Day: 27 July 2021

After fencing an area where a vital water spring is located in Ein al-Hilweh area in Wadi al-Malih in the occupied northern Jordan Valley, Israeli settlers last night began construction work in the area to take over the spring and prevent shepherds from using the water for their sheep, according to a local official.

Mutaz Bisharat, from the Tubas governorate, told WAFA that the settlers from the illegal Maskiyot settlement proceeded to do construction work around Ein al-Hilweh spring, which they seized several months ago and planted trees around it turning it into a park for their use only and off-limit to the Palestinians.

He said the settlers aim to close off the spring to the Palestinian shepherds who make a living out of herding.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Several Palestinian protestors were early today injured from Israeli military gunfire as Israeli settlers stormed Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus city in the north of the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian security sources.

Israeli occupation forces escorted a convoy of buses packed with hundreds of fanatic Jewish settlers into the site, located in the Palestinian-controlled area, sparking confrontations with Palestinian residents.

Soldiers opened fire on Palestinians protesting the raid and attempting to block settlers’ access to the site, injuring five, including a journalist, with rubber-coated steel bullets and causing others to suffocate from tear gas.

The casualties were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, whereas the suffocation cases were treated at the scene.

Settlers repeatedly break into Joseph’s Tomb, located in a densely Palestinian populated area in Nablus, provoking confrontation with local residents.

The site of Joseph’s Tomb is contentious. Palestinians believe the site to be the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious figure, while Israeli settlers believe it to belong to the Biblical Patriarch Joseph.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today that it investigated three Israeli strikes during its war on Gaza in May that killed 62 Palestinian civilians where there were no evident military targets in the vicinity, which amount to war crimes.

It said Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups carried out attacks during the May 2021 fighting in the Gaza Strip and Israel that violated the laws of war and apparently amount to war crimes, adding that the Israeli military has a long track record of failing to investigate laws of war violations in Gaza.

“Israeli forces carried out attacks in Gaza in May that devastated entire families without any apparent military target nearby,” said Gerry Simpson, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “Israeli authorities’ consistent unwillingness to seriously investigate alleged war crimes, as well as Palestinian forces’ rocket attacks toward Israeli population centers, underscores the importance of the International Criminal Court’s inquiry.”

The United Nations reported that during the May fighting, attacks by the Israeli military killed 260 Palestinians, including at least 129 civilians, of whom 66 were children. The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli forces injured 1,948 Palestinians, including 610 children. Israeli authorities said that rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups resulted in the death of 12 civilians, including two children, one soldier, and injured “several hundred” people.

Since late May, Human Rights Watch interviewed in person 30 Palestinians who witnessed Israeli attacks, were relatives of civilians killed, or were residents of areas targeted. It focused its investigation on three Israeli attacks that resulted in high numbers of civilian casualties and where there was no evident military target. Other Israeli attacks during the conflict were also likely unlawful, it said.

On May 10 near the town of Beit Hanoun, an Israeli-guided missile struck near four houses of the al-Masri family, killing eight civilians, including six children. On May 15 a guided bomb destroyed a three-story building in al-Shati refugee camp, killing 10 civilians, two women and eight children from two related families. And on May 16 a series of Israeli airstrikes lasting four minutes struck al-Wahda Street in Gaza City, causing three multi-story buildings to collapse, killing 44 civilians. The Israeli military said it was targeting tunnels and an underground command center used by armed groups, but presented no details to support that claim.

Under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, warring parties may target only military objectives, said HRW. They must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, including by providing effective advance warnings of attacks. Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited. The laws of war also prohibit indiscriminate attacks, which include attacks that do not distinguish between civilians and military targets or do not target a military objective. Attacks in which the expected harm to civilians and civilian property is disproportionate to the anticipated military gain are also prohibited. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, deliberately or recklessly– are responsible for war crimes.

On May 12, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicated that it was monitoring the situation in Gaza. The prosecutor’s office should include in its Palestine investigation Israeli attacks in Gaza that resulted in apparently unlawful civilian casualties, as well as Palestinian rocket attacks that struck population centers in Israel, said HRW.

The May hostilities, like those in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2019, among others, took place amid Israel’s sweeping closure of the Gaza Strip, which began in 2007, and discriminatory efforts to remove Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, policies and practices that are part of the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, as Human Rights Watch has documented.

On May 27 the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry to address violations and abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel, including by advancing accountability for those responsible and justice for victims. The commission should examine unlawful attacks committed by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups during the May fighting. It should also analyze the larger context, including the Israeli government’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. The commission’s findings should be shared with the ICC prosecutor and other credible judicial authorities examining the situation, Human Rights Watch said.

Judicial authorities in other countries should also investigate and prosecute under national laws those credibly implicated in serious crimes in the OPT and in Israel under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Governments should also support a strong political declaration that addresses the harm that explosive weapons cause to civilians and commits states to avoid using those with wide-area effects in populated areas.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The West Bank recorded 26 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours while the Gaza Strip had 113 new cases and one death, today said Minister of Health Mai Alkaila.

She said in her daily report on the pandemic in Palestine that three patients have recovered in the West Bank in the last 24 hours and 59 in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall total of recovered cases since the outbreak of the disease in Palestine in March of last year to 98.6 percent, while 0.3% remain active and 1.1 percent have died.

Alkaila said 12 patients are getting treatment in hospitals, and nine are in intensive care. One patient is on a respirator.

A total of 477,027 people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus in the West Bank and 101,337 in the Gaza Strip, for an overall total in Palestine of 578,364, including 409,862 have received two jabs of the vaccine.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Two Palestinian prisoners in Israel began today their 20th year behind bars for resisting the occupation and a third began his 19th year behind bars, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

It said Khalil Mussalam Baraqa, 42, from Bethlehem, and Haytham Jaber, 47, from Salfit, completed 19 years behind bars and have entered their 20th year, while Ahmad Mustafa Shibani, 48, from Arraba, south of Jenin, completed 18 years behind bars and started on his 19th year, and is serving three life terms plus 10 years.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces today and last night detained at least six Palestinians and injured another across the occupied territories, according to local and Palestinian security sources.

The sources confirmed that Israeli police detained two Palestinians from the vicinity of Damascus Gate (Bab al-Amoud), one of the main gates to Jerusalem’s old city.

They also detained another for protesting the decision to tear down a solidarity tent in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

In Bethlehem district in the south of the West Bank, Israeli forces raided Beit Fajjar town, south of Bethlehem, where they detained one person.

Meanwhile, the soldiers conducted a similar raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, resulting in the detention of two men after ransacking their homes and causing destruction to their contents at the Jenin-Nablus street.

During ensuing confrontations, the soldiers opened fire towards local youths, hitting one with a live round in the foot.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Today, Al-Awda New York: The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, the National Lawyers Guild, and human rights advocates are holding an action in East Meadow, Long Island before moving on to the Brooklyn office of Attorney General Letitia James to demand the closure of groups that have been aiding and abetting New York-based Zionists to invade and colonize Palestinian homes and lands, according to a press release.

In East Meadow, the organizers will hold an action outside the Long Island home of American-born settler, Justin “Yaakov” Fauci, while wearing t-shirts bearing the notorious statement Fauci made as he casually invaded the Al-Kurd home in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, reading, “If I don’t steal it someone else is gonna steal it = home invasion, genocide and Zionist extremism.”

“The U.N. Human Rights Commission Rapporteur recently decried settlements as war crimes, and New York private and government actors are actively abetting war crimes, violence and genocide in Palestine with wholesale impunity. This must end if Palestine and the region can ever see peace,” said attorney Audrey Bomse, a member of Al-Awda New York and the National Lawyers Guild.

“It is a violation of U.S. federal law for Americans to engage in war crimes and genocide, it is shocking that there is impunity for such open acts of violence, and it is outrageous that New York State actively shelters, promotes and celebrates such violence, which is itself also a crime,” said attorney Lamis Deek.

Michelle Munjanattu, a member of Al-Awda New York noted that “Hempstead County officials are promoting Zionist extremism and punishing speech critical of Israeli violence by imposing the grossly unconstitutional IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.” Under Councilmen Esposito and Blakeman, Hempstead was twinned with an Israeli settler-colony built on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank and dedicated a plaza to settler spokesman David Friedman, who calls for the colonization of all of Palestine.

“These councilmen are celebrating anti-Palestinian violence and sending a message to Palestinians that they are not safe in New York or in Palestine. Our government should work to protect all our communities and not exhorting them to export violence, to break US laws, and legislating anti-Palestinian racism. This has to end, and the Hempstead IHRA Executive Order issued must be struck down,” said Suzanne Adely, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild.

“It’s appalling that government officials like DeBlasio are denouncing an ice cream company for partially withdrawing from Israeli-invaded lands while sheltering war criminal organizations right here in New York,” added Daniel Teehan, a member of Al-Awda New York.

Deek closed by saying, “This will be the first of many actions to demand the closure and prosecution of Israeli apartheid and war crime perpetrators. New Yorkers want our taxes to be used to support our communities here instead of being used to destroy communities and commit high crimes in Palestine.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli soldiers today attacked Palestinians protesting the takeover of water spring in Ain al-Hilweh area in the northern Jordan Valley by Israeli settlers, injuring some and arresting one, according to Walid Assaf, head of the Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission.

He said the soldiers assaulted the participants in the protest called for by his commission and other forces, beating some and spraying others with pepper, while one was arrested.

The Red Crescent said it treated four people after they were sprayed with pepper in the face.

The protest was called for after settlers began today building structures around the water spring forbidding local shepherds from using the water for their sheep to drink from as they have been doing for years.

The settlers first fenced the spring then planted trees around it in order to turn it into a settlers-only park while forbidding the Palestinian shepherds, who live in the area, from reaching it.

Assaf, who was also sprayed with pepper in the face and required treatment, stressed that they will continue to resist the settlers’ takeover of the spring until they force them to leave it.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency