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Weekly report on human rights violations

10 September 2003

This week Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians, including 2 children. Three of the victims were killed in extra-judicial assassinations. Israeli forces carried out two failed attempts to assassinate the founder and two senior leaders of Hamas. Israel continued indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, killing two Palestinian civilians and wounding dozens of others. Israeli forces conducted a number of invasions into Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A number of homes were raided and Israel continued to arbitrarily arrest Palestinians. More than 100 donums of agricultural land were razed and 1 home was demolished in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces demolished two homes in the West Bank. Israel continued the construction of the apartheid wall. Israeli forces have imposed a comprehensive closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

21 Septembers Ago

Laurie King 16 September 2003


“A man in his sixties, with kind eyes and a ready smile, waits until I am comfortably situated before he approaches me, pulls up his shirt, and points to an area just to the left of his navel. ‘lammasini hon, sittnaa!’ he quietly requests, ‘Touch me here, Ma’am!’ His middle-aged daughters sit silently around me, their eyes focused on nothing in particular as I gingerly comply with their father’s request. Touching the damp flesh of his round white belly, I am shocked to feel the hard, spherical mass of a bullet trapped in his stomach muscles.” On the 21st anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, EI’s Laurie King-Irani reflects on the search for international justice on a journey from Beirut to Brussels. 

Ramallah: Arafat's Compound

2 May 2002


On 2 May 2002, Israeli forces withdrew from Arafat’s Compound after they had surrounded the area for more than a month during “Operation Defensive Shield”. On that same day, EI’s Arjan El Fassed and Annet Meeuws filmed the “Muqata”, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. They managed, like hundreds of others to enter the compound and walk around its premises. 

Ramallah: Arafat's Compound (2)

6 September 2002


On 6 September 2002, EI’s Arjan El Fassed filmed the “Muqata”, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Arafat’s compound sustained more damage from Israeli bulldozers after a second round of destruction. The siege on Arafat’s headquarters had been severed the past few weeks. 

Gush Shalom activist Uri Avnery to act as human shield for Arafat

14 September 2003


“I am willing to put myself at risk and serve as a human shield, in order to foil Prime Minster Sharon’s intention to murder the leader of the Palestinian People. So are many of my my fellows in the Israeli peace movement” declared the veteran peace activist Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom (the Israeli Peace Bloc) upon his arrival at the Presidential Compound in Ramallah. “To a person like me, who deeply cares about Israel’s future, there is nothing more important to do at this moment than do everything — and I do mean everything — in my power to prevent such a calamity. PM Sharon, Defence Minster Mofaz and their generals should know that if they send their soldiers in here, there will be Israeli peace activists here to bar their way” said Avnery, who mentioned that already last year, a group of Gush Shalom activists had spent the night at this compound, during a previous round of threats by Sharon against Arafat. 

Persistent Partners for Peace squeezes a correction out of the New York Times Magazine

Michael F. Brown 14 September 2003


A Partners for Peace letter was published in the New York Times Magazine of September 14, 2003. The letter appeared after weeks of effort to have the Magazine acknowledge that the illegal settlement of Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim) is not part of Israel. Michael Brown reports. 

UNCTAD's assistance to the Palestinian people

28 July 2003


By 2003, three years of continuous economic decline and widespread devastation had transformed the occupied Palestinian territory into a “war-torn economy”. The economic legacies of war identified in comparative research on conflict economies are relevant in recognizing the true nature of the Palestinian economic predicament: structural deterioration and sustained negative growth; declining export capacity and emergence of an unsustainable trade gap; and greater external dependence and extended poverty. 

What the fatality statistics tell us

Amira Hass 3 September 2003

Against the background of shock and disgust at the mass terror attack on the Jerusalem bus on August 19, and the fear of advanced Qassam rocket attacks, the government of Israel energetically renewed its policy of targeted killings. From August 21 through yesterday, September 1, Air Force fighters killed 11 Hamas activists in six targeted assassinations in crowded central locations. Four other Palestinians were killed in those actions, among them a young girl and an old man, and dozens were injured. The threatened revenge attack has not occurred. Is this not proof that targeted killings are the way to go? Amira Hass writes in Ha’aretz. 

Twilight Zone: Birth and death at the checkpoint

Gideon Levy 12 September 2003

Rula was in the last stages of labor. Daoud says the soldiers at the checkpoint wouldn’t let them through, so his wife hid behind a concrete block and gave birth on the ground. A few minutes later, the baby girl died. They wanted to call her Mira. All their children have names that begin with M, from Mohammed to Meida, their youngest daughter. They borrowed baby clothes from Rula’s sister - their financial situation after three years of unemployment made buying new clothes out of the question - and they packed a bag to be ready for the birth. Now they are beside themselves with grief. Rula doesn’t say a word and Daoud can’t keep the words from pouring out. Gideon Levy writes in Ha’aretz.