Click on Link to download or play MP3 file || 3 m 30s || 3.20 MB ||
Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday November 30, 2011.
In the news today, Israel has announced it will transfer Palestinian tax money and the power crisis in Gaza reaches its thirteenth day, these stories and more coming up; so stay tuned.
The Ma’an News agency has reported that the Israeli government will be realising the $100 million it has withheld from the Palestinian Authority. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been under pressure from numerous sources and has finally decided to transfer the tax revenues for October and November. The money is vital for the PA as it is used to pay the salaries for its civil servants and security forces. Without the funds, Prime Minister Salam Fayyd said last week they would run out of money by the beginning of December.
The Israeli organisation, Peace Now has reported receiving more death threats against their activists. It is believed the latest threat came from the same person responsible for previous warnings against the group. The man has been arrested previously for calling in a bomb threat to the Peace Now office as well as defacing the Jerusalem branch. The latest infringement was a text message to an activist called Lee which said “Lee, Today I will kill you.”
The movement stated that the assailant was apprehended by the Israeli Police, and released, three times, without having any charges brought against him. A spokesperson for Peace Now had this to say, “He has been arrested 3 times, and released 3 times… why? Because his dad has connections with high up people – when will his Dad realize that his son is dangerous and needs to pay the price for his actions? Will they only do something when he eventually kills someone?”
The electricity crisis in the Gaza strip has moved into its thirteenth day, with Israeli authorities preventing vital repairs to the major lines. The outage of the line has increased the power shortage in the coastal region by 37.3%. The Israeli authorities have not allowed the Israeli supplier or Palestinian technical crews to have access to the line to repair it. The prevention of repairs to the damaged line coincides with threats made by Dani Ayalon, Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister that Israel is examining the possibility of Israel pulling out of the Gaza Strip in terms of infrastructure in response to the Palestinian reconciliation meeting in Cairo.
Finally, in the West Bank, Israeli bulldozers have destroyed farmlands near the town of Mas-ha in the Salfit district. Resident Hani Amer said “I received no notification; I was surprised when I went to my land to see bulldozers uprooting my trees.” Over 100 olive trees were uprooted to make way for the Annexation wall that is passing through the area.
That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Wednesday November 30th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This was brought to you by Hasam Qassis and myself, Adam Kerry.
