Day: 9 August 2022

At least 32 Palestinians were wounded, four of them said to be serious, during clashes with Israeli soldiers who this morning raided the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said a large army force broke into the eastern neighborhood of the old city of Nablus and surrounded a building.

Clashes broke out as a result during which the soldiers fired a missile at the building.

Medical sources said 32 people were injured with live bullets in the process, four said to be serious with one person critical after he was shot in the chest.

The incursion was still going on at the time of publication of this report.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Israeli forces Tuesday afternoon gunned down a Palestinian teen and wounded two others in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to the Health Ministry.

The Ministry said that 17-year-old teen Mo’men Yassin Jaber succumbed to his critical injuries sustained from Israeli military live gunfire during confrontations in downtown Hebron.

Jaber was hit by an explosive round that pierced and stopped his heart. He was rushed to Al-Ahli Hospital’s intensive care unit, where medics attempted to resuscitate him, but to no avail.

The Ministry pointed that the other casualty, who remained unidentified, sustained live gunfire injury in the femoral artery. He was immediately admitted to the operating room.

Witnesses said that Israeli snipers deployed on rooftops in the area also hit 15-year-old minor by a live round in the foot. The minor was ultimately detained.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops manning the checkpoint at the entrance of the Hebron city neighborhood of Tal Rumedia assaulted Fayzeh Abu Shamsiya for filming them while holding a minor. She was evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Reacting to the large death and injury toll, mainly among children, and the heavy destruction caused by three days of Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip that started on Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory said it deplores the civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects, stressing that accountability is key to preventing recurrence of the aggression.

The Human Rights Office said in a statement it has verified that among the 46 Palestinians killed in the latest escalation in the Gaza Strip, at least 20 were civilians, including 16 children and four women, and that of the 360 Palestinians reported injured, nearly two-thirds are civilians, including 151 children, 58 women and 19 older persons. In a number of incidents, children were the majority of casualties, it said.

“These casualty numbers and significant damage to civilian objects and facilities reported by humanitarian partners raise a grave concern with regard to respect for the international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions. A number of Israeli strikes hit prima facie civilian objects, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks which may incidentally kill or injure civilians, or damage civilian objects, in a disproportionate manner to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” said the Human Rights Office.

It called for “prompt, independent, impartial, thorough and transparent investigations to be conducted into all incidents where civilians were killed or injured,” stressing, “An almost total lack of accountability persists for violations of international humanitarian law by all parties in previous escalations, and for recurring and ongoing Israeli violations of the law of occupation across the occupied Palestinian territory. This is one of the drivers of repeated escalations in hostilities and encourages the recurrence of violations.”

The Human Rights Office added: “Despite easing of the Israeli restrictions on the entry of critical goods, fuel, humanitarian personnel and exit of patients, the new emergency needs resulting from this most recent escalation come on top of the extremely high humanitarian needs of Gaza’s population resulting from the 15 years of blockade and closures, as well as the devastating escalation just over one year ago. The United Nations Human Rights Office calls on Israel to address ongoing drivers of violations, including the blockade which the UN Human Rights Committee has affirmed constitutes collective punishment of the entire civilian population of Gaza.”

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh today condemned the new massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, which left three people dead and the wounding of more than 40 others, warning of its serious consequences.

The Prime Minister said in a statement that while Gaza is recovering from its wounds and burying its dead from the barbaric aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of dozens of people and hundreds of wounded, most of them women and children, soldiers committed today a new massacre using rocket-propelled grenades to bombard civilian homes in the old town of Nablus.

“What our people are subjected to in terms of organized terrorism in Gaza, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, and the occupied city of Jerusalem; which is witnessing an ethnic cleansing process, an attempt to Judaize it, and the desecration of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Ibrahimi Mosque, in addition to the displacement of people, and the seizure of lands in the Jordan Valley and in Masafer Yatta, all of these terrorist practices must stir the global conscience to take measures to stop the bloodshed, which once it stops in one area, it starts in another, leaving more pains and aches, which our people have been suffering from for more than 74 years,” said Shtayyeh.

He called on the United Nations Security Council, which held a special session yesterday to discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, “to break the double standards in dealing with international laws, and to take actual steps, parallel in effect to those taken in Ukraine, to punish the Israeli occupation for its repeated crimes, and to provide protection for our people with actions that go beyond statements of denunciation, which the occupation authority does not believe have any value but rather tempts it to commit more crimes and shed more innocent blood that the leaders of the occupation state use in the race to win the upcoming Israeli elections, and in implementation of the instructions to shoot and kill our people.”

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency