Thursday, October 12, 2006

Meanwhile in Palestine

AIPAC Runs Right: The Republicanization and increasing hawkishness of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has continued apace, with little heed paid to the ramifications of this shift or its increasing alliance with the far right.

Israeli Occupation Forces kill six Palestinians in occupied Gaza : A spokesman for the Hamas military wing on Thursday vowed the group would take harsh revenge for an Israel Occupation Forces operation in Gaza, in which six people - including four militants - were killed.

Israel's bombs Hamas man's Gaza home kills three including 8-year-old girl: Farwana survived the attack, but the strike killed his brother, 25-year-old Aiman Farwana, and a 8-year-old girl.

Gideon Levy : Collateral damage : Sometimes tragedies happen, but the tragedy of the Hamad family is almost too much to describe.

"Gaza. Inexplicable Wounds And New Weapons" : Video report: This report has been triggered by the warning launched in mid-july by some doctors of Gaza hospitals, who, for the first time, have treated inexplicable wounds which, in at least 62 cases, have caused the amputation of a lower limb.

Gaza sliding into civil war: As soon as Hamas formed a government after winning January's elections, Israel withheld $60m (£32m) in monthly tax revenues and the international community halted direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. That, combined with frequent Israeli closures of the crossing points into Gaza, has prompted a severe economic crisis and left hundreds of young men, who have ready access to weapons, without salaries.

The logic behind Rice's grin: In its struggle for the regional order it wants, the US is reaching new lows in its deceitful and disingenuous stance towards the Palestinians

Israeli Rights group: Israeli denies vital health treatment to Palestinians : The Shin Bet security service is systematically preventing Palestinians who need medical treatment unavailable in the territories from entering Israel, a new report by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges

Roadblocks up by 40% in West Bank: The number of Israeli military road blocks in the West Bank grew by nearly 40% in the past year, part of an increasingly sophisticated lockdown that disrupts all aspects of Palestinian life, a UN aid agency said yesterday.

Academic to quit post in anger over Israel: PROMINENT left-wing Israeli academic and author Tanya Reinhart plans to quit as emeritus professor at Tel Aviv University in protest against her Government's handling of the Palestinian issue.

Rice: Palestinians should live free of 'humilation of occupation': Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that Palestinians deserve to live under better conditions than they are subjected to and be "free of the humiliation of occupation" in a state of their own. "I promise you my personal commitment to that goal," Rice said at a dinner marking the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine.

Holy Land Christian leaders call for "open" Jerusalem: Slamming the impact of walls recently erected by the Israeli government, Catholic and other Christian leaders in Israel and Palestine have called for a renewed effort to reach agreement on a special status for Jerusalem as an "open city" as part of an effort for a definite and just peace.

Bil’in to Demonstrate in Solidarity With Cameraman held by Israel: At midday, Friday the 13th of October, the villagers of Bil’in will march in solidarity with Emad Bornat, the Reuters cameraman and video-journalist, also a resident of Bil’in. The demonstrators will hold up cameras as a sign of solidarity with Emad and protest against the Israeli army’s crackdown on freedom of press. Today, October 11th, at the appeal hearing, the Israeli military decided to launch an indictment against Emad. The judge will make a ruling tomorrow at 4pm, but that might not be the end of his captivity.

Nonviolent resistance: I sell grapes: Eleven tons of grapes are on sale in Jerusalem. Sitting under trees and along the sidewalks of East Jerusalem's Salah Addin Street, against door pillars in the Old City and outside Damascus Gate, Palestinians are defying Israeli attempts to crush their yearly sales. Jerusalem is the largest market for grapes and just last week southwestern Bethlehem farmers demonstrated to be able to reach the city with their crop. But as the assault on economic sustainability continues, Israeli forces will not allow grapes and seasonal vegetables into Jerusalem.

Report: 290 killed in the Gaza Strip since June 25th, amongst them 135 children and 25 women: The death toll, given in the report, since the beginning of the operation has reached 290 civilians, amongst them 135 children and 35 women. The number of injured is 4,350, out of these 750 are left permanently disabled, 117 injuries were to the upper body, 54 burns were sustained and 53 severe burns. 1700 injuries out of 4350 were to children.

Rights group: Shin Bet denies vital treatment to Palestinians: The Shin Bet security service is systematically preventing Palestinians who need medical treatment unavailable in the territories from entering Israel... According to the organization, in many cases, patients have been denied urgent, life-saving treatment. The report says that the Shin Bet automatically refuses entry permits, and reconsiders its decisions only if legal action is begun.

IAF missile strike on Hamas man's Gaza home kills three: An IDF spokesman confirmed the air strike targeted the house of a Hamas commander, Sharaf Farwana, in the Sajaiyeh section of Gaza City near the border with Israel. Farwana survived the attack, but the strike killed his brother, 25-year-old Aiman Farwana, and a 8-year-old girl.

Seven killed by Israeli fire in Gaza: Five of those killed belonged to the same family -- bystanders 13-year-old Suheib Iqdah, his 40-year-old father Adel and three militants from the armed wing of ruling Islamist movement Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. They died after an Israeli aircraft fired a missile into a group of people in Abassan, near the southern town of Khan Yunis, medical and security sources said.

Army closes Beit Iba checkpoint west of Nablus: Due to the closure of the checkpoints scores of residents who were out of the city for education, work, or heath purposes were trapped and could not return to their homes in Nablus or the surrounding areas.

Olmert courts hard-line party in Israel: With his political fortunes plummeting after the war in Lebanon, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scrambling to shore up his rickety coalition by courting a hard-line party that favors redrawing Israel's borders to exclude Arab citizens.

Police arrest 10 settler youths who beat Palestinians harvesting olives: Police on Thursday arrested 10 youths from the West Bank settlement of Hashmonaim who are suspected of attacking and beating local Palestinians harvesting olives.

My Friend, the Enemy: The dispossession of the Palestinians by the Zionist movement, representing a people who had suffered centuries of persecution in Europe, continues to haunt the Middle East, influencing events far beyond the Levant. The story of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and its present-day reverberations has been told from almost every conceivable angle. Rarely, however, have the competing narratives of individual experience been set forth so poignantly as in Sandy Tolan's The Lemon Tree .

Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank up sharply, UN says: These physical obstacles are carving up the West Bank into separate parts, with travel between them becoming more and more difficult, said David Shearer, head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem. UN officials in Geneva, meanwhile, expressed concern about the ongoing closure of the Gaza Strip, including the crossing between Gaza and Egypt. ``It cannot continue like it is now without a social explosion that will hurt everybody, including Israeli security," said Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief.

U.S. Teacher Freed in West Bank: Michael Phillips, 24, who teaches English in Palestinian refugee camps in Nablus, was unharmed, said Samah Atout, a manager for the nonprofit group for which the Louisiana resident has volunteered. "He's totally OK, and he doesn't want to leave Nablus," Atout said by telephone shortly after Phillips' release.

Hamas sees Egyptian mediation between Palestinians necessary: The Egyptian mediation "became a political need to protect our national project," Ahmed Yousef said in the statement. Meanwhile, Yousef underlined that the Palestinians are in need of new Arab and international initiatives that do not give priority to Israel's recognition.

State tells High Court it should stay out of war-probe decision: The state prosecution yesterday told the High Court of Justice that the government has given much thought to the question of whether to establish a state commission of inquiry to investigate the war in Lebanon, and believes that the High Court has limited input in this deliberation.

Hamas: Revenge will be painful: The movement's spokesperson Abu Ubeida said, in an interview with Palestinian Maan news agency: "We promise the Israeli enemy many surprises and promise to show previously unrevealed military capabilities. All operations of the Israeli military in Gaza are meant to cover up their failure to release Gilad Shalit."

A small Jerusalem is better: The plan, which was initiated by Golda Meir's government in order to "strengthen the capital," was severely criticized by all the experts. Thirty years later, its destructive consequences have become evident: From a compact city of 37 square kilometers, Jerusalem has turned into a huge metropolis that covers 120 square kilometers, twice as large as the area of Tel Aviv and Haifa combined.

Over 2,000 protest outside PM's home, call for state war inquiry: "The State of Israel is anxiously awaiting for errors to be addressed, and the first condition for addressing errors is revealing the truth," former Meretz MK Yossi Sarid told the protestors.

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