Day: 28 June 2022

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh today told visiting members of the US Congress that it is important to remove the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the US terrorism list and consider it a partner in peace.

Shtayyeh, who received the US lawmakers in his Ramallah office, briefed them on the latest political developments in Palestine and discussed with them strengthening direct bilateral cooperation between their two countries.

He called for recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders to preserve the two-state solution and the reopening of the US Consulate in Jerusalem and the PLO office in Washington.

Shtayyeh said the US should apply pressure on Israel to stop all unilateral measures, whether they were seizure of land for settlement expansion, demolition of homes, and daily incursions into Palestinian areas and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to compel it to implement and respect the agreements signed with it.

“We live under direct military occupation, and Israel controls all aspects of life. This occupation must end,” he said, adding, “International law is indivisible and it is unfair to apply it everywhere in the world and not be applied when it comes to Palestine and the Israeli occupation.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli settlers today stole 10 dunums of Palestinian-owned land in al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem, in the south of the West Bank, according to a local activist.

Ahmad Salah, an activist, told WAFA that a group of settlers took over a 10-dunum plot of land in the southern part of al-Khader adjacent to the illegal colonial settlement of Efrat.

The settlers, Salah added, planted the stolen land with a variety of saplings, an indication they want to steal the remaining 40 dunums of land.

The Israeli soldiers forced one of the owners of the stolen land and a tractor driver to leave the area, said Salah.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli early release committee meeting in Ramle prison in central Israel today rejected an appeal to free the prisoner Ahmad Manasra, 20, who is suffering from a deteriorating mental health condition.

Attorney Khaled Zabarqa, representing Manasra, said the early release committee refused to discuss the appeal for the release of Manasra, which was submitted by his defense team due to the serious deterioration in his health and mental condition, claiming that his file was classified under the “terrorism law”.

Manasra, from occupied East Jerusalem, was 13 years old when he and his cousin Hassan attacked Israelis in Jerusalem in 2015. While Manasra was arrested, his cousin was killed on that day. He is now serving a nine-and-a-half-year prison sentence of which he has spent about six years. He was diagnosed with a deteriorating mental health condition due to the beating he received by Israeli mobs after the attack and due to months of brutal interrogation and torture in Israeli detention centers.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli bulldozers today tore down a mobile home and agricultural structures in al-Zayyem town, east of Jerusalem, according to a local official.

The town mayor, Mohammad Abu-Zayyad, said that Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer into the town where the heavy machinery razed a 60-square-meter mobile home and sabotaged a fence, water tanks, and electrical installations along with saplings and trees belonging to a local resident.

The bulldozer also knocked down a 30-meter-long terrace, a 30-meter-long fence, electrical installations, water tanks as well as saplings owned by another resident, said the mayor.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)