The Renewed Israeli Occupation
2 million Palestinians under curfew for 53 days!
A Phone Call from Hell
by Uri Avnery
On January 9 we convened a conference on war crimes in a big hall in Tel-Aviv. Several professors of international law and two senior (retired) army officers were on the panel. One of the speakers was a war hero, air force Colonel Yig'al Shohat, who had been shot down over Egypt and lost a leg. In a voice trembling with emotion, he called upon his comrades, the combat pilots, to refuse to obey illegal orders, such as bombarding civilian neighborhoods.
All the TV and radio stations and the two major newspapers ignored the conference, to which they were invited. It was clear that all of the enlisted media had decided to suppress the issue of war crimes.
That became quite clear when we submitted to Kol Israel, the state-run radio network, a paid ad, informing soldiers about their duty to refuse "manifestly illegal orders" - literally repeating the wording of the judgment of the military court following the Kafr Kassem massacre of 1956. Kol Israel refused to broadcast it. We asked the Supreme Court to order the Broadcasting Authority to air the ad, but the court decided that it was unable to do so.
So we decided to take direct action. We distributed among the soldiers a pocket manual, setting out the prohibitions of the Geneva Convention, which was signed by Israel. Among them: Executions without trial (called "liquidations"), shooting of unarmed civilians, torture, prevention of medical treatment, killing the wounded (called "verification of death"), starvation, deportation. [read more]
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What is a war crime?
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Temple Mt. riots were 'planned massacre,' Salah tells Or panel
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The IDF in Nablus
Shooting at Kites; Bulldozing Schools
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Palestinian malnutrition bodes ill for the future
A recently released US Aid funded nutritional assessment indicates that acute and chronic malnutrition rates of Palestinian children under 5 have reached emergency levels. Some 22.5 percent of children suffer moderate or severe acute or chronic malnutrition, and one fifth suffer moderate or severe anemia.
The study, designed by Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health, surveyed nutrition levels, availability of food in the market and household consumption, and found that the factors affecting the dangerous rise in malnutrition directly relates to Israeli imposed movement restrictions and the dismal economic situation in the occupied territories.
Major food shortages were caused primarily by Israeli imposed road closures, checkpoints, and curfews, while the economic situation and subsequent loss in purchasing power was the main factor inhibiting people's ability to buy food. Fifty-six percent of surveyed families indicated that they had been forced to decrease the amount of food consumed for more than one day in the previous two week period.
(...)
This situation is not the result of a natural disaster or a lack of natural resources, it is a result of Israeli government sanctioned policies implemented by an occupying power against civilians, a government which is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, totaling some five billion annually.
These policies are an integral part of the 35 year long Israeli occupation. What the nutritional assessment illustrates clearly is that the Israeli occupation is more than a soldier with a gun - it is a system of control that impacts every aspect of the lives of three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 53 percent of whom are children. [read more]
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'It's gone beyond hostility'
After two and a half years in Jerusalem, the Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent is moving to a new post in Washington. Here she looks back on the desperate violence she has witnessed during the intifada and reflects on how both Palestinians and Israelis have been brutalised by the experience
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The rulers of Hebron
Ever since the occupation of the territories began, the settlers of Hebron have been noteworthy for their militancy, their racist hatred against Palestinian residents of the city and the violent contempt that they and their children demonstrate toward the rule of law and every person in uniform who acts in its name. [read more]
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Christian Coalition latches onto Israel
Group plans 'Israel, You Are Not Alone' Washington rally for October |
