Palestinian/ Israeli update 5/01/2016..4 Palestinians Continue Hunger Strikes
Striking inmates protest administrative detention by Israel
4 Palestinians Continue Hunger Strikes
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950212001268
Four Palestinian prisoners continued their hunger strike in protest to their administrative detention in the face of increasing pressure by Israeli prison authorities, with some experiencing severe health complications, local media reported.
Hunger-striker Sami Janazreh, 43, from al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, entered the 59th day of his hunger strike. He suffers from a heart condition and low blood pressure, and has suffered seizures and other complications since the end of March, Palestinian radio station Sawt al-Asra reported.
Since the announcement of his hunger strike, Israeli authorities have transferred Janazreh between Israeli prisons as a way of pressuring him to end his strike.
Janazreh was moved Friday from solitary confinement at Israel’s Ela prison to Soroka hospital after his health deteriorated even further.
Fuad Rabah Shukri Assi, 30, from Beit Liqya near Ramallah, also continued his hunger strike for the 28th day after Israeli authorities extended his administrative detention for an additional six months.
Israeli prison authorities have reportedly pressured Assi to end his hunger strike by searching his cell every two hours, allowing him one visit per day to the toilet, confiscating all of his electronics, seizing his clothes, and only allowing him one hour in the prison yard.
He was most recently detained from his home last August, and is currently held in Israel’s Ktziot prison in the Negev. The Palestinian prisoner had previously spent over five years in Israeli prisons, and his brother Muhammad was killed by Israeli forces on Oct. 22, 2013.
Muhammad Jamal Mafarja, 28, also from Beit Liqya, entered the 28th day of his hunger strike, initially declared on April 3 in protest of his 16-month administrative detention. He was detained in December 2014, nine months after being released from prison.
Fourth prisoner, Majdi Safwat Yasin, 33, a lawyer and Swedish national from the village of Anin near Jenin, entered the seventh day of his strike, declared after being detained on his way to Sweden by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge crossing.
According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, 700 Palestinians are currently being held in administrative detention, an Israeli policy that allows for internment without charge or trial for six-month intervals that can be renewed indefinitely, and which has been widely condemned by rights groups as representing a grave violation of human rights and contravening international law.
Palestinian prisoners commonly resort to hunger strikes as a way of protesting their arbitrary arrest and detention by Israeli authorities. Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq came close to death earlier this year during a more than 90-day strike against his detention.
Israel issues 27 administrative detention orders against Palestinians
Zarif Urges Palestinian Groups to Stand United
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950212001236
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called for unity among all Palestinian groups.
“The main goal of the Muslim World and Palestinian groups should be repulsing the threat of the Zionist regime,” Zarif said in a meeting with Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement Ramazan Abdullah in Tehran on Sunday.
The Iranian foreign minister underlined the need for Palestinian unity, saying it’s the only way to restore their usurped rights.
Abdullah, for his part, briefed Zarif on the latest situation in Palestine, and underlined the importance of Iran’s role in resolving the regional crises.
In a relevant development on Saturday, Iranian Supreme Leader’s Top Advisor for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati underscored his country’s support for the Palestinian groups which resist against the Zionist regime’s tyranny and occupation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will support the innocent Palestinian nation and the oppressed regional nations; and enemies’ ominous dream for disintegrating and controlling the Islamic states will never come true,” Velayati said in a meeting with the secretary-general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement in Tehran.
He underlined Iran’s complete familiarity with resistance and Jihadi groups in Palestine, and reminded that those suffering from miscalculations have sustained losses.
“But victory can be achieved only through resistance,” Velayati stressed.
Remember the Golan Heights?
By Eric Margolis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44551.htm
Before 2011, Israel hinted that it would return Golan to Syria as part of a comprehensive peace agreement – provided Damascus ceased supporting Palestinian claims to their lost lands. But once the Syrian civil war conveniently began, there was no more talk of Golan.
In fact, it’s pretty much clear that Israel has been quietly fueling the Syrian conflict by discreet arms and logistics support to so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels and lobbying for the war in Washington and with the US media. Netanyahu has even said – with a straight face – that Israel cannot return Golan or even negotiate, until calm returns to Syria and Iraq.
Netanyahu is clearly following the grand strategy of the founder of his rightwing Likud Party, Zeev Jabotinsky, a militant Russian Zionist. Jabotinsky asserted that the Arab states were an artificial, fragile mosaic of inimical Arab tribes.
Hit them hard enough, claimed Jabotinsky, and they will shatter into small pieces, leaving Israel master of the Levant (central Arab world). The destruction of Iraq and Syria have confirmed Jabotinsky’s theory.
Accordingly, Israel is delighted to see Syria, a primary foe, lying in ruins as a result of a US, British, French, Turkish and Saudi-instigated civil war. Damascus is in no shape to demand the return of Golan, and the rest of the world does not care.
The destruction of Syria as a unitary state offers the expansionist Likud government many opportunities to extend influence into Syria – as was the case in Lebanon during its bloody 1975-1990 civil war. Or even carve off more Syrian territory “to protect Israel’s security.”
The words of Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, still resonate: the state of Israel is a work in progress and its borders should not be fixed or even defined. Notably the borders with Syria and Jordan.
Germany rethinks unconditional support for Israel
“Merkel has warned Israel over effects of settlement policy”
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/05/palestinian-israeli-update-50120164.html
