Israel abducts more civilians in West Bank (Thu, 29 Jan 2009)
Israeli troops have abducted 8 Palestinian civilians during a raid on a village near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, witnesses say. The eight Palestinian civilians where kidnapped on Wednesday by Israeli troops in the village of Zboba near Jenin. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84039§ionid=351020202
Fresh Israeli strikes injure 18 Gazans (Thu, 29 Jan 2009)
Israel has renewed its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, injuring eighteen Gazans, including 11 school children and a Hamas policeman.
According to eyewitnesses and medics, the Hamas policeman, Mohammed al-Sumeiri, was injured while riding his motorcycle in the town of Khan Yunis on Thursday.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84038§ionid=351020202
Gazan children denied treatment abroad (Jonathan Cook; Jan 28, 2009)
For four days running, an ambulance has driven 15-year-old Amira Ghirim from Shifa Hospital in Gaza to the Rafah border in the hope that she will be allowed to cross into Egypt and then on to France, where she has been promised emergency surgery.
http://uruknet.info/?p=m51315&hd=&size=1&l=e
'Phosphorus wounds' alarm Gazans
Staring straight ahead and rocking steadily backwards and forwards in her hospital bed, Sabah Abu Halima lists the fate of each of her nine children.
"Abed, 14 years old, was decapitated," she says. "Shaheed, one year and three months, was in my arms when the fire took her…"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7848768.stm
Iran to help reconstruct Gaza Strip (Thu, 22 Jan 2009)
Iran has set up a public-funded committee to prompt reconstruction of the Gaza Strip which devastated by a 23-day Israeli offensive. Iranian Vice-President Ali Saeedlou said the committee plans to "Build 1,000 houses, ten schools and five mosques, and reconstruct 500 shops, a hospital and a university" in the war-torn strip.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=83369§ionid=351020101
Peace Recedes as Israeli Settlements Expand (By:Daniel Luban)
Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank increased sharply in 2008, despite Israel's pledge at the beginning of the year to freeze all construction, according to a new report by an Israeli non-governmental organization [.pdf].
A report by the group Peace Now, found that settlement construction in 2008 increased by almost 60 percent, including new construction both inside and outside of the security barrier and within illegal settlement outposts.
Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire, a 2007 history of the settlements, urged Mitchell to stand firm against Netanyahu in an open letter published Wednesday in The American Prospect.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/luban.php?articleid=14158
