Israel reopens the case of Rachel Corrie while settlement expansion resumes and settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank. These stories and more are coming up. Stay tuned.

On Thursday morning, the District Court of Haifa began the re-trial of a case they had concluded in March. An Israeli judge ruled that the Court should hear further evidence in the case of Rachel Corrie who was killed by an Israeli armored bulldozer in Gaza in 2003.

In resuming consideration of the case, the Israeli judicial system admits that there may have been an error in its earlier decision, which found the military not liable for Corrie's death.

Rachel Corrie's father, Craig Corrie, spoke to reporters outside the courtroom in Haifa, saying, “We pursue this case not just for our daughter ... but for the many civilians killed in Gaza, still remembered, still loved, still awaiting justice.”

The Corrie family holds the Israeli military responsible for Rachel's death, being negligent in their duty, and violating international law.

In the Gaza Strip today, Palestinian medical sources reported that six Palestinians were wounded at dawn after the Israeli air force carried out several air strikes targeting different areas.

One of the bombarded sites is a training camp for the Al Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement. The army also bombarded several targets claimed to be Hamas security centers, and at least one missile hit a residential area, causing panic among the residents and damage to property.

Israeli sources said the shelling took place after a homemade shells was fired by a resistance group and landed in an open area in the Eshkol region of Israel. No damage or injuries were reported.

In the West Bank, four Palestinians were wounded on Wednesday while being pursued and harassed by an Israeli military vehicle on the road between Ramallah and Nablus. Witnesses said the military vehicle followed the car from Qablan junction in Nablus to Tarmas'ya junction in Ramallah and said car was repeatedly struck by the military vehicle causing its occupants to be injured.

The army detained the injured driver, Husam Nafe', 38. Two others who were injured were moved to hospitals in Rammalah; another to a health center in Qablan.

At dawn on Thursday, Israeli soldiers kidnapped twelve Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank who were suspected of involvement in attacks against Israeli targets." They were all taken to interrogation centers for questioning.

On Wednesday evening, soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian youth near Huwwara village claiming that the youth carried a knife. In nearby Al Naqqara settlers uprooted nearly 50 trees belonging to Najeh Issa Odah.

On Thursday The Palestinian Security Forces of the Fateh-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, arrested Omar Barghouthi, 55, a former political prisoner held by Israel for more than ten years, and the brother of the longest held Palestinian detainee in an Israeli prison.

The Hamas led Palestinian Ministry of Detainees in Gaza, slammed the arrest of Omar Barghouthi and considered it as “stabbing in the back of detainees and the symbols of resistance."

Both Omar and his older brother, Na’el Barghouthi, had been kidnapped by the Israeli army on April, 4, 1978, while still in high school and were both given life sentences. But in 1985, Omar was released in a prisoner-swap deal mediated between Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.


On Wednesday night a group of Jewish settlers started construction for the expansion of Michola settlement, in the Jordan Valley near the central West Bank city of Tubas.

Tubas governor, Marwan Tubasi said that it seems the settlers have managed to add three residential units so far.

The settlement is one of the biggest agricultural settlements in the Palestinian Plains area in the Jordan Valley.

Tubasi added that setters are also conducting construction work in Maskiot settlement in the area.

Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli journal, reported on Thursday from Israeli political sources that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is demanding that the president of the United States, Barak Obama, reiterate the guaranties which George Bush gave to the previous Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon in exchange for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

These guaranties were mentioned in a letter from Bush to Sharon on the 14th of April 2004. Bush said that Washington would support the idea of annexing the settlements into Israel when the future borders of a Palestinian state would be drawn. He also asserted in his letter that he was against the return of the refugees to Palestine.

This concludes our news for today. Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today, a program of the International Middle East Media Center. For more updates and details of these stories, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report was brought to you by Hussam Qassis and Cheryl Hogan.