Monthly report on Israeli violations in Abu Dis, October 2007. 

The Israeli violations on the people in Abu Dis continued during last October. This month, the Israeli military ordered the confiscation of more Abu Dis land, (1500 donums from the villages of Abu Dis, Bethany and Sawahreh). Also this month the Israeli authorities announced that they would open a new road to connect Bethlehem with Jericho directly, to replace the historical road between East Jerusalem and Jericho. Also this month, the Israeli authorities arrested two school students from Abu Dis.

In this report we will give details about the Israeli violations in October, as follows.

Building the Wall & confiscating land

** There is further detail about land confiscations this month in the CADFA press releases on the website.** 

• On Tuesday 2^nd October, the Israeli Minister of Homeland Security Avi Dikhtar announced that, at the beginning of the new year, the Israeli police commander of Judea and Samaria would move to the new building based on the lands of Abu Dis and Azariyeh and that the police members would start their official work in that building. This did not take into account the United States’ objections to the “E1 project*” would break the contiguity of the West Bank and would surround East Jerusalem with Jewish settlements, and end any opportunity for East Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state in the future.
• On Thursday 11^th October, the Israeli authorities announced military order was called T/19/07to confiscate 1,100 donums (275 hectares) from the lands of Abu Dis and East Sawahreh giving the pretext of opening a road for Palestinians between Bethlehem and Jericho. This decision came to help Israeli to continue the work on the E1 project* which will connect Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem with Jerusalem and by this road Israel wants to prove that this project will not affect the life of the Palestinians. And Ghadi Shmenik the military commander of the of the Central area of the West Bank** signed a decision on 24^th September to take this land from Abu Dis, Sawahreh and Nabi Mousa.
• On Wednesday 17^th October, the Israelis gave another military order, T/35/07 to confiscate 386 donums and 300 sq metres from the lands of Azariyeh, Al-Tour (Mount of Olives) and Abu Dis, 361 donums from Azariyeh howd (area) 5 in these areas: Thaer Barouka, Mtama, Ras al Ezarah, Shaeb Subheh, Arqub Wijh al-Theeb, Marj al-Zeitun, and the from howd 4, Khuleilat and Araq Azber and the rest of the land is confiscated from Al-Tour (Mount of Olives) and Abu Dis.
• On Thursday 18^th October, the Israeli Mayor of the Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, announced that they were going to market 200,000 new housing units in the different Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem***. Also, the Israeli newspaper “Ha Aaretz” mentioned that the Israeli local organising and building committee in Jerusalem decided last month to increase the number of settlers in Haret al Yemen, in the middle of Silwan, and that step came with the full agreement of the Israeli government which is seeking to create facts on the ground before the Annapolis conference and the negotiations with the Palestinian side.

Notes

* There is more information about the E1 project on the CADFA website.

** The Israelis divide the West Bank into three main areas – South, Central and North

*** There is more information about the current situation of Jerusalem in a useful UN report The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and Other Infrastructure in the West Bank | July 2007 Link at: http://www.ochaopt.org/?module=displaysection&section_id=1&format=html 

The economic situation in Abu Dis  

During the last month, the time of the feast of Eid al-Fitr, there was a very serious economic situation and many families did not manage to celebrate the feast because of their lack of money. Al Quds University which is the biggest employer in this area decided to give only 80% of their salaries to its employees because many of the students did not manage to pay their fees in full.  25% of the students have not yet paid for the new semester.  Meanwhile there is a crisis in the schools with the teachers being owed back pay from last year and the teachers’ union has threatened to strike in the coming days.

The prices of basic foodstuffs are rising at the moment at a great rate. 

Israeli violations at the checkpoints round Abu Dis 

Since the Israelis started to build the Separation Wall around Jerusalem they have worked to seal off Jerusalem very thoroughly and now there are only two ways that people can go there by car, if they are allowed. The Palestinians are now using the word “ma’bar” (translated into “terminal”) to describe the huge checkpoints, like international frontiers, that are the ways through the Wall. For the people of Abu Dis, these two terminals are Azzayam, open to people with Jerusalem IDs, and Jabal al Zaytoun, open only to West Bankers – and only if they have permits to go to Jerusalem. 

• On Friday 5^th October, an Israeli military vehicle set up a checkpoint at the Al Quds University crossroads and the soldiers stopped cars and checked IDs of passengers and passers-by.
• Friday the 12^th October was the last Friday in Ramadan. The Israeli authorities made Jerusalem like a military base. They cut all the roads and the gaps for the Palestinians who wanted to pray in Al Aqsa Mosque. There were thousands of policemen and Israeli border police on the streets in East Jerusalem, and on the three terminals around the city, while tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered around the checkpoints and terminals, trying to enter. 
• On Tuesday 23^rd October, an Israeli military force with 5 vehicles together with soldiers on foot, invaded Abu Dis at 7 o’clock in the evening and made a curfew in the area around Abu Dis Youth Club. The soldiers closed many shops there, holding many people inside the shops, and they also chased some youths and arrested one of them. The curfew remained until 10 o’clock the same evening.
• On Sunday 28^th October, the soldiers at the Container checkpoint south of Abu Dis, between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, closed the checkpoint at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, holding hundreds of cars on both sides of the checkpoint. Some of the people waiting at the checkpoint – mostly workers – explained that this happened every day, mostly in the afternoon and early in the morning, when people were on their way to work and on their way back.

Arresting and invading houses 

During this month the Israeli authorities continued the policy of arresting people. There were several arrests when the Israeli soldiers together with the intelligence forces invaded student residences in Abu Dis. 

• On Monday 22^nd October, late in the night, an Israeli military force invaded the house of Rathi Hassan Qreia.  The soldiers arrested his son Mohammed, 15 years old, and took him to Maale Adumim police station. Note that Mohammed is a student in the 11^th grade in Abu Dis Boys’ School.
• On Tuesday 23^rd October, Haitham Mohammed Eriqat, 16 years old, was arrested after being chased by soldiers through the area of Wad al-Zeitun together with some other teenagers. Haitham was taken to the police station in Ma’ale Adumim. He is a student in Eitam School in Azariyeh.

Prisoners’ affairs 

During the years of the Occupation, hundreds of people from Abu Dis have been arrested, usually for peaceful resistance against the Occupation, such as demonstrations. Among these there have been many children. At the end of October 2007, there are 73 prisoners from Abu Dis in Israeli jails. Among them there are 25 children from Abu Dis schools and more young people who were arrested while they were at school but are now over 18, including a young woman of 21  (Rowan Thawabteh) who was arrested at the age of 16 and is still in jail.  

There is further information on Abu Dis prisoners at http://www.camdenabudis.net/prisoners.html 

• At the beginning of October, Jalal Yussuf Jaffal was released after spending 2 years in Israeli jails. Jala was sixteen when he was arrested and is now eighteen years old.
• On Thursday 4^th October, Ali Fayiz Salah was released after spending 6 years in Israeli jails. Ali was sixteen when he was arrested and is now twenty-two years old.
• More than 37 Abu Dis prisoners are in the al-Naqab prison including Nader Jaffal (now in his seventh year in prison) and Hassan Qreia (in his eighth year in prison) who are in Section G. This is now under the control of one of the most feared Israeli military units, Nahshon Military Unit. On Monday 22^nd October, early in the morning, prisoners making phone calls from inside the jail said that soldiers had been throwing sound bombs, tear gas and live ammunition into  Unit G since 2 o’clock in the morning.  They entered unit G2, which had 120 prisoners and went on to the other units in Section G. The prisoners tried to protect themselves and all the prisoners from the different units refused to be searched.  They were attacked by the prison guards, and 250 prisoners were wounded. Mohammad Sati Alashqar, a prisoner from Saida near Tulkarem, was killed. Many of the prisoners were held in cells and isolated in rooms away from the other prisoners. The management of the prison isolated the prison from the outside world.

Abu Dis Boys’ School  

Details of the attack by Israeli Border Police on boys inside Abu Dis Boys’ School on 14^th February and the follow-up to this are available on the CADFA website www.camdenabudis.net 

We haven’t received any response or information from the Israeli side about reopening the investigation in the case since the Abu Dis School Head teacher asked for the enquiry to be reopened in the middle of last May. The Israeli Human Rights Centre ACRI is still working on the case. 

Conclusions and recommendations

We are calling on the international community and all the supporters of the rights of the Palestinians to make some pressure on Israel as an occupying force to stop the violations against the international humanitarian law and all the human rights agreements.  There is helpful information on these agreements at the following United Nations site:

http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm

Some important agreements and decisions. 

1. The International Court of Justice asked Israel to stop work on the  Separation Wall in the Palestinian occupied territories including East Jerusalem and the area around it, to destroy all the bits that are already built and to delete all the laws and decisions which the Israeli government had made in creating it (Hague decisions paragraph 133, 152 and 153 – Advisory Opinion of the ICJ, 9th July 2004)

2. There are many international agreements against torture and mistreatment of prisoners.  Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights   (1976) reads: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”   The UN Convention against Torture, signed in 1984, which defines torture as "Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him …  information or a confession …. punishing him … intimidating or coercing him  ..." 

3. According to The Hague agreement signed in 1907 paragraph 152, occupation forces must not confiscate lands or properties from the people under occupation. 

4. Israel is a signatory to the undertaking   “ to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”  (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 2)

5. The same international agreement states that  “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation… Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”

The people of Abu Dis are suffering regular violations of all of these agreements and decisions and call on the international community to guarantee their human rights and their rights under international humanitarian law.