IDF Chief Rabbi: Troops who show mercy to enemy will be 'damned'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

The Israel Defense Forces' chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who "show mercy" toward the enemy in wartime will be "damned." Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki also told the yeshiva students that religious individuals made better combat troops.

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Israel 'personally attacking human rights group' after Gaza war criticism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Chris McGreal - November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

America's leading human rights organisation has accused Israel and its supporters of an "organised campaign" of false allegations and misinformation, including "extremely personal attacks" on its staff, in an attempt to discredit the group over its reports of war crimes in Gaza.

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Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 13, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man and injured three others in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday. Among the injured were two brothers, according to medics, who said the shooting occurred in the Johr Ad-Dik area and that another Palestinian was hospitalized. There were conflicting reports on what led to the incident. Palestinian witnesses said the group was on a hunting trip near the border east of Al-Bureij refugee camp when Israeli forces opened fire. Local medics said the fire was directed at the youths.

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IDF Chief: Israel will fight in Gaza again if needed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
November 13, 2009 - 1:00am

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Friday that the army would not hesitate to respond if Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip continued to fire rockets at Israel. "We are prepared to contend with the whole arc of threats," Ashkenazi told students during a visit to a Be'er Sheva high school, citing both the local defense situation as well as Iran's contentious nuclear program.

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Fragmenting Palestinian land
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Ben White - (Opinion) November 12, 2009 - 1:00am

A young student deported from the West Bank to Gaza is just the latest victim of Israeli efforts to sever ties between the territories Ben White guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 November 2009 11.00 GMT Twenty-one-year-old Palestinian student Berlanty Azzam was seized by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in the West Bank last month. Bound and blindfolded, she was forcibly deported to the Gaza Strip. Berlanty was in her final semester at Bethlehem University in the West Bank, and was returning from a job interview in Ramallah.

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Obama-Netanyahu talks see no result
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
November 10, 2009 - 1:00am

The latest attempt by the US president to salvage the Middle East peace talks appears to have come to nothing after his meeting with Israel's prime minister ended with only a brief statement from the White House. Binyamin Netanyahu left the White House on Monday after spending an hour and forty minutes inside with Barack Obama, without making the customary public appearance with his host. A brief White House statement said that the two leaders discussed a number of bilateral issues, including Iran and "how to move forward on Middle East peace".

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A Chronicle of Gaza, in Kitsch Form
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Dan Williams - November 10, 2009 - 1:00am

“I can offer you a discount on the headbands,” said Tareq Abu Dayyeh, souvenir-store owner. “They’re just like the kind used by suicide bombers.” He was making a sales pitch at his Chairman Arafat Shop, one of Gaza’s oddest commercial outlets. A battery-powered, dancing Osama bin Laden doll occupies a shelf above Barack Obama coffee mugs emblazoned with a misspelling of the U.S. president’s middle name: “Abu Hussain Palestine Loves You.” A plastic Virgin Mary and Jordan River holy water share space with plaques depicting the Dome of the Rock, the foremost Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.

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Captives
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Yorker
by Lawrence Wright - (Opinion) November 9, 2009 - 1:00am

In southwest Israel, at the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip, there is a small crossing station not far from a kibbutz named Kerem Shalom. A guard tower looms over the flat, scrubby buffer zone. Gaza never extends more than seven miles wide, and the guards in the tower can see the Mediterranean Sea, to the north.

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Goldstone report: UN votes for probe into Gaza war crimes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Howard Lafranchi - November 6, 2009 - 1:00am

The United Nations General Assembly approved Thursday afternoon a resolution that calls on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate the accusations of war crimes in last winter's Gaza incursion as described in a UN-commissioned report. The resolution – approved 118-14, with much of the developing world and Arab countries in favor, and the US and Israel notably opposed – underscores the broad support for the Goldstone report, the investigation commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council to look into alleged war crimes committed during the three-week-long Gaza war.

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Controversy over draft UN resolution on Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 4, 2009 - 1:00am

The UN General Assembly is likely to vote in support of a UN report alleging war crimes in Gaza on Wednesday, but experts say that, if not properly worded, the resolution could close off options for further action on the matter.

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