In Gaza, the IDF makes an air strike on an agricultural storehouse in al-Qarara, missing the target, damaging a house, causing no injuries. The IDF also sends tanks, bulldozers into s. Gaza to level land nr. Khuza. Several 1,000 Hamas supporters take part in a nonviolent march fr. Rafah to the Sufa crossing to protest the ongoing siege; IDF troops at the crossing fire on them, wounding 6. Israeli naval vessels fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the Rafah and Bayt Lahiya coasts, forcing them to return to shore. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches in and around Nablus, nr. Hebron; fires rubber-coated steel bullets, percussion grenades, tear gas at Palestinian, Israeli, international activists taking part in the weekly nonviolent demonstration against the separation wall in Bil‘in (injuring 3); fires tear gas, percussion grenades at a similar protest al-Ma‘sara (no injuries reported). Jewish settlers fr. several settlements around Hebron attempt to occupy a disused IDF base e. of Bayt Sahur, but are removed by the IDF. In Dayr al-Balah, Islamic Jihad mbrs. kidnap, severely beat a mbr. of a rival Islamic Jihad faction. (OCHA 6/4; PCHR 6/5)
Friday, May 30, 2008