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OPT: Protection of civilians
weekly report 23 - 29 Jan 2008
OPT: UNWRA special appeal for
Gaza making very slow progress
UN special appeal for the Gaza Strip has managed to
bring in only a small percentage of the US$9.8 million
needed for urgent food aid and cash assistance for the
enclave's most vulnerable refugees.
Palestinians: Two civilians wounded in
IAF strike in southern Gaza
The Israel Air Force carried out an air strike Monday
in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, wounding
two civilians, Palestinian sources said. The Israel
Defense Forces confirmed the air strike, saying it
targeted a car carrying members of Hamas' military
wing. The army said the car was hit in the strike.
Palestinians who appealed to the Israeli
Supreme Court to stop settlers from digging
tunnels under their homes were rounded
up by the Israel police
For months the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA),
with funding from the settler organization ELAD, has
been digging under the private property of Silwan
residents in occupied East Jerusalem. The owners
of the land were not informed nor did they give
their consent to the digging that has already
resulted in damage to the walls of their homes.
The damage to buildings and infrastructure has
reached a state where the main road caved in
recently under the weight of the winter snow.
Letters sent by Attorney Sami Ershed on behalf of
the residents to the IAA requesting information
about the digging taking place on their land have
not been answered.
Army siege on Azzoun village continues
The village of Azzoun remains under strict curfew
following the large scale invasion on Friday 8th February.
The village of 11,000 people, situated in the Qalqilya
region, is currently under siege, with residents unable
to leave their homes and local businesses forced to
remain closed since ten Israeli army vehicles invaded
at 7PM Friday night. All except two roads out of the
village have been blocked by huge earth-mounds.
Hamas sources: P.A Security arrests 13
Hamas members in the West Bank
Hamas media sources reported on Monday that
Palestinian Security Forces, loyal to Fateh movement ,
arrested on Sunday 13 members and supporters of the
movement in several areas in the West Bank.
Israeli army kidnaps one in Tulkarem, two from
Jenin and continue their attack on
the money changers
Israeli military continued their attacks on Tuesday
morning on the places of money exchange in several
areas of the West Bank. The attacked started in the
northern West Bank city of Nablus; the army
kidnapped eight of Money changers and the
operation extended to the central part of the West
Bank in Ramallah city when the army kidnapped
another money changer.
IOA holds Palestinian woman in
administrative custody after serving
her sentence
An Israeli military court ordered the administrative
detention of Wadha Fukaha for ten months without
trial or charge, citing secret evidence tabled by the
Israeli military prosecution. The Palestinian prisoner's
club said that the Israeli judge sanctioned the
recommendation depending on the so-called secret
file that the defendant and her lawyer could not get
hold of at the pretext of preserving secrecy of the source.
Settlers attempt to demolish a
Palestinian house in Hebron
The Palestinian Popular (Folk) Committees reported on
Monday that an extremist settlers group attempted to
demolish a Palestinian house in Bani Neim village, near
the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli authorities demolish a
Palestinian-owned house in Jerusalem
The Jerusalem municipality has, on Monday, demolished
Palestinian-owned house located in the Wadi Al Jouz area
in the eastern suburb of Jerusalem city.
Clinic and 15 homes threatened
at Beqa'a Valley
The first permanent medical centre to be built in Beqa'a
Valley village is being threatened with demolition along
with 15 more houses. The village is located between
Kiryat Arba settlement and Route 60 which divides
the valley in two.
Police arrest 5 Palestinians who petitioned
against IAA digs under their homes
The police arrested five Palestinian residents of the
East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan this week,
all within a day of their having petitioned the High
Court of Justice to stop an Israel Antiquities
Authority excavation under their homes.
Israeli army kidnaps four from Ramallah
area, including owner of Money exchange
Israeli military kidnapped four Palestinians from the
central West Bank city of Ramallah and the nearby
village of 'Arora and attacked several villages in
Ramallah district on Tuesday morning.
Israeli army kidnapp 11
Palestinians in Nablus
Israeli army carried out a large-scale abduction
campaign included 11 Palestinians among those
eight owners of the money exchange in the northern
West Bank city of Nablus. The other three were
abducted from the Balata refugee camp.
