Having Told the Truth About Israel , the BBC Promptly Apologised – Presenter Anjana Gadgil had said that ‘Israel is Happy to Kill Palestinian Children’

Israel’s Army Killed 4 Children and Wrecked the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin – All in ‘Self Defence’

Al Jazeera Film on Israel’s Propaganda War

In May 2021, as the world’s eyes were on Israel’s attack on Gaza, Israeli soldiers wrecked the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin. They even took the time and trouble to tear up the children’s reading books. This is the hate that Zionism engenders.

Last week Israel’s military went even further. They not only wrecked the interior, they damaged the exterior walls of the Centre, punching large holes in them, demolishing the balcony. This is understandable. To Zionism Palestinian children are what Jewish children were to the Nazis. The embodiment of a satanic people.

On October 4 1943, in Posen (Poznan), Himmler explained why it was necessary to kill not just Jewish adults but their children too:

Thus I did not feel I had the right to exterminate – let’s say then, kill them or have them killed – the men while I allowed their avengers, in the form of their children, to grow up and avenge them upon our sons and grandsons.

Al Tafawk Video

The Al Tafawk Centre, which we have helped fund for the past four years, will not be allowed to die and I am therefore asking people to contribute what they can afford to the Go Fund Me Crowdfunder.

The British Shalom/Salaam Trust has also launched an 

URGENT APPEAL on behalf of the AL TAFAWK CHILDREN'S CENTRE

The BBC – Allergic to the Truth

Despite killing 4 children in Jenin, making some 35 Palestinian children in the West Bank this year, the BBC apologised because Anjana Gadgil told the truth for once and said that ‘Israel is Happy to Kill Palestinian Children’ when questioning former Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett. Bennet is on record as saying that 'I've Killed Lots Of Arabs In My Life And There's No Problem With That'.

Palestinians in Jenin confront Palestinian Authority after deadly Israeli raid

Bennett’s claim that the children that Israel kills are ‘terrorists’ is a lie but in the eyes of the Zionists, Palestinians by definition are terrorists.

Jenin – Middle East International

I have therefore submitted a complaint to the BBC about their apology to the Zionist lobby for Gadgil’s remarks and asked them to withdraw it and also apologise for Gadgil having accepted that the term ‘terrorist’ applies to Palestinian children anyway. (see below)

‘Her smile never left her face’

By Basel Adra July 5, 2023

In a previous military raid in Jenin, the army killed seven Palestinians, including 15-year-old Sadeel Naghniyeh, who according to witnesses was shot in the head while standing at the entrance to her home. Her death began reverberating after images of her fellow classmates carrying her body for burial went viral.

Sadeel was shot on June 19, and died of her wounds two days later. Her father Ghassan described the scene to +972:

“The alarms started going off in the camps, we heard screaming, and people began running to their homes. This is a scene that repeats itself in every invasion of the camp. Israeli snipers went up to the roofs of the houses and buildings and began shooting. The clashes were not close to our house, we only heard them. My daughter was speaking to her cousins through the window, and told me that she wanted to go to her uncle’s house. I told myself that it is better that she go and not talk through the window, since doing so is more dangerous because of the snipers.”

This is Kareem! The sweetest child in the Al Tafawk Centre - his father has just been killed and he is homeless! 

The reality of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children, which the BBC deliberately ignores was highlighted by the new Save the Children Report which showed that:

·                During arrest, 42% of children were injured, including gunshot wounds and broken bones, and 65% of children were arrested during the night, mostly between midnight and dawn. Half of all arrests took place in the children’s home.

·                The majority of children experienced appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86%), being threatened with harm (70%), and hit with sticks or guns (60%).

·                Some children reported violence and abuse of a sexual nature, including being hit or touched on the genitals and 69% reported being strip searched.

·                60% of children experienced solitary confinement with the length of time varying from one 1 day to as long as 48 days.  

·                Children were denied access to basic services, 70% said they suffered from hunger and 68% said they didn’t receive any healthcare.   

·                58% of children were denied visits or communication with their family while detained.

·                The majority of children detained are boys – a trend reflected by the survey, with boys representing 97% of the respondents.

The Anti-Boycott Bill

As 1000 Israeli soldiers were launching a blitzkrieg on Jenin Refugee Camp, together with drones and helicopters, British MPs gave a second reading to the anti-Boycott Bill which is designed to protect the right of Israel to commit war crimes and to make solidarity action with the Palestinians illegal.

In Israel’s British apologists are enabling this violence former Guardian correspondent David Hearst wrote that:

‘Every word that Keir Starmer or Lisa Nandy utter in support of the 'Jewish homeland' sends a very clear message to Israel that it can carry on doing what it wants.’

Israel has openly fascist and neo-Nazi Ministers in power such as Police and Security Minister, Itamar ben Gvir, who used to hang a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his living room wall. Goldstein opened fire in February 1994 in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron massacring 29 Palestinian worshippers. Ben Gvir, who used to chant ‘death to the Arabs’, has recently told his supporters to change the chant to ‘Death to the terrorists’.

The BBC’s craven apology speaks volumes about the organisation. But let us have a look at the child ‘terrorists’ that Israel has murdered.

On June 2 a two-year-old Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Tamimi died after being shot in the head near Nabi Saleh by Israeli soldiers while riding in a car with his father. The army later said that the death was ‘unintentional’ and that the soldier would be reprimanded.

Four children murdered on Gaza beach playing hide and seek

In 2014 during Operation Protective Edge Israel murdered 551 Palestinian children. No doubt they too were terrorists, like the 4 children playing hide and seek on Gaza’s beach. Israel later described their death as a ‘tragic accident’.

In 2018 during the Great Return March from Gaza, Israeli snipers opened fire killing 50 children and some 266 unarmed demonstrators. The snipers injured 30,000 others. The bullets they used were deliberately designed to cause maximum damage to the human body.

Israel’s attack on Jenin needs to be seen in the context of the remarks by Ben-Gvir, an ex-supporter of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who called for the murder of hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians.

Jenin is laying the basis for a second Nakba. Thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their home and forced to wander the streets of the refugee camp, without food or water, as Israeli troops occupied their homes.

Mustafa Sheta described how the invasion began with a devastating attack on The Freedom Theatre, where a group of families had sought refuge. Even the most dishonest Israeli Embassy liar would be hard pushed to explain why this symbol of Palestinian culture was attacked, the road outside being destroyed.

The attack on Jenin refugee camp decimated its infrastructure and obliterated the main roads in the camp.

Hospitals in Jenin treated dozens who were wounded during the military operation but residents said that ambulances, in many cases, were unable to reach and evacuate those hurt.

The Jenin municipality said that the water supply had been cut off throughout the refugee camp because infrastructure had suffered damage in the fighting.

The city’s power grid also suffered significant damage due to operations by the Israel Defense Forces’ engineering corps. Residents said that both electricity and internet service was disrupted. Sami Bakr, who lives in the refugee camp, said:

Israeli Military Bulldozer

“I heard bulldozers, and suddenly we saw them destroying the roads leading to the refugee camp to prevent people from leaving or entering it,” he said. “There are still forces there, and the residents are very afraid. The vast majority aren’t opening their windows.”

Bakr said that residents had been under siege since the morning, without electricity or internet. “There are wounded people who still haven’t been evacuated from the camp because the medical crews can’t enter.”

Urabi Hamad, a Jenin resident who lives near the camp, said that in his neighbourhood “we can’t leave or enter” adding:

 “There are still many forces in the area. The media are also still under siege, and the medical teams can’t move. The fear is horrible. We hear shooting and explosions all the time, and we’re afraid it will escalate and expand. There’s a lot of destruction everywhere.”

See Jenin Residents: Ambulances Unable to Reach Many Wounded After Israeli Military Operation - Israel News, Jul 4, 2023

THE FREEDOM THEATRE in Jenin Refugee Camp, leads an emergency online meeting, on the invasion and what you can do

Doing Israel’s Dirty Work – The Palestinian Authority

It would also appear that another purpose of the attack on Jenin was to do the dirty work for the Palestinian Authority Israel’s military subcontractor. The PA hasn’t been able to operate in Jenin refugee camp for months.

Last Sunday the Israeli Security Cabinet decided that they would ‘act to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority’ although this was opposed by Police Minister Ben Gvir with Smotrich abstaining. Smotrich, who is the effective Governor of the West Bank stated that ‘There will be no economic relief for the Palestinians.” 

The Jenin operation didn’t end. Phase Two has already begun.

After a PA delegation to the funeral of Jenin’s 12 martyrs was kicked out of the camp by mourners incensed at PA inaction, a ministerial committee was formed by presidential order to lead the reconstruction effort. Another Fatah delegation composed of members of its central committee returned on Saturday, July 8, to meet with members of the Jenin Brigade. The day after that, yet another delegation made up of PA ministers also arrived and made the rounds. The PA presence started to be normalized. See

According to PAJU, MahmoudAbbas the so-called Palestinian President visited Jenin on Wednesday to a hostile reception. In advance of his coming 1,000 PA security force members were deployed to Jenin. Rami, a Jenin resident was quoted as saying:

“We don’t need any help from the Palestinian Authority … you have been meeting [with the enemy] under the table,,, The Palestinian Authority is our occupier, not Israel.”

It also reported that ahead of Abbas’s visit

‘PA troops were spotted removing the flags of Gaza-based resistance groups Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both of which enjoy great support across the West Bank.’

The same Israeli Judges Who Are the Bulwark of Israeli Jewish Democracy Enable the Military Dictatorship in the West Bank

The military subjugation of the Palestinians in the West Bank is backed to the hilt by Israel’s Zionist judges. The Supreme Court has consistently supported the demolition of the houses of families of Palestinian ‘terrorists’ whilst at the same time refusing to countenance the destruction of the homes of Jewish terrorists.

The ‘reason’ for this racist discrimination was explained in a 2015 ruling by Noam Sohlberg in the High Court. Sohlberg justified this openly racist discrimination by claiming that home demolition serves as a deterrent, and that the Jewish public was already “deterred and not incited.” Sohlberg acknowledged the existence of Jewish terrorism, but asserted,

“The difference exceeds the similarity in many aspects, and particularly… regarding mass attitudes: firm, wall-to-wall condemnation in the Jewish community, which is not the case on the opposite side.”

Largest Military Operation in Jenin as Israel Strikes Palestine Hard | Vantage with Palki Sharma

Sohlberg is a settler from Alon Shvut. A Sohlberg doctrine that is relevant to current events is his support for the lenient treatment of Jewish terrorism. As Yoana Gonen explained

From the outset, this was a shameful justification based upon a racist gut feeling rather than facts….  Appalling pogroms and acts of terror committed by hundreds of bloodthirsty settlers have become routine. Houses are torched with their occupants inside; masked Jews hurl rocks at cars and fire guns at Palestinian localities; thuggish gangs go after Arabs on both sides of the Green Line; and rather than “firm, wall-to-wall condemnation,” these acts receive the helpful turning of a blind eye or outright enthusiastic support on the right.

A few days ago Ben-Gvir told lawbreakers at the illegal outposts, “Run to the hilltops, we have your back.” In fact there is a ‘wall-to-wall’ refusal in the right-wing parties to avoid issuing any condemnation, including Prime Minister Netanyahu. Meanwhile, among the Jewish public, a sickening song of praise to the pogrom in Hawara has become a hit and can be heard at protests in support of the judicial overhaul.

Instead of combating the settler violence coalition members launched a grammatical battle over the definition of “terror” and lashed out at officials who called it that. National Missions Minister Orit Strock, whose son was convicted of abusing a Palestinian minor, said it was a “disgrace” to label the Jewish pogroms ‘terror’, and Finance Minister Smotrich described it as “morally unacceptable and genuinely dangerous.”

These events reveal the fraud in Sohlberg’s words, which purport to be an objective legal argument, but in fact stem from Jewish Supremacist notions that inspire Strock and Smotrich. Like these ministers, Sohelberg considers terror to be something that only Arabs engage in and as something that Jews are genetically incapable of.

See The Settler Judge Who Advocates Lenient Treatment for Jewish Terror

Tony Greenstein

In search of poetic justice – The Life of a Jewish anti-Zionist

ERIC LEVY - A LIFE DEDICATED TO THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE 1928-2022

Below I’m happy to publish a passionate tribute to Eric Levy, a Jewish anti-Zionist who has just died aged 94, by Abbas Ali on behalf of In Minds, the Human Rights Group.

Eric was very active in many causes. He was active in Revolutionary Communist Group circles and took part in the non-stop picket outside South Africa House during the apartheid era. This was the picket which so annoyed the Met Police that they arrested Jeremy Corbyn. Eric was also a teacher and his photo was plastered on the cover of a tabloid because in class he showed support for the Irish republican movement. Eric was active in the civil rights movement and apparently he was friends with Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones.

A truly remarkable life. Below this is an article which appeared in Camden’s New Journal in January 2021 which details his arrest outside Westminster Magistrates Court because he ‘breached’ COVID regulations. The same regulations that Boris Johnson breached but which the Met refused to investigate until faced with court proceedings and even then didn’t issue him with questionnaires for most of the parties he attended.  Thus it ever was.

Tony Greenstein

ERIC LEVY - A LIFE DEDICATED TO THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE 1928-2022

We are honoured to call Eric Levy our brother, our comrade. We knew him as a passionate campaigner for justice. He played a prominent part in our campaigns since 2014.

As an ardent anti-Zionist Jew he was particularly dedicated to the cause of Palestine. He had visited Palestine and seen first-hand how Israeli apartheid was destroying Palestinian lives, how the indigenous Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed from their land to make way for white European colonists.

He was at the forefront of our campaigns for Palestinian rights, including campaigns against G4S and HP for complicity in torture of children; Addidas and Puma for complicity in ethnic cleansing and illegal settlements; De Beers for peddling Israeli blood diamonds; and the campaign for the release of Palestinian political prisoners tortured in Israeli dungeons.

But he was not limited to one cause. Wherever he saw injustice, he threw himself in to the struggle on the side of the oppressed. He opposed the invasion of Iraq and travelled to Iraq as a 'Human Shield'. He opposed the Saudi genocidal war in Yemen; and campaigned for the release of Bahraini political prisoners; and for the release of Sheikh Zakzaky caged by the brutal Nigerian regime; and perhaps what he is best remembered for - he ardently campaigned for the release of the journalist Julian Assange in the UK.

Mindful of his age and frailty we purposely didn't invite him to guerrilla projections, but there was no stopping him attend the Malcolm X remembrance projection in Brixton on a bitterly cold February night. He had particular affinity to the cause of black liberation.

Eric was arrested several times, both for blocking Israeli armaments, and for protesting Assange's unfair extradition hearings. We were awed and inspired by his bravery, and dedication.

Eric was a person with no ego, his only focus was the struggle. For many years, he wouldn't even tell us his age, in case it might lead to preferential treatment. Although he was a person of very modest means, yet he would refuse even the smallest of gifts, unless everyone was receiving it. He was a very caring person, always looking out for the more vulnerable members. Eric was particularly mindful that indigenous voices in the struggle were allowed to flourish.

We were truly privileged to have known Eric.

His dream was to continue the struggle for justice till his last breath. In fulfilling his dream, in his death at age 94, he has shown us how to live, how to live a life worth living. An inspiration for generations to come. We will miss you Eric.

Abbas Ali

Chair, Inminds Human Rights Group

In search of poetic justice

Thursday, 21st January 2021 — By John Gulliver

THIS extraordinary picture of a little stumbling gaunt-faced elderly man being arrested by several police officers at a demonstration outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court is haunt­ing. On the soundtrack from a mobile video snapped by, presumably, one of the demonstrators one can hear someone shouting: “He is 92… he will die… what are you doing?”

I was not at the demonstration that was held at a bail application by the jailed journalist Julian Assange outside the court on January 6. Assange was refused bail and is still held at the high security jail Belmarsh in south London while lawyers continue to argue for his extradition to the US on the ground that he committed espionage by releasing secret tapes.

I can confirm that the man in the picture is actually 92 and lives in the Camden Town area. I have seen him several times over the years as he is a regular presence at protest meetings and know him as Eric Levy.

He clearly has strong radical views that draw him to various causes. In the Iraq war – 17 years ago – he was among several “peace” campaigners who travelled to Baghdad and set up camp in various public buildings, such as electricity stations, to “warn” off US air attacks. But, surely, there was no need to arrest this frail old man – and the fact that so many police officers could waste their time doing so illustrates poor judgment or an unfair sense of persecution.

Oddly enough, I saw another side to Eric Levy many years ago at one of the regular evening poetry sessions that used to be run in a small community centre in Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town, by the late artist John Rety. These gatherings were usually exotic affairs where someone in the crowded small room would stand up and recite one of their new poems – and very good they often were.

In a crowded room, one session produced new poems by the great poet Dannie Abse and the avant garde poet and publisher John Calder, both of whom had suddenly appeared, to my delight, in the audience.

It was on this particular evening that suddenly Eric Levy, sitting at the back, suddenly stood up and wondered whether he could recite the Ode to Joy by the German poet Friedrich Schiller set to the melody of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

I wondered what was going to emerge – and, then incredibly, this little man stilled the audience as his rich baritone voice rang out the beautiful poem that sounded so haunting in its native language.

Thus, there are many sides to a person, I discovered. And as I looked at the image of this harmless elderly man being hustled away by police officers, I wondered whether he serenaded them in the cells with the Ode to Joy – it would have given them food for thought.

• According to a Met Police statement issued yesterday (Wednesday), eight people were detained “for breaching coronavirus regulations” outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court on January 6. “They were later reported for consideration of a fixed penalty notice and ordered to leave the area,” said the Met. Presumably Eric Levy was one of them.

It is time that the Palestine solidarity movement recognised that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are integral to the Occupation and the Siege of Gaza

Palestinians deserve better than PA brutality

Palestinians take part in a protest demanding the lifting of Palestinian Authority sanctions on the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on 10 June. The PA used riot police and party thugs to violently suppress a similar protest on 13 June. Eyad Jadallah APA images

As the articles below from Electronic Intifada  and Middle East Eye show, the behaviour of the Palestinian Authority is shameful. The PA, which is nothing less than subcontractors for the Israeli state, violently attacked a demonstration in Ramallah in support of their brothers and sisters in Gaza.  And they did this on behalf of Israel (& the United States & Europe).

The demands of the demonstrators were simple - that the PA stop acting as a collaborator in enforcing Israel's siege of Gaza e.g. by requesting that Israel cut the amount of electricity Gaza receives to 3-4 hours a day or by itself cutting the salaries of 50,000 civil servants in Gaza.

It is  clear that the actions of Fateh thugs who, in co-ordination with the Palestinian Security Police, attacked the demonstration mean that Fateh should no longer be seen as a resistance movement and should be treated in the same way as the Village Leagues used to be treated.  Collaborators.

What is also shameful is that Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and the solidarity movement in this country has nothing to say about this. The Anti-Apartheid Movement never hesitated to condemn Inkatha under Mangosuthu Buthelezi in South Africa.  Inkatha Freedom Party was used and helped by the Apartheid regime to attack the anti-apartheid struggle and the ANC.  It was responsible for much of the appalling violence in the lead up to South Africa's independence.

I'd be interested to hear what the difference is between the PA and Inkatha.  I have moved motions in the past at PSC AGM calling the PA a quisling regime, the equivalent of the Vichy regime in France under the Nazis and calling for PSC to dissociate itself from the PA.  Always the response is that this is 'internal' to the Palestinian movement.  This is a shameful and cowardly response.  If we condemn Israel we cannot avert our eyes from those Palestinians who enforce Israel's occupation.

It should be a matter of shame that someone can say that 'It is a bizarre feeling when everyone around you is more scared of Palestinian forces than they are of the Israeli army.'

No doubt the PA feel the need to prove to Israel and Trump that they are 'reliable'.  That whatever rhetoric they indulge in they can be relied on to uphold the occupation's norms.  In Abbas's own words, security co-operation with Israel is 'sacred'.  As an article in the Jerusalem Post last year WILL ABBAS SEVER HIS ‘SACRED’ SECURITY COOPERATION WITH ISRAEL? made clear 'suspending security cooperation is one of the Palestinians’ strongest cards. If Abbas does follow through on his threat to end it, Israel’s security will be greatly affected, as Palestinian security forces have stopped many attacks in the West Bank since a wave of terrorism broke out in October 2015.'

The suggestion that the PA is 'internal' to the Palestinian movement is a lie.  It is a threat to the Palestinian resistance movement and it has never hesitated to act to control and prevent any movement growing which challenges the Israeli state.  It is part of the political incoherence and worse of PSC and its current leadership that they have nothing to say about the role of the PA.

Tony Greenstein

Abbas  - is the Palestinian equivalent of the Mangosuthu Buthelezi - the Black African collaborator with Apartheid

Palestinians deserve better than PA brutality

The Electronic Intifada 15 June 2018

Human rights workers seldom agree with Donald Trump and his entourage.

Yet this week I found myself echoing a view expressed by Jason Greenblatt, a Middle East envoy for the US president. For very different reasons to the ones he cited, I arrived at the same conclusion as Greenblatt: the Palestinian people deserve better than the Palestinian Authority.

This was evident as I observed the PA’s handling of a protest on Wednesday evening.

The protest was organized by ordinary Palestinians who object to how the PA has imposed sanctions on Gaza. It was banned by the PA on the spurious pretext of avoiding disruptions to the Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrations.

Yet the protest went ahead – without official approval – in Ramallah, a city in the occupied West Bank. Its organizers refused to be bullied into canceling a display of solidarity with their fellow Palestinians in Gaza.

During the early stages of the protest, riot police working for the PA attacked its participants. They beat protesters, taking a number of them into custody. I saw one riot police officer – his face covered by a balaclava – rolling a stun grenade towards the crowd.

After about an hour, groups of thugs and secret police dispersed among the crowd took over the task of suppressing the protest.

The thugs in question wore hats, identifying themselves as supporters of Fatah, the party dominating the PA. Some of these hats depicted a kuffiyeh, the Palestinian checkered scarf. The irony involved here was sordid: the kuffiyeh is supposed to be a symbol of liberation.

Secret police

The secret police in the crowd were easy to spot, if you looked for them. They were men with large muscles, who watched over everyone else. They could be found in groups of four.

The secret police could be seen pointing out individuals to the thugs with the Fatah hats. If individuals who had been pointed out resisted arrest by these thugs, they were dragged away and beaten. None of the thugs looked older than 25.

The thugs grabbed many protesters and placed them in headlocks. Other protesters were punched and slapped in the head. One man had his shirt completely ripped off him by the thugs before they handed him over to the riot police.

Numerous protesters were rounded up and placed in vans, which were waiting near al-Manara Square in the city center. In one case, a protester was placed in an ambulance.

I later learned that protesters who had been rounded up were driven to police stations and to the headquarters of the PA’s “preventive security” division.

While I was standing next to some protesters on Wednesday, I suddenly felt my arms being restrained. One of the secret police had forced my hands behind my back. He did not use extreme force to do so. But he was certainly asserting his control.

The man told me to come with him. He pushed me down a lane. “Don’t be scared,” he whispered. “We respect people.”

I would have laughed – if I was not worried about having my head bashed in, which the man could have done on a whim.

The secret police officer brought me near the vans full of protesters who had been arrested. He handed me over to another man, who was carrying a walkie-talkie. That man asked me – in fluent English – what I was doing at the protest. Where was I from? Was I a journalist?

I replied in Arabic that I was not a journalist.

The man took my phone and went through the photos and messages saved on it. When he handed the phone back to me, he asked me for my ID card. I told him I did not have it with me.

The man then instructed the secret police officer who had grabbed me to take me away. I was ordered to go home. As I did so, I was followed through the streets by three other secret police officers.

Police working for the Palestinian Authority are funded and trained by the European Union and the United States. A key purpose of this training is to ensure that the PA works in the interests of Israel.

The way they handled this week’s protests illustrated how the PA’s police can be similarly brutal to Israel’s forces of occupation. Palestinians surely deserve better than that.

The author is a human rights worker in Palestine. They requested anonymity as they had been instructed by their organization to remain silent on how the PA handled Wednesday’s protests.

Protests in Ramallah: Does the PA actually care about Palestinians?

#PalestineUnity

It is a bizarre feeling when everyone around you is more scared of Palestinian forces than they are of the Israeli army

Photo: Palestinian security forces stand guard in Ramallah on 13 June 2018, during a protest calling on President Mahmoud Abbas to end financial sanctions against Palestinians in Gaza (Reuters)

Tessa Fox

Saturday 16 June 2018 10:30 UTC

As I stepped out onto Rukab Street, one of the main streets in Ramallah, at once I heard the cries: "There's gas!"

