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Today in Palestine
Relayé par El Taller International - Tunis
Monday 30 June 2008
Threat to demolish more Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, legal battle underway
(27 June) Jerusalem / Maisa Abu Ghazaleh - As Israeli settlements continue to expand across occupied East Jerusalem, a legal battle is underway to prevent the destruction of 450 Palestinian homes in the district of Khallat Al ’Ein. In preparation for the confiscation of Palestinian land, the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality has sought to argue that the residents of Khallat Al ’Ein possess no permanent license for the housing. With the legal assistance of Attorney Al Hussein, the local residents have taken their case to the Jerusalem Court of Local Affairs.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2984&Itemid=1
Israel plays demographic card in East Jerusalem – by Osama Al-Sharif
When it comes to the final leg of the ailing peace negotiations both Palestinians and Israelis know that East Jerusalem will represent the biggest and most convoluted challenge. And when and if both sides reach that penultimate stage the fate of the city, occupied in 1967 and annexed soon after, will be decided on demographics, pure and simple. . . The battle for Jerusalem is a silent one that is characterized by transient outbursts of new settlements that continue to choke Arab residents. It is unfortunate that Arabs have not capitalized on the fact that demography is a double-edged sword.
http://www.star.com.jo/viewNews/DetailNews.aspx?nid=7574
Libya seeking UN condemnation of Israeli settlement building
(28 June) United Nations Security Council member Libya on Friday presented a document to the UN calling for “an immediate and complete end” to the building and expansion of West Bank settlements. The document was authored by the Arab League and Saudi Arabia and harshly criticizes Israel for its settlement policy in the West Bank.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996939.html
CPT: Israeli military issues demolition orders, blocks main access road in South Hebron Hills
(28 June) This is a press release issued by the Christian Peacemaker Teams stationed in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and reporting on violations carried by Israeli soldiers and settlers against the Palestinian residents in the area.
http://www.imemc.org/article/55701
Settlers set ablaze dozens of olive trees near Ramallah
(27 June) A group of Israeli settlers set fire to a large number of olive trees owned by the villagers of Deir Nitham. Witnesses reported that most of the burnt olive trees are owned by Ahmad Mizher, and that theses trees have been planted since the Roman era. Wittiness added that the settlers came from the illegal settlement of Halamish, constructed on lands that belong to villagers from Nabi Saleh and Deir Nitham
http://www.imemc.org/article/55690
B’Tselem report: Soldier assaults B’Tselem worker filming settler violence, takes the cassette
(28 June) “On Friday, 20 June 2008, around 6:20 P.M., Nasser a-Nawaj’ah, coordinator of B’Tselem’s ’Shooting Back’ project in the Southern Hebron Hills, filmed three settlers abusing Palestinian shepherds, shouting at them and pushing them and trying to scatter their flock,” B’Tselem reported. B’Tselem stated that the attack took place near Susiya settlement.
http://www.imemc.org/article/55702
Cameras vs. settlers in the West Bank
(20 June) HEBRON - With Israeli police turning a blind eye to repeated attacks by armed settlers, Palestinians are using cameras as their frontline defense against setters’ assaults. B’Tselem has distributed about 100 cameras to Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of 2007 to record assaults by settlers. “They (the settlers) make the life of the Palestinians impossible,” said Amro. “But if their neighbors film them, they think twice before harassing them.” "I always keep the camera at my side," Bassam al-Jaabari told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday, June 20, in his poorly stocked grocer’s shop in the West Bank town of Hebron (Al-Khalil).
http://palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=6a411fe5ee8102f5b153d3f768d7f8d8&mode=details
Israeli troops kill Palestinian teen – medics
(Reuters, 27 June) Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager during a raid into the occupied West Bank on Friday, local residents and medical workers said. The residents said the 17-year-old was killed while confronting Israeli troops who raided the village of Beit Umar, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL86543328.html
Israeli army kills Palestinian boy in Beit Omer village near Hebron
(28 June) Witnesses told IMEMC that military jeeps stormed the village on Friday afternoon then searched homes; during the search troops kidnapped nine men - among them was a 70-year-old man. Mohamed Al Allami, 17 years old, was painting his house; when he went to see what is happening outside his family home Israeli soldiers shot him three times in the heart, Awwad added. Mohamed Awwad is a free-lance journalist for Palestinian newspapers; he said that the boy was helping his dad to prepare the house for his sister’s graduation party from high school. Israeli media sources reported on Saturday that Al Allami was throwing stones at the invading troops; Awwad said that the boy had fresh paint on his clothes and that no one attacked the soldiers when they invaded the village of Beit Omer.
http://imemc.org/article/55703
Scores of villagers, two international activists injured in Bil’in anti-wall protest Friday
(28 June) Scores of protesters were treated for gas inhalation, and Sean Burg, from the US, and Sean McCurry, from Ireland, were injured by rubber-coated metal bullets. Villagers in Bil’in have been non-violently demonstrating every week against the separation wall for the last three years. Despite the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s construction of the wall inside the occupied West Bank was illegal, and a November 2007 Israeli High Court of Justice ruling ordering the military to re-route the wall in Bil’in, the villagers continue to be denied access to the land on which their livelihoods are based.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30148
Israeli forces detain Palestinian from village near Bethlehem
(27 June) Israeli soldiers seized 19-year-old Muhammad Ghazi Salah from his home in the village of Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, at dawn on Friday. His family reported by phone to Ma’an that Israeli forces stormed their home in Dar Salah and ransacked its contents, before detaining Muhammad and taking him to an unknown destination.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30144
Israeli forces detain two from the town of as-Sawahira ash-Sharqiya
(27 June) Eyewitnesses reported seeing five Israeli military vehicles storme the town, where they launched an extensive campaign of raids on the homes of local citizens. Ahmed Ali Abdel-Kader Khalayla, 21, and Shaher Mohammed Shaher Mhashahra, 23, were detained and taken to an unknown location. Another eyewitness reported that the Israeli forces then searched the homes of the detainees, causing damages to both home and furniture.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30141
Nightly invasions throughout the West Bank terrorize residents
(27 June) Israeli forces again invaded cities within the West Bank pre-dawn Friday. Military vehicles burst into Ramallah and neighboring Al Bireh cities, into Jenin’s town of Harthiya, Nablus City and its Al Ein Refugee Camp. It was an ugly morning for hundreds of Palestinians who awoke to the explosions of doors being blown open, the shouts of Israeli soldiers through megaphones and loudspeakers, the unmistakable sound of military jeeps.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2985&Itemid=1
West Bank attacks to wreck Gaza truce: analysts – by Mohammad Al-Sawwaf
(26 June) GAZA CITY - Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank are meant to wreck a fragile truce with Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza and drive a wedge between Hamas and other Palestinian groups, analysts have agreed. Israel is trying to undermine the truce by provoking resistance factions in Gaza to respond to its attacks in the West Bank," Palestinian analyst Hani Al-Bassos told IslamOnline.net.
http://palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=d6632d614c758845939fda4bb51c45c6&mode=details
Denied the right to go home
(27 June) USA / Zeina Ashrawi - I am Palestinian – born and raised – and my Palestinian roots go back centuries. No one can change that even if they tell me that Jerusalem, my birth place, is not Palestine, even if they tell me that Palestine doesn’t exist, even if they take away all my papers and deny me entry to my own home, even if they humiliate me and take away my rights. I AM PALESTINIAN. . . Where else in the world does one have to give up their identity for the sole reason of living somewhere else for a period of time? Imagine if an American living in Spain for a few years wanted to go home only to be told by the American government that their American Passport was revoked and that they wouldn’t be able to come back!
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2981&Itemid=1
PA Civil Affairs chief: All Palestinians will be granted IDs this year
(28 June) Hussein Ash-Sheikh said on Saturday that Palestinian officials have managed to issue identification cards for 70% of Palestinians who previously lacked them. He said he believes that the issue of Palestinians without ID cards will be totally resolved by the end of 2008. Ash-Sheikh said that there had been about 55,000 Palestinians without ID cards that would allow them to reside legally in their own country. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the signing of the Oslo accords, thousands of exiled Palestinians returned to the West Bank and Gaza on visit permits issued by Israel. Many of those visitors remained in Palestine after their permits expired, becoming, in the eyes of Israel, illegal immigrants. Complicating matters, many undocumented Palestinians are married to other Palestinians, and some have had children who cannot be registered with the Palestinian interior ministry. These children are born into a legal limbo, even in their own country.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30166
Palestinian Journalist’ Bloc condemns cruel treatment of award-winning Gazan
Gaza journalist Mohamad al-Mughier lives in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, and was attacked while on his [way] through the Allenby Bridge. The Bloc said in a statement to Ma’an that “al-Mughier was brutally interrogated and beaten by Israeli soldiers while entering the West Bank on his way home from Britain, where he received the ’Martha Gelhorn Journalism Prize’ for 2008.” Al-Mughier was being recognized in the United Kingdom for his collection of stories published in the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30162
Gaza truce ’violated repeatedly’
(27 June) A fragile eight-day-old truce between Israel and Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip appears to have been violated repeatedly by both sides. Israel has blocked all other supplies including humanitarian and commercial goods.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7478293.stm
Mortar shells land near southern kibbutz Friday morning
(27 June) Violations of ceasefire in Gaza vicinity continue: Palestinians fire two mortars into Israel on Friday morning. One lands near Kfar Aza; no injuries or damage reported
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561051,00.html
Top Hamas official: We’ll stop anyone who breaks Gaza truce
(28 June) Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, told a Saudi newspaper on Saturday that his organization will move against any armed group that attempts to violate the cease-fire with Israel, including members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Al-Zahar warned that any Palestinian group who deviates from the national consensus and harms the interests of the Palestinian people can no longer be considered a part of the resistance, but rather as someone who seeks to harm it. Al-Zahar added that Hamas has recently arrested gunmen who fired missiles at the Karni crossing
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996694.html
Hamas: the new Fatah? – by Uriel Heilman
(27 June) Borrowing a page from Fatah’s playbook, Hamas is criticizing Fatah militants who are shelling southern Israel from Gaza as acting against the Palestinian national interest by risking the shaky truce begun June 19 with Israel. Years ago, it was Fatah — then led by Yasser Arafat — that was signing agreements with Israel and criticizing Hamas for undermining the Palestinian national interest by firing at Israel (see this statement from 2003). Now the tables are turned.
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/2008/06/27/522/hamas-the-new-fatah/
Fatah-allied militants fire rocket into Israel from southern Gaza
(AFP, 27 June) The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group tied to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, said it carried out the attack and also launched another rocket directed at the southern city of Ashkelon. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed a second rocket was fired but would not say whether it struck Israeli territory.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=93564
Haniyeh: Stop firing at Israel, for sake of Palestinians
(28 June) Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Friday appealed to Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to honor the week-long truce with Israel, and stop firing at the Negev, for the good of the Palestinian civilian population.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996694.html
An-Nasser Brigades committed to Gaza truce, condemn Israeli violations
(27 June) Abu ’Ataya, spokesperson for the An-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), affirmed on Friday that the brigades are committed to the decision of the PRC political leadership to abide by the truce. In a press statement, Abu ’Ataya added that the An-Nasser Brigades are committed to the ceasefire as long as the Israelis observe it.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30143
Palestinian factions argue about ceasefire
(28 June) GAZA CITY - Palestinian factions argued Saturday they had the right to respond to Israeli violations of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire which took hold in the Gaza Strip nine days ago. The argument intensified after Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, criticized two other groups for firing rockets into Israel in defiance of the ceasefire. The small armed Islamic Jihad and another group claiming to be affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement fired the rockets on three occasions in recent days to retaliate for an Israeli military action in the West Bank.
DFLP to hold separate talks with Fatah and Hamas over internal dialogue
(28 June) According to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine statement that was faxed to press the talks will take place over the next few days. The meeting will also include follow-ups on the lists of political prisoners from each party to be exchanged with the captured Israeli soldiers in Gaza Gilad Shalit.
http://imemc.org/article/55710
Shin Bet agrees to free prisoners ’with blood on their hands’ for Shalit
(27 June) Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin has somewhat softened his position regarding the prisoners who could be released in return for Shalit. Diskin is now prepared to release some prisoners “who have the blood of Israelis on their hands,” so long as the risk they pose is lessened.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996811.html
Shabak head approves exile for Palestinian prisoners
(27 June) Israeli press sources said that the head of Shabak, the Israeli General Security Services (GSS), Yofal Diskin has approved the release of a number of Palestinian detainees, alleged to have been involved in the killing of Israelis. Under Diskin’s proposal, which is part of the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, the detainees will be deported from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip or abroad. Forty-two Palestinians were deported from the West Bank after a 2002 standoff between the Israeli army and Palestinian resistance fighters in the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. 28 were exiled to the Gaza Strip and 14 to Europe.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30128
ReliefWeb: ’Horrible situation for children’ Israel blocks UN committee from entering Gaza
(27 June) Half of the population of Gaza is made up by minors: their current situation is horrible and could worsen still’, said a special UN committee that accused Israel of having forbidden its access to Gaza ’to hide the violations of human rights perpetrated against Palestinians’. I
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KKAA-7G29ZR?OpenDocument
South African delegation: Israel’s acts will never bring peace to the region
(28 June) GAZA, (PIC)— A South African parliamentary delegation stated Saturday during a visit to the PLC headquarters that South Africa supports the Palestinian people and rejects the unjust Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, pointing out that Israel’s acts will never bring peace to the region and its apartheid wall isolates the Israeli community. The head of the delegation said that the Israeli government and the Knesset (Israeli parliament) tried to hinder their visit to Gaza and conditioned their meeting with Israeli officials on canceling this visit, adding that the delegation refused the Israeli blackmail and insisted on visiting Gaza.
Number of siege victims on the rise – now 198
(28 June) GAZA, (PIC)— The popular committee against the siege has announced that a Palestinian cancer patient had died on Friday as a result of inability to cross the Gaza Strip borders for treatment not available in the Strip. The committee in a statement said that Difa Qassem, 55, was a resident of Beit Hanun town in northern Gaza Strip, and added that his death brought to 198 the number of victims who died due to inability to travel abroad in the absence of adequate medical services in the beleaguered Strip.
Stranded Palestinians appeal for partial Rafah opening
(28 June) Approximately two hundred Palestinians stranded in Egypt have called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to request that Egyptian Authorities open the crossing for a few hours so they can return to the Gaza Strip. The stranded Palestinians include students and a number of hospital patients. All are living under difficult psychological conditions; having been unable to visit their families for over three years. Most are women and children, and the others are students who have finished their studies and wish to go home.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30159
Gaza’s de facto police: Israel’s closure of borders violates truce terms
The police confirmed that in the four days after the ceasefire went into effect, Israel allowed a slight increase in shipments through three crossing points: Sufa (used for commercial and humanitarian goods), Nahal Oz (used for liquid fuels), and the Karni crossing (used for grain and animal feed). According to the police, the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing was never opened. All four of these crossing points are now closed. Even during the brief period when the blockade was eased, Israel allowed only a slight increase in the amount of goods allowed into Gaza, the police said. At the Sufa crossing point, for example, 273 trucks, containing food, medical supplies, and construction materials, were allowed through during the first week of the ceasefire, compared to 247 trucks the week before, amounting to an increase of just 9.4%.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30153
Israel allows 600,000 liters of gasoline into Gaza, but fuel supplies still insufficient
(27 June) Nine days after the truce declared between Israel and Hamas came into effect, cooking gas and gasoline are still the main concern for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. On Friday only 600,000 liters of industrial gasoline were pumped into the Gaza power plant, despite the fact that no fuel had been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the previous four days.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30146
Russia delivers humanitarian aid to Gaza
(28 June) “The [Il-76] plane delivered a load of tents weighting in total 30 metric tons,” the spokesman said adding that the assistance is rendered upon the request of the Palestinian government due to poor humanitarian situation in the region. The plane landed at an airport in Jordan’s capital of Amman, he said, from where the humanitarian cargo will be transported to Gaza by trucks. [if the Israelis allow it….] This is the second Russian plane with humanitarian aid to Gaza this week as on June 24 Russia delivered to the region 30 metric tons of food and medicine.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080628/112475092.html
The war over truce – by Nasser Lahham
(27 June) The truce has not, as some expected, embarrassed Hamas, but rather shifted the nature of its battleground. The truce, however, has become its own kind of war rather than a respite from one. The Israeli government, for its part, has been defending the truce agreement from attacks launched by opposition parties in the Knesset, many of which are demanding a military resolution for Gaza. Similarly, Hamas is fighting to defend the truce in the face of dissent from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the outright rejection of the truce from Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa brigades. The Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) are both struggling to prove the legitimacy of a truce for which they bargained.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30130
Days of our lulls
(26 June) Israel doesn’t believe in the Gaza ceasefire, but it’s unable to decide on a large-scale strike in the Strip and needs some quiet time in the south. Hamas doesn’t believe in it either, it just needs a break. At this point, says Alex Fishman, any truce is likely to be followed by a severe escalation in Gaza
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3559238,00.html
Slippery-slope ceasefire – by Joharah Baker
(25 June) While no one could possibly be surprised that a ceasefire between the two arch enemies would hold as long as the core issues dividing them are not addressed, it is worth questioning Israel’s intentions in first agreeing to the tahdi’ah and then sabotaging it soon after. The Israelis are brutally aware of the intrinsic link between events in the West Bank and those in the Gaza Strip, perhaps just as much as the Palestinians themselves. This means, they know that if they shoot two Palestinian activists in their beds in the West Bank without any prior provocation, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are going to react.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13914
Human rights organization: Israelis do not historically honor agreements of any kind
(27 June) The European Commission was interested this week in listening to the Gaza City’s Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ view of the Egypt-brokered ’calm’ between Hamas and the Israeli forces. [PCHR] stressed that all previous truces agreed upon between the Israelis and the Palestinian National Authority during the current Palestinian Intifada did not last for long as Israel violated and disrespected them.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2983&Itemid=1
Elderly prisoner dies in custody of Hamas-affiliated police in Gaza; family claims he was tortured
(27 June) The family of 72-year-old Talib Abu Sitah from the Az-Zawaidah area in the central Gaza Strip said that “police from the de facto government arrested Talib at 1am on Thursday and took him to one their centers.” The family added that they were “informed on Friday morning that Talib had died inside the prison,” and that his body showed evidence of torture. Ihab Al-Ghusain, spokesperson of the de facto Ministry of Interior, said that “Abu Sitah was arrested on suspicion of drug dealing, and he has a heart condition…”
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30145
Fatah accuses Hamas police of seizing five activists in Beit Lahiya
(28 June) Fatah sources said Saturday that police of the de facto Hamas-run government in Gaza arrested five Fatah activists in Beit Lahiya, a town north of the Gaza city. Sources added that these arrests were “for purely political reasons,” since the five arrestees are “members of one of Fatah’s organizational branches in Beit Lahaya.” Specifically the five “supervise the funds of social networks that belong to the Fatah movement.”
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30161
Fatah permitted to hold elections, de facto Interior Ministry says
The Interior Ministry of the de facto Hamas-lead government in Gaza announced on Friday that it will allow Fatah to conduct elections throughout the Gaza Strip. In a statement received by Ma’an, the Interior Ministry said that the gesture of allowing elections “shows that the government gives full freedom to all factions.” At the same time, however, the statement cautioned Fatah against any "excesses while the elections take place.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30140
New proposal for Mughrabi Gate reconstruction expected to be approved – by Marian Houk
(28 June) A revised Israeli design of the ramp from the Western Wall Plaza up to the Mughrabi Gate entrance to the Haram as-Sharif is expected to receive approval shortly. Rabbi Rabinowitz describes the new plan as a “bridge in the air.” He says that a lot of thought went into its development and the bridge will be “very aesthetic.” The Mufti of Al-Aqsa Muhammed Hussein, however, denounced the whole reconstruction project during his sermon at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Friday prayers on 13 June.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30152
Appeal for releasing elderly prisoner bedridden in prison hospital for 14 years
(28 June) JENIN, (PIC)— Prisoner Shadi Shallaldah in the Israeli Ofer prison appealed to human rights organizations to urgently intervene to demand the release of an elderly prisoner bedridden in the Ramla prison hospital for 14 years suffering from deteriorating health condition and living on a respirator. Shallaldah said that prisoner Hussein Ali, 60, who is serving two life sentences, suffers from many diseases notably diabetes, asthma and hypertension and deals with 26 medicine tablets. . . In another context, the Palestinian worker union stated that the IOF troops kidnapped during this month more than 400 workers including 42 women during large-scale campaigns at the pretext of entering the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948 without permits.
Palestinian student released after six and a half years in Israeli prisons
Rawdi Ma’zouz Yassin, a student at Al-Quds Open University was seized by Israeli special forces from his home in the northern West Bank town of Salfit in 2002. He has been imprisoned by Israel since then. Israel currently holds more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, and arrests more during daily raids, mainly in the West Bank. Palestinians view these detainees as political prisoners.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30160
No more permits for used Israeli vehicles in Palestinian territories
(27 June) Palestinian Minister of Transportation Dr. Mashhour Abu Daqqa announced Friday the decision to stop granting permits to Palestinians who wish to bring used Israeli vehicles into the Palestinian territories. The market, Al-’Awawdeh explained, is being swamped with the regular introduction of used Israeli taxis. A more stable market, he says, will make the organization and regulation of trade simpler, and will help especially at Tarqumyah crossing in Hebron, which is a special crossing for Palestinian traders to access goods.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30131
Tunnellers of Gaza come into the light
(28 June) The tunnellers of Rafah have until recently been one of Gaza’s most lucrative and secretive industries. Even when times were better here, they would regularly circumvent border closures and customs duties by smuggling virtually anything - including weapons - into Gaza from Egypt’s northern frontier. Until now, the tunnellers and their paymasters have never offered a glimpse into their subterranean world, fearing retribution from Israeli warplanes and drones, which haunt them from above.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23933513-2703,00.html
In the tunnels of Gaza, smugglers risk death for weapons and profits – by Paul Martin in Rafah
The “eye” of the tunnel was a small, square hole sunk between shiny kitchen tiles in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip. To get in was a matter of grabbing hold of a rope emerging from the darkness and jumping into the opening. Twenty five feet below the ground a narrow passageway, barely 3ft wide, stretched half a mile under the border into Egypt. . . “Do you have your passport?” one of the smugglers asked. Climbing out of the hole and emerging in an Egyptian border town in the dead of night was out of the question. Jail was the least I could expect if caught.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4228420.ece
An Israeli-Palestinian field of dreams
(26 June) Land disputes with Israel’s neighbors may take a long time to resolve, but MK Shakib Shanan (Labor) hopes that talks held Thursday with Palestinian Authority officials over a small piece of turf will enable big strides in normalizing relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Shanan visited Ramallah on Thursday afternoon to gauge Palestinian support for a soccer stadium that its sponsors hope will help draw Palestinians and Israelis together on - literally - a level playing field.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214492517520&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
3 female Israeli paramedics save lives in Gaza
Only a select few know, but amongst the hundreds of Israeli combat soldiers participating in military operations in the Gaza Strip are three female solders. In the past few months, the ’girls’ have had to deal with a number of real-time incidents where they saved both Israeli and Palestinian lives.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561120,00.html
Zionism’s dead end – by Jonathan Cook
(27 June) In 1895 Theodor Herzl, Zionism’s chief prophet, confided in his diary that he did not favor sharing Palestine with the natives. Better, he wrote, to “try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country ... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9653.shtml
Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state
(28 June) The amendment to the Citizenship Law is exactly the kind of practice that leads to the use of such a term, and it is best that we not try to evade the truth: Its existence in the law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996697.html
Another side to the Jewish story – by Rachel Shabi
(27 June) Many Jews left Arab countries because they wanted to live in Israel, not because their lives back home were miserable
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/27/religion.israelandthepalestinians
Twilight Zone / Karmel’s happy campers – by Gideon Levy
(27 June) Bone-dry, the village does not have a single tree, flower or bush. The faucets are dry. Water is supplied every two or three months, so the people rely on the rainwater that collects in wells during rainy winters and on the water brought in by tractors hauling water tanks and sold at exorbitant prices: 20 cubic meters for NIS 300, four cubic meters for NIS 100; not enough to sustain a large family with sheep and goats for three days. Anyone who wants to feast his eyes on lush green is invited to look into the distance, at the settlements of Maon and Carmel, the uninvited neighbors.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996642.html
Leftists, rightists clash near Baruch Goldstein’s grave
(27 June) Breaking the Silence activists arrived in the area on a tour of Kiryat Arba and Hebron guided by Yehuda Shaul. When they arrived at the grave of murderer Baruch Goldstein in Kiryat Arba, dozens of right-wing activists and settlers crowded around them and asked to prevent the continuation of their tour. They also stopped them from reaching Goldstein’s grave.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561086,00.html
US increases Israeli aid by $170 million
(AFP, 28 June) The United States Congress approved a deal on Friday boosting its military aid to Israel to 30 billion dollars over the next decade aimed at countering a ’resurgent’ Iran and its allies. The deal reflects an increase in aid value of more than 25 percent. America’s pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), welcomed the congressional action, saying it would increase US aid to Israel to 2.55 billion dollars in fiscal year 2009, up from 2.38 billion dollars this year.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561242,00.html
US proposes new Mideast talks: Palestinian official
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The United States has proposed new talks in a push to reach a deal on Palestinian statehood before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Saturday. Ahmed Qurie said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had invited the Israelis and Palestinians to a series of trilateral discussions in New York and Washington.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080628/ts_nm/palestinians_israel_talks_dc
Humanitarian case launched against former Israeli defense minister in Spain
(28 June) Spanish National Courts heard their first International and Humanitarian Law suit against Israel on Tuesday. The suit has been launched by six survivors of a 2002 Israeli bomb attack and the relatives of attack’s casualties. The 35-page suit is being filed against Israeli Defense Minister (2001-2001) Benjamin Ben Eliezer, and six individuals who were acting under his orders at the time. Those charged were involved in a bomb attack launched on the Gaza neighborhood of Al Daraj. PCHR reports that the actual target of the one-ton bomb was Salah Shehadeh, a suspected Hamas commander. The bomb, however, not only destroyed Shehadeh’s home, but several others surrounding it. Fifteen people died and one hundred and fifty sustained injuries of various degrees. The victims say they were told by an Israeli court that the attack was proportionate.
http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30149
The French connection – by Meir Zamir
(28 June) Secret papers reveal covert French-Zionist collaboration before Israel’s establishment – 60 years on, there’s still no complete account of regional, int’l circumstances surrounding founding of Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996684.html
Iraqi officials outraged by US raid in prime minister’s home town
saying the operation violated the terms of the handover of Karbala province to Iraqi security forces.
Karbala Gov. Oqeil al Khazaali said U.S. forces killed an unarmed civilian and arrested at least one person in the raid in the southern town of Janaja. The governor’s brother, Hassanein al Khazaali, said late Friday that the Iraqi killed in the operation was a relative of the U.S.-backed prime minister. (27 June)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/42503.html
Iraq war photographer diary: Militias
(27 June) I am noticing a disturbing trend in Iraq right now, one that I feel pretty sure will prove to be a major mistake in this war and cause a fair amount of grief to the Iraqi people and most likely beyond. The U.S. Military is arming and funding militias and civil military groups across the country.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13923
First violence, now drought threatens Iraqi farmers
(26 June) HAWIJA, IRAQ — For nearly three years, farmer Sarheed Ahmed barely touched his land. He was too afraid of drawing the attention of the masked gunmen who terrorized the area, or of the U.S. attack helicopters that prowled overhead. Now, Ahmed says, he can farm until late at night without worrying about safety. But in a cruel twist, the rain didn’t come this season.
UN: Golan observer force’s mandate extended
Security Council unanimously adopts resolution to renew mandate of UN Disengagement Observer Force by six more months
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561164,00.html
Karnit Goldwasser: Last chance to bring Udi, Eldad home
(28 June) Cabinet to possibly vote on swap deal with Hizbullah Sunday. ’This feels like the final opportunity to release the captives,’ Goldwasser’s wife says, adding ’we were never told there was a problem with the release of Samir Kuntar’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561324,00.html
Holding Muslims at arm’s length – by Derrick Jackson
(27 June) In his year-and-a-half-long run for president, Obama has visited churches and synagogues, but no mosque. This has the musty feel of light-skinned African-Americans passing for white, paranoid over daylight visits from dark-skinned relatives. How about something like, “Senator Obama is a Christian who, having lived in the world’s largest Muslim country [Indonesia], having traveled in Pakistan and having many Muslim friends, appreciates American pluralism like no other candidate in US history”?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/06/27/holding_muslims_at_arms_length/
Obama to visit Mideast before elections
(AP, 28 June) Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama plans to visit the Middle East and Europe this summer, taking time off from campaigning in the United States in an effort to boost his foreign policy credentials. Obama’s campaign told The Associated Press the likely nominee will travel to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The Illinois senator also has said he intends to visit Iraq and Afghanistan this summer
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214492526086&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Obama to Bush: Arab nations can do more
(26 June, updated 28) Arab nations, especially wealthy Gulf states, can give “far more” assistance to the Palestinians, Sen. Barack Obama wrote in a letter to President George W. Bush Tuesday in what was effectively a position paper on Israel for the presumptive Democratic US presidential nominee. In a letter reiterating some of the concerns from his June 4 AIPAC speech, Obama said that in light of new threats, three platforms were important: that Israel had a right to defend itself, that Arabs should do more to further peace, and that the US should support the recent overtures between Syria and Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214132688704&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
