Day: 10 January 2022

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed today evening the East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, according to WAFA correspondent.

Dozens of setters, led by far-right Israeli Member of the Knesset, Itamar Ben Gvir, and right-wing activist and politician who currently serves as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh Yitzhak King, stormed the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood under heavy police protection, provoking residents.

Residents managed to fend off the settlers who attempted to break into a land belonging to the Salem family; one of the families that are threatened with forcible expulsion from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

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.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Palestine today summoned a Dutch diplomat over Netherlands’ decision to pull funding from a Palestinian civil society organization.

Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry Amal Jadou summoned head of Netherlands Representative Office to Palestine Kees van Baar to convey an official letter of protest over the Dutch government’s recent decision to end funding to the Ramallah-based Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).

UAWC is one of the six major Palestinian civil society organizations that Israel banned as ‘terrorist groups’ last October. It provides hands-on aid to Palestinians, including by rehabilitating land at risk of confiscation by Israel. It helps tens of thousands of farmers in Area C – the more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under direct Israeli military control, and where most illegal Israeli settlements and their infrastructure are located.

Jadou expressed Palestine’s shock and dismay over the decision, which will have direct adverse consequences on the lives of tens of thousands of vulnerable families making a living from agro-based income generating activities besides to thousands of donums of farmland in Area C, while pointing that the outcomes of the external investigation launched by the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation were in favor of UAWC, particularly that the investigation found no evidence that UAWC has any organizational links with PFLP, and thus do not substantiate Israeli allegations against UAWC.

She added that the Dutch government’s decision pulling fund from UAWC fall in line with Israeli systematic and malicious campaign of incitement against UAWC, in particular, and the Palestinian civil society, in general, with such campaigns aimed to defame Palestinian CSOs, especially those providing services to Palestinian farmers and communities in Area C.

The Palestinian diplomat urged Netherlands to immediately reverse this unjust decision, which sets a dangerous precedent with regard to undermining the work of Palestinian CSOs, which play a key role in reinforcing the steadfastness of Palestinians in their lands in the face of Israeli settler-colonialism and settler violence.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the Israeli forces’ storming of Birzeit University campus and attack on students.

The ministry considered, in a statement today, this attack as an integral part of the occupation’s aggression and its continuous war against the Palestinian people, their rights, land, holy sites, properties, and institutions, and a flagrant violation of international norms and laws that criminalize such incursions.

It called on the international community and relevant UN institutions, particularly UNESCO, to condemn this intrusion and the attacks and harassment against Palestinian educational institutions, and to take the necessary measures imposed by international law to provide protection to the Palestinian people and their educational institutions.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

The Ministry of Health said today that six people have died of Covid-19 in Palestine in the last 24 hours while 392 new cases were confirmed.

It said five of the deaths were in the West Bank where 294 new cases were confirmed and 112 patients have recovered, while one death, 98 new cases, and 27 recoveries were confirmed in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Ministry, 58 Covid patients remain critical and are getting treatment in intensive care, including 20 who are on ventilators, while 103 patients are currently being hospitalized.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency