Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

Gaza

Israel’s Supreme Court began Monday to debate a petition filed by MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad), against a Knesset decision to revoke her rights for participating in the flotilla to Gaza last May.”The rightist consensus in the Knesset is trying to punish me and not allow me freedom of expression,” Zoabi said. Rightists who awaited her exit from the court called her a “terrorist”.

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So for all those who demonstrated in support of the Gazans when they were trapped under Israeli fire, all those planners of past and future flotillas, this is your moment to raise your voices and say clearly: The Qassams merely feed Israel’s madness. It is not the Qassams that will ensure the Palestinians, both in and out of Gaza, a life of dignity. It is not the Qassams that will topple the Israeli walls around the world’s largest prison camp.

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Israel admitted this week that it was behind the abduction of a Gazan engineer who went missing more than a month ago while travelling on a train in the Ukraine… Victor Kattan, an international law expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, said Israel had broken several human rights laws in seizing him rather than invoking treaty agreements between the Ukraine and Israel and requesting his extradition.

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The National Lawyers Guild (U.S.) strongly urges the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to pass a resolution supporting the referral of the Israeli siege, blockade, and war on Gaza to the International Criminal Court. Such a resolution would pave the way for the UN Security Council to make such a referral.

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Not for the first time, Seattle, WA-based Richard Silverstein plays a key role in revealing news stories about Israeli government activities — whether anti-democratic acts or outright crimes, as is the case now. Silverstein’s role in exposing such Israeli actions has been very important in that it exposed Israeli acts against Palestinians and others who stand in the way of “The Only Democracy in the Middle East.” The latest story involves the kidnapping in the Ukraine of a Palestinian man responsible for running the Gaza power plant, suspected to have been carried out by the Israeli Mossad, and his jailing at a secret location in Israel by the Shabak (Shin Bet). In addition to the kidnapping, Israel has also placed a gag-order on the case.

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While criticizing decision makers for underestimating the risk of civilian injuries, probe panel says Israel’s Gaza assassination of Salah Shehadeh was a necessary part of its war on ‘murderous terrorism.’

IOA Editor: This is a somewhat diluted version of the Hebrew original. The Haaretz original story points out that the committee found that while the IDF action was “preventative and legitimate,” the result of the bomb used by the IDF was found in retrospect as “disproportional.”

Needless to say, the “Investigation Committee,” appointed by former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert – himself responsible for Israel’s Gaza crimes – did not deal with the legitimacy of the use of any force as a means to prevent the Hamas violence. International law spells out in some detail when force can justifiably be used – generally only as a measure of last resort, after all other efforts have failed: clearly not the case here, and clearly not a concern of this committee.

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The new vice-president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is a long-standing favourite of Israel’s who spoke daily to the Tel Aviv government via a secret “hotline” to Cairo, leaked documents disclose.

IOA Editor: The implications on the continuation of the Gaza siege are only too obvious. Another reason to oppose the US-lead efforts to limit the change of government in Egypt.

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MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) who was onboard the Marmara making its way to the Gaza Strip said on Sunday she was not summoned to testify by the Turkel Commission. “The commission purposely and intentionally failed to summon the civilian and the only witness to see what happened out of fear her testimony would damage the harmony of the report,” she said.

“The report is a scanty version of the official Israeli version. The report cannot clear Israel’s image as a serial international law breaker,” Zoabi added.

MORE on the Turkel Commission whitewashing Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara

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Imad Samouni: I know Hebrew and I told the family not to worry because Jews have better hearts than we do, I worked with them for 10 years. They tied us up… There were 46 of us… “The soldiers passed among us, made our home into their hostel… [The shackles] hurt me terribly and my fingers swelled. A soldier tried to open them but couldn’t, and only made them tighter. My wife cried that they hurt me. He brought scissors and cut down to the flesh to open them. My wife cried… And I’m a man, I told them not to cry, and he brought new plastic ties. We stayed that way from Sunday to Monday…

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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was a well-known Palestinian gynecologist who spent years working in one of Israeli’s main hospitals. On January 16, 2009, two days before the end of Israel’s brutal 22-day assault on Gaza, his home was shelled twice by Israeli tanks. His three daughters and his niece were killed. He has just written a book about his life called I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.

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Two years ago, Israeli shells fell on Dr Abuelaish’s family home in Gaza, killing three of his young daughters and their cousin. The horror was caught live on Israeli TV when the doctor phoned his broadcaster friend. Amazingly, the loss did not embitter Izzeldin Abuelaish. Instead he decided his girls’ deaths must not be in vain – and slowly he has turned his family tragedy into a force for peace.

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The Media Review Network and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance are seeking to secure an arrest warrant in South Africa for Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni, who is due to visit that country next week, Channel 10 reported citing South African media outlets.

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On January 11, 2011 Israeli activist Yonatan Pollack began a 3 month jail sentence for riding his bike in a protest against the criminal siege of Gaza. While the war criminals responsible for the siege go free and siege protesters like Pollak are jailed. The protesters say: Prosecute the real criminals! End the siege of Gaza! Free Yonatan Pollack!

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Israel is gearing up for another major offensive into Gaza, yet the world community still remains bafflingly silent.

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“Although it was not my usual custom, I made a point of kissing my children every night,” one young father from Gaza City told me. “I never knew which of us would still be alive the next day, and I wanted to say goodbye properly.”

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An anonymous group of students has created a document to express their frustration born of Hamas’s violent crackdowns on ‘western decadence’, the destruction wreaked by Israel’s attacks and the political games played by Fatah and the UN.

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Vilnai is depending on Israelis’ total indifference to our Qassams: our soldiers’ nearly daily firing on Gaza civilians, regularly wounding and sometimes killing them.

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A Palestinian doctor is filing a lawsuit against Israel for the death of his three daughters, just a day before the second anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza. Dr Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish’s daughters were killed during the military assault when Israeli forces fired on his home.

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