Day: 3 July 2022

European Commission lifts its suspension of funding for Al-Haq human rights organization

RAMALLAH, Friday, July 01, 2022 (WAFA) – Partly cloudy to clear conditions are expected today in Palestine with temperature remaining slightly above the seasonal average, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Winds are northwesterly, light to moderate, and sea waves are low.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 29°C and a low of 19°C and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 28°C and a low of 18°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley temperature is expected to reach a high of 37°C and a low of 25°C, while it is expected to reach a high of 30°C and a low of 23°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

A rise in temperature is expected tomorrow Sunday, to approach 2°C above the seasonal average, and continues the same for Monday and Tuesday.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

JERUSALEM- The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) said it was alarmed by the impact of intensified Israeli forces’ operations on the right to life of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and urged Israel to respect human rights law during military activity in the West Bank.

“Since the beginning of the year as of 30 June, Israeli forces have killed 60 Palestinians, including 14 boys and five women in the context of law enforcement operations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” said the UN Human Rights Office, which accused the Israeli occupation forces of using “lethal force” against Palestinians demonstrating against illegal settlement activities, or confronting settlers or Israeli forces with stones or Molotov cocktails resulting in the alarming increase in Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank in the first half of 2022.

“Many of the cases monitored by UN Human Rights Office indicated that Israeli forces used lethal force in a manner that appears totally inconsistent with international human rights law,” it said in a statement. “In a number of incidents, it appears that lethal force was used by Israeli forces as a first rather than as a last resort to confront the alleged threat.”

On 10 April, Israeli forces shot and killed a 44-year-old Palestinian woman at a checkpoint near Husan, west of Bethlehem. The woman, who suffered from poor eyesight, was shot in the thigh from a distance of two meters as she continued walking towards the soldiers after they first shouted at her and then shot a warning shot in the air. The UN Office’s monitoring indicates she was advancing empty-handed and did not attempt any violent action against Israeli forces before she was shot.

On 11 May, in the context of stone-throwing by Palestinian youth, Israeli forces shot and killed a 16-year-old boy with live ammunition in the chest near his school in Al-Bireh, Ramallah, while he was standing at a distance of around 100 meters, not posing any concrete threat to soldiers.

The UN Human Rights Office also documented incidents where unwarranted lethal force was employed against Palestinian workers attempting to cross the Wall into Israel. On 8 May, Israeli forces shot with live ammunition and killed a 27-year-old Palestinian worker while he was attempting to cross the Wall near Jabara checkpoint, south of Tulkarem. The Israeli army publicly stated that the man was unarmed when shot. A similar incident took place on 19 June near Qalqiliya, where a 53-year-old worker was shot multiple times from the back and killed, allegedly for damaging the separation barrier.

The UN Human Rights Office also documented a number of incidents in which Israeli forces targeted the upper body of individuals with live ammunition in situations where they no longer appeared to pose any threat and in several instances were in fact running away.

On 15 March, Israeli forces killed a 16-year-old boy in Balata refugee camp in Nablus after he had approached an armored vehicle on a motorbike. Information collected indicated that the boy was shot multiple times with live ammunition in the back while already running away from heavily armed and protected Israeli forces.

On 30 April, Israeli forces shot several times in the back and killed a 26-year-old Palestinian man in Azzoun near Qalqiliya while he was running away after he had just thrown three Molotov cocktails at an IDF vehicle, in circumstances in which he no longer appeared to pose any threat.

The UN Human Rights Office also documented instances where Israeli forces appeared to follow the so-called ‘confirmation of kill’ procedure, employing further lethal force against a suspect who had been already injured and was no longer posing any threat, raising concern for extrajudicial execution.

On 7 March, Israeli police shot and killed a 22-year-old Palestinian man at the al-Qattaneen gate of the Al Aqsa compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, following a stabbing attack, by firing at his body and head while he had already lost consciousness and was lying on the ground injured.

In the absence of active hostilities in the West Bank, all these incidents should be analyzed through the legal framework regulating the conduct of law enforcement operations, said the UN Human Rights Office.

“International human rights law is clear: the use of firearms in the context of law enforcement operations is allowed in extremely limited circumstances, namely in self-defense or defense of others from an imminent threat of death or serious injury, and as a last resort. Even when necessary, force must be used in a manner, which minimizes harm and preserves life. Israeli use of lethal force has become a pervasive practice in the OPT, often employed regardless of the specific level of gravity of the potential threat detected and often as a first rather than as a last resort, contrary to international standards. This has directly led to now chronic levels of killings and injuries. The use of firearms causing death of persons not posing a threat to life or serious injury constitutes a violation of the prohibition of the arbitrary deprivation of life, and may amount to an act of willful killing, which is a war crime in the context of a military occupation attaching individual criminal responsibility.”

UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory echoed the concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General that lack of accountability for these violations remains pervasive. “Such impunity also allows further violations to occur,” it warned.

It reiterated that there must be appropriate investigations into the actions of Israeli forces, including transparency on their outcomes, and anyone found responsible should be held to account with penal and disciplinary sanctions commensurate to the gravity of the violations. “As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said, this culture of impunity must end now,” it said.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

JERUSALEM- The Islamic Waqf (Endowment) department, which is in charge of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, warned today that any Israeli changes to the decades-old status quo at the walled compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif could ignite a religious war in the area.

The warning came after recent calls by extremist Jewish groups to break into one of the mosques within the compound and hold Jewish prayers there starting Sunday.

Extremist Jewish groups are demanding to turn the mosque by the closed Bab al-Rahmah (Golden Gate) area into a Jewish temple, a step toward changing the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound that considers the entire 144 dunums of the compound, both underground and above it, with all its buildings, courtyards, terraces, walls, and the roads leading to it to be a purely Muslim right that cannot be divided or shared.

The Waqf warned the Israeli government and police against allowing the extremist Jewish organizations, “whose aim is to stir up strife and ignite the region,” from having their way at the third holiest site in Islam.

It said that these calls by the extremist organizations “will drag the region into a religious war with ominous consequences,” which Israel will bear, stressing that “the people in Jerusalem, Palestine and all Muslims will not hesitate to defend their Mosque.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

LONDON– Anti-apartheid organizations based in the United Kingdom have urged the country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson to scrap the recently introduced anti-BDS bill that would restrict the right of public bodies to launch boycott campaigns against the Israeli occupation.

Led by the UK-based Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), the groups submitted a petition to Downing Street, the official residence and the office of the British Prime Minister, urging him to scrap the anti-BDS bill and instead protect the #RightToBoycott in the UK.

The group includes the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK, the Stop the War Coalition, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Amos Trust, Liberal Democrats Friends of Palestine and Conservative Friends of Palestine.

“The right of public bodies to boycott and divest from those who abuse human rights and fail to comply with international law must be upheld,” read the submitted petition. “In a free society, public bodies must retain the right to make ethical choices”.

“This is worrying legislation” said Shamiul Joarder, the Chairman of Public Affairs at FOA.

“Public bodies must retain the right to boycott and divest from those complicit in Israeli apartheid. This is a first step towards criminalizing the individual right to BDS in the UK, and part of a wider crackdown on anything that opposes government policy, as seen by the Public Order Bill which allows police to shut down protests that are ‘too noisy’,” Joarder added.

In May, during the Queen’s Speech opening of Parliament, Prince Charles said the government will introduce “legislation [that] will prevent public bodies engaging in boycotts that undermine community cohesion.”

“The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Bill will stop public bodies [from] imposing their own boycotts on foreign countries,” the BBC reported at that time.

Several pro-Palestine groups and activists have slammed the announcement, saying such move is apparently aimed at restricting support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to pressure ‘Israel’ to comply with international law and end its illegal occupation of Palestine through the promotion of boycotts and sanctions.

They also said the move would prevent public bodies from making ethical decisions to boycott and divest from firms complicit in Israeli apartheid against Palestinians.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

RAMALLAH– Saadia Farajallah, 68, died this morning of yet unknown reasons in the Israeli prison of Damon, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement, as Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and the Foreign Ministry held the Israeli government, in two separate statements, responsible for her death.

Farajallah, a mother of eight from the town of Idna in the south of the West Bank, was detained by the Israeli occupation forces in December while she was near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and has been in detention since then.

The circumstances behind her death remain unknown until this moment, the PPS said, adding that a state of outrage among the fellow Palestinian detainees dominated the prisons following the news about her death and the prisoners embarked on knocking on the doors of their cells to express their anger.

Farajallah is believed to be the 230th Palestinian to die while in Israeli imprisonment or detention. She was one of 29 female Palestinian political prisoners incarcerated in the Israeli prison of Damon, near Haifa.

The oldest serving of the 29 female Palestinian prisoners in Damon is Maison Musa, from Bethlehem, who has been in prison since 2015 and is serving a 15-year sentence.

Reacting to the death of Farajallah, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for her death.

He called on the international human rights committees to open an investigation into the circumstances of her death and to press the occupation authorities to release all the female and sick prisoners.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has also held the Israeli government responsible for her death and called for an international investigation into her death.

It also called on international organizations, such as the Red Cross, to shoulder their responsibilities toward the thousands of Palestinian freedom fighters incarcerated in Israel, particularly the medical negligence in the prisons.

The PPS later said that preliminary reports indicate that Farajallah was taken to Damon clinic after she lost consciousness before she was later pronounced dead.

It said that Farajallah, the oldest among the woman prisoners, was brought to a military court on Tuesday in a wheelchair and that her lawyer has asked that a doctor check her because she was diabetic and had high blood pressure but that the court did not give a ruling on this matter prompting the PPS to claim that she died of medical negligence.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

RAMALLAH– The Palestinian Presidency held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible today for the sudden death of Saadia Farajallah, a 68-year-old Palestinian woman imprisoned in the Israeli prison of Damon.

Farajallah, a mother of eight from the town of Idna in the south of the West Bank, was detained by the Israeli occupation forces in December while she was near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and has been in detention since then.

In a statement, the Presidency said that the 68-year-old Palestinian woman had been subjected to deliberate medical negligence that led to her death.

The Presidency called on the international community, particularly the UN Human Rights Council and international women’s organizations, to stand up to their human rights and humanitarian responsibilities, and to open an international investigation into the death of the female Palestinian prisoner.

“The issue of the prisoners is a priority for the Palestinian people and their leadership, and no harm to our heroic prisoners or their families will be allowed, irrespective of any pressures.”

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

GAZA– Palestinian farmers cultivating their lands adjacent to the northeastern perimeter fence of the Gaza Strip came under Israeli gunfire today forcing them to leave their work areas for a safe haven, WAFA correspondent said.

He said Israeli soldiers stationed at a military watchtower east of Jabalia town, north of the Gaza Strip, opened gunfire and fired tear gas canisters at farmers working in their lands, forcing them to leave the area.

No one was reported injured in the shooting attack.

Israel does not allow landowners and shepherds to be in the open pastures and lands near the Israeli perimeter fence and tries to create a buffer zone at the expense of the Gaza lands.

Palestinian fishermen are also not allowed to go deeper than six nautical miles into the sea in the Gaza Strip, and even then fishermen are still attacked even if they stay within their marked zones.

The Gaza Strip has been under tight Israeli sea, land and air siege since 2007.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

KHAN YUNIS– The Israeli occupation’s navy attacked Palestinian fishing boats this evening off the southern shores of the Gaza Strip, forcing fishermen to return to the shore, according to local sources.

WAFA correspondent said the Israeli navy fired live bullets and opened high-velocity streams of water towards fishermen sailing approximately six nautical miles away from the city of Khan Yunis, forcing them to stop fishing and return to the shore.

Israeli naval forces and their gunboats have long been harassing Gaza fishermen, shooting at them, damaging their boats and making arrests. In some occasions, fishermen were injured or even killed during gunfire attacks by the Israeli navy.

In addition to attacking fishermen, Israel regularly bans boats from accessing the water and reduces the fishing zone which Palestinians from Gaza can access.

Israeli occupation authorities have been enforcing a blockade from the land, air and sea on the Gaza Strip since 2007.

The blockade has restricted fishing for the 3,700 registered fishermen in Gaza – the majority of whom live below the poverty line by shrinking the fishing zone from 25 nautical miles, down to only six to nine nautical miles, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)