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This Week in Palestine week 14 2011

IMEMC Audio Dept | 08.04.2011 16:05 | Other Press | Palestine | World

Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for April 2 to 8 2011

Israeli military steps up attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank despite calls from the Palestinian President to the world to intervene to stop Israel’s attacks, these stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.

Nonviolence
Lets us begin our weekly report as usual with the nonviolent activities in West Bank with David Steele

The Israeli army used tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets on Friday to suppress the weekly anti wall protests in a number of West Bank villages.

Two were injured, and six arrested when Israeli troops attacked the weekly protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh, in central West Bank. After midday prayers, villagers along with Israeli and international supporters marched to lands owned by local farmers that Israel wants to take for the construction of the wall and settlements.

Soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at civilians injuring two local youths. Later troops stormed the village and arrested three local men and three Israeli activists.

In Bil’in village, also in central West Bank, villagers along with their international and Israeli supporters marched towards the wall built on their lands after midday prayers.

As soon as protesters reached the gate of the wall separating local farmers from their lands troops stationed there attacked them using tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.

On Tuesday of this week the army invaded the village of Bil’in and searched homes. Villagers there have been protesting the wall for the past six years.

The nearby village of Ni'lin held a similar protest on Friday. Villagers and their supporters marched up to the gate of the wall separating local farmers from their land. Israeli troops used tear gas and sound bombs to force people back. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.

Also on Friday the villagers of al-Ma’sara, in southern West Bank, and their international and Israeli protesters conducted their weekly anti wall protests. Troops stopped the protest from leaving the village using rifle butts and batons.
For IMEMC.org this is David Steele.


Political
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on international bodies to pressure Israel to refrain from attacking the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister,, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel is concerned over regional developments. IMEMC's Rami Al-Meghari has more.


From Cairo, where he is holding talks with Egyptian leadership, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for halting ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza in wake of a new wave of violence in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas's call came while he is involved in talks over national unity between the Fatah and Hamas in Gaza for possible restoration of the that unity. Abbas said he is ready to visit Gaza along with Arab League's secretary , Amr Mousa, in an attempt to restore the national unity and prepare for general elections. Hamas is yet to response clearly to the call.

On the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, the president reiterated the Palestinian Authority's stance that the peace process can be back to track once Israel stops all settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands.

Also, he reaffirmed the PA's move to win UN recognition for a Palestinian state on the 1967 border lines including east Jerusalem , West Bank and Gaza Stip.

Meanwhile, in Prague, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, voiced Israel's concern over underway developments in nearby Arab countries as far as chances of peace are concerned.

Amidst such fairs, a number of Israeli politicians called this week for embracing an Arab peace initiative of 2002 that calls for a comprehensive peace between Israel and Arab countries , based on 1967 borders.

In Washington, U.S President Barak Obama, believed that there should be chance for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Obama's thought comes as some European countries including France , Germany and UK, have proposed a peace initiative that is based on a two-state solution.

So far, the parties concerned have not reached any conclusion as to how they could re-re-launch a stalled peace process. In the meantime, violence is still going on in the region , particularly in the Gaza Strip, where at least 10 people including women and elderly men have been killed during Israeli attacks since Thursday, April7.

Rami Almeghari. IMEMC.org. Gaza

The Israeli Attacks Report
Hundreds abducted in the West Bank and 10 killed in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli military raids, the details and more with IMEMC Circarre Parrhesia

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported, this week, that demolition of Palestinian homes and other buildings by Israel reached record highs in March.

According to UNRWA, 76 buildings were demolished in March, resulting in the displacement of 158 people, including 64 children. This brings the total number of displaced persons in 2011 to 333, including 175 children. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness claimed that this was “discrimination against one ethnic group”.

The village of Awarta, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank, has undergone three separate attacks this week by Israeli military forces, including closures of all access points to the village, the imposition of curfew upon the village and the detention of hundreds of residents of the village, including elderly women, who have been forced to submit DNA samples.

