Netanyahu Give Testimony In Assault in the Ship

Jerusalem  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to testify Monday on his version of events that led to deadly attacks against aid ships Gaza purposes. Testimony prime minister will be delivered in front of an Israeli commission investigating the deadly attack in late May that. Netanyahu became the first of three high officials who will give sworn testimony this week about the incident, which the Israeli navy commandos stormed the six vessels that help to break through the blockade against the Gaza Strip, which killed nine Turkish activists and injuring dozens of other passengers.

May 31 operation that sparked a diplomatic crisis and global calls for an investigation.Investigative panel that will hear sworn testimony from high-level decision makers involved in the commando raid, including the Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, in a series of public hearings that began on 9 August.

However, the committee’s mandate would be limited to the study of international legal issues, and they will not investigate the decision-making process that led to the deadly operation.Public hearings will be held in a hall in Jerusalem.Israeli officials said the panel will listen to Barracks sworn testimony on Tuesday and Ashkenazi in the next day. Israeli commandos raided ships in the fleet assistance to the Gaza Strip on 31 May. Nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activist killed in the attack on one ship.

Israel-Turkey relations plunged to its lowest level since the two countries reached a strategic partnership in the 1990s due to the incident.Turkey summoned its ambassador from Tel Aviv and canceled three planned military exercises after the raid. Turkey also twice rejected the Israeli request for military aircraft using the airspace.

Severe violence in the pre-dawn raid Monday (31 / 5) by Israeli troops occurred on the boat Turkey, Mavi Marmara, who led the fleet of aid to Gaza.Israel argued that the passenger-passenger ship was attacked the troops, but the organizers claimed that the fleet of the Israeli troops started shooting as soon as they landed.

After the attack, Egypt, who reached peace with Israel in 1979, it opened the Rafah border to allow aid convoys into Gaza – widely seen as an effort to counter critics of the Egyptian role in the blockade.Cairo, in coordination with Israel, allowing only limited in its border crossing since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Under increasing pressure, Israel then launched an investigation along with two international observers for the attack. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon encourages a separate investigation into the UN with the participation of Israel and Turkey.

Israel also relax the blockade of Gaza by allowing the majority of civilian goods into the coastal territory.Gaza Strip, a densely populated coastal regions, blockaded by Israel and Egypt after Hamas to power nearly three years ago.

Group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June of 2007 after defeating Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a deadly battle for a few days.Since then, these poor coastal blockader by Israel. Any Palestinian entity into two separate areas – the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and West Bank under Abbas government. European Union, Israel and the U.S. enter into the Hamas terrorist organization list.( AFP)

Mavi Marmara pull out of Israel

Haifa, Israel  Turkish passenger ship that became the center of deadly violence during the raid against the Israeli navy ships aim assistance Gaza Strip Israel pulled out of port, on Thursday, an AFP correspondent said.Mavi Marmara taken out from the port of Haifa by a large Turkish tugboat sent to bring back the ship.Two other ships were also detained by the navy during the attack on May 31 would also be withdrawn from the port of Ashdod, southern Israel, on Thursday, the defense ministry said.

Repatriation of the ships were made after a decision taken by the political leaders after a request from Ankara, the ministry said in a statement.”Three Turkish tugs will arrive in Israel today. The crew they will receive three ships moored in Israel along with personal equipment on top of existing ships,” the ministry said, without explaining when the transfer is made. The ships were part of a fleet of six ships which attempted to penetrate the Israeli naval blockade against the Gaza Strip on 31 May. Unclear whether the other three ships were still in Israeli ports.The ship is also believed to aid Rachel Corrie, was arrested at an Israeli port, but the legal steps taken to set him free.Israel became the international spotlight after deadly attacks against aid ships.

Israeli commandos raided ships in the fleet assistance to the Gaza Strip on May 31, which killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists in the attack on one ship.Israel-Turkey relations plunged to its lowest level since the two countries reached a strategic partnership in the 1990s due to the incident.

Turkey summoned its ambassador from Tel Aviv and canceled three planned military exercises after the raid. Turkey also twice rejected the Israeli request for military aircraft using the airspace.Severe violence in the pre-dawn raid Monday (31 / 5) by Israeli troops occurred on the boat Turkey, Mavi Marmara, who led the fleet of aid to Gaza.Israel argued that the passenger-passenger ship was attacked the troops, but the organizers claimed that the fleet of the Israeli troops started shooting as soon as they landed.

After the attack, Egypt, who reached peace with Israel in 1979, it opened the Rafah border to allow aid convoys into Gaza – widely seen as an effort to counter critics of the Egyptian role in the blockade.Cairo, in coordination with Israel, allowing only limited in its border crossing since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Under increasing pressure, Israel then launched an investigation along with two international observers for the attack. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon encourages a separate investigation into the UN with the participation of Israel and Turkey.Israel also relax the blockade of Gaza by allowing the majority of civilian goods into the coastal territory. Gaza Strip, a densely populated coastal regions, blockaded by Israel and Egypt after Hamas to power nearly three years ago.

Group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June of 2007 after defeating Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a deadly battle for a few days.Since then, these poor coastal dibloklade by Israel. Any Palestinian entity into two separate areas – the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and West Bank under Abbas government.The AFP report, the European Union, Israel and the U.S. enter into the Hamas terrorist organization list.(AFP)

Dozens of Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday on a "day of rage" Hamas Islamists declared in protest at Israel's consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city

Dozens of Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday on a “day of rage” Hamas Islamists declared in protest at Israel’s consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city.The violence presented another challenge to U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks after Israel angered Palestinians and touched off a dispute with Washington by announcing plans last week to build 1,600 homes for Jews near East Jerusalem.Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.

Police responded with tear gas and fired rubber bullets, witnesses said. Some 40 Palestinians were treated at East Jerusalem hospitals for minor injuries, medical officials said.A police spokesman said some 3,000 officers were put on high alert after Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and wields influence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called for anti-Israeli protests.”We call on the Palestinian people to regard Tuesday as a day of rage against the occupation’s (Israel’s) procedures in Jerusalem against al-Aqsa mosque,” Hamas said in a statement.

Hamas and Palestinian officials affiliated with its rival Fatah movement have said the restoration work at the ancient Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City endangered al-Aqsa, situated some 400 meters (yards) away.Israel has denied the allegation.An inauguration ceremony was held Monday at the synagogue, which was blown up by Jordanian forces when they overran the Jewish Quarter in the 1948 Middle East war. Israel captured the area 19 years later.

Sporadic violence has erupted in recent weeks in Jerusalem after Israel decided to include West Bank religious sites in a Jewish national heritage plan stoked Palestinian anger.Citing biblical and historical links, Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Washington Monday, a State Department spokesman voiced concern about the tensions over the rededication of the synagogue and appealed for calm.”We’re deeply disturbed by statements made by several Palestinian officials mischaracterizing the event in question, which can only serve to heighten the tensions that we see,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

A crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations over the settlement housing project, opposed by Washington, deepened Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s said he would not curb construction of homes for Jews in and around Jerusalem.After Netanyahu’s defiant comments, U.S. officials said U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who had planned to leave Washington Monday for discussions with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on getting indirect negotiations under way, had put off his departure.Announcement of the housing plan during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed the White House and Palestinians, who had just agreed to begin indirect talks with Israel, demanded the project be scrapped first.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called Israel’s actions an insult.Clinton telephoned Netanyahu Friday to convey unspecified demands about the housing project as well as about demonstrating commitment to the U.S.-mediated peace talks, the State Department said, without elaborating.U.S. officials said they were still waiting for Israel’s formal response. Israeli media reports said Clinton had asked for the settlement plan to be scrapped and for Israel to agree to discuss core statehood issues with the Palestinians.(Reuters)

Israeli troops blasted their way into the homes of three wanted Palestinians on Saturday

Israeli troops

NABLUS, West Bank  Israeli troops blasted their way into the homes of three wanted Palestinians on Saturday, killing each in a hail of bullets and straining an uneasy security arrangement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.Israel’s military said the three, affiliated with a violent offshoot of Abbas’ Fatah movement, were targeted for killing an Israeli settler in a roadside ambush earlier in the week and had turned down a chance to surrender.In the Gaza Strip, three young men approaching Israel’s southern border were killed by shots from an Israeli helicopter gunship. Saturday’s deaths made it one of the deadliest days in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel waged war on Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers a year ago.The violent Nablus raids, after months of relative quiet, embarrassed Western-backed Abbas, whose security forces have been coordinating some of their moves with their Israeli counterparts and share a common foe, Hamas.

At the funeral for the slain men, Abbas’ security policy was denounced by thousands of mourners, who chanted: “Why the coordination while we are under the bullets of the army?”Abbas’ prime minister, Salam Fayyad, rushed to Nablus in an apparent attempt at damage control, paying his respects at a large communal wake and condeming Israel. “This attack was a clear assassination, and I believe it is targeting our security and stability,” Fayyad told The Associated Press.

Israel did not let Abbas know of the raid in advance, said Maj. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.Saturday’s killings put to the test an often strained relationship between Israel’s military and Abbas’ security.Since the violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, Abbas has gradually strengthened his control in West Bank towns to keep the Islamists there in check.

Palestinian leaders frequently complain that Israel is undermining these efforts by carrying out arrest raids in areas under Palestinian control. Israel counters that while the performance of the Palestinian security forces is improving, its military will step in when necessary.The target of Saturday’s predawn raids were three longtime members of Fatah’s violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The army said the three – Anan Subeh, 36; Ghassan Abu Sharah, 40; and Raed Suragji, 40 – were involved in Thursday’s deadly roadside shooting of an Israeli settler, and that Israeli forces entered Nablus to try to arrest them.Dozens of Israeli soldiers, some of wearing black masks, poured into Nablus’ casbah, or old city, at about 2 a.m. They were backed by sniffer dogs and dozens of jeeps, bulldozers and other military vehiclesThe forces surrounded the homes of the three. Lerner, the army major, said all three turned down a chance to surrender. However, relatives of Abu Sharah and Suragji said they were killed without warning. Lerner confirmed that none of the wanted men returned fire, including Subeh, who had two pistols and two assault rifles on him.

Soldiers used explosives to blow open the door of the Abu Sharah’s three-story apartment building, said Ghassan Abu Sharah’s brother, Jihad. The brother said that when Ghassan came downstairs, one of the soldiers opened fire and killed him.Troops also used explosives at the home of Raed Suragji, said his wife, Tehani.

She said her husband opened the bedroom door. “Suddenly, shots were fired at us,” she said. “He fell down. I started shouting. I held his head in my lap and sat on the ground.”In the third raid, troops ordered everyone to come out of the Subeh home, said Subeh’s brother, Jamal. The family evacuated, but Anan Subeh stayed behind.

Lerner said Subeh was hiding in a small crawl space in his home when he was killed. He said soldiers heard him shout “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for God is great.Asked why soldiers opened fire, Lerner said troops “had to operate under the assumption that they (the suspects) are dangerous.”Subeh had recently been accepted in Israel’s amnesty program for Fatah gunmen, according to Nablus’ deputy governor, Anan Attireh. Subeh’s family said he had also joined the Preventive Security Service, a branch of the Palestinian security forces.

Suragji was released from an Israeli prison in January, after a seven-year term for involvement in shooting attacks. Abu Sharah was also held by Israel in the past, the military said.The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades carried out scores of shooting attacks and suicide bombings during the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 2000. Since then, the militia has been largely dismantled.

In Israel, right-wing critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his policy of easing travel restrictions in the West Bank was to blame for the shooting attack. Lerner said Israel did not plan to set up new roadblocks.Also Saturday, an Israeli helicopter gunship killed three Gazans, ages 19 and 20, as they approached the border barrier with Israel. The army said the three were hit after they ignored warning shots.Relatives of the three had tried to sneak into Israel for work and were not affiliated with political groups.Israel does not allow Palestinians to approach its border area with Gaza, fearing militants will stage attacks there.

"mentally disturbed" woman tried to attack Pope Benedict XVI

"mentally disturbed" woman tried to attack Pope Benedict XVI

The woman who dragged the Pope down Thursday night during Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica is the same woman who tried to attack the Pope at the same function last year, the Vatican said.The woman, described by a Vatican spokesman as “mentally disturbed” jumped a barrier at the start of the event and toppled Pope Benedict XVI as onlookers gasped.Screams erupted from worshippers when the woman ran toward Pope Benedict XVI and grabbed onto his vestments as he walked down the main aisle of the Rome church, video footage showed.

He was quickly helped to his feet by his aides — prompting cheers from the crowd — and the service was resumed, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told CNN.The Pope was not hurt in the incident, Lombardi said.

“Unfortunately that is not the same for Cardinal [Roger Etchegaray] who was nearby; he fell and broke his femur,” said Lomabardi.The woman was being detained, Lombardi said. Lombardi did not release the name of the woman but she had been named in Italian news outlets.He confirmed that the woman was same person who unsuccessfully tried to rush at the Pope at the event last year.

Lombardi defended the Vatican’s security saying authorities were sure that the woman did not have any weapons because she had gone through security screening.

John Allen, senior Vatican analyst for CNN, said such security breaches aren’t uncommon.”As compared to say, the president of the United States, the security membrane around the pope is pretty thin and fairly permeable,” he said, citing similar past incidents, including one that happened last Christmas Eve.

Allen said that generally, these disruptions are caused by people who aren’t seeking real harm, but who want to be close to the pope.Benedict began what has traditionally been a midnight Mass at the Vatican at 10 p.m. as officials sought to keep the 82-year-old pontiff from a late night.

Celebrants in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus in the West Bank, however, joined the Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal for a midnight Mass attended by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials.

Outside the Church of the Nativity, erected over the site Christian tradition says was the place of Jesus’ birth, the faithful gathered under the watchful eyes of heavily armed Palestinian police.

But Palestinian shopkeeper Nadia Hazboun said the security situation in the West Bank has improved in the time since the militant Hamas group took over Gaza and Abbas’ Fatah movement abandoned the narrow strip of land between Israel and the Mediterranean for the West Bank.

“It was bad, now it is good,” he told Voice of America radio. “I told you, before anybody take the law in his [own] hands. But now the law [is] with the police. We have security, we have calm, we have now the best situation in Bethlehem.”Were you there? Share pictures, video

Christmas Eve in Bethlehem is a popular destination for American Christians, including Iowan Paul Edelman.”Just the festivities, the idea that this is the birthplace of Christ, and you get to see all the historic places and share it with people from around the world; it’s a very nice experience,” he told Voice of America radio.

Israel allows passage to top business people and a limited number of Gazans seeking treatment for serious illnesses

,GAZA CITY ,Gaza Strip  A healthy man in blockaded Gaza faked cancer, hoping the deadly disease would be his ticket out of the territory that has become an open-air prison for its 1.4 million residents.

His ploy failed, but several thousand others succeeded in fleeing this shabby sliver of land this year using bribes and fake medical reports, a sign of Gazans’ desperation over growing poverty and misery under the strict border closure enforced by Egypt and Israel since Hamas militants overran Gaza in June 2007.

The blockade has few loopholes. Israel allows passage to top business people and a limited number of Gazans seeking treatment for serious illnesses. Egypt sporadically opens its border for university students and those with residency abroad.

Everyone else is stuck, even as Palestinian polls suggest nearly half the population would like to leave if they could. Deepening the Gazans’ sense of imprisonment, they must now also obtain permission from the Hamas government before attempting to leave, further complicating an obstacle-ridden path to freedom.

Those trying to bribe their way out usually approach middlemen who put them in touch with local doctors, Palestinian health officials or Egyptian bureaucrats and military officials.

Akram Ghneim, 31, an unemployed father of six living off food handouts, told The Associated Press he promised $260 to a Palestinian middleman, who obtained for him a bogus medical report saying he had cancer. Ghneim said he hoped he’d get a rare spot on the list of Gaza patients with life-threatening illnesses who are allowed to enter Israel for treatment.

Once in Israel, he planned to disappear and work illegally. But Israeli intelligence officials, who review applications, rejected him last summer, saying his cancer report was forged.

“This is what the blockade does,” said Ran Yaron, of the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights, which helps bring Gazans into Israel for treatment by lobbing Israeli defense officials.

“Most are frustrated and devastated people.”

Yaron said fakers are a minority, but clog up the system for real patients who have to go through longer checks as a result.

Of more than 7,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel this year to seek medical treatment, some 500 haven’t returned, said Col. Moshe Levi, an Israeli defense official.

Some stay in Israel, while others move to the West Bank, a territory controlled by Israel but partly administered by Palestinians loyal to Fatah, bitter rivals of Hamas.

One Fatah loyalist, a healthy 30-year-old woman, said she was desperate to leave Gaza after being harassed by Hamas officials.

She bribed a Gaza doctor with $100 to certify she had “whatever cancer could only be treated in Israel.” The doctor then paid off a physician serving on a Palestinian committee that certifies medical reports for Israeli military officials, the woman said. She eventually succeed in reaching the West Bank and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being sent back to Gaza by the Israeli authorities.

Israeli intelligence officials investigate Gazans applying to enter Israel to ensure they are not militants and to check whether medical certificates are genuine, but tend to rely on the Palestinian committee to confirm that the patient is actually sick.

The head of the Palestinian committee, Bassam Badri, denied members accept bribes. Omar Masri of the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said the issue was “too stupid for a response.”

But Palestinians who have successfully used bogus transfers said some health officials accept payments, anything from $100 to $500. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the illicit system.

Others pay bribes to get out through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, said a senior Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to alienate Egyptian authorities.

Payments range from $400 to $5,000, according to Rafah residents familiar with the system, known among Gazans as “Egyptian coordination.”

An Egyptian security official at the border denied Egyptian officers take bribes to allow crossings. He said that three months ago, two Palestinian officials posted on the Egyptian side were removed on suspicion of taking bribes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Depending on the sum, the middleman’s talents and luck, bribe-paying Gazans can sometimes leave immediately through the crossing, with Egyptian officials stamping them through, even when it’s closed, Rafah residents said. Otherwise, bribe-payers wait for one of the official border openings by Egypt, usually lasting for around three days every month or two.

About 2,000 Gazans get through each time the border opens. Only half are on the official list and the rest are handled directly by the Egyptian authorities, said Ehab Ghussein, the Interior Ministry spokesman in Gaza.

Thousands more have applied to leave but don’t make the list, he said.

Numerous tunnels run under the Gaza-Egypt borders in a thriving smuggling trade bringing goods into the territory. But few Gazans use them to sneak into Egypt, because once on the other side they would have no official status and be more vulnerable to Egyptian police.

But even paying bribes isn’t a guaranteed exit strategy.

Hazem Riyashi, 27, says he paid a middleman $1,000 in July to cross through Egypt, hoping to reach the Gulf emirate of Dubai, where his family lives. But the middleman disappeared and has not returned his calls. Riyashi hasn’t given up, and is looking for someone else to pay off.

“I think everybody should leave Gaza,” he said. “Even the air smells cleaner abroad.”