Palestinian women prisoners return to new worlds By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 1, 3:04 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Women make up only a tiny minority of more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, but they often pay a high personal price for what has largely been a supporting role in the Palestinian uprising.Some have raised babies behind bars, and others have watched their families torn apart in their absence.When 20 of them go home early on Friday — in exchange for the first videotaped sign of life from an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants — they're returning to worlds very different from what they left behind.The violent revolt they were swept up in has largely fizzled. Nine years after the outbreak of an uprising against Israeli occupation, Palestinian pragmatists seeking a peace deal have pacified the West Bank. Even Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers have been holding their fire, cowed by Israel's bruising offensive last winter.
Personal circumstances have also changed.
Fatima Ziq, 41, was pregnant when she was arrested in May 2007 as an alleged accomplice in a foiled suicide bombing. She returns to Gaza City with a toddler — her ninth child — who has known only prison life.Zhour Hamdan, 45, was a married mother of eight when she was picked up in 2003, also as an accomplice in an aborted bombing. Her husband has remarried, and her children were forced to fend for themselves.Our mother was the heart of our family,said one of her daughters, Neveen, 22. "When she was arrested, our entire life changed.The video-for-prisoners exchange is seen as a down payment for a broader swap, in which Israeli Cpl. Gilad Schalit would be traded for about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The soldier was seized by Hamas-allied militants from an army base near Gaza in June 2006.As of late summer, Israel held 7,430 Palestinian prisoners on security-related charges, from involvement in deadly attacks to throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, according to government figures provided to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.Fifty-three of the prisoners are women, according to Palestinian activists, including the 20 slated for early release Friday.Among those remaining behind bars are five serving life terms, including an accomplice in a 2001 suicide bombing that killed 15 Israelis in a Jerusalem pizza parlor and a woman who used an Internet promise of romance to lure an Israeli teen into a deadly West Bank ambush.
The release of prisoners is an emotional issue for both sides.
Palestinians view the prisoners as heroes fighting Israeli occupation at great personal cost, and virtually every Palestinian family has current or former detainees in its midst.In contrast, many Israelis see the inmates as terrorists. Since the outbreak of the uprising, 1,171 Israelis have been killed, most in bombings, shootings and other attacks by Palestinian militants. In the same period, more than 6,300 Palestinians were killed by Israelis.The Israeli public is divided over whether to release large numbers of prisoners in exchange for Israeli captives. Some argue that such releases only drive up the cost of future exchanges and increase the dangers of future attacks.Israeli military correspondent Alex Fishman said Israel is paying an exorbitant price by releasing the women.We have become accustomed to being pushovers,he wrote Thursday in the Yediot Ahronot daily.Among Palestinians, there's a broad consensus that women should be first in line for release.We are a conservative Muslim society,said Issa Karake, the prisoners affairs minister in the West Bank government.Women are the pillar of the house. When a wife or mother leaves the house, it would be ruined.Bothaina Duqmaq, a prisoners' rights activist in the West Bank, said that four babies have been born to Palestinian women in Israeli prisons over the years.The women slated for release Friday were jailed for relatively minor offenses, were close to release or did not harm Israelis. One woman had a month left on an 11-month sentence for interfering with police activity, according to the Israeli Prisons Service.Only a few of the women were members of militant groups, and most were assigned supporting roles, such as helping bombers reach their targets, Duqmaq said.
Many were driven by the desire to avenge relatives killed or arrested by Israeli troops.Linan Abu Gholmeh, 30, from the West Bank city of Nablus, who is getting out after serving four years on a five-year sentence, attempted to stab an Israeli soldier after her husband was killed in a clash with Israeli forces. Heba Natche, 19, tried to stab a soldier in an act of revenge and completed her high school diploma in prison, while serving half of her 40-month sentence.Hamdan, the mother of eight, told her children she never expected to be arrested when she led a suicide bomber into Israel. The assailant was caught and gave her name to the Israelis. Hamdan told her children that in 2003, at the height of Israeli-Palestinian violence, she was swept up by the angry mood and felt she needed to do her part.Her youngest, Mohammed, was 18 months old at the time and was raised by his siblings, some of whom quit school to feed the family.The siblings said their mother's arrest wreaked havoc with their lives and they're eager for her to come home.These are tears of happiness,Neveen said.Additional reporting by Ben Hubbard in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Ali Daraghmeh in Nablus and Nasser Shiyoukhi in Hebron, West Bank.
