Scottish Friends of Palestine

Briefing Paper                                              

September 2019           

The BBC's distortion of Palestinian protest and Israeli power Ahmed Abu Artema MEE 17/5/19 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bbc-documentary-adopts-israeli-narrative-gaza-protests The BBC [and PBS's Frontline] recently aired a documentary titled One Day in Gaza, which concentrated on the terrible events of 14 May 2018, during the Great March of Return. Although more than 60 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by Israeli army snipers that day and more than 2,000 injured, the documentary clearly and demonstrably leans towards the Israeli version of events, showing blatant disregard for the experiences and testimonies of the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who participated that day. To my undying regret, I took part in this programme - and for this reason, I feel I have a right to make clear exactly how and where the narrative of that day was twisted in the hands of those very skilful at rewriting Palestinian history.  I do not write this lightly. To justify - even in a nuanced way that appears to give voice to both sides of events - the aggressor’s version of the story is an act of incitement. This is not about whether the film reflects voices and stories on both sides. It's about how those stories are being told.

Israeli students required to pass test promoting racist ideology IMEMC
8/7/19 https://imemc.org/article/adalah-israeli-students-required-to-pass-test-promoting-racist-ideology/  High school students in Israel must pass an online test promoting racist ideology before being allowed to travel overseas for school trips, legal rights center Adalah has revealed. Adalah said that the course, which was created by Israeli education authorities, “requires students to watch a series of videos after which they must take a multiple-choice exam, the correct answers of which promote racist ideology”.

The test includes questions such as “how do Palestinian organisations use digital social networks?” with the correct answer being “encouraging violence”, and asks students to identify the origins of modern anti-Semitism, the correct answer to which is “Muslim organisations” and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Students are told that “anti-Semitism in Europe increased with the immigration of Muslims to Europe… from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan.” ... 

Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi wrote to the Education Ministry demanding that the ministry “immediately cancel the mandatory course and exam and allow students to freely participate in overseas school trips with the start of the 2019-2020 school year”, after a school in Nazareth decided to cancel an exchange programme to Sweden instead of allowing its students sit the test which “promotes racist propaganda”.  The letter was written on behalf of Masar Association and the parents of children studying at the association’s Nazareth school.

How Israel teaches its children to hate Asa Winstanley AHT 30/7/19  https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/palestine/3357-israel-teaches-its-children-to-hate.html  Dissident Israeli scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan’s important academic study, “Palestine in Israeli School Books” [published 2012] is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand  important realities about the Israeli state and Israeli society.  

Peled-Elhanan’s book was a major study of 17 Israeli school textbooks on history, geography and civic studies. As you can see from what she says in the interview above, she came to some stark conclusions. When they even mention Palestinians at all, Israel’s official schoolbooks teach a “racist discourse”, which quite literally wipes Palestine off the map. Maps in the schoolbooks only ever show “the Land of Israel”, from the river to the sea. She explained that not a single one of the schoolbooks included “any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life-world: neither literature nor poetry, neither history nor agriculture, neither art nor architecture, neither customs nor traditions are ever mentioned.”

Of the rare times that Palestinians are mentioned, it is in an overwhelmingly negative and stereotypical fashion: “all [the books] represent [Palestinians] in racist icons or demeaning classificatory images such as terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers -- the three ‘problems’ they constitute for Israel.” She concluded that the children’s schoolbooks “present Israeli-Jewish culture as superior to the Arab-Palestinian one, Israeli-Jewish concepts of progress as superior to the Palestinian-Arab way of life and Israeli-Jewish behaviour as aligning with universal values.”
.           All this is quite the opposite of the stereotypical and misleading story about children’s schoolbooks in Palestine. The books printed by the Palestinian Authority since the 1990s are frequently portrayed in anti-Palestinian demonology as putting forth the worst anti-Semitic calumnies about Jewish people. Overall, this narrative is a crude fabrication instigated by anti-Palestinian propaganda groups, such as that run by Israeli settler Itamar Marcus and his “Palestinian Media Watch.

Israel launches massive recruitment drive for social media propagandists
MEMO 23/5/19  https://www..middleeastmonitor.com/20190523-israel-launches-massive-recruitment-drive-for-social-media-warriors/ Israel has embarked on a massive recruitment drive to support the country’s online propaganda campaign one day after its companies were exposed for spreading disinformation and meddling in the elections of several African, Asian and Latin American countries. The new initiative, which would see the government funding pro-Israel groups overseas, was unveiled by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a government arm set up to combat the global rise of pro-Palestinian activism and Israel’s poor global image.

