Weekly Audio Report

This Week in Palestine - a service of the International Middle East Media Center, IMEMC.org, for the week of Friday, March 18th to Thursday, March 24th, 2005.

Weekly Audio Report
March 18 – 24, 2005

This Week in Palestine - a service of the International Middle East Media Center, IMEMC.org, for the week of Friday, March 18th to Thursday, March 24th, 2005.

As leaders of Arab countries convened in Algeria this week to discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict among other issues, United States officials met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders regarding Israeli settlement expansion and the European Union accused Israel of violating the Road Map for Middle East peace by planning the construction of 3,500 new housing units in the largest West Bank settlement, Ma’ale Adumim.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Information Center documented ongoing Israeli human rights violations in Palestine this week. The Center reported that the Israeli military arrested 20 Palestinians, including three children, and injured ten.

Israeli soldiers shot and wounded three Palestinian students as they were leaving school in Ramallah on Saturday, according to a Palestinian news agency. A witness said that Israeli soldiers opened fire at group 16-year-old schoolboys from Bel'een and Wasfa villages as they were trying to cross the wall on their way home from school. Nayef Ghazi was shot with a tear-gas canister in the back, Yassin Ash'ab was shot with a rubber-coated metal bullet in the head, and Zaki Zaki was shot with a rubber-coated metal bullet in the eye.

In Gaza, the Israeli military effectively imprisoned 16 Palestinian families with barbed wire and iron gates surrounding their homes. Israeli soldiers controlling the only entrance informed the residents that they will be allowed to leave or enter the area only during the hours of 6 to 8 in the morning, 10:30 a.m. to noon, and 3 to 5:30 in the afternoon. The enclosed area, inhabited by 150 Palestinians, is surrounded by settlement streets and military zones, completely blocking it from the rest of the Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday morning, residents of At-Tuwani, a village in the southern Hebron hills, reported that Israeli settlers from Ma’on settlement planted poison pellets on grazing land of sheep owned by local Palestinians. At-Tuwani resident Hafaz said that 3 sheep have died and 20 are sick from the poisoning.

Two senior U.S. diplomats, National Security Council official Elliot Abrams and Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East David Welch, arrived in Israel Wednesday morning and met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. A source at the U.S. Foreign Ministry said that the envoys handed Sharon a letter demanding clarification on the Israeli decision to build thousands of new settlement houses between Jerusalem and West Bank settlement Ma’ale Adumim. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat asked the American envoys to help block the settlement expansion, warning that the planned construction would cut off East Jerusalem and isolate it from the rest of the Palestinian areas. Jaad Isaac, the Director of the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, said that new settlement construction undermines efforts to create a viable Palestinian state.

In other settlement news, Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv revealed in a report published Friday that the Greek Orthodox Church secretly sold church land in East Jerusalem to Jewish investors. According to Ma'ariv, Nicolas Papadimas, administrator of the Greek Orthodox Church properties, made the deal and left the country with millions of U.S. dollars. The deputy of Patriarch Irinous I denied any knowledge of the land sale. Much of the property of the Greek Orthodox Church, which is the second largest landowner in the area, was donated by local Palestinian Christian families. Father Attallah Hanna, an Archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, denounced the land sale and called for the resignation of the Patriarch Irinous.

“This is treason against the Orthodox Church, our country, our people and the Palestinian question. We all reject and denounce this criminal act. We demand that the Patriarch resign immediately and take responsibility for what he did. He should be questioned, sued and take the necessary legal procedures to cancel the bargain. We reject the sale of Orthodox properties, which are for the service of the church and the Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims. There will be a series of protest actions, and they will not stop until the bargain is cancelled and the Patriarch Irinous steps down.”

On Wednesday, Arab leaders convening in Algeria re-launched a 2002 peace initiative, which offered Israel normal relations with Arab governments in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from areas occupied in 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi of the Palestinian National Initiative said that Arab leaders should focus on ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine rather than normalizing relations with Israel.

“For the Palestinian cause, the initiative of the Arab Summit is good. But we reject any attempt to normalize relations with Israel before the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, we should prioritize an Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the June 4th, 1967 borders, allowing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and applying the United Nations resolutions that recognize the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli military invaded West Bank areas of Qalqilia, Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas, Jerusalem and Hebron this week. Tuesday night Israel imposed a general closure over the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip for the duration of the Jewish holiday Purim, which began Thursday evening and lasts until Sunday.

For the International Middle East Media Center, I'm Marcie Garrett in Beit Sahour, Palestine.