The deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem on August 19 was foreshadowed by a pair of suicide attacks a week earlier which killed two Israeli civilians. While U.S. media tended to portray these attacks as a return to violence after a relatively peaceful period, there were numerous killings in the weeks leading up to the suicide bombings that underscore the lack of evenhanded attention given to loss of life in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
When the two Palestinian suicide bombers each killed an Israeli civilian along with themselves on August 12, U.S. news outlets immediately depicted the attacks as an apparent resurgence in Mideast violence. "Summer truce shattered in Israel," announced CBS (8/12/03), while NBC (8/12/03) reported that "the attacks broke more than a month of relative silence." The Los Angeles Times (8/13/03) wrote that the bombings "broke a six-week stretch during which the people of this war-weary land had enjoyed relative quiet."
During this six-week period of "relative quiet," however, some 17 Palestinians were killed and at least 59 injured by Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. The dead included Mahmoud Kabaha, a four-year-old boy, who was sitting in the back seat of a jeep with his family at a checkpoint when an Israeli soldier shot him dead - in a spray of bullets that the army simply called an "accidental burst of gunfire" (Associated Press, 7/25/03). Virtually none of the major U.S. news reports on the August 12 bombings alluded to the Palestinian death toll in this period, leaving out a key piece of the story: For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the violence had never ceased; while the Israeli attacks had decreased, there had never been anything like an Israeli cease-fire.
An Associated Press report on August 19 (filed prior to that day's bombing) did acknowledge that since June 29, "more than 20 people have been killed on the Israeli and Palestinian sides." What it didn't note was that of those "more than 20," at least 21 were Palestinian, according to the Red Crescent.
After a month and a half in which Palestinians were being killed several times a week and receiving relatively little mention, the Washington Post and New York Times both put the bombings on their August 13 front pages, each declaring the violence a break from weeks of "relative calm," and each including a front-page photo of the victims' relatives in mourning. USA Today also put grieving relatives on the front page, along with the headline, "Two Suicide Attacks End a Six-Week Lull in Conflict." One can empathize with the losses of those survivors while recognizing that the families of the Palestinians who died during the "lull" were virtually invisible.
On CNN, the August 12 bombings were a major story, with eight separate segments mentioning the attacks in a three-hour period. Anchor Wolf Blitzer declared a "grim return to the battle days in Israel and the Palestinian territories." His colleague Aaron Brown echoed that theme, noting that "after a period of relative calm there has been a major surge in violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories." Correspondent Jerrold Kessel reported that the bombings "cast doubt on the viability of this peace process known as the road map for peace."
These bombings had killed four people, including the bombers. Just four days earlier, on August 8, two Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in an Israeli raid on a suspected militant, while two more Palestinians were killed at an ensuing rally-- one shot, and the other killed by Israeli tear gas (Chicago Tribune, 8/9/03). But those five deaths - mainly Palestinian - were not deemed a "major surge in violence" or a "grim return to the battle days" on CNN. Instead, anchor Carol Costello (8/8/03) suggested that the Israeli raid "may be another smudge, a bump if you will, on that road map to peace."
The media's tendency to downplay - or completely ignore—Palestinian suffering and death is nothing new. In late 2001 and the beginning of 2002, for example, a loose cease-fire declared by Yasir Arafat led to a period of very few Israeli deaths, but sustained Palestinian deaths—and the American media repeatedly referred to it as a time of "relative calm" (FAIR Action Alert, 1/10/02, 2/5/02).
In order to convey the Mideast crisis in all its complexity, journalists need to take seriously the violence suffered by all communities. References to "relative calm" while Palestinians are being routinely killed only serve to trivialize human life and obscure the cycle of violence that afflicts the region.
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism:
http://www.fair.org
E-mail: fair@fair.org
Mark the Jewish New Year by Gathering Together to Call For:
An End to the Occupation! No More Palestinian Homes, Lives, and Fields Destroyed by Caterpillar Bulldozers!
A Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
Please continue for reports from the International Solidarity Movement and the Palestine Monitor
The End of the Road Map?, by Sam McGarry
The “Road Map to Peace,” lauded by George W. Bush as "a new hope," is in shreds after a day of brutal bloodshed and violence in Gaza and the West Bank.
Giving strong echoes of the White House “war against terror'” rhetoric, the office of Ariel Sharon's Israeli government declared Friday, "the operations in the West Bank and Gaza are against `terror groups,' not the PA."
Mid-afternoon Thursday, the assassination in Gaza City of a senior Hamas official was reported. Ismail Abu Shanab was one of three Palestinians killed Thursday afternoon in a missile attack in Gaza City that Israeli security sources admitted had targeted Shanab. Hamas and Islamic Jihad immediately declared that their temporary ceasefire was officially over.
In Tulkarem, a 16 year old Palestinian was shot dead by troops and at least five others were injured after IOF troops invaded the city. Eyewitnesses reported the teenager as being unarmed.
In Nablus, where the army invaded the old city about two hours after midnight, a daytime curfew was imposed before day-break. Three Palestinians were known to have been arrested early on in the incursion. These arrests were followed swiftly by house to house searches where rat-holes have been blown in house walls, controlled explosions destroying several buildings, soldiers randomly firing at parked cars on the street, and military occupation of a school and privately owned houses.
The buildings destroyed included several shops and a town mosque.
Disturbances and arrests were also reported from Jenin and Hebron.
Sam McGarry
ISM Media Co-ordinator
Beit Sahour
Occupied Palestine
International Solidarity Movement:
http://www.palsolidarity.org
Palestine Medical Relief
URGENT ALERT
Emergency Medical Relief Services - Nablus, attacked again
At 3.30 am on Thursday the 21st of August, the Israeli occupying forces once again invaded the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic, in the old city in Nablus. Upon entering the clinic, the soldiers ordered all the staff to leave. Fortunately on this occasion, no one was injured and no equipment was destroyed. However, the soldiers did not allow Palestine Medical Relief staff to reenter the clinic until 9.30am, so for 6 hours, medical personnel were prevented from carrying out their essential humanitarian work.
During the same night, ten Palestine Medical Relief First Aid volunteers were detained by the Israeli occupying forces, who confiscated their Identification Cards, keeping them for five hours. This prevented the volunteers from also carrying out their vital work of seeing to the wounded.
Palestine Medical Relief calls on all humanitarian, human rights and health organizations to condemn the Israeli occupying army's recent actions because they violate the principals of medical neutrality and constitute a gross violation of International Law. At a time when there were many Palestinian civilians needing urgent medical attention, the Israeli army prevented help from reaching them. This is a clear provocation by the Israeli occupying army who have now attacked the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic in Nablus five times. Clinics in Ramallah, Gaza and Jenin have also previously
been subjected to Israeli army attacks.
For further information please contact The Palestine Monitor:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org
The Palestine Monitor
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
UPDATE
Israel Invades 3 Palestinian Cities,
Carries Out Assassination Killing 3 in Gaza,
& Annihilates West Bank Village
August 21st. 2003
As the Palestinian Cabinet met late into the night, heavily armed Israeli forces began a series of violent assaults into West Bank towns and cities vehemently escalating the currently volatile situation and damaging irreconcilably, the tenuous US sponsored Road Map to peace.
As evening fell large numbers of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles began to amass on the outskirts of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron and Tulkarem. In the early hours of the morning these large forces commenced simultaneous operations - invading refugee camps and medical centers, demolishing houses, whilst arresting and injuring many.
In Jenin tanks entered the refugee camp, firing randomly into the air before invading houses and terrorizing sleeping families. The city of Hebron was placed under a strict curfew with all entrances and back roads closed. No one may enter or leave the city. In Nablus too, large numbers of tanks and jeeps entered the town and invaded a Palestine Medical Relief Clinic in the Old City. The Israeli operation is continuing inside Nablus.
In Tulkarem several people were injured when four tanks and approximately ten armored vehicles invaded. Soldiers closed off the city and refugee camp entirely and arrested three people. Information from Tulkarem Hospital later confirmed that one boy, age 15, Sayid Ghanem, had been killed in an exchange of fire.
Despite continuing curfews, as dawn broke, one Palestinian community in particular were able to see the true extent of the night's damage and the real meanings behind it. Governor Iz al-Din al-Shareef of Tulkarem reported how Israeli forces entered the town of Nazlat 'Isa in the night and, giving residents just minutes notice, began to demolish more than seventy homes and shops. The estimated cost of this destruction and subsequent loss to the local community, he estimates is somewhere between 15 and 20 million dollars. The motives behind this destruction of Nazlat 'Isa however, are much more calculated than retaliation or retribution. Lying close to the green line, this demolition on such a huge scale has conveniently cleared the ground for Israel to continue the construction of its devastating apartheid wall, furthering their process of ethnic cleansing.
The Israeli authorities justified these overnight attacks as retaliations for Tuesday's suicide bombing - an operation for which one militant group were responsible. Yet last night, Palestinians all over the West Bank went to bed expecting attacks on their homes, and they will do the same tonight. It seems unlikely that there will be any end to this escalating situation in the near future. Only yesterday Israeli authorities opened up Temple Mount to 350 Israelis, having earlier in the week sealed off areas around the Old City in an attempt to severely limit the number of Palestinian worshippers reaching the mosque compound of the Haram Al- Sharif to pray. It goes without saying that these events will be viewed by the Palestinian community as a sincere provocation. It was after all Ariel Sharon's visit to Temple Mount on September 28, 2000 that became the pretext for instigating large scale demonstrations which led to the start of the Intifada.
Just hours ago, Senior Hamas official, Ismail Abu Shanab was killed, along with two others, when Israeli Airforce Helicopters fired 4 missiles at a car traveling in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. Fifteen bystanders were also injured.
For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor: http://www.palestinemonitor.org
The Palestine Monitor
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
UPDATE
The New "Berlin Wall" in Rafah
19th August 2003
Whilst attention remains focused on efforts to prevent completion of the Apartheid wall in the West Bank, residents of Gaza are afraid that there, the subtle construction of a similar structure will pass unnoticed. Already stretching a distance of seven kilometers and like the West Bank wall, reaching eight meters into the sky, the wall under construction in Rafah is the continuation of a gradual process initiated by agreements made between Israel and Egypt at Camp David.
Located in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, Rafah sits on the Egyptian Palestinian border. Following the Camp David negotiations and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula the subsequent demarcation of international borders, meant that the borderline now passed through Rafah, technically dividing the city into two directly adjacent populated areas. The Israelis demarcated the borderline by constructing a closed area approximately 40 meters wide separating Palestinian Rafah from the Egyptian border.
At the outbreak of the last Intifada, the Israeli army intensified their forces at the border area and further increased the demarcation zone from 40m to 100m. According to Rafah's Mayor, Sayid Zorba, 920 Palestinian buildings were demolished by Israeli forces during the intifada in order to facilitate this expansion leaving 13,000 people homeless.
The fence now built along the western parameter of the city was begun a year ago. However, rather than build this wall in land already cleared by demolitions during the intifada, Israeli forces began clearing a second area by demolishing further Palestinian homes. The wall now being constructed lies, not on the borders established by Sadat in 1978, but at least 70meters into Palestinian territory.
For the time being the location of the wall follows the line of the border with Egypt but it is not known if building will stop at this or begin to circumvent the town. Mayor Sayid Zorba remains skeptical. He believes that taking into account past experiences it is most likely that the construction of the wall will continue with the purpose of separating Rafah city from Israeli settlements such as Yam, Etsmona, and Morage. Eventually, he believes, this wall will completely surround the City which could then be accessed only by security gates.
Mayor Sayid Zorba's concerns echo Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo's accusations that Israel is seeking to turn Palestinian population centers into "ghettos" and "detention camps." Abed Rabbo was referring to refusals from Israel to remove military roadblocks outside Palestinian population centers in the West Bank. Israeli policy of erecting roadblocks outside each and every Palestinian town and village prevent Palestinians from traveling between towns and villages and therefore from reaching their
jobs, schools and homes.
For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org
SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST the APARTHEID WALL THAT ISRAEL IS CONSTRUCTING IN the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Please Distribute as Widely as Possible
Dear Friends,
The building of the Apartheid Wall in the Occupied Territories is now at a critical stage. The completed sections of the wall have already caused considerable suffering to the Palestinian population. Homes have been demolished, thousands of olive trees uprooted, acres upon acres of land have been expropriated, roads have been destroyed - all to make way for this monster. If Israel is allowed to continue building it, much greater hardships and undue suffering await the Palestinian population. Now, when the Palestinians are engaging in nonviolent protests against this unjust wall (which will bring no security to Israel), we - Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals of the Mas'ha Peace Camp-ask you to help stop construction, NOW.
Add your voices to the Petition against construction of the Wall.
Read and sign the petition on: http://www.stopthewall.org.il
When the two Palestinian suicide bombers each killed an Israeli civilian along with themselves on August 12, U.S. news outlets immediately depicted the attacks as an apparent resurgence in Mideast violence. "Summer truce shattered in Israel," announced CBS (8/12/03), while NBC (8/12/03) reported that "the attacks broke more than a month of relative silence." The Los Angeles Times (8/13/03) wrote that the bombings "broke a six-week stretch during which the people of this war-weary land had enjoyed relative quiet."
During this six-week period of "relative quiet," however, some 17 Palestinians were killed and at least 59 injured by Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. The dead included Mahmoud Kabaha, a four-year-old boy, who was sitting in the back seat of a jeep with his family at a checkpoint when an Israeli soldier shot him dead - in a spray of bullets that the army simply called an "accidental burst of gunfire" (Associated Press, 7/25/03). Virtually none of the major U.S. news reports on the August 12 bombings alluded to the Palestinian death toll in this period, leaving out a key piece of the story: For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the violence had never ceased; while the Israeli attacks had decreased, there had never been anything like an Israeli cease-fire.
An Associated Press report on August 19 (filed prior to that day's bombing) did acknowledge that since June 29, "more than 20 people have been killed on the Israeli and Palestinian sides." What it didn't note was that of those "more than 20," at least 21 were Palestinian, according to the Red Crescent.
After a month and a half in which Palestinians were being killed several times a week and receiving relatively little mention, the Washington Post and New York Times both put the bombings on their August 13 front pages, each declaring the violence a break from weeks of "relative calm," and each including a front-page photo of the victims' relatives in mourning. USA Today also put grieving relatives on the front page, along with the headline, "Two Suicide Attacks End a Six-Week Lull in Conflict." One can empathize with the losses of those survivors while recognizing that the families of the Palestinians who died during the "lull" were virtually invisible.
On CNN, the August 12 bombings were a major story, with eight separate segments mentioning the attacks in a three-hour period. Anchor Wolf Blitzer declared a "grim return to the battle days in Israel and the Palestinian territories." His colleague Aaron Brown echoed that theme, noting that "after a period of relative calm there has been a major surge in violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories." Correspondent Jerrold Kessel reported that the bombings "cast doubt on the viability of this peace process known as the road map for peace."
These bombings had killed four people, including the bombers. Just four days earlier, on August 8, two Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in an Israeli raid on a suspected militant, while two more Palestinians were killed at an ensuing rally-- one shot, and the other killed by Israeli tear gas (Chicago Tribune, 8/9/03). But those five deaths - mainly Palestinian - were not deemed a "major surge in violence" or a "grim return to the battle days" on CNN. Instead, anchor Carol Costello (8/8/03) suggested that the Israeli raid "may be another smudge, a bump if you will, on that road map to peace."
The media's tendency to downplay - or completely ignore—Palestinian suffering and death is nothing new. In late 2001 and the beginning of 2002, for example, a loose cease-fire declared by Yasir Arafat led to a period of very few Israeli deaths, but sustained Palestinian deaths—and the American media repeatedly referred to it as a time of "relative calm" (FAIR Action Alert, 1/10/02, 2/5/02).
In order to convey the Mideast crisis in all its complexity, journalists need to take seriously the violence suffered by all communities. References to "relative calm" while Palestinians are being routinely killed only serve to trivialize human life and obscure the cycle of violence that afflicts the region.
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism:
http://www.fair.org
E-mail: fair@fair.org
Mark the Jewish New Year by Gathering Together to Call For:
An End to the Occupation! No More Palestinian Homes, Lives, and Fields Destroyed by Caterpillar Bulldozers!
A Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
Please continue for reports from the International Solidarity Movement and the Palestine Monitor
The End of the Road Map?, by Sam McGarry
The “Road Map to Peace,” lauded by George W. Bush as "a new hope," is in shreds after a day of brutal bloodshed and violence in Gaza and the West Bank.
Giving strong echoes of the White House “war against terror'” rhetoric, the office of Ariel Sharon's Israeli government declared Friday, "the operations in the West Bank and Gaza are against `terror groups,' not the PA."
Mid-afternoon Thursday, the assassination in Gaza City of a senior Hamas official was reported. Ismail Abu Shanab was one of three Palestinians killed Thursday afternoon in a missile attack in Gaza City that Israeli security sources admitted had targeted Shanab. Hamas and Islamic Jihad immediately declared that their temporary ceasefire was officially over.
In Tulkarem, a 16 year old Palestinian was shot dead by troops and at least five others were injured after IOF troops invaded the city. Eyewitnesses reported the teenager as being unarmed.
In Nablus, where the army invaded the old city about two hours after midnight, a daytime curfew was imposed before day-break. Three Palestinians were known to have been arrested early on in the incursion. These arrests were followed swiftly by house to house searches where rat-holes have been blown in house walls, controlled explosions destroying several buildings, soldiers randomly firing at parked cars on the street, and military occupation of a school and privately owned houses.
The buildings destroyed included several shops and a town mosque.
Disturbances and arrests were also reported from Jenin and Hebron.
Sam McGarry
ISM Media Co-ordinator
Beit Sahour
Occupied Palestine
International Solidarity Movement:
http://www.palsolidarity.org
Palestine Medical Relief
URGENT ALERT
Emergency Medical Relief Services - Nablus, attacked again
At 3.30 am on Thursday the 21st of August, the Israeli occupying forces once again invaded the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic, in the old city in Nablus. Upon entering the clinic, the soldiers ordered all the staff to leave. Fortunately on this occasion, no one was injured and no equipment was destroyed. However, the soldiers did not allow Palestine Medical Relief staff to reenter the clinic until 9.30am, so for 6 hours, medical personnel were prevented from carrying out their essential humanitarian work.
During the same night, ten Palestine Medical Relief First Aid volunteers were detained by the Israeli occupying forces, who confiscated their Identification Cards, keeping them for five hours. This prevented the volunteers from also carrying out their vital work of seeing to the wounded.
Palestine Medical Relief calls on all humanitarian, human rights and health organizations to condemn the Israeli occupying army's recent actions because they violate the principals of medical neutrality and constitute a gross violation of International Law. At a time when there were many Palestinian civilians needing urgent medical attention, the Israeli army prevented help from reaching them. This is a clear provocation by the Israeli occupying army who have now attacked the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic in Nablus five times. Clinics in Ramallah, Gaza and Jenin have also previously
been subjected to Israeli army attacks.
For further information please contact The Palestine Monitor:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org
The Palestine Monitor
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
UPDATE
Israel Invades 3 Palestinian Cities,
Carries Out Assassination Killing 3 in Gaza,
& Annihilates West Bank Village
August 21st. 2003
As the Palestinian Cabinet met late into the night, heavily armed Israeli forces began a series of violent assaults into West Bank towns and cities vehemently escalating the currently volatile situation and damaging irreconcilably, the tenuous US sponsored Road Map to peace.
As evening fell large numbers of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles began to amass on the outskirts of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron and Tulkarem. In the early hours of the morning these large forces commenced simultaneous operations - invading refugee camps and medical centers, demolishing houses, whilst arresting and injuring many.
In Jenin tanks entered the refugee camp, firing randomly into the air before invading houses and terrorizing sleeping families. The city of Hebron was placed under a strict curfew with all entrances and back roads closed. No one may enter or leave the city. In Nablus too, large numbers of tanks and jeeps entered the town and invaded a Palestine Medical Relief Clinic in the Old City. The Israeli operation is continuing inside Nablus.
In Tulkarem several people were injured when four tanks and approximately ten armored vehicles invaded. Soldiers closed off the city and refugee camp entirely and arrested three people. Information from Tulkarem Hospital later confirmed that one boy, age 15, Sayid Ghanem, had been killed in an exchange of fire.
Despite continuing curfews, as dawn broke, one Palestinian community in particular were able to see the true extent of the night's damage and the real meanings behind it. Governor Iz al-Din al-Shareef of Tulkarem reported how Israeli forces entered the town of Nazlat 'Isa in the night and, giving residents just minutes notice, began to demolish more than seventy homes and shops. The estimated cost of this destruction and subsequent loss to the local community, he estimates is somewhere between 15 and 20 million dollars. The motives behind this destruction of Nazlat 'Isa however, are much more calculated than retaliation or retribution. Lying close to the green line, this demolition on such a huge scale has conveniently cleared the ground for Israel to continue the construction of its devastating apartheid wall, furthering their process of ethnic cleansing.
The Israeli authorities justified these overnight attacks as retaliations for Tuesday's suicide bombing - an operation for which one militant group were responsible. Yet last night, Palestinians all over the West Bank went to bed expecting attacks on their homes, and they will do the same tonight. It seems unlikely that there will be any end to this escalating situation in the near future. Only yesterday Israeli authorities opened up Temple Mount to 350 Israelis, having earlier in the week sealed off areas around the Old City in an attempt to severely limit the number of Palestinian worshippers reaching the mosque compound of the Haram Al- Sharif to pray. It goes without saying that these events will be viewed by the Palestinian community as a sincere provocation. It was after all Ariel Sharon's visit to Temple Mount on September 28, 2000 that became the pretext for instigating large scale demonstrations which led to the start of the Intifada.
Just hours ago, Senior Hamas official, Ismail Abu Shanab was killed, along with two others, when Israeli Airforce Helicopters fired 4 missiles at a car traveling in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. Fifteen bystanders were also injured.
For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor: http://www.palestinemonitor.org
The Palestine Monitor
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
UPDATE
The New "Berlin Wall" in Rafah
19th August 2003
Whilst attention remains focused on efforts to prevent completion of the Apartheid wall in the West Bank, residents of Gaza are afraid that there, the subtle construction of a similar structure will pass unnoticed. Already stretching a distance of seven kilometers and like the West Bank wall, reaching eight meters into the sky, the wall under construction in Rafah is the continuation of a gradual process initiated by agreements made between Israel and Egypt at Camp David.
Located in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, Rafah sits on the Egyptian Palestinian border. Following the Camp David negotiations and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula the subsequent demarcation of international borders, meant that the borderline now passed through Rafah, technically dividing the city into two directly adjacent populated areas. The Israelis demarcated the borderline by constructing a closed area approximately 40 meters wide separating Palestinian Rafah from the Egyptian border.
At the outbreak of the last Intifada, the Israeli army intensified their forces at the border area and further increased the demarcation zone from 40m to 100m. According to Rafah's Mayor, Sayid Zorba, 920 Palestinian buildings were demolished by Israeli forces during the intifada in order to facilitate this expansion leaving 13,000 people homeless.
The fence now built along the western parameter of the city was begun a year ago. However, rather than build this wall in land already cleared by demolitions during the intifada, Israeli forces began clearing a second area by demolishing further Palestinian homes. The wall now being constructed lies, not on the borders established by Sadat in 1978, but at least 70meters into Palestinian territory.
For the time being the location of the wall follows the line of the border with Egypt but it is not known if building will stop at this or begin to circumvent the town. Mayor Sayid Zorba remains skeptical. He believes that taking into account past experiences it is most likely that the construction of the wall will continue with the purpose of separating Rafah city from Israeli settlements such as Yam, Etsmona, and Morage. Eventually, he believes, this wall will completely surround the City which could then be accessed only by security gates.
Mayor Sayid Zorba's concerns echo Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo's accusations that Israel is seeking to turn Palestinian population centers into "ghettos" and "detention camps." Abed Rabbo was referring to refusals from Israel to remove military roadblocks outside Palestinian population centers in the West Bank. Israeli policy of erecting roadblocks outside each and every Palestinian town and village prevent Palestinians from traveling between towns and villages and therefore from reaching their
jobs, schools and homes.
For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org
SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST the APARTHEID WALL THAT ISRAEL IS CONSTRUCTING IN the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Please Distribute as Widely as Possible
Dear Friends,
The building of the Apartheid Wall in the Occupied Territories is now at a critical stage. The completed sections of the wall have already caused considerable suffering to the Palestinian population. Homes have been demolished, thousands of olive trees uprooted, acres upon acres of land have been expropriated, roads have been destroyed - all to make way for this monster. If Israel is allowed to continue building it, much greater hardships and undue suffering await the Palestinian population. Now, when the Palestinians are engaging in nonviolent protests against this unjust wall (which will bring no security to Israel), we - Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals of the Mas'ha Peace Camp-ask you to help stop construction, NOW.
Add your voices to the Petition against construction of the Wall.
Read and sign the petition on: http://www.stopthewall.org.il