Day: 9 October 2021

Weather today in Palestine is mostly clear and relatively hot in daytime despite a drop in temperature, which nevertheless remains 3°C above the annual average, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Weather tonight is relatively cold, particularly in the mountains, and moderate in the rest of the country.

Winds are northwesterly, light to moderate, and sea waves are low.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 28°C and a low of 18°C and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 27°C and a low of 17°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley temperature is expected to reach a high of 36°C and a low of 24°C while it is expected to reach a high of 28°C and a low of 21°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

No change in weather conditions or temperature is expected tomorrow, Sunday, and on Monday, but another drop in temperature is expected on Tuesday, which remains slightly above the annual average, said the PMD.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

In its biweekly report on Protection of Civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories covering the period between 21 September and 4 October, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Israeli occupation forces shot and killed nine Palestinians, including a boy – eight in the West Bank, including a woman, and one in the Gaza Strip.

On 26 September, three Palestinians were killed in Beit ‘Anan village, west of Jerusalem, and two others, including a 16-year-old child, in Burqin village, near Jenin in the north of the West Bank.

The incidents occurred in the context of Israeli search-and-arrest operations in the two villages. Israeli forces carried out 70 search-and-arrest operations and arrested around 80 Palestinians across the West Bank during the reporting period, said OCHA. The most affected governorate was Ramallah.

Also in Burqin on 30 September, a Palestinian was killed in another search-and-arrest operation.

On 24 September, a Palestinian protester was shot and killed during the ongoing protests in Beita village, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank, against the establishment of a settlement outpost.

On 30 September, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian woman, aged 30, alleging that she had tried to stab Israeli police officers, at one of the gates leading to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the old city of Jerusalem; no Israeli injury was reported.

One Palestinian in Gaza was shot and killed by Israeli forces on 30 September in the Deir al Balah area, in the central Gaza Strip, while reportedly hunting birds near the Israeli fence around Gaza.

Overall, Israeli forces injured 328 Palestinians across the West Bank. Of them, 217 were hit during protests against settlement activities in the Nablus governorate, near Beita (117), Beit Dajan (73) and Deir al Hatab (27). Another 59 Palestinians, as well as two Israeli soldiers, were injured when Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli forces attempted to reach Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, during which Palestinians threw stones and homemade explosives at them, and Israeli forces shot back teargas canisters and rubber bullets.

In addition, 29 Palestinians, including a young child, were injured by Israeli forces or settlers in al-Mafghara village near Hebron in the south of the West Bank.

On 28 September, Israeli settlers injured nine Palestinians in this Palestinian community, claimed by Israel as a ‘firing zone’. One of those injured, a three-year-old boy, was hit by a stone in his head while in his bed, and was taken to an Israeli hospital. The remaining 20 injured Palestinians were treated for inhaling tear gas. Israeli settlers also killed five sheep and damaged 10 homes, 14 vehicles and several solar panels and water tanks.

Israeli settlers physically assaulted and injured eight other Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and settlers damaged or stole the harvest from over 180 olive trees. These included four farmers injured while working their land near Al-Seifer village near Hebron, two shepherds near the community of Arab al Rashayida near Bethlehem, and another farmer in Ein Yabrud, near (Ramallah, and an activist in Susiya, near Hebron.

According to eyewitnesses or landowners, settlers vandalized around 160 olive trees in Al-Mafghara and Burin, near Nablus, and stole the olives from another 26 trees in Salfit. A number of attacks by settlers in the H2 area of Hebron were recorded, including breaking into a number of houses and stealing agricultural tools, surveillance cameras and water pumps, in addition to stealing olives.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers today prevented Palestinian farmers from harvesting their olive crops in the northern West Bank village of Burin, south of Nablus.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlers’ violence and activities in the northern West Bank, said settlers from the illegal Yitzhar settlement prevented the Palestinian farmers from working on their land in a southeastern area of the village and forced them to leave it.

Settlers have intensified their attacks against Palestinian farmers and land in the occupied West Bank, particularly during the annual olive harvest season, burning and destroying trees and preventing farmers at gunpoint from harvesting their crops.

The Israeli army, which is usually present in the area, only intervenes if the local residents confront the settlers to protect the settlers.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Health data showed that 11 people have died of the coronavirus disease in Palestine in the last 24 hours while 467 new cases were confirmed.

Minister of Health Mai Alkaila said in her daily report on the pandemic in Palestine that seven of the death and 103 of the new cases were recorded in the West Bank, where 555 patients have recovered.

The Gaza Strip recorded four deaths, 364 new cases, and 1457 recoveries.

The Health Minister said 167 people diagnosed with COVID-19 are getting treatment in hospitals, and 76 are in intensive care, while 14 are on ventilators, making the overall percentage of the active cases since the outbreak of the pandemic in Palestine in March of last year at 4.6 percent, while 94.4 percent of those who tested positive for the disease have recovered and 1 percent have died.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A new attack in the series of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers in the north of the occupied West Bank was confirmed today in the town of Kufr Thuluth, south of Qalqilya city, according to the town’s mayor Ahmad Odeh.

He told WAFA that settlers from the illegal settlement of El Matan attacked farmers while they were in their land in the town but could not drive them out.

He said the settlers also attacked with stones and sticks farmers who were harvesting their olive crops in the nearby town of Bidya, west of Salfit, in an attempt to force them out of their lands.

Odeh said the settlers, backed by the Israeli establishment, seek to drive people out of their lands located between Qalqilya and Salfit with a goal to establish a settlement in that area.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Extremist Israeli settlers attacked a number of Palestinian land surveyors from the Palestinian Authority’s Land and Water Settlement Commission while surveying land in Masafer Yatta community, south of the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said a group of settlers assaulted the engineers and prevented them from continuing the surveying works.

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and civilians across the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces confiscated a Palestinian-owned bagger excavator that was working on a land reclamation project in the village of Dirat, east of Yatta town in Hebron province, said Fouad al-Emour, a local activist who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the area.

Violence and vandalism by Israeli settlers is commonplace in the occupied West Bank, and is rarely and almost never prosecuted by the occupation authorities.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates and the Chief Islamic Justice, Mahmoud Habbash, today condemned the intention of American Zionist groups to hold a ceremony at Mammilla cemetery in West Jerusalem, considering it a desecration of the Islamic graveyard and a flagrant violation of international law and conventions.

They said in two separate statements that the historic cemetery includes the remains of Muslim leaders and residents of Jerusalem who have been buried there for more than a thousand years.

They said that this ceremony is organized by a number of high-ranking US officials from the administration of former President Donald Trump, led by former ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who resides in an illegal settlement, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is known for his Zionist positions.

The Foreign Ministry said the establishment of the so-called Museum of Tolerance affiliated with the American Zionist Simon Wiesenthal Foundation on a part of the cemetery has been underway since 2010 with official Israeli support despite objections by Jerusalem residents in local courts and in petitions submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council and UNESCO.

It said it considers the event a provocative attack on a historic Islamic cemetery, and a flagrant violation of international laws and conventions.

The Ministry called on the current US administration not to participate in this event, which contradicts US policy regarding the future of the city of Jerusalem.

It also called on international organizations to condemn and put a stop to the continuous violations of Palestinian political, cultural, historical, legal and religious rights in the holy city, the future capital of the State of Palestine.

Habbash also said that such a step constitutes a full-fledge war crime as it constitutes a blatant assault on the remains of Palestinian ancestors and a grave insult to all Muslims.

He warned that perpetrating such a crime will increase the state of anger and tension experienced by the Palestinian people, which may ignite the entire region and may spread its fire to all parts of the world, calling on the Arab and Islamic countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States and UNESCO to intervene to stop this flagrant violation of the religious, historical and cultural rights of the Palestinian people before it is too late.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates expressed today its great concern over the continuing campaign of previous US administration officials to encourage further violations of Palestinian rights and undermine efforts by the current Administration aimed to revive the political process.

“The Friedman Center for Peace Through Strength, which will be inaugurated on 11 October by former US Ambassador to Israel and settler-supporter David Friedman, will promote and perverse Trumpian attitudes that only heighten tensions,” said the Foreign Ministry in a statement. “It will promote the advancement of the hollow process of normalizing Israeli occupation and building alliances in accordance with the “Abraham Accords”.

Friedman is notorious for his extremist positions and support for annexation, colonization and other crimes under international law, in addition to his notorious efforts at denying the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

“It thus comes as no surprise that the inauguration of this center will be in the so called “Museum of Tolerance”, built over the Mamillah Cemetery, one of the oldest Muslim cemeteries in Jerusalem,” added the statement.

The Mamillah Cemetery dates back to the eleventh century and it is the place where thousands of Palestinian families and figures were laid to rest. Over the past years Israeli occupation destroyed over 1,500 tombs by 2020 to establish the so-called “Museum of tolerance”.

The Ministry added, “One of the basic requirements for peace is respect of religious sites, maintaining their status quo, and their status and in the particular case of the Mamillah cemetery, to allow for its restoration rather than to continue the process of desecration.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers today destroyed a number of vehicles belonging to Palestinian residents in the village of Beit Iksa, northwest of Jerusalem, according to local sources.

Sources said that Israeli settlers from the Har Samuel settlement, built illegally on Beit Iksa land, smashed the glass of several Palestinian-owned cars which were parked near the settlement.

A few months ago settlers set fire to four cars and broke the glass and damaged the tires of others in the aforementioned village.

The 2000 residents of the town are completely isolated by Israel’s apartheid wall. They are subjected to almost daily harassment by the Israeli forces and settlers in an attempt to force them to leave the area for the benefit of settlement expansion.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli occupation forces today attacked and beat up dozens of Palestinian citizens at the Damascus Gate plaza in occupied Jerusalem, according to witnesses.

Israeli police officers also unleashed their dogs to attack the Palestinian citizens and detained at least four of them, before chasing them out of the plaza, a historic landmark on the north side of Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Earlier this year, and during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, nightly clashes and other violent attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian gatherings at Damascus Gate provoked tensions across the holy city.

During the month, Palestinians said Israeli police tried to prevent them from holding their usual Ramadan evening gatherings outside Damascus Gate.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency