provinceorstate:gaza strip

  • Israeli forces injure 41 Palestinians at Gaza border
    Publish Date: 2019/07/05
    http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=3xvdtBa110847816651a3xvdtB

    GAZA, Friday, July 05, 2019 (WAFA) – At least 41 Palestinians were injured by live bullets or rubber-coated rounds today as Israeli forces attacked thousands of protesters taking part in the weekly Great March of Return at Gaza-Israel border, according to medical sources.

    Soldiers manning the separation fence fired live bullets and rubber-coated steel rounds at the protesters who gathered at many encampments along the border, injuring 22 protesters by live bullets and 19 others by rubber-coated rounds.

    Some of the wounded were moved to hospital and others were treated in the field hospitals.

    Over 300 Palestinians have been killed and about 17,000 others injured by Israeli forces since the outbreak of the Great March of Return protests at Gaza border on March 30, 2018.

    The weekly protests call for lifting the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and for the return of the Palestinian refugees to their ancestral homes in pre-1948 Palestine.

    M.N

    #marcheduretour 65

  • Burying the Nakba: How Israel systematically hides evidence of 1948 expulsion of Arabs
    By Hagar Shezaf Jul 05, 2019 - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsio

    International forces overseeing the evacuation of Iraq al-Manshiyya, near today’s Kiryat Gat, in March, 1949. Collection of Benno Rothenberg/Israel State Archives

    Four years ago, historian Tamar Novick was jolted by a document she found in the file of Yosef Vashitz, from the Arab Department of the left-wing Mapam Party, in the Yad Yaari archive at Givat Haviva. The document, which seemed to describe events that took place during the 1948 war, began:

    “Safsaf [former Palestinian village near Safed] – 52 men were caught, tied them to one another, dug a pit and shot them. 10 were still twitching. Women came, begged for mercy. Found bodies of 6 elderly men. There were 61 bodies. 3 cases of rape, one east of from Safed, girl of 14, 4 men shot and killed. From one they cut off his fingers with a knife to take the ring.”

    The writer goes on to describe additional massacres, looting and abuse perpetrated by Israeli forces in Israel’s War of Independence. “There’s no name on the document and it’s not clear who’s behind it,” Dr. Novick tells Haaretz. “It also breaks off in the middle. I found it very disturbing. I knew that finding a document like this made me responsible for clarifying what happened.”

    The Upper Galilee village of Safsaf was captured by the Israel Defense Forces in Operation Hiram toward the end of 1948. Moshav Safsufa was established on its ruins. Allegations were made over the years that the Seventh Brigade committed war crimes in the village. Those charges are supported by the document Novick found, which was not previously known to scholars. It could also constitute additional evidence that the Israeli top brass knew about what was going on in real time.

    Novick decided to consult with other historians about the document. Benny Morris, whose books are basic texts in the study of the Nakba – the “calamity,” as the Palestinians refer to the mass emigration of Arabs from the country during the 1948 war – told her that he, too, had come across similar documentation in the past. He was referring to notes made by Mapam Central Committee member Aharon Cohen on the basis of a briefing given in November 1948 by Israel Galili, the former chief of staff of the Haganah militia, which became the IDF. Cohen’s notes in this instance, which Morris published, stated: “Safsaf 52 men tied with a rope. Dropped into a pit and shot. 10 were killed. Women pleaded for mercy. [There were] 3 cases of rape. Caught and released. A girl of 14 was raped. Another 4 were killed. Rings of knives.”

    Morris’ footnote (in his seminal “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”) states that this document was also found in the Yad Yaari Archive. But when Novick returned to examine the document, she was surprised to discover that it was no longer there.

    Palestine refugees initially displaced to Gaza board boats to Lebanon or Egypt, in 1949. Hrant Nakashian/1949 UN Archives

    “At first I thought that maybe Morris hadn’t been accurate in his footnote, that perhaps he had made a mistake,” Novick recalls. “It took me time to consider the possibility that the document had simply disappeared.” When she asked those in charge where the document was, she was told that it had been placed behind lock and key at Yad Yaari – by order of the Ministry of Defense.

    Since the start of the last decade, Defense Ministry teams have been scouring Israel’s archives and removing historic documents. But it’s not just papers relating to Israel’s nuclear project or to the country’s foreign relations that are being transferred to vaults: Hundreds of documents have been concealed as part of a systematic effort to hide evidence of the Nakba.

    The phenomenon was first detected by the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research. According to a report drawn up by the institute, the operation is being spearheaded by Malmab, the Defense Ministry’s secretive security department (the name is a Hebrew acronym for “director of security of the defense establishment”), whose activities and budget are classified. The report asserts that Malmab removed historical documentation illegally and with no authority, and at least in some cases has sealed documents that had previously been cleared for publication by the military censor. Some of the documents that were placed in vaults had already been published.
    An investigative report by Haaretz found that Malmab has concealed testimony from IDF generals about the killing of civilians and the demolition of villages, as well as documentation of the expulsion of Bedouin during the first decade of statehood. Conversations conducted by Haaretz with directors of public and private archives alike revealed that staff of the security department had treated the archives as their property, in some cases threatening the directors themselves.

    Yehiel Horev, who headed Malmab for two decades, until 2007, acknowledged to Haaretz that he launched the project, which is still ongoing. He maintains that it makes sense to conceal the events of 1948, because uncovering them could generate unrest among the country’s Arab population. Asked what the point is of removing documents that have already been published, he explained that the objective is to undermine the credibility of studies about the history of the refugee problem. In Horev’s view, an allegation made by a researcher that’s backed up by an original document is not the same as an allegation that cannot be proved or refuted.

    The document Novick was looking for might have reinforced Morris’ work. During the investigation, Haaretz was in fact able to find the Aharon Cohen memo, which sums up a meeting of Mapam’s Political Committee on the subject of massacres and expulsions in 1948. Participants in the meeting called for cooperation with a commission of inquiry that would investigate the events. One case the committee discussed concerned “grave actions” carried out in the village of Al-Dawayima, east of Kiryat Gat. One participant mentioned the then-disbanded Lehi underground militia in this connection. Acts of looting were also reported: “Lod and Ramle, Be’er Sheva, there isn’t [an Arab] store that hasn’t been broken into. 9th Brigade says 7, 7th Brigade says 8.”
    “The party,” the document states near the end, “is against expulsion if there is no military necessity for it. There are different approaches concerning the evaluation of necessity. And further clarification is best. What happened in Galilee – those are Nazi acts! Every one of our members must report what he knows.”

    The Israeli version
    One of the most fascinating documents about the origin of the Palestinian refugee problem was written by an officer in Shai, the precursor to the Shin Bet security service. It discusses why the country was emptied of so many of its Arab inhabitants, dwelling on the circumstances of each village. Compiled in late June 1948, it was titled “The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine.”

    Read a translation of the document here (1)

    This document was the basis for an article that Benny Morris published in 1986. After the article appeared, the document was removed from the archive and rendered inaccessible to researchers. Years later, the Malmab team reexamined the document, and ordered that it remain classified. They could not have known that a few years later researchers from Akevot would find a copy of the text and run it past the military censors – who authorized its publication unconditionally. Now, after years of concealment, the gist of the document is being revealed here.

    The 25-page document begins with an introduction that unabashedly approves of the evacuation of the Arab villages. According to the author, the month of April “excelled in an increase of emigration,” while May “was blessed with the evacuation of maximum places.” The report then addresses “the causes of the Arab emigration.” According to the Israeli narrative that was disseminated over the years, responsibility for the exodus from Israel rests with Arab politicians who encouraged the population to leave. However, according to the document, 70 percent of the Arabs left as a result of Jewish military operations.

    Palestinian children awaiting distribution of milk by UNICEF at the Nazareth Franciscan Sisters’ convent, on January 1, 1950. AW / UN Photo

    The unnamed author of the text ranks the reasons for the Arabs’ departure in order of importance. The first reason: “Direct Jewish acts of hostility against Arab places of settlement.” The second reason was the impact of those actions on neighboring villages. Third in importance came “operations by the breakaways,” namely the Irgun and Lehi undergrounds. The fourth reason for the Arab exodus was orders issued by Arab institutions and “gangs” (as the document refers to all Arab fighting groups); fifth was “Jewish ’whispering operations’ to induce the Arab inhabitants to flee”; and the sixth factor was “evacuation ultimatums.”

    The author asserts that, “without a doubt, the hostile operations were the main cause of the movement of the population.” In addition, “Loudspeakers in the Arabic language proved their effectiveness on the occasions when they were utilized properly.” As for Irgun and Lehi operations, the report observes that “many in the villages of central Galilee started to flee following the abduction of the notables of Sheikh Muwannis [a village north of Tel Aviv]. The Arab learned that it is not enough to forge an agreement with the Haganah and that there are other Jews [i.e., the breakaway militias] to beware of.”

    The author notes that ultimatums to leave were especially employed in central Galilee, less so in the Mount Gilboa region. “Naturally, the act of this ultimatum, like the effect of the ’friendly advice,’ came after a certain preparing of the ground by means of hostile actions in the area.”
    An appendix to the document describes the specific causes of the exodus from each of scores of Arab locales: Ein Zeitun – “our destruction of the village”; Qeitiya – “harassment, threat of action”; Almaniya – “our action, many killed”; Tira – “friendly Jewish advice”; Al’Amarir – “after robbery and murder carried out by the breakaways”; Sumsum – “our ultimatum”; Bir Salim – “attack on the orphanage”; and Zarnuga – “conquest and expulsion.”

    Short fuse
    In the early 2000s, the Yitzhak Rabin Center conducted a series of interviews with former public and military figures as part of a project to document their activity in the service of the state. The long arm of Malmab seized on these interviews, too. Haaretz, which obtained the original texts of several of the interviews, compared them to the versions that are now available to the public, after large swaths of them were declared classified.

    These included, for example, sections of the testimony of Brig. Gen. (res.) Aryeh Shalev about the expulsion across the border of the residents of a village he called “Sabra.” Later in the interview, the following sentences were deleted: “There was a very serious problem in the valley. There were refugees who wanted to return to the valley, to the Triangle [a concentration of Arab towns and villages in eastern Israel]. We expelled them. I met with them to persuade them not to want that. I have papers about it.”

    In another case, Malmab decided to conceal the following segment from an interview that historian Boaz Lev Tov conducted with Maj. Gen. (res.) Elad Peled:
    Lev Tov: “We’re talking about a population – women and children?”
    Peled: “All, all. Yes.”
    Lev Tov: “Don’t you distinguish between them?”
    Peled: “The problem is very simple. The war is between two populations. They come out of their home.”
    Lev Tov: “If the home exists, they have somewhere to return to?”
    Peled: “It’s not armies yet, it’s gangs. We’re also actually gangs. We come out of the house and return to the house. They come out of the house and return to the house. It’s either their house or our house.”
    Lev Tov: “Qualms belong to the more recent generation?”
    Peled: “Yes, today. When I sit in an armchair here and think about what happened, all kinds of thoughts come to mind.”
    Lev Tov: “Wasn’t that the case then?”
    Peled: “Look, let me tell you something even less nice and cruel, about the big raid in Sasa [Palestinian village in Upper Galilee]. The goal was actually to deter them, to tell them, ‘Dear friends, the Palmach [the Haganah “shock troops”] can reach every place, you are not immune.’ That was the heart of the Arab settlement. But what did we do? My platoon blew up 20 homes with everything that was there.”
    Lev Tov: “While people were sleeping there?”
    Peled: “I suppose so. What happened there, we came, we entered the village, planted a bomb next to every house, and afterward Homesh blew on a trumpet, because we didn’t have radios, and that was the signal [for our forces] to leave. We’re running in reverse, the sappers stay, they pull, it’s all primitive. They light the fuse or pull the detonator and all those houses are gone.”

    IDF soldiers guarding Palestinians in Ramle, in 1948. Collection of Benno Rothenberg/The IDF and Defense Establishment Archives

    Another passage that the Defense Ministry wanted to keep from the public came from Dr. Lev Tov’s conversation with Maj. Gen. Avraham Tamir:
    Tamir: “I was under Chera [Maj. Gen. Tzvi Tzur, later IDF chief of staff], and I had excellent working relations with him. He gave me freedom of action – don’t ask – and I happened to be in charge of staff and operations work during two developments deriving from [Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion’s policy. One development was when reports arrived about marches of refugees from Jordan toward the abandoned villages [in Israel]. And then Ben-Gurion lays down as policy that we have to demolish [the villages] so they won’t have anywhere to return to. That is, all the Arab villages, most of which were in [the area covered by] Central Command, most of them.”
    Lev Tov: “The ones that were still standing?”
    Tamir: “The ones that weren’t yet inhabited by Israelis. There were places where we had already settled Israelis, like Zakariyya and others. But most of them were still abandoned villages.”
    Lev Tov: “That were standing?”
    Tamir: “Standing. It was necessary for there to be no place for them to return to, so I mobilized all the engineering battalions of Central Command, and within 48 hours I knocked all those villages to the ground. Period. There’s no place to return to.”
    Lev Tov: “Without hesitation, I imagine.”
    Tamir: “Without hesitation. That was the policy. I mobilized, I carried it out and I did it.”

    Crates in vaults
    The vault of the Yad Yaari Research and Documentation Center is one floor below ground level. In the vault, which is actually a small, well-secured room, are stacks of crates containing classified documents. The archive houses the materials of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, the Kibbutz Ha’artzi kibbutz movement, Mapam, Meretz and other bodies, such as Peace Now.
    The archive’s director is Dudu Amitai, who is also chairman of the Association of Israel Archivists. According to Amitai, Malmab personnel visited the archive regularly between 2009 and 2011. Staff of the archive relate that security department teams – two Defense Ministry retirees with no archival training – would show up two or three times a week. They searched for documents according to such keywords as “nuclear,” “security” and “censorship,” and also devoted considerable time to the War of Independence and the fate of the pre-1948 Arab villages.
    “In the end, they submitted a summary to us, saying that they had located a few dozen sensitive documents,” Amitai says. “We don’t usually take apart files, so dozens of files, in their entirety, found their way into our vault and were removed from the public catalog.” A file might contain more than 100 documents.
    One of the files that was sealed deals with the military government that controlled the lives of Israel’s Arab citizens from 1948 until 1966. For years, the documents were stored in the same vault, inaccessible to scholars. Recently, in the wake of a request by Prof. Gadi Algazi, a historian from Tel Aviv University, Amitai examined the file himself and ruled that there was no reason not to unseal it, Malmab’s opinion notwithstanding.

    According to Algazi, there could be several reasons for Malmab’s decision to keep the file classified. One of them has to do with a secret annex it contains to a report by a committee that examined the operation of the military government. The report deals almost entirely with land-ownership battles between the state and Arab citizens, and barely touches on security matters.

    Another possibility is a 1958 report by the ministerial committee that oversaw the military government. In one of the report’s secret appendixes, Col. Mishael Shaham, a senior officer in the military government, explains that one reason for not dismantling the martial law apparatus is the need to restrict Arab citizens’ access to the labor market and to prevent the reestablishment of destroyed villages.
    A third possible explanation for hiding the file concerns previously unpublished historical testimony about the expulsion of Bedouin. On the eve of Israel’s establishment, nearly 100,000 Bedouin lived in the Negev. Three years later, their number was down to 13,000. In the years during and after the independence war, a number of expulsion operations were carried out in the country’s south. In one case, United Nations observers reported that Israel had expelled 400 Bedouin from the Azazma tribe and cited testimonies of tents being burned. The letter that appears in the classified file describes a similar expulsion carried out as late as 1956, as related by geologist Avraham Parnes:

    The evacuation of Iraq al-Manshiyya, near today’s Kiryat Gat, in March, 1949. Collection of Benno Rothenberg/The IDF and Defense Establishment Archives

    “A month ago we toured Ramon [crater]. The Bedouin in the Mohila area came to us with their flocks and their families and asked us to break bread with them. I replied that we had a great deal of work to do and didn’t have time. In our visit this week, we headed toward Mohila again. Instead of the Bedouin and their flocks, there was deathly silence. Scores of camel carcasses were scattered in the area. We learned that three days earlier the IDF had ‘screwed’ the Bedouin, and their flocks were destroyed – the camels by shooting, the sheep with grenades. One of the Bedouin, who started to complain, was killed, the rest fled.”

    The testimony continued, “Two weeks earlier, they’d been ordered to stay where they were for the time being, afterward they were ordered to leave, and to speed things up 500 head were slaughtered.... The expulsion was executed ‘efficiently.’” The letter goes on to quote what one of the soldiers said to Parnes, according to his testimony: “They won’t go unless we’ve screwed their flocks. A young girl of about 16 approached us. She had a beaded necklace of brass snakes. We tore the necklace and each of us took a bead for a souvenir.”

    The letter was originally sent to MK Yaakov Uri, from Mapai (forerunner of Labor), who passed it on to Development Minister Mordechai Bentov (Mapam). “His letter shocked me,” Uri wrote Bentov. The latter circulated the letter among all the cabinet ministers, writing, “It is my opinion that the government cannot simply ignore the facts related in the letter.” Bentov added that, in light of the appalling contents of the letter, he asked security experts to check its credibility. They had confirmed that the contents “do in fact generally conform to the truth.”

    Nuclear excuse
    It was during the tenure of historian Tuvia Friling as Israel’s chief archivist, from 2001 to 2004, that Malmab carried out its first archival incursions. What began as an operation to prevent the leakage of nuclear secrets, he says, became, in time, a large-scale censorship project.
    “I resigned after three years, and that was one of the reasons,” Prof. Friling says. “The classification placed on the document about the Arabs’ emigration in 1948 is precisely an example of what I was apprehensive about. The storage and archival system is not an arm of the state’s public relations. If there’s something you don’t like – well, that’s life. A healthy society also learns from its mistakes.”

    Why did Friling allow the Defense Ministry to have access the archives? The reason, he says, was the intention to give the public access to archival material via the internet. In discussions about the implications of digitizing the material, concern was expressed that references in the documents to a “certain topic” would be made public by mistake. The topic, of course, is Israel’s nuclear project. Friling insists that the only authorization Malmab received was to search for documents on that subject.