The attacks are a continuation of the collective punishment upon the village following the murders of five members of a family in the nearby settlement of Itamar over one month ago, despite the State of Israel providing no concrete evidence for the murderer, or murders, coming from Awarta.

The Israeli military abducted, on Wednesday morning, three Palestinians from the town of Hebron. The sources stated that the Israeli Military searched houses of Palestinian residents and handed them orders to appear at the nearest police station for questioning.

Israeli soldiers invaded on Thursday morning al-Aqaba village, east of the central West Bank city of Tubas, declared it a closed military zone, and proceeded to demolish two homes and bulldoze roads.

Sami Sadeq, head of al-Aqaba village council, stated that several roads close to the entrance of the village, and in its center, were bulldozed before the army demolished the two homes.

The Gaza Strip has seen a further escalation in hostilities this week, culminating in the death of 10 Palestinians and the injury of dozens more in the last 30 hours alone.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian man was killed in the buffer zone of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claimed that they shot the man as he was armed and approaching the border, but Palestinian medical sources stated that no weapon was found at the scene.

Air raids were reported both Tuesday and Wednesday night in several areas, resulting in injuries to five civilians. Two were children, and two were women, one of whom is pregnant. Furthermore damage was reported to property including a plastics factory.

Following rocket fire from Gaza on Thursday, one of which struck an Israeli school bus in Beer Sheva injuring two, the Israeli military launched an assault upon Gaza using shelling from tanks, and aerial fire from a combination of F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopters and unmanned drones.

Attacks were reported throughout the Gaza Strip and have, thus far, resulted in the deaths of ten Palestinians, eight of whom were civilians, and the injury of over 40 residents. Both the numbers killed and injured included children.

The two deceased who were not civilians belonged to the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, who claimed responsibility for the rocket fire from Gaza, along with the National Resistance Brigades, of the DFLP.

For imemc, this is Circarre Parrhesia.

And that was just some of the news from this week in Palestine, for more updates; please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, This report has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me George Rishmawi

IMEMC Audio Dept
- e-mail: info@imemc.org

Comments

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Israeli terrorist propaganda

08.04.2011 17:09

The so-called PA is an Israeli terrorist operation with no legitimacy, only the direct support and finance of Israel and Israeli terrorist movements throughout the EU, and USA (overseen recently by Tony Blair).

The people of Palestine voted for the government of Hamas- after which Blair himself oversaw the Holocaust in Gaza, and the extermination of as many elected Palestinian politicians as possible.

This week has seen the racist psychopaths that rule Israel declare that Britain and the USA have given them a green-light to launch a second Holocaust in Gaza. To this end, Israeli terrorists have stepped up their campaign of extermination against those they call 'sub-Human', knowing that when their victims make pitiful response, 'friends of Israel' within outlets like the BBC can declare the new Holocaust fully justified.

It is the only Israeli tactic to rape, torture and butcher children, women and men, until their target strikes back in some form. The original acts of atrocity get little or no coverage in the mass media outlets of the West. However, the tiny attempts of the victims to strike back are given endless front-page coverage. It is a propaganda game run by people that KNOW that their supporters control almost 100% of all major propaganda outlets. The original Nazis used exactly the same trick, which is how Hitler was able to rise to such heights of power, unimpeded by world opinion.

How would you feel if your sister, mother, or grandmother was one of the 100 females rounded up by Israeli butchers, and taken to various 'rape-factories' for 'interrogation'? The 'friends of Israel' within the UK think such atrocities are wonderful.

You have witnessed how Tony Blair softened up Libya several years ago, in preparation for the NATO Holocaust currently destroying that country (and putting the entirety of its oil wealth into the hands of 'friends of Israel'). You witnessed how Blair commanded the first Holocaust in Gaza, leaving the entire nation destroyed, and thousands dead and wounded.

You are going to witness violence by Israel and the West on an exponentially growing scale, as more Humans are labelled as 'sub-Human', and then exterminated by the bombs of Israel and NATO.

These regular Indymedia articles proudly describe the mass murdering nazi scum of Israel as 'soldiers'- an act that is anything but an accident.

These so-called 'soldiers' rape, torture, and murder, whenever the 'enemy' is described 'sub-Human' with respect to their 'master-race'. They kidnap peaceful protesters. They kidnap innocent villagers. They rape and torture both. They do so under explicit written instructions from the depraved racist psychopaths that form the Israeli government.

Israel is every bit as evil and racist as was Nazi Germany. Those that support Israel do so for exactly the same reason as those that supported Nazi Germany, namely that some types of Human are superior, and some types inferior (or sub-Human). It is disgusting that any aspect of Indymedia seeks to give any form of legitimacy to a regime as evil and racist as that which controls Israel.

Israel = "ONE SHOT TWO KILLS" shirt- google it


Savage missile blitz from Gaza sends a million Israelis to shelters

09.04.2011 04:39

Savage missile blitz from Gaza sends a million Israelis to shelters
DEBKAfile Special Report April 9, 2011, 6:09 AM (GMT+02:00)

Before dawn Saturday, April 9, Hamas inflicted its heaviest missile blitz yet on southern Israel. - acting now on guidelines from the Lebanese Hizballah. More than a dozen heavy Grad missiles were aimed at seven Israeli cities injuring 10 civilians. One exploded in the sand dunes of Palmahim, aimed at Israel's nuclear research reactor at Nahal Soreq, More missiles landed south of Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Beersheba and Ashkelon. Sirens sent people running for cover in Gedera and Gan Yavneh. The two Iron Dome systems deployed last week intercepted six of the Grad missiles fired at Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod. The IDF responded by targeting three senior Hamas commanders in an air strike in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younes.
debkafile reported Friday night, April 8: More than 60 Hamas and Jihad Islami mortar shells and missiles hit Israeli towns, villages and farms on the Israeli side of the Gaza border Friday April 8 and injured a civilian. This heightened Israeli fury over Hamas's attack on a school bus Thursday, April 7, using a sophisticated Cornet anti-tank missile for the first time. A 16-year old boy was critically wounded. This attack was followed by 50 Palestinian rockets and mortar rounds, a blitz which had not abated by Friday night despite constant Israeli counteraction.

debkafile discloses a less obvious motive behind the mounting violence: Hamas is trying to establish new rules for the conflict on advice and directives coming from its Lebanese ally, Hizballah, to step up its barrage on Israel by 25 percent. The IDF is forced to respond to the resulting escalation in kind.

Our intelligence sources report that Hamas was advised by Hizballah to blitz Israel into relinquishing the 500-meter deep security strip the IDF established inside the Gaza border when Palestinian fire on Israel continued after it was temporarily reduced by the 2009 Cast Lead operation.

Hizballah leaders are telling Hamas they should be able to bring their forward and firing positions right up to the Israeli border, a convenience enjoyed by HIzballah on the Lebanese-Israeli frontier ever since 2000 when Israel quit southern Lebanon.

The IDF is fighting to hold on to this buffer zone to keep Palestinian terrorists back from breaching the border for direct attacks in Israel. The soldiers keep Palestinian gunmen from accessing this strip of land and impose restrictions on Gazan farmers seeking to till their fields in a strip which covers 15 percent of the enclave's arable land. (Farmers of the Eshkol district on the other side of the border are regularly targeted for attack.)

Hamas is threatening to raise the cross-border violence until Israeli troops pull back to the border. Its anti-tank missile attack on the school bus Thursday was the opening shot of its battle for the buffer zone.

The IDF's tactics for countering Hamas aggression remain unchanged, except in scale: In the last 48 hours, Israeli helicopters, mortars, tanks and naval units have been pounding the Gaza Strip while Hamas releases barrages of dozens of missile and mortar attacks on villages and towns - practically without pause. Israeli civilians were told to stay close to bomb shelters in the days to come. Schools, road traffic, public transport and businesses will function intermittently.

Israeli military planners are still playing the familiar tit-for-tat game which never in the past stopped the aggression from Gaza. Nevertheless, debkafile's military sources point to some notable differences in the current round.
The Iron Dome system designed in Israel to intercept short-range rockets was experimentally deployed in the important towns of Beersheba and Ashkelon this week. Friday, the system intercepted three missiles aimed at Ashkelon, although it caught only one of several Thursday.
The IDF importantly demonstrated it is fully capable of launching another major military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The broad scale of its land, sea and air reprisals since Thursday, April 7, was intended to remind Hamas and its allies, especially the Iranian-backed Jihad Islami, of the devastation wrought the enclave they rule by Israel's 2009 Cast Lead operation.

A possible Cast Lead II was in the air after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday during a visit to Prague: Attacks on children cross a red line. Those who carry out such attacks should know that their blood is on their heads."
On the other side of the ledger, the new rulers of Egypt are in the process of unraveling Hosni Mubarak's peace relations with Israel – as debkafile has reported – and engaging in rapprochement with the Gaza and Damascus centers of the two radical Palestinian organizations.
Since the Israeli government has not adjusted its policies to the new developments, its military tactics are operating in a vacuum and will have little deterrent effect. The current upsurge of Hamas-Jihad aggression will therefore go on.

debkafile's military experts maintain that the tactics of massive firepower without ground operations have run their course. There is no way to wipe out the increasingly sophisticated heavy weapons arsenal Hamas has been allowed to amass from the air. So the half a million Israeli civilians of the Western Negev and the southern coastal towns must continue to live under their shadow instead of having normal lives. Often, many cannot make it to work and schools, places of business and traffic can operate only intermittently.

Since Thursday, IDF operations have been sweeping across a broad front in the Gaza Strip from the old air field at Dahaniyeh in the south up to the northern fringes of Gaza City.

In the south, Khan Younes and Deir al Balakh took the severest beating. The former went dark Thursday night after Israeli airborne and surface missiles knocked out the local electricity grid. In Deir Balakh, a Hamas base built deliberately near a hospital took an airborne rocket, a signal that all such facilities would no longer be immune from attack.

In the Gaza City region, Israeli helicopters, tanks and naval ships bombed two main Hamas military installations – Abu Jerad and Rantisi.

The Palestinians reported 10 killed, including the commander of missile operations at the Shati refugee camp, and scores wounded, thereupon loosing off 50 missiles and mortar rounds – as usual, against civilian locations. In Ashkelon, Iron Dome intercepted its first missile Thursday, but missed the rest – scoring a partial success

For the first time in three years, Hamas appealed to Cairo to broker a ceasefire. Israeli did not bother to respond since the rulers of Gaza have violated every agreed ceasefire in the past. Hamas reached out to the new Egyptian regime following its moves towards a rapprochement and a Palestinian diplomatic initiative.
debkafile's intelligence sources disclose that last week, the head of Egypt's intelligence services Maj. Gen. Mourad Mowafi visited Damascus. He obtained permission from Syria's beleaguered president Bashar Assad to meet Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal and Abdullah Ramadan Salah of the Palestinian Jihad Islami and hand them an invitation to visit Cairo.

He then informed them that the new Egyptian leaders are willing to help negotiate Hamas' reconciliation with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah on the following basis: Hamas would accept the two-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but Egypt would not press for the second part of the formula endorsed by Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, namely that "the two states live alongside each other in peace and security."

This amended formula would leave Hamas and the other radical Palestinian organizations free to continue their violent campaign of "resistance" against Israel while making peace with the rival Fatah and gaining a Palestinian state on the West Bank.

These days, Hamas is sure it is on a win-win course and has little to fear from stepping up its war on Israel until it gets what it wants.

Cast Lead 2 imminent? The only way to stop the Palestinian terror.