Memorial held for Arrigoni turns into demonstration of support for Palestine

[ 29/04/2011 - 09:48 PM ]

MANCHESTER, (PIC)-- A memorial held in the city of Manchester in north England to honour Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, who was murdered in Gaza, turned into a demonstration of support for the Palestinian cause with ISM activist chanting for the freedom of Palestine, the end of the siege and the continuation with humanitarian convoys to the Gaza Strip.

Participants stressed the need for continuing with sending convoys to the Gaza Strip to break the siege and condemned the crime of murdering Vittorio “the Palestinian people’s friend.”

Speakers stressed that solidarity with the Palestinian people will not stop “despite the crime of killing Vittorio.”

The Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB) had organised the event which was attended by representatives of pro-Palestinian organisations and in which a video depicting the life and work of activist Vittorio Arrigoni and the role he played in informing the world of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip especially after the Israeli aggression on Gaza at the end of 2008.

Dr. Tareq Tahboub, representing the PFB said that Vittorio recognised the fact that the problem of Palestinians was freedom and not food despite the siege and that during his years in the Gaza Strip he showed great courage in expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza and defending their rights despite being detained and injured by the Israelis.

Dr. Tahboub accused the Israeli occupation of being behind the murder of Vittorio stressing that the occupation is the only party that benefits from such a crime.

For his part British activist Ibrahim al-Majrisi said that dying while fighting for a worthwhile cause is better than living without a cause or a value, adding that he participated in ships to break the siege on Gaza and called for the continuation of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

While activist and close friend of Vittorio, Ken O’Keefe, said that Palestinians had no interest in the death of Arrigoni and that he suspected people connected with Israel behind the gruesome murder.

Norma Turner from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), who visited the Gaza Strip and saw for herself the suffering of the people because of the siege, agreed with O’Keefe and said that solidarity with the Palestinian people will increase and that new activists are preparing themselves to actively participating in breaking the siege on Gaza.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Italian researcher in Gaza: Arrigoni murder will not effect Palestinian support

[ 25/04/2011 - 07:01 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Italian researcher Dr. Paola Manduca, who is currently visiting the Gaza Strip, has said that the murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni will not effect the solidarity the Italians and world peace activists have with the Palestinians.

The statement came during a meeting with Palestinian Health Minister Bassem Naim, after the latter sent the condolences of those working in the ministry and Palestinian government to Arrigoni's family.

He emphasized that everyone who loves Palestine condemns the Arrigoni murder, which he said conflicts with Palestinian customs and traditions.

Naim met with Manduca while she was on a mission to the Strip to research congenital malformations in the Gaza Strip due to chemical weapons used in Israeli aggression.

The meeting was also attended by Dr. Mohammed al-Kashif, director-general of the international cooperation board, and Eng. Awni Naim, vice-president of the environmental quality authority.

They discussed the environmental impacts of internationally banned weapons Israeli used during attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Manduca expressed her willingness to aid the health ministry.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Funeral of Vittorio Arrigoni | Funerali di Vik – video

April 24, 2011 by occupiedpalestine

جنازة فيتوريو اريغوني في إيطاليا
https://www.facebook.com/Vittorio.gaza


Source

Related

For all posts about Vittorio, letters of solidarity and mourning, statements of his beloved mother and friends, pictures, video’s and related news, please go to:

• Special topic | Vittorio Arrigoni: a Friend, a Brother, a Humanist
• Body of slain Gaza activist arrives in Rome
• 
  Hebron Names Park after Arrigoni
  
  River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Vera Macht: Vik, You Are missed

Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 9:08AM Gilad Atzmon

You are missed with such an intensity that makes you even more present. In all of our minds, in all of our hearts. It's your absence that makes your strength, your kindness and your impressive dedication to people and to humanity so incredibly present.

You are missed as a symbol of the struggle for justice, and for the value of each individual, the value of especially those people who seem to have been forgotten.

You are missed in this world. Vik, I miss you in my world. I miss you as my best friend, as the one who was always there in the last year, in good and bad times. You once told me I should smile, because my smile would light you. But Vik, it was you who made me laugh. Not only by your great sense of humor, but through your unique way to make the world around you a little brighter, just by being there. Everybody who knew you knows that, even those who met you even just once.

You cast a spell on people, through your charisma, through your personality, through your warmth. The world has become a bit darker without you, and it is also my own little world that has become a bit darker through your absence.

And Gaza of course, which I can’t imagine without you, probably no one here can imagine it without you yet. Your Arabic vocabulary of: Mushkile? Leeesh? Mish Mushkile! Yallah! was completely enough to brighten up the people around you, and to make everyone in Gaza your rafiq and your rafiqa.

And people in Gaza have loved you and appreciated you, you knew that and you would never have thought anything else. We were all touched and overwhelmed by the grief and sympathy your death has caused. A compassion that has helped all of us to overcome our initial shock, I want to heartily thank you all for that.
Adie, my friend and ISM colleague once said, being as ISM in Gaza doesn’t only mean to support the people here, but to be a bit of a Palestinian yourself, and to join carrying the burden for a little way. To not only feel with the pain of others, but to feel for yourself what it means to lose a loved one. Because being Palestinian means losing people you love.

Whoever is behind this senseless, cruel murder, he reached exactly the opposite of what he intended. Vik, through your death, we all have become Palestinians. We are more determined than ever. We will go on, and we will continue to fight, in the spirit of your humanity and with the strength and steadfastness of the Palestinians.

Not only because you would have wanted us to, but because we couldn’t do anything else. Not the people out there that you have inspired and woken up, and not us here, being united in the same dream, in the same goal for which we fight: a free Gaza, a free Palestine.

I remember one morning in autumn. The day before had been a black day for Gaza, and so we were all together the whole night, sitting in the ISM office and writing. Vik and I left at dawn. And just as we had walked a few steps, it started to rain. The first rain of the year. And we stood in the middle of the road, feeling the rain pouring down upon us, and laughed, and suddenly it was as if the whole sadness of the last hours was washed away. As if it was a new beginning, in which the world was pure and innocent and full of hope.

I will not grieve because I know that where you went, there was such a morning waiting for you. I will not grieve, in gratitude of having gotten to know you. Because people like you show us that also for our humanity there could be such a morning waiting for us."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

To: Helen Thomas CC: MSM, US-Israeli Government Subject: AIPAC, Vanunu, Arrigoni

April 23, 2011 posted by Eileen Fleming

by Eileen Fleming
Dear Helen Thomas,

I am the founder of one of 100 organizations who have endorsed Move Over AIPAC, but I didn’t commit to attend until I learned you were going to be speaking and I began to dream of 15 minutes with you.
However, my dream died when I learned that Ms. Thomas has now declined to take part in the Move Over AIPAC conference fearing she was becoming the focus and said “I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and U.S. policy, not me.”
OK, I understand but I am disappointed because I wanted to tell you that when I was a child in the sixties, my DREAM was to grow up and be Brenda Starr, the red headed, ace investigative journalist and star reporter for the metropolitan daily, The Flash. Brenda boldly traveled the world searching for unusual and usually dangerous stories and she always knew when somebody was not telling the truth. Brenda also never backed down from setting the record straight.

After high school I was a copy girl in a Gannett affiliate but for lots of reasons, I changed my major from journalism to nursing and quickly forgot about my childish dream. That is, until June 2005, during my first of 7 trips to Israel Palestine. I was writing my first novel at the time, but I returned home determined to follow in the footsteps of Dorothy Day, who became a voice for the marginalized and oppressed and agitated church, state and the media in her publication, The Catholic Worker, which persists today.

But on 9 February 2009, I knew I wanted to be Helen Thomas because of this: Helen Thomas on her one question for Obama

And here is HOW and WHY I have tried:
On 21 April 2011, the USA MSM was once again deafeningly silent regarding the ongoing saga of Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower and this day in history in 2004.

A “Vanunu” Google News search turned up only two mentions of it; a letter published in the UK, Vanunu still not free The Guardian.

And my article: SECURITY’S Vendetta Against Vanunu Mordechai and This Day in History
Salem-News.Com

I also wanted to THANK Ms. Thomas for speaking up about the fact that any Jew without any historical connection to Israel is encouraged to settle-as in colonize-upon legally owned Palestinian land.
I have tried since I went online in July 2005 to wake up clueless US Christians about the true facts on the ground in the so called Holy Land, which any one with eyes to see can see is in pieces:

I learned about, Aliyah, which means ‘going up,’ during my first of seven trips to Israel and occupied Palestine in June 2005 from an American Jewess who had taken the deal and she informed me:

I get fifteen hundred shekels or about thirty-six hundred dollars a year in increments to help with my expenses. I can apply for unemployment benefits after seven months, as long as I look for a job. I just completed Ulpan, which was five hundred hours of Hebrew language immersion studies that took five months, five hours a day, for five weeks. I get subsidized rent and just moved out of the Absorption Center Projects. All the new immigrants get room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months in Israel. We also receive free medical care and all the doctors here are dedicated. We can go to the university with 100 percent of the tuition paid by the government. College is much cheaper here; it’s about three thousand to four thousand dollars a year. Until I am thirty years old, I can receive up to three years of education for my master’s degree.

She was clueless as to the Palestinian side of the story just as most Americans are, and also clueless regarding these facts courtesy of http://ifamericansknew.org/

Statistics Last Updated: February 2, 2011

Israeli and Palestinian Children Killed September 29, 2000 – Present

124 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,452 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000. (View Sources & More Information)

Israelis and Palestinians Killed

September 29, 2000 – Present 1,084 Israelis and at least 6,430 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000. (View Sources & More Information)

Israelis and Palestinians Injured September 29, 2000 – Present

9,226 Israelis and 45,041 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000. (View Sources & More Information.)

Daily U.S. Military Aid to Israel and the Palestinians Fiscal Year 2009

During Fiscal Year 2009, the U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.2 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians. (View Sources & More Information)

UN Resolutions Targeting Israel and the Palestinians 1955 – 1992

Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none. (View Sources & More Information)

Current Number of Political Prisoners and Detainees

1 Israeli is being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 5,935 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel. (View Sources & More Information)

Demolitions of Israeli and Palestinian Homes 196 7 – Present

0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 24,813 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967. (View Sources & More Information)

Israeli and Palestinian Unemployment Rates

The Israeli unemployment rate is 6.4%, while the Palestinian unemployment in the West Bank is 16.5% and 40% in Gaza. (View Sources & More Information)

Current Illegal Settlements on the Other’s Land

Israel currently has 236 Jewish-only settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians do not have any settlements on Israeli land. (View Sources & More Information)

During the same week that I dreamed I would get to meet Helen Thomas, I also was grieving the loss of Vittorio Arrigoni, a winner

I am sad that my brief dream of meeting Helen Thomas is now a ghost, but I also follow in the spirit of Vik/Vittorio Arrigoni who always said, “STAY HUMAN” and he wanted to be [and is] remembered as “a Dreamer who Never Gives Up.”

While I will miss Helen in D.C., I will persist to do all I can to help Move Over AIPAC and work to change US foreign policy, because I also dream of a world where human rights are for all people and International Law is understood and honored.

But that would require a Media to report on what we the people need to know and then we the people would have to take our responsibilities as American citizens seriously and seize our RIGHTS:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among [people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to alter or to abolish it.” -The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

Learn More: www.moveoveraipac.org

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Ken O'Keefe: Thoughts on Vittorio Arrigoni & Surfing in Gaza

Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 9:28AM Gilad Atzmon

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Agron Belica: End of the Road

Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 9:15AM Gilad Atzmon

Dedicated to Gaza Activist Vittorio Arrigoni



http://salem-news.com/articles/april202011/vik-arrigoni-tk-sk-ag.php

Tim King:  New song and music video celebrate life of Vik Arrigoni of ISM, the International Solidarity Movement.

Vittorio Arrigoni's image on the separation wall in Gaza

 - While producing the music video for this new Vittorio Arrignoi tribute song by Agron Belica, with my son Sean, it occurred to me how lucky I am to have my children, and how Vittorio or Vik, as he was known to his friends, won't get to become my age, or experience things that I and so many extremely fortunate western people do each day.

Had Vik been allowed to reach his real potential, he would have moved mountains.

As it is, only he and a handful of others have been carrying the load for world humanity in Gaza, and that is tragic like his death, and also the point of this important tribute by our good friend and fellow Salem-News.com writer Agron Belica, who in addition to his role as a singer/songwriter, is author of The Crucifixion: Mistaken Identity? John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ.
A bright light faded with Vik's passing, but his legacy is and will absolutely continue to charge and enlighten this movement of people who refuse to let the intense suffering of the walled in sniper tower-laden Gaza Strip in wallow in silence.

As both Egidia Beretta Arrigoni, Mother of Vittorio Arrigoni, and Ken O'Keefe, our fellow writer and close friend of Vik's in Gaza, said: he is not dead. No such person ever truly goes away; Vik Arrigoni's legacy is here to stay.

Story and pre-production by Tim King, Video post-production by Sean King.

When it comes down to what I’m doin’, What I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’ at the end of the road:
Pride in my words, and passion in my heart.
And ain’t a place that I’d rather start.
And if it comes down to what I’m doin’, What I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’, at the end of the road.
This path I chose you don’t see it, but believe it!
Just know that I’mma have a place to go, at the end of the road.
(Hook-Marka)
Life is sacred; it came from heaven up above;
A blessing from the Lord to be shared by everyone!
Freedom is God-given, something that we come to love;
It’s in the blood to defend it, yes! Our strongest passion!
The message goin’ out to those who transgress and violate,
When we’re overwhelmed, the Lord shakes the earth awake.
Everyone suffers; count the losses, check the death rate!
The ignorant surprised, as they watch the newsbreak.
The tears shed, man. for the ones that are sufferin’—
For the ones captive or dyin’ in the millions;
This one goes out to all my people in captivity:
Everyday we pray the Lord gives you all security!
Free you from the devil’s hand, those who oppress thee;
So you can enjoy your sacred life in the world free!
No one has the right to dictate your future, see?
The message goes out: mercy extends universally!
When it comes down to what I’m doin’, What I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’ at the end of the road:
Pride in my words, and passion in my heart.
And ain’t a place that I’d rather start.
And if it comes down to what I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’, What I’m doin’, at the end of the road.
This path I chose you don’t see it, but believe it!
Just know that I’mma have a place to go, at the end of the road.
(Hook-Marka)
____________________________________________
Most of us don’t want to take responsibility
Save a few brave hearts, inspired God-consciously
Not afraid to parade the doorsteps of authority;
Demand justice be served for the sake of humanity!
Going out to all the brave men and woman activists,
Who put their lives on the line to expose injustice;
Who exert their energy to see we live with dignity—
Your mission and your efforts are recorded in our history!
For all those who enjoin the good and forbid the evil:
Men, women, and children—everyone that is able;
Give a lending hand to stop all that are sinful;
Only with unity can we achieve and become forceful!
Those who left us never will be forgotten;
In our hearts you all will remain with lots of lovin’;
A place for you is set at the end of the road!
May the Lord give you peace and a heavenly abode!
When it comes down to what I’m doin’, What I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’ at the end of the road:
Pride in my words, and passion in my heart.
And ain’t a place that I’d rather start.
And if it comes down to what I’m doin’,
What I’m doin’, What I’m doin’, at the end of the road.
This path I chose you don’t see it, but believe it!
Just know that I’mma have a place to go, at the end of the road.
(Hook-Marka)

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

European activists launch boat to monitor Israeli violations in Gaza waters

[ 21/04/2011 - 07:52 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- European activists from Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) launched Wednesday a boat named Oliva designed to monitor Israeli human rights violations on Palestinian waters off the Gaza Strip.

The move also comes to commemorate the life of slain Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni, one of the dozens of parties that supported the boat.

The mission was launched after Israel reduced the fishing space in the sea from twenty nautical miles, as agreed upon in the Oslo Accords, to just three. Gaza fishermen have therefore become threatened by frequent Israeli fire and boat confiscation. Many of them have been arrested and suffered poverty because of the reduction of fishing space.

The launch of the monitoring boat was announced at the opening of the sixth Bil'in conference in Ramallah by its organizers during a video conference.

