The Zionist occupation forces continue raids and searches of Jerusalemites’ houses in different parts of Jerusalem since a week; the forces captured dozens of young Jerusalemite, including one of Al Aqsa guards.

Eyewitnesses told our correspondent that Zionist forces captured, at dawn, Tariq Bakirat, one of the guards of Al Aqsa Mosque.

Witnesses added that the occupation force was waiting Bakirat as he left the mosque of his village “Sur Baher” in southeastern Jerusalem, where they attacked and handcuffed him before taking him to his home and confiscating his personal computer.

Also, the Zionist forces captured Eng. Ihab Al Jallad, member of the public committee of Jerusalem, after raiding his home, tampering with its contents and confiscating personal belongings, noting that he was taken to an unknown destination.

Yesterday, the Zionist forces had announced that they captured more than 20 Palestinians during the past few days and accused them of being linked to the confrontations of Aqsa Mosque, noting that they were taken to detention centers for interrogation.

The Zionist radio said: “The forces intend to do more raids and arrests of Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem. “

Israel is planning tens of thousands of new housing units across Jerusalem al-Quds particularly focusing on the illegally annexed East al-Quds.

On Thursday, the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted planning officials as revealing plans for some 50,000 new homes in al-Quds neighborhoods beyond the Green Line.

The plans for nearly 20,000 of the apartments are already in advanced stages of approval and implementation, while plans for the rest are to be submitted to the planning committees, the paper detailed.

The new buildings include 1,600 homes in the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo settlement in East al-Quds which were approved on Tuesday.

The Tuesday approval coincided with US Vice President Joe Biden’s meeting with Israeli officials aimed at facilitating indirect talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Observers have expressed fears that the hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration is sabotaging the prospects of peace with Palestinians “beyond the point of no return.”

The plans for new construction are in contrast with Israel’s announcement of a temporary, partial freeze on its settlement construction plans which excludes projects already in the pipeline and also those in al-Quds. The 10-month moratorium allows synagogues, schools, hospitals and other so-called community centers to be built.

Announced in November, the pause is widely viewed more of a tactical ploy — as confirmed by Israeli officials as well — than a real gesture to the Palestinians.

East al-Quds — which hosts some of the holiest sites of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, including the al-Aqsa Mosque — was occupied by the Israeli army during the six-day war in 1967.

Israel later annexed the Palestinian neighborhood in a move never recognized by the international community.

Rachel Corrie’s family opened a civil case Wednesday, accusing the Zionist military of whitewashing its investigation into the Olympia activist’s 2003 death.

Corrie’s parents seek unspecified compensation from the Zionist occupation for the death of their daughter, who was killed at 23 when she tried to block a bulldozer from demolishing a Gaza home. The driver said he didn’t see her, and the Zionist military has ruled her death an accident. Corrie’s family is demanding a new investigation.

Corrie, who had attended The Evergreen State College, was an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, a group that sends foreigners into volatile hot spots to assist Palestinians.

At Wednesday’s opening of the civil case, the Corries’ lawyer demanded a new investigation into her death.

Arab League Chief Amr Moussa has declared that the Palestinians would not enter direct or indirect peace negotiations with Israel unless the regime halts plans to build 1,600 new homes in east Jerusalem al-Quds.

Following an urgent meeting of Arab delegates in Cairo, Moussa said acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas had told him he would not take part in talks in the current circumstances.

“The Israeli measures must be stopped before any discussion on a resumption of talks, direct or indirect,” between Israel and the Palestinians, the Arab League said in a statement.

“If the measures taken by the Israelis for the construction of hundreds of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, are not halted immediately, the proposed talks would be useless,” it added.

Arab League convened on Wednesday an emergency meeting after Israel announced a plan to build 1,600 new housing units in occupied east Jerusalem al-Quds.

The announcement coincided with the visit by US Vice President Joe Biden, who hailed the resumption of indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Biden, however, condemned Israel’s move, warning that the settlement expansion will undermine new talks.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also attacked the Israeli move in a statement issued on Tuesday, saying the settlements were illegal under international law.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to monitor Zionist and Palestinian investigations into alleged war crimes in Gaza and to support the recommendations of a UN investigation into the matter.

The motion passed 325 to 287 with 43 abstentions. According to the resolution, the parliament “urges both sides to conduct investigations within five months that meet international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness.”

The parliament also called on the EU’s 27 member states to monitor the investigations. It also asked the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, to report back to the body on the issue.

Significantly, the motion also endorsed the report of a UN fact-finding mission led by judge Richard Goldstone, which found evidence of war crimes in the aftermath of Zionist entity’s three-week attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Zionists died in the Gaza war. Goldstone’s 575-page report called on Zionist and Palestinian authorities to investigate war crimes charges. If they failed to do so, the report asks UN bodies to act to bring accused war criminals to justice.

After tasking Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with evaluating Zionist and Palestinian investigations of war crimes, the UN General Assembly in February gave a 5-month extension for the local probes to proceed. Both the Zionist military and the Hamas government in Gaza say they investigated the allegations, but so far neither side has charged anyone with significant wrongdoing.

The European Parliament’s resolution endorsed the recommendation of the Goldstone report, saying it “Reiterates its call on the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Member States to work towards a strong EU common position on the follow-up to the report of the Fact-Finding Mission led by Judge Goldstone on the conflict in Gaza and Southern Zionist entity, publicly demanding the implementation of its recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.”

On Tuesday Zionist entity announced that it plans to allow Ashton and Ban into Gaza in the coming weeks. Zionist entity routinely bars foreign officials from visiting the besieged territory.

Undercover Zionist security agents assaulted two Palestinian activists and captured several others in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, onlookers said.

According to Palestinians in the Bustan area of Silwan, Zionist operatives “disguised as Arabs” attacked Mousa Odeh, 50, and Muhammad Odeh, 48. Both men are members of a local committee that organizes protests against Zionist house demolitions.

Several Palestinian residents were also captured by undercover Zionist troops operating in the neighborhood, local sources said.

Zionist municipal authorities have plans to bulldoze some 89 houses in Bustan, a densely-packed neighborhood in a valley adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City. Last week Zionist mayor Nir Barkat held off on a plan to enforce the demolition orders in order to make way for a park.

Pressure from European Jewish lobbyists has forced the members of the European Parliament to change their plan to pass a resolution demanding implementation of the Goldstone report on Gaza war.

The decision to backtrack on the agreement regarding the wording of a draft was taken on Tuesday after the president of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, warned that implementing it would gravely damage EU-Israel relations, Ha’aretz reported.

The UN-sponsored Goldstone report on Israel’s offensive in Gaza details what investigators call Israeli actions “amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity.” The 575-page account asserts seven incidents in which Palestinian civilians were shot while leaving their homes, trying to run for safety or while waving white flags.

The report also mentions that Israel violated international humanitarian law in several ways. Dozens of Palestinian police officers were killed at the start of Gaza onslaught when Israel bombed their stations. The security agents were not involved in resistance and should have been treated as civilians. Palestinians in addition were forced to walk ahead of Israeli soldiers when searching civilian neighborhoods.

The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Judge Richard Goldstone’s report in October, and the General Assembly followed suit in November.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during three weeks of Israel’s land, sea and air assault on the impoverished coastal sliver in December 2008-January 2009. The offensive also inflicted USD 1.6 billion in damages on the Gaza economy.

Qatar’s premier says Arab states will give an appropriate response to Israel’s decision to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“There will be a meeting today (Wednesday) between the representatives of Arab states and [Arab League chief] Amr Mussa,” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters in Doha.

“There will be a clear decision in response to this Israeli act. We had already had doubts about Israel’s seriousness in the peace process, but we had given peace talks an opportunity through our decision,” he added.

Israel announced plans on Tuesday to construct 1,600 Jewish homes in disputed East Jerusalem (al-Quds).

The move has angered Palestinians and Arab foreign ministers who reached an agreement last week to support a US proposal for indirect Middle East peace negotiations with Israel. The decision, however, was made in spite of their qualms about Tel Aviv’s sincerity to breathe life into efforts aimed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East.

The Israeli plan to build apartments in East Jerusalem (al-Quds), where Palestinians hope to set up the capital of their future state, as well as the occupied West Bank territories have undermined efforts to jump-start the stalled Middle East peace process.

Tel Aviv is currently under intense pressure from the international community to halt the construction of illegal settlements, which are considered the main obstacle in the way of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, in the West Bank.

Under the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, Israel has to ‘dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and freeze all settlement activities.’

There are currently 121 Israeli settlements and 102 Israeli outposts built on Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967.

These settlements and outposts are inhabited by a population of approximately 462,000 Israeli settlers. Some 191,000 Israelis are living in settlements around Jerusalem (al-Quds) and an additional 271,400 are spread throughout the West Bank.

US Vice President Joe Biden says a plan by Israel to build 1,600 homes on the occupied Palestinian land in an East Jerusalem (al-Quds) settlement undermines the efforts to kick-start the Middle East peace process.

“Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state which is viable and contiguous,” he told journalists after talks with acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

The senior American official also leveled harsh criticisms against Tel Aviv over a plan to construct hundreds of new settler homes in annexed East Jerusalem (al-Quds). “It is incumbent on all parties to grow an atmosphere of support for the negotiations and not to complicate them,” he noted.

“Yesterday, the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin as well as produce profitable negotiations,” Biden pointed out.

Abbas also condemned the Israeli move, saying, “The Israeli undermines trust and deals a severe blow to efforts deployed over the past months to start indirect negotiations.”

Israel’s green light to the construction of 1,600 homes in disputed East Jerusalem (al-Quds) drew severe criticism from world countries. America’s hopes of kick-starting the Middle East peace process suffered a humiliating setback as the US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, is trying to revive an indirect dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis after a year of acrimony.

Previous efforts at direct talks have fallen short since Tel Aviv declines to meet the Palestinians’ crucial requirement — a comprehensive freeze on all settlement activities in the West Bank settlements.

The Zionist occupation renewed the administrative detention, without trial or charge, of Majed Abu Obeida, a Hamas West Bank leader, for the seventh consecutive time, Ahrar center said on Tuesday.

The center for prisoners’ studies and human rights said in a statement that the renewal was intentionally announced on the day that Abu Obeida was scheduled to be released.

It charged that the step was meant to weaken the detainee’s morale and to upset his wife and nine children.

Abu Obeida, 47, was captured on 12/11/2007 and was held since then in administrative custody in Ofer and Negev prisons.

Meanwhile, the ZO moved Hamas commander Yehya Sinwar to solitary confinement in Ramon jail.

Hamas prisoners in occupation jails held the ZO fully responsible for any harm done to Sinwar, noting that three other Hamas commanders were held in isolation.

Sinwar, who was arrested in 1988, is serving a life sentence and had spent most of his detention in isolation in Hadarim and Nafha jails.

The higher national committee for support of prisoners said on Tuesday that the number of oldest serving prisoners in ZO jails had risen to 316 including 114 who spent more than 20 years in detention and who include 14 who spent more than 25 years in jails.

It added that three prisoners have served more than 30 years in occupation jails the oldest being Fakhri Al-Barghouthi who completes his 32nd year in jail in less than a month, thus posing as the oldest serving prisoner in the whole world.

The Palestinian Authority denounces Israel’s approval of plans to build hundreds of new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem Al-Quds, warning the move could derail peace talks.

During US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel on Tuesday, Tel Aviv took the international community with yet another surprise by declaring plans to build 1,600 more apartments for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, a day after boasting the construction of 112 housing units in the Betar Illit settlement in Bethlehem.

A spokesman for acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas said the “dangerous” plan — which also came a day after US envoy George Mitchell arrived in the Middle East — had the potential to “derail negotiations and ensure the failure of US efforts before they begin.”

“It is now apparent that the Israeli government does not want negotiations, nor does it want peace,” he said, calling on the US to “respond to this provocation with effective measures,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh said on Tuesday.

He said moving forward would “no longer be tolerable” if Washington adopted a policy of silence toward the provocations. “Without real and effective American pressure, adopting a position that would make Israel stop these actions, they will destroy the peace process.”

The continued Israeli construction on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank comes amid repeated condemnations from the United Nations and other international bodies, even contradicting the Tel Aviv regime’s own 10-month moratorium declared last November.

The move also drew strong criticism from Biden, who said Israel was “undermining the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”

As the US-sponsored “proximity talks” are expected to begin between the Palestinians and Israel, top Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat expressed reservations on the recently announced indirect negotiations.

Erekat urged answers to some inquiries he submitted to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell about the Israeli government’s approval of more residential units in settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes before any indirect talks could begin.

He called for Israel’s return to borders before the occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967 and demanded Tel Aviv’s commitment to negotiations by halting settlement activities, stopping the daily detentions of Palestinians, and freezing construction near the West Bank separation wall.

“If these activities continue, Israel will be foiling the US proposal and international efforts,” Erekat insisted.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the Gaza Strip next week, the UN announced.

“The secretary general is expected to visit Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza following his attendance at the Quartet meeting scheduled on March 19 in Moscow,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said late on Tuesday.

On Monday, Ban said the upcoming Quartet meeting presents a “very good opportunity” to get Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume stalled peace talks.

Ban said he will take part in the meeting of the group known as the Quartet and then meet with the Arab League in Libya on March 27, where he plans to drum up support for an early resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The United Nations, the United States, Russia, and the European Union are the members of the Quartet.

The elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is planning to appoint a female minister to head a Women’s Affairs Ministry in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“The government is planning to appoint a number of female ministers to better include them in the decision-making process,” the Ma’an new agency quoted Haniyeh as saying at an event held on Tuesday to honor working women in Gaza City.

“We are a national government, based on Islamic principles, and we call on women to be more involved in the parliament, municipalities, and ministries. We are proud of this for this is a woman’s right,” he added.

Haniyeh said the Gaza government will attach more significance to women’s issues in the future.

The decision came a day after International Women’s Day, which was celebrated across the globe on March 8. World leaders and international organizations are calling for women’s rights to be recognized and for women to be given more opportunities in order to help resolve global problems.

Israel’s plan to construct another 1,600 homes on occupied Palestinian territory “undermines the trust we need,” US Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

He condemned Israel’s refusal to freeze settlements and its plan to build new homes on land where Palestinians are seeking to establish an independent state.

Biden, who arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence, said that Tel Aviv’s blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem Al-Quds by Israel, is “undermining the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”

Israel’s intransigence has put the US vice president in an awkward position ahead of a meeting with acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, the statement added.

US President Barack Obama’s envoy, George Mitchell, is due back in the region next week to try to set the structure and scope of the “proximity talks” in which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet separately with a US mediator.

Israel has approved the construction of hundreds of new housing units in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds amid reports of US-led resumption of talks between Tel Aviv and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA).

Tel Aviv’s interior ministry said in a statement that it had approved the building of 1,600 housing units for settlers in al-Quds, Israeli daily Haarerz reported.

The units will be constructed in addition to the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, expanding the settlement both to the east and to the south, according to the statement.

The Israeli announcement coincided with the visit by US Vice President Joe Biden who hailed the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks with US mediation through its Middle East envoy George Mitchell.

In meetings with Mitchell this week, the two sides agreed to resume ‘peace’ talks suspended since December 2008, Washington announced.

The talks remained stalled as Tel Aviv ignored Palestinian and initial US calls for a halt to settlement activities on Palestinian lands.

Observers emphasize that the PA’s agreement with Washington’s demand for the resumption of talks without any consideration to the long-standing demand to halt settlement activities, further emboldens the US-sponsored Israeli regime to push through all its illegitimate demands in the name of peace.

They also insist that the current trend will further aggravate the Palestinian situation leading to an all-out resistance against Tel Aviv.

Israel seized al-Quds along with the West Bank from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in defiance of the international community.

The regime claims the holy city as its “eternal, indivisible” capital, while the Palestinian Authority wants at least the implementation of the UN resolutions, which assign the control of the eastern part of the city to them.

The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas and its sizable followers, however, totally reject Tel Aviv’s claim to al-Quds and insist that the holy city belongs to Palestinians in its entirety.

US Vice President Joe Biden, who is in Israel for ‘proximity talks’ between Israelis and the Palestinians, has reiterated Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security.

There is absolutely no space between the two sides in terms of Israel’s security, Biden assured in a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.

The Israeli president for his turn said Tel Aviv trusted the US administration and also called on Washington to “protect Israel against Tehran’s nuclear threat.”

Biden, who is on a four-day tour of the Middle East, expressed optimism on the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I hope the beginning of what is referred to as indirect or proximity talks, I hope it is a vehicle, a vehicle by which we can begin to allay that layer of mistrust that has built up in the last several years,” Biden said.

Biden, who also met with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, is due to travel to the West Bank on Wednesday to hold talks with the Palestinian Authority leaders.

The visit comes one day after Israeli authorities announced plans to build 112 new housing units in the occupied West Bank, prompting warnings from the Palestinian negotiators against sabotaging peace efforts.

The construction plans come in contrast to a 10-month freeze Israel announced in November on its illegal settlement activity in the West Bank.

But Washington defended the decision, saying it was not in breach of the November moratorium.

Israel says it would facilitate the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton to the besieged Gaza Strip.

A statement by Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said the decision came in response to a request by Ban and Ashton but it did not specify when the two leaders might visit Gaza.

This is while Israel prevented a delegation of European MPs from travelling to the blockaded coastal strip last December.

Ashton took the news with a grain of doubt, though.

“It is true that the Israeli government has so far reacted positively to this request. We are continuing to work on the final program for the trip and are continuing to talk with the Israeli government in relation to this,” her spokesman said in Strasbourg.

In February, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, however, made a visit to the region to become the first European diplomat who managed to get in the sliver via Egypt.

Witnessing the plight of the impoverished Palestinians there, Martin called the Israeli blockade of Gaza inhumane and unacceptable.

European Union High Representative of Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton is expected to arrive in the Middle East next week and is scheduled to visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

On March 19, Ban is expected to take part in a meeting of the International Quartet on the Middle East in Moscow. He is then to visit the region at the end of the month, ahead of his participation in the Arab League summit in Libya.

Gaza has been under more than two years of paralyzing Israeli blockade which has been in place even after Tel Aviv’s military offensive against the populated costal enclave last January, which left more than 1,400 people killed.

Gaza’s infrastructure devastated in the three-week onslaught prompted the UN and other human rights groups to urge Israel to put an end to the “collective punishment” of some 1.5 million Palestinians in the region and allow construction materials and humanitarian aid into the strip.

The United States backs Israel’s authorization of new construction projects in the West Bank, saying Washington’s Middle East ally has not violated its settlement moratorium.

Speaking about 112 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the move did not amount to a breach of the moratorium that the Israelis previously announced.

“On the other hand, this is the kind of thing that both sides need to be cautious of as we move ahead with these parallel talks, Crowley told reporters in Washington on Monday.

Under international pressure and unprecedented criticism from the US, Israel in November unilaterally instituted a 10-month pause in settlement building in the West Bank.

The decision received a chilly welcome from the Palestinians as the freeze fails to give the Palestinian demand of a full, permanent halt for it does not stop the work on some 3,000 houses, nor does it include the ones in East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

The 10-month freeze also allows for construction of synagogues, schools and what Tel Aviv views as community projects.

Israel now has given a green light to the construction of some 112 new apartments in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, citing safety considerations and saying the units were approved ahead of the moratorium.

While the US has announced Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to start indirect talks, Palestinian negotiators warn the Beitar Illit announcement will strain the fragile agreement and sabotage peace efforts.

Interpol has issued arrest warrants for 16 new suspects identified by Dubai police for the January assassination of a Hamas commander.

The latest announcement brought to 27 the total number of suspects on Interpol’s wanted list for the assassination of Mahmud al-Mabhouh, who was drugged before being suffocated in his hotel room, AFP reported.

“Investigative information provided by the authorities in Dubai bore out the international links and broad scope of the number of people involved, as well as the role of two ‘teams’ of individuals identified by the Dubai police as being linked to Al-Mabhouh’s murder,” Interpol said in a statement.

The statement added that the 16 new names make up the second of these “teams,” in addition to the 11 for whom Interpol issued arrest alerts, known as Red Notices, on February 18.

The 11 suspects, carrying European passports, included six Britons, three Irish and one French and one German, widely believed to have been Mossad agents carrying fake European documents.

“According to the Dubai police investigation, the first team consisted of a smaller core group alleged to have carried out the killing,” said the statement.

The second team of 16 “is believed to have aided and abetted the first team by closely watching, following and reporting Mabhouh’s movements from the moment he landed in Dubai airport until his murder” on January 19, the statement added.

Israel has so far refused to confirm or deny involvement in the assassination of the Hamas commander.

Palestinian resistance groups rejected Palestinian Authority’s decision for indirect negotiations with the Zionist regime.

Eight Palestinian resistance groups, settled in Damascus, issued a statement which says the Palestinian Authority was forced to agree on a four month indirect peace talks with Israel by Washington and Israel.

The Palestinian Authority had demanded a complete halt to Israeli settlement building as a condition for resuming talks with Israel and the statement refers to the present agreement for indirect negotiations as a compromise.