The Execution of a Palestinian Journalist

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By Kawther Salam • Sep 19th, 2009 at 16:41 • Category: Kawther's Choice

Last Wednsday, August 26 2009, the criminal Israeli occupation forces shot the Palestinian journalist Ubayda Maher Al-Qudsi, aged 25, while he was walking on Al-Shuhada Street in the heart of the occupied city of Hebron.

To justify the murder, the IDF murderers claimed that Al-Dweik had attempted to attack an IDF soldier with a knife. No knife and no injured soldier were found where Al-Dweik was shot, and the things happened very differently from the usual lies of the IDF.

The Palestinians who witnessed the crime stated that the soldiers stopped Al-Qudsi and were searching him, all the while mistreating and humiliating him. One of the jewish soldiers not involved in the search shot Al-Dweik in cold blood five times.

After that, one group of soldiers dragged Al-Dweik like a sack for what was described as several hundred meters, then threw him violently into the back of their jeep and proceeded to beat him with extreme violence. Another group of soldiers present during the crime attacked the Palestinians present in the area, and arrested many children and youth who had witnessed the crime. The soldiers finally declared the crime scene a “military zone”. A Red Cross ambulance was not allowed to reach the victim, and the medical team of the ambulance was attacked by the soldiers. Instead, Al-Dweik was later delivered to the Shaare Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem, where he was held detained by military.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, neither the family nor the lawyer of Al-Dweik were allowed to visit him. Instead, he was severely tortured by the jews in the hospital, until they finally executed him deliberately on Sunday 13 September 2009.
Ubayda Maher Abed Al-Muti Al-Dweik Al-Qudsi was buried in Hebron yesterday, 14 September 2009, in Hebron. His brother Moataz al-Qudsi demanded that human rights organizations investigate the death of his brother, who was shot in Al-Shuhada Street at the western entrance to the center of Hebron. He also denied the IDF allegations that his brother was trying to stab the soldiers.

Ubayda Al-Qudsi was a student of journalism in Malaysia, having completed the first two years. Before his murder, Ubayda had finished the necessary preparations to travel to Malaysia and to complete his study of journalism, where he wanted to receive a master's degree in journalism, but the IDF shot him five bullets before he could achieve his dream.

The Palestinian Ministry of information stated that Ubayda had been a victim of journalism. They stated that Ubaya’s murder was one more addition to the long list of Israeli crimes which target Palestinian journalists since 1967. The Ministry of informations demanded that journalists expose the real reasons behind murdering the incipient journalist Al-Dweik, and to stop repeating the false allegations and outright lies of the IDF after they murder Palestinians.

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The IDF soldiers continuously cause horrible troubles for the Palestinians who walk on Al-Shuhada Street, which has been converted into a military base. Al-Shuhada Street once was the main street in the commercial center of trade, economy, transportation and tourism which was the city of Hebron. This is the street which links between the center, north and south of the city of Hebron. Gradually, the street was closed down by the Israeli occupation since 1994, after the terrorist massacre committed in Hebron by the crazed Zionist and IDF officer Baruch Goldstein, a US citizen and a member of the Kach terrorist cell.

In this massacre, Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians and wounded hundreds, among them dozens who were left permanently paralyzed. As usual, when jews commit atrocities, Palestinians are punished. In the year 2000 the street was closed completely by the “civil administration” in the Israeli army headquarters, after all the shops on the street had successively been closed by military orders, and the Palestinians who lived in the street were forced to leave their houses. The street is now used only by the jewish squatter colonists. The legal adviser of the army stated that the street had been closed “by mistake” and there was no legal justification for doing that, and that the movement of Palestinians should not be prevented in the street. Even the attorney general of Israel decided that the closure of the street was illegal, but until now the Israeli army continues preventing Palestinians from walking in Al Shuhada Street.

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This disgusting crime against a Palestinian journalist took place in Hebron under Udin ben Muha the war criminal Lt. Col. Udi ben Moha, a.k.a. Udi ben Mocha, a.k.a Udi ben Muha, and his fellows the head of DCL Lt. Colonel Aviv Feigel and liaison officer Lt. Barak Morag. Ben Moha is the current Israeli brigade commander for Hebron, the other two are the heads of the occupation office. These crimes must be submitted to the International criminal court (ICC); perhaps one day, sooner or later we will be able to not only sue the criminal commanders of the Israeli IDF for all their crimes against humanity, but to also see them rotting in jail.

It is interesting to note that the head of mission of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron “TIPH”, Britt Tove Berg Brestrup, who is apparently a jewish woman from Norway, fraternizes with Ben Moha and the other abject war criminals from the occupying forces.

Tove Berg is demanded to stop fraternizing in any way with the israeli criminals in the headquarters of the TIPH in Hebron, people who are personally culpable of many horrible crimes against Palestinians, like murders, detentions and executions of children, vandalism against Palestinian property and wanton violence against civilians.

Is fraternizing with war criminals, holding lunches together, inviting them to parties in the west of occupied Jerusalem, part of the duties of their presence in Palestine under the original agreement? Or is it rather so that TIPH officers would do better in avoiding criminals like Lt. Col. Udi Ben Muha, Lt. Colonel Aviv Feigel, Lt. Barak Morag, and all other israeli personnel present in the West Bank, or at least to meet these thugs in a discrete way so as to not offend us Palestinians?

Lt. Col. Ben Muha is a war criminal with a long history of committing crimes against humanity. He contributed to the ethnic cleansing of the north of Gaza and along the Palestinian-Egyptian border, and he implemented other measures which correspond to the definition of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Geneva conventions and the Rome Statute of the ICC. Since he was appointed as a commander of the IDF in Hebron, he aids and abets to a continuous string of crimes against the Palestinians of the city and surroundings, which are all war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Lt. Col. Ben Moha and Another Premeditated Murder in Cold Blood

On Tuesday, January 13 2009, IDF soldiers executed in cold blood Yasser Saqer Al-Tmeizy, age of 35, a member of the Palestinian People's Party, one of the main wings of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a peace activist who had no history of violence against Israel, he hold a permit issued by the military command of the IDF to work in Israel for six-months. Al-Tmeizy was kidnapped from his farm near Tarqumiya west of Hebron. He was caught by four Israeli soldiers while he was working in his field together with his oldest child Firas, aged seven.

The IDF soldiers found the victim alone in his farm and beat him seriously, blindfolded his eyes, cuffed his hands and took him into their military vehicle. His child was also forced to leave the field. The soldiers threatened to shoot him if he insisted in looking at his father, who was blindfolded and handcuffed while being pushed violently to the military vehicle.

The IDF soldiers later executed Al-Tmeizy. They shot him several times in cold blood while he was still blindfolded and cuffed. This is a gratuitous murder is a crass crime against humanity which colonel Lt. Col. Udi ben Moha has tried to cover up and which he possibly ordered personally.

The criminal “State of Israel” and the IDF have never respected human rights, the laws and international treaties and the Geneva Convention of 1949. The IDF always finds Palestinian civilians guilty, and shoots them for whatever reasons. The army has never filed charges against the soldier, and has never investigated the soldiers involved in the whole incident. Always the IDF commanders cover the crimes. The IDF spokesperson always accuses the victim of “stabbing” or “attacking” the IDF soldiers, and all what he does after each crime is to change the date of statement and the name of the victim. This is a disgusting farce which occurs every day in Palestine. It is time to deal with these crimes in accordance with international laws, and all governments should open the doors of their courts to the victims. It is long past time that everybody learns how to respect the legal treaties and conventions which they signed, and by this I mean the jews of Israel.

Everyone must denounce the crimes of Israel, and deal with them like criminals are treated everywhere. It is no longer acceptable to remain silent about these crimes, and it will no longer be useful, because from now on anybody standing with Israel will be unmasked as somebody of sick mind who stands with criminals of the worst kind. The world has entered the era of technological revolution in communications, in which no states or censorship laws can silence the voice of truth and hinder the dissemination of first-hand information about the crimes of Israel. Israel is a state of occupation since 42 years, and it is enough of covering up the Israeli crimes.

Here is a Murder Committed Under the Previous Military Commander of Hebron Lt. Col. Yehuda Fox, a.k.a. Yehuda Fuchs

On February 14 2005, the child Sabri Al-Rajoub, age 14 years from Hebron, was executed in cold blood by an IDF officer near the Abraham mosque. It was the first visit of the child to Abraham mosque. He went to see the holy place which he heard about it in the school. All the students in Europe visit the holy places, the churches, the mosques and the museums freely; no soldiers or police shoot and murder them. Why is it forbidden to go freely to the holy places in Palestine?

Why is the IDF murdering, executing and sniping the children of Palestine with impunity? The child Sabri Al-Rajoub was murdered while he was is about six meters from the IDF officer who shot him. The officer also went to child after he died and shot him with another three bullets from the distance of one meter. This was what human rights organizations reported about murder in cold blood of the child Sabri, and that is the truth which the world must hear.

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The IV Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, which is pertinent, and which was signed by Israel on 6 July 1951, reads (excerpt)

Art. 2. In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace-time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

Full text of the convention is here.

Tagged as: Aviv Feigel, Barak Morag, Britt Tove Berg Brestrup, execution, Geneva-Conventions, ICC, IDF, Journalist, TIPH, Ubayda Maher Al-Qudsi, Udi ben Moha, Udi ben Muha, war crimes, Yasser Saqer Al-Tmeizy, Yehuda Fox, Yehuda Fuchs

Kawther Salam is a Palestinian journalist. She had a career of over 20 years working for various newspapers and TV stations in Palestine. She forced to live in the Exile in Vienna since 2002.
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