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Palestinians prevented from accessing their land despite High Count ruling
Deir Al Hattab is a village of 13,000 dunums that has been able to reach only 5,000 since 1986 due to the grabbing of land from the settlement Elon Moreh done in collusion with the Israeli occupying forces. Elon Moreh is situated on two hilltops and between these hilltops is around 2,000 dunums of land they have decided to annex. In 1993 the Israeli High Court ruled that the Palestinian villagers who own the land must be allowed to access it. In response the military has declared all of it a closed military zone and prevents villagers from working or visiting their land.
Salfit: When the Occupation is just a business
Salfit is one of the cities of the northern West Bank most affected by the presence of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Ariel, the largest settlement in the West Bank—in addition to a further 16 settlements—are built on Salfit land, with a total population of some 40,000 Israeli settlers. The presence of these settlements affects the area not just through the stealing of land to build the settlement itself, but also by the path of the Separation Wall, built to "secure" the settlements from the local Palestinian population. . . It is precisely when going along this road that it becomes clear what is wrong. It is the smell: a horrible smell of waste water. This is a river of wastewater, coming directly from the settlement of Ariel and the industrial zone of Barkan.
Settlers steal Palestinian water in the West Bank – and worse
Residents of the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh in the West Bank have cut a water pipe carrying drinking water to the nearby Palestinian village of Dir al-Khatab, and the rerouted water pipe is being used to fill a swimming pool. So, the pipe brings fresh drinking water into the pool and drains dirty water back into the village's water system. "The little [settler] kids pee in the water, which flows straight to the taps of the Palestinian school."
http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/daily_news/settlers_steal_palestinian_water_in_the_west_bank_200708196433/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439192,00.html <- another version
Soldiers get rough with protesters in Umm Salamuna
This is the second such protest to have taken place in recent weeks as the community has become increasingly concerned about the illegal annexation of Palestinian land. At the beginning of the demonstration locals hung up banners at the entrance to the site which bulldozers use daily. They clearly outlined the community's opposition with slogans stating 'Our land is the key issue,' 'We are nothing without land,' while on the march they chanted 'No to occupation,' 'No to house demolitions,' 'No to tree destruction.
Urgent action appeal to UN to stop the assaults against Negev villages
In the early morning hours of Monday, 25 June 2007, a large contingent of Israeli police forces, along with support from the Israel Border Patrol and under orders from the Israeli Ministry of Interior, sadly demolished 28 structures, including 25 houses, in the Unrecognized Village, of Attir - Umm al-Hiran that left over 150 men, women and little children homeless without any personal belongings or means of shelter in the scorching heat of the Naqab Desert.
Troops invade Nablus, two of its refugee camps
Palestinian sources in Nablus reported on Sunday at dawn that Israeli troops, supported by armored vehicles, invaded the city, its Balata and Al Ein refugee camps, and exchanged fire with resistance fighters. Eyewitnesses reported that soldiers broke into several houses and searched them, and that troops also detonated some walls of houses that are attached to each other and used the gaps in the detonated walls as passages between the houses.
Soldiers abuse patient near Jenin as he was heading to hospital in Ramallah for surgery
Soldiers forced Nasser Jamal out of the car, and made him wait along with dozens of residents who were stranded there for several hours. "I showed them my medical report and the surgery appointment", he said, "but then one soldiers accused me of lying to them, and that all Palestinians are liars who carry medical document as a pretext to pass and carry attacks". At that moment, the soldier called on another soldier to come over, and when the second soldier came he asked Jamal about the location of his pain.When Jamal pointed to his stomach, the soldier hit him on it with his weapon, and Jamal fell on the ground while the soldiers started laughing at him, and the troops, including one soldier who said that he is a physician, started insulting him. The torture and abuse continued for 30 minutes, and then the soldiers told the driver to take Jamal away without allowing them to cross. Jamal went to Jenin hospital suffering from stomach bleeding which accumulated to his prior health condition
Gaza suffers more power cuts after EU freezes funding
Parts of the Gaza Strip were still suffering blackouts on Sunday after the European Union suspended the financing of fuel deliveries for the impoverished territory's only power plant. The Islamists and the Western-backed government in Ramallah accused each other of being responsible for the "criminal" cuts and called on Gazans to come out on to the streets in protest. "We have temporarily suspended the fuel supplies due to security concerns," EU spokeswoman Antonia Mochan told AFP. "We are just going to assess the situation and we hope to resume the supplies as soon as we can." A senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told AFP the EU made its decision because of problems collecting money from Hamas. According to the current arrangement, the EU finances fuel deliveries, while the Palestinian electricity company collects payments from consumers and deposits them into finance ministry accounts. Hamas assumed control over the electricity company several weeks ago
Act II in the war crimes by Abbas and Fayyad against the Palestinians in Gaza
It is becoming clear, day by day, that the Ramallah gang is determined to starve and to inflict as much suffering on the Palestinians in Gaza, to bring down the democratically elected Hamas government. Now, act two in this cruel and unconscionable strategy by Abbas and Fayyad is unfolding. It involves cutting off fuel supplies for the electric generating station in Gaza. With full coordination with Israel, the crossing through which the fuel is shipped from Israel was closed a few days ago, "for security reasons." That led to cutting the electric production by 75%. Now Israel is claiming that the crossing is open again -- but there is a catch. The Israeli company which supplies the fuel is now saying that the EU, which had agreed to pay for the fuel shipment, is in fact refusing to pay and a decision will not be coming until Monday.
