Palestinians turn on each other as Olmert woos US
MAHMOUD ABBAS, the Palestinian President, met Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, yesterday in the first high-level contact between the two sides since Hamas, the Islamist group, won the Palestinian elections in January.
The meeting, in Egypt, came amid increased tensions in Gaza, where assassination attempts on two Palestinian security officials prompted Mr Abbas to warn against civil war between his secular Fatah and its Islamist rival.
The tensions were an unsettling backdrop for Ehud Olmert’s departure last night for Washington and the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister’s first meeting with President Bush.
Mr Abbas said that he would begin talks with Hamas this week. ‘We have to look for a solution,’ he said, warning that civil war was ‘a red line that nobody dares cross, no matter which side they are on’.
timesonline.co.uk
Four killed, including child, mother, grandmother, in Israeli airstrike in Gaza
Four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli ‘targeted assassination’ on Saturday, and four more seriously injured. Three of those killed were a child, his mother, and his grandmother, travelling in a car behind the ‘targeted’ vehicle, which was hit by two missiles fired from a helicopter by the Israeli airforce.
Israeli and international human rights groups have previously issued condemnations of the Israeli practice of ‘targeted assassinations’, which are illegal under international law, arguing that civilians often end up being the victims.
In the month of April, Israeli soldiers killed 37 Palestinians, including 6 children, in fourteen assassination attacks. Israeli missiles fired in airstrikes have killed children at home, at school, in cars and on the streets in Gaza.
Israeli forces reinvade Balata Refugee Camp, shoot 48 year old woman in head, killing her immediately
Israeli forces killed 48 year old Aisha Abu Muslim in eastern Nablus’ Balata Refugee Camp. Israeli forces have invaded and reinvaded the northern West Bank city almost daily for weeks, months, years on end since the beginning of the Intifada.
Israeli soldiers shot the woman while she was in her home in the camp Sunday morning. Apparently she was near a window.
Her husband delivers in the central vegetable market, while their home is on a street bordering the camp’s center. Eyewitnesses report that Israeli forces opened heavy random fire, shooting the woman in the head.
Relatives took Aisah to Nablus’ Rafidiya Hospital immediately, but there was little doctors could do. Israeli forces have hit this camp time and time again, destroying infrastructure and lives. Aisha’s husband and children are all in poor physical condition, as are many camp residents who try to survive with very few resources and frequent attacks.