|
PALESTINE MEDIA CENTER
Daily Information Bulletin
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Today’s Highlights:
1) 15-year old boy shot and killed in Gaza yesterday.
2) Ethnic cleansing threatened in Hebron.
3) Land confiscations threatened in Beit Kahel near Hebron.
4) Gaza farmlands flooded as a result of collapse of Israeli reservoir.
5) Israeli Army attacks journalists and protestors at marches.
1) 15-year old boy shot and killed in Gaza yesterday
Hassan Mansour, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, was shot and killed yesterday by Israeli Army snipers when he walked at the Karni crossing in Gaza. The area he was walking in has been declared a closed military zone by the Israeli Armt, although it is very close to Palestinian residential areas. There were no confrontations at the time.
2) Ethnic cleansing threatened in Hebron
After the killing of a Jewish child and the wounding of her father, the Israeli Army immediately began to shoot heavy calliber tank fire into the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Sneineh, citing that the bullets who killed the child had come from this area. Residents of Abu Sneineh were then told by the Israeli Army to evacuate their homes by 9 pm last night.
Abu Sneineh is a hillside neighborhood under Palestinian control with about 15,000
inhabitants. At least 16 Palestinians were wounded as a result of last night’s
shelling, including a three-year-old boy.
Immediately after the shooting incident, the Israeli Army imposed a strict curfew on
Palestinians in the areas under Israeli control and put Palestinian controlled areas in
the city under siege.
3) Land confiscations threatened in Beit Kahel near Hebron
Dozens of Palestinian farmers from the village of Beit Kahel, south of Hebron, tried to prevent officials of the Israeli Army’s Civil Administration from carrying out an order to destroy their agricultural produce yesterday. This order was issued two weeks ago. The Civil Adminstration wants to confiscate the land and use it as a depot for trucks.
4) Gaza farmlands flooded as a result of collapse of Israeli reservoir
Monday morning shortly after dawn, an irrigation water reservoir at the Israeli Kibbutz of Nahal Oz collapsed and flooded the north of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Minister of Environment Yousef Abu Safiyeh said that the Israeli authorities did not inform the ministry in time of the reservoir’s collapse, making the impact of the flood even worse.
Hundreds of acres of Palestinian farmland, orchards and grazing areas were flooded. Six people were injured, and hundreds of sheep drowned.
The Palestinian National Authority declared a state of emergency in the north of the Gaza Strip.
5) Israeli Army attacks journalists and protestors at marches
During protest marches this weekend, the Israeli Army used brutal force and injured protestors as well as journalists covering the events.
A peaceful rally in Nablus on Sunday went from three departure points to a military checkpoint. The Israeli soldiers fired tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition at the demonstrators. Over forty people were injured with gunshot wounds.
On Saturday, during a peaceful protest and sit-in at the Israeli military checkpoint of Ar-Ram, the Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades, tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the demonstrators. Over thirty people were injured, many of them women. The march had been called for by Palestinian civil society organizations to protest the siege and demand the end of the occupation.
Also on Saturday, Palestinian journalists working for international news networks were hit and pushed by Israeli soldiers while they were covering the protest at Ar-Ram and another protest at Halhoul near Hebron. A cameraman for the American network ABC was punched in the nose by an Israeli soldier in Halhoul. A photographer for the French news agency Agence France Presse was beaten by two soldiers, and a Reuters and an Associated Press cameramen were shoved around.
For further inforamtion contact:
Palestine Media Center (PMC)
Tel: 02 240 77 21/9
Fax: 02 240 77 30
E-mail: pmc@palestine-pmc.com
Home | Index | Related Sites | Feed Back