All Content

Weekly report on human rights violations

10 July 2003


This week Israeli forces killed 2 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, fired at Palestinian civilians from miltary checkpoints, conducted a series of incursions into Palestinian areas, razed agricultural land in the Gaza Strip, indiscriminately shelled Palestinian residential areas, arrested Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, and continued the siege on Palestinian communities. 

A story from the heart of Israel's secret prison

Mohammad Daraghmeh 9 July 2003


Despite spending a long time in prison (38 days of continuous torture), Bashar Joudallah (50 years old) from Nablus does not remember much from the place except black walls, or maybe grey, he doesn’t remember, a “modern” interrogation room and sounds of planes landing and taking off in a nearby place. Bashar did not know much about the prison he was in except after he was transferred to other prisons such as ‘Majido’ and ‘Ofer’, where he was detained for 3 months. Other detainees later explained to him that he was in one of the secret prisons located in distant areas, used to for interrogation with detainees with serious accusations. Mohammad Daraghmeh writes in Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam. 

Another six ISM activists arrested

10 July 2003


Six international peaceworkers participating in The ISM Freedom Summer in Palestine campaign were arrested this afternoon in the city of Nablus, on the West Bank. The group had removed 2 earthen roadblocks in the Nablus area and were working on removing the 3rd today. All 6 activists arrested by the Israeli military were handcuffed and transported by Israeli bus to Ariel police station. 

The holy war Israel wants

Jonathan Cook 11 July 2003


The inhabitants of Nazareth, Israel’s only Arab city, often talk of the ‘invisible occupation’: although they rarely see police — let alone soldiers — on their streets, they are held in a vise-like grip of Israeli control just as much as their ethnic kin in neighbouring Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus are. Last week, more than 500 heavily armed police officers stormed Nazareth’s city centre at dawn, arresting a handful of Muslim clerics and demolishing the foundations of a mosque that has been making headlines since a “holy tent” was first erected in 1998 at the site of the grave of Shihab ad-Deen, the nephew of Salah ad-Deen.” Jonathan Cook files an exclusive analysis for EI from Nazareth. 

Needed: A new cognitive road map for peace

George E. Irani and Laurie King 6 July 2003

“Perusing the Middle East map today, we find a region strewn with populations traumatized by decades, if not centuries, of suffering. Unless they are helped in overcoming their traumas, all talk of peace that does not begin with a search for justice and an honest acknowledgement of past wrongs is a waste of time.” Political scientist George E. Irani and EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani emphasize the need for a moral and legal basis for peace-making in the Middle East in the pages of Beirut’s Daily Star.