Armenian community in Palestine celebrates Christmas
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Armenian Christians in Palestine celebrated Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany on Sunday with parades in the streets of Bethlehem.

The Armenian patriarch of Jerusalem, Mourhan Manouagian, arrived in Bethlehem around noon.

Bethlehem police said in a statement earlier Sunday that it planned to "secure the appropriate atmosphere ... for this national holiday which is highly appreciated by both Muslims and Christians."

Later, President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Bethlehem for the Christmas celebrations.

Armenian Christians in Palestine who follow the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem mark Christmas nearly two weeks after the majority of Armenian and Eastern Orthodox denominations, who mark the holiday on Jan. 6 or 7, and more than three weeks after Western Christians mark Christmas, who celebrate on Dec. 25.

There are around 200,000 Palestinian Christians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and inside Israel in total, while hundreds of thousands more live abroad.

US Pressures Foil UNSC Statehood Bid, Says Abbas
RAMALLAH (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday said that tremendous US pressures on United Nations Security Council’s member states were behind the failure of the Palestinian bid – aiming to set a three-year deadline to the Israeli occupation – which was presented to the United Nations Security Council on December 30, 2014.

During an interview with the Egypt-based Bawaba News, Abbas said the Palestinian Authority would end security coordination with Israel if the Palestinian bid, to be presented to the UNSC probably in the next few days, is hampered once again.

Abbas also hinted at dissolving the PA in case the US and other permanent UNSC members continue to put obstacles in the way of ending the Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian Territories within the 1967 borders.

He said that Nigeria, which abstained to vote, had faced massive US-led pressure primarily concerning security aid and the war on Boko Haram. 

As many sides criticized Abbas’ decision to address the UNSC without guaranteeing the number of countries supporting Palestine, Abbas explained that initially 14 countries were confirmed to vote in favor with the bid, however, US pressures brought the number down to nine. 

The president also referred to a conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry during which the latter told Abbas that joining the ICC is a “nuclear option”.

Abbas spoke of threats which he received personally. He said sides, which he didn’t mention, “reminded me of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and I am ready to all options in order to fulfill the Palestinian dream in statehood.”

Demonstrators throw shoes, eggs at Canadian FM in Ramallah
 RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Protestors threw shoes and eggs at Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird outside the Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday, amid a growing war of words between him and top PLO official Saeb Erekat.

Dozens of Palestinians attacked the foreign minister's vehicle as it exited the foreign ministry, located in al-Bireh near Ramallah, after he finished a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.

The protest was organized by the youth department of the Fatah movement to express opposition to the pro-Israeli political positions expressed by successive Canadian governments in recent years.

The most recent action taken by the Canadian government that has outraged the Palestinian public was a vote against a bid at the United Nations Security Council seeking to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories by 2017.

In recent weeks, foreign minister Baird has also demanded top PLO official Erekat apologize for likening Israel to the Islamic State group in statements made in early January.

"There is no difference between the terrorism practiced by the group led by (IS leader) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Israel's terrorism," he said at the time. "Ending settlement activities is a prerequisite for eliminating terrorism."

Baird condemned the statements, saying that they undermined efforts to fight the IS group that has spread through Iraq and Syria in recent years.

Erekat, however, on Friday responded to demands for the apology in a strongly-worded opinion piece entitled, "It is John Baird who needs to apologize to the Palestinian people" published in The Globe and Mail, a top Canadian newspaper.

"After spending the past few years listening to Mr. Baird going out of his way to legitimize the banality and brutality of a 50-year-old Israeli occupation, I tell Mr. Baird: enough," he said in the piece.

"If there is anyone that has to apologize, it is Mr. Baird himself. He should first apologize to his own citizenry, many of whom are God-loving Jews, Christians and Muslims who would never condone nor cheer for an Israeli government that stretches support to Israeli settlers who attack churches and mosques."

He also reiterated his perceived similarities between Israel and the IS group, based on their disregard for human life and religion.

"Those who actively burn mosques and churches in Palestine, and campaign to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, are no less terrorists than those who kicked the Christians out of Mosul."

"But Canada, instead of supporting the application of international law, has decided to encourage Israel to continue with its crimes. As I stated in a letter to Mr. Baird after his meeting in Occupied East Jerusalem: 'Canada's actions are tantamount to complicity in ongoing Israeli violations of the international laws of war.'"

Erekat Slams Canada for Support to East Jerusalem Annexation
RAMALLAH, January 18, 2015 (WAFA) – Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat Sunday criticized Canada’s unwavering support to Israel, including attempts at legitimizing the illegal Israeli annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem.

Erekat regretted the Canadian government’s decision to stand on “the wrong side of history by blindly supporting the Israeli occupation and its apartheid policies” and denounced Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird meeting with Israeli officials in occupied City of Jerusalem.

He explained, “Baird has contributed to Israeli violations of Palestinian inalienable rights, including our right to self-determination, by systematically lobbying against all Palestinian diplomatic initiatives.”

Meanwhile, Erekat thanked all international officials who have declined to meet with Baird after his infamous attempt at legitimizing the illegal Israeli annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem by meeting with Israeli officials in the occupied city in violation of Security Council resolution 476.
The Chief Negotiator called upon the Canadian government to apologize to Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims for standing in the way of recognizing an independent state of Palestine.

Israel to lobby against ICC amid war crimes probe
The Israeli regime has started lobbying member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to cut their funding to the body in retaliation for its bid to launch a probe into Israeli war crimes.

Hawkish Israeli Foreign Minister Avigador Lieberman announced on Sunday that the Tel Aviv regime hopes to undermine the funding of the tribunal, which is mainly drawn from the 122 member-nations, according to the size of their economies.

This is while the Israeli regime, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC.

The development came following a Friday announcement by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that her office intends to conduct an “analysis in full independence and impartiality” into suspected war crimes carried out by Israeli military forces, including those committed during its Gaza offensive last summer, in which nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed.

More than 11,100 others, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people, were injured in the war.

Palestinians, meanwhile, have urged the ICC to also investigate Israel’s illegal settlement construction activities in the occupied Palestinian lands.

DCI: 2014 Most Difficult Year for Palestinian Children
(IMEMC) - Defense for Children International has described the year 2014 as the most difficult year for Palestinian children, due to ongoing Israeli violations and, mainly, the 2014 summer aggression on the Gaza Strip.
 
According to WAFA, DCI reported on its official website that “Wholesale [Israeli] violations of children’s rights across the Occupied Palestinian Territory led to numerous fatalities and injuries, as well as psychological trauma resulting from collective punishment policies that affected children, such as house raids and demolitions.”

The organization also stated: “At least 11 Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, lost their lives in 2014 after being shot with live ammunition by Israeli soldiers.”

Furthermore, “2014 will be remembered for the images it broadcasted to the world from the Gaza Strip –during the 2014 Israeli summer aggression on the Gaza]. These images depicted children fleeing from heavy bombing and shelling by Israeli forces, taking shelter with their families in crowded UN schools, or convalescing in Gaza’s overstretched hospitals,” according to DCI.

In addition, “the suffering of Palestinian children was not limited to the 50-day offensive on the Gaza Strip, nor was it limited to the geographical confines of the 25 square mile coastal enclave. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, it was Palestinian children who continued to pay the heaviest price for the ongoing Israeli military occupation.”

According to DCI-Palestine’s research, at least 480 children lost their lives in the 50-day military offensive, dubbed Operation Protective Edge; “The children who died made up a fifth of the 2,205 Palestinians who were killed during the conflict.”

Meanwhile, DCI also reported that, “Military detention is a reality for hundreds of Palestinian children each year, exposing them to physical and psychological violence, interrupting education, contributing to mental health issues, and placing large numbers of families under stress. This continued to be the case in 2014.”

It said that, “This year, the average number of children held in Israeli military detention stood at 197 per month, largely unchanged from the 2013 figure of 199 per month. This stable figure, however, masks the undercurrent of change taking place within the system, with a clampdown on Palestinian youth becoming apparent in the second half of 2014.”

Documenting settler violence, DCI-Palestine found that 129 instances of settler attacks against children were recorded between 2008 and 2012.

Prisoners’ Families humiliated during Visitation, says Prisoners’ Committee
RAMALLAH  (WAFA) – The Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said, in a statement Sunday, that the families of Palestinian prisoners, held in Israeli jails, are frequently subjected to humiliating treatment by the Israeli prison authority while visiting their relative inmates.

The Committee said that, to name just a few, women are occasionally asked to partially take off clothes during inspection, for alleged security measures.

The right to family visits is an entrenched right in international law, expressly provided for in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, the European Prison Rules, and, in relation to child detainees, the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

According to Addameer, a local human rights group, family visits are routinely, and often arbitrarily, restricted or cancelled by the Israeli authorities, which is in complete contradiction with Israel’s responsibility, as the Occupying Power, under international law.

The families further complained about the hardships of traveling to the prisons situated inside Israel, given the long hours of travel and the severe restrictions imposed on their entry and on obtaining entry permits.

More than 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners, most from the West Bank, are currently incarcerated in Israeli jails under security pretences. Prisoners from Gaza have nevertheless been denied family visitation since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.