It includes activists from Spain, the US, Italy, and Belgium as well as Gaza fisherman. Their mission is to document human rights violations by gathering information and taking video footage to be handed over to the media.

Arrigoni, who was recently slain by a deviant religious group in the Gaza Strip, was one of the parties that supported the project. He also helped choose the name Oliva, expressing his desire not to name it after one of the Gaza martyrs. The name is Italian for ”olive”.

According to statistics from the Red Cross, 90 per cent of Gaza's 4,000 fishermen are poor with an average monthly income of $100-190 or live below the poverty line, earning less than $100 a month. The average was at 50 per cent in 2008 but rose dramatically in the last three years.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

letter by egidia beretta arrigoni, mother of vittorio arrigoni

Resistence = المقاومة

By egidia beretta arrigoni,

One has to die to become a hero, to hit the headlines and to have TV crews around the house, but does one have to die to stay human?

I recall Vittorio in the Christmas of 2005, detained and incarcerated in the Ben Gurion Airport, the scars left by the handcuffs that cut his wrists, the denial of any contact with the consulate, the farcical process. And I recall Easter that same year, when just across the Allenby Bridge at the Jordanian border the Israeli police blocked his entrance in the country, put him on a bus and, seven against one (one of the seven was a policewoman), they beat him up “with skill”, without leaving any external marks, like the real professionals they are, then hurling him to the ground and throwing at his face, as a last scar to add to the others, the hair they had ripped off him with their machines.

Vittorio was unwanted in Israel. Too subversive, for having joined his friend Gabriele one year earlier and demonstrated along with the women and men of the village of Budrus against the Wall of Shame, teaching them the lyrics and singing together our most beautiful partisan song 'O bella ciao, ciao...'.

Back then no TV crew came by, not even when in the Fall of 2008 a commando attacked in Palestinian waters off Rafah the fishing boat he had boarded. Vittorio was incarcerated in Ramle and soon after sent back home with nothing but the clothes on his body. Nevertheless, I cannot but be thankful to the press and television that have approached us with composure, that have 'besieged' our home with restraint, without excesses and that have given me the chance to talk about Vittorio and about his ideals and the choices he made.

This lost child of mine is more alive than ever before, like the grain that has fallen to the ground and died to bring forth a plentiful harvest. I see it and hear it already in the words of his friends, above all the younger among them, some closer, some from afar. Through Vittorio, they have known and understood, and now even more, how one can give 'Utopia' a meaning, like the thirst for justice and peace, how fraternity and solidarity still stand and how, as Vittorio used to say, 'Palestine can also be found at your doorsteps'. We were a long way from Vittorio, but now we are closer than ever, with his living presence magnified at every passing hour, like a wind from Gaza, from his beloved Mediterranean, blowing fierily to deliver the message of his hope and of his love for those without a voice, for the weak and the oppressed, passing the baton.

Stay human.

restiamo umani.

Mossad suspected: In the Dark Over Murder of Peace Activists

By Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Apr 19, 2011 (IPS) - Palestinians are reeling from the double-murder of two pro-Palestinian peace activists over the last few weeks, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, with many believing that Israeli intelligence had a hand in the grisly killings, even if indirectly.

While ubiquitous conspiracy theories regularly circulate in the Mideast, political duplicity and dirty- dealings by intelligence agencies and governments are par for the course in the region. Furthermore, a significant number of conspiracy theories have eventually been backed up by concrete facts.

Israel’s Mossad has a history of dirty tricks in its bag and is known to be one of the more "sophisticated" intelligence agencies.

The organisation is widely believed to be behind the killing of a leading Hamas activist in Dubai last year. Israeli-affiliated organisations were behind the murders of anti-Zionists Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944 and UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte during the partition of Palestine in 1947.

Mossad is also believed to be behind the murder of several scientists, both Arab and foreign, who were helping develop Mideast nuclear programmes.

Last week Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was found by Hamas security men hanged in a house allegedly belonging to an Al-Qaeda inspired Salafist Group.

