Palestinian Hamas supporters after casting their ballots for the municipal elections at a polling station in the West Bank city of Nablus December 15, 2005. REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

AL-JAZEERA - Hamas has swept the latest round of local Palestinian elections, beating the ruling Fatah to control large city councils in a test of strength ahead of a parliamentary vote. A Palestinian official who helped administer the elections said on Thursday that preliminary results showed that Hamas won control of the councils of Nablus, one of the biggest cities in the West Bank, and al-Bireh, although he did not reveal specific figures.   more »

from Walid Abdelhadi
Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus

Friday morning (December 9, 2005) at Howara checkpoint (the northern gate of Nablus), a young child 12 years old was crossing the checkpoint when he was arrested because the occupation soldiers at the check point were suspicious that he was carrying a bomb in a plastic bag. They stopped him, grabbing him by the neck, and sent him to the field beside the checkpoint to drop the plastic bag there and to return back to them while they were sniping their guns at him.   more »

Hebron, December 6 - REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun

Over the last few days Palestinian activists have come out in full force to support the CPT members currently being held in Iraq. The Palestinian National and Islamic Forces, the main coordinating body of the Intifada, have come out with a strong statement urging the Swords of Truth Brigades in Iraq to release the captured activists. Please take the time to sign the petition for their release. You can also read the full text of the petition and browse pictures of recent solidarity actions in Palestine in the rest of this article.   more »

(AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

by Amin Abu Warda, Nablus (PNN)

Nablus residents guessed the convoy of Israeli military patrols that entered the city at dawn today had come to carry out further arrests. Special trucks for transporting prisoners that residents knew all too well were with the convoy.   more »

(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

The Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas) on Monday vowed tough revenge on Israel for the killing of the group's senior leader in the West Bank.   more »

Israeli military vehicles block Palestinians waiting to cross a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. (AFP/File/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

Manar Jibreen-IMEMC & Agencies
   
Israeli soldiers, supported by 30 armored vehicles, invaded on Monday at dawn the West Bank city of Nablus from Huwwara checkpoint entrance, and surrounded a house in Al-Daheya Al-'Olya neighborhood, the Maan News Agency reported. Troops broke into a house which belongs to Al-Qutub family, searched it and attacked one member of the family.   more »

REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

Saed Bannoura-IMEMC & Agencies
   
Israeli soldiers shot and killed one Palestinian child and injured five other residents after invading the West Bank city on Nablus, on Tuesday evening.   more »

Qatar News Agency

Doha --A Palestinian youngster was seriously injured in Balata refugee camp, east of the West Bank City of Nablus and others were arrested when Israeli occupation forces stormed the camp. Eyewitnesses said the boy, Shahda Abudllah al-Shafie (15), was injured in the chest in his house. Citizens in the camp said the Israeli occupation forces arrested Bashshar Khalil Ibrahim Abu Ziraa (28) and Mahran Mohamed Abu Alfa (22) and led them to an unknown destination. Meanwhile the Israeli occupation forces mounted a military barricade on the al-Bazan-Nablus road obstructing traffic and also closed Beit Aiba crossing, west of the city.   more »

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The family of Manhal Hussein, 14, from Jeet village, south west of Nablus, denounced the Israeli decision to release four settlers who attacked their son at a junction near the entrance of the village while he was selling vegetables.   more »

Saed Bannoura-IMEMC & Agencies
   
Israeli soldiers arrested on Friday at dawn Ali Mansour, leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh movement in Nablus. Another fighter identified as Saddam Mansour was also arrested in the attack.   more »

photo courtesy of annaianinthemiddleeast.com

Date posted: October 31, 2005
By Amira Hass - Ha'aretz

The Israel Defense Forces has been constructing a major new checkpoint south of Nablus, at the Zaatara (Tapuah) junction, for checking Palestinian cars arriving from the northern and western parts of the West Bank.   more »

(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies
Saturday, 29 October 2005, 12:31
    
Israeli soldiers invaded, on Saturday morning, the West Bank city of Nablus and conducted military searches of homes. Palestinian resistance detonated an explosive charge near a military patrol during the invasion.   more »

Paradise Now (film still)

by Howard Feinstein (Village Voice)

In Rana's Wedding (2002), a determined Palestinian bride-to-be bests Israeli gatekeepers and Palestinian bureaucrats who nearly block her marriage. A West Bank taxi driver in the doc Ford Transit (2002) circumvents ubiquitous checkpoints and inflexible Israeli soldiers. Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad expands upon the prevailing Palestinian mood of frustration in the provocative Paradise Now, a humanizing exploration of the minds and motivation of two potential suicide bombers. He makes it clear that bright twentysomethings Saïd and Khaled act out of conviction, but both have dim economic prospects as well. Saïd also blames the murder of his collaborator father on the now four-
decade-old occupation.   more »

Palestinian civilians wait at the Beit Furik checkpoint southeast of West Bank city of Nablus. (AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Friday, 07 October 2005

Machsom Watch reported that four Israeli soldiers severely beat a Palestinian man at a military checkpoint south of the West Bank city of Nablus, on Thursday. A Machson Watch activist was present at the checkpoint and witnessed the incident. The Machsom Watch organization, which is an Israeli women’s organization that monitors Israeli military violations at military checkpoints in the Palestinian areas, reported that resident Median Amran, 28 from Burin village near Nablus, was seriously injured and hospitalized after the soldiers severely beat him for no apparent reason. more »

(Mass incarceration of Paelstinian men by Israeli military during operations in Askar refugee camp. Photo by Giampierro Rocco - August 2004)

Palestinian News Networks by Amin Abu Warda, Nablus
11:00 am 06.10.05

Israeli occupation authorities renewed the administrative detention of prisoner Raslan Talal Thouqan, 31 from the Balata Refugee Camp for the ninth time in a row.
   more »

(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)  

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Wednesday, 05 October 2005

An Israeli military source claimed on Wednesday that an 18-year-old youth, attempted to stab an Israeli female soldier at a military checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus; the soldier was not hurt. Another soldier noticed the youth and fired at him, a Palestinian passerby was hit by shrapnel; the child was not hit and was taken into custody. The passerby received first aid at the scene, and was transferred to a Palestinian hospital in Nablus.

In a separate incident, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fateh movement, claimed responsibility for the stabbing of a female soldier at a military checkpoint near Nablus on Tuesday evening. The soldier was stabbed in the face by a Palestinian woman. The Brigades said that Haifa Hindiyya, 36, a mother of five from Balata refugee camp in Nablus, was attempting to avenge the death of two fighters killed by the army in the West Bank last week. 
   more »

By Amira Hass - Haaretz

"I was born here, in Khirbet Tana, and I inherited the land from my grandfather. I am a shepherd and have a family of 10. All of us are shepherds, and that is our sole source of livelihood. In June I moved to Beit Furik, because in the summer the sheep can't take the heat in Khirbet Tana. On Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at around 8:30 A.M., I received a phone call from one of the shepherds in the area, who told me that the Israeli army was demolishing our houses. I immediately went there and when I was two and a half kilometers from the houses in Tana, Israeli soldiers in an army jeep prevented me from getting any closer. The soldiers left the area at around noon. In place of a house I found a pile of cinder blocks. My family and I live in two new structures built of cinder blocks and mud. We built the house to live in and protect ourselves from the cold in winter and the heat in summer. The soldiers also destroyed the livestock pen. We kept the taboun [a large brick oven] in the pen. They didn't leave us anything. They also demolished other houses and huts of people in the area."   more »

Report, ISM Nablus, 12 July 2005
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3988.shtml


Noor is carried to his mother's home. (ISM Nablus)

On Monday Balata residents endured their second child martyr's funeral in five days. Fourteen year old Noor Faris Njem was shot in the head late last Wednesday evening when the Israeli army came to Balata Refugee Camp and, without warning, opened fire on unarmed civilians. Noor (meaning light) was peering round a wall to see if the jeep was still there when a soldier shot him in the top of his head. After the best efforts of medics, he died on Sunday afternoon, the second child to die from injuries inflicted by the Israeli army that night. In retaliation for Noor's shooting, two sixteen year old fighters lay in wait to fire at the army when they entered the camp. Khalid Mohammed Msyme was shot dead and the other boy is critically injured.
   more »

Just wanted to direct people to two recent articles on the Electronic Intifada website dealing with Nablus. One is a photo-essay that examines life in the Old City, while the second is a report-back by Ray Smith - an international long-termer in Nablus. It seems that people in Assira Shamaliya, a community to the north of Nablus that had been cut-off from the city for a while, managed to stage yet another succesfull action against the siege of their village. It's not clear what the Israeli military response will be - the last time this was attempted almost a month ago the repsonse was pretty brutal - but for those interested more information can be found by clicking here.

ACTION ALERT – IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED!

CALL-FAX-DEMONSTRATE

Israeli Navy Awards Unit Responsible for Killing Nablus Professor and his Son
Family of Professor Khaled Salah is Still Demanding Justice from US officials

(APRIL 10, 2005) – According to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Navy has just given commendations to members of a military unit for their `bravery' in Nablus during a mission in which serious breaches of the IVth Geneva Conventions were perpetrated. The July 6 2004 incident included the cold-blooded sniper killings of An-Najah National University Professor Khaled Salah, a US resident, and his 16-year old son Mohammad.

We call on people of good conscience to read the following description of the incident, consult the attached links, and follow the concrete steps at the bottom of this email to lodge protest against such an outrageous insult to the people of Nablus and to the Salah family. It is imperative that these war crimes be investigated and dealt with appropriately and not be allowed to be passed-over in silence.
   more »

On 30 March 1976, thousands of indigenous Palestinians occupied by Israel in 1948 participated in a mass strike against systematic discrimination triggered by the government’s plans to expropriate 5,500 acres of Arab-owned land. The villages of Arraba, Sakhnin, Deir Hanna and other smaller communities in the Galilee – a region of northern Israel with a Palestinian majority – were particularly targeted. The Israeli police responded to the demonstrations with violence, killing six unarmed Palestinian youths, wounding another hundred activists and arresting over three-hundred people.

The victims of Israeli Repression on Land Day (March 30, 1976)

In the intervening years, these events have become consecrated in Palestinian memory as Land Day and are celebrated on both sides of the ‘Green Line’ (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line that separates ‘Israel’ from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). Just as the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 served to galvanize a whole generation of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, the killings of Raja Abu Rayya, Khader Khalayla, Khadija Shawahneh, Khair Yassin, Mohsen Taha and Ra’fat Zuheiri on 30 March 1976 mobilized a sense of community among Palestinians in opposition to the systematic racism they faced within the Israeli state.   more »