Published on Jan 4, 2017

It has been a closely watched trial with an unusual verdict.

Unlike previous cases where soldiers are acquitted, an Israeli army sergeant has been convicted of the manslaughter of a Palestinian man.

Elor Azaria shot Abed al-Fattah al-Sharif in the head in Hebron as he lay on the ground wounded. A second Palestinian was also shot and killed.

Police say al-Sharif stabbed an Israeli guard at a checkpoint.

The court case highlights deep divisions among Israelis.

Army generals said the 19-year-old army sergeant who opened fire broke the code of war.

Far-right politicians said video of the shooting made him a scapegoat.

What does the guilty verdict say about Israeli society and its relationship to Palestinians?

Jan 25, 2017

Israeli forces have shot and killed a young Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, claiming that he was attempting to run over two Israelis with a vehicle. 


The Palestinian was shot dead on Wednesday near the illegal Israeli settlement of Adam, which is located east of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Israeli military said no Israelis were wounded in the incident, adding that the attacker had a knife.

Several international rights groups have long been criticizing the Israeli regime for its policy of shoot-to-kill, which they say has led to numerous deaths. Many of those killed by Israeli troops at the scene of attacks did not pose serious threats, according to rights groups.

The developments come at a time of heightened tensions between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters.

The occupied territories have witnessed unease ever since Israeli forces imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

The Palestinians are protesting a covert plan by Israel to change the status quo of al-Aqsa, a highly-revered place for Muslims around the world.

More than 270 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in what is regarded as the third Palestinian Intifada (uprising) since October 2015.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/01/25/507772/Israeli-forces-young-Palestinian-Wes...

06 Feb 2017

Translation: Bag is free. ELOR PAYS FOR US ALL. Happy birthday. Love from the nation of Israel

"What distinguishes us from our neighbors is that we denounce and condemn murderers in our midst and pursue them until the end, while they name public squares after child murderers", said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in August 2015, two days after the Dawabshe family in the West Bank town of Duma was torched by Jewish terrorists. He made the same claim a year earlier, after Muhammed Abu Khdeir, another young Palestinian, was burned to death in Jerusalem.

I have already provided a long list of Israeli streets named after Jewish terrorists, but now Netanyahu's contention is being challenged in the most unlikely of places — the grocery store.

A freely distributed nylon grocery bag featuring a photo of Elor Azarya the medic-soldier who murdered the wounded and incapacitated Palestinian Abdel Fatth Al Sharif in Al-Khalil (Hebron) last March is being distributed at the Rami Levy supermarket chain, one of the major chains in Israel.

The bag has a likeness of Azarya, who was recently convicted on the reduced charge of 'manslaughter,' smiling whilst holding a semi-automatic gun in ready-to-fire position. The text on the bag says "Bag is free. ELOR PAYS FOR US ALL. Happy birthday. Love from the nation of Israel" [which means 'Jews' - ed.].

The grocery chain founder Rami Levy claimed to not be aware of the initiative in advance, but nonetheless blessed it in effusive terms:

    "Every soldier who goes to the army is everyone's son ['everyone's son' has been an iconic slogan concerning Azarya, ed.] - for good and for bad, we are talking about a positive initiative from my standpoint, and I have no intention of disturbing it, and surely, surely I do not oppose these bags being distributed free at our chain", he said.

In a bizarre twist, an Israeli environmental organization has complained to the Ministry of Environmental Protection that the initiative violates a new law, against free distribution of bags (noted in Ynet, Hebrew, yesterday). The law requires a chain to take at least 10 agorot (cents) for a bag. The society notes that whilst it sees the political protest as legitimate, the free distribution violates the law.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection wrote to Rami Levy with concern. Ynet ends the article with the note, that the Rami Levy chain responded: "The bags are not ours".

That's it. The bullet just came out of Elor Azarya's gun. It wasn't Azarya's bullet, it was the IDF's bullet. Why does Azarya have to pay? The bags appeared at Rami Levy's chain. He loves them. But what does he have to do with it? Move on. Just another little episode in the 'only democracy in the middle-east', with its 'most moral army in the world', a moral society that never glorifies its murderers.

https://www.sott.net/article/341809-Warped-society-Israeli-supermarket-chain-glo...

