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Jailed schoolgirl becomes Palestinian symbol

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Between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are tried before Israeli military courts every year, says NGO

A poster of 14-year-old Malak al-Khatib (AFP)

A poster of 14-year-old Malak al-Khatib (AFP)

by Middle East Eye

A 14-year-old schoolgirl jailed for trying to attack Israeli soldiers has become a symbol for hundreds of Palestinian children tried in Israeli military courts each year.

The two-month sentence for Malak al-Khatib, who was accused of stone-throwing and possession of a knife, has unleashed a wave of solidarity and support among Palestinians.

“My heart broke when I saw her in court, cuffed and shackled,” her mother Khawla al-Khatib told AFP from her home in the town of Beitin near Ramallah.

“I brought in a coat for her to wear because it was cold, but the judge refused to let her have it,” the distressed 50-year-old said.

Israeli forces arrest about 1,000 children every year in the occupied West Bank, often on charges of stone-throwing, according to rights group Defence for Children International Palestine (DCI Palestine).

But the case of Malak has brought countless media organisations flocking to her family’s door and attracted more public attention than most.

The difference – she is a girl.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club estimates that 200 Palestinian minors are held in Israeli prisons, but only four are girls, and Malak is the youngest.

Amani Sarahna, spokeswoman for the Ramallah-based organisation, said it was the first time in years that four female minors were held in Israeli jails, out of the 6,500 Palestinians incarcerated.

Following Malak’s arrest, the Palestinian leadership sent a letter to the UN denouncing the Israeli practice of “seizing children in the dead of night”, detaining Palestinian children “for extended periods of time” and subjecting them to “psychological and physical torture”.

Palestinian icon

A picture of Malak’s face has been circulating in social media and Palestinian newspapers.

“I don’t know why a state like Israel, with the most powerful weapons at its disposal, is pursuing my 14-year-old daughter,” Malak’s father Ali al-Khatib said.

“They accused her of trying to stab a soldier. Really? A child against an armed and heavily equipped solider, a grown man?” he asked incredulously.

The father-of-eight said his daughter was arrested on her way home from school in Beitin on 31 December.

According to the indictment served at a military court, Malak had “picked up a stone” to throw at cars on Route 60, which is near the village and serves Israeli settlers as well as Palestinians.

The indictment, citing five Israeli officials, said Malak was in possession of a knife which she intended to use to stab security personnel in the case of her arrest.

As well as the jail term she was fined $1,500.

In a report released in February 2013, the UN children’s agency UNICEF criticised Israel for its treatment of arrested Palestinian children, saying their interrogation mixes “intimidation, threats and physical violence, with the clear purpose of forcing the child to confess.”

“Children have been threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault, against themselves or a family member,” the report said.

After three weeks in custody Malak was brought before an Israeli military court and sentenced to prison.

“Every year, between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are tried before Israeli military courts,” said DCI Palestine’s Ayed Abu Qteish.

Qteish said Israeli military law allows the prosecution of children from as young as 12, which UNICEF says is unique to Israel.

Israeli military courts normally refuse bail and rely primarily on the children’s confessions, UNICEF says.

An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that Malak was convicted after a plea bargain.

“Rock throwing is an extremely dangerous crime, which has maimed and killed Israeli civilians in the past,” she added.

Malak’s father thinks his daughter’s confession counts for little.

“A 14-year-old girl surrounded by Israeli soldiers will admit to anything,” he said bitterly.

“She would admit to holding a nuclear weapon if she were accused.”

Spain Blames Israel for UN Peacekeeper’s Killing in South Lebanon Clashes

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Israeli military vehicles are seen burning in the Shebaa Farms, an Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory near the village of Ghajar, on January 28, 2015, following a Hezbollah missile attack. AFP/Marouf Khatib

Israeli military vehicles are seen burning in the Shebaa Farms, an Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory near the village of Ghajar, on January 28, 2015, following a Hezbollah missile attack. AFP/Marouf Khatib

Spain on Wednesday said Israeli fire had killed a Spanish UN peacekeeper serving in South Lebanon and called on the United Nations to fully investigate the violence, a day after Israeli prime minister vowed that Hezbollah would “pay the price” an attack in the Israeli-occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms that left at least two Israeli soldiers dead.

The UN Security Council condemned the death of the 36-year-old Spanish corporal who died when Israel shelled Lebanon with a combined aerial and ground strikes after an anti-tank missile was fired at an Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) convoy in the Shebaa Farms, a mountainous, narrow sliver of land illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

“It is clear that this was because of the escalation of the violence and it came from the Israeli side,” Spanish Ambassador to the UN Roman Oyarzun told reporters.

The Spanish envoy said he had asked for a full investigation of the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeper’s death during an emergency meeting of the council called by France to discuss ways to defuse tensions between Israel and Lebanon.

The violence raised fears of another all-out conflict between Lebanon and Israel in a region already wracked by fighting in Syria and Iraq.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “maximum calm and restraint,” urging all sides to “act responsibly to prevent any escalation in an already tense regional environment,” a UN statement said.

“Our objective is to engage toward de-escalation and to prevent further escalation of the situation,” French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre told reporters.

France presented a draft statement to council members, but after meeting for over an hour the council issued a terse condemnation of the peacekeeper’s death and made no mention of de-escalation efforts.

Discussions regarding another council statement on the situation were ongoing.

The 10,000-strong UNIFIL mission, which monitors the border between Lebanon and Occupied Palestine, said it had observed six rockets fired towards Occupied Palestine from southern Lebanon and that Israeli forces “returned artillery fire in the same general area.”

Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli military convoy “transporting several Zionist soldiers and officers.”

“There were several casualties in the enemy’s ranks,” Hezbollah said.

According to Israeli figures, two soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded.

The Hezbollah brigade which carried out the attack, the Quneitra martyrs of the Islamic Resistance, was named in reference to an illegal Israeli airstrike on the Syrian city of Quneitra on January 18 that killed six fighters of Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, as well as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general, indicating that Wednesday’s attack was in retaliation for the killing of its members.

Meanwhile, Lebanese security sources told AFP that Israeli forces then hit several Lebanese villages along the border.

Clouds of smoke could be seen rising from al-Majidiyeh village, one of the hardest hit. There were no casualties.

Senior peacekeeping official Edmond Mulet told council members that the attacks were a “serious violation” of ceasefire agreements, which Israel violates on a daily basis.

Israeli warplanes routinely violate Lebanon’s airspace and have launched several attacks against Syrian targets in recent months, some reportedly carried out from over Lebanon. An infographic of the number of Israeli overflights in Lebanon in 2011 showed that Israeli planes breached Lebanese sovereignty roughly five to 10 times a week on average that year.

On Thursday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), said Israeli fighter jets penetrated deep into Lebanese airspace, startling residents as the jets flew over the capital Beirut.

Israeli jets were also seen flying over southern Lebanese towns.

In 2013, Lebanon filed an official complaint to the United Nations over the regular Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Netanyahu: Hezbollah will “pay the price”

Israel claimed on Thursday it had allegedly received a message from Hezbollah that it was backing away from further violence.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon claimed Israel had received a message from a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon stating that Hezbollah was not interested in further escalation.

“Indeed, a message was received,” he said. “There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via UNIFIL and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon.”

In Beirut, Hezbollah officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

“I can’t say whether the events are behind us,” Yaalon added in a separate radio interview. “Until the area completely calms down, the Israel Defense Forces (sic) will remain prepared and ready.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon’s Hezbollah it will pay the “full price.”

“Those behind today’s attack will pay the full price,” Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying at a meeting with Israel’s top security brass Wednesday evening.

Netanyahu also threatened the government of Lebanon and to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The government of Lebanon and the Assad regime share responsibility for the consequences of attacks originating in their territory against the state of Israel,” he said.

The United States stood by Israel after the exchange of fire and condemned Hezbollah’s shelling of the Israeli military convoy.

“We support Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense and continue to urge all parties to respect the blue line between Israel and Lebanon,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, however, appealed for an “immediate cessation of hostilities.”

Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam condemned the Israeli military escalation in south Lebanon and expressed concern regarding the “aggressive intentions expressed by the Israeli officials and the deterioration of the situation it could lead to in Lebanon,” the NNA reported.

“Lebanon deems the international family responsible for repressing any Israeli tendency to gamble with the security and stability in the area.”
Moreover, Hezbollah’s attack was hailed by the Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

“We affirm Hezbollah’s right to respond to the Israeli occupation,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said, while Jihad’s Quds Brigade praised the attack as “heroic.”

On Wednesday, Israeli security sources said at least one house had been hit in the divided village of Ghajar, which straddles the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Lebanon.

“Three houses were hit by rockets,” Hussein, 31, said, relaying what he had heard by telephone from relatives in the village of 2,000 inhabitants.

He said a number of villagers had been wounded but that he did not know how badly.

Other frantic family members argued with police to be allowed in to collect their children, who had been locked inside the village school for their own safety.

Building tensions

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned Israel against any “stupid” moves in Lebanon and Syria, vowing to retaliate and make sure Israel paid the price for any aggression against the neighboring countries.

Israeli airstrikes on Syria “target the whole of the resistance axis,” Nasrallah said in reference to Syria, Iran and his government, who are sworn enemies of Israel.

“The repeated bombings that struck several targets in Syria are a major violation, and we consider that any strike against Syria is a strike against the whole of the resistance axis, not just against Syria,” he said, adding the “axis is capable of responding” anytime.

Since the January 18 airstrike, troops and civilians in northern Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights have been on heightened alert and Israel has deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor unit near the Syrian border.

Israel occupied most of southern Lebanon for 22 years until 2000 and the two countries are still technically at war.

Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said Wednesday’s attack was the “most severe” Israel had faced since 2006, when its war with Hezbollah killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Nasrallah is expected to deliver a speech on January 30 regarding the Israeli strikes.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Gaza war ‘unlawful’: Israeli rights group blames IDF for deliberately targeting residential areas

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Palestine

by RT

An Israeli human rights group has accused the IDF of war crimes during last year’s Gaza invasion by launching airstrikes that intentionally targeted residential areas, killing women and children, while claiming that Hamas was hiding behind civilians.

As prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague are conducting a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories, the 49-page report by B’Tselem human rights group claims the allegations are true.

‘Black Flag: The legal and moral implications of the policy of attacking residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, summer 2014’ is the first major report on the Israel-Gaza 50-day conflict written by an Israeli rights group.

The report is based on research into 70 Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that affected residential buildings, killing 606 Palestinians in their homes, most of them evidently non-combatants: children, women and elderly men. About 70 percent of the victims were either under 18 or over 60 years old.

Like during previous conflicts with the Palestinian military group Hamas, Israeli officials have insisted that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) operated strictly according to international law. Casualties among the civilian population can be explained by the fact that Hamas fighters use their compatriots as human shields, placing “command and control centers” within residential buildings and bringing families to live inside “terrorist infrastructure” facilities, the officials say.

A Palestinian woman walks past buildings destroyed by what police said were Israeli air strikes and shelling in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip August 3, 2014.(Reuters / Finbarr O’Reilly)

“It is true that Hamas and other organizations operating in the Gaza Strip do not abide by international humanitarian law,” the report acknowledged, not questioning the fact that Hamas does use civilian centers to stage rocket attacks on Israeli territory.

Yet the fact that Tel Aviv tends to put blame for all Palestinian civilian deaths on Hamas, makes the IDF totally unaccountable for its activities, with “no restrictions whatsoever on Israeli action…no matter how horrifying the consequences,” the report said.

“This policy is unlawful through and through,” the report says.

The concept of “collateral damage,” however legal it might seem during warfare, has been exploited by the IDF to the extreme, the report claims.

“Even if the leaders of the state and the army believed that implementing this policy would bring about the cessation of firing on Israeli communities, it should not have been implemented because of the expected and horrific consequences,” the report says.

People look at a crater on the ground and damaged buildings, that witnesses said was caused by an Israeli air strike, in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City August 8, 2014.(Reuters / Siegfried Modola)

B’Tselem, which receives donations through the New Israel Fund, is generally associated with the Israeli left and focuses on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank.

The group’s research chief, Yael Stein, insists that the deaths of Palestinian civilians were by no means accidental, as the airstrikes against residential quarters continued all the way through the operation in Gaza.

“You can’t maybe [know] on the first day or the second day. But on the 10th day or the 20th day, when you see how many civilians are getting killed…these attacks shouldn’t have happened,” Stein said.

In December, human rights group Amnesty International accused Israel of the unjustified destruction of civilian buildings in Gaza during the conflict, branding it a symbolic form of “collective punishment.”Israel claims the buildings served as Hamas bases.

The report by B’Tselem is the third major human rights inquiry into the conflict in Gaza, after reports by Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

The Monitor, another Israeli NGO, claims that the report by B’Tselem is based only on testimony from residents who personally witnessed the airstrikes and data from the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, a source not trusted by most Israelis.

“Once again, and regardless of the circumstances and available evidence, B’Tselem has contorted the facts in order to pronounce Israel guilty. Contrary to such claims, Hamas is morally and legally responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza,” Monitor’s legal adviser Anne Herzberg commented on the report.

Israel 'systematically mistreats' Palestinian children in custody

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Muntasser Bakr, an eleven-year-old Palestinian boy who lost four of his relatives when two Israeli missiles slammed into a beach during the 50-day July-August Gaza war, stands outside his house on December 24, 2014 in Gaza City. AFP / Mahmoud Hams

Muntasser Bakr, an eleven-year-old Palestinian boy who lost four of his relatives when two Israeli missiles slammed into a beach during the 50-day July-August Gaza war, stands outside his house on December 24, 2014 in Gaza City. AFP / Mahmoud Hams

Bethlehem: Some 700 Palestinian children per year are arrested and face “ill-treatment” by Israeli forces, according to a new report by a children’s rights group.

In the report, Child Rights International Network said that “during 2014, an average of 197 children were held in military detention every month, 13 per cent of whom are under the age of 16.”

“Arrested children are commonly taken into custody by heavily armed soldiers, blindfolded with their wrists tied behind their backs before being transported to an interrogation centre,” the CRIN report said.

“Children questioned about their experience frequently report verbal and physical abuse during the arrest.”

According to research conducted by Defense for Children International — Palestine cited by the report, some 56 percent of children report having experienced “coercive” interrogation techniques during their time in Israeli custody.

Some 42 percent say they signed documents in Hebrew, despite the fact that most Palestinian children do not speak or understand the language.

Additionally, 22 percent of detained children say they underwent up to 24 hours of solitary confinement, in violation of international standards.

“This detention is a clear violation of children’s rights under several international human rights treaties to which Israel is a party,” the CRIN report said.

“The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for a complete ban on solitary confinement for juveniles, warning that it ‘can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for prolonged periods, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles.'”

The report said that while it is technically possible to file a complaint about the way a child is treated in Israeli detention, “complaints are almost universally dismissed,” and there are “very few examples of soldiers being punished for ill-treatment.”

14-year-old girl imprisoned for 2 months

The report highlighted a case in which a 14-year-old girl from Ramallah was arrested on Dec. 31 and held for 22 days in Israel before being issued a sentence.

She was charged with throwing stones, blocking the road, and possessing a knife, “sentenced to two months in prison, and fined $1,528 by an Israeli military court.”

Her father believes she was coerced into confessing, saying: “She seemed to be very sick and scared.”

“The plight of this one girl put a face on a system that routinely runs roughshod over children’s rights,” CRIN said. “But behind this story there is a broader issue.”

The report recommended reforms while noting that countless other recommendations by human rights groups regarding the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli custody have gone unheeded by Israeli authorities.

Ultimately, CRIN concluded, children will never be treated well under an Israeli military justice system.

“Regardless of the precise formulation of military rule, it can never protect children in the same way as a developed civilian juvenile justice system which places the best interests of the child at the centre of its work.”

(Ma’an)

Israel attempts to cut ICC funding in retaliation for Gaza inquiry

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Palestinians who fled their home due to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August 2014 hold on life amid the debris of destroyed buildings in cold weather conditions in Khan Yunis on January 8,2015. Anadolu/Abed Rahim Khatib

Palestinians who fled their home due to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August 2014 hold on life amid the debris of destroyed buildings in cold weather conditions in Khan Yunis on January 8,2015. Anadolu/Abed Rahim Khatib

by Al-Akhbar

Israel is lobbying member-states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to cut funding for the tribunal in response to its launch of a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, officials said on Sunday.

ICC prosecutors said on Friday they would examine “in full independence and impartiality” crimes that may have occurred in these Palestinian territories since June 13, 2014. This allows the court to delve into the Israeli assault on Gaza in July and August that killed more than 2,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 72 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

The decision came after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in the absence of peace talks and against strong opposition from Israel and the United States, requested ICC membership, which will come into effect on April 1.

Israel, which like the United States does not belong to the ICC, hopes to dent funding for the court that is drawn from the 122 member-states in accordance with the size of their economies, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday.

“We will demand of our friends in Canada, in Australia and in Germany simply to stop funding it,” he told Israel Radio.

“This body represents no one. It is a political body,” he said. “There are a quite a few countries — I’ve already taken telephone calls about this — that also think there is no justification for this body’s existence.”

He said he would raise the matter with visiting Canadian counterpart John Baird on Sunday.

Another Israeli official said that a similar request was sent to Germany, traditionally one of the court’s strongest supporters, and would also be made to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is separately visiting Jerusalem and whose nation is the largest contributor to the ICC.

Meanwhile, Hamas on Saturday welcomed the ICC inquiry and said it was prepared to provide material for complaints against the Zionist state.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Saturday the group appreciated the move.

“What is needed now is to quickly take practical steps in this direction and we are ready to provide (the court) with thousands of reports and documents that confirm the Zionist enemy has committed horrible crimes against Gaza and against our people,” he said in a statement.

The US State Department, echoing Israel’s stances, said on Friday that it strongly disagreed with the move. The United States has argued that Palestine is not a state and therefore not eligible to join the ICC.

“We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor’s action,” spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement. “The place to resolve the differences between the parties is through direct negotiation, not unilateral actions by either side.”

An initial ICC inquiry could lead to war crimes charges against Israel, whether relating to the recent Gaza war or its 47-year-long occupation of the West Bank. It also occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005.

ICC membership also exposes the Palestinians to prosecution, possibly for rocket attacks on Israeli targets by armed groups operating out of Gaza.

The ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, is the court of last resort for its 122 member states, aiming to hold the powerful accountable for the most heinous crimes when national authorities are unable or unwilling to act.

But the ICC has struggled over its first decade, completing just three cases and securing two convictions. Critics say it has been vulnerable to political pressure and opposition from non-members the United States, China and Russia.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Freedom of speech: Long-time presenter Jim Clancy leaves CNN after ‘anti-Israel’ Twitter rant

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Jim Clancy

by RT

Veteran US TV journalist Jim Clancy has abruptly left the international news broadcaster after 34 years, following a seemingly tangential Twitter argument over Charlie Hebdo that escalated to a verbal war between Clancy and pro-Israel social media users.

“Jim Clancy is no longer with CNN. We thank him for more than three decades of distinguished service, and wish him nothing but the best,” said a terse statement from the Atlanta-headquartered network, which had sent Clancy as a reporter to Beirut, London, and Berlin before making him a senior anchor and contributor.

Although neither Clancy nor CNN revealed the reasons for the departure, almost all media outlets connected it with a somewhat incoherent Twitter spat that began in the wake of the fatal attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine.

“The cartoons NEVER mocked the Prophet. They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word. Pay attention,” tweeted Clancy on January 7 – from an account that has since been deleted – referring to the magazine’s editorial output.

The ironically-named anonymous pro-Israeli blogger Elder of Ziyon, and Oren Kessler, a Jewish-American Middle East analyst, both piped in with comments contradicting Clancy, saying that there had been explicitly anti-religious cartoons, and reminding the journalist that the magazine had been previously targeted by Islamists.

The debate then took an odd turn, with Clancy tweeting “Hasbara” – the name for Israel’s policy of spreading its message through mass media.

“This is great, a pro-Israel voice try [sic] to convince us that cartoonists were really anti-Muslim, and that’s why they were attacked. FALSE. These accounts are part of a campaign to do PR for Israel(including “Jews Making News”) but not HR (Human Rights.),” read one tweet.

Despite being met with incomprehension, Clancy then mysteriously tweeted “It’s called satire” before launching into a series of general anti-Israeli comments.

Several included mentions of Israeli officials being tried at the International Criminal Court, as well as Israeli settlements – a subject Clancy has covered extensively.

Perhaps the most offensive and telling tweet read “It’s my Friday night” – this was actually a Wednesday – and said “the Hasbara team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.”

The seemingly unprovoked outpouring sparked the ire of the Ruderman Family Foundation, a Jewish disabled people’s foundation.

Its head, Jay Ruderman, wrote an open letter to CNN, calling Clancy’s remarks “appalling” and asking why “in this day and age a senior anchor at CNN, a world leader in the media, would use a word such as ‘cripple,’ which is a derogatory term for people with disabilities.”

More and more media outlets picked up on the story, and Clancy first deleted several of the more inflammatory posts, and then eventually his account. However, screenshots of the tweets had been saved by Gawker and several other outlets.

By Friday, Clancy’s biography had been taken off the CNN website, and the journalist wrote a goodbye letter, saying “CNN has been a family to my own family,” and thanking it for providing “great adventures and achievements.”

17 Journalists Killed in Media’s Deadliest Year in Palestine by Israel

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media-death

by Al-Akhbar

2014 was the deadliest ever for journalists working in the Palestinian territories, a Gaza-based watchdog said on Thursday, months after a bloody war in the besieged enclave claimed the lives of more than 2,310 Gazans.

Meanwhile, a UN senior official on Thursday called on Israel to “immediately” unlock millions of dollars in taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that were withheld after it decided to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the late December.

“2014 was a black year for freedom of the press in Palestine… and it was the worst and bloodiest,” the Gaza Center for Press Freedom said in its annual report.

The report accused Israel of committing 295 separate “violations of press freedom” across the occupied Palestinian territories.

These resulted in the deaths of 17 journalists during the deadly war in July and August, including that of an Italian photographer working for Associated Press.

The report revealed Israel arrested or detained an unspecified number of journalists, denied freedom of movement to local media workers wanting to leave the blockaded Gaza Strip, and partially or completely destroyed 19 buildings housing editorial operations during its bombardment of the territory during the conflict.

According to the Gaza Center for Press Freedom, the PA also committed 82 violations of press freedom, including arresting or summoning 28 journalists, and injuring or assaulting 26 more.

For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip — by air, land and sea — with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

According to estimates based on preliminary information, as many as 96,000 Palestinian homes were damaged or destroyed during the days of hostilities, a higher figure than was previously thought.

Withheld tax revenues

On Thursday, UN Assistant Secretary-General Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen called on Israel to resume the transfer of $127 million tax revenues that were withheld after the PA decided to join the ICC.

He told the Security Council that the freeze of tax funds imposed on January 3 was in violation of the Oslo agreements between Israel and the PA.

The council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East was the first on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the failure of a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations Security Council in December.

On Thursday’s meeting, chief Palestinian delegate Riyad Mansour called the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues a “blatant act of reprisal and theft of Palestinian funds” and condemned Israel’s “rabid settlement colonization.”

The Israeli side has also condemned Palestinian moves, with Ambassador Ron Prosor accusing Palestinians of “running away from negotiations” and obstructing the peace process.

The United States and the European Union have criticized Israel’s retaliatory move in response to the Palestinian application to join the ICC, which could investigate war crimes complaints against Israel.

Israel-Sweden encounter

Meanwhile, Israel said on Thursday that Sweden’s foreign minister was not welcome for an official visit in the country, with relations strained over Stockholm’s recognition of Palestine.

The minister, Margot Wallstroem, last week postponed a trip to Israel indefinitely, with Israeli media reports suggesting that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman did not want to meet her.

Sweden’s decision in October to recognize the state of Palestine — the first major EU nation to do so — infuriated Israel, which temporarily recalled its ambassador to Stockholm.

“Do not wait to travel to Israel until the Swedish foreign minister comes here, because that could take a long time,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told public broadcaster Swedish Radio.

“The Swedish foreign minister would not have been given any official meetings in Israel if she had traveled here. What Sweden did was an utterly unfriendly action,” Nahshon added.

Wallstroem considered making the trip without official meetings but would have been without a security detail during the commemoration of Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg and other events, the radio said, without giving sources.

“It is basically an insult,” Per Joensson, an editor with the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, told AFP.

“That is not a way to treat a sovereign foreign minister, unless you really want to punish her.”

Despite the furore, Sweden said Wallstroem would visit Israel after its March 17 legislative elections.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

ICC Opens Preliminary Inquiry into Gaza War Crimes

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Palestinians walk past the rubble of buildings that were destroyed during the 51-day Israeli assault on Gaza on January 8, 2015 in Gaza City's al-Shujayeh neighborhood. AFP/Mohammed Abed

Palestinians walk past the rubble of buildings that were destroyed during the 51-day Israeli assault on Gaza on January 8, 2015 in Gaza City’s al-Shujayeh neighborhood. AFP/Mohammed Abed

by Al-Akhbar

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said on Friday they had opened a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis or Palestinians.

On January 1, a day before requesting ICC membership, the Palestinian Authority asked the prosecutors to investigate alleged crimes committed on territories under Palestinian control since June 13, 2014, the date on which Israel began its latest offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The 51-day Israeli assault on Gaza left at least 2,300 Palestinians dead, at least 70 percent of them civilians, and 96,000 houses destroyed. Reconstruction hasn’t started in the besieged enclave, leaving thousands vulnerable to elecricity cuts, water shortages and harsh winter weather.

“The office will conduct its analysis in full independence and impartiality,” the prosecution office said in a statement, adding that it was a matter of “policy and practice” to open a preliminary examination after receiving such a referral.

“The case is now in the hands of the court,” said Nabil Abuznaid, head of the Palestinian delegation in The Hague. “It is a legal matter now and we have faith in the court system.”

Israel denounced the ICC’s “scandalous” decision.

The sole purpose of the preliminary examination is to “try to harm Israel’s right to defend itself from terror,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.

He said the decision was “solely motivated by political anti-Israel considerations,” adding that he would recommend against cooperating with the probe.

On January 3, Israel froze the transfer of $127 million in tax funds it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for its application to join the ICC.

Israel has repeatedly delayed payments to the Palestinians to signal its displeasure with measures to achieve statehood and get accountability for Israeli war crimes.

It did so in 2012, after they won a UN vote recognizing Palestine as a non-member state. And it employed the tactic twice in 2011 – after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced reconciliation with Hamas and after the Palestinians won admission to UNESCO.

A preliminary examination, which could take many years, involves prosecutors assessing the strength of evidence of alleged crimes, whether the court has jurisdiction and how the “interests of justice” would best be served.

Only if that led to a full investigation could charges be brought against officials on either the Israeli or Palestinian side of the conflict.

An initial inquiry could lead to war crimes charges against Israel, whether relating to last conflict in Gaza or Israel’s 47-year-long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It also exposes the Palestinians to prosecution, possibly for rocket attacks by resistance groups operating out of Gaza.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Palestine becomes ICC observer

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A Palestinian man holds a placard in front of an Israeli soldier on December 27, 2014 on land near the West Bank village of Beit Fajjar, at the entrance of the Israeli settlement of Efrat, during a protest. AFP/Hazem Bader

A Palestinian man holds a placard in front of an Israeli soldier on December 27, 2014 on land near the West Bank village of Beit Fajjar, at the entrance of the Israeli settlement of Efrat, during a protest. AFP/Hazem Bader

by Al-Akhbar

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepted the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) request to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday.

Ban notified states that are party to the ICC of the decision late Tuesday, UN spokesman reported.

“The Secretary General has ascertained that the instruments received were in due and proper form before accepting them for deposit,” the UN statement read.

On January 2, the PA presented a formal request to join the Hague-based court in a move which opens the way for them to file suit against Israeli officials for war crimes in the occupied territories.

PA sought ICC membership after the UN Security Council rejected on December 31 PA’s resolution calling for the establishment of the state of Palestine within the 1967 borders.

On January 1, PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed onto 20 international conventions, including the ICC, giving the court jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian lands and opening up an unprecedented confrontation between the veteran peace negotiator and the Zionist State.

In retaliation for the ICC move, Israel announced on Saturday that it would withhold 500 million shekels ($125 million) in monthly tax funds that it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf, in a blow to Abbas’s cash-strapped government.

According to Shawan Jabarin, director of the Ramallah-based rights group al-Haq, the first case the Palestinians will refer to the ICC will be the crimes Israel committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip starting from June 13, 2014.

Cases referred to the ICC need “a very specific geographic location and timeframe,” Jabarin told AFP, saying the same date had been selected by a UN commission probing rights violations during the Gaza war and the period leading up to it.

For 51 days in summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip – by air, land and sea – with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

More than 2,310 Gazans, 70 percent of them civilians, were killed – and 10,626 injured – during unrelenting Israeli attacks on the besieged strip.

The Israeli offensive ended on August 26 with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire deal.

According to the UN, the Israeli military killed at least 495 Palestinian children in Gaza during “Operation Protective Edge.” The al-Mezan Center for Human Rights puts the number at 518, while the Palestinian Center for Human Rights puts it at 519. All three figures exceed the total number of Israelis, civilians and soldiers, killed by Palestinians in the last decade.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 3,106 Palestinian children were injured. The UN estimates that 1,000 children will suffer a permanent disability as a result of their injury.

The UN draft

Hamas said Monday that it was “totally opposed” to Abbas’ plans to re-submit to the UN Security Council a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Israel from the 1967 territories.

“Such a step would be political foolishness which plays a dangerous game with the destiny of our nation. Mahmoud Abbas and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority should completely stop this political foolishness,” Abu Zuhri said.

Similarly, senior Hamas official, Moussa Abu Marzouq, described the draft last week, as a “document of disgrace” which undermines Palestinian rights.

“The PA sold and continues to sell Palestinian land and rights,” Abu Marzouq said.

Hamas echoes numerous pro-Palestine activists who support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally. They argue that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-infamous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Israeli settlers uproot 5,000 olive trees, run over 15-year-old Palestinian

by

Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian teenager during on January 1, 2015 at Hawara checkpoint, east of the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestine. AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh

Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian teenager during on January 1, 2015 at Hawara checkpoint, east of the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestine. AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh

by Al-Akhbar

Zionist settlers uprooted on Thursday more than 5,000 olive tree saplings in agricultural lands east of the town of Turmusayya in the Ramallah district, locals said, a day after settlers ran over a Palestinian boy and burnt down a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank.

Awad Abu Samra, one of the land owners targeted, told Ma’an news agency that in the past week settlers raided the area and attacked olive trees on an almost daily basis.

The settlers uprooted the trees in a way that makes it impossible for Palestinian farmers to plant the trees again in the future, locals said, accusing the Zionists of pressuring Palestinians out of their lands.

Samra estimated that the settlers were able to uproot around 5,000 olive tree saplings, out of the 8,000 trees planted in honor of slain 55-year-old Palestinian Authority minister Ziad Abu Ein.

Abu Ein died on December 10 after Israeli Occupation Forces beat him on the chest with the butts of their rifles and their helmets in Turmsayya during a peaceful march marking Human Rights Day.

Abu Samra said that the settlers who carried out the attacks most likely came from the nearby illegal settlement of Adei Ad, an outpost of the Zionist-only settlement of Shilo, which was illegaly built on lands confiscated from local Palestinians.

Jamil al-Barghouthi, president of the Resistance Committee against the Wall and the Settlements, told Ma’an that the “barbaric act” occurred under the cover and protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Barghouthi, who lives in the area, said settlers frequently attack Palestinian farmers in a bid to force them out of their own land and seize it for illegal settlement building projects.

He stressed that the committee will replant thousands of olive trees and will provide full assistance to farmers to help them cultivate the land anew.

Israeli settlers and military forces regularly sabotage, burn and uproot hundreds of thousands of olive trees, which are highly symbolic for the Palestinian community.

Attacks on olive trees are a way to force Palestinians out of their homes and lands for illegal settlement construction projects, as the loss of a year’s crop can signal destitution for many.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

In order to build its apartheid wall and infrastructure for Zionist-only settle­ments, Israeli bulldozers plowed down more than 800,000 olive trees in the West Bank, the equivalent of bulldozing all of New York City’s Central Park 33 times.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is systematic and often abetted by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

In the last two weeks of 2014, there had been 320 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Three separate settler violence incidents were reported on December 31.

Israeli hate crimes against Palestinians

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy was injured after an Israeli settler ran him over in the Palestinian village of Tuqu south east of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem region emergency services official Mohammed Awad told Ma’an that Amir Majed Ahmed Suleiman, 10, was injured on his way to school after a Zionist settler ran him over with his car.

Israeli forces were deployed on the main road of the village but the settler immediately fled the area, Awad said.

He added that Suleiman was taken to the Beit Jala Governmental Hospital in Bethlehem for treatment.

The incident came only three days after an Israeli settler ran over a seven-year-old Palestinian boy from the village of Zif south of al-Khalil.

Recent months have seen a wave of hit-and-runs against Palestinians by Zionist settlers living in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

In October, a settler ran over two Palestinian children as they walked near near Ramallah, killing a 5-year-old Palestinian girl.

Meanwhile in a separate incident, a group of Israeli settlers set a Palestinian home on fire in the village of al-Deirat south of West Bank.

The mayor of Yatta, a nearby village, told Ma’an that the incident was “very dangerous and aimed to kill an entire family of seven, including five children.”

The mayor Moussa Makhamreh said that a group of settlers from the nearby Zionist-only settlement of Karmel broke the windows of Mahmoud Mohammed Jaber al-Adra’s house at around 3:00 am, throwing Molotov cocktails through the windows and spraying racist slogans on the walls.

The slogans read, ironically, “Death to Arabs” and “‘Respectfully Leave.”

The Jewish-only settlement of Karmel is notorious for its settlers’ violent and racist attacks and threats against local Palestinians.

The settlement lies almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military occupation since 1993.

Around 3,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Zionist settlements in the Yatta region, according to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The safety of these settlers is often given as an excuse for the forced displacement of Palestinians who live in nearby villages.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

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