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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East
Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, August 18th, 2010.
Palestinians protest seizure of land for security zone in Gaza, and
Israeli forces invade two West Bank towns. These stories and more coming
up, stay tuned.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian farmers along with international supporters
held a non-violent demonstration protesting the creation of a ‘security
buffer zone’ on their farmland.
The protest took place on the outskirts of the town of Beit Hanoun, in the
northern Gaza Strip.
As the marchers drew near to the newly-declared ‘security buffer zone’,
150 meters away from the border fence, Israeli soldiers began to fire
toward them. No injuries were reported.
Some demonstrators cut apart the rolls of barbed wire that had been placed
by the Israeli military to mark the edge of the buffer zone.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces attacked the east Jerusalem town of Abu
Dis, and the southern West Bank city of Hebron in two separate invasions
Wednesday morning, to search for men listed on the army’s ‘Wanted’ list.
According to local sources, Israeli troops moved into the Palestinian town
of Abu Dis, and seized two Palestinian men from their homes in the early
morning hours of Wednesday.
In a separate invasion, Israeli troops moved into the town of Hebron, in
the southern West Bank, and abducted one man from his home.
Palestinians have long criticized the ‘Wanted’ list used by the military
to round up suspects, saying that informants are the main source of
information for who gets on the list, and the informants are extremely
unreliable and prone to corruption and revenge. Many Palestinians who are
listed as ‘Wanted’ have never had any affiliation with any armed group,
but may have been listed by an informant because of a personal or family
grudge.
In other developments, for the third time in less than a month, Israeli
occupation forces have handed house demolition orders to all the
inhabitants of the village of Farseya.
Just under a month ago, the Israeli authorities demolished 120 buildings
before returning two weeks ago to demolish another six Palestinian homes,
as well as those that were rebuilt after the first round of demolitions.
The Israeli military is facing criticism for their lackluster response to
the posting of controversial photos by a former Israeli soldier on her
facebook page.
The photos were posted by Eden Abergil, and show her smiling and posing
next to bound and blindfolded Palestinian men.
The facebook album was entitled ‘Israel Defense Force…The best time of
my life :)’. Some Palestinians have compared the photos to those of US
soldiers posing in front of tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq. But the Israeli army says this comparison is unfair because,
according to the spokesmen, the prisoners in question were not tortured.
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, you have been listening
to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, for
constant updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report
has been brought to you by Dina Awwad and Husam Qassis.
