GAZA,
December 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli troops shot a
nine-year-old Palestinian girl dead Saturday, December 28, in the Khan
Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical and
security officials said.
Hanin
Abu Suleiman was hit in the head by a bullet fired from an Israeli
position close to the (illegal) Gush Katif settlement bloc as she
stood outside her house, the sources said, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
Her
death brought to 2,801 the toll from more than two years of
Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation, including 2,067
Palestinians (mostly women and children) and 685 Israelis.
Troops
vs. Students
Meanwhile,
Israeli occupation troops clashed with Palestinian students in front
of Bethlehem University Saturday, responding to stone-throwing with
tear gas grenades.
The
violence erupted when an army jeep and another from the border police
took position in front of the southern West Bank town’s campus, an
AFP correspondent on the scene said.
Some
of the hundreds of students attending classes inside the compound
started throwing stones at the soldiers who responded by firing tear
gas grenades and a sound bomb through the gates.
There
were no reports of any injuries.
The
clashes came a day after Samih Hassuna and Ibrahim Abbas, the head of
Bethlehem University’s student union and his predecessor
respectively, were arrested by the Israeli army in central Bethlehem,
according to Palestinian security sources.
The
town, which enjoyed a brief symbolic pullback by Israeli occupation
troops during Christmas celebrations earlier this week, was reoccupied
by Israeli troops in November, AFP said.
Home
Demolitions
The
Israeli army also demolished two homes belonging to Palestinian
resistance fighters Saturday in the southern West Bank town of Durra,
Palestinian witnesses said.
The
home of Abdelrahim Talahmi, an activist from the Islamic Jihad
resistance group, was destroyed by Israeli troops early in the
morning, witnesses said.
Islamic
Jihad resistance group claimed responsibility Friday night for the
killing of four Jewish settlers in the illegal settlement of Otniel in
the southern West Bank.
However,
it has not been established that Talahmi took part in the Friday night
shooting nor the nature of his role in Islamic Jihad.
While
an army spokeswoman confirmed the demolition of Talahmi’s house, she
could not specify whether it was in connection to the Otniel attack.
Palestinian
witnesses said another house was destroyed in Durra Saturday, that of
a resistance fighter from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who was killed
in fighting in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem a year ago.
Ramallah
Demonstration
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Two
Palestinians cry as their house is blown up by Israeli occupation
troops near the West Bank city of al-Khalil
|
Elsewhere
in the occupied Palestinian territories, some 350 anti-globalization
activists staged a demonstration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
town of Ramallah Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinians.
People
from 25 different countries attending the World Social Forum in
Palestine, including large French and Italian delegations, staged a
small march, chanting “End the occupation, settlers go out!” and
waving Palestinians flags.
Luisa
Morgantini, a member of the European Parliament who chairs the
delegation on relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, told
AFP the demonstration was “a non-violent way of expressing
solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Like
most of the West Bank, Ramallah has been reoccupied by the Israeli
army since June, and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has been
trapped in his battered headquarters here for more than a year.
Morgantini
also complained that some demonstrators who had flown to Tel Aviv to
take part in the forum had been denied access and rejected at the
airport.
“Israel
does not tolerate on its soil people who come to demonstrate against
the state,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson told AFP
Friday after 11 foreigners, including eight Belgians, were turned away
at Ben Gurion International Airport
Morgantini
warned that “if Israel prevents us from coming here, the European
Union should demand visas from Israelis wishing to visit its member
countries.”
The
four-day event, which started on Friday, is modeled on the World
Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, last February. After two
days of workshops in Ramallah, the delegations will go on field visits
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A
statement issued by the organizers said that the aim of the forum was
to “integrate the Palestinian national cause in the global agenda of
social movements” and “stir world public opinion in reaction to
the Israeli abuse of human rights in the Palestinian territories.”
OIC:
Israel Torpedoing Peace
On
another front, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
Saturday strongly condemned Israel’s killings of Palestinians,
accusing the Jewish state of attempting to torpedo all peace
proposals.
Abdelwahid
Belkeziz, secretary general of the 57-member pan-Islamic body,
condemned the “daily killings by Israeli authorities in the occupied
Palestinian territories despite a period of relative calm,” achieved
with the help of Palestinians.
Belkeziz
appealed to the international community and members of the diplomatic
“quartet” on the Middle East - the United States, the European
Union, Russia and the United Nations - to “halt these (Israeli)
aggressions and provide protection for the Palestinian people.”
He
deplored the “Israeli government’s deliberate turning of the
killing of Palestinians into a topic in the Israeli election
campaign.”
