On 28 April, Israel’s Jerusalem District Court sentenced border policeman Yanai Lazla to six years’ imprisonment for the killing, in 2002, of ‘Amran Abu Hamdiya, 18, from the West Bank town of Hebron. Lazla and three other policemen threw Abu Hamdiya from a jeep moving at high speed after they had abducted, beaten and abused him. His head struck the pavement with great force, killing him. Read more about Rare Israeli conviction in 2002 killing of Palestinian
JERUSALEM/GAZA, 28 April (IRIN) - The UN has stopped distributing food in the Gaza Strip as its main agencies have run out of fuel for vehicles. To make matters worse, many bakeries in the enclave were closed on 28 April as they had run out of gas. The World Food Program and the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA confirmed they had not delivered food aid since 26 April. Read more about Gaza food distribution halted, cooking gas running out
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed four children and their mother when they shelled their home in Ezbet Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip today. Another man was killed in the attack which occurred during an IOF incursion in different parts of the town of Beit Hanoun. Al Mezan Center for Human Rights’ monitoring finds that the IOF stepped up their aggression on Gaza. Read more about Mother, four children amongst victims of Israeli Gaza strike
JEET, WESTBANK, 27 April (IRIN) - It was difficult for 87-year-old Jamil Khader to discover that nearly all of the 1,400 olive trees his extended family planted in February had suddenly gone missing, having been uprooted and stolen. “He became very ill when I told him. He was hospitalized and was in bed for a week,” his son Khalil, from the small town of Jeet in the northern West Bank, told IRIN. Read more about West Bank farmers face ruin after trees uprooted
JERUSALEM/GAZA, 23 April (IRIN) - Israel once again pumped industrial diesel to the Gaza Strip’s sole power plant on 23 April, just hours before it was scheduled to stop operations due to a lack of fuel. An Israeli official told IRIN about one million liters would be sent in, provided no “security incidents” took place. The plant said it needed about 3.5 million liters a week, though Israel has committed to transferring only 2.2 million. The amount sent in on 23 April could only be spun out for a few days. Read more about Gaza fuel supplies on a knife edge
JERUSALEM/GAZA, 22 April (IRIN) - For families in the Gaza Strip with sons or daughters in Israeli jails, the past 11 months have been especially hard, as they could no longer visit their imprisoned relatives and have only had contact through brief written messages. “This issue is a humanitarian concern for us, for the families and the prisoners,” said Katharina Ritz, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem. Read more about Israel suspends family visits to prisoners
“They said that if I confessed to everything they wanted, they would release my wife, and that she was in the isolation cell because of me.” This and similar testimonies of detainees interrogated by the Israeli intelligence during the past year indicate a phenomenon whose gravity must not be minimized: the use of a detainee’s family to “break” him. Read more about Report: Family members used to pressure Palestinians in Israeli detention
A police force violently dispersed a march in Rafah, Gaza organized by the Fatah Movement, honoring Palestinian and Arab Prisoners Day. Fatah announced that the march would start after Friday prayers. According to eyewitnesses, members of the police assaulted demonstrators. A journalist was also prevented from filming and his camera was confiscated. Read more about Gaza police violently disperse peaceful assembly
In the past 24 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have escalated attacks against the Gaza Strip, while they maintained the tightened siege imposed on Strip. On Wednesday evening, 16 April 2008, and in less than half an hour, IOF killed 13 Palestinian civilians, including a journalist, eight children and two brothers, and wounded 32 others in Juhor al-Dik village. Read more about Eight children, journalist among yesterday's Gaza dead
On 15 April 2008, the family of former Palestinian Authority General Intelligence captain Sami Khatab was informed by the police that his body was found on the ground about 700 meters north of Palestinian International University and about 200 meters east of the coastal road in Gaza City. Paramedics from Shuhda’a al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah were summoned to the area by the police after the body was found. Read more about Former intelligence officer tortured, killed in Gaza
