Israeli PM Olmert seeks to tighten grip on West Bank settlement building
Olmert has ordered the Housing Ministry not to unilaterally issue any additional building permits on occupied land in the West Bank, Israeli officials said on Friday. Olmert was caught off guard by a series of Housing Ministry announcements on settlements that have opened a rift in month-old peace talks with the Palestinians, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The anti-settlement group Peace Now said thousands of housing units approved over the years can still be built even if Olmert decided to block new tenders. "He (Olmert) can stop it. He has the authority to say,  'We've already approved it but we're not going to let you build'," said Settlement Watch Director Hagit Ofran. The YESHA settler movement's spokesman, Yishai Hollander, said a freeze on new tenders would amount to 'another surrender to the Palestinians and Americans'.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL28333359

 
Army radio report: Israel offers settlement concessions in advance of Bush visit
(AFP) Orders have been given to halt construction activity in the settlements of Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, and the Ariel bloc in the northern West Bank, the radio said citing housing ministry officials.Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also gave an undertaking that Israel would invite no new tenders for housing units in settlements in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the radio said. But he refused to freeze an appeal for bids that had already been issued for new construction in the east Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa, known to the Palestinians as Jebel Abu Ghneim.
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2007/12/28/israel_offers_settlement_concessions_ahead_of_bush_visit_report/afp/  

 
Palestinian pilgrims stranded at Egyptian Red Sea port over Gaza Strip border dispute
More than 1700 Palestinian pilgrims returning from Mecca are waiting on a ship outside the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba after refusing to agree to return to the Gaza Strip through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing. The Gazan pilgrims have been at sea for more than 30 hours now, having forced the crew of the ship not to return to Jordan. The pilgrims are asking to return to the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian-Palestinian controlled Rafah crossing. Members of Hamas and other political factions will be seized on sight if they attempt to pass through an Israeli controlled checkpoint.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26922

 
Hamas-allied police ban Fatah-organized festival on New Year's Day
Jamal Jarrah, the Deputy Director-General of Police in the de facto government of the Gaza Strip said Fatah leaders would not commit to 'police standards' required for the protection of civilians. He denied that the decision was politically motivated. Jarrah said he would not allow a repeat of the violence that marred Fatah-organized rallies commemorating the death of Yasser Arafat in November. Gaza Strip police detained a number of Fatah activists in An-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The police said the detainees were "troublemakers."
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26928

 
Islamic Jihad militant dies of wounds from Israeli airstrike
A Palestinian fighter wounded in an Israeli air strike that killed a senior militant in the Gaza Strip earlier this week died in hospital on Saturday, medics said. Ibrahim al-Loh, 28, from the armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad group, was severely wounded in an Israeli strike that killed one of the organisation's senior commanders. His death brings to 6,011 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.
http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=071229164352.hhziak8o.php

 
Editorial: More of the same
The Israel-Egypt diplomatic squabble is clearly continuation of Israeli attempts to keep international focus away from matters that matter. Cairo is understandably displeased at the US Congress' decision to suspend $100 million worth of annual military aid, with only official lines from Tel Aviv and Washington failing to see a very prominent Israeli hand in molding Congress' opinion. To Arab capitals expressing concern since well before Annapolis, the only unknown was what exactly Israel would do to divert attention from continuing settlement expansion in the West Bank, since the core issue of freezing settlement activity was to precede all else.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/editorial/2007/December/editorial_December62.xml&section=editorial&col=  

 
Israeli troops seize Al-Aqsa Brigades commander, four others in connection with Hebron shooting
The raid comes a day after Palestinian fighters killed two Israeli settlers in a drive-by shooting near Hebron. The Al-Aqsa Brigades Media Center said commander Ahmed Muhammad Abu Sitteh, also known as Abu Suleiman, was detained late on Friday night. Israeli officials confirmed the raid and the detention of the five Palestinians, accusing them of involvement in Friday's drive-by shooting that killed two off-duty Israeli soldiers, both residents of the Kiryat Arba settlement, near Hebron. The Al-Aqsa Brigades denied any involvement in the attack.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26932

 
Official says PA dismantling Al-Aqsa and other militant groups
"There is no Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades any more," Interior Minister Abdel-Razak al-Yahya told Voice of Palestine radio, referring to Fatah's largest armed group. The pledge by Yahya came one day after Palestinian militants killed two Israelis who were hiking near the West Bank city of Hebron. Two of the militants were also killed in an ensuing gun battle. Western diplomats questioned the government's ability to disarm Fatah militants on a larger scale, noting al-Aqsa's decentralized command and control structure. A unit of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the Gaza Strip issued a statement in the Gaza Strip accusing Yahya of being a 'collaborator' who follows 'American and Zionist masters'. "We will pursue Jihad and resistance until we liberate Palestine from the Zionists," the statement said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939476.html

 
Islamic Jihad vows not to disarm
A senior leader of Islamic Jihad in Gaza said on Saturday that his movement would not disarm since resistance against Israel was a way to achieve the Palestinian people's goals. "For us, the resistance was not our aim but a way to reach the goals of the Palestinian people who are suffering from the occupation and have no other choices to face the Israeli aggression," said Naffez Azzam, a senior Jihad leader in Gaza City.    Azzam's remarks came in response to earlier statements by Interior Minister of the Western-backed Palestinian government in West Bank saying al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, armed wing of Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas, was dismantled.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/29/content_7338320.htm

 
Israeli military raids Hebron hospital in unsuccessful search for  two wounded fighters
After a shootout Friday near Hebron that left two Israeli soldier/settlers and two Palestinian fighters dead, Israeli forces launched a full-on assault on the city to try to find two additional fighters who were wounded, but escaped. The troops laid siege to the entire city, forcing residents to remain under house arrest while soldiers took over every part of the city of Hebron, searching for the two wounded fighters. Soldiers invaded al-Ahli hospital, in violation of international human rights conventions, and searched through patients' rooms looking for the two fighters. The soldiers harassed patients and doctors, destroying belongings and equipment in their search. All the while, helicopters hovered overhead. All four of the fighters involved in the firefight were identified as members of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52139

 
Fayyad vows to continue West Bank clampdown
His comments come a day after Palestinian fighters killed two Israeli settlers in a drive-by shooting near the city of Hebron. Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians following the attack. Fayyad toured the northern West Bank city of Nablus at noon on Saturday. Nablus is the flagship of a new Western-backed security plan that allows Palestinian Authority (PA) troops to redeploy after years of Israeli attacks. Israeli forces still raid the city and its surrounding areas frequently.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26933

 
Machsom Watch: Welcome to Hebron
We arrived at a very narrow alley way where the owner of the invaded house was already waiting for us. The house was one of the very old ones in the Kasba, with steep stairs and small rooms. The 2 rooms of the family were in complete devastation. Clothes, linen, toys, dishes, broken chinaware, photos, pictures were thrown on the floor together with the doors of the wardrobe. The soldiers were looking for signs and symbols of Hamas, such as flags, flyers, propaganda material. Everybody who saw the big portraits of Arafat on the wall could understand that nothing of this kind could be found here. But sometimes, as we learned, the soldiers themselves plant these objects in the rooms and 'find' them afterwards.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24289

 
PA security forces detain three armed Israelis, two of them soldiers in civilian clothes
in front of the Nativity Church in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Saturday. The two male soldiers, one 19 years old, the other 37, and the sister of one of the soldiers, 24 years old, were all transferred to Israeli custody after being questioned by Palestinian police. Israeli sources said the three had traveled to Bethlehem as tourists. Undercover Israeli soldiers had infiltrated Bethlehem on December 5th, shooting Palestinian security officer Mohammad Salah who attempted to stop them after their car sped through a routine traffic checkpoint. Israelis are prohibited from traveling to the Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A, as designated under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26924

 
Conference in Bethlehem in support of nonviolent resistance
At least 500 Palestinians, joined by a number of International solidarity groups and some Israelis attended a conference in Bethlehem on Friday which was organized by the Palestinian National Initiative to support the popular nonviolent resistance against the Wall and the Israeli occupation. A number of speakers from different parts of the West Bank spoke about their nonviolent struggle in their respective villages and towns. During the conference, the Nonviolence Network in Arab Countries was introduced by a speech by one of it steering committee members. The Network was recently established after the first meeting of its General Assembly on December 6-0 in Amman, Jordan.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52135

 
Alasra Centre warns of continuous medical negligence in Israeli detention centres
The centre appealed for the Red Cross and Human Rights organizations to intervene to bring and end to this misconduct. According to Alasra, scores of kidnapped Palestinians are dying as a direct result of the medical negligence policy in Israeli detention centres. The centre claimed that there are countless Palestinians inside Israeli centres who are suffering from serious diseases but receive no medical treatment and are denied visits from their relatives.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52102

 
Israeli army invades Kufer Dan village west of Jenin at dawn Saturday, damages electricity network
Local sources reported that troops conducted a house to house search in the village; no kidnappings were reported but the troops damaged some of the residents' homes. The sources added that during the invasion in the village troops opened fire randomly at the homes and other buildings in the village; some rounds hit the local power generator causing a total blac out in the village.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52142

 
Hamas: PA forces detain 14 Hamas members in West Bank
According to a Hamas statement, the security sources detained a Hamas supporter named Yousif Al Matur from the village of Sa'ir, north of Hebron. In Nablus, the group said, the Palestinian Authority's forces detained two men named Sahib Ash Sha'er and Sahib Azem from the town of Sabastiya, and Muhamad Rihan and 'Isam Rihan from Tal Ba'd, near Nablus. Others were arrested in the town of Ras Al 'In.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26930

 
A bad investment
Israel is clearly the debtor, with at least 40 years' worth of outstanding liabilities owed to the Palestinians in terms of expropriated land and compensation due. And the Palestinians are the eternal creditors, who rely on the rest of the world to act as bailiffs in order to redress the balance and ensure they are paid back in full. However, regardless of the constant schemes of arrangement that the Israeli government enters into in order to satisfy the onlooking world, they manage to display a remarkable eel-like ability to wriggle out of fulfilling their promises. Witness the recent Har Homa affair. In the world of the settler apologists, nothing's ever their fault - it's always someone else who should take the blame. The fact that the government is still subsidising and bankrolling the settlers' cancerous presence to this day is to Israel's continuing shame.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/12/a_bad_investment.html

 
26.8% of Israelis say Sharon was punished [by God] for disengagement
A poll taken ahead of the January 4 anniversary of the stroke that ended former prime minister Ariel Sharon's career found that 26.8% of Israelis believe Sharon was punished for the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The numbers were more than twice as large among haredim, where 56.6%% agreed with a question about whether it was right to "connect Sharon's health conditions to his part in the expulsion and view it as a punishment."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517238213&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 
Struggling to be heard
Robert Bray, senior US communications strategist, helps Israeli Arabs access extensive media coverage; 'It's [difficult] to be heard when you're a non-entity on both ends of the media,' he says – n contrast to more important news, such as the latest sports scores or celebrity scandals, Israeli Arabs find it extremely difficult to bring their concerns and struggles to national attention. Where as Israeli Arabs constitute 20% of Israel's population, they only draw a meager 1% of media coverage – most of it negative in nature.  Several Arab organizations, however, are now fighting back.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3487020,00.html

 
Palestinians make three feature films despite occupation, scant audience, and little funding
RAMALLAH, West Bank – In a flip-flop of reality, a surly Palestinian soldier guards a West Bank checkpoint, as a line of haggard Israelis wait to have their ID cards examined. The scene reversing the roles of occupier and occupied is from a satirical Palestinian film – one of three full-length feature films, along with a few shorts, that were shot in the West Bank this year. The films tell stories through Palestinian eyes, trying to get beyond the simplicity of news coverage, which the artists say often reduces Palestinians to either militants or victims. "Humor, passion, beauty, all of it is overlooked," said director Najwa Najjar.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20071228-1124-film-palestinians-movies.html

 
New version of old self-defense group guards Jewish farmland
The members of New Shomer see themselves as Zaid's successors in protecting the grazing lands of the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. Their struggle highlights the conflict between Jewish and Arab herders in the area. Because of the increasing numbers of both Jewish and Bedouin ranchers and the decrease in grazing land, disputes have been on the rise between them in recent years. Herds invade neighboring pastures, fences are cut and fires started. Many Jewish cattle farmers say that the authorities, especially the police, are not doing enough to protect them from Bedouin herders, and therefore they have to protect themselves.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939403.html

 
Israel may get 'super-cannon' from US
Israel is trying to buy a super rapid-fire cannon from America to protect strategic installations from primitive Palestinian rockets. Called the Phalanx B, or C-Ram, the system was sent to Iraq last year and is used by the Americans to protect the Green Zone in Baghdad and by the British to protect their forces in the country's south. According to top officials, while the system would not be effective in protecting a city like Sderot,it could be ideal for protecting strategic installations such as the Ashkelon power plant and the army's Zikim base, frequently targeted by Gazan rocket squads.
http://www.jewishtelegraph.co.uk/world_6.html

 
Federal appeals court tosses out $156 million award in terrorism suit
A federal appeals court overturned a $156 million award Friday against U.S.-based Muslim activists for their involvement in the terrorist death of an American teenager in the West Bank more than a decade ago. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that Stanley and Joyce Boim did not show a causal link between contributions from the American Islamic charities to the militant organization Hamas and the shooting death of their 17-year-old son, David.
http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2007/12/28/ap-state-il/d8tqmpgg1.txt