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16/01/2021
| | Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (07 – 13 January 2021)
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - IOF excessive use of force in
the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem: 14 Palestinians
wounded, including a person with disability / 13 IOF shootings
reported at Palestinians and agricultural lands, and 5 times at
fishing boats eastern and western Gaza Strip / In 139 IOF incursions
into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem: 127 civilians
arrested, including 7 children / Limited incursion into eastern Khan
Younis; pamphlets left demanding farmers harvest their crops
4 tractors confiscated, lands razed, and greenhouse dismantled; one
house was served a demolition notice in the West Bank / Occupied
East Jerusalem: one house self-demolished; and a land vacated for
the establishment of a settlement project received evacuation order;
6 walls, a water well and a barracks demolished / Settler-attacks in
the West Bank: 5 Palestinian civilians wounded; 340 seedlings
uprooted; civilians’ vehicles assaulted / IOF established 75
temporary military checkpoints in the West Bank and arrested 12
Palestinian civilians on said checkpoints. [ak]
| | | Israel to advance West Bank building 3 days prior to Biden inauguration
Tovah Lazaroff - Jerusalem Post - The Higher Planning Council for Judea and Samaria is scheduled to hold two separate meetings Sunday, one for Palestinian projects and one for settler projects. The agenda and date of the meeting was published only late Tuesday night. It included the advancement of moves to authorize two outposts: Nofei Nechmia and Havat Yair.
It also spoke of projects in the settlements of Oranit, Elkana, Karnei Shomron, Shavei Shomron, Itamar, Tal Menashe and Rehelim. In a tweet PM Netanyahu announced the intention to advance plans for some 800 new settler homes.
Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has spoken of the Palestinian building [though in rather vague terms-bz].
He announced that a discussion would make plans for the expansion of al-Walaja village and Hizma [bz] | | | Israel’s vaccine success can’t hide a deeper divide
Ishaan Tharoor - Washington Post - Israel is the site of what seems
to be a remarkable vaccination success story. It leads the world in
per capita vaccinations, with more than a million and a half
Israelis already having received the shot. Authorities estimate
officials can administer the vaccine to some 2 million Israelis
before the end of the month and hope to have the bulk of the
population vaccinated by the end of March, if not earlier. Still,
around a third of the 14 million people living between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean Sea are not included in this vaccination
campaign. Israel has distributed vaccines to Jewish settlers in the
West Bank, but not to Palestinians there or in the crammed,
impoverished Gaza Strip. Israeli officials contend that these
Palestinians don’t fall under their jurisdiction under the terms of
the Oslo accords and that it is the job of the Palestinian Authority
to procure and distribute vaccines in the occupied territories. “I
don’t think that there’s anyone in this country, whatever his or her
views might be, that can imagine that I would be taking a vaccine
from the Israeli citizen, and, with all the goodwill, give it to our
neighbors,” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told Britain’s
Sky News over the weekend. “There could hardly be a better
illustration of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian
ones,” said Saleh Higazi, deputy regional director for the Middle
East and North Africa at Amnesty International. [ak]
| | | Deadliest Israeli raids on Syria in years kill 57
-- days before Biden`s inauguration --
Arab News - At least 57 people died in the heaviest Israeli airstrikes for at least three years. They included 14 regime troops, 16 Iraqi militia fighters and 11 Afghan members of the pro-Iran Fatimid Brigade. “This is the largest death toll from Israeli raids in Syria,” said Rami Abdul Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Wednesday’s strikes targeted areas in Deir Ezzor province where Iranian-backed militias and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters have a heavy presence.
A senior intelligence official in Washington said the airstrikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the US, and hit warehouses in Syria that were being used to store Iranian weapons.
The warehouses were also a staging post in a pipeline for components that support Iran’s nuclear program, the official said... {bz] | | | Israeli court bans screening of ‘Jenin, Jenin’ after soldier’s lawsuit
Al Jazeera - For 54 minutes, the film depicts the stories retold by survivors of the massacre. Without the use of a narrator, it pieces together the events of the massacre through the survivors’ stories.
Israeli soldier Nissim Magnaji filed a lawsuit after he was accused in the film “Jenin, Jenin” of stealing money from an elderly Palestinian man, an allegation he denied.
Monday’s ruling said Magnaji had been “sent to defend his country and found himself accused of a crime he did not commit”.
It ordered Bakri to pay damages to Magnaji of 175,000 shekels ($55,000) as well as 50,000 shekels of court expenses.
The court also said it found that some of the representations in the film – which describes the events that took place for about two weeks in April 2002 – are untrue.
“I intend to appeal the verdict because it is unfair, it is neutering my truth,” the film`s director Mohammed Bakri told the Walla News website.
“I will not apologise for what I did … [the film] was attacked ferociously by the Israeli media.” [bz] | | | Joint List chief Odeh: Netanyahu must think Arabs have a short memory
Aaron Boxerman - Times of Israel - “Bibi, get out! Get out! Go
home!” chanted demonstrators outside the Nazareth clinic where PM
Netanyahu held a visit, officially in connection with the Coronavirus
pandemic and in fact as part of his new strategy to gain Arab voters
for his Likud party. The protesters were a mix of local Nazareth
residents, as well as a notable sprinkling of Jewish anti-Netanyahu
activists affiliated with The Black Flags protest movement, which
seeks the premier’s resignation. 19 of them were detained by police,
and Joint List Knesset Members were dragged away. This new Netnayhau
strategy is a stark about-face from his party’s previous
unsubstantiated warnings of electoral fraud in Arab communities and
repeated attacks on Arab lawmakers. In his speech, Netanyahu
referred to his notorious 2015 video broadcast in which he urged
Likud voters to go vote because “the Arabs are voting in droves”.
Netanyahu now says that he had been misunderstood. He had no general
objection to Arabs voting. He only objected to their voting for the
Joint List, which in Netanyhu`s view "supports terrorism". He would
not mind at all if the Arabs vote in droves, as long as they vote
for Likud. [ak] | | | Holding on to power
Gush Shalom - Netanyahu uses every machination and trick to cancel his trial. What will he be capable of when he would be at the end of tricks? [bz] | | | Taking Ohana to the Supreme Court - petition by five Human Rights organizations
PHR-I - The battle over the vaccine in the Israeli Prison Services is moving on to the High Court of Justice: five human rights organizations petitioned this morning (Sunday, 10/1) to the High Court against Public Security Minister Amir Ohana’s decision not to vaccinate prisoners, contrary to the Ministry of Health’s directive. The petition was filed on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, ACRI, Adalah, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, and Rabbis for Human Rights by ACRI Atty. Anne Suciu and PHR Atty. Tamir Blank.
In the petition, the organizations demand that the Prison Service vaccinate the entire prisoner population according to the vaccination priority set by the Ministry of Health. [bz] | | | Lapid is the alternative to Netanyahu
Dan Perry - Times of Israel blog - The prevailing narrative says the upcoming Israeli election is a contest between nationalists, with the alternative to incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu being some combination of Likud retiree Gideon Saar and Naftali Bennet, religious extremist and West Bank settlement enthusiast.
This is a distortion created by Israel’s media, whose right-wing bias is strangely enabled by its anachronistic left-wing reputation. There is no reason why the alternative cannot be a center-left candidate, assuming that there will be some obvious party mergers before the February 4 deadline. [bz] | | | A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid
B`tselem - More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and
the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in
public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate
regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green
Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of
Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine
million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories
Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be
determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military
occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.
Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown
divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more
than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without
it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent
settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west
of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s
sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice.
Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the
entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is
organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the
supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All
this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes
that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime
governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a
single organizing principle. [ak]
| | | For previous articles since 2004 go to respective sections | |
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