NGO Action News – 23 December 2016

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.

NGO Action News
23 December 2016

• Based on a survey mapping of Batan al-Hawa, on 21 December, B’Tselem concluded that the neighbourhood was currently undergoing “the most extensive dispossession proceedings” in East Jerusalem in recent years.

• In relation to the killing of a young man by the Israeli army in November in Gaza, on 21 December, B’Tselem expressed concern in a press release entitled “Once again: Israeli military unlawfully shoots and kills Gazan protester and no-one will be held to account”.

• On 20 December, the Alternative Information Centre (AIC) expressed concern about the confiscation of land in the ancient Al Rahmah Muslim cemetery, adjacent to the eastern walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Israeli authorities had been continuously confiscating land, demolishing graves and preventing burials in Bab al-Rahmah cemetery to build the Jerusalem Walls National Park, the AIC stated.

• On 19 December, BADIL Resource Centre released a film entitled “Fleeing the Same War”, demanding greater protection for Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria.

• On 19 December, the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign called on citizens to ask Members of Parliament to raise the issue of FIFA recognising football teams from illegal Israeli settlements.

• The Spanish Xabaca initiative to support Arab women artists has announced scholarships open to female artists from Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Palestine. The deadline for applications is 15 January 2017.

• To improve scholarship about Palestinian affairs and strengthen linkages between Palestinian, American and other research institutions, the Palestinian American Research Centre has announced six 2017-18 travel and research fellowship competitions. Deadlines for application vary, the earliest being 9 January 2017.

• On 19 December, former US diplomat Aaron David Miller, currently with the Woodrow Wilson Centre, moderated a conversation with Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat and David Horovitz, founding editor of the Times of Israel, addressing the question “what do Israelis and Palestinians expect from a Trump Administration?”

• On 12 December, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Policy Director Josh Rueben published a retrospective assessment of “Obama´s Legacy on Israel/Palestine” in the Journal of Palestine Studies.United Nations

• In the framework of its partnerships with football clubs Valencia CF and YMCA-Gaza to promote gender equality, on 19 December, UN Women provided new equipment for Gaza’s only girls’ football team.

• On 16 December, UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk expressed concern about a worrying number of complaints received in recent months regarding human rights defenders arrested and, in many cases, arbitrarily detained, often apparently as a direct result of their work.