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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org for Wednesday August 3rd, 2011.
A report by the UN indicates a link between home demolition and displacement of Palestinians, and Israel convicts a Palestinian youth in the Itamar killing five months ago, these stories and more coming up, stay tuned.
Demolition of Palestinian homes, military and settler attacks among other Israeli policies are a main factor of displacement of the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank, a report by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) says.
The report which was published Tuesday indicates that 700 Palestinians have been displaced in the first six months of 2011 as a result of the settlement activities and settler and military attacks and measures in their region, most of which are in area C.
UNWRA spokesman Chris Gunness said, “Many displacements are taking place where settlements are expanding and with it we are seeing an upturn in vicious attacks by Jewish settlers. Palestinians are being thrown off their ancestral lands to make way for settlers.”
the report adds.
“There is growing evidence that it is destroying the very fabric of these communities and ultimately contributing to a demographic shift which is changing the ethnic make-up of the West Bank,”
In other news, Hana Shalabi a female Palestinian prisoner has been in jail under administrative detention for two years, the Palestinian Center for Detainees stated. Shalabi was kidnapped and put in administrative detention in 2009. She has not been permitted to have contact with her family at any time during her detention, the center says.
Administrative detention is detention without charge or trial that is authorized by administrative order rather than by judicial decree.
The Palestinian Boycott Divest Sanction movement (The BDS) has written a letter to the Irish company, Total Produce, to not purchase the produce of Israeli company, Agrexco. The letter charged that Agrexco has been involved in “Israeli war crimes.”
According to the letter, sixty to seventy percent of the produce sold by Agrexco comes from illegally confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank. The BDS warned Total Produce that if they purchase Agrexco products, it would be boycotted as well.
The letter written to the Irish Company on August 1, says, “Purchasing Agrexco would deem your company complicit in Israel’s violations of international law, and make it, therefore, a legitimate target for legal action and popular boycotts.
An Israeli military court convicted on Tuesday a Palestinian youth from Awarta village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, of allegedly stabbing to death five family members of the Itamar settlement, nearly five months ago.
The attack left a settler father, mother and three of their children died. The youth was identified as Hakim Awwad, 18. The court will convene again in few months to issue its verdict against Awwad.
The Israeli Security Forces also arrested six other Palestinians from Awarta under the claim that they hid evidence and aided the assailants. Dozens of women, men and youth were detained and interrogated.
That’s all for today, you have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center. For more updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you from Occupied Bethlehem by Husam Qassis and me George Rishmawi
