International Volunteer Shot in Gaza by Israeli Forces

Israeli forces shoot unarmed demonstrators in Gazan ‘buffer zone’

Posted on: April 24, 2010, ISM Gaza

El Maghazi, Deir Al Balah, Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories, 24th April 2010, 12PM – At a peaceful nonviolent demonstration against the forceful cessation of farming within what Israel defines as a “buffer zone,” which was attended by 150 people, two Palestinians demonstrators and one International activist were shot. Israeli soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators from the border fence. Nidal Al Naji (18) was shot in the right thigh. Hind Al Akra (22) was shot in the stomach and is undergoing emergency surgery. Bianca Zimmit (28) from Malta was filming the demonstration when she was shot in her left thigh. The wounded are currently being treated in Al Aqsa Hospital.

Shortly after 11 a.m., women and men, including 6 ISM activists, marched from Al Maghazi towards the Israeli fence closing off the Gaza strip. After being met with live ammunition upon cresting a ridge, some demonstrators continued walking forward. This group included six women, two ISM activists and 20 men. The 20 male demonstrators reached the border fence. Zimmit was shot while filming the demonstration between the ridge and the fence, at a distance of roughly 80-100 meters. Hind Al Akra, also standing between the ridge and the fence, was shot in the stomach, and Niadal al Naji was shot in the leg near the fence. Demonstrators carried the wounded back across rough terrain to taxis for transport to Al-Aqsa Hospital.

The demonstrations are held in protest against the arbitrary decision by Israel to instate a 300 metre buffer zone as no-go area for Palestinians where “shoot to kill” policy is implemented. People have been shot regularly as far as 2 kilometres away from the border. Popular Campaign for the Security in the Buffer Zone, an umbrella organization that includes organizations representing farmers and Gaza residents living near the border, and also a number of political parties are present at many of these demonstrations.

Those venturing to the border regions to gather rubble and steel do so as a result of the siege on Gaza which, along with Israel’s 23 day winter war on Gaza, has decimated Gaza’s economy, including 95 percent of Gaza’s factories and businesses, according to the United Nations. Additionally, these recycled construction materials are vital in Gaza where the Israeli-led siege bans all but under 40 items from entering.

The siege prevents vitally needed construction materials from entering Gaza, where over 6,400 houses were destroyed or severely damaged in the Israeli war on Gaza, and nearly 53,000 sustained lesser damages. Hospitals and medical centres, schools, kindergartens and mosques are among the other buildings destroyed and damaged during the Israeli war on Gaza.

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What threat did I pose the Israeli soldiers?

The latest in a growing number of non-violent protesters shot by well-armed Israeli soldiers, three unarmed demonstrators –two Palestinians and one international–were injured this afternoon by Israeli soldiers’ firing with live ammunition at a protest east of El Meghazi, central Gaza Strip. One week prior, Mahmoud Shawa, 19, was shot just below his knee by an Israeli soldier while demonstrating near the Nahal Oz crossing, eastern Gaza. March 30, four Palestinians were shot by armed Israeli soldiers while participating in non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone”. Three of the four were injured by bullets or bullet shrapnel to their legs, while the fourth was shot in the head.

*[photo: Emad Badwan]

Bianca Zammit, 28, from Malta was one of three injured by the Israeli soldiers’ shooting today. Zammit, an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) colleague was standing roughly 3 metres to my left, both of us roughly 50 metres from the Green Line border fence separating Gaza and Israel. At the time that Zammit was shot, she was filming the Israeli soldiers’ assault with live ammunition on the unarmed Palestinian protesters, mainly youths, in front of us, who had run up to post flags on the border fence and re-claim the land Palestinians have been run off of by the unilateral Israeli declaration of a no-go zone.

In theory, this “buffer zone” is 300 metres, running from south to north on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border. In reality, the off-limits area annexes far more than the 300 metre band of land the Israeli authorities state are off-limits: Palestinian civilians have been killed and injured by Israeli shooting and shelling up to 2 km from the border. As well, workers gathering stones and steel for re-sale for construction purposes are routinely abducted by Israeli soldiers and taken into Israeli detention. These people have been driven by siege-induced poverty and desperation to this low-paying work in the border regions.

Shortly before Zammit was shot, a young Palestinian woman –Hind al Akra, 22– participating in the protest was hit by shrapnel from an Israeli-fired bullet which struck nearby her. The shrapnel lodged in her stomach. At the time of treatment in Deir al Balah’s Al Aqsa hospital, it was deemed that Akra would likely need surgery to remove the shrapnel from her abdomen.

