Outrage after Palestinian camp attacked in Syria
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Syrian forces killed three people on Monday a day after gunboats pounded Latakia, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee a refugee camp in the port city, activists and a UN agency said. The Palestinians condemned Syria over the violence as the UN Relief and Works Agency reported that more than 5,000 refugees had fled Ramel camp in southern Latakia under fire and demanded immediate access to the site.

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PLO official accuses Syria of crimes against humanity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

An assault by Syrian security forces on a Palestinian refugee camp in the coastal city of Latakia amounts to a crime against humanity, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation said. "The shelling is taking place using gunships and tanks on houses built from tin, on people who have no place to run to or even a shelter to hide in," Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO secretary general, told Reuters. "This is a crime against humanity."

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U.S. Senator seeks to cut aid to elite IDF units operating in West Bank and Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Senator Patrick Leahy claims Shayetet 13 unit, undercover Duvdevan unit, and the Israel Air Force Shaldag unit are involved in human rights violations in occupied territories. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy is promoting a bill to suspend U.S. assistance to three elite Israel Defense Forces units, alleging they are involved in human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Leahy, a Democrat and senior member of the U.S. Senate, wants assistance withheld from the Israel Navy's Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force's Shaldag unit.

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Divided We Execute
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mel Frykberg - (Opinion) August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

The execution of a Palestinian father and son by Hamas security forces in Gaza throws up a sharp difference over the death penalty between Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank a temporary moratorium is in place. The executions were carried out despite pressure from Palestinian and international human rights organisations for the death penalty in the occupied Palestinian territories to be rescinded.

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Syrian Enclave of Palestinians Nearly Deserted After Assault
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Anthony Shadid - August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

United Nations officials said Tuesday that as many as 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee neighborhood in the Syrian port city of Latakia had fled during a four-day assault, as security forces carried out more arrests and intimidation in what residents said was a government attempt to rebuild a wall of fear in one of Syria’s largest cities.

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Medics: Gaza teenager shot dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager near the central Gaza Strip city of Deir Al-Balah late Tuesday, medical officials reported. Medics said the Palestinian, who was not identified, suffered "more than 10" gunshots to the head and upper body after soldiers east of the Al-Masdar area opened fire. Gaza health ministry official Adham Abu Salmiya told Ma’an that an ambulance crew transferred the teenager's body to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.

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Palestinians gather to call for Assad departure
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 15, 2011 - 12:00am

Hundreds of Palestinians streamed into the streets of Ramallah on Sunday evening to demand Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad stand down. The mass demonstration in support of the Syrian people came hours after news broke of Syrian military shelling the port city of Latakia, killing 26. Human rights groups said Palestinians living in a refugee camp in the district of Ramel were among the dead.

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Heavy gunfire as Syrian tanks enter Homs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
August 14, 2011 - 12:00am

DAMASCUS — Syrian troops backed by tanks clamped down Monday on the flashpoint province of Homs, a day after gunboats joined an assault that killed more than 20 people in Latakia city, activists said. As the country's anti-regime uprising turned five months old, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said snipers shot dead an old man in the provincial town of Hula and reported another killing in Latakia. "The community of Hula is under siege ... The army is carrying out raids and arrests under the cover of heavy gunfire" in Homs province, said the Britain-based rights group.

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Paranoia and intrigue on the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - August 14, 2011 - 12:00am

Juliano Mer-Khamis' legacy weighs heavily on the internationally acclaimed youth theatre he founded inside this turbulent Palestinian refugee camp, where some suspect his killer still lurks. In April, a masked gunman shot dead the 52-year-old Israeli actor and filmmaker, born to a Jewish mother and Palestinian father, as he sat in a car in front of his Freedom Theatre in Jenin.

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Court convicts Palestinian of settler family murder
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Maayan Lubell - August 3, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Aug 3 (Reuters) - An Israeli military court found a Palestinian man guilty of murdering five Israeli family members in the occupied West Bank in March, an army spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Hakim Awad, 18, was convicted on Tuesday after he admitted that he and his brother, who is also on trial for murder, had killed a Jewish couple and three of their children, one a three-month-old baby, in their home in the settlement of Itamar.

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