Day: 13 September 2021

Weather today in Palestine is partially cloudy and warm with another rise in temperature, which becomes a bit above the seasonal average, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Winds are westerly to northwesterly and moderate to active. Sea waves are medium.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 29°C and a low of 20°C and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 28°C and a low of 19°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley temperature is expected to reach a high of 38°C and a low of 27°C, while it is expected to reach a high of 30°C and a low of 22°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

Similar weather conditions are expected for Tuesday and Wednesday, with generally warm summer conditions prevailing throughout the two days and with no significant changes in temperature.

Temperature is expected to drop on Thursday as partially cloudy and mild conditions are expected to prevail.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces raided early this morning the family homes of the two remaining Palestinian prison escapees and detained relatives, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said soldiers raided the home of Ayham Kamamji in Kufr Dan village, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and detained his brother Imad. The soldiers also seized mobile phones and ransacked the home.

Soldiers also raided the town of Yamoun and detained Kamamji’s cousin, Qaisar Naser.

In Yabad, north of Jenin, soldiers raided the home of Munadel Infeiat and interrogated members of his family.

During the raids, residents clashed with the soldiers who fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the Palestinians causing several suffocation cases.

Kamamji and Infeiat are two of six Palestinians who broke out of Gilboa prison in northern Israel last week. The two remain at large while the four others were captured by the Israeli army.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

For the third night in a row, Israeli warplanes early today fired several rockets at a number of areas in the besieged Gaza Strip, causing heavy damages but no injuries, reported WAFA correspondent.

He said that Israeli warplanes bombed a site to the east of Beit Lahia town in the northern Gaza Strip, destroying it and causing fire, while nearby homes were also damaged.

The warplanes also bombed a site to the east of the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip destroying it and causing damages to nearby properties.

In Khan Younis, also in the south, the warplanes bombed a site and destroyed it, while setting it on fire.

Another airstrike targeted a site to the west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip, destroying and causing damages to properties nearby.

No casualties were reported in any of the attacks, said the correspondent.

Israel claims the attacks over the last three nights were in response to the firing of a single rocket each night from Gaza into bordering Israeli towns.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces today shot and wounded, reportedly critically, a Palestinian man following an alleged stabbing attempt at an intersection near the Gush Etzion settlements bloc, south of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to local sources.

They said Israeli soldiers opened fire at Mohammad Kamal Blu, 27, a resident of Beit Fajjar town, near the junction, critically injuring him purportedly for attempting to stab an Israeli.

No Israeli casualties were reported though.

The soldiers prevented Palestinian medics from approaching the scene to attend to the Palestinian as he was left bleeding on the ground.

Israeli media reported that the man was in severe condition and subsequently taken to Shaare Zedek Hospital in West Jerusalem.

Photos published by Israeli media show the man lying motionless on the ground.

The circumstances surrounding the alleged stabbing attempt remain unclear and largely based on the Israeli version of events.

Israeli has been criticized for its reflexive use of lethal force and “extrajudicial killings” when Palestinian alleged attackers no longer pose an immediate threat. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that circumstances surrounding such killings over the past months remain disputed.

Video footage for similar alleged attacks appear to disapprove Israeli military claims, showing alleged Palestinian attackers did not even attempt to carry out any attacks. Some footage showed Israeli forces manipulating the crime scene following such killings.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli military vehicles today breached the northern 0Gaza border near Beit Lahia and leveled land, reported WAFA correspondent.

He said several vehicles and a bulldozer broke into the Gaza Strip, shooting in the air as the bulldozer proceeded to level land near the border fence before returning into Israel.

The breach came hours after Israeli warplanes attacked several sites throughout the besieged sea enclave.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh today called on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations to follow up on the conditions of the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel to make sure that they are not subjected to torture and abuse, and to compel Israel to implement the Third Geneva Convention relating to the prisoners, while holding the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for their lives.

The Prime Minister made this appeal at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah and in light of Israel’s capture of four of the six Palestinian prisoners who were able to liberate themselves from Gilboa prison in northern Israel last week as reports emerged that they were severely beaten that required hospitalization for at least one of them, and the harsh retaliatory measures taken by the Israel Prison Services (IPS) against all Palestinian freedom fighters incarcerated by Israel following the escape of the six prisoners.

Shtayyeh also denounced Israel’s talk about the “economy-for-security” plan for the Gaza Strip, stressing that the issue here is political, not economic.

“The Gaza problem is a political one and it is the same problem facing all the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem,” he said. “What is required here is a serious and real political process based on international legitimacy and international law that will end the occupation, lift the siege off the Gaza Strip, and stop the aggression against all the Palestinian territories, and then the process for the reconstruction (of Gaza) becomes possible and permanent,” he said.

Regarding the Qatari grant for the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister explained that it was divided into three parts: the first, worth $10 million will go to purchasing fuel for the Gaza power station through the United Nations, the second, also worth $10 million, to be distributed through the United Nations’ World Food Program for a period of four months, and the third part of the grant also worth $10 million to be paid in the form of salaries to employees in Gaza.

Shtayyeh, nevertheless, explained that all the Palestinian banks have refused to deal with the third part of the grant for fear of legal action being taken against them if they transfer money to unverified Gaza employees. He stressed that he welcomes any effort to resolve this matter.

