Army finishes 'biblical' punishment, Silwan

 Israeli forces on Thursday searched the
demolished home of attack suspect Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi in the Silwan
neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, family members said. Al-Shaludi's mother
told Ma'an Israeli forces searched the rubble of the house they demolished
in November in the al-Bustan area of Silwan, claiming the family had rebuilt
parts of the home. Israeli officers also raided the home of al-Shaludi's
uncle where his mother and family have been living temporarily. She said
that after searching each room, forces threatened to demolish the house as
well. Al-Shaludi was killed by Israeli police after he drove his vehicle
into a group of pedestrians at a light rail station in the Sheikh Jarrah
area of East Jerusalem. The attack left two dead and several injured.
Israeli forces demolished his family home in a punitive move on November 19.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=746581

Al Araqib razed for 18th time for 'Peace Forest'

The Bedouin village of Al Araqib was attacked by Israeli forces and destroyed for the 18th time on Thursday morning.

Previous destruction of Al Araqib (Negev Coexistence Forum)

17 February Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)


Israeli police, special forces, and riot police entered the village very early Thursday morning, before the residents had awakened. The police and Jewish National Fund, armed with bulldozers and weapons, destroyed the few buildings that were constructed Wednesday, following the 17th demolition, and surrounded the cemetery where the residents of Al Araqib were sleeping, so they were not able to get out.
While the residents were barricaded inside, the Jewish National Fund again worked on preparing the land for the planting of God TV’s “Peace Forest.”

In the later hours of the morning, around 100 residents of the nearby Bedouin city Rahat, some formerly of El Araqib, arrived at the village to show support and solidarity.
Israeli forces, however, blocked them from entering. The men and women sat on the road, waiting for admission to the cemetery to spend time with their friends and relatives.
While plain clothes Israeli police officers were negotiating with the visitors from Rahat, the riot police decided that they needed to leave and began shooting men, women and children with rubber bullets.

Because the people were blocked from entered the village, they were forced to flee on the road. The police chased after them for around two kilometers, and shot tear gas at them. Seven people were arrested, two of them underage. One of those arrested is Dr. Awad Abu Frieh, the Al Araqib village spokesperson.
During this time the highway, Route 40, was blocked by the police in both directions. Once the people from Rahat had left, and the police were finished making arrests, the JNF continued working.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces arrived in the early hours of the morning and shot at the residents with rubber bullets and paint ball guns. When the first round of shooting subsided, the special forces pushed people from their homes and began demolishing the village for the 17th time.

The residents of Al Araqib have barricaded themselves inside the village cemetery for protection and to prevent the destruction of the historic burial ground as well. Yesterday, all of the exits to the cemetery were closed by Israeli forces, and JNF bulldozers spent much of the day circling the site.


On Friday, 18 February, at noon there was planned an inter-religious prayer in what remains of Al Araqib; Muslims and Jews praying alongside each other.

Al Araqib village destroyed for 12th time

7th February 2011

Bulldozers of the 'Israeli interior ministry', escorted by big numbers of Israeli police and army forces, on Monday razed all houses in the village of Araqib in the Negev for the 12th consecutive time, Palestinian sources report. Dr. Awad Abu Freih, the spokesman for the committee in defence of Araqib, said that the bulldozers of the so-called 'Israel land administration' and of the interior ministry demolished all constructions in the Bedouin village and left women and children in the open, cold weather without shelter. He told the Quds Press that police and army forces encircled the village's graveyard and assaulted the inhabitants who resorted to the cemetery for sanctuary.

The villagers are adamant on remaining in their village and would not be deterred by Israeli bulldozers, said Abu Freih, adding that the Israeli authorities wanted to pave the way for construction of Jewish farms on the land of the village.

The situation in the village is "tragic" as the Israeli authorities knocked down the homes on the furniture, clothes, and other property while leaving the inhabitants, mostly women and children, in the open, cold weather.

Jerusalem

Meanwhile, the slow destruction of Jerusalem proceeds, in the on-going Nakba.

Several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah district are to be evicted to make way for two new buildings meant to comprise 13 apartments.

