Day: 8 September 2022

RAMALLAH, Weather today in Palestine is relatively hot to hot with a rise in temperature, which becomes 2°C above seasonal average, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

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

Another rise in temperature is expected on Friday through Sunday to become 3°C above the seasonal average.

The PMD warned people against direct exposure to the sun for long period, particularly during peak hours from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, and setting fire to dry grassy areas.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

HEBRON, Israeli forces today obstructed the work of three journalists and an activist in the Old City of Hebron, according to the activist.

Aref Jaber, a local anti-colonial-settlement activist, said that the heavily-armed soldiers held him along with three journalists working for Al-Awda TV channel while carrying out field work in Jaber neighborhood, east of the Ibrahimi Mosque.

He added that the soldiers withheld their identity cards and interrogated them.

The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

RAMALLAH, A Palestinian youth was Thursday morning shot dead by Israeli forces near the village of Beitin, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, The Ministry of Health confirmed.

The Ministry said that the Israeli force shot dead Haitham Mubakar, 17, early Thursday, at the entrance of the said village, near the military checkpoint of Beit El.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

JERUSALEM, Israeli occupation authorities forced today a Palestinian citizen of occupied Jerusalem to self-demolish his own house in the neighborhood of Silwan, citing unpermitted construction as a pretext.

Local sources told WAFA that Isam Sharaf, a Palestinian from Silwan, was forced to demolish his privately-owned house to avoid paying exorbitant fees if the Israeli municipality crews carried out the demolition on their own.

Using the pretext of building without a permit, which is rarely granted to Palestinians in the occupied city, the Israeli municipality frequently demolishes or forces Palestinians to demolish their own homes as part of a policy aimed to restrict Palestinian expansion in occupied Jerusalem.

At the same time, the municipality and government build tens of thousands of housing units in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem for Israeli settlers with the goal to offset the demographic balance in favor of the settler population of the occupied city.

Although Palestinians in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian Territory that has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967, they are denied their citizenship rights and are instead classified only as “residents” whose permits can be revoked if they move away from the city for more than a few years.

They are also discriminated against in all aspects of life including housing, employment and services, and are unable to access services in the West Bank due to the construction of Israel’s separation wall.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

RAMALLAH, Six Palestinian civilians sustained injuries today, one of them by gunfire, in an attack by Israeli settlers on the village of Sinjil, to the north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.

Witnesses told WAFA that a group of around 20 Israeli settlers, masked and armed with rifles and backed by army, opened gunfire at Palestinian farmers and physically assaulted many of them while they were planting olive saplings in their own lands near the village.

The attack resulted in the injury of a Palestinian farmer by a bullet in his hand, while five others sustained fractures and bruises as a result of beating by the settlers. All the Palestinians wounded were moved to hospital for medical treatment, said local sources.

The attacking settlers also vandalized facilities in the outskirts of the village and smashed the windshields of five parked cars, the sources added.

Israeli occupation soldiers who were accompanying the settlers in their attack fired live shots, teargas canisters and stun grenades at local Palestinian villagers who tried to fend off the attack.

Meantime, Israeli settlers attacked four Palestinian civilians and sprayed them with pepper gas at Nablus-Tulkarm road, north of the West Bank, as well as attacked homes and vehicles in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, causing damage to some of them, according to witnesses.

Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and their property is commonplace across the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli occupation authorities.

There are over 600,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law and consensus.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency