Author: webdesk

For five consecutive days, the Dabash family proceeded with demolishing their home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher under pressure from the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem, according to WAFA correspondent.

She said that the Dabash family completed the demolition of their house they have been living in for about six years, purportedly for being built without a license, to avoid paying up to 25,000 shekels (approx. USD $8,000) in exorbitant fines if the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem carries out the demolition on its own.

The family spent about five days in the demolition process using hand tools.

WAFA correspondent added that the family received a demolition notice about 20 days ago, noting that it had already paid building fines to the occupation municipality, totaling NIS25,000.

The house owner, Ali Dabash, told WAFA that although the family paid the fine, Israeli police came to the house about 20 days ago, and handed them the demolition order.

“We have been attempting to obtain a license over the past six years, but all our efforts failed,” Dabash said. “Obtaining a building license in Jerusalem is impossible. While the world was celebrating New Year’s Day, we welcomed our new year without a home.”

Using the pretext of illegal building, Israel demolishes houses on a regular basis 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 Jews with a goal to offset the demographic balance in favor of the Jewish settlers in 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.

According to a report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the Israeli High Court could be liable for war crimes for their policies that led to the dispossession of Palestinians from their properties in Area C of the West Bank.

The report, Fake Justice, shows that the court’s support of Israeli planning policy is tantamount to support for dispossession and forcible transfer of Palestinians, a war crime under international law.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Israel today ordered a stop on the construction of a mosque in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, according to WAFA correspondent.

She said that heavily-armed Israeli police barged their way into the neighborhood, which lies on the eastern slopes of Jerusalem, and posted an order to halt the construction of al-Taqwa Mosque.

For the residents of Issawiyeh, a Palestinian village of some 20,000, Israeli police vehicles have become an everyday reality on the neighborhood streets, while police drones fly above – surveilling each move of the neighborhood’s residents.

Nestled in the hills of East Jerusalem, the village is plagued by poor infrastructure, residents are constantly harassed by the Israeli police and anyone, including children, run the risk of arbitrary arrest.

Hostile armed police searchlights pierce residents’ homes as Israeli officers conduct raids in the dead of night, breaking into homes and arresting residents.

While Israeli authorities claim police raids into the neighborhood are intended to maintain “law and order”, residents and human rights groups vigorously reiterate that the raids themselves seem intended to provoke confrontations and have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside.

Rights groups have long pointed out that Israel’s discriminatory policies in East Jerusalem – which include routine home demolitions, discriminatory allocation of building permits, and the forceful expulsions of Palestinians from their homes for the benefit of Israeli colonial settlements – are aimed at driving out Palestinians from the city.

With over 70 percent of Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem living below the poverty line, if life becomes too expensive, they have little choice but to move to congested Jerusalem neighborhoods on the other side of Israel’s separation wall or into the West Bank.

After Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, Palestinians were not given Israeli citizenship, but were instead issued permanent residency permits, which can be revoked by Israel for a variety of reasons, including insufficient loyalty to the State of Israel.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

English actress and activist Emma Watson has expressed her solidarity with the Palestinian people via a post on her Instagram official page.

The 31-year-old Harry Potter star took it to her massive platform on the popular photo sharing website, Instagram, and posted a photo from a solidarity protest with Palestine on May 12, 2021, that said “solidarity is a verb.”

“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future,” the actress said in the photo caption. “Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” —Sara Ahmed.”

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Premier Mohammad Shtayyeh today called for international intervention to secure the release of a dying hunger-striking prisoner.

Speaking during the weekly cabinet session in Ramallah, Shtayyeh stated that he was closely monitoring the health condition of Hisham Abu Hawash, who has been on a hunger strike for 140 days in protest of his administrative detention in Israeli custody.

He added that he sent letter to all relevant international institutions, urging them to put pressure on Israel to secure the immediate release of Abu Hawash, who is now facing imminent death.

He concluded that there are 4,600 Palestinian detainees, including minors, children and elderly, who are languishing in Israeli prisons.

Over the weekend, the father of five from the southern West Bank town of Dura fell into a coma due to his hunger strike, which has caused a significant deterioration of his health, vision, and ability to speak; as well as problems with his heart muscle and muscle atrophy. Doctors have warned that he may enter a critical stage at any time.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said medical teams that visited Abu Hawash had found him “in critical condition requiring expert clinical monitoring.”

It issued a statement warning of “potentially irreversible health consequences and possible tragic loss of life.”

Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

The US State Department has said in past reports on human rights conditions for Palestinians that administrative detainees are not given the “opportunity to refute allegations or address the evidentiary material presented against them in court.”

Amnesty International has described Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and has long called on Israel to bring its use to an end.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Israeli bulldozers today continued to raze large tracts of Palestinian land in the village of Kafr ad-Dik, local sources said.

Mayor of Kafr ad-Dik, Mohammad Naji, said that the Israeli bulldozers have been razing over 250 donums of land since the last several days to make room for the expansion of the colonial settlement of Alei Zahav.

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

The number of settlers has almost tripled since the Oslo Accords of 1993, when settlers’ number estimated 252,000.

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

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

A group of Israeli settlers today demolished a part of an agricultural structure in the area of MasaferYatta, south of Hebron, according to local sources.

Fouad al-Amour, an activist, told WAFA that settlers sabotaged and tore down the structure, which belong to Jameel al-Amour, a farmer, in the area of Khallet al-Dabe’, one of the hamlets making up Masafer Yatta.

He added that the settlers attempted to prevent livestock herders from grazing their stock, but they were fought back and kicked out of the area.

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

Settler violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.

Over 700,000 settlers live in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.

Masafer Yatta is a collection of almost 19 hamlets which rely heavily on animal husbandry as the main source of livelihood.

Located in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli administrative and military control, the area has been subjected to repeated Israeli violations by settlers and soldiers targeting their main source of living – livestock.

It has been designated as a closed Israeli military zone for training since 1980s and accordingly referred to as Firing Zone 918.

Israeli violations against the area include demolition of animal barns, homes and residential structures. Issuance of construction permits by Israel to local Palestinians in the area is non-existent.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Palestinian residents in the village of Burqa to the northwest of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, fended off today evening an attack by Israeli settlers against the village, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, said the villagers managed to fend an attack carried by Israeli settlers who snuck into the village from the nearby illegal evicted settlement of Homesh.

Clashes reportedly broke out after Israeli forces intervened to provide settlers with protection and attacked the villagers.

At least three people were shot and injured by rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the army during the clashes. Several other people suffocated from tear gas inhalation, including a man who was transferred to hospital.

The village of Burqa has been during the past two weeks under repeated settlers’ attacks and vandalism.

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

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Over 13 thousand Americans have signed a petition calling for the immediate release of all Palestinian administrative detainees on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

The petition on Change.org, with over 13 thousand signatures, called to help free all hunger strikers and other administrative detainees, all imprisoned without charge or trial Signatures of the petition are part of a worldwide movement to free all hunger strikers, release all administrative detainees and end the misuse of administrative detention by the Israeli occupation.

The petition demanded the immediate release of all Palestinian administrative detainees on hunger strike to avoid serious long-term health complications for detainees or loss of life, including Kayed Fasfous, Miqdad Qawasmeh, Alaa Al Raj, Hisham Abu Hawash, Shadi Abu Aker, and Ayyad Hraimi.

It demanded the subsequent immediate release of all Palestinian administrative detainees held in occupation prisons, or at the very latest the date of their case review.

It demanded that Israel ceases the use of administrative detention to arbitrarily imprison Palestinians within the oPt (West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

The petition also demanded that any future arrest of Palestinians (in the oPT or within Israel) follow the protocols of International Humanitarian Law that guarantee individuals know why they are being arrested and are granted proper judicial process (formal charges and trails) where individuals are able to examine the evidence presented against them and prove their innocence.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

A Palestinian youth was shot and injured with live ammunition and dozens of others suffocated during clashes that broke out with Israeli forces in the town of Beit Ummar to the north of Hebron, according to media activist Mohammed Awad.

The activist told WAFA clashes broke out in the town of Beit Ummar, during which the Israeli military used live fire against residents, shooting and injuring a youth.

Dozens of others suffocated due to tear gas inhalation.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

Dozens of Palestinians suffocated today evening by tear gas fired during clashes with Israeli forces in the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus, the northern occupied West Bank, according to Fatah spokesperson in Huwwara, Awwad Najem.

Israeli military raided the town of Huwwara and proceeded to fire a barrage of tear gas canisters and stun grenades at residents present at the main street at the town Centre.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed the town of Taqou to the southeast of Bethlehem, in the southern occupied west Bank, spurring clashes with residents.

Clashes broke out following a military raid into the town of Taqou, during which forces fired tear gas canisters and stun grenades at the town residents. no injuries were reported.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency

The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), His Excellency Mr. Hissein Brahim Taha, addressed the meeting of the Permanent Council of the Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISF) in its sixty-fifth session, which was held (virtually) today, 3 January 2022, with the attendance of Ambassador Nasser bin Abdullah bin Hamdan Al Zaabi, Chairman of the ISF Permanent Council.

His Excellency the Secretary-General said that the ISF has proven its effectiveness through its noble humanitarian services for the benefit of Muslims everywhere, within the framework of the OIC. But, he noted that the ISF is still limited in its financial capabilities to meet the needs of the Muslim world, especially while facing many challenges due to wars and natural disasters, in addition to the plight and suffering of Muslim refugees. The OIC Secretary General urged Member States to increase budgetary support for the ISF projects.

HE Mr. Hissein Brahim Taha called for expanding the scope and outreach of the ISF and moving forward to find a solution to the ISF decreasing resources through voluntary donations from its Member States in order to address difficulties, and develop the work of the ISF so as to play its role and achieve its goals, as one of the most important existing Islamic charitable institutions.

In his speech, HE the Secretary-General called upon all OIC Member States to contribute to the financial support of the ISF with donations commensurate with their capabilities, stressing that Islamic solidarity is a joint and inclusive effort that expresses the spirit of cooperation and solidarity in accordance with the teachings of the tolerant Islamic Sharia.

Meanwhile, he appealed to the ISF Permanent Council to continue supporting projects in the city of Al-Quds Al-Sharif, as well as health and educational projects in the State of Palestine, in a way that enhances the steadfastness of the people of Al-Quds and the residents of the Gaza Strip, in the face of the occupation’s fierce attack and unjust siege.

Source: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

Dozens of Palestinians suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired at them by the Israeli army during clashes that broke out in the al-Fawwar refugee camp to the south of Hebron, according to WAFA correspondent.

Israeli forces attacked Palestinians following a peaceful rally that was held in support of Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails, Mohammed Hawash, whose life is in danger after 140 days of hunger strike to protest his administrative detention.

Dozens were reportedly treated at the scene from tear-gas suffocation.

Forces closed the metal gate erected at the entrance to the camp and prevented Palestinians from leaving or entering.

Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency