Palestine: Settlers detain shepherd, threaten to kill anti-settlement activist, 8000 new units in OJ, arrests & troops shell Gaza

Jewish settlers detain shepherd, threaten to kill anti-settlement activist

JORDAN VALLEY, (PIC)– Jewish settlers detained a Palestinian shepherd for three hours under gunpoint in the northern Jordan Valley and warned him against allowing his sheep to graze in the area.

Local sources said that the settlers ambushed the shepherd, Mohammed Awad, while rearing his sheep in Wadi Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley.

They said that the settlers were escorted by Israeli occupation forces who also threatened the shepherd and told him not to graze in the mountains near the settlement of Maskiot.

Meanwhile, Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in northern West Bank areas, said that Jewish settlers threatened to kill him during a demonstration for them on Friday.

He told Quds Press that the settlers hoisted photos of him while threatening to liquidate him at the Beit Leed roadblock between Tulkarem and Nablus.

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Euromed: IOA barred travel of 4000 Palestinians in 2011

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has banned 4000 Palestinian citizens from travel through the West Bank into Jordan in 2011, a European human rights report has said.

The Euromed for human rights said in a detailed report that the travel ban was at an average of 83 cases weekly.

The report said that in two thirds of those cases the Palestinians were subjected to humiliating treatment such as strip searches, intelligence interrogation, in addition to holding them for hours in crammed rooms.

It said in a 30-page report that the travel ban was imposed on sick people, students, women, old people, MPs, activists, journalists, and even employees with international agencies.

It said that the IOA deprives thousands of Palestinians on annual basis from travel without any reasonable justifications and without any consideration to humanitarian cases.

The Geneva-based Euromed warned that the Israeli intelligence was exploiting the need for travel to blackmail Palestinians into cooperating with it, adding that the IOA was violating a basic human right namely freedom of movement.

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IOA to build 8000 new housing units in O. Jerusalem

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is to build around 8000 new housing units in occupied Jerusalem over the next five years, a Hebrew weekly magazine said.

Yerushalayim revealed that a plan to this effect was presented by the municipality to the finance committee in the Israeli parliament last week.

The revelation came one day after a group of Israeli lawmakers proposed naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.

Ahmed Sub Laban, an expert in settlement activity and a field researcher in Jerusalem, said in a statement on Friday that the new law if endorsed would boost the control of Israel on the holy city.

The Israeli government back in 1980 declared Jerusalem as the “eternal capital of Israel” in a move that was not recognized by the world community.

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IOF soldiers detained 51 Palestinians in one week including 11 minors

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained 51 Palestinian citizens over the past week including a woman and 11 minors, a report by Hamas in the West Bank said on Saturday.

It pointed out that Sheikh Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad leader, was among the detainees who also included nine from occupied Jerusalem.

The report said that 11 minors in the age category 14-18 were picked up in the past week mostly from Jerusalem.

The report also noted that Israel extended the administrative detention of a number of Hamas detainees and an MP in the same period.

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IOF troops shell Gaza areas

GAZA, (PIC)– Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired a number of artillery shells at eastern Gaza areas on Saturday morning but no casualties were reported, local sources said.

Eyewitnesses said that the artillery shells slammed into eastern Gaza city and Shujaia suburb in particular.

They said that the shelling spread fears of an imminent incursion since it was intensive and violent.