From PressTV
Israeli settlers attack, torch Palestinian mosque
Israeli settlers have launched an arson attack on a Palestinian mosque in a village in the occupied West Bank, torching part of the holy place.
“The settlers set fire to the whole of the first floor of the mosque” in the village of al-Mughayir, near the West Bank city of Ramallah overnight, Palestinian security officials said Wednesday.
In a similar incident in 2012, another mosque was set afire in the same village, which is located near the Israeli settlement of Shilo.
The settlers, mostly armed, regularly attack Palestinian villages and farms and set fire to their mosques, olive groves and other properties in the West Bank under the so-called “price tag” policy. However, Tel Aviv rarely detains the assailants. Price tag attacks are acts of vandalism and violence against Palestinians and their property as well as Islamic holy sites by Israeli settlers.
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From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Netanyahu: Iran is U.S. enemy, not partner
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The United States should treat Iran as an enemy and not as a partner, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Jewish leaders.
“Iran is not part of the solution, it’s a huge part of the problem,” Netanyahu said Tuesday, referring to reports that the United States may be coordinating with Iran in their shared battle to crush the Islamic State jihadist group in Iraq and Syria. “The Islamic state of Iran is not a partner of America, it is an enemy of America and it should be treated as an enemy.”
Netanyahu, speaking via video link to the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, said such treatment should extend to nuclear talks now underway between the major powers and Iran “by keeping tough sanctions on the regime, by making clear that the international community is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from breaking out or sneaking out to get the bomb.”
He said a deal that would allow Iran a limited uranium enrichment capacity would be a “disaster of historic proportions.”
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From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in West Bank during rioting
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man during clashes with rioters near Hebron in the West Bank.
Imad Jawabreh, 22, died in an Israeli hospital on Tuesday after suffering bullet wounds to his chest.
He was one of about 150 Palestinian rioters who threw rocks and firebombs at Israeli soldiers and their vehicles, the Israeli military said. He reportedly was preparing to throw a pipe bomb when he was shot.
The incident occurred following Israeli media reports that additional Israeli military battalions were deployed to the West Bank to protect security on the roads in the wake of several terrorist attacks on both sides of Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
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From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
NSC officer: Iran missing deadline ‘drastically’ reduces chances for deal
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Iran’s failure to meet a Nov. 24 deadline for a nuclear deal would “drastically” reduce the chances for an agreement, a top White House official said.
Philip Gordon, the Middle East counselor on the National Security Council, told JTA on Monday that gaps remain in the talks between Iran and the major powers.
“There are gaps because they are trying to preserve some things that we are simply not prepared to accommodate,” Gordon said, without elaborating. “It is not however impossible to close those gaps. What we are focused on is getting it done by Nov. 24th — anything after that dramatically reduces the chances for a deal.”
Reports have suggested in recent weeks that the sides may seek to extend the talks, which have been underway since January and already were extended once, in July.
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From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Nicki Minaj tweets she’s ‘very sorry’ for Nazi-esque video
NEW YORK (JTA) — Rapper and songwriter Nicki Minaj apologized on Twitter for a new music video that contains Nazi imagery.
“I didn’t come up w/the concept, but I’m very sorry & take full responsibility if it has offended anyone, Minajtweeted Tuesday to her 18.3 million followers. “I’d never condone Nazism in my art.”
In the video for “Only,” which has received 2 million views on YouTube, a Minaj animation marches through scores of soldiers and large red banners with an insignia said to resemble a swastika. It sparked outrage upon its release last week.
The Anti-Defamation League, which wrote in a news release Monday that it was “deeply disturbed” by the video, said it accepted Minaj’s apology.
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From PressTV
No end to suffering in war-torn Gaza Strip: Report
Many Palestinians are still suffering from displacement as their homes were destroyed during Israel’s recent onslaught on the Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.
“We are Sawarka Bedouins. We lost our homes and farmlands (and) until now we haven’t received any aid. You are the first people to visit us here and through your camera we are urging everyone to help us,” said chief of the Sawarka tribe, Khalil Abu Shretih, in Gaza.
On October 14, Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to be accountable to the people in the besieged Gaza Strip who have been suffering the agony of a recent Israeli war.
Gaza’s Housing and Public Works Minister Mufeed al-Hasayna said, “Frankly the Palestinian government is still under the Israeli siege. Border are still closed and the processes of importing building material is supervised by Israel. There are 42,000 houses that need to be rebuilt but we only have enough cement for 900 homes. Israel allows one thing to enter but bans the rest. All this delays the reconstruction processes.”
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