Day: 2 June 2022

Israeli forces Thursday shot and killed a Palestinian man during confrontations that erupted in the refugee camp of al-Dheisha, south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to medical and security sources.

The Ministry of Health said Ayman Mheisen, 29, was shot and killed by the Israeli occupation forces while another was injured during confrontations that broke out following an army raid of the camp.

The security sources said Israeli soldiers raided the camp, where confrontations erupted between Palestinian youth and the soldiers who fired live bullets, killing one and critically injuring another.

They said the Israeli soldiers also detained a Palestinian from the camp after raiding and ransacking his home.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli forces Wednesday evening shot and injured a Palestinian youth duirng confrontations that erupted in the town of Azzun, east of the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya, local sources confirmed.

The sources told WAFA that Isaeli forces shot a 19-year-old young man with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the shoulder. He was taken to the hospital, where his condition was reported to be slight.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

News about the Palestinians who were shot dead by the Israeli forces in several areas in the occupied West Bank hit the front pages of the three Arabic Palestinian dailies on Thursday.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida, al-Quds and al-Ayyam said Israeli forces Wednesday morning shot dead Ghofran Warasnah, 31, hitting her in the chest at the entrance of Al-Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron.

The Red Crescent said that the Israeli forces prevented medics from approaching Warasnah until after 20 minutes of her injury. The bullet grazed Warasnah’s ribs, passing through the flesh under her left armpit and exiting from her right side. The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) medics said that the soldiers obstructed their ability to access Warasnah and took 20 minutes to allow medics to treat her.

The dailies also reported that a large Israeli military force, accompanied by 30 military vehicles and a bulldozer stormed the town of Yabad to the southwest of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, as the army snipers climbed onto the roofs of houses in the town, firing live bullets and tear gas canisters at the town’s residents.

A youth who was identified as Bilal Kabaha, 24, was shot by live bullets in the chest and thigh, critically injuring him. He was transferred to Jenin Government Hospital, where he succumbed to his critical wounds.

Israeli forces cordoned off the three-storey family house of alleged Palestinian attacker Diya Hamarsheh in preparation to demolishing it as part of its collective punishment policy against the Palestinian people.

The papers said that Yaser al-Masry, 41, from the city of Deir al-Balah, central of the Gaza Strip, was Wednesday evening pronounced dead after succumbing to the wounds he sustained during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in May, 2021. He was getting treatment in Egypt.

Three Palestinian youth were shot and injured by live bullets, and dozens of others suffocated during clashes that erupted tonight in al-Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, as reported in the dailies, which added that Israeli forces tore down a number of dwellings and agricultural structures in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

The dailies said that Israeli occupation forces evening delivered ten notices ordering to stop the construction work on houses and structures belonging to Palestinian residents in the village of Marda to the north of Salfit.

Israeli bulldozers Wednesday razed a Palestinian house in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Issawiya, as reported in the papers, which further more reported that Israeli forces Wednesday seized agricultural tractors and other vehicles in several areas in the northern Jordan Valley.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida and al-Ayyam said that 15 US congress members Tuesday sent a letter to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and called on him to stop the Israeli government’s expulsion of Palestinian people from the villages of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli occupation soldiers murdered this afternoon a 17-year-old Palestinian boy near the apartheid wall in the village of al-Midya, west of Ramallah, according to the Ministry of Health, making him the fourth Palestinian shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank since yesterday, and the 63rd since the start of this year.

It said the boy, identified as Odeh Mohammad Odeh, was brought to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest. However, attempts to save his life failed and he quickly succumbed to his wounds, said the Ministry of Health.

With the Israeli murder of Odeh this afternoon, four Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank since yesterday, including a woman killed near Arroub refugee camp in the south of the West Bank, a man shot and killed in the town of Yabad, near Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, and another man shot and killed this morning in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh strongly condemned today the Israeli army killing this morning of a Palestinian man in Bethlehem, stressing that sanctions would put a stop to the Israeli killings.

Soldiers shot and killed Ayman Muheisen, 29, in Dheisha refugee camp, the third Palestinian to be shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank in 24 hours – the first was a woman in Aroub refugee camp, in the south of the West Bank, and the second a man in the town of Yabad, near Jenin, in the north of the West Bank.

“Failure to activate decisions to boycott Israel is what encourages it to continue in its crimes against our people,” said Shtayyeh in a statement, renewing calls on the international community to provide protection for the Palestinian people.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) and the Palestinian Museum launched today their joint project, the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, a bilingual English–Arabic platform devoted entirely to the history of modern Palestine from the end of the Ottoman era to the present.

The Encyclopedia, the first of its kind, was developed for use by academics, students, journalists, and the general public, said a press release by the IPS.

It currently consists of the following sections:

An Overall Chronology that presents the main events and developments that shaped Palestinian modern history in the realms of war, diplomacy, politics, culture, and economy;

Thematic Chronologies, or subsets of the Overall Chronology, that facilitate access to entries relevant to specific topics;

Highlights, written by leading academics and experts in the field, that cover important events and institutions, political, military and legal-constitutional developments, as well as crucial aspects of Palestinian cultural, social, or economic life or experience;

Biographies of Palestinian intellectuals, artists, leaders, combatants, and politicians who have influenced the history of Palestine since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries;

Places, the digitized version of the seminal book All That Remains, dedicated to the 418 Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948;

Documents, consisting of hundreds of primary texts, photographs, maps, and charts.

“The Encyclopedia has come to fruition following years of preparation and several stages of implementation,” said Camille Mansour, the IPS Editor in Chief. “Throughout this process, utmost attention has been given to introduce a description of the Palestine Question that is simultaneously committed and objective and to present Palestinians as they are—purposeful actors, and not just victims, who build with both successes and setbacks their political, social, and cultural institutions inside and outside Palestine.”

The Encyclopedia will be continually upgraded and populated with additional content.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli occupation authorities yesterday prevented Ubai Aboudi, the Executive Director of the Ramallah-based Bisan Center for Research and Development, from traveling to Amman, Jordan, to attend a two-day expert meeting with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, according to a press release. He was due to discuss Israel’s policy and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and their economic implications.

Aboudi was invited to participate in his official capacity as Executive Director of Bisan, a civil society organization that works to support the socio-economic rights of Palestinians through the production and application of critical development knowledge and the building of partnerships with progressive bodies and entities.

The travel ban comes in the aftermath of Israel’s designation of Bisan as a “terrorist organization” and “unlawful association” in October 2021, based on classified intelligence information, along with five other Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations – Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).

Aboudi arrived yesterday at the Allenby/King Hussein/Al-Karama Bridge crossing, the only crossing from the West Bank to Jordan open to Palestinians, and was informed that he is not permitted to exit the West Bank.

This is the second time that Aboudi has been banned from exiting the occupied West Bank. On 29 April 2022, Israeli authorities prevented him from traveling abroad to attend a conference of civil society groups (the World Social Forum) in Mexico. Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer, was also denied permission to travel from Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport to attend the same conference.

In response, on 24 May 2022, before Israel barred Aboudi from exiting the West Bank for the second time, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent a letter to the relevant Israeli authorities seeking to ascertain whether a travel ban had been placed on Aboudi. Although Israeli law prescribes that a response to such queries is to be provided within four days, Adalah said it has not received a response to date and several inquiries have been ignored.

Today, said Adalah in the press release, “Ubai Aboudi was prevented from participating in a UN meeting concerning the destructive effects of the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian economy. This cannot be interpreted as anything other than a politically-motivated attack on Palestinian activists and human rights defenders who dare to speak out against Israel’s regime of occupation, domination, and oppression with clear apartheid characteristics. This is a direct continuation of the designations of six leading Palestinian human rights and civil society groups, including the Bisan center, as ‘terrorist organizations’. Preventing Palestinian activists and human rights defenders from traveling is a clear attempt to obstruct and ultimately put an end to the work of Palestinian civil society and human rights defenders, who are documenting Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians and trying to hold Israel accountable internationally.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Several people, including children, suffocated this morning after Israeli occupation soldiers fired tear gas canisters at a kindergarten in the town of Tuqoa, east of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to local sources,

They told WAFA that soldiers fired tear gas canisters in the direction of the kindergarten when they were in pursuit of other students. One student, 15 years of age, was detained by the army.

Residents confronted the soldiers when they broke into the town, said the sources.

The soldiers fired tear gas at the people causing suffocation, mostly treated on the location.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli occupation forces shot and killed 70 Palestinians in the occupied territories since the start of this year and the latest was Odeh Mohammad Odeh, 17, killed this afternoon in the village of al-Midya, near Ramallah, today said Mohammad Sbeihat, head of an organization representing families of Palestinians killed by Israel.

He said among the 70 were 13 children less than 18 years of age and five women.

The Jenin district had the highest number of Palestinians killed by Israel and the number there reached 21, the latest was Bilal Kabaha who was killed last night in the town of Yabad.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh tonight condemned the Israeli army killing of Odeh Mohammad Odeh, 17, in the village of al-Midya, west of Ramallah, and “all the horrific crimes committed against our children and loved ones.”

Shtayyeh said in a statement that the perpetrators are determined to murder, explaining that Odeh is another child killed in Israeli crimes targeting children, women and the elderly “as a result of the international community’s continuation of its double-standard policies that encourage the perpetrators to continue in their crimes.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates also condemned in a separate statement the killing of Odeh and called for international action to stop the Israeli murder of Palestinians.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)