Almost every morning I get this email: UPDATE FROM THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA (EI). EI is a highly respected internet newspaper concerned with reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has a Palestinian bias surely, but mostly, it publishes factual reports of incidents in the occupied Palestinian territories, although articles that approach the conflict from every aspect, philosophical to political, also appear. Its human rights bent is everywhere evident. Here’s today’s material. You can get this UPDATE yourself by logging on.
LINK to the rest of any story by clicking its title:
WEST BANK VILLAGE SUES CORPORATIONS OVER SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION
Press release, Al-Haq, 10 July 2008
In a continuation of their struggle for justice in the face of unlawful appropriation of their land, the people of Bil’in village yesterday commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec against Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. The defendants are Canadian corporations involved in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the illegal settlements built on the land of Bil’in.
DO NO HARM: A TORTURE VICTIM REMEMBERS
By Naji Ali, Live from Palestine, 10 July 2008
I wasn’t really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel’s (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel’s health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992. Naji Ali writes for EI.
ISRAELI SOLDIERS TORTURE 10-YEAR-OLD IN HIS HOME
Report, Defence for Children International-Palestine Section, 10 July 2008
A 10-year-old boy was subjected to physical abuse amounting to torture for 2.5 hours by Israeli soldiers who stormed his family’s shop on 11 June, seeking information on the location of a handgun. The boy was repeatedly beaten, slapped and punched in the head and stomach, forced to hold a stress position for half and hour, and threatened. He was deeply shocked and lost two molar teeth as a result of the assault.
BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY STUDENT HELD IN ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
Release, Right to Education Campaign, 9 July 2008
In the middle of the night of 27 March 2008, at around 3am, Hanna Qassis was woken up by a loud thump at the door. When he went into the living room he saw seven soldiers standing in his house. His mom had opened the door. A soldier who appeared to be the commander and spoke in broken Arabic, asked who else lives in the house. Hanna, the eldest in the family after his father passed away, said his brother also lives there. He was told to go and wake him up.