Israeli police seize Palestinian Prime
Minister's advisor in Jerusalem
The Israeli police arrested Hatim Abdul-Qadir, the
Palestinian Prime Minister's advisor for Jerusalem
affairs on Tuesday morning. Ma'an's reporter said
that Israeli police seized Abdul-Qadir as he left his
house in the Shu'fat neighborhood in northern
Jerusalem and took him to an interrogation centre
in the Israeli settlement of Nevie Ya'aqov in northern Jerusalem.
A Palestinian is kidnapped by
Special Forces of Israeli army
On Tuesday morning the Special Force of the
Israeli army kidnapped a Palestinian from the village
of Kafr Qdoum, north of Qalqilia city in the West Bank.
Israeli army pulls out from eastern Gaza
as an Israeli soldier wounded
A column of Israeli army tanks rolled back early on
Tuesday morning from the eastern neighborhood of
Gaza City, after an Israeli army undercover unit
attempted to sweep into the neighborhood.
Khalid: Israel approved the construction
of 7000 settler home in Jerusalem
Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO), member of the Political
Bureau of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (DFLP), Taiseer Khalid, stated that the
Israeli decision to build 7000 homes for settlers
around Jerusalem is another Israeli violation which
aims at annexing all Arab areas around the city.
Ehud Barak orders a wide scale
offensive in the Gaza Strip
The Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated
on Monday that he ordered the Israeli army to
start preparing for the wide scale offensive
against the Gaza Strip.
Hamas warns Israel of heavy price
if leaders harmed
Islamic Hamas movement on Monday warned that
Israel will pay heavy price if the Jewish state harms
Hamas leaders in response to Qassam rocket attacks
targeting southern Israel from the Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Barak: Goal is to get rid of Hamas
One of the goals of Israel's operations in the Gaza
Strip is to bring about the demise of Hamas rule
in the territory, Defense Minister Ehud Barak
told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee yesterday.
Hamas downplays Israeli threats against
the group, follows security precautions
The ruling Hamas movement in Gaza considered
yesterday the latest Israeli threats against its ranks
'serious', yet it said such threats wont deter the
movement from keeping up.
Bracing for Israeli assault,
Hamas forces take cover
With deadly Israeli drones prowling the skies for fresh
Hamas targets, lieutenant Atef al-Husary and his
men abandoned their police station and set up a
makeshift post under a tree.
Hamas gov't says PM
lives normal life
Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of the sacked Hamas
government lives a normal life and did not go
underground though he took some security
measures, Hamas administration said on Tuesday.
"No one has fled and no one has gone into hiding,"
said Taher al-Nounou, spokesman for the deposed
Hamas government which rules the Gaza Strip,
adding that "he (Haneya) is not afraid."
Ramon: We will topple Hamas and
bring Gaza back to Abbas
Israeli deputy premier Haim Ramon has unveiled on
Monday a military scheme of his occupation government
that aims at toppling Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip
and bringing the Strip back to the control of PA chief
Mahmoud Abbas. According to Ramon, the Israeli
occupation government will work within few months
or at a maximum of one year to quash "Hamas's rule"
in Gaza, and it will bring back Abbas and his security
forces back to rule the Strip.
Fayyad says Israel fails to keep
road map promises
Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad on Monday
accused Israel of failing to keep its commitments to
freeze Jewish settlement activity and to ease
checkpoints that limit Palestinian mobility on the West Bank.
Settlements, Gaza cloud
Israel-Palestinian talks
Israeli plans to build more homes in and around Arab
East Jerusalem came under fire on Tuesday from
Palestinians who see the city as capital of their future
state, casting another shadow over troubled peace talks.
Hamas official warns Palestinians will breach
Egypt border again if Gaza embargo not lifted
Palestinians will breach the border between Egypt and
the Gaza Strip again if the blockade of the coastal
territory continues, a senior Hamas member warned
Monday, defying an Egyptian threat to «break the
legs» of anyone who violates the frontier. The
comments by Said Siam threatened to worsen
already strained relations between Gaza's Hamas
rulers and the Egyptian government.
Hamas suspends pro-Fatah daily in
ongoing Palestinian media spat
On 10 February 2008, a Hamas-affiliated court in Gaza
banned the distribution and publication of Al-Ayyam
newspaper, a major Palestinian daily, for publishing a
cartoon seen as offensive to lawmakers affiliated to the movement.
Palestinian negotiator refuses
statehood without Gaza, Jerusalem
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday the
Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud
Abbas won't accept a future statehood without the
Hamas-run Gaza Strip or Jerusalem as its capital.
settlement from Palestinian Development Fund
RAMALLAH — Palestinian Authority officials are
suspected of involvement in the abduction of a West
Bank attorney. A Palestinian attorney who won a
case against the Palestinian Development Fund was
abducted as she entered Ramallah to collect a check
for her client. The attorney, Amani Abu Arqoub,
left her home on Feb. 6 in Dura in the southern West
Bank for Ramallah to collect the settlement from PDF
offices in Ramallah.
ANALYSIS: Hamas banks on IDF
invasion to deliver final blow to Abbas
Those who follow the news on Hamas' Website or hear
its spokesmen will have a difficult time deciding who
Hamas' real enemy is. Is it Israel? Egypt's state media,
which launched a media offensive against the
organization behind the breach of Egypt's border?
Or is it the Palestinian Authority, depicted as an
enemy in cahoots with the Zionist entity?
Gaza to be connected to Egyptian
power grid in 19 months
The Gaza Strip will be completely connected to the
Egyptian electricity network in 19 months, a Palestinian
official announced on Monday. Omar Katana, chief of
the Palestinian Energy Authority, said that the Gaza
Strip would be connected to the Egyptian electricity
network via a power plant in the coastal city of
al-Arish located in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Lack of fuel causes 30%
power shortfall in Gaza
Israel's restriction policy over the fuel shipments to
the Gaza Strip caused a power shortage of 30 percent
in the poor enclave, a Palestinian official said Sunday.
Top reservists: Roadblocks in W. Bank
do more harm than good
A group of top Israel Defense Forces reserve officers
are set to unveil Wednesday a new position paper
according to which the 550 roadblocks in the West Bank
serve to increase the motivation to commit terror
attacks, and removing a significant portion of them
would help calm the security situation and undermine
Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli foreign ministry's token Arab
Ishmael Khaldi has been all the rage amongst
Israel advocacy groups in the United States,
especially in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area.
An Arab Bedouin who embraces his Israeli citizenship
and has worked for the Israeli police as well as Israel's
occupying army, he was a dream come true for the
Israeli consulate, which decided to hire him as
Deputy Consul to San Francisco in December 2006.
Yaman Salahi reports on Khaldi's private talk to a
group of University of California, Berkeley students
organizing "Israeli Apartheid Week."
'I don't care if our pro-Zionist
stance costs us'
Anyone who doesn't more or less share Marty Peretz's
views on Israel or U.S. politics has little hope of getting
a job at The New Republic, the editor-in-chief of the
prestigious U.S. journal told Haaretz while in Israel last
month. Those views, in short, hold that 60 years after
Israel's independence, the world is once more "in need
of a mandate for Palestine," the journalist and retired
Harvard University lecturer said in his suite in the Tel
Aviv Hilton. The Palestinians, he says, need to be
governed by foreign powers for the time being,
because they "do not have yet the attributes to
allow them to live peacefully alongside Israel
without threatening its civilian population."
new Arab city since 1948
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said on Tuesday during a
visit to the Arab city Umm al-Fahm that he is working
to lay the foundations for a new Arab city, the first since 1948.
OPT: Palestinian farmers hit by
prolonged frost in January
A recent cold snap with sub-zero temperatures has caused
farmers in the West Bank to incur losses of nearly US$14.5
million, according to initial estimates by the Palestinian
ministry of agriculture (MoA) set out in a 6 February
joint "fact sheet" with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Delegates of the International Mission of United
Methodist Churches visit Bethlehem
Delegates of the International Mission of United Methodist
Churches visited the West Bank city of Bethlehem and met
with Palestinian families in villages and refugee camps
around the city. The delegates initially spent three days
in Arab areas in Israel in order to observe the living
conditions there.
from Baghdad to Damascus
Damascus, February 2008 - Given 15 year-old Ibrahim
Sayyid's sunny outlook on life, you would be surprised to
learn the challenges he has had to overcome to study
plumbing at the UNRWA Damascus Vocational Training
Centre. The Agency is sponsoring Ibrahim's education
and providing lodging for him at the Centre during his
studies. "I've always been at the top of my class," said
Ibrahim as he began telling the story of his journey
from Baghdad to Damascus.
