>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: "International" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 20:48:18 -0500
>International Action Center Palestine Journal, Saturday, Oct 28, 2000
>
>DESPITE ISRAELI SHELLING YOUNG PEOPLE�S MOOD FOR
>STRUGGLE �CANNOT BE QUELLED�
>
>[The following is a report from a four-person delegation from the
>International Action Center from their humanitarian and fact-finding
>mission to Palestine during what is being called the Al Aqsa Intifada,
>or uprising. The delegation aims to bring back a first-hand report
>documenting the repression inflicted by the Israeli army and to bring
>medical supplies for Palestinian hospitals, which have been declared a
>state of medical emergency. The Emergency is caused by the dual
>problem of the heavy casualties inflicted by the Israeli repression and
>the inability of sick and wounded people to pass through Israeli
>checkpoints on their way to the hospital.]
>
>On Saturday, Oct 28, 2000, the International Action Center delegation
>landed in Tel Aviv and after a delay by security forces at the airport,
>finally arrived in East Jerusalem.
>
>Just today two more Palestinians died in hospitals, raising the official
>total to at least 137, all but eight of them Palestinians. At four funerals
>there were further clashes with Israeli police and troops, who fired on
>and wounded hundreds of people. There are reports four more people
>were killed.
>
>The night before, Israeli officials claim there was firing from a
>Palestinian village of Beit Jala on the settlement of Gilo on the
>outskirts of Jerusalem. The Israelis fired rockets from helicopters and
>shells from tanks into the Arab village.
>
>There was more shelling tonight near East Jerusalem, apparently from
>Gilo, and reports of more shelling in Bethlehem. It is no wonder that
>these repeated attacks from the Israeli occupation forces have aroused
>a struggle that seems unquenchable.
>
>Ali Jeddah, a long time activist and many years a political prisoner,
>described to the IAC delegation the resistance mood of all levels of
>Palestinian society. �The young people especially,� he said, �are in a
>mood for struggle and defense of their people that cannot be quelled.
>All day they seem to practice with slingshots. Then after the funerals
>they head to the checkpoints, armed only with their rocks.�
>
>The delegation also interviewed Sergio Yahni, director of the Alternative
>Information Center, which helped establish Ambulances for Human
>Rights, a project organized by both Palestinians and anti-Zionist
>Israelis to come to the defense of Palestinians under mob attack in
>Jerusalem. They have sent mobile car units to try to go to the
>assistance of the Palestinians wounded by Israeli gunfire. This is still a
>small but significant effort.
>
>Yahni described the settler mobs that have been attacking, bashing,
>and beating isolated Palestinians in Jerusalem along the edges of
>Israeli neighborhoods. And this hasn�t been limited to these areas
>within Jerusalem.
>
>�In the past month,� Yahni said, �Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians
>in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have increased dramatically.�
>
>The larger problem is the growing violence of settler attacks on
>Palestinians, which has reached new levels everywhere.
>
>ONE-MONTH ANNIVERSARY
>
>Today is the one-month anniversary of Israeli General Ariel Sharon�s
>provocative visit to the Dome of the Rock -- Al Aqsa Mosque with more
>than a thousand armed Israeli troops.
>
>Sharon�s visit was a clear provocation since he was the Israeli military
>leader responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians at the
>Sabra and Shatila camps outside Beirut during Israel�s 1982 invasion of
>Lebanon.
>
>But just as clear is the fact that Sharon's "visit" was not an individual
>act, since he was accompanied by thousands of Israeli troops and he
>was granted official police permission to stage the provocation.
>Sharon's invasion of the mosque area known as the Haram Al-Sharif
>was the last straw for Palestinians outraged by seven years of
>negotiations which have failed to produce a just peace.
>
>Since that visit there has been one month of unprecedented Israeli
>violence against Palestinian civilians and Palestinian resistance to this
>armed assault.
>
>>From the first steps of the IAC delegation at the airport, Israeli officials
>made the racist character of their state apparent. In the United States,
>we have a lot of experience with racial profiling. It is equally blatant
>there.
>
>Of the four members of the IAC delegation only the young Palestinian
>woman who was born in the United States and holds a U.S. passport
>was stopped by security, interrogated, searched and insulted.
>
>ATTACKS ON THE OLIVE HARVESTERS
>
>It is now the season for harvesting olives. Many Palestinian families
>and whole villages are totally dependent on the harvest. It is then
>devastating that Israeli settler mobs have attacked Palestinian farmers
>in the fields and Israeli military blockades have confiscated the picked
>olives.
>
>These attacks are part of the continuing effort to drive the Palestinians
>living in villages out of the area and clear it for Israeli settlement, which
>is in violation of the so-called peace process and all the earlier
>agreements.
>
>These settlers have generally acted with impunity, as the Israeli
>military and court system historically have been reluctant to arrest, try,
>and punish settlers for violence they commit against Palestinian
>civilians. As a result, settlers are virtually free to carry out intimidation,
>assault of body and property, and even murder against the Palestinian
>population.
>
>Earlier in October settlers from Kfar Oreh, which is near the Palestinian
>city of Ramallah, schemed with the settlement�s guards to stop
>farmers of Um Safa village from picking their olive harvest. Villager
>Mousa Mohammed stated in al-Quds daily newspaper on Oct. 20 that
>"while dozens of other farmers from the village and I were in our fields,
>the settlers came and put their weapons in our faces, calling us to
>leave the area, telling us they would shoot us otherwise."
>
>Reports on many of these incidents can be found on the web sites of
>the Alternative Information Center, www.aic.netgate.net or at the Al
>Addameer site at www.addameer.org.
>
>That these attacks have taken place so frequently shows that they are
>not isolated incidents or the actions of individuals, but rather a carefully
>organized campaign carried out by the settlers to drive out the
>Palestinian farmers.
>
>It is clear from all our discussions that the Israelis have used the past
>seven years of peace talks to reinforce access roads and place Israeli
>settlements on the West Bank in now heavily fortified hilltops, like the
>Gilo settlement.
>
>Now Israeli troops are using the excuse of the uprising to level acres of
>land in Gaza and in the West Bank and to reinforce all their military
>checkpoints.
>
>With a demonstration planned Oct. 29 in Bethlehem, the IAC
>delegation is uncertain if it will reach its destination with the medical
>equipment, as the Israeli forces threaten to block the roads there.
>There are new land confiscations in Bethlehem the excuse is to
>reinforce Israeli checkpoints and military presence.
>
>The IAC delegation includes Richard Becker, Sara Flounders, Randa
>Jamal and Preston Wood.
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>To send a donation in support of the delegation, go to
>www.peoplesrightsfund.org or send checks to the International Action
>Center (write to "Peoples Rights Fund/Medical Aid").
>
>If you would like to arrange for a speaker from the delegation at your
>school or in your community, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>International Action Center
>39 West 14th Street, Room 206
>New York, NY 10011
>email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>web: www.iacenter.org
>CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE www.mumia2000.org
>phone: 212 633-6646
>fax: 212 633-2889
>
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