Nigeria's Free-Wheeling Media Fears Crackdown Over Boko Haram Battle

People read newspaper headlines at a vendor's stand along a road in Ikoyi district in Lagos(AKINTUNDE AKINLEYE,, Reuters / July 20, 2014)

ABUJA/LAGOS, NIGERIA (REUTERS) - Nigeria's press is traditionally free to write almost anything about anyone - whether it's true or not. But reporters fear a government sensitive to criticism is now cracking down, especially on coverage of the battle against Boko Haram.

After 15 years of democracy, journalists believe the state is trying to tame the vibrant, prolific media during its faltering campaign to stamp out the militant Islamist group.

One Friday last month the army seized newspaper print-runs, halted distribution vans across the country and ransacked offices of newspaper distributors and agents, detaining staff for several hours, the Nigerian Press Organisation said.

For Femi Adesina, now editor-in-chief of Nigeria's top tabloid, The Sun, this awoke bad memories of life under military rule, when reporters were routinely hauled in for questioning over their news stories.

"You virtually had your heart in your mouth. You wrote the story and you didn't know whether you should sleep at home or sleep somewhere else," recalled Adesina, who is also president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. "If we are not careful as a country, we could slide back to those dark days."

While reporters accuse the security forces from time to time of intimidation, conditions for journalists remain a long way from the era of military dictatorship. Newspapers are able to publish vitriolic criticism of President Goodluck Jonathan that is largely tolerated.

Spokesmen for the presidency and police and a spokeswoman for the state security service did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. 

However, the military said it made the searches last month after receiving intelligence on the movement of "materials with grave security implications" through newspaper distribution channels. One security source told Reuters there was a genuine concern that militants were using the vans to transport explosives.

Nevertheless, the press organization says the military is using national security as an excuse for a crackdown on critical media coverage before elections next year.

Adding to journalists' anger, Nigeria's broadcast regulator has ruled that stations must give at least 48 hours' notice in writing before airing a live political program - a near impossibility given the impromptu nature of such coverage.

A local election in the western state of Ekiti in June that was otherwise deemed free and fair was marred by allegations of intimidation of local journalists, five of whom were arrested by police. In Akwa Ibom state in the oil producing Niger Delta, the editor of the Global Concord newspaper has been detained for two weeks after being bundled into a car by state security agents. The paper had repeatedly criticized the local government.

Nigeria ranks 112th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, above India and Mexico, but below East African nations Kenya and Uganda.

Jonathan has repeatedly expressed his support for freedom of the press, while also calling on its members to be "professional and accurate". 

"Under my leadership, journalists in our country will continue to fully enjoy their constitutional rights and freedom of expression," he ‎said in 2012. 

LOSING PATIENCE

The government seems to be losing patience with press coverage of its fight against Boko Haram, an insurgent group which has killed thousands since 2009 in a push to carve out an Islamic state in the largely Muslim north.

Boko Haram's own attitude to press freedom was neatly displayed in 2012, when it blew up the offices of mildly pro-government ThisDay for what it called "insulting the Prophet". 

The newspaper had angered Muslims a decade ago when one of its columnists suggested the Prophet Mohammed might have wanted to marry a beauty queen. 

Jonathan, a southern Christian, has been criticized at home and abroad for his slow response to Boko Haram's April kidnapping of more than 200 girls from a school in the rural northeast, and for his inability to quell the violence.

----David Dolan and Tim Cocks, Reuters

Officer In Fatal NY Arrest Stripped Of Gun, Badge

In this undated family photo provided by the National Action Network, Saturday, July 19, 2014, Eric Garner, right, poses with his children during during a family outing. Garner was confronted by police trying to arrest him on suspicion of selling untaxed, loose cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk, authorities said. The 6-foot-3, 350-pound Garner became irate, denying the charges and refusing to be handcuffed before one of the officers placed him in what Police Commissioner William Bratton said appeared to be a chokehold, according to partial video of the encounter obtained by the New York Daily News.

NEW YORK (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — A New York City police officer involved in the arrest of a man who died in custody after being placed in an apparent chokehold has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty, police said Saturday.

Officer Daniel Pantaleo, an eight-year NYPD veteran, and an officer who has been with the force for four years were both taken off the street after the death Thursday of 43-year-old Eric Garner on Staten Island, police said.

The department would not identify the second officer but said he would retain his gun and badge while on desk duty. The reassignment is effective immediately and will remain in effect while Garner's death is being investigated, police said.

The president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the city's largest police union, called Pantaleo's reassignment a "completely unwarranted, knee-jerk reaction." The decision, Patrick Lynch said in a statement, "effectively pre-judges" the case and denies Pantaleo the "very benefit of a doubt that has long been part of the social contract that allows police officers to face the risks of this difficult and complex job."

