Palestinians: home demolitions hurt peace talks
JULY 16,10 9:55AM
RAMALLAH, West Bank – The Palestinians have warned a U.S. envoy that it will be difficult to revive peace talks if Washington cannot prevent Israel from demolishing Arab homes or building for Jews in east Jerusalem.White House envoy George Mitchell is trying to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday to agree to direct negotiations with Israel. Mitchell is to tell Abbas what Israel is prepared to do to encourage him take that step.Abbas has said he won't return to direct negotiations without a comprehensive — and elusive — Israeli settlement freeze.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Friday he wrote to Mitchell that Israel's current policies in east Jerusalem undermine attempts to revive negotiations. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as a capital.
EU chief diplomat to visit Gaza, meet leaders
JULY 16,10
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Europe stands ready to help reopen crossing points for goods to Gaza, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Friday ahead of a visit to the Palestinian territory.Ashton begins a three-day trip to the Middle East on Saturday during which she will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and international envoy Tony Blair.She makes her second visit to the Gaza Strip in four months on Sunday after Israel pledged to ease its blockade of the Hamas-run territory following an Israeli raid on an aid flotilla that left nine Turkish activists dead.The European Union has been calling for an urgent and fundamental change of policy regarding the closure of Gaza which can lead to a durable solution to the situation, Ashton said in a statement.We have welcomed the announcements made by Israel following the flotilla incident and are now awaiting their implementation, she said.We stand ready to support the opening of the Gaza crossings for the traffic of goods to and from Gaza.Europe hopes to reactivate its customs mission for the surveillance of the Rafah crossing, which was created in 2005 but shut down in June 2007 after the Islamist militant group Hamas took control of Gaza.Ashton has no plans to meet with any Hamas officials.Her visit comes ahead of a separate trip planned later in July by the foreign ministers of Italy, Spain, German, Britain and France.
Israelis see Obama as pro-Palestinian: poll
Fri Jul 16, 4:30 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Forty-six percent of Israelis believe US President Barack Obama is more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, according to an opinion poll published by the English-language Jerusalem Post on Friday.Only 10 percent of the 515 Jewish Israelis interviewed thought Obama was more pro-Israel, 34 percent said he was neutral and 10 percent did not express an opinion.The poll suggests the July 6 White House meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama did not significantly change Israelis' perceptions of the US president.A similar survey in March showed that 48 percent thought Obama was more pro-Palestinian and nine percent thought he was more pro-Israeli.The poll was taken between Monday and Wednesday and has a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.
US sees direct Mideast peace talks likely
Thu Jul 15, 1:38 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has a strong belief that direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will resume at some point in time, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Thursday.This is a decision that is first and foremost up to Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Crowley said when asked about the likelihood of direct peace talks.I think we have a strong belief that at some point in time, direct negotiations will be renewed. Whether that's days from now, weeks from now, I don't think we're in a position to say at this point.The comments came as US envoy George Mitchell began a new round of discussions in the region.Our overall purpose with any conversation that we have with Palestinian and Israeli authorities is to move to direct negotiations, Crowley said.Hopes of new talks have been spurred by the visit to the United States this month of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who emerged from White House talks with US President Barack Obama pledging he wanted a deal.Obama said he hoped direct talks would start before an Israeli freeze on settlement building in Arab east Jerusalem expires on September 25.Netanyahu said there were concrete measures the Israelis were willing to make to pave the way, but he has not yet promised to extend the freeze.
Libyan ship with Gaza aid docks in Egyptian port
Thu Jul 15, 12:43 pm ET
EL-ARISH, Egypt – A Libyan ship carrying aid for the impoverished Gaza Strip docked at an Egyptian port on Thursday after Israel's navy stopped it from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.The director of the port of el-Arish, Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, said the diverted ship will unload its cargo and transfer it to the Red Crescent for delivery to Gaza by land across the Egyptian border.A day earlier, Israeli missile ships stopped the aid vessel from reaching Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israel imposed the blockade after the Islamic militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the territory in June 2007.The standoff between Israel's navy and the crew of the aid vessel, the Amalthea, followed a botched Israeli raid on a similar Gaza-bound ship in May in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.The international criticism over that raid forced Israel to ease its land blockade of the territory but it has maintained the naval embargo, insisting it is vital to keep weapons out of Hamas' hands.Restrictions remain on materials like cement and steel that Israel says could be used for military purposes. Critics of the blockade say it has failed to weaken Hamas while driving Gaza's 1.5 million people deeper into poverty.The Gadhafi foundation, headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said the aid ship left Greece on Saturday carrying 2,000 tons of food and medical supplies.
Israel demolishes two West Bank homes
Thu Jul 15, 9:11 am ET
ABU AL-ARQAN, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Israeli military demolished two Palestinian houses in the West Bank on Thursday because they were built without permits, according to witnesses and the military.The 13 members of the Al-Shawamreh family, including nine children, were ordered out of the houses at dawn before earthmovers moved in to destroy the two cement structures and a well, family members said.They didn't give us enough time to evacuate everything, Mohammed al-Shawamreh told AFP as relatives and neighbours dug through the rubble.An Israeli military spokesman denied anyone lived in the houses.These specific houses were built illegally and there was no one living there, so that's why we destroyed them, the spokesman said.Israel has destroyed more than two dozen homes inhabited by more than 130 people in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, according to the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD), a human rights group.Most were built without the required permits from the military, which Palestinians and human rights groups say are extremely difficult to obtain.The demolition of houses, particularly in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, has infuriated the Western-backed Palestinian leadership, which says it undermines efforts to revive the peace process.Three homes were destroyed in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, drawing US and international condemnation ahead of the latest visit by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who was to meet with Israeli officials on Thursday.Israel occupied the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, in 1967 and has declared the entire city its eternal, indivisible capital in an annexation not recognised by the international community.The Palestinians hope to establish their promised state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and have always claimed mostly Arab east Jerusalem as their capital.
Israel defends right to raid Gaza-bound aid ships
Wed Jul 14, 9:59 am ET
GENEVA (AFP) – Israel defended during a hearing of the UN Human Rights Committee on Wednesday its right to retaliate against aid ships attempting to breach its blockade of the impoverished Gaza Strip.No ship can breach this blockade, be they civil or military ships. Whoever violates the blockade is heading for retaliation, Israeli envoy Sari Rubenstein told the committee.The blockade is legitimate, under international law... a blockade can be imposed on the sea, she insisted, during the two-day committee hearing on how Israel was applying its obligations under the UN treaty on civil and political rights.Israel came under pressure after the deadly storming of aid ships bound for Gaza at the end of May. A Libyan aid ship is currently on its way for Gaza, although it is being shadowed by several Israeli warships.Defending May's military operation, Israeli ambassador Aharon Leshno Yaar claimed that of the nine dead, seven had said they wished to die onboard these ships.
People on the aid ship say that Israeli forces opened fire as soon as they stormed the vessel, while Israel says its troops were attacked by those on the boat, forcing them to use deadly force.These are not activists for peace, but messengers of death, the ambassador charged on the second day of the UN committee session.The committee had attacked Israel for failing to apply its obligations under a treaty on civil and political rights on the occupied Palestinian territories.The UN says Israel is responsible for Gaza's 1.5 million population as it controls access to its sea and air ports, while Israel insists it is not the occupying power as it does not control territory within the Gaza Strip.I think that we cannot sweep aside with a stroke of the hand the application of the treaty in the Palestinian territories, said a member of the committee, Christine Chanet.Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in 1967 and occupied it until 2005. Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006, since when Israel has blockaded access by sea and air to the impoverished territory.Rafah in Egypt, the only crossing into Gaza not controlled by Israel, remains largely closed as its opening requires the presence of Palestinian Authority officials who were ejected by Hamas in 2007.Israeli attorney general Malkiel Blass argued however that given the rise of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Israel's withdrawal of its forces from the zone, Israel can clearly not be said to have effective control in the Gaza Strip.As such, the convention, which is a territorially bound convention, does not apply, nor was it intended to apply to areas outside its national territory, he noted.Since Israeli troops killed the nine Turks on the aid boat, global pressure has forced Israel to significantly change its policy on Gaza, and now it prevents only the import of arms and goods it says could be used to build weapons or fortifications.
Hezbollah says it has precise Israeli target list
Wed Jul 14, 8:46 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah has an extensive list of Israeli facilities to target in the event of a new conflict, the Lebanese militant group's number two Naim Qassem said in an interview published on Wednesday.We now hold a large and precise bank of Israeli targets, and Israel will have to pay the price for any step it takes, Qassem told the mass-circulation An-Nahar daily.Hezbollah has worked to develop its readiness to rise to the challenge should it arise, and we can safely say that in the past four years we have prepared ourselves far more than Israel has, he told the Arabic-language daily, which is close to the Shiite group's domestic rivals in Lebanon.But that does not mean that war is near, he added.In a separate interview with the pro-Hezbollah daily Al-Binaa, Qassem said: We have taken into account all possible scenarios for sea, land and air across all of Lebanon.What happened in 2006 is much less than what could happen in the future, he added referring to the last devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah which killed some 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.The war ended with the passage of a truce resolution by the UN Security Council which beefed up a peacekeeping force first deployed in the south when Israel began a 22-year occupation of the region in 1978.After years of warm ties with the people of southern Lebanon, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon has come under attack by civilians in recent weeks in protest against a maximum deployment exercise.In the most notable incident, villagers disarmed a French patrol and attacked them with sticks, rocks and eggs, prompting the Security Council to call on all parties to allow the peacekeeping force to move freely.Qassem said the attacks were in protest at the mistakes the troops had made.
It is only normal for townsfolk to stage peaceful protests when they see the troops moving into their villages at full force, as though they were in a state of war, and violating the known rules for their behaviour, he told An-Nahar.The Hezbollah number two insisted his party had no grievance against either UNIFIL or the 2006 truce resolution, however.Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel rose in April when the Jewish state accused Syria of delivering Scud missiles to its Lebanese ally in defiance of the truce resolution, a charge Damascus denies.The Israeli army says the Shiite group has a stock of some 40,000 rockets and this month published aerial photographs showing what it said was evidence of Hezbollah stockpiling weapons in towns and villages near the border.
Palestinians want international mediator in talks
Wed Jul 14, 6:43 am ET
SOFIA (AFP) – Direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis would make no sense without the participation of the international community, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki said on Wednesday.We have always said we need the presence of a third party. Without a third party intervention, a third party presence, this is a waste of time, Maliki said on the sidelines of an official visit to Bulgaria by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.Palestinians and Israelis have been trying to resolve their conflict via direct talks since 1991 but have produced absolutely nothing, Maliki said.Before we re-engage again, we have to draw lessons, he said.
Maliki criticised the international community saying it had pushed us -- Palestinians and Israelis -- to talk in a room and closed the room.The occupier and occupied sitting together in the same room can't be the best atmosphere, a conducive atmosphere for any kind of positive outcome. There is no parity at all, the minister said.We, the Palestinians, we do need a third party presence, he continued.Not only to sit and to watch us, but to intervene, to be a catalyst, in order to help bridging the gaps, the positions between the two sides, building proposals, and really helping the two sides moving in the right direction, Maliki said.The Palestinians froze direct negotiations in December 2008, when Israel launched a deadly offensive against Gaza to halt rocket attacks.US President Barack Obama expressed hope last week that the two sides would return to direct peace talks before end-September.Washington's Middle East envoy George Mitchell has mediated several rounds of so-called proximity talks or indirect talks since May, but without visible signs of progress.
Israel MPs push vote on Golan, east Jerusalem pullout
Wed Jul 14, 6:03 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – An Israeli parliamentary committee voted Wednesday in favour of a bill requiring a referendum prior to any possible withdrawal from east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, a committee spokesman said.The draft law on the referendum was approved Wednesday by five votes against two, he told AFP.The bill had passed a first reading in parliament in 2008 and now has committee approval to go for the two more readings needed before it can become law.It aims to make it more difficult for the government to cede territory, saying that a public referendum or a special majority of two thirds of MPs, would be necessary before withdrawal from land under Israeli sovereignty.This refers to east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, both of which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in moves not recognized by the international community.Syria has demanded the complete return of the Golan Heights as a condition for peace with Israel, while the Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
US concerned by Jerusalem home demolitions
Tue Jul 13, 4:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Tuesday raised concern about reports of home demolitions in east Jerusalem, and urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust, the US State Department said.We are concerned about reports today of a number of buildings in east Jerusalem being demolished, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.The United States has made it clear that it disagrees with some government of Israel actions in Jerusalem... and has urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust.Israel demolished a Palestinian home in east Jerusalem on Tuesday because it had been built without a permit, officials and witnesses said, in a move that drew international condemnation.Police ordered the six members of the Al-Rajabi family to remove all their belongings before an excavator moved in and destroyed the single-story concrete structure, an AFP photographer said.Another two uninhabited houses that were still under construction in another neighborhood were also destroyed, according to the photographer.We continue to oppose... unilateral actions that prejudge negotiations of the status of Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the parties through negotiations, Crowley added.Israel and the Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, and it is one of the thorny issues still to be thrashed out in negotiations towards a final peace treaty.
Israelis sue Al-Jazeera over Lebanon war reporting By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 13, 10:58 am ET
JERUSALEM – A group of 91 Israelis wounded by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 war is suing the Arab news network Al-Jazeera for $1.2 billion in a New York court for allegedly aiding the Lebanese guerrillas, their lawyer said Tuesday.Nitzana Darshan-Leitner said the suit, which was filed Monday, claims the Qatar-based news network intentionally violated Israel's military censorship regulations and reported the precise locations of rocket strikes in Israel in live broadcasts during the monthlong 2006 war.The reporting enabled Hezbollah to aim its rockets more accurately at Israeli targets, the suit alleged.There was no immediate comment from Al-Jazeera.Hezbollah launched around 4,000 rockets into Israel during the monthlong war in 2006. The fighting killed 159 Israelis and 1,200 people in Lebanon.Al-Jazeera made itself a crucial component of the Hezbollah rocket offensive. The intent was to assist the terrorists in targeting and killing civilians, said Darshan-Leitner. Without the assistance of Al-Jazeera's on-the-ground spotters, Hezbollah would have been unable to accurately aim its rockets into Israeli cities.Israel's military censor prohibited media outlets from reporting the locations of rocket strikes during the fighting, and Israeli police detained Al-Jazeera crews several times for violating the edict and broadcasting real-time information, though no formal charges were ever filed.
The lawsuit was filed on the fourth anniversary of the start of the war.Haim Kaplan, who was wounded in the first day of fighting and his northern Israel home damaged, said the lawsuit aimed to hold all those connected to the rocket attacks accountable.
Anyone involved in supporting terror should pay the price and anyone who thinks about doing so should think twice,he said.
