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Eighteen killed in two days of Gaza fighting

15 May 2007


Armed clashes have seriously spread and escalated between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. Eighteen Palestinians have been killed and 80 admitted at hospitals [with] wounds (many of the wounded are cared for by their factions) since Sunday 13 May 2007. Dozens have also been abducted, of whom Al Mezan documented 21 cases, including Gaza’s Police Director and two university professors. Severe tension prevails around the Gaza Strip as factions build on militants and erect checkpoints and barracks. 

Human rights worker released after two years in administrative detention

14 May 2007


Ahmad Abu Haniya, the AIC Youth Project Coordinator, will be released from administrative detention this morning (Tuesday 14 May), after two years of imprisonment without trial or charges. Ahmad was detained at a checkpoint on his way to work on 18 May 2005 and placed in administrative detention, which is imprisonment without trial or charges. 

Aid agencies dig in as Gaza erupts

15 May 2007



GAZA CITY, 15 May 2007 (IRIN) - Renewed infighting among rival Palestinian armed groups has put aid agencies on the alert for more bloodshed as well as threats to their staff in the troubled Gaza Strip. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes mainly between militias affiliated to the Hamas and Fatah political parties in the past 14 months. Inter-Palestinian violence, some of it clan-related rather than political, is accounting for at least as many Palestinian deaths as Israeli military action, the UN reported this year. 

"There is no Substitute for the Return to our Homes"

15 May 2007


As a result of the Zionist aggression against Palestine, the plight of the Palestinian people is accumulative and ongoing. Now, in the 59th year of our forced displacement, we are threatened with new forced displacement due to the construction of the Apartheid Wall and policies of siege and starvation intended to break the Palestinian people, and to end our demands and struggle for our rights under international law and, in particular, under UN Resolution 194. 

A political marriage of necessity: A single state of Palestine-Israel

Ali Abunimah 14 May 2007


When my mother was nine years old, she and her family mounted the back of a pickup truck and left their village of Lifta, adjacent to Jerusalem, under threat from Zionist militias. My grandmother covered the furniture in the family home that my grandfather had built. Anticipating a short absence until fighting in the area died down, they took only a few clothes. That was almost six decades ago. Like hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they were never allowed to return, and their property was seized by Israel. 

Environmentalists urge quicker clean-up as oil-spill again threatens sea

14 May 2007

***Image1***BYBLOS, 13 May 2007 (IRIN) - Black slime coats beaches and oozes into rock pools in northern Lebanon, nine months after an oil spill led to international pledges to clean that stretch of coast. Oil clings to beach after beach north of Byblos, an ancient fishing port that is one of Lebanon’s main tourist attractions. Israel bombed an oil refinery in Jiyyeh, south of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, during its conflict with the armed wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah last July. 

Coretta Scott King and the Jewish National Fund

Ben White 15 May 2007


Towards the end of April, the Associated Press filed a story reproduced by, amongst others, Ha’aretz, Guardian Unlimited, and CNN, reporting that “Israel will name a forest in northern Galilee after Coretta Scott King”, part of a wider campaign to replant “thousands of trees destroyed during last year’s war with Hezbollah”. At least 10,000 trees will be designated as a “living memorial to King’s legacy of peace and justice”, according to US Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor. 

Report: Israel's Separation Policy and Forced Eviction of Palestinians from Hebron

14 May 2007

***Image1***Over the years, Israel established a number of settlement points in and around the Old City of Hebron, which had traditionally served as the commercial center for the entire southern West Bank . Israeli law-enforcement authorities and security forces have made the entire Palestinian population pay the price for protecting Israeli settlement in the city. 

Mainstream media caught in the MEMRI mouse trap

Tom Wallace 14 May 2007


Normally CNN, FOX, MSNBC and the New York Times have little in common with each other, let alone blogs like little green footballs, Americablog or the Huffington Post. But when it comes to disseminating Israel’s message, all are on the same page. On May 8, CNN, FOX and MSNBC began reporting on a Hamas-created children’s show, currently broadcast on Al Aqsa TV in Gaza, which features a Mickey Mouse-like cartoon character who does everything from teaching kids about the benefits of drinking milk to disseminating what CNN’s Jim Clancy described as “powerful message of HATE, RESISTANCE and DEFIANCE [sic]”. 

The Leader Israel Deserves

Yacov Ben Efrat 17 May 2007


The second Lebanon War of summer 2006 threw a dark shadow over the government of Ehud Olmert and his party, Kadima. For the first time, Israel got to know what it’s like to cower helplessly under barrages of rocket fire. The 4,000 Katyushas that rained on Galilee for 33 days rubbed in the feeling of failure. The air force could not stop them. The government could not protect or supply its citizens. It left them to fend as best they could, ruled by the wails of sirens.