Tuesday, November 03, 2009 GAZA: Israel has released six members of the Palestinian parliament affiliated to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) who were jailed after resistance fighters seized Gilad Shalit in a 2006 cross-border raid. The freed lawmakers were identified as Ahmad Attoun and Wael Al-Husseini from Jerusalem Al-Quds, Khalil Ar-Rabai, Samir Al-Qadi, and Mahir Badr from Hebron (al-Khalil), and Mahmoud Al-Khatib from Bethlehem (Beit Lahm). “The detention of Palestinian lawmakers was a crime against humanity and the international community should call Israeli occupation to account for that violation,” Gaza-based Hamas lawmaker and head of the International Campaign for the Release of Abducted Members of Parliament Mushir Al-Masri said. Al-Masri stressed that the campaign he leads will continue to lobby against the detention of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Eighteen other Palestinian legislators are still in Israel's custody, including 15 affiliated to Hamas, two from Fatah, and one affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Israel arrested 45 Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank in the aftermath of Shalit's capture.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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