Day: 29 July 2021

Weather today is hot in most districts and extremely hot in the Jordan Valley in daytime with no change in temperature, which remains 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, and becomes active at times. Sea waves are low to medium.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 31°C and a low of 22°C and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 30°C and a low of 21°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley temperature is expected to reach a high of 41°C and a low of 28°C while it is expected to reach a high of 31°C and a low of 24°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

No significant change is expected in the weather conditions on Friday.

Saturday’s temperature is set to rise and approach 5°C above the seasonal average, causing an increase in the heat stress. Unseasonably dry and hot to very hot conditions are expected in daytime and moderate conditions in the night and morning hours.

The heavy to extreme heat stress continues to prevail on Sunday with no significant change in temperature.

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

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces Wednesday evening quelled an anti-settlement rally in Beita town, south of Nablus, injuring eight protestors and causing dozens of suffocation cases, according to medical sources.

Ahmad Jibril, the head of the Emergency and Ambulance Department at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), said that Israeli forces opened fire towards the participants in the rally called for to protest the construction of a new colonial settlement atop Jabal Sbeih (Sbeih Mountain) near the town, hitting eight by rubber-coated steel bullets and causing dozens others to suffocate from tear gas.

He added that another protestor sustained bruises after being brutally beaten by the soldiers.

This came a day after Israeli forces gunned down a 41-year-old Shadi Omar Lotfi Salim, 41, near the entrance of the town, who went to open the water main supplying water to the town.

The residents of Beita and the surrounding villages have been holding weekly Friday rallies to protest the construction of the new colonial settlement of Givat Eviatar atop Jabal Sabih as well as the seizure of lands belonging to the villagers of Beita, Huwarra, and Za‘tara to inaugurate a new settler-only bypass road.

In addition to Mount Sabih, Israeli forces have erected another colonial settlement outpost atop Mount Al-Arma, north of Beita, a few months ago, as both mounts enjoy a strategic location as they overlook the Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land running west along the Jordan River which makes up approximately 30% of the West Bank.

Seizing the two hilltops represents a panoptical defensive tool as they would grant the Israeli occupation with a panoramic view over the Jordan Valley and the whole district of Nablus. This is why the Israeli occupation authorities have assigned them a place in its settlement expansion project.

The construction of the two colonial outposts atop Mount Sabih, south of Beita, and Mount Al-Arma, north of the town, besides to a bypass road to the west is an Israeli measure to push Palestinian villages and towns into crowded enclaves, ghettos, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations, and disrupt their geographic contiguity with other parts of the West Bank.

The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993.

Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018, enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the colonial settlements is a “national interest.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces dawn Thursday raided the headquarters of a leading child rights organization in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Defense for Children International- Palestine said in a press statement that heavily-armed Israeli soldiers smashed the main door of its premises in Sateh Marhaba neighborhood and barged their way inside, tampering with its contents and seizing several computers.

DCI-Palestine condemned the raid was conducted in the context of the wider Israeli occupation authorities’ organized criminalization campaign against the local and international human rights organizations operating in Palestine while pledging to continue to carry out its work dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of Palestinian children in the occupied territories, as well as to exposing Israeli human rights violations against children and holding Israeli perpetrators accountable for such violations.

More than a month earlier, the occupation forces ransacked the main headquarters of the Health Work Committees and that of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), confiscated their properties and documents, and forcibly shut their premises for six months.

Earlier this month, the occupation forces also rounded up HWC director, Shatha Odeh, and seized her car after storming her house in Ramallah city. Odeh’s detention was slammed as purely politically motivated and part of an organized criminalization campaign against the Palestinian society in general, and the Palestinian civil society in particular.

DCIP identifies itself as an independent, local Palestinian child rights organization dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Since 1991, it has investigated, documented, and exposed grave human rights violations against children; provided legal services to children in urgent need; held Israeli and Palestinian authorities accountable to universal human rights principles; and advocated at the international and national levels to advance access to justice and protection for children.

DCIP was first registered in 1996 by the Israeli Ministry of Interior. Later, in 2003, DCIP was registered under the Palestinian Authority jurisdiction as an independent Palestinian non-governmental organization.

It is considered a national section of Defense of Children International (DCI), an international child-rights movement and non-governmental organization established in 1979, which currently has over 35 sections around the world and an international secretariat in Geneva.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces raided early this morning and ransacked the premises of a leading development center in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to WAFA correspondent.

She said that Israeli soldiers broke into Bisan Center for Research and Development, searched its offices and seized several computer hard discs while causing considerable damage to the premise.

They posted an order shutting the center for six months.

Also today, Israeli troops raided the headquarters of Defense for Children International- Palestine (DCIP), a leading child rights organization, in al-Bireh city.

Palestinian NGOs Network condemned the raid as a crime intended to intimidate Palestinian civil society organizations engaged in reinforcing the Palestinian people’s steadfastness on their land, especially in disadvantaged villages isolated by Israel’s apartheid wall, and defending Palestinian human rights.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Israeli settlement watch organization, Peace Now, said today that the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture has given, over the past few years, approximately 2.6 million Israeli shekels ($800,000) to the “Hashomer Judea and Samaria (the Israeli name for the West Bank)” (AKA “Hashomer Yosh”) association which sends volunteers to agricultural settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank.

In response to Peace Now’s query, the office of the legal advisor of the Agricultural Ministry admitted that the Ministry funds the association, despite the fact that the association works in illegal outposts, on tens of thousands of acres with no rights to the land, said Peace Now in a new report.

Whereas the association declared activity on 52,000 dunums, the Civil Administration, an arm of the Israeli military government that runs the occupied West Bank, approved land allocation for 8,719 dunums only, and that in six outposts of the total of 50. According to the Ministry, it “only” funds the activity in outposts where settlers have permission to cultivate or graze the land, thus does not intend to stop supporting the association.

Peace Now said that the Ministry’s response further reveals that it had funded another two associations who work in illegal agriculture outposts. The two associations (Kedma and Beit Yatir Preparatory) also declared to be working in tens of thousands of dunums, while only 8,719 dunums were allocated to the very same farms as of the Hashomer Yosh’s farms.

It’s important to emphasize that land allocation permission does not grant permission to build an outpost. At most, those who have been allocated land are permitted to cultivate it or use it for grazing.

“The Ministry of Agriculture takes millions of shekels of public monies and give them to associations which are intrinsically linked to illegal activity,” said Peace Now. “If the government wants to stop more outposts such as ‘Evyatar’ from existing, and to stop the small group of ideological settlers who allow themselves to set facts on the ground that determines the foreign and security policies for Israel, it must change its ways immediately and stop supporting outposts and illegal activities.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Israeli High Court today issued a decision freezing the eviction of three Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem.

The family’s attorney, Sami Irsheid, said that the court accepted a petition submitted by him and attorney Hosni Abu Hussein on behalf of the Dajani, Hammad, and Dahoudi families to freeze the eviction decision that was supposed to enter into effect on Sunday until completion of the procedures for an appeal against the eviction, which will be later considered by the same court.

On Monday, the High Court is scheduled to consider another appeal by four other families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood – Jaouni, Iskafi, al-Kurd, and al-Qadi – against their eviction from their homes for the benefit of Jewish settlers.

The order to evict the four families was issued in September 2020 and another ruling was issued a month later for the eviction of the other three families in favor of settlers who claimed ownership of the land the homes were built on.

The Palestinian families have contested the claim of the settlers, which they say are based on forged documents, and presented documents to the courts proving ownership of their homes and land.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Nearly 130 organizations from 41 countries and about 590 individuals from 60 countries have signed a petition organized by the People’s Health Movement (PHM) calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to intervene for the immediate release of Palestinian health activist, Shatha Odeh, director of the Health Work Committees (HWC), arrested by Israel in Ramallah on July 7.

Odeh, 60, a health and human rights activist and a member of the Global Steering Council of the PHM, was arrested at her home in the early morning hours few days after she defied an Israeli military order shutting down her HWC office for six months as a punitive measure for the office’s activism in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“We, the undersigned civil society organizations, health practitioners, academics, women’s rights organizations, and other concerned individuals, are deeply concerned at arrest by the Israeli Army of Ms. Shatha Odeh, the Director of the Health Work Committees (HWC), one of Palestine’s major non-governmental health care provider organizations, at her home in Ramallah on 7th July, 2021,” said the petition.

“Ms. Odeh is a well-respected civil society leader both locally and internationally. She is the chairperson of the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), a network of most Palestinian NGOs, and a member of the Global Steering Council of the People’s Health Movement (PHM). She is a dedicated healthcare professional who, as director of HWC, has been essential in organizing healthcare services, including sexual and reproductive health and mental health services, to over 400,000 beneficiaries throughout the West Bank. The HWC is in the frontline of COVID-19 pandemic response through its community-based services, hospital services, mobile clinics and community outreach programs.”

The petition said that the attack on HWC “further aggravates the current health situation, in particular the situation of women and children and vulnerable groups such as those with special needs. Any attack on its functioning is a threat to the health and well-being of the Palestinian people.”

Odeh, a 60-year-old mother of three children, was forcibly and arbitrarily removed from her house in Ramallah and is now being held in a prison where access to visits from relatives is effectively denied, access to her essential medication and to legal support is restricted and where she is reportedly now under harsh and prolonged interrogation.

“We express our shock at the terms of incarceration of a leading regional and international defender of women’s rights and health rights. These are inhuman and a violation of fundamental human rights. We call on the international community and women’s rights and human rights defenders around the world to help us call for justice and freedom for Ms. Odeh,” demanded the petitioners.

Odeh’s arrest came one month after an Israeli military raid on the offices of the HWC and an order to close its headquarters for six months. This attack on the work of the HWC was widely condemned, including by the People’s Health Movement and by Amnesty International, which highlighted the “catastrophic consequences for the health needs of Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).” As they face a fourth wave of COVID-19, the military attacks on HWC further weaken the Palestinians’ ability to cope with the pandemic. And yet, as the Occupying Power, Israel is responsible for ensuring that Palestinians health rights are fulfilled, said the letter.

“The closure of the HWC and arrest of Ms. Odeh come in a context of increasing criminalization of Palestinian civil society organizations by the Israeli occupation forces. In January 2019, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that Israeli ‘legislation, both adopted and proposed, singles out human rights organizations for increased restrictions. Administrative constraints are placed on their operations. Sources of funding are undermined through campaigns to delegitimize organizations working for the rights of Palestinians. Human rights defenders are arrested and threatened, and groups including Israeli organizations as well as foreign Jewish organizations are being targeted for standing up for Palestinians human rights’.

“We, the undersigned, condemn the arrest of Ms. Odeh and call for her immediate release. We urge the Israeli Government to fulfil its obligations to ensure full public health and medical care provision in the Occupied Palestinian Territories including through full recognition and support for Palestinian civil society health care providers,” said the petition, calling on WHO “to intercede with global and national authorities including through the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary-General, to secure the immediate release of Ms. Shatha Odeh, and ensure that the services provided by HWC are restored, and the attacks on Palestinian healthcare workers and human rights activists and civil society organizations cease immediately.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A Palestinian youth said to be 20 years of age was today shot by Israeli soldiers and critically wounded in Beit Ummar town, north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to the Ministry of Health.

It said the youth was shot in the head and belly and was admitted to surgery.

The shooting came during clashes between residents and Israeli soldiers following the funeral of Mohammad Allamy, 11, who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers yesterday in the same town.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency