GAZA/RAMALLAH, 16 September 2007 — An Israeli ground force pushed into the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, clashing with Palestinian fighters and bulldozing areas of farmland, the army and residents said. Local medics said a 17-year-old Palestinian male was in serious condition after being shot in the stomach in northern Gaza. The army said it had no reports of injuries.

An army spokesman said Israeli forces conducted “routine activity” against what it called terror threats in the north of the coastal enclave, and said troops arrested nine Palestinians. Palestinian fighters in northern Gaza fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Israelis and exchanged fire with soldiers, he said.

Local residents said a group of Israeli armored vehicles bulldozed farmland in northern Gaza. Another force also entered southern Gaza, according to residents, but the army said there was no activity in the area. Tensions between the Jewish state and Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in June, have increased sharply after a makeshift rocket fired into Israel by militants wounded at least 35 Israeli Army conscripts this week.

Separately, the Israeli Army arrested 12 protesters at a rally near the West Bank city of Nablus after they hurled rocks at soldiers and tried to force their way through a checkpoint, an army spokesman said. Two of the protesters were Palestinian and the rest were Israelis and foreigners.

One protester was lightly injured and taken to hospital, the spokesman said, adding that about 40 people attended the rally. An Israeli newspaper website said the protesters were demonstrating against a planned roadblock in the area.

Meanwhile, according to a report, “25 years since the massacre of Palestinian refugees committed by Lebanese Phalange militias with the complicity of Israel’s Army controlling the area in the camps of Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian refugees remain without protection and the search for rights-based solutions to their plight,” a report said yesterday.

The Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (BADIL) said that Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are the largest and longest-standing unresolved case of refugees and displaced persons in the world.

In 2006-2007, there were approximately seven million Palestinian refugees and 450,000 internally displaced Palestinians representing 70 percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide ( 10.1 million). The legal status of some 400,000 additional Palestinians is unclear, but they too are likely to be refugees.

The forced displacement of Palestinians, both refugee and non-refugee is ongoing in the Palestinian territories and Israel as well as in some host countries, in particular in Iraq and Lebanon.

According to the report, displacement in 2006-2007 occurred as a result of Israel’s war on Lebanon (16,000 refugees displaced), the events surrounding the destruction of Nahr El-Bared camp (31,000 refugees displaced) in Lebanon and the persecution faced by Palestinian refugees in Iraq (over 15,000 refugees displaced).

These recent events highlight the lack of protection of Palestinian refugees and the need for rights-based durable solutions. With regard to the US-sponsored conference on Middle East peace in November, BADIL sees that a right-based solution to the issue of refugees is not on the agenda of the conference.

“This conference will likely not address the root causes of the conflict; hence, perpetuating the conditions which have led to the massacres and the forced displacement of Palestinians.”