Do no harm: A torture victim remembers
Naji Ali writing from San Francisco, US, Live from Palestine
I wasn’t really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel’s (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel’s health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992. PHR-I reached its conclusion based on the testimony of two Palestinian prisoners who were tortured during interrogation and developed trauma-related symptoms including hearing loss, panic attacks and incontinence. The doctors who treat Palestinian detainees conduct medical checkups on the prisoners during and after interrogation but they fail to report the findings and symptoms, which make them an actor in the torturing of detainees, PHR-I said…

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The dogs of war
The US treats the canine victims of its adventure in Iraq better than it does the millions of humans displaced
James Denselow, Guardian
In a recent meeting with Jalal Talabani, President Bush praised the Iraqi president for his work towards allowing Iraqis to “realise [their] hopes and dreams”. It is a comment characteristic of an administration that has been forced to base its presence in Iraq on moral grounds after the shattering of the myth of Iraqi WMD. Yet actions speak louder than words, and Washington has refused to accept real responsibility for the consequences of its decision to invade Iraq. Nowhere is this more evident than in the criminal neglect shown towards the Iraqi refugee population. Today it is estimated at 4.7 million, with more than 2 million people externally displaced, many living in appalling conditions. That’s twice the population of Birmingham forced to flee the country and live in general destitution…

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Sadrist website: Israeli jets using Iraq’s airspace
Press TV, Iran
The US has allowed Israeli jets to use US airbases in Iraq and fly over Iraqi airspace for a likely attack against Iran, Iraqi media say. It is more than a month that some Israeli planes belonging to Israeli air force use the US military bases in Iraq to land and take off, (the sadrist website) Iraqi Nahrainnet news network said Wednesday, quoting “informed sources” close to Iraq’s Defense Ministry…

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Police source: Anyone but Olmert would have been arrested by now
Jonathan Lis, Tomer Zarchin and Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondents
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be questioned again Friday about the hundreds of thousands of dollars he allegedly received over 15 years from Jewish-American millionaire Morris Talansky. The interview comes amid heightened wrangling between the police and Olmert’s associates. A police source said Thursday that the allegations are extremely serious and that an ordinary citizen would have been arrested by now had such accusations been leveled…

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On the difference between a “time-limit” and “the concept of a time-limit”
Arablinks
…There you have it. The Maliki administration has proposed the concept of a time-limit for the withdrawal, but when they say “proposed the concept” they don’t mean they have proposed including an actual time limit, only that the have proposed including the concept of a time-limit. So although the rhetoric remains, in fact it seems pretty clear that the government has already caved in on the time-limit demand, if in fact there ever was one, and the issues now waiting to be caved-in on are those respecting American bases and the authority for the American forces to continue operating in Iraq as they have been doing…

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Israel denies water to Palestinians in the West Bank
Travis Wilkerson, Party for Socialism and Liberation
…As an occupying force, Israel is required under international humanitarian law to ensure public order and safety in the occupied territory, without discrimination. In addition, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Israel is a signatory, ensures access to clean drinking water without discrimination. In flagrant violation of these laws, Israel holds complete control of the water sources shared by Israel and the Palestinians, primarily the Mountain Aquifer, and prohibits by army order any Palestinian drilling of wells without a permit. Israel allocates to Palestinians only 20 percent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, and prevents the development of additional water sources to enable greater water supply for Palestinians in the West Bank…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 28/2008 (03 – 08 July 2008)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
During the reporting period, IOF wounded 23 Palestinian civilians and a French human rights defender in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian child died from the explosion of an unidentified object left by IOF in Rafah. On 3 July, 13 Palestinian civilians, including 7 children, were wounded when IOF fired at a number of Palestinian children and young men who threw stones at IOF military vehicles that had moved into al-Far’a refugee camp, south of Tubas…

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Gaza Strip Report 1001:Salim Jum’a Hamidi 18, Killed by Israelis Near Kissufim Crossing
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
Early on Thursday morning the Israelis killed Salim Jum’a Hamidi 18,from the village of Az Zawaydeh in central Gaza Strip.Salim was dressed up in clean blue jeans and a white t-skirt, it is believed that Salim attempted to cross the border into Israel to look for work to be able to help support his family. Salim was shot to death near the Kissufin crossing close to the border with Israel on the Gaza Strip side. Salim was shot in his abdomen and shoulder, by the time the ambulance came to bring the wounded Salim to hospital, it was too late to save his life.Salim was shot death 4 am at dawn,the Gaza ambulance and emergency received the report from the Israelis first at 7.25 on Thursday morning…

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Karzai ‘axes leader for US rebuke’
AlJazeera.net
An Afghan governor who criticised a recent US air raid which killed at 15 civilians has been sacked by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Al Jazeera has learned. Tamim Nuristani, governor of Nuristan province, was fired hours after telling Al Jazeera that the US raid on July 5 was poorly executed and would inflame tensions. A woman and a child were among those killed by missiles fired by US helicopters, he said in an interview to Al Jazeera’s James Bays after news of the raid broke…

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Police source: Anyone but Olmert would have been arrested by now
Jonathan Lis, Tomer Zarchin and Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondents
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be questioned again Friday about the hundreds of thousands of dollars he allegedly received over 15 years from Jewish-American millionaire Morris Talansky. The interview comes amid heightened wrangling between the police and Olmert’s associates. A police source said Thursday that the allegations are extremely serious and that an ordinary citizen would have been arrested by now had such accusations been leveled…

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FIVE YEARS LATER, A HIDDEN CRISIS: Report of the IRC Commission on Iraqi Refugees
NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI)
The war that was launched in Iraq five years ago has produced one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time. Yet this crisis is largely hidden from the public and ignored by the international community. More than four million Iraqis of different religions, ethnicities and backgrounds are estimated to be uprooted by horrific violence and death and are in dire need of help. About half have fled to Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere in the region…

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Ricorso on the Potomac: The Murderers of Democracy Return
Chris Floyd
… the United States Senate voted by a wide margin to gut the Fourth Amendment and give the president dictatorial powers to violate the privacy of every American citizen, while also granting immunity to wealthy corporations who colluded with the president for years in a patently illegal program of warrantless surveillance. The vote was 69-28, with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama breaking with the (slim) majority of Senate Democrats who voted against the measure and joining instead with the Republicans, who voted in their usual zombified lockstep with the president’s wishes. As is well known, Obama once vowed, unequivocally, to support a filibuster of any bill that included the immunity provision for the president’s corporate co-conspirators…

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Putting a name to Gaza’s injured
Eva Bartlett writing from Cairo, Egypt, Live from Palestine
Bedridden but painfully conscious, nearly paralyzed with no feeling from the waist down, 16-year-old Abdul Rahman (nicknamed Abed) is one of the hundreds who were injured by intense Israeli shelling and firing on Gaza between 27 February – 3 March 2008, during an operation dubbed “Hot Winter” by Israel. According to a World Health Organization report, during this period the Israeli army killed at least 116 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians and more than a quarter children, including a six-month-old and a 20-day-old baby, and injured 350. Later counts put the number killed as high as 150, with more than 55 killed in one day alone. Over half of the week’s fatalities and injuries occurred in and around Jabaliya, the refugee camp where Abed was born and has called home all of his life…

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ASSOCIATED PRESS ‘ALLEGEDLY’ COVERS MOHAMMED OMER’S ORDEAL
Desertpeace
We have been waiting exactly two weeks to the day for the Associated Press to write a report on the inhuman treatment that Mohammed Omer suffered at the hands (and feet) of Israel’s security officers when he crossed into Israel on his way home to Gaza. They just issued a report on the situation… not the situation regarding Mohammed Omer, but rather on the Israeli government’s report denying the situation ever happened…

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Hamas arrests Gaza rocket cell
Ali Waked, YNet News
Hamas arrested three Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, in the first such detentions since the Islamist group and Israel agreed a truce last month, a militant faction said. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group, said Hamas men pursued two of its members after the attack and “abducted them” in Jabalya refugee camp. Two Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel on Thursday afternoon, one of them landed near a kibbutz in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. No injuries were reported and no damage was caused. “We demand their immediate release,” said Abu Qusai, a brigades spokesman. “The firing (of rockets) endangers the ceasefire. This is an attempt to disrupt the truce and not a response to Israeli actions,” Hamas officials said. The group issued a call to the Palestinian organizations to confine responses to incidents in the West Bank to the region, and not retaliate from Gaza. Hamas had previously said it would not use force against those who violate the truce. Al-Aqsa said it launched the rockets in response to an incident earlier on Thursday in which a Palestinian man belonging to the organization was killed by the IDF on the Gaza border…

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Video: Jazz is my Jihad
Haitham Sabbah, Palestine Think Tank
Jazz musician Gilad Atzmon reflects upon his roots and his inspiration and how his activities as a supporter of the Palestinian cause and his art influence one another. His music can be seen as an integral part of his political message. It’s not sloganeering or repeating formulas, but it can be seen as a weaving and unweaving of threads, digging into the reservoir of personal and collective dreams, hopes and fears. This British documentary, “Jazz is my Jihad” presents a viewpoint into the artistic and personal journey undertaken by Gilad Atzmon…

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A Kodak Moment
Ramzy Baroud
…Perhaps Talabani is the president of Iraq, but he is also the founder and secretary-general of the major Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). His advocacy for Kurdish political sovereignty spans a period of five decades. Thus, it is also difficult to believe that the influential leader didn’t know of Israel’s presence and involvement in northern Iraq. Ought one to understand the Athens handshake as a public acknowledgment and approval of that role? To suggest that the Barak-Talabani handshake was “historic” is completely unfounded, if not ignorant. What deserves scrutiny is why the governments of Tel Aviv and the Green Zone decided to upgrade their gestures of “good will” starting in 2003 to a public handshake. Is it a test balloon or is there a more “historic” and public agreement to follow?…

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arrow Settler Violence Report: May and June 2008
Ahmad Jaradat and Sara Venturini, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
…On 19 June, for three days hundreds of settlers from many settlements in the north of the West Bank, especially from Itsha, committed serious aggressions against villagers and their land in the Howwar, Boreen and ‘inYbous villages, to the south of Nablus. The settlers arrived by car and bus, closing the main road to the north of Nablus, throwing stones on every passing Palestinian car. In the Howwrah village, settlers stoned houses and opened fire on the villagers. On the second day, settlers burnt more than 100 dunam of land, planted with olive trees, on a hill near Hawwrah. When the Palestinian firemen came from Nablus to stop the fire, Israeli soldiers prevented them from reaching the place…

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Ramallah: the Israeli army attacks a hospital and damages property
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the central West Bank city of Ramallah reported that the Israeli army attacked and ransacked the Ramallah public hospital on Thursday at dawn and ransacked it. The sources said that soldiers surrounded the hospital then searched the rooms including the ones that had patients inside greating a state of panic among the staff and patients. During the search witnesses said that soldiers destroyed equipment and doors…

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Website exposes Israeli ‘nuke secrets’
Tal Rabinovsky, YNet
Are Israel’s nuke secrets available online? The Armageddon website claims to sport vast amounts of information about Israel’s nuclear program and its manufacturing and storage facilities, as published by various foreign sources. The site is the brainchild of a large group of Israeli intellectuals, journalists and philosophers affiliated with an Israeli group advocating a Middle East free of atomic, biological, and chemical weapons; the organization says Knesset Member Dov Khenin (Hadash) is among its supporters…

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Iranian Missile Drill: Pictures do not Lie!
Kamangir
Maybe all the worries about the new missile drill by the Islamic Republic are just overreaction. What would you think when you realize that neither Fars News, nor Mehr News or ISNA published any picture of the event. Add to that the fact that one of the pictures the state-run IRIB published actually looks too much like a picture taken at a drill which happened two years ago…

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Iraqis tortured by UK military settle case for $6M
GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writer
A major case involving the abuse and torture of 10 Iraqi civilians at the hands of the British military was settled Thursday, with lawyers for the victims saying the Ministry of Defense agreed to pay them just under $6 million. The settlement involves the family of slain hotel clerk Baha Mousa and nine others who suffered injuries while in the custody of British forces in southern Iraq, said the law firm Leigh Day & Co…

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MEDIA ALERT: NEWS INTERNATIONAL THREATENS MEDIA LENS WITH LEGAL AND POLICE ACTION
Media lens
On June 28 and July 3, Media Lens received repeated threats of both legal and police action from Alastair Brett, legal manager of News International’s Times Newspapers…Brett claimed Times journalist Bronwen Maddox had been subject to “vexatious and threatening” emails from Media Lens readers, which constituted “harassment”. If this did not stop, Brett told us, he would notify the police who might wish to investigate the matter with a view to bringing a criminal prosecution. As former New Statesman editor, Peter Wilby, noted in his Guardian article on the Times threat, this was no joke – prosecution for criminal harassment “can lead to six months’ imprisonment or, if a court order is breached, up to five years”…

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Iran’s New Secret Weapon: Photoshop
Peter Kafka
Just ask the Russians – running in an arms race can be awfully expensive. So you’ve got to hand it to the Iranians for figuring out an effective force multiplier: Digital photo editing. See if you can guess which image of yesterday’s Iranian missle tests is real, and which one is bogus — and was reprinted by many of the world’s most prestigous news outlets today…

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Iran ‘doctored’ missile test-firing photo
AFP
A defence analyst said on Thursday that Iran had apparently doctored photographs of missile test-firings and exaggerated the capabilities of the weapons. Iran on Wednesday test-fired nine missiles — including a Shahab-3 it said was capable of reaching Israel — angering the United States amid fears that the standoff over the Islamic republic’s contested nuclear drive could lead to war. Photographs published on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards website showed four missiles taking off from a desert launchpad. But one of the missiles had apparently been added to the photograph using elements from the smoke trail and dust clouds from two of the other missiles…

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Israeli army kills a Palestinian near a border fence in southern Gaza
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC & Agencies
The Israeli army killed early on Thursday morning a Palestinian resident in the southern Gaza Strip, the first Palestinian causality since Israel and Palestinian resistance factions agreed to ceasefire three weeks ago. Israeli army confirmed that the soldiers, manning the Kussofim commercial crossing in southern Gaza Strip spotted and shot dead a Palestinian man this morning. The areas adjacent to the crossing are farm lands that are inhabited by dozens of Palestinian farmers…

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Red Cross paints bleak picture of Iraq
UPI
Internally displaced Iraqis, especially women and children, face a dire humanitarian situation, the head of the International Red Cross in Iraq said. In an interview with the International Rescue Committee, Aidan Goldsmith, who heads the relief effort in Iraq, said the people of Iraq need more help than ever. “It would not be a stretch to describe the situation for ordinary Iraqis as dire, and as time goes on, the circumstances are not improving,” he said…

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Israeli Knesset endorses another racist law against Palestinian Jerusalemites
Palestinian Information Center
More than 50 Israeli lawmakers have voted in favor of a draft resolution authorizing the Israeli occupation government of confiscating properties of Palestinian Jerusalemites and those of the 1948-occupied lands involved in retaliation attacks against IOF aggressions against the Palestinian people. According to the Hebrew radio, Gedion Saer, the extremist Israeli lawmaker of the rightist Likud party drafted the resolution that gained the blessing of 50 Knesset MPs against 13 members who opposed it in its first reading…

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Review board orders AP journalist held
AP
An Associated Press television cameraman who was detained by U.S. and Iraqi forces in early June was ordered held for at least six more months Tuesday for “imperative reasons of security,” the U.S. military said. The decision came as a surprise to the AP, which had earlier been led to believe that the cameraman, Ahmed Nouri Raziak, was likely to be released because of lack of any evidence against him…

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Israeli army ransacks, shuts down Nablus organizations
Report, PCHR
PCHR strongly condemns Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for closing several charities and humanitarian organizations in Nablus over the past two days. The Centre calls upon the international community to intervene to put an end to these measures. The Center’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 1:35 on Monday, 7 July, IOF raided the Benevolent Solidarity Association, the Islamic School for Girls, Benevolent Solidarity Club, Solidarity Mosque, and Solidarity Medical Center in Rafedia Quarter west of Nablus. IOF confiscated medical equipment and computers from the medical center. In addition, IOF issued an order closing the association for three years. The order was signed by the Israeli army commander in the West Bank…

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Report: 250 civilians killed, injured in last 5 days in Afghanistan
Monsters and Critics
Up to 250 civilians are reported to have been killed or injured since July 4 by various attacks in Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported Wednesday… Of equal concern is the reportedly high number of civilian casualties resulting from recent air strikes in the east of the country. Several injured civilians have undergone surgery at the ICRC-supported Jalalabad Public Hospital, said the statement…

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15,000 more Iraq detainees by year-end (in addition to the 60,000 so far)
Russ Kick
According to the Army, the US is planning to imprison 15,000 more “detainees” in Iraq over the next six months. (60,000 people have been detained so far.) These little-known figures were revealed in a military contract that was flagged by Sharon Weinberger of Wired’s Danger Room blog…

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Review board orders AP journalist held
AP
An Associated Press television cameraman who was detained by U.S. and Iraqi forces in early June was ordered held for at least six more months Tuesday for “imperative reasons of security,” the U.S. military said. The decision came as a surprise to the AP, which had earlier been led to believe that the cameraman, Ahmed Nouri Raziak, was likely to be released because of lack of any evidence against him…

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Gaza’s Lost Childhoods
Motasem Dalloul, IOL Correspondent
Mohammed Selmi, 12, rushes from school to his home, takes a quick meal before rushing back to the street, this time with a box filled with thermos he peddles on the street of Gaza city for the rest of the day. “I have to exploit every minute in order to help my family,” Mohammed told IslamOnline.net, as he roams the crowd Gaza street with his thermos box. This has been the everyday schedule for the Gazan child, except in the summer holiday, when he is more out in the streets to bring few shekels to his family. Sometimes, Mohammed is accompanied by his younger brother, Sami. “I work with my brother to gain 5 to 6 shekels a day.”…

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Israeli expert: Iran bluffing over range of tested missiles
Yuval Azoulay and Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondents
The missile launched as part of large-scale military exercise in Iran on Wednesday is not a more capable version of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile, according to Israeli experts. Revolutionary Guard Commanders said that the nine missiles tested were medium and long-range weapons including some that are capable of striking Israel. General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force, claimed on Iranian television that a Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile had been tested, which is capable of traveling longer distances, with greater accuracy, and with a larger payload. “Our finger is always on the trigger, and our missiles are always ready to launch,” he said. However, Uzi Rubin, who was a program director of Homa, under which Israel developed the Arrow anti-missile system, is convinced that this was not a new version of the Iranian ballistic missile…

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The End of the Road for Hamas?
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
… As it stands, Israel – and the United States by proxy – is determined to bring Hamas down in any way possible. It is up to the leaders in Hamas and those in the PA to turn their enmity into partnership so together they can face the long haul ahead. A house divided is as good as a house fallen. Nothing could be closer to the truth…

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July 9, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 30 Iraqis Killed; 76 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
A number of bombings rocked Mosul and Fallujah today, leaving dozens of casualties. Overall, 30 Iraqis were killed and another 76 were wounded across the country. Also, one American soldier was killed and another two were wounded in Samarra. In Mosul, eight people were killed and 41 were wounded during a bomb attack on a convoy carrying the commander of army forces in Ninevah province…

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