Day: 31 July 2021

A three-month-old baby was among 24 children and 615 Palestinians injured by the Israeli army in the West Bank in the last two weeks of July, while another 69 were injured either while running away from Israeli forces or in circumstances that could not be verified, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

It said in its Protection of Civilians report covering the period between 13 and 26 July that two Palestinians, including a boy, died after being shot by Israeli forces during the reporting period.

On 23 July, Israeli forces entered Nabi Salih village near Ramallah to carry out an arrest operation, and when Palestinian residents threw stones at them, soldiers shot live ammunition and tear gas canisters killing a 17-year-old boy. On 26 July, a Palestinian died of wounds after being shot by Israeli forces on 14 May, in Sinjil, also near Ramallah, during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces.

In the days after the reporting period, and on 27 July, Israeli forces shot and killed in cold blood a 41-year-old Palestinian man at the entrance of Beita village, south of Nablus. No clashes were taking place at that time.

On 28 July, Israeli forces shot and killed an 11-year-old Palestinian boy who was in a car with his father at the entrance of Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, and on the next day shot and killed another Palestinian, a 20-year-old youth, during clashes between Beit Ummar residents and soldiers following the funeral of the 11-year-old boy.

Overall, Israeli forces shot and killed a total of 51 Palestinians in the West Bank so far this year.

OCHA said of the 615 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces across the West Bank, 44 were shot with live ammunition, while 588 were involved in protests against settlements in Beita. In addition, 69 were injured in Beita and nearby Osarin either while running away from Israeli forces or in circumstances that could not be verified.

Overall, over 11,200 Palestinians were injured in the West Bank by the Israeli forces so far this year.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces carried out 91 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 158 Palestinians across the West Bank during the reporting period. Some 45 university students were arrested in Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah, during a protest against punitive demolitions; 20 others were arrested in the Old City of Jerusalem, during clashes with Israeli forces, following the entry of over 1,600 Israelis to Al-Haram Al Sharif compound; and the rest were arrested in other circumstances across the West Bank.

Overall, Israel carried out 2430 search and arrest operation in the West Bank so far this year.

On demolition of homes, the Israeli authorities demolished, seized or forced people to demolish a total of 59 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank for lacking Israeli-issued building permits, displacing 96 people and affecting 550 people, said OCHA. Most structures (49) and people displaced (84) were in the Area C Bedouin community of Ras al Tin (Ramallah); while the demolition of a donated agricultural water reservoir in Furush Beit Dajan (Nablus) undermined the access of over 500 people to water.

Overall, 456 Palestinian-owned structures were demolished or seized in the West Bank displacing 638 people, and 76 others in East Jerusalem displacing 99 people so far this year.

Israeli settlers physically assaulted and injured three Palestinians in separate incidents in the Hebron governorate, and damaged at least 200 trees or saplings, and other Palestinian property, across the West Bank.

Since the beginning of this year, Israeli settlers injured 94 Palestinians in the West Bank and caused damage to property in 205 attacks.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Palestine ended today its participation in the Olympic Games in Tokyo without any medals after 19-year-old Mohammed Hamada has failed to qualify in the men’s 96 kg weightlifting competition.

Palestine participated with five athletes in the Olympics competing in four sports events -Yazan al-Bawab, participated last Tuesday without success in the 100m freestyle swimming competitions, and Dania Noor finished last in her group in the 50m freestyle swimming competition, judo player Wissam Abu Rmilah participated in the category under 81 kg and lost by knockout, and the runner, Hanna Barakat, who set a national record of 12.16 seconds in the 100m run, 0.05 second short of qualifying, finished fifth in her group, while her previous record was 12.24 seconds.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers destroyed 140 olive saplings in al-Khader town, south of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, today said local activist Ahmad Salah.

He told WAFA that settlers from the two illegal settlements of Daniel and Elazar sprayed the saplings with pesticides destroying them as a result.

The settlers, he said, took over Palestinian-owned land in the town and planted it with olive trees and other fruits, and they also opened a 100-meter-long, 2-meter-wide road for their use that went through Palestinian-owned land.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A senior Fatah official said today that continuation of the Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories is unacceptable, warning that the Palestinian leadership cannot anymore tolerate these acts.

Mahmoud Aloul, deputy to the chairman of Fatah movement, President Mahmoud Abbas, told Voice of Palestine radio that the leadership sent stern messages to the world, particularly the United States and the European Union, that perpetuation of the present situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is unacceptable.

“There is a significant increase in the number of martyrs and wounded as a result of the intensification of the Israeli occupier and settler attacks on our people, and on the funerals and mourners, which reflects the extent of their criminal acts, in conjunction with a systematic escalation against occupied Jerusalem and the siege of Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods,” he said.

Aloul said that a number of protest steps are going to be held in the coming days against the siege of Sheikh Jarrah, the attacks against the Jordan Valley and settlement expansion, stressing that these events are going to increase despite the brutal Israeli crackdown against the protesters and the large number of casualties caused.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Efforts are intensifying to force Israel to release corpses of Palestinians killed by its forces over the years and which it has been holding in morgues or unmarked graves, today said Salwa Hammad, coordinator of the National Campaign to the Retrieval of the Bodies of Martyrs held by Israel since 2015.

She told Voice of Palestine radio that there are 81 bodies held in morgues, in addition to 254 others of Palestinians killed since 1967 held in unmarked graves in what is known as “numbered” cemeteries in the north of Israel.

Efforts are underway to mobilize the international community to help release the withheld bodies in light of the failure of the legal process to release them, said Hammad, explaining that there will be more action on the international level this year as well as events and media campaigns, particularly on the National Day for the Retrieval of the Bodies of Martyrs, which falls on August 27.

Israel said that it was withholding bodies of Palestinians in order to use them as a bargaining chip in future prisoners’ exchange deals with the Palestinians.

The families of the withheld bodies hold regular protests demanding their release in order to give them proper burial in their hometowns.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Minister of Health Mai Alkaila said today that 123 new cases of COVID-19, one death and 86 recoveries were registered in Palestine during the past 24 hours.

In her daily report on the coronavirus pandemic, Alkaila said one death from COVID-19 was reported in the Gaza Strip, while no deaths were reported in the West Bank.

A total of 2451 COVID-19 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours. In the Gaza Strip, 106 coronavirus tests came out positive, while the West Bank had only 17 new cases.

No update was available regarding the situation in occupied Jerusalem.

The health minister said nine patients of COVID-19 are under intensive care, but none of them is intubated. In addition, 14 patients are hospitalized for coronavirus.

Alkaila pointed out that the recovery rate in Palestine has so far reached 98.5 percent, while active cases declined to 0.4 percent.

Deaths stood at 1.1 percent of total infections.

Concerning rollout of vaccines, the health minister said over 591,500 people have received their first jab of the vaccine in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, of whom 416,000 received both doses.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces installed today a metal gate at the entrance leading to Jabal Al-Fardis area, east of the southern West Bank district of Bethlehem, said a local activist.

Hasan Brijiyeh, a local anti-settlement and anti-wall activist, told WAFA correspondent the installation of the metal gate will prevent residents’ access to their lands, at a time when the Israeli authorities have escalated their settlement activities in the area.

Forces also installed a communication tower in the area.

Restricting movement is one of the main tools that Israel employs to enforce its regime of occupation over the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories. Israel restricts the movement of Palestinians within the Occupied Territories, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, into Israel, and abroad. Only Palestinians are restricted in this manner, while settlers and other civilians – Israeli and foreign – are free to travel, said the Israeli information center for human rights in the occupied territories, B’Tselem.

Israeli restrictions on Palestinians’ movement impose a life of constant uncertainty, making it difficult to perform everyday tasks or make plans, and frustrates the development of a stable economy, said B’Tselem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A Palestinian protester was injured by a rubber-coated steel rounds and others sustained suffocation from teargas today, as Israeli occupation forces attacked an anti-colonization protest near the town of Tayasir in the occupied West Bank district of Tubas.

The protest, called for by the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization Resistance Commission, saw protesters demonstrating at an Israeli military checkpoint east of the town and chanting slogans against Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise and plans to annex the Jordan Valley to Israeli sovereignty.

Attacks by colonial Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the area witnessed a spike in recent weeks, with Israeli settlers erecting a new colonial outpost near the checkpoint where the protest took place today.

The protesters and organizers of the protest confirmed that their struggle will continue until Israel removes the new outpost, set up last week.

Israeli settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal in international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the relocation of the people of the occupying country to the land of the occupied state.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli police attacked today Palestinians taking part in a peaceful sit-in protest in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, held against the Israeli occupation attempts to forcibly expel hundreds of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in favor of Israeli settlers.

Protester chanted slogans condemning the Israeli occupation measures and forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in Sheiklh jarrah and Silwan neighborhood.

Israeli police attacked protesters with stun grenades and sprayed them with skunk. No injuries were reported.

These families are Palestine refugees, who lost both their original homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict. In 1956, these refugee families moved into Sheikh Jarrah with the support of the Jordanian government and material assistance from UNRWA following their displacement. They have resided in these homes for nearly seventy years. They are now at risk of being displaced for the second time in living memory.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Eleven Palestinians in the diaspora have died today of coronavirus, raising the total number of diaspora Palestinians who died of the virus to 421, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.

The ministry said that 11 people died of the disease in Saudi Arabia, raising the total number of deaths there to 131.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

President Mahmoud Abbas offered today condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyib Erdogan over the victims of the wild fires that have swept parts of Turkey during the last few days.

In a cable letter, the President expressed his sincere and heartfelt condolences to the President and people of Turkey and the families of the victims. He also expressed his support for the friendly country during this ordeal.

President Abbas also expressed his wishes of a speedy recovery for the wounded, saying he was sure that Turkey will be able to overcome the crisis.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency