West Bank settlers seize farmland south of Hebron
Israeli settlers flanked by soldiers seized new land south of the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday, Palestinian security sources said. Security officials in Hebron said that the settlers, from the nearby settlement of Karmel, near the Palestinian town of Yatta, erected a metal fence on land near the settlement and prevented local Palestinian resident from approaching the fence. The settlers appeared to be preparing to occupy the land. The confiscated farmland belongs to families from Yatta, including Abu Hamid, Qraeich, and Abu Fanar. The Palestinians who own the land are urging international intervention to save their land, as they say farming is their only source of income. Sources in Yatta say that there has been new construction in the Karmel settlement, and that new settlers have arrived to live in the community.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
US envoy worries settlers
The appointment of US Mideast Envoy George Mitchell is "very disturbing," Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan told Ynet Saturday evening. "Soon we will need to get Obama's request to have children," Dayan said, alluding to Mitchell's previously voiced objection to allowing natural growth in West Bank settlements.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gaza
Gaza toll rises to 1,337 after death of infant girl, arrival of two corpses from Egypt
An infant girl died in a Gaza hospital on Sunday after breathing in the chemical white phosphorus from Israeli shells in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Palestinian medical sources said. Medics identified the girl as six-month-old Nancy Wakid, the last casualty of Israel's three week offensive on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli army opens fire at resident homes in southern Gaza
The Israeli army opened fire at resident homes and farm lands located at Al Faraheen village located in the southern part of the Gaza strip on Saturday. The residents said that Israeli tanks stationed at the borders opened fire at their homes and farms; damage was reported but no injuries. Today's incident is not the first time Israel has violated its cease fire, On Thursday, Israeli Navy forces opened fire at Palestinian fishermen just off the shore of Gaza City, injuring seven civilians. On day before, on Wednesday, the boats fired shells at the coastline, causing damage but no injuries.
http://imemc.org/article/58613
PCHR Weekly Report 15-21 January: Nearly 1300 Palestinians killed in three-week long Israeli assault
In its weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the Gaza Strip for the week of 15- 21 January 2009, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported that whole families were wiped out in Israeli air strikes, large areas of infrastructure have been flattened, and that children and women constitute nearly half of the victims of the Israeli onslaught ... The civilian victims include 280 children and 111 women. 4,336 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 1,133 children and 735 women, were wounded. Dr. Nizar Rayan and Mr. Sa'id Siam, senior leader of Hamas, were extra-judicially executed by Israeli forces, together with a number of members of their families....
http://imemc.org/article/58610
IAF jets fly over Gaza, sparking fears of new Israeli offensive
Flights by Israel Air Force F-16s over Gaza on Sunday sparked fears in the coastal territory that a new Israeli military offensive was underway. A number of banks, government offices and schools in Gaza were closed as the warplanes flew through the Hamas-ruled Strip's skies. Shops were also closed in the center of Gaza City, and Gaza residents left the streets for the safety of their homes. Israel launched its 3-week offensive in Gaza last month with a devastating air raid on Hamas targets throughout the Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Report: Zahar injured during Gaza op
A Palestinian source was quoted on Sunday as saying that senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar was injured during the final days of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. A Kuwaiti daily quoted the source as saying that Zahar was evacuated by ambulance to an Egyptian hospital for medical treatment. The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the report. Three of Zahar's bodyguards were killed by an IAF strike near his house in Gaza City.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
De facto government denies appointing replacement for assassinated Interior Minister
Spokesperson of the de facto Ministry of the Interior Ihab Al-Ghusein denied Saturday rumors that a new minister had been appointed to replace the assassinated Sa'id Siyam. Siyam was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the end of the three week war on Gaza. He was Interior Minister in the de facto Hamas government, and controlled the Executive Forces. Rumors had been circulating for the past two days that Khalil Al-Haya had been appointed as the new Minster of the Interior. Al-Ghusein noted that "no decision has been made by the government in this regard, and no new information is available on this issue."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Mofaz threatens more assassinations if Shalit not freed soon; Al-Masri counters with spectre of more captives
Israeli Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz spoke with Israeli Radio Sunday, and assured listeners that the government intends to exhaust all the new possibilities for the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which were made available during Operation Cast Lead.
"Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will not see the light of day," until Shalit does, said Mofaz, noting that the same threat applied to all senior leaders in the area. This threat comes despite a unilaterally declared ceasefire which took effect one week ago. Mofaz cited the assassinations of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and spokesperson Abdel Aziz Rantisi in 2004, as proof Israel could carry out the assassinations.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel sends 41 Gazan 'illegal combatants' to desert prison camp
Forty-one Palestinians seized by Israel during its invasion of the Gaza Strip have arrived at the Negev prison camp in southern Israel, a prisoners' affairs expert reported on Friday. Researcher Abed An-Naser Farawnah said he has learned that the Gazan detainees have been remanded to Section Nine of the desert camp, far away from the other prisoners, and are being denied contact with other inmates. The existing prisoners were told that the Gazans are under the direct control of Shin Bet, the Israeli security service. The others in the camp are dealt with under a law dealing with "legitimate fighters." Farawnah said he fears that the Gazan detainees are being dealt with "harshly," but said that the conditions of their detention are unknown. Israel has refused to cooperate with either the Red Cross or the Palestinian Authority in this regard.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Islamic University in Gaza estimates damage to campus at 15 million US dollars
The damage, caused by several airstrikes during Israel's operation Cast Lead, saw several buildings destroyed and others severely damaged. The University's board of trustees met with the president of the university Dr Kamalein Sha'ath Sunday and announced that the university will launch a fundraising campaign in order to pay for repairs.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
UN assessments call for urgent repair equipment for water lines
Four water wells in Beit Hanoun, Gaza and Jabalia were totally destroyed during the Israeli war on Gaza, and due to limited building supplies available in Gaza, have not yet been repaired. Beyond the well damage, the UN office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) there is also damage to several water carriers in Nusairat, Gaza City and Khan Yuonis. This means that while water is available, families must travel, often long distances, to collect water supplies. The waste water networks in Gaza, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia have also sustained serious damage.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Vista of endless ruin
By Saleh Al-Naami. Bomb-pummelled sites look as if hit by a massive earthquake. Familiar streets seem odd, now blocked by the rubble of collapsed buildings. The Israeli army shelled some streets with bombs weighing one ton, turning them into a terrain of craters and mounds. I am told the tactic was a precaution against roadside bombs potentially planted by the resistance. Sewage streams past the wreckage, filling some of the craters. Electricity and telephone poles lie knocked down by bulldozers and smashed by tanks. Even the animals met a sad end. In the southeast of Zeitoun, there used to be some cattle and sheep barns. Israeli soldiers fired at the animals when they broke out of the barns, disturbed by the shelling. Now their carcasses litter the roads.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
Hamas fights to rebuild Gaza in new battle for hearts and minds
Peter Beaumont reporting from Gaza -- A bitter struggle is taking place over the right to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, even as the leadership of Hamas emerges from the rubble of areas that were devastated by 23 days of Israeli bombardment. The international community insists that it cannot channel billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to Hamas, and is calling for the involvement of the more moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. But Hamas is insisting on sole control of Gaza's rebuilding, as well as claiming moral leadership of the Palestinian people ... Sitting on huge cash reserves, Hamas has said that it will begin distributing emergency payments of €4,000 to those who have lost homes, and has already been handing out coupons for food as well as aid, some of it seized from foreign and international donors ... But as Faisal Abu Shalah, a Fatah member of the legislative council for Gaza points out, while Hamas insists on controlling the reconstruction, Israel will not lift its economic blockade. "They have the power and the money. They can give people money to rebuild," he said last week. "But with what? There is not a single bag of cement to be had on the Gaza Strip."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Talks, factions, etc.
Egypt aims to cement ceasefire
Hamas and other Palestinian factions are in Cairo for talks with Egyptian and European mediators in an effort to cement the ceasefires that ended Israel's three-week war on the Gaza Strip. On Sunday, the Hamas delegation met Omar Suleiman, Egypt's intelligence chief, who held talks with both Israeli and Palestinian officials throughout the fighting in an attempt to secure a lasting truce. Egypt's state MENA news agency said they discussed "Egyptian efforts to consolidate the ceasefire, reach a [permanent] truce, reopen Gaza crossings and resume Palestinian national dialogue". Hamas says it will resume fighting unless the border crossings into Gaza are reopened and Israel ends its 18-month economic blockade of the territory.
http://english.aljazeera.net//
Fatah: Cairo talks must be comprehensive; Rafah agreement of 2005 still stands
Gaza - Ma'an - Fatah prefers talks on ceasefire and unity as a package, rather than as separate issues, said senior Fatah official Ibrahim Abu An-Naja Sunday. He also announced that the party's delegation from Gaza will be joined by head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Azam Al-Ahmad of the West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Hamas: Israel proposes 18-month truce, but we insist on just one year
"Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Defense Ministry official] Amos Gilad, and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year and a half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only," Ayman Taha told reporters in Cairo after talks with Egyptian intelligence officials. Taha reiterated the group's calls for a lifting of the blockade imposed on the impoverished and devastated Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt as a condition for the truce. "[Hamas] called for a complete lifting of the blockade and an opening of all the crossings," Taha said. Hamas proposed to Egyptian mediators that European and Turkish monitors be present at the border crossings, but rejected the presence of Israeli monitors, saying Israeli monitoring was "a large part of the problem," according to Taha.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Time to rethink Hamas isolation: ICG
CAIRO (AFP) – A week after a fragile ceasefire began in Gaza, former US diplomat turned head of the International Crisis Group's Middle East programme Robert Malley looks at the 22-day conflict's impact on the region. Malley, who was distanced from Barack Obama's US presidential campaign for his contacts with Hamas, says that the largely Western boycott of the Islamists is a failure and discusses Obama's future role in the region.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Palestinians say Abbas weakened; unsure on Hamas
RAMALLAH, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The standing of U.S.-backed leader Mahmoud Abbas might have been hurt over the war in Gaza, but many Palestinians in the occupied West Bank said it did not mean that Hamas had won more support. "We are restless. It's hard to trust Abbas after what happened in Gaza and even harder for us to believe in the Hamas project," said Abu Ahmed al-Nazer, 42, a schoolteacher in Hebron.
http://www.reuters.com/
Barak: Egypt stopping arms from getting to Gaza
Defense Minister Ehud Barak used his cabinet security briefing Sunday to praise Egypt for stopping arms from getting to Hamas operatives in Gaza Strip."There is an accumulation of weapons and equipment meant for Hamas in Sinai, but Egypt is preventing it from getting into the Strip," he said. As for Operation Cast Lead
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Report: US Navy to fight arms smuggling from Iran to Gaza
An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea in a bid to deliver weapons to Hamas
http://www.ynetnews.com/
US military may install sensing equipment on Egypt's border with Gaza
A group of six US military officers and engineers, including the US military attaché in Cairo, toured Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip in the town of Rafah, the BBC reported. The men were reportedly looking into the possibility of installing high-tech sensing equipment to locate tunnels that are used to smuggle goods into Gaza. A team from the US Army Corps of Engineers has been in Egypt for months on a mission to help find and destroy the tunnels. US military personnel have also reportedly been in Egypt for 40 days training Egyptian security personnel to use the new sensing equipment.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Arms will flow to Gaza despite security: Hamas
A senior Hamas official said on Sunday the Palestinian Islamist movement will continue to arm its militants in the war-battered Gaza Strip as well as on the West Bank even as a Hamas team was in Egypt for talks in a bid to clinch a lasting truce in war-battered Gaza. "We never failed to get arms into Gaza even during the (Israeli) war and under the bombardment," the Hamas representative in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, told a rally in the Lebanese capital. "We have the right to hold weapons ... Things might get difficult, but we will do whatever it takes to continue our resistance against Israel."
http://www.alarabiya.net/
Israel's Barak heads to US over Gaza arms smuggling
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is to travel to Washington next week to discuss the implementation of a bilateral agreement to halt arms smuggling into Gaza, a senior official said on Saturday. He will be the first top Israeli official to travel to Washington since the end of Israel's deadly 22-day offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on January 18 and since President Barack Obama took office. Barak, who will leave on Tuesday, was to meet Secretary of Defence Robert Gates "to discuss the implementation of the Israeli-US memorandum of understanding" aimed at halting arms smuggling between Egypt and Gaza, he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The two would also discuss US arms sales to Israel, the official said, refusing to elaborate.
http://www.google.com/
Testimonies/Eyewitness accounts
The childhoods blighted by war
The interview was going badly wrong. Lara sat, serious and shy, on a tall chair in the centre of the living room and I simply could not bring myself to ask the right questions. How do you talk to an eight-year-old about a rocket attack that killed her mother, her sister and her four brothers?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Bowen diary: No ordinary school day
The first day back at school is always a rush for children and parents. Normally you can sort it out in a few minutes of frantic activity, and then the children get off to school, and peace descends again - for a few hours anyway. So imagine what it was like to be a 10-year-old girl called Mona in Gaza. Her school reopened Saturday morning, after the break for the war. She doesn't have parents to get her off to school, as they were killed by Israeli soldiers. Her brother took her back to their family house this morning, to find her school things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Children cope in Gaza
S., a teacher, is mother to two children, a 6-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. Their home near the beach was destroyed, and like tens of thousands of Gazans they've been crashing with relatives. The other day, her son came up to her and said, "When I grow up, I want to be a Jew." "What?" S. asked. "I want to be Jewish, so I can get a big tank," he said. "Why do you need a tank?" "I want to be strong. But don't worry, I won't use it to hurt you."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcb_
Gaza children return to school after war
(AP) In one classroom, signs with the names of three 14-year-old boys killed in the fighting were set on their desks — and their deskmates sat with stunned expressions next to the empty seats as the teacher encouraged the class to talk about their experiences. "It's very hard when one used to see 30 students in class, and after what happened, I see 27," their teacher, Bassam Salha told the class at the U.N.'s Fakhoura Elementary school. "We lived three weeks in sadness. I want you students to help me to get out of the sad mood I am in now."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Our friend's tragedy
By Brenda Sassoon-Rosmarin. Sitting in his home in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, a Hamas stronghold, surrounded by shelling and chaos, sat our Palestinian friend of over a decade, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Izzeldin was a featured character in the documentary film produced by my husband Isidore Rosmarin and me in 2007, Blood and Tears: The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Trained in Israeli hospitals, his work as an obstetrician/ gynecologist at Soroka Hospital has had him delivering the babies of Israeli settlers, as well as of Palestinians. He has been an outspoken advocate of peace, even while residing in a refugee camp rife with hostility and aggression against Israelis. He sent his daughters out of Gaza to "Peace Camp" in the United States, and in 2006 ran for political office against Hamas. ...while Izzeldin was giving a live phone interview for Israeli TV evening news about the situation in Gaza, an explosion rocked his home, instantly killing three of his daughters, ages 20, 15 and 13, as well as a niece, and injuring another daughter and son. It was the Israeli TV journalist, who, struggling to keep his composure, called for an ambulance. A phone call came in to my husband with the horrific news. He frantically tried to reach Izzeldin hoping it was not true.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Philip Weiss: I should have questioned that 'Sophie's Choice' report
Last night I posted about a "Sophie's Choice" in Gaza,
http://www.philipweiss.org/
A Gaza diary
By Mohammed Dawwas. Thursday 22 January: I went to the burns department in Shifa hospital. I've never seen anything like this in my life. These phosphorus burns. Their bodies were black. One person has stitches everywhere. It's worse than killing people. They look like the living dead. I also went to the north, to Beit Lahiya. This was one of the most beautiful areas of farmland. Now it's gone, you can't recognise the place. I wanted to cry....
http://www.independent.co.uk/
War Crimes
Olmert: Hamas turning victims into attackers
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Palestinian National Archives seeks NGO cooperation in documenting rights violations
Palestinian National Archives is requesting that all organizations involved in cataloguing the human rights violations of Israel during the Gaza war coordinate with the institution in order to ensure complete and accurate information is gathered. The media department at the archives said any and all audio-visual documentation will facilitate the work of Arab and Palestinian human rights organizations that are currently collecting testimonials and will compile them by age categories.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Reports of mass arrest [warrants] for Israeli war criminals
Berlin, Jan 25, IRNA - Dozens of arrests warrants have already been issued for Israeli war criminals, said the head of the Gaza Human Rights Center Raji Sourani in an exclusive interview with IRNA in Berlin on Saturday. "We have been targeting 87 people in six countries for whom arrest warrants have already been sent out," the Palestinian lawyer added. "One of the strategic issues at the Center of Human Rights (in Gaza) is to hold Israeli war criminals and military leaders accountable," Sourani stressed. The Palestinian human rights activist said his organization was collecting evidence, documenting Israeli war crimes. "We are now working day and night to document these war crimes and hopefully we will hold them accountable. We hope they (Israelis) cannot get away with crimes like these," Sourani said.
http://www.khabrein.info/
Prosecute Israeli war criminals
(with photo of phosphorus raining down on UN school0 The momentum of support that has been garnered among people in all parts of the world that have come together in solidarity with the Palestinians – the citizens of the world that support and respect human rights – must not come to a stop at this crucial point in time. Please sign this petition and join those in the international community that support justice for the Palestinians: http://www.petitiononline.com/
http://imemc.org/article/58603
'Phosphorus wounds' alarm Gazans
['phosphorus wounds' in quotes?] Staring straight ahead and rocking steadily backwards and forwards in her hospital bed, Sabah Abu Halima lists the fate of each of her nine children. "Abed, 14 years old, was decapitated," she says. "Shaheed, one year and three months, was in my arms when the fire took her…" Sabah herself has suffered terrible burns on her arms, legs and torso and is considerable pain. "There was fire, and so much white smoke," she says. "The missile melted my children. My daughter-in-law melted in front of my eyes." Dr Nafiz Abu Shabaan, the head of the unit in which Sabah is being treated, says he has seen many victims with what he described as "strange burns". "These burns were very severe, very deep, and became deeper and wider over time," he says. "In some cases, smoke came out of the wound, even after hours."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Video: Mark Regev on the ropes (war crimes)
"Jon Snow, top news guy at channel 4 interviews Mr Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesperson. This about weapons used in civilian areas that contravene Customary International Humanitarian Law."
http://palestinianpundit.
B'Tselem: Sealing house in E. Jerusalem is forbidden collective punishment
On Monday, 19 January 2009, the Israeli army sealed off two floors in the family home of 'Alaa Abu Dahim, who committed the terrorist attack at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva on 6 March 2008. The house is located in the Jabal Mukabber neighborhood of East Jerusalem. This is the first time in four years that Israel has sealed the house of relatives of Palestinians who carried out terror attacks against Israelis.