The Jerusalem Municipal Committee for Planning and Building was expected to approve on Monday the construction of two buildings that will include 13 apartments for Jewish residents in Sheikh Jarrah.

Backing the plan are settler organizations who currently occupy three homes in the district. Following the plan's approval, a number of Palestinian families will be evicted from the site to allow construction to start.

The planning committee was also expected to approve a new Jews-only access road south of Har Homa, which will enable the expansion of the colony.

According to the plan, two buildings will be razed in the western part of the neighbourhood where, until now, nearly no Jews lived. In its place, two new buildings will be built. One will have 10 apartments and the other, three.

Both schemes have been proposed by Chaim Silverstein, a well known figure in right-wing circles in Jerusalem. The companies behind the project are registered in the United States, and may well be front companies set up by right-wing activists in order to transfer funds for the purchase of land and housing in Israel/Palestine.

Silverstein has power of attorney rights in both companies involved, Debril and Velpin.

For the past 18 months there has been a struggle between Arabs and Jews over the activities of settlers in Sheikh Jarrah and against efforts to evict Palestinian families from the district.

The 'settlers' have been able to expand their hold there because before 1948 there were Jews living in Sheikh Jarrah. The court recognized the right of Jews who inherited properties to reclaim their properties. Since then, the immigrants are working hard to convince the owners of the properties to sell them the rights so that they could evict the Palestinians and populate the area with Jewish families.

"Rise in home demolitions in 2010"

B’Tselem Report Indicates Rise in Home Demolitions in 2010
Thursday January 27, 2011 15:48 by Ramona M. - IMEMC and Agencies

Demolitions by Israel of Palestinian homes in the West Bank tripled in 2010, figures from an Israeli human rights group showed on Wednesday, with a big increase in demolitions in the Jordan Valley.

Yearly figures published by B'Tselem showed that Israel demolished 86 homes across the West Bank in 2010, compared with 28 a year earlier.

Last year's house demolitions left 472 people homeless, almost half of them children.

Demolitions more than doubled in the Tubas region, which is in the Jordan Valley, rising to 51 from 24 in 2009 and leaving some 219 people homeless, 94 of them children, the group said.

They also increased sharply in Nablus, which also encompasses part of the central Jordan Valley, with 19 demolitions last year, compared with none the year before. Some 134 people were made homeless, 51 of them children.

B'Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said the group had noticed an increase in demolition activity in the Jordan Valley and in the south Hebron Hills area, which has mainly affected Bedouin-owned structures built without an Israeli building permit.

"The trend now is toward demolishing temporary accommodation, usually put up by the Bedouin," she said, describing them as non-permanent structures, but stressed they served as homes.

"The net result is the same -- people are displaced," she told AFP, saying it was not clear why the authorities were focusing their attention on these two particular areas.

"The ongoing policy seems to be aimed at pushing the nomadic community out of these areas and towards the population centres," she said.

A spokesman for the Israeli Civil Administration, the branch of the army responsible for all building issues in Area C, which is under Israeli control, said he was not aware of any rise in demolitions.

"If there was a rise, it may be because we now have more inspectors to monitor compliance" with building regulations, Guy Inbar told AFP, saying the number of inspectors had risen at the end of 2009 when Israel began a 10-month "freeze" of Jewish "settlement" construction.

Picture by IMEMC

Jericho under demolition

What would Joshua say? If he cared about the land, the culture and environment of this country he might have a few angry comments. The zionist regime delivered 15 demolition orders to farmers in the Ad-Dweik Al-Foqa area north of Jericho on Thursday, marking the second day such orders were handed out in the West Bank.

Director of Agriculture in Jericho Omar Al-Bsharat said in a statement that the demolition orders were part of a larger plan to evacuate the northern Jericho area, saying farmers had already seen an increase in the number of patrols in the area ahead of the demolition orders.

Troops would harass livestock herders, he said, intimidating Palestinian agricultural workers and preventing them from getting to fertile grazing areas.

A spokesman for the zionist Civil Administration said no orders were handed out on Thursday, but confirmed that several were handed out on Monday in the same area, for homes that he said were "built without a permit".

The day before, Israeli troops handed a number of demolition orders to residents of the Ein Assy area in Halhul, north of the city of Hebron / al-Khalil.

Residents said Israeli authorities told them the buildings were slated for demolition because they were "built without permission" in Area C, a zone under full Israeli planning, civil and military control. Area C makes up 60 percent of the West Bank, and Palestinian building is rarely approved by Israeli authorities.

As ever, the fact that even small repairs to already established homes require 'permits', combined with those permits being withheld from all non-Jewish applicants, is behind this mindless destruction.

Locals said most of the homes to be demolished have been inhabited for many years, and that one of the buildings was a Palestinian Authority civil defence centre.

Gaza "unchanged"; Plans to raze Jerusalem

John Ging: Conditions in Gaza have not changed

since Israel declared it would ease the blockade

Thursday, 11 November 2010

John Ging: 'No tangible change has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Israel announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.'

The Director of Operation for the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] in the Gaza Strip, John Ging, has confirmed that "no tangible change" has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Israel announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.

Israel's announcement that it would lift some of the restrictions imposed on Gaza to allow the entry of more food and consumer goods followed the international pressure it came under after nine Turkish peace activists were killed by Israeli soldiers aboard a Turkish vessel attempting to breach the siege.

John Ging accused Israel of ignoring the demands of the international community to lift the blockade and stated that "there is no tangible change for the people on the ground here with regard to their condition, dependence on aid, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction. And there is no economy."

Mr Ging asserted that "The ease as described was nothing more than a political ease of pressure on Israel and Egypt."

He also stated that Israel had imposed its stifling siege on the Gaza Strip for more than four years and prevents the entry of the majority of basic materials, primarily construction materials, which the sector desperately needs for the reconstruction of buildings destroyed by Israel during the war.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/index.php

Jerusalem attorney discloses Israeli plan for

full destruction of city

10 November 2010
The Israeli government is “planning to completely destroy the city of Jerusalem and a erect a new Jerusalem with a Zionist vision amid a plan it prepared which it calls the Jerusalem 2020 plan,” Jerusalem attorney Ahmed Al-Ruwaidi said in a statement he released on Wednesday.

The Jerusalem unit head said the wide-ranging plan envisions new settlements in the city and a complete transformation of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Old City walls will dwindle down to a trace on the full parameters of biblical parks, bridges, and synagogues in an area covering the Silwan, Sheikh Jarah, Wadi Al-Jawz, and Al-Sawanah districts of the city, he added.

The plan alleges that Jerusalem is “the capitol and spiritual center of Israel and the Jewish people and a world city which attracts the souls of millions of believers across the globe.”

Ruwaidi went on to say: “All of the settlement projects in Jerusalem during the past three years, some of which have been practically implemented, fall under [the plan’s] framework, including a decision to erect a thousand new settlement units in Jebel Abu Ghunaim aimed at completing the isolation of the city with a wall of settlements.”

“Israel announced previously it will build 50,000 new units in the city. The implementation of 20,000 of those units has been initiated practically under projects that have been approved from time to time for political objectives linked to political and international action.”

20,000 Palestinian housing units have been threatened with demolition.

Under the plan, Arab Jerusalem will make up 71,000 dunums of the eastern and western sides of the city’s total 126,000 dunum land area.

Ruwaidi added that planning projects for new settlement units, conferences held in Jerusalem, excavation projects in the holy city’s area, and revocation of Palestinian residencies that have recently appeared in the media are part of a decided Israeli program that the Israeli government and other parties have been working to materialize.

Ruwaidi met on Wednesday with a legal team from the UK accompanied by political and cultural extensions from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. The delegation is currently developing a report about the situation in the city.

The Palestinian attorney presented a comprehensive report to the UK delegation relating to the city and the distress of its citizens, and the need to put the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and The Hague Convention of 1907 into action and to recognize Israel as an occupying force in Jerusalem that has no right to change the city’s landmarks.

He called for legal, political, and economic support for Palestinians in the holy city.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/