Day: 20 December 2021

COVID-19 claimed the lives of five people in Palestine in the last 24 hours as 389 new cases were recorded, today said Minister of Health Mai Alkaila in her daily report on the pandemic in Palestine.

She said that two of the deaths were recorded in the West Bank, where 254 new cases were confirmed and 110 patients have recovered.

The Gaza Strip recorded three deaths, 135 new cases and 70 recoveries.

Alkaila said 118 COVID-19 patients are currently getting treatment in hospitals and 57 are in intensive care, while 16 are on ventilators

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A low-pressure polar front is expected to affect Palestine today, bringing cold conditions in the daytime and very cold conditions in nighttime and causing temperature to drop to below the seasonal average by 5 C, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Rain, sometimes heavy, thunderstorms and occasional hail are expected during the morning and noon hours, while strong, southwesterly to westerly winds, possibly reaching 70 kilometers per hour, are expected at night with high sea waves.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and in Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 9 C and a low of 5 C, and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 8 C and a low of 4 C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley, temperature is expected to reach a high of 17 C and a low of 11 C, while it is expected to reach a high of 15 C and a low of 10 C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

The low-pressure front is expected to continue on Tuesday bringing rain and thunderstorms, mainly in the northern areas, while the rain begins to subside in the afternoon in the central and southern areas of Palestine.

Similar weather conditions of rain, thunderstorms and cold conditions are expected to continue on Wednesday and Thursday, with winds reaching reach 50 k/h.

The PMD warned people against the formation of floods, mainly in the valleys and low areas, slippery roads and low horizontal visibility.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces Monday overnight notified four families of their intention to punitively demolish their houses in Silat al-Harithiya town, northwest of Jenin, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that Israeli forces barged their way into the northern West Bank town, and measured the houses of Ahmed Muhammad Yassin Jaradat, the father of brothers Ghaith and Omar, as well as the family houses of three prisoners in preparation for their punitive demolition.

Ghaith and Omar Jaradat are accused of carrying out a shooting attack that killed a settler and injured two others near the formerly evacuated Homesh colonial settlement outpost in the northern West Bank the last week. The three prisoners, including the siblings’ uncle, are accused of being accomplices.

The planned demolition will render four families, comprising over 30 people, homeless.

During the ensuing confrontations, the soldiers opening fire towards dozens of local youths protesting the raid, injuring one by bullet shrapnel.

Israel resorts to punitively demolish the family homes of Palestinians as a mean of deterrence- accused of being involved in attacks against Israelis, a policy that Israel does not apply to Israeli settlers who were involved in fatal attacks against Palestinians.

The policy was widely condemned by human rights groups as “a collective punishment” and “a war crime and crime against humanity”.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli forces today infiltrated Gaza’s border, to the east of Khan Younes city, and razed farmlands, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that six Israeli military tanks and bulldozers advanced several dozens of meters to the east al-Fakhari area in the southern besieged strip, leveled a large tract of farmland in the area and set up earth mounds.

He added that the soldiers opened fire towards a group of farmers and bird hunters, east of Khuza‘a town. No injuries were reported though.

Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.

Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.

Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.

Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli settlers Monday dawn targeted a Palestinian house and vehicles in Kafr Qaddum village, east of Qalqiliya city, according to local sources.

They said that a group of settlers hurled stones at the house and vehicle of Nasser Darwish Barham to the west of the northern West Bank village, causing damage to his house and smashing the windshields and exterior mirrors of his vehicle.

The settlers also pelted another vehicle belonging to Maher Fathi Jum‘a with stones, causing damages to it.

The assailants came from the colonial settlement of Kedumim.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Settlers‘ violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Premier Mohammad Shtayyeh today called for international intervention to halt Israeli settler terrorism against Palestinian civilian population in the occupied territories.

Speaking at the opening of the weekly cabinet session at his office in Ramallah, Shtayyeh stated that the cabinet sent letters to the United Nations and international human rights organizations, urging them to intervene to stop the acts of organized terrorism committed by Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers, particularly in the Nablus-district villages of Burqa, Qaryout and Sebastia, and ensure protection for the Palestinian civil population.

He held Israel fully responsible for this escalation and condemned Israel’s widespread and systematic shoot-to-kill policy targeting Palestinian civilians.

Israel has released new rules of engagement which allow soldiers to open fire at Palestinians who throw stones, even if they are fleeing.

Prime Minister Shtayyeh also commented on the recent senior-level U.S.-Palestinian economic dialogue, which was virtually held on December 14.

He stated that the government concluded the first such economic dialogue in five years, during which it reaffirmed that the only way to resolve the conflict with Israel lies through a political settlement while pointing that the such a settlement should be based on the United Nations resolutions and the underlying international law.

He reiterated the need for the US administration to safeguard the two-state solution, which is being systematically undermined through Israel’s settler-colonialism.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Israeli authorities demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Naqab desert in southern Israel for the 196th consecutive time since 2000 and for the 14th time this year.

Israeli police broke into the village and dismantled and confiscated the tin homes residents build every time their village is demolished, leaving the local residents, including children, homeless in the extremely cold weather as the country was affected today by a low-pressure polar front.

Al-Araqib is one of 35 Bedouin villages considered unrecognized by the Israeli government.

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), more than half of the approximately 160,000 Naqab Bedouins reside in unrecognized villages, which the state refuses to provide with a planning structure and place under municipal jurisdiction.

ACRI said the Israeli government uses a variety of measures to pressure Bedouins into relocating to government-planned urban centers that disregard their lifestyle and needs.

“Whole communities have been issued demolition orders; others are forced to continue living in unrecognized villages that are denied basic services and infrastructure, such as electricity and running water,” said the center.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

The Israeli occupation authorities notified today a Palestinian family to evict their homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, in occupied East Jerusalem, and to seize a piece of land owned by the family.

WAFA correspondent in Jerusalem reported that the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem handed – for the second time within four months – Mahmoud Salhia a decision to evict a piece of land on which the family’s two homes were built in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood under the pretext of “public interest” to establish a school there.

The municipality gave the family until January 25 to implement the decision.

Salhia told WAFA that his father bought the 6-dunum piece of land in 1967, adding that two years ago a decision was issued to seize the land under the pretext of public use.

The two houses are inhabited by two families consisting of 12 members, including nine children.

“We came here after we were expelled by Israel in 1948 from the town of Ein Karem,” said Salhia.

Salhia pointed out that the occupation municipality offered him an extension for eight months to convince him to sign a paper according to which he would become a tenant of the house, but he refused.

He noted that his steadfastness in his home has cost him about 600,000 (around $190,000) shekels between fines imposed on him by the occupation municipality, filing cases, and appointing lawyers.

“I was displaced once and will not be displaced again, and I will not sign any paper presented by the occupation…I will not leave my house, where I have lived since 1988,” he stressed.

More than 500 Palestinians living in 28 houses in the neighborhood are facing threats of forced expulsion at the hands of settlement associations backed by the Israeli government and its judiciary system, which recently issued a decision to displace seven families.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency