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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Tuesday March 18, 2014.
Israeli troops kidnap civilians from West Bank communities and navy warships attack fishing boats in Gaza. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli troops, abducted on Tuesday five Palestinians, including three teenagers, during invasions targeting Bethlehem and Hebron districts in southern West Bank
Local sources reported that soldiers stormed homes in Bethlehem city, the nearby Al Azzeh refugee camp as well as the Beit Fajjar village, south of Bethlehem.
Troops kidnapped five civilians including three teenagers.
Three more men were kidnapped when Israeli troops raided a number of homes in Hebron old city and nearby towns and villages on Tuesday morning, local sources reported.
In Gaza, Palestinian sources reported that Israel will reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, after keeping it closed for six consecutive days.
The sources said that Israeli officials had informed the Palestinian side that the Kerem Shalom crossing would resume operations on Wednesday. The crossing was open Sunday and Monday, but only for fuel deliveries.
Israel shut down the crossing last Wednesday in the wake of a flare-up of violence which began when an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinian militants in southern Gaza the day before.
Staying in Gaza Israeli warships, fired on Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the southern Gaza Strip, fishermen said.
Fishermen told local news that Israeli forces fired at them off the coast of Khan Younis. No injuries were reported, but the fishermen said they were forced to sail back to shore.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that the boat had ‘deviated from its designated fishing zone.’ In the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed to a 20-nautical-mile fishing zone off Gaza’s coast but it imposed a 3-mile limit for several years, opening fire at fishermen who strayed further.
There are some 4,000 fishermen in Gaza. According to a 2011 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, 90 percent are poor, a 40 percent increase from 2008 resulting from Israeli limits on the fishing industry.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Tuesday March 18, 2014 news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website atwww.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
