Israel

A report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now released Monday says that the government is planning to build more than 73,300 new housing units in the West Bank.

Peace Now estimates that if all of the units are built, it would mean a 100-percent increase in the total number of Israeli settlers. The report says that some settlements, including the two largest Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumim, would double in size.

According to the report, approval has already been granted for the construction of 15,000 housing units, and is pending for a further 58,000 units.

The report states that 5,722 of the planned housing units are in East Jerusalem, and some 9,000 units in total have already been built.

Peace Now says that a new right-wing government presents the danger of "expanding settlement growth at a rapid pace... with the clear intention of destroying the possibility of a two-state solution."

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu of the rightist Likud party, tapped to form the new government after the February 10 elections, has expressed his opposition to a two-state solution. He also said that while a Likud government would not build new settlements, it would allow natural growth in existing ones.

Hamas and several allied Palestinian factions have announced an immediate one-week ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, giving Israelseven daysto pull out of the territory.

The move, following a meeting of the factionsin Damascus, comes a day after Israel called a unilateral truce, ending its 22-day offensive in Gaza which led to the deaths of 1,203 Palestinians.

A Palestinian farmer was shot dead on Sunday morning by an Israeli soldier in Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip, becoming the first fatality since Israeli declared an unilateral ceasefire, local witnesses said.

The witnesses said the farmer was killed while checking his farm.

But Israeli army said they shot the farmer because he was approaching the land where the Israeli ground troops occupied.

Israel has begun a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, three weeks after launching a full-scale assault against Hamas. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and Hamas - which has been firing rockets at Israel - had been defeated. But hours later, five rockets fell near the Israeli border town of Sderot, and there was a brief exchange of fire. Israel said its troops would remain in Gaza for now. Hamas said it would not accept one Israeli soldier in Gaza. Nearly 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died.

British Jews have been attacked for expressing support for Palestinians suffering under Israeli military strikes in Gaza. Police confirmed yesterday that they have provided protection to a number of people believed to be victims of UK-based Zionist extremists angered by expressions of solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel's assault on Gaza has prompted a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Britain, with more than 150 incidents reported by the Community Security Trust (CST), an organisation for the protection of Jews. But the past two weeks have also seen aggression within the Jewish community towards those sympathetic to the plight of Gaza.

Rabbi Elchenon Beck, 39, was among six rabbis expressing support for Gaza's Palestinians who were set upon by a gang of what they allege were Zionists while walking back from opposing rallies outside the Israeli Embassy on 6 January. "They were shouting and pushed someone to the floor, so we called the police," Rabbi Beck said. "All the time they are trying to intimidate us, but we get used to it."

In the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in Europe so far, over 250,000 Spaniards denounce Israel's bloodshed in Gaza and call for ceasefire.

Protesters in Spain's capital Madrid and in other cities, including Seville, Malaga,Oviedo, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Ourense, carried banners saying 'Peace', 'SOS Gaza' and placards with the word 'Gaza' above a red-stained hand and mock blood-spattered bodies of children.

Police declined to give a figure but the organizers, which included the Socialist Party and trade unions, estimated the Sunday turnout at 250,000.

The US has to re-route arms shipment to Israel. Athens declined to allow a Greek port be used as a transit point, fearing nationwide protests.

The transit was called off by the Greek government on Tuesday, after the issue provoked a media outcry in Greece, where Israel's 19-day-old offensive in Gaza is deeply unpopular.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, however, painted a different picture, saying that the route had been changed to avoid Greece, "because the Greek government had some issue with the off-loading of some of that shipment in their country."

Israeli artillery shells struck the U.N. headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting a food warehouse ablaze and drawing a sharp rebuke from the visiting U.N. chief who called it an "outrage." Another Israeli bombardment killed Hamas' head of security.

The attack added to a day of deadly chaos pitting Israeli troops against Islamic militants. Terrified residents huddled in shelters and stairwells, or scooped up toddlers and fled on foot.

After nightfall, shells landed near Gaza City's Quds Hospital, where many families had sought refuge, and the building caught fire, forcing staff to evacuate hundreds of people. According to a hospital medic, some patients were pushed down the street on gurneys; a few held white flags.

The Free Gaza Movement ship, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, left Cyprus Wednesday morning carrying doctors, journalists, human rights workers, and parliamentarians. The ship also carried over a ton of desperately needed medicines donated by the European Campaign to Break the Siege, and intended for overwhelmed hospitals in the Gaza Strip. At the request of the ship's organizers the passenger list and manifest were publicly released, and Cypriot authorities searched the boat prior to its departure in order to certify that it only carried humanitarian items. The organizers also sent an official notification to the Israeli government of their intent to break through the blockade of Gaza.

At roughly 3am UST (1am GMT), in international waters 100 miles off the coast of Gaza, at least five Israeli gunboats surrounded the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY and began recklessly cutting in front of the slow-moving civilian craft. The Israeli warships radioed the SPIRIT, demanding that the ship turn around or they would open fire and "shoot." When asked if the Israeli navy was acknowledging that they intended to commit a war crime by deliberately firing on unarmed civilians, the warships replied that they were prepared to use "any means" to stop the ship.

Greece is awesome!

Despite Israeli denial, newly found photographic evidence proves that Israel has used controversial white phosphorus shells on Gazans.

While the use of the solid, waxy synthetic chemical -- also known by the military as WP or Willie Pete -- against civilians is prohibited under international law, there is evidence that Palestinian civilians have been subjected to the chemical weapon.

The Times says it has identified stockpiles of M825A1, an American-made WP munition, from high-resolution pictures taken from Israeli artillery units on the Gaza border.

White phosphorus is used in munitions, to mark enemy targets and to produce smoke for concealing troop movement.

It can also be used as an incendiary device to firebomb enemy positions.

If particles of ignited white phosphorus land on a person's skin, they burn right through flesh to the bone. Toxic phosphoric acid can also be released into wounds, risking phosphorus poisoning.