Two Palestinian hunger strikers send "final distress call"
The Palestine Brief (5)
Two
Palestinian hunger strikers send "final distress
call"
Haniyeh: We don't want more
blood
A weekly report published
by the Center for Political and Development Studies (CPDS),
Gaza on the latest developments in Palestine.
June 10, 2012
• Two Palestinian
hunger strikers send "final distress
call"
- Mahmoud Sarsak and
Akram Rikhawi sent a letter to the Palestinian people in
which they said "There is still enough time, and the support
that comes late is better than that which does not come at
all. It is better that you receive us alive and victorious
rather than as lifeless bodies in black bags. Our people,
our leaders in Gaza, in the West Bank and outside, and
freedom loving people of the world, we cry out to you, and
to all people in the world who believe in the justice of our
cause: do not abandon us to the vindictive hands of the
jailers to take what they want from our frail bodies."
Three Palestinians prisoners are still on hunger strike, they are: Mahmoud Sarsak, Akram Rikhawi and Samer Al-Barq.
- Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in a statement "For decades, Amnesty International has urged Israel to end the practice of administrative detention and to release detainees or charge them with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and try them according to international standards."
- Writing in the Nation on May 10, Dave Zirin wrote:
“Imagine if a member of Team
USA Basketball – let’s say Kobe Bryant – had been
traveling to an international tournament only to be seized
by a foreign government and held in prison for three years
without trial or even hearing the charges for which he was
imprisoned.… Chances are all the powerful international
sports organizations – the IOC [International Olympic
Committee], [global football's organizing body] FIFA –
would treat the jailing nation as a pariah until Kobe was
free. Additionally, chances are that even Laker-haters would
wear buttons that read, ‘Free Kobe’.”
-Thaer Halahleh, who went on hunger strike for 78 days was released on Tuesday as a part of the deal reached the Palestinians prisoners and the Israeli Prison Service (IPS).
- IOF detained an Al-Aqsa Mosque
official early Monday from his East Jerusalem home.
Najeh Bkeirat, the head of the manuscripts and heritage
department at Al-Aqsa, was detained in Sur Bahir. Israel aims
to keep Muslim preachers out of the holy city to continue
its colonial project and land confiscation with no
obstacles.
- Addameer Lawyers call for a full investigation and are holding Israel fully accountable. They said the United Nations and the World Health Organization should create a committee to investigate the medical conditions of Palestinians. Zuhair’s death was tragic, it’s not the only occasion in which a former prisoner has passed away following medical neglect.
- UFree
Network monitored the responses of the Israeli Prison
Service to demands and reported that the IPS fulfilled the
following demands since the first week:
• Allow
telephone calls for the prisoner once a month.
•
Increase canteen amount to be 400 Israeli Shekels instead of
300.
• Reinstall three TV channels (BBC – Abu Dhabi
– Rotana Cinema)
• Permit taking photographs with
families once every five years instead of once in the whole
life.
• Allow putting brothers or fathers with their
detained prisoner in the same jail.
• Permit open
visits for humanitarian cases without any barrier.
•
Allow visits for any security prisoners
• Improve the
condition of the prison canteen through providing the
missing supplies as fruits and vegetables and form a
committee to check prices to achieve appropriateness between
market and the canteen prices.
• Permit taking
photographs inside prison cell once a year.
• Form a
committee to examine the status of West Bank prisoners who
are not allowed to receive visits to find solutions for
them.
• Recommend transferring patient prisoners by
ambulance instead of the "the Boaster", which is a bus with
miserable humiliating conditions used to move the
Palestinian prisoners form one jail to another, or from the
jail to courts and back, and approve the report of the
prison doctor about such cases.
- The Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights has revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities have renewed, without charge or trial, the administrative detention of an elderly MP in the Palestinian Legislative Council and a leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Speaking on behalf of the Foundation, lawyer Osama Makboul explained that the Israeli military commander issued the order at the request of the intelligence services for a further six months in the case of the MP for Nablus City, Ahmed El- Haj Ali, 72. A similar order was issued for lecturer and Hamas leader Dr. Mohammed Ghazal. According to Mr. Makboul, MP Ali was arrested originally on 7 June last year; Dr. Ghazal was arrested on December 7, 2011. Both men will appear before the Israeli Supreme Court on 6 and 7 July to have the order confirmed or reduced.[1]
- Eighteen students, from Beit Ommar town in Al-Khalil, were prevented from sitting for their final examinations, after being arrested by the IOF. They were brutally detaimed, and most of them have been subjected to torture during interrogations by the Israeli intelligence officers[2].
• Naksa (setback)
Remembered in Palestine
Today, 45 years ago, Israel attacked Egypt,
Jordan, Syria and Palestine, killing 15,000 to 25,000 Arabs
and occupying The Gaza Strip, The West Bank, in which the
second holy Muslim site in the world is located, The Golan
Heights and the Sinai desert. The UNSC issued a resolution asking Israel to end the
occupation of lands it occupied in 1967, yet the later still
turns blind eye to the UN Resolutions.
• Israel Suffocating the Fishing
Industry in Gaza:
Israeli naval vessels have
again attacked Gaza fishermen going about their lawful
business in the sea. A statement from the Palestinian
Fishermen's Union said that some of its members were
targeted by the Israeli navy at dawn on Friday. The attack
caused them to stop fishing and return to port. Friday's
attack follows a similar assault on Wednesday, when four
fishermen were kidnapped by the Israeli navy. Their
whereabouts is still unknown.[3]
• Israel
Demolishes Palestinian Houses in Jordan
Valley
Israeli bulldozers
on Tuesday morning began demolishing Palestinian houses in
Al-Meeta hamlet in Wadi-Al-Maleh northern Jordan Valley in
the eastern West Bank. Municipality chief of Wadi-Al-Maleh
and Bedouin villages, Aref Daraghmeh, told Quds Press that
IOF broke into Al-Meeta hamlet in the Wadi al-Maleh area in
the northern part of the occupied Jordan Valley, handing
notifications for the demolition of four Palestinian houses.
He also pointed out that the Israeli bulldozers raided the
area before the expiry of the warning period, started
demolishing several houses, and forced other families to
demolish their homes with their own hands.[4]
• Bibi: We will
build 1000 units for each evacuated illegal
one!
In a statement, the
Prime Minister of Israel said "Israel will build 1000 new
units for each illegal unit built 'without a permit' that
they might evacuate."
• Reconciliation
talks 'fruitful'
The Egyptian Intelligence
Department reported in a statement that the talks held in
Cairo were 'fruitful'. Hamas political bureau is set to meet
the acting Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on
20 June, 2012.
• Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza
Prime Minister, said in an article he wrote to the
Guardian:
- We as a people want to live in our
homeland, the land of our ancestors, in freedom, dignity and
democracy, and with a just peace that restores our rights.
We do not want to attack anyone and do not accept anyone
attacking us. As we have said on more than one occasion, the
key to security is the end of occupation. As a people we
have been historically wronged and subjected to dozens of
massacres; tens of thousands of us have lost our children
for no other reason than that we demand our rights as
clearly stipulated under international laws.
I would
like to reiterate on behalf of my people our sincere desire
to live in security and stability, without wars and
bloodshed; we hope that the world will help us in this
venture. We extend our hand to all those who seek a just
peace to work seriously to end the occupation and help us
establish our state, which the world has already
recognised.
________________________________________
[1] http://www.middleeastmonitor.orguk/news/middle-east/3827-israel-renews-administrative-detention-of-elderly-mp-and-hamas-leader
[2] http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s71oO3kXwS2fx5DAq0s5PAtOi0A7fweOXrmq8eYHac1Vq2%2b4etcfDN2mYBFUdn9H7T4gFnDFdJxweEbDYDJagj0%2fIVtINgIK0Njc8RqJSqUk0%3d
[3] http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/3829-israeli-navy-targets-gaza-fishermen
[4] http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7lpSR42n8lWE9%2bLz7%2bkPV8ZxYsVE%2fJSJMtgvvnSqF26amJu1bO%2f4MnSgFba%2bnciJMKAOY%2fw9oDK0LpIFwyVycAhQvcz7%2ftLvdNN54Gjhyv2M%3d
Sarsak.jpg