Just Peace Advocates is pleased to share this summary prepared for the Mid East Working Group of Bathurst/Bloor/Trinity St. Paul’s by Rev. Frances Combs.
Check in weekly for the newest update.
Art: Taqi Spateen
Bethlehem, Palestine ·
If there’s no justice there’s no peace.
Week of May 16, 2022
Haaretz, May 12, Thousands gathered Thursday to mourn Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday.
Diaspora Minister and former Israeli military spokesperson Nachman Shai said on Thursday morning in a radio interview regarding the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh that, “With all due respect to us, let’s say that Israel’s credibility is not very high in such events.” “We know this,” Shai added, “It is based on the past.”
Haaretz opinion: We know in advance what the results of any investigation will be: No one can be held responsible because there isn’t sufficient evidence or because the army acted according to the rules, and actually, it’s the Palestinians’ fault.
Gideon Levy: The relative horror expressed over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is justified and necessary. It is also belated and self-righteous. Now you’re appalled? The blood of a famous journalist, no matter how brave and experienced she was – and she was – is no redder than the blood of an anonymous high school student who was traveling home in a taxi full of women in this same Jenin a month ago when she was killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli panel that authorizes West Bank settlement construction approved nearly 4,500 new housing units for Jews in the area on Thursday.
Reported by DCIP (Defence of Children International Palestine), A few hours ago, Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli forces attacked DCIP field researcher Hani Nassar, near the evacuated Israeli settlement Homesh south of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Hani’s work is critical to DCIP’s efforts protecting and defending Palestinian human rights. Please keep him in your thoughts for a swift recovery from this violent attack.
Haaretz, May 13, Two Palestinian militants turned themselves in to Israeli forces on Friday, ending an hours-long standoff at the Jenin refugee camp, two days after a Palestinian-American journalist was killed there. The fighting left an Israeli officer seriously wounded and two Palestinian militants in critical condition.
Tareq Abu Hamad is the first Jerusalem Palestinian to reach a senior position in an Israeli government ministry. Now, as director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, he describes the difficulties to function as a Palestinian within the Israeli system, and to promote renewable energy infrastructures in Gaza.
Five left-wing activists are reported wounded in settler attacks as some 200 march to Masafer Yatta, a week after Israel’s top court greenlights eviction. The Israeli military issued an order on Friday preventing buses from going into the West Bank through a crossing that leads to the Palestinian hamlets of Masafer Yatta, blocking Israeli activists from joining a demonstration against their eviction.
Reported by the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation), The ITUC has condemned the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the wounding of producer Ali al-Samudi in Jenin, occupied Palestine, on 11 May.
Since the beginning of this year 2,140 Palestinians, mainly from occupied Jerusalem and Jenin, have been detained by Israeli security forces, including 815 Palestinian workers of which 91 are accused of employing and transporting workers without special permits.
This week, 27 year-old Palestinian worker Mahmoud Sami Khalil Aram was killed as he passed through an opening in the wall erected by Israel. Like many Palestinians, he had tried to enter Israel without a permit to seek work as an undocumented worker.
The ITUC’s Palestine affiliate, the PGFTU, has highlighted the plight of many Palestinians who have to work in Israel due to high unemployment in Gaza and the West Bank. Low wages and poor working conditions are common and the PGFTU states that 67 Palestinian workers in Israel have died due to poor occupational health and safety in the past year.
May 14, Palestine Online, Israeli occupation authorities forced Palestinian father Faraj Dabish to self-demolish his own house, his only shelter with a wife and 3 children, in Sur Baher neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem under the pretense of building without a permit.
Haaretz, May 14, The Biden administration issued on Friday perhaps its harshest public rebuke of Israel to date over scenes of Israeli police violence at the funeral of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed earlier in the week while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Israel used to be beautiful, Then came Zionism. If the world’s flora and fauna will need millions of years to rebound from the damage humanity has wrought on the planet, recovering from the ecological and aesthetic ravages of Zionism will take twice as long.
Arrested for the first time at age 14, Yahya Adwan spent the rest of his short life in jail for throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at Israeli troops. Last week a soldier shot and killed the 27-year-old Palestinian.
May 15, A Palestinian militant, brother of a prominent Fatah military leader, died on Sunday in an Israeli hospital, two days after being wounded in a shootout with Israeli forces in Jenin.
Daoud Zubeidi was hit in the stomach during an hours-long standoff at the Jenin refugee camp, when Israeli forces surrounded the house of an Islamic Jihad militant, who eventually turned himself in.
At a conference in the West Bank, the Nachala settler movement, which is behind contested illegal West Bank outposts, presents its vision: To establish 10 new illegal outposts at once on July 20.
Jewish Settlers Take Over Hebron Building, Ignoring Palestinian’s Ownership Claim. Settler group says they purchased the building, but have no documented ownership of it. Israeli soldiers are guarding the location anyway.
Israel will reopen its border with the Gaza Strip on Sunday and allow the entry of workers and all Palestinians who hold entry permits, the Israeli army said Saturday. The Erez crossing, which closed since May 3, as well as all border crossing into the West Bank were shut ahead of Israel’s memorial day and Independence Day celebrations.
The decisions of Israeli police at events like journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral display their inability to see the humanity and pain of the Palestinian people. Police, dressed in black, wearing helmets and protective gear, using their batons to assault people carrying a coffin at a funeral procession. They strike their legs until the coffin slips, almost hitting the ground. This is what most of the world saw – and this is what most of the world will remember from the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which took place in Jerusalem on Friday.
May 16, A Palestinian man carrying an ax and a suicide note was arrested in the West Bank Sunday night, police said. The 22-year-old suspect, from the West Bank city of Al-Bireh, was searching for victims for about an hour prior to his arrest, scouring for Israelis who were standing alone, an initial police investigation shows.
Declassification of the name and photo of a Druze commander who fell during a covert mission in the Gaza Strip in 2018 sparked calls among Israeli lawmakers to amend the controversial nation-state law that defines the country as the nation state of the Jewish people.
Jerusalem’s police chief gave the order to officers to prevent the waving of Palestinian flags and to confiscate any Palestinian flags they saw during the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last Friday, police sources told Haaretz. At the time, the district police commander was not present in the Old City, but taking part in a police delegation to Germany.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, May 16, 2922, On Wednesday, the 11th of May, Palestinian residents of Jabal al Tawil, near the city of Al-Bireh were protesting at a nearby illegal settlement, when Israeli soldiers opened fire on them. Thayer Yazouri, 18, was shot directly in the heart and was killed, while another Palestinian teenager was injured in his leg.
The Israeli government is set to put forward plans for 4,000 illegal settler homes to be built in the occupied West Bank. If the plans are approved, this move will mark the largest advancement of illegal settlements since President Biden’s administration took office.
In Gaza Tuesday, the 10th of May marked a grim anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities inflicted on them last year by the Israeli military. According to the records of the United Nations, 260 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli attacks, including 66 children. In Israel 12 civilians were killed as a result of indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza. Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods across the borders of the enclave remain in place and are leading to further impoverishment.
Week of May 9, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, May 5, 2022, The High Court of Justice approved Wednesday the eviction of some 1,000 Palestinians from eight villages in the southern West Bank, after a two-decade legal dispute over land that has been repurposed by the Israeli army as a firing zone, and where Palestinians have lived for generations. Starting this morning, at any given moment, the Civil Administration, the Israel Defense Forces, the Border Police and the regular police are allowed to send dozens – and if they need to, even more – of soldiers and police officers into eight villages in Masafer Yatta and with their guns trained on them, put on trucks and buses hundreds of their residents – the elderly, the young, women and infants. And this will be done with a seal of approval from Israel’s High Court of Justice.
A director of a Palestinian NGO that Israel declared a terror organization last year was barred from boarding a flight to the United States. Sahar Francis, the director of Addameer – director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organization – sought to travel on Saturday to a conference of civil society groups in Mexico, but was informed she was not allowed to board her flight upon her arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
May 6, Thousands marched Thursday to mark the Palestinian Nakba in the Lower Galilee in northern Israel, the area where the village of Miar, depopulated in 1948, once stood. Participants carried Palestinian flags and signs with the names of Arab villages uprooted in Israel’s War of Independence, which Palestinians refer to as the ‘catastrophe.’ Organizers from the Association for the Defense of the Rights for the Internally Displaced Persons in Israel said that the marchers were strict about not carrying the flags of political parties or movements or calling out political slogans.
Three people were murdered and four wounded in a terror attack in the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad in central Israel on Thursday, police said. Manhunt is underway. Security official says attackers influenced by Hamas’ Yahya Sinwar. PM Bennett vows assailants ‘will pay the price’
Reported by Palestine Electronic Media, May 7, Palestinian shepherd Omar al-Hathaleen yesterday got injured after being brutally assaulted and beaten by colonial Israeli settlers near the village of Umm El-Khair in Massafer Yatta, south of Al-Khalil.
Times of Gaza, A funeral of the freed prisoner Yahia Adwan was held after he was cold-bloodily murdered last night by the Israeli occupation forces in Azzun village, Qalqilya.
Haaretz, May 7, Israeli forces demolished on Saturday the home of the one of the Palestinian gunmen who killed an Israeli near the evacuated West Bank outpost of Homesh in December.
Dozens of settlers swooped down on a Palestinian family tending its olive grove, throwing stones and beating them. Three Palestinians were wounded; the eldest remains hospitalized. When the family filed a complaint, they were interrogated for allegedly throwing rocks.
Israel’s Civil Administration will advance nearly 4,000 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank next week, the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank said in a statement on Friday. Biden administration: ‘We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements’
May 8, The High Court of Justice has again proved that it is unmatched as a rubber stamp and whitewasher of the injustices of the occupation. In a ruling issued in the dead of night – ironically, between Memorial Day and Independence Day – the court permitted the expulsion from their homes of about 1,000 Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta, in the southeast West Bank, for the benefit of Israel Defense Forces training. As a result, eight Palestinian villages whose residents have lived in them for generations will be destroyed.
Israeli forces captured the two Palestinians who murdered three Israelis last week after a three-day manhunt. The two were found in a forest in central Israel, close to the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad where the attack took place. The two are identified as As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Abu Shakir, 20, from the village of Rummaneh, near Jenin. The Defense Ministry said Saturday that following a security assessment, the ongoing closure of the West Bank and crossings at the Gaza border will be extended through Monday, with only approved cases being allowed to pass into or through Israel. Another assessment will be made Sunday, the ministry said. The attack in Elad is the latest in a string of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank have left 19 dead. Meanwhile, at least 27 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, some related to operations to locate suspects in the attacks.
Palestine Electronic Media, After being brutally assaulted and beaten by colonial settlers, a Palestinian taxi driver at the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, was detained by Israeli occupation forces.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, May 9, On Thursday, the 5th of May, more than six hundred Israeli settlers resumed their incursions, under police protection, into the Al Aqsa compound, after the ten day pause for the end of Ramadan. Israeli police arrested fifty Palestinians, including elderly men and young boys, and injured sixteen others during clashes at the compound. Tensions have heightened following a series of attacks inside Israel and police raids in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
B’Tselem, the Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has looked into the circumstances under which the Israeli border police shot and killed Nader Rayan in Nablus on the 15th of March this year. Their investigation showed that Nader and his friend were on their scooter behind the police vehicles. When the scooter broke down, they ran down a side alley. As they run, the police shot Nader in the back. Then the police left their vehicles, tracked down the injured Nader, shot him repeatedly and killed him.
Eight Republican and Democrat Congressmen sent a joint letter to the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, at the end of April. They wished to express their deep concern over the disturbing rise in recent Israeli extremist attacks against Jerusalem’s Christian community. The lawmakers stressed that the protection of religious freedom abroad must be a critical element of US foreign policy.
For Palestinians, Sunday, the 15th of May will be the time they commemorate the Nakba, when thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in 1948.
Palestinian Electronic Media, May 9, Israeli occupation forces attacked and wounded Palestinian journalist Basil al-Adraa in his home village of A-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank this afternoon.
Week of May 2, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, April 25, 2022, The Shin Bet security service announced Monday the arrest of seven West Bank Islamic Jihad operatives suspected of planning to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. According to the Shin Bet, they were recruited and instructed by Jihadists from the Gaza Strip. Among the detainees is a mother of four from the village of Jalamah near Jenin. She was identified as Yasmin Shaaban, an operative in the organization who previously served a prison sentence for being involved in the planning of a suicide attack.
April 26, Israeli police only allowed Muslim worshippers to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque last week if they agreed to hand over their ID cards to police – in violation of the law and the right to freedom of worship. The incident took place hours after the end of clashes between police and Palestinians at the mosque last Thursday. A group of young men, some from East Jerusalem and others from Arab towns in Israel, stood in line to deposit their ID cards with the police as a condition for entering the mosque to pray.
Apr. 26, The number of Palestinians in administrative detention – detention without trial – in Israel reached a five-and-a-half year high over the weekend. According to data supplied by the Israel Prison Service to Haaretz, there are currently 579 Palestinians in administrative detention.
B’Tselem, speaking of administrative detention in its monthly report on April 26, says: Detainees suffer not only incarceration in rough conditions, cut off from their family, friends and daily life, but also unbearable uncertainty regarding why they are there and for how long. Yet Israel uses this measure extensively against Palestinians, with the ongoing approval of legal advisors, military judges, and the Supreme Court.
All these seals of approval do not render Israel’s use of administrative detention lawful or just . As is the case in a myriad of issues concerning Israel’s regime of Jewish supremacy over Palestinians, here too, the Israeli legal system does not serve justice nor seeks to do so. It seeks only to represent the interests of the apartheid regime and to perpetuate it in the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Haaretz, The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court has ordered that the case of a Palestinian family facing immediate eviction in the East Jerusalem Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood be reheard, a process that will delay any possible eviction by at least two months. Police have feared that the eviction of the Salem family from their East Jerusalem home, which has been at the center of tensions in recent months, could reignite the neighborhood along with the rest of the city.
Palestinian Electronic Media, April 27, Four Palestinians were shot and injured, including one in a serious condition after being shot in his head, by Israeli occupation forces during the storming of Jenin camp, this morning.
IMEU Palestinian children played music in solidarity with Athal Al-Azza, a child who is being imprisoned by Israel. Athal was on his way to his grandmother’s house when Israeli soldiers beat him on the side of the road before bringing him to an Israeli prison where he was tortured.
Haaretz, April 27, Three Palestinians were attacked near the West Bank village of Kisan on Tuesday, with one of them, a 62-year-old hospitalized with an injury to his head. According to the victims, they were attacked by dozens of masked Israelis from the nearby settlement of Ma’ale Amos with stones, clubs and pepper spray. Police said they were investigating the case following a complaint filed by the victims. No suspects have been arrested.
Seven Israeli men who participated in the so-called 2015 “wedding of hate,” during which pictures of the murdered Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabshe were waved around and stabbed, were convicted of incitement to violence and terror by the Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday. One of the seven, Daniel Zvi Moshe, was also convicted of incitement to racism, of supporting a terrorist organization and of possession of a weapon.
April 28, Around 200,000 Muslims prayed overnight into Thursday at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Islam’s holy night of Laylat al-Qadr. Despite recent tensions in Jerusalem, the prayer – the biggest religious event in the city – passed in relative quiet. On Wednesday evening, worshipers flocked into the mosque from the West Bank and Israel after the military permitted the entry of Palestinians from the West Bank who were over 40 years old.
April 29, Violent clashes broke out Friday between Palestinians and Israeli police at Al-Aqsa Mosque, in what has become a weekly occurrence ahead of midday prayers for the entire month of Ramadan. Hundreds of young Palestinians fired fireworks and threw rocks within the compound, with some also hurling rocks towards the Western Wall and Mughrabi Bridge. One fell in the Western Wall plaza, though no one was reported injured. In response, police entered the Temple Mount compound for the first time in a week and used riot control methods, which Palestinians said included tear gas and foam-tipped bullets. According to the Red Crescent, 42 people were wounded and transported to the hospital. After the clashes, 160,000 worshippers attended Friday’s prayers, the highest number of attendees since the beginning of Ramadan, according to The Waqf.
Reported by DCIP, The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an opinion this month finding that Israeli authorities’ imprisonment of Palestinian teen, Mohammad Mansour, 18, amounts to an arbitrary detention and called for Mansour’s immediate release. More than a year ago, Israeli authorities detained Palestinian teen Mohammad Mansour, then 17 years old, without charge. To this day, he is still sitting in administrative detention.
Reported by Palestine Electronic Media, April 30, 27-year-old freed Palestinian prisoner, Yahya Ali Adwan, was shot dead by Israeli gunfire in the town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya.
Haaretz, Apr. 30, A 23-year-old security guard was killed by gunfire on Friday outside the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. The military said that two assailants driving a car with an Israeli license plate arrived at Ariel and opened fire at the security guards posted at the settlement’s entrance. The shooters fled the scene after the attack, the military said, as forces were searching for the attackers in the northern West Bank.
When Hanan Khadour was born, Jenin was under Israeli army lockdown due to Operation Defensive Shield, and her father had to carry her to the hospital in his arms. Three weeks ago she boarded a shared taxi in the same city, which was teeming with Israeli soldiers and snipers. A single bullet pierced her body. She has died, aged 19.
IMEU, May1, Sahar Francis, the longtime director of Addameer, human rights defender & lawyer, was just banned from boarding a plane to the US (from the airport in Tel Aviv) while headed to the World Social Forum in Mexico.
Haaretz, May 1, Sheikh Yusuf Albaz, the imam of the Great Mosque of the central Israeli city of Lod, was detained on Saturday morning on suspicion of incitement over his stance on the recent uptick in violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli forces raided overnight into Sunday the West Bank village where the two suspects accused of attacking security guards outside the settlement of Ariel live, the military said, arresting 12 suspects. The army “mapped” the homes of the two suspects believed to be responsible for the Friday evening attack, which left one 23-year-old dead. The mapping is likely to precede demolitions.
Israel will shut all its border crossings with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Tuesday until Friday, while the country marks its memorial and independence days, the army announced.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, May 2, This year the Eid al-Fitr holiday will be celebrated by Muslims in Palestine and Israel on Monday the 2nd of May. The three-day feast marks the end of 30 days of fasting from dawn to dusk during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Many Palestinians will try to cross the Israeli military checkpoints to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem to worship during this special time. However, the Israeli authorities have imposed a military closure on the Westbank and the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli National holidays.
A new Israeli government policy is set to come into force on Sunday, the 22nd of May which will further restrict the entry and residence of foreigners in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians who hold foreign passports will now be required to provide information to the Israeli authorities about relatives or friends they intend to visit and whether they own property or expect to inherit any property. Travellers wishing to visit Israeli settlers in the occupied Territories do not have to supply any information to the Israeli authorities.
The holiday on Sunday, the 1st of May, which is known as Labour Day, is marked with a public holiday in Palestine/Israel and in more than eighty other countries. Many Palestinians are herded like cattle through checkpoints to reach their place of work and from day to day they do not know what time they will reach their jobs. Many are forced to queue for hours in cramped and crowded conditions. Sabeel prays for an end to the occupation and for the inhumane constraints forced on Palestinian workers as they try to earn their livelihood and support their families.
Khalil Awawdeh was rushed by the Israeli Prison Service from Ramleh Prison to an Israeli hospital when his medical condition suddenly became critical. Khalil is forty years old and comes from Idhna, near Hebron. He has been on a hunger strike for 57 days in protest at his administrative detention order.
On Thursday, the 28th of April, a coalition of 46 UK based organizations urged the UK government to halt legislation which would target boycott, divestment and sanctions, (BDS) efforts. The proposed law, due to be announced at the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday, the 10th of May, would prohibit public bodies from calling for BDS campaigns against foreign countries, including Israel.
A petition brought by four human rights organizations on behalf of two families in Gaza was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday, the 24th of April. On the 16th of July 2014, during Israel’s attack on Gaza, seven children, brothers and cousins, were playing football on the beach when an Israeli drone fired and killed four of the children and injured the other three. The petitioners claim that the Israeli air force intentionally opened fire on the children, without identification, and that this is a serious violation of the laws of warfare and criminal law. They will now take the case to the International Criminal Court for consideration there.
Week of April 25, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, April 18, 2022, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Israel’s envoy to receive a letter from the government demanding an “immediate stop to violations” on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after clashes in Jerusalem’s Old City, coinciding with Ramadan and Passover, left both Palestinians and Israelis wounded.
Reported by ‘Canada talks Israel/Palestine’, on April 18,
The National Council of Canadian Muslims has called on the Canadian government to condemn the recent attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian Muslim worshippers at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. So far the Canadian government has been platitudinous, only calling for “de-escalation”.
Haaretz, April 18,
Police use of clubs has been on the rise after the force’s commander relaxed rules governing it. Several cases were documented during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the Jerusalem holy site. Footage from Friday shows a police officer beating journalist Alaa Sous with a club. She was left with a broken arm.
Two Palestinians were severely wounded by Israeli live fire in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Monday. Israeli military forces raided the town and arrested people, witnesses in al-Yamun, west of Jenin, said. During the military operation, Israeli soldiers and armed locals fired at each other, residents reported.
Israeli settlers are preventing the opening of a West Bank road that has been closed to Palestinians for 20 years, connecting the Palestinian town of Azzariyeh with the main road to Bethlehem. Last week, work began to remove the roadblock, but settlers successfully prevented it from continuing, so the road remains closed. Azzariyeh residents said they were told it would open soon.
April 19, The Israeli air force attacked southern Gaza Monday in response to a rocket launched from the Strip earlier in the day, according to the military spokesperson. The Israeli army said that air force fighter jets destroyed a weapons manufacturing workshop belonging to Hamas. Hamas said that militants responded with anti-aircraft weapons, but failed to hit the Israeli jets. No injuries were reported. Meanwhile, Israeli forces and armed Palestinians clashed and exchanged fire in West Bank city of Jenin, according to Palestinian reports.
Palestinians and Israeli forces clash as thousands march to an evacuated West Bank outpost. Far-right lawmakers accompanied the protesters to the evacuated outpost of Homesh, after Defense Minister Gantz countered earlier military warnings against the march by announcing Israeli forces would secure it.
An 18-year-old Palestinian high school student succumbed to her wounds nearly two weeks after being caught in a crossfire during an Israeli military raid in Jenin, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
April 20, 2022. A war over the Temple Mount is just a matter of time. The messiahs of the right are correct when they attempt time after time to burst into Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount to establish Israeli sovereignty there. In their eyes, the main thing is not prayers but sovereignty. Control, ownership, authority. They’re right when they claim that Israel does not rule the holy compound, since as long as Jews cannot pray there as they wish, the Temple Mount is not in the hands of the state. Because what is the point of defining the state as Jewish if it has agreed to share the place most sacred to its believers with the Muslims.
Leaders of militant groups in the Gaza Strip discussed on Wednesday tensions with Israel in a meeting convened at the office of Yahya Sinwar, the local leader of Hamas, which rules the enclave. According to Hamas sources, Sinwar stressed that “independent” initiatives, such as the rocket fired at Israel on Monday, must be prevented and that any action must be coordinated by all the factions and Gaza’s political leadership.
Israel police blocked the route to Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate on Wednesday as hundreds of right-wing activists defied police orders and began marching toward the Old City’s Muslim Quarter. Far-right lawmaker Ben-Gvir joined marchers. As tensions mounted, some 20 people managed to breach police barriers and reach the gate, but were turned back by officers.
Apr. 21, Dozens of Palestinians clashed with police forces at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on Thursday morning after hundreds of Jews attempted to reach the site with police protection. Palestinians shot fireworks and threw stones at the police, barricading themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the ensuing clashes. The police responded by firing sponge-tipped bullets and tear gas at the Palestinian, injuring at least one, according to Palestinian reports. Gideon Levy All of us, every single Israeli, marched to Homesh the other day. All of us, every single Israeli, marched in the flag parade in Jerusalem on Wednesday. All of us, every single Israeli, are settlers. There is no other way to describe the reality. Anyone who thinks that it is only a small and violent settler minority to which most people have no connection, anyone who thinks that this is about some remote part of the land, some dark backyard that has no connection to the display window, is completely lying to himself.
Israeli jets struck the Gaza Strip early Thursday morning in what the IDF deemed “the most significant” attack on the enclave since the last major confrontation in May, after a day in which militants fired a rocket at an Israeli border city and Jerusalem stood on edge over a far-right march.
Apr. 22, At least 31 Palestinians were wounded Friday morning in a five-hour clash with Israeli police at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, as violence spikes at the Jerusalem site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. The violent skirmishes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered in Judaism as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, have surged over the past week, raising concerns about a slide back into wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fourteen Palestinians were taken to the hospital, with two in serious condition, the Red Crescent said. An Israeli police officer was hit in the face by a rock and required medical attention.
Attorney Mohammed Assaf would take his son and two nephews to school in Nablus every morning. Last week they encountered clashes by Joseph’s Tomb. When Assaf left his car; a soldier in a speeding jeep opened the door and shot him.
April 23, Israel Police used a drone to fire tear gas grenades at the Temple Mount on Friday to quell rioting following afternoon prayers which were attended by thousands of Palestinian worshipers. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 57 Palestinians were wounded and treated at the scene, 26 of which were suffering from gas inhalation. Fourteen Palestinians were evacuated to hospitals — 12 in moderate condition and two in serious condition.
Reported by IMEU, As Christians gather to celebrate Holy Saturday at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers are separating Palestinian and Arab Christians from foreign Christians, denying them entry on the basis that they speak Arabic.
April 24, An Israeli settler wounded three Palestinians in a shooting attack near the West Bank town of Surif on Saturday, local Palestinian residents reported. A group of settlers was throwing stones at Palestinians near the Bat Ayin settlement before one settler started firing shots.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, April 23, Last weekend the Holy Saturday Service was celebrated across the Holy Land. Thousands of Palestinian Christians and pilgrims celebrated the Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Resurrection – Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, even though the Israeli authorities had imposed new restrictions on attendance. The authorities sought to limit participation to 1,000 worshippers, over a 90% decrease from previous years. Palestinian Christians and Church leaders criticized this move as an infringement of the right to freedom of worship. The local community tried to fight their way across the barriers yet they were stopped by the Israeli forces.
In the past week more than two hundred people, mostly Palestinians, have been hurt in clashes in and around the Al-Aqsa compound. Many Palestinians have been outraged by the massive Israeli police deployment at the compound. They are also angered by the repeated visits to the site by Jewish worshippers, who are permitted to enter but may not pray there.
On Saturday, the 23rd of April the Israeli authorities announced the closure of the Erez Crossing, after rockets were fired by a splinter group from Gaza into Israel. The closure comes just before the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, which will make it even harder for families in the enclave to survive. Israel carried out air raids in different areas of Gaza twice last week, in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.
Thousands of Israeli settlers marched to the evacuated settlement outpost of Homesh, near Nablus on Tuesday, the 19th of April. They passed through several Palestinian villages before marching from a location near Homesh, which was built on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Burqa. Forty Palestinian protestors from Burqa were injured in clashes with Israeli forces sent to protect the settlers. The march took place despite the Israeli Supreme Court ruling stating that the settlement of Homesh is illegal, as the land belongs to private owners from Burqa.
Week of April 18, 2022
Reported by Defence of Children International Palestine (DCIP) on April 11, 2022. Last night, Israeli forces shot 16-year-old Mohammad Hussein Mohammad Qassim in the abdomen with live ammunition in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin. Mohammad succumbed to his wounds this morning. An Israeli military vehicle entered Jenin around 5 p.m. on Sunday and pursued a civilian car, according to information collected by DCIP. Mohammad began running behind the Israeli military vehicle and appeared to be looking on the ground for stones to throw at it, an eyewitness told DCIP. Suddenly, without any prior warning, an Israeli soldier fired three bullets from the military vehicle’s rear window, striking Mohammad from a distance of about four meters (13 feet) in the abdomen, according to the eyewitness. Mohammad is the sixth Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces so far this year, and the third killed in or near the city of Jenin.Apr. 11, 2022 6:10 PM
Haaretz, April 11, Fourteen Palestinians suspected of terrorist activity in the West Bank were arrested on Monday, the Israeli army said in a statement. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says Israel is ‘increasing its aggression’ and urges the world ‘to stop Israeli escalation’.
April 12, Gaza may respond with rocket fire over Israeli crackdown on West Bank. Israeli defense officials don’t rule out an extensive operation in the Jenin area, which they would prefer take place after Ramadan ends at the turn of the month.
The Israeli army detained 20 Palestinian suspected of terrorist activities in an overnight operation in the West Bank, the army spokesperson unit said Tuesday. The Israeli army has also operated in Jenin for the third consecutive day since the attack in Tel Aviv which claimed the lives of three Israelis.
A Palestinian man was shot and killed after stabbing an Israeli officer Tuesday morning in the southern city of Ashkelon, police said. The officer was lightly wounded. Police said the 40-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank was in Israel without a permit, while his relatives rejected the claim that he stabbed the officer, adding that he’d worked in such construction sites for years.
Israel’s Attorney General’s Office has approved connecting illegal West Bank Jewish outposts that were built without Israeli government approval to the electricity grid. The plan, which would also hook up Palestinian communities to power and carve a path to legalization for both illegal Jewish outposts and Palestinian villages, ignited uproar among right-wing Israeli lawmakers.
Apr. 13, A 34-year-old Palestinian activist was killed on Wednesday in clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and at least 16 others were wounded, amid a spike in tensions in the West Bank in the aftermath of a string of deadly attacks in Israel. Mohammed Assaf was hit by live fire in the chest, the Health Ministry said. Assaf was a lawyer and acted against the separation barrier and the settlements. A source said that Assaf, a resident of Kafr Laqif and a father of two, was escorting his cousin to school in the vicinity of Joshep’s Tomb and was not involved in the clashes.
Reported by Palestine Online, May 13, Israeli special forces shoot, injure and arrest a Palestinian youth outside Kadoorie University in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm.
Harretz, April 14, Two Palestinians were killed by live ammunition on Thursday during clashes with Israeli soldiers near the city of Jenin in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The two were killed during a raid in Kafr Dan, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli army said they were carrying out an arrest operation throughout the West Bank. Later Thursday, a Palestinian resident of Beita succumbed to his wounds after being hit by Israeli fire during clashes Wednesday morning in his home village, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. His death marks the sixth Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in the last 24 hour
A 14-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed Wednesday by Israeli security forces near the West Bank town of Husan just south of Bethlehem, with the Israeli military saying he was shot after hurling a Molotov cocktail at troops at an army position in the center of town. The Palestinian was identified as Qusai Fuad Hamamra, a resident of Husan. Hundreds of Palestinians protested in the town and threw stones at army vehicles on Wednesday evening. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah reported that 20-year-old Omar Muhammad Aliyan had been killed by a shot in the chest fired by security forces during clashes in the town of Silwan. Earlier on Wednesday, security forces arrested four Palestinians north of Ramallah suspected of planning to carry out an attack in Israel on Passover, which starts this week.
Haaretz’ Analysis | Extremists’ call for Passover sacrifice on Temple Mount (Islam’s holy site) is a provacative ploy. An ad promising payment to Jews who get arrested trying to offer a sacrifice at the holy site is causing an uproar among Palestinians this year.
April 14, In a plan to try to stop the wave of resignations from the force and boost morale, Police officers suspected of using excessive force against civilians while carrying out their duties, now will not be suspended and can be promoted in rank even before a decision is made in their case, Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said on Tuesday.
Haaretz editorial: An evil wind is blowing in the Israel Defense Forces. The messianic speech given by Samaria Brigade Commander Col. Roi Zweig, in a briefing to troops before they entered Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus to provide security while repair work was being done, should be keeping IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and all Israelis up at night.
Reported by American Muslims for Palestine, April 14, Since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (April 1st, 2022), more than 17 Palestinians have been brutally murdered, dozens injured, and over 200 have been arrested. In the last 24 hours alone, Israel continued its 5-day raid across the West Bank, murdering 6Palestinians and wounding 18 others.
Reported by DCIP, April 14, Israeli forces shot and killed another Palestinian child last night—16-year-old Qusai Fuad Mohammad Hamamra, the second Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces this week and the seventh this year. In Husan, a village near Bethlehem, Israeli forces shot Qusai multiple times with live ammunition and prevented Palestinian paramedics from poviding aid.
April 15, (DCIP) 17-year-old Shawkat Kamal Shawkat Abed succumbed to his wounds early this morning after being shot by Israeli forces yesterday in Kafr Dan, a village northwest of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Injuries suggest that Shawkat was struck with an exploding bullet that ruptured his blood vessels and veins. The use of expanding and exploding bullets is a violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Haaretz, April 15, A six-hour clash broke out Friday in the Al-Aqsa compound between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli police forces, leaving at least 152 Palestinians and three Israeli police officers injured in the biggest escalation in Jerusalem since the holy month of Ramadan began.
The same event as reported by the National Council of Canadian Muslims.” Earlier this morning, as hundreds were completing their prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, Israeli soldiers attacked with rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings with police batons. 150 worshippers were injured. “
Haaretz, April 16, Police arrested 400 people inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque after hours of skirmishes and managed to restore calm. But images of cops detaining worshipers might trigger the next terror attack. The intense clashes Friday morning on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount were almost inevitable. The rumors on social media – and the media’s noise surrounding it – that Jews were planning to come to the site and offer a Passover sacrifice spread like wildfire.
April 16, Soldiers arrested Shams a-Dim Aazem, 17, on suspicion of throwing stones. But between his cancer and his disability, the boy can barely move around. That didn’t save him from being handcuffed and spending five hours in detention. There is no mistaking Shams a-Din Aazem’s disability. His torso is deformed and rigid and inclines to one side. His arms are as skinny as matches. His face is ashen. Though his intellect is unimpaired, his manner of speech is quiet and strained. His face is anguished. He sits down with difficulty, stands up with difficulty and moves about with difficulty because of his physical adversities and his thin build
.Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, April 18, 2022, On Thursday, the 14th of April, a Palestinian human rights lawyer and a teenager were shot and killed on the fifth day of Israeli military raids in the West Bank. Muhammad Assaf, a 34-year-old father was dropping his children at school when he was shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers in Nablus. In the evening soldiers shot and killed a 16-year-old, Qusai Hamamrah, who was caught up in riots in Husan, near Bethlehem.
Oded Goldreich, Professor of Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, has declared his intention to donate the Israel Prize money he won, to five organizations dedicated to working for social justice and the end of the Israeli occupation. He nominated the groups as B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Adalah, Kav LaOved and Standing Together.
On Wednesday, the 13th of April, European diplomats visited the Old City of Jerusalem. They were briefed about the Israeli settler organizations which threaten to evict Christians from their properties at Jaffa Gate. They also discovered that the Israeli authorities planned to restrict numbers taking part in processions on Holy Fire Saturday, as well as limiting the number of worshippers allowed into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Shops and businesses were closed on Thursday, the 14th of April, as Palestinians in Ramallah and Bethlehem called for a general strike in protest against the recent deadly Israeli military operations. Earlier in the week a Palestinian gunman from Jenin had opened fire in Tel Aviv, killing three people and wounding ten others. In response to this incident the Israeli army launched violent collective raids throughout the West Bank, with six Palestinians shot and killed in just one 24-hour-period and many others arrested and detained.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, (CJPME), have just published a report called ‘Arming Apartheid’, which analyses Canada’s arms exports to Israel. The report finds that military exports have accelerated in recent years and reached a 30-year high in 2020. Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME, stated, ’the potential risk to human rights is far too high to justify the transfer of any military goods into the context of occupation and apartheid.’
April 11, 2022
Haaretz, Mar 27
Following an 18-year legal battle, members of a settler organization have moved into the Petra Hotel in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Currently, Ateret Cohanim occupies only part of the Petra Hotel, but Christians in Jerusalem consider the hotel a strategic building that could affect the character of the Old City’s entire Christian Quarter.
Sabeel. April 4 (see the above news from Haaretz)
The World Council of Churches expressed solidarity with the heads of the churches in Jerusalem as Israeli settlers broke into a hotel belonging to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. On Sunday, the 27th of March, members of the Ateret Cohanim settler group, accompanied by local Israeli police, broke into the Little Petra Hotel near Jaffa Gate in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem and evicted the family who managed the hotel.
Israel has witnessed a wave of terrorist attacks over the last few weeks. In two of the attacks, the assailants were Arab citizens of Israel. As soon as the perpetrators’ identities were known, a familiar, grisly ritual began: Arab leaders denounce the attacks, and Israeli right-wingers accuse all Arabs in Israel of collective responsibility for the deaths, inciting racism and calling for revenge.Ninety-six percent of prisoners and detainees in Israel who are brought to hospitals for treatment are restrained during the procedure or hospitalization, usually cuffed to the bed, the Israel Medical Association says in a new study. The study finds that even a prisoner missing a limb has been restrained, something that not only violates the person’s dignity but can impede the treatment itself.
April 5An Arab motorist accused undercover Israeli police of detaining him Sunday in the central town of Kalansua after suspecting him of supporting the Islamic State – after which they beat him and left him in a forest upon discovering that they had mistaken him for someone else.Abed Mansour, 38, said that he was blindfolded and taken to a forest near Kochav Ya’ir, south of Kalansua, where he was beaten after police refused to believe that his Israeli identity card was genuine. Mansour claims that when the police realized they had the wrong person, they freed him and commanded him to walk away and not look back.
April 6,The Judaization of East Jerusalem gathers steam. New neighborhoods will be built on both sides of crowded Beit Safafa, but mainly for Israelis ■ Sheikh Jarrah faces possible evictions ■ Houses in Silwan are being demolished – and that’s just a partial list.
April 7A gunman opened fire in central Tel Aviv on Thursday, police said, in what appears to be the latest in a string of terror attacks across Israel.Ambulance service Magen David Adom reported six casualties that were taken to the hospital, two in critical condition and one in serious condition. The shooting took place along several different spots along Dizengoff Street, one of Tel Aviv’s busiest streets.
April 9A Palestinian militant has been killed and at least a dozen others were wounded in a fire exchange with Israeli military forces in the West Bank on Saturday, according to Israeli and Palestinian accounts.Israeli military forces surrounded a compound in Jenin belonging to the family of Raad Hazem, who carried out a deadly attack in central Te Aviv on Thursday. During the raids, the army said soldiers came under fire. Troops fired back, killing one militant.
Israeli military officials recommended increasing the numbers of work permits for Palestinians from the West Bank on Friday in order to reduce illegal entry and monitor those who enter the country.During security talks held following the wave of terror attacks that has seen 14 Israelis murdered, IDF representatives suggested giving work permits to many of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who are in Israel illegally, most of whom come in order to work. This proposal is not universally agreed upon within the defense establishment.
Abd al-Rahman al-Qassem lay wounded at the bottom of the steps next to the Cotton Merchants’ Gate, one of the entrances to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. A few seconds earlier he had stabbed two police officers with a modest-looking knife. One officer was lightly wounded, the other’s injuries were more serious. The assailant knifed the two in a fit of rage as he descended the steps next to the gate. Shot immediately and incapacitated by the police officers, he lay on the ground, not moving when one officer shot him at close range.pril 10
April 10Israeli forces and Palestinians exchanged fire on Sunday during a raid in the town of Yabad, near Jenin, in the second consecutive day that troops have entered a gun battle with militants in the area.The Red Crescent reported six people were wounded and treated in Yabad, one of whom sustained a gunshot wound to the back and was evacuated to a hospital in Jenin. There were no reports of injuries on the Israeli side.
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian woman in her forties after she approached them in a “suspicious manner” in the West Bank town of Husan, near Bethlehem, on Sunday.Ghada Ibrahim Ali Al-Aridi from Bethlehem, a widowed mother of six, was shot in the lower body after she did not heed to calls to stay back or warning shots fired into the air, according to the IDF.No weapon was found on her person and the IDF is investigating the incident.
Palestinians set ablaze Joseph’s tomb, a holy site for Jews, late on Saturday night, as friction continues to grow between a spate of recent terror attacks and IDF raids in the West Bank.Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav told Israeli Army Radio that some 100 Palestinians marched toward the site, rioted and then torched the tomb before they were dispersed by Palestinian security forces. Images on social media showed parts of the tomb inside the shrine smashed and charred.
A Palestinian woman was shot dead on Sunday by Israeli forces in Hebron, after stabbing a Border Police officer, according to Israeli authorities.A preliminary investigation found that the officer shot the woman after she stabbed him with a kitchen knife.The Israeli officer was lightly wounded in the suspected attack near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, April 11 Rev. Canon Naim Ateek and women from the Sabeel movement will lead us in worship and reflection this coming Holy Saturday, on the 16th of April, for the Sabeel Easter Service in Jerusalem. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has appointed two new bishops. The Rev. Jamal Khader Daibes is Palestinian and has been appointed as the Patriarchal Bishop of Jordan. The new Patriarchal Vicar of Israel is the Rev. Rafic Nahra. He was born in Egypt to Lebanese parents. Sabeel gives thanks for these two newly appointed bishops. Both men were born and raised in the Middle East and have a deep love and understanding for the people there.
April 4, 2022
The U.S. secretary of state urged Israel to de-escalate tensions before Ramadan, as he visits the region for historic ‘Negev Summit’ with Arab allies.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked the Biden administration to press Israeli on freezing West Bank settlement expansion and curbing settler aggression, in a meeting Sunday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ramallah.
According to Abbas, the international political action following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed a double standard when compared with the issue of Israeli occupation, which has not received the same attention or demands of accountability.
Following an 18-year legal battle, members of a settler organization have moved into the Petra Hotel in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Currently, Ateret Cohanim occupies only part of the Petra Hotel, but Christians in Jerusalem consider the hotel a strategic building that could affect the character of the Old City’s entire Christian Quarter.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Monday that he had ordered a bolstering of Israel’s security forces until Independence Day on May 5, with an emphasis on volatile regions at risk of violence following a terror attack that left two Israelis dead and put Israel’s security echelon on high alert.
Bennett’s announcement is based on a security assessment following the attack in Hadera that left two Border Police officers, in addition to the two assailants from the nearby town of Umm al-Fahm, dead on Sunday evening. This was the second deadly attack carried out by Islamic State supporters in less than a week.
The images from the north-central city of Hadera on Sunday sent many Israelis back in time to the dark days of the second intifada: two terrorists, armed with multiple weapons, standing in the middle of a busy street and opening fire.
The fact that the perpetrators turned out to be Arab citizens of Israel who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and that an attack by another Arab-Israeli ISIS supporter took place just days earlier in the south of the country, made the situation even more shocking.
Roughly 400 security personnel, including police, soldiers and officials from Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank, took part in demolishing buildings in two settlement outposts last week. Altogether, 20 buildings were razed, after roughly two years in which the outposts had been left alone. One can only imagine how much money this operation cost, given the large number of people involved and the heavy machinery mobilized for the task.
Five cars were set on fire and vandalism was reported in suspected hate crimes against West Bank Palestinians on Sunday night, according to police.
A group of about 15 people came into Jalud, a village south of Nablus, and set fire to the vehicles, according to area activist Bashar Karyoti. The attackers also began throwing stones at a home in the village before the family living there repelled them, he said.
Five people were killed in a shooting attack on Tuesday in a suburb of Tel Aviv, in the third such attack in Israel within days, prompting police to go on the highest level of alert since the fighting with Gaza last year.
Police said that the assailant was shot at the scene by a police officer. The shooter was named as Diaa Hamarsheha, a 26-year-old Palestinian from Ya’bad, near Jenin, in the West Bank. He had apparently been in Israel illegally. The assailant had been arrested by Israel in 2013 for security offenses and served a six-month sentence.
Police are still searching for other suspects. Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen had called on the city’s residents not to leave their homes if not absolutely necessary.
Israeli forces arrested on Wednesday four family members of the Palestinian gunman who killed five people in a shooting attack in Bnei Brak the night before.
Military forces were operating the assailant’s hometown of Ya’bad, near Jenin in the northern West Bank, as the probe into the deadly attack continues and as investigators work to determine whether 26-year-old Diaa Hamarsheh had any accomplices.
Arab leaders in Israel have decided to carry on with their plans for the 46th annual Land Day on Wednesday, amid concerns by both Palestinian and Israeli officials that events may exacerbate tensions at a volatile time, after three deadly attacks against Israelis in a week.
Palestinians worldwide have commemorated Land Day since 1976, when Israeli forces shot dead six Israeli Arabs who were protesting the expropriation of Arab-owned land in northern Israel to build Jewish communities. About 100 others were wounded and hundreds were arrested during the protest on March 30 of that year.
Police officers, who are studying at the Hebrew University as part of a program through the force, detained and questioned two East Jerusalem residents who were singing a Palestinian folk song. After being questioned on suspicion of conduct that could disturb the peace, the students were released from detention about six hours later, and suspended from the university for six days.
A day after a terror attack that left five Israelis dead, Palestinian laborers in central Israel tell of cancelled work, racism and hostility from local residents.
Reported by B’TSelem on March 31, 2022. Since December 2021, B’Tselem has documented growing pressure by the Israeli military on Palestinian communities in the northern Jordan Valley. Dozens of armed soldiers roam among the families’ paltry tents and dwellings, trampling their fields with tanks and shooting live fire. In one of these communities, Khirbet Ibziq, residents were required to vacate their homes overnight several times, sometimes up to 17 hours at a time. The military calls this “training troops.”
In just three months, between December 2021 and February 2022, the Israeli military conducted continual “military exercises” in the northern Jordan Valley. In no less than 27 days, the “exercises” were held right on the residents’ land and among their homes. The six families living in Khirbet Ibziq, numbering 35 people in total, including 17 minors, were forced to vacate their homes several times during this period, which accumulated to nine days. When the military delivers the families orders to vacate – under the guise of concern for their safety – that means massive gunfire can be expected. The residents have to gather their bare essentials, leave their livestock behind and go stay with relatives or friends. Often, they have to walk up to seven kilometers to get there. Women and children march in procession, accompanied by military jeeps.
The nightmare of Khirbet Ibziq residents does not end when they return home. Then, they have to start warning their children not to curiously touch ammunition duds left behind. The soldiers do not always bother to comb the area before they leave, often leaving ammunition behind as if no-one lives there. In 2017, ‘Udai Nawaj’ah, a 16-year-old community resident, was killed by one such dud while grazing his flock.
The decision to “train troops,” as Israel calls it, among the fields and homes of some of the most underprivileged communities in the West Bank is no accident. In addition to this “training,” from early 2021 until date, we have documented the demolition or confiscation of 76 residential structures that housed 146 people, including 81 minors, 142 non-residential structures and one road in the northern Jordan Valley. These are all manifestations of the Israeli apartheid regime’s policy, designed to create impossible living conditions for these residents so they will give up and leave their land – ostensibly of their own free willHaaretz, April 1
Settlers with firebombs descended on a Palestinian village at night, torching cars. Following the terror attack in Hadera, Mohammed Abad, a resident of the West Bank village of Jalud, refused to go to sleep, fearing settlers’ revenge. He went up to his roof when he heard noises, to find his yard in flames. “We pray five times a day, but I pray a million times a day only for the settlers not to come,” says Mohammed Abad.
Reported by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac
A smell of fire and smoke still hung in the air when we arrived on Monday this week at the residential compound of the Abad family in the West Bank village of Jalud. During the night, their parking area had become a graveyard for skeletons of cars. On the hill opposite, around 300 meters away, two hydraulic excavators were at work in the settler outpost of Ahiya, thrusting their shovels repeatedly into the earth, as part of the effort to expand the outpost. The panorama here is stunning.
April 2
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Saturday near Jenin in the West Bank, in what Israel’s security service said was a counterterrorism operation. Four members of the Police Special Anti-Terror Unit were injured during the clash, with one in a serious but stable condition.
The Shin Bet said that the Palestinians opened fire at the forces who were coming to arrest them, and were killed during the exchange. Weapons and grenades were later found in their vehicle. According to Palestinian reports the men were identified as Saib Abahra, 30, a father of five from Jenin, Halil Toalba, 24, and Seif Abu Labda, 25.
Apr. 2,
The three acts of murder-suicide perpetrated by four Palestinians — from both sides of the Green Line — in less than two weeks only highlight the absence of a leading political Palestinian body, employing a single, clear and unifying strategy. . The attacks reflect internal divisions and the painful awareness of Palestinian weakness and inability to act in the face of Israel’s might. On the other hand, the fact that so few choose this route, despite its availability, indicates a broader political understanding that such attacks do not further the Palestinian cause.
March 28, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Mar. 21, 2022
WASHINGTON – Fifty House Democrats urged U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to prevent Israel from moving forward with the planned displacement of Palestinian families and the demolition of their homes in the West Bank village of Walaja.
“The destruction and displacement of this community would run counter to the values shared by the U.S. and Israel, while further undermining long-term Israeli security, Palestinian dignity, and prospects for peace,” the lawmakers — led by Reps. Jan Schakowsky, David Price, Jamie Raskin, John Yarmuth and Mark Pocan — wrote concerning the pending eviction of 38 Palestinian families, totaling approximately 300 people.
Mar. 22
An Israeli orchestra plays Arabic music from memory, under a Haredi conductor. The mixed Arab-Jewish orchestra Firqat Alnoor and its conductor Ariel Cohen are fighting stereotypes — around the music they play and around Israeli Haredim and Arabic culture. And they do it all without sheet music.
Mar. 23,
The growing settlement enterprise requires a constantly growing circle of partners in crime. Even the Authority for National-Civic Service, known in Hebrew as Sherut Leumi, contributes its bit to this criminal operation. Last week we discovered that the state allows national service volunteers to do their service in illegal West Bank settlement outposts. It is time to put an end to nationalist service volunteers at illegal West Bank outposts.
Mar. 23,
An Israeli court issued an order Wednesday reducing by two weeks the detention without trial of a Jewish man who was arrested last month on suspicion of attacking left-wing Israeli activists and who had previously violated numerous restraining orders.
The 20-year-old man, whose name is under gag order, is the resident of a West Bank settlement who is suspected of assaulting the activists near the West Bank village of Burin in January. He is the only Jewish administrative detainee in the country at this time; there are 490 Palestinians being held without trial by Israel.
WASHINGTON – The Middle East Studies Association on Wednesday officially passed a resolution endorsing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as a means of effectively holding Israel accountable for alleged human rights violations, in what can be described as a watershed moment for the BDS movement.
Mar. 23,
A Bedouin Israeli in the south who complained to the police that he was attacked by four Jews simply because he was an Arab was arrested on suspicion that he assaulted the four men. A judge says Sabah Abu Zaid was definitely attacked first, but the complainant’s lawyer says his testimony is being treated as false while the people he complained about went home after being questioned
According to a district court judge, there is no disputing that the man, Sabah Abu Zaid, was attacked first and believed that his life was in danger.
A Palestinian man arrested for an alleged stabbing attack Saturday is being held in a Jerusalem hospital with restraints on his hands and feet, despite the objections of his doctors, while sedated and intubated.
The head of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s trauma center, Dr. Alon Schwartz, has asked the police to remove the restraints from Murad Barkat, 28, warning that it could endanger his recovery. The police have not yet agreed to the request.
Mar. 24
WASHINGTON – United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk accused Israel of apartheid in a report submitted Tuesday to the UN Human Rights Council, the latest example of such accusations emerging in the international arena.
Soldiers posted in the West Bank have recently received instructions from their commanders that in any shift at a checkpoint or guard post they must enter the details and photos of at least 50 Palestinians to the IDF’s “Blue Wolf” tracking system. A soldier who doesn’t make the quota, they were told at the briefing, will not be relieved from duty at the end of their shift and will be forced to remain on duty until they make quota. The Blue Wolf system is used by the IDF to tag and monitor the entire Palestinian population, even those about whom there is no intelligence.
Mar. 24, 2022 11:34 PM
Israeli soldiers operating in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank have been collecting personal information about human rights activists from Europe, according to footage obtained by anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence.
Videos depict Israeli soldiers photographing activists in the South Hebron Hills, ‘so they don’t let them into the airport the next time,’ according to a settlement security guard.
Mar. 25
Two Palestinian teens were riding a motorbike in Nablus when a convoy of Border Police passed by. The officers first claimed the two shot at them, then said that they just pointed a gun, which was never found. It doesn’t change the outcome: The officers shot one of the teens as he fled, riddling his body with bullets
Horrorific images, utterly appalling, showing the corpse of a 16-year-old boy riddled with bullet holes. The entire body of Nader Rayan, son to a refugee family from the Balata refugee camp abutting Nablus, is strewn with deep, bleeding bullet wounds, his flesh is bare, his brain is spilling out, his head and face are perforated. Border Police troops shot him with pathological madness, in a rage, savagely, without restraint.
Mar. 27
The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved the establishment of five new communities in the Arad area of Israel’s Negev desert. Four of the five communities in Israel’s southern desert are slated for Jews, with admission committees vetting the prospective residents.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, March, 28, 2022,
While Christians continue to observe Lent, Muslims will begin fasting for Ramadan next week. Local residents and visitors will be taking part in religious ceremonies in the sacred city of Jerusalem during the coming month, with Easter celebrations for Christians, Ramadan for Muslims and Passover for Jews. Sabeel prays that Jerusalem will remain a city of peace through this significant time. We pray that worshippers will be granted access to their places of worship without fear of unprovoked attacks.
In a number of larger Palestinian cities voting for municipal elections took place on Saturday, the 26th of March. While the level of participation in voting for mayoral candidates is often high in Arab localities in Israel, levels are much lower in the West Bank.
Sabeel prays for young and dynamic leaders to emerge from the Palestinian community with a passion to defend human rights and to support democratic values.
Sabeel has again invited people to join their healthcare initiative. They open for enrolment every three months. Sabeel has brought together churches, non-profit organizations, lay people and businesses to develop a Health Insurance Plan which is available to the whole community and is meant to give support to those in greatest need in their communities.
A new non-fiction book for young adults has recently been published which aims to tell the story of young Palestinians living in Silwan, near the Old City of Jerusalem, through their own voices. ‘Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village’ by Jody Sokolower tackles the issues faced by Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in bite sized chapters relating to life for youngsters in Silwan.
Four people were killed on Tuesday, the 22nd of March, in a stabbing and car ramming attack in Beersheba in southern Israel. The assailant, Mohammed Abu Qian, a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the town of Hura, was shot by a bus driver at the scene. Sabeel prays
that tensions in al Naqab region may ease and that the Bedouin will not be forced from their land by the Israeli authorities.
Haaretz, referring to this same incident, on Mar. 24, (speaking of the assailant as a ‘terrorist’)
Hura residents condemn neighbor’s terror killings in Be’er Sheva and fear retaliation.
The morning after Tuesday’s attack in Be’er Sheva, the streets in the town of Hura, where the terrorist Muhammad Abu al-Kiyan lived, were almost empty. The few walking around al-Salam Street, where Abu al-Kiyan lived, looked suspiciously at any unfamiliar person passing by. ‘We live here together with our Jewish neighbors, work with them, they buy from us, and we have good relations. We won’t let anything destroy that,’ says a resident of Hura where the terrorist Muhammad Abu al-Kiyan was from.
Many of them declined to speak to me for fear of being questioned by security personnel, after police and Shin Bet forces had raided the neighborhood, and were seen walking around al-Kiyan’s family home minutes after the attack. “There’s tension here, and everyone is afraid,” said resident Nafed Abu al-Kiyan.
March 21. 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Mar. 14
The High Court of Justice will hold another hearing on Tuesday for the two petitions against the permanent eviction of the residents of Masafer Yatta from their homes, part of a bid by the state to declare part of the southeastern West Bank a “firing zone” for regular Israeli military exercises.
After putting off a decision on the petitions for two decades, the High Court is expected to hand down its final ruling soon. Following through with the state’s demands for a total evacuation would spell the end for eight Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta – also known as the South Hebron Hills – and the erasure of their distinct way of life, developed over many generations.
Mar. 13, 2022
Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri was detained without trial by Israeli authorities on Thursday, who alleged he belongs to the outlawed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and poses a threat to national security.
Mar. 15
A 16-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire on Tuesday during a raid in a West Bank refugee camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and another Palestinian was killed in a separate incident in the Jerusalem area.
Apart from the teen, at least three other Palestinians were wounded in clashes that followed the early morning raid in Balata, a sprawling refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. One of them, according to medical officials, is in serious condition, and another suffered facial burns from a stun grenade.
Israeli undercover officers shot dead on Tuesday a suspect who opened fire on them in the southern Israeli city of Rahat, police said.
He was identified as 27-year-old Salem al-Harbad.
The incident occurred during a Shin Bet arrest of two suspects. According to the security service, one of them was wanted for staying in Israel without permits and the other for security-related offenses.
Mar. 16,
Israeli settlers established a new outpost on a UNESCO World Heritage Site last week, near the Palestinian village of Battir.
The Palestinian owners of the land near the outpost said they have been barred from accessing their land since the outpost appeared. They said they have asked Israel’s Civil Administration to remove it, and have also contacted UNESCO over the matter.
An Israeli officer and soldier filed a complaint with the police on Tuesday after settlers reportedly attacked them near the West Bank outpost of Homesh.
The IDF released details of the incident, which occurred on Monday evening, and told that an Israeli vehicle breached the checkpoint near Homesh, hitting the legs of the two soldiers. They did not require medical treatment. This follows another incident of violence near Homesh on Saturday night, in which Israelis near the outpost pelted Palestinian vehicles with stones, the IDF Spokesman reported. The troops at the scene tried to stop the incident but ended up being attacked as well, the army said.
Mar. 19
On his way home from the gym, Israe troops fired 31 bullets at him. Soldiers pump Sudki Adwani’s car with bullets, seriously wounding the innocent driver. They leave him wounded and half-naked in the rain, only later calling for a Palestinian ambulance. The final blow: the revocation of his father’s Israeli work permit.
Mar. 21
A controversial new film called ‘Huda’s Salon’ reveals the Palestinian narrative from a unique perspective: the double occupation of women.
Had anyone told me the day would come when a male Palestinian director would look at the Israeli occupation through female eyes and without self-pity, I would not have believed it. But director-screenwriter Hany Abu-Assad has outdone himself in “Huda’s Salon,” in which he paints the occupation in colors we’ve never seen before in Palestinian cinema.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Mar 21, 2022
Last week Israeli crop duster planes flew for four consecutive days near the eastern Gazan Strip, spraying chemicals, believed to be herbicides, close to agricultural land owned by Palestinians. The spraying only starts when the wind is blowing in a westerly direction, in the direction of Palestinian land. The herbicides destroy the crops and ruin the arable land. The Israeli army claims it is clearing vegetation on the buffer zone.
On Friday, the 18th of March, the Eighth International Palestine Marathon took place in Bethlehem, after it had to be cancelled for the past two years due to the pandemic. Over ten thousand Palestinians and international runners took part in the event. Full marathon runners had to run the 11km course four times over, to avoid passing through Israeli checkpoints.
The Palestinian prisoners’ movement has announced that prisoners in Israeli jails will begin an open-ended hunger strike from Friday, the 25th of March. The hunger strike will be in protest at the worsening conditions being imposed upon them by the Israeli prison authorities.
The World Council of Churches’ Easter Initiative 2022(EAPPI) gives us a glimpse of the lives of Palestinians living in and around Jerusalem. While our hearts cry out for those suffering from warfare in Ukraine, let us also remember those who live under constant threat of eviction from their homes and communities in Palestinian neighbourhoods around this sacred city. One Palestinian interviewed in Silwan spoke about how the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes him feel ‘more persecuted than ever’. He lamented, ’I see the whole world and the UN standing resolutely on the side of the Ukrainians- as they should. But I see a double standard and I see the world giving Israel a free hand to do whatever it wants to persecute us.’
March 14, 2022
Reported by DCIP (Defence of Children International Palestine), Mar. 7,
Last night, Israeli forces killed another Palestinian child—the third in less than a month. Yamen Nafez Mahmoud Khanafseh was 15 years old. Israeli forces shot and killed him in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces prevented Palestinian paramedics from treating Yamen, firing tear gas canisters at the ambulance as it approached the scene, according to information gathered by DCIP. Israeli forces confiscated Yamen’s body, and it has not yet been returned to his family.
While it is unclear if Israeli authorities will continue to withhold Yamen’s body, Israeli authorities continue to implement a policy of confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. For grieving families, the Israeli policy of confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies amounts to collective punishment.
Israel is the only country in the world with such a policy of confiscating human remains.
Reported by Haaretz, Mar. 7, 2022
A Palestinian man was killed on Monday after stabbing two Israeli police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, in the second such incident in the city in as many days. Footage from the scene shows a police officer firing at the assailant while he was on the ground. The two officers were taken to hospital in moderate condition.
Israel will permit Palestinian institutions of higher education to employ lecturers from overseas only if they teach in fields that have been designated as essential by Israel, and only if the lecturers and researchers are accomplished and possess at least a doctorate, according to a new set of procedures by the Defense Ministry.
Mar. 10, 2022
Resist Israel’s Academic occupation of the Palestinians. An officer in the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories will soon rule that a certain college instructor, a U.S. citizen, cannot enter the West Bank to teach at a university in Jenin because her area of expertise is not an “essential field” for Palestinians. The field will be determined in accordance with a COGAT ruling. A French student’s application to Bethlehem University will be refused because the Defense Ministry has decided that the department is closed to foreign students.
Israel will halt demolitions of structures built without permits in the Arab community during Ramadan next month, in order to prevent an escalation of the security situation. The police chief’s decision comes amid heightened tensions in East Jerusalem. Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai instructed the police to refrain from carrying out evictions as well as freezing home demolition orders in East Jerusalem and the Negev.
‘Extremely arbitrary’ travel bans stop thousands of Palestinians from going abroad. More than 10,000 Palestinians were issued travel bans by Israel in 2021, and many of them only find out at the border
Israel prohibited 10,594 West Bank Palestinians from traveling abroad last year but granted nearly half of the appeals against the travel bans that were filed.
A 23-year-old Palestinian shot by the Israeli army during a protest march in the West Bank last week succumbed to his wounds, Palestinian media reported on Wednesday.
Ahmad Hikmat Seif was evacuated to hospital on Tuesday last week after he was wounded by gunshots in the stomach and back during a demonstration in support of Palestinian prisoners in the village of Burqa, local sources said.
Burqa and nearby villages in the northern West Bank have become flash points for violence in the last few months, amid renewed attempts by Israelis to reestablish the West Bank settlement of Homesh.
Anti-Arab graffiti was spray-painted on a car and the tires of 30 other vehicles were slashed on Wednesday in the central town of Jaljulya.
The graffiti reads “Arabs beware,” warning Arab men to stay away from “my sister,” referring to Jewish women.
While hate crimes targeting Palestinians are relatively common in the West Bank, this is a rare case within Israel’s borders.
Mar. 10, 2022 2:59 PM
Israel’s coalition passed a law effectively barring Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens from gaining citizenship or residency on Thursday, in a fraught final session before the Knesset breaks for recess.
The bill passed with 45 votes in favor and 15 against, with both the United Arab List and Meretz of the coalition opposing the law.
Reported Sabeel, Jerusalem, Mar. 14,
On Thursday, the 10th of March, the Knesset passed the new Citizenship Law. It replaces a temporary order introduced in 2003, which was renewed annually. The law discriminates against those Palestinians who are Palestinian by heritage and Israeli by citizenship. It prevents them from extending citizenship and permanent residency to their Palestinian spouses, if they come from the occupied Palestinian territories or Gaza. It will force thousands of Palestinian families to emigrate or to live separately.
There has been another attack on the Orthodox Monastery in Nablus, at the site of Jacob’s Well. The monastery and the Superior, Archimandrite Justinus, suffered a previous attack on the 24th of January. He has survived no fewer than thirty-two life threatening attacks.
March 7, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Feb. 28
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 14 were wounded in confrontations near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, signalling mounting tensions ahead of Ramadan.
Israeli forces detained at least 20 Palestinians in clashes in Jerusalem’s Old City, and 14 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, four of whom were rushed to hospital.
An 11-year-old child was wounded in the leg by a stun grenade, the Red Crescent said. She was taken to hospital, but her condition remains unclear.
Mar. 1,
Two Palestinians were killed during an overnight raid by Israeli forces at the Jenin refugee camp.
Israeli forces entered the Jenin refugee camp to arrest a suspect – who turned himself in – but two others were killed in firefight
One of them, according to witnesses, was an unarmed 18-year-old, and the other a member of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Reported by B’Tselem, March 1
Last May, Israel established the settlement outpost of Evyatar on top of Jabal Sabih – a hill near Nablus in the northern West Bank. The outpost was built on land that belongs to the towns of Beita and Qabalan and to the village of Yatma. Since then, the residents of these communities have not had a single day’s peace. Nine months without respite; nine months of fear and loss, and of people killed, wounded and detained.
Since the outpost was established, Israeli forces have killed nine Palestinians from these communities. Eight were shot to death during or near the demonstrations against the land grab; the ninth, a plumber from Beita, was shot and killed near the town’s water mains.
This week, we are publishing a report about the lethal open-fire policy the military is employing against residents of Beita who protest the establishment of the outpost. According to UN figures, in addition to the people killed in the demonstrations, more than 5,300 have been injured: about 180 by live fire, about 1,000 by rubber-coated metal bullets or sponge rounds, and the rest by tear gas inhalation. More than 100 residents of Beita have been arrested, and Israel has revoked the work permits of dozens.
Meanwhile, in Beita, Yatma and Qabalan, everyone is asking, “How many more dead, how many more wounded and arrested? How much destruction and suffering will it take to return to the hill?”
Haaretz, Mar. 1,
A 19-year-old Palestinian student was killed by Israeli army gunfire near a West Bank town just south of Bethlehem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
According to an Israeli security official, Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa, a resident of the al-Aroub refugee camp, and another Palestinian were near a viewpoint, between Beit Fajjar and the Migdal Oz settlement, where several Israelis were sitting.
Palestinian families slated for eviction from their Sheikh Jarrah homes can stay there until a final decision on property rights in the contested East Jerusalem neighborhood has been reached, Israel’s top court ruled on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court partially accepted the Palestinian residents’ appeal, letting them keep their homes for now for a reduced rent, paid to the settler group that claims ownership of the houses.
Mar. 2, 2022
Jerusalem police officers have used excessive force against Palestinians this week, police sources say, warning that tensions in the city and elsewhere could seriously escalate if the Jerusalem District, under the command of Maj. Gen. Doron Turgeman, doesn’t change its policy.
Eight Israeli settlers were arrested Wednesday over an attack on soldiers and Palestinians last month in the northern West Bank.
The police suspect that they arrived at the Shavei Shomron checkpoint in an attempt to enter the nearby illegal outpost of Homesh. After soldiers refused to let them pass, the eight allegedly started shoving and attacking soldiers and Palestinians in the checkpoint’s vicinity. A video footage of the incident shows settlers throwing stones at a Palestinian taxi.
Mar. 4, 2022
Sanctions on Russia: What about sanctions helping Palestinians?
The Palestinian leaders are following developments in Ukraine and biting their lips. “This is a time for remaining silent,” a senior Palestinian official told me. “Any statement or taking of a position will cost us dearly. Why annoy the United States and the West? We desperately need their help. And why open a front against the Russians and Putin?”
Mar. 4,
A Palestinian man who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers near Bethlehem on Tuesday had been strolling with a friend in a forest near his home when he was killed, the friend told B’Tselem’s investigator on Thursday.
Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa was a ‘peaceful’ person on a hike ■ ‘If he had wanted to clash with the army, he had plenty of opportunities in the refugee camp’Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa, a 19-year-old college student, was shot in the leg and then died from another shot to the head, the preliminary investigation into his death shows.
Mar. 5,
This is what Israeli evil looks like: Even after a deathly ill Hisham Abu Hawash ended his hunger strike, which had gone on for 141 days in protest of his administrative detention, Israel insisted on returning him to his cell until the termination of the period of his arrest without trial. Last weekend, he was finally released. He survived a 141 day hunger strike in Israel custody and vows to do it again if arrested. But despite the happiness at home, he is still far from the person he once was. His physicians in Shamir Medical Center, near Rishon Letzion, where he spent the final days of his hunger strike, told him that it would take a year and a half for his body to recover. For now, his speech is faint, his walk hesitant and the food he eats is measured.
Mar. 6,
Karim El Kusami, a 19-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem stabbed police in the Old City early Sunday morning and was subsequently shot dead by officers, according to Israeli police. Two officers were lightly injured during the attack and received treatment.
El Kusami’s brother, Muhammad, was arrested by police forces at the end of a house search conducted by Israeli officers according to an eyewitness.
Mar, 7
Bethlehem factories now face harsher security regulations from Israel. Even after installing cameras in factories, equipping trucks with GPS devices and conducting security checks on workers, factory owners say they have to travel to far-away checkpoints to transfer goods to Israel.
A 16-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli military fire near Jerusalem, the Palestinian Health Ministry and Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday.
According to the IDF, Israeli soldiers operating in the village of Abu Dis identified two suspects throwing firebombs at one of the army positions in the area. Yamin Jaffal was wounded by Israeli fire and later succumbed to his wounds. The second suspect fled the scene.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Mar 7, 2022,
On Tuesday, the 1st of March, entry requirements for travelers to Israel were relaxed. The rule change means that more pilgrims and tourists can return to visit Palestine and Israel after thirty months of absence and uncertainty, due to the pandemic.
A project called ‘Afaq’,(meaning, horizons) is being sponsored by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Bethlehem University. It aims to help Palestinian women and young people start their own businesses. So far it has reached one hundred Palestinians across thirteen parishes.
Ra’ef Salaymeh was forced to start demolishing his own home in the occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina on Friday, the 4th of March. The Israeli municipality accused him of building his home without a permit. The municipality rarely grants permits to Palestinians. He would incur a fine of $35,000 in demolition costs if he had not started to demolish his own house.
The funeral of Ammar Abu Afifeh took place at his home in the Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron on Wednesday, the 2nd of March. Ammar had been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers at the village of Beit Fajjar, north of Hebron on the previous day, but the army had refused to release his body to his family for twenty four hours. Hundreds of Palestinians attended his funeral to protest his killing. Mourners at the funeral were fired on by Israeli soldiers using rubber coated bullets and many also suffered suffocation from tear gas canisters fired at the crowd by the soldiers.
On Wednesday, the 2nd of March, Israeli settlers chased Palestinians who were foraging for gundelia,(or akkoub) in the Khallet Makhoul area, in the northern Jordan Valley. Israeli soldiers provided protection for the settlers and detained some of the foragers. Gundelia is a thistle-like plant which grows for a brief season in the springtime and has been used in traditional Palestinian dishes for generations. Israeli authorities claim the plant is now an endangered species. Palestinians maintain that environmental degradation and any threat to plant species is caused by rapidly expanding Israeli settlements and the proliferation of closed military zones in the occupied Palestinian territories.
February 28, 2022 Summary
Reported by Haaretz, Feb. 21, 2022
Representatives of the three largest churches in Jerusalem warn against attempts of ‘various entities’ who ‘are seeking to minimize, not to say eliminate, any non-Jewish characteristics of the Holy City’. The heads of the largest churches in Jerusalem have urged Israel’s environmental protection minister to halt a plan to expand the Jerusalem Walls National Park surrounding the Old City. The plan calls for expanding the national park on the slopes of the Mount of Olives to property owned by several different churches. The heads of the major denominations believe the scheme will infringe on their rights at the sites and on the status quo there.
Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority said on Monday that it was backing down from an expansion plan to encompass Christian holy sites on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives in a national park, following outcry from major churches.
The Justice Ministry has decided to close an investigation into police officers suspected of killing an uninvolved Israeli Arab during a shootout with criminals a year ago.
The Justice Ministry says it’s ‘more likely’ that Ahmad Hijazi was shot by one of the suspects and not one of the officers. The Family plans to appeal the decision.
The police arrested 13 Palestinians, including three minors, during a nighttime police raid of their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiya.
The Palestinians are suspected of hurling firebombs, stones and fireworks at security forces over the past few months. According to police, the suspects committed the acts between September and November of last year.
Feb. 22,
A Jerusalem court suspended on Tuesday the evacuation of a Palestinian family from their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which had been slated for March, in favor of a Jewish settler group. The court feared that the evacuation could have reignited violence in Jerusalem, particularly due to its timing, just before Ramadan.
A 14-year-old Palestinian was shot dead on Tuesday by Israeli forces near Bethlehem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the teen, Mohammed Shehadeh, was throwing a Molotov cocktail before being shot by soldiers in the West Bank town of al-Khader.
Reported by DCIP, Feb. 24,
Yesterday evening, an Israeli soldier shot and killed 13-year-old Mohammad Rezq Shehadeh Salah with live ammunition. The shooting occurred close to the Israeli separation barrier in Al-Khader, southwest of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
After Mohammad was injured and lying on the ground, Israeli soldiers approached him and removed his clothes, according to video footage taken after the shooting. Israeli forces prevented a Palestinian ambulance from reaching Mohammad, and he remained lying on the ground for around 30 minutes after being shot.
Haaretz, Feb. 23,
The Israeli army is refusing to process humanitarian requests from Palestinians and Israeli Arabs seeking to leave or enter the Gaza Strip if the necessary documents that they submit are labeled with a “State of Palestine” header.
Numerous Palestinian applicants were denied permits to attend family funerals, weddings or visit a sick family member over the new practice
In most cases, the heading appears on medical records or death certificates issued by Palestinian hospitals in the Gaza Strip. In many cases, documents have been rejected even though there were no factual disputes regarding the basis for the request.
The Israeli government has issued a demolition order of the home of a 95-year-old physically disabled woman in an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev.
The order was issued even though the woman’s shack is built on the ruins of the old house where she had lived for the last 15 years in order to make it wheel-chair accessible.
Feb. 25,
Israeli soldiers shot on Friday a Palestinian man who the military says threw an explosive device from his car at a West Bank checkpoint, seriously wounding the man, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. He was taken to hospital in Jenin.
There were no other casualties in the incident near the Jalameh checkpoint, in the northern West Bank.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Feb. 28, 2022
Video footage of Israeli police manhandling Muhammad al-Ajlouni, a young Palestinian man with Downs’ syndrome, has caused outrage. On Monday, the 21st of February, Muhammad started to join in with the protesters he came across at Sheikh Jarrah. When soldiers attempted to restrain him, he was terrified. An Israeli police officer came to apologise to his family for the rough treatment on the following day and stated that the police had, ‘a duty to take care of people with special needs’.
On Thursday, the 24th of February, B’Tselem published the full witness statements of those Palestinians who had been affected by settler attacks while driving in the Nablus and Ramallah areas over a period of four days, from the 21st to the 24th of November, 2021. The settlers had damaged Palestinian vehicles by driving by and throwing large stones at their windscreens, injuring three Palestinians and inflicting life-changing injuries on one driver.
B’Tselem has also highlighted the disruption caused by the 50-day closure of the village of Deir Nizam in the Ramallah District by the Israeli military during this past December and January. On the premise of looking for Palestinian children who may have thrown stones at Israeli settler cars, the army set up a checkpoint to control movement in and out of the village, patrolled the village and detained residents as a form of collective punishment.
February 21, 2022 Summary
Reported by Haaretz, Feb 14, 2022,
Large numbers of police were deployed in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Monday, using stun grenades to disperse young Palestinians who had gathered in the neighborhood.
Supporters of the Likud party rallied nearby with Israeli flags, as far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir returned to a makeshift office he set up in the flash point neighborhood.
Reported by Defence of Children international, Palestine, Feb. 14,
Late last night, Israeli forces entered the village of Silat Al-Harithiya in the northern occupied West Bank to demolish the home of a Palestinian prisoner—a policy that amounts to collective punishment. As villagers gathered near the soldiers, an Israeli sniper shot 16-year-old Mohammad Akram Ali Taher Abu Salah in the eye with live ammunition.
Bystanders transported Mohammad to a hospital in Jenin, where he was pronounced dead a few hours later.
Haaretz,
A 26-year-old Palestinian was killed Tuesday in the West Bank by Israeli army fire near Ramallah, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Israeli defense officials have confirmed the fatality and said the circumstances of the incident are being investigated.
Nihad Amin al-Barghouti was shot in the village of Nabi Saleh, according to a local activist, after an Israeli force entered the village northwest of Ramallah.
Feb. 16,
Elad, a right-wing Zionist organization, has been holding educational activities on private Palestinian farmland in East Jerusalem under the auspices of the Jerusalem Municipality.
The activity is defined as a joint project between Elad and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and was made possible after Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon signed a landscaping order to develop the area of the Hinnom Valley where the farmland is located.
Police arrested on Wednesday 17 people suspected of assaulting Palestinians and causing damage to property in the West Bank village of Hawara last month.
Three Palestinians were injured in the incident, after a convoy of cars passed through the West Bank village of Hawara and some passengers hurled stones at vehicles and shopsThe suspects, some of whom are from the north, settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, are being questioned by the police on suspicion of assault, taking part in illegal gathering and causing damage to property out of racist motives. Their detention may be extended later on Wednesday.
Reported by Defence of Children International Palestine, Feb 17,
Israeli authorities renewed the administrative detention of Palestinian teen Mohammad Mansour for an additional four-month period, adding to more than 300 days of imprisonment without charge or trial. Israeli forces detained Mohammad, then 17, during a night raid on his home in Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank on April 9, 2021. He’s been imprisoned without charge ever since.
Haaretz, Feb. 18,
The Shin Bet’s former No. 3 thinks it’s time for Israel to rethink its modus operandi. ‘We arrested countless Palestinians for no reason”, says ex-0top Shin Bey officer.
The events of the past two weeks – tensions in Sheikh Jarrah and the increase in the number of Palestinians killed in clashes with the army – have strengthened assessments inside the Israel Defense Forces that a major escalation could break out in the territories around April, between the start of Ramadan and Passover.
Dozens of settlers, the ‘Klan on Mt.Qantub’, swooped down, armed with axes and clubs, on a pastoral shepherding community on the dark edge of the Judean Desert and attacked a 73-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Shalaida this week.
He is now sitting on an old bed in a shabby room in Sa’ir, a town near Hebron. His head and hand are bandaged: Shalalda is recovering from a pogrom. He was hospitalized for five days in Hebron and is now recuperating at the home of one of his sons. When he is well again, he’ll return to his tent-home in his family’s small pastoral enclave, which lies a few kilometers to the east, on Mount Qanub. Shalalda, who has 10 children, was born on that mountain and will probably die there, too.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Feb. 21, 2022,
On Friday, the 18th of February, representatives from the Humanitarian Country Team in Palestine met with the Salem family in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. The family of twelve, including six children, face forcible eviction from their home in March. The team, comprised of members of UN agencies and international and Palestinian NGOs has called on the Israeli authorities to halt all further evictions from the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem. 218 Palestinian families are living with this imminent threat.
Footage of Israeli soldiers arresting a 19-year-old Palestinian at his workplace at night in al-Bireh, near Ramallah was released on Wednesday, the 16th of February. Malik Maala was working as a guard at an industrial facility to raise money for his university tuition fees when soldiers arrived to arrest him. The film shows that when the soldiers came to detain him, he raised his hands behind his head, expecting to be handcuffed. At this point an Israeli soldier released a military dog which pounced on him and attacked him. Some moments later the dog was recovered by a soldier and Malik was detained and taken to an undisclosed location.
Acute water scarcity has forced the villagers of Furush Beit Dajan, near Nablus, to abandon their once famous lemon trees and to grow tomatoes in greenhouses instead. There are plenty of wells under their land for crops but their water has been diverted. The Israeli army has constructed artisian aquifers and supplies unlimited quantities of water to the nearby Israeli settlements of Hamra and Mekhora.
On Friday, the 25th of February Sabeel Jerusalem will host an event with Rev. Mitri Raheb. He will be discussing a document he helped to write which is entitled, ‘We choose abundant life’. It is the work of a group of theologians and specialists in human and geopolitical sciences, both women and men, from different church traditions, who have come together to lay out a new vision for the people of the Middle East.
Last week Palestinian Christians gathered in Beit Sahour to pay tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died in December 2021. The prayer service was held at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, where Tutu prayed when he visited in 1989. Tutu came to Beit Sahour during the first Palestinian Intifada. He spoke at Shepherd’s Field, where he was welcomed by thousands of Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim. Tutu identified the situation in Palestine/Israel as apartheid three decades before the recent reports of B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Samir Mansour once again opened his bookstore/library in Gaza to customers on Thursday, the 17th of February. His shop had been completely destroyed by Israeli bombing in May 2021. Last year Human Rights lawyers Mahvish Rukhsana and Clive Stafford Smith led a fundraising operation called 3DC to help raise donations from all around the world to help him rebuild and restock his shop.
February 14, 2022 Summary
Reported by Haaretz, Feb. 9, 2022
Two vehicles owned by a Palestinian man were vandalized Tuesday night in the West Bank by a group of Hebrew-speaking attackers, hours after the nearby illegal outpost of Ma’ale Ahuvia was evacuated.
The group smashed the windows and punctured the tires of the car and tractor owned by a resident of the Palestinian village Deir Jarir.
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the West Bank militia formed inside the Israeli army, has a long history of bad behavior, driven by a far-right ideology imbibed from the settler movement.
Haaretz, Feb 13,
A 17-year-old Palestinian was killed by live Israeli fire in clashes in the Jenin area that erupted after the military demolished the home of one of the Palestinian attackers convicted of a deadly shooting attack last year.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Muhammad Akram Ali Tahr was killed by a gunshot wound to the head fired by Israeli forces. The ministry reported 11 more Palestinians were wounded. The Red Crescent said two of them were in serious condition.
Far-right MK Ben-Gvir came to Sheikh Jarrah to reopen an office and pour some more fuel on the flames which threaten to reignite simmering Arab-Jewish tensions in the neighborhood.
If the next round of violence pitting Israel against Hamas and the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem begins soon, it will begin in the ugliest corner of the city, in the small plot of land between the homes of the Yushvaevs and the Salems in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The area is covered with garbage and construction debris, with a large muddy puddle in the center, and next to it a burned-out vehicle and a trampled fence. This plot has been the center of the confrontation between the neighborhood settlers and Palestinians in recent weeks.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Feb 14, 2022,
On Saturday, the !2th of February, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory reported that the Israeli authorities had demolished, confiscated or forced owners to demolish 53 Palestinian-owned homes in Area C of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The authorities cite the reason for the demolitions is the lack of Israeli building permits,(which Palestinians find almost impossible to obtain). The demolitions affected the livelihoods of 400 Palestinians and displaced 26 people, including 13 children. Some of the structures that were torn down were temporary shelters, which had been provided as humanitarian assistance to families whose homes had already been demolished.
‘Coalition-stop settlements’is a broad alliance of NGOs, grassroots movements, trades unions and politicians who have come together to halt the annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory. On Sunday, the 20th of February, they are launching the European Citizen’s Initiative. They are aiming to get one million signatures to support their petition. They are appealing to the European Commission to start respecting international law by stopping all trade with illegal settlements.
During the first month of 2022 the Israeli authorities have arrested 502 Palestinians, according to prisoner advocacy groups. Among the detainees were 6 women and 54 children, one of whom was younger than twelve-years-old. There are now 4,500 Palestinian detainees in Israeli military prisons, 500 of whom are held on administrative detention. Many prisoners are suffering from Covid, with 500 cases reported in Ofer Prison alone.
Stanford University in the US has announced that the scientist Bassam Dally is now ranked in the top two per cent of scientists across the world. Bassam is a Palestinian- Australian academic and his family originated from Kafr Yassif, near Galilee. His research currently focuses on the use of renewable energy sources to decarbonise pollution from heavy industries. Alongside his academic work he has continued to support Palestine.
This year Kumi Now is taking a fresh look at the different challenges faced by Palestinians and finding out from them about the innovative ways they have come up with to overcome them. On Tuesday, the 15th of February, Vera Baboun, who served as the first female mayor of Bethlehem, is featured in the new Palestinian Innovator Series.
February 9, 2022 Summary
Reported by Haaretz, Feb. 7, 2022,
Israel’s public security minister has called for an investigation into the Israel Police’s use of hard sponge-tipped bullets against Bedouin, five of whom suffered head injuries, during protests last month over the planting of JNF trees.
Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev asked the Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit to investigate the cases after learning about them from a report published by the Hebrew edition of Haaretz on Sunday.
16-year-old Abdullah Tarabin lost an eye ■ Bassem has three fractures in his jaw ■ Taleb’s skull was smashed ■ Obeideh and Uday were injured in their faces ■ Israeli police loosened restrictions on the use of the hard sponge-tipped bullets. These are the stories of those paying the high price for it.
It’s been two weeks since his eldest son, Abdullah, lost his left eye to a hard sponge-tipped police bullet, but Mohammed Tarabin, a soft-spoken 38-year-old man, still finds it difficult to work up the courage to tell his family.
“I’ve lied to everyone,” he told Haaretz, explaining that he hasn’t been able to share the news that the 16-year-old has permanently lost his sight in the eye.
Feb. 8,
Israel said its forces killed three Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday in Nablus, accusing them of several shooting attacks targeting military forces and Israeli civilians in the West Bank over the past weeks.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the three deaths, calling the Israeli operation “an assassination.” The Foreign Ministry described it as a “field execution.”
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Feb. 8, 2022,
Amnesty International launched its most recent report, entitled ‘Israel’s apartheid against Palestine’ on Tuesday, the 1st of February in occupied East Jerusalem. The report concludes that the Israeli occupation state has imposed a ‘cruel system of domination and has committed crimes against humanity’. Fourteen Israeli NGOs and human rights’ groups have signed a statement in support of the Amnesty International report and expressed their concern over an attack against the report by the Israeli government which accuses it of being antisemitic.
The Rawajba family have spent the last fourteen months trying to establish what has happened to their son. They do not know if he is alive or dead and they are worn down with suffering. Their son, Bilal was wounded by the Israeli army when he drove by Huwara, an army checkpoint near Nablus. He was reported to have been injured and airlifted to an unnamed hospital in Tel Aviv. At one point the family were contacted to let them know he had died, but they were later told he was still receiving treatment.
The scenes of Syrian refugees struggling to survive in wintry conditions moved Ibraheem Khalil and his friend Jabr Hijaz to launch an online campaign to raise funds for the work of relief organisations building houses for them in Syria, Jordan and Turkey. They have raised more than 10 million shekels in relief funds from Palestinians living in Arab cities in Israel.
On Saturday, the 29th of January, Episcopalians from the Washington D.C. area adopted resolutions, (3 to 1), to oppose the Israeli apartheid, to confront Christian Zionism and to defend the right to boycott as a legitimate form of protest.
This week five Palestinian NGOs, supported by Israeli human rights’ NGOs, made a formal request that the IDF Legal Advisor from the West Bank reverse his declaration, made in October 2021, that they were ‘unlawful associations’. A sixth group is not part of the latest legal challenge. The Palestinian NGOs have long established records of working to support the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, and have worked in partnership with the UN and the global human rights’ community. The IDF has stated that it will not produce evidence against the groups as it is based on classified intelligence.
The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, first passed in 2003, makes inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza ineligible for the granting of Israeli citizenship and residency permits that are usually available through marriage to other Israeli citizens. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem pay a particularly heavy price for this law, often denied unification rights with members of their family. Some Palestinian families have recently been granted residency permits, but many thousands are still denied the right to live with their own family members.
A US District Court judge has blocked the State of Texas from enforcing its Anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Law against a Palestinian-American contractor who refused to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel. The judge stated that this law infringed Rasmy Hassounas’ First Amendment rights. A number of US states have recently introduced legislation to prevent citizens from participating in any economic boycott of Israel and from any expression of support for Palestinians on the grounds of antisemitism.
Haaretz, Feb. 9,
Thousands take to the streets in the west Bank over the colt of living. The price of fruits and vegetables has skyrocketed, and gasoline, electricity and dairy products have also gone up substantially, but the Palestinian Authority has had a hard time providing solutions.
Feb. 9, 2022
Police cleared out some 20 right-wing activists who set up several mobile structures in a largely Bedouin area in southern Israel early Wednesday morning. At least 15 were briefly detained after refusing to leave ‘Ma’aleh Paula,’ which was set up as a new ‘settlement’ by activists looking to pressure authorities on Bedouin construction in the Negev
February 7, 2022
Reported by Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) on Jan 31, 2022,
On Saturday, 29 January 2022, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the Israeli authorities have banned the import of new medical radiology devices for the Gaza Strip hospitals for several months, including stationary and mobile x-ray machines. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) follow-up, it was confirmed that the Israeli occupation authorities have banned the import of new medical devices necessary for radiology services in the Gaza Strip hospitals for 10 months. The Israeli authorities also banned the import of spare parts necessary for the maintenance of many broken and out-of-service medical devices despite their importance in diagnosing diseases and treating patients.
Reported by Haaretz, Jan. 31, 2022,
New research has uncovered an Israeli military operation commanded by Moshe Dayan, whose goal was to forcibly remove Bedouin citizens from their lands. ‘Transferring the Bedouin to new territories would annul their rights as landowners and make them tenants on government lands,’ wrote Dayan in 1951.
WASHINGTON – Several of the most significant U.S.-Jewish establishment organizations issued a rare joint statement Sunday, vehemently condemning Amnesty International UK’s upcoming report accusing Israel of being guilty of “the crime against humanity of apartheid.”
The report, slated to be released Tuesday, marks the first time the group is officially using the term “apartheid” to describe the state of affairs in Israel, going further than last year’s Human Rights Watch report that limited its description of apartheid to Palestinian areas under Israeli occupation. Various human rights organizations within Israel proper, including B’Tselem and Yesh Din, have also begun using the term in recent years.
The years-long weakening of the Palestinian Authority, widely unpopular among the Palestinian public, has served to strengthen Hamas and threaten Israel’s security, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Monday.
While Gantz maintained that the Israeli government refuses to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership, he stressed that maintaining a “diplomatic horizon,” is within Israeli interests.
Reported by Al Jazeera, Feb. 1,
Israel forced two Palestinian families in occupied Jerusalem to self-demolish their own homes this morning. Thirteen Shqeirat family members, incl. 5 children, were forcibly displaced.
Haaretz, Feb. 3,
Non-profit groups and aid organizations from Israel’s Arab community have raised more than 20 million shekels ($6.3 million) for residents of refugee camps in northern Syria, as the region suffers from freezing temperatures.
Officials from the aid organizations said they were surprised by the outpouring of donations they received from the community, many of whose members are of low socio-economic standing and are facing their own economic hardships.
Haareetz, Feb. 4,
Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank confront winter Covid , fueled by Omicron. 70,000 active cases in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry reports, as West Bank hospitals reach 85% capacity.
Analysis: Settlers score decisive win against israeli government.
One of Avichai Mendelblit’s last decisions before his term as attorney general ended this week was also one of the most shameful. He legalized the illegal West Bank settlement of Evyatar. In his legal opinion, he wrote that the preparations for founding the settlement can begin now, and when they have been completed the government can authorize the construction of a new settlement on the site.
A mentally ill Palestinian, 30, was arrested on suspicion of running over a soldier. Now for weeks, despite three court orders, Israel has failed to provide a psychiatric opinion saying that he is mentally fit for detention or to stand trial.
The Israeli government said Thursday that no date has been set for the evacuation of the illegal outpost of Homesh, and that the decision to remove the last remaining structure in the northern West Bank site rests only with Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
In response to a petition filed at the Supreme Court by the Palestinians who own the land, the government also said that it will continue to allow Israelis who study at the outpost yeshiva to come there, despite this violating a law that bars the presence of Israeli civilians from areas which Israel withdrew in 2005.
Female Palestinian journalist Raja Jaber was shot and injured by Israeli regime forces while she was doing her job in covering the weekly anti-settlement protest in Beita town, in the occupied West Bank.
Reported by the Palestine Information Centre, Feb. 5,
The Israeli occupation police on Friday summoned Jerusalemite researcher and activist Nasser al-Hadmi and notified him of their decision to impose renewed restrictions on his movement and contacts in the holy city.
According to the police decision which was issued at the behest of the Shin Bet intelligence service, Hadmi will be banished from east Jerusalem and banned from contacting certain Jerusalemite figures for six months.
The Israeli intelligence apparatus claims that Hadmi, who works as head of the Jerusalem Committee Against Judaization, is a Hamas activist and participates in events that pose a security threat to Israel.
Similar restrictions had been imposed on Hadmi during the past six months, but they expired on Thursday, February 3, 2022.
Hadmi described the renewed measure against him as “a violation of his rights to freedoms of movement, worship and work,” adding that this would prevent him from working, visiting his doctor and the bank, shopping for his family and taking his children to schools and other places.
Haaretz, Feb. 6, 2022
The decision by outgoing Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit to establish a settlement on the location of the outpost Evyatar did nothing to cool the ardor of the residents of Beita, the Palestinian village whose lands the outpost occupies. On the contrary. “It only strengthens our will to resist and fight,” a 17-year-old, attending the demonstration against the outpost, the largest weekly protest in the West Bank, told Haaretz. The Palestinians of Beita have demonstrated every week since the establishment of Evyatar last year, losing eight people. With Mendelblit’s final action in office, he has given the protests a new lease of life.
Feb. 6, 2022, Ibrahim Abu Yaqoub was killed by Israeli soldiers when he was out for a walk. A soldier’s testimony exposes the contrast between how the army treated his death and how it reacted to the death of a Palestinian-American.
As a number of writers have asserted, with varying levels of cynicism, the Israel Defense Forces treated the death of 78-year-old Omar As’ad seriously because he was an American citizen. A look back at the killing of another Palestinian, Ibrahim Abu Yaqoub, 34, shows how extraordinary the steps are that the military has taken against those involved in As’ad’s death.
Feb. 7, 2022 6:05 AM
The Israel Defense Forces and police continue to pass the buck to one another in the face of increasing numbers of politically motivated anti-Arab crimes committed by Jews in the West Bank.
‘It’s very difficult to instill an understanding in the commanders and soldiers that their job is to protect the safety of both sides,’ a senior security source said, ‘Eventually, this violence will blow up in our faces’
January 31, 2022
Reported by Haaretzm Jan. 23, 2022 (Opinion )
This weekend’s attack on Israeli peace activists by violent West Bank settlers should put to rest any attempts to doubt or dismiss the severity of what is a grotesque and accelerating campaign of terror. But perhaps even more alarming than the attempts to turn a blind eye to settler violence is the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the settlers’ goals. Most violent attacks by West Bank settlers are not random acts of hooliganism. They are harnessed to a strategy, a political objective wholehearted endorsed by sections of the current Israeli government.
Jan. 25,
WASHINGTON – Seven prominent American-Jewish organizations urged Israeli officials Tuesday to condemn “the ongoing terrorism and political violence committed by Jewish Israeli extremists in the West Bank against Palestinians, Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.”
Jan. 24, 2022
Raz Sagi, a city council member from the Jewish Tel Aviv suburb of Rosh Ha’ayin, and Musa Abu Zaid, of the neighboring Arab town of Kafr Qasem, sit together in a small protest tent. The smell of coffee prepared on a camping stove wafts through the tent in the middle of an open field near Kafr Qasem. They have been sitting there for the past month as part of a joint effort to stop the construction of the Kesem power plant, which is slated to be built between their two communities.Jan. 24, 2022
Three Palestinians were reportedly wounded on Monday as settlers hurled stones at businesses and cars in the town of Hawara south of Nablus in the West Bank.
According to Palestinian reports, three Palestinians were lightly injured and the windows of some 20 cars and two stores were shattered in the attack. In a video of the incident, soldiers are seen standing at the side of the road and a military jeep is seen driving behind the settlers’ vehicles.
During a two-hour visit to the Eyal Checkpoint near Tul Karm on a particularly cold January afternoon, hundreds of Palestinians, perhaps thousands, were on their way home. Aside from the few women, most of whom work in agriculture, they were men in clean clothes and tall, dirty boots, hinting that they work in construction. They had set out for Israel 14 hours earlier. Now, they will travel in a Palestinian taxi to their homes near Nablus, Jenin or Tul Karm, only to get up before dawn the next morning and start the exhausting trip all over again.
A great exploitation: under the current system, tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are each forced to pay 2,500 shekels ($780) a month for a work permit in Israel.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Jan 31, 2022,
On Saturday, 29th December, Sabeel international held a service of thanks for the like of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The service, on Zoom, was very well attended and Sabeel are thankful to all those who attended to celebrate the life of Archbishop Tutu, a former patron of Sabeel.
On Friday, 29th December, Daoud and Daher Nassar from the Tent of Nations were attacked by a group of 15 men carrying clubs and other weapons. Daoud and Daher were both hospitalised with head injuries following the assault. Sabeel asks for prayers for the Nassar family, and especially for Daoud and Daher, as they recover from this attack, and asks for blessings for the Tent of Nations as they strive to live on their farm and seek the way of peace as they ‘refuse to be enemies’.
13-year-old Lujain Alqattawi is a finalist in the Time Magazine Kid of the Year competition. Lujain, an American Palestinian, began to teach Palestinian refugee girls in her community to speak English and has created a programme with the aim of healing Palestinian refugee girls to achieve their dreams.
On Saturday, the 23rd of January a group of lawless Palestinians attacked Archimandrite Ioustinos, the caretaker of the Church on the site of Jacob’s Well in the city of Nablus. He suffered medium physical injuries. This attack is not the first one, as it happened several times in the past. The Palestinian Authority promised to bring the persons who did it to justice but until now no one was arrested.
Kumi Now online sessions restart on Tuesday 1st February with the first in our new ‘Palestinian Innovators’ series. These sessions, which take place on the first Tuesday of each month, will hear from upcoming and influential Palestinians. On the third Thursday of each month we will hear about possible solutions to the situation in Palestine.
January 24, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Jan. 17, 2022
A Palestinian man was shot after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier at the Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank, the military’s Spokesperson’s Unit said Monday.
The Palestinian exited his vehicle, armed with a knife, and attempted to stab the soldier. The soldier then shot his attacker, according to the military. There were no casualties among the Israeli soldiers, the army says, as Palestinian media says the assailant, Falah Jaradat, was killed Jan. 17,
Israeli military restricts Palestinians, but allows settler event at evicted oupost.
Some 1,200 people participated in a Tu B’Shvat seder on Sunday at the evacuated settlement of Homesh in the West Bank, although the site is a closed military zone and the event was held without IDF permission or coordination. Other events there since the killing of local yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman were coordinated with the army.Jan. 17,
The eviction of a family from their home in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah was delayed after police clashed with locals and failed to complete it on Monday.
The attempted eviction saw Mohammed Salahiya, a Palestinian, barricading himself on the roof with his children and threatening to blow up a gas tank.
Then on Jan. 19, The pre-dawn demolition marked the end of a struggle over a family home in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah on land that has been expropriated by the Jerusalem Municipality to build a school
Israeli police carried out a demolition order and arrested over a dozen people in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah early Wednesday morning, heading off a two-day struggle between a local family and the Jerusalem Municipality.
The European Union condemned Thursday the “worrying trend of increasing numbers of demolitions and evictions in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem,” one day after the after police razed a Palestinian home in the flashpoint neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
The statement issued by EU spokesperson Peter Stano highlighted the decision by the Jerusalem municipality to “advance a plan for the construction of more than 1,450 settlement-housing units” in East Jerusalem, warning that the plan “undermines the possibility of Jerusalem serving as the future capital of both States.”
Jan 19, 2022
Where the streets have no Arabic name, a group of women remind us of Palestinian history. Behind the project Shawari’a Yafa (‘Streets of Jaffa’), is a mix of Arab and Jewish residents, who seek to commemorate Arab street names that were Hebraized by putting up additional street signs. An enterprise of the utmost importanceJan. 21, 2022 12:56 PM
Four human rights activists were injured following a settler attack on Friday near the Palestinian village of Burin in the West Bank. Footage from the scene depicts a group of masked people attacking activists with clubs, hurling stones at them and setting one of their cars on fire. The injured activists were evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Then on Jan. 22, Israeli public security minister called the masked setters who attacked human rights activists on Friday a ‘terror organization’, but stated that it is ‘very difficult’ for police to arrest the perpetrators.
Jan. 21, 2022
There’s a mass Palestinian grave at a popular Israeli beach, veterans confess. The Israeli veterans of the 1948 battle at Tantura village finally come clean about the mass killing of Arabs that took place after the village’s surrender.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem on January 24,
On Wednesday 19th January, Israeli occupation forces evicted the Salhiye family from their home and plant nursery business in the East Jerusalem area of Sheikh Jarrah. In previous days attempts to force the family out had failed due to the peaceful resistance of the family and others, however, the forces arrived in the very early hours of Wednesday morning, evicted the family and demolished their house and several surrounding structures.
After 13 days in a coma, South Hebron Hills community leader Suleiman al-Hathalin (Haj Suleiman) passed away in hospital. 75-year-old Suleiman had been run over by a tow truck operating for the Israeli occupation forces and had suffered head injuries and broken bones.
Rasmia Barbur, 28, from the northern city of Nof Hagalil became the 6th victim of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian community this year after being killed by her husband. Violence in the Arab community in northern Israel has been on the rise in recent years with 126 Israeli-Palestinian citizens killed in 2021. Police investigation of these killings is not always completed with only 23 percent solved compared to 71 percent in the Jewish community.
Jewish settler extremists from the illegal outpost of Givat Ronen attacked Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists, including some from Rabbis for Human Rights, as they planted olive trees in the area of Burin, near Nablus in the West Bank. In an unusual move, the Yesha Council which represents much of the settler leadership, condemned the attacks as ‘aberrant’ and said that ‘such grave conduct is against the values of the people of Israel…It is not our path. We call for authorities to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
UN agencies, including UNICEF, UNWRA, and OHCHR, have called upon Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release Palestinian teenager Amal Nakhleh. Amal, who suffers from a severe autoimmune disease requiring continuous medical treatment and monitoring, has been held in an Israeli military prison on administrative detention without charge or trial for over a year.
January 17, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Jan. 10,
Hundreds of police officers were deployed to guard Jewish National Fund workers preparing land for forestation near the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev on Monday – land used by locals for agriculture.
Several people were detained after residents gathered to protest the work, including Nas Radio journalist Yasser Okbi. He was detained on suspicion of interfering with police, despite the fact that he had presented his press card. One person was reported to be injured.
Jan. 12,
The Israeli government said on Wednesday that future work by the Jewish National Fund in the Negev will be negotiated by coalition partners, in a bid to ease tensions after days of violent clashes over forestation work on the land used for agriculture by local Bedouin.
The JNF’s tree-planting, which began on Monday, ended on Wednesday as planned.Jan. 13,Police disperse hundreds of protesters with stun grenades and tear gas, as Israel’s Negev erupts in protest over Jewish National Fund’s tree-planting on land used for agriculture by local Bedouin.
Thirteen protesters were arrested Thursday after clashes in southern Israel resumed for the fourth day in a row, with hundreds of protesters demonstrating against the Jewish National Fund’s tree-planting in Bedouin communities in the Negev.
Jan. 11,
The Gaza Health Ministry says: “We don’t have the ability to deal with the Omicron wave”, and urges the international community to press Israel to let more medical equipment into Gaza.
Jan. 11,
The High Court of Justice has for the first time refrained from issuing a freeze order for the demolition of a terrorist’s house to avoid harming the victim’s grieving family with procedural misunderstandings.
Judge Barak-Erez criticized the state for, among other things, not informing the family of Eliyahu Kay in advance that an order might be issued to freeze the demolition of the terrorist’s house, which would then lead to a hearing.Jan. 10
Fifteen sewage treatment plants were torched in recent years, menacing water facilities of mainly Palestinians in Northern Israel. Haarerz is asking: “Where are the police?” The police tell corporations to hire security guards.
The burnt smell surrounding the water pumping facility in the village of Zarzir is particularly strong against the backdrop of the pastoral landscape of the green valley spreading beneath the village homes.
Almost a year has passed since the previous arson attack against the facility, which was preceded by another six instances of destruction, break-ins or arson. The local water company has already stopped counting the number of times when fuel was stolen from the site.Jan. 11, 2022 12:55 PM
The shooting of a Palestinian in the West Bank settlement of Anatot raised questions on the ‘problematic’ scope of armed security coordinators’ work, as one defense official put it. ‘This system is often exploited for ideological interests,’ attorney says.
They walk around armed. They’re trained by the army. They’re allowed to detain Palestinians, and they have the authority to send out emergency response teams. In some sense, they’re the local sheriffs, the highest security authority in and around the settlements. But who has authority over the people responsible for day-to-day security in the West Bank? Not only by Palestinians or leftist activists who find fault in their mode of operation wonder about this question, but also the security coordinators themselves.
Jack Khoury
Jan. 12, 2022 3:58 PM
An 80-year-old Palestinian man died of a heart attack on Wednesday after being detained overnight by Israeli forces in the Ramallah area, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. According to the ministry’s statement, Omar Abdalmajeed, As’ad was “assaulted” and beaten by Israeli soldiers, who stopped him on his way home, in the village of Jiljilya, and handcuffed him.
Jiljilya village council head Fouad Qattoum said As’ad was returning home after visiting relatives when Israeli soldiers stopped his car, bound him, blindfolded him and led him away to a building still under construction. Another villager said he saw Israeli soldiers walking As’ad away around 3 A.M.
As’ad’s body was found more than an hour later, according to vegetable seller Mamdouh Elaboud, who said he was himself detained for 20 minutes, then released.As’ad’s family said he was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where he was pronounced dead. His brother said that As’ad was “an elderly man who suffered from respiration and heart problems.”
“I don’t understand how a man that age can be considered a danger,” the brother added. “They handcuffed him and shoved him. That’s abuse… I have no doubt what he went through caused his death.”
Jan. 13,
Proof of vaccination or recovery from COVID is necessary to gain admission to a range of public places, but Palestinians with legal residency in Israel cite several obstacles in receiving the so-called Green PassPalestinians who are married to Israeli citizens and are legal residents of Israel are unable to download the Health Ministry’s Green Pass, which certifies that they are vaccinated against the coronavirus or recovered from the virus. Many Palestinians reported difficulties in acquiring the Green Pass, even if they were vaccinated in Israel. The Health Ministry said in response that the matter is being dealt with, but affected Palestinians say the issue is persisting.
One of the affected Palestinians is Rim Shibat, who is a legal resident of Israel and is married to an Israeli. She has been living in the southern Israeli Bedouin town of Rahat for several years and has national medical coverage provided through a special plan. She has received three doses of the coronavirus vaccine but has been unable to obtain a COVID certificate on the Health Ministry website. When she enters her personal details, she receives a message saying that it does not match system records. “We feel humiliated and discriminated against after so many months of trying to issue a Green Pass so we can live like normal people in Israel,” Rim Shibat’s husband, Adam Ziadna, said. They are being brushed off and told to contact the Palestinian Authority, “where my wife hasn’t lived since 2004,” he added. “The Health Ministry is washing its hands of us.”Jan. 11, 2022
The Police Internal Investigations Department pressed charges Tuesday against a female Border Police officer for attacking a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The indictment, which was filed to the Jerusalem Magisters Court, charges Orian Ben Califa with assault and obstruction of justice. “The suspect grabbed the complainant and ripped her hijab off her head and then pulled her hair.” states the indictment against an officer who allegedly assaulted a Palestinian in Jerusalem.
Jan. 17,
A Palestinian man is threatening to blow up a gas tank while barricaded on the roof of his home as a large police force attempts to evict his family from their home in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
The Jerusalem Municipality expropriated the land on which the family home is built in order to build a school.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, January 17, 2022,
An 82-year-old Jewish woman, who is being investigated by Labour for alleged antisemitism for the third time in less than three years, is threatening legal action against the party, claiming it has unlawfully discriminated against her based on her belief in anti-Zionism.
Film stars including Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Gael García Bernal, and Viggo Mortensen, have backed Harry Potter actress Emma Watson, after her social media post about Palestinian solidarity drew ire from Israeli officials. “We join Emma Watson in support of the simple statement that ‘solidarity is a verb’, including meaningful solidarity with Palestinians struggling for their human rights under international law,” said a statement signed by more than 40 film industry notables.
Israeli settlers attacked the Palestine TV crew this morning while they were returning from a filming assignment in the Jordan Valley. The crew, composed of three members, were stopped and forced out of their vehicle near the village of Bittin, east of Ramallah. The settlers proceeded to harass and attack the Palestine TV members until they were bruised. They, the settlers, were protected by Israeli occupation officers nearby, who did nothing to stop the brutality.
Dozens of Palestinian Bedouins have been wounded in a crackdown by Israeli forces on a protest against continuing Israeli forestation work on land residents say they privately own near the southern city of Beer al-Sabe (Beer Sheva). The Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) use tree planting as a method of preventing Palestinians from accessing their land and to obliterate Palestinian villages.
An 80-year-old Palestinian was found dead in a village in the West Bank early Wednesday, his body still handcuffed after an Israeli arrest raid. Omar Abdulmajeed Asad and other family members were returning from visiting relatives when they were stopped by the soldiers. After the troops withdrew, villagers found Asad’s body in a building under construction.
January 10, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Jan. 6, 2022,
A Palestinian was killed overnight Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli troops at the entrance to the Balata refugee camp, adjacent to the West Bank city of Nablus.
The man was identified as Bakir Mohammed Hashash, and according to his brother, he has been wanted by Israeli security forces for some time.
Yehuda Dimentman’s murder last month has intensified setters’ revival efforts around the illegal Homesh outpost, and has led to a number of attacks against the local Palestinians and punishment of the Palestinians by the military.
For three weeks, all traffic from Nablus to Jenin has been funneled to a small, narrow, broken road. The reason for this is an IDF checkpoint erected near the settlement of Shavei Shomron on Route 60, the main road connecting the two districts, and is manned by soldiers 24 hours a day since the killing of Yehuda Dimentman near the settlement of Homesh last month.
A masked right-wing protester attacked a Palestinian press photographer on Wednesday, during a demonstration against the release of Palestinian detainee Hisham Abu Hawash in front of the central Israeli hospital he is kept in after ending a 141-day hunger strike.
The Israeli protester struck Faiz Abu Rmeleh, a photographer for Turkish news agency Anadolu, with two fists, knocked him to the ground, and fled the scene. The police canvassed the scene, but has yet to locate the suspect.
‘We were playing. A white car passed by and two people got out of it and started firing. We all ran, but Ammar was on the swing and couldn’t run fast,’ says 7-year-old witness
A 4-year-old (sic.),was killed in northern Israel on Thursday, with sources saying the toddler was struck in the neck by a bullet.
The boy, Ammar Hujayrat, was found unconscious in a playground in the Bedouin town of Bir al-Maksur near Nazareth. The police are checking whether Hujayrat had been hit by a stray bullet and said it was fired from a construction site some 300 meters (nearly 1,000 feet) away from the playground.
Reported on Jan 9,’The guns have started to threaten all of us, even in our own homes,’ says the mayor of the Bedouin village in northern Israel, where 3-year-old Ammar Hujayrat was killed by a stray bullet,
Deputy Economy Minister Yair Golan of the Meretz party came under widespread criticism after he dubbed settlers at the West Bank Homesh outpost “subhuman” on Thursday, in response to the vandalism of gravestones by Jewish settlers in a nearby Palestinian village.
In response, Haaretz reported, on Jan. 9, Gideon Levy’s words: “They’re the scum of the earth. Any one who snatches a Palestinian teen, abuses him for hours, beats him and kicks him, ties him up under the car’s hood and then finally hangs him from a tree and burns the soles of his feet with a lighter is subhuman. How is it possible to say otherwise?
Anyone who expels the legal owners of the land he stole by threatening to shoot them, destroys their gravestones, tramples their harvests into the dust, vandalizes their cars and torches their fields is subhuman. What else?”
Jan. 6.
‘I need a place to play, Dad,’ my seven-year-old daughter, Daliah, tells me. When my kids see the playgrounds built for the settlers’ kids, they have a hundred questions. They ask why I can’t build them the same kind of playground,” Nasser Nawaja, a resident of Susya and a field researcher for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem in the South Hebron Hills, tells me. “Targeting our kid’s play space is so disturbing: so crude, intrusive, almost obscene. It makes me afraid for the future of my children”. When violent settlers pick on Palestinian kids in Susya, backed by the army, it is part of a larger strategy.
Eight Palestinian teens were killed on Thursday when the van they were in collided head-on with a truck in the Jordan Valley.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a day of national mourning following the fatal incident.
The victims, all 14-17 years old, are from Aqraba, a village in the Nablus area, according to a Palestinian labor union. They were driving back from work.
Jan 8,
The army continues to expel residents of this Jordan Valley village when it trains on their land. It bulldozes Palestinian wheat fields to make way for tanks.Amira HassJan. 9, 2022 6:02 AM
Israel is holding up the entry of hundreds of vital replacement parts for the proper functioning of Gaza’s water and sewage systems. As a result, partially treated wastewater is being released into the sea, water leakage from pipes is even worse than usual, rainwater runoff is causing a danger of flooding. The quality and quantity of drinking water, purified in special facilities, is also being affected, and the same problems keep happening because repairs are being made with makeshift materials.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem has accused radical Israeli groups of threatening the presence of Christians in the holy city, in remarks that Israeli officials rejected as baseless.In a column in the Times of London on Saturday, His Beatitude, Theophilos III, said he believed the aim was to drive the Christian community from Jerusalem’s Old City, which has sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
“Our churches are threatened by Israeli radical fringe groups. At the hands of these Zionist extremists the Christian community in Jerusalem is suffering greatly, he said.
“Our brothers and sisters are the victims of hate crimes. Our churches are regularly desecrated and vandalized. Our clergy are subject to frequent intimidation.”
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, January 10, 2022,
Suleiman al Hathaleen (Hajj Suleiman), a 75-year-old activist and community leader from the South Hebron Hills was hit by an Israeli police tow-truck as he protested against the removal of vehicles from the community of Umm al-Khair. Suleiman was left without help in a coma with head injuries along with spine, rib, and hip fractures. Sabeel prays for the swift and full recovery of Suleiman. We are thankful for the skills and knowledge of those responsible for his treatment. Grant strength to the communities of the South Hebron Hills as they struggle daily with threats from settler communities and oppression by Israeli authorities.
As Palestinian farmers looked on, more than 500 dunams (125 acres) of cultivated land were destroyed by Israeli occupation forces in the Jordan valley on Monday 3rd January. The land, used to grow wheat, was used by the Israeli tanks as part of a training exercise for the Armored Engineering Corps. Sabeel fervently prays that these farmers will have the strength and opportunity to re-sow their crop and that crop be allowed to grow to harvest.
On Tuesday 18th January, Bethlehem will see its third and final round of Christmas celebrations. The Armenian community will celebrate the birth of Jesus on this date based on the Gregorian calendar.
At the 16th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, held mid-December, Palestinian embroidery (tatreez) was added to the UNESCO cultural heritage list. While the practice originated in rural areas, the culture of stitching and wearing embroidered items is now common across cities and villages, with different patterns representing the various regions in historic Palestine and can act as an indicator for the economic and marital status of the woman wearing it.
Kumi Now has started for 2022, with information being sent out on a weekly basis regarding the topics for that week. We will be starting exciting new webinars from 1st February, starting with webinars with influential and innovative Palestinians followed by a webinar panel discussion on February 15th. These webinars will continue on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month at 6pm. Watch out for more information in coming weeks.
January 3, 2022
Reported by Haaretz, Dec. 31, 2021.
A Palestinian was shot dead after attempting to carry out a stabbing attack at a junction near the West Bank settlement of Ariel on Friday, according to the IDF. The man reportedly got out of a car and charged a bus stop where civilians and soldiers were present, the army is searching for the vehicle which fled the scene. The assailant, identified as 36-year-old Amir Ataf Reyan, as evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva in a serious condition, and later succumbed to his wounds.
However, a friend of the assailant disputed the account, stating Reyan had worked in Israel for a long time to support his family, including his wife, who is seven-months pregnant, and their four other young children. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the killing as “an execution.”
Dec. 30, 2021
Opinion: Bar-Lev is right: Jewish terror exists.
Omer Bar-Lev, a courageous warrior who once commanded Sayeret Matkal, the general staff’s elite special-operations force, has insisted that Jewish terror exists, and thus has been transformed by social media into a “traitor,” a “murderer” and a “terrorist.”
January 1, 2022
The Israel Defense Forces acting as a subcontractor for the Shin Bet security service. That’s the situation when a Shin Bet agent wants to meet with a young Palestinian man: A force of 20 soldiers is sent to his home after midnight, they wake up the whole family, throw 15 people into a small room, where they are left for several hours, pummel a few of them with rifles and fists, and kick them when they collapse. The wanted young man is taken to meet the Shin Bet agent for an incredibly brief interrogation – for reasons never explained – and is then sent home. In the meantime, four family members need to be taken to the hospital in ambulances, after their beatings by the soldiers, and one is taken into custody until the conclusion of the proceedings against him – he has been accused of assaulting a soldier. All this to arrange a short meeting with a Shin Bet man.
Jan. 2, 2022
Pressure on the Palestinian Authority to intervene on behalf of Hisham Abu Hawash from Israeli custody is intensifying, as his condition rapidly deteriorates on the 139th day of a hunger strike to protest his detention without trial.
Abu Hawash’s family members have urged the PA leadership to intervene with Israel to save his life, while protests have taken place across the West Bank over the weekend, including in Al-Manara Square in Ramallah.
Israel attacked targets in Gaza early on Sunday, hours after two rockets were fired from the Hamas-controlled enclave at Israel but fell into the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Israeli army.
Jan. 3, 2022
In the northern Jordan Valley, on Saturday a week ago, settlers attacked a Palestinian shepherd and his family who came to his assistance. The settlers, a few of them armed, used batons and fists. The Israel Defense Forces and police arrested those attacked: Eight Palestinians. They were transferred to a nearby army base, and soldiers called for the settlers to conduct a lineup for identification of “their attackers.” The settlers beat the detainees on the base too. Four of the eight Palestinians were released the same day. The others were held in detention for four more days, and at a hearing on extending their detention they were released without posting any bail and without an indictment.