    But Malmab’s activity is only one example of a broader problem, Friling notes: “In 1998, the confidentiality of the [oldest documents in the] Shin Bet and Mossad archives expired. For years those two institutions disdained the chief archivist. When I took over, they requested that the confidentiality of all the material be extended [from 50] to 70 years, which is ridiculous – most of the material can be opened.”

    In 2010, the confidentiality period was extended to 70 years; last February it was extended again, to 90 years, despite the opposition of the Supreme Council of Archives. “The state may impose confidentiality on some of its documentation,” Friling says. “The question is whether the issue of security doesn’t act as a kind of cover. In many cases, it’s already become a joke.”
    In the view of Yad Yaari’s Dudu Amitai, the confidentiality imposed by the Defense Ministry must be challenged. In his period at the helm, he says, one of the documents placed in the vault was an order issued by an IDF general, during a truce in the War of Independence, for his troops to refrain from rape and looting. Amitai now intends to go over the documents that were deposited in the vault, especially 1948 documents, and open whatever is possible. “We’ll do it cautiously and responsibly, but recognizing that the State of Israel has to learn how to cope with the less pleasant aspects of its history.”
    In contrast to Yad Yaari, where ministry personnel no longer visit, they are continuing to peruse documents at Yad Tabenkin, the research and documentation center of the United Kibbutz Movement. The director, Aharon Azati, reached an agreement with the Malmab teams under which documents will be transferred to the vault only if he is convinced that this is justified. But in Yad Tabenkin, too, Malmab has broadened its searches beyond the realm of nuclear project to encompass interviews conducted by archival staff with former members of the Palmach, and has even perused material about the history of the settlements in the occupied territories.

    Malmab has, for example, shown interest in the Hebrew-language book “A Decade of Discretion: Settlement Policy in the Territories 1967-1977,” published by Yad Tabenkin in 1992, and written by Yehiel Admoni, director of the Jewish Agency’s Settlement Department during the decade he writes about. The book mentions a plan to settle Palestinian refugees in the Jordan Valley and to the uprooting of 1,540 Bedouin families from the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip in 1972, including an operation that included the sealing of wells by the IDF. Ironically, in the case of the Bedouin, Admoni quotes former Justice Minister Yaakov Shimshon Shapira as saying, “It is not necessary to stretch the security rationale too far. The whole Bedouin episode is not a glorious chapter of the State of Israel.”

    Palestinian refugees leaving their village, unknown location, 1948. UNRWA

    According to Azati, “We are moving increasingly to a tightening of the ranks. Although this is an era of openness and transparency, there are apparently forces that are pulling in the opposite direction.”
    Unauthorized secrecy
    About a year ago, the legal adviser to the State Archives, attorney Naomi Aldouby, wrote an opinion titled “Files Closed Without Authorization in Public Archives.” According to her, the accessibility policy of public archives is the exclusive purview of the director of each institution.
    Despite Aldouby’s opinion, however, in the vast majority of cases, archivists who encountered unreasonable decisions by Malmab did not raise objections – that is, until 2014, when Defense Ministry personnel arrived at the archive of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. To the visitors’ surprise, their request to examine the archive – which contains collections of former minister and diplomat Abba Eban and Maj. Gen. (res.) Shlomo Gazit – was turned down by its then director, Menahem Blondheim.

    According to Blondheim, “I told them that the documents in question were decades old, and that I could not imagine that there was any security problem that would warrant restricting their access to researchers. In response, they said, ‘And let’s say there is testimony here that wells were poisoned in the War of Independence?’ I replied, ‘Fine, those people should be brought to trial.’”
    Blondheim’s refusal led to a meeting with a more senior ministry official, only this time the attitude he encountered was different and explicit threats were made. Finally the two sides reached an accommodation.
    Benny Morris is not surprised at Malmab’s activity. “I knew about it,” he says “Not officially, no one informed me, but I encountered it when I discovered that documents I had seen in the past are now sealed. There were documents from the IDF Archive that I used for an article about Deir Yassin, and which are now sealed. When I came to the archive, I was no longer allowed to see the original, so I pointed out in a footnote [in the article] that the State Archive had denied access to documents that I had published 15 years earlier.”
    The Malmab case is only one example of the battle being waged for access to archives in Israel. According to the executive director of the Akevot Institute, Lior Yavne, “The IDF Archive, which is the largest archive in Israel, is sealed almost hermetically. About 1 percent of the material is open. The Shin Bet archive, which contains materials of immense importance [to scholars], is totally closed apart from a handful of documents.”

    A report written by Yaacov Lozowick, the previous chief archivist at the State Archives, upon his retirement, refers to the defense establishment’s grip on the country’s archival materials. In it, he writes, “A democracy must not conceal information because it is liable to embarrass the state. In practice, the security establishment in Israel, and to a certain extent that of foreign relations as well, are interfering with the [public] discussion.”

    Advocates of concealment put forward several arguments, Lozowick notes: “The uncovering of the facts could provide our enemies with a battering ram against us and weaken the determination of our friends; it’s liable to stir up the Arab population; it could enfeeble the state’s arguments in courts of law; and what is revealed could be interpreted as Israeli war crimes.” However, he says, “All these arguments must be rejected. This is an attempt to hide part of the historical truth in order to construct a more convenient version.”

    What Malmab says
    Yehiel Horev was the keeper of the security establishment’s secrets for more than two decades. He headed the Defense Ministry’s security department from 1986 until 2007 and naturally kept out of the limelight. To his credit, he now agreed to talk forthrightly to Haaretz about the archives project.
    “I don’t remember when it began,” Horev says, “but I do know that I started it. If I’m not mistaken, it started when people wanted to publish documents from the archives. We had to set up teams to examine all outgoing material.”
    From conversations with archive directors, it’s clear that a good deal of the documents on which confidentiality was imposed relate to the War of Independence. Is concealing the events of 1948 part of the purpose of Malmab?

    Palestinian refugees in the Ramle area, 1948. Boris Carmi / The IDF and Defense Establishment Archives

    “What does ‘part of the purpose’ mean? The subject is examined based on an approach of whether it could harm Israel’s foreign relations and the defense establishment. Those are the criteria. I think it’s still relevant. There has not been peace since 1948. I may be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge the Arab-Israeli conflict has not been resolved. So yes, it could be that problematic subjects remain.”

    Asked in what way such documents might be problematic, Horev speaks of the possibility of agitation among the country’s Arab citizens. From his point of view, every document must be perused and every case decided on its merits.

    If the events of 1948 weren’t known, we could argue about whether this approach is the right one. That is not the case. Many testimonies and studies have appeared about the history of the refugee problem. What’s the point of hiding things?
    “The question is whether it can do harm or not. It’s a very sensitive matter. Not everything has been published about the refugee issue, and there are all kinds of narratives. Some say there was no flight at all, only expulsion. Others say there was flight. It’s not black-and-white. There’s a difference between flight and those who say they were forcibly expelled. It’s a different picture. I can’t say now if it merits total confidentiality, but it’s a subject that definitely has to be discussed before a decision is made about what to publish.”

    For years, the Defense Ministry has imposed confidentiality on a detailed document that describes the reasons for the departure of those who became refugees. Benny Morris has already written about the document, so what’s the logic of keeping it hidden?
    “I don’t remember the document you’re referring to, but if he quoted from it and the document itself is not there [i.e., where Morris says it is], then his facts aren’t strong. If he says, ‘Yes, I have the document,’ I can’t argue with that. But if he says that it’s written there, that could be right and it could be wrong. If the document were already outside and were sealed in the archive, I would say that that’s folly. But if someone quoted from it – there’s a difference of day and night in terms of the validity of the evidence he cited.”

    In this case, we’re talking about the most quoted scholar when it comes to the Palestinian refugees.
    “The fact that you say ‘scholar’ makes no impression on me. I know people in academia who spout nonsense about subjects that I know from A to Z. When the state imposes confidentiality, the published work is weakened, because he doesn’t have the document.”

    But isn’t concealing documents based on footnotes in books an attempt to lock the barn door after the horses have bolted?
    “I gave you an example that this needn’t be the case. If someone writes that the horse is black, if the horse isn’t outside the barn, you can’t prove that it’s really black.”

    There are legal opinions stating that Malmab’s activity in the archives is illegal and unauthorized.
    “If I know that an archive contains classified material, I am empowered to tell the police to go there and confiscate the material. I can also utilize the courts. I don’t need the archivist’s authorization. If there is classified material, I have the authority to act. Look, there’s policy. Documents aren’t sealed for no reason. And despite it all, I won’t say to you that everything that’s sealed is 100 percent justified [in being sealed].”

    The Defense Ministry refused to respond to specific questions regarding the findings of this investigative report and made do with the following response: “The director of security of the defense establishment operates by virtue of his responsibility to protect the state’s secrets and its security assets. The Malmab does not provide details about its mode of activity or its missions.”

    Lee Rotbart assisted in providing visual research for this article.

    (1) https://www.haaretz.co.il/st/inter/Heng/1948.pdf

  •  » General Strike against Manama Conference– IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/general-strike-against-manam-conference

    Palestinian factions, today, announced a general strike in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip, in protest against Bahrain’s hosting of the “Peace to Prosperity” conference.

