Israeli settlers stepped up their attacks in the West Bank this week after a settler was fatally stabbed on April 30 at the Zaa’tara checkpoint in north of Nablus. A Jewish settler from the Nablus-area settlement of Yitzhar was stabbed to death by Salam Abu Zaghal from Tulkarm near the checkpoint. Settlers immediately began carrying out retaliatory attacks, attacking Palestinian cars and property in the area.
Settlers attacked and wounded a Palestinian farmer near the village of Furiq and uprooted some 100 olive trees near the village of Qaryut. According to Palestinian sources, settlers also started over 50 fires across the West Bank on April 30.
Hundreds of olive and almond trees were damaged and large areas of cultivated crops were destroyed, the sources said. Jewish settlers also attacked a mosque and hurled stones at Palestinian cars, including two buses with schoolgirls, injuring over 20 people.
Settlers also set up a settlement outpost near the checkpoint where the settler was killed. Settlers hooked the mobile homes up to electricity connections and brought in settlers to take over the area. The Israeli army later dismantled the outpost on May 3.
On May 3, settlers continued their attacks on Palestinian land, burning down 40 olive trees in Kufr Qaddum. On the same day, settlers from Ofra uprooted 50 trees in the Ramallah-area village of Deir Jreer.
According to the Israeli daily Maariv, the Israeli government has allocated NIS22 million to build and expand settlements in Jerusalem on the occasion of what Israel calls “Jerusalem Day”, celebrating the unilateral Israeli unification of the city next week.
On April 29, Israeli occupation authorities also demolished three homes in Al Tur neighborhood of Jerusalem, claiming they were built without a license.
Another major development this week was the meeting between the Arab ministerial delegation and US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on April 29. The delegation, headed by Qatari Prince Hamad and Arab League chief Nabil Al Arabi, ostensibly travelled to the US to talk to officials there on ways to revive the Arab Peace Initiative and restart negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
Instead, the delegation expressed willingness to ‘modify’ its 2002 peace initiative, accepting, in principle the idea of land swaps with Israel. The move drew praise from the US, calling it "a very big step forward." Even Israeli justice minister and head of the negotiating team Tzipi Livni said it could be a step forward. The praise did not spill over however to the Palestinians.
Member of Fatah's Central Committee Mohammed Shtayya criticized the move on May 2, saying land swaps should be a result of negotiations with Israel rather than an "advance payment" given by Arabs on behalf of the Palestinians. “If there are changes to the borders, land swaps must be on an equal basis,” he said. "If we give one centimeter, we must take one centimeter in return.”
He went on to say that Israel interprets the Arab attitude in a “very dangerous way,” saying Israelis will try to understand that this attitude allows them to talk about annexing settlement blocs as if they were part of the Arab Peace Initiative.
"I don’t think the Arab Peace Initiative should be amended, because if this case is open, it would be difficult to close it by any means," he concluded.
The development was also slammed by Hamas politburo chief Khalid Mashaal. Speaking with Al Jazeera, Mashaal said any such concession would harm the Palestinian cause.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained coy on the subject, but said on May 2 that he would put any peace deal reached with the Palestinians to a referendum. Israeli political sources have said the leadership was concerned that Kerry was trying to push Netanyahu to return to negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders, something Netanyahu has so far refused to do.
On April 30, Israel also stepped up its military operations in Gaza, following a number of rocket attacks into Israeli territory, which caused no damages or injuries. 25-year old Haytham Al Mis’hal was killed and another Palestinian injured when Israeli planes fired a missile at his motorcycle west of Gaza City. Israel claims Mis’hal was involved in the rocket attack on Eilat last month. The Salafist Mujahedeen Shura Council said Mis’hal was one of its members and claimed responsibility for the rocket attack as well.
The rocket fire prompted Hamas to carry out arrests of several Salafists according to its interior ministry on May 2.
“The internal security apparatus has arrested fanatics calling themselves Salafists, for security and criminal reasons. There were no arrests made for ideological or political reasons," a ministry statement said. The Mujahedeen Shura Council has accused Hamas of arresting its members for political reasons, saying they are trying to thwart their rocket attacks on Israel, but vowed to continue nonetheless.
Finally, resigned Prime Minister Salam Fayyad – who President Mahmoud Abbas has said will continue in his post during the transitional phase – made some strong statements in an interview published on May 3 in the New York Times, calling the Palestinian leadership a ‘failure.” Fayyad said Fatah would “break down” and the PA was already “broke.”
"Our story is a story of failed leadership, from way early on," Fayyad said. "It is incredible that the fate of the Palestinian people has been in the hands of leaders so entirely casual, so guided by spur-of-the-moment decisions, without seriousness. We don't strategize, we cut deals in a tactical way and we hold ourselves hostage to our own rhetoric."
UN Resolution 1325
Date posted: February 03, 2021
By MIFTAH
Kerry talks peace while Israel bars UNESCO mission [May 19 - May 25]
Date posted: May 25, 2013
By MIFTAH
President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both met with US Secretary of State John Kerry this week in the latter’s fourth visit to the region since he assumed office.
After meeting with the two to ostensibly find ways to restart stalled negotiations between the two sides, Kerry urged on May 24 both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take "hard decisions" to revive the peace process.
"We're getting toward a time now when hard decisions need to be made," he said at the end of his visit.
Kerry admitted a day before after meeting with the two leaders that there was skepticism and cynicism about his efforts to revive talks.
"I know this region well enough to know there is skepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism, and there are reasons for it. There have been bitter years of disappointment," he said. Still, he maintained: "It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient, but detailed and tenacious, that we can lay on a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people and certainly exhaust the possibilities for peace."
British foreign secretary William Hague was also in the region visiting with leaders on both sides and even visited the Bedouin community of Khan Al Ahmar between Jerusalem and Jericho, whose residents are under the threat of displacement.
On May 23, Hague was poignantly clear on where his country stands on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "Israel has lost some of its support in Britain and in other European countries over time - this is something I've often pointed out to Israeli leaders -because of settlement activity, which we condemn,” he said.
"We strongly disagree with settlements on occupied land. Israel is a country we work with in many ways but we do disapprove of settlements,” he maintained, adding that: "We want to see both Israelis and Palestinians really commit themselves to the peace process while there is still a chance of a two-state solution."
In Khan al Ahmar, Hague listened to the residents’ grievances from Israeli efforts to push them out to make way for more settlement expansion. "We (in Britain) strongly condemn the building of settlements and recognise they are a severe threat to a two-state solution,” he told the people there.
On March 21, Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir in East Jerusalem. Earlier, they demolished two Palestinian homes in al-Tur, all under the pretext of unlicensed construction. Dozens of people have been left homeless from the demolitions.
A UNESCO fact-finding mission was supposed to arrive this week to look into Israeli measures in the Old City of Jerusalem and their impact on the archeological, cultural and heritage significance of the place, but was denied entry by Israel on May 20. Israel justified its decision by saying Palestinians were trying to politicize the visit.
"The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings,” an Israeli foreign ministry official said. “The visit was supposed to be professional, (but) they were taking measures that showed they were politicizing the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it," the official said.
UNESCO maintained that the mission was not cancelled, but postponed, the agency’s spokeswoman Sue Williams said.
The Palestinians said they expected Israel to pull something like this. “We weren't surprised by this decision because we believed that Israel's agreement to (allow the mission) was not convincing," minister of foreign affairs Riyad Al Malki said.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was reopened on May 22 after a five day closure. Egyptian soldiers and policemen closed the crossing following the kidnapping of seven Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, only reopening it after the soldiers were freed. Over 2,400 Palestinians had been stranded on both sides of the crossing during the days of the closure.
Extremist Israelis extended their attacks this week all the way to the Negev desert. On May 19, residents of the Retamim Kibbutz attacked the nearby Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj and set fire to a tent, according to head of the local village council, Salman Ibin Hamid
"The setters of Retamim are acting like they are in the West Bank," Ibn Hamid said. "These people have the mentality of the occupying settler to attack every Arab."
Finally, on May 23, the US appointed Gen. John Allen as special envoy on security issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to a US official, Allen will deal with the U.S. position on Israeli security needs and the security arrangements that would accompany the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Al Nakba commemorated amid increasing settler attacks [May 12 - May 18]
Date posted: May 18, 2013
By MIFTAH
This week Palestinians commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 on May 15, with a variety of activities, demonstrations and events throughout the Palestinian territories and outside of its borders. Festivals were held in Ramallah and Nablus in addition to several protests and confrontations with Israeli occupation forces. In Jerusalem, clashes broke out between protesters and Israeli police and border guards when Palestinians commemorating Al Nakba, raising Palestinian flags and facing off with Jewish settlers and soldiers. Thirty people were wounded or arrested during the clashes in addition to six Israelis.
The Jerusalem clashes come at a time when settler break-ins to Al Aqsa have been on the rise amid increasing calls by extremist Jewish groups to make a presence at the compound. The break-ins have become a near daily event. Muslim worshippers and Palestinian youths have kept constant vigil at the mosque to stave off the break-ins which included settler groups who used children as a cover to enter the compound on the occasion of Shavuot.
Settlers in the West Bank have wreaked havoc this week as well. On May 17, three Palestinians were injured in clashes in Urif south of Nablus when dozens of settlers set fire to lands in three area-villages: Urif, Einabus, and Asira al-Qibliya. The settlers also attacked citizens and threw burning tires at people’s homes.
Jewish extremists attacked inside the Green Line as well. On May 14, extremists set fire to three cars and sprayed racist graffiti on a mosque south of Haifa, according to Israeli media reports.
"Price-tag" and "Eviatar," which is thought to refer to the name of a settler stabbed to death last week, were found on the mosque’s walls in addition to the Star of David. In Safed, even farther north, racist graffiti with the words "Arabs out" was found on walls in the city.
On May 13, Israeli settlers exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, head of the PA settlement activity file, said settlers from the Alia settlement were responsible for the damage.
On the same day settlers from Tel Hatimar begin building a religious school for children on Al Khader lands in the Bethlehem area.
The Israeli army meanwhile, uprooted over 1,200 olive tree saplings on May 16 and razed land Palestinian farmer in the northern West Bank, according to Daghlas. He said the army dug up over 40 dunums of farm land and demolished a water tank and stone walls in Ras Karker, near Nablus.
On May 17, three Palestinian laborers were wounded in Beit Ula northwest of Hebron after Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and unleashed police dogs at them according to Issa al-Amla, coordinator for the popular struggle committee. He said Omar Al-Amla, 31, and Abdulkadir Al-Amla, 28, suffered multiple dog bites to the neck and hands. A third laborer, Jihad Saleem, was shot in the leg.
In Jerusalem on May 17, Israeli forces raided the home of Iyad al-Awar and insisted on taking his two children 6-year-old Qassam and 5-year-old Nasrallah for “interrogation”. While their father prevented the forces from arresting his boys, Israeli soldiers handed him a warrant ordering him to bring his children to the Russian Compound for questioning.
"We arrived to the Russian Compound and the troops wanted to take my kids for investigation; I refused and they beat me in the ear and the leg. My kids started crying and were so scared from the troops. They took my kids by force," al-Awar said.
Israeli Intelligence officers apparently questioned the children about their detained cousin Shadad, and asked if they had seen him throwing stones or Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, Al Awar said.
On the same day however, Palestinians scored a tiny victory in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis when they were able to tear a hole through part of the separation wall. Protesters marking the Nakba anniversary ripped a 4-meter hole in it, eyewitnesses said. Clashes ensued between the protesters and Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Several injuries were reported.
Peace Now reported on May 16 that the Israeli government planned to grant retroactive approval to four West Bank settlement outposts it had previously pledged to at least partially demolish.
The Israeli state attorney's office said that settlers had purchased the private Palestinian land on which they built, thus paving the way for the government to give its blessing.
"In the response, the government declares its intention to legalize four outposts, in isolated areas," Peace Now said in a statement, adding that the strategy was an affront to US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new peace process," Peace Now said.
On May 14, Hamas and Fatah agreed in Cairo to form a national unity government within three months during which they would finalize and approve the Palestine National Council elections law. The two sides, represented by Fatah leader Azzam Al Ahmad and Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouq, came to the agreement under Egyptian sponsorship and said President Abbas would immediately begin talks on the new government formation. Once the government is formed, general elections can be held.
