While the Occupation is 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

(Compiled by Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign POB 56150, Dominion Rd, Auckland, New Zealand www.palestine.org.nz)

29 May 2013 [Main source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group (PMG). http://www.nad-plo.org/dailyreports.php] NB: We shall always do our utmost to verify the accuracy of all items in these IOP newsletters/reports wherever possible – but please forgive us for any errors or omissions (not of our own making) that may occur! L & M.

Israeli forces open fire on Palestinian vehicle, beating up and injuring the driver

Israeli Army shoots its way onto refugee camp farmland and bulldozes crops

Israeli Army positions behind Green Line open fire on Central Gaza refugee camp farmland

Israeli forces shoot their way onto al-Qarara farmland and bulldoze crops

Israeli Army destroys Palestinian home in East Jerusalem – injury

Zionist fanatics set fire to and destroy 20 acres of Palestinian olive trees and wheat crops

Israeli settler militants invade Palestinian farmland, destroy 300 olive trees and annex more land

Yet another settler arson attack on a Palestinian village

Israeli Occupation troops raid two Palestinian villages and conduct military exercises

1:05am: raiding Israeli troops beat up and injure 17-year-old youth

Night raid: Israeli troops raid Beit Awa and abduct 16-year-old youth

Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 14 towns and villages

4 attacks – 23 raids including home invasions – 2 beaten – 4 injured

6 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage

31 taken prisoner – 13 detained – 112 restrictions of movement

Home invasions & occupations: 02:30, al-Eizariya - 02:30, Abu Dis - dawn, - 10:00, Rumana - 22:30, Rumana - 01:20, al-Yamun.

Peace disruption raids: 10:10, Rantis - 02:25, Beitunya - 03:00, al-Bireh - 12:00, Ibziq - 08:30, Tulkarem - 00:30, Tulkarem - 17:00, Ramin - 23:40, Anabta - 20:30, Far’ata - 20:30, Immatin - 01:05, Nablus - 01:25, Bida - 01:25, Masha - 12:20, al-Oja - 03:10, al-Oja - 09:20, Yatta - 23:30, Beit Awa - 05:30, Einabus.

Palestinian attacks: none

Israeli attack – beating – injury: Hebron – 13:40, Israeli forces positioned near al-Nabi Yunis opened fire on a Palestinian vehicle and then beat up and injured the driver before taking him prisoner.

Israeli attack – agricultural sabotage – tear gas grenades: Central Gaza – dawn, the Israeli Army shot its way onto al-Bureij refugee camp farmland, fired tear gas grenades at residents and farmers and bulldozed crops. See also: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=600069

Israeli attack – agricultural sabotage: Central Gaza – evening, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on al-Maghazi refugee camp farms.

Israeli attack – agricultural sabotage: Khan Yunis – evening, Israeli forces shot their way onto al-Qarara farmland and bulldozed crops.

Raid – military exercises: Tubas – 12:00, Occupation troops raided Ibziq village while conducting military exercises.

Raid – theft: Tulkarem – 00:30, Israeli soldiers raided the city, invaded a shop and stole a computer.

Raid – military exercises: Qalqilya – 20:30, the Israeli Army raided Immatin and conducted military exercises.

Raid – youth beaten up: Nablus – 01:05, Israeli troops, raiding the city, beat up and injured a 17-year-old youth, Taysir Al-Haq.

Raid – youth abducted: Hebron – 23:30, Israeli forces raided Beit Awa and abducted a 16-year-old youth, Lu’ay A-Masalma.

Israeli Army rubber-coated bullets and tear gas grenades: Jerusalem – 15:30, the Israeli Army fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas grenades at pedestrians in Silwan.

Israeli Army house destroyed – injury – tear gas casualties: Jerusalem – 10:30, Israeli Occupation troops destroyed the home of a local, injuring one person and causing several tear gas casualties.

Israeli Army destruction – economic sabotage: Jerusalem – 09:00, Israeli forces destroyed a vehicle repair shop and forced three local shops to close. See also: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/4828-israeli-forces-demolish-auto-repair-shop-northeast-of-jerusalem

Israeli Army stun and tear gas grenades: Ramallah – 09:35, Israeli forces fired stun and tear gas grenades at people near the Ofer Prison.

Israeli Army rubber-coated bullets and tear gas grenades: Bethlehem – 11:25, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas grenades at al-Khadr residents.

Occupation settler arson attack – agricultural sabotage: Qalqilya – 20:10, Zionist fanatics set fire to and destroyed 20 acres of olive trees and wheat crops between the villages of Jit and Far’ata.

Occupation settler incursion – agricultural sabotage – land theft: Nablus – 16:00, Israeli settler militants invaded Awarta village farmland and destroyed 300 olive trees and annexed land, surrounding it with a barbed-wire fence. See also: http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/settlers-uproot-300-olive-trees-in-awarta-near-nablus/

Occupation settler raid – arson attack: Nablus – 05:30, a Zionist mob stormed Einabus village and set fire to a vehicle.

Occupation settler abuse: Salfit – 11:30, Israeli settlers insulted and attempted to provoke a Palestinian man, Mustafa Al-Haq Zatra, as he waited at a checkpoint.

School children detained: Hebron – 13:15, Israeli soldiers detained 27 schoolchildren near al-Tuwani village in south Yatta.

Economic sabotage: Gaza – the Israeli Navy continues to enforce a three nautical-mile fishing limit.

SEE ALSO: Restrictions of Movement notes after Behind the Wall (below)

Recent news updates:

Occupation settlers burn cars, spray graffiti across West Bank.

Israeli Army demolishes two homes in East Jerusalem.

Israeli Army to investigate soldiers filmed beating Palestinian in custody. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-to-investigate-soldiers-filmed-beating-palestinian-in-custody.premium-1.526497

Settlements are still a war crime: Israeli Occupation to demolish 450 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.

Soldiers beat up family members and damage home while arresting Palestinian teenager. Israeli soldiers beat up and dragged Abed Al-Rahem Awad down the stairs of his home, pepper-sprayed his sisters and threw several stun grenades through the windows of the family home. Earlier this year, the Israeli Army shot dead Awad's younger brother. He was shot in the back at close range.

Settlers set fire to four vehicles in Tubas. | Palestine News Network: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/4823-settlers-set-fire-to-4-vehicles-in-tubas

Conference on Palestine. Auckland 22 & 23 June 2013 – in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. An invitation to New Zealand’s national Conference on Palestine will be held in Auckland on 22 & 23 June. Conference Programme: International speakers: Israeli author Miko Peled (The General’s Son), and Palestinian activist from Gaza, Yousef Aljamal. Miko Peled’s book, The General’s Son, will be available at the conference for $25 (normal retail about $30). The book can also be purchased now for $25 + postage of $4 in New Zealand. Email orders to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ]. Support this special event – donations welcome. For more information: go to the 'Conference on Palestine' events page on FaceBook or www.kiaoragaza.net – We will set up a special conference website soon. Contact email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ● Tali Williams (Kia Ora Gaza) ● John Minto (Global Peace and Justice Auckland) ● Mike Treen (National Director, Unite Union) ● Janfrie Wakim and Billy Hania (Palestine Human Rights Campaign) ● Hela Rahman (Students for Justice in Palestine) ● Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP- Auckland, Wellington, Waikato) ● Don Carson (Wellington Palestine Group).

IWPS: now recruiting volunteers to retain an international presence in Palestine in 2013-2014. A group of international women taking out a few weeks to show their solidarity with Palestinians. International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) is a small, female-driven, human rights organisation with members from all over the world. The group focuses on maintaining an international presence in Palestine and supporting the participation of women in resisting the illegal occupation. Visit the IWPS website, http://iwps.info, for more information and to download application packs for both long-term and short-term volunteers. The closing date for applications is 2 July 2013.

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"This time they destroyed everything": Uprooted Bedouin face more evictions

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours     The Electronic Intifad     Atir-Umm al-Hieran

24 May 2013 http://electronicintifada.net/content/time-they-destroyed-everything-uprooted-bedouins-face-more-evictions/12485

A clothesline hangs between heaps of twisted metal and cracked slabs of concrete, while a handful of olive trees lay haphazardly, their roots exposed, under the scorching Naqab desert sun. Less than a week ago, this was where approximately 600 Israeli police officers were deployed to demolish 18 structures, including 10 homes, and uproot 600 trees in the “unrecognized” Palestinian Bedouin village of Atir-Umm al-Hieran, just 30 minutes from the major city of Bir al-Saba (Beersheva). Residents reported seeing approximately thirty flat bed trucks haul away most of the rubble, while Israeli police set up a dozen roadblocks in both directions along the main road, preventing residents from trying to stop the bulldozers. Only a few destroyed buildings were left behind and broken toys, notebooks and other personal effects remained scattered across the sand. “It’s the worst thing that can happen,” said Khader Abu al-Qian, a village elder, from the shade of a makeshift tent across the street from the scene of the destruction.

The Israeli authorities demolished two homes in Atir once before, in 2007. But police and agents with the Israel Land Administration regularly come to the village to take photographs of buildings, Abu al-Qian explained. They even once asked him if he would rather demolish the village himself, or wait for them to do it.

“More extreme”

Despite this experience, Abu al-Qian said that last week’s demolition — in an area of the village home to fifty persons, including over two dozen children — was something completely different. “They have become more extreme in everything,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t imagine they could ‘clean’ the area like this.” Abu al-Qian’s 18-year-old son Nour echoed this sentiment. “This time, they destroyed everything,” Nour, who witnessed the demolition from beginning to end, told The Electronic Intifada. He said residents had no time to take their belongings out of their homes before the demolitions were carried out. Nour now sleeps in a makeshift tent with four of his siblings; inside the tent, thin mats and blankets were piled on cinder blocks, gathering dust as the wind swept through the village. “It’s very difficult. But we will rebuild the houses. We will remain here,” he said. Some 200,000 Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel live in the country’s southern Naqab (Negev) desert region. Though they constitute approximately 30 per cent of the area’s total population, the Bedouin live on just five per cent of the land. Many have legal claims to their lands pending before Israeli courts.

Lack of services

Approximately half of the Bedouin community lives in government-planned townships, which suffer from high unemployment and poverty, and a widespread lack of services. The other half live in three dozen unrecognised villages, like Atir-Umm al-Hieran. Israel does not provide these unrecognised villages with basic services, including water, electricity, schools, or health facilities, and regularly demolishes homes and other structures. Israel has pursued a policy of Bedouin urbanisation for decades, in an effort to contain the Bedouin population on as little land as possible. In 2008, Israel appointed former high court judge Eliezer Goldberg to look into “Bedouin settlement” issues in the Naqab. Shortly afterwards, a new committee was formed to implement Goldberg’s findings under Ehud Prawer, director of planning policy in the prime minister’s office.

The Prawer Plan, as it became known, suggested forcibly evicting 40 per cent of the Bedouin community — between 30,000 and 40,000 people — from their homes, and moving them into urban townships. The Israeli cabinet approved the Prawer Plan in its original form in September 2011. After Benny Begin, then a minister, made very minor changes to the plan, an updated version was approved in January of this year, and lauded by the government as a generous proposal that will help modernise the Bedouin community. “The goal of this historic decision is to put an end to the spread of illegal building by Negev Bedouin and lead to the better integration of the Bedouin into Israeli society,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the plan was finalised (“Cabinet approves Minister Benny Begin’s recommendations on formalizing the status of Bedouin settlement in the Negev,” Prime Minister’s Office, 27 January 2013). “This brave decision will facilitate the continued development and prosperity of the Negev, for the benefit of all its residents.”

Affront to basic rights

But both local and international human rights bodies, including Amnesty International and the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, among others, have criticised the plan as an affront to the Bedouin’s basic human rights. “Forcibly evicting tens of thousands of Bedouin from communities where they have lived for generations cannot be justified in the name of economic development or any other reason,” said Ann Harrison, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. “What the proposed law does is send the Bedouin communities into a human rights desert by stripping already vulnerable citizens of legal safeguards against house demolitions and forced evictions. This blatantly violates international law,” Harrison added (“Israel: New government must scrap plans to forcibly evict Bedouin,” 20 April 2013). According to many local activists, last week’s demolition in Atir-Umm al-Hieran was the largest display of Israeli force in demolishing a Bedouin village so far this year, and has drawn comparisons to the first demolition of another unrecognised village, al-Araqib.

In July 2010, more than 1200 Israeli police destroyed 46 structures, including 30 homes, in al-Araqib and made all 300 village residents homeless overnight. But it wasn’t the first time the Israeli authorities have aimed to displace Bedouin families in Atir-Umm al-Hieran. After some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly evicted from their homes following the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, the villagers were moved from their community in Khirbet Zubaleh, which today is a Jewish-Israeli community called Kibbutz Shuval. After being transferred a handful of other times, the Israeli government finally resettled the residents to the Wadi Atory area in 1956, on an order from the Israeli military governor in the Naqab at the time. This is where they built the community of Atir-Umm al-Hieran that exists today. Approximately 1000 residents — all members of the Abu al-Qian Bedouin tribe — live in Atir-Umm al-Hieran. A single, pothole-ridden road leads to and from the village, which sits just north-west of the recognised Bedouin township of Hura.

Facing eviction

In Atir, the Israeli government aims to build a forest in the exact spot residents now live, while in place of Umm al-Hieran, the state plans to build a Jewish-only town, named Hiran. If these plans go ahead, all 1000 Bedouin living in the area will be evicted against their will. “They will start in villages [where] there are no land claims. The people of Umm al-Hieran and Atir and Wadi al-Naam [the largest unrecognised Bedouin village in the Naqab] are people who were already displaced once, twice or three times. They are not sitting on their ancestral lands, so they will start with them,” said Dr Thabet Abu Ras, head of the Naqab office of Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel. Abu Ras told The Electronic Intifada that Israel is not only trying to evict Bedouin citizens, but also erase all traces of Arab presence in the Naqab or Negev desert. “It’s amazing how the government is trying to uproot the people and their history in the same place. They were uprooting all the trees that are associated with the Arabs,” he said. “I think the government is intensifying its efforts to implement Prawer before even the law is passed.”

The Prawer Plan will be brought to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, for a first reading in the process of becoming a law on Monday, 27 May. Meanwhile, small demonstrations have been held in Bedouin communities throughout the Negev against the plan over the past week, and a protest is planned for Monday in front of the Knesset as well. “There are lots of tensions in the field. There is a lot of mobilisation. Young people now are more involved in this, but until now, we didn’t succeed to bring all the tribes to work together. But it can happen,” Abu Ras said.

“People are insisting on staying in their lands. They can demolish their houses, but they will stay on the land.”

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Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary film-maker based in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at jkdamours.com.

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Further news sources

Ali Kazak's newsletter Today in Palestine contains many news summaries that include both armed and non-violent methods of resistance to the Occupation. The newsletter also contains much other useful reporting. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more news see: Today in Palestine!

www.groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi

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Behind the Wall

Rich Wiles is a photographic artist who has been living and working in Palestine for some years. His photographic work has been shown around Europe, the US, Australia and in Palestine itself. Since 2006 he has been writing from Occupied Palestine under the title Behind the Wall. Much of this work is based in and around the refugee camps in Palestine, highlighting daily life and memories of refugees who still live in forced exile for over 60 years since Al Nakba (The Catastrophe). www.richwiles.com

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Life under Israeli military occupation

Every area of Israeli Occupied Palestinian territory experiences varied and arbitrary restrictions of movement imposed by the Israeli Army. The lack of freedom of movement is the frustrating and humiliating background to daily life for the Occupied Palestinian people whose suffering includes a variety of human rights abuses from night home invasions to wanton acts of agricultural and economic sabotage.

The Israeli Occupation Army enforces a permit system for the benefit of settlers that determines where Palestinians may live in their own land. Every area of Israeli-Occupied Palestinian territory experiences varied and arbitrary restrictions of movement imposed by the Israeli Army. The lack of freedom of movement is the frustrating and humiliating background to daily life for the Occupied Palestinian people, whose suffering includes a variety of human rights abuses, from night home invasions to wanton acts of agricultural and economic sabotage.

Access to safe, clean water is a fundamental human right yet, across the Occupied West Bank, Israel's illegal settlements have completely free access to water. Settler homes enjoy full swimming pools and well-watered gardens while Palestinian access to their own water is severely restricted. Israel compounds this crime in two ways: (1) The Zionist state forces Palestinians to pay the Israeli government for what little water they are allowed and (2) at the same time, Israel forbids Palestinians to sink wells or even build water storage facilities. Thus the Israeli regime profits while maintaining crippling control over a captive population's water supply. In addition, reports by both the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (www.unep.org/PDF/dmb/UNEP_Gaza_EA.pdf) show that the water crisis in Gaza is likely to be both critical and irreversible by 2020. The reports show that Gaza is almost completely dependent on a coastal aquifer but that, due to low rainfall, it has now become filled with undrinkable sea water. Both international bodies express concern that Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip means severe limitations on people's access to essential water supplies.

Israel places checkpoints at the entrances to towns and villages to prevent people entering or leaving. Interference with people attempting to move around towns and villages consists of blocking roads with concrete blocks, barbed-wire and/or earth mounds on roads. People attempting to transport farm produce and other goods find obstacles placed on the roads by the Israeli Army. Trucks have to be unloaded by hand and similarly re-loaded onto vehicles brought from beyond the obstructions. Road closures are used to isolate areas wherever the Israeli Army considers the presence of Palestinians to be ‘illegal’. When the Israeli Army declares a curfew, anyone appearing in the street or at a window is liable to be shot dead. There are instances of Palestinian mothers giving birth at checkpoints, having been denied ready access to hospital.

Agricultural and economic sabotage

Farmers are prohibited, and often terrorised by both illegal settlers and the Israeli Army, from going to work on their land. Occupation settlers and the Israeli Army uproot or set fire to olive trees and bulldoze Palestinian crops. The Gaza fishing industry is ruined by the enforcement of a draconian fishing limit. The Israel Navy forces Palestinian fishing boats to remain within an alternating three- to six-nautical-mile, over-fished zone, sometimes at the cost to crews of life, limb and property.

Gaza City's ruined international airport is permanently closed. Palestinians needing to enter or leave Palestine can do so only with Israeli permission. In addition to Israel's occasional massive bombing raids, Gaza residents are forced to live with the constant fear of overflying drones and the traumatising effects of sonic booms created by Israeli war-planes. The effects on the children of Gaza are particularly distressing.

House demolitions and evictions

The Israeli Army destroys Palestinian houses built without Israel's permission and invades homes, very often at dead of night, often abducting Palestinian minors. The soldiers frequently terrorise the youngsters with threats and/or by blindfolding them and tying their wrists behind their backs. Many children are illegally taken to prison in Israel, where more terror is practised against them, such as solitary confinement and shackling in painful positions for long periods.

Israel’s toxic hazard weapon

Israel has devised yet another technique designed to to drive Palestinians from their land and weaken their resolve to resist. It is a direct assault on their health that carries the menace of further agricultural and economic sabotage. For instance, activity at Israel's Barkan industrial complex generates growing quantities of polluting waste-water from the production of plastics, lead and other commodities that endanger human health. Pollution from Barkan flows into the streams that run through valleys or wadis where there are Palestinian farms as well as towns. Israeli Occupation settlements discharge their untreated waste to add to the pollution. This practice poisons Palestinian land, crops, farm animals and essential, if meagre, water supplies. Settlers – with Israeli Army assistance – release wild pigs, that reproduce rapidly, into Palestinian areas, spoiling agriculture and damaging olive trees, fencing and small buildings. The pigs cannot be controlled because Israel will not allow the people to own or use firearms, or even knives to kill the pigs. Poison cannot be used because of the danger to Palestinian farm animals.

Israeli Army checkpoints feed semi-wild dogs to release at night in Palestinian areas. Even in towns like Beit Sahour, the sound of dogs continually barking during the small hours makes sleep difficult and discourages people from moving around during the late evening or early morning. In addition, when conducting home invasions, the Israeli Army often uses dogs to terrorise residents.

Forced evacuations of homes to facilitate Israeli Army military exercises

An example of this practice is contained in an International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) report (No 459 / Human Rights Summary: Weekly Military Training in ‘Atuf, Jordan Valley http://iwps.info) on the Israeli Army's terrorising of a Bedouin community in the Jordan Valley. The report tells of a continual programme of Israeli military training in the village of ‘Atuf that traumatises the population. Every week 22 families amounting to 172 individuals, are displaced from their homes from 4am to 5pm by Israeli military live-fire exercises. Since 1967 Israeli troops have been forcing the Bedouin people to leave their houses each week. Whole families and their livestock are displaced to outlying fields to the sound of gunfire and explosions. The entire area is designated area “C” and there is a 'closed military zone' where nothing is allowed to be built or improved. An entire valley of fertile farmland lies uncultivated while the nearby Occupation settlement of Beqa constantly expands. In both ‘Atuf and Tamun countless houses have been demolished by the Israeli Army and many more are under demolition orders. Since 1970, 14 people have been killed and 30 have lost limbs due to exploding abandoned Israeli Army ordnance. The explosives can be as small as a pen, easily mistaken by children as harmless. The continual sound of explosions and gunfire results in many cases of psychological trauma, especially to children, and the only school in the district is within earshot of the weekly Israeli military exercises.

Israeli Army violence

The Israeli Occupation Army enforces many of the above restrictions with the threat, or actual use, of military action as well as personal physical assault. Thus, daily life for Palestinians is conducted in an all-pervasive atmosphere of violence and fear imposed by an occupying foreign army. In addition to all of the above, Palestinians have to contend with Israel's anti-Palestinian laws of discrimination: There are more than 50 Israeli laws (http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-Database) that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all areas of life, including their rights to political participation, access to land, education, state budget resources and criminal procedures. Some of the laws also violate the rights of refugees and Palestinians living under belligerent Israeli military Occupation.

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Visit http://www.sapienspromise.org/ for further news.

See this In Occupied Palestine newsletter at: the PHRC website: www.palestine.org.nz

- and you can check out previous editions by clicking on In Occupied Palestine listed under Contents

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Stop the Violence Coalition

Stop the Violence is a coalition aimed at fighting against Israeli violence and crimes all over the world. The purpose of the coalition is to co-ordinate the efforts of groups and individuals working to protest against the historic and continuing oppression of Palestinian people by the Israeli regime. Our coalition is an independent and non-profit organisation, based in Europe, which was formed as part of a global movement against Israeli apartheid. We can also provide the latest news, articles, photos, events and petitions.

Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC)

Declaration

We believe that a just peace in Palestine/Israel depends upon the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the dismantling of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel, recognising that the further partitioning of Palestine in order to create the so-called two-state solution would lead only to further injustice and suffering.

We advocate the primacy of international law, the acceptance of which by the Israeli regime must be the basis for the ending of Israeli military occupation and all forms of ethnic discrimination.

We work to raise awareness of the international community's responsibility for upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the urgent need for the state of Israel to be called to account for its gross abuses of Palestinian human rights.

We call for the establishment of a unitary, secular and democratic state in Palestine/Israel, with full and equal citizenship rights for Palestinians, Israeli Jews and all other ethnic communities.

The Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) works to raise public awareness of the Palestinian people's struggle to resist Israeli military occupation and Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. PHRC seeks to bring pressure on the New Zealand Government to join the majority of the international community in requiring Israel to:

● observe all relevant UN Resolutions and Geneva conventions

● cease ethnic discrimination and territorial annexation

● abandon its militarism and violence