Hamas police had rushed to the location after a video of Arrigoni blindfolded and beaten was released showing the captors threatening to kill him unless the Hamas authorities released imprisoned Salafist leaders.
Arrigoni had been based in Gaza since 2008 after sailing in on a Free Gaza boat which succeeded in temporarily breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza. He wrote regular reports on Israeli human rights abuses, particularly the targeting of Palestinian ambulances by the Israeli military during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead 2008-2009.

Several weeks earlier, across the geographical and political chasm which divides the Palestinians, another internationally renowned and respected pro-Palestinian activist was murdered.

Juliano Mer Khamis, an Israeli-Arab with a Jewish Israeli mother and a Christian Palestinian father, was gunned down in a hail of bullets as he left the Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Mer Khamis had left a lucrative acting career in Israel to move to and live in the squalid refugee camp which was razed by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in 2002. He wanted to continue running the theatre established by his late mother.

At the Freedom Theatre young Palestinians, including former Palestinian resistance fighters, were given acting lessons and helped produce plays.

"I could have continued living a comfortable life in Israel but I wanted to pour my energy into something I strongly believed in, and that is showing Palestinians a side of life other than the misery they have endured under occupation," Khamis told IPS during an interview several years ago.

The Freedom Theatre produced controversial plays that mocked both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli occupation. The plays, with their gender-mixing and Western-leanings, also outraged some Islamic fundamentalists in Jenin. The theatre was burnt down and attacked several times. Khamis was also subjected to several death threats.

The double-murders have sparked outrage amongst Palestinians and their Israeli and international supporters. Debate is raging as to who could have committed the murders, and especially why.

"It is difficult to know who exactly is behind Arrigoni’s murder. We are all in a state of shock and struggling to understand and digest this awful incident," Karl Schembri, an aid worker in Gaza and a friend of the Italian told IPS.

Dr Ahmed Youssef, a political advisor to Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said the Israelis had the most to gain from the murder of Arrigoni.

"They are trying to frighten international solidarity supporters from coming to Gaza. The next Free Gaza flotilla is due to arrive next month and Israel has upped the pressure to prevent it arriving and giving the country bad publicity like last year’s flotilla did," Youssef told IPS.

Israeli commandos shot dead nine activists last year in disputed circumstances which provoked an international outcry at Israel’s deadly use of excessive force.

Dr Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, who supports neither Palestinian faction, agrees with Youssef’s assessment.

"The Salafist groups accused of murdering Arrigoni have stated they had nothing to do with the murder," Awad told IPS.

"However, it is quite possible that Israeli intelligence has infiltrated the Salafist groups without their knowledge. Some of the members naively believe they are carrying out Jihad missions on behalf of shadowy Al-Qaeda groups.

"They are unaware that their actions actually support Israeli goals of aggravating relations between Hamas and the smaller Gaza resistance groups, creating chaos in Gaza and painting all Islamists with the same extremist brush."

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has failed to arrest any perpetrators for the murder of Khamis even though his babysitter, who was in the car when he was shot, identified one person in several lineups.
Unusually the Israelis have chosen not to get involved in the murder investigation of an Israeli citizen regarded as Jewish by the state. Some are speculating that PA intelligence is under pressure from Israel.

But radical Islamists and disaffected elements associated with the PA (which often violently oppresses critics) could also be contenders.

Men Die, Lions Rise

Via MCS

- 20. Apr, 2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Men Die, Lions Rise

By Jonathan Azaziah

Illustration : Brilliant Carlos Latuff

Is the sky falling, are there pigs flying…

I mean, is this still the same doomed reality…

Yes, because there’s still Iraqi, Afghani, Somali, Pakistani and Palestinian kids dying…

And yes, your eyes are truthful about this cruel brutality…

Peering through the fallacy…

They’ve put a mask on it, so its easier to consume the savagery…

Why they’d take him, he was a brother of peace, like harmonious music and love…

They are the sons of the beast, executioners and Lucifer’s thugs…

Vittorio Arrigoni, it’s so hard to grasp that you are gone…

But you left here as something different than what you were when you were born…

At birth you were a man, but in death you became a lion…

A martyr, a hero who in life gave a voice to those living in pain and silence…

A beacon of courage who gave everything to expose how deep the occupation’s reign of crime is…

You sought to have truth rain on the baneful tyrants…

We know that they hated you, we know that you were a target of heavy hate…

We know that they watched you, moving and marking your every place…

Now they want to convince us that your Palestinian family murdered you with their own hands…

Like we aren’t familiar with the usurping entity’s cold plans…

As if the ritualistic and brutal way you were murdered didn’t give all of the clues…

As if we would let justice slip away, as if we would be okay with them slaughtering you…

If so, they were dead wrong, we would never believe the liar’s wisdom…

We know damn well that Vittorio Arrigoni is a violent victim of Zionism…

He joins the martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla, murdered on the vibrant seas…

Murdered in cold blood for striving to break the occupier’s siege…

He joins Rachel Corrie, when monsters bulldozed her, humanity wept…

She was the definition of a pure soul, her passing made us all wonder how much of the world’s sanity’s left…

He joins Juliano Mer-Khamis, who fought for Palestine’s struggle via film…

Jenin went black when he was killed…

Masked militants, please, your stories are old…

We refuse to let your vicious hasbara taint the memory of Vittorio’s soul…

We know that IOF trains special units to pose as terrorists…

You can bulldoze our sister but you cannot bulldoze her memory or bulldoze our reverence…

Bassem Abu Rahma, and his sister Jawaher…

Heroes murdered by Israeli tear gas, stood up to vile tyrants with not a drop of fear…

These are the lions that Vittorio rose up to join…

Their martyrdom and bravery is the cure to the Zionist entity’s colonial poison…

He was a lion who stayed with Gaza during Cast Lead…

A lion who pitied IOF, showing them their humanity was past dead…

A lion who was tasered and imprisoned but remained in the Strip…

Remained to expose Zionist crimes and to show Israeli democracy is a dangerous myth…

A lion who protected children as phosphorus fell…

A lion who walked through Israel’s tanks, bombs, rockets and shells…

To defend the Palestinian babies of Gaza, now I want the media to say again…

That Palestinians murdered a man they considered their own, what a lie, a falsehood, a dose of propaganda from hellacious men…

They can print their lies Vittorio, through their TV shows and Zionazi papers…

But the truth will emerge, for al-Haqq is a force that cannot be vanquished…

And when it does, the world will see…

That you lost your life at the hands of men who hated you most, Israel is on an international murder spree…

Your mother is coming to Gaza, we will pray for her…

And when we will see her beautiful face, this is what we will say to her…

Your precious son didn’t meet death, you see he is still alive…

And when the tears fill her eyes…

We will ball too, right next to her, kneel and cry…

Umm Vittorio, men die but lions roar and rise…

And your child was a lion in every sense, you can see his face shining in Gaza’s gorgeous skies…

Your child fought for us, and for him, we will never lose hope or flee…

Umm Vittorio, you’re not alone in burying your son because so did we…

Humanity was the language Vittorio spoke to his last breath, he stayed fluent…

He taught us that division was nothing more than a strained illusion…

Rest in peace brother, we know that you will eternally “Stay Human…”

“Al-Shaheed Vittorio!” shakes Gaza as the battlecry…

The spirit of a lion, forever wrapped in the flag of Palestine…

~ The End ~

by Jonathan Azaziah

Source: Mask of Zion

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Interior ministry: Two killers of Arrigoni die in a house raid

[ 20/04/2011 - 08:39 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian ministry of interior said the police attack on Tuesday on the whereabouts of the three men accused of killing an Italian activist was an important lesson for everyone tempted to tamper with the security and stability in Gaza.

In a news conference yesterday, spokesman for the ministry Ihab Al-Ghussein explained that a force of policemen in Annuseirat refugee camp found and encircled on Tuesday afternoon the hideout of the three fugitives wanted for murdering Vittorio Arrigoni.

Spokesman Ghussein affirmed the policemen acted wisely and responsibly and demanded the suspects to surrender themselves and show no resistance, but they refused to comply and started to open fire at the police force wounding three of its members.

Despite what happened the police force showed restraint and brought mediators to the scene including families of the fugitives in order to convince them to surrender and avoid bloodshed, but they, especially Abdulrahman Al-Berizat declined all mediatory efforts and insisted on dying instead of turning themselves in, the spokesman elaborated.

