Palestinians turn back clock in Israel struggle
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Tom Perry, Ali Sawafta - May 16, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinians who forced their way across Israel's border on Sunday turned back the clock on the Middle East conflict, putting centre stage the refugee question that many believed would be negotiated away. Protests at Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon also cast the spotlight on a diaspora marginalised in Palestinian politics since Yasser Arafat moved from exile to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip two decades ago.

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Israel’s border bloodshed: Will Syria be held accountable?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
(Editorial) May 16, 2011 - 12:00am

THE SYRIAN regime of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday made a desperate effort to distract attention from its continuing, bloody assaults on its own people. Hundreds of Palestinians were bused from refu­gee camps near Damascus to the de facto border with Israel in the Golan Heights, where they broke through a fence and invaded a nearby town. Surprised and badly outnumbered, Israeli troops eventually opened fire, killing at least one person.

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Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria bury dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Albert Aji - May 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria carried coffins through the streets of their refugee camps Monday as they buried those killed when protesters marched on Israel's border. Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of Arab protesters who marched toward Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations, killing at least 15 people, including 10 in Lebanon. The Palestinians were marking a Palestinian day of mourning for their displacement in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948.

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Palestinian president calls for 3 days of mourning for 15 dead in marches on Israeli borders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
May 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday declared three days of mourning for 15 people killed in mass marches toward multiple Israeli borders that marked a stunning new tactic in the struggle for Palestinian statehood. Sunday’s marches, on the date Palestinians mourn their uprooting as a result of Israel’s 1948 creation, illustrated Arab dissatisfaction with the deadlocked efforts to establish a Palestinian state. The unprecedented tactic also reflected an Arab world emboldened by the anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East this year.

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Israeli massacre at Lebanon border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Mohammed Zaatari - May 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Ten Palestinian protesters were shot dead and 112 others wounded Sunday by Israeli forces along Lebanon’s borders with Israel as thousands of unarmed Palestinians rallied to the frontier to mark the Nakba, the 63rd anniversary of the expulsion from their homeland. Thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, some wrapped in kaffiyehs, flocked in buses from various Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon to the borders, in a rally they called “the march to return to Palestine.” The buses carried the names of Palestinian villages whose residents were displaced in 1948.

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'Shooting at Syrian protesters may violate int'l law'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ron Friedman - May 15, 2011 - 12:00am

The breach of the Israeli border by Syrian protesters was an unprecedented act in modern history and a clear violation of Israeli sovereignty as determined by article 51 of the UN Charter, an international law expert said on Sunday. At the same time, Dr. Daphne Richmond-Barak from the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, said that firing on civilians was also a breach of international law, and that once the details of the event were made clear, Israel would have to explain its actions.

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Palestinian teen buried in Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 14, 2011 - 12:00am

Around 2,000 mourners laid the body of a Palestinian teen killed in Jerusalem clashes to rest on Saturday. Milad Said Ayyash was fatally wounded on Friday as Palestinians across occupied East Jerusalem staged protests in the runup to Sunday's anniversary of the 1948 creation of Israel, an event known to Palestinians as the "nakba" or "catastrophe."

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Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, or, democratic Israel at work
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) May 12, 2011 - 12:00am

It happened on the day after Independence Day, when Israel was immersed in praise of itself and its democracy almost ad nauseam, and on the eve of (virtually outlawed ) Nakba Day, when the Palestinian people mark the "catastrophe" - the anniversary of the creation of Israel. My colleague Akiva Eldar published what we have always known but for which we lacked the shocking figures he revealed: By the time of the Oslo Accords, Israel had revoked the residency of 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank.

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1 killed in Jerusalem gunfight
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 9, 2011 - 12:00am

Four armed men opened fire on an East Jerusalem resident near a restaurant in the town Al-Eizariya on Sunday, witnesses said. The target, Samir Muheisen, sustained 10 gunshot wounds to the torso and medics said he was declared dead in hospital. Clashes erupted in an area east of the incident, in Abu Dis near the campus of Al-Quds University. Students were evacuated from the campus by security until calm was restored, officials said. PA security forces and medical teams were called into the area to disperse the clashes, reporting several injuries from clubs and fire arms.

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Gaza government executes spy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Gaza's Ministry of the Interior announced the death Wednesday of a man convicted of collaboration, identified only as A.S., and said to have been found guilty of spying. It is the sixth execution that has been carried out by the Gaza government, in contradiction to a Palestinian law that necessitates the approval of the president before death sentences are carried out. The ministry said in a statement that the death sentence was carried out after all means of appeal had been completed, and after obtaining the approval of the Gaza government.

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