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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center www.imemc.org for Monday April 26th, 2010.
Troops kill a Palestinian fighter in the West Bank while the state approves more settler homes in Jerusalem, These stories and more are coming up, stay tuned.
The News Cast
Ali Suwaity, 40 year old, was killed by Israeli troops on Monday morning at the town of Beit Awwa near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli forces invaded Beit Awwa on Monday at dawn and surrounded the house Suwaity was hiding in. Suwaity, a leader in Al Qassam brigades the armed wing of Hamas movement, was killed after a gunfight with Israeli troops that lasted for four hours, local sources reported.
Army bulldozers also demolished the house then detained the body of Al Suwaity for about one hour before handing it over to his family. During the house siege clashes with between stone throwing youth and Israeli troops erupted causing the injury of around ten Palestinian teenagers, one critically.
The Hamas movement issued a statement condemning the attack describing it as a very dangerous escalation. The movement promised to avenge Suwaity’s death in the right time and place.
In other news, 312 settler-homes and a Jewish religious school will be constructed in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah outside the walls of Jerusalem’s old city, according to a report issued by the Islamic Christian Commission in Support of Jerusalem and Holy Sites on Monday.
The group says the new construction will be funded by the American Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz. The situation remains tense in Jerusalem as dozens of Israeli settlers marched over the week-end through the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem. 30 Palestinians were injured when they tried to stop the settlers. Soldiers used tear gas and rubber coated-steel-bullets against Palestinian protestors.
In a related development the Israeli state revealed on Sunday its intentions to authorize a settler outpost to be developed into a full established settlement in Bethlehem. The state was responding to a petition filed by the Israeli human rights group Peace Now who brought the Palestinian land owners case to the court.
The settler of Derech Ha’avot currently houses 180 settlers and considered to be illegal by the state of Israel. According to Peace Now research data, the Derech Ha’avot outpost was established after March 2001 and therefore, it is in the list of outposts that the Israeli government is obliged to evacuate according to the U.S Roadmap peace plan.
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.
