The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns Israeli Occupation Forces for detaining Dr. Nabih Abu Sha’ban last Tuesday as he was accompanying his son seeking medical treatment in Jordan, going through Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint. PCHR calls upon the international community and relevant international organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to intervene and pressure IOF to immediately release Dr. Abu Shaban, who himself is suffering from illness. Read more about Israel detains physician to extract information on his patients
Six Palestinian citizens were killed and over eighty injured in Gaza yesterday, Monday 12 November 2007, as confrontations erupted in a festival organized by Fatah Movement to commemorate of the third anniversary of the passing of former President Yasser Arafat. According Al Mezan’s fieldworkers, in the early morning hours yesterday, the police deployed thousands of its members and erected checkpoints at the entrances of all towns and camps in the Gaza Strip. Policemen stopped and searched vehicles transporting Fatah supporters to the festival. Read more about Hamas forces kill six during Fatah demonstration in Gaza
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have escalated their military operations in the Gaza Strip. IOF have killed four Palestinians, including a father and his son, and injured four others, including a child, since Sunday 4 November 2007. In addition, IOF have also launched an incursion in the eastern part of the mid-Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, carried out several missile attacks, arrested fishermen and razed agricultural land. IOF also bombarded a factory in north Gaza twice, killing three of its workers. Read more about Israel kills four in Gaza attacks
The United Against Torture Coalition (UAT), comprised of Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights NGOs that cooperate in the struggle to combat torture and abuse in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, is gravely concerned by the actions of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) in Ketziot Prison in the Negev that left one Palestinian prisoner dead and dozens more injured. Read more about Killing of Palestinian prisoner condemned
In the evening of 30 October 2007, Israeli warplanes fired rockets at a police station in the southern Gaza Strip and killed four policemen in the police force of the dismissed government in Gaza. Israeli military sources commented on this crime by saying that “the air strike that [has been] relatively rare recently is an indication that Israel will not continue to exhibit restraint towards the firing of mortars at Israeli population centers.” Read more about Israeli rocket fire kills four Gaza policemen
The 20-year effort to deport two men over their alleged political support of Palestinian self-determination officially came to an end today when the nation’s highest administrative body overseeing immigration cases dismissed all charges against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, members of a group of Palestinian student activists arrested in January 1987, who became known as the LA 8. The action by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) closes one of the nation’s longest-running and most controversial deportation cases, one that tested whether immigrants have the same First Amendment rights as citizens. Read more about Charges dropped in 20-year-old US case against Palestinian activists
New York, 29 October - Israel’s decision to limit fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for unlawful rocket attacks by armed groups amounts to collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza, in violation of international law, and will worsen the humanitarian crisis there, Human Rights Watch said today. “Israel may respond to rocket attacks by armed groups to protect its population, but only in lawful ways,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. Read more about Rights org: Cutting Gaza electricity and fuel is collective punishment
Last weekend, 13 bodies, most likely of Palestinian refugees from Iraq, were recovered on the coast of Italy after their boats, carrying at least 127 persons in search of safety, had broken apart. These tragedies highlight the failure of the international community to protect Palestinian refugees. Read more about Thirteen Palestinians fleeing Iraq drown after boat capsizes
JERUSALEM, 25 October (IRIN) - Dozens of patients in the Gaza Strip are unable to receive medical treatment, in some cases life-saving procedures, due to the continued border closures with Israel and Egypt, health officials and international aid workers said. “At least three patients denied exit permits have died since June, and others have lost limbs or sight,” Human Rights Watch reported. Read more about Gaza residents unable to get medical care, aid workers say
JERUSALEM, 14 October 2007 (IRIN) - Some 580 women living in the occupied Golan region are disconnected from their families in Syria as they are not allowed to cross from the occupied zone to their homeland, a new women’s organization has said. “All the Arabs of the Golan have some family in Syria. But these women are disconnected from their mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters,” said Souha Munder, a lawyer who works with the new group, which calls itself The Women of the Occupied Arab-Syrian Golan. Read more about Separation of families "priority humanitarian issue"
