Author: webdesk

Damascus countryside, Commissioned by President Bashar al-Assad, Minister of Presidential Affairs Mansour Azzam participated in the funeral of the body of late liberated captive, Midhat saleh al-Saleh who was escorted to his last resting place in Jaramana city in Damascus countryside.

Popular and official activities took part in the funeral ceremony of freed captive al-Saleh who was martyred on Saturday in an attack by the Israeli enemy on site Ein al-Tina town opposite to the occupied town of Majdal Shams.

In a speech delivered by Louay al-Bunni, Director of Administrative Development at the Cabinet , said that late martyr al-Saleh has recorded a history full of heroism, as he was the patriotic resistant against the criminal occupier and usurper of the land.

On behalf of the Cabinet, al-Bunni offered the deepest and sincerest condolences to the Syrian people and to the family and relatives of the martyr, asking God to have mercy on him.

In a speech delivered by brother of the martyr, Yasser Al-Saleh said that the martyr was an example of loyalty to the homeland and determination to struggle and resist the brutal enemy.

Source: Syrian Arab News Agency

Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad on Monday participated in a religious celebration, held by Ministry of Endowments, on the occasion of Prophet Mohammad’s birthday at Imam Shafi’I mosque in Damascus.

President al-Assad preformed al-Maghrib prayers, led by Sheikh Hussam al-Din Farfour.

Minister of Endowments delivered a speech about the noble meanings of the occasion of prophet Mohammad’s birthday and the life course of this messenger that has become an example and model for the whole humanity.

“We, in Syria, understand Islam as a religion of tolerance, mercy and noble values, not only a religion of rituals as some try to propagandize,” the Minister added.

He saluted the souls of Syrian heroic martyrs and every soldier in the Syrian Arab army and leader of the Homeland, President Bashar al-Assad.

Source: Syrian Arab News Agency

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has condemned the construction of a huge Israeli bus station on a land south of the West Bank city of Nablus.

Establishing the settler-only project “undermines the chances for making peace based on the vision of the two-state solution”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

“The new project includes building a bus station for Israeli settlers between Ramallah and Nablus to facilitate their movement and link the settlement road network with Israel,” said the statement.

It added that the Israeli project “falls within the context of the Israeli government’s attempts and its race against time to annex the West Bank”.

The Ministry noted that this project aims to “sabotage any chance of establishing a viable and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

According to Israeli and Palestinian estimates, about 650,000 Israeli settlers live in 164 settlements and 124 outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Israeli settlements are the most problematic issue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and one of the main reasons for floundering direct peace negotiations between Palestine and the Israeli occupation in 2014.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Hundreds of Palestinian protesters took part in a central rally yesterday in the town of Deir Hanna, in the north of the Palestinian territories occupied since 1948, to express their resentment over Israeli police complicity in the ongoing crime wave and collaboration with outlaws.

The crowd rallied at the Land Day Square in Deir Hanna and marched towards a funeral house in the town held for a Palestinian young man who had been killed in a recent crime. Another two Palestinians were also reportedly injured in the same incident.

Among the protesters were mayors of Arab communities, members of Arab factions and representatives of the civil society.

Over the past few months, Palestinians across Israel have held protests to express their fury over police complicity and collaboration with outlaws, who thus far this year have killed 88 people across Arab-majority communities.

Palestinians in today’s Israel are those who stayed in their land following the creation of the occupying state in 1948 and their descendants. They make up about 20 percent of the country’s nine million people.

By law, their rights are equal to those of Jewish citizens. But in practice they suffer discrimination in employment, housing, policing and other essentials.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

A total of seven Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention currently remain on hunger strike in protest of their unfair administrative detention without a charge or trial, according to the Detainees Affairs Commission.

The oldest hunger-striker of the seven prisoners is prisoner Kayed Fasfous, who has been on hunger strike for 95 days in protest of his detention without a charge or trial, followed by Muqdad Qawasmeh (88 days), Alaa Aaraj (71 days), Hesham Abu Hawwash (62 days), Shadi Abu-Akr (54 days), Ayyad Hureimi (25 days) and Khalil Abu-Aram (7 days).

Fasfous, who is currently at Kaplan Medical Center following serious deterioration on his health, demands to be set free charging his detention without charge or trial and based on the so-called secret file which even his lawyer is not allowed to view.

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

Currently, Israel is holding over 500 Palestinians in administrative detention, deemed illegal by international law, most of them former prisoners who spent years in prison for their resistance of the Israeli occupation.

Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.

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 & Info Agency

Palestinian political prisoner Mohammad Ahmad Turkman, who is serving a life sentence in Israeli prisons, completes today 16 behind bars, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) has said.

Turkman, who comes from the town Ya’bad in the occupied West Bank, was arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities on October 17, 2005, and was given a life sentence for his activism in the armed resistance against the Israeli occupation.

Like many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Turkman was denied family visitation several times by the Israeli occupation authorities as a punishment against him and his entire family.

The Israeli occupation authorities are still incarcerating more than 5,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners for resisting its occupation of their homeland. Many of these prisoners have been in prison for more than 30 years.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

Moderate weather conditions are expected today in Palestine as temperature significantly drops and reaches 2°C below the seasonal average, and with a little chance of scattered rain, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department (PMD).

Winds are westerly to northwesterly, light to moderate and occasionally gusty. Sea waves are medium.

Temperature in the capital, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem is expected to reach a high of 23°C and a low of 14°C, and in Ramallah and Hebron a high of 22°C and a low of 13°C. In Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley, temperature is expected to reach a high of 32°C and a low of 20°C, while it is expected to reach a high of 27°C and a low of 17°C in Gaza and the coastal areas.

Temperature drops further on Monday and approaches 4°C below the seasonal average. A little chance of scattered rain is expected in some areas of the country.

A further drop in temperature is expected on Tuesday to become 5°C below the annual average, with a slight chance of rain in some areas.

Similar weather conditions are expected for Wednesday, also with a chance of scattered rain over some areas.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency