Jerusalem – The doctors at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon were forced to amputate one of 8-year-old Osher Twito’s legs after he was injured Saturday evening by a Kassam rocket in Sderot. Dr. Emile Hai, the deputy director of the hospital, said, “the doctors have succeeded for the time being in stabilizing the second leg, but in the course of the next few days he is going to have to undergo more surgery. Currently he is in the recovery room and we hope that in the next few hours he will be able to breath independently.”

“The two children were operated on in the course of the night,” said Dr. Hai. “The 19-year-old fellow came out of the operating room at around 1:00 or 1:30 after he had the broken bones set in his two legs. His condition is good and he is conscious.” Meanwhile, the two boys’ mother and their 15-year-old brother were discharged from the hospital after having been treated for shock.

Gaza Celebrates Rockets

Also on Saturday night, Islamic Jihad terrorists and their families conducted celebrations in Gaza, less than two miles away. Shots of celebration were fired in the air.

“An Islamic Jihad cell succeeded in firing two Quds rockets at Sderot and returned to its base safely,” read an official statement that was issued by Islamic Jihad on Local Palestinian TV in Gaza.

The statement was supplemented by images of a home in Sderot that was demolished.

“We don’t have another weapon. The struggle is our strategy, and the rocket is one of the means of struggle. We have the right to maintain a balance of terror. The Kassam is the answer,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

“We fired in four days some 150 Kassam rockets, out of which 90 were fired on Thursday and Friday alone,” read a formal statement that was issued by Iz a Din al-Kassam, Hamas’ military wing.

“We won’t be able to talk about a cease-fire or to make progress in dealing with [captured Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit’s case as long as Israel continues with its assaults and assassinations,” said Abu Mujahed on Saturday, the official spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, whose members took part in the kidnapping of Cpl. Shalit along with Hamas. “If the Olmert government wants to execute the Shalit deal, it needs to stop the killing and the siege.”

Abu Mujahed repeated the demand that Israel “release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including some who were sentenced to long terms, and the commanders of the various factions that are in Israeli prison.”

Kassam Rockets Bring Operation In Gaza Nearer?

In the wake of the escalation of the Kassam rocket fire on Sderot, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior members of Israel’s security establishment, raising the possibility that Israeli armed forces may indeed launch attacks against senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders.

Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, who visited Sderot on Saturday, said that the situation in the town was very difficult and that 20 percent of its residents had left. “The residents feel that they are living thanks to miracles and charms and are only waiting for a solution after years of nightmare,” said Mr. Dichter, who once again called on the government to authorize a large-scale operation that would hurt the Hamas leadership.

Israelis: Palestinians Inflated Population Growth

Over the weekend, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) bombarded the Israeli and international media with the results of what they described as a “new poll” that claimed that the Palestinian population had grown by 870,000 in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Yoram Ettinger, a former senior Israeli diplomat in Washington and former director of the Israel Government Press Office, established the American-Israel Demographic Research Group, which has also conducted studies of the Palestinian population trends. Mr. Ettinger’s reaction to the new Palestinian study was that that “the Central Bureau of Statistics’ data are completely groundless.”

As opposed to the CBS’ assertion about a growth rate of some 30 percent, Mr. Ettinger noted that the World Bank data has documented a significant decline in Palestinian fertility in addition to a significant rise in Palestinian emigration out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. According to the data that Mr. Ettinger’s group possesses, the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is 1.6 million, not 2.3 million, and the number of Palestinians who live in Gaza is 1.1 million, not 1.4 million.

Mr. Ettinger says that his documentation is based on data that he has accrued from the Palestinian Health Ministry and Education Ministry, the Palestinian Central Elections Committee, the Israeli passport control and European Union observers who document the exit and entry of the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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