Welcome to Israel!
Israeli checkpoint set up in Central London
The following press release and photos were issued by the Israeli Occupation Force’s Spokesperson in London:
ישראל כוחות הכיבוש
London, UK.
2 Adar I 5772 / Saturday 25 February 2012
In an attempt to support UK police and security agencies in their fight against terrorism, soldiers of the Israeli Occupation Force set up a checkpoint complete with watchtower outside one of the London’s busiest districts, Covent Garden. Metropolitan Police granted IOF soldiers responsibility to maintain public order, guard the checkpoint and keep Covent Garden terrorist-free.
The area was chosen because it has been described as a hub of anti-Israel activity where terrorists forced the nearby Ahava shop to close in 2011.
IOF Soldiers, brandishing heavy weapons and armed to the teeth, greeted the hundreds of people who passed through the checkpoint with shouts of “Shalom – Welcome to Israel!”
Residents and tourists were ordered to have their ID cards and passports ready for inspection and a number of suspicious persons were detained, including all people of Arab appearance. One female Arab was held for several hours, despite her plea that she was late for her hospital appointment and a heavily pregnant young woman was also detained. Several suspicious young teenagers, as well as a few internationalists who said they were tourists were interrogated and searched before being released.
Most pedestrians who passed through the checkpoint were cooperative, expressed thanks and gave the thumbs up. A member of the pubic was overheard to say: “I thought we were in Britain, not Israel.”
Representatives of the IOF Spokesperson distributed information to those allowed to enter and leave the checkpoint explaining its purpose, while others explained to the curious how this is all a normal part of life in Al-Khalil (Hebron) and in many towns and villages throughout the Israeli Occupied Territories.
At the end of the day, the checkpoint was disassembled and returned to the Embassy of Israel in London.
ENDS.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Today’s protest in London called for the reopening of Shuhada Street in Al-Khalil (Hebron) held to the day on the 18th anniversary of the Baruch Goldstein massacre during which a Jewish extremist murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers and injured 125 more during morning prayers at Hebron’s al-Ibrahimi mosque.
Hebron has been under Israeli occupation since 1969, when the first religious settlers, who had barricaded themselves in a downtown hotel room and refused to leave, were coaxed out by the Israeli military and given the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba. Ten years later, the act was repeated in an abandoned hospital, and this time Israel allowed the squatters to settle in downtown Hebron.
Restrictions on Palestinian life in Hebron accelerated after the Baruch Goldstein massacre. The expulsion of Palestinians and their livelihoods from the heart of Hebron’s Old City became an institutionalised process after the area became Israeli-controlled H2 in 1997. Now, at least 500 settlers and at least 2,000 soldiers have shut down Shuhada Street, the economic heart of both Hebron and the entire southern West Bank.
The gradual takeover of Shuhada Street, beginning in the 1980′s and culminating after the second Intifada has turned the once-bustling marketplace into a ghost town and has caused the (often forced) abandonment of over 1,000 housing units and over 1,800 shops and storefronts — which now, in a cruel and ironic twist of history, are graffitied with the same Stars of David that once marred Jewish storefronts in 1930′s Germany.
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Additional images of Checkpoint Covent Garden can be found here.
