Israeli troops kill armed Palestinian shepherd (IHT)

Reuters
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
By Wael al-Ahmed
Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank killed a 68-year-old Palestinian shepherd on Wednesday who was carrying a shotgun as protection against rustlers.
The Israeli army said Mohammed Abahereh opened fire at soldiers on routine patrol and they shot back, killing him.
Abahereh's son, Taher, who was helping him herd the sheep in the early morning darkness in al-Yamoun village, said rustlers had tried in the past to steal the animals.
"He was locking the gate and he heard something around us. He thought that it was thieves, so he went out with his shotgun and was shot immediately," Taher said.
The son said he had not seen the shooting but had heard the gunfire. He voiced doubts his father had shot at the soldiers.
"My father has never used his gun," he said, accusing the troops of leaving the shepherd to bleed to death and preventing an ambulance from reaching the area quickly.
An Israeli military spokesman denied the allegation.
"The troops did not prevent the evacuation and even guided the Red Crescent ambulance to the area so that it could get there as soon as possible," the spokesman said.
Israeli forces maintain a network of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and carry out patrols and raids against Palestinian militants.
The Palestinian Authority, engaged in peace talks with Israel, says Israeli military activity hampers its own efforts to exert security control in West Bank towns and villages.
(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Israel slams assaults on Palestinian olive harvest (IHT)

Reuters
Monday, October 20, 2008
JERUSALEM: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak condemned Monday "assaults by hooligans" disrupting Palestinian olive picking in the occupied West Bank, but said Israeli security could not protect the harvesters everywhere.
Israel has deployed forces in a "supreme effort" to let the harvest proceed despite attacks by Jewish settlers in some olive groves this month, Barak told Israel's Army Radio.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Sunday that the disruption of the harvest was "a dangerous Israeli escalation." He pledged to fund the plantings of a million trees to make the rocky West Bank terrain greener.
Asked about Abbas's remarks, Barak said "the assaults by hooligans in the area ... deserve condemnation."
"But there are hundreds of sites where the olive harvest takes place and it isn't possible to be everywhere," Barak added. He also urged Palestinians to coordinate with Israeli security forces to ensure they could harvest olives safely.
Olives are an important cash crop for thousands of Palestinians among the three million Palestinians living in the territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war.
About 300,000 Jews live in settlements built by Israel in the territory, an issue that has bedevilled Western-backed peace talks for decades. Palestinians say settlements rob them of land they need for a viable state.
Israeli soldiers intervened to chase away dozens of settlers who assaulted olive harvesters near the West Bank town of Qalqilya Sunday, Palestinian witnesses said.
But another harvest near the West Bank town of Hebron was called off Saturday after several settlers assaulted two photographers and a foreign peace activist. Police restored order by forcing everyone to leave the area.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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West Bank settlers take over more land (IHT)

JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities and settlers have seized large tracts of land in the occupied West Bank for security zones around Jewish settlements beyond an Israeli-built barrier, a human rights group said on Thursday.
In a new report, the Israeli B'Tselem group said some 12 settlements east of the barrier had been fenced off under an official "Special Security Area" (SSA) plan, blocking Palestinian farmers from reaching their fields.
B'Tselem, which opposes Israeli settlement on territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, estimated that the overall area of some settlements in the plan had more than doubled.
Some 70,000 settlers live beyond the barrier of barbed wire-tipped fences and cement walls Israel is constructing in the West Bank, and security authorities view their settlements as particularly vulnerable to attack.
Asked about the B'Tselem report, the Israeli army said it had established security zones around settlements after they had been attacked repeatedly by Palestinians and dozens of Israeli civilians had been killed.
"The use of these zones has been approved a number of times by the Israeli Supreme Court. Any building in these zones is illegal," the army said.
B'Tselem said it could give only a rough estimate of the total territory closed to Palestinians but that at least 1,126 acres (456 hectares) had been "unofficially annexed" outside the 12 settlements.
It said half of the closed-off land was privately owned by Palestinians.
Control of the land, the report said, was achieved by fencing it off or through attacks by settlers and sometimes soldiers against Palestinians who ventured near it.
A spokesman for the Yesha settler's council, an umbrella group for Israelis living in the West Bank, said taking control of the areas was a necessary security measure.
"It must be clear to B'Tselem that if their demands are heeded, it will be easier to murder Jews," Yishai Hollander said.
Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon has proposed offering compensation to settlers living beyond the West Bank barrier who agree to move to Israel or to major settlement enclaves it intends to keep in any peace deal with the Palestinians.
Israel says the barrier, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice because it is being built on occupied territory, keeps Palestinian suicide bombers out of its cities.
The Palestinians call the project a land grab and say settlement expansion could deny them a viable and contiguous state in the West Bank.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/09/11/africa/OUKWD-UK-PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-SETTLEMENTS.php






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