Day: 19 August 2022

هاجم مستوطنون، بحماية قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي، مساء اليوم الجمعة، فلسطينيين في منطقة “السهل”، الواقعة بين قريتي “المغير” و”ترمسعيا” شرقي رام الله، وسط الضفة الغربية المحتلة.

وقالت مصادر محلية إن مجموعة من المستوطنين أشعلوا النيران في أراضٍ زراعية بمنطقة “السهل”، وعندما توجه أهالي المنطقة لإخمادها وطرد المستوطنين، نشبت مواجهات في المكان.

وأفاد شهود عيان بأن المستوطنين قطعوا خمس أشجار زيتون، وحطموا أجزاء من مركبة تعود لفلسطيني، وأغلقوا الطريق الواصل إلى المنطقة بالحجارة.

وتشير تقديرات متطابقة إلى وجود أكثر من 650 ألف مستوطن في مستوطنات الضفة الغربية، بما فيها القدس المحتلة، يتوزعون على 164 مستوطنة، و124 بؤرة استيطانية.

SOUREC: QUDS PRESS INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCY

ary orders posted on the office doors of three of the organizations.

“In all cases, the order to close the offices was based on the 1945 Defence (Emergency) Regulations, which were issued by the British to quash resistance to their rule, and never repealed. Since 1967, the Israeli military authorities have used these regulations extensively to demolish hundreds of Palestinian homes, deport residents and hold tens of thousands of Palestinians from the OPT in administrative detention. Israeli authorities had also used the regulations against Palestinian citizens of Israel until 1966, but not against Jewish citizens.”

“These practices, which amount to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and violate numerous articles of human rights conventions to which Israel is a party, form part of the system of apartheid that oppresses the Palestinians,” the statement read.

“Amnesty International calls on all states to recognize that Israel is committing internationally recognized crimes, including the crime of apartheid, against Palestinians in Israel and the OPT. Governments must ensure that human rights considerations are integrated into all agreements with the Israeli authorities, and exercise due diligence to refrain from contributing to the system of apartheid,” said Amna Guellali.

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency

Israeli forces today and Thursday evening detained nine Palestinians and wounded two others in the West Bank districts of Tubas, Jenin and Jerusalem, according to local and medical sources.

Director of the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS) Office in Tubas, Kamal Bani-Odeh, said that Israeli forces rounded up five Palestinians, including a university student, from the northern West Bank city.

Palestinian Red Crescent medics confirmed that they treated a 60-year-old man who was shot by Israeli soldiers in the head as he was exiting a local mosque after performing the Fajr prayer. The man was rushed to a hospital and his condition was described as serious.

They added that the soldiers also shot a young man by a live round in the thigh in the course of the ensuing confrontations.

In Jenin district, the gun-toting soldiers manning the Za’tara checkpoint, south of Nablus, stopped and detained two young men from Qabatiya town, south of Jenin.

Meanwhile, soldiers manning the permanently-staffed al-Jib checkpoint, northwest of Jerusalem, stopped and detained a man from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

Police also detained a minor from al-Sadiya neighborhood in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Israeli forces frequently raid Palestinian houses almost on a daily basis across the West Bank on the pretext of searching for “wanted” Palestinians, triggering clashes with residents.

These raids, which take place also in areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, are conducted with no need for a search warrant, whenever and wherever the military chooses in keeping with its sweeping arbitrary powers.

Under Israeli military law army commanders have full executive, legislative and judicial authority over 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised.

According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 4,450 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 175 children and 27 female prisoners.

This number includes 670 Palestinians placed under “administrative detention”, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

Mass arrest of Palestinians is nothing new. According to a 2017 report by Addameer, over the past 50 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel, this figure is now believed to be closer to 1 million. This means that about 40% of Palestinian men and boys living under military occupation have been deprived of their freedom. Almost every Palestinian family has suffered the imprisonment of a loved one.

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency

A Palestinian today succumbed to his gunshot wounds inflicted by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Tubas, according to the Health Ministry.

