Day: 29 June 2022

A Palestinian youth was detained late last night in occupied East Jerusalem following a chase by the Israeli police inside the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque on allegation he stabbed a police officer. He was among 14 Palestinians Israeli occupation forces have detained in the occupied territories since last night.

Reports said police chased the alleged attacker, who was not identified except that he is from the Bethlehem area, inside Al-Aqsa Mosque where they mishandled worshippers and three Palestinian guards of the Mosque employed by the Waqf department, which oversees the Mosque affairs.

Reports said the police were able to apprehend the alleged attacker before leaving the Mosque and reopening the gates to the old city of Jerusalem, which they shut following the alleged attack that reportedly left a policeman injured.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the occupied territories, Israeli forces rounded up six Palestinians, including four former prisoners, from Silwad town, east of Ramallah city, during a raid of the town. The soldiers ransacked the houses of detainees’ families in the process, said local sources.

In the northern West Bank, soldiers broke into several houses in Nablus city and detained three people after conducting thorough searches. The three were identified as students of al-Najah National University.

Soldiers also detained a resident of Azzun town, east of the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya, at a flying checkpoint set up at the entrance to the town.

In Jenin city, soldiers detained two people and ransacked the houses of their families.

In the southern West Bank, sources said soldiers raided Azza refugee camp, north of Bethlehem, resulting in the detention of one person.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli police breaking into and mishandling Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as Israeli military incursions into West Bank cities and towns and demolitions were highlighted on the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida, al-Ayyam and al-Quds said police broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque last night in pursuit of a Palestinian youth who allegedly attacked police officers at one of the gates to the Mosque compound. They said the alleged attacker was apprehended.

They also highlighted Israeli military incursions, arrests, and demolition or orders of demolition in several areas of the occupied territories.

Al-Quds said in its main front-page story, quoting sources telling the newspaper, that following the broadcast by Hamas of a video of one of its Israeli captives, Israel has asked Egypt to find out more about its captives held by Hamas in Gaza.

The daily also reported on the wide condemnation of an Israeli plan to register property in occupied Jerusalem, mainly in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the old city, in the name of Jewish settlers.

It also said in another report that rights organizations have petitioned the Israeli High Court against government restrictions on the entry and stay of foreigners in the West Bank, mainly employed by universities.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stressed in a meeting with members of the US Congress in his office on removing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from its terrorist list and to consider it a partner in peace.

It said Israel repression forces broke into section 2 in Askalan prison in the south of Israel where Palestinian freedom fighters are held, and that the health of the cancer-stricken prisoner, Nasser Abu Hmeid, is quickly deteriorating.

Al-Ayyam said the Israeli Early Release committee has rejected an appeal for the early release of the prisoner Ahmad Manasra, 20, due to his deteriorating mental health condition.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Despite being on hunger strike for 84 days, a Palestinian administrative detainee in Israel insists on ending his illegal incarceration before ending his fast.

Raed Rayyan, 27, from the village of Biddo, west of Jerusalem, has lost weight and is suffering from pain, headaches, and vomiting due to his long fast demanding his freedom, according to Hasan Abed Rabbo, spokesman of the Prisoners Affairs Commission.

He told WAFA that Rayyan spent two months in solitary confinement, which worsened his health condition.

Another administrative detainee, Mohammad Awawda, 40, from the town of Idna in the south of the West Bank, ended last week his hunger strike after 111 days of fast after he was promised not to renew his current detention period. However, Israel reneged on its promise and renewed his detention for four more months and has isolated Awawda from the outside world, not allowing even his lawyer to meet with him or check on his condition.

There are currently 682 Palestinians held in administrative detention in Israel without charge or trial.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli occupation authorities demolished this morning seven Palestinian-owned structures in the town of Anata, east of Jerusalem, under the pretext of construction without a permit, according to Anata mayor Taha Rifai.

He told WAFA that the forces demolished four shacks and three animal sheds in an area near the road that connects Anata and the nearby town of al-Zayyem.

Israel last week demolished a car repair shop and a retaining wall near the segregation wall also in the town of Anata.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli forces and settlers today assaulted activists participating in an olive-tree-planting activity in lands threatened with confiscation in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, south of the occupied West Bank.

Rateb Jabour, an activist, told WAFA that large groups of settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Susya, as well as Israeli soldiers, assaulted activists as they were holding an activity to plant olive trees in lands threatened with confiscation in Masafer Yatta.

He noted that the lands belong to the families of al-Harini and al-Daajnah, adding that the settlers and soldiers physically and verbally assaulted them using offensive and racist slurs.

Jabour said that the activists were successful in removing a tent that was previously established by settlers on the land in preparation for seizing it.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli occupation forces today demolished a store and several vegetable stalls, and issued demolition orders against several others near al-Jalameh checkpoint, north of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to a local official.

Head of al-Jalameh village council, Amjad Abu Farha, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers escorted a bulldozer to the vicinity of the military checkpoint, where the heavy machinery knocked down a vegetable shop and several other vegetable stalls built along the side of the road leading to the checkpoint.

The soldiers, Abu Farha added, served demolition notices against five other structures, including a blacksmith workshop and a pottery store.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli settlers today terrorized Palestinian children in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to a local source.

Arij Jaabari, who is in charge of a summer camp for children, said that while children were taking part in a field trip to the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied part of Hebron, settlers harassed them, cursing them with foul and racist words and scaring them with their dogs.

She said the children were gravely terrified.

Soldiers in the area did not intervene to stop the settlers, she said.

Dozens of extremist racist settlers live in illegal settlement enclaves in the heart of the old city of Hebron in an area that remained under Israeli military control following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

The Israeli army today notified six Palestinian families that they should leave their homes in Khirbet Humsa locality in the northern Jordan Valley during certain days and hours while the army is holding military training, according to a local activist.

Mutaz Bisharat, an official in the Tubas governorate, said that Israeli forces notified four families that they should leave their dwellings on July 4, 5, and 6, from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM as the army will be conducting military drills in their area.

He said this means some 40 people, most of them children, will be without shelter during these hours and days.

This is not the first time Palestinian families are forced to leave their homes for long days and hours while the Israeli army is holding military drills in their area, an activity the army will never do in areas where the illegal settlements are located.

Usually, military training causes serious damage to the land and crops planted in that area, which is a main source of income for the families, which also live off raising livestock.

The Jordan Valley, which is a fertile strip of land running west along the Jordan River, is home to about 65,000 Palestinians and makes up approximately 30% of the West Bank.

Since 1967, when the Israeli army occupied the West Bank, Israel has transferred at least 11,000 of its Jewish citizens to the Jordan Valley. Some of the settlements in which they live were built almost entirely on private Palestinian land.

The Israel military has also designated about 46 percent of the Jordan Valley as a closed military zone since the beginning of the occupation in June 1967 and has been utilizing the pretext of military drills to forcefully displace Palestinian families living there as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing and stifling Palestinian development in the area.

Approximately 6,200 Palestinians live in 38 communities in places earmarked for military use and have had to obtain permission from the Israeli authorities to enter and live in their communities.

In violation of international law, the Israeli military not only temporarily displaces the communities on a regular basis but also confiscates their farmlands, and demolishes their homes and infrastructure from time to time.

Besides undergoing temporary displacement, the Palestinian families living there face a myriad of restrictions on access to resources and services. Meanwhile, Israel exploits the resources of the area and generates profit by allocating generous tracts of land and water resources for the benefit of settlers.

Israeli politicians have made it clear on several occasions their intention to annex the highly strategic Jordan Valley.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Japan’s Ambassador for the Palestinian Affairs and Representative to Palestine, Masayuki Magoshi, today visited Beit Sahour city and Al-Khas village to celebrate the completion of two projects funded by the Government of Japan through Japan’s Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP), according to a press statement from the Representative Office of Japan to Palestine.

The Office said in the statement that a grant of US $89,500 was extended to Beit Sahour Cooperative Society for Health Welfare to improve the medical service in the Shepherd’s Field Hospital by introducing Endoscopy unit. Upon the completion of the project, almost 100 patients will benefit from the Endoscopy unit in the hospital monthly.

It added that a grant of US $90,000 was extended to SAMED to improve access to electricity by installing solar panel system in Al-Walaydeh Bedouin community. Upon the completion of the project, 250 residents in Al-Walaydeh community has benefited from this project and have easy access to electricity.

In his speech, Ambassador Magoshi emphasized Japan’s firm commitment of supporting Palestinian people from human security perspective as well as the importance of implementing social and economic development projects needed for Palestinian communities.

Since 1993 the Government of Japan has extended its official development assistance to approximately USD 2.2 billion to the Palestinians. GGP projects have been formulated in collaboration with the Palestinian Authority through Ministry of Finance and Planning since 2010.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli forces today knocked down two agricultural structures and razed a road in A‘nza village, south of Jenin, according to a local source.

Qassem Barahmeh, who owns the structures, said that Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer to his plot of land in the northern West Bank village, where the heavy machinery tore down his agricultural rooms with tin roofing sheets, reducing them to rubble.

He added that the soldiers also used the bulldozer to destroy the 500-meter-long road leading to his plot of land.

Israel demolishes Palestinian houses and structures almost on a daily basis as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.

Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in Jerusalem and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.

In contrast, Israel argues that building within existing colonial settlements is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of settlers. Therefore, it much more easily gives the over 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

The “Civil Administration” is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.

Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)