Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center
www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, February 4th, 2009.
Israel destroys homes in Jerusalem while a Palestinian in Gaza is reported dead due to wounds sustained by earlier military attacks, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.
The News Cast
A Palestinian youth from Gaza was reported dead on Wednesday at an Egyptian hospital after succumbing to wounds he sustained during Israel's attacks on Gaza last month. The Palestinian Embassy in Egypt reported that Mithqal Al Rabee, 23, was moved to Egypt for treatment earlier this week, adding that he is the 31st Palestinian to die in Egyptian hospitals.
Israel embarked on its latest full-scale military operation on December 27th, 2008. For 22 days, military sea, air and ground forces shelled homes, schools, UN centers, mosques, and media agencies, killing 1,341 Palestinians and wounding more than 5,500.
Four Palestinian owned homes were demolished by the Israeli Army in the al-Isawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Witnesses told IMEMC that Israeli soldiers arrived on Wednesday morning and forced families out of their homes, demolishing a number of properties. Mo'az, who was at the scene, told IMEMC that the houses were home to 27 people.
Mo'az added that among those homes leveled today was the home of Hatem Khalil, whose home was demolished for the third time today. The man has just been released after a year in jail for building his home. Mo'az told IMEMC that Hatem had a psychological breakdown and threw himself from the top of his home when soldiers started to demolish it. He was moved to a hospital in Jerusalem with critical wounds due to the fall.
The Israeli Authorities stated that the demolished homes have been built without the required permission and documentation. Since Israel has been occupying the city of Jerusalem since 1967, Palestinian residents have rarely been given permits to build homes. Meanwhile, Israel continues to build and expand Jewish-only illegal settlements in and around Jerusalem, and all over Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Five young men from the village of Bil'in located near the central West Bank city of Ramallah were kidnapped on Wednesday by the Israeli military.
Troops stormed the village, then raided several houses and searched them. Local sources said that during the search troops took five men away. For almost four years, Bil'in village is the scene of weekly nonviolent protests against the Israeli illegal wall being built in the West Bank.
Conclusion
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Jane and Ghassan Bannoura.
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04.02.2009 18:17
Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak held off responding to ten days of missile-mortar salvoes from Gaza in the hope of Cairo successfully negotiating a long-term truce deal with Hamas.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that Egypt's announcement Wednesday, Feb. 4, that as of Thursday, its only border crossing with Gaza at Rafah would be closed down for all traffic,signaled the breakdown of those negotiations. Cairo gave people who entered Gaza through Rafah and wished to leave 24 hours to do so. Egypt also discontinued all humanitarian operations for the Gaza population, including care for the war wounded and sick.
Egypt finally resolved to segregate the Gaza Strip Tuesday night after discovering that Hamas was under orders from Tehran to keep the truce talks dragging on aimlessly together with daily missile and mortar fire against Israel.
Cairo hopes that slamming the Rafah gate shut will bring Hamas to heel, although most doubt this will happen.
This breakdown has also shut the door on Barak's solo policy of relying Egypt to reap the results of Israel's three-week operation in Gaza in the form of Hamas surrender to a long-term ceasefire. Most of the Israeli government as well as the opposition were skeptical of this result. To avoid sending the military in to finish the job against Hamas, defense ministry sources tried claimed that the nagging fire from Gaza came from non-Hamas sources. Tuesday, a long-range, heavy Grad rocket from Hamas' stock hit Ashkelon center and put paid to this claim. Hamas is expected to respond to its cutoff from Egypt by stepping up cross-border attacks against Israel.
Wednesday, Christopher Guinness, spokesman of the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNWRA, complained that Hamas police raided its warehouse in Gaza City and made off with 3,500 blankets and nearly 500 food packages that were to have been distributed to poor Gaza families. UNWRA demanded their immediate return.
Israel regularly opens at least two of the crossings on its side to regular supplies of essential goods and fuel for Gaza unless Palestinian fire escalates and targets those very crossings.
'Tank shells killed doctor's daughters'
By YAAKOV KATZ
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The IDF on Wednesday concluded the investigation into the shooting at the Gaza house of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a 55-year-old gynecologist who lost three daughters and a niece when his house was hit by IDF fire on January 16, during Operation Cast Lead.
Following the investigation, the army confirmed that two Israeli tank shells had hit the building.
The IDF said that a Golani Brigade force operating near Beit Lahiya came under sniper and mortar fire in an area laden with explosives and IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
After determining that the source of the fire was a building adjacent to Abuelaish's home, the force returned fire.
While the IDF was shooting, suspicious figures were identified in the top floors of the doctor's house, and the troops believed the figures were directing the Hamas sniper and mortar fire, the army said.
Upon assessing the situation in the field while under heavy fire, the commander of the force gave the order to open fire on the suspicious figures, and it was from this fire that Abuelaish's three daughters were killed, said the IDF.
Once the soldiers realized that civilians, and not Hamas gunmen, were in the house they ceased fire immediately, continued the army.
Three of the doctor's daughters - aged 20, 15 and 13 - and a niece were killed on the second floor.
Another of his daughters and a son were wounded, along with his brother. Abuelaish was on the ground floor with his small son at the time of the attack. The physician's wife died of cancer three months ago.
The IDF Spokesperson Unit stressed that in the days prior to the incident, Dr. Abuelaish was contacted personally several times by officers in the Coordination and Liaison Administration in order to urge the doctor to evacuate his home, as many others already had, because of Hamas operations and the intense fighting that was already taking place in that area for several days.
In addition to the personal contact made directly with the doctor, the IDF issued warnings to the residents of Sajaiya by dropping thousands of leaflets and by issuing warnings via Palestinian media outlets.
The investigation of the incident was conducted by the commanders of the forces in the area, as well as the division commander, and was approved by GOC Southern Command and the Head of the IDF Operations Branch (both ranking Major Generals).
The IDF said it regretted the incident and the loss of life, and that the doctor had been updated with details of the investigation as well.
Considering the constraints of the battle scene, the amount of threats that endangered the force, and the intensity of fighting in the area, the investigators concluded that the forces' action and the decision to fire towards the building were reasonable.
The investigation's results were presented on Tuesday to Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, they received his approval.
Following the IDF announcement, Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the shelling "tragic", but hailed the IDF for carrying out such a thorough investigation of the incident.
"I am familiar with a lot of armies, and I think there are very few militaries in the world, if any at all...where you see such insistence in carrying out probes and [very few militaries] that see such investigations as a duty and responsibility," he told Channel 10. "I also don't know of other armies that exert so much effort in trying to prevent such things from happening."
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