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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center www.imemc.org, for Thursday August 26th, 2010.
Palestinian police suppress a demonstration organised by left-wing groups in Ramallah as Israeli military kidnaps dozen Palestinians in the West Bank, these stories and more are coming up, stay tuned.
Clashes erupted between Israeli settlers and Palestinian youth in the East Jerusalem suburb of Silwan, in the early hours of Thursday morning. The clashes started when a group of right wing Israeli settlers who are occupying some houses in Silwan, attempted to forcibly enter the mosque which leads to the water spring.
Local residents noticed the attempt by the settlers to enter the mosque grounds which then sparked some local youth to demonstrate, setting 4 cars and 2 motorcycles on fire, as well as trees and rubbish skips in the vicinity.
A number of border police arrived at the scene which escalated the demonstration and youth started to hurl stones at the Israeli police and settlers which resulted in wounding one Israeli settler. The police managed to disperse the demonstration shortly after. Settlers deny any involvement in sparking of the demonstrators, however the matter is being investigated by Israeli police.
Staying in the west Bank, the Palestinian police suppressed on Wednesday a rally organised by leftists groups in the central West Bank city of Ramallah to protest the direct talks slated for next month, the Palestine News Network reported.
Leftists groups were planning to hold a press to express their concerns about to the direct talks. During the attack police officers stopped three journalists from WATAN local TV and took their tapes and cameras.
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, ordered an immediate investigation of the incident. Adnan Al Demiri, from the Palestinian police, announced that the police stopped illegal gathering in Ramallah and did not attack the planed press conference.
Washington and Israel have placed pressure on the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas to restart direct talks with Israel after several rounds of proximity talks under U.S. supervision. Direct talks have stopped for around 20 months because of Israel’s lack of compliance with signed agreements between the two parties and continued with settlement activities in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
Although Israel declared a settlement freeze for ten months, the freeze did not include settlement activities in Jerusalem and the Israeli leftist group Peace Now has documented 492 violation in a report published last July.
In other news, Israeli military forces abducted 14 Palestinians on Thursday morning from different parts of the West Bank including, Jenin, in the northern West Bank, and the towns of Birzeit and Jifna near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
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 George Rishmawi and Husam Qassis.
