their land.

    It is not enough to decry the ethnic cleansing, land theft, and occupation that afflicts the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza, whilst recognising ‘Israel’. The violent, racist, usurping Zionist entity occupies the entirety of Historic Palestine. What is happening to the West Bank and Gaza is simply a continuation of the very crimes that forged Israel’s existence: terrorism, massacres, extra-judicial murder, torture, ethnic cleansing, and land theft. Recognition of ‘Israel’ is tantamount to approval of these crimes against humanity, and such recognition is absolutely inexcusable on any level, moral, legal, or otherwise.
    Notes

    (1) ‘The Hidden History of Zionism’ by Ralph Schoenman, 1988.
    (2) ‘Failure to investigate alleged cases of ill-treatment and torture’ – B’Tselem.
    (3) ‘Family says Israeli jailers poured boiling oil on its son’ – The Voice of Palestine.

    Source

  • Le sort des habitants du village de Susya, au... - Les chemins d’Hébron

    https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=509893595732026&id=105281509526572

    Le sort des habitants du village de Susya, au sud du district d’Hébron, menacé par la colonisation israélienne est évoqué dans “Les chemins d’Hébron - un an avec le CICR en Cisjordanie” en son chapitre 19 “Sara ne quittera pas Susya”. L’ONG Breaking the Silence en parle dans un reportage publié récemment.

    Disconnected from all basic infrastructure, including running water and electricity, the people of the Palestinian village of Susya are struggling against ongoing attempts by the Israeli government or army to dispossess them from their lands. The legal discussions on the future of Susya are still in process in the Israeli Supreme Court, where the extreme right-wing organization “Regavim” is advocating for the entire village to be demolished. Join our next tour to Susya—> http://bit.ly/HyXzLb Read more about Regavim—> http://bit.ly/16LjjlU Read more about Susya—> http://thebea.st/PtVbsy (Picture by Jorge Rojas, one of the many international visitors that joined us for a guided tour in South Hebron Hills).
    Disconnected from all basic infrastructure, including running water and electricity, the people of the Palestinian village of Susya are struggling against ongoing attempts by the Israeli government or army to dispossess them from their lands.
    The legal discussions on the future of Susya are still in process in the Israeli Supreme Court, where the extreme right-wing organization “Regavim” is advocating for the entire village to be demolished.

    Join our next tour to Susya—>
    http://bit.ly/HyXzLb

    Read more about Regavim—>
    http://bit.ly/16LjjlU

    Read more about Susya—>
    http://thebea.st/PtVbsy

    (Picture by Jorge Rojas, one of the many international visitors that joined us for a guided tour in South Hebron Hills).

    #palestine #occupation #bédouins

  • High Court rejects settler petition to immediately demolish “tire school”

    On Thursday, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition by settlers demanding the demolition of the iconic car tire school, the only permanent structure in the West Bank Bedouin village of Al Khan al Ahmar.

    While the immediate threat facing the community has been lifted, it still faces forced displacement by the Israeli Army. In their ruling, however, the judges repeatedly urged the military to initiate dialogue with the Jahalin community.

    http://jahalin.org

    JERUSALEM, October 15 2012 — On Thursday, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by settlers of Kfar Adumim demanding the demolition of the Bedouin “tire school”, which is ecologically built of mud and used car tires. The school is attended by roughly 95 Bedouin children (grades 1-7) who are residents of the adjacent hut village Al Khan al Ahmar.

    This Jahalin Bedouin community has been residing in the area for over 60 years, long before the construction of the settlement of Kfar Adumim, which now resides not far from their huts.

    Following a hearing held on September 13th, 2012, the Israeli High Court of Justice gave a decision on October 10th 2012, rejecting the petition by Kfar Adumim which demanded the IDF’s Civil Administration to enforce the demolition orders which are pending against the Khan al Ahmar School; as well as a second a petition by the Jahalin, attacking the demolition orders issued against the residential structures of the community.

    While the immediate threat facing the community has been lifted, it still faces forced displacement by the Israeli Army. “The court backed the Civil Administration regarding the displacement of the community,” says Adv. Shlomo Lecker, lawyer for the Jahalin. “But for the time being, at least until next year, the demolition orders will not be enforced. In addition, the judges repeatedly urged the IDF to initiate dialogue with the Jahalin community on finding a peaceful planning alternative.”

    Al Khan al Ahmar spokesperson Eid Abu Khamis Jahalin commented “I am pleased with the Supreme Court and I think its decision is a good one: the judges did not rule in favour of the settlers who were pushing for the immediate demolition of the school.”

    For more info:

    Hebrew and Arabic
    Eid Abu Khamis Jahalin
    eid@jahalin.org
    +972-52-3329350

    English
    Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
    angela@jahalin.org
    +972-54-7366393

    #israel #jérusalem #jahalin #bédouins