In addition ot the moral condemnation of her government policies, quiting her job at the Tel Aviv University sends an implicit message re the role of universities in supporting these policies and practices. It seems that Reinhart no longer believes that israeli universities could assume the roles usually played by academic institutions in the face of oppression and violations of rights. Or, it could be that Reinhart is planning to leave Tel Aviv the city and not only the university because she can't deal with the blindness and hypocracy of her society.

"The prison administration has forced all prisoners in the Telmond Prison to work eight hours for very low wages," said one of the Palestinian children after his release.

"The Israeli soldiers come to the chambers at seven and force us to go with our legs tied with chains," added the child, whose job was to pack plastic spoons in boxes.

Even wounded political detainees are forced to work. "I had a broken bone but the soldiers forced me out of my cell to work anyway, without any consideration for the pain," a former prisoner said.

There are more than 375 Palestinian prisoners in the Telmond Prison, most of whom are children.

The child laborers are given only two meals per day; one at 11:00 pm and another at 6:00 am.

Israeli prison officials also try to obtain information from the children about members of the Palestinian resistance, the article states.

A total of 376 Palestinian children are currently detained in Israeli prisons and detention camps. The majority of them are under 16-years-old and are being subjected to some of the worst forms of abuses, such as physical punishment, humiliation or sexual harassment, according to the Defense for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS).

DCI/PS and other human rights organizations working in the occupied Palestinian territories have frequently reported widespread and systematic violations of international law designed to safeguard the rights of children deprived of their freedom.

According to DCI/PS, these violations began before the outbreak of the second infitada, or uprising, in September 2000. As early as July 1999, there was documented evidence of increased violations of children's rights to due process and to adequate standards of detention.

In recent years, the organization reported a serious increase in the number of Palestinian children arrested between the ages of 13 and 14. There is also a remarkable increase in the length of sentences received by Palestinian children.

Moreover, the detention conditions have steadily deteriorated with an increased number of attacks on child detainees by Israeli prison guards.

The children are also denied the right to education and visits from family and lawyers, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Palestinian children who aren't in Israeli custody are also denied the right to education because of Israeli-imposed restrictions in the occupied territories, such as military curfews, closures of schools, and home confinement.

The Israeli army "resorted to excessive use of force, house demolitions, increasingly severe mobility restrictions and closure policies, negatively affecting the Palestinian economy and living conditions'', according to UNICIF.

As a result, ''a generation of Palestinian children is being denied its right to an education'' in violation of international law.

Israel is obliged to ensure that education is accessible to every Palestinian child, in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention governing the rules of war and the landmark UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Israel has signed both international conventions.

"These are the most intensive overflights since August 14 ... and it looks like another defiance of 1701 and of French appeals," a police source said, referring to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 34-day war.

The territorial violations came days after France, which currently leads the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, said it might open fire on the intruding aircraft.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz vowed Sunday that the flights would continue because of alleged arms smuggling to Hezbollah since the August 14 end of the Shiite militant group's summer war with
Israel.

"Increasing intelligence indicates a growing effort to pass weapons into Lebanon," Peretz said, accusing the Lebanese government of failing to prevent arms smuggling as required by Resolution 1701.

"As long as these attempts continue, the legitimacy of our flights over Lebanon increases," Peretz said. "As long as Resolution 1701 is not carried out, we have no intention of stopping the flights over Lebanon."

The flights have been increasingly criticised by the international community, with France warning on Friday against the violations.

"These violations are extremely dangerous because they may be felt as hostile by forces of the coalition that could be brought to retaliate in case of self-defence," French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.

Resolution 1701 calls for the disarming of all militias in Lebanon, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the south of the country, and the deployment of a beefed-up UN peacekeeping force.

In conversations with Haaretz, the sources maintained that the report is not being made public in order to avoid a crisis with the U.S. government.

Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, assistant to the Defense Minister, retired earlier this month. Spiegel was also in charge of the various issues relating to the territories, which Dov Weisglass, chief of staff in prime minister Ariel Sharon's office, promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in writing that Israel would deal with. These commitments included illegal settlement building, improvements in the conditions of Palestinian civilians, and a closer oversight over the conduct of soldiers at IDF roadblocks.

One of Spiegel's tasks was to update the data base on settlement activities. During talks with American officials and non-government organizations such as Peace Now, it emerged that the defense establishment lacked up to date information on the settlements, which was mostly based on data provided by the Civil Administration in the territories.

The lack of updated information stemmed from the fact that the defense establishment preferred not to know what was going on, but was also linked to a number of key officials in the Civil Administration actively deleting information from the data base out of ideological allegiance with the settlers.

Spiegel and his team compared the data available from the Civil Administration to that of the Americans, and carried out dozens of overflights of the territories, using private aircraft at great expense, in order to complete the data base.

The findings of the study, security sources say, show an amazing discrepancy between the Civil Administration's data and the reality on the ground. The data in Spiegel's investigation served as the basis for the report on the illegal outposts prepared by attorney Talya Sasson and made public in March 2005.

"Everyone is talking about the 107 outposts," said a source familiar with the data, "but that is small change. The really big picture is the older settlements, the 'legal' ones. The construction there has been ongoing for years, in blatant violation of the law and the regulations of proper governance."

Three years ago, in talks with the Americans, Israel promised that all new construction in the older settlements would take place near existing neighborhoods. The idea was that construction would be limited to meeting the needs of the settlements' natural growth, and bringing to an end the out-of-control expansion over territory.

In practice, the data shows that Israel failed to meet its commitments: many new neighborhoods were systematically built on the edge of areas of the settlement's jurisdiction, which is a much larger territory than the actual planning charts account for.

The data also shows that in many cases the construction was carried out on private Palestinian land. In the masterplans, more often than not, Palestinian properties were included in the construction planned for the future. These included Palestinian properties to which the state had promised access.

However, exploiting the intifada and arguing that the settlers should not be exposed to security risks, Palestinian farmers were prevented access to their properties that were annexed by Israeli settlements.

In many settlements, including Ofra and Mevo Horon, homes have been constructed on private Palestinian land.

"The media is busy with the outposts, but how many of these are really large settlements like Migron? In most cases, it's a matter of a few mobile homes. Spiegel's study shows the real situation in the settlements themselves - and it is a lot more serious than what we knew to date," one of the sources said.

A senior security official expressed concern that with Spiegel's retirement, the data base will not be updated and the data will be lost.

"The [defense] establishment does not necessarily have an interest in preserving this information. It may cause diplomatic embarrassment vis-a-vis the Americans and cause a political scandal. It is not unlikely that there will be those who will seek to destroy the data," the senior officer says.

Other relevant sources said it is necessary for an objective, external source, like the State Comptroller's office, to intervene in this matter.

A statement issued by the Defense Minister's office in response said that "the matter is being examined internally and staff work will be completed soon, and the parts of the report that can be published will be made available. The Defense Minister will discuss the matter with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert."

Meanwhile, construction in the new outposts has intensified. Sources in the Yesha Council say that since the Lebanon War, "Junior officers on the ground are in our favor and in many instances turn a blind eye regarding mobile homes in place."

Emilio Morenatti, 37, was apparently leaving a flat in the centre of Gaza City on his way to an early-morning assignment when he was seized.

He was reportedly approached by gunmen who emerged from a white Volkswagen car and took him away.

Over the last two years or so, there have been about 24 cases of foreigners being kidnapped in the Gaza Strip.

Their captors have normally been disaffected militant groups who use hostages as bargaining chips in disputes with the local authorities, BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston says.

The foreigners were usually released quickly and unharmed.

But the last kidnapping involving two journalists from the US Fox news organisation was a much more prolonged affair.

The pair were held by a militant Islamist Jihadi-style group that at times threatened to kill them.

The captives were forced to convert to Islam and denounce the West in a video before eventually being freed.

Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government, condemned the kidnapping, saying it "damages the reputation of the Palestinian people".

"The government will take all steps to ensure his release," he said.