Yesterday evening, Jefal Mahmoud Ayesh (25) and Wedad Ghazi Abu Mustafa (28), from Balata refugee camp near Nablus, were extra-judicially executed in two separate crimes perpetrated by armed Palestinian groups. The perpetrators claimed that the victims had been informants for the Israeli security services. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 15:30 on Tuesday, 30 May 2006, a number of gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, shot Jefal Ayesh near the northwestern entrance of Balata refugee camp. Read more about 2 Citizens Killed by Gunmen in Nablus
Of the 250,000 Israeli citizens living in over a hundred West Bank settlements, (not counting 200,000 settlers in occupied East Jerusalem), only one-third will face evacuation, says Leggett. “Many may be offered relocation to the large settlement blocs Israel plans to retain. … Perhaps the most sensitive issue will be the question of Jerusalem. Palestinians claim the city as their future capital and say that must be reflected in any resolution to the Mideast’s core conflict. The U.S. has generally supported the Palestinian position during previous peace negotiations.” Read more about Ehud Olmert's "convergence plan"
20 May 2006- For many months now, people assumed that the militant arm of the Islamist movement Hamas, the Ezzeddin Al Qassam Brigades, had stopped its operations by orders of the political echelons of the movement. But recent events in Gaza City demonstrate that, in fact, this militant group is more active than ever. Its agenda, however, has changed. On 23 April, several Brigade members intervened to protect Palestinian Health Minister Basem Naim, from the Hamas-led government, when he was assaulted by several gunmen at his office in Gaza City. Read more about Hamas's militant arm turns to fighting internal chaos
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the attempted abduction of its employee Ashraf Nasrallah (lawyer) by gunmen near the court compound in Gaza City. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 12:15 on Sunday, 28 May 2006, a number of gunmen traveling in a white car intercepted Ashraf, a 34-year-old resident of the Rimal area of Gaza City and a lawyer at the Centre, as he was leaving the court compound in Wahda Street, Gaza City. Three gunmen walked up to Ashraf and, at gunpoint, told him to come with them. Read more about PCHR Condemns the Attempted Abduction of Ashraf Nasrallah in Gaza
On Sunday, 28 May 2006, a number of attacks occurred in the Gaza Strip, as the security chaos in the area continues. One citizen was kidnapped in Khan Yunis, another was injured by gunfire in Gaza, and armed clashes broke out between members of the same clan in Greater Abasan. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 13:00 on Sunday, gunmen kidnapped Naser Zere’i S’laiyeh (30), while he and his wife were about to take a taxi in Khan Yunis. He was brought to an undisclosed location. Read more about Internal Violence Continues in the Gaza Strip
Thaer was awaiting his family to visit from Beit Lekya, his village that is besieged by Israel’s Separation Wall. He was not sure who exactly would be his visitors this time or what kind of news they would bring. He was busy in his cell thinking of how to receive his family. He never thought in his worst nightmares that, instead of the joy of receiving his family, he would receive the news of his daughter’s fatal injury which led to her death. At home, Thaer’s daughter Rafida was rushing to her fate. She woke early in the morning and then woke her mother, wanting to get an early start on the long trip to her father. Read more about Crushed by Gate of Occupation
In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel’s Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges’ decision, in the words of the country’s normally restrained Haaretz daily, was “shameful”. By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel — what in legal parlance is termed “family unification” — did not violate rights enshrined in the country’s Basic Laws. Read more about Israel’s marriage ban closes the gates to Palestinians
Subdued commemorations are happening all over the rocky hillsides of occupied Palestine; there are the throngs of children waving the colorful and banned Palestinian flag which whips in the hot springtime wind, the busloads of people trying to travel to city centers to hear stories of the Nakba, only to be stopped at checkpoints and ordered back to their dusty refugee camps and shrinking villages. 58 years after the Zionist militias lay siege to over 450 Palestinian towns and villages, Palestinian refugees are still waiting, holding the iron keys that unlock the doors to homes that no longer exist. Read more about Shadows and Distortions
There is no money to pay the 150,000 public servants within the “West Bank” and Gaza Strip, including doctors, nurses and other health workers. Most have not been paid for two months. There is very little money in circulation. High quality fruit that has been grown for export has been allowed in only small amounts through Karnai, the commercial checkpoint. No other exports are passing through, and little is coming in. That includes drugs, spare parts for dialysis machines and other necessary medical equipment and supplies. There are no drugs and anaesthetic agents left in the hospitals. Shafa hospital, the main public hospital, was threatened with closure last week. Read more about Siege of 1.4 Million Souls in Gaza vs. International Law
With his coalition partners on board, Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert is plotting his next move: a partial withdrawal from the West Bank over the next few years which he and his government will declare as the end of the occupation and therefore also any legitimate grounds for Palestinian grievance. From here on in, Israel will portray itself as the benevolent provider of a Palestinian state — on whatever is left after most of Israel’s West Bank colonies have been saved and the Palestinian land on which they stand annexed to Israel. Read more about Israel’s road to ‘convergence’ began with Rabin