The Ministry confirmed in a press statement that Salah Tawfiq Sawafta, 58, suffered a critical injury in the head and later succumbed to his wounds at a hospital.

Sawafta was shot by Israeli soldiers in the head as he was walking out a local mosque after performing the Fajr prayer during a raid in Tubas city.

A young man, who remained unidentified, was hit by a live round in the thigh in the course of the ensuing confrontations.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned Sawafta’s killing, saying that the Israeli occupation authorities would persist with practicing terrorism as long as the world does not stop applying selectivity and double standards in dealing with international law and provides the cover for Israel to continue to act with impunity.

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency

A US lawmaker and a host of US organizations Thursday condemned the closure by Israeli forces of the premises of seven Palestinian civil society organizations in the West Bank.

Representative Betty McCollum urged the US administration to condemn Israeli efforts to silence Palestinian CSOs.

“Once again the IDF has launched a chilling attack on Defense for Children International-Palestine, a human rights organization supporting Palestinian children. The Biden admin. must condemn these efforts to silence groups advocating for Palestinian human rights & civil society,” she tweeted.

Adalah Justice Project expressed solidarity with Palestinian CSOs who are attacked for their role in fighting Israeli settler-colonialism.

“Israel is threatened by any means of resistance from Palestinians who are fighting for liberation from settler colonial violence. We stand with our partners in Palestine who are being targeted for boldly taking on the Zionist colonizers and holding them accountable for the 74 years of colonial violence done to our people,” it said.

Meanwhile, the US Campaign for Human Rights slammed the Israeli attack on the CSOs and St. Andrew’s Anglican/Episcopal Church in Ramallah as “an assault on human rights work.”

“This is part of Israel’s all-out assault against any Palestinian person or organization that dares to speak up against its colonial regime,” it said.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) pointed to the key role of the seven Palestinian CSOs in exposing Israeli crimes and defending the rights of the Palestinian people, particularly children, women, farmers and prisoners, against Israeli violence and oppression.

“The Israeli army broke into, ransacked, and shut down offices of 6 Palestinian human rights organizations early this morning. “The most moral army in the world” is so threatened by Palestinian human rights work that it attacked organizations under the cover of darkness, stealing their documentation of Israeli war crimes and welding shut their doors with iron,” it said.

“By shutting these organizations down, the Israeli government is trying to avoid accountability for its human rights violations and make it harder for Palestinians to document and resist Israeli apartheid and occupation.”

“The solidarity work we do to support Palestinians’ struggle for freedom relies on and builds off the work of these organizations. We are outraged and #StandWithThe6,” it added.

In addition, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, called on President Joe Biden to speak out against raids by Israeli forces on the offices of several Palestinian rights groups.

It said in a press statement that officials with those groups say Israel’s actions are part of a decades-long crackdown on Palestinian political activism and on organizations that document human rights violations by Israel.

“We ask that President Biden speak out against this new attempt to stifle Palestinian political activism and to block documentation of Israel’s ongoing apartheid practices and human rights abuses. The idea of promoting human rights ‘everywhere, except Palestine’ must come to an end,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said.

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency

The Government of the Republic of Korea has contributed US$1 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to enhance livelihood opportunities for Palestinian refugee youth in Jordan, the UN agency said in a press release.

It said that the US$ 1 million contribution comes as part of an overall contribution recently announced by the Government of South Korea whereby Jordan Field Office will utilize the funds to strengthen delivery of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) to Palestine refugee youth at two UNRWA vocational and technical centres in Jordan.

To honour this vital contribution to the Agency’s vocational training programme, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Jordan Marta Lorenzo welcomed a delegation headed by Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Jordan, Lee Jae-wan, at the UNRWA Wadi Seer Training Centre in Amman, for a signing ceremony covering the particular components related to the project proposal to enhance TVET programme in Jordan.

The US$ 1 million contribution will be used to update vocational training course curricula offered to UNRWA students to meet the changing competence needs and qualification requirements of the labour market and industry, thus providing students with the needed skills after graduation. According to the World Bank, in Q1 of 2022, the unemployment rate among young people in Jordan, reached 47.7 per cent. Palestine refugee youth are increasingly in need of new, innovative professional skills which maximize their possibilities of finding employment in a professional world that is constantly evolving and that is becoming increasingly competitive.

Thanks to South Korea’s most recent contribution, the Agency’s two TVET centres in Jordan will be supported through the provision of modern training curricula, special training laboratories, training courses for trainers, modern examination equipment, modern Korean equipment, and new spare parts.

Under the terms of this contribution, various learning facilities will be rehabilitated, with the replacement of obsolete furniture and outdated equipment. Furthermore, the capacities of instructors will be enhanced so that they could provide career guidance to TVET students. These outputs represent the major objective of this contribution which will ensure safety and security of students and educational staff.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Marta Lorenzo said: “During my meetings with Palestine refugee youth in camps and at our facilities, they have always expressed that finding jobs is their main priority, hence this contribution from the Government of South Korea signals our commitment in working with our partners to develop the skills and capacities of Palestine refugee youth to enable them access to jobs in the local and regional labour markets in line with both Jordan and UNRWA TVET strategies. UNRWA Jordan Field Office is grateful to South Korea for its support to Palestine refugee youth and hopes for more collaboration in the future.”

Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Jordan, Lee Jae-wan, said: “Sharing concerns over the ever deteriorating situations of the Palestine refugees, I am pleased to participate in this vocational project. The Republic of Korea truthfully hopes that its US $1 million donation can contribute to strengthening the capacity of young Palestine refugees in Jordan to live a dignified life, engaging more effectively in the labor market and industry.”

The Republic of Korea is one of the important UNRWA donors from East Asia. It is thanks to the enduring support of donors like the Government of the Republic of Korea that the Agency is able to provide vital services to Palestine refugees across the Middle East in the face of its continuing challenges.

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency

Israeli forces today cracked down on anti-land-pillage protests in Beita and Beit Dajan towns, south and east of Nablus city, according to medical sources.

Israeli forces used fatal violence to disperse a rally in protest of the construction of the new colonial settlement of Givat Eviatar atop Jabal Sabih (Sabih Mountain), near Beita in addition to another rally to defend Palestinian-owned land threatened with confiscation, east of Beit Dajan.

Palestine Red Crescent (PRC) medics said that one protestor was hit by live ammunition in the foot and five others suffocated from tear gas in Beita. All casualties were treated at the scene.

They added that another protestor sustained wounds from a rubber-coated steel bullet, another sustained burns after being directly hit by a gas canister in addition to 37 others who suffocated from tear gas in Beit Dajan.

Meanwhile, gun-toting soldiers quelled a similar weekly rally in Kafr Qaddum town, east of Qalqiliya city.

Local sources said that six people, including a journalist, sustained rubber-coated steel bullet injuries and other suffocated from tear gas.

Palestinians across Historic Palestine have been rising up against decades of Israeli settler- colonialism and apartheid. The villagers of Beita have not only been protesting decades of Israeli oppression, but also intensified Israeli land pillage of their land.

In almost a month, some eight Palestinians from the town were killed and over 620 others were injured while trying to oust the colonial settler outpost built atop Mount Sabih or Sbeih.

In addition to Mount Sabih, Israeli forces have erected another colonial settlement outpost atop Mount Al-Arma, north of Beita, a few months ago, as both mounts enjoy a strategic location as they overlook the Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land running west along the Jordan River which makes up approximately 30% of the West Bank.

Seizing the two hilltops represents a panoptical defensive tool as they would grant the Israeli occupation with a panoramic view over the Jordan Valley and the whole district of Nablus. This is why the Israeli occupation authorities have assigned them a place in its settlement expansion project.

The construction of the two colonial outposts atop Mount Sabih, south of Beita, and Mount Al-Arma, north of the town, besides to a bypass road to the west is an Israeli measure to push Palestinian villages and towns into crowded enclaves, ghettos, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations, and disrupt their geographic contiguity with other parts of the West Bank.

The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993.

Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018, enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the colonial settlements is a “national interest.”

Source: Palestine News& Information Agency