issue no 90

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Issue No : 90 28th April, 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

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FEATURED STORY

ARTICLENew campaign seeks to suspend

Israel›s FIFA membership

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Haneyya:

Division is over

Tension over Al-Aqsa Mosquecould usher in a new Intifada

Palestinian national consensus government to be formed within weeks

Shocking facts about Palestinian Prisoners in

Israeli lockups

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Articles & Analyses

Shocking facts about Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli lockups 14

Haneyya: Division is over 4

Palestinian national consensus government to be formed within weeks 5

Tension over Al-Aqsa Mosque could usher in a new Intifada 6

Meshaal: Hamas will do ‘the impossible’ to free prisoners 7

Raed Salah: We will not leave al-Aqsa alone 8

IOA imposes hermetic closure on West Bank 9

Aqsa Foundation reveals MK Feiglin break-in plans against al-Aqsa 10

Israel prevents UN delegation from reaching Church of the Holy Sepulchre 11

Group: 2133 Palestinian refugees killed in Syria

New campaign seeks to suspend Israel›s FIFA membership 12

Israel detains thousands of army deserters every year 13

Israel Insider

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News of Palestine

Gaza premier and deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Hanneya has declared in a press conference on Wednesday that the Palestin-ian internal division was over.He was speaking after conclusion of the second session of reconciliation talks held in his home with a PLO delegation. He said that both teams, Hamas and the PLO, had worked in the spirit of a single team.The years of division have come to an end, Haneyya said, adding that an agreement was reached on implementing previous reconciliation agree-ments and forming a national unity government.He said that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, according to the agreement, is to start immediately consultations with all national factions and forces to form a new national consensus government within five weeks.At the same time a committee entrusted with reactivating the PLO would start its work within five weeks, he said, adding that elections would be de-termined six months after forming the government.

Source: PIC

Haneyya: Division is over

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Palestinian national consensus gov-ernment to be formed within weeks

Bassam al-Salhi, a member of reconciliation committee and Secretary General of the Pales-tinian People’s Party, confirmed that reconciliation meetings resulted in a roadmap that will put an end to Palestinian divi-sion by forming an immediate national consensus government.The roadmap includes the estab-lishment of a consensus govern-ment in five weeks and holding general elections in six months, he added.Al-Salhi stressed that agreement also includes restructuring the political system, and activating the PLO, in addition to address-ing all issues agreed upon.The agreement is scheduled to be implemented immediately after the end of the meetings.For his part, First Deputy Speak-er of the Palestinian Legislative Council Dr. Ahmed Bahar has expressed his appreciation to the ongoing national reconcili-ation efforts.In a press statement issued on Wednesday, Bahar welcomed the reconciliation agreement which is based on national partnership and united efforts against the occupation.Bahar stated that the general atmosphere is ready for the im-plementation of national recon-ciliation especially after nego-tiation path’s failure.The next Palestinian phase needs united efforts to foil Israeli Juda-

ization schemes in occupied Jeru-salem and Palestinian lands.For his part, MP Mushir al-Masri, a senior leader in Hamas move-ment, stated that the second round of reconciliation talks has mainly focused on freedoms file.“We have achieved an important phase in reconciliation talks most notably was determining a date for general elections”, he said.“We are on the threshold of effec-tive implementation of national reconciliation”, he said, calling for a Palestinian united position against Israeli aggression.He stressed his movement’s full support to Fatah movement in face of any Israeli threats.Meanwhile, reliable sources con-firmed to the Palestinian Informa-tion Center (PIC) reporter that PLO and Hamas delegations have agreed to form a consensus gov-ernment in five weeks and holding general elections in six months.On the other hand, a member of Fa-tah’s central committee Amal Ha-

mad said that they have agreed with Hamas movement to form a government in five weeks.The delegations have seriously discussed yesterday national files including forming a gov-ernment, holding elections af-ter six months, and activating the Palestine Liberation Orga-nization, she explained.Hamad confirmed that a posi-tive atmosphere has prevailed during the reconciliation meet-ings, as all parties were deter-mined to end the division and to restore national unity.“I hope that this positive at-mosphere will continue with-out any future obstacles”, she added.“We need to implement the reconciliation agreement by forming a government within the next five weeks, giving the President a chance to set a date for elections in six months, and activating the PLO”, Hamad underlined.

Source: PCOM+PIC

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Tension over Al-Aqsa Mosquecould usher in a new Intifada

Tension over Al-Aqsa Mosque is of great importance as the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks founder, Is-raeli analysts have claimed in Ha’aretz. As far as Hamas is concerned, the situation at Al-Aqsa, the third most important site for the world’s one billion Muslims, is the litmus test for a new Intifada, even as it maintains a ceasefire with Israel on the Gaza border.As all eyes are turned on the US efforts to extend the talks beyond the original April 29 deadline, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is threatening to dissolve itself and lay the responsibility for the Palestinians on the shoulders of Israel as the occupying power. The greatest danger though, said Ha’aretz, lies in what is going on in Al-Aqsa Mosque and the friction between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. The Israeli newspaper pointed out that there is no need to recall historical proofs that the conflict linked to Al-Aqsa Mosque has been the central reason for tension erupting between Palestinian Arabs and Jews. It cited the incidents of 1929, 1990 and 2000 as examples. The wounding of two Israeli policemen inside Al-Aqsa Mosque and the arrest of 24 Palestinians on Sunday reflect the degree of tension, which has been increasing in recent weeks.Ha’aretz stressed the sensitivity of the Al-Aqsa sanctuary, saying that it has been attracting extremists from the Israeli side whose actions provoke strong reactions from the Palestinians. This depletes the resources of the Israeli security forces, it added.In its analysis, the newspaper said that religious Jewish organisations have included right-wing mem-bers of the Knesset in their activities. The PA, meanwhile, has accepted the apparent presence of Hamas members inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Source: MEMO

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20/04/2014

Head of the political bureau of Hamas Khaled Meshaal said in a state-ment released by the Palestinian movement Saturday that his move-ment will do everything it could to free the prisoners.“The movement will do the impossible for the sake of releasing pris-oners. It will also do the impossible for the sake of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, the right of return, Palestinian lands and the sake of the nation’s dignity,” Mahsaal said.The statement added that Meshaal reiterated that “Hamas extends its hands to Fatah and all other factions for the sake of the Palestinian cause.”The statement called for “ending divisions, uniting the Palestinian front around a single political regime and a single leadership.”Meshaal stressed on Palestinian rights “without compromises”, and emphasized the need for armed struggle alongside political and diplo-matic ones.Regarding current negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, Meshaal dismissed them as “a joke and deceit”.

Source: MEMO

Meshaal: Hamas will do ‘the impossible’ to free prisoners

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Raed Salah: We will not leave al-Aqsa alone

Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

19/4/2014

Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement in 1948 occupied territories, stated that Je-rusalemites and 1948 Palestinians will not leave al-Aqsa Mosque alone.In press statements, Sheikh Salah said Saturday that “Israeli authority is dreaming if it thinks that al-Aqsa Mosque will remain alone.”“We sacrifice our blood and souls for you Aqsa”, he added.“We might be detained, injured, and persecuted, however it is the least we can do for the sake of al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem”, he stressed, noting that the occupation will come to an end sooner or later.Sheikh Salah said that occupation authorities use Palestinian prisoners’ issue as a tool to practice more pressure on the Palestinian side to compromise on Palestinian national constants for which Palestinian prisoners and detainees were jailed.He described the Israeli scheme that aims to divide al-Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially as the most “dangerous scheme”.

Source: PIC

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20/4/2014

The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) imposed hermetic closure on the West Bank for two days starting Sunday due to Jewish religious holidays.The decision, according to local sources, would deprive thousands of workers, merchants and patients from entering occupied Jerusalem and 1948 occupied lands.The IOA had closed all West Bank crossings last week for two days also due to Jewish religious holi-days.

Source: PIC

IOA imposes hermetic closureon West Bank

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Aqsa Foundation reveals MK Feiglin break-in plans against al-Aqsa

19/4/2014

The Aqsa Foundation for En-dowment and Heritage re-vealed Israeli Knesset’s ex-tremist vice-president, Moshe Feiglin’s pre-arranged attempt to raid holy al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday morning.The Aqsa Foundation said in a statement on Saturday that Feiglin has called on his sup-porters to head in masses to al-Aqsa Mosque for a provocative desecration tour. The Aqsa Foundation has called for more permanent Palestinian mass sit-ins to be staged in the mosque at an ear-ly morning hour. “This is our only shield to protect the holy al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli break-in plans and desecration conspiracies.”Feiglin confirmed the decision on his Facebook page when he expressed his exaggerated ea-gerness “to break-in into the mosque again, at least once a month.”According to the Aqsa Founda-tion “Feiglin was planning to break in al-Aqsa at a very early morning hour and desecrate the Dome of the Rock, which took place many times under extensive protection by IOF soldiers.”IOF already closed most of al-Aqsa gates, where several iron barriers were erected. Palestin-ian citizens aged less than 50 were denied access into the Mosque to perform their reli-gious prayers.

Such invading mea-sures make part of Is-raeli attempts to “evac-uate al-Aqsa Mosque and reduce the number of Palestinian congre-gation so as to be able to carry out projected settler break-ins on Sunday.”The Foundation fur-ther declared: “Mus-lims have the right to perform their religious prayers in the mosque. Al-Aqsa has always historically been Muslim’s exclusive property. It is Palestinians and Arabs’ responsibility to protect the sanctity of such a holy Islamic site from Israeli desecration conspiracies.” “Israeli bullying campaigns will never scare us. Neither IOF troops, nor Israeli executive branches or media will stand in our way. His-tory proves that al-Aqsa has been and will always be ours.”Sunday projected break-ins make part of Israeli Occupation Au-thorities’ (IOA) bullying campaigns against the peaceful Muslim congregation and non-violent sit-inners. IOA have never ceased to, unjustifiably, execute tough measures and penalties against every single event or person attempting to defend the sanctity of holy al-Aqsa Mosque. In the same context, Jamal Amr, expert in Jerusalemite affairs, spoke against IOA’s orders to arrest non-violent al-Aqsa sit-inners. Such arrest campaigns are according to Amr “signs of impending crisis to divide the mosque.”Amr further declared in a statement to Quds Press: “The real danger lies in having al-Aqsa issue raised and decided over by Israeli MPs.”Such arrest orders against Palestinian civilians “are alleged reasons to execute Israeli division schemes of al-Aqsa by authorizing the arrest of non-violent sit-inners under the administrative pretext and without any legitimate charge”.“This is an unprecedented step foreshadowing another dodgy phase in Israeli violations against al-Aqsa. Time is running out and the con-sequences will be just unbreakable if we do not react soon against such a wave of desecration plots.”

Source: PIC

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Israel prevents UN delegation from reaching Church of the Holy Sepulchre

20/4/2014

UN envoy for Middle East Peace Robert Serry said Saturday that Israeli police refused to grant him and other diplomats permission to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to attend Holy Saturday rituals. In a statement, Serry said that Israeli police officers prevented a number of Palestinian worshippers and diplomats from crossing a checkpoint, citing “orders” they received in this regard.Officers ignored a request by Serry to speak with senior officials, he told Reuters. He, along with diplomats from Italy, Norway and Netherlands, waited for half an hour at the crowded checkpoint. When Serry told an Israeli officer that he was UN Secretary Gen-eral’s envoy, the officer responded: “so what?”In his statement, Serry called on all sides to “respect the right to religious freedom,” denouncing the attitude of Israeli police as “unacceptable”.A spokesman of the Israeli Foreign Ministry downplayed the incident, pointing out that it was “a very minor” one, and that police was merely trying to control the crowd. Pope Francis is slated to visit Jerusalem and other places in the West Bank next May.

Source: MEMO

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Israel Insider

New campaign seeks to suspend Israel›s FIFA membership

31/3/2014

American and Arab sports activists in the United States have launched the Red Card Israeli Racism cam-paign calling for Israel to be expelled from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) on the grounds of Israel’s repeated vio-lations of Palestinian athletes’ rights and human rights in general. The campaigners cite a historic precedent in which FIFA official-ly suspended the membership of South Africa between 1964-1992 as part of the international pressure that aimed to end the apartheid re-gime.Football players Eric Cantona, Frederic Kanoute joined other in-ternational stars of the game to de-clare their rejection of the decision by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to hold the men’s under-21 tournament in Is-rael. Arab-American activist Ra-haif Awadallah called for the sus-pension of Israel’s membership in FIFA to pressure Israel to respect Palestinians’ human rights and al-low Palestinian football players to play at home and abroad. Awadal-lah said it is now time that initia-tives are taken to reinforce the sports boycott of Israel. He accused the Israeli occupation of restricting football players’ mo-bility inside the West Bank and between the West Bank and Gaza, preventing players from participat-ing in international tournaments and banning the entry of sports equipment that Palestinian teams and stadiums need. He also cited tens of cases in which Palestinian

players were arrested, detained or killed. He noted that there are well-documented cases in which Palestin-ian players in Israel were insulted by the audience in the stadium with chants including “death to Arabs” but the Israeli federation took no action to end such attacks.UEFA is considering holding the women’s under-19 tournament in Israel in 2015. Israel was also selected as a venue for pre-liminary matches for Euro 2020. FIFA recently recognised some Israeli violations and created a task force aimed at facilitating the mobility of players and equipment in Palestine. The Red Card campaign accuses the Israeli authorities of curb-ing the advancement of Palestinian football and sports through a number of procedures and restrictions that target the following aspects:1. Sports’ infrastructure: Israeli procedures stand against the con-struction or development of stadiums. Israel sometimes demol-ishes existent Palestinian stadiums. 2. Restricting mobility: Palestinian players, visiting players, board members and journalists inside and outside the Palestinian territories often have their movements limited or travels banned.3. Blocking sport shipments: Israel imposes complicated proce-dures that delay or prevent receiving shipments or donations sent by FIFA or the Asian Football Federation amongst other groups.4. Political intervention: Overriding organised friendly matches between Palestine and teams of other states. 5. Human rights violations: Continuous violations of players’ rights through unexplained arrests and kidnaps.

Source: MEMO+AGENCIES

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Israel detains thousands of army deserters every year

The Israel Defence Forces detain nearly 22,000 desert-ers and “undisciplined soldiers” every year, Haaretz newspaper revealed on Sunday. The paper said that nearly 13,000 of the soldiers are detained in army pris-ons while the rest are held inside military bases. The paper quoted data from the Military Police, which revealed that around 400 escape attempts, rebellions and acts of violence occur inside army prisons annually. At least 13,452 soldiers were detained in 2013; 76 per cent of them were charged with evading military service, while 18 per cent were soldiers classified as “undisci-plined” and 6 per cent had committed criminal offences. According to the data, 13 per cent of detained soldiers are of Ethiopian origin although they represent only 3 per cent of the total personnel in the IDF.

SOURCE: MEMO

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Articles & Analyses

Shocking facts about Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli lockups

Official statistics, released on the occasion of Prisoner Day, on the number and state of affairs of Pal-estinian prisoners in Israeli jails revealed scandalous facts about the tragedy of Palestinian detainees.The Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ affairs said, in a statement that has been recently released on the occasion, that 5000 Palestinian detainees are still held in Israeli prisons, in-cluding 476 sentenced to life. The statement documented the incarceration of 19 Palestinian women and 200 children in addi-tion to several Palestinian minors who have, ironically, grown to maturity inside Israeli prisons. The prisoners’ list includes 185 cases of administrative deten-tion along with 11 MPs and sev-eral political leaders distributed among 22 Israeli prisons. Incredible data about the prison-ers’ tragedy Official statistics revealed that more than 800 thousand Pales-tinians, including 15,000 female detainees and tens of thousands of children have been subject to the ongoing Israeli detention campaigns since 1967 until end of 2013.Such appalling figures leave little doubt, if any, that every single Palestinian family had been put through detention. According to the statistics, Israeli prisons and deten-tion centers have been built in al-most every Palestinian territory. Ever since the eruption of the second intifada in September 2000, 80 thousand detention cas-es, including 10,000 children and

more than 60 ex-lawmakers and ministers, were documented.Over the past decades, the Pal-estinian socio-political scene in the occupied West Bank has been overwhelmed by such detention campaigns. The security pretext, endemic to Israeli alleged incar-ceration ruses, could no longer be maintained as a taken-for-granted excuse. According to a plethora of Human Rights organizations, detentions executed by Israeli Occupation Authorities (IOA) have been ex-plicit breaches to the international humanitarian law. Palestinians have been held in the most horri-ble detention circumstances ever, and have been subject to deadly torture procedures, as corrobo-rated by official statistics. Statistics show that Palestinian detainees have not only under-gone physical or psychological torture but have also been publi-cally humiliated and tortured, at times in the presence of their fam-ilies and children. Ill detainees’ misfortune:According to the statistics, sever-al Palestinian detainees have been suffering to death due to poor health care.Health conditions of more than 1,400 prisoners are considered critical. 16 captives have been permanently residing in Ramla prison hospital due to their deteri-orating physical condition and the deadly diseases affecting many of them. Atrocious as it might sound, 25 Palestinian prisoners have been diagnosed with cancer.

Prisoners killed under torture: The Ministry of Detainees’ af-fairs documented the death of 73 Palestinians killed under torture and 53 others due to poor health care since 1967. 72 Palestinians were deliberately killed after the arrest and 7 others died after be-ing shot from a close range by Israeli soldiers and prison guards inside prisons.Such shocking statistics raise alarm bells over the situation of Palestinians held in Israeli pris-ons. Serious reactions against Israeli brutal violations of inter-national laws have become more urgent than ever. It is high time ac-tivists across the entire globe took practical measures to stand up to Palestinian prisoners’ rights and help them restore their freedom. In an interview made by PIC with prisoner Hamed Ibrahim’s wife Asma Hamed, ex-Palestinian de-tainee, the latter praised her hus-band’s journey of struggle. Accord-ing to her, imprisonment has never been and will never be a source of fear to her husband and to thou-sands of Palestinians who will keep on fighting till their last breath. Mrs. Hamed reported that her husband suspended, but has not yet ended, his hunger strike fol-lowing a decision declaring his near transfer from solitary con-finement to a private cell for three months.Ibrahim Hamed has been de-tained for 6 years under uncon-firmed charges of being in com-mand of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing.

Source: PIC +AGENCIES

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issue no 90

Documents

palestinian prisoners

palestinian refugees

national unity government

palestinian division

national factions

ve weeks

israel insider4 issue

years of division