Day: 23 May 2023

The Zionist enemy forces blew up, at dawn today, Tuesday, the house of the martyr Moataz Al-Khawaja in Ni’lin town Ramallah, after a siege that lasted for more than four hours, amidst clashes with young men.

“Palestine Today” news agency reported that large forces of the enemy army surrounded at dawn today the house of the martyr Moataz Al-Khawaja, in preparation for its demolition in the town of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

The agency quoted local and security sources as saying: After the Zionist enemy forces stormed the town of Ni’lin, they went to the house of the martyr Moataz al-Khawaja, who carried out the “Dizengoff” operation. in preparation for its demolition.

The enemy forces fired tear gas bombs massively towards the houses of the people in the eastern neighborhood in the town of Ni’lin, Ramallah.

Violent confrontations also broke out between a group of young men and the enemy forces in the town of Ni’lin, during the continuous storming of the town by the occupation forces.

The martyr Moataz Al-Khawaja (23 years old) carried out a shooting attack in Dizengoff Street in the occupied city of “Tel Aviv” on the ninth of last March, which resulted in the death of a settler and the wounding of two others, before he rose as a martyr.

Source: Yemen News Agency

Violent armed clashes erupted between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Zionist enemy forces, after the enemy forces stormed, at dawn today, Tuesday, the town of Qabatiya in Jenin city in the occupied West Bank.

The news agency “Palestine Today” news quoted local sources as saying: After the enemy forces stormed the town, violent armed clashes erupted between resistance fighters and those forces throughout the town.

During the clashes, the resistance fighters fired a heavy barrage of bullets at the storming Zionist enemy forces, and they also threw a number of homemade explosive devices at the military jeeps of the occupation army.

In turn, the Jenin Brigade – Coptic groups announced, “It confronted the occupation forces that stormed the town and showered it with a heavy barrage of bullets and explosive devices.”

Source: Yemen News Agency

The Zionist enemy forces launched a massive campaign of arrests and raids, at dawn today, Tuesday, in various areas and towns of the occupied West Bank, targeting a number of Palestinians.

According to the “Palestine Today” news agency, the enemy forces arrested Muhammad Tabanga, who has been chasing him for years, while he was in his sister’s house in the popular housing area, east of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank.

The forces raided the apartment of prisoner Naim Idris, who was arrested a few days ago at the Hawara checkpoint, and searched it thoroughly.

Other forces stormed no less than 15 houses in the town of Salem, subjected their residents to a field investigation, and searched the houses, wreaking havoc on them.

The enemy forces also arrested a young man and assaulted his family after storming their house in the town of Birzeit, Ramallah, while another young man was arrested after storming his house in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem.

The released prisoner, Muhammad Youssef Al-Muzayen, was arrested after storming his home in Al-Arroub camp, north of Hebron, in the southern West Bank.

The Zionist enemy forces continue to launch campaigns of raids, arrests in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and arrest large numbers of citizens with the aim of tightening the screws on them, to displace them from their lands and control them.

Source: Yemen News Agency

The Israeli occupation authorities today delivered a demolition order against a house in Tura village, southwest of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, according to a municipal source.

The village mayor Tareq Qabaha said that the occupation forces handed a villager an order, notifying him of the impending demolition of his 120-square-meter under-construction house purportedly for being built without a rarely-issued Israeli license.

The order allowed Qabaha 96 hours to leave the house before the demolition is carried out.

On Monday, the occupation authorities notified another villager of the imminent demolition of his 140-square-meter two-storey house, citing the same pretext.

Israel refuses to permit virtually any Palestinian construction in Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.

In contrast, it much more easily gives over 800,000 Jewish supremacist Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

The ‘Civil Administration’ is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.

Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

The EU is providing 350,000 Euros to support the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in conducting the Palestinian Expenditure and Consumption Survey (PECS). This survey is a crucial tool that provides key socio-economic and poverty statistics regarding the Palestinian population.

President of PCBS, Ola Awad, and the EU Head of Cooperation, Ibrahim Laafia, signed the new grant agreement that will support a number of selected activities in the Palestinian Expenditure and Consumption Survey (PECS). The last version of this biennial survey was done in 2017. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the severe fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority, the PCBS was unable to conduct a new survey since then.

This year, the Palestinian Authority and international donors joined efforts to allocate the pound 1.1 million budget required for conducting this survey. The Palestinian government will cover around 40% while the international donors including the EU, UNICEF, World Food Programme, and the World Bank will cover the rest. The EU grant will cover costs related to the field survey, data analysis and dissemination of findings.

During the signing ceremony, Awad expressed her appreciation to the EU’s longstanding support to the PCBS. ‘This is a true partnership that demonstrates the Palestinian European cooperation. It has helped us in building the capacity of the PCBS and the provision of updated regular official statistics in various economic and social areas,’ she added.

From his side, Laafia said: ‘Statistics are a critical tool for national policy development, planning, budgeting and monitoring. For development cooperation partners, socio-economic and poverty data are essential to ensure that their support to the duty-bearer is ‘leaving no one behind’, as well as to have well-informed policy decisions and properly implement social protections interventions.’

‘Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent rounds of violence in Gaza and the ongoing fiscal crisis, these statistics are crucial for Palestine to adjust its sustainable development goals targets for 2030. In this context, we will continue our engagement and support to the PCBS as a fundamental institution of the future independent Palestinian State,’ he added.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

Germany today pledged EUR pound 125 million in support of vital projects in Palestine over the period 2023-2024.

The Palestinian and German delegation signed a protocol of cooperation on the financial package of pound 125 million in support of the implementation of development projects in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem at the conclusion of the annual Palestinian-German government consultations in Berlin.

The Palestinian delegation that engaged in the consultations was led by Advisor to the Prime Minister for Planning and Aid Coordination, Estephan Salameh, and the German delegation was led by Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Niels Annen.

Salameh commenced the consultations by conveying the greetings of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh to the German side, while affirming keenness to enhancing cooperation with the German government at all levels and appreciating the German government’s keen interest in maintaining such consultations and ensuring that German-funded projects are aligned with Palestine’s development needs.

The projects to be targeted fall within several sectors, including water and wastewater, local government, employment, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in addition to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Among the participants in the consultations from the German side were a large number of the staff of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, officials from the KfW Development Bank, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and a representative of the German Federal Foreign Office.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency