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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday, February 08, 2016.
Palestinian workers killed in a tunnel accident in Gaza and Israeli troops invade West Ban communities and kidnap civilians. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Medical sources in the Gaza Strip have reported that one Palestinian was killed, on Monday at dawn, when a tunnel, used for smuggling goods into the besieged coastal region, collapsed on him.
The tunnel is on the border with Egypt, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The slain Palestinian worker is 24 years of age was buried under the rubble while he was conducting maintenance work.
It is worth mentioning that the Egyptian army is still conducting its campaign against all siege-busting tunnels on its side of the border. Earlier in the month nine Hamas fighters were killed in similar accident, in northern Gaza.
While the tunnels are used by Hamas as a source of tax revenue and inflow of weapons, they also supply highly-demanded necessities for Gaza’s 1.8 million residents under the blockade, including food, medicine, as well as infrastructure materials like concrete and fuel.
Many Palestinians, not affiliated with any group, work in the tunnels to provide for their families, especially amidst the high levels of unemployment and poverty.
Also in Gaza, Israeli soldiers opened fire, on Monday morning, targeting Palestinian farmers in central Gaza, and fishing boats, in Gaza territorial waters. The soldiers, stationed behind the border fence, east of the al-Boreij refugee camp, in central Gaza, fired dozens of rounds of live ammunition into Palestinian farmlands, forcing the Palestinians to leave.
In addition, Israeli navy ships fired several live rounds on Palestinian fishing boats, in the Sudaniyya area, in Gaza, causing significant damage to at least one boat, and forcing the fishers back to shore. The boats were only close to four nautical miles off the Gaza shore when the navy ships attacked them.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers invaded, on Monday at dawn, several areas in the occupied West Bank, broke into and searched many homes, and kidnapped at least nine Palestinians.
Home searches and kidnappings were reported in the northern West Bank Tulakrem refugee camp and Qabatia town, in addition to Hebron and Bethlehem cities in southern West Bank, and areas in Jerusalem, Palestinian sources reported.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday, February 08, 2016, news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From more news and updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