Pantaleo did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Partial video of the encounter obtained by the New York Daily News shows the 6-foot-3, 350-pound Garner becoming irate and refusing to be handcuffed as officers tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling untaxed, loose cigarettes on a sidewalk.

The video then shows one of the officers placing Garner in what Police Commissioner William Bratton said Friday appeared to be a chokehold. The tactic, which can be fatal, is prohibited by departmental policy.

The city's Civilian Complaint Review Board said Saturday it would review more than 1,000 chokehold complaints it has received against officers over the last five years in an attempt to "discern why officers continue to use this forbidden practice."

The department disclosed Pantaleo's reassignment hours after Garner's wife, Esaw, burst into tears at a Harlem rally where Rev. Al Sharpton said his death could strain the black community's relationship with the police department.

"This is going to be a real test to see where policies are in the city now and whether the change that we feel occurred has occurred," Sharpton said, referring to promises made by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Bratton to improve the relationship between officers and the city's minority communities. "We are the only ones in the social setup that has to deal with fear of cops and robbers."

Another rally was held Saturday afternoon on Staten Island, near where Garner died. A funeral is scheduled for Wednesday at the Bethel Baptist Church in Brooklyn. According to federal court records, three men have sued Pantaleo within the last two years over what they argued were unlawful, racially motivated arrests on Staten Island.

In the first lawsuit, settled by the city in January, two black men in their 40s accused Pantaleo and other officers of arresting them without cause and subjecting them to a "humiliating and unlawful strip search" on a Staten Island street that involved ordering them to "pull their pants and underwear down, squat and cough."

The men said they were held overnight on charges that were ultimately dismissed seven months later. In a second lawsuit, a man accused Pantaleo and other officers of misrepresenting facts in a police report and other documents to substantiate charges that were eventually dismissed.

Garner, who has been arrested for selling illegal cigarettes numerous times in recent years, told the officers who confronted him Thursday that he had not done anything wrong, according to the video of the arrest.

"Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today," Garner shouts. "I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone." As four officers bring him down, Garner is heard gasping, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" The video shows one officer using his hands to push Garner's face into the sidewalk.

Prosecutors and internal affairs detectives are investigating the death of the father of six and grandfather of two; authorities believe he suffered a heart attack. De Blasio has called the circumstances of his death "very troubling."

More tests are needed to determine the exact cause and manner of Garner's death, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office said. Garner's death evoked memories of a similar incident 20 years ago.

Police officer Francis Livoti was dismissed from the NYPD and convicted by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of a Bronx man who died after he apparently used a chokehold on him in 1994. Livoti has denied he used a chokehold, insisting Anthony Baez died from an asthma attack. The case remains one of the most high-profile allegations of police brutality in city history.

Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Rachelle Blidner contributed to this report.

Online:

New York Daily News video: http://nydn.us/1nh2KXr

Amid Bloodshed, Frenetic Gaza Hospital Improvises

Palestinian physician Allam Nayaef checks the report of a patient in the intensive care unit at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Working at Shifa requires ingenuity. The power goes off repeatedly as aging hospital generators buckle under daily rolling blackouts Gaza residents have lived with for years. Many items are in short supply, from gauze to adrenaline. They also lack spare parts for worn equipment, with bedside trolleys clattering down hallways on rusted wheels.

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — In the heart of Gaza City, as its citizens again find themselves under fire from Israeli airstrikes and artillery, the wounded and their wailing families stream into Shifa Hospital without end.

Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, only has an 11-bed emergency room and six operating theaters. Yet amid power cuts and among the screams of the bereaved, doctors at the 600-bed facility have become masters of improvisation, forced by the seemingly unending conflict engulfing the coastal strip to care for the wounded.

"If we are in the middle of an operation (and) lights go out, what do the Palestinians do?" said Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has volunteered at Shifa on and off for 17 years. "They pick up their phones, and they use the light from the screen to illuminate the operation field."

The wounded from Israeli strikes usually arrive in waves. More than 3,000 Palestinians already have been wounded in the past two weeks of fighting, health officials say. Many, including the most serious cases, end up at Shifa.

A new wave of casualties arrives after daybreak Sunday, following a night of heavy Israeli tank fire on Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood. Hospital guards shout at drivers to move to make room for the next vehicles, pushing back journalists and onlookers.

Some of the wounded get treated in a hallway near the emergency room. A medic bandages the foot of an emergency worker writhing in pain on a mattress on the floor. A little boy with shrapnel wounds arrives and the emergency worker slides off the mattress to the hard floor for the child.

Nearby, a woman cries hysterically. A man holds up a dead child, wailing. Another carries a teenage girl whose right arm is bloodied and broken.

Patients on gurneys line up outside the X-ray room. Relatives of the wounded, one in a blood-soaked white undershirt, argue over who will be examined first.

Dr. Jihad Juwaidi says his six operating rooms filled up quickly and that even the seriously wounded have to wait for surgery, including a little girl with a fractured skull.

Choosing who gets treated first is gut-wrenching, says Dr. Allam Nayef, who works in one of Shifa's intensive care units.

"Sometimes you have to select which one of them has the best chance to survive," Nayef says. "Easily in this rush, you can take a bad decision, that the one (patient) you thought will wait for you ... you won't find him when you finish your surgery."

By 2 a.m. Saturday, only two of the four beds in his ICU are occupied.

One patient is a 4-year-old boy hit by a car when Gaza residents rushed into the streets to restock during a humanitarian cease-fire last week. The other, a 22-year-old, suffered serious head injuries in an Israeli strike — a direct hit on a house that killed 18 members of his extended family. The target, Gaza's police chief, survived.

At about 3 a.m., a new patient with a serious brain injury from shrapnel is wheeled in. Neurosurgeons had patched him up downstairs, but his prognosis is bad. All that's left for Nayef is to try to stabilize him.

Nayef and his colleagues work 24-hour shifts. A storage area crammed with boxes and an old vinyl-covered sofa doubles as a lounge where the doctors rest until the next wave.

Even in peak hours, there is some order in Shifa's seeming chaos.

This is the third round of major hostilities between Israel and the Islamic militant Hamas in just over five years. Everyone at Shifa — doctors, nurses and bearded Hamas policemen in blue camouflage uniforms — knows their part during a crisis.

Like in the last bout of fighting in 2012, TV crews have set up camp in the yard outside the main entrance. Shifa is seen as relatively safe, an unlikely target of Israeli airstrikes, but some correspondents still wear body armor for on-camera reports.

Hamas political leaders show up in the courtyard occasionally to speak to reporters. They usually keep a low profile, but use the massive media presence in a safe location to get their message out.

Working at Shifa requires ingenuity.

The power goes off repeatedly as aging hospital generators buckle under daily rolling blackouts Gaza residents have lived with for years. Many items are in short supply, from gauze to adrenaline. They also lack spare parts for worn equipment, with bedside trolleys clattering down hallways on rusted wheels.

Only three of Nayef's four ICU beds have ventilators. One broke down long ago and can't be repaired. He says he once made a special wire for cardiac pacing from a spliced Ethernet cable.

\

Shifa's problems began well before this round of fighting. They are rooted in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more recently in the rivalry between Hamas and Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel captured Gaza in 1967, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Abbas' goal of a Palestinian state in all these areas remains elusive after two decades of failed negotiations. Hamas envisions an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, including what is now Israel, and has carried out bombing, shooting and rocket attacks against Israel since the group's founding in 1987.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving it to Abbas' Palestinian Authority, and Hamas seized the strip from Abbas by force two years later. In response to the Hamas takeover, Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza, restricting trade and movement. The blockade has set Gaza back years, and now the growing financial problems of Hamas and Abbas' Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, have compounded the shortages.

Israel says it allows in medical supplies except for "dual-use" items — anything it suspects could be diverted by Hamas for military purposes — but won't say what it has blacklisted.

Gilbert, the Norwegian volunteer helps out at Shifa several times a year. This time, he brought headlamps, useful for surgeons, but says they are on Israel's list of banned items.

He feels a strong personal bond with his Palestinian colleagues, saying they provide good care under challenging circumstances, but feel hurt by the world's seeming apathy toward Gaza.

Gilbert, 67, is currently the only foreign doctor at Shifa.

"I am not the hero," he says. "These people are the heroes. When we leave, they stay behind."

The employees of Shifa are divided into two categories — those who were hired before the Hamas takeover and those who were hired after 2007.

The former continue to get paid by Abbas' Palestinian Authority. The latter haven't received salaries for several months because of the group's severe financial crisis, a result of Egypt's blockade on Gaza.

Gaza society is split between Hamas and Fatah supporters, with a large group of non-committed in between, but doctors and nurses at Shifa say they're too busy to argue about politics.

The war, which Israel says is meant to halt Hamas rocket fire on Israel communities, broke out during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a time of increased togetherness. Many in the hospital observe the dawn-to-dusk fast, despite their workload.

The sense of crisis has brought colleagues closer together, silencing day-to-day bickering, says Nayef, who hasn't received his salary in months.

"If we work just for salaries, none of us would be here now," he says. "We are here to serve because these patients, they are our families, our friends, our neighbors."

Associated Press writers Yousur Alhlou in Jerusalem, Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, and Khaled Kazziha contributed to this report.

Follow Karin Laub on Twitter at www.twitter.com/karin_laub .

Thousands Flee Major Battle With Israel In Gaza

Palestinians who fled their homes from Shajaiyeh neighborhood, arrive to Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Sunday, July 20, 2014. Hundreds of panicked residents have fled the neighborhood which they say has come under heavy tank fire from Israeli forces. Some reported seeing dead and wounded in the streets, with ambulances unable to reach the area. Israel widened its ground offensive early Sunday, sending more troops into the Hamas-ruled territory to destroy tunnels used by the Islamic militants to try to sneak into Israel.

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Escalating their ground offensive, Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes battled Hamas militants in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City early Sunday. The fighting, including heavy Israeli tank fire, killed scores of Palestinians, forced thousands to flee and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes.

Palestinian health officials reported at least 65 people killed as air and artillery strikes echoed across the city for hours. They put the number of displaced at 35,000. At least 425 Palestinians and 20 Israelis have been killed in the near two-week conflict which escalated as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon headed to the region to try to revive cease-fire efforts.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, said he expects to come to the Middle East in coming days and that he support's Egypt's call for an immediate cease-fire, rejected last week by Hamas. The Islamic militants say they want guarantees that Gaza's border blockade will be eased before agreeing to stop fighting.

Sunday's battle in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood was the deadliest so far in Israel's 3-day-old ground offensive, which followed 10 days of heavy airstrikes on targets linked to Gaza's Hamas rulers. Israel has said it sent thousands of troops into Gaza to destroy Hamas rocket launchers and tunnels dug by the Islamic militants to sneak into Israel.

The Israeli military said 8 percent of more than 1,700 rockets fired at Israel since July 8 came from Shijaiyah and that its troops faced heavy resistance there. Residents of the neighborhood said Israeli tanks entered after midnight and fired heavily.

"The gate of hell has opened, and shrapnel came through the windows," Shijaiyah resident Jawad Hassanain said by phone. He said he and his family sought shelter in a nearby building after their house shook from the explosions.

"All you could hear is heavy bombardment, the smell of fire and the smell of death," he said. After daybreak, dozens of wounded from Shijaiyah were rushed to Gaza's central Shifa Hospital. Frantic parents carried children bloodied by shrapnel, and the emergency room quickly overflowed, forcing doctors to treat some patients on mattresses in a hallway.

During a brief Red Cross-brokered lull, paramedics entered the neighborhood to retrieve the dead, pulling bodies from the rubble of homes. Dozens of houses over several blocks were destroyed or badly damaged, a scene reminiscent of Israel's last major incursion into Gaza more than five years ago when large areas near the border with Israel were devastated.

On late Sunday afternoon, Gaza rescue workers searching Shijaiyah for bodies heard the faint voice of a woman coming from under the rubble of a house. "I'm here with my husband and niece," the woman said. "I am under the shop. ... God help, I can't breathe."

Rescue workers said the area was dangerous and that they would not be able to dig her out in time. Palestinian health officials said at least 65 people were killed and 288 wounded in Shijaiyah, bringing the overall Palestinian toll since July 8 to 425 dead and some 3,000 wounded. Close to half of the dead were killed since the start of the ground offensive.

Israeli military casualties also spiked in the fighting, with 13 killed Sunday, raising the total number of dead soldiers to 18. Two civilians have also died in mortar and rocket attacks. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the military met a "huge" level of resistance from Hamas militants in Shijaiyah, with anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic-weapons fired from houses and buildings.

He said that so far, 10 tunnel access shafts were found in the area. Lerner said Shijaiyah had been a main rocket launching area and that residents were warned ahead of the offensive to leave the area.

"We are mobilizing in order to strike Hamas where it hurts," he said. Israel says Hamas' network of tunnels is a highly-developed web which links rocket building, maintenance and launching sites and stretches well into Israel.

Speaking to CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is only targeting militants in its campaign. "All civilian casualties are unintended by us, but intended by Hamas. They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can ... it's gruesome," Netanyahu said. "They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead the better."

Israel has also targeted homes of Hamas leaders, warning they would pay a high price. Among those killed in Shijaiyah were a son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren of Khalil al-Haya, a senior leader of the group. They were killed at the time of dawn prayers, Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra said. Hamas' military wing said the cause of death as an airstrike on the family. Israel's military had no immediate comment.

Thousands of residents began fleeing Shijaiyah after daybreak, including a woman in a wheelchair who waved a white flag. Columns of smoke rose from the neighborhood as the sound of shelling echoed from inside.

Gaza's Health Ministry later said 35,000 people fled Sunday's fighting. Some residents tried to find refuge with relatives or at U.N. schools. Some 81,000 Palestinians are already staying in United Nations shelters, according to UNRWA, the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians.

The number of people who have fled their homes has more than quadrupled since the start of Israel's ground operation and the agency said it planned to open more schools. The heavy fighting came as Ban headed to Qatar to try to push stalled cease-fire efforts forward.

He was set to meet Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Gulf state, Abbas' spokesman said. Abbas also plans to meet Hamas' top leader Khaled Mashaal. Hamas last week rejected an Egyptian call on both sides to halt hostilities, saying it first wants guarantees that Israel and Egypt will significantly ease their border blockade of Gaza, which has been ruled by the Islamic militant group since 2007.

Hamas has sought involvement of other countries, such as Qatar, in any cease-fire negotiations. The militant group is deeply distrustful of Egypt's rulers, who last year deposed a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo.

Enav reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg and Yousur Alhlou in Jerusalem and Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report.

US Sharpens Criticism Of Hamas, Urges Cease-Fire

Smoke rises after an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Sunday, July 20, 2014. A Gaza City neighborhood came under heavy tank fire Sunday as Israel widened its ground offensive against Hamas, causing hundreds of panicked residents to flee.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Sunday sharpened its criticism of Hamas and urged the militant Palestinian group to accept a cease-fire agreement that would halt nearly two weeks of fighting with Israel.

The Obama administration toned down its earlier rebuke of Israel for attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed civilians, including children, although Secretary of State John Kerry said he remains concerned about the rising death toll that so far includes at least 425 Palestinians and 20 Israelis.

"It's ugly. War is ugly," Kerry said. "And bad things are going to happen. But they (Hamas) need to recognize their own responsibility." Kerry said Israel has a right to defend itself against frequent rocket attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip. He accused Hamas of attempting to sedate and kidnap Israelis through a network of tunnels that militants have used to stage cross-border raids. He also urged Hamas to "step up and show a level of reasonableness, and they need to accept the offer of a cease-fire."

Then, Kerry said, "we will certainly discuss all of the issues relevant to the underlying crisis." The nearly two-week conflict appeared to be escalating as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon headed to the region to try to revive cease-fire efforts. Kerry said he was planning to meet soon with Ban and was ready to travel to the Mideast immediately if needed.

The U.N. relief agency in Gaza estimates that 70,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in the fighting and are seeking shelter in schools and other shelters the United Nations has set up. The relief agency's top director in Gaza, Robert Turner, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the U.N. has run out of mattresses for refugees and few hygiene and medical supplies are left, although fresh food and water remain available.

"People are scared," Turner said. "They don't feel safe at home, they don't feel safe with their families or neighbors. They feel relatively safe in our instillations. ... We frankly have been overwhelmed by the numbers."

He said more than 1,000 homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, and at least 13,000 lightly damaged. U.S. officials made clear, however, that Hamas could bring relief to the Palestinian people if it agrees to a cease-fire proposed by Egypt — a view that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing as well.

Hamas has rejected the Egyptian plan and instead is relying on governments in Qatar and Turkey for an alternative proposal. Qatar and Turkey have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is also linked to Hamas but banned in Egypt.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, urged Israel to "stay as long as you need to stay, go wherever you need to go, do deal with a viper's nest called Hamas."

"If it's left up to Hamas, thousands of Israelis would be dead," Graham, R-S.C., told NBC's "Meet the Press." Netanyahu agreed. In an interview with ABC's "This Week," he said Israel has tried to avoid killing Palestinian civilians through phone calls, text messages and leaflets dropped on their communities.

But Hamas doesn't "give a whit about the Palestinians," Netanyahu said. "All they want is more and more civilian deaths." The prime minister said his top goal is to restore a sustainable peace, but then will ask the international community to consider demilitarizing Gaza to rid Hamas of its rockets and shut down the tunnels leading into Israel. Netanyahu brushed off a question about giving concessions to Hamas as a step toward peace, including releasing Palestinian prisoners or loosening border crossings.

"Hamas doesn't care," Netanyahu said. "I think the last thing you want to do is reward them." Kerry also said any cease-fire agreement must be without conditions or "any rewards for terrorist behavior." He did not mention the Qatari or Turkish efforts.

Kerry also blamed the latest wave of violence on what he called Israel's "legitimate" efforts to pursue and punish those who last month kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers whose bodies were found in the West Bank.

Their deaths were followed almost immediately by what authorities believe was a retribution attack on a Palestinian youth who was strangled, beaten and burned to death. Tensions between Israel and Palestinian authorities have been simmering for years. They threatened to boil over this spring when Israel shelved nearly nine months of peace negotiations that were being personally shepherded by Kerry after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to create a unity government with Hamas.

