Israel campaigns to block UN human rights findings on Gaza onslaught

Gaza

Israel seeking to block UN inquiry into Gaza war crimes
Press TV 14 Jan — Israel has launched a campaign to block a UN inquiry into Tel Aviv’s human rights violations during its 50-day bloody war on the blockaded Gaza Strip last summer. Israel is directing its diplomats to ensure that a majority of 47 countries on the UN Commission of Inquiry on Gaza do not support an investigation into the latest Israeli offensive against the Palestinian land, the Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday. The campaign aims to get “as many countries as possible – with the hope that at least 24 will not approve the committee’s findings – to either vote against, abstain or not show up [for the vote],” the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs told the representatives abroad in a cable. Part of the campaign against the UN commission is to discredit its head, Canadian lawyer William Schabas, who has accused Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression against Palestinians. The UN body is due to present its findings on the Gaza war to the UN Human Rights Council in March. A vote on the findings will be held a few days after the report is submitted.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/01/14/393018/Israel-seeking-to-block-UN-Gaza-inquiry

4th infant dies of cold in Gaza caravan house
IMEMC/Agencies 13 Jan — After three infant deaths as a result of severe winter weather in the Gaza Strip, one and a half year-old Fadi Qudeih passed away on Tuesday, in a caravan house [US: house trailer] where his family lives. According to the PNN, the child’s home was demolished during the Israeli attacks on Gaza this past summer, upon which his family moved to live in a caravan, in the region of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. The infant was found dead of severe cold, and moved to Nasser hospital. The snow storm, Huda, which recently hit the region with temperatures that plummeted to some -4 degrees [Celsius], has so far caused the deaths of at least five Palestinians, four of whom were infants between the ages of 1 month to 1.5 years old.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70244

Israeli forces open fire at farmers, bird hunters in Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — Israeli forces on Tuesday opened fire at Palestinian farmers and bird hunters east of Khan Younis, witnesses said. Israeli vehicles deployed along the border fence in the al-Fakhari area in the southern Gaza Strip and fired at farmers. No injuries were reported.
On Jan. 2, a 25-year-old man was shot in both feet from one of the watchtowers near the border with Israel east of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. Israeli forces frequently shoot at farmers and other civilians inside the Gaza Strip if they approach large swathes of land near the border that the Israeli military has deemed off-limits to Palestinians. The “security buffer zone” extends between 500 meters and 1,500 meters into the Strip, effectively turning local farms into no-go zones. According to UNOCHA, 17 percent of Gaza’s total land area and 35 percent of its agricultural land were within the buffer zone as of 2010, directly affecting the lives and livelihoods of more than 100,000 Gazans.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753592

Incursion reported in northern Gaza
JABALIA (PIC) 14 Jan — The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided the northern area of the besieged strip of Gaza on Tuesday evening. Eyewitnesses told a PIC reporter that a number of Israeli military vehicles advanced late yesterday to the east of the martyrs cemetery in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip. The Israeli incursion was accompanied with heavy gunfire and overflights of reconnaissance drones in Gaza airspace, the sources added. The Israeli army has notably intensified violations of the ceasefire agreement reached on August 26, between the IOF and resistance factions in Gaza under Egyptian auspices.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69630

Israeli soldiers gave her water and shot her [in the] head
PIC 5 Jan — Under the sounds of the Israeli bombardment and shelling on Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, an Israeli soldier approached a 74-year-old Palestinian woman, Ghalya Abu-Rida, to give her a sip of water. He gave her the water and took a photo with her. He, then, shot her in the head from a one-meter distance to end her life as a martyr after watching her bleed to death. This is how Ahmad Qdeh, a journalist in Al-Aqsa TV, described the scene that he witnessed during the latest Israeli aggression and still remembers its details. The spokesman of the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, shared the photo of an Israeli soldier holding the water bottle and helping the old woman drink as an example of the “humanity” of the Israeli army towards the civilians in the Gaza Strip. The field executions were among the stories Qdeh reported during the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip. He said, “Ghalya Ahmad Abu-Rida lived in Khuza‘ area in the east of Khan Younis city. I live in that area, too, and I made a television report on her story after the Israeli soldiers had executed her during the aggression.”
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69469

Living among Gaza’s dead
GAZA CITY (Al Jazeera) 13 Jan by Megan O’Toole — Hesham el-Moghraby stands in the centre of his living room, looking down at two large tombs. He takes his baseball cap off, runs one hand over his head, and puts the cap back on. “There is no other place that I know,” Moghraby tells Al Jazeera from inside his family’s dark shack, which brims with piles of salvaged tyres, firewood, plastic tubing, old shoes and scraps of metal. This is Moghraby’s life inside Gaza City’s el-Sheikh Shaban cemetery. The 43-year-old cannot say exactly how he ended up living in a makeshift home between gravestones; all he knows is that his family has lived here ever since the Nakba, the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians from their lands. “It’s horrifying for the kids,” he says, noting they are taunted at school because of their peculiar living circumstances. It is also difficult to provide for the family, Moghraby says, when he makes just a few dollars a day taxiing residents around town in his horse-drawn cart. “Most of the time, the kids go to sleep hungry,” he says. “They [contend with] insects and rats.” Dozens of people have made their homes inside the el-Sheikh Shaban cemetery. None want to live here, but they say they have nowhere else to go. Some areas of the graveyard, which was hit by bombs in the 2014 war, look more like a dump than a cemetery. It has become part graveyard, part scrapyard, and part shantytown. In one corner, a bedraggled cat feasts on a dead bird, while the overgrown graves are blighted by residents’ trash: discarded food packaging, splintered wood, bits of wire and cloth. Children play with marbles upon the flat stone surface of a large tomb.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/living-among-gaza-dead-201511193650563471.html

Spanish foreign minister arrives in Gaza
Middle East Monitor 13 Jan —  EXCLUSIVE IMAGES Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo arrived Tuesday in the Gaza Strip through Erez crossing with Israel on a few hours’ visit to the embattled enclave, a Palestinian official said. Garcia-Margallo “aims to get acquainted with the impact of the recent Israeli offensive in the coastal enclave and hold talks with chief of UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA Pierre Krahenbuhl,” Maher Abu Sabha, head of the Palestinian border authority, told The Anadolu Agency. The top diplomat arrived in Ramallah on Monday, where he met with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The visit comes as part of a regional tour for the Spanish minister to get familiar with the “status quo” in the Middle East, a statement by the Spanish Foreign Ministry said earlier. In November, the Spanish parliament called for recognizing Palestine as a state.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16311-spanish-fm-arrives-in-gaza

Official: Gaza faces severe shortage of cooking gas
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 12 Jan — Gaza is facing severe shortages of cooking gas due to recent storms which have prevented crossings from fully operating, a local union official said. Mahmoud al-Shawwa told Ma‘an that in the past 10 days only 40 tons of cooking gas have entered Gaza, despite daily needs of over 300 tons for the population of 1.7 million Palestinians. Most filling stations are closed due to the shortages.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753384

Former Hamas employees raid Gaza cabinet meeting
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — Hundreds of former employees in the Hamas-run government raided the Palestinian cabinet’s weekly unity government meeting on Tuesday in protest at unpaid wages dating back eight months. The employees chanted slogans against President Abbas and PM Rami Hamdallah, including calls of “Gaza is closer than Paris.” The demonstrators refused to leave until their demands were met, while an employees’ union said it would escalate action against the consensus government if their wages were not paid. Around 50,000 employees have not been paid for eight months.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753560

Hamas employees start hunger strike over unpaid wages
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — A group of former employees in the Hamas-run government in Gaza went on hunger strike Tuesday following a day of protests over unpaid salaries. An employees’ union official said former civil servants are carrying out sit-in protests inside the Palestinian cabinet’s headquarters until their salaries are paid. “Our sit-in is peaceful and we do not want to destroy public property, but we will stay here until our members are recognized and their salaries paid,” Khalil al-Zayyan said. The consensus government condemned the protest and said demonstrators threatened ministers holding a meeting and damaged their cars. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the consensus government must stop discrimination between employees in Ramallah and Gaza. Since striking a unity deal, Hamas been demanding the new government pay the salaries of the 50,000 civil servants it recruited after its takeover of Gaza in 2007, who took the jobs of 70,000 Fatah employees. Zayyan noted that staff recruited by the former Hamas administration had not received any wages for at least seven months. “They can no longer support their families, this is unacceptable.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753675

Minister: Gaza govt employees to keep jobs
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — The Palestinian Authority Minister of Labor said Tuesday that Gaza government employees would not be laid off, the same day a group of Gaza employees launched a hunger strike in protest of unpaid salaries. “We agreed during a cabinet session today that all employees have job security, and that none of the Gaza employees will be out of a government job,” Mamoun Abu Shahla said in a news conference at the Gaza unity government headquarters, where protesters were gathered. But he said the resolution of the Gaza employees issue “will not come easily after seven and a half years” of division between Gaza and West Bank governments. “We are reaching the end and in a short period the government will resolve all employee issues,” Abu Shahla added … Abu Shahla’s comments seem to contradict an announcement in late December by unity government spokesman Ihab Bseiso saying that the unity government would rehire thousands of PA employees who were laid off when Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007. Some employees hired by Hamas, he said, would also be hired by the unity government but only in cases of ministerial “need.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753727

Some Hamas employees to receive small payment Thursday
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — Some governmental employees hired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip will receive a payment of 1,000 shekels (around $250) on Thursday, an official said. Yousef al-Kayyaly, undersecretary to the former Gaza government minister of finance, said in a statement that security officers and militants would be eligible to receive payments.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753587

In dark and cold post-war Gaza, it may take a miracle to rebuild
Haaretz 13 Jan by Zvi Bar’el — Tens of thousands endure bitter cold weather while waiting to receive money to rebuild their homes. Meanwhile, a few Muslims bought Christmas trees to ‘spread a bit of joy’; maybe what Gaza needs is Santa Claus — … Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, crossed the border into the Gaza Strip and joined a delegation of Hamas leaders on a visit to the Church of Saint Porphyrius in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City to greet “our Christian brothers.” As expected, photos in which Abu Marzouk can be seen alongside Santa Claus angered the radical Islamic organizations in Gaza. One of them, linked to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, published the pictures with the headline “Watch the Hamas delegation visiting in the Church of Porphyrius to greet the Christians, even though the Islamic scholars have forbidden it.” It seems that in ISIS they have not internalized the Israeli slogan stating that “Hamas is ISIS.”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.636684

Hannibal Directive: Soldiers were following direct orders
Ynet 14 Jan by Yossi Yehoshua — Analysis: There is clearly a big gap between the way the procedure initiated when a soldier is kidnapped is perceived by the IDF’s top command and its actual perception by the fighters on the ground — Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Monday essentially approved the Hannibal Directive as it was set in the past year by the IDF’s General Staff, clearly forbidding shelling intended to kill a kidnapped soldier.  Weinstein’s statement, as well as the administrative work conducted in the IDF and distributed in the army in the year prior to Protective Edge, appears clear and unequivocal. But on its way from the written procedures and written orders issued by the attorney general and chief of staff to the oral briefings given by regiment commander and company commander ranks, it changes and takes on a new form. In fact, anyone who has heard the fighting forces being briefed on ahead of the battle knows that the orders they received are the complete opposite of the written order.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4614499,00.html

Violence / Attacks / Incursions / Arrests (West Bank / Jerusalem)

Many injured during army invasion into Beit Ummar
IMEMC/Agencies 14 Jan — Medical sources in Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, have reported on Tuesday evening that several Palestinians suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation, and one was shot by a rubber-coated metal bullet, during an Israeli military invasion into Beit Ummar town, north of the city. The sources said that all wounded Palestinians received treatment by local medics, and did not require hospitalization. Media spokesperson of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, Mohammad Awad, said clashes took place in the ath-Thaher area, south of the town. He said the soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets and gas bombs at local youths during the clashes, and at a number of homes.
In addition, several military jeeps invaded the al-Jabal area in the al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, and fired concussion grenades at a number of homes; many children suffered anxiety attacks.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70248

