Sunday, October 19, 2008

This Way and That Way

One goes one way:

Akko mayor: Riots' instigator fled to territories

Shimon Lankry says man responsible for inciting Yom Kippur riots in northern city has escaped from Israel. Police continue pursuing guilty parties with 78 people arrested, four indictments filed so far

Mayor Shimon Lankry said Sunday that "the man who announced at the city's mosques that there were peopled injured in the city's eastern neighborhoods, thereby igniting the riots on Yom Kippur Eve, has fled to the territories."

Speaking at a press conference announcing the a $200,000 donation made to the city by the Jewish Agency and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Lankry noted that another man, suspected of driving youths from Akko's Old City to the eastern neighborhood, had also fled the police.



And another goes the other way:

Palestinian granted posthumous entry to Israel

Did red tape contribute to a Palestinian patient's death? The family members of Gaza Strip resident Mahmoud abu-Amro claimed Sunday that the military's procrastination in giving the 58-year-old cancer patient the necessary clearance to receive treatment in Israel was the direct cause of his death.

Abu-Amro had been a patient of the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv for the past two years, undergoing his last session in February of 2008. According to his family, when he tried to enter Israel for treatment through Erez crossing in March, he was refused passage due to security concerns.

Following a Physicians for Human Rights and several Arab Knesset members' plea on abu-Amro's behalf, the Shin Bet and the IDF eventually granted him and two other patient entry to Israel. The three were scheduled to enter the country last week, but abu-Amro died several days before arriving at the Sourasky Medical Center.

According to his son, days after abu-Amro's death, the family was notified that the he would be able to enter Israel earlier than planned. "They only did it to look good for the human rights groups, but I'm sure they agreed to push up the date only because they knew my father was already dead.

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