Day: 21 November 2022

ASTI, ITALY– In a mass yesterday in the northwestern Italian City of Asti, Pope Francis recited prays for the 21 Palestinian victims of the fire in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as for an end to war.

Describing the time we live in as “a famine of peace”, Pope Francis urged people to think of the many places in the world engulfed by war.

He also turned his thoughts to the tragic fire last week in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, which killed at least 21 people, 10 of them children.

“We pray for the families of the victims,” he said. “May the Lord receive into heaven those who lost their lives and comfort that population so tired by years of conflict,” adding, “Let’s give ourselves something to do and continue to pray for peace!”

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

BETHLEHEM– Israeli forces Monday evening targeted a soccer playground in al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem, according to local sources.

Director of al-Khader Playground, Yousef Sayel, said that the heavily-armed soldiers barged their way into the outward yard of the playground in the old town as a soccer tournament was underway, firing volleys of tear gas canisters towards the stadium and the pitch, causing a number of players and audience to suffocate.

Since the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, like so many other villages in Palestine, al-Khader has been subjected to almost continual land theft for Israeli colonial settlements, bypass roads, and military installations.

Israel has constructed Efrat and Neve Daniyyel colonial settlements on an area of 6,329 dunums of Palestinian land, including a portion confiscated from al-Khader. It has also constructed a section of the apartheid wall, isolating some 5,620 dunums of the town’s land for colonial settlement activities and pushing the villagers into a crowded enclave, a ghetto, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations.

It has confiscated more land for the construction of a tunnel and a crossing, controlling Palestinian movement from Bethlehem city and the western countryside villages.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

JENIN– Five Palestinians were injured during an early morning Israeli army assault on the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Ministry of Health and sources.

The Ministry of Health said one Palestinian was brought to hospital in Jenin with bullet wounds to the chest and reported in critical condition. He was admitted to intensive care.

At the same time, four others were admitted to hospitals in Jenin, one in moderate condition after he was shot in the chest, and three others with bullet wounds to the shoulder and leg and reported to be light.

A large Israeli army unit raided a neighborhood of Jenin and surrounded houses of activists who were later taken into custody.

Armed men clashed with the soldiers during the raid, said the sources, before the army pulled out of the city.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

RAMALLAH– The opening of the World Cup in Qatar as well as Israeli repression in the occupied West Bank and Palestinian reaction to remarks by Israel’s Prime Minister-Designate Benjamin Netanyahu were highlighted on the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today.

Al-Quds and al-Ayyam dailies reported on their front page on the opening of the World Cup and the celebration for the launch of the games, while the third daily, al-Hayat al-Jadida, said President Mahmoud Abbas attended the opening event and congratulated the Emir of Qatar on its success.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh saying in reaction to remarks by Netanyahu who claimed that the Palestinians do not want a state next to Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace based on United Nations resolutions and not on the basis of the so-called deal of the century.

It also said in another story that the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem forced a Palestinian resident of occupied East Jerusalem to demolish part of his own house claiming it was built without a permit.

Al-Ayyam said one person was injured by Israeli army gunfire near Bethlehem and soldiers suppressed an anti-settlement activity in the town Bruqin, near Salfit.

It said a child was injured from attacks by Israeli settlers in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and printed a picture of the injured child with his head bandaged.

Al-Quds said Israel completed the registration of large areas of Palestinian-owned land in Sheikh Jarrah and Beit Safafa, two East Jerusalem neighborhoods, in the names of settlers and said also that 30 Palestinian families are facing the threat of eviction from their homes in al-Sawahra neighborhood, east of Jerusalem, under the pretext of the land the homes are built on is absentee property.

Reporting on the findings of the investigation into the fire that caused the death of 22 people in Jabalia, Gaza Strip, al-Quds daily said the findings showed that no outside party was responsible for the fire.

Al-Ayyam said on this topic that the use of gasoline and fireworks in the house by a member of the Abu Rayya family that perished in the fire was the cause of the fire.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

HEBRON– Dozens of Palestinians today suffocated during confrontations with Israeli forces in the center of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, reported WAFA correspondent.

He said that the Israeli forces stationed at al-Shuhada Street fired live and rubber-coated steel bullets, and sound and tear gas grenades at Palestinians causing dozens to suffocate from inhaling tear gas.

The soldiers also forced shop owners in the area to shut down.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

DOHA- President Mahmoud Abbas met during his stay in Qatar to attend the open ceremony of the World Cup with a number of world leaders and officials.

