Amnesty accuses Israel of killing hundreds of unarmed Palestinians

October 14th, 2009 NEW YORK - The Palestinian Authority's Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki charged Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza Strip, citing the Goldstone report on the December-January fighting between Israel and Hamas. Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev countered Al-Malki, rejecting the use of the council meeting by governments to discuss the report as counterproductive to the Middle East peace process.

October 13th, 2009 Palestinians, allies reopen Gaza war crimes debateGENEVA — The U.N. Human Rights Council will reopen the debate about alleged war crimes in Gaza later this week after Palestinians succeeded in gathering enough support to call a special meeting, officials said Tuesday.

October 1st, 2009 Diplomats: Palestinians want Gaza resolution delayGENEVA — Diplomats in Geneva say the Palestinian Authority has withdrawn its support for a U.N. resolution endorsing a report on alleged war crimes by Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.

September 20th, 2009 GAZA - Two militants, members of the Hamas movement, were killed Sunday in Israeli artillery shelling on east of the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalia, medics and witnesses said. Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters that two Palestinians were brought dead to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as a result of being hit by an Israeli artillery shell.

September 6th, 2009 NEW YORK - A recent poll for The Israel Project shows support has bounced back in the United States for Israelis rather than the Palestinians after slipping in the aftermath of US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech. The poll, conducted by Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR), asked some 800 likely US voters the following question: "Thinking about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East, please tell me whether, in general, you consider yourself to be an Israel supporter, Palestinian supporter, or neither/undecided." Some 59 percent of the respondents said they were Israel supporters, compared to 29 percent for the Palestinians.

September 5th, 2009 TEL AVIV - Madonna's pilgrimage tour to Israel has attracted the wrath of Palestinians, who slammed the Material Girl for consistently ignoring Palestinian suffering. Sky News quoted one Palestinian youth worker as saying that Madonna "tries to place herself as a global role model, but consistently ignores Palestinian suffering".

August 16th, 2009 JERUSALEM - Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno Yaar, has said that the UN Gaza report was written solely "to appease the Arab-controlled Human Rights Council." Leshno Yaar claimed that the report was "written by Palestinians in Ramallah" and it was "screened by Palestinian lawyers in Geneva in order to satisfy Palestinian diplomats on the Human Rights Council."e said the report was "totally biased" and based on unconfirmed information. "It ignores the facts and the Israeli positions.

July 31st, 2009 JERUSALEM - A 160-page government report has defended Israeli actions during 'Operation Cast Lead'- which had killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, and has rejected all the charges one by one, attributing excessive damage and casualties to understandable wartime mistakes. The report states that Israel is investigating about 100 complaints and has opened 13 criminal inquiries, The Jerusalem Post reports.

July 2nd, 2009 JERUSALEM - Israel and Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the Gaza war of last winter, Amnesty International said in its first comprehensive report on the 22-day conflict, published Thursday. The London-based human rights groups called for an international arms embargo on both Israel and the radical Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza.

July 2nd, 2009 Amnesty accuses Israel, Hamas of Gaza war crimesJERUSALEM — Amnesty International accused Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes Thursday in the most comprehensive report on the recent Gaza war. Both sides rejected the findings.

June 28th, 2009 JERUSALEM - Responding to international demands that Israel freeze construction in the West Bank, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's media advisor said Israel would do so. "The government of Israel has already articulated that we will not build new settlements, nor will we expropriate further land for the purpose of settlement building," the Jerusalem Post quoted Mark Regev, as saying.

May 28th, 2009 JERUSALEM - In its 2009 annual report, formally released on Thursday, Amnesty International places sole blame on Israel for the breakdown in the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that led to Operation Cast Lead. The London-based organization accuses Israel of breaking the six-month cease-fire on November 4, 2008, when "Israeli forces killed six Palestinian militants." Jerusalem-based research organization NGO Monitor said the report ignored Hamas violations.

March 5th, 2009 GAZA - Israeli jets Wednesday evening launched a missile in northern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding five, medics and witnesses said. Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters that two Palestinians were killed and five injured in an Israeli airstrike on a local car that drove in northern Gaza Strip.

March 2nd, 2009 JERUSALEM /GAZA - Continued Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel will be met with 'a painful, sharp, strong and uncompromising response', outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened Sunday. Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, he warned that 'the State of Israel has a wide range of options that will be utilised in order to bring complete quiet to the south' and said the Israel action would 'in no way be what the terrorist organisations expect'.

January 17th, 2009 TEL AVIV/GAZA - Israeli troops came under fire by a group of Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip Sunday, only hours after the beginning of a unilateral ceasefire declared by Israel, an Israeli army spokeswoman said. The troops informed Israeli armoured units and air force which then shot at and hit the Palestinians, said the spokeswoman.