Originally posted by mmissinglink:
.
Israel's decades old 'peace' plan continues with these recent acts of 'kindness':
Israel kills six PalestiniansPalestine-Israel, Military, 3/7/2006
Four Palestinians including two children were killed as one Israeli military plane bombarded one car in al-Shujaeeya quarters east of Gaza.
The Israeli occupation army said that its planes fired missiles at a car occupied by activists of Saraya al-Quds ( Jerusalem groups), the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement east of Gaza city.
Medical sources said that two members of al-Jihad movement were killed in the raid where nine passerby were injured including one youngster and several women during the bombardment.
Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, vowed to retaliate to this "crime and other crimes recently committed by the Zionist enemy" by striking back in the" heart of the Zionist entity."
Two young Palestinians were killed in one explosions that took place to the east of al-Bureij quarters for the Palestinian refugees which is situated in Gaza.
Al-Jazeera satellite TV said that the two Palestinian brothers aging 12 and 13 years and were killed as they were playing in a suspicious material that was blown up in their hands. An Israeli military spokesman denied involvement of the Israeli army in this explosion.
News sourceIsraeli forces kill 4 Palestinians, demolish housesPalestine-Israel, Politics, 3/6/2006
WAFA reported today that four Palesintians, including one child, "were killed and several others wounded, during a fresh Israeli raid on Gaza, medical sources said... Ministry of Health identified two of the victims as Moneer Sokkar and Ashraf Shallof, adding that the bodies of the casualties were ripped apart."
WAFA added, the Israeli Occupation Forces today handed al-Hmedan family warrants "to demolish their houses in the West Bank (WB) village of an-Nouman near Bethlehem...(to) build a military camp and a settlement on the lands of an-Nouman village."
News sourceJewish attack targeting Beshara church in al-NaseraPalestine-Israel, Politics, 3/4/2006
Sources in al-Beshara church in the Palestinian city of al-Nasera north of Israel said that three Jewish extremist entered the church and threw fire crackers inside it and this resulted in material losses and fears among the attendants.
The Israeli radio quoted security sources that one man and two women were hiding these fire crackers and small gas explosives inside children carriage. Sources of the church confirmed that the three persons were arrested and handed over to the Israeli police while hundreds of the Arabs of 1948 gathered around the church to protect it.
Hundreds of the Israeli police members gathered inside the church and surrounded it to confront the Arab protests and the police fired noise bombs in order to disperse the demonstrators and this resulted in wounding at least two persons according to police sources.
News reports said that the Israeli security detained the three for while inside one of the church's rooms to protect them from the angry people as some of them threatened to kill the man who threw the fire crackers. The Israeli sources said that negotiations were made with the protesters via church officials in order to convince them by the removal of the police and the three detained persons, amid news that the Jewish man was injured at the hands of the angry Palestinians.
Security reinforcement were recalled while news were rumored on an attack which targeted one ambulance believed to have had transported the Jewish man outside the Church.
Worthy mentioning that al-Beshara church in al-Nasera where Christ grew up is one of the most important holy shrine for Christians and also for Muslims. The church was built in the site where it was presumed that Virgin Mary saw the messenger of God who told her about the coming of Jesus Christ.
News sourceIsrael leaves Gaza agriculture in crisis Thursday 02 March 2006 1:22 PM GMT
Israeli soldiers at the al-Mintar (Karni) crossing
Agriculture in the Gaza Strip is on the verge of collapse as Israel's economic stranglehold starts to bite.
The Palestine Economic Development Company (PED) says repeated Israeli closures of the export terminal at al-Mintar (Karni) is jeopardising the livelihoods of 4000 Palestinian workers and their families.
The PED manages the Gaza Agricultural Project (GAP), which runs the greenhouses in the territory that were evacuated by illegal Israeli settlers in August and which earned their Jewish owners millions of dollars in export revenue.
The Karni cargo crossing, built in 1993 at the eastern end of Gaza, was built for Palestinians to import and export produce to Israel and the outside world. An estimated 800 lorries pass through it daily.
The agriculture sector in Gaza, a lifeline of income and employment in the impoverished and overcrowded territory, has incurred an estimated loss of €57 million ($68 million) during 35 days of recent Karni closures, it said.
"The entire Palestinian agricultural sector in Gaza is on the verge of collapsing due to the continuous Israeli closure of Karni," PED said.
Karni is the only crossing point for goods from the Gaza Strip and has been repeatedly closed by Israel in a tactic seen as collective punishment by the Palestinians.
"If the closure continues, the entire GAP project will eventually collapse," PED added in a statement.
Latest problems
Israel, on the grounds of security, regularly closes Karni, which was on Thursday closed for the ninth consecutive day.
On Wednesday, Palestinian officials said they had been told by Israel that the crossing would reopen on Thursday. Later, Israel said it would not reopen because Palestinians were still firing rockets toward Israeli points in the area.
Palestinian resistance fighters frequently fire homemade rockets towards Israel, but they rarely cause any casualties.
Salim Abu Safiya, director-general of the Palestinian Border Authority, said: "The continued closure is causing humanitarian and economic harm to the Palestinian people, and threatening a real shortage in food supplies."
Palestinian farmers had planned to dump hundreds of tons of produce that had nearly spoiled while waiting at the crossing to be exported to Israel and Europe.
Palestinians in Gaza can also suffer shortages of basic foodstuffs, such as milk, when the border is closed.
News sourceIsraeli raid kills five PalestiniansMonday 06 March 2006 4:24 PM GMT
Witnesses say the vehicle exploded into a ball of flames
Five Palestinians, including two members of Islamic Jihad and an eight-year-old child, have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a vehicle in Gaza City.
Seven bystanders, most of them children, were wounded in the attack.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that the military carried out the attack on a wanted member of the Islamic Jihad.
Witnesses and Palestinian security sources said the two activists, whose names were not immediately known, were travelling in the car when it exploded into a ball of flames on Monday.
Witnesses said the eight-year-old boy was killed while standing close to the car.
Two others, boys aged 14 and 15, also died, a hospital official said.
Sources said at least one rocket was fired from an Israeli occupation army aircraft into the car as it drove down Salah al-Din Street in the Gaza City centre.
'Massacre'
Seven others, mostly children,
were wounded in the attack
An Israeli military source said one of the activists killed was involved in rocket attacks against Israel.
Hamas, which is forming a government after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections in January, called the air strike a "massacre".
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that "if the international community remains quiet the situation will explode."
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said it was a dangerous escalation against the Palestinian people.
Monday's deaths bring to 4975 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising (intifada) in 2000.
More than three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinian.
Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime minister, on Thursday lifted restrictions on the Israeli army in its operations against the Palestinian resistance movements.
News sourceWest Bank playground demolishedWednesday 22 February 2006 5:34 PM GMT
Troops moved in with a bulldozer for the demolition
The Israeli occupation army has bulldozed a US-funded public park, including a children's playground and swimming pool, in a West Bank village, witnesses and officials said.
The bulldozer, protected by a force of Israeli soldiers, demolished the park in Azzun, close to the northern town of Qalqilya on Wednesday, on the grounds that it had been built without permission of the Israeli authorities in the occupied territory.
Construction work on the park had begun in November and was almost completed, the mayor of Azzun, Ihsan Abd al-Latif, said.
USAID
He said that the project, which cost around $120,000, had been financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).
"I can confirm that the park that was destroyed today was funded by USAid"
Anna-Maija Litvak,
Spokesman, USAid
"I can confirm that the park that was destroyed today was funded by USAid," a spokeswoman for the agency, Anna-Maija Litvak, told AFP.
The spokeswoman added that USAid had contributed around $80,000 towards the cost.
No immediate reaction was available from the Israeli army, which regularly demolishes buildings that it says have been constructed without authorisation.
The army also destroyed two houses built without permission in two other villages in the Qalqilya area on Wednesday, according to Palestinian security sources.
Child wounded
Also on Wednesday, a four-year-old Palestinian boy was seriously wounded when he was hit in the face by fragments of an Israeli shell in the Gaza Strip, medical sources and witnesses said.
Ismail Shueider was being treated in Gaza's Shifaa hospital after a shell hit an apartment block in the town of Bait Hanun which is situated close to an area which was recently declared a "no-go zone" by the Israeli military.
Palestinians were detained
elsewhere in the West Bank
Shortly before the bombardment, Palestinian fighters had been seen firing makeshift rockets from northern Gaza into Israel. The firing was claimed by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of the mainstream Fatah faction.
An army spokeswoman said that the report of a child being injured were being investigated.
"We are still looking into what exactly happened," she said.
Palestinians detained
Also in the occupied West Bank, six Palestinians, including three members of the newly elected Hamas movement, were arrested overnight by Israeli security services.
All six, which also included two members of the Islamic Jihad movement, had been on an Israeli wanted list, military sources said.
The army meanwhile said that the Karni terminal on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip would remain closed after an explosion in the area on Tuesday night.
Soldiers were carrying out searches to determine the cause of the blast near the crossing which is the main transit point for merchandise.
News source.