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Israel's Civil Administration is planning to relocate some 27,000 Bedouins living in Area C in the West Bank. At first, some 2,300 people will be expelled from their homes near the Ma'ale Adummim settlement and relocated to a site next to the Abu Dis garbage dump, east of Jerusalem. Members of the Khan al-Ahmar community explain how the move will affect them.
Ali's tale is that of a life-long struggle with the Israeli occupation: Arrestations, violence, road-blocks, water restriction and economical hardship, a struggle to maintain the life of a Palestinian grape farmer.
Israel continues wave of West Bank housing demolitions in East Jerusalem. Following the violent demolitions in Qalqiliya yesterday, and in Beit Hanina and Silwan Sunday, Israel continued it's displacement of Palestinians throughout the West Bank today in occupied East Jerusalem. On the day Israel announced a plan to forcibly remove 2300 Palestinians from their homes, military demolition teams arrived in al-Khalayleh, a small village in East Jerusalem. Two homes, an animal barracks, and part of a hardware store were flattened by within hours. Palestinians watched as their homes were flattened leaving 6 children and several adults homeless. Armed military and police guarded the area as bulldozers destroyed the structures.
A video filmed by Bilal a-Tamimi, volunteer in B'Tselem's video project and a resident of Nabi Saleh, offering a rare glimpse into a new method employed by the army: soldiers enter homes at night to photograph youngsters from the village. The soldiers enter the homes and demand that every child and youth over the age of 10 be wakened. They then photograph the minors and leave. B'Tselem knows of at least four incursions of this kind during January 2011. The army uses the photographs to identify minors who throw stones during the regular Friday demonstrations in the village. Soldiers then return to their homes at night and arrest them.
Twenty Palestinians, including six children, find themselves without homes after the Israeli military demolished hree homes in Beit Hanina, a village to the north off Jerusalem.
On the 15th of November, six Palestinian activists: Nadeem Al-Sharbate, Huwaida Arraf, Dr.Mazin Qumsieyeh, Fadi Qura'an, Basel Al-Araj, and Badee' Dwaik, boarded a segregated Israeli bus used by Israeli settlers to Jerusalem in an attempt to highlight the regime of discrimination on freedom of movement in place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the fact that Palestinians cannot access Jerusalem freely. After boarding the bus without incidents, the bus was stopped at the Hizme checkpoint, where all the activists were arrested and violently forcibly removed from the bus.
Four Israeli human rights groups -- The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights and Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights -- sent an urgent letter today to senior Israeli military commanders, in which they called on the commanders to take all necessary steps to ensure that Palestinians and their properties are protected from violence and damage during the current olive harvest season.