Libanon en Palestina / Israel op weg naar de vrede #61

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Op zondag 17 juni 2007 19:03 schreef Meki het volgende:

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paar wegen kapot.

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DEBKAfile Exclusive: Damascus ordered Sunday's Katyusha attack on N. Israeli Kiryat Shemona, causing no casualties. But there is more to come

June 17, 2007, 11:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

The three 107mm rockets fired against Kiryat Shemona from Wadi Taiba Sunday, June 17, by a Palestinian radical group called Ansar Allah based in the Ain Hilwa refugee camp near Sidon was ordered by Syrian military intelligence as the first in a series, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Hizballah intelligence officers supplied the rockets and pinpointed the launching site to make sure they struck the Israeli town. Residents rushed for bomb shelters for the first time since the Lebanon War ended eleven months ago. A factory and parked vehicles were damaged.

The hit squad drove up in a rental Toyota, rigged the rockets and drove off.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that Syria and Hizballah are preparing an escalating series of rocket barrages against norhern Israel civilian and military locations in the coming weeks. It is a stage in an overall plan orchestrated by Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah to stage attacks in Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territory. Its objectives are to destabilize the pro-Western Siniora government in Beirut and whittle down Israel’s deterrent strength.

Rocketing Kiryat Shemona was Stage 3 of the plan. Two rockets damaged a factory and a parked vehicle in separate parts of Kiryat Shemona. A third landed near a UNIFIL position inside Lebanon.

Stage one is the five-week old radical Islamic, pro-Damascus uprising in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, which the Lebanese army has not yet subdued. Stage two was Hamas’ just-completed capture of the Gaza Strip from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that in the name of “restraint,” Israel’s government and military leaders refrain from connecting the dots of the campaign ahead and its links to Tehran and Damascus in time to foil it, in the same way as they glossed over Hizballah’s build-up for the 2006 Lebanon war.

According to our intelligence sources, a former Fatah officer called Jamal Suleiman is Ansar Allah’s leader. He moved to Damascus in the 1980s and returned to the Ain Hilwa in Lebanon in April loaded with cash. He then began recruiting for his Ansar al Allah, working to exactly the same Damascus-designed format as the Fatah al-Islam was embedded in the northern camp of Nahr al-Bared.

If Israeli leaders refuse to call a spade a spade, Fatah leaders are more outspoken. Sunday, Azam al Ahmad declared in an interview in Ramallah that the perpetrators of the crime [against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza] are the same people who sent assassins to murder the Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri, “Both come from the same hand [Syria],” he said.

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Op zondag 17 juni 2007 23:15 schreef Meki het volgende:

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eerst de mensen die het hebben veroorzaakt aanpakken.

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Op zondag 17 juni 2007 22:40 schreef Caesu het volgende:

[..]

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Op zondag 17 juni 2007 23:51 schreef DrWolffenstein het volgende:

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Er was al een tijdje sprake van een troepenopbouw. Het lijk erop dat ze daar in Damascus er echt mee gaan doorzetten.

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Op maandag 18 juni 2007 00:20 schreef Meki het volgende:

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rust is er pas als Israel en USA weg zijn

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(IsraelNN.com) A Qatari newspaper, Al Watan, reported Friday that Syria is making concrete preparations for war with Israel, saying that the Syrian government has removed the Government and State Archives from the Damascus area. According to the paper, this move indicates preparations for war.

Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash confirmed on Al-Jazeera Arabic world news satellite TV last week that Syria is indeed engaged in active preparations for a war with Israel. The conflict, said the Syrian MP, is expected to break out during the summer months.

Officials close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reported Sunday that their efforts to begin negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have gone unanswered. They also said that Mr. Assad’s failure to reply signaled that his claims of wanting peace were not honest and were meant to improve his own status in the international community.

Last week, the head of Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, warned that Syrian President Assad was putting up a smoke screen by claiming he wants to open peace talks with the Jewish State.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has also raised the issue numerous times. “The IDF is preparing for an escalation on both the Palestinian and the northern fronts,” he said bluntly during a speech to the IDF Officers Training School earlier in the year.

The IDF held a large-scale exercise ten days ago simulating a Syrian invasion to Israel’s north. Infantry units, tank divisions and the Air Force took part in the exercise, which took place at the Shizafon IDF installation, in the southern Negev.

Asked about the exercise by Army Radio, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the IDF was indeed preparing for the possibility of war with Syria, but said this does not mean that Israel would initiate such a war. "Our preparedness is not an indication of any decision by either us or Syria to go to war - these are purely defensive measures," he said.

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Op dinsdag 19 juni 2007 00:49 schreef Meki het volgende:

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Helaas heeft Israel een massamoord begaan. waar was je toen ?

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Russian fighter planes sale to Syria alarms Israel

Tue Jun 19, 3:35 AM ET

Israel is concerned about reported Russian deliveries of advanced MiG-31 fighter planes to its enemy Syria as part of an armaments drive, the top-selling Hebrew daily reported on Tuesday.

The MiG-31, considered one of the best fighters in the world, can carry guided missiles with a range of more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) and is capable of striking 24 different targets simultaneously, Yediot Aharonot said.

"This information is more concerning when put in the context of massive armaments purchases made recently by the Syrians," Yuval Steinitz, an MP from Israel's right-wing opposition Likud party, was quoted as telling the daily.

"If Syria acquires the MiG-31 we can no longer rule out the idea that this country is preparing for war," said Steinitz, a former chairman of Israel's defence and foreign affairs parliamentary committee.

A Russian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Russia has begun delivering five MiG-31E interceptors to Syria as part of an agreement reached this year, and that Moscow also plans to sell Damascus its MiG-29M/M2 dual role fighters.

The Israeli media has recently carried alarmist reports that a war with Syria could erupt as early as this summer, following Israeli intelligence reports that Damascus was preparing for such a conflict.

Two Israeli cabinet ministers have confirmed, however, that the government has approached Syria about the possibility of renewing peace talks.

Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000, mainly because of a dispute over the return of the strategic Golan Heights, which the Jewish state captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed in 1981.

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Op dinsdag 19 juni 2007 20:09 schreef mr.marcus het volgende:

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[lange url]

wordt nog gezellig als Syrie en Iran ook over een degelijke luchtmacht beschikken!

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KHIYAM, Lebanon, June 24 (Reuters) - A car bomb, "most likely" driven by a suicide bomber, killed five U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Sunday, a police source said.

It was the first deadly attack on the 13,000-strong United Nations force since last year's Israel-Hezbollah war and drew swift condemnation from the United States, France and others.

The source said a mangled car was found at the scene with human remains inside. Security sources had said earlier the blast was caused by a roadside bomb detonated by remote control.

Spain's defence minister said two Spanish and three Colombian peacekeepers, all serving in the Spanish army, had been killed in the blast. Earlier Lebanese security sources had said five Spaniards were killed.

The attack hit two U.N. vehicles near the southern town of Khiyam. Witnesses said ammunition in a troop carrier had exploded after the initial blast. Two soldiers on top of the vehicle were blown dozens of metres (yards) into a field. Two of those who died inside were burnt beyond recognition.

There was no immediate claim for the attack, which occurred just hours after Lebanese troops killed seven Islamist militants in a raid on a block of flats in the northern city of Tripoli.

A spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, an al Qaeda-inspired Sunni group, which has been battling Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli for the past five weeks, accused UNIFIL on June 2 of bombarding the camp. UNIFIL denied it.

A few days later, a small bomb was found and defused in Tyre, near a beach resort frequented by UNIFIL personnel.

UNIFIL had gone on higher alert after the Nahr al-Bared fighting began. Blast walls were erected around the building housing United Nations agencies in downtown Beirut.

SUNNI MILITANTS

Last Sunday two rockets fired from south Lebanon landed in Israel, causing no casualties. Hezbollah denied involvement.

UNIFIL's previous commander said this year that Sunni Islamist militants were his biggest security worry.

The Shi'ite Hezbollah group, which has had no visible armed presence in the south since the July-August 2006 war, denounced what it called an attack aimed at destabilising the country, saying it "hurts the people of the south and of Lebanon".

Lebanese politicians flocked to condemn the bombing, which Saad al-Hariri, Sunni leader of the ruling Western-backed coalition, described as "a grave terrorist attack".

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called his Spanish counterpart to decry the bombing, which he said would "only increase the Lebanese government's determination to implement (U.N. Security Council) resolution 1701 literally and step up cooperation between the Lebanese army and UNIFIL".

Resolution 1701 halted hostilities in the Israel-Hezbollah war and mandated the deployment of an expanded UNIFIL. In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in denouncing the attack on the Spanish U.N. soldiers. "I join you in absolutely condemning any attack that was launched against them," she said.

Spain has 1,100 troops serving in the UNIFIL force which patrols the south and Lebanese coastal waters.

UNIFIL has suffered 260 fatalities since it was set up after an Israeli invasion in 1978. The dead include 250 troops, two military observers, four international and four local staff. (Additional reporting by Ben Harding and Teresa Larraz in Madrid and Nadim Ladki and Laila Bassam in Beirut)
[url=http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24735399.htm

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Op maandag 25 juni 2007 10:10 schreef DrWolffenstein het volgende:
Ontvoerders dreigen BBC-verslaggever op te blazen

Hij leeft nog, niet gedacht. Ergens is het wel tragikomisch dat ze nou net een journalist van de meest extreem linkse West-Europese zender denkbaar hebben ontvoerd en vervolgens met een duister lot bedreigen.

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Op zondag 24 juni 2007 22:00 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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[afbeelding]

damn rip

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Op maandag 25 juni 2007 10:10 schreef DrWolffenstein het volgende:
Ontvoerders dreigen BBC-verslaggever op te blazen

Hij leeft nog, niet gedacht. Ergens is het wel tragikomisch dat ze nou net een journalist van de meest extreem linkse West-Europese zender denkbaar hebben ontvoerd en vervolgens met een duister lot bedreigen.

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Geluidsband met stem ontvoerde militair Israël
JERUZALEM - Op de Israëlische televisie is maandag een geluidsband afgespeeld, waarop vermoedelijk de stem van de ontvoerde Israëlische militair Gilad Shalit was te horen. De persoon op de band vraagt om medische steun en roept Israël op Palestijnse gevangenen vrij te laten.

Shalit werd precies een jaar geleden hebben gekidnapt vanuit een Israëlische legerpost. Een woordvoerder van de gewapende tak van de militante beweging Hamas zei maandag eerder op de dag dat een geluidsopname van Shalit zou worden vrijgegeven.

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Syrian troops enter Lebanon, fortify positions to depth of three kilometres

July 5, 2007, 10:51 AM (GMT+02:00)

Lebanese security sources report the intruding force backed by bulldozers has taken up position near Yanta in east Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley and is digging hundreds of trenches and bunkers in more than one area along the Lebanese border. This explains why Syria Wednesday reopened the Joussia-Qaa border post. Damascus-backed Palestinian radicals have been fighting Lebanese troops for close to two months in the still unresolved battle of Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli.

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Syria quietly opens Damascus road to Quneitra, tying up last tactical ends of plan for cross-border terrorist campaign in Golan

July 5, 2007, 11:39 AM (GMT+02:00)

On July 4, Radio Damascus’ political commentator said the large-scale Israeli military exercise which ended that night on Golan means Israel is about to go to war against Syria. However, a week before the Israeli maneuver, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources discovered that Syria had on June 26 quietly opened the Damascus-Golan road to Quneitra to civilian traffic for the first time in 40 years, even through civilian habitation in the town is still barred. The road is now open for Syrian-trained terrorists to cross the Golan border in civilian guise for attacks on Israel civilian and military targets without laying Damascus open to a charge of aggression, a ploy of which Israel may be less tolerant than Lebanon and US forces in Iraq.

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Egyptian police fire at Sudanese refugees trying to enter Israel
By Reuters and Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent

Egyptian border police shot at a group of Sudanese refugees trying to illegally enter Israel, critically wounding one, a security source said on Wednesday.

An Egyptian border patrol spotted the group of about 30 Sudanese refugees at the border, south of Rafah in northern Sinai Peninsula, and ordered them to stop, opening fire when they did not comply, the source said.

One Sudanese man sustained wounds to his abdomen, and was being treated in El Arish Hospital, while three others were taken into police custody. The other 26 escaped in the direction of the Israeli border, according to the source.

Egypt's eastern border is the scene of frequent attempts by Egyptians and foreigners at crossing into Israel to smuggle goods or search for work.

Egypt arrests 20 Sudanese refugees trying to infiltrate Israel

Egyptian border guards arrested 20 Sudanese refugees on Tuesday as they tried to infiltrate into Israel, police said, one day after the Interior Ministry announced its intention to deport most of the African refugees currently in Israel to Egypt.

According to Captain Mohammed Badr of the northern Sinai Peninsula police, the group, including women and children, were from war-torn Darfur and southern Sudan and were seeking political asylum in Israel.

"People smugglers left the group near the frontier and fled just minutes before police arrived," Badr said. The Sudanese refugees said they had paid thousands of dollars to be smuggled into Israel.

About 200 people a year, mostly from Sudan, are smuggled from Egypt into Israel, according to the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights.

On Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting that the African refugees who will be deported to Egypt "will not be returned to countries where their lives are in danger."

Olmert was trying to assuage concerns of human rights organizations regarding the fate of the refugees once they were deported to Egypt, from where they crossed into Israel.

Olmert and Egypt President Hosni Mubarak agreed last week that Israel would deport the African refugees back to Egypt though international border crossings.

Human rights groups expressed concern on Sunday that the prime minister's announcement regarding the deportation of the refugees failed to address questions about their safety, particularly the likelihood that they may in turn be deported from Egypt back to their home countries. Many are refugees from Sudan, and there is genuine concern for their safety if they are sent back to their home country.

Olmert told the Foreign Affairs committee that some 2,800 refugees and economic migrants have crossed into Israel from Egypt, and that 1,160 of them are from Sudan. According to Olmert's data, 2,500 persons crossing into Israel from Sinai during the first six months of the year.

Olmert promised that Israel will absorb the refugees that have already arrived from Darfur, and will help settle them in Israel. As for the rest, he said that they will be returned to Egypt.

'Most of the persons crossing are economic migrants, and there is no reason to hold them here and to create a community that [potentially] may reach hundreds of thousands.' Olmert said.

The representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Jerusalem, Michael Bavli, warned Monday that unless the wave of refugees is not stemmed in the south, 'the ability of the UN to deal with the influx of refugees will collapse. It is already terribly behind.'

The UNHCR evaluates four to five requests for asylum per day, but in practice there are more than 40 new arrivals each night.

During discussions of an inter-ministerial committee on Sunday, it was decided that those who cannot be deported to Egypt for a variety of reasons will be incarcerated. Much of the discussion on Sunday revolved around the infrastructure necessary to hold these people.

Part of the Olmert-Mubarak agreement also includes efforts to hermetically seal the border against cross-border migration by illegal immigrants or refugees.

Bavli expressed his support for the closing of the southern border to refugees and economic migrants from Egypt. 'It is the right of any state to close the border,' he said. 'It can build a fence, dig a trench or use drones.'

Bavli also made it clear that he is not opposed to the agreement between Olmert and Mubarak for the immediate deportation of the refugees who crossed into Israel from Egypt, as long as Egypt does not then send them back to Sudan.

The UNHCR representative noted that 'the refugees should be hosted by the first country that received them, and not returned to their home country.'

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Kamervragen over kranen Riwal
Tweede Kamerlid Martijn van Dam van de PvdA heeft kamervragen gesteld over het kraanverhuurbedrijf Riwal uit Dordrecht. Het bedrijf lijkt nog steeds betrokken te zijn bij de bouw van de omstreden afscheidingsmuur die Israël bouwt op Palestijns grondgebied.

Het bedrijf beloofde vorig jaar nog geen kranen meer in te zetten voor het internationaal veroordeelde project, maar vorige maand bleek dat de kranen van Riwal opnieuw bij de 9 meter hoge muur waren gesignaleerd.

Van Dam wil nu van minister Verhagen van Buitenlandse Zaken weten wat die tegen het bedrijf gaat doen. Daarnaast wil hij van de minister meer openheid over welke Nederlandse bedrijven nog meer actief zijn bij het nederzettingenbeleid van Israël in de Palestijnse gebieden.

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Syria calls on citizens to leave Lebanon ahead of a military “eruption” expected next week

July 9, 2007, 12:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

Damascus is also moving home Syrian students at Lebanese universities due to “unstable conditions.”

Our Washington sources connect the cancellation of defense secretary Robert M. Gates four-tour national Latin American tour this week, among other things, to the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East and Gulf.

Sunday, DEBKAfile disclosed that Iran, Syria Hizballah feared stoking major conflagration in Lebanon to forestall Security Council reprimand on July 16. Saudi and Lebanese intelligence report sighting hectic preparations by Iran, Syria and the Hizballah to foment major trouble in Lebanon up to and after mid-July. They intend the eruption to throw off track the July 16 UN Security Council session called to castigate their non-implementation of its Resolution 1701, especially their defiance of the clauses banning the continued arms smuggling to Hizballah from Iran and Syria.

Our Washington sources report that ahead of the session, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed to a number of European and Asian governments for contingents to bolster the UN force patrolling South Lebanon. None refused outright, only explaining they were short of military manpower. This would also apply to the United States.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources expect the ructions already gripping Lebanon to escalate from mid-July and climax in the first week of September, when the pro-Syrian president Emil Lahoud ends his tenure. Damascus, Tehran and Hizballah are aiming to bring down the pro-Western Fouad Siniora’s government in Beirut or at least shrink its jurisdiction to a number of neighborhoods in the capital similar to Nouri al Maliki’s administration in Baghdad.

Word has reached Riyadh from Damascus indicating that president Bashar Assad plans to use the showdown in Lebanon to ignite war clashes in all of Lebanon and against Israel on two fronts, the Golan and the Gaza Strip.

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Op maandag 30 juli 2007 23:05 schreef Meki het volgende:

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zoz heb je Israel bril weer aan ??

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Jerusalem security guard kills Arab attacker in Old City

A security guard shot and killed an Arab
attacker in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday after the man shot and moderately wounded another security guard, police said.

Ten bystanders were lightly to moderately wounded in the shootout - apparently from the guard's gunfire - including six Jews, two Armenians and two Muslims.

Police and rescue officials were on the scene, and a police source told Israel Radio that the "situation was under control."

The late-morning incident occurred near the Latin
Patriarchate by the Jaffa Gate, when the assailant grabbed the guard's gun and shot him twice in the chest, Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. The second guard killed the man as he tried to flee the scene.

The victims of the attack were rushed by Magen David Adom paramedics to three Jerusalem hospitals.

The assailant, roughly 20 years old, did not carry any documents identifying him, police said.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski condemned the attack, saying that the city would not capitulate to attempts to undermine its security.

Immediately following the attack, an eyewitness told Israel Radio that the security guards had killed the assailant after he had already been neutralized.

"They continued to shoot [the attacker] after he was on the ground," the witness.

However, after examining footage from CCTV tapes, police have determined that the security guard acted appropriately.

"[This was] and excellent reaction by the guard. The execution and the professional reaction was exemplary," Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said. "The security system in Jerusalem has once again proven that its deployment is fitting and on a high professional level."

The security guards are employees of the Ateret Kohanim Yeshiva

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Ondanks uitlatingen van de Italiaanse premier Prodi en een commissie van het Brits Lagerhuis om in gesprek te gaan met de terreurorganisatie Hamas, blijft minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Maxime Verhagen (CDA) hier fel tegen: 'De internationale gemeenschap moet niet in gesprek gaan met Hamas.'

Verhagen in gesprek met Abbas
Verhagen, hier in gesprek met Abbas, is fel tegen een eventuele dialoog met Hamas

Dat zei Verhagen vandaag op Radio 1. Verhagen vindt echter dat de internationale gemeenschap vast moet blijven houden aan de eisen die eerder zijn gesteld aan Hamas.

Vernietigen
‘Er kan pas met de organisatie gepraat worden als deze de staat Israël erkent, alle internationale afspraken accepteert en geweld afzweert,’ aldus Verhagen.

Een vergelijking met de vredesbesprekingen met de IRA in Ierland wees hij van de hand. Het is nooit de doelstelling van de IRA geweest om Engeland te vernietigen, terwijl het volgens hem wel de doelstelling van Hamas is om Israël te vernietigen.

PvdA
Coalitiepartij PvdA vindt wel dat de dialoog met Hamas moet worden gezocht, omdat Hamas een onderdeel van het probleem is. Israël gaf eerder deze week aan dat het een ‘grote fout’ zou zijn als de internationale gemeenschap zou proberen om de verschillen te overbruggen tussen de islamitische Hamas en de meer seculiere Fatah van de Palestijnse president Mahmoud Abbas.

De Italiaanse premier Prodi vertelde afgelopen weekend tijdens een bijeenkomst dat voor vrede in het Midden-Oosten een dialoog met het Palestijnse Hamas onontbeerlijk is. Dit leidde binnen de Romeinse diplomatie een tot een ‘kleine crisis’ in de Italiaans-Israëlische betrekkingen, meldt de Volkskrant.

Ophef
Ook in Groot-Brittannië zijn stemmen opgegaan om een dialoog met Hamas aan te gaan. De commissie voor Buitenlandse Zaken van het Britse Lagerhuis pleit hiervoor.

In Nederland ontstond ophef toen linkse Kamerleden tijdens een reis door het Midden-Oosten met een hoge gezant van Hamas afspraken. Martijn van Dam (PvdA), Harry van Bommel (SP) en Mariko Peters (GroenLinks) verlieten onverwachts een diner in Damascus voor een door een contact van Peters geregelde ontmoeting met Oesama Hamdan, een naar Syrië uitgeweken bestuurslid van Hamas.

Tijdens een bezoek aan de Palestijnse gebieden eerder dit jaar zei Verhagen tegen president Abbas dat hij er alles aan moest doen om te voorkomen dat de Gazastrook in handen valt van de terroristische Hamas-beweging.

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Gaza zit al dagen zonder stroom

Honderdduizenden inwoners van de Gazastrook zitten sinds vier dagen zonder stroom, omdat de EU subsidies voor brandstof heeft stopgezet. Volgens de EU wil de Hamasregering in Gaza belasting op elektriciteit gaan heffen, om met het belastinggeld haar beleid te financieren. In verband met de EU- boycot van de fundamentalistische Hamas, wil Europa zich er van verzekeren dat het subsidiegeld alleen ten goede komt aan de Palestijnse bevolking in de Gazastrook.

Hamas ontkent dat het EU-geld misbruikt en beschuldigt zijn politieke rivaal de Fatahpartij op de Westelijke Jordaanoever van een complot. Fatahpresident Abbas op zijn beurt zegt dat Hamas zijn milities van het elektriciteitsgeld wil betalen.

Israël sloot vorige week al een andere toevoer van brandstof naar de Gazastrook af. Alleen Egypte levert nu nog elektriciteit aan de Palestijnen, maar dat is slechts goed voor 17 van de benodigde 200 megawatt.

In de Gazastrook valt de stroom geregeld uit, dit komt door het zwaar verouderde energienetwerk en achterstallige Palestijnse betalingen aan de energiebedrijven. Zeker de helft van de 1,4 miljoen Palestijnen in de Gazastrook zitten zonder stroom. Overal in de Gazastrook is een run op kaarsen, batterijen en zaklantaarns.

Werkgevers sturen hun personeel naar huis en talloze bedrijven gooien hun producten weg omdat de koeling niet werkt.

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Militants fire Katyusha at southern Israel from Gaza

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and Associated Press

Palestinian militants on Sunday fired a Katyusha rocket from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel, police said. The rocket, identified as a Grad-type Katyusha, struck near the Negev town of Netivot.

The Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attack, which coincided with a number of mortar attacks on the Negev on Sunday.

There were no damage or injuries caused.

The mayor of Netivot said that the government had denied the town funds intended for civil rocket defense. He said the stated reason for denying the funds was that the town is located 11 kilometers from the Gaza border, rather than within a 10-kilometer radius the government had set, Israel Radio reported.

The Russian-invented Katyusha has a longer range than the more makeshift Qassam rocket that has been fired by the thousands at Negev towns and villages. Most Katyushas fired in the region are fired by the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah organization. But Palestinians fired a Katyusha at the southern Israel city of Ashkelon a year ago.

Israeli security officials have expressed concerned that Gaza militants could fire large quantities of Katyushas into Israel. Army Radio cited Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin as telling the cabinet that Israel viewed with gravity and concern the militants' ability to strike deeper inside Israel.

While Sunday's attack was not the first Katyusha to be fired out of Gaza, such attacks are extremely rare. The Islamic Jihad militant group claims to have fired about a dozen Russian-made rockets at Israel since March 2006, and to have many in their possession

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IDF blames Hamas for Katyusha rocket fire on southern Israel (Reuters)

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Op vrijdag 23 november 2007 21:36 schreef Caesu het volgende:
en volgende week Annapolis conferentie.

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Op dinsdag 18 december 2007 11:37 schreef SteveBallmer het volgende:
'Palestijnen' zijn op de wereld om te worden doodgeschoten. Klaar.
Niet weggaan, gewoon lekker in je ellende blijven zitten en vooral NIET WEGGAAN EN WAT ANDERS GAAN DOEN!

Keep the fight alive!

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Op dinsdag 18 december 2007 13:07 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Exact.

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Op dinsdag 18 december 2007 14:48 schreef SteveBallmer het volgende:

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En doorvechten! Tot op het bot!
En wat ook gebeurt; NIET TOEGEVEN!!!
Wordt je opa, je vader of je broer geofferd in de strijd; DOORGAAN!!!
Nooit opgeven, da's het punt.

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Op dinsdag 18 december 2007 14:48 schreef SteveBallmer het volgende:

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En doorvechten! Tot op het bot!
En wat ook gebeurt; NIET TOEGEVEN!!!
Wordt je opa, je vader of je broer geofferd in de strijd; DOORGAAN!!!
Nooit opgeven, da's het punt.

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Vanmiddag werd Libanon opnieuw opgeschrikt door een zware bomaanslag. Bij de aanslag in de hoofdstad Beiroet kwam daarbij de vooraanstaande politiecommandant Wissam Eid om het leven. Tenminste drie andere mensen, waaronder zijn lijfwacht, kwamen ook om en vielen er meer dan dertig gewonden.

De ontploffing vond plaats in de christelijke wijk Al-Hasimiya. Hier werd de auto van Eid door middel van een op afstand ontstoken bom in de lucht geblazen. Volgens bronnen zou Eid net terugkomen van een vergadering met leden van de internationale onderzoekscomissie voor de opheldering van de moord op ex-premier Rafik Hariri. Die moord leverde een stormloop aan protesten op in Libanon, waarna de regering aftrad. Na de aanslag meldde voorzitter Ashraf Rifi dat Eid aan de oplossing van verscheidene grote terreuraanslagen bezig was.

Volgens politiebronnen was dit niet de eerste poging om Eid te vermoorden. "Dit was duidelijk een wraakaktie. Eid was reeds in februari 2006 doelwit van een moordcomplot, toen voor de ingang van zijn huis een handgranaat af ging", zei een agent. Vorig jaar was Eid gewond geraakt tijdens gevechten tegen islamitische extremisten in het Palestijnse kamp Nahr al-Bared. Bij de gevechten in dat kamp vielen de afgelopen tijd al zeker driehonderd doden.

Libanon wordt al enkele jaren opgeschrikt door bomaanslagen op vooraanstaande politici en journalisten. Het land gaat gebukt onder een politiek conflict tussen het pro-westerse (anti-Syrische) en het pro-Syrische kamp. De slachtoffers vallen het vaakst aan de kant die anti-Syrisch is. Eerder maakte de VN al melding van betrokkenheid van Syrië bij de dood van Hariri.

In december 2007 werd generaal François al-Hajj het slachtoffer van een moordaanslag. Hij werd beschouwd als de belangrijkste kandidaat om stafchef Michel Suleiman op te volgen, die als kandidaat voor het Libanese presidentschap naar voren was geschoven.

De aanslag van vandaag was de zwaarste sinds de moord op Hariri in februari 2005. Destijds kwamen 22 mensen om het leven. Vermoed wordt dat opnieuw Syrië achter de aanslag zit.

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The Palestinian Authority is planning to mark Israel's 60th anniversary by calling on all Palestinians living abroad to converge on Israel by land, sea and air.

The Palestinians, backed by all those who believe in peace, coexistence, human rights and the UN resolutions, shall recruit all their energies and efforts to return to their homeland and live with the Jews in peace and security," the plan says.

The plan calls on the refugees to return to Israel on May 14, 2008 with their suitcases and tents so that they could settle in their former villages and towns. The refugees are also requested to carry UN flags upon their return and to be equipped with their UNRWA-issued ID cards.

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Op dinsdag 18 december 2007 11:37 schreef SteveBallmer het volgende:
'Palestijnen' zijn op de wereld om te worden doodgeschoten. Klaar.
Niet weggaan, gewoon lekker in je ellende blijven zitten en vooral NIET WEGGAAN EN WAT ANDERS GAAN DOEN!

Keep the fight alive!

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Poll Shows Most Palestinians Favor Violence Over Talks

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.

The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel.

“There is real reason to be concerned,” Mr. Shikaki said in an interview at his West Bank office. His Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducts a survey every three months, is widely viewed as among the few independent and reliable gauges of Palestinian public opinion.

His explanation for the shift, one widely reflected in the Palestinian media, is that recent actions by Israel, especially attacks on Gaza that killed nearly 130 people, an undercover operation in Bethlehem that killed four militants and the announced expansion of several West Bank settlements, have led to despair and rage among average Palestinians who thirst for revenge.

Mr. Shikaki’s poll also showed that the militant Islamist group Hamas, which Israel and the United States have been trying to isolate, is gaining popularity in the West Bank while its American-backed rival, the more secular Fatah, is losing ground. Asked for whom they would vote for president, 46 percent chose Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, the current president, while 47 percent chose Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Three months ago, Mr. Abbas was ahead 56 percent to 37 percent. After Hamas forces pushed Fatah forces out of Gaza last summer, Mr. Shikaki’s polls showed the Palestinian public to be disillusioned with Hamas, and in the subsequent months many argued that Mr. Abbas, with the support of Washington and Israel, had an opportunity to win public support by easing living conditions and advancing in negotiations. That has not happened.

According to the poll, of 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of Israel’s most prominent centers of religious Zionism and ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Mr. Shikaki said that result was the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

On negotiations between Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel, and Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, 75 percent said they were without benefit and should be terminated. Regarding the thousands of rockets that have been launched on Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon, 64 percent support it.

The poll did show support for a two-state solution over the long term with 66 percent favoring normalized relations with Israel if it returned all land won in 1967 and a Palestinian state was established. But such a deal seems a long way off now.

“The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada,” Mr. Shikaki said, referring to the years just after 2000 when suicide attacks on Israel and Israeli strikes on Palestinian forces reached new heights. “I am very worried about what is coming.”

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Israel: Hezbollah increases rocket range

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Senior Israeli defense officials say Hezbollah has dramatically increased its arsenal of rockets and their range, threatening most of Israel.
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The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said Thursday the Lebanese group has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of around 186 miles. That means they can hit anywhere in Israel's heavily populated center and reach as far as Dimona, where Israel's nuclear reactor is located.

Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into Israel during the monthlong conflict between them in 2006. Those rockets had a maximum range of some 43 miles.

The United Nations peacekeeping force dispatched to Lebanon after that war was meant to prevent Hezbollah from rearming. But the Israeli officials say Hezbollah now has many more rockets in its arsenal than the 14,000 it had before the conflict.

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Op vrijdag 2 mei 2008 20:36 schreef OldJeller het volgende:
Aardige documentaire nu op Nederland 2 (netwerk) die een redelijk beeld geeft van hoe de bezetting rustig verder gaat.