    The conference kicked off today in Bahraini capital of Manama, to discuss the economic aspects of the long-awaited “Deal of the Century”. (...)

  • 79 Palestinians Injured by Israeli Forces in Great March of Return
    June 21, 2019 10:29 PM – IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/79-palestinians-injured-by-israeli-forces-in-great-march-of-return

    Israeli forces have once again opened fire on Palestinians taking part in the 63rd Friday of the peaceful “Great March of Return” protests, along the separation fence between the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied territories, injuring at least 79 peaceful protesters.

    According to Days of Palestine, the Ministry of Health reported that 79 citizens have been injured. (...)

    #marcheduretour 63

  • PCBS Report : 6 Million Palestinians Registered as Refugees with UNRWA in 2018
    June 21, 2019 8:45 AM - Ali Salam– IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/pcbs-report-6-million-palestinians-registered-as-refugees-with-unrwa-in-2018

    On June 20, 2019, the ‘International Day of Refugees’, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released a report showing that nearly half of all Palestinians throughout the world, were registered as refugees in 2018.

    According to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), of the 13 million Palestinians in Palestine and the Diaspora, 6 million are registered as refugees.

    In 1948, the Palestinian Nakba began, when the land was occupied, and 800,000 indigenous people from 1,300 towns and villages were forcefully expelled from historical Palestine.

    The report breaks down that 17% of the 6 million Palestinian refugees, or 1,020,000 live in the West Bank, and 25% or 1,500,000 of the total number of Palestinian refugees are in the Gaza Strip.

    Jordan hosts the largest Palestinian refugee population at 39%, or 2,340,000, while Syria is home to 11% or 660,000, and finally Lebanon with 9%, or 540,000 Palestinian refugees.

    In 1967, another 300,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, and today, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine continues with home demolitions occurring on a near daily basis in and around the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Nablus, to name a few.

    #réfugiés_palestinens

  • The Iraqi and Syrian refugees using body-mapping to share their stories

    What does it mean to flee one’s country and undertake the dangerous journey to Europe? What does it mean to suddenly lose everything and be forced to live in a different country? A new home, new school, new friends and a totally new life? To what extent does it influence family lives and the family unit as such? These are questions that a new research project, based at the University of Birmingham and funded by the British Academy, is tackling. The focus is not only on the changes occurring within refugee families, but equally on the impact of the influx of refugees on the host society.

    We use art as a research method to allow Iraqi and Syrian women and men to express their thoughts and feelings, on both their refugee journey and their new lives in their host countries. Fleeing one’s country puts enormous pressure and stress on an individual, both emotionally and physically. Using the artistic technique of body mapping proved to be very useful in this project, as it allowed participants to embody the emotional and psychological pain caused by their refugee experiences through art. Holding a paint brush, painting and being taught by a renowned artist, in this instance Rachel Gadsden, were for the majority of the participants a new experience. It provided them with a feeling of pride, achievement and self-fulfilment, at a time when they needed it the most. But what are they painting? How are they expressing their experiences? How do they portray themselves? What do they say about their new lives? Do their own narratives confirm widespread notions of their ‘vulnerability’?

    Decades of displacement

    Saddam Hussein’s decades of authoritarian rule in Iraq, the continuous political instability caused by his fall in 2003 and the rise of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 has forced over three million Iraqis to flee their country since the 1980s. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Syrians have become one of the largest groups of refugees, with more than five million civilians forced to flee to neighbouring Middle Eastern countries and to Europe. Many Iraqi and Syrian refugees have headed to Europe directly and settled in countries such as Germany or the UK, others went through multi-local trajectories of displacement in so-called ‘transit countries’ such as Jordan.

    Syrian and Iraqi societies are to a significant extent tribal and patriarchal in nature, with familial or community-based social networks often serving to protect their members. However, these networks may be disrupted or disappear entirely during a migration process, leaving women and children in particular in extremely vulnerable situations, unprotected by their family networks. Women, as well as children, very often find themselves in the most subservient and marginal positions, making them vulnerable to abuse and violence, inflicted either by social and religious communities or the state. Human trafficking operations have played a central role in facilitating immigration. In such circumstances, human traffickers who bring migrants across borders abuse women and children and force them into sexually exploitive occupations, or subject them to physical and sexual abuse themselves. Tackling violence against women and girls is one of the UK government’s most important goals. The UK’s aid report in 2015 highlights explicitly the challenges the UK faces regarding the conflict in Iraq and Syria and the need to support peace and stability abroad, in order to secure social and political stability in the UK. The UK government is working extensively towards implementing the ‘No One Behind Promise’, which strives to achieve gender equality, prioritise the empowerment of girls and women and end violence against them, within war zones, such as in Syria and Iraq, and during migration processes in particular.

    Women are often limited to gender-specific narratives of female vulnerability within patriarchal social structures. Without neglecting the fact that women are more affected by and subject to sexual and gender-based violence, the over 150 women we talked and worked with in our projects so far have another story to tell. In our art workshops, these women used art and body-mapping to express their powerful stories of resilience, endurance and survival.

    Gender roles in a time of war and instability

    “I never worked with fabric, but I learnt how to produce the most amazing clothes for women’s engagement and wedding parties. I go around clothing shops in the city and try to sell them. Now I have my own network of buyers. I earn more money now than my husband used to earn. He passed away five years ago and left me with three children to feed. Yes, they call me sharmuta – a slut – because I go around male merchants in town to see whether they would buy my products. I don’t sleep with them. I only sell them my dresses. I don’t do anything wrong. Therefore, I will not stop. I cannot stop. I have children to feed. The problem is not me – the problem is their dirty thinking, only because I am a woman and a good-looking one too [laughing].”

    The young Iraqi widow above was not the only female refugee in Jordan, the UK or in Germany who struggles with social stigmatisations and sexual harassment, on the way to and from work as well as in the workplace. Women’s independence is very often violently attacked, verbally and physically, in order to control women’s lives, bodies and sexuality. Refugee women’s pending legal status, their socio-economic integration and the degree of their security within the host environment change long-held values on family structures and socio-cultural expectations on gender roles. They also influence women and men’s own understanding of their roles which, in most cases, represents a shift from their traditional gender roles within their families. Women and men’s roles in family and society inevitably change in time of war and forced migration and society needs to adapt to this development. In order to achieve sustainable change in society’s perception, both men and women need to be socialised and equipped to understand these societal changes. This does not solely apply to the refugee communities, but also to the host communities, who are also influenced by the presence of these newcomers.

    Through stitching fabric onto their body map paintings or adding pictures of the food they cook to sell on the canvases, women express their attempts to survive. Through art, women can portray how they see themselves: strong in enduring the hardship, without neglecting the challenges they face. “I want to show the world out there that we are not poor victims. One woman like us is better and stronger than 100 men,” as one Iraqi in Germany explains. Another Syrian in the UK emphasised women’s resilience, saying “wherever we fall we will land straight. I want to paint my head up for these politicians to know that nothing will bend us”.

    Women in our art workshops see the production of their artwork and the planned art exhibitions as an opportunity to provide a different narrative on Muslim refugee women. It provided them with a space to articulate the challenges they faced, during and after their refugee journey, but also to create a bridge between the refugee communities and the host community. The artwork produced in the workshops helped to facilitate community bonding, integration and above all, as one Syrian in Jordan explains, “a better understanding of what we really are”.
    https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/summer-showcase-2019-iraqi-syrian-refugees-body-mapping
    #corps #cartographie #cartoexperiment #réfugiés #réfugiés_syriens #réfugiés_irakiens #asile #migrations #couture #femmes #genre #dessin
    ping @reka

    • Negotiating Relationships and Redefining Traditions: Syrian and Iraqi Women Refugees in Jordan
      Art workshops in Jordan April 2019

      Narratives of displacement is a research-based project of the University of Birmingham and funded by the British Academy, documenting the effects of the long and extensive conflict in Syria and the consequent process of significant temporary and permanent displacement of families, upon the marriages and the family-units of the many thousands of Syrian and Iraqi women affected, and now living as refugees, and as asylum-seekers, within several host nations, namely: Germany, UK and Jordan.

      The project is devised and directed by Dr Yafa Shanneik, and comprises at its core the collecting and collating of data, in several locations, in this instance within Jordan, by Shanneik, by means of a comprehensive and broad-reaching programme of interviews with women affected, personal testimony, that considers the sustainment of the marriage and the family unit, and those topics directly related to this, ranging from, the physical, and frequently arduous and perilous, journey from home to host country, to the shifting balance as to the family provider – affected in turn by, for example, skills and the availability of opportunity, psychological changes within individual family members, cultural differences within those host nations.

      Dr Shanneik is acutely conscious of the forced upheaval, the diaspora of no choosing, and the desire therefore, the longing, of those affected, to give voice to the emotional impact, simply to tell their own stories. And, for this reason she has enlisted the services of artist Dr Rachel Gadsden, who will, over an extended period, work with the interviewees, together with family members, mothers, sisters, children, to create mural-style artwork, using the body-mapping process as a starting-point, to depict not only the destruction they may have left behind, the harrowing passages and the significant demands imposed by the process of integration, but also, perhaps, the opportunities, both foreseen and unforeseen, of the new circumstances that they find themselves in.

      The artwork will serve an additional purpose: the opportunity for the testimony, the stories, to be presented to the outside world, a public voice in the form of an exhibition; and therefore, as a means of enhancing this experience, composer and musician Freddie Meyers has been commissioned to compose an original score integrates the Syrian and Iraqi narratives as part of a live art performance, that will sit alongside the exhibition of artworks, to provide an additional layer in terms of expressing the emotional response.

      The starting-point for this particular leg of the project is the one-time fortified town of Karak. Historically, Karak was always of importance, in its strategic location overlooking the easy trading route formed by the valley and the escarpment that is now the Kings Highway, running from north to south through the centre of the country. There will always have been a ‘stop-over’ here, and certainly in the time of the Nabateans, it would have been both a military base and one of many toll-gates, alongside of course Petra in the south, used to control the movement of frankincense, in particular, shipped and sold to Rome, that made the Nabateans so wealthy and enduring. Later, it was held by the Romans themselves, and later again the, Frankish, Crusaders, who used it as a means of protecting Jerusalem, until finally it was laid siege to and liberated by Saladin.

      This fascinating and colourful history is of great significance in terms of Narratives of Displacement, exemplifying as it does the history of the different forms of migration, movement, cross-cultural trade and interface that has been instrumental in forging the tolerant and diverse nature of modern Jordan.

      Since the conflict in Syria began it is understood that there are, conservatively, over a million Syrians currently taking refuge in Jordan, and the country therefore actively engages in seeking to understand the many and continuing pressures consequent to this, borne not only by the refugees themselves but by their hosts, and impinging upon the infrastructure and social and work environment, the better to accommodate the enormous influx.

      The project for five days has based itself at the Al Hassan Cultural Community centre, interestingly on the other side of the valley from, and having spectacular views of, the liberated fortress. Strategically this location is still of importance. Under the inspirational guidance of its director, Ouruba al Shamayle, the community centre houses an extensive library, research and study rooms, and also a brilliant 800 seat theatre and, used in conjunction with Karak University, attracts students hailing from every other part of the country, north and south.

      The immediate vicinity of the centre alone plays host to many hundreds of refugee families, and so over the juration of our stay the centre has witnessed a continuous visitation of the women and their families, attending for interview with Shanneik, and subsequently to interact in creating body-mapping paintings. The interviewing process has been successful and revealing in documenting individual narratives, and the participants have rendered their often-harrowing stories within a total so far of 7 narrative canvases.

      The venue has proved wholly appropriate for additional reasons. The centre plays host to the regular round-table forum of local community leaders, and consequently on Wednesday, Shanneik was given the opportunity to present to a near full complement of forum members including influential local tribal and community leaders. The talk generated considerable interest and discussion amongst the forum, who voiced their appreciation of the objectives, and offered continuing support.

      Subsequently the governor of Karak, Dr. Jamal Al Fayez, visited the centre to familiarize himself with the research, taking a short break for coffee and relaxed discussion about the project’s aims and objectives, and additionally contributing to the artwork underway, completing a part of the painted surface of one of the artworks, and also superimposing in charcoal some of the written word to be contained in the finished pieces.

      From Karak we journeyed north to Irbid where the weather took a turn for the worse. With the rain and the cold, we were conscious of how such conditions might affect our ability to link up with prospective artistic collaborators. The first workshop in Irbid brought together a group of both Syrian and Iraqi women and was hosted in a private home. A red plastic swing swaying in the sitting room, caught our attention. Our Iraqi host has 2 young children, a daughter, and a son who is autistic. The swing allows the son to continue to enjoy physical activity throughout the winter months – this winter, apparently, having been one of the longest. We painted two canvases; one that accommodated two Syrian sisters and our Iraqi host, and one created on traditional dark canvas and telling the stories of displacement of the four Iraqi women, designed in a circular pattern and evoking journeys and life’s force. After the women drew and painted, music filled the air as all the Iraqi women danced and sang traditional songs together. It was a joy for Yafa and Rachel to witness: art and music transports the mood, and the women let their feelings go, laughed, sang and danced together. Rachel recorded their ululation; to incorporate in the music and performance Freddie Meyers is composing.

      That night there was crashing thunder and flashes of lightning, so no surprise that our trip to Mafraq, further north, had to be postponed – flooding can be a hazard on these occasions as rainwater pours down from the mountains and fills up the dry wadis. So instead the project headed to a Palestinian refugee camp, to a society that supports orphaned children.

      Freddie and Tim were not able to join the workshop and so went off to film the surrounding area. Hearing the stories of migration is always a challenge, but as Yafa interviews the women a clear narrative emerges to guide the piecing together of the artwork. This time there were two Iraqi women and also two Syrian women. Despite living in the same building, the two Syrians had never before spoken to one another. One of the Iraqi women has been fantastically creative in her efforts to secure the lives of her children, taking whatever work she can to support her family, having been widowed five years ago. Adoption is rare in these communities so it was heartening to hear about the work of the society as it goes about raising funds to educate and support the young orphans. The psychological impact upon the women is invariably, but perhaps not always addressed or discussed, and the process of art and the interviews can be cathartic, allowing the women to be open and perhaps emotionally truthful about their predicament.

      The weather turned the following day, so Mafraq was back on the schedule. The project visited a centre that teaches basic skills to support and enable refugees to seek work. A group of five women who all had direct contact with the centre joined the workshop. The women were all from Homs, and its environs. One of the canvases tells of the many ways the refugees fled their homeland and made their way to Jordan, both north and south. The key factor that emerged was that all of the women wanted to hold hands in the painting. It is clear that they support one another. Yafa and Rachel had the opportunity to visit the temporary homes of three of the women. As is to be expected, living conditions can sometimes be difficult, with problems related to dampness, for example, lack of adequate heating, and overcrowding. Despite the challenges the women were making traditional food to sell in the market and doing whatever they could to make the daily conditions and circumstances for their families better.

      The final destination for the project was Amman, where the project was hosted at the Baqa’a Palestinian refugee camp. It was market day in Baqa’a so our journey into the camp was more a case of maneuvering around stallholders than following the road. Al Baqa’a camp was one of six “emergency” camps set up in 1968 to accommodate Palestine refugees and displaced people who left the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Over 200,000 people live in the camp now; the community has welcomed recently many Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

      We were hosted by an organisation that also supports orphans, and they had brought together the group of Syrian women refugees and their children for our art workshop. 
Their husbands and fathers are all missing as a direct result of the Syrian conflict. We hear this narrative often, the bravery of each of the women as they share their stories and continue to support their families in the best possible way they can, is humbling. 
We will be creating a full narrative artwork, but these images say so much already.

      14-sketches13-blue-muralWe were additional joined in this workshop by Nicola Hope and Laura Hope, friends of Rachel’s. Nicola is at University studying Arabic and is currently attending Arabic classes as part of her degree process in Amman, and Laura, an Italian literature teacher was visiting her daughter. Additionally so as not to let the men miss out of the experience of the centre and the Baqa’a hospitality, the hosts took all of us on a tour of the camp after the workshop.

      Having listened to many harrowing and challenging stories of displacement during their time in Jordan, told by the Syrian and Iraqi refugee artistic collaborators, at the forefront of Yafa’s and Rachel’s mind is the fact that displacement is never a temporary predicament, it is a continuing one. The emotional scars are life long, and they have yet to meet a single refugee whose greatest hope is anything other than to safely return home.

      This was even more evident at Baqa’a Refugee Camp. Vulnerable individuals have a remarkable ability to survive, and ultimately they have no other choice other than to do just that.

      https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/ptr/departments/theologyandreligion/research/projects/narratives-of-displacement/blog.aspx
      #art

  • Egypt’s Former President Morsi Dies in Court : State TV | News | teleSUR English
    https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Egypts-Former-PresidentMorsiDies-in-Court-State-TV-20190617-0010.htm

    Egypt’s former President Mohamed Morsi died after fainting during a court hearing.

    Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has died in court, state television reported Monday.

    It said Morsi had fainted after a court session and died afterward. He was pronounced dead at 4:50 pm local time according to the country’s public prosecutor.

    “He was speaking before the judge for 20 minutes then became very animated and fainted. He was quickly rushed to the hospital where he later died,” a judicial source said.

    “In front of Allah, my father and we shall unite,” wrote Ahmed, Morsi’s son on Facebook.

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan paid tribute to Morsi saying, "May Allah rest our Morsi brother, our martyr’s soul in peace.”

    According to medical reports, there were no apparent injuries on his body.

    Morsi, who was democratically elected after the popular ouster of Hosni Mubarak, was toppled by the military led by coup leader and current President Abdul-Fattah el-Sissi in 2013 after protests against his rule.

    “We received with great sorrow the news of the sudden death of former president Dr. Mohamed Morsi. I offer my deepest condolences to his family and Egyptian people. We belong to God and to him we shall return,” Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani wrote on Twitter.

    The United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric offered condolences to his supporters and relatives.

    State television said Morsi, who was 67, was in court for a hearing on charges of espionage emanating from suspected contacts with the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip that is under blockade by the current Egyptian government and Israel.

    He was facing at least six trials for politically motivated charges according to his supporters. The former president was also serving a 20-years prison sentence for allegedly killing protesters in 2012.

    Morsi was suffering from various health issues including diabetes and liver and kidney disease. During his imprisonment, he suffered from medical neglect worsened by poor prison conditions.

    Mohammed Sudan, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said that Morsi’s death was "premeditated murder” by not allowing him adequate health care.

    "He has been placed behind [a] glass cage [during trials]. No one can hear him or know what is happening to him. He hasn’t received any visits for months or nearly a year. He complained before that he doesn’t get his medicine. This is premeditated murder. This is a slow death,” Sudan said.

    Morsi was allowed 3 short visits in 6 years. One in November 2013 after being forcibly disappeared for 4 months, and another in June 2017 when only his wife and daughter were allowed, and the third in September 2018 with security official recording the whole conversation.
    — Abdelrahman Ayyash (@3yyash) June 17, 2019

    #Égypte #islamisme #prison

  • On 61st Friday of Great March of Return and Breaking Siege, Israeli Forces Wound 92 Palestinian Civilians, 28 of them were Children and Four were Paramedics, including Female Paramedic | Palestinian Center for Human Rights
    June 14, 2019
    https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=12531

    On Friday, 14 June 2019, in excessive use of force against peaceful protesters on the 61st Friday of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wounded 92 Palestinian civilians, 28 of them were children and four were paramedics, including a female paramedic, in the eastern Gaza Strip. One of the wounded was a child, who was hit with a live bullet to the chest and sustained serious wound. (...)

    #marcheduretour

  • Ambulance Officer Mohammed Sobhi al-Jadili Succumbed to His Wounds; PCHR Condemns Israeli forces’ Targeting of Medical Personnel in Gaza Strip | Palestinian Center for Human Rights
    June 12, 2019
    https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=12525

    On Monday, 10 June 2019, an ambulance officer succumbed to wounds he sustained while on duty to rescue and evacuate those wounded in the March of Return and Breaking Siege. Thus, the number of medical personnel causalities has risen to 4 killed and 203 injured since the beginning of the Return March in the Gaza Strip on 29 March 2018.

    According to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Center for Human rights (PCHR), at approximately 13:00 on Monday, 10 June 2019, Palestinian medical sources announced the death of ambulance officer, Mohammed Sobhi Salamah al-Judaili (36), from al-Buraij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, succumbing to wounds he sustained at approximately 18:10 on Friday, 03 May 2019. (...)

    #Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

  • Seven Palestinians, Including A Child, Shot and Injured in Gaza Protests
    June 1, 2019 12:03 AM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/seven-palestinians-including-a-child-shot-and-injured-in-gaza-protests

    According to medical sources, seven Palestinians, including one child, were injured by live ammunition on Friday, as Israeli forces attacked the hundreds of protesters participating in the weekly Great March of Return at the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.

    Hundreds of Palestinian protesters gathered at several locations along the Israeli/Gaza border, while Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition and rubber-coated steel bullets from border watchtowers and armored military vehicles, reported WAFA News Agency.

    #marcheduretour 60

  • Army Injures Sixteen Palestinians In Gaza
    IMEMC News - May 25, 2019 7:32 AM
    https://imemc.org/article/army-injures-sixteen-palestinians-in-gaza

    The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that Israeli soldiers injured, Friday, sixteen Palestinians during the Great Return March processions, ongoing for the 59th week, in the besieged Gaza Strip.

    The Health Ministry in Gaza said the injuries varied between rubber-coated steel bullets and gas inhalation, including some who were shot with high-velocity gas bombs.

    It added that a journalist, and a female medic volunteer, were among the injured Palestinians.

    All the wounded Palestinians received the needed treatment in make-shift clinics, without the needed to move them to hospitals.

    Israeli soldiers have killed 307 Palestinians, including medics and journalists, and injured more than 29000, since the Great Return March procession started in the Gaza Strip, on Palestinian land Day, March 30th, 2018.

    #marcheduretour 59

  • » Palestinian Immigrant Drowns To Death Near Greek Coast
    May 21, 2019 10:54 AM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/palestinian-immigrant-drowns-to-death-near-greek-coast

    The Greek Coastguards have announced locating the corpse of a Palestinian immigrant, who went missing 17 days ago, after trying to immigrate to Greece from Turkey, without documents.

    The Palestinian has been identified as Mahmoud Hasan Awadallah , 22, from the Gaza Strip; his corpse was found near the shore of Samos Island in Greece.

    His family said they lost contact with him nearly 17 days ago, after he left Turkey in an attempt to reach Greece.

    Two weeks ago, another Palestinian, identified as Mohammad Bahissy , from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, died under similar circumstances near the Turkish coast.

    #migrants_palestiniens #Gaza

  • » Palestinian Dies From Wounds Suffered In April Of 2018
    May 21, 2019 1:28 PM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/palestinian-dies-from-wounds-suffered-in-april-of-2018

    A young Palestinian man died, on Tuesday morning, from complications resulting to wounds he suffered in April of the year 2018, after Israeli soldiers shot him during the Great Return March processions in the Gaza Strip.

    His family said their son, Mohammad Abdul-Jawad Zo’rob , 30, from Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, was shot by Israeli army fire on April 27th, 2018.

    They added that he suffered various complications since then, and developed tumors that eventually led to his death, especially amidst the lack of medical supplies in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip.

    He was shot with an expanding bullet, and underwent several surgeries, but also suffered several infections in the wound area, leading to cancer. (...)

    #Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

  • Cristiano Ronaldo donates $1.5 million to help feed starving people on the Gaza Strip (REPORTS) — RT Sport News
    https://www.rt.com/sport/459610-cristiano-ronaldo-donates-to-palestine

    Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo has donated $1.5 million to help feed fasting people on the Gaza Strip during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to reports.

    The Juventus striker has reportedly given the sum to the people of Palestine as part of a long relationship between the player and the Palestinian cause, with the Portuguese star speaking out over the treatment of the Palestinian people by Israel in the past.

    « reportedly » tout de même. En revanche, les 18 millions d’euros au fisc espagnol, ce n’est pas une rumeur... Bon, #gaza tout de même... Mais je préfère la justice à la charité.

    • https://fr.sputniknews.com/international/201905171041145580-cristiano-ronaldo-fait-un-don-de-15-million-de-do

      La star portugaise Cristiano Ronaldo a fait don de 1,5 million de dollars au peuple palestinien à l’occasion du ramadan, mois de jeûne chez les musulmans, selon l’Onwadan’s Charity Foundation.

      Cristiano Ronaldo, international portugais et attaquant vedette de la Juventus de Turin, a fait don de 1,5 million de dollars au peuple palestinien en cette période de ramadan, mois de jeûne chez les musulmans, a annoncé l’Onwadan’s Charity Foundation.

      Cristiano Ronaldo donate $1.5m to Palestine Gaza. Behind every successful person, check out where he pays his homage. You can’t reach out to lives in need especially #Orphans & remain the same. You might not have millions to change lives, but a token can put smiles on their faces pic.twitter.com/OWyPRsFJ5M
      — ONWADAN’S CHARITY FOUNDATION (@onwa_dan) 16 мая 2019 г.

  • Palestinians injured during 71st Nakba Day protests in Gaza
    May 15, 2019 2:29 P.M. (Updated: May 15, 2019 4:11 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=783452

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — At least 47 Palestinian protesters were shot and injured with Israeli live ammunition, on Wednesday, during mass protests commemorating the 71st anniversary of Nakba Day or “catastrophe” near the return camps along the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip.

    Local sources confirmed that thousands of Palestinian protesters in Gaza, which has suffered from a 12-year-long Israeli siege, arrived to the eastern borders via buses to demand their right of return as refugees to their original homelands, now in present-day Israel.

    Sources said that Israeli forces opened heavy fire and fired tear-gas bombs towards the protests.

    Medical sources confirmed that 47 Palestinians were shot and injured with live ammunition, while dozens of others suffered from severe tear-gas suffocation.

    Sources added that Israeli forces and snipers were deployed across the borders. (...)

    #Nakba

    • Israël et la Nakba, de la reconnaissance au déni
      Eitan Bronstein Aparicio > Eleonore Merza Bronstein > 19 avril 2018
      https://orientxxi.info/magazine/israel-et-la-nakba-de-la-reconnaissance-au-deni,2399

      Israël célèbre son soixante-dixième anniversaire. Pour les Palestiniens, il s’agit plutôt de la Nakba, la catastrophe qui les a frappés et contraints à l’exil. Si la Nakba était reconnue par de nombreux responsables et intellectuels israéliens durant les premières années du jeune État, elle a été par la suite contestée officiellement, alors que les preuves des exactions commises par l’armée israélienne en 1947-1949 et de l’épuration ethnique dont furent victimes les Palestiniens s’accumulaient.

  • Egyptian navy detains 4 Palestinian fishermen in Gaza
    May 13, 2019 12:19 P.M. (
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=783430

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Egyptian naval forces detained four Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Rafah, south of the besieged Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, on Sunday.

    Head of the Palestinian Fishermen Union in Gaza, Zakariya Bakr, told Ma’an that Egyptian naval forces detained four fishermen from two fishing boats off the coast of Rafah.

    Bakr added the Egyptian forces confiscated the two fishing boats and sailed them to an unknown location.

    Bakr identified the four fishermen as Muhammad Ziyad Sayad, 22, Ahmad Omar al-Bardawil, 30, Ibrahim Muhammad al-Bardawil, 22, and Ibrahim Khalil al-Bardawil, 42.

    Egypt upholds an Israeli military blockade on Gaza, keeping borders largely closed and limiting imports, exports, and the freedom of movement of its residents.

    The threat from Egyptian forces comes as Palestinian fishermen already face daily risks in order to make a living, including routine harassment from Israeli naval forces, confiscation of boats and materials, detention and potentially death.

    Israeli forces open fire towards Palestinian fishing boats on a daily basis.

    #GazaEgypte

  • » Updated: Army Kills One Palestinian, Injures 30, Including 4 Children And One Medic, In Gaza
    May 10, 2019 8:28 PM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/army-injures-30-palestinians-including-4-children-and-one-medic-in-gaza

    Israeli soldiers attacked, Friday, the weekly Great Return March processions on Palestinian lands along the eastern areas of the Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian and wounding 30, including four children, and one medic who was shot in the head.

    The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has confirmed that the soldiers killed Abdullah Jom’a Abdul-‘Al , 24, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

    It added that the soldiers also injured thirty Palestinians, including four children, and a volunteer medic, who suffered a head injury while providing treatment to wounded Palestinians.

    The medic, identified as Mohammad Abu T’eima, was shot as he, and several other medics were providing treatment to wounded protesters, who were shot by the soldiers on Palestinian lands, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the coastal region.

    Eyewitnesses said the soldiers resorted to the excessive use of force against the protesters by firing a barrage of live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets and high-velocity gas bombs at them.

    #Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

  • The Future Is Here, and It Features Hackers Getting Bombed – Foreign Policy
    https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/06/the-future-is-here-and-it-features-hackers-getting-bombed


    Smoke billows from a targeted neighborhood in Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave on May 5.
    MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

    Israeli armed forces responded to a Hamas cyberattack by bombing the group’s hacking headquarters.

    With an airstrike on Sunday, the Israeli military provided a glimpse of the future of warfare.

    After blocking a cyberattack that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said was launched by operatives working on behalf of the militant group Hamas, the IDF carried out an airstrike in Gaza targeting the building in which the hackers worked, partially destroying it. The strike appears to be the first time that a nation’s military has responded in real time to a cyberattack with physical force.

    In a tweet, the IDF declared victory, saying: “We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.

    HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed,” the tweet added, in what appears to have been a macabre attempt at a joke using an invented file name.

    For years, countries have used policy documents and strategy white papers to warn that they reserved the right to choose the method by which they respond to cyberattacks, either in kind through cyberspace or with physical force, said Catherine Lotrionte, an expert on international law and a professor at Georgetown University. Now, Israel has made those warnings concrete.

    You’ve got a physical operation against a building that was in response to an ongoing cyberattack or at least a cyberattack that Hamas was planning—that’s the interesting part,” Lotrionte said.

    Key questions remain about the Israeli operation, and IDF officials declined to answer questions from Foreign Policy about the nature of the attack launched by Hamas against Israel.

    In a press statement, the IDF said Hamas “attempted to establish offensive cyber capabilities within the Gaza Strip and to try and harm the Israeli cyber realm.” These “efforts were discovered in advance and thwarted,” and following the operation to thwart the cyberattack, “the IDF attacked a building from which the members of Hamas’ cyber array operated.

    The decision to bomb a Hamas hacking unit comes as armed forces are increasingly integrating cyberoperations into their militaries, and the Israeli decision to target such a unit was completely unsurprising to scholars and practitioners of cyberwarfare.

    It’s no surprise that in a digital age marked by heightened risk of cyberwarfare a nation-state engaged in a noninternational armed conflict would regard the cyber-capabilities of its adversary as valid military targets under international law,” said David Simon, a lawyer at the law firm Mayer Brown who worked on cybersecurity policy and operations as a special counsel at the U.S. Defense Department.

    And even if the notion of bombing hackers appears surprising on its face, Israel was likely on solid legal footing when it did so, provided that the hackers were in fact carrying out an offensive operation on behalf of a militant group engaged in armed conflict with Israel.

    Legal experts emphasized that the context of Sunday’s strike was key in understanding Israel’s calculus to carry it out. The strike came amid a renewed period of fighting that saw Palestinian militants fire hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, with Israel responding with an intense artillery and aerial barrage of Gaza.

    Militaries around the world have recognized cyberspace as a domain of military operations, and that leaves hackers participating in an armed conflict in a highly exposed position. “Hackers who are engaged in military attacks are legitimate targets,” said Gary Brown, a cyberlaw professor at the National Defense University.

    Militant groups such as Hamas have invested heavily in their online operations in recent years, using them as a way to poke at far more powerful, better resourced opponents. Cyberspace serves as a key way to distribute propaganda and gain intelligence about adversaries.

    In one notorious example, a hacker working on behalf of the militant group Islamic Jihad pleaded guilty in 2017 to charges of hacking into the video feeds of IDF drones carrying out surveillance over Gaza.

    Sunday’s bombing is not the first time hackers have been targeted in airstrikes—though it is believed to be the first time hackers engaged in an ongoing operation have been hit. In 2015, a U.S. airstrike in Syria killed the Islamic State hacker Junaid Hussain, who had become a prolific propagandist and recruiter for the group.

    Hussain hacked into the personal accounts of hundreds of U.S. service members and posted their personal information online and helped recruit the men who opened fire in 2015 on a cartoon exhibition in Garland, Texas. As he ascended the ranks of the Islamic State’s leadership, he was singled out to be killed.

    Hussain’s killing arguably laid the groundwork for Sunday’s strike, which experts argue sends a message to hackers engaged in offensive activity.

    It’s kind of a wake-up call for people who thought they were going to be able to engage in cyberactivity with impunity,” Brown said. “It now looks like states are willing to reach behind the lines and strike hackers.

    • Si je lis bien le communiqué des Forces de défense israéliennes, il ne s’agit pas du tout d’une riposte comme cela est repris partout, mais bien d’une attaque préemptive, pour parler comme un précédent président états-unien.

      https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1125066395010699264

      CLEARED FOR RELEASE: We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.

      HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed.

      Je ne trouve pas le communiqué de presse du porte-parolat de l’armée israélienne. Mais celui-ci semble sans ambiguïté.

      IDF : Hamas cyber attack against Israel foiled - Israel National News
      http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/262717

      Over the course of the weekend, a joint IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA) operation thwarted an attempted cyber attack by Hamas targeting Israeli sites, according to a press release by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit on Sunday.

      The Hamas terrorist organization attempted to establish offensive cyber capabilities within the Gaza Strip and to try and harm Israeli cyber targets.

      All of Hamas’ efforts were discovered in advance and thwarted. Hamas’ cyber efforts, which included an attempt in recent days, failed to achieve its goals.

      Following Israel’s technological activities to stop Hamas’s cyber efforts, the IDF attacked a building from which the members of Hamas’ cyber array operated.

      Israel’s cyber efforts and defensive capabilities have led Hamas’ cyber attempts to fail time and time again," a senior ISA official said.

    • On se demande vraiment comment David Israël, associé à David etats-unis, david Union européenne, david Canada, david Australie, david Nouvelle-Zélande, sans oublier les divers arabes modérés de la région, on se demande donc comment ces David et modérés réussissent à faire en sorte que les « cyber-efforts et les capacités défensives d’Israël » conduisent les « cyber-tentatives du [GOLIATHISSIME] Hamas à échouer à plusieurs reprises. »

  • After flareup, military warns current #Gaza policies leading region back to war| The Times of Israel
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-flareup-military-warns-current-gaza-policies-leading-region-bac

    In a press briefing, the military said the country needed to make changes to its strategic policy to improve living conditions in the Gaza Strip if it did not want another flareup of #violence in coming weeks.

    #inédit

  • Death toll rises to 27: Married couple found dead under rubble in Gaza
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=783380


    May 6, 2019 2:23 P.M. (Updated: May 6, 2019 2:27 P.M.)

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Palestinian Civil Defense and ambulance crews were able to recover the bodies of a married Palestinian couple from the rubble of the completely destroyed buildings, which were targeted by Israeli warplanes, bringing the death toll in the Gaza Strip to 27, on Monday.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed that the two bodies recovered from under the rubble were husband and wife, identified as Talal Abu al-Jadyan and Raghda Muhammad Abu al-Jadyan.

    Talal and Raghda’s 12-year-old son, Abdul Rahman al-Jadyan, was also killed several hours earlier due to the Israeli airstrikes.

    The bodies of Talal and Raghda were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital, in northern Gaza, were they were pronounced dead.

    #Palestine_assassinée

  • » Israeli Missiles Kill Three Palestinians East Of Gaza
    May 5, 2019 3:55 PM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/israeli-missiles-kill-three-palestinians-east-of-gaza

    The Palestinian Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has confirmed that Israeli missiles killed, Sunday, three young Palestinian men, east of Gaza city, amidst ongoing Israeli bombardment and shelling targeting several parts of the coastal region. Two Israelis kills by Palestinian shells.