President Abbas met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Algerian President Abdel Majid Tebboune, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Lebanese government caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

The Emir of Qatar held a reception for the world leaders and heads of delegations attending the opening of the World Cup.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

RAMALLAH- The Republic of Azerbaijan has decided to open a representative office in the State of Palestine, today said the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.

It said that the Azerbaijani parliament approved a decision to open a representative office in Palestine in a step that reflects the solidarity of the Republic of Azerbaijan with Palestine and the rights of the Palestinian people.

Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki welcomed the decision, considering it a new victory for Palestinian diplomacy on the road to establishing the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and for strengthening bilateral relations between the two friendly countries.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

RAMALLAH– Israeli occupation forces today detained three Palestinian children aged 13 and 14 years at their homes in the town of Nilin, west of Ramallah, according to local sources.

They said the soldiers raided the family homes of the children, searched them, and detained the three children.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the West Bank, soldiers detained four youths in the town of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, also after raiding and searching their family homes.

Two other Palestinians were detained at their homes in Tulkarm city, in the north of the West Bank, and another in the town of Beit Awwa, in the south of the West Bank.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

HEBRON– Israeli settlers today attacked Palestinian homes east of Tarqoumia in the south of the West Bank, according to a local activist.

Suleiman Jaafra, an activist with the Wall and Settlement Resistance Committees, said settlers from the illegal settlement of Adora threw stones at the homes of Palestinians east of Tarqoumia causing panic among the residents.

The Israeli occupation forces last week demolished two tin structures in the same area, while the settlers carry out almost daily attacks against residents, their properties, and trees, which are only a few meters away from the settlement of Adora, in an effort to push them out of their lands.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

RAMALLAH- Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh today called on the international community to reject Israeli settlements, killing, and destruction in the occupied territories, stressing that Israel should pay the price for its systematic aggression against the Palestinian people.

“If the negotiations to form the government in Israel are based on who builds more settlements, who wants to make it easier to shoot more at us, and who wants to confiscate more of our land, then it is preparing to declare war against us led by the extremist colonialists,” said the Prime Minister speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah. “In light of this scene that includes parties that want to ignite the fuse of killing and destruction, the world is now required to say out loud that it rejects this policy, and that it is ready to make Israel pay the price for this systematic policy of aggression against our people.”

Shtayyeh considered the Israeli settlers rampaging in Tel Rumeida, Bab al-Zawiya, and Shuhada Street in the occupied southern West Bank city of Hebron over the weekend as an example of the escalation in which the army and the settlers come together as one team in attacking the Palestinian civilians.

He also said that as the world marks International Children’s Day, Israel has killed more than 40 Palestinian children since the start of this year and detained more than 750 others, 160 of them are still incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

He said that Israel has also demolished or threatened to demolish schools, such as in Ein Samia near Ramallah, and another in Masafer Yatta, in addition to the daily violations experienced by schools in Jerusalem and the old city of Hebron, and in other West Bank villages and towns.

The Prime Minister called on international human rights organizations to do their work in protecting the rights of Palestinian children, exposing the policies of the Israeli occupation, and holding it accountable for its crimes against them.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

NABLUS– The Israeli occupation forces demolished early this morning Palestinian-owned house and agricultural structures in the town of Duma, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to a local official.

Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, said the occupation forces raided the southeastern parts of the town and demolished a two-story inhabited house owned by a local resident, as well as agricultural structures owned by two other residents.

Israeli occupation forces also demolished a Palestinian-owned agricultural structure in the village of Nabi Ilias, east of the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya, according to local sources, who said the soldiers broke into the village and demolished the structure under the pretext it was built without a permit.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY

RAMALLAH– Israel is keeping a cancer-stricken Palestinian man in administrative detention despite his urgent need for medical attention, today said the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

It said Abdul Baset Mutan, 48, from the town of Burqa, east of Ramallah, has colon cancer and his health is constantly deteriorating.

Mutan was slammed with six months in administrative detention in July, only three months after his release from a previous six-month administrative detention sentence.

Following an appeal for his release to allow him to get treatment for cancer, a military court reduced his sentence to four months. However, the six-month order was reinstated following an appeal by the military prosecutor.

The PPS accused Israel of slow murder of Palestinian prisoners, mainly the ill, through its medical negligence policy, urging the immediate release of Mutan, who is married with four children and who spent a total of nine years behind Israeli bars for his resistance of the occupation, most of it in administrative detention, to allow him to pursue proper and badly needed treatment at hospitals.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY