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Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Tuesday June 7th, 2011
The US has signalled that it intends to maintain its leading position in facilitating Middle East peace talks with its announcement of discussions aimed at renewing the peace process. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has announced that the US is holding separate discussions with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in an attempt to kick start negotiations between the two sides. The announcement has come as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe released French proposals for a peace conference in June, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas immediately accepted. Israel is currently reviewing the French proposal.
Three men have been arrested in the Israeli Occupied Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams according to PNN. The three were protesting those killed during protests by Palestinian refugees at the Syrian side of the border during Naksa Day. Israel has permanently stationed 3 battalions and declared a closed military zone in the normally quiet area.
There has been an outburst of violence between mourners of those killed at Israel’s border to Israel on Naksa Day and Palestinian resistance group PFLP, according to reports at AFP. AFP is reporting that 14 Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria have been killed by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) security forces during angry clashes prompted by the death of those killed at Syria’s border to Israel on Naksa Day. The group claimed that the PFLP encouraged those killed to put themselves in the firing line. The local PFLP headquarters were also burnt down according to witnesses.
Israeli soldiers abducted on Tuesday at dawn Hamas legislator, member of the Change and Reform Parliamentary Bloc, Sheikh Ahmad Al Haj, after breaking into his home in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Al Haj has been repeatedly targeted and held under administrative detention by Israeli forces.
The Israeli Interior Ministry, and the so-called Construction and Planning Committee, are preparing to officially approve 4100 units for Jewish settlers in occupied East Jerusalem. A special committee, appointed two months ago by the Israeli Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, will be holding its first session on June 14 to look into approving 4100 units in the illegal settlements.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in conducting preparations to ask for official membership at the World Trade Organization (WTO. The official Palestine News and Info Agency, WAFA, reported that Palestinian Economy Minister, Hasan Abu Libdeh, headed a meeting of the Ministry’s Technical Advisory Team and instructed the team to conduct all needed preparations for this move. The PA has twice tried to join the WTO, once in 2009 and once in 2010. If not successful PA officials say they will request observer status.
Local residents of Al Mughayyir village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, reported Tuesday at dawn that fundamentalist settlers set the local mosque ablaze, and wrote racist graffiti on it walls, the Palestine Today reported. Witnesses stated that the Israeli settlers set fire to the mosque at approximately 3A.M. on Wednesday at dawn, before daubing the remains with racist slogans. The arson attack is thought to be a ‘price-tag’ attack, carried out by nearby settlers in response to the demolition of ‘Alei Ayin’ illegal outpost by Israeli police recently
Thats all for today from the IMEMC. This was the Tuesday 7th of June daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This was brought to you by Husam Qassis and me Kevin Marphy
