19 June, Manchester: Rally in Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners

18 June 2021

Saturday, 19 June
12 pm
Piccadilly Gardens
Manchester, England
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1015380345870452/

Join us on the streets of Manchester in solidarity with Palestine, to demand the release of prisoners locked up by Israel and to build the boycott!
Responding to the Samidoun call for action, we stand with the six hunger strikers and for the release of all political prisoners. As imperialism continues to back the Zionist state, we also demand the release of Issam Hijjawi, imprisoned by the British state and Georges Abdallah, locked up for four decades in a French jail.
Victory to the Palestinian resistance!
Free all political prisoners!
Isolate the Zionist state! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
—
There are currently six Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails on open hunger strike, demanding their release from Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial under “administrative detention” orders. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner demands their immediate release, an end to the policy of administrative detention, and freedom for all Palestinian prisoners.
Ghadanfar Abu Atwan has been on hunger strike for 40 days to demand his freedom; he is joined by Khader Adnan, former long-time hunger striker, who has been on hunger strike for 15 days, as well as Amer al-Shami and Yousef al-Amer, on hunger strike for 14 days, and Mohammed Masalmeh and Sheikh Jamal al-Tawil, on hunger strike for 11 days. Al-Tawil’s strike demands the release of his daughter, Bushra al-Tawil, from administrative detention, as well as his release.

Al-Buraq Revolution: Legacy, Continuing Struggle and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement

17 June 2021

*The three Palestinians executed at Akka prison – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum*

The following is a slightly updated version of the article originally published on 17 June 2017 by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. The living legacy of Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer, Mohammed Jamjoum and the Buraq Revolution is deeply relevant today, especially as extremist Zionist forces engage in “flag marches” designed to declare full colonial control over all of Palestinian Jerusalem while chanting slogans like “Death to the Arabs.” A very similar march sparked the uprising of 1929. The close ties between Zionism and British colonialism – which would eventually imprison 900 Palestinians and execute 20 for participating in the revolt – today mirrors the strategic partnership between the Zionist state and U.S. and other Western imperialist powers. Nearly 90 years on, the Palestinian revolution continues, until liberation and return.

17 June marks the anniversary of the execution of three of the earliest martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum – by British colonial occupiers, in Akka prison.

The execution of these Palestinian strugglers has remained for years an ongoing story of resistance that continues to inspire strugglers through 100 years of resistance to colonization and occupation. Indeed, the song written to commemorate Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum, “From Akka Prison,” today remains one of the most well-known and powerful poems of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum were seized by the British colonizers for their role in Al-Buraq Revolution of 1929, named for the al-Buraq Wall in Jerusalem. The uprising was sparked after Zionist groups came to the wall and planted Zionist flags, declaring that “This wall is ours.”

In Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafa and Safad, Palestinians rose up against British colonization and the declared Zionist plans to colonize Palestine and declare it a “Jewish state.” Hundreds of Palestinians were seized by British forces and 26 sentenced to death by hanging; there was such an outcry by the Palestinian people that most of these sentences were converted to life imprisonment, with the exception of Hijazi, Jamjoum and al-Zeer.

Fouad Hijazi was 26 years old, from Safad; Mohammed Jamjoum was 28, from al-Khalil, as was Atta al-Zeer, 35.

Born in Safad in 1904, Hijazi received his primary education in his hometown; his university education was completed at the American University of Beirut. He actively participated in the Buraq Revolution and wrote a message to his family the day before his execution, which was published in the newspaper on 18 June 1930. In the message, he said, “On 17 June of each year, this should be a historic day in which speeches are made and songs are sung in the memory of our blood spilled for the sake of Palestine and the Arab cause.”

Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum was born in 1902 in al-Khalil; like Hijazi he attended university at the American University of Beirut. Atta al-Zeer was born in al-Khalil also, in 1895. Throughout his life he worked as a farmer and a manual laborer and was known from his earliest days for his courage and physical strength.

On 17 June 1930, Palestinians organized a general strike throughout Palestine as large crowds gathered in major Palestinian cities across the country – in Yafa, Haifa, al-Khalil and Nablus. After the executions, their bodies were handed to the men’s families, who had been denied the right to bury them in their home cities. Thousands of Palestinians streamed through the streets of Akka in honor of Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer, figures and symbols of Palestinian resistance to British and Zionist colonization. The three revolutionaries were executed on that day, but their anti-colonial message and commitment has continued to resonate through generations of Palestinian struggle for national liberation.

Abu Maher al-Yamani, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian labor leader and historical leader of the Palestinian national movement, left his village of Suhmata for the first time at the age of six with his father. There, he “was surprised to encounter the execution of three Palestinian martyrs by British colonial authorities on that day, June 17, 1930 – Fouad Hijazi, Mohammed Jamjoum and Atta al-Zeer. The awareness of the child Ahmed al-Yamani was awakened, viewing the executions and the bodies of the martyrs in the gallows of the courtyard of Akka central prison; this incident greatly affected him and remained an image in his mind that could not be forgotten.”

Their story has been embedded as well in the Palestinian culture of resistance. Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan’s poem, “Red Tuesday,” commemorates the three, noting “their bodies in the homeland’s graves/their souls in the reaches of heaven.”

The popular song, “Min Sijjin Akka,” or “From Akka Prison,” continues to be sung and celebrated throughout Palestine. The origin of the poem is not precisely clear; some say that it was written on the walls of Akka prison by a revolutionary named ‘Awad, himself awaiting execution by the British colonial rulers. Other scholars note that the poem was likely composed by a working-class popular poet and in Haifa, Nuh Ibrahim, perhaps the most famous Palestinian poet of his time and carrying his own legacy of resistance. “He was not a poet of the elite and he did not write poetry for social occasions or holidays. Instead Ibrahim is known for composing for the 1936-1939 Palestinian Revolt and to peasants working their grapevines, orchards and wheat fields. He spoke and wrote in everyday language, as a provocateur and broadcaster for the revolt, in which he also participated as a fighter,” wrote Samih Shabeeb.

The lyrics of the song are known today throughout Palestine and continue to be sung at national events, weddings and cultural celebrations. Ibrahim himself died struggling for Palestine eight years later, as a fighter in the movement of Izzedine al-Qassam in the 1936-39 revolution in Palestine. After being imprisoned in Akka prison himself, he was killed by the British colonial army in a battle in the Westen Galilee.

Today, over 200 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli occupation prisons since 1967. 72 of them were killed as a result of Israeli torture, including three hunger strikers, Izhak Maragha, Ali Ja’afari and Rasim Halawa, killed by torturous forced feeding in 1980. The Israeli state constantly threatens the reimposition of the death penalty, while putting it into practice in reality, with escalating extrajudicial executions – particularly against Palestinian youth; “arrest raids” that are in fact assassination raids as in the targeting of Basil al-Araj and Moataz Washaha; and the policy of “slow death” of medical neglect and mistreatment inside occupation prisons.

On this anniversary, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network remembers and honors the martyrs of 1930 and their ongoing legacy and role as a symbol of resistance and anti-colonial revolution that reverberates through generations to defend Palestinian land and Palestinian rights, in Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine, from Zionism, imperialism and colonization.

Letter to Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra: Israeli Apartheid Not Welcome in Canadian Ports #BlocktheBoat

15 June 2021

(The following letter was sent today to Canada’s Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and called on “the Canadian government to stop legitimizing the crimes of apartheid…and suspend all instances of Zim-operated ships docking and unloading in Canadian ports.”. This action is part of the growing demand that Canada must hold Israel accountable, through economic sanctions and a bilateral arms embargo.)

June 15, 2021

Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra
Ottawa, Ontario

In recent weeks, people of conscience in Canada watched in horror as the Israeli regime ruthlessly targeted Palestinians from all regions of historic Palestine. What started as a popular movement to #SaveSheikhJarrah residents from further ethnic cleansing expanded into a broad unity of Palestinians from Jerusalem to Gaza to Haifa to Toronto and Vancouver all sending the same message. Palestinians will no longer accept the status quo of Israeli apartheid.

As part of this burgeoning movement, Palestinian-Canadians and their supporters have actively participated in rallies, pickets and #BlockTheBoat actions. The latter refers to the efforts to stop Zim-operated ships from either docking in, or unloading, at U.S., Canadian and other international ports.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd is Israel’s largest and oldest cargo shipping company, dealing in Israeli manufactured military technology, armaments and logistics equipment, as well as consumer goods.

The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and a large coalition of all major Palestinian workers unions and professional associations have called on fellow trade unions and workers worldwide to boycott Israel and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime. They specifically urge “refus[ing] to handle Israeli goods” and “supporting [union] members refusing to build Israeli weapons.”

Last month, and in response to the above appeal from Palestinian trade unions, South African trade unions refused handling cargo from an Israeli ship in Durban. Dockworkers in Italy have also successfully blocked a recent shipment of munitions and armaments destined for Israel.

At Canada’s largest port in Vancouver, there was a successful community picket on June 8 that tied up both the Port entrance and a busy intersection; activists from a diverse range of groups stated clearly – “Israeli Apartheid Not Welcome in Vancouver Ports”. (The same message was also delivered on June 14 at the Prince Rupert Port.)

Port Authorities in Canada fall under the Ministry of Transport. As such, Mr. Alghabra, allowing and enabling such Israeli apartheid profiteering makes both the ports and the Canadian government further complicit in the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians. Both B’tselem and Human Rights Watch have been clear in exposing the system of Israeli governance as apartheid. We, the undersigned organizations, expect the Canadian government to stop legitimizing the crimes of apartheid, and to refuse to give economic incentives to such abhorrent behaviour.

Your ministry is already mired in controversy for refusing to cancel a contract with Elbit Systems to purchase one of their drones. Who would have imagined that the Canadian Ministry of Transport would be so entangled with Israeli apartheid? We call on you to observe your government’s alleged respect for international law and human rights and suspend all instances of Zim-operated ships docking and unloading in Canadian ports.

Popular protest is not going to stop as long as Palestinians are not free.

c.c. PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority

Signed:

BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish Territories
Canada Palestine Association
Palestinian Youth Movement Vancouver
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Endorsed by:

Anti-Imperialist Alliance, Ottawa
BAYAN Canada
Canadian Peace Congress
Communist Party of Canada
Gabriela BC
Independent Jewish Voices Vancouver
Just Peace Advocates
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel
OPRA – Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
Palestinian Canadian Community Centre – Palestine House
Poetic Justice Foundation
Regina Peace Council
Sulong UBC
West Coast Coalition Against Racism Society

Breaking the ties between the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and the Israeli Histadrut is a trade union, political and ethical duty

15 June 2021

The following article was initially published in Spanish at El Salto Diario.

by Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski, Jaldia Abubakra, and Daniel Lobato Bellido

Context

The definition of Israel as an apartheid state is beginning to spread internationally and unstoppably. In 2009 Palestinian and South African academics published a comprehensive report that determined that Israel was committing the crime of apartheid. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, with the participation of the emeritus magistrate of the Spanish Supreme Court, José Antonio Martín Pallín, ruled in 2010 that Israel exercises systematic apartheid. Also two former UN special reporters on human rights in Palestine came to the same conclusion: in 2007, John Dugard determined that Israel commits colonialism and apartheid. In 2017, Richard Falk and the UN ESCWA Commission concluded that Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Faced with the scandal over the report, Israel and the US pressured the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, and succeeded in removing the text from the UN website.

In early 2021, B’Tselem, a very prestigious Israeli organization in the monitoring of human rights, published a report that concludes that Israel is an apartheid state in a single political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, by acknowledging that ancient historical Palestine as a whole is a single geopolitical entity ruled by Tel Aviv, it has exposed the fraud of the rhetoric of the “two-state solution,” “negotiating table,” and so on that do not help the diagnosis or the solution of what is happening. It is very significant that the CCOO Trade Union Confederation has assumed the importance and seriousness of what the B’tselem report indicates, collecting the news on its CCOO website along with the translated version of the document. Recently, the NGO Human Rights Watch has joined in defining Israel as an apartheid regime.

The analogy with South Africa is immediate, although Israel has made the set of legal mechanisms more sophisticated, and intensified the media and diplomatic pressure to try to hide the segregation. From the internal institutional racism against the Palestinians who are citizens of the State of Israel (21% of its population) with more than 60 apartheid laws, to the unlimited segregationist repression against the Palestinians in the ghettos of the West Bank and Gaza. The first ghetto – West Bank – under a military dictatorship of varying intensity and the second – Gaza – under maximum security imprisonment. The latest segregationist crime of the Israeli regime, by way of macabre collective punishment, has been not only its refusal to vaccinate the 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank despite being mandated by the Fourth Geneva Convention, but also preventing the vaccines entering Gaza.

At a different extreme of segregation and exclusion are the more than six million Palestinian refugees that Israel prevents from returning to their land and homes after having expelled them, doubly violating international law.

Alongside this snapshot of apartheid, which is gradually and inexorably revealed even to those who refused to look, is added the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for the committing of war crimes against the Palestinians.

In a deceptive geopolitical context, which appears to be favorable to Israeli impunity, in reality the beginning of the end of its decades of impunity begins in its violation of international legality and in its disregard of dozens of UN resolutions, both of the Security Council and the General Assembly. With the Pretoria regime in South Africa there was a turning point in the late 1970s in world awareness. With Israel it will also come, or is coming already, despite crude efforts by the Israeli regime to stir up Western anti-Jewish ghosts by wanting to link the growing boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism. In the same way that the boycott of apartheid South Africa was not “anti-white”, but against the racist Pretoria regime, and obviously millions of Western “white” people supported the boycott, the boycott of Israel is not Judeophobic, but against the racist regime of Tel Aviv; and hundreds of Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration camps support the boycott of Israel, as well as dozens of international Jewish organizations.

Histadrut: a tool for colonization, exploitation and segregation of the Palestinian indigenous population

In 1992, the Comisiones Obreras (CC OO) Trade Union Confederation, the major trade union confederation in Spain, invited the head of international relations at Histadrut to make this Israeli organization known to the Spanish working class. His apologetic article was published by CCOO. Between half truths and praise for the supremacist mythology of Zionism – which by definition implies the dispossession of the Palestinian natives and apartheid – it also included lies and calls for the violation of international legality, which in CC OO must have gone unnoticed. Just six years after Spain’s recognition of Israel, CC OO followed the institutional inertia of normalization with Israel, without considering the background of the decisions.

In addition, the question of the Middle East became a question of State policy and CC OO accommodated itself to that framework without considering it, when the important thing in those years was that agreements between Israel and the PLO (Madrid and Oslo) were looming on the horizon. Finally, the article by the Histadrut leader in the CCOO magazine reinforced the view of how Histadrut was seen outside of Israel as a common union, equivalent to the British Trade Union Congress, or the American AFL / CIO, and inclusive, because Histadrut always had a “convenient” Israeli-Palestinian member in his delegations.

In 1992, amid the collapse of the apartheid regime in Pretoria, no one at CCOO thought that Histadrut was the equivalent of an Afrikaner union with some indigenous South African member.

In the Western imagination, and in that of the CCOO and other Spanish unions, Histadrut came to embody Israeli progressivism in capital-labor relations, and that has been enough, without going deeper. In that Olympic year, in the midst of the collapse of the apartheid regime in Pretoria, and two years after Mandela was elected president of the new South Africa, no one at CCOO thought that Histadrut was the equivalent of an Afrikaner union with some indigenous South African member.

In 2003, the International Policy Secretariat of CCOO and Paz y Solidaridad published an exhaustive monograph on Labour and Trade Unionism in Palestine / Israel, co-authored by Isaías Barreñada, one of the leading experts on Palestine in Spain.

Histadrut was analyzed in depth, and in addition to reflecting apartheid as the backbone of this organization, the report recognizes that Histadrut “played a direct role with the Israeli military occupation” and that it benefited economically from it with its construction company and its entire holding company business.

Furthermore, “Histadrut legitimized the actions of the Israeli government in violation of international law.” It also points out that following the signing of the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements between Histadrut and the Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, Histadrut did not fulfill its commitments to the Palestinian trade unions. Among others, the return of quotas withheld by Israeli companies to Palestinian workers for 30 years, which during all those decades enriched Histadrut. That debt was estimated in the agreements at 400 million dollars and has never been paid to the Palestinians.

CC OO and Histadrut international alliances

The CC OO report clearly pointed out Histadrut’s guilt in the war crime that involves obtaining financial gain by collaborating with and taking advantage of an illegal military occupation. In other words, the document prepared at the highest level within CC OO clearly stated that Histadrut was unequivocally involved in war crimes; But for some reason that escapes us, CC OO did not make any decision on what to do with its ally: CC OO and Histadrut shared membership in the CIOSL until its dissolution in 2006, being replaced by the CSI, the International Trade Union Confederation – the first world trade union organization – where again Histadrut and CC OO are allies. Similarly, both organizations join forces in international trade union alliances, such as Public Services International, ISP / PSI, and others.

Histadrut and the Palestinian workforce

The report did not include some other relevant elements of Histadrut’s history, organization and ideology, which are worth knowing.

As the CC OO document pointed out, Histadrut is not and has not exactly been a union. Not only because it was the founder of the Labor Party or the Haganah paramilitary militias, later converted into the Israel Army, in charge of expelling the Palestinian natives, but because it was the second largest employer in Israel, owning the main bank or more than 25% of industry, with hundreds of thousands of employees. After the privatization of part of its industrial conglomerate in the 80s and 90s, its “union” decline began, although at the same time its political weight was reinforced.

From its inception in 1920, it excluded native Palestinian labour. In 1936 Palestinian workers carried out a six-month general strike against the foreign invasion and colonization of Palestine, one of the longest strikes in the history of labour. Histadrut replaced striking Palestinian workers with exclusive Jewish labour. Together with the British occupying power, Histadrut established Tel Aviv as an alternative port to Jaffa, paralyzed by the strike.

Histadrut not only segregated native labor, but conceptually dismissed solidarity among workers in favor of ethno-religious exclusivism. It destroyed the early efforts of Palestinian and Jewish workers’ groups for a joint unionism based on true equality. And it is true that the main role of Histadrut was not the defence of working conditions but the colonization of Palestine. As Golda Meir pointed out, it was a great colonization agency, endorsing the positions of the Zionist movement: Jewish labor, Jewish production and Jewish consumption, with apartheid and Zionist supremacism as its backbone.

Eleven years after the establishment of the State of Israel by the settlers, in 1959, Histadrut began to admit Palestinian members with Israeli citizenship (as indicated above, 21% of the population of Israel), confined in a special section of the organization. Of course, this admission has never included Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza ghettos, even if they work on Israeli territory.

There was a reason behind this “openness” towards a part of the indigenous workforce: on that date Israel agreed to provide health services to the Palestinian-Israelis who until then lacked them, and this in turn forced them to pay a union dues, that is, they had to join Histadrut. However, Histadrut has never given them jobs in strategic sectors (weapons, oil, chemicals, electronics, aviation, navigation, airlines, electricity, gas, telecommunications, etc.), because to access a job in these branches requires military service, and that fifth of Israel’s population, the Palestinian-Israelis, do not perform military service in the army.

Histadrut has never started any mobilization against the different governments for labour segregation against natives with Israeli citizenship … including discrimination that occurs in public administration

Histadrut has never started any mobilization against the different governments for this labour segregation against natives with Israeli citizenship. Neither because of this, nor because of the discrimination that occurs in the public administration, where only 12% of public employment is held by Palestinian-Israelis, and almost exclusively as health personnel. Less than 1% of the executive positions of the administration are held by Palestinian-Israelis, who we recall, are 21% of the population of Israel.

Histadrut also does not confront systemic employment and wage discrimination on ethnic grounds in Israel. The average remuneration of Palestinian workers with Israeli citizenship is 42% lower than that of the rest of Israelis (5,420 shekel per month compared to 7,950, data from 2019). Histadrut also did not invest or build any industry in mostly Palestinian Israeli populations, contributing to their impoverishment. In 1990, Histadrut enforced the construction employers’ demand that Palestinian-Israeli workers pay an additional tax to finance the training of Jewish immigrants from the former USSR. This meant that the Palestinian-Israeli workers were forced to subsidize the job training of the workers destined to replace them.

In this systemic racism it is necessary to include the linguistic one as well. Let us suppose, as an example, that CCOO de Cataluña did not denounce, or mobilize, or put itself in profile before the repression of companies in Girona or Barcelona against workers who spoke Catalan among themselves, with Catalan being an official language of Catalonia. Well, that is exactly Histadrut’s position regarding the firings and repression of Palestinian-Israeli workers who communicate with each other in Arabic, Arabic being one of the official languages of Israel.

Finally, what about the Palestinians in the ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank? They work in Israeli companies, either because they enter and leave the State of Israel on a daily basis crossing the ghetto’s military checkpoints (they are forbidden to sleep in Israeli territory), or because Israeli factories have settled in the West Bank (violating international law). The answer is that this native working class of the ghettos does not exist for Histadrut, nor does it exist for the State of Israel. They do not have the right to collective bargaining, nor to promotions, nor to pensions, nor to remuneration in the event of an accident at work or illness; they are given very low wages, etc. Taking advantage of the legal vacuum, Israeli employers apply individual bargaining or archaic Jordanian law with the Palestinian workforce in Gaza and the West Bank. This fact exemplifies the labour conflict during these months in an Israeli factory in occupied West Bank territory. Faced with the apartheid exercised by Histadrut against the Palestinian workers in the ghettos, other Israeli organizations such as Kavlaoved or Maan are in charge of supporting and organizing them.

The identification of Histadrut with Israeli politics, or Histadrut as an appendage of Israel

Beyond its racist business and labour portrayal, it must be emphasized that Histadrut has supported all large-scale Israeli military aggressions against the Gaza ghetto: in 2008, 2012 and 2014, with about 5,000 deaths in total, a quarter children and girls, Histadrut justifies them in the same words as the Israeli government, “Israel’s right to self-defence.” Let us remember that the Palestinians are forcibly locked up in Gaza, since Tel Aviv does not allow them to return to their homes and lands that are within the State of Israel itself. In the same way, Histadrut justified the criminal Israeli assault in 2010 on the international flotilla headed by the Mavi Marmara, which sought to break the blockade of the Gaza ghetto. It has also supported all of Israel’s military aggressions against other neighboring countries. Notably, in 2006 Histadrut Secretary General Amir Peretz became the Labour Party Minister of Defence and carried out the brutal 2006 war against Lebanon.

Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam supplied the South African government with weapons, helping the Afrikaner regime to circumvent its global boycott. The Zionist regime in Israel and the Pretoria regime were close partners

Histadrut acted on behalf of Israeli and American foreign policy operating on behalf of the United States in African countries such as Zaire and Kenya in the 1960s, receiving funds from the US State Department. In the 1970s and 1980s it cooperated with the AIFLD program of the AFL-CIO and the CIA to undermine rural cooperatives in El Salvador for the benefit of intensive agribusiness, repressing indigenous union leaders and organizations, but above all being an additional element of the penetration of the US and Israel in Central America to finance and support the dictatorial regimes of the time or the death squads of the counterinsurgency.

Histadrut collaborated with the South African apartheid regime. The Iskoor Steel Company, 51 percent owned by Histadrut Koor Industries and 49 percent by the South African Steel Corporation, manufactured steel for the South African Armed Forces, helped build the wall between South Africa and Namibia, and Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam supplied the South African government with weapons, helping the Afrikaner regime to circumvent its global boycott. The Zionist regime in Israel and the Pretoria regime were close partners, since they shared supremacist ideology of the settlers against the indigenous people, and Histadrut was part of that institutional alliance.

The severance of relations with Histadrut is an ethical, political and union imperative

We have already seen how Palestinian workers are one of the sectors of the Palestinian population most affected by Israeli efforts to undermine the Palestinian economy with its regime of settler colonialism and apartheid. In 2005, numerous Palestinian unions were founding members of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in Israel, BDS. This movement for the Boycott of Israel has grown unstoppably over the years, despite Israeli efforts to combat it, even creating a specific ministry.

The Palestinian unions, for their part, formed the Palestine Trade Union Coalition PTUC-BDS. This Palestinian trade union coalition issued in 2011 a statement of solidarity with the unions and the European working class that was suffering from the austerity policies of the EU, but also renewed the call to international unions to join the BDS movement, and expressly requested the break of union relations with Histadrut.

In response to this call, in September 2011 the British Trade Union Congress at the proposal of Unite, the largest British union, passed a resolution calling on all unions to review their bilateral relations with Israeli organizations, including Histadrut. Unite had already approved its severance of relations with Histadrut unanimously months before. In the same way, 27 Australian unions joined the Palestinian BDS campaign, supporting boycotts of the settlement industry, arms embargoes and divestments. Major unions from South Africa, France, Norway, Brazil, Canada, Ireland and more countries, have joined the boycott of Israel to varying degrees, and also the severance of relations with Histadrut. In Spain, multiple unions are attached to the BDS campaign.

In these days of May 2021, in the midst of a new massacre against the Gaza ghetto and a wave of repression by the regime against the indigenous population throughout the Palestinian territory – including lynching of Palestinian subjects of the State of Israel – there has been an overwhelming general strike by the whole of Palestinian society in the three parts in which Palestine is broken (Israel, the ghettos of the West Bank and the ghetto of Gaza).

The unity of Palestinian society in resisting oppression and apartheid has been rebuilt after decades of efforts to fragment and divide it by Israel and Western countries. For this reason, once again the Palestinian trade unions have launched an international call for solidarity: “to achieve our liberation, we need the solidarity of our comrades and friends of the international trade union movement”, calling for urgent measures from all trade union organizations in the world. Among them, joining the BDS movement, showing solidarity with the Palestinian strikes by calling mobilizations in their support, helping in resistance funds or taking forceful measures against companies or investment funds related to Israel.

It is the basic principle of international solidarity against oppression. Reciprocal to that received by the CC OO struggle during the Franco regime and the repression it suffered, including Process 1001, by international trade union forces.

Almost 20 years have passed since an internal report by CC OO exposed that Histadrut, an allied organization of this union, was an accomplice in war crimes. In 2021, CC OO continues to share organizational spaces with Histadrut: What is CC OO going to do?

Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski belongs to the International Network of Anti-Zionist Jews – IJAN

Jaldia Abubakra is a member of the Palestinian Women’s Movement – Alkarama

Daniel Lobato Bellido is a member of the Unadikum Association for solidarity with Palestine and the Middle East

All three are members of Samidoun España.

15 June, Vancouver: Day of Rage protest – Defend Jerusalem

14 June 2021

Tuesday, 15 June
5:30 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
Georgia and Hornby, Pacific Centre Side
Vancouver
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/3082398258710847/

VANCOUVER: EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION

Tomorrow hundreds of Israeli settlers will participate in the Zionist March of Flags to taunt and attack Palestinian neighbourhoods. Historically, this march has seen settlers chant “Death to Arabs” and swarmed Occupied Jerusalem, attacking Palestinians. In response, Palestinians are calling on us to mobilize to protect the Occupied Jerusalem community. We are calling for a day of rage tomorrow in Vancouver to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque and to stand with Palestinians fighting settler violence.

Bring your kuffiyehs and masks, and be ready to march from the Vancouver Art Gallery, right near the Hornby and Georgia intersection, as not to disrespect the Indigenous vigil on the steps in front of Robson Square.

Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement Vancouver, endorsed by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Canada Palestine Association

15 June, NYC: Emergency Protest to Defend Palestine

14 June 2021

Tuesday, 15 June
5:30 pm
Zionist Mission to the UN
800 2nd Ave
NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1159667421200689/

Join a day of rage by Palestinians in Jerusalem/Al-Quds, across occupied Palestine, in the refugee camps, and throughout the diaspora to resist a massive ‘flag march’ against Al-Aqsa Mosque by Zionist settlers

Launching “Souli”, a new Palestinian song

14 June 2021

Samidoun thanks this group of dedicated and revolutionary Palestinian artists in occupied Palestine and the diaspora who cooperated together to complete the song صولي – Souli (leaping advance), which we dedicate in turn to the Palestinian people and their supporters everywhere, and to the Palestinian prisoners’ liberation movement imprisoned in Zionist and imperialist jails.

This song is part of the Palestinian heritage and reality of cultural struggle and resistance until liberation and return, for all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Lyrics: Khaled Barakat
Composer: Ibrahim Al Silwadi
Arrangement and supervision: Youssef Seif
Vocals: Ahmed Melhem
Percussion: Hussein Al Rimawi
Qanun: Raouf Al-Jahmani
Video: Maram Saadi

Maram saadi · صولي يا سمرا | كلمات: خالد بركات | ألحان: إبراهيم سلوادي | أداء: أحمد ملحم

Canada action alert: Remove NDP defence critic, out of step with grassroots membership

13 June 2021

Canada action alert: Take one minute to write to Jagmeet Singh and Canadian New Democratic Party officials calling for Randall Garrison, the NDP’s defence critic, to be removed from his position for his militarism and anti-Palestinian stance.

Send a letter here or take action below: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/write-letter-ndp-needs-a-new-defence-critic/

Dear Jagmeet Singh and NDP officials,

Randall Garrison needs to be removed as NDP Defence critic. He promotes militarism and is anti-Palestinian.

Garrison has repeatedly demanded more resources for the military, which has more than 10 times the budget of Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Garrison recently complained to the Hill Times that the budget didn’t devote enough to the military, saying:

we spent a decade not providing the military with an adequate operating budget to do the work we already asked them to do. It’s time to fix that.

Similarly, when the Liberals announced a 70 per cent increase in military spending in 2017, Garrison criticized the announcement for not putting up more money immediately.

Garrison supports the government’s plan to spend $19 billion – $77 billion over their lifecycle – on 88 new aggressive, climate destroying, fighter jets. He also wants Canada to purchase 15 surface combatant vessels armed with Tomahawk missiles that can travel 1,700 kilometers. The frigates are expected to cost $77 billion upfront and an eye-popping $286 billion over their lifecycle.

In mid-April, 85% of NDP convention delegates voted for the Palestine Resolution. It calls for “Ending all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine” and “Suspending the bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel until Palestinian rights are upheld.”

In response to Israel’s recent ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque and violence in Gaza, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called for an arms embargo on Israel and the party promoted a petition making this demand, which most NDP MPs have shared.

Garrison has stayed quiet on the convention resolution and arms embargo. He also failed to criticize Israel’s recent violence and ethnic cleansing. Instead, on May 25 he signed a statement designed to shield Israel from criticism, which was promoted by lobby group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

Garrison is vice-chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG). Three years ago 200 well-known musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members called on NDP MPs to withdraw from CIIG. Most ultimately did so. Garrison has refused to leave a group that promotes “greater friendship” and “cooperation” between the Canadian and Israeli parliaments.

Garrison is out of step with NDP members on Palestinian rights. His militarism is also not shared by most in the party. It is time Garrison was removed as NDP defence critic.

Send a letter here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/write-letter-ndp-needs-a-new-defence-critic/

Endorsing organizations:

Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste

Canadian BDS Coalition

Canada Palestine Association

Palestinian and Jewish Unity

World BEYOND War

Anti-Imperialist Alliance-Ottawa

World Beyond War Vancouver

Canadian Muslim Peace Alliance

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Oakville Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)

Canadian Foreign Policy Institute

Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel

Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste

Regina Peace Council

NDP Socialist Caucus

Al-Quds Committee-Toronto

Victoria Peace Coalition

Yemeni Community in Canada

Pax Christi Toronto

St. John’s Solidarity for Palestine

Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War

Tamam: Fine Palestinian Cuisine

17 June, Online Event: Palestine between the path of Liquidation and the path of Liberation and Return

13 June 2021

Palestine: between the path of liquidation and the path of liberation and return. The alternative path conference preparatory Committee in Greece invites you to participate in a political meeting and discussion with Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat on the current political development in Palestine and the region, and on the efforts to convene the alternative path conference.

Thursday 17/06/2021 at 8 pm occupied Jerusalem and Athens time
The meeting will be held through Zoom platform.
Zoom meeting: 825 2249 0486
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82522490486
This event will take place in Arabic with translation available in English, Spanish and Greek.

تدعوكم اللجنة التحضيرية لمؤتمر المسار الفلسطيني البديل – محلية اليونان – إلى المشاركة في اللقاء السياسي مع الكاتب الفلسطيني خالد بركات حول المستجدات السياسية في فلسطين المحتلة والمنطقة، والجهود الشعبية المتواصلة لعقد مؤتمر المسار الفلسطيني البديل .

الخميس17 / 06 / 2021 تمام الساعة الثامنة مساءً بتوقيت القدس المحتلة وأثينا.
اللقاء عبر منصة زوم الإلكترونية

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82522490486

Η Επιτροπή της Διάσκεψης για την εναλλακτική πορεία του παλαιστινιακού αγώνα – Τοπική Επιτροπή Ελλάδα- σας προσκαλεί να συμμετάσχετε στην πολιτική διαδικτυακή συνάντηση με τον Παλαιστίνιο συγγράφει Χάλεντ Μπαρακάτ, σε μια ανοιχτή συζήτηση γύρω από τις τελευταίες πολιτικές εξελίξεις στην κατεχόμενη Παλαιστίνη και τις λαϊκές προσπάθειες για την προετοιμασία της Διάσκεψης για την εναλλακτική πορεία του παλαιστινιακού αγώνα.
Την Πέμπτη 17/6/2021 στις 20.00, ώρα Αθήνας και κατεχόμενων Ιεροσολύμων.
Η συνάντηση θα γίνει μέσω Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82522490486

Palestina: entre el camino de la liquidación y el camino de la liberación y el retorno. El Comité preparatorio de la conferencia de la ruta alternativa palestinas en Grecia os invita a participar en una reunión política y debate con el escritor palestino Khaled Barakat sobre el desarrollo político actual en Palestina y la región, y sobre los esfuerzos para convocar la conferencia de la ruta palestina alternativa.
Jueves 17/06/2021 a las 8 pm hora de Jerusalén y Atenas
La reunión se llevará a cabo a través de plataforma Zoom.
Reunión zoom: 825 2249 0486

Over 3,100 Palestinians detained by Israeli occupation in May 2021: Prisoners’ associations report

13 June 2021

Palestinian prisoners’ rights and human rights institutions, the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Jerusalem, issued their monthly report on Sunday, 13 June, detailing the latest statistics and reports on Israeli repression targeting Palestinian detainees. The report covers key issues in the current uprising in Palestine, including ongoing violations and abuses by occupation forces, and documents specific cases followed by the institutions that prepared the report. The report is translated into English by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

According to the research and follow-ups made by the Palestinian prisoners’ institutions, Israeli occupation authorities arrested 3100 Palestinians, including 42 women and 471 children, throughout the month of May, in different areas of Palestine, at demonstrations, in night raids and random arrests.

As of the end of May 2021, there are approximately 5,300 Palestinian detainees, including 40 women and 250 child prisoners. Of these, 81 child detainees are from occupied Palestine ’48 – that is, Palestinian citizens of Israel. There are currently approximately 520 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, after 200 administrative detention orders were issued since the beginning of May.

The month of May 2021 marked a serious escalation in repression and attacks against the Palestinian people in multiple forms, especially with the spark of events that began at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on 13 April 2021, where occupation forces attempted to prohibit Palestinians from entering the area. This repression came hand in hand with the forced displacement and forced expulsion being planned and threatened against the Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem.

As events continued and the confrontations with occupation forces escalated, the occupation launched massive repression and attacks, including mass arrests that affected all sectors. These continued to escalate, especially with the launch of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, which lasted for 11 days and prompted Palestinians everywhere to take action in the streets to confront the grave crimes of the occupation.

This is not the first instance in which Palestinians face this type of escalation, including attacks during which the occupation has used all of its mechanisms and policies over the past decade. Systematic arrests are among the most prominent of these colonial mechanisms by which the occupation seeks to suppress any efforts by the Palestinian people to seek liberation and self-determination.

Since 2015, which also constituted a turning point for Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially regarding the number of arrests at one time, this moment also constituted a milestone in terms of the number of detainees and the large number of serious violations documented by institutions, activists, journalists and citizens, who played an important role in conveying and exposing these crimes.

The highest number of arrests were recorded in occupied Palestine ’48, where approximately 2,000 Palestinians were arrested, including 291 children, as documented by Palestinian human rights institutions in occupied Palestine ’48. Many serious crimes were recorded, accompanying mass and systematic arrests in various cities and villages. These did not stop at the moment of arrest against the detainees and their families, but continued through a series of mechanisms and policies later, including intimidation, threats and torture. Over 170 Palestinian detainees later had indictments filed against them, and the most common of these charges was participation in demonstrations rejecting the policies of the occupation.

Israeli occupation forces of various types, along with settlers, contributed to attacking and attempting to intimidate the Palestinian population, storming their homes, destroying their property, deploying undercover forces among them, firing live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets at them and brutally assaulting them physically.

Similar to the situation in occupied Palestine ’48, harsh campaigns of arrests targeted many Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, where 1,100 Palestinians were arrested, including 180 children and 42 women and girls — the highest number of arrests took place in Jerusalem, where 677 were detained.

The institutions documented the continued series of arrests targeting Palestinian Legislative Council election candidates; occupation forces seized six candidates from the “Jerusalem is Our Promise” list, one of the electoral lists for the Legislative Council, in addition to two former Palestinian Legislative Council members, along with nightly raids on homes and searches and vandalism targeting families’ properties. Occupation authorities engaged in systematic methods of repression, intimidation and suppression, extending to collective punishment for all sectors of society.

There were 200 administrative detention orders issued during the month of May, including 116 new administrative detention orders.

The 1948 Occupied Territories: Blurring the Image Through Fabricated Charges

Israeli occupation police arrested journalist and former political prisoner Raafat Abu Ayash, 27, from the occupied Naqab, while he was actively reporting on a sit-in for Palestinian students at Beersheba University in protest of events in Jerusalem, in front of the university building. They were attacked by far-right Jewish Zionist groups, who outnumbered the Palestinian students and threatened to kill them, prompting the Palestinian students to move their protest to the students’ residence. Abu Ayash reports that police, including the special “Al-Yasam” unit came to the scene of event and attacked the Palestinian students, despite the fact that they had called for protection from the attacks by the right-wingers. The police violently beat the students with batons and arrested two Palestinian students.

As Abu Ayash documented the police repression against Palestinian students, he was arrested. He was asked for his name. As soon as he identified himself, undercover police began to beat him, seized him and took him by police car to several locations, eventually ending at the Ashkelon Detention and Interrogation Center, where he was held for three days before his release.

When he asked for the allegations against him, he was accused of assaulting a settler and burrning his car while he was detained, and accused of joining a “terrorist faction.” He was subjected to three days of interrogation by the Shin Bet for four sessions that lasted for six hours each. After he finally proved that he was at the university to cover the event – where he was initially detained – due to camera footage, he was finally released from the interrogation center.

During his detention, Abu Ayash was subjected to several violations, in addition to the wrongful arrest and the trumped-up allegations against him. He was subjected to “shabeh,” or stress positions, in the interrogation chair for long hours, while he was handcuffed to the chair. His detention was extended for 5 days pending interrogation, during which he was not provided with clothes other than those of the prison administration. During his interrogation, he was repeatedly screamed at, cursed, insulted and threatened with “destroying his life.” He was unable to open his eyes when he arrived at the interrogation center due to Israeli occupation forces’ severe beating of his face.

Detaining candidates for postponed elections, attacking the role of politicians and activists

Two months after his release on 21 March 2021, Israeli occupation forces once again detained former prisoner and electoral candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council on the “Jerusalem is our Promise” list, Yousef Qazzaz, 49. They seized Qazzaz after invading the family home in Dura, al-Khalil on 20 May 2021, as nearly 20 soldiers removed the main door of the home and ransacked it, storming the bedrooms and pointing guns at the heads of the sleeping residents, as his wife recounted.

Qazzaz is a former prisoner who has spent 5 years in Israeli occupation prisons. In his previous detention he was held without charge or trial under administrative detention for 18 months; he previously was held in administrative detention for 24 months. Qazzaz suffers from several illnesses, but was prohibited from taking his medication with him by the occupation forces.

On 9 May 2021, occupation forces seized Nasser Abu Khdeir, 59, a candidate rom the “Pulse of the People” electoral list, after storming his home in Shuafat, Jerusalem. He was ordered into forcible house arrest at his home in Shuafat for an unspecified period of time, stripped of his health insurance and national insurance and prohibited from entering the West Bank for 6 months.

Abu Khdeir was last released the previous March from Israeli occupation prisons. He has spent almost 17 years in occupation prisons over various periods of detention.

Child abuse: 13-year-olds detained

During May 2021, Israeli occupation forces seized 180 children from the West Bank, and cases of abuse and mistreatment were documented through field researchers for Palestinian human rights institutions.

Occupation forces seized the 13-year-old child, J.A., while he was in Al-Balou Park near the illegal settlement of Beit El outside Ramallah. He was beaten repeatedly by an Israeli soldier in the pelvic area, causing him severe pain, and pepper-sprayed in his right eye at zero distance while laying on the ground.

J.A. was ordered to lie on the ground and handcuffed with plastic ties before being taken to Beit El military camp. He was blindfolded and taken to the Benjamin police station, where he was placed on a chair facing the wall and tied with plastic handcuffs and ties. The soldiers deliberately held him there for approximately 3 hours, unable to move, until the interrogation began. In the end, he was thrown out of the military vehicle in which he was taken, hit on the neck and the head and his blindfold and handcuffs removed. The child discovered that he had been thrown out of the back of the vehicle in the Hizma area of occupied Jerusalem.

The child K.D., 13, from Tayseer village, was detained near the Tayseer military checkpoint east of Tubas on 15 May 2021, where a demonstration was organized against the Israeli aggression on Gaza. Occupation forces followed him and shot at him before beating him in the face and arresting him. He was then taken from Tayseer Checkpoint, handcuffed and blindfolded. He was released the next day at the same checkpoint. However, intelligence officers then called his father the day after his release, demanding he hand over his son for interrogation.

K.D. suffered psychological trauma as a result of his experience. His father reported that he was shocked and unable to speak for a lengthy time after his release.

Al-Moskobiya: Continuous witness to the crime of torture

Al-Moskobiya, known as the Russian Compound, once again came to the fore during the escalation of repressive attacks carried out by the occupation forces. Dozens of detainees were subjected there to physical and psychological torture. Since August 2019, occupation forces and interrogators have escalated their methods of torture, returning to many of the same tactics of physical and psychological torture used in the 1960s and 1970s. During the current confrontation, Palestinian human rights institutions have continued to document testimonies of torture to which detainees were subjected.

The case of the detainee, Jalal Jabarin (36 years), from the town of Sa’ir, al-Khalil

Jabarin was arrested from his home at dawn on 14 May 2021, after occupation soldiers forced him to take off his clothes, searched and ransacked his house using police dogs. He was taken to an area near the Etzion military camp, where he was taken out of the military vehicle and beaten severely by occupation soldiers. He fell to the ground twice from the severity of the beating, and later he was transferred to the Etzion detention and investigation center, where they asked him to sign a paper exonerating the soldiers from assaulting him. However, he refused to sign.

Jabarin indicated that he was transferred on the same day to the Al-Moskobiya interrogation center, where he was tortured for ten days and for long hours, including being interrogated for 38 hours continuously, while he was forcibly held in stress positions on a chair, while handcuffed, with his hands and feet tied. He was denied sleep and clean, safe food, forcing him to refrain from eating during the first two days of his detention.

During his detention, an order was issued preventing him from meeting with a lawyer. Jabarin is a former prisoner who had previously been arrested several times.

Maryam Afifi: Arrest, abuse, and unconditional release

Israeli occupation forces arrested Mariam Afifi, 26, on 8 May 2021 at about 10:30 pm while she was in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. A witness stated that they saw occupation soldiers attacking a girl, causing her to fall to the ground. They went towards the girl and while attempting to get close to the girl, one of the soldiers shouted at her and pushed her harshly. The witness attempted again to approach her to check on her as a soldier attacked her and started violently pulling at her hijab. As he pulled her back, her shoes came off and the soldier stepped on her legs and joined a number of other soldiers who began to kick and hit her. They handcuffed her behind her back and tied her legs, dragging her to an area where many soldiers and police had gathered, and forced her to the ground. After around 30 minutes, she was taken to the occupation police station, where she was held until the morning of the next day in a room with many other detainees.

The next day, she was transferred to the Al-Moskobiya interrogation center, where she remained in a very cold cell, and when she asked to turn off the air conditioner, they did not respond to her request. Then she was transferred to the court to extend her detention in the Al-Moskobiya center, during which a female soldier handcuffed her hands with iron handcuffs and pulled them, tightening her shackles and causing her severe pain. Maryam stated that she was taken twice to the court, the first time where the judge was not present because of the court break in the afternoon hours, and then they brought her back to the cell, and after a period of time they returned and brought her to the court, and during these movements the shackles were digging into her hands and feet. Maryam was presented to the court, and while the public prosecutor asked to extend her detention, the judge ordered her released without conditions on 9 May after seeing the photo and video evidence of her arrest.

Jerusalem: a double confrontation

The occupation authorities continued their unprecedented campaigns of daily arrests in the city of occupied Jerusalem during the month of May. They arrested hundreds of people on the streets in addition to the storming of homes throughout the city. In Jerusalem, 677 people were detained, including 124 children, of which 20 of whom were aged 13 or 14 years, in addition to 32 women, including 8 girls.

Arrests on the street took place around Al-Aqsa and its gates, where 117 Palestinians were detained; 138 were arrested from Bab al-Amoud and the nearby areas; 79 were detained in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and hundreds from different areas.

From 13 April 2021, the beginning of confrontations and protests at the Damascus Gate, through the end of May, 845 Palestinians were detained. Most detainees were released under conditions, most commonly forced exclusion from the place of detention, home confinement for 3 days to two weeks, payment of cash bail, while a number of them were presented with indictments and others are still detained in interrogation centers.

Harsh excessive force was used during many arrests and detentions, including assaults inside police vehicles and during transportation to detention centers. Scores of detainees were injured, including people with broken hands, noses and ribs, as well as wounds in the face and head. Dozens of Palestinian detainees were transferred from interrogation centers to hospitals for treatment, some of whom remained in detention, and some were released on condition that they return to interrogation after treatment.

The detainees were accused of a number of charges, the most common of which were: participation in confrontations and demonstrations, throwing stones, using firecrackers and Molotov cocktails, raising the Palestinian flag, protesting at Al-Aqsa, tearing the flag of the occupation state, destroying surveillance cameras or burning property for nationalist reasons, assaulting police or assaulting settlers. Dozens of Palestinian detainees were indicted, others are still held under interrogation, and hundreds were released under various conditions and restrictions.

During May, Israeli occupation authorities ordered 11 Jerusalemites to administrative detention by order of the “Defense” Minister, for periods ranging from three to six months, including Palestinian prisoners whose health insurance was cut off.

The occupation also escalated deportation orders during the past month, as over 270 orders forcibly excluding Palestinian Jerusalemites from various areas, including Al-Aqsa, the Old City, Bab al-Amoud and adjacent streets, the entire city of Jerusalem, and the rest of the West Bank, were issued in May for periods ranging from one week to six months. These decisions were issued through the courts or after hours of interrogation in various centers, especially the Al-Qashla detention center in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Salah al-Din police station. Dozens of young men and women seized from Sheikh Jarrah were excluded from the neighborhood, and a number of young people were forcibly expelled from their areas of residence in Al-Tur, Issawiya and Jabal al-Mukabber.

Ahmed Abu Sneineh: He lost his eye and was arrested inside the hospital

Israeli occupation forces wounded, Ahmed Abu Sneineh, 28, with a rubber-coated metal bullet fired inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the 25th day of Ramadan, while he was heading to the mosque to deliver an item to his mother, who was praying Tarawih prayers in the mosque.

The occupation forces hit Abu Sneineh’s eye with a rubber bullet, causing him to lose consciousness. He was taken to the hospital in serious condition and approximately two weeks after the injury, he was seized from inside the hospital by occipation forces.

Abu Sneineh said, “My eye was hit inside Al-Aqsa, then I completely lost consciousness and was transferred in a very serious health condition to the hospital due to a fractured skull. I had several surgeries during my treatment, for injuries to the eye, head and abdomen, and the medical staff said I needed to stay in the hospital for treatment and follow-up for 60 days.”

Abu Sneineh continued: “On 27 May, I was surprised by the presence of a nurse who told me he would get me out of the hospital, and a few minutes later a group of ‘Shabak’ agents invaded the room wearing civilian clothing. They showed their badges and identified themselves and then they arrested me.”

He said that he was transferred to the detention center, and stayed for more than 6 hours, being moved between the police and the Shin Bet intelligence, despite his fatigue and dizziness. He was then released and transferred to house arrest for four days on condition that he return to interrogation. On the appointed day, 30 May, he returned to interrogation at the Al-Qashla police station where he was left to wait in the sun for several hours before being released and ordered to another day of house arrest.

Cancellation of health insurance

As part of the policy of collective punishment against the released prisoners and their families, the occupation authorities cut off their right to national health insurance for 19 Palestinian Jerusalemites, including three jailed prisoners and the wife of a Palestinian prisoner. The remaining victims of this policy are all former prisoners. The families were surprised to learn of the cancellation of their health insurance when they went for treatment in health centers, without any legal warning or clarification.

This measure targeted former prisoners who were subjected to arrest and forced exclusion or deportation from Jerusalem or Al-Aqsa. They were also barred from entry to the West Bank and their bank accounts were seized.

The pretext given for the cancellation of the former prisoners’ health insurance was an allegation that they maintain “residence outside the city of Jerusalem”, which they denied, emphasizing that most of their homes are inside the walls of the Old City or its surroundings.

Collective punishment: Turmus Ayya and Aqraba

The villages of Turmus Ayya and Aqraba were repeatedly invaded and raided by Israeli occupation forces during the first third of May 2021, following the shooting of Israeli occupation soldiers at Za’atara checkpoint south of Nablus. Nine residents of Aqraba and five residents of Turmus Ayya were seized by occupation authorities, while many homes were raided with police dogs as occupation soldiers threw gas bombs and posed a constant threat to the people.

In a telephone conversation, Mrs. Basma al-Shalabi, the wife of Palestinian detainee, former mayor Lafi Shalabi, explained that occupation special forces known as the “Al-Yaman” unit invaded Turmus Ayya village at 3 a.m., raided the family’s home and seized her husband on 5 May 2021. They forced off the doors of the home and attacked the couple’s 16-year-old son before one of the soldiers tried to throw the child at his mother, who was isolated in another room of the home due to her diagnosis with coronavirus. They then took Lafi Shalabi to the second floor of the house, by himself, interrogating him while threatening him, pressuring his wife and threatening her. They did not allow her to take any medications despite her coronavirus infection and high blood pressure diagnosis.

In Aqraba, large forces of the occupation army and special units attacked the town, imposed full military control over it, locking down the residents on 3 May and prohibiting them from moving, imposing closure and erecting military checkpoints around the nearby villages. The following day, they were joined by massive reinforcements and armored vehicles invading the town, storming homes and deliberately vandalizing, damaging and destroying property while searching the homes.

Dozens of wounded and injured

Israeli occupation forces used all manner of weapons and methods of attack against the detainees, including severe beatings, dragging, hitting with batons and rifle butts, release of “skunk” or sewage water, firing tear gas, sound bombs, live bullets and rubber-coated metal bullets at them, leading to dozens of injuries, some with live ammunition.

Among the cases followed by Palestinian human rights institutions is that of the case of wounded detainee Fadi Daraghmeh, 18, from Tubas. He was shot in the knee by occupation forces at Tayseer checkpoint with live ammunition. After he fell to the ground, three soldiers severely beat him and dragged him to their vehicle before he was transferred to the Israeli Afula hospital.

Fellow wounded prisoner Osama Funoun, 23, from al-Khalil, was seized on 12 May 2021 after he was shot by occupation forces in the center of the city, near the military checkpoint at the entrance to Shuhada street in the city. He was then taken to the Ramle prison clinic and forced to walk inside.

Maher Daraghmeh, 22, from Tubas, is also detained in the Ramle prison clinic after being wounded by the Israeli occupation army when he was shot while crossing the Huwarra military checkpoint south of Nablus. He has since undergone several surgeries.

The policy of administrative detention: Significant data

There has been a serious increase in the number of administrative detainees in the occupation prisons, a significant increase in comparison with the past few years. During the current confrontation, administrative detention was one of the most prominent policies of repression. During the month of May 2021, occupation forces issued 200 administrative detention orders, including 11 against Jerusalemite detainees.

Of those orders, 116 were newly issued administrative detention orders, while 84 renewal orders were also issued.

These numbers indicate a dangerous escalation in comparison to the months immediately proceeding the uprising, confirming that occupation authorities are continuing to use this policy on a large scale. The Israeli occupation’s use of administrative detention violates all restrictions imposed under international law on the use of detention without charge or trial. This form of arbitrary detention targets all of those who have a leading role in Palestinian society, including leaders in education and politics.

The Israeli occupation authorities also aim, through the use of administrative detention, to undermine any popular action or uprising for self-determination. This policy has been used in an escalating manner since the early years of the occupation, increasing in the early years and then decreasing after 1977, and then rising again in the Intifadas of 1987 and 2000, and once again rose in 2015, with the beginning of a popular uprising. The occupation once again escalated its use, issuing 1,248 administrative detention orders at that time.

Over the past decades, occupation military courts constituted and remain an essential tool in consolidating this policy, through their implementation of the orders of the occupation intelligence (the Shin Bet). This is confirmed by all the decisions issued by the military courts, in various degrees, against the detainees.

Since the beginning of this year, Palestinian prisoners have carried out individual hunger strikes against the policy of administrative detention. To this day, five prisoners are continuing their open hunger strikes in rejection of arbitrary administrative detention in occupation prisons, including Ghazanfar Abu Atwan, 28, from Dura, al-Khalil, on hunger strike for 40 days; Khader Adnan, 43, from Jenin, on hunger strike for 15 days; Amr al-Shami and Yousef al-Amer, on hunger strike for 14 days; and Jamal al-Tawil, on hunger strike for 11 days, demanding an end to his daughter, Bushra’s, administrative detention.

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by Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski, Jaldia Abubakra, and Daniel Lobato Bellido

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