News Highlights:
- Five Israeli soldiers, members of a parachute commando unit, were wounded in an explosion in Nablus on Nov. 2; Nablus was then totally sealed off and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said ambulances were forbidden passage and a nine-month pregnant Palestinian woman had to wait for four hours at a checkpoint.
- Two Palestinian teenagers, both 15, were wounded in Jenin Nov. 3 by Israeli gunfire; several days earlier, a 12 year old Palestinian boy was killed in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.
- Palestinian detainees at Ketziot prison (Al Ansar) in the Negev desert clashed with their Israeli jailors while protesting the harsh conditions at the prison camp.
- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, while on a trip to Moscow, told Vladimir Putin that the “roadmap for peace†is in doubt, and Israel is opposed to Russia cementing the roadmap in an official U.N. Security Council Resolution; Sharon also says he is willing to meet with Palestinian PM Ahmed Qorei.
- Palestinian cabinet minister says U.S. is not serious about opposition to the apartheid wall, as evidenced by the U.N. veto, and there are some reports that the U.S. administration is ready to drop the whole issue.
- U.S. has reduced the size and budget of the team to implement the “roadmap†peace plan; the majority of the team and its leader have been back in the U.S. since Sept. 24, with no plans to return to the Middle East.
- A EU opinion poll shows that 59% of Europeans believe Israel is a threat to world peace and more than two-thirds think the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was unjustified.
Feature:
A live interview with Melissa, a B.C. university student and activist who is currently in Rafah, Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. Melissa is one of the few international observers to make it into Rafah and see the devastation from recent Israeli airstrikes. Melissa spoke of the desperation of the homeless refugees, some of who are now living in tents on top of the rubble of their former residences. She also gave details of the time she spent in the West Bank – the checkpoints, the difficulties in movement, the permits and the apartheid wall.
Focus on Zionism:
Highlights of a Badil(www.badil.org) press release about the Israeli permits needed by Palestinians to conduct almost every aspect of daily life. There are now new permits for those Palestinians caught between the “Green Line” and the apartheid wall, the “seam zone”, permits to enter and leave the area, permits to work on their own land, and even permits to live there.