Denial of water to Palestinians

The behaviour of Israeli troops as reported below by Palestine Today - The Headlines makes it undeniable that, not content with syphoning off Palestine's precious water resources at source, the Regime's priority is flatly to deny water to all who belong to the 'wrong tribe'.
Occupation forces conduct a survey of water wells west of Jenin

Dry well, Bethlehem

JENIN (PIC) 17 June -- The Israeli occupation forces have stormed, on Sunday afternoon, Marj Bin Amer Plain west of Jenin and launched combing operations in search of water wells, investigating a number of farmers. Local sources pointed out that several equipped vehicles accompanied by white military jeeps belong to the Israel Water Authority have entered to the plains of Silat Harithiya, Ta‘anak [Ti‘inik], and Yamoun towns and conducted a survey of private drinking water wells, an act which has been repeated in the recent times. The occupation forces have interrogated the farmers in that region, and asked them about the water wells which they used in light of an extensive campaign aimed at targeting water resources in the occupied West Bank. The occupation forces had demolished, last week, six wells east of Jenin, in addition to dozens [of] wells that were filled [in] during the past year.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk


New settler tourism and sewage facilities to be built in Ein al Daraj
Jerusalem (Silwanic) 17 June -- The Jerusalem City Planning Committee announced this week that a new tourism centre and sewage facilities servicing Israeli 'settlers' in the Ein al Daraj neighborhood of Silwan are scheduled for construction ... Land seizure began in Ein al-Daraj in 1995, when settlers successfully had the area closed off for archaeological excavation and development. Local residents’ lives were thrown into disarray as the excavations blocked their access to the primary water source in the area, land used for agriculture and recreational areas for children. The area is now the exclusive domain of Israeli settlers and Zionist tourists.
http://silwanic.net/?p=27234

One piece of good news in the middle of all this:

Israeli Supreme Court orders return of land stolen from Dura al Qare‘ farmer
Stop the Wall 17 June -- "The only alternative that would be acceptable to me would be your complete withdrawal from all Palestinian land." The case of Khalid Abdullah Yassin. Thus spoke Khalid Abdullah Yassin, a farmer from the small village of Dura, near Ramallah, when the Israeli government offered him a huge sum of money to lease from him the land upon which Israeli settlers had illegally built. Though comprising no more than 11 acres of land, this small patch of Palestine, and what happens to it over the coming weeks, could become a litmus test for Israel’s further spiral into outright contempt and blatant disregard for not only international law, but also Israeli. The story of Khalid and the villagers began in 1995, when, living in the shadow of the Israeli settlement of Beit El, they began to notice that settlers were regularly encroaching upon their land.
http://stopthewall.org/2012/06/17/israeli-supreme-court-orders-return-land-stolen-dura-al-qare-farmer

Mass demo planned for Scotland Euro clash

copyright www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk

As reported in The Scotsman 15 June, a high-profile European qualifying match in the capitol is liable to be targeted by hundreds of protesters over the alleged detention of Palestinian football players. Campaigners are set to gather at Tynecastle Stadium as Scotland play Israel in a women’s Euro qualifier on Saturday. Organisers said that the demonstration would be mounted both outside the stadium and on the terraces during Saturday’s game. They refused to rule out the possibility of direct action such as a pitch invasion.
http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/2355741


update: 
Not the BBC Sports News -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMnimP0o1NQ

Hamas' 5th anniversary in Gaza

Iseems like more than five years since Hamas were voted in and fought off the US-sponsored Fatah to secure control of Gaza, for better or worse; it has been a period of such profound change and activity. The Guardian is looking at life there in depth: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/jun/08/gaza-live-blog

Also in the news:
'Settlers' torch wheat fields near Nablus

Colonists set fire to wheat fields in Palestinian villages near Nablus on Sunday.

Four locations were set alight in the villages of al-Sawiya and al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, located by Eli settlement.
Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas said the arson attacks were designed to destroy the entire fields, adding that settlers attempt to burn Palestinian agricultural crops at the beginning of every summer.

Last Monday, a group of settlers set fire to wheat fields in the Hebron town of Yatta. Palestinians from nearby village Susiya found seven piles of harvested grain had been torched in a field near an Israeli settlement earlier last week.

In the West Bank, over 90 percent of villages which have experienced multiple attacks by settlers are under Israeli security control, The Palestine Center says, meaning local Palestinians only have the official protection of an army which they claim ignores settler violence.

Hezbollah flag

This is based on an article published by Ma'an News Agency  and acknowledged with thanks

War planes strafe Gaza

In May 2012, the regime in Palestine continued to behave as if at war with its own citizens.

In Northern Gaza – in May 2012, two people were wounded when Israeli war-planes strafed people in Beit Lahia.

And in the West Bank -

Jerusalem: Israeli forces positioned at the Qalandya checkpoint, fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas grenades at pedestrians.

Economic sabotage continues: near Rafah, the Israeli Navy intercepted fishing boats and imprisoned three fishermen.

picture: school, Beit Lahia

Behind the Wall

Rich Wiles is a photographic artist who has been living and working in Palestine for some years. His photographic work has been shown around Europe, the US, Australia and in Palestine itself. Since 2006 he has been writing from Occupied Palestine under the title Behind the Wall. Much of this work is based in and around the refugee camps in Palestine, highlighting daily life and memories of refugees who still live in forced exile for over 60 years since al Nakba (The Catastrophe). www.richwiles.com

hunger strike ends

On the evening of 14 May, Palestinian prisoners' ended their hunger strike. The prisoners' committee representing the hunger strikers announced the agreement that they had won: an end to the use of long-term isolation of prisoners for "security" reasons - with Israel currently keeping Palestinians in isolation for up to 10 years; for an end to the denial of family visits; and that no new administrative detention orders or renewals of administrative detention orders will be issued for the 308 Palestinians currently in administrative detention, unless the secret files, upon which administrative detention is based, contain "very serious" information.

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh spent an incredible 77 days on hunger strike, and over 2000 spent almost a full month without food. The steadfastness of those hunger strikers was inspirational - and your support was critical. As with any non-violent direct action, international support and solidarity was essential in raising the issue on a global stage, and increasing pressure on the Israeli government to abide by human rights law. Despite the mainstream news media's silence, the creative use of social media including twitter, with #75DaysVSApartheid trending internationally, successfully broke the silence, and spread the word about the protests inside Palestine, and internationally.

As Richard Falk points out: ‘the animating hunger of these Palestinians is for peace and justice, for love and dignity, and that their heroic strikes would have impossible without cherishing life and future freedom for the people of Palestine'.

This report: from Palestine Solidarity Campaign

More land-grabbing - Olive trees in jeopardy

Ousra loses more land to the ever-expanding colonies

Sunday, April 29, a group of settlers bulldozed agricultural lands belonging to the village of Qusra, in Nablus district. In the morning hours, the settlers went to the piece of land, which is even located far from the settlements surrounding the village but had been targeted before by the settlers. Many times, the area was a location of clashes between the people from Qusra that were out there to protect their lands against the settlers’ usurpation.
link to www.stopthewall.org

IOA plans to uproot 1,000 olive trees

The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has informed Palestinian farmers in Wadi Qana in Deir Estiya village, west of Salfit, that one thousand of their olive trees would be chopped off.

May Day illustration by Majed Badra

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk