featuring celebrated Palestinian hip-hop ensemble DAM with Iraqi rapper Narcicyst
Immediately after Friday prayers today, Bil’in citizens, International supporters, and Israeli activists went out in a demonstration, raising Palestinian flags and banners condemning the occupation policies of building the wall, land confiscation, building settlements, roads closures, the siege of cities, killing civilians, house raids, and the arresting of children.
Palestinian Minister of Affairs Related to the Apartheid Wall, Mr. Maher Ghuneim, also participated in the demonstration, and listened to a comprehensive explanation from the Popular Committee for Resistance Against the Wall about the experiences of the Bil’in community and its most recent developments. The Minister affirmed the government’s support for the popular resistance, pointing to the fact that there are no current negotiations on the question of the presence of settlements and the wall.
BEIRUT: Israel is preparing for another war on Lebanon between the end of year and next spring, Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said during a private meeting with Lebanese emigrants, New TV reported on Saturday. Nasrallah said the “new formula for the balance of power with Israel placed the southern suburbs opposite to Tel Aviv.”
“Israel cannot be trusted,” he said, but added he was not trying to “frighten the people” and asked the Lebanese to “enjoy a quiet summer.”
Photo: Matthew Cassel. Gaza, Palestinian refugees displaced in Israeli bombardment.
English filmmaker Ken Loach has withdrawn his film Looking for Eric from the Melbourne International Film Festival because the festival receives funding from the Israeli Government.
Loach told the festival if it did not reconsider the sponsorship, he would not allow the festival to screen his film.
In a letter to festival executive director Richard Moore, he said that “Palestinians, including artists and academics, have called for a boycott of events supported by Israel”. He cited “illegal occupation of Palestinian land, destruction of homes and livelihoods” and “the massacres in Gaza” as reasons for the boycott. It was, he said, aimed “not at independent Israeli films or filmmakers”, but at “the Israeli state”.
Photo: Gueorgui Tcherednitchenko. Cameras cover Israel’s wall in occupied Palestine.
The expulsion of an Israeli journalists’ union from the International Federation of Journalists is mired in a murky cocktail of politics and money.
The Israeli group –— the National Federation of Israel Journalists — was ousted June 7 in a unanimous vote of the international union’s executive committee. The vote immediately raised the specter of another effort by international unions to boycott Israel for political reasons; recently, a number of academic unions around the world have voted to boycott Israeli professors.
Palestinian activists from Bil’in village say the Israeli military has raided their village almost daily this week. They claim the early morning raids are linked to a recent lawsuit filed by the village in the Quebec Superior Court.
Last month Bil’in launched the lawsuit against two Montreal-based companies, Green Park International and Green Mount International, claiming they played a role in building Israeli-only settlements on Palestinian lands in Bil’in, an act they say is illegal under international law and under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, established in 2000.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the decision issued by Dr. Salam Fayad, the Palestinian Prime Minister and Acting Minster of Information in Ramallah, suspending the Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel’s (JSC) work in Palestine and preventing its personnel from carrying out any activities in Palestine pending a final judicial ruling in this regard. PCHR asserts that this decision constitutes a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression, and calls upon the Government in Ramallah to cancel it and allow the JSC and its personnel to work freely.
Report: Friday July 10 2009: Two kidnapped and dozens suffering tear gas inhalation.
Two kidnapped and dozens suffered from gas inhalation when Israeli troops attacked the weekly protest in Bil’in village near the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday.
International and Israeli supporters joined the villagers of Bil’in and marched from the village center after the Friday midday prayers. The protesters demanded the halt of Israeli illegal settlements and construction of the wall.
Photo: ActiveStills. Israeli occupation soldiers at popular protest in Bil’in, Palestine.
Military raids launched by Israeli forces in Palestine in parallel to court case in Quebec
Israeli army forces are launching night-time military raids on Bil’in village in Palestine.
Bil’in recently made headlines in Canada after the village launched a lawsuit in Montreal against two Quebec registered companies constructing Israeli settlements on the village’s land.
Israel was yesterday criticised after it refused to allow a group of doctors on a humanitarian mission organised by the French government to enter Gaza.
The team, including three British medics, was turned back by Israeli border guards on Sunday and Monday. They say their mission is purely humanitarian, aimed to helping those in medical need, and some of whom were left injured and in need of surgery after Israel’s attack on Gaza earlier this year.
