:icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

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Israel could soon be charged with hundreds of war crimes as Palestinian lawyers file 936 lawsuits against the Israeli military five months after its three week war on Gaza.

Head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Iyad al-Alami, says the cases will soon be heard in Spain's National Court under universal jurisdiction, the pro-Israeli magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

The legal department of the PCHR in Gaza City is gathering evidence for the cases which include a wide range of instances of unarmed civilians - including children - being shot from close range or burned by white phosphorus shells, ambulances being attacked and civilian houses being deliberately destroyed.

Israel launched an all-out war on the Gaza Strip in late December 2008 and continued to pound the coastal sliver through January 2009.

Close to 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the offensive which also left thousands homeless and wounded, costing the Gazan economy an estimated USD 1.6b in damages.

The use of unconventional flesh-eating weapons -- including depleted uranium and white phosphorus -- against civilians and destruction of UN buildings prompted a universal condemnation and calls for war crime charges to be brought against Tel Aviv.

In this regard, a UN fact-finding mission was dispatched to the strip to investigate reports of Israeli war crimes. The mission announced on Wednesday that it has obtained documents that allegedly confirm Tel Aviv's misconduct during the war on Gaza.

The PCHR, however, is independently taking legal measures against Tel Aviv. "Winning a case, just one, would be enough," al-Alami, the head of the center, was quoted as saying. "Then I would retire immediately, because I would have achieved everything."

MMN/SME/HAR

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A poll conducted by an anti-Corruption organization has revealed that the majority of Israeli's believe their government is not seriously fighting against Corruption.

The annual Global Corruption Barometer report released by Transparency International shows that 86 percent of Israelis --the highest level in the world--say the government's efforts to fight Corruption are ineffective.

Only 13 percent of Israelis believed that the government is taking the necessary measures to fight Corruption, Haaretz reported.

In 2006, 66 percent of those questioned did not believe in their government's anti-Corruption efforts.

The global public opinion survey represents the views of citizens from 69 countries around the world, including 500 in Israel.

The survey asks people about their attitudes toward local Corruption and their own personal involvement in such corrupt acts as bribery.

Senior Israeli officials including Israel's incumbent Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are charged with being engaged in several cases of financial Corruption.

Many other Israeli former officials including former president Moshe Katsav, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Israeli finance minister Avraham Hirshson and Knesset (Parliament) member Shlomo Benizri have been involved in corruption cases.

Doron Navot of the University of Haifa and the Israel Democracy Institute says in Israel "not only do the government and elected officials not fight political Corruption, but in recent years they see politicians and elected officials fighting the guardians - those battling against Corruption - and trying to weaken them and advance reforms that harm the fight against Corruption."

MGH/DT

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Thousands of Israelis have staged a rally to urge the government to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank.

Protestors chanted "End the occupation - start living" in their rally which was held in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Ynetnews reported.

The new far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has so far defied international calls to recognize two-state solution envisaged by the internationally-backed road map peace plan.

Nitzan Horovitz, a member of the Knesset, or parliament, urged his country to support the US President Barack Obama in his efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Obama is drawing a clear line between supporters of peace and democracy and those who oppose peace," he said.

"Israel must be in the first camp, beside the (United States), and the path there is clear: The end of settlement and the adoption of the two-state solution." Horovitz added.

Dov Khenin, another Knesset member also declared that Israel's "occupation norms" is leading to an end to political freedom.

The UN has urged Israel to end its illegal settlement expansion into the Palestinian territories and to withdraw from the occupied lands in the West Bank.

Netanyahu refuses to make any concrete move to halt the Israeli settlement expansion which has been widely viewed as the main obstacle in the way of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

MGH/DT

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Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni has warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reluctance to accept the two-state solution might withdraw the US support for Israel.

"The government today is not prepared to advance the process and set future borders, and the feeling in the world is that all Israel is trying to do is gain time," Livni told Army radio on Sunday.

Livni's comments came as US President Barack Obama has been pushing hard for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Obama had also called on Israel to fulfill its commitments under the Roadmap peace plan and evacuate the settlements built in the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem (al-Quds).

Israel, however, rejected calls for settlement freeze as well as the two-state solution so far.

Regarding the settlement freeze Livni said "There were no formal agreements on the matter, but an attempt to delineate borders and discuss the question of whether the settlement blocs would remain within Israel's bounds."

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Despite US pressure on Israel to freeze settlement activities, Tel Aviv has proposed a new solution to continue the settlements in the occupied lands.

Israel proposed a joint US-Israeli team to monitor the construction which would continue "within existing boundaries of settlements", Yent reported.

A senior official said on Saturday that Israel will continue the construction in the larger settlement blocs, communities adjacent to the security fence and the neighborhoods on Jerusalem's outskirts.

