Friday, March 7

Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines March 7, 2008 ~

Brought to you by Shadi Fadda

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Oxfam on Gaza [PDF]:
The Gaza Strip, A Humanitarian Implosion


PCHR Weekly Report: 114 Palestinians
killed, 236 wounded by Israeli forces

According to the Palestinian Center for Human
Rights (PCHR)'s Weekly Report, during the week
of 28 Feb.- 05 Mar. 2008, 114 Palestinians were
killed, and 28 were injured by the Israeli military.
Of those killed, 77 were killed by Israeli air strikes
on the Gaza Strip. 27 were children, including two
babies, 6 were women, and one was a paramedic.
69 of the victims were killed by Israeli forces in
Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip during a
massive air and ground assault. 236 Palestinians,
including 154 civilians (this figure includes 56
children and 11 women) were wounded
by Israeli forces.

At least 31 children killed in Gaza last week:
Over a quarter of total casualties

Defence for Children International-Palestine Section
(DCI/PS) is deeply shocked by the high number of
children killed in last week's attacks on the Gaza Strip.
As of Wednesday 5 March 16:00, DCI/PS confirmed
the deaths of 31 children as a result of Israel's air
strikes and ground military operations against
Gaza between Wednesday 27 February and Monday
3 March 2008, including during operation Warm
Winter. An additional 13 reported child fatalities in
the Gaza Strip are still being investigated. Most of
the attacks took place in northern Gaza, in the areas
of Jabalia Town, Jabalia Refugee Camp and Beit
Hanoun. These heavily populated areas came under
intense fire from Apache helicopters, air-to-surface
missiles, tank shells and small arms fire.

Israeli forces killed 22 Palestinian
students over last week

Israeli military forces killed 22 Palestinian students
in the last week, 20 of them in the Gaza Strip, the
Palestinian Ministry of Education said on Thursday.
Ten other students were injured. In a new report,
the Ministry said that "Rafah Martyr Secondary
School and Beer Al- Sabeaa Secondary school became
a subject of the Israeli atrocities. The Israeli incursion
troops used their weapons against the two schools,
causing serious damages in school buildings and full
windows' breakages."

Al Mezan Center: Soldiers killed
a resident after he was injured

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights issued a
press release stating the its investigations revealed
that Israeli soldiers shot and killed Yousef Suleiman
Al Sameery, 40, on Thursday morning, after he
was shot and injured by their gunfire.

Gaza man assassinated and run
over, baby shot in the head

Following its withdrawal from north Gaza on 4
March 2008, the IOF continued air strikes
yesterday. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) penetrated
the Wadi al-Salqa village in the central Gaza Strip,
assassinated one man, and killed an infant less than
one month old. The number of the people killed by
the IOF since 28 February 2008 has reached 120,
including 72 civilians. Among the civilians were six
women and thirty children.

Israeli army kills Palestinian
farmer in Gaza -medics

GAZA, March 7 (Reuters) - The Israeli army
shot dead a Palestinian farmer on Friday in the
northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical officials said.

Four Palestinians killed in Israeli shelling
targeting the southern part of the Gaza strip

Four Palestinians were killed when Israeli
tanks stations at the southern Gaza Israeli
borders near Khan Younis town shelled farm
land on Thursday night.

Army kidnapped more than 700 women
since the beginning of the Intifada

Dr. Luay Shabana, head of the Palestinian Census
Department, stated on Thursday that the Israeli
occupation forces kidnapped more than 700 Palestinian
women since the beginning of the Al Aqsa
Intifada late September 2000.

The Israeli army invades Bethlehem
and clash with local youth,
no injuries reported

Palestinian sources said that 20 Israeli army vehicles
and a bulldozer stormed on Thursday late at night the
southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and surrounded
a house in the city center.

Israeli troops loot food, clothes, furniture,
equipment from orphanage in Hebron

Hundreds of Israeli occupation troops stormed a
Palestinian orphanage and a boarding school in the
southern West Bank City of Hebron early Thursday,
looting large amounts of frozen food, dairy products,
clothes, shoes, refrigerators and kitchen equipments,
local officials and eyewitnesses said. The looted material
were to be used to feed and cloth as many as seven
thousand orphan girls and boys, many of them attending
boarding schools run by the Islamic Charitable Society.
According to neighbors, the looting operation started
around midnight Wednesday when soldiers stormed
the al-Harayek neighborhood in Hebron where the
inventory department of the Islamic
Charitable Society is located.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian \
lawmaker near Nablus

Israeli settlers attacked Siham Thabit, a member
of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), on
Friday while she was driving near the West Bank
city of Nablus. Settlers assaulted the car when it
passed the Yizhar settlement, smashing the windshield.
Thabit was taken to a hospital in Nablus.

Elderly Palestinian woman dies of heart
attack after Israeli soldiers abducted her son

An elderly Palestinian woman died of a heart attack
when Israeli soldiers raided her home in Balata
refugee camp, in eastern Nablus in the northern
West Bank, on Thursday.

Palestinian female activist
deported to Jordan

The Ahrar Detainees Study Center reported on
Thursday that the Israeli Authorities deported a
Palestinian female detainees to Jordan after
subjecting her to nearly three months of
ongoing interrogation.

Israeli forces demolish two houses
in Bethlehem in overnight raid

Bethlehem – Ma'an – Israeli military forces invaded
the West Bank city of Bethlehem overnight,
demolishing two houses, seizing a Palestinian man
and injuring another. The forces withdrew on
Friday morning. Immediately after an attack on a
Jewish school in Jerusalem, to the north of Bethlehem,
Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers entered
Bethlehem, surrounded the home of Islamic
Jihad activist Muhammad Shahada and began to
demolish the house.

Picking Up Pieces,
Gazans Debate Israel Incursion

Mirvat Abu Shbak, 34, Muhammad's wife, stayed
behind with their five children. The two eldest —
Jacqueline, 17, and Iyad, 16 — were killed in the
incursion, and Mirvat insists they were shot by
an Israeli sniper. "We were sleeping at midnight
when there was a lot of shooting," she said, in a
room of mourning women, sitting on floor cushions
under a patterned nylon blanket. "An Israeli sniper
took a position in the house next door, and he could
see me, and me him," she said. "I was with all my
kids. At 2 a.m., Iyad wanted to go to the bathroom,
and when he got up they shot him in the chest, and
I could feel the bullet pressing out his back," she said.
"Jacqueline had been sleeping, and woke up and said,
'My mother, Iyad is injured,' and she moved her head
a little and she was shot in the mouth, and the bullet
came out the back of her head." Mrs. Abu Shbak kept
her composure, as her relatives patted her hand.
"There was blood everywhere, and I fell to the floor,
and the sniper kept shooting, every 30 seconds, and
I managed to help my children crawl out of the room."

Gaza ambush kills Israeli
occupation force soldier

An Israeli occupation force soldier has been killed
and near the separation wall between Israel and
the Gaza Strip, despite efforts to broker a truce
after a week of Israeli military action.

Seven Israeli student-soldiers killed in
revenge attack for Gaza massacres

"In an apparent retaliation for the recent Israeli
massacres in the Gaza Strip, (or the assassination
in Damascus by Israeli agents last month of Imad
Mughniya, a leading Hizbullah figure) unidentified
guerillas on Thursday attacked the headquarters
of the religious messianic Zionist movement in West
Jerusalem, killing and injuring a number of settlers
and soldiers.

Two Palestinians attack an Israeli settlers
school in Jerusalem, 8 killed, dozens injured

Eight Israelis were killed when two Palestinians
attacked a religious settlers school located in east
Jerusalem on Thursday night.

Hamas hails 'heroic' Jerusalem attack

The Palestinian Hamas movement hailed a deadly
attack on a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on
Thursday night as "heroic," without claiming
responsibility for the strike that killed eight.
"This heroic attack in Jerusalem is a normal
response to the crimes of the occupier and its
murder of civilians," Hamas spokesman Sami
Abu Zuhri said.

Gunman kills 8 in Jerusalem
Jewish college

Outside the seminary, young Orthodox Jews in
traditional black costume chanted periodically
"Death to Arabs!"

Jerusalem yeshiva student: I shot the
terrorist twice in the head

A student at the Jerusalem yeshiva where eight
people were killed in a terrorist attack Thursday
evening shot the gunman who opened fire inside
the religious school's crowded library, neutralizing
him before a soldier killed him with an automatic
rifle. Yitzhak Dadon said he climbed onto the roof
of a nearby building, armed with a rifle, and waited
for the gunman to emerge.

Hezbollah TV names group responsible
for Jerusalem attack

Hezbollah's Al-Manar television announced that the
perpetrators of a deadly attack on a Jewish religious
school in Jerusalem Thursday were members of the
previously unknown "Phalange of Free Men of Galilee
- Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughnieh and Martyrs
of Gaza." The claim was made in a tag line running
across the bottom of the screen, and no further
details were immediately given. Imad Mughnieh
was a top Hezbollah commander assassinated in a
Damascus bombing on February 12. The Lebanese
Shiite Muslim movement blamed the killing on Israel
and threatened attacks in revenge. Israeli has denied
any involvement in the killing.


Abbas condemns shooting attack in Jerusalem
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday
condemned a shooting attack in Jerusalem that killed at
least eight people. "President Mahmoud Abbas condemns
the attack in Jerusalem that claimed the lives of many
Israelis and he reiterated his condemnation of all attacks
that target civilians, whether they are Palestinians or
Israelis," said Abbas aide Saeb Erekat.

Bush: U.S. stands firmly
with Israel after attack

President George W. Bush said on Thursday the
United States stands firmly with Israel after a
Palestinian gunman attacked a Jewish religious
school in Jerusalem and killed at least eight people.

Lieberman: Jerusalem attack
is product of Arab MK incitement

Yisrael Beiteinu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman
slammed the Arab Knesset members on Friday,
maintaining that "yesterday's attack can not be
disconnected from the Arab MKs incitement,
which we hear daily in the Knesset."

Libya blocks condemnation
of Jerusalem attack

US accuses Libya of preventing Security Council
from condemning as deadly assault on yeshiva as
'terror attack'; Tripoli calls for 'balanced action'.

A defeated policy, not a defeated people
Compared with the international silence that
surrounded Israel's recent massacres of Palestinian
civilians in the Occupied Gaza Strip, condemnation
and condolences for the victims of the shooting attack
that killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav
Yeshiva in Jerusalem has been swift. "I have just
spoken with [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud]
Olmert to extend my deepest condolences to the
victims, their families, and to the people of Israel,
" US President George W. Bush said. UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added his
"condemnation" and "condolences," as did EU
High Representative Javier Solana.

IDF, PA security chiefs meet on
West Bank flare-ups

After a week of violent demonstrations in the West
Bank in response to IDF activities in the Gaza Strip,
IDF commanders and PA security chiefs met
Thursday to review the recent incidents and to
reach mutual agreements on preventing further flare-ups.

UNRWA employees held a strike in
protest to Israeli attacks in Gaza

Workers of different institutions run by the
UNRWA in the West Bank and Jerusalem held
a strike on Thursday protesting against the
Israeli attacks and violations against the Gaza Strip.

PCAC published a report on the
psychological effects on Palestinian children

The Palestinian Child Arts Center (PCAC) published
a report on the effects on the ongoing Israeli attacks,
especially the latest offensive against the Gaza Strip,
on the physiological situation of the children.

Gaza "man-made" crisis: rights orgs.
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is
"man-made" and worse than it has ever been since
the Israeli occupation in 1967, a coalition of British
organizations said in a new report released on 6
March, urging better regional cooperation and saying
Hamas can no longer be ignored.

View from Gaza:
'The Holocaust, The Holocaust'

How can one describe a situation such as Gaza's
bloodletting – described by a top Israeli army
official as a 'Holocaust' - with language that has
long been proven to be slippery? Where is one
to start and finish if one wants a semiological
analysis of the 'dramatic' footage of the 10-month
old Mohamed Al-Burai bleeding to death despite his
father's desperate attempts to save his only child's life?

Jerusalem Bedouin fear return to wilderness
After illegally annexing Jerusalem, Israel continues its
policy of driving out holy city's Arab population.

Egyptian police beat
pro-Palestinian protesters

Egyptian police used force to disperse thousands of
protesters who were demonstrating in solidarity
with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday,
witnesses said. Police beat and chased protesters
through the streets of El-Mahalla el-Kubra, a city
around 100 km (60 miles) north of Cairo, and
arrested at least 20. The protesters were mainly
members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's
most powerful opposition group, and labour
union or political activists.

Egypt Puts Concrete Wall on Gaza Border

Egypt is building a 10-foot-high concrete wall along
its border with Gaza to prevent any new breaches
after Palestinian militants blasted through the
barrier in January to escape a blockade of their
territory, an official said.

Ayalon: Hamas likely to
take over West Bank

In conversation with Tel Aviv University students,
Minister Ami Ayalon says Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas in danger of losing out to
extremist elements in absence of
negotiations with Israel.

It's Still The Occupation, Stupid!i
"There is no one more hated among Hamas
members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah's
resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most
recently served as Abbas's national-security
adviser, has spent more than a decade battling
Hamas.- In private, say multiple Israeli and
American officials, the U.S. president
described him as "our guy."

VIDEO: The CIA Plot To Overthrow Hamas
Al Jazeera interviews Hamas' head of the groups
political bureaux, Khalid Mishaal.
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8TTjb54GzM
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLOFtqK1jPI

Don't Blame The Inmates Of The Lunatic Asylum

Some Israeli and other Jewish opponents of Zionism's colonial
enterprise have described Israel as a "fascist" state.
I think the more appropriate terminology is lunatic asylum.
But I don't blame the inmates (the Jewish citizens of the state)
for what's happening. They are as much the products of Zionist
brainwashing as are the supporters of Israel right or wrong
throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world.
I blame the wardens and management of the asylum
(Israel's military and political leaders)

More than Gaza
As Israel pursues its "holocaust" in Gaza, America deploys
a destroyer off Lebanon, Iranian President Ahmadinejad
makes a historic trip to Iraq and the Arab cold war grows
colder, should the region be bracing itself for the worst,
asks Amira Howeidy

Water, water everywhere, By Amira Hass
By now, Clemens Messer- schmid's friends in Ramallah
and Jerusalem understand the message of his dagger-like
stares when they're caught washing dishes with the
tap water flowing nonstop. Even when he is not around,
they close the tap, thanks to this 43-year-old
hydrogeologist from Germany. Messerschmid
cheerfully confirms this. But this place, he says,
is far from being an arid country with meager water
resources, as is commonly thought. In Berlin and Paris,
he notes, annual rainfall is less than in Jerusalem and
Ramallah, respectively: 550 millimeters in Berlin
compared to 564 millimeters in Jerusalem, based
on a 150-year average (the Israel meteorological
service puts the figure at 554 millimeters).
Paris gets an average of 630 millimeters, while the
yearly average in Ramallah, from 1975-2004,
was 689.6 millimeters. When Palestinians say there
is not enough water in the country, this is one of
four Palestinian misconceptions that Messerschmid lists.

Twilight Zone / A great darkness
has fallen, by Gideon Levy

Operation Warm Winter ended without a single
Israeli journalist setting foot on the Gaza side of
the Erez border crossing with Israel. Even the
military correspondents, who usually recount the
brave acts of our forces from inside their jeeps and
armored vehicles, were not taken this time to
report on the raids in Jabalya and Sajiyeh.
A handful of other correspondents, those who are
still interested in what the Israel Defense Forces
leaves behind after its campaigns of killing and
destruction, stayed home. They have been holed
up in their houses for over a year and a half already.

Who Leaked The Details Of A
CIA-Mossad Plot Against Iran?

The Bush administration is prolonging the hunting
season against journalists. The latest victim is
James Risen, The New York Times reporter for
national security and intelligence affairs. About
three months ago, a federal grand jury issued a
subpoena against him, ordering Risen to give
evidence in court. A heavy blackout has been
imposed on the affair, with the only hint being
that it has to do with sensitive matters of "national security."

Iraqi women lost rights after US invasion
The state of Iraqi women has become a "national
crisis" since the March 2003 US-led invasion,
a report released by an international women's
group said on Thursday.

Bush Tries To Circumvent
Congress Over Bases In Iraq

The Bush administration yesterday advanced a
new argument for why it does not require
congressional approval to strike a long-term
security agreement with Iraq, stating that
Congress had already endorsed such an initiative
through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of
force against Saddam Hussein.

Bush told to end threats to
Iran over weapons

A Nobel laureate with expertise on diplomatic
negotiations and nuclear strategy urged the Bush
administration Tuesday to stop issuing public
statements that imply the United States will use
overwhelming force to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities.

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