TO DAY IN PALESTINE

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Land theft / Destruction / Settlements

Palestinians ordered to evacuate Beit Safafa home
Jerusalem – Ma‘an – The West Jerusalem municipality ordered Palestinian Ali Ibrahim Salah out of his home and off his lands Thursday following a court decision that found the land belonged to the Jewish Agency. The land and buildings are home to seventy members of the Salah family, and the family had been involved in a 20-year court battle with Israeli settlers claiming they owned the land.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212500

Israeli forces penetrate half kilometer into Gaza
Israeli forces made their deepest incursion into the Gaza Strip in months near Beit Hanoun, penetrating 500 meters past the buffer zone to burn 150 dunums of land. The agricultural field of wheat and barley crops belonging to the Shabat family was destroyed after an Israeli militarized vehicle left the Erez District Coordination Office (DCO) and drove into the Strip, stopping only to set the land on fire. Dry weather meant the crops burned quickly, consuming the much needed grains. The incident is a string in what farmers call persistent attempts by Israeli soldiers to prevent the harvesting of crops outside the Israeli-patrolled buffer zone near the Gaza border fence. Locals reported almost daily patrols of military jeeps on the outskirts of the town.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212670

Al Jazeera Video: Settlement tourism takes root on the West Bank
Thousands of tourists visiting the Middle East each year have plenty of reasons to travel to the region. But for a small minority the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a draw, prompting enterprising tour operators to organise trips to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scLleNsMc2U

Violence / Incursions / Movement restriction

Israeli soldiers crack down on Ni‘lin protesters
Israeli soldiers rained tear gas on hundreds of protesters against the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Nilin, west of Ramallah, on Friday ... After losing the vast majority of its original 58,000 dunums of land to Israel in 1948, the village has been further shrunk (another 8,000 dunums) by settlements built after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Ni‘lin will lose approximately 2,500 dunums (2.5 square kilometers) when construction of the wall is completed, leaving the town with just 7,300 dunums.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212700

Settlers, soldiers, and Palestinians clash in Hebron
Two Israeli settlers sustained bruises when the Palestinians they were attacking retaliated and beat them, according to at least one person involved in the incident. The unnamed individual told Ma‘an the clashes erupted near the main entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba’, built on Palestinian land inside Hebron’s center, after Israeli settlers antagonized a group of Palestinians. The antagonism reportedly turned into a small-scale swarming and Palestinians defended themselves, beating the settlers. Israeli forces responded to the scene by further beating them, one of the Palestinians claimed.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212909

Israeli forces attack Israeli activists near Hebron
Three Israeli activists were injured and nine others were detained by Israeli forces after they attempted to organize a sit-in strike on Saturday near Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the southern West Bank ... "The soldiers beat and kicked dozens of protestors, and hit them with rifle butts," the spokesperson added. "As a result, three Israeli leftists sustained bruises and nine others were detained." Awad alleged that Israeli authorities have continued to prevent Palestinian farmers from accessing their agricultural land, which settlers continue to bulldoze and torch.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212890

Machsom Watch - Bring on the Band: Atara/Bir Zeit Checkpoint, Sunday, 12.7.09
It’s not a checkpoint, it’s a checking post, said the soldier who tried to keep us away. To our claim that the Minister of Defense had announced there was no longer a checkpoint at this spot, he replied: ’Did the Minister of Defense also tell you he saw two armed insurgents hanging around here yesterday?’ No, he didn’t. What I had seen there with my own eyes yesterday were seven armed Israeli soldiers hanging around, right there. ’Bring on a band!’ the soldier yelled to his mates. When we reached the checkpoint, the first ’band’ was already there — six men being processed: IDs placed obediently on the ground, shirts lifted, legs bared, all the contents of their vehicle down to the last compartment taken out and inspected, every bag emptied and shaken out.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34576

Siege / Testimonies

Gaza: One crossing open as siege restricts goods into Strip
The Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip will be partially open on Friday for the transfer of a near-record low number of truckloads, 43-53, crossings official Raed Fattouh said. The Nahal Oz and the Karni crossings will both remain closed. All three crossings will be closed Saturday. As the Israeli siege on the Strip enters its third year, Israel continues to allow only 20% of pre-siege levels of goods into the area, home to 1.5 million people, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212613

Gazan companies represented in Hebron festival - by banners
Eleven Gazan companies will participate in a Made In Palestine fair hosted in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and set to start next weekend. The companies will be there in name only, however; represented by large banners bearing their names. “We wished that Gazan products could be highlighted in the exhibition halls, but we were only able to have the eleven Gazan companies which are still working in the Strip,” said Director of Public Relations for the Gaza Chamber of Commerce Gaza Mahir Tabba‘a. [list of the 11 Gazan companies still in business follows]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212840

UN official: Removing Gaza war rubble needs over eight months
A senior UN official said Friday that removing the rubble caused by an Israeli war on Gaza that ended on Jan. 18 would need more than eight months with a cost of 12 million U.S. dollars.
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/6703791.html

Viva Palestina: Palestinian Premier Ismail Hanniyeh meets with rabbis in Gaza
By Soozy Duncan. Allowed only 24 hours in Gaza under threat of not being allowed to return to Egypt, the Viva Palestina convoy has been a whirlwind of activity since crossing the border at Rafah Wednesday night. Organizers have attempted to compress 3 days of planned activities into a single day.
http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/07/18/ismail-hanniyeh-meets-with-rabbis-in-gaza/

Free Gaza - and Palestine
from The Nation, July 17. By Huwaida Arraf, JD.
http://jnoubiyeh.blogspot.com/2009/07/free-gaza-and-palestine.html

Overcoming speechlessness
By Pulitzer Prize winning author and feminist Alice Walker, who traveled to the Gaza Strip with CODEPINK — Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming. There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the Bantustan. To the “rez”. To the “colored section.” In some ways it is surprisingly comforting. Because consciousness is comforting. Everyone you see has an awareness of struggle, of resistance, just as you do. The man driving the donkey cart. The woman selling vegetables. The young person arranging rugs on the sidewalk or flowers in a vase. When I lived in segregated Eatonton, Georgia I used to breathe normally only in my own neighborhood, only in the black section of town. Everywhere else was too dangerous. A friend was beaten and thrown in prison for helping a white girl, in broad daylight, fix her bicycle chain. But even this sliver of a neighborhood, so rightly named the Gaza strip, was not safe.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212871

Nicer times in Gaza: the sea
[good photos of kids, cooking chickens, etc.] Scenes from Gaza’s seashore, despite the many areas of contaminated water –tainted by raw sewage being pumped into the sea, no other option for treating the waste, thanks to the siege and Israeli attacks on sanitation stations.
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/nicer-times-in-gaza-the-sea/

War Crimes

Under investigation
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Richard Falk talks to Amira Howeidy about the pressure mounted on the UN fact-finding mission in Gaza
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/956/re72.htm

US group rallies Israeli soldiers to combat Gaza allegations
TEL AVIV – One day after an Israeli group released a 112-page booklet of soldier testimonies alleging the military had a lax open-fire policy during Israel’s 22-day January offensive in Gaza, soldiers organized by an American non-profit have recorded their own testimonies insisting the IDF did the best it could to reduce collateral damage. The testimonials are meant to show the humane side of the much-maligned Israeli army, and can be found at Soldiersspeakout.com – a subsidiary of Stand With Us International, an Los Angeles non-profit which seeks to boost Israeli public relations.
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/07/17/us-group-rallies-israeli-soldiers-to-combat-gaza-allegations/

PA Media Restrictions

Human Rights Watch: PA has red lines when it comes to free speech
The Palestinian Authority should immediately reverse its decision to suspend the operations of Al-Jazeera satellite television in the West Bank, Human Rights Watch insisted on Friday in a statement. Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, in his capacity as deputy minister of information, ordered the bureau’s suspension on 15 July, the day after it aired allegations against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212705

Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment

Egyptian impediments to Gaza aid convoy draw criticism from Boston activists
Members of the Boston area branches of International Socialist Organization, Veterans for Peace, and other activist groups gathered across from the entrance to the Park Street MBTA station on Tuesday to show support for a humanitarian aid convoy attempting to go from Egypt into Gaza.
http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/796

[Irish] cross-party delegation to visit Gaza
A cross-party Oireachtas delegation will visit Gaza next week at the invitation of UN aid workers helping Palestinian refugees. The trip will include members of the Foreign Affairs and European Affairs Committees and will leave on Monday for five days.
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/crossparty-delegation-to-visit-gaza-419118.html

More than a customs dispute - will EU penalize exports from Israeli settlements?
Is Europe really willing to express its aversion to Israeli settlements in the West Bank by slapping customs duties on products made in them? A tax court in Hamburg might soon provide an answer to this touchy issue.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,636019,00.html

Prospects for unity

Az-Zahar: Fatah planned hit on Hamas leaders
Mahmoud az-Zahar, Hamas’ foreign minister in Gaza, said Friday that the security forces in the Strip have exposed a plan to assassinate senior group leaders in an attempt to sabotage the negotiation efforts between Hamas and Fatah. Speaking to Friday worshippers, a-Zahar said that behind the plot stood former members of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces that operated in Gaza prior to Hamas’ takeover of the Strip.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748195,00.html

Hamas official: PA forces won’t return to Gaza anytime soon
Fatah has demanded that 15,000 Palestinian Authority security forces be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip, Hamas leader Mahmoud Az-Zahar said on Friday. The official rejected the alleged demand during a weekly sermon at the Al-Qassam Mosque in central Gaza on Friday, saying that Hamas would not allow the Fatah-backed "death squads" to return to "what has become a no-man’s land."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212715

Both Fatah and Hamas pessimistic over prospects for unity deal
Delegations of Fatah and Hamas negotiators will hold an evaluative meeting on Saturday under Egypt’s sponsorship to discuss the latest updates on a number of issues blocking a proposed unity agreement. Faisal Abu Shahla, a Palestinian lawmaker affiliated to Fatah, told Ma‘an on Friday that “the session that will be held on Saturday between the delegations of the two movements will mainly focus on prisoners in Gaza and the West Bank.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212708

Palestinian FM insists on holding elections in January
RAMALLAH, July 18 (Xinhua) — Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday said general elections must be held in January without any delay. "The elections must be carried out in their due time, January 25th next year, as a constitutional right that can never be played with," Fayyad told reporters. Fayyad’s remarks were made as Hamas rejected holding any kind of elections before it completes reconciliation with President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/18/content_11730418.htm

Other news

First movie penned by Hamas strongman shown in Gaza
(Xinhua) — When lights in the move theater hall of Gaza City’s Islamic University were turned off, senior Hamas leaders, bearded men, veiled women and local celebrities began to watch the first feature film produced by Gaza-ruling Islamic Hamas movement. The two-hour feature film, with the screenplay written by Gaza Hamas strongman Mahmoud al-Zahar, tells the story of Emad Akel, the commander of Hamas movement’s armed wing al-Qassam Brigades, who was killed by Israel in 1993.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/18/content_11730025.htm

Knesset committee to review revised ’Nakba Law’
Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs will discuss softened version of motion banning marking of ’catastrophe’ of Israel’s inception. Law’s initiator MK Miller: I won’t let taxpayers’ money be used for anti-Zionist propaganda
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748335,00.html

Former US ambassador meets with Hamas figures
Hamas officials Bassem Naim and Mahmoud Az-Zahhar met former US Ambassador to the UN Thomas R. Pickering in Switzerland last month, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. "I hope it will be the beginning of addressing some of the mistakes of the last three years," said Naim of the talks with the former ambassador, who also served as undersecretary of state. "This was a first meeting to investigate the positions in general terms of both parties without any commitment on any side."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212720

De facto government police: Four fugitives arrested
De facto government police arrested four fugitives as they attempted to escape into Egypt, sources in Rafah police in the southern Gaza Strip said on Saturday morning. The four men, who have not been identified, are said to have sentences pending for civil violations and criminal acts. Sources said one man had a life sentence pending.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212774

Egyptian security seizes explosives near Gaza border
Egyptian security seized half ton of explosives and a bag containing 10 mortar shells apparently ready to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip, Egyptian sources reported Saturday. Egyptian detectives in Rafah were informed that smugglers were hiding explosives inside a cemetery near the borders with the Gaza Strip, police said. Upon investigation eight boxes of TNT and what looked like Israeli-manufactured mortar shells were discovered.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212826

Palestinians aim for massive pastry record
Palestinian bakers have made an extra-large version of a local pastry, hoping to set a record and boost the reputation of this West Bank economic hub. Their kunafa - a mix of vermicelli, syrup and cheese - weighs 1,765 kilos (3,891 lbs) and is 74 meters (243 feet) long.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748329,00.html

Palestinian shows win big at Tunis Arab TV and Radio Awards
Tunis - A Palestinian soap opera and documentary won a gold and bronze award in their respective categories Friday at the Arab Radio and TV awards in Tunis. The 14th annual awards session kicked off on 11 June and wrapped up Friday. It awarded the TV movie Kaffa! (Enough!) a gold prize for its short program looking at the lives of brothers who belonged to Palestine’s rival factions Hamas and Fatah. Earning a bronze prize was the documentary Tamin Al-Intidhar (The Price of Waiting), a documentary outlining the difficulties East Jerusalemites face dealing with Israeli aggression and racist policies preventing them from building homes or receiving services from the local government.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212688

’These were terrible blows’
Shocking new evidences emerges in affair involving IDF troops abused by commanders
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748384,00.html

Four hurt as fresh wave of Haredi protests hits Jerusalem
Ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones at passing vehicles in Jerusalem on Saturday, lightly wounding four people, in a fresh protest against the desecration of Shabbat in the capital. The four were driving along the city’s Bar Ilan road. Two of them were hit in the head by the rocks.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1101002.html

MK Tibi: I’m surprised police didn’t kill protesters in Jerusalem
Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi expressed his wonder and satisfaction at the fact that the police has yet to kill any protestor during the haredi riots in Jerusalem. This, he said "despite the fact that protestors have hurt policemen and disrupted life in the capital". He also added, "this is the restraint expected of the police".
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748380,00.html

Analysis / Opinion

Don’t escape reality
Dana Golan says we must at least listen to disturbing testimonials from Gaza war — For two and a half years I was a member of the Education Corps and memorized all the “IDF spirit” values I was trained to impart. The first place where I encountered the immense gap between the Education Corp’s training base and reality on the ground was in Hebron. There, the blue notebook that details values such as purity of arms, credibility, human life, responsibility, discipline, and personal example remained in one’s pocket. Hebron is not too far from here, yet it is located in a different world. After all, most of us don’t go there.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3746879,00.html

Gaza and the language of power - the brute logic of big guns
By Ramzy Baroud. Nearly six months have passed since the Israeli army ceased pounding the tiny stretch of land that is the Gaza Strip. Since then, Gaza continues to appear on the news once in a while, as a recurring subject of human misery ... Sadly, one’s worse fears have actualized, where the post-Gaza massacre world and the one which existed prior are exactly the same.
http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud07172009.html

The Johnny procedure
By Uri Avnery. We shall not evade the hardest moral question of all: is it permissible to risk the lives of our soldiers in order to save the old people, women and children of the ’enemy’? The answer of Assa Kasher, the ideologue of the ’Most Moral Army in the World’, is unequivocal: it is absolutely forbidden to risk the lives of the soldiers. The most telling sentence in his entire essay is: "Therefore…the state must give preference to the lives of its soldiers above the lives of the (unarmed) neighbors of a terrorist.” These words should be read twice and three times, in order to grasp their full implications. What is actually being said here is: if necessary to avoid casualties among our soldiers, it is better to kill enemy civilians without any limit. In retrospect, one can only be glad that the British soldiers, who fought against the Irgun and the Stern Group, did not have an ethical guide like Kasher.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212872

How we support peace
Arab gestures towards peace should be understood as showing support for Obama, not as rewards for Israel, writes James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/956/op3.htm

Ethan Bronner, what have you done for Israeli propaganda today?
By As‘ad AbuKhalil, July 17. Bronner’s services to Israeli propaganda are never characterized with subtlety: he belongs to the Alan Dershowitz’s school of Israeli propaganda. Today, he has an article on the West Bank on the front page. The closure of the AlJazeera office in Ramallah warranted a small little item in the New York Times yesterday. Yet, today, there is a front page article on the West Bank. What was his point? Well, there is always an Israeli propaganda point or points in the articles by Ethan Bronner (a former deputy foreign editor of the New York Times). Here, his point is that there are fruits for collaboration with Israel and he all but called on all Palestinians to collaborate with Israel.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/07/ethan-bronner-what-have-you-done-for.html

Burning down the house
Haredi residents set the streets on fire while fighting the Zionist state — By Ariella Ringel-Hoffman. We see it happening every few months. An amazing Jerusalem ritual; glorious haredi pyromania – burning down the house ... It starts with announcements posted on walls, urging the public to join. This week it was about the starving mother – whose son’s shocking photograph, all skin and bones, was published by Yedioth Ahronoth Thursday.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748120,00.html

Why is a liberal Israel analyst echoing neocon fearmongering on Iran?
MJ Rosenberg buys into the ’Iran as existential threat’ frame. By Joshua Holland. "And the fact is that the Iranian threat appears more serious today than it did before the election, because the regime looks significantly more deranged in July than it did in May. It is simply no longer possible to argue with confidence that Tehran is rational and would accordingly refrain from using a nuclear weapon on Israel. The election fiasco put that argument to rest. Israel’s concerns are legitimate."
http://www.alternet.org/world/141315/