Day: 8 September 2022

RAMALLAH, Israeli forces Thursday overnight detained nine Palestinians mostly from the northern occupied West Bank, according to local and security sources.

They said that Israeli forces rounded up six Palestinians, all members of the Gawadra family, including two men along with their wives, from the northern West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

During the ensuing confrontations, the gun-toting soldiers opened fire towards local young men attempting to stop them. No injuries were reported though.

Still in the northern West Bank, a sizable military force, comprising over 50 military vehicles, barged its way into in the eastern neighborhood of Nablus city.

Snipers were deployed on the roofs of civilian buildings in the vicinity of Balata refugee camp and Jospeh’s Tomb as drones dropped tear-gas canisters and stun grenades at protestors there.

Palestinian Red Crescent medics confirmed that they treated four young men who were hit by rubber-coated steel bullets and another who sustained a burn injury in the hand.

They added that 12 others were treated at the scene for tear gas suffocation.

In Jerusalem district, the sources confirmed a raid in Qalandiya refugee camp, north of the city, resulting in the detention of another.

The soldiers showed up at a house in Biddu town, northwest of the city, muscled inside, conducted a thorough search and eventually detained another.

In the southern West Bank, a convoy of army vehicles stormed Surif town, northwest of the city, where the soldiers detained another and ransacked his family houses, turning it upside down.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

HEBRON, Israeli settlers today set up tents on a tract of land in Birin village, southeast of Hebron city, according to a local municipal source.

Head of Birin Village Council, Farid Burqan, said that scores of settlers, under military protection, took over a tract of land belonging to the Burqan family in the southern West Bank village, erected several tents on it and hoisted Israeli flags and banners with anti-Palestinian hate slogans as a prelude to set up a new colonial settlement outpost.

The settlers came from the colonial settlements of Suseya, Kiryat Arba and Bani Haiver.

Burqan added that the soldiers took photos for several Palestinian-owned houses and agricultural structures in the area, while pointing that the settlers have been attempting to seize some 440 donums belonging to the villagers under the flimsy pretext of being classified as “state land”.

According to the Land Research Center, Israel has frequently issued military stop-construction and demolition orders against various residential and agricultural structures and dismantled barns in the locality, citing the lack of rarely-issued construction permits as a pretext.

In December 2017, Israel delivered stop-construction orders to the locality’s sole clinic and building intended to serve as a primary school for the community’s 60 children

In June 2019, as showed in a PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department’s report, Israel seized 4,800 dunams of land from several localities, including Birin, for the expansion of Bani Haiver.

Located to the southwest of Bani Na‘im, Birin has a population of 160 and is flanked by Bani Haiver colonial settlement from the east and the settler-only bypass Road No. 60 from the west. Its residents were originally expelled from Naqab in southern Israel and now depend on agriculture and livestock as their main source of livelihood.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel’s nation-state law that passed last July stated that building and strengthening the settlements is a “national interest.”

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

GAZA, The Israeli army today infiltrated Gaza’s eastern border, east of Juhor Ad Dik town, and destroyed agricultural land, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that a convoy of over eight army tanks and bulldozers, backed by drones, advanced several dozens of meters into the town in the southern besieged strip, and razed a large tract of cultivated land in the area.

Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.

Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.

Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.

Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

RAMALLAH, The Israeli occupation authorities today banned a formerly-detained Palestinian novelist from traveling to Jordan.

Esmat Mansour, 45, said that Israeli forces manning the Al-Karama border crossing, the only border crossing available to West Bank Palestinians, prevented him from traveling to Jordan.

Masnour, who spent 20 years in Israeli jails, was on his way to the Jordanian capital, Amman, at an invitation to attend Amman International Book Fair 2022 and sign his new novel titled Al-Khazneh.

Al-Khazneh, the Arabic word for a vault, treasury, or safe, speaks of escape attempts from Israeli jails, aside from the one that took place at the Gilboa prison in September 2021.

Masnour used the term “Al-Khazneh”, because in Israel, they consider Gilboa prison a safe, yet six prisoners were able to break out even though it was a fortified safe.

The Palestinian Writers’ Union condemned the decision to ban Masnour from travelling as intended to muzzle the freedom of expression and a form of terrorism designed to disseminate the Israeli false narrative.

During his imprisonment, Mansour, a resident of Deir al-Jir village, east of Ramallah in the West Bank, authored three novels about the situation of Palestinian prisoners, prison literature, and Palestinian prisoners’ message to the world.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

JENIN, Muna Qa’dan, a Palestinian woman and ex-prisoner who was released yesterday after serving 16 months in Israeli jails, said today that the female Palestinian prisoners are facing mounting suffering behind Israeli prison bars.

Speaking to WAFA, Qa’dan said the 31 Palestinian female prisoners incarcerated in the Israeli prison of Damon are subjected to numerous violations by the Israeli prison authorities, including harsh interrogation, solitary confinement, night-time raids on their rooms, beatings, verbal violence, the presence of surveillance cameras that breach their privacy and the lack of bathrooms inside the prison.

She said that the female prisoners are often prevented from gathering for the purpose of study, learning, worship or recreation.

Qa’dan pointed out to an escalation in Israeli repression campaigns against the female prisoners following the September 2021 surprising escape of six Palestinian prisoners from the high-security Israeli prison of Gilboa.

‘Despite the harsh imprisonment conditions, ill-treatment, injustice, oppression and aggression by the prison authorities, the female Palestinian prisoners have not lost their determination, and have built inside the prison an outstanding organizational, cultural and intellectual institution that saw 7 female prisoners obtain university degrees,’ she said.

Qa’dan, who has spent more than 8 years in Israeli prisons said, “I bring a message from the female prisoners to all the free men of the world to stand by them until their liberation, and a special message directed to all the segments of our people to stand by them by all means.”

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

RAMALLAH, President Mahmoud Abbas offered today his condolences to King Charles III of the United Kingdom on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

In a cable of condolence to King Charles III, the President said: “We have received with great sorrow the news about the passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Her life was dedicated to the service of her country and people. For decades, she meticulously carried out her royal duties, leaving behind a rich legacy that will be engraved in the hearts and minds of coming generations.”

The President added: “As we share with Your Majesty the profound sadness over Her Majesty’s passing, we offer Your Majesty, the Royal Family, the British government and the friendly British people, our most heartfelt condolences.”

President Abbas also prayed for “Her Majesty be granted eternal peace and serenity. And in this hour of national grief, we pray to God that Your Majesty and the people of the United Kingdom will find solace in dignified mourning. “

The President also cabled the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Terrace, condoling her, the government and the friendly British people on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

LONDON, Palestine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Husam Zomlot has mourned Queen Elizabeth II who died today at age 96, saying her death leaves behind a formidable legacy.

‘It is with great sadness that we absorb the news of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s passing,’ said Zomlot in a tweet.

He added, ‘Her Majesty leaves behind a formidable legacy. She was an anchor in stormy seas and a model of decorum and order in a turbulent world. Our deepest condolences to the Royal Family, UK government and the British people. May she rest in eternal peace.’

Zomlot offered the deepest condolences on behalf of the people and leadership of the State of Palestine to the British Royal Family, government, and the people of the United Kingdom on the death of their longest-serving Queen.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency