Day: 19 May 2022

After 77 days of hunger strike in protest against his incarceration in Israel without charge or trial, Palestinian administrative detainee Khalil Awawdeh, 40, is reported to be in critical health condition, today said the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

It said that based on information from his lawyer after her most recent visit, Awawdeh suffers from loss of control over his body, difficulty in talking, poor vision and concentration, severe pain in the head and limbs, as well as severe fatigue, and that for 40 days, the Israel Prison Services had not provided him with clothing so that he could change them, nor allowed him to bathe, and that since then he had been wearing the same clothes.

Awawdeh complained to his lawyer about the condition in Ramla prison clinic, where he is being kept, describing it as a “slaughterhouse” intended to avenge and abuse the prisoners.

Israel detained Awawdeh, from the southern West Bank town of Idna, on December 27, 2021, and slammed him with a six-month administrative detention order. He is married and a father to four daughters.

Meanwhile, another Palestinian administrative detainee in Israel, Raed Rayyan, 27 from Biddo village, northwest of Jerusalem, continues his hunger strike, also in protest against his detention without charge or trial, for the 41st day in a row, according to the Prisoners Affairs Commission.

It said Rayyan is also suffering from serious health complications due to his long fast.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Palestinian Presidency today warned against Israeli storming the northern West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp on a daily basis, the random arrests of dozens of people, allowing Jewish extremists to storm the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, announcing the construction of thousands of settlement units in the Palestinian territories, and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s statements calling on his occupation army to murder and abuse Palestinian people at their free will.

The official spokesman for the presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said that “this escalating Israeli policy against the Palestinian people in terms of killing, arresting and storming aims to blow up the situation and create an atmosphere of violence and tension that we have repeatedly warned against.”

He called on the US administration to break its silence and to intervene immediately to force stop the daily Israeli attacks on the Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps and to curb Israel’s lawlessness before it is too late, stressing that statements and condemnations alone are not enough.

Abu Rudeineh added that this policy comes at a time when the whole world witnessed the Israeli army’s killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the assault at her funeral, in addition to the attack on the funeral of Walid al-Sharif and the desecration of the cemetery, which confirms that this Israeli government does not care about all these international condemnations, nor the resolutions of the United Nations that have repeatedly stressed the need to provide international protection for the Palestinian people, to stop all forms of settlement activity as illegal and contrary to international law, and to end the occupation of all Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Palestine.

He stressed that peace, security and stability will not prevail until the Palestinian people attain their legitimate rights in full.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli settlers today chopped down at least 20 olive trees and destroyed agricultural crops belonging to a Palestinian resident in Masafer Yatta area to the south of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, according to a local activist.

Coordinator of the Protection and Steadfastness Committees in Masafer Yatta, Fouad al-Amour told WAFA settlers from a nearby illegal settlement stormed a land belonging to a local resident in Masafer yatta area, and chopped down at least 20 fully-grown olive trees.

Settlers reportedly destroyed three dunums of agricultural land planted with seasonal crops.

He stressed that this attack comes as part of a series of continuous attacks by the occupation and settlers against Masafer yatta families and their properties, which witnessed a significant escalation in the recent period.

In early May, Israel’s top court gave the army the green light to forcibly expel the residents of Masafer Yatta communities in the southern West Bank district of Hebron.

Israel’s High Court ruled in favor of the forcible displacement of some 1,300 Palestinians living in twelve villages or hamlets making up the Masafer Yatta area.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)