Click on Link to download or play MP3 file || 4 m 21s || 3.98 MB ||
Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org for Tuesday August 16th, 2011.
One Palestinian dead and several injured in Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip and Israel approves new settlement units in the West Bank, these stories and more, coming up. Stay tuned.
One Palestinian was killed and seven others were wounded in a series of air strikes carried out by the Israeli Air force targeting several areas in the Gaza Strip Tuesday morning.
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that the seven wounded residents, including a child, suffered moderate-to-severe injuries.
The sources identified the slain resident as Mousa Shteiwy, 29, from Al Zeitoun neighborhood, east of Gaza city.
Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the medical emergency services in Gaza, reported that three residents were seriously injured when the Israeli Air Force bombarded Al Zeitoun neighborhood.
Additionally, two residents, including a 6-year-old child, were injured when the army bombarded the “tunnels area”, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources reported that one of the two wounded residents was pronounced clinically dead.
Also, the army bombarded a training center for the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, in at-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza city.
Later, the Israeli Air Force fired at least four missiles into another Qassam brigades training centre located in the eastern area of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, leading to excessive damage but no injuries.
The Israeli military carried out two additional air strikes targeting a center for the Al Qassam brigades in Rafah, in southern Gaza causing damage to property, but no injuries.
In the meantime, the Israeli government approved the construction of additional 227 settlement units for Jewish settlers in the illegal settlement of Ariel near the northern West Bank city of Salfit.
Israeli daily, Yedioth Aharonoth, reported that the government approved the construction by the end of last week, and that the plan includes 100 units for settlers who were evacuated from the Nitzarim former settlement, in the Gaza Strip when Israel evacuated all settlements in the Gaza Strip under the unilateral disengagement plan in 2005.
The Ariel illegal settlement is considered the biggest settlement in the occupied West Bank; it also contains a university and an industrial zone. There are some 30000 settlers living in Ariel including around 10000 students.
Apparently, the turmoil in Syria has affected the Palestinian refugees in Syria. The United Nations Relief and Work Agency of the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has reported that over 5000 Palestinians have fled Al-Raml refugee camp near the besieged city of Latakia in Syria, as President Assad continues his clamp down on anti-government protestors.
Syrian Gunboats have been firing at the coastal city over the past couple of days. Unconfirmed reports from Syria said that the ongoing shelling has left 34 people dead. Protestors have been demonstrating for political reform; President Assad has been in power since the year 2000 after the death of his father who ruled the country for 30 years all of which, the country was under marshal laws.
That’s all for today, you have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center. For more updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you from Occupied Bethlehem by Husam Qassis and me Carmen Rodriguez.
