Click on Link to download or play MP3 file || File 3.66 MB|| Time 4m0s ||Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Thursday May 3ed, 2007.
One woman was killed by unknown gunmen in the Gaza strip and the Israeli army kidnaps 12 civilians in the West Bank, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.
The Gaza strip update
Palestinian medical sources said early on Thursday that a woman from Khan Younis city was shot and killed by unknown gunfire. The sources added that Raghda Alghalyeeni, 24, was instantly killed by a live bullet, while standing in front of her house. The Gaza Strip has been severely affected by internal violence over the past several months, in which some one hundred people were killed and hundreds of others were wounded. The Interior ministry has recently launched a security plan to contain the violence.
Later in the day, a detachment of the Israeli army – that are stationed at the Palestinian Israeli borders near Beit Hannon town in the northern part of the Gaza strip – opened fire on Palestinian farmers working their land. Palestinian sources stated the group of farmers managed to escape unharmed.
The West Bank update
Palestinian villagers from Rass Karkar and Al Ganiah villages were joined by Israeli and international supporters in removing a road block that the Israeli military had placed there seven years earlier to sever the villages main connection to the city of Ramallah, the army said that the road block was to protect an illegal Israeli settlement near by.
The villagers of Rass Karkar and Al Ganiah won the case that they had taken to the Israeli court in an attempt to resolve the issue, but the army refused to open the road for the local Palestinians in spite of the ruling and troops have continued to force people to take an alternative route around the settlement that turns a ten minuet journey into a 1 hour journey.
The Israeli commander who was at the scene told media sources that the army will close the road again soon. Mohamed – one of the local organizers – told the IMEMC that the people in the village are thinking of making their action today a weekly action in order to keep the road open.
The Israeli army invaded several parts of the West Bank and kidnapped 12 Palestinian civilians on Thursday morning. The civilians were kidnapped from Bethlehem and Hebron city in the southern part of the West Bank also from Ramallah and Nablus in central and northern parts of the West Bank.
Five of those kidnapped the Israeli forces on Thursday were teens from the city of Tulkarem located in the northern part of the West Bank. Also during the morning invasions Israeli troops opened fire at residents homes in Nablus city, setting one of the houses on fire, no injures were reported.
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, brought to you by Ghassan Bannoura and James Brown.
