Palestine Theater
First Jerusalem terror blast in six years; Bibi sees "exchange of blows"
An Israeli woman critically wounded when a bomb ripped through a bus near Jerusalem's central bus station on March 23 died of her injuries after being hospitalized. The attack was the first major bombing in Jerusalem since 2004. More recent deadly attacks involved gunmen, as in the case of the Mercaz Harav attack in March 2008 that left eight yeshiva students dead, or Palestinians commandeering bulldozers or cars and using them as weapons. (Maan News Agency, JTA, March 23)
Israeli jets strike Gaza —after Hamas offers truce
Israeli warplanes targeted sites across the Gaza Strip late March 21, injuring at least 17 people including seven children, witnesses and medics said. Ten people arrived at Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and seven others were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north. An airstrike in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City caused considerable damage but no injuries, residents said. An Israeli military spokesman said that the attack targeted two "terror tunnels, two weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, and two additional terror activities sites." The official emphasized that the attack came in response to the barrage of projectiles fired toward Israeli territory over the past week, including 50 on March 19 for which Hamas claimed responsibility. Among the targets were a police post and a training facility of Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, which a day earlier offered to stop cross-border fire into Israel if the Israelis halted attacks on Gaza.
Gaza: Hamas offers truce if Israel ceases bombardment
Hamas' armed wing said March 21 that it would commit to a truce if Israel stops bombarding the Gaza Strip. However, the al-Qassam Brigades vowed to resist if Israel continued to attack the enclave. Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said the group had fired mortars into the Western Negev on March 19 in response to Israeli aggression. Three days earlier, two of its members were killed in an Israeli air strike. The call for a ceasefire came as Israeli warplanes struck garages by a mosque east of Ash-Shuja'iyeh near Gaza City. No injuries were reported, but residents said Israeli fighter jets were circling above the besieged strip.
Israel: Itamar massacre protests miss the point
Protesters disrupted traffic in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere across Israel on March 13, in response to the attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar two days earlier, in which a family of five, including an infant and a young child, were stabbed to death. Protesters, accusing the government of a too lenient security policy on the West Bank (!!!), began amassing immediately after thousands turned out for the funeral at Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. (There were also scattered so-called "price tag" attacks on Palestinians by settlers on the West Bank, with five cars set on fire in Nablus, JP reports.) Speaking at the funeral, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon, was clearly trying to head off protests by playing to the crowd, but that doesn't let him off the hook for his abomination of sanctimonious illogic:
Negev Bedouin tell Israel "our land is not for sale"
The Israeli government is trying to use a "divide and conquer" strategy on the Bedouin community in the Negev Desert in order to seize its lands, Bedouin representatives charged March 10, in response to a reported initiative to settle the issue of "unrecognized" villages. A special committee is reported to have prepared a plan under which Bedouins who can prove a historical link to their land could receive financial compensation for a portion of their lots. If the Bedouins accept this offer, the extent of land that could be included in the deal would be approximately 150,000 dunums (about 40,000 acres)—less than half of the land the Bedouins lay claim to.
Media blackout of deadly anti-Arab mob attack in Israel
The sexual abuse of reporter Lara Logan in Cairo's Tahrir square was certainly worthy of all the worldwide media coverage it has received, and raises disturbing questions about misogynist and xenophobic elements in the Egyptian revolutionary movement. But the incident's propagandistic exploitation by Islamophobes to discredit the Egyptian revolution altogether has also been a lugubrious spectacle. By way of contrast, there has been no global media outcry over the killing of a young Palestinian man in Jerusalem, apparently at the hands of a Jewish mob in an anti-Arab frenzy sparked in reaction to the revolutionary rising in Egypt. Joseph Dana noted on his +972 blog Feb. 23:
Israel charges Bedouin $275,000 to cover costs of their own eviction
Israeli prosecutors are preparing a $275,000 lawsuit against Bedouin families for the cost of removing them from government land they tried to take over northwest of Beersheba, national media reported March 2. The suit is said to target the sheikh of a Bedouin tribe that has staged 13 attempts to occupy government land near the Bedouin town of Rahat. A Knesset member has also proposed a bill providing for the immediate imposition of a fine against Bedouin who try to grab government land. Officials estimate there are thousands of "illegal" Bedouin settlements, also known as "non-recognized communities," with tens of thousands of illegally constructed buildings, in the Negev.
Palestine: clashes as hundreds protest in Hebron
Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets at protesters in the West Bank city of Hebron Feb. 25, leaving at least nine people injured. Four international activists and two Palestinians were detained, organizers said. The military said that only one person was arrested. The demonstration, which called for the reopening of one of the city's main streets, came on the anniversary of the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron by a Jewish extremist.

Recent Updates
5 hours 7 min ago
3 days 5 hours ago
3 days 11 hours ago
3 days 12 hours ago
4 days 2 hours ago
4 days 2 hours ago
5 days 9 hours ago
6 days 3 hours ago
1 week 2 days ago
1 week 3 days ago