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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Monday November 2nd, 2009.
Two Palestinians reported dead in Gaza, while the military demolishes two homes in Jerusalem. These stories and more coming up stay tuned.
The News Cast
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday evening that two Palestinians were killed in tunnels located between Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and Egypt.
Palestinian medical sources reported that a young man was killed by an electric shock in a tunnel located between the border of Gaza and Egypt. Earlier on Sunday, a Palestinian resident died of suffocation when he got trapped in a Rafah tunnel. Palestinian Human Right groups said that with the two killed on Sunday the number of people killed inside the tunnels in the past two years has now reached 120.
Elsewhere, The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem demolished on Monday two Palestinian owned homes and damaged a third. The center of Economic and Social Rights in Jerusalem announced that the houses were located near the old city and were home to around 24 people.
The center added that police forces arrived with the municipality’s bulldozers and forced the two families out then demolished the two homes. An old lady was taken to hospital after she was attacked by police officers, witnesses told local media.
The witnesses added that while bulldozers were demolishing the two homes a third one next to them was damaged. The Israeli municipality says the homes lack the proper licensing.
Since Israel occupied the city of Jerusalem in 1967 it has rarely given Palestinian residents permissions to build homes. Meanwhile it continues to build Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem, an act which is illegal according to international law.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military released on Monday six Palestinian law makers after detaining them for over three years. Local sources announced that the freed law makers are two men from Jerusalem, three from Hebron and one from Bethlehem city.
Israel kidnapped at least 45 Palestinian Legislators from different parts of the West Bank shortly after resistance groups captured an Israeli soldier during an attack on a military site in the Gaza Strip back in 2006. Palestinian sources announced that all those released are law makers belonging to Hamas. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society Israeli still holds 18 Palestinian legislators in military detention camps.
In related news, the Israeli military kidnapped on Monday three Palestinian civilians during invasions targeting a number of West Bank communities. Local sources reported the invasions and homes searches in the northern West Bank cities of Qalqilia and Jenin in addition to Bethlehem in the south.
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 has been brought to you by Ghassan Bannoura.
