Day: 10 May 2022

The Ramallah office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today that the visit of the families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, which was scheduled for today to Eshel prison in Beersheba in southern Israel, had been canceled due to the Israeli extension of the closure of the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing, the only pedestrian crossing between Gaza and Israel.

The recent closure was imposed last week as a collective punishment policy against the Gaza Strip’s two million Palestinian population, already living under total siege since 2005.

The Red Cross said it will update the families on new dates for the visits after the reopening of the crossing.

Israel had suspended visits for Gaza families to their sons in the Israeli prisons in March 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and resumed the visits in March of this year.

Similar visits by families in Jenin, Nablus and Hebron districts in the occupied West Bank were also canceled this week due to a closure imposed on the West Bank and collective punishment policy, mainly against Palestinian residents of the Jenin district.

Israel is holding more than 4500 Palestinian freedom fighters in its jails, including 220 from the Gaza Strip most of them serving long prison terms.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli settlers today uprooted and destroyed 17 olive trees and damaged a room in a land in the town of Kufr al-Dik, west of the northern West Bank city of Salfit.

The landowner, Ali al-Ahmad, said the settlers uprooted the trees, which range in age from four to six years, and damaged a room in his land located to the north of the town, explaining that this is the fourth time this year settlers attack his land.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Staff from the West Jerusalem Israeli municipality demolished today a Palestinian-owned two-story building in Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, according to witnesses.

They said Israeli police cordoned off the area where the building is located before a municipality bulldozer proceeded to demolish the building owned by the Rajabi family displacing, as a result, more than 30 people who lived in the second-floor apartments.

The Red Crescent said it handled five cases of Palestinians beaten by the Israeli police during the demolition, one of them was transferred to hospital.

The municipality had informed the Rajabi family of its decision to demolish its building under the pretext of lack of a building permit.

Palestinians say they are forced to build without a permit because getting one from the Israeli municipality that discriminates against the Palestinian citizens of the city as part of its demographic battle for the city is an almost impossible task thus causing a serious housing shortage for the Palestinians.

While Palestinians are not allowed to build in their city and on their lands, the municipality and Israeli government build tens of thousands of housing units for Israelis on lands expropriated from their Palestinian owners.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh today called on the European Union (EU) to pressure Israel to stop its violations and its displacement and expulsion plans against the Palestinian people.

The call came during his meeting in Brussels with the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.

During the meeting, Shtayyeh briefed the EU official on the latest political developments in Palestine, as well as the Israeli violations against the Palestinian people.

Shtayyeh also briefed Borrell on the situation in Jerusalem and the Israeli violations against it, in addition to settlers’ repeated storming of al-Aqsa Mosque, urging the EU to pressure Israel to stop these measures.

The prime minister further highlighted the importance of preserving the historical existing status of the al-Aqsa Mosque.

He called on the EU to pressure Israel to stop the displacement plans against the Palestinian people, the latest of which was the Israeli Supreme Court’s rejection of the petition submitted by the residents of the “Masafer Yatta” area in southern Hebron to stop the occupation government’s decision to demolish 12 villages and Bedouin communities, which is home to around 4000 people.

Shtayyeh as well discussed with Borrell the financial situation and the crisis that the government is facing as a result of the decline in foreign aid and the ongoing unjust Israeli deductions from Palestinian tax revenues.

He called on the EU to accelerate the provision of financial support to Palestine and put pressure on Israel to release the withheld funds and stop all forms of financial deductions from the Palestinian tax revenues.

Shtayyeh also stressed the importance of reviving the peace process in light of the absence of a political horizon and working towards protecting the two-state solution.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli forces today demolished two Palestinian-owned agricultural structures in the town of al-Khader, to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, local sources said.

Al-Khader mayor, Ibrahim Mousa, told WAFA that the Israeli forces demolished two agricultural structures in two different areas of the town owned by two local residents, one of whom is a former prisoner.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)