Official: Settlers torch 6 cars in Nablus village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 21, 2013 - 1:00am


Armed settlers attacked a village south of Nablus overnight Wednesday and torched six cars, a Palestinian Authority official said. Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, said dozens of residents of the Esh Kodesh settlement outpost entered Qusra village firing heavily. They torched six cars, belonging to Raed Musbah, Abed Taher, Yousef Odeh, Yasser Abu Rida, and Nashat Fawzi, Daghlas told Ma'an.


Sharon in 1983: Israel could be accused of genocide
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roi Mandel - February 21, 2013 - 1:00am


 


Draconian arrests of Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) February 20, 2013 - 1:00am


Fourteen Palestinians freed in the Gilad Shalit deal were arrested by the IDF and Shin Bet security service. Amira Hass reported on Sunday in Haaretz that five of them might serve from 16 to 28 years in prison due to secret or negligible offenses they are accused of committing after their release. This revolving door system is not only inhuman in itself, it also undermines the agreements Israel signed and will make future deals much harder to achieve.


IDF trains for potential clashes with Hezbollah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Lappin - February 20, 2013 - 1:00am


Reconnaissance soldiers from the the IDF’s Engineering Corps recently completed an intensive series of subterranean warfare drills to prepare them for a potential clash with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has placed its command and control centers in underground bunkers, and dug a maze of tunnels where commanders, fighters and weaponry can be placed out of sight of the Israel Air Force.


Fitting Palestinian prisoners into the excitement of the Ben Zygier affair
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yitzhak Laor - (Opinion) February 18, 2013 - 1:00am


Samer Issawi was sentenced by a military tribunal to nearly three decades in prison, freed after six years in the 2011 prisoner swap that secured the release of Gilad Shalit, and re-arrested in July and sent back to jail for another 20 years because he went from Jerusalem, where he lives, to A-Ram, on the other side of the road. Issawi has been on a saline drip to keep him alive since August.


Palestinians struggle to farm in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - February 17, 2013 - 1:00am


Zuhair Al Manasrah sat in his office where he manages plantations of 20,000 date palms and described the risk he took as a Palestinian investing in agriculture. "It's difficult to farm anything when you're under occupation," said Mr Al Manasrah, 69, who spent stints as the governor of Bethlehem and Jenin before turning full-time to farming.


Israel arrests brother of Palestinian hunger-striker Issawi
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
February 17, 2013 - 1:00am


Israeli authorities arrested Shady Issawi, brother of Palestinian hunger-striker Samer Issawi, at dawn from his home, The Free Samer Issawi Campaign's Facebook page reported on Sunday.


The distant drums of intifada
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - February 15, 2013 - 1:00am


The public debate Americans have been conducting recently about the implications of the worldwide war they are waging against Islamic terror is not confined to the decade between September 11, 2001, and the assassination of Osama bin Laden, or to the two four-year terms of President George W. Bush. The Americans are also discussing and implementing far-reaching measures in that war during the second term of Barack Obama. It was the Obama administration that formulated a directive permitting the president to authorize the assassination abroad, without trial, of U.S.


Mossad: the service that's really secret
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Alistair Dawber - February 14, 2013 - 1:00am


The murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at an upmarket Dubai hotel in 2010; the killing of Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, on his doorstep in Brussels in 1990; the honeytrap set for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in Rome in 1986; the death of Ben Zygier in Israel’s most secure prison two years ago.


Rights group: Israel violated laws of war in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Diaa Hadid - February 13, 2013 - 1:00am


A U.S.-based rights group said Israel violated laws of war in a series of airstrikes it conducted during an eight-day military operation last November against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Human Rights Watch said it counted 14 airstrikes in which there didn't appear to be a valid military target, and four others targeting militants, but which used disproportionate force.



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