Tuesday, July 31

Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines July 31, 2007 ~

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144 Settlements in the West Bank are housing 476,000 Israel settlers
The Palestinian Census Bureau issued a report stating that there are 144 Israeli settlements, housing 476,000 Israeli settlers, spread all over the West Bank, including the occupied city of Jerusalem.  The report, which is for the year 2006, states that 26 of those settlements are in the occupied city of Jerusalem, 16 of them already annexed to Jerusalem.

Israeli setters attempt to reoccupy an evacuated W.B settlement for the 3rd time in two weeks
Israeli police and army troops forcibly removed around 30 Israeli right-wing settlers from location of the evacuated West Bank settlement of Homesh early Tuesday morning.  Today attempt by the setters was the fourth in lest than two weeks, this former settlement was evacuated as part of the disengagement in August 2005.
 
A Palestinian prisoner dies of bad health conditions
The Palestinian Prisoners society reported that a Palestinian political prisoner died in the clinic of an Israeli Jail on Tuesday afternoon.  The sources identified the prisoner as Shadi Al Su'edi, 27 from Al Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza strip. He was kidnapped by Israeli military forces from the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia were he works as a security officer in the Palestinian Authority.
 
Israeli army detains 15 Palestinians in West Bank
The Israeli army detained 15 Palestinians and found an arms storehouse in the West Bank amid intensified military operations, Palestinian security sources said on Tuesday. The sources said an Israeli army unit stormed the village of Kofor Dan, west of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, during which three Jihad (holy war) militants were detained and one of them was injured.
 
Rights groups: Rafah border crossing must be opened
Israeli, Palestinian and European human rights organizations today issued a joint declaration calling on Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the European Union, and Egypt, to immediately open Gaza's borders to passenger traffic, irrespective of their political agenda concerning Hamas. The organizations jointly stated that residents of the Strip must not be used as pawns in the struggle for control in Gaza. The continuous closure of the border crossing for more than six weeks is causing severe harm to hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents who cannot leave the Strip or return to it, impairing their ability to earn a living, receive medical treatment, or pursue education abroad. Various reports indicate that more than 20 people have already died while waiting to return to Gaza from Egypt.
 
Open letter: Suspend Israel from Euro 2008 competition
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) urges the Football Association (FA), the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to take appropriate measures to suspend the national Israeli football team from all international fixtures until the state of Israel entirely complies with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions to end Israeli occupation. This should include a suspension of the Israeli team from the current Euro 2008 qualifiers.
 
Lebanese army continues bombarding N refugee camp
Lebanese army continued bombarding Fatah al-Islam militants' hideouts at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Monday, local Future TV reported. The troops used tank and artillery to shell the remaining strongholds of Fatah al-Islam militants in the Nahr al-Bared camp, said the report, adding that sporadic fighting erupted inside the camp, some 12 km north the port city of Tripoli.

Hamas Plans New Intel Force in Gaza
The deposed Hamas government in Gaza is setting up a new intelligence service in the Gaza Strip, according to a report in the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat.  The establishment of a new security force is part of the ongoing rivalry between Fatah and Hamas after the latter took over the Gaza Strip last June.
 
On Palestinian resistance fighter from the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, was injured on Tuesday in the village of Kafr Dan, to the west of Jenin city in the northern part of the West Bank during armed clash with invading Israeli troops that stormed the village.
 
The military wing of the Hamas movement, the Qassam Brigades, on Monday announced the death of one of its members, Nidal Dabbash, who had been missing for twelve years. Dabbash was from the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City.

The five IDF soldiers involved in critically wounding a Palestinian civilian last Thursday have testified that they were only carrying out orders. "We followed our commander with our eyes closed, we trusted him, and we didn't think at any moment that what he was telling us to do was illegal," the soldiers said.
 
When the Islamist group Hamas conquered the Gaza Strip in June it seized an intelligence-and-military infrastructure created with U.S. help by the security chiefs of the Palestinian territory's former ruler.

Hamas gives Gaza tour to journalists to prove Strip is safe
Hamas urged the world's media on Monday to publicize what its leader called the suffering of the people of Gaza under an international embargo, after a tour for journalists aimed at showing the Islamists had brought peace. "Gaza today is better," Ismail Haniyeh, still calling himself Palestinian Authority prime minister, told dozens of foreign reporters who joined a bus tour of the coastal enclave that took in a prison, a church, border posts and security installations.
 
The International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday accused the Islamic Resistance movement (Hamas) of "flagrant violation of press freedom" after militants seized Palestinian newspapers.
 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in remarks aired on Monday he would welcome any push for rapprochement with Islamist group Hamas if it relinquishes control over the Gaza Strip.
 
Israel has renewed contacts with official Palestinian Authority representatives abroad, in the wake of the formation of the Palestinian government headed by independent Salam Fayad.  Last week, the Foreign Ministry issued instructions to all its ambassadors and consuls, saying that, "In light of the new situation that has emerged in the Palestinian Authority, and the formation of the new government headed by Salam Fayad, the instructions that banned all contacts with official Palestinian diplomatic representatives have been altered.

 
Mahmoud al-Zahhar, a prominent leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), showed on Tuesday documents verifying that President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is corrupted.  Al-Zahhar, showing dozens of documents to verify real and serious financial corruption during a news conference, said that "the documents show that huge amounts of money were paid to officials and to their children who studied abroad."
 
Palestinian Authority welcome withdrawal of UN statement to investigate Gaza crisis
The Palestinian Authority on Monday welcomed the withdrawal of a proposed United Nations Security Council statement meant to express concern over the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Since the militant Hamas faction violently seized control of the coastal territory in mid-June, the crossings along its borders have largely remained closed, creating a severe shortage of food and other essentials.
 
New U.S. bill may grant Israelis exemption from tourist visas
Israel is on the list of nations whose citizens may be able to visit the United States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa in advance.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates joined forces in the Middle East on Tuesday to push Arab allies to do more to stabilise Iraq and counter the rise of Iran.

US tests Israeli willingness for wider peace talks
The United States wants Israel to expand the scope of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hoping to begin pushing forward on core issues like borders, diplomats and Israeli officials said on Tuesday.
Russia has downgraded its ties with Palestinian group Hamas and plans no high-level contacts with it in the near future, First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said on Tuesday.  

Fatah inquiry commission: Exile officials who failed against Hamas
More than 100 senior officials, officers, security guards and members of Fatah who escaped to the West Bank should be exiled to Egypt owing to their failure in preventing Hamas' Gaza takeover, the Palestinian Authority's inquiry committee recommended on Tuesday.

After 60 years of statehood, electricity begins flowing to Ein Hud for first time
After nearly 60 years of statehood, and three decades of battling for recognition of the village of Ein Hud, local council head Mohammed Abu al-Hija's home was connected Monday to the national electric grid.
The Military Advocate General's office on Monday warned Jewish families residing in Hebron's old market that should the IDF be instructed to forcefully evacuate them from the site, they would be held financially responsible.

Hasan El Hassan: Blair Has to Renew Allegiance to Israel
Under the present conditions of naked power struggle between the Palestinian factions and the weakness of the Arab states, Israel alone will set the scope of the peace missions and the agendas of peace conferences.

Guillotining Gaza, by Noam Chomsky
THE death of a nation is a rare and somber event. But the vision of a unified, independent Palestine threatens to be another casualty of a Hamas-Fatah civil war, stoked by Israel and its enabling ally the United States. L ast month's chaos may mark the beginning of the end of the Palestinian Authority. That might not be an altogether unfortunate development for Palestinians, given US-Israeli programmes of rendering it nothing more than a quisling regime to oversee these allies' utter rejection of an independent state.
 
Expensive jeeps and cars line the pristine streets. Expensive villas nestle behind high stone walls.  Whereas many modern Palestinian homes are built from cinderblocks, here there are opulent four-storey residences, many of them clad in marble.

 
So much has happened since we left Gaza and in such a short period of time. If it was mentally exhausting being there, it is even more overwhelming being away and processing it all.

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