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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Monday, January 18th, 2010.
Israeli troops continue to target anti-wall protest organizers in the West Bank as ongoing illegal Israeli excavations cause a collapse in Jerusalem’s old city. These stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.
The News Cast
Seventeen Palestinian civilians were kidnapped on Monday by Israeli troops during pre-dawn invasions targeting a number of West Bank communities.
The Israeli military announced that those kidnapped were moved to military detention camps for questioning. The army claimed that all 17 men are on what it calls its ‘Wanted List’.
Four of those kidnapped today are from the small central West Bank village of Nil’in. Israeli troops told their families that they have been kidnapped for their involvement in the weekly non-violent protests against the Israeli built wall on villager’s lands.
The villagers of Bil’in have been protesting the Israeli built wall for the past five years. While in the nearby village of Nil’in protests kicked off two years ago.
Last week, Israeli troops kidnapped two organizers from the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlement Construction, in Nil’in village and one from the nearby village of Bil’in. Also last Friday Israeli troops have used live ammunition to suppress the anti-wall protest in Bil’in. This is a clear indication that the army are stepping up their policies to counter those weekly actions.
In other news, the ongoing illegal Israeli excavations near and under Jerusalem’s old city and its surrounding areas caused a collapse, on Monday at dawn, in the area south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The new collapse is 10 meters deep, and is located only a few meters away from another slide that took place last week due to Israel’s ongoing excavations, local sources reported.
Shortly afterwards, a child was wounded when he fell near the collapse site. The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) reported that Monday’s slide is only one of a series of similar incidents that took place last year. The most recent slide took place at a local school for girls; 17 students were wounded.
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.
