Israel to hold urgent hearing for Palestinian hunger-striker Issawi
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ahram Online
February 19, 2013 - 1:00am

Israel's Magistrate Court calls for an urgent court hearing on Tuesday for Palestinian prisoner Samer Al-Issawi, who has been on a hunger strike for 210 days. Al-Issawi was released from Israeli detention in October 2011 as part of the prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israeli authorities. However, the Israeli authorities rearrested Al-Issawi on 7 July, 2012 for allegedly breaking the terms of conditions of his release.

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Palestinian voter registration extended for two days
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 18, 2013 - 1:00am

The Palestinian Elections Commission (CEC) on Monday extended the registration of new voters in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for two more days. The updating of voter registration records was supposed to end Monday, but as more people are going to the registration centers, Palestinian groups recommended the CEC to extend the period of registration, said Hisham Kuhail, the CEC executive director.

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Hunger Striker Samer Issawi Invisible to Israeli Society
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Shlomi Eldar - (Opinion) February 17, 2013 - 1:00am

Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi from the village of Issawiya has been on hunger strike for more than 200 days now. “Two hundred days? How is he still alive?” I asked Khader Adnan. If anyone could give me a reliable answer to this question, it's Adnan. After all, he started the wave of hunger strikes in Israeli prisons about a year ago, and since his release he has emerged as one of the most prominent activists on behalf of Palestinian prisoners.

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Palestinians struggle to farm in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - February 17, 2013 - 1:00am

Zuhair Al Manasrah sat in his office where he manages plantations of 20,000 date palms and described the risk he took as a Palestinian investing in agriculture. "It's difficult to farm anything when you're under occupation," said Mr Al Manasrah, 69, who spent stints as the governor of Bethlehem and Jenin before turning full-time to farming.

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Haneen Zoabi, Israeli Lawmaker, Is Reviled by Jews — and Adored by Arabs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Forward
by Ben Lynfield - (Opinion) February 16, 2013 - 1:00am

At the Knesset in West Jerusalem, she has been threatened, denounced as a terrorist and stripped of her parliamentary privileges. Israel’s new kingmaker, Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, has cited her as the reason he would never join a coalition that depended on support from Israeli-Arab political parties. But at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, chatting earnestly over a cup of espresso and a slice of cake, Haneen Zoabi is interrupted repeatedly by waves and smiles, and by requests by passers-by to have their picture taken with her.

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Leila Khaled, the 1970s Palestinian revolutionary, is still passionate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jennifer Jajeh - February 16, 2013 - 1:00am

It looks like Leila Khaled has stood me up. It's my last day in Amman, and she's arranged to meet me in front of the Sofra restaurant at noon. It's now 12:45pm. Tired of the unwanted attention I'm receiving as a woman standing alone on the street, I duck into Café des Artistes next door and order an overpriced espresso in the hope they'll let me use their phone to call her again. She answers this time and tells me she is stuck at a meeting for the Palestinian National Council, but will meet me in another 30 minutes.

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West Bank teachers to strike Sunday, Thursday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 16, 2013 - 1:00am

All schools across the West Bank will be on general strike Sunday and Thursday, the general union of West Bank teachers announced Saturday. Secretary of the union of south Nablus area teachers Izz Dawabsha told Ma’an the decision to go on strike was taken unanimously in a meeting the union of West Bank teachers held Saturday. The move, he said, comes to protest failure of the Palestinian government to pay January wages, highlighting that Thursday's strike will be cancelled if salaries are paid before then.

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Palestinians Need To Learn The Lesson On Antisemitism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Emily L. Hauser - (Opinion) February 15, 2013 - 1:00am

On January 31, Ma’an News Agency ran an opinion piece on its Arabic-language website in which the author, Ghassan Mustafa al-Shami, unleashed his decidedly vile opinion that the Holocaust is a “myth” spread and exploited by Jews for our own nefarious ends:

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4 Border Guards convicted of abusing helpless Palestinian
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Elior Levy - February 15, 2013 - 1:00am

Four Border Guard officers were convicted Thursday on charges of aggravated assault and abuse of a helpless person for their involvement in a 2009 incident in which they abused a Palestinian near a Givat Ze'ev checkpoint.

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Swedish photographer wins World Press Photo award
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Toby Sterling - February 15, 2013 - 1:00am

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the 2012 World Press Photo award Friday for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral. The picture shows a group of men marching the dead bodies through a narrow street in Gaza City. The victims, a brother and sister, are wrapped in white cloth with only their faces showing.

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