CAIRO: Palestinians are on the move these days. September, October and November has seen drastic developments towards changing the conditions of life for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. September witnessed a bid to the United Nation for Palestinian statehood at the hand of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Likewise, October saw Gaza-based Hamas popularity boosted as the its political leadership governing Gaza succeeded to swap an Israeli IDF soldier for 1,027 relatively prominent Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Also, the UN cultural heritage body UNESCO in October accepted Palestine as a membership state, a big triumph for Abbas. As November is ending, the political leadership of Hamas and Fatah are eying reconciliation, ending a rivalry split that has not seen bettering since a unity deal signed in May failed to be ratified. Now, elections for a unity government with a probable Gaza-based leadership have been proclaimed to take place shortly. These recent developments have prompted Israeli leaders to tighten the grip around the Palestinians in various measures dubbed to “punish” their relative success. Tax revenues belonging to the PA has been frozen in Israel, and the Israeli foreign ministry have threatened to cut all water, gas and electricity to the sieged coastal enclave of Gaza, if the efforts for a unity deal proceed. This is grave, as Israel supplies 70% of all Gaza utilities. “The foreign ministry is examining the possibility of Israel pulling out of the Gaza Strip in terms of infrastructure,” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the daily Yediot Aharonot website. Israel has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the coastal enclave since 2007, a siege that the UN has dubbed “a collective punishment in clear violation of international humanitarian law.” Adding to these sanctions, Israeli media reported in late August that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were training and arming Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem with tear gas and stun grenades to counter demonstrations in support of Palestinian statehood. Standing instructions from the army at the time authorized settlement security teams to open fire “if they feel threatened,” an order practically allowing that fire be opened in any case, as the note of threat coming is a subjective judgment. Since the bid for statehood at the UN, Palestinians claim to have seen a rise in settler violence. On the first of November, a group of Jewish settlers stoned an elderly Palestinian lady as she was picking olives in Mukhmas, a village southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank. The 80-year-old woman was reported to be injured in the head and transferred to hospital for treatment. Settler attacks on Palestinians have never stopped, on the contrary they have been on the rise. In a report submitted by the UN General Assembly in September 2010, it is stated that developments of recent years are “indicating a dramatic increase in Israeli settler violence.” “…arson attacks on mosques, vandalizing olive trees, arson attacks on agricultural fields, killing livestock and assaulting Palestinian villagers, including children, living near settlements,” were mentioned in the report as assaults being on the rise. Two current incidents included the killing of a Palestinian civilian, shot dead by an Israeli army soldier on 23 September. On the same day, two Palestinian minors were detained for two hours during which they were allegedly beaten up and humiliated by soldiers before being released. In the early morning of October 6, villagers of the particularly targeted West Bank village of Qusra discovered that at least 200 olive trees belonging to four different families had been cut down, depriving them of their main source of income. Referring to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and the Hague Regulations, the UN report cited Israel's responsibility as the occupying power under international humanitarian law. These responsibilities were quoted as: “…ensuring public order and safety in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as for the protection of the civilian population from any threat or act of violence.” Palestinian civil society has been responding to the increasing violence, arming their young with cameras to document the ongoing aggression. “The settlers don't want us to show how violent and how aggressive they are and how the army and Israeli police is not fulfilling their responsibility which, under international law, mandates them to protect Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled areas,” Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights activist with the Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements organization said. BM
