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School children in Rafah
exposed to Israeli army gunfire
Palestinian school children in the southern Gaza
Strip city of Rafah have been reportedly exposed
to Israeli army gun fire on Thursday morning, as
resistance fighters clashed with the army forces.
The Israeli army attacks several villages
near Hebron and kidnaps two civilians
Two Palestinian civilians were kidnapped when
Israeli troops attacked several villages located near
the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday.
Israeli army carries out an
incursion into Rafah city
The Israeli army carried out early on Thursday
a small-scale incursion into the southern Gaza Strip of Rafah.
The Israeli army attacks Beita village near
Nablus and kidnaps 18 civilians
On Thursday, Palestinian sources reported that
the Israeli army attacked and searched homes in
the village of Beita located near the northern West
Bank city of Nablus and kidnapped 18 civilians there.
Several children recently injured by
military fire in villages north west of Jerusalem
Palestinian medical sources reported that in recent
period Israeli soldiers shot and injured several
Palestinian children, and harshly attacked and
clubbed others, as they were playing near the
Annexation Wall in villages around Jerusalem.
Israeli soldiers beat severely a
Palestinian boy in Tulkarem city
Israeli soldiers beaten up severely a Palestinian
boy from the West Bank city of Tulkarem,
Palestinian medical sources said. Medics added
that Mohammad Abu Zant,14, suffered bruises in
all over his body after having been exposed to
severe beating by the Israeli soldiers. Witnesses
said that Abu Zant was arrested earlier in the day
during an Israeli military incursion into the city.
P.A security arrests six
Hamas supporters
Palestinian security forces arrested on Tuesday
six supporters of Hamas movement in several parts
of the West Bank, Hamas media sources reported.
In Salfit district, security forces arrested Sheikh Imad
Ed Deek, a previous official at the Ministry of Waqf
and Islamic Affairs and the Imam of the Big Mosque
in Kufr Ed Deek village, west of Salfit.
IOF troops kidnap 12 Palestinians
from a Tulkarm restaurant
IOF troops stormed Tulkarm, north of the West
Bank, on Wednesday and rounded up 12 Palestinian
youths from a downtown café, local sources reported.
The sources said that special IOF units stormed the
restaurant that is near to the PA police station and
detained all those inside it.
Security Stranglehold Tightens in Hebron
For a week now the security checks on Palestinians
and internationals in Hebron has maintained it's
tightest grip since our arrival. Soldiers who a month
ago limited themselves to their posts now extend
their jurisdiction along whole streets; patrolling and
watching in a paranoid attempt to preempt some
fictitious attack. They scan the roof tops with their
rifles; plausibly in case of Palestinian fighters, of
which their are none in Hebron.
Nazzal: Barghouthi's name removed
from prisoners' list at Abbas's request
Mohammed Nazzal, member of Hamas political
bureau, has revealed that PA chief Mahmoud
Abbas and his entourage had asked the Israeli
government to remove the name of imprisoned
Fatah leader Marwan Al-Barghouthi from the list
of Palestinian prisoners to be freed in return for the
release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He told Quds
Press that mediators returned the list of names with
the name of Barghouthi removed and when asked
about that they quoted the Israeli officials as saying
that Abbas had personally asked for the removal
of his name.
Palestinian woman poses as
Israeli in order to undergo surgery
A 22-year-old Jenin resident was arrested
Wednesday for posing as an Israeli citizen in
order to receive medical treatment. According
to suspicions, the young Palestinian woman
passed herself off as an Israeli in order to undergo
complicated lung surgery at Haifa's Rambam Hospital.
Targeting Christians in Gaza
The bombing of the YMCA library in Gaza
is the latest in a series of attacks on Christian
or Western institutions since Hamas won the
Palestinian elections in January 2006. The
perpetrators of this latest crime have yet to
be identified. Whoever is responsible we can
be sure that their prime motive is to undermine
the credibility of the Hamas government. These
actions are designed not only to project an image
of lawlessness that tarnishes the government's
achievements in creating a sense of law and order
in Gaza but also to question its commitment to
protect the rights of all our citizens regardless of
their religious beliefs.
Palestinians to report Israeli
roadmap violations to US: official
The Palestinians will present monthly reports
to the US listing any Israeli violations of the
international roadmap peace blueprint, prime
minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday.
The reports will also list measures taken by the
Palestinian Authority to comply with the peace
plan, he told journalists in Ramallah.
Israeli report: Settlement
activity dramatically rose after Annapolis
The Israeli leftist movement Peace Now reported
that the two and a half months since the Annapolis
conference had witnessed a big increase in the
Zionist settlement activity in occupied eastern
Jerusalem compared with the past five years. Peace
Now quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that the
IOA would still publish many bids for the construction
of thousands of settlement units.
Israel denies building permits
to West Bank Palestinians: report
Israel has issued only 91 construction permits to
Palestinians in the West Bank over the past seven years
but granted 18,472 to Jewish settlers, Israeli activists
said on Thursday. At the same time, for each building
permit given to Palestinians 55 demolition orders were
issued and about 18 Palestinian buildings were torn
down, according to a report by the settler watchdog
group Peace Now.
Israel to Add Homes in East Jerusalem
Israel announced plans Tuesday to build more than
1,100 apartments in disputed East Jerusalem,
infuriating the Palestinians and triggering a new crisis
in already troubled peace talks.
French Consul visits Nablus
Allen Remy, the French Consul to the Palestinian
Authority, visited on Wednesday the northern West
Bank city of Nablus and described the conditions there
as "calm". He also said that France transferred 24
Million Euros in support to the Palestinian Authority.
Israel extends closure of Palestinian
offices in Jerusalem, despite pledge to
reopen them
JERUSALEM: Israel is keeping Palestinian institutions
in east Jerusalem shut tight, despite its pledge to
reopen them under a recently revived peace blueprint,
Palestinian officials said Thursday.
Ismail Haniyeh urged to lift ban on
newspaper's distribution in Gaza Strip
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general
Robert Ménard wrote today to the Hamas
government's Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh,
about a ban on the daily Al-Ayyam in the Gaza Strip.
Report: U.K. gov't hid reference to
Israel on Iraq weapons dossier
The British newspaper The Guardian reported
Thursday that the Foreign Office in London had
successfully managed to conceal a reference to Israel
in a September 2002 document on Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction, fearing harm to bilateral ties. The
Guardian says that the word "Israel" was handwritten
next to a statement in the "now discredited" dossier which
said that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has flouted
the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit
of weapons of mass destruction."
Israel fears Europe will
break boycott of Hamas
Ran Koriel, Israel's European Union ambassador,
recently warned the Foreign Ministry of a change in
EU policy on Hamas, amid mounting international
pressure on Israel over its handling of the situation
in the Gaza Strip. The government has recently been
getting strong signals that both the U.S. and Europe
are deeply frustrated by lack of progress in
negotiations with the Palestinians.
Israeli official says EU pressure
grows to end Gaza blockade
The European Union is increasing pressure on Israel
to end its nine-month old blockade of the Hamas-ruled
Gaza Strip to prevent a humanitarian crisis, an Israeli
official said on Thursday.
Egypt's ambassador to Washington:
my country wants Gaza no more isolated
The Egyptian ambassador to Washington, Nabil
Fahmy, stated yesterday that his country will not
allow Gaza to be isolated from the outside world.
If Not Now, When? If Kosovo,
Why Not Palestine?
Kosovo has now issued its anticipated unilateral
declaration of independence, and the United States
and most European Union countries, with which this
declaration was coordinated, are rushing to extend
diplomatic recognition to this "new country",
a course of action which should strike anyone with
an attachment to either international law or common
sense as breathtakingly reckless.
Nahr al-Bared and the right of return
I left Lebanon more than a week ago and am only
now starting to find words. I have never before
been in a place that has seen so much war. Occupation,
yes. Injustice, yes. Death and destruction and
uncertainty, perhaps. But something felt different
about Lebanon. I have not wrapped my mind around
it enough to feel confident that what I write will
accurately represent my own thoughts, let alone the
actual situation. But I do want to tell you about
Nahr al-Bared.
Tracing Gaza's chaos to 1948
The roots of Gaza's misery today can be traced back
to the late Ottoman period, decades before the war
of 1948 transformed the Gaza Strip from a minor
port and agricultural hinterland into one of the most
overcrowded places on earth. It was then, in the
middle of the first great age of globalisation, that Gaza's
fate was sealed, although it would take half a century
for it to unfold.
A state of war and peace
The car bomb assassination in Damascus of Imad
Mughniyeh has created a heightened state of tension
in the region. Almost every commentator, no matter
what perspective he/she comes from, expects the
killing to spark a fresh round of deadly violence; as
if the region had room for more. It is hard to speculate
on the outcome of this serious development, but it is
very unlikely that it will pass without dire consequences,
for Lebanon and the region. Hasan Abu Nimah comments.
A third way
The "third way" that secular intellectuals defend,
condemns terrorism and supports the fight against it.
However, the criterion it follows is a universal one.
That is, support comes only if the US is prepared to
censure Israel for its illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, and all the crimes that come with it,
and stops its support for imposed, corrupt dictators in the
Arab world. Haider Eid comments for The Electronic Intifada.
Dying for a Second Round,
Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon
Last Friday I asked a top-level Israeli, a former
IDF (Israel Defense Forces) elite unit man and
prime-ministerial confidante, whether the assassination
of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh could have been done
by a Lebanese group. He snorted at the
preposterous notion.
This was "way too sophisticated," he said.
"This [the car bombing] was a precisely
orchestrated international operation," and this
was the "third or fourth or fifth time in a year that
Israel has carried out a military operation in Syria."
Report: Barak warns Syria
IDF planning Hezbollah op
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned
Syria through Turkish mediation that the Israel
Defense Forces is planning to escalate its military
operations against Hezbollah and Hamas, the
London-based daily Al-Hayyat reported on Thursday.
On his visit to Turkey last week, Barak asked Turkish
President Abdullah Ghoul to urge Syrian President
Bashar Assad to adopt a different stance toward
Hezbollah, according to Al-Hayyat.
America wants an operation in Gaza
WASHINGTON - As the Second Lebanon War
raged, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger paid a visit to Major General Dan Harel,
who was then army attache in Washington and is
now deputy chief of staff. The war had not yet been
described as a failure, nor had anyone thought about
setting up the Winograd Committee. But Kissinger
already had things to say, and he may not
have been the only one.
Poll: 75% of young Israeli Arabs
support voluntary national service
Seventy-five percent of Israeli Arabs between
the ages of 16 and 22 support voluntary national
service, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The poll, conducted by the dean of Haifa University's
social sciences department, Professor Sammy Smooha,
was carried out among 910 participants. The study
also polled 78 public figures from the Israeli Arab
community, dividing them into two groups ? those
who are identified with the Jewish establishment,
and those who are not.
Iraqi police detain street people
Officials said the measures were to protect people
living on the streets. Iraqi security forces have been
ordered to detain beggars and mentally ill people found
on Baghdad's streets who could be exploited by militants.
At Gitmo, even acquittal
may not set you free
On February 11, the Pentagon announced it would be
trying six Guantanamo detainees for war crimes and
seeking the death penalty. However, according to Russ
Tuttle of The Nation, "the trials are rigged from the start."
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