[wvns] Israel blocks off Holy Mosque: Happy Ramadan!
Israel blocks Muslim worshippers
By Avida Landau
http://wap.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2153244.htm
JERUSALEM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Israel stopped thousands of
Palestinians from entering Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers at the
al-Aqsa mosque on Friday and tightened border security as Jews
prepared for the solemn annual rite of Yom Kippur.
Israeli police and soldiers at checkpoints near the West Bank cities
of Ramallah and Bethlehem turned away several thousand Palestinians
who tried to enter Jerusalem for the second weekly prayers of the holy
month of Ramadan.
Many of those held up at the checkpoints separating the occupied West
Bank from Jerusalem knelt in prayer under the glaring sun.
The Israeli army said that no Palestinians from the West Bank, other
than exceptional humanitarian cases, would be allowed into the city
due to a "high terror threat" until Saturday evening, when the Yom
Kippur fasting day ends.
Sheikh Mohammad Hussein, the senior Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, told
Reuters that the "arbitrary" Israeli ban "contravenes the freedom of
worship".
"They are celebrating their religious holiday at the expense of the
Palestinian people," he said, adding that the al-Aqsa mosque can hold
some 200,000 worshippers but he expected the turnout to be much lower
because of the Israeli closure.
An Israeli police spokesman said about 30,000 people entered the
mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City by midday.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency in the Palestinian territories, also condemned the
closure for preventing travel by U.N. workers.
He called on Israel to allow the movement of its staff to assist the
Palestinian refugee population which is "in an already difficult
economic situation".
Zeinab Deiriya, a 60-year-old Palestinian woman who attempted to cross
into Jerusalem, said: "Jews are allowed to celebrate their holidays,
but we are banned. The month of Ramadan is sacred for us as much as
their sacred holiday."
Earlier on Friday. Israeli forces wrapped up a three-day incursion
into the West Bank city of Nablus where army officers said they
arrested several Palestinian militants who were planning a suicide
bombing in Israel during the holiday weekend.
Over the 24-hour fast of Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement --
beginning at nightfall on Friday, Israel largely shuts down, with
almost no traffic and airports and all businesses closed.
The military is on high alert, however, 34 years after Arab armies
chose the holiday to launch a surprise attack in 1973. (Additional
reporting by Mohammad Assadi in Ramallah and Said Ayyad in Bethlehem)
(Writing by Avida Landau, editing by Stephen Weeks; RM:
avida.landau.reuters.com @ reuters.net))
===
Israeli High Court bars Gazan students from studying in West Bank
Written by Tamara Traubmann
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
The High Court of Justice on Tuesday rejected a petition by a group of
Palestinian students from Gaza against Israel's policy of barring
students from the Gaza Strip from studying in the West Bank, even when
there is no evidence that they pose a security threat to the state.
The decision was made by a panel of judges chaired by Justice Elyakim
Rubinstein.
The petition was submitted in 2005 by a group of occupational therapy
students from Gaza who had enrolled at Bethlehem University because
the university of Gaza did not have an occupational therapy program.
The Israel Defense Forces and the state claim that the students belong
to a 'risk group,' and that the decision to collectively bar them from
studying in the West Bank is part of the broader government policy
regarding the Palestinian Authority since Hamas' ascension to power in
Gaza. The students had asked that the army review their requests
individually, and then decide if they pose a security risk.
In the verdict, Justice Rubinstein recognized the need for the
formation of a bureaucratic mechanism that would view such cases on an
individual basis. But he stipulated that "the bottom line is that
situation between Israel and Gaza has deteriorated to an all time low,
and issuing a court order that sets aside would not fit in with the
present dire reality.
===
'The terrorist was neutralized'
By Gideon Levy
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/891862.html
The taxi to Bethlehem was delayed, and Jihad stood at the dusty taxi
stand and waited. He was on his way to the Open University in
Bethlehem, to register for the upcoming school year. His father says
that he hadn't decided what he wanted to study. Maybe that's what he
was thinking about while he stood at the stand, exposed to the burning
sun.
And what was going through the heads of the soldiers who beat him
mercilessly, with a club, with the butt of a rifle and with kicks to
his head, so that he died? Is it possible that he tried to attack them
with a knife, even though two eyewitnesses didn't see it? Even if he
did, why did the soldiers continue to beat him, even after he lay on
the ground, unconscious and perhaps bound as well, as an eyewitness
told us? And what kind of monstrous behavior is it to handcuff the
bereaved father, and then leave him on the ground, in front of the
body of his beaten and dying son? Above all, why did the Israel
Defense Forces rush to dismiss this grave incident, "after an initial
investigation," during which nobody interrogated the eyewitnesses,
with the conclusion, "the soldiers acted properly"?
Pictures of Jihad Shaar's death flicker on the computer screen: The
battered and calm face of a young man with three holes in his skull,
in front and in back. Also a picture of the bereaved father, Khalil, a
worker in a Bethlehem factory that manufactures olive-wood souvenirs,
his hands bound behind his back, kneeling on the floor, his face
radiating restrained pain and humiliation, and the soldier standing
next to him with a drawn weapon - everything is documented on the
computer screen. The stone houses stand at the edge of the desert, in
the village of Tekoa, on a mountainside opposite the archaeological
site of Herodion and the Jewish settlement also called Tekoa. The area
is usually quiet, with the exception of the annoying IDF patrols.
Khalil, with bristles of mourning on his face, is a gentle and quiet
man. They say that his son was like that, too. The day after the
incident, the Israeli press asserted that Jihad was mentally unstable,
perhaps even disabled. It's all a fabrication. Last year Jihad studied
hard to improve his matriculation exam grades and now he was supposed
to register for the Bethlehem branch of the Al-Quds Open University.
On Friday, July 27, the family awoke as usual, the mother of the
family went for a family visit and Jihad planned to travel to the
university. Nothing in the house testified to what was to take place a
short time later. Jihad, like the rest of his family, had never been
arrested.
At 9:30 A.M., Jihad left the house and walked the several hundred
meters to the taxi stand near the road to Bethlehem. His father, who
was at home, says that Jihad took nothing with him. But the armored
Hummer was already standing at the side of the road, several dozen
meters from the taxi stand. There is almost always a Hummer standing
there, a kind of surprise roadblock for the village's residents, where
soldiers check papers, harass and humiliate, and maintain proper order
on the road.
As Jihad stood alone at the stand, the soldiers apparently called him
to approach them. A Palestinian policeman, Musa Suleiman, was riding
to Bethlehem at the time in a taxi that was approaching the stand.
Suleiman saw Jihad walking "with ordinary steps, in a manner that did
not arouse any suspicion," toward the soldiers. He says that Jihad had
nothing in his hands.
One soldier stood next to the driver's door of the Hummer, and another
three soldiers sat inside. When Jihad reached the Hummer, Suleiman
says he saw the soldier grab Jihad by the shirt and pull him forcibly
behind the vehicle. Suleiman, who was already about 20 meters from the
vehicle, says that apparently an argument broke out between Jihad and
the soldier who grabbed his shirt, which developed into a violent
struggle between the two. A few seconds later he saw them both
sprawled on the ground.
That's when the other three soldiers got out of the Hummer. Suleiman
heard two shots. The four soldiers, according to Suleiman, began
beating Jihad, who was sprawled on the ground. They used wooden clubs
and their rifle butts, while Jihad tried to protect his head with his
hands. That was all Suleiman saw, because the taxi, which was
traveling slowly, then passed the Hummer.
When the taxi was a few dozen meters away from the area of the
beatings, it drove back to see what was happening behind the Hummer.
Suleiman says that the soldiers continued to beat Jihad. He saw the
club land on Jihad's head at least twice. "I felt that these were
fatal beatings," says the policeman Suleiman. He says that Jihad was
no longer moving. Suleiman rushed to Jihad's house to alert his
father: "Come quickly, the soldiers are beating your son." Accompanied
by Suleiman, he rushed in the direction of the stand.
When they approached the area, the soldiers aimed their weapons at
them and ordered them to leave. One of the villagers who speaks
Hebrew, who also arrived at the spot, tried to explain to the soldiers
that Khalil was the father of the battered young man, and all he
wanted was to know what had happened to his son. And then the soldier
said: "Tell him that his son is already dead."
Then the soldiers handcuffed Khalil behind his back, and placed him on
the road, the Hummer separating him from his son's body, while they
chased the other two men away from the site. Meanwhile additional
forces arrived, together with a military ambulance, whose squad
apparently tried to save Jihad's life. After about 40 minutes during
which he sat handcuffed in the sun, says Khalil, an officer from the
Civil Administration, Taysir, arrived and ordered the soldiers to free
the father from his handcuffs and told him that his son had been sent
to the hospital in nearby Beit Jala.
The officer from the Civil Administration asked Khalil: "Why did your
son do that?" The father: "My son was on the way to the university."
The officer: "Your son made problems for the soldiers and pulled out a
kitchen knife." Khalil to the officer: "My son did not leave the house
with a knife. Show me the knife, I'm familiar with the knives in our
kitchen."
"You want to see the knife?" asked the officer, who then immediately
retracted his offer: "The Military Police have already removed the
knife from the site." Khalil didn't see the knife.
Taysir told Khalil that Jihad was seriously wounded. Khalil called his
brother and together they drove quickly toward the hospital. On the
way they were delayed again, in the same place where his son was
killed. Only after about 10 minutes were they allowed to continue,
after the intercession of one of the soldiers who had seen Khalil in
the area earlier and recognized him.
Jihad had been evacuated from the site at about 11:15. A short time
later his father arrived at the hospital. But his son's body reached
Beit Jala only at about 3 P.M. The officer from the Civil
Administration had told the father that his son was "seriously
wounded," but the soldier had told him even earlier that Jihad had
died, and therefore Khalil had no hope of seeing his son alive again.
He talks about everything in an amazing tone of acceptance and restraint.
When the body arrived at the hospital the doctors examined it. They
determined that Jihad had not been shot, he had been beaten to death.
They discovered the three superficial holes in his head and several
bruises in other parts of his body, mainly around the hips. The body
was sent for an autopsy in Abu Dis, and afterward was brought for
burial; the funeral was well attended. Several residents of the
village say that when they began to dig the grave, a Border Patrol
Hummer arrived at the village and its passengers called out in Arabic
on a loudspeaker: "Jihad is dead. Let Allah have mercy on him and your
mother's c - - -."
The IDF spokesman, this week: "On July 26, in the course of
operational activity by an IDF patrol near the village of Hirbet
al-Dir, east of Bethlehem, a Palestinian armed with a knife approached
the patrol and tried to attack one of the soldiers. In response, the
soldier fired at the terrorist and hit his lower body. After the
Palestinian continued with his attempts to stab the soldier, another
soldier who was present was forced to use a club in order to
neutralize the terrorist. The Palestinian terrorist, who was seriously
wounded, was given medical treatment on the spot by an IDF force and
in the end he was declared dead."
A few cypress trees are planted on the slope at the foot of the place
where Jihad was killed. Some faded bloodstains are still visible on
the ground. The taxi stand is deserted. A Hummer observes us from the
hill overlooking the road. We ascend the hill, passing the armored
Hummer whose passengers, four soldiers in dark sunglasses, are
laughing among themselves. Are these the soldiers who killed Jihad.
Are they from the same unit?
In the handsome stone house with beehives in the yard, which overlooks
the taxi stand and the site of the killing, lives another eyewitness,
Nur Harmas. On the day of the incident she awoke to the sound of the
Hummer's engine below. Harmas says that she noticed a young man at the
stand, waiting. She went inside and began to do her housework. After
about 15 minutes she heard a dull noise. She cast a glance from the
window and saw the stand empty. Jihad was no longer standing there. A
cypress hides the place where the Hummer stood.
Harmas rushed to her bedroom, opened the door that leads to the
balcony, from which one can see the place where the Hummer stood. "I
saw the deceased lying on the ground, his hands handcuffed behind his
back, with three soldiers standing around him, one of them kicking his
head. The moment I saw that, I rushed to the neighbors to call for
help." She told her husband's cousin, who quickly went down to see
what they were doing to Jihad.
Karim Jubran, an investigator from B'Tselem (the Israeli Information
Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), takes out of his
briefcase a pair of torn, white plastic handcuffs, which he found at
the site of the incident. Was Jihad also handcuffed at the time when
the soldiers beat him to death? Or are these the handcuffs with which
the soldiers handcuffed the bereaved father, in front of his son's
body? Does it make a difference?
===
ISRAELI FORCES DEMOLISH ISLAMIC BUILDING
Mohammed Mar'i
Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=95511&d=27&m=4&y=2007
RAMALLAH, West Bank, 27 April 2007 — Israeli bulldozers have started
demolishing parts of the Supreme Islamic Council building near Al-Aqsa
Mosque in Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa Foundation has reported that the
Israelis began bulldozing parts of the southern and western facade and
several internal rooms of the building, located dozens of meters from
the Al-Buraq wall near Jaffa Gate in the Old City of East Jerusalem.
Adjacent to the building the Israelis are constructing apartments in
the "modern Western style, with architectural features in disharmony
with the Arab-Islamic architecture," the foundation said.
During its monitoring of the process, the foundation found that in
addition to external damage, most of the inside the Supreme Islamic
Council building had been destroyed, with interior walls knocked down.
With regard to Islamic heritage in the Old City, the Al-Aqsa
Foundation says, "They fall under the ferocious war perpetrated by the
Israeli institutions in the frantic pursuit to Judaize Jerusalem and
obliterate all Arab and Islamic features, ignoring history and the
Arab and Islamic civilization."
The Israelis seized the Palestinian building under its own "absentee
(Palestinian refugees) property" law since 59 years. As part of the
project to engulf the western area of Jerusalem's Old City overlooking
Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Israelis sold the building to an American Jew to
convert it into luxury apartments.
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities have demolished the house of Nawaf
Mohammad Al-Shalaldeh, in Al-Tur, east of the old city of Jerusalem,
claiming it lacks needed license. Shalaldeh, father of 7 children,
said that his house was newly constructed and that his family members
only moved their belongings into the house in recent days.
Meanwhile, Palestinian armed factions yesterday renewed their
commitment to a Gaza Strip truce but said rocket salvoes from the
territory could resume if Israel did not halt military operations in
the occupied West Bank.
The message was delivered to Israel by an Egyptian mediator who has
been trying to prevent major confrontation after Hamas' armed wing
fired rockets and declared the Gaza truce dead on Tuesday, Palestinian
sources familiar with the talks said.
Egyptian Maj. Gen. Burhan Hammad "informed the Israelis of the new
commitment by the factions and at same time stressed that factions
demanded the calm be reciprocal and simultaneous, covering Gaza and
the West Bank," one of the sources said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and moderate Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas agreed to the truce in November. Rocket fire from other
groups such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees has
continued sporadically. Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction formed a
ruling coalition with Hamas last month, called Tuesday's rockets "an
exceptional event that will not last" and urged restraint by Israel.
Hamas' Ezzeddine Al-Qassam Brigades said its barrage was a response to
the killing of nine Palestinians in Israeli military operations
against militants, mostly in the West Bank. After security
consultations on Wednesday, Olmert decided against launching a ground
offensive in Gaza, Israeli political sources said. But in a statement,
his office said Israel would not hesitate to attack rocket-firing squads.
Anticipating Israeli military action, Hamas gunmen took up positions
overnight near Gaza's border with Israel, covering themselves with
tree branches as camouflage.
"The Zionist enemy should understand that any thought of raiding the
Gaza Strip will open the gates of hell and hundreds of rockets will be
launched against (the southern Israeli towns) of Sderot and Ashkelon
and beyond," said Qassam brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida.
*********************************************************************
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