Israel crushes Palestinians on LAND DAY
Following the auto-proclamation of Israel in May 16th of 1948, the brand new Prime Minister who had been in command of the terrorist brigade Haganah, responsible, along with Lehi and Irgun brigades, of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, ordered the army - composed of the terrorists converted into regular soldiers - to shoot and kill any Palestinian who dared cross the new borders to return to their land.
70 years lates, the IDF is implementing the exact same policy at the Gaza's 'Great Retunr March'.
Murderers then. Murderers now. That is what the Yishuv were; that is what Israelis are.
17 unarmed Palestinians were killed to this date and 1,416 (758 of them from live fire, twenty are said to be in critical condition) others were seriously wounded after the IDF (Israeli occupation army) fired live ammunition at protesters, their snipers child hunted from the hills surrounding Gaza's open prison, and used tear gas to push the young protesters back from the heavily fortified fence - stronger and higher than Auschwitz'.
"Medical facilities in Gaza, which have already been overstrained by the longstanding shortages of medical supplies, electricity and fuel, are struggling to cope with the overwhelming number of casualties", the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated.. "Gaza's health ministry reported shortage of essential medical supplies, including emergency and anesthesia drugs and disposables, in addition to essential laboratory materials."
To New York Times editor (and maybe readers as well) and most Israelis, it doesn't matter whether he and she were trying to cross the fence. Whether he and she were shot in their back. Whether they were preying. Whether they were waving their national flag. Whether they were at home with their families or playing outside. "If they were shot, they probably deserved it".
17 unarmed Palestinians were killed to this date and 1,416 (758 of them from live fire, twenty are said to be in critical condition) others were seriously wounded after the IDF (Israeli occupation army) fired live ammunition at protesters, their snipers child hunted from the hills surrounding Gaza's open prison, and used tear gas to push the young protesters back from the heavily fortified fence - stronger and higher than Auschwitz'.
"Medical facilities in Gaza, which have already been overstrained by the longstanding shortages of medical supplies, electricity and fuel, are struggling to cope with the overwhelming number of casualties", the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated.. "Gaza's health ministry reported shortage of essential medical supplies, including emergency and anesthesia drugs and disposables, in addition to essential laboratory materials."
To New York Times editor (and maybe readers as well) and most Israelis, it doesn't matter whether he and she were trying to cross the fence. Whether he and she were shot in their back. Whether they were preying. Whether they were waving their national flag. Whether they were at home with their families or playing outside. "If they were shot, they probably deserved it".
Shame on them. And shame on the great pretender Mark Regev when he lies on Channel 4 about the criminal use of live fire.
Israeli soldiers operate under a shoot-to-kill or cause diability policy in Gaza’s boundary areas. The exact range of the zone is undeclared but is generally understood to be within 300 meters of the Gaza-Israel boundary.
According to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, the Israeli army's killing of the Palestinians who were demonstrating along the Gaza Strip's eastern border on Friday was unlawful and calculated: "The Israeli government presented no evidence that rock-throwing and other violence by some demonstrators seriously threatened Israeli soldiers across the border fence," the report, released on Tuesday, said.
Friday's demonstration commemorated Land Day, which took place on March 30, 1976, when six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces during protests against the Israeli government's decision to expropriate massive tracts of Palestinian-owned land.
Organisers of Friday's march, dubbed the Great Return March, said the main message of the demonstration was to call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Friday's demonstration commemorated Land Day, which took place on March 30, 1976, when six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces during protests against the Israeli government's decision to expropriate massive tracts of Palestinian-owned land.Organisers of Friday's march, dubbed the Great Return March, said the main message of the demonstration was to call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Some 70 percent of Gaza's two million population are descendants of Palestinians who were driven from their homes in the territories taken over by Israel during the 1948 war, known to Arabs as the Nakba. Which means that every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee. Israel has denied Palestinians from returning to the land from which they were expelled, a right enshrined in international law.
Tents have been erected at five locations along Gaza’s eastern boundary for a six-week protest that will end on the 15 May, when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the mass expulsion that preceded and followed the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
Israeli forces killed some three dozen Palestinian refugees who had marched to return to their homeland from Lebanon and Syria in 2011.
Israeli forces killed some three dozen Palestinian refugees who had marched to return to their homeland from Lebanon and Syria in 2011.
Protesters in Gaza gathered in five different spots along the border, originally positioned about 700 metres away from the fence.
According to the ministry, the majority were injured in live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas inhalation.
Mohammed Najjar, 25, was shot in the stomach in a clash east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, while Mahmoud Muammar, 38, and Mohammed Abu Omar, 22, were both shot dead in Rafah.
Mohammed Najjar, 25, was shot in the stomach in a clash east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, while Mahmoud Muammar, 38, and Mohammed Abu Omar, 22, were both shot dead in Rafah.
The other 11 victims were identified as Ahmed Odeh, 19, Jihad Freneh, 33, Mahmoud Saadi Rahmi, 33, Abdelfattah Abdelnabi, 22, Ibrahim Abu Shaar, 20, Abdelqader al-Hawajiri, Sari Abu Odeh, Hamdan Abu Amsheh, Jihad Abu Jamous, Bader al-Sabbagh and Naji Abu Hjair, whose ages remain unknown.
Earlier on Friday, farmer Omar Wahid Abu Samour, 26, was also killed by Israeli artillery fire while he was on his land near Khan Younis just hours before the demonstration, more than 700 meters from the boundary fence, in southern Gaza.
Israel's army deployed more than 100 snipers on the other side of the border with order to fire. Besides those professional killers, their mates used 20.000 bullets, dozens of artillery shells, 10.000 teargas shells, 5000 Ib MK-82 bombs.
The march was called for by all political factions and several Palestinian civil society organisations in the besieged enclave.
Friday's protest also kicked off a six-week sit-in demonstration along the border leading up to the commemoration of the Nakba on May 15.
Which let us believe that the 17 killed so far, on Sunday morning, are only the first of dozens, let us hope not hundreds or thousands until May 15th.
Gaza is in a chronic humanitarian crisis and on the edge of full-blown disaster after more than a decade of Israeli siege and three massive military onslaughts during that period.
With no end to Israel’s siege in sight, Palestinians in Gaza are politically isolated, increasingly impoverished and have precious few places to turn.
The spokesperson of the Great March of Return, Ahmad Abu Artema, estimated that 150,000 people had taken part in the protest, “sending a message of people power to the occupation”:
Israeli forces killed 19 Palestinians inside the Gaza boundary between the beginning of 2017 and 3 March 2018, according to B’Tselem.
Eight Palestinians inside Gaza were killed protesting against Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December alone.
Eight Palestinians inside Gaza were killed protesting against Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December alone.
Friday marked the greatest number of Palestinian fatalities in a single day at the hands of occupation forces since a ceasefire ended Israel’s 51-day military assault on the Gaza Strip in summer 2014, which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians.
Israeli forces have killed 34 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip so far this year.
And the IDF continued to shoot to kill on the 31st and will not stop, unless the so called civilized countries stop them.
Meanwhile home demolitions in the West Bank continue the process of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The Meaning of Land Day
Several minor strikes took place during the 1970s by Palestinians as a pattern of increased taxes and discriminatory policies emerged. At the beginning of 1976, the Palestinian population, the indigenous people of the land, had not enough space for construction nor agriculture as a result of the systematic confiscation of their land which amounted to five million acres (203 sq km) at the time.
Simultaneously the Israeli government confiscated another 21,000 acres of agricultural land in the Galilee region. That decision sparked the onset of the general strike. The authorities decided to suppress the strike at all costs, and return the Arab masses to a state of fear.
Demonstrations were suppressed with live bullets by the Israeli occupation authorities. This resulted in immediate tens of injuries, hundreds detained and the killing of six Palestinians: Raja Abu Ria, Khader Khalayleh, Khadija Shawahneh from Sakhnin, Rafat al-Zuhairi from Ain Shams camp, Hassan Taha from Kafr Kanna, Khair Ahmed Yassin of Araba Batuf.
The protesters, however, succeeded in countering the expropriation decision and preserved the land. Since that day, Palestinians have been commemorating the anniversary of Land Day, the anniversary of the martyrs and the cry of rejection to all the attempts at dissolution and domestication that the Palestinians endured since their territories were occupied by Yishuv (Jewish immigrants) in 1917 and by Israelis in 1948.
The struggle of the Palestinian people since the fellayin (peasant) revolution in 1936, the longest Palestinian revolt against British rule, until today hails from an honest and intuitive realisation that the meaning of land and the relationship with it transcends the material dimension to what is deeper.
It empowers the Palestinians to continue to the end the confrontation, no matter how costly or scary it may seem to the intellectual. Land Day is a gift to the original mother, the land that carries all meaning of life in the conscience of its children.
Commemorating this March and ahead of the distant March, Palestinians continue to walk the path to its end and pay the full price, with steadfastness, without being stripped of their faith, the source of motivation to keep going without turning back.
Those who walk along that path are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, husbands and lovers. Their immortal journey is drenched in all kinds of emotions and human stories that cannot be reduced to numbers. These are rare stories that do not resemble each other nor lose their beauty when recounted year after year.
They follow that path because they know how to protect their identity from loss and theft. Some may depart drenched in blood and in our love but they know that embarking on that path is the greatest protection of all that they love.
This miraculous nobility is the answer to the question: why and how did the Palestinians not despair or retreat despite the toughness of their path, and the multitude of its obstacles.
This is the sacrifice offered by Palestinians not only to the stones and soil of the land, but to the songs of the peasants during the harvest days, the singing of women at village weddings, the fishing trips and the humming of shepherds. While waiting for a train at the station or under the shade of a tree, the joy of parents cooing to their infants, the moments of safety and surprise that the sun provides while hiding in the Haifa Sea at the end of busy days, and for a safe prayer in Jerusalem which meets the peasants' evenings, and their laughter during summer nights.
It is the holy sacrifice for Palestine's rain, the blossoming of its flowers and the perseverance of its children in maintaining the land, one generation after the other. And so it is, their little lives have lovingly become a sacred and noble sacrifice.
The martyrs of the land were never numbers despite Israel's effort to bury many of them in numberless cemeteries with no witnesses nor history. They remain in the land's womb from where they originally emerged. The land recognises them and keeps them immortal.
The land for which they continue to sacrifice is not only dust and stones. It is the mother of all tales and the embrace of all those truthful ones who were targeted by powerful armies across history.
The children of the land recognise when rain is good for the harvest and when to worry about it, like the worry of a mother for her child. They did not despair over these last 100 years. Their knowledge about the land is the answer to "how and why?"
This knowledge is protected only by blood and age and transcends all languages. And because they are like that they knew how to remain immortal in their Palestinians descendants, and how to continue the struggle today, tomorrow, until freedom comes and the refugees return.
The dishonesty starts in the first sentence of the Times report, which contends that the protests “descended almost immediately into chaos and bloodshed,” with “at least five Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers.”
Note the cunning effort to use vagueness to hide the fact that Israel fired live ammunition (“descended. . . into bloodshed”), and “clashes” — insinuations that both sides are somehow responsible for the five deaths.
The dishonesty continues. The Times describes Hamas as “the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza and is known for its armed resistance.” OK, somewhat tendentious, but where’s the description of Israel as “a government that has massively attacked Gaza three times since 2008, killing thousands, mainly civilians and many children?”
Next, the Times does mention Israel’s blockade of Gaza, “which Israel calls a security imperative.” But you won’t read the other side, which is that many others, Palestinians and some Israelis, counter that Israel maintains the blockade not mainly to protect itself, but to suffocate and discredit Hamas, which won elections in Gaza in 2006.
Then even more bias. The Times: “Girding for violence, Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units and drones. . .” But where’s the other, far more accurate side of the story: “Israel, facing a propaganda debacle as thousands of Gazans launched a mass peaceful protest, did everything it could to provoke violence to discredit the protest and intimidate Gazans once more.”
Buried in the Times article is just one hint about what is really happening, a quote from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization. B’Tselem “warned in a statement that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be unlawful. . .”
What is troubling and disgraceful in the Times report is that so far, there is no first-hand reporting from Gaza. A newspaper genuinely interested in the truth would send reporters to the border in Gaza and ask some of the thousands of Palestinian demonstrators what is actually happening to them — instead of just parroting the Israeli military.
INSIDE STORY: What is behind the protests in the Gaza Strip?
PALESTINA
Israeli Apartheid Week continues
Apartheid Adventures
Israeli Apartheid Week continues
Students have voted for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) to support a boycott, divest and sanction campaign against Israel, with 64.5 per cent of students voting in favour.
For the referendum, students were asked: “Should TCDSU accept a long term policy on Palestine and in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)?”
The vote was welcomed with cheers and chants. The campaign has worked for months to first get a referendum, then to secure support from students.
Apartheid Adventures
Meanwhile, a Palestinian refugee in England shows food recipes that serve up resistance
BRASIL
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