Meanwhile in Iraq

Iraq attacks kill at least 61 as U.S. occupation continues: At least 43 were killed when a series of seven rocket and bomb attacks were launched almost simultaneously against Shiite and Christian districts of Baghdad shortly before the nightly curfew, security officials said.

Iraq: At least 13 killed as U.S. Occupation grinds on: A car bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol killed four police commandos and wounded 11 people, including six policemen

U.S. sniper kills family of four in Ramadi – witnesses: A man, his wife and two children were walking home in al-Huz neighborhood when a U.S. sniper shot them dead at 11:00 a.m. in al-Ma’ared Street.

Marines admit to abducting, killing Iraqi: Two Marines have confessed to kidnapping and killing a 52-year-old Iraqi man in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad, a military prosecutor said Wednesday at a preliminary hearing.

No Death Penalty for Marine: The government will not seek the death penalty against a Marine Corps private who is among eight service members charged with murder and other crimes in the shooting of an Iraqi civilian, a military prosecutor said Wednesday.

Another lie on Iraq: WHEN President Bush declared last week that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered" the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a large segment of the American public must have been very surprised.

Australia: Iraq letter 'suppressed' lack of WMD evidence: -A DAMNING six-page letter on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was suppressed by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, according to a former senior diplomat.

US military to pay $20 million for "more positive news" from Iraq: "They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.

Meanwhile in Palestine

12 Year Old Boy Shot by Settler While Playing Near His Home: Hakim was playing with two friends, ages 8-9, when the boys spotted 3 Israeli colonists approaching them. The boys began to run away, and Hakim tripped and fell; when he stood up, the colonist man, aged approximately 40, shot him through his lower back. The bullet exited through his upper groin area, and the younger boys carried him to his home.

OPT: Oxfam calls on world leaders to lift Palestinian aid freeze at Stockholm conference: Oxfam believes that the Palestinian Authority stands to lose more than $1 billion following the suspension of aid earlier this year and Israel withholding Palestinian tax revenue, according to UN and World Bank estimates. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without an income. Rubbish is piling in the streets, sewage is overflowing from household cesspits, schools are running without budgets and government employees are striking for lack of pay.

Israel to try Palestinian officials in Dec.: According to the report, two Palestinian Cabinet ministers, the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament and 12 lawmakers who were seized by Israel during the past two months will be put before judge on Dec. 12.

West Bank residents forced to sing in order to pass checkpoint and school bags are inspected: Israeli soldiers told the man that he had to unload everything onto the ground for inspection. Tulkarem residents say they were forced to sing the Hafez Halim song, “Salamat, Salamat” in order to pass. Residents report feeling angry and provoked.

OPT: Gaza children suffer as rich world meets to discuss aid: Since 28th June, 44 children have been killed, electricity and water infrastructure has been destroyed and humanitarian assistance has been routinely blocked from getting to those people who need it. Since 15th August, for example, no humanitarian aid at all has been allowed through some gates and even humanitarian workers have had their movements heavily restricted.

Settlers uproot scores of olive trees in Yatta near Hebron: Local sources reported that settlers uprooted trees located near an Israeli army post just outside the village. Settlers have repeatedly targeted the residents, their property and farmlands in addition to attacking the international volunteers who comes to the area to help the people.

Army takes nine civilians prisoners in Hebron area: Troops, backed by dozens of army jeeps, stormed the city and the two towns, and conducted wide scale search campaign to the residents houses. Soldiers searched and ransacked residents houses in a very rough way, eyewitnesses reported, and added that soldiers found no weapons or explosives in any of the attacked houses.

Israeli troops withdraw from eastern Gaza: Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza City's eastern outskirts early on Thursday, ending a four-day operation during which 20 Palestinians were killed, witnesses and an Israeli army spokesperson said.

Leaflets dropped on northern Gaza blame resistance: The Israeli military is holding the armed Palestinian resistance responsible for Israeli attacks and closures. Eyewitnesses report that Israeli aircraft dropped tens of thousands of leaflets on the northern Gaza Strip blaming the resistance for pedestrian and commercial crossings closures, including Rafah's southern border with Egypt.

Rabbis: Israel Too Worried Over Civilian Deaths : America’s main organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis is calling on the Israeli military to be less concerned with avoiding civilian casualties on the opposing side when carrying out future operations.

US May Cover Israel's War Costs: A senior Bush administration official said Wednesday that if asked, the US is likely to grant Israel additional military aid to cover the costs of its recent war against Hezbollah.

Ruin, despair in Gaza neighborhood after Israeli incursion : An elderly mother spoke amid the rubble of her partially destroyed home in the Shajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, from where Israeli occupation troops pulled out early Thursday after a four-day-plus operation that killed 20 people.

MP George Gallowa, says Israel poisoning West: Galloway said Israel's 39-year occupation of swathes of Arab territory had spurred militants to attack the West.

CA (Santa Cruz) mayor won't apologize

A mayor in California refused to apologize for bestowing an honor on a Palestinian who called Hezbollah an “amateur in terrorism compared with Israel.” Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Mathews provoked the ire of local Jewish leaders earlier this month when she presented a key to the city to Afif Safieh, a longtime member of the PLO, at a talk in front of 250 people, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Mathews said the gesture was not a means of taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was meant to endorse Safieh’s vision of a two-state solution. Jewish leaders note that the PLO includes groups like the Fatah Movement’s Al-Aksa Brigade, whose members would like to “wipe Israel off the map of the world,” said Rick Litvak, rabbi of a local Reform synagogue.

US to pay $20m for 'good' Iraq news

Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.

The request for bids comes at a time when Bush administration officials are publicly criticizing media coverage of the war in Iraq.

The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand "the communications environment." Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com .

A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out.

"They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.

The proposal calls for monitoring "Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English." That includes broadcast and cable television outlets, the Pentagon channel, two wire services and three major U.S. newspapers: The Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

Monitors are to select stories that deal with specific issues, such as security, reconstruction activities, "high profile" coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are "in the lead." The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the "dissemination of key themes and messages" along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.

The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations. That part of the proposal could reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's often-stated concern that the media does not cover positive aspects of Iraq.

In a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said that a search of leading newspapers revealed that a soldier punished for misconduct was written about "10 times" as often as the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in anti-terrorism efforts.

The proposal suggests a team of 12 to 18 people who would provide support for the coalition military command as well as the Iraqi government leadership.

Prospective contractors are also asked to propose four to eight public relations events per month, such as speeches or news conferences, including "preparation of likely questions and suggested answers, themes and messages as well as background, talking points."

An attempt yesterday to reach the contracting officer for this project was not successful. Bids are due Sept. 6, and the 24-month contract is scheduled to begin on Oct. 28.

The Rendon Group, which has represented organizations such as the Iraqi National Congress, currently holds a much smaller year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq. That contract includes creating an Arabic version of the command's Web site, http://www.mnf-iraq.com .

Rumsfeld's Misuse Of History

By John Prados

(John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. His forthcoming book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher))

"In the past week Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has twice invoked the historical analogy to appeasement—referring to the years just before World War II, culminating in the Munich conference of September 1938—to frame the globe’s current struggle with terrorism in apocalyptic terms. Vice President Dick Cheney has used the same analogy, without even gracing it with a name, to defend what he calls the “battle for the future of civilization.”

The correct lesson to be drawn from Munich today is that when presidents and their administrations raise its specter, it is a sure sign they want to pursue extravagant policies, usually of violence, based on narrow grounds with shaky public support. Today the Munich analogy functions as a provocation, a red flag before a bull. It is dangerous because it claims that the only solution to any situation is to fight—Cheney’s point exactly. Having done nothing beyond silly propaganda—despite its own claims—to undermine the jihadists by eliminating the economic and political oppression that form the basis of jihadist appeal, the Bush people counsel that the fight is everything and that talking is “appeasement.” We have seen in Lebanon lately just how misguided is that approach.

Bush administration history is like their reality—faith-based. President Bush himself, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, characterized those who saw and spoke the truth about the run-up to the Iraq war as “revisionists”—historians who try to change the conventional wisdom about the past. Cheney not long ago declared it was “inexcusable” to repeat that truth. The same speeches that contain the Munich claims portray the Iraqi and Afghan people as “awakening to a future of hope and freedom” (Cheney) and say the U.S. strategy in Iraq “has not changed” (Rumsfeld).

The faith is that if you repeat falsehoods enough times the public will believe them. There is another historical analogy there—a real one—to Adolf Hitler’s henchman, Josef Goebbels. He called it the “Big Lie.” No wonder the administration’s flacks need friendly audiences."

PCHR WEEKLY REPORT

IOF continue to raze agricultural land in Halhoul & Beit Omar to build sections of Annexation Wall.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

• 30 Palestinians, including 3 children, a mentally disabled young man and a woman, were killed by IOF.
• 20 of the victims were killed by IOF in al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
• 3 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in the West Bank.
• 52 Palestinian civilians, including 18 children and a woman, were wounded by the IOF gunfire.
• IOF launched a series of air strikes on a number of houses in the Gaza Strip.
• 3 houses were destroyed in Gaza City and Jabalya.
• IOF conducted 40 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and invaded al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
• IOF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including 6 children.
• IOF arrested a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah.
• IOF arrested 7 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
• IOF demolished 4 houses in Nablus.
• IOF destroyed civilian property in al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
• IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT; IOF have imposed a tightened siege on the Gaza Strip and there have been shortages of foodstuffs and fuels; and IOF positioned at a various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 5 Palestinian civilians.
• IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank; they razed more areas of land in Hebron for this purpose.
• Israeli settlers have continued attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in the OPT; settlers attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron; and a Palestinian child was wounded in Beit Fourik village near Nablus.
  

To read the entire report click HERE.

Israel Closes Crossing to Press Palestinians

According to Haaretz, this is the first time that the army and Shin Bet are calling for a closure on grounds other than intelligence on pending attacks.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – While UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged on Wednesday, August 30, a halt to the Gaza onslaught and lift of crippling closure, Haaretz said Israel closes the Rafah crossing to lay pressures on Palestinians to free a captured Israeli soldier.

"We oppose the opening of the crossing, even for a few hours, so long as the matter of the abducted soldier remains unchanged," Shin Bet told representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the customs and the ports authorities and advisers to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, according to a transcript obtained by Haaretz.

"Pressure on this matter must remain in place at this stage," insisted Israel's internal spy agency.

The Israeli army also agreed that Rafah crossing, Gaza's only window to the outside world, "should be opened on occasion only after the kidnapped soldier is released and the shooting from the Gaza Strip stops."

It wants to use the crossing "as a means of applying pressure."

Under an agreement signed in 2005, the crossing is run under Palestinian and Egyptian management and supervised by 70 European Union observers.

In practice Israel closes the crossing at will, on the pretext of "intelligence of an imminent attack."

This automatically prevents the European observers from reaching the crossing - which ensures that it remains closed.

According to Haaretz, this is the first time that the army and Shin Bet are calling for a closure on grounds other than intelligence on pending attacks.

During her visits to Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed that the crossing must be kept open as stipulated by the signed agreements.

More Killing

During a lightning visit to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the PA, Annan asked Israel to lift its crippling siege.

"The closure of Gaza must be lifted, the crossing points must be opened," he told a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The UN chief also professed for an end of the open-ended Israeli onslaught.

"Two hundred Palestinians have been killed since the end of June," he regretted. "This must stop immediately."

Annan also called for an end to the firing or Palestinian rockets into Israel, asking Tel Aviv to free Palestinian parliamentarians and officials held during the offensive, which was unleashed on June 28.

Israel launched the massive operation on the pretext of securing the release of a taken prisoner by Palestinian factions in a cross-border raid on June 25 that left two other soldiers dead.

The UN chief's remarks came as Israeli occupation forces killed nine Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Eight died in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, where Israeli soldiers have been operating since late Saturday.

They included a 14-year-old boy shot in the chest, two men in their 30s also gunned down and five others who died from tank fire, medical officials said.

In the occupied West Bank, Hossam Jaradat, the head of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, died from wounds sustained during an Israeli commando operation on August 23.

Wednesday's deaths bring to 19 the number of Palestinians killed in the Shejaiya neighborhood since Saturday.

The two-month Israeli offensive has claimed the lives of 204n Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left Gaza riddled with power shortages after its power plant was bombed out.

© IslamOnline.net + Agencies

Report: U.S. Secretly Negotiated with Gaza Kidnappers

The U.S. secretly agreed to the "real demands" set by the group behind the August 14 kidnapping of two Fox News journalists in Gaza, according to a report in the pan-Arab newspaper al Hayat.

The paper quotes "informed sources close to the mediations" as saying that the U.S. secretly negotiated with the group through leaders of "the Palestinian popular resistance committees."

Last week, the previously unknown group calling itself "The Holy Jihad Brigades" issued a statement demanding the release of all Muslims held in U.S. prisons in return for the release of the two journalists. In fact, the paper reports that the public demand was not serious and that the group's "real demands" were that the U.S. press Israel to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine and cease the shelling of "Palestinian activists'" residences.

According to the report, the mediators contacted a representative of a European country who in turn contacted U.S. and British diplomats. The paper's sources said in the report that members of a senior FBI delegation, who had arrived in the area a few days earlier, were also involved in the negotiations.

The announcement that the two journalists had converted to Islam as a reason for their release was only a camouflage to conceal the fact that the U.S. had agreed to the hostage-takers' demands, according to the sources cited in the article. A few days ago the Rafah crossing was reopened for a few hours daily, and the Israeli forces stopped shelling residences of activists in the past few days, noted the paper's sources.

When asked for a response by ABCNews.com, a State Department spokesperson refused to comment on the report in al Hayat. The department's stated policy has been that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.

Deception as a Way of Life

Israeli Myths
By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

"In a state established on a founding myth -- that the native Palestinian population left of their own accord rather than that they were ethnically cleansed -- and in one that seeks its legitimacy through a host of other lies, such as that the occupation of the West Bank is benign and that Gaza's has ended, deception becomes a political way of life.

And so it is in the "relative calm" that has followed Israel's month-long pounding of Lebanon, a calm in which Israelis may no longer be dying but the Lebanese most assuredly are as explosions of US-made cluster bombs greet the south's returning refugees and the anonymous residents of Gaza perish by the dozens each and every week under the relentless and indiscriminate strikes of the Israeli air force while the rest slowly starve in their open-air prison.

Israeli leaders deceive as much in "peace" as they do in war, which is why it is worth examining the slow trickle of disinformation coming from Tel Aviv and reflecting on where it is leading."

A Lebanese Armenian protester carries a placard during a demonstration against the participation of the Turkish troops in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. (AP Photo)

A Lebanese Armenian student carries a placard as others wave Lebanese flags during a demonstration against the participation of the Turkish troops in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, in front of the United Nations House in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006. US, EU and Israel pressed for peacekeepers from Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, and a country with close ties to Israel and Arab countries. The large Armenian population in Lebanon has loudly protested Turkish involvement. Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenians died or were killed over several years during World War I as part of a genocidal campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey. Arabic writing on banners, top right, reads 'Zionist racism=Turanic racism=Crimes against Humanity.' Turanism is a political movement that forms an important aspect of the ideology of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party. (AP )

DEMOCRACY, USRAELI STYLE
Anwar Zaboun, center, and other Hamas members of the Palestinian Parliament show gestures inside the Israeli military court at the Ofer military base between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006. An Israeli military court on Thursday set Dec. 12 as the date for the trial of two Palestinian Cabinet ministers, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament and 12 lawmakers seized in an Israeli roundup of prominent Hamas officials two months ago. (AP Photo)

A Lebanese woman tends her grandson who was wounded by an Israeli cluster bomb. The UN's top humanitarian official denounced Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last days of the Lebanon conflict as "immoral" and said that thousands of civilians were at risk from unexploded munitions(AFP)

ONE OF 100,000 LITTLE PRESENTS THE IOF LEFT FOR THE LEBANESE JUST BEFORE THE CEASEFIRE
A cluster bomb is seen in the yard of a house in the southern Lebanese village of Sultaniyeh. The UN's top humanitarian official denounced Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last days of the Lebanon conflict as "immoral" and said that thousands of civilians were at risk from unexploded munitions(AFP)

IF YOU DON'T HELP ME I AM GOING TO ...... CRY!

STOOGES OF THE EMPIRE NEED EACH OTHER

What a light upon nations...

Business owners in north can't get special loans because they aren't Jews

_{By Jack Khoury}

A business development center that works under the auspices of the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry has offered special loans for small businesses in the north, but it is making the special offer only to those businesses that are owned by Jews and former soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces.

The ministry said that the criteria for eligibility was determined by the owners of a private foundation that is funding the project.

At the end of the Lebanon war, the MATI organization announced it was offering special loans to residents of northern towns, which had suffered great damage when Hezbollah rockets hit homes and businesses.

A few Israeli Arab business owners who checked the loans for businesses in the Galilee happened upon a great deal: MATI was offering a NIS 45,000 loan, which will be paid back with no interest over a reasonable amount of time.

But the businessmen checked the criteria for eligibility for the loan and saw that it was intended only for Jews and ex-IDF troops.

The Musawa legal center has filed a complaint with the ministry several business owners complained over the criteria for the loan. The center's legal councilor has demanded to give business owners equal opportunities to take out the loans.

The head of the center has said the criteria are discriminatory and are in violation of laws against discrimination in public services and High Court rulings that state a body being funded by the government must not discriminate on the basis of nationality, religion, race or sex

He says, if MATI does not change the criteria for the loan, the center will file civil law suits in the name of several businesses in the north.

If they were PALESTINIAN they would be D E A D

4 Israelis beat IDF soldier, break through West Bank checkpoint

_{By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent}

Four Israelis were arrested Wednesday after attacking an Israel Defense Forces soldier and breaking through a West Bank checkpoint in an effort to reach the area of the evacuated Sa-Nur settlement. The men were arrested after soldiers fired warning shots in the air.

The four, ranging in age from 19-27, include two former Sa-Nur residents, reached the checkpoint and told told the soldiers that they want to visit the former settlement of Sa-Nur. Since the evacuation of the settlement as part of the disengagement plan last summer, the former settlement was designated by GOC Central Command as a closed military zone.

After the troops informed the men that they could not pass the checkpoint, they got out of their cars, beat one of the soldiers, and continued driving. Only after soldiers fired in the air did the men stop. The four were arrested and their remand will be extended on Thursday.

In recent weeks, police officers have faced a number of incidents in which individuals who resided in the evacuated settlements of Homesh and Sa-Nur have tried to reach the areas to mark one year since the evacuation of the settlements. In recent weeks, a number of small groups have evaded soldiers and police officers and found alternate routes to the former settlements.

Police sources regarded the attempts at reaching Homesh and Sa-Nur with severity.

"Whoever enters those areas is endangering himself," a police officer said, noting that Wednesday's incident was the most severe thus far.

The Man Who Has Been to America:

Why should Geneva Convention protections be applied to Guantanamo detainees? One innocent man's journey through the legal black hole of the War on Terror—four prisons, three countries, two years—may be the best argument yet.

McKenzie Funk
July 12 , 2006

IN THE ENEMY COMBATANT’S HOUSE, in the room where he eats and prays and sleeps, a single window casts its light on a single adornment: an enormous Soviet-era map of the world. It is the first thing I notice after I arrive unannounced one cold fall morning and am ushered into the warmth of the room. We sit on the floor below an elongated Africa, a tiny America, and a colossal, pink-shaded U.S.S.R. A brother with a prosthetic leg appears and lays out a brightly patterned sheet still covered with past meals’ bread crumbs. Non ham non, nonreza ham non, the Tajik proverb goes: “Bread is bread, crumbs are also bread.”

The enemy combatant serves the tea. He pours it before it’s properly steeped, dumps the watery cups back into the pot, and repeats. If he’s unhappy to see an American after Guantanamo, he doesn’t show it. He smiles, and two wrinkles appear on his left cheek. I ask him his full name. Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov, he tells me. He says he is 24 years old. He asks, “You want to know the story of my capture, yes?” To continue reading click HERE.

Meanwhile in Palestine

Israeli occupation forces kill 8 Palestinians in Gaza attack: Among those killed was a 14-year-old boy who was shot dead. A 30-year-old man was killed by a heavy caliber bullet to the head as he was on the rooftop of his house.

Annan: Israel must stop killing Palestinians: In meeting with Palestinian President Abbas in Ramallah, UN secretary-general slams Israel, says more than 200 Palestinians killed since the end of June. He also calls on Israel to lift blockade on Gaza, allow free transfer of goods

The Palestinian Vice-Prime Minister kidnapped by Israel: Former rector of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Al Najah in Nablus, Mr Shaer is a moderate person. He does not belong to any political party, and is not a member of Hamas as widespread in the media.

Holy Land: children go back to school as humanitarian crisis deepens: Are the government schools going to open as striking teachers protest the non-payment of salaries? How can families register their children for school with all of the accompanying fees for school books, stationary, uniforms, transportation and when they have balances owing from the last year which they cannot pay?

Cancel Law Preventing Palestinians from Filing Claims for Damages against the State: 30 August 2006 at 9:00am, an expanded of nine justices of the Israeli High Court of Justice, presided by Chief Justice Aharon Barak, will hear a petition filed by nine human rights organizations from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs), demanding that the Court declare void the amendments to the Civil Wrongs (Liability of the State) Law. The Law prevents Palestinians from seeking compensation from the State of Israel for damages inflicted by the Israeli security forces, even those inflicted outside of the context of a military operation.

Settlers uproot scores of olive trees in Yatta near Hebron: A group of right wing Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Sousa uprooted on Wednesday scores of olive trees that belong to Palestinian farmers from the nearby village of Yatta south of the West Bank city of Hebron.

Four residents killed and eight injured in Al Shujaeyya east of Gaza: Palestinian medical sources reported on Wednesday morning that four civilians were killed and eight injured by heavy machine gun fire from Israeli tanks in AL Shujaeyya area, east of the Gaza strip.

Nine Palestinians killed in Gaza: They included a 14-year-old boy shot in the chest, two men in their 30s also shot and five others who died from tank fire, medical officials said. Abbas "vigorously denounced Israeli aggression in the occupied territories, in particular in the Shejaiya quarter" of Gaza City, the statement said.

US: Settlers assaulting American citizens: Americans are unsafe in the Gaza Strip, and those in the Palestinian area should leave immediately, the US State Department said Tuesday. "In recent months, citizens of Western nations, including Americans, involved in pro-Palestinian volunteer efforts were assaulted and injured in the Occupied Territories by Israeli settlers and harassed by the (Israeli army). Those taking part in demonstrations, nonviolent resistance, and direct action are advised to cease such activity for their own safety," it said.

The Palestinian politicians being held prisoner in Israeli detention centres have their hearing postponed: The court said that the reason for the postponement was that they needed more time to examine the detainees' files and to decide if there is a valid case against the detained politicians.

Source: Israel delaying deal on Shalit: "The problem is that the Egyptian mediation team has no response from Israel, like as to when the prisoners would be released, how many and what type. Only with these responses will the mediators be able to offer something to the kidnappers. But Israel is not clarifying its positions. It is not taking any initiative that indicates its desire to complete the deal. There is no sign of readiness, there are no messages via Israel's overt channels, and the problem is - there are no messages even via the covert channels."

'Israelis want Palestinian ethnic cleansing': They also want to humiliate Dweik, who they have put in a small dirty cell, as well as the Arabs and Muslims and all those who sympathise with them. Despite strong condemnations and continuous contact with a lot of parliaments and parliamentarians, they are pursuing their policy as they clearly don't want a PG or a PLC. The coincidence of the imprisonment of Dweik with the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Ismail Haniya shows that there is a previously manipulated plan to undermine the Palestinian regime.

Annan: Israel must stop killing Palestinians: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon. In a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas he slammed Israel for hurting civilians and for the ongoing blockade on Gaza.

Nasrallah supporters still attacked at West Bank checkpoints: The popularity of Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah remains fixed in the minds of Israeli soldiers, as their actions at checkpoints indicate. The days of detaining Palestinians with photos of Nasrallah as their mobile phone screen savers, or celebratory cassettes in their cars, are not over.

Last two embassies leaving Jerusalem: President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica announced first that he had decided to move the embassy in order to conform with international law, AsiaNews reported. El Salvador then followed suit. Israel had reportedly given the two countries financial inducements to locate their embassies in Jerusalem after the 1967 war.

Analysts see 'disaster' in U.S. position: The authors of a hotly debated study on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington said yesterday that the Bush administration's unquestioning support for Israel's military action in Lebanon confirms their thesis that the power of the lobby hurts both U.S. and Israeli national interests. Mr. Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen M. Walt, an international affairs scholar and academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, showed no signs of backing away from their analysis of the U.S.-Israel lobby at a National Press Club briefing.