Israel rejects Palestinian hunger striker's appeal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Diaa Hadid - February 13, 2012 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — An Israeli military court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Palestinian man on hunger strike for 58 days to have his jail term reduced, officials said. Lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said a military court judge refused the appeal and that his client, Khader Adnan, will be detained until May 8. A military spokeswoman confirmed the ruling and said Adnan will be expected to carry out the full four-month sentence. The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

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Unequal Neighbors: Off the Grid in Area C
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Charlotte Alfred - February 10, 2012 - 1:00am

MASAFER YATTA (Ma'an) -- Pylons tower over South Hebron Hills village Um al-Kher, hoisting electricity cables that bisect the agricultural community. But like hundreds of their Palestinian neighbors, this tiny hamlet has no access to the power grid. The cables running above the heads of the 150 Um al-Kher residents supply a chicken farm set up a decade ago by the adjacent Karmel settlement, wedging the village on both sides. "They give electricity to the chickens but not to us," says Aziz Muhammad Hadhalin, 26, an engineer and community activist.

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Settlers ‘Raid Nablus Village’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 10, 2012 - 1:00am

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Settlers raided a Nablus-district village overnight Thursday, sparking clashes with residents, a PA official said. Dozens of Israelis from Yitzhar settlement threw stones at a number of homes in Burin, Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an. No injuries have been reported. They smashed car windows on the main road from the Jewish-only settlement, he added. Youth from Burin gathered at the home of Ayman Sufan after it came under attack, and clashed with the group of settlers, Daghlas said.

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2 Hurt in Israeli Attack on North Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes fired on sites across the Gaza Strip early Friday, injuring a young man and a child in northern city Beit Lahiya, a Ma'an correspondent and medical officials said. Medical officials said the child suffered serious injuries to the head and hands. A young man was also hurt, and he was taken to hospital, said Gaza health official Adham Abu Salmiya. In southern Gaza, Israeli forces fired on a house east of Rafah and open lands near Bani Suheila east of Khan Younis, Salmiya added.

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Shin Bet Chief: Iran Trying to Hit Israeli Targets in Response to Attacks on Nuclear Scientists
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

Iran is trying to strike Israeli targets around the world in a bid to stop the assassinations of its nuclear scientists, the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen, said Thursday.

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IDF: Soldier Left in PA Village Refused Locals’ Assistance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yoav Zitun - February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

The IDF force that left one of its soldiers in the Palestinian village of Budrus near Ramallah Wednesday night belongs to the 188th Armored Brigade, where former Hamas captive Gilad Shalit served, Ynet has learned. The soldier who lost contact with his fellow soldiers during activity in the village serves as the battalion commander's signal operator and is considered his right-hand man during operational activity.

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Protesters in Gaza Throw Shoes and Sticks at U.N. Chief
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - February 2, 2012 - 1:00am

GAZA — A convoy carrying Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations was pelted with shoes and sticks by Palestinian protesters when it entered the Gaza Strip from Israel on Thursday, witnesses said. About 100 men and women who said their family members were being held in Israeli prisons had arrived in buses near a checkpoint in Gaza, a few hundred yards from the Erez crossing, blocking traffic and complaining that Mr. Ban, on his third visit to Gaza, had no plans to meet with them.

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Deep in the Sinai, a looming Crisis Threatens Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Bradley Hope - February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

CAIRO // The owner of a Sinai Peninsula holiday resort taken over by a group of armed Bedouin is refusing to pay the four million Egyptian pound (Dh2.4m) ransom the tribesmen are demanding. Hesham Nessim, proprietor of the Aqua-Sun Resort 30km south of Egypt's border with Israel, says he will wait them out or retake his property with police help. His brother Fouad says the Bedouin should expect a long stand-off. "It would be easier to go to the moon than to get that money from my brother," he told The National.

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Pro-Palestinian hackers apologize for cyber attack on Haaretz newspaper website
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - January 27, 2012 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM // Pro-Palestinian hackers apologised on Twitter yesterday for disrupting the website of Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Haaretz announced on Wednesday that its Hebrew-language website had been temporarily disabled by hackers, identifying themselves on Twitter as @AnonPS, or Anonymous Palestine.

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Israel won't interfere with PA police stations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Katz - January 24, 2012 - 1:00am

Israel is turning a blind eye to the establishment of two Palestinian Authority police stations on the border of Jerusalem as it considers a series of goodwill gestures to President Mahmoud Abbas. One of the police stations was established recently in the village of a-Ram, which lies northeast of the Jerusalem neighborhood Neveh Ya’acov, just outside the capital’s municipal borders. The second station was established in what is known as the Biddu enclave – a group of eight Palestinian villages located near Ramallah and along Road 443.

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