PRESS ROOM

274 Article

• Israel Demolishes 30 Structures Near Nablus

  11 January 2010, by Saed Bannoura

  The attack was carried out during early morning hours on Sunday as the army surrounded the area and invaded it.
  One of the demolished structures is a local school built from bricks with metal girders as a ceiling. Other demolished structures include tin structures for the sheep.
  The Palestine News Agency, WAFA, reported that Ghassan Douglas, in charge of the settlements file in the northern part of the West Bank, said that this attack is not the first, and that Israel wants to remove the (…)

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• Another EU policy statement will not stop Israel’s colonization

  9 December 2009, by Hasan Abu Nimah

  Israel started a preemptive campaign against a EU statement on the Middle East session even before it was formally presented for discussion by EU ministers this week on whether to adopt it. Israeli spokesmen expressed outrage at what they saw as an EU effort to "divide" Jerusalem, and claimed that the European position would "harm the peace process," as if it is only Israel that has been carefully protecting it from the harmful moves of others.
  Despite the usual hype, the document, a (…)

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• Egypt blocks travel of Gaza Freedom March activists

  28 December 2009,

  This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
  More than 1,000 persons from 42 countries who have vowed to travel from Cairo to the Gaza Strip on 31 December in a bid to highlight and (…)

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• Israel to build 700 new homes in East Jerusalem

  2009, by Akiva Eldar

  Israel is planning to build nearly 700 new apartments in East Jerusalem, government spokesman Mark Regev announced on Monday.
  Under the new blueprint, the Housing Ministry has invited contractors to bid on the construction of 198 housing units in Pisgat Zeev, 377 homes in Neve Ya’akov and 117 dwellings in Har Homa.
  Palestinians consider Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to be settlements and say such construction impedes peacemaking.
  Israel claims all of the city its capital and (…)

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• Failing Gaza

  22 December 2009,

  This report is published by: Amnesty International UK Broederlijk Delen (Belgium) CAFOD (UK) CCFD Terre Solidaire (France) Christian Aid Church of Sweden Diakonia (Sweden) Finn Church Aid (Finland) Medical Aid for Palestinians medico international (Germany) medico international schweiz (Switzerland) Mercy Corps MS ActionAid Denmark Oxfam International Trocaire (Ireland) United Civilians for Peace (a coalition of Dutch organisations - Oxfam Novib, Cordaid, ICCO, and IKV Pax Christi) For
  A (…)

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• Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni ’cancels London visit over prosecution fears’

  14 December 2009, by Adrian Blomfield

  Mrs Livni, who now leads the Israeli opposition, is the second prominent Israeli in just over two months to abandon trips to London amid a growing campaign across Europe to press charges against officials involved in military action in Gaza.
  Israel’s best-known female politician had been expected to attend a Jewish conference in north London at the weekend before holding private talks with Gordon Brown.
  Dozens of protestors massed outside the conference building in Hendon to denounce Mrs (…)

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• The Height of Kitsch

  5 December 2009, by Uri Avnery

  IT WOULD have been the epitome of political kitsch.
  Binyamin Netanyahu and ten of his ministers were to hold a joint meeting with Angela Merkel and ten members of the German cabinet.
  What for? To demonstrate Germany’s love for Israel.
  At the last moment, Netanyahu announced that he was sick, and the meeting was canceled. I imagine that Netanyahu was not very sorry about this. What did he need it for? In any case the Israeli government is already getting from Germany anything it wants. (…)

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• Israel has made settlers of all its citizens

  9 December 2009, by Amira Haas

  Would any of the settlers who opposed the Civil Administration inspectors this week be living in the territories had the governments of Israel not established and encouraged them? Would the Gush Katif evacuees have moved to mobile homes in Ariel in the expectation of spacious permanent housing had the government clearly declared that this was forbidden - because the settlements will be evacuated in the near future for a peace agreement - and that evacuation-compensation money would not be (…)

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• U.K. government urges businesses: Label products from settlements

  11 December 2009, by Barak Ravid

  The British government has issued an official recommendation urging business owners to mark Israeli products produced in West Bank settlements so that consumers who want to boycott such items will find it easy to identify them.
  The recommendation is not binding, but this step marks an escalation in the country’s attitude toward Israel’s settlements.
  Foreign Ministry official Naor Gilon passed along Israel’s harsh condemnation of the move to officials at the British Embassy in Israel on (…)

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• Living by the Gate From Hell

  by Ellen Cantarow

  At no time since its 1967 West Bank occupation have Israel’s seizures of Palestinian land and water resources seemed as shocking as the ones attending its construction of "the wall," begun in 2002. Vast, complex, and shifting in form, the wall appears most dramatically as 25-foot-high concrete slabs punctuated by militarized watch towers, supplemented by electronically monitored electrified fences stretching over vast distances.
  In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared (…)

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