Prime Minister Shtayyeh also talked about the epidemiological situation in Palestine and the recent sharp surge in COVID-19 cases and said that the decision to ban gatherings in weddings or mourning houses will go into effect as of today in an effort to curtail the rise in infections, adding that a health protocol will be later announced regulating the work of the public sector in a manner that ensures a reduction in the rates of infection resulting from the coronavirus mutants.

He called on everyone who has not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get one especially since most of the cases that entered the intensive care units are for people who did not receive the vaccine.

“So that we do not find ourselves forced to impose strict restrictions, I call upon you (the public) to wear masks, maintain physical distancing, and get vaccinated in order to reach community immunity, and that mosques, universities, schools and public places should be strict in implementing the health rules,” he said, indicating that the security services will make sure these rules are enforced.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A mother and her two sons as well as close relatives of the two Palestinian prison escapees who remain at large, an activist and a teenager were among 13 people Israeli forces have detained today from various parts of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

In Bethlehem district in the south of the West Bank, PPS said soldiers raided Abu Njeim village, east of Bethlehem city, and detained a mother identified as Salwa Shoukeh along with two of her sons, identified as Mohammad, 20, and Mousa, 30.

Also in Bethlehem, soldiers detained two Palestinians, one from Aida refugee camp, north of the city, and a 45-year-old former prisoner from Dheisheh refugee camp, south of the city.

In the north of the West Bank, Israeli soldiers detained Imad Kamamji, brother of Ayham who was one of the six prisoners who managed to escape from Gilboa prison last week and one of two who remain on the run, and seized his mobile phones after ransacking his family home in Kafr Dan village, northwest of Jenin city.

Soldiers also raided Yamoun town, west of Jenin city, where they detained Ayham’s cousin, Qaisar.

Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, PPS said that a 17-year-old teen was detained from Qalqilya district.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces today razed Palestinian-owned land near the apartheid barrier to the west of Deir al-Ghusun town, north of Tulkarm in the northern occupied West Bank, and barred its owners from reaching it, according to a farmer who was working on the land.

The farmer, Mohammad Hasan, who was subcontracting the land, said that he was surprised when he arrived at the two-dunum plot of land owned by a local resident to work on it to see Israeli bulldozers razing it without any prior notice.

He said the soldiers further banned them from accessing the land for a period of one month.

Hasan noted that the land was originally planted with vegetables, but was later converted to a parking lot due to its location near the barrier after Israeli military vehicles destroyed it by driving on the land and also firing tear gas at the greenhouses in that area.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) today honored NASA’s Palestinian electrical and power team member Loay Elbasyouni, a former UNRWA school student, according to a press release.

In April 2021, the NASA Mars helicopter Loay helped engineer completed its first flight to Mars. This historic feat of ingenuity is a result of seven years of hard work by Loay and the rest of the team at NASA.

A former UNRWA school student from Beit Hanoun, Gaza, Elbasyouni left the besieged Strip in 1998 to pursue higher education in the United States.

The Second Intifada began soon after and the resulting Israeli siege on the Strip prevented Loay from seeing his family for 10 years, between 2002-2012. The continued siege limits his access to them and makes it impossible for his family to visit him in the US and celebrate his achievements.

Highlighting Loay’s success in his recent address to the 156th League of Arab States Council Meeting, UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini said: “Loay’s achievements are impressive and a tribute to a mix of brilliance and bravery that he possesses. Leaving Gaza as a youth and not being able to see his family for years did not stop Loay from achieving his dream: he went from Gaza to NASA! What an inspiration to thousands of young people and young refugees. The sky is indeed the limit for the hopes and dreams for this next generation of artists, scientists and everything in between.”

UNRWA currently offers education to more than 286,645 students in 278 Agency schools across Gaza.

Since its founding, UNRWA has graduated two million Palestine refugee students. Through its network of 711 schools and eight vocational training centers, the Agency continues to provide education for more than 540,000 Palestine refugee students and youth across the Middle East.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli police today shot and injured a Palestinian youth near the Central Bus Station in Jaffa St. to the west of Jerusalem after an alleged stabbing attack, according to Israeli media.

Israeli police opened fire on a Palestinian youth who allegedly carried out a stabbing attack that resulted in the injury of two settlers, causing him injuries.

The identity and fate of the youth remain unknown until the moment.

Israeli has been criticized for its reflexive use of lethal force and “extrajudicial killings” when Palestinian alleged attackers no longer pose an immediate threat.

In some cases, the person shot was left bleeding to death on the ground and was not given prompt medical assistance, in violation of the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, said the center.

According to a report issued by various human rights organizations in Israel and published on B’Tselem website, an Israeli human rights center, “In instances when Jews have been suspected of attacks, none of the suspects has been shot.” “Intentional lethal force should only be used when absolutely necessary to protect life. Instead, we are increasingly seeing Israeli forces recklessly flouting international standards by shooting to kill in situations where it is completely unjustified,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in this regard, “There is no dispute as to the severity of the incidents and the need to protect the public from stabbings and other assaults.

However, it appears that in too many cases, rather than acting in a manner that was appropriate for each incident, police officers and soldiers were quick to open fire in order to kill.” T.R.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency