issue no 75

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Issue No : 75 30th December, 2013

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

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Read In This Report

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Baby Girl Killed in Series of Israeli Airstrikes Hamas: Israeli raids criminal, cowardly

Haneyya Urges International Community to Shoulder its Responsibilities towards Gaza

Lack of fuel returns blackouts to Gaza

22 Palestinian Refugees Killed in Syria, 5 Others Die of Hunger

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Raids and Incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque at Highest Level Since 1967

Samer Issawi Returns Home after his Release

from Israeli Jail

Futility of Current Talks between Israel and PABy: Khalid Amayreh*

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Baby Girl Killed in Series of Israeli Airstrikes 4

Haneyya Urges International Community to Shoulder its Responsibilities towards 5 Gaza

22 Palestinian Refugees Killed in Syria, 5 Others Die of Hunger 6

Raids and Incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque at Highest Level Since 1967 7

Israel Kidnapped 3874, Including 931 Children, in 2013 8

Samer Issawi Returns Home after his Release from Israeli Jail 9

Israel›s New Settlements Will Coincide with the Release of Palestinian Prisoners 10

Hamas Did Not and Will Not Interfere in Egyptian Affairs, Spokesman Says 11

Israel Insider

Israeli Official: Netanyahu is Driving Israel towards Boycott 12

Articles & Analyses

Futility of Current Talks between Israel and PA 13

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News of Palestine

24/12/2013

Israeli warplanes launched on Tuesday afternoon several air raids on different areas in the Gaza Strip killing a baby girl and wounding several others.Three-year-old Hala Abu Sbaikha was killed while her mother and sister were injured in the ongoing aerial raids, medical sources said.Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, the health ministry spokesman in Gaza, told the PIC reporter that the air raids so far killed a three-year-old baby girl and wounded seven others.According to earlier statistics, four citizens were injured by the Israeli shelling on east of Maghazi in central Gaza, while another citizen was se-riously wounded after being

shot by Israeli gunfire north of the town of Beit Lahiya in north-ern Gaza and was transferred to Shifa Hospital.The Israeli airstrikes had report-edly hit two bases of the Qas-sam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Khan Younis and Bureij, while the IOF artillery targeted citizens in the neighbor-hood of Shaja›ia east of Gaza City.The attacks came hours after the death of an Israeli soldier who was shot in the heart by a Pales-tinian sniper near the border area east of Gaza.Palestinian sources said that a Palestinian sniper on Tuesday af-ternoon opened fire at an Israeli soldier near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and the

1948 occupied Palestinian land.They added that after the shoot-ing, the occupation troops and military vehicles were de-ployed in the area and launched a search.For his part, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, has described the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip that led to the killing of a three-year-old baby girl and injuring her mother and two brothers as criminal and cowardly.Abu Zuhri told the Palestinian Information Centre that the Is-raeli threats and airstrikes will not succeed in deterring Pales-tinian resistance or preventing it from assuming its role.

Source: Agencies

Baby Girl Killed in Series of Israeli Airstrikes Hamas: Israeli raids criminal, cowardly

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Haneyya Urges International Community to Shoulder its Responsibilities towards Gaza

Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

Lack of fuel returns blackouts to Gaza

28/12/2013

Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya called on the Arab countries and the interna-tional community to assume their moral responsibilities towards the Gaza Strip and protect its population against Israel›s blockade and aggres-sion.Premier Haneyya made his remarks during a visit on Thursday evening to the family of the three-year-old girl Hala Abu Sabikha in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.The premier offered his con-dolences to the bereaved family and saw the destruc-tion that had happened to their house and other prop-erty in the bombed area.The premier also listened to the residents› complaints and hailed their steadfastness in the face of the Israeli aggres-sion.On the other hand, Gaza’s sole power plant stopped working once again on Fri-day due to the lack of diesel

fuel after Israel closed Karm Abu Salem commercial crossing, pre-venting the entry of the needed fuel to run its turbines.Gaza›s Electricity Company was forced to limit electricity sup-plies to six hours per day instead of 12 hours, increasing the suf-fering of the people of the be-sieged enclave.Fathi al-Sheikh Khalil, the company›s deputy chairman, confirmed that Gaza›s sole pow-

er plant has been shut down on Friday due to the lack of fuel after Israel›s closing of Karm Abu Salem crossing, leaving Gaza again with six hours of electricity per day followed by 12 hours of rupture.Gaza›s power plant resumed functioning two weeks ago, af-ter seven weeks of shutdown, after receiving the needed fuel using funds donated by Qatar.

Source: Agencies

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22 Palestinian Refugees Killed in Syria, 5 Others Die of Hunger

28/12/2013

Palestinian activists in Syria said that 12 Palestinian ref-ugees in Syria were killed in a massacre committed by the Syrian regime on Sat-urday in Dira camp. Three other Palestinian refugees were killed on Monday while seven refugees were killed on Tuesday evening in Damascus as Syrian reg-ular army continued bomb-ing Palestinian refugee camps, On the other hand, five people, including an el-derly man, a woman and a disabled man, have died of hunger in a besieged Pales-

tinian refugee camp south of Damascus, a monitoring group said Friday. Their deaths were «the result of the siege im-posed by regime troops» on the Yarmouk refugee camp, Pales-tinian activists said.Yarmouk refugee camp has been under siege for over 160 days imposed by the Syrian regime. Palestinian refugees suffer acute shortage of food, medicines and basic human needs.For its part, Hamas movement strongly condemned the “bru-tal massacre” in Dira refugee and renewed in a statement on

Sunday its call for neutraliz-ing refugee camps in the cur-rent armed conflict in Syria and for providing safe shel-ters for families fleeing areas of confrontations.The movement called on the Arab League and human rights groups to intervene ur-gently to protect thousands of Palestinian refugee families in face of siege and murder inside Syria and to provide them with a dignified stay in countries to which they sought refuge away from death and destruction.

Source: Agencies

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Raids and Incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque at Highest Level Since 1967

24/12/2013

Shaikh Taissir Tamimi, the Chief Islamic Judge in Je-rusalem, has said that Is-raeli raids and incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque are at their highest level since 1967. «Settlers and Israeli security forces have been at their most aggressive this year,» insisted the head of the Freedom and Inde-pendence Party for the De-fence of Holy Sites.

In a statement to Quds Net News Agency, Shaikh Ta-mimi explained that the nature of the raids and vio-lations of Al-Aqsa Mosque during 2013 have taken on a political dimension, being led by Knesset members and ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu›s government.

«The Israeli government is providing police protection for those taking part in the incursions,» said the shaikh. «They are almost continuous, taking place on a daily basis.»

Shaikh Tamimi stressed that the raids are intended to cre-ate a physical division in Al-Aqsa Mosque and to create a new reality on the ground, similar to that of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, which is

now split between Muslims and Jews. The occupation forces have made propos-als in this regard to the Is-raeli parliament in order to legitimise the raids and violations of the mosque, turning any attempt by Muslims or worshippers to prevent such raids into a vi-olation of the law, leaving them open to prosecution.

Source: Middle East Monitor (MEMO)

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Israel Kidnapped 3874, Including 931 Children, in 2013

28/12/2013

The Census Department of the Palestin-ian Ministry of Detainee published its annual report stating that Israeli soldiers kidnapped, this year,3874 Palestinians, including 931 children. Four detainees died in 2013.

The Census Department said that 1975 of the kidnapped are between the ages of 18 and 30 (%51 of the total number of kid-napped Palestinians), and that 931 chil-dren (%24) below the age of 18 have also been kidnapped by the soldiers, this year.

Head of the Department, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, said that Israel deliberately tar-gets young Palestinians, including chil-dren, because they are the core of the so-ciety, and its moving factor.

The former political prisoner added that Israel fears the Palestinian youths for their steadfastness and their persistence to achieve liberation and independence.

“This is why it escalates the arrests against them”, he said, “They are imprisoned, tor-tured, abused and intimated”.

He added that the 931 kidnapped children were taken prisoner from different parts of the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, and that the number indicates a %5.7 increase in the number of children kidnapped by the soldiers in 2012, and a %37.5 increase compared to 2011.

“The most serious violation is the fact that kidnapped children are beaten and tortured during interrogation”, Farawna stated, “They were humiliated, subjected to physical and emotional torture”.

There are currently 1,400 Palestinian detainees suffering with various health conditions, including 150 suffering with cancer, diabetes and other serious health condi-tions, and are not provided with urgently needed special-ized medical attention and treatment.

This year alone, four Palestinian detainees died in Israeli prisons, with one dying shortly after his release, due to serious illness he suffered while in prison, and never be-ing granted urgently needed medical attention. The num-ber of detainees who died in prison, either due to torture or to being shot by soldiers during and after their arrest, since 1967, currently stands at 204.

Israel is currently holding captive 5,200 Palestinians in 17 prisons, detention camps and interrogation facilities across the region. The number includes 250 children and 13 women, in addition to 13 democratically elected leg-islators.

1120 Palestinians kidnapped since talks’ resumption

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Samer Issawi Returns Home after his Release

from Israeli Jail

In a related context, Palestinian human rights sources revealed that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have kid-napped approximately 1,200 Palestin-ians, including MPs, since resumption of PA-Israeli negotiations.

Palestine Center for Prisoners› Studies stated in a press release on Sunday that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) uses talks› resumption to cover up its arrest campaigns in the West Bank, Je-rusalem, and Gaza Strip.

The IOA exploited the release, in two batches, of 52 prisoners, who were de-tained before Oslo accord, to carry out more arrests among Palestinians, the statement added, pointing to the ar-rest of 22 Palestinians from Gaza Strip including fishermen, children, and pa-tients at Beit Hanoun (Erez) check-point.

The center›s report affirmed that Pales-tinian and Israeli authorities have not addressed during negotiation meetings neither the Israeli continued arrests against Palestinian citizens, academics and national leaders, nor the improve-ment of prisoners› detention conditions in Israeli jails.

The report clarified that IOF had kid-napped since talks› resumption two Pal-estinian MPs, Nizar Ramadan and Mo-hamed Bader, and dozens of academics and Hamas cadres, including Dr. Ad-nan Abu Tbana, Sheikh Jamal Hadaida, Sheikh Jamal al-Tawil, Sheikh Hussein Abu Kuweik, and Faraj Romana, after raiding their houses.

Source: IMEMC + PIC

24/12/2013

The Israeli prison authority released on Monday evening Palestinian prisoner Samer Al-Issawi from Shatta jail, while hundreds of Palestinians rallied on the streets in Je-rusalem and the West Bank celebrating his release.

Samer Issawi›s family was ordered by the Israeli police earlier yesterday not to hold celebrations and to take down the flags raised at their home.

Issawi had gone on hunger strike for nine consecutive months in protest at his illegal detention without any guilt after his release as part of the swap deal between Israel and the Palestinian resistance in 2011.

Yesterday, lawyer of Issawi and his sister Shirin stated that her brother was on his way home in Al-Issawiya district in occupied Jerusalem, where his relatives, friends and mass-es of citizens were waiting for him to celebrate his release.

Following his release, Issawi said that the liberation of pris-oners from Israeli jails can only be achieved through the capture of Israeli soldiers and swap deals.

He added that Palestinian people would remain loyal to the cause of the Palestinian prisoners and would not rest unless all of them obtained their freedom.

Source: Palestinian Information Centre (PIC)

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28/12/2013

Israel is preparing to announce a plan to build 1,400 settle-ment units by the time the third batch of Palestinian prisoners are released. Their release is part of US plan to push ahead with peace talks, an Israeli newspaper said.

Israeli newspaper Maariv said that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked departments in the different Israeli ministries to start pre-paring the plan so they would be ready when it is announced next week when the prisoners will be freed.

According to the newspaper half of the settlement units will be built in occupied East Jeru-salem.

Meanwhile the Israeli finan-cial minister, the main partner in Netanyahu›s government Ya›er Labid, said: «It is not right to announce new settle-ments at the same time as the release of prisoners.»

In a related context, Israeli Ra-dio has revealed that the US has accepted all of the Israeli government›s demands re-

garding future security arrangements in the Jordan Valley as part of a potential framework for a peace agreement with the Pales-tinians. Washington has agreed that Israel will keep full security control over the borders with Jordan. In addition, the radio sta-tion claimed, Israel will be able to use highly developed intelli-gence tools to monitor the situation in the West Bank.

The proposal, which Secretary of State John Kerry left with the Israelis two weeks ago, includes the building of a fence along the Jordan Valley borders. Israeli drones are to fly over the West Bank, while military patrols along the border with Jordan will continue for several years. After that, the patrols will be joint Israel-Palestine affairs, coordinated with the Jordanians.

It is worth noting that the Palestinians refused the terms of this plan when Israel announced that it would form the basis of nego-tiations between the two parties.

Source: Knspal + MEMO

Israel›s New Settlements Will Coincide with the Release of Palestinian Prisoners

US accepts full Israeli presence in Jordan Valley

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Hamas Did Not and Will Not Interferein Egyptian Affairs, Spokesman Says

28/12/2013

Hamas movement refused statements by Othman Yasser, the Egyptian am-bassador to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, that asked Hamas not to interfere in Egyptian internal affairs.

Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokes-man, said in a press release on Sat-urday that statements attributed to Yasser was an attempt to cover for the Egyptian media’s unprecedented incitement campaign against Hamas and the Palestinian people.

He affirmed that Hamas did not and will not interfere in Egyptian internal affairs, calling for an end to the cam-paign of lies and deception against the Palestinian people and its resistance.

Shifting to another issue, Abu Zuhri described as “cheap” political stand the demands by PLO factions to Hamas to give up its Islamic ideology.

“If these factions still have an iota of credibility, they should rather stop supporting those who maintain secu-rity coordination with the occupier”, he added.

In a related context, Hamas spokes-man Fawzi Barhoum deplored the Egyptian government for threaten-ing to take military action against his Movement, stressing that «it is trying to export its internal crises to the Pal-

estinians and Hamas.»

Spokesman Barhoum said in a press release on Wednes-day that his Movement would never be a party to any events happening in Egypt, affirming that its battle is only against the Israeli occupation.

«We confirm that we will not get dragged into unwanted wrangles or side fights many parties are trying to get us into, away from our preoccupation with resisting the oc-cupation and defending and protecting our people,» Bar-houm stated.

The spokesman urged the Egyptian government and its media outlets to refrain from implicating the Palestinians in events happening in Egypt and the Sinai.

The Egyptian government claimed on Wednesday that its army had foiled an attempt by a Hamas-affiliated bomber to detonate a security site in Egypt, and threatened that its military response would be severe if it sensed that Hamas continues to violate Egypt›s national security.

Hamas, for its part, categorically denied the Egyptian claims and any connection to the man named by the army as Jum›ah Khamis Bureika and affirmed that such a name cannot be found in the civil records in Gaza.

Source: PIC

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Israel Insider

Israeli Official: Netanyahu is Driving Israel towards Boycott

27/12/2013

An Israeli senior official slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and said that he is driving Israel into international boycott and isolation.

Yediot Ahranot (Ynet) quoted the official›s statements as say-ing, «He [Netanyahu] should have released the Palestinian prisoners at once and not re-lease prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. He caused great damage for Mahmoud Abbas with his conduct. He only wants to preserve his status in his par-ty and everyone knows what it looks like.»

According to Ynet, the senior official, who has been involved in running the country for years and knows its greatest secrets and sensitive issues, is open-ing up fierce disapproval of the Israeli prime minister and his conduct in several critical arenas, such as the Israeli-Pal-estinian conflict, Israel›s rela-tions with the US and the battle against nuclear Iran.

He added, «While Israel is at-tempting to minimize the im-portance of political criticism

from Europe and calls for boy-cotts and sanctions against Israel, the top political echelon is admit-ting that these are issues that may dramatically hurt Israel. The year 2014 is marked as the key time in this sense, and it is feared that the calls to boycott Israel will only expand.»

«Our main problem,» the official said, «is not wars, but the eco-nomic situation. A UN resolution is not needed in order to impose sanctions on us or boycott Israeli products. It is sufficient for one country to start doing it and then it spreads across Europe. We are a country that exports, and in light of the situation with the Palestin-ians and the continued occupa-tion, we are seen as an apartheid state. A boycott of Israel is the most dangerous thing that exists today. The deterioration (of the situation) can be very rapid.»

The senior official criticized Eu-ropean Union position regarding the signing of the Horizon 2020 project with Israel and said, «The Europeans must take a stance, and they want it to be a moral one. This position sides with the Pales-tinians – they live under occupa-

tion and Israel is the occupier.»

The official added that he no lon-ger trusts in Netanyahu›s desire to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, despite his public statements on the subject. «Ne-tanyahu has crossed the Rubi-con, there is no doubt,» the offi-cial cynically said. «He is now at a point where he wants the Pal-estinians to agree with his views and his opinions.»

Concerning the relationship be-tween Netanyahu and United States, the official said «Ne-tanyahu does not understand Obama, nor the United States of today. Obama is outraged by Israel concerning the Iranian is-sue. In his words, «the American president is very patient. The problem is that support for Israel among Americans is declining.»

Source: Palestinian News Net-work (PNN)

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Articles & Analyses

Futility of Current Talks between Israel and PA

Listening to media statements by some Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, one occasionally gets the impression that there will be light at the end of the long and dark tunnel of Pales-tinian-Israeli negotiations.

However, a careful exami-nation of the facts shows be-yond any doubt that expecting a breakthrough of any kind from these futile talks would be tantamount to indulging in ex-cessive wishful thinking, day-dreaming and infinite naiveté.

Indeed, in order for the current talks to have any real chance of success, Israel would have to change its way of thinking, make a clear and lasting depar-ture from her criminal modes, including showing a real will-ingness to give up occupied land, stop building colonies on occupied territories and stop transferring Israeli citizens to live on land that belongs to an-other people.

Obviously, any state that does what Israel is and has been do-ing for decades not only doesn’t want peace, such a state actu-ally doesn’t have peace on the list of its national agenda.

Yes, Israeli officials and spokes-persons would fill the ether with all sorts of lies about Israel’s pur-ported desire for peace. None the less, Israel remains, as it has al-ways been, a murderer, liar and thief.

There is ample evidence that Is-rael not only doesn’t desire peace but actually dreads it as well. The continuous provocations, includ-ing cold-blooded murder of in-nocent Palestinians, show that the Israeli state is after lebensraum, not peace.

More to the point, the arrogant dogged insistence by the Israeli government on treating the PA with utmost disrespect, proves that the Netanyahu government views the weak PLO regime not as an equal peace partner, but rather as a vanquished suppli-cant that should accept whatever is thrown unto it by the imperial Israeli entity.

In any case, it is highly unlikely that the two-state strategy still has any real chance of seeing daylight, given the cancerous metastasis of Jewish settlements all over the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

True, things done can be undone.

But Israel, which is intoxicated by characteristic Talmudic in-solence, arrogance of power and the absolute domination of American political life, is in no mood to give up occupied land, especially settlements built since 1967 and viewed as the greatest Jewish achievement since King Solomon.

In fact, one doesn’t exaggerate much by saying that Israel has effectively decapitated the two-state solution.

But Israel would never say so openly. Its ultimate goal is not to prevent the creation of a Pal-estinian political entity at any price. Its real aim is the liquida-tion of the Palestinian cause by cajoling the Palestinians. e.g. the PLO, to accept a “state” bereft of sovereignty, dignity and substance. Needless to say such a solution would be reject-

By: Khalid Amayreh*

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ed by the vast majority of the Palestinian people especially if it involved the practical re-linquishing by the Palestinian leadership of the paramount right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees uprooted from their ancestral homeland at the hands of Jewish-Zionist invaders coming from overseas.

Yes, there are certain Palestin-ians, probably people like Mah-moud Abbas and his aide Saeb Ureikat, who would make ca-pitulationist arguments such as this: “This is the maximum we can achieve under current cir-cumstances.”

But these people, who will also try hard to induce Palestinians to support this national treason by promising them financial rewards and economic prosper-ity, will eventually be rejected and ejected by the Palestinian masses.

Yes, most Palestinians would probably like to see a dignified settlement of the conflict, one that meets fundamental Pales-tinian aspirations, including the repatriation of the refugees as well as an Israeli withdrawal from 100% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

There are definitive worrying signs that the Ramallah leader-ship may be trying to accept the effective liquidation of the Pal-

estinian cause under the rubric of the Arab league.

Seeking to justify such perfidy, some PA spokesmen and mouth-pieces would argue that “we can-not be more Arab than the Arabs themselves.”

Well, but since when were Arab tyrants really qualified or trust-ed to liberate Palestine from the clutches of Zionism? Indeed, it is a huge insult to common sense to expect charlatan generals like Abdul Fattah Sisi to make a real stand for Palestinian rights when he didn’t hesitate for a minute to order his henchmen to open fire on and murder thousands of in-nocent Egyptians demanding the return to power of the democrati-cally-elected Egyptian president.

So, the next time President Abbas feels he has to travel to Cairo to consult with Arab leaders or their foreign ministers, he should keep in mind that we Palestinians, and no one else, have the sole right to determine our cause and destiny.

Yes, Arabs and other Muslims are welcome to support us extricate our rights from Israel’s criminal hands. But they are not and will not be welcome to act as Amer-ica’s and Israel’s agents to pres-sure us to abandon these rights.

* Khalid Amayreh is an Ameri-can-educated journalist living in Occupied Palestine

Seeking to jus-tify such perfidy, some PA spokes-men and mouth-pieces would argue that “we cannot be more Arab than the Ar-abs themselves.”

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issue no 75

Documents

israeli soldier

palestinian sources

palestinian sniper

israeli raids criminal

israeli shelling

gaza strip

central gaza

israeli gunre north