*[photo: Emad Badwan]

The first to be shot today was 18 year old Nidal al Naql, a teen among those nearest the fence. He was targeted in his right thigh. Thankfully, the bullet missed any artery–the terrain of the area is rolling, rough ground, making the evacuations of the injured more time-consuming and difficult.

*[photo: Rada Daniell]

*[photo: Rada Daniell]: a remote-controlled machine gun tower, one of many along the border fence used to shoot at Palestinians, including farmers, workers and civilians on their land.

*[photo: Max Ajl]

*[photo: Rada Daniell]: Nidal al Naql is carried off after being shot by an Israeli soldier.

*[photo: Rada Daniell]: Bianca Zammit is carried off after being targeted by an Israeli soldier.

*[photo: Rada Daniell] Bianca, after having been treated, is visited by Mohammed Ot’ti, one of four demonstrators shot by Israeli soldiers during non-violent Land Day protests on March 30, 2010.

Like those youths shot and injured on Land Day, and the youth of last week, Zammit says when she is healed and able to walk, she will return to the demos, as will the Palestinians, every week, raising their voices against the annexation of their land and targeting of civilians.

“What threat did I pose the Israeli soldiers? What threat did any of us pose them?”

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Protester critically injured by live Israeli fire at Gaza rally

Published Saturday 24/04/2010 (updated) 25/04/2010 20:56

More images from Ma'an News

Gaza – Ma'an – Six people were injured, one seriously, by live fire from Israeli forces as Gaza residents and international solidarity activists gathered in the central Strip on Saturday to protest the enforcement of the no go zone.

Eyewitnesses confirmed early security source reports, saying first three, then six were injured, one seriously as protesters marched with Palestinian flags towards the buffer zone area enforced by Israel around the Gaza border.

"The non-violent rally approached the border area to protest the creation of a buffer zone along the borders between Israel and the Gaza Strip," rally coordinator Mahmoud Az-Ziq said.

Coordinator of medical services in the Gaza Strip Adham Abu Silmiyya said three of the six injured were evacuated to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, with one man in serious condition.

Coordinator of Beit Hanoun popular committee Saber Az-Za'aneen identified the injured foreign activist as 28-year-old Bianca Zimmit from Malta. He said she was hit by live fire in the foot, and confirmed that she was one of the three evacuated to hospital.

A statement from the International Solidarity Movement said Zimmit was shot while filming the demonstration, at a distance of approximately 80-100 meters.

The statement identified the other two hospitalized victims as Nidal Al Naji, 18, who the group said was shot in the right thigh, and Hind Al-Akra, 22, who was shot in the stomach and has undergone emergency surgery.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed shots were fired in the area, but said they were "warning shots meant to drive away" the group of protesters. He noted they were "very close" the the border fence, and area he described as a "combat zone."

The no-go area means 20 percent of the arable lands in Gaza are inaccessible to local farmers, who are fired on by Israeli forces patrolling the area if they approach the buffer.

The zone extends 150-300 meters into the Strip from the Green Line, or the 1967 border, from which Israel claimed to have pulled out in 2005.

The military spokesman said troops could "not allow anyone to be present" in the no-go zone, because it was an area "used by terrorists," and cited several cases of Palestinian militant groups planting explosive devices in the zone.

Militant groups say attacks on Israeli patrols in Gaza are defensive, and an effort to protect what by law is sovereign Palestinian territory, but in reality is under Israeli military occupation.

Haaretz: " Israel expels West Bank Palestinian to Gaza upon release from prison"

By Amira Hass
05:14 23/04/2010

A Palestinian prisoner from the West Bank was forcibly deported to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, immediately after his release from prison in Israel.

Ahmad Sabah, 39, who was released from Ketziot prison after serving his sentence, was put on a bus to Gaza while his wife, son and other relatives waited for him since the morning hours at the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the West Bank.

Sabah was told only before boarding the bus at about noon that he was being taken to Gaza. His family and relatives only found out in the evening that he would not be coming home.

Sabah was born in Jordan to a refugee family from the village of Um a-Shuf near Haifa. In 1994 he joined the Palestinian defense forces entering the Gaza Strip with Yasser Arafat and received a Palestinian identity card with a Gaza address. About a year later he moved to the West Bank, where he settled down and raised a family.

In 2001 he was arrested, tried and convicted of membership in a Fatah militia, throwing fire bombs and making and conspiring to plant a bomb.

During the first five years in prison Sabah's family was not permitted to visit him, he and his wife Hanan told Haaretz in separate telephone calls.

At a later stage his wife and young son, Yazan, were allowed to visit him once every six months. The last time they saw each other was in October 2009.

Sabah set up a protest tent near the Erez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip and says he will not leave until he is allowed to return home to his family.

Since 1996, in violation of the Oslo Accords, Israel has forbidden the Palestinian Authority to change the identity card address of people who moved from Gaza to the West Bank. Since the end of 2000 Israel has been classifying these people as "illegal aliens" in the West Bank.

'In keeping with procedures'

An IDF spokesman said Sabah's release to the Gaza Strip was "in keeping with the Prison Service procedures to release prisoners to their registered address except in extremely irregular cases."

The spokesman said Sabah had been told he was being sent to Gaza, and did not object or mention having a family in the West Bank. Nor did he say he wanted to be released to the West Bank, the spokesman said.

Fatah doing the IDF's dirty work in the West Bank

Grassroots organizer targeted by PA, Israeli forces
Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, 13 April 2010

Israeli authorities pull Mousa Abu Maria away from a visitor during a court appeal of his administrative detention, Jerusalem, July 2008. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org).

Mousa Abu Maria, father of a newborn baby and co-coordinator of the grassroots Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) in the occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar, was used to the sound of boots running on the ground and surrounding his home in the middle of the night. Awakened once again at 2:00am on Tuesday, 6 April, Abu Maria told an international volunteer with PSP who was sleeping in his house not to worry but that they should start moving the computers out of the rooms. Weeks earlier, PSP's office was raided by Israeli forces; computer hard drives and printers were confiscated as Abu Maria's entire family was forced to stand outside in the freezing cold. But when Abu Maria looked outside the window this time, it wasn't Israeli forces shouting at him to come outside. It was a squadron of heavily-armed Palestinian Authority (PA) police.

"They told me that they needed to talk with me for just one hour," Abu Maria told EI on the phone from Beit Ommar. "But they kidnapped me, forced me into a jeep, and took me to the Hebron police station where they held me until the next afternoon. They acted exactly like Israeli soldiers, accusing me of hitting a police officer during a demonstration -- a totally fabricated claim."

PSP has been instrumental in coordinating weekly demonstrations in front of Route 60, the "settler road" that runs alongside Beit Ommar and connects Jerusalem to the settlement colonies in the Bethlehem/Hebron area, and Abu Maria has borne the brunt of Israeli backlash for his involvement in the group's nonviolent direct actions. He was abducted by Israeli forces in April 2008 and held in administrative detention -- without charges or conviction -- for an entire year. "In total, I've spent seven years in Israeli prisons on three separate occasions because of my work to challenge the illegal Israeli occupation," Abu Maria said. Members of his family, including his brother, Youssef, have also faced harsh Israeli prison sentences because of their organizing and involvement with civil disobedience actions in the village.

But on 6 April, Abu Maria said that he was made to wait in the Hebron PA police's detention facility overnight. Phone calls from Palestinian community leaders, Israeli activists and internationals poured into the PA government offices headquartered in Ramallah demanding a reason for the arrest and calling for Abu Maria's immediate release. The following afternoon, still held at the police station, Abu Maria said he began to receive a deluge of apologies from police officials, including the head of the Palestinian police department in Hebron who reportedly kissed Abu Maria on the head as he left the station. "They said they made a mistake, and didn't need me for questioning," Abu Maria told EI. "I told them that they should be ashamed for acting like Israeli soldiers, and that if they needed to talk to me, they can meet me in a normal way -- there is no reason to arrest their own people in the middle of the night and terrify Palestinians like this."

Local Palestinian media jumped on the story, since it directly highlights the narrowing differences between the actions of Israeli and PA forces operating in the West Bank. As the PA continues to solidify its militarized presence on the ground in the West Bank -- sending its forces to train with US General Keith Dayton in Amman, Jordan, for internal "counter-insurgency" techniques that are consequentially used against leaders and activists within opposing political parties -- many Palestinians are growing increasingly cynical of the ability of the administration of PA president Mahmoud Abbas to represent all elements of Palestinian civil society in a fair and just way. "They should represent Palestine and its people. I'd respect them if they were working for the Palestinian cause, for the justice that we all deserve," Abu Maria remarked. "But they made me respect the PA even less after what happened to me."

The PA, meanwhile, has recently announced that it has started a campaign to target Israeli settlement products sold within the occupied West Bank. Appointed PA Prime Minister, and former World Bank official, Salam Fayyad launched the campaign with a public bonfire of one million dollars worth of products made in settlements on 5 January 2010. Days later, Fayyad set up a "National Dignity Fund" aimed at supporting locally-grown produce available for distribution in the local and global market. The PA has also started showing up at anti-occupation demonstrations, notably in Bilin, in a campaign marketed as a show of support and solidarity with local grassroots organizers.

However, many Palestinian organizers are skeptical of the PA's show of interest in grassroots initiatives like the burgeoning boycott campaigns and regular demonstrations around the West Bank. Jamal Juma', co-coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign, told EI that these actions by the PA are marked by hypocrisy, especially in light of the parallel, violent crackdowns by PA forces against other Palestinian parties like Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and independent organizers like Mousa Abu Maria. Additionally, the PA enjoys the continued flow of money and political cooperation from the US, the EU and Israel.

"It's confusing," Juma' said. "The PA is talking about supporting the popular resistance struggle, and they've started a campaign to boycott the products from settlements in the West Bank. These are things we totally support as a people and as a movement. On the other hand, the PA has its own limits. They obviously don't want certain demonstrations and actions to go beyond their control."

Juma' told EI that the PA's move to boycott settlement products, for instance, still doesn't address the underlying need to stop the settlements themselves. "This is a part of the PA's entrenched program of normalization [with the Israeli occupation]," he said. "We as Palestinian civil society cannot afford normalization by the Authority. We won't accept it. The PA should complement the activities of the grassroots movements that are working very hard to expand the popular resistance, not limit them."

At the same time, a new Israeli military law aimed at arresting and deporting tens of thousands of Palestinians, internationals who have married Palestinians and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live with their spouses inside the West Bank, may go into effect soon. Veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote last weekend in the Israeli daily Haaretz: "The new order is the latest step by the Israeli government in recent years to require permits that limit the freedom of movement and residency previously conferred by Palestinian ID cards. The new regulations are particularly sweeping, allowing for criminal measures and the mass expulsion of people from their homes."

Juma' says that this could be a perfect time for the PA to support direct confrontation against this extremely racist military order, as Palestinian committees are gearing up to do. "The PA has condemned the law, but we don't need condemnation," Juma' stressed. "We need them to take practical actions on the ground. They should freeze coordination with the Israelis. They have to do something. The PA should understand and remember that they are not exempt from Israel's target."

On Saturday, 10 April, Mousa Abu Maria was arrested once again -- this time by Israeli occupation forces -- during a regular, pre-planned demonstration in Beit Ommar. Along with nine other Palestinian and Israeli protesters, he was taken to the military compound inside Gush Etzion, the nearby Israeli settlement colony, and held in jail until yesterday. The Israeli protesters were released on the condition that they not enter Beit Ommar for two weeks, and the Palestinians were bailed out by local Palestinian committees, Israeli human rights groups and their families. Undeterred, Abu Maria told EI that the demonstrations will continue as long as Israel's occupation and its apartheid regime continue to uproot peoples' lives all over Palestine.

Nora Barrows-Friedman is the co-host and Senior Producer of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on Pacifica Radio. She is also a correspondent for Inter Press Service. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

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for more information:
Ma'an: http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=274129

New legal powers to deport

Report: Military order targets thousands for deportation
11/04/2010 14:40

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Two signed military orders awaiting implementation give military officials broad and almost total control over the deportation of Palestinians whose residency status in the West Bank is called into question.

Specifically, the Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual alleged that the order will be used to deport residents of Gaza from the West Bank, and will likely also target foreign passport holders and non-Palestinian spouses of West Bank residents.

The center said tens of thousands of Palestinians and West Bank residents could be caught in the net of the orders, which Israeli journalist Amira Hass said in a Sunday report were "expected to clamp down on protests in the West Bank."

The new orders, by substantively changing the definition of an “infiltrator,” HaMoked said in a statement "effectively apply [the term] to anyone who is present in the West Bank without an Israeli permit," noting "the orders do not define what Israel considers a valid permit," and that "the vast majority of people now living in the West Bank have never been required to hold any sort of permit to be present therein."

The amendments apply to a 1969 order issued following the start of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. The order was first amended in 1980, when an infiltrator was defined as "a person who entered the Area knowingly and unlawfully having been present in the east bank of the Jordan, Syria, Egypt or Lebanon following the effective date."

In the latest order, an "infiltrator" is defined as: "A person who entered the Area unlawfully following the effective date, or a person who is present in the Area and does not lawfully hold a permit."

The presumption that the orders will be used to clamp-down on Palestinians participating in popular protests against land confiscation and the construction of the separation wall follows a series of failed measures by the Israeli army to stifle the increasingly broadly supported actions.

In March, Israeli forces entered the villages of Ni'lin and Bi'lin to post orders declaring the zone typically used as a protest site a "closed military zone" from that day until August. Once an area is declared a closed zone, Israeli forces say they have the power to make arrests. Protest sights are often declared closed zones as demonstrators gather.

The pending orders also recall the case of Bethlehem University student Berlanty Azzam, a Gaza Christian only one semester away from graduation. The business administration student was pulled from a shared taxi on the Ramallah-Bethlehem road because her ID card had her registered as a Gaza resident. Berlanty had left Gaza on a legal permit three years before and traveled to the West Bank to study.

Without appearing before a judge, Berlanty was bound, blindfolded and driven directly to the northern Erez crossing at Gaza and told to re-enter the Strip. Human rights lawyers challenged the deportation, saying Israel had no right to determine where Palestinians lived, particularly when they were moving from one Palestinian-controlled area to another.

The second amendment, the HaMoked statement said, will allow the Israeli military to "prosecute and deport any Palestinian defined as [an] infiltrator in stark contradiction to the Geneva Convention," and noted that "there is a possibility that some of the deportees will not be given an opportunity for a hearing before being removed from the West Bank."

According to the orders, the deportation may be executed within 72 hours whereas it is possible to delay bringing a person before the appeals committee for up to eight days from issuance of a deportation order.

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IDF order will enable mass deportation from West Bank
By Amira Hass
11/04/2010

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

When the order comes into effect, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.

Given the security authorities' actions over the past decade, the first Palestinians likely to be targeted under the new rules will be those whose ID cards bear home addresses in the Gaza Strip - people born in Gaza and their West Bank-born children - or those born in the West Bank or abroad who for various reasons lost their residency status. Also likely to be targeted are foreign-born spouses of Palestinians.

Until now, Israeli civil courts have occasionally prevented the expulsion of these three groups from the West Bank. The new order, however, puts them under the sole jurisdiction of Israeli military courts.

The new order defines anyone who enters the West Bank illegally as an infiltrator, as well as "a person who is present in the area and does not lawfully hold a permit." The order takes the original 1969 definition of infiltrator to the extreme, as the term originally applied only to those illegally staying in Israel after having passed through countries then classified as enemy states - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.

The order's language is both general and ambiguous, stipulating that the term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with which Israel has friendly ties (such as the United States) and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish. All this depends on the judgment of Israel Defense Forces commanders in the field.

The Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual was the first Israeli human rights to issue warnings against the order, signed six months ago by then-commander of IDF forces in Judea and Samaria Area Gadi Shamni.

Two weeks ago, Hamoked director Dalia Kerstein sent GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi a request to delay the order, given "the dramatic change it causes in relation to the human rights of a tremendous number of people."

According to the provisions, "a person is presumed to be an infiltrator if he is present in the area without a document or permit which attest to his lawful presence in the area without reasonable justification." Such documentation, it says, must be "issued by the commander of IDF forces in the Judea and Samaria area or someone acting on his behalf."

The instructions, however, are unclear over whether the permits referred to are those currently in force, or also refer to new permits that military commanders might issue in the future. The provision are also unclear about the status of bearers of West Bank residency cards, and disregards the existence of the Palestinian Authority and the agreements Israel signed with it and the PLO.

The order stipulates that if a commander discovers that an infiltrator has recently entered a given area, he "may order his deportation before 72 hours elapse from the time he is served the written deportation order, provided the infiltrator is deported to the country or area from whence he infiltrated."

The order also allows for criminal proceedings against suspected infiltrators that could produce sentences of up to seven years. Individuals able to prove that they entered the West Bank legally but without permission to remain there will also be tried, on charges carrying a maximum sentence of three years. (According to current Israeli law, illegal residents typically receive one-year sentences.)

The new provision also allow the IDF commander in the area to require that the infiltrator pay for the cost of his own detention, custody and expulsion, up to a total of NIS 7,500.

The fear that Palestinians with Gaza addresses will be the first to be targeted by this order is based on measures that Israel has taken in recent years to curtail their right to live, work, study or even visit the West Bank. These measures violated the Oslo Accords.

According to a decision by the West Bank commander that was not backed by military legislation, since 2007, Palestinians with Gaza addresses must request a permit to stay in the West Bank. Since 2000, they have been defined as illegal sojourners if they have Gaza addresses, as if they were citizens of a foreign state. Many of them have been deported to Gaza, including those born in the West Bank.

Currently, Palestinians need special permits to enter areas near the separation fence, even if their homes are there, and Palestinians have long been barred from the Jordan Valley without special authorization. Until 2009, East Jerusalemites needed permission to enter Area A, territory under full PA control.

Another group expected to be particularly harmed by the new rules are Palestinians who moved to the West Bank under family reunification provisions, which Israel stopped granting for several years.

In 2007, amid a number of Hamoked petitions and as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, tens of thousands of people received Palestinian residency cards. The PA distributed the cards, but Israel had exclusive control over who could receive them. Thousands of Palestinians, however, remained classified as "illegal sojourners," including many who are not citizens of any other country.

The new order is the latest step by the Israeli government in recent years to require permits that limit the freedom of movement and residency previously conferred by Palestinian ID cards. The new regulations are particularly sweeping, allowing for criminal measures and the mass expulsion of people from their homes.

The IDF Spokesman's Office said in response, "The amendments to the order on preventing infiltration, signed by GOC Central Command, were issued as part of a series of manifests, orders and appointments in Judea and Samaria, in Hebrew and Arabic as required, and will be posted in the offices of the Civil Administration and military courts' defense attorneys in Judea and Samaria. The IDF is ready to implement the order, which is not intended to apply to Israelis, but to illegal sojourners in Judea and Samaria."
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More coverage:
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HaMoked: "Press Release – A New Military Order Defines All Residents of the West Bank As “Infiltrators” Who May Be Jailed and Deported" (11.4.2010)

PCHR: "PCHR Condemn New Israeli Military Orders Aimed at Expelling West Bank Palestinians"
Monday, 12 April 2010 11:00

BBC: Fears military order may allow West Bank deportations
Monday, 12 April 2010 15:17 UK

Announcing Birthright Unplugged’s Summer 2010 Program

Since 2005, Birthright Unplugged has facilitated travel in Palestine for numerous multiple groups of people. We do this because we have found that when people have firsthand experiences of and relationships with Palestine, it strengthens their resolve, credibility, and accountability to do sustained justice movement work.

Our 2010 program will include seven days of travel and a one-day institute. Together, these elements are designed to support work related to the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel (BDS). This call seeks to bring about the end of apartheid in Israel, end the occupations of Gaza and the West Bank, and implement the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It is a non-violent strategy that has been critical to bringing about the end of other systems of oppression, most notably apartheid in South Africa. To date, we have worked with student activists, faith-based organizers, and community organizers to help develop and strengthen their respective BDS campaigns.

2010 Travel Component:
In seven days, we will visit Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps in the West Bank and spend time with internally displaced Palestinian people living inside Israel/’48. Throughout the journey, we will help participants develop an understanding of daily life under occupation and apartheid and the history of the region from people profoundly affected by these realities who are otherwise under-represented in Western discourses, and learn about the dispossession and occupation of Palestinian people.

2010 Institute Component:
For the past several summers, we have offered a short institute as a complement to our travel program following the trip. Our workshops are designed to support the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS by helping participants begin to integrate the knowledge they gain on the trip and preparing them to engage in campaign work in their home countries. There will be sessions for participants to share campaign work currently taking place in their own communities, build organizing skills, and develop strategies that are specific to the work they hope to do when they return home. It is our hope that institute participants can learn from and contribute to ongoing grassroots justice campaigns and movement work, and that they might especially become able to invigorate current campaigns already ongoing in their own communities.

Dates:
July 9, 2010 - July 17, 2010

Includes:
7 days of travel, 1 day of organizing workshops, and some breaks

Application:
You can download the application at:
http://www.birthrightunplugged.org/unplugged/application
Please email completed applications to info@birthrightunplugged.org by April 20, 2010.

