< http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.671636>
Haaretz 18 Aug by Nir Hasson *-- *The Defense Ministry resumed construction
on Monday of the separation barrier near Beit Jala, south of Jerusalem,
even though the High Court of Justice had invalidated the building of the
barrier in that region and ordered the state to reconsider it. On Monday,
heavy equipment came to the area and uprooted olive trees and earthwork in
preparation for the barrier’s construction in the Cremisan Valley,
between the city of Beit Jala and the 'settlement' colony of Har Gilo and the
village of Walaja. After nine years of legal proceedings, the High Court of
Justice in April accepted a petition against the route of the barrier that
had been filed by landowners, the Walaja town council and the Roman
Catholic Cremisan Monastery and its related convent. The convent and the
monastery would have been separated from one another by the barrier, while
the landowners said they would be separated from their lands. “The
respondents must swiftly reconsider the various alternatives for the
separation fence route in this section,” the justices wrote. Despite this,
only three weeks after the ruling, attorney Giat Nasser, who represents the
residents and the Beit Jala municipality, received a letter from the
Defense Ministry saying it had decided to continue building the barrier
along the invalidated route, except for 200 metres near the monastery and
convent that would remain a “hole” in the barrier. “They apparently haven’t
reconciled themselves to the ruling,” said Nasser. “What they’re doing is
‘feeding’ the court, stage by stage. After they build the fence they’ll say
it’s already up, then they’ll ask to build the loops around the
monasteries, because there won’t be any choice.” Nasser filed another
petition against the barrier last month and asked for an interim injunction
to prevent the work from starting. But although such an injunction had been
in place for nine years, Supreme Court Justice Uri Shoham refused to renew
the injunction, allowing the work to proceed. Now Nasser is demanding an
urgent hearing of his petition. “This is the quietest area and there are no
problems here,” Beit Jala Mayor Nicola Khamis said on Monday. “Today they
uprooted 1,500-year-old trees. How they want us to live here in peace, I
don’t know.”
There have been 1312 reported attacks against fishermen since the end of the 2014 major attack on Gaza, as detailed in this report:.
GAZA, Occupied Palestine 11 Aug by ISM, Gaza Team -- Two days ago, on
Sunday’s night at 3am, the occupation forces kidnapped fishermen Mohamed
Ismail Sharafi, 34 years old, and Mohamed Saidi, 22 years old, in Gaza City
waters. According to the testimony of the other fishermen that were working
with them the night of the attack, around 10 boats, one of the two
fishermen was injured by live ammunition before being kidnapped. The
aggression took place at 5 miles off shore and their boat was also taken to
Ashdod. Two weeks ago Ahmed Sharafi, Mohamed’s brother, was shot in his
back with live ammunition while working with his father.
Since the end of the last Zionist massacre against Gaza there have been
1312 reported attacks against the fishermen. Since then, 22 boats have been
stolen; 26 fishermen have been injured; one fisherman, Tawfiq Abu Riela,
has been assassinated; 28 boats have been disabled by bullet fire; 2 big
fishing boats have been sunken by rocket fire, one in Deir El Balah at 300m
from the coast and one in Gaza City at 5 miles; 51 fishermen have been
kidnapped while working and 3 fishermen remain prisoners until now. Those
facts, among other practices of the occupation forces, have caused the
quantity of fish caught to decrease from 1600 tons the year before the
massacre to 1000 tons the year after. At the same time the number of
fishermen who work in the Gaza Strip has decreased from 3000 to 1000 and
the fishermen who keep working have seen how their monthly income decreased
from 2000 ILS to the actual 100 ILS. This last year, just in Beach Camp, 50
children of fishermen have left school in order to work carrying flour
sacks at the doors of UNRWA for 1 ILS each sack. It’s becoming something
common that the fishermen families have to choose between their children
and decide which ones will go to school and which ones will have to work in
order to support the family.
http://palsolidarity.org/2015/08/1312-reported-attacks-against-fishermen-since-the-end-of-2014-massacre-on-
gaza/
Israeli naval forces open fire on Gaza fishermen, no injuries reported
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Israeli naval forces opened fire on Palestinian
fishermen off the coast of Gaza City early Wednesday, witnesses said. The
fishermen said that they came under fire as they were sailing off the coast
of Sudaniyya in northwestern Gaza City. No injuries were reported, but some
of the boats were hit with gunshots, causing the fishermen to return to shore. http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766991
NABLUS (Ma’an) – Israeli colonisers on Saturday morning attempted an attack on Palestinian farmers in village of Qusra south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, a local official said.
Dozens of 'settlers' from the illegal Esh Kodesh outpost descended on farmers in their fields between the outpost and Qusra, said Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors 'settlement' activity in the northern West Bank. He said the attackers intended to scare the farmers and push them to abandon their fields.
Dozens of local men from the village -- members of voluntary local guard committees -- confronted the colonists, Daghlas added.
The colonists - 'settlers' - and locals clashed and threw stones at each other until the settlers were forced to move back.
In June 2014, villagers from Qusra held more than 15 'settlers' captive after they raided the village and tried to uproot Palestinian olive trees. Shortly after that they were transferred to Israeli military forces via Palestinian liaison officials.
Since 1967, the Israeli state has established over 150 colonies and some 100 outposts in the occupied West Bank, with a settler population of more than 500,000 across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.
Outposts like Esh Kodesh are often established by Israeli 'settlers' who set up tents or small mobile homes on private Palestinian land.
Some settlers act without approval to expand settlements or create new ones in the West Bank, building outposts that are illegal even by Israeli government standards.
In many cases, these settlement outposts are "legalized" by the Israeli State, and in rare cases they are dismantled. Such outposts generally receive armed protection by Israeli forces.
Residents living throughout the Nablus district have witnessed a considerable spread of outposts and colonies in the area in recent years, despite the "peace process".
In February, Israeli 'settlers' set up five mobile homes near Palestinian land and close by the Esh Kodesh outpost.
Residents of the Jewish-only Esh-Kodesh outpost regularly harass and attack Palestinians from nearby villages, invading villages or targeting agricultural areas belonging to local farmers.
Many of the attacks are intended to make life difficult for locals in order to force them to leave and allow settlers to expand their settlements.
Would-be colonists living in the Nablus region have become notorious for violent and extremist behaviour against local Palestinians that is often carried out in the presence of Israeli military forces and rarely investigated by the Israeli State.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766794
The latest attack by hardline Zionists against Palestinians, in which an 18-month child was killed during an attack on a home, has been recognised by the mainstream press including the BBC. The Today interviewer managed to get the Zionist spokesman, Mark Regev, to answer the question asked, e.g. about the percentage of complaints about previous 'settler' violence that have resulted in prosecution. Although he is usually well-armed with all relevant names and dates, on this occasion he was unable to lay his hands on the facts. He claimed that for this, as with all actions by unaligned groups, there would be prosecution and justice. He did not volunteer any information about the Israeli army's (and hence the state's) usual support for the 'settlers' in all circumstances.
The Israelis are trying to destroy the roots of non-Jewish society in occupied Palestine, as this report by Jonathan Cook details:
Church-run schools in Israel face ‘death sentence’ 29 June 2015 - Israel is seeking to bring dozens of church-run schools under government control, a move that community leaders warn will curb the last vestiges of educational freedom for the country’s large Palestinian minority. The schools, which educate Christians and Muslims and are among the highest-achieving in Israel, are the only hope for most families trying to escape dire conditions in the government-run Arab education system. - See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/#sthash.m6PEO138.dpuf
*
< http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766597
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 22 July -- Israeli forces delivered four stop-work
notices to Palestinians from the village of Za‘tara in eastern Bethlehem
on Wednesday, claiming the buildings were not licensed, locals said.
Muheisen Abu Amriyeh, a local resident, told Ma‘an that Israeli military
vehicles escorted by Israeli Civil Administration officers raided the area
and delivered stop-work notices to houses belonging to the Hassan Muheisin
family. A total of eight houses belonging to the family are now threatened
with demolition, as Israel delivered another four notices to the same
family 10 days ago, Abu Amriyeh said. Five of the houses are at an early
stage of construction while the other three are already inhabited.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766597
Israeli forces destroy 450 olive trees, Roman-era well in Hebron
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766595
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 22 July -- Israeli forces on Wednesday destroyed 450 olive
trees, levelled land, and demolished a Roman-era water well in the village
of *Beit Ula in northwestern Hebron, after claiming the Palestinian land
belonged to Israel, locals said. Issa al-Imla, the coordinator of a local
popular committee in Beit Ula, told Ma‘an that the olive trees were more
than 10 years old and belonged to a local farmer, Farid Abd al-Latif
al-Imla. Al-Imla said that Israeli forces also levelled lands belonging to
Abd al-Qader al-Imla and demolished the village water well that dated from
the Roman era. Al-Imla said that Israeli forces, officials from the Israeli
Civil Administration, and three bulldozers also raided the Attus and
al-Mekheh areas in western Beit Ula and destroyed crops. On January 27, an
Israeli court issued an order to confiscate hundreds of dunams of land in
western Beit Ula. Al-Imla said that Palestinian landowners followed up the
case in Israeli courts, but added that Israeli courts generally assist
settlers in confiscating Palestinian land. He called on the Palestinian
Minister of Agriculture and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to help farmers
re-plant trees.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766595
Gaza as a destination for the world's sun-worshipping surfers may still be a way off, as attacks by the navy, and power cuts continue - as in these details from the International Middle East Media Center:
Two fishermen injured by navy fire http://www.imemc.org/article/72306
IMEMC 22 July -- Israeli navy ships opened live fire, on Tuesday at dawn,
on a number of Palestinian fishing boats in Beit Lahia, in the northern
part of the Gaza Strip, wounding two fishers, and kidnapped two including
one of the wounded, before towing a boat to the Ashdod Port. *Ahmad Ismael
Sharafi*, 20 years of age, was shot with a live round in the back, and
several rubber-coated metal bullets in his arm, and was moved to the Shifa
Medical Center in Gaza, suffering a moderate injury. The two kidnapped
fishers were released approximately at six in the evening, while one of
them was moved to a medical center for treatment of wounds resulting from
the Israeli attack, the Union for Agricultural Work Committees has
reported. On Monday evening, the navy attacked a fishing boat belonging to
Yousef Fayez Barakat, 22 years of age, and kidnapped him, along with
Haitham Tareq Bakr, 25.
http://www.imemc.org/article/72306
Blackouts hit Gaza as power plant shuts amid tax dispute
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766575
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 July -- The Gaza Strip was reduced to eight hours of
electricity per day on Tuesday after its sole power plant shut down because
it was unable to afford PA-imposed taxes. The Gaza distribution network
will provide just six hours of electricity for every 12 hours without,
averaging eight hours of total power a day