Another official claimed that Tel Aviv is willing to accept a Palestinian state with limited authority and no military.

The official who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Israel was working to "get the message across that we're willing to work towards a solution, one that culminates in the creation of Palestinian state with limited authorities...there can't be another army between the sea and Jordan."

This is while another political official told the daily that "There have been conflicts with various administrations, certainly over the issue of the settlements…There are differences of opinion, we do not want to exacerbate them. We are trying to see where the current administration is headed."

The report came as US President Barack Obama's special envoy on the Middle East, George Mitchell, will visit Israel this week for a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to pave the way for the resumption of peace negotiations between the two sides.

According to the report Mitchell is expected to build a permanent base for himself in the region, which would allow him to monitor the construction of the settlements and dismantling of the illegal outposts in the West Bank.

The US envoy is also said to increase pressure on Israel to ease restrictions on the Gaza Strip and open the border crossings, which would effectively end the two-year-long siege of the territory.

SB/MMN

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A Knesset (Israel's parliament) member has reportedly contracted A/H1N1, a virus which has already affected some 21,940 individuals in 69 countries across the globe.

In a letter on Sunday, Knesset Director-General Dan Landau warned other members that one of their peers had been diagnosed with swine flu.

The name of the infected individual was not stated; the letter, however, maintained that the patient has received the required treatment and is improving, Ynetnews reported.

"At this stage we have no knowledge of the disease having passed on to other Knesset members or family members," Ladau stressed.

He also urged the members to consult a physician if they presented any flu-like symptoms including fever, sore throat, cough, runny nose, and shortness of breath.

So far, 48 cases of swine flu have been diagnosed in Israel, seven of them during recent days.

PKH/MD

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A young Palestinian woman accused of spying for Israel, could face the death penalty, court officials say, calling it a rare development.

Court officials in the West Bank town of Jenin said on Sunday that the 22-year-old woman collaborated with the Israelis by passing information to them. Palestinian prosecution, who declined to name her, said it plans to ask for her execution, though death penalties are rarely carried out.

Palestinian military judge Abdul Karim al-Masri said the woman confessed to passing low level information to the Israelis.

The woman was escorted out of a courtroom, flanked by Palestinian policewomen, after military judges delayed their decision on her case until later this month.

Some 30 Palestinian men have been sentenced to death for collaboration with Israel over the last two years, although executions are rarely carried out.

The issue of collaborators is sensitive, because Palestinian militants have been arrested or killed by Israeli forces based on their information and those suspected of working with Israel were once shot dead in the streets, Associated Press reported.

FTP/SME/HAR

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An Israeli military court delays ruling on whether or not to release the Palestinian parliament speaker from Ofer prison, near Ramallah.

After Sunday's hearing, Fadi al-Qawasmi, the lawyer representing Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) speaker Aziz Dweik, said the court could rule on Monday to release him until his trial resumes or increase his prison sentence until his term in the PLC expires.

Dweik, a Hamas member, is scheduled to be released by mid-June.

Dweik and 19 other PLC members were seized by Israeli forces in the summer of 2006 in retaliation to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas members in Gaza.

FTP/SME/HAR

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Israel's al-Quds (Jerusalem) municipality issues orders to demolish 13 Palestinian apartments in Beit Hanina, in the Ganet Adan area.

The demolition order is issued with the pretext that the apartments at the al-Halhouly building lack permits, according to the Palestinian Ministry of al-Quds Affairs.

The ministry, in a statement, said that the issue of the houses, home to about 100 Palestinians, had been handed over to attorney Sami Arsheed, who will pursue the issue within Israel's court system.

Israel's al-Quds municipality is moving to demolish over 100 houses and remove the 140 families who live in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East al-Quds. The decision is expected to lead to the forced displacement of more than 1,000 Palestinians from their family residences.

This is while the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March said Israel's plan to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in East al-Quds was 'unhelpful'.

"Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the Road Map," Clinton said at a Ramallah news conference back in March.

She added that this issue will be raised with the Israeli government and with the municipal authorities in al-Quds.

FTP/SME

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Israeli soldiers have shot dead four Palestinians at Israel's border with the southern Gaza Strip, Israel's military declares.

A helicopter gunship backed Israeli ground troops in the fighting.

An Israeli military spokesman has claimed that a clash erupted after a group of Palestinian militants opened fire on an Israeli army patrol near the border crossing of Nahal Oz, opposite the Israeli village of Kfar Aza.

Palestinians have not confirmed the claim.

The impoverished Palestinian coastal silver which has long been under a tight Israeli siege has witnessed numerous attacks by the Israeli forces since Tel Aviv ended its 22-day war in the Strip in mid January. The offensive killed over 1350 Palestinians and injured many more including a large number of women and children.

MGH/SC/DT