Craig Appleby did not take part in the Second Lebanon War. The 36-year-old Briton from Farnham came to Lebanon in September 2007, more than a year after the end of the fighting. A month later he had joined the list of war dead.

An Israeli cluster bomblet, one of hundreds of thousands of bomblets contained in cluster rockets that the Israel Defense Forces fired at Lebanon during the war, blew up in his hands not far from Bint Jbail. Appleby, a British Army veteran who was head of one of the UN cluster munition clearing teams in South Lebanon, was killed instantly. A week earlier, a six-year-old Lebanese boy and a shepherd were also killed by bomblets.

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On Wednesday afternoon a group of 50 Palestinians, Israelis and international Human Rights activists gathered at Har Homa settlement, known to Palestinians as Abu Ghinim settlement, which is built on land illegally taken by the Israeli army from the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The non-violent action was organized by the Israeli communist party, it came to protest against the expansion of the settlement, which comes weeks after the Annapolis Conference, and is in clear breach of the 2003 USA sponsored Road Map Peace Plan.

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Last night the rains finally arrived in Beit Jala, a small town in the West Bank, one kilometer west of Bethlehem and about eight kilometers south of Jerusalem. Its alluring hills are covered with olive trees, vineyards and apricots. In 1967 Israel confiscated 22 percent of Beit Jala’s land. Now, the construction of Israel’s separation wall is in full swing and will cut off another 45 per cent of Beit Jala’s land. We went to visit the area to feel the impact of the wall and listen to the stories of the farmers who didn’t sell their land and choose to resist the its confiscation.

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In the European Union, Canada and the United States, numerous organizations – including many national liberation movements and organizations – are listed as “designated terrorist organizations.” This status is used in an attempt to criminalize popular resistance and national liberation movements, equate those movements with “terrorism,” frighten and silence communities’ support of their national movements, and potentially penalize supporters of the Palestinian cause, as well as other national liberation movements.

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Friday, December 21
12 noon to 1pm
The Israeli Consulate
Peel & Rene Levesque

Since Monday, December 17, in a series of air strikes that are continuing, Israel killed 24 and wounded dozens of residents of the Gaza strip leaving some of them with severed limbs. Israeli air strikes in the past also bombed crowded streets and markets in Gaza — Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth — resulting in many civilian casualties.

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Palestinian medical sources reported on Tuesday that six Palestinians have been killed and 19 others wounded, during an Israeli army ground offensive on southern Gaza Strip today.

Dr. Moa’wiya Abu Hasanin, chief of emergency room of the health ministry, told the IMEMC that a number of the wounded had to undergo surgery to amputate limbs and that majority of those killed had burns all over their bodies.

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For decades, efforts to bring about a two-state solution in historic Palestine have failed to provide justice and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish peoples, or to offer a genuine process leading towards them.

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Photo: Israeli Settlement in the West Bank

Israel’s housing ministry said yesterday it plans to build 307 new homes in a settlement in East Jerusalem, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinian officials.

Tenders were published for housing units in Har Homa, a settlement to the south-east of the city on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war and later annexed. East Jerusalem is now home to around 200,000 Jewish settlers. Most of the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of the east of the city.

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A presentation given by Brian Aboud in Montreal on Wednesday, October 17th, hosted by Tadamon! Montreal & the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at McGill University within the context of the campaign to challenging Hezbollah’s listing as a ’Terrorist’ Group in Canada.

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Listen to a presentation from Bilal Elamine, the former editor of Left Turn magazine concerning the role of Hezbollah as a political force in Lebanon, touching on the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, the recent political crisis / turmoil in Lebanon, including the general strike of 2006 and opposition demonstrations.

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