http://www.btselem.org/
West Bank and Israel
Israeli soldiers seize young vegetable seller from West Bank market
Israeli soldiers seized a young vegetable seller from a market in the West Bank village of Beita, south of the city of Nablus on Sunday. Witnesses told Ma'an that soldiers invaded the market and arrested 18-year-old Abed Zeidan Shaker Abu Ar-Radeh, accusing him of throwing stones at an Israeli settler's car. The soldiers said that a settler car had been damaged on the settler bypass road near the village.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Mufti condemns Israeli court decision allowing sewage pipe to run under Muslim cemetery
Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Sheikh Muhammad Hussein slammed the Israeli High Court decision to allow Israel's national water company Mekorot to install sewage networks inside the Ramla cemetery. Ramla is an ancient originally Palestinian town in Israel, and home to a large Islamic cemetery. The mufti said disturbing the graves by running pipe and tunnels beneath the dead was sacrilegious.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli forces raid resorts and restaurants in Ramallah area
Israeli forces stormed homes, restaurants, and resorts in several neighborhoods in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Sunday, with no arrests reported. According to security sources five Israeli military vehicles raided the Zein restaurant in the Resorts area, Sath Marhaba, Seriet Ramallah, and Ramallah park. Witnesses said soldiers stopped a number of citizens in the streets near Sath Marhaba and the Seriet Ramallah, checked their identity cards, and reversed traffic in the area.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel army seizes four Palestinians at Za'tara military checkpoint near Nablus
Israeli army arrested four young men at the Za'tara military checkpoint south of Nablus Sunday.
Local witnesses told Ma'an that the soldiers stopped a Palestinian car and thoroughly searched it. The men traveling in the car were then arrested and taken to an unknown location. Their identities have not yet been revealed.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli army kidnaps five Palestinians from Qabatiya town near Jenin
During a pre dawn invasion on Saturday the Israeli army kidnapped five Palestinian civilians from the town of Qabatiya. Local sources said that Israeli troops and armored vehicles stormed the town; the soldiers searched and ransacked homes before kidnapping the five men and leaving. Witnesses identified the kidnapped as Mohamed Khazamia, 17, and Hamad Abu Ayisha, 19, Ahmad Fo'ad, 16, Osamah Abu Zied, 19, and Mohamed Hanayisha, 32.
http://imemc.org/article/58612
Jenin military leader: There are no political prisoners in Jenin; allegations are unfounded
The only men in prison in Jenin based on their political affiliation are four Islamic Jihad men who turned themselves in for protection against the Israeli army, said Palestinian military leader of the West Bank district of Jenin Radi A'seeda. A'seeda denied allegations Islamic Jihad made earlier this week that police had detained political prisoners. The allegation said the prisoners were on a hunger strike to protest the detainments. A'seeda said police had not arrested men from "Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Fatah, or the leftist parties." The men being held asked that they be included on the list of those seeking pardon from Israel, so they can stop being followed and stop fearing attack.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian Bar Ass'n condemns attack on Ramallah lawyer, closes courts in protest
An unknown gunman attacked Ramallah lawyer Ahmed Awadallah in front of his house in the Al-Teereh neighborhood of Ramallah on Saturday. Awadallah sustained serious injuries in his left foot, and was taken to Ramallah's government hospital where doctors performed a series of operations on the foot. Medical sources described his condition as good. Attorney Ribhi Katamesh said that the Bar Association filed papers demanding the police fully investigate the attack on Sunday. Police have opened an investigation. The Bar Association condemned the attack and announced the suspension of work in all Ramallah courts.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Hebron military court sentences collaborator to death by firing squad
A Palestinian court in Hebron sentenced to death by firing squad a convicted collaborator who assisted Israeli intelligence assassinate a Palestinian activist and arrest several others. The man convicted, MRJ, is from the Al-'Arrub refugee camp north of Hebron. He was an officer in the Palestinian Presidential Security Service before he was arrested in Bethlehem on collaboration charges.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel opposition candidate Netanyahu still leads in polls
Reporting from Tel Aviv -- Hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared victory in the Gaza Strip, the hawkish contender to succeed him paid a visit to wounded soldiers and insisted that the enemy had not been defeated. "We have a strong people and a strong military that dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, but unfortunately the work is still not done," Benjamin Netanyahu said before television cameras outside a hospital last week. "Hamas still controls Gaza."That was only the warmup. "We cannot show weakness against Hamas and its Iranian supporters," the opposition leader added. "We need a strong, unwavering, persistent hand until the threat is eliminated." Israel's election campaign, placed on hold during the 22-day military assault, is back in full swing.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Kadima: Netanyahu-led Israel would clash with Obama
Kadima is capitalizing on Washington's new administration in its campaign for the premiership against Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that a Netanyahu government will lead to a clash between Israel and the United States. Livni said privately on Saturday that "people forget what happened to this relationship when Bibi was prime minister, and they have to be reminded."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gaza raids make Israel more ambitious
For as long as we can remember, it seems, Israel has said give us calm and we will do right by the Palestinians. For the moment, Israel appears to be failing the test. There are no immediate signs that it feels either more secure or more predisposed towards a settlement with the Palestinians. In fact, the unexpectedly low costs of "Operation Cast Lead" – one Israeli officer quoted in the left-leaning Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz called it a "training exercise" – has aroused the opposite: revanchist dreams of recovering lost territory and anachronistic hopes that its neighbours will take the Palestinian "problem" off its hands. The war, far from reviving talk of peace in Israel, seems only to have brought back its swagger. The results of opinion polls last week showed the renewed bravado.
http://www.thenational.ae/
Bigoted immigrant
By Jeff Barak. 'Here's another clown, another terrorist," said Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, as Ahmed Tibi entered the Supreme Court last week. The United Arab List-Ta'al MK shot back at Lieberman: "There are fascist immigrants here who want to deprive the Arabs of their right to live and be represented." Only one of the MKs was telling the truth in this unparliamentary exchange, and it wasn't Lieberman. Thankfully, the High Court accepted the petition filed by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, against a Knesset Central Elections Committee decision to bar two Arab parties, Balad and the United Arab List-Ta'al, from running in next month's elections on the grounds that they are a danger to the Jewish state.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
IDF adds antelope to its arsenal in fight against Hezbollah
In addition to infantry, armor and intelligence units, the Israel Defense Forces has also deployed eight Eland antelope to further secure Israel's tense northern border against Hezbollah. The antelope have been stationed in the zone between the security fence and the international border to clear problematic foliage that distorts views of the Lebanese side and within which Hezbollah guerillas could hide.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Media
Gaza Notebook: The bullets in my in-box
By Ethan Bronner of the New York Times. Among Israel's Jews, there is almost no higher value than Zionism. The word is bathed in a celestial glow, suggesting selflessness and nobility. But go anywhere else in the Middle East and Zionism stands for theft, oppression, racist exclusionism. No place, date or event in this conflicted land is spoken of in a common language. The barrier snaking across and inside the West Bank is a wall to Palestinians, a fence to Israelis. The holiest site in Jerusalem is the Temple Mount to Jews, the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. The 1948 conflict that created Israel is one side's War of Independence, the Catastrophe for the other.... Since the war started on Dec. 27, I have received hundreds of messages about my coverage. They are generally not offering congratulations on a job well done.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
Al-Jazeera drew US viewers on Web during Gaza war
DOHA, QATAR -- American viewership of Al-Jazeera English rose dramatically during the Israel-Hamas war, partly because the channel had what CNN and other international networks didn't have: reporters inside Gaza. But the viewers weren't watching it on television, where the Arab network's English-language station has almost no U.S. presence. Instead, the station streamed video of Israel's offensive against Hamas on the Internet and took advantage of emerging online media such as the microblogging Web site Twitter to provide real-time updates. Overall, the station's Web video stream saw a 600 percent jump in worldwide viewership during the Gaza offensive -- and about 60 percent of those hits came from the United States, according to the station's internal numbers. Outside figures also point to big gains in U.S. online interest, suggesting the war gave the Arab station its first significant chance to break into the American market. None of the biggest U.S. cable systems carries Al-Jazeera English, claiming viewer interest is not sufficient.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Journalists' federation says Hamas intimidating reporters; de facto gov't denies charges
The de facto government's information office on Sunday expressed astonishment about declarations made by Secretary General of the international federation of journalists Aiden White after he visited the Gaza Strip. The statement says White accused the de facto government of suppressing freedom of press, which officials say is "completely null and false."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
At the heart of BBC row, the homeless of Gaza
Peter Beaumont returns to Jabal Rayas to talk to the children whose desperate struggle to survive in bombed-out Gaza has led a leading charity to mount an emergency appeal - which BBC executives are refusing to screen. -- Safaa Salam is scared and cold. Last night the 10-year-old girl slept in the ruins of her family house in the Jabal Rayas area of eastern Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
This cowardly decision betrays the values the [BBC] corporation stands for
By Tim Llewellyn. How is the BBC's impartiality to be prejudiced by asking others to raise money for the victims of an act of war by a recognised state, an ally of Britain, using the most lethal armaments it can against a defenceless population? What sly little trigger went off in her head when Thomson questioned whether the aid would reach the right people? What right people? Hamas, the elected representatives of the Palestinian people? The hospitals and clinics run by private charities and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency? The mosques? The citizens of Gaza, persecuted beyond measure not only by their Israeli enemies but by the western powers who arm and sustain Israel and defy the democratic vote of the Palestinian people?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Leading article: Weakness in the face of suffering
It is easy to criticise the BBC, but that does not mean that it is always wrong to do so. The corporation's refusal to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal for aid to Gaza was a mistake. The Independent on Sunday is proud to carry the appeal on behalf of the group of 13 reputable charities. We accept that the intentions of Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, were honourable. Concerned to protect its reputation for impartiality, the BBC wanted to avoid "appearing to support one side rather than the other" in the Gaza conflict, as Caroline Thomson, the corporation's chief operating officer, said yesterday. This is a weak-minded interpretation of the BBC's duty of impartiality. The corporation seems to think it can avoid the charge of bias if it does nothing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
BBC left isolated as rival channels back aid appeal
Balance in the media: Has the BBC lost its nerve over Gaza? The BBC is used to being accused of anti-Israel bias, but in 2004 it was jolted by a study that said BBC1 and ITV news were guilty, if unthinkingly, of under-reporting the Palestinian cause. Worse, the Glasgow Media Unit found viewers thought the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza referred to the Palestinians, not Israeli settlers. At the same time, the BBC fell foul of the Israeli authorities over an interview with the nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu, released in 2004 after 18 years in prison, which was smuggled out of Israel. The BBC's then deputy bureau chief, Simon Wilson, had his work permit withdrawn and was barred from the country. He was allowed back in after the BBC bowed to demands that he make a written apology to the Israeli government for dodging its censors. The BBC appointed a senior broadcaster, Malcolm Balen, to "take stock" of Middle East coverage, in his words. He drew up an internal report that has never been released, but one result appeared to be the appointment, in mid-2005, of Jeremy Bowen as the BBC's Middle East editor. His stated role was to supply context amid the footage of bloodshed and mayhem.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Gaza decision up to BBC - Burnham
The BBC is right to make its own judgement over whether to air a charity appeal for aid to Gaza, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_
Sky TV's Waghorn: "They kept us out of Gaza and Israeli officials spun the war"
...The media control seems to have been a calculation made at the highest level in the Israeli government. We would do more harm reporting what was going on in Gaza than we would left outside complaining about restrictions on our press freedom. I am not sure it worked. There was enormous criticism of the campaign outside Israel, despite the draconian press controls. The news agency pictures and stories gave an account of the fighting and its consequences, however incomplete. And Israel's attitude has become a story. The country has been compared to the likes of China, Zimbabwe and Burma in the way it blocked efforts to report the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Gaza journalists demand legal action after deadly Israeli attacks on media
Israel violated international law by attacking journalists during its assault on Gaza, the Palestinian Journalists' Bloc said on Saturday. In a statement the Bloc said that journalists rights are guaranteed under international conventions, and called for Israeli leaders to be charged with war crimes. The statement named journalists it said had been "deliberately" killed during the 23-day campaign: Omar As-Silawi, Basel Faraj, Ihab Al-Waheidi, Al'a Murtaja and Jalal Nashwan. During the war, Israel bombarded two clearly marked buildings used by international and local television networks and news agencies, as well as journalists' homes. In one case, an Israeli drone fired at journalists broadcasting live from the roof of an office tower in Gaza City. The group also renewed its demand that the rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza release all journalists currently held in their jails.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Op-ed and Analysis
A shameful war: Israeli in the dock over assault on Gaza
By the time the shooting stopped, more than 100 Palestinians had been killed for every Israeli who died. Was every death lawful? And, if not, where does the fault lie? Raymond Whitaker and Donald Macintyre report. Did Israel – or its enemy, Hamas – commit war crimes during 22 days and nights of aerial assault, rocket launches and ground fighting in Gaza? In one sense the question is academic, because Israel will not recognise the conflict as an international one, and has not signed the 1977 Geneva protocol designed to apply to the victims of internal conflicts. But international lawyers say general principles can be drawn from the laws of war, which may have been violated in several ways. [proportionality, firing into urban areas, white phosphorus, DIME bombs and other unusual weapons, targeting of civilians, problems with humanitarian aid]
http://www.independent.co.uk/
The war that wasn't
By Reuven Pedatzur. It is very dangerous for the Israel Defense Forces to believe it won the war when there was no war. The expressions of satisfaction and praise for the war's outcome voiced by the army's top brass may lead the IDF to draw the wrong conclusions. Contrary to the image portrayed by reports in the Israeli media - asserting that the IDF's performance in the war was near-perfect and that the army adopted the lessons from the Second Lebanon War - in reality, not a single battle was fought during the 22 days of fighting. The Hamas fighters did not even try to stop the IDF soldiers who entered the Strip, opting to withdraw without a fight.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Foiling another Palestinian 'peace offensive': Behind the bloodbath in Gaza
By Norman Finkelstein. Early speculation on the motive behind Israel's slaughter in Gaza that began on 27 December 2008 and continued till 18 January 2009 centered on the upcoming elections in Israel. The jockeying for votes was no doubt a factor in this Sparta-like society consumed by "revenge and the thirst for blood,"[1] where killing Arabs is a sure crowd-pleaser ... Israel's "larger concern" in the current offensive, New York Times Middle East correspondent Ethan Bronner reported, quoting Israeli sources, was to "re-establish Israeli deterrence," because "its enemies are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be."[5] ... Beyond restoring its deterrence capacity, Israel's main goal in the Gaza slaughter was to fend off the latest threat posed by Palestinian moderation. For the past three decades the international community has consistently supported a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict that calls for two states based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its June 1967 border, and a "just resolution" of the refugee question based on the right of return and compensation.
http://imemc.org/article/58611
On the wrong side
By Uri Avnery. ...This is the face of the new American nation – a mixture of races, religions, countries of origin and skin-colors, an open and diverse society, all of whose members are supposed to be equal and to identify themselves with the "founding fathers". The American Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was born in a Kenyan village, can speak with pride of "George Washington, the father of our nation", of the "American Revolution" (the war of independence against the British), and hold up the example of "our ancestors", who include both the white pioneers and the black slaves who "endured the lash of the whip". That is the perception of a modern nation, multi-cultural and multi-racial: a person joins it by acquiring citizenship, and from this moment on is the heir to all its history. Israel is the product of the narrow nationalism of the 19th century, a nationalism that was closed and exclusive, based on race and ethnic origin, blood and earth. Israel is a "Jewish State", and a Jew is a person born Jewish or converted according to Jewish religious law (Halakha). Like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it is a state whose mental world is to a large extent conditioned by religion, race and ethnic origin ... Between Israel and the United States a gap has opened this week, a narrow gap, almost invisible – but it may widen into an abyss.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/
Zvi Bar'el / Without confidence building
The Obama administration cannot work magic. It cannot make peace where one of the partners prefers settlements and the other does not really rule. But what it can do is place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into its Middle Eastern context; one in which the United States will not be only a mediator-adivser, who comes to put a few ideas on the table and leave a phone number for those interested, but a power with a vested interest, for whom the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is part of its national security alignment. Such an understanding might lead the administration to talk directly to Syria, begin a serious dialogue with Iran, ensure that a united Palestinian government in which Hamas will be a partner is not unacceptable to it, and decide that the Saudi peace initiative is not just one component of a diplomatic initiative, but its most important component.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gideon Levy / No moderates left
The three leading candidates for prime minister are extremists. Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak went to war in Gaza and are therefore as radical as can be. Benjamin Netanyahu is more radical in rhetoric only. We must not be led astray in this election campaign and consider both Livni and Barak as moderates, in contrast to the "extremist" Netanyahu. This is a deception. Kadima and Labor, the center and left-wing parties, have led Israel to two awful wars within two years.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Who will save the Palestinians?
By Mark LeVine. It was a hot September day in Gaza and I was sitting in the office of a Hamas-affiliated newspaper talking with a senior Hamas intellectual. "Off the record, lets put aside whether or not Palestinians have the moral or legal right to use violence against civilians to resist the occupation. The fact is, it doesn't work," I said. Suicide bombings and other direct attacks on Israeli civilians, I argued, helped to keep the subject off the occupation and in so doing allowed Israel to build even more settlements while the media focused on the violence. His response both surprised me with its honesty and troubled me with its implications.
"We know the violence doesn't work, but we don't know how to stop it," he said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Obama's inauspicious beginning
By Khalid Amayreh. I know it is premature to judge the man since he has been only a few days in the White House. However, the signs are not very encouraging. Obama has refrained from denouncing the recent Nazi-like crimes committed by the Zio-Nazi state in the Gaza Strip. Obama spoke elaborately about Israel's right to defend itself, but said absolutely nothing about the Palestinian people's right to defend themselves.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Americans sympathetic toward Israel on Gaza
Sixty percent of Americans in the nationwide survey said they were sympathetic toward the Israelis, compared with 17 percent who supported the Palestinians, CNN reported today on its Web site
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
Solidarity
Refugee stories: Syrians join hands with Palestinians through the 'For the Children of Gaza' campaign
Syria, January 2009 - It is mid-January and Damascus is not as cold as usual. Certainly the winter is at its height and the thermometer drops sharply after the daily Maghreb prayer, still the Syrian capital feels warm. Despite the chilly weather experienced during these days, every single person seems to be united by one cause: helping their brothers and sisters, victims of the terrible conflict in Gaza.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Students stage sit-in at Cambrige over Gaza
Dozens of people, including several Israelis, refuse to leave British university's law faculty until management helps raise funds for Strip's residents, grants scholarships to Palestinian students
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Swiss first European delegation to visit Gaza after war; condemn destruction
The Parliamentarians are visiting Gaza after being invited by the Palestinian Legislative Council. The Swiss were also the only European country to support the draft UN resolution from the Human Rights Council that condemned Israel's "grave human rights violations in the Palestinian territories." The delegation reinforced their earlier stance during their visit, saying what they saw was evidence of war crimes.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Munich rallies in solidarity with Gaza
More than two thousand people rallied on Saturday in Munich, Germany for the fourth consecutive week protesting the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Boycott Israeli dance company on US/Canada tour
Call for Action: Israel's leading dance company, Batsheva, is touring the US and Canada starting January 28th through March of 2009. As cultural ambassadors and representatives of their country, Batsheva was asked to denounce the racist and brutal policies and crimes of their government against the Palestinian people, and refused. Activists across the country have been planning and organizing a boycott of Batsheva
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/
Iraq
US raid kills Iraqi man, woman in their bed
BAGHDAD — An Iraqi couple was killed in their bed Saturday morning as their daughter slept between them when U.S. forces raided their home. The U.S. military said that the raid, in the area of Hawija, just west of Kirkuk, was an Iraqi government approved operation against a wanted man and that the killings were in self-defense. But the family described the slayings of a modest farmer, his wife and the wounding of their daughter by U.S. forces as the three slept.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
Richard Holbrooke is the wrong man for the job
By Scott Ritter. The new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has appointed Holbrooke as the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan ... It is highly doubtful that Holbrooke will bring anything more to the table than cheerleading.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
www.TheHeadlines.org
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