From PressTV
Israeli settler shoots Palestinian teenager
An Israeli settler has shot and injured a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank.
On Monday, 17-year-old Muhammad Yusuf Burqan suffered gunshot wounds in Wadi Yasul area of the East al-Quds (Jerusalem) neighborhood of Silwan while tending to a small herd of sheep.
His cousin, Suheib Burqan, said about 15 settlers surrounded Muhammad as he was lying on the ground.
Suheib added that the armed settler threatened to shoot him as he tried to approach Muhammad, while the rest subjected him to foul language.
The shooting incident comes in the wake of another announcement by Tel Aviv of approval for the construction of 430 new illegal settler units on occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
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From PressTV
Israeli forces attack Gaza fishermen
Israeli naval forces have once again opened fire on Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Gaza.
On Monday, several fishermen said they were attacked by Israeli boats off the northwestern coast of Gaza City.
The fishermen added that the Israeli forces opened fire while they were within the designated zone.
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From PressTV
Israel forces injure 2 Palestinians north of al-Quds
Israeli forces have reportedly shot and injured two young Palestinians during a raid on a refugee camp north of East Jerusalm al-Quds.
According to reports on Monday, the Israeli forces stormed the Qalandia refugee camp, injured the two Palestinians and detained five others.
The two Palestinians suffered injuries by Israeli gunfire during clashes which erupted between Palestinian youth and the Israeli forces in the refugee.
Reports also say the Israel forces, who stormed the camp for arrests, used live ammunition, rubber bullets and stun grenades against the Palestinians.
The Palestinians responded to the assault by throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
McCain: Obama-Netanyahu relationship ‘worst ever’
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. John McCain called President Barack Obama’s relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the worst that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”
“And that in itself is a tragedy because it’s the only functioning democracy in the entire Middle East,” McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview broadcast Sunday.
McCain, who ran against Obama in 2008, said Obama was not entirely to blame, although he said the president also expected too much from Netanyahu.
“The president had very unrealistic expectations about the degree of cooperation that he would get from Israel, particularly on the Palestinian issue, as well as the nuclear issue with Iran,” he said.
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From PressTV
UN Gaza inquiry head says will resign over Israel ‘malicious attacks’
The head of a UN inquiry into Israel’s summer war on the Gaza Strip says he will step down due to what he calls “malicious attacks” by the Tel Aviv regime.
In August 2014, the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed William Schabas, a Canadian academic, to lead a group examining suspected war crimes during the Israeli regime’s military offensive in Gaza.
Israel has accused him of being biased towards the Palestinians due to a legal opinion he wrote for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2012. However, Schabas insists that consultancy work he did for the PLO was not different from advice he had given to many other governments and organizations.
He said in a Monday letter to the UNHRC that he would resign so that the Israeli allegations of bias could not overshadow the preparation of the report and its findings, slated to be released in March.
“My views on Israel and Palestine as well as on many other issues were well known and very public,” he wrote in the letter, adding, “This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.”
Schabas’ appointment had angered Israel from the beginning as it he has been a strong critic of the regime and its political leadership.
About 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in the Israeli onslaught, which started in early July 2014 and ended in late August. Over 11,100 others, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people, were also injured.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish day school teacher busted on child porn charges
A rabbi and a former Judaic studies teacher in Westchester County, N.Y., has been arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography.
Lyle Kamlet, 62, is alleged to have purchased illegal DVDs over the Internet and to have had them mailed to Westchester Day School, a co-ed Modern Orthodox school in Mamaroneck, N.Y., where he worked for some three decades.
Kamlet resigned his post at WDS — a preschool, elementary and middle school — in February 2012.
On Monday, Head of School Joshua Lookstein, together with the board’s president and chairman, emailed parents to inform them of Kamlet’s arrest. “As far as we know, during his tenure, the school had no information and had received no complaints concerning his involvement in any illegal activities,” the letter stated. “Since his resignation, Westchester Day School has not provided any references or recommendations for Kamlet.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Iran says it launched satellite into space
(JTA) — Iran launched a new satellite into space, the country’s official television station said.
A report Monday by the Fars news agency said the domestically produced satellite is the fourth in recent years to orbit the earth, according to The Associated Press.
Some international observers worry that Iran’s space program could help it design rockets for use with nuclear weapons, but the Islamic Republic claims that both its nuclear and space programs are for peaceful purposes.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
In London haredi neighborhood, nationalists to protest ‘Jewification of Great Britain’
(JTA) — A far-right nationalist group is planning a rally in a haredi Orthodox neighborhood of London to protest against what it calls the “Jewification of Great Britain.”
The rally, set for March 22, is being organized by a group called Liberate Stamford Hill, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported. The Stamford Hill neighborhood is said to have the largest haredi population in Europe, according to reports.
Announcements for the rally criticize the Jewish volunteer security group Shomrim and show posters that appeared in the neighborhood last year reading “Women should please walk along this side of the road only.” The posters were removed following a Torah procession event that was gender segregated.
A post on Liberate Stamford Hill’s Facebook page calls the Shomrim “armed thugs.” In reference to the signs, the post says, “this form of Talmudic law is worse than Sharia law and yet nobody is confronting it!”
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From PressTV
Zoo animals suffer from Israel’s blockade on Gaza Strip
Even zoo animals are not safe from Israel’s atrocities in the war-torn Gaza Strip as dozens waste away from thirst or hunger because of the blockade.
Mohammed Awaida, the owner of the South Forest Park zoo in Khan Yunis, said the animals were dying because his staff couldn’t get to the zoo to feed and care properly for the animals due to Israel’s daily attacks and the blockade.
He said the keepers were desperately trying to keep the animals alive, the Daily mail reported on Monday.
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From PressTV
Gazans slam Egypt court ban on Ezzedine Qassam Brigades
Protesters in the besieged Gaza Strip have held a rally to condemn an Egyptian court decision to blacklist the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, as a “terrorist” organization.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya on Monday, waving the green flag of Hamas, which governs Gaza, while shouting “Hamas is not terrorist” and “Hamas is our pride.”
On Saturday, the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters claimed in a lawsuit that Hamas was involved in recent attacks against Egypt’s security forces.
“The court ruled to ban the Qassam Brigades and to list it as a terrorist group,” said Judge Mohamed al-Sayid in a ruling deemed in line with a systematic crackdown on opposition by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Top Hamas official Mushir al-Masri told those attending Monday’s march that the court ruling is “political” and aims to hide “failure and the lack of security in Egypt at this time.”
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From Ynet News
Ukraine run by ‘miserable’ Jews, says rebel chief
Leader of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic says country’s historical nationalists ‘would turn in their graves if they could see who is running Ukraine’. Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel chief on Monday branded the country’s leaders “miserable” Jews in an apparent anti-Semitic jibe.
Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed that Kiev’s pro-Western leaders were “miserable representatives of the great Jewish people”.
“I can’t remember a time when Cossacks were led by people who have never held a sword in their hands,” Zakharchenko told a press conference in the eastern rebel stronghold of Donetsk, in a reference to Ukraine’s nationalist forebears, the Cossacks.
