This Week in Palestine – June Week 1

This week in Palestine-a service of the International Middle East Media Center IMEMC.ORG for the week of Friday, May 27th to Thursday June 2, 2005

 

After completing his length tour, during which he visited the three continents, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas underwent a successful heart procedure in hospital in Jordan.  Palestinian Sources said Abbas is recovering quickly and he will resume his work very soon, and will not delay any of his scheduled meetings, including the planned meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on June 21.

 

On Wednesday, the International Center for Human Rights published a report which documents the Israeli military violations in the occupied territories during the month of May.  The report revealed that 18 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and 90 residents were injured, some of them as result of physical attacks by settlers and soldiers.  The report also stated that troops arrested 170 residents, 60 of them from Nablus and Hebron.

 

The report also said that 13 homes and dozens of agricultural barracks that belong to Palestinians were demolished.  The army claimed they were illegally built.

 

Additionally, the report said that two Palestinians were killed and eight injured in the Gaza Strip, when explosives left behind by Israeli troops went off.

 

The report also document the amount of land confiscated during the month of May for the construction of the separation wall.

 

Tuesday, the local elections committee decided to put off for one month the revote at 51 polling stations in elections set for today. The decision followed a request made by Fatah officials in a bid to defuse tension between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas decided to boycott the revote if unless they were delayed because the delay constitutes one of the assurances Hamas required for fair elections.

 

The revote was scheduled based on court ruling that canceled results in some polling stations in Rafah, Beit Lahia and Al-Bureij cities, claiming that irregularities were found during the original vote, which Hamas won.

 

Sheikh Hassan Yousef of Hamas said it is important to have fair elections.

 

Hamas still insists on holding the parliamentary elections on July 17, despite reports that they have agreed to delay them until after the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip.

 

Tuseday, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported that Jerusalem Municipality intends to demolish 88 houses in the el-Bustan area of Silwan village in East Jerusalem. The ICAHD revealed in a press release on Tuesday that the municipality has code-named the demolition orders as “’The Cherry in the Crown”.

 

Some of the houses were built prior to the 1967 war, while another portion was constructed in the 1970’s. So far, four residents received the demolition orders from the municipality. Also, ICAHD called upon the international community to express its opposition to such demolition orders issued by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality. The demolition will be among the largest to take place in East Jerusalem since 1967, and includes the destruction of few homes built prior to 1967 war.

 

Jeff Halper  Israeli peace activist and the coordinator of ICHAD described  the Israeli decision as part of ongoing process of pushing the Palestinians out of Jerusalem

 

Residents of the Palestinian village of Bil’in organized an anti-wall demonstration on Friday. After the noon prayer at the village mosque, at least 300 of the villagers marched at the construction site, which has become a line of almost daily confrontations. What is unique in Friday’s protest is that the villagers carried ten white coffins in the demonstration. The coffins, which had alive people in them, carried the words Humanity, Freedom, Hope, Future, Economy, Independence, Land, State, Justice and life, all written in Arabic, English and Hebrew.

 

On Tuesday army arrested British and Israeli peace activists who joined scores of Palestinians and Internationals in protest against the wall.

 

Esther Cohen from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who was arrested in the action, said after her release, Protestors aimed at preventing the bulldozers from coming forward and uprooting the trees to build the Wall.

 

(Actuality)

 

Later in the week, Hundreds of Palestinian, International and Israeli protestors demonstrated in Salfit against the construction of the separation wall which will annex all the land that Ariel Jewish Settlement is built on to Israel.

 

The action that was organized by the Popular Committee Against the Wall.  Clashes erupted between the protestors and Israeli soldiers who attempted to bar them from reaching a Wall construction site, and fired concussion grenades, gas bombs and rubber coated bullets, no injuries were reported.

 

On Thursday, Military bulldozers started work in preparation for expanding settlements east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.  Caterpillars bulldozed farmlands near Alon Moreh settlement and a hill, 1 kilometer away from the settlement.

 

The residents fear that Israeli government intends to house more settlers in the area following the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.     

 

In Ma’ale Adumim settlement, Israeli government announced on that it will build 22 additional homes, a week after the U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Israeli government stop the expansion of all existing settlements in the occupied West Bank.

 

The ‘Israel Lands Department’, a governmental agency, released tender inviting bids for the purchase of 22 plots for building single-family houses in the settlement.   Israeli human rights activists denounced the building tenders, calling them a clear violation of the ‘roadmap’ peace plan.

 

Thursday, Israel released 400 Palestinians in a second round of 900 prisoners Israel pledged to release. Last February, 500 detainees were released directly after the Sharm al Sheikh summit in Egypt.  The Israeli government delayed the release of the remaining 400 detainees after claming that the P.A did not do enough to disarm the resistance.  Most of the released were prisoners whose sentences were due to end or had already ended.

 

Mua’ath Al- Hanafi, spokesperson of the Ministry of Prisoners’ affairs describes today’s release as uncoordinated and unilateral.

 

 “The release of prisoners came as a unilateral Israeli move, similar to the previous one. The Palestinian side is demanding that the release be coordinated according to an agreed upon time table.”

 

(Actuality)

 

8000 more Palestinians are still imprisoned in Israeli jails and detention centers.

Among them are children, women, and elderly detainees in addition to political leaders.

 

On Sunday, the Anglican Church said it will discuss the option to divest from Israel, especially by disposing holdings in companies doing business with Israelis who support the occupation of Palestinian lands”.

 

The report calling for divestment is to be debated by the worldwide Anglican Church in Nottingham on June 22. It mirrors a program already begun by the Presbyterian Church in the US. 

 

Once the divestment proposal is accepted, the Church’s 38 provinces worldwide will be asked to implement it.