Thursday, June 21

Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines June 20, 2007 ~

Brought to you by Shadi Fadda

Israeli army kidnaps 10 Palestinians from several parts of the West Bank
The Israeli army invaded several parts of the West Bank on Wednesday morning and kidnapped 10 Palestinians on Wednesday morning.



Mixed reports concerning the future of Palestinians waiting at the Erez crossing

Mixed reports have been emanating from Israeli media sources regarding the fate of the Palestinians camped at the Erez crossing, some suggesting that they will not be allowed to enter the West Bank and other noting that a limited number will be allowed to cross.


Gaza hospital faces supply shortage
Doctors at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City are struggling to deal with catastrophic wounds from the Fatah-Hamas fighting, shortages of medicines and supplies - as well as their own traumas from being dragged into the conflict.



Gaza could face food shortages in 2-4 weeks -U.N.

JERUSALEM, June 20 (Reuters) - The Hamas-held Gaza Strip could start running out of flour, rice, edible oil and other commodities in 2-4 weeks unless Israel reopens the enclave's border crossings, the United Nations said on Wednesday.



Israel strikes Qassam launchers following rocket attack

Gunmen fire two Qassams from northern Gaza, Israel responds by bombing rocket launchers near Beit Hanoun, destroying them completely .


Hundreds huddle in tunnel, hoping to flee Hamas rule
At the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, a man with a three-day growth of beard and blue jeans raised his fist and let out a hoarse scream amid the stench and desperation of the men, women and children who have been gathered there for days, unable to go forward, unwilling to go back.



Israel allowing 'foreigners out of Gaza'

Israel is allowing all foreign nationals to leave Hamas-controlled Gaza and enter Israel, an Israeli military spokesman says.


Engage With Hamas: We Earned Our Support
The Palestinian National Authority apparently joins the list of elected governments targeted or toppled over the past century by interventionism: nations that had the courage to take American rhetoric at face value and elect whomever they would. No doubt some in Washington persist in the fiction that the United States is following a "road map" to democracy for Palestinians, just as others believe the Iraq war has been a sincere exercise in nation-building. Neoconservative strategists have miscalculated, however, and Hamas is stronger than ever.


What Hamas Wants
THE events in Gaza over the last few days have been described in the West as a coup. In essence, they have been the opposite. Eighteen months ago, our Hamas Party won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and entered office under Prime Minister Ismail Haniya but never received the handover of real power from Fatah, the losing party. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has now tried to replace the winning Hamas government with one of his own, returning Fatah to power
while many of our elected members of Parliament languish in Israeli jails. That is the real coup.


Top Hamas official: We will not be 'protector' of Israeli border

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud a-Zahar said Wednesday that his group wants to maintain calm in the Gaza Strip, but will not be the protector of the Israeli border.

Hamas official calls for independent gov't as way out of PA crisis
A senior exiled Hamas leader called Wednesday for the formation of a new Palestinian goverment made up of independent technocrats without Fatah or Hamas members as a way out of the crisis sparked by the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and subsequent dissolution of the unity government.



Fatah rejects Hamas' overtures

Fatah flatly rejected a Hamas overture for dialogue yesterday, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas banned all contacts with the Islamic group. Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas's national security adviser and Hamas's arch-nemesis, branded the Islamists an "occupation force" in Gaza, the phrase commonly used to denounce Israel.



An in interview with Reuters, Dahlan warns West Bank is being overrun by Hamas

On Tuesday, Fateh leader and the previous head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces in the Gaza Strip, Mohammad Dahlan, warned that Hamas is overtaking the West Bank after it completely seized power in the Gaza Strip last week.



PMO: Olmert and Abbas have agreed to meet in the coming week

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to meet next week on a date and at a location yet to be decided, the Prime Minister's Office announced Wednesday.


US Consul-General: "We are offering our full support to the new government headed by Dr Salam Fayyad
Jacob Walles, the current US Consul General and Chief of mission has occupied his current position since July 20, 2005. Previous to this assignment, he served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and has a long history of participation in Middle Eastern affairs.


Carter blasts US policy on Palestinians
DUBLIN, Ireland - Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.



Foreigners and Egypt diplomatic mission leaves the Gaza strip

Egyptian news papers reported on Wednesday the Egyptian government has decided to move its diplomatic mission from the Gaza strip to the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank.



Open the gates immediately

Many Israelis are watching the television news these days with feelings of powerlessness and shame. They see hundreds of haunted and frightened women and children crowding into the corridor of the Erez crossing and asking to be allowed to flee Gaza through Israel to the West Bank in order to save their lives.



Inside Gaza - calm returns at end of a gun

In the spacious, top-floor office of Gaza's former police chief, the television was tuned to al-Aqsa TV, the Hamas channel, and at lunchtime half a dozen well-armed, bearded Hamas commanders rose in unison and knelt in prayer .



The scene of Fatahland flowering as Hamastan wilts is sheer fantasy

The utter confusion did not last long. For a few days, the key players in the Middle East conflict were simply too stunned by last week's events to react. They could see that the landscape had changed completely - that the Palestinian national movement had split in two, with Hamas seizing Gaza, leaving Fatah in charge of the West Bank, thereby stumbling into a "two-statelet solution" no one ever planned. But what this meant for the historic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, no one was sure.

The Light at the End of the Gaza-Ramallah Tunnel
The lightening success of Hamas in forcefully taking over the supposed symbols of Palestinian power in Gaza cannot and ought not obscure the fact that, given the overbearing presence of Israel's military occupation, the bloody clash between the Islamist group and its secular counterpart, Fatah, and irrespective of motives, has descended into a feud between two slaves fighting over the crumbs thrown to them, whenever they behave, by their common colonial master.


Leftist PFLP clams attacks against a Church in Gaza, Statue of Unknown Soldier
The Leftists Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) slammed on Tuesday an attack carried by unknown vandals against the Latin Church, and the Statue of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza.


Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem: Occupation Hurts Human Dignity on Both Sides
Doing justice to the Palestinian people would bring about security for Israel, while delaying the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories feeds extremism and terrorism, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah told participants at a church conference for peace in Middle East on Monday .



Lebanon: Rights group calls for probe into Palestinian abuse claims

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the Lebanese army's month-long siege and shelling of the north Lebanon Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, as its battle against Islamist militants continues. But one 16 year-old Palestinian student told IRIN his worst ordeal began after he escaped the camp. About 10 men he identified as soldiers and police were standing at a junction leading to the village of Muhammara, above Nahr El-Bared. "They asked to see my identity card," said the boy, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. "As soon as they saw it was blue (for Palestinian), they said 'Take him'." "They tied me up with plastic ties, pushed me to the floor and beat me with rifle butts." The beating occurred there and then, he said, then they took him to a nearby military headquarters where the treatment continued.


Palestinian refugees determined to rebuild Nahr al-Bared lives
Thousands of Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, refugees in the nearby camp of Beddawi, dream only of returning to their battered homes and rebuilding their lives.



BBC marks 100 days of reporter's Gaza captivity

Hamas says it is working to secure the release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who has now been held hostage for 100 days by Palestinian extremists in Gaza .
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