Diaa Hadid, AP

Climate of intolerance in West Bank, activists say

2012-01-29T14:46:00.001-08:00

Seattle Times - Climate of intolerance in West Bank, activists say

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Updated 10:37 a.m., Sunday, January 29, 2012

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian atheist who was jailed and beaten last year for expressing anti-Muslim views on Facebook and in blogs says Palestinian security forces are harassing him again, despite government pledges to respect human rights.

The blogger's renewed ordeal is part of a persistent climate of intolerance of dissent in the territories controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, say human rights activists. They say they've seen improvements, including a marked decrease in the mistreatment of detainees, but that Abbas' security forces, who are partially funded by the West, must halt harassment and arbitrary detention.

Government spokesman Ghassan Khatib acknowledged occasional lapses, but said that in the past two years, "there's been great progress and success in reducing abuses."

Such promises mean little to atheist blogger Walid Husayin, who has lived in fear of the security forces since being released from a nine-month prison stint last summer.

"I'm sick and tired. My life has come to a halt," the 28-year-old Husayin said in a phone interview from his home in the northern West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

Since his release on bail, he has been picked up several times by security agents and held for days at a time. In one of those detentions, he was beaten with cables and forced to stand in a painful position on empty cans, said Husayin, the son of a Muslim preacher. Interrogators smashed his two computers and demanded that he stop expressing his views, he said.

Activists from three rights organizations said they witnessed an increase in arbitrary detentions in recent months, including calling in "troublemakers" for repeated interrogation, but said they hadn't yet collated 2011 figures.

Those targeted include loyalists of the Islamic militant Hamas, Abbas' political rival, and supporters of Hezb al-Tahrir, or the "Liberation Party," a puritan Islamic movement considered apolitical.

The increased pressure on dissent coincides with pro-democracy uprisings of the Mideast Arab Spring, but it's not clear if there is a direct link. Anti-government demonstrations in the West Bank usually draw just a few dozen or few hundred people, tiny compared to protests that toppled rulers in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia over the past year.

There appears to be little popular sympathy for those targeted in the crackdown, said Jamil Rabah, an independent Palestinian pollster.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamic Hamas since a violent takeover in 2007, the Islamists appear to dealing even more harshly with critics, particularly on religious matters.

In both territories, those who violate social norms find themselves in the crosshairs. In Gaza, Hamas recently banned a televised amateur singing contest on modesty grounds because it included female contestants.

In the West Bank, Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid said her husband was roughed up and lightly hurt last fall after she mocked Palestinian officials in a skit. Witnesses identified the assailants as plainclothes security men, said Zayid, a contributor to "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on Current TV, a U.S. cable show.

She said it was the first attempt at intimidation after years of West Bank performances.

"I feel like the Palestinian Authority is going backward," said Zayid, a resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey. "That is not the state I am fighting for."

Blogger Husayin, who got his start with anonymous Facebook posts, caused an uproar in the Arab world in 2010 by mocking Islam's Prophet Muhammad, dismissing Islam as a primitive religion and sarcastically referring to himself as God.

In November 2010, he was caught in a sting that used Facebook to find him. In the West Bank, it's against the law to defame Islam or Christianity.

He was initially held without charges, but eventually he was accused of blasphemy and insulting people's beliefs. For four of the nine months of his initial detention, he was kept in solitary confinement. He told the New York-based Human Rights Watch that he was shackled for long periods and so harshly beaten that he vomited blood. After his release on bail in August, a court gave him a three-year suspended sentence.

Husayin returned home to his conservative Muslim family, rarely venturing out. He said his family is ashamed of what people might say about him, because of his unorthodox views. Husayin said he doesn't want people to see him either — he still fears vigilante retribution.

The blogger wouldn't allow reporters to visit, saying he feared it would inflame family tensions.

Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, said he was not aware of harassment against Husayin.

"It isn't acceptable to summon somebody for ideological reasons. I am prepared to deal with this case," he said.

Khatib, the government spokesman, portrayed attempts to stifle dissent as growing pains. "We can promise that in 2012, we will have progress from last year. We are building a state, and there are difficulties in doing that," he said.

While the blogger's "crime" is unusual in the West Bank, his arbitrary detention fits a pattern, activists from three human rights groups said. Shawan Jabarin of the rights group al-Haq said he was aware of hundreds of arbitrary detentions in the past few months.

The bulk of those detained are Hamas supporters.

"We haven't seen tremendous improvement in rights and freedoms," said Randa Siniora of the Independent Commission for Human Rights.

The worst abuses receded over the past two years, like torture of political activists and lengthy detentions, the activists said, and the practice of trying civilians in military courts has largely stopped, they said.

Damiri, the police spokesman, said lessons have been learned.

"There are individual cases of abuse, but we don't have a culture of revenge," he said.

Rights activists say it's too soon to speak of a major shift in attitude.

"There's a lack of accountability, a lack of laws enshrining rights," said Jabarin. "We can't talk about a culture of institutions and the rule of law."

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Climate-of-intolerance-in-West-Bank-activists-say-2813461.php#ixzz1ktF8rTB4

Palestinian woman escapes father's dark captivity

2012-01-24T10:19:00.001-08:00

Baraa Melhem, 20, poses for a photograph at her mother's house in the West Bank village of Qalandia, near Ramallah, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. A Palestinian woman was imprisoned for nine years in a bathroom by her father, beaten, barely fed and only let out at night, a social worker and police said Monday. Authorities said Melhem was in her early twenties and that she was initially locked up when she was between 10 and 12 years old. Photo: Maya Levin / AP

Palestinian woman escapes father's dark captivity

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Updated 07:27 p.m., Monday, January 23, 2012

JERUSALEM (AP) — A young Palestinian woman who was imprisoned for 10 years in a series of dark rooms by her father said Monday she survived the ordeal by listening to the radio, dreaming of seeing sunshine again and finding small pleasure in an apple she was fed each day.

Baraa Melhem, 20, said she was enjoying her first taste of freedom after a decade of isolation and threats of rape and abuse, and she hopes to use her experience to help others.

"I have joy now. My life has begun," the young woman, dressed in red sweat pants, white shoes, a black shawl for warmth and a headscarf, told The Associated Press.

Melhem was rescued by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya on Saturday after an aunt notified police. Adnan Damiri, a Palestinian police spokesman, said she was in "deplorable" condition.

Her father and stepmother, both Arab citizens of Israel, were turned over to Israeli authorities. Locked up in Israel, neither could be reached for comment. The father, Hassan Melhem, 49, is expected to appear in an Israeli court on Wednesday, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. The stepmother's name wasn't available.

Speaking softly but confidently, Baraa Melhem said she was beaten, barely fed and let out only in the middle of the night to do housework. She was given only a blanket, radio and a razor blade by her father and stepmother, and both of them encouraged her to kill herself.

"I don't hate my father. But I hate what he did to me. Why did he do it? I don't understand," she said.

Melhem said she was first locked up in a bathroom after she ran away from home when she was 10. Police brought her home, and her father forced her to sign a statement saying she didn't want to go back to school. Melhem's parents divorced when she was four years old, and her father received custody.

Melhem is now living with her mother, Maysoun, in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Melhem she said she was finally happy in her new home — a shabby, purple-painted room with pink curtains, four mattresses on the ground and a red blanket. She clutched a large doll that her mother gave her as a gift.

"This is heaven. Because you have always been free, you don't appreciate it. But for somebody like me, who has tasted the bitterness of a prison, this is heaven."

Maysoun, who has remarried, refused to give her last name or age. She said she was so eager to divorce her first husband that when he insisted on keeping their daughter, she agreed. She took their son because the father used to spray perfume into his eyes. She said he was not violent toward the daughter.

"I was so young when I was getting a divorce. I didn't understand anything. I was just so desperate to be rid of that man," she said.

Melhem described her father as a violent man who also terrified her half brother and half sister. Although their conditions were better, they, too, were not allowed to leave the house when the father wasn't home. She said the siblings, who are believed to be staying with relatives now, were mentally disabled and were not sent to school.

"Fear, fear, fear — that was the basis of my life," Melhem said.

Melhem said she kept sane by listening to a small transistor radio that her father gave her in the past five years. The young woman was up to date with news and current affairs and named her favorite radio hosts.

In one instance, she said, her spirits were lifted when she heard on her radio that her astrological sign was Leo, meaning she had a fiery personality.

Over the years the family moved twice more. Each time she was locked up. In her final home in Qalqiliya, she was kept in what she described as a bathroom that measured 3-by-3 feet (1-by-1 meters).

She dreamed of fleeing, but Melhem said her father threatened to rape her until she became pregnant if she tried to escape. Then he warned he would kill her and justify the crime by saying that she had shamed the family — what is known in Arab society as "honor killing."

She said when he was angry, he regularly beat her with electric cables and sticks. He poured cold water on her when she asked for her mother, and sometimes shaved her head and eyebrows. She was let out only late at night to clean the rest of the house. Before dawn, her father then locked her back inside. He gave her bread, oil and an apple every day.

At one point, her father gave her a razor blade, telling her it would be better if she killed herself. Melhem said her stepmother urged her to do it, telling her she was a nobody.

To cope, Melhem said she often jumped up and down for exercise, cleaned the bathroom, dusted off her blanket, washed her clothes and then listened to the radio all day.

Hala Shreim, a social worker who accompanied police on the rescue, said Melhem was found in the small bathroom with a tiny window. She said the woman was wrapped in a blanket and wore threadbare clothes so old that they were disintegrating.

When she was taken outside, Melhem said she was blinded by the pale winter sun. It was more sunlight than she had seen in 10 years.

"Is that the sun? Is that the sun I was dreaming of?" she said she asked police. Melhem said the sight of so many people startled her. "Are those the people I was hearing on the radio?" she asked the police.

Melhem said her first request, after she was released, was for hard candy — something she had been denied since she was a child. Then she asked to see her mother.

Melhem's mother, who remarried and moved to a different town, had asked about her daughter, but her ex-husband would make up excuses why the young woman wasn't around and sometimes told the mother to mind her own business, said social worker Shreim said.

Melhem said she paid special attention to mental health programs on Palestinian radio. She believes that listening to voices from the outside world, modest exercise and eating an apple each day saved her. Although she has nothing more than an elementary school education, she said she hopes to study psychology and one day treat people who had similar fates.

"There is no house in the world — look outside the window. In every house, somebody is suffering," she said.

When asked if she hoped to marry, Melhem was visibly upset. "If the violence I experienced was between a father and a daughter, what happens between a man and a wife? No, I never want to marry," she said.

There have been a few similar known cases in the West Bank over the years.

In 2008, Palestinian police discovered two disabled siblings, a man and a woman, whose family had locked them in concrete rooms stinking of excrement and sweat for decades. Shamed by their state, the family feared their conditions would ruin the marriage prospects of their healthy brother.

In perhaps the most notorious case of child abuse worldwide, Austrian police discovered a man that year who had imprisoned his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and repeatedly raped her, fathering her seven children.

Israeli leader condemns Palestinian Muslim cleric

2012-01-22T08:28:00.001-08:00

FILE- In this Sept. 19, 2006, file photo, the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein, speaks during a media conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Mufti Hussein, the Palestinians' top Muslim cleric, is facing harsh Israeli criticism for quoting a religious text that includes passages about killing Jews. Hussein said his remarks at a rally for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement last week were taken out of context and that he didn't incite people to kill Jews

Israeli leader condemns Palestinian Muslim cleric

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Sunday, January 22, 2012

(01-22) 08:01 PST JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) -- The Palestinians' top Muslim cleric faced sharp Israeli criticism Sunday for a speech in which he quoted a religious text that includes passages about killing Jews in an end-of-days struggle.

Mufti Mohammed Hussein's comments came at a political gathering of supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said his remarks were taken out of context and that he didn't incite people to kill Jews. But by speaking at the venue, Hussein appeared to be linking the battle to the conflict with Israel.

"The hour of resurrection will not come until you fight the Jews," Hussein told the gathering, citing a hadith, or saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. "The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. But the trees and the stones will call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God, there is a Jew hiding behind me so come and kill him."

In a separate development, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he hoped to reach a compromise with settlers that would stave off a looming deadline to evacuate the largest unauthorized settlement outpost in the West Bank.

The Supreme Court, ruling that Migron was built on private Palestinian land, has ordered the outpost to be uprooted by March 31. With residents vowing to defy the evacuation, Netanyahu suggested they be moved to nearby land that is not privately owned.

An Israeli official said the proposal, which would need Supreme Court approval, aims to avert a violent standoff with the settlers. But Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, said the proposal was merely a stalling tactic.

A spokesman for the residents, Itai Chemo, rejected the proposal. "Relocation is not an answer to these attacks," he said. Instead, he called for a "brave dialogue" with the government to find a "proper solution."

The Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal government plans, said the settlement would be uprooted by March 31 if the residents do not agree to move.

The mufti delivered his three-minute speech on Jan. 7 in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem during celebrations of the 47th anniversary of the Palestinian movement Fatah, said Itamar Marcus of Palestine Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group that tracks incitement.

Marcus' group posted excerpts of the speech on YouTube last week. The comments drew angry reactions from Israelis on Sunday.

"We're talking about a heinous offense that all nations of the world must condemn," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement sent to reporters by text message. He asked the Israeli attorney general to launch an investigation.

It is unclear what authority Israel would have since Hussein is appointed to his position by the Palestinian president. There was no immediate comment from Abbas' office.

Hussein, who is based in Jerusalem, said his comments were taken out of context.

"I was speaking about the final signs of the day of resurrection," Hussein said. "I did not incite, and I did not call for killing. We are not, at present, at the end of days."

The Quran, Islam's holy book, offers contradictory attitudes toward Jews and Christians. There are texts that enshrine tolerance and respect for other faiths, while others are spiked with hatred and incitement.

Some extremist rabbis also have found passages in Jewish texts that they believe justifies violence against the Palestinians.

Tensions between Israelis and the Palestinians have been fueled by a three-year breakdown in peace efforts. Talks broke down in late 2008 and have remained frozen over the issue of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

The Palestinians say there is no point in negotiating as long as Israel continues to build homes for its citizens on occupied land. Israel says the future of settlements is a matter for negotiations.

Some 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and some communities deep in the West Bank are considered especially hard line.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed low-level contacts early this month with the aim of finding a formula for restarting formal negotiations. The Palestinians continue to insist that Israel freeze all settlement construction. Sunday's proposal to delay the evacuation of Migron is likely to harden Palestinian skepticism toward Netanyahu.

___

Diaa Hadid can be reached on twitter at http://twitter.com/diaahadid

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/22/international/i080101S41.DTL#ixzz1kCklFsjF

Hamas bans singing competition in Gaza, calls it indecent, organizers say

2012-01-19T09:35:00.001-08:00

Hamas bans singing competition in Gaza

BY DIAA HADID

Associated Press

JERUSALEM -- Organizers of the Palestinian version of "American Idol" said Thursday the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have banned residents from participating in the popular reality show.

The organizers said Hamas told them the program is "indecent," in what appears to be a new attempt by the fundamentalist militant Muslim group to crack down on behavior it sees as contrary to its conservative interpretation of Islam.

In the past, Hamas has banned women from riding on the backs of motorbikes, women from smoking water pipes, and men from working in hair salons - saying such practices were immodest. Not all bans are imposed uniformly.

The ban on competing in New Star came around the same time that Hamas police beat up members of Gaza's tiny Shiite minority while they tried to hold a religious ceremony.

Alaa al-Abed, the chief producer of the "New Star" program, said the edict would prevent Gaza's 12 contestants from competing in the upcoming second round of the competition Thursday night. It will be broadcast next month. He said he was informed of the decision last Saturday.

"This is more serious than Hamas just killing fun in Gaza - they are limiting the freedoms of the people, according to their whims," al-Abed said.

There was no official comment from Hamas.

In the past, Gaza contestants have competed via video conference due to travel restrictions imposed on Gaza residents by Egypt and Israel. This year Hamas banned that form of participation as well.

New Star is broadcast on satellite television in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. A panel of judges rate performers signing pop songs, and viewers vote for their favorites.Now in its third year, it is a popular show with Palestinians.

In past years, contestants have included young women crooning in sleeveless dresses - a look that is unthinkable in conservative Gaza - while others wore Muslim headscarves. All of this year's Gaza contestants were men.

Hamas permits male barbershop style singing groups that do not use musical instruments and sing of the glory of Islam and to fighting Israel. Young, prepubescent girls also perform in their own singing groups, but teenage girls and women are never seen singing in public. Many devout Muslims believe singing by women is provocative.

Al-Abed said he was told by the head of Gaza's government press office, Hassan Abu Hashish, that the local singers could not compete because the program was not in compliance with the territory's culture and it was not morally acceptable.

Abu Hashish could not be reached for comment. But a statement released Wednesday by his office accused New Star's owners, the Palestinian news agency Maan, of incitement in a lengthy series of grievances about the company. Maan is based in the more liberal West Bank and receives generous funding from European donor nations.

"It has harmed (our) culture and traditions," Abu Hashish's statement read. They "show all of Gaza ... as if its youth search for singing programs."

Al-Abed said that Gazans were able to participate last year without any limitations. He urged Hamas to change its policy.

"People want to participate. We tried to make (Abu-Hashish) understand - even if only 5 percent of people want to sing, if they want to participate - why prevent them?"

Organizers say they hope that New Star can help unite the Palestinians, who have been divided between rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza since Hamas violently took control of Gaza in 2007. The Palestinians hope to turn the two territories, located on opposite sides of Israel, into an independent state.

Posted on Thu, Jan. 19, 2012 10:43 AM

Gaza Shiites Claim Hamas Persecution

2012-01-18T05:28:00.001-08:00

ABC News _ Gaza Shiites Claim Hamas Persecution

By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip January 17, 2012 (AP)

Masked Hamas police beat and detained members of the Gaza Strip's tiny Shiite community during a religious commemoration last week, a follower and local rights groups said Tuesday, accusing their Islamist rulers of religious intolerance.

It was the first claim of harassment by a group of Shiite worshippers against the territory's mainstream rulers, who are Sunni Muslims. Hamas officials, who have close ties with Shiite Iran, denied the allegations.

A man who described himself as a Shiite said police burst into a house where followers were marking Arbaeen, commemorating the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The man said about 15 worshippers were beaten and detained.

He declined to be identified, fearing further harassment. But some of the men filed complaints to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the rights group Mezan, which both sharply condemned Hamas over the attack.

Mezan said in a statement that during Saturday evening's incident in the town of Beit Lahia, police smashed up the apartment, broke the bones of seven of the men, detained some of them at a police station and beat them again before sending them to a military hospital for treatment.

"The attack is a violation of the freedom ... to practice one's faith," said Mezan official Samir Zakout.

Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Ghussein said Tuesday that police stormed the apartment of a group of "outlaws" who were planning "criminal acts." He said he was unaware of the presence of any Shiites in Gaza. He said his offices would look into right groups' allegations that the men were beaten.

There are no official statistics on the number of Gaza's Shiites. They are believed to number several dozen — a minuscule minority among a population of 1.6 million people who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, including the territory's Islamist militant Hamas rulers.

In many parts of the Middle East, Shiites and Sunnis have had strained relations due to deep theological differences that date back centuries. These differences have boiled over into violence over the years in places like Iraq and Pakistan.

Despite such strains, the attack in Gaza seemed surprising, given Hamas' traditionally warm ties with Iran. The fundamentalist Shiite government in Iran has given hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as military training and other backing, to Hamas.

In a separate incident, Mezan said Tuesday that a prominent rights activist who has criticized Palestinian leaders and militants was stabbed and slightly wounded by unknown assailants.

The attack on Mahmoud Abu Rahma last Friday came after he published an essay that criticized Palestinian leaders and militant groups for threatening, silencing and even harming critics.

"It is safe to assume that neither the government nor the resistance is willing to step in to protect people who dare to criticize them," he wrote.

Zakout said soon after the essay was published, Abu Rahma received threats by e-mail and text message. Hamas police condemned the attack and said they were searching for the assailants.

———

Additional reporting by Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem. Follow Diaa Hadid on www.twitter.com/diaahadid

On the Net: Abu Rahma's essay can be seen at www.maannews.net/eng

Palestinian hit in face by tear gas canister dies

2011-12-10T06:49:00.001-08:00

In this Friday, Dec. 9, 2011 photo, Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi, left, is badly injured by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Israeli pro-Palestinian activist Jonathan Pollack says the 28-year-old Tamimi died in an Israeli hospital Saturday from severe brain damage. Tamimi's relative Mahmoud Tamimi also confirmed his death. An Israeli military spokeswoman said they are investigating the incident. Photo: Haim Schwarczenberg / AP

Palestinian hit in face by tear gas canister dies

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian protester who was struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier at close range died of his wounds Saturday, activists said, accusing the army of using disproportionate force.

The 28-year-old, Mustafa Tamimi, was hurling rocks at the military vehicle on Friday in the West Bank village ofNabi Saleh when a soldier inside opened the rear door and fired at him from just a few yards away, witnesses said. He was taken to an Israeli hospital, where he died of his injuries on Saturday.

The army's use of the gas canisters has come under sharp criticism in the past few years. Military officials say they are using the gas to quell violent demonstrations. The canisters, which emit choking, acrid smoke, are meant to push back crowds. But some Israeli troops have fired them directly at demonstrators, causing severe injuries and death.

Tensions also simmered along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, where mourners buried a 12-year-old Palestinian killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday. Militants there fired two rockets at Israel.

Tamimi is the 20th person to be killed over the past eight years at similar demonstrations in rural villages throughout the West Bank, said Sarit Michaeli of the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. The weekly demonstrations are in protest of construction of Jewish settlements and a separation barrier that eats up Palestinian farm land along parts of its route.

Photographs taken by a pro-Palestinian activist from Israel, Haim Schwarczenberg, show Tamimi rushing after an armored military vehicle. The photographer says he was throwing rocks. He then crumples to the ground a few steps from the vehicle. His friends rush to help, covering his bloodied face with a black-and-white Palestinian checkered scarf.

"As he was throwing stones, a soldier opened the door of the back of the jeep. A soldier took his gun out and shot him directly," Schwarczenberg said.

Tamimi succumbed to his wounds at Beilinson Hospital in central Israel, said another pro-Palestinian activist from Israel, Jonathan Pollak.

"The question is not whether the person is throwing stones or not throwing stones, the question is whether the army is allowed to use deadly force from within an armored vehicle," Pollak said.

B'Tselem spokeswoman Michaeli said she had personally filmed at least a dozen cases over the years of soldiers directly firing the projectiles at demonstrators, sometimes causing terrible injuries. She said the difference in this case was the very close range between the demonstrator and the soldier, who hit Tamimi in the face.

A military spokeswoman said forces generally used canisters "to contain the violent and illegal riots that take place in Judea and Samaria," the Biblical names for the West Bank. "Such means were used during the course of yesterday's riot in Nabi Saleh."

Others who have been struck by tear gas canisters include Palestinian Bassem Abu Rahmeh, who was killed in 2009 when one hit his chest.

They also include Tristan Anderson of Oakland, Calif., who is suffering from brain damage, paralysis and seizures after he was hit in the head by a canister at a 2009 demonstration.

In the Gaza Strip on Saturday, hundreds of angry mourners marched in a funeral procession for a 12-year-old boy who was killed Friday along with his father in an Israeli strike.

Nearby, Palestinian militants fired two rockets toward Israel, but they caused no injuries, said a military spokeswoman.

The all-male funeral procession passed through the Shati refugee camp as weeping women watched from nearby windows.

Israeli forces carried out multiple airstrikes against Hamas facilities and suspected militants on Friday in retaliation for weeks of sporadic but persistent rocket fire by Palestinian militants.

One airstrike damaged a house next to a targeted site, killing the 12-year-old, Ramadan, and his 42-year-old father, Bahajat Zaalan.

A strike on Wednesday killed one militant, while another strike on Thursday near a crowded park in Gaza City killed two more, scattering their body parts over the area. Israel says the militants were planning to infiltrate Israel to carry out attacks.

___

Yacoub Abu Ghalwa contributed to this report from Gaza City.

West Bank Land Seized by Israeli Kibbutz

2011-11-20T07:03:00.001-08:00

ABC - West Bank Land Seized by Israeli Kibbutz

By DIAA HADID Associated Press
JERUSALEM November 19, 2011 (AP)

A tract of Palestinian land in the West Bank has for the first time
been seized by a kibbutz located inside Israel, a prominent Israeli
researcher said Saturday.

The land — about 365 acres (148 hectares) from the West Bank
Palestinian village of Bardaleh — was seized by the nearby
agricultural community of Kibbutz Meirav, which lies inside Israel
proper, said Dror Etkes, a prominent researcher and activist against
Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

For decades, Israeli authorities seized such lands for Jewish settlers
inside the West Bank, but not for communities across the cease-fire
lines inside Israel proper, Etkes said.

The Bardaleh lands lie on the Israeli side of a barrier that was built
to keep out Palestinian attackers. But the meandering barrier — a mix
of high concrete walls and fences — frequently juts into the West
Bank. It has kept some Palestinian farmland on the Israeli side of the
barrier, including some belonging to farmers in Bardaleh.

The kibbutz has been tending to the land for years, but only recently
has Israel publicly acknowledged that it considers it its own.

The move has raised fears among some Palestinians and their supporters
that the same fate may befall other tracts of West Bank land that lie
on the Israeli side of the barrier.

"Eventually, Israeli communities on the Israeli side of the Green Line
will likely take land from Palestinians in the West Bank," said Etkes,
referring to cease-fire lines that held until the 1967 Mideast War.
"It seems to be almost inevitable."

Israeli military spokesman Guy Inbar said the West Bank land now
belonged to the kibbutz. He said the move was not meant to set a
precedent, but would not elaborate further. Officials from the Kibbutz
weren't immediately available for comment because of the Jewish
Sabbath.

Bardaleh's Sawafta clan says it owns most of the annexed land.

Mohammed Sawafta, one of the villagers, said kibbutz residents began
scaring them off from their land in the early 1980s and Israel's
military later blocked access as kibbutz residents started using the
area themselves.

It is unclear whether the land has been formally annexed and when
Israelis began taking formal control.

Proving ownership of lands on the Israeli side of the barrier is
incredibly complicated among Palestinians, who use a mix of old
Ottoman documents, Jordanian registries, and unregistered but
communally agreed upon land divisions.

Israeli officials have built the barrier in stops and starts. So far,
some two-thirds of the 485-mile (780-kilometer) route has been built,
Etkes said. If the entire route is completed without any alterations,
it will seize some 10 percent of West Bank lands.

Palestinians have successfully appealed to Israel's Supreme Court to
alter some routes that they say have unfairly swallowed their land.

Palestinians want the West Bank — a territory lying between Israel
proper and Jordan — for part of their future state. Israel captured
the area in the 1967 war.

Palestinian activists arrested on Israeli bus

2011-11-15T11:33:00.001-08:00

Israeli police officers speaks to Palestinian activist Hawaida Arraf,
one of six who boarded a bus belonging to the Israeli bus company
Egged, after it reached the Hizma checkpoint before entering
Jerusalem, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Six Palestinian activists,
defiantly clutching national flags and surrounded by dozens of
reporters, were dragged off an Israeli bus that they were hoping would
lead them to Jerusalem, after an hours-long stand off with police on
Tuesday. The Palestinians said they boarded the Israeli bus in a
widely advertised action, hoping to draw attention what they say are
discriminatory measures in the West Bank, particularly travel
restrictions.(AP Photo/Diaa Hadid)

HIZMA CHECKPOINT, West Bank (AP) — Six Palestinian activists,
clutching national flags and surrounded by dozens of reporters, were
dragged off an Israeli bus they planned to ride into Jerusalem after a
standoff with police Tuesday.

The Palestinians boarded the Israeli bus in a widely advertised action
hoping to draw attention to what they call discriminatory measures in
the West Bank, particularly travel restrictions.

Tuesday's action highlighted how some Palestinians are adopting
peaceful actions in their struggle for statehood in the West Bank,
where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority has a measure of
self-rule. Even as the bus protest unfolded in the West Bank,
Palestinian militants in Gaza to the south fired rockets at nearby
Israeli communities.

"We want to show the system of discrimination that we live in here. My
point isn't go to jail — my point is to have the freedom to get on a
bus," said Badia Dwaik, a 38-year-old civil servant, shortly before he
was dragged off the Israeli number 148 Egged bus, which serves Israeli
settlements.

Israeli officials say the travel restrictions on Palestinians are
needed to prevent militants from entering Israel or West Bank
settlements to stage attacks. The restrictions increased during the
violent Palestinian uprising of 2000-2005, when buses were frequently
blown up by suicide bombers.

The Palestinian activists dubbed themselves "Freedom Riders" after
1960s American civil rights activists who worked in the U.S. South to
counter racial discrimination and segregation there, though there were
no security elements in the American rights struggle.

Dozens of reporters clustered around the six activists, who wore
T-shirts emblazoned with "justice" and "freedom." Several wore
black-and-white checkered headscarves.

After an uneventful 20-minute ride, the bus stopped at the Hizme
checkpoint on Jerusalem's outskirts. Israeli police boarded, demanding
to see their Jerusalem entry permits. Lacking the permits, the
Palestinians refused to get off.

"I am not going to obey your discriminatory law," Dwaik told the
policeman, speaking Arabic.

"So you are detained," the policeman said, also in Arabic.

"Fine. I am not moving."

About an hour later the six Palestinians were detained, dragged off
the bus and taken away in a police car to a nearby station — in
Jerusalem, having somewhat reached their destination.

Maggie Amir, 48, from the nearby Jewish settlement of Rimonim, who was
waiting to board, said Palestinians shouldn't be allowed on.

"This is our bus," she said, adding: "Quite simply, we are afraid of them."

In the West Bank — home to 2.5 million Palestinians and some 300,000
Jewish settlers — the two sides usually use different bus systems.

Although no specific rule prevents Palestinians from riding the
"Israeli" buses — they are generally not allowed into the Jewish
settlements these buses serve. The Palestinians also need permits to
enter Jerusalem, the terminal station for most buses.

Tuesday's protest began at a stop near the Jewish settlement of
Migron. Posted on the bus stop were posters praising the late Rabbi
Meir Kahane, an extremist who argued that Palestinians should be
expelled from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The first three "number
148" buses — apparently aware of the planned provocation — sped by.
But the fourth pulled up.

The Palestinians paid their fares and boarded, as reporters jostled to
board. Dwaik sat a row away from Haggai Segal, a 54-year-old Israeli
from the settlement of Ofra, once jailed for planting a car bomb that
badly wounded a Palestinian mayor. The two did not interact.

Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the detained Palestinians would
"likely" be released soon — back to the West Bank.

AP Exclusive: Palestinians face steep court fees

2011-11-08T00:14:00.001-08:00

In this Tuesday Oct. 11, 2011 photo, Palestinian Mohammed Abd el-Dayim, right, and his son Mayar, 14, hold pictures of their late relatives during an interview at their home in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip. Abd el-Dayim is suing Israel over the deaths of four relatives: his nephew, a volunteer medic who died when Israeli tank fire struck the ambulance he was driving, and a son and two other nephews who were killed the next day when Israeli shelling struck a mourning tent where the family was grieving. Dozens of Palestinians who lost relatives in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza have been forced to put their attempts to seek compensation on hold, claiming Israeli financial barriers make it impossible to proceed with their cases. Photo: Adel Hana / AP

Seattle Post - AP Exclusive: Palestinians face steep court fees

DANIELLA CHESLOW, Associated Press, DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Updated 12:32 p.m., Monday, November 7, 2011

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians who lost relatives in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza three years ago have been forced to put their compensation claims on hold, saying Israel has placed near-impossible barriers to proceeding with their cases.

Israeli restrictions prevent Gazans from entering Israel to testify, undergo medical exams or meet with their lawyers. But the biggest obstacle, the victims say, are steep court fees that can reach tens of thousands of dollars.

"The victim must pay for justice," said Gaza resident Mohammed Abdel-Dayim, whose son and three nephews were killed during a military assault. "Israel should be ashamed."

Israel says the fees prevent frivolous lawsuits. They say they are imposed on many foreigners — not just Palestinians — because they don't have local assets that the state could seize to cover legal fees and other court costs.

But Palestinians say the costs are part of a strategy to protect Israeli soldiers. If the fees aren't reduced, lawyers representing Palestinians say they will have to drop most cases.

Abdel-Dayim is suing Israel over the deaths of four relatives: His son was a volunteer medic who died when Israeli tank fire struck the ambulance he was driving. Three nephews were killed the next day when Israeli shelling struck a mourning tent where the family was grieving.

An Israeli court asked Abdel-Dayim to post $22,000 in court fees, or just over $5,000 per victim. His annual income is under $6,000.

About 1,000 Gazans have prepared cases seeking compensation, mostly alleging wrongful deaths during Israel's offensive in the territory, according to their lawyers.

Some 1,400 Gazans were killed during the three-week Israeli operation, including hundreds of civilians. Israel launched the offensive in December 2008 in response to heavy Palestinian rocket fire. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

Israel says Gaza's Hamas rulers are responsible for the civilian casualties, claiming the militant group endangered civilians by firing rockets from near schools and residential areas.

In civil suits in Israel, the losing party must pay legal fees and court costs of the winning side. Because foreign nationals could bolt without paying, Israeli courts often demand a security deposit. The money is returned to plaintiffs who win their cases.

The sum of the guarantee is left to individual judges.

For example, in July, Judge Nehama Munitz of the District Court in the northern city of Nazareth demanded a $5,500 deposit from each of 42 Gazan plaintiffs in a case involving the bombing of the Abdel-Dayim mourning tent, according to legal documents. Mohammed Abdel-Dayim's share was $22,000.

She said the fees are justified by the expensive and time-consuming investigative process, and dismissed claims of a financial barrier.

"The plaintiffs did not prove that they are unable to afford the expense of the court guarantee, and/or did not claim this in their brief," she wrote in a court document obtained by The Associated Press.

Tameem Younis, a lawyer representing the families, is now appealing. If the fees aren't reduced, "we will have to cancel the claims," he said.

Iyad Alami of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which takes on many cases, said they have raised money for some of the most important petitions, including a planned case where some two dozen members of the Samouni clan were killed after fleeing to what they thought was a safe house.

Nitzan Eyal, a spokeswoman for Israel's courts system, said the fees are set based on the chances of success.

"The lower the chances of the claim, the higher the justification for charging the plaintiff a court deposit to ensure the legal expenses of the defendant," she said.

Israelis, in contrast, typically don't have to pay up front because the courts can put liens on their properties. Likewise, families of victims from friendly nations often don't pay.

Hussein Abu Hussein, attorney for the American parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Gaza in 2003 when she was run over by a military bulldozer, did not pay a deposit in their civil suit against Israel. He said it was waived because the U.S. and Israel enforce each others' court rulings.

Israel and the Palestinians have no such understanding.

Michael Karayanni, a law professor at Israel's Hebrew University, said the legal fees appeared excessive, given the impoverished circumstances of many Gazans. Some 40 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents live on less than $2 a day, according to U.N. figures.

"The Supreme Court has said in one of its judgments that the court needs to be sensitive to the financial abilities of the plaintiff, but I don't think from what I've seen that there is any kind of a serious attempt to have the costs be proportional to the plaintiff's ability," Karayanni said.

Israelis point out the practice of seeking upfront guarantees is also accepted in Europe. In the Netherlands, for instance, plaintiffs must pay 800 euros to 1,400 euros depending on the size of the claim. But the Dutch system lowers the fee to just 71 euros for indigent or low-income plaintiffs.

Karayanni said in Israel, only in rare cases have plaintiffs successfully appealed to reduce the fees.

In general, Israel says the system is fair to Palestinians.

"The fact that Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel routinely petition Israeli courts demonstrates more than anything else the stature of our courts," said government spokesmanMark Regev.

In the last two years, Palestinians won about $6 million in damages from the state, according to the Israeli Justice Ministry.

In August, Israel's Defense Minister settled a case related to the Gaza offensive out of court, paying about $137,000 to the family of a mother and daughter who were shot dead while waving white flags.

In the Iraq war, by contrast, Iraqis cannot claim civil damages from the U.S. under a 2008 agreement. In Afghanistan, the U.S. offers compensation to citizens when their property is damaged, but it's unclear whether they can claim damages for deaths or injuries caused by the U.S.-led military alliance.

There are no known cases of Israelis suing in Palestinian Authority courts for damages, said Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib.

There is hardly any reason to test the system that way: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli lawyer who represents victims of Palestinian violence, said some 150 cases against the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority were pending in Israeli courts.

The Palestinian government defends itself in these cases, and so far, there have been no rulings against the authority, Darshan-Leitner said.

She said Israelis had also successfully sued Gaza's rulers, the militant Islamic group Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings. But it has been impossible to recover damages.

In other cases, Israelis have turned to U.S. courts, either because of joint American citizenship or under "crimes against humanity" laws. The Palestinian Authority has reached settlements in at least two cases, Darshan-Leitner said.

For most Gazans, just getting to the courtroom is a challenge.

Under restrictions imposed in 2002 at the height of violence between Palestinians and Israel, Palestinians have 60 days following an incident to file an initial letter of complaint with the Defense Ministry. After that, they have two years to take those claims to court.

Gazans are allowed into Israel only in rare cases, such as medical emergencies, and the state does not allow video testimony from Gaza, said Israeli attorney Michael Sfard, who frequently represents Palestinians in Israeli courts.

Israelis are also banned from entering Gaza, which means lawyers cannot meet clients and state doctors cannot give certified medical exams to verify claims.

The Israeli Arab advocacy group Adalah has filed a petition to allow Gazans entry permits to Israel for their legal proceedings. A court ruling is expected in the next few months."It's impossible to conduct a trial at all under these circumstances," said Sfard.

___

Cheslow reported from Jerusalem. Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Lara Jakes in Baghdad, Deb Riechmann in Kabul and Mike Corder at The Hague also contributed to this report.

Thousands celebrate freed Palestinian prisoners

2011-10-18T13:01:00.001-07:00

Palestinians celebrate the release of prisoners at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. The Hamas militant group released an Israeli soldier Tuesday more than five years after his capture, turning him over to Egyptian mediators in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Photo: Hatem Moussa / AP

Thousands celebrate freed Palestinian prisoners

DIAA HADID, Associated Press, MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians celebrated the homecoming Tuesday of hundreds of prisoners exchanged for an Israeli soldier, with the crowd and a freed Hamas leader exhorting militants to seize more soldiers for future swaps.

Hamas, which had negotiated the release, turned the celebration into a show of strength for the Islamic militant movement, which had seized Gaza from its moderate rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.

The joyous crowd crammed into a grassy lot, where a huge stage was set up, decorated with a mural depicting the 2006 capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit at an army base near the Gaza border. The prisoners — more than 300 out of 477 freed Tuesday were sent to Gaza — sat in rows of chairs on the stage.

Many in the crowd described long years of waiting to see their loved ones.

"I will kiss his head when he returns," said Huriya Awadallah, 75, of her 45-year-old brother who had spent 20 years in prison for killing an Israeli. "I am like his mother. I raised him," said the woman who pinned a photograph of her brother, Eid Musleh, to her dress.

Several thousand Palestinian prisoners remain in Israeli jails, convicted of offenses ranging from masterminding deadly attacks to throwing stones. Many Palestinians see them as fighters for independence. The swap has reinforced a widespread conviction that Israel will release prisoners serving life sentences in only exchange for abducted soldiers — a view repeated by many at Tuesday's rally.

"The people want a new Gilad!" the crowd chanted, suggesting the abduction of Israeli soldiers would mean freedom for thousands more Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Yehiye Sinwar, a founder of Hamas' military wing, told the crowd that Palestinian militant groups must win freedom for the remaining prisoners by "all necessary means."

Sinwar, among those freed Tuesday, had been sentenced to life for his role in the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers in the 1980s. He stopped short of calling for new abductions in his speech, but did so in interviews earlier in the day.

In the West Bank, Abbas addressed a crowd of several thousand, including released prisoners and their relatives. In an attempt at unity, he shared a stage with three Hamas leaders in the West Bank. At one point, the four men raised clasped hands in triumph.

Abbas is likely to suffer politically as a result of the swap, the most significant exchange for the Palestinians in nearly three decades. In years of negotiations with Israel, most of the prisoners released to Abbas were those with little time left on their sentences.

In contrast, most of the 477 prisoners freed Tuesday had been serving life terms for killing Israelis, and their release violated a long-standing Israeli pledge not to free those with "blood on their hands."

Of that group, 43 convicted of some of the bloodiest attacks against Israelis were sent to Egypt for eventual deportation to Qatar, Turkey and Syria. In the Egyptian capital of Cairo, they were greeted by Hamas' supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal.

Mashaal portrayed the swap as an unequivocal victory for Hamas, saying that "Israel was forced to pay the price." He said hiding Schalit for more than five years in tiny Gaza was a "miracle and honor to the nation."

As part of the swap, Israel has agreed to free another 550 Palestinians in two months.

In his speech, Abbas praised the released prisoners as "freedom fighters" and "holy warriors," unusual language for the Palestinian leader who until a few months ago had hitched his political future to peace negotiations with Israel.

Those efforts have broken down because the gaps between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were too wide. On Tuesday, Abbas told senior PLO officials in Ramallah he is considering holding presidential and legislative elections in January or February and would discuss the possibility when he meets with Mashaal, participants at the gathering said.

No date has been set, but Hamas and PLO officials said the meeting could take place in coming days.

In Cairo, Mashaal said the swap created a good atmosphere for Palestinian reconciliation talks and that he has spoken to Abbas about forging a joined strategy.

In both Gaza and the West Bank, joy marked the day.

In Gaza City, Azhar Abu Jawad, 30, celebrated the return of a brother who was sentenced to life for killing an Israeli in 1992. She said she last saw him eight years ago, before Israel banned visits by Gazans. "My happiness is indescribable," she said. "We'll get him a bride and everything. I just spoke to him. He's so happy. This is a reminder God doesn't forget anyone."

Among those arriving in Gaza were prisoners who grew up in the West Bank but were being expelled to Gaza. Israel's security chiefs have said they wanted to keep prisoners still deemed dangerous away from the West Bank, which has relatively open borders with Israel. Gaza is tightly sealed by an Israeli border fence.

Sobhia Jundiya of the West Bank town of Bethlehem traveled to Egypt with her husband to catch a brief glimpse of their 28-year-old son, Ibrahim, who was being released after 10 years. He had been sentenced to multiple life terms for an attack that killed 12 and wounded 50.

"It's better he be in Gaza even if I can't see him. It's better than prison in Israel," she said.

"I hope to see him for a few minutes," she said, beginning to cry. "This is the day I have been dreaming of for 10 years. I haven't touched his hand in 10 years."

In the end, the Jundiyas were unable to see him because relatives were not given access to the prisoners' convoy during its brief swing through Egypt. The couple will try to go to Gaza, but it's difficult for West Bankers to obtain such permission from Israel or Egypt.

Israel prevents most movement between the West Bank and Gaza.

In the West Bank, Fakhri Barghouti was carried on the shoulders of one man and was surrounded by chanting relatives. Sentenced to life for killing an Israeli, Barghouti, 57, had spent 34 years in prison, making him one of the longest-serving inmates.

"There will be no happiness as long as our brothers are still in jail," he said. "I can't feel good when I'm leaving my brothers behind."

His son, Shadi, is serving a 27-year sentence for involvement in an armed group. At one point, he shared a cell with his father.

___

Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy contributed reporting from Rafah, Egypt.

Family: Israeli soldier likely home Tuesday

2011-10-14T07:32:00.001-07:00

Seattle Post - Family: Israeli soldier likely home Tuesday

DIAA HADID, Associated Press
Friday, October 14, 2011

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants will likely return home Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for his family on Friday, ending a five-year ordeal for his family and the country.

Sgt. Gilad Schalit will be freed by the militant IslamicHamas in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in a deal first announced last week by the two sides.

The Tuesday date from the family spokeswoman was the highest level indication so far of the timing for the first phase of the exchange.

Spokeswoman Tami Shienkman said that the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, told the Schalit family the news late on Thursday evening in their home in northern Israel.

"If everything goes smoothly, on Tuesday he will be home," she the told The Associated Press.

In Gaza, Hamas officials also said the exchange would take place Tuesday.

In the first phase, Schalit is set to be swapped for some 450 Palestinian prisoners. About 550 prisoners would be released two months later, according to the deal.

The military chief of staff warned that unexpected events could delay the deal, Shienkman said.

Schalit's release would end an ordeal for his family and close a painful chapter for Israel, which was mesmerized with his plight since he was seized in a cross-border raid and dragged into Gaza in 2006 by Hamas-backed militants. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid.

Most 18-year-old Israelis are conscripted into the army, and many do many years of annual reserve duty afterward. They see their government as responsible for ensuring that captured soldiers are freed. Such pressure has led Israel to make several lopsided prisoner exchanges over the years.

Palestinians, meanwhile, were preparing for the return of their imprisoned relatives.

"If God is willing, we have an appointment with a great Palestinian national wedding, a historical moment, this coming Tuesday," said Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, referring to huge celebrations expected when the prisoners are released.

"We welcome our heroes that are returning from the occupation's jails," he said.

Nearby, workers were erecting a large stage where prisoners would be honored after their release.

Palestinians view the case of their prisoners in Israeli jails with deep sensitivity. Most have relatives who have served time, with convictions ranging from masterminding militant attacks to throwing rocks. Palestinians see them as political prisoners and demand their freedom.

In Israel, concern over the consequences of the deal clouded joy over the prospect of freedom for the soldier.

Early Friday, a man whose parents and three of his siblings were killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing vandalized an Israeli memorial to protest the deal.

The suspect was identified in Israeli media as Shvuel Schijveschuurder, 27. He splashed paint and scrawled graffiti on the memorial of slain Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv. He was assassinated by an extremist Israel who opposed his plan to trade West Bank and Gaza land for peace with the Palestinians.

Schijveschuurder's parents and three siblings were among 15 people killed in a 2001 suicide bombing at a restaurant in Jerusalem.

One of the 1,027 Palestinians set to be released was involved in that bombing.

In August, Schijveschuurder said he feared the release of prisoners would lead to more violence.

"We must not return a single Palestinian prisoner sentenced to life in prison in Israel," he toldYNet News then.

___________

Additional reporting by Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip

Palestinians criticize Hamas on prisoner swap

2011-10-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

A supporter of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit waves an Israeli flag as he waits for his parents at their home in Mitzpe Hila, northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011. Israeli euphoria over a prisoner swap deal to free a soldier held by Hamas militants for five years gave way on Wednesday to a growing anxiety that the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them convicted of murder, could lead to a new round of violence. Photo: Ariel Schalit / AP

Palestinians criticize Hamas on prisoner swap

BY MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH AND IBRAHIM BARZAK

ASSOCIATED PRESS

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Some Palestinians criticized Hamas on Thursday for conceding too much in its deal to swap a captured Israeli soldier for more than a thousand Palestinian inmates.

Much of the criticism has come from officials who are loyal to Fatah, Hamas' bitter rival for control over the Palestinians. Yet it appears to reflect a deeper unease over whether the price Palestinians paid for Schalit's capture was too high. Critics of the deal are disappointed that some of the most prominent prisoners will not be released and that hundreds may be deported or not allowed to return to their homes.

"The deal was a blow to our hopes," said Issa Karake, a Palestinian official in the Fatah-controlled West Bank responsible for prisoners. "The Palestinian people paid a heavy price ... for Schalit's captivity. They should have insisted," he said, echoing calls by other prisoner activists.

The Palestinian criticism is a stunning turn, considering Gaza's Hamas rulers pulled off the most lopsided prisoner exchange in Israel's history. In the Egyptian-mediated deal, Hamas will exchange Sgt. Gilad Schalit for some 1,027 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons in two phases. Schalit has been held for five years.

They include some 300 prisoners serving life sentences for involvement in deadly attacks on Israelis such as suicide bombings in buses and bars. For Palestinians, that is considered a Hamas achievement because the Jewish state has historically balked at releasing those responsible for killing Israelis.

The criticism has come as details emerge of the deal. A Hamas official said Thursday that 178 of the 450 Palestinians to be freed in the first phase of a swap for a captured Israeli soldier will not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank, Gaza or east Jerusalem, suggesting a substantial number may face deportation.

Most of the 178 are prisoners who lived in the West Bank or east Jerusalem but will now be sent to the Gaza Strip, which is sealed off from Israel by a fence.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency, Yoram Cohen, has said Hamas agreed to Israel's demand that some 250 of the 1,000 freed prisoners not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank, where they might more easily carry out new attacks on Israeli targets. Most of these prisoners will be sent to Gaza, and some 40 will be deported outside the Palestinian territories altogether.

Israel pressed for the deportation of Palestinian prisoners who they worried would pose a security risk to the Jewish state if they were released back into the West Bank, in particular, which hugs Israel's east. Most of those would be Palestinians who caused Israeli deaths or masterminded deadly attacks.

Hamas also failed to secure the release of top Palestinian political leaders, convicted of masterminding deadly attacks. They include Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the rival Fatah group, who could run for the Palestinian presidency if he is released, and Ahmad Saadat, the leader of the small but influential Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. And they include some of Hamas' own leaders such as Abdullah Barghouti, a bomb maker who Israel said was responsible for the deaths of more than 60 people.

Top Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said they haggled name-by-name with Israeli officials.

"With some, we managed to overcome the obstacle. But with others we couldn't," he said on Egyptian television.

The case of prisoners in Israeli jails is deeply sensitive for Palestinians. Most have either served time in an Israeli jail or know somebody who has. And while the crimes the men were sentenced for were violent - and deadly - Palestinians see them as political prisoners who has served unduly long sentences.

Similarly, Schalit's plight mesmerized Israel, a country where most adults serve in the military and see their government as responsible for ensuring their safety while serving. His release has prompted widespread celebrations but also deep unease that releasing Palestinian militants may invite more attacks.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Egypt's military ruler, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi for his country's role in helping mediate the deal.

"Your help warms the heart of every Israeli," he said in a statement sent to reporters.

The first phase of the deal will likely be concluded next Tuesday or Wednesday, said Hamas official Saleh Aruri. Other parties involved in the deal - Egyptian mediators and Israeli officials have not confirmed a day.

Barzak reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. With additional reporting by Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem and Aya Batrawy in Cairo.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers order foreigners to obtain visas to enter, endangering work by aid groups

2011-10-11T02:36:00.003-07:00

Gaza's Hamas rulers order foreigners to obtain visas to enter, endangering work by aid groups

By Associated Press, Published: October 10

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza's Hamas rulers have imposed new entry restrictions requiring most foreigners to obtain a visa to enter the coastal territory, a move that could restrict the work of some international aid organizations.

Foreigners — mostly aid workers and pro-Palestinian activists — will now have to apply online or through a local sponsor a week in advance to obtain a monthlong visa, according to information posted on the Hamas Interior Ministry website late Sunday.

Information posted on the Hamas website said the new procedures would take effect on Tuesday.

A separate set of procedures for foreign journalists is still being completed, Hamas said, and U.N. workers would not be affected.

A Hamas official said the visa application will include a $7 registration fee, a requirement that could cause trouble for aid groups.

Most international aid organizations are prohibited from financial dealings with the Hamas government because the militant Islamic group is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU. Even a small visa fee would violate the restrictions.

"Basically as long as they keep insisting on us paying a registration fee when we go in, we can't go in," said an official with one prominent aid group that works in Gaza.

"If there's no money (involved), it's OK. We have no problem with registering. The problem is with paying," he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because his organization, like others contacted by The Associated Press, declined to comment publicly on the sensitive issue.

Foreign aid workers in Gaza say they already struggle to obtain 6-month Israeli permits to enter through Israel's crossings.

Hamas' deputy interior minister, Kamel Abu Madi, said the new procedures were to ensure the safety of foreigners in Gaza.

"The aim of this mechanism is to organize the entry of foreigners into the Gaza Strip. Its aim is not to restrict them, but to serve their security," Abu Madi said.

Palestinian extremists killed 36-year-old Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in April. He had been living in Gaza since 2008 — apparently without the knowledge of Hamas officials, who said they need to keep closer tabs on foreigners to prevent such attacks.

Hamas officials already register the flow of foreigners at a series of checkpoints close to Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt.

The move also comes in the context of Hamas' consolidation of control over Gaza, a territory it seized in 2007 after expelling forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Neighboring Egypt and Israel have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover, though Israel significantly eased restrictions on imports last year.

The militant Islamist group has long sought to limit the work of independent groups, including foreign charities.

Over the summer, the U.S. briefly suspended $100 million in American aid after Hamas officials demanded audits of local American nonprofit organizations and closed down at least one organization that refused to comply.

It was not clear how many aid groups would be affected by the visa order, but the impact could be significant. Aid groups run important farming, medical and psychological services in the impoverished territory.

___

Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid contributed from Jerusalem.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers order foreigners to obtain visas to enter, endangering work by aid groups

2011-10-11T02:36:00.001-07:00

Palestinians take to streets to cheer on UN bid

2011-09-23T23:58:00.001-07:00

Palestinians participate a rally in support of the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition in the United Nations in the northern West Bank village of Al-Zababdeh, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. Dozens of Palestinian protesters on Thursday have denounced President Barack Obama for his opposition to a bid to win U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Photo: Mohammed Ballas / AP

Seattle Post - Palestinians take to streets to cheer on UN bid

By DALIA NAMMARI and DIAA HADID
Associated Press

Published: Friday, September 23, 2011 at 5:32 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, September 23, 2011 at 5:32 p.m.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Thousands of jubilant, flag-waving Palestinians, watching on outdoor screens across the West Bank, cheered their president on Friday as he submitted his historic request for recognition of a state of Palestine to the United Nations.

Mahmoud Abbas' defiant stance, pushing for U.N. recognition over strong objections from the U.S. and Israel, has struck a chord with Palestinians increasingly disillusioned after nearly two decades of failed efforts to bring them independence. At the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas' announcement was met by a standing ovation, a stirring sight for Palestinians who felt their plight had largely been forgotten.

In the city of Nablus, thousands packed into the main square, decorated with large Palestinian flags and posters of Abbas. Fathers came with children on their shoulders. Young men climbed onto surrounding rooftops. Elderly women were assisted by younger relatives.

The crowd cheered throughout the speech, roaring ecstatically when Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, announced from the podium of the General Assembly that he had submitted the request for full U.N. membership.

"We are here celebrating because Abu Mazen is making us a state. We want to have our own state, like any other country. All countries must support us," said Reem al-Masri, a 30-year-old schoolteacher, who lost a brother and two cousins in fighting with Israel during the second Palestinian uprising against occupation a decade ago.

"This is our land. We're going to be strong in it until it's liberated. When you have a state all your dreams come true," she said.

In Ramallah, the seat of Abbas' government, a crowd of several thousand cheered, whistled and chanted "God is great" during Abbas' speech. Fuad Ashilla, 50, said it's important Abbas not succumb to American pressure to withdraw his request.

Some Palestinians said they were inspired by the wave of protests across the Arab world calling for political freedom.

"As you saw in the Arab world, when the people go to the street they say what people want," said Ghassan Jabr, 47, at Yasser Arafat Square in Ramallah. "If this is what people want, then this must happen."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly shortly after Abbas, saying he was ready to make painful compromises for peace, but that the Palestinians must take Israeli security concerns seriously. In the West Bank city of Hebron, several spectators threw shoes at an outdoor screen during Netanyahu's speech in a show of contempt.

The joy over Abbas' move was marred by violence just hours earlier. Near the West Bank village of Qusra, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man during rock-throwing clashes between the villagers and Israeli settlers, according to witnesses and military accounts.

Earlier Friday, Palestinians supporting the recognition bid clashed with Israeli soldiers in three West Bank locations.

At Qalandiya, a major Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli troops fired tear gas to disperse Palestinian stone-throwers. The confrontations lasted several hours, and by late afternoon, medics said some 70 Palestinians had been injured by rubber-coated steel pellets or suffered tear gas inhalation.

In the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, demonstrators carried a chair painted in the U.N.'s signature blue to symbolize the quest for recognition. They burned Israeli flags and posters of President Barack Obama, and threw stones before being enveloped by tear gas fired by Israeli troops. Clashes were also reported in the nearby village of Bilin.

Abbas has called for peaceful marches in support of his bid to win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem - territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. Friday night's rallies indicated that his people are heeding that call, though both Israeli and Palestinian officials have expressed concerns that demonstrations could spill over into violence.

Late Friday, the Israeli military said it had gone on high alert for what it called an imminent Hamas attack along its border with Egypt. Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an army spokeswoman, said there was "concrete intelligence" that Hamas and maybe other militant groups were trying to infiltrate the border - in a potential attempt to torpedo the Palestinian statehood bid at the U.N., which Hamas opposes.

Last month, militants infiltrated Israel from Egypt, killing eight Israelis. Six Egyptian soldiers were killed as Israel pursued the attackers.

An Egyptian official said he received reports from the Israeli side that there were plans by militants groups to plant a car bomb on the border. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said authorities in Egypt briefly closed the border crossing, but it has since reopened.

Full U.N. membership can only be bestowed by the U.N. Security Council, where Abbas' request will almost certainly be derailed - either by a failure to win the needed nine votes in the 15-member body or by a U.S. veto if the necessary majority is obtained.

The Palestinians say they are seeking full U.N. membership to underscore their right to statehood, but have left open the option of a lesser alternative - a nonmember observer state. Such a status would be granted by the General Assembly, where the Palestinians enjoy broad support.

Siding with Israel, Obama has said a Palestinian state can only be established as a result of negotiations, and that there is no short-cut to independence.

Abbas has said negotiations remain his preference, but that he will not resume talks - frozen since 2008 - unless Israel agrees to the pre-1967 frontier as a baseline and freezes all settlement construction on occupied land. The Palestinian demands are widely backed by the international community, including the U.S., but Obama has been unable to persuade Israel's hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to agree to them.

Netanyahu says he wants to negotiate without preconditions and accuses the Palestinians of missing an opportunity for peace. Abbas says settlement expansion pre-empts the outcome of negotiations by creating facts on the ground.

Abbas enjoys broad popular support at home for his recognition bid, but his main political rival, the Islamic militant Hamas, opposes it. Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since seizing it from Abbas in a violent takeover in 2007.

Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said Friday that Abbas was giving up Palestinian rights by seeking recognition for a state in the pre-1967 borders.

On Friday evening, several Hamas officials watched the speech at an office in Gaza City, taking notes and exchanging text messages with leaders of the movement in Syria and Lebanon.

Hamas' founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and a state in all of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

"The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can't be created through decisions and initiatives," Haniyeh said. "States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established."

---

Hadid reported from Nablus. Associated Press writers Aron Heller in Ramallah, Nasser Shiyoukhi in Hebron, Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

Israel, Egypt try to stem damage from embassy riot

2011-09-12T00:24:00.001-07:00

Protesters are seen among flaming vehicles outside the building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. Hundreds of Egyptian protesters, some swinging hammers and others using their bare hands, tore down parts of a graffiti-covered security wall outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday. Thousands elsewhere protested for the first time in a month against the country's military rulers.

Miami Herald - Israel, Egypt try to stem damage from embassy riot

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and DIAA HADID
Associated Press

Israel and Egypt's leadership tried Saturday to limit the damage in ties after protesters stormed Israel's embassy in Cairo, trashing offices and prompting the evacuation of nearly the entire staff from Egypt in the worst crisis between the countries since their 1979 peace treaty.

The 13-hour rampage deepened Israel's fears that it is growing increasingly isolated amid the Arab world's uprisings and, in particular, that Egypt is turning steadily against it after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the authoritarian leader who was a close ally.

In Israelis' eyes, the scene of cars burning outside the embassy and the tale of six Israeli guards trapped inside for hours in a steel-doored safe room underscored their view that anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt was running free after decades of being contained by Mubarak's regime. The ousted leader's powerful security forces never would have let a protest get near the Nile-side embassy.

Egypt's new military rulers, in turn, appear caught between preserving key ties with Israel - which bring guarantee them billions in U.S. military aid - and pressure from the Egyptian public. Many Egyptians are demanding an end to what they see as too cozy a relationship under Mubarak, who they feel knuckled under to Israel and the U.S., doing nothing to pressure for concessions to the Palestinians.

Egyptian security forces did nothing as hundreds of protesters massed Friday outside the Nile-side high rise residential building where the Israeli Embassy is located and tore down a concrete security wall Egyptian authorities erected there only weeks earlier. Many protesters saw the wall as a symbol of the government's willingness to protect Israelis but not Egyptians, since it was put up to keep back protests after Israeli forces chasing militants accidentally killed five Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.

Police and military also did little initially when a group of around 30 protesters after nightfall climbed in a third-story window and raced up to the embassy floors, broke into an office and began throwing Hebrew-language documents to the crowd below. The protesters ransacked parts of two floors of the embassy for hours until police finally managed to clear them out in the early hours Saturday.

Frantic Israeli calls to President Barack Obama brought American intercession to help ease the violence.

An Egyptian security official said the ruling military did not order the police to clamp down on the protests outside in order to "avoid a massacre." They couldn't move more quickly to clear out protesters inside the embassy because the fervent crowd outside "considered them heroes," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the press.

But in a Saturday evening television address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided any condemnations and instead stressed the need to maintain its strategic relationship with Egypt, whose peace with Israel - though sometimes chilly - has been a vital peg of stability for the Jewish state.

"We will continue to keep the peace with Egypt it is an interest of both countries," Netanyahu said.

He thanked Egyptian commandos for rescuing the six trapped embassy guards, saying they "prevented a tragedy without a doubt" and stressed that Israeli officials had been in touch with Egyptian counterparts throughout the unrest.

Still, he and his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman hinted the American intervention prompted Egyptian authorities to act. Both profusely thanked President Barack Obama for helping.

"I asked him to help, it was a decisive moment, I would even say fateful, he said he would do everything he could to help and he did so. He deployed all means and influence and I think we owe him a special thank you," Netanyahu said.

Lieberman said that after Netanyahu's call to Obama, "we immediately felt a change, a little more movement on the Egyptian side and I think that without elaborating the U.S. representatives did extraordinary work and they deserve the credit."

Both said Israel would send back its ambassador once conditions are right. The ambassador and the entire embassy staff except for one deputy ambassador were evacuated overnight from Egypt along with their families.

From the Egyptian side, the ruling military council and civilian government underlined in a statement read on state TV that Egypt is committed to international conventions and the protection of diplomatic missions.

They also vowed to crack down on future protests at the embassy, warning that Egypt was experiencing a "real predicament that threatens the very body of the state that requires decisive actions." To "safeguard the state," they said they would re-invigorate parts of hated emergency laws, which for months the military has promised to abolish in a concession to demands for reform.

Mubarak was a close ally of the Israelis, building economic ties and cooperating with them on security, particularly helping in the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Since his Feb. 11 fall, ties between the two countries have steadily worsened as Egypt's new military rulers ease off his pro-Israeli policies, including opening the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Anger flared last month after the deaths of the five Egyptian police officers in Sinai, killed by Israeli forces chasing Gaza militants who carried out a deadly attack in Israel. Mass protests flares in Cairo, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. The military nearly pulled Egypt's ambassador to Israel in protest. Calls have even grown in Egypt for ending the historic 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

The deterioration with Egypt comes as Israel has also been hit by a major downturn in ties with longtime Turkey. After Israel refused to apologize for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year that killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American, Turkey expelled several senior Israeli diplomats, suspended military cooperation with Israel and boosted naval patrols in the eastern Mediterranean in response.

Israel is also feeling the heat from Palestinian plans to unilaterally seek recognition of an independent state at the United Nations this month amid a long stalemate in the peace process. Israelis also fear that the Arab spring could bring rising influence to Islamic fundamentalists in the region.

For Egypt, the rioting could worsen ties between the ruling military and young protest activists, who are sharply critical of its handling of the post-Mubarak transition. Increased use of emergency laws is likely to anger many.

Clashes outside the embassy lasted for hours when police and military finally moved in, leaving three people dead, more than 1,000 hurt and 30 arrested. Police and army troops fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air trying to disperse the crowd of thousands, as cars, police vehicles and trees on the streets were set ablaze.

Saturday morning, the streets around the embassy were littered with debris and charred cars. Dozens of police vehicles and armored troop carriers lined up the streets leading to the embassy and the nearby police headquarters in Giza.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/10/v-print/2399504/egypt-police-on-alert-after-israeli.html#ixzz1XijOXGbO

Egypt Troops Save 6 Israelis at Embassy

2011-09-12T00:21:00.001-07:00

Time - Egypt Troops Save 6 Israelis at Embassy
By AP / IAN DEITCH and DIAA HADID Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011

(JERUSALEM) — The Israeli guards drew their handguns, convinced it was their final moments as they hid in a barricaded safe room from Egyptian rioters just outside the door, ransacking rooms of the embassy.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials depicted a tense stretch of hours as they watched on security cameras and listened in on conference calls with six Israeli embassy guards caught in the facility as protesters rioted on the streets outside — and broke in. In the end, Egyptian commandos made their way in and rescued the six after flurried phone calls between Israeli, American and Egyptian officials to try to resolve the unrest.
(See why the attack signals Israel's 'diplomatic tsunami.')

In a speech late Saturday, Netanyahu said one of the six, the embassy security chief named Yonatan, spoke by phone to an operations room in Jerusalem from their hiding place. "The rioters had penetrated the building, penetrated the office, and only one door separated between the rioters and Yonatan and his friends," Netanyahu said. Yonatan told the officials in the operations room, "If something happens to me I ask you tell my parents face to face and not over the phone."

Netanyahu said he told him, "Yonatan, hang in there," promising Israel would do everything it could to get them home.

The 13 hours of rioting that lasted into the early hours Saturday was the worse incident between Egypt and Israel since the two neighbors signed a 1979 peace treaty. The Israeli ambassador, staffers and their families were forced to flee on military planes back to the Jewish state before dawn Saturday. Israel kept one diplomat in Cairo — albeit in hiding.

The protest began on Friday when hundreds of demonstrators massed outside the Israeli embassy, located on the top floors of a Cairo high-rise overlooking the Nile River. They tore down a concrete security wall that Egyptian authorities erected outside the building after previous protests last month. For several hours, the protesters pounded it with sledgehammers and tore off chunks.

After nightfall, some climbed into the building through a third-floor window and raced up the stairs to the embassy, said 28-year-old protester Mustafa Sayid, who said he was among those who broke in. The group then took several hours to break through several security doors, he said. Then about 30 burst into an apartment that had been converted into reception offices for the embassy and began trashing its rooms, throwing documents in Hebrew out the balcony to the thousands in the crowd below. Sayid showed a reporter cell phone video footage he said he recorded inside of young men ransacking one of the rooms.

Israeli television stations, citing Israeli officials, said the protesters eventually gained access to two floors of the three-floor embassy, as Netanyahu and other officials in Jerusalem watched the events on surveillance cameras. On one of the floors, the six Israeli embassy guards huddled behind the steel door of a safe room, drawing their handguns when they heard the protesters outside fearing they would break in.

The protesters, who were unarmed, spotted one Israeli man in the area of the reception apartment, said the protester Sayid. They chased him and began beating him up, but by that time some Egyptian police had reached the area. The police pushed the protesters off the Israeli and took him away, Sayid said. The Israeli was apparently not one of the six. The Netanyahu aide said no Israelis were injured in the night's events, so it appeared the man was not seriously harmed.

Several hours later, Egyptian commandos reached the Israeli guards, the aide said. An Egyptian security official said the commandos were sent after the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, spoke by phone with a member of Egypt's ruling military council and asked for help in evacuating the personnel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2092695,00.html#ixzz1XiiqNetk

In grim Gaza, rise of middle class rankles

2011-09-07T03:30:00.001-07:00

Post Gazette - In grim Gaza, rise of middle class rankles

Saturday, August 27, 2011
By Diaa Hadid, The Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is flaunting its wealth, sipping coffee at gleaming new cafes, shopping for shoes at the new tiny shopping malls and fueling perhaps the most acrimonious grass-roots resentment yet toward the ruling Hamas movement.

This middle class, which has become visible at the same time as a mini-construction boom in this blockaded territory, is celebrating its weddings in opulent halls and vacationing in newly built beach bungalows. That level of consumption may be modest by Western standards, but it's in startling contrast to the grinding poverty of most Gazans, who rely on U.N. food handouts to get by.

Some of the well-off are Hamas loyalists. That rankles many Gaza residents because the conservative Islamic movement gained popularity by tending to the poor -- through charitable aid, education and medical care -- along with its armed struggle against Israel.

"Hamas has become rich at the expense of the people," fumed a 22-year-old seamstress, Nisrine, as she stitched decorative applique onto a dress. She wouldn't disclose her family name, not wanting to be seen criticizing the militant group.

Gaza's Hamas government denies its loyalists have gotten wealthy since the group came to power.

Corruption "doesn't touch us," said Hamas official Yusef Rizka.

But others -- even those close to Hamas -- say the militant group must pay attention.

"There is a nouveau riche that has followed the rise of the government," said Alaa Araj, a former Gaza economic minister and businessman considered close to Hamas. "We must sound the alarm. [Resentment] is growing in Gaza."

Some two-thirds of Gaza's 1.6 million people live in poverty and rely on U.N. food aid. About half the work force is unemployed. Many employed Gazans are paid miserly wages, keeping them struggling.

Hamas has always had a small core of prominently wealthy loyalists. But it appears another small group has seen its fortunes rise since the Hamas came to power, primarily investors and high-level civil servants in Gaza's 24,000-strong bureaucracy.

The territory also has an established middle class of old merchant families, senior aid officials and loyalists of Fatah, a Palestinian group that rivals Hamas. But there's less resentment toward them -- perhaps because they are not in power.

"I feel like our society has been divided," said Siham Liqtati, whose taxi driver husband earns $8 a day to support their family of six.

"There are those who are high up, and the rest of us are nothing," she lamented.

Activists: Hamas detains Gaza activist after repeated interrogations

2011-08-16T05:09:00.001-07:00

Washington Post - Activists: Hamas detains Gaza activist after repeated interrogations

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, August 16, 1:40 PM

JERUSALEM — A Gaza rights activist says Hamas security officials have detained a well-known Palestinian political activist.

Khalil Shaheen says 25-year-old Mohammed Matar was detained three days ago after he was repeatedly interrogated over his participation in a French conference about Palestinian activism.

Matar belongs to a group of activists who held small rallies in March urging Gaza's Hamas rulers to unite with their rivals, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank. Palestinians want both territories for their future state, but a reconciliation deal that Hamas and Fatah signed in May has stalled.

Other activists have also been repeatedly detained since then. Hamas officials were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Funds Restored to Aid Groups in Gaza

2011-08-15T01:27:00.001-07:00

NYT - Funds Restored to Aid Groups in Gaza
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 14, 2011
JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States restored financing to international aid groups in Gaza on Sunday, an American official said, after leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian political group that controls the territory, apparently backed away from demands that the groups allow Hamas to audit their financial records.

The State Department sent a message to Hamas on Thursday through an intermediary, warning that the United States would withdraw about $100 million it is spending in Gaza on health care, agriculture and water supplies if Hamas did not drop its demands. The official who spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday said after Hamas ignored the warning, the United States "paused" its financing for the aid groups.

United States policy forbids American groups working in Gaza from having any direct contacts with Hamas, which the State Department classifies as a terrorist organization.

The Hamas minister of planning in Gaza, Mohammed Awad, said the Gaza office of one of the groups, the International Medical Corps, reopened Sunday after it was briefly closed for rejecting the Hamas demand to search its offices and audit its books.

Israel army plants new mines along Syria border

2011-08-13T04:07:00.001-07:00

Seattle Post - Israel army plants new mines along Syria border

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Updated 03:51 a.m., Saturday, August 13, 2011

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's army is planting new land mines along its border with Syria in an attempt to dissuade protesters from rushing into the Golan Heights, a military magazine reported Friday.

The preparations come as part of Israel's beefed-up measures ahead of rallies that Palestinians are planning to hold in September, the magazine Mahaneh reported.

Israel came under heavy international criticism when its troops opened fire on Syrians and Palestinians who broke through the fenced border into the Golan Heights during a June 5 demonstration. Around 20 protesters were killed. Israel worries that the planned September demonstrations in the West Bank could also see a new attempt to breach the Golan frontier.

The army decided to go ahead with the move after older mines failed to detonate when the Syrians crossed in June, the magazine reported. The mountainous plateau is heavily sown with minefields, which are marked. Military officials have said they are also preparing non-lethal methods for controlling any Golan protests.

"The activities are intended to thicken landed mines and strengthen obstacles," said Maj. Ariel Iluz, according to the magazine.

"Combined with our military forces and snipers, these are supposed to delay or even prevent a lot of people from crossing the border," Iluz said.

The June demonstrators were protesting Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights, a territory it seized in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed. The international community does not recognize its annexation.

The magazine did not say how many mines the army's engineering corps have planted so far, only saying the operation had been continuing for several weeks. An army spokesman was not available for comment.

The magazine reported that the military was taking other measures, including reinforcing fences along the Golan border, increasing infantry troop numbers, posting more snipers and digging trenches.

Arcmed Al-Mashtal Hotel: New 5-Star Resort Opens Amid Poverty In Gaza Strip

2011-08-07T05:11:00.001-07:00

HuffPo - Arcmed Al-Mashtal Hotel: New 5-Star Resort Opens Amid Poverty In Gaza Strip
By DIAA HADID

AL-SOUDANIA, Gaza Strip -- The Gaza Strip's first five-star hotel gleams with marble floors, five luxury restaurants and a breezy cafe overlooking the territory's white sandy beaches and sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. The only thing missing are guests.

Nearly all of the newly opened hotel's 222 rooms, decked out with ornate metal-worked lamps, flat screen televisions, oversized beds and sea views, sit empty. The tourists whom the developers expected to flood to Gaza when they launched the project 13 years ago are nowhere to be seen. Local residents, most of them living in poverty, can only dream of staying in the gleaming complex.

The eight-story structure is an anomaly in Gaza, yet it cannot escape its surroundings. Residents riding donkey-driven carts occasionally trot by. Women cannot swim in the pool, in a nod to conservative Gaza tradition. There is no alcohol – banned by Hamas in line with Islamic law. On a recent day, two women in conservative Islamic headscarves and loose gowns sipped drinks by the pool, as children splashed inside.

Earlier this month, the hotel's developer, Palestinian investment company Padico decided to finally open it. The company, controlled by politically independent billionaire Munib al-Masri, hopes to recover at least some of its costs and hopes that Gaza's knotty problems may finally be solved in the coming years.

"Its risky – but we need to have a change in Gaza," said public relations manager Shadi Agha.

For now, the risk is not paying off. There are no foreign tourists in Gaza, just a handful of Western aid officials who pass through.

Only 80 rooms are even available. Management doesn't want to spend on maintenance for the remaining rooms, Agha said. Early this month, there were just 10 guests in the entire hotel, though the royal suite, at $880 a night, was occupied.

The guests ranged from international aid officials to a honeymooning Gaza couple who wanted to go somewhere nice, Agha said. He wouldn't identify them further or say who was in the royal suite.

The tale of the $47 million Al-Mashtal has mirrored the plight of the Gaza Strip over the past decade.

Padico began construction of the hotel in 1998, a time when Gaza was awash with optimism. The Palestinians had signed interim peace agreements with Israel, and a final deal to end decades of conflict appeared to be in reach. Tourists would pour in.

But the area had collapsed into violence by 2001. Despite fierce fighting with Israel, the hotel's shell was in place by 2006. But it was badly damaged during a brief civil war the following year as Hamas battled the rival Fatah faction and seized control of Gaza. Palestinian militants smashed some 180 windows during the fighting, Agha said.

The fighting left the Palestinians split between two governments – Hamas in Gaza, and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in control of the West Bank. The two territories flank either side of Israel, and Palestinians want them to build their future state.

Seeking to contain Hamas, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that prevented raw materials and limited most commercial goods from entering Gaza. Although the West Bank-based Padico does not have relations to the militant group, the company was unable to bring in key materials.

The building suffered further damage when Israel launched its three-week offensive against Hamas in December 2008. At one point, two Israeli missiles slammed into the hotel.

The hotel was repaired, but it couldn't be opened still, because the managers needed to make the final touches, like the gym equipment. Israel's blockade prevented those materials from entering.

Under heavy international pressure, Israel eased the blockade in May last year following a deadly naval raid that killed nine international activists trying to sail to Gaza. The hotel was finally completed and opened in late July – years behind schedule.

A Padico official, speaking on condition of anonymity under company orders, said he expected the hotel to operate for a couple of years, to test its fortunes. The hotel's ultimate fate will depend on the fate of Gaza.

"We've done our homework. We are leaving the rest for politicians and militants to decide," he said.

___

With additional reporting by Rizek Abdul Jawad in Gaza City.

Gaza's Hamas rulers hang father and son for collaborating with Israel

2011-07-27T03:04:00.001-07:00

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Gaza's Hamas rulers hang father and son for collaborating with Israel

RIZEK ABDUL JAWAD , Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip hanged a father and son at dawn Tuesday for collaborating with Israel, a government spokesman said.

The two were found guilty of helping Israel target a top Hamas leader and identify other militants who were later killed by Israeli forces, said Ihab Ghussein, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza.

They were arrested in 2003 and charged a year later, and had exhausted all legal means to appeal the sentence, he said.

He would not provide their names, but the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights identified them as 51-year-old Mahmoud Abu Qenas and his 22-year-old son, Rami Abu Qenas.

The family of the two men executed Tuesday burned tires and tried to shut down a Gaza City road in response to the deaths. Family members were quickly pushed back into their homes by Hamas police who also shooed away journalists and told them not to take photos.

In a statement, the human rights group condemned the hangings, saying the Palestinian judicial process was so flawed that it would have not been possible to conclusively prove the two men were involved in spying.

The deaths brought to five the number of Palestinians executed by Hamas for spying since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Another seventeen alleged informers were killed in vigilante-style shootings by Palestinians during the three-week Israeli offensive in Gaza that ended in January 2009. Some were on death row or awaiting trial by Hamas.

Collaborators are loathed by Palestinian society at large and vigilante killings of suspected informers have been common in the Palestinian territories for decades.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the men were accused of involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt against Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas co-founder.

Israel killed Rantisi in 2004. The two men executed Tuesday were already jailed by then.

Rights group: In last 5 years, Israeli army detains 835 Palestinian youths for throwing rocks

2011-07-18T02:29:00.001-07:00

Seattle Times - Rights group: In last 5 years, Israeli army detains 835 Palestinian youths for throwing rocks
Article by: DIAA HADID , Associated Pres

JERUSALEM - Over the past five years, Israel's military has detained more than 800 Palestinian youths and children for pelting rocks at Israelis soldiers, and has interrogated and jailed many of them, a rights group said in a report released Monday.

Drawing on military statistics and interviews for its 70-page report, the Israeli rights group B'Tselem counted 835 minors who were taken into custody from 2005 through early 2011, including 34 children who were 13 or younger.

In the worst case, B'Tselem cited an 8-year-old who was seized in the West Bank in February.

Soldiers released the boy after realizing he wasn't the child they were after: they wanted his 9-year-old brother. Troops then handcuffed the 9-year-old, blindfolded him and took him to a detention center where he was interrogated and held for five hours, according to the report. Israeli forces released the boy after it was determined he was a minor.

A military spokeswoman said around 160 civilians and soldiers were wounded in violent attacks by minors. Some 10 were wounded when Palestinian youths threw projectiles, but the spokeswoman, speaking of condition of anonymity, said she did not know the extent of their injuries.

B'Tselem acknowledged that while Israeli authorities needed to enforce the law, they said night raids, handcuffing, blindfolds, interrogations and the denial of access to lawyers for children for hours at a time were frequently disproportionate to the crime.

"The authorities need to enforce the law, but they should do it in lawful ways that is appropriate for the crime and the people committing the crime," said the report's author, Naama Baumgarten-Sharon.

Military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said that in general the military handled children with sensitivity and that their arrest was a justified response to violence.

The B'Tselem report noted the situation for child detainees improved after the military built special juvenile courts, but said Palestinian minors were denied rights afforded to Israeli children.

Israel has complained for decades about Palestinian children taking part in often violent demonstrations, charging that they are being exploited. Many Palestinian parents see their children as young fighters resisting Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Rock throwing, specifically, is seen as symbolic of their struggle.

The issue has flared in the past few years as Palestinians hold weekly demonstrations in West Bank villages in which young men and boys pelt rocks and chunks of concrete at Israeli soldiers. Israeli soldiers have used tear gas, rubber bullets and sometimes live fire in response, killing some demonstrators and badly wounding others.

Of the more than 800 minors charged with hurling rocks over the past five years, only one youth was found guilty in a court trial. The other 93 percent were given jail terms in plea bargains, agreeing mostly because they feared being detained while they waited for their cases to reach trial, said Baumgarten-Sharon.

More than 500 of the youths were around 16 years old, the report said. Another 255 were 14 and 15, and 34 were 13 or younger. The older the youths, the more likely they were given longer sentences, sometimes of months in jail.

Military spokeswoman Leibovich said the children's fate lay with their families and Palestinian groups, whom she accused of sending out children to confront Israelis.

"We are talking about minors that actually use rocks and explosive devices to target Israeli civilians and soldiers," she said.

Syrian VP calls for transition to democracy

2011-07-10T07:51:00.001-07:00

Houston Chronicle - Syrian VP calls for transition to democracy

By DIAA HADID Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press

July 10, 2011, 9:36AM

BEIRUT — Syria's vice president on Sunday called for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by an authoritarian family dynasty, crediting mass protests with forcing the regime to consider reforms while also warning against further demonstrations.

Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa spoke at a national dialogue that opened Sunday, with some critics of the government in attendance. However, key opposition figures driving the four-month-old uprising boycotted the meeting, saying they refuse to talk until a deadly crackdown on protesters ends.

"I hope that we will reach ... transition to a pluralistic democratic state that enjoys equality for all citizens who participate in forming their own shining future," al-Sharaa said at the start of two days of talks in the capital, Damascus.

His comments highlighted the extent to which the uprising has shaken President Bashar Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000. While Assad himself has acknowledged the need for reforms in recent weeks, the high-level call for multiparty democracy was remarkable.

Still, al-Sharaa also made thinly veiled threats against the protesters and suggested some received direction from abroad.

"Arabs will not obtain their goals if they rely on foreigners," al-Sharaa said. "Unauthorized protests that lead to unwanted violence will cause the fall of more civilians and soldiers," he said.

Such a carrot-and-stick approach reflects the Syrian regime's policy of using both brute force and tentative promises of reform to try to quell the uprising, which was inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Some 1,600 civilians and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say.

Senior opposition figures and activists driving some protests boycotted the meeting.

"They are blockading (restive) cities, and killing demonstrators, arresting people and torturing people to death," said Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for a loose network of anti-government activists. "That cannot create a good environment for dialogue."

Al-Sharaa acknowledged that the promise of reforms would not have come without the uprising.

"It must be recognized, that without the blood sacrificed by civilians and soldiers ... this national dialogue would not have been held, at this high level of supervision, under the lens of cameras," he said.

In a rare acknowledgment of the regime's mistakes, al-Sharaa said demonstrations were triggered by "a great deal of mistakes ... that we swept under our carpets, without thinking deeply about the upcoming days."

Several opposition figures, intellectuals and members of parliament joined the dialogue.

Their presence was a rare step in a country where people rarely criticize the regime publicly or directly, fearing retribution by the pervasive security forces.

On live Syrian television — tightly controlled by the regime — a series of intellectuals slammed the government for using force against protesters.

Emboldened residents speaking to state-run television said they believed some protesters were true reform seekers and that government vows of change had to implemented, not just discussed.

"This dialogue comes at a really sensitive time — but shouldn't it have come earlier?" one man asked a reporter who was interviewing residents about the meeting.

As the conference was being held, the Foreign Ministry summoned the American and French ambassadors to protest their visits to the restive city of Hama, which has become an opposition stronghold.

The ministry said the visits Thursday and Friday amounted to interference in the country's internal affairs and accused the ambassadors of undermining Syria's stability.

The diplomats arrived in the city Thursday and stayed overnight, but left before thousands took to the streets there Friday as part of the weekly protests around the country.

Hama poses a dilemma for the Syrian regime because of its place as a symbol of opposition to the rule of the Assad family. In 1982, the late Hafez Assad ordered troops to crush a rebellion by Islamist forces, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights activists say.

On Sunday, Assad appointed a new governor to the city, Anas Abdul-Razak. Opposition figures said they were not familiar with the man. Assad fired the city's previous governor after Hama residents held the largest anti-government demonstration of the uprising, drawing hundreds of thousands of people.

______

Diaa Hadid can be reached on twitter.com/diaahadid

Syrians take to the streets as regime lashes at US

2011-07-08T08:51:00.001-07:00

Miami Herald - Syrians take to the streets as regime lashes at US

BY DIAA HADID AND BASSEM MROUE

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIRUT -- Hundreds of thousands of Syrians carrying olive branches and shouting for the downfall of President Bashar Assad's regime streamed Friday into the flashpoint city of Hama, where the U.S. and French ambassadors traveled in a strong show of support for the protest movement.

Mass demonstrations also erupted in cities and towns nationwide, triggering a crackdown that killed at least eight people and wounding more than 40, activists said. But Hama's demonstration was by far the largest and most closely watched.

Two witnesses said crowds were swelling in the central city, which has become a focal point of the uprising and has drawn the largest crowds since the revolt began nearly four months ago.

"People are chanting, 'We only kneel to God,' one of the witnesses told the AP by telephone, as the sound of the crowd was heard in the background. He asked for anonymity, fearing for his personal safety.

Another activist estimated the demonstration was even larger than last Friday's turnout of around 300,000 - possibly encouraged by the ambassadors' visits.

"There was no violence. As long as we have no security forces, we have no violence," said the activist, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisals.

Hama poses a potential dilemma for the Syrian regime because of its place as a symbol of opposition to the rule of the Assad family. In 1982, the late Hafez Assad ordered troops to crush a rebellion by Islamist forces, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights activists say.

A major offensive could make the city a fresh rallying cry for the opposition, but Assad's regime also does not want a repeat of last Friday's stunning rally, when an estimated 300,000 people protested.

The U.S. and French ambassadors traveled to Hama on Thursday and left on Friday before the protests began, according to officials in Washington and Paris.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford's trip drew strong condemnation from the Syrian government, which said the visit was unauthorized and a clear sign that Washington was inciting unrest in the Arab nation. Relations between the U.S. and Syria are chronically strained over Assad's close ties with Iran.

"The presence of the U.S. ambassador in Hama without obtaining prior permission from the Foreign Ministry as stipulated by instructions distributed repeatedly to all the embassies is clear evidence of the U.S. involvement in the ongoing events in Syria," the state-run news agency reported Friday, citing an unnamed "official source" at the Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. is trying to "aggravate the situations which destabilize Syria," the statement said.

A video posted on YouTube showed an SUV driving near what appeared to be the giant clock in Hama's central Assi Square as young men chanted: "People want the downfall of the regime." People tossed flowers and olive branches onto the vehicle, which the person making the video said was carrying Ford.

Later Friday, pro-regime activists called for a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to protest Ford's trip to Hama.

In Washington on Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Ford "spent the day expressing our deep support for the right of the Syrian people to assemble peacefully and to express themselves."

Ford reached the city after passing checkpoints run by the military and Hama residents. Nuland said he met nervous residents and saw many shops closed because of a protest-linked strike. He also visited a hospital treating the wounded.

The Syrian government did not comment on French Ambassador Eric Chevallier's trip to Hama.

France's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Chevallier's visit shows "France's concern for the Syrian population ... (France) denounces the pursuit of violence and arbitrary arrests and the absence of a credible commitment from the Syrian authorities to a political reform process."

Hama residents have shut down the city in recent days, going on strike and trying to prevent security forces from entering by setting up checkpoints of tires and concrete blocks.

Still, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 21 people have been killed there since Tuesday. Another group, the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said, as many as 22 people were shot dead and more than 80 wounded.

The Syrian regime has used a mix of fierce violence and promises of imminent reform to try to quell the uprising, which was inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Some 1,600 people and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say.

The regime blames "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators for the unrest, not true reform-seekers.

Also Friday, security forces killed three protesters in Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway linking Damascus, the capital, with Syria's largest city, Aleppo, said Syrian rights activist Ammar Qurabi.

Five other people were killed around the country, including one in Damascus and three in the central city of Homs. Syrian state-run TV said the deaths in Damascus and Homs were caused by snipers from "armed gangs."

Overnight, Syrian forces killed three people in a demonstration in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, activists said. Many protesters have recently been opting for nighttime demonstrations and candlelight vigils, aiming for a time when the security presence thins out.

Three activists confirmed the Damascus death toll to The Associated Press.

A Syria-based activist said residents told him that security forces used live bullets and smoke bombs to quell the demonstration. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his own safety.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted media coverage, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events on the ground.

---

Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut and Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/08/v-fullstory/2305142/syrians-take-to-the-streets-as.html#ixzz1RWt8gLuC

Syrian protests hurl stones at troops in key city

2011-07-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

Two protesters carry posters with pictures of unidentified relatives in Syria, with the Syrian flag colors painted on their faces during an anti-Syrian regime rally near the Syrian embassy in Cairo, Egypt Tuesday, July 5, 2011. Syrian troops fired Tuesday on residents who set up makeshift roadblocks to prevent the advance of tanks ringing the city of Hama, which has become a flashpoint of the uprising against autocratic President Bashar Assad, activists said. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Miami Herald - Syrian protests hurl stones at troops in key city

By DIAA HADID

The Associated Press

BEIRUT — Syrian protesters hurled stones and set roadblocks of burning tires against government forces trying to enter a key opposition city Thursday, nearly a week after a massive protest against the regime of President Bashar Assad, activists said.

Earlier, dozens of families fled the central city of Hama fearing a full-scale crackdown by Assad's troops.

The central Syrian city has become a center of resistance in the four-month-old uprising and poses a potential dilemma for Assad's government. A major offensive could make the city a fresh rallying cry for the opposition, but Assad's regime also does not want a repeat of last Friday's stunning rally, when an estimated 300,000 people protested.

Hama also holds deeper symbolism for opposition to the rule of the Assad family. In 1982, the late Hafez Assad ordered troops to crush a rebellion by Islamist forces, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights activists say.

The Syrian regime has used a mix of fierce violence and promises of reform to try quell the uprising. Some 1,400 people and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say.

Some of those fleeing Hama, who mostly live on the edge of the city, headed westward to the town of Salamiyeh about 20 miles (30 kilometers) away, said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a Hama-based activist.

"They are afraid of military operations in the area," said Abdul-Rahman. Security forces have been conducting arrest raids on Hama's outskirts for the past two days.

On the other side of the city, young men threw rocks and burned tires, halting at least four buses filled with security forces, said Abdul-Rahman and the activist.

Both of them cited reports by residents for their information. Details could not be independently confirmed. Syria has barred most foreign media from the country.

Security forces withdrew from Hama last month after a fierce crackdown on demonstrators that killed some 65 people — apparently hoping to appease angry, grieving families. But anti-Assad protests swelled. The outpouring last week was the largest protest since the mutiny against Assad's regime began.

Defiant residents also have shuttered shops and set up road blocks throughout the city, said Abdul-Rahman and a Hama-based activist, hoping to prevent Syrian army troops from entering deep into the city.

The activist said young men kept watch on the streets and rooftops — hollering and calling out "God is Great!" as a warning sign when they suspected security officials were trying to sneak into the city.

"It's like Tarzan, they call out like Tarzan," said the Hama-based activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals.

Some tanks withdrew from an entrance to the city on Thursday, but activists say there were no clear signals on the government strategy. Still, residents were nervous about a repeat of the 1982 assault, Abdul-Rahman said.

"I don't think Syrian forces would do anything so stupid — because of the symbolism of Hama and the massacre," Abdul-Rahman said. "Still, there's nothing that can be ruled out."

In another show of defiance, many merchants in and around Hama shuttered their shops in protest, according to activists and videos posted on YouTube.

A video from the small town of Kufr Zeiteh near Hama was typical. It showed a showed a line of shuttered blue doors, including a hair salon and mobile phone shop. Only a greengrocer selling vegetables in boxes could be seen working.

"General strike," said a young man on a video clip.

Activists are trying to hold once-a-week strikes throughout Syria.

Meanwhile, two widely respected Syrian opposition leaders said they would not participate in an upcoming government-held meeting on Sunday in the capital Damascus to discuss reforms.

Anwar al-Bunni and Michel Kilo said the government had halt its violent crackdown for dialogue to have a chance at success.

Also Thursday, Syrian legislator Mohammed Habash said parliamentary elections scheduled for August may be postponed for months.

It appears officials want to push back elections to give time for reforms that would allow the establishment of some political parties and constitutional amendments.

Syria effectively has a rubber-stamp parliament while Assad and a close circle of relatives and advisers make all real decisions. But by delaying elections, Assad may be trying to appease demonstrators by showing he is serious about long-demanded reforms.

Anti-government activists have dismissed such moves in the past.

_____

Diaa Hadid can be contacted at twitter.com/diaahadid

Syrian forces arrest residents in Hama

2011-07-03T08:43:00.001-07:00

A Syrian wears a Syrian independence flag headband as he carries a young girl on his shoulders during anti-Syrian regime protest out side the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, July 3, 2011, to support the Syrian demonstrators who protest in Syria against Bashar Assad's regime. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Syrian forces arrest residents in Hama

By DIAA HADID Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press

BEIRUT — Syrian forces on Sunday carried out arrests in the western city of Hama, an opposition stronghold, amid the sound of heavy gunfire, an anti-government activist said.

The arrests came two days after some 300,000 protesters gathered in Hama in the largest demonstration yet in a three-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

The protest carried important symbolism for the anti-government movement: in 1982, Assad's late father and predecessor, Hafez, crushed a rebellion in the city by Syrian members of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood movement, killing thousands.

Sunday's arrests took place near Hama's sports stadium, said Lebanon-based Syrian activist Rami Nakhleh, who coordinates information from a loose network of activists in Syria.

Nakhleh said he knew of five arrests so far, but believes more were taken into custody.

He said activists in Hama told him intelligence officials handed notices to many youths suspected of participating in demonstrations, demanding they visit local security centers for interrogation. The activists said the youths were so far refusing to go.

Syrian troops had withdrawn from Hama after killing 65 people there in a crackdown on demonstrators June 1. There had not been a noticeable security presence in the city until Sunday's arrests.

But after the large demonstration on Friday, the Syrian president fired Hama's governor, Ahmed Abdul-Aziz.

Syria's state-run news agency did not say why the governor was dismissed. Some activists said they feared Abdul-Aziz, viewed as sympathetic to the demonstrators, was dismissed to give freer rein to the security forces in the city.

"There's a lot of fear there," said Syrian activist Ammar Qurabi, who is also monitoring movement around Hama.

Activists say security forces have killed more than 1,400 people across Syria in the uprising. The government has disputed that toll and says armed gangs are conducting an insurrection.

Also Sunday, the Swiss government said it froze 27 million Swiss francs ($31.8 million) linked to senior Syrian officials. A spokeswoman for Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Antje Baertschi, said the assets were identified as part of the sanctions imposed against Assad and 22 other officials.

Switzerland has taken similar measures to freeze assets of other Arab leaders facing demonstrations against their rule.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/7637887.html#ixzz1R3cRDTYP

Syrian activists: regime rattled by huge protests in city where uprising was crushed 29 years ago

2011-07-02T12:39:00.001-07:00

Houston Chronicle - Syrian activists: regime rattled by huge protests

By DIAA HADID Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press
July 2, 2011, 2:19PM

BEIRUT — Syrian demonstrators knew well the powerful symbolism at their feet: The streets where hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered to denounce President Bashar Assad were the same where an earlier generation was cut down by his father during a failed uprising 29 years ago.

Activists on Saturday now hope the huge outpouring a day earlier in the city of Hama — an estimated 300,000 people chanting against Assad's regime — could re-energize the protest movement at a pivotal time.

Assad's forces appear unable to sustain the blanket crackdowns of recent months and offer possible openings for opposition strongholds to expand in places such as Hama. In swift political payback, Assad on Saturday dismissed the Hama governor, Ahmed Abdul-Aziz, in a move that also could signal another offensive into the city and risk further international outrage.

"What happened in Hama was a catastrophe for the regime," said Bassam Jaara, a Syrian opposition writer based in London.

Jaara and others believe Abdul-Aziz was fired for not calling in security forces to deal harshly with demonstrators. Others speculated he was made a scapegoat by regime officials embarrassed by the large turnout Friday — the largest single protest gathering since the revolt against Assad's rule began in March.

Crowd estimates and other details in Syria cannot be independently verified. The Syrian government has banned most foreign media from the country and restricted coverage.

But there was little doubt the protests in Hama were staggering in scope. Hama residents clapped, chanted and sung in a main square after Friday prayers. They unfurled a black-white-and-red flag some 10,000 feet-long (3 kilometers-long).

"The Syrian flag in the square of freedom!" cried an excited activist videotaping the demonstration. Protesters swayed to a popular Egyptian ditty — the words changed into an anti-regime song.

In 1982, Assad's late father, Hafez Assad, ordered his brother to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement. The city was sealed and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

The real number may never be known. Then, as now, reporters were not allowed to reach the area.

Last month, Hama was the scene of more bloodshed. Security forces withdrew after a violent crackdown against demonstrations that killed about 65 people.

Many of Friday's protesters were encouraged by a lack of front-line security in the city, said Syrian-based activist Mustafa Osso and others.

"Protests will continue, and regions that haven't demonstrated before will join in," said Osso.

In the latest uprising, opposition groups say the regime has killed more than 1,400 people — mostly unarmed protesters — since mid-March. That includes at least 14 people killed Friday.

The government disputes the overall toll and blames the violence on "armed thugs."

On Saturday, mourners buried at least two of those slain in Homs, a city near Hama, according to videos uploaded onto YouTube by anti-government activists.

The videos showed the bodies of men that activists identified as Homs residents Diaa al-Najjar and Bassem al-Saqlini. Al-Najjar's face was surrounded with flowers, his body wrapped in the Syrian flag.

"To heaven we are going, martyrs in our millions!" mourners chanted as many of them clapped as they marched.

Syrian forces have pursued a patchwork approach to the crackdown recently, leaving some areas to demonstrate freely while harshly attacking in other places. The tactic suggests that Assad's forces are under growing strain as they confront multiple protest hotbeds and try to cut off a refugee exodus into neighboring Turkey.

Beirut-based Syrian activist Omar Idibi, who speaks on behalf of a network of anti-government activists, said he feared that security forces operating in Homs would now turn their attention to Hama with the governor's sacking.

"We worry. When they withdraw a governor from a city, they then attack," Idibi said.

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report. Diaa Hadid can be reached on twitter.com/diaahadid

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7637154.html#ixzz1QyjMWN74

Hezbollah ally warns of civil strife in Lebanon

2011-07-01T09:56:00.001-07:00

A Lebanese woman passes a portrait of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri near his grave, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday June 30, 2011. A U.N.-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri delivered an indictment and four arrest warrants Thursday, the latest turn in a case that has transformed this Arab nation and brought down the government earlier this year. The names of the accused were not released, but the court has been expected to accuse members of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. The Arabic words next to the portrait read:"Because of what we have achieved, because of you we are going down (protest)". (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Yahoo News - Hezbollah ally warns of civil strife in Lebanon

By DIAA HADID - Associated Press | AP – 43 mins ago

BEIRUT (AP) — A key Hezbollah ally on Friday warned that an international indictment of members of the Islamic militant group in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri could lead to new civil strife in Lebanon.

A high-ranking Hezbollah militant was among four people named in an indictment by the U.N.-backed tribunal investigating Hariri's 2005 assassination. The Shiite group denies any role in the killing and has vowed never to turn over any of its members.

The indicted Hezbollah figure, Mustafa Badreddine, appears to have a storied history of militancy.

He is suspected building the powerful bomb that blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 Americans, mostly Marines, according to a federal law enforcement official and a book "Jawbreaker," by Gary Berntsen, a former official who ran the Hezbollah task force at the CIA.

The warning on Friday came from Druse leader Walid Jumblatt, a partner in the government whose support would be crucial if Lebanese authorities are to cooperate with prosecutors of the international court.

At a press conference, Jumblatt said the need to preserve peace in Lebanon trumps the need for justice in the Hariri case. He pointed to widespread fears that the case could further divide the country, which has been recovering from decades of bloodshed, including a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 and recent sectarian battles.

"As much as justice is important for the martyrs and the wounded, so too civil peace and stability is the hoped-for future," he said at a news conference. "Civil peace is more important than anything else."

The current government, dominated by Hezbollah's allies, is seen as deeply unlikely to work with the Netherlands-based tribunal. But the ruling coalition relies on Jumblatt's bloc to keep its majority in parliament, and his position has been unclear. A notoriously mercurial leader known for frequently switching sides in Lebanon's shifting alliances, he has given contradictory signals.

Even as he warned Friday of the dangers of the indictments, he also seemed to suggest the court should move ahead. "Let us allow matters to move smoothly: let the government do its job, the judiciary do its job," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday countered that critics were creating "a false distinction between justice and stability."

In a statement issued Friday, she called on the Lebanese government to support the special tribunal investigating Hariri's death. The tribunal was established in part at the request of a former Lebanese government dominated by Hariri allies.

The court "represents a chance for Lebanon to move beyond its long history of political violence and to achieve the future of peace and stability that the Lebanese people deserve," Clinton said in a statement.

The Netherlands-based court issued the indictments Thursday, though it did not release the names of the accused. A Lebanese judicial official who saw the warrants gave the names to The Associated Press, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Lebanese authorities have until the end of July to serve the indictments on suspects or execute arrest warrants. If they fail, the court can then order the indictment published and advertised in local media.

Badreddine, the only indicted member to have a public profile, is believed to have been Hezbollah's deputy military commander. He is the brother-in-law of the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh and is suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait that killed five people.

The other suspects are: Salim Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra and Hassan Anise, who changed his name to Hassan Issa. Their ties to Hezbollah, if any, are not immediately known.

Hezbollah has not commented on the indictment. The group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has denounced the court as a conspiracy by the U.S. and Israel and said last year that the group "will cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest its members. It was a potent threat, given that Nasrallah commands an arsenal that far outweighs that of the national army.

Nasrallah was expected to discuss the issue Saturday evening in a televised speech.

The case has already polarized Lebanon's rival factions — Hezbollah with its patrons in Syria and Iran on one side, and a Western-backed bloc led by Hariri's son, Saad, on the other — and brought down the government earlier this year.

Rafik Hariri, a billionaire businessman, was one of Lebanon's most powerful Sunni leaders; Hezbollah is a Shiite group.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, suspicion fell on Syria, since Hariri had been seeking to weaken its domination of the country.

Syria has denied any role in the murder, but the killing galvanized opposition to Damascus and led to huge street demonstrations that helped end Syria's 29-year military presence.

The tribunal, which is jointly funded by U.N. member states and Lebanon, filed a draft indictment in January but the contents were not revealed while Belgian judge Daniel Fransen decided whether there was enough evidence for a trial. The draft has been amended twice since then.

Lebanon formed a new government this month — after five months of political wrangling — that gives Hezbollah unprecedented political clout. But Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was Hezbollah's pick for the post, has insisted he will not do one side's bidding.

_________

AP correspondent Adam Goldman in Washington contributed to this report.

Diaa Hadid can be reached at twitter.com/diaahadid

Syria forces spread through border area; 19 killed

2011-07-01T01:22:00.001-07:00

Syrians carry national flags during a candle vigil in honor of those who were killed in recent violence, in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, June 29, 2011. Syrian army tanks and helicopters swept through a restive northwestern province Wednesday, shelling at least one village in an attack that killed four people, activists said. Muzaffar Salman

Kansas City Star - Syria forces spread through border area; 19 killed

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

Syrian army forces spread through a restive mountainous area near the Turkish border on Thursday as the death toll from a two-day military siege rose to 19 people, according to activists and a witness.

The action by Syrian troops in the northwestern area of Jabal al-Zawiya appeared to be aimed at preventing residents from fleeing to Turkey, where more than 10,000 Syrians have already taken shelter in refugee camps, activists say. The refugees have been a source of deep embarrassment to Damascus, one of the most tightly controlled regimes in the Middle East.

"They fear there will be sympathy for the people who are fleeing, and they are frightened that this will cause international pressure to mount on the regime," said Mustafa Osso, a prominent Syrian-based human rights activist.

Only five Syrians made it across the border Thursday, the lowest number in days, said Turkish officials. Over the past week, more than 10,000 Syrians rushed across, fleeing their army's violent crackdown against demonstrators.

Syrian activists say more than 1,400 people have been killed as President Bashar Assad tries to crush three months of nationwide protests. The regime disputes that death toll and says "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators are behind the unrest.

In Thursday's operations, Syrian forces were consolidating their hold on the Jabal al-Zawiya after two days of heavy shelling in the area, particularly in the village of Rameh, said Osso. That assessment was repeated by Lebanon-based activist Omar Idibi and an eyewitness who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.

They said most people were killed Wednesday and early Thursday. Idibi said the death toll was likely to rise as people were pulled out of rubble from smashed homes in some areas.

Idibi said part of the fighting was prompted by Syrian forces trying to hunt down several dozen comrades who abandoned their arms. Some rebelled while in Rameh village, while others split away from the armed forces in earlier fighting this month in the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughour.

"They haven't been able to flee to Turkey," Idibi said. "They are fleeing from the advance of the Syrian army," he said. Idibi said eyewitnesses told him that Syrian forces were trying to seal gaps in the border with Turkey to prevent people from escaping.

Idibi and the eyewitness said that in a pattern repeated across the area, a rush of tanks would flood villages under heavy fire. Some soldiers backed by tanks would stay on to check identification cards and patrol some areas, while the rest moved on to the next residential area.

"They are terrifying the people. It's a message: 'We are coming to you, be careful,'" the eyewitness said.

Meanwhile, Syrian forces fired tear gas to disperse a demonstration in the mountainous Kurdish border village of Amoud, further to the northwest. YouTube videos uploaded by activists showed dozens of men fleeing the acrid plumes as they chanted against the regime.

Government forces have so far reacted with a softer hand against Kurdish demonstrators. Osso said he believed the regime doesn't want to provoke a Kurdish uprising while dealing with nationwide anti-government protests.

And in the northwestern city of Aleppo - some two-dozen miles from the army operations in Jabal al-Zawiya - several hundred demonstrators staged at least two anti-regime protests, according to Idibi.

A YouTube videos uploaded by activists appeared to show several hundred men running down a street, filmed from a balcony several stories up. The men shout: "The people want an end to the regime!"

Another group of activists said the protesters were beaten up by pro-regime thugs.

The demonstration appeared far smaller than those that take place in other Syrian cities but its importance lies in Aleppo's status as the country's second largest city, where much of Syria's small middle class lives.

Activists said the regime feared that if Aleppo's residents threw their weight behind the anti-government protests, they could badly shake Assad's regime.

Still, the turnout was poor considering calls by anti-government activists on Allepo residents. Several high-profile activists produced YouTube videos calling on the people to take to the streets. A Facebook page vowed Thursday would be a "volcano" in the city.

"We are hoping that this will be a practice run for Friday," said Idibi.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States condemns the Assad regime's "continued vicious repression of peaceful demonstrators."

"We call on them to stop this violence, to release all political prisoners, end torture and allow humanitarian aid to those in need," Toner said. He also urged Damascus to allow international media access - the Syrian government has banned all but a few foreign journalists and restricted local media's reporting.

---

With reporting by Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara.

Diaa Hadid can be reached on twitter.com/diaahadid

Activist: Syrian forces kill 4 in restive province

2011-06-30T01:34:00.001-07:00

Denver Post - Activist: Syrian forces kill 4 in restive province
By DIAA HADID Associated Press

BEIRUT—Syrian tanks and helicopters swept through a restive northwestern province Wednesday, shelling at least one village in an attack that killed four people, activists said.
Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, cited witnesses as saying the military shelled Rameh village to quell daily protests against President Bashar Assad in the area.
Hundreds of other residents fled the village, an activist said by telephone from the area.
"The army is entering village after village," he told The Associated Press, asking that his name not be used out of fear for his safety. "The men have fled to Damascus and into the mountains. They are afraid they'll be tortured or arrested."
Syrian activists say 1,400 people have been killed as Assad tries to crush a nationwide pro-democracy movement that has lasted more than three months. The regime disputes that death toll and says "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators are behind the unrest.
The military operation in Idlib province is part of a sweep against dissident centers the government fears could become a base for a wider rebellion. Besides Rameh, the Syrian army advanced on a series of other hamlets: Marayn, Ihsim, Barshoun and the Roman-era village of al-Bara.
The activist said army units set up checkpoints at the entrances of some villages, checking the identity cards of young men.
Over the past three weeks, thousands of Syrians have streamed into refugee camps in neighboring Turkey.
On Wednesday, hundreds of refugees at two camps along the border held a simultaneous, hour-long protest against Assad and denounced the violence in Idlib.
It is nearly impossible to independently verify the claims on either side of the conflict in Syria, although witness accounts from refugees streaming out of Syria tell of a brutal government response to protests. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and restricts coverage by reporters inside the country.
In an attempt to rebuff those witness accounts, the government has offered several escorted trips to flashpoint areas. Syrian army officials took reporters Wednesday to the Turkish border and said there were rebels trying to stage an armed insurrection.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, citing military rules, the officials said the men erected checkpoints around a camp in the area, preventing Syrian forces from entering.
The army officials said they were watching the situation but had no plans to wrest back the area yet.
An Associated Press reporter traveling with army officials could see the camps from a nearby wooded hilltop, but there was no way to glean any details about the people living inside.
———
Associated Press writer Mehmet Guzel in Yayladagi, Turkey, contributed to this report.

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Israeli soldier marks 5th year in Hamas captivity

2011-06-25T01:32:00.000-07:00

Israeli activists calling for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit block a road as they demonstrate outside the Jerusalem International Convention Center ahead of a planned speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Thursday, June 23, 2011. The International Committee of the Red Cross appealed to Palestinian armed groups on Thursday to prove an Israeli soldier captured five years ago is alive. Schalit was captured June 25, 2006, by Hamas-linked militants in a cross-border raid. Banners read in Hebrew, left to right: "Bibi, 'Those who dare, win.' Have you forgotten?", "And if it was Yair Netanyahu?" (son of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu), "Is the only way to return from captivity in a coffin?". Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP

Seattle Post - Israeli soldier marks 5th year in Hamas captivity

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Gaza Strip militants vowed Saturday that an Israeli soldier captured five years ago would not "see the light" until Palestinian prisoners held by Israel were released.

In Israel, some 400 supporters of Sgt. Gilad Schalitgathered at the border crossing where he was seized by gunmen linked to Gaza's ruling Hamas movement on June 25, 2006.

They waved Israeli flags emblazoned with his likeness and demanded the government do more to secure his release. A relative read a letter from Schalit's grandfather faulting the state for failing to bring the 24-year-old home.

"The people involved talk to us from time to time, stroke our heads, but my beloved grandchild Gilad, through no fault of his own, is still rotting away in a Hamas dungeon like a common criminal," Zvi Schalit wrote.

In Jerusalem, Schalit's parents, his brother and his brother's girlfriend chained themselves to one another and to a railing on the side of a small road leading to the prime minister's residence.

"We are marking five years' anniversary of Gilad's captivity in the Hamas hands and we, as you can see, are also a family in captivity for five years," said Schalit's father, Noam Schalit.

Schalit, a tank crewman, was taken captive after militants tunneled under the Israeli border, killed two soldiers at a border post and dragged him bleeding into Gaza. Hamas has allowed no one to visit him and last offered a sign of life in October 2009.

Hamas' threat to continue holding him until its demands are met was delivered in a 39-second video posted Saturday on the group's website.

Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian militants, including the masterminds of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. Israeli officials have balked, arguing that releasing the men would put more Israelis in danger.

In the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, families of some of the estimated 7,500 Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails sat with pictures of their imprisoned sons emblazoned on birthday cakes. Number candles were planted on the cakes, signifying the 12 to 22 years the men had spent in Israeli prisons.

The White House and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued statements calling for Schalit's immediate release.

Schalit holds dual French-Israeli citizenship, and Israeli media reported that the French ambassador to Israel brought Schalit's parents a letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozyassuring Schalit that "France will not abandon you."

Earlier this week, Hamas rebuffed an appeal from the International Committee of the Red Cross to prove Schalit was still alive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retaliated by saying Palestinian prisoners would be stripped of access to higher education and other unspecified privileges.

Palestinian prisoners have reported that Israeli corrections officials have been confiscating cell phones that had been smuggled to them, and that leading Hamas prisoners have been transferred to solitary confinement.

Kadoura Fares, head of the Palestinian prisoners association, said Israel had already severely limited prisoners' visitation rights.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the new measures announced by the prime minister "a violation of international law and international humanitarian law" and urged international intervention to block them.

In ravaged Libya, ghosts of a Jewish past

2011-06-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

I

Seattle Times - In ravaged Libya, ghosts of a Jewish past

What was once the most beautiful synagogue in Libya's capital city can now be entered only by sneaking through a hole smashed in a back wall, climbing over dusty trash and crossing a stairwell strewn with abandoned shoes to a space occupied by cooing pigeons.

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya —

The synagogue, Dar al-Bishi, was once the center of a prosperous Jewish community, one whose last remnants were expelled decades ago in the early days of Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

Inside Libya, little trace of them remains. Abroad, however, surviving members and descendants of the community are very much alive, watching with fascination from afar as Gadhafi's forces and a NATO-backed rebel insurgency battle for control of a country some of them still see as home.

"I have somewhat mixed feelings. I am sympathetic to people who want him out," said Libya-born Gina Bublil-Waldman, referring to the embattled dictator.

But Bublil-Waldman, who heads an organization of Jews from Arab countries in San Francisco, said she was still angry and hurt by the memory of her family's expulsion from Libya. Those feelings remained strong, she said, and at this point she "would be afraid to go."

Navit Barel, a 34-year-old Israeli of Libyan descent, said the upheaval made her want to visit the country where her parents were born. Her mother and father, now deceased, both grew up near the Dar al-Bishi synagogue.

"I feel like it brought back my yearning to talk to my father," she said.

Libyan Jews seem proud of their heritage and even nostalgic for their ancestral home. But they are also bitter at the mistreatment they suffered at the hands of Libyan Muslims and at the eventual elimination of an ancient native community in a wave of anti-Jewish violence linked to the rise of the Zionist movement and the creation of Israel.

Today, most of the community's few crumbling remains lie in Hara Kabira, a sandy slum that was once Tripoli's Jewish quarter.

Inside the Dar al-Bishi synagogue, faded Hebrew above an empty ark where Torah scrolls were once kept reads "Shema Israel" - "Hear, O Israel" - the beginning of a Jewish prayer. The floor is strewn with decades of garbage.

What was once a ritual bath next to the synagogue now houses impoverished Libyan families. In a nearby alley, three arched doorways in a yellow facade are decorated with Jewish stars of David. The building was once the Ben Yehuda Jewish youth club, said Maurice Roumani, a Libyan-born Israeli and Libyan Jewry expert. Barel's father, Eliyahu, taught Hebrew there.

The government now owns it.

Jews first arrived in what is now Libya some 2,300 years ago. They settled mostly in coastal towns like Tripoli and Benghazi and lived under a shifting string of rulers, including Romans, Ottoman Turks, Italians and ultimately the independent Arab state that has now descended into civil war.

Some prospered as merchants, physicians and jewelers. Under Muslim rule, they saw periods of relative tolerance and bursts of hostility. Italy took over in 1911, and eventually the fascist government of Benito Mussolini issued discriminatory laws against Jews, dismissing some from government jobs and ordering them to work on Saturdays, the Jewish day of rest.

In the 1940s, thousands were sent to concentration camps in North Africa where hundreds died. Some were deported to concentration camps in Germany and Austria.

Their troubles didn't end with the war. Across the Arab world, anger about the Zionist project in Palestine turned Jewish neighbors into perceived enemies. In November 1945, mobs throughout Libya went on a three-day rampage, burning down Jewish shops and homes and killing at least 130 Jews, among them three dozen children.

After Israel was founded in 1948, it became a refuge for Jews of ancient Middle Eastern communities, including those of Libya. Barel's father fled in 1949, and her mother soon after. Most were gone by the time Gadhafi seized power in 1969. The new dictator expelled the rest, who were ordered to leave with one suitcase and a small amount of cash.

Jewish properties were confiscated. There was no way to determine how many. Debts to Jews were officially erased. Jewish cemeteries were turned into dumping grounds or built over, and most of the dozens of synagogues around the country were either demolished or put to different use. Some became mosques. A community that numbered about 37,000 at its peak vanished.

Inside Libya, the memory of Jews is fading. Elderly Muslim residents who remember their neighbors stay silent, worried they'll be accused of being Jewish sympathizers.

"There were Jews here once, but they left," said one Muslim resident of Tripoli's old Jewish quarter. He nervously shrugged when asked of their fate.

Still, the Libyan Jewish community left small legacies behind.

Their famous fish stew, known as hraimeh, is widely eaten in Libya today. Recently, a government official accompanying international reporters to a seafood restaurant in Tripoli called it "Jewish food" as he hungrily scooped it up. Muslims who defy their faith's ban on alcohol imbibe homemade bocha, a fig-based spirit once made by local Jews.

Today, Libyan Jews and their descendants number around 110,000. Most live in Israel, with others in Italy and elsewhere. None, if any, have any desire to return as residents, but Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the embattled Gadhafi government, said they would be allowed back - if they first disavowed their Israeli citizenship. "They cannot have both," Ibrahim said.

The Benghazi-based rebel government would not comment on whether it had any intention of mending relations with the country's old Jewish community. Spokesman Jalal al-Gallal would say only that there would be "freedom of religion" in a future Libya.

Roumani, the Libyan Jewry expert, said he has a yearning to return, but knows that the places he knew are long gone.

Roumani described a memory of himself as a child in Benghazi: He is walking to synagogue with his father, listening to a chanted recitation of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, coming from a radio in a nearby cafe.

The synagogue is now a Coptic Christian church. His father's grave was lost when Gadhafi's regime built over the cemetery.

---

Associated Press writers Matti Friedman and Aron Heller in Jerusalem and Michelle Faul in Benghazi, Libya, contributed to this report.

---

Online:

http://diarna.org/index.htm

http://rluzon.com/

http://jimenaexperience.org/libya

Libyans chafe under Gadhafi's rule in Tripoli

2011-06-16T03:16:00.001-07:00

FILE - In a June 7, 2011 file photo, a smoke and dust cloud from an explosion rises into the sky after a NATO airstrike in Tripoli, Libya. Anti-Gadhafi activists say they are emboldened by NATO strikes pounding the capital for the past two months in support of the insurgency. Photo: Abdel Meguid Al-Fergany / AP

Seattle Post - Libyans chafe under Gadhafi's rule in Tripoli

DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Published 02:31 p.m., Wednesday, June 15, 2011

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The men labored in a sandy alley in the Libyan capital, trying to weld a rocket launcher to a jeep and brazenly talking about their goal: to battle Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers in the heart of his regime's stronghold.

"We want to use it for the battle," said one man, in his mid-20s and wearing tattered clothing as he measured sheets of metal. "This is an oppressive regime that is built on fear. It has to go."

Men like these are part of a loose band of activists emboldened by NATO airstrikes to take a stand in Tripoli, where repression of the opposition has been among the harshest in Libya.

Such low-level guerrilla warfare, along with small anti-government demonstrations, are part of a renewed push to shake the Gadhafi regime in its heartland despite a violent crackdown on dissent in the early weeks of the uprising that began Feb. 17.

Anti-Gadhafi activists say they are encouraged by the NATO strikes that have pounded the capital for the past two months in support of the insurgency. They cite gains made by other Libyan rebels, who pushed out Gadhafi forces from a series of mountain towns in the country's west in late May, and who appear to be slowly gaining ground outside their stronghold in the port city of Misrata, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Tripoli.

The numbers of anti-Gadhafi activists and their supporters are hard to gauge. Reporters are tightly controlled, and interviews must be done on the sly in quick snatches of conversation. All of the opposition activists who spoke to The Associated Press refused to be identified by name, fearing punishment by government officials.

For these activists, the only option is to take up arms against Gadhafi's forces.

"The time of protests is over. They shoot at the protesters," one man declared, speaking in the working-class neighborhood of Fashloom, which has become a center of resistance. He described a series of recent armed attacks against Gadhafi forces.

"It's only in this way that we will be rid of this regime," he said.

Still, Tripoli is unlikely to fall from within. Opposition, while active, is limited and vastly outgunned. Few of the rebel attacks appear to have been effective.

But resistance in the capital puts additional strain on Gadhafi, whose hold on power has been shaken by the 4-month-old rebel insurgency, 2½ months of NATO airstrikes and a naval blockade. Fuel, medicine and gasoline are scarce. Defections from the military and government have eaten away at the dictator's power base.

Gadhafi has much genuine support in Tripoli and elsewhere. An English-language teacher in a grocery shop accused Western journalists of underreporting the extent of NATO strikes. Another woman invited reporters to a lecture on Gadhafi's system of democracy and human rights, insisting there was freedom in her country. African workers in a Tripoli slum said Gadhafi's regime had given them jobs and stability.

Mixed among them were the angry opponents of Gadhafi's more than 40-year rule.

Soon after NATO conducted a sudden heavy bombing raid on Tripoli in late May, one medic in an upscale clinic described the rocking explosions as "good."

He said he hoped the strikes would urge rebels to march on Tripoli. He said his colleagues were sneaking medicine to rebels in the western mountain range, close to the Tunisian border.

His claims could not be verified, but the man appeared to take enormous risk to speak to reporters.

Five residents, interviewed separately, described several daring assaults against Gadhafi forces in late May and early June. The incidents were also reported by a prominent anti-Gadhafi activist.

They included what appeared to be an armed attack by rebels on an army base in Tripoli in late May.

A video uploaded to YouTube by an anti-regime activist purports to show the aftermath: Four badly wounded men who appeared to be rebels lay in pools of blood inside and outside a two-story house. At least one was dead.

Suggesting the fallen men had been involved in a violent attack on soldiers, a man, presumably a soldier, could be heard shouting: "They killed our people at dawn and we took our revenge by the morning. Rats! Dogs!"

A funeral procession on May 30 for one man killed in the attack turned into a demonstration by hundreds of residents in the neighborhood of Souk el-Juma, two residents said. A video of the anti-government protest was uploaded to YouTube.

"There is only one God, and Gadhafi is his enemy!" protesters shouted as they carried a man's body through the streets.

Days later, residents said an elderly man was killed by soldiers at a gas station in the middle-class neighborhood of Ben Ashour on June 2.

They said the man was killed by jittery soldiers who opened fire at residents fighting over places in a miles-long line for gasoline. A demonstration of several dozen people erupted after the shooting.

"It's not easy to see somebody fall like that, especially an old man," said a trader in Ben Ashour, who said he helps run a network of activists organizing peaceful protests.

___

On the Web:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?vgl9CjRhL-wk

Syrian blog hoaxer says sorry, but anger remains

2011-06-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

Syrian blog hoaxer says sorry, but anger remains

JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

Monday, June 13, 2011

LONDON (AP) — A 40-year-old American man living in Scotland said Monday he's sorry for posing as a Syrian lesbian blogger who offered vivid accounts of life amid revolt and repression in Damascus, a still-unraveling hoax that has exposed the difficulty of sifting truth from fiction online.

Tom MacMaster said he created the fictional persona of Amina Arraf and the "Gay Girl in Damascus" blog to draw attention to conditions in a Middle East convulsed by change.

"I never meant to hurt anyone," the Edinburgh University grad student wrote in a long apology on the blog. The university said it had suspended MacMaster's computer privileges while it investigated whether he had breached its rules.

And as the deceit unspooled, a second blogger known as Paula Brooks, who posted some of the fraudulent Arraf's comments on a lesbian news site, admitted to being a man who had adopted a fake lesbian persona.

The Washington Post reported late Monday that "Brooks" was a 58-year-old retired U.S. air force member named Bill Graber.

Graber admitted the deceit when phoned by the AP. He said he had set up the Lezgetreal.com site to advance the gay and lesbian cause and felt he would not be taken seriously as a straight man.

"LezGetReal was not meant to be deceitful or con anyone," he said.

He also claimed to have helped unmask MacMaster by tracking his posts to computer servers in Edinburgh.

"He would have got away with it if I hadn't been such a stand-up guy," Graber said.

Gay rights activists and bloggers say MacMaster's deceit has endangered real people who are trying to tell their stories in authoritarian societies.

"He completely stole the limelight of real LGBT bloggers and activists in the Middle East and diverted it in a negative way," said Dan Littauer of the website Gay Middle East.

Daniel Nassar, the pseudonym of a Syrian man affiliated with Gay Middle East, said MacMaster had put all gay Syrians in danger.

"If I was living in a country where I could sue this person because he has damaged me and damaged my cause ... then I would," he said.

The blogs about life as a Syrian-American lesbian grabbed international attention soon after they began in February. Alongside video clips and erotic poems, the writer wrote about a childhood in Virginia, daily life as a gay woman in Damascus, the growing protest movement and hopes for a future Syria freed from "dictators and rule by strong men."

For readers hungry for news of the uprisings sweeping the Arab world, it was gold dust — a gripping, firsthand account of a country from which most foreign journalists are excluded.

A reporter for The Associated Press, who maintained a monthlong email correspondence with someone claiming to be Arraf, found the persona persuasive. The writer spoke about friends in Damascus, and outlined worries about her father and hopes for the future of her country, and seemed very much like a woman in the midst of the violent change gripping Syria.

In the emails, the person acknowledged fudging some details to protect herself and her family, and painted a harrowing picture of fleeing her home.

An email sent to the blogger's address Monday was not immediately returned.

On June 6, a post on the Arraf site, ostensibly by a cousin, said she'd been abducted by armed men in a Damascus street. The Internet erupted with alarm. A "Free Amina Arraf" Facebook page drew 14,000 supporters. The U.S. State Department said it was making inquiries to establish her identity.

But other bloggers began to go public with their growing doubts about Arraf's authenticity.

Some thought an April 26 post describing how two plainclothes security agents came to her home to detain her and were persuaded to leaving by her father sounded extremely implausible. Syria's hardline security services are not known as being easily dissuaded.

Reporters in Virginia, where Arraf claimed to have grown up, could find no trace of her or her family.

Journalists could find no one who had ever met her — not even Sandra Bagaria, a Montreal woman who was having an online relationship with her and had exchanged hundreds of emails with "Amina."

Online sleuths — including Andy Carvin of National Public Radio and blogger Liz Henry — found that an IP address used by Arraf was based at Edinburgh University and uncovered links between the blogger and an address in Stone Mountain, Georgia owned by MacMaster, a married American man currently studying for a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh.

Then a woman in Britain, Jelena Lecic, came forward to say the photos of "Amina" on the blogger's Facebook page were actually of her. She had been unaware of the theft until she saw her own picture illustrating a British newspaper article about the blogger.

Faced with the mounting evidence, MacMaster first denied it, then confessed, posting an "apology to readers" Sunday on Amina's blog.

MacMaster's wife, Britta Froelicher, said she understood that people felt hurt and angry about what her husband had done. She said he was apologetic for a situation that "backfired" and became uncontrollable.

"He created kind of an avatar," she said. "When he became this other person, his opinions were being heard and it took on a life of its own.

"It was really an attempt to circumvent traditional news media and try to talk about things" from a fresh perspective, she said.

Froelicher, a doctoral student at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, spoke by telephone to the AP while on vacation with her husband in Istanbul.

She said she had known that her husband was writing a blog, but had no idea that he had created a false character.

"He's my husband, he's not my child," she said. "Obviously, we are going to have some conversations in private about these things."

Eve MacMaster, the Syria blogger's mother, said she hadn't spoken to her son since he admitted fabricating the posts but was certain his writings came from a genuine concern for people the Middle East.

"He's not out to make money or hurt anybody," she said. "I'm proud of him for caring about others and I'm proud of him for coming forward and saying 'I'm sorry. I was stupid and I was vain.'"

"He made some errors in judgment, but they weren't criminal or sinful," she said. "They were just poor judgment."

MacMaster insists he did not mean to hurt anyone — but his fake persona has left a trail of angry people.

Bagaria, Amina's Canadian online girlfriend, tweeted that she felt "deeply hurt."

Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, said the whole episode should serve as a warning to media and rights groups trying to cover the region's uprisings.

"It underscores the age-old principle that you have to know your sources," he said. "You have to know who is feeding you this information."

____

Ben McConville in Edinburgh, Christopher Torchia in Istanbul, Diaa Hadid in Beirut and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://twitter.com/JillLawless.

Libya rebels, Gadhafi forces clash in western city

2011-06-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

Libya rebels, Gadhafi forces clash in western city

Posted on Friday, 06.10.11

By DIAA HADID and MAGGIE MICHAEL

Rebels were battling forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi along the Mediterranean coast west of Tripoli on Saturday, fighting their way back into the important western oil port of Zawiya.

A Libyan rebel spokesman said it was the first major fighting in the city since government troops crushed opposition forces there in March.

Guma el-Gamaty, a London-based spokesman for the rebels' national council, says the opposition fighters were in control of a large area on the western side of the city.

A rebel fighter who fled Zawiya at the end of March said "there are clashes inside Zawiya itself."

The rebel, who identified himself only as Kamal, said "the fighters are back in the city" and that he had spoken with them.

Zawiya had been the closest city to the capital Tripoli to fall into rebel hands.

Apparently prompted by the Zawiya clashes, Libyan soldiers sealed off parts of a crucial coastal road leading from Tripoli, the capital, west to the Tunisian border. Zawiya sits about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli.

The coastal highway approaching Zawiya from the capital was clogged with soldiers and loyalist gunmen with assault rifles, some patrolling the road, others manning checkpoints. Roadside shops were shuttered. The only vehicles on the road were white jeep-style vehicles use by Gadhafi soldiers.

Civilian vehicles were directed onto a narrow agricultural road through olive groves and past grazing cattle and sprawling homes. Traffic on the agricultural rode crawled past Zawiya and was only allowed back on the coastal highway at historic Roman-era town of Sabrata 20 miles (30 kilometers) west of the fighting.

The coastal road is a chief artery from neighboring Tunisia for delivery for food, fuel and medicine for the Gadhafi regime that is under a naval blockade, NATO enforced no-fly strictures and continuing air strikes by the Western alliance in support of the rebel uprising.

Britain, meanwhile, reported on sorties flown by its air force on Friday, part of the NATO mission to protect civilians and help rebels who rose up against Gadhafi four months ago.

Maj. Gen. Nick Pope, top spokesman for the defense staff, said British jets destroyed four Gadhafi tanks hidden in an orchard southwest of Tripoli, the capital. The jets also dropped nine bunker-buster bombs on government military installations on the western outskirts of the capital.

Witnesses, however, reported seeing no NATO aircraft in the vicinity of the rebel-held port city of Misrata on Friday as Gadhafi forces shelled towns on the western outskirts of the city, 125 miles (210 kilometers) east of Tripoli.

A doctor at Hikma Hospital in Misrata, who would only give his first name, Ayman, said 31 rebels were killed in the Friday shelling by Gadhafi forces who opened fire with tanks, artillery and incendiary rockets.

They were pounding rebel forces in Dafniya, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) west of Misrata. He said at least 61 people were wounded in the attacks which began about 10 a.m. local time Friday and continue until late at night.

Gadhafi forces had renewed their shelling near Misrata on Wednesday. The city is one of the few footholds rebels have in western Libya and controls the country's largest port.

The doctor said residents had reported no sign of NATO aircraft in the Misrata region.

During the four-month upheaval, rebels have taken control of swaths of eastern Libya, although fighting has since come to a stalemate even with NATO support. Misrata remained one of the most important rebel footholds in the Gadhafi controlled west.

Government forces are surrounding Misrata on all sides but the north, where the city has access to the Mediterranean Sea for supplies and food through Libya's major port. Rebels have beaten back several government attempts to retake the city.

The Gadhafi forces are pushing back on rebel forces trying to break out of Misrata to advance on Tripoli.

A rebel fighter in Misrata who identifies himself only as Abdel-Salem said Gadhafi's sons, Khamis and al-Moatassem, and top aid Abdullah al-Senoussi are in command of the operation that is dug in at Zlitan, about nine miles (15 kilometers) from Dafniya.

"The situation is very bad there. Gadhafi sent huge forces to Zlitan to fortify the city because he knows that if Zlitan falls in the hands of the rebels, the way to Tripoli will be wide open," Abdel-Salam said. "Now the ball is in the court of NATO, but we have not seen any NATO planes flying over despite the fierce battle."

As more and more country's have sided with the rebels, Gadhafi has shown no sign of giving up power.

Turkey's prime minister said in a TV interview broadcast Friday that his country has offered Gadhafi guarantees if he were to leave Libya but has received no response. He did not detail what sort of guarantees.

"He has no other option but to leave Libya, with the condition that he is given certain guarantees. That's the picture," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in the interview with the NTV channel.

"We have given him these guarantees; we said we will help you leave for wherever you would like."

Taboo-breaking women among Gadhafi's biggest fans

2011-06-08T03:01:00.000-07:00

Taboo-breaking women among Gadhafi's biggest fans

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

The young woman police officer swaggers through a crumbling Tripoli slum, her dark hair cut boyishly short, an empty gun holster and walkie-talkie hanging from her police belt. A tattooed man with a cigarette dangling from his lips shrinks away.

He doesn't want to mess with 25-year-old Nisrine Mansour.

A member of the regime's vice squad, her hero is Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi. His image is on her cell phone, his face emerging from rays of green - the iconic regime color. Her ring tone is a tinny pro-Gadhafi chant.

Gadhafi has bestowed many titles upon himself during his 42-years of iron-fisted rule over Libya, branding himself "King of Kings" in Africa and "Brother Leader of the Revolution" in Libya.
Women like Mansour give him another title: emancipator of women.

"Moammar Gadhafi is the one who opened the opportunities for us to advance. That's why we cling to him, that's why we love him," says Mansour. "He gave us complete freedom as a woman to enter the police force, work as engineers, pilots, judges, lawyers. Anything."

Among Gadhafi's most ardent loyalists are a core of Libyan women who have risen to high-profile roles in the police, military and government and credit Gadhafi with giving them greater career avenues than many of their sisters elsewhere in the Arab world. They consider any threat to his regime a threat to their own advancement.

Even as Gadhafi's regime has cracked down brutally on dissent, locking up and torturing opponents, it has also long touted its policies of breaking cultural taboos concerning women's work and status in the deeply conservative nation. The most well known example is Gadhafi's personal guard of female bodyguards, but women have also been elevated to prominent positions in government ministries.

Gadhafi's policy was in part aimed at weakening traditional tribal and religious powers so he could impose his own vision of society.

It was only somewhat successful. Women who have gained prominence are a small minority in an otherwise strongly male-dominated Libya, far from the popular regime myth of a society filled with revolutionary fighting women. And, just as for men, advancement depends on total adherence to Gadhafi's authoritarian rule.

Women were also at the forefront of the protests that launched the anti-Gadhafi uprising in mid-February, demanding democracy for the country and - they hope - better rights for themselves. Still, while they have no rosy memories of their lives under Gadhafi, they say their struggle for equality is ongoing. Women activists were dismayed when the rebels appointed only one woman to the interim administration in their de facto capital of Benghazi.

"We are very disappointed," said Enas Al-Dursy, a 23-year-old activist. "We feel like we are being marginalized."

For policewoman Mansour, there is nothing a woman like herself can't aspire to in Gadhafi's Libya.

"I've never felt that I was treated differently because I'm a woman. Even when I'm picking up drunkards off the street, nobody ever said: 'She can't do that, she's a woman,'" said Mansour, who is charged with cracking down on drug addicts, drunkards and beggars in the slums of Tripoli.

A woman hugged her as she patrolled the garbage-strewn alleyways of the Hara Kabira slum in Tripoli's walled old city - once the pretty, brightly painted Jewish quarter, now a crumbling mess of homes filled with impoverished Libyans and African migrant workers. A little girl running by slapped Mansour's hand in greeting.

One man with a tatoo on his arm paused at the top of an alley.

"Troublemaker," Mansour said with a wink. He scurried away.

Throughout Gadhafi's Tripoli stronghold, female soldiers - a rare sight in most Arab countries - patrol roadside checkpoints in khaki uniforms and Muslim headscarves. They keep order at gas stations made rowdy by severe shortages that cause days-long lines. Police women sporting large sunglasses cruise by in cars.

Senior government officials in coifed hairstyles lunch at an upscale hotel where reporters stay in Tripoli. Gadhafi's daughter, Aisha, is a prominent lawyer.

Women are also involved in Gadhafi's mechanism of oppression against his opponents. Women run their own interrogation center for suspected female anti-Gadhafi activists, according to a resident who said she was hauled into one in May.

One of the most hated figures among the Libyan rebels seeking to overthrow Gadhafi is a woman - the former Gadhafi-appointed mayor of Benghazi, Huda Ben Amer, known as "the executioner." During a public hanging of a regime opponent in 1984, Ben Amer pulled down on the man's legs so he would die faster.

Early on, Gadhafi created a cadre of female bodyguards - glamorously made-up women in form-fitting military-style uniforms and high-heeled boots known as "amazons." He pointed to them as evidence of his commitment to promoting nontraditional roles for women.

Other hard-core supporters are known as Gadhafi's "nuns of the revolution," mostly women who came of age during the early years of Gadhafi's rule in the 1970s and devote themselves to his regime. Now in their 50s and 60s, many run ministerial departments.

About 27 percent of Libya's labor force were women in 2006 - low by world standards but high for the Arab world. Only Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia had higher rates, and the increase in women's participation in Libya over the past 20 years was by far the highest in the region, rising from 14 percent in 1986, according to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization.

"In part to boost its legitimacy, the regime promoted a more open, expansive, and inclusive role for women," said Ronald Bruce St John, who has written five books on Gadhafi's Libya.

Lisa Anderson, a Libya expert and president of the American University in Cairo, agreed, noting that when Gadhafi seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Now more than half of Libya's university students are women.

"One of the career paths that opened up for women in the past 30 years is the police, but general access to employment, education and the public sphere - as much as there is one for women - dramatically increased under Gadhafi," she said.

In her studio in an upscale Tripoli suburb, 25-year-old Radia al-Bodi, a television anchor for Libyan state TV, said women like herself would fight to defend Gadhafi's regime because of the promise it offered women.

"This is all because of Father Moammar," said Ibtisam Saadeddin, a 35-year-old soldier who wore gold-edged pins of a smiling Gadhafi on her khaki uniform and headscarf. "He is our air and sustenance. We can't be without him."

Associated Press writers Michelle Faul in Benghazi, Libya, and Ben Hubbard in Cairo contributed to this report.

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2011 04:38 AM

NATO unleashes blistering airstrikes in Libya

2011-06-07T14:17:00.001-07:00

NATO unleashes blistering airstrikes in Libya

By: DIAA HADID 06/07/11 2:14 AM
Associated Press

Moammar Gadhafi stood defiant Tuesday in the face of the heaviest and most punishing NATO airstrikes yet — at least 40 thunderous daylight attacks that sent plumes of smoke billowing above the Libyan leader's central Tripoli compound.

In late afternoon and as the strikes continued, Libyan state television broadcast an audio address from Gadhafi, who denounced NATO and the rebels challenging his rule. He vowed never to surrender.

"We will not kneel!" he shouted.

Alliance officials have warned for days they were increasing the scope and intensity of their air campaign to oust Gadhafi after more than 40 years in power. NATO is backing the rebel insurgency, which has seized swaths of eastern Libya and pockets in the regime's stronghold in the west since it began in February, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.

Some 6,850 people, nearly all of them Libyans, have streamed across the border from Libya to Tunisia since Monday to flee the NATO raids as well as fighting between the rebels and government forces, according to the Tunisian Defense Ministry.

It couldn't be confirmed whether Gadhafi's some 10-minute speech was a live phone call or an audio recording, but it appeared to take state television by surprise. The sound was hastily adjusted to make it louder

"We will not surrender: we only have one choice — to the end! Death, victory, it does not matter, we are not surrendering!" Gadhafi said. Highlighting his anger, he called the rebels "bastards."

As he spoke, reporters in Tripoli heard the whooshing sound of low-flying military craft again, followed by several explosions. Pro-Gadhafi loyalists also fired celebratory gunfire in the air.

Gadhafi was last seen in a brief appearance on state television in late May. He has mostly been in hiding since NATO strikes in April targeted one of his homes. Libyan officials said one of his sons, Saif al-Arab, and three of his grandchildren were killed in that strike.

Western reporters and a senior Libyan government official said the pounding airstrikes Tuesday easily outstripped the number of bombing runs on any day since the international air campaign began in mid-March.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed some 30 people were killed in 60 NATO strikes on Tripoli. Previous government tolls have proven to be exaggerated, and reporters, who face tight restrictions in the Libyan capital, saw only one dead man during a visit to Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound.

The dust-covered bloodied man was draped around a cement column at one of the crushed compound buildings. He was seen on a government-escorted tour of bombed sites.

The boot and legs of the man, identified as Misbah Hussein, in his forties, stuck out from beneath a pile of twisted metal close to the remains of a building just inside the eastern entrance of the Gadhafi compound.

As his comrades realized what they were staring at, they rushed toward him, their arms raised.

"Bring a blanket!" one shouted.

They wrapped him in the closest thing they could find — a large green flag — green being the iconic color of the Gadhafi regime.

A soldier said eight strikes targeted the building, which he said was a guest house for visiting dignitaries.

Around him, one building was smashed into three hulking cement parts and the floor was strewn with small chunks of metal, foam and cement.

He said some two dozen soldiers and civilians were sitting near the building when it was hit. He would not be named, citing military regulations.

A strike smashed another nearby building that officials identified as a guest house. The ground was littered with small gray shards.

That was not far from a zone where pro-Gadhafi supporters have camped in tents for the past few weeks to act as human shields against NATO strikes.

NATO issued no immediate comment on battering it delivered over Tripoli.

Gadhafi's inner circle has been shaken by a wave of defections. A Libyan rebel diplomat in Geneva said Tuesday that the country's labor minister Al-Amin Manfour — who had been representing Libya at the International Labor Organization's annual meeting — has defected and joined the rebels.

Adel Shaltut said Tuesday that Manfour was on his way to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, in eastern Libya. Shaltut and other diplomats at Libya's mission to the United Nations in Geneva defected to the rebels in February.

Russia, meanwhile, was renewing diplomatic efforts to end the civil war.

Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin's special representative for Africa, said Gadhafi had lost his legitimacy but that NATO airstrikes were not a solution to the stalemate in Libya.

"As long as bloodshed continues the more difficult it will be to build a national reconciliation process after the civil war," Margelov told reporters Tuesday during a visit to the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Margelov left Benghazi for Cairo, the Interfax news agency reported, adding that the rebels said they supported Russia's mediation with Tripoli. The envoy did not, however, have plans to go to Tripoli.

Russia, along with China, abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote authorizing the use of force against Libyan government loyalists and has repeatedly criticized the NATO bombing campaign in support of the rebels.

U.N. envoy Abdul-Elah al-Khatib was expected in Tripoli. And Libya dispatched Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi to Beijing for a three days of talks, an apparent effort to restore some of Libyan government influence and defuse a setback delivered by China last week. Chinese officials announced on Friday that they had reached out to the rebel forces challenging Gadhafi, a significant effort to boost Chinese engagement in the Libya conflict and possibly jostle for a mediator role.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular briefing Tuesday that talks with al-Obeidi would focus on the need for a political solution to the Libyan crisis.

The revolt against Gadhafi followed popular uprisings that overturned the longtime rulers of Tunisia and Egypt. As the conflict escalated, it grew beyond an insurrection by a small group and has now evolved into a civil war.

The refugees, who were mainly Libyan but also included Egyptians, Sudanese and Nigerians, crossed at the Ras Djedir and Dhehiba border points, then were transferred to a camp in the border area of Tataouine set up by the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia's Defense Ministry said.

___

Associated Press Writer Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Benghazi, Gillian Wong in Beijing and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/2011/06/rare-daytime-nato-airstrikes-hit-libyan-capital#ixzz1Ocwb42kw

--
Diaa Hadid
Correspondent
The Associated Press
dhadid@ap.org
diaa_hadid2@yahoo.co.uk
Please send releases to both addresses

Libya claims on NATO strikes can be absurd

2011-06-06T10:34:00.001-07:00

Seattle Times - Libya claims on NATO strikes can be absurd

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press
TRIPOLI, Libya —

The small note in curly handwriting was quietly passed by a medic to a foreign reporter in a Tripoli hospital.

Its hastily scrawled contents suggested that Libyan officials were lying when they said a baby girl was wounded in a NATO attack. Government officials had bused reporters to the Tripoli Central Hospital to see the baby, whom they identified as Haneen.

She lay on a stark hospital cot, with colorful tubes attached to her body. Her foot was bandaged.

"This is a case of road traffic accident," the medic's note read.

"This is the trouth," said the last line, the word misspelled.

That small scrap of paper underlines the absurdity confronting reporters who try to cover Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

It appears that officials exaggerate the scope of and casualties from two months of NATO air strikes that have targeted sites critical to Gadhafi. Regime officials try to prove that alliance strikes, instead of protecting Libyan civilians, is doing them harm.

Those thundering NATO strikes do sometimes kill and wound civilians. They do cause damage to homes, hospitals and roads.

But some government officials appear determined, understandably, to exagerate the damage done and casualties caused.

Government officials said the baby girl was injured in a NATO strike on a target near her house on the outskirts of Tripoli early Sunday.

A Libyan official identified one man who spoke to reporters as the child's neighbor. As he spoke to reporters, the Libyan official nudged him to condemn NATO.

A woman who was identified as her mother was led by a Libyan official to stand beside the baby. Photographers snapped photos.

And then a medic quitely dropped the note. A reporter covered it with his foot and read it only later, when government officials weren't looking.

Reporters in Tripoli have agreed not to photograph the note, identify the medic's specific job or the medic's gender. They fear the care-giver would face harsh retribution if identified. The note is in the possession of a foreign reporter who is allowing other journalists to see it.

It was scrawled in blue ink on the back of a doctor's diagnosis form.

The medic disappeared into a crowd of hospital staff before reporters could ask questions.

Hours later, reporters were shipped to another site where officials said a NATO strike targeted a farm house on Tripoli's outskirts.

An unexploded, rusting bomb lay between the palms and olive trees on the farm.

"The women ran away screaming and the children lay on the floor," said the farm owner Mohammed al-Najeh. The 50-year-old said he and his family were sitting in the garden when the bomb landed on Sunday evening.

The farmer's young son nodded solemnly, clutching a large green flag - the color of the Libyan regime.

But what appeared to be Cyrillic script used by the Russians could be seen on the back of the barrel-shaped explosive.

Russia, of course, is not part of NATO. But it has been an arms supplier to Libya in the past.

When questioned about the Russian script, reporters were offered a different story.

"The NATO strike hit a missile depot about a kilometer (about half a mile) away," said one man.

"The missiles flew in the air, and one of them landed here," the man said.

It was the same man who was initially identified as the baby girl's neighbor earlier in the day. When pressed by reporters, he identified himself as a government official called Emad Ghaith.

Libya's deputy foreign minister said it was not government policy to make up stories for the foreign press.

"The government message is credible. I am sure if there is a mistake, its not from government sources," said Khaled Kaim at a press briefing at a bombed-out building on Monday.

He said Libyan residents wanting to emphasize how they are suffering under NATO attacks might be be exaggerating.

"It is from people who are enthusiastic, and they want to show journalists that there is injustice and targeting of civilians," he said.

Tripoli's women-only gas pump highlights shortages

2011-06-02T03:47:00.001-07:00

Tripoli's women-only gas pump highlights shortages

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Weary and frustrated, the women had been lined up for days in their dust-covered cars waiting to fill up at Tripoli's women-only gas station. A scowling female soldier kept order with the help of a few dozen male volunteers.

The men, in groups of two or three, pushed cars with their tanks on empty as the line snaked slowly forward.

"Push! Push!" one man grunted as a woman sporting large black sunglasses sat behind the wheel and steered her gray sedan. Behind her, a line stretched for miles as women sat numbly in their vehicles, their children playing in the street outside the cars.

The men, some wearing postcard-sized portraits of Moammar Gadhafi around their necks, slowly propelled the woman's car to a gas pump. There, a man stamped her fuel ration book, allowing her to buy government-subsidized fuel for a few cents a gallon.

A 35-year-old khaki-clad soldier, Ibtisam Saadeddin, occasionally barked orders. A heavyset woman in a green Muslim headscarf — the iconic Gadhafi regime color — she wore a Gadhafi pin on her uniform and another above her forehead, pinned to her headscarf.

"He is the crown of my head," Saadeddin declared proudly, her heavily made-up face beaming.

The scene at the Gurji Women's Gas Station highlights the sharp shortages faced by Libyans throughout the areas ruled by Gadhafi's regime, where fuel, medicine, some food and commercial goods are scarce and streets filled with idle cars resemble parking lots.

They also show how a can-do spirit in this chaotically run country is helping residents get by.

The country is roughly divided between Gadhafi's rule in his Tripoli stronghold in the west and the rebel's bastion of Benghazi and a smattering of other towns in the east. The rebels are aided by NATO airstrikes, but fighting is at a stalemate.

The warfare has limited the oil-rich nation's ability to refine its own fuel. NATO-allied ships divert fuel tankers, and supply routes are often disrupted. Foreign workers have fled the violence, paralyzing industry. And with banks limiting withdrawals to a few hundred dollars a month, residents are short of cash.

The gas station on Tripoli's main Gurji road has always been just for women, said Sarhan al-Hashm, taking a break from pushing cars.

The gender-segregated station is an oddity in a country where Gadhafi's mix of personality cult and authoritarian, socialist-style rule has pushed women to break cultural taboos, even as it savagely prevents other freedoms. Unlike their sisters in other Arab countries, women in Libya serve in the military and police force, and sometimes occupy high-ranking positions in the Libyan government.

Still, having a gas station just for them has been a blessing, the women told The Associated Press during a government-sponsored visit over the weekend. Other gas stations are mostly frequented by men whose tempers flare over the long wait and soldiers frequently fire their weapons in the air to break up fights.

And while the lines are long here, they're among the shortest in the city. Other gas lines stretch over bridges, around overpasses, clogging up main arteries as far as the eye can see.

"I've waited four days for fuel. It's so tiring," said Sana Njeim, a 26-year-old computer student. She said her life revolved around gas lines. She leaves only to go to class, eat and sleep, leaving her car in neutral so the men can roll it forward.

It wasn't just the fuel, the young woman said.

"The price of food — it's on fire. Meat. Vegetables. It's all expensive," she said.

Her words were borne out by a series of visits to markets. Fish — a staple food here — has shot up in price and is scarce because there isn't fuel for boats. And many fishermen — who mostly were Egyptians — fled the violence weeks ago. An upscale supermarket sold scattered chunks of veal and camel meat.

As Njeim spoke, indignant Gadhafi loyalists surrounded her vehicle.

One man demanded she only say "nice" things about Libya. Another shoved a picture of Gadhafi on her rearview mirror. "Tell her you love the leader!" he barked.

The interview was cut short after another man ordered Njeim to stop speaking.

"You journalists all lie!" screamed Saadeddin, the female soldier, her round face registering her fury.

She stood before the gas pumps, pumping her fists and shouting pro-Gadhafi chants as two dozen soldiers and Gadhafi loyalists rushed to her side.

"Gas doesn't matter. We want our leader!" they chanted.

None of the women waiting in cars joined in.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/06/01/international/i233048D63.DTL#ixzz1O79WbgO8

Tripoli sites bombed, rebels claim success in east

2011-05-10T05:17:00.001-07:00

Rebel fighters dance in a check point in Ajdabia, Libya, Monday, May 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

TUESDAY May 10, 2011 06:48 ET

SALON - Tripoli sites bombed, rebels claim success in east

By DIAA HADID and MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press

NATO warplanes struck Tripoli early Tuesday in the heaviest bombing of the Libyan capital in weeks, while rebels claimed gains amid an uptick of fighting on a long-deadlocked front line in the country's east.

NATO struck at least four sites in Tripoli, setting off crackling explosions that thundered through the city overnight. One strike hit a building that locals said was used by a military intelligence agency. Another targeted a government building that officials said was sometimes used by parliament members.

It was not immediately clear what the other two strikes hit, but one of them sent plumes of smoke that appeared to come from the sprawling compound housing members of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's family.

Between explosions, an aircraft dropped burning flares. Some residents responded by raking the sky with gunfire and beeping their horns.

The two sides have been locked in a standoff, with the rebels controlling most of eastern Libya, and Gadhafi most of the west, including the capital, Tripoli. Exceptions in the west include pockets of embattled rebel-held towns along the border with Tunisia, and Misrata on the coast.

The intensified air campaign comes as NATO has faced criticism for not doing enough to break Gadhafi's grip.

"We have succeeded in taking out a significant part of Gadhafi's military, we have significantly degraded his war machine," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday during a visit to Atlanta. "So far our operation has been a success but there's still work to do."

NATO said its warplanes on Sunday targeted three command and control centers near Tripoli. Fifteen ammunition stores were hit in the vicinity of Mizdah, as were one tank and a command center near Misrata.

But a NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said the alliance could not comment immediately on Tuesday's strikes in Tripoli but hoped to say something at a news conference later in the day.

In Tripoli, government escorts did not allow reporters near the site of one building that was hit in the NATO air attack early Tuesday. Local residents said the building, which had buckled from the bombing, was used by a military intelligence agency.

Reporters, who may not leave their Tripoli hotel without government escorts, were shown damage done to a nearby hospital. A physician, Dr. Mustafa Rahim, said one child was badly injured, though but would not allow reporters to see him, saying the 4-year-old boy was in intensive care.

Another strike targeted a building -- struck once previously -- that two employees said was used by parliament members and housed a library for research into Gadhafi's writings.

The handsome pastel-colored building, built by Italians when they ruled Libya in the 1920s, once served as Italy's naval headquarters and was considered an iconic Tripoli site.

The Tripoli bombing came just hours after heavy fighting was reported Monday on the eastern front, south of Ajdabiya, a rebel-held town about 90 miles (150 kilometers) south of Benghazi, the rebel headquarters in the east.

At a checkpoint outside Ajdabiya on Monday afternoon, an AP photographer counted about 100 pickup trucks coming back from the front, each carrying four or five rebel fighters, many firing their weapons into the air, shouting and dancing.

Rebel commander Zakaria al-Mismari told reporters that Gadhafi forces had advanced on their positions with about a dozen vehicles before dawn Monday. "By God's grace we managed to defeat them and outflank them, and we attacked 12 of their vehicles," he said.

Doctors at Ajdabiya hospital told the AP that ambulances had brought the bodies of four rebel fighters.

The rebels said they had retreated because they were told NATO was launching airstrikes against Gadhafi forces there, and planes were heard from Ajdabiya later Monday.

The rebels were deliberately vague about where the front is, some saying the fighting had taken place 12 to 25 miles (20 to 40 kilometers) from Ajdabiya, others placing it nearer to the oil town of Brega. The location could not be independently confirmed because journalists were not allowed past a checkpoint south of Ajdabiya to which the rebels had retreated.

The rebel army has been bogged down for weeks near Ajdabiya, unable to move on to Brega, which has an oil terminal and Libya's second-largest hydrocarbon complex.

The rebels say their weapons cannot reach more than about 12 miles (20 kilometers) while Gadhafi's forces can fire rockets and shells up to twice that distance. Rebel pleas for heavier arms from abroad have received no response.

Also Monday, Gadhafi's forces shelled a northern Misrata neighborhood where many families from the besieged city center have fled to, said Abdel Salam, who identified himself as a resident-turned-fighter. He said NATO airstrikes hit targets on the city's southern edges, an area where government forces have been concentrated.

The fighting was threatening the port area, the city's only lifeline, preventing some aid ships from docking, Abdel Salam said. A ship carrying medical supplies and baby food was able to dock in Misrata on Monday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

It was the first ship to arrive since Wednesday, when Gadhafi's forces fired a barrage of rockets into the port as the International Organization of Migration was evacuating nearly 1,000 people. The ICRC said it would use the chartered ship as a floating platform as its team works to reduce the danger of unexploded weapons on the streets of Misrata, visit prisoners detained by the rebels and help reunite families.

The U.N. refugee agency, meanwhile, appealed to European countries to step up efforts to rescue people fleeing Libya in overloaded boats.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Melissa Fleming, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that "any boat that is leaving Libya should be considered, at first glance, as a boat in need of assistance."

Fleming said a senior Somali diplomat in Tripoli told the agency that 16 bodies including those of two babies have so far been retrieved from a boat carrying 600 people that sank just outside the Libyan capital Friday.

------

Faul reported from Benghazi, Libya. Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

Shortages choke Tripoli as sanctions take hold

2011-05-08T15:00:00.001-07:00

Shortages choke Tripoli as sanctions take hold

TRIPOLI, Libya — Cars sat abandoned in miles-long fuel lines, motorists traded angry screams with soldiers guarding gas stations, and many shops were closed Sunday on what should have been a work day.

In ever-multiplying ways, residents in the Libyan capital are feeling the sting of shortages from uprising-related disruptions of supplies.

The shortages are a dramatic sign of how Libya's nearly 3-month-old rebellion — and the resulting chaos — is affecting daily life in Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold and other western areas of Libya still under his rule. International sanctions have begun to bite, many supply routes are unstable, and there are shortages of skilled people in some sectors to keep the city running smoothly.

Yet the deprivations — however irksome — pale in comparison to the situation in the port city of Misrata, the only rebel stronghold in western Libya. It has been under siege by land for two months, with hundreds of civilians killed, and Gadhafi's forces are now trying to block access to the port that is Misrata's only lifeline.

In Tripoli, the shortages were obvious, even to Western reporters who may only leave their hotel with a government minder and guard. It is less clear what the eventual impact might be on Gadhafi's ability to rule.

An engineer based in Tripoli said Libyan TV blames the shortages on NATO, which is providing military muscle against Gadhafi, while average residents blame hardships on the regime. The engineer requested anonymity, saying he did not want to provoke the government.

The spokesman for the rebel administration in the eastern city of Benghazi, where there is no fuel shortage, blamed Tripoli's shortages squarely on Gadhafi.

"He takes all the gasoline for his forces, and that is why there is none left for anyone else," Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told journalists.

In some ways, Tripoli appeared to be divided into those with government perks and those without.

In an hours-long tour of the capital, cars decked with pictures of Gadhafi — his arms raised and streaks of light emerging from behind him — muscled into miles-long lines for gasoline. A minivan carrying Western reporters also pushed in.

A young black-uniformed attendant clutched a thick wad of Libyan currency, suggesting that black market rates for fuel were running far higher than the government's set price of 12 cents (150 dirhams) a liter.

Shortages were apparent in other ways: a few dozen people crowded around a bakery in central Tripoli, unsure if its good were being depleted. A minder said most of the bakers were Egyptian laborers who fled the country as unrest worsened.

One translator for the foreign reporters looked frustrated when, soon after he lit a cigarette, a driver told him to extinguish it and rejoin reporters in their vehicle.

"Do you know how much these cost?" he shot at the driver.

He later explained: a pack of Marlboros — a fancy brand in Libya — now cost six dinars, up from 2.5 dinars before unrest began three months ago.

Though many stores remained shuttered on Sunday, several stores in the picturesque Italian quarter were open, notably the gold shops. But beyond their glittering window displays, they held no wares inside. One store was displaying fake gold, according to the goldsmith who said he kept the authentic goods at home and had no customers in any case.

Along the road linking Tripoli to Libya's western border with Tunisia, long fuel lines were visible in a series of coastal towns. Libyan-plated cars crowded gas stations in two small Tunisian towns close to the border, and a taxi driver there complained that shortages in Libya were driving up the price in Tunisia.

Tunisia's official TAP news agency said Sunday that dozens of shells from fighting in Libya have fallen on Tunisian territory, drawing a new government protest. There were no reported injuries after the shells landed as Libyan troops fought with rebels to regain control of the Wazen-Dhehiba border post.

TAP quoted the Foreign Ministry as warning that Tunisia will take "all measures needed" within the law to ensure protection of its citizens and territory. It didn't elaborate.

Some fresh details about besieged Misrata were provided Sunday by a resident of the port city who arrived in Benghazi to update the rebel administration on the latest developments.

"Morale is very, very high," said Abdulbaset Abumzirig, a lawyer and playwright, describing "an incredible spirit of cohesion and cooperation" in Misrata.

He had left Misrata on a tugboat an hour before Gadhafi's forces started attacking the fuel depot late Friday.

"If you walk in the streets, it looks like it's normal.... All the shops are open, even bakeries and restaurants, even though there is a slight danger of a shell hitting," said Abumzirig, who heads a rebel youth wing in Misrata.

He said most of the population of nearly 500,000 are determined to remain in Misrata, like the wife and 8-month-old son that he left behind to visit Benghazi.

In Washington, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Tom Donilon, discussed Gadhafi's prospects during an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday."

"Gadhafi is still in power today," Donilon said. "We have done the following, though. We have protected civilians who were under threat in Benghazi and other towns in eastern Libya, and we have organized the international community to continue to put the pressure on him. Time will not be on Gadhafi's side."

___

Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Benghazi contributed to this report.

________________________________

Man unknowingly liveblogs Bin Laden operation

2011-05-02T05:55:00.001-07:00

Miami Herald - Man unknowingly liveblogs Bin Laden operation

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

CAIRO -- A computer programmer, startled by a helicopter clattering above his quiet Pakistani town in the early hours of the morning Monday, did what any social-media addict would do: he began sending messages to the social networking site Twitter.

With his tweets, 33-year-old Sohaib Athar, who moved to the sleepy town of Abbottabad to escape the big city, became in his own words "the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it."

Soon the sole helicopter multiplied into several and gunfire and explosions rocked the air above the town, and Athar's tweets quickly garnered 14,000 followers as he apparently became the first in the world to describe the U.S. operation to kill one of the world's most wanted militants.

His first tweet was innocuous: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."

The noise alarmed Athar, who had moved to the upscale area of Abbottabad to get away from city life after his wife and child were badly injured in a car accident in the sprawling city of Lahore, according to his blog in July.

Nestled in the mountains around 60 miles (95 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Abbottabad is a quiet, leafy town featuring a military academy, the barracks for three army regiments and even its own golf course.

As the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden unfolded, Athar "liveblogged" what he was hearing in real time, describing windows rattling as bombs exploded.

He questioned whose helicopters might be flying overhead. "The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani," he tweeted.

Athar then said one of the aircraft appeared to have been shot down. Two more helicopters rushed in, he reported.

Throughout the battle, he related the rumors swirling through town: it was a training accident. Somebody was killed. The aircraft might be a drone. The army was conducting door-to-door searches in the surrounding area. The sound of an airplane could be heard overhead.

Athar did not respond to media requests for comment - he explained in another tweet that a filter he set up to stop his e-mail box from flooding could be culling out requests for interviews.

Soon, however, the rumbling of international events far beyond the confines of this quiet upscale suburb began to dawn on Athar, and he realized what he might be witnessing.

"I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected," he tweeted.

Eight hours and about 35 tweets later, the confirmation came: "Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan," Athar reported. "There goes the neighborhood."

Despite siege, Syrians vow to keep protesting

2011-05-01T22:24:00.001-07:00

Despite siege, Syrians vow to keep protesting

The Syrian military intensified its vigorous assault on the besieged city at the center of the country's uprising Sunday as defiant residents who have been pinned down in their homes for nearly a week struggled to find food, pass along information and bury their dead.

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

CAIRO —

The Syrian military intensified its vigorous assault on the besieged city at the center of the country's uprising Sunday as defiant residents who have been pinned down in their homes for nearly a week struggled to find food, pass along information and bury their dead.

President Bashar Assad is determined to crush the six-week-old revolt, which began in the southern city of Daraa but quickly spread across the nation of some 23 million people.

Now, the once-unthinkable protests are posing the most serious challenge to four decades of rule by the Assad family in one of the most repressive and tightly controlled countries in the Middle East.

"The security solution isn't working. People are still demonstrating," Damascus-based human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh told The Associated Press by telephone. "They can't stop these (protests) now."

A drought-plagued city near the Jordanian border, Daraa has been without water, fuel or electricity since Monday, when the regime sent in troops backed by tanks and snipers to crush protests seeking the ouster of Assad. The 45-year-old, British-trained eye doctor inherited power from his father 11 years ago but failed to fulfill early promises of reform.

He has portrayed the unrest as a foreign conspiracy by extremists and armed thugs, not true reform-seekers.

The death toll has soared to 545 nationwide from government forces firing on demonstrators - action that has drawn international condemnation and U.S. financial penalties on top figures in his regime.

Syrian army tanks shelled the old quarter of Daraa on Sunday and rolled in six armored vehicles, flanked on either side by two buses packed with more security forces, residents said. Snipers nesting on rooftops and hiding in high mosque minarets have kept people cowering in fear inside their homes.

But residents remained defiant and resourceful, using battery-powered computers and satellite telephones to communicate with the outside world, and sneaking through alleyways to share information. With soldiers stationed at cemeteries - apparently an attempt to pinpoint the families of protesters - many were hiding corpses in refrigerated trucks.

Unable to leave their homes, Daraa residents chant "God is Great!" to each other from their windows in the evenings, infuriating security forces and raising each other's spirits.

"Our houses are close to each other, so even though we can't go outside, we stand by the windows and chant," said a Daraa resident, speaking to the AP by satellite phone. "Our neighbors can hear us and they respond."

Syrian troops opened fire above their heads to silence them, the resident said.

Other areas of the country also have come under military control, but Daraa has faced the most serious stranglehold. It was in Daraa that the protest movement kicked off six weeks ago, sparked by the arrest of a group of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in Daraa. Now, the city has become a symbol of the uprising.

The witness' accounts of the siege on Daraa could not be independently verified. Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots, making it almost impossible to confirm the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.

In a posting on a Syrian revolution website, one activist joked that if the newly married royals Prince William and Kate Middleton wanted to honeymoon somewhere away from media attention, Syria would be an excellent location.

The Obama administration hit three top Syrian officials as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard with sanctions over the crackdown.

"I think it's clear that (Assad) is willing to slaughter his own people," Arizona Sen. John McCain told the CBS show "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "The question is, what can we do to affect the outcome? And frankly, I don't see a military option. Libya, they had a group of people who at least were semi-organized that we could support."

The unrest in Syria has international repercussions because of the country's alliances with militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and with Shiite powerhouse Iran. If the regime in Syria falls, the instability has the potential to upend the regional power balance in a part of the world that already is riven with strife.

In recent weeks, there have been small signs that cracks are developing in the regime.

Hundreds of members of Assad's ruling Baath Party have resigned over the crackdown.

Human rights activists uploaded a video to YouTube on Sunday that they say showed another 200 party members publicly stepping down in Rasten, where protests turned violent on Friday.

"Our martyrs don't just deserve that we resign from the party. They deserve that we step on this party!" said one man speaking into a microphone as a few thousand residents crowded before an open stage.

The president has responded with overtures of reform coupled with a crackdown, but the rising death toll has enraged protesters to the extent that they are now demanding nothing less than the downfall of the regime.

On Saturday, Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar said the government is preparing a "comprehensive plan for the aspired reforms" in the coming weeks "in response to the citizens' demands and needs."

But previous overtures have failed to dampen the protests, and Safar's announcement - which once would have been considered a leap forward for reform - barely registered with those at the heart of the rebellion.

Syrian rights group says 42 killed nationwide

2011-04-30T03:18:00.001-07:00

USA Today - Syrian rights group says 42 killed nationwide

BEIRUT (AP) — Security forces opened fire Friday on demonstrators trying to break an army blockade on the southern city of Daraa, while thousands of others across Syria defied a protest ban and denounced President Bashar Assad's harsh crackdown on a six-week uprising. At least 42 people were killed, including 15 in the march on Daraa, according to witnesses and a human rights group.

The protesters in cities across Syria — including the capital of Damascus — called for Assad's ouster, with some chanting "We are not afraid!"

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso said 42 people were killed, but the death toll could rise. His human rights group, based in Syria, compiles casualty tolls from the crackdown.

A witness in Daraa — the heart of the uprising — said residents stayed indoors because the city has been under siege by the military since Monday, when thousands of soldiers backed by tanks and snipers stormed in. People were too afraid even to venture out to mosques for prayers, the witness said.

"We are in our houses but our hearts are in the mosques," the witness said, speaking by satellite telephone and asking that his name not be published for fear of reprisals.

Large demonstrations broke out in Damascus, the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the northeastern town of Qamishli.

In Damascus' central Midan neighborhood, witnesses said about 2,000 people marched and chanted, "God, Syria and freedom only!" in a heavy rain, but security forces opened fire with bullets and tear gas, scattering them.

"Oh great Syrian army! Lift the blockade on Daraa!" protesters chanted in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh, according to video footage posted by activists on YouTube.

The government had warned against holding any demonstrations Friday and placed large banners around the capital that read: "We urge the brother citizens to avoid going out of your homes on Friday for your own safety." Syrian TV said the Interior Ministry has not approved any "march, demonstration or sit-in" and that such rallies seek only to harm Syria's security and stability.

Since the uprising in Syria began in mid-March, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, more than 450 people have been killed nationwide, activists say.

Assad's attempts to crush the revolt — the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year ruling dynasty — have drawn international criticism and threats of sanctions.

Two U.S. officials said Washington would be freezing the assets of three top Syrians. The officials would not name the individuals to be penalized, pending the formal release of President Barack Obama's executive order. However, they said Assad is not among them but could be named at a later date.

The penalties will freeze any assets that the officials, Syria's General Intelligence Directorate and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps may have in U.S. jurisdictions and also bar Americans from doing business with them. Iran and its Revolutionary Guard Corps are also under similar U.S. sanctions. The officials said the new designation for the Revolutionary Guard would add another layer of penalties and make clear that Washington believes it is providing material support to help Syrian authorities with the crackdown.

Assad's government says the protests are a foreign conspiracy carried out by extremist forces and armed thugs, not true reform-seekers.

Syrian TV said military and police forces came under attack Friday by "armed terrorists" in Daraa and the central city of Homs, killing four soldiers and three police officers. Two soldiers were captured, the report said. The station also said one of its cameramen was injured in Latakia in an attack by an armed gang.

Outside Homs, thousands chanted "We don't love you!" and "Bye, bye Bashar! We will see you in The Hague!" as the sound of gunfire crackled in the distance.

A devastating picture was emerging of Daraa — which has been without electricity, water and telephones since Monday — as residents flee to neighboring countries. Daraa is where the uprising kicked off, sparked by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall.

Residents inside the city begged for international intervention Friday.

"Nobody can move in (Daraa), they have snipers on the high roofs," a resident told The Associated Press using a satellite phone. "They are firing at everything."

At the Jordanian side of the Syrian border, several Daraa residents who had just crossed over said there is blood on the streets of the city.

"Gunfire is heard across the city all the time," one man said, asking that his name not be used for fear of retribution. "People are getting killed in the streets by snipers if they leave their homes."

An AP reporter at the border heard gunfire and saw smoke rising from different areas just across the frontier. Residents said the gunfire has been constant for three weeks.

Assad's regime has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters in recent days by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks. On Friday, protesters came out in their thousands, defying the crackdown and using it as a rallying cry.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world.

A witness in Latakia said about 1,000 people turned out for an anti-government rally when plainclothes security agents with automatic rifles opened fire. He said he saw at least five people wounded. Like many witnesses contacted by The Associated Press, he asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal.

The Muslim Brotherhood urged Syrians to demonstrate Friday against Assad in the first time the outlawed group has openly encouraged the protests in Syria. The Brotherhood was crushed by Assad's father, Hafez, after staging an uprising against his regime in 1982.

"You were born free, so don't let a tyrant enslave you," said the statement, issued by the Brotherhood's exiled leadership.

But he has acknowledged the need for reforms, offering overtures of change in recent weeks while brutally cracking down on demonstrations.

Last week, Syria's Cabinet abolished the state of emergency, in place for decades, and approved a new law allowing the right to stage peaceful protests with the permission of the Interior Ministry.

But the protesters, enraged by the mounting death toll, no longer appear satisfied with the changes and are increasingly seeking the regime's downfall.

"The people want the downfall of the regime," said an activist in the coastal city of Banias — echoing the cries heard during the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.

Witnesses and human rights groups said Syrian army units clashed with each other over following Assad's orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, where the uprising started.

While the troops' infighting in Daraa does not indicate any decisive splits in the military, it is significant because Assad's army has always been the regime's fiercest defender.

It is the latest sign that cracks — however small — are developing in Assad's base of support that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago. Also, about 200 mostly low-level members of Syria's ruling Baath Party have resigned over Assad's brutal crackdown.

Meanwhile, diplomats say the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency is setting the stage for potential U.N. Security Council action on Syria as it prepares a report assessing that a Syrian target bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 was likely a secretly built nuclear reactor meant to produce plutonium.

Such a conclusion would back intelligence produced by Israel and the United States. Syria says the nearly finished building had no nuclear uses. It has repeatedly turned down requests by the International Atomic Energy Agency to revisit the site after allowing an initial 2008 inspection that found evidence of possible nuclear activities.

Three diplomats and a senior U.N. official said such an assessment — drawn up by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano — would be the basis of a Western-sponsored resolution at a meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board that condemns Syria's refusal to cooperate with the agency and kicks the issue to the U.N. Security Council. All spoke on condition of anonymity because the information they discussed was confidential.

Separately, the U.N. Human Rights Council approved an investigation of Syria's crackdown and demanded that the nation immediately release political prisoners and lift restrictions on journalists and the Internet. The action came on a 26-9 vote, with 7 abstentions. Opposition among many Arab and African nations forced the U.S.-drafted resolution to be watered down to omit Syria's unopposed candidacy for the council.

———

Associated Press writers Jamal Halaby at the Jordanian-Syrian border, Diaa Hadid in Cairo, Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut, John Heilprin in Geneva, George Jahn in Vienna and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report

Syria Army Units Clash as Crackdown Intensifies

2011-04-28T23:25:00.001-07:00

Syria Army Units Clash as Crackdown Intensifies

By DIAA HADID and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY Associated Press
BEIRUT April 28, 2011 (AP)

Syrian army units have clashed with each other over following President Bashar Assad's orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city at the heart of the uprising, witnesses and human rights groups said Thursday.

More than 450 people have been killed across Syria — about 100 in Daraa alone — and hundreds detained since the popular revolt against Assad began in mid-March, according to human rights groups.

While the troops' infighting in Daraa does not indicate any decisive splits in the military, it is significant because Assad's army has always been the regime's fiercest defender.

It is the latest sign that cracks — however small — are developing in Assad's base of support that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago. About 200 mostly low-level members of Syria's ruling Baath Party have resigned over Assad's brutal crackdown.

Ausama Monajed, a spokesman for a group of opposition figures in Syria and abroad, said the clashes among the soldiers have been happening since Monday.

SANA/AP Photo
In this photo released by the Syrian official... View Full Size
SANA/AP Photo
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, medical staff members along with relatives of fifteen killed soldiers and security force members, hold pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Bloody Day in Syria as Opposition Protests Continue Watch Video
Syrian Protests Gain New Momentum Watch Video

"There are some battalions that refused to open fire on the people," Monajed told The Associated Press, citing witnesses on the ground in Daraa, a city of 75,000 near the Jordanian border. "Battalions of the 5th Division were protecting people, and returned fire when they were subjected to attacks by the 4th Division."

The 4th Division is run by the president's brother, Maher.

The reports were corroborated by three witnesses in Daraa and an activist contacted by the AP. All four asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals.

One of the witnesses said soldiers fired at each other Thursday around the Omari mosque in central Daraa. He said the soldiers from the 5th division, composed mostly of conscripts known to be sympathetic to residents, were battling soldiers of the 4th Division.

"They are defending the people against the forces of Maher Assad," said the resident, who said he lived next to the mosque and witnessed the battles.

"Assad's forces have it in their heads that we are terrorists and extremist Muslims and they are out to get us," he said. "But the 5th Division are made up of people like us. We are speaking to them."

Another witness in Daraa told the AP that he saw soldiers from different army units clashing Monday in front of the Bilal mosque, when Syrian forces rolled into town. He said the battle between the forces lasted for several hours.

"We saw ordinary soldiers fall," the resident said. "And then I heard people shout 'God is great! They are martyrs of freedom!'"

The military released a statement Wednesday denying there were any splits.

The government has blamed armed thugs and a foreign conspiracy for the unrest, rather than true reform seekers. State-run Syrian TV has been running lingering, gruesome close-ups of dead soldiers to back up their claims that they were under attack.

On the diplomatic front, Turkey held out the prospect of closer economic ties if Assad meets demands for reform, even as Western powers warned of sanctions if the crackdown doesn't end. Assad met a delegation led by the chief of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency and the head of the agency that oversees infrastructure projects, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has talked to Assad at least three times since protests began in Syria, said Turkey does not want to see an "an authoritarian, totalitarian, imposing structure" there. But he has not called for Assad's ouster.

Syria is a highly unpredictable country, in part because of its sizable minority population and the regime's web of allegiances to powerful forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shiite powerhouse Iran. Serious and prolonged unrest are likely to hurt the regime's proxy in Lebanon, the militant group Hezbollah, and weaken Iran's influence in the Arab world.

But within Syria, there are very real fears of sectarian bloodshed should a power vacuum emerge. Syria has multiple sectarian divisions, largely kept in check under Assad's heavy hand and his regime's secular ideology. The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, but Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

There are fears that if the regime falls, there could be revenge attacks and persecution as rival groups jockey for power.

For now, Assad is facing the gravest challenge to his family's four decades of rule. He unleashed the military, backed by snipers and tanks, in Daraa and several other areas Monday.

Daraa was the hardest-hit: On Thursday, more soldiers in armored personnel carriers rolled into Daraa, where residents huddled inside homes to avoid blasts of mortars and heavy gunfire. Hiding from snipers perched on rooftops, desperate Syrians pleaded for international help Thursday as a military siege paralyzed the city.

The protest movement insisted it will not be intimidated and used the crackdown in Daraa as a rallying cry to encourage fresh demonstrations across the country Friday.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world.

Daraa resident Abdullah Abazeid said the death toll in Daraa includes a 6-year-old girl, hit by a sniper Wednesday on the roof of her parents' apartment. He added that pro-government gunmen known as "shabiha" damaged a large numbers of shops in the city.

Abazeid said they were still hiding the bodies of the dead because the cemetery was occupied by Syrian forces.

The city was still without telephones, electricity and water and lacked food and infant formula, he said, adding that some parents were giving their children water and sugar for lack of powder milk.

Later in the evening, there were reports that power had been restored.

Meanwhile, Syrians were pouring into the neighboring countries of Lebanon and Jordan seeking refuge from the violence. A woman in Jordan whose family lives in Daraa said she heard her two brothers had been killed.

She said she came to the border to tell her story to the media, but her husband and female members of his family dragged her away, screaming.

Elsewhere in Syria, security was tightened in the Damascus suburb of Douma and the coastal city of Latakia, the heartland of Syria's ruling elite.

"Security is so tight around Douma that even birds can't go in," he said, adding that security forces with lists of wanted people continued to detain residents in the area.

———

Hadid reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jamal Halaby at the Jordanian-Syrian border, and Christopher Torchia in Istanbul contributed to this story.

Houston Chronicle - Rival Palestinian factions reach unity agreement

2011-04-28T23:16:00.001-07:00

Houston Chronicle - Rival Palestinian factions reach unity agreement

By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Rival Palestinian groups said they reached an agreement Wednesday on reuniting their governments in the West Bank and Gaza after years of bitter infighting that weakened them politically and caused the deaths of hundreds in violent clashes and crackdowns since.

Even as the tentative agreement revived hopes among Palestinians that they might be able to form a unified front, unity between the rival groups Fatah and Hamas appeared unlikely to jump start negotiations with Israel for an independent Palestinian state.

Israel swiftly rejected the prospect of a Palestinian government including Hamas, citing the militant group's stated goal of destroying the Jewish state. The U.S. expressed similar concerns.

The plan, brokered by Egypt, calls for the formation of a single caretaker government in the coming days. The government would administer day-to-day business until new presidential and legislative elections are to be held in a year's time.

"The people want to end the division ... and we say: what you demanded has been achieved today," said Azzam al-Ahmed, the chief Fatah negotiator at a news conference in Cairo with his Hamas counterpart. The two groups inked an initial deal Wednesday.

Rivalries between the two Palestinian factions began in earnest in 2006 after the militant Islamic group Hamas won elections in Gaza and the West Bank. A year later, frustrated by what it viewed as Fatah efforts to cripple its rule, Hamas seized power in Gaza in a violent takeover.

The split left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, dominated by Fatah, in the West Bank. The two territories are separated by Israel, further deepening the divide between two groups.

The Palestinians claim both territories for a future independent state, along with east Jerusalem.

Hani Masri, a member of a Palestinian delegation that met with Hamas leaders in Syria and the new leadership in Egypt, said the political upheavals in both countries pushed the two rivals together and "made the agreement possible."

Previous attempts over the years to hammer out a deal ended in failure.

The current agreement still appears shaky. Hamas officials in Gaza said their security forces would retain control over the coastal strip for the time being. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief the media.

Al-Ahmed, the chief Fatah negotiator, said that under the deal, Fatah and Hamas security forces would be unified and "restructured" under "Arab supervision."

The security forces are at the heart of the Palestinian rift. Fatah and Hamas formed a short-lived unity government in 2007, only to see it disintegrate in several days of fighting in Gaza.

And while Abbas would remain in power under the emerging unity deal, the agreement would require the two prime ministers — Salam Fayyad in the West Bank and Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza — to resign. Both have entrenched their positions in recent years, Haniyeh as the front man for Hamas in Gaza and Fayyad as the Palestinian bridge to the West and its aid.

Al-Ahmed said the sides would need to agree on a new prime minister in the coming days, a process that is likely to lead to deep disagreements. He added that the new government would consist solely of political independents in order to not anger the international community.

The internal rift has prevented the Palestinians from speaking in one voice. That, in turn, has made it next to impossible to move ahead with peace efforts with Israel.

Talks have been stymied for months over a dispute about Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, but the unity issue has lurked prominently in the background.

Still, Palestinian political unity is no more likely to push the peace process forward, with Israel and the international community refusing to deal with Hamas. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S., and European Union for its role of sending dozens of suicide bombers and thousands of rockets into the Jewish state.

"The Palestinian Authority must choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "Peace with both is impossible because of the Hamas goal of destroying the state of Israel, which it expresses openly," he said, pointing to the ongoing rocket attacks.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke-Fulton called on the future Palestinian government to recognize Israel — something Hamas has steadfastly refused to do.

Al-Ahmed said reconciliation was more important than negotiating with Israel, and said unity would make their position stronger in seeking statehood.

Palestinians intend to ask the United Nations General Assembly in September to recognize their state after decades of failed negotiations for statehood with Israel. A functioning agreement to put all the Palestinian areas under a single government would boost that effort.

___

Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank and Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.

Huston Chronicle - Hundreds detained after bloody Syrian crackdown

2011-04-26T15:24:00.001-07:00

Huston Chronicle - Hundreds detained after bloody Syrian crackdown

By DIAA HADID Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press

CAIRO — Syrian forces heaped more punishment Tuesday on residents of restive towns, detaining hundreds in raids or at checkpoints, firing on people trying to retrieve the bodies of anti-government protesters and even shooting holes in rooftop water tanks in a region parched by drought, witnesses said.

In the southern city of Daraa, where Syrian army tanks and snipers killed at least 34 people in two days, a resident said security forces shot and killed a man as he walked out of the main Omari mosque and shouted at them though a bullhorn: "Enough! Enough! Enough! Stop killing your brothers!"

The crackdown by President Bashar Assad has intensified since Friday, when more than 100 people were killed. Security forces also conducted raids in the Damascus suburb of Douma and the northern coastal town of Jableh.

Human rights groups estimate that more than 400 people have been killed since mid-March as the Assad regime has tried to crush the uprising. But instead of intimidating protesters, it has emboldened them, and their calls for modest reforms have them now increasingly demanding Assad's ouster.

European leaders escalated their criticism of the Syrian crackdown, with the French president calling the current situation "unacceptable," and Britain's foreign minister raising the possibility of sanctions. Even the Arab League said that those in the region demanding freedom and democracy "require support, and not shooting with bullets."

The attack on Daraa — where the uprising began — appeared to be part of strategy of crippling, pre-emptive action against any opposition to Assad, rather than reacting to demonstrations. But the campaign of intimidation through violence and arrests was unlikely to work, according to a human rights worker, noting that every time Syrian forces surrounded or attacked one town, sympathetic protests broke out elsewhere nearby.

"When the army was sweeping through parts of Daraa, the people were demonstrating in other parts," said the activist, Rami Nakhla, who is based in Beirut. "All they are doing is increasing the people's determination."

Syrian residents contacted by The Associated Press on Tuesday reported hundreds of people detained in the towns of Daraa, Jableh and outlying neighborhoods of Damascus — either seized at checkpoints or in dawn raids. Detainees included all male relatives of the same family, a resident said.

"There's been a huge campaign of arresting people," Nakhla said.

Daraa residents braved fire from snipers and other troops to pull bullet-riddled bodies of protesters killed Monday off the streets and hide them from security forces, witnesses said.

One man, Zaher Ahmad Ayyash, was killed as he tried to retrieve the bodies of two brothers, Taysir and Yaser al-Akrad, said a resident, who asked to be identified only as Abdullah for fear of reprisal.

Those who managed to retrieve the corpses then hid them away, Abdullah said, suggesting that residents might face reprisal if troops discovered they had taken the bodies. As he spoke on the phone, gunfire popped in the background in Daraa, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Damascus, near the Jordanian border.

"We can't bury the dead in the cemetery because it's occupied by Syrian soldiers," said Abdullah. "We are waiting to find another place to bury them."

Snipers also targeted Daraa residents' supply of water, shooting holes in rooftop tanks — the last source of clean water for many desperate residents of the parched region of 300,000 people, Abdullah said.

Troops cut off electricity to Daraa on Friday, and most food has spoiled in refrigerators.

Even as the crackdown intensified, however, there was quiet, defiant resistance. Abdullah said some soldiers were disobeying orders and allowing residents to pass through military checkpoints to find food and water.

Palestinian refugees living in the area smuggled flour, water, bread and canned food into town. "We are so grateful to them," the resident said.

Most doctors were arrested, leaving only two to treat the wounded — without fresh bandages or antiseptic, another resident said.

Similar scenes were reported in the northern coastal city of Jableh, which was attacked Friday, with residents hiding their dead and then furtively burying them in private plots of farmland — some as late as Tuesday — out of fear that the families of those killed might be arrested, a resident said. Also like Daraa, gunmen had shot holes in water storage tanks on rooftops as a form of punishment, he added.

The power outage in Daraa even silenced loudspeakers carrying the Muslim call to prayer.

But in an act of faith and defiance, people gathered on the streets at dusk even though troops had ordered them to stay indoors and began chanting the "adan," the call to prayer.

One resident in central Daraa watched as troops shot and killed Jamal Abu Nabout, who brought the bullhorn out of the Omari mosque — the epicenter of Monday's demonstration — and shouted through it for the gunmen to stop killing their fellow countrymen.

About 2,000 worshippers gathered in the ancient mosque that overlooks the city, refusing to allow soldiers to enter, a resident said.

Syrian state media reported that officials captured an "extremist terrorist cell" in Daraa, based in the Omari mosque. It quoted one detainee, Mustafa Ayyash, as saying that the cell was led by three Muslim scholars who told them to kill Syrian forces and accusing the troops of being Zionists. Ayyash claimed even 5-year-old boys were ordered to carry weapons, the report said.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world. Residents contacted by the AP all spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal.

In the Damascus suburb of Douma, which saw an intense crackdown Monday, houses were raided again at dawn Tuesday, with forces detaining anyone suspected of participating in demonstrations. Soldiers at sandbagged checkpoints also held men deemed suspicious. Phone service was cut off, a resident said.

The streets of Douma were almost empty, with schools and most shops closed and uncollected garbage piling up. Security was heavy, with agents at checkpoints asking people for their identity cards.

In the seaside city of Banias, divided between Sunni Muslims and Alawites — the sect of the ruling Assad family and many key officials — about 5,000 people demonstrated peacefully in support of the citizens of Daraa, and there was no interference from security forces, activists said.

The U.S. stepped up demands that Syria halt its crackdown on pro-reform demonstrators but refused to question Assad's legitimacy. U.S. officials said Washington has begun drawing up targeted sanctions against Assad and his inner circle and conferring with European countries and the United Nations about options for Syria.

In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that the international community would have to consider sanctions against Assad if he undertakes "ever more violent repression, which can only bring short-term security for the authorities there."

"The situation has become unacceptable," added French President Nicolas Sarkozy at news conference in Rome with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. "You don't shoot at demonstrators."

Berlusconi urged Assad to fulfill promises of reform and "stop the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Assad and urged him to show "restraint."

"We are worried about the current situation," Erdogan told a news conference, "We would not like to see an authoritarian and oppressive perspective in Syria. It is not enough for Syria to remove the state of emergency, there are so many more steps ahead to be taken."

The Arab League said it was watching events in Syria, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere in the region, noting the demands to move "their countries towards democracy and reform."

It said that "these are demands that require support, and not shooting with bullets."

The United States told all its nonessential staff and the families of all its embassy workers to leave the country, but kept the facility open for limited services. It also advised all Americans to defer travel to Syria and advised those already in the country to leave. On Sunday, Britain urged its citizens to leave Syria.

The uprising was touched off by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall, with protesters inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.

Last week, Assad fulfilled a key demand by abolishing nearly 50-year-old emergency laws that had given the regime a free hand to arrest people without cause. But he coupled the concession with a stern warning that people would no longer have an excuse to hold mass protests, and any further unrest would be considered "sabotage."

When protesters defied his order and held demonstrations Friday — the main day for rallies around the Arab world — they were met with a gunfire, tear gas and stun guns.

Syria has a pivotal role in most of the flashpoint issues of the Middle East — from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran's widening influence. Instability has thrown into disarray the U.S. push for engagement with Damascus, part of Washington's hopes to peel the country away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Tehran.

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Alessandra Rizzo and Nicole Winfield in Rome, and David Stringer in London contributed to this story.

Rights group: Scores detained across Syria

2011-04-26T02:05:00.001-07:00

This video image taken from amateur video released by Sham News Network, a Syrian Freedom group, shows a tank in the Daraa, Syria Monday April 25, 2011. An eyewitness says at least five people have been killed in the southern Syrian city of Daraa during a security crackdown. Syrian troops in armored vehicles and tanks stormed the southern town of Daraa early Monday and opened fire. It was the latest bloodshed in a five-week uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime. (AP Photo/Sham News Network via APTN) AP HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THIS VIDEO

Kansas City Star - Rights group: Scores detained across Syria

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and DIAA HADID

The Associated Press

A Syrian human rights group says dozens have been detained across the country, a day after the army's deadly raid on a southern city at the center of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the arrests occurred early Tuesday in several Damascus suburbs and in a northern coastal city of Jableh. SOHR's chief Rami Abdul-Rahman didn't provide a precise figure.

The arrests follow Monday's raids on Daraa, where the uprising started last month. At least 11 died there Monday. The raids reflect the regime's effort to impose military control on the centers of the protests.

Abdul-Rahman says phone lines with Daraa have been cut.

Rights groups say the crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 350 people in Syria.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BEIRUT (AP) - Thousands of soldiers backed by tanks and snipers moved in before dawn to the city where Syria's anti-government uprising began, causing panic in the streets when they opened fire indiscriminately on civilians and went house-to-house rounding up suspected protesters. At least 11 people were killed and 14 others lay in the streets - either dead or gravely wounded, witnesses said.

The military raids on the southern city of Daraa and at least two other areas suggested Syria is trying to impose military control on the centers of protests against President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades. Residents and human rights activists said the regime wants to terrify opponents and intimidate them from staging any more demonstrations.

The offensive was meticulously planned: Electricity, water and mobile phone services were cut. Security agents armed with guns and knives conducted house-to-house sweeps, neighborhoods were sectioned off and checkpoints were erected before the sun rose.

"They have snipers firing on everybody who is moving," a witness told The Associated Press by telephone. "They aren't discriminating. There are snipers on the mosque. They are firing at everybody," he added, asking that his name not be used for fear of retribution.

The massive assault on Daraa appeared to be part of new strategy of crippling, pre-emptive strikes against any opposition to Assad, rather than reacting to demonstrations. Other crackdowns and arrest sweeps were reported on the outskirts of Damascus and the coastal town of Jableh - bringing more international condemnation and threats of targeted sanctions by Washington.

Razan Zeitounia, a human rights activist in Damascus, said the widespread arrests - including of men along with their families - appear to be an attempt to scare protesters and set an example for the rest of the country.

As the Syrian government stepped up its crackdown, the U.S. State Department urged Americans to defer all travel to Syria and advised those already in the country to leave while commerical transportation is still available. It also ordered some nonessential U.S. embassy staff and the families of all embassy personnel to leave Syria. It said the embassy would remain open for limited services.

The attack on Daraa, an impoverished city on the Jordanian border, was by far the biggest in scope and firepower. Video purportedly shot by activists showed tanks rolling through streets and grassy fields with soldiers on foot jogging behind them.

Witnesses said busloads of troops poured in before dawn and snipers took up positions on the roofs of houses and high buildings while other security agents searched houses for suspected protesters.

"They are entering houses. They are searching the houses," said one witness. "They are carrying knives and guns."

He said people were crying out over mosque loudspeakers for doctors to help the wounded and there was panic in the streets.

"We need international intervention. We need countries to help us," shouted another witness in Daraa, who said he saw five corpses after security forces opened fire on a car. He spoke to the AP by telephone.

The forces occupied two mosques and a graveyard.

"Let Obama come and take Syria. Let Israel come and take Syria. Let the Jews come," shouted one Daraa resident over the phone. "Anything is better than Bashar Assad," he said, playing on Syria's hatred for Israel to highlight how much town residents despise their leader.

All witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Daraa, a drought-parched region of 300,000 in the south, has seen some of the worst bloodshed over the past five weeks as the uprising gained momentum. The area was ripe for unrest: The grip of Syria's security forces is weaker on the border areas than around the capital, Damascus, and Daraa hasn't benefited from recent years of economic growth. Meanwhile, Daraa has absorbed many rural migrants who can no longer farm after years of drought.

The city of Daraa was where Syria's uprising began in mid-March, touched off by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall.

A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 350 people throughout the country, with 120 alone dying over the weekend. But that has only emboldened protesters, who started with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad's downfall.

State-run television quoted a military source as saying army units entered the city to bring security "answering the pleas for help by residents of Daraa."

Another military raid targeted the Damascus suburb of Douma, where rattling, heavy gunfire could still be heard late Monday. Soldiers, masked men in black uniforms and plainclothes security forces were manning checkpoints made from mounds of dirt throughout the area, a resident said.

In Jableh, men who tried to leave their houses were shot at by soldiers and thugs, three residents said, and only women were allowed onto the streets to buy food. Some quietly managed to bury seven men and a woman who were killed by security forces the day before, witnesses said. Security forces banned them from conducting funeral marches that frequently morph into protests.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world.

Syria is a close ally of Iran and a backer of the militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

There were conflicting reports about whether authorities sealed the Syrian border with Jordan, although the head of Syria's Customs Department said crossings at the frontier were open as normal.

A Jordanian taxi driver said the border was open, but the main highway linking Syria with Jordan was blocked.

"The situation on the highway is scary," he said. "Protesters are burning tires and hurling stones at the army, which is responding with live fire, shooting randomly at civilians."

Assad has blamed most of the unrest on a "foreign conspiracy" and armed thugs, and has used state media to push his accusations.

The violence has exacerbated sectarian tensions that had largely been kept in check under Assad's iron rule and secular ideology. The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, but Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Islam's Shiite branch that dominates in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain.

On Monday, Syrian TV repeatedly ran lingering, gruesome close-ups of dead soldiers, their eyes blown out and parts of their limbs missing, to back up their claims that they were under attack. The channel then turned to showing soldiers' funeral marches, with men waving red, black and white Syrian flags and hoisting photos of Assad.

Unrest in Syria has repercussions well beyond its borders.

Syria has a pivotal role in most of the flashpoint issues of the Middle East - from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran's widening influence. Instability has thrown into disarray the U.S. push for engagement with Damascus, part of Washington's hopes to peel the country away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Tehran.

The White House said Monday it was considering sanctions against the Syrian government in response to the brutal crackdown. The statement from National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor was the first time officials had said publicly that sanctions were possible.

Syria already is subject to numerous penalties as it is deemed a "state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department, but it maintains diplomatic relations with Washington.

In recent days, there had been signs that the regime was planning to launch a massive push against the opposition.

Last week, Assad fulfilled a key demand of the protest movement by abolishing nearly 50-year-old emergency laws that had given the regime a free hand to arrest people without cause. But he coupled the concession with a stern warning that protesters would no longer have an excuse to hold mass protests, and any further unrest would be considered "sabotage."

When protesters defied his order and held demonstrations Friday - the main day for protests around the Arab world - they were met with a gunfire, tear gas and stun guns.

At the United Nations, France, Britain, Germany and Portugal were urging the U.N. Security Council to strongly condemn the violence against peaceful demonstrators. The four European nations circulated a draft media statement to other council members that will be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

The United States is supporting the statement of condemnation, a Security Council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. But whether the Security Council makes any statement is likely to depend on Russia and China, both veto-wielding council members with close ties to Syria.

In Geneva, the U.N. human rights chief, Navi Pillay, said Syria has turned its back on international calls to "stop killing its own people."

Hadid reported from Cairo. AP writer Jamal Halaby contributed to this report from Amman, Jordan.

Egypt prosecutor orders Mubarak to army hospital

2011-04-25T02:27:00.001-07:00

Egypt prosecutor orders Mubarak to army hospital

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Sunday, April 24, 2011
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Egypt's prosecutor general ordered Sunday that former president Hosni Mubarak to be moved from his hospital in a Red Sea resort town to a military facility, the state news agency reported.

Prosecutor General Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud said Mubarak was originally supposed to be moved to Cairo's Tora prison hospital, but it was deemed not yet ready to receive him. Instead he would stay in a military hospital until the prison facility was ready.

The order followed an examination of the president's health to determine if he was fit enough to move.

But two senior military officials in the Sinai Desert, where the resort town is based, said they would refuse to move Mubarak, because they did not believe he was well enough to be transferred.

The two senior officials spoke on condition of anonymity and it was not immediately clear if they had the authority to affect the transfer order.

Mubarak was hospitalized with heart problems after he and his sons were ordered into custody for 15 days on April 13 while being investigated for corruption allegations and their role in the shooting of protesters during the weeks of demonstrations against his rule.

Under the pressure of those demonstrations, Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11.

_____

Associated Press writer Ashraf Sweilam contributed to this report from El-Arish, Egypt.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/04/24/international/i121345D38.DTL#ixzz1KWdJtiOe

Khadafy forces bombard Misrata despite cease-fire

2011-04-25T02:24:00.001-07:00

Khadafy forces bombard Misrata despite cease-fire

Diaa Hadid,Karin Laub, Associated Press

Monday, April 25, 2011

(04-25) 04:00 PDT Tripoli, Libya --

Despite claims by the Libyan government that the army was holding its fire on the city of Misrata, Moammar Khadafy's forces fired a barrage of shells and rockets into the western city Sunday.

Doctors reported the bombardment killed 32 people and wounded dozens more over the last two days. Still, rebels said they drove the last pro-government forces from the center of Libya's third-largest city.

The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months, has become the focal point of Libya's armed rebellion against Khadafy since fighting elsewhere is deadlocked.

Video of Misrata civilians being killed and wounded by Khadafy's heavy weapons, including rockets and tank shells, have spurred calls for more forceful international intervention to stop the bloodshed in the rebel-held city.

In Washington, three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said more should be done to drive Khadafy out of power, including targeting his inner circle with air strikes. Khadafy "needs to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?' " Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the committee, told CNN's "State of the Union."

As if on cue, a NATO air strike hit the center of Khadafy's compound in Tripoli early today, destroying a library and office and damaging a reception hall. A security official said four people were slightly hurt.

NATO's mandate from the United Nations is to try to protect civilians in Libya. While the coalition's air strikes have delivered heavy blows to Khadafy's army, they have not halted attacks on Misrata, a city of 300,000 people.

In recent days the rebels' drive to push Khadafy's men out of the city center has gained momentum. On Sunday, rebels took control of the main hospital, the last position of Libyan troops in the center of Misrata, said a city resident, who only gave his first name, Abdel Salam, for fear of reprisals. Throughout the day, government forces fired rockets at the city, he said.

A senior Libyan government official has said the military is withdrawing from the fighting in Misrata, ostensibly to give a chance to tribal chiefs in the area to negotiate with the rebels. The official, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, also claimed that the army has been holding its fire since Friday.

Asked about the continued shelling on Misrata, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the army was responding to attacks by rebels.

Rebels in Besieged Libyan City Claim Victory

2011-04-23T06:44:00.001-07:00

Medics work on an injured man at Hikma hospital in the besieged city of Misrata, the main rebel holdout in Gadhafi's territory, Saturday, April 23, 2011. A senior Libyan government official said late Friday that the military is withdrawing from one of the fiercest battles in two months of fighting, over the western city of Misrata. Libyan forces have besieged the rebel city for nearly two months, with rebels defending positions in the port area. (AP Photo)

Rebels in Besieged Libyan City Claim Victory
By DIAA HADID and KARIN LAUB Associated Press
TRIPOLI, Libya April 23, 2011 (AP)

Rebels in Misrata battled pockets of withdrawing government troops on the outskirts of the western city on Saturday, claiming victory after a decision in Tripoli to pull back forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi following nearly two months of siege.

Opposition forces in Libya's third-largest city had held firm after being pounded by the government's heavy weapons for weeks. On Friday, a top Libyan official said troops would be withdrawn and local tribes would take up the fight — a notion scoffed at by rebels.

A rebel activist in the Misrata questioned how much support Moammar Gadhafi had among the local tribes.

"This whole move is just to buy time," he added, expecting further attacks.

For now, however, most of the city of 300,000 people was calm, with rebel forces taking over several key buildings that had been filled with government soldiers, including snipers. An eight-story insurance building — pockmarked by shells and scorched around the windows — had been used by snipers because it was the tallest in central Misrata and commanded a view of the city.

"After they heard the news, people began breathing freely. The women were making ululations and they went onto the streets beeping their car horns," said the activist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.

The only fighting Saturday was on the eastern outskirts of the city, where about 150 pro-Gadhafi soldiers trying to withdraw were fighting rebels, he said, adding that ambulances were picking up dead and injured.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim sought to portray the move as a decision by tribal leaders to give the army an ultimatum to step aside if it cannot retake control of Misrata.

The tribal leaders would fight the rebels if the opposition forces don't surrender, Kaim said late Friday night.

"We will leave it for the tribes around Misrata and the Misrata people to deal with the situation in Misrata," Kaim told reporters.

Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between rebels and government forces in the city.

In the capital of Tripoli, two missiles apparently fired by NATO warplanes struck near Gadhafi's sprawling compound in the early hours of the morning, causing no injuries.

Reporters were taken to an unpaved plot next to the Bab Aziziyeh compound and shown two craters, apparently from the missiles that had pierced through thick layers of reinforced concrete, laying bare what looked like a bunker system.

Libyan officials said the space served as a parking lot but a series of olive-colored metal boxes near the crater suggested the area was being used for military activities.

NATO stepped into the Libyan fighting in mid-March, unleashing airstrikes against Libyan military targets as part of a U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

In the east of the country, their strikes smashed more than two dozen vehicles belonging to government forces, said rebel battalion commander Col. Hamid Hassy on Saturday.

NATO aircraft destroyed 26 government pickup trucks and sedans, he said, but otherwise there hasn't been much fighting between Gadhafi forces and the rebels. The front in the east has been stalled between the oil town of Brega and Ajdabiya for weeks.

In another boost for the rebels, the U.S. began flying Predator drones in Libya Thursday. The unmanned aircraft, which can swoop low, have been used in Afghanistan to hunt and kill militants, and are suited for urban combat.

Meanwhile, an Italian-owned tugboat was released after being held in Libya for weeks, the ship owner and the Italian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

The Asso 22 was sailing home, its crew of eight Italians, two Indians and a Ukrainian unharmed, and was expected to dock in Italy on Sunday, according to Naples-based Augusta Offshore SrL.

The ship had been occupied by armed Libyan military officers since mid-March, and had for the most part been docked at the port of Tripoli. It was allowed to leave Friday night and soon made contact with an Italian navy ship in the Mediterranean as part of the NATO-led operations in Libya, said Augusta.

Ship owner Mario Mattioli of Augusta told Sky Italia that no ransom had been paid, and that diplomacy "at the top level" had helped resolve the case. The Foreign Ministry expressed satisfaction.

It wasn't clear if the seizure amounted to Libyan retaliation for Italy's participation in enforcing the U.N.-mandated no-fly zone over Libya. Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has allowed use of its bases by coalition aircraft and also has offered its own jets for use in missions.

———

Hadid reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sebastian Abbot in Benghazi, Libya, contributed to this report.

Libyans fleeing fighting find refuge in Egypt, Tunisia, but worry about families left behind

2011-04-11T08:35:00.001-07:00

Libyans fleeing fighting find refuge in Egypt, Tunisia, but worry about families left behind

By: Diaa Hadid,Karin Laub, The Associated Press

CAIRO - Thousands of Libyans who have fled civil war in their homeland now live in limbo in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia, worried about relatives left behind, struggling as money runs out and wondering if they'll ever be able to go home.

Some 100,000 Libyans have crossed into neighbouring countries since fighting erupted between rebels and leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces nearly two months ago. Migration officials say much of that border traffic is routine and goes both ways.

However, hundreds of women and children in the past week fled to Tunisia by taking back roads through the Libyan desert, trying to avoid Gadhafi's men. East of Libya, instant communities of exiles have sprung up in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria and the coastal resort of Mersa Matrouh, where thousands have received aid and some 500 Libyan families found temporary refuge in vacant holiday apartments.

The exiles spend their days watching TV, hungry for news from home, and worrying.

"Our psychological state has paralyzed us," said Nasser Abdel Rahim, a chemical engineer and father of eight. "We really can't do anything."

Abdel Rahim's two oldest children, ages 19 and 20, remain trapped in the Libyan town of Misrata, controlled in large part by the rebels but under siege by Gadhafi's men. He last heard from them March 18.

He also was separated from some of his other children in late February, having left them at home in the oil town of Ras Lanouf so he could pick up his wife, who had just given birth in another town. On their way back from the hospital, the road was blocked by Gadhafi's fighters.

Eventually, the family was reunited in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, where they stayed with a relative. On March 19, Gadhafi's forces shelled the area; nearby houses were levelled, several residents were badly hurt by shrapnel and several of Abdel Rahim's children were cut by glass shards.

After that experience, the family packed up and moved to Alexandria, where Abdel Rahim has rented an apartment. He's concerned not only about his oldest children, but about his wife's parents, who are still in Libya, and about money. He left Libya with $3,300 but is almost broke now, though charities and volunteers on the way out offered food and places to stay.

The uprising that began with mass protests against Gadhafi in mid-February has hit a deadlock, with no end in sight. Gadhafi's troops control most of Libya's west, the rebels much of the east, and while the front line keeps shifting in the middle, neither side has been able to win the upper hand since international airstrikes began last month.

For Libyans in rebel-controlled areas in the east, Egypt is a natural destination: The road is open, they don't need visas and many have family there.

In the absence of organized aid groups, tribal relations along the Mediterranean coast between Libya and Egypt have oiled the passage of families fleeing the violence. Tribal delegations wait at the Saloum border crossing and offer refugees the telephone numbers of volunteers in Mersa Matrouh. There, volunteers have resettled hundreds of Libyan families.

"They don't let us spend our money," said Abu Omar, a 42-year-old civil servant from Benghazi who fled with his wife and four children to Mersa Matrouh. "They get us food, transport us, they take the children to doctors. They even organized a play day for the children.

"The pharmacist wouldn't let me even pay for my son's medicine. He said it was a gift from the Egyptian people. We are grateful," he said.

In Mersa Matrouh, the Mediterranean resort about 140 miles (220 kilometres) from the Libyan border, a local tribal leader, Farag al-Abed, has helped organize food and shelter for about 8,000 Libyan exiles. He said many fled during the eastward advance of Gadhafi's army last month, before the international community stepped in.

Local residents supplied about 450 vacant vacation rentals, many of them for free, though landlords told al-Abed they need the apartments back by May when tourists return for the season. He said Mersa Matrouh residents have also collected food staples, including rice, sugar, oil and tea, for distribution to the Libyan visitors.

Al-Abed said many of the children seem to suffer from trauma, jumping at sudden noises. He said the wounded among the new arrivals are transferred to hospitals in Alexandria because the coastal resort is not equipped to treat them.

Dr. Abdul Rahman Shahin, who is co-ordinating medical treatment of the Libyans in Alexandria, said his hospital has dealt with about 50 Libyan patients, most of them suffering from burns or bullet or shrapnel wounds. Two of the patients have died. Shahin said many Alexandria doctors work for free, while donations help cover the cost of some operations.

Since mid-February, about 53,500 Libyans have entered Egypt and 47,000 have crossed into Tunisia, according to the International Organization for Migration, which monitors border traffic.

That's in addition to nearly 400,000 migrant workers from Egypt, Africa and Asia who have fled Libya since the start of the crisis. Many have been evacuated from transit points in Tunisia and Egypt, but thousands more remain in border tent camps, waiting for flights home.

The influx of the migrants has put a further strain on the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, at the time when the two countries — at the vanguard of the Arab world's uprisings — are undergoing a difficult period of political transition. The Libyan refugees in Egypt are less of an issue because they are largely being supported by volunteers.

Many of the Libyans who leave end up returning. For example, 1,700 Libyans entered Tunisia on Thursday, while 900 returned home that day, some carrying provisions and medicine, said Mongi Slim, an official in Tunisia's Red Crescent.

However, there are also signs of Libyans crossing into Tunisia because they fear for their lives. On Thursday, more than 320 Libyans, mostly families, drove to Tunisia via a small road near the border town of Dehiba, Slim said.

Slim said accounts from the families, who fled after bombing in Libyan cities like Zintan and Nalut, led the Red Crescent to believe that other families would try to cross into Tunisia in the same area in coming days. Aid officials said they are heading to Dehiba with tents and other supplies.

___

Bouazza Ben Bouazza in Tunis contributed to this report.

Egypt's Mubarak denies abuse of power

2011-04-11T08:31:00.001-07:00

Egypt's Mubarak denies abuse of power

By DIAA HADID
The Associated Press
updated 4/10/2011 1:53:45 PM ET

CAIRO — In the first remarks since his ouster, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak denied he abused his authority to amass wealth and property in a speech broadcast Sunday, as hundreds of protesters occupying the heart of Cairo shouted for him to be brought to trial.

Mubarak, forced out of office two months ago by a popular uprising, said he was willing to cooperate in any investigation to prove that he did not own property abroad or posses foreign bank accounts.

Shortly after Mubarak's pre-recorded speech was aired, Egypt's prosecutor general told state TV he issued orders Sunday summoning the ex-president and his two sons for questioning. The station quoted a prosecution spokesman as saying the scope of the investigation of Mubarak and his sons would include the crackdown on protesters that killed an estimated 300 people as well as the corruption allegations.

Holding Mubarak and top officials in his government accountable for the violence is a central demand of anti-Mubarak movement.

The pan-Arab news channel Al-Arabiya, which broadcast the speech, said it was recorded Saturday, a day after demonstrators gathered in huge numbers in Cairo to demand that the military council that took over from Mubarak launch an investigation into his wealth. There was no video image accompanying the recording of Mubarak's voice.

The speech seemed to be as much about preserving his dignity as about denying the accusations against him.

"I was hurt very much, and I am still hurting — my family and I — from the unjust campaigns against us and false allegations that aim to smear my reputation, my integrity, my (political) stances and my military history," Mubarak said.

Egyptians fed up with poverty, corruption and political repression forced Mubarak to leave office on Feb. 11 after 18 days of mass demonstrations.

riday's protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square by tens of thousands was the biggest since then. Despite constitutional amendments to allow free elections and other steps toward a freer political scene, many of people in the anti-Mubarak movement are growing impatient with the ruling military's transitional leadership and skeptical of its pledges to meet all demands.

Trust between the military and the reform movement suffered a serious setback after Friday's demonstrations when soldiers stormed their protest camp in the middle of the night, killing at least one person and injuring 71 others.

That increased calls for the resignation of the head of the military council running the country, Defense Minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, a Mubarak appointee. It also spurred protesters to retake Tahrir Square, shutting down traffic in the heart of the city.

On Sunday, hundreds remained barricaded there behind barbed wire and burned-out troop carriers.

Since his ouster, Mubarak and his family have been under house arrest at a presidential palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, their assets frozen. But Mubarak has not been charged.

In his speech, the former president said he only possessed a single account in an Egyptian bank and only held property in Egypt. He said he would agree in writing, if requested, to allow the prosecutor-general to contact other countries to investigate whether he or his wife, Suzanne, owned any accounts or property abroad.

"I agree to authorize the prosecutor-general in writing to allow him to contact, through the Foreign Ministry, all countries in the world to prove to them that I and my wife agree to show any accounts or properties I have possessed starting from my military and political career until now to prove to the people that their former president only owns domestically according to previous financial disclosure."

