Almost thirty years on, there’s still blood on the Holy Land

By:  Ibrahim Hewitt  Thursday, 13 November 2014 12:36

“What we have seen within the past week can only be described as racist, state-controlled terrorism and military anarchy. There is no less than an apartheid system existing to differentiate between Israeli Jews, Arabs of the originally occupied territories, now called Israel, and Arabs of the territories occupied during the 1967 war. Movement and trade between the areas are restricted, and many people from outside Jerusalem are prevented or deterred from praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque.”¹

These words, so pertinent to what is happening today in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, were written more than 26 years ago. I was the spokesman for a delegation of British Muslims who visited Palestine in March 1988, during the first intifada. As we pointed out in a press conference at the end of the visit, “it is even more painful to see that the free Western world turns a blind eye and even gives open support, pumping billions of dollars into the Jewish apartheid regime on the pretext that it is a democracy.”

Little has changed in the quarter century since that visit and peace is a long way off; “there will be no peace without justice”, we said in 1988, and that remains the case, for this is still no justice for the people of Palestine. We hear of new Israeli settlements being given the go-ahead by an increasingly right-wing government with which, incredibly, the Palestinian Authority collaborates in order to protect illegal settlers.

Read The full Article By:  Ibrahim Hewitt  at  ‘The Middle East Monitor’

Click Here :   Almost thirty years on, there’s still blood on the Holy Land.

Syria’s disappeared People

Graffiti refers to the kidnapping of Samira al-Khalil, who has been missing for almost a year

Thousands of Syrians have vanished without a trace, forcibly “disappeared”, since the country’s uprising began in March 2011. Held incommunicado by the regime or militant groups at secret locations across the country, detainees are often kept in inhuman conditions. Some are tortured, others go on to be killed. For relatives left behind, the pain of not knowing what has happened to their loved ones is intolerable.

Read More : Source BBC News World Middle East

By :  Lucy Rodgers and Faisal Irshaid BBC News

Gaza beach massacre commemorated by child survivors

On Sunday evening, as the sun slipped behind the Mediterranean Sea, members of the Bakr family, a sprawling clan of fishermen in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp, gathered with hundreds of supporters on the beach next to the Gaza seaport.

Their assembly commemorated the lives of nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr.

All four were killed in Israeli strikes as they played football on the beach on 16 July. The first blast killed Ismail as he ran to retrieve a ball. Ahed, Zakariya and Muhammad died in the second explosion.

The Israeli munitions that ended their lives struck the beach directly behind a row of hotels which, in mid-July, housed many of the foreign reporters then present in Gaza.

Along with statements by members of their family and the painting of colorful murals at the site of the boys’ killings, the event also included a football match, intended to complete the one interrupted by the lethal blasts almost two months ago.

“It was never finished,” Bayan al-Zumaili of the Safadi Group, the youth organization that worked with the Bakr family to organize the event, told The Electronic Intifada. “So we decided to complete it with the survivors of the massacre.”

Read More: Electronic Intifada

Gaza beach massacre commemorated by child survivors.

Israel prevents UN official from entering occupied Palestinian territories

The Israeli authorities have so far refused to grant access to a UN official planning to visit the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) between 20 and 28 September, a UN statement said.

The new UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the OPT, Indonesian diplomat Makarim Wibisono, is set to undertake his first official visit to the region this week.

The statement said that Wibisono will gather first-hand information on the current human rights situation in the OPT following the July-August Israeli war, which resulted in at least 1,473 Palestinian civilians killed, including some 501 children.

Wibisono, an independent expert, will visit Jordan and Egypt during his mission and seek to access to Gaza through the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. However, Wibisono said that, “Despite my best efforts, I have not been granted access by Israel to the OPT at this time.”

Read More: Middle East Monitor

Israel prevents UN official from entering occupied Palestinian territories.

Abbas weighs international action against Israel

(Ma’an) —  President Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinian leadership is close to deciding if it will file complaints against Israel at United Nations institutions and courts in November.

He said the leadership would act regardless of threats from either Israel or the United States.

Speaking to Ma’an during his flight to New York, Abbas said the PA was considering possible moves in response to settlement projects which the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to carry out in the West Bank following the military offensive against the Gaza Strip.

Asked about rebuilding war-torn Gaza, the president was cautious in his remarks.

“Reconstruction of Gaza is possible through the national consensus government and through cooperation between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and this cooperation must be agreed on quickly between the delegations of Hamas and Fatah to Cairo.”

Read More : Source – Ma’an News Agency 

Anger in Jerusalem after Israel kills another Palestinian teen

His picture was hanging on the wall of his classroom in Jerusalem’s al-Rashidiya school, but his desk remained empty.

Muhammad Sinokrot, who would have turned sixteen years old on 9 December, was not particularly fond of school and his grades were not great. But he was a hard-working boy and was keen on improving.

A few months earlier, he had borrowed his cousin’s graduation gown to wear while posing in front of a camera. He had two years left to graduate from high school, and this portrait emboldened him to work even harder.

An Israeli rubber-coated steel bullet in the head, however, decimated his dreams and cut short his very young life.

On 31 August, Sinokrot was shot in the head by Israeli police on his way to the Abdeen mosque in Wadi al-Joz, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. It was an unusually calm evening despite the presence of Israeli soldiers and border police who have made a habit out of raiding Wadi al-Joz during the last two months.

Read More : Electronic Intifada

Anger in Jerusalem after Israel kills another Palestinian teen.

Gaza school children grappling with Israeli war trauma

Children who have started the new school year in the besieged Gaza Strip are grappling with the trauma of the recent Israeli military offensive on the blockaded area.

Schools have opened their doors in the blockaded territory after a three-week delay due to the recent Israeli relentless and merciless aggression on Gaza. The children in the blockaded area who have survived the onslaught are in shock of the loss of their classmates and the extent of destruction in the area.

“I felt so bad when I saw my school destroyed. We used to study and play here. Nadia, my school mate, died [in the Israeli attacks] and we can’t play anymore,” a Palestinian school child told Press TV.
“This is our first day at school. It’s hard to describe the destruction,” another Palestinian child said.

“We were shocked when we heard about Nadia’s death. She was a remarkable student and very active,” Nemal Jedi, a Palestinian teacher, said.

Read More: Source  – Press TV

Obama to lay out plan to ‘destroy’ Isis threat as Kerry arrives in Baghdad

John Kerry arrives in Baghdad where he will try to build a broad coalition against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AP

President’s strategy to ‘degrade and destroy’ insurgents will include military action and support for Iraq and Syrian opposition.

Barack Obama will pledge on Wednesday night to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State insurgency operating in both Syria and Iraq in an address to the American people expected to herald a significant escalation of the US military role across the region.

Though the exact extent of the anticipated US intervention in Syria remained unclear in the hours leading up to the key speech, White House officials made clear the president planned to pursue a two-pronged strategy on both sides of the border that is likely to build on existing air strikes in Iraq against the group known as Isis or Isil.

“The president will discuss how we are building a coalition of allies and partners in the region and in the broader international community to support our efforts, and will talk about how we work with the Congress as a partner in these efforts.”

Read More:  The Guardian

Israeli forces shoot and kill Palestinian near Ramallah

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah overnight, locals told Ma’an.

Locals said 22-year-old Issa Khaled al-Qatri was shot by Israeli troops in the chest around 5:00 a.m. and taken by car to Ramallah medical complex where medics pronounced him dead.

The victim was shot during clashes between young Palestinian men and Israeli soldiers, who stormed al-Amari camp and detained resident Alaa Jalayta from his home, the sources said.

Protesters “showered the invading forces with stones, and soldiers responded with live ammunition, injuring a number of other Palestinians,” one witness said.

Read More : Ma’an News Agency

Iran shoots down Israel spy drone

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has shot down an Israeli spy drone over the Iranian sky before the unmanned aerial vehicle reached Natanz nuclear facility.

The IRGC’s Aerospace Force has intercepted and shot down an Israeli spy drone, the IRGC announced in a statement on Sunday.

It added that the stealth and radar-evading spy drone intended to reach the nuclear facility in Natanz, but was targeted by a surface-to-air missile before it reached the area.

Read More: Source: Press TV

Iran shoots down Israel spy drone.