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Kofi Annan urges media to refrain from myths, hate propaganda in message to international media seminar

13 June 2005


Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Shashi Tharoor, delivered a message from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, “Reinvigorating the Peace Process: The Role of International and Regional Actors in Facilitating a Comprehensive, Just and Lasting Peace in the Middle East in Cairo. “The people of the Middle East are now approaching a number of important turning points,” he said. With help from their regional and international partners, they can prevent a slide back into conflict and confrontation. And with help from responsible media — media that refrain from myths, stereotypes and hate propaganda –- they can avoid inflaming an already volatile climate.” 

Israel recruits Palestinian children to collaborate

12 June 2005


In the occupied Palestinian territories, a collaborator is understood as any Palestinian who cooperates with the Israeli security forces. Recruiting Palestinians as collaborators is perceived in the OPT as part of Israel’s policy to maintain control over the territory and the Palestinian people. Most cases of collaboration are found in interrogation centers and prisons where detainees are put under extreme physical and mental pressure to collaborate. Palestinian children often find themselves under such pressure. The Israeli intelligence services continually seek to recruit children as informants. 

Hamas: EU, US want to talk

Khalid Amayreh 8 June 2005


Hamas says it is being approached by European representatives seeking dialogue on the resistance movement’s role in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Under heavy Israeli and American pressure, Hamas, including its political wing, was placed on the EU list of terrorist groups two years ago. The US had classified Hamas as a “terrorist group” several years earlier, citing resistance attacks, including suicide bombings, by Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, against Israeli civilian and military targets. However, the growing popularity of Hamas, which found expression in recent elections in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has prompted European policy planners to have second thoughts. 

Palestinian rights group critical of Abbas' support for death penalty

12 June 2005


The Palestinian Authority has carried out four death sentences this morning in Gaza City. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is gravely concerned about this development, the first executions since 2002, and reiterates that the death penalty constitutes a violation of the right to life. It is a cruel and inhumane punishment that does not serve to deter crimes. The rights group calls upon President Abbas again not to convert death sentences and the Palestinian Legislative Council to repeal legislation related to the death penalty. The PA carried out the death sentences handed down against four prisoners convicted of murder and other crimes between 1995 and 2000. 

Photostory: Gate Bethlehem

M. El Fassed-Vermeer 11 June 2005


Surrounded by Israel’s Wall on two sides and with many restricted roads and roadblocks, Bethlehem has become a prison. The illegal barrier cuts through several kilometers of Bethlehem. The Wall has already disrupted the lives of thousands of Palestinians who have been cut off from their lands and have been prevented from reaching other villages and population centers. To a visitor the Wall erected at the entrance of the city is the most visible manifestation of its physical separation from other towns and villages. For Palestinian residents of Bethlehem, the Wall is the latest of a series of restrictions that have been implemented over the past decade and which cut the historical road that connects Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Hebron in the south. 

You have to imagine what it feels like

David Shulman Silwan 11 June 2005


We are in the city of David, literally—the oldest part of Jerusalem, below the Temple Mount, not far from the Siloam Tunnel carved in the living rock, almost three millennia ago, by King Hezekiah. Today they call it Silwan: some 50,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites live here, nearly all with blue Jerusalem identity-cards. A few days ago the municipality stuck demolition notices on 88 houses in this neighborhood; some 1000 innocent people are about to lose everything. The ostensible rationale is the creation of an archaeological park in the heart of this Arab quarter. 

The three monkeys of the Israeli media

Eve Sabbagh 9 June 2005


For nearly 40 years, Israelis have known Haim Yavin’s face. Now they also know his opinions. Whether that is leading to any deeper understanding of his message about the functioning of the Israeli media is less certain. “Since 1967, we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers suppressing another people.” It is in such terms Yavin has been expressing his disgust for the Israeli occupation in the five-week series of reports “A Land of Settlers” currently being broadcast on Israeli Channel Two. When Yavin “came out of the closet” and affirmed publicly his political views on the occupation it sent shock waves through his audience. 

The Sound of Music

Toine van Teeffelen Bethlehem, Palestine 8 June 2005


The main Jerusalem-Bethlehem checkpoint to the Wall concerns a rather desolate area with few people walking and perhaps some cars waiting in front of the checkpoint. It is nowadays so difficult to enter Jerusalem that you do not need to wait long in the queue. Even the soldiers are less stressed and unfriendly than elsewhere, just lazy and indifferent behind their table in the shadow of the hot sun. I’ve got used to walking along those two or three hundred meters between the checkpoint and the Wall. You see little boys who try to sell their chewing gum, always in vain. In the past you could take a taxi after passing the checkpoint from Jerusalem, but now the area is empty of taxis. 

Hany Abu-Assad key guest at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

7 June 2005


The Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (1961, Nazareth) will be the key guest at the 18th IDFA. In this year’s Top 10, Hany Abu-Assad will present his favourite documentaries, and the festival will screen his own films as well. Hany Abu-Assad achieved international renown with films such as Nazareth 2000 (2000), Rana’s Wedding (2002) and the much talked-about documentary Ford Transit (2002). In 1991, he came to IDFA for the first time as a debuting director’s assistant on Rashid Masharawi’s Dar o Dur (1991, Palestine), which was screened that year in the Palestine-Israel Retrospective. His most recent film, Paradise Now (2005), won several prizes at the Berlin Film Festival this past February. 

Israel resumes assassination of Palestinians

7 June 2005


This morning, 7 June 2005, Israeli forces extra-judicially killed Muraweh Khaled Ekmayel, 30, from Qabatya village southeast of Jenin.  The victim was hit by several live bullets throughout the body after which the IOF bulldozed the house where he hid over him.  Israeli forces also killed an innocent bystander while they were shelling the house. According to eyewitnesses, he was killed while he was painting walls of a house near the Abu al-Rub’s home that had been surrounded by the Israeli army. Israeli forces wounded three civilians, including a child. They were all hit by live ammunition. Extra-judicial killings constitute a war crime.