Injuries reported in West Bank clashes

Sat Jun 12 - PARIS – A small French cinema chain has made waves by postponing this month's showing of an Israeli comedy to protest the country's deadly May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The Utopia cinema chain replaced "Five Hours from Paris" with the documentary "Rachel," about an American student crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while protesting Israeli house demolitions in Gaza. The chain says it was the "only way to express disapproval" about the flotilla raid, which killed nine people. The French Jewish organization Crif said the decision shows that "knee-jerk anti-Israel sentiment has no limits." Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand wrote to the chain to express "disapproval" of its decision, Le Figaro newspaper reported on its Web site.

The next Gaza aid flotilla may be much bigger than the first. Yasser Qashlaq, director of the Free Palestine Movement, said Thursday that up to 50 ships could join the Freedom Flotilla II, the International Middle East Media Center reported. Meanwhile, the movement, in cooperation with Reporters Without Borders, is organizing a new mission to send educational supplies to the children of the besieged Palestinian territory. Qashlaq told IMEMC that a ship would depart from Lebanon within a week.

Israel is expected to open the southern Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning to transfer limited deliveries of aid and fuel, Palestinian liaison officials said. 
The desire for a permanent house is a most conventional desire in our society. A house is usually conceived as a structure of four walls, a floor below and a roof above, and the desire for such a house is mostly fulfilled using the mortgage system. But what seems to be such a conventional desire in many societies may prove rather unconventional in a society living under the conditions of prolonged Occupation. In fact, in the small Bedouin community of Umm al-Kheir, among the families who live close to the settlement of Carmel, such a basic desire for a four walls’ house is not only unconventional but should also be regarded as quite unrealistic.

Israel's Arab helpers
Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh rebuffed an Israeli media report Sunday alleging President Mahmoud Abbas called for the continuation of Gaza's blockade during a recent meeting with his US counterpart. "President Abbas had raised the issue of the necessity of lifting the blockade as a matter on a par with the fate of the peace process," Abu Rudaineh told the Palestinian Authority-run WAFA news agency.
RAFAH, Egypt (AFP) – Egypt banned hundreds of activists from Gaza, igniting protests at the Rafah border that is the only non-Israeli entry into the Palestinian enclave, a security official said on Saturday. Hundreds of Egyptian activists headed to the Rafah border crossing on Friday but were denied entry into the Gaza Strip, the official told AFPon condition of anonymity. "They spent the night in front of the crossing asking to be let in and continued protesting on Saturday," the official said.
Despite initial delays, Egyptian authorities have allowed an Algerian aid convoy into the besieged Gaza Strip. Accompanying the convoy of medical equipment and food aid was a delegation of three parliamentarians and other senior figures ... Egyptian authorities had refused to allow the delegation into Gaza through its Rafah crossing, despite that it was declared open indefinitely. Egyptian sources said the delegation was informed that only three parliamentarians would be allowed to enter, and without the aid.  The delegation rejected the offer, and three were eventually permitted to enter with the aid, officials said.
Israel soldiers assaulted a 10-year-old boy Saturday in the occupied West Bank, his father said.  Ghandi Nedal Al-Ewaiwi was transferred to Hebron's public hospital with bruises all over his body, medics said. The boy's father, Nedal Al-Ewaiwi, said the boy was beaten while in custody outside Hebron's Old City. He was held for several hours at a military post near the Ibrahimi Mosque, Nedal said. An Israeli military spokesman said that after an initial inquiry, the army was aware of no such incident.
A report conducted by a Jerusalem rights center following the shooting death of a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem on Friday by Israeli border guards suggests he was shot point blank. Ziad Al-Julani, 38, was shot and killed after he allegedly failed to stop at a checkpoint in the Wadi Joz neighborhood in the occupied part of the city ... On Friday, other testimony has the man speeding toward the hospital with an injured man in his truck. Two border guards were reportedly injured in the incident ... Two women, a man, a senior citizen, and a child in a nearby car were said to have been injured in the shouting that erupted after the shooting, with Israeli forces using rubber-coated bullets against the crowd.  Haaretz reports in their article "Palestinian killed in suspected East Jerusalem terror attack": 'A Palestinian driver was shot and killed in Jerusalem Friday after running over two Israeli border patrolmen, with an apparent intent to kill...' Open and shut case, right? Not so fast. One of the notable features of the media coverage of the flotilla attack (at least online) has been an unwillingness to take the Israeli account at their word. Will this positive trend continue with other examples of Israeli violence towards Palestinians? This story presents an interesting opportunity.
Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit on Sunday ordered a military police investigation into Colonel Itai Virob, former Kfir Brigade commander, and Lieutenant Colonel Shimon Harosh, former commander of the Shimshon regiment. The order comes after they had testified in a military court a year ago, saying it was permissible to use moderate violence against Palestinians during questioning.
A resident of the illegal settlement of Havat Ma’on in the occupied West Bank was injured in the head Saturday by a rock thrown by Palestinians, Israeli news reports said. Israeli forces arrived on the scene and separated those involved in the fighting, The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, reported Saturday.
The Israeli Prison Service is barring Palestinian prisoners from sitting the Palestinian and Jordanian high school matriculation exams, known as the tawjihi, for the third consecutive year, a detainees' society said Sunday. The Palestinian Committee for Prisoners' Defense said the move by the IPS was to exert pressure on the captors of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and "embitter prisoners," spokesman for the group Riyad Al-Ashqar said. 
Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as his second in command, did not arrive at the army's command center until after the takeover had taken a violent turn ... The absence of both Ashkenazi and his second in command, Major General Benny Ganz, will be one of the issues to be reviewed by the specialist panel named by the IDF chief to probe the raid, headed by retired major general Giora Eiland.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that Washington was not pressuring Israel to cooperate with an investigation it doesn't want, referring to the investigation of the lethal Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla. During an interview with Fox news network, Rice said that the US position is clear – Israel has the ability and will to manage a credible and independent investigation itself.
Former Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Tirkel is to head the Israeli investigative committee that will look into the events surrounding the takeover of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla nearly two weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday ... The Americans have rejected - a number of times - Israel's proposals and asked that a retired Supreme Court justice head the probe. The issue was resolved when Justice Yaakov Tirkel was proposed for the post.