Headlines for 04-18-08

Israeli troops kill militant in West Bank


Israelis kill three Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza Israeli troops killed two Palestinian militants and a teenager in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian medical and security officials said.


Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army Then there is the inter- clan Palestinian fight: "We were told to go over there and find out what was happening. Our [platoon] commander was a bit screwed in the head. So anyway, we would locate houses, and he'd tell us: 'OK, anyone you see armed with stones or whatever, I don't care what ? shoot.' Everyone would think it's the clan fight..." Did the company commander know? "No one knew. Platoon's private initiative, these actions." Did you hit them? "Sure, not just them. Anyone who came close ... Particularly legs and arms. Some people also sustained abdominal hits ... I think at some point they realised it was soldiers, but they were not sure. Because they could not believe soldiers would do this, you know." Wow.


Carter Calls Gaza Blockade a Crime and Atrocity


Carter: Gaza residents 'starving to death'


Tank shell that sprays deadly darts killed cameraman in Gaza, say doctors Mr Shana set up his tripod and faced back east in the direction of the Israeli border to film a tank perhaps a kilometre and a half away across the fields. The last video from Mr Shana's camera showed the tank opening fire. Two seconds later, after the shot raises dust around the tank's gun, the tape goes blank ? presumably marking the precise moment at which he was hit. Reuters reported yesterday that a frame-by-frame examination of the tape shows the shell exploding and dark shapes shooting out of it.


Palestinian journalist killed by metal darts from Israeli shell Reuters said x-rays showed several inch-long darts, known as flechettes, embedded in Shana's chest and legs as well as his flak jacket. His jacket was marked with a fluorescent "Press" sign and his car, which was not armoured, was marked Press and TV.



Probe sought of whether Israel targeted media crew "Human Rights Watch's investigations at the site found evidence suggesting that an Israeli tank crew fired recklessly or deliberately at the journalist's team," the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.


Video: final footage of Reuters journalist killed in Gaza Footage of Fadel Shana, 23, being killed by a tank shell in the Gaza Strip has been released by the news agency, which said that the cameraman was hit despite clear markings that showed him to be a journalist.


7 Qassams land in south; no injuries


Netanyahu: Abbas-Olmert peace deal will be invalid Opposition leader and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu hinted Thursday that if he were to be elected prime minister, he would not honor any peace agreement struck between current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, if one should be achieved.


Arab paper: Olmert offers Abbas 64% of W. Bank


Gaza op possible after Bush visit There is a heightened sense in the security establishment that a broad-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip is necessary this summer to deal a severe blow to Hamas's infrastructure, sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, following the death of three soldiers in a Gaza ambush.


Rabbi Eliyahu: Life of one yeshiva boy worth more than 1,000 Arabs


Zahar: Gazans can do 'no less' than rise up like Warsaw Ghetto Jews "Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less," Zahar wrote in the newspaper.


Israel plans 100 houses in West Bank settlements In an advertisement in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the ministry invited construction companies to bid for the rights to build 48 homes in Ariel, a major settlement, and 52 homes in a smaller settlement called Elkana.


Egypt cuts fuel supplies to Gaza EGYPT has shut off fuel supplies to the Sinai Desert south of Gaza to deter Hamas from again blowing up the border wall and allowing a mass infiltration of Palestinians seeking supplies.


Thousands attend funerals in Gaza


Carter in Hamas 'ceasefire call' Hamas spokesmen said Mr Carter had asked for it to stop rocket attacks on Israel and to enter talks for the release of an Israeli captive.


Tamimi slams the Israeli attacks in Gaza as 18 residents were killed n Wednesday


Media watchdog IPI condemns killing of Reuters cameraman The International Press Institute, a media watchdog, condemned on Friday the killing in the Gaza Strip this week of a Palestinian cameraman working for the Reuters news service.


U.N. rights envoy for territories urges U.N. peace role John Dugard, a South African jurist who has served in the independent U.N. post since 2001, condemned Wednesday's violence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where 17 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were killed.


Trying to kill the truth Palestinian cameraman Fadel Shana'a in an undated photo. Having already survived an Israeli missile attack that targeted his press vehicle in August 2006, Fadel vowed to continue filming in Gaza. "The only time I'll stop filming is if I die or lose my legs." He was indeed killed by an Israeli tank shell on April 16th, 2008


Fury as Carter meets leader of Hamas The former US president Jimmy Carter yesterday met the influential Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, in Syria in defiance of furious objections from the US and Israel. Former President Jimmy Carter will go down in history as one of the boldest and most courageous Americans of all time.


Palestinians mark Prisoner's Day across the West Bank


Reuters cameraman's funeral draws thousands in Gaza


White House: Carter, Hamas meeting not 'useful'


Israel allows 20 Palestinian police stations to reopen


Deputy FM Whbee: Israel racially discriminates against its citizens


Challenge to renewed boycott bid The University and College Union?s attempt to launch a new academic boycott of Israel could be scuppered by legal challenges from the anti-boycott movement


PCC rejects complaint against JC


Israel Doesn?t Want to Know Carter Any More


Mayor to raise funds for E. J'lem Arabs to block Hamas Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski is planning to enlist world Jewry in a fund-raising drive for East Jerusalem's Arabs, in a bid to counter Hamas influence in local schools.


