August 29th, 2009, Bil’in village report, view video

Photo: ActiveStills. Protesting night raids in Bil’in, Palestine.

Around 3:30 am, the Israeli occupation forces invaded Bil’in once again arresting 2 Palestinians.

Two houses were raided simultaneously by at least 40 soldiers. In the first house, Ashraf Mohammad Jamal Tofik Al-Khatib (age 29) was arrested. In the second house, they arrested Hamru Hisham Bornat (age 24).

The cameraman, Haitham Al-Khatib, who was filming in his own house, one victim being his brother, was repeatedly forcibly moved and hit, and threatened with arrest unless he stopped filming. They declared his house a “closed military zone” but did not produce any military order. 3 Jeeps and 2 Humvee jeeps were used for the operation.

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New York Times by Ethan Bronner, August 27, 2009.

Photo: ActiveStills. Palestinian youth demonstrate in Bil’in, Palestine.

BILIN, West Bank — Every Friday for the past four and a half years, several hundred demonstrators — Palestinian villagers, foreign volunteers and Israeli activists — have walked in unison to the Israeli barrier separating this tiny village from the burgeoning settlement of Modiin Illit, part of which is built on the village’s land. One hundred feet away, Israeli soldiers watch and wait.

The protesters chant and shout and, inevitably, a few throw stones. Then just as inevitably, the soldiers open fire with tear gas and water jets, lately including a putrid oil-based liquid that makes the entire area stink.

It is one of the longest-running and best organized protest operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has turned this once anonymous farming village into a symbol of Palestinian civil disobedience, a model that many supporters of the Palestinian cause would like to see spread and prosper.

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Palestinian Center for Human Rights. August 20 – 26 2009.

Photo: Palestinian youth killed by Israeli military forces in Gaza Strip.

During the reporting period, Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinian civilians, including a child, and wounded 9 others in the Gaza Strip. Another Palestinian is also missing. In the West Bank, one Palestinian civilian was wounded.

On 24 August 2009, Israeli troops positioned to the northwest of Beit Lahia town in the northern Gaza Strip (along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel) fired at two Palestinian civilians, including a child, who got close to the border. The child was instantly killed by two bullets to the chest, and the other civilian was seriously wounded.

The two civilians were working in a farm in Beit Lahia town, approximately 350 meters away from the border fence. They attempted to get close to the border to find metal wires to sell them. They were unarmed.

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AFP, by Jailan Zayan, Sunday, August 16th.

Photo: Zoriah (c). Hezbollah logo painted on bullet pocked wall in Beirut, Lebanon.

CAIRO — Twenty-two men, dressed in white and crowded into a cage in a Cairo court, denied charges on Sunday of plotting attacks in Egypt for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, with some alleging torture by police.

As the trial began, the alleged members of the cell pleaded not guilty to charges of “conspiracy to murder, spying for a foreign organisation with intent of conducting terrorist attacks and weapons possession.”

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Bil’in: village de la Palestine qui continue de résister

Photo: ActiveStills. Manifestation à Bil’in.

Bil’in, situé à l’ouest de Ramallah, est un village typique de la Méditerranée orientale à bien des points de vue: des maisons blanches disposées le long de rues qui épousent les méandres et contours naturels des collines; des vergers, des jardins, des pâturages; l’attitude accueillante et généreuse des habitants; beaucoup d’enfants espiègles et sages. Cependant, ceux de Bil’in vivent dans les mêmes conditions déplorables que tant d’autres en Cisjordanie: une colonie israélienne a été construite illégalement sur leurs terres, et la clotûre dite “de sécurité” dévore d’autres hectares pour les séparer de ce qui leur appartient. Personne n’a le droit de circuler librement: ni vers la ville la plus proche, ni vers la plage, ni vers leur capitale, Jérusalem.

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letter submitted to the Montreal Gazette, Tuesday, August 25th, 2009.

Photo: Satellites in the sky Cairo, Egypt.

Although this was likely unintentional, Terrine Friday’s article “Students misinformed …” (24 August 2009) speaks strongly in favour of the Community-University Research Exchange (CURE) program and of the CURE project proposed by the Montreal social-justice collective Tadamon.

Tadamon’s CURE project submission proposed that a student investigate institutional ties between Montreal universities and Israeli corporations, government agencies and other organizations that support the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

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LA Times by Neve Gordon, August 20, 2009.

Photo: Israeli apartheid wall.

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis — even peaceniks — aren’t signing on. A global boycott can’t help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one’s own nation.

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Haaretz August 27th, 2009, by Anat Matar.

Photo: Palestinians walk along the Israeli apartheid wall in the West Bank.

Several days ago Dr. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. In that article he explained why, after years of activity in the peace camp here, he has decided to pin his hopes on applying external pressure on Israel – including sanctions, divestment and an economic, cultural and academic boycott.

He believes, and so do I, that only when the Israeli society’s well-heeled strata pay a real price for the continuous occupation will they finally take genuine steps to put an end to it.

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Palestinian Center for Human Rights, August 13-19, 2009.

Photo: Palestinian boy holds-up Israeli shell in occupied Palestine.

On 14 August 2009, Israeli gunboats opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats opposite to Rafah beach. As a result, a 12-year-old Palestinian child, who was at the beach, was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head.

During the reporting period, Israeli forces used force against peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall in the West Bank. A number of demonstrators also suffered from the inhalation of an unknown substance used by Israeli forces in Bal’ein village, west of Ramallah.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombarded the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt allegedly to destroy smuggling tunnels.

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Tuesday, August 24th, AFP by Adel Zaanoun.

Photo: Zoriah (c). Damaged wall along the Gaza / Egypt border.

GAZA CITY — Three Palestinian brothers were killed and nine other people were wounded on Tuesday when Israel bombed smuggling tunnels between the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and Egypt, medics said.

Rescue services were digging through the rubble to try to find another man who was reported missing after the first Israeli air strike against the tunnels in more than two weeks.

Mansur, Wael and Ibrahim al-Batniji, aged 30, 26 and 24, were working inside the tunnels when Israeli warplanes struck two tunnels in the early morning hours near the border town of Rafah.

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