    The Ministry said the Israeli missiles killed Bilal Mohammad al-Banna , 23, and Abdullah Nofal Abu al-‘Ata , 21, in the Sheja’eyya neighborhood, east of Gaza city.

    Bilal Mohammad al-Banna
    Abdullah Nofal Abu al-Ata

    It added that the soldiers also killed one Palestinian, identified as Hamed Ahmad al-Khodary , 34, and injured three others, after the army fired missiles targeting al-Khodary’s car in the ad-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza city.

    Hamed al-Khodari

    They were among many Palestinians targeted by the Israeli missiles, leading to several injuries, and serious property damage.

    His death was a targeted assassination as Israel claims he was in charge of funneling money from Iran to Hamas movement in Gaza.

    In addition, Israeli sources said one Israeli man, 50, suffered a critical injury when a Palestinian shell directly struck his car near Kibbutz Erez, and added that a house was directly hit with a shell in Be’er as-Sabe’ (Beersheba).

    #Palestine_assassinée

  •  » Army Kills Two Palestinians In Gaza, One Israeli Killed By Palestinian Shell
    May 5, 2019 9:48 AM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/army-kills-two-palestinians-in-gaza-one-israeli-killed-by-palestinian-shell

    The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has reported that the soldiers killed Mahmoud Sobhi Issa , 26, and Fawzi Abdul-Halim Bawadi , 24, in the al-Boreij refugee camp. Both are members of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad.

    Mahmoud Sobhi Issa
    Fawzi Abdul-Halim Bawadi

    The army also fired missiles at a home, owned by members of Zo’rob family, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and leveled it.

    Media sources in Gaza said the Israeli army carried out more than 150 air strikes, in addition to firing dozens of artillery shells against 220 civilian structures in the Gaza Strip, including residential buildings, mosques, stores, educational facilities, media agencies and workshops.

    The number of apartment buildings that were targeted by Israeli missiles has arrived to seven, in several parts of the Gaza Strip, in addition to the al-Mustafa Mosque in the Shati’ refugee camp.

    The soldiers also fired missiles targeting 22 agricultural lands and hothouses, near the al-Azhar University and the Islamic University, and caused serious damage to several schools.

    Furthermore, the army fired a missile at a motorcycle in the al-Falouja area, in northern Gaza, wounding two Palestinians, including one who suffered a life-threatening injury.

    At least two Palestinians were also injured after the army fired missiles into an area east of Gaza City. (...)

    #Palestine_assassinée

  • Israeli Army Kills Four Palestinians, Including A Baby And Her Pregnant Mother, In Gaza
    May 5, 2019 12:33 AM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-kills-four-palestinians-including-a-baby-and-her-pregnant-mother

    The Israeli army killed, Saturday, four Palestinians, including a pregnant mother and her baby girl, in a series of bombings and air strikes targeting the Gaza Strip, wounding more than 30 civilians.

    Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson of the Health Ministry in Gaza, has reported that the soldiers killed a pregnant Palestinian mother, identified as Falasteen Saleh Abu Arar , 37, and her baby girl, Saba Mahmoud Abu Arar , 14 months, after firing a missile at their home in Gaza city.


    The mother, who was also six months pregnant, suffered very serious wounds to the head and other parts of her body, and died from her wounds.

    Dr. al-Qedra added that the soldiers also moderately injured another daughter of the slain pregnant mother.

    Furthermore, the soldiers killed another Palestinian, identified as Khaled Mohammad Abu Qleiq , 25, after the army fired several missiles into areas in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.


    The soldiers also fired many missiles at homes in the neighborhoods of the Sheja’eyya, Tuffah and Zeitoun, in Gaza city, causing many injuries and serious property damage.

    At least thirty Palestinians have been injured in the ongoing Israeli bombardments, that caused damage to several homes in the Gaza Strip, including two residential, west of Gaza city.

    Among the targeting buildings was “Abdullah al-Hourani Center for Studies and Documentation” which is run by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in Gaza city.

    The Center is located in a residential building which was targeted by several Israeli missiles, Saturday.

    The Israeli bombardment also caused damage to several shops and stores, in addition to media agencies.

    Armed resistance factions in Gaza said they retaliated to the Israeli escalation by firing shells into several Israeli areas, including Ofakim, Asqalan (Ashkelon), Be’er as-Sabe’ (Beersheba) and Keryat Gat.

    Earlier Saturday, the soldiers killed one Palestinian, identified as Emad Mohammad Nosseir, 22, from Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

    On Friday, the soldiers killed two Palestinians during the Great Return March processions, and later killed two members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

    Besides killing the two four Palestinians, the soldiers also injured 82 Palestinians, including 34 children, two journalists and three medics.

    #Palestine_assassinée

    • 19h23 Un bébé palestinien tué dans un raid israélien à Gaza
      AFP - 04/05/2019 L’Orient-Le Jour -
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1169083/un-bebe-palestinien-tue-dans-un-raid-israelien-a-gaza.html

      Une fillette palestinienne âgée de 14 mois a péri samedi dans un raid israélien qui a touché la maison familiale dans la bande de Gaza, a indiqué le ministère de la Santé à Gaza.
      L’armée de l’air israélienne a mené plusieurs raids sur la bande de Gaza, en riposte aux quelque 200 roquettes tirées sur Israël depuis l’enclave palestinienne.

      « Saba Abou Arar , âgée d’un an et deux mois, est décédée dans un raid dans l’est de la ville de Gaza. Sa mère, qui est enceinte, a été grièvement blessée, et sa soeur a été également blessée », a précisé le porte-parole du ministère de la Santé du Hamas.
      « Nous étions en train de déjeuner lorsque la maison a été bombardée par un avion israélien. Saba a été tuée sur le coup », a dit à l’AFP Abou Mohamed Abou Arar, un cousin du père de la fillette, qui a confirmé que la mère et la soeur avaient été blessées. (...)

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““""
      20h38 Gaza : la mère du bébé palestinien tué dans un raid israélien succombe
      AFP- 04/05/2019
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1169097/gaza-la-mere-du-bebe-palestinien-tue-dans-un-raid-israelien-succombe.

      La mère d’un bébé palestinien tué samedi dans un raid israélien à Gaza, a succombé à ses blessures infligées lors de la même frappe qui a touché leur maison, a indiqué le ministère de la Santé à Gaza.

      « Falastine Abou Arar , âgée de 37 ans et enceinte, est décédée après avoir été blessée à la tête », lors du bombardement de sa maison dans l’est de la ville de Gaza, a déclaré le ministère gazaoui.

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““"
      22h56 Gaza : un quatrième palestinien tué par un tir israélien
      AFP - 04/05/2019
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1169107/gaza-un-quatrieme-palestinien-tue-par-un-tir-israelien.html
      Un quatrième Palestinien a été tué samedi dans un raid aérien israélien contre la bande de Gaza, a indiqué le ministère de la Santé gazaoui après le tir de plus de 200 roquettes vers Israël depuis l’enclave palestinienne.
      Khaled Abou Qleiq , 25 ans, a été tué dans une frappe sur le nord de la bande de Gaza, a précisé le ministère.
      #Palestine_assassinée

  • » Updated: “Army Kills One Palestinian, Injures Seven, In Gaza”
    May 4, 2019 12:38 PM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/israeli-missiles-injure-at-least-four-palestinians-in-gaza

    The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed, Saturday, one Palestinian and injured at least seven others, during a series of air strikes and bombings targeting several areas of the besieged Gaza Strip.


    The Health Ministry said the soldiers killed Emad Mohammad Nosseir , 22, from Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

    It added that the soldiers injured seven other Palestinians, including four who were wounded in previous air strikes targeting Beit Hanoun.

    The Israeli Air Force also carried out several strikes targeting areas in northern Gaza, including many sites, run by armed resistance groups hundreds of meters away from the perimeter fence.

    The targeted areas are in Rafah and Khan Younis, in southern Gaza Strip, the Central District and Gaza city, in addition to Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.

    #Palestine_assassinée

  • Israeli Army Kills Two Hamas Fighters In Central Gaza
    May 4, 2019 1:55 AM - IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-two-hamas-fighters-in-central-gaza

    The Israeli army fired, on Friday evening, several missiles into a site run by the al-Qassam Brigades the armed wing of Hamas, in central Gaza, killing two fighters; the army said it was retaliating to gunfire that injured two soldiers.

    The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has confirmed that the soldiers killed Abdullah Ibrahim Abu Mallouh , 33, from the Nusseirat refugee camp, and Ala’ Hasan al-Bobali, 29, from the al-Maghazi refugee camp, in central Gaza.


    The two fighters were in a site, run by the al-Qassam Brigades, east of the al-Maghazi refugee camp, when the army fired missiles at it.

    The Israeli army said it fired the missiles after Palestinian fighters shot and injured two soldiers near the perimeter fence.

    According to the Israeli “Jerusalem Post”, the Israeli Air Force “struck a Hamas post, following Palestinian sniper fire that injured two soldiers, one of them is a female.”

    In addition to killing the two Palestinians, the Israeli missiles caused excessive property damage.

    #Palestine_assassinée