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This week in Palestine - a service of the International Middle East Media Center -- for the week of January 7 - 14 2005.
Palestinians elected Mahmoud Abbas as the new Palestinian President on Sunday January 9th, in an election generally seen as free and fair on the Palestinian side, but with a number of obstructions from the Israeli authorities. Israeli military incursions and mass arrests of Palestinians continued, and the Palestinian resistance launched an attack Thursday night at an Israeli border crossing in the Gaza Strip.
From all international observer reports, the elections were conducted fairly on the Palestinian side, but with a number of obstructions by the Israeli authorities.
Ingir Sondbaard is a Norwegian election observer:
Some election observers were harassed by Israeli authorities upon entry to the country. Siobhan is an Irish observer:
Despite a promise to withdraw from Palestinian areas during the election period, Israeli military incursions and attacks continued, with four invasions on election day in Rafah, Khan Younis, Um Nasr and Dir al-Balah, in which two Palestinians were seriously injured. Voting centers in several areas were blocked by military checkpoints, one voting center in Khan Younis was shot at by Israeli soldiers, and Israeli military and intelligence officers present at voting centers were said by many Palestinians to be an intimidating force obstructing their right to vote.
George Abuzulif of Bethlehem:
The Israeli Interior Ministry released a report Sunday showing that the populations of the illegal Israeli settlements have been steadily increasing, even in those settlements scheduled for evacuation in the disengagement plan.
Israeli military attacks have continued every day this week. On Monday, the Israeli military invaded Beit Hanoun, Khan Younis, Jenin and Nablus, wounding a taxi driver and a child and damaging a number of homes. Also Monday, five homes were destroyed in Al-Surra village in the Negev, within Israeli borders. Recently, the Israeli authorities issued orders to demolish 3300 homes in three villages whose existence is not recognized by Israel; Ateer Al-Heiran, Tal Arad, and Al-Sadeer. 75,000 Palestinians and Bedouins live in 45 unrecognized villages in the Negev desert
This week the Israeli army issued a request to the Israeli attorney general's office to demolish up to 3,000 homes in Rafah refugee camp, in order to build a 50-meter wide trench along the Egyptian-Gaza border. Israeli authorities say the home demolitions are carried out for security reasons, while Palestinians see them as collective punishment. More than 24,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been made homeless in the last four years by Israeli home demolitions.
Jimmy Danson is with the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions:
On Tuesday, The Israeli army invadeded Tubas, Hebron, Qalqilia, and Nablus, arresting 34 and wounding 3 Palestinians. One Palestinian was killed Tuesday night in Tulkarem. On Tuesday night, the Israeli airforce fired two missiles at a residential area south of Gaza city, wounding one.
On Wednesday, two Palestinians were killed in an invasion of their home in Bani Zeid, in the West Bank. And two Palestinian resistance fighters died in an attack on an illegal Israeli settlement in Gaza which killed one settler. The Israeli army confiscated 100 acres of Palestinian land and uprooted 1500 trees near Hebron, 2 Palestinians were wounded and 14 arrested in invasions of Sheikh al-Adeen, Nablus, Rafah, Tulkarem, Qeizan al-Najjar and Ithna.
Thursday saw an Israeli military invasion of Al-Boreij refugee camp in central Gaza, in which two Palestinians were killed, one of them an eleven-year old child named Omar Mohamed el-Qrainawi, and three were wounded. Near Beit Lahia village, a man was killed while transporting a pregnant woman to the hospital. The woman was wounded. A Palestinian was also injured in an invasion of Yatta, near Hebron. Late Thursday night, Palestinian resistance fighters launched an attack on the Israeli military base at Karni crossing in Gaza which killed 6 israeli soldiers and wounded 10. Three Palestinian resistance fighters died in the attack.
13 Palestinians have been killed this week, 8 of them civilians, two of them children. 17 Palestinian civilians have been wounded, including 4 children, a pregnant woman, and the driver of a car of international journalists. Six Israeli soldiers, and one Israeli settler, who was driving in an army jeep, have been killed this week, and 13 wounded. 104 Palestinians have been arrested in at least 27 separate invasions of Palestinian areas. 400 military checkpoints remain in place, and the Salah Eh Din border crossing in Rafah remains closed for the fifth consecutive week.
A report issued this week by the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs accused the Israeli government of violating the rights of 312 Palestinian children currently being held in Israeli prisons. The report includes allegations that Israeli authorities are holding a number of children without charges, depriving children of needed medical care, abusing them during interrogations and treating them with a different standard than that used for Israeli child prisoners.
George Abuzulif is with Defense for Children International:
The Israeli government has requested that the United States help in financing high tech terminals along the separation wall currently under construction throughout the Palestinian West Bank. The estimated cost of the plan is $450 million, and Israel has requested that Washington provide financial aid of about $180 million. Israel currently receives annual US aid of $3 billion.
The Israeli annexation wall was deemed illegal by UN resolution 1013 in October 2003. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, while in Palestine this week to observe the elections, criticized the Wall, saying, "Israel has successfully convinced the United States that this is an innocuous fence, as if it were a fence around a cow pasture, but this is really a dividing wall and we should refer to it as such." Under the current plan, nearly 50% of the West Bank population will be affected by the Wall through loss of land, imprisonment into walled-in cities completely surrounded by the wall, or isolation into Israeli de facto annexed areas.
While an Israeli High Court ruling Thursday evening halted construction of the wall in certain areas of East Jerusalem, construction of the wall continues in other areas -- not along the established border, but deep within Palestinian territories in an apparent attempt to claim more land for the state of Israel. Indeed, a recent statement by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon confirms this objective. He said in December, "Disengagement unifies Israelis in a common goal: keeping Jerusalem, and maintaining our large security blocs in the West Bank; whose presence and inclusion into Israel will preserve the nature of Israel as a Jewish State".
Dr. Adli Sadek is a Palestinian political analyst:
Many Palestinians hope that their voting for the candidate supported by Israel and the U.S., Mahmoud Abbas, will move forward a peace process stalled by the Israeli government's long-stated excuse that there was 'no peace partner' with whom to negotiate. But the ongoing Israeli military occupation bring fears among some Palestinians that Israel's 'peace' could come at the expense of Palestinians lives, land and livelihood.
This report has been brought to you by the International Middle East Media Center -- imemc.org
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