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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org for Thursday August 22nd, 2013.

Israeli soldiers destroy Palestinian farmers produce and detain garbage trucks. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.

Israeli soldiers destroyed on Thursday midday vegetables and fruits owned by Palestinian farmers near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Local sources said that Israeli troops attacked street venders selling vegetables and fruits at the entrance of Beit Omer village near Bethlehem.

Those vegetables and fruits are produced by local farmers from the village and it’s their only source of income, local sources added.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops detained on Thursday garbage trucks that belong to al Bireh town municipality near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

Last week the Israeli army closed down the Landfill the municipality uses. The army gave no reason to detain the trucks today. The municipality announced that this will further increase the problems the town is facing with garbage removal.

In other news The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the Quartet Committee, mainly the United States as the mediator in direct peace talks with Tel Aviv, to intervene and put an end to Israel’s escalating illegal settlement construction and expansion activities.

The Ministry said that settlements in the occupied territories are illegitimate and violate International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and added that settlements are destroying any chances of success to the recently resumed direct talks.

It called on regional and international organizations, including the Quartet [The United States, The European Union, the United Nations and Russia] to document the Israeli violations in order to pursue Israel in international courts.

The statement came in response to a sharp escalation in Israeli violations, including its illegal settlement activities in occupied Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank.

And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Thursday August 22, 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 Shamus Slaunwhite and me, Ghassan Bannoura.

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