Palestinians // Current

The Wild West Bank

Israel declared that it plans to start building its first settlement in the Jordan Valley since 1991, causing an uprising in the... more

ThreeCities
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Election boost for Israel's would-be prime minister, Tzipi Livni.

Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima party has the upper hand on Netanyahu's right wing party so far. Livni is trying to... more

urlspotter
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Palestinians dismantle road blockade

Palestinian residents of the Al-Mazra’a ash Sharqiya village dismantle roadblock as symbol of resistance. As Palestinian... more

Vierotchka
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Olmert admits Israel must withdraw

Olmert admits in interview Israel must withdraw from Occupied Palestinian Territories if it wants peace. Ehud Olmert passes... more

Vierotchka
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Humiliation and child abuse at Israeli checkpoints strip-searching children

Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens.

While organizations that focus on Israel-Palestine have long been aware that Israeli border officials regularly strip search men and women, If Americans Knew appears to be the first organization that has specifically investigated the policy of strip searching women. In the course of its investigation, If Americans Knew was astonished to learn that Israeli officials have also been strip searching young girls as young as seven and below.

According to interviews with women in the United States, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli border officials periodically force Christian and Muslim females of all ages to remove their clothing and submit to searches. In some cases the children are then "felt" by Israeli officials.

Sometimes mothers and children are strip-searched together, at other times little girls are taken from their parents and strip-searched alone. Women are required to remove sanitary napkins, sometimes with small daughters at their side. Sometimes women are strip searched in the presence of their young sons.

All report deep feelings of humiliation. Many describe weeping at the degradation they felt.

"I remember crying and pleading with my mother," Gaza journalist Laila El-Haddad recalls of an experience when she was 12-years-old, hoping that her mother could convince the Israeli official to allow her to keep her undershirt on. But parents are unable to shield their children, El-Haddad and others report.

"They had machine guns," El-Haddad explains. "We just had to submit." El-Haddad, who holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, believes that the intention of the strip searches is to humiliate Palestinians so that they won't return to Palestine.

Oregon attorney Hala Gores remembers being strip-searched at the age of 10. Her family, Palestinian Christians from Nazareth, were leaving Israel because of Israeli discrimination against Christians. Gores has never returned to her family's ancestral home in Nazareth, she says, in part because she does not want to repeat the experience of having no control over what is done to her.

The Israeli policy appears to target only Christian and Muslim children, and is equally applied to those with Israeli citizenship and citizenship in other countries, including native-born Americans. There are no reports of Jewish children being strip-searched.

New Jersey stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid describes being strip-searched at Ben Gurion Airport when she was "seven, eight, nine years old" on family trips to visit her parents' original home in Palestine. On her most recent trip in July 2006, Maysoon, an American citizen, had her sanitary pad taken by officials in Ben Gurion Airport. When the search was completed, she says, the Israeli official in charge, Inbal Sharon, then refused to return her pad or allow her to get another.

Zayid, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair, was then forced to bleed publicly for hours while she waited for her flight.
-----------------more Israeli child abuse at link
This is probably one of the sickest articles I've read on the human rights violations by Israeli government.....Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens. While organizations... more

WorldPeaceTV
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12 responses

1 month ago

Jordan valley withers in wilderness of Mideast politics

The Ein Gedi spa, built 40 years ago on the shore of the Dead Sea -- the lowest point on Earth -- now offers a tractor shuttle to... more

JanforGore
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16 responses

1 month ago

Olmert says Israel must withdraw from West Bank for peace

Israel's prime minister, who has a few weeks left in office, says that to achieve lasting peace, the nation has to cede most of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem to Palestinians.

Israel will have to give up "almost all" of the West Bank areas it occupies and accept the division of Jerusalem in order to take advantage of a rapidly closing window of opportunity for peace with the Arabs, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published Monday.

"The decision we are going to have to make is a decision we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed," the Israeli leader told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper. "The time has come to say these things. The time has come to put them on the table."

Olmert has resigned from the premiership because of a host of corruption investigations. But he remains in a caretaker position while Tzipi Livni, his successor as head of the ruling Kadima party, works to assemble a new government.

His interview with the prominent Israeli daily amounted to both a challenge to beliefs held as central to the Jewish state and a personal mea culpa. Though fresh rounds of talks with the Palestinian Authority and Syria were launched under his watch, Olmert acknowledged some of the positions he was advocating in the interview -- such as the division of Jerusalem -- were things he opposed during most of his 35-year political career.

"I am the first who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the entire city," said Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, noting that he opposed the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt. "For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at the reality in all its depth."

It is unclear what impact Olmert's statements will have, since he is most likely in the final weeks of his administration.

But it offered a telling portrait of Israeli political life and the constraints facing prime ministers who must constantly hedge their views on land-for-peace deals and especially on Jerusalem in order to maintain their governing coalitions.

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More at link.

It seems to me that, now that he has nothing left to lose, he is finally speaking his mind rather than speak his party's mind.Israel's prime minister, who has a few weeks left in office, says that to achieve lasting peace, the nation has to cede most... more

Vierotchka
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24 responses

1 month ago

Ahmadinejad's 'wipe Israel off the map' myth debunked yet again

The following is an exclusive Press TV interview with the president on his message for the world. He also sheds light on several controversial issues.

"Press TV: Alright, you just mentioned Israel and you called it the Zionist regime. A lot of controversy surrounds this issue. On the eve of your trip, the Jewish lobby is at work protesting, but behind the scenes stronger hands are at work to lobby each and every important politician in New York for both sanctions and a possible military attack against Iran. I want to know about this issue and the controversy of Israel being wiped off the map. A lot of controversy is surrounding that… was it a mistranslation, not a mistranslation? Mike Wallace had this interview with you a couple of years back. One part of it, a major part of it, was edited out. Your idea on the destruction of the state of Israel and Israel should be wiped off the map? The part you talked about democracy and referendum?

Ahmadinejad: We said we do not accept this regime and the solution that we are presenting is a humanitarian solution. It is a very clear solution. We are saying that the Palestinians should decide their destiny themselves; they should choose their own political system. What we are saying is very clear. We believe that the people whose ancestors have lived in that land and own the land although they have been deported and expelled and are under occupation, we are saying that they are the ones….

Press TV: So you did not threaten to wipe Israel off the map as an Iranian leader? That we will wipe Israel off the map?

Ahmadinejad: No. We say that the people of Palestine should have rights and when the people of Palestine exercise this right, this will happen. Where is the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union has been wiped off the map. What happened to the Soviet Union? The decision of the people, the vote of the people. When the people of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, were allowed to decide to take charge of their destiny, the Soviet Union disappeared.

The Zionist regime is an artificial regime… a fictitious regime. You brought people from different parts of the world and you have built this state. No, that cannot last, it is not sustainable. If they do not listen to our solution, this will happen one day.

Press TV: Now this issue of a fabricated regime. There have been reports that they are planning airstrikes on Iran. Every single day we are hearing reports that Israel is getting frustrated with our nuclear program….

Ahmadinejad: They are really too small to be a threat to Iran. They should protect themselves. They are not even able to protect themselves. The position of Iran is very clear. The capacity and the power of the people of Iran is very clear. The people of Iran are able to defend their territorial integrity and their national sovereignty. They know that Iran is a great country, an important power… a humanitarian power. The people of Iran know how to defend themselves and such propaganda has no impact on the people of Iran. The era of making threats is over."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to address the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23. The following is an exclusive Press TV interview with the president on his message for the world. He also sheds light on several... more

maasanova
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11 responses

1 month ago

The Palestinian Turn to a One-State Solution

A two-state solution was a compromise. But talks have gone nowhere, so many Palestinians are giving up.

starr111
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1 response

1 month ago

Gaza: 11 killed in battle with Doghmush clan

Hamas forces assaulted the compound of Doghmush, a heavily armed Gaza clan, sparking a fierce street battle that killed 11 people... more

Orith
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0 responses

2 months ago

Jewish boy stabbed in West Bank, Palestinians shot

NABLUS, West Bank, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Dozens of Israeli settlers clashed with residents of a Palestinian village in the occupied... more

GeoffNI
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0 responses

2 months ago

Al aqsa mosque in danger - Animated propaganda film by Hamas

Religious Jews are digging under the Temple Mount, encouraged by the Israeli Defence Forces. The new animated incitement film... more

Orith
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0 responses

3 months ago

Israeli troops shoot Palestinian man with learning difficulties

A Palestinian man with learning difficulties was in a critical condition in hospital in Ramallah last night after he was shot... more

lecoke
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1 response

3 months ago

Pro-Palestinian Activists Sail Into Gaza

Two boats carrying dozens of international activists and aid sailed into the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade on... more

ivxx
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0 responses

3 months ago

Son of Hamas Leader Turns Back on Islam and Embraces Christianity

Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story. He was born the son of one of the most influential... more

IAMHIPHOP
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0 responses

3 months ago

Gaza tunnel collapse kills three

The bodies have been recovered of three Palestinians who died when a smuggling tunnel under the border between Gaza and Egypt... more

IAMHIPHOP
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0 responses

3 months ago

Palestinian Refugees Still Nearly Forgotten in Iraq's No-Man's Land

The U.N. refugee agency says nearly 200 vulnerable Palestinian refugees stranded in the desert along the Iraq-Syria border for the last two years have been accepted for resettlement by Iceland and Sweden. The UNHCR reports the group, which had taken refuge in a kind of no-mans land, includes some of the most vulnerable women and children with urgent medical needs.

UNHCR Spokesman, Ron Redmond, says the stranded Palestinians have little chance of being resettled in a third country. He says they are unwilling to return to the homes they fled in Baghdad because they are afraid they will be killed.

"The Iraqi government has also been approached repeatedly by UNHCR to ensure that protection is provided to these Palestinian enclaves in Baghdad. But, this has been easier said than done in the past because they were specifically targeted, including by mortars and so on," said Redmond. "So, it is a very difficult thing to control."

About 34,000 Palestinians lived in Baghdad while Saddam Hussein was in power. They enjoyed many privileges denied Iraqis. After Saddam's downfall, Iraqis hostile to the Palestinians harassed, threatened, and even killed some of them.

Redmond says only about 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians remain in Baghdad.

He cites the case of a 30-year-old widow, with three children as typical of those who are unable to find a new home.

"Her husband was killed while trying to help the victims of a bombing. Another bomb went off and killed him. Their four-year-old son was with his father when this happened and saw his father killed before his eyes and so now has severe emotional problems. So, in that particular case, we are looking for a resettlement country that can help a female-headed household with children who suffered severe trauma," continued Redmond.

Redmond says the health situation of many of the refugees is increasingly dire and proper medical care is lacking. He says medical problems range from diabetes and birth defects to kidney problems, cancer and serious trauma. In the past 14 months, he says 12 Palestinian refugees have died in the camps.
The U.N. refugee agency says nearly 200 vulnerable Palestinian refugees stranded in the desert along the Iraq-Syria border for the... more