Today in the news--another house demolition story. There are many ways to demolish Palestinians' homes....sometimes it's a bulldozer (the home behind Augusta Victoria Hospital, bulldozed in late May), sometimes it's moving into someone's "abandoned" home (Ein Hod), sometimes it's settling in Arab Hebron and forcing the closure of the markets. Today it's squatters in the East Jerusalem home of Palestinian couple, Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd. The story, reported today, begins:
JERUSALEM // It must be the smallest Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories: just half a house. But Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups are concerned that it represents the first stage of a plan to eradicate the historical neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, cutting off one of the main routes by which Palestinians reach the Old City and its holy sites. Read more: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9716.shtml
OTHER NEWS WE AREN'T LIKELY TO SEE in the American press: a 12-year-old boy was killed today by Israeli Defense Forces in Ni'ilin, a West Bank Arab village that has been trying to stop the construction of Israel's security wall on their village lands. Ahmad Husam Yousef Mousa was shot with a live bullet while he was sitting under a tree after the demonstration in Ni'ilin against the building of the wall: http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1701.shtml Or read another story about the 12-year-old boy's death: http://thenational.ae/article/20080730/FOREIGN/971119419/1002&profile=1002
Confrontations between Ni'ilin villagers and IDF soldiers have been escalating recently. During last Friday's demonstration against the wall: "Seven hundred people gathered at around 11 am this morning and held Friday prayers on the lands on the edge of the village which have been destroyed to make way for construction of the Wall. As the villagers prayed, two military jeeps approached and began to disrupt the gathering and provoke the worshippers...." Read more: http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1698.shtml
On Saturday, July 5, I wrote about our visit to Jayyus (although I misspelled it at the time), where the security wall cuts off the Jayyus farmers from their olive groves, about how happy they were to have us visit and simplify their passage through the checkpoint. Today there is a report that Israel will move the wall so that they will have unobstructed access to their fields.....most of their land, that is. The court decision has a benefit--giving them better access to their olive groves. But it also has a down side: the wall is still being built on their land and the new wall will have no gates, so that land (about 4 kilometers wide) is lost to them forever, destined to become part of the nearby Israeli settlement of Zufim, a new addition to the settlement, which they are calling North Zufim. Read about it: http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1700.shtml
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