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Award-winning Palestinian reporter 'abused' by Israeli Security Officers
The Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, has officially complained to Israel after accusations by an award-winning Palestinian journalist from Gaza that he was abused during almost four hours of detention at the border with Jordan.
Mohammed Omer, 24, says that he was manhandled and strip-searched and fainted during interrogation when he returned from a Dutch government-facilitated trip to London to collect a prestigious British journalism award, the Martha Gellhorn Prize.
Mr Omer, who is now in hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis with suspected cracked ribs after the incident on Thursday last week, was a joint winner of the prize for his reporting from the Strip.
Mr Omer said yesterday that he was ordered to strip down to his underwear and when he protested at being forced to remove his underpants a security officer "snatched" them off him. He said he later fainted and awoke to find a security official applying pressure to his upper chest. He said he vomited several times and two officers later dragged him by his legs to another location. His requests to contact the Dutch escort were rejected, he said.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry in The Hague said yesterday that Mr Verhagen had personally asked for clarification, through the Israeli ambassador in the Netherlands. The ministry confirmed that a Dutch embassy official who had been waiting for Mr Omer on the Israeli side of the border was given no information until he was telephoned by Mr Omer from a hospital in Jericho.
Reuters quoted an unnamed Israeli security official yesterday as denying that Mr Omer had been mistreated. But Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said that while it was still awaiting a written complaint from the Netherlands it had already asked the security services for an explanation of what happened. He said that Israel had facilitated Mr Omer's transfer from Jericho to Gaza.
© 2008 The Independent
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Show AllOmer's fate is a lot better than that of Tom Hurndall, a British photography student, or James Miller, another British cameraman, producer, and director. Both were deliberately shot dead by Israeli Army soldiers while wearing high contrast clothing that identified them as journalists.
"Miller's father, Geoffrey, who served as a colonel in the Royal Artillery in a 33-year army career, said he was unable to praise the British government's response to his son's death.
"From the outset they were not helpful - one might almost go as far as saying that at one stage they were almost as obstructive as the Israelis. After that they probably gave some encouragement and support, but they had been totally supine and ineffective.""
The IDF routinely harasses and kills Palestinians even though the Western Media for the most part ignores their actions.
Today there was a big story about a lone Palestinian who hijacked a bulldozer and killed Israeli citizens.
Yesterday I received the following from Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel/Palestine and I didn't see any mention of this story in the press. This is but one story of State Sponsored killing that is ignored as lone Palestinians are held up as representative of an entire populace.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BEIT UMMAR: IDF fatally shoots seventeen-year-old Palestinian youth in
Beit Ummar; CPTers assaulted
1 July 2008
On Friday, 27 June around 11:00 p.m., an Israeli soldier in Beit Ummar, a village north of Hebron, shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian youth, Mohammad Al-Alameh, member of a family with whom the Christian Peacemaker Teams has had frequent contact over the years.
The shooting occurred minutes after local contacts in Beit Ummar made a call to the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Hebron, saying that the Israeli soldiers were entering homes and detaining civilians. Two CPTers, Tarek Abuata and Marius van Hoogstraten, rushed to the village by taxi, accompanied by Nathan Harrington, a visitor to CPT, who was on crutches.
When the team arrived half an hour later, rocks littered the main street. Israeli soldiers marched up and down the block with assault rifles held in a firing position, amid clusters of Palestinian men huddled in quiet shock.
Abuata attempted to photograph the troops, but was tackled to the ground without warning by an Israeli soldier. Another soldier knocked Harrington off his crutches when he approached to help Abuata. While Abuata and Harrington sat on the pavement, a third soldier threatened Van Hoogstraten and demanded his video camera. He removed the tape before returning the camera to Van Hoogstraten.
Abuata rose and confronted the soldiers, saying, "You killed a 17-year-old boy tonight. Why? His blood is on your hands." The soldier nearest to him smiled, and Abuata asked, "Why are you smiling? Do you have no conscience? Will you do anything the government orders you to do? Are you not accountable to God?"
More troops emerged from jeeps and advanced up the street. The assembled men of the village did not respond. CPTers followed the soldiers and Abuata continued: "What you are doing is wrong. Why are your fingers on the trigger? How would you feel if a foreign army came to your city with guns drawn? This is an illegal occupation!"
The soldiers finally climbed into their jeeps and raced off, throwing a sound bomb that caused several Beit Ummar villagers and the CPTers to hit the pavement.
The following morning, Van Hoogstraten and Abuata accompanied the Al-Alameh family and a large crowd to bring the body from the hospital in Hebron to the family's house, and then to the mosque. Two armored vehicles parked between the watchtower at the entrance to the village and the cemetery gate. Soldiers stood nearby, including the officer
who claimed to have shot the youth.
Community leaders kept young men away from the soldiers, but
eventually someone lobbed a stone at one of the jeeps. Though an officer responded by shooting live ammunition, no one was injured.
As the throng returned after the conclusion of burial, the army followed them into the village. Over the next hour, CPTers witnessed intermittent exchanges of stones and gunfire and heard reports that one man from Beit Ummar sustained a head injury and another an injury to the shoulder.
A link to video showing Abuata engaging the soldiers is available at
http://www.youtube.com/user/cpthebron .
Dissent; and let us seek sanity.
Mohammed Omer's story may be true, or just a big hoax.
He is now a hostage of Hamas, and we can not get to the truth.
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