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Weekly report on human rights violations

14 July 2005


This week Israeli forces killed two children and a fifth Palestinian was pronounced clinically dead. Israeli armed forces conducted 27 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, including complete military control in Tulkarm. Israeli forces raided homes and arrested 30 Palestinians, including three children. Israeli forces turned six homes into military sites. Israel continues to impose a total siege on the occupied Palestinian terrritories. A number of roads and border crossings in the Gaza Strip remain closed. Israeli forces arrested a number of Palestinians at various checkpoints in the West Bank. In some areas, Israeli forces imposed curfews. 

UN Meeting on Middle East Peace concludes with Adoption of Action Plan (2/2)

13 July 2005


Civil society organizations committed to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and to achieving the Palestinians’ still unrealized rights, including the right of self-determination, today identified the coming year to inaugurate a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation and comply with international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions, as the United Nations International Conference in Support of Middle East Peace concluded this evening in Paris. Through the adoption by acclamation of an Action Plan, civil society participants committed themselves to internationalism and the belief that the United Nations remained central to ending the occupation. 

UN Meeting on Middle East Peace concludes with Adoption of Action Plan (1/2)

13 July 2005


Civil society organizations committed to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and to achieving the Palestinians’ still unrealized rights, including the right of self-determination, today identified the coming year to inaugurate a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation and comply with international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions, as the United Nations International Conference in Support of Middle East Peace concluded this evening in Paris. Through the adoption by acclamation of an Action Plan, civil society participants committed themselves to internationalism and the belief that the United Nations remained central to ending the occupation. 

All Palestinians have a right to Palestine

14 July 2005


“Abu Mazen declared that there was nothing to prevent the Arab countries from taking a sovereign decision to offer citizenship to refugees to anyone who wants. This of course, is with the guarantee that such a measure would in no way impinge on the legal right of refugees to return, to restitution and to compensation.” Palestine Report Online interviews the director general of the PLO Refugees Affairs Departmet, Saji Salameh, on President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent comments on granting Arab citizenship to Palestinian refugees. “There are those who have American, Canadian and British passports, but this does not impinge on their legal rights, which are guaranteed by international law.” 

"What kind of army does this?"

Zachary Wales Birzeit 14 July 2005


On Wednesday night, the relative tranquillity of Birzeit came to an end when two unmarked armoured jeeps rolled lazily into the town center. Three Israeli commandos emerged from one of the vehicles and entered a corner store. “What are you people doing in Birzeit?” the shopkeeper asked. “We’ve come to fight for Israel,” a soldier responded. Although Birzeit is a peaceful village of approximately 5,000 farmers, storekeepers and university students in the hills north of Ramallah, the arrival of the Israeli convoy wasn’t a complete surprise. 

From Montreal to Ein el-Hilweh: Deportation, Destitution & Dignity

Stefan Christoff 13 July 2005


In November 2003 Ahmed Abdel Majeed, a stateless Palestinian born and raised in Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, was deported from Canada. The distance between Montreal and Lebanon stretches thousands of kilometers over oceans and continents, but is only a short distance in Ahmed’s eyes and living memory of an existence shaped by the daily struggle of statelessness. Today Ahmed resides in Ein el-Hilweh, with an estimated 80 000 other stateless Palestinians in the country’s largest refugee camp located on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese city of Saida. 

Kofi Annan speaks with civil society representatives in support of Middle East peace

12 July 2005


“We count on you to remain committed until the Palestinian people realize their aspirations for an independent state, and until Israel and all States in the region can live side by side in a peaceful and prosperous Middle East”, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told civil society representatives today at the opening of the United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace. Speaking on Annan’s behalf, Sergei Ordzhonikidze told the meeting that despite some progress on the ground, however, the world community remained concerned about the continuing expansion of settlements, construction of the barrier in the West Bank, and acts of violence, the Secretary-General said. 

Second child from Balata refugee camp dies

12 July 2005


On Monday Balata residents endured their second child martyr’s funeral in five days. Fourteen year old Noor Faris Njem was shot in the head late last Wednesday evening when the Israeli army came to Balata Refugee Camp and, without warning, opened fire on unarmed civilians. Noor (meaning light) was peering round a wall to see if the jeep was still there when a soldier shot him in the top of his head. After the best efforts of medics, he died on Sunday afternoon, the second child to die from injuries inflicted by the Israeli army that night. In retaliation for Noor’s shooting, two sixteen year old fighters lay in wait to fire at the army when they entered the camp. Khalid Mohammed Msyme was shot dead and the other boy is critically injured. 

One year after ICJ ruling, Israel OKs Wall in Jerusalem

Arjan El Fassed 10 July 2005


One year after the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in which it made clear that the construction of the Wall and the settlements were illegal, the Israeli cabinet called for “the immediate completion of the security fence [sic] in the Jerusalem area”. With this decision, Israel, once again, defies international law and the advisory of opinion of the ICJ, backed by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which ruled that Israel should not only immediately stop with its construction, but also begin dismantling them and to pay reparations to those who had lost their property as the result of the Wall’s construction. 

One year on: We are No Longer Able to see the Sun Set

Andrew N. Rubin 9 July 2005


Last year the International Court of Justice issued its opinion on the Wall Israel is constructing in the West Bank. The opinion, argues Andrew Rubin, should open up other arenas of resistance. Whatever the wall signifies for the precarious political and existential future of Palestinians, one thing is certain: it is part of Israel’s wilful repudiation of Palestinian existence. It is an attempt to make Palestinians physically invisible from the experience of Israeli daily life. New political and legal strategies of resistance may take the forms of various instruments of financial, political and diplomatic pressure, including boycotts, embargoes, human rights taxes, sanctions, and other restrictions on the flow of Israeli capital.