ISRAELI troops stormed and shut down a Palestinian radio station in the West Bank yesterday, claiming that it was broadcasting calls to attack Israelis.

Hebron’s Manbar al-Hurriyya (Freedom Tribune) said that Israeli foces had raided the station at 2am, destroyed equipment and confiscated transmitters.

An Israeli army statement said the station was silenced “as part of the ongoing battle against incitement.”
“This is a clear violent aggression against the Palestinian media,” said director Ayman Qawasmeh.
“We didn’t incite, we just reported the Israeli daily crimes against our people in Hebron. They want to silence our voice.”

The station has been closed twice before, in 2002 during the second intifada and again in 2008.

On Monday, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms (Mada) said it “condemns the ongoing violence against Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupying forces.”

Mada noted that Israeli security forces had committed more than 450 violations of media freedom this year, including more than 100 last month alone.

Four Israelis were wounded in two separate stabbing
incidents yesterday, while a young Palestinian protester was shot and injured in the West Bank town of Beit Ummar.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that military intelligence chief Herzl Halevi had told Sunday’s cabinet meeting that feelings of rage and frustration among Palestinians were behind the recent wave of stabbing attacks.

He said youths were carrying out the attacks because they despair at their situation “and felt they had nothing to lose.”
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