Day: 7 July 2021

Weather today is partly cloudy to clear and hot in most districts and very hot in the Jordan Valley in daytime with a rise in temperature which approaches 3°C above the seasonal average, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Weather tonight is moderate in the mountains and relatively hot in other districts. Light to moderate northwesterly wind blows in daytime, while light to moderate westerly to northwesterly wind blows in nighttime. Sea waves are low to medium.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 30°C and a low of 20°C and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 29°C and a low of 19°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley temperature is expected to reach a high of 40°C and a low of 27°C, while it is expected to reach a high of 30°C and a low of 23°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

Thursday’s temperature is set to further rise and approach 4 to 5°C above the seasonal average, causing the heat stress to intensify.

A drop in temperature is expected on Friday, causing a slight decrease in the heat stress.

Saturday’s temperature is set to further drop and approach 2°C above the seasonal average, paving the way to relatively hot to hot conditions in most districts and very hot conditions in the Jordan Valley in daytime. Moderate conditions are expected in nighttime.

PMD warns people against being exposed to the sun for long period, especially from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and setting fire to dry grassy areas.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces dawn Wednesday raided the headquarters of a leading agricultural organization in the occupied West Bank city of al-Bireh and ordered the place to be shut down, according to local sources.

They confirmed that heavily-armed Israeli soldiers smashed the main door of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) premises and barged their way inside, tampering with its contents and seizing several computers and office equipment, before posting a military order to close the building for six months, renewable.

The military decision to close the organization, posted in Arabic and Hebrew, cited security as a flimsy pretext to justify the closure.

The UAWC closure came almost a month after Israeli forces closed the main headquarters of Health Work Committees (HWC) for six months, renewable, and seized the hard discs of several computers besides to documents before leaving.

Established in 1986 by a group of agronomists, UAWC is the largest non-governmental agricultural development organization in Palestine. It strives to contribute to the agricultural sector’s development, through empowering farmers steadfastness and sovereignty on their resources within a sustainable community-based liberational developmental framework.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces Wednesday overnight detained at least ten Palestinians from various parts of the West Bank, according to local and security sources.

Israeli forces rounded up the director of the Health Work Committees (HWC), Shatha Odeh, and seized her car after storming her house in Ramallah city.

The soldiers rounded up two others after breaking into and ransacking the houses of their families in Ni‘lin town, west of Ramallah city.

They also conducted separate two raids in Deir Abu Mash’al village and Kharbatha al-Misbah town, west of the city, resulting in the detention of two others.

The sources confirmed a similar Israeli military raid in Birzeit town, north of the city, resulting in the detention of an undergraduate student enrolled in Birzeit University.

In the northern West Bank, Israeli military vehicles stormed Jabal Ash-Shamali and Rafidia neighborhoods of Nablus city, where the soldiers detained two others.

Meanwhile, soldiers showed up at a former prisoner’s family house in al-Jaberiyat neighborhood in Jenin city, where they interrogated him.

In Hebron district, Israeli troops barged their way into Dura town, south of the city, where they detained two others, including a former prisoner, after surrounding and breaking into their family houses.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli bulldozers today demolished Palestinian structures in Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa village, southeast of Tubas city, according to sources.

Mu‘taz Besharat, who monitors Israeli colonial settlement activities in Tubas, said that Israeli soldiers escorted bulldozers and trucks into the northern Jordan Valley village, where the heavy machinery tore down structures before the structure contents and components were seized.

Israeli occupation forces also forced the Palestinian residents of the community to get into trucks to be transferred to another area, where the army took the resident’s furniture and goods in what was clearly a forced eviction and ethnic cleansing of the community.

Under international law, driving residents of an occupied territory from their homes is considered forcible transfer of protected persons, which constitutes a war crime. But residents of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley are no strangers to such disruptive Israeli policies.

The valley, which is a fertile strip of land running west along the Jordan River, is home to about 65,000 Palestinians and makes up approximately 30% of the West Bank.

Since 1967, when the Israeli army occupied the West Bank, Israel has transferred at least 11,000 of its Jewish citizens to the Jordan Valley. Some of the settlements in which they live were built almost entirely on private Palestinian land.

The Israel military has also designated about 46 percent of the Jordan Valley as a closed military zone since the beginning of the occupation in June 1967, and has been utilizing the pretext of military drills to forcefully displace Palestinian families living there as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing and stifling Palestinian development in the area.

Approximately 6,200 Palestinians live in 38 communities in places earmarked for military use and have had to obtain permission from the Israeli authorities to enter and live in their communities.

In violation of international law, the Israeli military not only displaces the communities on a regular basis but also confiscates their farmlands, demolishes their homes and infrastructure from time to time.

Besides undergoing displacement, the Palestinian families living there face a myriad restrictions on access to resources and services. Meanwhile, Israel exploits the resources of the area and generates profit by allocating generous tracts of land and water resources for the benefit of settlers.

Israeli politicians have made it clear on several occasions that the highly strategic Jordan Valley would remain under their control in any future peace deal with the Palestinians, a notion totally rejected by the Palestinians.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

the Ramallah-based human rights organization, Al-Haq, submitted an urgent appeal to the United Nations (UN) Special Procedures on the arbitrary detention of Farid Atrash, a human rights defender and the director of southern office of the Independent Commission for Human Rights, by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) on 4 July.

Addressing six UN Special Rapporteurs, including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Al-Haq highlighted Israel’s policy of silencing those who oppose Israel’s unlawful policies and practices, and seek justice and accountability for violations committed against the Palestinian people, as a tool to maintain its apartheid regime, according to a press statement by Al-Haq.

At dawn of 4 July, the IOF, arbitrarily detained Atrash at an army checkpoint east of Bethlehem as he was driving home from Ramallah city, where he participated in a protest against the killing of Nizar Banat. With his health deteriorating, Atrash was transferred to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, before he was then taken to the Atarot police station in Jerusalem, and finally to Ofer Prison, where he currently is detained. He appeared in court today, which turned down an appeal for his release and remanded him until Sunday.

Noting that the arrest of Farid illustrates Israel’s attempts to discourage individuals and organizations from documenting and highlighting consistent violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Al-Haq, the urgent appeal further underscored the need to address the arbitrary detention of Atrash within the broader context of Israel’s systematic policy of silencing of opposition to maintain its apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole.

Al-Haq urged the UN Special Procedure mandates to:

1- Call on Israel, the Occupying Power, to immediately release the human rights defender Farid Atrash;

2- Urge Israel to immediately cease any and all practices and policies intended to intimidate and silence human rights defenders, in violation of their right to freedom of expression, including through arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, institutionalized hate speech and incitement, residency revocation, deportations, and other coercive or punitive measures;

3- Recognize and address silencing efforts as part of an apartheid regime imposed over the Palestinian people as a whole, and endorse the December 2019 concluding observations on Israel of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which recognized Israeli policies and practices of racial segregation and apartheid over Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, and

4- Recognize the state of impunity existing in Israel, which decisively renders the State unable and unwilling to hold itself accountable, and call for international justice and accountability, including at the International Criminal Court, for Israel’s widespread and systematic human rights violations, and alleged international crimes, including the crime of population transfer, and the crime of apartheid, which constitutes a crime against humanity.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency