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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday July 30, 2012.
The Israeli army opens fire on unarmed civilians at a checkpoint in occupied East Jerusalem and on homes in Gaza today; these stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Palestinian medical sources in Jerusalem reported that one Palestinian was killed on Monday at dawn, and two others were wounded, when Israeli soldiers, stationed at a roadblock east of occupied East Jerusalem, opened fire at their car under the pretext that they did not heed soldiers ordering them to stop. The sources said that Akram Badee’, from Beitello village near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, was moved by the army to the Israeli hospital of Hadassah in Jerusalem, but died of his wounds later on; he was hit by a live round in his head.The two wounded residents were moved by Red Crescent medics to a local hospital in Ramallah. Neither the driver, nor the passengers, were armed.
In related news, in Gaza today, the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian homes and farms in Khuza’a, a town east of Khan Younis. No injuries were reported. The areas in Gaza along the border with Israel east of Khan Younis are regularly targeted by the Israeli army. Previous attacks have killed and wounded several Palestinians and prevented farmers from reaching their land.
Israel reports that the influx of settlers to the West Bank has increased by 4.5 % bringing the total number of illegal Israeli settlers to 350,143, according to the Palestine News Network. This figure however, excludes areas like Givan Ze’ev, Neve Yaakov, Ramat Eshkol, and Armon Hanatziv north and east of Jerusalem where the Israeli population numbers about 300,000. Israeli Knesset Member Yaakov Katz expressed his approval at these numbers saying “In the coming four years, the number of settlers will reach about half a million, and after the annexation of East Jerusalem [emphasis added] settlements the number of Jewish settlers will exceed one million, competing the full demographic coup.”
And finally, over the weekend, Israeli soldiers and policemen invaded, Al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied East Jerusalem, after midnight Saturday night and attacked several worshipers while trying to forcefully remove them from the mosque; clashes were reported and two worshipers from Jerusalem were kidnapped by the Israeli forces.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday July 30th daily news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me, Kelly Joiner.
