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Thread: :icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

  1. #521
    In a fresh move, the Israeli armed forces have kidnapped thirteen Palestinians during pre-dawn raids in various parts of the West Bank, the military says.

    The operation was carried out Tuesday morning during night and dawn operations in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Tulkarem.

    The campaign came just days after Israeli troops kidnapped 11 Palestinians again in overnight operations carried out in the same areas of the West Bank. Over the last 10 days, Israeli forces have kidnapped at least 50 Palestinians in the West Bank.

    Palestinians residing in the West Bank fall victim to overnight kidnapping operations on a regular basis despite a security agreement between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

    According to the agreement, the PA is in charge of security in the West Bank and Israeli service members have no authority in the region.

    Palestinians claim that Israel has kidnapped close to 2,400 Gazan citizens from the West Bank and surrounding areas since the start of 2009.

    More than 11,500 Palestinians -- including women and children -- imprisoned by Israel are suffering under harsh conditions in detention facilities.

    MSH/SC/AA

  2. #522
    Sirens wailed across Israel on the third day of Tel Aviv's largest-ever military drill which is widely believed to be preparation for another war in the region.

    The drill is widely believed to be in line with the regime's preparation for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities which they admit can ignite an all-out war in the region.

    Israeli officials sound sirens on Tuesday as part of the five-day "Turning point 3" military exercises which has begun on Sunday to test the response to a "doomsday" mix of missile attacks from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as well as suicide bombings and natural disasters.

    "The purpose of the siren is to affect the consciousness of the Israeli public," Haaretz quoted Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai as saying.

    "Every citizen of the state should know that an emergency drill can take place anytime anywhere and how they should act," she added. The Tuesday exercise is meant to test the national system of 2,300 sirens.

    The Home Front's rescue battalions will also take part in the exercise, practicing rescuing victims from a building that was demolished especially for the event.

    In Eilat, emergency forces will also simulate chemical and biological strikes on a school.

    At the Mitzpe Golan School in Bnei Yehuda on the occupied Golan Heights, children lined up in a more or less orderly fashion to enter shuttered classrooms as the sirens began wailing.

    "This kind of exercise is particularly relevant in the Golan as the danger is real," one teacher said.

    The area was among those that involved in the 33-day war that launched against Lebanese Hezbollah movement in the summer of 2006.

    On several occasions, Israel admitted to its failure in the July War which was launched to destroy Hezbollah's military power.

    National Emergency Authority Chief, Brig. Gen. (res.) Ze'ev Zuk-Rom formerly acknowledged that "Turning Point 3" is to be held based on the lessons Israel learnt during its war against the Lebanese movement.

    Hezabollah in cooperation with the Lebanese army has also heightened security measures along the southern border with Israel to repel possible threats during the ongoing drill.

    SB/DT

  3. #523
    A fact-finding group has urged US Secretary of State to pressure Israel to ease a blockade on Gaza and let US diplomats meet Hamas and Hezbollah officials.

    In a letter to Hillary Clinton, the group led by widow of former Sen. William J. Fulbright, Harriet Fulbright,-whose husband chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and created a scholarship program that sends foreign students to the US and Americans abroad -- reflects findings from a 17-day "political pilgrimage" last month to Gaza, Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon by a group of US citizens, The Washington Times reported.

    The fact-finding group called for the entry of essential foodstuffs and also construction materials needed to rebuild after the December-January offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip.

    Steve Buck, retired US diplomat and one of the members of the American delegation that visited the Middle East for 17 days in May, told editors and reporters of The Washington Times on Monday that Israeli policy toward Gaza constituted a "siege."

    He said Israel has deliberately prevented the entry of goods into the deadly-populated Gaza Strip. He added that in addition to the letter to Clinton the fact-finding group hopes to brief someone in the office of George Mitchell, the former US senator who is President Obama's special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace talks.

    "We would like to see an increase in the amount of goods going in and out of Gaza," Buck said.

    The Israeli siege not only is making life miserable for a generation, it is also taking away the dream of a nation which doesn't seem to see light at the end of the tunnel.

    Close to 1,400 Palestinians -- mostly women and children -- died during Israel's three-week-long onslaught against the costal sliver, and dozens of seriously ill patients are facing imminent death as Gaza hospitals run out of medical supplies while the Israeli authorities are barring supplies from reaching the territory.

    Tel Aviv's operation Cast Lead in Gaza exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, inflicting heavy damage on the civilian infrastructure, disrupting the flow of clean water and causing overflow of sewage.

    Nearly 20,000 homes and other buildings were damaged, leaving thousands of people homeless. Gaza has also been experiencing harsh conditions due to shortage of fuel and electricity, which has affected the performance of medical centers and hospitals.

    Tel Aviv has been charged with war crimes during the Gaza war including the use of controversial chemical white phosphorous shells, indiscriminate firing in the coastal sliver and the shelling of a UN school turned refugee camp.

    MSH/DT

  4. #524
    Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters says he would perform a concert in a flash the moment Israel's apartheid wall is torn down.

    Waters made the remarks on Tuesday as he was visiting the Ayda Refugee Camp in the West Bank in the shadows of the towering concrete structure, which snakes around the occupied homeland of the Palestinians.

    Waters said he hopes "this thing, this awful thing, is destroyed soon".

    The wall is "an obscenity for other people in the world. It looks okay to Jews here and maybe in other places where they live, but people around the world see it as a weird way to live," the Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying.

    He stated that the instant the illegal apartheid wall is torn down, he will perform a concert at the site, similar to his performance at the site of the Berlin Wall in 1990, shortly after it came down.

    The 65-year-old bassist and singer co-wrote Pink Floyd's iconic album “The Wall” and performed its title song at the 1990 Berlin concert.

    FTP/HGL

  5. #525
    The Russian Defense Ministry is to deliver 50 armored personnel carriers to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the next three months, a Russian military official says.

    "The delivery of the armored troop transport vehicles has been negotiated with all the countries involved. They will be delivered by sea from July to September," a senior Russian military officer told the Russian news agency, Interfax. The agency did not name the Russian official.

    The vehicles, taken from Russia's reserve stocks, are to be given to Israel before being handed over to the PA in the occupied West Bank.

    While Israel has imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is run by the democratically elected Hamas movement, it is conducive to bolstering the PA, which is run by former Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expired in January, and who many Palestinians see as an ineffectual collaborator without a mandate to speak on their behalf.

    The announcement comes as hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman visits Moscow, where he held talks with Russian leaders. Although Lieberman - who is himself a Russian emigrant to Israel - failed to persuade Moscow to cut its ties with Hamas, he nevertheless approved the delivery of the military vehicles to Hamas's arch-foe the PA.

    These lightly-armored vehicles are no match for the Israeli tanks and anti-armor weapons, and their only use will probably be to suppress any opposition against the Abbas administration from Hamas supporters.


    FTP/ZAP/HGL

  6. #526
    Hamas says Israel's nationwide civil-military readiness drill is not only meant to rebuild their army's confidence but is also a preparation for the start of an actual war.

    Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel wants to boost the morale of its army, which lost miserably on two fronts - with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    The five-day military exercise dubbed 'Turning Point 3' also includes training in how to suppress the Palestinian population in the West Bank and inside Israel during a three-front scenario.

    “What is needed from Arab and Islamic states is to unite against any Israeli plans, calling on all Palestinians to unite and encourage the resistance to protect the land,” Barhoum said.

    This largest-ever preparedness drill, which began on Sunday, has alarmed some of Israel's neighbors, who are deeply concerned that it could be a cover-up for the start of an actual war.

    The ominously-named exercise is said to have been designed to simulate a moment when a drawn-out conflict in Gaza spills over into a full-scale regional war.

    FTP/ZAP/HGL

  7. #527
    CAIRO — A galaxy of American public figures, former diplomats, analysts and businessmen is urging the Obama administration to press Israel into lifting its choking siege on the impoverished, fenced-off Gaza Strip and to hold official talks with Hamas. "We would like to see an increase in the amount of goods going in and out of Gaza," Steve Buck, a retired diplomat and a member of the Washington-based Council for the National Interest CNI, told the Washington Times on Tuesday, June 2.

    Buck, who led a CNI fact-finding mission to Gaza last year, said the Israeli policy towards the coastal enclave constituted a "siege" in the full sense of the word.

    The former consul accused Israel of deliberately depriving Gaza's 1.6 million people of basic foodstuffs such as lentils and tomato paste, classifying them as "luxuries".

    Israel has clamped a blockade on the Gaza Strip since Hamas was voted to power in 2006.

    It further tightened the blockade and closed Gaza's crossings to the outside world after Hamas assumed control in 2007 following clashes with Fatah rival.

    Israel blocks humanitarian aid including harmless goods such as cheeses, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and toilet papers.

    The humanitarian catastrophe created by the siege further aggravated after Israel's recent three-week war which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

    The onslaught wrecked havoc on the Gaza infrastructure, leaving nearly 20,000 homes and thousands of other buildings damaged.

    With Israel blocking construction materials needed for rebuilding, thousands of Gaza civilians have been forced to take shelters for months in makeshifts tents.

    Talk to Hamas

    The CNI, an NGO seeking to counter the over-zealous tactics of Israel's lobby in the US and promote a Mideast foreign policy consistent with American values, wants the Obama administration to hold talks with Hamas.

    Buck, the former diplomat, refuted the Israeli argument that if the US and the West continues to squeeze Hamas it will lose in any future elections).

    "The premise is fallacious."

    Buck, who met Gaza prime minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during the group's visit to Gaza, said they have sent a letter in this regard to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    They hope to convey the same message to President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

    The Bush administration rejected any contact with Hamas since the group swept Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and came to power.

    But calls for dialogue with Hamas have intensified recently, especially after Israel's devastating Gaza war.

    Former US president and Noble Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter, who met Hamas leaders last year, has urged the US to end its Hamas Isolation policy.

    Last March, a group of former international peace negotiators urged a re-think of the Hamas isolation policy, insisting it must be engaged in the peace process.

    Middle East Quartet envoy and former British prime minister Tony Blair has also called for Hamas inclusion in the peace process.

    Source: IslamOnline

  8. #528
    (press tv) Israel continues its illegal construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

    U.S. President Barack Obama promises to continue to speak his mind against Tel Aviv -- a move expected to land him on the wrong side of the Israeli leadership.

    Obama has stepped up demands that Israel put a stop to its large-scale building projects on occupied Palestinian land.

    The U.S. calls, however, have largely fallen on deaf ears among Israeli leaders, who argue that halting construction in settlements in the West Bank would be equal to "freezing life" and is therefore "unreasonable".

    In a Monday interview with NPR, Obama attacked Tel Aviv over its non-cooperation, asserting that he would continue his objection to Israel's illegal settlement construction.

    "Part of being a good friend is being honest," said Obama. "And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests."

    Obama refused to comment on what he would do if Israel continued to balk at requests that it halt its land-grab but said that he is determined to "follow through" with his demands as the main part of his political agenda in the Middle East.

    His claims appear to be a dramatic break from his predecessors, who mostly fought shy of a confrontation with Israel by overlooking the Palestinian crisis.

    Israel, unfazed by worldwide criticism of its settlement building, has moved on with a series of settler-driven demolitions of Palestinian houses in Jerusalem (al-Quds) in order to further expand its illegal outposts.

    Half a million Zionists live in settlement blocs built on lands that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the occupying power from transferring its citizens to occupied lands.

    Israel's continued construction of housing settlements are proven to have direct and serious consequences on the welfare of Palestinian communities, by restricting their freedom of movement, denying them access to essential supplies, services and land.

    Human Rights Watch has repeatedly reported and documented the crimes that Jewish settlers commit against Palestinians, some of which include the deliberate poisoning of water supplies, agricultural sabotage, as well as the destruction of olive trees and crops.

    There have been repeated UN resolutions regarding the issue, most of which have been blocked by the United States in the past decades.

    A leaked report on Jewish settlements in the West Bank has recently revealed that the Israeli government was complicit in illegal construction on private land owned by Palestinians.

    Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said the confidential information would help Palestinians sue Tel Aviv for "systematically violating international law and the property rights of Palestinian residents".
    Source: Press TV

  9. #529
    The Israeli army has wounded two Palestinian resistance fighters in the northern Gaza Strip where Israeli tank shells also injured four civilians.

    Two al-Aqsa Brigade fighters were injured on Wednesday morning when they clashed with Israeli troops in the area of Abraj An-Nada in the northern Gaza Strip.

    The Fatah-linked group issued a statement on Wednesday, saying that the wounded guerillas were transferred to a hospital for medical treatment.

    "The fighters were injured while trying to retaliate for Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," the statement said.

    The military group also claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks on special Israeli forces near the Nahal Oz crossing, east of Gaza City, and for launching three rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) at Israeli military tanks.

    On Wednesday, four civilians were injured by Israeli tank shelling aimed at Palestinian fighters in northern Gaza.

    This is while a UN Human Rights Council team is visiting the Gaza Strip to probe alleged war crimes carried out during Israel's three-week-long onslaught against the Hamas-run territory.

    More than 1,400 Palestinians, most of whom were women and children, were killed in the December-January Israeli offensive.

    The war also devastated hundreds of civilian buildings in the impoverished coastal sliver, home to more than 1.5 million people.

    MRS/SC/AA

  10. #530
    A UN fact-finding mission investigating reports of Israeli war crimes has obtained documents that allegedly confirm Tel Aviv misconduct during the war on Gaza.

    Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip have provided the fifteen-member mission headed by South African Jewish jurist Richard Goldstone with documents, photos, and other materials considered "evidence of Israeli violations".

    Tel Aviv in late December unleashed Operation Cast Lead upon the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians allegedly in response to Hamas retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel.

    The three-week Israeli offensive on the tiny coastal strip killed nearly 1,350 Palestinians and wounded around 5,450 others -- most of them civilians.

    The onslaught cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion, destroying some 4,000 residential buildings and damaging 16,000 other houses.

    The use of controversial flesh-eating weapons against civilians and UN buildings also prompted universal condemnation and calls for war crime charges to be brought against Tel Aviv.

    Days after the attacks, the democratically elected leaders of Hamas declared that they had documented irrefutable proof of Israeli war crimes inside the Gaza Strip.

    "We will use that [proof] to build a case against the Israeli political and military leaders as a criminal crime," Osama Hamdan, Hamas' chief representative and senior leader in Lebanon told Press TV in late January.

    The UN mission and Hamas officials on Monday might held a meeting during which Hamas pledged its full cooperation with the team of legal experts.

    The government will work seriously to provide the commission with what it needs to carry out their work successfully, Hamas political advisor Ahmad Yousef said on the mission's first day in the besieged territory.

    Israel, however, made every effort to stonewall the UN quest for peace. Goldstone's delegation was repeatedly denied visa's into the Gaza Strip in a move labeled as "disappointing" by the UN official.

    "I'm disappointed, and the members of the mission are disappointed, that we've had no positive response from the Israeli government," Goldstone told reporters in Geneva in late May.

    The group eventually entered Gaza via Egypt through the Rafah crossing on Monday, immediately launching the investigation which will not include key Israel ministries involved in the war.

    "So far, Israel is refusing to cooperate," said Rina Rosenberg, the development director at Adalah -- The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

    "And that means that the Goldstone mission wouldn't have access to speak to the army, to the military and the political leaders," she explained.

    Goldstone and his team have plans to meet with other Hamas officials and also visit the Samuni family, which lost 29 of its members to the Israeli bombardment in January.

    Goldstone's team leaves Gaza on Friday and is due to submit its report to the UN Human Rights Council in August.

    FTP/ZAP/MT/AA

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