OPT: Crisis in Gaza is unnecessary

The situation in Gaza is deteriorating rapidly and having a profound impact on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel's recent declaration that Gaza is a "hostile territory" could now pave the way for crackdowns on water and electricity supplies and possibly a military offensive in the territory. However, a new report published today argues that "Israel will have no security while Gaza remains blockaded and impoverished.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SHES-788LB3?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Palestinian Girl Seriously Wounded by Israeli Army on West Bank

Ramallah.- An eight year old Palestinian girl was seriously injured by the Israeli military in the city of Tulkarem on the West Bank, in an assault on the city aimed at eliminating members of the resistance. Palestinian Authority sources said the girl, named Rania, was urgently admitted ot hospital with a bullet wound to the head.

http://www.periodico26.cu/english/news_world/palstine102107.htm

Israel strikes car in Gaza, casualties reported

An Israeli missile struck a car in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday, causing at least two injuries, the Israel army and Palestinian medical officials said.

http://wap.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23207445.htm

Palestinian inmate dies after Israeli jail riot

One Palestinian inmate died of wounds suffered in an Israeli jail riot and over a dozen were wounded after violent clashes on Monday with prison guards, 15 of whom were also hurt, a prisons spokeswoman said.

http://wap.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23136178.htm

PLC slams treatment of Negev detainees

The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), dominated by Hamas movement, issued a press release on Monday slamming Israeli attacks against the detainees in the Negev Detention Facility, and stated that at least 300 detainees had been injured, some seriously.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51020

Palestinian detainees in Israel on hunger strike

Palestinian prisoners held in Israel went on hunger strike on Tuesday to protest against what they condemned as heavy-handed repression of a prison riot that left one inmate dead, officials said. The Prisoners Club, the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, said the one-day hunger strike was being observed by most of the some 11,000 Palestinian security detainees in the Jewish state.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071023/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelprisonersdemo_071023121709;_ylt=AiBJBLW6a1Y4xB7KHNoXdHuaOrgF

Israeli army kidnaps 14 Palestinians across the West Bank

Palestinian security sources reported Tuesday morning that the Israeli army had invaded several areas of the West Bank in pre-dawn raids, kidnapping at 14 Palestinian civilians.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51025

Israeli Finance Minister asks World Bank to cease Gaza projects

 Finance Minister Roni Bar-On met Monday in Washington with World Bank President Robert Zoellick, and urged him not to cooperate in any manner with Hamas and economic projects in the Gaza Strip. "We must strengthen moderates through economic cooperation, but there is no room to include Hamas in this framework," said Bar-On.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=915852&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Fact International: "Hamas bars Islamic Jihad weapons smuggling"

Fact International, the Jordanian news network, reported Tuesday that the deposed Hamas government in Gaza has signed an agreement with Egyptian security officials to bring an end to the smuggling of weapons through tunnels in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51028

Barghouthi calls for Palestinian unity

Dr Musrafa Barghouthi, Palestinian legislator and Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, on Tuesday called on Palestinians to conentrate upon the estblishment of unity, rather than continuing to fight one another.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51032

Pro-Abbas security forces arrest eight Hamas members in W.Bank

Palestinian security forces on Tuesday arrested eight members of Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas) in various places in West Bank, the movement said in a statement sent to the media.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/6289268.html

PFLP rejects fall summit for peace, calls for boycotting

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) rejected on Tuesday the peace summit due to beheld on fall in Annapolis in the United States and called for boycotting it.  The left-wing group, member in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a leaflet that the summit, determined to he held next month "is deceptive, and we call on all Arab and Palestinian participants to boycott it."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/23/content_6931038.htm

Palestinians' high-risk human shield tactic

Schoolgirls chanting their defiance of Israel were among the crowd that gathered to defend the two-storey home in the town of Beit Lahiya.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6166362.stm

Sarkozy: Palestinian refugees should not be resettled in Israel

In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that Palestinian refugees should be resettled in a Palestinian state, not in Israeli territory.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51027

US Tells Israel to Halt Settlements in West Bank

Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has asked the Israeli government to stop settlement expansion in the Palestinian territories and reduce its forces in the West Bank.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=102762&d=23&m=10&y=2007

Study: Only a third of capital's Arab neighborhoods can be transferred to Palestinian contol

The first claim to the idea of taking Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and annexing Jewish neighborhoods outside Jerusalem - such as Ma'aleh Adumim - belongs to Dr. Israel Kimhi, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS). Kimhi proposed the idea even before MK Yossi Beilin, but it is actually his chapter in the report on the feasibility of implementing the separation plan from Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, written at JIIS, that indicates, more than anything else, the complexity of the division.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915882.html

Israeli police seize 500 Palestinian workers in Israel

Israeli security forces on Monday seized nearly 500 Palestinian workers in Israel, imposing large fines on the men, and transferring them to the Palestinian territories, claiming they are not eligible to work in Israeli territory.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51019

Drip-feeding Gaza

While no one is yet dying of hunger in Gaza, as 75% of the population have their most basic food needs (flour, oil, sugar, pulses and salt) covered by the UN, signs of malnutrition like those of the Jalal family are emerging in more and more families as Gaza's supply lines become increasingly precarious.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/kirstie_campbell/2007/10/drip_feeding_gaza.html

Juan Cole: The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation

The US political elite and media that conceals the brutality of the Israeli occupation for sectional political gains are accomplices to this sadism, and their silence endangers the security of the United States.

http://www.juancole.com/2007/10/sadism-of-israeli-occupation.html

ANALYSIS: Olmert assassination plot leaves PA caught unaware

Nobody comes out of this story looking good - not the Palestinian Authority, members of whose security forces planned to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; not Israel, which decided Sunday to air a four-month-old affair, perhaps to score points ahead of Olmert's European tour and the Annapolis conference; not Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, who appears to have given the cabinet a partially erroneous report. Not even the assassins themselves, who were hoping somehow to pierce the prime minister's armored car using 7.62-caliber bullets.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915360.html

Rabin's grandson: Extreme right trying to paralyze democracy

Yonatan Ben-Artzi says that campaign to release his grandfather's assassin represents 'terrorism within Israel;' calls for serious action to be taken against campaign financers.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3463100,00.html

Is it a peace process or dangling of a carrot?

How can an unpopular US president who will be out of office in just over a year orchestrate Middle East peace? And especially when the Palestinian nation is both physically and ideologically divided, and the Israeli leader under investigation for corruption inspires little other than scorn.

http://archive.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10162057.html

Clouded Horizons for Palestine

The Bush administration, anxious to create some legacy other than the unmitigated fiasco of the Iraq war, is preparing to host a Palestinian-Israeli peace meeting next month in Washington. But the Bush administration's interest in peace in the Middle East has been to say the least lukewarm. It will come to the meeting with serious credibility problems that handicap its claim to serve as an honest broker.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=14106

Closed borders, closed future in Gaza

Nine-year-old Najla Rajab, with her two brothers and mother, was among tens of Palestinians demonstrating today in Gaza City, calling for permission to leave Gaza. Najla said that she wants to travel to Saudi Arabia to see her father and to re-enroll in her school in Jeddah, but she has not been able to since Israel has closed Gaza's borders for months.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9056.shtml

Gaza's children deserve life

Places of entertainment in Gaza are few and far between compared with other parts of the world. While the atmosphere in Gaza is becoming more depressed and the economy is crumbling, Gaza's population was nevertheless determined to celebrate the major Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Sitting in al-Jundi al-Majhoul public garden in central Gaza City are two young children, Mai Sewairej and her brother Sewar. Both are dressed in black and perched on the remains of the wrecked statue of the unkown soldier after which the park is named, destroyed months ago during clashes between the Hamas and Fatah parties.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9057.shtml

Gaza children divided between Hamas, Fatah in their games

In this northern Gaza Strip city, Raed Wahidi, 11-year-old boy in black uniform, was using his plastic pistol on Tuesday morning to fire at his friend, dressed in dark brown, who was also carrying a plastic rifle. What Wahidi and his friend did was part of a popular game that Palestinian children often play in the Hamas-ruled Strip.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/23/content_6931285.htm

Gaza couples tie knot in mass wedding ceremony

 A total of 100 Palestinian couples will marry in a mass ceremony in Gaza on Friday, in a move demonstrating the positivity and strength of the Palestinian people, local media said. The event dubbed "A ray of light in the dark kingdom," is expected to show Palestinians and the world, "the nation's positive mood in brutal conditions of the Israeli occupation," the media said.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20071022/84998356.html

Artist Emily Jacir awarded prestigious Golden Lion

Emily Jacir, who participated in the 52nd La Biennale di Venezia international art exhibition, was awarded last week with the prestigious Golden Lion award. Jacir, whose ongoing installation work "Material for a film" was featured in the 2007 Biennale themed Think with the senses - Feel with the mind, was given the Golden Lion award for an artist under the age of 40.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9055.shtml

Armenians of Jerusalem protest Israel's denial of Armenian Genocide

As PanARMENIAN.Net came to know from a source in Jerusalem, almost 200 Armenians were found in the Justice Square singing and chanting Armenian songs and slogans. Many journalists and news agencies had their share to capture the moment and interview protesters. The event was attended by two parliamentary officials, Yaeer Tsaban and Khayeem Oron, who both gave speeches emphasizing on the denial of the genocide by the Israeli government.

http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=23804