Thursday, January 28, 2010

In the afternoon, IDF troops make an incursion into s. Gaza, leveling agricultural land 250 m fr. the border fence in Khuza village, firing on residential areas but causing no injuries. In the West Bank, the IDF fires tear gas, stun grenades to break up a tree-planting ceremony in Burin village attended by PA Agriculture Min. officials. The IDF also delivers military orders to several Palestinian families in Bayt Umar village nr. Hebron declaring 150 d. of village land as off-limits state-owned land; Jewish settlers fr. nearby Bet Ayn have repeatedly attempted to seize the same lands. (OCHA, PCHR 2/4)

In an interview with al-Jazeera, a BenGurion University doctoral student shares his dissertation research on Israel’s confiscation and destruction of Palestinian books during the 1948 war. The researcher estimates that Israeli authorities collected 10,000s of Arabic books from Palestinian homes and towns conquered during the war, selling or giving away around half of them and destroying some 27,000 others as a “security threat” to the new state. Hebrew University was given 1,000s of the texts, some 6,000 of which are available through the university library, while 1,000s others may be in the library’s warehouses, uncatalogued and inaccessible to the public. (al-Jazeera, YA 1/28)