Palestine Today 091707

Monday September 17, 2007 19:03 by IMEMC - Audio Dept.

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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Monday September 17th, 2007.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces shoot and kill a teenage boy in Ramallah. In the Gaza Strip meanwhile, the Hamas movement has indicated its willingness to talk with the Israeli administration should it cease operating in the coastal region. These stories and more coming up. Stay tuned.

The West Bank

A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed by Israeli forces in central West Bank city of Ramallah in the early hours of Monday morning. The boy, later identified as Muhammad Jabareen, was shot when local stone-throwing youths clashed with invading Israeli soldiers. Both eyewitnesses and medical sources reported that the Israeli army prevented ambulances from entering the area and dispensing first aid to the gravely injured teenager. The boy subsequently bled to death.
Elsewhere, at least 14 Palestinians were kidnapped from different areas of the West Bank on Monday morning, with Israeli and local sources reporting that several Palestinians were abducted in Ramallah, Qalqilyia, Jenin, Hebron and Bethlehem.
The popularity of the Hamas movement in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip has dropped after the recent violence against protestors in the coastal region, according to a poll published Monday. The research, carried out by Al-Najah University in Nablus, reports that 78.9% of participants in the survey rejected the actions of the Hamas-affiliated Executive Force over the past several weeks. 11.5% of those polled approved of Hamas’ actions.
The Gaza Strip
The Hamas movement will consider negotiations with Israel if the Israeli administration agrees to end attacks and makes a number of humanitarian gestures in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media sources reported on Monday. Quoting a number of various unnamed officials, Israeli media reported that Hamas had brokered a deal with the Palestinian Resistance factions to halt the fire of home-made shells into Israeli territory and limit their operations to those against invading Israeli soldiers.

Following the asserted agreement, Hamas officials indicated that the movement was willing to extend the deal indefinitely and establish contact with the Israeli administration should they cease operations in the Gaza Strip and ease the flow of humanitarian aid into the coastal region. Despites such reports, Kahder Habib, a senior member of Islamic Jihad, on Sunday stated that the movement had received no instructions from Hamas to cease firing home-made shells into Israeli territory.

Doctors in the Gaza Strip on Monday suspended their Fatah-ordered, month-old, partial strike in the coastal region that has saw healthcare services in the Strip crawl to a standstill.

The strike, ordered after a prominent pro-Fatah doctor was arrested, has witnessed doctors restrict their working day to three hours, after which locals could only receive healthcare in expensive private clinics. Despite the Hamas movement’s closure of 25 of these clinics, the Chairman of the Gaza Doctors Union on Monday announced that the strike would be placed on hiatus during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Conclusion
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, brought to you by John Smith and George Rishmawi.

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