BETHLEHEM ( Ma'an ) -- A French multinational company at the center of a global boycott campaign announced major financial losses on Thursday, a statement from Palestinian civil society groups said Monday. The boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targets international companies with links to illegal Israeli settlements. "Veolia is paying the price for its involvement in Israel’s policies of occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people," said Jamal Jumaa, coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign. "The company has been losing contracts left, right and center, to the tune of billions of dollars. No matter how large, no corporation can absorb such huge and sustained financial losses." "This is bound to trigger loud discontent among Veolia's shareholders, eventually leading to a stern demand for an immediate end to the company’s complicity in illegal Israeli projects." Veolia announced Thursday that it would scale back...

SAN FRANCISCO ( MarketWatch ) -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday lowered the ratings on U.S.-guaranteed bonds issued by the Israeli government to AA+ from AAA. The downgrade comes in the wake of the ratings agency's move on Friday to strip the U.S. of its triple-A rating. However, Israel's sovereign rating is unchanged at A with a stable outlook. The decision affects about $6 billion in debt.

CAIRO (Ma'an) -- Hamas and Fatah have agreed to release all political prisoners after meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the reconciliation deal signed in April, official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The two factions also agreed to the formation of a committee to issue passports to Gaza residents before the end of Ramadan, as well as forming a task force to reopen institutions which were shut down in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of political animosities. The agreement "is important because it is a reassuring message to the Palestinian people, and it reflects the seriousness of both parties in implementing it," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri said in Gaza. A committee would also be formed to "ensure the opening of closed institutions in both the West Bank and Gaza," Zahri added. more

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip on Saturday detained two members of an Islamist group suspected of firing rockets at Israel, the group said in a statement. Tawhid wal Jihad, a Salafist organisation, confirmed that Hamas security forces had detained two of its members in an early morning raid. "Forces from the government of Ismail Haniya arrested two members of a group of holy warriors from the Tawhid wal Jihad group in the north of Gaza on Saturday morning," the Salafist organisation said in a statement. "The rest of the members were able to escape and withdrew safely to their homes," the statement added. The group acknowledged that the arrested members were part of a group firing missiles from Gaza, confirming earlier reports that Hamas forces had detained fighters who have fired dozens of missiles into Israel this month. In the statement, the group warned that it would continue to fire rockets at Israel. "Our weapo...

CAIRO — Rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas opened talks Sunday in Egypt aimed at implementing a reconciliation agreement struck in May, state news agency MENA reported. The two sides held consultations late Saturday in the presence of Egyptian intelligence officials, the agency said, adding Fatah's delegation is led by Azzam al-Ahmed and Hamas by Musa Abu Marzuq. Fatah official Sakhr Bssisso said the talks would focus on "mechanisms of implementing the reconciliation deal," in all its aspects, including the formation of a new government -- one of the main hurdles delaying the deal. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri told AFP on Saturday that his group was "serious in wanting to implement the agreement as soon as possible". But he added there were some hurdles, namely Fatah's insistance to keep Salam Fayyad at the head of the government. more

From The Electronic Intifada Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit That lyric in Lupe Fiasco’s track “Words I Never Said” brought the Hip hop artist a lot of attention and new fans in the Palestine solidarity community. The song was featured on his album Lasers which shot to the top of the Billboard 200 charts when it was released last March. The lyric is a reference to US President Barack Obama’s silence throughout Israel’s 22-day bombardment of Gaza, during the last weeks of his transition to the presidency in January 2008. What motivated Lupe to tackle the question of Palestine when virtually no other US artist with a mass following will touch the issue? In a recent video interview with Sama’an Ashrawi, Lupe Fiasco spoke about his early education on Palestine. As a child the artist attended mosque, and had many friends in Chicago’s Southwest Side, where much of the city’s large Palestinian population is concentrated. Lupe Fiasco is known for his progressive politics a...

( pic: Fire breaks out in olive trees as Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters at peaceful demonstration against the annexation wall in Bil’ein village near Ramallah - pchr ) Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) Two Palestinian civilians were killed and a third one was wounded by IOF in Qalandya refugee camp, south of Ramallah. A Palestinian civilian was wounded by IOF in the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes bombarded a tunnel at the Egyptian border in the southern Gaza Strip and a training site in the north. IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank. 3 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded. IOF arrested 3 international human rights defenders. IOF conducted 44 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. IOF arrested 21 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council....

JERUSALEM ( AFP ) - Israel's air force carried out three new raids on the Gaza Strip overnight, wounding three people, Palestinian witnesses and medics said on Friday. Two adults and a child were hurt when a training camp of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas that controls the tiny Palestinian coastal enclave, was hit in the north, the sources said. The Israeli army confirmed it had carried out air raids, saying they had targeted three tunnels and an operations base in the central Gaza Strip and a fourth target in the south. more

Gaza Strip, ( Pal Telegraph )-Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers around Karem Abu Salem crossing, in the east of Rafah city, opened massive fire at civilians' houses and agricultural lands in the areas of Aldhenah and Asshoka. Witnesses told local sources that Israeli military towers built on the Palestinian territories started shooting at Palestinian houses close to the borders and also at farmers who were working in their fields without injuries reported. Witnesses added that many Palestinian farmers were forced to leave their fields in order not to be hurt by Israeli intensive fire. Israeli forces used to cross its borders with the besieged Gaza Strip and conduct provocative actions that risk the lives of hundred of Palestinians who have lived in that areas. more

Mondoweiss brings to our attention this blog by Sam Bahour in the Guardian arguing for the abandonment of the two-states non solution in favour of the only viable route to peace and just, namely one secular state in historic Palestine in which Jews and Muslims (israelis and Palestinians) live side by side in equality. The new Palestinian leaders, those whom the Israeli negotiators have not yet met, see the larger picture and refuse to believe that Israel desires to live in peace when every indication for 64 years has shown the opposite. The emerging Palestinian leaders see Israel for what it is: a settler, colonial, apartheid movement clinging to a racialist, exclusivist ideology that neither wishes nor intends to allow another state to emerge between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river, let alone allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and be compensated for their hardships, as was stipulated as a condition when the UN accepted Israel as a member state on 11 Ma...

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, ( PIC )-- The Israeli occupation authorities are planning on carrying out plans to build 7,000 new settlement units in Jerusalem, Israeli media outlets have reported. Construction plans in the occupied city have accumulated since US Vice-President Joe Biden last visited a year and a half ago. Now plans to build 1,328 units in Ramat Shlom will be put to the expedited building committee formed by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in 60 days. These were the same plans that caused a crisis between the US and Israel during the Biden visit. A local planning and construction board also approved 900 homes to be built in the Gilo settlement, and another plan under discussion by the expedited building board for 625 units in Pisgat Ze’ev is slated to begin taking effect. Separately, 930 units have been approved to be built in Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim) between Jerusalem and Bethlehem earlier this week. Meanwhile, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton has condemned the recent a...

From BDS South Africa South African student bodies slam "Israeli Apartheid Agents" and endorse nationwide Israel boycott This afternoon at a joint press conference held at the student center of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, national representatives of the South African Union of Students (SAUS), the South African Student Congress (SASCO) and the Young Communist League (YCL) slammed the pending trip of "Israeli Apartheid agents" to South Africa. The Israeli mission to South African campuses is expected to arrive on the 11th of August 2011. Palestinian students have written to South African peers asking them to challenge and boycott the Israeli delegation. Today's press conference was hosted by South Africa's oldest, largest and most representative student bodies - the South African Students Congress*, the South African Union of Students** and the Young Communist League***. Furthermore, members of the University of Johannesburg and Univer...

GAZA CITY ( Ma’an ) -- An explosive device detonated Friday near a Palestinian police station, officials said. Police in Gaza opened an investigation into the explosion next to a street vender's stand in Deir Al-Balah, authorities said. Late last month, an explosive charge blew off the front of a mini market in central Jabaliya refugee camp, causing extensive damage to the store and nearby residences. Security forces said they were investigating. more

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Two Palestinians from an armed group were injured in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City on Thursday as Israeli air strikes hit the coastal enclave. Local witnesses told Ma'an that a large explosion was heard in the Jabal Al-Rayes neighborhood east of Gaza City. The Israeli army said in a statement that the strikes had targeted the "launch site of a grad rocket fired at Israel." "A short while ago, a Grad rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip at the communities of the Hevel Lakhish Regional Council," an Israeli army statement said, with no injuries reported. The latest air strike is the second to target the Gaza Strip on Thursday after Israeli warplanes launched two attacks Thursday morning on the bases of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas, to the east and west of Gaza City. The airstrikes on Thursday come amid recent escalations along the border as Israeli warplanes struck two targets Tuesday in the northern a...

From antiwar.com Two grad-type rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck empty fields inside Israel today, doing no damage and causing no casualtie s, but becoming headline news in a number of Israeli media outlets. Israel responded, as they always do, with a massive escalation of their ongoing air strikes against the strip, destroying a number of as-yet-unidentified targets in the tiny enclave in what they called a “retaliatory” measure. So far no group has claimed responsibility for the rockets, but the Hamas faction has been trying to negotiate deals among smaller groups to refrain from launching such strikes. This has been rejected by the would-be al-Qaeda affiliate in the strip, however, which sees Hamas’ government as illegitimate. The latest escalation comes just one day after Israel’s Public Security Minister called for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip to prevent future missile strikes , and will likely spawn yet more calls for such an attack.

Haaretz - A senior officer in the Israeli Navy said Tuesday that terrorists groups close to Israel are in possession of missiles capable of hitting all Israeli ports and offshore infrastructure such as oil rigs. Brigadier General Yaron Levi, the Navy's intelligence chief, spoke about the matter on Tuesday at a conference in Tel Aviv University that focused on the naval theatre. Levi reminded the audience that Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah recently said that if Israel imposes a naval siege on Lebanon as part of another war between the countries, Hezbollah will respond with missiles aimed at Israeli targets at sea. "You don't need to be genius to know where our oil rigs are," he said. "I'm sure you can find their location on the internet." Levi pointed to the fact that a large part of Israel's strategic infrastructure is concentrated in a narrow strip along the coast, and said that "any damage to them would be critical." Israel, he said, k...

Egypt, the main broker of Palestinian reconciliation, has been extending invitations to various Palestinian factions for further discussion on problems impeding the formation of a Palestinian national unity government. A meeting has already taken place in Cairo between Egyptian intelligence officials and representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the second most important PLO faction after Fatah. Rabah Muhanna, a PFLP spokesman in Gaza, said the Egyptians were holding meetings with factional leaders and discussing ways and means to overcome problems hindering the formation of a new Palestinian government that would be acceptable to all factions, especially Fatah and Hamas.  Muhanna said the interim Egyptian leadership, despite its own internal troubles, was devoting real attention to the issue of Palestinian reconciliation, adding that the Palestinian situation was always and would always be a matter of Egyptian national security.  A number of Palestinian off...

GAZA, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes struck early on Tuesday on southern Gaza Strip in response to an earlier homemade rocket attack on southern Israel, where an Israeli woman was injured, witnesses said. The witnesses said that Israeli F16 warplanes flew over the enclave, and then a huge explosion was heard, adding that a target in southern Gaza Strip was apparently hit by an air-to-ground missile, no injuries were reported. They said that two Israeli missiles hit an underground smuggling tunnel in Rafah town. The runnel was destroyed, and no injuries were reported, where the Israeli aerial raid was a response to earlier homemade rocket attack. Earlier on Monday, an Israeli army spokesman told Israel Radio that an Israeli woman was lightly injured and three others were in a state of panic after a homemade rocket fired from Gaza landed on southern Israel. The spokesman said that Palestinian militants from Gaza launched a homemade rocket from northern Gaza Strip that landed south ...

JERUSALEM - A LEBANESE soldier was wounded on Monday in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops along the border between the two countries, Israeli military sources told AFP on condition of anonymity. The sources said the incident occurred near the Dan kibbutz in the far north of Israel and close to the town of Kiryat Shmona. The incident occurred when one Lebanese soldier opened fire on Israeli troops carrying out work on a border fence, the sources said. Israeli troops then returned fire, hitting a Lebanese soldier. -- AFP

RAMALLAH, ( PIC )-- Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has condemned the Israeli occupation forces raid in Kalandia near Ramallah that killed two young Palestinian men. Clashes broke out there after the IOF came in to make arrests. The army said the young men were killed by 'uncontrolled' gunfire. Abu Zuhri said the lethal raid calls for increased resistance in the West Bank and called on the Palestinian Authority security agencies to stop persecuting resistance forces and confiscating their weapons. The fact that the attack took place on Monday the first day of the holy month of Ramadan demonstrates Israel's ''aggressive nature'' that lacks respect for the sanctities and setiments of the Muslims, Abu Zuhri pointed out. In a separate statement, Hamas MPs in the West Bank also condemned the killings as a ''heinous crime''. The MPs mourned the martyrs; Mutasim Adwan and Ali Khalifa'. The statement is concluded with calls to the Palestinian fact...