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BIL'IN VILLAGERS ARE BEING ASSAULTED WHILE
ATTEMPTING TO PREVENT THE PLACEMENT OF A NEW CARAVAN ON THEIR LAND
**UPDATE** Villagers from Bil'in are now lying beneath the caravan to prevent settlers from placing them. Settlers are assaulting the villagers and one Palestinian journalist has had his camera smashed. Around 50 villagers are stuck at the gate to their land, soldiers won't let them through and are beginning to use force.
LIFE Ramadan 2007 update report: Somalia, Ethiopia, OPT, Sierra Leone
B'Tselem: 373 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in 2007
B'Tselem today releases its year-end report. According to B'Tselem data, the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed in clashes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip dropped. However, there has been deterioration in many other measures of the human rights situation in the occupied territories. The primary one is the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, which has declined to an all time low, following Israel's siege on the area.
Death toll rises to seven in Gaza faction fighting
Hamas and Fatah fighters waged gun battles in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday that raised to seven the number of people killed in the deadliest clashes between the rival Palestinian factions in months.
Shin Bet denying vital treatment for ill Gazans
According to Physicians for Human Rights, the defense establishment is preventing critically ill Gazans from entering Israel for medical treatment. Since Israel labeled the Gaza Strip a hostile entity in September, there has been a steep decline in the number of permits issued to the ill. Of 551 requests for urgent medical treatment submitted, only 32 were approved. 314 requests were never answered.
IDF confirms: Israeli soldiers killed Palestinian woman
Initial inquiry into death of Palestinian at Erez border crossing confirms IDF soldiers opened fire as large group of pilgrims were returning from Mecca. Investigation to continue. The Palestinian woman killed on Sunday evening at the Erez border crossing in northern Gaza was shot by IDF soldiers, the army confirmed on Monday.
Hamas says Fatah responsible for Gaza violence
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)held on Tuesday rival Fatah movement for the violence which erupted in the Gaza Strip overnight leaving eight people killed and more than 30 wounded.
Stranded Palestinian pilgrims in Egypt threaten hunger strike
A senior Hamas official among thousands of Palestinian pilgrims stranded in Egypt threatened Tuesday the group would begin a hunger strike unless they be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip through a border crossing not controlled by Israel. Ayman Taha's threat came a day after some of the pilgrims housed in temporary shelters in northern Sinai burned mattresses and broke windows, protesting Egypt's refusal to let them enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
ILA publishes two tenders to build in Jerusalem over Green Line
The Israel Lands Administration (ILA) recently published two construction tenders for Jerusalem in areas over the Green Line. On Sunday, it published a tender for 440 apartments in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of the capital's East Talpiot suburb. The northern part of the Armon Hanatziv tender falls within no-man's land; the rest is over the Green Line, Israel's pre-1967 border. The land was expropriated in 1973 from Palestinian residents of the nearby villages of Sur Baher and Jabal Mukaber, which are within the Jerusalem city limits. Final approval for the plan came in April 2005. The outermost plots in this area are only a few dozen meters from these villages, which Vice Premier Haim Ramon has said are slated to be transfered to the Palestinian Authority in final-status negotiations.
Barak: West Bank roadblocks will remain
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday roadblocks in the West Bank have been effective in preventing terror and will not be removed. Barak said during a visit to an Israeli military post in the northern West Bank that the roadblocks are effective and necessary, Haaretz reported Tuesday.
Palestinian President wants early elections
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas invited Monday all Palestinian parties including the rival Hamas to early elections, in a televised speech from the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Hamas rejects call for early Palestinian polls
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) senior leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said here Tuesday his movement rejected the call for early legislative elections in the Palestinian territories.
Hamas' spokesperson:
If Haniyeh is assassinated, "earthquake will shake the region"
Bethlehem – Ma'an – exclusive – The spokesperson of the Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubayda threatened on Sunday that if Israel assassinates the deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Isma'il Haniyeh, "an earthquake will shake the region," and the Israelis will be held responsible for all the repercussions.
Abbas reveals: Israel negotiated with Hamas
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claimed on Monday that despite Israel's stated policy that it would not speak to Hamas, representatives from both parties met for clandestine talks in Switzerland.
Former Palestinian FM: Hamas, Israel reached declaration of intent
Former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar confirmed Tuesday that the so called "Swiss Document", allowing for certain agreed-upon principles that would allow negotiations between Israel and the Hamas, in fact exists.
At the same time, the prime minister expressed considerable empathy for Palestinian concerns over settlement growth. If the only construction work undertaken since the road map was accepted had been at Ma'aleh Adumim and Har Homa, he said, "then I imagine the Palestinians, though they might not have been happy about it, would not have responded in the way that they respond when every year, all the settlements - in all the territories - continue to grow. There is a certain contradiction in this between what we're actually seeing and what we ourselves promised. We always complain about the [breached] promises of the other side. Obligations are not only to be demanded of others, but they must also be honored by ourselves."
Barghouti: Israel doesn't want peace
"What is demanded of Israel now is that it announce clearly that it is ready to end the occupation, retreat from occupied territories, remove settlements and checkpoints, stop seizing land, release prisoners, stop the siege of the Gaza Strip and stop the operations of killing and destruction," he added.
Words won't stop the construction
The announcement that the prime minister has directed cabinet ministers not to build in the territories behind his back sounds like a sleight of hand. The prime minister should not instruct his ministers to "increase awareness" of their ministries' actions that might impair negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather he should once and for all bring the Sasson report to the cabinet for approval. The report states clearly how to monitor settlement expansion.
Arab hackers target Israeli websites
Various commerce sites, Likud party site among those affected. Israeli-Arab youth leads hacking cell.
Lurching from crisis to crisis in Gaza
The Israeli Defense Ministry's program to punish Gaza's population for Qassam rocket fire into Israeli territory is apparently moving into a new phase. A second round of fuel cuts – Phase II -- was scheduled to start on 30 December, with a military-ordered reduction of some 35% to 43% (apparently depending on what numbers are used as the baseline) in the amount of gasoline that will now be supplied to the Gaza Strip.