Weekly report on israel’s terrorism on Palestinians (16 May – 22 May 2019)

PCHR Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (16 – 22 May 2019)

Israeli forces continued with systematic crimes, in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), for the week of 16-22 May, 2019.

Eight Palestinian civilians, including 3 children, were wounded in the northern West Bank. Israeli forces conducted 55 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 6 other incursions into Jerusalem. 47 Palestinian civilians, including 12 children, were arrested in the West Bank. Five Shooting incidents were reported against the fishing boats in the Gaza Strip Sea.

Shooting:

• During the reporting period, Israeli forces continued to use lethal force against the participants in the peaceful protests organized along the Gaza Strip borders. In the West Bank, Israeli forces wounded 8 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children. Five of them, including 2 children, were wounded in the northern West Bank, while 3 others, including a child, were wounded in the southern West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli forces continued to escalate their attacks against the Palestinian fishermen and target their livelihoods.
• In the West Bank, in excessive use of lethal force against the participants in the peaceful protests, Israeli forces wounded 5 protestors, including 2 children, while participating in Qaddoum weekly protest, northeast of Qalqiliyia. The abovementioned protest was organized on Friday, 17 May 2019, and on Saturday, 18 May 2019.

• On 21 May 2019, Israeli forces opened fire at Mahmoud Husain Salah (15), from al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem, when he was near the annexation wall, which surrounds the village. As a result, Mahmoud was hit with 2 live bullets to the lower limbs. The soldiers then arrested him and took him to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in West Jerusalem to receive medical treatment.

• On 22 May 2019, Israeli forces wounded 2 protestors while moving into al-Duhisha refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, to carry out an arrest campaign. They then opened fire at dozens of Palestinian young men who were protesting against them.

• As part of targeting the Palestinian fishermen in the sea, the Israeli forces continued to escalate their attacks against the Palestinian fishermen, indicating the on-going Israeli policy to target their livelihoods. During the reporting period, PCHR documented 5 incidents were as follows: 3 incidents in the northern Gaza Strip Shore and 2 incidents in the southern Gaza Strip Shore.

Incursions:

During the reporting period, Israeli forces conducted at least 55 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 6 other incursions into Jerusalem and its suburbs. During those incursions, Israeli forces arrested at least 29 Palestinians, including 2 children, from the West Bank, while 18 other civilians, including 10 childre, were arrested from Jerusalem and its suburbs.

Israeli Forces continued their settlement activities, and the settlers continued their attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property

• As part of the Israeli house demolitions and notices, on 16 May 2019, Israeli forces moved into Sosiya village, south of Yatta, south of Hebron. They dismantled a 30-sqaure-meter residential tent built with sheds, rubber tires and steel pillars. The tent belongs to Hussain Radi Nawaj’ah (55). The Israeli authorities claimed that the tent was confiscated and demolished under the pretext of non-licensing. It should be noted that it was the fourth time that the tent was confiscated and the latest was on 16 April 2019.

Israeli authorities continued to create a Jewish majority in occupied East Jerusalem.

Despite their claims to provide facilities for Palestinian civilians in Ramadan and allow them to perform prayers in al-Aqsa Mosque yards in occupied Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli forces continued to impose restrictions on them, including the city residents. During this week, a large force of Israeli soldiers raided al-Aqsa Mosque after al-‘Isha and al-Taraweeh prayers and forcibly ordered al-Mo’takefeen, who are staying in the al-Aqsa Mosque for a certain number of days to perform prayers, to leave the mosque.

In the same context, the Israeli authorities confiscated dozens of food parcels prepared by Jerusalem Endowment Fund. Those parcels were supposed to be distributed to poor families. The Jerusalem Endowment fund said that the Israeli authorities claimed that the food parcels are funded by the Palestinian Authority (PA) that is banned by the Israeli authorities and considered in violation of its law.

Use of Force against Demonstrations in Protest against the U.S. President’s Decision to Recognize Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel:

Israeli forces continued its excessive use of lethal force against peaceful demonstration organized by Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it was named as “The Great March of Return and Breaking Siege.” The demonstration was in protest against the U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration to move the U.S. Embassy to it. According to PCHR fieldworkers’ observations, the border area witnessed large participation by Palestinian civilians as the Israeli forces continued to use upon highest military and political echelons excessive force against the peaceful demonstrators, though the demonstration were fully peaceful. The demonstration was as follows during the reporting period:

West Bank:

• At approximately 13:30 on Friday afternoon, 17 May 2019, a group of Palestinians organized a peaceful demonstration from the center of Kufor Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqiliyah, into the eastern entrance to the village, which has been closed for 15 years in favor of “Kedumim” The protestors threw stones at Israeli soldiers stationed behind sand barriers. The soldiers immediately fired rubber bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, 4 civilians, including a child, were hit with rubber bullets.

(PCHR keeps the names of the injured civilians)

• At approximately 16:30, on Saturday, 18 May 2018, a group of Palestinians organized a peaceful demonstration from the center of Kufor Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqiliyah, into the eastern entrance to the village, which has been closed for 15 years in favor of “Kedumim” The protestors threw stones at Israeli soldiers stationed behind sand barriers. The soldiers immediately fired rubber bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, a child was hit with a rubber bullet to the head.

(PCHR keeps the name of the injured child)

Israeli forces’ attacks:

• At approximately 10:00 on Thursday, 16 May 2019, Israeli forces backed by 2 military vehicles and accompanied with a bulldozer and a vehicle of the Israeli Civil Administration moved into Sosiya village, south of Yatta, south of Hebron. The Israeli Civil Administration officers dismantled a 30-sqaure-meter residential tent built with sheds, rubber tires and steel pillars. The tent belongs to Hussain Radi Nawaj’ah (55). The Israeli authorities claimed that the tent was confiscated and demolished under the pretext of non-licensing. It should be noted that it was the fourth time that the tent was confiscated and the latest was on 16 April 2019.

• Recommendations to the International Community

PCHR warns of the escalating settlement construction in the West Bank, the attempts to legitimize settlement outposts established on Palestinian lands in the West Bank and the continued summary executions of Palestinian civilians under the pretext that they pose a security threat to the Israeli forces. PCHR reminds the international community that thousands of Palestinian civilians have been rendered homeless and lived in caravans under tragic circumstances due to the latest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip that has been under a tight closure for almost 11 years. PCHR welcomes the UN Security Council’s Resolution No. 2334, which states that settlements are a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and calls upon Israel to stop them and not to recognize any demographic change in the oPt since 1967.  PCHR hopes this resolution will pave the way for eliminating the settlement crime and bring to justice those responsible for it. PCHR further reiterates that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are still under Israeli occupation in spite of Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan of 2005.  PCHR emphasizes that there is international recognition of Israel’s obligation to respect international human rights instruments and international humanitarian law.  Israel is bound to apply international human rights law and the law of war, sometimes reciprocally and other times in parallel, in a way that achieves the best protection for civilians and remedy for the victims.

1. PCHR calls upon the international community to respect the Security Council’s Resolution No. 2334 and to ensure that Israel respects it as well, in particular point 5 which obliges Israel not to deal with settlements as if they were part of Israel.
2. PCHR calls upon the ICC this year to open an investigation into Israeli crimes committed in the oPt, particularly the settlement crimes and the 2014 offensive on the Gaza Strip.
3. PCHR Calls upon the European Union (EU) and all international bodies to boycott settlements and ban working and investing in them in application of their obligations according to international human rights law and international humanitarian law considering settlements as a war crime.
4. PCHR calls upon the international community to use all available means to allow the Palestinian people to enjoy their right to self-determination through the establishment of the Palestinian State, which was recognized by the UN General Assembly with a vast majority, using all international legal mechanisms, including sanctions to end the occupation of the State of Palestine.
5. PCHR calls upon the international community and United Nations to take all necessary measures to stop Israeli policies aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem and at voiding Palestine from its original inhabitants through deportations and house demolitions as a collective punishment, which violates international humanitarian law, amounting to a crime against humanity.
6. PCHR calls upon the international community to condemn summary executions carried out by Israeli forces against Palestinians and to pressurize Israel to stop them.
7. PCHR calls upon the States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC to work hard to hold Israeli war criminals accountable.
8. PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfill their obligations under article (1) of the Convention to ensure respect for the Conventions under all circumstances, and under articles (146) and (147) to search for and prosecute those responsible for committing grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions to ensure justice and remedy for Palestinian victims, especially in light of the almost complete denial of justice for them before the Israeli judiciary.
9. PCHR calls upon the international community to speed up the reconstruction process necessary because of the destruction inflicted by the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
10. PCHR calls for a prompt intervention to compel the Israeli authorities to lift the closure that obstructs the freedom of movement of goods and 1.8 million civilians that experience unprecedented economic, social, political and cultural hardships due to collective punishment policies and retaliatory action against civilians.
11. PCHR calls upon the European Union to apply human rights standards embedded in the EU-Israel Association Agreement and to respect its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights when dealing with Israel.
12. PCHR calls upon the international community, especially states that import Israeli weapons and military services, to meet their moral and legal responsibility not to allow Israel to use the offensive in Gaza to test new weapons and not accept training services based on the field experience in Gaza in order to avoid turning Palestinian civilians in Gaza into testing objects for Israeli weapons and military tactics.
13. PCHR calls upon the parties to international human rights instruments, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to pressurize Israel to comply with its provisions in the oPt and to compel it to incorporate the human rights situation in the oPt in its reports submitted to the relevant committees.
14. PCHR calls upon the EU and international human rights bodies to pressurize the Israeli forces to stop their attacks against Palestinian fishermen and farmers, mainly in the border area.

Fully detailed document available at the official website of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Spanish church cancels anti-israel (apartheid state) film event under ‘pressure from powerful Jews’

Spanish church cancels anti-Israel film event under ‘pressure from powerful Jews’

Press TV – February 4, 2019

A Spanish priest says his church canceled the projection of an award-winning documentary on the plight of Palestinians in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip due to threats and pressure from “powerful Jews” in the European country.

Spain’s El Pais newspaper ran an interview with Pastor Javier Baeza, in which the priest criticized “powerful Jews” for exerting pressure, issuing threats, and launching an intimidation campaign against his church over its plan to screen “Gaza, a look into the eyes of barbarism,” Israeli media reported Sunday.

He said, “There were pressures from the Jewish community” to cancel the screening of the film, which has won the “Best Documentary” category of Spain’s main national annual film festival, the Goya Awards.

The heart-rending film is about the Israeli atrocities and human rights violations against the downtrodden Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.

The documentary was scheduled to be screened on Friday at the Pastoral Center of San Carlos Borrome in southeastern Madrid.

Carlos Osoro, the archbishop of Madrid, however, said the church was “obligated” to suspend the projection indefinitely due to security concerns “because of the threats we’ve received in the last few days.”

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain said in a statement that the film was being promoted by organizations supporting the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which he said “seeks to delegitimize Israel and Israelis.”

The BDS movement is an international campaign launched more than a decade ago with the aim of ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

It pursues equal rights for Palestinians by exerting pressure on the Israeli regime via economic and cultural boycotts.

…

View documentary here.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Mainstream media on Gaza: Israelis get killed, but Palestinians merely ‘die’

By Darius Shahtahmasebi 
Source

Relatives of Palestinian Mohammed Abbas, who was killed at the Israel-Gaza border fence © Reuters / Suhaib Salem

After a Twitter backlash, the Guardian was forced to amend a brazenly propagandized headline which sought to undermine the basic rights of Palestinians and elevate Israeli soldiers to levels previously thought unimaginable.

“We remain editorially independent, our journalism free from commercial bias and our reporting open and accessible to all,” reads an advertisement on the Guardian UK’s online newspaper when you click on a recent story.

“Imagine what we could continue to achieve with the support of many more of you. Together we can be a force for change.”

The article in question that I clicked on is a recent story entitled “Eight dead in undercover Israeli operation in Gaza.” According to the opening paragraph of the report, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in an “apparently botched undercover raid and ensuring firefight.”

Sounds fairly straightforward, right? Just another day in Gaza, where Palestinians and Israelis alike find themselves in the line of fire, with the number of dead Palestinians outnumbering those on the Israeli side.

However, this wasn’t the only title the Guardian had previously given this same story. The original title was a poorly crafted “Israeli officer killed during raid in which seven Palestinians died.”

You see, prior to the title’s amendment, the Israeli officer was “killed” during the raid, yet the Palestinians (who were killed by the way) merely died. The Israeli officer was killed by the Palestinians, but the seven Palestinians died from some unknown cause. This is a clever yet obvious play on the English language, whereby the deaths of the seven Palestinians are brought about passively, whereas the Israeli officer is actively killed by his aggressor.

In actuality, the perpetrator of the raid is the person bringing about the violence. The Palestinians who react in response are not, in any normal sense of the word, the perpetrators of the violence in question.

Furthermore, the Israeli officer is the one that is highlighted by the title, whereas the lesser deaths of the Palestinians are brought about as a side note. The Guardian explains in the text of its report that seven Palestinians are dead, but the identities of those Palestinians are not highlighted.

If they were militants, why not say so? If they are not militants, are they in fact civilians? If they are civilians, why is the Israeli officer highlighted first in the title, and not the tragedy of the seven civilian deaths? If they are militants, why are they given a lesser status than the Israeli officer? Well, as far as we know, two of those killed (I mean, died) were Hamas commanders. The rest of the deceased were aged between 19 and 25.

Of course, the Guardian will no longer have to worry about answering those questions as it wasted no time in changing its headline in the wake of what can only be described as a viral Twitter frenzy. The UK-based Canary described it as the “Guardian headline on Palestine that’s shaming the entire field of journalism.”

If they had been allowed to get away with this shoddy piece of journalism, one could still argue that it is just a title and we should not spend our time fussing and feuding over the intricate wording of titles. After all, what matters to a story and its journalistic integrity is its content, right?

Anyone who knows and understands anything about modern journalism and propaganda know this to be complete nonsense. Firstly, a study by the Media Insight Project, an initiative of the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute found that over half of Americans surveyed were mere headline readers and nothing more.

The effects of this painful reality go well beyond that of a resulting lazy populace. As explained by Maria Konnikova in the New Yorker:

“Psychologists have long known that first impressions really do matter—what we see, hear, feel, or experience in our first encounter with something colors how we process the rest of it. Articles are no exception. And just as people can manage the impression that they make through their choice of attire, so, too, can the crafting of the headline subtly shift the perception of the text that follows. By drawing attention to certain details or facts, a headline can affect what existing knowledge is activated in your head. By its choice of phrasing, a headline can influence your mindset as you read so that you later recall details that coincide with what you were expecting.”

In a series of studies, Ullrich Ecker, psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Western Australia, more or less confirmed this sad state of affairs. One of Ecker’s studies found that when matching headlines to photographs, if the headline diverged from the photo, the victim was rated more negatively by the respondents when the headline had been about the criminal; and the criminal was rated more positively when the headline had been about the victim. Starting to sound a little bit familiar?

According to Konnikova, Ecker’s findings show that misinformation causes more damage when it’s subtle than when it is blatant.

Say what you like about Fox News, but its blatant approach to lying makes it less of a threat in my mind than papers like the Guardian who advertise themselves as “editorially independent” and “free from commercial bias” as it deploys more subtle techniques to not only toe the establishment line, but to provide free public relations for states such as Israel, who regularly contravene international law in a variety of ways.

Make no mistake, the Guardian editors knew what they were doing when they released this headline. It was not done by accident. This is a tried and true strategy in which Western media will paint the aggressors in a conflict as being passive players with little fault as possible – so long as those players are the US, UK or its close allies.

For example, a March 2017 attack by US-led forces in Mosul, Iraq massacred over 200 civilians in a single bombardment. The reason this attack took place is primarily because Donald Trump relaxed the so-called Obama-era restrictions on air strikes, meaning that even Iraqi commanders could call in air strikes on the battlefield with little to no oversight. The result of this policy was of course, outright death and destruction, with over 9,000 civilians killed in Mosul alone.

However, the US bombardment in March was framed by the establishment media in the kindest way possible for the US and its allies. As noted by FAIR’s (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) Ben Norton, ABC News went with the headline “US Reviewing Airstrike That Corresponds to Site Where 200 Iraqi Civilians Allegedly Died.” The LA Times ran with “US Acknowledges Airstrike in Mosul, Where More Than 200 Iraqi Civilians Died.” France 24 settled for “US-Led Coalition Confirms Strike on Mosul Site Where Civilians Died.” The best, of course, was the New York Times, which managed to concoct the following headline: “US Concedes It Played a Role in Iraqi Deaths.” Remember, this is the same US who “played a role” in over one million “Iraqi deaths,” but that is a topic for another story.

Conversely, if the alleged perpetrator of violence is in the handful of countries deemed to be enemies of Western society by the mainstream media (think Iran, Syria, Russia, or North Korea), they are portrayed as menacingly evil and bloodthirsty with no logic or context to their actions. These countries “pound” their victims, for example. Even when the alleged acts cannot be proven at all, such as highly questionable chemical weapons attacks that are immediately pinned on the Syrian government with little to no evidence of Syrian government involvement, Syria’s president is condemned by all forms of Western media in the strongest terms imaginable.

You see, the victims of attacks carried out by the US, UK, and its allies and lackey states such as Israel aren’t killed, they merely die at the scene. If anything, they were in the way of the magical freedom bombs that we and our allies have been trying to spread around the Middle East for years. But those victims who are purportedly killed by countries who have been targeted for regime change, they were tragically murdered by brutal forces. The jihadists fighting against these forces with known ties to al-Qaeda are mere rebels fighting for their freedom, but militants fighting against government forces in Gaza or in Yemen are terrorists who kill noble Israeli soldiers while dying in the crossfire by accident.

While we are on the topic, an honourable mention of course has to go to the New York Times, who once felt that it was justified to describe the plight of a young Yemeni girl who had her entire family wiped out in a Saudi-led airstrike with the headline: “Young Yemeni Girl Is Sole Survivor After Airstrike Topples Her Home.” Thank God – at least it only toppled her home, as air strikes are known to do much worse if they belong to an adversarial state.

This is shameful propaganda, plain and simple. The Guardian was once heralded as a beacon of journalistic integrity, but it has long given up that status and decided it will go out of its way to perpetuate establishment narratives that benefit, for example, even the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.

Despite this, the fact the Guardian amended its headline and deleted its original tweet can still be seen as somewhat of a partial victory. While I don’t expect many of us who spoke out to continue to keep our Twitter privileges for much longer, the end result was totally worth it and I hope more people can continue to speak out as we fight back against warmongering establishment narratives.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!