Palestine Today 01 23 2012

A sixteen year old youth succumbs to wounds sustained in the Gaza invasion, code named Operation Cast Lead, and a group of Women’s Affairs Ministry employees in Ramallah suspend their strike over harassment and corruption at the Ministry, these stories and more, coming up, so stay tuned.

Over the weekend, a Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli border policeman at a military roadblock near the Shufat refugee camp, in East Jerusalem; the soldier was mildly injured while the stabber manager to escape. The stabbing took place on Saturday afternoon shortly after a Palestinian car, transporting two Palestinians who suffered work injuries, was stopped at the roadblock; a crowd of Palestinians gathered at the scene.

A Palestinian stabbed the officer in the neck using a screwdriver, and both the policeman and the two injured Palestinians were taken to Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem.

Also over the weekend, Palestinian medical sources reported on Sunday that Hanin Abu Jalala, aged 16, died of wounds suffered during the Israeli offensive on Gaza three years ago. The child was severely wounded by phosphorous shells fired by the Israeli army into civilian areas.

Abu Jalala lived with her family in Al-Boreij refugee camp, in central Gaza Strip; she was hospitalized at the Hadassah Israeli hospital, and fell into coma nearly twelve days ago after undergoing surgery. Her father, Kamal Abu Jalala, told the Safa News Agency that the administration at the Hadassah hospital is responsible for his daughter’s health, and added that the administration is refusing to grant him a photocopy of her medical file.

The Israeli “Ofer” Military Court, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, has decided to stay the deliberations on the case of the detained head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr. Aziz Dweik, until this coming Tuesday, tomorrow.

The court decided to delay the deliberations until this coming Tuesday, and will be deliberating the possibility of transferring him to administrative detention due. With the arrest of Dweik, the number of detained elected Palestinians legislators arrives at 26; both Dr. Dweik and legislator Khaled Tafesh, from Hebron, were taken on Friday.

A group of female employees of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs decided to suspend their protest, which started last Tuesday as a hunger-strike in front of the Tomb of Yasser Arafat, in Ramallah. The women are protesting mistreatment and financial corruption, along with physical harassment at the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

Palestinian Authority government spokesman, Ghassan Khatib, stated that the accusations are not true, and the group were to protest in front of the P.A. Cabinet, before the Union of Workers requested that they halt their strike. They say they respect the Unions request, but will pursue a legal route, to overturn the Prime Ministers cabinet decision which rules that their allegations were baseless.

In a statement, the group said quote- “Those who oppose the law and try to mislead public opinion against us for their own benefit must be judged." –unquote.

That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Monday January 23rd daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This has been brought to you by Husam Qassis, and me, William Gibson.