IMEU : From the Media

Palestinians hurt in Gaza raid (Al Jazeera)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:55:16 PST

At least seven Palestinians have been injured in a round of Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses say. They told Al Jazeera that the first raid hit a metal workshop in the Tufah district of Gaza City early on Sunday, while the second struck a workshop in Burij in central Gaza. The Israeli army confirmed the attacks, with a spokesman saying that they were launched in response to a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Fayyad: Eastern border of Palestine is Jordan (Ali Waked, Ynet News)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:50:09 PST

As opinions are being voiced in Jerusalem that the Jordan Valley will remain under Israeli control even after a Palestinian state is formed, Palestinian Prime Minsiter Salam Fayyad said Sunday that Jordan will be the eastern border of the state that will be established. At a ceremony marking the end of the police officers course in al-Faraa refugee camp, between Nablus and Jenin, Fayyad said that the PA does not seek to establish a state that will be under occupation.

Israel halts football stadium construction in West Bank (BBC)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:50:50 PST

Israel has ordered construction work on an internationally financed football stadium being built for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to be halted. Palestinian municipal authorities in al-Bireh, near Ramallah, have been told they lack the correct permit to build. This is because Israel has designated some of the plot for the planned stadium as under its exclusive control.

Palestinians to set new date for elections (The Associated Press)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:45:42 PST

Palestinian officials announced Friday that a new date for parliamentary and presidential elections will be set next month now that President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to postpone the January vote, though the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers maintain they will boycott the voting. The elections were supposed to be a central component of an Egyptian-mediated effort to reconcile Abbas and his rivals in the Islamic militant group Hamas. Months of talks, however, have failed to produce a deal, and Abbas had decided to move ahead with elections anyway, angering Hamas.

Obama returns to greater Middle East mess (Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:30:38 PST

As Barack Obama arrives home from his weeklong tour of East Asia, he confronts a growing list of ever more urgent problems in the Greater Middle East that he inherited from George W. Bush's "global war on terror". From Palestine to Pakistan, Obama, who also faces a major fight in getting his top legislative priority - health care reform - through Congress, must make a series of critical decisions within a relatively short time.

Israel building Jewish homes with one hand, destroying Arab homes with the other (Nir Hasson, Haaretz)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:27:15 PST

The World Likud movement held a cornerstone-laying ceremony yesterday for the expansion of the neighborhood of Nof Zion, despite - or possibly because of - American pressure against building in East Jerusalem. The Jewish settlement is in the middle of the Arab village of Jabal Mukkaber. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem yesterday.

Abbas confirms election delay (Al Jazeera)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:13:48 PST

Palestinian presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January will be postponed, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has confirmed. Abbas made the announcement during a televised interview with the BBC Arabic, saying that he had accepted advice not to hold the vote. "Perhaps they will be delayed by a year, or less, I don't know. What I am saying now is that I will not be a candidate," Abbas said in the interview that was broadcast on Thursday.

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti urges unity (BBC)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:50:55 PST

A jailed leader of the Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, says Palestinian factions must be united and launch a campaign to achieve statehood. Mr Barghouti said the impasse in peace talks with Israel meant there was "no excuse" for the fierce rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. "The necessary strategy is firstly ending the division," he told Reuters.

Palestinians accuse Israel settlements of diverting water (Joshua Mitnick, The Christian Science Monitor)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:45:07 PST

The Hmoud family once prospered in this arid Palestinian farm village by cultivating banana and eggplant crops, earning enough to send a son abroad for medical school and to build a house with a showy staircase and a two-story window. But drought has decimated the spring that is Auja's only agricultural water source, and fields once filled with palm trees are now empty. Village residents have been forced to find work in the greenhouses near Jewish settlements that are hooked up to Israeli water mains.

Churches criticise expansion plan (The Jordan Times)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:40:33 PST

The World Council of Churches (WCC) called Thursday for "resistance" to Israel's decision to allow the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. WCC said the decision "may destroy any chance for peace", Agence France-Presse reported. Secretary General Reverend Samuel Kobia called on organisations related to the council "to act with resolve, in concert... to reverse this decision of the Israeli government and the settlement programme it represents".