Lebanese say UAE pressed them to spy on Hezbollah By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 1, 12:57 pm ET
BEIRUT – A Lebanese businessman alleged Thursday that he and several hundred other Lebanese were expelled from the United Arab Emirates country because they refused to spy on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and other fellow citizens.Hassan Alayan said more than 300 Lebanese — mostly Shiites — have been forced to leave the Emirates over the past three months. He said most of those deported said UAE authorities asked them to inform on fellow Lebanese Shiites living in the country and on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.Authorities told the Lebanese they were being deported for security reasons, but they believe their refusal to spy was the real reason, Alayan told a news conference in Beirut. The Emirates refused to comment on the allegations, and Lebanese officials said they were contacting authorities there over the matter.One of those deported, Zuhair Hamdan, said his residency permit was rejected after he refused to give authorities information about fellow Lebanese or possible Hezbollah sleeper cells in the UAE.I told them I have been living in the UAE for 33 years. How can I have information about Hezbollah,said Hamdan, who lived in the Emirates since he was 2 years old and worked as a traffic policeman.The UAE is among several predominantly Sunni Arab nations wary of Shiite Iran's growing regional clout — which Iran partly maintains by supplying weapons and cash to the powerful Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A statement by a committee set up to represent the deportees suggested the decision by the Emirates could be the result of U.S. pressure to try to choke off routes of funding for the anti-American and anti-Israel Hezbollah. The U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.The Emirates is close to the United States and has cooperated with Washington in trying to shut down networks smuggling weapons to Iran, U.S. officials have said.Alayan said some of those deported were forced to leave even after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman sent a military delegation five weeks ago to the UAE to try resolve the matter without success. More than 100 people who said they were deportees, as well as two Hezbollah legislators, attended the news conference in Beirut.In whose interest is it to ask Lebanese to spy on one another and on the resistance of Lebanon and Palestine? said the committee's statement.Alayan alleged UAE authorities have also deported Palestinians who refused to spy on the militant Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip. He said the Palestinians recounted similar pressures by authorities to inform on Hamas.Some Arab media have reported that those who were deported were sending money to Hezbollah, a claim denied by Alayan and Ali Faour, another member of a committee representing the deportees.Faour told reporters that most of those deported have been living in the UAE for decades and most were business owners.Hezbollah, the largest and most powerful Shiite group in Lebanon, came to the defense of the deportees because most of them are Shiite. The deportees had been silent for a few months but last week started meeting with Lebanese officials to complain about their treatment.Lebanon's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, urged UAE President Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to take a quick initiative to rescue hundreds of Lebanese families.Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, described the deportations as clear injustice and called on the UAE to be fair with people who are not suspected of working against their host country.
Israel warns UN body against Gaza report Thu Oct 1, 10:51 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel warned on Thursday that the UN Human Rights Council would strike a fatal blow to the stalled Middle East peace process if it passes its damning Gaza war report on to the Security Council.The adoption of what is called the Goldstone report would deal a fatal blow to the peace process,Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, repeating comments he made at the UN General Assembly last week.Israel will not be able to take further steps and further risks towards peace if the report is adopted and it is denied the right to self-defence, Netanyahu said.The Geneva-based Human Rights Council this week has been discussing the results of the probe which accused both Israel and Palestinian militant groups of war crimes.The panel also recommends sending the report to the UN Security Council and to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
Richard Goldstone, the respected South African judge who headed the probe, on Tuesday urged the United Nations to refer Israel and the Palestinians to the ICC if they fail to conduct independent investigations as called for by the report.Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon warned that the Palestinian Authority's support for the report and sanctions against Israel could hamper future negotiations on the creation of an independent Palestinian state.They were the ones that instigated the report and that are calling for measures. We would expect them to cease this altogether, not just because there is no basis for it but also because this is the most unfriendly act if we want to deal together on the most difficult issues, Ayalon told reporters.Any action taken on this report would have a detrimental effect on the peace process, if not deal it a fatal blow... The Palestinians cannot try to talk peace and attack us at the same time,he said.He nevertheless said that Israel was not planning any steps against the Palestinians.The United States has been putting heavy pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to renew the peace talks which broke down late last year during the Gaza offensive.
Israel to free prisoners for video of held soldier by Ron Bousso – Wed Sep 30, 4:16 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel will free 20 Palestinian women prisoners in return for a video of a soldier held in Gaza, in a breakthrough in nearly three years of indirect talks with Hamas, officials said on Wednesday.The Israeli security cabinet decided to authorise the release of 20 Palestinian women detainees and prisoners,the Israeli prime minister's office said in a statement.Israel will receive updated and clear proof on the health and condition of Gilad Shalit. This proof of life will be handed to Israel by the mediators in the form of a videotape that has recently been filmed.
The release of the prisoners and the handing over of the videotape to Israel will be done back-to-back on Friday, a senior Israeli official told reporters.The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, confirmed the deal, which was proposed by Egyptians and Germans mediating the indirect talks between the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state.The development marked a major breakthrough in nearly three years of on-again, off-again Egyptian-brokered negotiations between Israel and Hamas for an exchange. German mediators joined the talks in July.Shalit, now 23, was seized in June 2006 after Gaza militants, including Hamas, tunnelled out of the Palestinian territory and attacked an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers.
Since 2006, Cairo has been trying to broker a deal under which Shalit would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.The video to be handed over on Friday proves that Shalit is alive, officials said.The video is one minute long and is proof that Shalit is alive,a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the three groups that carried out the raid in which Shalit was captured, told AFP.The Israeli official declined to comment on Shalit's state of health in the video, saying only that the recording was probably several weeks old and that the German mediator has already seen the video. We have indications of the contents but no Israeli official has seen it.A Hamas spokesman said that the movement has already handed the recording over to the mediators.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by his office as saying: It is important that the entire world know that Gilad Shalit is alive and well, and that Hamas is responsible for his health and state.All but one of the Palestinian women due to be released are from the occupied West Bank and none has been directly implicated in the killing of Israelis, the official told reporters.The prisoners to be released include four from Hamas, three from Islamic Jihad and five from Fatah, seven independents and one from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said.The developments do not spell the imminent release of Shalit himself, Netanyahu's office warned, saying it is meant as a confidence-building measure... ahead of decisive stages in the negotiations for Shalit's release.The negotiations are still expected to be long and arduous,an Israeli official said.
China, U.S. risk rifts in Middle East: former Chinese envoy By Chris Buckley – Wed Sep 30, 1:41 am ET
BEIJING (Reuters) – China and the United States risk deepening rifts over influence and oil in the Middle East, Beijing's former envoy to the region has said, urging his nation to bolster ties with Iran and other energy-exporting powers.Sun Bigan was China's special envoy on the Middle East until March, and in a new essay he said U.S. President Barack Obama's effort to improve ties with Islamic states in the Middle East was a tactical shift that had not removed the potential for friction between Washington and Beijing in the region.China faced growing risks to energy security as it increasingly relied on imported oil, especially from the volatile Middle East, where Beijing's sway had been limited, Sun said.The U.S. has always sought to control the faucet of global oil supplies. There is cooperation between China and the U.S., but there is also struggle, and the U.S. has always seen us as a potential foe,he wrote in the September issue of Asia & Africa Review,which reached subscribers this week.Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable. We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security,Sun wrote in the Chinese-language journal, which is published by the State Council Development Research Center, a prominent state think tank.Sun's essay was written before the latest flare-up over Iran's nuclear ambitions, which has renewed Western pressure on Beijing to distance itself from Iran and back sanctions.China's Foreign Ministry has urged restraint on all sides ahead of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as well as Germany, in Geneva on Thursday. The permanent Council members are the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.Sun, who now works for a government-run association promoting ties with Asia and Africa, was not directly involved in nuclear negotiations with Iran, but he served as China's ambassador there, as well as in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.He could not be contacted at the association on Wednesday.
BLUNT WARNING
The unusually blunt warning from a former senior diplomat, nonetheless underscores some of the anxieties over oil, influence and security that are likely to shape China's response to the West's confrontation with Iran.Both now and in the future, the Middle East should be our first choice in importing oil and developing oil cooperation,Sun wrote. China should focus on strengthening trade with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Oman, he added.Washington would strive to ensure Iraqi oil remained under U.S. control, he said, but Iran has bountiful energy resources and its oil gas reserves are the second biggest in the world, and all are basically under its own control.Oil gas is the natural gas found in oil fields.In the first eight months of this year, Iran was China's third biggest foreign source of crude oil, with shipments of 17.2 million tonnes, a rise of 14.7 percent compared to the same period last year. Angola and Saudi Arabia were the first- and second-ranked suppliers.
Chinese imports of Iranian oil and gas have been held back by U.S. sanctions, Iranian commercial demands and Chinese jitters, Sun said. But China could find access to Iranian supplies drastically curtailed if political power in Tehran passed to forces more sympathetic to Washington, he suggested.Obama's new Middle East policy is merely a tactical adjustment, and the United States will not and cannot alter its global goals and dominance,Sun wrote.(Editing by Dean Yates)
Bid to arrest Ehud Barak in Britain rejected By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 29, 7:06 pm ET
LONDON – A Palestinian bid to have Israeli defense chief Ehud Barak arrested for alleged war crimes during a visit to Britain has failed, a lawyer for the groups involved said Tuesday.Attorney Tayab Ali said a London court rejected his application late Tuesday. Palestinians had hoped to take advantage of Britain's principle of universal jurisdiction, under which alleged war criminals can be tried in domestic U.K. courts, to arrest Barak. But Israeli officials had said they weren't worried because, as a top government minister, Barak was immune from arrest.
The British arrest bid is the latest in a series of attempts to arrest or prosecute Israeli officials abroad, something Barak said was absurd.This has to stop otherwise the world will give a prize to terrorists,the defense minister said in a statement.
Barak traveled to Britain to attend the annual conference of Britain's left-leaning Labour Party. He shared what his office said was a hug and a handshake with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown before engaging in talks about Iran and the Middle East peace process with Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth.Tipped off to his visit, the Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza and the Ramallah-based al-Haq put together a case against the defense minister accusing him of committing war crimes while directing the Israeli winter offensive against the Gaza Strip, according to the Mezan Center's Mahmoud Abu Rahma.Their case was dismissed at a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, according to Ali, who said the judge cited the immunity tendered to senior foreign officials. Ali called the outcome a disappointment.We don't accept that it's correct that immunity applies to him for this type of crime,he said.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the attempt to have Barak arrested would not survive past today's headlines, but the defense chief is the latest Israeli official threatened with arrest over war crimes charges abroad.In 2005, Doron Almog, a retired general, dodged arrest by staying on aboard his plane at London's Heathrow airport after a tip-off that police were outside to arrest him. The Israeli jetliner flew him straight back home, and the warrant was eventually dropped for procedural reasons.
The war crimes allegations stemmed from his role as commander of the Israeli army in Gaza in 2002, when Israeli forces destroyed 59 houses in Gaza that Israel said were used by militants and Palestinians said belonged to civilians.In December 2007, Israeli public security minister Avi Dichter, a former chief of the Shin Bet internal security agency, turned down an invitation to visit Britain after being advised he could be arrested for his role in the 2002 assassination of a senior Hamas militant in Gaza. The deadly airstrike on the militant killed 14 other people, including nine children.Earlier this year, a Spanish court shelved a judge's investigation into the same airstrike, siding with prosecutors who said Spain lacked jurisdiction. Complaints have also been filed in Britain against two former Israeli military chiefs, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, in connection with the airstrike.In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was tried in absentia in Belgium, though not convicted, in connection with a 1982 massacre in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut carried out by Lebanese militants.Barak said Israel needed to do its all to ensure that Israeli citizens and Israeli officials can move freely in the free world.It's absurd that those who try to protect the citizens are those who have to protect themselves,he said.Associated Press Writers David Stringer in Brighton, England, Gregory Katz in London, Joseph Federman and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, Ben Hubbard in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed to this report.(This version CORRECTS Corrects day of the week to Tuesday STED Wednesday)
Israel gets two more German submarines Tue Sep 29, 3:51 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has taken delivery of two German submarines ordered four years ago, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.We have received two Dolphin-class submarines built in Germany,he said, on condition of anonymity.The submarines, called U212s, can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads, although when it confirmed the sale in 2006 the German government said the two vessels were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons.The subs were ordered in 2005 and delivery was initially expected in 2010.Including the two new ones, Israel has five German submarines -- the most expensive weapon platforms in Israel's arsenal.Germany, which believes it has a historic responsibility to help Israel because of the mass murder of Jews in World War II, donated the first two submarines after the 1991 Gulf War.
It split the cost of the third with the Jewish state.
According to Jane's Defence Weekly, the U212s are designed for a crew of 35, have a range of 4,500 kilometres (2,810 miles) and can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads.Israeli media have written that the Dolphin submarine could be key in any attack on arch-foe Iran's controversial nuclear sites.An Israeli submarine recently used the Suez Canal for the first time in June, escorted by Egyptian navy vessels, in what Israeli media said was intended as a message to Iran.Widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran denies.
