Two Palestinian girls appeal for releasing them from IOA detention center

[ 16/12/2008 - 05:55 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

 Two Palestinian female children have appealed to legal centers on the local and international levels to demand their release from the Israeli occupation authority's notorious Maskobeh detention center in occupied Jerusalem.

Sources of the Palestinian prisoner's club said that Samah Sumada, 15, was detained at the Qalandia roadblock on 2/12/2008 and was since then subjected to cruel interrogation rounds in Maskobeh.

Israeli soldiers manning the road barrier claimed that she had a knife and was investigated over suspicion of planning to kill one of the soldiers.

The other child Baraa Barakat, 15, was also detained at the same barrier on the same day with the same charge, the club sources noted.

They added that she was blindfolded, hand shackled and taken to Maskobeh on the same suspicion.

The club sources said that the mental conditions of both girls were disturbing and that they were complaining of severe psychological pressures.

Three Palestinians including two women injured in IOF aerial raid

[ 16/12/2008 - 05:57 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)--

Three Palestinians including two women and a member of the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, were wounded on Tuesday evening when an Israeli occupation army chopper fired two rockets on northern Gaza.

Medical sources told PIC reporter that the Israeli Apache fired one missile then returned a few minutes later and fired the other.

The Israeli occupation forces command claimed that the shelling was targeting a group of Al-Quds Brigades fighters and missile launching pads.

The armed wing earlier announced that it had fired three locally made missiles at the Israeli Sderot settlement to the northeast of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli occupation Troops Impose Curfew on West Bank Village of Harmallah

Wednesday December 17, 2008 09:24 by IMEMC Staff - IMEMC&Agencies

Israeli occupation forces imposed a curfew on the West Bank village of Harmallah, to the east of Bethlehem city, kidnapping at least three residents.

Palestinian security sources reported that an Israeli contingent invaded the village early Wednesday morning, closing all entrances and cordoning off the area. The sources said that the invading troops imposed a curfew, using loudspeakers, as soldiers ransacked residents' homes in the village, kidnapping at least three residents.

Witnesses said that the soldiers held one of the village residents in one of the homes, as other soldiers cordoned off two other homes.  The Israeli occupation soldiers vandalized furniture inside. Israeli military attacks and kidnapping  campaigns throughout the occupied West Bank continue unabated, despite the presence of Palestinian Authority security forces in many of the West Bank areas.

Israeli occupation forces kidnap six Palestinians in the West Bank

Date: 17 / 12 / 2008  Time:  09:17
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

Israeli occupation forces kidnapped six Palestinians in overnight raids in the West Bank areas.

Israeli media reported that five Palestinian were kidnapped in the village of Harmalah, south of Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank, and another one in Hebron, also in the south.

Three injured in Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza Strip

Ma'an, Date: 16 / 12 / 2008  Time:  17:20

Three Palestinians including two women were injured on Tuesday evening when an Israeli aerial drone fired a missile at Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

Witnesses told Ma’an that the Israeli drone fired at least one missile at a group of ordinary Palestinian civilians north of the town.

The director of ambulance and emergency service in the Palestinian Health Ministry, Mu’awiya Hassanain, said that one injured person was transferred to Kamal Udwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. Hassanain described the injury as moderate.

In the same regard, the military wing affiliated to Islamic Jihad, earlier on Tuesday, fired three homemade projectiles towards Israeli town of Sderot.

In a statement the Al-Quds Brigades said shelling was in retaliation for the assassination of the group’s operative Jihad Nawahda on Monday night in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

A fragile six-month-old Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in Gaza expires on Friday. The agreement between the Israeli government and the Hamas-run de facto government in Gaza called on Israel to ease the blockade.

Al-Quds Brigades also fired four homemade projectiles into an area east of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning.

Report: Illegal Israeli settlements grow three times faster than Israeli population

Date: 16 / 12 / 2008  Time:  19:10
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

The population of the illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank grows at a rate that is three times faster than that of the general Israeli population, inside Israel, according to a 2007 report released Monday by an Israeli university.

Ariel University Center of “Samaria” published the demographics report on Monday, which numbers the amount of Jews in the occupied West Bank at around 270,000.

Age is a factor in the speed of population growth in illegal Israeli settlements, according to the report. Due to its younger population, the West Bank sees a higher birthrate than Israeli citizens living in Israel-proper. The settlers’ birthrate is about 25 births per 1,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, compared to 20 births per 1,000 Israelis living in Israel.

According to the study, the Jewish population in the illegal settlement enterprise has more than doubled in the past decade, while population growth in Israel grew by about a third during the same period.

An additional contributing factor to the higher growth rate in illegal Israeli settlements is the “positive internal migration balance” in the region, according to Israeli news agency Ynet, which is affiliated with Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The findings also note that crime rates in the illegal settlements stand at about 22 percent higher than among Israelis in Israel.


***Updated 19:07 Bethlehem time