The first session of a trial to sentence the murderers of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni is due to start on Thursday in a Gaza court, a Ma’an correspondent reported.

The Italian activist and journalist was murdered after being kidnapped by a group that identified itself as Salafist, on April 15, 2011.

He was found hanged in a house northwest of Gaza City.

Hamas security forces were able to find the group responsible for the murder in An-Nuseirat refugee camp, three days after the murder.

Clashes erupted between the group and Hamas forces, killing two of the accused murderers. A third was injured and a fourth detained.

President Abbas condemned the murder of Arrigoni as a “grotesque and disgraceful crime.”

News of the Italian activist’s murder was greeted with widespread condemnation, and demonstrations and vigils were held across the West Bank in his memory.

Ma’an

Dozens of Palestinians tried to break through the Rafah crossing on Saturday after Egyptian authorities failed to open the Gaza border terminal, witnesses said.

Egyptian security officers lined up carrying clubs preparing to stop any border breach, onlookers told Ma’an.

Several buses carrying hundreds of Palestinians queued at the Egyptian gate, which remained closed several hours after the scheduled opening time.

Egyptian authorities made no official announcement that the crossing would be closed.

Egypt reopened the Rafah crossing on May 28, allowing the free movement of Palestinians from Gaza for the first time in four years. The terminal is the only crossing which Israel does not control.

However, floods of travelers overwhelmed the crossing, and the situation escalated into a crisis as officials traded accusations over the responsibility for huge queues at the terminal.

Hamas officials were also angered by Egypt’s publication of a blacklist, banning 5,000 Palestinians from traveling.

On Tuesday, Egyptian authorities met with Hamas officials and agreed to set a cap of 400 travelers per day to use the crossing.

Representative of Palestine in Cairo Mohammad Arafat said Wednesday that Egypt was under intense pressure from Israel and the US to close the border crossing. He said Egypt was reviewing the names of those blacklisted from travel.

Some Palestinians on the blacklist said they would appeal to Egyptian courts. They said the decision was based on inaccurate information received by the former Egyptian state security.

The decision to permanently reopen the Rafah crossing came more than three months after former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned under pressure following 18 days of massive street protests against his rule.

Israeli ministers slammed the reopening of the border, warning that terrorist groups would be able to move weapons and people freely through the crossing.

The border has remained largely shut since June 2006 when Israel imposed a tight blockade on Gaza after militants snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still being held.

The blockade was tightened a year later when Hamas seized control of the territory, ousting forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

The United Nations has called the blockade illegal and repeatedly demanded it be lifted.

Ma’an

Israel will hold up an $89 million cash transfer to the Palestinian Authority [PA] planned for this week because of a new unity deal between rival Palestinian factions.

“Israel wants assurances that any money transferred to the Palestinians will not reach the militant Hamas organisation, which is set to become part of the Palestinian government,” Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli finance minister, said on Sunday.

“I think the burden of proof is on the Palestinians, to make it certain, to give us guarantees that money delivered by Israel is not going to the Hamas, is not going to a terrorist organisation, is not going to finance terror operations against Israeli citizens,” he said.

Israel had threatened sanctions last week in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s surprise announcement of a unity deal with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is shunned by the West for its hostility towards the Jewish state.

According to a report in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli officials would also cancel talks with the Abbas administration aimed at updating the tax transfer mechanism which provides it with $1 billion to $1.4 billion annually – two-thirds of PA budget.

Israel collects some tax and customs fees for the Palestinians under the peace agreements of the 1990s.

Israel has held up cash transfers several times in the past decade, citing concerns that the money was being used to fund attacks against Israelis.

Deal raises concern

There was no immediate Palestinian reaction to the Israeli move.

The deal signed between Fatah and Hamas is meant to lead immediately to a transitional government and new elections within one year.

Israel suspends transfer of $89m to Palestinian Authority in view of recent unity deal between Fatah and Hamas.

The Israeli government said the deal rules out the renewal of deadlocked peace talks and threatens Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation in the West Bank.

The agreement “should worry not only all Israeli citizens but all those across the world who want to see peace between us and our Palestinian neighbours”, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister said on Sunday.

Israel has also expressed its concern to the UN about the deal.

Ehud Barak, the defence minister, on Saturday told Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, of “Israel’s concern” over the unity accord struck on Wednesday between Hamas and Fatah, according to a statement.

Months after trying to place controversial ads about Israel on Metro buses, the Seattle group behind the ads said its latest effort to put a similar message on billboards has also been rejected.

The group, the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC), said billboard company Clear Channel Outdoor had placed three of the group’s signs last week and this week.

The signs say, “Equal rights for Palestinians – Stop funding the Israeli military.”

But on Wednesday, Clear Channel announced it was canceling the contract, saying it re-evaluated its decision after people complained, according to SeaMAC.

“We don’t under what is objectionable about equal rights…” SeaMAC volunteer Ed Mast said Thursday, standing near billboard on Elliott Avenue West that once had his message. It now said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

“This leaves us censored now twice in Seattle.”

Olivia Lippens, president of Clear Channel Outdoor Seattle, said the company is committed to ensuring that “all messages we post, and any websites they promote, adhere to community standards and are not offensive towards any business.”

“Upon further review, it became evident that a campaign sponsored by Stop 30 Billion.org promoted a website that is not in keeping with those standards,” Lippens said in a statement.

“As a result of that review, we removed this advertising from our displays.”

The website Lippens refers to is for an umbrella group called the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel. The $30 billion refers to the amount the United States has committed to giving Israel in military aid over the next decade, says the group.

(The actual website on the billboards is for SeaMAC, whose site is stop30billion-seattle.org).

Mast said the billboards were placed on Aurora Avenue, Elliott Avenue West and Lake City Way. Lippens said Clear Channel was working to remove them in the next few days.

Last year, King County had authorized SeaMAC to put ads on Metro buses that said, “Israeli war crimes: Your tax dollars at work.”

But news of the ads prompted a torrent of complaints and threats of violence, and county officials worried about civil disobedience and terrorist acts.

Executive Dow Constantine reversed the decision in December, before the ads ever went up. SeaMAC and the ACLU then sued the county, saying the decision violated the Constitution.

The controversy also prompted King County Metro to announce new transit advertising policy earlier this month, saying it will take ads for non-profits, but that certain political and public issue ads will be banned.

One-fourth of the Palestinian population residing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has been put behind the bars by the Israeli government, making Palestinians the most imprisoned people in the world, according to a new report.
Besides, Israel is the only state worldwide that has child prisoners under the age of 18. They number 280. “Their living conditions are harsh. Prison administration refuses to allow mature prisoners to join them. Israel uses all sorts of punishment and tortures against child prisoners to recruit them as spies. They threaten them with rape and other forms of violence,” contends the report by ‘Friends of Humanity International’.

“There is no one single family that didn’t experience the arrest of one of its members. The majority of those detained are male, which constitutes over 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population” in the OPT, says the report titled ‘A year of Jails storming and attempts to weaken prisoners determination’.

“Since Israel began its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained, representing approximately twenty percent of the current total Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories,” notes the report released in Vienna on April 22, 2011.

The report points out that Israel has illegally detained Palestinian men, women and children through an extensive and systematic set of regulations that control every aspect of Palestinian life. They restrict or deny their basic human rights.

Authors of the report, Fuad Al Khoffash and Ghassan Obaid, call a spade a spade: “The conditions of the prisons and treatment of prisoners are horrendous, violating numerous international laws. The Israeli military, which governs the Occupied Territories, constantly changes or issues new military orders that are often unknown to local populations until implemented. Palestinian prisoners are then subject to Israeli military tribunals, which rarely follow required international standards of fair trial. Palestinians not only live under an illegal occupation, but also under an unstable and unjust system of law and order.”

The majority of Palestinian political prisoners are charged with offenses under Israeli military orders of which there are some 1,500 governing the West Bank and 1,400 enforced in Gaza before Israel’s withdrawal from that area in 2005.

These military regulations carry a broad definition of “security” and they ban, amongst other things, political expression. For example, according to Military order 101 it is forbidden to conduct a protest march or meeting (grouping of ten or more where the subject concerns or is related to politics) “without permission of the Military Commander”. The distribution of political articles and pictures with “political connotations” is also forbidden under the same order.

Al Khoffash and Obaid add: “Israeli policies towards its prisoners routinely violate international law. Torture has become an endemic problem within Israeli prisons and increasing numbers of children are beginning to end up in Israeli jails. These general trends are areas of growing concern as they have remained unabated for decades.”

While there is a general problem facing Palestinians in Israeli prisons, the report provides details of the suffering faced by Palestinian prisoners incarcerated by Israel.

The report says: “Year 2010 was not an ordinary year for Palestinian prisoners. Yet, if there is a common feature to describe the reality of the movement of prisoners and the captives, we could label it as ‘A year of Jails storming and attempts to Weaken Prisoners Determination’.”

Al Khoffash and Obaid add: “The In 2010 there was also the largest movement of prison leaders of Palestinian detainees in an effort to disrupt prisoners and create a state of instability within prisons. This policy intended to hinder the work of Prisoners Movement, to plan and organize their struggle within jails such as protests and hunger strikes.

“The year also witnessed a sharp decrease in the number of prisoners in Israeli jails which was 6500 persons distributed in dozens of Israelis jails. The year included various random campaigns to arrest people in the West Bank cities and villages. Such campaigns were carried almost daily. Indeed there are daily operations storming houses, villages and towns in return of releases of some prisoners. It seems Israel is trying to send a message pointing out that no Palestinian is immune and protected from these campaigns and operations.”

The report has gathered some shocking information: The prisoners were tortured and their belongings were confiscated. They were hit, beaten, including with electric sticks and sprayed with tear gas. They were separated individually or moved to other departments in the jail, not dissimilar to what happened to those in Hadarim detention centre.

“In Hadarim centre, prisoners in division three were moved to division five. Walls between divisions were demolished while prisoners were deprived from taking electric equipments with them. Prisoners were corralled and put in a detention which lacked any basic provisions required in every prison. All this happened under a pretext of searching for mobile phones.”

The same incident happened in Nafha detention centre, located in the desert which the Israeli army stormed more than ten times. On every occasion, says the report, confrontation took place between prison guards and prisoners, resulting in bloody attacks against prisoners and their leaders.

On one occasion, an Israeli officer, at Nafha detention (which host Palestinian prisoners of highest sentences from Gaza Strip), phoned the wife of one of the prisoners with abuse to evoke response, while searching his private belongings. The incident caused enormous damage and has pushed the Management of the prison to apologize and provide further assurance that an open investigation in the manner in which prison cells are raided and prisoners restrained by carried out.

“The Israeli state and Prison Service facility has escalated their humiliating and torture tactics. Rarely a week passes before another raid or attack against prisoner’s chambers. Such conditions made the lives of prisoners extremely difficult, forced to live in continuous tension fearing frequent and untimely attacks,” the authors of the report note. (IDN-InDepthNews/26.04.2011)

Three children were injured by flying glass as Israeli F16 fighter planes flew six raids against the Gaza Strip overnight, hospital staff, witnesses and Hamas officials said Friday.

The three children, aged two, four and 11, were hit by flying glass in a raid on the Sabra district, in the western part of Gaza City, said Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza.

Three Israeli air strikes targeted an area west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza.

A fourth raid destroyed a workshop in the refugee camp of Nusseirat, in central Gaza.

In two other air raids, Israeli fighters targeted points in the west of Gaza City, completely destroying a small dairy factory in the Sabra district, said witnesses.

The attacks were carried out by F16 fighters, the witnesses said.

Israel’s armed forces have launched regular air raids on the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, responding to repeated rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza-based militants.

In recent days, Israeli ground forces have also clashed with Palestinian militants along the border with Israel.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian teenager was killed and several others were wounded as Israeli troops fired on protestors near the Gaza border.

The incident happened as Israeli Arabs and Palestinians marked “Land Day”, the annual commemoration of Israel’s killing of six Arab citizens during a 1976 protest against land confiscations.

And an Israeli officer and soldier were killed during fierce clashes last weekend.

Following the deaths, finance minister Yuval Steinitz, from the governing rightwing Likud party, told public radio: “Sooner or later we will liquidate the military regime of the pro-Iranian Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.”

The present surge in violence is the worst since the end of the 22-day Israeli assault on the territory launched in December 2008 that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Artist Robert Ballagh, who designed the set for Riverdance , is boycotting an upcoming tour to Israel by Riverdance in support of justice for the Palestinian people.

In an open letter, Ballagh has also said he will donate any royalties due to him for performances by Riverdance in Israel to the fund for an Irish boat, which is taking part in an flotilla of vessels that hopes to break the “illegal and inhuman blockade” of Gaza.

“I, along with many other Irish creative and performing artists, signed a cultural boycott pledge not to visit Israel. This was a positive response to the call by Palestinian filmmakers, artists and cultural organisations for a cultural boycott of Israel. I believe that this non-violent cultural boycott will contribute to the struggle for justice for the Palestinian people.”

“Because I have signed up to support the cultural boycott I will not be travelling to Israel with Riverdance ,” he said.

Ballagh said his decision to support the boycott was inspired by a meeting with Nelson Mandela, who told him the sporting and cultural boycott of South Africa was an essential weapon in the struggle against apartheid.

In a second open letter published today, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign says the Riverdance “farewell tour”, which includes events in three Israeli cities, violates a call for boycotts issued by 170 Palestinian civil society organisations in 2005 and a subsequent cultural boycott issued by filmmakers and artists.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, representing more than 1,000 residents of the Gaza Strip, said on Thursday that courts in Israel refused to hear their demands, Ynetnews reported.

The judges wrote that demands for compensation over damage should have been filed within two years and other damages can be filed seven years after the incident.

The Palestinian group, however, said that courts are permitted to extend the statute of limitations by three additional years in such cases.

A spokesman for the human rights center, attorney Michael Sfard, said filing a case within such a short period of time is always impossible due to Israel’s refusal of entry permits.

Israel launched an all-out war on the Gaza Strip three days before the turn of 2009. The three-week war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 300 children.

The offensive leveled 4,000 houses in the territory and devastated a large portion of infrastructure. More than 50,000 people were displaced as a result of the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed a visiting delegation of US lawmakers Thursday to join him in measures against the Palestinian unity deal, according to Israeli media reports.

The meeting saw a decision to push a diplomatic campaign, focusing on the European Union, to undermine international recognition of the unity government between rival Hamas and Fatah factions, Israeli daily Haaretz cited senior Israeli government officials saying.

Netanyahu told the seven US Congress members, who had come to Israel on a bipartisan delegation, that “Israel would not recognize any government in the world that included members from Al-Qaida,” the report said.

The Prime Minister also said the United States should block aid to a Palestinian government that does not recognize Israel or renounce terror, quoting remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April 2009, saying that these were preconditions for talks or economic support.

Israeli military and intelligence officials joined the meeting of visiting Congress members, and told the delegation Hamas had signed the unity deal due to fears of instability in its allied regime, Syria, according to Haaretz’ report.

After 18 months of largely fruitless reconciliation talks, delegations from Hamas and Fatah meeting in Cairo on Wednesday announced a deal to form an interim unity government of technocrats with a view to holding presidential and legislative elections within a year.

The deal raises the prospect of an end to the devastating political divide that has seen the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority govern the West Bank while the Islamist Hamas movement control the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed Thursday not to recognize a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, with Netanyahu warning President Mahmoud Abbas must chose between peace with Israel and Hamas. Senior US congress members decried the unity move and immediately threatened to axe millions in funding for the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Ahmad At-Tibi responded on Thursday saying, “Threats by Netanyahu and the US Congress against the Palestinians in light of the reconciliation agreement are arrogant, hypocritical and Israeli chutzpa,” according to a report in Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.

Tibi continued, “In Israel, they sanctify the value of national unity, but demand that the Palestinians remain divided and weak. Palestinian unity will promote the goals of the Palestinian people to achieve freedom and independence.”

The revolutions taking place across the Arab world have taken the spotlight away from an ongoing issue which Israel would like the world to forget: the siege of Gaza, which has now been in place for four years. In May last year, Israel’s murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla caused worldwide outrage and it was forced to announce that it would “ease” the siege; a year later it is still in place and continues to affect the lives of 1.5 million Gazans.

Most inhabitants of Gaza have seen little or no improvement in their lives as a result of Israel’s “easing” measures, which have been largely cosmetic. Exports from the Gaza Strip remain almost totally prohibited. Gaza’s factories, most of which were forced to shut down because of the Israeli siege, have been unable to resume operations because Israel blocks the import of the raw materials they need. These two measures together have crippled the economy. Today, poverty in Gaza is widespread and it has one of the world’s highest unemployment rates, at 39%; according to the UN, 80% of its population is dependent on food aid.

While it is true that more basic goods, including food items and consumer durables, are entering Gaza, many are still prohibited; the cost of those that are allowed in is prohibitive because of the poverty. Although Israel said that it would let building materials into Gaza following the “easing” of the blockade, in practice only a small amount has been allowed in. The UN has estimated that Gaza needs 670,000 truckloads of building materials in order to rebuild the homes destroyed by Israel in its 2008-2009 assault on the territory (never mind any new developments).  Since the blockade has been “eased”, only 715 trucks of building materials have been allowed in every month. Israel has instituted bureaucratic procedures designed to ensure that only a small amount of material actually gets through. It also has restricted the operation of crossing points such as the Karni Crossing – today less material is getting through than before the “easing”.

Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza makes sure that life there cannot continue as normal and that the inhabitants of the territory still suffer. The lack of building materials means that existing schools cannot be repaired and new ones cannot be built. As a result, in some schools shipping containers are being used as classrooms. The fishing industry has been decimated because Israel refuses to allow fishermen to operate more than three miles from the shore. Even when fishermen stay within this limit, they risk being fired on by the Israeli navy. The total catch fell 47% between 2008 and 2009. Today 90% of Gaza’s fishermen live in poverty and most of them are unable to work.

Gaza’s water supply is still dangerously polluted; Israel continues to stop all water treatment equipment from entering the Strip and 90% of the water supplied to homes unfit for human consumption. Before the “easing” there were reports of babies being born with a blue tinge; they were suffering from a blood disorder known as methemoglobinemia which is caused by exposure to water with a high concentration of nitrates. The UN warned that Gaza’s damaged water supply system was on the verge of collapse, and if this happens, the additional damage will take centuries to fix. Because of Israel’s refusal to allow in the necessary equipment, this problem is ongoing and hasn’t improved in any way.

Gaza is still effectively a prison camp for its people. They are allowed to leave the territory only in the most exceptional cases. Following the “easing” of the blockade some business people have been granted exceptional leave to travel to the West Bank through Israel, but the rest of the inhabitants cannot travel abroad for work, study or to visit relatives. Many patients have died because of Israel’s refusal to grant permission for them to travel for medical treatment.

The ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza is the reason why the latest initiative to break the siege - Freedom Flotilla 2 – is so important.  While the world focuses on the protests and revolutions rocking the Arab world, Israel believes it can get away not only with the continuation of the siege but also with an escalation of its air-raids and attacks on the territory, which killed more than 20 people at the beginning of April.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations is putting together the new flotilla of 15 ships which will sail to Gaza from ports around the world next month.  Freedom Flotilla Two will arrive in Gaza nearly one year after the its predecessor was attacked by Israeli commandos, resulting in the deaths of nine activists and serious injuries to dozens more. The activists taking part wish to send a message to Israel that the people of the world will continue to support the people of Gaza. While the governments of the world and the mainstream media remain silent about the siege, people across the world have understood what is happening and won’t allow Israel to get away with the continued imprisonment and strangulation of Gaza’s people.

Israel is now doing anything it can to stop the flotilla, from issuing crude threats that it will meet the same fate as the last one to a diplomatic offensive undertaken by President Shimon Peres to get European countries to prevent their citizens from participating. That last strategy has failed and European governments have snubbed Peres.

The activism that led to the organisation of Freedom Flotilla Two and its predecessor suggests that Israel is in the middle of a new reality, one where news of its actions spreads around the world through new media and social activism, and where ordinary people will act to stop its crimes against the Palestinian people even when their governments won’t.

Israel is deeply mistaken if it believes that it can use the revolutions in the Arab world to cover up its crimes against the Palestinians. The revolutions have taught Arab leaders one thing - that they will be held accountable for what they do by their people, and that their abuses of power will come back to haunt them.

The age of impunity in the Middle East is thus drawing to a close, and Israel is not immune from this development. Making cosmetic changes and conducting a public relations campaign will not fool the world into believing that the siege of Gaza has been lifted.