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Palestinian statehood bid fails at UN Security Council as US, Australia vote against
The United Nations Security Council.(AFP Photo / Kena Betancur)
Source: rt.com
The UN Security Council has failed to adopt the Arab coalition’s bid calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli “occupation”. The veto power US and Australia voted against the move with 5 abstentions.
The draft resolution gathered only 8 votes in favour, so it was automatically defeated. The US however still used its veto power and voted against the resolution. Another veto power state, the UK, along with Lithuania, Nigeria, Korea and Rwanda have abstained from the vote.
Coca-Cola’s investment in Gaza
Source: middleeastmonitor.com
By: Yvonne Ridley
Coca-Cola is building a factory in Gaza, but before you applaud such an investment in an area where the economy is shattered and unemployment ranks among the highest in the world, let’s examine the deal more closely. Who will actually benefit from this? It’s a rhetorical question really, because the Palestinians living there will be the long-term losers while the neighbouring State of Israel will count the shekels rolling in.
The first of the materials to build the factory came via Israel with a convoy of 10 trucks carrying assembly line machines through the Yitzhak Rabin border terminal; from there the lorries were processed by the Israeli military into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing last week. This, in itself, is amazing, since only 130,000 tons of construction materials have been allowed into Gaza since the latest Israeli blitz; five million tons are needed to try to rebuild the factories bombed to destruction by Israel in its last two wars against the civilians of Gaza.
Thousands of families are still without homes in the depths of a Gaza winter and some of the dead are still buried under the tons of rubble where tower blocks stood before the Israeli military destroyed them. Despite international promises of humanitarian aid and a massive rebuilding programme nothing of any substance has happened because of the ongoing siege of the territory led by Israel and Egypt.
Israel bombed 161 mosques in Gaza
Source: middleeastmonitor.com
Israel has so far destroyed 161 mosques in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Awqaf Minister Yousef Dois said yesterday.
He said 41 mosques were completely destroyed and 120 were partially destroyed during the war adding that a number of religious institutions have also been attacked.
Dois continued by saying Israel is taking advantage of the fact that the world’s attention is on Gaza and using this to stop Muslim worshippers from gaining access to Al-Aqsa Mosque. He said rabbis are delivering provocative speeches.
Sony technology found in an Israeli missile in Gaza (Video)
A piece of an Israeli rocket discovered by Press TV correspondent in #Gaza showed that #Sony Corporation has provided the Israel regime with cameras and high-tech control boards to equip its missiles.
#GazaUnderAttack #presstvgaza
The Gaza reconstruction game
By: Maureen Clare Murphy
Source: electronicintifada.net
A donor conference hosted in Cairo last week to raise funds for the reconstruction of war-devastated Gaza has boasted $5.4 billion in pledges from various Western and Arab governments.
Yet Israel is the true beneficiary of this aid money. The self-declared international community has once again footed the reconstruction bill as it arms Israel with the weaponry and ensures it the impunity that only rewards its brutal onslaught on Gaza and essentially guarantees its repetition.
Israeli navy sinks Palestinian fishing boat off Gaza
Five Palestinian fishermen managed to jump into the water and swim to shore before the boat sank
Source: worldbulletin.net
Israeli naval forces have sunk a Palestinian fishing boat off the coast of the Gaza Strip Thursday.
“Three Israeli naval gunboats opened heavy machine fire on a Palestinian fishing boat off the shores of the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah,” Nizar Ayyash, head of Gaza’s Fishermen Union, told Anadolu Agency.
Donors pledge $5.4bn for Gaza reconstruction
Aid pledged at Cairo meet to rebuild enclave devastated by Israeli assault surpasses what Palestinians had asked for
Source: aljazeera.com
Global donors have pledged a sum of $5.4bn in aid to reconstruct the Gaza Strip amid warnings that the battered Palestinian enclave remained a “tinderbox” following its summer war with Israel.
“The participants pledged approximately $5.4bn,” Norwegian foreign minister, Boerge Brende, said during the closing statement at the Cairo conference which Norway co-hosted.