Monday, 06 June 2011
Palestinians carry the coffin of a man, who was shot dead yesterday by Israeli soldiers during clashes at the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, during a funeral in Al Yarmouk camp near Damascus. (File Photo)
Syria said 23 people were killed in Sunday’s protest near the Golan Heights, when Israeli troops fired at Palestinian demonstrators who marched to the frontier fence, whereas Israel dismissed the toll as “exaggerated” and put the number of killed at ten.
Israeli troops were bracing for more border violence Monday after a day of deadly clashes with hundreds of Palestinians and their supporters who tried to surge from Syria into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, The Associated Press reported.
Official news agency SANA quoted Health Minister Wael Al Halki as saying the death toll included a woman and a child, adding that another 350 people suffered gunshot wounds.
Israeli troops were bracing for more border violence Monday after a day of deadly clashes with hundreds of Palestinians and their supporters who tried to surge from Syria into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, The Associated Press reported.
Official news agency SANA quoted Health Minister Wael Al Halki as saying the death toll included a woman and a child, adding that another 350 people suffered gunshot wounds.
The Israeli army meanwhile said 10 people had been killed during mass protests along the ceasefire line with Syria, dismissing the toll of 23 dead cited by Damascus as “exaggerated.”
“We are aware that around 10 of the casualties that the Syrians reported yesterday were killed by the fact that they used Molotov cocktails in the Quneitra area that hit some Syrian landmines,” Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovitz told Agence-France Presse.
She did not specify how the Israeli military had confirmed the number of dead, and did not give a toll for the wounded.
“I think there is solid ground to believe that (the Syrian figures) are exaggerated,” she said. “A big number of them died as a result of their own deeds.”
Asked whether any protesters were killed or wounded by Israeli fire, she was non-committal.
“We don’t really know. There were a lot of charades. When someone was shot in the feet, they were carried away on a stretcher in front of the cameras,” she said.
Three weeks ago Israeli soldiers shot dead 13 Palestinian protesters who tried to breach Israel's frontier with Lebanon and Syria during protests marking what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (catastrophe) of Israel’s founding in 1948.
Sunday’s protest was held to mark the 44th anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians want to establish a state.
Palestinians in Syria marched down from a hilltop overlooking the Druze village of Majdal Shams on Sunday to the Israeli frontier, which before last month had been mostly peaceful for decades, according to Reuters.
Israel has accused Syrian President Bashar Al Assad of allowing the Golan protests to try to divert the world’s attention from his bloody suppression of the popular revolt against his authoritarian rule.
Israel is concerned that protests by unarmed demonstrators are a new tactic for Palestinians, adopted from popular revolts in the Arab world, to draw a violent response and gain more sympathy internationally for their cause.
The government in Hamas-ruled Gaza ordered three days of mourning, calling the dead “martyrs of Palestine,” according to AP.
Israeli opposition lawmaker Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former general and defense minister, predicted the unrest would proliferate across Israel’s various borders.
“There is only one solution,” said Ben-Eliezer, whose Labor Party splintered, then quit the government in frustration over its failure to break a stubborn impasse in peacemaking with the Palestinians. “To recognize a Palestinian state and sit down tomorrow at the bargaining table,” he told Israel Radio.
Israel returned Sinai to Egypt under a 1979 peace accord and left Gaza in 2005.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and east Jerusalem, along with Gaza, for a future state. Syria demands a return of the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel that Israel has since annexed, in return for peace. Multiple rounds of peacemaking between Israel and both the Syrians and the Palestinians have failed.
The recent protests have drawn attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from homes in Israel during the war over Israel's 1948 creation. The original refugees, and their descendants, now number several million, and they demand “the right to return” to the families’ former properties.
Israel opposes their repatriation because Palestinians would eventually outnumber Jews in the Jewish state. The fate of the refugees and their descendants is one of the toughest issues in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
(Abeer Tayel, a senior editor at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
“We are aware that around 10 of the casualties that the Syrians reported yesterday were killed by the fact that they used Molotov cocktails in the Quneitra area that hit some Syrian landmines,” Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovitz told Agence-France Presse.
She did not specify how the Israeli military had confirmed the number of dead, and did not give a toll for the wounded.
“I think there is solid ground to believe that (the Syrian figures) are exaggerated,” she said. “A big number of them died as a result of their own deeds.”
Asked whether any protesters were killed or wounded by Israeli fire, she was non-committal.
“We don’t really know. There were a lot of charades. When someone was shot in the feet, they were carried away on a stretcher in front of the cameras,” she said.
Three weeks ago Israeli soldiers shot dead 13 Palestinian protesters who tried to breach Israel's frontier with Lebanon and Syria during protests marking what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (catastrophe) of Israel’s founding in 1948.
Sunday’s protest was held to mark the 44th anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians want to establish a state.
Palestinians in Syria marched down from a hilltop overlooking the Druze village of Majdal Shams on Sunday to the Israeli frontier, which before last month had been mostly peaceful for decades, according to Reuters.
Israel has accused Syrian President Bashar Al Assad of allowing the Golan protests to try to divert the world’s attention from his bloody suppression of the popular revolt against his authoritarian rule.
Israel is concerned that protests by unarmed demonstrators are a new tactic for Palestinians, adopted from popular revolts in the Arab world, to draw a violent response and gain more sympathy internationally for their cause.
The government in Hamas-ruled Gaza ordered three days of mourning, calling the dead “martyrs of Palestine,” according to AP.
Israeli opposition lawmaker Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former general and defense minister, predicted the unrest would proliferate across Israel’s various borders.
“There is only one solution,” said Ben-Eliezer, whose Labor Party splintered, then quit the government in frustration over its failure to break a stubborn impasse in peacemaking with the Palestinians. “To recognize a Palestinian state and sit down tomorrow at the bargaining table,” he told Israel Radio.
Israel returned Sinai to Egypt under a 1979 peace accord and left Gaza in 2005.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and east Jerusalem, along with Gaza, for a future state. Syria demands a return of the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel that Israel has since annexed, in return for peace. Multiple rounds of peacemaking between Israel and both the Syrians and the Palestinians have failed.
The recent protests have drawn attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from homes in Israel during the war over Israel's 1948 creation. The original refugees, and their descendants, now number several million, and they demand “the right to return” to the families’ former properties.
Israel opposes their repatriation because Palestinians would eventually outnumber Jews in the Jewish state. The fate of the refugees and their descendants is one of the toughest issues in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
(Abeer Tayel, a senior editor at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
Comments »
1 - The Palestinians revealed their true faces !!Joe (Guest) 08:21am GMT, 11:21am KSA, 06/06/2011They want ALL of Israel, not just parts of country !! They want to kill Jews, not to coexist in peace !! They want the Golan !! The Galil !! More then Gaza !! More then the WB !! The 67 borders are just a step in a wider plan !! They will only get a Hudna !! Not Peace !!
2 - What does the term refugee means?Hans (Guest) 10:12am GMT, 01:12pm KSA, 06/06/2011Two of the many problems in the Middle East are: 1. The Palestinians are the only refugees in the world who can pass on their status to their children. And the children again can pass it to next generation. In 1948 about 400 to 800 thousand fled. Today 6 to 10 millions want to return. 2. The Arabian states (Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc.) don't allow the Palestinians to integrate in their countries . As long as this two points remain - there will be no peace.
3 - Good point HansTomSolmon (Guest) 02:08pm GMT, 05:08pm KSA, 06/06/2011Isn't it suprising that, for all the professed empathy and affection for the poor, displaced Palestinians, none of there host countries are willing to offer them citizenship?
4 - Zionists will be assassinated one by oneExtremist (Guest) 03:32pm GMT, 06:32pm KSA, 06/06/2011Yes!For each and every Arab martyr from the day of the Naqba to the end of the occupation these Zionist criminals will pay the just price individually.For the time being let them fire and kill innocent people and justify.
5 - More to comeTim (Guest) 03:51pm GMT, 06:51pm KSA, 06/06/2011Paying Syrian Palestinians to breach the border is Assad's way of taking attention away from the daily massacres of ordinary Syrians seeking freedom. Al Aribiya's unconfirmed headline shows the strategy is working. In the end, hating jews is more important than anything else !!
6 - 23(?) HIRED POOR SYRIANS IMPERSONATING PALESTINIANS were killed,Thanks BasharAbu Maher (Guest) 04:20pm GMT, 07:20pm KSA, 06/06/2011Well,Bashar,you are really an eternal loser! I wonder how you graduated as an Eye-Doctor if you cannot SEE how you are failing. Your father,Yila'n Abuhu,LOST the Golan Heights to Israel's MOUSSA DAYAN,who had better eye sight in one unpatched eye than your father's two... And then,in 1973,he surprised the Israelis,moved into the Golan Heights...He almost reached the Gallilee of Israel,when this Moussa Dayan drove YOUR father to where he came from Beaten and bitten,again with one eye against two. And now Dr. Assad,Tawil wa Abil tries it again?
7 - Not very good shooting, is it?Sobieski (Guest) 04:38pm GMT, 07:38pm KSA, 06/06/2011With a vast herd of psychotic, screaming, lunging, fanatical muslim terrorists at the gate, all the IDF could get was a measly 23? Hardly enough to justify the expense in bullets. Arabs don't really care, you know, or they wouldn't allow their brainless mobs to do this crazy stuff for the TV cameras. Suicidal arabs are quite a problem, and there doesn't seem to be a suitable cure for the illness yet. Oh well, maybe Israelis will do better next time and reduce the ranks of lunatic muslims to a more manageable rabble.
8 - Arab countries callously use pals for propagandaJIM M (Guest) 04:41pm GMT, 07:41pm KSA, 06/06/2011Arabs don't give a damn about these 'refugees', they just use them for their own propaganda purposes. I wonder if the pals will ever get wise?
9 - solomn or nosolmn that is gon with the wind joe you and netanyhufayze mere (Guest) 04:46pm GMT, 07:46pm KSA, 06/06/2011joe tel your prime minister fayze and the rest of the people of palastine will not compremise on selling the whole of palastine and we have not sold palastine to no body NETANYAHU should understand that he is not ligitimate in palastine we not asking to give us the 1967 BOARDER OF PALASTINE we want allot more than that NETANYAHU JUST REMEMBER I ADMIT THERE WAS SOME JEW LIVING IN PALASTINE DURING THE ROMAN TIME I AM CHRISTIAN BUT SAME IS MY BROTHERS MUSLIM AND FROM THE MIDDLE EAST THE JEWS WAS LIVING WITH THE ARAB DURING THE ROMAN TIME
10 - Come onJim (Guest) 05:09pm GMT, 08:09pm KSA, 06/06/2011Are you buying this? This has Asad writen all over it. Just an atempt to get the ignorent masses to do what they love most - hate the neigbore tribe. If you will loose your focus as you did for the past 50 years you will contnue your slavery. My best to the Syrian oposition. Fight for your rights!
11 - MASSAGE TO NETANYAHU AND THE ACCUPATIONFAYZE MERE (Guest) 05:26pm GMT, 08:26pm KSA, 06/06/2011NETANYAHU GET OUT NOW BEFORE IS TO LATE ISRAEL IS ON IT WAY TO CALAPS VERY SOON SIMPLY WE WANTS THE GOLAN HIGHTS IS NOT BEEN SOLD TO ISRAEL THE POWERS OF CIVILIAN IS MORE POWERFULL THAN THE POWERS OF THE GUN ISRAEL IS FINISH THE GOLAN MUST BE RETURN THERE WILL BE MORE DEMOSTRATION ON THE WAY UNTIL ISRAEL HAND OVER THE GOLAN NETANYHU WE ARE COMING
12 - INCH BY INCH, MUSLIMS NEVER STOP DEMANDINGANDREAS THIESEN (Guest) 05:39pm GMT, 08:39pm KSA, 06/06/2011Obviously the muslims don't care how many people have to die to achieve their goal of taking the last one percent of the middle east, or who those people might be. I wonder how the Iranians would handle this perpetual attack on their country? How about the New Zealanders? Or the French? If the Israelis give an inch today, the muslims will demand a metre tomorrow, then a kilometre, then all Israel. Israel cannot tolerate this never ending assault on their country. They have to convince the muslim hordes that they will not ever win!
