Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics. In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologization” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israeli army "subcontracted" by extremist settlers
RAMALLAH, occuiped West Bank (IPS) - Reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah is looking increasingly problematic as the two groups exchange serious accusations of treason, torture and extrajudicial killings. Tension between the two groups has escalated in the wake of Israel’s 22-day military assault on Gaza. Read more about Fatah, Hamas trade accusations
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Gaza will need years to recover from the devastating Israeli assault, says Katharina Ritz, head of mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Israel’s 22-day assault left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead, and decimated much of the coastal territory’s infrastructure. Read more about "Gaza will take years to recover"
This morning seven Israeli human rights organizations appealed to the Military Judge Advocate General, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit, and to Attorney General Meni Mazuz concerning the appalling conditions in which Palestinians arrested during the fighting in Gaza were held, and the humiliating and inhuman treatment to which they were subjected. Read more about Gaza prisoners held in harsh and humiliating conditions
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - At 7:30am 22 January, five days after Israeli authorities declared a “ceasefire” following their 22-day air, land and sea bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunboats renewed shelling off the Gaza city coast, injuring at least six, including four children. Read more about Ceasefire broken from day one
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - At first the 44 children that live in the Zani family home in Beit Hanoun were wary of the unexploded F-16 rocket whose tail has protruded menacingly from their garden since it landed in the first week of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Now, they have grown used to it — playing excitedly near it and even building fires next to it, a relative says. Read more about Unexploded bombs hold more deaths
Seven children from Toura al-Gharbeiah village were arrested on Tuesday by the Israeli authorities; they are currently detained in Salim detention and interrogation center, in the northern West Bank. A DCI-Palestine lawyer yesterday visited the children. According to information collected by the lawyer, between midnight and 4:00am on Tuesday 20 January, the Israeli intelligence, police and army entered Toura al-Gharbeiah village and arrested the seven children from their respective homes. Read more about Israeli forces arrest seven children in West Bank
DAMASCUS (IRIN) - The start of 2009 offers little hope to the residents of al-Tanf, a refugee camp on the Syrian-Iraqi border housing more than 700 Palestinians who had fled persecution in Iraq. No country has given any concrete pledge to take any of the refugees for resettlement in 2009, leaving them to battle the cold desert weather this winter with more despair than ever. The refugees say that despite visits from foreign delegations, resettlements have been few and far between since the camp opened in May 2006. Read more about Constant displacement for Palestinian-Iraqi refugees
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Eighteen-year-old Mona al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the UN school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realized it was gone — completely severed by the weapon that hit her. Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. Read more about Alarm spreads over use of lethal new weapons
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - A pillow, a belt, a child’s school bag and pages of a torn copy of the Quran lie in the wreckage of the al-Daa family home in al-Zeitoun, a neighborhood of Gaza City. Twenty-four members of the family were killed when an F-16 fighter jet dropped a bomb on their house. Nine bodies still lie under what is now just a massive pancake of concrete, metal wires and death. Read more about Up to 200 still missing under Gaza's rubble
