OVER the New Year the killing of Palestinian men women and children has continued unabated and in the most brutal fashion.
On Sunday Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man at the Hamra checkpoint near to Nablus.
Mahmoud Dharaghma, age 21, approached the checkpoint with a Coca Cola can in his hand and was shot dead by a group of soldiers.
The Israeli media initially claimed Dharaghma had tried to stab soldiers at the checkpoint. However, the military later confirmed that the man was not armed.
The army then blamed the killing on ‘a combination of misunderstandings stemming from the Palestinian citizen’s inexplicable behaviour and the high state of alert of the soldiers’. It added, however, that the killing was carried out ‘in line with IDF rules of engagement’.
Among the other Palestinians killed was a woman, Jawaher Abu Rahma, who died on Saturday morning, after being gassed, while taking part in an official Palestinian protest against the Separation Wall in Bil’in, at which the Palestinian Prime Minister was present.
Jawaher Abu Rahma was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahma, who was killed in April 2009 when Israeli soldiers fired a tear-gas grenade at his chest, also at a demonstration at the wall in Bil’in.
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the two deaths as a ‘war crime’ and a ‘dangerous escalation’ by Israel aimed at demolishing any hope of peace in the Middle East.
Not content to stop at murder, Israeli bulldozers on Monday demolished a house owned by a Palestinian north of the Shaikh Jarrah area in occupied East Jerusalem, the latest in the nonstop wave of Israeli demolitions in the illegally annexed city, and the first demolition of the year 2011.
The bulldozers arrived at the scene escorted by huge numbers of police and border security forces and demolished the house.
The Israeli authorities claimed the owner did not obtain the necessary permit. They removed the furniture and crushed the walls, leaving the Palestinian family of nine nowhere to stay but a bedroom and the bathroom that were spared from the demolition.
This is the first home to be destroyed by Israeli bulldozers in the new year. It is certain to be followed by many more demolitions in the city that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war.
Also last Sunday, Israel extended for six months a ban preventing Palestinians married to Israelis from entering the racist Jewish state. The Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a special New Year statement that ‘The ministerial committee for security affairs decided tonight to extend for six months a text on family unification, which expired December 31.’
The extension until June 30 denies Palestinians the right to acquire Israeli citizenship or resident status through marriage.
The ministerial committee also asked the justice minister ‘to work towards early finalisation of a law on family unification, which will meet the national security and long-term interests of the government of Israel’.
The Israeli government is concerned that immigration could slowly erode the racist nature of the ‘Jewish state’.
Palestinians are determined to establish their own secular state in this New Year and are demanding that the UN follows the lead of Brazil, the Argentine, Bolivia and Venezuela and decides to recognise it.
The world’s trade unions must support the Palestinians with a complete trade union boycott of Israel and all Israeli goods, services, ships and planes until the Palestinian state is established.
We must make sure that this is the last year of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
