13 Palestinians arrested in Al-Mazra'a Al-Qibliya
Last night between 1am and 3am the Israeli army raided the West bank towns of Abu Shukheidim and Al-Mazra'a Al-Qibliya arresting 13 Palestinians on allegations of criminal damage and being at an illegal demonstration, they are now in Binyamin police station. In what is clearly collective punishment, the arrested include the head of the Al-Marra'a Al-Qibliya council, a village council member and three minors. The raids follow a demonstration on Friday against the illegal annexation of agricultural lands by settlers.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/10/29/13-palestinians-arrested-in-al-mazraa-al-qibliya/

Four Palestinians, one Israeli soldier, killed in Gaza attacks
Four Palestinians, and one Israeli soldier, were killed in the early hours of Monday morning when Israeli forces invaded the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, and an area near the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51146

IDF soldier moderately wounded during arrest operation in W. Bank
An IDF soldier was moderately wounded overnight Sunday during an arrest operation near Nablus in the West Bank. The soldier was wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the troops. He was evacuated to a nearby hospital for further treatment.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380676789&pagename=JPost%252FJPArticle%252FShowFull

Israel cuts Gaza fuel in response to rocket fire
Israel began reducing fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip on Sunday under new economic sanctions to punish the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave for rocket fire on Israeli towns.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2838009.htm

Israel Restricts Gaza Crossing as Firing Persists
The action is in line with a recent government decision to respond with sanctions to continued rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?ex=1351310400&en=8895ac1e024336fb&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Israel told to justify Gaza embargo
Israel's Supreme Court has given the government five days to justify its decision to impose sanctions on the Gaza Strip. The ruling on Monday follows a petition from 10 human rights groups. However the court rejected a demand by the Israeli and Palestinian petitioners to freeze implementation of the sanctions, which took effect on Sunday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8434D282-4E00-4F7D-9FB1-A711F3D94A38.htm

Israel accused of forcing patients to be informers
A report by Human Rights Watch has revealed that Israeli forces are preventing Palestinian patients from receiving medical attention until the patients agree to act as Israeli informants.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51142

Israel evicts Palestinians on 'wrong' side of barrier
Israeli troops on Monday destroyed tents where nearly 300 Palestinians have been living near Hebron and handed out orders for them to decamp to a neighbouring West Bank village, witnesses said. The 37 families -- 267 people -- had been living in an encampment west of Idhna village near an army checkpoint on the Israeli-controlled side of the separation barrier that the Jewish state is building across the West Bank.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071029/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictbarrier_071029151229;_ylt=Anew05Tb98Wg4QhZcwz6_m0UvioA

Israeli army attacks Hebron area
Israeli army vehicles and bulldozers invaded the village of Qassa, located west of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, on Monday morning.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51144

Israeli soldiers attack a Palestinian worker in Jerusalem
A Palestinian worker from the city of Bethlehem sustained moderate wounds after he was attacked by a number of Israeli soldiers on Monday morning.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51145

Three Palestinians kidnapped in Nablus
Three Palestinians were kidnapped, and two Israeli soldiers moderately injured, when the Israeli army invaded the northern West Bank city of Nablus in the early hours of Monday morning.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51141

ISRAEL-OPT: Violence, lack of land access, make for bitter olive harvest
Source: IRIN Autumn in the West Bank is usually a festive season when families harvest the olives together but this year's Palestinian crop has again been marked by violence and restrictions on land access.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/860dd701c07bcf09be798443a533e0b3.htm

Hamas sources: "Fateh Security forces continue to arrest Hamas members"
Sources close to Hamas movement reported on Sunday that Palestinian Security Forces, loyal to Fateh movement in the West Bank, continued their arrest campaigns against members and supporters of Hamas, and arrested seven members of Hamas on Saturday.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51135

Abbas: Hamas planning to overthrow West Bank gov't
Hamas is planning to overthrow the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank with the help of external forces, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday. Meanwhile, Fatah officials in Ramallah revealed that some Hamas leaders had received financial aid from former PA chairman Yasser Arafat. Documents released by the officials showed that the Hamas leaders had received thousands of dollars from Arafat in the 1990s.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380675509&pagename=JPost%252FJPArticle%252FShowFull

Hamas plans no militant West Bank takeover
A senior Hamas leader affirmed on Monday that its movement was not planning to take control of West Bank by force. "Hamas will not carry out military termination (of anarchy) in the West Bank as what had done in Gaza," Mahmoud Zahar, a Gaza-based Hamas hardliner told Palestine daily, a pro-Hamas newspaper.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/29/content_6971708.htm

Hamas spokesperson brands Abbas "submissive"
Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum on Monday branded Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "submissive", after the latter voiced his opposition to the alternative fall summit, scheduled for Novemeber, in Damascus.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51155

Despite promises of support, Fayyad facing budget woes
An impending drop in revenues and a lack of direct budget support for Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's government is raising the prospect of a large cash shortage starting in January, Western officials said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29441453.htm

Israeli Party Threatens to Quit Govt:
A key partner in the coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Sunday that he would withdraw from the government if an upcoming Israeli-Palestinian meeting includes negotiations on core issues of the conflict.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7030147,00.html

Lieberman sets party 'red lines' ahead of summit
As Israel prepares to stake out its negotiating position opposite the Palestinians as part of the upcoming Annapolis peace summit, Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) is due to present a list of demands, or "red lines", to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday detailing his party's conditions for remaining in the government.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=917704&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

American Jews act to prevent division of Jerusalem
18 Jewish organizations in US establish umbrella group to prevent future division of Holy City. Campaign leader: Jerusalem belongs to all Jews even those that don't live in Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3465075,00.html

Video: Palestinians systematically tortured in Israeli jails: Click Here to Watch This Short Video.
http://palestinianpundit.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-palestinians-systematically.html

The First Nation to Legalize Torture: Inside Israel's Military Courts
Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hajjar10292007.html

The right of return (to Britain)
Thousands of people and one very active Internet site have been busy these days with Khaled Al-Mudallal's right to return - that is, his right to return to the University of Bradford in England. Mudallal, 22, was supposed to be devoting his entire attention right now to his last year of studies for a bachelor's degree in business administration. But instead, he is stuck in Rafah and cannot see how he will be able to leave the Gaza Strip and finish his studies. He is not the only person in such a predicament. More than 6,000 people have requested to leave Gaza - one-10th of them students who are studying abroad and have already missed the start of the academic year. But Israel is not allowing them to travel to Egypt and continue onward to their respective places of study from there.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917828.html

Separation Barrier cuts off children from Tel 'Adasa, which is in East Jerusalem, and their school in Bir Nebala
Sixty-eight Palestinians, twenty-six children among them, live in the area called Tel 'Adasa, in East Jerusalem, on land Israel annexed in 1967, near the 'Atarot industrial area and Begin Road (Route 404). West of this road, on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel, Israel built a section of the Separation Barrier, which separates the residents of Tel 'Adasa from the adjacent town, Bir Nebala, which lies outside Jerusalem 's municipal borders. Although all the residents of Tel 'Adasa have dwelled permanently in their community for dozens of years, and many were even born there, Israel has never recognized them as residents of Jerusalem, and they have not been given Israeli identity cards. As a result, the Israeli authorities consider them to be staying illegally in East Jerusalem . They are technically forbidden to enter or stay in Jerusalem (even in their own homes) or receive any services provided by the state.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EKOI-78F32N?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Refugee rappers voice disgust at Lebanon camps
"Battalion 5" might conjure up images of the next big computer game, but in Lebanon it's a group of musicians who express the misery of life in Palestinian refugee camps through rap. Inspired by the likes of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the five 20-something men scatter their lyrics with references to badly built houses, a lack of electricity and bad schools -- all part of daily life in a Palestinian camp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2310023320071029

FACTBOX-Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL234446420071029

Fifty-first anniversary of Kufer Qassem massacre
The residents of Kufer Qassem, a Palestinian village now located inside Israeli territory, on Monday remember the fifty-first anniversary of an Israeli massacre in the village.On October 29, 1956, Israeli soldiers imposed a total siege on the village, shortly after which 49 civilians, among them women and children, were mercilessly slaughtered.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51153

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine -- round two
Having sent up numerous trial balloons over the past several weeks, Israel now will work on shutting down the Gaza Strip. Having kept it virtually sealed off from the outside world ever since Hamas beat Fatah for control of it, Israel now plans to use creeping electric power outages to make life in that open-air prison totally intolerable. Since no major power appears to have objected loudly enough to the trial balloons, Israel seems confident it can shut Gaza down without significant political repercussions.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=155960

OPT: Rekindling childhood in Jenin
We arrived in Jenin just hours after two Palestinians had been killed on the outskirts of the city. Sheikh Khalid Al-Rayiq and Muhammed Jawabra were both armed fighters for the Islamic Jihad Al-Quds Brigades. They were assassinated in the early hours of Tuesday morning by an Israeli undercover unit. Nine local Palestinians were arrested in the same operation.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SSHN-78FEEU?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Palestine is not a piece of real estate for Mahmoud Abbas
Abbas reportedly may be willing to accept the Israeli-American view, and, now, the French view, that there is no way the refugees can return to their original homes. There have been real fears of late that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas may compromise fundamental Palestinian national rights for the sake of "reaching peace with Israel." According to insiders within Abbas' immediate circles, "the President!" may be willing and ready to offer far-reaching concessions to the Israeli apartheid state on three major issues.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/10/29/palestine_is_not_a_piece_of_real_estate_

Palestinian soccer team misses World Cup qualifier, blames Israel
The Palestinian soccer team said it missed its World Cup qualifying match at Singapore because of Israeli travel restrictions. The team didn't show for Sunday's game because 18 of its players and officials live in the Gaza Strip, according to Jamal Abu Hasheesh, spokesman for the Palestinian soccer federation.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=918131&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Israelis, Palestinians connect in U.S.
A new film about a meeting between two mothers over the deaths of their daughters in Jerusalem, a New York play set in the West Bank and a ceramic art exhibit are each being hailed for getting Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=917780&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Engaging Hamas and Hizballah
Nothing could be easier in the present atmosphere than to accuse anyone who calls for recognition of and dialogue with Hamas, Hizballah and other Islamist movements of being closet supporters of reactionary "extremism" or naive fellow travelers of "terrorists." This tactic is not surprising coming from neoconservatives and Zionists. What is novel is to see it expressed in supposedly progressive quarters.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9066.shtml

Theatre review: "Sunlight at Midnight"
Twenty-five years after the brutal massacre of Palestinian refugees living in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, the Palestine Theatre in Motion group commemorate the tragedy through theatre. Produced by Sami Metwasi and Razanne Carmey on a shoestring budget, the play includes a cast of seven actors, including an outstanding performance by Najla Said, the daughter of the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9062.shtml

Jim Miles: Uncertain Outcomes: The Israeli-Palestine Question
Ali Abunimah's book, One Country – A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, is consistent with his arguments on "The Current".
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-10290743937.htm

J.A. Miller: 90th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration
The timing of his declaration on November 2, 1917 -- those early heady days of the Russian Revolution -- indicates Balfour certainly had red reduction on his mind.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-10290744101.htm

The importance of a failed summit
Do not belittle the Annapolis summit. Despite all the prophecies of failure, justified as they are, this summit could still make an important contribution to the history of Israeli-Arab negotiations: For the first time, it will become crystal-clear who aspires toward peace and, more important, who flees from it as if from fire. Israel is going to Annapolis as if by force. The prime minister's hands are tied. If he were to dare to raise the core issues, which are the only thing to be discussed there, then his political fate would be sealed. Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu have already announced that in such an event, they will bring down his government. One can assume that Ehud Olmert, the survivor, is aware of this danger. Despite the lofty agreements that he will achieve - or not, it will seem as if his biweekly talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas never took place. Eli Yishai won't permit it, Avigdor Lieberman is making threats and even Ehud Barak is making sour faces. An Israel that refuses to discuss the core issues is an Israel that does not want peace. There's no other way to put it.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917818.html

Steep rise in child sexual assault complaints among Haredis
The National Council for the Child reports a steep rise in recent weeks in the number of requests for help from child sexual assault victims and their parents. Council head Yitzhak Kadman found that 30 percent of the new requests came from the ultra-Orthodox community, which had previously almost never contacted the organization about sexual assault.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=918063&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7

UN official: 48 African refugees missing since deported by IDF
Concern is growing about the well-being of the 48 African refugees, most of them Sudanese, who have been unaccounted for since they were detained by Egyptian security forces more than two months ago after being deported by the IDF to Sinai. At least five of the detainees were deported back to Sudan, one was allegedly tortured in Egypt and, according to UN officials, the government of Hosni Mubarak is refusing to disclose where any of the people it imprisoned are.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=917776&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Ukraine to Israel: Recognize 1930s famine as genocide
Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko is expected to ask Israel to recognize the genocide of the Ukrainian people in the 1930s by their communist government when he visits here in about two weeks, sources said. Israel is not expected to accede to the request, which has won the support of Jewish community leaders in Ukraine, so as not to damage its relationship with Vladimir Putin's government at a sensitive time.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917789.html