Israel-Palestine

A hunger strike by Palestinian baker Khader Adnan had become a focal point of the Palestinian struggle as Peace News went to press. Khader Adnan was taken for interrogation by Israeli soldiers from his West Bank home on 17 December. The next day he began a hunger strike in protest against ill-treatment during interrogation and his prison conditions. He has been in prison hospital since 30 December because of his deteriorating health due to the protest. On 10 January, he was given four months…

Bradt commissioned Sarah Irving to write this updated version in 2010, and it is gratifying to read a travel guide entitled Palestine rather than Israel and the Occupied Territories.

A seasoned campaigner, Sarah has been a frequent visitor to Palestine since 2001, and the result is a meticulously-researched book that offers the visitor a mine of information, suitable for both activists and inquisitive travellers.

The West…

On 2 January, Scottish members of a “Stop the JNF” delegation joined trade unionists and Stop the Wall campaigners to re-plant trees as part of a new project in a previously devastated area of Palestine.

The group, which included people from a nearby refugee camp, planted 111 trees, representing the number of years since the foundation of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which plays a key role in Israel’s policy of displacing and dispossessing Palestinians.

Non-Jewish people are…

Mustafa Tamimi, a 28-year-old resident  of the West Bank village Nabi Saleh, was killed on 9 December while throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles during a weekly protest against the Israeli occupation. Mustafa was hit by a tear-gas projectile shot into his face at close range from an Israeli armoured army jeep. He died of his wounds the following morning. His funeral procession the next day was attacked by Israeli soldiers using the same type of tear gas canisters.

The construction of a major new building by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem has been opposed by 84 archaeologists from around the world, because the “Museum of Tolerance” is being built on Mamilla, a historically-renowned Muslim cemetery, in violation of Israeli law. The site’s Israeli antiquities authority chief excavator, Gideon Suleimani, has spoken of “significant archaeological transgressions”, and of misrepresentations to the Israeli supreme court: things “would not have…

On 4 November, the latest attempt to break the siege of Gaza ended when Israeli defence forces (IDF) boarded two ships in international waters, before taking them to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The two ships, Saoirse (“freedom”) from Ireland and the Tahrir (“liberation”) from Canada, were carrying 27 passengers (including Irish MEP Paul Murphy and an Egyptian reporter) and $30,000 worth of medicine and supplies.

Dr Fintan Lane, aboard Saoirse, said: “The boats were corralled to…

Palestinians continue their weekly nonviolent protests against the illegal Israeli separation wall in the occupied West Bank territory. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at villagers and international supporters protesting against the wall in the central West Bank towns of Bilíin, Nilin and al Nabi Saleh.

An anti-wall protest in the southern West Bank village of Ma'ssara was assaulted with rifle butts and batons by the Israel defence force.

On 30 October, Anat Kamm, 24, was sentenced at Tel Aviv District Court to four-and-a-half years in prison for leaking over 2,000 military documents to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

She had copied the documents, 700 of which were classified, while serving as a junior clerk between 2005 and 2007 in the office of the Israeli commander in charge of operations in the West Bank.

Using the leaked documents, Haaretz demonstrated that senior Israeli officers had authorised the…

On 15 November, six Palestinians took part in an anti-discrimination day of ìFreedom Ridesî called by the Popular Struggle Committee. They were arrested after boarding what are in effect ìJews onlyî buses through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Two observers were also arrested.

The buses, operated by companies including Veolia, often subsidised by the Israeli state, connect Jewish settlements to each other and to cities in Israel. It is not officially forbidden for…

On 31 October, Palestine made another step forward towards international recognition when the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO) became the first UN body to accept Palestine as a member state, by a vote of 107 to 14.
The UK was among 52 countries to abstain. The US responded by cutting off its funding to UNESCO, currently amounting to $65m a year or 22% of the total UNESCO budget.

UNESCO, which promotes education and press freedom among…

Following a prolonged campaign of fortnightly protests in London (recorded in past PNs), the Israeli cosmetics firm Ahava shut its Covent Garden shop in September. Shaftesbury PLC, the shop’s landlord, refused to renew Ahava’s lease because of the effect of anti-occupation demonstrations (and pro-Israeli counter-demonstrations) on adjoining stores. Ahava manufactures its products at the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the occupied West Bank. Solidarity activists have switched…

On 28 June, Sheikh Reed Salah, leader of the largest Palestinian political party in Israel, was arrested by UK border police, held in Bedford high security prison and served with a deportation order.

Salah had entered the UK on 25 June, using his Israeli passport, as he had before, for a speaking tour and had already spoken to MPs in the Commons and to gatherings at Queen Mary University, Conway Hall and Leicester.

On 18 July, Salah won an appeal against detention and was…

For seven years the villagers of Bil’in in the Palestinian West Bank have resisted the separation wall that has cut them off from a large part of their lands, in particular holding a weekly march to the wall after Friday prayers .

On 1 July, the villagers marched in celebration. Two days earlier they had regained access to more of their land through the completion of the wall rerouting ordered in 2007 by the Israeli high court which had pronounced that it was “not convinced that it is…

Since 2010, al-Araqib, a Bedouin village, has been destroyed 12 times by the Israeli army, and rebuilt 12 times by the villagers. Grounds for eviction were that the 300 villagers could not produce title deeds to land they have lived on for generations. In a further turn of the screw, Israel sued 34 al-Araqib villagers on 26 July for over £300,000 to pay for their evictions. Bedouin are being herded off their traditional lands into state “recognised” villages; still half remain in “…

This year’s Freedom Flotilla 2 still managed to make waves, despite failing to make it out of Greece, as Israel extended its blockade of Gaza to the entire Mediterranean. Nine ships participated in the venture this year – three up on last year’s effort. Named “FF2 – Stay Human” in memory of slain Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni [see PN 2533], the mission included: the Italian and Dutch ship Stefano Chiarini named after the prolific Italian journalist; the French ships Dignité and Louise…