Palestinian witnesses who spoke with Haaretz bolster police investigators’ suspicions that a car accident in which a Nablus resident was badly injured was caused by stones thrown by settlers.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Jan 3, 2022
A new book on the Tent of Nations has been published. “The Stories I Never Knew” – Acts of Loving Kindness in the Struggle for Human Rights and Dignity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel was written by William Plitt and tells the story of the Nassar family and their belief in refusing to be enemie
An Israeli court has ordered the owners of a printing house in Umm al-Fahm, north of Jenin, to pay a fine of 3,500 Israeli Shekels to an activist from the right-wing Return to the Mountain movement. The printing house had refused to print flyers for right-wing activist Yair Kehati. The community of Umm al-Fahm came together to raise the fine and it will be paid in thousands of agora coins (the smallest legal currency in Israel).
Israeli occupation forces continue to disrupt education in the West Bank. On Wednesday 29th December, Israeli forces attacked staff and students at a high school in Tuqu’ town, east of Bethlehem. The Ministry of Education said that a number of Israeli soldiers attempted to break into the campus of Tuqu‘ Secondary Boys School, when they were stopped by the school staff. Following a scuffle with the staff preventing them from breaking into the school campus, the soldiers beat the teachers with rifle butts and fired tear gas into the school.
On the 20th of December, Israeli forces demolished the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib for the 14th time in 2020. The village has been the source of constant demolitions and the latest marks the demolition of the village, or structures in the village 196 times since the year 2010.
As the new year begins, Kumi Now is taking a break whilst we consider the best way forward. We would like to thank all of those who were involved in producing the Kumi Now sessions, from those behind the scenes, to the speakers, and our MC’s drawn from friends of Sabeel. We would also like to thank everyone who attended a session, took part in action, or helped to spread the word.
December 28, 2021
Reported by Haaretz, Dec 20,
This Christmas, Bethlehem is preparing for a very ‘Silent Night’. Before omicron fears prompted Israel’s latest tourist ban, residents of the biblical town of Bethlehem were preparing for a sea of pilgrims this Christmas season. Now the magnificent church, the hotels and the shops stand empty, and locals are wondering how they will recover the losses.
Jack Khoury Dec. 21, 2021 12:35 PM
Representatives of Palestinian prisoners in administrative detention announced on Monday that they had decided to boycott the Israeli legal system, and their lawyers will no longer appear in sessions on their matters in military courts and the Supreme Court.
Representatives of the detainees explained that the decision was made in protest of the broad use of administrative detention by the defense establishment in Israel. According to the representatives’ statement, if Israel continues to use this tool, which they say violates international law, the administrative detainees could very well declare a general hunger strike next week.Nir HassonDec. 21, 2021 5:46 PM
The heads of Christian denominations in Jerusalem have launched a campaign protesting violence by radical groups and attempts by Israeli settler organizations to acquire properties in the Old City, decrying a “systematic attempt to drive the Christian community out of Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land.”Amira HassDec. 22, 2021 Israel’s 1,000 front war in Palestinians:
Under orders from Minister of Public Security Omer Bar-Lev, police on Sunday banned a meeting of Palestinian business people at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem. The minister claimed the meeting was initiated, sponsored and financed by the Palestinian Authority. The business folks had been invited to a meeting and dinner by Al-Quds Bank.
Israeli miliary let settlers come to an outpost despite warnings of violence. A month before a deadly shooting, officers warned that growing tensions in the immediate area could undermine security throughout the West Bank.Staff at Israel’s defense bodies have been warning the army, police and Shin Bet for months that the yeshiva operating at the Homesh outpost in the West Bank was becoming a focal point for violence that could end up endangering the settlers living there illegally.
Despite the warnings and a series of violent incidents occurring in the Homesh area recently, the army has not acted to block settlers from coming to the yeshiva.
December 23,
A Palestinian man was shot dead late Wednesday by Israeli forces in the West Bank after he has opened fire at Israeli troops, according to the military.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that Muhammad Issa Abbas, 26, was shot in the back near the al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah.
A military force entered the West Bank city of al-Bireh after it has identified suspects on their way to the settlement of Psagot, the army said. According to a military statement, shots were fired at the troop from a passing-by vehicle. Soldiers then opened fire at the car and hit the shooter.
Haaretz editorial, Dec 24.
Thousands of settlers, under the army’s protection, went Thursday, once again, to the “evacuated” West Bank settlement of Homesh, after the one-week mourning period for Yehuda Dimentman, a student at the Homesh yeshiva who was murdered nearby.
Instead of this provocative demonstration, the state should have allowed the owners of the land on which Homesh stood, Palestinian farmers from the village of Burka, to finally return to this land, which has been their private property for generations. As long as this doesn’t happen, and as long as the settlers, with backing from the government and the army, continue making mischief – whether by maintaining a yeshiva at Homesh or anything else – Homesh will continue to be a place of injustice and bloodshed.
A court halted the evacuation of a Palestinian family from their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Thursday, after police asked the court registrar to postpone the eviction, citing a security risk.
Earlier this week, the head of the European Union’s mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, visited the Salem family, who have been living in their home in Sheikh Jarrah for the past 70 years. He blasted the eviction, calling it “inhuman and unfair.
Gideon Levy Dec, 25,
Jamil protested against the takeover of his family’s land, and was shot dead by the Israeli Defence Force. He was the eighth casualty in recent months from the village of Beita, whose residents are outraged at the settler outpost Evyatar on their land, signalled by on outsize Hanukkah menorah planted by the encroaching settlers. along with the row o trailer hoes and watchtowers.
Dec. 25, 2021
A Palestinian man was seriously wounded by Israeli army fire in the West Bank village of Burqa, as protests continue against settlement activity in the nearby Homesh outpost, more than a week after the death of a young settler in a shooting attack reignited tensions in the area.
Nine other Palestinian protesters were also wounded by live fine, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and 48 others lightly wounded by rubber-tipped bullets fired by Israeli forces.
Dec. 27, 2021
A 16-year-old stripped and beaten in a public washroom, a 60-year-old woman handcuffed and dragged across the floor, a female journalist subjected to sexist comments during an interrogation, a youth attacked in a city center, and another one dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, falsely identified as someone else, his family members beaten. All of this can be found in six complaints filed in recent months at the unit for investigating police misconduct at the Justice Ministry, copies of which have reached Haaretz. Following several complaints of serious violent behavior towards Palestinians, only one indictment was filed against a policeman. The Jerusalem police response: “This is a distorted and one-sided picture which does not reflect the truth.”
Joshua Angrist, one of the recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize in economics, , who once taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, noticed a paradox in the Palestinian labor market: A plasterer working in Israel makes more than someone with a graduate degree in chemistry, in the territories. The result is a negative return on higher education. In other words, it simply doesn’t pay for Palestinians to invest in getting an education, since it only harms them.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, December 28,
Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa, Desmond Tutu, passed away on Sunday 26th December. Archbishop Tutu was an outspoken activist against apartheid in South Africa and, in his later years, turned his attention to the Holy Land and the similarities he saw between Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and the treatment of black South Africans under apartheid.
Hisham Abu Hawash, a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli military prison, has been on hunger strike for over 4 months. In the past days, Abu Hawash’s health condition has deteriorated significantly. Abu Hawash, 40 and the father of five children (Hadi, Mohammed, Izz al-Din, Waqas and Saba), has spent 8 years in total in Israeli occupation prisons. Of that time, 52 months — over half of his time behind bars — has been spent jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention orders.
The Palestinian town of Burqa, near Nablus, has been under constant attack by Israeli settlers and Israeli occupation forces. The town is almost completely blocked from the rest of the area by mounds of earth which block the roads to allow settler-only access to the illegal Israeli settlements and outposts which surround the area. Burqa has been under increasing attacks since around 15,000 Israelis gathered at the settlement of Homesh to commemorate the life of Yehuda Dimentman, who was reportedly killed by Palestinian gunmen.
Kumi Now on Thursday 28th December, heard from Bishop Emeritus Munib Younan. Bishop Younan spoke on the topic of Christians in the Holy Land. This is the last week of the Kumi Now year and we will now take a break to assess the future of Kumi Now.
DECEMBER 20, 2021
Reported by Haaretz, Dec. 14, 2021
The Israeli military and Shin Bet security service arrested early Tuesday morning 11 students who are allegedly part of a Hamas cell, after raiding two Palestinian universities in the West Bank, a statement by the Israeli army said.
Those arrested, all students at An-Najah University in Nablus, were accused of funneling money, organizing rallies in support of Hamas as well as incitement, according to the statement.
Dec.18
A Palestinian woman stabbed a 38-year-old Israeli Saturday morning near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, in the West Bank.
The Israeli, a resident of the Kiryat Arba settlement, suffered minor injuries and the Palestinian woman was arrested on the spot.
According to the Israeli Border Police, after the stabbing, the Israeli man fought with the woman, who is 65-years-old and a resident of Idna village in the West Bank.
Dec. 17, 2021
A Palestinian couple was attacked in their West Bank home in the early morning on Friday by a group of settlers they said claimed to be Israeli soldiers in order to get into the house.
The attack – which left 55-year-old Wail Mohammed Makbal with fractured ribs, and his 46-year-old wife, Samiha, requiring medical attention after inhaling pepper spray – occurred hours after the death of a 25-year-old Jewish settler in a shooting attack in the same area of the West Bank.
Israeli troops and settlers zero in on a new target for attacks: Palestinian schools. Israeli soldiers forcibly prevent these Palestinian kids from reaching school, and fire tear-gas grenades into classrooms. Settlers curse and beat them, and humiliate their teachers. Imagine what sort of sentiments are brewing here.
No one is getting better lessons in the doctrines of occupation and apartheid than the children of Lubban al-Sharqiyah, a village of 4,000 people located 15 kilometers south of Nablus. It’s not hard to guess what sort of sentiments are developing there and what future generations will spring from its two elementary schools, one for boys and o bne for girls, from Lubban and two other villages. The buildings are both located near Highway 60, the West Bank’s busiest roadway, used by both settlers and Palestinians, and where there have been many incidents of stone throwing by Palestinian kids.
Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, Dec. 20, 2021,
Palestinian political prisoners are continuing to hunger strike. The hunger strikes are against torture, ill treatment, and medical neglect of Palestinian political prisoners at the hands of the Israeli authorities, as well as Israel’s widespread use of administrative detention, which is only permitted under international law in extremely limited circumstances.
This Christmas we turn our eyes to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, and we see a suffering town. The pandemic has hit the economy of the town hard with many people relying on international tourism which has now been largely absent for two years. Some families are having to continue to withdraw their children from schools, forced to make hard choices between education, food, or medicine. Others can no longer afford to pay rent and are having to move back in with their parents and grandparents.
The Kumi Now initiative focuses this week on the Syrian Golan. Syrians still living in the Golan live under the threat of Israeli military activity as well as the promotion of tourism from illegal settlements in the area. Next Tuesday, Kumi Now will focus its attention on Christians in the Holy Land.
DECEMBER 13, 2021
Reported by Haaretz, Dec. 6, 2021,
The PA’s 140,000 employees in the West Bank and Gaza would see their November salaries cut by 25 percent, treasury says, amid prisoner, taz dispute with Israel.
The Palestinian Authority said on Monday it would cut wages paid to its employees in response to a cash crunch exacerbated by a renewed dispute with Israel over payments it makes to Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Israel and the United States say the PA stipends, dispersed monthly to prisoners, their relatives and the families of Palestinians killed for allegedly carrying out attacks, encourage further violence. The Palestinians consider them a form of welfare for inmates they regard as national heroes.
Dec. 7,
Israeli demolition orders for Palestinians in West Bank Area C hit a five-year record. 797 demolition orders were issued by Israel last year, the Civil Administration said, while less than 1 percent of Palestinian requests for construction permits in Area C were granted between 2016 and 2020.
Dec. 8, 2021
In Israel, a detainee is allowed to die in jail – if he is a Palestinian.
In a locked room in an Israel Prisons Service clinic, lies a man who has refused to put food into his mouth for 114 days. Besides his extreme weight loss, he has difficulty speaking and communicating, even drinking water and whenever he moves, he has palpitations. He is brought to meetings with his lawyer groggy and in a wheelchair. This is Hisham Abu Hawash, 40, who is on a hunger strike to protest his administrative detention.
An Israrli woman was stabbed in East Jerusalem; a Palestinian minor was arrested. The Palestinian assailant’s family is among those in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood who have immediate eviction orders pending against themAn Israeli woman was lightly wounded Wednesday in a stabbing attack in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.Police apprehended a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, Nofoud Jad Araf Hamad, from the neighborhood. She is suspected of stabbing the 26-year-old Israeli woman with a knife while she was crossing the street with her daughter. Hamad fled the scene after the attack and was found about an hour later at the nearby al-Ruda girls’ school. The stabbing victim was taken to Hadassah University Hospital at Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.
Hamad’s family is among those in Sheikh Jarrah who have immediate eviction orders pending against them; her grandfather is a prominent activist against the evictions. Before the teenager was apprehended, a large number of police officers, aided by a police helicopter, searched the area for the suspect.
Also taken into custody were the school’s principal, another staff member and another student who is related to Hamad. Police raided Hamad’s home and arrested her mother as well.
Testimonies continue to pile up, documents are revealed, and gradually a broader picture emerges of the acts of murder committed by Israeli troops during the War of Independence. Minutes recorded during cabinet meetings in 1948 leave no room for doubt: Israel’s leaders knew in real time about the blood-drenched events that accompanied the conquest of the Arab villages
Dec. 9, 2021.A Palestinian medic rushed toward a hurt protester. An Israeli cop shop him at close range.
Palestinian paramedics are often attacked by Israeli soldiers, who prevent them from fulfilling their duty during clashes. Mohammed Omar was beaten and arrested in 2018 – a year when three of his colleagues were shot to death in Gaza protests. Recently he too was hit by live fire. Every few nights he gets an alert from the social networks or rescue services about an IDF incursion in his city of El Bireh or a nearby village.
Mohammed Omar is a friendly 29-year-old who managed to extricate himself from life in the Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, where he grew up, and move to the adjacent city of El Bireh. He has only a primary-school education, makes a living selling coffee at a kiosk that he owns, and is currently engaged to be married. For the past eight years he has volunteered several times a week as a paramedic with local firefighters. Having no prospect of entering university, he has taken courses in first aid and firefighting, so that he can contribute his share to the community and be a better citizen. “There are those who donate money – I volunteer,” he says.
Dec. 11, 2021 11:12 AM
Palestinians held municipal elections in the occupied West Bank on Saturday in a rare democratic exercise and amid rising anger with President Mahmoud Abbas after he canceled planned legislative and presidential votes earlier this year.
More than 400,000 Palestinians were eligible to cast ballots for representatives in 154 village councils in the West Bank, where Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule. Municipal votes are typically held every four or five years.
60 Palestinians live there, but Jerusalem city hall insists on demolishing the building. The municipality doesn’t do construction planning for Palestinians and hasn’t approved their self-financed plan
Dec. 13, 2021,
The Custodian General’s Unit in the Justice Ministry is promoting widespread plans for building Jewish neighborhoods and housing complexes in East Jerusalem – a move that would entail the eviction of Palestinian residents.
The Custodian General’s Unit in the Justice Ministry is promoting widespread plans for building Jewish neighborhoods and housing complexes in East Jerusalem – a move that would entail the eviction of Palestinian residents.
The proposal includes a new neighborhood in Sheikh Jarrah, one near Damascus Gate, two near Beit Safafa, and one each in Sur Baher and Beit Hanina, documents obtained by Haaretz show. The Justice Ministry, for its part, says that except for examining a construction project in Sheikh Jarrah, no other plans are being advanced.Dec. 13, 2021 11:08 AMAmira Hass
Mining gold from East Jerusalem’s streets: Israel profits twice from Palestinians living in the capital: once from the fines they pay for the city’s own crimes, and again when the community is forced into a life of low-paying jobs and abject povertyMoney, and lots of it, is behind the ongoing Israeli refusal to develop and build for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Money – and not just the clear intention to restrict the number of Palestinians in the city.
Mayors, heads of planning and construction departments, municipal officials and successive interior ministers in the Jewish democratic state have conspired together to create a sophisticated system that sucks the very marrow from the bones of local Palestinians. The talent and the enthusiasm for squeezing money out of the Palestinians were created and heightened by the very nature of their key functions in a country whose essence is occupation and the expulsion of another people from its land.Reported by Sabeel, Jerusalem, December 13, 2021,
On Saturday, 11th December, Sabeel, in coordination with the Pontifical Mission and the Jerusalem Center for Palestine Studies, held a conference in Ramallah, on the Christian History of Palestine.
Sabeel will hold a Zoom session to present the Christmas story from the perspective of Palestinian liberation theology. www.bilda.nu/Christmas-Theological-Uprising
During this time of Advent and Christmas, we turn our thoughts towards those for whom this time of year is difficult. Especially this year for those who rely on tourism which has been decimated once again by Covid-19 travel restrictions with no end in sight.
The plan to build a new settlement on the site of Qalandia Airport (Atarot) in East Jerusalem has been delayed by the Jerusalem district planning and building committee citing the need for an environment study for their delay. At the same time, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that settlement building had “reached a critical juncture”.
Kumi Now on Tuesday concentrated on the issue of the right of return for Palestinians forcibly evicted from their homes in 1948. On Tuesday, 21st December, we will hear about the Syrian Golan.
