While Occupation and blockade are business as usual for Israel, there should be no business with Israel

In Occupied Palestine

Zionism in practice

Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property

24 hours to 8am 6 January 2010

Main source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group (PMG).   

Checkpoint troops open fire on civilians

Israeli Army fires tear gas grenades in joint army/ settler incursion

Occupation troops invade Palestinian home and vandalise contents

Israeli troops abduct two 17-year-olds

Israeli settler mob invades Palestinian villagers' home

Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in refugee camp and 10 towns and villages

1 air strike – 3 attacks – 24 raids – 3 beaten – 1 dead – 7 injured

8 taken prisoner – 16 detained – 77 restrictions of movement

Palestinian attacks: none

Air strike – death and injuries: Khan Yunis – evening, an Israeli air-launched missile strike on Al-Qarara killed a Palestinian man, Jihad Abdulraheem As-Sumairi, and injured four other people.

Israeli attack:  Jerusalem – 22:00, Israeli troops near the Qalandya checkpoint opened fire on a number of people. The Israeli Army justified the action by alleging that stones had been thrown.

Israeli Army and settler attack: Hebron – 09:20, Israeli troops launched tear gas grenades at people in support of Israeli settlers invading the area of Al Burj between the towns of Beit Ula and Taqumiya.

Home invasion – vandalism: Jerusalem – dawn, the Israeli Army raided the town of Anata, searched and ransacked a house, vandalising the contents, and took two residents prisoner.

Beatings – injuries: Salfit – 23:20, three people, including a youngster under the age of 18, were admitted to hospital with severe injuries following a beating by Israeli soldiers near the entrance to the settlement of Burkan.

Abductions: Bethlehem – Israeli soldiers abducted two 17-year-old boys, Ahmad Yousef Abdulqader Abu Jadu and Muhammad Jamil Abu Olaya, during a raid on the city.

Occupation settler violence – home invasion: Nablus – 17:45, a gang of Israeli settlers invaded a house in the village of Iraq-Burin.

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Why we protest

By Leslie Bravery – 7 January 2010

    Police arrested Global Peace and Justice activist, John Minto, and Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) member, Janfrie Wakim, along with three other people outside the ASB Tennis Centre in Auckland today. The arrests came on the second day of protest against the presence of Israeli tennis player, Shahar Peer, at the ASB Classic tournament. Both groups have been demonstrating in support of the world-wide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) which includes sporting contacts.

    In a democracy, every citizen must accept a measure of personal responsibility for the behaviour of government. The opportunity to vote every three years is no excuse for inaction should the government act irresponsibly or fail to uphold justice. Moreover, news media that abdicate their responsibility for full and fair reporting threaten the viability of the democratic system. There are times when the citizen has no alternative but to stand up and shout loudly, at the risk of disturbing the 'peace', in order for the small voice of justice to be heard at all. How often do our politicians or the columns of our newspapers express concern for justice or international law?

    Noam Chomsky, celebrated author, lecturer and MIT Professor, noting the silence of the US news-media regarding the humanitarian aid mission to the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip, told the group of well over a thousand people, who have been held in Egypt while trying to deliver hundreds of vehicle-loads of food and medicine to the people of Gaza: "Despite the media blackout, which is a disgrace, this is turning out to be a really spectacular triumph, I think, and it's hard to express properly my admiration and respect for those who are directly engaged."

    Israel is preventing goods as varied as desperately-needed building material to infant formula from reaching the trapped and traumatised people of Gaza. The New Zealand Government, quick to denounce the governments of Iran and Fiji, remains wilfully silent over this grotesque act of inhumanity and breach of international law. In New Zealand our news media take their cue from the US and largely ignore the plight of the Palestinian people. Our government, complicit with the US in the disastrous military occupation of Afghanistan, avoids criticising Israel's chief ally and arms supplier whose assistance has, according to Israel, made the Zionist state the world's fourth most potent military power. US aid for Israel is tied to arms sales and 75% of the aid must be used to buy military material made in the US. If ever there were a corporate agenda, this is certainly one.

    Every day the Israeli Army destroys more Palestinian homes, builds barriers through farmland and bulldozes crops. The Israeli Navy routinely targets Palestinian fishing boats. Malnutrition in the Gaza Strip is increasing. Neta Golan, a Jewish Israeli woman, had her eyes opened in Ramallah. She said, “I refused to believe that a soldier would open fire on an innocent child, but I saw it. But when you are in the West Bank, and you see a child throw a stone at a tank, you understand that if that child is killed, that is murder.” In his article Ma’ale Adumim: Annexation and the Architecture of Apartheid, Michael Ratner says, “ . . . stand at the edge of East Jerusalem and look out at a vast construction project on someone else’s land. Look out at the commission of a monstrous crime, open and notorious. As one of my children asked, “Why have the countries of the world done nothing to stop this?” I said, “It’s worse, the US and others have aided and abetted this crime.”

    Silence is complicity.

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Recent news updates:

Christian Peacemakers deported from Israel. Two members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams have been refused entry into Israel and deported.