Japan pledges $100m to rebuild Gaza

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during this press conference in Ramallah yesterday

During a visit to the region, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged $100 million for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

In a joint press conference with the Palestinians Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Abe announced the Japanese pledge to help reconstruct the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed during a 51-day Israeli war last summer.

The Israeli war left more than 2,260 Palestinians dead and around 11,000 others wounded. It also caused the partial or complete destruction of more than 100,000 houses.

Abe said: "We are concerned about the deteriorating situation between the two sides since the last year. I exchanged views with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas and found they are real friends."

Abbas thanked Japan for its role in enhancing peace opportunities in the Middle East. "Palestinians will never forget Japan's support for Palestine, which started when it aided Palestinian refugees and continued after the Oslo Accords," he said.

The Palestinian president said he had updated the Japanese premier on the latest political developments and the plan by Arab foreign ministers to garner political support for a new UN draft resolution calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

In addition, Abbas reiterated that there is no choice but to resolve the conflict through peaceful means and negotiations based on the Arab Peace Initiative and the UN resolutions.

"We tell our neighbours [Israelis] that our hands are extended for peace and they have to choose between peace or settlement expansion," he said. "Peace cannot be achieved by collective punishment, apartheid measures or the detention of thousands of Palestinians."

Abe said that he hoped Palestine and Israel would be able to live in peace and that his country would continue to support peace based on a two-state solution.

Where is the HUMANITY ? Where are the human rights?

Where is the humanity from this?? Where are the human rights? Where are the hearts of "humans" ?!!!! This is a young man Hamza Mohammad Al Matrouk 22 years old got killed by the "Israeli" occupation forces by shooting him and let him bleeding and begging them till death. And the soldiers are mocking him!!! Where is the world from rejecting such ugly action!! Or "Israel" is above the LAW!!!! This video must be shared worldwide to let the world see this oppression and such violence the Palestinians have to face everyday. 

Israeli troops force old Palestinian women to leave home

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Israeli troops have evicted two elderly Palestinian women from their home and sealed off their property in the occupied West Bank.

According to locals, Israeli forces raided the home of Zuheira Oweida Dandis, 80, and Amal Dandis, 52, in al-Khalil (Hebron) on Monday, forcing them to leave.

Israeli forces claimed that the move was for security reasons, without giving further information.

On Sunday, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians and injured at least 22 more during clashes in the town of Rahat in the Negev desert.

The violence broke out during a funeral for Sami al-Ja’ar, a young Palestinian Bedouin who was shot dead by Israeli forces near a junction between the cities of Bethlehem and al-Khalil on January 14.

Israeli forces attacked the mourners, firing toxic teargas at them.

Over the recent months the Israeli regime has intensified crackdown on Palestinians.

A large number of Palestinians, including minors, have recently been arrested. More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly incarcerated in 17 Israeli prisons and detention camps.

Among the Palestinian prisoners are 18 women, 250 children, 1,500 ailing individuals, mostly in a critical condition, and 540 Palestinians held without any trial under the so-called administrative detention.

SRK/NT/AS

Source : PressTV

With New Zealand at the UNSC, Palestine could get a new lifeline

By Amanda Fisher | Special to Al Arabiya News
Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Jim McLay at the U.N. General Assembly. (Reuters)

New Zealand would seem an unlikely hope for the Palestinian people, but it has opened its third term on the U.N. Security Council – its first in 21 years – with strong words.

“New Zealand believes that failure of this U.N. Security Council to bring leadership to the [Israel-Palestine] issue, at this time, amounts to an abdication of its responsibilities,” the country’s U.N. Ambassador Jim McLay said on Jan. 15.

“Arguments that this Council doesn’t have a role, or that it can’t add value, can no longer be justified, particularly as other ways to find a solution haven’t succeeded.”

Experts tell Al Arabiya News that McLay’s remarks reflect New Zealand’s intention to be instrumental in the peace process and drive renewed efforts at a two-state solution.

In the final days of last year, the Security Council rejected a proposal by Jordan that would have fast-tracked a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem by 2017.

However, the Palestinians fell one vote short of the necessary nine, which would have triggered a U.S. veto.

The United States and Australia rejected the proposal, while the UK, Lithuania, Nigeria, South Korea and Rwanda abstained.

Regardless, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas almost immediately insisted the resolution still had life because of a new term of 10 non-permanent Security Council members.

“We didn’t fail. The U.N. Security Council failed us. We’ll go again to the Security Council. Why not?” he said shortly after the failed vote.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said he had “received assurances from the new members…that they would support the Palestinian demand to end the occupation,” U.S. Jewish news website Algemeiner Journal reported.

Reasons for hope

Why would New Zealand, to quote its parlance, give a ‘crikey dick’ about Palestinian self-determination?

There are several reasons, says Wellington’s Victoria University strategic studies professor Robert Ayson.

New Zealand likes to mark its identity through at-times politically unconventional stances. It was the first country to give women the vote in 1893, and has maintained a nuclear-free policy since 1984. New Zealand withstood political pressure and did not send troops to invade Iraq in 2003.

“Countries don’t take New Zealand lightly. We may not have a very big economy or defense force, but we carry a certain amount of moral authority,” said Ayson.

The country also has a proud history of activism, with violent anti-apartheid protests during a South African rugby tour in 1981, and anti-nuclear fervor in 1985 after two French spies bombed a Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbour, killing a photographer.

The Palestinian issue is less about the will of the public, and more about New Zealand announcing its reemergence on the world stage, Ayson says.

“I don’t think it’s because there’s a massive groundswell. Israel-Palestine isn’t a big public issue. This is an issue New Zealand can [take up] without too many costs.”

Read more : http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2015/01/21/With-New-Zealand-at-the-UNSC-Palestine-could-get-a-new-lifeline-.html

Israel continues to keep a 14-year-old Palestinian girl under arrest

Israeli authorities have continued to keep under arrest a 14-year old Palestinian girl from the village of Betin, in the district of Ramallah, for the 19th consecutive day.

The Palestinian Prisoner's Club (PPC) said in a statement released on Sunday that the Israeli authorities had arrested Malak Al-Khatib near her school on 31 December, 2014 under the pretext that she threw stones and was in possession of a knife.

The occupation's Military Court in Ofer has held a hearing for Al-Khatib on 11 January, but no decision has been made regarding her. She is currently being detained in the Hasharon prison.

Al-Khatib is a student in the eighth grade at the School of Betin.

Prof Stephen Hawking 'boycotts'major Israel Conference

Read more :
http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/may/13/stephen-hawking-boycott-israel-science

Palestine could ‘lose’ millions in annual U.S. aid

Lindsey Graham said Palestinians may face the aid cut if they file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court. (AP)

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan | Reuters Occupied Jerusalem

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

The Palestinians could lose annual U.S. aid if they file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court which they joined this month over American and Israeli protests, a senior U.S. Republican senator said on Monday.

Lindsey Graham, part of a seven-member delegation of senators visiting Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said existing U.S. legislation "would cut off aid to the Palestinians if they filed a complaint" against Israel.

At a news conference in Jerusalem, Graham called the Palestinian step "a bastardizing of the role of the ICC. I find it incredibly offensive."

"We will push back strongly to register our displeasure. It is already part of our law that would require us to stop funding if they actually bring a case," said Graham, of South Carolina.

U.S. President Barack Obama's Democratic administration has said it does not believe Palestine is a sovereign state and therefore does not qualify to be part of the ICC, but has not explicitly threatened to withhold aid.

Any cut in U.S. funds could make it hard for the Palestinian self-rule authority in the West Bank and Gaza to survive. The U.S. supplies more than $400 million annually to the Palestinian Authority. Israel has frozen a monthly transfer of some $120 million in tax revenues it collects for the Palestinians.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has confirmed the Palestinians will formally become a member of the ICC on April 1, after applying earlier this month.

With jurisdiction dating back to June 13, 2014, the court's prosecutor could investigate the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in July and August 2014, during which more than 2,100 Palestinians, 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied to the court after losing a vote at the U.N. Security Council seeking a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from land it captured in a 1967 war and where Palestinians seek to establish a state.

Israel and the United States deplore Palestinian moves at the U.N. as unilateral steps that undermine diplomacy, which has made little progress in years and collapsed most recently in April.

Graham urged the Palestinians to re-evaluate ICC membership, saying he supported their aspirations for statehood but opposed joining the court as a "provocative step" against Israel.

Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, charged that a U.S.-led campaign against Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq was moving too slowly, arguing that aerial attacks had to be backed up by "more boots on the ground." He did not say which country should provide the troops.

 

Last Update: Tuesday, 20 January 2015 KSA 07:42 - GMT 04:42