IN THIS ISSUE
Israel kills 17 years old Sameer Awad | Act to stop the killings and repression: Vote against G4S | Coalition for the Right to the Land: E1 Bab el Shams encampment | Palestinian movements plant olives in defense of
their land against JNF | Act: Farming Injustice - End all Trade with Israeli Agricultural Companies
FEATURE
Tuesday 15Jan2013 The Israeli Occupation Forces killed Today Sameer Awad 17 years old, from Budros village near
Ramallah.
Sameer was Shot with four live Bullets to his cheast and legs, when the Occupation Forces started shooting live bullests
and tear gas bombs toward the people who were protesting against the settlements and the Apartheid wall which was built
on their land.
G4S has been nominated for the infamous ‘Worst Company of the Year’ Public Eye People’s Award. G4S is complicit in human
rights abuses across the world and helps Israel commit crimes against the Palestinians. G4S is involved in running
Israel’s prisons, checkpoints, police force and the Apartheid Wall, against which Sameer was protesting.
Israel has a contract with the Israeli Prison service and provides equipment and services to prisons at which Israel
detains Palestinian political prisoners without charge and subjects them to torture and ill-treatment. Many Palestinian
political prisoners remain on hunger strike to protest detention without trial and one prisoner, Samer Al-Issawi, is
approaching 165 days of hunger strike.
Voting closes on January 23 and the winner will be announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Let’s embarrass G4S
for its support for Israeli Apartheid at one of the most important corporate events of the year.
Please take a minute to vote for G4S and and share this widely.
Coalition for the Right to the Land: E1 Bab el Shams encampment
Israeli occupation forces removed yesterday, January 17, the tents of Bab al-Shams that the Palestinian activists had
set up last Friday in E1 area.
The Israeli High Court allowed the occupation forces to remove the tents after it had allowed them earlier this week to
expel the activists while leaving the tents in place. This procedure allowed them to circumvent the court decision
delaying the demolition of the encampment.
The activists returned to the encampment on Tuesday in spite of an army order declaring it a closed military zone and
the army later blocked all roads to the site to prevent a return of the activists after evacuating them. It was only by
staging a fake wedding party that buses and private cars were able to access the area.
Hundreds of occupation forces raided the Bab Al Shams village, destroyed the tents and beat up the activists, who have
set the tents in an attempt to stop the occupation seizer of the land to expand illegal nearby settlements in an area
Israel refers to as E1.
The activists represented with their lawyer have appealed to court to postpone the eviction of the village of Bab
al-Shams (Gate of the Sun) and were given a six-day ultimatum.
Reclaiming the land: Palestinian popular resistance sets up protest tent village in E1 area in opposition to Israeli
settlements
Friday 11 January 2013, Palestinian activists sought to protect land under threat from Israeli settlements. Coordinated
by Palestinian political forces, the Palestinian Grassroots Anti Apartheid Wall And Settlements Campaign (Stop the Wall)
and Popular Committees against the Wall, around 250 activists from all over the West Bank set up a village of 25 protest
tents in the E1 Area close to East Jerusalem.
In December, Israel announced a plan to construct an additional 3,000 illegal settlement units in the E1 area, and spend
around 200 million NIS (almost 54 million USD) on infrastructure for the settlement.
The Land were Bab Al-Shams has been established is located on a hill top over looking the E1 area and has been used by a
Bedouin community of 15 families (around 200 people) for 80 years. Activists named their tent city “Bab Al-Shams” or
“Gate of the Sun” and one activist said that the "Gate of the Sun is our door to liberty and steadfastness, and the Gate
of the Sun is our door to Jerusalem and to return."
Sunday, January 13, 2013, the Palestinian, grassroots anti-apartheid wall campaign (Stop the Wall), the Farmers’ Union
and the Popular Coalition for the Right of Land organized an event to plant new olive trees. A delegation from the
boycott committee against the Jewish National Fund (JNF), residents from Khirbet at-Twail and Aqraba village
participated in support of the steadfastness of Khirbet at-Twail, which is threatened with expulsion by the Israeli
military.
The group for boycott of the JNF – with members from Scotland, England and USA – came to the 112 year jubilee of the
establishment of the JNF. The JNF is one of the most important Zionist institutions that have contributed to the
displacement of Palestinians since 1948 and the destruction of more than 530 Palestinian villages by funding the
occupying power. The boycott committee has achieved big victories in their campaign to expose the JNF, which has
presented itself as a charity organization.
Act: Farming Injustice - End all Trade with Israeli Agricultural Companies
Palestinian agricultural organisations - among them Stop the Wall and the Palestinian Farmers Union - and the
Palestinian BDS National Committee call for the launching of worldwide campaigns on February 9 against Israeli
agricultural export corporations in light of their deep complicity in Israel’s ongoing violations of international law
and Palestinian human rights.
Following the successful campaign against Israel’s former leading agricultural export corporation Agrexco, and in light
of the growing international consensus on the duty to enforce an effective ban on trade with the illegal Israeli
settlements, we invite social movements, nongovernmental organisations, trade unions and human rights campaigners to
take creative and effective action on February 9th in support of Palestinian farmers defending their land and natural
resources.
For the call for action, see: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2013/farming-injustice-feb9-call-10352
ENDS