Day: 29 June 2021

The Council of the European Union Monday decided to extend the mandates of two of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) civilian missions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Council said in a press statement that it extended until 30 June 2022 the mandates of the European Union Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah) and the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS). The missions are part of wider EU efforts in support of Palestinian state-building.

It pointed that EUBAM Rafah was launched on 25 November 2005 following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, in order to provide a third-party presence at the Rafah Crossing Point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt and to build confidence between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Currently, the mission is on stand-by and maintains its readiness to redeploy to the Rafah crossing point once the political and security situation allows. In the meantime, EUBAM Rafah will continue to provide technical assistance to the Palestinian General Administration for Borders and Crossings in an integrated border management.

EUPOL COPPS was established on 1 January 2006. The mission will continue to assist the Palestinian Authority in building the Palestinian institutions in the areas of policing and wider criminal justice arrangements. Through its contribution to security and justice sector reform, the mission supports efforts to increase the security of the Palestinian population and to reinforce the rule of law, said the statement.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Israeli occupation authorities today notified to demolish four inhabited Palestinian houses in al-Walaja village, west of Bethlehem, according to a local source.

Ibrahim Awadallah, a local activist, told WAFA that Israeli forces handed four brothers from the village notifications to tear down their houses, located in Ein al-Jwaiza neighborhood, northwest of the village, purportedly for being built without licenses.

This area of al-Walaja has been targeted by Israel for several years in an attempt to empty it of its Palestinian residents in order to build illegal settlements on its land. Several Palestinian-owned homes have been demolished in the village under the pretext of building without a permit, which is impossible to get from the Israeli occupation authorities.

Located at a horizontal distance of 5 kilometers to the west of Bethlehem, al-Walaja has a population of some 2,800 and occupies a total area of 4,328 dunums.

Under the Oslo Accords, an agreement made 25 years ago that was supposed to last just five years towards a self-governing country alongside Israel, the Palestinian Authority was given limited control over a small pocket of land occupying 113 dunums and accounting for only 2.6 percent of the village’s total area. This area is classified as Area B. In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.

An area of 4,209 dunums of the village, accounting for 97 percent, is completely isolated by the section of Israel’s apartheid wall. The majority of this land is agricultural land, forests and open spaces.

The village is flanked by two Israeli colonial settlements; Gilo from the east and Har Gilo from the south.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

In a move Palestinians feared was the start of mass demolition of homes, Israeli police today raided the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan and tore down a shop in al-Bustan area, one of 17 structures, mainly homes, in that area slated for demolition by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that Israeli police and border guards, accompanying a bulldozer, cordoned al-Bustan area as the bulldozer tore down a butchery owned by Nidal Rajabi, a local resident, who refused to self-demolish it in line with a demolition notice.

The demolition was carried out two days after the end of the Israeli municipality deadline for 13 Palestinian families to self-demolish their 17 homes in the neighborhood under the pretext they were built without a permit.

WAFA correspondent said the demolition of the shop will facilitate access to the homes slated for demolition.

Rajabi and other residents confronted the Israeli forces to prevent the demolition and were brutally attacked by the police hitting some with rubber-coated steel bullet, one of them was transferred to hospital, and causing others to suffocate from tear gas, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Three Palestinians were also detained, including the shop owner and his son.

Meanwhile, Fatah Central Committee member Hussein al-Sheikh called on the international community to immediately intervene to stop the home demolitions in Silwan and forcible expulsion of its Palestinian residents.

“Al-Bustan neighborhood is being attacked by the occupation through demolition, destruction and displacement, and we call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop this massacre against the residents of Jerusalem and their homes and properties,” al-Sheikh tweeted.

Using the pretext of illegal building, Israel demolishes houses on a regular basis to restrict Palestinian expansion in occupied Jerusalem while denying them building permits in their neighborhoods.

At the same time, the municipality and government build tens of thousands of housing units in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem for Jews with a goal to offset the demographic balance in favor of the Jewish settlers in the occupied city.

Although Palestinians in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian territory that has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967, they are denied their citizenship rights and are instead classified only as “residents”, which can be revoked for any reason.

They are also discriminated against in all aspects of life including housing, employment and services, and are separated from the West Bank by Israel’s separation wall.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

President Mahmoud Abbas said today that the international public opinion is gradually shifting toward accepting and recognizing the Palestinian narrative of the conflict with Israel, particularly in the United States and Europe, which created and financed the State of Israel and still accuse anyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism while passing laws to ensure that.

He said in a recorded speech at the opening session of a conference on the Zionist narrative held via video conferencing with Al-Quds Open University in the Gaza Strip, that “the majority of American and European cities is witnessing a broad public activity with the participation of our Palestinian community and supported by popular organizations opposed to the Israeli occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing in those countries, especially after the Jerusalem uprising, and the peaceful popular resistance launched to defend the Islamic and Christian holy places, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

The president continued: “There have become convictions and shifts in the world’s public opinion and at the level of parliaments towards reconsidering the Palestinian narrative. This issue needs further work and mobilization to reach the decision-makers in all these countries to affirm the genuineness of our Palestinian people and their right to their land, and the land of their ancestors, and to achieve their independence in their sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

He added, “I salute the efforts made to hold this conference, which refutes the Zionist narrative that falsifies the truth and history, and which all documents and research confirm that it is a product of colonialism. They planned and worked to implant Israel as a foreign body in this region in order to fragment it and keep it weak.”

The president said: “Despite our acceptance of a painful historic settlement recognizing the State of Israel on the 1967 borders in accordance with United Nations resolutions 242 and 338 and the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel has violated these agreements and continued to steal the land, establish settlements, and create an apartheid regime and ethnic cleansing by military force.”

He added: “The events and the Jerusalem uprising have proven that our Palestinian people, wherever they are, are an authentic people who are proud of their Palestinian affiliation and identity. As everyone knows, we have foiled what is known as the “deal of the century”, and it became clear that the so-called Abraham agreements on normalization are an illusion that will not succeed since peace and security will only be achieved with the end of the occupation and the Palestinian people’s realization of their rights to freedom, independence, and statehood with its capital, Jerusalem.”

The president added: “The world has begun to see Israel as it is: an occupying and apartheid state. I am confident that the contributions of the researchers participating in this conference will have an important impact on clarifying and explaining the truth about the myths and false narratives of this Zionist project created by the Western countries for purely colonial purposes.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces today and last night detained 13 Palestinians from various parts of the occupied territories, according to local and Palestinian security sources.

They said that undercover Israeli forces, known as the Musta’ribeen, sneaked into Bil‘in town, west of Ramallah city, where they abducted a Palestinian man.

Israeli soldiers also detained two others after ransacking their houses in Kafr Ni‘ma town, northwest of Ramallah.

In Jerusalem, undercover forces last night abducted a teen from Silwan, in East Jerusalem, as reported by Wadi Hilweh Information Center.

Police also brutally assaulted and detained the owner of a butcher shop along with his two sons after demolishing their shop in Silwan’s al-Bustan area this morning.

In Hebron district in the south of the West Bank, the sources confirmed a military raid in Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron city, resulting in the detention of four people.

Israeli soldiers re-arrested a former prisoner after breaking into and searching his house in Dura town, south of Hebron.

They also re-arrested another person from the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Staff of the Israeli municipality today demolished without any prior notice a residential apartment in the East Jerusalem Silwan neighborhood of Swaih, displacing its residents, according to local sources.

A municipality staff, accompanied by Israeli police, demolished a 60-square-meter third-floor apartment belonging to Jerusalemite resident Fadel ‘Abasi, after forcing out his family of four, including two children.

The family was waiting for a court hearing that was supposed to discuss an appeal they submitted against the demolition of their house, but that the municipality went ahead and demolished it before the hearing.

Earlier today, Israeli police raided the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan and tore down a shop in al-Bustan area, one of 17 structures, mainly homes, in that area slated for demolition by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers set up mobile homes on Kisan village land, east of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, in preparation to build an illegal settlement outpost, today said Ahmad Ghazal, deputy head of Kisan village council.

He told WAFA that settlers had set up over the past two days around 20 mobile homes on land west of the village near the illegal settlement of Ebi Hanahal, which they have seized a while ago.

He said the land in question is over 50 dunums in area, adding that the settlers opened roads to the land and built infrastructure for a new settlement outpost in that area.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Norwegian Refugee Council stressed the need for the Israeli authorities to immediately stop forcibly displacing people and demolishing their homes and property.

The residents of Al-Bustan area in occupied East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood are at risk of being forcibly displaced from their homes, the Norwegian Refugee Council warned, after the Israeli authorities commenced demolitions in the area today.

Sparking protests, the Israeli authorities demolished a butcher shop in Al-Bustan on the pretext that it did not have a building permit.

The Rajabi family owns the property that houses the shop. At least 13 people were injured as the police deployed force to disperse protestors. Now 15 families in Al-Bustan are at imminent risk of losing their properties.

“Israeli authorities must immediately stop forcibly displacing people and demolishing their homes and property,” said Caroline Ort, Norwegian Refugee Council’s Palestine country director. “Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel has an obligation to protect civilians under its occupation and to refrain from destroying private property.” The demolitions come after Palestinian families have struggled in the courts for years to stave off the demolitions that could ultimately affect the majority of Al-Bustan’s 1,550 residents, who have been served with demolition orders since 2005.

The Israeli authorities have banned all construction in Al-Bustan and arbitrarily designated the area as ‘open’ or ‘green’ space.

Palestinian families have been resisting the move, submitting a proposal to the Jerusalem Municipality to let them stay on part of the land.

Out of 93 cases in Al-Bustan receiving NRC legal support, an Israeli local affairs court suspended demolition orders for 52 of them until 15 August pending the planning process with the municipality. But 16 properties, including the butcher shop, served with demolition orders after Amendment 116 to Israel’s Planning and Building Law came into effect in 2018, were excluded by the same court.

Following today’s demolition, the remaining 15 properties are at imminent risk.

Under Amendment 116, judicial discretion on demolition orders is limited to special grounds and for a maximum of one year. The remaining 25 cases are pending before the courts, and subject to the same limitations under Amendment 116.

More than 100,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are at risk of displacement, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and around 330,000 face a lack of infrastructure and severe housing shortages because of discriminatory Israeli planning and zoning policies.

Only 13 per cent of East Jerusalem is approved for Palestinians, subject to building permits, and most of these areas are already built up.

So far this year, 57 demolitions, evictions, confiscations, or seizures of Palestinian properties have taken place in East Jerusalem, according to OCHA’s demolition database. Nearly 21 per cent of all demolitions, evictions, confiscations or seizures of Palestinian properties in 2020 took place in East Jerusalem. In many cases in eastern Jerusalem, demolitions and forced expulsions of Palestinians occur within the context of Israeli settlement construction and expansion.

Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law include prohibitions against changing the laws and customs in occupied territory, transferring populations in and out of occupied territory, destroying private property and forcible transfer, and discriminating on national, racial or ethnic grounds.

“The international community must prevent the forcible displacement of Palestinian families and demand Israel ceases advancing settlements in East Jerusalem that cause irreparable damage to the prospects for a viable Palestinian state and the resolution of the question of Jerusalem,” said Caroline Ort.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers today set fire to agricultural land belonging to Palestinian residents in the town of Burin to the south of Nablus, the occupied West Bank, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors colonial settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said settlers from a nearby illegal settlement set fire to tens of dunums of agricultural land at the southern part of Burin town.

Forces reportedly prevented residents and the civil defense crews from reaching the area to put out the fire.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli police today evening attacked a sit-in staged in protest of Israeli occupation plans to forcibly expel Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan for the benefit of settlers.

The sit-in was held in front of the house of Jerusalemite Nedal al-Rajbi, whose shop was demolished earlier today in al-Bustan area of Silwan, one of 17 structures, mainly homes, in that area slated for demolition by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem.

Palestinian carried the Palestinian flag and chanted slogans condemning the Israeli occupation measures against them and its plans to expel and displace Palestinians from their homes in Silwan.

Israeli police attacked protesters with rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades. A youth was reportedly detained by the police.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency