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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Monday December 26, 2011.
It’s believed a French company is denied a lucrative contract in London due to its involvement and support of Israeli settlement activities, and over three thousand Palestinians are reported to have been arrested in 2011, these stories and more coming up; so stay tuned
Over the Christmas weekend, on Friday, the E.U. warned Israel over its intention to link the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem via more settlement construction on Palestinian land, and their intention of completing segregated roads in area surrounding Jerusalem, which have been on hold for several years.
Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat even spoke of the possibility of transferring control of areas within the Jerusalem municipality, to the influence of the Civil Administration, run by the Israeli army, due to there being outside the Annexation Wall. Several countries, including UN Security Council members spoke out against the current plans.
During a Christmas dinner, Mohammad Eshtayya, member of the Central Committee of Fateh movement, stated that Palestinian lands are for Palestinians, not for settlements. The affair occurred in Bethlehem, and was attended by social and political figures, including the Governor of Bethlehem and Hebron.
Eshtayya added that “should Netanyahu fail to distinguish between Har Homa and Tel Aviv, then we will not distinguish between Ramallah and Jaffa”. His comments come as the lands belonging to the Palestinian Cremisan Monastery, the creaters of the Cremisan Wine franchise, are being confiscated by Israel, and the nearby settlement of Har Homa being expanded.
In other news former detainee and Palestinian researcher specializing in detainees’ affairs, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, stated that Israeli soldiers arrested 3,312 Palestinians, including children, since the beginning of this year.
Farawna stated that the army detained men, women and children, and even went on to take patients and people with special needs. This is besides arrests targeting elected Palestinian political officials and legislators.
He said that the army conducted an average of 276 arrests each month, nearly nine arrests a day.
Veolia, a French transportation company that has been the target of a campaign by human rights groups around the world for its investment in Israeli settlements, has been denied a contract in West London – leading supporters of the boycott campaign to claim credit.
The West London Waste Authority decided this week to deny the French multinational Veolia from the £485 million contract covering 1.4 million inhabitants of the London boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames, for treatment of residual domestic waste.
Campaigners point out that Veolia helped to build, and is involved in the operation of, a tram-line which links Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. In addition, the company takes waste from Israel and illegal Israeli Settlements and dumps this on Palestinian land at the Tovlan landfill.
That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Monday December 26 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, William Gibson.