Education in the West Bank -
the future begins here
JERUSALEM-WESTBANK-GAZA - A new boys' school
has opened its doors to 400 students attending the 5th to
9th grades in one of the villages of the West Bank. Built
in partnership with World Vision and funded by USAID,
the Azzun Basic Boys School was inaugurated in the
village of Azzun in the West Bank on February 5, with
members of the community and the Palestinian Minister
of Higher Education present.
Poll: 100,000 children in Israel have
been sexually assaulted
A national poll reveals that some 100,000 children in
Israel have been sexually assaulted, but only 2.5 percent
of the incidents are reported to the proper authorities.
The poll, presented at a National Council for the Child
conference in Be'er Sheva on Monday, encompassed
500 polled parents.
Sapir College prepares to lay off lecturer
who refused to teach reservist
Lecturer who refused to teach student because he
was wearing IDF uniform will be fired after he did
not issue apology by college deadline.
Palestine Matters
The suffering in Gaza specifically, and Palestine
in general, has not been the subject of any
substantive discussion in the 2008 Presidential
campaign. There is a code of silence that surrounds
this subject and an unspoken assumption that
whatever steps Israel needs to take to "ensure its
survival" will receive 100% support from the
US political establishment.
Protesters Blockade Israeli State
Owned Company
For IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press contact:
07986 764432 07745 817822 thewallmustfall@riseup.net
11 February 2007 From around 3pm today Palestine
solidarity demonstrators have been blockading
Carmel Agrexco's U.K headquarters in Swallowfield
Way, Hayes, Middlesex to highlight the company's
human rights record in occupied Palestine.
Protesters were met with violent assaults by
Agrexco security guards who smashed a video camera.
A Discussion with Walt and Mersheimer,
The Power of the Israel Lobby
"Let's move over here--in the corner. It'll be better for us
to talk in private. Or else some people might get the
wrong idea," chuckles John Mearsheimer, a Distinguished
Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago and co-author of the incendiary book, "The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."
Interview: Tear down the walls
Jewish academic says Palestinians must tear
down separation wall. Norman Finkelstein is one
of Israel's fiercest academic critics and a vocal
supporter of the Palestinians.
The Hawks' Last Hurrah?
Washington Dispatch: Washington hawks warn Israeli
policymakers that they could be on their own on Iran.
Israel's Secret Success
SOMETHING strange is happening to us Zionists in
the 60th year of the state of Israel: we are repudiating
our astonishing success. If in the 1880s (the start of
Zionist settlement in what is now Israel) or in 1948
(the War of Independence) or even in 1967 (the
Six-Day War) somebody had said that one day
virtually the entire world, including all the Arab nations,
would accept the existence of the State of Israel in 78
percent of the land of Israel, he would have been regarded
as either idiotically optimistic or clinically insane. That,
however, is where we are today. We have won, but we are
refusing to accept the result.
The War Against Tolerance
Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are
the three stooges of the Christian right. These
self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly
trotted out at Christian colleges-a few days ago they
were at the Air Force Academy-to spew racist filth
about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the
Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who
all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate
speech and assure us it comes from personal experience.
They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with
one-fifth of the world's population is by converting or
eradicating all Muslims. Their cant is broadcast regularly
on Fox News, including the Bill O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows,
as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs.
Shoebat, who has written a book called "Why We Want to Kill You,"
promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities
between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how
"Muslim terrorists" invaded America 30 years ago and
how "perseverance, recruitment and hate" have fueled
attacks by Muslims.
God vs. Elliott Abrams
Back in June 2003 Palestinian Prime Minister
Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath
came to the White House to meet President Bush for
the first time. Shaath relates that Bush told his visitors
during their meeting in the Oval Office that God had
commanded him to establish a Palestinian state:
"God told me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq,'
and I did. And now I feel God's words coming to me, '
Go and get the Palestinians their state' … and by
God I'm going to do it."
"Where are you from?"
For Palestinian expatriate nationals like me who have
managed to find their way back to Palestine in order
to contribute in some fashion, what's on the horizon is
far from clear. Our foothold is tenuous; we are here on
sufferance by the Israelis who control the borders and
the areas between towns and villages and let us in
carefully or not at all. Rima Merriman writes from Jenin.
U.N. says 4 million Iraqis
hungry despite wealth
Four million Iraqis are struggling to feed themselves
and 40 percent of the country's 27 million people have
no safe water, despite oil wealth and a booming
economy, the U.N. said on Tuesday.
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