Wednesday night's protest, organised by the Campaign to Lift PA Sanctions on Gaza, had only just begun, but security forces were already firing stun grenades and tear gas cannisters directly at crowds that only 20 seconds earlier had raised banners demanding that sanctions against Gaza be lifted and chanted: "In spirit, in blood, we redeem you Gaza."

Everyone seemed still for a while: many were scattered in different areas around central Ramallah. Tension lay heavy in the air as people stood frozen on footpaths and in the streets, staring at the number of government personnel present.

It seemed as if the Palestinian Authority had sent out every member of its security forces for this event, including the National Security Service, the Palestinian police (including riot police), the General Intelligence Service and the Preventive Security Service.

There was also a downright terrifying gang of Fatah party members, loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Some carried pepper spray. Each wore a white cap. All of them were prowling around the gathered protesters.

On Tuesday, the night before the demonstration, the PA called for a counter-protest. This, everyone knew, would be a recipe for disaster.

"I don't even know if there's going to be protest," a friend said to me. People's concerns were repressed before they could even be expressed.

The protesters' simple message was directed at the PA, which more than a month ago halved the salaries of approximately 50,000 government employees in Gaza, leaving workers unable to provide for their families.

Palestinian security personnel confront a protest in Ramallah on 13 June 2018 (Tessa Fox/MEE)

The cut came after the PA also stopped paying for Gaza's electricity last year, further limiting residents' access to power and crippling industry and essential public services including hospitals, schools.

The Palestinian National Council, the PA's legislative body, as well as factions within the PA have all called for the sanctions to be lifted. That's left Abbas to shoulder much of the blame, as his critics accuse him of trying to unseat Hamas from Gaza, where it rules the territory, while using Gaza's two million residents as political pawns.

It's left Gaza caught in a dire humanitarian crisis, between the Israeli blockade of the strip on one side and on the other the punitive approach of the PA, whose actions have been so extreme that residents within Ramallah itself, the PA's seat of government, have risen up against the authorities and called for sanctions to be lifted.

PA uses same tactics as Israel

Photos and captions circulating on social media suggested that thousands of people were there, although it was hard to differentiate between protesters, bystanders and undercover police.

I tried to push as close as I could to what was going on to take some pictures, even though I had been warned only half-an-hour earlier that taking photos and videos was banned.

I was also warned that the police were trying to break cameras and confiscate memory cards. To me, this is one of the first signs that a government can give to show that it is actually an oppressive regime. That night the PA did everything in its power to restrict the free flow of information.

Palestinians in Ramallah demand the lifting of sanctions against Gaza on 13 June 2018 (Reuters)

The whole scene was one of chaos. In one area, security forces threw rounds of sound bombs. Riot cops started running down yet another street to try to block any entrance to al-Manara, the main square in Ramallah. And dotted among the crowd were those white-capped members of Fatah, some of whom were undercover officers, taking matters into their own hands and beating up protesters, all under the watchful eye of the police.

A friend who works at a local Palestinian TV station told me that around 2,000 undercover forces were within the area. Someone else told me that one female protester had a gun pointed at her head by one of the undercover officers. She couldn't talk afterwards, she was in such a state of shock.

It felt as if those undercover police were mirroring the same tactics as used by the Israeli mustarabeen, the undercover unit trained to look and act like Arabs.

By deploying so many police in civilian clothes, the authorities sought not only to maximise the number of arrests but also to dismantle any network of trust among civilians and destroy the solidarity that is a necessary tool against any oppressive regime.

It's always been the goal of the Israeli occupation to break the unity of historical Palestine, including movement to and from Gaza, using the building of illegal settlements, restrictions on access to pre-1948 areas of the West Bank and the Greater Jerusalem Bill.

Now it is out in the open that the PA, as led by Fatah, is prepared to crush the Palestinian cause and unity to retain power over the Palestinian population.

Undercover forces made the majority of arrests, which numbered more than 60 by the end of the night. I saw people, including women and young girls, kicked, punched and beaten with batons. People's bodies were pulled in all directions as they were dragged away by at least five men to a fenced-off car park, where riot police stood guard, waiting for vans to pick up their latest prisoners.

Need to witness brutality

I knew I had to try and document the brutality. But less than 10 minutes after arriving at the protest I had already been sternly warned by an undercover policeman not to take photos.

Eventually I managed to climb up the roundabout at al-Manara. Standing on top of one of the lion statues, I had a clear vantage point of just how many people were in the streets and the brawls that were unfolding below.

Soon, I heard someone yell at me, then realised that multiple people were pointing and starting to run in my direction. I ran down the back of the statue while taking my memory card out of my camera and shoving it in my pants.

By the time I jumped down, civilian and uniformed police had already climbed inside the fence. I was trapped. They grabbed me by my arms while another tried to take my camera. I thought for sure they were going to break it. I just kept screaming and yelling at them, telling them to let me go and to wait so I could "prove" to them I had no photos.

They then put three women police officers onto me. One held my arm and kept telling me to be quiet and calm down. I yelled back: "How on earth can I be calm down when you're trying to arrest me and break my camera?"

The sound of the commotion began to work in my favour, as an older Palestinian woman came over and started apologising for what was happening. A man dressed in civilian clothes stepped forward and declared that he was a policeman. I replied that he should be wearing uniform.

I wanted to yell at them that they weren't true Palestinians; that all they were was part of a single faction, Fatah, and were simply government employees; that they didn't care about the Palestinians in Gaza; that they didn't care about the Palestinians in Ramallah, who they were beating up; that they didn't care about the Palestinians who had travelled all the way from Haifa by bus to protest alongside their brothers and sisters; and that the the people living under dictatorships across the Palestinian territories counted for nothing in their eyes.

Why is Palestinian Authority doing this?

Finally I was released and found my friend. She was beside herself because the undercover forces had taken her cameraman's memory card while she was doing a live broadcast criticising the PA. She thought for sure that she would be arrested the next day. She was terrified.

The problem was, the Palestinian security forces were driven by complete emotion. Couple this with them not being experienced enough to deal with such large crowds and it meant that their use of weapons was a disaster.

At one stage, a security officer, holding a sound bomb in his hand, wrestled with a protester. During the scuffle, the bomb went off. It seemed like all the actions of the security forces were driven by impulse rather than orders from their superiors.

Stories have also emerged of sexual harassment, perpetrated by the men wearing those Fatah caps. One woman was chased down a side street and sexually abused before she was rescued by people she knew.

Many of the Fatah supporters are themselves from families of martyrs or political prisoners. Other Palestinians cannot fathom how they could act this way during a protest in support of their brothers and sisters in Gaza. Are they attempting to create conflict among the factions?

Protesters and residents are still in a complete state of shock, as well as physical and mental exhaustion. The night after the protest, those who had attended were still too scared to walk the streets or go into public spaces for fear of being arrested or beaten up.

People unconnected to the protests were targeted just for being in the street. I witnessed multiple families and women with babies, who were trying to walk home, standing bewildered as they were yelled at by the presidential guard.

Why the protests will continue

Another protest is already set for Wednesday. What sort of excuse will the PA use then to repress people's freedom of expression and assembly when it is held outside of the Eid holiday? Will they find new grounds to ban and criminalise protests?

Fatah and Abbas showed their true colours to the people of Palestine this week as well as alienating some of the supporters from their own party. The protest held last Wednesday night wasn't organised to bring down the PA or to depose Abbas.

It was in support of another persecuted population of Palestinians, who may live under separate Hamas rule in Gaza but whose fate has now been crushed still further by the regime controlling the West Bank.

But if the removal of sanctions against Gaza is not achieved in good time, then do not be surprised if those living in the West Bank focus their energies on removing heads of government. On Friday, 70 civil society organisations and trade unions within Palestine called for the dismissal of Rami al-Hamdallah, the Palestinian prime minister and interior minister.

The activists are now recovering, tending their wounds, being released from prison and embracing their close support networks to nurture their emotionally drained minds.

Hopefully the organisation and unity of Palestinians will now only be strengthened even more, as their fight for their brothers and sisters in Gaza is emboldened by the brutality that the protesters in Ramallah faced.

- Tessa Fox is a freelance journalist, photographer and filmmaker focusing on war & conflict, indigenous affairs and the environment. She has had work published for Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, Al-Monitor, The Independent (UK), Holistic News (Poland), Mail & Guardian (South Africa), Knack (Belgium), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SBS World News, New Matilda, VICE and Crikey among others. Fox was also a finalist for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma Asia Pacific Prize and, as a correspondent, has reported from Turkey, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Russia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Australia and the EU among others.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.