Children behind Israeli bars

By Nour Odeh in

Middle East

on May 30th, 2010

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With a timid smile, 16 year-old N twiddles his thumbs as he tells me his frightening story. Israeli soldiers came to his house a year ago at dawn. He was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away without any explanation.

When the military jeep finally stopped, the soldiers took him to a room with chairs. They began cursing at him and using derogatory terms against his mother and female siblings. The soldiers then put sunglasses on N's eyes and a female headband on his head.

"They took pictures of me; they were laughing," he told me.

"Aren’t you going to confess?" the soldiers kept asking him… "To what?" he would reply. "To throwing stones," they would say.

Afraid of ending up in jail, N refused to confess to the alleged offence.

"I kept telling them: I didn't do it. I didn't do anything," he recalled.

Until this point, N's story sounded familiar to someone like me, who's been covering the conflict in Palestine for years. Beatings,humiliation, and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, including minors, are regularly documented by human rights organisations.

But N's story was just beginning.

"There was a dog barking outside the room… The soldier told me he would bring it in to f**k me if I didn't confess… I was so scared… The guy then took out a stick; he whipped it forward and it got longer. He told his friends, who were looking on and laughing at me: "This boy doesn't want to talk. Let's pull down his pants so I can shove this stick up his a**."

"I tried to hold on to the chair; he kept poking me, groping my privates with the stick, trying to get me off the chair," N said while avoiding eye contact with me.

The Palestine Chapter of Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affidavits this year of Palestinian children, under the age of 18, who said they were mistreated by their Israeli interrogators. Fourteen of them say they were eithersexually abused or threatened with sexual assault, including rape, if they didn't confess to what their interrogators accused them of.

N is one of these children… His confession landed him a three month sentence in an Israeli jail.

Because of the stigma attached, there are fears that many more children may have suffered similar abuse but have been afraid to come forward.

N kept telling me he felt awkward talking about his experience. "It feels bad to talk about this. I mean, what a thing to talk about… It's shameful," he told me.

So I asked this shy teenager why he mustered the courage to speak out. "I want justice," he said. "I wish these people could be tried in a court so that they don't do this to other guys."

N told me that at prison, he met many boys who had suffered similar abuse.

Israeli forces arrest approximately 700 Palestinian minors every year. During interrogation, these minors are not allowed to have contact with their lawyers or families. Human rights organisations say the alleged abuses happen during this period of isolation.

"These practices are meant to break the children. In a way, when you break the spirit of these children, you're breaking the spirit of the nation," Rifaat Kassis, the director general of DCI, told me.

And it's because of the powerful impact sexual abuse has on these children that DCI has sounded the alarm at the highest possible international levels. The organisation has communicated affidavits to the Special UN Rapporteur on Torture, hoping to galvanise enough international pressure to bring these abuses to an end.

This step is a reflection of the stonewalling human rights organisations usually face from Israeli authorities.

"Most of the time, the Israelis, they just dismiss our allegations and say this is not correct, this is not true; so if this is the case, we challenge them to record these interrogations and let the interrogations happen with the lawyer," Kassis told me.

This time was no different. We tried to request a response from the Israeli army but all our requests were turned down. The army told us they would only comment if they had more specific details about these cases, which is a demand the children's lawyers say could jeopardise their clients.

But after the report aired on Al Jazeera, the Israeli military issued a statement rejecting the allegations and the DCI report. The army also said its practices were consistent with international law; a claim hotly contested by all human rights organisations working in Israel and the Occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army's response to these allegations also proves what DCI admits: this is a long-term battle.

So is recovery - N still struggles with his experience

"I'll never forget his eyes; the way he looked at me," he said, referring to his interrogator.

N still has nightmares and struggles to curb the fear he feels when the army is on patrol nearby.

But he's relatively lucky, having a supportive family that has encouraged him to talk about his experience. And N has received counselling from the torture victims' centre of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association).

Still, this is a frustrating battle, requiring endless patience.

The director general of DCI told me his organisation's petitions and campaigns within the Israeli military system have generally yielded very limited results, if at all. That's why these child rights advocates are hoping that outside pressure will eventually help prevent further instances of abuse and afford children like N the basic rights and protection they should be entitled to.

The tormenting part of this battle, however, is knowing that until success is achieved, there is nothing these activists can do for the children now detained by Israeli soldiers on a regular basis.

They can only hope that counselling, after the fact, can help them recover.

source : http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2010/05/30/children-behind-israeli-bars

Deir Yassin Remembered

Red Cross Eye-Witness Report On The Deir Yassin Massacre

April 9, 1948

On the night of April 9, 1948, the Irgun Zvei Leumi surrounded the village of Deir Yassin, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem. After giving the sleeping residents a 15 minute warning to evacuated, Menachem Begin's terrorists attacked the village of 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children and wounding 300 others. Begin's terrorists tossed many of the bodies in the village well, and paraded 150 captured women and children through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.

The Haganah and the Jewish Agency, which publicly denounced the atrocity after the details had become public several days later, did all they could to prevent the Red Cross from investigating the attack. It wasn't until three days after the attack that the Zionist armies permitted Jacques de Reynier, chief representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, to visit the village by the surrounding Zionist armies.

Ironically, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.

Deir Yassin is described as one of Menachim Begin's finest moments.

Following is the translation from French of the report de Reynier filed with his office (Published in de Reynier's book "Jerusalem Un Drapeau Flottait Sur La Ligne de Feu", 1950, Geneva). Immediately after de Reynier's account are two public statements made by an Haganah witness to the devastation, Col. Meir Pa'el (retired) and by Zvi Ankori, the Haganah commander who occupied Deir Yassin after the Irgun's evacuation.

de Reynier's statement:

"On Saturday, April 10, in the afternoon, I received a telephone call from the Arabs begging me to go at once to Deir Yassin where the civilian population of the whole village has just been massacred.

"I learned that the Irgun extremists hold this sector, situated near Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah's General Headquarters say that they know nothing about this matter and furthermore it is impossible for anyone to penetrate an Irgun area.

"They advise me that I not become involved in this matter as my mission will run the risk of being permanently cut short if I go there. Not only can they not help me but they also refuse all responsibility for what will certainly happen to me. I answer that I intend to go there at once, that the notorious Jewish Agency exercises its authority over the territory in Jewish hands and that the agency is responsible for my freedom of action within the bounds of my mission.

"In fact, I do not know at all how to do it. Without Jewish support it is impossible to reach that village. After thinking I suddenly remember that a Jewish nurse from a hospital here had made me take her telephone number, saying with a strange look that if I ever were in a difficult situation I could call her. On a chance I call her late in the evening and tell her the situation. She tells me to be in a predetermined location the following day at 7 o'clock and to take in my car the person who will be there.

"The next day on the hour and in the location upon which we agreed, an individual in civilian clothes, but with pistols stuffed in his pockets, jumps into my car and tells me to drive without stopping. At my request, he agrees to show me the road to Deir Yassin, but he admits not being able to do to much more for me. We drive out of Jerusalem, leave the main road and the last regular army post and we turn in on a cross road. Very soon two soldiers stop us. They look alarming with machine guns in full view and larger cutlasses at the belt.

"I recognize the uniform of those I am looking for. I must leave the car and lend myself to bodily search. Then I understand that I am a prisoner. All seems lost when a very big fellow ... jostles his friends, takes my hand ... He understands neither English nor French, but in German we arrive at a perfect understanding. He tells me his joy at seeing an ICRC delegate, for having been a prisoner in a camp for Jews in Germany he owes his life to nothing else but our intervention and three reprieves. He says that I am more than a brother for him and that he will do anything I ask. ... We go to Deir Yassin.

"Having reached a ridge 500 meters from the village which we see below, we must wait a long time for permission to go ahead. The shooting from the Arab side starts every time somebody tries to cross the road and the Commander of the Irgun detachment does not seem willing to relieve me. Finally he arrives, young, distinguished, perfectly correct, but his eyes have a strange, cruel, cold look. I explain my mission to him which has nothing in common with that of a judge or arbiter. I want to help the wounded and bring back the dead.

"Moreover, the Jews have signed a pledge to respect the Geneva Convention and my mission is therefore an official one. This last statement provokes the anger of this officer who asks me to consider once and for all that here it is the Irgun who are in command and nobody else, not even the Jewish Agency with which they have nothing in common.

"My (guide) hearing the raised voices intervenes ... Suddenly the officer tells me I can act as I see fit but on my own responsibility. He tells me the story of this village populated by about 400 Arabs, disarmed since always and living on good terms with the Jews who encircled them. According to him, the Irgun arrived 24 hours previously and ordered by loudspeaker the whole population to evacuate all the buildings and surrender. There is a 15 minute delay in the execution of the command. Some of the unhappy people came forward and would have been taken prisoners and then turned loose shortly afterwards toward the Arab lines. The rest did not obey the order and suffered the fate they deserved. But one must not exaggerate for there are only a few dead who would be buried as soon as the `clean up' of the village is over. If I find a bodies, I can take them with me, but there are certainly no wounded.

"This tale gives me cold chills. "I return to Jerusalem to find an ambulance and a truck that I had alerted through the Red Shield ... I arrive with my convoy in the village and the Arab fire ceases. The (Jewish) troops are in campaign uniforms with helmets. All the young people and even the adolescents, men and women, are armed to their teeth: pistols, machine guns, grenades, and also big cutlasses, most of them still bloody, that they hold in their hands. A young girl with the eyes of a criminal, shows me hers still dripping. She carries it around like a trophy. Thisis the `clean up' team which certainly has accomplished its job very conscientiously.

"I try to enter a building. About 10 soldiers surround me with machine guns aimed at me. An officer forbids me to move from the spot. They are going to bring the dead that are there, he says. I then get as furious as ever before in my life and tell these criminals what I think about the way they act, menacing them with the thunder I can muster, then I roughly push aside those who surround me and enter the building.

"The first room is dark, completely in disorder, and empty. In the second, I find among smashed furniture covers and all sorts of debris, some cold bodies. There they have been cleaned up by machine guns then by grenades. They have been finished by knives.

"It is the same thing in the next room, but just as I am leaving, I hear something like a sigh. I search everywhere, move some bodies and finally find a small foot which is still warm. It is a little 10 year old girl, very injured by grenade, but still alive. I want to take her with me but the officer forbids it and blocks the door. I push him aside and leave with my precious cargo protected by the brave (guide).

"The loaded ambulances leaves with orders to return as soon as possible. And because these troops have not dared to attack me directly, it is possible to continue.

"I give orders to load the bodies from this house on the truck. Then I go on to the neighboring house and go on. Everywhere I encounter the same terrible sight. I only find two persons still alive, two women, one of whom is an old grandmother, hidden behind the firewood where she kept immobile for at least 24 hours.

"There were 400 persons in the village. About 50 had fled, three are still alive, but the rest have been massacred on orders, for as I have noticed, this troop is admirably disciplined and acts only on command.

...[De Reynier continues that he returns to Jerusalem where he confronts the Jewish Agency and scolds them for not exercising control over the 150 armed men and women responsible for the massacre.]...

"I then go to see the Arabs. I say nothing about what I have seen, but only that after a first quick visit to the spot there seems to be several dead and I ask what I shall do or where to bring them ... they ask me to see that a suitable burial be given them in a place which will be recognizable later on. I pledge to do so and on my return to Deir Yassin, I find the Irgun people in a very bad mood. They try to stop me from approaching the village and I understand when I see the number and above all the state of the bodies which have been lined up on the main street. I demand firmly that they proceed with the burial and insist on helping them. After some discussion, they begin actually to scoop out a big grave in a small garden. It is impossible to verify the identity of the dead, for they have no papers, but I wrote accurately their descriptions with approximate age.

"Two days later, the Irgun had disappeared from the spot and the Haganah had taken possession. We have discovered different places where the bodies have been piled up without either decency or respect in the open air.

"Back in my office I received two gentleman in civilian clothes, very well dressed who had waited for more than one hour. It is the commander of the Irgun detachment and his aide. They have prepared a text they ask me to sign. It is a statement according to which I have been received courteously by them, that I have obtained all the help needed to accomplish my mission and I thank them for the aide they gave me.

"As I hesitate, I begin to discuss the statement, and they tell me that if I care for my life I should sign immediately."

...[Calling the statement contrary to fact, de Reynier refuses to sign. Several days later in Tel Aviv, de Reynier says he approached by the same two men who ask the ICRC to assist some of their Irgun soldiers.]...

Former Haganah officer, Col. Meir Pa'el, upon his retirement from the Israeli army in 1972, made the following public statement about Deir Yassin that was published by the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot, April 4, 1972:

"In the exchange that followed four [Irgun] men were killed and a dozen were wounded ... by noon time the battle was over and the shooting had ceased. Although there was calm, the village had not yet surrendered. The Irgun and LEHI men came out of hiding and began to `clean' the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre .... I pleaded with the commander to order his men to cease fire, but to no avail. In the meantime, 25 Arabs had been loaded on a truck and driven through Mahne Yehuda and Zichron Yousef (like prisoners in a Roman `March of Triumph'). At the end of the drive, they were taken to the quarry between Deir Yassin and Giv'at Shaul, and murdered in cold blood ... The commanders also declined when asked to take their men and bury the 254 Arab bodies. This unpleasant task was performed by two Gadna units brought to the village from Jerusalem."

Zvi Ankori, who commanded the Haganah unit that occupied Deir Yassin after the massacre, gave this statement in 1982 about the massacre, published by the Israeli paper Davar on April 9, 1982:

"I went into 6 to 7 houses. I saw cut off genitalia and women's crushed stomaches. According to the shooting signs on the bodies, it was direct murder."

The 12 March cartoon by South African cartoonist Zapiro that was later attacked by David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and which sparked debate in the country.




Source : www.radioislam.org/islam/english/toread/deiryas.htm

Gaza’s civilians, still unable to rebuild one year after Operation Cast Lead, ‘betrayed’ by international community

“It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few. World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens”
Jeremy Hobbs - Oxfam International Executive Director

- Only 41 truckloads of construction materials allowed to enter since January;
- Homes, schools, hospitals and water networks cannot be rebuilt.

The international community has betrayed the people of Gaza by failing to back their words with effective action to secure the ending of the Israeli blockade which is preventing reconstruction and recovery, say a group of 16 leading humanitarian and human rights groups in a new reportreleased today ahead of the anniversary of the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
The Israeli authorities have allowed only 41 truckloads of all construction materials into Gaza since the end of the offensive in mid-January, warn the groups, which include Amnesty International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Mercy Corps and Oxfam International. The task of rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes alone will require thousands of truckloads of building materials, they add.
Little of the extensive damage the offensive caused to homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses has been repaired because the civilian population, and the UN and aid agencies who help them, are prohibited from importing materials like cement and glass in all but a handful of cases, says the report.
Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam International Executive Director, said: “It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few. World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens. They have wrung hands and issued statements, but have taken little meaningful action to attempt to change the damaging policy that prevents reconstruction, personal recovery and economic recuperation."
“Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, too, must maintain their current de facto cessation of violence and permanently cease all indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza. And all the Palestinian factions also need to intensify their reconciliation dialogue to pave the way for a reunified Palestinian government able to effectively provide for the needs of its civilian population.”
The effect of the construction materials ban goes much wider, say the authors of the report. They say the blockade has also led to frequent power, gas and water shortages,seriously affecting daily life and public health. Parts of the Gaza electricity network were bombed during the conflict and require urgent repairs, which have still not been allowed to proceed almost one year after the conflict. This, combined with Israel continuing to restrict the supply of industrial fuel into Gaza, means that 90% of people in Gaza suffer power cuts of four to eight hours a day.
Power cuts also cause daily interruptions to water supply, as does the inability to repair water pipes, roof top water tanks and household connectors, because materials and spare parts are not deemed essential humanitarian supplies by Israel and so are prevented entry under the blockade. With the loss of pressure in the pipes, polluted water from the ground contaminates the supply. Together with chronic disrepair to the sewage system, poor water quality is a major concern for aid agencies in Gaza, with diarrhoea causing 12 % of young deaths.
The blockade, which began in June 2007 after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, has sharply increased poverty, helping make 8 out of 10 people dependent on some form of aid. Businesses and farms have been forced to close and lay off workers. An almost complete ban on exports has hit farmers hard, compounded by the offensive which wrecked 17% of farmland together with greenhouses and irrigation equipment, and left a further 30% unusable in no-go ‘buffer zones’ expanded by the Israeli military after the end of the offensive.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said: “The wretched reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza should appal anybody with an ounce of humanity. Sick, traumatised and impoverished people are being collectively punished by a cruel, illegal policy imposed by the Israeli authorities.
“Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens does not give it the right to punish every man, woman and child of Gaza. All states are obliged under international law to intervene to put an end to this brutal blockade but their leaders are failing in this fundamental measure of their own humanity. All states must insist that the Israeli government end its blockadeand let the people of Gaza rebuild their shattered lives.”
The report argues that, while Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, the measures it takes must conform to international humanitarian and human rights law. By enforcing its blockade on Gaza, Israel is violating the prohibition on collective punishment in international humanitarian law, it says. In the report the groups call on Israel to end the blockade. But they also say, ‘the people of Gaza have been betrayed by the international community which can and must do far more to end this illegal and inhumane blockade’. They urge the EU, for example, to take immediate and concerted action to secure the lifting of the blockade of Gaza so that the close of Spain’s six-month presidency of the EU in June 2010 does not also mark the third anniversary of the blockade being imposed.
The report’s authors also call on European foreign ministers and the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton to visit Gaza to see for themselves the impact of the blockade on its people. Securing an immediate opening of the Gaza crossings for building materials to repair ruined homes and civilian infrastructure as winter sets in would be an important step towards an end to the blockade, say the organisations.
Janet Symes, Head of Middle East Region, Christian Aid said: “Expressions of disapproval over the blockade of Gaza by the international community are no longer enough. It is time to allow the people of Gaza to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and rebuild. There must be no more excuses from the international community.”

source : http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-12-22/gaza-civilians-rebuild-one-year-operation-cast-lead

Israel withholding bodies of 300 Palestinian fighters

RAMALLAH: Palestinian Minister of Detainees and Ex-detainees Issa Qaraqi’ said Saturday that Israeli authorities have been withholding for years the remains of some 300 Palestinians killed in combat in secret cemeteries known as the “Cemeteries of Numbers”. During a visit to a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Arourah, north of Ramallah, Qaraqi’ said Israel was in violation of basic international laws by denying Palestinian families the right to claim their dead. Israel has agreed to release the body of a Palestinian from Arourah killed by its forces in 1976 after keeping it for nearly 33 years for unexplained reasons. Israeli media said the Israeli High Court ruled recently that the body of Mashhour Al-Arouri should be released. The ruling came after the Palestinian family petitioned the court for the custody of his body. The appeal, lodged by Arouri’s relatives, is part of a national Palestinian campaign to bring home the bodies of Palestinian fighters killed by the Israeli military during operations. Qaraqi’ said that Arouri’s body will be retrieved after DNA checks confirm his identity. The court ruled that in case the body is found in a state not fit for reburial in Palestine, the family will be granted permission to visit the grave. Palestinians are skeptical about this as authorization to enter Israel is rarely granted to Palestinians. Qaraqi’ said the “forced burial of the martyrs is a punishment to their families.” He also said that the practice of withholding the men’s remains for years sparked speculation Israel assassinated them after detention or harvested their organs. Palestinian sources say Israeli is holding the remains of Palestinian and Arab fighters in four Cemeteries of Numbers. Meanwhile, Israeli Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov opposed Saturday the inclusion of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in any prisoner swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. The minister said Barghouti does not qualify for release as he “has become a symbol of armed conflict and bloodshed.” Hamas sources said that a deal is eluding the parties due to difference over the release of eight prisoners. They are Barghouti, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Ahmed Sa’adat, top Hamas activists Ibrahim Hamed, Abbas Al-Sayed and Abdullah Al-Barghouti, female prisoners Amenah Muna, Ahlam Al-Tamimi and Qaherah Al-Sa’di. source : http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=129524&d=13&m=12&y=2009

Palestinians seek organ theft probe

Several Palestinians in the West Bank have called for an international inquiry into a Swedish newspaper report that suggests members of the Israeli army stole body organs from Palestinians. The report, published last week in Aftonbladet, Sweden's leading tabloid, accused Israeli forces of stealing the organs from Palestinian men after killing them, a charge Israel has denied. But Jalal Ghanem, a resident of the West Bank village of Immatain, told Al Jazeera this week that his brother, Bilal, was one of the victims of the alleged theft following his death by Israeli fire in 1992. Ghanem said Israeli soldiers ambushed Bilal, a member of the Fatah movement and an activist during the second Intifada, at the gate of his family's home.
"They [Israeli soldiers] called him, Bilal, Bilal। He automatically turned, and they shot him," Ghanem said. A military ambulance then transferred Bilal to a helicopter at the gate of the village, his family said.

'Body opened'
Ghanem said Israeli forces returned the body to his family a week later, but it was cut and showed signs of being opened. "It was very clear that there was no abdomen, it showed from the way it was stitched. There were no teeth in his mouth," he said. Bilal's death was included in the Swedish newspaper report by Donald Bostrom, a Swedish freelance journalist. Bostrom said the report was based on his own eyewitness account of an Israeli army raid on a Palestinian village in 1992. He told Al Jazeera he was not anti-Semitic and insisted that what he had written was true. "The body was taken away and the authorities made an autopsy with this young man against the will of the family," Bostrom said। "All those things are actually true and happened. When the military returned the body the family said, 'We think they stole the organ of the body' because there was an empty belly.

Israeli outrage
The article has sparked outrage in Israel, with scores of ministers and commentators calling it anti-Semitic. "The statements in the Swedish press were outrageous," Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was quoted as telling his cabinet on Sunday.
"We are not expecting an apology from the Swedish government... We are expecting condemnation." The Swedish government has refused to apologise for the article, saying the country's press freedom prevents it from intervening. "If I devoted myself to correcting all the strange claims in the media, I would probably not have time to devote to very much else," Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, said. The newspaper commented on its story on Sunday, acknowledging that it had no proof of any organ theft but argued that the story deserved publication because of the issues it raised।

Source : Al Jazeera & agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/08/200982510415994815.html

Israel condemned over evictions

The US has led international condemnation of Israel after it evicted nine Palestinian families living in two houses in occupied East Jerusalem.Washington said the action was not in keeping with Israel's obligations under the so-called "road map" to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict।Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately।Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, a move not recognised by the world community.The removal of the 53 people was also condemned by the United Nations, the Palestinians and the UK government.Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said he was outraged at the action.
"Israel is once again showing its utter failure to respect international law," he said। "New settlers from abroad are accommodating themselves and their belongings in the Palestinian houses and 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep।"

'Deplorable'
The operation to evict the Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah district of the city was carried out before dawn on Sunday by police clad in black riot gear. It followed a ruling by Israel's Supreme Court that Jewish families owned the land. Israel wants to build a block of 20 apartments in the area. The families' belongings were put on the street "I deplore today's totally unacceptable actions by Israel," the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert H Serry said. "These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory. "These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace."
The UK government said the Israeli action was "incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace". "We urge Israel not to allow the extremists to set the agenda," the British Consulate in East Jerusalem said.

Sovereignty 'unquestionable'
Israel considers a united Jerusalem to be the capital of the state of Israel. "Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month. "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy [homes] anywhere in Jerusalem."
The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says the houses are in what is probably the most contested city on earth and the diplomatic ripples from the evictions will spread. There are an estimated 250,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and 200,000 Jews. source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8180743.stm

Israel in secret plan to surround Old City: rights group

* Plan includes demolition of Palestinian homes built without building permits and ignores Muslim archaeological sites in occupied east Jerusalem

JERUSALEM: The Israeli government has secret plans to surround Jerusalem’s Old City with sites under its control to strengthen its hold on the divided city, a rights group said on Sunday.

“The aim is to put in place in coordination with ultra-nationalist settler groups nine biblical parks, focusing almost exclusively on the ancient Jewish past of the city,” said Daniel Seidemann, a founder of the Ir Amim advocacy group.

Plan: “The plan includes the demolition of Palestinian homes built without building permits and ignores the Muslim archaeological sites” in occupied east Jerusalem, the lawyer told AFP.

The plan, which has the support of the offices of the Jerusalem mayor and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aims to surround the Old City with “parks, trails and tourist sites under Israeli control, in a drastic change of the status quo in the city”, Ir Amir said in a statement.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive topics in the decades-old Middle East conflict, with Israel claiming the city as its “eternal, undivided capital”, a position not recognised by the international community.

Palestinians hoping to make the mostly Arab eastern part of the city, which has been occupied by Israel for more than four decades and contains sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims, the capital of their promised state.

“The programme is sponsored secretly by the office of the prime minister and the mayor of Jerusalem, not only without public discussions, but without the existence of the project even publicly known,” Ir Amim said.

The project is due to be carried out by the Jerusalem Development Authority which submitted a report on its plans to the prime minister’s office in September 2008.

According to that report, the objective of the plan is “to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City” in order “to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel”.

“This policy risks pouring oil on the flames by transforming a national conflict into a religious one, playing the game of nationalist (Jewish) extremists,” Siedemann said. When asked to comment on the report, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office said: “Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of Jewish people for some 3,000 years and will remain the united capital of the state of Israel.”

“The government will continue to develop Jerusalem, development that will benefit all of Jerusalem’s diverse population and respect the different faiths and communities that together make Jerusalem such a special city.” The Jerusalem mayor’s office declined to immediately comment and there was no immediate reaction from the development authority. The report comes a week before Netanyahu, Israel’s hawkish premier, is due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington.

Israeli actions in east Jerusalem – which it captured in 1967 and later annexed – is one of the main points of discord between Obama’s administration and Netanyahu’s largely right-wing cabinet.

On her first official visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank in March, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed Israeli plans to raze homes built without permits in east Jerusalem as “unhelpful” and a matter of “deep concern.” - afp