Month: October 2022

The Palestinian News and Information Agency, WAFA, documented 26 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists and media in the occupied territories during September.

It said in its monthly report on Israeli violations against journalists and media outlets published today that the Israeli occupation forces continued to deliberately target Palestinian journalists with an aim to limit their coverage of the Israeli army practices and violations against the defenseless Palestinian citizens.

The report said 11 journalists were hurt in September from rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas canisters fired by soldiers, as well as severe beatings and other attacks.

In addition, 13 cases were recorded in which soldiers detained, seized press cards or opened fire at journalists without causing injury, while two cases were documented in which soldiers damaged press equipment and attacked media outlets.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

Israeli occupation forces today blocked access of activists to al-Tuwani village in Masafer Yatta in the south of the West Bank as soldiers raid the village, shooting tear gas at homes causing suffocation cases, according to the head of the village council Mohammad Rabie.

He told WAFA that Israeli occupation soldiers fired tear gas indiscriminately in the village, causing many cases of suffocation from gas inhalation.

Rabie said the Israeli army shut down the main entrance to the village in the morning to prevent international activists from accessing the village to express solidarity with its residents who are facing Israeli eviction threats in favor of the colonial Israeli settlement enterprise.

Meanwhile, the soldiers today attacked another protest activity in Khalat al-Dabaa village, also in Masafer Yatta, firing tear gas at the participants and arresting one person, according to Rateb al-Jabour, a local activist.

He said activists wanted to express solidarity with the village, also threatened with demolition and its residents with expulsion, when the soldiers attacked them with tear gas and stun grenades.

Israel is trying to empty Masafer Yatta of its Palestinian residents under the pretext of the area designated as a firing zone, while Palestinians believe the aim is to replace them with settlers.

On May 4, the Israeli High Court gave the Israeli army the green light to demolish and displace over 1000 Palestinians living in some eight communities in Masafer Yatta in order to turn the area into a training and a firing zone.

The decision promoted strong local and international condemnation and warning of serious consequences if carried out.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

The Palestinian Detainees Affairs Commission said today that 283 Palestinian freedom fighters, nicknamed “deans of the prisoners”, have been in Israeli jails for more than 20 years.

It said in a report that the “deans” include 38 freedom fighters who are in prison for at least 25 years, and are nicknamed “the generals of endurance”, and they include 25 freedom fighters who have been in prison since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and who were supposed to have been released in a US-brokered deal by 2014 if Israel had not reneged on the deal.

The Commission said 17 of the “generals” have been in prison for more than 30 years and are nicknamed “icons of the prisoners”, the longest serving among them are Karim Younis and Maher Younis who have been in prison for almost 40 years.

Among the 283 freedom fighters who have been in prison for more than 20 years, dozens were actually released in a prisoners’ exchange deal signed in October 2011, and then re-arrested in 2014 and their former sentences were reinstated, the most prominent among them is Nael Barghouti whose cumulative period in prison adds up to 42 years.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

Armed Israeli settler fanatics performed today a provocative march through the old city of Hebron, south of the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.

WAFA correspondent said a group of Israeli settlers, armed with rifles and guarded by army, walked through the alleys of Hebron’s old city while shouting racist slogans targeted at local Palestinian residents.

The city of Hebron is home to roughly 200,000 Palestinians and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in colonial compounds in the heart of the city, heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

In February 2019, Israel expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from the 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by the Israeli occupation authorities.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has strongly condemned the Israeli cold-blooded murder earlier today of Palestinian youth Fayez Khaled Damdum, 18, in the town of al-Eizariya, reiterating the call for international protection of the Palestinian people.

Fayez Khaled Damdum, 18, was reportedly killed by Israeli occupation forces who shot him in the neck while he was driving a motorbike in the town.

In a press statement, the Foreign Ministry said the killing of Damdum is ‘a continuation of the systematic and widespread policies of the occupation represented in field executions, willful and extrajudicial killings of our people, with the aim of inflaming the situation.’

The Ministry held the Israeli government fully and directly responsible for ‘this heinous crime and other crimes of the Israeli occupation’, stressing that it will work with all international organizations, including the United Nations, to document these crimes to hold the occupation accountable for all its crimes.

The Ministry urged the UN Secretary-General to activate the international protection system for our defenseless people.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency