Wednesday May 13, 2009 12:07 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

While the Pope is visiting the Holy Land, and started his visit to Bethlehem on Wednesday with a call for peace and reconciliation, the Israeli occupation government continued their violations against the Palestinians and issued more orders to demolish Palestinian apartments in East Jerusalem.

The orders target 31 apartments providing shelter to more than 300 Palestinians.

The office of Hatem Abdul-Qader, Jerusalem Affairs advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas, stated that the Jerusalem municipality decided on Tuesday at night to demolish nine more homes in Al-Thawry neighborhood, near Silwan town, south of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The homes belong to the families of Zayyad, Al-Bardaweel, and Aseela, and are providing shelter to more than seventy residents.

The office added that the orders include demolishing old homes and additions to them, and said that it would file a legal appeal at the Israeli High Court of Justice.

Furthermore, the Jerusalem municipality handed an owner of an apartment building an order to demolish his building which includes 22 apartments, and was constructed in 1999. The apartment building provides housing to 250 residents.

The office of Abdul-Qader said that there is a pending case at the High Court, and that the court should look into it in the coming few days.  

In an interview with the Palestine News and Information Center (WAFA), Abdul-Qader said that the Jerusalem municipality is ongoing with its illegal violations against the Palestinians in Jerusalem, and is disregarding all international demands to stop these violations.

He added that this is a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Jerusalemite Palestinians and Arabs, and also said that the Palestinians will resist these violations and will remain steadfast in their homeland.

IOG issues new batch of demolition orders in O. Jerusalem

   [ 13/05/2009 - 11:23 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation government on Tuesday issued demolition orders against 31 Palestinian apartments in a number of suburbs in occupied Jerusalem, local sources reported.

They said that the Jewish-controlled municipality of Jerusalem ordered the demolition of those apartments near Silwan suburb, south of the Aqsa Mosque, which provide shelter for more than 300 citizens.

In another development in the West Bank, Jewish settlers on Tuesday stormed the area where the evacuated Homesh settlement used to exist near Seelat Al-Dhahr village, south of Jenin.

Eyewitnesses said that the settlers insulted all Palestinians who happened to pass by their pitched tents, and added that the Israeli occupation forces protected the settlers.

Jewish settlers frequently storm the same area with the IOF escort, which is more often than not accompanied by assaults on Palestinian farmers and nearby groves inflicting injuries to civilians and material damage.

Shallah: We insist on our right to the entire city of Jerusalem

  [ 13/05/2009 - 08:36 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Dr. Ramadan Shallah, the secretary general of the Islamic Jihad Movement, has said that the Palestinian people insist on their right to the entire city of Jerusalem in retaliation to the Israeli occupation authority's judaization schemes of occupied eastern Jerusalem.

Shallah, speaking over the phone to a rally in support of Jerusalem in Gaza on Tuesday evening, said that the plots against Jerusalem were the fruit of the "peace process", so-called peace agreements and negotiations with the "Zionist enemy", which only provided a cover for all IOA crimes.

He charged that the US with the so-called Arab moderates were planning a new initiative in order to convince the Israeli right to continue in the peace process on the principle of a two-state solution.

The Jihad leader stressed that resistance was not afraid of the future, expressing conviction that future was for resistance and steadfastness.