Palestine – Breaking News

Picture: (AFP/File/Fethi Belaid)

An Algerian policeman stands guard as security forces block the road to Lakhdaria. Oil and gas-rich Algeria, face an increase in attacks by Islamic fighters.

Algerian media reported today that at least 10 people have been killed in two attacks in recent days as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan came to a close.

Six members of the security forces were killed in one attack when armed attackers opened fire on their vehicle in Theniet el-Had in the west of the country.

The report said the attackers were members of the so called terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The same organization, which was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and which is believed to have links to the so called international al-Qaeda network, claimed responsibility for an attack on September 28.

According to the official account, four have been killed and nine injured.
The organization has threatened to carry out more attacks against the military and foreign interests.

Sapa-dpa

Read More »Ten dead in attacks as ramadan ends in Algeria

Daily Mail reports Mideast peacemaker pressured Israeli leaders to provide cellular company with frequencies needed to launch network in West Bank

(source: YNet News)

Tony Blair took advantage of his role as Mideast peacemaker to rescue a Palestinian mobile-phone business from bankruptcy, the Daily Mail reported in its Sunday issue.

The report says the company, Wataniya, is owned by a client of the investment banking giant JP Morgan, where Blair is employed as a consultant, but Blair’s office issued a statement saying he had no knowledge of this connection and was acting solely for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority.

Wataniya had already launched an expensive network in the West Bank but then discovered that Israel would not allow it to use the frequencies required. Blair stepped in to save the company by spending months changing the Israeli government’s mind.

Read More »Report blair used influence to save palestinian firm

By Robert Fisk

(source:  Independent.co.uk)

I came to the latest uproarious US diplomatic history with the deepest cynicism. And yesterday, in the dust of post-election Cairo the Egyptian parliamentary poll was as usual a mixture of farce and fraud, which is at least better than shock and awe I ploughed through so many thousands of American diplomatic reports with something approaching utter hopelessness. After all, they do quote President Hosni Mubarak as saying that “you can forget about democracy,” don’t they?

It’s not that US diplomats don’t understand the Middle East; it’s just that they’ve lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington’s Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.

There is virtually no talk (so far, at least) of illegal Jewish colonial settlements on the West Bank, of Israeli “outposts”, of extremist Israeli “settlers” whose homes now smallpox the occupied Palestinian West Bank of the vast illegal system of land theft which lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian war. And incredibly, all kinds of worthy US diplomats grovel and kneel before Israel’s demands many of them apparently fervent supporters of Israel as Mossad bosses and Israel military intelligence agents read their wish-list to their benefactors.

There’s a wonderful moment in the cables when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, explains to a US congressional delegation on 28 April last year that “a Palestinian state must be demilitarised, without control of its airspace and electro-magnetic field [sic], and without the power to enter into treaties or control its border”. Well goodbye, then, to the “viable” (ergo Lord Blair of Isfahan) Palestinian state we all supposedly want. And the US Congress lads and ladies appear to have said nothing.

Read More »America really doesnt care about injustice in the middle east

Israel soldiers speak out on Gaza  

(source: BBC NEWS)

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel’s assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement. The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers.Israel denies breaking the laws of war and dismissed the report as hearsay.

The report says testimonies show "the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians" was a result of Israeli military policy, articulated by the rules of engagement, and encouraged by a belief "the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to ask questions".

One soldier is quoted saying: "The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were the most important, and that there was no way our soldiers would get killed for the sake of leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt." Another says: "People were not instructed to shoot at everyone they see, but they were told that from a certain distance when they approach a house, no matter who it is – even an old woman – take them down."

Many of the testimonies are in line with claims made by human rights organisations that Israeli military action in Gaza was indiscriminate and disproportionate. Amnesty International has accused both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in charge in Gaza, of committing war crimes during the 22-day conflict which ended on 18 January.
Israeli officials insist troops went to great lengths to protect civilians, that Hamas endangered non-combatants by firing from civilian areas and that homes and buildings were destroyed only when there was a specific military need to do so.

‘Ill discipline’

Other allegations in the testimonies of the 14 conscripts and 12 reserve soldiers include:

• Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers  
• Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished as a precaution or to secure clear lines of fire for the future.
• Some of the troops had a generally aggressive, ill-disciplined attitude
• There was incidents of vandalism of property of Palestinians
• Soldiers fired at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans
• White phosphorus was used in civilian areas in a way some soldiers saw as gratuitous and reckless
• Many of the soldiers said there had been very little direct engagement with Palestinian militants.

Read More »Israel soldiers speak out on Gaza