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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Thursday June 6th, 2013.
Israeli troops invade West Bank communities and kidnap civilians while Palestinian political detainees go on hunger strike. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli soldiers kidnapped five Palestinians, on Thursday at dawn including an elected legislator, in different parts of the occupied West Bank.
Local sources in Ramallah have reported that the army invaded the home of legislator Abdul-Jabbar Foqaha, and kidnapped him before moving him to an unknown destination. Army invasions and kidnappings were also reported in Hebron and Bethlehem districts, southern West Bank.
Elsewhere the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) reported that Palestinian political detainee held by the Israeli army Abdullah Barghouthi, was moved on Thursday from the Ramla prison clinic to the Al-Affoula Israeli hospital, due to a sharp deteriorating in his health condition.
Al Barghouthi, who is the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades the armed wing of Hamas, is holding hunger strike in solidarity with Jordanian detainees in Israeli prisons; he is serving 37 life terms, and started his hunger strike 35 days ago.
Moreover Palestinian female detainees, held by Israel, started an open-ended hunger strike demanding the Israeli Prison Authority to provide the needed medical treatment to detainee Heba Abu Rezeq.
Abu Rezeq was kidnapped three months ago, and is being held in solitary confinement. She is facing several psychological problems, and needs urgent therapy, yet, the prison administration is threatening to move her to a different facility, and to completely isolate her.
in other news the European Union demanded Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to stop Israel’s illegal settlement activities, and stated that the EU would support the Palestinian Authority in joining the International Criminal Court should Israel fail to stop its violations.
Israeli sources reported that Several senior EU leaders said that they fear Netanyahu is obstructing the efforts of U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, aimed at resuming peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The sources added that the EU would even support Palestine in joining the ICC should Israel fail to stop its settlement activities.
Israel recently declared it would be constructing thousands of units for Jewish settlers in occupied East Jerusalem.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Thursday June 6th 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 Hussam Qassis and me, Ghassan Bannoura.
