An inter-ministerial committee commissioned by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voted to deport 400 children of migrant workers. The remaining 800 out of the 1,200 children in question will be allowed to remain in Israel.

According to the approved criteria, Hebrew-speaking children enrolled in the Israeli school system, whom have been in Israel for more than five years, were born in Israel or entered before the age of thirteen, are in first grade or higher, and whose parents entered the country legally, will be granted permanent status.

Thirteen ministers approved the vote, ten voted against the recommendations, and four abstained. The agreement applies only to children whose parents entered Israel legally. Children who do not meet the criteria will be forced to leave the country within a month, together with their families.

Tuesday, 03 August 2010 12:50 Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)    The Jerusalem Municipality Planning and Building Committee has approved the construction of 40 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev. Approval for these four new buildings, each with 10 apartments, comes less than a month after the municipality approved 32 other units in the settlement.

Spotlight interview with Abdelaziz Mountassir (SNE-Morocco)
 
Brussels, 11 June 2010 (ITUC OnLine):  Keeping children in school is the best way to stop their exploitation as child labour. On the eve of World Day Against Child Labour, Abdelaziz Mountassir, vice president of Morocco's national teachers' union SNE, explains how a project in the Fez region is helping to reduce school dropout rates at the same time as benefiting the union.

Shiva Nazar Ahari, an Iranian human rights defender arrested on 14 June, describing her arrest by Intelligence Ministry officials.

The year opened with Israeli military jets pounding Gaza, as part of a 22-day conflict that killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians, and closed with mounting repression in Iran, as thousands of demonstrators again took to the streets to protest over the disputed outcome of the presidential election and the ruthless clampdown on dissent that followed.