Human Rights

NOVANEWS Nazi Defense Minister Ehud Barak okays largest housing project in single settlement since establishment of the Naziyahu government. Haaretz Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the building of 277 apartments the West Bank settlement of Ariel, defying U.S. criticism of continued settlement construction. Barak authorized the construction in Ariel, the core of the settlement bloc deepest inside the West Bank. One hundred of the apartments will house Israelis evacuated in 2005 from a Gaza Strip settlement. The new housing units are set to be built in Ariel’s Noyman neighborhood. 100 homes are intended for evacuees of the Gaza settlement of Netzarim, while the rest of the housing units are set to be sold freely. The building permits for the homes were handed out a while ago, bu...

NOVANEWS Colonel Itai Virov, former commander of Kfir brigade, to be promoted to brigadier-general, will be head commander for infantry soldiers and paratroopers. Zio-Nazi Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and the General Staff have recently decided to appoint several Nazi officers to senior field positions, among them a colonel who in the past justified hitting Palestinian detainees. Nazi Colonel Itai Virov, former commander of the Kfir brigade, is to be promoted to brigadier-general and will be a head commander for infantry soldiers and paratroopers. Virov was reprimanded in the past for justifying hitting Palestinian detainees under certain circumstances. Virov made his comments during the trial of one of his soldiers, who was accused of hitting a Palestinian during an arres...

NOVANEWS UNRWA calls for accountability and an end to discriminatory practices Jerusalem Statement by UNRWA spokesperson, Chris Gunness A boy from the Bedouin community of Khan Al Ahmar stands in the yard of his demolition-threatened school. Demolitions by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank have escalated alarmingly. Figures released today by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) show that 700 people were displaced in the first six months of 2011 (excluding July), compared with 594 in the whole of 2010. UNRWA is concerned that 15 per cent of those displaced are Palestine refugees. The vast majority of demolitions have been carried out in Area C, the 60 per cent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control for security, planning and building. June an...

NOVANEWS By Johnny Barber 'Dear Johnny: 'While you are in Gaza, please visit Gilad Shalit. He is the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped from outside Gaza 5 years ago, and has been held by Hamas without visits by anyone, including the Red Cross or Red Crescent, in violation of international law. I trust you are committed to human rights for all, and this small gesture should be quite easy to do as compared with the magnitude of arranging your flotilla. I look forward to seeing your video or photos or voice recording evidencing that Gilad is being treated well and is in good health.' I thought about Shalit quite often as I traveled around Gaza. Though the writer of the email assumed I was unaware of the prisoner or his circumstance, it was not true. I knew he was just a teenager when captured...

NOVANEWS Charlotte Silver The Electronic Intifada The Suspended Lives installation at Ramallah’s Al Mahatta Gallery profiled ten former women prisoners. Thirty-six large photographs depicting former Palestinian women prisoners and their families were hung in Ramallah’s Al Mahatta Gallery earlier this month, accompanied by the photographed subjects’ words inked in Arabic on the gallery’s steel-grey walls. The recorded voices of the former prisoners, interspersed with a haunting melody played on a cello, echoed throughout the small, subterranean gallery. Suspended Lives, a photography exhibition that profiles ten women and their incarceration in Israeli prisons, is part of the UN Women’s project “Palestinian Female Prisoners in Israeli Prison,” which aims to uphold and advocate ...

NOVANEWS Almost half of all the prisoners held by the Zio-Nazi Gestapo's prison system are Palestinians who have been sent to prison by Zio-Nazi military courts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)(68). Furthermore, this share seems to have been consistently high over a long period: the figure stood between 45 and 60 percent durin New book exposes brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners Asa Winstanley The Electronic Intifada Shlomo Gazit, an Israeli general and the first “coordinator of government activities” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip apparently wrote a book in 1985 about Israel’s occupation policies there called The Carrot and the Stick. It is quite telling that such Israeli terminology relates to Palestinians as if they are animals. A new book about Israel’s impr...

NOVANEWS BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Forty Palestinian prisoners being held in an IsraHelli prison contracted food poisoning on Sunday, the Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe quoted detainees as saying. Prisoners being held in the Negev prison, southern Israel said they had suffered from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after eating dairy products which had passed their sell by date. Three of the prisoners are reportedly in a severe condition, as they already suffer from chronic ailments such as heart disease. Detainees complained that prison authorities delayed transferring sick inmates to the prison clinic, thus aggravating their symptoms further. Prisoner Amjad Abu Latifah blamed the Israeli prison administration for the food poisoning, pointing out that this is the second incident of i...

NOVANEWS Majdoleen Hassouneh An award-winning Palestinian female journalist has been forced to go into hiding out of fear of being arrested by Zionist puppets Palestinian Authority security  for covering a sit-in strike. Over the weekend, the PA’s Zionist Puppet Preventive Security Force 'ZPPSF' in the West Bank arrested her two brothers in an attempt to put pressure on her to turn herself in. The journalist, Majdoleen Hassouneh, has twice refused to report for interrogation at the headquarters of ZPPSF in Nablus. Hassouneh’s friends and colleagues have launched a Facebook campaign in solidarity with her and in protest against the Puppets Ab-A$$ government’s measures against Palestinian journalists and freedom of the media. Hassouneh, a graduate of An-Najah University in Nablus, is the re...

PRESS RELEASE 4 August 2011 Israeli Navy Releases Boats Confiscated from Gaza Fishermen without Equipment and Large Motors; Fishermen Refuse to take Boats Adalah and Al Mezan continue to work intensively to secure the return of the boats and equipment belonging to fishermen from the Gaza Strip following its undue confiscation by the Israeli navy. The two human rights organizations are following the cases of eight fishermen whose boats were confiscated over the past 18 months On 1 August 2011, after extensive correspondence, Adalah received a written response from the Israeli military prosecutor for the Israeli navy informing it that dozens of fishermen from Gaza would be permitted to go to the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing to collect small fishing boats (hasakat) that were confis...

NOVANEWS Bronner actually evoked Parks’ name in his report. Did his editors think we would not notice? by James M. Wall The New York Times‘ Ethan Bronner reports that West Bank Palestinian women and girls have again broken IsraHell laws to go swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. This is Rosa Parks country, folks. Bronner actually evoked Parks’ name in his report. Did his editors think we would not notice? Blogger Philip Weiss noticed, and he made sure his Mondoweiss readers noticed. By including a brief reference to the iconic moment when Rosa Parks broke the law by sitting in the front of a segregated bus, the New York Times has connected the American civil rights movement to the Palestinian struggle for human rights. Here is that connection: Rosa Parks deliberately violated an unjust Alab...