Israel-Hamas truce announced
17/6/08
Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire arrangement, according to Egyptian and Palestinian officials. “Implementation of the truce will begin at 6am (0300 GMT) on Thursday,” a Palestinian official said on Tuesday. Hamas said it would respect the six-month deal, which materialised after months of mediation by Egypt. “Hamas will adhere to the timetable which was set by Egypt but it is our right to respond to any Israeli aggression before its implementation,” Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said. Israeli officials, however, have yet to confirm the Egyptian-brokered deal.
See; http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D75F2413-31B9-4696-A617-E2888493170F.htm
Palestinians killed in Gaza raids
17/6/08
Five Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say. Medical workers said the five were travelling in a car in the southern town of Khan Younis on Tuesday when they were hit. The Israeli army said an air strike it had carried out in southern Gaza destroyed a blue Subaru. slamic Jihad said all the five victims were its members.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6B7B15A4-E45F-4587-8B5E-48D32585F3C2.htm
Israel ignores US pressure
Adam Entous; 17/6/08
Israel sought yesterday to lower US expectations for any deal with the Palestinians this year, brushing aside pressure over settlements and calling for decisions on Jerusalem’s future to be deferred. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended her sixth trip to the region this year with no sign of progress in nudging both sides toward a peace deal by the end of 2008. She held three-way talks with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad before making a surprise visit to Beirut.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=110946&d=17&m=6&y=2008
Right-wing activist pours boiling water on Meretz MKs in Hebron
Nadav Shragai; 17/6/08
A right-wing activist on Tuesday poured boiling water on MKs belonging to the left-wing Meretz party during a tour of the West Bank city of Hebron. The incident occurred while Hebron setters clashed with the MKs and other members of a tour led by “Breaking The Silence,” an organization of demobilized Israel Defense Forces soldiers who document alleged harassment of Palestinians in the territories. Hebron’s settlers, however, denied any connection to the violence. “Members of the settlement and their guests did not curse or pour a cup of tea [on the tour],” said Noam Arnon, the spokesman for the West Bank town’s settlers.
See; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/993674.html
Israel Hell-bent on Settlement Development
Mel Fryberg, 16/6/08
Where there is a will there is a way and nowhere is this more true than when it comes to Middle Eastern religious fundamentalists adapting their holy scriptures to suit their ends. Combine this with a government hell-bent on getting its way in regard to territorial expansion and land expropriation and bingo you have more Israeli settlements and more Palestinians without land. Even as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her most recent trip to Jerusalem, stated categorically and with unprecedented firmness, that Israel’s continued building and enlargement of settlements, at the expense of more land expropriated from Palestinians was unacceptable, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defiantly countered that Israel’s policy would continue, irrespective of what the international community says.
See: http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/06/16/israel_hell-bent_on_settlement_development/4262/
Report: U.S. urges Israeli pullout from disputed Golan area
The United States is pressing for an Israeli withdrawal from a disputed Golan Heights area located on the border with Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Arabic language daily Al-Hayyat on Sunday. According to the report, Rice told Lebanese leaders during her unexpected visit to Beirut that the U.S. would bolster its efforts in the coming weeks toward pushing Israel to pull out from the Shaba Farms. The a-Sharq al-Awset newspaper had a similar report this week, in which it claimed that U.S. supports an Israeli withdrawal from the area. The region, a small area in the foothills of the Golan Heights, is considered Lebanese by the Lebanese government but the United Nations says it is Syrian land.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/993605.html
Israel Police arrest settlers for assault on Palestinian farmers
Jonathan Lis, 17/6/08
The Hebron District Police on Tuesday arrested two Israeli settlers, one of them a minor, on suspicion of attacking Palestinian farmers near the settlement of Susya last week. The two - both Susya residents - were questioned by police; it is unclear whether they will be further remanded in custody. Human rights group B’Tselem released a video last week which it said shows the beginning of an assault by masked, stick-wielding Israeli settlers on Palestinian farmers. The video above shows two separate alleged attacks. In one, four people holding sticks approach the farmers near the settlement and then beat them. A Palestinian woman in her late 50s was badly wounded in the attack, and her husband and another relative were also battered.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/993629.html
U.S. official: PA security forces fighting terror in West Bank
Avi Issacharoff;17/6/08
The roadblocks and other traffic impediments lifted by Israel in the West Bank in recent months have not significantly altered the situation on the ground for the Palestinian population, an American official involved in monitoring Israel-Palestinian Authority relations said Monday. The same official noted that the Palestinian Authority security forces have taken action to counter terrorist activities, and carried out a major operation in Jenin where they tried to arrest suspects who had been on Israel’s wanted list. “The security forces can do even more, but they have had some successes,” he said.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/993334.html
Rice says time to tackle Shebaa issue
17/6/08
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Lebanon’s President Michel Sleiman as “a very fine man” on Monday and called for more UN efforts to resolve a dispute over the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. Rice, on a surprise visit to Lebanon, endorsed last month’s Qatari-brokered agreement to end a political crisis that had led to a violent showdown between factions in the Western-backed government and the Hizbollah-led opposition. She was the most senior US official to meet Sleiman since he was elected following the deal in which the opposition achieved its longstanding goal of veto power in government. Lebanese officials said her talks in Beirut focused on the Shebaa Farms, a sliver of land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Syria and Lebanon say Shebaa is Lebanese, not Syrian, as the United Nations designated it when Israeli forces quit Lebanon in 2000.
See: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=8671
UN’s Israel sleuth asks to investigate Palestinians
17/6/08
The new United Nations special investigator on Israeli behaviour in the occupied territories said on Monday he wanted clearance to track Palestinian violations of international law. US professor Richard Falk, barred from Israel after remarks comparing its forces’ actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis in wartime Europe, put his proposal to a session of the UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council. In his first address to the body, Falk said he was asking it “to consider expanding [his] mandate to also encompass inquiry into Palestinian violations of international humanitarian law” - a change that Israel has sought. Israeli leaders, and some critics of their policies, argue that Palestinian attacks on civilian targets in Israel are in breach of global pacts and should be condemned.
See: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=8656
Tags: Egypt, Farmers, Golan, Israel, Lebanon, Roadblocks, Settlers, Terrorism, UN, USA