News Highlights:
- Protests continue in Biddu village as Israel resumes construction of apartheid wall
On April 12th, Biddu village leader says more than 20 people arrested for peaceful resistance against the wall. - Palestinians protest outside cabinet meeting over inaction of Palestinian Authority towards the wall.
- Two Palestinians beaten by Israeli soldiers near Bethlehem.
- Ariel Sharon expects U.S. approval for keeping most West Bank settlements in exchange for “disengagement plan” in Gaza.
- On April 12th, Palestinian journalists demand investigation into murder last month of Khalil al Zaben in Gaza.
- April 9th marked the 56th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, in which Zionist paramilitary forces murdered 120 Palestinian men, women and children.
Feature:
A special Eyewitness Palestine-Eyewitness Jenin featured two reports, one an account from one of the first human rights observers into the Jenin camp after the Israeli war crimes in April 2002, and the other an eyewitness account by an international volunteer of the Israeli shooting of Brian Avery in April 2003, also in Jenin. Khader Shkeirat, director of the LAW human rights organization entered the Jenin refugee camp on April 16th, 2002, even before Israeli soldiers had pulled out.
His report detailed the horrific destruction and dead bodies he saw, and the testimonies he collected from the people of the camp. Brian Avery was a peace activist with the International Solidarity Movement, and one of his co-volunteers wrote a moving essay exactly one year after Brian was shot in the face by Israeli troops at close range. Entitled “Feeling Palestinian”, the eyewitness account detailed the events of April 5th, 2003 in Jenin under curfew, the day Brian was shot.
Focus on Zionism:
A report by the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron/AlKhalil about an Israeli settler attack on a Palestinian family’s vineyard. The settlers, backed up by Israeli soldiers, systemically destroyed 30-year-old grape vines, the livelihood of the Jaber family.