Free Republic

Israeli authorities faced more violence last night after a recent spate of shootings and as tensions soar over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians and seriously wounded a third after they opened fire with makeshift submachine guns on a base in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning, Israel’s police said. That came two days after Israeli student Yehuda Guetta, 19, died in a hospital from injuries sustained in a drive-by shooting Sunday as he was standing at a bus station near the West Bank city of Nablus. Two...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) -- Palestinians now can enjoy a new, one-of-a-kind sports center where they can work out, practice on regulation-sized courts and play safely. "It's something good to bring to Bethlehem, such a place. There is no place like this where women and also men can practice sports," said Sylvia Ghattas, 21, as she finished her workout in the gym of the Catholic Action-run sports center. The building, financed by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, boasts the only regulation-sized and equipped basketball court in the Palestinian territories, as well as a gym and two multipurpose halls....

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday banned the military's practice of using Palestinian civilians as "human shields" in arrest raids, saying it violates international law. The court ruled in response to petitions by human rights groups. In August 2002, the court had issued a temporary injunction against the practice. Human rights groups have said the military has repeatedly violated the ban since then. In Thursday's ruling, the court said the practice amounts to a "slide down the slope toward a severe violation of international law." Marwan Dallal, an attorney for the Israeli human rights group Adallah, said: "It's an important decision,...