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Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for March 31st to the April 6th 2012
While the Palestinian Authority announced this week that it is considering going back to the United Nations to claim the right to statehood, Israeli attacks targeting Palestinians leave three killed this week. These stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.
The Nonviolent Report:
Let’s begin our weekly report with the nonviolent activities in the West Bank. Two civilians were injured when Israeli troops attacked anti-wall and settlements protests on Friday at a number of West Bank communities. IMEMC’s Vika Awad with the details:
At the village of Nabi Saleh, in central west Bank, one man and a journalist were injured when they got hit in the head by tear gas bombs.
Villagers of al Nabi Saleh along with international and Israeli supporters tried to march toward local farmers land taken by Israel to build a settlement on. Soldiers stopped them at the village entrance and forced them back using tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets.
Meanwhile, many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation at the nearby villages of Bil’in and Nil’in. Both protests started after midday prayers on Friday.
In Nil’in villagers along with international and Israeli supporters managed to reach the gate of the wall separating local farmers from their lands before soldiers fired tear gas at them. In Bil’in troops fired tear gas at the villagers and their supporters before reaching the wall.
In southern West bank, also on Friday, the villagers of Al Ma’ssara and residents of Beit Jala town near Bethlehem marched against the wall. Soldiers used tear gas in al Ma’ssara village , many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Beit Jala residents marched on Good Friday to their land that Israel has taken over to build the wall. Residents protest were lead by local priests and ended after a short mass near the confiscated lands.
For IMEMC News this is Vika Awad
The Political Report
As Israel continues its illegal settlement activities on occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority says it considers going back to the United Nations to claim the right to statehood on 1967 borders.IMEMC’s Rami Almeghari has the story:
Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas says he plans to go back to the United Nations to further claim the Palestinian people’s right to statehood on the 1967 border lines.
Abbas’s ramarks came in response to continued illegal Israeli settlements building on occupied Palestinian lands, mainly in the Hebron city and the occupied East Jerusalem.
This week, Israeli government approved such construction in Hebron city and confiscated an old house of Jerusalem’s house belonging to the ancient Palestinian family of Alhuseini, ahead of a settlement project in the area.
A delegation comprising of PA’s Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, top Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Eriqat and PLO’s executive secretary, Yasser Abed Rabo, are set to head for Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a message from Abbas.
Palestinians and Israelis have stopped peace negotiations since late 2008, after Israel refused halting settlement activities on lands that Israel occupied in 1967, including West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In September 2011, PA’s President submitted a request to UN’s General Assembly, demanding recognition of as a UN member state on the occupied Palestinian lands.
In other news, the International court of Justice in the Hague, declined this week a request by the PA to investigate what the PA said Israeli war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Israel’s three-week-long attack on the coastal territory in 2009.
The court says that the PA is non-member state of the UN .
At the internal Palestinian level, the ruling Islamic party of Hamas in Gaza continues to decline a request by the Ramallah-based elections committee to allow operation of the committee’s Gaza-based office.
Hamas contends that once implementation of the Hamas-Fatah conciliation deal sees the light, the committee will be allowed to work to prepare for any upcoming elections.
Local media reports suggested this week that a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Hamas’s deputy-political leader, Mousa Abu Marzouq, was held in Cairo this week to further push implementing a pending unity deal.
In Gaza, the Hamas-led government announced this week that Egyptian mediators in Cairo, helped reach a deal over operating Gaza’s main power plant. The deal stipulates that the PA in Ramallah coordinates sending Israeli fuel through Israeli-controlled borders on daily basis , in return for few hundred thousand dollars paid by the Gaza authorities per day.
For IMEMC News, I am Rami Almeghari in Gaza
The West Bank Gaza Report
While Israeli attacks this week left three Palestinians dead, the Israeli army conducted at least 80 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza ,during which they arrested 28 Palestinian civilians, including 5 children and a journalist. IMEMC’s Jina Johns Reports:
Israeli military invasions targeting the West Bank were focused in the northern cities of Nablus and Jenin. Staying in the West Bank, a young Palestinian man died on Monday morning from wounds suffered in an Israeli raid on his village near Ramallah last week.
Last week Israeli troops in civilian clothes raided the village of Rammun and tried to attack resident’s houses. The deceased and his two brothers thought the troops were thieves trying to steal from local houses. As soon as they tried to stop the undercover soldiers, troops opened fire at them injuring all three.
Later on Tuesday Four-year-old Aseel Ara’ara from the town of Anata near Jerusalem was pronounced dead from wounds sustained on November 25, 2011, Palestinian medical sources reported. Aseel’s family said that their daughter was wounded by a gunshot in the neck last year when she was playing in an area adjacent to an Israeli military base.
The family requested the Israeli authorities to start a probe into the case as medical reports indicate that she was wounded with a gunshot from an automatic weapon.
In the Gaza Strip, A Palestinian teenager was found dead on Wednesday midday near the Israeli borders with Gaza City after he was wounded by military shelling to the area the night before. Medics said that the boy died due to bleeding throughout the night.
In other news this week, Palestinian detainee, Hana Shalabi, was deported by Israel to the Gaza Strip, on Sunday, under a deal whose details have not been unveiled.
According to reports about the deal, Shalabi will be forced to stay in Gaza for three years, and then return to her home in Jenin, in exchange for ending her hunger strike which had lasted for 44 consecutive days.
Meanwhile other Palestinian detainees continued their hunger strike in protest of Israel’s ill-treatment and administrative detention.
For IMEMC News this is Jina Johns.
That was just some of the news from This Week in Palestine, for more updates; please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, This report has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me Ghassan Bannoura.
