Rice presses Barak on roadblocks
4/5/08
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has met Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, to discuss the removal of roadblocks dotting the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Sunday’s meeting came a day after Rice held talks with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and urged him not to undermine Palestinian security forces. Later on Sunday, Rice appeared at a joint news conference with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in Ramallah, and described Jewish settlements in the West Bank as “particularly problematic” to efforts to establish a Palestinian state. She said she was pressing Israel to do more to ease restrictions on Palestinian movement but also stressed that Palestinians needed to take further action to meet Israeli security demands.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DBA58C0A-0BB7-40AE-9784-E96AEF98772D.htm
Bold Claims About Mideast Peace Ring Hollow in Gaza
Sami Abdel-Shafi; 4/5/08
It is a strange feeling: after working as a productive professional in Gaza for five years, I have become a black market junkie. I make several phone calls a day hunting for fuel for my car, diesel for the electricity generator waiting on standby to power the house, even cigarettes and vitamins. The only way to get hold of these things, to buy life-saving medicines, to purchase the essentials for a life of basic dignity, is through the black market, if at all. Today all Gaza suffers severe water shortages, with the fuel needed to pump and transport water (as well as sewage) dangerously scarce. The few cars seen on Gaza’s mostly empty streets today almost invariably run on used cooking oil due to the lack of diesel. That feeling of strangeness continued as I read the statement delivered by the Quartet in London on Friday. The four powers mediating in the Middle East — the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia — spoke of “deep concern” and demanded “concrete steps by both sides.” There was no sense, however, that they had properly grasped the depth of Gaza’s plight or the realities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109577&d=4&m=5&y=2008
IDF charges three soldiers with assaulting Palestinian civilian
Yuval Azoulay; 4/5/08
Three soldiers of the Kfir Brigade were recently charged at the Jaffa Military Court with assaulting, abusing and beating a Palestinian civilian. The incident occured in late January near the taxi stop at the roadblock near Kafr Fahm, southwest of Jenin. According to the testimony of the Palestinian in charge of the taxi stop, Ziad Abu-Sneina, given to a volunteer of the human rights group Yesh Din, the soldiers tied his hands, beat him, dragged him through a puddle of water, covered his face with a kaffiyeh and pretended to shoot him with a toy gun. Yesh Din said Sunday that the entire incident lasted some three hours.
See; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980560.html
Report: IDF arrested 363 Palestinians in West Bank in April
The Israel Defense Forces arrested 363 Palestinians in the West Bank during April, a Palestinian report revealed Saturday. Most of the arrests were in the city of Nablus, where the army arrested 128 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Defense. The IDF declined to confirm or deny the report. Israeli forces regularly raid West Bank cities and villages, searching for wanted Palestinian militants. The report said the latest arrests did not appear to target a specific age or category and “had included all Palestinian citizens.” It added that the IDF soldiers used police dogs and beat the prisoners during the raids.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980453.html
Tags: 3 Soldiers Charged, Hollow Peace, Israel, Road Blocks, Terrorism, USA