Gaza

NOVANEWS   In new video released by friends of Italian activist executed in Gaza on Friday, Vittorio Arrigoni says the need to help with the Palestinian struggle is in his blood; two suspects have reportedly been arrested so far. Friends of the Italian Palestinian activist executed by Islamist militants in Gaza released a video of Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza, saying that the day of his arrival to the strip was the happiest of his life. “My grandfathers fought and died struggling against an occupation,” Arrigoni says in the video, referring to the Nazis in Italy. “For this reason, in my DNA, blood, there are particles that push me to struggle.”   The body of Arrigoni was found hanging in the home of a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip early Friday, hours after he w...

NOVANEWS   Body of Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni found hanging in apartment of Gaza militants earlier in day; Hamas holds rally to honor the activist, says the perpetrators will be punished. Hamas indirectly accused Israhell on Friday of engineering the killing of an Italian Palestinian peace activist in Gaza in order to intimidate other foreign activists hoping to sail to Gaza as part of the next flotilla. “Such an awful crime cannot take place without arrangements between all the parties concerned to keep the blockade imposed on Gaza,” Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said at a rally held by the group to honor executed Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni. In this Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008 photo, Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni carries an aid box from the ‘Free G...

  In a bizarre twist, an ISM activist has been kidnapped in Gaza, AFP reports: A Salafist group of radical Islamists kidnapped an Italian activist in Gaza on Thursday and threatened to kill him, the group and aid workers said. Foreign aid workers in the enclave named the man as Vittorio Arrigoni and said he was an activist with a pro-Palestinian group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who was also working as a journalist and writer. In a video posted on YouTube, the Salafist group said it had taken him hostage in order to secure the release of an unspecified number of their members who had been arrested by the security forces in Gaza Strip. It said it would execute him if their demands were not met by 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday. "We kidnapped...

NOVANEWS       If their demands are not met within 30 hours they will execute him. If you have some way to be helpful please e-mail me at maxsajl at gmail dot com.   Related posts: footage from Mavi marmara My article on Truthout, too. Tech­no­rati Tags: freedom flotilla,... violence in Tahrir Square Earlier today, hired thugs threw Molotov cocktails at peaceful pro­test­ers... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

NOVANEWS   Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC Hatem Moussa/ AP - In this August 29, 2008 file photo, international activist Vittorio Utmpio Arrigoni, from Italy, holds his passport during a protest against the Israeli siege on Gaza, in Gaza City By Joel Greenberg, JERUSALEM — A pro-Palestinian activist from Italy who had been abducted by an extremist group in the Gaza Strip was found strangled to death early Friday, the first such slaying of a foreigner in the coastal territory ruled by the militant group Hamas. The body of Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was discovered by Hamas security forces in an empty house in Gaza City a day after he had been seized, officials said. Arrigoni had been strangled with a plastic handcuff strip, said Khalil Abu Shamala, director of A...

NOVANEWS   Children Killed During Gaza War – File Alhawra.com The Israeli prosecution intends to close an investigation that was initiated to reveal the circumstances that led to the death of four Palestinian civilians, including a three-year –old child, after Israeli soldiers opened fire at them during the Gaza War despite the fact that they carried white flags. Israeli paper, Haaretz, said that the investigation is considered the largest of its kind and included listening to testimonies of 140 soldiers and Palestinian witnesses. The incident took place on January, 5, 2009, in Al Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza city after Israel started the ground assault on Gaza following a week of aerial strikes and artillery bombardment. On that day, the second phase of Operation Cast Lead,...

NOVANEWS Rise in Attacks, Detentions by Palestinian Security Services A Palestinian man sells newspapers in front of his shop in the Gaza strip in 2007. Hamas has since banned the Al-Ayyam daily, pictured on the lower rack. © 2007 Reuters Palestinian security forces are becoming notorious for assaulting and intimidating journalists who are just trying to do their jobs. Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza need to end these blatant attacks on free expression. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director (Ramallah) - Severe harassment by Palestinian Authority and Hamas security forces targeting Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza has had a pronounced chilling effect on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch sai...

NOVANEWS   Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC by crescentandcross   Ma’an news GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Officials in the Gaza Strip’s northernmost municipality accused Monday, Israeli forces of striking drinking water sources and infrastructure during a weekend of violence that saw at least 18 dead in the coastal enclave. Gaza’s municipality released a report, cataloging damage to the water infrastructure from artillery shells over the weekend, which included damages to the Al-Mintar water tank in Al-Quba area of Gaza City, which gives water to the eastern areas of Ash-Shuj’iyeh neighborhood. The area was targeted for an estimated one third of strikes over the weekend, marked as the deadliest three days since the close of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which kille...

NOVANEWS by crescentandcross   By Samah Sabawi The media coverage of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza that left many dead and many more injured echoes Israel’s claim that it was part of an escalation that began on Thursday when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and lightly injuring the driver. Such claims ignore the reality that systematic violence against the Palestinians has never stopped. In fact, in the weeks before the school bus incident between 16-29 March, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Israel has killed a total of 14 Palestinians, including six civilians, and injured 52 Palestinians, including at least 40 civilians (19 children). In that same period, three...

NOVANEWS ""Gilad described Dahlan as a man whose emotional and mental health was deteriorating to the point that he 'collapsed' in Gilad's arms when the latter met him on the evening of September 16," Dibble wrote. "Gilad described the meeting as follows: 'Dahlan was there with his daughter-in-law. I told him 'You are sick,' and he started screaming and shouting at me. He shouted for hours. We called a doctor and suggested he go to a hospital. He refused and said he had to speak to thousands of Palestinians on September 17. He then collapsed on his bed. He looked ghostly white ... I said, 'If you leave this room you will either be martyred or end up paralyzed.' He broke down in my arms and said he would go to hospital. We arranged a VIP room at a hospital in Tel Aviv and took him...