More Palestinian teenagers shot by the Israeli military
[first reported on by Ma‘an 10 Jan; here with photos] BURIN, Occupied Palestine (ISM, Nablus Team) 12 Jan — On Saturday, January 10th, Palestinian youths went out to play in the snow on Al-Sabeh Mountain in east Burin. A group of Israeli settlers approached the village as if to attack it, and clashes erupted between them and the youth. Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene and protected the attacking settlers. They shot two Palestinian youths, Mohammed Zacharia (15) and Abbas Jamal (18). Abbas Jamal’s father Jamal Asous, director of the Nur Shams refugee camp through UNRWA, spoke with ISM. He said that Zacharia’s brother, 18, has also been wounded in clashes with settlers twice and now might face three years in an Israeli prison. He also showed where Jamal was injured in his other leg in 2013 and had to have surgery – a large scar remains to testify of the ordeal. Having injuries in both legs is disastrous for Jamal, given he is studying to be a land surveyor.
http://palsolidarity.org/2015/01/more-palestinian-teenagers-shot-by-the-israeli-military/

Army invades various West Bank communities, kidnaps three Palestinians in Hebron
IMEMC/Agencies 14 Jan — Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Monday at night and Tuesday at dawn, three Palestinians in the southern West bank city of Hebron and the Sammoa’ [al-Samu‘] nearby town, and kidnapped three Palestinians. Soldiers also invaded several Palestinian communities in Ramallah and Jenin.  Local sources said several military vehicles invaded Hebron city and kidnapped one Palestinian after breaking into his home and violently searching it. The kidnapped resident has been identified as Abdul-Mo’ty Abu Shanab. Soldiers invaded various neighborhoods in the city, installed a roadblock on its northern entrance, in addition to installing roadblocks on the main entrances of Sa‘ir and Halhoul towns, before stopping and searching dozens of cars, and interrogated the passengers while inspecting their ID cards. Army also invaded Yatta nearby town, before breaking into the homes of Hussein Mohammad Hussein Shawaheen, his brother Ja‘far, in addition to the homes of Issa Mohammad Mahmoud Shawaheen and his brother Khalil. The soldiers violently searched the homes causing property damage before withdrawing from the area. On Monday evening, soldiers kidnapped Ahmad Mousa al-Khalayla and Ma’moun Mohammad al-Khalayla, in the Etzion Military Base, north of Hebron.  The army initially invaded the homes of the two Palestinians, handed them military warrants for interrogation in Etzion, and kidnapped them after they arrived in the base.
In related news, soldiers invaded on Tuesday at dawn several neighborhoods in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and clashed with dozens of local youths who hurled stones and empty bottles at them, especially in Ramallah at-Tehta area.  The soldiers also invaded Deir Qaddis town, west of Ramallah, in addition to the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Sielet al-Harethiyya and al-Yamoun nearby towns, and handed two Palestinians military warrants for interrogation, after breaking into their homes and ransacking them.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70241

Israeli forces detain 3 teenagers in East Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 12 Jan– Israeli forces detained three teenagers and two women in Jerusalem on Monday, a prisoner rights group said. Addameer said that Qusai Dari, Nadim Azhar, and Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, all aged 14, were detained in the al-‘Issawiya neighborhood. Two women were detained by Israeli police while leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and taken to detention centers in the Old City.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753250

Israeli forces detain Islamic Jihad leader in Nablus
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 12 Jan — Israeli forces detained a leader of the Islamic Jihad movement in Nablus early Monday, Palestinian security officials said. Israeli military vehicles raided the ‘Askar refugee camp and detained Yasin Abu Lafah, 32. Soldiers ransacked several homes in the city of Nablus and detained several unidentified youths, the officials added. In Jenin, Israeli soldiers broke into the home of Khalid Ahmad Ighbariyya and arrested his sons, Ahmad, 18, and Muhammad, 22. His son-in-law was also detained and taken to an interrogation center.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753215

Israeli forces detain 2 Palestinians during Jerusalem court hearing
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 12 Jan — Israeli intelligence officers on Monday detained a former Palestinian prisoner and his son during a court hearing in Jerusalem, a local committee official said. Amjad Abu Asab, who heads an East Jerusalem prisoners’ committee, said in a statement that former prisoner Misbah Abu Sbeih and his son Sbeih were detained during a hearing for another one of Misbah’s sons, Izz al-Din. The two were taken to the Russian Compound detention center. Izz al-Din was detained on Jan. 1, Abu Asab said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753315

Israeli forces detain dozens of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Hebron
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 14 Jan – Israeli forces launched multiple dawn raids across East Jerusalem and Hebron districts Wednesday detaining 32 young Palestinian men including minors. East Jerusalem detention raids were reported in Sur Bahir, al-‘Isawiya, al-Tur, Ras al-Amoud and the Old City. Lawyer of the human rights group Addameer Muhammad Mahmoud said most of the detainees in East Jerusalem were minors…
Also Wednesday, Israeli news sites quoted Israeli police as saying that a young Palestinian man was detained in the al-Sawahira al-Sharqiyya neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Two firearms were allegedly found in his house as well as ammunition. Another young Palestinian man was detained in al-‘Izariya and weapons were allegedly found in his house as well, according to Israeli police.
Furthermore, Israeli troops raided the town of Beit Ummar north of Hebron in the southern West Bank and detained 18 young men after several predawn raids across the town, a local committee spokesman said … Awad added that Israeli troops broke into dozens of homes and vandalized them before the detentions. He added that soldiers smashed windshields of several cars parked outside. Clashes broke out between local young men and Israeli troops in several neighborhoods. Awad said young men pelted the soldiers with stones, and the soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters as well as stun grenades. Five Palestinians including a young girl were lightly hurt by rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas inhalation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753797

Jewish vandals attack vehicles, spray graffiti in East Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 14 Jan – Extremist Jewish vandals on Wednesday morning punctured the tires of vehicles parked outside homes of their Palestinian owners in the Jerusalem district village of Beit Safafa, witnesses told Ma‘an. Residents of al-Izzah (dignity) Street in Beit Safafa were surprised when they tried to start their vehicles and go to work that 11 vehicles were punctured and sprayed with hatr graffiti in the Hebrew language. George Zambil, whose vehicle was attacked, told Ma‘an that all four tires of his car and all other vandalized vehicles were punctured. The cars, he said, belong to the Ulayyan, al-Ashhab and al-Nabir families in addition to his own. He said that the attack was not the first of its kind in his neighborhood.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753778

Charges added against two defendants in case of arson on Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem
Haaretz 14 Jan by Nir Hasson — Prosecutors in the case against three men accused of torching Jerusalem’s bilingual Max Rayne Hand in Hand School in November amended the indictment to include additional charges against two of the defendants. Nahman Twito, already facing charges of arson, breaking and entering, and destruction of property, will also now be charged with incitement to violence and support for a terrorist organization. Yitzhak Gabbai is being charged with additional counts alleging incitement to violence, incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organization. The new charges are based at least in part on rambling statements allegedly posted on Facebook by Gabbai. They include “Death to the Arabs [We’re] sick of them a holocaust should be done to them!”; “Revenge needed for details contact the Arab near you”; and expressions of support for violence against left-wing activists and Arabs and support for Rabbi Meir Kahane and Kach. Kahane’s Kach Party and the Kahane Chai (“Kahane Lives”) movement have been declared terrorist organizations … The original indictment alleges that the three met at the home of Gabbai’s father and conspired to torch and spray graffiti on the school because Jewish and Arab children attend class there together. The indictment also alleges that the arson attack was carried out “after the accused learned that a ceremony had been held at the school in memory” of the late Palestinian president and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat “several weeks before, against the backdrop of terrorist attacks that had taken place in the city.”….
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.636959

Settler arrested on suspicion of shooting Hebron teen
HEBRON (Ma‘an)12 Jan  — Israeli police on Monday arrested a settler suspected of shooting and injuring a Palestinian teenager in Hebron on Saturday, police said. A “public security officer” was arrested on suspicion of shooting Ibrahim Issa Suleiman al-Tubasi, 15, while he was working his family’s land south of Hebron. The unidentified settler is from Beit Hagai, in the south Hebron hills, and will appear in court later on Monday. Settlers in the south Hebron hills regularly attack Palestinian farmers and school children, who are often accompanied by international peace volunteers to protect them. The south Hebron hills are located in Area C, where less than 1 percent of the land has been planned for Palestinian development. There are some 135 settlements and over 100 outposts in the same area.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753339

Restriction of movement

Photo Story: A checkpoint in Hebron
HEBRON, Occupied Palestine (ISM, Khalil Team) 14 Jan — Checkpoints are numerous and inescapable in the H2 area of al-Khalil (Hebron), where thousands of soldiers guard around 600 Israeli zionist settlers occupying heavily militarised settlement enclaves in the heart of the most populous Palestinian city in the West Bank. The Israeli military imposes numerous restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the neighbourhoods of H2, affecting people as they attempt to live, work, study, and travel through their city. Shuhada checkpoint, leading from the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida into Palestinian-administered H1, is one of the larger and more heavily manned checkpoints. One Israeli soldier looked through the purse of a young Palestinian woman as her daughter looked on. Even Palestinian children too young to carry bags for a soldier to search are subjected to the everyday sight of their older relatives being stopped, searched, questioned and detained by Israeli forces. Over a period of a couple of hours on Tuesday afternoon, an ISM activist witnessed Israeli soldiers stop and search around fifty Palestinian children, women, and men … A very young Palestinian girl took a moment to look up at the heavily armed Israeli soldiers standing in her path. Armed with enormous rifles, chests strapped with body armour complete with pockets full of stun grenades and tear gas, the soldiers looked incongruous on the otherwise quiet, sunny street. “I don’t understand why people think we want war, we just want peace,” one Israeli soldier told an ISM activist. The absurdity of his statement, as he stood with his rifle beside the checkpoint, seemed entirely lost on him. Deploying eighteen-year-olds with M16s to search kids’ shopping bags and their mothers’ purses, giving them control over the lives of Palestinians trying to keep surviving in the neighbourhoods of H2 in al-Khalil, creates a situation which, though it may sometimes seem quiet, is anything but peaceful. The soldiers stop whole families at the checkpoint: mothers, grandfathers, sisters laden with shopping bags. This young girl stood waiting off to the side as the Israeli military checked to make sure her relatives did not pose a “threat.”
http://palsolidarity.org/2015/01/photo-story-a-checkpoint-in-hebron/

Israel’s truthiness on Palestinian academic freedom
+972 Blog 13 Jan by Sari Bashi — In denying that Israel limits academic freedom in Palestine, the Israeli embassy in Washington seems to forget about the Palestinian students and academics whose movement it restricts — The Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. recently decried as baseless “the accusation that Israel arbitrarily limits the entry of foreign nationals who seek to lecture, teach and attend conferences at Palestinian universities is baseless.” The embassy appears to be responding to protests and calls by American academics to boycott Israeli academic institutions, in response to restrictions on students and scholars accessing Palestinian universities. And yet in explaining Israeli travel policy, the embassy’s statement misleads, seemingly willfully. There are numerous restrictions on access to Palestinian universities. Some are general restrictions on accessing Gaza and the West Bank that apply to everyone, including students and professors. Other restrictions specifically target Palestinian students, whom Israel has described as belonging to a “high risk profile” and Palestinian universities, which Israel describes as “greenhouses for growing terrorists.” While Israel has legitimate security concerns, in all cases the restrictions go way beyond what is necessary for security. Instead, they further political, demographic goals of consolidating power over the West Bank and separating it from the Gaza Strip … Nearly half of Palestinian refugees live in the diaspora, including in Arab countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. These “foreign nationals” – who are actually Palestinian – cannot ordinarily get Israeli permission to enter the West Bank or Gaza and therefore cannot access Palestinian universities. Similarly, Arab lecturers and students are unlikely to obtain access to the West Bank and Gaza, because Israeli rules on entry to the Palestinian territory bar most people holding travel documents from Arab or Muslim countries and even some American or European citizens of Arab descent or those who have spoken out against Israel. Entry to Gaza requires not just an Israeli visa but also special permission from the military, which is limited to humanitarian cases. No students or professors are allowed.
http://972mag.com/israels-truthiness-on-palestinian-academic-freedom/101290/

Prisoners / Courts

It’s always 9:15 in the West Bank military court
+972 Blog 12 Jan by Alma Biblash — As Palestinians wait for their day in military court, time stretches and blends like a cruel psychological experiment. People walk in circles to stay warm. The broken clock on the wall shows 9:15. The only ones who know what time it is are the soldiers — Sunday, Ofer Military Court, the West Bank: Around 30 Palestinian men and women wait an average of five hours for their hearings, or of their incarcerated loved ones. They are waiting inside a corral called the “family waiting area” — a metal cage, inside which there is a caravan with chairs and a small snack bar that’s not always open. The heating doesn’t really work, the air conditioners are encased in giant blocks of ice, remnants of snow litter the ground and everyone is wrapped in layers of clothing that stubbornly refuse to protect them from the cold. People walk in circles in order to warm themselves, maybe to stretch a little in the small space. Inside the snack bar there is a small toaster oven for heating up bourekas, which is emitting a little heat. A woman approaches it and the man behind the counter barks at her to either buy something or move away. Now and then when we look toward the prison yard we can see a shackled prisoner being escorted by guards, at least one looks like a minor, all of them look exhausted, one of them is wearing flip-flops. Read also: Hope ends here: The children’s court at Ofer Military Prison
http://972mag.com/its-always-915-in-the-west-bank-military-court/101272/

Israeli court rejects appeal of 6 Shalit deal prisoners from Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 14 Jan– An Israeli central court in Nazareth on Wednesday rejected an appeal on behalf of six Jerusalem-area prisoners who were rearrested after they had been freed in the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap in 2011. Speaker of the East Jerusalem committee of prisoners’ families Amjad Abu Asab told Ma’an that the Israeli forces claimed that Alaa al-Din al-Bazyan, Nasser Abed Rabbo, Jamal Abu Salih, Rajab al-Tahhan, Ismail Hijazi and Adnan Maragha had violated the terms of the deal upon which they were freed. As a result, they were rearrested and the Israeli intelligence decided that they would complete the original lifetime sentences they were serving before they were freed. The six, along with more than 50 others freed as part of Shalit deal, were rearrested in June 2014 during an Israeli military operation to locate three teenage boys who disappeared near Gush Etzion south of Bethlehem. Israeli police earlier notified the prisoners’ families that they were being interrogated on charge of membership in a “terror” organization as well as violating the terms of Shalit deal. However, the families were notified that the case had been closed and that the six won’t be tried because enough evidence was not found. Surprisingly, the six were sent to a central court in Haifa to be tried in front of a special judicial committee composed of Israeli government officials which decided that they were guilty and must serve the original sentences.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753818

Israeli wardens storm cells of Palestinian prisoners
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 13 Jan  — The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said Tuesday that the Dror unit of the Israeli Prison Service stormed section 5 of Rimon prison at early dawn and carried out major inspections, moving Palestinian prisoners to solitary confinement. In a brief statement Tuesday, the prisoner’s society said Israeli officers of the Dror unit did not allow the prisoners to put on their jackets despite the freezing temperatures in Rimon prison in the Negev desert.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753516

Administrative detentions against Palestinians increased by 245% in 2014
Middle East Monitor 12 Jan — The number of the Palestinian administrative prisoners inside Israeli jails increased by 245 per cent in 2014, Palestinian officials said in a statement. Head of the PLO’s Authority of Prisoners’ Affairs Abdul-Nasser Farawna said that decisions to renew administrative detentions have been reducing steadily because of the open hunger strike of administrative prisoner Sheikh Khader Adnan at the end of 2011, which lasted for 66 days. Other individuals and official measures also contributed to this. The statistics department showed that the number of administrative prisoners in 2013 was 145. This means that the number was reduced to half. At the beginning of 2014, Israel increased the policy of administrative detention. The administrative prisoners went on a 62-day hunger strike however they did not get a positive outcome. After the purported kidnapping attempt of the three Israeli settlers in Hebron on July 12, 2014, Israel escalated the use of administrative detentions. The number of prisoners reached approximately 500 by the end of 2014 – an increase of 245 per cent.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16302-administrative-detentions-against-palestinians-increased-by-245-in-2014

Israel renews administrative detention of Hamas lawmakers
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — Israeli forces have renewed the administrative detention of two Palestinian lawmakers, a prisoner rights group reported Tuesday. A statement from the Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said Israel decided to extend the detention without trial of Hamas-affiliated lawmakers Nayif Rajoub and Samir Salih al-Qadi from the Hebron district. The statement noted that Rajoub and al-Qadi were detained in July 2014 during the Israeli crackdown against Hamas after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed near Hebron. The statement added that two other Hamas-affiliated lawmakers, Omar Abd al-Raziq from Salfit and Fadil Salih Hamdan from Ramallah, were released Monday night after they finished six months in Israeli custody without trial. The two had been detained during the same Israeli crackdown against Hamas in July, which saw hundreds of Palestinians arrested.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753539

Al-Aqsa

Palestinian kidnapped near al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
IMEMC/Agencies 13 Jan — Undercover officers of the Israeli Police kidnapped, on Tuesday before noon, a young Palestinian man while leaving the al-Aqsa Mosque through the Bab al-Silsileh (The Chain Gate), in occupied Jerusalem. Eyewitnesses said the undercover officers kidnapped Mohammad Shawkat al-Khatib, and took him to an interrogation center in the city. The arrest came after a group of Israeli fanatics invaded the yards of the Mosque through the al-Magharba Gate, while heavily guarded by the police. The invasion led to a scuffle between local worshipers and the invading fanatics, before the soldiers kidnapped al-Khatib. It is worth mentioning that al-Khatib was previously kidnapped by the army, and received an order preventing him from entering the mosque; the order expired just two days ago.
In addition, soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian child while walking near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70243

Israel shuts [down] Muslim groups over Jerusalem shrine ties
JERUSALEM (Reuters) 12 Mon by Dan Williams —  Israel shut down three local Islamist groups on Monday, accusing them of stoking tensions at a contested shrine in occupied East Jerusalem that has seen increased visits by Jews. Al Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem is Islam’s third-holiest site and the vestige of Judaism’s ancient temples. Captured by Israel from Jordan in a 1967 war, it is a focus of Palestinian statehood hopes that Jewish ultra-nationalists oppose. Israeli police enforce exclusively Muslim prayer at the site, a ban some Jewish activists have campaigned to overturn with stepped-up visits that have sometimes sparked violent confrontations, exacerbating Palestinian anger over Israel’s July-August war in Gaza. Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it shut down the three organizations in the northern town of Nazareth that had been set up last year by the Islamic Movement, which has a following among the Jewish state’s 20 percent Arab minority. The groups – Al Aqsa Champions, Muslim Women for Al Aqsa and Al Fajr Foundation for Culture and Literature – paid activists to use “verbal and even physical violence” against visitors to the Jerusalem shrine with the goal of “agitating and stirring up emotions,” the Shin Bet said. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon outlawed all three groups last month. The ministry has the authority to outlaw organizations that it deems a threat to national security. The Shin Bet implemented the ministry’s ban.  The Islamic Movement denied wrongdoing in a statement that related to two of the groups. Al Aqsa Champions is “a media organization (that is) professional and balanced and focuses only on events inside the mosque” and Muslim Women for Al Aqsa “organizes study for women inside the mosque,” the Islamic Movement said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-israel-islamists-idUSKBN0KL27120150112

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing

PA signs environmental treaties in response to gross Israeli violations
IMEMC/Agencies 13 Jan — The Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority (EQA), on Tuesday, said in a statement that, following the Palestinian Authority’s recent move of signing on to four international conventions on environment, Israel will be held accountable for committing crimes against the environment in Palestine. According to WAFA correspondence, ahead of the United Nations Security Council’s recent failure to adopt a draft resolution on ending the Israeli occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas has signed letters of accession to 16 international treaties, including the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The EQA said that Israel will, therefore, be held accountable for dumping hazardous wastes in Palestinians land, and for deliberately devastating the Palestinian biodiversity and natural resources. Furthermore, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the EQA said Palestine would act to restore its sovereignty over the water rights in the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70247

VIDEO: Olive trees destroyed in Yasuf
YASUF, Occupied Palestine (ISM, Nablus Team) 13 Jan — On Monday, January 11th, a farmer in Yasuf went out to see how his land had weathered during the recent storm and saw that a large number of olive trees in neighbouring plots had been cut down to their trunks. He immediately alerted the Yasuf Municipality. The Municipality came to the site, took photographs and shot a video. They found that thirty-six trees had been chopped to the point where they could no longer live. Some of the severed branches were still very green, indicating a very recent attack, while others were more browned, suggesting a separate incident which they estimate occurred five to eight days ago. The mayor of Yasuf, Abu Hamad, and several municipality employees spoke with ISM. They elaborated the issues surrounding the trees which were cut down. Four different farmers, three from the large Yassin family, were affected. The killed trees were in the agricultural area known as Al-Teen Al-Shami, a couple kilometers from the village by a road which the Israeli military has closed off with a gate since 2002. This is used in such a way as to severely restrict the time in which farmers can harvest their olives and graze their animals.
http://palsolidarity.org/2015/01/video-olive-trees-destroyed-in-yasuf/

Palestinian home in east J’lem to be razed for blocking light to settler
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 13 Jan — The Israeli supreme court in occupied Jerusalem on Monday rejected the petition filed by a Palestinian citizen against a decision to demolish part of his house at the pretext it prevents daylight and air from reaching one of the nearby Jewish settlers’ homes. Ayed Kastero, owner of the house, said the Israeli municipal authorities intend to remove the roofs of three rooms as well as a balcony and the walled stair landing at the third floor of his building, which is located in al-Qarmi neighborhood of the Old City of Jerusalem. Five Jewish settlement groups had filed a lawsuit in 2005 against Kastero, demanding the demolition of the house on allegations that it obstructs daylight and ventilation to a settler’s home and poses a threat to the safety of other settlers living nearby. Kastero lives with his wife and nine members of his family in this building, which was built according to a plan approved by the Israeli authorities themselves. He described the court decision as politically motivated and part of an Israeli scheme to expel the native residents from their neighborhood.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69622

Israel issues property tax order for demolished apartment
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 13 Jan – The Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem has issued an order for the payment of the property tax, arnona, on a Palestinian-owned apartment which the municipality had demolished around two months ago, according to witnesses. The apartment, owned by the family of Abdul-Rahman Shaloudi – said by Israel to have rammed his car into a crowd of Israeli commuters and killed two of them on October 22, 2014 – was demolished by the Israeli authorities in reprisal on 19 Nov 2014, about four weeks following the incident. Witnesses told WAFA that a staff from the municipality told Shaloudi’s family they had to pay around $710 as a levy on their apartment, despite the fact it was demolished. The municipality threatened to seize all the furniture and appliances of Shaloudi’s uncle’s house, where his family had moved after their apartment was demolished, if they do not pay the tax, the witnesses added … “The scarce, poor service the Jerusalem Municipality and Israeli institutions provide are not in accordance with the amount of taxes paid by Jerusalemites,” says LAW, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian human rights center. Analyst reports argue that the quantity of revenue collected from Arab Jerusalemites totals 26% of total municipal revenue, while the government only returns 5% to the Arab taxpayers.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=27564

Pink Floyd provides theme song for film on how Israel forces Bedouins to live in dumps
EI 12 Jan by Sarah Irving — The rock band Pink Floyd has provided the theme song to High Hopes, a short new film on Israel’s discrimination against Palestinian Bedouins. Directed by Guy Davidi of Five Broken Cameras, the film focuses on the displaced Bedouin of villages around Jerusalem, detailing how in some cases, they have been forced to live in garbage dumps. High Hopes follows the success of Nowhere Left to Go, another film by the Jahalin Association, a group defending the rights of Bedouins from the Jahalin tribe. As one activist depicted at a protest against evictions says during High Hopes, “I am not crying for the Bedouins any more, I am crying for the people who have lost their humanity.” Meanwhile Israeli soldiers insist on their “right” to enforce “dozens of eviction orders” against Bedouins who were first made refugees in 1948.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/pink-floyd-provides-theme-song-film-how-israel-forces-bedouins-live-dumps

Khan: Threatened by political archaeology
KHAN al-LUBBAN, occupied West Bank — “Everything can be protected,” Khaled Daraghmeh told Al Jazeera as he sat on the porch of Khan al-Lubban, or “caravanserai of the frankincense”, a now-decrepit structure that his family has owned for generations and Israeli settlers have attempted to seize for the past 17 years.  “We can smoke Palestinian tobacco instead of Marlboro. We can eat the zatar from our gardens. We can work and invest in our land. We have to stay strong,” he said. The Khan is in occupied Palestinian territory in the Nablus governorate and in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli administrative and military control. Today, the Khan is surrounded by four illegal Jewish colonies: Maale Levona, Eli, Eli B and Shilo, and it is the only sizeable obstacle to their territorial contiguity. In the fight for the legitimacy of sovereignty over land, it is a hotly disputed site. A year ago, the right-wing settler organisation Regavim petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to see the Khan classified as a public space and transferred to Israeli control. According to Ari Briggs, director of international relations at Regavim, past uses of the Khan as a resting place for travelers along the incense route and later as a police station, indicate that “the Khan has always been a public building. It can’t just be stolen by criminal people”. But in an unexpected ruling late last year, the Israeli Supreme Court recognised the area as Palestinian private property and Daraghmeh as its legal owner … Still, in the context of ongoing settlement expansion, Daraghmeh is all too aware that the future of the Khan is not yet secured … Busloads of settlers began arriving at the Khan some 15 years ago. “They claim that Moses bathed in the Khan’s spring and so the place has religious significance for them,” Daraghmeh said.  The international organisation Premiere Urgence – Aide Medicale International monitors settlers’ violence in the area. Aside from forced entry into Daraghmeh’s property, settlers also regularly move onto the roof of the Khan in order to throw objects at the family and into the garden. They have contaminated the Khan’s well, poisoned Daraghmeh’s cow, killed his horse and burned his tractor, the group reported.  In mid-April, Daraghmeh was arrested after preventing settlers from accessing his property. He estimates that he has been detained at least 17 times in his life. “Israel accuses me of beating the settlers and yet they are free to use violence to enter my house. Do you think it’s normal?” he asked … Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Civil Administration, the army body administrating civilian affairs in the West Bank, declared the Khan an antiquity site, thus reserving the right to approve archaeological excavations there. An archaeological dig already took place at the Khan in 2013 and sought, Daraghmeh maintains, to substantiate settlers’ religious claims.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/khan-threatened-political-archaeology-090739908.html#VuGENUH

Other news

In  Pictures: Palestine copes with deep freeze
Al Jazeera 11 Jan by Rich Wiles and Walaa Ghussein — Storm Huda has brought heavy snow in Ramallah and flooding in Gaza, with several deaths reported.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2015/01/palestine-copes-with-deep-free-2015111121442509370.html

January 12, 2015, an historic day for the Palestine national football team, and, indeed, Palestine
IMEMC 13 Jan by Jack Muir — At 6:00pm at the Hunter stadium in Newcastle, Australia, Ramzi Saleh led the Palestinian team out for their first ever game in a major tournament. To understand the importance of the event, one needs to be aware of what it took the team to get there. Palestine qualified by virtue of winning the AFC Challenge Cup, overcoming The Philippines in the final to claim the 16th and final spot in the Asian Cup. But often, the challenges on the field are the least of the team’s problems. The team does not even have a national stadium which they can use. The stadium in Gaza was bombed and destroyed in 2006 and again in 2012 during the Israeli army’s attacks. Players from Gaza and the West Bank are routinely denied visas to play overseas as the Israeli government classifies all young males in Gaza as a ‘threat to national security’. Players from Gaza are refused travel permits to even travel to train in other parts of their own country.  The refusal of Israel to issue exit visas to players forced Palestine to abandon their qualification attempts for both the 2007 Asian Cup and the 2010 World Cup. The players themselves have suffered personally. Three players were targeted and killed by Israeli forces in 2008 and many other players have had their houses destroyed and been arrested and imprisoned without charge. Mahmoud Sarsak suffered this fate in 2009 and went on hunger strike until pressure from FIFA forced his release. Future Palestinian footballers also risk their lives every time they pick up a ball. In 2014, two teenagers returning from training in Al-Ram in the West Bank were stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and shot. Jahwar Nasser was shot 10 times in the feet, while Adam al-Raouf was shot once in each foot, ensuring neither would play again. During the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza, an Israeli warship targeted a group of young boys playing football on a beach in Gaza. After the shelling stopped, four brothers; Ismael Bakr, Zakaria Bakr, Ahed Bakr and Mohammed Bakr, aged from 9-12 had been killed. So when The Palestine Football Team takes to the field the phrase ‘more than a game’ is never truer. It is an event which gives weight to Palestine’s claim to statehood and is also a chance to highlight the Palestinian issue to the world. The Hunter Stadium hosted 15,000 supporters on Monday night. A huge contingent had turned up to cheer on Palestine. [photo]
http://www.imemc.org/article/70240

Abbas dramatically challenges Israel after 10 cautious years
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) 13 Jan by Karin Laub & Mohammed Daraghmeh — After a decade in power, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has little to show. He is no closer to a deal on Palestinian statehood, has failed to reclaim the Gaza Strip from political rival Hamas and is being disparaged by some as a pliant guardian of Israeli security needs in the West Bank. But the typically cautious 79-year-old dramatically changed course in the days before this week’s tenth anniversary in office by signing up to the International Criminal Court. That could allow for war crimes complaints against Israel in what many believe is his strategy of last resort … The move carries unprecedented risks, but Palestinian officials say Abbas had to act. “We are weak and the only way before us is to bring the Palestinian cause back to the international community,” said one aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe Abbas’ private views. Palestinians close to Abbas say he has been under intense domestic pressure to challenge Israel since the summer’s 50-day Gaza war between Israel and the Islamic militant Hamas group that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, many of them civilians, along with 72 people on the Israeli side….
http://www.whig.com/story/27833626/abbas-dramatically-challenges-israel-after-10-cautious-years

Abbas in Turkey: ‘Palestine to return to UNSC’
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 12 Jan — President Mahmoud Abbas said in a press conference with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara on Monday that Palestine would submit a new UN Security Council resolution for statehood “soon.” “Nothing will ever deter us from continuing our march towards obtaining the rights, freedom, and independence of our people,” Abbas said. He said he had briefed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Palestine’s efforts to return to the Security Council and join several international bodies.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753434

Turkish coast guard saves 10 Palestinians in Aegean Sea
ISTANBUL (PIC) 13 Jan — The Turkish coast guard has saved 22 illegal immigrants, including 10 Palestinians, aboard a boat floundering in Aegean sea waters after they left the Turkish mainland. A communique issued by the Turkish coast guard command in Aydin city said its rescue teams launched a search for Syrian and Palestinian refugees after it received information on Sunday about their departure aboard a rubber boat from the coast of Didim town. A total of 12,872 migrants trying to cross into Greece from Turkey over the Aegean Sea were saved by the Turkish coast guard teams in 524 separate incidents in 2014, while 74 people were also arrested on charges of smuggling migrants, Anadolu Agency said in a recent report.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69613

Erdogan: How dare head of terror state attend Paris march?
ANKARA (PIC) 13 Jan — Turkish president Recep Erdogan criticized the participation of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu in an anti-terror march in Paris while he is involved in state terrorism against the Palestinians. Speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ankara, Erdogan said that Netanyahu should not have been allowed to attend the Paris march after nearly 2,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel’s deadly attacks on Gaza last year. “How can you see such a person, who has killed 2,500 people in Gaza and is practicing state terrorism, waving his hand in Paris as if people waited for him in excitement? How dare he go there?” “You should first give an account for the children and women you have killed,” Erdogan said, addressing Netanyahu.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69610

Ambassador: Japan PM to visit Palestine
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 13 Jan — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to visit Palestine at the end of January, Palestine’s ambassador to Japan said Tuesday. Walid Siyam said that the Japanese premier will meet with President Mahmoud Abbas during a six-day tour to the region, which will include trips to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753589

India donates $4 million to Palestinian Authority
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 13 Jan– The Indian government on Monday transferred $4 million to the Palestinian Authority. Indian representative Mahesh Kumar presented the check to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah during a meeting in Ramallah. The officials discussed bilateral relations and Kumar reiterated India’s strong support for a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753591

Erekat: France to continue support for Palestine
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 12 Jan — Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday praised the French position toward the Palestinian cause, saying France would continue supporting Palestine. Erekat told the Mawtini radio station that French President Francois Hollande had informed President Mahmoud Abbas that France would support a future Palestinian resolution for statehood at the UN Security Council. He said that during Abbas’ trip to Paris for Sunday’s anti-terror march, Abbas delivered a letter to Hollande from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. In the letter, the prisoners spoke of their solidarity with the French people in the wake of last week’s attacks. They also condemned the Israeli government’s “terrorism” against Palestinians, Erekat said. He added that French media had covered the Palestinian people’s solidarity with France during the anti-terror march.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=753420

Israeli man tried to join Syrian jihadists, tortured by Assad forces
Haaretz 12 Jan by Gili Cohen — An Israeli Arab who went to Syria to fight alongside the rebels but was instead arrested and tortured by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was indicted Monday for leaving the country illegally and giving information to the enemy through negligence. Yusuf Nasrallah, 21, of Kalansua was arrested on his return to Israel three weeks ago. “He was in hell and, from what he told me, he wasn’t far from a situation of certain death,” Nasrallah’s father, Yukub, said. “Every day they would take another body or two from the cell where he was held, and sometimes they would stand alongside the bodies all night.” He added that the torture his son underwent left Yusuf on the brink of insanity. The elder Nasrallah, who said his son went to Syria out of “emotional distress,” thanked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for using his ties with the Syrian regime to help secure Yusuf’s release. According to the indictment, Yusuf Nasrallah hadn’t decided which rebel group he wanted to join in Syria – the Al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) or the more moderate Free Syrian Army. But he did intend to die as a martyr during the fighting, “due to his religious belief that such a ‘martyr’s’ death would lead him to paradise,” the indictment said. Instead, Nasrallah was arrested by the Syrian security forces a few hours after crossing the border from Jordan to Syria last April. He was questioned about Israel at length and tortured to make him talk, the indictment said, and under this pressure, he gave the Syrians information about the location of an army base on the Coastal Highway, the manner in which Palestinians enter Israel from the West Bank, and how he himself entered Syria.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.636624

StandWithUs to take cash, messaging from Israeli govt
+972 Blog 13 Jan by Itamar Bazz — The American ‘hasbara’ organization will disseminate government messages in a contract with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office — The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, will fund a hasbara organization to disseminate propaganda on behalf of the Israeli government. The allocation of public funds, over NIS 1 million (over $250,000) in 2015, is intended to fund a joint project by the National Information Directorate and the Israeli branch of StandWithUs, an American hasbara organization. Hasbara is a Hebrew term that refers to public diplomacy efforts on behalf of Israel.
http://972mag.com/standwithus-to-take-cash-messaging-from-israeli-govt/101314/

Snow obscures minefields in south
BINT JBEIL,Lebanon (Daily Star) 14 Jan — A blanket of snow has covered signs on roads in south Lebanon that warn of minefields and unexploded ordnance left behind by the Israeli army, creating a dangerous situation for residents. After last week’s storm left much of the south covered in snow, southerners have ventured out to enjoy the frosty scene at touristic areas in the villages of Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil and Maroun al-Ras, near the border with Palestine. Scouts and members of Hezbollah’s health committee were spread across the region to warn visitors about likely locations of active minefields and unexploded munitions. Vast minefields and countless cluster bombs laid by the Israeli army before it retreated from south Lebanon in 2000 and during the 2006 war still plague the south. The Lebanon Mine Action Center, part of the Lebanese Armed Forces, has cleared more than 1,600 minefields in south Lebanon to date. But hundreds more still require demining … According to the Lebanon Mine Action Center, 100,000 mines and other unexploded ordnance were strewn across south Lebanon by the Israeli Army during their occupation of the territory. When Israelis withdrew in 2000 after 12 years of occupation, they left approximately 500,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines across the south and the Western Bekaa. During the 2006 war, Israel scattered more than 4 million cluster munitions in Lebanon, affecting more than 1 million Lebanese people, primarily in the south.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Jan-14/284013-snow-obscures-minefields-in-south.ashx

Compare the innocent young man originally claimed to be the ‘third terrorist’  in Paris
Lebanese media mistakenly identify Israeli as suicide attacker
Ynet 13 Jan by Hassan Shaalan — An Israeli was shocked to find his Facebook picture circulating on Lebanese media as a photograph of the terrorist who led the attack on a café in Tripoli on Saturday. Sheikh Taha Kiel of the Galilee town of Jadeidi-Makr was surprised to find out that Lebanese media outlets had published his picture, claiming he was the terrorist behind the deadly attack. Kiel found out that the perpetrator of the attack had the same name and that the Lebanese media outlets had mistakenly used photos from his Facebook page. Despite several requests made by Kiel to take the photos down, the Lebanese media outlets have refused to take down the image, not willing to believe Kiel that they had mistakenly identified him as one of two attackers who blew themselves up at a coffee shop in the northern Lebanese city which led to the death of 9 individuals and 35 others wounded. Kiel, 42, is married and a father of three. He works as an Imam at a mosque in the Bedouin village of Arab al-Aramshe in the western Galilee. Kiel learned of the incident when he was sent a link to one of the article’s touting his image.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4614803,00.html

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