from Maan News Agency

Palestinians and their international supporters held a vigil marking the 15th anniversary of the massacre of 33 Palestinians by an Israeli settler in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday.

The demonstration took place near the fence surrounding the present day settlement of Kiryat Arba. The families of the victims of the massacre were present, along with officials from the Palestinian People’s Party and foreign solidarity activists.

The demonstrators carried 33 banners with the names of the victims and lit 33 candles and carried torches.

In response to the vigil, Israeli soldiers declared the area a closed military zone, shutting down roads leading to the site of the demonstration, in the Wadi Al-Ihsein neighborhood of Hebron.

On 27 February 1994, … Continue reading

The Jerusalem Municipality appears determined to move forward with the demolition of 88 homes in the Al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, located near Occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City. According to a well-attended press conference this morning sponsored by The Civic Coalition for Defending the Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem, surveyors have descended on the neighborhood which often signals imminent demolition. When completed, up to 2,000 Palestinians will be uprooted from their homes.

The Municipality is following a vicious policy, where they use city planning to achieve military, political, and nationalistic goals. Palestinian communities are fragmented and then isolated through forced dispossession from their houses and land and, in other cases, the use of zoning and planning to restrict growth. A coordinated effort … Continue reading

Ma’an – An Israeli military tribunal has issued a decision that could pave the way for the expansion of the West Bank settlement of Efrat without informing a group of Palestinians who were petitioning to save their land.

In the ruling, a court in the settlement of Ofer rejected eight separate petitions, each representing dozens of Palestinians. The petitioners had objected to a 2004 declaration by the Israeli Civil Administration to designating some 1,700 dunums (1.7 square kilometers) of land north of Efrat “state land.”

The land at stake belongs to the Palestinian village of Artas, on the southern outskirts of Bethlehem. A catholic monastery is located just to the north of the land slated for confiscation.

If the Israeli Defense Ministry approves … Continue reading

Ma’an – A key Israeli government agency has been promoting plans to build thousands of new houses in illegal West Bank settlements, government documents made public on Friday show.

Documents from Israel’s Civil Administration, the government organ responsible for nonmilitary affairs in the occupied West Bank, were obtained by the organization B’Tselem through a Freedom of Information request.

The plans, developed over the last two years, were approved by the Environment Subcommittee of the Civil Administration’s planning wing and plot out a major expansion of the Gush Eztion settlement bloc. If realized the plan will cut a swath of the West Bank adjacent to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, and annex it to the new settlement areas.

The initial construction would see … Continue reading

In the early hours on February 24th, Israeli Forces invaded the villages of Sa’ir and Idhna, in the Hebron district of the southern West Bank, and arrested four men. More than ten jeeps entered Idhna at approximately 12:30am. Around 40 soldiers surrounded the house of Hatem Mahmoud Al-Kharuf, and ordered all the family members outside. They then proceeded to search the house, turning everything upside down and smashing a bedroom wardrobe. A shared Taxi (service) owned by Hatem’s brother that was parked outside was also ransacked, with the soldiers tearing off large pieces of the interior and inexplicably breaking open the airbags. The taxi was just … Continue reading

Students involved in the occupation of the student center at New York University have an online petition you can sign to support their movement. After 2 days of occupation, with a support demonstration of over 1000 participants, New York Police officers and campus security violently disrupted the sit-in and support demonstrations. Several students have been suspended and are facing expulsion from housing because of their participation. The petition can be sign at:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/we-support-the-kimmel-occupation

Additionally, CUPE, a Canadian union that was one of the pioneers of the BDS campaign, is also calling for support on behalf of students at Canadian universities that have been facing repression for their support of Palestinian rights.

Here is the meesage from them:

CUPE … Continue reading

This past week a group of 80 students occupied the student center of New York University with a list of demands all geared towards greater democracy, transparency, and equality on their campus. Among their demands was full disclosure of NYU’s investment portfolio and divestment from companies that profit off of war. There was also a more general call for a statement in solidarity with Palestine. This comes the same month that the first American college, Hampshire College in Massachusetts, agreed to divest from Israel. Hampshire College was also the first school in the United States to divest from South Africa during the Apartheid regime. It is hoped that these actions will spread throughout the United … Continue reading

On February 17, 2009 the Israeli military began construction on a new section of the Annexation Barrier near the village of Ni’lin in Ramallah District. Several bulldozers were brought to the privately-owned agricultural land where they uprooted olive trees belonging to Palestinian residents. Israeli soldiers then invaded the village, shooting sound grenades, tear gas, and rubber-coated steel bullets at people in street, just as school was getting out. The video footage is provided by an international member of the international solidarity movement. Though certain villages such as Ni’lin, Bil’in, Al Ma’asara and Jayyous have gained national and international attention due to the presence of international and Israeli solidarity activists in the ongoing struggle against the Annexation … Continue reading

In the early hours of the morning on Wednesday, Occupation forces raided the village of Jayyous and arrested at least 45 people. Both entrances to the village have since been blocked off with mounds of dirt and stones, and an indefinite curfew has been imposed. Soldiers have also occupied 10 homes throughout Jayyous, and have erected Israeli flags on each of these houses.

Just after midnight, 25 Jeeps and 75 soldiers on foot entered the village and began conducting house-to-house raids, forcing their way into homes at gunpoint and arresting dozens of youth, including the son of the mayor of Jayyous. The soldiers beat whoever tried to prevent them from breaking into the houses, including at least one elderly … Continue reading

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israel’s sweep of detentions across the West Bank continued overnight Monday as Israeli Radio reported 26 detentions for “security reasons.”

The forces detained seven civilians in Tulkarem, seven others in the Qalqiliya governorate, eight from Husan village near Bethlehem, one from Beit Ummar north of Hebron and three others from Hebron city.

Locals from Husan village said at least 50 military vehicles surrounded the small village and troops dispersed throughout the town searching the homes of the five men taken for questioning.

The men were identified as:

Murad Hamamrah,
Ashraf Hamamrah,
Sa’id Hamamrah,
Khattab Hamamrah and
Saber Hamamrah

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Tuesday morning, detaining eight Islamic Jihad members at dawn, … Continue reading