From Occupied Palestine

Silence in the court
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 7 May 2004

Palestinian detainees who tried to greet their families in a military courtroom were set upon and beaten by police guards, their lawyers say. Here is their testimony

The lawyers who were sitting in the waiting room at the Military Court at the Ofer Israel Defense Forces base, southwest of Ramallah, suddenly heard a scream. This was on Sunday, May 2, at around 1 P.M. They ran out. "I saw a heap of policeman, maybe eight or 10 of them, flailing and flailing, and I could see some heads, legs, arms of the beaten detainees, maybe three of them, or four, who were lying on the floor. The lawyers shouted 'Why? Why? Why?' and the police officer in charge shouted, 'Guys, guys, get all the lawyers out of here,' related attorney Khaled Kuzmar of Ramallah.

IDF lets Israeli visit wife in Gaza, but must stay 3 months
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 5 May 2004

An Israeli Arab married to a Gazan is allowed to visit a spouse if they stay in Gaza and don't return home for a minimum period of three months, under new regulations issued by Southern Command Maj. Gen. Dan Harel.

Breaking an iron rule
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 21 April 2004

Every Jew, man or woman, citizen of any country in the world, has potentially more rights in Israel than any Arab native citizen in the state. The Jew will have more chances to find a job, respectable housing, financial aid for higher education, personal advancement. Every foreign Jew has, de facto, more rights in the West Bank and Gaza (depending on what the Likud referendum decides) than Palestinians.

The democracy of the Likud rank and file
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 14 April 2004

If Bush and Mubarak "welcome" the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza - meaning the evacuation of all the settlers - then certainly every resident of Sayaffeh and Muwasi, on whose lands the settlements of the northern Gaza Strip and Gush Katif were built, will be happy to see the settlers go, too. In the last three and a half years, the war for the settlers' peace and privileges has turned the farmers of Sayaffeh and Muwasi into prisoners in their own homes, living off handouts and charity as their farmlands were destroyed.

A masked reality
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 7 April 2004

Media interest in the separation fence is dying down, although construction is continuing. The disengagement from Gaza is still making headlines, but does not go further than words at this stage. Between the rising and ebbing waves of interest, two basic assumptions are being established. One, that the separation fence is the way it is due to the typical Israeli brouhaha in government and administration procedures. Two, that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement is integrally tied to his and his sons' legal entanglements.

Balance of pain
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 2 April 2004

Sometimes Sheikh Ahmed Yassin would answer with a question. He smiled politely when told that to answer a question with another question was considered a Jewish trait. A Hamas activist who engaged Yassin in many hours of conversation says this was his style - not only with an Israeli interviewer: "He was a cautious person and that is how he spoke, always. That is also why he spoke slowly, to ensure that thought preceded speech."

When will Allah's pledge come to pass?
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 30 March 2004

The people of Hamas don't like the terms "extremist" and "moderate." It's a practical distinction, but also confusing, because the same Hamas officials have been heard on different occasions saying things that are "extreme" and "moderate" - especially on the possibility of a hudna (cease-fire) between a Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 borders and the state of Israel.

Another red line is crossed
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 24 March 2004

There are four or five people in Gaza who now make up what is known as Hamas leadership. The liquidation of each one of them would ensure greater security, say government, IDF and Shin Bet officials. The liquidation of each one of them, says experience, also justifies the killing of people around him, including aides, bodyguards, relatives, neighbors, children, fellow worshipers. Based on the order to assassinate Ahmed Yassin only after he left the mosque, one may understand that the IDF is convinced it is making an effort to minimize collateral damage. Based on these calculations, the fact that seven men who did not deserve death were killed along with Yassin is evidently no great tragedy. Therefore, if we have five leaders deserving of death, then another 35, or 30, or maybe 48 or even 61 deaths, if you throw in the Islamic Jihad targets, too, evidently is no great tragedy either.

Words have failed us
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 2 March 2004

This is an admission of failure. The written word is a failure at making tangible to Israeli readers the true horror of the occupation in the Gaza Strip. When something is written about the sea being closed off to Palestinians in the north and south of the Strip, the response will be "they are terrorists." If something is written about neighborhoods in the western part of the Khan Yunis refugee camp and how the buildings are all full of bullet holes from heavy machine guns and cannon shells, the response will be "the Palestinians started it." Tell the story of how 15-year-old Yusuf Bashir's family home in Dir al-Balah has been turned into an army fortress, and in Israel they'll say, "there is no choice, the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom must be protected, like Kfar Dekalim, Atzmona and Morag."

Teaching them who's boss
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 18 February 2004

During the past three-and-a-half years, S., a veteran ambulance driver, has been evacuating victims injured by Israeli army gunfire and the bodies of those killed on the firing line in Rafah. Early in the morning of February 8, he was summoned to pick up an older man who was suffering an anxiety attack. His house, the family home of the Abu Labada family, had been seized by an Israel Defense Forces unit; his son Ashraf, who was not known in Rafah to be on the army's wanted list, fled from the house, and was shot and killed. The soldiers did not find the tunnel they were looking for. The other sons were arrested. Only the women and children were left in the house, held captive by the soldiers and the tanks that took up positions around the house for the next 15 hours.