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Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org for Thursday, July 29, 2010.
Arab League backs the idea of direct talks and a Palestinian village is in a race against the clock for its land these stories and more coming up, stay tuned.
Thursday the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said that the Arab League would not oppose direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians as long as it was the move Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas chose.
Jassim, whose nation heads the committee on the peace process, also expressed deep suspicion at Israel’s true commitment to the peace process and direct talks.
The League, in a letter to President Obama, said that any future negotiations will require a firm timeline, specific reference terms, and a monitoring mechanism.
Al- Walajah village in the Bethlehem district faces a destruction of their way of life after a new court ruling.
Residents and NGOs observing the situation in al-Walajah say that the Israeli Defense Ministry has increased the pace of its construction operations around the village in recent days.
Residents have been protesting the path of the fence fiercely as its current track will cut off village residents from the majority of their lands and end up surrounding the village on three sides.
In a court hearing Sunday, it was discovered that the order calling for the construction of the fence in the village had expired a year ago. The state of Israel was given forty-five days to justify continuation of the construction to the court yet, the court did not issue an injunction to halt building.
This is in essence a forty-five day window for the Defense Ministry to finish construction.
From Jerusalem, we’ve learned that Early Thursday morning settlers and police stormed a building in the Old City of East Jerusalem and evicted three families from their apartments.
A spokesperson for the police said that the Jewish settlers had documents claiming that they owned the properties and that there was no altercation as the evictions occurred.
50 persons were evicted in the aggressive action. Palestinian officials believe that the settlers will force out the remaining occupants in the eleven-apartment structure.
Wednesday, farmers in Gaza gathered in Beit Hanoun to protest the ever-expanding internal buffer zone Israel has established inside the Gaza Strip.
They were protesting the ‘no-man’s land’ established by Israel as a substantial amount of farmable land is included in this second border.
According to one organizer of the protest, Sabir Za’anin, the forbidden land has reached an amount near 22,500 dunums. This is equal to about 6.25% of the Gaza Strip and some estimates say it contains up to 20% of the Strip’s arable land.
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, you have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, for constant update, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Brian Ennis.
