Day: 15 August 2021

At least 20 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a fuel tanker explosion in Akkar in northern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. The explosion occurred early on Sunday morning.

The official National News Agency said that a container of fuel that the army had confiscated exploded following scuffles between “residents who gathered around the container to fill up gasoline” overnight.

Yassine Metlej, an employee at an Akkar hospital, told AFP that the facility had received at least seven corpses and dozens of burn victims.

“The corpses are so charred that we can’t identify them. Some have lost their faces, others their arms.” He added that the hospital had to turn away most of the wounded because it is unable to treat severe burns.

Lebanon is suffering from a severe fuel shortage. Hospitals have warned that they are low on fuel and may be forced to shut down.

The crisis deteriorated dramatically this week after the central bank decided to end subsidies for fuel products, a decision that will likely lead to price hikes of almost all commodities in Lebanon, already in the throes of soaring poverty and hyperinflation.

The explosion on Sunday was the deadliest in the country since the August 2020 blast at Beirut’s port which killed at least 214, wounded thousands and destroyed parts of the capital.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Fifteenth of August is a solemn marker in India’s history. On this day, 75 years ago, our National Flag embraced our skies, declaring the end of foreign occupation and the beginning of a new dawn; the dawn of dignity, self- determination and sovereignty.

The Nation’s freedom struggle was a long and arduous march spanning three centuries. It found its sustenance in the valour, determination and sacrifices of several generations who carried India towards freedom and the end of British dominion. While engaged in an agonizing battle, they bequeathed us the ideals of an inclusive, tolerant and democratic country that India has aspired for ever since that historic day 75 years ago.

India’s independence struggle charted a new course where oppression crumbled away against the fortitude of non-violence. It spoke to the innate strength and courage in every liberty-seeking nation which sought to defy the lurid temptation of an eye for an eye.

Mahatma Gandhi saw in the Palestinian cause the reflection of India’s own struggle. He was one of the earliest champions of the Palestinian cause, voicing India’s solidarity with the people of Palestine during our freedom struggle. It is the reason that, as President Mahmoud Abbas said: “When India gained independence, Palestinians, and the world, rejoiced”.

As proud torch bearers of that luminous heritage, we have been resolute in our support for Palestine and India will continue to uphold Palestine’s legitimate quest for a viable, independent and sovereign Palestine. India has been a consistent and unwavering supporter of Palestine across various multilateral fora and will continue to exercise the responsibility at the United Nations Security Council, of which it is currently a member.

The Fifteenth of August is also a historic day for India-Palestine relations. It was on this day in 1996 that India opened the Representative Office in Gaza. Ever since, India has displayed an abiding commitment to strengthening the State of Palestine and deepening the rich and historic relationship that we have with the Palestinian people.

We have come a long way since 1947. In its seventh decade of independence, India stands on the cusp of major change: Over the past two decades, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has risen by more than US$1 trillion, driven by the grit of billions of its citizens who have ensured that the horizons for each succeeding generation are only wider. With a steady progress in GDP of 9% per year, India is on course to become a US$ 10 trillion economy over the coming two decades. The last seventy five years have given India justifiable hope for the future. Our diversity and pluralism constitute the essence of the idea of India and are the source of our confidence.

As we march onwards, we have not lost sight of those who were by our side in our struggle. India’s approach to development is guided by the principles of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”- a Sanskrit phrase which means “the world is one family”. It is in this spirit that India has sought to extend in its modest fashion developmental experience and technical expertise to Palestine.

India’s developmental assistance ranges from commerce to culture, energy to engineering, health to housing, IT to infrastructure, sports to science, humanitarian assistance to heritage preservation. We draw immense satisfaction and pride from the fact that India’s developmental assistance spans the expanse of Palestine and touches all aspects of a Palestinian’s life.

In the recent pandemic, despite our own constraints, we have provided vaccines and essential life saving medicines to Palestine. We consider these contributions as building blocks for the creation of a peaceful and prosperous Palestine.

India is also a young country like Palestine, with youth comprising the majority of the population. Young Indians, a billion strong by 2034, have demands of this world which inspire hope. Our wishes, and duty, for Palestinian youth are the same which we have for Indian youth: creating a world which offers opportunities for progress, prosperity and self-reliance. They are our future and the inheritors of our friendship, of which we are but custodians. The India-Palestine Techno Park in Ramallah, the scholarships, and technical training offered by India are an acknowledgement of our faith in the potential, tenacity and ingenuity of Palestinians.

To commemorate the 75 years of progressive India and the history of its people, culture and achievements, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a 75 week-long celebration titled ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ or the Grand celebration of the elixir of independence.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav is an embodiment of all that is progressive about India’s socio-cultural, political and economic identity. It is the celebration of the spirit of the freedom struggle and the reflection of the feeling of sacrifice. It is a tribute to the martyrs of the country and a resolve to build an India of their dreams. It gives a glimpse of the pride of Ancient India and the glow of modern India as well.” The ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ is also being celebrated by the Representative Office of India, Ramallah with an aim of bringing this ethos to Palestine.

