Barack Obama pledges $2.77 billion for Israel in 2010, and $30 billion over the next decade. Israel is for the first time bound to use 75% of the aid to buy military material from the US.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports that construction in West Bank settlements is “booming” despite the declared freeze, with expansion underway at more than 50 settlements and two industrial zones.
Several international activists were injured by Egyptian riot police during demonstrations with the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo. Egypt has denied the march access to the besieged Strip.
In a move heralded by human rights groups, Israel’s supreme court ordered the military to allow Palestinians to travel on part of a major highway that runs through the West Bank.
Egypt has informed organizers of the Gaza Freedom March that the Rafah border will be closed over the coming weeks. Organizers are calling for pressure on Egyptian authorities.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades pledged that “the Israeli occupation has thrown open the doors of its own inferno” following an IDF raid on Nablus that left three youth dead.
Palestinian security forces that have been detaining and torturing Hamas supporters on the West Bank are working closely with the CIA, diplomats and human rights groups charge.
Israel reacted angrily to the news that a warrant has been issued in Britain for the arrest of former foreign minister Tzipi Livni for war crimes during Israel’s Gaza campaign.
Egypt has commenced construction of a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip that will extend 18 meters (55 feet) underground in an attempt to cut smuggling tunnels.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon “expressed his dismay at the continuation of demolitions, evictions and the installment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.”
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says the Palestinian conflict has left almost 8,900 people dead over the last 20 years—with 2009 the bloodiest.
A group of Israeli soldiers disobeyed orders to assist in the dismantling of two wooden structures that Jewish settlers had built without Israeli government authorization near Hebron.
