Thousands protest plan to forcibly evict Bedouins from the Negev

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Palestinian culture at risk

IDF agrees to expansion of West Bank settlement
Haaretz 12 Dec — Israel’s military establishment has approved the establishment of a new, permanent neighborhood and a farm near the West Bank settlement of Efrat. The projects will go beyond the community’s current built-up area, constituting an effective expansion of the Etzion Bloc of settlements toward the north and north-east. After they are completed, Jewish settlement in northern Gush Etzion will reach the edges of Bethlehem’s southernmost suburbs.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-agrees-to-expansion-of-west-bank-settlement-1.400876

Report: Israeli govt bargains over settler outpost takedown
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 12 Dec — The Israeli government has agreed to leave untouched most homes in an illegal settler outpost in the northern West Bank, Israeli media reported on Sunday. An Israeli high court ruling in August ordered the removal of Ramat Gilad — amongst a host of other outposts unauthorized by the Israeli government — but the Israeli cabinet has acceded to evacuate only two homes out of ten in the Jewish-only community after meeting with settler leaders, Hebrew daily Maariv reported. Settlers have clashed violently with forces over the court-ordered takedown, and the Israeli government had asked the Supreme Court for a delay in evacuating the outposts in order to resolve the issue “peacefully”.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444086

Palestinian communities in Israel go on strike
TEL AVIV (Ma‘an) 11 Dec — Israelis of Palestinian origin went on strike Sunday in protest against a plan to forcibly evict Bedouin communities in the Negev, Israeli news site Ynet reported. Schools and businesses closed for the day as organizers said earlier that they expected thousands of people to demonstrate outside government offices. “Land expropriation in the Negev is a very sensitive issue, especially at a time when there are racist laws against Arab-Israelis,” Iman Haj Yahia, from the city of Tayibe, was quoted as saying by Ynet.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=443962

Thousands protest Bedouin relocation plan
JERUSALEM (AFP) 11 Dec — Several thousand people demonstrated on Sunday outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, protesting over a plan they say will displace tens of thousands of people from their land. The demonstrators came from Bedouin communities across Israel, gathering outside Netanyahu’s Jerusalem office holding signs reading “We are staying here” and “No to the Praver Plan.” … There are around 160,000 Bedouin in Israel, most of whom live in and around the Negev desert, largely the descendants of Palestinians that managed to remain during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444101

Israeli court orders demolition of Umm Hayran village in Negev
NAZARETH (PIC) 12 Dec – An Israeli court on Sunday re-issued a decision to demolish the Palestinian village of Umm Al-Hayran in the Negev desert area. Adalah center, a group defending the rights of the Arab minority in the 1948 occupied lands, said an Israeli court issued demolition orders against all the 33 homes of Umm Hayran village, which the Israeli occupation government does not recognize. The center noted that the occupation government wants to raze the village in order to establish a Jewish settlement in its place.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/israeli-court-orders-demolition-of-umm-hayran-village-in-negev/

Bio-Gas reactor in Jordan Valley
[photos] JVS 10 Dec — Jordan Valley Solidarity is building a bio-gas reactor in a bedouin home in Furush Beit Dejan. The construction process is straight forward, the inexpensive materials can be sourced locally, and the reactor will provide gas for domestic use. Bedouin communities have historically had a very low impact on the environment in which they live, using resources that were accessible, and living on land that could provide for their essential needs, such as water, grazing for their animals, and fuel. However, the repression of bedouin communities by the Occupation, and its drive to force them from their land, has destroyed many traditional practices.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=375:bio-gas-reactor&catid=15:2010&Itemid=21

Israel demolishes East Jerusalem home
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 12 Dec — Israeli authorities demolished a home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina on Monday. Witnesses told Ma‘an that the home belonged to Nidal al-Razim, whose brother was freed as part of the October prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. Israeli forces raided the neighborhood on Monday morning and surrounded al-Razim’s home. Authorities claim that the house was built without a license and witnesses said it was demolished before allowing the family to gather their belongings.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444298

Idna family charged by Israeli military for demolition services
ISM 10 Dec — Over two weeks have passed since the El Gelwe family’s home was demolished. They remain homeless and are currently living in a tent which was provided by Palestinian neighbors in the village of Idna, of the Hebron Governorate. The family’s tent is erected just meters away from the pile of concrete that was once their home.  It undoubtedly represented so much for this family. The father, Jamel was visually broken as he stated, “Someone saves money their whole life and they come and demolish it.” This home was the family’s first house and within minutes the Israeli army turned their dreams in rubble. On the 24th of November the Gelwe family received a visit from the Israeli military “demolition services.”  As is common practice in house demolitions, the Israeli military arrived in the village of Idna at 5:00 in the morning.
Just to ensure that the family adequately suffered from the experience of having their home destroyed, the Israeli military charged the family 2,500 NIS for their “demolition services’. If the family fails to pay, their fifteen-year-old son will be imprisoned indefinitely until they pay the fine.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/12/idna-family-charged-by-israeli-military-for-demolition-services/

Sheikh Jarrah: Al Kurd family faces 30-day deadline
ISM 11 Dec — ISM has been following the situation of the Al Kurd family from Sheikh Jarrah since 2009 and has kept a presence in the garden of their home … On December 4th  Nabil Al Kurd and his mother, accompanied by international and Israeli activists went to the Court of Magistrate in Jerusalem and sat in the courtroom. After 40 minutes of intense argument between the lawyer of the family and the lawyer representing the Jewish committee, the decision left the Al Kurd family with 2 options regarding their home. The first option would involve paying rent from now in addition to the amount of “years of rent” and signing a paper stating that the Israeli government, being the owner of the land, would not need any kind of authorization if they decided to use the land. If the family refuses to fulfill the conditions of the first option, they would face the second option:  the family would could be evicted at any time.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/12/sheikh-jarrah-al-kurd-family-faces-30-day-deadline/

Israel shuts down ramp to Magharbe Gate
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 12 Dec– Israeli authorities Monday shut down the ramp that leads to Magharbe Gate, one of the gates of al-Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, claiming that it was in danger of collapse, according to reports … Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week suspended the demolition decision following interventions from neighboring Arab countries such as Jordan and Egypt. However, he later said that he will not intervene with the decision by the municipality to demolish the ramp and build a bigger one in its place. Meanwhile, an Israeli official in the all-Jewish West Jerusalem municipality has called for closing all gates leading to al-Haram al-Sharif and not to allow Muslims inside until the Muslim Waqf, which oversees Muslim sites in Jerusalem, consent to the construction of the new and permanent ramp. He said that since Jews will not be allowed into the compound with the closure of their only entry gate, then Muslims should not be allowed into it either from all other 10 gates in spite of the fact the compound is an all-Muslim holy site.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18326

Jerusalem tourists irked by closing of Mughrabi Bridge
Ynet 12 Dec — Tourists visiting Jerusalem were very unhappy to discover Monday that the Mughrabi Bridge was closed to pedestrians. The gate is considered to be the only access point for non-Muslim visitors to Temple Mount … Yehuda Glick, chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said the decision is also likely to frustrate some of the Jewish worshipers.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4160711,00.html

Official condemns hazardous Israeli factories near Tulkarm
TULKARM (WAFA) 11 Dec — Mayor of Tulkarm, Talal Dweikat, Sunday condemned in a statement the ongoing work in the Israeli factories constructed on Palestinian property to the west of Tulkarm, which puts the Palestinian environment, water, agriculture and human life at hazard. Commenting on the great arson that engulfed a plastic factory on Friday in the Israeli industrial zone near Tulkarm, Dweikat said that Israel established most of its dangerous industrial factories in the West Bank after settlers refused to construct them inside Israel, said the statement. The factories continue to spread and dispose internationally-forbidden toxic effluents into Palestinian land around the year, in complete disregard of international laws, which causes cancer, asthma, and pneumonia due to inhalation of contaminated air or digestion of crops planted around the factories, as proven in various medical tests, added the mayor.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18316

Netanyahu backs law to ban loudspeakers at mosques
Haaretz 12 Dec — ‘There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe,’ PM says of move that would ban loudspeakers in calls to prayer — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday voiced support for a law that would ban mosques from using loudspeaker systems to call people to prayer. The so-called Muezzin Law, proposed by MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ) applies to all houses of worship but the practice is prevalent only in mosques … After intense pressure from Likud ministers Limor Livnat, Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, who harshly criticized the bill, Netanyahu announced that he was postponing the scheduled debate in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-backs-law-to-ban-loudspeakers-at-mosques-1.400875

Apartheid / Restriction of movement

New Israeli checkpoint cuts Shu‘fat refugee camp [off] from Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 12 Dec – Israel Monday officially opened the new permanent military checkpoint outside Shu‘fat refugee camp thus cutting it off from East Jerusalem, according to witnesses. Angry Palestinians from the camp and nearby areas threw rocks at the border guards manning the checkpoint, who fired back tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters. The new checkpoint, which is more like a border crossing, replaces a smaller one Israeli authority had for years set up outside the camp on the main road linking it to Jerusalem. As a result, more than 60,000 Palestinian holders of Jerusalem residency who live in Shu‘fat camp and surrounding neighborhoods that are part of the Israeli-demarcated Jerusalem city limits, will be separated from their schools, jobs, and other daily livelihood centers in Jerusalem. [Ma‘an: Shu‘fat is the only Palestinian refugee camp within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem and is administered by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA.]
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18324

Israel ‘stops 80-year-old exiting Gaza with wife’s body’
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 11 Dec — An elderly cancer sufferer was banned from accompanying the body of his dead wife through Israel’s Erez crossing from Gaza, family members said on Sunday. Huda al-Nmoura, from Hebron, died while visiting her sons in the Gaza Strip. Anees and Akram al-Nmoura were exiled from the West Bank after they were released from Israeli jail under an October exchange deal with Hamas. Huda’s husband Mahmoud Taleb al-Nmoura went to Gaza to bring back his wife’s body, but Israeli authorities prevented him from leaving the blockaded strip with the body via the sole passenger terminal at the Israeli border, his family said. The 80-year-old was deemed a security threat and ordered to return to Hebron through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, then take air or sea transport into Jordan, before crossing back into the West Bank. It was not clear whether the cancer sufferer could complete the three-country journey before Huda Al-Nmoura is buried in the town of Dura south of Hebron at noon Monday, relatives said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444136

Palestine mourns another real legend, a symbol of motherhood / Shahd Abusalama
11 Dec — Anees and Akram Al-Namoura are brothers who were released in the first stage of the prisoner exchange on October 18 after spending ten years, originally supposed to be two life sentences, in prison … Anees and Akram couldn’t enjoy the blessing of kissing and hugging their elderly parents even after they gained their freedom. Israel imposed a separation of a different kind on them as they were exiled from Hebron to the Gaza Strip. But this was only additional pain from a wound that was already existed, as their 80-year-old father, a cancer patient in a wheelchair, and 65-year-old sick mother weren’t allowed to visit their detained sons for more than three years … Six days ago, I heard Mum speaking cheerfully to Dad about the arrival of Anees and Akram’s parents and sister safely. Today, I saw Mum’s tears for the death of their mother, who had waited long to hug her sons and celebrate their freedom.
http://palestinefrommyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/12/palestine-mourns-another-real-legend.html

Popular protests

Al Ma‘asara refuses the road to illegal settlement activity
ISM 10 Dec — This week’s demonstration in the village of Al-Ma‘asara was attended by approximately forty peaceful protesters with twenty Palestinians and twenty internationals. As always during the protests in Al Ma‘asara the protesters were confronted by a line of Israeli soldiers who refused to allow the Palestinians cross an Israeli built road. The significance of this road is that it passes directly through the village and connects several illegal settlements together, which surrounds Al-Ma‘asara. Thus in preventing the Palestinians from crossing the road, the soldiers refused to allow the Palestinians to reach their land.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/12/al-maasara-refuses-the-road-to-illegal-settlement-activity/

Terrorism by Israel forces

Israeli forces severely beat Palestinian child, injure 2 Palestinians
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 11 Dec – Israeli forces Sunday severely beat a Palestinian child, 8, in the courtyard of the Damascus Gate, one of the main gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, according to WAFA correspondent. He said that the incident aroused anger among Palestinians present at the scene, who responded by attacking the soldiers, leading to confrontations between them and the Israeli soldiers; two Palestinians were injured during the confrontations. He added that a large Israeli force arrived at the scene, imposed a military cordon around it and closed the road leading to the old city of Jerusalem and the courtyard of the Damascus Gate. Soldiers began chasing Palestinian youths and arrested one of them.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18317

Israeli forces raid homes of released prisoners
JENIN (WAFA) 12 Dec – Israeli soldiers Monday raided West Bank homes of families of two Palestinian prisoners who were released to the Gaza Strip in the October swap, according to security sources. They said the soldiers, accompanied by an Israeli intelligence officer, raided the family homes of Hilal Jaradat and Kifah Nawahdeh in Yamoun, a town west of the northern West Bank city of Jenin. Family members were interrogated for over two hours, said the sources.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18325

…and by settlers

Hundreds of settlers attack Nablus village
NABLUS (Ma‘an) — Hundreds of settlers stormed the Nablus village of Asira al-Qibliya overnight Sunday, causing damage to Palestinian property. Witnesses told Ma‘an that around midnight more than 200 settlers from the notorious Yitzhar settlement entered the village and threw rocks at Palestinian homes. Local resident Ibrahim Makhlouf said that the settlers smashed the windows of a bus and tried to set it on fire. “They were armed and wearing black uniform as if it was an organized militia,” he told Ma‘an. The attackers smashed the windows of three other houses belonging to Basim Salih, Jamil Abdullah and Khalil Mahmoud Salih, Makhlouf added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444212

Settlers try to establish outpost on Jordan border
JPost 12 Dec — Some 30 right-wing activists broke into a closed military zone along the Jordanian border and occupied an old building on the site in order to establish a settlement outpost Monday night. According to the IDF, the activists breached the fence near the area of Kasr al-Yehud, but did not cross the international border between the two countries. They were, however, threatening to do so according to Channel 2. The activists from the “hilltop youth” occupied the site near Jericho in protest of the Jordanian government’s stance against the closure of the Mugrabi Bridge connecting the Western Wall to the Temple Mount. The site itself is in a closed military zone separating the West Bank and the Jordanian border. Located near the banks of the Jordan River, it is revered by many Christians as the place where biblical Saint John was baptized.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=249157&R=R1

The murder of Mustafa Tamimi

Nabi Saleh not allowed to bury their beloved son in peace
Mondo 11 Dec — Mourners at the funeral of Mustafa Tamimi were attacked today with teargas, women were beaten and 8 people were arrested, 2 were Israelis and 6 were international solidarity activists, one of the activists at the funeral wrote the following:
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/nabi-saleh-was-not-allowed-to-bury-their-beloved-son-in-peace.html

IWPS: Photos from Mustapha Tamimi’s funeral
It was a sad journey of a procession of about 30 vehicles, which took the body of a young Palestinian Mustafa Tamimi, to his beloved village of Nabi Saleh … Mustafa’s grave is in a beautiful spot at the top of the hill, not far from the main mosque where Friday demos start and overseeing the illegal and ugly scar on the landscape, the Halamish settlement built on the Nabi Saleh land, which has been causing so much grief and suffering to the people of Nabi Saleh … A group of people, many of them women, approached a line of about 15 soldiers carrying Mustafa’s pictures and Palestinian flags. A young woman held Mustafa’s picture in front of a soldier saying ‘Which one of you is responsible for this?’. The soldier snatched the poster, tore it and threw it to the ground. In a matter of minutes a number of Border police and army jeeps joined in and the whole valley was covered in a thick cloud of teargas.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.251900981541354.62709.108747322523388&type=1

I was Mustafa Tamimi / Refaat Alareer
12 Dec — Fifteen years ago I was Mustafa Tamimi. Two months before that it was a relative who had his skull smashed by an explosive bullet from an Israeli sniper. Later that same week another neighbor lost his eye. Before and since then, the same situation has been repeating itself again and again: an armored jeep, a soldier armed to teeth, a tiny figure of mere flesh and bones, and a stone smeared with blood on the side of the road. That’s the saga of Palestine. That’s our tale, full of injustice and oppression, whose hero struts and frets and whoever gets in his way is doomed. But we get in his way anyway. The pain the two rubber-coated bullets caused I can’t feel now. They do not hurt. But the grinning face of the Rambo-like Israeli soldier still does.
http://thisisgaza.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/i-was-mustafa-tamimi/

Legal effort over injured American seeks compensation of Israel
LA Times 11 Dec — Reporting from Jerusalem— Tristan Anderson visited Israel and the West Bank in 2009 with his girlfriend, a Jewish American activist, to participate in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and see the Mideast conflict firsthand. The Oakland man left with brain damage, partial paralysis and blindness in one eye after being hit in the head with a high-velocity tear-gas canister during a protest against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Ni‘lin. Now Anderson, 40, and his parents are pressing the Israeli government to pay for his rehabilitation and 24-hour care in a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-activist-lawsuit-20111211,0,5969565.story

Palestinian protester’s death an ‘exceptional’ incident, say IDF officials
Haaretz 12 Dec — …Figures in the army’s Central Command said the soldier claimed he “didn’t see” Tamimi. But even if that is true, the IDF’s rules of engagement prohibit the firing of tear gas grenades from a rifle pointed directly at demonstrators or from a distance of less than 40 meters away. They also stipulate that the shooter must use the rifle sight and verify that no one is in the line of fire. Central Command and the Military Police are conducting separate investigations into the incident … Meanwhile, a deputy battalion commander in the Givati Brigade has told the Judea Military Court that the IDF has a more forgiving policy when it comes to firing crowd-dispersal means at the Nabi Salah demonstrations.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/palestinian-protester-s-death-an-exceptional-incident-say-idf-officials-1.400881

A death that could have been avoided / Jessica Montell
JPost 12 Dec — Rights groups have been warning for years that tear gas canisters can kill. Last Friday, it finally happened –   Every death is a tragedy for the family and friends of the deceased. Yet a death you can see coming from miles away, a needless death that could have been prevented, is a tragedy about which hard lessons must be learned. Such is the case of Mustafa Tamimi, the 28-year-old Palestinian man killed in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh last Friday …Tear gas is intended as a non-lethal crowd-control tool. The canister that delivers the gas is not intended as a weapon. For this reason, IDF regulations prohibit firing tear gas directly at people. However, the military regularly and blatantly violates its own regulations in Palestinian demonstrations in the West Bank. Direct firing of tear gas canisters has resulted in at least 13 serious injuries and one death besides Tamimi’s … B’Tselem video volunteers filmed many recent cases of canisters being directly fired that did not result in injury. Yet we knew it was only a matter of time if the practice were not stopped.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?ID=249162&R=R1

Updated: A year bookended by the death of unarmed activists / Jesse Bacon
The Only Democracy 12 Dec — On January 3rd, 2011 protester Jawaher Abu Rahmah was killed by a tear gas inhalation at an earlier march in Bil‘in. At the time, the Israeli Army made some bizarre claims that her death was caused by cancer, which they later retracted. Now almost a year later on December 9th, another nonviolent marcher has been killed in their own village, this time Mustafa Tamimi. You can read eyewitness testimony of his shooting here.
http://networkedblogs.com/rqPGL
 
Gaza and Sinai

Video: Israeli airstrike hits Gaza house
NTD TV 12 Dec –  An Israeli air strike wounded at least one man and his 10-year-old daughter when it hit a house in the Alzayton neighborhood, south of Gaza City in the early hours of Sunday. Ashraf Badwan, who lives next door to the house that was targeted, rushed his daughter Sondos to a local hospital. The Israeli military said that overnight an IAF aircraft targeted a weapon manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip.
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_middleeast_africa/2011-12-12/israeli-airstrike-hits-gaza-house.html

Report: “19 children killed, 200 injured, by Israeli shells in 2011”
IMEMC 11 Dec — Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the Higher Committee for Medical and Emergency Services In Gaza, reported that, in 2011, Israeli soldiers killed 19 children, and injured more than 200, in Air strikes and bombardment targeting the Gaza Strip since the beginning of this year. Abu Salmiyya added that the youngest of the slain children were identified as Malak Shaath, 2, and Islam Qreiqe‘, 3, adding that most of the slain children faced horrific deaths as Israeli military shells mutilated their bodies. He further stated that more than one-third of the wounded Palestinians in 2011 are children, adding that Yousef Bahjat Az-Za‘lan, 10, is still in the intensive care unit after a shell fired by the Israeli army on Thursday killed his father,
http://www.imemc.org/article/62651

Israeli ministers threaten new war on Gaza
NAZARETH (PIC) 12 Dec — The Israeli government has held the Hamas movement responsible for the rocket attacks on Israeli targets and threatened a new war on Gaza to halt those attacks, which were in response to Israeli deadly raids. A number of ministers emphasized in statements on Sunday that the military option was the most likely option to halt the Palestinian resistance’s rocket attacks. Eli Yishai, the interior minister, said that Israel will be “compelled” to launch a military strike on Gaza if the rocket attacks continued, adding, “There is a limit to our patience”.
An Israeli air raid killing two activists triggered the cycle of violence in the area. Later raids killed two others since Thursday prompting rocket response from resistance factions that did not inflict any human casualties.
link to Palestine Information Center

Qassam rocket hits western Negev
Ynet 12 Dec — A Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in an open field in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council overnight. The Color Red alert was sounded in the area. No injuries or damage were reported. This is the first rocket fired at Israel after a 24-hour lull. On Saturday night a Gaza rocket exploded in an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council. There were no injuries.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4160256,00.html

Report: Egypt officials say no rocket bases in Sinai
CAIRO (Ma‘an) 11 Dec — Egyptian security officials said Sunday that Hamas has no rocket production facilities in the country’s Sinai region due to the presence of Egyptian and international forces there, Egyptian media reported. Responding to a report in Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post that Hamas set up bases in the border peninsula, the Egyptian official said the claim was “false and fabricated,” Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444006

Interior ministry: No Qaeda elements in Gaza
GAZA (PIC) 12 Dec – The Palestinian interior ministry has denied Hebrew press reports claiming that elements of Al-Qaeda had entered Gaza from Sinai through the tunnels. Interior minister Ihab Al-Gussain described the report by a Hebrew daily as false.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/interior-ministry-no-qaeda-elements-in-gaza/

Video: Free running sport Parkour ‘provides escape’ in Gaza
BBC 11 Dec — A group of young men in Gaza are finding inspiration in Parkour, a sport that is gaining popularity around the world. They say the sport, which is also called free running, provides an escape from daily life in Gaza. The BBC’s Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison watched their moves.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16130439

Detention / Prisoner swap

Israeli soldiers arrest six Palestinians in West Bank
WEST BANK (WAFA) 11 Dec — Israeli forces Sunday arrested six Palestinian from the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to security sources. Sources said that Israeli soldiers stormed al-Dheisheh, a refugee camp south of Bethlehem, raided and searched Palestinian residents’ houses and arrested four Palestinians, including three youths. Soldiers also arrested two Palestinian youths, 18, 24, in Awarta, a town east of Nablus after raiding and searching several Palestinians houses there.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18318

Israeli forces detain 7 in West Bank
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 12 Dec — Israeli forces detained seven people in the West Bank on Monday, security officials said. In Nablus, witnesses told Ma’an that three men were detained at the Beit Furik military checkpoint, on suspicion of carrying explosives. Locals in Hebron said forces detained Haroun Radwan Abu Turkey after raiding his home in the city at dawn. Oday Ibrahim Masalmeh was also detained in a house raid on Beit Awwa village, southeast of Hebron, witnesses said. An Israeli military spokesman said soldiers arrested two people in Tulkarem, two in Hebron, two near Ramallah, and one person in al-Ubeidiya village, northeast of Bethlehem.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444410

Hamas: Political detentions threaten reconciliation
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 12 Dec — Committees working on the terms of a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas have made little progress, and increasing political detentions may threaten the accord, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Monday.  At the last meeting in Cairo, Hamas gave the Fatah delegation a list of 104 affiliates detained in West Bank jails, compared to 35 names on the table when the agreement was signed in May, Barhoum told Ma‘an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444356

European Parliament adopts proposal to release Palestinian prisonerst
BRUSSELS (WAFA) 12 Dec — The Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament (EP) announced on Monday adopting a proposal to declare an international campaign to release the Palestinian prisoners starting in 2012. The proposal came following a meeting held at the European Parliament, attended by Minister of Detainees and Ex-Detainees, Issa Qaraqe‘, in which he called on the EP to adopt a clear decision to work on the release of the Palestinian prisoners similar to the decisions that was taken in order to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18334

Israeli official in Cairo for talks on second stage of Shalit swap deal
Haaretz/DPA 11 Dec — Last month, a Hamas official said that the second stage of the prisoner exchange agreement should go into effect by December 19 — An Israeli military official arrived Sunday in Cairo for talks on carrying out the second stage of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, said sources at Cairo airport.
Meanwhile, Israel’s new ambassador to Egypt is set to arrive in Cairo this week after his predecessor was pulled out when the embassy was attacked by protesters in September, Egyptian and Israeli sources said on Sunday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-official-in-cairo-for-talks-on-second-stage-of-shalit-swap-deal-1.400827

Refugees

Refugees bearing brunt of economic hardship in West Bank — UN report
12 December – The unemployment rate among refugees in the West Bank has continued to grow this year, even though overall levels of joblessness there have fallen, according to a United Nations report released today. The report, released by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), found that the number of unemployed refugees in the West Bank grew by nearly one per cent in the first half of 2011, to over 50,000 people. This means the rate of unemployment among refugees is now at 27.4 per cent, about five points higher than the wider West Bank rate, which has declined.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40700&Cr=palestin&Cr1=

Political, diplomatic news

PA attempt to upgrade UN status foiled
Ynet 11 Dec — The Israeli and US representatives to the United Nations climate change convention thwarted the Palestinian delegation’s attempt to upgrade its status to that of a state, if only on paper, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4159873,00.html

Report: Diplomats preparing for new UN initiative
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 11 Dec — Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Malki said Sunday that officials are preparing an initiative at the United Nations to condemn Israeli settlements and aggression against Palestinians. Al-Malki told Voice of Palestine radio that diplomats are working to gain the support of more than 140 countries for the proposal, which will censure Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem … International solidarity with Palestinians is growing stronger as Israeli violations increase, al-Malki told the radio station.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=444064

Turkish president boycotts lunch attended by Ehud Barak
MEMO 12 Dec — The President of Turkey has boycotted a lunch and other fringe events at the 4th World Policy Conference in Vienna due to the presence of Israel’s Minister of Defence. Abdullah Gul also refused to take part in a group photograph of participants alongside Ehud Barak, who left the conference hall before Gul took the stage to deliver his speech.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/europe/3166-turkish-president-boycotts-lunch-attended-by-ehud-barak

Other news

Documentary looks at life of Yasser Arafat
DUBAI (Reuters) 12 Dec — New film “The Price of Kings – Yasser Arafat” — Associates of Yasser Arafat offer personal recollections in a documentary screened in Dubai this week on his search for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that descended into violence and failed to lead to a Palestinian state. Figures from Arafat’s circle who entered into a historic peace process with Israel in 1993, including his wife Suha, as well as Israelis such as President Shimon Peres and activist Uri Avnery who knew him well, discuss controversial moments of a career that ended with Arafat’s unexplained death in 2004.
http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Entertainment/Article.aspx?ID=249109&R=R1

Netanyahu, Peres champion women’s rights
JPost 12 Dec — Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres championed a woman’s right to sit or appear in public spaces freely during a human trafficking conference at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem Friday. Israel is no place “to exclude anyone, certainly not half the population,” the prime minister said. Netanyahu said that women must feel secure in public spaces, and that attempting to control a woman’s freedom of movement in the public realm is counter to democratic and Jewish values.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=249152&R=R1

Nablus hosts successful ‘Kanafeh and Soap Festival’
MEMO 12 Dec — EXCLUSIVE PICTURES In a bid to promote local products as an alternative to Israeli-produced goods, the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank has hosted a “Kanafeh and Soap Festival”. The festival threw the spotlight on local crafts in the city, with the objective of reviving Palestinian heritage and preserving Nablus as the economic capital of Palestine. This included a number of trades which have been in the doldrums recently. Kicking off last Thursday, the festival showcased a heritage exhibition of historic artefacts and utensils, as well as an old cafe, “Maqha Zaman”, to illustrate life and traditions from the past.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/3167-nablus-hosts-successful-qkanafeh-and-soap-festivalq

Palestine: Online university opens in West Bank
An American online university started by an Israeli entrepreneur has opened an operations centre in the West Bank, writes DD Guttenplan for The New York Times. Shai Reshef, the founder of University of the People, a non-profit institution that offers free online education to students in more than 120 countries, said his agreement with ASAL Technologies, a Palestinian software and information technology services company based in Ramallah, was just the first stage of a plan to move the university’s entire back office to the West Bank. University of the People uses specially adapted open course materials to offer courses in business administration and computer science.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20111209191448727

Analysis / Opinion

Haaretz editorial: In Israel, the life of a Palestinian is cheap
12 Dec — When it comes to shooting a Palestinian, pulling the trigger does not come with a real fear of having to answer to the law — The pictures from Friday’s events in Nabi Saleh are hard to swallow: An Israel Defense Forces soldier opens the back door of an armored military jeep and, from a distance of just a few meters, fires a tear-gas canister directly at a young man who is throwing stones. After the canister is fired, the jeep continues on its way without stopping. A photographer on the scene relates that the young man “fell to the ground, remained conscious for a few seconds, and then began bleeding profusely from the region of his eye.” … On Saturday, he died from his wounds … The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in response that “the army is looking into the incident.” But one needs to wonder about the use of the term “looking into.” A report published last week by Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights, which examined 192 complaints – including an analysis of the content of 67 Military Police investigations into various types of severe harm to Palestinian civilians and their property – reveals that 96.5 percent of the total number of complaints are closed without indictments.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/in-israel-the-life-of-a-palestinian-is-cheap-1.400908

The fearmongers / Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom 10 Dec — …Not in his darkest nightmares (or daymares) could Ben-Gurion have imagined a time when religious pupils, some of whom are not taught in their schools even the most basic modern skills, would amount to nearly half the Israeli Jewish school population. Or that the number of religious shirkers now deprives the army of several divisions. Step by step, the religious community is taking over the state. The religious settlers, the religious anti-Arab pogromists, their allies and ultra-right collaborators are gaining new footholds by the day.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1323439092/

Israel is in the midst of a culture war / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 11 Dec — The right has been in power for a long time now, and now, in its 35th year in government, in the 64th year of the state, it has turned to the task of reshaping the country’s character and faces almost no opposition ... The ferocious combined assault is highly effective. It targets women, Arabs, leftists, foreigners, the press, the judicial system, human rights organizations and anyone standing in the way of the cultural revolution … many hands stir the revolution, but they all have something in common: the aspiration to a different Israel, one that is not Western, not open, not free and not secular. The extreme nationalist hand passes the antidemocratic, neofascist laws; the Haredi hand undermines gender equality and personal freedoms; the racist hand acts against the non-Jews; the settler hand intensifies the hold not only on the occupied territories but also deep into Israel; and another hand interferes in education, culture and the arts. .
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-is-in-the-midst-of-a-culture-war-1.400736

Algonquins preparing to launch biggest land claim in Canada history
11 Dec — OTTAWA — A group of Algonquins in West Quebec is preparing to launch what could be the largest land claim in Canada’s history — for a swath of territory covering 650,000 square kilometres across eastern Ontario and West Quebec …  The submission, being made under the umbrella of the Tribal Council that represents six of the nine Algonquin communities in West Quebec, is the first step on a long and arduous road to negotiations and, potentially, compensation.[such land claims have succeeded in Australia…]
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Algonquins+preparing+launch+biggest+land+claim+Canada+history/5844556/story.html

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