Dude, Where... Is Osama bin Laden? A young Palestinian man laments that "9/11 legitimized the American presence in the Middle East" and insists that "We are fighting to make our homeland. It's none of their [al-Qaeda's] business."


Palestinians learning independence comes with a price Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is cracking down on scofflaws as part of his effort to bring law and order to the West Bank after years of conflict with Israel, and to reassure donor countries
that they are not subsidizing deadbeats with their billions of dollars of aid.


http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Netanyahu_Warns_World_/2008/04/18/89102.html


Morrissey: Palestinians ask Morrissey to cancel Israel gig


Hebron settlers threaten German MPs A group of Jewish settlers in Hebron insulted and threatened a visiting German parliamentary delegation touring the West Bank city yesterday. The German embassy in Israel protested to the Foreign Ministry that Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police officers did nothing to stop the settlers' attacks. The German group cut short its visit to the city after the incident.


Clinton vows 'massive' U.S. retaliation if Iran attacks Israel


Israel must treat Americans equally Palestinian-Americans, even those born in the U.S., are routinely forced to surrender their U.S. passports; Israel requires these U.S. citizens to secure a Palestinian travel document upon entry and exit. Others are denied entry to visit their families; still others are denied the opportunity to remain with their families, bury their dead in ancestral plots or conduct normal business on family-owned properties.


Caterpillar to discuss West Bank concerns with Methodists


Evangelical Lutheran Church in America


Could Israel use submarines against Iran? Anticipating a showdown with Iran, Israel decides secretly to deploy a submarine off its arch-foe's coast.


Professor in Deadlocked Terrorism Case Could Face a New Indictment Sami al-Arian, a computer science professor imprisoned for more than five years after pleading guilty to a single terrorism-related charge when his trial deadlocked, is back in legal limbo this week. He faces either deportation or a new indictment that could extend his incarceration for years.


GOP Rep.: Revoke Jimmy Carter's passport for Hamas visits "He's just unilaterally going off on his own and undermining everything the international community and the United States is (sic) trying to do," protested Republican U.S. House Rep. Sue Myrick (NC-09) today in the call to revoke the passport of former president Jimmy Carter.


Syria and US at Odds Over Hariri Probe In asking the U.N. Security Council for an extension of the mandate of his probe, investigator Daniel Bellemare said recently that evidence pointed to a "criminal network" being responsible for the "politically motivated" killing of Hariri. The network had pre-existed Hariri's murder, Bellemare said, and it continued to exist for some period afterward.


Last images of a Gaza reporter


Lieberman: Carter Is 'Naive' at Best


Rice marks 25th anniversary of Beirut embassy attack Rice used the commemoration to hint at Washington's accusations of interference by Syria into the affairs of neighboring Lebanon, with politicians in Beirut "afraid for their very lives" as the embattled government remains locked in a long-running standoff with the Hezbollah-led opposition.


Arrow successfully simulates intercept of mock Shihab missile Israel is talking with Boeing about manufacturing the new and improved Arrow 3. Israel hopes the U.S. Congress will approve funding for the project. US funding?


On 12th Anniversary of IDF Shelling UN Compound CCR Calls On Israel to Compensate Qana Survivors Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), commemorates the 12th anniversary of the 1996 shelling by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of the UN compound in Qana, Lebanon and calls for justice and for Israel to compensate the survivors. The bombardment killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians who had taken shelter there ? about half of them children ? and seriously injured even more.


Thank you Jimmy Carter for everything, even for using the apartheid word


Jerusalem will never be united


Methodists defer key Israeli divestment measure


Palestinian motor racing gets a turbo charge


'Iran smuggling arms into Gaza by sea' Iran has stepped up its efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip by using floatable devices that it drops near the waters off the Gaza coast to be picked up by Palestinian fisherman, senior defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.




Henry Siegman: Tough Love for Israel for all the sins attributable to the Palestinians--and they are legion, including inept and corrupt leadership, failed institution-building and the murderous violence of rejectionist groups--there is no prospect for a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, primarily because Israel's various governments, from 1967 until today, have never had the intention of allowing such a state to come into being.


We must look at why the Arab world hates us If America has supplied most of the bombs, tanks and support to devastate Lebanon, flatten Palestinian refugee camps and keep many Palestinian natives captive in the land they claimed as home for 2,000 years and you were a Muslim, would you think kindly of us? What if you knew America vetoed most of the U.N. resolutions to stop Israeli injustice toward the Palestinians? Would you not feel maybe we were racist? Would you not, as a Muslim, feel the Americans hated them?



Israeli minister tells Carter he would meet Hamas A religious Israeli cabinet minister has offered to meet the leadership of Palestinian Hamas to ask for the release of a soldier held in Gaza, his spokesman said on Friday, a move which would break with government policy


Proposed House resolution hits Hamas The U.S. House of Representatives is introducing a resolution condemning Hamas, pegged to President Jimmy Carter's meetings with a top representative of the terrorist organization. Why is this a matter for Capitol Hill, particularly given the current economic climate in America? Do our legislators not have anything better to do than to introduce resolution after resolution that have no bearing whatsoever on the vast majority of the American people? Unbelievable.