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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday November 14, 2011
The Israeli government have announced that they will transfer withheld Palestinian tax money and the United Nations Security council fail to reach agreement on the
Palestinian statehood application, these stories and more coming up; so stay tuned.
The Israeli security-political cabinet was due to meet today and announce that they will be transferring the $100 million in Palestinian tax money that was withheld after the Palestinian Authority managed to achieve membership at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
According to Israeli daily, Haaretz, the majority of cabinet ministers were expected to vote for transferring the money especially since the Israeli security establishment opposes withholding the money as such measures affect the conducts of the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
The UN Security council stated on Friday that it was unable to reach an agreement on the Palestinian application for full UN membership. It is believed that Palestine has eight supporters on the Council but requires at least nine for the bid to be successful. If the Palestinian Authority pushes ahead with the ninth vote, the United States will not have to use its veto.
Riyad Mansour, P. A. envoy at the United Nations, stated that although the Palestinians were hoping for a positive vote, they will not give up.
Also in this news the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has a released a report which said that there has been a 40% increase in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians this year.
The OCHA reports revealed that three Palestinians, including two children, were killed by Israeli settlers in 2011, and that 167 were injured.
Palestinian residents filed dozens of complaints to the Israeli police after being attacked by settlers, but the Police closed over 90% of the complaints without an indictment.
The report comes as a family in Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem has been served an eviction order to leave their property so they can be replaced by Jewish settlers. Silwan, as well as other neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem, is subject to repeated Israeli violations and attacks carried out by extremist settler organizations who seek to control all Arab homes in the occupied city.
Over in the Gaza Strip, a police officer has been killed and four others injured after Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed a police station north west of Beit Lahia. The officer was identified as Mohammad Zaher Al Keelany who died after several missiles hit the station.
He is the fifteenth Palestinian to be killed in the past two weeks due to a series of Israeli air-strikes targeting several areas in the Gaza Strip.
Finally, in international news, US President Barack Obama has met with leaders of Russia and China urging them to put pressure on Iran in light of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report into their nuclear program. According to the Ma’an News Agency, Obama considers Iran with nuclear weapons a threat not only in the region, but also to the United States directly.
That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Monday November 14th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This was brought to you by Hassam Qassis and me, Adam Kerry.
