Click on the Headline to View Full Story!
Ambulance service in Gaza stops
due to fuel supplies cut
The ambulance service in the Gaza Strip announced
complete halt of it work on Sunday, due to what the
health ministry says a 'severe shortage of fuel', a
statement by the ministry read. "Most of the
ambulances that belong to the ministry have
stopped working due to the sharp shortage of
fuel", explained the statement.
From Gaza- Siege in Pics
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives
/2008/02/16/from-gaza-siege-in
Palestinians: 10-year-old Gaza boy
killed in Hamas-IDF crossfire
A 10-year-old boy was killed and two other children
were wounded Tuesday in an exchange of fire between
Hamas militants and Israel Defense Forces troops in
the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah, Palestinian
medics said. Palestinian security officials said IDF
troops seized control over a house in town and came
under heavy fire from Hamas. The troops shot back
and the children were apparently caught in the crossfire,
the officials said.
A Palestinian fighter shot dead by
the Israeli army in central Gaza
A Palestinian resistance fighter of the Democratic
Front for the Liberation of Palestine's armed wing,
was shot dead and another was wounded on central
Gaza-Israel border line early on Tuesday.
Palestinian dies of wounds
sustained Sunday in Rafah
Palestinian medical sources reported on Monday that
one resident died of wounds sustained during an
Israeli military invasion into Al Shouka area in
Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip
on Sunday noon.
Underage detainee says he
was raped by an Israeli prisoner
The Israeli Army radio reported that a Palestinian
underage detainee imprisoned in Ophic Israeli prison
complained that he was raped by an Israeli prisoner,
held for criminal charges and placed with
the child in the same cell.
Israel arrests 22 Palestinians in West Bank
The Israeli army arrested 22 Palestinians in
West Bank early Monday, Palestinian security
sources said. A number of armoured vehicles stormed
West Bank city of Nablus after midnight and detained
four people, the sources said, adding that in east
Jerusalem town of Abu Dis, the Israeli army
arrested three men.
Three 'Hamas members' arrested by PA
security forces in the West Bank
The Hamas movement claimed on Monday that
Fatah-allied Palestinian security forces arrested on
Sunday evening 3 Hamas' affiliates in the West Bank.
Settlers, Palestinians clash
near West Bank outpost
Rightists, Bit'in residents throw stones at one another,
three Israelis lightly wounded before being arrested.
'IDF should deal with the aggressors, who are the
Palestinians, before dealing with us,' settler says.
Settlers escalate their attacks against
Palestinian lands, property in Silwan
Over the past few days, Israeli settlers intensified their
attacks against lands and properties of the residents of
Silwan neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. Since
the beginning of this year, settlers illegally occupied
several Palestinian homes, while Israel continued to
dig tunnels in that area causing damage to the
houses and streets.
YMCA headquarters
attacked in Gaza City
The undersigned civil society organizations utterly
condemn an attack on the YMCA headquarters in
Gaza City in the early hours of the morning of 15
February 2008. Unidentified militants broke into the
YMCA headquarters, planted explosive devices and
subsequently completely destroyed the library. The
undersigned organizations ask the dismissed government
to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into
this crime, which is a continuation of a number of similar
attacks targeting national, cultural and civil society
organizations in the Gaza Strip.
Islamic Jihad, Palestinian rights groups
at odds over deadly Gaza blast
Islamic Jihad criticized Palestinian human rights
groups on Tuesday for saying they found no evidence
that the Israel Defense Forces was responsible for a
blast that killed eight people, including a commander
of the group, in Gaza last week.
Israel-OPT: House demolitions cause
Palestinians to leave village
BEQAA, WEST BANK , 19 February 2008 (IRIN) -
A small, overcrowded Palestinian village in the
southern West Bank, under threat from Israeli-
conducted house demolitions and land confiscations,
is rapidly becoming poorer. "Every house here has
one child at least who left because we can't build
new homes. Some went to Hebron, but others left
for Amman (Jordan) and places abroad" said Ghassan,
a young man from Beqaa village, who is a refugee
registered with the UN.
More than one-third of settlements built
on private Palestinian land:Report
More than one-third of Israel's 122 West Bank
settlements were built on land confiscated from
private Palestinian owners on security grounds,
including some erected after the Israeli Supreme
Court outlawed such seizures three decades ago,
the Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday.
