December 7th

Israeli army arrests 21 Palestinians in West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua December 7, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli army on Wednesday arrested 21 Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian sources said. Among them, 12 people, including officials from Islamic Hamas movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were arrested in the city of Nablus , Palestinian security sources said. Other raids took place in Hebron and Bethlehem where a total of nine were arrested. Israel Radio reported that West Bank raids are targeting wanted Palestinians, and they take place on a daily basis. » Read more

Israeli troops kill gunman in Gaza -medics ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Nidal al-Mughrabi - December 6, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli forces clashed with members of the militant Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing one gunman and wounding another in a rare cross-border incursion, witnesses and hospital officials said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the air force had struck two groups of gunmen preparing to launch rockets. But she had no immediate comment on a ground operation, in which Hamas said a small number of armoured vehicles crossed about 150 m (yards) beyond the border, east of Gaza City. Hamas also dispatched fighters to the area. » Read more

NGO: Israel army fails Palestinian complainants ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) December 7, 2011 - 1:00am The Israeli army's inquiries into Palestinian complaints against its soldiers are frequently flawed and less than four percent result in an indictment, an Israeli rights group said on Wednesday. In a report entitled "Alleged Investigation," Yesh Din said more than a third of the 3,150 complaints against Israeli troops filed between 2000 and 2010, were dismissed without a criminal investigation. » Read more

Fatah: No elections until unity government formed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency December 7, 2011 - 1:00am RAMALLAH -- Senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said Wednesday that a unity government must be formed before elections can be held. During a meeting in Cairo on Nov. 24, Fatah leader and President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal approved a two-page document saying they would establish a joint government after elections in May 2012. But on Wednesday, al-Ahmad told Voice of Palestine radio: "It is illegal to run elections while we have two governments." » Read more

Settlers torch West Bank mosque ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency December 7, 2011 - 1:00am SALFIT (Ma'an) -- A mosque was set on fire on Wednesday by settlers in the West Bank village of Bruqin, near Salfit, local officials said. The governor of Salfit Isam Abu Bakr told Ma'an that at 2.00 a.m. a number of settlers sprayed racist anti-Arab slogans on the mosque walls and torched a car belonging to local resident Muatasim Samarah. Abu Bakr said that the attack came "after Israeli forces issued demolition warrants against the mosque claiming it was built without a license." » Read more

Israeli officials expel Hamas lawmaker from Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Maher Abukhater - December 6, 2011 - 1:00am REPORTING FROM RAMALLAH, WEST BANK – Israeli police following military court orders Tuesday expelled a Hamas lawmaker from Jerusalem and sent him to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Ahmad Attoun, who was elected to the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006, was brought before an Israeli military court near Ramallah on Tuesday morning, which ruled to expel him. He was later taken to the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, where he was ordered to cross into the West Bank with clear instructions not to enter Jerusalem again. » Read more

December 6th

Israel demolishes 2 homes in East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency December 6, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli forces demolished two Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday, locals said. In Beit Hanina, troops bulldozed the temporary residence of a man who took shelter there after he could not get a permit from the Israeli municipality to build his house, the official PA news agency Wafa reported. In Silwan, Israeli forces tore down the house of Burhan Burqan, that was home to nine people. "Israeli troops came at five in the morning to demolish the house and were done by 7 am. They also demolished our barn that had some poultry in it," Burqan said. » Read more

Israeli lawmaker says McCarthy was right ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) December 5, 2011 - 1:00am The Israeli lawmaker who sponsored a bill to limit funding to left-leaning NGOs said Joseph McCarthy “was right in every word he said.” Likud lawmaker Ofir Akunis told a political television show Sunday night that McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who presided over a U.S. Senate committee in the 1950s that investigated Americans suspected of sympathy with the communists, "was right in every word. The fact is, there were Soviet agents." » Read more

Israel to forcibly remove bedouin communities in settlements push ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood - December 6, 2011 - 1:00am Around 20 bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a huge Jewish settlement. The removal of around 2,300 members of the bedouin Jahalin tribe, two-thirds of whom are children, is due to begin next month. The Israeli authorities plan to relocate the families from the West Bank to a site close to a municipal rubbish dump on the edge of Jerusalem. » Read more

Hamas barred from international political group ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Lahav Harkov - December 6, 2011 - 1:00am Hamas members will not be allowed to represent the Palestinian Authority in the International Organization of Parliaments (IPU), the group’s secretary-general, Andres B. Johnsson, told Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin on Sunday. “Fatah is a recognized political movement, but Hamas is a terrorist organization. The PA must choose a side. Hamas is trying to use the IPU to pave its way to international recognition,” Rivlin told Johnsson. » Read more