Palestinians Today 123107

Monday December 31, 2007 17:11 by Ghassan Bannoura - 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 December 31st, 2007.

The Israeli army kills a Palestinian woman in Gaza and kidnaps 9 others in the West Bank, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.

The News cast

One Palestinian woman was killed and five others injured while crossing the borders into the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Eyewitnesses said a group of 900 Palestinians who were allowed to leave the Gaza strip to go to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the Muslim Hajj several months ago, were coming back through the Israeli Eriz border crossing to Gaza. They said a group of Israeli soldiers fired over the heads of the Palestinian pilgrims then fired at them.

In related news the Egyptian police have moved 1000 Palestinian pilgrims who traveled several months ago, through the Egyptian Gaza borders using the Rafah crossing, to get to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for hajj to a refugee camp in the Sinai desert.

Those 1000 Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing after an agreement between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the dominate Hamas party. Israel refuses to allow those 1000 back into Gaza because they say that among them there is Hamas resistance fighters. Egypt suggested that those stranded are to be sent back to their homes in Gaza using an Israeli controlled crossing. Hamas refused and said that Israel will kidnap the Palestinians and use them to put pressure Hamas.

In the West Bank on Monday the Israeli army kidnapped 9 Palestinians during morning invasions that targeted several towns and cities. A Palestinian family, from the village of Kufer Dan near Jenin city in the northern part of the West Bank, escaped an almost certain death on Monday morning when Israeli troops invading the village opened fire at them.

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, on Monday released its year-end report. According to B'Tselem data, the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed in clashes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has dropped. However, there has been deterioration in many other measures of the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian areas.

The reports shows that in the year 2007 Israeli forces killed 373 Palestinians, 290 in Gaza, 83 in the West Bank, among them 53 minors. In 2007, about 35 percent of those killed were civilians the report added.

In addition in 2007, the report also shows that there was an increase of 13 percent in the number of Palestinians held in administrative detention without trial, which averaged 830 people.

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. IMEMC wishes you Happy New Year, this report brought to you by Caroline Jones and Ghassan Bannoura.

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