Costs:
Sliding scale program contribution is $750 - $850. This includes both the travel and institute portions of the program. Airfare is not included. This contribution covers most ground transportation, meals, translation, admission fees, and lodging expenses during the program. Participants may purchase additional food and drink, souvenirs, and gifts at individual discretion. Participants are expected to pay for a few meals (est. $5-$15/meal) and car rides ($2-$4 ea) during free times and any liquor, argile, gifts, internet café use, and personal items. Transportation to and from airport is est. $10 - $15 each way and is not included in the program contribution. You should expect to spend a minimum of 10% more than the Birthright Unplugged contribution during your trip, plus airfare.

Soon after being accepted to our Unplugged 2010 Summer Program and prior to your trip, you will be asked to make your sliding scale contribution of $750-$850 towards the cost of the program and complete and submit a Participant Agreement. Your contribution is non-refundable except in the event that the trip is canceled. We encourage those who can pay more to do so as program contributions do not cover program costs. We also encourage participants to engage in personal fundraising, which has been very successful for past participants. There is a template fundraising letter you are welcome to use on the costs page of our website:

http://www.birthrightunplugged.org/unplugged/cost

Haaretz: "Israel seizing hundreds of millions of shekels meant for Palestinian services"

By Chaim Levinson
07/04/2010

For the past 15 years, Israel has been channeling hundreds of millions of shekels it had collected in the West Bank into its state coffers. The move is considered illegal, since international law prohibits an occupying power from appropriating the fruit of economic activity in an occupied territory.

Following protests by military lawyers, the deputy attorney general has ruled that the practice should be stopped and ordered an inquiry into whether the Civil Administration in the West Bank should be compensated retroactively.

"Following staff work by an interministerial team composed of representatives of the Finance Ministry, Justice Ministry and Civil Administration, it has been agreed that the ... said fees will be entered into the Civil Administration's budget. The technical aspects of the affair will be sorted out in the coming weeks."

The funds in question are collected by the Civil Administration, overwhelmingly from Israelis. They include fees and levies for various activities such as royalties from quarries and levies on public auctions. The sums are estimated in the hundreds of millions of shekels, sometimes reaching as much as NIS 80 million a year. Until the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, the funds were transferred to the Civil Administration to be used for operational expenses as well as for infrastructure and welfare services for Palestinians in the territories. The Oslo Accords dictated the closing down of the administration, the funds in question were reclassified as income to the Israel Lands Administration and were redirected to state coffers. The Civil Administration, however, continued to operate in Area C of the West Bank, working on infrastructure, planning and construction. The funds are still channeled to the state, although international law prohibits an occupying power from appropriating the fruit of economic activity in an occupied territory. Funds collected in American-occupied areas of Iraq, for example, are channeled to the United States, and, except for 5 percent that goes to Kuwait, are returned for direct investment in Iraq. Budget ramifications Recently, a lawyer at the Military Advocate General's Office said the transfer of such funds to the state was improper. Because the issue is complex and has budget ramifications far beyond the military, the authorities entrusted the inquiry to Deputy Attorney General Malchiel Blas. He ruled that the direct transfer of the funds to the state budget should cease. A team that includes officials from the treasury, Justice Ministry and Civil Administration is now examining the implications of Blas' decision. At the team's meetings, the Civil Administration has requested that the money again be directly channeled to its coffers. The Finance Ministry, by contrast, proposed that a fund be set up for the money, which would be divided among various ministries investing in the territories, such the transportation, agriculture and industry, trade and labor ministries. Another question facing the team is whether the Civil Administration should be compensated for the funds it lost to the state. The Finance Ministry is strongly opposed, and claims that in the past 15 years the state has invested in the West Bank, apart from the settlements, more than double the amount it has collected. The government will make the final decision. "This income was registered as part of state income, and the Finance Ministry budgeted all the activities of the Civil Administration and the military in the area out of the state budget," the Justice Ministry said in a statement. "Recently ... it turned out that the issue should be arranged in a way that would make it obvious that the income should be registered as part of the Civil Administration's budget, as authorized by the Knesset." The Finance Ministry said: "It should be noted the question of whether the funds are registered as state income or Civil Administration income is a technical question, because at the end of the day the State of Israel invests in the area amounts considerably larger than the fees it collects.

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