Feb 17, 2017



Israel has been using the so-called administrative detention against Palestinians as part of an agenda to eliminate the Palestinian population from the occupied territories, a political activist tells Press TV.

In a Thursday interview, Paul Larudee, co-founder of Free Palestine Movement in Berkeley, said that Israel seeks to send a message to the Palestinians by exercising policies such as the administrative detention.

“That message is: We will do whatever we want to do with you, whenever we want to do it. We will make your lives as miserable as possible until you disappear or leave; or if we want we will make you disappear or leave. This is one way of making them disappear by administrative detention, by imprisonment and all that sort of things,” Larudee said.

    “Basically what it (administrative detention) says is: We will arrest you whenever we want, for as long as we want, to keep you and we do not have to give you a reason for doing it,” the activist added.

There are reportedly more than 6,500 Palestinians held at Israeli jails.

Hundreds of the inmates have apparently been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, which is a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge. Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.

The Palestinian inmates regularly hold hunger strikes in protest at the administrative detention policy and their harsh prison conditions.

    “The only way to change this situation is to make Israeli crimes so painful to the Israelis that they will stop doing it. That is the only way and no one has yet found the magic way to do that,” the activist pointed out.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement on Thursday that Palestinian prisoners Jamal Abu al-Leil and Raed Fayez Mteir have gone on hunger strike after their administrative detention was extended.

Abu al-Leil, a former member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, served one year in administrative detention following his arrest on February 14 last year. Mteir, who serves as the head of the Qalandiya Youth Center, was detained on April 12 and two administrative detention orders each for six months were slapped against him.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/02/17/510920/Palestine-Israel-administrative-dete...

21 Feb, 2017

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Elor Azaria, who shot and killed a wounded Palestinian assailant, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison by a military court.

The verdict was delivered on Tuesday. Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Azaria to three-five years in prison, while the defense insisted the soldier should be freed.

Chief Judge Maya Heller said that Azaria "took upon himself to be both judge and executioner," Reuters reported.

"One cannot use this type of force, even if we're talking about an enemy's life," the court said.

Azaria’s defense has vowed to appeal the court’s ruling, and asked for a delay to the start of the sentence until an appeal is submitted, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The IDF prosecution said it wanted the soldier’s jail term to start by this Sunday, the paper added.

In March 2016, Azaria fatally shot Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, a Palestinian assailant who had already been incapacitated, in Hebron in the West Bank.

https://www.rt.com/news/378095-isreal-soldier-sentenced-palestinian/

Israel says no more visas for 'biased' HRW staff

Israeli authorities reject Human Rights Watch request for work permit, accusing it of having a 'pro-Palestinian' agenda.

Israeli has refused to issue a visa for a senior Human Rights Watch staff member, accusing the US-based rights group of pro-Palestinian bias and saying it will no longer grant visas to its staff.

HRW said on Friday that its Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir, a US citizen, had received a rejection letter on February 20, months after an application for the permit was submitted by the group on his behalf.

The Israeli foreign ministry said that the organisation was "not a real human rights group", with a foreign ministry spokesman calling it "fundamentally biased" with a "hostile agenda".

New York-based HRW, which operates in 90 countries, said it has documented violations considered illegal under international humanitarian law by all sides in the conflict, including the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli interior ministry cited a recommendation received by the foreign ministry, which said that HRW's "public activities and reports have engaged in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda, while falsely raising the banner of 'human rights'".

In a statement, HRW said the decision came as authorities sought "to limit the space for local and international human rights groups to operate in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories".

Emmanuel Nahshon, a foreign ministry spokesman, told the AFP news agency that the group was not banned, and any Israeli and Palestinian employees would still be allowed to operate in Israel, but said: "Why should we give working visas to people whose only purpose is to besmirch us and to attack us?"

Speaking to local media, Nahshon said Israel was "fed up with them [HRW] coming here every time and taking advantage of their stay here. They don't do anything but look for an anti-Israel agenda."

Iain Levine, HRW's deputy executive director of program, said: "This decision and the spurious rationale should worry anyone concerned about Israel’s commitment to basic democratic values."

"It is disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda."

In response to the decision to refuse his visa, Shakir said: "We are genuinely shocked. We work in over 90 countries across the world. Many governments don't like our well-researched findings but their response is not to stifle the messenger."

According to Shakir, Israeli authorities said they would also refuse visas to other non-Israeli or Palestininan HRW staff.

Last year, HRW issued a report, "Occupation Inc.", in which it accused foreign and Israeli firms operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank of contributing to human rights abuses.

In July 2016, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law targeting human rights groups and NGOs that receive foreign funding. The law, applicable to about 25 organisations, compels them to declare funds in official reports, and according to HRW, imposes "onerous reporting requirements that burden their advocacy".

It is not the first time the organisation has faced criticism and resistance from governments.

"We have little relations with governments in North Korea, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Cuba and Venezuela where there is zero appetite for human rights engagement," Shakir said. "With this decision, Israel is joining the list."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/israel-visas-biased-hrw-staff-170224052706...

Mar 1, 2017

An Israeli settler has shot dead a Palestinian over an alleged stabbing attack in yet another instance of using lethal force against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said Wednesday’s incident took place in the Teneh Omarim settlement in the southern West Bank, near the Palestinian city of al-Khalil (Hebron).

She further claimed that the Palestinian “armed with a knife” broke into an Israeli settler’s home and stabbed him, adding that the settler, who had suffered light wounds, shot and killed the assailant.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the victim as 24-year-old Saad Qisiah from the nearby city of Dhahiriyah.

Over the past months, Israeli settlers and the Tel Aviv regime forces have fatally shot many Palestinians, claiming that they sought to carry out attacks against Israelis.

Leading Israeli officials have come under fire for supporting the shoot-to-kill policy against Palestinians suspects.

Israel has handed down lenient sentences to those charged with extrajudicial killing of the Palestinians.

The latest example of such sentences is the case of Israeli Sergeant Elor Azaria, who has been given an 18-month jail term after being convicted of manslaughter for shooting dead a severely-wounded Palestinian following an alleged stabbing attack in al-Khalil in March 2016.

Azaria was caught on camera cocking his rifle and fatally shooting Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif in the head from just several meters away while the victim was still alive.

In another development on Wednesday, Azaria appealed against his manslaughter conviction and jail term.

Three of his lawyers announced that they were quitting from the case, arguing that options other than an appeal should be pursued.

Tensions have rocked the occupied Palestinian territories since August 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Some 280 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the tensions since the beginning of October that year.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/03/01/512620/Palestine-Israel-Hebron

Mar 2, 2017

An Israeli soldier, sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank last year, has filed an appeal against his manslaughter conviction and already-lenient jail term.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Yoram Sheftel representing Sergeant Elor Azaria lodged the appeal to the military court.

In the petition to the court, the lawyer asked that the date his client is due to arrive to serve his time, slated for March 5, be deferred until the end of legal proceedings.

Earlier in the day, three other lawyers that represented Azaria from the initial stages of his arrest – Ilan Katz, Eyal Besserglick, and Carmit Shchiver – announced that they were resigning from the case.

The trio announced in a statement that they believed avenues other than an appeal would be preferable.

Azaria was sentenced by a military court on February 21 to 18 months in prison plus a 12-month probation on top of his jail term. He was demoted to the rank of private as well.

Murder charges were brought against Azaria after video footage, recorded by a Palestinian rights activist, emerged showing him killing Abdel Fattah al-Sharif in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil on March 24, 2016.

The 21-year-old Palestinian lay on the ground unable to move after Israeli military forces had initially shot and wounded him over an alleged stabbing attack.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/03/02/512663/Israeli-soldier-Elor-Azaria-murder-c...