Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines October 24 , 2007 ~

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Sixty-second General Assembly

Speakers in Second Committee call on Israel to stop destroying infrastructure, causing environmental damage in occupied Arab lands.

Crisis in Gaza is unnecessary

Escalating conflict in Gaza can be mitigated, says new report by Oxford Research Group.

Israel works on plan to cut power supplies to Gaza

Israeli officials prepared a plan on Wednesday to cut power supplies to the Gaza Strip in response to a surge in Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks. "We plan to dramatically reduce the two-thirds of power that is supplied by Israel, which will take several weeks," Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio.

Israel expected to approve severance of electricity to Gaza this week

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is expected this week to approve a gradual severance of the supply of electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to the persistent rocket fire from the Palestinian territory, military officials said Wednesday.

"They murdered him in cold blood"

A Palestinian political prisoner  who on Monday  was shot in the head by an Israeli prison guard at the notorious desert detention camp, Kitziot, has died of his wounds. The prisoner is Muhammed Sati al Ashkar, of the village of Sida near Tulkarm and  a father of a 2-year-old child.  He had been  sentenced to  three and a half years for opposing the Israeli occupation. He was to be released from prison after three months.

Bir Zeit University Students protest in support of Negev detainees

Hundreds of students at Bir Zeit University, located near the central West Bank of Ramallah, on Tuesday organized protest against the attack on political prisoners at the Negev detention facility which left one dead and at least a further 50 injured.

Israel Violates Prisoner Treatment Convention

Israel violates the international convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Mohammed Safi Muhammed Al-Ashkar, a Palestinian prisoner of age 29, was murdered today morning at 2 AM by an Israeli jailer, who shot him with dumdum bullets at the "Ansar 3/ Nafha" concentration camp south of Al-Nakab, also known as Ketziot. International laws forbid using dumdum ammunitions, which explode inside the victims bodies. Over 400 IDF soldiers from the Shimshon and Metsada special forces raided eight departments of Palestinian prisoners at Al-Nakab in a savage way, shooting live bullets, destroying and burning the prisoners property.

Dozens of East Jerusalem leaders protest against home demolitions

Muslim and Christian leaders from East Jerusalem joined with Palestinian-Israeli members of the Israeli Knesset and members of the Palestinian legislative council in a demonstration Tuesday challenging the Israeli policy of home demolitions in East Jerusalem.

Several protestors injured by PA security forces at Hebron demonstration

Palestinian sources in the southern West Bank city of Hebron reported on Monday night that PA security forces had clashed with demonstrators at a Hamas-organized protest against recent events in the Negev detention center, injuring several civilians.

Report: Sixty-eight Palestinians imprisoned in their village

The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, B'tselem, issued a report Tuesday documenting the case of sixty-eight Palestinians, including twenty-six children, who are imprisoned in Tel 'Adasa village in East Jerusalem.

Arson Fire Damages Church in Jerusalem

Arsonists forced their way into a church used by Messianic Jews and three other congregations and set it on fire, causing moderate damage, church officials said Wednesday. There was no claim of responsibility, but the church was burned down in 1982 by an ultranationalist Jewish group and later rebuilt, said a pastor, Charles Kopp.

J'lem church officials suspect extremist Jews behind arson

A church in central Jerusalem was set afire before dawn Wednesday and suffered extensive damage, police said.  Arsonists, suspected to be extremist Jews, forced their way into the church and set it afire, church officials said Wednesday.

Patients caught up in middle of Fatah and Hamas tug of war

One of the few journalists in Gaza reports on the Fatah-imposed doctors' strike in force last month for a series of exclusive Guardian films.

Abbas forces arrest 20 Hamas members in West Bank

\Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said Wednesday that President Mahmoud Abbas security forces detained 20 members of its movement in different West Bank areas.  The group said in a leaflet sent to reporters that Abbas security forces stormed houses in the towns of Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron, and detained 20 Hamas members.

Amnesty criticises Hamas, Fatah over rights abuses

Human rights violations in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have become widespread since fighting in June between the Palestinian factions saw Hamas seize control of Gaza, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Arab MK leads campaign against bill allocating state land to Jews only

Hadash MK Hanna Swaid has been promoting action to foil a Jewish National Fund bill, which calls for all JNF lands to be allocated to Jews only. The bill is geared to bypass a 2004 court ruling that annulled an Israel Lands Administration (ILA) policy preventing Israeli Arabs from participating in bids to purchase JNF-owned land.

US to transfer $410 million to PA

'Unprecedented amount' part of effort to strengthen Abbas in battle against Hamas for public opinion. Finance Minister Bar-On: International community must aid PA economic recovery.

Breaking the Siege on Gaza: A United Front for Peace

We, the (Israel-based) National Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza (hereafter the National Committee), have adopted the initiative of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program to launch an international campaign for breaking the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007. The aim of this humanitarian, non-political campaign is to put pressure on the Israeli government in order to lift the siege imposed on the population of Gaza. By raising the awareness of the international community on the deteriorating life conditions resulting from the siege, we aim at other governments to stop the boycott of Gaza. We are pleased to note here that the European Parliament has recently adopted a resolution calling on the Israeli government to end the siege.

Syria to issue ID cards to Golan residents

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ordered ID cards to be granted to Syrians citizens living in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday. "The Syrian president has issued orders to grant Syrian ID cards to Syrian citizens of the occupied Golan Heights," the official news agency reported. The move aims to "ease the suffering" of the Druze people living on the Golan, caused by "harassment and Israeli human rights violations," SANA added.

 

Oxford cancels one-state debate

Following talks with Oxford Union President Luke Tryll, the union decided to drop Finkelstein and invited Usiskin to participate along with Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow of the Middle East program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, who is also Israeli.

Between Boycott and Apartheid

After passing a motion in May that called for the circulation and debate of the Palestinian call for the academic boycott of Israel, Britain's University and College Union (UCU)'s strategy and finance committee unanimously accepted a recommendation from its Secretary-General, Sally Hunt, that not only is the call to boycott apparently unlawful under discrimination legislation, but even debates on the issue at the union's meetings should be silenced "to ensure that the union acts lawfully." Consequently, the union also cancelled a UK speaking tour in which Palestinian academics would discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their counterparts at UK universities.

 

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