Palestine Update 601
Comment
Intensified Palestinian resistance
The Electronic Intifada has narrated how events in the occupied West Bank show how the intensifying Palestinian liberation struggle is being met with Israel’s repressive and vicious violence. Clearly the Palestinian struggle has entered a new political space. The same source also describes how previously extremist fringe settlers now see themselves being advocated for and supported at the highest levels of the Israeli government. They have been “emboldened and (are almost) beyond the restraint of the army”. The Palestinian Authority is now ineffectual beyond recognition. Rather, it is viewed as an obedient servant to its Israel masters. Palestinians question its raison d’être because it serves no tangible purpose for the Palestinian people. Electronic Intifada also points out how “in a situation of complete Israeli impunity, and only empty gestures by international parties towards a nonexistent peace process, the grim statistic of more than 100 Palestinians killed in the West Bank so far this year foretells the even worse violence likely to come”.
Meanwhile, in a ground-breaking agreement, Hamas, Fatah and 12 other Palestinian groups have agreed to hold legislative and presidential elections within one year. Fingers crossed! Fairly often, such agreements have been broken and nullified from the colonial entity and internal frictions and interests.
Meanwhile, a report from the Palestinian Prisoners Society reported that thirty Palestinian administrative detainees in the Israeli occupation prisons are still on an open-ended hunger strike for the 15th day in protest of their unfair detention without charges or trial. 28 of the 30 hunger-striking detainees have been placed in solitary confinement in the Israeli prison of Ofer ever since they started the hunger strike. The group asserts that if Israel executes more administrative detention orders, more prisoners will be expected to join the strike.
Please disseminate the news in this newsletter widely. It is vital because it explains a deepening and firm resistance against a brutal military assault on civil rights. On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates
Ranjan Solomon
Hundreds of Palestinians confront Israeli forces in East Jerusalem
“Hundreds of Palestinians confronted Israeli security forces across occupied East Jerusalem overnight as Israeli soldiers, using tear gas and stun grenades, made several arrests. Residents were reported to have taken to the streets in Isawiyah, Silwan, A-Tur, Ras al-Amud, Shuafat, Jabel Mukaber, Sur Baher and Beit Hanina…Many Palestinians had observed a day of civil disobedience earlier on Wednesday in solidarity with residents of the Shuafat camp in East Jerusalem which has been under Israeli lockdown for five days.”
Read more in Middle East Eye
Also read:
Palestinians strike against Israeli siege on Jerusalem camp (Al Jazeera);
View Photos:
A day of civil disobedience in Shuafat Refugee Camp (+972)
‘Siege on Shoafat’ Has United East Jerusalem in Protest
“Residents seemed happy that the clashes had spread throughout East Jerusalem. In their view, the siege on Shoafat had united the Arab part of the city. They also said their strike had brought partial success, in that two routes to leave the camp by car were opened….“What happens in Shoafat happens in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah,” declared Mohammed Khattib, a resident of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. “We aren’t neighborhoods, we’re one unit whose sole goal is to defend ourselves.” He accused police of “trying to divide us into towns and neighborhoods, but what happens here due to police oppression befalls each and every one of us.”
Read more in Haaretz
The northern West Bank is taking up arms. Will the south join?
Armed resistance against Israeli incursions is mostly concentrated in Jenin and Nablus. But Palestinians on the ground say that could quickly change. “Why is armed resistance in the northern West Bank growing but not in the south? Will it spread beyond the north? Will it continue? Through conversations with journalists, commentators, and political activists, it became clear that there are no easy answers to these questions. One reason for the difficulty is that the armed resistance is acting relatively independently, with no centralized political movement putting forward a plan and no leadership outlining a clear path…The disparity between the level of control the PA maintains in the north versus the south is visible in numerous ways. Not only is it more difficult for the PA to act in the north, but there is a major gap in the number of arrests carried out in each region. “The PA’s security forces carry out far more arrests in Hebron than they do in the north,” Al-Natsha said. “The occupation army is also more active in the south. All of this diminishes the resistance in the south relative to the north.”
Read more in 972mag.com
Palestinian factions sign reconciliation agreement in Algeria
Hamas, Fatah and 12 other Palestinian groups agree to hold legislative and presidential elections within one year. “Rival Palestinian factions meeting in Algiers for talks mediated by the Algerian government have agreed on a reconciliation deal that aims to resolve 15 years of discord through new elections in the occupied Palestinian territories. The agreement was signed by senior Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmad; chief of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniya; and the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Talal Naji…Other Palestinian figures who were invited to sign the document included Ahmed Majdalani, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative; and Bassam al-Salhi, secretary general of the Palestinian People’s Party…According to Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, the deal does not include a section on forming a unity government but it does include clauses on developing the structures of the PLO, forming its national council and holding legislative and presidential elections.”
Read detailed narrative in Al Jazeera
30 Palestinian detainees remain on hunger strike for 15th day
Thirty Palestinian administrative detainees in the Israeli occupation prisons are still on an open-ended hunger strike for the 15th day in protest of their unfair detention without charges or trial, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS). PPS, a prisoner advocacy group, said 28 of the 30 hunger-striking detainees have been placed in solitary confinement in the Israeli prison of Ofer ever since they started the hunger strike. The group said last week that in the event that Israel executes more administrative detention orders, more prisoners will be expected to join the strike. Last month, administrative detainees in Israeli prisons sent a message in which they asserted that confronting the administrative detention will continue and that the practices of the Israel Prison Services “are no longer governed by the security obsession as an actual driver of the occupation, but rather are acts of revenge due to their past.”
Israel has escalated its administrative detention policy against Palestinians as the number of administrative detainees currently exceeds 760, including minors, women and elderly. According to the Prisoners Affairs Commission, 80 percent of the administrative detainees are former prisoners who spent years in the prisons most were administrative detentions. Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals usually ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing. Amnesty International, has described Israel’s administrative detention policy as a “cruel, unjust practice which helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.”
Source: Palestine News Network