The real story is that the Vichy government of Abbas and Fayyad has asked the EU not to pay and to work with Israel to stop the supply of fuel.
U.S. to train Palestinian presidential guard
U.S. diplomatic security officials will begin training the Palestinian presidential guard this year in an effort to support the government of President Mahmoud Abbas, the State Department said on Sunday. Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, presidential guard officers would take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
The great Middle East peace process scam
In fact, all previous peace initiatives have got nowhere for a reason that neither Bush nor the EU has had the political courage to acknowledge. That reason is the consensus reached long ago by Israel's decision-making elites that Israel will never allow the emergence of a Palestinian state which denies it effective military and economic control of the West Bank. To be sure, Israel would allow – indeed, it would insist on – the creation of a number of isolated enclaves that Palestinians could call a state, but only in order to prevent the creation of a binational state in which Palestinians would be the majority. The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history.
Israeli army wounds three Palestinians in southern Gaza
Medical sources in Khan Younis city confirmed that three wounded have been evacuated to the European hospital, south of the city. Eyewitnesses reported that a group of resistance fighters clashed earlier in the day with an Israeli army force that thrust into the area. The invading force was made up of scores of tanks and armored vehicles, said locals. Last Tuesday, the Israeli tanks invaded the Abbassan town in southern Gaza, killing seven Palestinians including an elderly woman and arresting about 100 others.
Al Mezan Center demands probe into death of Gaza resident
Initial investigations by the Center revealed that the family of Nimir Abul-Karim Abu Mhadi, 44, received a phone call on Sunday at dawn, and the caller informed them that their son is near the evacuated settlement of Nitzarim, in the southern of the Gaza Strip. When his family went to the location they found their son bleeding and took him to Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City where he died of his wounds. Medical sources reported that after forensics examined the body of Abu Mhadi they revealed that he was tortured and that he was shot in his left knee. He was also tied for a long period which caused bleeding in his tissues.
Detainees facing harsh conditions, prepare for hunger strike
Detainee Mohammad Faidy stated that the detainees are subjected to physical torture and psychological pressure by the jailors. They informed the lawyer that they are not provided with sufficient food, and that the food they get is of a bad quality. The Nafha Society warned that the detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities are subjected to ongoing violations, and that the Israeli practices violate the international law and the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Israel is holding nearly 11000 Palestinian prisoners, including children and women, and dozens of detainees are in direct need for medical attention but are deprived from this right.
Haniyeh urges Abbas to hold early elections for PLO council
The call came in response to Abbas' threats to hold early PA parliamentary elections although Hamas still has two years of its Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) term to serve. Haniyeh said Abbas' bid to hold early legislative elections "will not succeed without national understanding and without constitutional justification."
Palestinian leader fires dozens of Hamas civil servants
In a belated move to erase the last vestiges of his short-lived partnership with the Islamic militant group Hamas, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah fired dozens of Hamas-affiliated senior civil servants, an official in his office said Saturday. Those affected were hired last spring under a power-sharing agreement between the rival factions.
Egyptian police forces find explosive cache in Sinai near Gaza border
Police discovered the cache, 500 kg of TNT, covered with bushes in northern Sinai after receiving a tip from local Bedouins, an official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He said Bedouins employed by local authorities then led police to the explosives stash near el-Toayel village, some 25 kilometers west of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Senior Arab officials tell Israel Syria is not planning to attack
This is part of a broader effort by moderate Arab states to contain the tension emerging between Jerusalem and Damascus . The officials say the Syrian military preparations are defensive, and are a "mirror image" of similar Israeli movements in the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, Syria has received 10 batteries of advanced anti-aircraft missiles, Russian sources say. This is the first in a series of shipments that are to include 36 such batteries. The Israeli defense establishment is closely following the Syrian rearmament because of the implications it holds for the Lebanese front.