Olmert says Gaza blockade to continue
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that Israel
would maintain the tighter blockade that it has imposed
on the Gaza Strip since last month. "We will
continue to apply sanctions that are hurtful to
the needs of the (Palestinian) population in order
for it to be clear that living conditions cannot be
altered only from our side," he told the parliamentary
group of his Kadima party in allusion to near
daily rocket fire from Gaza.
Agha: The situation in Gaza
portends real famine
Dr. Mohamed Al-Agha, the agriculture minister
in the PA caretaker government, warned Sunday
that the agricultural sector and food security in
the Gaza Strip are facing a disaster after Israel
decided to sever its economic ties with the Strip,
adding that the situation in Gaza portends real
famine. In a press conference, Dr. Agha called on
the UN organizations and the concerned sides to
assume their responsibilities and to visit Gaza to
see closely the tragic reality there.
Israel blocking Gaza kids from
joining parents in Ramallah
Israel is preventing four children in the Gaza Strip
from joining their parents in Ramallah. The children,
aged 3 to 16, have been alone in the Gaza Strip since
September 2007 when their mother went to the West
Bank for medical treatment and did not return. The
High Court of Justice is now debating a petition filed at
the end of January by the Center for the Defense of the
Individual against the Interior Ministry and IDF, to
enable the children to join their parents.
Israelis Set Up New West Bank Settlement
Nine Israeli families staked out homesteads in a
valley deep in the West Bank on Friday and
promised to bring more settlers to the area
that the Palestinians want for a future state.
Palestinian charges of bad faith over the move were
fueled by reports that the Israeli government has
awarded permits for more Jewish housing in an
east Jerusalem neighborhood.
Erekat: No agreement to
delay talks over Jerusalem
Palestinian Chief Negotiator, Dr. Sa'eb Erekat, stated on
Monday that there is no agreement with the Israeli side
to delay talks or exclude the issue of Jerusalem from
peace talks between the two sides.
Israel: U.S. agrees to delay talks on J'lem,
Abbas rejects agreement
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice agreed to defer talks on Jerusalem to
the final stage of negotiations with the Palestinian
Authority. However, Palestinian Authority (PA)
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted Monday that
discussions on the status of the city must not be postponed.
Fayyad: Palestinian-Israel negotiations
will not reach a peace deal this year
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated his
doubts on Tuesday over the progress
Palestinian-Israeli talks will achieve in reaching
a peace deal this year.
Palestinian PM urges quicker
pace in peace talks
Israel and the Palestinians need to pick up the pace
of peace negotiations if they hope to reach a deal
this year, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam
Fayyad said on Tuesday.
The Islamic Jihad: Abbas-Olmert meeting
enhances the image of the occupation
The Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine announced
on Tuesday that they refuse to acknowledge the
meeting between the Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli
Prime Minister Ehod Olmert.
Positions clouded as
Olmert-Abbas set for meeting
Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet for another
session of peace negotiations in Jerusalem on Tuesday
but conflicting statements by both parties have
clouded the state of progress in the talks.
Agha: PA decision to sell lands one of
its most dangerous illegal decisions
Dr. Mohamed Al-Agha, the agriculture minister
in the PA caretaker government in Gaza,
strongly denounced on Tuesday the PA
unconstitutional government in Ramallah for its
decision to allow foreigners to purchase
Palestinian plots of land, considering it one of
its most dangerous illegal decisions.
Egypt deports 350
Palestinians back to Gaza
Security forces say Palestinians transported to
Rafah and from there to Gaza; group is part of at
least 3,000 Palestinians left in Gaza after breaching
of border several weeks ago.
Egyptian officials meet with Hamas
on Gaza-Egypt border security
EL-ARISH, Egypt - A Hamas delegation met
Tuesday with Egyptian officials at the Rafah
border terminal in an effort to try to open the
border and tighten security, officials said.
Top diplomat: Calling violence in south
a 'cycle' may breed terror
Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon
Abramowitz on Monday accused a visiting United
Nations official of equating terrorists with their
victims, saying such discourse could encourage further attacks.
A demographic threat on the wane
The publication of the census results by the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which
found that the population in the occupied
territories has reached approximately 3.8 million
people, was not widely discussed among the Israeli
media - although the data (along with other
figures published earlier this year by the Central
Bureau of Statistics in Israel) shows that the number
of Jews and Arabs living between the Jordan River
and the Mediterranean is close to parity.
If we subtract the 200,000 East Jerusalem residents,
who were counted twice, the number of Jews stands
at about 5.4 million and the number of Arabs -
both Israeli citizens and those living in the territories
- at approximately 5.2 million.
Why Israeli general
avoided Heathrow arrest
A senior Israeli soldier facing a private prosecution in
the UK for alleged war crimes avoided arrest at
Heathrow after being tipped off, it was reported today.
Major-General Doron Almog stayed on the plane and
flew back to Israel after being alerted to the arrest plan,
the BBC said. Leaked documents apparently show police
did not board the plane to detain him at the airport because
they were worried about the dangers of an armed confrontation.
The rabbi lights the fuse
It is outrageous that a chief rabbi of Israel, who receives
his salary from the state, takes upon himself the
responsibility for turning a political conflict into an
inter-religious one. Instead of sticking to the principle of
self-determination for the two nations, Metzger has
adopted a position that in principle is identical to that of
Hamas, which claims the entire territory of the historic
British Mandate on behalf of the Arab people. Thus does
the chief rabbi help turn a political conflict between 6
million Jews and 5 million Palestinians into a conflict
with more than a billion Muslims.
German intellectuals: Israel's creation made
Palestinians victims of Holocaust
A group of visiting German intellectuals called on
Berlin on Monday to change what they termed its
Holocaust-rooted blind support of Israel, saying the
creation of the State of Israel turned Palestinians into
victims of the Nazi Holocaust as well. The four, Dr.
Reiner Steinweg, Prof. Gert Krell, Prof. Georg Meggle, and
Jorg Becker, took part in a debate Monday evening at the
Netanya Academic College on the future of German-Israeli
relations. They were among 25 signatories to a petition
on the issue that was circulated in the German media
following the Second Lebanon War.
George Galloway on Palestine at
Respect Youth Event
A great speech by the British MP George Galloway
speaking at a meeting organised early this month by
"Respect Youth" - Tower Hamelets - UK.
Life under military rule
The Israeli army's iron-fisted approach to the Balata
refugee camp only serves to make martyrs out of
Palestinians who dream of freedom.
Dangerous safe haven
Let us entertain the purely theoretical hypothesis
that despite its denials, Israel is behind the killing of
Hezbollah's chief operations officer, Imad Mughniyah.
In that case, one would presume that some of the
highest ranking decision-makers held a meeting -
if not a series of meetings - to discuss the implications
of the assassination. Did anyone think twice when the
forum finished discussing the near-certainty that Hezbollah
would avenge the death by striking Jewish targets abroad
rather than inside Israel? Was the advent of a murderous
attack on Diaspora Jews part of the considerations that
guided the Israeli leadership in deciding to okay the hit?
Should it have been part of those considerations?
Israel Says 'No'
On Jan. 23 Ha'aretz readers were utterly embarrassed.
Just as the quality paper was printing its top headline,
based on Israel's omniscient "security sources" – "
New Israeli Policy in Gaza: Border Crossings Will Stay Closed"
– the border crossings between Gaza and Egypt were
being opened; a few hours later, they didn't exist anymore.
Once again, the regional power was caught in surprise;
Hamas won by breaking the siege.
Longest landing field in Middle East
to be constructed in Nevatim
Israel Air Force base soon to be converted into
transport base, complete with 2.5-mile airstrip
allowing planes to take off, land with far greater ease.
Rabbis call against forced
integration in military service
Thirty-two of Religious Zionism's rabbis issue
manifest calling on IDF chief not to force religious
soldiers to take part in activities involving women
in service for mere sake of integration.
Coldest January in 15 years falls short
of being Israel's harshest winter
The forecasters were predicting snow in Jerusalem
on Monday night; if this indeed happened, it would
be Jerusalem's third snowfall of the season. But
according to Nahum Malik of the Meteotech
forecasting service, while "this is not something
especially common, something that happens
every year, neither is it exceptional."
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment