Weekly Audio Report

Weekly Audio Report
25 – 31 March 2005

This Week in Palestine - a service of the International Middle East Media Center, IMEMC.org, for the week of Friday, March 25th to Thursday, March 31st, 2005.

Weekly Audio Report
25 – 31 March 2005

This Week in Palestine - a service of the International Middle East Media Center, IMEMC.org, for the week of Friday, March 25th to Thursday, March 31st, 2005.

With full U.S. support, Israel is moving ahead with measures to isolate the 250,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem from the West Bank. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israeli radio on Sunday that the Bush Administration stands behind Israel’s plan to annex major West Bank settlement blocs into Israel, which will cut off the intended capital of a future Palestinian state from the rest of the Palestinian territories.

Israeli sources report that new regulations, to be implemented this summer, will require Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to obtain permits in order to visit the West Bank. Roni, of the Israeli women’s monitoring group Checkpoint Watch, says that the new Israeli policy will prevent thousands of Palestinian Jerusalem residents from going to their schools, jobs and families in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.

Khalil Tafakgi, the director of the Mapping and Survey Department of Orient House in Jerusalem describes Israeli policies used to confiscate Palestinian land in Jerusalem and force its Arab residents to leave the city.

“One procedure that Israel uses is the zoning laws. Since 1976, more than 53% of the greater Jerusalem area has been designated for nature reserves. Palestinian residents are allowed only 14% of the area for building. Another is the absentee property law issued in 1950 and implemented since 1967. Israel has used this law to confiscate 17 Palestinian houses in Jerusalem and establish more than 70 settlement outposts in the Islamic and Christian quarters of the old city.”

Palestinians celebrated Land Day on Wednesday with a national day of action against Israeli occupation and policies of land theft. The holiday commemorates the anniversary of an incident in 1976 in which six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed and more than 100 injured when Israeli police opened fire on a demonstration protesting land confiscation in the Galilee. Khaled Al-Azza, of the Land Defense Committee, spoke to IMEMC during the demonstration in Bethlehem Wednesday.

“The 30th of March is Land Day. For us, land is the core of our conflict with Israel. This protest expresses our rejection of all kinds of occupation and Israeli violations of human rights, including demolishing homes, uprooting trees and torturing people.”

Wednesday afternoon, Israeli soldiers fired rubber coated metal bullets at 300 Palestinian demonstrators in the village of Surif, near the West Bank city of Hebron. Protesters marched towards the eastern part of the village, where army bulldozers were uprooting trees for the construction of the wall on land owned by local families. Soldiers guarding the bulldozers showered protesters with tear gas and fired rounds of rubber coated metal bullets at the crowd. Three protesters were injured and seven lost consciousness.

Also on Wednesday, the Israeli army erected several checkpoints on roads around the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem. The WAFA news agency reported that Israeli soldiers near the village of Allar held dozens of residents and severely punched and clubbed three elderly men, age 62, 73 and 75.

Israeli human rights group B’tselem issued a report this week documenting Israeli violations of human rights and international law in Gaza. According to the report, entitled “One Big Prison”, more than 77% of Gaza residents now live below the poverty line of $2 per day and 22% are unable to meet basic subsistence needs, even with the help of aid agencies. B’tselem report author Yehezkel Lein says that Israeli restrictions on Palestnians’ freedom of movement severely impacts education, work, health and family life for Gaza residents.

Several new developments in internal Palestinian politics this week may impact the political landscape in the coming months. Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad decided in principle to join the Palestinian Liberation Organization, commonly known as the PLO. The historic agreement included the groups’ acceptance of the PLO platform of establishing a Palestinian state according the the 1967 borders between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Thursday, the Palestinian parliament approved the $2.2 billion budget for 2005. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to implement economic reforms in an effort to increase fiscal accountability. For the first time, the budget specifically states that international accountants will audit the P.A.’s funds.

Palestinian gunmen, self-identified as members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the ruling Fatah movement, opened fire on the Palestinian Presidential compound in Ramallah before rampaging through the city, damaging several restaurants and forcing shops to close Wednesday night. No casualties were reported. A leader of the Brigades said that the incident was a result of disagreement between the Palestinian Authority and some Al-Aqsa members who felt they were being marginalized within the Palestinian security forces. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas left his headquarters shortly after the shooting but came back for consultations with security chiefs, Palestinian officials said.

And finally, an update on our ongoing coverage of Israeli settler violence against Palestinian communities: Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Sunday that Isreali army and police officials are planning to hold a joint meeting to discuss growing Israeli settler violence, which has recently been directed at Israeli security forces as well as Palestinians. The announcement followed two incidents over the Jewish Purim holiday last weekend in which settlers from Yitzhar settlement, near Nablus, entered the nearby Palestinian village of Asira Qibliyya, threw rocks and caused damage to property. In both incidents Friday morning and Saturday night, the settlers clashed with Israeli security forces that were called in to stop the attacks.

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