Facts, News, Trends, Analysis
Israeli author, David Grossman has a reasoned piece in the NYT today about the current Israeli campaign to crush Hamas. He argues for a 48 hour unilateral ceasefire on Israel’s part. Grossman, whose eldest son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War, maintains that such an approach taken early in that conflict, would have put [...]
The Free Gaza Movement claims to have smuggled at least 11 university students out of Gaza, reaching Cyprus on Friday, according to reports by Al Jazeera. Israel’s blockade has previously not permitted students studying in Gaza to leave. The move is intended to allow the students to study at universities elsewhere in Europe and Canada, [...]
Ahmed Qurei, the chief Palestinian negotiator, stated on Saturday that the Palestinians have rejected an Israeli proposition to annex a portion of the West Bank in exchange for some of its own territory. Qurei went on to explain that the Israeli land was “…not an equal trade in size and quality.” The rejected offer comes [...]
Early Monday morning, December 15, more than 220 Palestinian prisoners freed by Israeli authorities arrived in the West Bank. They were greeted by a crowd that seemed to be overjoyed with the release, a move that Israel has termed a gesture of goodwill towards Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. However, comments made by [...]
Twenty Palestinian prisoners were removed from the list of prisoners to be released from Israeli custody, Tuesday, December 9. In what they described as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government had stated that it would release 250 Palestinian prisoners – the list is now down to 230. The move to release these [...]
Undercover Israeli troops suspected that Jihah Nwada, a fighter involved with the Islamic Jihad group, was planning to carry out an attack in the West Bank town of Jenin. Nwada fled when troops attempted to arrest him outside of a café, causing them to open fire and kill him. Overnight, a total of 22 Palestinian [...]
For the fifth time this month, the Israeli military has allowed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, temporarily permitting international officials to travel through the blockade it has in place. Though Hamas controls Gaza, the United Nations has urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to allow aid to be dispersed to hundreds of thousands of [...]
The Palestinian-Israeli Crossfire site, bitterlemons, has four perspectives on the ceasefire and domestic politics. This is a very useful site with regular commentary from multiple viewpoints on important dimensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
David Hulme
On Thursday, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry met with Minister of Foreign Affairs, Salah Bashir, to speak about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It was stressed by the minister that the main conflict in the Middle East is that of Palestine and Israel. He went on to emphasized that the [...]
December 4th, Syria refused to engage Israel in peace talks until it feels it has received sufficient answers to the six specific questions it has regarding the Golan Heights. This report comes after Turkey asked both sides to layout six questions on security and the border integrity pertaining to both countries. Syria has reportedly presented [...]