He noted that Berizat fired one shot beside one of the fugitives' father, but he did not hurt him.

After the failure of all mediations that lasted over six hours, the police force moved to control the house in an attempt to arrest the suspects and as two policemen climbed on the roof, Berizat spotted them and threw a grenade causing them to sustain moderate injuries.

He also threw another grenade in the second floor killing one of his accomplices, Bilal Al-Omari and wounding Mahmoud Al-Salfiti before shooting himself dead, the spokesman added.

A reporter for the Palestinian information center (PIC) had said earlier that the Palestinian security leadership issued orders to policemen to necessarily arrest the wanted men alive so as to interrogate them and find out more about the crime and its motives.

At an early hour last Friday, the police found Arrigoni dead in an abandoned house north of Gaza just hours after he was kidnapped by a group declared itself as Salafi.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Arrigoni killer pursuit ends after suspect takes life

[ 19/04/2011 - 05:32 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Gaza Ministry of Interior and National Security has confirmed that the pursuit of dangerous suspects wanted for the murder of Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza ended after one of the men threw a grenade injuring both of his accomplices.

The suspect Abdurrahman al-Bureizat, a Jordanian citizen, then opened fire on himself taking his own life.

Three Gaza security service men were moderately injured in the operation.

Palestinian police had demanded that the suspects surrender as they had surrounded the Abu Ghoula residence where the men were taking cover, a PIC correspondent reported. They had declared that they wanted to take them into custody alive.

The suspects were identified as Mahmoud al-Salfiti, Bilal al-Omari, and Abdurrahman al-Bureizat, also known as Mohammed Hassan. Faris Abu Ghoula, one of the residents, had joined the men as they took refuge in the home west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, our correspondent said.

Gun shots echoed at the scene as the Ministry of Interior and National Security declared the area a closed security zone, the correspondent added.

He said the suspects did not obey orders by the security forces to surrender themselves, but instead fired at police injuring a policeman. One of the men fired at his father who was present to coax his son into surrender. He was however uninjured.

Sources in the Interior Ministry said the men's families were summoned in an effort to convince them to turn themselves in to the authorities, but they had not responded.

Those sources told our correspondent that security chiefs ordered that the men be taken alive in order to investigate mysteries left unanswered in the crime, including who was behind it and his motives.




River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Lifeline for Gaza: Berizat did not enter Gaza through our convoys

[ 19/04/2011 - 08:26 AM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- The Jordanian committee of "Lifeline for Gaza" aid convoys denied that Abdulrahman Al-Berizat who is accused of killing Italian Vittorio Arrigoni had entered the Gaza Strip through one of its convoys.

Quds Press quoted head of the committee Wa'el Al-Saka as saying that there was no one by that name on any lists of the Lifeline convoys that crossed into Gaza for humanitarian purposes.

Lifeline for Gaza committee is getting prepared to participate in Freedom Flotilla 2 slated to sail for Gaza next month.
Lawyer of the Islamic organizations in Jordan Mussa Al-Abdalat told Quds Press that Berizat, hailing from the Jordanian city of Madaba, was a member of the Lifeline aid convoy which joined the first Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by the Israeli navy last year.
Abdalat said the accused, according to his acquaintances, stayed in Gaza working as a driver for a charity, affirming that Berizat was not known as a supporter of the Salafi trend.
The Palestinian police in Gaza had revealed that one of the men accused of killing Arrigoni was a Jordanian national and published his photo along with the other accomplices.

Gaza bids farewell to slain Arrigoni – video

April 19, 2011 by occupiedpalestine

Hundreds of Vittorio Arrigoni’s friends and supporters escorted his coffin in a final farewell to the 36 year-old peace activist at a ceremony in Rafah.

He is the first foreigner to have been kidnapped and killed in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory, blamed a Salafi group for his murder. It has released the names and pictures of three suspects its searching for.

But as Nicole Johnston reports from Rafah, there are still plenty of unanswered questions – including why Arrogoni was killed hours before the kidnappers’ 30-hour deadline had passed?

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian