26 December 2023, The Australian, by Nick Cater: In the conventional nativity scene described in St Luke’s Gospel, the baby Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lies in a manger. This year, in a photograph prominently displayed in the international woke press, a baby doll has been wrapped in the Palestinian keffiyeh and lies on broken breeze blocks and paving slabs.
Read MoreNo Star in Bethlehem
26 December 2023, Daily Telegraph, by Adella Beaini: Bethlehem has cancelled its annual Christmas celebrations out of respect for the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip, as the death toll hits a grim milestone.
Read MoreNo Christmas lights or tree in Bethlehem as festivities are cancelled
25 December 2023, The Age: Bethlehem, West Bank: The normally bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus resembled a ghost town on Sunday as Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem were called off due to the Israel-Hamas war.
Read MoreChristmas is cancelled in Bethlehem
23 December 2023, Canberra Times, by Reem Borrows: This year, Christmas is cancelled in Bethlehem. How could Palestinian Christians – the descendants of the first Christians in the world, indigenous inhabitants of the Holy Land – express any form of joy or festivity while enduring a violent campaign to uproot them from their land?
Read MoreIsrael-Gaza: WHO calls Al-Shifa hospital a ‘bloodbath’ as France condemns Israel for Rafah strike ABC News
18 December 2023, ABC News: The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concerns about the state of Al-Shifa hospital due to a shortage of supplies and large amount of injured patients unable to receive proper medical care.
Read More‘Israel only responds to force’: support for Hamas soars in West Bank after October attack
17 December 2023, The Guardian, by Bethan McKernan and Sufian Taha in Jenin: The spiralling bloodshed is fuelling both armed Palestinian resistance and popular support for groups such as Hamas, several residents of the Jenin camp said during the Observer’s visit.
Read MoreCan there be peace between Israel and Palestine? History says probably not
16 December 2023, The Australian, by Greg Sheridan: Israel has on at least four separate occasions offered a full state to the Palestinians, who each time rejected it. It starts in 1947. Can there ever be peace between Israel and the Palestinians? If history is a guide, the answer is no. But we are right to believe in miracles.
Read MoreWest Bank: Israel opens probe after videos appear to show troops shooting Palestinians at close range
16 December 2023, The Guardian / Associated Press: Israel has said it is opening a military police investigation into the killing of two Palestinians in the West Bank after an Israeli human rights group posted videos that appeared to show Israeli troops killing the men – one who was incapacitated and the second unarmed – during a military raid in a West Bank refugee camp.
Read MoreWoman killed, man seriously wounded in West Bank
A suspected Palestinian attacker has killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man in the south of the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities say.
The latest attack is part of a sharp escalation in the region in recent months involving Palestinian militants, Israeli security forces and radical Jewish settlers.
It took place on Monday as Israeli forces were already on high alert and searching for a gunman who had killed two Israelis in the northern West Bank on Saturday.
Late on Sunday, Israeli settlers threw stones and firebombs at a Palestinian home south of Nablus near the site of Saturday’s deadly attack, local officials reported, causing damage but no injuries.
Israeli security forces said in the latest attack the suspected Palestinian gunman opened fire at an Israeli car on the main north-south road in the West Bank, near the major city of Hebron. The army said the apparent drive-by shooting killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man as the two were driving.
The Israeli rescue service reported the two victims were in their 40s and that a six-year-old girl who was also in the car was unharmed. The man, it said, was found semi-conscious and taken to the hospital.
Images from the scene showed the victims’ car riddled with more than a dozen bullet holes. The gunman fled, prompting Israeli security forces to embark on their second manhunt in three days.
The Hamas militant group and Palestinian Islamic Jihad praised the attack as a response to Israel’s expanding settlement enterprise in the West Bank, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
The deadly shooting came just days after another Palestinian attack killed an Israeli father and son who were washing their car in the northern Palestinian town of Hawara, putting the West Bank on edge.
Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Some 30 people have been killed by Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time. Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.
Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Article link: https://www.sheppnews.com.au/world/woman-killed-man-seriously-wounded-in-west-bank/Article source: Shepparton News / AAP | Aug 21, 2023
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Suspected Palestinian gunmen kill two Israelis: army
The Israeli army says it is looking for suspects after two people were shot dead in the West Bank. -EPA
A suspected Palestinian shooting attack has killed two Israelis in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military says.
The two men, a father and son, were shot at close range at a car wash in the Palestinian village of Huwara, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.
The Israeli military said it was searching the area for the assailants and had set up blockades in the vicinity of the attack.
Israel’s ambulance service confirmed two people had died in the shooting.
Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months with stepped up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.
Prospects of reviving US-brokered peace talks that collapsed almost a decade ago and had aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, remain dim.
Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there that are considered illegal by most countries, a view Israel disputes.
The Palestinians have limited self-rule in the West Bank and remain split between a foreign-backed administration there and armed Hamas Islamists who control Gaza and reject co-existence with Israel.
Hamas and other armed groups praised the Huwara attack on Saturday.
Article link: https://www.sheppnews.com.au/world/suspected-palestinian-gunmen-kill-two-israelis-army-2/Article source: Shepparton News / AAP | Aug 20, 2023
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