Day: 26 December 2021

Israeli occupation forces today demolished three rooms and uprooted trees in the town of Habla, isolated behind the apartheid wall in the northern West Bank Qalqilya region, according to Habla mayor Ahmad Khroub.

He told WAFA that the soldiers demolished the rooms used as agricultural depots and owned by two local residents and uprooted trees newly planted in their lands.

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency

Israeli occupation forces demolished today evening two structures and closed agricultural roads in the village of Azzoun Atmeh to the south of Qalqilia, the occupied West Bank, according to eyewitnesses.

Witnesses said Israeli forces stormed the village of Azzon Atmeh and demolished two structures used for agricultural purposes belonging to two local residents.

Forces also closed with earth mounds several agricultural roads to the west of the village.

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency

Dozens of Palestinians suffocated today evening after inhaling tear gas fired at them by Israeli forces during clashes that broke out at the northern entrance to the village of Burqa, northwest of Nablus, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, said clashes broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinian youth who managed to reopen Burqa’s entrances which were closed by the army earlier today. Dozens of people were treated at the scene from tear-gas suffocation

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency

Former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, Hanan Ashrawi, has mourned Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s retired archbishop and anti-apartheid icon, who died today at the age of 90.

Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and veteran of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule, is famed for his support of the struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation and independence.

“Palestine mourns the passing of Desmond Tutu, whose humanity & compassion were equaled only by his courage & principled commitment in our shared struggle for justice & freedom,” tweeted Ashrawi.

She added, “His support for Palestine was an embrace of love & empathy. I’m honoured to have had him as a friend.”

Earlier today, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa mourned the loss of Tutu, saying his death “is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,”

He “distinguished himself as a non-sectarian, inclusive champion of universal human rights”, Ramaphosa added.

The South African The presidency gave no details on the cause of death.

Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and, in recent years, was hospitalized on several occasions to treat infections associated with his treatment.

“Ultimately, at the age of 90, he died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town this morning,” Dr Ramphela Mamphele, acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust and Co-ordinator of the Office of the Archbishop, said in a statement on behalf of the Tutu family.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY

Israeli occupation forces today shut down the entrances of the village of Hizma in the occupied West Bank, located a few kilometers to the northeast of Jerusalem, according to witnesses.

WAFA correspondent said the Israeli occupation army shut down all the roads leading to the village since early today morning, denying access of Palestinian vehicles in and out of the village.

Earlier today, the Israeli occupation army shut down the Nablus-Jenin road in the north of the occupied West Bank, forcing Palestinian drivers to use longer routes to reach their destinations.

These closures, usually made with earth mounds or cement cubes, have become a normal practice under Israeli military regime in the occupied West Bank, and Palestinian drivers often find themselves having to take much longer routes as a result.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY

Hesham Abu Hawwash, a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails, continues today his open-ended hunger strike for 132nd day in protests of his indefinite detention without charge or trial by Israel, according to the Palestinian Detainees Affairs Commission.

On Thursday, Abu Hawwash’s attorney Jawad Boulus said his client had lost his ability to move, and that he was suffering speaking difficulty after more than 130 days of starvation for freedom.

The Commission warned that Abu Hawwash was facing the risk of sudden health setback that could lead to his death or the damage of his nervous system due to the possible dysfunction of vital organs.

Abu Hawwash, married and a father of five children, was detained on October 27, 2020, for his political activities and immediately served with an administrative detention order for six months that has been renewed ever since.

Palestinians serving time in administrative detention in Israel without charge or trial and based on classified evidence often resort to hunger strike to regain their freedom.

Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable periods ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is not allowed to review.

Palestinian administrative detainees usually resort to hunger strike to draw attention to their unjust incarceration and to gain their freedom after long periods of detention without charge or trial and based on secret evidence presented by the Israeli security services available only to the military judge but not to anyone else, including the lawyers.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY

At least ten Palestinians were arrested by the Israeli occupation forces last night and today during raids on several areas in the occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem, according local sources and witnsess.

In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police raided and searched the house of Adnan Ghaith, the Palestinian Authority’s governor of the city, and detained three Palestinians after raiding their homes in the neighborhood of Silwan.

One of the three detainees is a 15-year-old minor, who was identified as Khalil Shweki.

Also in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police officers detained three employees of the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf, in charge of maintaining the daily affairs of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while they were on duty.

Israeli police also raided the house of Sheikh Najeh Bakirat, the Deputy Director-General of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf and head of Al-Aqsa Academy for Science and Heritage, in the neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukabir. The police handed Bakirat a summons to appear for interrogation.

In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli occupation army raided the city of Qalqilia and detained at least one Palestinian after raiding and searching his home.

Arrests were also reported in the town of Aqaba, in Tubas province, the village of Tuqu, near Bethlehem, and in the village of Deir Jarir, to the northeast of Ramallah.

Meantime today, Israeli occupation soldiers shut down the main Nablus-Jenin road, which is a section of route 60, denying access of Palestinian vehicles and passengers. Drivers were therefore forced to use alternative and longer routes to reach their destinations.

Almost on a daily basis, Israeli occupation forces carry out raids targeting populated Palestinian communities for arrests or searches. The practice, mostly carried out at nighttime, has become a routine under Israeli military regime.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY

Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, Chairman of the Palestinian Authority’s Civil Affairs Commission and Member of the Central Committee of Fatah Movement, has urged the international community to provide badly needed protection to the Palestinian people in light of a new wave of attacks by Israeli settlers.

The leading Fatah and government official took it to his official Twitter page to demand protection for the Palestinians, as he commended “our people’s heroic response to this terrorism.”

“We demand the international community to provide immediate protection for the Palestinian people, who are being killed and are having their homes and lands burned by organized racist gangs.”

Al-Sheikh said his call for international protection came “in the face of the settlers’ attacks and their organized terrorism under the protection of the occupation army against our people in Palestinian cities, villages and camps.”

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY

Scores of Israeli settler fanatics last night attacked homes of Palestinians in the village of Sebastia, in the occupied West Bank province of Nablus, according to the village’s mayor.

Mohammad Azem told reporters that scores of settlers, some of them armed with rifles, pelted stones and opened gunfire at homes of Palestinians especially on the outskirts of the village.

He added that hundreds of local residents rushed to the scene to fend off the attack and clashed with the attacking settlers and with Israeli army patrols that arrived at the scene to secure the way of the settlers back. Several Palestinian protesters sustained suffocation from teargas during the clashes.

The attack came in conjunction with a similar attack by Israeli settlers on the neighboring village of Burqa, which evolved into a clash between Palestinian residents and the Israeli occupation army. At least 58 Palestinians were injured, including 10 by gunshots, during the clashes at the main entrance to Burqa.

Over the last ten days, Israeli settlers protected by army repeatedly attacked or attempted to attack homes of Palestinian citizens at the outskirts of the villages of Burqa, Sebastia and Bazariya.

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

There are over 500,000 Israeli settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across the West Bank in violation of international law.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY