International media ignore Israel’s abduction of Palestinian teens Electronic Intifada 17 June by Amena Saleem — In the first ten days of June, seventeen teenage boys were abducted in the occupied West Bank. The youngest was thirteen, the oldest seventeen. Some were dragged at gunpoint from their homes and family in the middle of the night; others were seized from the streets in broad daylight. All of the abductions were documented by the Palestinian Monitoring Group. None were reported by the international media. No Western politicians called for the release of the boys. On 12 June, three more teenage boys went missing in the West Bank. Their disappearance sparked worldwide media coverage, cries of terrorism and demands for their release by the US Secretary of State and the UK Foreign Secretary. Those three are Israeli. The seventeen others are Palestinian. And, if the case of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, taken by Palestinian forces in Gaza in 2006 and released in 2011, is any indication, Western interest in the case of these three Israelis will not wane until they are found. Black hole Conversely, the seventeen Palestinian boys seized by heavily armed Israeli soldiers will disappear into the same silent black hole as all the other Palestinian children taken on an almost daily basis by the occupation forces. electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/international-media-ignore-israels-abduction-palestinian-teens Israeli forces ransack offices, confiscate computers in Jenin JENIN (Ma‘an) 16 June — Israeli forces early Monday raided the offices of two Palestinian organizations in the northern West Bank, security sources said. Palestinian security forces told Ma‘an that Israeli soldiers broke into the office of the Palestinian National Initiative political party and a Hamas-affiliated charitable organization, the Muslim Girl Society. Soldiers ransacked the offices, spending hours searching the premises, before confiscating a number of computers, the sources said. Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, confirmed the raid on his party’s office. He described the Israeli army’s actions across the West Bank throughout their search for Israeli teenagers as “collective punishment.” maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=705095 Israel arrests 51 former Palestinian prisoners JERUSALEM (AP) 17 June by Karin Laub & Josef Federman — The Israeli army has re-arrested 51 former Palestinian prisoners as part of a furious search for three missing Israeli teens believed to have been abducted in the West Bank. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said on Wednesday that the 51 were among more than 65 Palestinians detained overnight in the search for the teens. The 51 were part of a group of 1,027 Palestinians released in 2011 from Israeli prisons in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid in 2006. Israel believes Hamas was behind the abduction of the teens, who disappeared last week on the way home from a religious seminary. Lerner says that since the disappearance, a total of 240 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank. abcnews.go/International/wireStory/israel-expands-arrests-search-missing-teens-24169249 Ahrar: ’197 Palestinians kidnapped in the West Bank’ IMEMC by Saed Bannoura — [Tuesday, June 17, 2014] Israeli soldiers have kidnapped 197 Palestinians and invaded more than 791 homes, in different parts of the West Bank, since three settlers went missing last Thursday night, the Ahrar Center for Detainees Studies and Human Rights has reported. During a press conference at the Ahrar office in Ramallah, Ahrar Center head Fuad al-Khuffash stated that, on the first day of the Israeli campaign against the occupied West Bank, the army kidnapped 16 Palestinians, including two women who were released later on. The second day of the invasion led to the kidnapping of 110 Palestinians, including five legislators, two government ministers and two university teachers. The army also kidnapped 44 Palestinians on the third day of the invasions, including the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Abdul-Aziz Dweik, from Hebron. Soldiers also kidnapped a legislator on the same day. The fourth day of the invasion led to the kidnapping of 27 Palestinians. Al-Khuffash said the 197 kidnapped Palestinians, including women, children, seven legislators and two ministers, are all former political prisoners, and that the number is based on documented arrests of detainees who were moved to different prisons and detention centers … Most of the kidnapped Palestinians are Hamas supporters, in addition to two Islamic Jihad members and six members of the Fateh movement who were kidnapped on Monday night in the Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, al-Khuffash said. He stated that the soldiers focused their arrests and home invasions in the Hebron district, invading more than 140 Palestinian homes and violently searching them, causing excessive property damage. The Hebron invasions mainly targeted Hebron City, the towns of Doura and Surif, and various nearby communities. In Ramallah, soldiers invaded at least 74 homes and ransacked them before kidnapping several Palestinians, including the head of the al-Aqsa Satellite TV Station, Aziz Kayed, and many other Palestinians … Al-Khuffash said that ten of the newly kidnapped Palestinians received arbitrary Administrative Detention orders, holding them for different periods without charges or trial. imemc.org/article/68137
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 14:48:38 +0000
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