Activists with Fronte Palestina joined the International Women’s Day event in Milan on 8 March. The event, which focused on international struggles of revolutionary women, highlighted in particular the cases of Palestinian, Kurdish, Venezuelan and Filipina women.
Activists discussed the struggles of imprisoned Palestinian women and in particular the cases of Khalida Jarrar, Shireen Issawi and Rasmea Odeh.
The event included a Palestinian and Kurdish dinner.
Manal Tamimi, prominent Palestinian activist in the village of Nabi Saleh against settlement expansion on her village’s land, was freed late Thursday, 10 March from Israeli jail after 2 days of detention.
Tamimi, 43, paid a fine of 4,000 NIS (approximately $1,000 USD) and agreed to not publish any Facebook posts or photos of Israeli border guard, Yousef Nasser Eddin, who “complained that she shared a video of him violently attacking Palestinian paramedics and journalists, during clashes near Beit El checkpoint, to the north of Ramallah, back in October of 2015.”
Earlier, the Israeli military court at Ofer had extended her arrest until 11 March. Tamimi was arrested in the early morning hours of Tuesday, 8 March, in a raid on her home by Israeli occupation forces. She and her family in Nabi Saleh village are internationally known for their popular, grassroots struggle and protests against the confiscation of their agricultural land by an illegal Israeli settlement.
In addition, Mona Qa’adan – who earlier had been reported scheduled for release next month – was also released on Thursday night, 11 March to her home village of Arraba near Jenin, after 41 months of imprisonment. Qa’adan’s sentence had been revised from 70 months to 41 months on Wednesday, 9 March by the Ofer military court. Qa’adan, 44, was prohibited from family visits for over three years in prison on the grounds of “security”.
In interviews immediately after her release, Qa’adan urged attention to imprisoned Palestinian women and especially minor girls, the youngest of whom, Dima al-Wawi is only 12 years old, and injured prisoners.
She noted that wounded prisoners need a public campaign in their defense, as their health and lives are at risk on a constant basis due to the poor conditions inside the prison. In particular, she highlighted the cases of Israa Djaabis, who is suffering from significant burns over a large part of her body and Yasmin Zarou, who suffered a serious abdominal injury. She also urged intensified efforts for the release of Lena Jerbouni, the longest-serving woman prisoner in Israeli jails.
As Qa’adan highlighted the cases of Zarou and the situation of imprisoned Palestinian girls, three of the minor girls, Rama Jaabis, 14; Malak Salman, 16; and Sajida Hassan, 16; revealed in their first visit with a Palestinian lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society that they were denied access to their parents during interrogation, during which they were forced to lie on the floor, handcuffed for lengthy periods of time, insulted and degraded, and physically hit by Israeli interrogators. Denial of access to parents during interrogation was also reported by B’Tselem in the case of 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi.
The Palestinian Community in Belgium and Luxembourg rallied against the “field executions” of Palestinian youth by Israeli occupation forces outside the offices of the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium on Friday, March 11.
Carrying signs, banners and a massive Palestinian flag, Palestinian and solidarity protesters demanded an end to Israeli attacks on Palestinians and freedom for the Palestinian people. In addition to focusing on the killings of Palestinians, and particularly youth – 191 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces since 14 September 2015 – the protest also called for freedom for 14-year-old Ahmad Manasrah and child prisoners.
There are currently over 400 child prisoners imprisoned by Israel, including very young prisoners such as Manasrah and 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi, whose case is detailed here by B’Tselem. (Please note that B’Tselem here appropriately refers to Dima, a minor, here as “D.”, but that we use her name because it is publicized by Dima’s family and the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.)
Protesters pointed to the targeting of Palestinian children and youth for Israeli violence, demanding that the European Union end its support for Israel, including the EU/Israel Association free-trade agreement, and take action instead to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and the implementation of Palestinian rights.
Photos by Mahmoud Alsaadi and Tahsin Zaki
In an indication of an escalating attack on Palestinian journalists and media outlets, Israeli occupation forces invaded, attacked and shut down the Palestinian satellite channel Palestine Today (Filasteen al-Yom) as well as its broadcasting company, Trans Media, and arrested three Palestinian journalists.
In the early dawn hours of Friday, 11 March, Israeli soldiers stormed the headquarters of Palestine Today in El-Bireh, seizing equipment and computers and arresting two journalists present in the office, Mohammed Amr of al-Khalil and Shabib Shabib of Nablus, both of whom were taken to Beit El settlement. The home of Farouq Elayyat in Bir Zeit, the director of the channel in the West Bank, was simultaneously invaded by Israeli occupation forces, who arrested him and seized his belongings. They were among 33 Palestinians seized overnight by Israeli occupation forces.
Occupation forces also attacked Trans Media, which provides broadcasting services to Palestine Today, seizing their electronic and broadcasting equipment.
The Palestinian journalists syndicate denounced the attack on Palestine Today and Trans Media and the arrest of the three journalists, saying that these attacks are part of ongoing Israeli crimes against journalists and the Palestinian media, reflecting the bankrupt approach of the Israeli settler government. It urged Arab and international journalists’ unions to condemn these actions and pressure Israel.
The attack on Palestine Today came only one day after the Israeli cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to shut down Palestinian media outlets under the pretext of “incitement.” In response to this action, the Palestinian journalists syndicate had said that the “war against journalists came in response to the demands of the Israeli settlers and the extremist right-wingers, who had been calling for the closure of Palestinian radio and TV stations. The attempt by the Israeli government to label the Palestinian press with incitement and as fuelling hate will not succeed because the Israeli government is the party which practices incitement and hate through the Israeli mass media.”
This comes after the 94-day hunger strike of Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, in protest of his administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial. Al-Qeeq’s case highlighted the struggle of imprisoned Palestinian journalists; there are at least 18 journalists in Israeli jails.
Israeli occupation forces accused Palestine Today of being affiliated to the Palestinian political party, Islamic Jihad, and therefore being a “prohibited organization”; Israeli right-wing media also expressed frustration that Palestine Today continued to broadcast, because it is distributed on Arabic-language satellites and has additional offices and broadcasting centers in Gaza, as well as in Lebanon, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian refugees continue to live in refugee camps.
Saturday, 12th March
9:30 am for 10:00 am
Womens Jail – Constitution Hill, Braamfontein
As part of the 12th #IsraeliApartheidWeek
“In 2013, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation hosted the launch of the international Free Marwan Barghouthi campaign at Robben Island. In 2016 we must work towards launching the campaign in South Africa.” – Ahmed Kathrada
Speakers:
Bafana Sithole, former Robben Island prisoner
Qadoura Fares, former Palestinian minister of state affairs
Ms. Abeer Alwahidi, Fateh Revolutionary Council
Albaraa Jaber, former Palestinian child prisoner, 16 years old
Uri Davis, Israeli citizen, author of “Apartheid Israel” and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization
International Prisoner Release Campaign Leaders and former Palestinian Prisoners
Organized by Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Embassy of the State of Palestine in South Africa, BDS South Africa
Several Palestinian prisoners are continuing hunger strikes in protest of administrative detention without charge or trial. Mahmoud al-Fasfous – held without charge or trial since 29 October 2014 – launched an open hunger strike on 20 February against his imprisonment, after his administrative detention order was renewed for the fifth time. Al-Fasfous, 26, has been joined by Palestinian prisoners Sami Janazrah, Alaa Rayan and Karam Amro, who launched solidarity hunger strikes to support his demand for an end to administrative detention.
Yazan Hanani of Beit Furik, Nablus, is also on hunger strike against his administrative detention without charge or trial; he has been imprisoned since 28 October 2015. He has been denied legal visits as well as family visits, and there have been no updates about his health received by his family.
In addition 18 Palestinian prisoners held in Etzion detention center are continuing their partial hunger strike, demanding to be transferred due to unacceptable living conditions; 11 Palestinians were transferred to Ofer prison after the remainder of the Etzion detainees suspended their hunger strike on a promise of transfer.
Bassam Sayeh, 43, is suffering from cancer of the spinal cord, which has spread to the bone. Sayeh was arrested on 8 October 2015. He is being held in Megiddo prison and is not receiving proper health care; a national Palestinian campaign for his release and medical care was launched in Nablus on 9 March, with the participation of his wife Mona. Sayeh had previously been arrested on multiple occasions by Palestinian Authority security forces, as well as serving one and a half years in Israeli administrative detention without charge or trial. Sayeh was arrested while attending Mona’s own trial – she had been arrested in April 2015 and served seven months in Israeli prison, released only after Bassam’s arrest.
The sentence of Palestinian prisoner Mona Qa’adan was reduced from 70 months to 41 months at the Ofer military court on 9 March. Qa’adan’s sentence was imposed by the Salem military court last year; in addition to the 70-month sentence, she received a 24-month suspended sentence and was fined 30,000 NIS. At the time, Qa’adan’s family reported that the Israeli Attorney General had previously stated her sentence would not exceed 36 months, but the military court sentence – and exorbitant fine – nearly doubled that sentence.
Qa’adan, from Arraba, near Jenin, was arrested from her home on 13 November 2012. The Israeli military courts held 25 hearings over nearly 3 years in her case, denying her family visits the entire time. She was charged with membership in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and running a women’s organization alleged to be connected with Islamic Jihad. Her brother Tariq is a former prisoner himself, and her fiancee, Ibrahim Aghbarieh, is also imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
Due to the reduction in her sentence, Qa’adan will be released in one month.
G4S, the British-Danish security conglomerate, announced on Thursday morning that it will sell its Israeli subsidiary, responsible for providing security equipment, control rooms, and surveillance devices for Israeli prisons, checkpoints, police training centers and military compounds that play a critical role in the imprisonment, oppression and colonization of Palestine and Palestinians. The announcement is a clear recognition of the growing strength and power of the international BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement targeting G4S in response to calls from Palestinian prisoners and civil society organizations.
This announcement comes following the loss of millions of dollars through boycotts – including contracts in Colombia and Jordan in recent weeks alone – and divestments, including that of the Gates Foundation’s $170 million stake in the company, after sustained international BDS campaigns highlighting G4S’ role in the incarceration, torture and oppression of Palestinians.
G4S reported a 40% fall in its pre-tax profits for a number of reasons, including a loss of contracts internationally. Its Israeli subsidiary employs 8,000 people and does $142 million in business annually.
In 2014, G4S announced that it would not renew its contract with the Israel Prison Service when it expires in 2017, following the loss of millions of dollars in business after a sustained international BDS campaign. That pledge came following previous pledges to “not renew” contracts at military checkpoints and West Bank Israeli occupation police stations.
But despite these pledges, G4S refused to pull out of the contracts and did not make formal written statements about ending its ties with Israel’s agencies of repression. In response, the international boycott movement targeting of G4S for its ongoing and active complicity with Israeli crimes has only escalated.
Today’s announcement is a clear victory for thousands around the world demanding G4S get out of occupied Palestine, for the Palestinian prisoners who urged a global boycott, and for the Palestinian people. It is a demonstration once again of the growing power of the BDS movement.
At the same time, just as with past G4S announcements, its complicity and responsibility for the imprisonment of Palestinians – including children – their torture in interrogation centers, the siege on Gaza, and the system of checkpoints that creates the matrix of colonial control continues.
Furthermore, G4S continues to be involved in human rights abuses not only in Palestine, but internationally. In the US, G4S is involved in detention and deportation at the US/Mexico border, as well as running privatized juvenile detention centers. Its privatized juvenile detention facilities in the UK, which it has also pledged to sell, have been exposed for abuse and neglect. G4S runs migrant detention centers in Canada, and provides security to the destructive Canadian tar sands and mining industries that are undermining communities and the environment on indigenous land, in North America and around the world.
In order to make sure that G4S’ pledges become reality, now is the time to escalate the global campaign to stop G4S: to demand the United Nations, European Commission, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and other public agencies cancel their G4S contracts and build boycotts and divestments against this corporation profiteering from Palestinian misery.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Wednesday, 16 March
7:00 pm
Exact room TBA, Maastricht University
Maastricht, Netherlands
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1043857589004268/
There are currently over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, of which over 500 are children, held in Israeli jails – convicted in military courts, rounded up in night-time raids, often held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence. Palestinian political prisoners represent all sectors of Palestinian society – men, women, children, elders, students, teachers, farmers, workers, artists, organizers and strugglers for freedom. Indeed, dozens of Palestinian student activists and student union representatives are currently imprisoned in Israeli jails. There are 750 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Charlotte Kates, coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, will speak about the current and past situation of Palestinian prisoners and their struggle for freedom, the involvement of states and corporations in the ongoing mass imprisonment of Palestinians, and what can be done here to support Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for freedom.
The Palestinian and Arab institutions in the United States express their outrage and condemnation of the assassination of the former prisoner Omar Nayef Zayed inside the Palestinian embassy at the hands of the Zionist Mossad and a handful of paid collaborators who have stained their hands with the blood of strugglers, the honorable children of Palestine.
The martyr was subjected to harassment, abuse and repeated attempts to expel him instead of providing him with protection and the necessary care, and these facts are supported by the consistent testimony of many witnesses.
This heinous crime is considered a precedent that reveals that Palestinian embassies are unable to protect their nationals, to be added to the dozens of files on corruption in the embassies, becoming farms and fiefdoms granted to relatives and friends of Palestinian officials, rather than serving the people. The assassination of the martyr also comes in light of the continuing practice of the Palestinian Authority and the security services in the persistent infringement of rights, stifling of public freedoms, demonstrations and strikes, and attacks on the human rights to peaceful and legitimate political expression.
This comes amid a time of political difficulties experienced by all Palestinian factions, undermining all attempts to develop programs to support the third Palestinian uprising towards the goals of our people, including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
The continuation of this approach creates serious consequences. We demand the Palestinian Authority leadership and structures exercise a commitment to national unity, to greater freedoms, and not to bow to the dictates of the Zionist entity. We also demand the Palestinian political forces come together to end the division, which has become a tool to further sustain the occupation, and to immediately end security coordination, of which the detriments are obvious.
Palestinian and Arab institutions active in advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people call on the Palestinian Authority:
1. We adopt the position of the family of the martyr Omar Nayef Zayed, and demand the formation of a Palestinian committee of neutral, expert professionals and investigators with expertise, including representatives of the factions, the Palestinian community in Bulgaria and the family of the martyr. The current committee is not fair or appropriate. We mention here the commission investigating the murder of the martyr Yasser Arafat, and its lack of results, despite the significance and great symbolism of the martyr Yasser Arafat. Therefore, we demand that the committee’s work does not exceed a month from the date of its formation, including the revelation of all of the facts and parties involved in the assassination of the martyr.
2. We demand the dismissal and trial of Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki and Ambassador Ahmad al-Madhbouh and the security team at the embassy, as well as the delegation that came before the incident from Ramallah and other embassies.
3. We call upon our people and the comrades of the martyr and his family to pursue this case. In the event of the failure of the legal justice system, there is a need to implement revolutionary justice for those involved in the assassination of the martyr.
4. If you do not announe the results of the investigation within one month and the trial of those involved, the Palestinian community will announce a boycott of most of the institutions of the Palestinian Authority and its officials, including a call for the community to not deal with the Palestinian embsssies, a position we hope that we are not forced to reach.
1. The Palestinian Democratic Coalition
2. Al-Nahda Cultural Center
3. Muslim Federation of America
4. US Palestinian Community Network
5. Alliance of Palestinian American Associations
عبرت المؤسسات الفلسطينية والعربية الناشطة في الولايات المتحدة الاميركية عن غضبها الشديد واستنكارها لاغتيال الاسير المحرر عمر نايف داخل السفارة الفلسطينية في بلغاريا على يد الموساد الصهيوني ومن أسمتهم ب”حفنة من العملاء المأجورين الذين تلطخت اياديهم بدماء المناضلين الشرفاء من أبناء شعبنا”.
وأصدرت تلك المؤسسات بيانا ساخنا تحدثت فيه عن قضية الشهيد عمر نايف وقال البيان ان الشهيد تعرض لمضايقات واساءة معاملة ومحاولات متكررة لطرده بدلا من توفير الحماية والرعاية المطلوبة وهذه وقائع باتت ثابتة بشهادات شهود كثر.
وإعتبرت المؤسسات ان هذه الجريمة البشعة تعتبر سابقة تكشف أن السفارات الفلسطينية عاجزة عن حماية رعاياها ليضاف ذلك إلى عشرات ملفات الفساد عدا عن كونها باتت مزارع واقطاعيات تمنح لأقارب المسؤولين الفلسطينيين بعيدا عن الكفاءة.
وجاء اغتيال الشهيد في ظل استمرارا السلطة والأجهزة الامنية التابعة لها في التمادي والتعدي وخنق الحريات العامة والتظاهرات والاضرابات الحقوقية السلمية المشروعة في ظل تخبط سياسي تعيشه الفصائل الفلسطينية كافة يجعلها عاجزة عن وضع برامج لتطوير الانتفاضة الفلسطينية الثالثة نحو تحقيق اهداف شعبنا بأقامة دولة فلسطين المستقلة.
وشدد البيان نفسه على ان استمرار هذا النهج ينطوي على عواقب وخيمة لذا ندعو السلطة الفلسطينية بقيادتها واجهزتها للتعقل والالتزام بالوحدة الوطنية وبالمزيد من الحريات وعدم الرضوخ لأملاءات الكيان ونطالب الفصائل الفلسطينية كلها بأنهاء الانقسام الطوعي الذي بات أداة لأستدامة الأحتلال ووقف فوري للتنسيق الأمني الذي باتت مضاره واضحة للعيان.
وقال البيان: كمؤسسات فلسطينية وعربية ناشطة في مجال دعم حقوق الشعب الفلسطيني نعتبر الشهيد عمر واحدا من ناشطينا وابنا لنا ومن هذا الباب نطالب السلطة الفلسطينية بتشكيل لجنة تحقيق من محايدين خبراء بدلا من اللجنة الحالية والعمل على كشف الحقيقة والأطراف المتورطة .
كما طالب البيان بإقالة ومحاكمة وزير الخارجية رياض المالكي والسفير أحمد المذبوح والطاقم الأمني وألمح لتنفيذالعدالة الثورية بحق المتورطين في حال إخفاق العدالة القانونية .
وهددت المؤسسات بانه في حالة عدم إتخاذ هذه الإجراءات والكشف عن الحقائق خلال شهر ستعلن الجاليات الفلسطينية في أمريكا مقاطعة السلطة الفلسطينية وسفاراتها .
وتم توقيع البيان الذي ارسل لـ”مباشر 24 ” التحالف الفلسطيني الديمقراطي وإتحاد مسلمي أمريكا وشبكة الجالية الفلسطينية وتحالف الجمعيات الفلسطينية الأمريكية ومركز النهضةالثقافي
