Hamas says its gunmen wound Israeli minister's aide

JERUSALEM  ( 2008-04-04 18:40:33 ) : 

Hamas said its gunmen wounded an aide to Israeli Interior Security Minister Avi Dichter on Friday when they opened fire from the Gaza Strip on an Israeli kibbutz that the minister was visiting.
Mati Gil was shot and lightly wounded in the hip at the Nir-Am kibbutz and taken to hospital, Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said.
A Hamas official said the movement carried out the attack together with a hitherto unknown group.
"Our fighters targeted the Israeli minister Avi Dichter in a joint operation with the Protectors of Al-Aqsa," said Abu Obeidah, spokesman of Hamas's military wing. "We severely injured his assistant."
The minister was accompanying a group of US and Canadian Jews on a trip to show solidarity with residents of southern Israel, who are regularly targeted by rockets fired by militants in Gaza.
A witness told Israeli public radio "shots suddently rang out and hit Mati," as Dichter was briefing the visitors on the security situation.
"Israeli soldiers then entered the Gaza Strip," Moshe Ronnen added, a claim confirmed by security sources.
For nearly a month, Israel and armed groups in Gaza appear to be observing a tacit truce. That has led to a drastic drop in the number of rockets fired and of Israeli attacks against the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas.

Israeli Arabs mark 32nd Land Day

 

JAFFA  ( 2008-03-28 13:02:37 ) : 

Thousands of Israeli Arabs were to attend rallies across the country on Friday to mark Land Day which commemorates the death of six people in 1976 during protests against land confiscation.
This year's central march was to take place in the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, where scores of people were expected to protest the government's expropriation of Arab land.
Land Day has been observed by Israel's large Arab minority of 1.2 million every year since six Israeli Arabs were killed in clashes with security forces after a government decision to expropriate land in the Galilee in 1976.
As descendants of about 160,000 Arabs who remained in Israel following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, Israeli Arabs vote and have 10 representatives in the 120-seat parliament.
Their standard of living is 10 times higher than that of Palestinians in the occupied territories, but they see themselves treated as second-class citizens by the Jewish state.
In February 2006, the supreme court recognised that Israeli Arabs faced discrimination.

Israel to approve security equipment for Abbas

 

JERUSALEM  ( 2008-03-27 10:25:47 ) : 

Israel's defence minister said on Wednesday he had agreed to the transfer of new vehicles and equipment to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces and to ease travel restrictions for West Bank businesses.
But, citing fear of militant infiltrations, Ehud Barak signalled he would continue to resist Palestinian and Western demands for mass removals of checkpoints and roadblocks that restrict travel and trade within the occupied West Bank.
"The list of steps we intend to take to make life easier for the Palestinians, without relinquishing our overriding security responsibility, is important in moving the negotiations forward and maintaining a positive atmosphere," Barak told reporters before talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Israel hopes the measures, announced ahead of a weekend visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will help blunt complaints it was not doing enough to bolster US-backed peace talks and Fayyad's "law and order" drive in the West Bank.
Barak said the roster included equipment for Abbas's forces, including his elite Presidential Guard, and new vehicles, some of them armoured. Barak's office said he discussed the items with Fayyad but it declined to give details on types or amounts.
Previous shipments for Abbas's forces have been supplied by European and Arab donors, and were at times held up by Israel.
"The talks (with Barak) focused on implementing the road map obligations as well as security and economic conditions in the Palestinian areas," Fayyad's office said in a statement, referring to a 2003 US-sponsored plan for a Palestinian state. A Palestinian official said Barak was "forthcoming" on issues like roadblocks and deployment of Abbas's forces. But the official said Fayyad would not immediately elaborate further, preferring to see if Israel was serious about implementation.

Israeli group demands investigation into killing of militants

AL QUDS: An Israeli human rights group is demanding a criminal investigation into the military's killing of four Palestinian militants earlier this month.
Israeli troops killed the militants in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 12, riddling their car with bullets. One was a local Islamic Jihad commander who Israel said was involved in planning suicide bombings.
The B'Tselem group claims troops did not try to arrest the men, but opened fire even though they didn't try to escape or use their weapons. B'Tselem says that appears to Israeli court rulings allowing the targeted killing of militants only if they cannot easily be arrested.
The group's version of events is based on testimony from Palestinian witnesses. The Israeli military had no immediate comment Thursday.

DG Rangers Pakistan, BSF quarterly meeting on Wednesday

LAHORE: The quarterly meeting between Director General Rangers Pakistan and Indian Inspector General Border Security Force (BSF) will begin from Wednesday.
The four-day meeting will kick off in the Indian city of Chandigarh.
A 15-member Pakistani delegation led by DG Rangers Pakistan will set out for Chandigarh through Wagah Border. The delegation will return through the same route on March 29.

Israel rejects Egypt-Gaza border deployments

JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders rejected on Wednesday proposals to secure the Gaza Strip’s breached frontier with Egypt with additional Egyptian border guards or an international force, government officials said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had suggested giving the nod to Egypt to double the number of its guards at the border to 1,500. Under an Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, the number of troops that can be deployed along the frontier is limited.

Olmert determined to make peace with Palestinians

 

HELD AL QUDS: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday he was determined to strike a peace accord with the Palestinians, saying the current leadership was the best to negotiate with.
"No political consideration will prevent me from wanting to obtain an agreement with the Palestinian Authority," Olmert told a security conference in Herzliya near Tel Aviv.
"I don't know if it is possible to conclude an agreement this year, but the current Palestinian leadership is the best one to talk to about peace, even if it is a weak one," he said.
Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas pledged at US-hosted talks in late November to aim for a peace agreement by the end of 2008, that would pave the way for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
"We don't have the right to miss the opportunity, however fragile it is, to increase the prospects of peace and, as prime minister, I don't have the moral right to run away from my duty to work towards it," Olmert said.
He also said that he was "ready to pursue, with no let up, the fight against terrorism and terrorist leaders" both in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and in the Abbas-administered West Bank.
In the face of persistent militant rocket and fire from Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade on the territory last Thursday that sparked an international outcry.
It has also carried out a spate of deadly air and ground attacks on the territory that have killed at least 38 Palestinians -- most of them militants.
Elsewhere, Olmert admitted "mistakes" during Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon's Hezbollah Shiite militant movement. "There have been mistakes. But a responsible leadership knows how to take into account criticism in order to learn from them."
Olmert was quoted as saying in late December that he had no intention of resigning over the Winograd final report. In its interim findings released at the end of April last year, the commission accused Olmert of "serious failure."

Human Rights Council slams Israel over Gaza

GENEVA: The UN Human Rights Council criticized Israel on Thursday for its blockade of Gaza, in a resolution that EU member states on the council abstained from voting on, citing a lack of balance.
By a vote of 30 to one, the council adopted the resolution that was tabled by Pakistan and Syria on behalf of the Islamic and Arab blocs. Canada cast the lone opposing vote, while a total of 15 other states abstained.
The resolution called for "urgent international action to put an immediate end to the grave violations committed by the occupying power, Israel, in the occupied Palestinian territory".
It marked the fourth time that the council, established in 2006 to replace the Human Rights Commission as the United Nations' main forum for human rights, had lambasted Israel in a special session.
Western states took issue with the resolution, arguing that it made no mention of Palestinian rocket attacks launched from Gaza into Israel.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Slovenia's representative said the resolution "lacks an acknowledgement of civilian casualties on both sides".
Slovenia currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, which has seven member states on the council.

Gaza wall bombed, hundreds enter Egypt

GAZA CITY: Hundreds of Gazans poured into Egypt on Wednesday after militants set off at least five explosions along the walled-off border of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
The witnesses added that Egyptian security forces had not yet intervened, but earlier an Egyptian security source said that troops along the border were on full alert following the bombings.
"We are getting reinforcements ready, just in case" the source said. The forced entry came just hours after a tense stand-off at the closed Rafah border crossing, where gunfire erupted after a group of Hamas demonstrators forced their way across.
The Gazans, most of them women, were detained by Egyptian troops but released after the protest was dispersed by baton-wielding Hamas-run police.
They had been protesting a months-long Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory that was tightened on Thursday to a full-scale lockdown, with Israel halting all fuel shipments and even the entry of humanitarian aid.

Israel authorizes 2,500 new settler homes in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM: Israel has authorized the construction of nearly 2,500 new housing units in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem, the city authorities said on Wednesday.
"We have obtained all the necessary authorizations for the building of 8,000 new housing units in Jerusalem," Giddied Shimmering, Jerusalem municipal spokesman, told foreign news agency.
According to reports, 2,461 units are located in neighborhoods in annexed and occupied east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised state.

Hamas leader says son killed in clash with Israel

GAZA CITY: A senior Hamas leader in Gaza said Tuesday that his son was killed in a clash with Israeli troops.
Hussam Zahar, a Hamas fighter, was killed battling Israeli forces in northern Gaza, his father, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, announced.
Nine Palestinians have been killed in fighting in Gaza on Tuesday, five of them Hamas fighters, three civilians, and one whose identity was not immediately known.

11 Palestinians die in Gaza violence-Sniper fire kills volunteer from Ecuador on Israeli border farm

 

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli tanks and helicopters raided the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing the militant son of a Hamas leader and 10 other Palestinians in one of the bloodiest days of fighting since Hamas took over the territory in June.

Palestinian sniper fire across the border killed a volunteer from Ecuador at an Israeli communal farm.

That death, and the killing of Hussam Zahar, 24, the son of hard-line Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, threatened to fuel the violence at a time when Israel and the Palestinians are trying to move peacemaking into high gear.

At the morgue at Shifa Hospital, Mahmoud Zahar held his lifeless son's head in his hands and closed his eyes, then kissed him three times on the forehead and recited a verse from the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

Hamas, he vowed, "will respond in the appropriate way. We will defend ourselves by all means."

Another Zahar son was killed in a botched Israeli assassination attempt against the Hamas leader in his home three years ago.

Firefight leaves dozen wounded
The operation Tuesday began when undercover Israeli troops moved several hundred yards into the territory to strike an abandoned house east of Gaza City that rocket launchers used, Hamas said.

When Palestinian militants discovered the force, an exchange of fire erupted, the militants said. In the ensuing clashes, Israeli tanks fired at least three shells and aircraft struck twice in the area, Hamas said.

In all, eight Hamas fighters and two civilians were killed by late morning, and 40 Palestinians were wounded, militants and doctors said. Earlier, medical officials had said three civilians were killed.

The Israeli army confirmed an operation in the area, saying troops fired at militants who had approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire broke out, aircraft also fired at the gunmen, the military said.

In the course of the fighting, a Palestinian sniper fired from the border area into Israel, killing a volunteer from Ecuador who was working in a field at the communal farm of Ein Hashlosha, Israeli rescue officials said. Hamas' military wing claimed responsibility.

Israel has been cracking down on Gaza militants who bombard southern Israel with rockets and mortars and attack troops along the border, even as it seeks peace with the moderate Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

"Israel is acting to protect its civilian population from these daily rocket barrages," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said of Tuesday's operation.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggested Israel would not launch a broad operation in Gaza, despite Defense Minister Ehud Barak's repeated assertions that a large-scale strike was inevitable.

Olmert says not sure of reaching peace deal

HELD AL QUDS: Israel may not reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians, but maintaining the status quo was dangerous, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.
"I'm not sure we can reach an agreement and I'm not sure we can reach its implementation," a senior government official quoted Olmert as telling parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.
"But I will be committing a sin to my duty if I didn't try," he said, as negotiations opened between the two sides on the core issues at the heart of their decades-long conflict.
"The opposition and the head of the opposition want to maintain the status quo at any price," he said. "I say this is dangerous, adventurous and irresponsible.
His comments come after US President George W. Bush predicted an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty could be signed by the end of his term in January 2009.

Two Hamas armed wing members killed in Israeli air strike

GAZA CITY: Two members of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas were killed in an Israeli air raid on the southern Gaza Strip, medics said.
They said the two Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades militants were killed by the explosion of a missile, apparently fired from a drone, and four other people wounded.
The attack took place east of the city of Khan Yunis, near the Israeli border. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the air strike without specifying how it was carried out.
He said the raid was part of a campaign targeting armed groups which have "fired some 215 rockets or mortar rounds" at Israel or Israeli forces carrying out operations in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces did not launch any operations in Gaza during the visit of US President George W. Bush, who toured Israel and the West Bank over three days.
The last attack carried out by Israel occurred on Wednesday morning when two civilians and a Palestinian activist were killed and 10 other people wounded.
Almost 30 Palestinians -- the majority of them fighters -- have been killed in Gaza since the start of the year following Israeli land or air strikes.
Saturday's deaths brought to 6,046 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinian.

Bush announces body to monitor mideast peace map

Technorati Tags: Peace road map

GAZA: US President George Bush has announced a three-member committee to monitor implementation of mideast peace road map.
Bush said on Thursday during his maiden trip to the Palestinian West Bank that the future Palestinian state has to be contiguous redacting that a Mideast peace treaty would be completed by the end of his term.
President Bush said he was convinced that the leaders of Israel and Palestine understood 'the importance of democratic states living side by side' in peace...and that he was sure that 'with proper help, the state of Palestine will emerge'.
The US president also said that Palestinian security forces in the West Bank were also improving nd that the US opposes Israeli actions that undermine Palestinian security forces.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas playing host to the US president used this occasion to ask Israel to fulfill its commitments to a Mideast peace plan, and said he hopes ''this will be the year for the creation of peace".