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Gazans want to protect homes, say rights activists

22 November 2006


Palestinian human rights activists have said that using citizens as human shields to protect the homes of suspected militants is wrong, but said Gazans are simply protecting each other and their houses because they believe no one else will. The comments came after the US-based watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement on Wednesday condemning Palestinian armed factions for encouraging civilians to gather in and around suspected militants’ homes targeted by the Israeli military. Jaber Oshaah of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza told IRIN that he agreed with HRW’s statement but could understand why this strategy was being used. 

Accident reveals newly laid Israeli mines, UN says

26 November 2006


The Israeli army sowed landmines in south Lebanon during its summer conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the United Nations said on 25 November. The claims came after British and Bosnian bomb disposal experts each had a foot amputated after a newly laid Israeli-made anti-personnel landmine exploded on Friday, according to a statement by the UN’s Mine Action Coordination Centre in South Lebanon (UNMACC SL). Israel has not yet established whether its forces laid landmines in Lebanon during its recent conflict, officials speaking on condition of anonymity at the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) told IRIN. 

Significant Victory on Boycott Front in Ireland

Seán Clinton 26 November 2006


On Saturday 25th November the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) mounted a successful picket outside the entrance to the Limerick branch of the Atlantic Homecare chain store in Ireland. After refusing to move the picket when approached by security guards the protestors eventually agreed to call off their action after the store manger removed from sale all of the Israeli manufactured Keter Plastic products in the store. Within two hours of the commencing the action IPSC members witnessed pallet loads of the Israel made plastic storage boxes, wheelbarrows and garden sheds being taken off the sales floor. 

PCHR Calls for Increased Efforts Against Gender Violence in Palestine

26 November 2006


This year, the international day for the elimination of violence against women comes at a time of continuous suffering for Palestinian women due to the violence perpetrated against them by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Palestinian society. Palestinian women are subjected to serious human rights violations at the hands of IOF troops that include killing, death of kin, destruction of houses, forced migration, detention, and humiliation at military checkpoints even for pregnant women in labor, some of whom died at these checkpoints. A total of 33 women and 116 children have been killed so far this year, most of them in the Gaza Strip. 

Syria is a convenient fallguy for Gemayel's death

Jonathan Cook 26 November 2006


Commentators and columnists are agreed. Pierre Gemayel’s assassination must have been the handiwork of Syria because his Christian Phalangists have been long-time allies of Israel and because, as industry minister, he was one of the leading figures in the Lebanese government’s anti-Syria faction. President Bush thinks so too. Case, apparently, settled. Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel — even from within his own party — pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon. 

The Palestinians: Who's their Mandela?

25 November 2006


An escape from these prisons, to something other than semi-free statelets, is suggested by Ali Abunimah. But it is an escape to Utopia: a single state of Israel/Palestine where lion and lamb nuzzle down together. Impossible, probably. On the other hand, argues Mr Abunimah, if South Africa could break out of seemingly impossible conflict to find peace and reconciliation, why not Israel? Some 5m Jews and some 5m Arabs, including Israel’s sizeable Arab minority, confront each other in land that is controlled, directly or indirectly, by Israel. Splitting the land between them (albeit on a 78% to 22% ratio) seemed a good idea at the time, but its time may have run out. 

Aftermath of the Beit Hanoun Siege and Massacre

Bill Dienst Beit Hanoun, Palestine 26 November 2006


Between the 2nd and 8th of November 2006, the town of Beit Hanoun (population 28,000) was under a siege and blockade by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Beit Hanoun is located in the Northern Gaza Strip, immediately south of the Apartheid Wall around Gaza and Erez Crossing with Israel. The besieged residents of Beit Hanoun suffered widespread collective punishment, such as a cut off of electricity and water. House to house searches were conducted, and males over the age of 16 years were summarily rounded up, imprisoned and interrogated. Many families were forced to huddle into rooms away from windows because Israeli snipers were on the rooftops killing people. 

One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

15 October 2006


Peace does not require that both sides share an “agreed narrative” of what happened in 1948, as some commentators have suggested. But, Abunimah urges, “It is unacceptable for a Palestinian to draw on his history of oppression and suffering to justify harming innocent Israeli civilians,” just as it is for an Israeli to use the idea of a covenant between God and Abraham to force Palestinians out of their ancestral home. Indeed, he adds, the success of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and of Belgian federalism has not hinged on agreed narrative; “changing society,” he writes, “does not require us to forget or revise the past.” 

Carmel Agrexco's UK headquarters in Hayes blockaded

25 November 2006


Early this morning, Palestine solidarity activists blockaded the Israeli Company Carmel Agrexco’s UK headquarters. This was part of a non-violent protest against recurrent breaches of human rights and international law in the occupied territories of Palestine. Carmel is complicit in war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (ICC Act). They import fresh produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The purpose of the protest is to highlight Agrexco’s illegal activity in court. The action follows a legal warning letter to Carmel stating clearly why they are in breach of the law. 

Financial boycott sends Palestinian poverty numbers soaring, finds UN report

24 November 2006


More than 1 million Palestinians, or one in four inhabitants of the occupied territories, are now mired in deep poverty as living standards deteriorate dramatically following the economic boycott of the Palestinian Authority this year, according to a United Nations report released today. The report from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) found that the number of people living in “deep poverty” - defined as an inability to meet basic human consumption needs - soared by 64 per cent during the first half of 2006. An average of 1,069,200 Palestinians now live in deep poverty, up from 650,800 in the second half of last year.