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Egypt-Gaza border resealed
Barbed wire and metal barricades were used to reseal
the only remaining gap in the Egyptian side of the border
on Sunday. One gate remained open to allow Palestinians
to return to Gaza and Egyptians to return home, witnesses said.
Hamas' Mahmoud Al-Zahar also said that the closure would
be temporary while the Egyptians search for a way to reopen
the border. Egyptian officials were not available for comment
on the Hamas claims. Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting
from the Gaza side of the crossing, said that Egypt allowing
Hamas to help with securing the border indicated the
government's recognition of Hamas as the ruling
authority in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt: We won't tolerate further
attempts to breach Gaza border
The spokesman, Suleiman Awwad, blamed Palestinians,
Israel and the European Union for last month's crisis
on its frontiers with Gaza. "That will not happen again,
never," Awwad said. "Egypt is a respected state, its
border cannot be breached and its soldiers should
not be lobbed with stones," he said. "Egypt absolutely
will not allow a repeat of what happened because it
has a border, territory and sovereignty, and it is
Egypt's right and duty to preserve that," Awwad
added, in remarks carried on Egyptian state news
agency MENA. "The Palestinians' sufferings cannot
continue, the Israeli practices cannot continue, the
ball is now in the court of the EU and Hamas," he added.
Solana: EU monitors to
return to Rafah crossing
The European Union's Foreign Policy Coordinator
Javier Solana promised the EU monitors of the
Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt will soon
return to their posts. Solana, who spoke to
journalists after conferring with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, is due to fly to
Israel and meet with political leaders there
as part of his current tour of the area. He
said the monitors are due to return
specifically to the Rafah crossing.
Ma'areef: Hamas has long planned to
disengage economically from Israel
The Israeli daily newspaper said that during
years in Israeli prisons, the late Hamas's spiritual
leader, Ahmad Yassin, met with an American
delegation, as Yassin gave consent to a long-
term truce (Hudna)with Israel, in return for a
Palestinian state within the boundaries of 1967,
adding one more condition that the Palestinian
economy must be disengaged from the Israeli one.
Jerusalem said to favor Hamas
bid to cut Israel-Gaza ties
"This is excellent," the source said. "It is what
Israel has desired for years, and it is only good
for us." The political source added: "If Egypt agrees
to the process, Israel will give it its blessing." Haniyeh
told the pro-Hamas daily Palestine in an interview
published Saturday that Hamas would like to see
Gaza's economy cut its ties with Israel, and instead
receive fuel and electricity from Egypt. Egypt
has a greater ability to meet the needs of Gaza, he added.
For all the excitement, very little has
changed in the Gaza Strip – by Catrin Ormestad
The border to Egypt is open, but Palestinians are still
not able to travel abroad for work, studies or medical
treatment. Cigarette prices may have plunged, but the
cost of basic goods like sugar, rice and flour is soaring,
and most gas stations are still closed. Jerry cans of
gasoline, brought in on donkey carts, cannot compensate
for the loss of the Israeli supply. The blackouts are still
making life uncomfortable and the winter nights
unbearable, and there is still no escape from the
Israeli bombs and artillery shells. Soon the only
lasting memory of the days of freedom will be the
graffiti on a wall in Rafah: "Egypt in the heart."
Nothing has changed in Gaza.
The strangulation of Gaza –
by Saree Makdisi
Now that Gaza's fleeting taste of freedom is beginning
to fade, the grim reality facing the territory's 1.5 million
people is once again looming large. "After feeling
imprisoned for so long, it has been a psychological
relief for Gazans to know that there is a way out,"
said John Ging, the local director of the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "
But it does not resolve their crisis by any stretch
of the imagination." Indeed, all the frenzied shopping
in Egyptian border towns brought into Gaza a mere
fraction of the food that UN and other relief agencies
have been blocked by Israel from delivering to the
people who depend on them for their very survival.
Israel says Hamas got high-tech
weapons in border breach
(AFP) The head of Israel's domestic intelligence
agency said on Sunday that "massive" amounts of
sophisticated weaponry had been brought into Gaza
during the protracted breach of its border with Egypt.
The breach -- during which half of Gaza's 1.5 million
population is estimated to have crossed the border --
"allowed the return of many militants from Iran, Syria
and Egypt," Diskin said. "These people have accumulated
a great deal of knowledge and were trained in Iran and
other places and are now expected to contribute to
the improvement of terrorist activities in Gaza," he said.
Gov't considers complete ban on exporting
Gaza farm produce via Israel
Israel suspects large quantities of agricultural
produce have been smuggled into Gaza from Egypt.
According to information provided by the Palestinian
veterinary service, Israel believes 10,000 sheep,
300 cows and thousands of poultry have been transported
into Gaza without veterinary inspection, as well as
thousands of tons of various vegetables, fruit, plants
and seeds without proper inspection. Following
Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon's request,
100,000 veterinary vaccinations will be transported
to the Gaza Strip on Monday.
Palestinian tries to sneak monkey,
lion cub into Gaza
The man managed to reach Cairo and buy the animals
despite a heavy security cordon, but police caught
him at a checkpoint as he tried to sneak them back
into Gaza in a small truck carrying furniture, security
officials told Reuters on Saturday. They said the man,
whom they did not identify, confessed to wanting to
sell the cub and monkey in Gaza.
Barak: We urgently need a fence
along Egyptian border
"The construction of a fence on the border with
Egypt is an urgent need," the defense minister told
the weekly cabinet meeting. "We must immediately
begin the preliminary stage [of construction],
which would include two sections near Nitzana and
in the Eilat area." Shin Bet security services chief
Yuval Diskin said that terror organizations had
strategically relocated dozens of militants and that
the Shin Bet has located 30 points where it is possible
to penetrate the border between Sinai and the Negev.
Blair: 'Clever' Hamas strategy
must be matched
Middle East envoy Tony Blair told The Times newspaper
that the international community needed to match
Hamas's "clever strategy" to secure a peace deal,
in an interview published Saturday. The former
British prime minister, who remains confident
of striking a peace deal by 2009, said a situation
must be engineered whereby there is everything to
gain if Hamas stops its rocket attacks on Israel
from the Gaza Strip.
Gaza schools reopen to darker,
colder classrooms
Even before the fuel cuts, power shortages meant
that children were already cold in classrooms.
And many rooms didn't have light simply because
there were no longer any light bulbs in the market,"
said Saeed Harb, who runs schools in Rafah, Gaza's
southernmost district. "Children are finding it almost
impossible to learn, and you can see it in their failing
marks." "For months now we skipped classes that were
heavy on energy consumption, such as IT or science labs,
and extracurricular activities. We lack printing paper and
chalk and our fax machines, printers, overhead projectors
and photocopiers need spare parts," said Sana Al Taweel,
Principal of the Al Kahera Girls School in West Gaza.
Palestinians without ID cards, illegal in
their own country, protest for 36th week
Hundreds of Palestinians who do not hold ID cards
rallied outside the Palestinian Legislative Council
(PLC) headquarters in Gaza City on Sunday
demanding a solution to their problem. Since the
establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA)
after the Oslo Accords, thousands of exiled
Palestinians returned to the Palestinian territories
on visit permits issued by Israeli authorities.
Many of those visitors remained in Palestine
after their permits expired, becoming illegal
immigrants in the eye of Israel. Undocumented
Palestinians are pursued by Israeli authorities on a
daily basis, meaning that they have to move with caution
from on area of Palestine to the next. If discovered at
one of Israel's many checkpoints, they risk immediate
deportation. Complicating matters, many
undocumented Palestinians are married to
other Palestinians, and some have had children
who cannot be registered with the Palestinian
interior ministry. These children are born into a
legal limbo, even in their own country.
Gaza: From prison to zoo
The metaphor of the Gaza Strip as the world's largest
prison is unfortunately outdated. Israel now treats the
Strip more like a zoo. For running a prison is about
constraining or repressing freedom; in a zoo, the
question is rather how to keep those held inside alive,
with an eye to how outsiders might see them.
The question of freedom is never raised.
Barak has met with Qatari PM
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak held clandestine
tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin
Khalifa al-Thani at Davos economic conference,
leaders discussed recent developments with Hamas,
efforts to secure release of Gilad Shalit. Palestinian
sources say senior Qatari figure visited Israel in
mid-January – The existence of the surreptitious talks
has so far been kept under wraps by Israel.
'Fighting weaker forces has
made Israeli army soft'
According to military experts - and to the Winograd
Commission itself - the causes for the current state
of the Israeli armed forces run deep. For military
historian Martin Van Creveld, it boils down to the
fact that "an army that fights against weaker forces
itself becomes weaker." Battling armed Palestinian
groups, over whom the Israeli military has overwhelming
superiority, requires "prudence, patience and ensuring
minimum losses," he said. But in a full-scale war,
"daring is vital, timing is of the essence, and losses
become secondary" to winning the conflict. Reservist
Colonel Bar-Lev attributed a less-combative spirit to
profound divisions within society following the
occupation of Palestinian territory over 40 years
ago in the 1967 war. "Nobody wants to die for
Hebron or Nablus just so these [West Bank]
cities can remain under the power of Israel," he said.
Hamas:
No progress on release
of Gilad Shalit
The official spokesperson of Hamas' armed wing,
the Al-Qassam Brigades denied Sunday that any
progress has been made towards the release of
captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. The
anonymous spokesperson stressed that the
Palestinian resistance factions who are holding
Shalit would not ease their demands, because
they deal with "the lives and hopes of thousands
of Palestinian prisoners."
MK Zahalka: PFLP'S George Habash
should be buried in Lod
"His natural place is in Lod, where he was born and
raised," Zahalka declared at a memorial held for Habash,
who was buried in Jordan, where he died. The ceremony
included a portion in the Orthodox church in the city,
after which the mourners marched to the site on which
the Habash family house once stood, before it was
reportedly destroyed several years ago.
Rebel from a bygone era – by Karma Nabulsi
"His very name scatters fire through ice," wrote
Byron of an 18th-century revolutionary leader,
and so it has always been with the name of that
extraordinary Palestinian George Habash. For
those in anti-colonial movements across the
world who learned and trained under him,
his name embodies that inextinguishable
human demand for justice and freedom.
Palestinian divide allows
despair to rule – by Roula Khalaf
When Israel tightened its blockade less than two
weeks ago barring even humanitarian supplies,
the world reacted with outrage and demonstrations
broke out in several Arab capitals. In West Bank
towns, however, the Palestinians who
gathered to express their anger came out in
small, shy crowds. . . Ahmad Barghouti, a
young photographer in Ramallah who has
documented the plight of the Palestinians,
offered a different -reason. "People here are
exhausted. They have reached a state of
complete depression and they are just
running after their daily bread."
Report: JNF parks to mark
demolished Palestinian villages
An organization campaigning for the commemoration
of Arab villages destroyed in the 1948 War of
Independence said that the Jewish National Fund
has agreed to place signs in parks on which former
villages once stood. During the War of Independence
in 1948, about 500 Palestinian villages were demolished.
Some of their residents fled, fearing the approaching
Jewish forces, and others were actively expelled.
Most of the villages have been replaced with new
settlements, parks and nature reserves. The
historical existence of only a handful of them is
mentioned in some capacity on the land they used to occupy.
Mufti condemns Israeli decision to
demolish historic mosque near Jerusalem
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad
Hussein, has condemned on Sunday a decision
by Israeli authorities to demolish the Al-Omari
mosque in the village of Umm Tuba near
Jerusalem under the pretext that the building
had been built without a license. Sheikh Hussein
told Ma'an that the mosque was built more than
700 years go, and it was last restored in 1963.
It is the only mosque in Umm Tuba. The Mufti
claimed that Israeli authorities have been
attempting to wipe out historic Islamic sites in
Palestine which is violation of all religious
values and international treaties.
Hebron: IDF soldiers expose
themselves to Palestinians
VIDEO - IDF soldiers who arrived at the Maon
Farm settlement outpost near the West Bank city of
Hebron exposed their rear ends to Palestinians in an
attempt to make them evacuate nearby grazing fields,
Palestinian sources and foreign peace activists claimed
Sunday. Ynet has received exclusive footage of the incident,
which took place on January 11. Sean, the foreign peace
activist who filmed the soldiers, said activists and
foreign volunteers from Christian Peacemaker
Teams were escorting Palestinians in the south
Mount Hebron area to protect them from local
Jewish settlers when the soldiers arrived.
Rachel's grove vulnerable in Bethlehem
– Abri Nieuwhof and Amer Madi
The Olive Tree Campaign aims to replant olive
trees in areas where they have been uprooted and
destroyed, or in areas where the fields are
threatened by land confiscation by the Israeli
occupation army or settlers. For some years
now Abed Rado has been reclaiming his land by
planting olive trees, which are sponsored by
people from different countries. On his land
are the olive the trees that were planted in
honor of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in
Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on 16 March 2003
while defending a physician's home from being
destroyed by an Israeli-operated Caterpillar
armored bulldozer.
Three Palestinians injured in clashes with
Israeli soldiers in Al-Khadr Sunday night
The sources named the injured as 16-year-old
Khalid Salah, 20-year-old Muhammad Issa and 22-
year-old Ahmad Sbeih. They were evacuated to
Al-Husssein hospital in the neighboring town of
Beit Jala for treatment. They reportedly sustained
slight injuries in their feet [legs]. Eyewitnesses
said that an Israeli patrol invaded the old city of
Al-Khadr near the football stadium and ransacked
several shops and houses. No arrests have been reported.
Prison Administration denies
treatment for seriously ill detainee
Family of detainee Zeidan Mohammad Zeidan, 22,
from the northern West Bank city of Jenin, voiced
an appeal to save the life of their detained son.
Mohammad, the father of Zeidan, stated that his
son is now in Shatta Israeli prison and that he is
continuously losing weight and cannot stand due to
health issues in his stomach, intestines and legs.
Zeidan was shot and injured before he was arrested
six years ago in Majiddo inside the Israeli boundaries.
Israel to demolish three Palestinian
houses near Tulkarem
Israeli forces will demolish three houses in the
West Bank village of Far'un, near Tulkarem, on
Sunday. The head of the town's municipal council,
Abdul-Kareem Omar, said that two houses were
demolished in the village in 2000, and three
others in 2006. He said that Israeli officials
claimed that the houses were built without hard-to-
obtain construction permits, and that they were
built in Israeli-controlled Area C of the West
Bank, as designated by the Oslo peace accords.
Unidentified gunman kills one Palestinian,
injures four near Nablus
Eyewitnesses told Ma'an's reporter that an
unidentified gunman opened fire at a car driven
by 38-year-old Abdul-Rahman Al-Badawi, killing
him. Al-Badawi's son, who was traveling with him, and
three bystanders were also injured. The eyewitnesses
added that Al-Badawi was driving his son to school
when he came under fire. They speculated that the
shooting was related to a family dispute.
Settler brothers off to jail for plan to set
fire to cars during Gaza pullout
The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Mordechai
Levinstein to 40 months in jail and his brother,
Elitzur Levinstein, to 30 months in jail for planning
to disrupt traffic on a major highway by setting cars on
fire to protest the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza
Strip. The plan to block traffic on Ayalon Highway
failed due to technical reasons.
Shin Bet chief: Trial of soldiers'
murderers near Hebron a 'farce'
The head of the Shin Bet security services on
Sunday blasted the Palestinian Authority for what he
termed the 'farcical' legal proceedings held
against the Palestinian murderers two off-duty
IDF soldiers near the West Bank city of Hebron
late last year. Yuval Diskin told ministers at
the weekly cabinet meeting that the trial held
for the murderers was a 'farce,' as the PA court
decided to sentence them to 15 years in
prison each, rather than the life terms it had promised Israel.
Commander whose unit shot unarmed
Palestinian sentences to 15 months and demotion
The officer in charge of an army unit that shot
a Palestinian without justification last July was
sentenced last week to 15 months in prison and
a demotion. Lieutenant Ya'akov Gigi's sentence
was the result of an agreement between his
attorneys and the Military Advocate General
(MAG). MAG has not yet presented any charges
against First Sergeant Dror, who actually pulled
the trigger, despite promising that it would do
so. Dror claims that the way the Palestinian looked
at him was enough to classify him as a "suspect" and
to justify opening fire.
Settler indicted for selling
weapons to Palestinians
An Israeli resident of the West Bank
settlement of Shavei Shomron was indicted
Sunday for weapons trafficking and theft.
According to the indictment brought before
the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court, the man sold
four standard IDF-issued rifles, a bullet-proof
vest and some clips to Palestinians for NIS 70,000
($20,000) which were supposed to go
toward paying off some of his debts.
Ultra-Orthodox press digitally
erases women from images
Haredi print, internet media refuse to publish
photos of women, even those in prominent
positions; female member of Winograd Commission
omitted from photograph on news website –
So how many members were there on the Winograd
Commission? A prominent ultra-Orthodox website,
www.ladaat.net, chose Thursday to digitally erase
the image of Winograd Commission member
Professor Ruth Gavison from their coverage
of the commission's report. MK Limor Livnat, who
formerly served as education minister, received treatment
similar to Gavison in the ultra-Orthodox press when her
face was digitally blotted out from a photo taken at
a cabinet meeting.
Opinion: Say no to 'kosher buses'
– by Zahava Fisher
Last week Ynet reported that the High Court of
Justice is hearing a petition filed by the Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism against
segregated buses – those where men sit at the
front and women at the back. Segregation
between the sexes is what creates eroticism
within public space – the women become 'seductive'
and the men, Heaven forbid, become 'seduced'.
Therefore, we must put away the seductresses and hide
them. This false perception views women as dangerous
creatures because they are seductive, and it views men
as weak and miserable creatures who become aroused
in the face of any woman they meet. When the court
takes this twisted world of insights for granted it
undergoes dangerous transformation. What else
will be segregated?
Warning: James Bond is back –
by Gideon Spiro
[scroll down page] Neo-Nazis in Israel –
When Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Labor) proposes
that someone who does not serve in the army cannot
obtain a driver's license or be a doctor, or when Minister
of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman suggests stripping
Arab citizens of their citizenship by expelling them from
the country, or when Israel passes a law banning Israeli
Arab citizens from living in their country with their
spouses from the territories, or when rabbis from the
occupied territories issue religious injunctions that
can be read to allow the murder of Palestinian civilians,
including women and children, or when the High Court
of Justice allows the theft of Palestinian property and
states the Basic Law forbidding harm to the property of
others does not apply to them - when these things
happen, they are all thinking and acting like neo-Nazis.
Obscene anomaly –
by Khalid Amayreh
The Israeli embassy in Nouakchott, the capital of
Mauritania, came under attack by anonymous gunmen
this week. The attack, in which no people were killed, showed
that the Mauritanian people don't like the presence of Israelis
and Zionists on their national soil. The presence of Israeli
embassies and "diplomats" in Arab and Muslim capitals
implies legitimization of ethnic cleansing, genocide,
occupation, colonialism and the systematic dispossession
and attempted obliteration of the Palestinian people.
From Stalingrad to Winograd – by Uri Avnery
We now know for sure that plans for the war had been
prepared a long time before. These were rehearsed
only a month before the war and changes were made
according to the results. In the end, these plans were
not implemented at all. But it is clear that the government
and the army had long been thinking about attacking
Hizbullah. For six years, the Northern border had been
completely quiet. Hizbullah did deploy rockets
(as it is doing now) but showed then (as now)
no inclination to attack Israel.
Life in occupied Gaza –
by Stephen Lendman
Its name means courage and bravery, and it's also
an abbreviation of Islamic Resistance Movement in
Arabic. It grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood (that
had roots in Egypt) and was formed in 1987 during
the first Intifada. At the time, Israel offered support
and used Hamas to counter the PLO's nationalist threat
under Arafat. Ever since, it's been an effective
resistance movement against repression,
occupation and much more. It provides essential
social services like medical clinics; education,
including centers for women; free meals for children;
financial and technical help to Palestinians whose
homes Israel destroyed; aid to refugees in the camps;
and youth and sports clubs for young people. Hamas
is also a formidable defender, and that gets it in trouble
Palestinian priorities – Olmert and Abbas
must seize this chance for peace
Do not underestimate the power of lame ducks.
American presidents, in their last year of office,
have frequently turned to the intractable issue of
the Middle East, occasionally with small, though
sadly not lasting, success. President Bush is free
of the constraints of a vociferous domestic pro-Israel
lobby; Mr Blair can equally ignore the pro-Palestinian
bias of many British and European politicians.
US Methodist church renews drive
for divestment from Israel
Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish
organizations and some mainline Protestant churches
in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest
from companies doing business with Israel. What
prompted Jewish activists to take action was not
only the renewed divestment drive but also a
report from the women's division of the Methodist
church, which addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Among the statements in the report that irked Jewish
community activists are a reference to the founding of
the State of Israel as "the original sin," a passage calling
Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion an "extremist"
and a passage defining Israeli actions as acts of "terror."
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