Brown calls for settlement freeze
20/7/08
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has arrived in the Middle East for two days of talks to promote “an economic road map for peace”. “Israeli settlements are a hindrance to peace and must be frozen,” he said on Sunday at a news conference held in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, also spoke at the conference that marked Brown’s first visit to the Middle East since becoming prime minister in June 2007. “Israel is not concerned with the principles of the Annapolis conference, namely freezing settlement expansion,” Abbas said.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/07/ 2008720112750269998.html
Israeli filmed shooting prisoner
20/7/08
An Israeli human rights group has released a video that shows an Israeli soldier shooting a blindfolded Palestinian man with a rubber coated steel bullet at close range. BTselem released the video on Sunday, saying it had forwarded a copy to the Israeli military police and was demanding an investigation be opened. The video shows a Palestinian man, whom BTselem named as Ashraf Abu Rahma, handcuffed and blindfolded standing by a group of Israeli soldiers.One soldier aims his weapon at the Abu Rahma’s legs, from about 1.5 metres away, and appears to fire at him.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/07/ 2008720182715746167.html
‘I was attacked because I’m Arab’
Jack Khoury, 20/7/08
An Israeli Arab man, 22, has lodged a complaint against a group of youth from the town of Carmiel who he said assaulted him because of his ethnic identity. Khazam Jubran told the Nazareth-based daily Al-Arab that early Saturday morning he came to Carmiel in order to pick up his sister who was working in a factory there. While he was waiting, a group of youth approached him, and one of them asked him for a cigarette. Jubran told them he did not smoke, at which point the youth recognized his Arabic accent and called over to his friends. According to Jubran, the youths then began to curse at him and beat him. Jubran said some 30 youths suddenly arrived at the scene, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and began shaking his car until it tipped over - with Jubran still inside.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1003741.html