 Launching the initiative, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, who is also the public security minister, was quoted by the Times of Israel saying: “I’m proud to launch the first [government] program to support pro-Israel organizations and activists around the world.” The plan will “encourage grassroots events and online initiatives against the BDS [boycott] movement and in support of Israel. I’m certain that this program will give a significant boost to all our supporters around the world who are battling this anti-Semitism and the boycott activists,” added Erdan. Details of the tendering process for recruiting pro-Israeli activists was published in the Jewish Chronicle on 17 May a day after Israeli firms were kicked out by social media giant, Facebook, for spreading disinformation by posing as local journalists and influencers working in several African, Asian and Latin American countries....

Settlers and military intensify attacks in the Jordan Valley B'Tselem 15/05/19 https://www.btselem.org/settler_violence/20190515_settlers_and_military_attacks_on_al_farisiyah_shepherds  In recent months, shepherds from the Palestinian community of al-Farisiyah in Tubas District, the northern Jordan Valley, have reported an upsurge in the frequency and severity of attacks by settlers. The settlers threaten shepherds, chase them, physically assault them, drive headlong into the flocks to scatter the sheep, and even run over or steal sheep. These attacks are now virtually a daily occurrence. Soldiers are usually present during these attacks and sometimes even take part, demanding that the shepherds get off the pastureland, citing various arguments, e.g., that the area is a closed military zone or belongs to one of the settlers. Soldiers detain shepherds and, in some cases, even arrest them on a variety of pretexts. These are no isolated incidents, but rather part of the policy Israel has been implementing in the Jordan Valley.. Its goal is to take over as much land as possible, while getting Palestinians to leave....

Nakba of the Jordan Valley and Israeli military exercises  Shatha Hammad
MEE 15/5/19https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nakba-jordan-valley-israeli-military-exercises-wreak-havoc-palestinians  On the floor of a residential tent in Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa, toys lay scattered. Playtime for the village's children was cut short when the Israeli military declared the area a closed military zone and forced the Palestinian community to evacuate their homes in the early hours of Sunday. Following an eviction order four days earlier, the 98 residents were prevented from accessing their homes for three days. Throughout May and June, they will be evicted 12 times for three days each, the army informed them. Palestinians were told their homes would be within range of tank shells while the Israeli army uses the area to carry out military drills ...

Fasting amid displacement and temperatures that have reached 40 degree Celsius is doubly difficult this Ramadan, said Khadija Abu Qabbash as she prepared to leave ...  “We escorted the children out this morning, and now the car is back to take us,” she told MEE with tears streaming down her face. “I won’t be able to cook anything for iftar. We’ll have to make do with canned food.”... Primarily a shepherding community, the families of Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa wake at 3am to milk their sheep and prepare cheese ahead of their journey to the markets in the nearby city of Tubas. Harb Abu Qabbash, 40, told MEE that each family owns around 300 sheep. Since it is difficult to transport them out of the area, many of the younger sheep stay behind when the Palestinians are evacuated and often die of hunger with no one to attend to them....

Baby clothes store destroyed by Israel  Sarah Algherbawi EI 28/5/19  https://electronicintifada.net/content/baby-clothes-store-destroyed-israel/27451

Earlier this month, I went shopping so that my baby son Khalil would have something new to wear for the holiday of Eid. It never occurred to me that the store where I bought his clothes would be attacked one day later. On 4 May, Israel fired four missiles at the building, which also hosted a Turkish charity aiding Palestinian orphans. The attack was a “real disaster,” according to al-Haddad. He had spent $90,000 buying new stock ahead of Eid. “We were already living in difficult economic conditions,” he said. “With this, we’re totally destroyed..” Five people were employed in his store. One of them, 23-year-old Muhammad Jarada, took a call from an Israeli number five minutes before the attack. The caller said he was part of the Israeli military and warned that the building must be evacuated within 60 seconds .. Ten stores in the al-Khuzundar building were destroyed.

Executive summary – poverty in Gaza World Food Programme 27/05/19  https://www1.wfp.org/publications/executive-summary-multisectoral-nutrition-assessment-wfp-unicef-and-save-children  Half of the vulnerable households in Gaza have poor or barely acceptable food consumption. Almost all of those households (93%) are not eating enough iron rich foods, increasing the risk of anaemia. Malnutrition is high among pregnant women (18%) and mothers of young infants (14%) putting at risk the life and growth of the unborn child.  Nearly one third (30%) of pregnant women are not taking much-needed micronutrient supplements. Access and steady availability of supplies are of concern ... Only 14 percent of the children are able to consume an acceptable diet which ensures an adequate number of meals and variety of food....

Gaza mother allowed to join 6 month daughter Stuart Winer Times of Israel 29/5/19 https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-6-months-apart-gaza-mother-to-join-baby-daughter-in-jerusalem-hospital/  A woman from the Gaza Strip who was separated from her newborn baby girl for six months as the infant lay in an East Jerusalem hospital will finally be reunited with her daughter, after she was granted a permit to return to Israel, Channel 13 news reported Tuesday. The woman had been unable to return to Jerusalem after traveling to Gaza for the funeral of the baby girl’s two siblings, who did not survive when the triplets were born at the Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem. Following inquiries by Channel 13, Israel’s military liaison with the Palestinians approved the mother’s permit request, granting her entry to Israel.. . . . . . .with date unspecified.

Living in  psychological limbo Amira Hass Ha’aretz 1/6/19
 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-what-a-palestinian-woman-has-to-do-to-visit-her-native-w-bank-village-1.7304235 Living in legal limbo for more than 40 years, Maryam Ibrahim has not been allowed to live in her native West Bank village of Beit Furik with her husband and in recent years, Israel hasn’t allowed her to visit -- Sa‘adi Khatatbeh and Maryam Ibrahim have been married for 40 years. He is 62 and she is 59. They have five children and many grandchildren. They were both born in the village of Beit Furik southeast of Nablus in the northern West Bank and belong to the same extended family. With the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, the Ibrahim family was in Amman. They remained there in the period following the war and were not included in the West Bank population registry that Israeli authorities created based on a population census carried out during the summer that year. Maryam Ibrahim is therefore a Jordanian citizen, while Khatatbeh, her husband, who was in the West Bank at the time, has permanent resident status there. Marriage within the same extended family or among residents of the same village is very common in the West Bank and 40 years ago it was even more prevalent. The custom is stronger than the artificial boundaries created by wars.And like tens of thousands of other “mixed” families in which either the husband or wife is not a permanent resident of the West Bank, they live in legal, social and psychological limbo....

First Israel locked this Palestinian family out of their home. Now it locked the gate connecting them with their village Nir Hasson Ha’aretz 27/5/19 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-border-police-lock-palestinian-family-out-of-their-home-then-out-of-their-village-1.7286880  A Palestinian family was cut off from its village for a week after the Border Police claimed the father had vandalized the security gate that separates the family’s home from the village. The vandalism consisted of installing a bell so his children could call their mother to open the gate for them. The family lives in the only house in the village that is on the Israeli side of the barrier, which cuts off the family from their village. For years the Defense Ministry and other agencies had tried to get the family to move, but to no avail

Israel plans to auction off seized West Bank aid AFP 1/6/19 https://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-slams-israel-over-planned-sale-of-seized-west-bank-aid/

The European Union on Friday criticized Israel over apparent plans to sell aid given [by the EU] to Bedouin villages in the West Bank which was seized by Israeli authorities. The tents and other humanitarian structures will be put up for auction within days by COGAT, the Defense Ministry unit which oversees civilian activities in the Palestinian territories, according to the EU’s spokesman in Jerusalem. The supplies include “two school structures that had been consigned to Ibziq community; and two tents and three metal sheds to the al-Hadidiya community,” Shadi Othman said in a statement. The aid was seized in October and November by Israeli authorities and is worth 15,320 euros ($17,100), according to Othman. COGAT did not immediately respond to confirm a May 6 advertisement in the Maariv newspaper which detailed the sale of “seized property

Israeli soldiers force out Al-Aqsa worshipers at gunpoint IMEMC 22/5/19 https://imemc.org/article/israeli-forces-force-out-al-aqsa-worshippers-at-gunpoint/

Israeli authorities, last night, broke into the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound and drove out Palestinians performing Iʿtikāf [seclusion in a mosque for the final 10 nights ot Ramadan] inside its courtyards, at gunpoint. Jerusalemite Al Ray sources reported that Israeli forces stormed the mosque, and forced worshipers out. They also photographed them and demanded their IDs. The sources added that worshipers were prevented from capturing the event with mobiles, and seized the passport of a Swedish worshiper, there, after he had refused to hand it over. For over a week, Israeli forces have deliberately been targeting people performing Iʿtikāf in the courtyards of the compound, during the holy month of Ramadan, and ejecting from its courtyards by force.

Gaza exit permits: Aisha's lone journey for cancer treatment Maram Humaid
Al Jazeera 22/05/19 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/gaza-exit-permits-aisha-lone-journey-cancer-treatment-190522052833138.html  Last month, five-year-old Aisha came home from nursery vomiting and saying she had a headache. Her condition deteriorated, so her family took her to hospital, where, after undergoing medical checks, they had every parent's worst fear confirmed. Aisha was diagnosed with brain cancer. "The news hit me like a thunderbolt," Mona Lulu, Aisha's mother, told Al Jazeera from her home in the al-Bureij refugee camp. Aisha underwent urgent surgery in al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City but she needed a medical transfer to go to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem for further treatment. But when it came time to decide which of her parents would go with her, the family found the decision was out of their hands.

"Her mother and I applied and we both were rejected," Aisha's father Wesam said ... An elderly friend of Aisha's aunt was allowed to accompany Aisha. . . . Aisha had the surgery to remove part of the tumour from her brain ... When Aisha woke up, her family were on the phone, eagerly waiting to talk to her. The little girl only had one question: "When are you coming?" she repeated, over and over. "She just cried over the phone," Mona said, openly weeping. "If I was by her side, I would have comforted her, held her to my chest, taken care of her.".... 

and

Sick Gaza child caught in Israeli permit system dies  Isabel Debre & Fares Akram AP 12/6/19 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-parents-struggle-to-join-kids-for-treatment-in-israel/2019/06/12/986b6a3c-8cd8-11e9-b6f4-033356502dce_story.html  . . . . . . .. As her condition deteriorated, the child was returned to Gaza unconscious. One week later, she was dead. A photo of Aisha smiling softly in her hospital bed, brown curls swaddled in bandages, drew an outpouring on social media. The wrenching details of her last days have shined a light on Israel’s vastly complex and stringent system for issuing Gaza exit permits. It is a bureaucracy that has Israeli and Palestinian authorities blaming each other for its shortfalls, while inflicting a heavy toll on Gaza’s sick children and their parents ...  So far this year, roughly half of applications for patient companion permits were rejected or left unanswered by Israel, according to the World Health Organization. That has forced over 600 patients, including some dozen children under 18, to make the trek out of the territory alone or without close family by their side....
 

1,700 youths face amputation in Gaza due to Israeli sniper violence
Phyllis Bennis 22/5/19 https://truthout.org/articles/foreign-aid-that-costs-an-arm-and-a-leg-literally/  According to the United Nations, 1,700 young Gazans are facing amputation, mainly of their legs, in the next two years. They’re among the 7,000 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza shot by Israeli snipers over the last year. More than 220 Palestinians have been killed so far. Stunningly, more than 29,000 have been wounded -- including those 7,000 by live fire. So far, 120 have had to endure amputations -- including 20 children. Anyplace else, their limbs might’ve been saved. But Gaza has been under Israeli military siege for more than 10 years. Hospitals are massively under-equipped, many of them seriously damaged by Israeli bombing. The delicate surgery needed to save shattered bones is virtually impossible there, and the surgeons have no access to the most up-to-date methods. The UN needs $20 million to fill the immediate health funding gap in Gaza. Otherwise, those 1,700 young Gazans face the catastrophic loss of arms and legs, or risk dying of infection and they’ll have virtually no access to the advanced artificial hands, legs, and feet....

War crimes in Gaza  Maureen Clare Murphy  EI https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-twists-law-dodge-icc-probe?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=f1f5c13f04-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-f1f5c13f04-299170125

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been under preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court since 2015. Its chief prosecutor issued an unprecedented warning to Israeli leaders last year that they may face trial for the killings of unarmed protesters in Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians, including 44 children, have been killed during the Great March of Return protests in Gaza and thousands more injured. Some 1,400 Palestinians were shot by live ammunition during protests on 14 May 2018 alone, the deadliest single day of protests since they were launched earlier that year. Judges in The Hague have also ordered the ICC to reach out to victims of war crimes in Palestine.

Five-minute warning then Israel bombed Gazan house Gideon Levy Ha’aretz  6/6/19 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel-gave-this-gaza-family-a-five-minute-warning-then-it-bombed-its-home-1.7340301

 At 4:40 P.M. on Sunday, May 5, the ringing of a cell phone woke Hamis Ziada from his nap. It was an unidentified number. A voice on the other end said, “Am I speaking with Hamis Ziada? You’re talking to the Israeli Shin Bet. There’s a school opposite your house. Are there people in it at this time of the day?” Ziada replied that there was no one in the school in the late afternoon on that particular day, the first day of the Ramadan fast, and in any case school had been canceled because of the Israeli bombing raids. The security service agent continued, “Are you sure there are no women and children in the school? Are you positive there’s no one?” And then, “I’m giving you five minutes to tell your family and everyone in the residence you live in to go outside. We have to blow up the building in another five minutes.” Dumbstruck, Ziada tried to protest. He explained to the mysterious caller that it was impossible to evacuate a seven-story building – where 15 families, including some with children and elderly people, lived – within five minutes. The Shin Bet man replied: “That’s of no interest to me. I already told you: You have five minutes..” Thus began the most nightmarish five minutes in the life of Hamis Ziada, 54. After they ended, his home was destroyed, his world fell apart, and his life was ruined. In the month since then, he has lived in a lean-to, together with his two wives and 12 children, the youngest of whom is 4 .... What does he miss most? “The photos,” says Ziada. “The photos of my father, of my mother, of my wife and of the children.. Everything that reminds me of the days that are gone....

Shot by Israeli soldiers - child released a month after losing his leg IMEMC 19/6/19 https://imemc.org/article/child-released-a-month-after-losing-his-leg-when-israeli-soldiers-shot-him-with-expanding-bullet  Israeli soldiers released, Tuesday, a Palestinian child, Mahmoud Hussein Salah, 14, from the al-Khader town, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a month after they shot him with an expanding Dumdum bullet in the leg, leading to an amputation. . . . Salah said his dream was to become a famous soccer player, before the soldiers shot him with a Dumdum expanding bullet, in direct violation of International Law. .           Commenting on his injury after his release, the child told the Palestinian Watar Broadcast Network (WBN) that he and his friends were playing soccer, and the ball was kicked out of the field before he ran after it.  “I located the ball and carried it before I heard a soldier shouting at me and almost instantly started shooting,” Salah said, “I ran just a few feet, then I fell, and the soldiers ran towards me and started kicking and beating me up, and later took me behind the (Annexation) Wall where I was kept for about two hours, until an ambulance came and took him to the hospital.”....
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Israel's illegal rules of engagement in Gaza let snipers shoot 'key instigators' even when they move away from protest  IMEMC  23/6/19. https://imemc.org/article/revealed-israels-illegal-rules-of-engagement-in-gaza-lets-snipers-shoot-key-instigators-even-when-they-move-away-from-protest-video/

  A document released by the Israeli military describes how snipers may open fire on Gaza protesters it calls “key instigators” or “key rioters” – even when they move away from the crowd or are resting. Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel is demanding that Israeli troops immediately stop shooting live ammunition at unarmed protesters along the Gaza boundary fence. Adalah sent a letter on 16 June 2019 to Israeli Military Advocate General Sharon Afek and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit calling on them to immediately order a ban on the use of live ammunition and sniper fire as a means of dispersing demonstrations in Gaza. . . . . The details in this document were never presented during hearings before Israeli Supreme Court justices....

UK arms to Israel during Gaza protests  Muhammad Mussa  AA 24/6/19 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/arms-sold-from-uk-to-israel-during-gaza-protests-group/1514596 The British government approved arms sales to Israel worth over $17 million in 2018, when Israeli soldiers were accused of intentionally firing on and murdering Palestinian protestors at the Gaza border. The information released by the Department of International Trade (DIT) and compiled by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) shows that licenses were issued for the sale of weapons that included parts for assault rifles, ammunition and other arms that would be used against Palestinian demonstrations.

Last year on May 18, an arms sale worth more than $125,000 was approved by the government just four days after 68 Palestinians were shot by Israeli soldiers. Ironically, the export was approved the same week when then-Prime Minister Theresa May described killings as "extremely concerning". Moreover, during a debate in the parliament on the same day, seven MPs urged for greater scrutiny on U.K. weapon exports to Israel. Some even called for imposing a total ban on arms sales to Tel Aviv. Nonetheless, this did not stop the government from approving licenses to supply missile technology, military radar equipment and night vision gear amounting to $18 million from March 30 to the end of 2018. "The message it sends is that, no matter what atrocities are inflicted on the Palestinian people, arms sales will continue" said CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith....

Palestinian kids not allowed to call parents from prison Edo Konrad +978 Mag
3/7/19  https://972mag.com/palestinian-minors-israel-prison/142144/

 Israel’s High Court of Justice refused to hear a petition by an Israeli human rights organization demanding that Palestinian minors held in Israeli prisons be allowed to call their parents    Palestinian minors classified by Israel as “security prisoners” are subject to restrictions identical to those imposed on adult prisoners, including the denial of telephone contact with their parents. The prison service allegedly refuses to treat minors classified as “security prisoners” according to Israeli laws and rules regulating the treatment of children. According to HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, which petitioned the court, the Israel Prison Service imposes these restrictions on all minors, without considering the severity of the allegations or the length of the prison term

70 bullet fragments in brain of Palestinian child ISM 13/7/19 https://palsolidarity.org/2019/07/70-bullet-fragments-in-brain-of-palestinian-child-shot-in-northern-west-bank/  Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian child in the head with live ammunition at close range at around 3pm today during a protest against settlement expansion in the town of Kafr Qaddum, northern West Bank. Abdul Rahman Yasser Shteiwi, 10, was rushed to Rafidia hospital in Nablus and was operated on immediately. The leader of the popular resistance committee in Kafr Qaddum, Murad Shtaiwi, told ISM that doctors found over 70 bullet fragments lodged in the child’s brain. An X-ray scan of Abdul’s skull appears to show dozens of metal pieces throughout his brain. The 10-year-old is in a critical condition, although doctors managed to stop the bleeding a few hours after he was admitted

.           The Israeli army has claimed that no live ammunition was used against protesters; however the doctors treating Abdul said that the bullet fragments in his brain are from a live round. ISM activists also found a 5.56 bullet case on the ground where protesters had been standing some 15 minutes before. The case was hot to the touch suggesting it had been fired that afternoon. Dozens more bullet cases were also found by villagers following the protest. and

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls on Israel to conduct thorough investigation into shooting ot Palestinian child
WAFA  30/7/19  http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=JtcSOqa111112403985aJtcSOq

 Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, called on the Israeli authorities to conduct a thorough, effective, impartial and independent investigation into the Israeli forces’ shooting of nine-year-old Palestinian child Abdul Rahman Shteiwi on 12 July, and to make sure that those responsible for any wrongdoing are held accountable. “We are very concerned by the critical condition of a nine-year-old Palestinian child, Abdul Rahman Shteiwi, after he was shot in the head by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) on 12 July, in what appears to have been an example of excessive use of force.” The incident occurred during a weekly protest in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near Nablus. While protesters were burning tires and throwing stones at the ISF, Israeli soldiers -- after initially responding with rubber bullets and stun grenades – reportedly resorted to using live ammunition, without apparent reason to justify the move to use of lethal force, said the spokesman in a press briefing note. According to several credible sources, this nine-year-old child, Abdul Rahman, was not taking an active part in the protest. He was reportedly over 100 metres away from the clashes, and manifestly did not present an imminent physical threat to Israeli forces.

'archaeological settlements' are destroying Palestinian homes Mersiha Gadzo
Al Jazeera 8/7/19 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/archaeological-settlements-destroying-palestinian-homes-190708113859297.html  Fayyad Abu Rmeleh, 60, is afraid the floor and yard of his home will one day collapse. Every day, he says, from morning until late afternoon, the family hears the digging and drilling of tunnels beneath their building. The excavations conducted by Israeli authorities first began in 2000, but it was not until five years ago that they began to notice damage to their home. "It's putting our lives in danger," Abu Rmeleh told Al Jazeera. "Wherever you turn your head, you find new cracks. We don't know how many tunnels are beneath our house, but we believe there are at least three."

.           The 50-member Abu Rmeleh family lives in Silwan's Wadi Hilweh neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, which has been marketed as the "City of David" tourist attraction, where some Israelis say King David of the Bible built the "original city of Jerusalem" some 3,000 years ago. Underneath their home, Israeli authorities have been digging tunnels, searching for traces of the Second Temple era. Long, jagged cracks have formed every which way in his home - on the stairs, by the windows in the bathroom and living room, while chunks of the wall in some areas have fallen out. On the outside of the house, a 1.5-metre-long crack stretches from the ground. But his nephew's home, located in the same building, was the most badly damaged. He was forced to move out with his wife and five children in early 2018 as the ground weakened and could barely hold the walls...
Israeli authorities last week inaugurated the newly excavated tunnel "Path of the Pilgrims" that extends from Wadi Hilweh to the Western Wall, just outside the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem's Old City ...
.           Archaeologist, Yonathan Mizrachi, CEO of the Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh, told Al Jazeera the tunnels that Israel has excavated in and around the Old City and in Silwan are "problematic". To date, no academic or scientific report has been published on the tunnels, nor has any data been released as to what has been discovered ... Furthermore, the tunnels have been excavated horizontally, breaking in practice with the 100-year-old accepted method of excavating vertically from the surface down, the method used by archaeologists worldwide, Mizrachi said. Information obtained from horizontal excavations is almost worthless ...
Mizrachi said the tunnel excavations are "all part of a political agenda". "Unfortunately, Israel is using these tunnels disguised as archaeological excavations but it's actually part of the political goal to prevent Jerusalem from being part of any political solution,"

What Israel's demolition of 70 Palestinian homes was really about
Gideon Levy Ha’aretz 3/8/19 The devastation is vividly visible through his office window: the scene of an explosion. The remnants of a blasted apartment building, his life’s enterprise, a house of cards that imploded. He had planned to build 13 stories here, and had completed nine, but last week the forces of destruction swept across the site and brought down it and nine other buildings. They left only the bottom two floors intact, but the blast wrought above them by soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, with crates of explosives scattered on every floor that produced a tremendous aftershock, makes it impossible to use the remnant of the bottom floors. The building’s owner casts a sad gaze over the ruins, his eyes damp and red from a lack of sleep, and he says softly, not for the first time:

“I’d like to ask Meni Mazuz how this is this going to help security” – referring to the judge who wrote the High Court of Justice’s decision letting the demolition proceed. The question hangs ruefully in the air. The whole world of Muhammad Abu Tair, who owned the building that was toppled, lies in ruins along with the structure itself. “There is no justice at the High Court of Justice,” he says. “For years I’ve heard people say this, and now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I will never go the High Court again. Its rulings are written by the IDF and the defense establishment, not by the court.”... 

In the name of security, Israel violated the Oslo Accords, its own planning and construction regulations, and the principles of natural justice. The buildings were too close to the separation fence to Israel’s liking, and the High Court acceded tacitly to the wrongdoing. Abu Tair’s suggestion – to build, at his expense, a high concrete wall to maintain Israel’s security and dot the area with security cameras, also at his expense – was rejected outright by Israel. But the breaches in the fence created by the soldiers and the police who took part in the demolition were still there this week, without anyone bothering to repair them: mute evidence of the “security concern” lie. Every child in Sur Baher knows that this destruction had nothing to do with security. Israel only uses this as an excuse to implement its policy of a silent population transfer in Jerusalem....

 Have we no shame?  Gershon Baskin JPost 24/7/19  As I watched the video of the Israeli soldiers and police blowing up one of the 13 residential buildings demolished this week in the Wadi  al-Hummus neighborhood of Sur Bahir in east Jerusalem, I wanted to bury myself in shame. When the building imploded and the soldiers laughed as we heard the screams and cries from the Palestinians who became homeless, my shame turned to pure outrage and the urge to be violent. But I will not step down to that level. I will not be violent. But I will not hold back, I will not forget and I will not forgive.

What we did, what the State of Israel did, what we do in the name of the Jewish state is becoming pure evil. My first thoughts about what I see in the daily reality of east Jerusalem, and the West Bank and Gaza – things such as the Sur Bahir home demolitions; the removal of Palestinians from their homes in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, and the moving in of Jewish settlers in their place; settlement expansion and building at a faster pace than I have seen in many years; unauthorized settlements being built, budgeted and hooked up to Israeli infrastructure; massive police presence all over the West Bank ticketing hundreds of Palestinian cars (not cars of settlers); and the ongoing strangling the Palestinian economy in full coordination with the US government – all of these actions and more are leading to a definite explosion. My thought: Maybe that is exactly what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants? This is the perfect backdrop for Election Day. Could even Netanyahu be so cynical? I thought to myself – this can’t be ...
.           SOME OF MY right-wing friends criticize my posts on Israel’s shameless and criminal behavior. They tell me that Israel does it under the rules of Oslo. They say that the Palestinians agreed to give up their authority in Jerusalem in the Oslo Accords. They say that the Palestinians agreed to give us Area C – 62% of the West Bank. They say that Israel has the legal right to demolish those homes in Area A, and that this, too, is part of Oslo. All of these claims are lies and false. Let us all remember the truth – Oslo was an interim meant to last five years, not 25 years. The designation of Area A, Area B and Area C were temporary. Even Area C, where Israel took full civil and security authority, was supposed to be a very small part of the West Bank, including only those areas designated as connected to permanent status negotiations (meaning the settlements), which then constituted about 2% of the West Bank, and “specified military locations” constituting about 1% of the West Bank. According to Oslo, Israel was supposed to withdraw from all of the rest of the territories and transfer them to the Palestinian Authority. That never happened and that was Israel’s most fundamental breach of its commitments to the Oslo Accords. Israel did not implement what it took upon itself to implement – that is pure and simple fact.

Sadistic and brutal display of violence  ISM 23/7/19 https://palsolidarity.org/2019/07/palestinians-and-british-ismers-hospitalized-in-sadistic-and-brutal-display-of-violence-by-israeli-soldiers-in-east-jerusalem-demolition/  Two Palestinian families lost their homes yesterday in unprecedented mass demolitions in East Jerusalem carried out by 900 Israeli soldiers who hospitalized Palestinians and ISMers in a sadistic and brutal eviction operation. During the invasion of the two occupied buildings Israeli border police shot Palestinians at close range with rubber-coated steel bullets and kicked them down flights of stairs.

ISMers were stamped on, dragged across the floor by the hair, strangled with a scarf and pepper sprayed by Israeli border police. The International Solidarity Movement activists, Bethany Rielly, 25, Beatrice-Lily Richardson, 27, Chris Lorigan, 30, and Gabriella Jones, 20, were carrying out a non-violent action by sitting in the house of Palestinian Ismail Obeide with 30 locals in the Wadi al-Hummus neighbourhood of Sur Baher, in an attempt to delay the demolition. 12 Palestinians were also hospitalized after being kicked in the back down flights of stairs and two were illegally shot at close range with rubber-coated steel bullets.....
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Dozens of housing units demolished in Sur Baher in occupied East Jerusalem  PCHR 227/19 https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=12718  On Monday morning, 22 July 2019, Israeli military forces launched a large-scale destruction operation against civilian property in Wadi al-Humus neighborhood, in Sur Baher, south of occupied East Jerusalem. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers and machinery carried out the destructions that resulted in hundreds of civilians losing their shelter. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime against civilians and considers it on par for ethnic cleansing, and holds the Israeli government accountable for escalating the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). PCHR calls upon the international community to hold its legal and moral responsibility and intervene effectively to stop Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians and to provide necessary protection.
.           According to PCHR’s documentation, at approximately 2:00 on Monday, 22 July 2019, hundreds of Israeli soldiers moved into Sour Baher village with dozens of construction vehicles. They stationed in Wadi al-Humus neighborhood, closed its entrances and cut all power supplies. Israeli soldiers then forcefully vacated buildings in the neighborhood, used physical violence against them and banned them from taking any of their belongings with them. At approximately 06:00, destruction machinery took to work and preliminary numbers assert that at least 8 houses and buildings were destroyed, and explosives were planted in a 10-story building in order to destroy it …
           Wadi al-Humus neighborhood (area: 3,000 dunums; population: 6000) is located on the edge of Sur Baher, south of occupied East Jerusalem.  The neighbourhood is not within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and most of its lands are classified in Area A that is under full control of the Palestinian Authority according to the Oslo Accords; thus, the buildings’ owners obtained construction licences from the Palestinian Ministry of Local Governance.  Following the construction of the annexation wall in 2003, the neighbourhood was split as some houses ended up in the Israeli side but not under jurisdiction of the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem….

Ten methods for deportation Amira Hass Ha’aretz 30/7/19 https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/ten-methods-for-deportation-israel-has-created-1.7582516  Israel has created ten methods of deportation. One of them it has reserved for labor migrants and African refugees fleeing war and famine, while the rest have been assigned to the native Palestinians – children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who were born here.

Most of the Israeli public views these methods as justified and supports – even if only by remaining silent – their continued implementation. We, the minority, scream against it inside a bell jar. There is the expulsion of people and chasing them out of the country, there is the forced displacement from homes and villages to enclaves of Area A, there is expulsion to the Gaza Strip and turning it into a penal colony, expulsion from Jerusalem to the West Bank and from agricultural land that provided a living for the family for hundreds of years. Official Israel is careful not to declare that its intention is to empty the land of its Palestinian natives. It has always relied on laws, regulations and military orders – seemingly respectable and proper – with a stamp of approval from the High Court of Justice ... 

There is expulsion by virtue of the Israeli control over the Palestinian Population Registry, which turns Palestinians into permanent residents by the grace of Israel’s bad intentions. Until 1994, Israel revoked the residency status of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and in the Gaza Strip if they resided overseas for a long period, or were not here during the 1967 census ...  There is expulsion by drying people out. Israel controls the water sources. It sets low water quotas for the natives. Agriculture for Jews is expanding in the West Bank, while the water for the Palestinians – for drinking and agriculture – is shrinking ...  The Gaza Strip is cut off from the water in the rest of the country, as if it were an isolated island. Ninety-five percent of its water is unfit for drinking. Not everyone can bear this for a long time ... There is expulsion by the banning of construction and connecting to infrastructure and by constant demolitions, blocking access to springs and grazing land, in what is called Area C, which covers most of the West Bank. Not everyone can bear it for a long time. People move to live in the Palestinian enclaves....

Hugh Humphries  

Secretary                                   

Scottish Friends of Palestine     0141 637 8046                    info@scottish-friends-of-palestine.org