An investigation carried out by an Israeli human rights group and published by Haaretz Israeli newspaper revealed that there is constant cooperation between Israeli soldiers and settlers to control privately-owned Palestinian lands using official military orders.

The investigation indicated that there is an ongoing cooperation between the soldiers and the settlers in illegally annexing and controlling privately owned Palestinian lands as the army issues military orders annexing the lands and the settlers take over while the residents cannot even see the related documents.

In recent weeks, the settlers constructed two homes in an illegal outpost north of Beit El settlement. Several settlers are currently living in those homes and the so-called Civil Administration Office, which belongs to the Israeli Army, issued orders annexing the lands in question.

The Civil Administration Office admitted recently that it made a mistake after annexing a land, privately owned by a Palestinian elderly woman, identified as Mahbooba Yassin Abdullah. The army said that this land was not included in the military orders; the settlers forced the woman out of her land and installed their illegal outpost.

Abdullah is from Doura Al Qare’ village, near the central West Bank City of Ramallah. She inherited her land from her father, and in 2003 the Civil Administration Office annexed the land to use it as a landing zone for military choppers.

Her son, Abdul-Ghani, said that the family did not receive any official order informing them of annexing the land, and the bulldozers prepared a sand road while the army fenced the land.

Abdul-Ghani added that that the Israeli Authorities annexed nearly 300 Dunams owned by his family and additional 800 Dunams owned by other residents of his village.  

In 2006, the Yesh Din Israeli Human Rights group said that even if the land was annexed by a military order, any construction on it remains illegal.

 The group also said that after investigating the issue, it was revealed that the military order was not regarding this land but was regarding a land on a nearby hill on the northeastern side, while the annexed land was on the western side of the hill.

On August 14, the Israeli military prosecutor responded to an appeal filed by the lawyer of Yassin family and claimed that the annex order is legal, but after new documents were provided the prosecutor admitted on August 27 that he was mistaken.  

According to official documents at the Civil Administration Office, vast areas of the northern neighborhoods of Beit El settlement were built on privately owned Palestinian lands.

 

 

Israeli extremist rightist activists broke on Thursday morning into the Shu'fat refugee camp in the occupied east Jerusalem.

Eyewitnesses said that 50 activists, carrying building tools, headed for a piece of land of 150 dunums. Israeli army radio reported that the Israeli border police were deployed in the area, in an attempt to evacuate the Jewish activists.

I left my home in the United States to spend the summer in the West Bank, where I was attacked by Israeli settlers late last month. As a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, I went to the South Hebron Hills to help keep young Palestinian children safe from Israeli settlers intent on hurting Palestinians. Armed only with a video camera, it was my job to escort the children back and forth from school and summer camp.

On July 27, the children and I were walking home when a group of Israeli settlers assaulted us from a hilltop with fist-sized stones. Some narrowly missed my head. Focusing my video camera, I recorded an Israeli settler flinging stones at the children from his long-range slingshot. When he saw that I was filming him, he struck me in the leg with a rock. He chased me, kicked me and screamed that he was going to kill me. Wrestling the video camera from my hand, he then repeatedly struck me in the face and upper body with a stone.After the assault, I was helped by Palestinians to reach a hospital where I was treated for my injuries.The occupied West Bank today is like walking through a page from a different era - part Wild West, part Jim Crow - with one set of laws for Palestinians and another set for Israeli settlers.There are now over 450,000 Israeli settlers living on land taken from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in defiance of international law. The settlers in and around Hebron are, according to Israeli journalist Ran HaCohen, "fanatic extremists even by Israeli standards. They regularly ransack Palestinian shops, cut electricity lines and water pipes, wreck cars, and attack schoolchildren."The schoolchildren I worked with have no one to protect them. In fact, the Israeli military had refused to provide an escort for them. Consequently, volunteers from America and Europe have been accompanying the children. We take them on a longer route through the hills to bypass the Israeli settler outpost.I spent my formative years in Mississippi. I know the stories of African-American students being denied an education and intimidated by adults who had no shame. As we trudge up the hillsides with Palestinian children, I am reminded of African-Americans having to avert their eyes and get off the sidewalk to avoid passing white people during the Jim Crow years in the American South.Settler violence towards the children here has been a persistent problem. In 2004, the local Palestinian leadership requested assistance from international organizations. CPT responded and has been accompanying Palestinian children and documenting their interactions with Israeli settlers and soldiers ever since. As my beating demonstrates, we have become targets as well.In 2004, five masked settlers attacked American volunteers Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown with a chain and bat. According to The Washington Post, "Lamberty suffered a broken arm and bruised knee, and Brown was hospitalized for several days with cracked ribs and a punctured lung."The day I was attacked, the Palestinian children with me were fortunate to escape unscathed. One result of my spilt American blood is that the Israeli military is now providing these children with an escort. However, just three days after my attack, my colleagues in CPT and other international volunteers witnessed the soldiers failing to escort the children the entire designated route; settlers hiding along the way began to throw rocks at the children. And, according to a report issued in July by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, only one in 10 Israeli investigations of settler attacks on Palestinians ends with anyone being charged with a crime.Something has gone profoundly wrong when Palestinian children must risk their lives just to get to school. It is past time for our government to pressure Israel to rein in the settler movement.How much more powerful would it have been for Sen. Barack Obama to have said in Jerusalem - or Hebron - what he said in Berlin: "The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."Our leaders must insist that Israel not apply one system of law in the West Bank for Israeli settlers and another for Palestinians. Colonizing another people ought to be regarded as ancient history.- Joel Gulledge volunteered this summer in the West Bank with the Christian Peacemaker Team. (Originally published in the Clarion-Ledger)

Israeli media sources reported on Wednesday that the Israeli cabinet is set to discuss on Sunday a possible “Evacuation and Compensation Bill”. The bill proposes offering compensation for settlers living in some West Bank isolated settlements, located east of the Annexation Wall.

Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that the proposal was authorized by Israel’s Vice Prime Minister, Haim Ramon. The proposal offers financial compensation to the settlers in exchange for relocating into Israel.

 Ramon added that the proposal will not be voted on as it will only be presented because the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, is interested in knowing the opinions of his ministers on the issue.

According to the proposal, the settlers who live in settlements east of the Wall will be relocated and compensated as Israel will eventually end its control over these areas in the coming years.

The religious Shas movement objected to the proposal while Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, stated that this issue can be discussed and that it is still too early to make a decision regarding permanent borders as the borders will be determined during negotiations.

It is worth mentioning that Ramon examined over the last year the Israeli readiness for the “Evacuation and Compensation Law”. Olmert approved examining this issue but the political developments and the criminal probes against him barred Ramon from presenting this proposal to a Knesset vote in March.

Ramon is expected to present to the government the results of studies and surveys conducted among the settlers. The studies revealed that 20-30% of West Bank settlers are willing to evacuate voluntarily.

Several Israeli ministers said that the Olmert government is transitional and cannot discuss such an issue.

Shas leader, Eli Yishai, said that “the settlers did not recover from being expelled from the Gaza Strip”, and added that “there are people in the government who are acting in order to illegally expel the settlers again”.  

Also, several Kadima party minister, members of the same party headed by Olmert, including Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and Minister of Transportation Shaul Mofaz, said that it is too early to talk about evacuation and that this issue should not be carried out before the permanent borders are set.

Mofaz said that the proposed law weakens Israel and its position in any future peace talks.

In 2007, Israel’s Defense Minister and head of the Labor party, Ehud Barak, said that his party will support the evacuation if presented to the cabinet for a vote, but his current position remains unclear.

Israeli political analysts believe that it is unlikely that the government will vote in favor of the proposed law.

The proposed law does not include any settlement blocs the West Bank as Israel insists to keep them under its control. The law is regarding isolated settlements and illegal settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.