Bereaved Palestinians, Israelis march against occupation
Israeli and Palestinian members of the "Parents Circle Families Forum"" destroy a symbolic wall representing the Israeli security barrier running through the occupied West Bank in Beit Jala on Saturday."
AFP, Beit Jala :
Hundreds of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli women marched through the West Bank on Friday against the Israeli occupation, in an International Women’s Day event.
Around 200 women marched to two military bases, with some carrying banners reading “End the occupation” or “Our tears are one colour”.
The Parents Circle Families Forum brings together families of those killed in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict and includes more than 600 families.
Robi Damelin, an Israeli woman whose son was killed near Ramallah in 2002, lit a candle in honour of the many victims of the conflict.
“My son was a reserve Israeli army officer, and before he was summoned he was doing a master’s degree at Tel Aviv University,” she said.
He was killed in the West Bank in 2002 by a Palestinian sniper in a famous incident in which 10 Israelis were killed.
“I wrote several letters to my son’s killer saying I wanted to meet him. He sent me one which said he was willing to meet me, but the authorities have prevented it,” she told AFP, calling on the Israeli government to make peace.
Some Israeli settlers in the area insulted the women from their cars, telling them to go to Syria.
Palestinian Bushra Awad, 45, lost her 17-year-old son Mahmoud in 2008.
“I joined the forum because I am trying not to lose any another son,” she said.
Suha abu Khdeir, whose son Mohammed was burned alive by Jewish settlers in July 2014, also addressed the women.
“I can’t sleep at night-every day it’s me who’s burning because of what happened to my son,” she said.
The women also demolished a wall symbolising the barrier that snakes through the occupied West Bank..
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused long-time enemy Iran of using the Syrian conflict to “gain a foothold to fight Israel” as Iranian troops reportedly straddle the 1967 ceasefire line in the Golan Heights.
Iran has long supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with deployments of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the volunteer Basij militia in addition to funding Israel’s arch enemies, Hezbollah.
Skirmishes between Syrian forces and the Israel Defence Force (IDF) have occurred regularly in the Golan Heights since the start of the Syrian civil war six years ago. New reports suggest that the IRGC have positioned themselves along the border with the occupied Golan Heights.
Brig Gen Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, a commander in Iran’s Basij force, was pictured surveying the border in July last year according to Israeli media.
And the Tehran-backed Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba said they were “ready to take action to liberate Golan” according to Iranian state media earlier this week.
In response to rising tensions in the region Netanyahu met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to express his view that any truce in Syria must not allow Iranian forces to stay in the country.
“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said, according to Reuters.
He added: “We do not want to see Shia Islamic terrorism led by Iran step in to replace Sunni Islamic terrorism,” the Independent reported.
“Iran continues attempts to destroy the Jewish state. They speak of this openly and write this in black and white in their newspapers.
“Today, we have our own country and our army and we can defend ourselves. But I want to say that the threat of Shia Islamic terror is directed not only against us but against the region and the entire world.”
He claimed Iran was “arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel”.
Tehran has emerged as a major player in the Syrian conflict and has met Russian and Turkish envoys in Astana, Kazakhstan, in attempts to thrash out a ceasefire.
Hundreds of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli women marched through the West Bank on Friday against the Israeli occupation, in an International Women’s Day event.
Around 200 women marched to two military bases, with some carrying banners reading “End the occupation” or “Our tears are one colour”.
The Parents Circle Families Forum brings together families of those killed in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict and includes more than 600 families.
Robi Damelin, an Israeli woman whose son was killed near Ramallah in 2002, lit a candle in honour of the many victims of the conflict.
“My son was a reserve Israeli army officer, and before he was summoned he was doing a master’s degree at Tel Aviv University,” she said.
He was killed in the West Bank in 2002 by a Palestinian sniper in a famous incident in which 10 Israelis were killed.
“I wrote several letters to my son’s killer saying I wanted to meet him. He sent me one which said he was willing to meet me, but the authorities have prevented it,” she told AFP, calling on the Israeli government to make peace.
Some Israeli settlers in the area insulted the women from their cars, telling them to go to Syria.
Palestinian Bushra Awad, 45, lost her 17-year-old son Mahmoud in 2008.
“I joined the forum because I am trying not to lose any another son,” she said.
Suha abu Khdeir, whose son Mohammed was burned alive by Jewish settlers in July 2014, also addressed the women.
“I can’t sleep at night-every day it’s me who’s burning because of what happened to my son,” she said.
The women also demolished a wall symbolising the barrier that snakes through the occupied West Bank..
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused long-time enemy Iran of using the Syrian conflict to “gain a foothold to fight Israel” as Iranian troops reportedly straddle the 1967 ceasefire line in the Golan Heights.
Iran has long supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with deployments of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the volunteer Basij militia in addition to funding Israel’s arch enemies, Hezbollah.
Skirmishes between Syrian forces and the Israel Defence Force (IDF) have occurred regularly in the Golan Heights since the start of the Syrian civil war six years ago. New reports suggest that the IRGC have positioned themselves along the border with the occupied Golan Heights.
Brig Gen Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, a commander in Iran’s Basij force, was pictured surveying the border in July last year according to Israeli media.
And the Tehran-backed Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba said they were “ready to take action to liberate Golan” according to Iranian state media earlier this week.
In response to rising tensions in the region Netanyahu met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to express his view that any truce in Syria must not allow Iranian forces to stay in the country.
“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said, according to Reuters.
He added: “We do not want to see Shia Islamic terrorism led by Iran step in to replace Sunni Islamic terrorism,” the Independent reported.
“Iran continues attempts to destroy the Jewish state. They speak of this openly and write this in black and white in their newspapers.
“Today, we have our own country and our army and we can defend ourselves. But I want to say that the threat of Shia Islamic terror is directed not only against us but against the region and the entire world.”
He claimed Iran was “arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel”.
Tehran has emerged as a major player in the Syrian conflict and has met Russian and Turkish envoys in Astana, Kazakhstan, in attempts to thrash out a ceasefire.
