Student council calls on peers to support goods boycott
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

University student councils offered their full support for the Palestinian Authority boycott of settlement goods on Wednesday, vowing to ensure students implement the embargo. Head of the An-Najah University student senate Makram Daraghmeh said all Palestinian universities would organize events and activties in the coming days, aimed at encouraging students to participate in the boycott. "The decision will build and pave the way for the boycott of all Israeli products in the future. It is a decision in favor of popular resistance against the occupation," Daraghmeh said.

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West Bank health and economy up a bit, Gaza down
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

With a failing economy, rising unemployment and deteriorating power, sanitation and health facilities, the health of Gaza's population continues to worsen, according to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report. In contrast, modest improvements have been made in the West Bank. As a consequence of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, 98 percent of industrial operations have been shut down since 2007 and there are acute shortages of fuel, cash, cooking gas and other basic supplies.

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Palestinians intensify settlement products boycott
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinians stepped up a campaign against Israeli settlement products Tuesday, with hundreds of volunteers in white T-shirts distributing a brochure with brand names and photos of 500 goods they want West Bank consumers to shun. The campaign drew an angry response from the settlement movement which demanded that Israel close its ports to Palestinian goods. Government officials have said the boycott is counterproductive at a time of renewed peace efforts, but have not threatened retaliation.

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Hamas downplays Israel's threats to re-occupy Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Islamic Hamas movement downplayed on Tuesday reports of Israeli plans to re-occupy the Gaza Strip and appoint an Israeli military governor to run the coastal enclave that is now controlled by Hamas. "It's a meaningless psychological war that aims at reducing the morale of the Palestinian people and their resistance," Hamas spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum, told Xinhua.

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Hamas executions outrage PNA, rights groups
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Saud Abu Ramadan - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the human rights groups on Tuesday condemned the earlier execution of three Gaza residents who were convicted of committing homicide crimes by the deposed Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Ghassan al-Khatib, spokesman of the PNA in the West Bank, told Xinhua that the PNA condemns the execution of the three Palestinians, "these executions are illegal. The legal system in Gaza is messy."

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Industrialists: Palestinians only hurting themselves
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Shmulik Grossman - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Major factory owners in Israel began to gird for battle against a Palestinian boycott of their products Tuesday, following the distribution of thousands of pamphlets to homes in the West Bank explaining which products were now off-limits. In a conversation with Ynet the factory owners called the boycott a "hate campaign" and said it was a political move that would "blow up in Salam Fayyad's face". Avi Elkayam, who represents 300 factory owners in the area of Mishor Adumim, the largest Israeli industrial zone in the West Bank, said the Palestinians were only hurting themselves.

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Palestinians mark 'Nakba' with tears and questions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Paul Wood - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Claudette Habesch stood at the gate of what had once been her family house, tears in her eyes as she pointed to the garden shaded by a large date palm. "It was beautiful, a lot of fun, a lot of happiness," she said, recalling an Arab childhood spent in Jerusalem before her family fled in 1948. "(Then) there was the foundation of the state of Israel - on my own homeland, on my own home." As a little girl, she often used to wonder "who is sleeping in my bed, who is playing with my dog?"

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Gaza's Hamas rulers execute 3 convicted killers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Gaza's Hamas rulers executed three convicted killers and dropped off their bullet-riddled bodies at a hospital Tuesday, despite appeals by human rights activists to halt the practice. The U.N.'s top human rights official has said fair trials demanded under international law before the death penalty can be imposed are virtually impossible in Gaza. The Islamic militant group seized the Palestinian territory by force in 2007 and has established a regime that allows little dissent.

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PNA to start boycotting campaign on settlement products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

A senior Palestinian National Authority (PNA) official on Monday announced that the PNA would start soon a new activity of boycotting products made at Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Hassan Abu Lebda, the PNA minister of economy, told the weekly media program "Face the Press" organized by the Information Ministry, that the new activity of boycotting the products is called "from home to home." "The campaign will be launched on Tuesday, The campaign's representatives will move from one house to another to explain how important the boycott of settlements products is," said Abu Lebda.

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Settlers: PA boycott – economic terror
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Shmulik Grossman - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The Yesha Council on Tuesday morning responded harshly to a new Palestinian Authority campaign distributing a list of banned Israeli companies. "This is an act of hostility with all intents and purposes on the part of the Palestinian Authority and its leaders, and it must be answered immediately and decisively just like any other act of hospitality," the settlers' body said in a statement.

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