Palestinian workers' activist assaulted

Israeli soldiers assaulted a 53-year-old Palestinian worker at a checkpoint near Ramallah on Monday 10th.

Fawwaz Amarna, a resident of Shweika north of the West Bank city of Tulkarem, was treated at Thabit Thabit hospital after being beaten and bruised by the Israeli troops.

Amarna is an activist with the workers' movement in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The DFLP workers' movement in Tulkarem issued a statement condemning the attack.

From Maan

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"workers in struggle" issue one

The first issue of the Middle East Workers' Solidarity newsletter Workers in Struggle has been produced.

It features articles on the strike wave in Egypt, the imprisonment of trade unionists and student activists in Iran, the plan of US dockers to strike against the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli assault on Gaza and other short news pieces about strikes in the Middle East.

We will be handing this out at the March 15th Stop the War demo as well as the March 8th Palestine protest at Downing Street.

Click here for the pdf file

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Another Israel: dissident voices from Israel

12th March 2008, 7:00pm, NUT, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, off Euston Road, London NW1


Speakers include

* Michel Warschawski (founder of the Alternative Information Centre),
* Eyal Weizman (architect, author of The Hollow Land)
* Eyal Sivan (film-maker of award-winning documentaries on Palestine-Israel)
* Daphna Baram (journalist, author of Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel)
* Matan Cohen (from Israeli 'Anarchists Against The Wall')
* Judith Keshet Israeli Writer and Activist

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Israeli jets bomb Palestinian trade union HQ

On the night of February 28th Israeli jets levelled the five-storey Gaza headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)with three heavy F-16 missiles.

The "Folk House building" in Gaza City had been used for union-administered health care as well as organising. But this fresh Israeli atrocity has changed all that.

The complete destruction of the building not only means severe hardship for Palestinian trade unionists, but the death of one Palestinian and 37 other casualties, many of them children. It badly damaged numerous homes, and destroyed the area's electricity and water supply.

The attack came as part of Israel's continuing "collective punishment" of Gaza, which in one four-day period killed one hundred and ten Palestinians, one third of them children.

"The occupation doesn't need any justifications to commit crimes against Palestinians," said Nabil al-Mabhouh, acting head of the PGFTU in Gaza. But the building was targeted because "we at PGFTU are supporting the rights of tens of thousands of Palestinian workers."

The PGFTU has put out a call for solidarity, commenting "We call for an appropriate and effective response from the international trade unions and the International Labour Organisation to put compel Israel to compensate the PGFTU for the destruction of the Folk House in Gaza."

- Demonstrate against the Israeli onslaught - 4pm, Saturday 8th March, Downing Street, London (Westminster tube)

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