A legal committee from the Justice Ministry was formed last week to investigate any Mubarak assets abroad.

Sunday's summoning for questioning was the first to include accusations about Mubarak's role in the violence against protesters.

Mubarak also said he would allow Egypt's prosecutor general to investigate whether he, his wife or his wealthy businessmen sons, Alaa and Gamal, owned any real estate or properties "directly or indirectly, commercially or for private use" since the time Mubarak assumed office in 1981.

Mubarak's alleged improper dealings range from giving top officials and tycoons preferential treatment in land contracts, to selling state industries at a fraction of their value during Egypt's privatization process since the early 1990s, and handing out other perks that let his allies build their wealth exponentially.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Student protest in Syrian capital turns violent

2011-04-11T08:25:00.001-07:00

Student protest in Syrian capital turns violent

By ZEINA KARAM Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press

April 11, 2011, 9:48AM

BEIRUT — A rare demonstration by hundreds of Syrian university students turned violent Monday when security forces beat up and arrested several protesters who were shouting for freedom and unity as the country's three-week uprising gathered strength despite a government crackdown, witnesses said.

Video footage posted online showed what appears to be plainclothes security forces beating protesters and forcefully pulling others away as they marched inside the campus of Damascus University. An activist in touch with students who witnessed the demonstration corroborated the footage, but he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"The Syrian people are one!" the students shouted in the video.

Protests erupted in Syria more than three weeks ago and have been growing steadily, with tens of thousands of people calling for sweeping reforms to President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime.

More than 170 people have been killed, according to human rights groups.

International and Arab reaction to the violence in Syria had been relatively subdued, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested America would not be getting involved.

She said late last month that Assad is a a "different leader" than Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and that many members of Congress who have visited the country "believe he's a reformer."

But with the mounting casualties, others in the international community have begun voicing criticism.

France on Monday strongly condemned the violence in Syria, calling it "unacceptable," and called for immediate reforms.

"Reform and repression are incompatible," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

German spokesman, Steffen Seibert, called the continuing use of force against peaceful demonstrators "dismaying and outrageous."

While at the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a telephone conversation with Assad, said he was "greatly disturbed" by the reports of violence and said the killing of peaceful demonstrators was unacceptable and should be investigated.

Most of the demonstrations in Syria so far have happened outside the capital. The fact that students were gathering in Damascus on Monday suggested that the protesters were becoming emboldened as their unprecedented movement enters its fourth week.

The activist said most of the students taking part in Monday's protest were from Daraa — the southern city that has become the epicenter of the violence — and the port city of Banias, where four protesters were killed Sunday.

Some 2,000 mourners chanting "Death is better than humiliation!" turned out in Banias on Monday for a funeral for the four after Muslim noon prayers, an eyewitness said.

The military rolled into the city early Monday, taking up positions around key buildings and intersections. But the army pulled out after several hours and kept up their positions on the outskirts. The witness, speaking on the phone from Banias, said schools and shops were closed because people feared more clashes.

He said the army's arrival was met mostly with relief.

"We are happy it's the army and not security forces who are like regime-hired gangs," he told The Associated Press. Like most eyewitnesses who spoke to the AP, he requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from the government.

In Banias, no soldiers were present at the funeral. Participants dispersed peacefully.

"The troops just came into the city to say they are with the people, not against them," the resident said.

In Daraa, a resident contacted by telephone said Syrian employees evacuated a government compound in the city. He said road blocks were erected and at least one tank stood at the city's northern entrance on Monday. Overnight, Syrian forces set up dirt mounds on main city roads and on Daraa's exit roads.

The move to evacuate the government compound raised fears among residents that a military operation was being planned.

The government blames the violence on armed gangs rather than reform-seekers and has vowed to crush further unrest. On Sunday, state television reported that thugs killed nine soldiers in an ambush near Banias, which is 185 miles (300 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Damascus.

The report said gunmen hiding among trees along a road shot at the soldiers, and it broadcast images later of ambulance and other civilian vehicles coming under fire along the same road.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed. The government has placed severe restrictions on news coverage and many journalists — including from The Associated Press — have been ordered to leave the country.

Assad has made a series of overtures to try and appease the growing outrage, including sacking local officials and granting Syrian nationality to thousands of Kurds, a long-ostracized minority. But the gestures have failed to satisfy protesters who are demanding political freedoms and an end to the decades-old despised emergency laws.

On Sunday, Assad ordered the release of 191 detainees who were arrested in the past few weeks during protests in the Damascus suburb of Douma, where 12 people were shot dead during last Friday.

___

AP writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.

Fiercely pro-Gadhafi, Libya TV host leaps to fame

2011-04-07T06:39:00.001-07:00

Fiercely pro-Gadhafi, Libya TV host leaps to fame

By DIAA HADID and HADEEL AL-SHALCHI

Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Hala Misrati once wrote romance tales about lost love. Now she's the ferocious face of Libya's regime, a star talk-show host on state TV lashing out daily against Moammar Gadhafi's enemies.

She railed against a Libyan woman who claimed to Western journalists she had been raped by Gadhafi militiamen, calling her a "liar" and suggesting she was a "whore." On live TV, Misrati grilled an arrested journalist for an hour with all the doggedness of a secret police interrogator.

"Say the things that you said in your recordings!" she barked at the journalist, Rana al-Aqbani, apparently referring to taped recordings of al-Aqbani's phone calls, as she tried to make her acknowledge that she sought Gadhafi's ouster. Al-Aqbani, a Tripoli-based journalist, has since disappeared.

With her attack-dog demeanor, Misrati stands out even in the field of presenters of state-run news channels throughout Arab countries, whose autopilot response has been to denounce protesters in the anti-government uprisings around the Middle East.

"She's clearly a very strong mouthpiece for the pro-Gadhafi forces," said Dina Eltahawy, a researcher for Amnesty International, which has issued an urgent alert to try find al-Aqbani.

Misrati appears daily on her hour-long call-in show, "Libya on This Day" on the state-run satellite channel, Al-Jamahiriya 2.

In her 30s, with long dark hair, heavy makeup and often decked out in gaudy outfits, she often gives long monologues crusading against Libya's rebels, the NATO-led alliance bombing Gadhafi troops from the air and anyone perceived of sympathizing with them or fueling the campaign against Gadhafi. That includes Western media and, particularly, the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera, which she refers to as "the pig channel" in a rhyming play on words — the Arabic word for pig is "khanzeera."

Libya's crisis has made her a star — beloved by Gadhafi supporters and viewed with a mix of loathing and bemused fascination by the opposition.

Miriam al-Amani, a 23-year-old student in Benghazi, the de facto rebel capital in eastern Libya, called Misrati "a clown."

She said Misrati was not well known before, but her new incarnation since the uprising made her famous. "Now she's well known. Everyone in Libya knows who she is," al-Amani said with a laugh. "She lies so badly that nobody believes what she says," added al-Amani, who studies medicine at Benghazi's Garyounis University.

In contrast, an upper-class woman having tea with friends at a five-star hotel in the capital Tripoli was full of praise for Misrati.

"Libya runs through her veins," said the woman, a Gadhafi supporter. "She is bold. She has been able to show the truth in Benghazi and tell us what it's really like over there, no one else was brave enough to tell it how it is." The woman spoke on condition of anonymity because her husband holds a job in the state.

In one show, Misrati blasted Libya's U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Shalgham, who turned against Gadhafi, calling him "ignorant" and "an idiot" and saying "he is good for nothing but barking like a dog."

In another, she said the prominent Qatar-based Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi was "the devil" after he criticized Misrati. "Al-Qaradawi is too stupid to judge me or (Libya's) press," she coolly said.

Her fiercest diatribe came against Iman al-Obeidi, a Libyan woman who last month burst into a Tripoli hotel where Western journalists are staying and told them she had been gang-raped by troops before security officials dragged her out.

"Iman, in the end, is a liar," Misrati said in a 10-minute rant, accusing al-Obeidi of pulling a media stunt. She dismissed her claims, saying no Arab woman would bring shame on her family by publicly admitting to rape. She told viewers that it was rebels who were raping women in the eastern territories they control. Misrati urged al-Obeidi to come clean with the truth because her claims were fueling the "bombardment" of Libya.

"Even sometimes a whore has nationalism toward her homeland, when she knows her homeland is in danger!" Misrati sneered. "Even a whore!"

Misrati has since vowed to "uncover" al-Obeidi's real life.

She aired footage of a later attempt to interview al-Obeidi. Misrati's film crew taunts the woman, who is seen curled up on the ground and refuses to be interviewed. It ends suddenly with Misrati screaming at al-Obeidi, "You and your kind have frittered away this country!"

Days later, Misrati conducted an interrogation on live television of al-Aqbani, a Syrian-Libyan journalist who the rights group Amnesty International said was snatched from her Tripoli home along with her brother by plainclothes gunmen on March 28.

Misrati accused her of helping prompt the international air campaign with her reports. As the defiant al-Aqbani tried to explain herself, Misrati interjected, "Sometimes a person lives in a fantasy ... But when you take fantasy outside (your head), without realizing, you pass on rumors and mistakes, and we pay the price of those mistakes under shelling."

Misrati later reassured her viewers that al-Aqbani wont be put to death. "She and her friends are not the head of the snake. Maybe the tail."

Eltahawy of Amnesty International said the whereabouts of al-Aqbani and her brother remains unknown.

Opponents relish in posting YouTube videos of her bloopers. In one famous misstep, she insisted that Muslims could not accept the U.N.'s move to "adopt" the resolution authorizing airstrikes over Libya, because Islam bans adoption — of children.

Misrati's launch as a fierce defender of Gadhafi's regime is all the more striking considering her past. In 2009, she was pulled off air during a live interview and interrogated by security officers, according to a report on the incident by the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli released on the WikiLeaks site.

Misrati was interviewing Mustafa Zaidi, a senior member of the Revolutionary committees, a quasi-pro-Gadhafi paramilitary group. Although Misrati "downplayed" the incident, she "criticized the strictures placed on journalists in Libya by reactionary regime figures," according to the embassy report.

She began on TV only three years ago, according to her Internet resume.

Before that, she was an aspiring writer. She published a collection of short stories in 2007, "The Moon Has Another Face." A review by an Internet magazine Middle-East-Online praises the collection for Misrati's "humane honesty" and describes the woman who "is angry like a child about the lies of others."

Her lengthy blog — untouched since December — is a mix of personal reflections, essays about the Internet (with a law degree, she is a self-professed expert on cyber law) and short stories on lost love.

"I watched the movement of the clouds, with the sun hiding ominously behind them, annihilating the heavy rain," one of her stories begins, before tumbling into a tale of a woman disappointed in marriage.

The title of a series of entries on her blog even holds a bit of philosophy about how changeable life can be — like her surprising leap from writer to regime celebrity.

"Between today and tomorrow is chaos," it reads.

________

Hadid reported from Cairo. AP correspondent Ben Hubbard in Benghazi contributed to this report.

Thousands call for trials of Egypt regime figures

2011-04-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

Miami Herald - Thousands call for trials of Egypt regime figures

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press

CAIRO -- Egyptians returned in their thousands to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to demand that former President Hosni Mubarak and members of his ousted regime be brought to trial face accusations of corruption, vote-rigging and abuse of dissidents.

Such prosecutions are a central aim of the 18-day popular movement that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11 after nearly three decades of autocratic rule, both to heal old wounds and to try to ensure the ex-officials don't creep back to power. Many in Egypt's pro-reform camp say the current military rulers are not moving fast enough to meet those and other demands to transform their country's politics.

"Those who killed the demonstrators, those who stole the money, those who cheated in the elections - they are still here; nobody has been tried, and the army is being slow in taking decisions," said Mama Noura, a 45-year-old woman among the protesters who wore a baseball camp emblazoned with the words "I Love Egypt."

Egyptian prosecutors are going after top figures in the former regime and others associated with it, including businessmen, politicians and security officials.

On Thursday, Justice Ministry officials imposed a travel ban on three top associates of Mubarak, citing corruption suspicions. They are Parliament speaker Fathi Surour, presidential chief of staff Zakariya Azmi, and ruling party head Safwat el-Sherif.

Several ex-officials, including Cabinet ministers, have been referred to trial to face corruption charges. The Interior Minister and other security officials have been charged with the deaths of some of the estimated 300 people killed during the crackdown on protests, which started Jan. 25.

Authorities have also placed Mubarak and his family under house arrest and frozen their assets abroad.

Some of those at Friday's protest noted, however, that no trial dates have been set and no charges have been filed against Mubarak since he was forced out of power.

Reflecting their fears, the protest was called "The Friday for Rescuing the Revolution."

"Our revolution isn't yet done. We are afraid it will be snatched away from us," said Ula Dabous, 30, who walked to the square with her niece. "That's our biggest concern."

In the most dramatic display of those worries, Egyptians unwilling to wait for authorities to act stormed offices of the hated State Security agency last month, seizing documents to keep them from being destroyed to hide evidence of human rights abuses.

A couple of weeks later, the agency was dissolved, but many fear some of its 100,000 members are still working underground to derail the bumpy transition to democracy.

Speakers addressing the crowd on Friday at different spots in the vast square said Mubarak should face justice. Some even called for his public execution in Tahrir Square.

Weeks after the uprising, there are also concerns about the political path ahead. The ruling military council, which took over from Mubarak, says it will hand the country back to civilian rule and that parliamentary elections will be held in September and presidential elections a month or two after.

But some Egyptians are anxious that emerging political parties, whose formation was severely restricted until now, will not have enough time to prepare and compete with established forces like the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of Mubarak's party.

Some supporters of the Brotherhood, the country's best organized opposition movement, came out to Tahrir to say other Egyptians should not fear them.

"We are here to reassure people - especially Christians - that we don't want to oppress them. The Muslim Brotherhood is not the boogeyman that the former regime claimed it was," said Kamila el-Sharawi.

Some of the nascent political forces sought to build support among the Tahrir crowd by appealing to the anti-Israel sentiment that runs deep in Egypt despite a 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

To wild cheers, Ashraf Huweidar of the Union of Popular Socialism told a crowd of several thousand that his new party would cancel the peace agreement if it came to power - something the military leadership has indicated it won't allow.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/01/2145547/thousands-call-for-trials-of-egypt.html#ixzz1IIKovn93

Syrians detain 2 Americans during demonstrations

2011-03-27T02:30:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON POST - Syrians detain 2 Americans during demonstrations

By DIAA HADID, Saturday, March 26, 11:28 PM

Eds: Adds comment from State Department spokesman. For global distribution.

CAIRO — Syrian authorities have detained two Americans amid an unprecedented wave of protests in the repressive Middle East nation, relatives and state media said Saturday.

Syria's state news agency Sana alleged that a man with dual U.S.-Egyptian citizenship had "confessed" to selling photos and videos of demonstrations to a Colombian woman. He was later identified by relatives as Mohammed Radwan, 32, of Austin Texas.

Syrian government television has been blaming foreigners, among others, for the unrest that began more than a week ago.

Radwan's cousin, Nora Shalaby, told The Associated Press that she last heard from him on Friday when he tweeted that he was at a mosque in Damascus where security forces were clashing with anti-government protesters.

Shalaby said her cousin was an engineer and had been working in Syria.

The state news agency said Radwan also confessed to visiting Israel. Syria is formally at war with the Jewish state, and visiting Israel is considered taboo. The accusation is sometimes used as a hint that they believe the person is a spy.

Meanwhile, a Vermont man said his 21-year-old son Pathik "Tik" Root — who had been missing since March 18 — has been found to be safe in Syrian custody.

Tom Root said his son, a Middlebury College student who had been studying Arabic in Damascus as part of a program through Damascus University — was detained during a demonstration in the capital.

Root said in a message posted Saturday on Middlebury's website that he believes his son was watching, and not participating, in the demonstration.

He said he had "great news" from Syria's ambassador to Washington, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and others that his son remains in Syrian custody and is safe.

"We very much appreciate the efforts of Ambassador Imad Moustapha and Senator Leahy in continuing to work to bring this complex situation to a resolution," Root wrote, adding, "please know how much we value everyone's good wishes and hopes."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. was aware of reports that two American citizens have been detained in Syria and said U.S. Embassy personnel are reaching out to Syrian authorities to obtain more information.

The Syrian Embassy in Washington was closed and officials couldn't be reached for comment.

___

Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report from Washington.

Egypt's public prosecutor accuses top security officials of killing protesters

2011-03-25T00:27:00.001-07:00

FORBES - Egypt's public prosecutor accuses top security officials of killing protesters

By DIAA HADID | Associated Press | Mar 23, 2011 2:52 PM CDT in World

Egypt's public prosecutor made an unprecedented sweep Wednesday against the top security brass, charging the former interior minister and other officials with aiding the murder and the attempted murder of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

The charges are the first move by Egypt's military-appointed provisional government to hold former officials accountable for the killings of some 300 demonstrators during mass protests that toppled Mubarak's regime on Feb. 11 after nearly 30 years of rule.

The charges are in stark contrast to the almost-total freedom that security forces had during Mubarak's reign, when thousands of Egyptians faced humiliations large and small _ from torture to paying out police to dodge falsified charges.

Top prosecutor Abdul-Magid Mahmoud said former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, who is in prison on other charges, and the heads of the state, public and central security agencies aided the killing of protesters during the uprising that began in January.

A series of officers and policemen in 11 other Egyptian provinces and cities, including the seaside metropolis of Alexandria, were also charged.

"They killed and wounded a number of citizens as they protested peacefully in these provinces," Mahmoud said in a statement released to official media.

The charges paves the way for a newer generation of midlevel security officials to assume the top positions.

A court date to hear the charges is expected to be set soon.

Also Wednesday, Egypt's military rulers endorsed a package of constitutional amendments that were adopted in a nationwide referendum, paving the way for parliamentary and presidential elections within months.

Critics fear the swift timetable could boost the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and members of the former ruling party, but the amendments were overwhelmingly approved by Egyptian voters last week.

Wednesday's declaration by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces _ currently Egypt's top decision making body since Mubarak's ouster _ did not set an election date.

The military rulers have said before that they want to quickly hand over power to a civilian government.

The amendments eased conditions for independent candidates to run elections and limited presidents to two four-year terms. They also ensured fair and free elections

Protesters light Egypt's Interior Ministry building on fire

2011-03-25T00:22:00.001-07:00

TORONTO STAR Protesters light Egypt's Interior Ministry building on fire

Diaa Hadid Associated Press

CAIRO—An Egyptian security official says police protesting in front of Egypt's Interior Ministry have set fire to part of the downtown complex.

TV footage shows flames licking up the building's top floors and a huge plume of black smoke filling the sky.

The official says protesters lit Tuesday's fire in the building housing in the ministry's personnel department. It then spread to an adjacent building.

The fire followed a protest by thousands of low-ranking police officers calling for better wages and working conditions.

Mass demonstrations that toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11 have set off frequent protests by labourers seeking to improve their lot.

Also Tuesday, Egypt's public prosecutor indicted the former finance and information ministers in a criminal court on charges of wasting public funds, the official state news agency MENA reported.

The cases are among a number brought forward by prosecutors who have been investigating corruption charges made after an uprising that toppled Mubarak erupted on Jan. 25.

"The public prosecutor ordered the referral of former Information Minister Anas el-Fekky and former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali to Cairo's criminal court on charges of deliberately wasting public funds," MENA said.

In February, Egyptian investigators ordered the detention of Fekky on suspicion of profiteering and wasting public funds. Fekky's detention would continue, MENA said on Tuesday.

Investigations showed Fekky demanded 36 million Egyptian pounds ($6 million) from the finance minister to cover media expenses for parliamentary elections as well as media campaigns to promote the political events and achievements made since Mubarak took office in 1981, MENA said.

Ghali reportedly accepted the requested sum, MENA said, citing a spokesman for the public prosecutor. Part of the amount was spent by Fekky in breach of the cabinet's operating standards, MENA said.

Hamas protests UN plans to teach Holocaust in Gaza

2011-03-22T04:34:00.001-07:00

Denver Post - Hamas protests UN plans to teach Holocaust in Gaza

By DIAA HADID and IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip—The United Nations has launched a new plan to teach the Holocaust in Gaza schools, drawing fierce condemnation from Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, school teachers—and even the body tasked with peace negotiations with Israel.

If implemented, it would be the first time most Palestinian children learn about Jewish suffering. But the outcry underscores how sensitive the issue is to Palestinians.

"Playing with the education of our children in the Gaza Strip is a red line," Hamas Education Minister, Mohammed Asqoul told a website of the group. He said Hamas will block attempts to teach the Holocaust "regardless of the price."

The uproar erupted after a U.N. official told a Jordanian daily in February that UNRWA, the main U.N. agency serving Palestinian refugees, would introduce a short case study about the Holocaust to Gaza students as part of its human rights curriculum.

"Instead of pre-emptive accusations, it is important for Palestinians ... to fully understand the tragedies and suffering that happened to all people through generations, without divvying up facts and taking things out of context," the official, Sami Mushasha, was quoted as saying.

UNRWA representatives refused to comment on the record, but one official said the agency was committed to introducing the curriculum for the next school year, beginning in September.

He added that officials were hesitating because they feared Hamas would incite loyalists to damage U.N. schools or harm their teachers if they introduce the materials. He requested anonymity because he was barred from discussing the matter with the media.

Hamas frequently accuses the U.N. of spreading immorality, and unknown assailants have attacked the agency's property in the past, including the torching of summer camps last year.

Since Hamas seized power of Gaza in 2007, it has viewed the U.N. as the main challenger to their influence in the coastal territory. Officials have tried to limit the international group's vast influence in Gaza, where it operates schools for some 200,000 children.

But the controversy over teaching the Holocaust in Gaza is more than a power struggle between the U.N. and Hamas, whose militant officials frequently deny the Nazi genocide of European Jewry ever occurred.

Many Palestinians are reluctant to acknowledge Jewish suffering, fearing it would diminish recognition of their own claims. Views range from outright denial to challenging the scope of the Holocaust.

Even Hamas' bitter enemy, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank, reacted angrily to the U.N. plan. And the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the chief body tasked with negotiating peace with Israel, rejected the idea.

"Teaching the Holocaust to Palestinian students in U.N. schools is unacceptable," said Zakaria al-Agha, a member of the PLO's executive committee.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called the Palestinian responses "obscene." Israelis consider the Holocaust a central event in modern Jewish history.

Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II, and the need to find a sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors contributed to Israel's creation after World War II.

In a war that followed Israel's declaration of independence, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.

The Palestinians call this dispersal their "Nakba," or catastrophe, and many see the events linked. As such, recognizing the Holocaust is often seen as tantamount to acknowledging Jewish claims to the land.

Israeli officials have long said that Palestinian recognition of Jewish suffering is a necessary step toward peace. But for Gaza residents, empathy is particularly difficult: Most of the territory's 1.5 million residents live in poverty, facing Israeli restrictions in commerce and travel, and hundreds of civilians were killed in an Israeli military offensive against Hamas two years ago, aimed at stopping daily rocket attacks at Israel by Gaza militants.

Yet even if the U.N. moves ahead with the plan this year, it could face another obstacle: its own schoolteachers.

In about a dozen interviews, they said they did not want to teach the materials and warned of rebellion.

"The agency will open the gates of hell with this step," said one schoolteacher, Sami. "This will not work."

———

Hadid reported from Jerusalem.

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5 protesters killed in Syria, activist says; amateur video shows unrest around country

2011-03-19T21:49:00.001-07:00

5 protesters killed in Syria, activist says; amateur video shows unrest around country

By Associated Press, Friday, March 18, 5:39 PM

BEIRUT — Syrian security forces launched a harsh crackdown Friday on protesters calling for political freedoms, killing at least five people and marking the gravest unrest in years in one of the most repressive states in the Mideast, according to accounts from activists and social media.

Mazen Darwish, a prominent Syrian activist in Damascus, said at least five people were shot and killed when security forces tried to disperse hundreds of protesters in the southern town of Daraa, near the Jordanian border. He cited eyewitnesses and hospital officials at the scene.

Friday's violence happened during one of several demonstrations across the country in Homs, Banyas and the capital, Damascus. But only the Daraa protest turned deadly, Darwish said.

Serious disturbances in Syria would be a major expansion of the wave of unrest tearing through the Arab world for more than a month in the wake of pro-democracy uprisings that overthrew the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ruled by minority Alawites, has a history of brutally crushing dissent — including a notorious massacre in which President Hafez Assad crushed a Muslim fundamentalist uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, killing thousands.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was concerned about the reported deaths in Daraa and said the use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators was unacceptable.

"The Secretary-General believes that, as elsewhere, it is the responsibility of the government in Syria to listen to the legitimate aspirations of the people and address them through inclusive political dialogue and genuine reforms, not repression," said his spokesman, Martin Nesirky.

On Friday, Syrian forces used water cannons, batons and gunfire to beat up protesters in Daraa. The violence began when a large group of people emerged from the Al-Omari mosque, marching and shouting slogans against corruption and calling for more political freedoms.

A human rights activist told The Associated Press that security forces cordoned the main hospital in Daraa where some of the wounded were being treated, preventing families from visiting the victims. He cited hospital workers, but spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

The government's TV channel and news agency said "infiltrators" in Daraa caused "chaos and riots" and smashed cars and public and private property before they attacked riot police. It said a similar demonstration in the coastal town of Banyas dispersed without incident.

Amateur video footage posted on YouTube and Twitter showed large groups of protesters in several cities, but the authenticity of the footage could not be independently confirmed.

A YouTube video claiming to be shot in Banyas showed several thousand demonstrators gathering around an old stone building with a Syrian flag fluttering from its roof. A cluster of men stood on its balcony with a loudspeaker. Amid chants of "Freedom!" and "There is only one God!," one man shouted out a list of protesters demands ranging from freedom of expression to allowing Muslim women with face veils to attend school.

In the capital, plainclothes security officers forcefully dispersed about a dozen protesters calling for more freedoms in the country, human rights activists said earlier in the day.

The activists said the protest occurred in the yard of Damascus' famous Ummayad Mosque shortly after Friday prayers. At least two protesters were detained, they said.

The protest was the third small rally broken up in Damascus this week.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, a 45-year-old British-trained eye doctor, inherited power from his father in 2000 after three decades of authoritarian rule. He has since moved slowly to lift Soviet-style economic restrictions, letting in foreign banks, throwing the doors open to imports and empowering the private sector.

The early years of his rule raised hopes of a freer society; salons where political and economic issues were openly debated sprang up across the country.

But the "Damascus Spring" as it came to be known was short-lived. In 2001, secret police began raiding the salons, jailing two lawmakers and scores of other activists in the years that followed.

In 2004, bloody clashes that began in the northeastern city of Qamishli between Syrian Kurds and security forces left at least 25 people dead and some 100 injured.

Although Assad keeps a tight lid on any form of political dissent, he is seen by many Arabs as one of the few leaders in the region willing to stand up to Israel.

Assad told The Wall Street Journal in February that Syria is insulated from the upheaval in the Arab world because he understands his people's needs and has united them in common cause against Israel.

Also Friday, eight Syrian human rights groups said a prosecutor had questioned and charged dozens of demonstrators with hurting the state's image.

The groups said the 32 activists denied the charges. They included four relatives of political prisoner Kamal Labawani, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence.

The activists were detained Wednesday when plainclothes security officers armed with batons dispersed a protest near the Interior Ministry demanding the release of political prisoners.

___

Karam reported from Cairo. Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.

As Arab world's protests draw closer, Saudi monarch offers money and reforms to his kingdom

2011-03-18T08:34:00.001-07:00

As Arab world's protests draw closer, Saudi monarch offers money and reforms to his kingdom

By DIAA HADID , Associated Press

Last update: March 18, 2011 - 8:28 A

CAIRO - Saudi Arabia's king promised a multibillion dollar package of reforms, raises, cash, loans and apartments on Friday in what appeared to be the Arab world's most expensive attempt to appease residents inspired by the unrest that has swept two leaders from power.

He also announced 60,000 new jobs in the security forces — a move that would employ huge numbers of otherwise jobless young men, while bolstering his kingdom's ability to snuff out protests.

The ailing 86-year-old King Abdullah, his soft voice trembling, rarely looked up from his notes in the speech broadcast live on Saudi television.

Though protests in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia have been tiny and were swiftly quelled, the monarchy apparently fears they could escalate as have others around the Arab world — particularly in the neighboring island of Bahrain, where Saudi troops lead a 1,500-strong Gulf military force against Shiite demonstrators.

Saudi demonstrators have mostly come from the Shiite-dominated eastern quarter of the kingdom. They share similar grievances as their Shiite brethren in the nearby island monarchy, and the Sunni powers fear their unrest will give an opening for Shiite Iran to expand its influence on the Arab side of the Gulf.

But the changes announced by Abdullah did not loosen the tribal monarchy's tight hold on power — a key demand of Saudi opposition figures. The gesture also overlooked requests by intellectuals to release political prisoners and reform the country's decision-making process.

Abdullah thanked residents and security forces and asked them to remember him in their prayers.

"You are the shields of this homeland and the beating hand of those who dare challenge its security and stability. May God bless you and your actions," the king said in the three-minute speech.

King Abdullah is popular, though critics protest the closed, autocratic system he heads.

News readers — not the king — read the series of royal decrees promising a minimum wage increase, cash gifts and an anti-corruption drive. No total cost was given for the package.

The sweeteners include an additional two months' wages for all government workers and two extra payments for university students worth around $500. He raised the monthly minimum wage to $800 and announced a monthly payment of around $260 to the country's unemployed. The king set aside around $70 billion to build 500,000 apartments for low-income residents. He promised millions more capital for the government's housing loan fund and raised the maximum loan for homes to around $130,000.

The king vowed to fight corruption with the creation of a new body answerable directly to him. He promised billions for the health sector — announcing new research centers around the country, homes for medics and thousands of new hospital beds. He also promised an extra $40 million for private hospitals.

In a boon to the country's conservatives, he vowed around $130 million to build and renovate mosques and around $50 million each for Islamic centers that teach the Muslim holy book and to build offices for the country's religious police.

Starkly absent from the promises were any funds for the country's education system. The King vowed to pressure private businesses to employ more Saudi residents and said he would crack down on merchants who raised the prices of basic goods.

The new swath of promises were the second series of sweeteners offered to Saudi residents. Earlier this month, the King ordered roughly $37 billion to be pumped into various programs targeting the oil kingdom's lower income population.

And the oil-rich country also promised to fund part of a $20 billion in financial aid package earlier this month to the Gulf states of Bahrain and Oman in attempts there to quell demonstrations in both countries with promises of more cash.

It remains to be seen if the sweeteners will placate residents weary of the tribal monarchy's tight grip on power.