Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 
Haniya Calls for Trying Israeli Officials for Mavi Marmara Massacre, Escalation of Israeli Kidnapping of Palestinian Children

Haniya calls for trying Israeli officials for Mavi Marmara massacre

[ 14/06/2012 - 09:42 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Palestinian premier Ismail Haniya called on the international community to bring Israeli war criminals to justice following the new Israeli report on the deadly attack on Mavi Marmara ship.

This report, issued by the Israeli state comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, stated that the decision-making process that was led by premier Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the military operation against the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in 2010 were wrong and inadequate.

Lindenstrauss held Netanyahu and his war minister Ehud Barak responsible for what happened and acquitted the army chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

In a press statement to a group of journalists during the opening of new sections in the European hospital in Gaza on Wednesday, Haneyya said this Israeli report is clear evidence that what happened to the Turkish activists was a crime against humanity.

On the same day, premier Haniya also gave a speech at the graduation ceremony of the first batch of Palestinian police officers who obtained a bachelor's degree from Gaza police academy.

The premier in his speech affirmed that his government would never allow the return of security chaos to the Gaza Strip.

He stressed that his government, since its emergence, has successfully worked on building a new national security institution defending and protecting the Palestinian individual and the resistance, and not recognizing any form of cooperation with the Israeli occupation.

20 Palestinian detained children started a hunger strike in Hasharon prison

[ 13/06/2012 - 11:50 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Twenty Palestinian children, detained in the Israeli occupation government Hasharon prison, launched on Tuesday June 12, an open hunger strike protesting the harsh prison conditions and the prison administration's neglect of their demands.

A 17-years-old child Ahmed Lafi, who was one of the strikers, told the Ministry of the prisoners in Gaza that 20 detained children started an open hunger strike to protest the bad and deteriorating living conditions in the prison, where they are not allowed to visit each other and are deprived from their study.

He also revealed that "the prison administration continues to torture and humiliate the child prisoners even after the agreement signed between the strike leadership committee and the prison administration."

Ahmed Lafi also stressed that the prison administration holds in solitary confinement every prisoner trying to demand his rights amid the bad conditions he witnesses in the jails.

He pointed out that Israeli intelligence use the most extreme torture methods to extract confessions from the children in violation of all international conventions and rights of children.

There are 190 Palestinian children under the age of 18 in occupation jails in very harsh conditions. These minors are treated the same way as adult prisoners; insufficient food, search raids on their rooms by intelligence officers, provocations, medical neglect and denial of education.

The IOF escalates kidnapping campaigns against citizens and MPs in WB and Jerusalem

[ 13/06/2012 - 10:48 PM ]

JENIN, TULKAREM, JERUSALEM, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) launched, on Wednesday, raid and search campaign in different districts of the occupied West Bank resulting in the arrest of 7 people.

"Yediot Ahronot" newspaper stated that the occupation troops raided several districts in the West Bank and arrested citizens who were transferred to an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, the IOF stormed last night Beit Kad and Deir Abu Daif areas, as well as the evacuated settlement of Tarsla in Jenin Governorate.

According to local sources, a large force of the Israeli occupation army stormed Deir El Gousoun town north of Tulkarem at three in the morning on Tuesday, June, 12 and broke into several houses.

The campaign resulted in the arrest of three Hamas supporters and former political detainees in PA's prisons: Khaled Olayan, Director of the Office of Tulkarem's MPs, Bilal Zeidan and Salah Ka'adan.

The family members of the three captives revealed that the Israeli soldiers had searched their homes as well as the supermarket owned by Bilal Zeidan and confiscated some of their belongings.

It is noted that the occupation forces had established checkpoints in the town of Deir El Gousoun, 24 hours before storming it, and stopped the passers-by who had been interrogated by a Zionist intelligence officer.

Furthermore, Islamist MPs in Tulkarem denounced the arrest of the director of their office Khaled Olayan by the occupation forces, as well as the arrest campaign waged against a number of the city's citizens, considering this step as a new threat from the occupier who had previously issued a decision to close their Office in Tulkarem after searching it and confiscating its contents.

The MPs asserted that the occupation forces' escalatory step against the MPs, their offices and their staff is a failed attempt to disrupt the MPs' work and to dissuade them from performing their duties, calling the world to intervene and take action against the Israeli occupation abuses and violations against the Palestinian people and their elected deputies.

Local sources in Jerusalem also reported that forces of the occupation's army and police had arrested on Tuesday a young man Kayed al-Rajaby (35 years) from Silwan town in the south of the city of Jerusalem after raiding his home and searching it, noting that he had been transferred to al-Maskoubiya detention and interrogation center belonging to the Zionist intelligence, for investigation and interrogation.

Meanwhile, a Zionist Central Court's Judge in occupied Jerusalem sentenced Jihad Attoun (23 years), the brother of Ahmed Attoun, the Jerusalem MP was deported to Ramallah , to five years and a half on charges of being affiliated with Hamas and resisting the occupation.

Attoun had been arrested on 16 February 2011, from front of his house in Sur Baher town by a Zionist special unit.

Israeli military campaign in Al-Khalil (Hebron)

[ 13/06/2012 - 10:20 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

The Israeli Occupation Forces kidnapped a Palestinian child in Dora village to the south of Al-Khalil in occupied West Bank. They have also threatened the people of the town and the surrounding villages through leaflets to launch a broad military campaign in case stone throwing at Israeli army and settlers' vehicles continue.

Security sources told Quds press that the Israeli army arrested the child Mohammed 'Ali Nasr, 16, searched several houses in Mount Abu Rumana in Al-Khalil (Hebron) city. They also raided the villages of Al-Tabka and Kharsa , patrolled the streets of the two villages and set up checkpoints at entrances of Al-Fawar and Arroub refugee camps and towns of Halhoul, Samu, and Idhna.

The occupation army distributed, in Al-Tabka and Kharsa villages and Dura's neighborhoods, leaflets signed by the military commander of Dura region in which he threatened people of the village and surrounding towns to launch a broad military campaign because of the continuing stone throwing at Israeli army and settlers' vehicles.

The military commander of the occupation army has considered this warning as a "final warning" to the people of the town before launching the military campaign.

Meanwhile, the occupation forces have stormed on Wednesday dozens of houses in Ahanina and Alabahir towns in Dura city southern Al-Khalil.

Eyewitnesses confirmed to PIC that occupation patrols have raided the city in the morning hours, stormed large numbers of houses at the city neighborhoods, and searched the residents.

Local sources confirmed that the house of Hamas leader Sheikh Fathi Amre, who died a few days ago, was among the houses that have been raided.