Palestinian unity talks in Egypt in October: Meshaal Mon Sep 28, 2:27 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Rival Palestinian factions will meet in Egypt in October for talks aimed at reaching a national reconciliation agreement, Hamas supremo leader Khaled Meshaal said on Monday.The exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement was in Cairo for talks with officials over Egyptian proposals to reconcile Hamas with the secular Fatah party of president Mahmud Abbas.The Egyptian proposal can be a good basis for achieving Palestinian reconciliation,Meshaal told reporters.Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who is overseeing the mediation, told us that (Egypt) will work on a final draft of the reconciliation agreement in the coming days and will invite different Palestinian factions next month, October, for a national meeting,he said.According to extracts of the proposals obtained by AFP, the plan calls for both presidential and parliamentary elections to be held across the Palestinian territories in the middle of 2010.It also calls for the reinforcement of the Fatah-dominated security forces under Egyptian supervision and the release of prisoners in both the Fatah-run West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.Egypt has twice postponed the scheduled date for the signature of a reconciliation agreement in Cairo because of continuing disagreements between the two Palestinian factions.
Zawahiri brands Obama a criminal: TV Mon Sep 28, 1:28 pm ET
DUBAI (AFP) – Al-Qaeda's second-in-command branded US President Barack Obama a criminal who turns a blind eye to the expansion of Israeli settlements, in an audiotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television on Monday.Have we realised the truth of Obama the criminal, or do we still need more crimes to be carried out in Kabul, Baghdad, Mogadishu and Gaza to be sure of his criminality?Ayman al-Zawahiri asked.
Have we realised the lowliness of America under the leadership of the smiling and wooing Obama?he asked in the recording which could not be immediately authenticated.
Zawahiri accused the US president of showing little interest in curbing the growth of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, while at the same time forcing Arab leaders to make further concessions to Israel.Obama leaves the settlements spread in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, showing little remorse, while he presses the surrendering (Arab) rulers to give in further,he charged.Egypt-born Zawahiri, the right-hand man of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, was speaking in a recording released to praise the former leader of Pakistan's Taliban who is believed to have been killed in a US attack in August.Zawahiri eulogised Baitullah Mehsud in the 28-minute statement, reported IntelCenter, a US-based group which monitors Islamist websites.US and Pakistani officials said Mehsud had most probably died after a missile attack by an American drone in August.In a recording posted on the Internet on September 23, Zawahiri said Obama would be defeated by Islamist fighters.In his latest tape, Zawahiri also scolded Turkey for its forthcoming assumption of the leadership of NATO forces operating in Afghanistan.
Every Turk who is concerned about Islam and the Muslims should know that his country's troops will assume next month the leadership of the Crusade in Afghanistan that is burning the villages, destroying homes, killing women and children and occupying the land of Islam,he said.The Turkish forces in Afghanistan will lead the same (kind of) operations that are conducted by the Jews in Palestine. How could the free zealous Turkish people accept this crime against Islam and the Muslims,he added.
Syria calls for Israel to join nuclear treaty By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated press Writer – Mon Sep 28, 1:20 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel must comply with the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency if the Mideast is to become a region free of weapons of mass destruction, Syria's foreign minister said Monday.Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem echoed calls by many Arab nations during the current U.N. General Assembly session for Israel to comply with the IAEA's demand to submit its nuclear facilities to the agency's safeguard regime and to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty restricts any nuclear program to nonmilitary purposes.Israel has never said it has nuclear weapons, but is universally believed to possess a sizable arsenal of such warheads.The U.S. and its allies consider Iran the region's greatest proliferation threat, fearing that Tehran is trying to achieve the capacity to make nuclear weapons despite its assertion that it is only building a civilian program to generate power. They also say Syria — which, like Iran is under IAEA investigation — ran a clandestine nuclear program, at least until Israeli warplanes destroyed what they describe as a nearly finished plutonium-producing reactor two years ago.Islamic nations, however, insist that Israel is the true danger, saying they fear its nuclear weapons capacity.
Earlier this month, the 150-nation IAEA conference adopted a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program for the first time in 18 years. Iran hailed the vote as a glorious moment.The result was a setback for Israel, the United States and other backers of the Jewish state. It also reflected building tensions between Israel and its backers and Islamic nations, backed by members of the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement.The meeting adopted a resolution calling for a Mideast free of nuclear weapons in a near-consensus vote, with only Israel voting against.
Syria stresses the need to commit Israel to comply with the resolution adopted by the IAEA ... regarding Israeli nuclear capabilities,Al-Moualem said.Attempts to contact the Israeli mission to the U.N. for comment were unsuccessful on the holiday of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
