The IDF prevents EU monitors fr. reaching the Rafah crossing, forcing it to close. In the West Bank, the IDF sends undercover units in cars with Palestinian license plates into Tanfar nr. Hebron (arresting a PA General Intelligence Service officer, a PA police officer), Tulkarm r.c. (firing on residential areas, wounding 2 stonethrowing youths, but failing to arrest the target of the raid); raids several greenhouses in Qalqilya, briefly detaining 2 Palestinians; patrols, searches cars in al-Zababda nr. Jenin; conducts arrest raids, house searches in and around Nablus, nr. Hebron (also raiding, searching a PA police station, detaining 2 PA police officers); begins bulldozing Palestinian land outside Hebron nr. Tenei settlement for construction of a settler-only bypass road. Palestinians set fire to 2 more churches (1 in Nablus, 1 in Gaza City) to protest Pope Benedict’s 9/12 statements; Haniyeh denounces the attacks “against our Christian brothers as totally unacceptable”; PC mbrs., 100s of Palestinian Muslims rally in Nablus in solidarity with the churches, denounce the attacks. (AFP 9/17; AP, NYT 9/18; PCHR 9/21)
Sunday, September 17, 2006