Israel settlers torch W. Jerusalem Christian school

Israeli settlers torched the rooms of a Christian school and wrote offensive words regarding Jesus Christ.

World Bulletin / News Desk

Israeli settlers on Thursday torched one of the rooms of a Christian religious school in West Jerusalem and inscribed phrases offending to Jesus Christ on its walls.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement that unidentified people had committed a crime of "national proportions."

She added that fire was set to the school room and a toilet used by priests and students of Christianity inside the school.

Samri noted that the attackers also wrote phrases offending to Jesus Christ on walls near the room.

"Firefighters had put off the fire, which caused material damage in the place," Samri said, noting that the fire had not caused any human casualties.

A member of the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian Fatah movement, meanwhile, said Muslim and Christian places of worship were being increasingly targeted by Jews.

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fully responsible for these crimes," Dimitri Diliani said in a statement.

Diliani called on the United Nations to offer protection for Palestinians and their places of worship.

On Wednesday, a group of Jewish settlers set fire to a mosque near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and sprayed racist phrases against Arabs and Muslims on its walls, according to a Palestinian official.

Several attacks, called the "price tag," by Jewish settlers targeting Muslim houses of worship have recently been reported in areas across the self-proclaimed Jewish state and the occupied West Bank.

Source : http://www.worldbulletin.net/palestine/155757/israel-settlers-torch-w-jerusalem-christian-school

Suspend EU-Israel treaty, urge dozens of MEPs

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini

A group of 63, cross-party MEPs have urged EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

The Agreement is the main treaty between the EU and Israel that has facilitated trade since 2000, and allows Israel to participate in a wide range of EU initiatives.

The MEPs' letter notes how "Amnesty International and Palestinian organisations have documented that Israel deliberately targeted civilians and committed other war crimes during its recent onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza."

"These are serious violations of international law and international humanitarian law that cannot be tolerated", they add.

The MEPs "call on the Commission to consider the suspension of Association Agreement with Israel unless Israel takes substantial and immediate steps to bring its conduct in line with international law", and point out how

the EU's lack of substantial action with regards to Israel appears out of step with the speed at which it has implemented restrictive measures on Russia with regards to the Ukraine crisis in recent months, as well as the restrictive measures implemented against more than 30 other countries.

In September 2014, Palestinian civil society organisations made a similar plea for suspension to the then- foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and a similar appeal was also made in November, by more than 300 human rights groups, trade unions and political parties from across Europe.

Source : https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/16594-suspend-eu-israel-treaty-urge-dozens-of-meps

Video : How Israeli Police arrest Palestinians. Very disturbing.

Australian MP exposes Israeli propaganda in Australia about Palestine : David Shoebridge

David Shoebridge

1. Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council

UN accuses Israel of razing homes of 77 Palestinians

© AFP | A bulldozer hired by the Jerusalem municipality destroys a Palestinian house in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Shuafat, on January 21, 2015

JERUSALEM (AFP) -The United Nations has accused Israel of illegally demolishing the homes of 77 Palestinians, mostly children, this week in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

"In the past three days, 77 Palestinians, over half of them children, have been made homeless," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement issued Friday evening.

"Some of the demolished structures were provided by the international community to support vulnerable families.

"Demolitions that result in forced evictions and displacement run counter to Israel's obligations under international law and create unnecessary suffering and tension. They must stop immediately," said OCHA.

The demolitions took place in east Jerusalem and the districts of Ramallah, Jericho and Hebron, it added.

OCHA said that during 2014 Israel carried out a record number of demolitions in east Jerusalem and a zone of the West Bank under full Israeli control known as Area C.

"In 2014, according to OCHA figures, the Israeli authorities destroyed 590 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C and east Jerusalem, displacing 1,177 people -- the highest level of displacement in the West Bank since OCHA began systematically monitoring the issue in 2008."

It did not specify how many of the structures were homes or animal shelters or other outbuildings.

Israel says such demolitions are carried out because the structures have been built without the required construction permits. Palestinians and rights groups say such authorisation is routinely denied, forcing unlicensed building.

"The planning policies applied by Israel in Area C and east Jerusalem discriminate against Palestinians, making it extremely difficult for them to obtain building permits," said OCHA.

"As a result, many Palestinians build without permits to meet their housing needs and risk having their structures demolished.

"Palestinians must have the opportunity to participate in a fair and equitable planning system that ensures their needs are met," it said.

Source : France 24 International News 24/7

14-year-old Palestinian girl Malaak al-Khatib sentenced to 2 months in Israeli prison

On 21 January, 14-year-old Palestinian girl Malaak al-Khatib was sentenced to 2 months in Israeli prison. Malaak has been imprisoned since 31 December 2014, and her detention repeatedly extended during that time, on accusations of “throwing stones” at Israeli occupation soldiers at the settler bypass road closed to Palestinians near her school. Her detention has been extended 3 times since her original arrest. She is one of around 500-700 Palestinian children are detained and arrested by the Israeli occupation forces each year. If children are charged at all, it is usually with “throwing stones.”

Source : Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network ( http://samidoun.ca/ ) 

Related : http://stateofblood.blogspot.com/2015/01/israel-continues-to-keep-14-year-old.html

Israel government 'tortures' children by keeping them in cages, human rights group says

An Israeli human rights organisation has accused the government of torturing children after it emerged some were kept in outdoor cages during winter.It said the incident in Ramla was just one example of a broad range of abuses being suffered.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) published a report which claimed children suspected of minor crimes were subjected to “public caging”, threats and acts of sexual violence and military trials without representation. It came as the government’s Public Petitions Committee held a hearing to discuss the issue, which the PCATI said must be addressed with a change to the law.

The country’s Public Defender’s Office (PDO) recently released details of one particularly shocking visit by its lawyers to a detention facility.

“During our visit, held during a fierce storm that hit the state, attorneys met detainees who described to them a shocking picture: in the middle of the night dozens of detainees were transferred to the external iron cages built outside the IPS transition facility in Ramla,” the PDO wrote on its website.

“It turns out that this procedure, under which prisoners waited outside in cages, lasted for several months, and was verified by other officials.”

Although the practice of keeping children caged was reported to have lasted for months, there is no suggestion that the individuals were so detained for that period. 

According to the Jerusalem Post, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni called for the practice of keeping children in cages to be stopped as soon as she learned of it, and the prison service issued a statement saying the situation had been improved following the “criticism”.

The PCATI said this was not enough, and called for the country’s relatively high threshold for what can be classed “acts of abuse” to be lowered in the case of children.

Their report argued: “Torture is a means of attacking an individual’s fundamental modes of psychological and social functioning” as described in the Istanbul Protocol. Furthermore, “torture can impact a child directly or indirectly. The impact can be due to the child’s having been tortured or detained, the torture of parents or close family members or witnessing torture and violence.”

Yesterday the Knesset committee said Israeli law as it currently exists was being violated by the manner of arrest and detention conditions of Palestinian children, the Post reported.

The committee also took issue with the fact that the government appeared not to keep records of the frequency or scope of disputed practices like midnight arrests.

The PCATI quoted figures from the campaign group Defence for Children International's Palestine section, saying: “The majority of Palestinian child detainees are charged with throwing stones, and 74 per cent experience physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation.”

It said Israel was the only country to systematically prosecute children in its military courts, and added that “no Israeli children come into contact with the military court system”.

Source : The Independent

Related : http://stateofblood.blogspot.com/2015/01/israel-sexually-abusing-child-prisoners.html