This Week in Palestine week 42 2008

Israeli military and settler step up attacks in the West Bank killing three Palestinians and detaining dozens, meanwhile talks between the rival Palestinian faction continue in Cairo in bid to reach a national unity agreement, these stories and more coming up, stay tuned

Nonviolence
Let us begin our weekly report with nonviolent actions in the West Bank, where Israel continues to confiscate more land to build the separation wall and settlements.
Beit Sahour
Six human rights activists were detained in a protest against attempts by Israeli settlers to take over the site of a former Israeli army base in Beit Sahour on Thursday.

A number of internationals and Palestinians from the Bethlehem area staged a demonstration on the site, located in eastern Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem as hundreds of Jewish settlers flocked into the area and erected structures. The settlers claimed their actions were to celebrate of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

The international human rights activists along with local residents, including a number of children, were at the site from the morning, picnicking and bird watching with the Wild Life Society and the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People. The Centre is a local organization in Beit Sahour, which regularly organizes activities on the site, since it was evacuated by the Israeli military who had used it as a military base for 39 years.

Israeli troops tried to force all the Palestinians and Internationals to leave the site to when the extremist settlers arrived. The settlers have organized a number of activities in the area since last May in an attempt to build another illegal Israeli settlement, on the 25 acre hilltop.

As the crowd of internationals and Palestinians started to leave, following threats by an Israeli armed settler, Israeli troops assaulted and detained six of them.

Sami Awad of Bethlehem was among those detained -
(Actuality, Sami - English)

Ma’asara
Also in Bethlehem, Israeli troops on Friday obstructed hundreds of Palestinian farmers, accompanied by internationals, who were trying to harvest olives on land where Israel is building the separation wall, in Al-Ma’asara and Um Salamouna villages south east of Bethlehem.

The farmers and their international supporters started the harvest in the early morning. But when they tried to reach the area adjacent to the construction site of the wall troops assaulted them and attempted to stop them.

Meanwhile, a number of Israeli settlers gathered on an adjacent hilltop, shouting racist slogans like, “Death to Arabs” and “Get the Arabs out so that Israel will be clean.”

Bil’in
In Ramallah, the residents of Bil’in continued to organize their weekly nonviolent protests against the wall and settlements.

On Friday hundreds of villagers accompanied by International and Israeli peace and human rights activists marched through the village carrying Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against the wall that is grabbing wide areas of the village’s land.

French and Norwegian solidarity groups also joined the Bil’iners in their demonstration, demanding Israel allow the Palestinians to harvest their olives.

The protestors were opposed by a number of Israeli soldiers as they made their way to the lands besieged behind the wall. Troops showered them with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and concussion grenades. But the protestors managed to walk through and break the gate.
Dozens were exposed to the gas and received medical treatment at the scene.

For IMEMC this is George Rishmawi



Political
The rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, continue to hold talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo, in a bid to end their 16-month division.

More with IMEMC’s Rami Al-Meghari
This week, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas rejected holding direct bilateral talks with the rival Hamas party in Gaza , arguing that representatives of other Palestinian factions should be present in any talks.

Hamas regarded Abbas' rejection as a slam to underway Egyptian mediation efforts, saying this would hinder national unity talks.

Hamas exiled political leader, Khaled Mash'al, called for ending political arrests in both Gaza and the West Bank to guarantee success of current reconciliation talks.

From Cairo, officials are ready to invite other Palestinian independent public figures such as religious scholars and local community leaders to the dialogue, in order to help convince parties concerned, of the significance of a peace deal.

Fatah and Hams have been at loggerheads since Hamas took power after January of 2006's parliamentary elections. In February of 2007, they formed the first-ever national unity government but four months later fighting broke out, ending with Hamas taking over Gaza and Fatah forming its own government in the West Bank.

In another news, a Saudi Arabian local newspaper, Ukaz, reported this week that Israel agreed to comply with the Hamas party demands regarding a prisoner swap for the release of captured Israeli soldier in Gaza, Gilad Shalit and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails.

Israeli official sources denied such a report.

For the past several weeks, Cairo has been mediating a prisoner swap, yet Israel refuses to release prisoners on Hamas's list in exchange for Shalit.

In Gaza, spokesman of the Islamic Jihad group 'Saraya Alquds Brigades', Abu Ahmad, said his faction preserves the right to terminate current truce 'ceasefire' with Israel due to what he called Israel's procrastination to lift the Gaza blockade.

However, the spokesman confirmed that his group awaits a factional consensus on the matter.

According to the local popular committee for breaking the Israeli blockade on Gaza, Israeli authorities have only permitted one-third of the goods and necessary items for Gaza into the Gaza Strip since June of this year. Also, the committee says the Gaza crossings remain closed.

Four months ago, Israeli and the ruling Hamas parties agreed to an Egyptian-mediated peace talks, stipulating the end of homemade shells fired from Gaza onto Israel and lift of Israel's debilitating blockade on the coastal territory, since Hamas took it over in June of 2007.

At the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks level, both Palestinian's and Isaeli's have yet to see the vision of U.S's president Gorge W. Bush towards a two-state solution come true.

This week in a meeting with investors in Washington, the U.S Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, called for much more concentrated effort to achieve the vision before the end of Bush's term in January2009.

On another note, member states International Parliamentary Union in Geneva, excluding Israel, voted unanimously this week for accepting Palestine as permanent member state. The decision is the first-ever by an international organization since Israel occupied Palestine in 1948.

For IMEMC This is Rami Al-Meghari in Gaza

West Bank Report

Israeli military and armed settler attacks on Palestinians were observed widely throughout the West Bank this week.

The details with IMEMC’s Jessica Husly in Bethlehem

In the West Bank city of Hebron, the settlers attacked a Palestinian neighborhood. No causalities were reported.

Also, in the West Bank city of Beit Sahour, the settlers attacked a neighborhood in the presence of Israeli soldiers. Six people were detained by Israeli military.

As part of these attacks, witnesses in the city of Ramallah believe that a teen Palestinian boy was killed by settlers on a road near the Israeli settlement of Beit Eil, on the outskirts of the Jalazoun refugee camp.

This week, the Israeli military killed three Palestinians and wounded at least two others in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian man, while attempting to cross the Israeli controlled checkpoint of Huwwara, due to prolonged hours of no movement.

In addition, this week, the Israeli military detained at least 20 Palestinian residents from the various West Bank areas, as an Israeli military court sentenced five residents and demanded the detention of two others.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, chairman of the Palestinian initiative party and former information minister, described the Israeli actions across the West Bank as an indication of Israel's drive to weaken the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.

Barghouthi also believed that these actions will lead to a third Palestinian popular uprising in the face of the Israeli occupation.

For IMEMC this is Jessica Husley

Gaza Report

Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip continued this week, with Israeli naval vessels firing at Palestinian fishing boats throughout the week. Also, the Hamas-led police forces rounded up a number of local journalists.

IMEMC’s Rami Al-Meghari in Gaza has more


Israeli naval forces were reported firing at Gaza fishermen onboard ships in different parts of the Gaza coastal territory. Such Israeli attacks take place in the presence of members of the international peace communities.

No causalities were reported in the assaults, yet media reports said that the Palestinian fishermen were repeatedly asked by the Israeli vessels to stay away from the shores, an order that is inconsistent with previously-signed peace agreements, allowing fishermen to go more than 12 nautical miles inside the Gaza shores.

In addition, according to the International Solidarity Movement, a grassroots international organization dedicated to the solidarity with the Palestinian people, the Israeli soldiers, controlling the Gaza-Israel eastern border lines, shoot at Palestinian farmers, while in their farmland, close to what Israel calls a buffer zone.

This week, members of the Gaza-based ISM, helped harvest olive trees on the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to protect those farmers from Israeli army fire during this particular season, where olive constitutes a major source of income for the besieged Strip.

In the meantime, Israeli authorities in northern Gaza, denied access to an Israeli-Arab medical staff into Gaza for performing major surgical operations for the besieged patients.

Jamal Alkhudari, a lawmaker and chairman of the local popular committee for breaking the Israeli siege on Gaza, announced on Thursday that the death toll of patients, awaiting treatment outside of Gaza, reached 252 with the death of a Gaza patient boy this week.

On the internal level, the Hamas-led police forces in Gaza rounded up at least five journalists and a researcher in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir Elbalah and in Gaza city. No further details were given by the interior ministry of Hamas.

Since June of 2007, Israeli authorities have been enforcing a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, preventing smooth access of people and goods in an out of the Strip, home to 1.5 million residents.

For IMEMC, this is Rami Al-Meghari.in Gaza.

And that was just some of the news this week in Palestine. For constant update check out our website, www.IMEMC.org. Thanks for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. This week's report has been brought to you by Hussam Qassis and George Rishmawi, good bye.