http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/46E9AA45-460C-4269-B979-52DD5458E781.htm
Arabs lift Palestinian financial blockade

Monday 13 November 2006, 8:39 Makka Time, 5:39 GMT

Moussa (R) said the decision would 'send a message' to the US

Arab countries have agreed to lift the financial blockade on the Palestinians after the US vetoing of a draft United Nations resolution condemning the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, said at a meeting of the organisation in Cairo on Sunday: "There will be no compliance with any restriction imposed ... The Arab banks have to transfer money [to the Palestinians].

"Our message is loud and clear to those who take unfriendly positions against Arabs."

The US and European-led imposition of economic sanctions, along with an Israeli refusal to release revenues it collects on the Palestinians behalf, have severely damaged the Palestinian economy and have led to protests by civil servants who have gone unpaid for months.

Arab banks have not transferred funds to the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority amid concerns of incurring US-led penalties.

'Terrorist organisation'

The US and European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organisation and take steps against those who transfer funds to such groups.

Kuwait's foreign minister said his country would send $30 million to the Palestinians, and Bahrain said the Arab countries would begin contacting international financial institutions to get the money transferred.

"There will no longer be an international siege," Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, said.

Mohammed Awad, secretary-general of the Palestinian cabinet, said at least $52 million would be ready for immediate transfer and would go to paying salaries.

Awad said: "Most banks follow their governments. They must remove the blockade."

Sanctions

It was not immediately clear if Arab banks would immediately begin transactions on Monday after the decision or if sanctions would be imposed if they did.

"Our message is loud and clear to those who take unfriendly positions against Arabs."

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League

Arab foreign ministers also called for a peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "according to international resolutions and the principal of 'land for peace'."

The Arab League wants Hamas to endorse a 2002 initiative that calls for peace in exchange for land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said he was not aware of the conference proposal but he said Hamas could not be a party to talks with Israel unless it met the international community's stipulations.

"A multilateral conference doesn't make Hamas legitimate," Regev said. "What makes Hamas legitimate is accepting the international benchmarks."

Israeli offensive

The US, Europe and Israel demand that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing agreements between Israel and Palestinians.

The Arab League ministers also decided to ask the UN General Assembly to hold a special session to discuss the situation in the Palestinian territories.

The draft UN resolution would have condemned a recent Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed more 50 people and also demanded that Israeli troops pull out of the territory.

The resolution, sponsored by the Gulf state of Qatar, also criticised the Israeli tank shelling of a home in Beit Hanoun on Wednesday in which seven children and four women were killed as they slept.

John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, said the Arab-backed resolution was "biased against Israel and politically motivated".

The offensive was part of a larger military operation carried out by Israel in June after Palestinian fighters captured an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/22622/1/
After being imprisoned in Pakistani, US, Jordanian, and Israeli prisons, detainee finally freed
IMEMC & Agencies - Monday, 13 November 2006, 14:21

Israeli authorities released on November 6, 2006, detainee Marwan Ali Jabbour from Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He was taken prisoner by Israel on the Jordan-Israeli border on September 18, 2006.

Jabbour was born in Jordan, his parents are both Palestinians, and he lived with his family in Saudi Arabia; when he became 18 he travelled to Pakistan to study Computer Engineering.

On May 14, 2004, he was arrested by the Pakistani Intelligence and was tortured and interrogated for 15 days.

He got married to a Pakistani woman; his wife was also interrogated and tortured by Pakistani interrogators while her husband was imprisoned by Pakistani forces. The couple have three children,

In an affidavit to the Palestinian Prisoner Society, Jabbour stated that he was severely tortured in Pakistan and was subjected to electric shocks during interrogation.

He was tortured and tied by his male organ for three days, was not allowed to sleep for seven days until he suffered a heart attack.

Marwan added that after being interrogated by the Pakistani forces, he was transferred to an American troops camp, where he was confined to solitary for two years.

They used to tie his hand to the wall, only 15 cm above the ground; he was subjected to loud music, and forced to remain naked for long periods.

On July 13 2006, he was transferred to Jordan and was handed to the Jordanian intelligence where he was interrogated for additional 48 days.

After the interrogation in Jordan he was transferred to Israel on September 9 2006; where he was sent to Al Jalama Israeli prison.

For twenty days, Jabbour was not allowed to meet his lawyer and the Israeli Prison Administration extended his remand repeatedly until October 31 2006. His file was transferred to the Israeli Prosecution for fifteen days to file charges against him.

On November 5, 2006, The Palestinian Prisoners Society filed an appeal for the realest of Jabbour, the court session looking into the appeal was supposed take place on November 7, but he was released on November 6, and was sent to the Eretz crossing leading into the Gaza Strip where he continued his way back home.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/22600/1/
No One is Guilty in Israel
Gideon Levy (Ha'Aretz) - Sunday, 12 November 2006, 17:53

Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants.


Therefore it takes considerable gall and cynicism to dare to claim that the Israel Defense Forces did not intend to kill inhabitants of Beit Hanun. Even if there was a glitch in the balancing of the aiming mechanism or in a component of the radar, a mistake in the input of the data or a human error, the overwhelming, crucial, shocking fact is that the IDF bombards helpless civilians. Even shells that are supposedly aimed 200 meters from houses, into "open areas," are intended to kill, and they do kill. In this respect, nothing new happened on Wednesday morning in Gaza: The IDF has been behaving like this for months now.

But this isn't just a matter of "the IDF," "the government" or "Israel" bearing the responsibility. It must be said explicitly: The blame rests directly on people who hold official positions, flesh-and-blood human beings, and they must pay the price of their criminal responsibility for needless killing. Attorney Avigdor Klagsbald caused the death of a woman and her child without anyone imagining that he intended to hit them, but nevertheless he is sitting in prison. And what about the killers of women and children in Beit Hanun? Will they all be absolved? Will no one be tried? Will no one even be reprimanded and shunned?

GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant will say with exasperating coolness that apparently there was "a problem with the battery's targeting apparatus," without moving a facial muscle, and will that be enough? Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh will say, "The IDF is militarily responsible, but not morally responsible," and will he thus exculpate himself?

And who will bear the responsibility for the renewal of the terror attacks? Only Hamas? Who will be accused of the tumble in Israel's status and its depiction as a violent, leper state, and who will be judged for the danger that hovers over world Jewry in the wake of the IDF's acts? The electronic component that went on the blink in the radar?

No one is guilty in Israel. There is never anyone guilty in Israel. The prime minister who is responsible for the brutal policy toward the Palestinians, the defense minister who knew about and approved the bombardments, the chief of staff, the chief of command and the commander of the division who gave the orders to bombard - not one of them is guilty. They will continue with the work of killing as though nothing has happened: The sun shone, the system flourished and the ritual slaughterer slaughtered. They will continue to pursue the routine of their daily lives, accepted in society like anyone else, and remain in their posts despite the blood on their hands.

A few hours after the disaster, while the Gaza Strip was still enveloped in sorrow and deep in shock, the air force was already hastening to carry out another targeted killing, an arrogant demonstration of just how much this disaster does not concern us.

Israel after the disaster was split: There were those who did their duty and "expressed sorrow," like the prime minister and the defense minister, and there were those who hastened with appalling insensitivity to cast the responsibility onto the Palestinians, like the "moderate" foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the deputy defense minister from the Labor Party, Sneh. The silent majority did not bother to emerge from its yawning indifference. The entertainment shows on television continued to make people laugh, and one of the radio stations even broadcast, in a demonstrable lack of taste, Sarit Hadad's song "You're a Big Gun." Mourning, of course, did not descend on Israel, and there was not even a single manifestation of genuine participation in the sorrow. It did not occur to Israel to promise compensation to the families and it did not provide help, apart from transferring some of the wounded to hospitals in Israel. We provided more aid to the victims of the earthquake in Mexico, even though there we didn't have a hand in the disaster. For the most part, the media were not very disturbed by the killing and devoted less attention to it than to the Gay Pride parade.

A day or two after the disaster it was totally forgotten and other affairs are filling our lives. But it is impossible just to go on to the next item on the agenda. This disaster is not an act of God. There are people who are clearly responsible for it, and they must be brought to justice. The fact that the International Court of Justice in The Hague still looks very far from Israel, and the various "Halutzes" and "Galants" can still move around freely in the world, because in Israel they forgive nearly everything, does not mean that war crimes are not being committed here.

The IDF may well be a big gun, but an army that is responsible for needless killing in such large dimensions, as in recent months in Lebanon and in Gaza, is a failed and dangerous army that must urgently be repaired. The Defense Forces are not only killing Arabs for no reason, they are also directly endangering Israel's security, disgracing it in the world and embroiling it again and again.

The heedless and arrogant reaction to such deeds contains a dangerous moral message. If it is possible to dismiss mass killing with a wealth of technical excuses, and not take any drastic measure against those who are truly guilty of it, then Israel is saying that, as far as it is concerned, nothing happened apart from the faulty component in the radar system or the glitch in balancing the sights. But what happened at Beit Hanun, what happened in Israel on the day after and what is continuing to happen in Gaza day after day is a far more frightening distortion than the calibrating of a gun sight.
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Don't forget .... after the fact Israel has now billed the Palestinians for transportation to the Israeli hospitals where some of the victims were taken for treatment.

http://wafa.ps/english/body.asp?id=7385
DATE: 12/11/2006 TIME :10:24


NABLUS, November 12, 2006 (WAFA)-Medical Vocations Central Office, in Nablus, said on Sunday that Israeli hospitals demanded from families of the wounded in Beit Hanoun massacre to pay the coast of treatment.

In a statement on its web site, the Office reported that the hospitals, where the wounded are treated in, and according to Bassaem Athamna, whose brother was wounded in the massacre last Wednesday and treated in Israel, asked for payment of the coast of treatment.

He added that every wounded should pay $ 450."Israel kills and destroys and instead of medicating the wounded at its expense, it asks for payment", Athamna said.

M.H.(10:20 P)(08:20 GMT)

http://wafa.ps/english/body.asp?id=7386
DATE: 12/11/2006 TIME :11:11
IOF Opens Fire at Farmers South of Gaza

KHANYOUNIS, November 12, 2006, (WAFA)- Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened Sunday morning an intensive fire at Palestinian farmers in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khanyounis, security sources said.

The sources added that IOF, stationed at the eastern borders of the city, opened fire at farmers while they were harvesting olive in the neighborhood of Farahin area. No causalities were reported.

Witnesses said that IOF used to open fire in an attempt to oblige farmers and residents leave thier lands.

Farmers called on the ICRC to pressurize Israeli authorities to halt shooting

fire to allow them working in safety.

S.A.S. (11:10 P) (09:10 GMT)



KHANYOUNIS, November 12, 2006, (WAFA)- Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened Sunday morning an intensive fire at Palestinian farmers in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khanyounis, security sources said.

The sources added that IOF, stationed at the eastern borders of the city, opened fire at farmers while they were harvesting olive in the neighborhood of Farahin area. No causalities were reported.

Witnesses said that IOF used to open fire in an attempt to oblige farmers and residents leave thier lands.

Farmers called on the ICRC to pressurize Israeli authorities to halt shooting

fire to allow them working in safety.

S.A.S. (11:10 P) (09:10 GMT)