Gideon Levy: Who is loony?
Netanyahu, like Feiglin, supports a continuation of the occupation and both are adherents of the one-state solution - a "Jewish," occupying and racist state in which two types of people live: Jews, superior, and Arabs, inferior. Neither have any real intention of changing the current state of affairs. Feiglin speaks about a Jewish state, racial purity, and Netanyahu indeed does not dare to utter such things, but the non-solution he proposes - like anyone who opposes a complete end of the occupation - will continue to bolster the status quo, which means a Jewish state, ostensibly, with a huge Arab population living a dog's life. The opinion polls show that Netanyahu is the most popular leader in Israel today. This says something about Israel and its mood: It does not want peace.
Israeli vacationers take wrong turn, end up in Jericho
The couple and their three young children, on their way from Jerusalem to a resort in Tiberias, took a wrong turn at the Almog junction and found themselves in the West Bank city of Jericho. The Palestinian policemen, said Dror, were very surprised to see an Israeli car (recognizable by its yellow license plate) coming towards them. The family car was pulled over by Palestinian police officers. The couple alerted the Israeli police and 20 minutes later, they were joined by an Israeli police car, which escorted them back to safety. ['Safety', right. Lucky they weren't Palestinians taking a wrong turn into an Israeli area – they'd be in jail or dead.]
In Gaza, a lion's return brings hope
In the grubby little zoo outside Gaza City , a man gave a thumbs up to a lion in a cage. "Welcome back," he said, as his children beamed at the animal. Sabrina had been snatched from her cage two years earlier, and the young cub had become a symbol of the lawlessness that characterized the Gaza Strip. But last month, Hamas forces freed Sabrina from a notorious criminal gang. To many Gazans, Sabrina's release is a vivid example of how security has improved since the Islamic militant group Hamas routed Fatah forces to take control of the Gaza Strip.
Germans protest over sale of food from West Bank settlements
BERLIN - The opening of "Israel Week" at the Galeria Kaufhof department store in Berlin spurred a demonstration Saturday against Israeli food products originating in the territories. Protesters held signs reading "No to settlement products" and "Stop the Israel-EU Association Agreement." "We have to encourage the Germans to be more critical of the Israeli occupation," said Ruth Fructman, a Berlin journalist who was demonstrating. "Right now it's still hard for them, especially because every time they criticize Israel, they're accused of anti-Semitism," she said.
Khalid Amayreh: How did Suha Arafat amass all those millions?
At the time of his death, Arafat's assets were estimated at $200 million by the Forbes magazine. Forbes listed him ninth in its ranking of the world's wealthiest heads of state, even though he was a ruler without a country and many of his people were (are) suffering from abject poverty. While the exact details of Suha's present fortune are still not known, it is very likely that the bulk of her assets has been arrogated from monies that belonged to the Palestinian people. Suha was not known as a businesswoman and she didn't hail from a particularly rich family. it is imperative that the Palestinian society raise the issue and exert meaningful pressure on government officials so that they immediately order a full and comprehensive investigation into Suha Arafat's finances.
Tossing fuel on a fire: US military aid to Israel tops $39 billion
Israel is a land of only 6 million people. That works out to about $5000 in arms aid per man, woman and child, and of course, since nearly a third of the people in Israel are Palestinian, and won't see a penny's (or bullet's) worth of that aid, it's really closer to $7500 per person. And remember, this is no basket case nation; this is one of the most technologically developed and wealthiest countries on earth we're talking about here. Viewed another way, the new military aid to Israel, which represents a 25 percent increase over last year (a reward for Israel's brutal and pointless invasion of Lebanon, perhaps?), which comes to about $3 billion per year, is ten times the entire US aid budget to fight AIDS in Africa.
Azzam Tamimi: A political conflict
For many years, some of the closest people to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas kept whispering into the ears of western politicians and journalists that the real danger facing Palestinian society emanates not from Israeli occupation but from Islamic fundamentalism. The advisers to Mahmoud Abbas hope to benefit from the fact that in the west secularism is often associated with democracy whereas religion in general is associated with authoritarianism. The idea is to divert world attention from the real causes of the current crisis between Fatah and Hamas. What Hamas believes in and struggled for today is exactly what Fatah once believed in and struggled for before it was derailed by the sort of men who surround Abbas today.
Headlines from Iraq
Headlines from Lebanon
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