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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Tuesday, March 02nd, 2010.
Israeli halt demolition orders against Palestinian homes in Jerusalem as troops detain civilians from deferent parts of the West Bank. These stories, and more, coming up. Stay tuned.
The News Cast
The Israel controlled Jerusalem municipality announced, on Tuesday, that it will halt its decision of the demolition 88 Palestinian owned homes in East Jerusalem.
The Municipality was planning to remove al-Bustan, the largest Palestinian neighborhood near Jerusalem’s old city, to make way for a Jewish theme park to be used by tourists. The plan was put on hold based on demands by the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli media reported today.
Nir Barkat, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, who engineered the plan, told U.S media, last week, that he was planning to legalize some of the homes in al-Bustan Neighborhood while others who lose their homes will have rights to operate tourist businesses in the park. Sergio Yahni, Israeli political analyst, said that the demolition of Palestinian homes conflicts with Israeli plans in Jerusalem city.
‘The settlements will continue in east Jerusalem, taking a house here and there, but the consequences in the long term is the breaking of the Palestinian community in Jerusalem and de-Palestinizing the Palestinian community, while any major action like demolishing 80 homes will have the opposite reaction, [to bring] the Palestinian community together. For this reason Israel will not do such action.”
In related news Israeli troops detained on Tuesday 13 Palestinians during home searches at Jerusalem old city. Six other civilians were detained by soldiers during an invasion targeting the southern West bank village of Beit Ommar.
Elsewhere, Israeli troops started, on Tuesday, to build a new section of the separation wall in the town of Beit Jala, located in southern West Bank near Bethlehem city. Army bulldozers arrived at land owned by Lyila Ighneem and started to uproot olive trees that she owns to make way for the construction.
A few years back Israel took part of her land to build a road that connects Israeli settlements in the southern West Bank with settlements surrounding the nearby Jerusalem city. Today bulldozers came and destroyed the rest.
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.