Every year, the Fifteenth of August is an occasion for Indians everywhere to revel in celebration but also delve in introspection. It is the day that will always continue to signify our democracy, our diversity, and our development. I am indeed privileged to celebrate this day in Palestine where I find an unparalleled resonance for the pride in independent India’s achievements. Built on the ties of history, values and beliefs, it is a celebration of Palestine as certainly it is a celebration of India.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A total of 10 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention currently remain on hunger strike in protest of their unfair administrative detention without a charge or trial, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).

PPS said the longest hunger-striker of the 10 prisoners is prisoner Salem Ziadat, 40 years old, who has been on hunger strike for 35 days in protest of his detention without a charge or trial.

Mohammad A’mar, Mujahed Hamed, Kayed Fasfous, Ra’fat Darawish and Muqdad Qawasmeh have also been on hunger strike for 33, 33, 32, 32 and 25 days in a row.

The hunger-striking prisoners are experiencing difficult health conditions exacerbated by the Israeli authorities’ failure to hear their demands, said the PPS.

Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals usually ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

Currently, Israel is holding some 540 Palestinians in administrative detention, deemed illegal by international law, most of them former prisoners who spent years in prison for their resistance of the Israeli occupation.

Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said the Israeli occupation court postponed the trial of former Gaza aid worker, Mohammad al-Halabi, who has been subjected to the longest trial in the history of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons, until September 2.

The commission, in a statement, said the Israeli court postponed the trial of al-Halabi, the former Gaza director of the World Vision charity, making the next court hearing scheduled for September 2 the 166th court hearing he will be subject to since his arrest in 2016.

Halabi, a 43-year-old father of five from Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip has obtained a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering. He was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate from an academic institution in Germany for his humanitarian work.

He was arrested while traveling through the Beit Hanoun crossing in the northern Gaza Strip on June 15, 2016. He is currently being held in Israel’s Rimon prison in very difficult living conditions.

Al-Halabi was subjected to brutal investigation and physical abuse for over 50 days by Israeli investigators and Special Forces.

His health has deteriorated significantly since his arrest. He currently suffers from extreme headaches and a significant hearing loss due to a systematic policy of medical negligence committed by the prison authorities against Palestinian prisoners.

The Palestine Detainees Studies Center said around 60% of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails, suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases caused by a deliberate medical negligence policy.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Palestinian national, popular, and official actors, called today for an international intervention to get Israel to release the body of Palestinian Bilal Rawajbeh, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces near Huwara military checkpoint, south of Nablus city, on November 4, 2020.

This came during an event called for by the faction coordination committee in Nablus and the family of Bilal Rawajbeh in front of the International Red Cross office in Nablus to demand an international intervention to release the body of Rawajbeh, whose body has been withheld by the Israeli side since he was shot and left to bleed to death nine months ago.

Israel, to this day, refuses to give clear and adequate information on the release of his body.

Rawajbeh, 29, from Iraq Tayeh village east of Nablus, was left to bleed to death by the Israeli soldiers who closed the checkpoint in both directions and prevented Palestinian medics from approaching the scene.

He served as a legal advisor holding the rank of a captain in the Preventive Security Forces, one of the Palestinian Authority’s security services.

“Our message to the whole world is to intervene, assume their responsibilities, and hold the occupying power, [Israel], accountable for its crimes, which violate all international and humanitarian laws,” said Dalal Salameh, member of the Central Committee of Fatah movement, who took part in the event.

“Withholding the body of a deceased individual is against the law,” said Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

“There is no [Israeli] law that allows the withholding of a body without at least stating the reason for doing so. There is, likewise, no law that allows authorities to refrain from providing information to the deceased’s family,” said the legal center.

Israel is withholding the bodies of more than 70 Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces. In addition, around 250 bodies of Palestinians, also killed by Israel, are kept in numbered graves in cemeteries in the north of Israel, some withheld since 1948.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers closed today evening a road connecting the northern West Bank districts of Jenin and Nablus and attacked Palestinian vehicles near the town of Sebastia to the north of the city of Nablus, according to Mayor of Sebastia, Mohammed Azzem.

The mayor, Mohammed Azzem, said a group of settlers, residing in illegal West Bank settlements, closed the road connecting Jenin and Nablus in the northern West Bank and attacked Palestinian vehicles near the entrance to the town of Sebastia, causing damages to several cars.

He warned against the frequent incidents of settler violence and attacks on Palestinian citizens in the area.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Today, Sunday 15 August, marks the return to school for some 1.2 million children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Most children have been counting down the days and looking forward to schools reopening, because, for many young people in Palestine, 2021 has truly been a long, hot year to date, said the United Nations Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lynn Hastings in a press statement issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

COVID-19 has meant that, in the last school year, keeping up with classes from home was more challenging, particularly as only 35% of Palestinian households having access to home computers. Schools in Gaza have been closed since the escalation in May; and today, nearly 180,000 children in the Gaza Strip aged from 4-17 will be attending or returning to schools that are still damaged because materials needed for repairs t have not been allowed into Gaza.

Children not only have a right to a safe education but are afforded special protections under international human rights law in view of their specific vulnerability. Since the beginning of 2021, a total of 79 Palestinian children have been reported killed and 1,269 injured.

Sixty-seven children were killed in the Gaza Strip during the recent escalation and another in June by an Explosive Remnant of War. In the West Bank including East Jerusalem, 11 children were killed in 2021 – 10 since May – and 584 injured (378 by tear gas) by Israeli Forces. Excessive use of force must stop.

Twenty-four Palestinian children (five girls, 19 boys) have also been injured by settlers in the West Bank since the beginning of the year.

“Israel has a responsibility to protect children and teachers from harassment and violence by settlers on their way to and from school – and in any event,” said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator.

“All parties must commit to the protection of children in accordance with international law no matter where they are,” he added.

As of the end of June, 225 Palestinian children were detained in Israeli detention facilities. On 29 July, Israeli forces confiscated equipment, including computers and hard drives from the offices of Defense for Children International – Palestine. Among the items taken were legal aid files of the children facing charges in military courts.

Against all these odds, Palestinian children have much of which to be proud of. Almost 97% of elementary school-age children in Palestine attend school, among the highest attendance rates in the MENA region and illiteracy is down markedly from 1.1% in 2007 to 0.8%. In 2021, 71.3 per cent of the 82,924 students in Palestine passed the Tawjihi exams, opening a gateway towards tertiary education and access to academic scholarships.

Today is a day to celebrate as children go back to school: all of us need to make sure they can do so in security, safety, and with hope, said the UN official.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A Palestinian resident of occupied East Jerusalem proceeded tonight to demolish his own house in the Khilet al-Ein area in the town of at-Tur to avoid paying high costs and fines after he received demolition orders from the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem, according to local sources.

Mohammed Dwaik proceeded to tear down his house at Khilet al-Ein area in the town of at-Tur to avoid paying exorbitant costs if the Jerusalem municipality carries out the demolition on its own.

Using the pretext of building without a permit, which is rarely granted to Palestinians in the occupied city, the Israeli municipality has condemned hundreds of Palestinian-owned houses as part of a policy aimed to restrict Palestinian expansion and number in occupied Jerusalem.

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.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Palestinian Authority’s Detainees Affairs Commission said today that the health of Palestinian elderly and prisoner in Israeli detention, Muwaffaq Erouq, 78, is gradually deteriorating while the Israeli prison authorities are turning a blind eye to his condition.

Erouq, who hails from the village of Yafa an-Naseriyye in northern occupied Palestine, has been vomiting on a daily basis, and is experiencing numbness in the feet, constant fatigue and aches all over his body. He also had a medical history of cancer in the liver and stomach, and therefore needs a special type of food and vitamins.

In addition, the elderly prisoner is having vision problems threatening him of blindness in the event that the prison authorities do not take action and transfer him to a specialized medical center.

Erouq has been in prison since 2003. He is serving a 30-year sentence for his activism in the resistance of the Israeli occupation.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Wesam Sbaihat, a Ministry of Health official in charge of the COVID-19 file in the northern West Bank, said today that Palestine might have already entered the fourth wave of COVID-19, as more infections and hospitalizations are being logged every day.

Sbaihat told the official Voice of Palestine radio that 70 percent of active COVID cases in Palestine are of the delta variant, which is thought to be the most transmissible and even the deadliest among known variants of the novel virus.

The official noted that there has been a noticeable increase in vaccinations following the Palestinian government’s decision to make vaccination compulsory to civil servants and private employees.

He stressed the importance of obeying quarantine requirements and the other established health protocols to keep the infection rate under control.

Earlier today, the Ministry of Health said 225 cases of COVID were registered in the West Bank during the last 24-hour reporting period, which is the highest daily number recorded since late April when Palestine was existing its third wave.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Minister of Health Mai Al-Kaileh said today that 377 new cases of COVID-19, one death and 126 recoveries were registered in Palestine during the past 24-hour reporting period.

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

A total of 5,144 COVID-19 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours. In the Gaza Strip, 152 coronavirus tests came out positive, while the West Bank had 225 new cases.

No update was available regarding the situation in occupied Jerusalem.

The health minister said 39 patients of COVID-19 are hospitalized, of whom 17 are in intensive care, including three on ventilators.

Al-Kaileh pointed out that the recovery rate in Palestine has so far reached 97.8 percent, while active cases declined to 1.1 percent.

Deaths stood at 1.1 percent of total infections.

Concerning rollout of vaccines, the health minister said over 638,000 people have received their first jab of the vaccine in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, of whom 428,000 have been fully vaccinated.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency