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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday, February 16th, 2015.
Israeli troops invade a number of west Bank communities and kidnap civilians, meanwhile Israeli police targets Palestinian workers. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli soldiers invaded, on Monday at dawn, several communities in the occupied West Bank, and Jerusalem, and kidnapped seven Palestinians, in addition to a Palestinian who was kidnapped on Sunday at night.
In occupied Jerusalem, undercover soldiers invaded four homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the at-Tour town, and kidnapped four Palestinians, including two children.
In other news, Israeli police officers conducted a massive search campaign in the Galilee in order to kidnap and detain Palestinian workers, and arrested sixteen.
News sources said that police said the kidnapped Palestinians entered Israel and worked there without permits.
They have all been interrogated for hours before some of them were released, while others await trial in the Nazareth District Court, as the police is asking for remand.
The police and undercover units have been extensively operating in Arab towns in an attempt to locate and arrest Palestinian workers from different parts of the occupied territories, in order to prosecute them. Many face imprisonment and very high fines. Palestinian workers, who largely work in construction, face constant harassment by the police.
In Israeli, The Meretz Party in Israel demanded the Legal Counsel of the Israeli government to investigate a video issued by the election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming the Israeli leftist parties would lead to ISIS ruling Jerusalem.
Meretz said the video is a direct incitement against the left and moderate parties, as it accuses them of supporting terrorism, especially when it states that the left “will allow the terrorist into the country”.
Netanyahu and his party have been actively involved in a campaign that tries to discredit leftist, moderate parties, or just those who oppose its policies, by claiming they would bring nothing but destruction to the country, according to Israeli media sources.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday, February 16th, 2015, news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
