Click on Link to download or play MP3 file || File 3.67 MB || Time 4m 0s ||Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Thursday January 24th, 2008.
The Israeli army kills one Palestinian and injures another in Gaza, and in the West Bank troops kidnap seven civilians, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.
The News Cast
Medical sources reported one Palestinian killed and another injured in the Israeli shelling of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun on Thursday at dawn. Local sources said that Israeli tanks and bulldozers invaded the border area of Beit Hanoun and opened fire at the residents’ homes.
Israeli sources stated that troops killed 1 Palestinian and injured another; the army also stated that troops kidnapped 56 Palestinians during the operation that ended early Thursday morning.
Dr. Mo’awiyah Hassanin of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that one Palestinian was killed and another injured, he said that the names of the two men remain unknown as the Israeli army is still holding them. Palestinian sources have not yet confirmed that 65 have been kidnapped.
As thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip continued to flow into Egypt through the border wall southern Gaza strip city of Rafah, the Israeli government announced that it will continue the siege on the Coastal region.
On Wednesday at dawn the Palestinian resistance destroyed part of the Wall separating the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah from Egypt using five home made bombs, shortly afterwards thousands of Palestinians flocked through and started to buy food and fuel supplies from Egypt to bring back to the Coastal region
The Rafah crossing, located in the southern side of the Gaza strip, is the only way for Palestinians to leave or enter the region, since June 2007; the crossing has been closed by Israeli and Egyptian troops.
On Friday last week Israel declared all Gaza’s crossings completely closed, with a total ban of fuel and supplies to the coastal region. By Sunday Gaza had no electricity since Gazas sole power plant depends on Israeli Fuel. After a widespread international outcry following Israel cutting off all fuel into Gaza, the Israeli authorities agreed to allow fuel and medicine into the Palestinian coastal region on Tuesday for one day only.
The Egyptian government decided to allow the Palestinians to continue crossing the borders into Egypt and send troops to control the movement there, Israel slammed the decision and threatened to retaliate. Hamas, that controls Gaza, asked the Palestinians crossing into Egypt to respect the authority of the Egyptian troops and police.
In the West Bank today Palestinian media sources reported that the Israeli army invaded several cities and towns kidnapping at least seven Palestinian civilians. According to sources the kidnappings took place in the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin, Ramallah in the central West Bank and Hebron city in the southern part of the West Bank.
Conclusion
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report brought to you by Caroline Jones and Ghassan Bannoura.
