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Arab residents of East Jerusalem are finding themselves increasingly under threat of what one Israeli human rights organisation calls "quiet transfer." According to information obtained by the B'Tselem rights group from Israel's Interior Ministry, the number of Arab residents on the eastern side of the disputed city who had their permanent residency status revoked in 2006 increased dramatically -- more than six fold. While the number stood at 272 in 2003 and was 222 in 2005, last year 1,363 residents of East Jerusalem had their residency status revoked.
OPT: World Food Program aid trucks awaiting access to Gaza
Twenty-two trucks of relief materials for the Palestinians in Gaza arrived Tuesday at the Egyptian side of Rafah crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border, the official MENA news agency reported. The trucks carrying 400 tons of flour provided by the World Food Program (WFP) are awaiting access to the costal strip, where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating.
Since the pre-dawn hours today, 14 August 2007, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has been waging a large-scale incursion into the town of New Abasan to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Up to the publication of this press release, IOF killed four Palestinians: two civilians, one of them an elderly woman, and two resistance activists who attempted to resist the incursion. In addition, IOF injured 14 Palestinians. It is noted that IOF continue to prevent ambulances from reaching the injured. In addition, IOF are carrying out a major arrests campaign in the area. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights warns against the continued IOF presence in the town, which could lead to additional casualties and destruction of property. It is noted that, since 1 June 2007, IOF have killed 72 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. These victims included 47 unarmed civilians, among them nine children and one woman.
The Israeli army withdrew from Abasan area, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip and invading it earlier on Tuesday. Seven residents, including four fighters, were killed and at least 15 were officially reported injured; the army also uprooted and bulldozed agricultural lands, and some homes.
Israeli army bulldozers started to bulldoze trees in a forest located near Al Walaja west of Bethlehem city in the southern part of the West Bank on Wednesday morning.
Israeli army conducted wide scale military operation that targeted the northern West Bank city of Nablus Wednesday morning.
On August 13 between 9 and 10 am, the demolition of the Bedouin village of al-Hadidiya in the Jordan Valley began. Two homes, belonging to Abdullah Hafez Yusuf Bani Odeh and Abdullah Hussein Bisharat, were destroyed along with nearby animal enclosures.
The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip, which was dissolved by president Mahmoud Abbas when he declared emergency law, and formed a new emergency government, slammed attacks carried by the Hamas-formed Executive Force against reporters in Gaza on Monday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health slammed on Tuesday the Israeli invasion into the Gaza Strip earlier in the day which left six residents, including a mother and her son, dead and dozens of residents injured in an area close to Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The Al Mezan Center For Human Rights called on the International Community to provide the Palestinian people with the needed protection as the Israeli army continued its attacks and violations, and killed four residents in Gaza earlier on Tuesday. The number of killed residents arrived to six during the day.
Three more bodies found after Israeli occupation forces withdrew from Gaza
Palestinian paramedics found three more corpses after Israeli occupation troops withdrew from southeastern Gaza Strip Tuesday afternoon, raising the total death toll during the 18-hour military operation to seven.
A Village Makes Its Own Protest
Amidst acres of twisting olive trees in front of the Israeli apartheid wall, eight protesters in a weekly nonviolent demonstration were injured and three arrested on Friday when Israeli occupation soldiers fired rounds of tear gas,
smoke bombs, sound grenades and rubber bullets at the crowd in the West Bank village of Bil'in. Five Palestinian children and a paramedic were also wounded as over one hundred protesters, including village residents, Israeli activists and international campaigners took part in a weekly demonstration that has been planned every Friday for more than two years.
Refugees, Again
In June 2006, Dr. Tawfiq Assad stepped out of the seaside Rafiq Hariri airport in Beirut and took a deep breath of the Mediterranean air. It wasn't home but it was as close to it as he had ever been. Dr. Assad returned to Lebanon to visit family and friends for what he thought would only be a few weeks' stay. A Palestinian refugee himself, Dr. Assad's story is not uncommon. His family was forced from their home in Nazareth during the Nakba in 1948 when the Zionist armies invaded to make way for the Jewish state.
Hamas Force Condemned for Political Arrests, Press Restrictions
On Friday 10 August 2007, the Hamas-affiliated Executive Force (EF) attacked two wedding parties and a civilian demonstration. It also arrested several Fatah members and a cameraman in Beit Hanoun town, northern Gaza Strip. According to investigations by Al Mezan, at approximately 5pm on Friday members of the EF arrested four of Fatah's high ranking members in Beit Hanoun. They were identified as 41-year-old Faris Nai'm, 45-year-old Maher Abu Harbid, 40-year-old Issa Al Mughrabi, and Shihdeh Abu Zreiq. The latter is the headmaster of Hail Abdul Hamid Secondary School.
Palestinian Abbas issues decree excluding Hamas from elections
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday issued a decree that effectively excludes the rival Hamas movement from elections.
Abbas's office denies publishing electoral law decree
"The President has held discussions with groups from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on a draft of an electoral law, with the aim of publishing a presidential decree on the next elections," Ahmad Daud, the director of Mr Abbas's press office told AFP. "But this decree has not yet been published."
UK blocks Israel arms deals
The British government has blocked almost one third of British military exports to Israel this year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment might facilitate human rights violations.
The Salem Israeli military court extended the remand of Jamal Al Tirawy, a legislator of the Fateh parliamentarian bloc, for additional two months after the prosecution presented its "case" against him which included 17 charges.
Senior US official to visit Israel on military aid
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns will travel to Israel this week to discuss the proposed $30 billion, 10-year U.S. military aid package for the Jewish state, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday. The Bush administration announced the money for Israel as well as plans to give Egypt $13 billion in defense assistance on July 30. The Israeli package amounts to an increase of about 25 percent over previous years.
This week on Crossing the Line: Independent journalist Ben White joins host Christopher Brown to discuss the Israeli Ministry of Education's "inclusion" of the Palestinian Nakba into students' textbooks. White points out a number of concerns regarding the supposed enlightenment of the Israeli school system and its broader implications.
Legally questionable land purchases have played a role in bringing one of Israel's largest contractors and one of the chief builders of West Bank settlements to the brink of bankruptcy, says the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now.
PALESTINIAN PEACE activist Zghoubi Zghoubi travelled to the UK last week to tell Christians here that the situation in the West Bank is getting worse.
The Palestinian Authority government will recover Gaza sooner than people think, PA Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told a group of Israeli and Palestinian journalists in Ramallah on Tuesday.
After his defeat by Hamas in Gaza, Mahmoud Abbas has not become any more capable, efficient or forceful. But he has acquired an important ally - the government of Israel. Olmert hugs and kisses him, showers him with good-will gestures, like the release of Palestinian prisoners, the transfer of large sums money, and the removal of IDF roadblocks (if the defense minister will only agree).
At first, the road sign at a busy intersection in this town looks like any other: A raised silhouette of a hand on a red background in a circular white border. But the index and middle fingers of the hand are missing, and the warning written in Arabic in the border has only a tangential connection to traffic control: Awkefu al-ketel "Stop the killing."
Grant F. Smith's latest book, "Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee From The 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal," reveals the controversial history of the influential lobbying organization, known as "AIPAC". It comes on the heels of his insightful tome, "Deadly Dogma," an expose' of the Neocons, where he evidenced their lethal scheme, which they called "A Clean Break," to destabilize Iraq. (1) In this new book, "Foreign Agents," Mr. Smith argues that AIPAC, a corporation, should be required to register as a foreign agent for Israel. He accuses it of morphing into a "secretive political intelligence-gathering and covert operations powerhouse...and Israeli-controlled entity in America." Naturally, AIPAC disagrees with him.
These words came from feisty Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations (1967-1970) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1970-1974). Moorer was, perhaps, the last independent-minded American military leader.
This morning (August 14th) we once again had to listen to a report about an Israeli raid into Gaza reported by Linda Gradstein from Jerusalem. Why is it that NPR regularly reports about events in Gaza from Jerusalem; and why is it that Ms.Gradstein, who has reported for NPR on Middle East issues for several years now, rarely if ever has set foot in Gaza?
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu easily won re-election as head of the rightist Likud party and pledged on Wednesday to reclaim Israel's leadership. A year after Likud was routed in a national election, Netanyahu has rebounded in opinion polls that have shown a steep plunge in the popularity of the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who leads the centrist Kadima party.
Lawyers for Muslim charity leaders accused of aiding Hamas terrorists scored a rare victory in court Tuesday when a federal judge blocked some evidence seized by Israel Defense Forces soldiers during raids of Palestinian organizations. Defense lawyers had objected that some of the documents were not signed or dated, and they cast doubt on Israel's handling of the evidence.
Republican 2008 White House front-runner Rudolph Giuliani warned Tuesday it was not in the interest of the United States to help create a Palestinian state that would "support terrorism." In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, the former New York mayor also said too much emphasis had been placed on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which he said just brought up the same issues "again and again." Giuliani renamed the US "war on terror" as "the Terrorists' War on US" in his hawkish article in the September/October issue of the magazine, and predicted a long battle against "radical Islamic fascism."
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