"No country could sit by and not take steps to try to deal with people who are sending thousands of rockets your way," Kerry said. Kerry spoke Sunday on all five major news network talks shows: NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS' "Face the Nation" and "Fox News Sunday."

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Germany Honors Officers Who Tried To Kill Hitler

Guests attend a wreath laying ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler at the courtyard of the Bendler Block, a part of the German Defense Ministry, in Berlin, Sunday, July 20, 2014. On July 20 Germany honors Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg and other high-ranking aristocratic soldiers, executed in Berlin after Hitler survived the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt. Stauffenberg and other officers were executed in the courtyard of the Bendler Block, the former Nazi army headquarters in Berlin. Scores of others were executed in Berlin's Ploetzensee prison.

BERLIN (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Germany on Sunday honored a group of Nazi-era officers who tried to kill Adolf Hitler 70 years ago. The plot — portrayed in films such as the 2008 Hollywood movie "Valkyrie" — helped establish a principle under which German soldiers today are encouraged to defy orders if they would result in a crime or violate human dignity.

In a somber ceremony, President Joachim Gauck called the July 20, 1944, bombing of Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Eastern Prussia a "significant day in German history" for showing the world that there were Germans who opposed the Nazi regime.

"It was from this legacy that the newly founded Federal Republic, once it belatedly recognized the significance of the military resistance, was able to draw legitimacy," Gauck said. Hitler survived the bombing and was able to continue his military campaign to conquer Europe and eradicate the continent's Jewish population for another year.

Four officers including Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg were executed without trial within hours of the failed assassination. Some 200 supporters were killed later or driven to suicide. While the July 20 conspirators were among the most prominent examples of German resistance against the Nazis, historians have sought in recent years to highlight other, lesser-known men and women who opposed the regime.

"Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg has become a symbol of the resistance. The broader public hardly knows the names of the many others," said Linda von Keyserlingk, a historian at Germany's Military History Museum in Dresden, which recently opened a new exhibition about the July 20 plot.

Earlier this month Germany's Foreign Ministry honored Ilse Stoebe, who worked at the ministry during the war and tried to warn the Soviet Union of Hitler's plans to attack it. She was executed in 1942.

German Military History Museum: http://www.mhmbw.de

UKRAINE: Rebels Take Full Control Of Plane Crash Bodies

A woman looks at a refrigerated train loaded with the bodies of victims, in Torez, eastern Ukraine, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Sunday, July 20, 2014. Armed rebels forced emergency workers to hand over all 196 bodies recovered from the Malaysia Airlines crash site and had them loaded Sunday onto refrigerated train cars bound for a rebel-held city, Ukrainian officials and monitors said.

TOREZ, UKRAINE (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Rebels in eastern Ukraine took control Sunday of the bodies recovered from downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and the U.S. and European leaders demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin make sure rebels give international investigators full access to the crash site.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Ukraine's separatists were to blame for the downing of the aircraft, adding there was "extraordinary circumstantial evidence" that showed Russia was almost certainly complicit in arming the rebels.

"There's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for. We are not drawing the final conclusion here. But there is a lot that points at the need for Russia to be responsible," Kerry said on NBC's "Meet the Press" television show.

The key question of who controlled the collection of evidence at the sprawling crash site in rebel-held territory dominated the day's rapid-fire developments. International monitors say armed rebels have limited their access to the crash site and Ukrainian officials said armed rebels took the bodies away from their workers by force.

Ukraine and the separatists accuse each other of firing a surface-to-air missile Thursday at Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur some 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) above the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Both deny shooting down the plane. All those onboard the flight — 283 passengers and 15 crew — were killed.

A wave of international outrage over how the bodies of the plane crash victims were being handled came amid fears that the armed rebels who control the crash site could be tampering with the evidence there.

Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Borodai said the bodies recovered from the crash site would remain in four refrigerated train cars in the rebel-held town of Torez, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the crash site, until the arrival of an international aviation delegation.

"The bodies will go nowhere until experts arrive," Borodai said, speaking in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. He also said the plane's black boxes have been recovered and will be handed over to the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Borodai said he was expecting a team of 12 Malaysian experts and that he was disappointed at how long they had taken to arrive. He insisted that rebels had not interfered with the crash investigation, despite reports to the contrary by international monitors and journalists at the crash site.

Ukrainian government officials, meanwhile, prepared a disaster crisis center in the government-held city of Kharkiv, expecting to receive the bodies, but those hopes appeared delayed or even dashed Sunday.

Deputy prime minister Volodymyr Groysman said 192 bodies and eight body parts were loaded onto the railway cars. The leaders of France, Germany and Britain issued a statement demanding that Putin make sure that pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine give full access to investigators at the Malaysian plane crash site or risk the ire of Europe.

French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed Sunday to demand that Putin force separatists controlling the site to "finally allow rescuers and investigators to have free and total access to the zone."

A statement from Hollande's office said if Russia fails "to immediately take the needed measures, consequence will be drawn" at an EU foreign ministers meeting Tuesday. Ukraine says Russia has been sending sophisticated arms to the rebels, a charge that Moscow denies.

The U.S. embassy in Kiev issued a strong statement Sunday saying it has concluded "that Flight MH17 was likely downed by a SA-11 surface-to-air missile from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine." It said over the weekend of July 12-13, "Russia sent a convoy of military equipment with up to 150 vehicles, including tanks armored personnel carriers artillery, and multiple rockets launchers" to the separatists. The statement also said Russia was training separatist fighters in southwest Russia, including on air defense systems.

The rebels have been strictly limiting the movements of international monitors and journalists at the crash site, which is near the Russian border. Associated Press journalists saw reeking bodies baking in the summer heat Saturday, piled into body bags by the side of the road or still sprawled where they landed in the verdant farmland in eastern Ukraine after their plane was shot out of the sky.

By Sunday morning, AP journalists saw no bodies and no armed rebels at the crash site. Emergency workers were searching the sprawling fields only for body parts. Heavy machinery was seen moving plane debris around.

There was no immediate word on the bodies of the 102 other plane victims, but Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said some bodies have likely been incinerated without a trace.

"We're looking at the field where the engines have come down. This was the area which was exposed to the most intense heat. We do not see any bodies here. It appears that some have been vaporized," he told reporters in Kiev on Sunday, speaking via phone from the crash site.

Alexander Pilyushny, an emergency worker combing the crash site for body parts Sunday, told the AP it took the rebels several hours Saturday to cart away the bodies. He said he and other workers had no choice but to hand them over.

"They are armed and we are not," Pilyushny said. Nataliya Khuruzhaya, a duty officer at the train station in Torez, said emergency workers loaded plane victims' bodies Sunday into four sealed, refrigerated train cars.

Adding to growing claims that pro-Russian rebels have attempted to interfere with evidence, Ukraine's security services released on Sunday purported intercepts of phone conversations between rebel militants discussing the location of the plane's black boxes.

In one exchange, a man identified as the leader of the rebel Vostok Battalion Alexander Khodakovsky states that two recording devices are being held by the head of intelligence of the insurgency's military commander. The commander is then heard to order the militiaman to ensure no outsiders, including an international observation team near the crash site at the reported time of the call, get hold of any material.

The man identified as Khodakovsky says he is pursuing enquiries about the black boxes under instructions from "our high-placed friends ... in Moscow." The security service says all the recordings were made on Friday.

Vasily Khoma, deputy of governor of the Kharkiv region where Ukraine has set up a crisis center to handle the disaster, said the Ukrainian state railway company had provided the refrigerated train cars. Kharkiv is 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of the crash site.

He said no information was available on when airplane parts would be brought to the city and that the priority now was on recovering bodies. He said a mobile lab to handle DNA analysis was being delivered from Dnipropetrovsk.

In a blistering article for the Sunday Times, Cameron called the attack a "direct result of Russia destabilizing a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias and training and arming them."

"We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action," the British leader wrote. In a coded rebuke of Merkel and other European leaders who have blocked efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Putin for Russia's actions in Ukraine, Cameron said Europe must now "respond robustly."

In the Netherlands, worshippers at church services across the country prayed Sunday for the victims of the Ukraine air disaster and their next of kin, as anger built over the rebels' hindering of the investigation.

At the St. Vitus church in the central city of Hilversum, Father Julius Dresme summed up the nation's pain. "It's terrible, and everybody's hearts are bleeding and crying," he said.

Peter Leonard in Kiev; Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow; Nicholas Garriga in Hrabove, Ukraine; Lucian Kim in Kharkiv; Michael Corder in the Hague; Danica Kirka in London and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

DNA Being Collected To ID Ukraine Crash Victims

People enter the door to attend a gathering at soccer club Altius in Hilversum, Netherlands, Saturday, July 19, 2014. A family, father, mother, daughter and son, from which the father and the son were members of the club, were among those killed when a Malaysian jetliner was shot down over Ukraine Thursday. All passengers, 298 people from nearly a dozen nations, more than half being Dutch were killed. Across the Netherlands, at sports clubs, schools and churches, friends met Saturday to console each another and attempt to come to terms with their loss.

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Forensic teams fanned out across the Netherlands on Saturday to collect material that will help positively identify the remains of victims killed in the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine. Families and friends of the dead huddled to console one another at churches, schools and sports clubs across the nation.

Altius, a small soccer club on the edge of the central city of Hilversum, was typical of scenes that played out across the Netherlands. A couple of dozen members held a small ceremony at Altius' clubhouse to remember a family of four killed in the crash, as the team's flag fluttered at half-staff in the warm afternoon breeze.

Charles Smallenburg was a long-time volunteer at the club, his young son Werther a promising striker in the D1 youth team, club chairman Tom Verdam told The Associated Press after the brief get-together. Charles' wife Therese and daughter Carlijn also died, the club said.

As Hilversum's mayor walked away and families unlocked their bicycles behind him and cycled homeward, Verdam said the commemoration was simple, but emotional. "We had a moment that we could each share emotions and talk about it," he said. "It's a small club, so everyone knows everyone"

The same could almost be said for this nation of 17 million people. "Everybody knows somebody," was the front-page headline of national newspaper NRC Weekend. While grieving continued, the task of identifying bodies strewn over Ukrainian fields since Thursday's crash got underway.

Police said in a tweet that 40 pairs of detectives from the National Forensic Investigations Team would be visiting victims' relatives over the coming days. Other Dutch forensic experts were en route to the crash scene, Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said in Ukraine.

Their aim is to build a database of material including DNA and photographs of distinguishing features like scars and tattoos that can be used to identify bodies and body parts recovered from the crash site in eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines said 193 of the 298 passengers and crew killed in Thursday's aviation disaster were Dutch.

The airline released the full list of passengers and crew Saturday and appealed to family and friends of the victims to contact the carrier so it can get a full picture of the next of kin. "In the past 45 hours, the airline together with various foreign embassies have made every effort to establish contact with the next-of-kin but is still unable to identify many more family members," Malaysia Airlines said in a statement.

The European Union police coordination body Europol said Saturday it would assist Interpol and other agencies in identifying victims in Ukraine. "We will do our utmost to support the work that must be done following this horrific incident, where hundreds of families and friends to the innocent victims on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 are grieving and left with unanswered questions," Europol Director Rob Wainwright said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines said it is assessing security in Ukraine before taking a decision about possibly flying next of kin to the country where their family members lost their lives. A spokesman for the airline said family members were being cared for in Amsterdam while a team from the carrier, including security officials, is in Ukraine assessing the situation.

The spokesman, who declined to be named in line with company policy, said the team was trying to travel "500 kilometers (310 miles) through difficult territory" to reach the area where wreckage of the Boeing 777 landed.

Dutch newspapers carried pages of photos and stories Saturday about the dead. Travelers flying out of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport laid flowers and signed a condolence book before boarding their flights, including Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to Kuala Lumpur.

"I am not really afraid. It's good that they kept the same flight number," Mirelle Geervliet said as she prepared to board the aircraft. "It doesn't change anything. If you change the number, people will start to be afraid."

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on a visit to the Netherlands, was among those who signed the condolence book at the airport. "This is a real tragedy — a tragedy for families, for nations and for the HIV AIDS community," Annan said, referring to a researcher and at least five other people who were traveling to an AIDS conference in Australia. "We should all hope that a thorough international investigation will be conducted and we will know what happened and the culprits should be held to account."

Pro-Palestinian Protesters Defies Ban And Chant Slogans

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators holding banners and chanting slogans walk in Paris, Saturday, July 19, 2014, to protest against the Israeli army's shelling in the Gaza strip. Sign reads: State of Israel assassin, Hollande accomplice.

PARIS (AP) — Police clashed on Saturday with thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters who defied a ban on a Paris demonstration over the Israeli offensive in Gaza. More than 30 people were arrested and it wasn't immediately clear if there were injuries.

Some protesters threw stones and other objects at riot police, who responded with tear gas in an hours-long confrontation in a working class neighborhood, which had been designated as the starting point of the banned march.

Hundreds of riot police stopped the protesters from marching, but several demonstrators climbed onto a building under construction and burned an Israeli flag. Others waved a Palestinian flag from atop a street sign.

The protest degenerated into running battles with police, and at least 33 protesters were arrested, a figure likely to increase, police said. French authorities had banned the planned pro-Palestinian march after a protest on July 13 turned violent, with two synagogues attacked.

A group of protesters dispersed by the tear gas still managed to hang banners reading "Palestine Will Live" and "Israel Assassins" in front of Montmartre's famed basilica. Fighting in the Middle East has enflamed tensions in France, home to Western Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish populations. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was in the Mideast on Saturday in a bid to help open the way to a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group which runs the Gaza Strip.