Israel to shut down Hamas charities

Israelis are to step up operations against civilian infrastructure belonging to Hamas in West Bank in breach of a truce already agreed on.

According to Ha’aretz, Israeli forces will soon shut down a large number of Hamas-affiliated charities, confiscate their property, and search computers and documents that detail their activity.

The forces have been carrying out similar raids in the al-Khalil, Qalqilyah and Ramallah areas since the beginning of the year, but the operations will now be expanded to additional parts of the West Bank.

Israeli authorities including prime minister Ehud Olmert and war minister Ehud Barak have approved the plan to target Hamas civilian infrastructure.

Hamas-affiliated institutions that were targeted so far include schools, health centers, charities, and even soup kitchens and orphanages. Dozens of associations were shut down and the food confiscated.

An Egypt mediated truce between Israel and Gaza fighters came into effect on June 19, under which Israel promised to stop attacks on Gaza and ease the blockade in exchange for an end to the retaliatory homemade rocket attacks on Israelis.

But Palestinians say the Israeli regime has broken the Gaza truce more than 28 times since it went into force two weeks ago.

MSH/BGH

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‘US, Israel two sides of same coin’

Lebanon’s top cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah draws a parallel between the US and Israel in the savage killing of innocent people.

“The US and its protégé, Israel, are two sides of the same coin in their brutal killing of innocent people,” said the prominent Lebanese cleric in his weekly Friday prayer sermon delivered from the Imamayn Hassanayn Mosque in Haret Hreik.

“When US military aircraft bomb innocent Afghan families and kill Pakistani soldiers to warn them nobody better dare stick their necks out against White House policy on its so-called war on terror, it looks very much like its Israeli ally which launches air strikes against residential units in the Gaza Strip,” said the senior cleric.

“Washington sees the world as an area under its dominance and feels no shame in the kidnapping and torture of those opposing its policies in its military bases stationed across the globe,” Fadlallah added.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who voices concern over the ‘captivity’ of Israeli soldiers, expresses no sympathy over the appalling condition of 11,000 Palestinians subject to psychological and physical torture in Israeli prisons, the cleric argued.

Fadlallah sees no difference between Israeli or American prison guards, as the US soldiers have tortured many prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Abu Ghraib, and prisons in Afghanistan.

MK/JG/GM

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